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1 – 10 of 641Srikanth Beldona, Zvi Schwartz and Xian Zhang
With the advent of the smart home, where connectivity is facilitated by the internet of things, the provision of guest technologies in hotel service delivery has acquired greater…
Abstract
Purpose
With the advent of the smart home, where connectivity is facilitated by the internet of things, the provision of guest technologies in hotel service delivery has acquired greater significance. This ubiquity of technology implies that hotels need to view their technological offerings as facilitating guest’s broader lifestyles, and not just services in isolated spaces. This study aims to examine the role of “home” as a socio-technological unit, and how customers’ ownership of technologies at home affects evaluations of guest technologies at hotels.
Design/methodology/approach
Data are collected from a sample of US lodging consumers using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Partial least squares, which is a component-based structural equation modeling technique with SmartPLS 3.2, is used to test the hypotheses and meet the study’s objectives.
Findings
The findings show that hotel guest technologies should be of a higher standard than those at home, for guests to be satisfied with them. This relationship was robust across all hotel types, and both leisure and business visitation. Also, satisfaction with guest technologies has a relatively stronger impact on customer satisfaction in mid-scale and economy hotels compared to that in upscale and luxury hotels.
Research limitations/implications
By empirically validating “home” as a frame of reference in the evaluations of hospitality experiences, it opens up the potential for future research to study how home affects the evaluation of the hospitality experience as a whole.
Practical implications
Hotels need to identify viable technologies that have the potential to become mainstream, and be ahead of customers in the technology adoption curve.
Originality/value
This study is the first to look at home as a conceptual entity that is integral to hospitality using a socio-psychological lens, and evaluates its impact on evaluations of guest technologies at hotels.
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Karl Marx's social capital reproduction theory is his significant contribution to economics. The purpose of this paper is to review the contributions of the exploration of Chinese…
Abstract
Purpose
Karl Marx's social capital reproduction theory is his significant contribution to economics. The purpose of this paper is to review the contributions of the exploration of Chinese economists (especially Professor Liu Guoguang) in the concretization of Marx’s social capital reproduction theory combined with socialist construction since 1949.
Design/methodology/approach
During this process, Professor Liu Guoguang, a famous Chinese Marxist economist, has made an outstanding contribution by creating a Marxist social capital reproduction model with Chinese characteristics and a distinctive Marxist economic growth model. Professor Liu's exploration is still of crucial practical significance to building a socialist market economy today.
Findings
The process and achievements in the sinicization exploration of Marx's social capital reproduction theory were reviewed. With the reform and opening up, fundamental changes have occurred in China's economic system – the centralized planned economic system has been transformed into a socialist market economic system.
Originality/value
The planned management of the national economy is replaced by a macro-regulation system characterized by gross control gradually, and the concepts of agriculture, light industry, and heavy industry, and their intercorrelation are no longer applied in theory and policy. However, the sinicization exploration of Marx's social capital reproduction theory in the older generation of Marxist economists represented by Liu is not only of historical significance but also of important practical significance.
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Xian Zhang, Gedong Jiang, Hao Zhang, Xialun Yun and Xuesong Mei
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the dependent competing failure reliability of harmonic drive (HD) with strength failure and degradation failure.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the dependent competing failure reliability of harmonic drive (HD) with strength failure and degradation failure.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on life tests and stiffness degradation experiments, Wiener process is used to establish the accelerated performance degradation model of HD. Model parameter distribution is estimated by Bayesian inference and Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) and stiffness degradation failure samples are obtained by a three-step sampling method. Combined with strength failure samples of HD, copula function is used to describe the dependence between strength failure and stiffness degradation failure.
Findings
Strength failure occurred earlier than degradation failure under high level accelerated condition; degradation failure occurred earlier than strength failure under medium- or low-level accelerated condition. Gumbel copula is the optimum copula function for dependence modeling of strength failure and stiffness degradation failure. Dependent competing failure reliability of HD is larger than independent competing failure reliability.
Originality/value
The reliability evaluation method of dependent competing failure of HD with strength failure and degradation failure is first proposed. Performance degradation experiments during accelerated life test (ALT), step-down ALT and life test under rated condition are conducted for Wiener process based step-down accelerated performance degradation modeling.
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Xian Zhang, Zhaoyang Yuan, Yang Qingxin, Zhaohui Wang, Hao Meng and Yao Jin
The purpose of the paper is to analyze the impact of coupling on the distribution of the magnetic field and study the characteristics of the magnetic flux density in the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the paper is to analyze the impact of coupling on the distribution of the magnetic field and study the characteristics of the magnetic flux density in the transmission process of the magnetic coupling resonant wireless power transmission (MCR-WPT) system, which provides guidance on the design of the WPT system.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, a finite element simulation analysis was conducted and a three-dimensional (3D) electromagnetic field measurement platform was used.
Findings
It is shown that the distribution of the magnetic field, as well as the position of maximum magnetic flux density, will change when the coils are coupled. The simulation results of the magnetic field distribution, as well as the transmission performance, are different from those in practice. It cannot describe the actual performance of WPT system.
Originality/value
A 3D electromagnetic field measurement system and the host computer software are designed to help optimize the simulation and carry out more accurate and efficient research. The 3D electromagnetic field measurement system can be used to study the distribution of the spatial electromagnetic field, influencing factor, exposure and interoperability between different coils.
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Xian Zhang, Gedong Jiang, Hao Zhang, Xialun Yun and Xuesong Mei
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the time-dependent reliability of harmonic drive.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the time-dependent reliability of harmonic drive.
Design/methodology/approach
The transient finite element analysis (FEA) of harmonic drive is established to calculate the stress under different loads. Combined with the residual strength model and random variables, the time-dependent reliability model of harmonic drive is deduced by the stochastic perturbation method and Edgeworth series. Based on accelerated life tests, the degradation parameters are estimated by maximizing likelihood function. Under variable load, the key stress from transient FEA is transformed into probability density function by kernel density estimation, and the residual strength model is modified by adding adjustment factors to deal with strength degradation under different loads.
Findings
The critical position of stress concentration from transient FEA is consistent with the fatigue fracture position at the accelerated life test sample. Compared with the time-dependent reliability method with equivalent circular-shell static stress or empirical degradation parameters, the proposed method has the smallest prediction error of failure life. Under variable load, the state function should be expanded to second-order series for avoiding error items relevant to variance. The failure life expectation under random variable load is smaller than that under constant load.
Originality/value
The time-dependent reliability method of harmonic drive is firstly proposed under constant and variable load. The transient FEA of harmonic drive is established to calculate the stress for strength analysis. The accelerated life test of harmonic drive is conducted for degradation parameters estimation. The adjustment factor is added to the residual strength model for strength degradation under different loads.
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Shuang Wang, Gedong Jiang, Xuesong Mei, Chuang Zou, Xian Zhang and Hao Zhang
Because of the compact structure, short flexspline (FS) harmonic drive (HD) is increasingly used. The stress calculation of FS is very important in design and optimization of HD…
Abstract
Purpose
Because of the compact structure, short flexspline (FS) harmonic drive (HD) is increasingly used. The stress calculation of FS is very important in design and optimization of HD system. This paper aims to study the stress calculation methods for short FS, based on mechanics analysis and finite element method (FEM).
Design/methodology/approach
A rapid stress calculation method, based on mechanics analysis, is proposed for the short FS of HD. To verify the stress calculation precision of short FS, a complete finite element model of HD is established. The results of stress and deformation of short FS in different lengths are solved by FEM.
Findings
Through the rapid calculation method, the analytical relationship between circumferential stress and length of cylinder was obtained. And the circumferential stress has proportional relation with the reciprocal of squared length. The FEM results verified that the rapid stress calculation method could obtain accurate results.
Research limitations/implications
The rapid mechanics analysis method is practiced to evaluate the strength of FS at the design stage of HD. And the complete model of HD could contribute to improving the accuracy of FEM results.
Originality/value
The rapid calculation method is developed based on mechanics analysis method of cylinder and equivalent additional bending moment model, through which the analytical relationship between circumferential stress and length of cylinder was obtained. The complete three-dimensional finite element model of HD takes the stiffness of bearing into consideration, which can be used in the numerical simulation in the future work to improve the accuracy.
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Muhammad Ansar Majeed, Xian-zhi Zhang and Zhaonan Wang
This study aims to examine the impact of various dimensions of product market competition on accounting conservatism particularly in the wake of regulatory changes and varying…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the impact of various dimensions of product market competition on accounting conservatism particularly in the wake of regulatory changes and varying ownership structures in China.
Design/methodology/approach
This study examines impact of product market competition on accounting conservatism by using conservatism measure of Khan and Watts (2009) and measures for important dimensions of competition such as competition intensity, non-price competition and competition from existing rivals and potential entrants.
Findings
The findings suggest that competition intensity and non-price competition result in higher conservatism. This study also advocates that industry leaders exhibit lower conservatism as compared to industry followers. Moreover, the authors document positive association between competition from existing/potential rivals and accounting conservative. These findings reveal that regulatory changes (International Financial Reporting Standards adoption) influence the effect of various dimensions of competition on conservatism. The authors also propose that financial reporting practices of state-owned enterprises are not influenced by competition. However, competition affects financial reporting (conservatism) when institutional or managerial ownership is higher.
Originality/value
The authors document that strategic considerations shape conservative financial reporting decisions of the managers. This study also advocates that when regulatory changes affect the influence of competitive pressure on the conservative reporting decisions of the mangers. Findings also suggest that unlike state ownership, institutional as well as managerial ownership affects the influence of competition on managerial decisions like conservative financial reporting. These results are robust to various alternative measures of conservatism.
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Muhammad Ansar Majeed and Xian-zhi Zhang
This study aims to examine the impact of product market competition (PMC) from existing rivals and potential market entrants on earnings quality (EQ) in China.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the impact of product market competition (PMC) from existing rivals and potential market entrants on earnings quality (EQ) in China.
Design/methodology/approach
This study examines the impact of PMC on EQ by using the EQ measure of Kothari et al. (2005), and it uses measures for competition from existing and potential rivals. This study analyzed Chinese firms for the period of 2000-2014 and also examined the impact of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption and state ownership on the relationship between PMC and EQ.
Findings
This study found a positive relationship between PMC and EQ. It also documents that competition from existing rivals does not improve EQ by reducing real activity manipulation, but competition from potential entrants does. The findings propose that market competition from existing rivals is a relevant factor for determining EQ before and after IFRS adoption, but competition from potential entrants improves EQ only after IFRS adoption. Moreover, the results suggest that market competition plays no role in improving the EQ of state-owned enterprises (SOEs).
Originality/value
The results support the argument that PMC acts as a governance mechanism and influences managerial decisions regarding financial reporting. Our study also helps to understand the impact of change in the regulatory regime, i.e. IFRS adoption, on the relationship between PMC and EQ. This study also helps demonstrate the impact of competition on management decisions with respect to the EQ of SOEs.
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Boqiong Yang, Stephan Brosig and Jianguo Chen
We compare environmental impacts associated with incoming foreign direct investment versus domestic capital in China. We use aggregate data on Chinese provinces’ economic and…
Abstract
We compare environmental impacts associated with incoming foreign direct investment versus domestic capital in China. We use aggregate data on Chinese provinces’ economic and pollution indicators to explore the effects of the financial origin of fixed capital. Our simultaneous models consider three prime channels through which these effects work: economic scale, sectoral composition, and pollution intensity. Results show that emissions associated with foreign financed capital are lower than with domestically financed capital for some but not all of the considered types of pollution.
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Yosra Rkhissi-Kammoun, Jawhar Ghommam, Moussa Boukhnifer and Faiçal Mnif
This paper aims to address the speed and flux tracking problem of an induction motor (IM) drive that propels an electric vehicle (EV). A new continuous control law is developed…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to address the speed and flux tracking problem of an induction motor (IM) drive that propels an electric vehicle (EV). A new continuous control law is developed for an IM drive by using the backstepping design associated with the Robust Integral Sign of the Error (RISE) technique.
Design/methodology/approach
First, the rotor field-oriented IM dynamic model is derived. Then, a RISE-backstepping approach is proposed to compensate for the load torque disturbance under the assumptions that the disturbances are C2 class functions with bounded time derivatives.
Findings
The numerical validation results have presented good control performances in terms of speed and flux reference tracking. It is also robust against load disturbances rejection and IM parameters variation compared to the conventional Field-Oriented Control design. Besides, the asymptotic stability and the boundedness of the closed-loop signals is guaranteed in the context of Lyapunov.
Originality/value
A very relevant strategy based on a conjunction of the backstepping design with the RISE technique is proposed for an IM drive. The approach remains simple and can be scaled to different applications.
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