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The increase in demand variability created by manufacturing enterprises presents new challenges for increasing resource usage and sharing flexibility. For this reason, it is of great importance to research manufacturing grids and their service modes. The purpose of this paper is to establish a systematic strategy and a system tool for manufacturing grid systems.

A manufacturing service oriented manufacturing grid (MSoMG) system is presented with open grid service architecture as the system architecture and GT3.9 as a development tool. A framework is proposed to support MSoMG by providing advisory tools and methods for uncertain information analysis and processing, multi-objective decision making of manufacturing grid service execution, manufacturing grid service performance prediction based on knowledge template, and flexible manufacturing grid service scheduling and solution. The methodology of the adopted rough set is discussed in detail. Finally, the design support strategies for MSoMG are investigated to guide the coordination of manufacturing activities.

Many conventional methods and models become very limited for manufacturing grid service with uncertain information. The processing of uncertain information and reasonable application flow can help to improve the completion rate and reliability of manufacturing grid services.

This research provides a solid foundation for manufacturing gird operations and can promote the use of a manufacturing grid mode.

A MSoMG system is presented. The manufacturing grid service with uncertain information is considered as well as design support strategies.

This paper aims to examine the internal logical relationship between two intergenerational inheritance ways of passing property rights and residual control rights (RCR) and to construct a conceptual model comprising transfer elements, paths and timing of succession in this process.

Driven by the cases of Haixin, Tianyijiao and Changhe Group, this paper applies research methods of copying and expanding analysis logic, progressive deduction, content analysis and comparative research based on the perspective of HeXie theory to explore the deep interrelation of transfer elements, paths and timing during family business succession.

The findings present that the content of intergenerational inheritance of a family firm is the inheritance of property rights and RCR. First, the inheritance of property rights is a static inheritance of time-point delivery, whereas the inheritance of RCR is a dynamic inheritance process for a period of time. Second, the inheritance of property rights and RCR are not independent; only a “HeXie” succession of both rights can realize a successful inheritance of family firms.

This paper constructs the paths and timing model of intergenerational inheritance of property rights and RCR in family firms. This paper integrates the current literature studies on the family inheritance of property rights and RCR and explains their internal mechanisms. This paper also provides a theoretical foundation and empirical evidence for family business transitions in the business world.

This paper explores the role of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) as a tourism recovery drawcard to boost China's inbound tourism after COVID-19.

This paper employed a mixed method involving a cross-disciplinary literature review along with reflections from experts in TCM and health communication to inform tourism management. Specifically, this paper examines TCM and its potential benefits as a medical tourism drawcard to combat COVID-19. The selected literature focusses on the image and merits of TCM to frame how this medical philosophy can be used to position China as a tourist destination. Reflections on the use of TCM as a tourism marketing tool can guide promotional strategies from the Chinese government and destination managers during and after COVID-19.

The Chinese government, the tourism industry (e.g. destination managers), the media and tourists must focus on three aspects of the role of TCM: to provide medical benefits to travellers amid COVID-19 and beyond, elevate China as a destination for global medical tourists and be leveraged as a tool for economic recovery.

The paper builds a tourism recovery framework for stakeholders to adopt tailored TCM communication strategies to boost its inbound tourism programme.

This paper is the first academic paper to review TCM comprehensively and critically in relation to China tourism and post-COVID-19 recovery measures.

The interaction of consumers and technology has become a challenge for companies and marketing professionals. Technological acceleration has transformed how business is conducted and the consumer-company relationship. The need to establish communication with (potential) consumers to promote engagement with the brand highlights the importance of using mobile instant messaging (MIM). In this context, this paper aims to investigate the use of MIM as a tool for interaction between companies and consumers.

This article investigates, through a systematic literature review (SLR), the state of the art of scientific research regarding the use of MIM as a tool for interaction between companies and consumers. To analyze the selected articles, the authors used a research protocol composed of three stages: (1) planning, (2) conducting and (3) disseminating knowledge.

This study made four main contributions to the MIM field: (1) extends the literature on MIM, focusing on the perspective of companies and consumers; (2) expands the ongoing discussions, suggesting the limited availability of research on MIM as a tool for interaction between companies and consumers; (3) development of a typology composed of three classes, namely “Consumer relationship,” “Social interaction and technology, and “Social media as channels strategy”; (4) the fourth contribution concerns identifying future research areas and answering questions.

This article is the first to investigate, through a SLR, the state of the art of scientific research regarding the use of MIM as a tool for interaction between companies and consumers.

This study aims to (1) investigate the association between companies' investment in occupational safety and their financial performance and (2) discuss the importance of occupational safety to overall performance.

Occupational safety is often considered to be a practice that can yield suboptimal return on investment. However, it is not known whether this belief is substantiated by evidence. A mapping review of the eligible research literature (N = 36) regarding firms' investment in occupational safety and their financial performance, published between 1945 and2018, was carried out in the Web of Science database.

By dispelling myths regarding return on investment associated with occupational safety, the findings of this study underscore financial gains firms can obtain by promoting occupational safety measures in their organizations.

These issues are important because they can help policymakers understand the pressures companies face in terms of occupational safety and financial performance sustainability.

Currently, ubiquitous smartphones embedded with various sensors provide a convenient way to collect raw sequence data. These data bridges the gap between human activity and multiple sensors. Human activity recognition has been widely used in quite a lot of aspects in our daily life, such as medical security, personal safety, living assistance and so on.

To provide an overview, the authors survey and summarize some important technologies and involved key issues of human activity recognition, including activity categorization, feature engineering as well as typical algorithms presented in recent years. In this paper, the authors first introduce the character of embedded sensors and dsiscuss their features, as well as survey some data labeling strategies to get ground truth label. Then, following the process of human activity recognition, the authors discuss the methods and techniques of raw data preprocessing and feature extraction, and summarize some popular algorithms used in model training and activity recognizing. Third, they introduce some interesting application scenarios of human activity recognition and provide some available data sets as ground truth data to validate proposed algorithms.

The authors summarize their viewpoints on human activity recognition, discuss the main challenges and point out some potential research directions.

It is hoped that this work will serve as the steppingstone for those interested in advancing human activity recognition.

With the development of social networking service and WeMedia, virtual brand community has become a typical platform of value co-creation and customers have become a core subject of value co-creation. The high proportion of negative members and even zombie members has become an obstacle to the sustainable development of many communities. Then, how to maintain and promote the sustainable development of virtual brand community? The purpose of this article is to examine how customers prefer community or brand.

This paper obtained data through an online questionnaire survey to test the proposed hypotheses of this study.

The findings of this study indicated that practical and social values not only promote customers to be loyal toward community but also drive customers to be loyal toward brand and their influence on community loyalty is greater than on brand loyalty, but entertainment value does not significantly affect community and brand loyalty. The effect of practical and social values on community loyalty is fully mediated by the effect of brand loyalty, and the effect of practical and social values on brand loyalty is fully mediated by the effect of community loyalty.

This research enriches the research study’s results of value co-creation theory and customer assets, thus providing a new perspective for research on customer loyalty.

The purpose of this paper is to present the obtained analytic solutions of maximal and minimal inter-satellite distances for flying-around satellite formation.

The relative motion equation is used to express the inter-satellite distance as the function of the orbital elements of two participating satellites for the flying-around satellite formation. Then by taking the derivative of the distance function with respect to the true anomaly, some possible extreme value points are obtained. According to the detailed analysis, the maximal and minimal distance solutions are found. By a reverse process, the expected initial differential orbital elements that generate the required extreme inter-satellite distances are also obtained.

The maximal and minimal distances of the flying-around formation can be analytically written as the functions of three initial orbital elements differences, i.e. the differential orbital inclination, the differential eccentricity and the differential right ascension. For the given maximal and minimal distances, there are lots of solutions of the initial differential orbital elements, which can produce the expected relative motions.

The solutions of the maximal and minimal inter-satellite distances are only accurate for the circular or near circular reference orbit. For the elliptic reference orbit, there is a need to develop new methods to find the analytic solutions.

The results here can be applied to design the factual flying-around formation with dimension requirements in mission analysis stage.

By using the solutions presented in this paper, the engineers can design the expected flying-around formation with required maximal and minimal inter-satellite distances in a very easy way.

This study aims to examine publications of supply chain management (SCM) researchers from across the world and maps the leadership role of authors and institutions based on how prolific they are in publishing and on network measures of centrality while accounting for the quality of the outlets that they publish in. It aims to inform stakeholders on who the leading SCM scholars are, their primary areas of SCM research, their publication profiles and the nature of their networks. It also identifies and informs on the leading SCM research institutions of the world and where leadership in specific areas of SCM research is emerging from.

Based on SCM papers appearing in a set of seven leading journals over the 15-year period of 2001-2015, publication scores and social network analysis measures of total degree centrality and Bonacich power centrality are used to identify the highest ranked agents in SCM research overall, as well as in some specific areas of SCM research. Social network analysis is also used to examine the nature and scope of the networks of the ranked agents and where leadership in SCM research is emerging from.

Authors and institutions from the USA and UK are found to dominate much of the rankings in SCM research both by publication score and social network analysis measures of centrality. In examining the networks of the very top authors and institutions of the world, their networks are found to be more inward-looking (country-centric) than outward-looking (globally dispersed). Further, researchers in Europe and Asia alike are found to exhibit significant continental inclinations in their network formations with researchers in Europe displaying greater propensity to collaborate with their European-based counterparts and researchers in Asia with their Asian-based counterparts. Also, from among the journals, Supply Chain Management: An International Journal is found to exhibit a far more expansive global reach than any of the other journals.

The journal set used in this study, though representative of high-quality SCM research outlets, is not exhaustive of all potential outlets that publish SCM research. Further, the measure of quality that this study assigns to the various publications is based solely on a publication score that accounts for the quality of the journals, as rated by Association of Business Schools that the papers appear in and nothing else.

By informing the community of stakeholders of SCM research about the top-ranked SCM authors, institutions and countries of the world, the nature of their networks, as well as what the primary areas of SCM research of the leading authors in the world are, this research provides stakeholders, including managers, researchers and students, information that is helpful to them not only because of the insights it provides but also for the gauging of potential for embedding themselves in specific networks, engaging in collaborative research with the leading agents or pursuing educational opportunities with them.

This research is the first of its kind to identify and rank the top SCM authors and institutions from across the world using a representative set of seven leading SCM and primary OM journals based on publication scores and social network measures of centrality. The research is also the first of its kind to identify and rank the top authors and institutions within specific areas of SCM research and to identify future research opportunities relating to aspects of collaboration and networking in research endeavors.