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The purpose of this paper is to provide a maximum speed algorithm for serial palletizing robots, which guarantees relatively low system modeling requirements and can be easily implemented in actual applications.

Operation speed is an important index of palletizing robots performance. In order to improve it, features of palletizing motions are analyzed, and a refined iterative learning control algorithm for maximum speed optimization is proposed. The refined algorithm learns to increase local speed when the following error does not exceed a predefined tolerance, unlike conventional applications which make actual output identical to its reference. Furthermore, experiments were developed to illustrate the new algorithm's ability to take full advantage of motor capacity, drive ability and repetitive link couplings to improve palletizing efficiency.

Experiments show that motion time decreases more than 20 percent after optimization.

The new iterative control algorithm can be easily applied to any repetitive handling operations where manipulating efficiency matters.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a novel autonomous in‐pipe robot to perform the preventive point reparation for long‐distance offshore oil pipelines.

The autonomous in‐pipe robot performs online ultrasonic inspection for pipe wall thickness, and the original inspection data are stored in large capacity hard disk. Through the offline data analysis by the data analysts and the software tool, the pipeline health status is known. If server defects lie there, the in‐pipe robot is introduced into the pipeline once more to indicate the defect's location to the maintenance ship.

The laboratory tests and the field tests prove the feasibility and validity of the developed autonomous in‐pipe robot. Furthermore, the application of intelligent control techniques ensures the mission completion by the autonomous in‐pipe robot, which worked in the awful pipeline environment.

The developed autonomous in‐pipe robot helps eliminate lost production costs and pipeline downtime caused by leakages and guarantees the safe run of offshore oil pipelines.

For the application of the autonomous in‐pipe robot, there are no special requirements for maintained pipelines themselves, so it is applicable to the point reparation for most long‐distance welded offshore pipelines.

This study aims to examine the antecedents of career decision self-efficacy (CDSE) and provide a comprehensive understanding of the factors that influence this critical construct in career development and decision-making.

This study employed a meta-analysis of 43 independent studies, comprising 90 correlations and 17,143 participants. The Hunter-Schmidt method meta-analysis was used to analyze the data and identify the factors associated with CDSE. Random-effect meta-regression analysis was applied to detect the potential moderators.

The study found that CDSE is positively associated with social support (ρ = 0.41), age (ρ = 0.05), agreeableness (ρ = 0.23), conscientiousness (ρ = 0.48), emotional intelligence (ρ = 0.48), extraversion (ρ = 0.41), openness (ρ = 0.35) and proactive personality (ρ = 0.68), while negatively related to neuroticism (ρ = −0.33). Furthermore, the results indicate that sample gender (%female) and mean age partially moderate the relationship between CDSE and age, core-self evaluations and neuroticism.

In this study, the authors have contributed significantly to the existing research on CDSE antecedents by conducting a thorough analysis of the various factors associated with this critical construct. The findings offer an accurate understanding of the factors that influence CDSE, and this paper's moderation analysis sheds light on the boundary conditions in the CDSE literature. Moreover, this research has practical implications for practitioners such as teachers, parents and career counselors. By leveraging the insights gained from this study, practitioners can provide more effective career support and intervention to young people, which can help increase their CDSE and improve their overall career development and well-being.

The Communist revolution in China has led to the appearance in this country of increasing numbers of Chinese books in Russian translation. The Chinese names in Cyrillic transcription have presented many librarians and students with a new problem, that of identifying the Cyrillic form of a name with the customary Wade‐Giles transcription. The average cataloguer, the first to meet the problem, has two obvious lines of action, and neither is satisfactory. He can save up the names until he has a chance to consult an expert in Chinese. Apart altogether from the delay, the expert, confronted with a few isolated names, might simply reply that he could do nothing without the Chinese characters, and it is only rarely that Soviet books supply them. Alternatively, he can transliterate the Cyrillic letters according to the system in use in his library and leave the matter there for fear of making bad worse. As long as the writers are not well known, he may feel only faintly uneasy; but the appearance of Chzhou Ėn‐lai (or Čžou En‐laj) upsets his equanimity. Obviously this must be entered under Chou; and we must have Mao Tse‐tung and not Mao Tsze‐dun, Ch'en Po‐ta and not Chėn' Bo‐da. But what happens when we have another . . . We can hardly write Ch'en unless we know how to represent the remaining elements in the name; yet we are loth to write Ch'en in one name and Chėn' in another.

The materials and energy density of current electric vehicles (EV) battery technology means that the vehicles are heavier and have a shorter range in comparison to internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEV). Battery cost also means EVs are relatively expensive for the consumer, even with government incentives, and dependent on sometimes-rare resources being available. These factors also limit the applicability of battery-electric technologies to heavy-duty vehicles. However, a number of next generation technologies are under laboratory development which could radically change this situation. Using a follow-the-money methodology, the strategic innovations of companies and public institutions are examined. The chapter will review the potential for changes in resource inputs, higher-density batteries and cost reductions, considering options such as lithium-air, metal-air and solid-state technologies. The innovations outlined in these technologies are considered from an economic perspective, identifying their advantages and disadvantages in commercialisation. At the same time, innovations, and investments in infrastructure electrification (Electric Road Service) and battery exchange point with swapping technology will be also considered due their implications and contribution to solving battery-related challenges and shortcomings. It is concluded that only a joint investment in effort on technologies would allow the use of EVs to be extended to a broad public in terms both of users and geography.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an excellence model that combines noble ends and noble means to achieve sustainable business excellence (SBE).

The general framework of existing excellence models is used to develop the new model. Relevant literature on business excellence and current business and economic trends such as constructive capitalism, conscious capitalism, shared value, values-driven organizations and corporate governance are used to develop the basic concepts of the model. The criteria and the assessment method of the model are then developed based on the basic concepts.

This paper proposes a model for SBE. This model is aligned with conscious capitalism, constructive capitalism, shared value, values-driven organizations and corporate governance. The paper includes a comparison between this model and the most popular excellence models.

This paper paves the way for more empirical and theoretical research on stakeholders’ business excellence models.

This model can be adopted by different national and international excellence awards. The adoption of this model can improve the benefits of shareholders, partners, customers, employees and the society at large. Implementing this model may be effective in transferring knowledge about conscious capitalism, values-driven organization and corporate governance to corporations worldwide.

This may contribute to protecting the environment and reducing economic inequalities that have caused political and social instability.

Excellence models have been widely used with significant success all over the world. Although these models paid attention to customers and employees, they still reflect traditional capitalism that focuses on shareholders’ value. This model is aligned to new economic trends that foster sustainability and improve benefits of all stakeholders.

This paper aims to examine the effects of task and relationship conflicts on team creativity, and the moderating role of shared leadership in inter-organizational teams. An inter-organizational team normally comprises employees from collaborated organizations brought together to conduct an initiative, such as product development. Practitioners and researchers have witnessed the prevalence of conflict in inter-organizational teams. Despite significant scholarly investigation into the importance of conflict in creativity, a deep theoretical understanding of conflict framework remains elusive.

A questionnaire survey was conducted in China to collect data. Consequently, 54 teams, which comprised 54 team managers and 276 team members, were deemed useful for the study.

By testing our hypotheses on 54 inter-organizational teams, we found that relationship conflict has a negative relationship with team creativity, whereas task conflict has an inverted U-shaped (curvilinear) relationship with team creativity. Furthermore, when shared leadership is stronger, the negative relationship with team creativity is weaker for relationship conflict, whereas the inverted U-shaped relationship with team creativity is stronger for task conflict.

The main limitation is cross-sectional, which cannot establish causality in relationships. Despite this potential weakness, the present research provides insights into conflict, leadership and inter-organizational collaboration literature.

The findings of this study offer some guidance on how managers can intervene in the conflict situations of inter-organizational teams.

Managers are struggling to identify ways to effectively manage team conflict when a team of diverse individuals across organizational boundaries are brought together to solve a problem. The findings of this study offer some guidance on how managers can intervene in the conflict situations of inter-organizational teams.

This paper provides understandings about how relationship and task conflicts affect team creativity in inter-organizational teams.

The purpose of this paper is to establish the grey relational estimating model of soil pH value based on hyper-spectral data.

As to the uncertainty of the factors affecting the soil pH value estimation based on hyper-spectral, the grey weighted relation estimation model was set up according to the grey system theory. Then the linear regression correction model is established according to the difference and grey relation degree information between the estimated samples and their corresponding pattern. At the same time, the model was applied to Hengshan county of Shanxi province.

The results are convincing: not only that the linear regression correction model of grey relation estimating pattern of soil pH value based on hyper-spectral data is valid, but also the model’s estimating accuracy is higher, which the corrected average relative error is 0.2578 per cent, and the decision coefficient R²=0.9876.

The method proposed in the paper can be used at soil pH value hyper-spectral inversion and even for other similar forecast problem.

The paper succeeds in realising both the soil pH value hyper-spectral grey relation estimating pattern based on the grey relational theory and the correction model of the estimating pattern by using the linear regression.