Deep-sea floating platforms are one of the most important large structures for ocean energy exploitation. A new energy-absorbing device named S-shaped Tuned Liquid Column Damper (TLCD) has been invented for the suppression of the horizontal motion and vertical in-plane rotation of a deep-sea...

Door-to-Door service of Pickup and Delivery of Customers to the Airport (D2PDCA) is a new service provided by certain Airline Ticket Sales Agencies (ATSAs) in China. This new service provides an attractive alternative way by picking up customer at this/her specified position and at any time...

The line-cell conversion is established as a new production system towards converting traditional conveyor assembly line to a cell system, in which one (or multiple) worker carries out all of the operations of a job in a cell. Its performance improvement can be enhanced by reducing worker(s)...

China launched the largest ($4.26 billion) energy-efficient appliances subsidy program in June 2012. This paper investigates the impact of this program on consumers by surveying 2630 consumers in 10 cities with different socioeconomic statuses. The results showed that the Chinese consumers were...

In order to explore the displacement evolution of a creeping landslide stabilized with piles, an analytical model is proposed in this paper. Mechanical behaviors of the sliding surface and the sliding layer in the model are assumed to be visco-plastic and elastic, respectively. Equilibrium of a...

The line-cell (or line-seru) conversion is an innovation of assembly system applied widely in the electronics industry. Its essence is tearing out an assembly line and adopting a mini-assembly unit, called seru (or Japanese style assembly cell). In this paper, we develop a multi-objective...

Firm-level stock volatility has increased significantly since 1962 and varies widely across industries. Recent literature shows that the excessive and persistent stock volatility can be well explained by fundamental uncertainties. This paper conducted panel data analyses on 415 firms during...

The concept of the water footprint has been recently introduced as an important indicator for human-induced water consumption. The water footprint is defined as the total volume of water used during production and consumption of goods and services as well as direct water consumption by humans....

Great attention has been paid to the origin of observed wild price fluctuations of solar PV Si feedstock in both contract and spot markets during 2004–2009. This paper sheds light on this issue and tries to resolve it by addressing the following questions: what kind of structural shock is...

Concept of rural elite in China is introduced. And rural elites are classified into governing elite, economic elite, social elite and cultural elite with phenomenon of overlapping among the four types. Definitions of science nationalization and elite politicalization are introduced. Based on the...