Search results

The analysis of certain structures must be performed with due consideration to non‐linear behavior, such as material and geometric non‐linearities. The existing methods for treating non‐linear structural behavior generally make use of repeated linearization, such as load increment methods. This paper demonstrates that there is an alternative type of linearization that appears to have significant advantages when applied to the analysis of non‐linear structural systems. Briefly stated, this alternative linearization can be thought of as a “monomialization”. This monomial (single‐termed power function) approximation more faithfully models the power function behavior inherent in typical structural systems. Conveniently, it becomes a linear form when transformed into log space. Thus, computational tools based on linear algebra remain useful and effective. Preliminary results indicate that the monomial approximation provides a higher quality approximation to non‐linear phenomena exhibited in structural applications. Consequently, incremental and iterative methods become more effective because larger steps can be taken. The net result is an increase in reliability of the solution process and a significant reduction in computational effort. Two examples are presented to demonstrate the method.

The numerical treatment of non‐linear engineering phenomena often involves some sort of mathematical simplification. In many cases, the system under investigation is linearized about an operating point using the linear part of the Taylor’s series expansion. This allows local representation for use in incremental or iterative methods using well‐established computational tools for linear algebra. Demonstrates a different linearization technique that generally provides a higher quality fit to a certain class of functions than the standard Taylor linearization. This class of functions is general enough to represent all systems of algebraic equations. Presents a graphical demonstration of the quality of fit along with a discussion of why this alternative linearization provides a high quality fit. Also presents an engineering application of the linearization.

This paper aims to suggest that individuals are either consciously or non‐consciously aware of the left‐right (forward/backward) orientation of numeric digits. The purpose of the studies is to demonstrate that the “directionality” (left‐ or right‐facing nature) of numerals, and the resultant eye movement bias that this directionality creates may affect the degree to which consumers attend to, or focus upon, the various digits in a price. The degree of attention paid to these digits will, in turn, impact consumers' price‐encoding strategies. It is argued that the use of left (right)‐facing digits may increase (decrease) the likelihood that consumers will employ a truncation (i.e. rounding down) price‐encoding strategy.

The paper contains two experiments. In Experiment 1, subjects were exposed to one of four ads containing regular and sale prices. The prices were placed at opposite ends of the Mueller‐Lyer illusion, with the prices substituting for the “extraneous stimuli” (i.e. inward‐ or outward‐facing wings) in the illusion. In Experiment 2, subjects were exposed to one of six ads containing a sale price only.

In Experiment 1, digit “directionality” was found to cause eye movement bias, which resulted in distorted physical distance perceptions. In Experiment 2, digit directionality was found to impact price‐rounding behavior.

It is suggested that perceived digit‐directionality creates eye movement bias, and that eye movement bias may impact the manner in which price digits are recalled and encoded. Eye movement bias can be inferred from the results of Experiment 1, but it is not directly measured. It is suggested that future research efforts might employ eye‐tracking measures to more directly confirm that this perceptual bias does indeed occur.

The findings have important implications for the marketing practitioner, because they demonstrate that the use of particular digit combinations can result in a price being perceived as greater or less than its actual value.

In presenting the concept of “digit‐directionality”, the paper offers an entirely new rubric in which to examine matters pertaining to numerical cognition.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

The increased availability and adoption of precision agriculture technologies has left researchers to grapple with how to best utilize the associated high-frequency large-volume of data. Since the wealth of information from precision equipment can easily be aggregated in real-time, this poses an interesting question of how aggregates of high-frequency data may complement, or substitute for, publicly released periodic reports from government agencies.

This study utilized advances in event study and yield projection methodologies to test whether simulated weekly harvest-time yields potentially drive futures price that are significantly different from the status quo. The study employs a two-step methodology to ascertain how corn futures price reactions and price levels would have evolved if market participants had access to weekly forecasted yields. The marginal effects of new information on futures price returns are first established by exploiting the variation between news in publicly available information and price returns. Given this relationship, the study then estimates the counterfactual evolution of corn futures price attributable to new information associated with simulated weekly forecasted yields.

The results show that the market for corn exhibits only semi-strong form efficiency, as the “news” provided by the monthly Crop Production and World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates reports is incorporated into prices in at most two days after the release. As expected, an increase in corn yields relative to what was publicly known elicits a futures price decrease. The counterfactual analysis suggests that if weekly harvest-time yields were available to market participants, the daily corn futures price will potentially be relatively volatile during the harvest period, but the final price at the end of the harvest season will be lower.

The study uses simulation to show the potential evolution of corn futures price if market participants had access to weekly harvest-time yields. In doing so, the study provides insights centered around the ongoing debate regarding the economic value of USDA reports in the presence of growing information availability within the private sector.

The purpose of this paper is to identify, analyze and describe the novel approaches that affect vaccine development in lower-middle income countries (LMICs).

The vaccine market in LMICs currently focuses on traditional Expanded Program for Immunization vaccines instead of new ones. Unlike the successful introduction of those traditional vaccines, the introduction of new vaccines appears to be very slow, mainly due to financial issues. This paper systematically reviews a set of published papers on vaccine development and analyzes them against a specific region-setting framework.

Public–private partnership alone could not ensure long-term vaccine sustainability. Several factors that encourage domestic vaccine development were identified. The findings demonstrate that the regulatory approach of hybrid collaboration and market opportunity strategies can be a major breakthrough for domestic vaccine development in LMICs.

Further research is required to include qualitative and quantitative methods for policy analysis, as all of the discussion in this research focused on literature reviews. The authors did not discuss how strategic decisions are affected from a political perspective and this needs to be specified in future research. Think tanks, considerably and fundamentally, affect policy ideas and decisions. However, important breakthroughs continue to be made at the same time.

The development of vaccines in LMICs is expected to be a mechanism to overcome the inadequate access to vaccines in those countries, as solving this problem requires tackling issues from both the supply and demand sides.

This is a literature review that creates recommendation and approaches for domestic vaccine development in LMICs. This review aims to encourage LMICs to produce their own vaccines for sustainability of the vaccine access through vaccine development lifecycle, instead of expecting donor that provides funding and vaccines (vaccine access) in certain period of time. Donor is not always the solution for the problem, since vaccine development requires finance to function infrastructure. There are many efforts in revoking this, including World Health Organization through several reports; however, this effort still has many doubts. Therefore, the article would like to try to see this as a viable solution from the policy perspectives, with several examples to make recommendations more practical.

Regardless of their motives, acquiring firms almost always have to offer a premium to the shareholders of the acquired firm in acquisitions. That is, the value of the securities or cash paid by the acquirers is higher than the premerger market price of the acquired firm's common stock. The size of the merger premiums, as a percentage of the pre‐merger market price of the acquired firm's common stock, could vary from 20 per cent to 115 per cent. Several empirical studies examining the factors that determine the size of merger premiums have had limited success. Since the merger premium could affect the probability of success of a merger attempt and the wealth of the shareholders of both the acquiring and the acquired firms, continued efforts to improve our understanding of merger premium determination is essential. This paper investigates empirically the premiums paid in 66 mergers consummated between 1975 and 1979.

The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains features to help the reader to retrieve relevant literature from MCB University Press' considerable output. Each entry within has been indexed according to author(s) and the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus. The latter thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid retrieval. Each article or book is assigned its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. This Volume indexes 29 journals indicating the depth, coverage and expansion of MCB's portfolio.

The creation of start-ups using knowledge provided by universities has been identified as an important source of knowledge spillover and regional economic development. Entrepreneurship ecosystems in education have become the most important and efficient mechanism of business community engagement and knowledge transfer within university-industry-government framework creating value to society and regional economy. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This study undertakes in-depth synthesis of eclectic literature on entrepreneurship ecosystems and knowledge spillover of entrepreneurship, examining the critical success factors and enablers of entrepreneurship ecosystems in education.

This study proposes entrepreneurship education ecosystems as an alternative unit of analysis when it comes to considering the role of university-industry-government collaboration in knowledge commercialization. The authors recommend key entrepreneurship education ecosystem enablers for knowledge commercialization and engagement with entrepreneurial communities.

The authors propose a framework for the creation of an entrepreneurship education ecosystem as a unit of analysis when considering the role of university-industry-government collaboration. It requires different approaches to teaching, research and business outreach, some of which have not yet been discovered or yet need to be created.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.