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Thermal energy management of a battery pack used in a solar electric vehicle
No full textElectric vehicle is the key to the future of transportation in building a cleaner environment. This technology depends highly on battery packs as the power source, Lithium-ion (Li-on) battery is commonly used in to perform. A solar car team under the philosophy of cleaner environment is established and developed a solar electric car to demonstrate the viability of a renewable energy through the use of green transportation, to promote the awareness of environmental sustainability among the public. Till now, six solar vehicles were built. This paper is to analysis the heat distribution of the battery pack inside the solar electric vehicle, SOPHIE V which successfully completed the 3,000km World Solar Challenge 2015 in Australia in order to determine the temperature difference of the batteries located on top and on the bottom inside the battery pack and give improvement to increase the efficiency of heat dissipation for the existing design. The analysis includes identifying the heat map distribution within the battery pack and air flow path. There are two alternative designs to improve the thermal performance of the battery pack, adding fish paper to provide better airflow path and relocation of the intake fan to directly cool the battery packs. The improvements can be integrated to the new 2017 Sophie VI
Assessing the displacement effect of exports with gravity trade model: China\u27s textile and clothing case and OBOR implications
No full textThis paper employs the gravity model to investigate how the growth of China’s textile and clothing (T&C) exports is displacing the exports of other Asian developing countries over the 1990-2015 period. Aggregate analyses were undertaken, and the endogeneity of Chinese exports were accounted by applying instrumental variables with country fixed effects. It was found that there was a negative impact of China’s emergence on T&C exports on other Asian developing countries. We further explored whether such displacement effect varies across Asian countries and the results showed that a more pronounced effect was found in low-income countries than high-income ones. Our findings suggest that the export competitiveness of China’s neighbors, i.e. both more and less developed Asian countries, are affected by the emergence of China in T&C Trade. The implications of China’s One Belt, One Road initiative are also discussed
A Tri-party semiotics approach for advertising polysemy: Luxury brand advertisement analysis under the framework of Roland Barthes, Mikhail Bakhtin, Gunter Kress and Theo van Leeuwen
No full textThe body of research in advertising meaning is substantial and many semioticians have studied advertising as a discourse from different angles. Advertisers have intended meanings and messages for their advertisements, but it is without doubt that consumers’ advertising literacy has grown, and in their eyes, an advertisement composed of signs and texts can always mean something new and is open to infinite semiosis (Eco, 1981). Advertisers may label consumers’ “unintended” or “alternate” readings “miscomprehension” (Jacoby & Hoyer, 1982), and it is thus of no surprise that even practitioners have raised the difficulty of advertising interpretation (Putoni, Schroeder, & Ritson, 2010). On the other hand, the dilemma seems to be that over the past decade, the trend in advertising production has been towards an increase in the use of metaphors and other rhetorical devices (Philips & McQuarrie, 2009) which makes consumers’ interpretations less direct and straightforward. All these forces add to the complexity of advertising interpretation from both readers’ and practitioners’ perspectives. Given the gap between the advertisers’ “intended” meanings and the consumers’ possible infinite semiosis, this paper attempts to postulate a semiotics typology and framework to bridge that gap by allowing a more comprehensive and structured approach to inspire advertisements’ creation, and benefitting both practitioners and consumers in advertisements’ interpretation. The theoretical basis of the paper is to use for the first time three semiotics approaches (structuralist, post-structuralist and multimodality) and applying key concepts from Roland Barthes, Mikhail Bakhtin, Gunter Kress and Theo van Leeuwen to study advertising polysemy on print advertisements. The step-by-step analysis using a case study approach was conducted for more effective and comprehensive meaning-making for a print advertisement of Möet & Chandon, one of the global top 100 brand ( 2015 Best Global Brands, 2016) and the selected brand being in the luxury sector known to commonly adopt implicit communication techniques in their advertising making (Freire, 2014)
Press co-creation behavior: conceptualization and scale development
No full textIntroduction and purpose of the study Recent trend has shown public relations-press relationship has been getting closer than ever. The down-sized pressroom, popularity of online e-News channels of communication and a 24-hour news cycle had put further pressure for journalists to collaborate with public relations practitioners. This backdrop had sparked a new research opportunity to re-examine the source-reporter relationship using a co-creation perspective. This study aims at developing the conceptual framework of press co-creation behavior and develops a measurement scale to empirically support the co-creation framework. Literature Review Co-creation perspective viewed the publics as a long-term partner, a co-creator of meanings to be shared and interpreted with an objective to build relationships in order to fulfill organizational goals (Botan & Taylor, 2004). This view is an extension of the relationship management perspective where a group of public relations scholars believed that relationships should be considered as the center of public relations research (Broom, Casey, & Ritchey, 1997; Ledingham, 2003). Regardless, extant literature in public relations with a focus on co-creation is sparse and with limited empirical support. Through a cross-disciplinary literature review, one can draw parallel with the service-dominant (S-D) logic by Vargo and Lusch (2008) in relationship marketing studies. The S-D concept advocates that customer acts as an active co-creator of value with the organization they are engaged with. In this context, co-creation is categorized into two main types: customer participation behavior, referring to “in-role” behavior; duties the customer needs to perform in order to create a successful value co-creation behavior. The other type is customer citizenship behavior, referring to “extra-role” behavior; the extra tasks the customer volunteers to do to provide additional value to the firm (Yi & Gong, 2013). Methodology To adopt the concepts into a public relations context, in-depth interviews each lasting an average of 90 minutes has been conducted with 16 journalists in Hong Kong from October 2016 to January 2017 to study the co-creation behavior between journalists and public relations practitioner. The objective of the qualitative study is to develop a set of co-creation behavior measurement scales being adopted from Yi and Gong in a public relations (PR) practitionerjournalist context. Results and conclusions Results of the qualitative study had showed that press co-creation behavior is established as “Press Participation Behavior (PPB)” and “Press Citizenship Behavior” (PCB)”. The press co-creation measurement scale has thirty-five items measuring eight constructs that describes the multi-dimensional measures of Press Participation Behavior; information seeking, information sharing, responsible behavior, and personal interaction. Based on the results of the qualitative study, Press Participation Behavior can be expressed in an overall statement: “I [journalist] believe it is important to work with public relations specialists in order to generate news”. For Press Citizenship Behavior, the four measures are; feedback, advocacy, helping and tolerance. Overall, it is expressed as: “Press citizenship behavior is important in working with public relations practitioners”. The implications of this study aims at theorizing and operationalizing the press co-creation behavior to be used in a larger theoretical framework to facilitate the study of antecedents and moderators in nurturing press co-creation behavior by public relations practitioners. Practical and Social Implications The press co-creation behavior concept can help public relations practitioners and journalists to workin better harmony with each other. The measurement scale can be used to determine if media relations are improved through the press co-creation framework. Finally, the concept of co-creation is a natural extension to Grunig’s symmetrical model of communication (Grunig & Hunt, 1984) adapted in the context of 21st century press room environment
Focus Highlight in VPET: Dual VET: a success factor for the Swiss economy
Get PDFSwitzerland has topped the Global Competitiveness Index for the seventh consecutive year and, according to the Global Innovation Index, has the most innovative economy. Various factors contribute to these scores. Education is certainly one. An education system that produces an appropriate mix of skills and grades is crucial to maintaining a low youth unemployment rate and to enhancing a country\u27s economic competitiveness. This means offering a wide range of high-quality education and training programmes at the secondary and tertiary levels, and improving the fit between the competencies of graduates and the needs of the labour market. Switzerland boasts an excellent education system at all levels and is a pioneer of the dual education system In fact, about 70% of students enrol in Vocational Education and Training (VET) at the upper-secondary level, with a great majority of them choosing dual-track programmes (also referred to as \u27apprenticeships\u27). These programmes combine work and school-based learning with a competence-based approach. It is a market-oriented system that teaches occupation-specific knowledge and skills, while improving general education. The Swiss VET system requires high quality apprenticeships. Therefore, its national and regional actors have to engage in close collaborations to maintain and possibly improve the quality of apprenticeships. The strong involvement of companies is crucial. For example, they are involved in the development of the training programmes and are committed to offering apprenticeship positions. The key-elements of the Swiss Dual VET system will be discussed during this presentation, with a focus on the role of and the benefits to the Swiss economy
Innovation x Application 2017
Get PDFSupported by the Hong Kong Industrialists Council Foundation, the Innovation x Application Scheme serves as a recognition to students’ outstanding and innovative projects. The Scheme provides financial assistance for students to further develop their innovative ideas/ projects into tangible outcomes and to solve practical problems encountered by different industries or community. In AY2016/2017, nine innovative projects were awarded three Gold Prizes and six Silver Prize Awards, and received HK$120,000 as startup money for implementing their proposals.
創意X 應用大專學生獎勵計劃由香港 青年工業家協會鼎力支持，旨在甄選 學生研發的傑出創意項目，然後提供 財政支援，將學生的理念及項目，轉 化為實質科研成果或解決方案。 在2016/2017 學年，共有9 個創意項 目獲頒3 個金獎、6 個銀獎，並獲港 幣12 萬元初創資金，協助項目啟動
Enhanced hydroconversion of lignin-derived oxygen-containing compounds over bulk nickel catalysts though Nb2O5 modification
No full textA series of bimetallic Nb–Ni oxide catalysts with different Nb/Ni molar ratio have been prepared by chemical precipitation method. XRD, Raman and XPS results indicate that amorphous Nb2O5species exist in the samples with a Nb/Ni ratio about 0.087. The as-synthesized bimetallic Nb–Ni oxides effectively promote the dispersion of NiO active components, as a result effectively inhibit the agglomeration of NiO particles. Ni0.92Nb0.08O sample with the largest surface area of 173 m2/g mainly consists of fold-like nanosheets and the amorphous Nb2O5 species are well-dispersed all over the bulk NiO. After the reduction in hydrogen, the Nb-promoted bulk nickel catalysts display better catalytic performance for hydrodeoxygenation of lignin-derived anisole to biofuels than bulk Ni catalyst. The selectivity to deoxygenated products with using Ni0.92Nb0.08catalyst increases 2.5 fold to that with bulk Ni catalyst at 160 °C and 3 MPa H2, as a result of the synergistic effect between amorphous Nb2O5 species and metal Ni active sites. In addition, with further increase in the reaction temperature to 200 °C, deoxygenation almost goes quantitatively