Search results

Liaison programmes have been in existence in academic libraries for a number of years. A liaison programme is a co‐operative agreement between the library and academic units to foster better communication, improve services and enhance collection development. In order for it to be operated effectively such a programme needs to be assessed on an ongoing basis. Reports the findings of an assessment survey which was conducted in the spring of 1992 at Kent State University Libraries and Media Services, Kent, Ohio. The assessment of this programme offers some guidelines for assessing similar programmes at other institutions.

The primary function of an academic library is to serve as an information resource centre for the entire academic community. In order to provide better service to academic patrons, liaison programmes have been established in some colleges and universities. Very little has been written on liaison activities or the role of subject specialists in academic libraries. Focusses on how to implement a successful liaison programme in order to facilitate library collection building and improve communication with the academic units. Defines the concept of liaison librarians and library representatives in academic units, and provides suggestions for setting up such a programme.

Prior research on interfirm collaborations has demonstrated that trust and contract are two central governance mechanisms that influence a firm’s knowledge sharing decision and the subsequent effect on performance. However, we know little about how effective these mechanisms are in different market conditions and levels of organizational innovativeness. This study aims to advance the literature on interfirm knowledge sharing by exploring these contingencies and by providing an alternative explanation of the contradictory effects of knowledge sharing on firm performance.

The authors collected 156 firms’ relationships with their suppliers in two batches from 300 firms in the 2017 list of Statistics in the Zhejiang province in China. The authors used unstructured interviews and formal questionnaires to collect data from these firms.

Market turbulence served as a boundary condition for the effect of interfirm trust and formal contracts on knowledge sharing. Both interfirm trust and formal contracts, as governance mechanisms, are effective in raising interfirm knowledge sharing only when the firms operate in high turbulent markets. On the contrary, knowledge sharing negatively affected firm performance when firms exhibit low organizational innovativeness. Moreover, a three-way interaction among market turbulence, organizational innovativeness and knowledge sharing revealed that when market turbulence and organizational innovativeness were both low, interfirm knowledge sharing was detrimental to firm performance.

Based on the results, this study recommends managers consider external (market turbulence) and internal (organizational innovativeness) when firms decide to share knowledge and benefit from such activities.

This study extends prior research on the determinant of knowledge sharing and clarifies the inconsistent findings of knowledge sharing on firm performance. Thus, strategic organizational leaders need to pay attention to when they need to share information with suppliers to best benefit from those collaborations.

Structures in seismic areas, during their service lifetime, are subjected to numerous seismic loads that certainly affect their structural integrity. The degradation of these structures, to a great extent, depends on the scale of seismic events, the steel mechanical performance on reversal loads and its resistance to corrosion phenomena. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Based on the experimental results of seismic steel behavior S400 (BSt III), which was widely used in the past years, a prediction study of seismic steel behavior was conducted in the current study. This prediction on behavior of both reference and corroded steel was succeeded through a simulation of experimental low cycle fatigue conditions (LCF – strain controlled).

At the same time, the present study analyses fatigue factors (ef, a, f_SR, ed, ep, R, b) that define their inelastic relation between tension – strain and a prediction model on behavior of both reference and corroded steel rebar, in seismic loads conditions (LCF), is proposed.

Moreover, this study dealt with the synergy of corrosion factor and the existence of superficial ribs (ribbed and smoothed) in seismic behavior of steel bar S400 (BSt420). The S-N curves that are exported can be resulted in a first attempt of prediction of anti-seismic behavior on reinforced concrete structures with this the same steel class.

This paper proposes a hybrid biogeography‐based optimization (BBO) with simplex method (SM) algorithm (HSMBBO).

BBO is a new intelligent optimization algorithm. The global optimization ability of BBO is better than that of genetic algorithm (GA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO), but BBO also easily falls into local minimum. To improve BBO, HSMBBO combines BBO and SM, which makes full use of the high local search ability of SM. In HSMBBO, BBO is used firstly to obtain the current global solution. Then SM is searched to acquire the optimum solution based on that global solution. Due to the searching of SM, the search range is expanded and the speed of convergence is faster. Meanwhile, HSMBBO is applied to motion estimation of video coding.

In total, six benchmark functions with multimodal and high dimension are tested. Simulation results show that HSMBBO outperforms GA, PSO and BBO in converging speed and global search ability. Meanwhile, the application results show that HSMBBO performs better than GA, PSO and BBO in terms of both searching precision and time‐consumption.

The proposed algorithm improves the BBO algorithm and provides a new approach for motion estimation of video coding.

This paper aims to explore the quantile-specific short- and long-term effects of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on the efficiency of the green bond market.

This study examines the long-term cointegration relationship and the short-term fluctuation relationship of EPU, WTI crude oil price (WTI) and European Union Allowances price (EUA) with the green bond market efficiency (GBE) using the quantile autoregressive distributed lag method. Additionally, the authors analyze the differences before and after the Covid-19 pandemic.

EPU has a significant positive impact on the GBE before the outbreak. However, during the crisis period, the impact of EPU and WTI was greatly weakened, whereas the impact of EUA was strengthened.

This paper demonstrates the dynamics of GBE and its influencing factors under different periods. The findings provide insights for market participants and policymakers to gain a clearer understanding of the green bond market.

This paper extends the study of green bonds by quantifying the GBE and elucidating the nonlinear relationship between efficiency and independent variables at different quantiles over different periods.

This paper compares the characteristics of reverse logistics in the publishing industry among China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.

A multiple‐case approach in combination with EIQ (entry of order, items, and quantity) analysis is selected to allow analytical generalization of the findings.

The research findings show that the reverse logistics of Chinese publications is still in early stage and is not mature enough to be interconnected in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. The reverse logistics cost in these areas is unlikely to be significantly reduced in the near future.

Instead of making effort to process returned goods, logistics firms or publishers may consider discarding the returned goods directly. The loss on material cost is far less than the manpower spent on processing. Also, publishers can sort returned goods in off‐peak season to save cost on reverse logistics.

This research provides the first empirical study by applying EIQ analysis to understand the challenges of reverse logistics in the publishing industry in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, which has been rarely discussed in the past.

The purpose of this paper is to develop non-leaching and eco-friendly antimicrobial waterborne polyacrylates with excellent antibacterial properties by grafting antibacterial vinyl monomer, glycidyl methacrylate (GMA) modified polyhexamethylene guanidine hydrochloride (PHMG).

PHMG of different molecular weights were modified by GMA to synthesize antibacterial vinyl monomer, GMA-modified PHMG (GPHMG). Different content and molecular weights of GPHMG were used to synthesize antimicrobial waterborne polyacrylates through emulsion polymerization.

The addition of GPHMG gained by modifying PHMG showed little influence on thermal stability of the films, but decreased the glass transition temperature(Tg). Meanwhile, the tensile strength decreased, while the breaking elongation increased. The antibacterial properties of the antibacterial films with different GPHMG contents were studied, when GPHMG content was around 0.9 Wt.%, antibacterial films showed excellent antibacterial activity (antibacterial rate >= 99.99 per cent). When weight content of GPHMG in the films remained constant, antibacterial property of films increased first and then decreased with the increase of molecular weight of GPHMG. The structural antibacterial polymer film had more perdurable antibacterial activity than the blended one.

The grafting efficiency of GPHMG to antimicrobial waterborne polyacrylates could be further improved.

Antimicrobial waterborne polyacrylates with excellent antibacterial properties can be used to antibacterial coating and adhesive.

The antibacterial properties of films with different molecular weight of GPHMG were studied, and the durability and stability of antibacterial properties between structural antimicrobial films and blended antimicrobial films were also investigated by ring-diffusion method.

This study aims to provide empirical findings of the extent to which the ambidexterity found in innovation and social networks will mediate the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and firm performance (FP). This study also compares the ambidextrous strategy between the balanced dimension (BD) and combined dimension (CD) and examines their contribution to the small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs’) performance.

The current study used an explanatory research design by surveying a total of 205 fashion firms’ owners/managers in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, using a semi-structured questionnaire. Path analysis with mediating tests and independent t-tests were used.

The results revealed that innovation and social network ambidexterity mediate the relationship between EO and the SMEs’ performance. One ambidextrous strategy, the BD strategy, is superior to the CD one. The study makes an interesting discovery: the CD strategy apparently dominates FP when EO does not exist.

The study suggests that no ambidextrous strategy (i.e. BD and CD) used by the SMEs can fit all situations. In detail, the study provides four different strategies for SMEs to build organizational ambidexterity, namely, innovate and sustain; elevate; expand; and collaborate and survive. It is also suggested that the SMEs consider two main principles when dealing with an ambidextrous strategy, “anything that is too much is not always good” and “one size does not fit all.” By doing so, the SMEs are expected to be able to use internal and external resources and choose the most appropriate ambidextrous strategy to respond to the relevant situation (e.g. the changes of consumer behavior due to the COVID-19 pandemic).

Using a dynamic capability approach by integrating two perspectives, i.e. the internal (resource-based theory) and external (resource-dependency theory) perspectives, makes the study relevant and valuable to better understand the role and type of ambidexterity among SMEs as a mediating factor between EO and FP. This paper breaks new ground by confirming a paradoxical phenomenon concerning organizational ambidextrous practices within SMEs. Additionally, four strategies for ambidextrous were developed to respond to the anomaly.

The purpose of this article is to investigate the interrelationships between innovation climate and human capital in the development of dynamic capabilities related to innovation. The study presents a set of concepts about variables involved in the innovation process and their interrelationship, addressing the analysis of international scientific production related to the antecedents of the innovation climate, human capital and dynamic capabilities.

A review of the literature from 1998 to 2018 was carried out, using descriptive statistical methods, at first, and qualitative analysis of the results in order to visualize the current configuration of the field of study of innovation background.

The results demonstrate a significant number of studies relating human capital and dynamic capabilities and little quantitative significance in studies relating to a climate of innovation and dynamic capabilities. The research describes how the dynamic capabilities of innovation have been approached in a conceptual model based on the perspective of human capital and innovation climate.

The study did not contemplate the analysis of the interrelationship between the resource configuration construct and the dynamic innovation capacities (part of the gap pointed out by Tuzovic, Wirtz and Heracleous (2018), constituting a perceptible limitation of the analyzes carried out in this article.

The influence of the innovation climate construct and its relationship with dynamic innovation capabilities deserves greater attention in research with an empirical approach, constituting a field to be explored by scientific research in organizations.

The research sought to investigate the gap involving the interrelations between innovation climate and human capital in the development of dynamic capabilities related to innovation, indicating the need for further empirical studies on the subject.