A. Grujicic, M. LaBerge, X. Xie, G. Arakere, B. Pandurangan, M. Grujicic, K.J. Jeray and S.L. Tanner
The purpose of this paper is to compare fracture‐fixation and bone‐healing promotion efficacies of an intramedullary (IM) nail‐type and an external osteosynthesis plate‐type…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to compare fracture‐fixation and bone‐healing promotion efficacies of an intramedullary (IM) nail‐type and an external osteosynthesis plate‐type femoral trochanteric‐fracture implants using the results of a combined multi‐body dynamics and finite element analyses. For both implants, fracture fixation was obtained using a dynamic hip blade which is anchored to the femur head on one end and is connected to the IM rod/plate on the other. The analysis was carried out for two pre‐fracture conditions of the femur: healthy and osteoporotic.
Design/methodology/approach
The musculoskeletal dynamics portion of the analysis was used to obtain realistic physiological loading conditions (i.e. muscle forces and joint reaction forces and moments) associated with four typical everyday activities of a patient, namely, walking, lunging, cycling and egress (i.e. exiting a passenger vehicle). The subsequent structural finite element analysis of the fractured femur/implant assembly was employed to quantify fracture‐fixation efficacy (as measured by the extents of lateral (found to be minor), flexural and torsional displacements of the two femur fragments) and the bone‐healing promotion efficacy (as quantified by the fraction of the fractured surface area which experienced desirable contact pressures).
Findings
The results obtained show that, in general, the IM‐rod type of implant out‐performs the osteosynthesis plate type of implant over a large range of scenarios involving relative importance of the bone‐healing promotion and fracture‐fixation efficacies, health condition of the femur and the activity level of the patient. More specifically, the more active the patient and the larger extent of osteoporosis in the femur, the more justifiable is the use of the IM‐rod type of implant.
Originality/value
The present approach enables assessment of the fracture‐fixation performance of orthopedic implants under physiologically realistic loading conditions.
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Magali Simard and Danielle Laberge
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the development and outbreak of a crisis in a high-priority project within a large organization.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the development and outbreak of a crisis in a high-priority project within a large organization.
Design/methodology/approach
Single-case study using extreme case sampling, a type of purposeful sampling, because this case provides rich information on a rare research opportunity: a project crisis that emerged during the fieldwork. Research data are semi-structured interviews, observations, project and organization documentation, logbook, notes and memos.
Findings
The paper shows the relevance of notions from organizational crisis management to an internal crisis in a temporary setting. This allowed a deeper understanding of crisis development. The paper reveals the wealth of meaningful, transparent data that can be collected when a crisis emerges. It highlights the high potential of project crises to reveal parent organizations’ dysfunctions. Indeed, findings suggest that the parent organization’s usual project management practices greatly contributed to the crisis affecting this project, which was unusually large and complex.
Research limitations/implications
The main potential limitation relates to transferability. However, a single-case study is appropriate when it represents a rare phenomenon that is not easily accessible for researchers – a crisis outbreak.
Practical implications
Results can provide insights enabling practitioners to improve their understanding of the ambiguous, stressful situations created by a crisis.
Originality/value
The results show the relevance of notions from organizational crisis management to the development of a project crisis and demonstrate the potentially harmful impact of a parent organization’s “usual” practices, especially on “unusually” large and complex projects.
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Pierre A. Balthazard and Robert W. Thatcher
Through a review of historically famous cases and a chronicle of neurotechnology development, this chapter discusses brain structure and brain function as two distinct yet…
Abstract
Through a review of historically famous cases and a chronicle of neurotechnology development, this chapter discusses brain structure and brain function as two distinct yet interrelated paths to understand the relative contributions of anatomical and physiological mechanisms to the human brain–behavior relationship. From an organizational neuroscience perspective, the chapter describes over a dozen neuroimaging technologies that are classified under four groupings: morphologic, invasive metabolic, noninvasive metabolic, and electromagnetic. We then discuss neuroimaging variables that may be useful in social science investigations, and we underscore electroencephalography as a particularly useful modality for the study of individuals and groups in organizational settings. The chapter concludes by considering emerging science and novel brain technologies for the organizational researcher as we look to the future.
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The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework for assessing the vulnerability of projects to crises. The study seeks to clarify the cascade effects of disruptions leading to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework for assessing the vulnerability of projects to crises. The study seeks to clarify the cascade effects of disruptions leading to project crises and to improve project robustness against crises from a systems perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
A framework for assessing project vulnerability to crises is developed using complex network theory. The framework includes network representation of project systems, analyzing project network topology, simulating the cascade of unexpected disruptions and assessing project vulnerability. Use of the framework is then illustrated by applying it to a case study of a construction project.
Findings
Project network topology plays a critical role in resisting crises. By increasing the resilience of the critical tasks and adjusting the structure of a project, the complexity and vulnerability of the project can be reduced, which in turn decreases the occurrence of crises.
Research limitations/implications
The proposed framework is used in a case study. Further studies of its application to projects in diverse industries would be beneficial to enhance the robustness of the results.
Practical implications
Project crises can threaten the survival of a project and endanger the organization’s security. The proposed framework helps prevent and mitigate project crises by protecting critical tasks and blocking the diffusion path from a systems perspective.
Originality/value
This paper presents a novel framework based on complex network theory to assess project vulnerability, which provides a systemic understanding of the cascade of disruptions that lead to project crises.
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Shintaro Okazaki, Kirk Plangger, Thomas Roulet and Héctor D. Menéndez
With the popularity of social media platforms, firms have now tangible means not only to reach out to their stakeholders, but also to closely monitor those interactions. Yet…
Abstract
Purpose
With the popularity of social media platforms, firms have now tangible means not only to reach out to their stakeholders, but also to closely monitor those interactions. Yet, there are limited methodological advances on how to measure a firm’s stakeholder networks, and the level of engagement firms have with these networks. Drawn upon the customer engagement and stakeholder theory literature, this study aims to propose an approach to calculate a firm’s stakeholder network engagement (SNE) index.
Design/methodology/approach
After deriving the SNE index formula mathematically, this study illustrates how the SNE index functions using eight firms’ online corporate social responsibility (CSR) networks across four diverse industries.
Findings
This study proposes and illustrates a new approach of capturing the SNE in a stakeholder network for use by academic and practical researchers.
Research limitations/implications
Researchers can use the SNE index to assess engagement in stakeholder networks in various contexts.
Practical implications
Managers can use the SNE index to assess, benchmark and improve the nature and quality of their CSR strategies to derive greater return on their CSR investments.
Originality/value
Building on the stakeholder, communication and network analysis literatures, this study conceptualises SNE in four theoretical dimensions, namely, diffusion, accessibility, interactivity and influence. Then, an index that measures SNE is mathematically derived and empirically illustrated.
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Pinsheng Duan, Jianliang Zhou and Shiwei Tao
The outbreak of the pandemic makes it more difficult to manage the safety or health of construction workers in infrastructure construction. Risk events in construction workers'…
Abstract
Purpose
The outbreak of the pandemic makes it more difficult to manage the safety or health of construction workers in infrastructure construction. Risk events in construction workers' material handling tasks are highly relevant to workers' work-related musculoskeletal disorders. However, there are still many problems to be resolved in recognizing risk events accurately. The purpose of this research is to propose an automatic and non-invasive recognition method for construction workers in material handling tasks during the pandemic based on smartphone and machine learning.
Design/methodology/approach
This research proposes a method to recognize and classify four different risk events by collecting specific acceleration and angular velocity patterns through built-in sensors of smartphones. The events were simulated with anterior handling and shoulder handling methods in the laboratory. After data segmentation and feature extraction, five different machine learning methods are used to recognize risk events and the classification performances are compared.
Findings
The classification result of the shoulder handling method was slightly better than the anterior handling method. By comparing the accuracy of five different classifiers, cross-validation results showed that the classification accuracy of the random forest algorithm was the highest (76.71% in anterior handling method and 80.13% in shoulder handling method) when the window size was 0.64 s.
Originality/value
Less attention has been paid to the risk events in workers' material handling tasks in previous studies, and most events are recorded by manual observation methods. This study provided a simple and objective way to judge the risk events in manual material handling tasks of construction workers based on smartphones, which can be used as a non-invasive way for managers to improve health and labor productivity during the pandemic.
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Kelly Moore and Matthew C. Hoffmann
Field theory is waxing in the sociology of science, and Pierre Bourdieu’s work is especially influential. His characterization of field structure and dynamics has been especially…
Abstract
Field theory is waxing in the sociology of science, and Pierre Bourdieu’s work is especially influential. His characterization of field structure and dynamics has been especially valuable in drawing attention to hierarchical and center-periphery relations in science and technology, and to the stability and reproduction of science and technology practices. What field theory does less well, however, is to capture the existence of multiple (including marginal) logics around a given sociotechnical object. Nor does it capture the dynamics of a specific logic of neoliberal capitalism in the US: the cultural and economic value of entrepreneurship that emphasizes the continual reconfiguration of social relations, which has its roots in a longer US history of progress-through-reinvention, and is abetted by new technologies designed to continually “update” and remix. Much better at capturing these qualities, we argue, is an institutionalist theory in which dynamism, not stasis, is foregrounded, and there is room for multiple, contradictory, and non-cognitive logics to co-exist. Using the expansion of “alternative nutrition” in the US, we show that its formation took place via the conjunction of parallel streams of social action that encompassed diverse logics and encouraged creativity and hybridity. More generally, variability in field stability and qualities, not static fields, deserve analytic attention.
Mathieu Albert and Wendy McGuire
In this paper, we present and apply a new framework – the Poles of Production for Producers/Poles of Production for Users (PFP/PFU) model – to empirically study how one particular…
Abstract
In this paper, we present and apply a new framework – the Poles of Production for Producers/Poles of Production for Users (PFP/PFU) model – to empirically study how one particular group of academic scientists has responded to neoliberal changes in science policy and funding in Canada. The data we use are from a qualitative case study of 20 basic health scientists affiliated with a research-intensive university in a large Canadian city. We use the PFP/PFU model to explore the symbolic strategies (the vision of scientific quality) and practical strategies (the acquisition of funding and production of knowledge outputs) scientists adopt to maintain or advance their own position of power in the scientific field. We also compare similarities and differences among scientists trained before and after the rise of neoliberal policy. The PFP/PFU model allows us to see how these individual strategies cumulatively contribute to the construction of dominant and alternate modes of knowledge production. We argue that the alignments and misalignments between quality vision and practice that scientists in this study experienced reflect the symbolic struggles that are occurring among scientists, and between the scientific and political field, over two competing logics and reward systems (PFP/PFU).
Target 16.7 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) refers to the need for ‘responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making’ to facilitate just…
Abstract
Target 16.7 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) refers to the need for ‘responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making’ to facilitate just, peaceful and inclusive societies. This chapter discusses why it is important that security and justice institutions, and decision-making therein, are responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative; how to develop such institutions; and how to measure success in this regard. It is argued that the limited scope of the official SDG indicators used to measure progress risks action being taken on less tangible and less measurable but often more meaningful aspects of building just, peaceful and inclusive societies. The chapter argues that facilitating more inclusive decision-making, especially in the security and justice sector (redistributing power), and evaluating progress in this regard (determining what success looks like) are both highly political undertakings. These undertakings are thus, fraught with practical difficulties and likely to generate resistance from those who have a vested interest in retaining the status quo. Retaining focus on the Target and overarching Goal, however, can help avoid implementation being derailed by being distracted by a huge data gathering exercise to respond to a narrow set of quantifiable indicators. It can also ultimately help facilitate transformational change towards just, peaceful and inclusive societies.