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The purpose of this paper is to compare the performance of regression and artificial-neural-networks (ANNs) methods to estimate the running cost of building projects towards improved accuracy.

A data set of 20 building projects is used to test the performance of these two (ANNs/regression) models in estimating running cost. The concept of cost-significant-items is identified as important in assisting estimation. In addition, a stepwise technique is used to eliminate insignificant factors in regression modelling. A connection weight method is applied to determine the importance of cost factors in the performance of ANNs.

The results illustrate that the value of the coefficient of determination=99.75 per cent for ANNs model(s), with a value of 98.1 per cent utilising multiple regression (MR) model(s); second, the mean percentage error (MPE) for ANNs at a testing stage is 0.179, which is less than that of the MPE gained through MR modelling of 1.28; and third, the average accuracy is 99 per cent for ANNs model(s) and 97 per cent for MR model(s). On the basis of these results, it is concluded that an ANNs model is superior to a MR model when predicting running cost of building projects.

A means for continuous improvement for the performance of the models accuracy has been established; this may be further enhanced by future extended sample.

This work extends the knowledge base of life-cycle estimation where ANNs method has been found to reduce preparation time consumed and increasing accuracy improvement of the cost estimation.

This study aims to investigate the effect of healthy food advertising (HFA) in preventing obesity (measured using the healthy eating attitude and perceived self-regulatory success) through the meta-cognitive role of consumer wisdom (CW). The meta-cognitive role of CW to better promote healthy eating attitude and behavior is relevant and underexplored.

Data were collected from 310 young consumers through an online survey. Reliability and validity were established using confirmatory factor analysis, and hypotheses were analyzed through structural equation modeling using MPlus V8.3.

The results reveal that HFA has a positive influence on all dimensions of CW: responsibility, purpose, perspective, reasoning and sustainability. All dimensions but one augment a positive healthy eating attitude, but only responsibility and sustainability enhance consumers’ self-regulatory success. The findings show that HFA does not directly prevent obesity, but CW mediates the relationship between that advertising and obesity prevention. These findings show that CW establishes a mindful connection between HFA and obesity control.

This research extends the theory of CW in the context of healthful eating and contributes significantly to the advertising, hospitality and obesity literature.

This study also has implications for multiple stakeholders, including consumers, restaurant operators, hospitality managers, brand managers, the government and society in general.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study marks the first attempt to investigate the role of CW in preventing obesity. It is also the first study to examine the relationships of HFA with CW and a healthful attitude toward eating.

The development of digital technology has provided technical support to various industries. Specifically, Internet-based freight platforms can ensure the high-quality development of the logistics industry. Online freight platforms can use cargo transportation insurance to improve their service capabilities, promote their differentiated development, create products with platform characteristics and increase their core competitiveness.

This study uses a generalised linear model to fit the claim probability and claim intensity data and analyses freight insurance pricing based on the freight insurance claim data of a freight platform in China.

Considering traditional pricing risk factors, this study adds two risk factors to fit the claim probability data, that is, the purchase behaviour of freight insurance customers and road density. The two variables can significantly influence the claim probability, and the model fitting outcomes obtained with the logit connection function are excellent. In addition, this study examines the model results under various distribution types for the fitting of the claim intensity data. The fitting outcomes under a gamma distribution are superior to those under the other distribution types, as measured by the Akaike information criterion.

With actual data from an online freight platform in China, this study empirically proves that a generalised linear model is superior to traditional pricing methods for freight insurance. This study constructs a generalised linear pricing model considering the unique features of the freight industry and determines that the transportation distance, cargo weight and road density have a significant influence on the claim probability and claim intensity.

The purpose of this paper is to present corporate wellness (CW) as an approach to worker well-being and as distinct from workplace health promotion (WHP). Theoretical explanations of the contribution of CW and WHP to the economic and social legitimacy objectives of human resource management (HRM) serve to elucidate this distinction and also to highlight the problematic nature of CW. An alternative approach to worker well-being, firm performance and social legitimacy of the firm is discussed.

This is a review paper that analyses research into CW as a discrete approach to the management of people and compares this body of knowledge with ancillary studies of the impact of policies more commonly aligned with HRM in order to achieve the purpose of the paper.

The review is critical of CW as a means of achieving competitive advantage through people due to the probability of dysfunctional outcomes, namely exacerbating the health and well-being of the workforce, especially the mental health of workers.

Due to the sizeable investment in CW programmes, the paper advocates a focus on equity in pay, employment security and employee voice as an alterative means of enhancing the health of the workforce and the performance of the organisation.

This paper elaborates on recent critiques of worker well-being programmes (see e.g. Guest, 2017), offering a comprehensive and robust theoretical framework. The paper cites extensive evidence that improved pay, employment security and an effective voice in the workplace are more effective means of meeting the needs of the firm and improving worker well-being.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the present structure of the Korean disaster-safety industry and propose ways to promote it.

The background of the emergence of the disaster and safety industry in Korea is reviewed, and business networks of 91 companies belonging to the disaster and safety industry in Korea are identified and analysed through a network analysis.

Korean Government is struggling to nurture the disaster and safety industry as it has been on last few decades. This paper finds that the current industry has an ambiguous market structure, and the industry tends to depend highly on the demand of public institutions.

The concept of the disaster and safety industry is not well established in other countries except for Korea. If Korea successfully fosters its disaster and safety industry through its proper understanding, it would bring both disaster risk reduction and economic benefits.

This paper analyses the market structure of the disaster and safety industry, which is uniquely emerging in Korea and rarely designated as an industry in other countries.

The purpose of this paper is to present a yardstick efficiency comparison of 269 Indonesian municipal water utilities (MWUs) and measures the impact of exogenous environmental variables on efficiency scores.

Two-stage Stackelberg leader-follower data envelopment analysis (DEA) and artificial neural networks (ANN) were employed.

Given that serviceability was treated as the leader and profitability as the follower, the first and second stage DEA scores were 55 and 32 percent (0 percent = totally inefficient, 100 percent = perfectly efficient), respectively. This indicates sizeable opportunities for improvement, with 39 percent of the total sample facing serious problems in both first- and second-stage efficiencies. When profitability instead leads serviceability, this results in more decreased efficiency. The size of the population served was the most important exogenous environmental variable affecting DEA efficiency scores in both the first and second stages.

The present study was limited by the overly restrictive assumption that all MWUs operate at a constant-return-to-scale.

These research findings will enable better management of the MWUs in question, allowing their current level of performance to be objectively compared with that of their peers, both in terms of scale and area of operation. These findings will also help the government prioritize assistance measures for MWUs that are suffering from acute performance gaps, and to devise a strategic national plan to revitalize Indonesia’s water sector.

This paper enriches the body of knowledge by filling in knowledge gaps relating to benchmarking in Indonesia’s water industry, as well as in the application of ensemble two-stage DEA and ANN, which are still rare in the literature.

The ordinary vector hysteresis stop model with constant threshold values is not able to prohibit the hysteretic property after the saturation correctly. This paper aims to develop an improved vector hysteresis stop model with threshold surfaces. This advanced anisotropic vector hysteresis stop model can represent the magnetic saturation properties and the hysteresis losses under alternating and rotating magnetizations.

By integrating anhysteretic surfaces into the elastic element of a vector hysteresis stop model, the anisotropy of the permeability of an electrical steel sheet can be represented. Instead of the commonly used constant threshold value for plastic elements of the hysteresis model, threshold surfaces are applied to the stop hysterons. The threshold surfaces can be derived directly from measured alternating major loops of the material sample. By saturated polarization, the constructed threshold surfaces are vanishing. In this way, the reversible magnetic flux density is in the same direction of the applied magnetic flux density. Thus, the saturation properties are satisfied.

Analyzing the measurements of the electrical steel sheets sample obtained from a rotational single sheet tester shows that the clockwise (CW) and counter-CW (CCW) rotational hysteresis losses decrease by saturated flux density. At this state, instead of the domain wall motion, the magnetization rotation is dominant in the material. As a result, the hysteresis losses, which are related to the domain wall motion, are vanished near the saturation. In one stop operator, the plastic element represents the hysteresis part of the model. Integrating threshold surface into the plastic element, the hysteresis part can be modified to zero near the saturation to represent the saturation properties.

The results of this work demonstrate that the presented vector hysteresis stop model allows simulation of anisotropic hysteresis effects, alternating and rotating hysteresis losses. The parameters of the hysteresis model are determined by comparing the measured and modeled minor loops in different alternating magnetization directions. With the identified parameters, the proposed model is excited with rotated excitations in CW and CCW directions. The rotated hysteresis losses, derived from the model, are then compared with those experimentally measured. The modified vector stop model can significantly improve the accuracy of representing hysteresis saturations and losses.

Means, medians and SD for available socio‐economic status (SES) black‐white differences are here substituted for those of IQ in a between‐groups model published by the author over a decade ago. The goodness of fit of the SES variables used is compared with that for the earlier IQ data. Even when SES variables are relatively successful this can be viewed as additional evidence of the importance of IQ differences to black‐white differences in delinquency.

Extending the elaboration likelihood model (ELM), this study investigates the impact of social media influencers (SMI) on consumer well-being (CW) as well as the influence of CW on purchase intention.

A between-subjects experiment (macro- vs mega-influencer) was conducted to assess the proposed hypotheses. A total of 190 consumers participated in the experiment, and SmartPLS 3.3 was used for multigroup analyses.

Overall, argument quality (AQ), source's credibility (SC) and influencer's kindness positively predict CW, and CW predicts purchase intention. It was also found that SC is more important when information comes from a mega-influencer, whilst kindness is essential for a macro-influencer.

The results of this study imply that CW should be an essential component of influencer marketing strategy. Marketing managers should hire credible and kind influencers who can produce quality arguments. Additionally, the selection of SMI (macro- vs mega-influencer) should be aligned with the marketing objective and type of persuasion required.

This is one of the early attempts to extend ELM by introducing influencer kindness as a peripheral cue. Moreover, the study offers novelty by examining the effects of influencer characteristics (AQ, SC and kindness) on CW and comparing these effects across macro- and mega-influencers.

藉著擴展詳儘可能性模型, 本研究擬探討網絡紅人對消費者福祉的影響, 以及消費者福祉對購買意圖的影響。

研究人員進行被試間實驗 (中網紅對大型網紅) , 以對提出的假設進行評價。190名消費者參與實驗, 研究人員使用SmartPLS 3.3 進行多群組分析。

總的來說, 論點品質、來源可信度和網紅的仁慈體貼, 均能積極預測消費者福祉, 而消費者福祉亦可預測購買意圖。研究人員亦發現, 若資訊是來自大型網紅的話, 來源可信度則更形重要, 而對中網紅來說, 仁慈體貼則是不可或缺的。

研究結果暗示, 消費者福祉應是網紅市場營銷戰略的基本要素。市場經理應僱用可靠、仁慈體貼、並能提出優質論點的網紅。而且, 網絡紅人 (中網紅對大型網紅) 的挑選, 必須與營銷目標和說服的種類互相協調。

本研究為早期的嘗試, 利用引進網絡紅人的仁慈體貼作為周邊線索, 來擴展詳儘可能性模型。另外, 本研究探討網絡紅人的特徵 (論點品質、來源可信度和仁慈體貼) 會如何影響消費者福祉; 研究人員亦跨中網紅和大型網紅, 對這些影響進行比較, 就此而言, 本研究提供了創新的研究意念。

This purpose of this paper is to design a peg-in-hole controller for a cable-driven serial robot with compliant wrist (CDSR-CW) using cable tensions and joint positions. The peg is connected to the robot link through a CW. It is required that the controller does not rely on any external sensors such as 6-axis wrist force/torque (F/T) sensor, and only the compliance matrix’s estimated value of the CW is known.

First, the peg-in-hole assembly system based on a CDSR-CW is analyzed. Second, a characterization algorithm using micro cable tensions and joint positions to express the elastic F/T at the CW is established. Next, under the premise of only knowing the compliance matrix’s estimate, a peg-in-hole controller based on force/position hybrid control is proposed.

The experiment results show that the plug contact F/T can be tracked well. This verifies the validity and correctness of the characterization algorithm and peg-in-hole controller for CDSR-CWs in this paper.

First, to the authors’ knowledge, there is no relevant work about the peg-in-hole assembly task using a CDSR-CW. Besides, the proposed characterization algorithm for the elastic F/T makes the peg-in-hole controller get rid of the dependence on the F/T sensor, which expands the application scenarios of the peg-in-hole controller. Finally, the controller does not require an accurate compliance matrix, which also increases its applicability.