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A new method is derived for solving systems of ordinary differential equations of the first order. It is fully explicit, requires no matrix inversion, and shows relatively large time steps. The one‐ and two‐dimensional diffusion equations and the one‐dimensional electron transport equations of semiconductor devices are solved to demonstrate both the accuracy and the efficiency of the proposed method. This method is accurate and efficient when results are compared with analytical solutions.

This paper aims to share the successful experiences and suggestions from the 2007 Chinese e‐books consortium.

A survey of the participant libraries of the 2007 Chinese e‐books consortium was conducted. Survey results were analyzed.

The consortium improved the Chinese collections with perpetual ownership, and demonstrated the bargaining power that exists through a consortium. Most participants would consider joining the consortium in the future.

Since the 2007 Chinese e‐books consortium has only just been completed, the usage statistics have not been compiled. It will be interesting to see how readers adapt to the Chinese e‐books in the future.

The results have practical implications for the operation of library consortia.

This study provides the latest opinions and suggestions from the consortium participants, which can be valuable to those who are interested in initiating new library consortia. The study results can also be of value to librarians who are considering joining any library consortia.

By using three key factors – namely, funding, stakeholders, and legitimacy – this study seeks to analyse the successful entrepreneurial experiences of a non‐profit small to medium‐sized enterprise: the Taiwan EBook Supply Cooperative Limited (TEBSCo).

The paper takes the form of a case study.

From a legitimacy perspective, TEBSCo is the only registered organisation facilitating e‐book consortia in Taiwan. From a stakeholder perspective, TEBSCo is managed by a board of directors, who are elected from the member representatives. In addition to creating value for its members, TEBSCo also creates value for non‐members and vendors. Its major funding is from annual membership fees. TEBSCo's innovation process, as a collective entrepreneurial activity in a non‐profit SME, creates intangible as well as tangible value. The successful experiences of TEBSCo can be used as examples for new entrants.

TEBSCo is the only registered organisation facilitating e‐book consortia in Taiwan. The successful experiences of TEBSCo can be used as examples for new entrants, and shows a new form of entrepreneurial activity.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a greater understanding of the effect of innovation leadership (participative, supportive, and instrumental) on supervisory-rated employee creativity through greater employee regulatory focus (i.e. promotion and prevention).

Data were collected from dyads of 103 employees and employee supervisors working in Taiwan’s high-tech industry. A structural equation modelling approach was used to examine the relationship posited in this study.

Results reveal that both participative and supportive leadership are positively associated with the creativity of supervisory-rated subordinates when those subordinates adopted a focus on promotion. The data also show that these relationships are partially mediated by employee promotion focus. At the same time, the positive relationship between instrumental leadership and employee creativity is fully mediated by employee prevention focus.

The results of this study show that participative and supportive leaders cultivate employee promotion focus, which then enhances employee creativity. Instrumental leaders will induce employee prevention focus, which also enhances employee creativity. These findings imply that when enhancing employee creativity, employees with a promotion focus are more suited to participative and supportive leaders, while employees who do not have a promotion focus may be more suited to leaders who provide these employees with specific instructions on the rules, regulations, and procedures to follow to accomplish given tasks and common goals.

To improve the efficiency and economy of electro-mechanical product's recycle process, this paper aims to propose a disassembly sequence planning (DSP) method to reduce additional efforts of removing extra parts in selectable disassembly.

The methodology has three parts, which includes a disassembly hybrid graphic model to describe the product disassembly information, an object inverse-directed method to optimize the disassembly design and a model reconstruction method to achieve a better DSP.

According to the disassembly cost criteria and the parameters of disassembly tools, the disassembly efficiency increases and the disassembly cost decreases due to the use of partial destructive mode compared with non-destructive mode. The proposed partial destructive DSP is more efficient and economical.

Partial destructive disassembly mode cannot be used for the flammable or explosive component in the procedure of the DSP optimization algorithm.

DSP of an electric corkscrew is analyzed to investigate the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method.

This paper proposes a partial destructive disassembly based DSP method for product disassembly, which provides a new approach for the disposal of end-of-life products.

By introducing the basic concepts and theories of the philosophy of information created by Kun Wu, and making some comparisons of the philosophy of information and related information theories between Wu and other scholars, this paper aims to have Chinese philosophy of information widely known and understood by more people in the world, thus promoting the international exchanges between Chinese and Western scholars on the topic of philosophy of information.

The main research methods used in this paper are the literature review and the comparative study. On the one hand, it reviews some related concepts and theories in Kun Wu's academic works of philosophy of information. On the other hand, it compares the thoughts and viewpoints of Kun Wu with those of other scholars.

First, Kun Wu is the first person who has established a complete and comprehensive theoretical system of philosophy of information in China; second, Kun Wu's philosophy of information is significant in originality and value, which could be thought as the intellectual quintessence of information age, thus worth learning. Third, with more international exchanges, Chinese philosophy of information created by Wu will surely be more and more influential in philosophical circles at home and abroad.

It is a very valuable first-hand material for Western scholars to know and understand Chinese philosophy of information.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate transformational, ambidextrous, and transactional leadership and their relationship to employee creativity and the extent to which psychological empowerment and promotion focus are consistent with previous studies that identify their significant impact on employee creativity. In addition, employee psychological empowerment and promotion focus are used as mediators in the research model to ascertain whether or not there is a significant mediating effect between transformational leadership, ambidextrous leadership, transactional leadership and employee creativity.

In the study, 500 questionnaires were mailed to 50 electronics companies in China; 427 valid questionnaires were eventually collected. A structural equation model was then used for data analysis to study the causalities between all the parameters.

The research findings indicate that transformational and ambidextrous leadership styles have a significant effect on employee creativity. In addition, the study found that employee psychological empowerment and promotion focus has a significant mediating effect for transformational leadership, ambidextrous leadership, transactional leadership and employee creativity.

Executives who adopt a transformational or ambidextrous leadership style tend to have employees with greater psychological empowerment, while transformational or ambidextrous leaders tend to have employees with a stronger promotion focus. Further, the study discovered that when executives adopt a transformational or ambidextrous leadership style, they can use their employees’ psychological empowerment and promotion focus to improve employee creativity.

This paper aims to balance the total energy consumption and the transmission delay for data gathering application in wireless sensor networks.

This paper adopts a hierarchical grid structure to reduce the total energy consumption, and utilizes a tree architecture to decrease the transmission delay.

In the results, the proposed method performs better, in terms of the number of rounds and the energy × delay cost, than other data gathering protocols with different network sizes and node densities. Moreover, the proposed method also provides good coverage preservation in different environments.

In this paper, sensor nodes are assumed to be uniformly distributed, homogenous, energy‐constrained. Each sensor node also has ability to adjust its transmission power. For practice, the proposed method needs location information of sensor nodes and the radio interference between sensor nodes during data transmissions should be considered.

The proposed method can significantly reduce the delay time and may be suitable for real‐time data gathering applications.

This paper combines hierarchical grid structure with tree architecture to minimize the energy × delay cost for data gathering application.

This research explores causal combinations (personal traits, external factors and self-fulfillment) that could provide holistic views leading to sustainable start-ups via data collected from Taiwanese entrepreneurs.

The authors employ five-point Likert scale measurements in the questionnaires and fuzzy-set/Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) for the investigation.

The study finds four types of sustainable entrepreneurs. Conservative resilient entrepreneurs have an absence of both openness and neuroticism. Conservative achieving entrepreneurs have an absence of openness and the presence of conscientiousness. Conservative-hired entrepreneurs have an absence of both openness and unemployment. Lastly, conservative opportunistic entrepreneurs exhibit an absence of openness and the presence of business opportunity.

The results add to the authors’ knowledge and understanding of the entrepreneurship literature and also offer implications for people who are interested in entrepreneurship as well as to policymakers wanting to promote new start-ups.