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After the Global Financial Crisis in 2008, the impact of expanded liquidity in the financial market has drawn attention. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between liquidity in financial markets and office markets across Asian countries. In particular, the research not only examines the effect of normal liquidity on real estate markets, but also the effects of excess liquidity are specifically highlighted.

This paper uses panel estimation utilizing quarterly data from the first quarter of 2007 to the fourth quarter of 2015. Taking both time and location dimensions into account allows for a more precise estimate of the relationship between liquidity and office market’s yields.

Per the empirical outcome, an increasing excess liquidity tends to decelerate the value of office yields in six major Asian office market centers due to the positive effect on commercial real estate value. This effect is also identified by comparing the difference between the level of fitted yields and actual yields.

The results enhance the understanding of commercial real estate yield determinants. Furthermore, the results can be used to assess the impacts of liquidity on major office markets in Asia.

This paper attempts to uncover the impact of liquidity in financial markets on the office market yields. To better understand the relationship, the concept of excess liquidity is adopted and further exploration of each office market is conducted by comparing the fitted yields, which is computed considering the effects of excess liquidity on yield levels and actual yields.

Social networking services (SNS) sites such as Facebook and Twitter have increasingly established themselves as a new paradigm of communication. Due to the rapid popularization of mobile devices, mobile SNS are creating a particularly significant change in the way in which information is distributed. The purpose of this paper is to propose a mobile SNS system tailored for archival information services (AIS) in South Korea.

In order to find an appropriate service structure for the proposed AIS system, the authors conduct a case study of the existing mobile SNS sites. In addition to this, the authors investigate how mobile SNS are currently used in libraries and archives. Based on the results, they propose a mobile SNS structure suitable for the AIS system, for which a user interface and database is designed and implemented.

The proposed system can leverage mobile SNS to expand the accessibility of AIS and encourage active participation and cooperation from users.

The proposed system can improve the security vulnerabilities inherent in Facebook and Twitter; further, it can induce active user participation through two-way communication channels with users and also produce high-quality information by providing a communication space between the archiving experts.

The purpose of this paper is to identify security technologies that are essential in making home network systems secure and to describe specialized security mechanisms for the home network and the relationships among them.

The research model is designed to support three functions: authentication, authorization, and security policy. Authentication is tested in several methodologies such as id/pw, certificate, or bio; authorization is tested using RBAC methodologies; and security policy is specified using newly‐designed script language, such as xHDL.

The findings for “authentication” suggest that home network users can access services conveniently and securely. In addition, the findings for “security policy” suggest that security policy for home network requires specialized rather than general specification.

The paper identifies three security functions essential for home network: authentication that supports most existing authentication mechanisms, so as to maximize user accessibility; authorization that is middleware‐independent and beyond the physical transport layer; and security policy optimized for the home network environment.

The paper focuses on an implementation‐based security model for the home network. Though interest and research in home network security are increasing, only limited authentication applications have been adopted in real deployment up to now. This paper introduces an integrated security model and emphasizes safety and convenience so as to promote reliability in home network services.

Pyrus Pyrifolia (Sand Pear) is one of the most underused pear variety despite its nutraceutical potential. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the Pyrus Pyrifolia in term of origin, distribution and classification, nutritional and bioactive potential, therapeutic potential and valorization along with future prospectus.

A wide variety of publications (88) were identified through electronic databases (Science direct, PubMed, SciELO, Google scholar, Link springer and Research gate) under the umbrella of different keywords such as bioactive compounds, health benefits, nutrition, sand pear, Pyrus and Pyrus pyrifolia.

Pyrus Pyrifolia (Sand Pear) is abundant in nutritional and bioactive compounds such as phenolic acids, flavonoids, terpenoids, vitamins and minerals. It exhibits therapeutic potential as being an antioxidant, anti-obesity, anti-diabetic, anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer agent. However, P. pyrifolia is not much explored by food researchers and industrialists, hence remaining underused. A few attempts have been made toward the use of P. pyrifolia for jam, jelly, candy and wine preparation. However, more research is required for the commercial processing of P. pyrifolia and to enhance its availability outside its growing area.

In this paper, nutritional and bioactive compounds of P. pyrifolia are discussed that provide knowledge to the researchers for its use as a functional ingredient.

This paper describes the development and the numerical analysis of an electrochemical model for the analysis of a novel polymer/metal composite actuator. A general continuum model describing the transport and deformation processes of these actuators is briefly presented, along with a detailed description of the simulation scheme used to predict deformation, current, and mass transport. The predictions of the model are compared with experimental data, indicating a significant role of water transport in the large‐scale deformation. Comparison of the simulations and experimental data showed good agreement confirming the central role of water transport in the deformation process. For the sake of completeness the fabrication process and testing apparatus are also described.

The purpose of this paper is to present a new numerical technique, called adaptive level set method, for use with the finite element method.

A conventional level set method using the smeared Heaviside function has been employed for shape and topology optimizations. The smeared Heaviside function yields an indistinct interface boundary, and so can increase computational time and cause numerical errors. The adaptive level set method does not use the smeared Heaviside function. To coincide with the material interface, it processes the zero level as the boundary data of element meshing.

Usefulness and accuracy of shape optimization using the adaptive level set method are shown by comparison to the conventional level set method. A shape optimization procedure using the adaptive level set method is introduced. Numerical examples are employed to explain how the adaptive level set method is applied.

The adaptive level set method is proposed to relieve the interface problem of the conventional level set method. Shape variation in the optimization is calculated from the continuum sensitivity analysis.

This chapter aims to build a systematization of the current theoretical and empirical academic contributions on smart working (SW) in the organization studies domain and to examine which are the main paths that researchers are concerning themselves with, with specific attention being paid to the new meaning that the work itself has acquired in the model proposed by SW. Particular consideration is devoted to an analysis of the characteristics of the present debate on this construct and the meaning of SW, identifying two different – and contrasting – approaches: one considers it as a totally new concept; the other is notable for its continuity with previous arrangements such as telework. Further, some relevant concepts, strictly related to that of SW in working environments are considered. In the last part of the chapter, some key points for further research are proposed to create stimuli for discussion in the community of organization studies and HRM scholars and among practitioners, given from the perspective of deepening the change in progress, the relevance for which there is general consensus.

Culture is recognized as a pivotal variable in country of origin (COO) research. The purpose of this paper is to assess culture from an individual perspective and to examine the extent to which individual cultural orientations have similar associations with 33 manager- and consumer-related variables between two culturally opposite countries: the USA and South Korea.

An online survey is used. The sample size is 540 for the US sample and 572 for the Korean sample. The correlational similarity between the cultural orientations and other variables is analyzed in three ways and confirmed invariant in the majority cases of each analysis.

Individual cultural orientations are measured by Cultural Value Scale (Yoo et al., 2011), a 26-item five-dimensional scale measuring Hofstede’s typology of culture at the individual level. The three-faceted similarity test of each of the 165 pairs of correlations between the USA and Korea samples (i.e. 33 variables × 5 dimensions of individual cultural orientations) shows that the majority of the correlations are significantly similar between the two countries.

This is a first study in examining the invariance of the relationships of all five dimensions of Hofstede’s culture at the individual level to a variety of variables. As the invariance is found to be a norm, the role of culture in the COO phenomena can be studied at the individual level in a country and be expanded to other countries.

The purpose of this study was develop a computer-based cost prediction model for institutional building projects in Nigeria through the use of artificial neural network (ANN) technique. The back-propagation network learns by example and provides good prediction to novel cases.

The input variables were derived from related works with modification and advices from professionals through a field survey. Two hundred and sixty completed project data were used for training and development of the ANN model. Back-propagation algorithm using the gradient descent delta learning rule with a learning coefficient of 0.4 was used. The input layer of the model comprised of nine variables; building height, compactness of building, construction duration, external wall area, gross floor area, number of floors, proportion of opening on external walls, location index and time index.

Several multi-layer perceptron networks were developed with varying architecture from which the network 9-7-5-1 was selected. The performance of the model over the validation sample revealed that the model has a mean absolute per cent error of 5.4 per cent and average error of prediction of −2.5 per cent over the sample. The ANN model was considered to be effective for construction cost prediction.

The model may not be suitable for other building types because of the uniqueness of such facility even though significant difference is not anticipated for buildings such as commercial and residential. The models were evaluated based on the prediction errors; other means of evaluation were not used.

The study thus provides a simple, yet effective means of predicting construction costs of institutional building projects in Nigeria using an ANN model.