Trade credit financing for supply chain coordination under financial challenges:a multi‑leader–follower game approach

This study is designed to solve supply chain inefficiencies caused by some members’financial problems,such as capital shortages and financing restrictions in a stochastic environment.To this end,we have established a supply chain finance framework by designing two novel coordinating contracts based on trade credit financing for different problem settings.These contracts are modeled in the form of multi-leader Stackelberg games that address horizontal and vertical competition in a supply chain consisting of multiple suppliers and a financially constrained manufacturer.However,previous studies in the trade credit literature have addressed only simple vertical competition,that is,seller-buyer competition.To solve the proposed models,two algorithms were developed by combining population-based metaheuristics,the Nash-domination concept,and the Nikaido-Isoda function.The results demonstrate that the proposed supply chain finance framework can eliminate supply chain inefficiencies and make a large profit for suppliers,as well as the financially constrained manufacturer.Furthermore,the results of the contracts’analysis showed that if the manufacturer is required to settle its payments to suppliers before the end of the period,the trade credit contract cannot coordinate the supply chain because of a lack of incentive for suppliers.However,if the manufacturer is allowed to extend its payments to the end of the period,the proposed trade credit financing contract can coordinate the supply chain.Finally,the sensitivity analysis results indicate that the worse the financial status of the manufacturer,the more bargaining power suppliers have in determining the contract parameters for more profit.

Precious Scrolls of Chinese Devout Women Buddhist Followers:A Case Study of Wilt Idema’s Pitfalls of Piety for Married Women

Deeply-rooted in China’s popular culture,precious scrolls(Baojuan)are the golden material to display popular religious belief of the mass.Based on the rare texts sorted and annotated by Shang Lixin,Dutch Sinologist Wilt L.Idema continues his journey of translating precious scrolls.Focused on the theme of devoted women Buddhist followers in Ming dynasty,he explores the ethical choices of married women in facing the betrayal of servants or concubines.His translations not only add important reading material to Western readers in the field of Chinese popular literature,but also set standard for the coming translators in rendering Chinese ballads.

Investigating the characteristic delay time in the leader–follower behavior in children single-file movement

The single-file movement experiment offered a convenient way to investigate the one-dimensional leader–follower behavior of pedestrians. This study investigated the time delays of children pedestrians in the leader–follower behavior by introducing a time-dependent delayed speed correlation. A total of 118 German students from the fifth grade(aged11–12 years old) and the 11th grade(aged 17–18 years old) participated the single-file experiment. The characteristic delay time for each pedestrian was identified by optimising the time-dependent delayed speed correlation. The influences of the curvature of the experimental scenario, density, age, and gender on the delay time were statistically examined. The results suggested that to a large extent, the revealed characteristic delay time was a density-dependent variable, and none of the curvatures, the age and gender of the individual, and the age and gender of the leader had a significant influence on it. The findings from this study are variable resources to understand the leader–follower behavior among children pedestrians and to build related simulation models.

基于Leader-follower与人工势场的多移动机器人编队控制

目的提出一种基于Leader-follower法和人工势场法相结合的多移动机器人编队控制方法,从而克服传统Leader-follower法中由微分方程确定的控制率无法将队形控制与避障统一的缺点.方法确定关于参数l和φ的人工势场函数,通过控制参数l和φ,使多移动机器人保持预定队形;机器人follower通过主动避障方法躲避障碍物,确定一个总的人工势场控制队形和避障.结果算法能使多移动机器人系统成功地进行编队和避障.结论通过仿真试验,机器人系统能够顺利通过狭窄通道,躲避静态障碍物和动态障碍物,并在避障后恢复队形,顺利到达目标,算法简单,从而验证了算法的有效性.

采用Leader-follower和模糊反馈机制的机器鱼队形控制

在Leader-follower框架下的多机器鱼系统队形控制中,针对Leader和Follower相对独立及落后机器鱼离队等问题,在传统的Leader-follower队形控制算法中引入模糊反馈控制器进行反馈调节,使得领航机器鱼Leader能定时检查Follower的位置,将多机器鱼系统的队形控制问题转化为具有反馈调节的Follower跟踪Leader的位置和方向的问题,以增强多机器鱼队形控制的稳定性,更好地协同作业完成任务.仿真试验验证了所提出的方法能较好地实现多机器鱼系统的队形控制.

基于条件反馈机制Leader-follower多机器人队形控制

针对Leader-follower多机器人系统队形控制中,Leader和follower相对独立及落后机器人离队等问题,采用基于条件反馈机制的Leader-follower多机器人队形控制方法,建立基于条件反馈机制和Lead-follower相结合的多机器人队形控制模型。将多机器人系统的队形控制问题转化为基于条件反馈机制的follower跟踪leader的位置和方向的问题,通过实例仿真验证了方法的有效性。仿真结果表明所提出的方法是合理有效的,使多机器人系统能够有效地完成编队控制任务。

Anti-follower jamming wide gap multi-pattern frequency hopping communication method

This paper deals with the follower jamming(FJ)resistance for the frequency hopping(FH)communication system over additive white Gaussian noise(AWGN)channel.Conventional FH systems are susceptible to be jammed by FJ,and multi-pattern frequency hopping(MPFH)has good resistance to FJ.To further improve the FJ rejection capability of MPFH,we propose a wide gap multi-pattern frequency hopping(WGMPFH)scheme.WGMPFH uses channels to represent messages,and the data channel and complementary channel are hopping on orthogonal frequency slots according to wide gap FH patterns.The transmitted signal lures FJ to aim at the data channel and the complementary channel is away from FJ by adopting wide gap frequency patterns.FJ does not affect the complementary channel but increases the signal energy in the data channel,thus the effect of FJ is reduced.Its bit error rate(BER)is derived under FJ and the effects of three FJ parameters(tracking success probability,jamming duration ratio and jamming bandwidth ratio)on the BER performance of WGMPFH are investigated versus the co nventional FH/BFSK and MPFH system.Numerical and simulation results show that when under the worst-case FJ,the proposed WGMPFH outperforms the MPFH by about 1-3 dB and outperforms the conventional FH/BFSK by more than 4 dB.The proposed WGMPFH shows superior jamming rejection performance under FJ especially in severe signal-to-jamming ratio(SJR).

Design of Cylindrical Cam with Oscillating Follower Based on 3D Expansion of Planar Profile Model

Cylindrical cam with oscillating follower is widely applicable and used in many mechanical devices and machines. However, a common error exists in the methods of designing planar profile for oscillating follower cylinder cam. In this study, we propose a new hypothesis to solve this design problem with the inclusion of deviation angle. On the basis of this new concept, equations for planar profile expansion and methods of calculating pressure angle are deduced by applying 3D expansion formula of the follower＇s motion orbit. When the pressure angle is less than allowable value, the minimum base radius can be determined by using MATLAB software. Accordingly, the planar profile of oscillating follower cylinder cam is generated by CAD software. This new method is practical and can be easily adopted for the design of oscillating follower cylindrical cam with desirable accuracy. We applied the method in the design of cylindrical cam for paper feeding mechanism used in high-speed printers. We calculated the planar profile and used it to direct the NC machine for the manufacture of the groove of cylindrical cam. The improved cylindrical cam met all of the requirements of speed and accuracy demanded by high-speed printers. Therefore, our new method has been validated by practical application.

A Parallel Indexing Cam Mechanism with Internal Placed Followers

A new type of parallel indexing cam mechanism is discovered.The composition of the cam profile is proposed and the formulas of the mechanism parameters are established by synthesis of its configuration and size.The equations for working pro- file and pressure angle of the cam are derived based on the inverse model and the derivative of pitch curve of cams.An example is given and demonstrates that it is available to design the new mechanism using the derived expressions.

Wall Follower Autonomous Robot Development Applying Fuzzy Incremental Controller

This paper presents the design of an autonomous robot as a basic development of an intelligent wheeled mobile robot for air duct or corridor cleaning. The robot navigation is based on wall following algorithm. The robot is controlled using fuzzy incremental controller (FIC) and embedded in PIC18F4550 microcontroller. FIC guides the robot to move along a wall in a desired direction by maintaining a constant distance to the wall. Two ultrasonic sensors are installed in the left side of the robot to sense the wall distance. The signals from these sensors are fed to FIC that then used to determine the speed control of two DC motors. The robot movement is obtained through differentiating the speed of these two motors. The experimental results show that FIC is successfully controlling the robot to follow the wall as a guidance line and has good performance compare with PID controller.

Transverse Vibration and Stability Analysis of Circular Plate Subjected to Follower Force and Thermal Load

Transverse vibration and stability analysis of circular plate subjected to follower force and thermal load are analyzed.Based on the thin plate theory in involving the variable temperature,the differential equation of transverse vibration for the axisymmetric circular plate subjected to follower force and thermal load is established.Then,the differential equation of vibration and corresponding boundary conditions are discretized by the differential quadrature method.Meanwhile,the generalized eigenvalue under three different boundary conditions are calculated.In this case,the change curve of the first order dimensionless complex frequency of the circular plate subjected to the follower force in the different conditions with the variable temperature coefficient and temperature load is analyzed.The stability and corresponding critical loads of the circular plate subjected to follower force and thermal load with simply supported edge,clamped edge and free edge are discussed.The results provide theoretical basis for improving the dynamic stability of the circular plate.

Adaptive leader follower control for multiple quadrotors via multiple surfaces control

Based on the multiple surface and fixed undirected communication topology, the adaptive leader follower contrul for multiple quadrotors is discussed. Our approach is based on leader follower architecture. Multiple surface control （MSC） is used to design consensus controller to make multiple quadrotors construct a formation during flying with the presence of uncertainty item caused by the ground effect during landing or taking off. Simulation results are presented to validate the effectiveness of the proposed controller.

Realization of a New Current Mode Second-Order Biquad Using Two Current Follower Transconductance Amplifiers (CFTAs)

A new circuit for realization of universal current-mode filter using current Follower Transconductance Amplifiers (CFTAs) is presented. The proposed circuit realizes current-mode low pass, high pass and band pass filter functions simultaneously with a single current source at the input. The band reject and all pass filters can also be obtained from the proposed circuit without any extra hardware. The proposed circuit employs three passive grounded elements and two CFTAs. Linear electronic control of natural frequency ω0 is available in the proposed circuit. The quality factor can be independently adjusted through grounded resistor. The proposed circuit employs two grounded capacitors and a grounded resistor along with two CFTAs. The grounded resistor can be replaced by an OTA based circuit for linear electronic control of quality factor Q0. The circuit exhibits low active and passive sensitivities for ω0 and Q0. Simulation results are obtained using PSPICE software which is in conformity with the theoretical findings.

Design Optimization of Cam &Follower Mechanism of an Internal Combustion Engine for Improving the Engine Efficiency

The current cam and follower mechanism in four stroke internal combustion engine employs a flat follower. In this work an attempt is made to change the flat face of follower to a curved face follower, so that the required point contact can be achieved. As line contact between existing cam and follower mechanism results in high frictional losses which results in low mechanical efficiency. It is observed that the frequency of vibration in the existing and modified cam and follower mechanism remains almost same. The finite element approach is used to perform the analysis.

Flipped Voltage Follower Ddesign Technique for Maximised Linear Operation

The results of comparative DC simulation tests confirm that a proposed modification to the feedback circuit of a Flipped Voltage Follower (FVF), to produce a type of ‘Folded’ Flipped Voltage Follower (FFVF), is capable of maximising the linear DC operating range for given values of supply rail voltage and operating current.

Fiction with Influence Famous martial arts novelist Louis Cha Leung-yung’s passing leaves a growing legion of followers

There was an outpouring of grief across China on October 30 when fans of legendary wuxia （master of martial arts） novelist Jin Yong heard of his passing at age 94.

Autonomous Formation Flight Control of Large-Sized Flapping-Wing Flying Robots Based on Leader–Follower Strategy

Birds in nature exhibit excellent long-distance flight capabilities through formation flight,which could reduce energy consumption and improve flight efficiency.Inspired by the biological habits of birds,this paper proposes an autonomous formation flight control method for Large-sized Flapping-Wing Flying Robots(LFWFRs),which can enhance their search range and flight efficiency.First,the kinematics model for LFWFRs is established.Then,an autonomous flight controller based on this model is designed,which has multiple flight control modes,including attitude stabilization,course keeping,hovering,and so on.Second,a formation flight control method is proposed based on the leader–follower strategy and periodic characteristics of flapping-wing flight.The up and down fluctuation of the fuselage of each LFWFR during wing flapping is considered in the control algorithm to keep the relative distance,which overcomes the trajectory divergence caused by sensor delay and fuselage fluctuation.Third,typical formation flight modes are realized,including straight formation,circular formation,and switching formation.Finally,the outdoor formation flight experiment is carried out,and the proposed autonomous formation flight control method is verified in real environment.

Adaptive leader–follower formation control for swarms of unmanned aerial vehicles with motion constraints and unknown disturbances

In this paper,the 3D leader–follower formation control problem,which focuses on swarms of fixed-wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles(UAVs)with motion constraints and disturbances,has been investigated.Original formation errors of the follower UAVs have been transformed into the Frenet-Serret frame.Formation control laws satisfying five motion constraints(i.e.,linear velocity,linear acceleration,heading rate,climb rate and climb angle)have been designed.The convergence of the control laws has been discussed via the Lyapunov stability tool.In addition,to address the unknown disturbances,an adaptive disturbance observer is exploited.Furthermore,formation control laws involving estimated disturbances are presented as well.The collision avoidance between UAVs is achieved with the artificial potential method.Simulation results obtained using four scenarios verify the effectiveness of the proposed method in situations with constant disturbances and varying disturbances,as well as without disturbances.

FLUTTER INSTABILITY OF SUPPORTED PIPES CONVEYING FLUID SUBJECTED TO DISTRIBUTED FOLLOWER FORCES

In the past decades,it has been reported that divergence is the expected form of instability for fluid-conveying pipes with both ends supported.In this paper,the form of instability of supported pipes conveying fluid subjected to distributed follower forces is investigated.Based on the Pflu¨ger column model,the equation of motion for supported pipes subjected concurrently to internal fluid flow and distributed follower forces is established.The analytical model,after Galerkin discretization to two degrees of freedom,is evaluated by analyzing the corresponding eigenvalue problem.The complex frequencies versus fluid velocity are obtained for various system parameters.The results show that either buckling or flutter instabilities could occur in supported fluid-conveying pipes under the action of distributed follower forces,depending on the parameter values of distributed follower forces.

DYNAMICS OF KNOWLEDGE ACCUMULATION IN TECHNOLOGY FOLLOWER COUNTRIES: A SYSTEM DYNAMICS APPROACH

In this paper the process of knowledge accumulation for a particular technology is studied. Two countries, say the technology follower and the technology frontier, are considered. The frontier＇s knowledge growth is determined by its R＆D efforts on the technology. The level of knowledge stock for the follower country is augmented by its R＆D activities for the technology and absorbing some of the external knowledge through spillover from the frontier. The extent to which the follower is able to exploit the external knowledge depends on technological gap, absorptive capacity, absorption time and degree of spillover. New concepts such as natural and enhanced degree of spillover, background and innovative knowledge and absorption speed are introduced in the present work to deeply explore the process of knowledge spillover. The factors influencing the knowledge development in the long term are simultaneously studied in an integrated structure provided by the System Dynamics approach. This framework shows the responses to the changes and provides the basis for examining the interactions among the variables over time.