We theorized and tested a leader-member perspective beyond the existing studies in paradoxical leadership and employee voice behavior. We proposed that paradoxical leadership influences employees’ voice behavior through psychological safety and self-efficacy. We also theorized that team size influences an extent to which the subordinates internalize their self-efficacy and psychological safety to exhibit proactive behavior. In a longitudinal study conducted on 155 subordinates and 96 supervisors in China, we found that when leaders adopt paradoxical behavior, employees are more likely to engage into promotive voice behavior; however, employees’ prohibitive voice behavior is reduced when their leaders adopt paradoxes in leadership behavior. Additionally, psychological safety mediates the relationship between paradoxical leadership and promotive voice behavior. Further, team size has significant interaction effects with psychological safety on promotive voice behavior.

Recently, research on the leadership potential of employees has gradually attracted the attention of scholars. However, further exploration is required to better understand the upward influence of employee’s leadership potential on their leaders. This study examined the mechanisms behind the impact of employee’s leadership potential on leadership ostracism behavior. Moreover, the mediating role of leader’s envy and the moderating role of employee’s political skills in the relationship between employee’s leadership potential and leadership ostracism behavior were investigated. The results of an empirical analysis of 221 employee–leader pairs, studied over multiple periods, are as follows: employee’s leadership potential had a significant positive impact on leader’s envy and leadership ostracism behavior; leader’s envy had a significant positive impact on leadership ostracism behavior; and leader’s envy mediated the relationship between leadership potential and leadership ostracism behavior. In addition, employee’s political skills negatively moderated the indirect effect of leadership potential on leadership ostracism behavior through leader’s envy. The leadership potential of employees with more political skills appeared to have less influence on organizational ostracism via leader’s envy. This study explored the “dark-side” of employee’s leadership potential by understanding its impact on their leaders; the findings have theoretical and practical significance for companies.

Thermal management of air-core pulsed alternators is an important problem to be solved before the alternators come to eventual deployment in mobile applications. The stator thermal problem is mainly caused by the armature winding heat generation and the rotor thermal problem is mainly caused by the field winding heat generation. Unlike the stator thermal management study, there is little literature about the rotor thermal management. So, the rotor thermal management remains a major challenge because of the poor conductivity of rotor material. Therefore, an energy reclamation control strategy was presented in this paper to reduce the heat generation of the field winding after discharge process. In the energy reclamation process, the self-excitation bridge starts to work again making the pulsed alternator work as a motor and a portion of the electromagnetic energy stored in the field winding is converted to rotor kinetic energy. Because the heat loss is reduced, the efficiency of the whole system can be improved. The equivalent circuit topology that can realize the energy reclamation control was established. Based on the circuit topology, the factors impacted the energy reclamation efficiency were analyzed. The impact factors include not only control parameters but also design parameters of the alternator. Under some assumptions, the optimal trigger angle was calculated. Conclusions that can offer guidance for the design and optimization of air-core pulsed-alternator systems were also reached.

As an attractive power supply for high energy level pulsed power applications, such as long range electromagnetic railgun, electromagnetic aircraft launch system, and high-energy laser, multiple pulsed alternators can not only meet the high energy level requirement of the load, but also lower the requirements of the power electronics in the system. Utilizing multiple pulsed alternators work together also makes the control strategy of the system more flexible. In order to improve the efficiency of the whole system, a novel control strategy of an air-core pulsed alternator pair is proposed in this paper. Like a single pulsed alternator, the whole work process of the pulsed alternator pair can also be divided into three subprocesses: the self-excitation process, the discharge process, and the energy reclamation process. In the self-excitation and energy reclamation processes, the armature windings of the pulsed alternator pair are connected in series, and the filed windings are connected in parallel. In order to illustrate the advantages of this control strategy, a comprehensive discussion of different connection topologies of the alternator pair has been made in this paper. A mathematical model based on the equivalent circuit of the air-core pulsed alternator considering the harmonic components was also established in this paper, which could help calculating the system efficiency more accurately. The results and conclusions of the analyses and simulations can offer guidance for the air-core pulsed alternator pair system design and optimization.

As the muzzle energy in the electromagnetic launch increases, it becomes necessary to use a modular pulsed alternator power system composed of multiple pairs of machines connected in parallel. In practical situations, however, parameter variations between two machines are inevitable, and it has uncertain effects on the system performance. Furthermore, due to pulsed alternators driving railgun through a rectifier, the system connection scheme has two options: 1) two machines are connected in parallel before connecting them to the rectifier and 2) two machines are connected in parallel after connecting them to the rectifier. The sensitivity of two topologies to the parameter variations is also uncertain. To make sense of this uncertainty, the impact of machine parameter variations on the system performance is investigated. This paper is performed on the simulation of a pair of pulsed alternators driving a railgun, using one-factor-at-a-time method to observe the system performance in the parameter variations. The sensitivity of two topologies is analyzed taking into account small variations in machine manufacturing parameters--rotor inertia, field winding, and armature winding and in machine control parameters--rotor speed and rotor angle. The results reveal that the system performance is more sensitive to the machine control parameters compared with the machine manufacturing parameters, especially the initial offset in the rotor angle. Furthermore, the connection scheme in which two machines connected in parallel before connecting them to the rectifier is the more robust and is less sensitivity to parameter variations compared with the other topology. This paper is aimed at the identification of the most sensitive parameter and the more robust topology to provide support for the further application.