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Unsupervised domain adaptation object detection not only mitigates model terrible performance resulting from domain gap, but also has the ability to apply knowledge trained on a definite domain to a distinct domain. However, aligning the whole feature may confuse the object and background information, making it challenging to extract discriminative features. This paper aims to propose an improved approach which is called intrinsic feature extraction domain adaptation (IFEDA) to extract discriminative features effectively.

IFEDA consists of the intrinsic feature extraction (IFE) module and object consistency constraint (OCC). The IFE module, designed on the instance level, mainly solves the issue of the difficult extraction of discriminative object features. Specifically, the discriminative region of the objects can be paid more attention to. Meanwhile, the OCC is deployed to determine whether category prediction in the target domain brings into correspondence with it in the source domain.

Experimental results demonstrate the validity of our approach and achieve good outcomes on challenging data sets.

Limitations to this research are that only one target domain is applied, and it may change the ability of model generalization when the problem of insufficient data sets or unseen domain appeared.

This paper solves the issue of critical information defects by tackling the difficulty of extracting discriminative features. And the categories in both domains are compelled to be consistent for better object detection.

The purpose of this study is to ensure the safe use of carbon fiber composite pressure vessels in the nuclear industry environment.

This study investigated the degradation behaviors of carbon fiber reinforced composite (CFRP) using the specific corrosive media HF solution, with a focus on the damage to the surface epoxy layer. The degradation behaviors of CFRP in HF solution were examined by electrochemical methods and surface characterization, using HCl, NaCl and NaF solution for comparison.

The results showed that the specimen in HF solution will have a value of |Z|_0.01 Hz one order of magnitude lower, a substantially lower contact angle, more breakage of the surface epoxy and the stronger O─H peak and weaker C─O─C peak in the Fourier transform infrared spectrum, indicating severe hydrolytic damage to the surface epoxy.

The work focuses on the degradation damage to CFRP surface epoxy by specific corrosive media HF.

China has long been dedicated to introducing the Western management ideas to the local enterprise practice. But the situation has changed since the financial crisis, and the China model has become a hot word with its fast recovery from crisis. Moreover, Chinese traditional culture has become increasingly popular. Yin and yang are the most familiar Chinese philosophical terms to Western minds, and also the core concept of Chinese Taoist philosophy. The purpose of this paper is to analyze how the yin yang or lao‐tzu influences a firm's core competence and performance, and to demonstrate that the Taoist‐oriented Chinese culture remains meaningful and in many situations powerful in enterprise practice.

A case study is carried out from Town Star Ltd, established in 2001, and located in Linfen city, Shanxi province, China, a city which topped the list of the world's most polluted cities. It is an integrated joint‐stock company, specializing in coal coking chemical industry, gardening, logistics and technology development. Based on the humanized management doctrine, the company has formed the 5S management model which boosts its rapid and sustainable development. It coped well in major junctures such as industry restructuring and transferring, financial crisis, etc. Five key dimensions of the yin and yang, which were applied to the leader's daily behaviors and management style, are: Wu‐wei (inaction), Wu (emptiness), hardness with softness, moderation and He‐xie (harmony). First, this paper built a dynamic company growth model based on this philosophy which enhanced the core competitiveness effectively by emotional management innovation and personalized HRM, among which its pivotal regulator of variables is just yin yang conversion degree. Then an approach is provided to validate the model with empirical data collected from the years 2001‐2010 (2001‐2005, 2006‐2008, 2009‐2010) of Town Star Ltd.

It is demonstrated that yin yang ideology embedded in the company growth model organically is an important means to increase marginal benefit. In practice, the firm with yin yang philosophical ideology would shape a management paradigm which combined rules and human nature appropriately to a family‐oriented business atmosphere. Based on the above philosophical wisdom, Town Star Ltd has harvested good economic and social benefits, strong core competence through the elaborately constructed unique management model and harmonious humanity environment.

This paper opens an avenue for indigenous firms, as a framework for guiding management research and practice in coping with the post‐crisis era. In addition, it is expected to attract more attention from scholars, entrepreneurs both in China and in the rest of the world, to contribute to knowledge creation in Chinese management studies.

Previously, the effect of pore-forming agents on the properties of pore size and morphology was studied. In this paper, we determine the optimal combination of parameters by tensile strength and perform tribological tests with optimal combination of parameters.

In this paper, porous polyimide (PI) materials were fabricated using vacuum hot molding technology. The orthogonal experiment was designed to test the mechanical properties of porous PI materials with the process parameters and the content of pore-forming agent as the changing factors. The porous PI oil-bearing materials were obtained by vacuum immersion, and tribological test were carried out.

The results showed that porous PI oil-bearing materials are suitable for low-speed and low-load conditions. The actual value of the friction coefficient basically match with the theoretical value of the regression analysis, and the errors of the friction coefficient are within 10% and 3%, respectively, which proves that the method used in the study is feasible for the friction coefficient prediction.

In this paper, we have produced a new porous oil-bearing material with good tribological properties. This study can effectively predict the friction coefficient of PI porous material.

This paper aims to investigate the tribological properties of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) composites modified by nano-serpentine and nano-lanthanum oxide in a seawater environment.

In this paper, seven PTFE composites were prepared by unified design method and vacuum thermoforming method, and their hardness, water absorption and tribological properties were measured under seawater environment. The modification effects and thermal stability of the materials were analyzed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, thermal gravimetry and differential scanning calorimetry. This paper analyzed the wear mechanism of PTFE composites by scanning electron microscopy and energy spectroscopy.

The results showed that the hardness of the PTFE composites were all improved, but the water absorption was increased with the increase of additives. The modification of nano-serpentine was successful and the thermal stability of PTFE composites was better. The lowest coefficient and minimum wear rate are 0.0267 and 8.67 × 10⁻⁵ · mm³ · (N · m)⁻¹ respectively, which is 34.9% and 76% less than the pure PTFE.

The analysis showed that the wear mechanism of PTFE composites was abrasive wear and a small amount of adhesive wear, and when the additive content was appropriate, it easily formed a transfer film on the surface mating parts.

We adopt an information risk view and argue that higher levels of pledge risk incurred by insiders incentivize opportunistic financial disclosure and impair the quality of information available to analysts to forecast firm performance.

We sample Chinese listed companies from 2010 to 2022. Following the literature, we apply established models to measure and test analysts’ forecasting accuracy/dispersion related to controlling shareholders pledging equity and the amount of margin call pressure. Analyst characteristics and nonfinancial disclosures proxied by CSR reports are also examined as factors likely to influence the relationship between pledge risk and analysts’ forecast quality.

We find that analysts’ earnings predictions are less accurate and more dispersed as the proportion of shares pledged (pledge ratio) increases and in combination with greater margin call pressure. Pledge ratios are significantly associated with several information risk proxies (i.e. earnings permanence, accruals quality, audit quality, financial restatements, related party transactions and internal control weaknesses), validating the channel through which equity pledges undermine analysts’ forecast quality. The results also demonstrate that forecast quality declines for a wide variety of analysts’ attributes, including high- and low-quality analysts and analysts from small and large brokerage firms. Importantly, nonfinancial disclosures, as proxied by CSR reporting, improve analysts’ forecasts.

We extend the literature by demonstrating that incremental pledge risk increases non-diversifiable information risk; all non-pledging shareholders pay a premium through more diverse and less accurate earnings forecasts. Our study provides important policy implications with economically significant costs to investors associated with insider equity pledges. Our results highlight the benefits of nonfinancial disclosures in China, which has implications for the current debate on the global convergence of CSR reporting.

This paper aims to study the corrosion inhibition behavior of imidazopyridine and its three derivatives on brass.

The authors performed weight loss experiments, electrochemical experiments including the polarization curve and electrochemical impedance spectrum, corrosion morphology observation using scanning electron microscope (SEM) and atomic force microscope (AFM) and surface composition analysis via X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) to analyze the corrosion inhibition behavior of imidazopyridine and its three derivatives on brass by using quantum chemical calculation (Gaussian 09), molecular dynamics simulation (M-S) and Langmuir adsorption isotherm.

According to the results, imidazole-pyridine and its derivatives were found to be modest or moderately mixed corrosion inhibitors; moreover, they were spontaneously adsorbed on the metal surface in a single-layer, mixed adsorption mode.

The corrosion inhibition properties of pyrazolo-[1,2-a]pyridine and its derivatives on brass in sulfuric acid solution were analyzed through weight loss and electrochemical experiments. Moreover, SEM and AFM were simultaneously used to observe the corrosion appearance. Furthermore, XPS was used to analyze the surface. Then, Gaussian 09 and M-S were combined along with the Langmuir adsorption isotherm to investigate the corrosion inhibition mechanism of imidazole-[1,2-a]pyridine and its derivatives.

Numerous finite elements are proposed based on analytical solutions. However, it is difficult to find the solutions for complicated governing equations. This paper aims to present a novel formulation in the framework of assumed stress quasi-conforming method for the static and free vibration analysis of anisotropic and symmetric laminated plates.

Firstly, an initial stress approximation ruled by 17 parameters, which satisfies the equilibrium equations is derived to improve the performance of the constructed element. Then the stress matrix is treated as the weighted function to weaken the strain-displacement equations. Finally, the Timoshenko’s laminated composite beam functions are adopted as boundary string-net functions for strain integration.

Several numerical examples are presented to show the performance of the new element, and the results obtained are compared with other available ones. Numerical results have proved that the new element is free from shear locking and possesses high accuracy for the analysis of anisotropic and symmetric laminated plates.

This paper proposes a new QC element for the static and free vibration analysis of anisotropic and symmetric laminated plates. In contrast with the complicated analytical solutions of the equilibrium equations, an initial stress approximation ruled by 17 parameters is adopted here. The Timoshenkos laminated composite beam functions are introduced as boundary string-net functions for strain integration. Numerical results demonstrate the new element is free from shear locking and possesses high accuracy for the analysis of anisotropic and symmetric laminated plates.

This paper aims to present a human-in-the-loop natural teaching paradigm based on scene-motion cross-modal perception, which facilitates the manipulation intelligence and robot teleoperation.

The proposed natural teaching paradigm is used to telemanipulate a life-size humanoid robot in response to a complicated working scenario. First, a vision sensor is used to project mission scenes onto virtual reality glasses for human-in-the-loop reactions. Second, motion capture system is established to retarget eye-body synergic movements to a skeletal model. Third, real-time data transfer is realized through publish-subscribe messaging mechanism in robot operating system. Next, joint angles are computed through a fast mapping algorithm and sent to a slave controller through a serial port. Finally, visualization terminals render it convenient to make comparisons between two motion systems.

Experimentation in various industrial mission scenes, such as approaching flanges, shows the numerous advantages brought by natural teaching, including being real-time, high accuracy, repeatability and dexterity.

The proposed paradigm realizes the natural cross-modal combination of perception information and enhances the working capacity and flexibility of industrial robots, paving a new way for effective robot teaching and autonomous learning.

The importance of supplier integration (SI) in improving firms’ performance has been previously identified but the effects of SI are complicated, as the relationship between supplier and buyer is full of uncertainty. The purpose of this paper is to re-examine the effects of SI on operations performance from a relational view.

Two strategies of integrating suppliers are theoretically presented: information sharing and joint decision making. Hypotheses are then developed on when SI influences operations performance, using product complexity and competitive intensity as moderating factors. The hypotheses are tested using a global survey data set, made up of 763 manufacturing firms from 22 countries.

The results indicate a positive relationship between SI and operations performance and that the moderating roles of product complexity and competition intensity are significant, but product complexity does not have significant moderation effects on the relationships between joint decision making and product quality/cost reduction.

The moderators of product complexity and competitive intensity are not comprehensive. Future study into how and under what circumstances SI has the greatest effect will be of benefit.

This study makes theoretical contributions by exploring the strategies of SI through a relational view, and examining the effects of SI through the moderating roles of product complexity and competition intensity.