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As the infrastructure of the railway, the rail could sink or deform to different degrees due to the impact of train operation or the geological changing force for years, which will lead to the possibility that the facilities on both sides of the rail invade the rail clearance and bring hidden dangers to the safe operation of the train. The purpose of this paper is to design the gauge to measure the clearance parameters of rail.

Aiming at the problem, the gauge for clearance measurement was designed based on a combination measurement method in this paper. It consists of the measurement box and the rail measurement vehicle, which integrates a laser displacement sensor, inclination sensor, gauge sensor and mileage sensor. The measurement box was placed outside the rail vehicle. Through the design of a hardware circuit and software system, the movement measurement of the clearance parameters was realized.

In this paper, the measurement equations of horizontal distance and vertical height were established, the optimal solutions of the structural parameters in the equations were obtained by Levenberg–Marquardt method, then the parameter calibration problem was also solved.

The gauge has high precision; its measurement uncertainty reaches 1.27 mm. The gauge has manual and automatic working modes, which are convenient to operate and have practical popularization value.

Behavioral pattern mining for intelligent system such as SmEs sensor data are vitally important in many applications and performance optimizations. Sensor pattern mining (SPM) is also dynamic and a hot research issue to pervasive and ubiquitous of smart technologies toward improving human life. However, in large-scale sensor data, exploring and mining pattern, which leads to detect the abnormal behavior is challenging. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Sensor data are complex and multivariate, for example, which data captured by the sensors, how it is precise, what properties are recorded or measured, are important research issues. Therefore, the method, the authors proposed Sequential Data Mining (SDM) approach to explore pattern behaviors toward detecting abnormal patterns for smart space fault diagnosis and performance optimization in the intelligent world. Sensor data types, modeling, descriptions and SPM techniques are discussed in depth using real sensor data sets.

The outcome of the paper is measured as introducing a novel idea how SDM technique’s scale-up to sensor data pattern mining. In the paper, the approach and technicality of the sensor data pattern analyzed, and finally the pattern behaviors detected or segmented as normal and abnormal patterns.

The paper is focussed on sensor data behavioral patterns for fault diagnosis and performance optimizations. It is other ways of knowledge extraction from the anomaly of sensor data (observation records), which is pertinent to adopt in many intelligent systems applications, including safety and security, efficiency, and other advantages as the consideration of the real-world problems.

The purpose of this paper is to explore mechanisms of cultural distance in the base of Chinese Service Multi-National Enterprise (MNE) settings. When attempting to enter overseas markets, many service MNEs face challenges caused by the cultural distance between the home and host countries. Culture distance attracts much attention in academia and industry. However, there are few empirical works to examine how cultural distance affects customer orientation strategies in a global supply chain. This paper aims to answer the following research question: How is the effect of cultural distance on customer acquisition and customer retention strategies, and the effect of customer orientation strategies on the performance of service-oriented MNEs controlled by Chinese capital along the Belt and Road Initiative?

This paper examines the effect of cultural distance on the customer acquisition strategy and customer retention strategy, and the effect of customer orientation strategies on the performance of Chinese Service MNEs. A large-scale empirical study of Chinese Service MNEs operating in overseas markets is performed and questionnaires were distributed and collected. This paper uses Hofstede's method (Hofstede, 2010), Schwartz's method (Schwartz, 2003) and House et al.'s method (House et al., 2004) to calculate cultural distance. By using each kind of method, this study calculates the absolute culture distance and relative culture distance respectively.

The results suggest that cultural distance negatively affects customer orientation strategy, customer acquisition strategy positively affects performance and the interaction of customer acquisition and customer retention positively affects performance.

This study aims to contribute to the existing literature with a more fine-grained understanding of the inclusion of customer orientation strategy of Chinese Service MNEs in global supply chains.

The findings outline several important implications that Chinese Service MNEs seeking to expand to overseas markets.

This paper contributes a novel, combined perspective of culture distance and customer orientation strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a sensor system and its measuring strategy. The proposed system is regarded as a total system of a robot and a sensor. It can make full use of a robot's degrees of freedom (DOF) for not only locomotion but also sensing.

The sensor system is composed of a connected crawler robot and a simple sensor unit. The connected crawler robot consists of five connected flat crawler stages; each stage has motor‐driven crawlers on its left and right side. The left and right crawlers are driven by motors independently. The five stages are connected by motor‐driven joints, which can be arbitrarily controlled. The sensor unit is made up of a position sensitive detector and two active joints. Generally, all sensors have a measurable range limit. If the object is bigger than the measurable range, it is impossible to recognize the object's shape. However, this sensor system compensates for this problem due to a combination of sensor unit's motion and robot's motion. The robot's DOF are ordinarily used for going forward. In this moving, if the sensor detects a bigger object than its measurable range, the robot's DOF are used for lifting up sensor unit. Therefore, the robot's DOF are exploited for both locomotion and scanning.

The experiment was done by using proposed measurement strategies. Through this experiment, the maximum distance error was 0.037 m, that fulfils the required sensor's accuracy. This experiment confirmed that the measurable range was expanded by making full use of the robot's DOF and sensor's DOF. The robot's DOF which is ordinarily used for moving is applicable to expand measurable range. Therefore, it was possible to expand measurable range by making full use of the robot's DOF without mounting extra equipments or mechanism on the robot. Hence, it was enable to exert enough sensing function even if the sensor's structures and robot's structure are also simple, by using both the robot and the sensor's functions effectively and simultaneously.

General existing mobile robot systems have both mobile function and sensing function, they are completely separate. However, this sensor system is regarded as a total system of robot and sensor. It can make full use of a robot's DOF for not only locomotion but also sensing. This sensor system makes full use of a robot's DOF. Hence, it is enable to exert enough sensing function even if the sensor's structure and robot's structure are also simple. There is originality on this point.

The purpose of this paper is to conduct an independent analysis of all existing geographic profiling software packages to determine if any one is more accurate than the others or if any of the software systems are any more accurate than simple spatial distribution strategies at locating the home base of serial offenders.

An analysis was conducted of all existing geographic profiling software as well as three spatial distribution methods of profiling. Differences in accuracy were assessed using four different methods; dichotomous profile accuracy, simple error measurement, profile error distance, and average top profile area.

Results indicate that not only are the different profiling software systems no more accurate than the spatial distribution control methods, but that accuracy in general was marginal at best. In addition results indicated that certain crimes, such as commercial robbery, were particularly difficult to profile and that the number of crimes in a series was not by itself a good indicator of success of a profile.

The paper shows that future research needs to focus more on determining how various factors such as city type, crime type, road network and spatial aspects of a crime series (dispersion and search area) impact profiling accuracy. In addition future research should also endeavor to determine whether these advanced strategies are substantially more accurate than other simple profiling strategies such as human prediction. Finally, future research should also seek to examine geographic profiling in a real world setting and how geographic profiling impacts the success of open investigations.

Practically, this study casts doubt not only on the overall accuracy of profiling strategies in predicting the likely home location of an offender, but also on whether probability strategies are substantially better than spatial distribution strategies.

This research was the first to independently analyze all of the existing geographic profiling systems against control methods for the purpose of determining the accuracy of these different methods.

Despite considerable research on psychic distance (PD), research into the topic is confounded by a general failure to precisely define and fully operationalize the construct. The purpose of this paper is to develop a new measurement scale to assess psychic distance (the PD scale), and also to investigate the impact of the PD scale on the adaptation of international marketing strategies.

The paper uses data collected by mail questionnaire in a sample survey of 301 export firms. The results were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Various statistical tests show that the results are reliable and valid.

Findings reveal that psychic distance is a higher‐order construct composed of two dimensions: country distance and people distance. The results also indicate that both dimensions of the PD scale are positively and significantly associated with cultural distance and the adaptation of product, promotion, pricing and distribution strategies to the foreign market.

The paper develops a new scale, the PD scale, which is a measure of psychic distance and addresses a gap in the literature by testing its impact on the adaptation of the international marketing strategy.

Optoelectronic distance measurement devices are applied in various tasks in industry, land surveying, mining, military use, etc. The main methods employed are phase measurement, triangulation and pulsed time‐of‐flight measurement (laser radar).

This paper aims to consider factors that determine the direction of international market selection. It does this with specific reference to service companies operating in the retail sector.

The paper draws on general, services and retail specific literature and considers the debate surrounding market selection issue. Hypotheses are formulated and econometrically tested using an extensive database of retailers' international activity within Western European markets.

The results show that previously identified determinants of market selection are valid. However, the results clearly indicate that some factors are more important than the literature has suggested and that the selection of markets is determined in great part by relatively few but crucially important factors.

The paper shows that language and hence, by implication, culture plays a fundamental role in determining direction of expansion. This has important implications for the way psychic distance is understood and service company response to psychic distance.