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Descriptive analyses of campus police agencies reveal that agencies’ tactical and operational features are similar to those found in municipal agencies. The problem is that none of these studies have examined, using multivariate models, the structural characteristics of these organizations. Using LEMAS data collected in 1995, this study answered two main questions: what are the organizational characteristics of campus police agencies; and what factors, both internal and external, explain variation in the structural dimensions of the agencies. The results indicated that campus police agencies possess the same structural characteristics of municipal police agencies identified by 40 years of police organizational research, and internal agency characteristics were most important in explaining variation in the organizations’ structural dimensions. The degree to which campus agencies have adopted organizational structures that are similar to those of municipal police is discussed and framed within an institutional perspective.

This study aims to investigate the mechanism of the misinformation spread based on the elaboration likelihood model and the effects of four factors – emotion, topic, authority and richness – on the depth, breadth and structural virality of misinformation spread.

The authors collected 2,514 misinformation microblogs and 142,006 reposts from Weibo, used deep learning methods to identify the emotions and topics of misinformation and extracted the structural characteristics of the spreading network using the network analysis method.

Results show that misinformation has a smaller spread size and breadth than true news but has a similar spread depth and structural virality. The differential influence of emotions on the structural characteristics of misinformation propagation was found: sadness can promote the breadth of misinformation spread, anger can promote depth and disgust can promote depth and structural virality. In addition, the international topic, the number of followers, images and videos can significantly and positively influence the misinformation's spread size, depth, breadth and structural virality.

The influencing factors of the structural characteristics of misinformation propagation are clarified, which is helpful for the detection and management of misinformation.

This study aims to the OQuaRE quality model to the developed methodology.

Ontologies are formal, well-defined and flexible representations of knowledge related to a specific domain. They provide the base to develop efficient and interoperable solutions. Hence, a proliferation of ontologies in many domains is unleashed. Then, it is necessary to define how to compare such ontologies to decide which one is the most suitable for the specific needs of users/developers. As the emerging development of ontologies, several studies have proposed criteria to evaluate them.

In a previous study, the authors propose a methodological process to qualitatively and quantitatively compare ontologies at Lexical, Structural and Domain Knowledge levels, considering correctness and quality perspectives. As the evaluation methods of the proposal are based on a golden-standard, it can be customized to compare ontologies in any domain.

To show the suitability of the proposal, the authors apply the methodological approach to conduct comparative studies of ontologies in two different domains, one in the robotic area, in particular for the simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) problem; and the other one, in the cultural heritage domain. With these cases of study, the authors demonstrate that with this methodological comparative process, we are able to identify the strengths and weaknesses of ontologies, as well as the gaps still needed to fill in the target domains.

Using these metrics and the quality model from OQuaRE, the authors are incorporating a standard of software engineering at the quality validation into the Semantic Web.

Purpose – This study tests three theories of determinants of workers' subjective response to work situations – structural factors (measured by individual, organization, and job characteristics), general disposition, or informal work arrangements as constructed by Laubach's (2005) “consent deal.”Design/methodology/approach – Data were obtained from the Indiana Quality of Employment Survey, a survey of workers covering general working conditions. We constructed 10 models regressing worker perceptions and attitudes (e.g., satisfaction, relations with supervisors, meaningfulness) on structural determinants. We then used structural equation modeling to identify an underlying factor representing a general worker response from elements of the attitudes and perceptions. Finally, we regressed a scalar version of the general response factor on the structural determinants using the previous models.Findings – We identified a single second-order latent factor underlying the 10 attitudes and perceptions which represented the “general subjective response” of workers. This supported the concept of a dispositional effect. We then found that structural factors had a minimal effect on the subjective response, but that informal arrangements had a very strong effect. This undermined the first two theories and supported the third.Implications – Worker attitudes and perceptions are very resilient to different formal work arrangements but are highly influenced by the informal arrangements negotiated between workers and frontline management. Organizations can have the strongest effect on developing worker support by empowering frontline managers to make informal deals on workplace rules.Originality/value – This study offers a means to probe the relationship between formal and structural and the informal and subjective worlds of the workplace.

The paper proposes a statistical approach to investigate the role played by each house characteristic on the selling process. The paper aims to compare the impact of building characteristics, apartment characteristics and location on the bargaining outcome based on a case study in the Italian real estate market.

The paper first measures the overall contribution of characteristics and location to prices and bargaining outcome. Second, it studies the association between each characteristic and list price – the starting point of the selling process – and between each characteristic and selling price, i.e. the price agreed on to close a transaction. In order to focus on bargaining, the paper computed the association between each characteristic and bargaining outcome.

Structural characteristics empirically showed low association with bargaining outcome. In contrast, the paper found that location had a significant impact on the bargaining: location is the most important factor in negotiation. On the other hand, location amenities and disamenities may be attractive or unattractive depending on the buyers, and this could influence the bargaining outcome.

The paper findings confirm that factors influencing house prices are not always important factors in negotiation, in line with the literature on negotiation. Hedonic analysis showed the importance of house characteristics to explain house prices. Nevertheless, structural characteristics did not explain bargaining outcome variation. The findings also support the importance of a geographical segmentation to improve price prediction and bargaining outcome variation.

This paper aims to explain how the dynamic demand environment influences strategic firm behavior along an industry’s evolutionary path. A conceptual gap concerning the influence of demand-side environmental factors (vis-à-vis changes in technology and policy) on firms’ strategic choices motivates the theory developed herein. The paper’s contribution to the literature on “evolutionary perspective in strategy” also addresses an important gap in the emerging literature on “strategy dynamics”.

The conceptual framework in this paper features a dynamic demand environment that provides the structural context for firms’ strategic choices. It conceptualizes demand-side competence as a mediating firm-specific construct to explain the endogenous relationship between the characteristics of the demand environment and firms’ path dependent demand-side investments.

A review of the literature on evolutionary perspective in strategy reveals an important conceptual gap concerning the structural determinants of dynamic firm behavior. There is no explanation of the endogenous relationship between dynamic demand structure, firms’ dynamic demand-side competence, and temporally heterogeneous strategic choices.

The demand-side explanation of how idiosyncratic firm behavior is endogenously determined, with both structural characteristics (demand structure) and firm competences (demand-side competence), addresses an important conceptual gap. The novelty of the theory developed herein lies in its explication of the effect of dynamic demand environment on the evolution of idiosyncratic strategic firm behavior – entry, investment and exit – along the evolutionary path of an industry. The theory developed herein not only explains the effect of both determinants of idiosyncratic strategic firm behavior – the external industry environment (dynamic market structure) and internal firm environment (dynamic firm competences) – but also explains how the determinants evolve along the industry’s lifecycle.

The fable of the monkey, which by sheer chance recreates a masterpiece of literature, is discussed in general terms. It is demonstrated that the general properties of structural characteristics can be derived directly from the study of interacting structures. Characteristics are indivisible entities defined in relation to test objects; the borderlines are not accurately definable. It is argued that structures, which are integrated in a well‐defined system, have their own quantitatively variable but by no means random characteristics. It is concluded that investigations of properties of an object, which neglect structural interactions and relationships, may lead to difficulties in defining its characteristics.

The purpose is to reduce round-off errors in numerical simulations. In the numerical simulation, different kinds of errors may be created during analysis. Round-off error is one of the sources of errors. In numerical analysis, sometimes handling numerical errors is challenging. However, by applying appropriate algorithms, these errors are manageable and can be reduced. In this study, five novel topological algorithms were proposed in setting up a structural flexibility matrix, and five different examples were used in applying the proposed algorithms. In doing so round-off errors were reduced remarkably.

Five new algorithms were proposed in order to optimize the conditioning of structural matrices. Along with decreasing the size and duration of analyses, minimizing analytical errors is a critical factor in the optimal computer analysis of skeletal structures. Appropriate matrices with a greater number of zeros (sparse), a well structure and a well condition are advantageous for this objective. As a result, a problem of optimization with various goals will be addressed. This study seeks to minimize analytical errors such as rounding errors in skeletal structural flexibility matrixes via the use of more consistent and appropriate mathematical methods. These errors become more pronounced in particular designs with ill-suited flexibility matrixes; structures with varying stiffness are a frequent example of this. Due to the usage of weak elements, the flexibility matrix has a large number of non-diagonal terms, resulting in analytical errors. In numerical analysis, the ill-condition of a matrix may be resolved by moving or substituting rows; this study examined the definition and execution of these modifications prior to creating the flexibility matrix. Simple topological and algebraic features have been mostly utilized in this study to find fundamental cycle bases with particular characteristics. In conclusion, appropriately conditioned flexibility matrices are obtained, and analytical errors are reduced accordingly.

(1) Five new algorithms were proposed in order to optimize the conditioning of structural flexibility matrices. (2) A JAVA programming language was written for all five algorithms and a friendly GUI software tool is developed to visualize sub-optimal cycle bases. (3) Topological and algebraic features of the structures were utilized in this study.

This is a multi-objective optimization problem which means that sparsity and well conditioning of a matrix cannot be optimized simultaneously. In conclusion, well-conditioned flexibility matrices are obtained, and analytical errors are reduced accordingly.

Engineers always finding mathematical modeling of real-world problems and make them as simple as possible. In doing so, lots of errors will be created and these errors could cause the mathematical models useless. Applying decent algorithms could make the mathematical model as precise as possible.

Errors in numerical simulations should reduce due to the fact that they are toxic for real-world applications and problems.

This is an original research. This paper proposes five novel topological mathematical algorithms in order to optimize the structural flexibility matrix.

This study aims to research the development trend, research status, research results and existing problems of the steel–concrete composite joint of railway long-span hybrid girder cable-stayed bridge.

Based on the investigation and analysis of the development history, structure form, structural parameters, stress characteristics, shear connector stress state, force transmission mechanism, and fatigue performance, aiming at the steel–concrete composite joint of railway long-span hybrid girder cable-stayed bridge, the development trend, research status, research results and existing problems are expounded.

The shear-compression composite joint has become the main form in practice, featuring shortened length and simplified structure. The length of composite joints between 1.5 and 3.0 m has no significant effect on the stress and force transmission laws of the main girder. The reasonable thickness of the bearing plate is 40–70 mm. The calculation theory and simplified calculation formula of the overall bearing capacity, the nonuniformity and distribution laws of the shear connector, the force transferring ratio of steel and concrete components, the fatigue failure mechanism and structural parameters effects are the focus of the research study.

This study puts forward some suggestions and prospects for the structural design and theoretical research of the steel–concrete composite joint of railway long-span hybrid girder cable-stayed bridge.

Supply chain fraud is a significant global concern for firms, consumers and governments. Evidence of major fraud events suggests the role of supply chain structures in enabling and facilitating fraud, as they often involve several parties in complicated networks designed to obfuscate the fraud. This paper identifies how the structural characteristics of supply chains can play an important role in enabling, facilitating and preventing fraud.

The research follows a theory elaboration approach. The authors build on structural holes theory in conjunction with a multiple case study research design to identify new concepts and develop propositions regarding the role of network structure on supply chain fraud.

This research shows how structural holes in a supply chain can create advantages for unscrupulous firms, a role we call tertius fraudans, or the cheating third. This situation is exacerbated by structural ignorance, which refers to the lack of knowledge about structural connections in the network. Both structural holes and structural ignorance can create information gaps that facilitate fraud, and the authors propose solutions to detect and prevent this kind of fraud.

This paper extends structural holes theory into the domain of fraud. Novel concepts including tertius fraudans, structural ignorance and bridge collapse are offered, alongside a series of propositions that can help understand and manage structural supply chain fraud.