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1 – 10 of 190
Article
Publication date: 29 October 2024

Kai Wang, Xiang Wang, Chao Tan, Shijie Dong, Fang Zhao and Shiguo Lian

This study aims to streamline and enhance the assembly defect inspection process in diesel engine production. Traditional manual inspection methods are labor-intensive and…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to streamline and enhance the assembly defect inspection process in diesel engine production. Traditional manual inspection methods are labor-intensive and time-consuming because of the complex structures of the engines and the noisy workshop environment. This study’s robotic system aims to alleviate these challenges by automating the inspection process and enabling easy remote inspection, thereby freeing workers from heavy fieldwork.

Design/methodology/approach

This study’s system uses a robotic arm to traverse and capture images of key components of the engine. This study uses anomaly detection algorithms to automatically identify defects in the captured images. Additionally, this system is enhanced by digital twin technology, which provides inspectors with various tools to designate components of interest in the engine and assist in defect checking and annotation. This integration facilitates smooth transitions from manual to automatic inspection within a short period.

Findings

Through evaluations and user studies conducted over a relatively long period, the authors found that the system accelerates and improves the accuracy of engine inspections. The results indicate that the system significantly enhances the efficiency of production processes for manufacturers.

Originality/value

The system represents a novel approach to engine inspection, leveraging robotic technology and digital twin enhancements to address the limitations of traditional manual inspection methods. By automating and enhancing the inspection process, the system offers manufacturers the opportunity to improve production efficiency and ensure the quality of diesel engines.

Details

Industrial Robot: the international journal of robotics research and application, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0143-991X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 26 February 2024

Wenhai Tan, Yichen Zhang, Yuhao Song, Yanbo Ma, Chao Zhao and Youfeng Zhang

Aqueous zinc-ion battery has broad application prospects in smart grid energy storage, power tools and other fields. Co3O4 is one of the ideal cathode materials for water zinc-ion…

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Abstract

Purpose

Aqueous zinc-ion battery has broad application prospects in smart grid energy storage, power tools and other fields. Co3O4 is one of the ideal cathode materials for water zinc-ion batteries due to their high theoretical capacity, simple synthesis, low cost and environmental friendliness. Many studies were concentrated on the synthesis, design and doping of cathodes, but the effect of process parameters on morphology and performance was rarely reported.

Design/methodology/approach

Herein, Co3O4 cathode material based on carbon cloth (Co3O4/CC) was prepared by different temperatures hydrothermal synthesis method. The temperatures of hydrothermal reaction are 100°C, 120°C, 130°C and 140°C, respectively. The influence of temperatures on the microstructures of the cathodes and electrochemical performance of zinc ion batteries were investigated by X-ray diffraction analysis, scanning electron microscopy, cyclic voltammetry curve, electrochemical charging and discharging behavior and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy test.

Findings

The results show that the Co3O4/CC material synthesized at 120°C has good performance. Co3O4/CC nanowire has a uniform distribution, regular surface and small size on carbon cloth. The zinc-ion battery has excellent rate performance and low reaction resistance. In the voltage range of 0.01–2.2 V, when the current density is 1 A/g, the specific capacity of the battery is 108.2 mAh/g for the first discharge and the specific capacity of the battery is 142.6 mAh/g after 60 charge and discharge cycles.

Originality/value

The study aims to investigate the effect of process parameters on the performance of zinc-ion batteries systematically and optimized applicable reaction temperature.

Details

World Journal of Engineering, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1708-5284

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 September 2024

Li Shaochen, Zhenyu Liu, Yu Huang, Daxin Liu, Guifang Duan and Jianrong Tan

Assembly action recognition plays an important role in assembly process monitoring and human-robot collaborative assembly. Previous works overlook the interaction relationship…

Abstract

Purpose

Assembly action recognition plays an important role in assembly process monitoring and human-robot collaborative assembly. Previous works overlook the interaction relationship between hands and operated objects and lack the modeling of subtle hand motions, which leads to a decline in accuracy for fine-grained action recognition. This paper aims to model the hand-object interactions and hand movements to realize high-accuracy assembly action recognition.

Design/methodology/approach

In this paper, a novel multi-stream hand-object interaction network (MHOINet) is proposed for assembly action recognition. To learn the hand-object interaction relationship in assembly sequence, an interaction modeling network (IMN) comprising both geometric and visual modeling is exploited in the interaction stream. The former captures the spatial location relation of hand and interacted parts/tools according to their detected bounding boxes, and the latter focuses on mining the visual context of hand and object at pixel level through a position attention model. To model the hand movements, a temporal enhancement module (TEM) with multiple convolution kernels is developed in the hand stream, which captures the temporal dependences of hand sequences in short and long ranges. Finally, assembly action prediction is accomplished by merging the outputs of different streams through a weighted score-level fusion. A robotic arm component assembly dataset is created to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Findings

The method can achieve the recognition accuracy of 97.31% and 95.32% for coarse and fine assembly actions, which outperforms other comparative methods. Experiments on human-robot collaboration prove that our method can be applied to industrial production.

Originality/value

The author proposes a novel framework for assembly action recognition, which simultaneously leverages the features of hands, objects and hand-object interactions. The TEM enhances the representation of dynamics of hands and facilitates the recognition of assembly actions with various time spans. The IMN learns the semantic information from hand-object interactions, which is significant for distinguishing fine assembly actions.

Details

Robotic Intelligence and Automation, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2754-6969

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 7 October 2024

Kaixiao Jiang and Liam O'Callaghan

This chapter explores how the development of football fandom for the Chinese national team and local football clubs is strongly associated with societal changes. Although the…

Abstract

This chapter explores how the development of football fandom for the Chinese national team and local football clubs is strongly associated with societal changes. Although the performances of Chinese football teams, especially the national team, have failed to impress the world, football remains the most popular because of millions of supporters with loyalty and passion. Most studies related to fans mainly focus on the economic and political implications of spectatorship along with the rise of China. Nevertheless, few articles are available to answer the fundamental questions, such as ‘When did these supporters come out?’ and ‘What were the factors of the development of fandom?’. By going through archival records and published documents over the last decades, this chapter offers a comprehensive and historical analysis of the development of football fandom in the People's Republic of China (PRC) and deals with these unanswered questions. As such, this chapter does not intend to be the most authoritative one but is one of the rare sources to lay down the foundation for research on Chinese football fandom. Furthermore, this chapter also proves that studies on football fandom can be a useful window for observing Chinese society.

Article
Publication date: 16 August 2024

Kian Yeik Koay, Ser Zian Tan, Izian Idris, Mei Kei Leong and Chee Wei Cheah

The consumption of bubble tea is a huge phenomenon in Southeast Asia, and many bubble tea stores have been decorated uniquely in an attempt to attract more consumers. Hence, the…

Abstract

Purpose

The consumption of bubble tea is a huge phenomenon in Southeast Asia, and many bubble tea stores have been decorated uniquely in an attempt to attract more consumers. Hence, the purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of servicescape on experiential value and its influence on consumers' responses (i.e. eWOM, revisit intentions and willingness to pay a price premium) based on the Stimulus-Organism-Response framework.

Design/methodology/approach

This research project gathered survey data from 289 consumers of bubble tea. The collected data underwent analysis employing a statistical technique known as partial least squares structural equation modelling to examine and understand the relationships between different variables within the dataset, offering insights into consumer behaviour and preferences regarding bubble tea consumption.

Findings

The results show that factors such as facility aesthetics, seating comfort and cleanliness positively affect experiential value. However, layout accessibility and signs and symbols do not affect experiential value. In addition, experiential value positively affects eWOM, revisit intentions and willingness to pay a price premium.

Originality/value

The importance of servicescape in physical stores within the restaurant setting has been extensively documented in existing literature. However, there is a notable lack of research addressing the influence of servicescape on consumer responses, particularly within the bubble tea context. This study stands out as one of the few endeavours to examine the impacts of servicescape on consumer responses within the bubble tea industry.

Details

Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Administration, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1757-4323

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 15 October 2024

David Amani

There is an increasing focus on the significance of tourism ethnocentrism in determining the success of tourism development and marketing. However, the relationship between…

Abstract

Purpose

There is an increasing focus on the significance of tourism ethnocentrism in determining the success of tourism development and marketing. However, the relationship between tourism ethnocentrism and various tourism-related concepts remains inadequately explored. Hence, this study aims to address the growing need to examine the factors that bolster tourism ethnocentrism in emerging tourism destinations using stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) paradigm.

Design/methodology/approach

Using a quantitative cross-sectional survey design, the study gathered data from 434 respondents, which were subsequently analyzed using structural equation modeling.

Findings

The results highlight crucial findings: destination promotional videos contribute to the accumulation of tourism knowledge, which, in turn, fosters tourism ethnocentrism. These findings imply that tourism knowledge mediates the relationship between destination promotional videos and tourism ethnocentrism.

Practical implications

The study strongly advocates for using destination promotional videos to enhance resident support for tourism by augmenting perceived tourism knowledge. Managers in destination marketing organizations (DMOs) are encouraged to adopt destination promotional videos as a novel approach for promoting inclusive tourism development by enhancing tourism knowledge as mechanisms for promoting tourism ethnocentrism.

Originality/value

By considering and proposing destination promotional videos as an ambivalent mechanism of tourism ethnocentrism, this study is an academic endeavor that advances insights into the occurrence of tourism ethnocentrism as an important component of inclusive tourism development.

Details

SAM Advanced Management Journal, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2996-6078

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 4 June 2024

Haonan Hou, Chao Zhang, Fanghui Lu and Panna Lu

Three-way decision (3WD) and probabilistic rough sets (PRSs) are theoretical tools capable of simulating humans' multi-level and multi-perspective thinking modes in the field of…

Abstract

Purpose

Three-way decision (3WD) and probabilistic rough sets (PRSs) are theoretical tools capable of simulating humans' multi-level and multi-perspective thinking modes in the field of decision-making. They are proposed to assist decision-makers in better managing incomplete or imprecise information under conditions of uncertainty or fuzziness. However, it is easy to cause decision losses and the personal thresholds of decision-makers cannot be taken into account. To solve this problem, this paper combines picture fuzzy (PF) multi-granularity (MG) with 3WD and establishes the notion of PF MG 3WD.

Design/methodology/approach

An effective incomplete model based on PF MG 3WD is designed in this paper. First, the form of PF MG incomplete information systems (IISs) is established to reasonably record the uncertain information. On this basis, the PF conditional probability is established by using PF similarity relations, and the concept of adjustable PF MG PRSs is proposed by using the PF conditional probability to fuse data. Then, a comprehensive PF multi-attribute group decision-making (MAGDM) scheme is formed by the adjustable PF MG PRSs and the VlseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) method. Finally, an actual breast cancer data set is used to reveal the validity of the constructed method.

Findings

The experimental results confirm the effectiveness of PF MG 3WD in predicting breast cancer. Compared with existing models, PF MG 3WD has better robustness and generalization performance. This is mainly due to the incomplete PF MG 3WD proposed in this paper, which effectively reduces the influence of unreasonable outliers and threshold settings.

Originality/value

The model employs the VIKOR method for optimal granularity selections, which takes into account both group utility maximization and individual regret minimization, while incorporating decision-makers' subjective preferences as well. This ensures that the experiment maintains higher exclusion stability and reliability, enhancing the robustness of the decision results.

Details

International Journal of Intelligent Computing and Cybernetics, vol. 17 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1756-378X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 27 January 2023

Dhanalakshmi K.M., Kavya G. and Rajkumar S.

This paper aims to propose a single element, dual feed, polarisation diversity antenna. The proposed antenna operates from 2.9 to 10.6 GHz for covering the entire ultra-wideband…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to propose a single element, dual feed, polarisation diversity antenna. The proposed antenna operates from 2.9 to 10.6 GHz for covering the entire ultra-wideband (UWB) frequency range. The antenna is designed for usage in massive multiple input multiple output (MIMO) and closed packaging applications.

Design/methodology/approach

The size of the antenna is 24 × 24 × 1.6 mm3. The radiating element of the antenna is derived from the Sierpinski–Knopp (SK) fractal geometry for miniaturization of the antenna size. The antenna has a single reflecting stub placed between the two orthogonal feeds, to improve isolation.

Findings

The proposed antenna system exhibits S11 < −10 dB, S21 < −15 dB and stable radiation characteristics in the entire operating region. It also offers an envelope correlation coefficient < 0.01, a diversity gain > 9.9 dB and a capacity loss < 0.4 bps/Hz. The simulated and measured outputs were compared and results were found to be in similarity.

Originality/value

The proposed UWB-MIMO antenna has significant size reduction through usage of SK fractal geometry for radiating element. The antenna uses a single radiating element with dual feed. The stub is between the antenna elements which provide a compact and miniaturized MIMO solution for high density packaging applications. The UWB-MIMO antenna provides an isolation better than −20 dB in the entire UWB operating band.

Article
Publication date: 6 August 2024

Chao Li, Mengjun Huo and Renhuai Liu

The purpose of this paper is to empirically analyze the impact of directors’ and officers’ (D&O) liability insurance on enterprise strategic change. It also explores the mediating…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to empirically analyze the impact of directors’ and officers’ (D&O) liability insurance on enterprise strategic change. It also explores the mediating role of litigation risk, the moderating roles of enterprise science and technology level and precipitation organizational slack between them. In addition, it examines the joint moderating roles of the top management team (TMT) external social network and enterprise science and technology level, and enterprise scale and precipitation organizational slack.

Design/methodology/approach

Using the unbalanced panel data of A-share listed companies in the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges of China from 2002 to 2020 as the research sample, this paper uses the ordinary least square method and fixed-effect model to study the relationship between D&O liability insurance and enterprise strategic change. The study also focuses on the mediating mechanism and moderating mechanisms between them.

Findings

The authors find that D&O liability insurance has an “incentive effect,” which can significantly promote enterprise strategic change. Litigation risk plays a partial mediating role between D&O liability insurance and enterprise strategic change. Enterprise science and technology level and precipitation organizational slack negatively moderate the relationship between D&O liability insurance and enterprise strategic change. TMT external social network and enterprise science and technology level, and enterprise-scale and precipitation organizational slack have joint moderating effects on the relationship between D&O liability insurance and enterprise strategic change.

Originality/value

This paper confirms the “incentive effect hypothesis” of the impact of D&O liability insurance on enterprise strategic change, which not only broadens the research perspective of enterprise strategic management but also further expands the research scope of D&O liability insurance. Besides, this paper thoroughly explores the influencing mechanisms between D&O liability insurance and enterprise strategic change, providing incremental contributions to the research literature in the field of enterprise risk management and corporate governance. The findings have practical guiding significance for expanding the coverage of D&O liability insurance, promoting the implementation of strategic changes and improving the level of corporate governance of Chinese enterprises.

Article
Publication date: 22 October 2024

Xiaodan Liu, Chao Su and Jin Yin

Social networking services (SNS) empower users with a robust capability to connect with others and manage their social relationships. However, as the size of users’ social…

Abstract

Purpose

Social networking services (SNS) empower users with a robust capability to connect with others and manage their social relationships. However, as the size of users’ social networks increases, coupled with the inherent boundary-spanning technical features of SNS, users are faced with unprecedented role stresses. This, in turn, leads to maladaptive lurking decisions. This study delves into the mechanism of this technology-induced decision-making process among SNS users.

Design/methodology/approach

Survey data were collected from 491 Chinese WeChat Moment users. The model and hypotheses testing were conducted using SmartPLS 4.0.

Findings

Our findings indicate that both social network size and boundary spanning have a positive influence on role conflict and role overload. Both role conflict and role overload significantly contribute to SNS fatigue, which further intensifies users’ lurking intention. Furthermore, SNS fatigue fully mediated the relationship between role conflict and lurking intention, and partially mediated the relationship between role overload and lurking intention.

Originality/value

Our study offers a fresh viewpoint for comprehending lurking behaviors on SNS, furnishing practical insights for platform providers. Additionally, it paves the way for future research into the deeper mechanisms driving SNS lurking behaviors, by providing a novel construct (i.e. boundary spanning) to distinguish and measure the unique social environment of SNS.

Details

Information Technology & People, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-3845

Keywords

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