Yilin Zhang, Zhenyu Cheng and Qingsong He
For the developing countries involving in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) with China as the main source of foreign development investment (FDI) and development as the top…
Abstract
Purpose
For the developing countries involving in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) with China as the main source of foreign development investment (FDI) and development as the top priority, it appears to attract more and more attention on how to make the best use of China’s outward foreign development investment. However, the contradictory evidence in the previous studies of FDI spillover effect and the remarkable time-lag feature of spillovers motivate us to analyze the mechanism of FDI spillover effect. The paper aims to discuss this issue.
Design/methodology/approach
The mechanism of FDI spillovers and the unavoidable lag effect in this process are empirically analyzed. Based on the panel data from the Belt and Road developing countries (BRDCs) and China’s direct investments (CDIs) from 2003 to 2017, the authors establish a panel vector autoregressive model, employing impulse response function and variance decomposition analysis, together with Granger causality test.
Findings
Results suggest a dynamic interactive causality mechanism. First, CDI promotes the economic growth of BRDCs through technical efficiency, human capital and institutional transition with combined lags of five, nine and eight years. Second, improvements in the technical efficiency and institutional quality promote economic growth by facilitating the human capital with integrated delays of six and eight years. Third, China’s investment directly affects the economic growth of BRDCs, with a time lag of six years. The average time lag is about eight years.
Originality/value
Based on the analysis on the mechanism and time lag of FDI spillovers, the authors have shown that many previous articles using one-year lagged FDI to examine the spillover effect have systematic biases, which contributes to the research on the FDI spillover mechanism. It provides new views for host countries on how to make more effective use of FDI, especially for BRDCs using CDIs.
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Zhenyu Ma, Yupeng Zhang, Xuguang An, Jing Zhang, Qingquan Kong, Hui Wang, Weitang Yao and Qingyuan Wang
The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of nano ZrC particles on the mechanical and electrochemical corrosion properties of FeCrAl alloys, providing a beneficial…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of nano ZrC particles on the mechanical and electrochemical corrosion properties of FeCrAl alloys, providing a beneficial reference basis for the development of high-performance carbide reinforced FeCrAl alloys with good mechanical and corrosion properties in the future.
Design/methodology/approach
Nano ZrC reinforced FeCrAl alloys were prepared by mechanical alloying and spark plasma sintering. Phases composition, tensile fractography, corrosion morphology and chemical composition of nano ZrC reinforced FeCrAl alloys were analyzed by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, respectively. Microhardness and tensile properties of nano ZrC reinforced FeCrAl alloys were investigated by mechanical testing machine and Vickers hardness tester. Electrochemical corrosion properties of nano ZrC reinforced FeCrAl alloys were investigated by electrochemical workstation in 3.5 wt.% NaCl solution.
Findings
The results showed that addition of nano ZrC can effectively improve the mechanical and corrosion properties. However, excessive nano ZrC could decrease the mechanical properties and reduce the corrosion resistance. In all the FeCrAl alloys, FeCrAl–0.6 wt.% ZrC alloy exhibits the optimum mechanical properties with an ultimate tensile strength, elongation and hardness of 990.7 MPa, 24.1% and 335.8 HV1, respectively, and FeCrAl–0.2 wt.% ZrC alloy has a lower corrosion potential (−0.179 V) and corrosion current density (2.099 µA/cm2) and larger pitting potential (0.497 V) than other FeCrAl–ZrC alloys, showing a better corrosion resistance.
Originality/value
Adding proper nano ZrC particles can effectively improve the mechanical and corrosion properties, while the excessive nano ZrC is harmful to the mechanical and corrosion properties of FeCrAl alloys, which provides an instruction to develop high-performance FeCrAl cladding materials.
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Zhiping Hou, Jun Wan, Zhenyu Wang and Changgui Li
In confronting the challenge of climate change and progressing towards dual carbon goals, China is actively implementing low-carbon city pilot policy. This paper aims to focus on…
Abstract
Purpose
In confronting the challenge of climate change and progressing towards dual carbon goals, China is actively implementing low-carbon city pilot policy. This paper aims to focus on the potential impact of this policy on enterprise green governance, aiming to promote the reduction and balance of carbon emissions.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on the panel data of China's large-scale industrial enterprises from 2007 to 2013, this paper uses the Difference-in-differences (DID) method to study the impact and path mechanism of the implementation of low-carbon city pilot policy on enterprise green governance. Heterogeneity analysis is used to compare the effects of low-carbon city pilot policy in different regions, different enterprises and different industries.
Findings
The low-carbon pilot can indeed effectively enhance corporate green governance, a conclusion that still holds after a series of robustness tests. The low-carbon city pilot policy mainly enhances enterprise green governance through two paths: an industrial structure upgrade and enterprise energy consumption, and it improves green governance by reducing enterprise energy consumption through industrial structure upgrade. The impact of low-carbon city pilot policy on enterprise green governance shows significant differences across different regions, different enterprises and different industries.
Research limitations/implications
This paper examines the impact of low-carbon city pilot policy on enterprise green governance. However, due to availability of data, there are still some limitations to be further tackled. The parallel trend test in this paper shows that the pilot policy has a significant positive effect on the green governance of enterprises. However, due to serious lack of data in some years, the authors only selected the enterprise data of a shorter period as our experimental data, which leads the results to still have certain deficiencies. For the verification of the impact mechanism, the conclusions obtained in this paper are relatively limited. Although all the mechanism tests are passed, the reliability of the results still needs to be further tested through future data samples. In addition, as the pilot policy of low-carbon cities is still in progress, the policy can be tracked and analysed in the future as more data are disclosed, and further research can be carried out through dimensional expansion.
Practical implications
Low-carbon city pilot policy plays an important role in inducing the green governance of enterprises. Therefore, policy makers can continue to strengthen the construction of low-carbon city pilots by refining pilot experience, building typical cases, actively promoting pilot policy experience, expanding pilot scope and enhancing the implementation efficiency of pilot policy nationwide, which will contribute to the optimization and upgrading of the regional industrial structure at the urban level and will provide experience and reference for the synergistic implementation plan of pollution reduction and carbon reduction.
Social implications
The impact of the low-carbon city pilot policy on enterprise green governance not only exists in two separate paths of urban industrial upgrading and enterprise energy consumption but also exists in a chain transmission path from macro to micro. The authors find that the effect value of each influence path is different, and there is an obvious leading influence path for the role of enterprise green governance. Therefore, in the process of implementing a low-carbon city pilot policy, policies should be designed specifically for different mechanisms. Moreover, complementing and coordinating several paths should be advocated to give full play to the green governance effect of enterprises brought by different paths and to further expand the scope of industries and enterprises where policies play a role.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, for the first time, this paper connects macro mechanisms with micro mechanisms, discovering a macro-to-micro transmission mechanism in the process of low-carbon city pilot policy affecting enterprise green governance. That is, the low-carbon city pilot policy can facilitate industrial structure upgrading, resulting in reduced enterprise energy consumption, ultimately enhancing enterprise green governance.
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Lixin Zhou, Zhenyu Zhang, Laijun Zhao and Pingle Yang
Online open innovation platforms provide opportunities for product users to participate in the innovation process and contribute their ideas to the platform. Nonetheless, they…
Abstract
Purpose
Online open innovation platforms provide opportunities for product users to participate in the innovation process and contribute their ideas to the platform. Nonetheless, they also present a significant challenge for platform managers, who select high-quality innovations from a massive collection of information with diverse quality.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, the authors employed a machine learning method to automatically collect a real dataset of 2,276 innovations and 30,004 detailed comments from the online platform of IdeaExchange and then conducted empirical experiments to verify the study hypothesis.
Findings
Results show that extraversion, conscientiousness and openness to experience positively and directly influenced the quality of their innovation. Furthermore, an individual's social network position mediated among extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness and openness to experience and the quality of an innovation.
Research limitations/implications
Results showed that extraversion, conscientiousness and openness to experience positively and directly influenced the quality of their innovation. Furthermore, an individual's social network position mediated among extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness, openness to experience and the quality of innovations.
Originality/value
This study combined the Big Five personality traits theory and social network theory to examine the association between user intrinsic personality traits, social network position and the quality of their innovative ideas in the context of online innovation platforms. Additionally, the findings provide new insights for platform managers on how to select high-quality innovation information by considering user personality traits and their social network position.
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Weifei Hu, Tongzhou Zhang, Xiaoyu Deng, Zhenyu Liu and Jianrong Tan
Digital twin (DT) is an emerging technology that enables sophisticated interaction between physical objects and their virtual replicas. Although DT has recently gained significant…
Abstract
Digital twin (DT) is an emerging technology that enables sophisticated interaction between physical objects and their virtual replicas. Although DT has recently gained significant attraction in both industry and academia, there is no systematic understanding of DT from its development history to its different concepts and applications in disparate disciplines. The majority of DT literature focuses on the conceptual development of DT frameworks for a specific implementation area. Hence, this paper provides a state-of-the-art review of DT history, different definitions and models, and six types of key enabling technologies. The review also provides a comprehensive survey of DT applications from two perspectives: (1) applications in four product-lifecycle phases, i.e. product design, manufacturing, operation and maintenance, and recycling and (2) applications in four categorized engineering fields, including aerospace engineering, tunneling and underground engineering, wind engineering and Internet of things (IoT) applications. DT frameworks, characteristic components, key technologies and specific applications are extracted for each DT category in this paper. A comprehensive survey of the DT references reveals the following findings: (1) The majority of existing DT models only involve one-way data transfer from physical entities to virtual models and (2) There is a lack of consideration of the environmental coupling, which results in the inaccurate representation of the virtual components in existing DT models. Thus, this paper highlights the role of environmental factor in DT enabling technologies and in categorized engineering applications. In addition, the review discusses the key challenges and provides future work for constructing DTs of complex engineering systems.
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Zhenpeng He, Wenqin Gong, Weisong Xie, Guichang Zhang and Zhenyu Hong
Piston ring dynamic problem plays an important role in the lubricant characteristics of a reciprocating engine, which lead to engine wear and the increased consumption of…
Abstract
Purpose
Piston ring dynamic problem plays an important role in the lubricant characteristics of a reciprocating engine, which lead to engine wear and the increased consumption of lubricating oil. A cavitation analysis of the piston ring lubrication with two-dimensional Reynolds equation has rarely been reported owing to the complex working condition. The purpose of this study is to establish a precise model that can provide guidance for the design of the piston ring.
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, a cavitation model and its effect on the piston ring lubrication was studied in a simulation program based on the mass-conserving theory which is solved by means of the Newton–Raphson method. In this study, some models such as mixed lubrication, asperity contact, blow-by/blow-back flow and cavitation have been coupled with the lubrication model.
Findings
The established model has been compared with the traditional model that deals with cavitation by using the Reynolds boundary condition algorithm. The cavitation zone, pressure distribution and density distribution between the piston ring and the cylinder have also been predicted. Studies of the changing trend for the pressure distribution and the cavitation zone at few typical crank angles have been listed to illustrate the cavitation changing rule. The analysis of the results indicates that the developed simulation model can adequately illustrate the lubrication problem of the piston ring system. All the analyses will provide guidance for the oil film rupture and the reformation process.
Originality/value
A two-dimensional cavitation model based on the mass-conserving theory has been built. The cavitation-forming and -developing process for the piston ring–liner lubrication has been studied. Non-cavitation occurs in the vicinity of top dead center and bottom dead center. The non-cavitation period will be longer in the vicinity of 360° of crank angle. The density distribution in the cavitation zone can be obtained.
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Gan Zhan, Zhihua Chen, Zhenyu Zhang, Jigang Zhan, Wentao Yu and Jiehao Li
This study aims to address the issue of random movement and non coordination between docking mechanisms and locking mechanisms, and proposes a comprehensive dynamic docking…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to address the issue of random movement and non coordination between docking mechanisms and locking mechanisms, and proposes a comprehensive dynamic docking control architecture that integrates perception, planning, and motion control.
Design/methodology/approach
Firstly, the proposed dynamic docking control architecture uses laser sensors and a charge-coupled device camera to perceive the pose of the target. The sensor data are mapped to a high-dimensional potential field space and fused to reduce interference caused by detection noise. Next, a new potential function based on multi-dimensional space is developed for docking path planning, which enables the docking mechanism based on Stewart platform to rapidly converge to the target axis of the locking mechanism, which improves the adaptability and terminal docking accuracy of the docking state. Finally, to achieve precise tracking and flexible docking in the final stage, the system combines a self-impedance controller and an impedance control algorithm based on the planned trajectory.
Findings
Extensive simulations and experiments have been conducted to validate the effectiveness of the dynamic docking system and its control architecture. The results indicate that even if the target moves randomly, the system can successfully achieve accurate, stable and flexible dynamic docking.
Originality/value
This research can provide technical guidance and reference for docking task of unmanned vehicles under the ground conditions. It can also provide ideas for space docking missions, such as space simulator docking.
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Ning Chen, Zhenyu Zhang and An Chen
Consequence prediction is an emerging topic in safety management concerning the severity outcome of accidents. In practical applications, it is usually implemented through…
Abstract
Purpose
Consequence prediction is an emerging topic in safety management concerning the severity outcome of accidents. In practical applications, it is usually implemented through supervised learning methods; however, the evaluation of classification results remains a challenge. The previous studies mostly adopted simplex evaluation based on empirical and quantitative assessment strategies. This paper aims to shed new light on the comprehensive evaluation and comparison of diverse classification methods through visualization, clustering and ranking techniques.
Design/methodology/approach
An empirical study is conducted using 9 state-of-the-art classification methods on a real-world data set of 653 construction accidents in China for predicting the consequence with respect to 39 carefully featured factors and accident type. The proposed comprehensive evaluation enriches the interpretation of classification results from different perspectives. Furthermore, the critical factors leading to severe construction accidents are identified by analyzing the coefficients of a logistic regression model.
Findings
This paper identifies the critical factors that significantly influence the consequence of construction accidents, which include accident type (particularly collapse), improper accident reporting and handling (E21), inadequate supervision engineers (O41), no special safety department (O11), delayed or low-quality drawings (T11), unqualified contractor (C21), schedule pressure (C11), multi-level subcontracting (C22), lacking safety examination (S22), improper operation of mechanical equipment (R11) and improper construction procedure arrangement (T21). The prediction models and findings of critical factors help make safety intervention measures in a targeted way and enhance the experience of safety professionals in the construction industry.
Research limitations/implications
The empirical study using some well-known classification methods for forecasting the consequences of construction accidents provides some evidence for the comprehensive evaluation of multiple classifiers. These techniques can be used jointly with other evaluation approaches for a comprehensive understanding of the classification algorithms. Despite the limitation of specific methods used in the study, the presented methodology can be configured with other classification methods and performance metrics and even applied to other decision-making problems such as clustering.
Originality/value
This study sheds new light on the comprehensive comparison and evaluation of classification results through visualization, clustering and ranking techniques using an empirical study of consequence prediction of construction accidents. The relevance of construction accident type is discussed with the severity of accidents. The critical factors influencing the accident consequence are identified for the sake of taking prevention measures for risk reduction. The proposed method can be applied to other decision-making tasks where the evaluation is involved as an important component.
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Qing Jiang, Yuhang Wan, Xiaoqian Li, Xueru Qu, Shengnan Ouyang, Yi Qin, Zhenyu Zhu, Yushu Wang, Hualing He and Zhicai Yu
This study aims to evaluate the thermal performance of sodium alginate (SA) aerogel attached to nano SiO2 and its radiative cooling effect on firefighting clothing without…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to evaluate the thermal performance of sodium alginate (SA) aerogel attached to nano SiO2 and its radiative cooling effect on firefighting clothing without environmental pollution.
Design/methodology/approach
SA/SiO2 aerogel with refractory heat insulation and enhanced radiative cooling performance was fabricated by freeze-drying method, which can be used in firefighting clothing. The microstructure, chemical composition, thermal stability, and thermal emissivity were analyzed using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, thermogravimetric analyzer and infrared emissivity measurement instrument. The radiative cooling effect of aerogel was studied using thermal infrared imager and thermocouple.
Findings
When the addition of SiO2 is 25% of SA, the prepared aerogel has excellent heat insulation and a high radiative cooling effect. Under a clear sky, the temperature of SA/SiO2 aerogel is 9.4°C lower than that of pure SA aerogel and 22.1°C lower than that of the simulated environment. In addition, aerogel has more exceptional heat insulation effect than other common fabrics in the heat insulation performance test.
Research limitations/implications
SA/SiO2 aerogel has passive radiative cooling function, which can efficaciously economize global energy, and it is paramount to environment-friendly cooling.
Practical implications
This method could pave the way for high-performance cooling materials designed for firefighting clothing to keep maintain the wearing comfort of firefighters.
Originality/value
SA/SiO2 aerogel used in firefighting clothing can release heat to the low-temperature outer space in the form of thermal radiation to achieve its own cooling purpose, without additional energy supply.
Graphical abstract
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Jinrong Huang, Zongjun Wang, Zhenyu Jiang and Qin Zhong
Previous studies have mostly discussed the impact of environmental policy on enterprise innovation, but the discussion on how turbulence in environmental policy may affect firms'…
Abstract
Purpose
Previous studies have mostly discussed the impact of environmental policy on enterprise innovation, but the discussion on how turbulence in environmental policy may affect firms' green innovation has been insufficient. This paper explores the effect of environmental policy uncertainty on corporate green innovation in the turnover of environmental protection officials (EPOT) context.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors manually collected the data on the EPOT of 280 Chinese prefecture-level cities, and used the Poisson regression model to conduct empirical analyses based on the panel data of 1472 Chinese listed manufacturing firms from 2008 to 2017.
Findings
The results show that environmental policy uncertainty leads firms to reduce their green patent applications only for green invention patent applications. Such an effect is more pronounced in non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs). In addition, when the new directors of the Ecology and Environmental Bureau take office through promotions or are no more than 55 years old, the negative effect is more obvious, but there is no significant difference regardless of whether new directors have worked in environmental protection departments.
Originality/value
First, this paper supplements the research on the antecedents of corporate green innovation from the perspective of environmental policy uncertainty and extends the applications of real options theory. Second, this paper expands the research on the government–business relationship from the EPOT perspective.