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The polynomial dimensional decomposition (PDD) method is a popular tool to establish a surrogate model in several scientific areas and engineering disciplines. The selection of appropriate truncated polynomials is the main topic in the PDD. In this paper, an easy-to-implement adaptive PDD method with a better balance between precision and efficiency is proposed.

First, the original random variables are transformed into corresponding independent reference variables according to the statistical information of variables. Second, the performance function is decomposed as a summation of component functions that can be approximated through a series of orthogonal polynomials. Third, the truncated maximum order of the orthogonal polynomial functions is determined through the nonlinear judgment method. The corresponding expansion coefficients are calculated through the point estimation method. Subsequently, the performance function is reconstructed through appropriate orthogonal polynomials and known expansion coefficients.

Several examples are investigated to illustrate the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method compared with the other methods in reliability analysis.

The number of unknown coefficients is significantly reduced, and the computational burden for reliability analysis is eased accordingly. The coefficient evaluation for the multivariate component function is decoupled with the order judgment of the variable. The proposed method achieves a good trade-off of efficiency and accuracy for reliability analysis.

The purpose of this study is to improve the efficiency and accuracy of response surface method (RSM), as well as its robustness.

By introducing cut-high-dimensional representation model (HDMR), the delineation of cross terms and the constitution analysis of component function, a new adaptive RSM is presented for reliability calculation, where a sampling scheme is also proposed to help constructing response surface close to limit-state.

The proposed method has a more feasible process of evaluating undetermined coefficients of each component function than traditional RSM, and performs well in terms of balancing the efficiency and accuracy when compared to the traditional second-order polynomial RSM. Moreover, the proposed method is robust on the parameter in a wide range, indicating that it is able to obtain convergent result in a wide feasible domain of sample points.

This study constructed an adaptive bivariate cut-HDMR by introducing delineation of cross-terms and constitution of univariate component function; and a new sampling technique is proposed.

This paper traces the timeline and milestones of Chinese graduate students in agricultural economics and related fields at foreign universities, with an emphasis on North American universities, since the early 1980s, and assesses the contributions of Chinese doctoral recipients from foreign universities to agricultural economic research and education in North America and China.

Data from department and college websites, associations of agricultural economics, university libraries and databases of theses and dissertations and selected agricultural economic journals in English and Chinese are used to attain the above purposes through graphical and bibliometric analyses.

First, the numbers of Chinese doctoral recipients and tenure-track and tenured faculty in agricultural economics at North American universities have increased steadily and significantly. Second, Chinese scholars in North America have achieved tremendous success in agricultural economic research via high-quality publications, prestigious awards, editorship of top journals, leadership in professional organizations, etc. Third, more Chinese doctoral recipients overseas have increasingly returned to China and are playing important roles in China’s agricultural economic research, education and international collaboration. Fourth, the publications of overseas Chinese scholars in Chinese journals and those of their counterparts working in China on topics beyond China are relatively limited and more collaboration may enhance the global impacts of Chinese agricultural economists.

This research is limited by data availability and quality and the data problems are discussed in the paper.

This is likely the first study to assess the contributions of Chinese doctoral recipients from foreign universities to agricultural economic research and education in China and abroad.

The research on leaching behaviors of heavy metals in municipal solid waste incineration (MSWI) fly ash is of great significance. Because of the limitations like experimental condition, experiment data volume of heavy metals is difficult to achieve the prediction of requirements. In order to solve the problem of uncertainty and fuzziness caused by small sample, a new method based on fuzzy theory is proposed in this paper. By comparing fitting results from measured data and Visual MINTEQ simulation results, the method in this paper is considered to be more reliable and has a better interpretation for the leaching behaviors of heavy metals. The simulation results show the feasibility and superiority of the proposed method.

The purpose of this paper is to review the growth and regional disparities of China's dairy market since 1980, examine urban consumer demand for three major dairy products (fluid milk, yogurt, and milk powder), analyze China's import patterns of major dairy products since 1995, and discuss China's potential roles in the world dairy market and implications for trade.

While the most recently available time‐series and cross‐sectional data from China are used to analyze the trends and disparities of China's milk production and dairy product consumption through graphical and regression analyses, China's custom data from 1995 to 2008 are used to examine the trends and patterns of China's dairy product imports.

China's dairy market has expanded rapidly in the past two decades but there are significant disparities across regions and income groups. The estimated income elasticities suggest that, as per capita income continues to increase, the demand for dairy products, especially yogurt and fluid milk, is expected to grow at a significant rate. The import trend and pattern analysis indicates that China's dairy imports will likely continue to grow and provide opportunities for major dairy product exporters like the USA, New Zealand, and Australia.

The paper contributes to the literature by examining the trends and disparities of China's dairy market using the most recently available data, presenting an estimation of demand elasticities for fluid milk, yogurt, and milk powder in urban China, and discussing the future prospects of China's dairy imports and implications for trade.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the influence mechanism of job satisfaction and positive affect on knowledge sharing among project members in Chinese construction industry, and test the moderating role of organizational commitment between them in order to find a new approach from the perspective of psychology to improve the knowledge sharing performance within project management organizations in China constantly.

An empirical study was used based on confirmatory factor analysis and hierarchical regression analysis with a sample of 540 project members from 80 project management organizations in China.

Research results showed that job satisfaction and positive affect of project members both have a significant positive impact on knowledge sharing; organizational commitment could moderate the influence of job satisfaction and positive affect on knowledge sharing among project members partially within the Chinese context.

A questionnaire study from China only represents the relationship and regular pattern within a shorter time interval in the Chinese context. It is necessary to continue to implement a longitudinal study in a relatively long period in future research.

Knowledge sharing among project members can be enhanced through improving job satisfaction and positive affect, and strengthening project members’ organizational commitment can amplify the influence effect of job satisfaction and positive affect on knowledge sharing.

This paper clarifies the direct influence mechanism of project members’ job satisfaction and positive affect on explicit knowledge sharing (EKS) and tacit knowledge sharing (TKS), and further tests the partial moderating effect of organizational commitment on the influence relationship of job satisfaction and positive affect on EKS and TKS.

The intelligent identification of stains can quickly and accurately identify stains. At present, stains are identified subjectively by appearance, color, taste, feel, location, etc. Color is an important factor in identifying stains. K/S value is used to analyze the color of textile fabric, and it has additivity. The purpose of the study is to explore its application in stain recognition is of great significance to intelligent washing.

A certain method used to stain the textile, then the K/S value of the textile before and after the stain was analyzed and tested by the color difference instrument. The K/S curve of the stain was calculated by the addition of K/S, and then the stain was identified and distinguished.

The K/S value of the textile stained with stains could be deducted by the K/S value of the color difference meter. After deducting the base cloth, the K/S curve of the same stain is basically the same. Then the stain can be identified and analyzed.

The K/S value can be used for stain analysis, but it needs to be analyzed and tested in the laboratory.

This study provides a simple method for stains identification.

In addition to common methods of stain identification, such as appearance, color, feel, smell, location, stain removal materials, breaking the substrate, IR, etc., K/S value can be used for stain analysis. Identifying stains and washing them in a targeted way to achieve a better washing effect could provide certain technical support for the development of smart washing and smart home appliances.

Both glazing and laminating play a certain role in finishing and protecting the surface of printed matter. This study makes a comparative analysis of the two through life cycle assessment (LCA) and theoretically explores the difference between them.

In this study, the life cycle of laminating and glazing processes was calculated through using Simapro software, and the results were compared and analyzed.

Twelve environmental categories were used to quantitatively analyze the environmental impact of the product. The results showed that the results of the 12 environmental categories involved in the analysis of glazing was less than that of laminating, indicating that the impact of the glazing on the environment was less than that of laminating on the environment.

In order to simplify the study, we only calculated and analyzed the laminating and glazing.

Green packaging is the future, 3R1D, reduce, reuse, recycle and degradable. According to the calculation results, corresponding suggestions can be put forward from production, processing, use, waste and other aspects, and make corresponding contributions to the development of green packaging.

The contribution and impact of each stage to the product life cycle can be studied. In addition, different waste disposal methods have different impacts on the environment, and the higher the recovery ratio, the better the environmental benefits of the product. Recycling should then be promoted as proportionately as possible in practice in order to reduce the environmental impact .

This paper aims to explore the relationship between economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and promoters’ share pledging activity for real estate and construction firms in India. The author further divides the sample into financially sound and financially constrained firms and re-examines the relationship between EPU and promoters’ share pledging activity for them. Additionally, the author investigates the moderating effect of EPU on firm-level cash holding for pledged firms.

The author conducts multiple regression to examine the effect of EPU on the share-pledging activity of a firm on sample data of Indian construction and real estate firms. The financial and pledging data was collected for all listed firms from March 2009 to March 2020 from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy. The EPU data was re-estimated using the three-period moving average method. All data used in the study was collected from secondary sources.

The author finds that EPU influences pledging activity, and the association between them is opposite for financially constrained and financially sound firms. Also, the author reports that an increase in EPU increases firm-level cash holding for pledged firms, and the interaction between EPU and share pledging is significantly associated with firm-level cash holding.

The managerial implications of this study are manifold. Managers of financially constrained firms should pay attention to the promoters pledging activity so that in a rising EPU environment, issues of managerial entrenchment can be avoided. Moreover, any further promoters’ share pledging activity under rising EPU conditions may force managers to hoard higher cash and thus reducing investment and profitability.

This paper presents evidence of relationship between EPU, share pledging activity and firm-level cash holding in an emerging economy. The study also compares the response of financially constrained and financially sound firms for EPU on equity pledging activity and that of equity pledging on firm-level cash holdings.

High economic policy uncertainty forces firms to accumulate a higher level of cash than during normal business periods. However, it is not evident that economic policy uncertainty has a homogeneous impact across cash-holding distributions. This paper aims to study the impact of economic policy uncertainty, leverage and their interaction on cash-holding distributions.

This study adopted a quantile regression approach to examine the influence of economic policy uncertainty and firm leverage on firm-level cash-holding distributions. To investigate the influence across quantiles, the author estimated 19 quantiles between 0.05 and 0.95.

This study finds that both economic policy uncertainty and firm leverage significantly affect firm-level cash-holding distributions heterogeneously. But, the impact of the interaction of these two variables is significant only for firms placed in the 60th to 85th quantiles of cash holding distribution.

The study adds to the existing knowledge of determinants of firm-level cash holdings but takes exogenous variables as economic policy uncertainty. The paper builds on a unique sample setting wherein, the cash holdings of all nonfinancial firms have increased many folds, including housing companies in an emerging economy.