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Knowledge‐based timed colored object‐oriented Petri net (KTCOPN) is presented as a modelling method for a reconfigurable assembly system (RAS) in this paper. Compared to the conventional flexible assembly systems, the configuration of a RAS will allow flexibility not only in assembling a variety of products, but also in changing the system itself. Combining knowledge and object‐oriented methods into timed colored Petri net, allow the characteristic of RAS to be fully expressed. With object‐oriented methods, the whole system can be decomposed into concrete objects explicitly, and their relationship is constructed according to the system assembly requirements. Finally, a simple assembly system modeled by the KTCOPN is given.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the multi-skilled workers assignment problem in complex assembly systems such as aircraft assembly lines. An adaptive binary particle swarm optimization (A-BPSO) algorithm is proposed, which is used to balance the workload of both assembly stations and processes and to minimize the human cost.

Firstly, a cycle time model considering the cooperation of multi-skilled workers is constructed. This model provides a quantitative description of the relationship between the cycle time and multi-skilled workers by means of revising the standard learning curve with the “Partition-And-Accumulate” method. Then, to improve the accuracy and stability of the current heuristic algorithms, an A-BPSO algorithm that suits for the discrete optimization problems is proposed to assign multi-skilled workers to assembly stations and processes based on modified sigmoid limiting function.

The proposed method has been successfully applied to a practical case, and the result justifies its advantage as well as adaptability to both theory and engineering application.

A novel cycle time model considering cooperation of multi-skilled workers is constructed so that the calculation results of cycle time are more accurate and closer to reality. An A-BPSO algorithm is proposed to improve the stability and convergence in dealing with the problems with higher dimensional search space. This research can be used by the project managers and dispatchers on assembly field.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the superior relationship between blood lipid- and cardiovascular disease (CVD)-related hematological parameters using superior grey relational analysis (GRA).

A total of 294 individuals who underwent simultaneous routine blood examination and blood lipid examination in the Physical Examination Center of the First Affiliated Hospital of Shantou University Medical College were included in this study. Superior GRA was performed to find out the superior factor in CVD-related hematological parameters and blood lipids. CVD-related hematological parameters included red blood cell distribution width, white cell count, and platelet count, platelet distribution width, mean platelet volume, as well as platelet crit. The indicators of blood lipids analyzed here consist of low-density lipoprotein, high-density lipoprotein, triglyceride and total cholesterol.

The results showed that all the grey relational degree of hematological parameters and blood lipids were over 0.8; the superior factor in hematological parameters was PLT, whereas TC was the superior factor in blood lipids.

Findings of this study suggested that hematological parameters are closely related to blood lipids and a potential role for hematological parameters in the prediction of dyslipidemia, which need further study; TC has the greatest influence on hematological parameters, whereas TG displays a minimal impact.

To the authors’ best knowledge, it was the first study to analyze the relationship between various CVD-related hematological parameters and blood lipids via superior GRA.

The purpose of this paper is to integrate the upper echelon theory with signaling theory and examine the impact of top management team (TMT) on the initial public offering (IPO) performance of Chinese firms in the USA.

This study used Security Data Corporation (SDC) that is a central database for foreign IPOs in the USA. The authors identified 142 Chinese firms that issued stocks on the US markets between 2003 and 2014. This study used firm’s final prospectuses to collect data manually.

This study finds that the TMT characteristics such as functional heterogeneity and international exposure convey the positive signal of firm’s legitimacy to the US investors and increase the IPO performance.

This study extends the upper echelon perspective that has previously overlooked the signaling value of TMT characteristics in the foreign IPO studies. The top management plays an important role to the firm’s successful foreign market listing. Since China joined the WTO in 2001, a large number of Chinese firms have started IPOs in the USA, but there is a dearth of research on these firms. This study aims to contribute to the study of international business and management and describes that the TMT functional heterogeneity and international exposure have a significant role in the success of Chinese foreign IPOs.

Integrating social network theory with signaling theory, the purpose of this research is to examine the impact of corporate political connections and executive’s international experience on Chinese firms initial public offerings (IPOs) performance in the USA.

This study used Securities Data Company (SDC) New Issues database to identify all Chinese firms that went public in the USA between 2003 and 2014. Consistent with previous research, IPO firms excluded from the sample include merger or acquisitions, spin-offs and initial stage listed firms. The final sample size is of 142 Chinese foreign IPOs in the US markets.

This study finds that firms with political connections perform significantly poor than firms without political connections. It shows that US stock markets react to the signals of political connections of Chinese foreign IPOs. In response, the Chinese foreign IPOs can signal international work experience of top executives to US investors. The results show that the executives’ international work experience has significant positive relationships on foreign IPO performance of Chinese firms. Moreover, this study finds that the interaction between corporate political connections and international experience pursues positive effects on the performance of foreign IPOs.

This research intends to extend the knowledge of how corporate political connections and international work experience affects the performance of Chinese firms attempting to access US capital markets. To date, scholars have not investigated the influence of corporate political connections on the amount of capital raised by foreign IPOs.

The collaborative filtering algorithm is a classical and widely used approach in product recommendation systems. However, the existing algorithms rely mostly on common ratings of items and do not consider temporal information about items or user interests. To solve this problem, this study proposes a new user-item composite filtering (UICF) recommendation framework by leveraging temporal semantics.

The UICF framework fully utilizes the time information of item ratings for measuring the similarity of items and takes into account the short-term and long-term interest decay for computing users’ latest interest degrees. For an item to be probably recommended to a user, the interest degrees of the user on all the historically rated items are weighted by their similarities with the item to be recommended and then added up to predict the recommendation degree.

Comprehensive experiments on the MovieLens and KuaiRec datasets for user movie recommendation were conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed UICF framework. Experimental results show that the UICF outperformed three well-known recommendation algorithms Item-Based Collaborative Filtering (IBCF), User-Based Collaborative Filtering (UBCF) and User-Popularity Composite Filtering (UPCF) in the root mean square error (RMSE), mean absolute error (MAE) and F1 metrics, especially yielding an average decrease of 11.9% in MAE.

A UICF recommendation framework is proposed that combines a time-aware item similarity model and a time-wise user interest degree model. It overcomes the limitations of common rating items and utilizes temporal information in item ratings and user interests effectively, resulting in more accurate and personalized recommendations.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a partitioned approach by coupling the smoothed profile method (SPM) and the Euler tension beam model in simulating a vortex-induced vibration of both rigid and flexible cylinders at various reduced velocities.

For the fluid part, SPM in the framework of the spectral element method is adopted to simulate the flow. The advantage of SPM lies in modelling multiple complex shapes as it uses a fixed computational mesh without conformation to the geometry of the particles. For the structure part, an elastic-mounted rigid cylinder is considered in two-dimensional (2D) simulations, while a flexible cylinder with a Euler tension beam model is used in three-dimensional simulations.

Firstly, in the flow past a freely vibrating cylinder, the maximum vibration responses of the cylinder are about 0.73D and 0.1D in the y and x directions, respectively, which occur at the point U_r = 5.75 and are much higher than U_r = 5 in 2D simulations. It is found that the numerical results from the SPM solver are very consistent with those from the NEKTAR-Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian method (NEKTAR-ALE) solver or the NEKTAR-Fourier solver. Furthermore, the flow past the tandem cylinders is also investigated, where the upstream cylinder is static while the downstream one is free to vibrate. Specifically, the beating behaviour is captured from the vibration response of the freely vibrating cylinder under the reduced velocity of U_r = 6 with a gap distance of L = 3.5D.

The originality of the paper lies in coupling the SEM with the Euler beam model in simulating the vortex induced vibration (VIV) of flexible cylinders.

To enhance the understanding of the antecedents of students' career adaptability, this study employs the crossover model to explore the potential transfer of career adaptability from headteachers to students and the underlying mechanisms involved.

This study examined the proposed moderated mediation model using matched survey data collected from 37 headteachers and 1,598 students in Chinese higher vocational colleges.

Headteachers’ career adaptability is positively related to students’ career adaptability via students’ psychological capital. An increased frequency of headteacher–student interactions strengthened the indirect relationship between headteachers' career adaptability and students' career adaptability.

The findings suggest that, under certain conditions, headteachers’ career adaptability could be transferred to students via students’ psychological capital.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate three categories of four-degrees of freedom (4-DOFs) upper limb rehabilitation exoskeleton mechanisms from the perspective of relative movement offsets between the upper limb and the exoskeleton, so as to provide reference for the selection of exoskeleton mechanism configurations.

According to the configuration synthesis and optimum principles of 4-DOFs upper limb exoskeleton mechanisms, three categories of exoskeletons compatible with upper limb were proposed. From the perspective of human exoskeleton closed chain, through reasonable decomposition and kinematic characteristics analysis of passive connective joints, the kinematic equations of three categories exoskeletons were established and inverse position solution method were addressed. Subsequently, three indexes, which can represent the relative movement offsets of human–exoskeleton were defined.

Based on the presented position solution and evaluation indexes, the joint displacements and relative movement offsets of the three exoskeletons during eating movement were compared, on which the kinematic characteristics were investigated. The results indicated that the second category of exoskeleton was more suitable for upper limb rehabilitation than the other two categories.

This paper has a certain reference value for the selection of the 4-DOFs upper extremity rehabilitation exoskeleton mechanism configurations. The selected exoskeleton can ensure the safety and comfort of stroke patients with upper limb dyskinesia during rehabilitation training.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the influences of sociodemographic (SD), environmental, and marketing mix variables on household art expenditure.

Using the latest US census data collect from 140 metropolitan statistical areas, three stepwise multiple regressions are employed to identify the key determinants of household art expenditure and their directional impacts.

The paper evinces that a set of SD, environmental, and marketing mix variables explains a large percentage of variation of household art expenditure. In addition to that, these variables influence household art expenditure differently.

Limited by data availability, this paper focuses on investigating the effects of variables with available measures. Future researchers are encouraged to include a broader range of variables in analysis whenever possible.

This paper suggests that art dealers use the approach adopted in this research to predict household art expenditure. Market entry decisions should be based on an assessment of market expansion potential and a full comprehension of the limitations imposed by an area's SD, environmental, and marketing mix characteristics.

This is the first study to empirically explain the variation of household art expenditure.