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Snake-inspired robots are of great significance in many fields because of their great adaptability to the environment. This paper aims to systematically illustrate the research progress of snake-inspired robots according to their application environments. It classifies snake-inspired robots according to the numbers of degrees of freedom in each joint and briefly describes the modeling and control of snake-inspired robots. Finally, the application fields and future development trends of snake-inspired robots are analyzed and discussed.

This paper summarizes the research progress of snake-inspired robots and clarifies the requirements of snake-inspired robots for self-adaptive environments and multi-functional tasks. By equipping various sensors and tool modules, snake-inspired robots are developed from fixed-point operation in a single environment to autonomous operation in an amphibious environment. Finally, it is pointed out that snake-inspired robots will be developed in terms of rigid and flexible deformable structure, long endurance and multi-function and intelligent autonomous control.

Inspired by the modular and reconfigurable concepts of biological snakes, snake-inspired robots are well adapted to unknown and changing environments. Therefore, snake-inspired robots will be widely used in industrial, military, medical, post-disaster search and rescue applications. Snake-inspired robots have become a hot research topic in the field of bionic robots.

This paper summarizes the research status of snake-inspired robots, which facilitates the reader to be a comprehensive and systematic understanding of the research progress of snake-inspired robots. This helps the reader to gain inspiration from biological perspectives.

The purpose of this study is to elucidate the size effect (groove width, unit length and area density) of the hexagonal texture on tribological properties under lubrication.

The tribological properties of nine hexagonal textures with different hexagon lengths and groove widths have been investigated under mixed lubrication to elucidate the size effect.

Overall, the friction coefficient decreases as the groove width increases within the examined range, whereas the hexagon length shows an optimal value around 3 mm. In particular, one hexagonal texture (3 × 3 mm) exhibits lower friction coefficients and less wear losses than the others. Interestingly, two hexagonal textures of similar area density (1 × 1 mm and 3 × 3 mm) yield the worst and best tribological performances, respectively, which can be explained by the simulated distribution of equivalent stress.

The tribological properties of nine hexagonal textures are examined under lubrication. The 3 × 3 texture exhibits lower friction coefficient and wear loss than the others. Two textures of similar area density yield the worst and best tribological performances. The results agree with the simulated distribution of equivalent stress.

Smart card-based E-payment systems are receiving increasing attention as the number of implementations is witnessed on the rise globally. Understanding of user adoption behavior of E-payment systems that employ smart card technology becomes a research area that is of particular value and interest to both IS researchers and professionals. However, research interest focuses mostly on why a smart card-based E-payment system results in a failure or how the system could have grown into a success. This signals the fact that researchers have not had much opportunity to critically review a smart card-based E-payment system that has gained wide support and overcome the hurdle of critical mass adoption. The Octopus in Hong Kong has provided a rare opportunity for investigating smart card-based E-payment system because of its unprecedented success. This research seeks to thoroughly analyze the Octopus from technology adoption behavior perspectives.

Cultural impacts on adoption behavior are one of the key areas that this research posits to investigate. Since the present research is conducted in Hong Kong where a majority of population is Chinese ethnicity and yet is westernized in a number of aspects, assuming that users in Hong Kong are characterized by eastern or western culture is less useful. Explicit cultural characteristics at individual level are tapped into here instead of applying generalization of cultural beliefs to users to more accurately reflect cultural bias. In this vein, the technology acceptance model (TAM) is adapted, extended, and tested for its applicability cross-culturally in Hong Kong on the Octopus. Four cultural dimensions developed by Hofstede are included in this study, namely uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, individualism, and Confucian Dynamism (long-term orientation), to explore their influence on usage behavior through the mediation of perceived usefulness.

TAM is also integrated with the innovation diffusion theory (IDT) to borrow two constructs in relation to innovative characteristics, namely relative advantage and compatibility, in order to enhance the explanatory power of the proposed research model. Besides, the normative accountability of the research model is strengthened by embracing two social influences, namely subjective norm and image. As the last antecedent to perceived usefulness, prior experience serves to bring in the time variation factor to allow level of prior experience to exert both direct and moderating effects on perceived usefulness.

The resulting research model is analyzed by partial least squares (PLS)-based Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach. The research findings reveal that all cultural dimensions demonstrate direct effect on perceived usefulness though the influence of uncertainty avoidance is found marginally significant. Other constructs on innovative characteristics and social influences are validated to be significant as hypothesized. Prior experience does indeed significantly moderate the two influences that perceived usefulness receives from relative advantage and compatibility, respectively. The research model has demonstrated convincing explanatory power and so may be employed for further studies in other contexts. In particular, cultural effects play a key role in contributing to the uniqueness of the model, enabling it to be an effective tool to help critically understand increasingly internationalized IS system development and implementation efforts. This research also suggests several practical implications in view of the findings that could better inform managerial decisions for designing, implementing, or promoting smart card-based E-payment system.

This study aims to analyze the transmission characteristics of a long-period grating (LPG) fabricated on plastic optical fibers (POFs) and its refractive index (RI) sensing.

The geometric optic method is used to analyze the factors affecting the transmission characteristics of an LPG on POFs. The RI sensing performances of unbent LPGs and U-bent LPGs fabricated on POFs with different diameters are evaluated experimentally.

This study shows that the transmission loss caused by LPG strongly depends on the structural parameters of LPG and the environmental RI. For the unbent LPG, the highest RI sensitivity of 1,015%/RI unit (RIU) was obtained in the RI range of 1.33–1.45. For the U-bent LPG without cladding, the highest RI sensitivities of 1,007 and 559%/RIU are obtained in the RI ranges of 1.33–1.40 and 1.40–1.45, respectively.

A geometric optic method is used to analyze the transmission characteristics for an LPG on POFs, and the RI sensing of the LPGs are studied experimentally. The results show the LPG has a good RI sensing performances and is with the features of low-cost, simple structure and easy fabrication.

This study identifies and examines psychological and environmental factors that influence the long-term orientation of top management teams (TMTs).

Data on S&P 500 companies from 2011 to 2020 are collected from the Compustat database. Additional variables were measured through content analysis of earnings conference calls. This study used two-stage least squares regression with fixed effects to analyze the data and test the hypotheses. Appropriate diagnostic tests were conducted to ensure validity and eliminate endogeneity.

The results indicate that a chief executive officer’s (CEO) promotion focus positively and significantly influences the TMT's long-term orientation. However, the influence of prevention focus is statistically insignificant. Furthermore, the results indicate that environmental hostility moderates both relationships.

The TMT's long-term orientation can be improved through the insights provided by this study.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine the collective effects of psychological and task environmental factors on the long-term orientation of the TMT. Additionally, this study sheds light on the internal dynamics of the top-management team.

The main objective of this work is to show that the traditional specific characteristics of companies as well as cultural and religious dimensions can influence the leverage of companies in different macro-environmental systems.

To achieve this aim, the authors have used data from 1.568 firms from 7 European countries between 2010 and 2016, and the models were estimated by using panel data methodology, specifically the generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation method by Arellano and Bover (1995) and Blundell and Bond (1998).

Overall, the empirical results point out that the cultural moderating factors are essential in determining companies' capital structure, regardless of the country's legal origin. The study results also show that traditional variables, intrinsic to management, macroeconomic environment and religion, have a central role in capital structure, namely for the civilian countries.

As far as the authors know, this is the first work that uses, in addition to the traditional specific characteristics of companies, cultural dimensions and religion, as determinants of debt levels, in different legal systems for Europe.

The current business environment is characterized by high levels of uncertainty that affect the global economic system and have the greatest impact on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). With an elevated degree of perceived uncertainty, Chief executive officers' (CEOs) of SMEs find themselves in a situation where the old approaches to decision-making are irrelevant and the time to create new ones is limited. The purpose of this study is to examine whether appealing to personal values helps CEOs cope with a high level of perceived uncertainty and make decisions about the further development of the firm by undertaking business model innovations (BMI).

This study follows a multiple case study research design drawing on data collected from 10 Russian SMEs.

The authors show that CEOs’ communion values lead to innovations in the revenue model and value architecture dimensions of the business model. CEOs who are inclined to agentic values introduce innovations in the revenue model and value offering dimensions. Those executives who balance between the two types of values tend to also balance between different types of innovations in the elements of the business model.

The results indicate that personal values of CEOs play an important role in managerial processes and the strategic choice of a BMI type. Moreover, personal temporal focus orientation serves as a translation mechanism in the relationship between CEO values and BMI in SME settings.

This research measured and compared the brand identity of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) in China and the United States. Brand identity was defined as the customer impressions of four different KFC identity elements – properties, products, presentations, and publications. A survey of young consumers in the two countries (n = 795), showed that the Chinese respondents were more apt to eat within KFC restaurants, and spend more time doing so, than the Americans. The Chinese also had much more positive impressions of KFC than their US counterparts. Brand identity impressions were correlated with overall customer satisfaction and with future patronage intentions for both groups, but much more so for the Americans. These findings support a model where differences in cultural frames of reference lead consumers to actively localize the brand identity of this nominally globalized product.

The purpose of this paper is to present the application of Hilbert–Huang transform (HHT) for fatigue damage feature characterisation in the time–frequency domain based on strain signals obtained from the automotive coil springs.

HHT was employed to detect the temporary changes in frequency characteristics of the vibration response of the signals. The extraction successfully reduced the length of the original signal to 40 per cent, whereas the fatigue damage was retained. The analysis process for this work is divided into three stages: signal characterisation with the application of fatigue data editing (FDE) for fatigue life assessment, empirical mode decomposition with Hilbert transform, an energy–time–frequency distribution analysis of each intrinsic mode function (IMF).

The edited signal had a time length of 72.5 s, which was 40 per cent lower than the original signal. Both signals were retained statistically with close mean, root-mean-square and kurtosis value. FDE improved the fatigue life, and the extraction did not affect the content and behaviour of the original signal because the editing technique only removed the minimal fatigue damage potential. HHT helped to remove unnecessary noise in the recorded signals. EMD produced sets of IMFs that indicated the differences between the original signal and mean of the signal to produce new components. The low-frequency energy was expected to cause large damage, whereas the high-frequency energy will cause small damage.

HHT and EMD can be used in the strain data signal analysis of the automotive component of a suspension system. This is to improve the fatigue life, where the extraction did not affect the content and behaviour of the original signal because the editing technique only removed the minimal fatigue damage potential.