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The paper aims to investigate the possible changes in mean temperature in the Mongolian Plateau associated with the 1.5 and 2°C global warming targets and how snow changes in the Mongolian Plateau when the mean global warming is well below 2°C or limited to 1.5°C.

In total, 30 model simulations of consecutive temperature and precipitation days from Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) are assessed in comparison with the 111 meteorological monitoring stations from 1961–2005. Multi-model ensemble and model relative error were used to evaluate the performance of CMIP5 models. Slope and the Mann–Kendall test were used to analyze the magnitude of the trends and evaluate the significance of trends of snow depth (SD) from 1981 to 2014 in the Mongolian Plateau.

Some models perform well, even better than the majority (80%) of the models over the Mongolian Plateau, particularly HadGEM2-CC, CMCC-CM, BNU-ESM and GFDL-ESM2M, which simulate best in consecutive dry days (CDD), consecutive wet days (CWD), cold spell duration indicator (CSDI) and warm spell duration indicator (WSDI), respectively. Emphasis zones of WSDI on SD were deeply analysed in the 1.5 and 2 °C global warming period above pre-industrial conditions, because it alone has a significant negative relation with SD among the four indices. It is warmer than before in the Mongolian Plateau, particularly in the southern part of the Mongolian Plateau, indicating less SD.

Providing climate extremes and SD data sets with different spatial-temporal scales over the Mongolian Plateau. Zoning SD potential risk areas and proposing adaptations to promote regional sustainable development.

Mechanoreception is crucial for robotic planning and control applications, and for robotic fingers, mechanoreception is generally obtained through tactile sensors. As a new type of robotic finger, the soft finger also requires mechanoreception, like contact force and object stiffness. Unlike rigid fingers, soft fingers have elastic structures, meaning there is a connection between force and deformation of the soft fingers. It allows soft fingers to achieve mechanoreception without using tactile sensors. This study aims to provide a mechanoreception sensing scheme of the soft finger without any tactile sensors.

This research uses bending sensors to measure the actual bending state under force and calculates the virtual bending state under assumed no-load conditions using pressure sensors and statics model. The difference between the virtual and actual finger states is the finger deformation under load, and its product with the finger stiffness can be used to calculate the contact force. There are distinctions between the virtual and actual finger state change rates in the pressing process. The difference caused by the stiffness of different objects is different, which can be used to identify the object stiffness.

Contact force perception can achieve a detection accuracy of 0.117 N root mean square error within the range of 0–6 N contact force. The contact object stiffness perception has a detection average deviation of about 15%, and the detection standard deviation is 10% for low-stiffness objects and 20% for high-stiffness objects. It performs better at detecting the stiffness of low-stiffness objects, which is consistent with the sensory ability of human fingers.

This paper proposes a universal mechanoreception method for soft fingers that only uses indispensable bending and pressure sensors without tactile sensors. It helps to reduce the hardware complexity of soft robots. Meanwhile, the soft finger no longer needs to deploy the tactile sensor at the fingertip, which can benefit the optimization design of the fingertip structure without considering the complex sensor installation. On the other hand, this approach is no longer confined to adding components needed. It can fully use the soft robot body’s physical elasticity to convert sensor signals. Essentially, It treats the soft actuators as soft sensors.

The structural adaptive ability of the soft robot is fully demonstrated in the grasping task of the soft hand. A soft hand can easily realize the envelope operation of the object without planning. With the continuous development of robot applications, researchers are no longer satisfied with the ability of the soft hand to grasp. The purpose of this paper is to perceive the object’s shape while grasping to provide a decision-making basis for more intelligent robot applications.

This paper proposes a dual-signal comparison method to obtain the fingertip position. The dual signal includes the displacement calculated by the static model without considering the external load change and the displacement calculated by the bending sensor. The dual-signal comparison method can use the obvious change trend difference between the above two signals in the hover and contact states to identify the touch position. The authors make the soft hand scan around the object through touch operation to detect the object’s shape, and the tracks of every touch fingertip position can envelop the object’s shape.

The experimental results show that the dual-signal comparison method can accurately identify the contact moment of soft fingers. This detection method makes the soft hand develop the shape detection ability. The soft hand in the experiment can perceive squares, circles and a few other complex shapes.

The dual-signal comparison method proposed in this paper can detect a touch action by using the signal change trend when the working condition suddenly changes with the rough robotic model and sensing, thus improving the utilization value of the measured signal. The problems of large model errors and inaccurate sensors also negatively impact the use of other soft robots. It is generally difficult to achieve good results by directly using these models and sensors with the thinking of rigid robot analysis. The dual-signal comparison method in this paper can provide some reference for this aspect.

This chapter examines China’s corporate governance and accounting environment that shapes the adoption of internationally acceptable principles and standards. Specifically, it examines international influences, including supranational organizations; foreign investors and international accounting firms; domestic institutional influences, including the political system, economic system, legal system, and cultural system; and accounting infrastructure. China’s convergence is driven by desired efficiency of the corporate sector and legitimacy of participating in the global market. Influenced heavily by international forces in the context of globalization, corporate governance and accounting practices are increasingly becoming in line with internationally acceptable standards and codes. While convergence assists China in obtaining legitimacy, improving efficiency is likely to be adversely affected given that corporate governance and accounting in China operate in an environment that differs considerably from those of Anglo-American countries. An examination of the corporate governance and accounting environment in China suggests heavy government involvement within underdeveloped institutions. While the Chinese government has made impressive progress in developing the corporate governance and accounting environment for the market economy, China’s unique institutional setting is likely to affect how the imported concepts are interpreted and implemented.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the emergence of civil disobedience (CD) movements in Hong Kong in the context of the notion of civil society (CS).

The paper begins by rigorously defining the notion of CD, as well as the concept of CS and tracing its development in Hong Kong over the past several decades. By using a model of CS typology, which combines the variables of state control and a society’s quest for autonomy (SQA), the paper aims to outline the historical development of CD movements in Hong Kong. It also discusses the recent evolution of CS and its relationship with CD movements, particularly focusing on their development since Leung Chun-ying became the Chief Executive in 2012. Finally, by using five cases of CD witnessed in the past several decades, the relationship between the development of CS and the emergence of CD in Hong Kong has been outlined.

Four implications can be concluded: first, CD cannot emerge when the state and society are isolated. Second, the level of SC and the scale of CD are positively related. Third, as an historical trend, the development of SQA is generally in linear progress; SQA starts from a low level (e.g. interest-based and welfare-based aims) and moves upwards to campaign for higher goals of civil and political autonomy. If the lower level of SQA is not satisfied, it can lead to larger scale CD in future. Fourth, the CD movement would be largest in scale when the state-society relationship confrontational and when major cleavages can be found within CS itself.

This paper serves to enrich knowledge in the fields of politics and sociology.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical historical analysis of the business (mis)behaviors and influencing factors that discourage enduring cooperation between principals and agents, to introduce strategies that embrace the social values, economic motivation and institutional designs historically adopted to curtail dishonest acts in international business and to inform an improved principal–agent theory that reflects principal–agent reciprocity as shaped by social, political, cultural, economic, strategic and ideological forces

The critical historical research method is used to analyze Chinese compradors and the foreign companies they served in pre-1949 China.

Business practitioners can extend orthodox principal–agent theory by scrutinizing the complex interactions between local agents and foreign companies. Instead of agents pursuing their economic interests exclusively, as posited by principal–agent theory, they also may pursue principal-shared interests (as suggested by stewardship theory) because of social norms and cultural values that can affect business-related choices and the social bonds built between principals and agents.

The behaviors of compradors and foreign companies in pre-1949 China suggest international business practices for shaping social bonds between principals and agents and foreign principals’ creative efforts to enhance shared interests with local agents.

Understanding principal–agent theory’s limitations can help international management scholars and practitioners mitigate transaction partners’ dishonest acts.

A critical historical analysis of intermediary businesspeople’s (mis)behavior in pre-1949 (1840–1949) China can inform the generalizability of principal–agent theory and contemporary business strategies for minimizing agents’ dishonest acts.

The purpose of this paper is to determine a model of how a foreign businessman obtains and maintains cronyism from his Chinese counterpart that emphasizes on an insider perspective to convert him from a new friend to an old friend of his Chinese counterpart through a guanxi adaptation mechanism.

A vigorous analysis of extant literature and an investigation of insider dynamics within a new friend/old friend perspective.

Gift‐giving is strategic and a foreign businessman must manage its monetary value very cautiously in order to alleviate the “face” and provide renqing so as to generate ganging and to obtain cronyism from his Chinese counterpart. In saying that, relativism prevails. A foreign company must establish a zone of ethical tolerance so that its executive knows the limits when practicing gift‐giving. In China, an old friend is a supporter and therefore a foreign business should not openly criticize his Chinese counterpart. Frequent visits to China must be maintained.

A foreign businessman needs to understand the guanxi dynamics of renqing and ganging and their sequential arrangement in the adaptation mechanism. He should use gift‐giving to offer renqing so as to establish ganging with his Chinese counterparts.

Provides a depth analysis of two emotional aspects in the guanxi adaptation mechanism, i.e. renqing and ganging which is a definitive device to convert a foreign businessman from a new friend to an old friend of his counterpart in the Chinese market.

Increased disposal costs and reduction in number of landfills have created a need for implementing effective waste management in the construction industry. As every construction project is unique in its way of development, benefits from the waste management may also differ from project to project and thus project characteristics should be taken into consideration when implementing the strategy. This study seeks to investigate how different project characteristics affect perception on benefits, from construction waste management, based on the survey results from 66 industry experts.

A literature review was conducted to gather information on project characteristics and its classification, construction waste management, waste management plan and its benefits. Subsequently, a set of questions was formulated to gain insight and opinion on the selection of project characteristics and particular benefits of construction waste management. A set of questions pertaining to different project characteristics linked with benefits of waste management was sent to each of the personnel for their views.

The results of this study establishes that the key materials used in projects, project size in terms of total installed costs, and project type have perceptual impacts on benefits from construction waste management.

Understanding how project characteristics will affect the benefits can help the construction industry to identify projects to which the waste management should first be applied, maximizing its benefits.