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This study aims to determine the impact of information-sharing disseminated through the firms’ board connections on the readability of the management discussion and analysis (MD&A).

The investigation conducted in this study is performed by using a regression analysis. The readability of the MD&A is measured by the Flesch reading ease. The level of information-sharing is determined by the degree centrality index. The sample is composed of 83 Italian-listed firms that comprise over 4,000 directors for the period 2008-2012.

The main results of this study show a significant relationship between the degree centrality and MD&A readability, suggesting that board connections play a crucial role in improving the quality of external reporting.

This study uses a limited sample size. Further, we do not isolate the possible effect of other reporting incentives that may affect the readability of external reporting.

This study argues that for a non-English-speaking country such as Italy, information-sharing is a vehicle for improving the quality of external reporting and the competitiveness of firms in international capital markets.

This research offers an original contribution to the existent literature by highlighting the role of the firms’ board connections in determining the level of the corporate disclosure readability. This implies the opportunity for future research to take into account the firms’ board connections when they analyze related phenomena.

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between the female board participation and the readability of annual report.

Using hand-collected data from a “network-oriented market”, as exists in Italy, which includes 435 annual reports, this study uses a regression analysis to test whether female board participation affects the annual report readability.

Female board participation is found to have a positive impact on disclosure readability in firms with small boardroom connections but the opposite effect in firms with large boardroom connections.

This paper responds to recent calls in the corporate governance literature by investigating whether the female board participation affects the transparency of the disclosure practices.

This study has policy implications, as it helps to improve evaluations of how, and under which circumstances, female board participation may lead to higher disclosure quality and thus benefit investors.

This paper shows that female board participation has different effects on the disclosure readability at different levels of board positions in inter-firm networks.

The paper seeks to propose a specific approach based on Dynamic Analysis and Chaos Theory aiming to emphasize the differences into the eddy current signals obtained by related non‐destructive tests, when the inspected specimens have flaws with different shapes.

Non‐linear eddy current analysis is very useful for flaw detection in many in‐service inspections. State‐of‐the‐art technologies allow one to define position and depth of defects, but the shape identification is still an open problem. In this paper, experimental data have been subjected to a dynamical analysis in order to relate the trend of eddy current signals to the shape of analyzed defect.

In particular, a dynamical reconstruction by means of recurrence plots (RPs) has been carried out in order to detect analogies and differentiations between different eddy current signals. Moreover, cross‐correlation between RPs of a reference benchmark and testing eddy current signals has been applied in order to emphasize a different dynamical behaviour and to detect a particular flaw's shape. In this way, a real‐time algorithm for defect shape classification has been performed.

Proposed approach is very interesting, and it is an innovation in non‐destructive testing procedures. In fact, the shape identification of a flaw is still an open challenge. The proposed approach, based on dynamic analysis, gives the key to solve this particular ill‐posed problem, by introducing a relation between the eddy current measurements and the shape of defect existing in the inspected specimen. Very interesting preliminary results have been obtained.

This paper seeks to present a numerical model which is used to obtain the transit time limited frequency response of p‐i‐n photodiodes with an arbitrary electric field profile. The effect of the absorption layer width and bias voltage on the frequency response is also investigated.

The absorption region is divided into any desired number of layers and the continuity equations are solved, for each layer, assuming that within the layer the carriers' drift velocities are constant. The frequency response of the multilayer structure is calculated from the response of each layer using matrix algebra.

The numerical results agree well with those from the experiment. It is seen that the results, assuming the saturation drift velocities, are usually overestimated especially for low values of the bias voltage or high values of the absorption region width.

The numerical method under study neglects the capacitive effects which may determine the frequency response of very short devices. In this case a more complete treatment, including also the displacement current, should be carried out.

Software development for the design of multilayer photodiodes with optimized frequency response.

To the best of one's knowledge this is an original report of the application of this numerical method to the calculation of the frequency response of p‐i‐n photodiodes. The numerical method, being able to treat in a simple way multilayer structures with any electric field profile, is a very powerful tool in the development of software for the design of efficient photodiodes of various types.

This paper aims to obtain the evolution law of dynamic performance of CR400BF electric multiple unit (EMU).

Using the dynamic simulation based on field test, stiffness of rotary arm nodes and damping coefficient of anti-hunting dampers were tested. Stiffness, damping coefficient, friction coefficient, track gauge were taken as random variables, the stochastic dynamics simulation method was constructed and applied to research the evolution law with running mileage of dynamic index of CR400BF EMU.

The results showed that stiffness and damping coefficient subjected to normal distribution, the mean and variance were computed and the evolution law of stiffness and damping coefficient with running mileage was obtained.

Firstly, based on the field test we found that stiffness of rotary arm nodes and damping coefficient of anti-hunting dampers subjected to normal distribution, and the evolution law of stiffness and damping coefficient with running mileage was proposed. Secondly stiffness, damping coefficient, friction coefficient, track gauge were taken as random variables, the stochastic dynamics simulation method was constructed and applied to the research to the evolution law with running mileage of dynamic index of CR400BF EMU.

Drawing on the conservation of resources theory, this study aims to identify the mediating effects of depersonalization and resilience on the relationship between customer incivility and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). It further posits that these indirect effects vary depending on the caring climate and achievement orientation.

A field survey among 622 service employees (Study 1) and a three-wave field survey of 315 service employees and their managers (Study 2) from various service organizations were conducted.

This study confirms that depersonalization operates as a negative mediator in the relationship between customer incivility and OCB. Simultaneously, resilience emerges as a positive mediator, underscoring the contrasting pathways through which customer incivility affects OCB. Furthermore, a caring climate plays a pivotal role in mitigating the detrimental impact of depersonalization on OCB and weakening the positive impact of resilience on OCB. Additionally, this study identifies achievement orientation as a significant moderator between customer incivility and resilience.

This study advances theoretical foundations by investigating depersonalization and resilience as critical mediators in the intricate relationship between customer incivility and OCB. It goes beyond the conventional understanding of customer incivility’s impact by shedding light on the dual roles of a caring climate, demonstrating its potential to alleviate both positive and negative consequences of customer incivility. Moreover, its identification of achievement orientation as a moderator adds a novel dimension to the discourse, emphasizing the need for tailored strategies to harness employee resilience in the face of customer incivility.

The optimization of geometric boundaries and placement of conductors to achieve specific design goals is the principle activity in computational electromagnetics. However the heuristic determination of design variables soon leads to total confusion as the user attempts to wrestle with multiple choices. Even if there are just two states for n parameters there will be, 2n trials. The range of problems posed is vast. One such is the determination of magnet geometries needed to produce an unpolluted uniform field in Magnet Resonance Imaging (MRI) systems, and another application concerns the design of pole shapes in particle accelerators where the higher harmonic distortions must be minimized in dipoles and multipole magnets.

This study tested a moderated mediation model of school leadership effects on teacher instructional practices. Specifically, the authors focused on the mediating effect of teacher professional communities and the moderating effect of instructional climate on the relationship between school leadership and teacher instructional practices.

The authors collected data from 958 teachers working in 72 middle and high schools in Türkiye and employed multilevel structural equation modelling (MSEM) with Bayesian estimation to predict structural links between the study variables.

Results affirmed a full mediation model where school leadership practices exerted indirect effects on teacher instructional practices through promoting teacher professional communities. The authors also found significant moderating role of instructional climate in the effect of school leadership on teacher professional communities and instructional practices.

This study illuminates the contextualized nature of school leadership by concluding that the effect of school leadership on teacher professional communities and instructional practices is closely tied to the extent to which a high-quality instructional climate is established in schools.

The purpose of this paper is to mainly review the state-of-the-art developments in the field of hydrodynamics of offshore pipelines, identifying the key tools for analysis of pipeline free spans, their applications, their qualifying characteristics and capabilities and limitations.

These different analytical, numerical and semi-empirical tools available for predicting such hydrodynamic loads and their effects include VIVANA, PIPESIN, VIVSIM, SIMULATOR, FATFREE, amongst others. Inherent in these models are current effects, wave effects and/ or pipe–soil interactions.

Amongst these models, the most attention was given to the new VIVANA model because this model take into account the vortex-induced effects with respect to free-spanning pipelines (which have dominant effect in the span analysis in deep water) better than other semi-empirical models (such as Shear 7). Recent improvements in VIVANA include its ability to have arbitrary variation in speed and direction of current, as well as the ability for calculation of pure IL and combined IL-CF response. Improvements in fatigue assessments at free spans, i.e. pipe–soil interaction have been achieved through the combined frequency domain and non-linear time domain analysis methodology adopted. Semi-empirical models are still the de facto currently used in the design of free-spanning pipelines. However, there is need for further research on free-span hydrodynamic coefficients and on how in-line and cross-flow vibrations interact. Again, there is still the challenge due to VIV complexity in fully understanding the fluid structure interaction problem, as there is no consolidated procedure for its analysis. It has been observed that there is large scatter between the different codes adopted in the prediction of fatigue damage, as there lacks full-scale test data devoted to determination/validation of the coefficients used in the semi-empirical models. A case study of the preliminary design of a typical 48 in. pipeline has been presented in this study to demonstrate the use of the free-span analysis tool, DNV RP F105. Excel spreadsheet has been applied in the execution of formulas.

This review paper is the first of its kind to study the state-of-the-art development in pipeline free-span analysis models and demonstrate the use of analysis tool, DNV for MAFSL calculation. Hence, information obtained from this paper would be invaluable in assisting designers both in the industry and academia.