Hui Lü, Kun Yang, Wen-bin Shangguan, Hui Yin and DJ Yu
The purpose of this paper is to propose a unified optimization design method and apply it to handle the brake squeal instability involving various uncertainties in a unified…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to propose a unified optimization design method and apply it to handle the brake squeal instability involving various uncertainties in a unified framework.
Design/methodology/approach
Fuzzy random variables are taken as equivalent variables of conventional uncertain variables, and a unified response analysis method is first derived based on level-cut technique, Taylor expansion and central difference scheme. Next, a unified reliability analysis method is developed by integrating the unified response analysis and fuzzy possibility theory. Finally, based on the unified reliability analysis method, a unified reliability-based optimization model is established, which is capable of optimizing uncertain responses in a unified way for different uncertainty cases.
Findings
The proposed method is extended to perform squeal instability analysis and optimization involving various uncertainties. Numerical examples under eight uncertainty cases are provided and the results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Originality/value
Most of the existing methods of uncertainty analysis and optimization are merely effective in tackling one uncertainty case. The proposed method is able to handle the uncertain problems involving various types of uncertainties in a unified way.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to reveal generic skills improvement from participation in overseas working programs using Taiwanese young adults taking an Australian working holiday…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to reveal generic skills improvement from participation in overseas working programs using Taiwanese young adults taking an Australian working holiday program as an example.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, respondents needed to be those who had participated in an Australian working holiday program and had stayed in Australia for at least six months so that their experiences would be extensive enough to enable answering questions in the questionnaire. There were a total of 122 respondents. After eliminating incomplete observations, there were a total of 95 valid observations.
Findings
The average number of jobs held per person was 2.77, and farm and factory jobs seemed to be popular. Thinking skills and learning skills were significantly improved, especially for highly motivated respondents. An unfamiliar working environment in foreign countries reinforces personal characteristics. Students who participate in overseas working programs need to interact with local people to improve communication skills, especially for those who are less motivated. Although the natural environment is the main attraction for students who participate in overseas working programs, improvement in generic skills is actually the core factor for students to benefit from the experiences.
Originality/value
The results of this study would be useful for working holiday participants to understand what they can expect to experience in improving generic skills and further to form a baseline for future studies as well as guidelines for promoting Australian working holiday programs.
Details
Keywords
Hui Lu, Shaohan Cai, Yan Liu and Hong Chen
The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact mechanism of green human resource management (GHRM) on employee organizational citizenship behavior for the environment…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact mechanism of green human resource management (GHRM) on employee organizational citizenship behavior for the environment (OCBE). The authors maintain that anticipated environmental pride and guilt serve as dual mediators on the relationship between GHRM and OCBE, while environmental value discrepancy between employees and coworkers of the employees serve as the moderator on this relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
For this study, 226 valid questionnaires were obtained from various industries (food, machinery, electronics, etc.) in China and a hierarchical regression analysis was performed.
Findings
The results revealed that GHRM exerts a direct influence on OCBE, as well as indirect effects through anticipated environmental emotions. Environmental value discrepancy moderates the relationship between GHRM and anticipated environmental emotions.
Originality/value
The contribution of this study is not only to investigate the emotional impact mechanism between GHRM and employee OCBE, but also to identify the boundary conditions for the effect of GHRM on employees’ anticipated environmental emotions. The authors' findings offer a new theoretical framework for future research on GHRM, as well as practical implications for researchers and managers in organizational environmental management.
Details
Keywords
Mi Tang, Hongmei Zhou, Qingyan Yan, Ruoyu Li and Hui Lu
Healthcare employs informatics to offer its services through information technology where the social network can aid virtual medical learning. Since the usage of the internet and…
Abstract
Purpose
Healthcare employs informatics to offer its services through information technology where the social network can aid virtual medical learning. Since the usage of the internet and other electronic tools for medical services delivery is at the initial stage, it is essential to examine the factors that condition patients and medical elements in a virtual environment can develop relationship models on the health services. So, the authors have systematically reviewed virtual medical learning and offered some suggestions for the upcoming works. The authors have also discovered gaps in the state-of-the-art papers and provided solutions for them.
Design/methodology/approach
Numerous novel advancements have changed the old exercise of therapeutic and analytic learning. Virtual spaces have quickly turned into a section of the learning technology vision. Given the importance of its achievements and endless low-cost expansion of the educational system, virtual education has been considered as one of the issues raised by the information communities. Medicine and health are some of the most important fields in virtual technologies. Hence, in this paper, we have used a systematic literature review to deeply examine virtual medical learning. After establishing exclusion and inclusion criteria, an independent systematic search in Google Scholar, ACM, Scopus, Eric, Science Direct, Springer link, Emerald, Global ProQuest and IEEE for relevant studies have been performed, and 21 papers have been analyzed. Detailed data have been mined out of the papers.
Findings
The authors have found that virtual medical learning improves and expands the knowledge core and meaningfully affects the exercise. Virtual learning (VL) has been used in many therapeutic zones, like therapeutic learning, surgery, diagnosing, combining and regularizing processes. It has presented a fundamental access point and a referral mechanism for all of a course's component communities. It can also simplify communicative education, allowing learners to get abilities before applying them in a real-world situation. Also, the communicative characteristics of different VL programs can somehow be like direct teaching.
Research limitations/implications
Some excellent work may be removed owing to applying the filters to select the primary papers. Surveying all the documents on the topic of virtual medical learning is impossible, too. Nevertheless, the authors have tried to present a perfect survey of virtual medical learning. The results will be helpful for scholars to propose better virtual medical learning techniques.
Practical implications
E-learning has become an indispensable additional learning tool in medical education. The introduction of new learning technologies, the exponential growth of Internet usage and the advent of the World Wide Web can change the face of higher education. The results will be helpful for scholars for the upcoming works. The application of a literature review of partial least squares theory was useful for offering comprehensive literary coverage and completing the knowledge development analysis. The authors have backed scholars and experts for better understanding the development of virtual medical learning systems via presenting comparative data and scrutinizing the present advances.
Originality/value
The paper enhances intellectual knowledge by improving the conception of virtual medical learning. It informs the development, use of virtual medical learning and the upcoming works. The lack of comprehensive papers in this field has increased the importance of this paper. The present paper can handle the pace of publications.
Details
Keywords
Hui Lu, Wei Wang, Ling Xu, Zhenhong Li, Yan Ding, Jian Zhang and Fei Yan
The Chinese population is rapidly ageing before they are rich. The purpose of this paper is to describe healthcare seeking behaviour and the critical factors associated with…
Abstract
Purpose
The Chinese population is rapidly ageing before they are rich. The purpose of this paper is to describe healthcare seeking behaviour and the critical factors associated with healthcare seeking behaviour.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a purposive sampling method, the authors recruited 44 adults aged 60 years or older from three provinces, representing the developed (Shanghai), undeveloped (Ningxia) regions and the regions in between (Hubei). From July to September 2008, using a semi-structured guide, the authors interviewed participants in focus group discussions.
Findings
The healthcare needs for chronic and catastrophic diseases were high; however, the healthcare demands were low and healthcare utilizations were even lower owing to the limited accessibility to healthcare services, particularly, in underdeveloped rural areas. “Too expensive to see a doctor” was a prime complaint, explaining substantial discrepancies between healthcare needs, demands and use. Care seeking behaviour varied depending on insurance availability, perceived performance, particularly hospital services, and prescription medications. Participants consistently rated increasing healthcare accessibility as a high priority, including offering financial aid, and improving service convenience. Improving social security fairness was the first on the elderly’s wish list.
Originality/value
Healthcare demand and use were lower than needs, and were influenced by multiple factors, primarily, service affordability and efficiency, perceived performance and hospital service quality.
Details
Keywords
Hui Lu, Junxiong Qi, Jue Li, Yong Xie, Gangyan Xu and Hongwei Wang
In shield tunneling projects, human, shield machine and underground environment are tightly coupled and interacted. Accidents often occur under dysfunctional interactions among…
Abstract
Purpose
In shield tunneling projects, human, shield machine and underground environment are tightly coupled and interacted. Accidents often occur under dysfunctional interactions among them. Therefore, this paper aims to develop a multi-agent based safety computational experiment system (SCES) and use it to identify the main influential factors of various aspects of human, shield machine and underground environment.
Design/methodology/approach
The methods mainly comprised computational experiments and multi-agent technologies. First, a safety model with human-machine-environment interaction consideration is developed through the multi-agent technologies. On this basis, SCES is implemented. Then computational experiments are designed and performed on SCES for analyzing safety performance and identifying the main influential factors.
Findings
The main influential factors of two common accidents are identified. For surface settlement, the main influential factors are ranked as experience, soil density, soil cohesion, screw conveyor speed and thrust force in descending order of influence levels; for mud cake on cutter, they are ranked as soil cohesion, experience, cutter speed and screw conveyor speed. These results are consistent with intuition and previous studies and demonstrate the applicability of SCES.
Practical implications
The proposed SCES provides comprehensive risk factor identification for shield tunneling projects and also insights to support informed decisions for safety management.
Originality/value
A safety model with human-machine-environment interaction consideration is developed and computational experiments are used to analyze the safety performance. The novel method and model could contribute to system-based safety research and promote systematic understanding of the safety performance of shield tunneling projects.
Details
Keywords
Abstract
Purpose
The promotion of new energy vehicles (EVs) is an effective way to achieve low carbon emission reduction. This paper aims to investigate the optimal pricing of automotive supply chain members in the context of dual policy implementation while considering consumers' low-carbon preferences.
Design/methodology/approach
This article takes manufacturers, retailers and consumers in a main three-level supply chain as the research object. Stackelberg game theory is used as the theoretical guidance. A game model in which the manufacturer is the leader and the retailer is the follower is established. The author also considered the impact of carbon tax policies, subsidy policies and consumer preferences on the results. Furthermore, the author investigates the optimal decision-making problem under the profit maximization model.
Findings
Through model solving, it is found that the pricing of EVs is positively correlated with the unit price of carbon and the amount of subsidies. The following conclusions can be obtained by numerical analysis of each parameter. Changes in carbon prices have a greater impact on conventional gasoline vehicles. Based on the numerical analysis of parameter β, it is also found that when the government subsidizes consumers, supply chain members will increase their prices to obtain partial subsidies. Compared with retailers, low-carbon preferences have a greater impact on manufacturers.
Research limitations/implications
The new energy automobile industry involves many policies, including tax cuts, tax exemptions and subsidies. The policy environment faced by the members of a supply chain is complex and diverse. Therefore, the analysis in this article is based only on partial policies.
Originality/value
The authors innovatively combine the three factors of subsidy policy, carbon tax policy and consumer low-carbon preference, with research on the pricing of EVs. The influence of policy factors and consumer preferences on the pricing of EVs is studied.
Details
Keywords
Zhi Yang, Hui Lu and Jiaxin Bao
Makerspaces, which serve as fertile grounds for makers' innovation activities, are rapidly increasing in emerging markets to help unleash a massive wave of bottom-up innovation…
Abstract
Purpose
Makerspaces, which serve as fertile grounds for makers' innovation activities, are rapidly increasing in emerging markets to help unleash a massive wave of bottom-up innovation and encourage broader participation in entrepreneurial activities. Makers' motivations to innovate are key antecedents of their subsequent innovative behavior. The paper aims to investigate the impact of makers' innovation motivations (both economic and social motivations) on their exploration and exploitation activities in makerspaces and the moderating role of the makerspace climate for innovation.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey was conducted for 139 individual makers from five makerspaces in China to test the research hypotheses.
Findings
Economic motivation positively affected the degree of exploitative innovation and was negatively related to the degree of exploratory innovation. In contrast, social motivation negatively affected the degree of exploitative innovation and was positively related to the degree of exploratory innovation. The makerspace climate for innovation strengthened the relationship between social motivation and exploratory innovation and exacerbated the negative effect of economic motivation on exploration.
Practical implications
The results offer managers a better understanding of how makers' motivation to participate in makerspaces affects their innovative behavior. Such information can guide makerspaces in designing their incentive policies and recruiting makers in line with their values to amplify makers' creative potential.
Originality/value
The empirical results reveal the impacts of economic and social motivations on makers' exploration and exploitation activities in makerspaces. They thus provide new insights into how different motivations give rise to different innovative behaviors and imply how makers' innovation activities can be managed effectively.
Details
Keywords
Hui Lu, Hongwei Wang, Dihua Yu and Jian Ye
To meet the rapidly increasing demand for medical treatment during the outbreak of COVID-19, Huoshengshan and Leishenshan Hospital are rapidly built (9–12 days) in Wuhan. These…
Abstract
Purpose
To meet the rapidly increasing demand for medical treatment during the outbreak of COVID-19, Huoshengshan and Leishenshan Hospital are rapidly built (9–12 days) in Wuhan. These two urgent emergency projects are unprecedented. In general, substantial literature suggests that the possibility of shortening a schedule by more than a quarter of its original duration is implausible. By contrast, the two projects had successfully compressed the schedules from months and years to about ten days. This study aims to investigate how this was done and provide references for future projects.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses qualitative case study techniques to analyze the project practices in two urgent emergency projects. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews and archival research. During interviews, interviewees were asked to describe the project practices adopted to overcome the challenges and freely share their experiences and knowledge.
Findings
The results illustrate that a high degree of schedule compression is achievable through tactful crashing, substitution and overlapping applications. The successful practices heavily rely on the high capacity of participants and necessary organization, management and technology innovations, such as three-level matrix organizational structure, reverse design method, site partition, mock-up room first strategies and prefabricated construction technology. For instance, the reverse design method is one of the most significant innovations to project simplification and accelerate and worthy of promotion for future emergency projects.
Practical implications
The empirical findings are significant as they evoke new thinking and direction for addressing the main challenges of sharp schedule compression and provide valuable references for future emergency projects, including selecting high-capacity contractors and replacing the conventional design methods with reverse design.
Originality/value
Substantial studies indicate that the maximum degree of schedule compression is highly unlikely to exceed 25%, but this study suggests that sharp compression is possible. Although with flaws in its beauty (i.e. compressing schedule at the expense of construction cost and quality), it is also a breakthrough. It provides the building block for future research in this fertile and unexplored area.
Details
Keywords
Luo Lu, Hui Yen Lin, Chang-Qin Lu and Oi-Ling Siu
The moderating roles of personal resources in the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model are relatively rarely examined, especially in non-western countries. The purpose of this paper…
Abstract
Purpose
The moderating roles of personal resources in the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model are relatively rarely examined, especially in non-western countries. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the moderating effect of a personal resource (i.e. intrinsic work value orientation) on the relationships between job demands, job resources, and job satisfaction among a large sample of Chinese employees from both mainland China and Taiwan.
Design/methodology/approach
Structured questionnaire survey was carried out to collect data from 402 employees in mainland China and 306 employees in Taiwan.
Findings
The authors found that intrinsic work value orientation amplified the negative relationship between work constraints (a job demand) and job satisfaction. Meanwhile, intrinsic work value orientation strengthened the positive relationship between autonomy (a job resource) and job satisfaction.
Originality/value
This is one of the few studies that explored the role of personal resources in the JD-R model. One unique contribution of the study is that the authors extended the JD-R model to include the intrinsic work value orientation as a resourceful work value for Chinese employees in two major Chinese societies. Based upon the findings, the authors suggest that personal resources such as work value orientation should be taken into account in the research of the JD-R model. Managerial implications of the findings are also discussed.