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This study aims to examine the factors influencing the quality of corporate governance in South Africa (SA) and Kenya. Firm-level variables including performance, firm size, leverage, investment opportunities and audit quality were identified from the corporate governance literature.

The study used panel data of 247-firm years obtained from the annual reports of the 50 largest companies listed on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange (JSE) of SA and 234-firm years obtained from the 49 companies listed on the Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE). The author then used content analysis to extract the study variables from the annual reports and multiple regression analysis to determine their relationship.

The study found audit quality and firm performance as the main factors influencing the quality of corporate governance in Kenya and SA. There are also differences in the quality of corporate governance between the two countries.

First the study sample consists of the 50 largest firms listed in the JSE of SA and another 49 companies listed in the NSE of Kenya. Since these are large companies, the results may not be generalized to other smaller firms operating in both SA and Kenya. Second, this study is constrained to SA and Kenya. Firms in other developing countries may differ from their SA and Kenyan counterparts.

The results of this study are important to the King Committee and other corporate governance regulators in Sub-Saharan Africa, in their effort to improve corporate governance practices, minimize corporate failure and protect the well-being of the minority shareholders. Furthermore, the study contributes to the understanding of the variables affecting the quality of corporate governance in developing economies of Africa.

This study aims to examine the factors influencing the quality of corporate governance in South Africa (SA). Firm-level variables including performance, firm size, leverage, investment opportunities and audit quality were identified from the corporate governance literature.

The study used ordinary least squares regression on firm-specific and corporate governance variables obtained from panel data of 247-firm years obtained from the annual reports of the 50 largest companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) Securities Exchange of SA.

This study found leverage, firm size and investment opportunities as the main factors influencing the quality of corporate governance in SA.

The research findings should be interpreted in the light of the following limitations. First, the study sample consists of the 50 largest firms listed in the JSE of SA. Because these are large companies, the results may not be generalized to other smaller firms operating in SA. Second, this study is constrained to SA. Firms in other developing countries may differ from their SA counterparts.

The results of this study are important to the King Committee and other corporate governance regulators in Sub-Saharan Africa, in their effort to improve corporate governance practices and probably minimize corporate failure and protect the well-being of the minority shareholders. Furthermore, the study contributes to our understanding of the variables affecting the quality of corporate governance in developing economies of Africa.

The provision of meals has long been regarded as an essential part of treatment of hospitalized patients complementing medical procedures and nursing management. Today, despite changes in the health-care landscape, which focused on improving the quality and efficiency of hospital care, malnutrition among inpatient was still a common worldwide concern.

This was a multi-centre, randomized study conducted in 21 study sites comprising 21 state and specialist government hospitals under the Ministry of Health, Malaysia. The sample size for this study was calculated with purposive sampling method, followed by proportionate sampling to determine the random sample size of each of the study sites. The total sample size required for this study was 2,759 subjects. A validated data collection form was used in the study.

Only 32.2 % and 37.6 % of subjects achieved adequate energy and protein intake, respectively, during their admission to medical ward. The study result showed that the overall mean energy and protein intake was 794.6 ± 487.8 kcal and 35.2 ± 24.3 g, respectively. The estimated energy (p = 0.001) and protein (p = 0.001) intake of all study sites was significantly lower compared to the adequacy value.

The adequacy intake in this study was only carried out in medical wards, thus reproducible result among other wards in different study sites could not be confirmed. Besides, this study assumed that the portion eaten by subjects during lunch and dinner was the same, and therefore, either one was recorded together with breakfast and either lunch or dinner to represent a subject’s daily intake.

This was the first nationwide study to report the adequacy of energy and protein intake of patients receiving therapeutic diets in the government hospital setting in Malaysia.

The purpose of this paper is to find the method for determining the displacement of the active element in a giant magnetostrictive transducer.

The giant magnetostrictive transducer with the active element made of Terfenol-D has been considered. A structure with an axisymmetrical transducer has been proposed. In the proposed model the coupling of magnetic and mechanical field has been taken into account. Maxwell’s equations for electromagnetics and Navier’s equations for mechanical systems are formulated in weak form and coupled using a nonlinear magneto-mechanical constitutive law for Terfenol-D. In order to obtain the distribution of the magnetic and mechanical fields the finite element method was used. The elaborated nonlinear magnetostrictive model has been implemented by using a finite element weak formulation with COMSOL Multiphysics.

The elaborated model for the giant magnetostrictive transducer allows to take into account the magneto-mechanical coupling as well as the material’s nonlinearity. The calculation results of the strain distributions caused by magnetostrictive forces have been presented. The output displacement of a transducer vs supply current for different compressive preload stresses has been calculated and measured. The simulation and measurements results are in close agreement.

Taking advantage of the geometrical structure of the prototype of the giant magnetostrictive transducer the computations are performed in an axial-symmetric domain with cylindrical coordinates (r, z, ϑ). The axisymmetric formulation describes the giant magnetostrictive transducers (GMT) without significant loss of accuracy. This approach leads to smaller numerical models and reduced computational time.

The elaborated magneto-mechanical model can be used to the design and optimize the structure of GMT.

The paper offers the magneto-mechanical model of the giant magnetostrictive transducer. The elaborated model can predict behavior of the magnetostrictive materials it can be used as a tool for the design process of the giant magnetostrictive transducer.

Why is it that highly trained and seasoned executives fail? On the surface, this doesn’t make sense because they are very successful; yet research in the organization sciences provides no shortage of evidence to prove just that. From the classic Mann Gulch fire disaster of Weick’s famous collapse of sensemaking study, to studies of myopia of learning, escalation of commitment, threat-rigidity, dominant logic, the architecture of simplicity, the Icarus Paradox, to core competencies turning into core rigidities, and navigating new competitive markets using “old” cognitive maps, and many more such examples point to a ubiquitous phenomenon where highly trained and experienced professionals find themselves “stuck” in the heat of battle, unable to move and progress. On the one hand, for some, there is a desperate need for change, but are unable to do so, due to their trained incapacities. On the other hand, some simply cannot see the need for change, and continue with their “business as usual” mentality. For both, their visions of the world shrink, they have a tendency to cling onto their past habitual practices and oversimplify the complexity of the situation. In moments like these: DROP YOUR TOOLS and UNLEARN! This book chapter introduces a framework (grounded in clinical psychology) that has had consistent success in helping seasoned executives and key decision-makers open up the alternatives whenever they find themselves stuck with complexity.

With the advancement of novel forms of text mining techniques, new possibilities have opened up to conduct large-scale content analysis of educational research from an international and comparative perspective. Since educational research tends to convey great variation based on country-specific circumstances it constitutes a good testbed for context-rich depictions of the knowledge formation within a given research field.

In this article, the authors compare the educational research that has been produced by scholars in Singapore and Sweden. The article begins by providing a rich overview of what has characterised the formation and institutionalization of educational research in public policy. After this background they map the knowledge formation of education by means of a comparative bibliometric approach using words from abstracts, titles and keywords published in 9017 peer-reviewed articles between 2000 and 2020. First, the authors describe the dominant topics in each country using topic modelling techniques. Secondly, the authors identify the most distinguishing discourses when comparing the two countries.

The findings illustrate two ideal-types for conducting educational research: Singapore being more centralised, practically-oriented, quantitative and uncritical, whereas Sweden is decentralised, pluralistic, qualitative and critical in orientation. After having mapped out the prevailing topics among researchers working in these locations, the authors connect these findings to larger debates on rivalling knowledge traditions in educational scholarship, the role of the state and the degree of autonomy within higher education.

Through large scale text mining techniques, researchers have begun to explore the semantic composition of various research fields such as higher education research, research on lifelong learning, or social science studies. However, the bibliometric method has also been criticised for creating “mega-national comparisons” that suffer from a lack of understanding of the national ramifications of various research pursuits. The authors’ study addresses these shortcomings and provides a rich depiction of educational research in Singapore and Sweden. It zooms in on the relationship between each country's institutional histories, research priorities and semantic output.