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Family Justice Centers, or “one-stop shops” that enable domestic violence victims to access a range of services at one location, are becoming increasingly common. However, there is a limited body of research examining the outcomes and planning processes of these Centers. The early phases of planning Centers are critical to their initial and ongoing success. The purpose of this paper is to discuss these issues.

In total, 15 stakeholders in a community in the early phases of planning a Center were interviewed.

Content analysis procedures were used to identify themes related to participants’ ideas about what the Family Justice Center should look like (e.g. services to include and perceived benefits and challenges for the Center), the steps required for planning it (e.g. identifying the purpose of the Center, getting key people involved, and building collaborations), and desired technologies.

This paper is the first known research effort to examine the early phases of development in constructing a Family Justice Center.

The purpose of this study is to review and summarise the existing available literature on lightweight cladding systems to provide detailed information on fire behaviour (ignitibility, heat release rate and smoke toxicity) and various test method protocols. Additionally, the paper discusses the challenges and provides updated knowledge and recommendation on selective-fire mechanisms such as rapid-fire spread, air cavity and fire re-entry behaviours due to dripping and melting of lightweight composite claddings.

A comprehensive literature review on fire behaviour, fire hazard and testing methods of lightweight composite claddings has been conducted in this research. In summarising all possible fire hazards, particular attention is given to the potential impact of toxicity of lightweight cladding fires. In addition, various criteria for fire performance evaluation of lightweight composite claddings are also highlighted. These evaluations are generally categorised as small-, intermediate- and large-scale test methods.

The major challenges of lightweight claddings are rapid fire spread, smoke production and toxicity and inconsistency in fire testing.

The review highlights the current challenges in cladding fire, smoke toxicity, testing system and regulation to provide some research recommendations to address the identified challenges.

This paper uses a laboratory experiment to examine the effect of accountability pressure as a monitoring control tool to mitigate subordinates' propensity to create budgetary slack. The results suggest that budgetary slack is (lowest) highest when accountability pressure is (present) absent under a private information situation. The results further reveal that accountability pressure is positively associated with subordinates' perceived levels of honesty, which in turn is negatively associated with budgetary slack creation. The findings of this paper have important theoretical and practical implications for budgetary control systems design.

In the age of global warming where there is a need to go green in various sectors of life, it is also an urgent need for different IT industries and companies to incorporate green agenda. The green agenda is also dependent on human behavior. Therefore, it is equally important to explore the factors that positively affect green computing behavior. In this regard, contextual considerations are important. Thus, the purpose of this study is to explore the green computing intent and behavior of heavy IT users, i.e. librarians underpinning the theory of planned behavior.

The study was based on a quantitative research design. A total of 181 survey-based online questionnaires were filled by Pakistani university librarians. The proposed hypothetical model was tested using structural equation modeling in SmartPLS v3.2.

The study findings confirm that attitude and perceived behavioral control have a significant positive impact on the intention to adopt green computing behavior (GC behavior) among academic librarians. The findings further reveal that green computing awareness proved a strong predictor of green computing behavior, as it not only affects GC behavior but also impacts positively on attitude and perceived behavioral control that ultimately affects GC behavior through intention.

The study argues that green computing behavior is dependent on several predictors that can be deployed to develop a positive behavior towards green computing. The study is important as it is the first time conducted on one of the heavy IT user groups, i.e. librarians.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically test for submarket existence based on an understanding of the residential rental housing market in Ghana.

Based on extant literature and market observations, the authors provide key concepts and an overview of the residential rental market dynamics in Ghana. Reseachers appreciate that submarkets may exist in the Ghanaian rental market but have ignored the empirical testing for submarket existence due to data asymmetries. Based on real estate experts and stakeholder consultations, a priori delineation of submarkets are constructed based on spatial, structural and a nested approach. Submarket existence is tested using the Kruskal–Wallis H test and Hedonic modelling techniques.

By using fieldwork data from Accra rental market, the analysis provides credence to the conceptualisation of submarkets and how to empirically test for same. It is argued that researchers should use alternative methods to compare results to make far-reaching conclusions.

Examining the hypothesis that differential rental values exists for submarkets has implications for policy decisions to target submarket constructs differently to improve market maturity.

The research provides stakeholder investors in the rental space an understanding of market dynamics for profit maximisation, and end-users to maximise utility in deciding where to live – and as such households could benefit from making informed investment decisions on housing.

This research is one of the first attempts to empirically identify and test for submarkets existence in Ghana’s residential rental housing market.

Naparima Company Limited (NCL) was an importer and wholesaler of grocery and household products in Trinidad and Tobago, West Indies. Following increasing competition and the adoption of more lavish lifestyles by its owners, the company had fallen on hard times. Its banker, First Republic Bank, had called its outstanding loans of $1.412 million and given the company 90 days to repay all sums outstanding. Also, several major creditors had threatened legal action to recover amounts payable. This had forced NCL to explore alternative financing arrangements and to devise strategies that would improve its financial situation.

The authors used both field interviews and secondary data when preparing this case. One of the authors was a consultant to the company as it worked to develop a restructuring plan. The primary data gleaned from that process, which included interviews with all three leaders of NCL and a review of the company's financial statements, was supplemented by the collection of secondary data about the industry and its competitors from interviews with the executive director of industry association, and information about the national economic environment from newspaper articles and library resources.

This case is suitable for senior-level undergraduate students in a capstone business course, and graduate students in small business management and family business management courses.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the development process of the fire whirl in the fixed-frame facility and focus on the impacts of the fire whirl’s vortex core on the formation and flame structure of the fire whirl.

The complex turbulent reacting flame surface is captured by the large eddy simulation turbulence closure coupled with two sub-grid scale (SGS) kinetic schemes (i.e. the chemistry equilibrium and steady diffusion flamelet). Numerical predictions are validated thoroughly against the measurements by Lei et al. (2015) with excellent agreements. A double maximum tangential velocity refinement approach is proposed to quantify the vortex cores’ instantaneous location and region, addressing the missing definition in other studies.

The numerical results show that the transition process of the fire whirl is dominated by the vortex core movement, which is related to the centripetal force. The unsteadiness of the fully developed fire whirl was found depending on the instantaneous fluctuation of heat release rate. The steady diffusion flamelet scheme is essential to capture the instantaneous fluctuation. Furthermore, the axial velocity inside the vortex core is the key to determining the state of fire whirl.

Due to intensive interactions between buoyant fires and ambient rotating flow, the on-set and formation of fire whirl still remain largely elusive. This paper focused on the transition process of fire whirl between different development stages. This paper provides insights into the transition process from the inclined flame to the fire whirls based on the centripetal force.

This paper presented and compared two SGS kinetic schemes to resolve the fire whirl development process and the unsteadiness of its vortical structures. The modelling framework addresses the shortcoming of previous numerical studies where RANS turbulence closure and simplified combustion kinetics was adopted. Numerical results also revealed the fire whirl transition process and its relationship to centripetal force.