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1 – 10 of 11
Article
Publication date: 1 December 1999

Beth C. Muñoz, Gregory Steinthal and Steven Sunshine

Polymer‐carbon black composites are a new class of chemical detecting sensors used in electronic noses. These composites are prepared by mixing carbon black and polymer in an…

1444

Abstract

Polymer‐carbon black composites are a new class of chemical detecting sensors used in electronic noses. These composites are prepared by mixing carbon black and polymer in an appropriate solvent. The mixture is deposited on a substrate between two metal electrodes, whereby the solvent evaporates leaving a composite film. Arrays of these chemiresistors, made from a chemically diverse number of polymers and carbon black, swell reversibly, inducing a resistance change on exposure to chemical vapors. These arrays generate a pattern that is a unique fingerprint for the vapor being detected. With the aid of algorithms these patterns are processed and recognized. These arrays can detect and discriminate between a large number of chemical vapors.

Details

Sensor Review, vol. 19 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0260-2288

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 November 2012

Audrey C. Rule, Zaid A. Alkouri, Shelly J. Criswell, Judith L. Evans, Angela N. Hileman, Harun Parpucu, Bin Ruan, Beth Dykstra Van Meeteren, Jill Uhlenberg, Olga S. Vasileva and Ksenia S. Zhbanova

Students need to learn and practice creative thinking skills to ensure success in solving everyday, national, and global problems that include those affecting economic issues. The…

Abstract

Students need to learn and practice creative thinking skills to ensure success in solving everyday, national, and global problems that include those affecting economic issues. The global economy requires workers to have research and innovation skills that depend upon creativity. However, many current educational programs focus mostly on factual content, doing little to inspire or apply the creative process. The project presented here shows an engaging activity that combines creative thinking skills with economic content. Although the activity occurred in a college course on creativity theory and practice, this challenging game can be easily adapted and embedded in the Kindergarten-12 social studies curriculum. This article discusses the set-up of the activity and its connection to creativity theory and curriculum standards. It showcases the work of eleven participants who each made a unique object or scene from a given set of craft and recycled materials, subsequently relating the resulting product to a current economic issue. Photographs of the resulting products are provided along with descriptions of the theme of each item, its connection to economics, and creative aspects of the work. Suggestions for adaptation to the Kindergarten-12 classroom are given.

Details

Social Studies Research and Practice, vol. 7 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1933-5415

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 2 May 2017

Clementine Hill O’Connor and Rachel Baker

This paper considers the specific opportunities and challenges of engaging in ethnographic research with organisations in which the researcher participates as a volunteer…

3611

Abstract

Purpose

This paper considers the specific opportunities and challenges of engaging in ethnographic research with organisations in which the researcher participates as a volunteer ethnographer.

Design/methodology/approach

The findings in this paper are based on four years of ethnographic research within a social enterprise.

Findings

This paper finds that there are significant benefits of the role of the volunteer ethnographer and suggests ways to address some of the challenges.

Research limitations/implications

As the field of social enterprise and ethnography grows and researchers engage with methodological discussions about participant observation, the authors suggest that attention should also be paid to the specifics of the role of the volunteer ethnographer.

Originality/value

There is growing interest in the use of ethnography in social enterprises. This paper offers unique insight into how this methodology has been applied in the context of self-reliant groups and the importance of the engaging with discussion about the specific role of the volunteer ethnographer.

Details

Social Enterprise Journal, vol. 13 no. 02
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1750-8614

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 September 2020

Bessie Patricia Dernikos

The purpose of this paper is to explore the sonic vibrations, infectious rhythms and alternative frequencies that are often unheard and overlooked within mainstream educational…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore the sonic vibrations, infectious rhythms and alternative frequencies that are often unheard and overlooked within mainstream educational spaces, that is, perceptually coded out of legibility by those who read/see/hear the world through “whiteness.”

Design/methodology/approach

“Plugging into” (Jackson and Mazzei, 2012) posthuman theories of affect (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987; Henriques, 2010) and assemblage (Weheliye, 2014), the author argues that “literate bodies,” along with all forms of matter, continually vibrate, move, swell and rebel (Deleuze, 1990), creating momentum that is often difficult not to get tangled up in.

Findings

This paper maps out how a specific sociohistorical concept of sound works to affectively orient bodies and impact student becomings, namely, by producing students as un/successful readers and in/human subjects. At the same time, the author attends to the subtle ways by which first graders rebelliously move (d) with alternative sonic frequencies to resist/disrupt mandated literacy curricula and white, patriarchal ways of knowing, being and doing.

Originality/value

This paper highlights the political nature of sound and how, within mainstream educational spaces, certain sonic frequencies become coded out of white supremacist models for knowledge transmission, which re/produce racialized (gendered, classist, etc.) habits and practices of listening/hearing. Literacy educators are invited to “(re)hear” the social in more just ways (James, 2020) by sensing the affects and effects of more-than-human “sonic bodies” (Henriques, 2011), which redirect us to alternative rhythms, rationalities, habits and practices that challenge normative conceptions of what counts as literacy and who counts as successfully literate.

Details

English Teaching: Practice & Critique, vol. 19 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1175-8708

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 30 January 2009

Marcela Mejia, Néstor Peña, José L. Muñoz and Oscar Esparza

Mobile ad hoc networks rely on cooperation to perform essential network mechanisms such as routing. Therefore, network performance depends to a great extent on giving…

1659

Abstract

Purpose

Mobile ad hoc networks rely on cooperation to perform essential network mechanisms such as routing. Therefore, network performance depends to a great extent on giving participating nodes an incentive for cooperation. The level of trust among nodes is the most frequently used parameter for promoting cooperation in distributed systems. There are different models for representing trust, each of which is suited to a particular context and leads to different procedures for computing and propagating trust. The goal of this study is to analyze the most representative approaches for mobile ad hoc networks. It aims to obtain a qualitative comparison of the modeling approaches, according to the three basic components of a trust model: information gathering, information scoring and ranking, and action execution.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper identifies the different tasks required by a trust system and compares the way they are implemented when the system model itself is based on information theory, social networks, cluster concept, graph theory and game theory. It also provides a common nomenclature for the models. The study concentrates exclusively on the trust models themselves, without taking into account other aspects of the original articles that are beyond the scope of this analysis.

Findings

The study identifies the main components that a trust model must provide, and compares the way they are implemented. It finds that the lack of unity in the different proposed approaches makes it difficult to conduct an objective comparison. Finally, it also notices that most of the models do not properly manage node reintegration.

Originality/value

The best of our knowledge, the study is the first that uses information scoring and ranking as classification key. According to this key, approaches can be classified as based on information theory, clusters and social network theory, and cooperative and non‐cooperative game theory. It also provides a common nomenclature for all of them. Finally, the main contribution of the paper is to provide an analysis of the most representative approaches and present a novel qualitative comparison.

Details

Internet Research, vol. 19 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1066-2243

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 September 2021

Scott Storm and Karis Jones

This paper aims to describe the critical literacies of high school students engaged in a youth participatory action research (YPAR) project focused on a roleplaying game, Dungeons

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to describe the critical literacies of high school students engaged in a youth participatory action research (YPAR) project focused on a roleplaying game, Dungeons and Dragons, in a queer-led afterschool space. The paper illustrates how youth critique and resist unjust societal norms while simultaneously envisioning queer utopian futures. Using a queer theory framework, the authors consider how youth performed disidentifications and queer futurity.

Design/methodology/approach

This study is a discourse analysis of approximately 85 hours of audio collected over one year.

Findings

Youth engaged in deconstructive critique, disidentifications and queer futurity in powerful enactments of critical literacies that involved simultaneous resistance, subversion, imagination and hope as youth envisioned queer utopian world-building through their fantasy storytelling. Youth acknowledged the injustice of the present while radically envisioning a utopian future.

Originality/value

This study offers an empirical grounding for critical literacies centered in queer theory and explores how youth engage with critical literacies in collaboratively co-authored texts. The authors argue that queering critical literacies potentially moves beyond deconstructive critique while simultaneously opening spaces for resistance, imagination and utopian world-making through linguistic and narrative-based tools.

Details

English Teaching: Practice & Critique, vol. 20 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1175-8708

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 17 December 2021

Lorenzo Ardito, Roberto Cerchione, Erica Mazzola and Elisabetta Raguseo

The effect of the transition toward digital technologies on today’s businesses (i.e. Industry 4.0 transition) is becoming increasingly relevant, and the number of studies that…

2079

Abstract

Purpose

The effect of the transition toward digital technologies on today’s businesses (i.e. Industry 4.0 transition) is becoming increasingly relevant, and the number of studies that have examined this phenomenon has grown rapidly. However, systematizing the existing findings is still a challenge, from both a theoretical and a managerial point of view. In such a setting, the knowledge management (KM) discipline can provide guidance to address such a gap. Indeed, the implementation of fundamental digital technologies is reshaping how firms manage knowledge. Thus, this study aims to critically review the existing literature on Industry 4.0 from a KM perspective.

Design/methodology/approach

First, the authors defined a structuring framework to highlight the role of Industry 4.0 transition along with absorptive capacity (ACAP) processes (acquisition, assimilation, transformation and exploitation), while specifying what is being managed, that is data, information and/or (actual) knowledge, according to the data-information-knowledge (DIK) hierarchy. The authors then followed the systematic literature review methodology, which involves the use of explicit criteria to select publications to review and outline the stages a process has to follow to provide a transparent and replicable review and to analyze the existing literature according to the theoretical framework. This procedure yielded a final list of 150 papers.

Findings

By providing a clear picture of what scholars have studied so far on Industry 4.0 transition, in terms of KM, this literature review highlights that among all the studied digital technologies, the big data analytics technology is the one that has been explored the most in each phase of the ACAP process. A constructive body of research has also emerged in recent years around the role played by the internet of things, especially to explain the acquisition of data. On the other hand, some digital technologies, such as cyber security and smart manufacturing, have largely remained unaddressed. An explanation of the role of these technologies has been provided, from a KM perspective, together with the business implications.

Originality/value

This study is one of the first attempts to revise the literature on Industry 4.0 transition from a KM perspective, and it proposes a novel framework to read existing studies and on which to base new ones. Furthermore, the synthesis makes two main contributions. First, it provides a clear picture of the different digital technologies that support the four ACAP phases in relation to the DIK hierarchy. Accordingly, these results can emphasize what the literature has looked at so far, as well as which digital technologies have gained the most attention and their impacts in terms of KM. Second, the synthesis provides prescriptive considerations on the development of future research avenues, according to the proposed research framework.

Article
Publication date: 2 September 2019

Melanie Lubinger, Judith Frei and Dorothea Greiling

Materiality, as a content-selection principle, is an emerging trend in sustainability reporting for making sustainability reports (SRs) more relevant for stakeholders. The purpose…

Abstract

Purpose

Materiality, as a content-selection principle, is an emerging trend in sustainability reporting for making sustainability reports (SRs) more relevant for stakeholders. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether materiality matters in the reporting practice of universities which have adopted the Global Reporting Initiative G4 Guidelines.

Design/methodology/approach

Strategic stakeholder theory and sociological institutionalism serve for deriving conflicting expectations about the compliance of universities with the materiality principle. In the empirical section of this paper, content analyses are conducted on the documented material aspects, followed by a correlation analysis for examining to which extent the identified material aspects are reported in the SRs.

Findings

Although universities document G4-19 stakeholder-material aspects according to different relevance levels and for internal and external stakeholder groups, the identified material aspects are not appropriately reported in the SRs. The adoption of the materiality principle is a superficial one and therefore more in line with the expectations of sociological institutionalism.

Research limitations/implications

The main limitation for this study is the small number of university SRs available. The chance to make SRs more relevant by focusing on stakeholder-material aspects is not used.

Originality/value

This paper reports the first study looking at the compliance between the documented material aspects and the content of SRs in a particular challenging organisational field, the university sector. This paper also adds to the emerging theoretical discussion about the extent universities implement materiality in SRs.

Details

Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management, vol. 31 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1096-3367

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 August 2016

Kimberly Jamison and Jennifer Clayton

The purpose of this paper is to identify how current administrative interns enrolled in a university administrator preparation program describe and make meaning of their…

1584

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to identify how current administrative interns enrolled in a university administrator preparation program describe and make meaning of their internship experiences.

Design/methodology/approach

For this qualitative study, the researchers interviewed administrative interns enrolled in one university preparation program throughout their internship regarding the experiences.

Findings

The findings from this study contribute and add value to research in the area of administrator preparation by highlighting the experiences of administrative interns as well as the implications of how interns make meaning of those experiences using a developmental concerns framework. Key factors influencing those perceptions cited by interns as a result of their internship experiences include the interns’ readiness to take on leadership positions, their change in perception of administration, perceptions of journal reflections as an internship component, supporting teachers, receiving feedback from others, and the level of support provided by their internship supervisor.

Originality/value

The findings from this study contribute to research in the area of administrator preparation at the university level, specifically pertaining to the structure of the internship, how university preparation programs can respond to interns’ concerns, and the design and emphasis of practicum experiences within those degree or certificate programs.

Details

Journal of Educational Administration, vol. 54 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0957-8234

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 10 March 2023

Sarah Willey, Matthew Aplin-Houtz and Maureen Casile

This manuscript explores the value of mission statement emotional content in the relationship between money raised by a nonprofit organization through fundraising efforts and the…

Abstract

Purpose

This manuscript explores the value of mission statement emotional content in the relationship between money raised by a nonprofit organization through fundraising efforts and the money spent. It proposes the emotional content of a mission statement moderates money spent and earned to ultimately to impact how much revenue a nonprofit makes through fundraising.

Design/methodology/approach

The manuscript evaluates the qualitative turned quantitative data (via text mining [TM]) in mission statements from 200 nonprofits serving the homeless sector via a moderation analysis. After segmenting the sampled nonprofits by gross revenue, the authors analyze the impact of the positive and negative emotional tone in each group to determine how the content of a mission statement impacts organizational revenue.

Findings

The paper provides empirical insights about how the emotional polarity of a mission statement influences money earned through fundraising. However, the positive and negative tone of a mission statement impacts organizations differently based on size. For nonprofits that report an annual revenue of less than $1 million, a positive tone in the mission statement results in higher revenue. Conversely, nonprofits that report over $1 million earn less revenue with a positive tone in their mission statement.

Research limitations/implications

Owing to the specialized group sampled, the findings possibly only apply to the sampled group. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the relationships found in other areas of nonprofits. However, the implications of mission statement polarity influencing financial performance in any population should be of keen interest to practitioners when crafting mission statements.

Practical implications

The finding that mission statement emotional tone influences the financial performance of a nonprofit has direct implications for the effective delivery of services in the nonprofit realm. Leaders of nonprofits can use the study’s findings to position their organizations to capture potential needed revenue in the crafting of their mission statements.

Originality/value

This paper uniquely exposes the moderating impact of the emotional tone in mission statements in relationship with financial performance.

Details

Journal of Strategy and Management, vol. 16 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1755-425X

Keywords

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