Search results
1 – 10 of 20Ying Li, Li Zhao, Kun Gao, Yisheng An and Jelena Andric
The purpose of this paper is to characterize distracted driving by quantifying the response time and response intensity to an emergency stop using the driver’s physiological…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to characterize distracted driving by quantifying the response time and response intensity to an emergency stop using the driver’s physiological states.
Design/methodology/approach
Field tests with 17 participants were conducted in the connected and automated vehicle test field. All participants were required to prioritize their primary driving tasks while a secondary nondriving task was asked to be executed. Demographic data, vehicle trajectory data and various physiological data were recorded through a biosignalsplux signal data acquisition toolkit, such as electrocardiograph for heart rate, electromyography for muscle strength, electrodermal activity for skin conductance and force-sensing resistor for braking pressure.
Findings
This study quantified the psychophysiological responses of the driver who returns to the primary driving task from the secondary nondriving task when an emergency occurs. The results provided a prototype analysis of the time required for making a decision in the context of advanced driver assistance systems or for rebuilding the situational awareness in future automated vehicles when a driver’s take-over maneuver is needed.
Originality/value
The hypothesis is that the secondary task will result in a higher mental workload and a prolonged reaction time. Therefore, the driver states in distracted driving are significantly different than in regular driving, the physiological signal improves measuring the brake response time and distraction levels and brake intensity can be expressed as functions of driver demographics. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study using psychophysiological measures to quantify a driver’s response to an emergency stop during distracted driving.
Details
Keywords
Kun Tracy Wang, Guqiang Luo and Li Yu
The purpose of this study is to examine whether and how analysts’ foreign ancestral origins would have an effect on analysts’ earning forecasts in particular and ultimately on…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine whether and how analysts’ foreign ancestral origins would have an effect on analysts’ earning forecasts in particular and ultimately on firms’ information environment in general.
Design/methodology/approach
By inferring analysts’ ancestral countries based on their surnames, this study empirically examines whether analysts’ ancestral countries affect their earnings forecast errors.
Findings
Using novel data on analysts’ foreign ancestral origins from more than 110 countries, this study finds that relative to analysts with common American surnames, analysts with common foreign surnames tend to have higher earnings forecast errors. The positive relation between analyst foreign surnames and earnings forecast errors is more likely to be observed for African-American analysts and analysts whose ancestry countries are geographically apart from the USA. In contrast, this study finds that when analysts’ foreign countries of ancestry are aligned with that of the CEOs, analysts exhibit lower earnings forecast errors relative to analysts with common American surnames. More importantly, the results show that firms followed by more analysts with foreign surnames tend to exhibit higher earnings forecast errors.
Originality/value
Taken together, findings of this study are consistent with the conjecture that geographical, social and ethnical proximity between managers and analysts affect firms’ information environment. Therefore, this study contributes to the determinants of analysts’ earnings forecast errors and adds to the literature on firms’ information environment.
Details
Keywords
Xinning Li, Kun Fan, Lu Wang and Lang Zhou
The purpose of this paper is to design a contract to coordinate the biomass molding fuel supply chain consisting of a supplier with uncertain supply and a producer with cyclical…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to design a contract to coordinate the biomass molding fuel supply chain consisting of a supplier with uncertain supply and a producer with cyclical demand as well as improve the profit of this supply chain.
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, the supply chain model was build and all the variables and assumptions are set. Stackelberg game model was used to analyze and solve the problem. Furthermore, the authors give numerical examples and result analysis on the basis of data coming from field study and online information about a real biomass fuel supply chain.
Findings
The wholesale price with shortage penalty contract the authors proposed can coordinate the supply chain. And as the dominator of the supply chain, the producer can realize the redistribution of profits within the supply chain by determine the contract parameters.
Research limitations/implications
This one-to-one supply chain is a basic of complex supply chain system. Multi-to-one, one-to-multi and multi-to-multi supply chain can be studied in the future.
Originality/value
The results obtained in this paper can be used as a reference for enterprises in biomass energy supply chain to make contracts and realize the long-term co-operations among supply chain members.
Details
Keywords
Guqiang Luo, Kun Tracy Wang and Yue Wu
Using a sample of 9,898 firm-year observations from 1,821 unique Chinese listed firms over the period from 2004 to 2019, this study aims to investigate whether the market rewards…
Abstract
Purpose
Using a sample of 9,898 firm-year observations from 1,821 unique Chinese listed firms over the period from 2004 to 2019, this study aims to investigate whether the market rewards meeting or beating analyst earnings expectations (MBE).
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use an event study methodology to capture market reactions to MBE.
Findings
The authors document a stock return premium for beating analyst forecasts by a wide margin. However, there is no stock return premium for firms that meet or just beat analyst forecasts, suggesting that the market is skeptical of earnings management by these firms. This market underreaction is more pronounced for firms with weak external monitoring. Further analysis shows that meeting or just beating analyst forecasts is indicative of superior future financial performance. The authors do not find firms using earnings management to meet or just beat analyst forecasts.
Research limitations/implications
The authors provide evidence of market underreaction to meeting or just beating analyst forecasts, with the market's over-skepticism of earnings management being a plausible mechanism for this phenomenon.
Practical implications
The findings of this study are informative to researchers, market participants and regulators concerned about the impact of analysts and earnings management and interested in detecting and constraining managers' earnings management.
Originality/value
The authors provide new insights into how the market reacts to MBE by showing that the market appears to focus on using meeting or just beating analyst forecasts as an indicator of earnings management, while it does not detect managed MBE. Meeting or just beating analyst forecasts is commonly used as a proxy for earnings management in the literature. However, the findings suggest that it is a noisy proxy for earnings management.
Details
Keywords
Le Zhang, Ziling Zeng and Kun Gao
The purpose of this paper is to optimize the design of charging station deployed at the terminal station for electric transit, with explicit consideration of heterogenous charging…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to optimize the design of charging station deployed at the terminal station for electric transit, with explicit consideration of heterogenous charging modes.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors proposed a bi-level model to optimize the decision-making at both tactical and operational levels simultaneously. Specifically, at the operational level (i.e. lower level), the service schedule and recharging plan of electric buses are optimized under specific design of charging station. The objective of lower-level model is to minimize total daily operational cost. This model is solved by a tailored column generation-based heuristic algorithm. At the tactical level (i.e. upper level), the design of charging station is optimized based upon the results obtained at the lower level. A tabu search algorithm is proposed subsequently to solve the upper-level model.
Findings
This study conducted numerical cases to validate the applicability of the proposed model. Some managerial insights stemmed from numerical case studies are revealed and discussed, which can help transit agencies design charging station scientifically.
Originality/value
The joint consideration of heterogeneous charging modes in charging station would further lower the operational cost of electric transit and speed up the market penetration of battery electric buses.
Details
Keywords
Abstract
Purpose
On-ramp merging areas are typical bottlenecks in the freeway network since merging on-ramp vehicles may cause intensive disturbances on the mainline traffic flow and lead to various negative impacts on traffic efficiency and safety. The connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs), with their capabilities of real-time communication and precise motion control, hold a great potential to facilitate ramp merging operation through enhanced coordination strategies. This paper aims to present a comprehensive review of the existing ramp merging strategies leveraging CAVs, focusing on the latest trends and developments in the research field.
Design/methodology/approach
The review comprehensively covers 44 papers recently published in leading transportation journals. Based on the application context, control strategies are categorized into three categories: merging into sing-lane freeways with total CAVs, merging into sing-lane freeways with mixed traffic flows and merging into multilane freeways.
Findings
Relevant literature is reviewed regarding the required technologies, control decision level, applied methods and impacts on traffic performance. More importantly, the authors identify the existing research gaps and provide insightful discussions on the potential and promising directions for future research based on the review, which facilitates further advancement in this research topic.
Originality/value
Many strategies based on the communication and automation capabilities of CAVs have been developed over the past decades, devoted to facilitating the merging/lane-changing maneuvers at freeway on-ramps. Despite the significant progress made, an up-to-date review covering these latest developments is missing to the authors’ best knowledge. This paper conducts a thorough review of the cooperation/coordination strategies that facilitate freeway on-ramp merging using CAVs, focusing on the latest developments in this field. Based on the review, the authors identify the existing research gaps in CAV ramp merging and discuss the potential and promising future research directions to address the gaps.
Details
Keywords
Kun Wang, Weihua Zhang, Zhongxiang Feng and Cheng Wang
The purpose of this paper is to perform fine classification of road traffic visibility based on the characteristics of driving behavior under different visibility conditions.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to perform fine classification of road traffic visibility based on the characteristics of driving behavior under different visibility conditions.
Design/methodology/approach
A driving simulator experiment was conducted to collect data of speed and lane position. ANOVA was used to explore the difference in driving behavior under different visibility conditions.
Findings
The results show that only average speed is significantly different under different visibility conditions. With the visibility reducing, the average vehicle speed decreases. The road visibility conditions in a straight segment can be divided into five levels: less than 20, 20-30, 35-60, 60-140 and more than 140 m. The road visibility conditions in a curve segment can be also divided into four levels: less than 20, 20-30, 35-60 and more than 60 m.
Originality/value
A fine classification of road traffic visibility has been performed, and these classifications help to establish more accurate control measures to ensure road traffic safety under low-visibility conditions.
Details
Keywords
Chengyun Liu, Kun Su and Miaomiao Zhang
This study aims to examine whether and how gender diversity on corporate boards is associated with voluntary nonfinancial disclosures, particularly water disclosures.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine whether and how gender diversity on corporate boards is associated with voluntary nonfinancial disclosures, particularly water disclosures.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses corporate water information disclosure data from Chinese listed firms between 2010 and 2018 to conduct regression analyses to examine the association between female directors and water information disclosure.
Findings
Empirical results show that female directors have a significantly positive association with corporate water information disclosure. Additionally, internal industry water sensitivity of firms moderates this significant relationship.
Originality/value
This study determined that female directors can promote not only water disclosure but also positive corporate water performance, reflecting the consistency of words and deeds of female directors in voluntary nonfinancial disclosures.
Details
Keywords
Kun-cheng Zhang, Xin-chang Guo, Shi-zheng Tian, Qi Cui, Mao-chong Shi and Pei-fang Guo
Many experts suggest that the human being explore marine resources and marine new energy sources to alleviate the shortage of land resources and the ecological degradation…
Abstract
Purpose
Many experts suggest that the human being explore marine resources and marine new energy sources to alleviate the shortage of land resources and the ecological degradation. However, island coastal zones are considered to be fragile ecosystems; their geographical location and natural characteristics, their biodiversity and associated ecosystems, and their exposure to diverse land and sea conditions all make them highly vulnerable to environmental changes and human activities. Therefore, it is necessary to achieve the goals of environmental protection and sustainable development on the basis of a comprehensive evaluation and understanding of islands.
Design/methodology/approach
Due to the importance of island groups, this paper conducts evaluation studies on them. Using the Delphi, AHP and TOPSIS methods, this study evaluated quantitatively the comprehensive development level and comprehensive development potential of island groups in terms of resources, natural environment, economy and society. Innovatively using them as two subsystems, the present study combined the coupling coordination model and the obstacle factor calculation method.
Findings
The prospective index of comprehensive development was applied to the Changdao Island Group in Yantai, Shandong Province as an example, and the final evaluation revealed that the comprehensive development prospect of this island group had an upward trend from 2010 to 2017. Future efforts should be made to improve its economic and social conditions and economic development status, apart from promoting its comprehensive development by improving human resources management, increasing the GDP growth rate, and improving fresh water and electricity supply.
Originality/value
This study takes the integrated development level of the island and the integrated development potential of the island as two subsystems, and the innovative application of the coupling coordination degree model is used to calculate the integrated development index of the island to understand the development status of the island area. On the basis of this model, the obstacle factor identification method is designed to identify the main obstacle factors, and on the basis of evaluation and identification, specific measures to ensure the sustainable development of the island area are effectively proposed.
Details
Keywords
Kun Wang and Hongbo Sun
Evolution can be easily observed in nature world, and this phenomenon is a research hotspot no matter in natural science or social science. In crowd science and technology…
Abstract
Purpose
Evolution can be easily observed in nature world, and this phenomenon is a research hotspot no matter in natural science or social science. In crowd science and technology, evolutionary phenomenon exists also among many agents in crowd network systems. This kind of phenomenon is named as crowd co-evolutionary, which cannot be easily studied by most existing methods for its nonlinearity. This paper aims to proposes a novel simulation framework for co-evolution to discover improvements and behaviors of intelligent agents in crowd network systems.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper introduces a novel simulation framework for crowd co-evolutions. There are three roles and one scene in the crowd. The scene represented by a band-right to a ringless diagram. The three roles are unit, advisor and monitor. Units find path in the scene. Advisors give advice to units. Monitors supervise units’ behavior in the scene. Building a network among these three kinds member, influencing individual relationships through information exchange, and finally enable the individual to find the optimal path in the scene.
Findings
Through this simulation framework, one can record the behavior of an individual in a group, the reasons for the individual's behavior and the changes in the relationships of others in the group that cause the individual to do so. The speed at which an individual finds the optimal path can reflect the advantages and disadvantages of the relationship change function.
Originality/value
The framework provides a new way to study the evolution of inter-individual relationships in crowd networks. This framework takes the first-person perspective of members of the crowd-sourced network as the starting point. Through this framework, the user can design relationship evolution methods and mathematical models for the members of different roles, so as to verify that the level of public intelligence of the crowd network is actually the essence of the rationality of the membership relationship.
Details