Yan Gao, Kai Chang, Xuguang Xing, Jiaping Liang, Nian He and Xiaoyi Ma
Traditional laboratory measurements of soil water diffusivity (D) and soil water retention curve (SWRC) are always time-consuming and labor-intensive. Therefore, this paper aims…
Abstract
Purpose
Traditional laboratory measurements of soil water diffusivity (D) and soil water retention curve (SWRC) are always time-consuming and labor-intensive. Therefore, this paper aims to present a simple and robust test method for determining D and SWRC without reducing accuracy.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, a D model of unsaturated soil was established based on Gardner–Russo model and then a combination of Gardner–Russo model with one-dimensional horizontal absorption method to obtain n and a parameters of Gardner–Russo model. One-dimensional horizontal absorption experiments on loam, silt loam and sandy clay loam were conducted to obtain the relationships between measured infiltration rate and cumulative infiltration with wetting front distance. Based on the obtained relationships, the measured infiltration data from the one-dimensional horizontal absorption tests were used to calculate n and a parameters and further constructing D and SWRC.
Findings
Both the calculated D and SWRC inversed from the infiltration data were in good agreement with the measured ones that obtained from the traditional horizontal absorption method and the centrifuge method, respectively. Error analysis indicated that only the infiltration data are enough to reliably synchronously determine D and SWRC.
Originality/value
A simple and robust method is proposed for synchronous determination of soil water diffusivity and water retention curve.
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Keywords
Hugh Africa, Council on Higher Education (South Africa)
Chuanmin Mi, Xiaoyi Gou, Yating Ren, Bo Zeng, Jamshed Khalid and Yuhuan Ma
Accurate prediction of seasonal power consumption trends with impact disturbances provides a scientific basis for the flexible balance of the long timescale power system…
Abstract
Purpose
Accurate prediction of seasonal power consumption trends with impact disturbances provides a scientific basis for the flexible balance of the long timescale power system. Consequently, it fosters reasonable scheduling plans, ensuring the safety of the system and improving the economic dispatching efficiency of the power system.
Design/methodology/approach
First, a new seasonal grey buffer operator in the longitudinal and transverse dimensional perspectives is designed. Then, a new seasonal grey modeling approach that integrates the new operator, full real domain fractional order accumulation generation technique, grey prediction modeling tool and fruit fly optimization algorithm is proposed. Moreover, the rationality, scientificity and superiority of the new approach are verified by designing 24 seasonal electricity consumption forecasting approaches, incorporating case study and amalgamating qualitative and quantitative research.
Findings
Compared with other comparative models, the new approach has superior mean absolute percentage error and mean absolute error. Furthermore, the research results show that the new method provides a scientific and effective mathematical method for solving the seasonal trend power consumption forecasting modeling with impact disturbance.
Originality/value
Considering the development trend of longitudinal and transverse dimensions of seasonal data with impact disturbance and the differences in each stage, a new grey buffer operator is constructed, and a new seasonal grey modeling approach with multi-method fusion is proposed to solve the seasonal power consumption forecasting problem.
Highlights
The highlights of the paper are as follows:
A new seasonal grey buffer operator is constructed.
The impact of shock perturbations on seasonal data trends is effectively mitigated.
A novel seasonal grey forecasting approach with multi-method fusion is proposed.
Seasonal electricity consumption is successfully predicted by the novel approach.
The way to adjust China's power system flexibility in the future is analyzed.
A new seasonal grey buffer operator is constructed.
The impact of shock perturbations on seasonal data trends is effectively mitigated.
A novel seasonal grey forecasting approach with multi-method fusion is proposed.
Seasonal electricity consumption is successfully predicted by the novel approach.
The way to adjust China's power system flexibility in the future is analyzed.
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Keywords
Because of increasing wealth inequality, China has been confronted with resentment against the rich (referred to hereafter as RAR or Choufu in Chinese), which is a growing concern…
Abstract
Purpose
Because of increasing wealth inequality, China has been confronted with resentment against the rich (referred to hereafter as RAR or Choufu in Chinese), which is a growing concern owing to its potential to foment social conflict. Drawing on social comparison and deonance theories, this paper aims to provide theoretical insights into RAR within the Chinese context and to develop an RAR scale. Following spillover theory, the attitudinal and behavioral outcomes of RAR in organizational settings will be explored.
Design/methodology/approach
This research consists of two studies. Study 1 conceptualizes RAR and develops an RAR scale by using three separate samples. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses are conducted to establish scale reliability and validity. Study 2 uses hierarchical linear regression analysis to test whether employees’ RAR attitude spills over from the societal to the organizational setting.
Findings
Results suggest that RAR can be conceptualized as two distinct but related dimensions – emotional RAR and moral RAR. These two forms spill over to the workplace, influencing employees’ work attitudes and behaviors. Emotional RAR relates negatively to life satisfaction and prosocial organizational behaviors and positively to unethical organizational behaviors. Moral RAR relates negatively to pay satisfaction and positively to prosocial behaviors.
Practical implications
This research suggests that RAR has spillover effects from societal to organizational settings and demonstrates that a more robust understanding of employees’ workplace experience requires acknowledging social experiences, such as conflicts beyond the workplace.
Originality/value
This research contributes to the conflict management literature by exploring RAR as a negative attitude that serves to potentially ignite social conflict. It not only develops a theory-grounded, conceptual RAR model and a reliable RAR scale but also for the first time explores RAR attitudinal and behavioral outcomes beyond the social domain. This study serves as a meaningful touchstone for future research to incorporate social attitudes into organizational behavior research.
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Ting Li, Xianggang Chen, Junhai Wang, Lixiu Zhang, Xinran Li and Xiaoyi Wei
The purpose of this study is to prepare ZnFe2O4 nanospheres, sheet MoS2 and three ZnFe2O4@MoS2 core-shell composites with various shell thicknesses, and add them to the base oil…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to prepare ZnFe2O4 nanospheres, sheet MoS2 and three ZnFe2O4@MoS2 core-shell composites with various shell thicknesses, and add them to the base oil for friction and wear tests to simulate the wear conditions of hybrid bearings.
Design/methodology/approach
Through the characterization and analysis of the morphology of wear scars and the elemental composition of friction films, the tribological behavior and wear mechanism of sample materials as lubricant additives were investigated and the effects of shell thickness and sample concentration on the tribological properties of core–shell composite lubricant additives were discussed.
Findings
The findings demonstrate that each of the five sample materials can, to varying degrees, enhance the lubricating qualities of the base oil and that the core–shell nanocomposite sample lubricant additive has superior lubricating properties to those of ZnFe2O4 and MoS2 alone, among them ZnFe2O4@MoS2-2 core–shell composites with moderate shell thickness performed most ideally. In addition, the optimal concentration of the ZnFe2O4@MoS2 lubricant additive was 0.5 Wt.%, and a concentration that was too high led to particle deposition and affected the friction effect.
Originality/value
In this work, ZnFe2O4@MoS2 core–shell composites were synthesized for the first time using ZnFe2O4 as the carrier and the lubrication mechanism of core–shell composites and single materials were compared and studied, which illustrated the advantages of core–shell composite lubricant additives. At the same time, the influence of different shell thicknesses on the lubricant additives of core–shell composites was studied.
Peer review
The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-12-2022-0367/
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Lixia Sun, Yuanwu Cai, Di Cheng, Xiaoyi Hu and Chunyang Zhou
Under the high-speed operating conditions, the effects of wheelset elastic deformation on the wheel rail dynamic forces will become more notable compared to the low-speed…
Abstract
Purpose
Under the high-speed operating conditions, the effects of wheelset elastic deformation on the wheel rail dynamic forces will become more notable compared to the low-speed condition. In order to meet different analysis requirements and selecting appropriate models to analyzing the wheel rail interaction, it is crucial to understand the influence of wheelset flexibility on the wheel-rail dynamics under different speeds and track excitations condition.
Design/methodology/approach
The wheel rail contact points solving method and vehicle dynamics equations considering wheelset flexibility in the trajectory body coordinate system were investigated in this paper. As for the wheel-rail contact forces, which is a particular force element in vehicle multibody system, a method for calculating the Jacobian matrix of the wheel-rail contact force is proposed to better couple the wheel-rail contact force calculation with the vehicle dynamics response calculation. Based on the flexible wheelset modeling approach in this paper, two vehicle dynamic models considering the wheelset as both elastic and rigid bodies are established, two kinds of track excitations, namely normal measured track irregularities and short-wave irregularities are used, wheel-rail geometric contact characteristic and wheel-rail contact forces in both time and frequency domains are compared with the two models in order to study the influence of flexible wheelset rotation effect on wheel rail contact force.
Findings
Under normal track irregularity excitations, the amplitudes of vertical, longitudinal and lateral forces computed by the flexible wheelset model are smaller than those of the rigid wheelset model, and the virtual penetration and equivalent contact patch are also slightly smaller. For the flexible wheelset model, the wheel rail longitudinal and lateral creepages will also decrease. The higher the vehicle speed, the larger the differences in wheel-rail forces computed by the flexible and rigid wheelset model. Under track short-wave irregularity excitations, the vertical force amplitude computed by the flexible wheelset is also smaller than that of the rigid wheelset. However, unlike the excitation case of measured track irregularity, under short-wave excitations, for the speed within the range of 200 to 350 km/h, the difference in the amplitude of the vertical force between the flexible and rigid wheelset models gradually decreases as the speed increase. This is partly due to the contribution of wheelset’s elastic vibration under short-wave excitations. For low-frequency wheel-rail force analysis problems at speeds of 350 km/h and above, as well as high-frequency wheel-rail interaction analysis problems under various speed conditions, the flexible wheelset model will give results agrees better with the reality.
Originality/value
This study provides reference for the modeling method of the flexible wheelset and the coupling method of wheel-rail contact force to the vehicle multibody dynamics system. Furthermore, by comparative research, the influence of wheelset flexibility and rotation on wheel-rail dynamic behavior are obtained, which is useful to the application scope of rigid and flexible wheelset models.
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Ting Li, Zhipeng Zhang, Junhai Wang, Tingting Yan, Rui Wang, Xinran Li, Lixiu Zhang and Xiaoyi Wei
This study aims to prepare thymol-based deep eutectic solvents (DESs) and use them as lubricates for friction and wear tests to simulate the wear conditions of hybrid bearings.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to prepare thymol-based deep eutectic solvents (DESs) and use them as lubricates for friction and wear tests to simulate the wear conditions of hybrid bearings.
Design/methodology/approach
Through the characterization and analysis of the morphology of wear scars and the elemental composition of friction films, the tribological behavior and wear mechanism of sample materials as lubricants were investigated and the anti-wear mechanism of thymol-based DESs was discussed.
Findings
The findings demonstrate that because of the formation of a fluid lubrication film and excellent kinematic viscosity, the lubrication effect of the prepared DES is improved by about 50% compared to the base lubricating oil. The prepared [Ch]Cl-thymol DES has a better anti-friction and lubrication effect than citric-thymol, EG-thymol and urea-thymol DESs, with an average friction coefficient of about 0.04.
Originality/value
In this work, the friction reduction properties of thymol-based DESs were studied as lubricants for the first time, and the lubrication mechanism of sample materials was investigated.
Details
Keywords
Cuiwei Mao, Xiaoyi Gou and Bo Zeng
This paper aims to overcome the problem that the single structure of the driving term of the grey prediction model is not adapted to the complexity and diversity of the actual…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to overcome the problem that the single structure of the driving term of the grey prediction model is not adapted to the complexity and diversity of the actual modeling objects, which leads to poor modeling results.
Design/methodology/approach
Firstly, the nonlinear law between the raw data and time point is fully mined by expanding the nonlinear term and the range of order. Secondly, through the synchronous optimization of model structure and parameter, the dynamic adjustment of the model with the change of the modeled object is realized. Finally, the objective optimization of nonlinear driving term and cumulative order of the model is realized by particle swarm optimization PSO algorithm.
Findings
The model can achieve strong compatibility with multiple existing models through parameter transformation. The synchronous optimization of model structure and parameter has a significant improvement over the single optimization method. The new model has a wide range of applications and strong modeling capabilities.
Originality/value
A novel grey prediction model with structure variability and optimizing parameter synchronization is proposed.
Highlights
The highlights of the paper are as follows:
A new grey prediction model with a unified nonlinear structure is proposed.
The new model can be fully compatible with multiple traditional grey models.
The new model solves the defect of poor adaptability of the traditional grey models.
The parameters of the new model are optimized by PSO algorithm.
Cases verify that the new model outperforms other models significantly.
A new grey prediction model with a unified nonlinear structure is proposed.
The new model can be fully compatible with multiple traditional grey models.
The new model solves the defect of poor adaptability of the traditional grey models.
The parameters of the new model are optimized by PSO algorithm.
Cases verify that the new model outperforms other models significantly.
Details
Keywords
Jianwei Zhang, Xiaoyi Jiang and Xiaobin Pan
Legislation plays an essential role in addressing climate change in China. However, many barriers to formulating national legislation to address climate change have so far…
Abstract
Purpose
Legislation plays an essential role in addressing climate change in China. However, many barriers to formulating national legislation to address climate change have so far prevented its enactment. The bottom-up approach adopted in the international climate regime sets a good example. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to discuss the regional legislation to address climate change in China through exploring the following two questions: whether it is necessary to enact climate change legislation at regional level first and whether it is feasible to develop such regional legislation in the absence of national climate change law.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper analyses the necessity and feasibility of regional legislation to address climate change. Section 2 introduces the current legislative framework on climate change in China. Section 3 investigates whether it is better to push the legislative agenda at regional, rather than national level. Section 4 analyses the feasibility of establishing regional legislative systems. Section 5 explores the key issues in formulating and promoting regional legislation.
Findings
This paper concludes that it is necessary and feasible to pilot regional legislation before enacting national legislation. Under these circumstances, local governments can take the initiative to begin formulating regional legislation.
Originality/value
Addressing climate change needs immediate action and effective measures. It is, thus, necessary to reconsider the approach that China should adopt when developing legislation on climate change. This paper contributes to broadening current knowledge of regional climate change legislation in China.
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This paper believes that while implementing the gradual delay retirement age policy in China, the impact should be considered comprehensively; we should pay attention to impacts…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper believes that while implementing the gradual delay retirement age policy in China, the impact should be considered comprehensively; we should pay attention to impacts brought by the delayed retirement policy and introduce policies to deal with the impacts in a timely manner.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper aims to explore the delayed retirement’s impact on women’s labor supply and to clarify the elderly care’s role in it.
Findings
The results found that the delayed retirement has a positive effect on the women’s overall and young women’s labor supply, with a more significant promotion for young women’s labor supply. The mediation results suggest that delayed retirement promotes women’s labor supply by affecting elderly care. Therefore, we believe that while implementing the gradual delay retirement policy in China, it is important to implement it on the correct estimation basis so as to reduce the volatility in the labor market.
Originality/value
This paper may produce marginal contributions in the following two aspects: From the research perspective, we construct a model containing delayed retirement, elderly care and women’s labor supply and illustrate how the delayed retirement promotes women’s labor supply by affecting elderly care. Secondly, from the research content, this paper expands the delayed retirement on macro-employment and further explores the micro-impact on employment.