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This study aims to improve the robot’s performance during interactions with human and uncertain environments.

A joint stiffness model was established according to the molecular current method and the virtual displacement method. The position and stiffness coordination controller and fuzzy adaptive controller of variable stiffness joint are designed, and the principle prototype of variable stiffness joint is built. The position step and trajectory tracking performance of the variable stiffness joint are verified through experiments.

Experimental test shows that the joint stiffness can be quickly adjusted. The accuracy of position and trajectory tracking of the joint increases with higher stiffness and decreases with increasing frequency. The fuzzy adaptive controller performed better than the position and stiffness coordination controller in controlling the position step and trajectory tracking of the variable stiffness joint.

A hybrid flux adjustment mechanism is proposed for the components of variable stiffness robot joints, which reduces the mass of the output end of variable stiffness joints and the speed of joint stiffness adjustment. Aiming at the change of system controller performance caused by the change of joint stiffness, a fuzzy adaptive controller is proposed to improve the position step and trajectory tracking characteristics of variable stiffness joints.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between bank diversity and small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) firm innovation in China to evaluate the impact of recent bank deregulation.

Using a large data set that includes 8,143 firm-year observations of 1,122 listed SME firms in China and baseline and robustness regression analyses, the authors identify how bank diversity affects firm innovation and via what economic mechanisms. Potential endogeneity problems are considered and addressed in the design and analysis to minimize research bias.

The authors find robust evidence that bank diversity improves firm innovation. Specifically, the findings suggest that the positive effects of bank diversity on firm innovation are only significant for the firms which are more external finance dependent, have fewer growth opportunities and/or located in the provinces having low financial market development.

This study provides novel evidence and insights into the relationship between banking market structure and the determinants of firm innovation in the Chinese context, as a result of China’s banking deregulation.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the process of rapid prototyping eddy current sensors using 3D printing technology. Making full use of the advantages of 3D printing, the authors study on a new method for fabrication of an eddy current sensor.

In this paper, the authors establish a 3D model using SolidWorks. And the eddy current sensor is printed by the fused deposition modeling method.

Measurement results show that the 3D printing eddy current sensor has a wider linear measurement range and better linearity than the traditional manufacturing sensor. Compared to traditional eddy current sensor fabrication method, this 3D printed sensor can be fabricated at a lower cost, and the fabrication process is more convenient and faster.

This demonstrated 3D printing process can be applied to the 3D printing of sensors of more sophisticated structures that are difficult to fabricate using conventional techniques.

In this work, the process of rapid prototyping eddy current sensors using 3D printing is presented. Sensors fabricated with the 3D printing possess lots of merits than traditional manufactures. 3D printed sensors can be customized according to the configuration of the overall system, thus reducing the demand of sensor's rigid mounting interfaces. The 3D printing also reduce design costs as well as shortens the development cycle. This allows for quick translation of a design from concept to a useful device.

This paper aims to evaluate the inhibitive effect and adsorption behavior of the 2-amino-5-thiol-1,3,4-thiadiazole vanillin (A) on copper in 3 per cent NaCl solution.

A thiazole Schiff bases were synthesized, named, 2-amino-5-thiol-1,3,4-thiadiazole vanillin (A), which was fabricated respectively on copper surface by the molecular self-assembled. Evaluation was carried out by electrochemical measurement and surface analysis techniques. Measurement of static friction coefficient scanning electron microscopy and Contact angle analysis were applied, and it is finally confirmed the existence of the adsorbed film. The inhibitive mechanism of A was evaluated by means of quantitative calculation and molecular dynamics simulation.

The electrochemical measurement indicated that the self-assembled molecular film can effectively inhibit the corrosion of copper sheet, when the concentration was 15 mmol⋅L⁻¹ and the assembly time was 6 h, the corrosion inhibition effect was the best, reaching as high as 97.5 per cent. Scanning electron microscopy results showed that the Schiff base compound forms a protective film on the surface of the copper, which effectively blocks the transfer of corrosion particles to the metal substrate, thereby inhibiting the occurrence of corrosion. Adsorption behavior of A followed the Langmuir’s adsorption isotherm and attributed to mixed-type adsorption. The results of Quantitative calculation and molecular dynamics simulation showed that A was adsorbed on Cu (111) surface in parallel.

In this study, the corrosion inhibition properties of Schiff base film were investigated by combining theory with experiment. Theoretical calculation is helpful to guide the synthesis of efficient and environmentally friendly corrosion inhibitors.

The damage caused by metal corrosion is great. The self-assembled Schiff base membrane synthesized in this paper is simple and compact, and the corrosion inhibition efficiency of copper in 3 per cent NaCl solution is 97.5 per cent.

Inhibition of metal corrosion can better save energy and reduce economic losses.

The synthesized Schiff base was prepared on the copper surface by the molecular self-assembled. The Schiff base membrane has a good corrosion inhibition effect on copper in 3 per cent NaCl solution, and the corrosion inhibition efficiency is up to 97.5 per cent.

This paper aims to first analyze the reasons of a brick-wooden building tilts in Yunnan province in China. Then, a jacking method which combines the stress release methods and the excavation of stress release trench were put forward.

This method uses the anchor static pile to guarantee the safety of the building in the process of rectifying.

The practice showed that the inclination rate of the building was stable in the process of jacking, which proved the efficiency of the proposed method.

It has a great value for similar rectification projects, and for the protection of cultural heritage and ancient buildings have a positive effect.

This paper aims to explore the transformation process and transformation mechanism of carbon steel under the marine environment.

In this paper, the transformation and rust layers corrosion products on 0Cu2Cr carbon steel with different cycles coupon test was investigated and deeply explored by scanning electron microscope, energy dispersive spectrometer, X-ray diffraction.

The results showed that the thickness of rust layers grew from 71.83 µm to 533.7 µm with increasing duration of corrosion. The initial corrosion product was γ-FeOOH, then part of the γ-FeOOH continued growing, and under the capillary action, the other part of the γ-FeOOH transformed to α-FeOOH.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper puts forward for the first time a new viewpoint of the development of corrosion products of low-carbon steel in two ways. This discovery provides a new idea for the future development of steel for marine engineering.

This study aims to determine whether or not fashion retail brands can maintain their essence by providing personalized care through conventional face-to-face interactions or the use of e-services.

An exploratory investigation is being conducted to attain this goal. According to the findings of this research, Chatbots have an impact on consumer loyalty. The quality of a Chatbot’s system, service and information are all critical to providing a positive consumer experience.

The study concluded that Chatbot e-services might potentially enable dynamic and fascinating interactions between firms and their consumers. To personalize a Chatbot, firms might change the tone of the language used. Customers are more likely to use a Chatbot if it resembles a real person, which increases their pleasure and confidence in the product.

More precisely, the emphasis of the inquiry was on Chatbot, a relatively new digital tool that offers user-friendly, personalized and one-of-a-kind support to customers. Using information supplied by consumers, the authors examine a five-dimensional model that gauges how customers feel about Chatbots in terms of their ability to communicate with users, offer amusement, be trendy, personalize interactions and solve problems.

The paper aims to investigate the possible changes in mean temperature in the Mongolian Plateau associated with the 1.5 and 2°C global warming targets and how snow changes in the Mongolian Plateau when the mean global warming is well below 2°C or limited to 1.5°C.

In total, 30 model simulations of consecutive temperature and precipitation days from Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) are assessed in comparison with the 111 meteorological monitoring stations from 1961–2005. Multi-model ensemble and model relative error were used to evaluate the performance of CMIP5 models. Slope and the Mann–Kendall test were used to analyze the magnitude of the trends and evaluate the significance of trends of snow depth (SD) from 1981 to 2014 in the Mongolian Plateau.

Some models perform well, even better than the majority (80%) of the models over the Mongolian Plateau, particularly HadGEM2-CC, CMCC-CM, BNU-ESM and GFDL-ESM2M, which simulate best in consecutive dry days (CDD), consecutive wet days (CWD), cold spell duration indicator (CSDI) and warm spell duration indicator (WSDI), respectively. Emphasis zones of WSDI on SD were deeply analysed in the 1.5 and 2 °C global warming period above pre-industrial conditions, because it alone has a significant negative relation with SD among the four indices. It is warmer than before in the Mongolian Plateau, particularly in the southern part of the Mongolian Plateau, indicating less SD.

Providing climate extremes and SD data sets with different spatial-temporal scales over the Mongolian Plateau. Zoning SD potential risk areas and proposing adaptations to promote regional sustainable development.

Variable fractional delay filtering is an important technology in signal processing; the research shows that all-pass variable fractional delay (VFD) filters achieve higher design accuracy than FIR VFD filters; therefore, the design, analysis and implementation of all-pass VFD filters are of great importance.

In this paper, a two-stage approach for the design of general 1-D stable VFD all-pass filters is proposed. The method takes the desired group delay range [N−1, N], where N is the filter order.

The design algorithm is decomposed into two design stages: first, a set of fixed delay all-pass filters are designed by minimizing a set of objective functions defined in terms of approximating error criterion and filter stability constraint. Then, the design result is determined by fitting each of the fixed delay all-pass filter coefficients as 1-D polynomials. A design example together with its comparisons with those of the recent literature studies is given to justify the effectiveness of the proposed design method.

An illustrating design example shows that the method proposed can achieve better filter performances than the existing ones.

Dyadic interactions are significant for human life. Most body sensor networks-based research studies focus on daily actions, but few works have been done to recognize affective actions during interactions. The purpose of this paper is to analyze and recognize affective actions collected from dyadic interactions.

A framework that combines hidden Markov models (HMMs) and k-nearest neighbor (kNN) using Fisher kernel learning is presented in this paper. Furthermore, different features are considered according to the interaction situations (positive situation and negative situation).

Three experiments are conducted in this paper. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed Fisher kernel learning-based framework outperforms methods using Fisher kernel-based approach, using only HMMs and kNN.

The research may help to facilitate nonverbal communication. Moreover, it is important to equip social robots and animated agents with affective communication abilities.

The presented framework may gain strengths from both generative and discriminative models. Further, different features are considered based on the interaction situations.