Anette Kaagaard Kristensen and Martin Lund Kristensen
This paper aims to examine how newcomers’ experience and perception of their exposure to the hazing ritual “quizzing” affects their mode of relating to the workgroup.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine how newcomers’ experience and perception of their exposure to the hazing ritual “quizzing” affects their mode of relating to the workgroup.
Design/methodology/approach
Two illustrative cases are selected from a constructivist grounded theory study based on 15 semi-structured interviews with nursing students in clinical internships at somatic hospital wards.
Findings
As newcomers to the nursing profession, nursing students are exposed to experienced insiders’ hazing ritual “quizzing” during their internship at Danish hospitals. “Quizzing” is a public ceremony performed by an experienced insider, e.g. a daily or clinical supervisor. The ritual continues until a bystander intervenes even though the newcomer admits not knowing the answers. “Quizzing” is being met with repulsion and represents a deviation from expectations of social inclusion, civilized behavior and hope of resonance. It leaves newcomers feeling alienated and makes them adopting a repulsive mode of relating to the workgroup.
Originality/value
This paper applies Hartmut Rosa’s resonance theory and theories of workplace hazing to explore how workgroup hazing affects newcomers’ mode of relating to workgroups.
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Anette Kaagaard Kristensen and Martin Lund Kristensen
This paper aims to examine how temporaries’ experience and perception of encounters with permanent members’ relational indifference affect the social relations in blended…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine how temporaries’ experience and perception of encounters with permanent members’ relational indifference affect the social relations in blended workgroups.
Design/methodology/approach
Constructivist grounded theory study based on 15 semi-structured interviews with first- and third-year nursing students in clinical internships at somatic hospital wards was used.
Findings
The authors identified two themes around organizational alienation. Temporaries expected and hoped to experience resonance in their interactions with permanent members, which drove them to make an extra effort when confronted with permanents’ relational indifference. Temporaries felt insignificant, meaningless and unworthy, causing them to adopt a relationless mode of relating, feeling alienated and adapting their expectations and hopes.
Practical implications
Relational indifference is, unlike relational repulsion, problematic to target directly through intervention policies as organizations would inflict a more profound alienation on temporaries.
Originality/value
Unlike previous research on blended workgroups, which has predominantly focused on relational repulsion, this paper contributes to understanding how relational indifference affects temporaries’ mode of relating to permanent.
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Pinjun Xia, António Lopes and Maria Restivo
Haptics can significantly enhance the user's sense of immersion and interactivity. Especially in an assembly task, haptic feedback can help designers to have a better…
Abstract
Purpose
Haptics can significantly enhance the user's sense of immersion and interactivity. Especially in an assembly task, haptic feedback can help designers to have a better understanding of virtual objects and to increase task efficiency. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the design and implementation of a haptic‐based virtual assembly system (HVAS).
Design/methodology/approach
A multi‐thread system structure was designed, an automatic data integration interface was developed to transfer geometry, topology, assembly and physics information from a computer‐aided design system to virtual reality application, and a hierarchical constraint‐based data model and scene graph structure was designed to construct the virtual assembly environment. Unlike traditional virtual assembly systems based on collision detection or geometry constraint only, a physics‐based modeling approach combining with haptic feedback and geometry constraint was undertaken to realize and guide the realistic assembly process. When two parts collide into each other, the force and torque can be computed and provide feedback, and a spring‐mass model is used to prevent penetration and simulate dynamic behaviour. When two parts are close enough to each other and the assembly simulation state is activated, a geometry constraint can be captured, an attractive force can be generated to guide the user to assemble the part along the correct position, and the repulsive force can also be generated to realize the mating process as natural and realistic as in real life.
Findings
The implementation details and application examples demonstrate that haptic‐based virtual assembly is a valuable tool for assembly design and process planning.
Originality/value
The paper presents an HVAS.
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Tianying Xu, Haibo Zhou, Shuaixia Tan, Zhiqiang Li, Xia Ju and Yichang Peng
This paper aims to resolve issues of the traditional artificial potential field method, such as falling into local minima, low success rate and lack of ability to sense the…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to resolve issues of the traditional artificial potential field method, such as falling into local minima, low success rate and lack of ability to sense the obstacle shapes in the planning process.
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, an improved artificial potential field method is proposed, where the object can leave the local minima point, where the algorithm falls into, while it avoids the obstacle, following a shorter feasible path along the repulsive equipotential surface, which is locally optimized. The whole obstacle avoidance process is based on the improved artificial potential field method, applied during the mechanical arm path planning action, along the motion from the starting point to the target point.
Findings
Simulation results show that the algorithm in this paper can effectively perceive the obstacle shape in all the selected cases and can effectively shorten the distance of the planned path by 13%–41% with significantly higher planning efficiency compared with the improved artificial potential field method based on rapidly-exploring random tree. The experimental results show that the improved artificial potential field method can effectively plan a smooth collision-free path for the object, based on an algorithm with good environmental adaptability.
Originality/value
An improved artificial potential field method is proposed for optimized obstacle avoidance path planning of a mechanical arm in three-dimensional space. This new approach aims to resolve issues of the traditional artificial potential field method, such as falling into local minima, low success rate and lack of ability to sense the obstacle shapes in the planning process.
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H. May, R. Palka, E. Portabella and W‐R. Canders
To describe the wide range of possible applications of high temperature superconductors (HTSCs) (e.g. magnetic bearings, levitation systems or electrical machines) several…
Abstract
To describe the wide range of possible applications of high temperature superconductors (HTSCs) (e.g. magnetic bearings, levitation systems or electrical machines) several appropriate calculation algorithms have been developed. They determine the force interaction between a superconductor and any even multidimensional magnetic field excitation system. Especially good agreements between experiments and computed results have been obtained for the Vector‐Controlled Model, which seems to be the best approximation of the macroscopic superconductivity behaviour. The validation of this model by means of measurements makes it a powerful tool for the design and optimisation of any HTSC application in the field of force generation. It can be used not only for the designing of levitation applications, but also to help the understanding of the flux penetration, flux trapping and magnetisation of bulk superconductors in non‐uniform magnetic fields. By means of this model, the force interaction between superconductors and external magnetic fields for practical multi‐polar configurations, e.g. superconducting levitation systems or inherently stable superconducting bearings has been determined. Furthermore, the time dependency of the forces taking flux flow and flux creep into account, can be considered.
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The purpose of this study is to examine the role of videoconferencing technologies for mediating and transforming emotional experiences in virtual context.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine the role of videoconferencing technologies for mediating and transforming emotional experiences in virtual context.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on empirical data of video conferencing experiences, this study identifies different constitutive relations with technology through which actors cope with actual or potential anxieties in virtual meetings. It draws on the phenomenological-existential tradition (Sartre and Merleau-Ponty) and on an interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) to conceptualize and illustrate the role of affective affordances in virtual settings.
Findings
The study identifies four different body–technology–other relations that provide different action possibilities, both disclosing and concealing, for navigating emotional experiences in virtual encounters of mutual gazing. These findings offer insights into the anatomy of virtual emotions and provide explanations on the nature of Zoom fatigue (interactive exhaustion) and heightened feelings of self-consciousness resulting from video conferencing interactions.
Originality/value
This paper builds on and extends current scholarship on technological affordances, as well as emotions, to suggest that technologies also afford different tactics for navigating emotional experiences. Thus, this paper proposes the notion of affective affordance that can expand current information system (IS) and organization studies (OS) scholarship in important ways. The focus is on videoconference technologies and meetings that have received little research attention and even less so from a perspective on emotions. Importantly, the paper offers nuanced insights that can advance current research discourse on the relationships between technology, human body and emotions.
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Andong Liu, Yawen Zhang, Jiayun Fu, Yuankun Yan and Wen-An Zhang
In response to the issue of traditional algorithms often falling into local minima or failing to find feasible solutions in manipulator path planning. The purpose of this paper is…
Abstract
Purpose
In response to the issue of traditional algorithms often falling into local minima or failing to find feasible solutions in manipulator path planning. The purpose of this paper is to propose a 3D artificial moment method (3D-AMM) for obstacle avoidance for the robotic arm's end-effector.
Design/methodology/approach
A new method for constructing temporary attractive points in 3D has been introduced using the vector triple product approach, which generates the attractive moments that attract the end-effector to move toward it. Second, distance weight factorization and spatial projection methods are introduced to improve the solution of repulsive moments in multiobstacle scenarios. Third, a novel motion vector-solving mechanism is proposed to provide nonzero velocity for the end-effector to solve the problem of limiting the solution of the motion vector to a fixed coordinate plane due to dimensionality constraints.
Findings
A comparative analysis was conducted between the proposed algorithm and the existing methods, the improved artificial potential field method and the rapidly-random tree method under identical simulation conditions. The results indicate that the 3D-AMM method successfully plans paths with smoother trajectories and reduces the path length by 20.03% to 36.9%. Additionally, the experimental comparison outcomes affirm the feasibility and effectiveness of this method for obstacle avoidance in industrial scenarios.
Originality/value
This paper proposes a 3D-AMM algorithm for manipulator path planning in Cartesian space with multiple obstacles. This method effectively solves the problem of the artificial potential field method easily falling into local minimum points and the low path planning success rate of the rapidly-exploring random tree method.
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Oludayo Tade and Adeyinka A. Aderinto
The purpose of this paper is to examine factors underlying gender preference of domestic servants (DS). Children in domestic service constitute the most common form of urban child…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine factors underlying gender preference of domestic servants (DS). Children in domestic service constitute the most common form of urban child labour. Literature has shown that domestic service employment has a gender face with the girl-child more susceptible. This is the gap this research fills.
Design/methodology/approach
The study employed both quantitative and qualitative strategies selecting respondents and analysing the study. The respondents were employers of DS and were mainly women. Qualitative data were generated from 15 employers reached through the snowball method. The stratified purposive sampling technique was used to identify private and public organisations in the selected localities where copies of a questionnaire were administered.
Findings
The results showed that factors considered for employing DS are linked to traditional conception of household tasks. Consequently, girls (86.4 per cent) were preferred for performing domestic chores, providing emotional support for employers’ children and were viewed as receptive, “mouldable”, and hardworking to male (11.4 per cent). Not minding these functional roles they perform, some employers reported that female DS could “snatch” their husbands, influence their children negatively, and may be spiritually possessed and physically “unclean”. Male servants were considered foul, repulsive, and revolting to correction; besides, they sexually assault female children of employers; hence they were least demanded.
Research limitations/implications
Because of the size of the sample which is small, the research results may lack generalisability. More expansive works are needed in this regard.
Practical implications
The paper includes implications for policy initiative concerning the plight of working women and security of DS.
Social implications
The paper reveals the social factors considered in recruiting DS and their implications on family relations.
Originality/value
This paper fulfills the identified gap to study gender preference in domestic servitude.
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Meng Yuan, Yinghui Ji and Fan Yang
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the characteristics of the factors influencing the effect of magnetic levitation, including the impedance angle of the levitated coil…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the characteristics of the factors influencing the effect of magnetic levitation, including the impedance angle of the levitated coil, number of turns, material parameter, frequency of excitation and geometric parameters. The final purpose is to provide approaches to increasing the levitation effect.
Design/methodology/approach
Some design principles and strategies for levitation systems are suggested, such as selecting the number of turns of the levitated coil, choosing the frequency of excitation considering the saturation phenomenon of levitation force against frequency and deciding the section area of the excitation coil and its ratio of height and thickness.
Findings
The magnetic force is not always repulsive in a cycle. Therefore, the key approach to increasing the levitation is to increase the period when the force is repulsive and decrease the time when attractive. The impedance angle of the equivalent circuit of the levitated coil determines the ratio of the two periods, and the larger the angle, the longer the repulsion period. A valuable finding is that a saturation situation exists between the levitation force and frequency; that is, when the frequency increases to a certain value, the increasing degree of force tends to decrease as the frequency increases.
Originality/value
Some influential characteristics were found in some factors against the effect of the levitation system, which is beneficial for improving the efficiency of systems. For example, owing to the saturation phenomenon of the frequency, it is useless to continue increasing the frequency and the copper-levitated coil does not bring much greater force effectiveness than the aluminum coil.