Search results

In the last decade, cloud manufacturing (CMfg) has attracted considerable attention from academia and industry worldwide. It is widely accepted that the design and analysis of cloud manufacturing architecture (CMfg-A) are the basis for developing and applying CMfg systems. However, in existing studies, analysis of the status, development process and internal characteristics of CMfg-A is lacking, hindering an understanding of the research hotspots and development trends of CMfg-A. Meanwhile, effective guidance is lacking on the construction of superior CMfg-As. The purpose of this paper is to review the relevant research on CMfg-A via identification of the main layers, elements, relationships, structure and functions of CMfg-A to provide valuable information to scholars and practitioners for further research on key CMfg-A technologies and the construction of CMfg systems with superior performance.

This study systematically reviews the relevant research on CMfg-A across transformation process to internal characteristics by integrating quantitative and qualitative methods. First, the split and reorganization method is used to recognize the main layers of CMfg-A. Then, the transformation process of six main layers is analysed through retrospective analysis, and the similarities and differences in CMfg-A are obtained. Subsequently, based on systematic theory, the elements, relationships, structure and functions of CMfg-A are inductively studied. A 3D printing architecture design case is conducted to discuss the weakness of the previous architecture and demonstrate how to improve it. Finally, the primary current trends and future opportunities are presented.

By analyzing the transformation process of CMfg-A, this study finds that CMfg-A resources are developing from tangible resources into intangible resources and intelligent resources. CMfg-A technology is developing from traditional cloud computing-based technology towards advanced manufacturing technology, and CMfg-A application scope is gradually expanding from traditional manufacturing industry to emerging manufacturing industry. In addition, by analyzing the elements, relationships, structure and functions of CMfg-A, this study finds that CMfg-A is undergoing a new generation of transformation, with trends of integrated development, intelligent development, innovative development and green development. Case study shows that the analysis of the development trend and internal characteristics of the architecture facilitates the design of a more effective architecture.

This paper predominantly focuses on journal articles and some key conference papers published in English and Chinese. The reason for considering Chinese articles is that CMfg was proposed by the Chinese and a lot of Chinese CMfg-A articles have been published in recent years. CMfg is suitable for the development of China’s manufacturing industry because of China’s intelligent manufacturing environment. It is believed that this research has reached a reliable comprehensiveness that can help scholars and practitioners establish new research directions and evaluate their work in CMfg-A.

Prior studies ignore the identification and analysis of development process and internal characteristics for the current development of CMfg-A, including the main layers identification of different CMfg-As and the transformation process analysis of these main layers, and in-depth analysis of the inner essence of CMfg-A (such as its elements, relationships, structure and functions). This study addresses these limitations and provides a comprehensive literature review.

Cloud manufacturing (CMfg) is a networked manufacturing mode that promotes the agile, service-oriented, green and intelligent development of the manufacturing industry. Although some scholars have reviewed related studies of CMfg from multiple perspectives, these reviews are not fully systematic or well justified and fail to fully reveal the key characteristics in the development process of CMfg. The purpose of this paper is to systematically review the relevant research on CMfg via identification of key characteristics of definition, architecture, supporting technology and application of CMfg to provide critical information in decision support for the innovation and development of CMfg.

This study systematically reviews the relevant research on CMfg across theoretical methods to technical applications by integrating quantitative and qualitative methods. Word cloud method is used to quantitatively analyse the structure and feature of different definitions of CMfg. The principle of System Science is used to explore the basic components and functions of various CMfg architectures and their common and differing characteristics. A multi-level technology framework is developed to explore the development status of CMfg supporting technologies. A multi-stage application classification is proposed to reveal the application status of CMfg.

Through literature review, this study found that CMfg architecture is currently dominated by general architectures and lacks architectures that fit the actual enterprise characteristics; CMfg supporting technology is mature in the traditional cloud computing-based technology, but it is still weak in the development of virtualization and servitization technology, service scheduling technology; CMfg application is still in the initial stage and still lacks a relatively complete system application. By analysing the development status of CMfg, this study also identified potential research directions of CMfg in information management, service composition and evaluation, system application and sustainable development and other aspects.

This paper predominantly focuses on journal articles and some key conference papers published in English and Chinese. Chinese articles account for more than half of the total. The reason is that CMfg was proposed by the Chinese and CMfg is suitable for the development of China's manufacturing industry because of China's intelligent manufacturing environment. It is believed that this research has reached a reliable comprehensiveness that can help scholars and practitioners establish new research directions and evaluate their work in CMfg.

Prior literature reviews ignore the identification and analysis of key feature identification for the current development of CMfg, including common and unique feature identification of different CMfg architectures and functions, multi-layer analysis and interpretation of CMfg technology and different stage analysis of CMfg applications. This study addresses these limitations and provides a comprehensive literature review.

Cultural and creative industries (CCIs) have been argued to play an important role in achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs). However, the mechanisms through which CCIs contribute to the attainment of SDGs remain underexplored. In this study, the authors adopt a network perspective to examine how the structure of a local CCI network relates to its local sustainability performance. By examining a database of 210,182 networked firms out of 1.34 million CCI firms across 294 cities in China, the authors conclude that both the scale and the density of a local CCI network improve the city’s performance in terms of attaining SDGs 8–12. The authors discuss the implications of these findings and propose future research avenues in international business.

Surface acoustic wave (SAW) sensors have attracted great attention worldwide for a variety of applications in measuring physical, chemical and biological parameters. However, stability has been one of the key issues which have limited their effective commercial applications. To fully understand this challenge of operation stability, this paper aims to systematically review mechanisms, stability issues and future challenges of SAW sensors for various applications.

This review paper starts with different types of SAWs, advantages and disadvantages of different types of SAW sensors and then the stability issues of SAW sensors. Subsequently, recent efforts made by researchers for improving working stability of SAW sensors are reviewed. Finally, it discusses the existing challenges and future prospects of SAW sensors in the rapidly growing Internet of Things-enabled application market.

A large number of scientific articles related to SAW technologies were found, and a number of opportunities for future researchers were identified. Over the past 20 years, SAW-related research has gained a growing interest of researchers. SAW sensors have attracted more and more researchers worldwide over the years, but the research topics of SAW sensor stability only own an extremely poor percentage in the total researc topics of SAWs or SAW sensors.

Although SAW sensors have been attracting researchers worldwide for decades, researchers mainly focused on the new materials and design strategies for SAW sensors to achieve good sensitivity and selectivity, and little work can be found on the stability issues of SAW sensors, which are so important for SAW sensor industries and one of the key factors to be mature products. Therefore, this paper systematically reviewed the SAW sensors from their fundamental mechanisms to stability issues and indicated their future challenges for various applications.

The study aims to examine how different types of green brand ritual (GBR) influence customer engagement behavior and the mediation mechanisms and boundary conditions of the positive and negative pathways.

The study conducts two online experiments to collect data from a total of 940 consumers in China. Hypotheses are tested by independent samples t-test, two-way ANOVA and Hayes' PROCESS model.

Different kinds of GBR have different effects on customer engagement behavior. Internal GBR is more likely to play a positive role by inciting connectedness to nature. External GBR is more likely to play a negative role by inciting psychological resistance. This dual effect is especially pronounced for warm brands rather than competent brands.

The study pioneers the brand ritual into the field of interactive marketing and enriches its dual effect research. Additionally, the study figures out whether the category of brand ritual can trigger negative effect.

Inappropriate brand rituals are worse than no rituals at all. The results provide guidance for green companies to design effective brand rituals to strengthen the connection with consumers. Green brands should describe brand rituals in vivid detail and consciously lead consumers to immerse themselves in them.

Purpose: This study quantitatively assesses the impact of ESG profile on equity value and risk, as well as identifies potential differences occurring in different sectors, based on the data of the Nasdaq Nordic market.

Methodology: To reach this purpose, (i) the stock return and volatility analysis is being conducted (using the methods of paired sample t-test, correlation, etc.), and (ii) panel data models with constant, fixed and random effects are being constructed. The analysis is based not only on the company’s ESG performance but also on a cross-sectoral approach.

Findings: The results revealed that although ESG factors appeared to have a significant impact in most of the constructed models, the impact of these factors varies depending on the sector.

Implications: This research provides a comprehensive and comparative approach to the importance of the ESG profile for investment performance and therefore can be useful both for impact investors making investment decisions in dynamic global financial markets and for companies developing or reforming their ESG strategies.

Limitations: Due to the problem of data availability, the cross-sectoral comparison was performed based on the limited number of sectors. In addition, the limited availability of ESG data in the analysed market did not allow the use of additional methods to assess the impact of ESG.

Future Research: Expanding the data sample and assessing the impact of a company’s ESG profile not only in different sectors but also in different phases of the economic cycle might be the direction for future research.

The study aims to devise a comprehensive evaluation model (CEM) for evaluating spatial equity in the layout of elderly service facilities (ESFs) to address the inequity in the layout of ESFs within city center communities characterized by limited land resources and a dense elderly population.

The CEM incorporates a suite of analytical tools, including accessibility assessment, Lorenz curve and Gini coefficient evaluations and spatial autocorrelation analysis. Utilizing this model, the study scrutinized the distributional equity of three distinct categories of ESFs in the city center of Xi’an and proposed targeted optimization strategies.

The findings reveal that (1) there are disparities in ESFs’ accessibility among different categories and communities, manifesting a distinct center (high) and periphery (low) distribution pattern; (2) there exists inequality in ESFs distribution, with nearly 50% of older adults accessing only 18% of elderly services, and these inequalities are more pronounced in urban areas with lower accessibility, and (3) approximately 14.7% of communities experience a supply-demand disequilibrium, with demand surpassing supply as a predominant issue in the ongoing development of ESFs.

The CEM formulated in this study offers policymakers, urban planners and service providers a scientific foundation and guidance for decision-making or policy amendment by promptly assessing and pinpointing areas of spatial inequity in ESFs and identifying deficiencies in their development.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a pressure-, temperature- and acceleration-sensitive structure-integrated inductor-capacitor (LC) resonant ceramic sensor to fulfill the measurement of multi-parameters, such as the measurement of pressure, temperature and acceleration, simultaneously in automotive, aerospace and aeronautics industries.

The ceramic-based multi-parameter sensor was composed of three LC tanks, which have their resonant frequencies sensitive to pressure, temperature and acceleration separately. Two aspects from the specific sensitive structure design to the multiple signals reading technology are considered in designing the multi-parameter ceramic sensor. Theoretical analysis and ANSYS simulation are used in designing the sensitive structure, and MATLAB simulation and experiment are conducted to verify the feasibility of non-coverage of multi-readout signals.

It is found that if the parameters of sensitive structure and layout of the LC tanks integrated into the sensor are proper, the implementation of a multi-parameter sensor could be feasible.

The ceramic sensor proposed in the paper can measure pressure, temperature and acceleration simultaneously in harsh environments.

The paper creatively proposes a pressure-, temperature- and acceleration-sensitive structure-integrated LC resonant ceramic sensor for harsh environments and verifies the feasibility of the sensor from sensitive structure design to multiple-signal reading.

The waste-to-energy (WtE) project plays a significant role in the sustainable development of urban environments. However, the inherent “Not in my backyard” (NIMBY) effect presents substantial challenges to site selection decisions. While effective public participation is recognized as a potential solution, research on incorporating it into site selection decision-making frameworks remains limited. This paper aims to establish a multi-attribute group decision-making framework for WtE project site selection that considers public participation to enhance public satisfaction and ensure project success.

Firstly, based on consideration of public demand, a WtE project site selection decision indicator system was constructed from five dimensions: natural, economic, social, environmental and other supporting conditions. Next, the Combination Ordered Weighted Averaging (C-OWA) operator and game theory were applied to integrate the indicator weight preferences of experts and the public. Additionally, an interactive, dynamic decision-making mechanism was established to address the heterogeneity among decision-making groups and determine decision-maker weights. Finally, in an intuitive fuzzy environment, an “acronym in Portuguese of interactive and multi-criteria decision-making” (TODIM) method was used to aggregate decision information and evaluate the pros and cons of different options.

This study develops a four-stage multi-attribute group decision-making framework that incorporates public participation and has been successfully applied in a case study. The results demonstrate that the framework effectively handles complex decision-making scenarios involving public participation and ranks potential WtE project sites. It can promote the integration of expert and public decision-making preferences in the site selection of WtE projects to improve the effectiveness of decision-making. In addition, sensitivity and comparative analyses confirm the framework’s feasibility and scientificity.

This paper provides a new research perspective for the WtE project site selection decision-making, which is beneficial for public participation to play a positive role in decision-making. It also offers a valuable reference for managers seeking to effectively implement public participation mechanisms.

A strong relationship exists in many cultures between ethnic identity and educational success. This study was conducted at a teacher training university in Southwest China in 1997. It examines how ethnic minority students, through a series of micro-level interactions, construct “scholar selves” within their families, villages, and schools. The study also looks at how macro-level structural supports, built into the Chinese education system, help minority students overcome obstacles to academic success. These supports include special schools and classes for ethnic students, training teachers for nationality areas, financial support for minority education and additional points awarded on national examinations. The chapter suggests what scholars and practitioners might learn from an educational system that demonstrates the characteristics of flexibility, inclusiveness and cohesiveness.