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Engines have been built that execute queries against XML data. The aim of this paper is to describe a novel technique that can be used to improve the speed of execution of the queries based on semantics of the data in the XML document.

The paper formally introduces algorithms for optimizing XML queries, implement the algorithms, and through experimentation demonstrate the improvement in speed.

Three possible semantic query optimizations based on the values of elements were introduced and these demonstrate that two of the three optimizations improve query performance but the third does not. It is hypothesized why this is the case.

A limitation is obviously the query engine and how it works. Future work includes, executing the experiments on a different engine and comparing results, building a system to automatically generate the characteristics that are necessary to do the optimization, describing the best way to represent and maintain the characteristics once they are found, compare the results of optimizations based on content with optimizations based on structure.

The optimizations could be incorporated into new query engines.

Novel algorithms for query optimization have been developed and proven to work. They are of value to people who are building database systems for XML data.

XML semantic query optimization (XSQO) is an important area in eXtensible Markup Language (XML) query processing. However, the experiments evaluating semantic optimization methods often suffer because of the lack of suitable data sets. To evaluate XSQO methods it is necessary to be able to build datasets with specific characteristics. In particular, it is necessary to be able to set: selectivity of embedded elements, selectivity of values of elements, depth, fan‐out and size. The aim of this paper is to describe the requirements of such a generator, and the challenges of building the generator.

The paper considers that there is currently no generator that gives this flexibility, so the paper discusses the design and building of such a generator.

The main characteristic of the generator is that it is possible to adapt existing XML documents, including XML benchmarks, for experiments that evaluate XSQO methods. With the generator, users are able to modify not only the structure of XML documents but also content quickly and directly.

The paper provides information of value to information technology professionals.

Academic social (question and answer) Q&A sites are now utilised by millions of scholars and researchers for seeking and sharing discipline-specific information. However, little is known about the factors that can affect their votes on the quality of an answer, nor how the discipline might influence these factors. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Using 1,021 answers collected over three disciplines (library and information services, history of art, and astrophysics) in ResearchGate, statistical analysis is performed to identify the characteristics of high-quality academic answers, and comparisons were made across the three disciplines. In particular, two major categories of characteristics of the answer provider and answer content were extracted and examined.

The results reveal that high-quality answers on academic social Q&A sites tend to possess two characteristics: first, they are provided by scholars with higher academic reputations (e.g. more followers, etc.); and second, they provide objective information (e.g. longer answer with fewer subjective opinions). However, the impact of these factors varies across disciplines, e.g., objectivity is more favourable in physics than in other disciplines.

The study is envisioned to help academic Q&A sites to select and recommend high-quality answers across different disciplines, especially in a cold-start scenario where the answer has not received enough judgements from peers.

This study aims to investigate the factors and mechanism which influence the doctor’s social and economic benefits from the perspective of social capital.

This paper mainly investigates the factors and mechanism influencing the doctor's social and economic benefits from the perspective of social capital and then constructs a doctor's social capital model and discusses the effects of doctor's social capital on their economic and social benefits; what is more, this paper also considers the moderating effect of patients’ group behavior.

The results show that the doctor's social capital has a positive and significant effect on doctor's economic benefits, while it has a negative and significant effect on doctors' social benefits. Patients’ group behavior plays an important moderating role; in particular, the number of online patients of doctors can effectively strengthen follow-up patients’ positive perception of the doctor capital, while the number of offline patients has a negative effect on doctors’ economic benefits, but it can reduce its negative impact on doctors’ social benefits by establishing trust between patient and physician.

This paper enriches the relevant research of social capital theory in the medical field and broadens the research about online health care. For platforms, they should give more attention to doctors and their income issues, which is of great significance for their healthy and sustainable development.

Global business practices show that during periods of demand volatility, manufacturing firms often engage in asymmetric cost management (ACM), a behavior in which costs increase faster than they decrease when demand decreases by the same amount. However, whether managing asymmetric costs will enhance or impede firm resilience remains an open question. We aim to investigate the impact of ACM on firm resilience and its boundary conditions.

Using unbalanced panel data of 2,273 Chinese manufacturing listed companies from 2002 to 2021, we conduct an empirical analysis using a double fixed effects model.

Our findings reveal that ACM has a negative effect on firm resilience. This suggests that in coping with external environmental fluctuations, ACM fails to fulfill its expected role effectively. Instead, it manifests as a severe agency problem affecting firm resilience. Further, we find that managerial myopia and digitalization diminish the negative effect, while customer instability exacerbates it.

This study contributes to the literature on the organizational resilience of manufacturing firms by providing an in-depth understanding of cost management and emphasizing the need to consider agency issues carefully when managing asymmetric costs.

This chapter presents data and analysis to conceptualise the role of the executive principal, and how the executive principal practises leadership in formal school partnerships in China. To achieve this, this research draws on Foucault’s concept of pastoral power, enriching it through interplay with Chinese notions of morality. This research is anchored in one innovative educational organisation – the Education Collective (EC). The EC is a large-scale and multi-level educational organisation formed by two or more schools or campuses guided by a common concept and bound by a contract. Education collectivisation has now become the mainstream model of running compulsory education in China. The head of the EC, often referred to as the executive principal, is the legal representative of each EC and is responsible for the entire collective.

This paper aims to evaluate the collaboration quality performance of sugar company Z and its stakeholders (farmers and distributors) by considering the sustainability aspects. This assessment shall be able to integrate qualitative and quantitative factors in the model, which is critical in sugar supply chains involving multi-stakeholders.

Integration of quality function deployment (QFD), the fuzzy analytical network process (FANP) and the data envelopment analysis (DEA) is administered to assess the efficiency score of each stakeholder involved. The evaluation encompasses collaboration behaviour factors since the input of collaboration activities will result in sustainability aspects such as revenue, green house gas (GHG) emissions and social impact. The analysis has been conducted in two scenarios, those are the basic scenario by utilising original data and the extended scenario by using projection data.

The result clarifies that the most influential behaviour factor in the collaboration activities is commitment (0.116), while the least important behaviour factors are power (0.008) and adaptation (0.008). Furthermore, by using the extended scenario, the overall efficiency for each benchmarking is higher compared to the condition before the improvement (basic scenario).

The result of this study is only relevant to the particular sugar supply chain and involving limited sustainability variables. Therefore, in a further study, more variables such as technical and financial aspects could be explored further in the assessment process.

The result of this study is available for each stakeholder and can be fundamental for the constant improvement in sustainable supply chain (SSC) practices. It shows that an improvement of one stakeholder will positively impact the entire system.

Smallholders and sugarcane farmers will recognise the significance of collaboration behaviour. Thus, they can enhance their mutual benefits by using the existing resources.

This paper arranges for a practical contribution by implementing advanced assessment methods in the sugar supply chain by taking into account the economic, environmental and social aspects. This comprehensive assessment process in the sugar supply chain is the novelty of this paper.

Like other nations in Asia, mainland China has undergone continuous reforms in its economic, political and social institutions over the past two decades. These changes are also reflected in its education system, which has been both the target of government reforms and an agent for social change. In this context, China's Ministry of Education has cast school principals as key actors in leading and managing change in schools at the local level throughout the country. The purpose of this paper is to explore how Chinese school leaders successfully respond to the implementation of educational reform.

In this paper the authors explore how school leaders in one city in South China perceive their roles and actions in fostering successful change. The study employed extensive literature review with qualitative interviews of five school principals who had demonstrated success at leading change in their schools.

The findings of both the literature review and interview study unexpectedly found more similarities than differences between how leaders contribute to successful change in China as compared with the Western literature.

The research findings are limited by two main features. First, the sources analyzed in the literature review were of highly varying quality. Moreover, relatively few employed replicable analytical methods capable of generalization. These limitations of the literature mean that the results of the review can only be interpreted as suggestive rather than conclusive. Second, the interview study was framed as an effort to further explore the trends of the literature review. Although the findings from the small-scale interview study were consistent with the broader Chinese literature, the research design suffers form the same limitations as the general literature. Therefore, these findings must also be treated as emergent rather than explanatory.

The paper identifies directions for future research and discusses implications for school leaders in implementing educational change in China.

The originality of this study lies in its attempt to synthesize a previously inaccessible literature on change leadership in Chinese schools. Despite China's rising role as a global leader, the literature in educational leadership and management remains sparse and largely unknown to Western scholars. Therefore, the study's limitations are balanced by the need to provide better descriptions of current practices employed by leaders as they attempt to improve China's schools.

The purpose of this paper is to propose an instrument to evaluate the collaboration quality of sustainable supply chains by considering collaboration behaviour and sustainability factors.

The proposed model integrates Quality Function Deployment (QFD), Fuzzy Analytical Network Process (FANP) and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to assess the efficiency score of each stakeholder involved. A case of a sugar company in Indonesia was analysed as the illustration of the application of the model.

The integrated QFD-FANP-DEA method enables to incorporate collaboration behaviour and sustainability factors in a single assessment model. The results of the case study showed the benchmarking results associated with the performance variance of stakeholders and the number of samples.

Future research could consider other DEA approaches, extend the research by simulating a different number of scenarios and evaluating the improvement/deterioration, and expand the scope of collaboration.

Each stakeholder will be able to obtain the collaboration assessment results, and the improvements suggested by the model.

Smallholders and farmers will be able to increase their benefits by using the existing resources.

This paper provides a methodological contribution by introducing new collaboration quality assessment methods that can accommodate any variance in multi-stakeholders, involve qualitative and quantitative measurements, and benefit all stakeholders.