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This chapter examines which coping mechanisms citizens used during the pandemic and how these mechanisms related to overall well-being. Using the Transaction Theory of Stress and Coping to frame the analysis, the chapter investigates predictive factors for various coping strategies and identifies which groups were more likely to use adaptive as opposed to maladaptive strategies. I examine how coping strategies used in April 2020 predict change in well-being, measured by life satisfaction, in November 2020. Americans reported greater use of maladaptive coping and less use of the adaptive coping strategies compared to their Finnish counterparts. Americans reported more frequent use of religious coping strategies. Interestingly, worrying about COVID-19 did not increase the use of maladaptive coping for Finns or Americans. Regarding the effect of the coping strategies on life satisfaction, the analyses revealed that those who reported using maladaptive strategies in April 2020 showed a significant decrease in life satisfaction in November 2020. However, this finding was only significant for Finnish residents. Unexpectedly, Finnish and US residents who reported using Active/Expressive and Planning coping reported a decrease in life satisfaction from April to November 2020. Finally, Finnish and US residents who were married, had higher self-esteem, or had higher social capital were more likely to report an increase in life satisfaction from April 2020 to November 2020. These findings raise questions for future research. The context of the pandemic may have created a unique situation that rendered coping mechanisms to behave in unusual ways.

This paper aims to analyze the relationship between the following auditor's characteristics with detecting frauds in the listed companies on the Tehran Stock Exchange.

A multiple regression model is used to test the research hypothesis. The hypothesis was further tested with a sample of 187 companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange (1,309 observations) from 2012 to 2018 and by using multiple regression models based on panel data and the random-effects model.

The results suggest a positive and significant relationship between audit firms' size, auditor rotation, specialization in the industry, the audit market's focus, auditor's independence, audit report lag and renewal of financial statements with fraud detection. The results revealed a significant relationship between the period of auditor tenure, auditor's narcissism, audit fees and the type of auditors' opinion (un-qualified opinion) with fraud detection.

As the present study is a pioneer in examining this issue in the emerging markets, it provides users, analysts and legal entities with useful information about auditor characteristics that significantly affect the fraud detection of financial statements. The results mitigate the literature gap and improve knowledge in this area.

The purpose of this paper is to test the relationship between environmental regulations and green total factor productivity (GTFP) of China's logistics industry. The high-factor input, high-energy consumption, and high-pollution emissions model of the logistics industry developed within China faces challenges from severe resource and environmental constraints. It is generally believed that environmental regulations effectively restrain pollution emissions and help protect the environment.

The authors employ the undesirable slack-based Malmquist Luenberger model to calculate the GTFP across the provincial logistics industry and use the mediation effect model and threshold effect model to explore the effects and mechanics of environmental transmission regulations on the GTFP.

The main results show significant regional differences in the GTFP of logistics industry across China. In the transmission path of the impact of environmental regulations on the GTFP, regional innovation capabilities have mediation effects. Regional innovation capacities have a masking effect on the transmission path of environmental regulations on accumulated technical efficiency changes (AEC) and accumulated technical changes (ATC). The threshold effect test results show a dual-threshold effect between environmental regulations and the GTFP, with environmental regulations as threshold variable. Furthermore, the impact of regional innovation capability on the GTFP has a dual-threshold effect, with environmental regulation as threshold variable.

First, it is advisable to plan the environmental regulation policy system thoroughly and add supporting measures to ensure the efficiency and smooth implementation of the nation's environmental policies. Second, it is important to further understand the critical role of innovation capability in improving the GTFP. Third, there is an urgent need to standardize the operating behavior and market order of the leading players in the logistics market and to improve the operational efficiency of logistics enterprises.

So far, a systematical study researched on effect of environmental regulation on the GTFP in logistics industry was not published. This study can provide experience for the high-quality development of the logistics industry.

This study aims to introduce a better knowledge mapping of the technology adoption for small-medium enterprises by referring to the literature reviews from the Scopus Database during 2009–2023.

This study employs a Bibliometric approach to reveal the causality’s direction between (1) digital and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and (2) technology adoption and SMEs. This causality direction has a far-reaching impact on public policy, entrepreneurship and economic development. The Bibliometric approach provides analysis overviews of time, journal, co-authorship, keyword, citation, country and institution.

The findings have a substantial impact on the field. From 2009 to 2017, there was a lack of literature on technology adoption (digitalization) and SMEs, while from 2018 to 2023, the literature increased rapidly. The journal analysis shows that sustainability (Switzerland) contributes the most to the literature. In addition, journals that focus on business, management and accounting have published the most literature on technology adoption and SMEs. The significance is often judged by how the research could change current understanding, lead to practical applications or open new avenues for further research. Therefore, this study presents new perspectives that developed countries, in the case is Germany, still dominate technology adoption in SMEs and the relationship between business, management and accounting.

This study suggests that collaboration among countries can stimulate research and publication on technology adoption (digitalization) and SMEs.

This study suggests that collaboration among countries can stimulate research and publication on technology adoption (digitalization) and SMEs. Besides, this study leads future studies to develop empirical studies on technology adoption (digital business/entrepreneurship) and SMEs at both country and cross-country levels. The author’s findings can be recommendations for public policy and economic development through digital adoption in entrepreneurship.

This study provides a better understanding and mapping about the technology adoption for SMEs. The literature of technology adoption for SMEs has grown rapidly during the last five years. However, there is a lack of technology adoption mapping for SMEs in the current literature.

Manipulator motion accuracy is a fundamental requirement for precision manufacturing equipment. Light weight manipulators in high speed motions are vulnerable to deformations. The purpose of this work is to analyze the effect of link deformation on the motion precision of parallel manipulators.

The flexible dynamics model of the links is first established by applying the Euler–Bernoulli beam theory and the assumed modal method. The rigid-flexible coupling equations of the parallel mechanism are further derived by using the Lagrange multiplier approach. The elastic energy resulting from spiral motion and link deformations are computed and analyzed. Motion errors of the 3-link torque-prismatic-torque parallel manipulator are then evaluated based on its inverse kinematics. The validation experiments are also conducted to verify the numerical results.

The lateral deformation and axial deformation are largest at the middle of the driven links. The axial deformation at the middle of the driven link is approximately one-tenth of the transversal deformation. However, the elastic potential energy of the transversal deformation is much smaller than the elastic force generated from axial deformation.

Knowledge on the relationship between link deformation and motion precision is useful in the design of parallel manipulators for high performing dynamic responses.

This work establishes the relationship between motion precision and the amount of link deformation in parallel manipulators.

This paper aims to establish the wideband model of a sub-module in a modular multilevel converter (MMC) and analyze the switch transients of the sub-module.

The paper builds an MMC sub-module test circuit and conducts dynamic tests both with and without the bypass thyristor. Then, it builds the wideband model of the MMC sub-module and extracts the model parameters. Finally, based on the wideband model, it simulates the switch transients and analyzes the oscillation mechanism.

The dynamic testing shows the bypass thyristor will add oscillations during switch transients, especially during the turn-on process. The thyristor acts like a small capacitor and reduces the total capacitor in the turn-on circuit loop, thus causing under-damped oscillations.

This paper found that the bypass thyristor will influence the MMC sub-module switch transients under certain circumstances. This paper proposes a partial inductance extraction procedure for the MMC sub-module and builds a wideband model of the sub-module. The wideband model is used to analyze and explain the switch transients, and can be further used for insulated gate bipolar transistor switch oscillation inhibition and sub-module design optimization.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a means of the kinematic calibration of a parallel manipulator with full-circle rotation.

An error-mapping model based on the space vector chain is formulated and parameter identification is proposed based on double ball-bar (DBB) measurements. The measurement trajectory is determined by the motion characteristics of this mechanism and whether the error sources can be identified. Error compensation is proposed by modifying the inputs, and a two-step kinematic calibration method is implemented.

The simulation and experiment results show that this kinematic calibration method is effective. The DBB length errors and the position errors in the end-effector of the parallel manipulator with full-circle rotation are greatly reduced after error compensation.

By establishing the mapping relationship between measured error data and geometric error sources, the error parameters of this mechanism are identified; thus, the pose errors are unnecessary to be measured directly. The effectiveness of the kinematic calibration method is verified by computer simulation and experiment. This proposed calibration method can help the novel parallel manipulator with full-circle rotation and other similar parallel mechanisms to improve their accuracy.

The purpose of this study is solving the hand–eye calibration issue for line structured light vision sensor. Only after hand–eye calibration the sensor measurement data can be applied to robot system.

In this paper, the hand–eye calibration methods are studied, respectively, for eye-in-hand and eye-to-hand. Firstly, the coordinates of the target point in robot system are obtained by tool centre point (TCP), then the robot is controlled to make the sensor measure the target point in multiple poses and the measurement data and pose data are obtained; finally, the sum of squared calibration errors is minimized by the least square method. Furthermore, the missing vector in the process of solving the transformation matrix is obtained by vector operation, and the complete matrix is obtained.

On this basis, the sensor measurement data can be easily and accurately converted to the robot coordinate system by matrix operation.

This method has no special requirement for robot pose control, and its calibration process is fast and efficient, with high precision and has practical popularized value.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the emerging phenomenon of medical tourism in the context of Iran from a customer experience management perspective and benchmark of their judgment including positive or negative, of the experience they have achieved of the Iranian health (medical) experience (CE) and suggest scenarios for the improvement of the Iranian customer experience management (CEM).

The research methodologies and research methods that are used in this descriptive-analytical research are based on an inspection of the remarkable literature related to medical tourism and customer experience management. The data gathering instrument is a researcher-made questionnaire based on the variables in the conceptual model extracted from the research literature. The study was conducted from May to August 2019. The population cohort of this study was the foreign patients calling selected Iranian hospitals and the sampling method was a purposive and snowball sample of prospective medical tourists. As the study was conducted throughout Iran, some important hospitals in Iran were selected by stratified sampling Yang et al. (2020b). The sample size and data saturation were 500 participants Lv and Song (2019). The collected data using the questionnaire were analyzed by SPSS software and statistical tests.

According to the results, the customer experience management statistical significance in the task aspect is (p = 0.0523), in the mechanical aspect is (p = 0.0563), in the human aspect is (p = 0.0544). The study showed positive customer experience among the patients who had been treated in the Iranian hospitals.

There is a lack of study that focuses on medical tourism and customer experience management in Iran. Therefore, based on the results of this study, the experience of medical tourists in Iran proved to be positive and satisfying. As little research has been conducted in the area of customer experience management (CEM) in Iranian medical tourism, future researchers can use these valuable results precisely and in more detail to benchmark more accurately the customer experience in all areas of medical and health tourism and other research areas in different aspects of CEM in Iran.

Providing online news recommendations to users has become an important trend for online media platforms, enabling them to attract more users. The purpose of this paper is to propose an online news recommendation system for recommending news articles to users when browsing news on online media platforms.

A Collaborative Semantic Topic Modeling (CSTM) method and an ensemble model (EM) are proposed to predict user preferences based on the combination of matrix factorization with articles’ semantic latent topics derived from word embedding and latent topic modeling. The proposed EM further integrates an online interest adjustment (OIA) mechanism to adjust users’ online recommendation lists based on their current news browsing.

This study evaluated the proposed approach using offline experiments, as well as an online evaluation on an existing online media platform. The evaluation shows that the proposed method can improve the recommendation quality and achieve better performance than other recommendation methods can. The online evaluation also shows that integrating the proposed method with OIA can improve the click-through rate for online news recommendation.

The novel CSTM and EM combined with OIA are proposed for news recommendation. The proposed novel recommendation system can improve the click-through rate of online news recommendations, thus increasing online media platforms’ commercial value.