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The purpose of this paper is to design a flying wheel-legged humanoid robot (FWLR), endowing the robot with flight capability to improve the obstacle-crossing ability of the wheel-legged humanoid robot. A flight control method using thrust-vector-control (TVC) under constant thrust strength is proposed, which reduces the performance requirements on the response speed of thrusters.

To endow the robot with flight capability, three sets of thrusters are installed at the robot’s back and two arm ends to provide flight lift and the direction of thrust can be changed through the arm swing. According to the robot configuration, this paper established a linearized dynamic model and proposed a constant-strength-thrust-vector-control (CSTVC) framework enabling the robot to achieve flight without thrust intensity change.

With the proposed modeling method and CSTVC framework, FWLR can inhibit attitude and position drift during takeoff and hovering, and has certain adaptability to takeoff attitude. Finally, FWLR reached a flying height up to 1 m under a 30 kg large self-weight with fixed thrust strength.

The design, modeling and flight control method proposed in this paper enables a human-sized wheel-legged humanoid robot to achieve takeoff and hovering for the first time. The movement range of wheel-legged humanoid robot is extended to the air, thereby enhancing its application value in emergency tasks such as disaster search-and-rescue.

This study aims to comprehensively examine the transitions in household livelihood strategies within rural China, including the underlying processes, drivers and outcomes.

This study uses two waves (2010 and 2018) of longitudinal data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), employing latent cluster analysis, regression models and cumulative distribution function within a dynamic household livelihood strategy framework.

The results show that (1) households’ livelihood strategies can be categorized into four distinct types, i.e. agricultural dominated, agricultural dominated with non-agricultural supplementation, non-agricultural dominated with agricultural supplementation and employment oriented. (2) During 2010–2018, approximately 60% of households underwent transitions in their livelihoods, encompassing both upward and downward trajectories, with a prevalence of upward transitions. (3) Various forms of livelihood capital significantly contribute to upward transitions, while the availability of land resources and exposure to shocks impede the potential for upward mobility. (4) The transition towards non-agricultural livelihood strategies by households leads to a notable enhancement in their livelihood welfare.

In the context of urbanization, industrialization and globalization, rural areas in China are undergoing a gradual socioeconomic transformation, which has also led to changes in rural households’ livelihood strategies. Nevertheless, a dearth of empirical investigation exists regarding the dynamics of rural households’ livelihood strategies, the determinants behind such transitions and the resulting outcomes on their livelihoods. A comprehensive understanding of livelihood transitions can provide valuable insights for policymakers in their endeavors to promote rural revitalization in China.

Based on the nationwide representative datasets in China, it examines the micro-level livelihood transitions of rural households within the broader context of socioeconomic transformation that presents both opportunities and challenges, as well as vulnerable contexts, shaped by various government policies. This exploration would offer valuable theoretical and empirical evidence to advance our understanding of the process, driver and outcome of rural households’ livelihood transition in developing countries.

Although the targets of envy have received increasing attention in management research, how envied employees respond to envy remains ambiguous and merits further investigation. Drawing upon regulatory focus theory, this paper aims to reconcile these inconsistent findings by developing and testing a model that elucidates how different types of being envied (i.e. benignly or maliciously) can elicit either favorable or unfavorable motivational and behavioral reactions.

An experience sampling study was conducted on 131 employees across 10 consecutive workdays in China. Focusing on within-person effects, multilevel mediation models using multilevel structural equation modeling were applied.

Results indicated that on days when employees are benignly envied, they engage in more organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) due to increased daily promotion focus. On the contrary, on days when employees are maliciously envied, they participate in more counterproductive work behavior (CWB) due to decreased daily promotion focus.

Organizations and managers should take a more holistic view of workplace envy when considering that envied employees may use OCB to deal with benign envy. Conversely, considering that CWB may emerge from employees who are maliciously envied, it is crucial for managers to be vigilant in discouraging and addressing malicious envy in the workplace.

This paper takes an initial foray into incorporating the concepts of benign envy and malicious envy into the literature on being envied and provides a novel perspective to explain why being envied can lead to both functional and dysfunctional responses.

This study aims to design a novel 3 degree-of-freedom parallel-driven hydraulic wrist (PHW) joint, characterized by a compact structure, heavy payload capacity and spherical workspace.

In this paper, the kinematics and dynamics mathematical model of PHW is analyzed based on the closed-loop vector method, screw theory and virtual work principle. And the key parameters of PHW are determined based on the singularity analysis. The integrated design method of hydraulic and mechanical systems is used, thereby enabling a hose-less configuration that fosters a low-leakage hydraulic system structure with reduced self-weight. Additionally, this research proposed a dynamic nonlinear compensation control methodology predicated on a payload model to enhance the stability and precision of trajectory tracking for PHW. Finally, several experiments have been conducted to evaluate and validate the performance of the proposed approach and the payload capacity of PHW.

Experiment results show that PHW has a payload-to-self-weight ratio of 4(payload 14 kg with self-weight 3.5 kg) under supply pressure 7 MPa. The experimental assessment of payload capacity substantiates the efficacy of the dynamic nonlinear compensation control method for PHW. Remarkably, the trajectory tracking errors for PHW remain under 0.03 rad, even when subjected to payloads of 10.5 and 14 kg.

This study presents an effective parallel hydraulic-driven wrist structure. This parallel structure provides a spherical workspace with flexible motion, and larger payload capacity compared with the existing robot wrist.

With the continuous increase in Web services, efficient identification of Web services that meet developers’ needs and understanding their relationships remains a challenge. Previous research has improved recommendation effectiveness by using correlations between Web services through graph neural networks (GNNs), while it has not fully leveraged service descriptions, limiting the depth and diversity of learning. To this end, a Web services recommendation method called LLMSARec, based on Large Language Model and semantic alignment, is proposed. This study aims to extract potential semantic information from services and learn deeper relationships between services.

This method consists of two core modules: profile generation and maximizing mutual information. The profile generation module uses LLM to analyze the descriptions of services, infer and construct service profiles. Concurrently, it uses LLM as text encoders to encode inferred service profiles for enhanced service representation learning. The maximizing mutual information model aims to align the semantic features of the services text inferred by LLM with structural semantic features of the services captured by GNNs, thus achieving a more comprehensive representation of services. The aligned representation serves as an input for the model to identify services with superior matching accuracy, thereby enhancing the service recommendation capability.

Experimental comparisons and analyses were conducted on the Programmable Web platform data set, and the results demonstrated that the effectiveness of Web service recommendations can be significantly improved by using LLMSARec.

In this study, the authors propose a Web service recommendation approach based on Large Language Model and semantic alignment. By extracting latent semantic information from services and effectively aligning semantic features with structural features, new representations can be generated to significantly enhance recommendation accuracy.

This paper aims to provide a reference for the development of digital transformation from the perspective of manufacturing process links.

This paper applies canonical correlation analysis based on digital technology patents in the key links of manufacturing industries (product design, procurement, product manufacturing, warehousing and transportation, and wholesale and retail) and the related indicators of economic benefits of regions in China.

(1) The degree of digitalization of manufacturing process links is significantly correlated with economic benefits. (2) The improvement of the degree of digitalization in the “product design” link, the “warehousing and transportation” link, the “product manufacturing” link and the “wholesale and retail” link has significant impacts on the economic benefits of manufacturing industry. (3) The digital degree of the “procurement” link has no obvious influence on the economic benefits of manufacturing industry.

The research results can provide reference for the formulation and implementation of micro policies. The strategy of improving the level of digital transformation of key links of manufacturing industry is put forward to better promote both the digital transformation of manufacturing industry and economic development.

This paper innovatively studies the relationship between digitalization of manufacturing process links and economic benefits. The findings can provide theoretical and empirical support for the digital transformation of China's manufacturing industry and high-quality development of economy.

The impact of FinTech in sub-Saharan Africa has primarily been limited to financial inclusion. Contrarily, this study aims to deviate from this norm to estimate how FinTech affects carbon emissions in the subregion. This provides policy recommendations for FinTech regulators, service providers and practitioners to consider optimal products and services that reduce carbon emissions.

A balanced panel data set from 2009 to 2020 is used and estimated with the fully modified ordinary least squares estimator after checking for cross-sectional dependence, unit root, stationarity and cointegration.

Results from the estimation suggest a negatively significant relationship between financial technology and carbon emissions in these countries. However, domestic credit to the private sector revealed a statistically insignificant relationship with carbon emissions for the same period. Further, foreign direct investment reduces carbon emissions but gross domestic product and trade openness increase carbon emissions in these countries.

The impact of FinTech in sub-Saharan Africa has primarily been limited to financial inclusion. Contrarily, this study deviates from this norm and estimates how FinTech affects carbon emissions in the subregion.

As the complexity and uncertainty of infrastructural megaprojects challenge traditional management models, there is an increasing focus on value co-creation as an organizational strategy to streamline management. However, the role of value co-creation behavior in facilitating the value realization process remains underexplored. This study examines how justice perception (distributive, procedural and interactional justice) improves contractor value co-creation behavior, focusing on the mediating role of psychological ownership.

Ten hypotheses in the proposed research model were tested through partial least squares structural equation modeling using 199 valid questionnaires from China.

The results show that contractor value co-creation behavior is directly and positively influenced by procedural, distributive and interactional justice and indirectly influenced by them through the underlying psychological mechanism of psychological ownership.

The findings fill a knowledge gap by examining the effect of justice perception on contractor value co-creation behavior based on social exchange theory. Discovering justice perception will contribute to contractor value co-creation behavior, and psychological ownership mediates this relationship.

The carbon complementary supply chain (CCSC) is a collaborative framework that facilitates internal carbon credit trading agreements among supply chain agents in compliance with prevailing carbon regulations. Such agreements are highly beneficial, prompting agents to consider joint investment in emission reduction initiatives. However, capital investments come with inevitable opportunity costs, compelling agents to weigh the potential revenue from collaborative investments against these costs. Thus, this paper mainly explores carbon abatement strategies and operational decisions of the CCSC members and the influence of opportunity costs on the strategic choice of cooperative and noncooperative investment.

The authors propose a novel biform game-based theoretical framework that captures the interplay of pricing competition and investment cooperation among CCSC agents and assesses the impact of opportunity costs on CCSC profits and social welfare. Besides, the authors also compare the biform game-based collaborative scenario (Model B) to the noncooperative investment scenario (Model N) to investigate the conditions under which collaborative investment is most effective.

The biform game-based collaborative investment strategy enhances the economic performance of the traditional energy manufacturer, who bears the risk of opportunity costs, as well as the retailer. Additionally, it incentivizes the renewable energy manufacturer to improve environmental performance through renewable projects.

This research contributes significantly by establishing a theoretical framework that integrates the concepts of opportunity costs and biform game theory, offering new insights into the strategic management of carbon emissions within supply chains.

This chapter explored health and safety considerations in stealth construction, emphasising the integration of advanced technologies and innovative practices. It commences with a general introduction, followed by a historical overview of safety practices in the construction industry, highlighting the evolution of a safety culture. The chapter examined various health and safety management techniques, including policy formulation, safety training programs, and job safety analysis. Additionally, it discussed current trends such as wearable technology, IoT, VR/AR, and predictive analytics. The unique requirements of stealth construction are addressed, focusing on building cross-section design, visibility, application of radio frequency emission and countermeasures. Finally, it presents a comprehensive approach to achieving stealth construction, emphasising environmental protection, safety, speed, economy, and aesthetics, and provides practical examples to illustrate these concepts.