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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.

This study aims to use the theory of third places to understand how different kinds of social interactions in small hospitality businesses, such as restaurants and cafes, can enhance senior customers’ experiences and alleviate their loneliness.

The target population of this study were Hong Kong residents of age 60 or older. The sampling frame comprised respondents who visited a Cha Chaan Teng (i.e. a Hong Kong-style tea restaurant) more than once a year. The authors distributed 500 questionnaires and collected 411 valid responses in 2016. They used structural equation modeling for data analysis.

The results show that social interactions (service manner and need identification) with employees and other customers have a positive effect on senior customers’ experiences, while the service manner of employees reduces senior customers’ loneliness.

This study demonstrates the respective contributions of social interactions with employees and those with other customers to enhancing senior customers’ experiences and alleviating their loneliness. This study’s findings may provide a foundation for future research into the relationships between social interactions, customer experience and loneliness in third places (that are, informal public places that offer individuals opportunities to escape from home and the workplace and to enjoy voluntary conversation, entertainment and gatherings). Further, this study also demonstrates the specific role and importance of the hospitality industry in addressing a contemporary social problem in the form of seniors’ loneliness.

This paper aims to investigate how different types of idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) in the hospitality industry enhance occupational well-being (OWB) through organization-based self-esteem (OBSE).

In 2019, 679 questionnaires were distributed to middle- and high-level managerial staff who had worked in high-end hotels in China for at least 1 year, and 642 valid responses were collected. The survey data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Follow-up interviews were conducted with 20 hotel managers to verify and lend additional support to the survey findings.

Both task i-deals and career and incentives i-deals positively affected OBSE and OWB, whereas flexibility i-deals negatively affected OBSE. OBSE positively affected OWB, thereby mediating the relationships between the three types of i-deals and OWB.

This study is groundbreaking in its exploration of how various i-deals contribute to OWB through OBSE among middle- and high-level managerial staff. The findings provide initial evidence of the links between i deals, OBSE and OWB and demonstrate how i-deals can address the practical problem of the shortage and loss of competent operational and administrative talent in the hospitality industry.

From practical perspectives and to improve the working efficiency, trolley transportation and payload hoisting/lowering should be simultaneously controlled. Moreover, in practical crane applications, the transportation time is an important criterion for improving transportation efficiency. Based on these requirements, this paper aims to solve positioning and antiswing control problems and shorten the transportation time for underactuated varying-rope-length overhead cranes.

By choosing trolley acceleration and varying-rope-length acceleration as system inputs, the crane system dynamic model is converted into an equivalent model without linearizing/approximating. Then, based on the converted model and system state constraints, a time-optimal problem is formulated. Further, the original problem is converted into an optimization problem with algebraic constraints which can be conveniently solved. Finally, by solving the optimization problem, the optimal trajectories of system states, including displacements, velocities and accelerations, are obtained.

This paper first provides a nonlinear time-optimal trajectory planner for varying-rope-length overhead cranes, which achieves accurate and fast trolley positioning and eliminates payload residual swings. Meanwhile, all system states satisfy the given constraints during the entire process. Hardware experimental results show that the proposed time-optimal planner is effective and has better performance compared with existing methods.

This paper proposes a time-optimal trajectory planner for overhead crane systems with hoisting/lowering motion. The proposed planner achieves fast trolley positioning and eliminates payload residual swing with all the system states being constrained within given scopes. The planner is presented based on the original nonlinear system dynamics without linearization/approximation.

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.

This study aims to explore the influence of psychological empowerment on the career competencies of Generation Y employees and the relationship between empowerment and career satisfaction.

Generation Y working in the hospitality industry comprised the target population of this study. A total of 500 questionnaires were distributed, and 458 valid questionnaires were obtained. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data and to test the causal relationships among the constructs.

Psychological empowerment was positively related to career competencies and career satisfaction. Moreover, the four dimensions of psychological empowerment, namely, impact, competence, self-determination and meaning, also contributed positively to the career competencies and satisfaction of Generation Y. Findings indicated that empowerment was an important predictor of career management among young employees.

The limitation of this study is the use of convenience sampling method, with participants selected according to their accessibility. Future studies should collect a reasonably broad sample by using probability sampling methods.

The findings of this study provided useful guidance to manage and empower Generation Y employees. First, the importance of psychological empowerment to enhance the career competencies and satisfaction of young employees was proved. Second, this study provided detailed information on how to empower Generation Y employees. Third, this study may help to retain qualified employees by empowering and supporting their career development.

This study highlighted the importance of empowerment in managing Generation Y employees. Once Generation Y employees are trusted and empowered, they tend to perform well in both their job and career. Findings indicated that the four factors of psychological empowerment had different contributions to careers of the employees. Results suggest that managers should attempt to assign challenging and meaningful tasks to young employees and to increase their responsibility and impact in the organization. To attract and retain qualified young employees, career competences should be enhanced to achieve a level of career satisfaction.

This study presented new findings on Generation Y and the outcomes of psychological empowerment. Initial evidence on the contribution of empowerment to the career issues of the new generation was proved. The findings outlined detailed information on psychological empowerment by exploring the function of its four factors. The results may serve as a foundation for future research on empowerment and career issues of Generation Y.

To the industrial application of intelligent and connected vehicles (ICVs), the robustness and accuracy of environmental perception are critical in challenging conditions. However, the accuracy of perception is closely related to the performance of sensors configured on the vehicle. To enhance sensors’ performance further to improve the accuracy of environmental perception, this paper aims to introduce an obstacle detection method based on the depth fusion of lidar and radar in challenging conditions, which could reduce the false rate resulting from sensors’ misdetection.

Firstly, a multi-layer self-calibration method is proposed based on the spatial and temporal relationships. Next, a depth fusion model is proposed to improve the performance of obstacle detection in challenging conditions. Finally, the study tests are carried out in challenging conditions, including straight unstructured road, unstructured road with rough surface and unstructured road with heavy dust or mist.

The experimental tests in challenging conditions demonstrate that the depth fusion model, comparing with the use of a single sensor, can filter out the false alarm of radar and point clouds of dust or mist received by lidar. So, the accuracy of objects detection is also improved under challenging conditions.

A multi-layer self-calibration method is conducive to improve the accuracy of the calibration and reduce the workload of manual calibration. Next, a depth fusion model based on lidar and radar can effectively get high precision by way of filtering out the false alarm of radar and point clouds of dust or mist received by lidar, which could improve ICVs’ performance in challenging conditions.

Wireless multi-hop ad hoc networks are becoming very attractive and widely deployed in many kinds of communication and networking applications. However, distributed and collaborative routing in such networks makes them vulnerable to various security attacks. This paper aims to design and implement a new efficient intrusion detection and prevention framework, called EIDPF, a host-based framework suitable for mobile ad hoc network’s characteristics such as high node’s mobility, resource-constraints and rapid topology change. EIDPF aims to protect an AODV-based network against routing attacks that could target such network.

This detection and prevention framework is composed of three complementary modules: a specification-based intrusion detection system to detect attacks violating the protocol specification, a load balancer to prevent fast-forwarding attacks such as wormhole and rushing and adaptive response mechanism to isolate malicious node from the network.

A key advantage of the proposed framework is its capacity to efficiently avoid fast-forwarding attacks and its real-time detection of both known and unknown attacks violating specification. The simulation results show that EIDPF exhibits a high detection rate, low false positive rate and no extra communication overhead compared to other protection mechanisms.

It is a new intrusion detection and prevention framework to protect ad hoc network against routing attacks. A key strength of the proposed framework is its ability to guarantee a real-time detection of known and unknown attacks that violate the protocol specification, and avoiding wormhole and rushing attacks by providing a load balancing route discovery.

The finite-time visual servoing control problem is considered for dynamic wheeled mobile robots (WMRs) with unknown control direction and external disturbance.

By using finite-time control method and switching design technique.

First, the visual servoing kinematic WMR model is developed, which can be converted to the dynamic chained-form systems by using a state and input feedback transformation. Then, for two decoupled subsystems of the chained-form systems, according to the finite-time stability control theory, a discontinuous three-step switching control strategy is proposed in the presence of uncertain control coefficients and external disturbance.

A class of discontinuous anti-interference control method has been presented for the dynamic nonholonomic systems.

In common with many other UK academic libraries using the LIBERTAS library management system, Bristol University Library set out in 1998 to acquire a replacement. This paper describes the background to the Bristol project to choose a new system, and some of its distinctive features, briefly indicates the outcome (acquisition of Aleph 500 from Ex Libris), and draws some lessons from the experience. It is easy to under. estimate the size of the task involved in installing a modern library management system. Careful thought should be given to an assessment of conversion needs and to the justifcation for retaining existing practices (e.g. use of UKMARC) rather than accepting the international norm. Both staff and users must understand the need for change and be prepared for its consequences. On‐site support from the system supplier is vital and time is of the essence.