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The automotive industry appears to be a particularly attractive application case for blockchain technology adoption. Blockchain is one of the innovations that has much potential to change current business processes in German original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and enable new services for their customers. This paper combines collective case study and in-depth interviews to explore the potentials and existing challenges of blockchain technology-based applications at German OEMs. The results suggest that blockchain applications have advantages in aggregating product information, securing transaction information, and establishing a reliable supply chain. Based on the TOE (technology, organisation and environment) model, our case study shows that the biggest obstacles for blockchain technology adoption in the automotive supply chain include: technology immaturity, lack of guidance and industry standards, non-cooperation of chain members, and legislative ambiguity. Based on auto manufacturers investigated, blockchain technology is perceived to have great potentials in reducing process costs, ensure product quality, and enhance the automotive supply chain's visibility and digitisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to construct a new numerical scheme for the nonlinear gray radiative transfer (GRT) equations, namely, the asymptotic-preserving (AP) $$H_N^T$$ H N T -based unified gas kinetic scheme (UGKS). The constructed scheme is obtained by combing the UGKS for spatial discretization with the hybrid $$H_N^T$$ H N T method for angular discretization. Since the $$H_N^T$$ H N T is a hybrid angular discrete method of both $${P_N}$$ P N and $${S_N}$$ S N methods, the current $$H_N^T$$ H N T -based UGKS can not only mitigate the ray effects of the $${S_N}$$ S N method largely, but also suppress the oscillations of the original $${P_N}$$ P N method. Furthermore, we show that the current $$H_N^T$$ H N T -based UGKS also inherits the AP property of UGKS. A number of one-dimensional and two-dimensional numerical experiments are presented that validate the performance of the current scheme in both optically thin and thick regimes, as well as in mitigating the ray effects. Moreover, it can capture the initial layer solution without requiring additional treatments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]