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Theory of planned behavior (TPB) has been used to study the impact of entrepreneurial education (EE) on entrepreneurial intention (EI) for more than 20 years, yet an intensive literature review reveals that there are gaps in both the conceptual models and the research methods. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of EE on EI with a view to address the gaps in previous research.

This research proposes a conceptual model that links the entire antecedent variables of TPB and the elaborated four components of entrepreneurship education (Why, What, How, and Who). The model is tested by a structural equation modeling with the empirical data from 200 engineering students from three universities in Hong Kong.

The empirical test reveals that the four components of entrepreneurial education do influence attitude, social norm, self-efficacy, and EI, correspondingly. Additionally, it also reveals that the four EE components and the three TPB antecedent variables are also interrelated with each other.

This study bridges specific education components and EI, providing significant insight into how the key components influence the entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions of students. It fills the gap in the knowledge required for fostering EI through entrepreneurship education. It not only answers the question on whether EE influences EI but also on how to nurture the intention by designing a relevant EE course.

Pick-and-place tasks are common across many industrial sectors, and many rigid-linked robots have been proposed for this application. This paper aims to alternatively present the development of a continuum robot for low-load medium-speed pick-and-place tasks.

An inversion of a previously proposed dual continuum mechanism, as a key design element, was used to realize the horizontal movements of the CurviPicker’s end effector. A flexible shaft was inserted to realize rotation and translation about a vertical axis. The design concept, kinematics, system descriptions and proof-of-concept experimental characterizations are elaborated.

Experimental characterizations show that the CurviPicker can achieve satisfactory accuracy after motion calibration. The CurviPicker is easy to control due to its simple kinematics, while its structural compliance makes it safe to work with, as well as less sensitive to possible target picking position errors to avoid damaging itself or the to-be-picked objects.

The vertical translation of the CurviPicker is currently realized by moving the flexible shaft. Insertion of the flexible shaft introduces possible disturbances. It is desired to explore other form of variations to use structural deformation to realize the vertical translation.

The proposed CurviPicker realizes the Schöenflies motions via a simple structure. Such a robot can be used to increase robot presence and automation in small businesses for low-load medium-speed pick-and-place tasks.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the CurviPicker is the first continuum robot designed and constructed for pick-and-place tasks. The originality stems from the concept, kinematics, development and proof-of-concept experimental characterizations of the CurviPicker.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: to investigate performance of both manufacturer-owned channel and traditional retail channel when the manufacturer encroaches upon the traditional channel in different forms (brick-and-mortar and online form) under different market structures (Stackelberg and Bertrand). To examine the effect of acceptance of the online channel and travel cost on profits of two channels.

The Hotelling model is employed to depict consumers ' channel choice behavior, where the consumer surplus captures travel cost, spatial distance and consumer heterogeneity in acceptance of the online channel. A game-theoretical framework is developed to determine the optimal encroachment form and market structure for both manufacturer-owned and traditional retail channels.

This paper finds that, in either form of encroachment, Stackelberg market structure always outperforms Bertrand market structure, and channel choice significantly relies on parameters, i.e. consumer acceptance of the online channel and travel cost. Moreover, a Pareto zone is proposed in which both channels consider the strategy that the manufacturer opens bricks-and-mortar channel under Stackelberg market structure as the optimal strategy.

The present work fills a theoretical and practical gap for a structured analysis of the channel performance when the manufacturer encroaches upon the incumbent retail channel in different forms and under different market structure.

This paper aims to present the design and a prototype experiment of a robotic joint module for tokamak in-vessel manipulator-related research; the results will promote the adaptation of current in-vessel inspection manipulator to achieve full tokamak in-vessel environment compatibility.

A flexible metallic bellow-enclosed working chamber is used to protect the main servo drive components, the active cooling method for high temperature protection and the servo control structure simplification for high radiation endurance. A joint module prototype is manufactured and tested under a similar in-vessel environmental condition for extreme condition protection validation and basic servo control ability evaluation.

The joint module prototype successfully survived the similar in-vessel environment tests and proved good mobility via closed-loop servo control. A conceptual design of a serial linkage manipulator with joint module structure is proposed for future in-vessel inspection manipulator development.

The proposed joint module uses common industrial servo components to achieve its full extreme in-vessel environment compatibility. Different from traditional metallic bellow application in a vacuum environment to produce a linear movement result, the proposed joint module aims to achieve rotating movement directly from the metallic bellow structure, thereby reducing the joint structure space requirement, simplifying the vacuum environment movement transmission structure and increasing the vacuum environment compatibility degree.

In recent years, the updating speed of products has been significantly accelerated, which not only provides diversified styles for consumers to select from but also makes consumers face selection problems sometimes. In addition, a large number of online reviews for products emerge on many e-commerce websites and influence consumers’ purchasing decisions. The purpose of this study is to propose a method for product selection considering consumer’s expectations and online reviews to support consumers’ purchasing decisions.

The product attributes are divided into two categories, i.e. demand attributes and word-of-mouth (WOM) attributes. For the demand attributes, for which the consumers can give specific quantified expectations, the value function of prospect theory is used to determine the consumer’s perceived values to the alternative products according to consumers’ expectations for these attributes and products’ specifications. For the WOM attributes, for which the consumers cannot give specific quantified expectations, the sentiment analysis method is used to identify the sentiment strengths for these attributes in the online reviews, and then the consumer’s perceived values to the alternative products are determined. On this basis, the product selection methods for single consumers and group consumers are given respectively.

Finally, taking the data of JD.com (https://www.jd.com/) as an example, the practicability and rationality of the method proposed in this paper is validated.

First, a new product selection problem considering consumer’s expectations and online reviews is extracted. Second, the product attributes are considered more comprehensively and are classified into two main categories. Third, the bounded rationality of the consumers in the decision-making process is described more reasonably. Fourth, the sentiment dictionaries for each WOM attribute are constructed and the algorithm step of identifying the sentiment strengths is designed, which can help to identify the sentiment strengths in the online reviews more accurately. Fifth, the situation that a group plans to purchase the same products and the members have inconsistent expectations for the product attributes is considered.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the characteristic and function of oxide film formed on grinding wheel in electrolytic in-process dressing (ELID) precision grinding and improve the quality of ELID grinding.

Dynamic film forming experiments were carried out with a simulation device close to the actual processing conditions. Then, the ELID grinding experiments of bearing rings were performed using grinding wheels with good film forming effect. The experiment was designed by quadratic regression general rotation combination method. The influence of grinding depth, electrolytic voltage, duty cycle and grinding wheel linear speed on grinding effect is analyzed.

A mathematical model for the formation rate of oxide film was established. The experiments show that the composition of grinding wheel and grinding fluid, as well as the electrical parameters, influence the film forming effect. Thus, the oxide film plays an important role in ELID grinding.

This study provides a reference for the design and selection of grinding wheel and grinding fluid and the setting of process parameters in ELID grinding.

The purpose of this paper is with robust control problem for event-triggered networked control systems (NCSs) with actuator failures and time-varying transmission delays.

A random sequence is introduced to describe the actuator faults, and a novel event-triggering communication scheme is adopted in the sensor-to-controller channel. By taking the event-triggered mechanism and network transmission delay into consideration, a delay system model is constructed.

Based on Lyapunov stability theory and free weighting matrix method, the feasibility criteria for co-designing both the controller gain and the trigger parameters are derived. Finally, a simulation example is exploited to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) approach.

The introduced approach is interesting for NCSs with actuator failures and time-varying transmission delays.

This paper aims to automatically derive a 2D parametric model of the main characteristic lines of a car from images, blueprints or hand-made sketches of its side view. Then this model can be used for the further computer-aided design manipulation starting from images of the side view of a car.

The method combines different image edge detection techniques and edge removal processes with optimization techniques according to local and global constraints specific of the single curves to automatically construct a precise parametric model of the main character lines of a car from images. First, process the car image to compute the most important curves and then warp a car template model to match its feature points and curves with the ones detected in the image.

The paper provides method to construct parametric model from an image using maximum cover ratio to the edge points obtained by state-of-the-art edge detection algorithms. A feature points’ organization mechanism produces quadric curves to express feature curves of a product.

The robustness of the presented method depends on the completeness of edge detection results and the accuracy of some key points’ registration result, so if the image is not good, the result cannot be trusted. Only side-view is considered in this paper. Additional limits in the process regard the side view verification: pictures of the front or rear view can be wrongly classified as lateral ones when they contain round lights.

This program enables designers to convert the image to geometric parametric model directly.

The method is applicable to shaded pictures, sketches and blue prints of the side view of a car. It can process a database of car images in a batch mode or a specific picture on user demand. The method classifies the cars to different categories: SUV/Wagon/Hatchback, sedan, city and coupe. The authors obtain good results for every category.

This paper aims to investigate the coupled effects of electrohydrodynamic and gravity forces on the circulation effectiveness of working fluid in an inclined micro heat pipe driven by electroosmotic flow. The effects of the three competing forces, namely, the capillary, the gravitational and the electrohydrodyanamic forces, on the circulation effectiveness of a micro heat pipe are compared and delineated.

The numerical model is developed based on the conservations of mass, momentum and energy with the incorporation of the Young–Laplace equation for electroosmotic flow in an inclined micro heat pipe incorporating the gravity effects.

By inducing electroosmotic flow in a micro heat pipe, a significant increase in heat transport capacity can be attained at a reasonably low applied voltage, leading to a small temperature drop and a high thermal conductance. However, the favorably applied gravity forces pull the liquid toward the evaporator section where the onset of flooding occurs within the condenser section, generating a throat that shrinks the vapor flow passage and may lead to a complete failure on the operation of micro heat pipe. Therefore, the balance between the electrohydrodyanamic and the gravitational forces is of vital importance.

This study provides a detailed insight into the gravitational and electroosmotic effects on the thermal performance of an inclined micro heat pipe driven by electroosmotic flow and paves the way for the feasible practical application of electrohydrodynamic forces in a micro-scale two-phase cooling device.

In the process of vigorously promoting urbanization, the city development became a new driving force for China's prosperity. To comprehensively analyze the urban regional innovation system, the typical urban city was taken as an empirical sample to consider as an urban regional innovation system. The fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method was used to evaluate the operation of typical urban regional innovation system, combined the cluster analysis and Bayesian discrimination for the research and analysis. The results showed that the evaluation of regional innovation system was a national innovation strategy. Therefore, the model provides an important evidence for the urban innovative development. The proposed targeted innovation development strategy is conducive to grasp the advantages and disadvantages of the typical urban regional innovation system construction as a whole. The analysis of the structural change layers and sub-distribution of urban regional innovation effectiveness helps to clarify the stage of urban development.