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This paper adds to finance pedagogy related to the wealth accumulation stage of retirement planning using techniques that rely heavily on understanding the time value of money (TVM) concepts.

We provide a step-by-step explanation of a retirement wealth accumulation model, accompanied by a detailed numerical example ready for use in the classroom.

We present a systematic approach to estimate the retirement nest egg and the target return required to achieve the nest egg. The estimated target return is suggested as a primary determinant of an investor’s asset allocation for retirement wealth accumulation. Our approach directly links the estimated nest egg with a target return estimation and asset allocation decisions.

This paper contributes to retirement planning pedagogy by employing a unique model that applies TVM concepts relevant to the wealth accumulation stage.

This paper aims to investigate the influences of process parameters on part quality, electrical energy consumption. Moreover, the relationship between part quality and energy consumption of UTR9000 photosensitive resin fabricated by stereolithography apparatus (SLA) was also assessed.

Main effect plots and contour maps were used to analyze the interactions and effects of various parameters on energy consumption and part quality, respectively. Then, a growth rate was used defined as the percentage of the value of energy consumption (or the part quality) of the sample compared to the minimum value of the energy consumption (or the same part quality), to jointly analyze relationships between part quality and energy consumption on a specific process parameter.

The part qualities can be improved with increased energy consumption via adjusting layer thickness, without further increasing energy consumption through adjusting laser power, over-cure and scanning distance. Energy consumption can be highly saved while slightly decreasing the tensile strength by increasing layer thickness from 0.09 mm to 0.12 mm. Energy consumption and surface roughness can be decreased when setting laser power near 290 mW. Setting an appropriate over-cure of about 0.23 mm will improve tensile strength and dimensional accuracy with a little bit more energy consumption. The tensile strength increases nearby 5% at a scanning distance of 0.07 mm compared to that at a scanning distance of 0.1 mm while the energy consumption only increases by 1%.

In this research, energy consumption and multiple part quality for SLA are jointly analyzed first to accelerate the development of sustainable additive manufacturing. This can be used to assist designers to achieve energy-effective fabrication in the process design stage.

The purpose of this paper is to test for the existence of residual moral hazard in the three largest US reinsurance markets over the period 1995‐2000 and examine the effectiveness of retention limit, experience rating and long‐term contracting relationship in controlling for moral hazard.

This paper focuses on one peculiar feature in the insurance industry, group affiliation, and tests the presence of residual moral hazard in reinsurance markets. This approach may enable moral hazard to be separated from adverse selection. Moreover, two different econometric methods are employed for the empirical tests: the non‐parametric matching estimators method and the parametric fixed effects model, which may enhance the robustness of the results.

The author finds that, over the period 1995‐2000, residual moral hazard does not exist in the private passenger auto liability and product liability reinsurance markets, but might exist in the homeowners reinsurance market. This finding suggests that the US reinsurance markets are efficient overall and moral hazard is not a serious issue over this period of time. In addition, the author finds that retention limit is effectively used by reinsurers to mitigate the moral hazard problem, whereas experience rating and long‐term contracting relationship are either not used or not effective in controlling the loss experience of reinsurance.

US reinsurance markets are efficient overall and moral hazard is not a serious issue.

The significance of this paper is multifaceted. First, it investigates moral hazard in reinsurance markets by examining internal and external reinsurance jointly. Second, instead of directly examining the correlation between risk and coverage, this paper tests for the presence of residual moral hazard in reinsurance markets. Moreover, the author employs two different econometric methods: the non‐parametric matching estimators method and the parametric fixed effects model, which may enhance the robustness of the results. Third, the use of panel data makes it possible to explore the roles of retention limit, experience rating and long‐term contracting relationship in mitigating the moral hazard problem.

Constant or decreasing returns and increasing returns to scale are two kinds of mechanism in economic growth. The goal of supply-side structural reform is to promote the establishment of the mechanism with increasing returns to scale. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

This paper argues that the overall economic structure of the developing economy has been divided into the sector of constant or decreasing returns to scale and the sector of increasing returns to scale due to the dual economic structure. Among them, the supply-side structural reform is mainly to reduce the sector of decreasing returns to scale and increase the sector of increasing returns to scale. Based on the hypothesis of such two-sector economic structure in the supply side of developing economies and on the industrial data, this paper empirically tests the returns to scale of China’s supply structure. The result suggests that so far the sector of constant or decreasing returns to scale dominates the supply structure of China’s economic growth, which results in the state of decreasing returns to scale in China’s overall economy.

Therefore, to realize the long-term sustained growth and transformation of the development pattern of China’s economy, the authors must carry out the supply-side structural reform, vigorously develop the modern industrial sectors characterized by modern knowledge and technology, and promote the development of an innovation-driven economy.

Besides, the authors must accelerate the transformation from traditional industrial sectors to modern industrial sectors, actively promote China’s industrial structure toward rationalization and high gradation, as well as build a modern industrial system so as to facilitate the formation of the mechanism of increasing returns to scale and accelerate the transformation of the driving force of China’s economic growth.

Drawing upon psychological ownership theory, the aim of this study was to uncover the coexisting mediating effects of knowledge sharing and hiding on the relationship between employees’ organizational psychological ownership (OPO) and their innovative work behavior (IWB). The moderating role of organizational context in these mediating relationships was further examined to determine the moderated mediation paths.

This study mainly used a survey-based research method and collected data from 512 professionals from both public and private organizations in Pakistan to test our proposed hypotheses.

The results showed that coexisting knowledge sharing and hiding mediated the relationship between employees’ OPO and IWB. Furthermore, organizational context moderated the mediated relationships, providing support for the moderated mediation framework.

The results highlight the significance of fostering employees’ OPO to enhance their IWB by promoting knowledge sharing and preventing knowledge hiding. This study also urges managers to consider the contingency effect of organizational contexts when promoting employees’ IWB in emerging economies.

The results obtained in this study suggest that the knowledge behavior paradox occurs in organizations, and distinct organizational contexts play crucial but differential roles in intervening in the effect of employees’ OPO on their IWB. This study empirically validated this complex mechanism in an important emerging economy in Asia.

This paper aims to develop a new differential evolution algorithm (DEA) for solving the simple assembly line balancing problem of type 2 (SALBP-2).

Novel approaches of mutation operator and crossover operator are presented. A self-adaptive double mutation scheme is implemented and an elitist strategy is used in the selection operator.

Test and comparison results show that the proposed IDEA obtains better results for SALBP-2.

The presented DEA is called the integer-coded differential evolution algorithm (IDEA), which can directly deal with integer variables of SALBP-2 on a discrete space without any posterior conversion. The proposed IDEA will be an alternative in evolutionary algorithms, especially for various integer/discrete-valued optimization problems.

With the yearly increase of mileage and passenger volume in China's high-speed railway, the problems of traditional paper railway tickets have become increasingly prominent, including complexity of business handling process, low efficiency of ticket inspection and high cost of usage and management. This paper aims to make extensive references to successful experiences of electronic ticket applications both domestically and internationally. The research on key technologies and system implementation of railway electronic ticket with Chinese characteristics has been carried out.

Research in key technologies is conducted including synchronization technique in distributed heterogeneous database system, the grid-oriented passenger service record (PSR) data storage model, efficient access to massive PSR data under high concurrency condition, the linkage between face recognition service platforms and various terminals in large scenarios, and two-factor authentication of the e-ticket identification code based on the key and the user identity information. Focusing on the key technologies and architecture the of existing ticketing system, multiple service resources are expanded and developed such as electronic ticket clusters, PSR clusters, face recognition clusters and electronic ticket identification code clusters.

The proportion of paper ticket printed has dropped to 20%, saving more than 2 billion tickets annually since the launch of the application of E-ticketing nationwide. The average time for passengers to pass through the automatic ticket gates has decreased from 3 seconds to 1.3 seconds, significantly improving the efficiency of passenger transport organization. Meanwhile, problems of paper ticket counterfeiting, reselling and loss have been generally eliminated.

E-ticketing has laid a technical foundation for the further development of railway passenger transport services in the direction of digitalization and intelligence.

The purpose of this paper is to present state-of-the-art approaches for precise operation of a robotic manipulator on a macro- to micro/nanoscale.

This paper first briefly discussed fundamental issues associated with precise operation of a robotic manipulator on a macro- to micro/nanoscale. Second, this paper described and compared the characteristics of basic components (i.e. mechanical parts, actuators, sensors and control algorithm) of the robotic manipulator. Specifically, commonly used mechanisms of the manipulator were classified and analyzed. In addition, intuitive meaning and applications of its actuator explained and compared in details. Moreover, related research studies on general control algorithm and visual control that are used in a robotic manipulator to achieve precise operation have also been discussed.

Remarkable achievements in dexterous mechanical design, excellent actuators, accurate perception, optimized control algorithms, etc., have been made in precise operations of a robotic manipulator. Precise operation is critical for dealing with objects which need to be manufactured, modified and assembled. The operational accuracy is directly affected by the performance of mechanical design, actuators, sensors and control algorithms. Therefore, this paper provides a categorization showing the fundamental concepts and applications of these characteristics.

This paper presents a categorization of the mechanical design, actuators, sensors and control algorithms of robotic manipulators in the macro- to micro/nanofield for precise operation.

To investigate transverse vibration of the eccentric rotor in a 12/8 poles switched reluctance motor (SRM), a transverse analytical vibration model is built by finite element method (FEM) under the interaction of radial magnetic resultant and vibration displacement. External forces, including radial magnetic resultant and centrifugal force, are also derived in detail, according to the variation of airgap and current and other intermediate parameters with rotation angle.

The transverse vibration response of the eccentric rotor including radial magnetic resultant and vibration displacement is solved by Newmark-β method, after inputting the currents of three phase windings under angle position control strategy. The basic characteristics of radial magnetic resultant and vibration displacement are reflected in time and frequency domain.

The magnetic resultant vector of the eccentric rotor presents multi-petals star geometric shape. The frequency distribution of magnetic resultant relates to rotation speed, current waveform and the least common multiple of the stator and rotor teeth. However, the frequency distribution of the vibration displacement also relates closely to the first-order critical whirl speed of the rotor. When the rotor is running at certain speeds, it will display superharmonic resonance and show abundant displacement locus.

By using this analytical model and solving process proposed in this paper, the nonlinear coupled vibration response of the eccentric rotor in SRM can be analyzed and discussed rapidly; only the stator’s winding currents obtained by experiment or electromagnetic simulation is needed as input.

Although supply chain collaboration (SCC) theoretically boosts the adoption of supply chain finance (SCF) through information sharing and cost savings, many companies with good supply chain partnerships still hesitate to engage in SCF. To disentangle this puzzle, this study aims to explore how two dimensions of information transparency (i.e. information quantity and information quality) and two types of transaction dependence (i.e. dependence on suppliers and dependence on customers) influence the relationship between SCC and SCF adoption.

This study uses secondary survey data from a Chinese bank, including 464 Chinese companies that have adopted SCF to varying degrees. This study then performs the logistic regression analysis to test the hypotheses.

This study empirically confirms that SCC shows a positive relationship with SCF adoption. More interestingly, information quantity negatively moderates this positive relationship, whereas information quality positively moderates this positive relationship. Most surprisingly, dependence on customers rather than dependence on suppliers strengthens this positive relationship.

This study makes theoretical contributions to the SCF literature by demonstrating the distinct moderating mechanisms regarding the relationship between SCC and SCF adoption. The findings also help companies reexamine their interactions with supply chain members.