Search results

This paper aims to present an open-architecture kinematic controller, which was developed for articulated robots, facing the demands of various applications and low cost on robot system.

A general approach to develop this controller is described in hardware and software design. The hardware consists of embedded boards and programable multi-axes controller (PMAC), connected with ethernet, and the software is implemented on a robot operating system with MoveIt!. The authors also developed a teach pendant running as a LAN node to provide a human–machine interface (HMI).

The proposed approach was applied to several real articulated robot systems and was proved to be effective and portable. The proposed controller was compared with several similar systems to verify its integrality and flexibility. The openness of this controller was discussed and is summarized at the end of this paper.

The proposed approach provided an open and low-complex solution for experimental studies in the lab and short-run production in small workshops.

Several contributions are made by the research. The actuation model and communication were implemented to integrate the trajectory planning module and PMAC for setting up the physical interface. Method and program interface based on kinematics was provided to generate various interpolations for trajectory planning. A teach pedant with HMI was developed for controlling and programing the robot.

Man has been seeking an ideal existence for a very long time. In this existence, justice, love, and peace are no longer words, but actual experiences. How ever, with the American preemptive invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and the subsequent prisoner abuse, such an existence seems to be farther and farther away from reality. The purpose of this work is to stop this dangerous trend by promoting justice, love, and peace through a change of the paradigm that is inconsistent with justice, love, and peace. The strong paradigm that created the strong nation like the U.S. and the strong man like George W. Bush have been the culprit, rather than the contributor, of the above three universal ideals. Thus, rather than justice, love, and peace, the strong paradigm resulted in in justice, hatred, and violence. In order to remove these three and related evils, what the world needs in the beginning of the third millenium is the weak paradigm. Through the acceptance of the latter paradigm, the golden mean or middle paradigm can be formulated, which is a synergy of the weak and the strong paradigm. In order to understand properly the meaning of these paradigms, however, some digression appears necessary.

Man has been seeking an ideal existence for a very long time. In this existence, justice, love, and peace are no longer words, but actual experiences. How ever, with the American preemptive invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and the subsequent prisoner abuse, such an existence seems to be farther and farther away from reality. The purpose of this work is to stop this dangerous trend by promoting justice, love, and peace through a change of the paradigm that is inconsistent with justice, love, and peace. The strong paradigm that created the strong nation like the U.S. and the strong man like George W. Bush have been the culprit, rather than the contributor, of the above three universal ideals. Thus, rather than justice, love, and peace, the strong paradigm resulted in in justice, hatred, and violence. In order to remove these three and related evils, what the world needs in the beginning of the third millenium is the weak paradigm. Through the acceptance of the latter paradigm, the golden mean or middle paradigm can be formulated, which is a synergy of the weak and the strong paradigm. In order to understand properly the meaning of these paradigms, however, some digression appears necessary.

Gives an in depth view of the strategies pursued by the world’s leading chief executive officers in an attempt to provide guidance to new chief executives of today. Considers the marketing strategies employed, together with the organizational structures used and looks at the universal concepts that can be applied to any product. Uses anecdotal evidence to formulate a number of theories which can be used to compare your company with the best in the world. Presents initial survival strategies and then looks at ways companies can broaden their boundaries through manipulation and choice. Covers a huge variety of case studies and examples together with a substantial question and answer section.

Presents over sixty abstracts summarising the 1999 Employment Research Unit annual conference held at the University of Cardiff. Explores the multiple impacts of globalization on work and employment in contemporary organizations. Covers the human resource management implications of organizational responses to globalization. Examines the theoretical, methodological, empirical and comparative issues pertaining to competitiveness and the management of human resources, the impact of organisational strategies and international production on the workplace, the organization of labour markets, human resource development, cultural change in organisations, trade union responses, and trans‐national corporations. Cites many case studies showing how globalization has brought a lot of opportunities together with much change both to the employee and the employer. Considers the threats to existing cultures, structures and systems.

This study aims to examine the effect of several types of ex post idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) on work–life balance and work well-being, focusing on the mediating effect of work–life balance on the relationship between ex post i-deals and work well-being as well as the moderating effect of gender on the relationship between ex post i-deals and work–life balance in the hospitality industry.

This study uses a questionnaire survey of 642 hotel managers from developed cities in China and analyze the data with structural equation modeling. This study also conducts on-site interviews among 20 hotel managers to support conclusions of the survey.

The results indicate that task i-deals as well as career and incentives i-deals significantly promote work–life balance, thereby indirectly improving work well-being. However, the impact of flexibility i-deals on work–life balance and work well-being is insignificant. The influence of career and incentives i-deals on work–life balance for males is slightly stronger than that for females.

This study has practical implications for hotel employers in terms of using various ex post i-deals to motivate and retain hotel managers by improving personal work–life balance and work well-being.

As one of early attempts to highlight the potential of i-deals to serve as solutions for work–life conflicts and unhappiness issues among hotel managers, this study provides novel insights into the mediating process between ex post i-deals and work well-being from the work–life balance perspective as well as distinct influences of various ex post i-deals on work–life balance for male and female managers.

Devotes the entire journal issue to managing human behaviour in US industries, with examples drawn from the airline industry, trading industry, publishing industry, metal products industry, motor vehicle and parts industry, information technology industry, food industry, the airline industry in a turbulent environment, the automotive sales industry, and specialist retailing industry. Outlines the main features of each industry and the environment in which it is operating. Provides examples, insights and quotes from Chief Executive Officers, managers and employees on their organization’s recipe for success. Mentions the effect technology has had in some industries. Talks about skilled and semi‐skilled workers, worker empowerment and the formation of teams. Addresses also the issue of change and the training that is required to deal with it in different industry sectors. Discusses remuneration packages and incentives offered to motivate employees. Notes the importance of customers in the face of increased competition. Extracts from each industry sector the various human resource practices that companies employ to manage their employees effectively ‐ revealing that there is a wide diversity in approach and what is right for one industry sector would not work in another. Offers some advice for managers, but, overall, fails to summarize what constitutes effective means of managing human behaviour.

Presents the principles of thirty six Chinese classical strategies which includes strategies for attack, strength, confrontation, confusion, gaining ground and desperate situations. Applies these to strategic planning and marketing rather than the traditional use on battlefields. Uses anecdotal evidence to give examples and suggests that they are relevant to many other business areas.

Presents a special issue, enlisting the help of the author’s students and colleagues, focusing on age, sex, colour and disability discrimination in America. Breaks the evidence down into manageable chunks, covering: age discrimination in the workplace; discrimination against African‐Americans; sex discrimination in the workplace; same sex sexual harassment; how to investigate and prove disability discrimination; sexual harassment in the military; when the main US job‐discrimination law applies to small companies; how to investigate and prove racial discrimination; developments concerning race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; developments concerning discrimination against workers with HIV or AIDS; developments concerning discrimination based on refusal of family care leave; developments concerning discrimination against gay or lesbian employees; developments concerning discrimination based on colour; how to investigate and prove discrimination concerning based on colour; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; using statistics in employment discrimination cases; race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning gender discrimination in the workplace; discrimination in Japanese organizations in America; discrimination in the entertainment industry; discrimination in the utility industry; understanding and effectively managing national origin discrimination; how to investigate and prove hiring discrimination based on colour; and, finally, how to investigate sexual harassment in the workplace.

This paper aims to explain the causal complexity between ecosystems of doing business and living standards based on the theoretical model of the ecosystem of doing business proposed by Li (2019) and Du et al. (2020). By integrating ecological theory, transaction cost theory and institutional logics theory, this study explored effective ecosystems of doing business that achieve high living standards and explained the interpretive mechanisms behind different ecosystems of doing business. Moreover, this study also analyzed whether there were any necessary elements that lead to high living standards and discussed how the interactions between these elements influence carrying capacity and transaction costs from government logic and market logic, thus affecting living standards.

In this study, fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) and necessary condition analysis (NCA) were combined to analyze the data from the 2020 China City Statistical Yearbook, covering the main socioeconomic statistical data of cities at all levels in 2019.

This study found that no individual factor of the ecosystems of doing business was necessary to achieve high living standards, but the high level of human capital, innovation capacity, financial access and market demand play a significant role in achieving high living standards. Furthermore, two effective types of ecosystems of doing business lead to high living standards, namely, market dominance (government’s “invisible hand” or “nudging hand”) and government–market logic mutualism/symbiosis (government’s “helping hand”).

First, this work found that individual elements were not a necessary condition for high living standards, not only in kind but also in degree, complementing fsQCA with NCA, which indicates that environmental elements can be substituted by others. Second, this study considered the complex effects and explained the mechanisms behind different ecosystems of doing business, drawing on ecological theory, transaction cost theory and institutional logics theory from a configurational perspective. This study deepened the theories’ applications in the field of living standards and further discussed the elements interactions. Third, this study introduced configurational perspective and QCA into living standards research and adopted a mixed method that combines fsQCA and NCA to analyze the causal complexity between ecosystems of doing business and people’s living standards.