Aleksandrs Urbahs and Vladislavs Zavtkevics
This paper aims to analyze the application of remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) for remote oil spill sensing.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to analyze the application of remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) for remote oil spill sensing.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is an analysis of RPA strong points.
Findings
To increase the accuracy and eliminate potentially false contamination detection, which can be caused by external factors, an oil thickness measurement algorithm is used with the help of the multispectral imaging that provides high accuracy and is versatile for any areas of water and various meteorological and atmospheric conditions.
Research limitations/implications
SWOT analysis of implementation of RPA for remote sensing of oil spills.
Practical implications
The use of RPA will improve the remote sensing of oil spills.
Social implications
The concept of oil spills monitoring needs to be developed for quality data collection, oil pollution control and emergency response.
Originality/value
The research covers the development of a method and design of a device intended for taking samples and determining the presence of oil contamination in an aquatorium area; the procedure includes taking a sample from the water surface, preparing it for transportation and delivering the sample to a designated location by using the RPA. The objective is to carry out the analysis of remote oil spill sensing using RPA. The RPA provides a reliable sensing of oil pollution with significant advantages over other existing methods. The objective is to analyze the use of RPA employing all of their strong points. In this paper, technical aspects of sensors are analyzed, as well as their advantages and limitations.
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At airport security checkpoints, baggage screening is aimed to prevent transportation of prohibited and potentially dangerous items. Observing the projection images generated by…
Abstract
Purpose
At airport security checkpoints, baggage screening is aimed to prevent transportation of prohibited and potentially dangerous items. Observing the projection images generated by X-rays scanner is a critical method. However, when multiple objects are stacked on top of each other, distinguishing objects only by a two-dimensional picture is difficult, which prompts the demand for more precise imaging technology to be investigated for use. Reconstructing from 2D X-ray images to 3D-computed tomography (CT) volumes is a reliable solution.
Design/methodology/approach
To more accurately distinguish the specific contour shape of items when stacked, multi-information fusion network (MFCT-GAN) based on generative adversarial network (GAN) and U-like network (U-NET) is proposed to reconstruct from two biplanar orthogonal X-ray projections into 3D CT volumes. The authors use three modules to enhance the reconstruction qualitative and quantitative effects, compared with the original network. The skip connection modification (SCM) and multi-channels residual dense block (MRDB) enable the network to extract more feature information and learn deeper with high efficiency; the introduction of subjective loss enables the network to focus on the structural similarity (SSIM) of images during training.
Findings
On account of the fusion of multiple information, MFCT-GAN can significantly improve the value of quantitative indexes and distinguish contour explicitly between different targets. In particular, SCM enables features more reasonable and accurate when expanded into three dimensions. The appliance of MRDB can alleviate problem of slow optimization during the late training period, as well as reduce the computational cost. The introduction of subjective loss guides network to retain more high-frequency information, which makes the rendered CT volumes clearer in details.
Originality/value
The authors' proposed MFCT-GAN is able to restore the 3D shapes of different objects greatly based on biplanar projections. This is helpful in security check places, where X-ray images of stacked objects need to be distinguished from the presence of prohibited objects. The authors adopt three new modules, SCM, MRDB and subjective loss, as well as analyze the role the modules play in 3D reconstruction. Results show a significant improvement on the reconstruction both in objective and subjective effects.
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Łukasz Kryszak, Katarzyna Świerczyńska and Jakub Staniszewski
Total factor productivity (TFP) has become a prominent concept in agriculture economics and policy over the last three decades. The main aim of this paper is to obtain a detailed…
Abstract
Purpose
Total factor productivity (TFP) has become a prominent concept in agriculture economics and policy over the last three decades. The main aim of this paper is to obtain a detailed picture of the field via bibliometric analysis to identify research streams and future research agenda.
Design/methodology/approach
The data sample consists of 472 papers in several bibliometric exercises. Citation and collaboration structure analyses are employed to identify most important authors and journals and track the interconnections between main authors and institutions. Next, content analysis based on bibliographic coupling is conducted to identify main research streams in TFP.
Findings
Three research streams in agricultural TFP research were distinguished: TFP growth in developing countries in the context of policy reforms (1), TFP in the context of new challenges in agriculture (2) and finally, non-parametric TFP decomposition based on secondary data (3).
Originality/value
This research indicates agenda of future TFP research, in particular broadening the concept of TFP to the problems of policy, environment and technology in emerging countries. It provides description of the current state of the art in the agricultural TFP literature and can serve as a “guide” to the field.
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Ying Ma and Ewan Wright
This study aims to interrogate and expand on the flexible citizenship framework by illuminating students' emergent identities and imagined future mobilities in China's expanding…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to interrogate and expand on the flexible citizenship framework by illuminating students' emergent identities and imagined future mobilities in China's expanding international school sector.
Design/methodology/approach
In-depth semistructured interviews were conducted with international school students and their parents in Shenzhen, covering their motivations for overseas higher education, experience with international schooling, self-perceived identities and imagined futures.
Findings
The participants aspired to overseas higher education for both symbolic capital attainment and embodied cultural cultivation to thrive in a globalised world. They expressed confidence that international schooling experiences prepared students for mobility to Western higher education and cultivated globally-oriented identities while not undermining their Chinese roots. They imagined their futures in terms of considerable flexibility, with a rising China viewed as an attractive and feasible option for career development.
Research limitations/implications
This research provides an enriched understanding of a new generation of globally mobile Chinese students. The participants held distinctively different outlooks, aspirations and attitudes than depicted in the flexible citizenship framework, which emphasised a one-dimensional and instrumentalist portrayal of Chinese international students. This study discusses cross-generational changes in the desire for overseas education and a global-national outlook among young people in the context of significant social transformations in urban China.
Originality/value
The originality of this study is in expanding the flexible citizenship framework with reference to the emergent identities and pathways of students in the international schooling sector in China.
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Che-Yuan Chang, Yi-Ying Chang, Yu-Chung Tsao and Sascha Kraus
This paper aims to explore the relationship between top management team bricolage and performance and also examines unit ambidexterity's mediating role. More essentially, to…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the relationship between top management team bricolage and performance and also examines unit ambidexterity's mediating role. More essentially, to understand the black box of organizational knowledge dynamism, a multilevel moderated mediating model is established by exploring the effects of two firm-level moderators, namely, potential absorptive capacity and realized absorptive capacity.
Design/methodology/approach
To test the cross-level moderated mediation model, this study used multisource data from 90 R&D units in 45 Taiwanese manufacturing firms through two-wave surveys and retrieving the archival data for assessing unit performance.
Findings
This study’s evidence revealed that unit-level ambidexterity mediates the effect between firm-level top management teams’ (TMT) bricolage and unit-level performance. This study also found that firm-level potential absorptive capacity positively moderates the effect between firm-level TMT bricolage and unit-level ambidexterity. Moreover, firm-level realized absorptive capacity strengthens the indirect relationships between firm-level TMT bricolage and unit-level performance via unit-level ambidexterity. The findings shed light on how and why TMT bricolage influences unit ambidexterity and performance in knowledge-intensive sectors.
Originality/value
This paper adds to the existing knowledge-based theory literature by disentangling the association between top management team bricolage and unit performance and identifying the pivotal role of absorptive capacity at both the firm and unit levels.
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Ying Xu, Jianyu Zhang, Rui Chi and Guangkuan Deng
Chatbots are increasingly used in online retail settings and are becoming a powerful tool for brands to engage customers. However, consumers’ satisfaction with these chatbots is…
Abstract
Purpose
Chatbots are increasingly used in online retail settings and are becoming a powerful tool for brands to engage customers. However, consumers’ satisfaction with these chatbots is mixed. Thus, this paper aims to investigate how using a social- versus task-oriented anthropomorphic communication style can improve customer satisfaction.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors explore the link between the anthropomorphic communication style use and customer perceptions/customer satisfaction in online customer service interactions. Two experiment scenarios were developed to test these links.
Findings
Overall, using a social-oriented communication style boosts customer satisfaction. Warmth perception of the chatbot mediates this effect, while chatbot’s anthropomorphised role (servant versus partner) moderates this effect.
Originality/value
This paper enriches the bilateral communication literature by extending the investigation on communication style effects to chatbot service interactions and revealing the psychological process driving the impacts. It also adds to the existing literature on chatbots as a customer service and contributes to the prominent topic examining how consumers react to artificial intelligence that is used to establish and maintain a relationship with them. Additionally, the authors also make contribution to the warmth and competence literature by demonstrating that customers can interpret social cues in chatbot service interactions mainly based on the warmth dimension. Thus, the authors further add to the growing chatbot humanness perception literature and respond to the calls for investigating more anthropomorphic design cues to enhance chatbot humanness. Finally, the authors also provide a way to help reconcile seemingly conflicting prior findings.