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This chapter examines the oil and gas industry and the efficacy of vertical integration strategies. Using multiple theoretical lenses ranging from the resource-based view, transactions costs, and parenting perspective, the chapter considers different arguments associated with vertical integration. The 2011 breakup of ConocoPhillips and its global value chain helps address the question of which strategy is best – integrated or nonintegrated. We provide several conclusions about the structure of integration and value chains within the oil and gas industry. First, vertical integration based on the physical transfer of products between value chain activities will generate little firm advantage in the form of classical integration benefits, such as control over input quality or speed to market. Second, competing across the industry value chain as a hedge or strategy against industry cyclicality is not theoretically defensible. Third, pure play industry specialists can create value through management focus, agility, and, transparency for investors. Fourth, firms that compete across a wide range of industry value chain activities can create value-adding corporate strategies if they are able to leverage knowledge and assets across different industry sectors.

This study aims to examine the reasons for and the challenges of women’s incarceration coupled with the threats for their reintegration upon release with a focus on the correctional centers at Dessie and Woldia cities.

This study used quantitative and qualitative research methods with cross-sectional and descriptive research design used to collect the quantitative data, and key informant interviews and participant observation were used to collect the qualitative data. A sample of 60 women prisoners was taken from both correctional centers. The quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and thematic analysis, respectively

Findings of the study indicate that family backgrounds, gender-based violence, illiteracy and socio-economic problems were the causes for the women’s imprisonment. The women perpetrators were mainly accused of theft, vandalism, murder and moral perversion. Poor detention environment, worry for the family breakup, emotional instability, financial hardships and deprivation of spiritual life were the major sources of distress among the incarcerated women, whereas social stigma, lack of trust and fear of revenge were the threats to reintegrate to their families and communities.

This study involved incarcerated women at the correctional centers in Dessie and Woldia who committed various types of crimes. Because the informant women were imprisoned for violating certain established rules and regulations, they might have withheld some relevant issues to this research, which they thought were secret and personal. In addition, the women at the correctional centers might not have felt secure to speak more openly about their worst experiences at prison for fear they should face administrative challenges stemming from disclosing their real-life situations as incarcerated persons. The authors thus believe that further research is needed to uncover facts about women’s criminality and the experiences of women inmates at correctional centers.

The findings of this research do have practical implications as explained below. The local government sectors and non-governmental organizations will benefit from the study so as to develop feasible strategies to mitigate women’s criminality and scale down the increasing number of female perpetrators (prisoners). Local government and non-governmental entities (bodies) can easily identify the violent behaviors of husbands that cause women’s criminality and design comprehensive awareness creation strategies toward reducing hostile gender relations. Governmental and non-governmental stakeholders including the local communities will be able to advocate gender equality programs aiming at eliminating gender discrimination and abuses that exacerbate women’s criminality. Incarceration centers will improve access to education and vocational training to female inmates so that beneficiaries will acquire relevant knowledge and skills to enter into the local labor market to sustain themselves and their families upon release from prison.

This is an original paper with a fresh perspective regarding the lived experiences of women at the prisons of study area guided by popular criminological theories. Thus, the research work would be used as a literature of the study area and help government and non-government bodies to prepare policies and guidelines. Most particularly, the Woldia and Dessie correctional centers would benefit from this paper to develop essential plans and take measures about the adverse situation of incarcerated women.

To estimate mean droplet diameter (MDD) of a spray, three different numerical models were used in this paper. One of them is investigation of the surface instability of the liquid sheet producing from an injector.

First, the linear instability (LI) analysis introduced by Ibrahim (2006) is implemented. Second, the improved (ILI) analysis already introduced by the present authors is used. ILI analysis is different from the prior analysis, so that the instability of hollow-cone liquid sheet with different cone angles is investigated rather than a cylindrical liquid sheet. It means that besides the tangential and axial movements, radial movements of the liquid sheet and gas streams have been considered in the governing equations. Beside LI theory as a momentum-based approach, a new model as a theoretical energy-based (TEB) model based on the energy conservation law is proposed in this paper.

Based on the energy-based approach, atomization occurs because of kinetic energy loss. The resulting formulation reveals that the MDD is inversely proportional to the atomization efficiency and liquid Weber number.

The results of these three models are compared with the available experimental data. Prediction obtained by the proposed TEB model is in reasonable agreement with the result of experiment.

The results of these three models are compared with the available experimental data. Prediction of the proposed energy-based theoretical model is in very good agreement with experimental data.

Comparison between the results of new model, experimental data, other previous methods show that it can be used as a new simple and fast model to achieve good estimation of spray MDD.

Unions face serious challenges, which raise questions about organizational priorities. An issue important to the recent breakup of the AFLCIO is the priority given political action vis-à-vis organizing. We examine competing theoretical perspectives on the potential relationship between union political action and organizing effectiveness. We present evidence on the scope of union political spending and conduct a preliminary analysis of its correlation with organizing. Our results indicate a negative relationship, but we urge a cautious interpretation. Theory raises substantial doubts about political activity as a motivation for joining a union. We urge more research.

Like a whirling tornado, the first half of the 1990s has overturned most of our traditional notions about what it takes for organizations to be successful. We have seen premier companies like IBM, General Motors, Kodak, Sears, Aetna, Prudential, and Westinghouse stumble or fall despite dominant market size, brand recognition, and well‐proven management systems. We also have seen mega‐mergers reshape whole industries such as banking, pharmaceuticals, and entertainment; and mega‐breakups reshape our notion of conglomerates. And overlayed on all of these industry shifts has been an unrelenting parade of organizational change programs—total quality, reengineering, business process redesign, reinvention, delayering, and more—as individual companies have resorted to massive doses of disruption to keep up.

This study aims to develop an experimentally validated three-dimensional numerical model for predicting different flow patterns produced with a gas dynamic virtual nozzle (GDVN).

The physical model is posed in the mixture formulation and copes with the unsteady, incompressible, isothermal, Newtonian, low turbulent two-phase flow. The computational fluid dynamics numerical solution is based on the half-space finite volume discretisation. The geo-reconstruct volume-of-fluid scheme tracks the interphase boundary between the gas and the liquid. To ensure numerical stability in the transition regime and adequately account for turbulent behaviour, the k-ω shear stress transport turbulence model is used. The model is validated by comparison with the experimental measurements on a vertical, downward-positioned GDVN configuration. Three different combinations of air and water volumetric flow rates have been solved numerically in the range of Reynolds numbers for airflow 1,009–2,596 and water 61–133, respectively, at Weber numbers 1.2–6.2.

The half-space symmetry allows the numerical reconstruction of the dripping, jetting and indication of the whipping mode. The kinetic energy transfer from the gas to the liquid is analysed, and locations with locally increased gas kinetic energy are observed. The calculated jet shapes reasonably well match the experimentally obtained high-speed camera videos.

The model is used for the virtual studies of new GDVN nozzle designs and optimisation of their operation.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the developed model numerically reconstructs all three GDVN flow regimes for the first time.

The disintegration of the SFRY, which had its roots in the late 1970s and 1980s (Delevic, 1998), started with the decision of the Slovenian and Croat governments in 1990 to seek independence from Belgrade. The event triggering the outbreak of war in Slovenia was the takeover of Yugoslav custom houses by the Slovenia government, which prompted the YPA to intervene militarily, pitting a well-armed conventional army against the security forces of a nascent state, largely consisting of milita-style Territorial Defense Units (Lucic & Lynch, 1996, pp. 183–185). The EC and the United States moved quickly to impose an arms embargo against Yugoslavia following the military escalation of the crisis in June 1991. This was followed by resolution 713 of the UNSC (1991) imposing a “general and complete embargo on the delivery of weapons and military equipment to Yugoslavia” on 25 September 1991. During this early stage of the conflict, there was agreement among the key international actors (USA, Russia and the EU) that the conflict in Yugoslavia had to be contained and that the breakup of the federal republic should be avoided at all costs, not least because it would set a dangerous precedent for other parts of Eastern Europe. Some permanent members of the Security Council (such as France, Russia and the United Kingdom) sympathized with the Serbian position vis-à-vis the break-away republics and while the decision to apply the arms embargo on Yugoslavia as a whole was justified by the fact that none of the republics had been recognized as a subject of international law, policymakers must have been aware that they were putting Slovenia and Croatia at a military disadvantage through this decision (Lucic & Lynch, 1996, pp. 295–300).