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The purpose of this study is to examine a week-long science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) project-based learning (PBL) activity that integrates a new educational technology and the engineering design process to teach middle and high school students the concepts involved in rotational physics. The technology and teaching method described in this paper can be applied to a wide variety of STEM content areas.

As an educational technology, the dynamic and interactive mathematical expressions (DIME) map system automatically generates an interactive, connected concept map of mathematically based concepts extracted from a portable document format textbook chapter. Over five days, students used DIME maps to engage in meaningful self-guided learning within the engineering design process and STEM PBL.

Using DIME maps within a STEM PBL activity, students explored the physics behind spinning objects, proposed multiple creative designs and built a variety of spinners to meet specified criteria and constraints.

STEM teachers can use DIME maps and STEM PBL to support their students in making connections between what they learn in the classroom and real-world scenarios.

For any classroom with computers, tablets or phones and an internet connection, DIME maps are an accessible educational technology that provides an alternative representation of knowledge for learners who are underserved by traditional methods of instruction.

For STEM teachers and education researchers, the activity described in this paper uses advances in technology (DIME maps and slow-motion video capture on cell phones) and pedagogy (STEM PBL and the engineering design process) to enable students to engage in meaningful learning.

This paper aims to compare internet measurement data obtained from Skitter, Ark and Dimes by analyzing the internet node degree distributions and correlations at IP node and router level. Further on, it is intended to analyze implications of the internet structure as attained in both its core and edge vicinities.

This comparative analysis was enabled by a data conversion and processing tool‐chain implemented as an extension to the BRITE topology generator which is also introduced.

The results show significant differences in higher nodal degrees. Correlation analysis indicates that DIMES scans discover internet links to a fairly uniform degree, while parts remain invisible within Skitter and Ark data. Mid‐range, oscillating spatial autocorrelations are discovered as a signature of memory effects in internet topology.

Mobile multicast routing performance is quantized by the number of states minimally required for servicing listener or sender mobility. Results show a surprisingly low mobility overhead compared with general multicast forwarding state management. As continuous mobility handovers necessarily occur between access routers located in geographic vicinity, the hypothesis is investigated that geographically adjacent edge networks attain a reduced network distances compared with arbitrary internet nodes. The evaluation of edge distance distributions in different regions for IP ranges, clustered according to their geographic location, reveals a stable correlation of geographic and network proximity at internet edges.

The internet topology has evolved over the past decades in an evolutionary process and continues to grow. Recently, it has attracted much attention from the networking and physics communities, as it forms a unique operational instance of a planetary‐scale network environment. Several measurement projects observing the internet have been undertaken over the past years, out of which Skitter, its successor Archipelago (Ark) and Dimes have been established as continuous recordings of the vivid process of network formation.

This case involves the March of Dimes (MOD) Foundation, the “leading nonprofit organization for pregnancy and baby health.” MOD’s mission was to support medical research, organize volunteer workers, and provide community services and education to save babies’ lives (www.marchofdimes.org). The strategic issue in the case involves creating awareness of both the mission and services of MOD and the critical issue driving that mission – premature births. The organization must create a desire for various target markets to take action in response to the problem. The main protagonist is Doug Staples, Senior Vice President for Marketing and Communications.

Data were collected via personal interviews with the primary protagonists, Doug Staples, and Mike Swenson of the Barkley agency. The MOD provided quantitative Gallup studies they commissioned, as well as documents unveiling the roll-out in the San Jose, CA region. The Barkley Agency provided qualitative data from a study which consisted of eight focus groups conducted in two markets and ten personal interviews. Secondary research was used to provide a support for industry and market data, to supplement organizational facts provided by the MOD, and to identify and link marketing theory to the situations provided in the case. The organization, facts and characters in this case were not disguised. MOD was consulted throughout the case development process.

This case study is recommended for marketing courses at the undergraduate level. It is most appropriate for marketing management, introductory marketing, or marketing strategy classes. Additionally, this case is a good fit for courses focused upon not-for-profit marketing issues.

The strongest opportunities to apply theory using this case relate to branding (see De Chernatony and Dall’Olmo Riley, 1998 for a content analysis of the brand literature). These theories include brand image and personality (Aaker, 1997; Belk, 1998; Grohmann, 2009), brand awareness (Aaker, 2002), brand involvement and customer loyalty (Brakus et al., 2009), brand engagement (Sprott et al., 2009), brand relationships (Breivik and Thorbjornsen, 2008), and brand equity (Aaker, 2002, 2008). Specifically, question 2 addresses brand personality, and questions 3 and 4 explore relationships with the brand such as the emotional power of the brand and brand association. Question 6 focuses on positioning strategy.

This research underlines the usefulness of Civil Rights Geographic Information Systems (CR-GIS) for understanding the social struggles and assessing the critical needs of the disempowered population of Alabama’s “Black Belt.” The social struggles have been persistent for decades in the Southern states, particularly in Alabama. Researchers have recognized the political and historical root causes and implications for these social struggles. The geographic region of Alabama’s Black Belt is significant because it became the epicenter of the Civil Rights struggle and still represents the vestiges of the social policy known as “Jim Crow.”

Although GIS has a great potential to explore social and political struggles, currently, it is not profoundly associated with Civil Rights studies. This research employs CR-GIS to illustrate the impact of the disfranchisement caused by biased geopolitics in three selected cases/issues: (1) gerrymandering and voting rights, (2) transportation, and (3) poverty in the State of Alabama. While there has been some progress in overcoming the social struggles in the Black Belt, there is a need for qualitative and quantitative analyses to understand persistent social, economic, and Civil Rights struggles in the region. GIS could be a valuable tool to understand and explore the social struggles in the disempowered communities of the “Black Belt” in Alabama. By incorporating the existing information and conducting ground truth studies, this research will lay the basic foundation for extended research by creating a policy template for empowering the disempowered for better social, economic, and political integration in the “Black Belt region.”

This paper critically analyses the future of Integrated Reporting (IR) given recent and likely future developments in corporate reporting and sustainability disclosure standard setting.

This paper uses Alvesson and Deetz’s (2000) critical framework to consider the research question through insight (a review of the history of IR and the formation of the International Sustainability Standards Board [ISSB]), critique (considering power structures, momentum and global trends) and transformative redefinition (proposing reasons for how and why IR might survive or perish).

IR’s future as a reporting initiative is uncertain. Pressure from investors may lead to detailed sustainability disclosures being favoured over IR’s more holistic story-telling approach. This may result in IR joining the long list of abandoned corporate reporting initiatives. Yet IR is not incompatible with recent developments in non-financial reporting and may continue to thrive. IR aligns well with developments in management accounting practices and other voluntary forms of sustainability reporting. IR’s associated “Integrated Thinking” seeks to develop organisational decision-making that leads to sustainable value creation. Whether it lasts as an external reporting format or not, IR is likely to leave a legacy related to changes in reporting characteristics.

This study explores the future of IR at a critical juncture in corporate reporting history, considering the entry of the ISSB, which is fundamentally changing the landscape of sustainability disclosure standard setting.

This paper aims to examine how management control systems (MCS) can enable and constrain the successful adoption of integrated thinking in an organisation.

The study adopts a case study approach, involving in-depth interviews and documentary evidence.

The case study organisation perceived trust to be critical to the successful adoption of integrated thinking, and informal social controls with strong endorsement from senior management frequently substituted for more formal technical controls in helping to develop a trust-based organisational culture. These cultural changes improved collaboration and brought economic benefits by encouraging outcome-based decision-making rather than capital-based decision-making, thereby enabling employees to identify and address poorly performing projects earlier. However, established performance measurement systems geared towards reporting and rewarding accounting profits created tension, constraining the potential benefits of integrated thinking by reinforcing business unit protectionism.

Integrated thinking can be seen as a form of management with the potential to improve organisational outcomes. An improved understanding of factors that might enable or constrain integrated thinking could facilitate its spread.

Despite several calls for research on the practical implementation of integrated thinking, this has not been studied extensively. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the firsts to contribute to a better understanding of the role of MCS in the successful implementation of integrated thinking in an organisation. The study also contributes to the MCS literature.

This paper aims to examine the financial statement impact resulting from the tax depreciation on buildings that was reinstated on 25 March 2020 as part of the New Zealand Government’s coronavirus (COVID-19) tax support package. The COVID-19 pandemic and the tax relief created an accounting response to map the environment to accounting reports, reversing previously recognized deferred tax liabilities and increasing reported income as a result.

This is an exploratory and descriptive study to understand the accounting response and impact on companies’ financial statements following a COVID-19 tax relief to support businesses in a dire financial situation as the effects of COVID-19 took hold.

First, the accounting response provided the appropriate mapping from the COVID-19 environment to accounting reports. Second, the financial statement impacts are material, especially for companies with extensive holdings of buildings that are held for use. Third, while the accounting relief was immediate, the economic (cash flow) support does not occur until a year later.

The financial statement impacts are based on a subset of NZX 50 companies with the available information at the time of writing. However, they do not compromise the external validity of the findings because the tax depreciation relief applies to other listed companies, unlisted public and private companies, trust, partnerships and individuals.

The New Zealand Government could have been more helpful to businesses by allowing an immediate depreciation deduction in the 2020 year as opposed to implementing it from 2021. Further, it could have legislated a backlog depreciation deduction from 2010 – when the depreciation on buildings was disallowed – to 2020.

This paper documents the evolution of the accounting for deferred taxes when the New Zealand Government withdrew the tax depreciation in 2010, how NZ IAS 12 evolved as a result of that event and now the reversal effect with the reinstatement of the tax depreciation during COVID-19. The paper also blends in the accounting responses and considers whether they are opportunistic or efficient.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a new crisis in the world that caused many restrictions, from personal life to social and business. In this situation, the most vulnerable groups such as refugees who are living in the camps are faced with more serious problems. Therefore, a system dynamic approach has been developed to evaluate the effect of applying different scenarios to find out the best response to COVID-19 to improve refugees’ health and education.

The interaction of several health and education factors during an epidemic crisis among refugees leads to behavioral responses that consequently make the crisis control a complex problem. This research has developed an SD model based on the SIER model that responds to the public health and education system of Syrian refugees in Turkey affected by the COVID-19 virus and considered three policies of isolation, social distance/hygiene behavior and financial aid using the available data from various references.

The findings from the SD simulation results of applying three different policies identify that public health and education systems can increase much more by implementing the policy of social distance/hygiene behavior, and it has a significant impact on the control of the epidemic in comparison with the other two responses.

This paper contributes to humanitarian organizations, governments and refugees by discussing useful insights. Implementing the policy of social distance and hygiene behavior policies would help in a sharp reduction of death in refugees group. and public financial support has improved distance education during this pandemic.