Metamodelling-based Product Family Design of Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles

Development of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) is stimulated by the need to replace non-renewable energies with sustainable and more environment-friendly new energy types. PHEVs benefit from a combination of an internal combustion engine and an electric motor with a rechargeable and larger battery pack than conventional hybrid vehicles. In order to maximise customer satisfaction and motivate replacement of the conventional vehicles with this new technology, the design of PHEVs requires sufficient differentiation in the product specifications for diverse market segments. The added set-up time, processes, costs and longer lead time for designing and manufacturing a diverse range of such vehicles is a hurdle towards increasing their diversity. This study proposes an efficient product family design (PFD) method for mass customisation of the PHEV powertrains. The methodology is less dependent on expensive simulations due to use of metamodelling and non-conventional sensitivity analysis. The PFD concept and its implications to a family of five PHEVs are investigated, and benefits as well as limitations of a sustainable development for this complex product are discussed.     

Examining the agricultural producer identity: utilising the collective occupational identity construct to create a typology and profile of rural landholders in Victoria,Australia

Multifunctional rural landscapes are often characterised by contrasting values, land uses and land management practices of rural property owners. It seems these trends are, in part, an expression of rural landholder's identification as farmers. Existing typologies of rural landholders seldom take into account occupational identity. Research discussed in this paper addresses that gap. The objective was to apply the collective occupational identity construct to address the challenges of profiling rural landholders and test its effectiveness at distinguishing between different types of landholders. A 12-item scale was used to explore the extent rural landholders in south-eastern Australia held an agricultural producer identity. Cluster analysis resulted in the creation of four clusters of rural landholders with distinctive characteristics, suggesting the approach can provide researchers with a theoretically sound construct and practitioners with a useful tool as they attempt to better understand and engage rural landholders in sustainable agriculture.     

Place attachment and place identity: First-year undergraduates making the transition from home to university

This paper examines the issues emanating from the transition into a new social and cultural environment distant from the home, the context of which is provided by the transition from home to university. The study analyses the transitional process over a period of 5 months, using data obtained from in-depth semi-structured interviews and participant observation of ten first-year undergraduates who moved to study at the University of Gloucestershire in Cheltenham. It explores the mediating variables that impact place attachment and place identity during the transition from home to university. Within this context consideration is given to how participants made sense of changes in their socio-spatial environment, the ensuing problems and challenges of doing so, and how these meanings affected self-perceptions and self-evaluations. The analysis demonstrates how participant's stories of the transition evince an abiding concern with the loss of place, manifest in terms of an erosion of a sense of belonging, attachment and continuity and an undermining of home's capacity to symbolise the self. The implications of such accounts for our understanding of place attachment and identity are then explored. The paper concludes by advocating a holistic approach to our conceptualisation of place, given that place meanings are constantly being evaluated and redefined in light of changing social and physical relationships with place and between people and place.     

Work as good‐minded undertakings and effortless assignments: Chinese meaning of working for hospitality workers and its motivational implications

Meaning of working (MOW) or the understanding of the purpose of working is a cornerstone in organizational behavior. This study answers the call to explain the MOW in Eastern contexts characterized by interdependent identities. We collect our data from hospitality workers in Taiwan, where Chinese Confucian and Taoist cultural precepts are strong. Our findings reveal that our informants use 25 typical vocabularies of motive in establishing and maintaining five salient identities that gain significance through two Chinese work meanings (i.e., good‐minded undertakings and effortless assignments). These meanings demonstrate the theoretical contributions of our findings to the MOW literature. We also explore the interplay between our emic findings (grounded in Taoism and Confucianism Chinese cultures) with etic motivation theory to advance understanding of prevention and promotion foci.     

Uniting multi‐adult households during emergency evacuation planning

When a no‐notice emergency prompts an evacuation, family members in different locations throughout a city may unite so that they can evacuate as a group. This paper draws on data from more than 300 interviews conducted in the metropolitan area of Chicago, Illinois, United States. The study uses discrete choice models to analyse the expectations of respondents regarding whether their likely plans for evacuation involve gathering spouses, parents, adult‐age children, and/or non‐family members. In addition, it addresses the matter of whether respondents plan to reunite with family members at home. Individuals' access to a personal car is the dominating factor in predicting whether respondents plan to gather a spouse. Being the parent of a child under the age of 18 years increases the tendency to report planning to reunite with family members at home. Both commute mode and car availability are not significantly associated with plans to reunite at home.     

比色法快速测定室内空气甲醛含量

室内空气甲醛的现场快速监测技术已成为环境监测的热点研究领域,旨在为普通家庭提供室内空气甲醛现场监测方法。优化了甲醛吸收液用量、自然吸收时间及吸收液与空气接触面积对监测方法的影响,制作了用于目测室内空气中甲醛含量的标准比色卡,方法简便、快速、经济、实用,可望在普通家庭中得到广泛应用。     

Occupational boundary play: Crafting a sense of identity legitimacy in an emerging occupation

In emerging occupations, individuals are given very little prepackaged identity “content”—for example, occupational values, legitimating ideologies, clear goals, tasks, and/or routines—to help them build their individual-level occupational identities. By contrast, individuals in well-established occupations (e.g., professions) are given ample identity content, and prior identity research has examined identity work processes almost exclusively in the context of such occupations. Consequently, prior theory assumes that identity work is mostly a matter of tailoring prepackaged identity content to fit one's individual-level preferences and objectives. Prior theory is therefore of limited use in emerging occupations, where the key identity problem is not one of tailoring identity content effectively but creating an identity in the first place—more specifically, an identity whose existence feels justified and valid. Thus, in this paper, we ask: how do individuals in emerging occupations construct an internal sense that “who they are” is necessary, desirable, and appropriate (i.e., legitimate) within the broader occupational landscape? On the basis of a grounded theory study of health coaches, we suggest that individuals in such circumstances can craft this sense of “identity legitimacy” via a sensemaking process we call occupational boundary play. This process consists of both “occupational boundary setting” and “occupational boundary blurring,” the former providing for individuals a sense of identity novelty and the latter providing a sense of identity familiarity. Taken together, this subjective experience of both novelty and familiarity provides for individuals the sense that “who they are” is legitimate within the broader occupational landscape.     

Pay satisfaction and work–family conflict across time

On the basis of justice and exchange theories, the authors propose that employees offset their levels of work–family conflict (WFC) with their levels of pay satisfaction. Results based on two waves of data indicate that pay satisfaction has a negative relationship with WFC after controlling for actual pay and other work‐related and family‐related variables. Analysis of pay satisfaction dimensions reveals that satisfaction with benefits and pay structure are negatively related to WFC, whereas satisfaction with pay level and pay raise are not. Number of dependents and level of education moderate the relationship between pay satisfaction and WFC; specifically, having more dependents and higher education attenuates the relationship between pay satisfaction and WFC. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Ethical Issues Related to Food Sector Evolution in Developing Countries: About Sustainability and Equity

After a century of major technicaladvance, essentially achieved by and for theindustrialized countries, the evolution of thefood sector in southern countries should nolonger be thought of in terms of a ``headlongpursuit.'' In the present context of demographicgrowth, urbanization, poverty and disparities,environmental degradation, and globalization oftrade, new priorities have emerged, and newethical questions have been raised, mainlyrelated to sustainability and equity. Thispaper analyses these ethical concerns in thefollowing terms: can the model of food sectordevelopment initiated by the industrializedcountries be applied to the entire world on asustainable and equitable basis, given theeffects of this development with regard to theenergy consumed, the changes in dietarybehavior and related nutritional problems, thenew demands in terms of food safety, thequestions of biodiversity, ownership ofknowledge, cultural identities, gender issues,and Man's relationship to food and Nature?