Collectivist values for productive teamwork between Korean and Chinese employees

The global marketplace increasingly demands that cultural diverse people work together but studies have documented important barriers to inter-cultural collaboration. Researchers have argued the need to study intercultural interaction directly in order to develop knowledge that diverse people can use to overcome obstacles and work productively. This study proposes that collectivist values are a basis upon which Korean and Chinese colleagues working in joint ventures in China develop quality collegial relationships and thereby work productively together. Chinese employees completed measures of collectivist and individualist values in their relationships with a Korean colleague. The Korean partners completed measures of collegial relationships, productivity, and confidence of future collaboration. In addition to supporting that collectivist values can promote quality collegial relationships, findings support the theorizing that quality relationships facilitate productive collaborative work. Results suggest that collectivist values can be an important basis for Korean and Chinese employees to develop a common platform where they work together productively across cultural boundaries

A universal approach to coverage probability and throughput analysis for cellular networks

This paper proposes a novel tractable approach for accurately analyzing both the coverage probability and the achievable throughput of cellular networks. Specifically, we derive a new procedure referred to as the equivalent uniformdensity plane-entity (EUDPE)method for evaluating the other-cell interference. Furthermore, we demonstrate that our EUDPE method provides a universal and effective means to carry out the lower bound analysis of both the coverage probability and the average throughput for various base-station distribution models that can be found in practice, including the stochastic Poisson point process (PPP) model, a uniformly and randomly distributed model, and a deterministic grid-based model. The lower bounds of coverage probability and average throughput calculated by our proposed method agree with the simulated coverage probability and average throughput results and those obtained by the existing PPP-based analysis, if not better. Moreover, based on our new definition of cell edge boundary, we show that the cellular topology with randomly distributed base stations (BSs) only tends toward the Voronoi tessellation when the path-loss exponent is sufficiently high, which reveals the limitation of this popular network topology

Conflict and trust : partners in developing organizations

Conflict and trust have typically been considered if not opposites at least incompatible. However, recent studies have suggested that managing conflict cooperatively can strengthen trust. This paper argues that this research helps us understand and appreciate trust’s critical role and how it can be fostered. The paper defines trust as expectations that another will promote one’s goals. Trust is critical for strengthening perceived cooperative goals and mutually beneficial interaction. Partners can develop their trust as they deal with the many conflicts they confront in groups, organizations, and alliances. Partners, even when they are from diverse cultures, can use managing conflict cooperatively knowledge to form a common platform to guide their collaboration to promote their trust and productivity

How to Train Your Dragon: Tamed Warping Network for Semantic Video Segmentation

Real-time semantic segmentation on high-resolution videos is challenging due to the strict requirements of speed. Recent approaches have utilized the inter-frame continuity to reduce redundant computation by warping the feature maps across adjacent frames, greatly speeding up the inference phase. However, their accuracy drops significantly owing to the imprecise motion estimation and error accumulation. In this paper, we propose to introduce a simple and effective correction stage right after the warping stage to form a framework named Tamed Warping Network (TWNet), aiming to improve the accuracy and robustness of warping-based models. The experimental results on the Cityscapes dataset show that with the correction, the accuracy (mIoU) significantly increases from 67.3% to 71.6%, and the speed edges down from 65.5 FPS to 61.8 FPS. For non-rigid categories such as "human" and "object", the improvements of IoU are even higher than 18 percentage points

Analysis of plane problems with defects of different geometric shapes

This thesis presents research on a plate with defects of various geometric shapes, including a circular hole, a 'finite-height crack,' a notch, and a parabolic notch. The primary focus of the entire work is to produce analytical solutions for the stress state of a plate containing one of these defects, subjected to different loading modes. Additionally, the thesis explores the unique situation where the plane problem extends into the third dimension, forming a 3D body, and examines the end effects. While the stress state within a plate with a circular hole is a classical problem with a fully solved solution, this thesis delves into the shakedown phenomenon under cyclic loading, offering insights of practical importance. Defects containing one or more singular features are also worth investigating. Singular features are defined as areas where stress is concentrated and tends to infinity in elastic analysis, such as cracks or sharp notches. The general approach to these problems typically involves using asymptotic or approximate solutions, like Williams’ solution. However, this thesis aims to produce a non-approximated, closed-form solution for the stress field of a wedge (with angles ranging from zero to 2π) interacting with a singularity (singular force or dislocation) under the anti-plane loading. This methodology can be extended to a parabolic notch, which is also discussed. The 'finite-height crack' is another example involving singular features, but it has two singularities at a 'short' distance apart. Therefore, the thesis discusses the interaction of the stress state around the two singularities and predicts the location of fracture initiation in a 'finite-height' crack case. Finally, the thesis explores a scenario where a plane problem extends into the third dimension, becoming a 3D problem. An example is presented using plane contact as a reference, employing numerical methods to analyse the 3D end effect. This work provides a clear explanation of how the end effect generalizes at the free end and the distance it propagates in terms of the geometric feature length

Traffic Crash Prediction Using Machine Learning Models

Traffic crashes account for most of casualties and injuries worldwide, and there has been growing concerns and studies regarding the contributing factors of traffic crashes. There are many factors causing or related to an occurrence of traffic crash, e.g., land use, traffic flow conditions, driver behavior and weather condition. This paper studied the spatial and temporal distribution of crashes on highway and developed real-time prediction models for crash occurrence. Traffic flow data, weather data, and crash data from multiple data sources were collected and processed to develop the model. Multiple machine learning models, such as SVM model and Decision Tree model, were used as the candidate models. It was found that weather, crash time, and traffic flow shortly prior to the crash occurrence are critical impacting factors for real-time crash prediction. The candidate models have low to moderate sensitivity to predict the crash occurrences due to limited sample size. To use the models in a traffic operations environment, a prediction tool with interactive map could be developed to proactively monitor crash hot spots and prepare staffing and resources for the potential crash occurrences