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The purpose of this paper is to answer “Why do Chinese consumers use IOT systems?” and “Do consumers’ cognitive and affect experiences moderate the relationship between psychological perception factors and perceived usefulness?”

In-depth interview with consumers and experts had been conducted and then the perceived psychological factors that influence perceived usefulness had been summarized. Based on a survey test of 337 smart home users, this study applies partial least squares technique analysis to test the research model.

The research results show that perceived psychological factors (perceived ease of use, perceived intelligence, perceived convenience and perceived privacy risk) have significant effect on the intention and behavior of IOT systems usage through perceived usefulness. Cognitive experience moderates the relationship between perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness, perceived privacy risk and perceived usefulness; affect experience moderates the relationship between perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness.

The current study mainly tested the antecedents of consumers’ usage of IOT systems, and the outcome of using the system was not investigated. Future research can examine the outcome (e.g. satisfaction, perceived value) by using the expectation-confirmation theory.

This study provides a useful insight into the key driving factors in consumers’ intention and behavior of using IOT systems. The previous studies over IOT systems have not observed consumers’ perception of IOT systems, but in fact IOT systems are being applied to more and more personal users.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a hybrid driving system that couples a motor and flywheel energy storage (FES) for a megawatt-scale superconducting direct current (DC) induction heater. Previous studies have proven that a superconducting DC induction heater has great advantages in relation to its energy efficiency and heating quality. In this heater, a motor rotates an aluminium billet in a DC magnetic field and the induced eddy current causes it to be heated. When the aluminium billet begins to rotate, a high peak load torque appears at a low rotation speed. Therefore, driving the billet economically has been a great challenge when designing the driving system, which is the focus of this paper.

A hybrid driving system based on FES is designed to provide extra torque when the peak load torque occurs at a low rotation speed, which allows the successful start-up of the aluminium billet and the operation of the motor at its rated capacity. The mechanical structure of this hybrid driving system is introduced. A simulation model was constructed using Matlab/Simulink and the dynamic start-up process is analysed. The influence of the flywheel’s inertia and required minimum engagement speed are investigated.

The results of this paper show that the hybrid driving system that couples FES and a motor can successfully be used to start the aluminium billet rotating. The flywheel’s inertia and engagement speed are the most important parameters. The inertia of the flywheel decreases with an increase in its engagement speed.

The cost of the driving system is significantly reduced, which is very important in relation to the commercial potential of this apparatus.

A novel start-up strategy for driving the aluminium billet of a superconducting DC induction heater at low speed is proposed based on FES.

More hotels are beginning to embrace green practices given increasing awareness of sustainable development. The purpose of this study is to examine factors contributing to hotels’ participation in TripAdvisor’s GreenLeaders program.

Based on a sample of 48,064 hotels from 328 destinations in 29 countries, the authors leverage a multi-level logit model to examine antecedents of GreenLeaders participation. A multi-level ordered logit model is then estimated to uncover factors influencing the ranking of this participation.

Empirical results indicate that hotels with a larger size, a higher class, a better online reputation, greater reliance on business travelers, fewer neighboring hotels and a more long-term-oriented culture are more apt to join the program. Online reputation factors, hotel size and the number of neighboring hotels explain GreenLeaders hotels’ rankings. A series of robustness checks reinforces the results.

The results shed light on green program design and promotion. These findings can help hotel practitioners identify ideal target markets and better use their organizational resources to establish green programs. Several strategies can be implemented to promote hotels’ commitment to sustainability and to encourage guests’ awareness of and involvement in green practices.

This study enriches knowledge of sustainable hospitality and tourism. The findings of this study also address corporate social responsibility by analyzing factors that can promote and inhibit GreenLeaders program participation. Further, as a complement to hotel- and location-specific factors, the authors scrutinize the effects of cultural features in shaping green strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a strap‐down image stable strategy for multi‐load optoelectronic imaging platform hung below a tethered aerostat.

Four two dimension pods, each with a visible light camera, are fixed on the optoelectronic platform. A POS (Position and Orientation System) is used to acquire the attitude rate data of optoelectronic platform, while the data can be coupled to the pods' servo systems through corresponding coordinate rotation, then the motors of pods will adjust the line of sight to the opposite way to keep the stabilization of image exported by visible light camcorders. Simultaneously, two rate gyros are installed at the inner frame of each pod, which are used as a backup to avoid the failure of POS.

Using one attitude and position measurement system can realize the stabilization of multi optoelectronic pods, which is same as or even better than the ratio gyro stabilization.

As the tethered aerostat is a flexible body, it is affected a lot by the wind speed and wind direction at the low height (<1,000 m), which leads to the motors of pods always adjust the line of sight to the mechanical limiting of pods.

Strap‐down stabilization technology has been successfully used in the tethered aerostat monitoring platform to surveillance Shanghai World EXPO site. Long time experiments verify the feasible and effective of the multi‐load stabilization technology. The impact on the image by the adjustment of servos is less than 10 percent of the whole view of sight.

The paper introduces a strap‐down stabilization technology for multi‐load tethered aerostat platform, which is more suitable to be applied in the platform of relatively minor attitude change, like the airborne multi‐load platform and multi‐load UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) platform.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse and improve the temperature uniformity of aluminium billets heated by superconducting DC induction heaters.

A 3D electromagnetic model coupled with a heat transfer model is developed to calculate the heating process of the billets which are rotated in uniform transverse DC magnetic field. A laboratory-scale DC induction heater prototype has been built to validate the model. The results from simulation and measurement have a good agreement. The model is used to investigate the factors affecting the temperature uniformity of aluminium billets.

The results from simulation show that lower rotation speeds always mean better temperature uniformity along the radial direction, due to the increase in power penetration. However, the situation is very different for the temperature distribution along the axial direction. When the rotation speed is low, the temperature at the ends is lower than other parts. The situation reverses as the rotation speeds increase. This phenomenon is referred to as the “ending effect” in this paper.

Because of the ending effect, a lower rotation speed does not always result in better overall temperature uniformity, especially for billets of smaller sizes.

There is an optimal rotation speed that yields the best overall temperature uniformity. Lower rotation speeds are not always preferred. The results and numerical model developed are very useful in the design of a superconducting DC induction heater.

The temperature uniformity of aluminium billets heated by DC induction heaters is investigated and optimized.