Frontiers Directive Research Articles

Global status and trends in gout research from 2012 to 2021: a bibliometric and visual analysis.

Gout is the most common inflammatory arthritis with an increasing prevalence and incidence across the globe. We aimed to provide a comprehensive and systematic knowledge map of gout research to determine its current status and trends over the past decade. Publications on gout research were obtained from the Web of Science Core Collection (WOSCC) database. Bibliometric R, VOSviewer, and Citespace were employed to analyze the eligible literature. A total of 5535 publications concerning gout research between 2012 and 2021 were included. Most publications and citations both numerically came from China. The strongest international cooperation belonged to the USA. The University of Auckland was the most productive institution with a leading place in research collaboration. The prime funding agency was the National Natural Science Foundation of China. Most papers were published in Clinical Rheumatology. Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases achieved the highest number of citations, H-index and IF, which showed the most excellent comprehensive strength. The individual author with the most paper authorship was Dalbeth Nicola with 241 publications and 46 H-index. Keywords and co-citation analysis discovered that pathological mechanism remains the future hotspot in gout research. It may involve gout connection with gut microbiota, NLRP3 inflammasome, xanthine oxidase, and urate-transporter ABCG2. In addition, besides metabolic diseases, the relationship between gout and heart failure may need more attention. This study clarified the current status and research frontier in gout over the past decade, which would provide valuable research references for later researchers. Key Points •We disclosed the current status and frontier directions of gout over the past 10years worldwide. •We identified future hotspots of gout research, including gout connection with gut microbiota, NLRP3 inflammasome, xanthine oxidase, and urate-transporter ABCG2. •We discovered that the relationship between gout and heart status would be the research frontier.

Fault tree analysis improvements: A bibliometric analysis and literature review

AbstractFault tree analysis (FTA) is one of the most popular failure analysis techniques that reveal the potential pathways leading to systems or components failure. It has been widely employed in numerous sectors to understand how a system fails and is improved. However, the conventional FTA has been criticized due to a series of inherent shortcomings in the FTA state of the arts. Accordingly, scholars, engineers, and practitioners made their attempts to improve the FTA by dealing with its critical deficiencies over the last decade. However, a few works have been performed to review and synthesize the relevant studies on FTA improvement topics. Thus, the present study is aimed to carry out a systematic literature review of the state‐of‐the‐art theoretical and empirical findings concerning FTA improvement from 2011 to 2021 using the Scopus database collection. In this sense, an in‐depth investigation is conducted using statistical metadata analysis. This subject discusses frontier directions and development trends to reveal the research status. In addition, a bibliometric study is undertaken to ascertain the most productive and influential researchers, research centers, and hotspot fields. It also sheds light on the FTA shortcomings in the existing literature, the evolution in FTA improvement topics, and research opportunities. The outcomes of the present work highlighted that the annual publications on FTA improvement topics are significantly growing, especially after 2019. Besides, Jianxiu Wang, Yan‐Feng Li, and Yihuan Wang are the most productive, prolific, and highly cited authors worldwide; and Asia, particularly China, is the leading contributor in the FTA area. According to Bradford's law, one‐third of all publications (7995) in the field of FTA improvement have been published by 40 sources. Finally, “Decision‐making,” “Risk analysis,” “Uncertainty Analysis,” and “Bayesian Networks” are the four major hot topics integrated into improving the conventional FTA.

Global Trends in Green Space and Senior Mental Health Studies: Bibliometric Review.

The Sustainable Development Goals and the World Health Organization have prioritized senior mental health as an important goal. Senior mental health is a critical issue within the global public health sphere. Notably, green spaces are a useful alternative for improving senior mental health. Many studies have focused on green space and senior mental health, especially on their connection and relationship. However, this research topic lacks a comprehensive and systematic review. Owing to the lack of critical reviews, this study clarified the trend, progress, status, and focus of studies on green spaces and senior mental health using bibliometric analysis of literature within the Web of Science database. The literature analysis within this study specifically focused on the following, including the country/region contribution analysis, institution contribution analysis, keyword analysis, and highly productive journal analysis. Furthermore, this study systematically recorded the content of green space and senior mental health, identified the gap that exists, and provided future frontier directions or issues for research. These contribute toward comprehending the progress and content of this research topic and further provide a guide, reference, and inspiration for possible future research.

Application Research of Computer Communication Technology in the Development of Artificial Intelligence

With the advent of the 5G communication era, people's life and work are increasingly dependent on computer network information technology. The development and application of artificial intelligence (AI) technology has laid a solid foundation for the security of computer network. One technology plays an indispensable role in the development of this field, that is, computer communication Technology (CCT). Its core function is to support data, collect, analyze and process a large amount of information, and output scientific and reasonable calculation results. As one of the frontier directions, the application range of multi-agent system is more and more extensive. Compared with traditional software systems, multi-agent systems can provide more effective means to solve complex scientific and engineering problems. This paper focuses on the application of the trusted alliance technology of multi-agent system in the context of the Internet of Things, defines the parameters and conditions of some trusted alliances of the intelligent terminal of the Internet of Things, and preliminarily discusses the negotiation strategy of the process of strengthening the alliance. The organic integration of AI technology and computer network technology is a new direction of the intelligent development exploration and research of network technology. This paper studies and analyzes the application of AI in computer network technology in the age of big data.

Performance Management of Natural Resources: A Systematic Review and Conceptual Framework for China

In recent decades, the issue of “Performance management of natural resources” has received increasing attention. To explore the optimization of performance management of natural resources is of great significance to the sustainable development of a country’s society and economy. Based on the relevant literature of “Performance management of natural resources” and “performance management and evaluation of nature resources” in Web of Science from 1990 to 2021, this study reviews the research progress of performance management of natural resources (including water resources) with the help of the CiteSpace V. Through literature review and inductive analysis, the authors found that the pursuit of sustainable utilization and management of natural resources has become the frontier direction of research. However, performance management of natural resources still lacks a general conceptual interpretation and analysis framework, and its evaluation system and methods still need to be further improved. The existing research on influencing factors of natural resources management performance still lacks depth, and the application of quantitative models needs to be strengthened in the future. The combination of research and quantitative models also needs to be further strengthened. Based on the existing literature and the practical experience of countries all over the world, this study constructs the research framework of performance management of natural resources for China. On the basis of multiple evaluation objectives, subjects and means, the authors describes the process and mechanism of performance management of natural resources, and gives some feasible evaluation methods for the performance management of natural resources, in order to provide decision support for the sustainable utilization of natural resources for China.

Emerging role of N6-methyladenosine RNA methylation in lung diseases.

In recent years, with the increase of air pollution, smoking, aging, and respiratory infection, the incidence rate and mortality of lung diseases are increasing annually, which has become a major hazard to human health. N6-methyladenosine (m6A) RNA methylation is the most abundant modifications in eukaryotes, and such modified RNA can be specifically recognized and combined by m6A recognition proteins and then mediate RNA splicing, maturation, enucleation, degradation, and translation. More and more studies have revealed that the m6A modification is involved in the pathogenesis and development of some diseases; however, the mechanisms of m6A in lung diseases are poorly understood. In this review, we summarize the latest progress in the biological function of m6A modifications in lung diseases and discuss the potential therapeutic and prognostic strategies. The dysregulation of global m6A levels and m6A regulators may affect the occurrence and development of asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung cancer, and other lung diseases through inflammation and immune function. In lung cancer, this modification has an important impact on malignant cell proliferation, migration, invasion, and drug resistance. In addition, abnormally changed m6A-modified proteins in lung cancer tissue samples and circulating tumor cells (CTCs) may be used as diagnostic and prognostic markers of lung cancer. Models composed of multiple m6A regulators can be used to evaluate the risk prediction or prognosis of asthma and pulmonary fibrosis. In general, the in-depth study of m6A modifications is a frontier direction in disease research. It provides novel insights for understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying disease occurrence, development, and drug resistance, as well as for the development of effective novel therapeutics.

<sup>22</sup>Ne(α, n)<sup>25</sup>Mg: The key neutron source in massive stars

<p indent="0mm">The origin of heavy elements from iron to uranium in the universe is an important frontier direction for nuclear astrophysics. It is considered to be one of the 11 greatest unanswered questions of physics in this century. The neutron capture reaction can overcome the Coulomb barrier and is the key way to generate heavy elements in the universe. The average life of free neutrons is only about <sc>15 min.</sc> Therefore, the neutron source is a hot topic for understanding the origin of heavy elements. There are two main neutron sources in the s-process nucleosynthesis, one is the ¹³C(α, n)¹⁶O reaction, the other is the ²²Ne(α, n)²⁵Mg reaction. The ¹³C(α, n)¹⁶O reaction mainly provides neutrons for the s-process nucleosynthesis of small or medium mass stars, and affects the nucleosynthesis of nuclides with the mass numbers from 90 to 209; while the ²²Ne(α, n)²⁵Mg reaction mainly provides neutrons for the s-process nucleosynthesis of massive stars and affects the nucleosynthesis of nuclides with the mass number less than 90. The ²²Ne(α, n)²⁵Mg reaction takes place in the core helium burning phase and the subsequent shell carbon burning phase of massive stars. Due to the difficulty of experiment measurement, the data of the ²²Ne(α, n)²⁵Mg reaction rate is still lacking, which leads to the problem of understanding effective neutron supply in the nucleosynthesis of the heavy elements in massive stars. Limited by cosmic ray backgrounds, a large number of key reactions in hydrostatic nuclear burning phases cannot be accurately measured. Therefore, direct measurement of these reactions has gradually moved from the earth-surface to underground laboratories. The Laboratory for Underground Nuclear Astrophysics (LUNA) experimental platform in Italy is a mature underground nuclear astrophysics laboratory in the world. Since the 1990s, direct measurement of many nuclear reactions has been carried out. Jinping Underground Nuclear Astrophysics Laboratory (JUNA) is a new experimental platform. JUNA is located in the world’s deepest underground laboratory—China JinPing Underground Laboratory (CJPL). JUNA team has successfully developed a <sc>10 mA</sc> low-energy accelerator and experimental terminal, which aims to conduct experimental research on a number of key nuclear reactions in hydrostatic hydrogen and helium burnings of stars in an underground environment with very low background. Since its operation in the underground laboratory at the end of 2020, JUNA has completed the first phase of experimental tasks and successfully studied several key nuclear reactions including the neutron source reaction¹³C(α, n)¹⁶O. In this paper, we review the motivation of the key neutron source ²²Ne(α, n)²⁵Mg in the origin of heavy elements and in the massive stars, the latest research progress of this neutron source and future research plan, especially the underground direct measurement experimental plan. As the key neutron source reaction of the s-process, the ²²Ne(α, n)²⁵Mg reaction is of great significance for understanding the origin of heavy elements in the universe. As the first experiment in the second phase of JUNA, the ²²Ne(α, n)²⁵Mg reaction is expected to achieve world-class research results and provides the crucial nuclear input for understanding the nucleosynthesis in weak s-process.

Maximum Entropy Bi-Objective Model and its Evolutionary Algorithm for Portfolio Optimization

Diversification of investment is a well-established practice for reducing the total risk of investing. Portfolio optimization is an effective way for investors to disperse investment risk and increase portfolio return. Under the assumption of no short selling, a bi-objective minimizing portfolio optimization model, in which the first objective is a semi-absolute deviation mean function used to measure the portfolio risk, and the second objective is a maximum entropy smooth function used to measure the portfolio return, is given in this paper. Also, a maximum entropy multi-objective evolutionary algorithm is designed to solve the bi-objective portfolio optimization model. In order to obtain a sufficient number of uniformly distributed portfolio Pareto optimal solutions located on the true Pareto frontier and fully exploit the useful asset combination modes which can lead the search process toward the frontier direction quickly in the objective space, a subspace multi-parent uniform crossover operator and a subspace decomposition mutation operator are given. Furthermore, a normalization method to deal with the tight constraint and the convergence analysis of the proposed algorithm are also discussed. Finally, the performance of the proposed algorithm is verified by five benchmark investment optimization problems. The performance evaluations and results analyses illustrate that the proposed algorithm is capable of identifying good Pareto solutions and maintaining adequate diversity of the evolution population. Also, the proposed algorithm can obtain faster and better convergence to the true portfolio Pareto frontier compared with the three state-of-the-art multi-objective evolutionary algorithms. The result can also provide optimal portfolio plan and investment strategy for investors to allocate and manage asset effectively.

Visualizing Research Trends and Identifying Hotspots of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Nursing Technology for Insomnia: A 18-Years Bibliometric Analysis of Web of Science Core Collection

ObjectiveTo explore the research hotspot and frontier direction of TCM nursing of insomnia and provide reference for the follow-up study of the optimal scheme of TCM nursing of insomnia.BackgroundInsomnia is a common sleep-wake disorder, affects 6–10% of adults and was associated with independent higher risks of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. TCM Nursing Techniques of insomnia has a long history and has shown a definite impact. However, it's still lack of analysis in the field of the most commonly used and effective techniques, as well as the co-morbidities associated with insomnia. Therefore, the database was searched and analyzed to find effective TCM Nursing Techniques for insomnia and related diseases related to insomnia.MethodRandomized controlled trials on the intervention of TCM Nursing Techniques in insomnia were retrieved from Web of Science Core Collection and imported into CiteSpace 5.6.R5 visualization software. The works of literature were co-cited by keywords authors and institutions for visual analysis, and the co-morbidities associated with insomnia of TCM Nursing Techniques in literature was extracted manually. The symptoms of co-morbidities associated with insomnia were imported into Cytoscape 3.9.0 software and clustered by CytoHubba.ResultAs of October 20, 2021, the literature published in the last 20 years from Web of Science Core Collection was screened, and the publication period of the included literature was from 2004 to 2021. From 2016 to now, the total number of articles has been increasing. A total of 146 articles were included, and the highest production year was 2020. There is little cooperation between states, institutions, and authors. China (including Hong Kong and Taiwan) and Hong Kong Polytech University are leading countries and institutions in this area. MYUNGHAENG HUR is the most cited author, and J ALTERN COMPLEM MED is the most cited journal. According to cluster analysis and keyword frequency, auricular therapy, aromatherapy, and acupressure are the three most commonly used techniques. While the top five co-morbidities are fatigue, anxiety, depression, pain and hemodialysis. The three frontier topics and the main research directions are sleep quality, comorbid insomnia and clinical trial design.ConclusionWe found that acupressure, aromatherapy, and auricular acupoint therapy are the most commonly used nursing methods of TCM to intervene in insomnia. However, these studies have limitations such as small sample size, lack of objectivity in evaluating sleep quality, and high heterogeneity of intervention measures, which are not conducive to forming TCM clinical nursing guidelines. Therefore, it is necessary to adopt objectified sleep quality evaluation methods, select suitable acupoints according to TCM theories, and design multi-center large-sample clinical trials based on the safety principle of randomized blind control. This study provides an in-depth perspective for insomnia research on TCM Nursing Techniques and includes information for follow-up research on TCM Nursing Techniques of insomnia.

The effect of magnetic field on freezing point of water

Cold storage technology can realize energy storage and release according to demand and balance the power grid by “shifting peak and filling valley”. Ice cold storage system has the outstanding advantages of large cold storage density and simple system, and is the frontier direction of current cold storage technology research and application. However, there are some problems such as low phase transition temperature of cold storage medium and high energy consumption under cold storage condition. The research shows that magnetic field can increase the freezing point of water and aqueous solution by about 3.0-5.0K, which is beneficial to further increase the economic benefit and save energy in refrigeration condition based on the refrigeration demand.

Reverse design of pixel-type terahertz band-pass filters.

Reverse design is a frontier direction in the optical research field. In this work, reverse design is applied to the design of terahertz devices. We have employed direct binary search (DBS) and binary particle swarm optimization (BPSO) algorithms to design pixel-type terahertz band-pass filters, respectively. Through a comparative analysis of the designed devices, we found that BPSO algorithm converged faster than DBS algorithm, and the device performance is better on out-of-band suppression. We have fabricated a sample utilizing femtosecond laser micromachining and characterized it by terahertz time-domain spectroscopy. The experimental results were consistent with the finite difference time domain (FDTD) simulation. Our method can simultaneously optimize multiple characteristics of the band-pass filters, including the peak transmittance, out-of-band transmittance, bandwidth, and polarization stability, which can not be achieved by traditional optical design methods.

Reverse Design of On-Chip Terahertz Demultiplexers.

The reverse design method (RDM) is a frontier direction in the optical research field. In this work, RDM is applied to the design of terahertz demultiplexers, including two-port and three-port terahertz demultiplexers, with areas of 3 mm × 3 mm and 5 mm × 5 mm, respectively. The Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) simulation results show that the terahertz waves at frequencies of 0.5 THz and 0.417 THz can be well separated by the two-port demultiplexer, and the transmittances of the two outputs reach as high as 0.75 after bandwidth optimization. Meanwhile, the three-port terahertz demultiplexer can have terahertz waves separated from three Ports, and the crosstalk between adjacent channels is less than −18 dB.

Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine launched: building a bridge between traditional and modern medicine

In 2021, Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine (AHM) in English is officially published by Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and China Association of Chinese Medicine. AHM is a peer-reviewed, diamond open-access international journal dedicated to publishing high quality research in the field of acupuncture and herbal medicine. The types of publication considered are editorial, review article, original article, guidelines and standards, commentary, short communications, case report, methodology, and letter to the editor. Featured by evidence-based medicine researches, AHM publishes innovative studies on acupuncture and herbal medicine, promotes academic exchanges, and drives the transformation of research achievements to serve the international development of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and establish the frontrunner journal for international communication of traditional medicine. Since the late 2000s, changes in the disease spectrum have led to significant transformation in medical models and the goals of medicine worldwide. World Health Organization has advocated for universal access to essential medical services for global health benefits and starts the great journey of building a healthy world. Mainly based on acupuncture and herbal medicine, TCM has a long history and has played an important role in ensuring the prosperity of the nation and safeguarding the health of the Chinese people. Although it is ancient, its concepts are not outdated, such as the concepts of harmony between human beings and the nature, the dynamic balance between yin and yang, the individualized treatment through syndrome differentiation, and the active preventive medical thought of health maintenance. All of these theories converge with the frontier directions of modern life science, and exhibit the value of TCM in modern society. The extensive practice has proven that solutions to life sciences and medical problems are entrenched in TCM, emphasizing the worth of its vigorous inheritance and development. The modernization of TCM has been more than 20 years and has made great progress. A meaningful experience is to maintain the inheritance and promote the innovation, through following the theoretical basis of TCM, introducing and learning from advanced scientific and technological methods which is making the past serve the present. “Stones from other mountains can serve to polish our jade.” The synergistic effect can be realized through complementary advantages. Since 2020, a sudden COVID-19 epidemic has wreaked havoc around the world, with China bearing the brunt. Chinese people have united in struggling against COVID-19 with the fearless heroism, and forged the great anti-epidemic spirit of “the supremacy of life, the unity of the whole country, the sacrifice of life and death, respect for science, and the sharing of destiny.” In less than three months, we have won a phased victory in the fight against the epidemic. TCM has participated in the prevention and control of COVID-19 epidemic and played a critical role in all of the stages[1]. Strict isolation and widespread use of TCM effectively blocked the spread of COVID-19 epidemic, reduced the development from mild to severe, increased the cure rate and reduced the mortality rate. In response to the different outcomes in clinical evaluation studies, the world's first Core Outcome Set (COS) was developed by Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine for clinical trials on COVID-19 (COS-COVID), which determined the “rate of mild to severe” as a critical clinical evaluation outcome[2]. This outcome was recognized and widely used in evaluating the results of clinical trials for TCM, clinical drugs and vaccines. In addition, China has also actively shared its anti-epidemic experience of integrated traditional Chinese and Western medicine with the world, which has been widely concerned and positively commented by the international community. The combination of the TCM and Western medicine is not only one of the characteristics of China's COVID-19 response[3], but also a vivid practice of inheriting the essence of TCM, maintaining the integrity and promoting the innovation. The pandemic has not only changed the world, but also change the world's attitude towards TCM. Mainly based on acupuncture and herbal medicine, TCM has been popularized and applied in more than 100 countries around the world and legalized in health insurance by dozens of countries and regions. A number of high-level papers have been published and high-level education and personnel training have been sustainably performing. AHM will hold to evidence-based medicine research and adhere to the directions of “inheriting the essence, maintaining the integrity, and promoting the innovation”, report innovative theories and excellent academic achievements in the field of acupuncture and herbal medicine, and move forward to the international leading journal. We will strive to build a bridge between traditional medicine and modern medicine, promote global communication and cooperation, and contribute to the health and well-being of all mankind! Conflict of interest statement Boli Zhang is the Editor-in-Chief of this journal. Funding This article was supported by the Action Plan for Excellence of Chinese Science and Technology Journals(Excellence Plan-D-028).

Research on the Influence of Computer Network Teaching Platform Application on the Teaching Process of Higher Mathematics

With the rapid development of computer, great changes have taken place in China’s higher education, which has gradually changed to online education. With the construction of online teaching platform, it has become more and more convenient for college students. With the increasing demand of online education market, we need to combine education and Internet constantly, which will become the frontier direction of education innovation, especially higher mathematics (hereinafter referred to as HM) course. Advanced mathematics is a basic subject, including advanced mathematics, linear algebra, probability theory and mathematical statistics, which is very difficult for some students. Therefore, through the computer network teaching platform (hereinafter referred to as TCNTP), college students can better understand the HM course, which will gradually change the traditional teaching process. First of all, this paper puts forward the important role of TCNTP. Then, this paper puts forward the SWOT analysis of the influence of TCNTP on the teaching process of HM. Finally, some suggestions are put forward.

Research review on design method of ice protection system for civil aircraft based on ice-tolerant concept

Icing is an important disaster-causing factor which threatens the flight safety of civil aircraft and a major safety issue of concern for the airworthiness. The design of icing protection system based on ice-tolerant concept can minimize the impact of icing on aerodynamic characteristics and fully utilize the potential of flight performance, which is the frontier direction of current icing protection research for civil aircraft. This paper aims at the requirements of civil aircraft flight safety design and airworthiness certification. The design method of civil aircraft icing protection system based on the concept of ice-tolerant capacity is analyzed from two aspects. One is the capacity of ice-tolerant for aircraft frame, the other one is the design of ice-tolerant with active control. The optimum design strategy of wing in aerodynamic performance considering icing loss is refined and the design idea of ice-tolerant protection control system based on flight control law reconstruction is formed. The change from passive flight safety of icing to active safety design of icing can effectively improve the survivability and safety of civil aircraft under icing weather conditions.

Embedded Microprocessor Wireless Communication Data Collection Aids in Early Warning of Default Risk for Internet Finance Bank Customers

Thanks to the maturity and innovation of embedded technology, products based on embedded platforms continue to penetrate people’s lives and play a pivotal role in various fields of society, while the development of data acquisition systems based on wireless communication of embedded microprocessors is one of the frontier directions of embedded development. Modern commercial bank risk management system includes risk control organization, risk measurement techniques (including risk warning), risk avoidance techniques, and total risk management model. In this paper, a multichannel data acquisition system combined with a wireless sensor platform is designed for early warning of default risk of Internet financial bank customers, which can realize real‐time monitoring, acquisition, display, and data storage of DC signals and indoor environment information output from sensor platforms or electronic devices, and for frequent transactions, fund splitting, and mortgage pledging related to complex customers in today’s e‐commerce platform, which triggers when the associated enterprise credit risk presents complexity, continuity, wholeness, multiplicity, volatility, severity, etc., it is used to improve risk judgment and risk warning ability, enhance investment risk response ability, and reduce the related losses caused by marketing risk.

Overcoming the Incoherent ‘Grand Maneuver’ in the French Film and TV Markets: Lessons from the Experiences in France and Korea

AbstractIn 1989, the Member States of the European Union integrated their TV markets together in order to create a larger and more open ‘single TV market’ through the Television without Frontiers Directive. The French film industry used this opportunity to extract additional revenues by implementing TV quotas and strengthening the chronologie des médias. This paper examines the impact of these two measures on the French film and TV industries and shows how they were incoherent. In contrast to the expectations of the French film industry, these measures have induced it to produce less attractive films and burdened the TV industry with increased regulatory costs. While the government poured massive subsidies into the filmmaking sector, this endeavor has not been able to significantly improve the attractiveness of French films. In this regard, the Korean film industry offers valuable lessons. Since the late 1990s, the Korean government has significantly reduced its level of protectionism and scaled back its intervention in the industry. Crucially, business has been the main engine to produce attractive films that can compete with Hollywood films in the open market. For the French film industry, the findings in this paper suggest which direction its Grandes Manœuvres should pursue.

Progress of multiscale materials crystallization

The generation of physical properties and energy conversion takes place in materials, and material crystallization is the core of new material creation and frontier direction of exploration. Multi-scale material crystallization is a common scientific challenge faced by researchers in many fields. Material crystallization models are based on corresponding phase diagrams such that the material composition and related physical and chemical parameters can be determined and combined with material crystallization theory and growth methods to realize material crystallization. In this paper, the main theories from nucleation to growth and crystallization growth methods of some materials are reviewed; research on material crystallization is developing toward multi-scale, multi-factor, and quantification. Material crystallization equipment is progressing toward automation, digitalization, and intelligentization. Material crystallization studies focus on multi-scale phase evolution, including the mass and energy transfer process from nucleation to growth that requires the coordinated collaboration of multidisciplinary fields.

A Review of VSLAM Technology Applied in Augmented Reality

With the development of the Internet, new technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, block chains and quantum communications are emerging regularly and progressing. Augmented reality, as one of the important frontier directions of the new generation of information science and technology, integrates multi-media, sensors, new display technology, the Internet and artificial intelligence, and is gradually becoming a new focus of innovative applications in various industries. This paper details the development of VSLAM technology over recent years, and its application in augmented reality. We describe VSLAM’s development status, the classical schemes, and the specific system architecture of each scheme. The schemes are distinguished by their respective approaches to the four basic algorithmic frameworks: visual odometry, optimization, loop closing and mapping. We summarize current developments and existing problems and also consider the prospects.

Developed country MNEs investing in developing economies: Progress and prospect

This study reviews research from 1970 through 2016 on developed country multinational enterprises (DMNEs) entering and competing in developing economies. To identify the current state of knowledge of this research and push it further, we review the literature using bibliometric and qualitative content analyses covering leading journals and books. We articulate frontier issues that are understudied yet critical to both theorization and practice of DMNEs in developing economies. We discuss the findings and conclusions from prior research along five key areas: (1) entering developing economies, (2) organizing local activities, (3) managing alliances and joint ventures, (4) competing in dynamic environments, and (5) dealing with institutions, governments and society. We offer prospective insights into future agenda that have important implications for MNE strategies and decisions, and propose frontier directions that encompass strategic localization, reverse transfer and adaptation, co-evolution with local business ecosystems, reorganizing and restructuring, and strategic responses to institutional and market complexity.