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The purpose of this paper is to evaluate three categories of four-degrees of freedom (4-DOFs) upper limb rehabilitation exoskeleton mechanisms from the perspective of relative movement offsets between the upper limb and the exoskeleton, so as to provide reference for the selection of exoskeleton mechanism configurations.

According to the configuration synthesis and optimum principles of 4-DOFs upper limb exoskeleton mechanisms, three categories of exoskeletons compatible with upper limb were proposed. From the perspective of human exoskeleton closed chain, through reasonable decomposition and kinematic characteristics analysis of passive connective joints, the kinematic equations of three categories exoskeletons were established and inverse position solution method were addressed. Subsequently, three indexes, which can represent the relative movement offsets of human–exoskeleton were defined.

Based on the presented position solution and evaluation indexes, the joint displacements and relative movement offsets of the three exoskeletons during eating movement were compared, on which the kinematic characteristics were investigated. The results indicated that the second category of exoskeleton was more suitable for upper limb rehabilitation than the other two categories.

This paper has a certain reference value for the selection of the 4-DOFs upper extremity rehabilitation exoskeleton mechanism configurations. The selected exoskeleton can ensure the safety and comfort of stroke patients with upper limb dyskinesia during rehabilitation training.

Upper-limb joint kinematics are highly complex and the kinematics of rehabilitation exoskeletons fail to reproduce them, resulting in hyperstaticity and human–machine incompatibility. The purpose of this paper is to design and develop a compatible exoskeleton robot (Co-Exos II) to address these problems.

The configuration synthesis of Co-Exos II is completed using advanced mechanism theory. A compatible configuration is selected and four passive joints are introduced into the connecting interfaces based on optimal configuration principles. A Co-Exos II prototype with nine degrees of freedom (DOFs) is developed and still owns a compact structure and volume. A new approach is presented to compensate the vertical glenohumeral (GH) movements. Co-Exos II and the upper arm are simplified as a guide-bar mechanism at the elevating plane. The theoretical displacements of passive joints are calculated by the kinematic model of the shoulder loop. The compatible experiments are completed to measure the kinematics of passive joints.

The compatible configuration of the passive joints can effectively reduce the gravity influences of the exoskeleton device and the upper extremities. The passive joints exhibit excellent compensation effect for the GH joint movements by comparing the theoretical and measured results. Passive joints can compensate for most GH movements, especially vertical movements.

Co-Exos II possesses good human–machine compatibility and wearable comfort for the affected upper limbs. The proposed compensation method is convenient to therapists and stroke patients during the rehabilitation trainings.

The purpose of this paper is to implement a passive compliance training strategy for our newly designed 2-UPS/RRR parallel ankle rehabilitation robot (PARR) to enhance its rehabilitation training safety.

First, a kinematic analysis of the PARR is introduced, and the mechanism ensures that the rotation centre of the ankle joint complex (AJC) coincides with robot’s rotation centre. Then, a passive compliance training strategy based on admittance control is described in detail and is implemented on our PARR.

Experiments involving healthy subjects were conducted, and the performance of trajectory tracking was quantitatively evaluated, with the results showing excellent compliance and trajectory tracking accuracy, which can ensure that a secondary injury to the AJC during passive rehabilitation training is avoided. The influence of different admittance parameters was also simulated and analysed, which can contribute to the development of adaptive parameter adjustment research.

The paper can be used to improve the effectiveness of ankle rehabilitation, to alleviate manual therapy problems in terms of labour intensiveness, precision and subjectivity and to ensure safety and comfort during rehabilitation sessions.

This paper aims to tackle the problem for a fully actuated unmanned aerial vehicle (FUAV) to perform physical interaction tasks in the Global Positioning System-denied environments without expensive motion capture system (like VICON) under disturbances.

A tether-based positioning system consisting of a universal joint, a tether-actuated absolute position encoder and an attitude sensor is designed to provide reliable position feedback for the FUAV. To handle the disturbances, including the tension force caused by the taut tether, model uncertainties and other external disturbances such as aerodynamic disturbance, a hybrid disturbance observer (HDO) combining the position-based method and momentum-based technology with force sensor feedback is designed for the system. In addition, an HDO-based impedance controller is built to allow the FUAV interacting with the environment and meanwhile rejecting the disturbances.

Experimental validations of the proposed control algorithm are implemented on a real FUAV with the result of nice disturbance rejection capability and physical interaction performance.

A cheap alternative to indoor positioning system is proposed, with which the FUAV is able to interact with external environment and meanwhile reject the disturbances under the help of proposed hybrid disturbance observer and the impedance controller.

The purpose of this study is to develop a new positioning method for remotely operated vehicle (ROV) in the nuclear power plant. The ROV of the nuclear power plant is developed to inspect the reactor cavity pools, the component pools and spent-fuel storage pools. To enhance the operational safety, the ability of localizing the ROV is indispensable.

Therefore, the positioning method is proposed based on the MEMS inertial measurement unit and mechanical scanning sonar in this paper. Firstly, the ROV model and on board sensors are introduced in detail. Then the sensor-based Kalman filter is deduced for attitude estimation. After that, the positioning method is proposed that divided into static positioning and dynamic positioning. The improved iterative closest point-Kalman filter is deduced to estimate the global position by the whole circle scanning sonar data in static, and the relative positioning method is proposed by the small scale scanning sonar data in dynamic.

The performance of the proposed method is verified by comparing with the visual positioning system. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is proved by the experiment in the reactor simulation pool of the Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant.

The research content of this manuscript is aimed at the specific application needs of nuclear power plants and has high theoretical significance and application value.

The purpose of this paper is to comprehensively investigate the combined influence of a firm's political connection and diversification on corporate performance, and to explore whether firm's political connection has an impact on the diversification effect, and whether this diversification effect would promote its performance significantly or not.

The research used a regression model to explore the correlation among political connection, diversification strategy, and corporate performance. The research subjects are the private enterprises listed on Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchange in China for the period 2002‐2005.

The study found that: first, for those firms without political connections, the relationship between diversification strategy and corporate performance displayed an “inverted U” curve; for firms with political connection, the relationship was a “reverse L”. Second, firms with political connections are more likely to implement a diversification strategy, especially unrelated diversification. Third, when implementing an internationalization strategy, private enterprises with political connections are more likely to expand through unrelated diversification strategy. Fourth, the diversification of the enterprises with political connection are more likely to promote the short‐term accounting performance than those without political connection, but the unrelated diversification of politically connected enterprises would have a negative impact upon its future performance, that is to damage the company's market value.

The paper expands the literature on the relationship between diversification and firm performance. It contributes to the research about the influence of political connection upon corporate performance.

Power distance was tested as a moderator of the relationship between justice concerns and employee outcomes in a sample of employees in the People’s Republic of China. Two hypotheses were developed based on the quality of authority‐member relations prescribed by the relational model of authority in groups. In two‐way interactions, higher power distance combined with procedural justice to predict employee outcomes, whereas lower power distance combined with distributive justice.

One purpose of this paper is to examine several factors that potentially influence a consumer's purchasing decision to participate in cause‐related marketing (CRM) program in the Chinese context. The other is to empirically test the hypothesized relationship between cause's attributes and purchase intention in such environment.

This paper develops a measure for exploring the cause's attributes influencing consumer's purchasing intention. Two groups of valid samples, respectively, with 178 and 376 respondents are collected through questionnaire survey. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) are employed to extract and test the key influential attributes on the basis of data of two samples respectively, and structural equation model is used to define the structure of influencing attributes and to measure the degree of impact for each attribute on the consumer's purchasing intention.

The results show that the degree of cause's participation for consumer, fit between the brand and the cause, cause importance, congruence between the firm's product and the cause, cause proximity play an important role in consumers’ attitudes toward the product and firm and their intentions to purchase the advertised product and participate in the CRM campaign, which suggests an opportunity for nonprofits to compete for these vital resources by nurturing and leveraging the antecedent factors and an opportunity for firms to select a cause partner.

The sample is a convenience sample that is the main limitations of this research. The EFA and CFA is difficult to generalize to a larger audience, and there was a lack of experimental control for the questionnaire investigation, so the quality of questionnaire can not be ensured.

This research should help firms determine the best partners for strategic social alliances, and provide an advice on how to make them maximum participation, also should help current and potential consumers ascribe personality traits to nonprofit organizations and differentiate between nonprofits on the basis of the cause's attributes. At the same time, this paper provides several interesting areas for future research that will further aid marketing managers to develop a more effective CRM campaign to fit with goals of corporate, which adds some valuable insights or new ideas to develop essential theory.

This paper offers interesting insight into the development of CRM campaigns, and explores the five variables: the degree of cause's participation for consumer; fit between the brand and the cause; cause importance; congruence between the firm's product and the cause; cause proximity also should influence consumer's purchasing attitude, intention and decision behavior in the Chinese context.

Provides a brief outline of the Philippines before looking at the values held by the culture and the management style commonly adopted. Outlines personnel management practices with references to short case studies. Concludes that one must first understand the culture in relation to feelings, honour and relationships and the successful company is one which has formed effective relationships with not only customers but employees, suppliers and dealers and also provides staff with development opportunities.