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In this paper, a Web portal is presented for multicast communication management, providing fully automatic service management with integrated provisioning of hardware equipment. The portal is based on an open and configurable object‐oriented framework, that allows self‐provisioning by the user and the seamless integration with all types of multicast application software. As its topological structure is ideally suited for multicasting, and it allows the accurate control of the transmission bandwidth, the portal focuses currently on satellite as a delivery medium. The software architecture, the implementation, and the application usage of the Web portal for multicast delivery are described.

Previous research, at once more abstract and more concrete, has neglected the intermediate level of interorganizational coordination (IOC): coordination structures. This theory of IOC identifies coordination structures, ranging from the liaison to markets and interorganizational networks, at various levels of organizational generality and complexity. Coordination structures invoke informal and formal links, based on hierarchy (command), market (exchange), or association‐solidarity (trust). IOC and its related coordination structures are the result of organizations' perceiving their interdependence. IOC cases in environmental management illustrate the theory and its implications for organizational analysis and institutional design.

A number of governments have already moved or intend to move from cash to accrual accounting. This has resulted in a growing body of comparative research in public sector accounting. Little work, however, has been devoted so far to investigating government accounting in developing and transitioning countries. This empirical paper seeks to contribute to this literature by conducting a seemingly unique two-country comparison of public sector accounting reforms in one developing nation and one in transition, namely Nepal and Russia. The study suggests that, although more or less the same rhetoric is used in the two settings, reforms have been framed rather differently due to the potency of various institutional pressures.

Traditionally health care research is often valued on the evidence‐based basis, which is dominated by statistically motivated quantitative research. However, the increasingly popular use of qualitative methods in general and health research, in particular, has provided a different kind of research evidence, which reflects real‐life issues in social contexts. Though health care qualitative research has provided health care workers, policymakers and the public valuable insights into various aspects of population health, there are issues and problems regarding conducting qualitative research in an intercultural discourse. Sociolinguistic and cultural factors are the main causes of problems facing researchers and policymakers. Concepts such as confidentiality and security are culturally constructed. This paper examines some intercultural awareness issues that need to be considered in the conduct of health care qualitative research and some potential problems in the treatment of health qualitative data. Attention will be given to the Vietnamese health discourse.

A semantic analysis of the “Weekly Subject Index Stop Word List” of Current Contents of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) as well as of the full‐stop word and semi‐stop word lists of the Permuterm Subject Index of Science Citation Index was carried out. Selected terms from the first issues for 1997, 1999 and 2000 of the CCODAb/Life Sciences, of the first issues for 1997 and 2000 of CCOD Proceedings, as well as from the SCI CDE for 1997 and January‐June of 2000 were screened. True full‐stop and semi‐stop words commonly occur in the dictionaries of these databases which proves that there is an abundance of meaningless terms in titles and abstracts. On the other hand, many synonyms and antonyms are absent in these lists. Proper list enlarging could contribute to more effective preparation of both printed reference publications and large databases thus ensuring a more economic information retrieval by practical users and scientometricians. The necessity of an improved, semantically oriented policy in preparing the lists of fullstop words and semi‐stop words used in modern databases worldwide is emphasised. Journal editors should encourage authors to reduce stop‐word usage in article titles and keyword sets.