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This paper examines the socio-political affordances of metrics in research evaluation and the consequences of epistemic injustice in research practices and recorded knowledge.

First, the use of metrics is examined as a mechanism that promotes competition and social acceleration. Second, it is argued that the use of metrics in a competitive research culture reproduces systemic inequalities and leads to epistemic injustice. The conceptual analysis draws on works of Hartmut Rosa and Miranda Fricker, amongst others.

The use of metrics is largely driven by competition such as university rankings and league tables. Not only that metrics are not designed to enrich academic and research culture, they also suppress the visibility and credibility of works by minorities. As such, metrics perpetuate epistemic injustice in knowledge practices; at the same time, the reliability of metrics for bibliometric and scientometric studies is put into question.

As metrics leverage who can speak and who will be heard, epistemic injustice is reflected in recorded knowledge and what we consider to be information.

This paper contributes to the discussion of metrics beyond bibliometric studies and research evaluation. It argues that metrics-induced competition is antithetical to equality and diversity in research practices.

The purpose of this paper is to review and discuss Luciano Floridi’s 2019 book The Logic of Information: A Theory of Philosophy as Conceptual Design, the latest instalment in his philosophy of information (PI) tetralogy, particularly with respect to its implications for library and information studies (LIS).

Nine scholars with research interests in philosophy and LIS read and responded to the book, raising critical and heuristic questions in the spirit of scholarly dialogue. Floridi responded to these questions.

Floridi’s PI, including this latest publication, is of interest to LIS scholars, and much insight can be gained by exploring this connection. It seems also that LIS has the potential to contribute to PI’s further development in some respects.

Floridi’s PI work is technical philosophy for which many LIS scholars do not have the training or patience to engage with, yet doing so is rewarding. This suggests a role for translational work between philosophy and LIS.

The book symposium format, not yet seen in LIS, provides forum for sustained, multifaceted and generative dialogue around ideas.

This paper aims to understand the nature of citations and metrics in the larger system of knowledge production involving universities, funding agencies, publishers, and indexing and data analytic services.

First, the normative and social constructivist views of citations are reviewed to be understood as co-existing conditions. Second, metrics are examined through the processes of commensuration by tracing the meanings of metrics embedded in various kinds of documents and contexts. Third, the steering effects of citations and metrics on knowledge production are discussed. Finally, the conclusion addresses questions pertaining to the validity and legitimacy of citations as data and their implications for knowledge production and the conception of information.

The normative view of citations is understood as an ideal speech situation; the social constructivist view of citation is recognised in the system of knowledge production where citing motivations are influenced by epistemic, social and political factors. When organisational performances are prioritised and generate system imperatives, motives of competition become dominant in shaping citing behaviour, which can deviate from the norms and values in the academic lifeworld. As a result, citations and metrics become a non-linguistic steering medium rather than evidence of research quality and impact.

This paper contributes to the understanding of the nature of citations and metrics and their implications for the conception of information and knowledge production.

Border crossing between systemic and racial identity theories can contribute to systemic research on Black therapists work with White families.

Questionnaires were used to gather data from 29 Black, Asian and Mixed Heritage therapists in order to test the significance of variables associated with transgenerational advice, socialisation experience, professional training and therapists’ perception of successful outcomes (n=29). The study concluded that White clients were associated with the contact and disintegration statuses at the beginning of therapy, and that Black therapists were associated with being at least two racial identity statuses in advance of their White clients. In addition, results showed that there was a significant association with eye contact and White clients across all racial identity statuses in therapy, and that the therapist’s age was significantly associated with therapeutic experiences, length of therapeutic practice and the belief in working with unintentional racism in therapy. The outcome of this study will have policy implications in terms of clinical practice and supervision.

The purpose of this paper is to present a new method, namely, “Re-modified quintic B-spline collocation method” to solve the Kuramoto–Sivashinsky (KS) type equations. In this method, re-modified quintic B-spline functions and the Crank–Nicolson formulation is used for space and time integration, respectively. Five examples are considered to test out the efficiency and accuracy of the method. The main objective is to develop a method which gives more accurate results and reduces the computational cost so that the authors require less memory storage.

A new collocation technique is developed to solve the KS type equations. In this technique, quintic B-spline basis functions are re-modified and used to integrate the space derivatives while time derivative is discretized by using Crank–Nicolson formulation. The discretization yields systems of linear equations, which are solved by using Gauss elimination method with partial pivoting.

Five examples are considered to test out the efficiency and accuracy of the method. Finally, the present study summarizes the following outcomes: first, the computational cost of the proposed method is the less than quintic B-spline collocation method. Second, the present method produces better results than those obtained by Lattice Boltzmann method (Lai and Ma, 2009), quintic B-spline collocation method (Mittal and Arora, 2010), quintic B-spline differential quadrature method (DQM) (Mittal and Dahiya, 2017), extended modified cubic B-spline DQM (Tamsir et al., 2016) and modified cubic B-splines collocation method (Mittal and Jain, 2012).

The method presented in this paper is new to best of the authors’ knowledge. This work is the original work of authors and the manuscript is not submitted anywhere else for publication.

There are still many different theoretical approaches and practical interpretations about what an integrated report is. Starting from this premise, the overall purpose of this chapter is to critically analyze the relationship between integrated reporting (IR) and social/sustainability disclosure. Indeed, although some scholars considered IR as a tool to improve the sustainability approach of the companies allowing to disclose more relevant social information, others are more critical about the potentiality of IR to improve social disclosure. Therefore, the general research question is: Is there a natural link between IR and social disclosure (true love) or is the IR a practice to “normalize” the social disclosure and accounting (forced marriage)?

In the attempt to provide a preliminary answer to the research question, the chapter analyzes what is the approach of three categories: (1) academics; (2) soft-regulators; and (3) companies. From the methodological point of view, a mixed method of analysis has been adopted.

From the analysis of the three different points of view, IR can be considered as a “contested concept” because of the heterogeneous and sometimes conflicting interpretations and implementation that are done on this type of report. This leads to relevant theoretical and practical implications.

With the rapid development of China’s urbanisation and market economy, municipal solid waste (MSW) generation is increasing dramatically. In response to the threat of environmental pollution and the potential value of converting waste into energy, both the government and the public are now paying more attention to MSW treatment and disposal methods. In 2014, 178.6 million tonnes of MSW was collected at a safe treatment rate of 84.8%. However, the treatment methods and the composition of MSW are influenced by the collection area, its gross domestic product, population, rainfall and living conditions. This chapter analysed the MSW composition properties of Lhasa, Tibet, compared with other cities, such as Beijing, Guangzhou and so forth. The research showed that the moisture content of MSW in Lhasa approaches 31%, which is much lower than the other cities mentioned previously. The proportion of paper and plastics (rubbers) collected was 25.67% and 19.1%, respectively. This was 1.00–3.17 times and 0.75–2.44 times more than those found in Beijing and Guangzhou, respectively. Non-combustibles can reach up to 22.5%, which was 4.03–9.11 times that of Beijing and Guangzhou, respectively. The net heating values could reach up to 6,616 kilojoule/kilogram. The food residue was only half the proportion found in other cities. Moreover, the disposal method applied in each city has also been studied and compared.

This paper aims to propose a numerical definition-based systematic design approach (NDSDA) to generate an explicit numerical definition of the product form profile and to establish the correlation between the product form features and the corresponding consumers’ image perceptions.

To illustrate the feasibility of the proposed method, this study considers the design of a two-dimensional automobile profile for illustration purposes and commences by developing a detailed numerical definition of an automobile profile using Bézier curves. A series of automobile image evaluations are conducted to examine the relationship between the characteristics of an automobile profile and its associated consumer image perception. Finally, the evaluation results are analyzed statistically, and the statistical results are used to construct mathematical models formalizing the correlations between the automobile profile design variables and the consumers’ perceptions of the product image.

The results of the evaluation trials are used to construct mathematical models capable of predicting the likely consumer response to any automobile profile designed in accordance with the numerical definition. Furthermore, the evaluation data enable the critical design variables and form features to be determined such that the efficacy of the design process in creating automobiles which better meet the consumers’ image aspirations can be improved.

The major contribution of the NDSDA methodology presented in this study is the ability it gives to designers to specify the product form in a detailed yet highly efficient manner. Furthermore, the numerical definition of the product form not only provides a suitable basis for identifying the critical design variables and form features of the product but also provides an understanding of how these variables should be manipulated to obtain or reinforce the desired product image.

Based on the theory of habitual domain, the purpose of this paper is to explore inter‐firm networks' mechanisms for coping with environmental change and for assisting firms to adapt to their collaborative networks. Business globalization is driving more and more individual firms to form inter‐firm collaborative networks. These networks need to develop new types of strategic capability in order not only to adopt a robust business process that will achieve high efficiency, but also to develop a network system for responding to external environmental changes.

With insights gained from the case study, the paper develops an analytical framework for deconstructing the network behavioral changes based on the network habitual domain concept and discusses the dual roles of the network‐based habitual domain in network behavioral changes.

This paper demonstrates how a Chinese telecommunications service company and its inter‐firm network became the market leader in one of the provincial capital cities in China within six years.

From an endogenous perspective, this paper contributes some useful concepts that may assist both academia and managers to identify network‐based habitual domains, improve the domains continuously, enhance their response capabilities, and formulate appropriate strategies according to the competition's requirements.