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This paper aims to deal with the force and position tracking problem when a robot performs a task in interaction with an unknown environment and presents a hybrid control strategy based on variable admittance control and fixed-time control.

A hybrid control strategy based on variable admittance control and fixed-time control is presented. Firstly, a variable stiffness admittance model control based on proportional integral and differential (PID) is adopted to maintain the expected force value during the task execution. Secondly, a fixed-time controller based on radial basis function neural network (RBFNN) is introduced to handle the model uncertainties and ensure the fast position tracking convergence of the robot system, while the singularity problem is also avoided by designing the virtual control variable with piecewise function.

Simulation studies conducted on the robot manipulator with two degrees of freedom have verified the superior performance of the proposed control strategy comparing with other methods.

A hybrid control scheme for robot–environment interaction is presented, in which the variable stiffness admittance method is adopted to adjust the interaction force to the desired value, and the RBFNN-based fixed-time position controller without singularity problem is designed to ensure the fast convergence of the robot system with model uncertainty.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview on the state of the field in intercultural dynamics on competition and cooperation at the individual, team, and organizational levels. The authors integrate previous studies from multiple disciplines to articulate the contextual importance of intercultural dynamics. The authors also suggest three overarching themes to expand the field of research on intercultural dynamics.

The authors use an integrative literature review to articulate the importance of intercultural dynamics, provide an introduction to the new contributions in this special issue, and propose new directions for future research.

Intercultural dynamics research has the potential to expand in three overarching areas: constructive controversy, collaborative communication, and global competency and identity at multiple levels.

Intercultural dynamics is still a nascent field emerging from cross-cultural and strategic management. The authors hope the review lays the groundwork for more studies on intercultural dynamics at the interpersonal, team, organizational, and mixed levels of analysis in both theory building and empirical works.

Understanding intercultural dynamics in competition and cooperation can help individuals and managers in multinationals and born global organizations navigate cultural complexity and foster cooperation.

The authors hope the ideas on intercultural dynamics can facilitate collaboration and reduce conflict in intercultural encounters at the individual, organization, and societal levels.

This paper offers an overview on the state of the field and lays groundwork for more systematic inquiries on intercultural dynamics in competition and cooperation.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of mobile internet (MI) use and risk factors on MI happiness.

An online survey with 521 MI users was conducted to test the direct and moderating effects of risk factors on MI happiness.

The results provide evidence that there is a non-linear relationship between variety of use and MI happiness, and consumers become happier with increased frequency of use. The results also indicate that the privacy risk and task risk reduce MI happiness, and both types of risks moderate the inverted U-shaped relationship between variety of use and MI happiness.

This study reconciles two opposing theories, stimulation vs displacement, on the impact of internet use on consumer well-being. The findings suggest that the stimulation effect of MI use is associated with an intermediate level of usage variety, while social displacement is more likely connected with higher- or lower-variety of use. Risk plays an important role in exploring the boundary conditions of both theories. The findings also have important implications to the debate over the role of privacy in consumer adoption of internet services or applications.

This study reconciles two opposing theories, stimulation vs displacement, on consumer happiness by elaborating the role of risk associated with MI use.

The sports field is in constant change and adaptation, which leads to a need to explore new strategies to achieve success. This is why interest in technology has increased in recent years. However, despite its undeniable importance, there is no quantitative data that provides a macroscopic view of the existing literature. Therefore, the objective of this study is to carry out a bibliometric analysis that provides structured information on the origin and academic evolution of technology in the sports field. To this end, a total of 170 articles published between 1977 and 2019 in the Web of Science (Core Collection) related to technology in sport have been analyzed. The 170 publications cover 396 authors, 134 journals, 37 countries and 261 institutions. In order to carry out the analyses, authors, journal, institution and country have been taken into account, as well as the co-authoring, co-citation and co-words networks. This information can provide an overview of the three thematic areas found: (i) technology in sport from an educational perspective, (ii) technology in sport from a medical-performance perspective, and (iii) technology in sport from a management perspective.

Young entrepreneurs' involvement in social entrepreneurship is gaining momentum, and the impact of their active participation in social enterprises is tremendous. As younger generation creates and leads social enterprises, self-identity that entails their leadership can bring benefits to various stakeholders. In particular, the engagement of younger generation in social entrepreneurship lead to positive identity development that brings impact not only to the founders but also to the employees, volunteers and recipients of the product and services offered by the social enterprise. In this context, the chapter explains the importance of social entrepreneurship in society-building, looking into how it creates values to its participants in regard to personal growth and development. The objective of this chapter is to elucidate the role of social enterprises in developing the personal identity of the younger generation. The chapter maps the characteristics of social entrepreneurs to the characteristics of young people with focus on the development of personal, social and role identities. The chapter also explains the significance of young social entrepreneurs' participation in social activities for the identity formation and how it directly and indirectly contributes to a balanced societal development.

This paper aims at the problem of attaching the data of doctors, patients and the real-time sensor data of the exoskeleton to the cloud in intelligent rehabilitation applications. This study designed the exoskeleton cloud-brain platform and validated its safety assessment.

According to the dimension of data and the transmission speed, this paper implements a three-layer cloud-brain platform of exoskeleton based on Alibaba Cloud's Lambda-like architecture. At the same time, given the human–machine safety status detection problem of the exoskeleton, this paper built a personalized machine-learning safety detection module for users with the multi-dimensional sensor data cloned by the cloud-brain platform. This module includes an abnormality detection model, prediction model and state classification model of the human–machine state.

These functions of the exoskeleton cloud-brain and the algorithms based on it were validated by the experiments, they meet the needs of use.

This thesis innovatively proposes a cloud-brain platform for exoskeletons, beginning the digitalization and intelligence of the exoskeletal rehabilitation process and laying the foundation for future intelligent assistance systems.

The purpose of this paper is to present a bibliometric analysis of scientific output of the knowledge management (KM), the aim being to offer an overview of research activity in this field and characterize its most significant aspects. In addition, this study aims to quantitatively analyze KM research trends, forecasts, and citations from 1993 to 2012 in Web of Science (WOS).

A total of 12,925 documents related to KM research were collected from following databases: Science Citation Index Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Conference Proceedings Citation Index-Science, and Conference Proceedings Citation Index-Social Science & Humanities. These documents were carefully reviewed and subjected to bibliometric data analysis techniques.

A number of research questions pertaining to patterns in scientific outputs, subject categories and major journals, author keywords frequencies, characteristics of the international collaboration, most cited papers and significant papers distribution of KM research were proposed and answered. In addition, there are five research sights on KM research are as follows: management science, computer science, information science, business, and engineering. Based on these findings, many implications emerged that improve one's understanding of the identity of KM as a distinct multi-discipline scientific field.

Comprehensiveness and inclusiveness of the analyzed KM-related data set in WOS because of some KM-centric journals are not indexed by Thomson Reuters.

The paper offers an overview and evaluation of research activity into the KM viewed through the WOS during 1993-2012.

Sustainable waste management (SWM) leads to human safety by eliminating dangerous substances, increasing cost efficiency and reducing environmental impacts. Integrating social, economic and environmental factors is the standard for successfully implementing SWM. However, prior studies have not incorporated the triple bottom line with technological performance and occupational safety in establishing SWM. To drive sustainability in waste management, this study aims to provide a set of SWM attributes and identify a causality model based on the interrelationships among the attributes.

This study used the Delphi method to list the relevant attributes and the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) involving 18 experts from the medical and health-care industry to present the interrelationships indicating the group of cause–effect attributes of SWM.

The study selected 5 aspects and 20 criteria as the relevant attributes of SWM. The cause group consists of environmental impacts and occupational safety, with positive values of 27.031 and 24.499, respectively. The effect group includes technological performance, economic performance and social performance. In particular, the challenges and practices of technological performance are linked to environmental impacts and occupational safety.

The top four criteria for industrial improvement are green practices, government policy and rules, the awareness of workers and waste separation and collection. These results present deeper insights into theoretical and managerial implications.

This study contributes to addressing the challenges and practices of SWM in technological performance leading to environmental impacts and occupational safety. Studies on the technological performance aspect in the causality relationships between environmental impacts and occupational safety are lacking. This study describes SWM using qualitative information and quantitative data.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the global scientific outputs of ontology research, an important emerging discipline that has huge potential to improve information understanding, organization, and management.

This study collected literature published during 1900-2012 from the Web of Science database. The bibliometric analysis was performed from authorial, institutional, national, spatiotemporal, and topical aspects. Basic statistical analysis, visualization of geographic distribution, co-word analysis, and a new index were applied to the selected data.

Characteristics of publication outputs suggested that ontology research has entered into the soaring stage, along with increased participation and collaboration. The authors identified the leading authors, institutions, nations, and articles in ontology research. Authors were more from North America, Europe, and East Asia. The USA took the lead, while China grew fastest. Four major categories of frequently used keywords were identified: applications in Semantic Web, applications in bioinformatics, philosophy theories, and common supporting technology. Semantic Web research played a core role, and gene ontology study was well-developed. The study focus of ontology has shifted from philosophy to information science.

This is the first study to quantify global research patterns and trends in ontology, which might provide a potential guide for the future research. The new index provides an alternative way to evaluate the multidisciplinary influence of researchers.