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Article
Publication date: 2 January 2020

Raja Rajeshwari B. and Sivakumar M.V.N.

Fracture properties depend on the type of material, method of testing and type of specimen. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate fracture properties by adopting a stable test…

116

Abstract

Purpose

Fracture properties depend on the type of material, method of testing and type of specimen. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate fracture properties by adopting a stable test method, i.e., wedge split test.

Design/methodology/approach

Coarse aggregate of three different sizes (20 mm, 16 mm and 12.5 mm), three ratios of coarse aggregate, fine aggregate (CA:FA) (50:50, 45:55, 40:60), presence of steel fibers, and specimens without and with guide notch were chosen as parameters of the study.

Findings

Load-crack mouth opening displacement curves indicate that for both fibrous and non-fibrous mixes, higher volume of aggregate and higher size of coarse aggregate have high fracture energy.

Originality/value

For all volumes of coarse aggregate, it was noticed that specimens with 12.5 mm aggregate size achieved highest peak load and abrupt drop post-peak. The decrease in coarseness of internal structure of concrete (λ) resulted in the increase of fracture energy.

Details

International Journal of Structural Integrity, vol. 11 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1757-9864

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Article
Publication date: 26 January 2022

B. Raja Rajeshwari and M.V.N. Sivakumar

Fracture properties of concrete are mainly influenced by specimen shape, size and type of testing method. The study aims to identify the characteristic divergence in fracture �…

104

Abstract

Purpose

Fracture properties of concrete are mainly influenced by specimen shape, size and type of testing method. The study aims to identify the characteristic divergence in fracture – evaluating testing methods, i.e. three-point bend test and wedge splitting test for fibrous self-compacting concrete.

Design/methodology/approach

A total of nine mixes with three different coarse aggregate sizes (20, 16 and 12.5mm) and three coarse to fine aggregate quantities (40–60, 45–55 and 50–50) were considered to examine the influence of materials on fracture parameters of fibrous self-compacting concrete. For three-point bend test, size effect method was considered to analyze the fracture properties.

Findings

The experimental investigation revealed that fracture energy calculated from wedge splitting test was reasonably on higher side for maximum coarse aggregate-based specimens for all coarse to fine aggregate quantities, while for the size effect method, fracture energy value was maximum for least coarse aggregate sized specimens.

Originality/value

The fracture properties of fibrous self-compacting concrete obtained from wedge splitting test method was higher than the size effect method. This is due to the consideration of only peak load for determining the fracture properties in size effect method analysis.

Details

International Journal of Structural Integrity, vol. 13 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1757-9864

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Book part
Publication date: 11 August 2014

Charles Geisler and Ben Currens

Recreancy is a concept that received William R. Freudenburg’s studied attention. Freudenburg moved beyond its conventional meaning – shirking duty – to a larger realm of…

Abstract

Recreancy is a concept that received William R. Freudenburg’s studied attention. Freudenburg moved beyond its conventional meaning – shirking duty – to a larger realm of irresponsibility by public actors who breach a societal trust they assume. This research focuses on the issue of “Peak Farmland,” a rendering of global carrying capacity that, we suggest, qualifies for what Freudenburg called “privileged discourse” and possibly recreancy. Scholars identified with dematerialized progress argue that finite farmland in the face of increasing population will improve human welfare and spare land for nature. This iconoclasm presents an arena for testing academic probity with respect to global food security. After an overview of past carrying capacity debates, we summarize the “Peak Farmland” position of the dematerialization school and suggest an important blind spot: the dematerialization of the global land base itself. Gathering the results of multiple studies on land loss, we offer evidence that the world’s warehouse of productive land is not just peaking but eroding on a grand scale. Ignoring this form of dematerialization while proclaiming nearly unlimited carrying capacity for Earth’s denizens strains the meaning of responsible scholarship.

Details

William R. Freudenburg, A Life in Social Research
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78190-734-4

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Article
Publication date: 11 September 2024

Kapildeo P. Yadav, Sudipta Ghosh, Sujata Rajak and Amiya K. Samanta

One of the often-employed building constituents in the construction sector is concrete, which involves hydration of cement, leading to the generation of carbon footprints during…

11

Abstract

Purpose

One of the often-employed building constituents in the construction sector is concrete, which involves hydration of cement, leading to the generation of carbon footprints during its production. Also, massive amount of natural aggregate is illegally mined, which poses serious environmental issues along with ecological misbalance. Researchers are in continuous search of appropriate substitutes to mitigate those challenges and develop innovative concrete mix. Consequently, depletion of natural resources, the disturbances to the environmental and ecological imbalance will reduce. The purpose of this study is to develop a Portland Slag Cement based novel sustainable concrete incorporating Alccofine and Recycled Refractory Brick as fractional replacement of cement and fine aggregate, respectively and evaluate its destructive, non-destructive and microstructural properties.

Design/methodology/approach

M25 grade of concrete adopting 0.45 water-binder proportion, with diverse percentage of Alccofine as fractional substitution of cement and 20% of recycled refractory brick (RRB) as fine aggregate, has been cast and evaluated for diverse mechanical strength following a curing of 7, 14 and 28 days. Scanning electron microscopic analysis has been carried out to study the microstructural changes in the specimens.

Findings

Supplementary use of Alccofine enhanced normal compressive strength of sustainable concrete mix blended with Portland Slag Cement by a large amount at all levels of 7, 14 and 28 days of curing. Test results indicated development of a favourable high-strength sustainable concrete mix by substituting cement with Alccofine.

Originality/value

This manuscript has demonstrated the possibility of developing sustainable concrete blends by incorporating Alccofine 1203 and RRB as partial replacement of Portland Slag Cement and natural fine aggregate, respectively. The strength and potential of concrete incorporating RRB for wider and special application in adverse environmental conditions having higher thermal gradient, as RRB is a valuable waste from high temperature kiln and furnaces. Alccofine 1203 has been included in the concrete mix as an alternative to Portland Slag Cement to improve the mechanical strength properties and durability of concrete intended for adverse environmental application.

Details

World Journal of Engineering, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1708-5284

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Article
Publication date: 11 March 2004

Tao Gao

This paper delves into the mechanism of the contingency framework for foreign entry mode decisions and identifies two essential tasks that jointly determine the outcome of the…

836

Abstract

This paper delves into the mechanism of the contingency framework for foreign entry mode decisions and identifies two essential tasks that jointly determine the outcome of the entry mode decision. It then recognizes a critical weakness in previous research pertaining to the comparison of entry modes along a key decision criterion, the degree of control. Existing studies generally treat equity involvement as the only source of entrant control, while largely ignoring non‐equity sources of control (i.e., bargaining power and trust). Non‐equity sources of control, when underutilized, amount to missed opportunities, increased resource commitments, and heightened risk exposures in foreign markets. Drawing from a pluralism perspective in transaction and relationship governance, the author presents a more integrative method for the ranking of entry modes along the degree of control. The central message is that companies entering foreign markets should make an earnest effort to identify trust and bargaining power situations and fully utilize their control potential in making entry mode decisions.

Details

Multinational Business Review, vol. 12 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1525-383X

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Article
Publication date: 1 February 2021

Narasimhulu K, Meena Abarna KT and Sivakumar B

The purpose of the paper is to study multiple viewpoints which are required to access the more informative similarity features among the tweets documents, which is useful for…

107

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of the paper is to study multiple viewpoints which are required to access the more informative similarity features among the tweets documents, which is useful for achieving the robust tweets data clustering results.

Design/methodology/approach

Let “N” be the number of tweets documents for the topics extraction. Unwanted texts, punctuations and other symbols are removed, tokenization and stemming operations are performed in the initial tweets pre-processing step. Bag-of-features are determined for the tweets; later tweets are modelled with the obtained bag-of-features during the process of topics extraction. Approximation of topics features are extracted for every tweet document. These set of topics features of N documents are treated as multi-viewpoints. The key idea of the proposed work is to use multi-viewpoints in the similarity features computation. The following figure illustrates multi-viewpoints based cosine similarity computation of the five tweets documents (here N = 5) and corresponding documents are defined in projected space with five viewpoints, say, v1,v2, v3, v4, and v5. For example, similarity features between two documents (viewpoints v1, and v2) are computed concerning the other three multi-viewpoints (v3, v4, and v5), unlike a single viewpoint in traditional cosine metric.

Findings

Healthcare problems with tweets data. Topic models play a crucial role in the classification of health-related tweets with finding topics (or health clusters) instead of finding term frequency and inverse document frequency (TF–IDF) for unlabelled tweets.

Originality/value

Topic models play a crucial role in the classification of health-related tweets with finding topics (or health clusters) instead of finding TF-IDF for unlabelled tweets.

Details

International Journal of Intelligent Computing and Cybernetics, vol. 14 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1756-378X

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Article
Publication date: 12 May 2023

Sivakumar Menon, Pitabas Mohanty, Uday Damodaran and Divya Aggarwal

Many studies have shown that from a theoretical and empirical point of view, downside risk-based measures of risk are better than the traditional ones. Despite academic appeal and…

201

Abstract

Purpose

Many studies have shown that from a theoretical and empirical point of view, downside risk-based measures of risk are better than the traditional ones. Despite academic appeal and practical implications, downside risk has not been thoroughly examined in markets outside developed country markets. Using downside beta as a measure of downside risk, this study examines the relationship between downside beta and stock returns in Indian equity market, an emerging market with unique investor, asset and market characteristics.

Design/methodology/approach

This is an empirical study done by using ranked portfolio return analysis and regression analysis methodologies.

Findings

The study results show that downside risk, as measured by downside beta, is distinctly priced in the Indian equity market. There is a direct positive relationship between downside beta and contemporaneous realized returns, indicating a premium for downside risk. Downside risk carries a higher weightage than upside potential in the aggregate return of the stock portfolios. Downside beta is a better measure of systematic risk than conventional market beta and downside coskewness.

Practical implications

The empirical results support the adoption of downside beta in practice and provide a case for replacing traditional beta with downside beta in asset pricing applications, trading and investment strategies, and capital allocation decision-making.

Originality/value

This is one of the first in-depth studies examining downside beta in Indian equity markets using a broad sample of individual stock returns covering a wide time range of 22 years. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first one to compare downside beta and downside coskewness using individual stock data from the Indian equity market.

Details

International Journal of Emerging Markets, vol. 20 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-8809

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Article
Publication date: 27 May 2022

Kwame Owusu Kwateng, Francis Kamewor Tetteh, Nancy Asare and Derrick Manu

The occurrence of disaster and crisis is increasing. They are complex as well as challenging for humanitarian organizations (HOs) and societies involved in disaster relief…

543

Abstract

Purpose

The occurrence of disaster and crisis is increasing. They are complex as well as challenging for humanitarian organizations (HOs) and societies involved in disaster relief operations. This study examined the nexus between supply chain flexibility (SCF) and humanitarian supply chain performance (HSCP) among HOs with empirical evidence from HOs in Ghana.

Design/methodology/approach

The study employed the quantitative method to explore the interdependencies among the variables. In congruence with this, the study employed the purposive and convenience sampling technique to obtain information from 168 respondents. The analysis was done using SPSS version 23 and Smart PLS version 3.

Findings

The outcome indicates that intercluster coordination (ICC) plays a significant mediating role between SCF and HSCP.

Practical implications

The outcome of the study indicates that a closer and stronger relationship ensures proper channel use among the HOs. This will improve the performance of the supply chain of HOs and their ability to deal with supply chain uncertainties.

Originality/value

The discovery of this study provides empirical support to the resource-based view theory. Thus, practitioners in the humanitarian setting give priority to factors that could enhance flexibility in their supply chain as well as implement coordination strategies to achieve a responsive humanitarian supply chain (HSC) system in the quest to minimize the outcome of disasters.

Details

Journal of Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Management, vol. 12 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2042-6747

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Book part
Publication date: 10 December 2015

Chun Kit Lok

Smart card-based E-payment systems are receiving increasing attention as the number of implementations is witnessed on the rise globally. Understanding of user adoption behavior…

Abstract

Smart card-based E-payment systems are receiving increasing attention as the number of implementations is witnessed on the rise globally. Understanding of user adoption behavior of E-payment systems that employ smart card technology becomes a research area that is of particular value and interest to both IS researchers and professionals. However, research interest focuses mostly on why a smart card-based E-payment system results in a failure or how the system could have grown into a success. This signals the fact that researchers have not had much opportunity to critically review a smart card-based E-payment system that has gained wide support and overcome the hurdle of critical mass adoption. The Octopus in Hong Kong has provided a rare opportunity for investigating smart card-based E-payment system because of its unprecedented success. This research seeks to thoroughly analyze the Octopus from technology adoption behavior perspectives.

Cultural impacts on adoption behavior are one of the key areas that this research posits to investigate. Since the present research is conducted in Hong Kong where a majority of population is Chinese ethnicity and yet is westernized in a number of aspects, assuming that users in Hong Kong are characterized by eastern or western culture is less useful. Explicit cultural characteristics at individual level are tapped into here instead of applying generalization of cultural beliefs to users to more accurately reflect cultural bias. In this vein, the technology acceptance model (TAM) is adapted, extended, and tested for its applicability cross-culturally in Hong Kong on the Octopus. Four cultural dimensions developed by Hofstede are included in this study, namely uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, individualism, and Confucian Dynamism (long-term orientation), to explore their influence on usage behavior through the mediation of perceived usefulness.

TAM is also integrated with the innovation diffusion theory (IDT) to borrow two constructs in relation to innovative characteristics, namely relative advantage and compatibility, in order to enhance the explanatory power of the proposed research model. Besides, the normative accountability of the research model is strengthened by embracing two social influences, namely subjective norm and image. As the last antecedent to perceived usefulness, prior experience serves to bring in the time variation factor to allow level of prior experience to exert both direct and moderating effects on perceived usefulness.

The resulting research model is analyzed by partial least squares (PLS)-based Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach. The research findings reveal that all cultural dimensions demonstrate direct effect on perceived usefulness though the influence of uncertainty avoidance is found marginally significant. Other constructs on innovative characteristics and social influences are validated to be significant as hypothesized. Prior experience does indeed significantly moderate the two influences that perceived usefulness receives from relative advantage and compatibility, respectively. The research model has demonstrated convincing explanatory power and so may be employed for further studies in other contexts. In particular, cultural effects play a key role in contributing to the uniqueness of the model, enabling it to be an effective tool to help critically understand increasingly internationalized IS system development and implementation efforts. This research also suggests several practical implications in view of the findings that could better inform managerial decisions for designing, implementing, or promoting smart card-based E-payment system.

Details

E-services Adoption: Processes by Firms in Developing Nations
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78560-709-7

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Article
Publication date: 1 April 2022

A. Bhuvaneskumar, V.J. Sivakumar and Nancyprabha Pushparaj

The present study aims to determine and benchmark the performance of socially responsible companies (SRCs) in India based on the financial, value-added and combined performance…

727

Abstract

Purpose

The present study aims to determine and benchmark the performance of socially responsible companies (SRCs) in India based on the financial, value-added and combined performance indicators by addressing the climate change problems at the grass-root level.

Design/methodology/approach

The present study has used the traditional financial, value-added and combined performance indicators to evaluate and rank the performance of 14 SRCs under the Bombay stock exchange (BSE)-Greenex sustainability index. The technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) and fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) algorithms calculate performance scores and assign weights to the indicators from 2015 to 2019. Further, the Altman Z-score methodology has been applied to understand the SRCs propensity toward bankruptcy behavior. The parametric t-test is also performed on the outcomes of TOPSIS scores under different categories of indicators to check the statistical significance.

Findings

The performance scores of the TOPSIS algorithm indicate that the financial indicators of SRCs govern the firm performance significantly over the value-added indicators (VAIs). Further, parametric t-test results validate the outcomes of the performance scores by exhibiting that there is no significant difference between the traditional financial and VAIs at a 5% significance level. However, a few SRCs overall performance rankings have improved significantly after including VAIs. Moreover, the Altman Z-score results also reveal that most of the SRCs evaluated in the study are stable, showcasing consistent performance and absent from bankruptcy behavior.

Practical implications

The study has practical implications as follows: (1) to facilitate a clear understanding of investors and portfolio managers in selecting appropriate companies under socially responsible investing (SRI); (2) to provide portfolio diversification insights for domestic and international investors besides advocating the necessity of investing in better performing sustainable companies to safeguard their investments against the future uncertainty and (3) the study results would benefit the regulatory bodies to frame appropriate sustainability policy interventions at the organization level.

Originality/value

In the context of ambiguous inferences on the performance of SRI, no prior study has been conducted to assess the performance of SRCs in the Indian version of sustainability index BSE-Greenex.

Details

Benchmarking: An International Journal, vol. 30 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1463-5771

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