An Exploratory Study of Critical Issues in Online Securities Trading: The Hong Kong Perspective

The advancement of technology enables more and more people to do their business activities online. This has threatened the businesses of the traditional intermediaries. Among the various form of electronic commerce, online securities trading is one that will stand a better chance for wide adoption and success. Online securities trading penetration rate has remained on a steady upward trend [39]. The development and adoption of online securities trading have been slow in Hong Kong as compared to other Asian counter parts such as South Korea, Japan and Singapore. Past research on online securities trading in Hong Kong has been lacking. The objectives of this study are to explore the critical issues, impacts, problems and barriers of online securities trading in Hong Kong, and what can be done to facilitate local online securities trading. This paper will first provide the background of online securities trading in Hong Kong, followed by literature review on online securities trading, self-service technology, electronic commerce, and review of studies of online securities trading in other countries. In-depth interviews were also conducted with senior personnel in local brokerage firms that offer online trading to gather their expert opinion and to explore the critical issues, attributes, benefits and barriers of online securities trading in Hong Kong. Recommendations to managers and future research of an empirical study will be discussed in the last section

Feasibility study of performing experimental modal analysis with oblique impact testing using various oblique impact directions

© 2020 Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University Oblique impact excitation has been introduced in Experimental Modal Analysis (EMA), with the great advantage of reducing the conventional EMA's testing time by a factor of three. One major constraint of this technique is the investigation of the effect of various oblique impact directions towards its accuracy in determining the structural dynamic characteristic. This feasibility study is difficult to be achieved in practice, as it involves a lengthy amount of experimental works using various oblique impact directions. To solve this problem, a mathematical model has been developed to synthesize the FRF due to oblique impact (i.e. oblique FRF) in this study. The synthesized oblique FRFs show great agreement with the measured oblique FRFs in various oblique impact directions, which validate the reliability of the usage of the proposed synthesis method. The performance of the oblique impact testings using various impact angles is investigated. The results show that the oblique impact testing has a high success rate to extract directional modes in many impact directions, however wrong selection of the impact direction will lead to mode estimation failure. Good selection of impact direction based on force and modal strengths are demonstrated to ensure an accurate estimation of the structural dynamic characteristics

Identification of material properties of orthotropic composite plate using hybrid non-destructive evaluation approach

Identification of material properties is one of the key issues in composite materials research. The mechanical properties of composite materials depend on diverse factors such as configuration of the laminates, constituent materials used and production method adopted. Conventional testing approach tends to be time-consuming, expensive and destructive. As an alternative, a rapid, inexpensive, hybrid and non-destructive evaluation approach which utilises experimental modal analysis and finite element analysis is proposed. Experimental modal data which consist of natural frequencies and mode shapes of an orthotropic composite plate are utilised for correlation purpose with its finite element model. This finite element model of the composite plate is continuously updated and achieves less than 5% in difference of natural frequencies and over 70% in modal assurance criterion. Material properties such as Young's moduli, inplane shear modulus and Poisson ratio of the composite plate are then successfully determined using the well-correlated FE model

Energy Harvesting Based on a Novel Piezoelectric 0.7PbZn0.3Ti0.7O3-0.3Na2TiO3 Nanogenerator

Recently, piezoelectric materials have achieved remarkable attention for charging wireless sensor nodes. Among piezoelectric materials, non-ferroelectric materials are more cost effective because they can be prepared without a polarization process. In this study, a non-ferroelectric nanogenerator was manufactured from 0.7PbZn0.3Ti0.7O3-0.3Na2TiO3 (PZnT-NT). It was demonstrated that the increment of conductivity via adding the Na2TiO3 plays an essential role in increasing the permittivity of the non-ferroelectric nanogenerator and hence improved the generated power density. The dielectric measurements of this material demonstrated high conductivity that quenched the polarization phase. The performance of the device was studied experimentally over a cantilever test rig; the vibrating cantilever (0.4 ms-2) was excited by a motor operated at 30 Hz. The generated power successfully illuminated a light emitting diode (LED). The PZnT-NT nanogenerator produced a volume power density of 0.10 μw/mm3 and a surface power density of 10 μw/cm2. The performance of the proposed device with a size of (20 × 15 × 1 mm3) was higher in terms of power output than that of the commercial microfiber composite (MFC) (80 × 57 × 0.335 mm3) and piezoelectric bimorph device (70 × 50 × 0.7 mm3). Compared to other existing ferroelectric and non-ferroelectric nanogenerators, the proposed device demonstrated great performance in harvesting the energy at low acceleration and in a low frequency environment

Non-destructive testing and assessment of dynamic incompatibility between third-party piping and drain valve systems: An industrial case study

This paper presents the outcome of an industrial case study that involved condition monitoring of piping system that showed signs of excess fatigue due to flow-induced vibration. Due to operational requirements, a novel non-destructive assessment stratagem was adopted using different vibration analysis techniques - such as experimental modal analysis and operating deflection shapes - and complemented by visual inspection. Modal analysis carried out near a drain valve showed a dynamic weakness problem (several high-frequency flow-induced vibration frequency peaks), hence condition-based monitoring was used. This could easily be linked to design problem associated with the dynamic incompatibility due to dissimilar stiffness between two third-party supplied pipe and valve systems. It was concluded that this is the main cause for these problem types especially when systems are supplied by third parties, but assembled locally, a major cause of dynamic incompatibility. It is the local assembler's responsibility to develop skills and expertise needed to sustain the operation of these plants. This paper shows the technique used as result of one such initiative. Since high amplitude, low-frequency displacement can cause low cycle fatigue, attention must be paid to ensure flow remains as steady state as possible. The ability to assess the level of design incompatibility and the level of modification required using non-destructive testing is vital if these systems are to work continuously. © 2014 Taylor & Francis

In-Plane Magnetic Anisotropy In RF Sputtered Fe-N Thin Films

We have fabricated Fe(N) thin films with varied N2 partial pressure and studied the microstructure, morphology, magnetic properties and resistivity by using X-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, vibrating-sample magnetometer and angle-resolved M-H hysteresis Loop tracer and standard four-point probe method. In the presence of low N2 partial pressure, Fe(N) films showed a basic bcc a-Fe structure with a preferred (110) texture. A variation of in-plane magnetic anisotropy of the Fe(N) films was observed with the changing of N component. The evolution of in-plane anisotropy in the films was attributed to the directional order mechanism. Nitrogen atoms play an important role in refining the a-Fe grains and inducing uniaxial anisotropy.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figure

Development and Validation of Experimental Modal Analysis with Fixture-Free Oblique Impact Testing Based on Vector Projection Method

Experimental modal analysis (EMA) with oblique excitation (i.e. oblique impact testing) is useful in improving the long testing time problem of conventional EMA with normal excitation (i.e. tri-axial normal impact testing), in order to extract all important dynamic characteristics of a 3D complex structure. In this study, a new methodology involving vector projection method is introduced to find the driving point frequency response function (FRF) in the oblique direction, without the need of special fixture with oblique-oriented impedance head. Hence, it presents a low cost and practical solution to scale the mode shape, as compared to the traditional approach. Moreover, the concurrent forces characteristic of the oblique excitation is used in the development of the theoretical relationship between the FRF with oblique excitation and normal excitation. This is important for the validation of the oblique impact testing result, such as the FRF and modal parameter estimations. Experimental results show that the oblique impact testing has reliable and effective results, as compared with the tri-axial normal impact testing in terms of the FRF correlation, natural frequency discrepancy, modal damping ratio error and modal assurance criterion (MAC) of the unit modal mass (UMM) mode shape

Impact force identification with pseudo-inverse method on a lightweight structure for under-determined, even-determined and over-determined cases

Force identification using inverse technique is important especially when direct measurement through force transducer is not possible. Considering the effects of impact excitation force on the integrity of a lightweight structure, impact force identification has become the subject of several studies. A methodology utilising Operating Deflection Shape (ODS) analysis, Frequency Response Function (FRF) measurement and pseudo-inverse method to evaluate the dynamic force is presented. A rectangular plate with four ground supports was used as a test rig to simulate the motions of a simple vehicle body. By using the measured responses at remote points that are away from impact locations and measured FRFs of the test rig, unknown force locations and their time histories can be recovered by the proposed method. The performance of this approach in various cases such as under-determined, even-determined and over-determined cases was experimentally demonstrated. Good and bad combinations of response locations were selected based on the condition number of FRF matrix. This force identification method was examined under different response combinations and various numbers of response locations. It shows that in the over-determined case, good combination of response locations (i.e. low average of condition number of FRF matrix) and high number of response locations give the best accuracy of force identification result compared to under-determined and even-determined cases

High quality of SARS-CoV-2 molecular diagnostics in a diverse laboratory landscape through supported benchmark testing and External Quality Assessment

A two-step strategy combining assisted benchmark testing (entry controls) and External Quality Assessments (EQAs) with blinded simulated clinical specimens to enhance and maintain the quality of nucleic acid amplification testing was developed. This strategy was successfully applied to 71 diagnostic laboratories in The Netherlands when upscaling the national diagnostic capacity during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. The availability of benchmark testing in combination with advice for improvement substantially enhanced the quality of the laboratory testing procedures for SARS-CoV-2 detection. The three subsequent EQA rounds demonstrated high quality testing with regard to specificity (99.6% correctly identified) and sensitivity (93.3% correctly identified). Even with the implementation of novel assays, changing workflows using diverse equipment and a high degree of assay heterogeneity, the overall high quality was maintained using this two-step strategy. We show that in contrast to the limited value of Cq value for absolute proxies of viral load, these Cq values can, in combination with metadata on strategies and techniques, provide valuable information for laboratories to improve their procedures. In conclusion, our two-step strategy (preparation phase followed by a series of EQAs) is a rapid and flexible system capable of scaling, improving, and maintaining high quality diagnostics even in a rapidly evolving (e.g. pandemic) situation.</p

High quality of SARS-CoV-2 molecular diagnostics in a diverse laboratory landscape through supported benchmark testing and External Quality Assessment

A two-step strategy combining assisted benchmark testing (entry controls) and External Quality Assessments (EQAs) with blinded simulated clinical specimens to enhance and maintain the quality of nucleic acid amplification testing was developed. This strategy was successfully applied to 71 diagnostic laboratories in The Netherlands when upscaling the national diagnostic capacity during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. The availability of benchmark testing in combination with advice for improvement substantially enhanced the quality of the laboratory testing procedures for SARS-CoV-2 detection. The three subsequent EQA rounds demonstrated high quality testing with regard to specificity (99.6% correctly identified) and sensitivity (93.3% correctly identified). Even with the implementation of novel assays, changing workflows using diverse equipment and a high degree of assay heterogeneity, the overall high quality was maintained using this two-step strategy. We show that in contrast to the limited value of Cq value for absolute proxies of viral load, these Cq values can, in combination with metadata on strategies and techniques, provide valuable information for laboratories to improve their procedures. In conclusion, our two-step strategy (preparation phase followed by a series of EQAs) is a rapid and flexible system capable of scaling, improving, and maintaining high quality diagnostics even in a rapidly evolving (e.g. pandemic) situation.</p