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Critical theory has rarely articulated an agenda for social change linking theory to practice. This paper provides several examples of “critical theory in practice” and focuses specifically on Fay’s Critical Social Science (CSS) model. The methods of conflict transformation are then applied to CSS in order to accomplish two goals. First, political conflicts resulting from decision making can be used to transform both individuals and systems. Second, CSS more adequately accounts for some of the non-rational aspects of human nature, such as our resistance to change, thus improving its catalytic validity as a critical social theory. Together, the processes of CSS and conflict transformation provide a framework for enhancing the potential for citizen governance.

The paper aims to improve convergence characteristics of the Newton–Raphson (NR) method applied to time-periodic finite element method using various line searches, as time-periodic finite element method causes deterioration of convergence characteristic of nonlinear analysis based on NR method. The study also aims to accelerate and improve accuracy of electromagnetic field analysis for improvement of the performance of electrical machine.

The paper proposes new type line searches that set approximate step size for NR method. The line search evaluated step size using higher-order interpolation of functional derivative. In addition, two criteria for applying these line search were proposed. First method set one scalar value for every NR iteration that is named constant step size. Second method define different step size in each time step of time-periodic finite element method to update solution vector that is named different step size.

The paper provides efficient line searches to improve convergence characteristics for NR method. Nonlinear magnetic field analysis of two transformer models is demonstrated. The proposed methods achieve the following results: higher-order functional NR is efficient in improving convergence characteristics, and the proposed methods succeeded about twice faster in both models.

The paper fulfills improvement of convergence characteristics of the NR method applied to time-periodic finite element method using proposed line searches and accelerate electromagnetic field analysis.

This paper aims to discuss over imperfect reporting channel the performance of cooperative spectrum sensing (CSS). It is investigated that imperfect reporting channel introduces some lower bound in false alarm probability (Pf). The lower bound of probability of false alarm linearly increases with the probability of reporting error.

To solve this problem, a transmit diversity-based CSS method is proposed, and to improve the detection performance, square law selection (SLS) diversity is used.

It is observed that detection probability increases up to 11.55 per cent when SLS diversity is applied, and lower bound Qf decreases up to 80 per cent when transmit diversity is applied.

No literature is available to the best of the authors’ knowledge that measures the performance of CSS with respect to parameters as reported in this paper.

The purpose of this paper is to use Delphi technique to assess the applicability of coupling various project delivery methods (PDMs) and contract strategies (CSs) for delivery of public building projects (PBP) in Ethiopia.

To achieve the objective of this research, an online Delphi study was designed, conducted and analyzed using various statistical procedures. Results were compared to CII’s project delivery and CS (PDCS) tool, a US-based PDM selection tool.

This study converged in the third round signifying a consensus on the importance of design–build and construction manager at risk as alternatives to design–bid–build. In addition, “controlling schedule growth” was deemed to be a major performance measure that needs to be considered for PBP in Ethiopia, a result consistent with the outcomes from CII’s PDCS tool.

Among existing studies, none to the best of the authors’ knowledge has focused on a holistic approach to identify the most appropriate pairings of PDMs and CSs for PBP which was critically needed due to the magnitude and high stakes of these projects. This research is a steppingstone toward gaining knowledge on how to approach these types of projects in fast-growing environments thirsty for new building projects such as in Ethiopia.

To measure the success of corporate social software (CSS), interviews, surveys, content and usage data analysis have been commonly used in practice. While interviews and surveys are only capable of making perceived use and benefits transparent, usage data analysis reveals many objective facts but does not allow insights into potential user-benefits. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to link both perspectives to advance CSS success measuring.

The research case is References+, a Corporate Social Software developed at Siemens to facilitate worldwide sharing of knowledge, experiences, and best practices since 2005. References+ currently has around 15,000 registered members located in more than 80 countries. This paper evaluates results from a user survey with nearly 1,500 responding employees and links all survey results to the corresponding participant’s data on platform use to generate additional insights.

The paper generates findings on how CSS is used in practice and how it is perceived by employees of a large-scale enterprise. Furthermore, it explores how a combination of subjective and objective evaluation methods can be applied to advance the state-of-the-art in measuring use and benefits. By linking CSS usage data to corresponding survey data, the paper provides results on what type of use of CSS may create what type of benefit.

This study encourages practitioners to take advantage of a variety of instruments for measuring the benefits of CSS. It generates numerous arguments for practitioners on how to make the benefit of CSS more transparent to financial-oriented decision-makers to successfully defend knowledge management projects against shrinking IT budgets.

This paper is one of the first attempts to explore the relationship between “perceived use” and “perceived benefits” measured by surveys and “factual use” measured by CSS usage statistics for knowledge management research. The findings of this paper may empower the role of user surveys in generating additional insights on use and benefits.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an enhanced framework for workforce management in a modern call center environment, called the consecutive staffing using simulation (CSS) approach. The paper aims to investigate the value of a time‐dependent approach to determine staffing levels without making an assumption that call centers to be a queuing model in a steady state.

Staffing is usually accomplished through the use of simple queuing models, Erlang‐C (M/M/c). It is common to adopt a stationary independent period by period (SIPP) approach. However, staffing based on SIPP does not consider uncompleted calls and each planning interval cannot achieve a steady state in most cases, since the lengths of planning intervals are short in fact. In this context, the CSS approach considers uncompleted calls and determines staffing levels by using simulation.

Staffing based on the CSS approach needed fewer agents, compared with staffing based on the SIPP approach. Hiring less agents during a single planning horizon lead to a decrease in total operational costs for the call center. Staffing based on SIPP became less accurate when the average service duration became longer or the arrival rate fluctuation was large, which often occurred in the morning and around lunch break.

The CSS approach is based on the dynamic staffing proposed by Whitt. However, CSS extends the basic idea of dynamic staffing to combine a simulation experiment with a number of repetitions and the same run length of planning intervals. In a call center with shorter planning intervals, management should adopt staffing based on CSS for accurate planning and updating of staffing levels during a single planning horizon.

With the rapid spread of smartphones and tablets, it is becoming necessary for web developers to create responsive web pages which are visually appealing on devices of various sizes. However, building responsive UIs is a very challenging task, requiring deep knowledge of HTML and CSS. This paper aims to propose an approach to generate responsive web pages using SuperSQL, which is an extension of SQL that can format data retrieved from a database into various kinds of structured documents.

By incorporating the methodology of bootstrap, a grid-based framework for front-end development, the authors have made it possible to create responsive web pages from simple SuperSQL queries. In addition, by utilizing SuperSQL’s unique feature that can describe the structure of the output web page, the authors have proposed and implemented a mechanism to automatically optimize the web content’s size and position.

In the evaluation, the authors created some actual web applications with and without the use of SuperSQL and compared the code amount (number of lines). As a result, when using the proposed system, the amount of code was reduced to about 1/5. The authors also compared the layout generated by the proposed automatic layout generation mechanism with the responsive layout that was generated manually. As a result, the automatic layout generation mechanism created the same layout as the manually created layout 74.8 per cent of the time, and the user satisfaction level turned out to be 85.8 per cent.

The way to generate a responsive HTML by using a single SuperSQL query, and the mechanism for automatic responsive layout generation.

Purpose – This chapter critically examines the purportedly growing phenomenon of Maternal Request Caesarean Sections (MRCS) and its relative contribution to the rising caesarean section (CS) rates.

Methodology – We apply a decentred comparative methodological approach to this problem by drawing upon and comparatively examining empirical data from Canada, the US, the UK and Finland.

Findings – We find that the general argument that has emerged within the obstetric community, evidenced in particular by a recent “State of the Science” conference, is that the reduced risks and benefits of MRCS are evenly balanced, thus ethically it could be seen as a valid choice for women. This approach, taken in particular in the North American context, negates the problematic nature of accurately measuring, and therefore assessing the importance of maternal request in addressing rising CS rates. Moreover, although some of the blame for rising CS rates has focused on MRCS, we argue that it has a relatively minor influence on rising rates. We show instead how rising CS rates can more appropriately be attributed to obstetrical policies and practices.

Originality – In presenting this argument, we challenge some of the prevailing notions of consumerism in maternity care and its influence on the practice patterns of maternity care professionals.

Practical implications – Our argument also calls into question how successful efforts to address MRCS will be in reducing CS rates given its relatively minor influence.

The purpose of this paper is to propose an approach for identifying landmark papers in the long run. These publications reach a very high level of citation impact and are able to remain on this level across many citing years. In recent years, several studies have been published which deal with the citation history of publications and try to identify landmark publications.

In contrast to other studies published hitherto, this study is based on a broad data set with papers published between 1980 and 1990 for identifying the landmark papers. The authors analyzed the citation histories of about five million papers across 25 years.

The results of this study reveal that 1,013 papers (less than 0.02 percent) are “outstandingly cited” in the long run. The cluster analyses of the papers show that they received the high impact level very soon after publication and remained on this level over decades. Only a slight impact decline is visible over the years.

For practical reasons, approaches for identifying landmark papers should be as simple as possible. The approach proposed in this study is based on standard methods in bibliometrics.