Effects of risks on the performance of business process outsourcing projects: The moderating roles of knowledge management capabilities

Although business process outsourcing (BPO) can reduce cost and enhance the competitiveness of firms, the implementation of BPO projects is unsatisfactory. By integrating knowledge management capability theory and risk-based view, we develop a model of how different types of BPO risks affect project satisfaction and how knowledge management capability changes the influences of BPO risks. A survey of 121 BPO projects was conducted among BPO client department manager and project manager through a pairwise design. Empirical evidence reveals that social system, technical system, and project management risks negatively affect BPO project satisfaction. However, cultural, technological, and structural levels of knowledge management capabilities weaken the negative risk effects of social system, technical system, and project management, respectively. Different types of risks and knowledge management capabilities should be matched to achieve effective risk management.     

Fabrication of 3D Ni nanosheet array on Crofer22APU interconnect and NiO-YSZ anode support to sinter with small-size Ag nanoparticles for low-temperature sealing SOFCs

A novel low-temperature sealing method was developed to seal solid oxide fuel cells. The 3D Ni nanosheet array was pre-fabricated on faying surfaces of Crofer22APU interconnect and NiO-YSZ anode-support. Then it was covered with Au film without changing its morphology. This special nanostructure improved sintering efficiency between Ag nanoparticles and substrates. A dense joint was obtained at the low-temperature between 250 °C–300 °C. This method effectively avoided the oxidation of interconnect during sealing. When joints were sealed at 300 °C, the shear strength reached 16 MPa. The fracture was mainly located in the central Ag layer, presenting a significant plastic deformation. Due to the effective protection of Ni layer, joints also possessed excellent oxidation resistance in oxidizing atmosphere at 800 °C for 400 h. After high-temperature oxidation, the shear strength was increased to 23 MPa, revealing an increasement of 43.8% compared with the as-sealed condition (16 MPa). This sealing method has great potential in sealing solid oxide fuel cells. It also can be extended to seal other energy-conversion devices.     

Investigation of the energy-size reduction and mineral liberation of raw coal in the Hardgrove mill

Raw coal was ground in a Hardgrove mill, and mineral liberation from coal was investigated by float-sink test and electron probe microanalyzer (EPMA). Based on EPMA, associated conditions of mineral were determined. Analyses of energy-size reduction show that energy efficiency decreases with time. For +0.074 mm progenies, yields of particles in ?1.5 g.cm^?3 decrease with the increase of size and time, and products in +1.8 g.cm^?3 show the opposite trend. EPMA of 0.25–0.125 mm, 1.5–1.8 g.cm^?3 products ground for 10 min indicates that only part of minerals are liberated. For ?0.074 mm products, the yield of particles in ?1.5 g.cm^?3 decreases by 23.36% in last several minutes, but ash content of +1.8 g.cm^?3 also decreases by 13.18%. Since breakage of raw coal in last 9 min does not reduce particle size obviously, and liberation degree cannot be improved dramatically, closed grinding of 10 min in Hardgrove mill is proper to balance the size reduction and mineral liberation.     

A Unified Analysis of Structured Sonar-Terrain Data Using Bayesian Functional Mixed Models

Sonar emits pulses of sound and uses the reflected echoes to gain information about target objects. It offers a low cost, complementary sensing modality for small robotic platforms. Although existing analytical approaches often assume independence across echoes, real sonar data can have more complicated structures due to device setup or experimental design. In this article, we consider sonar echo data collected from multiple terrain substrates with a dual-channel sonar head. Our goals are to identify the differential sonar responses to terrains and study the effectiveness of this dual-channel design in discriminating targets. We describe a unified analytical framework that achieves these goals rigorously, simultaneously, and automatically. The analysis was done by treating the echo envelope signals as functional responses and the terrain/channel information as covariates in a functional regression setting. We adopt functional mixed models that facilitate the estimation of terrain and channel effects while capturing the complex hierarchical structure in data. This unified analytical framework incorporates both Gaussian models and robust models. We fit the models using a full Bayesian approach, which enables us to perform multiple inferential tasks under the same modeling framework, including selecting models, estimating the effects of interest, identifying significant local regions, discriminating terrain types, and describing the discriminatory power of local regions. Our analysis of the sonar-terrain data identifies time regions that reflect differential sonar responses to terrains. The discriminant analysis suggests that a multi- or dual-channel design achieves target identification performance comparable with or better than a single-channel design. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.     

Highly Conductive Graphene Electronics by Inkjet Printing

Journal of Electronic Materials - Graphene is currently emerging as an alternative to traditional conductive materials, such as copper and silver because of its excellent electrical conductivity...     

基于现场监测与数值模拟的浅层采空区稳定性分析

隐患采空区是目前影响露天开采矿山安全生产的主要危害源之一。随着台阶开采的不断剥离,露天开采境界内各台阶与地下空区群的隔离层厚度越来越薄,随时有可能发生采空区顶板坍塌事故。考虑到露天矿采空区地质赋存条件和围岩稳固性等特征,以弓长岭露天铁矿浅层采空区为工程背景,运用现场监测和数值模拟相结合的手段综合分析了浅层采空区的稳定性。将液体静力水准地表沉降监测系统的监测数据与FLAC数值模拟结果对比,调整蠕变参数使得数值模拟的蠕变速率与现场监测结果一致,而后据此进行未来结果的预测。最终根据地表沉降数据确定的蠕变参数取值为A=1.0×10^-12、m=1.75、n=0.35。研究表明:静力水准测点地表最大沉降位移为-9.8 mm,蠕变计算结果顶板最大垂直位移约20.4 mm,应力最大值约25 MPa,综合分析显示该采空区较稳定。上述研究提供了一种基于采空区现场监测数据的数值模拟蠕变分析方法,可为类似矿山采空区稳定性分析提供借鉴。     

定距螺旋桨对船用主机外特性的要求分析

为解决定距螺旋桨与船用主机在船舶运行工况的机桨匹配问题,结合船舶系泊和航行试验的相关标准,分析和归纳船舶运行数据,将实船测试与船机桨匹配理论计算相结合,得出运输船和拖轮在常用工况及特殊工况下定距螺旋桨对主机外特性的定量要求,为配套不同细分市场时船用主机的优化和开发提供参考依据。     

负载型Pt-Fe/SiO_2催化剂催化环己烷一步氧化制己二酸

己二酸是合成尼龙-66和尼龙-46纤维的重要原料,并进一步用于生产许多重要的化工产品。工业上的己二酸多采用以硝酸为氧化剂的两步法合成,该工艺不仅工艺复杂,而且对设备有腐蚀作用,还会释放大量的温室气体N_2O。本文以负载型Pt/SiO_2、Fe/SiO_2和Pt-Fe/SiO_2为催化剂,采用过氧化氢和氧气为氧源,研究了环己烷一步氧化制己二酸的绿色合成路线。对催化剂进行ICP、BET比表面积、XRD、TEM等表征,结果表明,Pt-Fe/SiO_2催化剂中不存在与Pt或Fe对应的衍射峰。在最佳反应条件下,用高压釜进行了催化剂性能评价,结果表明,Pt-Fe/SiO_2催化活性略优于Pt/SiO_2和Fe/SiO_2。在环己烷转化率为28%的情况下,己二酸选择性达到33%。     

Asynchronous control for two‐dimensional hidden Markovian jump systems with partly known mode observation conditional probabilities

This study focuses on the asynchronous control problem for two‐dimensional discrete‐time hidden Markovian jump systems where the mode observation conditional probability matrix is partly known. Considering the original system modes are invisible, the observed modes emitted from an observer serve as an alternative for stability analysis and controller design where a mode observation conditional probability matrix is constructed to characterize the emission between system modes and observed modes. Specially, only partly known information of the mode observation conditional probability matrix is accessible. With the introduction of the free‐connection weighting matrices, the asymptotic mean square stability criterion is firstly derived based on Lyapunov method. This introduction provides a further degree of relaxation and less conservatism is therefore achieved. Secondly, we present synthesis conditions for asynchronous state feedback controller design given in terms of a set of interconnected linear matrix inequalities. Moreover, cluster concept based on the partitions of observed modes is adopted which helps to decrease the number of controllers and simplify the design complexity. A numerical example, regarding the cases with and without clustering of the observed modes, is presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

A B-spline multi-parameterization method for multi-material topology optimization of thermoelastic structures

A B-spline multi-parameterization method (MPM) is presented in this paper for topology optimization of thermoelastic structures. As thermoelastic topology