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The purpose of this paper is to develop environmentally stable near‐infrared (NIR)‐absorbing windows by blending an NIR‐absorbing dye and a thermally‐crosslinkable polymer.

To enhance the environmental stability of the NIR‐absorbing window, a poly(vinyl phenol‐co‐methyl methacrylate) (poly(VP‐co‐MMA)) prepolymer and a poly(melamine‐co‐formaldehyde) (PMF) cross‐linking agent were mixed, and thermal crosslinking was performed under mild conditions (100°C).

The resistance of the crosslinked hybrid films to heat, humidity, and ultraviolet radiation damage improved dramatically relative to the pristine NIR‐absorbing dye. The improved environmental stability of the crosslinked NIR hybrid film resulted from the reduced free volume and restrictions in the molecular thermal dynamic motions of the polymer due to the presence of the crosslinked network surrounding the NIR‐absorbing dye molecules.

The methods provided a novel, simple, and practical solution to improving environmentally stability of NIR‐absorbing window.

The authors aimed to develop environmentally stable NIR‐absorbing windows by blending a near‐infrared (NIR)‐absorbing dye and a photo‐crosslinkable polymer.

To prepare an environmentally stable NIR‐absorbing window, a NIR‐absorbing dye was mixed with crosslinkable poly(vinyl cinnamate) (PVCn). The crosslinking of PVCn was carried out by photo‐dimerisation reaction of cinnamate with UV‐exposure at a wavelength of 254 nm for 4 min.

The resistance of the photo‐crosslinked hybrid films against humidity, heat, and ultraviolet radiation damage was improved dramatically relative to the pristine NIR‐absorbing dye. These improvements result from the protection of NIR‐absorbing dye to moisture exposure in the presence of the polymer network.

The simple and practical method resulted in a dramatic improvement in the environmental stability of NIR‐absorbing window.

The purpose of this paper is to present a comparative study between two low‐cost turbidimeter designs using a multi purpose Optical Fiber NIR System (OF‐NIRS), Optical Fiber NIR System‐Modified (OF‐NIRS‐M) and High Sensitivity NIR System (HS‐NIRS) conducted in the development of a turbidimeter by closely replicating the existing standard design guideline. Optical method is a typical measuring technique that has been applied intensively for the measurement of water turbidity.

Comprehensive guidelines for the development of turbidimeter have been stated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA Method 180.1) and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO 7027) and have been used as standards by instrument's manufacturers world wide, including the designs presented in this work. The development commonly does not only establish through physical instrumentation aspects, but also emphasizes on the physics of light‐matter interaction such as scattering and absorption that is embedded within the science of turbidity. The individual system design is the assembly of light emitting diode (LED) and photo detector with near infrared (NIR) band, amplifier, 12‐bit analogue to digital converter (ADC) and Basic Stamp 2pe microcontroller.

The measurement by OF‐NIRS produces coefficient of determination, R2=0.8881 with standard error of 20.33 NTU while HS‐NIRS produces higher precision result with R2=0.995 with standard error of 1.809 NTU. A modified version of OF‐NIRS (OF‐NIRS‐M) has been introduced and consists of direct emission of NIR radiation to the sample. OF‐NIRS‐M produces R2=0.9921 with standard error of 2.37 NTU, a high linearity result, comparable to HS‐NIRS.

This research introduced a fundamental design of a turbidimeter by following closely to the existing standards at much lower cost. This work presents a comparative study between two main designs that utilize different types of photo detector and amplification circuitry and enables related industry to develop their own in‐house turbidity monitoring system with flexible sensitivity.

Based on a description of the national features of the Israeli society and educational system, this chapter will briefly describe various attempts conducted since the 1970s to decentralize the Israeli educational system and promote school autonomy. It will focus specifically, on the School-Based Management (SBM) policy, borrowed by educational policymakers and implemented in the Israeli educational system during late 1990s. The decision to borrow this policy did not follow policymakers’ recognition in the limitations and shortcomings of the centralized structure of control, which characterized the educational system since Israel became an independent state in 1948. Rather, it followed pressures coming from various stakeholders who considered centralized policy plans irrelevant and not enough sensitive to the variety of local circumstances and needs (David, 1989; Hanson, 1984; Nir, 2002; Nir et al., 2016). Therefore, more than 20 years later, it appears that the implementation of SBM created limited effects in terms of teachers and school leaders’ degrees of freedom and that the educational system still maintains its centralized structure and features. The main argument the present chapter will attempt to make is that borrowed policies have a limited capacity to promote significant change in the borrowing system when policymakers do not fully believe in the policy’s values and ideas and are reluctant to abandon current patterns of organizational behavior. Specifically, it will describe the process that characterized the borrowing and implementation of the SBM policy in the Israeli educational system and will discuss the main symptoms that characterized the policy borrowing process when policymakers were not fully committed to the values and mode of operation brought by the borrowed policy.

Neuropsychologically informed rehabilitation (NIR) is one approach to supporting people with intellectual disabilities, cognitive impairment and challenging behaviour. This study aims to evaluate a five-day training course in NIR for staff working with adult male offenders with intellectual disabilities in a high secure hospital. The impacts on both the staff who undertook the training and the patients with challenging behaviour were explored.

Participants were psychology, nursing and day services staff and male patients. The staff completed a post-training questionnaire and three measures at pre-NIR training, post-NIR training and one-year follow-up. Patients completed four questionnaire measures within the same periods.

NIR training was positively evaluated by staff. Staff members’ perceived efficacy in working with challenging behaviour significantly increased post-training which was maintained at follow-up. Thematic analysis showed that the training staff members built their confidence, knowledge and skills. Because of these being high to start with, the study could not evidence statistically significant changes in these. Thematic analysis yielded two main themes, namely, benefits and quality of training, each with their own subthemes. The impacts of the training on patients were difficult to assess related to various factors.

The knowledge and confidence measures used were limited in scope with an experienced staff group and required development.

NIR training could assist staff in other secure and community settings in working with people with intellectual disabilities and challenging behaviours.

This study positively contributes to an area that requires more research.

A well-accepted proposition in the literature of corporate strategic communication and public relations is that consumer-brand relationships (CBRs) affect corporate crisis communication. However, it is inconclusive whether CBRs protect or work against brands, because both buffering effects and love-becomes-hate effects have been found. This study attempts to explain and bridge the seemingly inconsistent findings by clarifying the effects of different types of CBRs in different brand transgressions.

Re-conceptualizing CBRs into non-identifying relationships and identifying relationships, this study examined the possible interaction effects of CBRs and crises on consumers' attitudes and emotions, which then influence their behavioral intentions. A three-step multi-group structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the data collected from an online experiment with nearly 900 consumers of two brands.

Although non-identifying relationships offer buffering effects, identifying relationships primarily offer love-becomes-hate effects by intensifying negative emotions such as anger and disappointment, which in turn affect consumers' behavioral intentions. Such patterns hold regardless of whether a crisis directly threatens the core meaning of the brand.

This study clarifies the effects of different types of CBRs in crises and shows that deep psychological connections (i.e. identifying relationships) offer love-becomes-hate effects. It suggests that one promising future research direction for crisis communication and public relations scholars is to examine how to mitigate such love-becomes-hate effects so that brands can keep their loyal consumers.

This study aims to develop a new kind of functional low molecular weight organic dyes, which is highly efficient, meanwhile inexpensive and easily prepared and modified and can be used in photoacoustic (PA) imaging and photothermal therapy (PTT). To further realize the release of molecules under the biomedical condition, the releasing efficiency of micellar nanoparticles under different stimuli were represented.

A class of azo and Schiff base derivatives with different click reagents were characterized by PA imaging and photothermal (PT) experiments. The molecule with best PT effect was loaded into a temperature-stimuli-sensitive amphiphilic block copolymer which demonstrated the capability of releasing the polymers under the near-infrared (NIR) light of 650 nm.

The PA and PT effects of a series of azo and Schiff base derivatives with different click reagents were characterized. Introducing the click reagent F4-TCNQ can result in red shift of peaks of PA intensity. Stimulated with 650 nm laser irradiation, the polymer processed higher release rate than being stimulated by temperature stimuli.

This paper not only guides the design of NIR dyes with good PA intensity but also provides a method which has great potential for the application of NIR photothermal dyes in the field of biotechnology for controlled release.

This paper uses click reagents to modify azo and Schiff derivatives and an amphiphilic block copolymer under NIR light to realize controlled release.

The use of the Near Infra‐Red (NIR) part of the electromagnetic spectrum for laboratory measurement has been well established for many years. It was the food industry and its related agricultural base that pioneered the technique, and names like Dicky‐John, Technicon and Neotech have become common usage terms.

The purpose of this paper is to draw lessons to investors from the conduct of a hedge fund manager who according to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) complaint made false and misleading statements before and after an auditor’s reports, misappropriated for personal benefit over $1m, misappropriated clients’ assets, failed to conduct due diligence on third-party buyer, instructed an employee to mislead investors and satisfied some investors’ redemptions with other investors’ subscriptions (Ponzi scheme) without disclosing it to investors. Ironically, the scheme was unveiled by the economic crises and not the investors, their advisers or third-party hedge fund vendors. Corey Ribotsky set up the investment adviser NIR Group to manage four AJW Funds that invested in private equity in public companies in 1999. Through manipulation of financial statements, he also managed to collect about $136m in management and incentive fees over an eight-year period. The SEC complaint alleged the AJW Funds’ assets to be $876m in 2007, yet this figure was not verified, and no assets were traced. Ribotsky did not pay any monies to SEC, as ordered by court settlement, and hence the victims did not recover any of their monies. The SEC could not produce criminal charges; hence, Ribotsky did not go to jail. This case highlights sterility of law enforcement when confronted with brazen fraud.

Investors fail to monitor hedge fund managers. Fraud was detected late and not through investors. Fraud was unraveled by the economic crises of 2008. The SEC had sued the fund manager. The fund manager consented to making payment to the SEC but did not make any payments. The SEC could not bring evidence to criminally charge the fund manager.

The findings based on the case study are valuable to investors and hedge fund industry stakeholders. The findings are not based on an empirical study.

Investors need to carefully vet all hedge fund managers before allocating and funds and understand how managers make money through the claimed strategy. Also, there are limitations to law enforcement even with confronted with profound fraud schemes.

The case was built up from public sources to benefit investors considering making allocations to hedge fund managers. The public information about the case is of either legalistic or journalistic in nature.

This study aims to fabricate a cool phthalocyanine green/TiO₂ composite pigment (PGT) with high near-infrared (NIR) reflectance, good color performance and good heat-shielding performance under sunlight and infrared irradiation.

With the help of anionic and cationic polyelectrolytes, the PGT composite pigment was prepared using a layer-by-layer assembly method under wet ball milling. Based on the light reflectance properties and color performance tested by ultraviolet-visible-NIR spectrophotometer and colorimeter, the preparation conditions were optimized and the properties of PGT pigment with different assembly layers (PGT-1, PGT-3, PGT-5 and PGT-7) were compared. In addition, their heat-shielding performance was evaluated and compared by temperature rise value for their coating under sunlight and infrared irradiation.

The PGT pigment had a core/shell structure, and the PG thickness increased with the self-assembly layers, which made the PGT-3 and PGT-7 pigment show higher color purity and saturation than PGT-1 pigment. In addition, the PGT-3 and PGT-7 pigment showed 11%–16% lower light reflectance in the visible region. However, their light reflectance in the NIR region was similar. Under infrared irradiation the PGT-5 and PGT-7 pigment coating showed 1.1°C–3.4°C and 1.3°C–4.7°C lower temperature rise value than PGT-1 pigment coating and physical mixture pigment coating, respectively. And under sunlight the PGT-3 pigment coating showed 1.5–2.6°C lower temperature rise value than the physical mixture pigment coating.

The layer-by-layer assembling makes the core/shell PGT composite pigment possess low visible light reflectance, high NIR reflectance and good heat-shielding performance.