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This study implements inflation adjustments, as proposed by International Accounting Standard 15 (IAS15), to determine an inflation‐adjusted version of Economic Value Added (EVA). The relationships between the nominal (EVAnom) and inflation‐adjusted (EVAreal) versions of EVA, and market‐adjusted share returns are investigated, and compared with those of residual income, earnings and operating cash flow. Relative information content tests suggest that earnings have the strongest relationship with share returns, while the results of the incremental tests indicate that the EVAnom and EVAreal components do not provide statistically significant information content beyond that provided by residual income.

The main aim of this paper is to examine the claim that economic value added (EVA) advocates its superiority over the traditional accounting-based financial performance measures, i.e. profit after tax (PAT), earnings per share (EPS), return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE) and return on investment (ROI) in the Indian manufacturing sector and at the same time, give empirical facts. It also tests and examines the information content of various performance measures and their relationship with stock returns.

The paper uses the sample of 534 Indian manufacturing companies from the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) during the period 2000–2018. Multiple regression models are applied to examine the information content of EVA and traditional performance measures in explaining shareholders’ returns.

Relative information content tests revealed that traditional accounting-based measures such as EPS, ROE and ROA performed better than EVA in explaining the returns of Indian manufacturing companies. Incremental information content of EVA adds little contribution to information content above traditional performance measures. The claim of superiority of EVA over accounting-based measures in association with shareholder returns is proved invalid in Indian manufacturing companies.

This study concludes that EVA has no superiority over traditional accounting-based financial performance measures in explaining stock returns of Indian manufacturing companies. To achieve heftiness in outcomes, panel data are tested by using Breusch–Pagan–Godfrey (BPG) test for heteroskedasticity, Hausman’s test for fixed and random effect, variance inflation factor (VIF) test for multicollinearity and Durbin–Watson test for autocorrelation.

Develop a method for the optimal placement of sensors in order to detect the largest number of contaminant release scenarios with the minimum amount of sensors.

The method considers the general sensor placement problem. Assuming a given number of sensors, every release scenario leads to a sensor input. The data recorded from all the possible release scenarios at all possible sensor locations allow the identification of the best or optimal sensor locations. Clearly, if only one sensor is to be placed, it should be at the location that recorded the highest number of releases. This argument can be used recursively by removing from further consideration all releases already recorded by sensors previously placed.

The method developed works well. Examples showing the effect of different wind conditions and release locations demonstrate the effectiveness of the procedure.

The method can be used to design sensor systems for cities, subway stations, stadiums, concert halls, high value residential areas, etc.

The method is general, and can be used with other physics‐based models (puff, mass‐conservation, RANS, etc.). The investigation also shows that first‐principles CFD models have matured sufficiently to be run in a timely manner on PCs, opening the way to optimization based on detailed physics.

Atherosclerosis tends to occur in the distinctive carotid sinus, leading to vascular stenosis and then causing death. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of sinus sizes, positions and hematocrit on blood flow dynamics and heat transfer by different numerical approaches.

The fluid flow and heat transfer in the carotid artery with three different sinus sizes, three different sinus locations and four different hematocrits are studied by both computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and fluid-structure interaction (FSI) methods. An ideal geometric model and temperature-dependent non-Newtonian viscosity are adopted, while the wall heat flux concerning convection, radiation and evaporation is used.

With increasing sinus size, the average velocity and temperature of the blood fluid decrease, and the area of time average wall shear stress (TAWSS)with small values decreases. As the distances between sinuses and bifurcation points increase, the average temperature and the maximum TAWSS decrease. Atherosclerosis is more likely to develop when the sinuses are enlarged, when the sinuses are far from bifurcation points, or when the hematocrit is relatively large or small. The probability of thrombosis forming and developing becomes larger when the sinus becomes larger and the hematocrit is small enough. The movement of the arterial wall obviously reduces the velocity of blood flow, blood temperature and WSS. This study also suggests that the elastic role of arterial walls cannot be ignored.

The hemodynamics of the internal carotid artery sinus in a carotid artery with a bifurcation structure have been investigated thoroughly, on which the impacts of many factors have been considered, including the non-Newtonian behavior of blood and empirical boundary conditions. The results when the FSI is considered and absent are compared.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the explanatory power of two value‐based performance measurement models, Economic Value Added (EVA^®) and shareholder value added (SVA), compared with three traditional accounting performance measures: earnings per share (EPS), return on investment (ROI), and return on equity (ROE), in explaining stock market returns in the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE).

The paper uses the Easton and Harris formal valuation model and employs both a relative and an incremental information content approach to examine which performance measure best explains stock market returns; and the explanatory power of the pairwise combinations of one value‐based performance measurement model and one traditional accounting performance measure in explaining stock market returns. For this purpose, pooled time‐series, cross‐sectional data of listed companies in the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE) over the period 1992‐2001 have been collected and modelled.

Relative information content tests reveal that stock market returns are more closely associated with EPS than with EVA^® or other performance measures. However, incremental information content tests suggest that the pairwise combination of EVA^® with EPS increases significantly the explanatory power in explaining stock market returns.

The results suggest that the market participants in the Greek stock market should pay additional attention to EVA^® but they should also consider other determinants to develop their investment strategies.

The paper is one of the first studies on the value relevance of traditional accounting (EPS, ROI, and ROE) and value‐based (EVA^® and SVA) performance measures in explaining stock market returns in the ASE. The results extend the understanding of the role of EVA^® and SVA in explaining stock market returns in the ASE, and, moreover, whether they may affect investors' decisions in a continental European market with market characteristics similar to that of Greece.

Changes in the consumer market have resulted in many companies allocating considerable resources to their logos and trademarks with a subsequent need for high quality product packaging. Looks at design work undertaken for a system for quality control of printing images on packaging materials. Discusses the need to integrate the print process within the box making machine and the challenge of designing print machinery that can utilise environmentally friendly recycled paper. It looks at the problems of sensing and data acquisition from high through put machines and describes the two main aspects of print quality ‐colour quality and print registration and the methods of gathering this information. Concludes that a mechatronic approach is required for quality control of print images on packaging materials with an end product comprising sensors, machine vision, microprocessors and ultimately machine control and actuation.

This study aims to examine the long-term effects of adopting economic value added (EVA) as a compensation tool on managers’ behaviour.

The authors extend the sample used in prior studies both in the time and the cross-section dimensions.

The study conclusions are distinct from those offered by existing studies. The authors show that EVA adopters, relative to non-EVA adopters, increase the working capital cycle, use their assets less intensively and decrease their payouts to shareholders via a decrease in dividends and share repurchases. In investing decisions, the authors find a decrease in new investments, but no change in asset dispositions after the adoption of EVA compensation plans.

The study results highlight that the EVA adoption provides more incentives to reduce the total cost for capital rather than increasing operations and maximising shareholder wealth. The results also have implication for corporate management, particularly in the area of management compensation scheme design.

With the ability of linking distant partners and diverse bodies of students and faculty, virtual design studios provide unique opportunities for examining cultural, contextual, and methodological differences in design and design collaboration. However, most evaluations of virtual design studio in the recent literature have focused primarily on technical and operational issues. In contrast, the social and cultural dimensions of virtual design studio and their pedagogical implications have not been adequately examined. To address this gap, this article examines the experience and outcomes of a recent virtual design studio involving international collaboration between faculty and student partners. Specifically, it looks at how presence of differences and process of dialogic learning create pedagogical opportunities in a collaborative 'virtual' environment. Based on the case study, this article argues that through dialogues, collaboration, and negotiation of cultural, contextual and methodological differences, collaborative virtual design studio offers an alternative to traditional design studio based on the primacy of individual practice and the master-apprentice model of learning. By creatively utilizing the collaborative environment involving diverse partners, virtual design studio can foster a critical understanding of cross-cultural design process and the significance of dialogues and negotiation in design.

Economic modeling issues for measuring damages and losses from disasters and their impacts are complex. The questions surrounding the potential economic effects of a disaster have been studied and discussed in various aspects. Input‐output analysis has been employed in many studies to measure and evaluate the economic impacts of disasters, mainly because of the ability to reflect the structure of regional economy in great detail. Whereas they provide useful information regarding the economic impacts and consequences and about the resource allocation strategies to minimize the losses and impacts, many of these studies have failed to investigate the dynamic nature of impact path over space and time, due to the difficulties to obtain such data and also to the static nature of input‐output framework. In order to analyze the spatial impacts of a disaster, Miyazawa's extension to the conventional input‐output framework is employed and is applied for the case of the Great Hanshin Earthquake.

This paper aims to examine the perceptions and experiences of climate change by local farmers in the Northern Savannah zone of Ghana. Although recent scholarship shows that local people’s perceptions of climate change is necessary for devising strategies to deal with the problem, only a few researchers have examined local knowledge of climate change in Africa.

Primary data were collected from six rural communities in the Northern Savannah zone of Ghana, using a questionnaire survey on a sample of 530 farmers, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. Multinomial logistic regression was used to analyse variations in experience and perception of climate change.

A majority of the farmers have noticed rising temperatures and declining rainfall. Their observations largely correspond with the evidence of changes recorded by weather monitoring stations. The perception of climate change is associated with locality of residence, gender and ownership of radio. The impacts of climate and variability include declining crop output, food insecurity and water stress. Respondents attributed changes in climatic parameters to economic activities and spiritual factors. It is recommended that environmental managers should actively involve local farmers in the design and implementation of policies to control climate change and variability.

The methodology used demonstrates how multinomial logit models can be used to investigate perceptions of climate change. The research findings also provide very useful information that can be relied upon to design policies to deal with climate change and variability in Ghana.