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The aim of this research is to design a wall climbing robot (WCR) for the non‐destructive inspection (NDT) of the above‐ground storage tanks (ASTs) autonomously making the industrial inspection and maintenance tasks safer.

A WCR is designed that can be equipped with any NDT sensor. It uses permanent magnets as an adhesion mechanism to crawl over the steel tank walls. A surface coverage algorithm is proposed for the WCR to scan the AST wall surfaces autonomously with the NDT sensors to perform the necessary inspection tasks.

The proposed surface coverage algorithm performs the complete coverage of the AST walls under different obstacle configurations. It has been tested and demonstrated in simulations.

A surface coverage algorithm is proposed for the WCR to perform the non‐destructive inspection of the ASTs autonomously. It can also be used in applications like cleaning glass building and painting ship hulls, etc.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of time delay on the ability of a human operator to complete a task with a teleoperated mobile‐robot using two systems, two different ways of interacting with the mobile‐robots and several different environments.

Teleoperators are observed completing a series of tasks using a joystick to control a mobile‐robot while time delays are introduced to the system. They sit at a computer and view scenes remotely on a screen. Cameras are either mounted on the robot or mounted externally so that they view both the environment and robot. Teleoperators complete the tests both with and without sensors. One robot system uses an umbilical cable and one uses a radio link.

In simple environments, a teleoperator may perform better without a sensor system to assist them but as time delays are introduced then there are more failures. In more complicated environments or when time delays are longer, then teleoperators perform better with a sensor system to assist. Teleoperators may also tend to perform better with a radio link than with an umbilical connection.

Teleoperated systems rely heavily on visual feedback and experienced operators. This paper investigates the effect of introducing a delay to the delivery of that visual feedback.

The paper suggests that in simple environments with short time delays then the amount of sensor support should be small but in more complicated environments or with longer delays then more sensor support needs to be provided.

Results from imposing time delays on a teleoperated mobile‐robot are presented. Effects on the task of different ways of viewing activity on a computer display are presented, that is with cameras mounted on the robot or cameras mounted externally to view both the environment and robot. Results from using sensors to assist teleoperators are presented. The paper suggests that the amount of sensor support should be varied depending on circumstances.

The purpose of this paper is to measure the long-run housing affordability of Malaysia over time for households at various income levels and to demonstrate how short- and long-run affordability measures can reach contradicting conclusions.

In this study, a long-run housing affordability index (HAI) for Malaysia was constructed for the sample period 1995 to 2014, using data from house prices and household incomes. The HAI was also modified to compute a mortgage affordability index (MAI) to account for intergenerational transfers.

The results show that households at the 25th income percentile cannot afford any of the four dwelling types in Malaysia. For households at the 40th income percentile and the median income levels, high-rise and terrace housing are affordable. However, significant downward trends in HAI and MAI are documented beginning 2009, which indicates increasing housing stress for households at or below the median income. The short-run affordability measure represented by the median multiple (MM) indicator showed bleaker conclusion for housing affordability, with all dwelling types considered unaffordable over the entire sample period

On the basis of the empirical results, this paper provided several long-term proposals to ameliorate the housing affordability problem in Malaysia.

With the MM ratio being the official affordability measure reported for Malaysia, this study introduces the nation’s first long-run housing affordability measure. It is hoped that this long-run measure will achieve widespread adoption in Malaysia. Given the deteriorating long-term affordability, this study offers several possible long-term solutions.

The purpose of this study is to use a lifetime income measure to evaluate the long-run housing affordability for an understudied cohort of households in the literature – the millennials. The authors do this in the context of Malaysia, measuring long-run affordability for four housing types across geographic locations and income distributions.

This study calculates a long-run housing affordability index (HAI) using data on house prices and household incomes. Essentially a ratio of predicted lifetime incomes to house prices, the HAI is computed for four common housing types in Malaysia from 2005 to 2016 and for six states in the country. The HAI is also compared across four income percentiles.

The analysis reveals varying patterns of housing affordability among different states in Malaysia. Housing affordability has declined since 2010, with most housing types being unaffordable for millennial-led households with the lowest income. Housing is most affordable for those in the highest income bracket, although even here, there are pockets of unaffordable housing as well.

Based on the findings, this study proposes three targeted interventions to improve housing affordability for Malaysian millennials.

This study fills a gap in the literature by examining the long-run housing affordability of Malaysian millennial-led households based on both geographic location and income distribution. The millennial population is understudied in the housing affordability literature, making this study a valuable contribution to the field.

This article deconstructs the hagiography surrounding British mental health policy and provides a critical analysis of the ‘New Labour’ Government reforms of the Mental Health Act 1983 grounded in Foucauldian insights. Smart (1985) suggests that a Foucauldian perspective deconstructs “common sense assumptions” that lie at the heart of policies formulated by the State. A cogent discussion grounded in Foucault’s work can illustrate how surveillance and discourses of power impact on the positioning of service users as objects of control, domination and subordination.

This article looks at the problems Sociology has in theorising modern discourses in the light of the rise and consolidation of Postmodernism. The paper begins with an historical sketch of the emergence of Enlightenment and how its values helped to engender intellectual curiosity amongst the precursors of modernist sociological theorising. Indeed, the paper analyses how Sociology faces up to enlightenment thought and legacy via a critical analysis of the modern‐postmodern debate: its historiography, pathologies, and futurology. At the same time, there has been a huge escalation of neo‐Nietzschean theorists under the label of ‘postmodernist’ who have castigated the enlightenment to the dustbin of the history of ideas, that its metanarratives of ‘progress’ and ‘freedom’ have failed and that western rationality is exhausted (Lyotard, 1984). Subsequently, the paper assesses to what extent the values of the ‘project of modernity’ have to be abandoned, and whether, in turn, sociology can offer the epistemic stretching of postmodern narratives.

This paper presents an overview of past and present research projects associated with electronic document delivery. The paper briefly outlines the Follet Report and introduces the UK's Electronics Libraries Programme, including the recently funded Focused Investigation of Document Delivery (FIDDO) project at Loughborough University. Four research areas have been identified as follows: resource sharing projects; network communication projects; electronic scanning projects and electronic document delivery systems. Conclusions highlight the major impact that technological developments are currently having on this area, the need for librarians to reassess their role in the information chain, and the need for delivery systems capable of handling different formats and a wider coverage of material to satisfy requests.

Within the emotional labor (EL) literature, the paper's aim is to test for additional scale distinctions in surface acting and deep acting, using a “difficult client” referent.

Working with existing definitions and operationalizations across prior EL studies, an on‐line sample of 1,975 massage therapists and bodywork practitioners (M&Bs) was used to test the hypotheses. Hinkin's recommended three steps for scale development: item development, scale development and scale evaluation were applied. The M&B sample was randomly split to carry out exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and then confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). A smaller validation sample of 203 working adults was also tested using EFA.

Convergent support was found for EFA between the M&B and validation samples, as well as between EFA and CFA for the M&B sample. Two types of surface acting could be distinguished, basic surface acting (BSA) and challenged surface acting (CSA), while three types of deep acting could be distinguished, basic deep acting (BDA), perspective taking deep acting (PTDA) and positive refocus deep acting (PRDA).

This paper studies a unique sample, massage and body therapists, and the “difficult client” stimulus has not been formally tested in prior EL scale work.

This article explores the concept of ‘risk’ that is both an epistemological tool and major facet of “late modernity” (Delanty, 1999). During the 1970s, the use of the notion ’risk’ was mainly confined to ‘natural sciences’, when the concept was used to analyse and improve the ‘security’ of technological systems (Giddens, 1990). According to Delanty (1999) it was not until the 1980s and 1990s that social science based ‘disciplines’ discovered the importance of the topic in relation to changes affecting modern society. In particular, the disciplinary development of Sociology, for example, has discovered ‘risk’ as one of the important aspects of neo‐liberalism and modernity (Beck, 1992; Giddens, 1990; Luhmann, 1993; Delanty, 1999). Sociological conceptions of risk are rapidly changing the role of social science (Delanty, 1999). For example, Delanty (1999) claims that there are studies on epistemology or legitimation of risk knowledge. The conflict between sociologically informed concepts of ‘risk’ and the more traditional, probabilistic calculations of risk represent a contest of competing social philosophies and visions about the future development of human and financial resources, relationship between economic growth and environmental protection, role of government and individuality, and projections and visions about the future it can be argued. A sociologically informed understanding of risk illustrates the interconnectedness of an “ageing population,” social policy and social life. From this perspective, risk is more than a calculation of costs and benefits, it is a theoretical mechanism for weighing different sets of political orientations which impinge on the positioning of individuals and populations.