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This paper aims to study the preferences of the supply chain (SC) members on various power structures under demand information asymmetry considering competing retailers.

A two-level SC with one manufacturer and two retailers is designed. The retailers are in Bertrand competition. The manufacturer who holds the confidential demand information chooses the appropriate information sharing (IS) format. Three IS formats are provided, i.e. no IS (the manufacturer never shares with the retailers), partial IS (the manufacturer shares with one retailer), full IS (the manufacturer shares with all retailers). In addition, the authors model two power structures based on the decision sequences in the SC, i.e. retailers or manufacturer-dominant SC. The authors characterize the equilibrium solutions and payoffs and then investigate the members’ preferences for IS formats.

It is shown that in retailers (manufacturer)-dominant SC, the retailers prefer full (no) IS, but the manufacturer prefers no (full) IS. Moreover, the authors analyze the members’ preferences on power structures under demand information asymmetry, which has a relationship with the degrees of demand uncertainty and competition intensity.

The analysis regarding the preferences of the SC members on power structure under demand information asymmetry provides valuable managerial insights to enhance cooperation and achieve a win-win result.

This study aims to investigate the influence of soy protein isolate hydrolysates (SPIH) obtained using 4 h hydrolysis under 200 MPa on proximate composition, cooking loss, textural properties, color, water distribution, microstructure, thiobarbituric acid reactive substance (TBARS) value and carbonyl and sulfhydryl contents of emulsion sausages.

Sausages with SPIHs at four concentrations (0, 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0%) were prepared, and the sausage with 0.01% butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) was used as a positive control. Some sausages were selected for the analyses of quality characteristics and microcosmic properties. Other sausages were stored under 4 °C for 0, 7, 14, 21 and 28 days to investigate the oxidative stability.

The addition of SPIHs at various levels (0–3.0%) or 0.01% BHA did not affect the proximate composition (protein, fat and ash) of emulsion sausages. The addition of 2.0% SPIH decreased cooking loss and increased moisture content, hardness, springiness, chewiness, resilience and L* value, compared to the sausages without SPIH and with 0.01% BHA (p < 0.05). Furthermore, low-field nuclear magnetic resonance results suggested that sausages with 2.0% SPIH had the shortest T2 relaxation time. In addition, 2.0% SPIH and 0.01% BHA could inhibit the oxidation of emulsion sausages when compared with the sample without SPIH (p < 0.05). Moreover, there were no differences between sausages with 2.0% SPIH and 0.01% BHA (p > 0.05).

These findings confirmed that the 2.0% SPIH obtained under 200 MPa can be used as a natural additive to improve quality properties and antioxidant potential of emulsion sausages during storage.

The management of children′s literature is a search for value and suitability. Effective policies in library and educational work are based firmly on knowledge of materials, and on the bibliographical and critical frame within which the materials appear and might best be selected. Boundaries, like those between quality and popular books, and between children′s and adult materials, present important challenges for selection, and implicit in this process are professional acumen and judgement. Yet also there are attitudes and systems of values, which can powerfully influence selection on grounds of morality and good taste. To guard against undue subjectivity, the knowledge frame should acknowledge the relevance of social and experiential context for all reading materials, how readers think as well as how they read, and what explicit and implicit agendas the authors have. The good professional takes all these factors on board.

Drawing upon the theory of communication visibility, this research intends to investigate the direct effect of enterprise social media (ESM) usage on team members’ knowledge creation capability (KCC) and the mediating effects of psychological safety and team identification. In addition, it aims to untangle how the efficacy of ESM usage varies between pre- and post-COVID-19 periods.

Using two-wave survey data from 240 members nested within 60 teams, this study utilizes a multilevel approach to test the proposed hypotheses.

We discover that ESM usage enhances team members’ KCC. More importantly, the results show that psychological safety and team identification mediate the ESM–KCC linkage. Interestingly, we further find that the impacts of ESM usage on team members’ KCC, psychological safety, and team identification are stronger in the pre-COVID-19 period than those in the post-COVID-19 period.

This research sheds light on the ESM literature by unraveling the mechanisms of psychological safety and team identification underlying the linkage between ESM usage and team members’ KCC. Moreover, it advances our understanding of the differential efficacy of ESM usage in pre- and post-COVID-19 periods.

This chapter sets out to explore whether the lineage of social change and social development has led to any change in public attitudes towards female rape victims. People campaigned for the amendments in the rape laws and raised their voices to support concern for the security and dignity of women but overlooked the reality of the attitudes that victims face when they seek help. Victims are continued to be seen as a scar on the fabric of society which bears strong cultural and social norms echoing patriarchal values. The research study collected data from a sample of 130 family members of female victims of rape and 100 people from areas where rapes were predominantly reported in Delhi City. The findings that follow are that: those sampled reacted insensitively to the victims of rape. In addition to this they increased control over their female family members fearing that they would be raped. For those in the study, rape continues to be viewed as bringing shame to victims and their families.

Phenolic compounds play a critical role in grape quality, and their content is strongly influenced by bunch zone temperature during the ripening period. The mechanism of responding to temperature was found to highly depend on cultivars. The present study aimed to evaluate the effects of row orientation and canopy side on phenolic content in grape berries.

The authors analyzed the accumulation of phenolic compounds in mature berries of Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Gernischt. They were harvested from various canopy sides of north-south and east-west row orientations, which were NS–E and NS–W, EW–S and EW–N.

During the ripening period, mean temperatures of the bunch zones, NS–W and EW–N were respectively higher than NS–E and EW–S. At harvest, the total phenolic, total anthocyanin, tannin and reducing sugar contents were higher in NS–E and EW–S, than in NS–W and EW–N, respectively, indicating a negative relationship with temperature. For both varieties, EW–S had the highest proportion of malvidins anthocyanins. Peonidins, delphinidins, and cyanidins anthocyanins of EW–N showed a higher ratio in Cabernet Sauvignon, while NS–E showed a higher ratio in Cabernet Gernischt.

To improve grape monomeric anthocyanin content, the results indicate that Cabernet Sauvignon of NS–W and Cabernet Gernischt of NS–E can be utilized for an effective strategy. Moreover, the optimal combination planting choices with cultivars would improve wine quality by increasing pigment concentrations linked to the color and antioxidant potential.

CONFERENCES are becoming difficult. Recently the chairman of the Ray Committee remarked that there were too many of them, and added that if they were held in Wigan rather than Bournemouth or such places they would not be well attended. The assumption is that we attend them for our pleasure only. We do find pleasure in them, but any delegate who goes through a Library Association Conference has done a week's work more strenuous than most men do in their busiest business weeks. In fact he is worked much too hard. Sir William Ray is too experienced a public man not to know why an assembly of several thousands of persons cannot descend on places which are without accommodation. In any case the Library Association has met in recent years in Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow, which have their amenities but are not exactly pleasure resorts.

The multi-scale numerical simulation method, able to represent the complexity of the random structures and capture phase degradation, is an effective way to investigate the long-term behavior of concrete in service and bridges the gap between research on the material and on the structural level. However, the combined chemical-physical deterioration mechanisms of concrete remain a challenging task. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the degradation mechanism of concrete at the waterline in cold regions induced by combined calcium leaching and frost damage.

With the help of the NIST’s three-dimensional (3D) hydration model and the random aggregate model, realistic 3D representative volume elements (RVEs) of concrete at the micro-, the meso-, and the macro-scales can be reconstructed. The boundary problem method is introduced to compute the homogenized mechanical properties for both sound and damaged RVEs. According to the damage characteristics, the staggering method including a random dissolution model and a thermo-mechanical coupling model is developed to simulate the synergy deterioration effects of interacted calcium leaching and frost attacks. The coupled damage procedure for the frost damage process is based on the hydraulic pressure theory and the ice lens growth theory considering the relationship between the frozen temperature and the radius of the capillary pore. Finally, regarding calcium leaching as the leading role in actual engineering, the numerical methodology for combined leaching and frost damage on concrete property is proposed using a successive multi-scale method.

On the basis of available experimental data, this methodology is employed to explore the deterioration process. The results agree with the experimental ones to some extent, chemical leaching leads to the nucleation of some micro-cracks (i.e. damage), and consequently, to the decrease of the frost resistance.

It is demonstrated that the multi-scale numerical methodology can capture potential aging and deterioration evolution processes, and can give an insight into the macroscopic property degradation of concrete under long-term aggressive conditions.

This paper aims to investigate the influence of stearate types on the thickening ability, dropping point and fiber structure of greases.

Several greases were prepared from polyolefins and various stearates. The melting point of the stearates and the dropping point of the resultant greases were measured, and the intermolecular binding energies of the thickener and the radial distribution function of the metal–oxygen in the thickener were determined with the aid of molecular simulation. The microstructures of the greases were also analyzed via scanning electron microscopy.

A higher stearate binding energy was found to correlate to a higher dropping point of the resultant greases. The thickening ability of the stearate is related to the group and period of the constituent metal ion. Within a group, greater atomic numbers of the metal were correlated to lower thickening ability. In a period, as the atomic number of the metal increased, the thickening ability was enhanced. The radial distribution functions of metal and oxygen can explain the aggregation of the stearate thickeners in the grease.

This work compared the thickening capacity of several stearates. Guidelines for preparing stearates to tailor the resultant grease are presented.

THE catalogue, as a library appliance of importance, has had more attention devoted to it than, perhaps, any other method or factor of librarianship. Its construction, materials, rules for compilation and other aspects have all been considered at great length, and in every conceivable manner, so that little remains for exposition save some points in the policy of the catalogue, and its effects on progress and methods. In the early days of the municipal library movement, when methods were somewhat crude, and hedged round with restrictions of many kinds, the catalogue, even in the primitive form it then assumed, was the only key to the book‐wealth of a library, and as such its value was duly recognized. As time went on, and the vogue of the printed catalogue was consolidated, its importance as an appliance became more and more established, and when the first Newcastle catalogue appeared and received such an unusual amount of journalistic notice, the idea of the printed catalogue as the indispensable library tool was enormously enhanced from that time till quite recently. One undoubted result of this devotion to the catalogue has been to stereotype methods to a great extent, leading in the end to stagnation, and there are places even now where every department of the library is made to revolve round the catalogue. Whether it is altogether wise to subordinate everything in library work to the cult of the catalogue has been questioned by several librarians during the past few years, and it is because there is so much to be said against this policy that the following reflections are submitted.