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Filtroil had opened a new factory that was a merger between Shenzhen Filtroil and its supplier, Liu Li—whose own factory was on the verge of bankruptcy. But the supplier had begun making excessive demands and threatening to delay product shipment to the United States if his conditions were left unmet. The case reveals the options that could be taken to manage the situation. The case is suitable for use in organizational behavior, human resource management, and strategy classes at the MBA and executive education levels.

Poverty alleviation is a global challenge. Human society has never ceased to fight against poverty. China was once the developing country with the largest rural poor population in the world. Remarkable achievements have been made in China’s antipoverty program over the past decades, shaping a unique poverty reduction strategy with Chinese characteristics. The purpose of this paper is to first review the history of China’s rural reform and antipoverty, and then analyze the related policy systems, mechanism innovations and future challenges in poverty alleviation and development. At last, some specific policy implications were provided.

Literature on China’s antipoverty history was reviewed and mechanism innovations on targeted poverty alleviation strategy were investigated.

Along with the deepening of the rural reform, the poverty alleviation and development in new China have undergone six stages, and experienced a transformation from relief-oriented to development-oriented poverty alleviation. The object of poverty alleviation has gradually targeted with a transformation from poor counties/areas to villages/households, and the effectiveness of poverty alleviation is also gradually improved. However, the increase in the difficulty of antipoverty, fragile ecological environment, rapid population aging and rural decline poses challenges to the construction of a well-off society in an all-round way in China. Specific antipoverty measures were put forward based on the investigation. Finally, the authors emphasize the importance of strengthening the study of poverty geography.

This study investigates the history of China’s antipoverty policy and analyzes the future challenges for implementing targeted poverty alleviation policy. These findings will lay a foundation for the formulation of China’s antipoverty policies after 2020, and provide experience for poverty alleviation in other developing countries around the world.

Facing the increasing competition and uncertainty, when and how to improve service innovation performance with the help of digital business strategy has become an important issue for global service firms. In this study, organizational memory level and dispersion are regarded as moderating variables and market intelligence response is introduced as a mediator, aiming at clarifying the boundary conditions and mechanism of digital business strategy affecting service innovation performance.

A survey was conducted among middle and senior managers from 245 service firms in China. The data were analyzed using SPSS and Mplus software for reliability and validity analysis, hypothesis testing and robustness testing.

Digital business strategy was positively related to the service innovation performance of service firms. Market intelligence responsiveness mediated the positive effect of digital business strategy on service innovation performance of service firms. The positive effect between digital business strategy and market intelligence responsiveness was strengthened when the level and dispersion of organizational memory were moderate.

This study suggests that it is a very effective approach for service firms to initiate digital business strategy to improve service innovation performance. Furthermore, market intelligence responsiveness is crucial because it can help service firms quickly respond to market changes and adapt them accordingly. Managers of service firms should recognize that the benefits of digital business strategy are maximized only when the level and dispersion of organizational memory are moderate.

This study is the first to address the question of how and when digital business strategy drives service innovation performance in the context of digitization. In addition, this study enriches and advances organizational learning theory because it discusses the differential impact of digital business strategy on service innovation performance under varying degrees of organizational memory level and dispersion.

Based on the weak seismic performance and low ductility of coupled shear walls, engineered cementitious composites (ECC) is utilized to strengthen it to solve the deformation problem in tall buildings more effectively and study its mechanical properties more deeply.

The properties of reinforced concrete coupled shear wall (RCCSW) and reinforced ECC coupled shear wall (RECSW) have been studied by numerical simulation, which is in good agreement with the experimental results. The reliability of the finite element model is verified. On this basis, a detailed parameter study is carried out, including the strength and reinforcement ratio of longitudinal rebar, the placement height of ECC in the wall limb and the position of ECC connecting beams. The study indexes include failure mode and the skeleton curve.

The results suggest that the bearing capacity of RECSW is significantly affected by the ratio of longitudinal rebar. When the ratio of longitudinal rebar increases from 0.47% to 3.35%, the bearing capacity of RECSW increases from 250 kN to 303 kN, an increase of 21%. The strength of longitudinal rebar has little influence on the bearing capacity of RECSW. When the strength of the longitudinal rebar increases, the bearing capacity of RECSW increases little. The failure mode of RECSW can be improved by lowering the casting height of the ECC beam in a certain range.

In this paper, ECC is used to strengthen the coupled shear wall, and the accuracy of the finite element model is verified from the failure mode and skeleton curve. On this basis, the casting height of the ECC casting wall limb, the strength and reinforcement ratio of longitudinal rebar and the position of the ECC beam are studied in detail.

What distinguishes digital transformation from other traditional IT transformations is its involvement of the entire organization, rather than merely the IT department. Thus, instead of taking a perspective that is confined to the IT department, this paper studies the ambidextrous nature of digital transformation (DT) from the standpoint of the whole firm. The authors define DT ambidexterity as the capability to utilize digital technology to simultaneously improve the efficiency of existing businesses (DT exploitation) and to promote business growth (DT exploration).

Using annual reports of Chinese firms as a mining material, this paper deploys text mining and word frequency analysis to develop a data set of digital transformation to construct DT exploitation, DT exploration and DT ambidexterity, so that the authors can examine and compare their impact on business performance.

This study's statistics show that observations in this research sample mainly manifest DT ambidexterity and DT exploitation, while DT exploration makes up the smallest proportion. The authors find that DT exploitation, DT exploration, and DT ambidexterity have positive, yet heterogeneous effects on business performance.

This study expands the existing literature of IT-related ambidexterity by examining the ambidextrous nature of DT from the angle of company-wide strategy instead of the perspective from IT-department and expands the extant literature of digital transformation by examining the heterogeneous effects of its different components on business performance. The authors also add to the digital strategizing literature by showing that different business strategy goals can be attained through different stages of DT.

This study expands the existing literature of IT-related ambidexterity by examining the ambidexterity nature of DT from the angle of company-wide strategy instead of the perspective from IT department and expands the extant literature of digital transformation by examining the heterogeneous effects of its different components on business performance. The authors also add to the digital strategizing literature by showing that different business strategy goals can be attained through different stages of DT.

This study provides a bibliometric analysis of business literature on the interlinks of fintech, climate risks, and sustainable finance. Fintech growth promotes national environmental efficiency and green finance by decreasing carbon intensity toward the net-zero target. National fintech growth moderates the impact of environmental, social, and governance investment on bank efficiency. Fintech mitigates the loan bankruptcy risk imposed by climate risks with strict mortgage lending decisions due to climate concerns. Fintech applications in banking systems optimize financing costs and increase the accessibility of money for firms, decreasing corporate greenwashing behaviors and promoting green innovation. The existing literature leaves room for future studies on fintech to promote climate finance with important policies for climate action toward Sustainable Development Goals.

The flexural reinforcement of bridges in-service has been an important research field for a long time. Anchoring steel plate at the bottom of beam is a simple and effective method to improve its bearing capacity. The purpose of this paper is to explore the influence of anchoring steel plates of different thicknesses on the bearing capacity of hollow slab beam and to judge its working status.

First, static load experiments are carried out on two in-service RC hollow slab beams; meanwhile, nonlinear finite element models are built to study the bearing capacity of them. The nonlinear material and shear slip effect of studs are considered in the models. Second, the finite element models are verified, and the numerical simulation results are in good agreement with the experimental results. Finally, the finite element models are adopted to carry out the research on the influence of different steel plate thicknesses on the flexural bearing capacity and ductility.

When steel plates of different thicknesses are adopted to reinforce RC hollow slab beams, the bearing capacity increases with the increase of the steel plate thickness in a certain range. But when the steel plate thickness reaches a certain level, bearing capacity is no longer influenced. The displacement ductility coefficient decreases with the increase of steel plate thickness.

Based on experimental study, this paper makes an extrapolation analysis of the bearing capacity of hollow slab beams reinforced with steel plates of different thicknesses through finite element simulation and discusses the influence on ductility. This method not only ensures the accuracy of bearing capacity evaluation but also does not need many samples, which is economical to a certain extent. The research results provide a basis for the reinforcement design of similar bridges.

This paper presents the experimental and numerical results of the bending properties of low-height prestressed T-beams. The purpose is to study the bearing capacity, failure state and strain distribution of low-height prestressed T-beams.

First, two 13 m-long full-size test beams were fabricated with different positions of prestressed steel bundles in the span. The load–deflection curves and failure patterns of each test beam were obtained through static load tests. Secondly, the test data were used to validate the finite element model developed to simulate the flexural behavior of low-height prestressed T-beams. Finally, the influence of different parameters (the number of prestressed steel bundles, initial prestress and concrete strength grade) on the flexural performance of the test beams is studied by using a finite element model.

The test results show that when the distance of the prestressed steel beam from the bottom height of the test beam increases from 40 to 120 mm, the cracking load of the test beam decreases from 550.00 to 450.00 kN, reducing by 18.18%, and the ultimate load decreases from 1338.15 to 1227.66 kN, reducing by 8.26%, therefore, the increase of the height of the prestressed steel beam reduces the bearing capacity of the test beam. The numerical simulation results show that when the number of steel bundles increases from 2 to 9, the cracking load increases by 183.60%, the yield load increases by 117.71% and the ultimate load increases by 132.95%. Therefore, the increase in the number of prestressed steel bundles can increase the cracking load, yield load and ultimate load of the test beam. When the initial prestress is from 695 to 1,395 MPa, the cracking load increases by 69.20%, the yield load of the bottom reinforcement increases by 31.61% and the ultimate load increases by 3.97%. Therefore, increasing the initial prestress can increase the cracking load and yield load of the test beam, but it has little effect on the ultimate load. The strength grade of concrete increases from C30 to C80, the cracking load is about 455.00 kN, the yield load is about 850.00 kN and the ultimate load is increased by 4.90%. Therefore, the improvement in concrete strength grade has little influence on the bearing capacity of the test beam.

Based on the experimental study, the bearing capacity of low-height prestressed T-beams with different prestressed steel beam heights is calculated by finite element simulation, and the influence of different parameters on the bearing capacity is discussed. This method not only ensures the accuracy of bearing capacity assessment, but also does not require a large number of samples and has a certain economy. The study of prestressed low-height T-beams is of great significance for understanding the principle and application of prestressed technology. Research on the mechanical behavior and performance of low-height prestressed T beams can provide a scientific basis and technical support for the design and construction of prestressed concrete structures. In addition, the study of prestressed low-height T-beams can also provide a reference for the optimization design and construction of other structural types.

This study aims to investigate the design and optimization of landing gear buffers to improve the landing-phase comfort of civil aircraft.

The vibration comfort during the landing and taxiing phases is calculated and evaluated based on the flight-testing data for a type of civil aircraft. The calculation and evaluation are under the guidance of the vibration comfort standard of GB/T13441.1-2007 and related files. The authors establish here a rigid-flexible coupled multibody dynamics finite element model of one full-size aircraft. Furthermore, the authors also implement a dynamic simulation for the landing and taxiing processes. Also, an analysis of how the main parameters of the buffers affect the vibration comfort is presented. Finally, the optimization of the single-chamber and double-chamber buffers in the landing gear is performed considering vibration comfort.

The double-chamber buffer with optimized parameters in landing gear can improve the vibration comfort of the aircraft during the landing and taxiing phases. Moreover, the comfort index can be increased by 25.6% more than that of a single-chamber type.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study first investigates the evaluation methods and evaluation indexes on the aircraft vibration comfort, then further conducts the optimization of the parameters of landing gear buffer with different structures, so as to improve the comfort of aircraft passengers during landing process. Most of the current studies on aircraft landing gear have focused on the strength and safety of the landing gear, with very limited research on cabin vibration comfort during landing and subsequent taxiing because of the coupling of runway surface unevenness and airframe vibration.

Effectively solving the large tonnage cable in the construction process due to the tensioning method of the inclined cable often appears in the overall cable force and the design value of the deviation is large, cable internal strand force is not uniform, the main girder stress exceeds the limit of the problem affecting the safety of the structure.

In this study, the finite element method and theoretical analysis method are utilized to propose a construction control method of tensioning the whole bunch of diagonal cables in two parts according to the deformation coordination relationship between the main girder and the diagonal cables. This methodology was implemented during the actual construction of the PAIRA Bridge in Bangladesh.

Tests conducted on cable-stayed bridges using this controlled tensioning method demonstrate that the measured cable strength of a single strand exhibits an error of less than 0.15% compared to the design target cable strength. The deviation between the measured and designed cable forces ranges from 0.16% to 0.27%. Furthermore, no tensile stress is observed in both the top plate and bottom plate of the root section of the main girder, indicating a state of full-section compression throughout the entire construction process.

Through the comparison with the test value, it can be proved that the whole bunch of diagonal cable tensioned in two parts of the construction control method proposed in this paper can make the internal strand force more uniform, to meet the precision requirements of the site construction, to protect the safety of the bridge construction process. The method proposed in this paper is highly accurate, easy to calculate, and has a high value of popularization and application.