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In the context of the information age and smart tourism, the government’s initiative to open up internal tourism data is conducive to releasing the commercial and social value of tourism data resources. This paper used the coefficient of variation method and the entropy weight method for combined weighting, constructed an evaluation index system for government tourism data opening, calculated the scores of 21 provincial administrative regions, and used fsQCA to compare high and low evaluation values with configuration analysis. The results showed that the index system included 4 first-level indicators, 17 second-level indicators and 51 third-level indicators, which effectively evaluated the performance of tourism data opening in provincial administrative regions; the utilization layer and data layer were the first-level indicators with higher weights, legal policy efficiency, content, platform relationship, etc. were second-level indicators with higher weights; high evaluation values were configured as comprehensive development type and data-assisted application type, and low evaluation values were configured as insufficient policy & utilization type and platform & data problem type. The research results are helpful to provide a reference prototype for the research and practice of tourism data opening evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective　To investigate the variables that affect social anxiety in leukemia-affected kids. Methods　In order to better understand the 92 leukemia patients at the hematology unit of Kunming Children's Hospital, basic demographic data and measures of social anxiety were gathered through questionnaire surveys of the patients and their families. The external relationship between social anxiety and a child's own status and family circumstances was investigated using difference analysis, the internal factors affecting anxiety level were discovered using correlation analysis, and the pre-factors of social anxiety level in children with leukemia were investigated using QCA configuration analysis. Results　Children with leukemia had higher levels of social anxiety at the maintenance phase of treatment, in homes with only one parent, when grandparents were the primary caregivers, and when the monthly family income ranged from 4 001 to 8 000 yuan (P < 0.05) . Children's emotions and behaviors were strongly influenced by how much they perceived other people's assessments and opinion (P < 0.05) . Evaluation driven and self-coordinated antecedent configurations both have an impact on how much social anxiety leukemia patients experience. Conclusions　Since children with leukemia are more likely to have social anxiety, it is important to monitor their emotional and psychological well-being during the course of their treatment and during the maintenance phase. Children who exhibit social anxiety symptoms should receive psychological counseling as soon as possible. In order to lessen social anxiety in children with leukemia, try using nursing or medical social workers to intervene in specific group activities, build the bond between kids and their families, and boost their psychological resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smart education, with its intelligent, individualized, and technologized content, represents people’s lofty expectations for future education. It provides a good learning platform for teaching and an important environment in which students’ digital learning power can be developed in the context of the information technology era. Digital learning power is the ability to use and study information technology. Based on the Ecosystem Theory, this study applied the fsQCA method for analyzing the effectiveness of the development paths of digital learning power in a smart education environment. The study verified that different configurations could achieve a same goal, thus refreshing the understanding of teachers and students on how multiple concurrent factors can influence digital learning power. The key to teaching in a smart education environment relies on how teachers understand their students and how they boost their students’ internal learning driving forces instead of depending on intelligent technologies. This study shows that in order to develop students’ digital learning power in a smart education environment, the coordination between students and technologies, rather than the application of a single intelligent device, should be emphasized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The debate on the relationship between social capital and health is still ongoing. To enhance previous research, this study uses data drawn from China to analyse the situations in which social capital is related to good health and the various configurations that result in good health outcomes. Methods: Using the data of China Family Panel Studies, the conditions of age, gender, marriage, education, income, structural social capital and cognitive social capital were included to analyse the sufficient and necessary conditions for achieving good general health and their different configurations using the fsQCA method. Results: None of the listed conditions were prerequisites for excellent general health in terms of either their presence or their absence. The sufficiency analysis found 11 configurations with an average of 3–4 conditions per configuration; in no configuration was the condition of social capital present alone. Structured social capital and cognitive social capital exhibited negative states in configurations 1 and 2, respectively. The most prevalent factor in all configurations was the condition of age. Conclusions: The relationship between social capital and health is both positive and negative, with cognitive social capital playing a larger role in the positive relationship than structural social capital. Social capital is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for health, and it must be combined with a variety of other factors to promote health. A variety of methods can be used to promote an individual's health, as different populations require different approaches to good general health, and no single pathway applies to all populations. In the Chinese population, an individual's age is a significant determinant of their health status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The regional innovation ecosystem is an important force to stimulate the innovation vitality by regions. Yet, gaps in previous research limit our understanding of how regional innovation ecosystems contribute to the innovative development of regions. Therefore, this study constructs the regional innovation ecosystem analysis framework from five aspects: innovation actors, government, innovation carrier, innovation resource and innovation environment. Based on the data of 30 provinces in China, we employ the fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fs QCA) to explore causal configurations of innovation ecosystem elements that drive regional innovation development. The results show that (1) regional heterogeneity existed in these configurations. Four types of configurations can drive high regional innovation including the ‘Innovation actors -Government-Carriers-Resources’ type; ‘Innovation actors -Government-Carriers-Personnel-environment’ type; ‘Knowledge innovation actors-government-carriers-resources-environment’ type; and ‘Technology innovation actors-government-carriers-resources-environment’ type. (2) In the three configurations that lead to low regional innovation, the lack of multiple ecosystem elements is the main reason for low regional innovation. (3) Substitutive relationships exist between innovation actors and the innovation environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The phenomenon of heavy industry and heavy energy in the traditional industries of the Yellow River Basin seriously hinders its high-quality development, and digital transformation has become the direction of industrial transformation in the new era. In order to build a digital ecological community and explore the co-evolution relationship among three industries, this paper took nine provinces in the Yellow River Basin as the research object, based on the synergy model, explored the synergy of industrial digital composite systems in the basin from 2011 to 2020 and explored the driving path to achieve high-level synergy with FS-QCA method. The results show that a) the composite systems in the Yellow River Basin all show a trend of “slowly rising first and then fluctuating and falling”, and the digital synergy of industries in nine provinces (regions) is in a low synergy state for a long time; b)No single antecedent condition can constitute a necessary condition for the high synergy of industrial digitalization, and the high synergy of industrial digitalization composite system needs the joint action of many factors, and the multi-factor configuration analysis forms three paths of technology-driven, economic-based guarantee and comprehensive adjustment. Based on these three paths, it is suggested that the nine provinces (regions) in the Yellow River Basin should adopt the wisdom development of all industries, the linkage of industry-wide innovation, strengthen the dominant factors and coordinate the industrial structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industrial high-end upgrading and transformation is important to promote the development of traditional manufacturing industries including the textile and apparel industries and to promote China's economic development. The 19th and 20th CPC National Congress reports clearly put forward a new requirement to promote high-end of traditional industries which put forward new requirements for development of the textile and apparel industries we should promote the transformation from the traditional extensive growth model to the intensive growth model driven by the rate of technological progress and technical efficiency in both directions and accelerate the pace toward high end. At present China's textile and apparel industries are accelerating the expansion of overseas factories to penetrate and extend high-end links of the value chain. However the textile and apparel industries have been locked in the low end of value chain for a long time due to early influence of the technology level backward equipment and lack of senior human capital. In this context an in-depth study of drivers and paths of high-end upgrading of the textile and apparel industries is still a practical issue which needs urgent attention from government departments and the industry at this stage. Firstly based on the TOE theoretical framework we explored the key antecedent variables affecting industrial upgrading from the three dimensions of technology organization environment and constructed a theoretical framework for industrial high-end upgrading. Secondly from the productivity perspective we calculated the green total factor productivity through the SBM-GML approach to measure the industrial high-end upgrading. Thirdly we took listed enterprises in the textile and apparel industries as cases and combined NCA and fsQCA methods to examine the conditions and mechanisms of high-end upgrading in the textile and apparel industries with a view to deepening understanding of complex antecedents of high-end development in the textile and apparel industries and thus opening the black box of high-end upgrading in traditional industries. This study has two innovations. Firstly it measures green total factor productivity by including environmental pollution variables as non-expected output variables in the model to measure industrial high end and to compensate for limitations of productivity perspective in measuring high-end orientation. Secondly it combines NCA and QCA methods to carefully analyze complex causal relationship between multiple conditions and industrial high-end orientation from both necessary and sufficient perspectives which is of positive significance to deepen research on industrial high-end orientation. It is found that industrial high-end orientation can only be realized by the linkage drive of the multi-conditional grouping and single antecedent condition cannot fully determine high-end orientation of the textile and apparel industries. There are three types of high-end upgrading paths in the textile industry and technological innovation technical management human capital and tax incentives are key drivers of industrial high-end orientation. There are two types of high-end upgrading paths in apparel industry the talent capital driven path and the technology organization environment all-powerful path with human capital level being an indispensable driving factor. On the one hand the textile and apparel industries should improve their own technical capabilities as the basis for high-end development while strengthening synergistic integration and matching linkage among various elements of technology organization and environment on the other hand the textile and apparel industries should focus on industry characteristics to develop targeted long-term development strategies and form differentiated high-end path. Such research findings are of great theoretical and practical significance in revealing the high-end upgrading path of the textile and apparel industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cross-regional technology transfer is an important driving force for achieving the coordinated development of technology resources and breaking down China's provincial technical barriers. Due to the imbalance in China's technology development level, it is difficult to achieve comprehensive revitalization policies. Therefore, improving the efficiency of technology transfer is an effective way to solve this problem. This paper selects the relevant data of 31 provinces and regions in China in 2019 for analysis, uses factor analysis to measure the efficiency of technology transfer, and then proposes a technology transfer improvement path through QCA clear set configuration analysis. The study found that the development of technology transfer efficiency in 31 provinces and regions in China is extremely unbalanced. The improvement paths that effectively break this unbalanced development status can be summarized into 4 types, namely, the "intermediary-environment" leading path, weak "intermediary-R&D-environment" leading path, strong "intermediary-R&D-environment" leading path and "intermediary-economic" leading path. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As skilled talent is the core element in optimizing the industrial structure, clarifying the factors that influence the lack of skilled talent in the agricultural industry is essential. The lack of skilled talent in the agricultural industry is a complex problem. The author based this study on the push–pull theory and used the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (FSQCA) research method to explore the "joint effect" of the factors that affect the lack of skilled talents in the agricultural industry in 14 cities of Hunan Province. This paper found that indicators such as the rural industry status, rural medical level, agricultural and forestry financial investment, urbanization construction, regional economic development level, and local government officials were all presented under sufficient conditions. These influencing factors have a "combined effect" on the agricultural industry's lack of skilled talent. The rural industry status indicator was the core condition, appearing in all the configurations. This article's main marginal contribution is that it defined three conditional configurations for the lack of "present" agricultural skilled talents, and dependent configurations are consistent. Among the three conditional configurations, the "rural industry + economic construction and financial investment" configuration is the most powerful way to retain skilled agricultural talents. In addition, the causal relationship between the lack of "present" agricultural industry skilled talents and the lack of "absent" agricultural industry skilled talents are asymmetric. The primary task is to develop rural industries to solve the problem of the shortage of skilled talent in the agricultural industry. Additionally, then implement the 'industry+' combination policy. So the government must create related policies in the following areas: the supply of essential public services in rural areas, the economic construction of prefectures, the development of county urbanization, and the financial investment in agriculture, forestry, and water conservancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improving the responsiveness of local governments is the basic meaning of building a service-oriented government. Based on the analysis framework of “demand response-financial support-technology driven”, taking 31 provincial governments in China as cases, this paper uses the fuzzy sets qualitative comparative analysis method（fs/QCA） to conduct configuration analysis on the influencing factors of local government responsiveness, and proposes the path to optimize local government responsiveness. The results show that:（1） a single influencing factor is not enough to constitute the core element of a high level of local government responsiveness. Public demand, local government preference, central financial support, regional economic development level, integrated online government service capacity, digital infrastructure level and other multiple factors are concurrent, forming six configuration forms that affect local government responsiveness;（2） the optimization path of local government responsiveness can be summarized into three types: “financial support + technology driven”, “demand response + financial support”, and “demand response +financial support + technology driven” type;（3） comparing the configuration of high level and low level local government responsiveness, it is found that regional economic development level and integrated online government service capability play an important role in improving local government responsiveness. Therefore, local governments should pay attention to local conditions and choose feasible response paths suitable for their own development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Robbery, snatching, and theft are the most prevalent types of tourism crime. With the development and growth of China's tourism industry, strengthening the control of tourism-related robbery, snatching, and theft crimes is very important for maintaining and shaping the security image of tourist destinations. Based on the case data of 2,217 robbery, snatching, and theft crime incidents in China's "Unified Insurance Demonstration Project for Travel Agency Liability Insurance, "this study aims to analyze the temporal and spatial distribution characteristics of China's tourism-related robbery, snatching, and theft crime incidents. Spatial autocorrelation, standard deviation ellipse, kernel density analysis, and seasonal intensity index were used for the analysis, and the configuration influencing factors were explored using fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA). The study found that: 1) there was spatial correlation and regional agglomeration in the distribution of China's robbery, snatching, and theft crime incidents from 2010 to 2019. The high-incidence core areas showed a pointlike aggregation trend, mainly in southern and southwestern China. From 2010 to 2015, tourism-related robbery, snatching, and theft crime incidents had a significant agglomeration effect, whereas after 2016, these criminal incidents showed a random distribution. 2) The criminal incidents of robbery, snatching, and theft are spatially concentrated to the east of the "Hu Huanyong line," showing a trend where the total amount decreases every year and the high incidence areas shrink, which is highly coupled with the popularization trend of mobile payment in China. There are seasonal differences and spatial mobility characteristics to the distribution of the robbery, snatching, and theft crime incidents in various tourist destinations. The seasonal intensity index of the different regions has an upward fluctuating trend. The distribution range of these criminal incidents in the summer and autumn is larger than that in the autumn and winter, and the distribution center tends to transition to the north. Robbery, snatching, and theft crime incidents show a "hump" trend over 24 hours, with the distribution law of time concentration and provincial differences. 3) Tourism-related robbery, snatching, and theft crime incidents are the result of multiple factors. Five antecedent configuration paths constitute the sufficient conditions for the occurrence of the incidents. The mutual coupling of local risk factors (crime rate, unemployment rate, population density), tourism agglomeration factors (proportion of tourism industry and tourist trips), and social control factors (per capita public security expenditure and mobile payment level) forms the spatial differentiation pattern of robbery, snatching, and theft crime incidents. Remote provinces that rely on tourism and heavily touristed provinces with high population density are representative regions of such criminal incidents caused by configuration factors. This study reveals the provincial, temporal, and spatial distribution law of China's tourismoriented robbery, snatching, and theft crime incidents, systematically analyzes its multiple influencing factors and configuration effects, and explores the time-space coupling mechanism between tourist flow, behavior, and crime characteristics. These findings provide a theoretical reference for the monitoring and early warning of the crime incident peak at tourist destinations, the time-sharing guarantee of safety resources, and the establishment of joint prevention and control mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green ambidextrous innovation is an important measure for enterprises to obtain a green competitive advantage. Based on the TOE framework, this article discusses the configuration effect of technology, organization and environment on enterprise green ambidextrous innovation performance and the linkage matching relationship between different elements. The results show that enterprise green ambidextrous innovation needs the joint action of technology, organization and environment. There are three configuration paths to realize radical green innovation, namely, the technology factor and organization factor driven path under government environmental regulation, the technology factor and organization factor driven path under market green pressure, the organization factor and environment factor driven path based on green technology capability. Green technology capability, environmental awareness and green innovation support from senior executives are the necessary conditions for radical green innovation. There are four configuration paths for incremental green innovation, namely, the green technology capability and organization factor driven path under government environmental regulation; the technology factor and senior executive green innovation support driven path under market green pressure; the environmental awareness and environment factor driven path based on green technology capability; and the green technology management and organization factor driven path from both the government and the market. There is a strong relationship between radical green innovation and incremental green innovation paths, but radical green innovation has higher and richer requirements in technology, organization and environment. Therefore, enterprises should choose appropriate paths to realize green ambidextrous innovation based on their actual situation. For radical green innovation, enterprises should strengthen their green technology capability, increase their environ⁃ mental awareness and green innovation support from senior executives, and pay attention to the support of internal and external factors. For incremental green innovation, enterprises should focus on the two core conditions of green technology capability and senior executive green innovation support, which will help to accelerate the optimization and upgrading of green products and services. The results systematically summarize the differentiated driving paths of green ambidextrous innovation from the perspective of multidimensional interaction, which provides an important reference for enterprises to promote green ambidextrous innovation performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The piezoelectric bi-stable laminate configuration control was analyzed. • The influence of the driving voltage on the snap-through energy was discussed. • The preparation process of MFC piezoelectric bi-stable laminate was introduced. • Configuration theoretical results were verified by experiments. This paper studies the configuration change control and the snap-through phenomenon of bi-stable laminate with the MFC piezoelectric plate. The kinetic and potential energy expressions of the piezoelectric bi-stable laminate were obtained based on the von-Karman hypothesis. The constitutive equations of the system were given using a six-parameter displacement model, and the potential function of the system was derived using Hamilton's principle. The configuration changes of the piezoelectric bi-stable laminate under different geometrical conditions were analyzed. The influence of voltage on the bi-stable laminate configuration was studied by applying different driving voltages. The snap-through energy variation of the piezoelectric bi-stable laminate under different geometrical conditions was investigated. In the experimental part, the changes in bi-stable laminate configuration with different geometrical conditions and after attaching the piezoelectric plate were compared. Different driving voltages were applied to measure the difference in piezoelectric bi-stable laminate configuration, and the critical snap-through voltages were recorded. The measured changes in bi-stable laminate configuration and snap-through voltage at different voltages prove the correctness of the theoretical presentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Rapid worldwide growth in megaprojects has attracted academic interest. In practice, complexity is one of the main causes for the failure of megaprojects. This study proposes a system of project manager leadership to overcome problems of complexity in achieving success with a megaproject. Design/methodology/approach: This study uses configuration analysis, fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), to investigate the combination of complexity and leadership competencies that promote megaproject success. This study analyzes three megaproject manager leadership competencies-technical, emotional-social, and adaptive-with three megaproject complexities-structural, social, and emergent-to determine the combinations and levels required to ensure a megaproject's short- and long-term success. Seven Indonesian infrastructure megaprojects were involved in this explorative study. Findings: This study has identified four combinations between complexity and leadership competencies and three necessary conditions that can lead to a successful megaproject. This study also reports that insufficient project manager leadership competence in the technical, emotional-social, and adaptive aspects can lead to lower megaproject performance. Research limitations/implications: By using fsQCA, this study is sufficient to understand the combination of complexity and leadership competencies in the megaproject performance. However, configuration comparative analysis using small samples is unable to explain the results that are more rigorous compared with the statistical approach. Having higher cases and additional analytical approaches leading to a more robust quantitative analysis method is needed to address these limitations. Practical implications: For practitioners, this study proposes effective leadership competency combinations for managing various complexities of the megaproject. Originality/value: This study provides an insight into the competencies of megaproject management leadership. It contributes to the literature by providing fresh perspectives on megaproject management, especially in terms of complexity and leadership. This is an important research area for the development of megaproject management theory filling theoretical gaps in megaproject management in terms of the leadership aspect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this single-institution retrospective study, configuration analysis was performed to determine the optimal location and volume of hyaluronic acid gel spacer injection into the rectovaginal or vesicovaginal septum for effective dose reduction (DR) to the organs at risk (OARs), the rectum and bladder. 70 and 50 intracavitary brachytherapy treatment plans used only vaginal cylinders with gel spacers for the rectal and bladder sides, respectively, whereas 28 did not use spacers. Correlation analysis was performed between the geometrical parameters and injection position of the gel spacers and the 2-cm3 covering doses of the OARs for each treatment. A higher DR was predicted for hyaluronic acid gel spacer injection within ±5 mm and ±2.5 mm in the lateral-medial direction from the midpoint on the rectal and bladder sides, and ±10 mm in the cranial–caudal direction from the midpoint on the rectal side. There were correlations between 2-cm3 covering doses and the gel spacer parameters: the volume on the rectal (p = 0.02) and bladder (p = 0.04) sides; the craniocaudal length on the rectal side (p << 0.05); and ventrodorsad thickness on each OAR (p << 0.05) sides. There was no significant difference in the DR between a volume of ∼10 cm3 and that of a higher volume (p >> 0.05). A gel spacer volume of ∼10 cm3 provides sufficient OAR DR if its gravity point is on the midpoint between the cylinder applicator and OAR, and its craniocaudal length covers the active length of the cylinder applicator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Firewalls are essential for managing and protecting computer networks. They permit specifying which packets are allowed to enter a network, and also how these packets are modified by IP address translation and port redirection. Configuring a firewall is notoriously hard, and one of the reasons is that it requires using low level, hard to interpret, configuration languages. Equally difficult are policy maintenance and refactoring, as well as porting a configuration from one firewall system to another. To address these issues we introduce a pipeline that assists system administrators in checking if: (i) the intended security policy is actually implemented by a configuration; (ii) two configurations are equivalent; (iii) updates have the desired effect on the firewall behavior; (iv) there are useless or redundant rules; additionally, an administrator can (v) transcompile a configuration into an equivalent one in a different language; and (vi) maintain a configuration using a generic, declarative language that can be compiled into different target languages. The pipeline is based on IFCL, an intermediate firewall language equipped with a formal semantics, and it is implemented in an open source tool called FWS. In particular, the first stage decompiles real firewall configurations for iptables, ipfw, pf and (a subset of) Cisco IOS into IFCL. The second one transforms an IFCL configuration into a logical predicate and uses the Z3 solver to synthesize an abstract specification that succinctly represents the firewall behavior. System administrators can use FWS to analyze the firewall by posing SQL-like queries, and update the configuration to meet the desired security requirements. Finally, the last stage allows for maintaining a configuration by acting directly on its abstract specification and then compiling it to the chosen target language. Tests on real firewall configurations show that FWS can be fruitfully used in real-world scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to show how different combinations of the subdimensions of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) information quality (consisting of its accuracy, completeness, relevance, timeliness, and sidedness) may affect consumers' eWOM use behavior from a configurational approach. Design/methodology/approach: Based on a synthesis of past literature, five precursors of eWOM use were considered. A fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) was employed to understand the configurations that lead to travel-related eWOM use. The study was conducted with 311 consumers from an online travel service company. Findings: Findings identified six solutions that explain eWOM use. EWOM accuracy, completeness, and sidedness are found to be core conditions reinforcing consumers' use of eWOM in combination with different peripheral conditions, including the subdimensions of eWOM information quality and the traits of the consumers (such as social media use time and gender). Practical implications: Factors related to eWOM information quality and traits of the consumers, when considered in combination, predict eWOM use behavior in particular sets of conditions. Originality/value: This work enriches the eWOM literature by providing an in-depth understanding of eWOM use from a configuration perspective. Configuration analysis serves as a better tool for explaining the complex relationships among variables than a regression analysis approach does. Additionally, in response to the need to move beyond multiple regression analysis to algorithmic approaches, this study shifts the emphasis from a symmetric paradigm to an asymmetric perspective for data analysis focused on eWOM use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Portable coordinate measuring arms (CMA) represent a special class of coordinate measuring machines providing high accuracy combined with high flexibility. To obtain high accurate and reliable 3D coordinates, the kinematic model has to represent precisely the mechanical construction of the CMA. Thus, a reliable and accurate calibration is essential to preserve the CMA's accuracy. However, due to its redundant characteristics, estimating the kinematic parameters has to deal with linear dependencies and, therefore, with rank deficiencies. A profound statistical analysis of the existing calibration approaches has not yet been performed. For this reason, this paper introduces an innovative and replicable least-squares calibration approach based on the general case of adjustment (Gauß–Helmert model). This rigorous optimization procedure integrates the original observations and enables a statistical evaluation of the estimated parameters as well as of each observation, based on the configuration analysis. The applicability of the approach is proofed using simulated and real measuring data. Thanks to the configuration analysis and supported by experimental results, it is shown that an accurate solution of the calibration can be obtained using measurements only located in a small part of the workspace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we deal with the camera pose estimation problem from a set of 2D/3D line correspondences, which is also known as PnL (Perspective-n-Line) problem. We carry out our study by comparing PnL with the well-studied PnP (Perspective-n-Point) problem, and our contributions are three-fold: (1) We provide a complete 3D configuration analysis for P3L, which includes the well-known P3P problem as well as several existing analyses as special cases. (2) By exploring the similarity between PnL and PnP, we propose a new subset-based PnL approach as well as a series of linear-formulation-based PnL approaches inspired by their PnP counterparts. (3) The proposed linear-formulation-based methods can be easily extended to deal with the line and point features simultaneously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a new method called “projection kinematics” is presented for the determination of 3D configurations of DNA Origami Mechanisms (DOM) based on a single 2D projected image. The method enables finding all possible projected configurations of a DOM in space by solving the projection kinematics equations based on the minimum needed information measured from a 2D image. If redundant measurements are available, they can be exploited to eliminate ambiguous solutions. First, projection kinematic analyses were derived for the basic kinematic joints – revolute, prismatic, cylindrical and spherical joints and one degree-of-freedom (DOF) planar four-bar and two DOFs five-bar linkages. Then a generalized procedure for projection kinematic analysis is presented. Finally, a universal joint and a Bennett linkage fabricated by DNA origami self-assembly are chosen as proof-of-concept examples to verify the feasibility of projection kinematic analysis of DOM. This approach not only provides valuable guidance for the design of DOM, but also offers a low cost analysis approach for configuration estimation of spatial mechanisms when images from multiple viewing angles are not accessible, which is generally the case for the most commonly used analysis methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Activated sludge systems are commonly used for robust and efficient treatment of municipal wastewater. However, these systems cannot achieve their maximum potential to recover valuable resources from wastewater. This study demonstrates a procedure to design a feasible novel configuration for maximizing energy and nutrient recovery. A simulation model was developed based on literature data and recent experimental research using steady-state energy and mass balances with conversions. The analysis showed that in the Netherlands, proposed configuration consists of four technologies: bioflocculation, cold partial nitritation/Anammox, P recovery, and anaerobic digestion. Results indicate the possibility to increase net energy yield up to 0.24 kWh/m 3 of wastewater, while reducing carbon emissions by 35%. Moreover, sensitivity analysis points out the dominant influence of wastewater organic matter on energy production and consumption. This study provides a good starting point for the design of promising layouts that will improve sustainability of municipal wastewater management in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the design of the power system of a high-altitude airship (HAA), the principal target is to satisfy the needs of the power demand and achieve the best balance of minimum weight and maximum reliability. To handle this problem, configuration analysis of the power system is performed. Mathematical models of output power, reliability, and weight are presented. Relationships between weight, reliability, and configurations are discussed in detail. Several design rules related to the design of the HAA's power system are deduced. For obtaining the optimal configuration, the self-adaptive genetic algorithm (GA) is applied. Results show that the optimal configuration, compared to the configuration without redundancy, has a 258% increase in reliability and a 55.9% increase in weight. The weight increase is necessary to achieve more reliability improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) share information through underwater acoustic communication to realize cooperative localization, which can expand the sensing range and accomplish complex tasks, e.g., underwater exploration and reconnaissance, marine engineering, and underwater operations. However, due to the lack of underwater observation information, the configuration will directly affect the accuracy of UUVs cooperative localization. The former researches are based on algebraic derivation to analyze the observability of UUVs configuration, which is not intuitive and convenient in practical application. A new analysis method based on error ellipse for UUVs configuration and its geometric interpretation are proposed. On one hand, it proves the consistency of error ellipse index with traditional Fisher Information Matrix (FIM) and Cramer Rao lower bound (CRLB) index. On the other hand, it improves the intuitiveness and convenience for analyzing the observability of UUVs configuration. In order to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method, three UUVs are simulated, including one slave UUV and two master UUVs. Five different configurations of UUVs with separation angles 30°, 60°, 90°, 120°and 150° are selected. The experimental results show that the error ellipse index can characterize the accuracy of UUVs cooperative localization, and improve the intuitiveness of the observability of UUVs configurations. • A new analysis method based on error ellipse for UUVs configuration and its geometric interpretation are proposed. • The intuitiveness and convenience for analyzing the observability of UUVs configuration is improved. • The consistency of error ellipse index with traditional FIM and CRLB index is proven. • The geometric interpretation of the error ellipse is given and explains the reason.. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The majority of hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) available on the market are power-split hybrid vehicles with a single planetary gear (PG), including the popular Toyota Prius and Chevy Volt. Although both vehicles use a single PG, they have different configurations with different numbers of operating modes. The Prius has no clutch and has a single operating mode, whereas the Chevy Volt uses three clutches and has four modes. The goal of this paper is to present a thorough analysis of all possible configurations of power-split hybrid powertrain using a single PG. The analysis includes the following steps: 1) search for all possible ways to connect powertrain elements to the PG; 2) identify all potential locations for clutch installations around the PG and examine the feasibility of additional operating modes introduced by the clutch installation; and 3) optimize fuel economy for performance comparison. The proposed analysis shows that a single PG can produce 12 different configurations, each of which can have four feasible operating modes by adding three clutches to the PG. In case studies, we focus on the two configurations that are used in the Prius and Volt to find the impact of adding (or removing) clutches and modes on their fuel economy performance. Our results show that adding one clutch to the Prius transmission (which is named “ \Prius^+”) can significantly improve fuel economy in urban driving, whereas removing two clutches from the Volt transmission (“\Volt^-”) will not significantly affect fuel economy in both urban and highway driving. This multimode configuration analysis can be used to systematically design future power-split HEVs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Storage-area networks are a popular and efficient way of building large storage systems both in an enterprise environment and for multi-domain storage service providers. In both environments the network and the storage has to be configured to ensure that the data is maintained securely and can be delivered efficiently. In this paper, we describe a model of mandatory security for SAN services that incorporates the notion of risk as a measure of the robustness of the SAN's configuration and that formally defines a vulnerability common in systems with mandatory security, i.e. cascaded threats. Our abstract SAN model is flexible enough to reflect the data requirements, tractable for the administrator, and can be implemented as part of an automatic configuration system. The implementation is given as part of a prototype written in OPL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A chiral Schiff base N-(S)-2-(6-methoxylnaphthyl)-propanoyl-N′-(2-hydroxylbenzylidene)hydrazine (H 2 L) has been synthesized. Reaction of H 2 L with Cu(OAc)2 ·H2O led to the formation of a metal complex {[CuL]·H2O·2DMF}∞ (1). In complex 1, the potential dinegative tridentate L 2− ligand acting as tetradentate bridging ligand coordinate to two metal ions so as to form a novel infinite metal–organic coordination chain structure. The enantiomerically pure ligand H 2 L presents two different sets of signals in the 1H NMR spectrum either in chloroform solution or in dimethylsulfoxide solution, showing the presence of both (E) and (Z) isomers. The X-ray structural investigations of H 2 L revealed that it is the fully extended E-configuration in the solid state. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We present a refined model for Role Based Access Control policies and define a risk measure for the model, which expresses elements of the operational, combinatorial and conflict of interest risks present in a particular policy instance. The model includes risk-reducing mechanisms corresponding to practical mechanisms like firewalls, stack checking, redundancy, and event tracking that are frequently used to reduce risks in real systems. We also define policy transformation operators that produce new policies that allow the behaviours of the old policy while potentially reducing the risk measure. Sequences of these operators can be used to find policies that are less risky but still implement the initial policy. An example is give for Grid computing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Five-axis machine tools are designed in a large variety of kinematic configurations and structures. Regardless of the type of the intended analysis, a kinematic model of the machine tool has to be developed in order to determine the translational and rotational joint movements required to achieve a specified position and orientation of the cutting tool relative to the workpiece. A generic and unified model is developed in this study as a viable alternative to the particular solutions that are only applicable to individual machine configurations. This versatile model is then used to verify the feasibility of the two rotational joints within the kinematic chain of three main types of five-axis machine tools: the spindle rotating, rotary table, and hybrid type. A numerical measure of total translational joint movement is proposed to evaluate the kinematic performance of a five-axis machine tool. The corresponding kinematic analyses have confirmed the advantages of the popular machine design that employs intersecting rotational axes and the common industrial practice during setup that minimizes the characteristic rotating arm length of the cutting tool and/or workpiece. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Mobile laser scanning has become an established measuring technique that is used for many applications in the fields of mapping, inventory, and monitoring. Due to the increasing operationality of such systems, quality control w.r.t. calibration and evaluation of the systems becomes more and more important and is subject to on-going research. This paper contributes to this topic by using tools from geodetic configuration analysis in order to design and evaluate a plane-based calibration field for determining the lever arm and boresight angles of a 2D laser scanner w.r.t. a GNSS/IMU unit (Global Navigation Satellite System, Inertial Measurement Unit). In this regard, the impact of random, systematic, and gross observation errors on the calibration is analyzed leading to a plane setup that provides accurate and controlled calibration parameters. The designed plane setup is realized in the form of a permanently installed calibration field. The applicability of the calibration field is tested with a real mobile laser scanning system by frequently repeating the calibration. Empirical standard deviations of <1... 1.5 mm for the lever arm and <0.005 ∘ for the boresight angles are obtained, which was priorly defined to be the goal of the calibration. In order to independently evaluate the mobile laser scanning system after calibration, an evaluation environment is realized consisting of a network of control points as well as TLS (Terrestrial Laser Scanning) reference point clouds. Based on the control points, both the horizontal and vertical accuracy of the system is found to be < 10 mm (root mean square error). This is confirmed by comparisons to the TLS reference point clouds indicating a well calibrated system. Both the calibration field and the evaluation environment are permanently installed and can be used for arbitrary mobile laser scanning systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Calibration of terrestrial laser scanners (TLSs) is one of the fundamental tasks for assuring the high measurement accuracy required by an increasing number of end-users. Nevertheless, the development of user-oriented calibration approaches is still an active topic of research. The calibration fields for the target-based self-calibration of TLSs described in the literature are based on the quasi-random distribution of a high number of targets, and they rely on heavy redundancy. This redundancy assures highly accurate calibration results, however, with the price of reduced efficiency. In contrast, this work follows the design, implementation, and validation of a user-oriented, cost-efficient calibration field intended for TLS calibration prior to measurement campaigns. Multiple goals and constraints are placed upon the design of the calibration field, such as comprehensive calibration for high-end panoramic TLSs considering all relevant mechanical misalignments, delivering stable and reusable calibration parameters, increasing calibration efficiency by minimizing calibration-field assembly, measurement acquisition and processing time through reducing the number of targets and scanner stations, as well as estimating calibration parameters with predefined quality criteria. The calibration field design was derived through a series of simulation experiments and it was compared with the current state of the art. The simulations indicate comparable calibration results, with eight times smaller number of targets (14 instead of 120). The implemented calibration field was tested on a range of instruments, successfully improving the measurement quality, both in situ and in the subsequent applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]