Search results

At the 1983 winter meeting of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), Proposition 48 (P48) was enacted as an initial step in reforming the state of collegiate athletics. Proposition 48 has two components: P48 and P48B. The first component states that 1) incoming first‐year students must have attained at least a 2.0 grade point average in eleven “core” college preparatory courses, which must include three English courses, two math courses, two social science courses, and two natural or physical sciences courses (including one lab section); and 2) incoming first‐year students must score at least seven hundred on the SAT or fifteen on the ACT. P48B states that 1) first‐year students who do not meet the minimum grade requirements of P48 may still enroll in the university of their choice if accepted; 2) first‐year students who do not meet the minimum requirements of P48 are ineligible for athletics their first year; 3) they will have three years of eligibility remaining provided their academic progress is satisfactory during their ineligible year. The rulings, which stipulate that the nation's 277 Division I college and universities meet the requirements, became effective in August 1986. P48 has thus taken a small step in communicating to high school and college athletes that they must do well academically if they wish to receive athletic scholarships.

In this chapter, we theorize about online freelancers’ approaches to work flexibility. Drawing from an ongoing digital ethnography of US-based online freelancers pursuing work on digital platforms, our data question the common conceptualizations around the flexibility of online freelancing. We posit that the flexibility of where to work, not when to work, is the most important attribute of their work arrangement. Our data show (1) the online freelancers in our study prefer the stability and sustainability of full-time work over freelancing when both are offered as remote options; (2) full-time remote employment increases these workers’ freelancing control / flexibility; (3) these workers keep freelance work options open even as they transition to more permanent full-time work arrangements. We discuss how these findings relate to workplace culture shifts and what this means for contemporary working arrangements. Our insights contribute to the discourses on knowledge-based gig work and for what it means to study individuals online.

Marine transportation has been faced with an increasing demand for containerized cargo during the past decade. Marine container terminals (MCTs), as the facilities for connecting seaborne and inland transportation, are expected to handle the increasing amount of containers, delivered by vessels. Berth scheduling plays an important role for the total throughput of MCTs as well as the overall effectiveness of the MCT operations. This study aims to propose a novel island-based metaheuristic algorithm to solve the berth scheduling problem and minimize the total cost of serving the arriving vessels at the MCT.

A universal island-based metaheuristic algorithm (UIMA) was proposed in this study, aiming to solve the spatially constrained berth scheduling problem. The UIMA population was divided into four sub-populations (i.e. islands). Unlike the canonical island-based algorithms that execute the same metaheuristic on each island, four different population-based metaheuristics are adopted within the developed algorithm to search the islands, including the following: evolutionary algorithm (EA), particle swarm optimization (PSO), estimation of distribution algorithm (EDA) and differential evolution (DE). The adopted population-based metaheuristic algorithms rely on different operators, which facilitate the search process for superior solutions on the UIMA islands.

The conducted numerical experiments demonstrated that the developed UIMA algorithm returned near-optimal solutions for the small-size problem instances. As for the large-size problem instances, UIMA was found to be superior to the EA, PSO, EDA and DE algorithms, which were executed in isolation, in terms of the obtained objective function values at termination. Furthermore, the developed UIMA algorithm outperformed various single-solution-based metaheuristic algorithms (including variable neighborhood search, tabu search and simulated annealing) in terms of the solution quality. The maximum UIMA computational time did not exceed 306 s.

Some of the previous berth scheduling studies modeled uncertain vessel arrival times and/or handling times, while this study assumed the vessel arrival and handling times to be deterministic.

The developed UIMA algorithm can be used by the MCT operators as an efficient decision support tool and assist with a cost-effective design of berth schedules within an acceptable computational time.

A novel island-based metaheuristic algorithm is designed to solve the spatially constrained berth scheduling problem. The proposed island-based algorithm adopts several types of metaheuristic algorithms to cover different areas of the search space. The considered metaheuristic algorithms rely on different operators. Such feature is expected to facilitate the search process for superior solutions.

Why did the United States experience a housing and mortgage market boom and bust in the 2000s, while analogous Canadian markets were relatively stable? Both US and Canadian markets are replete with government interventions. In this paper, I account for the US and Canada’s different experiences by arguing that government interventions are not created equal. Some government interventions prevent market participants from pursuing actions that ex ante are reckoned beneficial. Alternatively, other interventions lead to the pursuit of actions that turn out to be costly ex post. It is the latter type that we expect to manifest in crises. The US case is one where government interventions in the mortgage markets led to actions that appeared ex ante beneficial but were revealed to be costly ex post. Alternatively, Canada’s mortgage market was and remains essentially a regulated oligopoly. Regulatory capture makes for a sclerotic market that likely imposes costs on Canadian borrowers in the forms of limited financing options and higher interest rates. However, this sclerosis also lends itself to stability. This market structure made the Canadian mortgage market relatively insusceptible to a bubble.

This paper investigates the relationship between superstition and self-governance. We argue that at least some superstitions, and perhaps many, support self-governing arrangements. The relationship between such scientifically false beliefs and private institutions is symbiotic and socially productive. This simple but overlooked observation may help explain the emergence and otherwise puzzling persistence of both superstitions and “spontaneous” orders that seem perverse or dysfunctional, as well as why these two phenomena are often found together.

This paper examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health and wellbeing of academic and professional Higher Education (HE) staff in the UK.

A mixed-method survey questionnaire was sent to almost 300 UK HE staff to secure qualitative and quantitative data to enable data triangulation.

The study found an adverse impact on academic and professional staff's mental health and wellbeing, further resulting in stress and anxiety. Several reasons for the increased stress and anxiety levels were identified, but social isolation and the increased workload were the most commonly reported. The most affected groups by the pandemic were females, younger staff, full-timers and those with disabilities or caring responsibilities.

This study offers a range of strategies to support staff's mental health and wellbeing; as such, it is of great interest to policymakers to inform their decisions of similar crisis events in the future. It also addresses some of the COVID-19 areas of research interest for the UK parliament.

The study's originality derives from exploring the pandemic's impact on UK HE staff's mental health and wellbeing by including professional staff's experiences alongside those of academics. It also expands the scant evidence concerning the pandemic's impact on HE staff in the UK.

Stockbrokers’ frauds in India frequently occur, causing investors significant financial loss. This study aims to unfold the various dubious practices adopted by stock brokers in the recent past to defraud investors and the necessary corrective regulations passed by the market regulator to prevent and detect fraud.

The authors conduct exploratory research using a collective model of literature review, case studies and regulatory changes.

The authors find tightening the system’s loopholes and strengthening the regulatory system using technology helps in the early detection and prevention of fraud. Media activism and investors’ awareness play a role in reducing incidences of fraud.

This study unfolds the practices followed by stock brokers to defraud investors, indicative of regulatory gaps and enforcement lapses. Regulators are evolving a robust system to curb these practices and make them on par with international standards. But, it has a long way to go.

Robust fraud detection and prevention mechanism is desirable to restore investors’ confidence in the stock market. Regulators should focus on investors’ protection and education and whistleblowers’ protection. Compared to the market regulators worldwide, the Securities and Exchange Board of India has less power to identify, detect and punish fraudulent brokers and needs to be empowered.

Besides the regulatory changes, strict enforcement and investor campaigns are required to increase public awareness and restore trust in the stock market to combat the recurrence of fraud.

This paper can be helpful to regulators, investors and financial intermediaries like stock brokers and aid in strengthening the reliability of capital markets and restoring investors’ confidence.

While previous research has identified that environmental innovation is shaped by a variety of drivers, researchers have devoted limited attention to the role of nature-based resources in the country. Building on environmental innovation theory and the natural resource-based view of the firm, this study introduces ecological resource deficits as a novel driver of environmental innovation. The authors explore how ecological resource deficits interact with institutional and regulatory drivers as well as firm-level technology drivers to explain the extent of environmental innovation across different countries.

The authors apply fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to a multi-source dataset to identify different pathways for environmental innovation across 28 countries.

Findings show that higher environmental innovation is a function of ecological resource deficits complemented by the presence of at least two other conditions. Moreover, the results show that environmental policy stringency and societal expectations are substitute conditions of environmental innovation.

This study reveals the interdependences between different conditions for environmental innovation across countries contributing to a more nuanced understanding of the geography of environmental innovation.

This paper examines the political budget cycles in emerging and developing countries using a sample of 91 countries from 1992 to 2019.

This paper employs a pooled ordinary least squares (OLS) model with clustered standard errors at the country level. To address endogeneity issues, the authors also employ a two-step system generalized methods of moments model.

The authors find clear evidence of political budget cycles in emerging and developing countries. The authors consistently find that incumbents increase total government spending, particularly in economic affairs, public services and social welfare, in the year before an election and the election year. In contrast, they contract spending in the year after an election.

Policymakers should be aware of the political budget cycles during election years. Promoting control of corruption and democracy helps to alleviate the effects of the political budget cycles in emerging and developing countries.

The authors are among the first to explore the political budget cycles in emerging and developing countries by focusing on the total government spending and its main compositions, including expenditures on economic affairs, public services and social welfare. Besides, the authors also explore the conditioning effects of control of corruption, political ideology and democracy.