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Two thermoplastic polyurethanes (TPUs) based on the same monomers and composition were produced by two different production methods - hand mix batch process and continuous band casting. The soft segment was poly(hydrofuran) (PTHF) with a molar mass of 1000 and the hard segment was made of 1,4-butanediol (BD) and 4,40-methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI). The hard segment content amounted to 42%. The distinctions in crystallization and thermal behavior and mechanical properties of the two TPUs were ascribed to differences in the hard and soft block length distribution caused by the different production methods. Using thermal fractionation - a series of successive self-nucleation and annealing steps - the minor differences in hard block length distribution could be shown and quantified. The length distribution of the hard and soft blocks of the machine-produced sample was narrower than that of the hand-cast sample. The former with the narrow block distribution showed thicker and mechanically and thermally more stable hard domains. The more uniform block length distribution facilitated crystallization and resulted in improved tensile recovery behavior and elasticity. The second with the broader distribution, however, showed the highest tensile strength at break, which was ascribed to an improved strain-induced hardening of the soft phase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Scholars have conducted in‐depth research on social change agents, but there are few collaborative studies in this realm between sociology and psychology. From the perspective of psychobiography, this before study uses Jung's Analytical Psychology as a theoretical framework to explore Jack Ma's influence on business change, thereby revealing the deep motivation behind Jack Ma's sudden retirement and choice to be a teacher. Method: This study has collected primary and secondary data about Jack Ma. QSR Nvivo 11.0 was used to encode the text based on video transcription, and then the data were analyzed. This study refers to the key factors of growth and follows the primary indicators of psychological saliency to sort out the data and find out what has special psychological significance, and then conducts three coding processes. Results: This study found that the teacher complex and the martial arts complex are the breakthrough points to understand the business innovator Jack Ma. Conclusion: Jack Ma shapes the image of ordinary teachers through his image management strategy, conceals his deep internal martial arts complex, and balances the displayed martial arts personality mask. He has achieved great success in business innovator, while drawing on his internal personality conflicts to his advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study proposes a two-stage optimisation technique to schedule batteries owned by commercial consumers through an aggregator. This approach captures energy arbitrage and peak shaving benefits at the consumer level, as well as frequency regulation benefit at the system level. The day-ahead stage optimisation maximises the expected profits, considering the battery degradation cost as well as the uncertainties on customer demand profiles and frequency regulation prices. It determines the regulation capacity that the aggregator can bid at each hour, as well as the consumers’ peak demand targets and battery state-of-charge (SoC) target trajectories. The near real-time stage involves two steps: a rule-based pre-process and a snapshot optimisation. It dispatches the batteries to follow the aggregator regulation capacity bids, to track the SoC target trajectories and to ensure that the peak demand targets are not violated. A case study demonstrates that the proposed two-stage approach effectively dispatches batteries to achieve both consumer and system-level benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies have concluded that battery energy storage will soon be economically competitive if its cost continues to decline. The authors propose a two-stage look-ahead daily scheduling strategy for distributed energy storage located in distribution networks with a substantial photovoltaic (PV) penetration. They assume that the load serving entity operates this energy storage to harness simultaneously multiple streams of benefits: energy arbitrage, peak shaving, minimising deviations from the load forecast and regulation service. To determine the optimal capacity bid into the day-ahead regulation market and address the price, load, and solar forecast uncertainties, they propose a two-stage optimisation model that bids regulation capacity on the day ahead and determines the storage dispatch schedule in real time. At the day-ahead stage, the load serving entity reserves a portion of the storage capacity for regulation, while the remaining capacity is dispatched for energy arbitrage, peak shaving and minimising the deviations from the forecast. Result suggests that regulation services account for the majority of these benefits. The energy storage is dispatched for peak shaving and forecast-deviation minimisation from around noon to late evening. During the rest of day, storage is dispatched primarily for regulation services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates whether the use of instruments providing quantifiable force feedback in manual skill learning can assist students with learning difficulties. Under the same theoretical teaching model, one group (intervention group, n = 10) received education with quantitative force feedback for manual skills, while the other group received traditional teaching methods (control group, n = 18). After conducting Levene's test to assess homogeneity of variances, t‐tests were performed to compare point grades, and Mann–Whitney tests were used to compare rating grades between the groups. There is a significant difference in the point grades of the intervention group compared to the control group (p < 0.05), and also a significant difference in the rating evaluation grades (p < 0.05). Under the guidance of teachers, the application of feedback instruments providing a ‘time‐force profile’ allows for the quantification of manual skill force, reinforcing students' practice of ‘force control’, leading to an enhancement in the manual skill proficiency of students with learning difficulties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A knowledge-aided mono-pulse forward-looking imaging algorithm to enhance the performance of airborne radar is proposed. Firstly, the ideal mono-pulse imaging model based on the dual-channel radar system is analysed and the mismatch model of the receiving channel is constructed. Then the mismatch phase error and a modified mono-pulse curve (MPC) are derived based on the least square (LS) method by taking advantage of a prior antenna pattern information. Finally, the modified MPC is utilised to perform the direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation of each scattering centres in mono-pulse imaging. Real airborne radar data experiments are given to verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An adaptive super-resolution imaging algorithm to enhance the performance of airborne single channel forward-looking radar is proposed. Multiple beams data to expand the processing space to enforce the sparsity of scatterers with respect to the antenna pattern was first utilised. Then, the imaging is converted into a problem of signal reconstruction with Lp-norm regularisation, and the regularisation parameter is data driven. Simulations are given to verify the effectiveness of the algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A constant current control technique for a primary-side control system is proposed to realise high precision output current regulation. With the novel ring detect and demagnetisation portion control technique, the ending time of demagnetisation can be accurately determined and the portion of demagnetisation in a switching period remains precisely the same. The simulation results show that with this control technique, the variation of output current is less than ±1.5% of the target value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]