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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mechanism of transmitting economic policy uncertainty (EPU) shocks to capital structure.

The authors adopt a novel approach that bridges the asset pricing implications of EPU and the debt-financing decisions of Chinese firms by introducing a variable “policy-risk-induced equity return” (PRER). PRER is the product of the EPU beta and the EPU shock. Differentiating firms as per the signs of the EPU beta helps to shed light on the deep questions of whether their respective leverage targets and speeds of adjustment are different and how the targets and speeds are determined.

The empirical evidence shows that it is the equity market that channels EPU shocks to capital structure through PRER in China. Firms with positive (negative) EPU betas have PRER impact negatively (positively) the leverage target, conforming to the market-timing theory. EPU and non-policy uncertainty shocks cause the speed of adjustment to change over time. Overall, the intertemporal relation between EPU and leverage is negative. These results are robust to alternative leverage measures and after controlling for non-policy uncertainty shocks and conventional firm characteristics and have implications for academic research, policymaking, market stability, and corporate financing.

This study is the first to probe for, and provide insights into, the underlying reason why EPU impacts capital structure by connecting asset pricing to corporate financing for a large sample of Chinese publicly traded firms.

The purpose of the study is to examine the crossover effect of leader's role overload on employee's negative affect. More importantly, the stuy will identify the buffering role of self-concordance goal on the relationship between leader's role overload and employee's negative affect.

The study builds the crossover impact of leader's role overload on employee's negative affect as well as the moderating effect of self-concordance goal. By a two-wave and paired data from 51 leaders and 225 employees, the study examines the hypothesis using cross-level analysis.

Results show that leader's role overload tends to reduce negative affect for employees who pursue high-level self-concordance goal and increase negative affect for employees who pursue low-level self-concordance goal.

It is important for employees to get rid of negative affect in the workplace. The study informs managers the benefits of pursuing self-concordance goals in helping employees alleviate the negative effect of leader's role overload.

Findings of the present study can enrich the literature of the crossover process from leader to employee and offer management strategy for enterprises about how to buffer the damaging effect of leader's role overload on employees.

Purpose − The purpose of this paper is to propose a novel and simple strategy for construction of hybrid‐“stress function” plane element. Design/methodology/approach − First, a complementary energy functional, in which the Airy stress function is taken as the functional variable, is established within an element for analysis of plane problems. Second, 15 basic analytical solutions (in global Cartesian coordinates) of the stress function are taken as the trial functions for an 8‐node element, and meanwhile, 15 unknown constants are then introduced. Third, according to the principle of minimum complementary energy, the unknown constants can be expressed in terms of the displacements along element edges, which are interpolated by element nodal displacements. Finally, the whole system can be rewritten in terms of element nodal displacement vector. Findings − A new hybrid element stiffness matrix is obtained. The resulting 8‐node plane element, denoted as analytical trial function (ATF‐Q8), possesses excellent performance in numerical examples. Furthermore, some numerical defects, such as direction dependence and interpolation failure, are not found in present model. Originality/value − This paper presents a new strategy for developing finite element models exhibits advantages of both analytical and discrete method.

The purpose of this paper is to describe how the hydraulic performance and pressure fluctuations in the entire flow passage of a Francis turbine were predicted numerically for the highest head. The calculations are used to partition the turbine operating regions and to clarify the unsteady flow behavior in the entire flow passage including the blade channel vortex in the runner and vortex rope in the draft tube.

Three‐dimensional unsteady numerical simulations were performed for a number of operating conditions at the highest head. The unsteady Reynolds‐averaged Navier‐Stokes equations with the k‐ω based SST turbulence model were solved to model the unsteady flow within the entire flow passage of a Francis turbine.

The predicted pressure fluctuations in the draft tube agree well with the experimental results at low heads. However the peak‐to‐peak amplitudes in the spiral case are not as well predicted so the calculation domain and the inlet boundary conditions need to be improved. The unsteady simulation results are better than the steady‐state results. At the most unstable operating condition of case a0.5h1.26, the pulse in the flow passage is due to the rotor‐stator interference between the runner and the guide vanes, the blade channel vortex in the runner blade passage and the vortex rope in the draft tube.

This study investigates the characteristics of the dominant unsteady flow frequencies in different parts of the turbine for various guide vane openings at the highest head. The unsteady flow patterns in the turbine, including the blade channel vortex in the runner and the helical vortex rope in the draft tube, are classified numerically, and the turbine operating regions are partitioned to identify safe operating regions.

The main purpose of this paper is to develop a method to recognize the initial welding position for large-diameter pipeline automatically, and introduce the image processing based on pulse-coupled neural network (PCNN) which is adopted by the proposed method.

In this paper, a passive vision sensor is designed to capture weld seam images in real time. The proposed method contains two steps. The first step is to detect the rough position of the weld seam, and the second step is to recognize one of the solder joints from the local image and extract its centroid, which is regarded as the initial welding position. In each step, image segmentation and removal of small false regions based on PCNN are adopted to obtain the object regions; then, the traditional image processing theory is used for the subsequent processing.

The experimental results show the feasibility and real time of the proposed method. Based on vision sensing technology and PCNN, it is able to achieve the autonomous recognition of initial welding position in large-diameter pipeline welding.

The proposed method can greatly shorten the time of positioning the initial welding position and satisfy the automatic welding for large-diameter pipeline.

In the proposed method, the image pre-processing is based on PCNN, which is more robust and flexible in the complex welding environment. After that, traditional image processing theory is adopted for the subsequent processing, of which the processing speed is faster.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the importance of market imperfection, namely, variation in managerial ability (MA), on dividend policy in China. The authors focus on the Chinese market as it is dominated by state-owned enterprises and test whether the association between MA and dividend policy varies systematically with the degree of state ownership.

To measure MA, this study exploits a novel measure developed by Demerjian et al. (2012) to estimate how efficiently manager utilizes firm’s resources. Manager efficiency is defined in terms of output a manager produces based on inputs available within firm.

The authors find that relationship between MA and dividend policy is primarily driven by non-state own enterprises compare to state own enterprises, more prevalent for financially unconstrained firms with strong balance sheet and more pronounced under high marketized groups as compare to low marketized groups. These finding are robust under battery of robustness checks. This research adds new insight for the policy makers and investors to pay more attention on MA.

This research adds new insight for the policy makers and investors to pay more attention on MA.

This study augments the dividend policy literature by relaxing perfect capital market assumption of Miller and Modigliani, and neo-classic view of firms by incorporating a new novel factor – variation in MA – and applies it to the emerging market of China.

Examines the ninth published year of the ITCRR. Runs the whole gamut of textile innovation, research and testing, some of which investigates hitherto untouched aspects. Subjects discussed include cotton fabric processing, asbestos substitutes, textile adjuncts to cardiovascular surgery, wet textile processes, hand evaluation, nanotechnology, thermoplastic composites, robotic ironing, protective clothing (agricultural and industrial), ecological aspects of fibre properties – to name but a few! There would appear to be no limit to the future potential for textile applications.

Discusses the 6th ITCRR, its breadth of textile and clothing research activity, plus the encouragement given to workers in this field and its related areas. States that, within the newer research areas under the microscope of the community involved, technical textiles focuses on new, ‘smart’ garments and the initiatives in this field in both the UK and the international community at large. Covers this subject at length.

Examines the tenth published year of the ITCRR. Runs the whole gamut of textile innovation, research and testing, some of which investigates hitherto untouched aspects. Subjects discussed include cotton fabric processing, asbestos substitutes, textile adjuncts to cardiovascular surgery, wet textile processes, hand evaluation, nanotechnology, thermoplastic composites, robotic ironing, protective clothing (agricultural and industrial), ecological aspects of fibre properties – to name but a few! There would appear to be no limit to the future potential for textile applications.

Looks at the eighth published year of the ITCRR and the research, from far and near, involved in this. Muses on the fact that, though all the usual processes are to the fore, the downside part of the industry is garment making which is the least developed side. Posits that the manufacture of clothing needs to become more technologically advanced as does retailing. Closes by emphasising support for the community in all its efforts.