A large number of ground-coupled heat pump (GCHP) systems have been used in residential and commercial buildings throughout the world due to the attractive advantages of high efficiency and environmental friendliness. This paper gives a detailed literature review of the research and developments...

A hexagonal ordered structure of magnetic columns, which results from an agglomeration of magnetic particles, is obtained in a magnetic fluid film when a magnetic field is applied perpendicularly to the film surface. The evolution of the initially ordered structure in the magnetic fluid film...

A complete set of match calculation methods for optimum sizing of PV/wind hybrid system is presented. In this method, the more accurate and practical mathematic models for characterizing PV module, wind generator and battery are adopted; combining with hourly measured meteorologic data and load...

Incident energy on solar modules is lost both through reflection at the first air/glass interface of the packaging glass and through scattering or absorption by accumulated dust on outdoor panels. While simple antireflective coatings on the glass can help alleviate reflection in systems with...

The residential buildings in Hong Kong are often developed into highrise central core blocks due to limited buildable land and dense population. The lift lobbies in these buildings are enclosed without windows and their floor heights are restricted to not more than 2.8m. Electric lighting is...

Forecasting network data traffic is an important part of the function of planning and managing information systems. However, the contents of network data are so stochastic and complex that it is very difficult to establish stable functions to describe the mapping relationship between data flows...

In this article, we provide a systematic study on effectively approximating the Gerber–Shiu functions, which is a hardly touched topic in the current literature, by incorporating the recently popular Fourier-cosine method. Fourier-cosine method has been a prevailing numerical method in option...

Purpose – The primary aim of this paper is to examine whether boards of directors with independent members function as effective corporate governance mechanisms in Chinese State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs), by analysing four characteristics of non-executive directors (NEDs) that impact on their...

The continuous network design problem (CNDP) is characterized by a bilevel programming model and recognized to be one of the most difficult and challenging problems in transportation. The main difficulty stems from the fact that the bilevel formulation for the CNDP is nonconvex and...

This paper proposes a stochastic user equilibrium assignment model for congested transit networks, together with a solution algorithm. A mathematical programming problem is formulated, that is equivalent to the stochastic user equilibrium assignment model for congested transit system. When the...