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Despite continuous efforts in improving process reliability in printed‐circuit board assembly (PCBA), a zero‐defect situation is difficult to achieve because of the complexity of the process and the multitude of components involved. PCBA rework is necessary in many companies due to economic as well as commercial reasons. Presents the intermediate results of a research programme aimed to investigate the technical and economic feasibility of extending the use of a robotic assembly cell to perform single‐board rework. Outlines various manual rework practices and the equipment available. Examines the role of industrial robots and machine vision in PCBA and defines the objectives and overall boundary of the research programme in automatic rework. Describes individual equipment selected to assist the robot, the layout and the manner in which it is used in the cell. Concludes with the development of the cell controller and the methods of equipment integration.

This paper aims to study the information needs and online information-seeking behaviors on mobile platforms of performing arts students at a college level.

Survey instruments were used to collect data from performing arts students at the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts (HKAPA), a metropolitan’s major performing arts tertiary institution. Data collected were analyzed through descriptive statistics and other statistical methods, and the music-related students were compared with the production-related students.

The result reveals that performing arts students all owned their mobile devices and often used mobile apps for non-academic purposes, but they did not often use mobile library services or read online academic contents with their mobile devices. The participants considered inadequate signal coverage, slow loading time, difficulty in reading on a mobile device and the lack of specialized mobile apps as more significant barriers affecting their usage. There are some significant differences between the music-related and production-related student groups in that music-related students watched lectures on the library websites and used electronic music scores more often than the production-related students.

This study contributes to the input for enhancements and policies to future mobile services and facilities of performing art libraries.

There have been scant studies on the mobile learning needs of performing arts students, especially in Asia.

The epistemology of project management has been considered imperfect because the gap between theory and practice has not become closer due to unsatisfactory project performance. Without effective learning, the transfer of learning to the workplace would be uncertain. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to use the learning study approach, exploring the value of Variation Theory in comparing two typologies of the cost concept for project management teaching.

To illustrate the application of the theory of variation, a case of teaching the two major cost typologies was demonstrated. A pedagogical setting was designed from the theory for helping students discern the object of learning.

Students of the target cohort had much fewer errors than previous cohorts in transforming the costs of the first typology used in project management textbooks to those of the second typology used in Microsoft Project.

This is perhaps the first case study to appreciate the use of Variation Theory in project management teaching. Apparently, thinking of how to induce learning and facilitate the transfer of learning should be a productive way for creating excellence in practice.

The purpose of this paper is to explore art and design students’ use of smartphones for accessing library services and learning at the Hong Kong Design Institute (HKDI).

A questionnaire survey involving 51 HKDI students was conducted to examine the students’ utilization of apps and the internet on mobile devices to find information for the purpose of academic learning, social networking, and collaborative learning.

Survey results showed that while the HKDI students were all smartphone owners and active users of such mobile communication devices, only a minority of them “frequently” use these mobile devices for formal learning purposes. They demonstrated a keen preference to use search engines, social communications, and other diverse use of smartphones. Except for research and image/audio-visual needs, the rest of their needs and usage behaviour is similar to mainstream university students.

The results suggest opportunities for the libraries to develop services and facilities that could better fulfil students’ information needs, and to improve the network coverage outside the library.

This is probably the first study of its kind to explore art and design students’ use of smartphones for learning needs. In particular, the recent capability of smartphones and mobile internet speed are comparable with desktops, it is vital to re-examine the much changed environment and user needs.

This paper aims to investigate the benefits derived from sustainable office buildings in People’s Republic of China (PRC) through their green features, with particular reference to energy efficiency.

A survey on operating costs, energy impacts, productivities from property managers and tenants of sustainable office buildings was conducted in Shenzhen, PRC. All survey data were collected from a portfolio of 12 sustainable office buildings and from 76 responses out of more than 400 tenants who had moved into these buildings from conventional office buildings.

Most tenants were concerned with sustainable operations, practices and policies. Some of them held that sustainable office buildings contribute to higher productivity and less sick time. These buildings typically consume less electricity and water, and have higher occupancy rates and rents.

There are only 40 sustainable office buildings in Shenzhen, and our study, albeit with proper methodology, with 12 sample buildings may not reflect entirely the attitudes of tenants and property managers of sustainable office buildings in Shenzhen. Advisably, future works can be carried out on a larger scale in other main cities of PRC to obtain a more comprehensive and precise evaluation on which strategic sustainable central/local government policies might be formulated.

The concept of facilities management on sustainable buildings, especially on their derived benefits, is relatively new in developing countries such as China. This study is one of the first attempts in this area. In addition, this paper also contributes to existing literature by looking into the green lease provisions and operating policies of these sustainable buildings.

The property service agents (PSAs) are the outsourced agents of Hong Kong Housing Authority (HKHA), who manage the HKHA's rental properties in a competitive environment. To enhance the competitiveness edges of these PSAs under the inelastic management fee constraint, it is prudent for them to acknowledge those competitive property management attributes upon which PSAs reallocate their limited internal resources to best meet the expectations of the tenants.

Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was adopted for revealing the preference of tenants on those captioned attributes under a ratio scale. The data were collected through face‐to‐face interviews with the representatives of tenants of housing estates including but not limited to chairmen of Mutual Aid Committees and District Councilors.

The findings indicated that, amongst all competitive property management attributes, tenants of older housing estates preferred a higher level of repairs and maintenance, while those tenants of younger and larger population housing estates focused more on environmental control issues.

Without an objective quantitative analysis of tenants' preferences, the PSAs might render misallocation of limited resources, which would not only jeopardize their survival in the competitive commercial world but also upset the expectation of the tenants.

The use of quantitative study to solicit the preferences of public housing tenants on property management attributes is the first kind of study which provides comprehensive knowledge of tenants' preferences and could enable PSAs to enhance their competitiveness in the commercial world under the constraints of inelastic management fees structure.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the application of fuzzy logic in real estate investment in Hong Kong. There have been sufficient debates on the literature, providing the theoretical background on real estate investment decisions but there has been a lack of empirical support in this regard. This paper attempts to fill the gap between theorem and application.

The fuzzy logic system is adopted to evaluate the situation of a real estate market with imprecise and vague information. An indicator‐portfolio, rather than a specific indicator/index usually employed by practitioners, is explored to assist investors in risk management. The result derived from this framework is then compared to the property price index. This approach provides a framework in understanding the market without statistical and mathematical models. It tries to stimulate the complex human cognitive process involving decision making.

The housing‐indicator portfolio composition produces an outcome value which is able to reflect the complexities of both the real estate market and investors' expectations. An increase of this value implies that the investment condition is becoming more positive.

The paper reveals that fuzzy logic can provide some insights in an intuitive manner and is capable of obtaining information not found in market data. It is particularly useful to investors without experience in mathematical modeling.

This paper establishes a basic framework of fuzzy logic for real estate investment on which a base is formed as a reference for practitioners and investors. However, they should make references to the specific housing‐indicator portfolio composition in their own regions.

This paper has used a fuzzy logic system to assist practitioners as well as investors on decision making in real estate investment with imperfect market information. With the aid of the system, practitioners and investors are able to enhance their investment decision‐making quality by reducing the risk incurred by such uncertainties.

Tourists’ resource integration both offers opportunities and presents challenges to tourism service providers. Focussing on the tour guide perspective, the purpose of this paper is to explore how tour guides experience knowledge/information-based asymmetry in encounters with tourists and identifies the roles and coping strategies used by guides to facilitate service co-production.

Critical incident technique is used in qualitative interviews with 47 tour guides in Scotland, broadly representative of the Scottish tour guiding context. 107 critical incidents were analysed, with an average of 2.32 incidents per interview. Narrative analysis of the incidents was performed inductively in four iterative steps using QSR NVivo.

Three resource asymmetry incident categories are identified: probing – Guide-Oracle is questioned by inquiring tourists and copes through diverting, evasion, and follow-up strategies; learning – Guide-Magpie learns from expert tourists through acknowledging and co-delivery; and negotiation – Guide-Diplomat with greater knowledge helps misguided tourists save face through appeasing, following the official line and tactfully correcting.

The paper contributes to service co-production research in tourism by theorising about contexts where knowledge/information asymmetry exists between tour guides and tourists, particularly where fluid power relations between guides and knowledgeable tourists occur or where misguided tourists co-produce the service by prioritising own meanings. Findings highlight the importance of soft skills and other non-content capabilities of guides, and suggestions are offered for effective training and resource sharing/ learning initiatives for tour guiding services.

游客资源整合为旅游服务提供商提供了机遇, 同时也带来了挑战。本文以导游视角为重点, 探讨了导游在与游客接触中如何体验知识/信息不对称, 并识别了导游用于促进服务共同生产的角色和应对策略。

本研究采用关键事件技术（CIT）进行质性访谈, 对象为苏格兰的47名导游, 广泛代表苏格兰导游环境。分析了107个关键事件, 每次访谈平均2.32个事件。对事件的叙述分析在QSR NVivo中通过四个迭代步骤进行归纳性分析。

确定了三个资源不对称的事件类别：1）探询 - 导游-神谕被询问, 通过转移、回避和后续策略来应对询问的游客; 2）学习 - 导游-喜鹊通过承认和共同交付从专业游客中学到经验; 3）协商 - 导游-外交官以更多知识帮助误导的游客保全体面, 通过安抚、追随官方路线和巧妙纠正来应对。

本文通过理论化导游和游客之间存在知识/信息不对称的情境, 特别是在导游和知识丰富的游客之间存在流动权力关系的情况下, 或者误导的游客通过优先考虑自己的意义来共同生产服务的情境, 为旅游服务的共同生产研究做出了贡献。研究结果强调了导游的软技能和其他非内容能力的重要性, 并提出了关于为导游服务提供有效培训和资源共享/学习倡议的建议。

La integración de recursos de los turistas ofrece oportunidades y presenta desafíos para los proveedores de servicios turísticos. Centrándose en la perspectiva de los guías turísticos, este artículo explora cómo los guías turísticos experimentan una asimetría basada en conocimiento/información en encuentros con turistas, e identifica los roles y estrategias de afrontamiento utilizados por los guías para facilitar la coproducción de servicios.

La técnica de incidentes críticos (CIT) se utiliza en entrevistas cualitativas con 47 guías turísticos en Escocia, ampliamente representativos del contexto de los guías turísticos escoceses. Se analizaron 107 incidentes críticos, con una media de 2,32 incidentes por entrevista. El análisis narrativo de los incidentes se realizó de forma inductiva en cuatro pasos iterativos utilizando QSR NVivo.

Se identifican tres categorías de incidentes de asimetría de recursos: 1) Sondeo: los turistas interrogan a Guide-Oracle y lo afronta mediante estrategias de desvío, evasión y seguimiento; 2) Aprendizaje: Guide-Magpie aprende de turistas expertos a través del reconocimiento y la entrega conjunta; y 3) Negociación: el guía-diplomático con mayor conocimiento ayuda a los turistas descarriados a salvar las apariencias apaciguándolos, siguiendo la línea oficial y corrigiendo con tacto.

El artículo contribuye a la investigación de la coproducción de servicios en el turismo al teorizar sobre contextos donde existe asimetría de conocimiento/información entre guías turísticos y turistas, particularmente donde ocurren relaciones de poder fluidas entre guías y turistas conocedores, o donde turistas equivocados coproducen el servicio priorizando propios significados. Los hallazgos resaltan la importancia de las habilidades interpersonales y otras capacidades de los guías no relacionadas con el contenido, y se ofrecen sugerencias para iniciativas efectivas de capacitación e intercambio de recursos/aprendizaje para los servicios de guías turísticos.

The purpose of this study is to empirically examine the influence of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption by Russian public companies on the value relevance of financial reporting in Russia.

We selected 67 Russian public companies that reported both under Russian Accounting Standards (RAS) and IFRS for four consecutive years (2006–2009).

The main limitation of the chapter is the sample, but this can be explained by the fact that only 67 companies in Russia report under the two standards (RAS and IFRS). So the sample could not be increased as there were no other companies that fulfilled the characteristics of the sample.

The results obtained show that on the Russian market there is no evidence of increased value relevance of financial reporting to external users of financial information after adopting IFRS when comparing and evaluating the two regimes (RAS and IFRS) unconditionally. Such results can be explained by the notion of mock compliance which originated due to the institutional differences between the RAS and IFRS development environments.

Adoption of IFRS by companies in emerging markets has been a subject of interest for lots of researchers, but this is the first research of its kind in the field of value relevance of adoption of IFRS on the Russian market.

Mobility has wide‐range impacts on the financial management of property issues, such as consumption and investment. In the literature of residential mobility, household life cycle is widely acknowledged as an important concept. An array of household demographic factors such as age has been repeatedly found to be significant in influencing mobility. Many previous researches offer few verifi able hypotheses or propositions and their results are conflicting. Some of them also suffer methodological inadequacies. This paper is an attempt to rectify this situation. There are two important contributions by the current research. One is a methodology that employs multivariate methods, which fills the gap of previous research. The second contribution is the large census dataset of Hong Kong which is rare in previous studies. The research is conducted under the framework of life cycle models with emphasis on economic and demographic variables of households. Demographic determinants are found to be more important in explaining population mobility among rental households while economic factors are more pertinent for owners. This may be explained by the different strategies adopted by renters and owners in satisfying their housing needs. Renters are envisaged to base their mobility decisions more on demographic factors. Owners, on the other hand, tend to view home buying as an investment as well and hence put more emphasis on economic factors. It is hoped that this research can shed more light on the topic of residential mobility by drawing on the experience of a large population residing in a small place, Hong Kong