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The purpose of this paper is to provide an effective members-adding method for truss topology optimization in plastic design.

With the help of the distribution of principal stress trajectories, obtained by finite element analysis of the design domain, ineffective zones for force transmission paths can be found, namely, areas whose nodes may have ersatz nodal displacements. Members connected by these nodes are eliminated and the reduced ground structure is used for optimization. Adding members in short to long order and limiting the number of members properly with the most strained ones added, large-scale truss problems in one load case and multiple-load cases are optimized.

Inefficient members (i.e. bars that fulfil the adding criterion but make no contribution to the optimal structure) added to the ground structure in each iterative step are reduced. Fewer members are used for optimization than before; therefore, faster solution convergence and less computation time are achieved with the optimized result unchanged.

The proposed members-adding method in the paper can alleviate the phenomenon of ersatz nodal displacements, enhance computational efficiency and save calculating resources effectively.

Computerized layout (or “topology”) optimization was pioneered almost four decades back. However, despite dramatic increases in available computer power and the application of increasingly efficient optimization algorithms, even now only relatively modest sized problems can be tackled using the traditional “ground structure” approach. This is because of the need, in general, for the latter to contain every conceivable member connecting together the nodes in a problem. A simple, but effective solution method capable of tackling problems with large numbers of potential members (e.g. >100,000,000) is presented. Though the method draws on the linear programming technique of “column generation”, since layout optimization specific heuristics are employed it is presented as an iterative “member adding” method. The method requires a ground structure with minimal connectivity to be used in the first iteration; members are then added as required in subsequent iterations until the (provably) optimal solution is found.

THE interval between the Library Association Conference and the printing of THE LIBRARY WORLD is too brief for more than a series of impressions of it. Comment is probably preferable in our pages to mere record. The Association is publishing in the next few weeks all the papers that were read and, as we hope, the substance at least of the unwritten contributions. In this second particular reports in recent years have been lacking. A report that merely states that “Mr. Smith seconded the vote of thanks” is so much waste of paper and interests no one but Mr. Smith. If Mr. Smith, however, said anything we should know what it was he said. What we may say is that the Conference was worthy of the centenary we were celebrating. The attendance, over two thousand, was the largest on record, and there has not been so large a gathering of overseas librarians and educationists since the jubilee meeting of the Library Association at Edinburgh in 1927. So much was this so that the meeting took upon it a certain international aspect, as at least one of the non‐librarian speakers told its members, adding that it was apparently a library league of nations of the friendliest character. It followed that an unusual, but quite agreeable, part of each general session was devoted to speeches of congratulation and good‐will from the foreign delegates. All, with the possible exception of the United States, dwelt upon the debt of their countries in library matters to the English Public Libraries Acts and their consequences. Even Dr. Evans, in a very pleasant speech, showed that he had reached some tentative conclusions about English librarianship.

The aim of this paper is to examine whether team-members' psychological proximity affects the degree of teamwork quality and therefore affecting the team performance.

A survey instrument was developed based on extant literature reviews, and administered among information technology professionals. Collected data were analysed using partial least square (PLS) method.

Team-members' psychological proximity is found to be significantly related to teamwork quality. The magnitude of relational coefficients between sub-dimensions of psychological proximity and those of teamwork quality turned out to be different from each other.

Psychological proximity is found to critically influence teamwork and performance in IT teams. Also, the four-factor model developed from previous literature is validated for further use. Snowball sampling using IT professionals is the major limitation of this study.

Studies on teamwork quality that employs psychological proximity are scarce. Socialising in workplaces is sometimes viewed as an unproductive activity, however, socialising decreases psychological proximity among team-members, increasing teamwork quality. In addition, examining the psychological proximity in team-members adds to the growing literature on teamwork quality.

The purpose of this paper is to describe an online faculty development pilot course on how to engage students online. A framework was used, referred to as the Trifecta of Student Engagement, for the design of the course. The Trifecta of Student Engagement proposes that students, in order to be fully engaged in a course, need to be engaged with their course content, with their peers and with their instructor. The course has three units of content that each correspond to the Trifecta of Student Engagement. This course has gone through one pilot with faculty and has impacted students and faculty positively.

An online faculty development course was piloted with eight faculty members across a range of disciplines who participated in the program. After taking the course, they had to apply the Trifecta of Student Engagement framework to a course they taught and share what they did via written report, webinar, or web presentation. This study summarized the faculty participants’ written reports and presentations as well as provided a qualitative evaluation on the impact this course had on students and faculty.

After faculty applied the Trifecta of Student Engagement framework to courses taught, faculty saw an improvement in student engagement, satisfaction, learning and achievement. Three faculty surveyed students to determine their engagement and satisfaction and found students to respond positively to the use of tools and activities for student-to-content engagement, student-to-student engagement and student-to-instructor engagement. Two faculty examined student grades to determine if there were changes in student outcomes. One professor saw average grades increase by 11 percent. Another professor saw grades improve by 8 percent. She also found that student assessment of learning increased by 0.57. Both faculty attributed the improvement to the effectiveness of the teaching strategies employed.

This research is limited to the eight faculty who participated in the pilot. Some faculty used methods to attempt to measure the impacts of their teaching practices by surveying students and looking at student performance data. A second pilot is needed for additional faculty to take the course and apply the Trifecta of Engagement framework to generate more data for impact.

Institutions looking to create an online teaching professional development course for faculty can utilize the Trifecta of Student Engagement framework for their course design. Additionally, faculty can read about tools and strategies that they can immediately apply to create more student-to-content engagement, student-to-student engagement and student-to-instructor engagement.

Faculty can be more intentional in how they engage students in their online course experience.

This paper adds to the literature on faculty development regarding student-centered teaching practices. Other institutions looking to create a faculty development course or program that utilizes a student-centered framework may find aspects of this paper useful for their own online teaching professional development initiatives.

Hybrid learning, integrating online methods of instruction with face-to-face learning methods, has recently gained increased attention. The literature on pedagogy and course management has focused on hybrid learning as a combination of virtual and physical environments, which can shift learning to a more student-centered model from the teacher-centered model. A gap exists in the literature related to the execution of hybrid learning and challenges faced by internal stakeholders, and the outcomes are achieved. This study aims to examine the implementation of hybrid learning courses and investigate the challenges and outcomes.

This study adopted a qualitative approach. This study presents a case of a management university in India. Ten semistructured interviews were conducted with the university officials, including the vice-chancellor, dean and faculty members. The data collection method also included reviewing university documents and reports.

While formalized knowledge transfer through online courses can facilitate knowledge dissemination, it has its own downsides: it needs to be contextualized; it requires additional resources; it is not a one size fits all policy, as its conducive to some and alienates others; and students may not completely adopt it.

This investigation attempts to examine the shift to hybrid learning in the Indian context.

THE centripetal forces at work in the world seem to draw all human associations into larger groups. Work Study has been no exception to this, as the formation of a European Federation six months ago indicates. Another manifestation of the same tendency is the letter we print from a correspondent suggesting that there is only room for one professional organisation for Work Study in this country.

In 2011, the Malaysian cabinet approved the policy that all board of directors of companies listed on the Bursa Malaysia should consist of 30 per cent women in decision-making positions by the year 2016. The purpose of this paper is to examine the association between the presence of women on the board and firms’ performance following the introduction of the diversity policy.

The analysis uses the information of the top 200 Malaysian public listed companies for the financial year 2011–2013. The multiple regression analysis is used to estimate the relationship between the firm performance (return on assets (ROA)) as the dependent variable and the independent variables.

The results show that during the period under study, the proportion of women directors on board is negatively correlated with ROA. This indicates that the firm performance may not be dependent on the number of women directors on board. However, the results of the study also show that the academic backgrounds of the women board members add some value toward generating better firm performance.

A small sample size of only the top 200 public listed companies was utilised. Consequently the outcome may not be generalisable to smaller public companies or private firms. Another limitation is regarding the sample period. Taking only one year before and one year after the policy’s approval may be too short of the period under study and may be too early to study the impact of the policy. Future studies could sample a longer period.

The findings encourage public listed companies to appoint women with the necessary qualities as members of the board and not to simply increase the number of women on boards.

There is a lack of work on studying women’s effectiveness on board in developing countries, whereby previous work and literature review were predominantly based upon the experience of Western economies. This study, thus, contributes to the rising literature on women board member representation based on the firm performance of the top 200 listed companies in Malaysia.

The purpose of this paper is to explore whether negative network externalities would contribute to social networking site (SNS) fatigue and how this mechanism works.

A research model was proposed integrating two dimensions of negative network externalities and three dimensions of mediators (impression management concern, privacy concern, and social overload) to indicate how negative network externalities affect users’ SNS fatigue. Online questionnaires were adopted to collect data, and 307 valid samples were analyzed by structural equation modeling approach.

The findings indicate that negative network externalities have significant indirect effects on SNS fatigue through impression management concern, privacy concern, and social overload, and among the three dimensions, privacy concern plays a more important role.

This study offers a solidly grounded and well-demonstrated conceptual model that not only indicates the effects of negative network externalities in the context of SNS but also facilitates the understanding of SNS fatigue. Some theoretical and practical implications are also provided.

This study is novel in exploring users’ SNS fatigue a perspective of negative network externalities. Besides, the mediating roles of impression management concern, privacy concern, and social overload have been employed to indicate the formation of SNS fatigue.

Quality management standards (e.g. ISO 9001) lead to process conformance in the realization of quality goods and services; however, they can be rather document intensive. This paper investigates documentation practices used for aligning “light-weight” Scrum methods with ISO 9001 in a leading healthcare software firm.

The authors investigated how “light-weight” Scrum approaches fit with organizational documentation practices for ISO 9001 compliance in one leading healthcare software development firm. Three investigative rounds were conducted with software professionals having different Scrum roles to understand their challenges in maintaining process documentation with Scrum methods.

ISO standards stipulate certain mandatory documentation as evidence that certain pre-defined processes are followed in the build-up of quality goods and services. However, this may result in “heavy-weight” document driven approaches that interfere with “light-weight” Scrum methods. Case study findings reveal tensions faced by software professionals in maintaining the ISO 9001 documentation. That is, while some level of documentation is considered useful, software professionals consider certain other documentation tasks to be excessive and cumbersome. Further, many operational documents were written retrospectively for administrative compliance, leading to reduced, incomplete and ambiguous descriptions.

The study provides much value for practitioners in adapting their documentation with ongoing operational processes. Further, the critique on current ISO 9001 implementations in Agile environments has implications for future documentation practice.

The empirically drawn findings showcase some of the challenges in maintaining ISO 9001 documentation within Scrum projects. The study has contributed to both theory and practice in relation to the co-existence of ISO drawn standards with Agile approaches used for software development.