Search results

On the basis of demand survey feedback from individuals with disabilities and caregivers, this study designed two sets of functional garments for long-term bedridden patients, with the primary objective of increasing convenience and reducing the physical workload of caregivers.

Wear trials were conducted by employing 24 subjects to perform 11 different tasks to compare the performance of the two newly developed garments with that of conventional hospital patient apparel. Task operation time, heart rate (HR), electromyography (EMG) signals, and subjective perceptions were evaluated.

The new functional garments reduced the time required to perform tasks by 29–79%, maintained the average HR of caregivers at approximately the resting threshold and resulted in a 37–74% reduction in the root mean square (RMS) of the EMG at the arm muscles in the private and thigh nursing tasks. All the subjective and objective evaluation results of the caregivers demonstrated varying degrees of correlation.

This study has practical implications for the design of functional clothing for long-term bedridden patients and provides guidance for evaluating the ergonomics of garments that can be utilized only with caregiver support.

In contrast to previous studies that focused primarily on individuals with disabilities while overlooking the indispensable role of caregivers in the nursing process, this study shifted its emphasis to long-term bedridden patients who relied exclusively on caregivers for daily activities. Additionally, this study attempted to analyze the correlations between the evaluation parameters to explore the relationships between the evaluation methods.

Ball grid array (BGA) package is prone to failure issues in a thermal vibration-coupled environment, such as deformation and fracture of solder joints. To predict the minimum equivalent stress of solder joints more accurately and optimize the solder joint structure, this paper aims to compare the machine learning method with response surface methodology (RSM).

This paper introduced a machine learning algorithm using Grey Wolf Optimization (GWO) Support Vector Regression (SVR) to optimize solder joint parameters. The solder joint height, spacing, solder pad diameter and thickness were the design variables, and minimizing the equivalent stress of solder joint was the optimization objective. The three dimensional finite element model of the printed circuit board assembly was verified by a modal experiment, and simulations were conducted for 25 groups of models with different parameter combinations. The simulation results were employed to train GWO-SVR to build a mathematical model and were analyzed using RSM to obtain a regression equation. Finally, GWO optimized these two methods.

The results show that the optimization results of GWO-SVR are closer to the simulation results than those of RSM. The minimum equivalent stress is decreased by 8.528% that of the original solution.

This study demonstrates that GWO-SVR is more precise and effective than RSM in optimizing the design of solder joints.

A new beam-column ultimate strength calculation method has been developed and compared with nonlinear finite element analysis by ANSYS and ABAQUS.

A computer code ULTBEAM2 based on this method has been used for one and three span beam-columns with I-shaped cross-section under axial compression.

This paper studies the ultimate strength of beam-columns with various initial deflections of different shapes and magnitudes.

The comparison of ULTBEAM2 and finite element analysis shows good agreement for all cases with different initial deflections.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which financial privacy is present and necessary in dealings between banks and clients in China.

This paper provides a comparative study drawing, in particular, on developments in the USA.

It is a trend in legislation in the western developed countries that the right to privacy is taken seriously and private information in the financial activities is protected by law. The legislation in the USA is typically systematic and complete. The fact that financial privacy protection is sparsely stipulated in finance or administrative laws but the protection of privacy has yet not been systematically written into law in China so far, which is inconsistent with the current situations of the financial industry. China should deal with the relationship between banks and clients, administrative power and personal rights, judicial interpretation and legislation from the aspect of financial practice, so as to set up the legal system to protect financial privacy by learning from the legislation in the USA based on the national conditions.

The paper provides a systematic view of the value of financial privacy in the modern world, with recommendations for reform in China.

The objective of this study is to use non-destructive testing of corrosion on coated aluminium alloys using differential eddy current detection (DECD), with the aim of elucidating the relationship between the characteristics of corrosion defects and the detection signal.

Pitting corrosion defects of varying geometrical dimensions were fabricated on the surface of aluminium alloy plates, and their impedance signals were detected using DECD to investigate the influence of defect diameter, depth, corrosion products and coating thickness on the detection signals. Furthermore, finite element analysis was used to ascertain the eddy current distributions and detection signals under different parameters.

The size of the defect is positively correlated with the strength of the detection signal, with the defect affecting the latter by modifying the distribution and magnitude of the eddy current. An increase in the diameter and depth of corrosion defects will enhance the eddy current detection (ECD) signal. The presence of corrosion products in the corrosion defects has no significant effect on the eddy current signal. The presence of a coating results in a decrease in the ECD signal, with the magnitude of this decrease increasing with the thickness of the coating.

The objective is to provide experimental and theoretical references for the design of eddy current non-destructive testing equipment and eddy current testing applications.

The purpose of this paper is to study the friction and wear properties of journal bearings under different working conditions.

Friction coefficient and wear losses of journal bearing under different working conditions have been determined by a bearing test rig. The worn surfaces of bearing were examined by scanning electron microscopy and laser three-dimensional micro-imaging profile measurements, and the tribological behavior and wear mechanisms were investigated.

The wear loss and friction coefficient of bearing under starting-stopping working condition is far greater than that of steady-state working conditions. In addition, the maximum wear loss under start-up and stop conditions is about 120 times of that under stable operating conditions. Under stable working conditions, the main wear forms of bearings are abrasive wear, under starting-stopping working conditions the main wear mechanisms of bearings are adhesion wear, abrasive wear and fatigue wear.

These research results have certain practical value for understanding the tribology behavior of journal bearings under different working conditions.

Despite recent organizational behavior studies have witnessed considerable progress in abusive supervision research; some demerits for both theory and methodology still remain in the past years. To clarify the current state of knowledge in the field, this study aims to analyze the current state of theories and methods on abusive supervision and provides a detailed future research agenda.

This paper conducted a literature review for both theory and methodology of the abusive supervision research using a content analysis of 134 publications.

For the theory part, this paper summarized the theories that had been applied to explain the relationship between abusive supervision and its consequences as well as antecedents. For the methodology part, this paper outlined some critical issues regarding country of origin, research design, measurement, analysis strategy and also summarized with a discussion of the relationship between methodological issues and article impact. Finally, this paper concluded by presenting an agenda for future abusive supervision research regarding both theory and methodology.

First, this paper summarizes the main theories, antecedents and consequences often used in abusive supervision research to allow scholars to carry out theoretically driven research investigating abusive supervision in the future. Second, through a content analysis of the methods sections of abusive supervision research in the samples (i.e. country of origin, research design, measurement and analytical procedures), this paper identified the potential reasons underlying the inconsistency in the conclusions of abusive supervision research and provide some guidance for future empirical studies. Third, based on the qualitative review, this paper provides an agenda for future research investigating abusive supervision by developing a content-specific theoretical framework to benchmark abusive supervision research against other research related to leadership and offers an accurate response to scholars’ criticisms of abusive supervision research.

The purpose of this paper is to improve hydrodynamic load-carrying capacity of a water-lubricated journal bearing by a new bush structure. Water-lubricated bearing is becoming more and more popular since it is environmentally friendly and saves energy. However, contrary to oil and grease-lubricated bearings, water-lubricated bearing is limited in many situations due to its low hydrodynamic load-carrying capacity.

The present article proposes a new bearing bush, with a transition-arc structure, which is favorable for increasing hydrodynamic load-carrying capacity. Hydrodynamic load-carrying capacity was calculated by means of three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (3-D CFD) analysis. Several variants of a journal bearing with a transition-arc structure of different dimensions are analyzed, while the radial clearance of the bearing, eccentricity ratio and the velocity of the journal remain unchanged.

The results show that obvious changes are found in hydrodynamic load-carrying capacity of a water-lubricated journal bearing. For different width over diameter (L/D) bearing ratios, the relationship between hydrodynamic load-carrying capacity and the magnitude of the transition-arc structure dimension is researched.

The research presented here leads to a design reference guideline that could be used by the designer engineer to design smart journal bearings for improving the hydrodynamic load-carrying capacity.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a novel autonomous in‐pipe robot to perform the preventive point reparation for long‐distance offshore oil pipelines.

The autonomous in‐pipe robot performs online ultrasonic inspection for pipe wall thickness, and the original inspection data are stored in large capacity hard disk. Through the offline data analysis by the data analysts and the software tool, the pipeline health status is known. If server defects lie there, the in‐pipe robot is introduced into the pipeline once more to indicate the defect's location to the maintenance ship.

The laboratory tests and the field tests prove the feasibility and validity of the developed autonomous in‐pipe robot. Furthermore, the application of intelligent control techniques ensures the mission completion by the autonomous in‐pipe robot, which worked in the awful pipeline environment.

The developed autonomous in‐pipe robot helps eliminate lost production costs and pipeline downtime caused by leakages and guarantees the safe run of offshore oil pipelines.

For the application of the autonomous in‐pipe robot, there are no special requirements for maintained pipelines themselves, so it is applicable to the point reparation for most long‐distance welded offshore pipelines.