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This paper aims to show the potential decay resistance of furfurylated wood and investigate possible eco‐toxicity of such materials produced. This paper deals with the environmental aspects and durability of furfurylated wood, both laboratory and field tests are included in the investigations. Results from several decay tests, emission analysis studies and ecotox tests are presented. The results show that furfurylated wood is highly decay resistant. Furthermore, no significant increase in eco‐toxicity of leaching water was found and degradation through combustion does not release any volatile organic compounds or poly‐aromatic hydrocarbons above normal levels for wood combustion. Durability enhancement by furfurylation of wood is not believed to be harmful to the environment. Wood modified with furfuryl alcohol, “furfurylated wood”, is currently being marketed as a non‐toxic alternative to traditional preservative treated wood (wood impregnated with biocides). This paper summarises much of the long term exposure of furfurylated wood ever caried out, and present the first eco‐tox tests on such material ever done.

This paper describes the installation and the first year's operation of a commercial computer‐based cataloguing system and the extent to which this system has been adapted to the specific needs of a new university (the Universitaire Instelling Antwerpen). The catalogue is regarded principally as a finding tool. Cataloguing is done locally according to minimal rules which are, however, MARC‐compatible; input effort is minimised by the use of automatic field recognition and automatic error detection. The data is batch processed by a computer bureau in England. The catalogue is output on COM microfiche in three sequences: 1. author; 2. title; 3. ‘KWUC’ (Keyword and UDC)‐a KWOC‐type format within broad UDC classes and originated from manually tagged title‐derived keywords. The system has been well received by users. Plans for further automation of the UIA Library are outlined.

Hot and humid climates (HHCs) are potential environmental hazards that directly affect construction workers' health and safety (HS) and negatively impact workers' productivity. Extensive research efforts have addressed the effects of HHCs. However, these efforts have been inconsistent in their approach for selecting factors influencing workers in such conditions. There are also increasing concerns about the drop-off in research interest to follow through intrusive and non-real-time measurements. This review aims to identify the major research gaps in measurements applied in previous research with careful attention paid to the factors that influence the intrusiveness and selection of the applied data collection methods.

This research integrates a manual subjective discussion with a thematic analysis of Leximancer software and an elaborating chronological, geographical and methodological review that yielded 701 articles and 76 peer-reviewed most related articles.

The literature included the physiological parameters as influencing factors and useful indicators for HHC effects and identified site activity intensity as the most influencing work-related factor. In total, three main gaps were identified: (1) the role of substantial individual and work-related factors; (2) managerial interventions and the application of the right time against the right symptoms, sample size and measurement intervals and (3) applied methods of data collection; particularly, the intrusiveness of the utilised sensors.

The focus of researchers and practitioners should be in applying nonintrusive, innovative and real-time methods that can provide crew-level measurements. In particular, methods that can represent the actual effects of allocated tasks are aligned with real-time weather measurements, so proactive HHC-related preventions can be enforced on time.

This review contributes to the field of construction workers' safety in HHCs and enables researchers and practitioners to identify the most influential individual and work-related factors in HHCs. This review also proposes a framework for future research with suggestions to cover the highlighted research gaps and contributes to a critical research area in the construction industry.

Leaders lack essential information about their performance from their followers. In light of the frequently encountered error avoidance climate in the police, leaders should actively seek feedback to fill this gap. The purpose of this paper is to explore organizational, personal and situational antecedents of police leaders' daily feedback-seeking behavior.

The authors used a diary study and examined error-management climate, feedback orientation and two situational characteristics, namely daily occasions for feedback-seeking and daily time pressure. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to analyze the N = 188 daily entries from 27 leaders (minimum of three daily entries per leader).

Results show that police leaders seldom seek daily feedback from their followers. A positive (i.e. learning-oriented) error-management climate and occasions for feedback-seeking foster leaders' daily feedback-seeking, whereas no main effects of feedback orientation and time pressure were found. However, time pressure moderated the relationship between occasions for feedback-seeking and daily feedback-seeking, with higher time pressure leading to a weaker relationship.

This is the first study empirically examining feedback-seeking as a key leadership behavior on a daily basis. The results show that organizational conditions promote leaders' feedback-seeking behavior and indicate organizations should foster an error-management climate to promote feedback-seeking of their leaders.

Mountbatten offers a vivid description of the current‐awareness function using the analogy of a very wide conveyor‐belt, representing the information publishers, on which books, periodicals and reports appear at random: ‘The searcher is on a platform just above the belt and as the information material passes underneath he can pick up and read anything that he thinks might be of interest to him. You can imagine his frustration as he realises that for every item he takes time to examine, hundreds of others of possible interest to him have passed by’. Personality and environment will determine whether the individual can find an intelligent compromise between the extremes of neurosis induced by worrying about the material he is missing, or complacency with any system which produces one or two interesting items.

This study aims to examine the extent to which external auditors (EAs) use the work of the internal audit function (IAF) based on the purpose of its primary activities. The authors rely on attribution theory, which suggests that individuals search for meaning when an event occurs. In this setting, the authors explore how the overall (assurance vs advisory) or specific (e.g. risk management and evaluating internal controls) focus of IAF activities influences perceived EA reliance on the IAF’s work.

The authors first explore the research question with data extracted from a broad, longitudinal survey conducted triennially by the national chapters of the Institute of Internal Auditors in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. The data includes responses from 2014, 2017 and 2020 administrations of the survey. The authors conduct a parallel survey with practicing EAs attending two training sessions of a European office of a global network firm. Hypotheses were tested using ordered logistic regression.

Among the chief audit executive (CAE) participants, the authors observe that a balanced or primarily assurance-related purpose of the IAF, relative to a primarily advisory-related purpose, is associated with higher perceived EA reliance. The authors observe similar perceptions of the extent of reliance among the EA participants.

With a unique data set of practicing internal auditors from three countries, coupled with a sample of EAs, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine differences in EA reliance across the IAF’s primary roles. The study relies on data from three European countries, which differs from prior EA reliance literature with a largely North American focus. Further, comparison between perceptions of EAs and CAEs is a novel approach and this paper’s findings suggest that perceptions of CAEs could be a reliable proxy for EA-intended behavior.

The purpose of this paper is to examine two prominent perspectives on business group functioning, institutional void (IV) and entrenchment/exploitation (EE), that make different predictions about the effect of business group (BG) on the economy. The authors examine the effects of BG prevalence in an economy and its effect on macroeconomic outcomes including foreign direct inward and outward investment, innovation and development of the financial sector.

The authors build a unique database by extracting estimates of BG prevalence for multiple countries between 1978 and 2012 from the existing literature and use this to test conflicting predictions derived from the IV and EE perspectives, respectively.

The authors find no consistent evidence that BG prevalence diminishes over time with economic development as IVs diminish, which is predicted by the IV perspective. Instead, the long-term persistence of BGs in many countries appears to be more consistent with the EE perspective. However, this study also finds no support for the perspective that high levels of BG prevalence are negatively associated with country-level indicators and determinants of economic development and competitiveness, as suggested by that perspective.

The authors conclude that there is no robust support for either the IV or the EE perspective and highlight the need for more contextualized theorizing about the evolution of BGs.

The behaviour of bolt connections is illustrated by an example of eccentrically loaded plate strip, examined on a FE model with a description of the beam model of this connection. The development of a general‐purpose beam model is described with particular emphasis being given to experimental justification, comparison with similar computing methods, and design applications of the model. The restrictions in the use of the model which are dependent on external dimensions of connected parts and their basic form are also mentioned.

Developing a performance measure and reporting the results to support decision making at an individual level has yielded poor results in many health systems. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the factors associated with the dissemination of performance information that generate and support continuous improvement in health organizations.

A systematic data collection strategy that includes empirical and theoretical research published from 1980 to 2010, both qualitative and quantitative, was performed on Web of Science, Current Contents, EMBASE and MEDLINE. A narrative synthesis method was used to iteratively detail explicative processes that underlie the intervention. A classification and synthesis framework was developed, drawing on knowledge transfer and exchange (KTE) literature. The sample consisted of 114 articles, including seven systematic or exhaustive reviews.

Results showed that dissemination in itself is not enough to produce improvement initiatives. Successful dissemination depends on various factors, which influence the way collective actors react to performance information such as the clarity of objectives, the relationships between stakeholders, the system's governance and the available incentives.

This review was limited to the process of knowledge dissemination in health systems and its utilization by users at the health organization level. Issues related to improvement initiatives deserve more attention.

Knowledge dissemination goes beyond better communication and should be considered as carefully as the measurement of performance. Choices pertaining to intervention should be continuously prompted by the concern to support organizational action.

While considerable attention was paid to the public reporting of performance information, this review sheds some light on a more promising avenue for changes and improvements, notably in public health systems.

The large amount of tax and tuition dollars spent on both public and private primary and secondary education in the United States is motivating an ever-increasing demand for school performance and accountability information. The information that is needed by constituents depends on the type of school accountability system in place. Although the Government Accounting Standards Board proposed a model for school performance information over a decade ago, there remains considerable variability in the type and quality of information that is provided to by schools. This article describes school performance and accountability information currently provided by both public and private primary and secondary schools. In addition, suggestions are provided on how to make improvements in the information provided by schools and districts to their constituents.