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So far, the overall performance track record for corporate mergers and acquisitions has not been very encouraging. Both the academic and trade literature report that on average the gains to stockholders of acquiring companies tend to be small or non‐ existent.

A conceptual model describes important factors within a system and how they relate to one another. They are important because they help to identify system changes that can yield the greatest improvement. Within information retrieval (IR), most research is directed towards multi-document retrieval and a multi-interaction IR user scenario. There are few, if any, IR conceptual models supporting minimal or single-interaction IR (siIR) user scenarios, however the need for siIR systems is growing rapidly. The purpose of this paper is to take the first step towards constructing a task-oriented conceptual model and experimental framework to support siIR research.

A first principles approach is employed to develop a task-oriented conceptual model, called bridging information retrieval (BIR). This model is contrasted with the concept of relevance, a central factor within IR research.

BIR introduces the central concept of bridging information (BI) as the objective of IR systems. BI is the additional information a user requires to complete a task, beyond their innate knowledge. The relationship between BI and relevance is determined.

The theoretical basis of BIR is derived axiomatically; however the resulting system evaluation model is speculative.

The proposed operational framework offers researchers a systematic approach to designing and evaluating siIR systems.

This work contributes a novel task-oriented IR conceptual model and evaluation framework, both centred around the concept of BI for siIR. It also contributes a novel search task classification method.

Representative cultural heritage sites and monuments around the world have been lost or damaged by natural disasters, human conflicts and daily erosion and deterioration. Documentation and digital preservation by using three-dimensional (3D) modeling techniques enables to ensure the knowledge and access for future generations. Efficient working methods and techniques should be proposed for this purpose.

In this paper, a methodology for the generation of 3D photorealistic models of representative historical buildings is introduced, for using data are obtained using terrestrial laser scanning systems and photogrammetry.

In this paper, an approach to reconstruct 3D photorealistic models by using laser scanning and photogrammetric data is shown. Combination of data from both sources offers an improved solution for 3D reconstruction of historical buildings, sites and places. Integration of 3D models into virtual globes and/or software applications can ensure digital preservation and knowledge for next generations.

Results obtained in a concrete building are shown. However, each building or studied area can show some other different drawbacks.

The study enables to generate 3D and four-dimensional models of most valuable buildings and contribute to the preservation and documentation of the cultural heritage.

The study enables digital documentation and preservation of cultural heritage.

A proper solution at field (in a real and complicated case) is explained, in addition to the results, which are shown.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that casting actors with similar facial features in a movie can pose challenges in foreign markets, hindering the audience's ability to recognize and remember characters. Extending developments in the literature on the cross-race effect, we hypothesize that facial similarity – the extent to which the actors starring in a movie share similar facial features – will reduce the country-level box-office performance of US movies in East and South-East Asia (ESEA) countries.

We assembled data from various secondary data sources on US non-animation movies (2012–2021) and their releases in ESEA countries. Combining the data resulted in a cross-section of 2,616 movie-country observations.

Actors' facial similarity in a US movie's cast reduces its box-office performance in ESEA countries. This effect is weakened as immigration in the country, internet penetration in the country and star power increase and strengthened as cast size increases.

This first study on the effects of cast's facial similarity on box-office performance represents a novel extension to the growing literature on the antecedents of movies' box-office performance by being at the intersection of the two literature streams on (1) the box-office effects of cast characteristics and (2) the antecedents, in general, of box-office performance in the ESEA region.

The purpose of this paper is to learn from participants about their experiences managing type 1 and type 2 diabetes at work.

Longitudinal, qualitative interviews with 45 individuals three times per year over three years focussed on views about disclosure; how they found or created support to manage their diabetes at work; and how they experienced the relationship between health and productivity.

Among participants, the presence of secondary conditions, such as fibromyalgia or vision loss, typically overshadowed the effect of diabetes at work. These conditions were often mentioned as the reason why a participant changed jobs, stopped working, or decreased work hours. Perspectives on disclosure were affected by the perception of stigma and discrimination, as well as the need for workplace accommodations. Overall, participants believed that the routine of a job and feeling useful benefited their health.

The nature of the research was not medical and the paper did not collect participants’ medical records. The paper relied on self-report for diagnoses of diabetes and co-morbidities as well as unrelated health conditions. Although the participants lived in a variety of urban, suburban, and rural settings, the findings do not reflect the ways in which differences in geography may have influenced participants’ experience. A focus of future research might be the role played by geographic location in the experience of managing diabetes at work. Also, the majority of employed participants worked for small employers. Future research might include a focus on participants managing diabetes while working for larger employers, who may have greater resources and staffing to devote toward implementing changes in workplace policy.

The paper considers the preference that many participants have for working and being productive rather than not working, including those with secondary conditions as well as diabetes. The number of participants (n=45) is relatively large for a qualitative interview study. The longitudinal nature of the study allowed for a follow-along opportunity that yielded a rich source of data.

This paper aims to demonstrate the possibility of maintaining triple bottom line (TBL) sustainable performance in the petroleum industry via a case study. In particular, it presents the utilization of a lean-six-sigma (LSS) concept for investigating one of the underperforming support service activities in an engineering contractor (EC) and to indicate how LSS concepts enable the barriers to maintaining sustainable petroleum operations to be reduced for maintaining sustainable petroleum operations.

A case study has been carried out in an EC organization in relation to one of the support services (i.e. valves requisition process [VRP]) to demonstrate how LSS concepts enable the barriers to maintaining sustainable petroleum operations to be reduced for maintaining sustainable petroleum operations. Value stream mapping (VSM) and value stream analysis (VSA) have been utilized to investigate the barriers that inhibit sustainable operations. VSM and VSA have been performed to investigate the underperforming activities in the selected support service (i.e. VRP) using a current state map. After performing VSA, a future state map has been developed, indicating possible improvements in overall TBL sustainable performance.

VSM and VSA enable the barriers to maintaining TBL sustainable operations in the petroleum industry to be investigated, while minimizing waste in the ECs and asset owners’ organizations.

The study has been limited to ECs’ support services, which have been delivered based on asset operators’ requirements.

The suggested LSS approach and related analysis help practicing engineers to perform similar analysis for different engineering support services. Improved performance in support service results minimize health, safety and environmental challenges in asset operations, and the resulting waste reduction increases the return on investments.

Effective delivery of the assessments minimizes potential delays in projects related to petroleum operations, mitigating future accidents. It enhances the TBL sustainable performance of an asset-intensive industrial organization.

This manuscript addresses the inherent TBL sustainable performance challenges in the petroleum industry that have been caused by delayed projects. The responsibilities of projects’ delivery are mainly attributed to ECs. The EC organizations are operating in project mode, and projects delays are inherently caused by the frequently changing nature of: operators’ requirements; suppliers’ and/or manufacturers’ capabilities and restrictions; and lack of standardization in documentation and work processes (i.e. because of different engineering projects’ demands). Hence, this manuscript illustrates a methodology to demonstrate the possibility of TBL sustainable performance improvement in the petroleum industry via a case study (i.e. VRP-related project delivery performance improvement) in an EC organization utilizing the lean concept.