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This paper aims to address the challenges in hydroacoustic signal detection, signal distortion and target localization caused by baseline drift. The authors propose a combined algorithm that integrates short-time Fourier transform (STFT) detection, smoothness priors approach (SPA), attitude calibration and direction of arrival (DOA) estimation for micro-electro-mechanical system vector hydrophones.

Initially, STFT method screens target signals with baseline drift in low signal-to-noise ratio environments, facilitating easier subsequent processing. Next, SPA is applied to the screened target signal, effectively removing the baseline drift, and combined with filtering to improve the signal-to-noise ratio. Then, vector channel amplitudes are corrected using attitude correction with 2D compass data. Finally, the absolute target azimuth is estimated using the minimum variance distortion-free response beamformer.

Simulation and experimental results demonstrate that the SPA outperforms high-pass filtering in removing baseline drift and is comparable to the effectiveness of variational mode decomposition, with significantly shorter processing times, making it more suitable for real-time applications. The detection performance of the STFT method is superior to instantaneous correlation detection and sample entropy methods. The final DOA estimation achieves an accuracy within 2°, enabling precise target azimuth estimation.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to apply SPA to baseline drift removal in hydroacoustic signals, significantly enhancing the efficiency and accuracy of signal processing. It demonstrates the method’s outstanding performance in the field of underwater signal processing. In addition, it confirms the reliability and feasibility of STFT for signal detection in the presence of baseline drift.

The significant cultural difference between China and Western countries, primarily the USA, suggests that it is necessary for researchers to take an emic approach to understand how the concept of privacy concerns is interpreted from the perspective of people from within the Chinese culture. However, all privacy concerns studies in the Chinese context have virtually adopted an etic approach. Therefore, this study aims to answer the following questions: What dimensions do privacy concerns encompass in the Chinese cultural context? What are the structural relationships among these dimensions? The authors answer these questions by conducting a mixed method research.

The authors first content analyzed Chinese news reports about information privacy and found that trading, management and awareness are relevant dimensions of privacy concerns. Further, the authors validated the three dimensions by surveying 185 Chinese consumers.

The data showed that Chinese consumers’ privacy concerns have a second-order factor structure, where the trading, management and awareness dimensions are first-order factors.

The results of this research contribute to the literature by developing the construct of privacy concerns that fits the context of Chinese culture and also point out possible managerial practices to mitigate Chinese consumers’ privacy concerns.

The purpose of this work is to design the wire beam electrode (WBE) of P110 steel and study its corrosion behavior and mechanism under high temperature and pressure.

Packaging materials of the new type P110 steel WBE and high pressure stable WBE structure were designed. A metallurgical microscope (XJP-3C) and scanning electron microscopy (EV0 MA15 Zeiss) with an energy dispersive spectrometer were used to analyze the microstructure and composition of the P110 steel. The electrochemical workstation (CS310, CorrTest Instrument Co., Ltd) with a WBE potential and current scanner was used to analyze the corrosion mechanism of P110 steel.

According to the analysis of Nyquist plots at different temperatures, the corrosion resistance of P110 steel decreases with the increase of temperature under atmospheric pressure. In addition, R_p of P110 steel under high pressure is maintained in the range of 200 ∼ 375 Ωcm², while that under atmospheric pressure is maintained in the range of 20 ∼ 160 Ωcm², indicating that the corrosion products on P110 steel under high pressure is denser, which improves the corrosion resistance of P110 steel to a certain extent.

The WBE applied in high temperature and pressure environment is in blank. This work designed and prepared a WBE of P110 steel for high temperature and pressure environment, and the corrosion mechanism of P110 steel was revealed by using the designed WBE.

This paper aims to develop a finite element analysis strategy, which is suitable for the analysis of progressive failure that occurs in pressure-dependent materials in practical engineering problems.

The numerical difficulties stemming from the strain-softening behaviour of the frictional material, which is represented by a non-associated Drucker–Prager material model, is tackled using the Cosserat continuum theory, while the mixed finite element formulation based on Hu–Washizu variational principle is adopted to allow the utilization of low-order finite elements.

The effectiveness and robustness of the low-order finite element are verified, and the simulation for a real-world landslide which occurred at the upstream side of Carsington embankment in Derbyshire reconfirms the advantages of the developed elastoplastic Cosserat continuum scheme in capturing the entire progressive failure process when the strain-softening and the non-associated plastic law are involved.

The permit of using low-order finite elements is of great importance to enhance computational efficiency for analysing large-scale engineering problems. The case study reconfirms the advantages of the developed elastoplastic Cosserat continuum scheme in capturing the entire progressive failure process when the strain-softening and the non-associated plastic law are involved.

To solve several “inorganic” problems generated recently by community development in China (e.g., waste of social resources, environmental pollution, and decreased economic energy efficiency), focus should be on improving the community traffic organic micro-circulation system. As a historic and mixed functional urban community, the micro-circulation system of Xi'an Railway Bureau exhibits representativeness and complexity. Based on existing research results and years of follow-up investigations, which concentrate on circulation patterns and inherent organic development requirements of the community traffic micro-circulation system, this paper builds an evaluation index system. Value function method was used to implement the index factor quantitative analysis and comprehensive evaluation. Several related strategies were proposed to improve the organic micro-circulation system of the community, which is based on the analysis of the evaluation, in order to adopt the trend in both increasing urban development and stock updating. The analysis results demonstrate that it is necessary to present guiding renewal strategies on community land, road, people, and the environment for those mixed functional communities which use progressive renewed mode. It compensates the problems of overly strong export-oriented system, which is caused by the lack of organic traffic micro-circulation, so as to achieve the selective opening of community external. The study mainly highlights the significance of the systematic analysis of evaluation in influencing strategies on community renewal.

This paper aims to present a novel structural reliability analysis scheme with considering the structural strength degradation for the wing spar of a generic hypersonic aircraft to guarantee flight safety and structural reliability.

A logarithmic model with strength degradation for the wing spar is constructed, and a reliability model of the wing spar is established based on stress-strength interference theory and total probability theorem.

It is demonstrated that the proposed reliability analysis scheme can obtain more accurate structural reliability and failure results for the wing spar, and the strength degradation cannot be neglected. Furthermore, the obtained results will provide an important reference for the structural safety of hypersonic aircraft.

The proposed reliability analysis scheme has not implemented in actual flight, as all the simulations are conducted according to the actual experiment data.

The proposed reliability analysis scheme can solve the structural life problem of the wing spar for hypersonic aircraft and meet engineering practice requirements, and it also provides an important reference to guarantee the flight safety and structural reliability for hypersonic aircraft.

To describe the damage evolution more accurately, with consideration of strength degradation, flight dynamics and material characteristics of the hypersonic aircraft, the stress-strength interference method is first applied to analyze the structural reliability of the wing spar for the hypersonic aircraft. The proposed analysis scheme is implemented on the dynamic model of the hypersonic aircraft, and the simulation demonstrates that a more reasonable reliability result can be achieved.

A holistic understanding of sources that evoke customer emotions is essential for creating a positive emotional customer experience (ECX). Despite a significant focus on the cognitive aspect of customer experience and traditional customer behaviours (e.g. loyalty and satisfaction), limited attention has been paid to ECX and co-creation behaviours. The purpose of this paper is to address this important knowledge gap by identifying different emotions and prominent sources of ECX (i.e. emotion triggers and constructors) during service interactions. By doing so, key customer co-creation behaviours are also identified, which help enhance positive customer experience.

A combined application of the appraisal theory and thematic analysis was used to explore ECX, its sources and co-creation behaviours as observed from 1,063 TripAdvisor customer reviews of luxury hotels in Ireland.

The results show that a single service interaction can evoke multiple emotions during the interaction process. The findings capture prominent emotions that customers experience and various important emotion triggers (physical environment, service management and offerings and human interaction) and constructors (customer expectation, accumulated service experience and culture fusion and authenticity). Three main customer co-creation behaviours (reinforcing intention, active and resourceful behaviours), which help facilitate the co-creation of positive customer emotions, are also identified.

The study proposes a new framework that provides unique insights into ECX to guide service improvement and innovation. A novel approach of applying the appraisal theory to a netnographic study is used to develop an ECX framework, which integrates various emotion triggers and constructors, and subsequent customer co-creation behaviours in the hotel industry.

To suppress fatigue damage and ensure structural safety, this paper aims to analyze the effect of the damage accumulation on the aeroelastic model of an air-breathing hypersonic flight vehicle (AHFV).

Initially, by constructing the modified longitudinal elastic model of an AHFV, the stress condition of the fuselage is analyzed, and the model differences with the rigid body are studied. Then, a new damage dynamic model is presented to describe the damage dynamic evolution. Finally, combining the damage model and the longitudinal model of the AHFV, the key variables affecting the damage accumulation are determined.

It is demonstrated that the elastic deformation must be considered when analyzing the damage characteristics of the fuselage and to determine the key variables that affect the damage accumulation, which provides a more accurate reference for improving the structural reliability and lifespan of AHFVs.

The novelty of this paper comes from the application of the force and stress models for the damage evolution of the AHFV and the development of a new damage model for the entire body with the elastic dynamics of AHFVs.

Based on the theory of “optimal contracting approach” and “the managerial power approach”, this paper aims to investigate whether senior executives of listed companies in China make use of their power to gain their own private benefits. The paper also compares compensation contracts between state- and private-owned enterprises to test whether there is a significant difference between senior executives from different ownership types of enterprises in terms of compensation contracts.

The paper raises four hypotheses based on the theories of “company agency”, “optimal contracting approach” and “managerial power approach”. After that, 5,680 A-share-listed companies of stock market in Shanghai and in Shenzhen Stock Market from 2008 to 2012 were taken as research samples to conduct a series of research analysis, including t-test, reliability analysis and regression analysis, with the help of SPSS 18.0.

The senior executives of listed companies in China could make use of their power to increase their own salary to gain power pay and, at the same time, company performance, company size and other factors that are important to influence the executive compensation. This paper further argues that senior executives of private-owned listed companies are more likely to use their power to obtain power pay and increase their own compensation. Additionally, the agency costs of Chinese listed companies are negatively related to the performance pay of senior executives, whereas there is no obvious negative correlation with the power pay of senior executives.

This paper takes multiple, in-depth approaches to study the relationship among managerial power, agency cost and executive compensation and to find out the differences in compensation contracts of senior executives between private-owned listed companies and state-owned companies. It also provides necessary suggestions to ensure the interests of stockholders, such as: optimizing the management structure of listed companies; improving the transparence of information disclosure of listed companies; establishing effective mechanism of incentive and constraint; and improving and standardizing the market of professional managers.

The compensation contract of senior executives in China is critical to enhance enterprises’ performance, and it will become an important factor that will facilitate the interests of stockholders and management. However, this paper argues that some phenomena of over-payment of senior executives in listed companies cannot be explained by the theory of “optimal contracting approach”, but it is necessary and important to compare the differences of compensation contract of senior executives between private-owned listed companies and state-owned companies. A series of findings are proposed in this paper.

This paper made use of a principal analysis to extract the main factors that could represent the managerial power from different angles. In addition, this paper also compared the differences between compensation contracts of senior executives between private-owned listed companies and state-owned companies. Additionally, in this paper, the compensation of senior executives was divided into “power compensation” and “performance compensation”, which were used to test the relationship with the management cost of companies.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how credit ratings affect corporate financial behavior from the perspective of merger and acquisition (M&A) decisions. The goal is to test the financing and supervisory effects of credit ratings and study the economic consequences of credit ratings in the context of China.

Using a sample of Chinese A-share listed companies over the 2008–2017 period, this paper empirically examines the effect of credit ratings on firms’ M&A decisions. The authors used a probit model for regression when they tested the effect of credit rating on M&A likelihood and a tobit model when they tested the effect of credit rating on M&A intensity.

First, rated enterprises tend to make more acquisitions compared with non-rated enterprises, consistent with the hypothesis that credit ratings alleviate financing constraints. Second, high-rated enterprises are more cautious toward M&As due to concerns about preserving their ratings, which indicates that credit ratings also play a supervisory role in the M&A process. Additional tests show that enterprises reduce M&A activity after a rating downgrade to avoid further deterioration in their ratings; this further supports the supervisory role of credit ratings.

This paper adds incremental evidence to the literature on the impact of credit ratings on corporate financial behavior and extends the literature on the factors influencing M&As. The authors provided empirical evidence from emerging capital markets for the financing and supervisory effects of credit ratings and provided theoretical guidance for promoting the stable, long-term development of China’s credit rating industry.