Bearing e.g. connecting rod bearing, mounting method for reciprocating piston engine of motor vehicle, involves fixedly connecting bearing housing parts by welding process, where welding of parts is performed in defined external region

The method involves dividing a bearing housing into bearing housing parts (4A, 4B) by fracture-splitting. Bearing half-shells (5) are inserted into the parts. The parts are combined to a bearing that encloses a shaft, and are fixedly connected with each other by a welding process such as resistance welding, ultrasonic welding or cold pressure welding process. The welding of the parts is performed in a defined external region. An insulation material is applied between the half-shells and/or the shaft and the housing parts before welding. The parts are pressed on each other during welding.

Mobile-agent based multi-constraint one-to-many bilateral e-Negotiation framework

The thesis proposes a multi-constraint one-to-many bilateral e-Trade negotiation framework. It deploys mobile agents in negotiation, considers trading competition between vendors and search space, efficiently manages the risk of losing top utility offers that expire before the negotiation deadline, accurately evaluates offers, and truly maintains the security of negotiation data.

Blind Source Separation by Nonnegative Matrix Factorization with Minimum-Volume Constraint

Recently, nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) attracts more and more attentions for the promising of wide applications. A problem that still remains is that, however, the factors resulted from it may not necessarily be realistically interpretable. Some constraints are usually added to the standard NMF to generate such interpretive results. In this paper, a minimum-volume constrained NMF is proposed and an efficient multiplicative update algorithm is developed based on the natural gradient optimization. The proposed method can be applied to the blind source separation (BSS) problem, a hot topic with many potential applications, especially if the sources are mutually dependent. Simulation results of BSS for images show the superiority of the proposed method.

Online blind source separation using incremental nonnegative matrix factorization with volume constraint

Online blind source separation (BSS) is proposed to overcome the high computational cost problem, which limits the practical applications of traditional batch BSS algorithms. However, the existing online BSS methods are mainly used to separate independent or uncorrelated sources. Recently, nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) shows great potential to separate the correlative sources, where some constraints are often imposed to overcome the non-uniqueness of the factorization. In this paper, an incremental NMF with volume constraint is derived and utilized for solving online BSS. The volume constraint to the mixing matrix enhances the identifiability of the sources, while the incremental learning mode reduces the computational cost. The proposed method takes advantage of the natural gradient based multiplication updating rule, and it performs especially well in the recovery of dependent sources. Simulations in BSS for dual-energy X-ray images, online encrypted speech signals, and high correlative face images show the validity of the proposed method.

Developing an integrative model of internal and external marketing

The purpose of this paper is to propose a model which presents an expanded view of the beneficial impact of internal marketing (IM) in organizations. The model innovatively proposes links between the development of internal market orientation, internal marketing programs and external market orientation and external marketing programs. As a significant novel contribution to knowledge, this model advocates a continual process of improvement as marketing knowledge develops. Such an approach to the development of the marketing programs within an organization potentially increases business success and competitive advantage. The model has implications for organizational management, where internal marketing programs are desirous. Future research opportunities are suggested, including assessment of the model.