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This article is based on a small‐scale study into a tai chi class for older people at risk of falling. The aims of the research were first, to explore what benefits the class members felt they derived from practising tai chi and second, and more specifically, whether or not the class members actually practised tai chi at home. The study was based on two broad assumptions. The first being that the practice of tai chi has benefits for older people at risk of falling. The second assumption being that, such benefits that might result from tai chi, increase with more frequent practice. The latter assumption prompted the desire to investigate whether the class members practised tai chi at home. It was hoped that if it was discovered that class members derived benefits from tai chi, and were, for whatever reason, prevented from practising at home, that some solutions could be found in order to facilitate further practice.The research revealed, somewhat surprisingly, that the members did not believe that tai chi had necessarily reduced their risk of falling. However, notwithstanding this, their commitment to tai chi was very strong. The findings suggest that tai chi had a symbolic value for this predominantly middle‐class group. It allowed them to ‘buy into’ a third age lifestyle, despite increasing intimations of entering the fourth age. The members used tai chi, not only to improve balance and fitness, but also as a means of achieving a positive self‐image. It was therefore an age‐resisting strategy that operated on both a physical and symbolic level.

Corporate incubation is a type of business incubation designed to assist small firms to develop using know-how available in large companies. The purpose of this paper is to explicate how incubation services can be co-produced and describe the contributions and conditions influencing learning and firm development.

The study used a longitudinal single-case method to analyze a small firm’s development process during four years of incubation. The authors recorded and analyzed interviews with the incubator manager and the entrepreneur, and with incubator staff and external stakeholders.

The incubator provided knowledge- and network-based services. These services emphasized the need for the entrepreneurs to be both proactive and receptive to counseling. Although the incubator and the entrepreneurs made progress in developing the company, a dispute over ownership shares threatened to break down the incubation process.

Taking evidence from a longitudinal case study, this paper exemplifies and emphasizes that incubation can be a process of interdependent service production in which entrepreneurs are active contributors. Future research should explore how managers and entrepreneurs handle the ambiguities of valuation of incubator contributions.

For managers it is important to take seriously the key task of communicating the value of the incubator’s contribution to the companies they recruit. For entrepreneurs it is important to find ways to estimate potential for value added from the incubator.

This paper provides a processual understanding of the dynamics of incubator co-production, not found in extant literature.

This chapter describes and examines how Iwi (tribe)-led projects in Higher Education settings might advance Iwi aspirations and lead to authentic collaboration. Two recent developments in higher education, Mau ki te Ako – Culturally responsive professional learning and development for teachers and He Toki ki te Rika – a Māori trade training initiative, are discussed. Both initiatives are Iwi-led partnerships facilitated by Te Tapuae o Rehua between partner tertiary institutions. These projects or sites in which Iwi engage with tertiary institutions can be seen to reflect society at large as sites of struggle where power is negotiated, aspirations are articulated and values inherent in the way in which projects are progressed.

The phase-field method of interfacial damage is used to simulate the damage in composite structures containing the brittle orthotropic materials and their interface.

In the brittle fracture modeling, the strain tensor is decomposed into positive and negative parts characterizing tension and compression behaviors. By requiring an elastic energy preserving transformation involving the elastic stiffness tensor, these two strain parts must satisfy the orthogonality condition in the sense that the elastic stiffness tensor responds as a metric. However, most of the recent phase-field methods for brittle fracture do not verify this orthogonality condition. Additionally, to describe the damage in structures with anisotropic phases, recent studies have used multiple phase-field variables, with each preferential orientation represented by a phase-field variable to describe the bulk damage of component materials. This approach increases the complexity of simulation procedure. These disadvantages motivate the present study aimed at enhancing the simulation method.

The present study improves the phase-field method of interfacial damage by (1) incorporating the strain orthogonality condition into the phase-field method; (2) using only one phase-field variable instead of multiple phase-field variables to simulate damage in component orthotropic phases; and (3) investigating the interaction between interfacial damage and bulk damage as well as the effect of orientation tensor of preferential orientation in each orthotropic phase and the interfacial parameters on crack branching in composite structures.

Through several simulation examples, the present simulation method is proven to be accurate, effective, and helps the simulation process simpler than previous relevant methods.

Based on achievement motivation theory and two-factor theory, this research aimed to synergize cooperative goal interdependence (refer to possessing incentive factors) and illegitimate tasks (refer to the absence of security factors) and build a triple interaction model in the process of performance pressure affecting employees’ thriving at work.

This research collected 291 valid data through a two-point time-lagged method to test the direct effect of performance pressure on employees’ thriving at work and its moderating mechanism.

Performance pressure has a significant positive effect on employees’ thriving at work. Cooperative goal interdependence imposes an enhanced moderating effect between performance pressure and employees’ thriving at work. Illegitimate task imposes an interfering moderating effect between performance pressure and employees’ thriving at work and further interferes the enhanced moderating effect of cooperative goal interdependence.

Under the premise of advocating for employees to internalize performance pressure originating from the organizational performance management system into their own achievement motivation, leaders should establish incentive systems and security systems for employees to realize self-achievement through the process of goal management and task management.

This research confirmed the joint determination of incentive effect and insecurity effect on employees’ achievement motivation by cooperative goal interdependence and illegitimate task and revealed the boundary conditions of employees’ choice of thriving at work.

This study aims to identify the developer’s objectives, current state-of-the-art techniques, challenges and performance evaluation metrics, and presents outlines of a knowledge-based application programming interfaces (API) recommendation system for the developers. Moreover, the current study intends to classify current state-of-the-art techniques supporting automated API recommendations.

In this study, the authors have performed a systematic literature review of studies, which have been published between the years 2004–2021 to achieve the targeted research objective. Subsequently, the authors performed the analysis of 35 primary studies.

The outcomes of this study are: (1) devising a thematic taxonomy based on the identified developers’ challenges, where mashup-oriented APIs and time-consuming process are frequently encountered challenges by the developers; (2) categorizing current state-of-the-art API recommendation techniques (i.e. clustering techniques, data preprocessing techniques, similarity measurements techniques and ranking techniques); (3) designing a taxonomy based on the identified objectives, where accuracy is the most targeted objective in API recommendation context; (4) identifying a list of evaluation metrics employed to assess the performance of the proposed techniques; (5) performing a SWOT analysis on the selected studies; (6) based on the developer’s challenges, objectives and SWOT analysis, presenting outlines of a recommendation system for the developers and (7) delineating several future research dimensions in API recommendations context.

This study provides complete guidance to the new researcher in the context of API recommendations. Also, the researcher can target these objectives (accuracy, response time, method recommendation, compatibility, user requirement-based API, automatic service recommendation and API location) in the future. Moreover, the developers can overcome the identified challenges (including mashup-oriented API, Time-consuming process, learn how to use the API, integrated problem, API method usage location and limited usage of code) in the future by proposing a framework or recommendation system. Furthermore, the classification of current state-of-the-art API recommendation techniques also helps the researchers who wish to work in the future in the context of API recommendation.

This study not only facilitates the researcher but also facilitates the practitioners in several ways. The current study guides the developer in minimizing the development time in terms of selecting relevant APIs rather than following traditional manual selection. Moreover, this study facilitates integrating APIs in a project. Thus, the recommendation system saves the time for developers, and increases their productivity.

API recommendation remains an active area of research in web and mobile-based applications development. The authors believe that this study acts as a useful tool for the interested researchers and practitioners as it will contribute to the body of knowledge in API recommendations context.

Numerous Chinese management studies have demonstrated significant differences between Chinese and Western management. This exploratory paper investigates the impact of Chinese culture and Western traditions on China's contemporary school leaders' views of leadership and management, particularly in the areas of relationship building, delegation, and promotion. Data were drawn from questionnaires completed by school leaders and individual interviews with principals from different parts of China. The findings indicate that the differences between Chinese and Western management practices in Chinese schools are not static and should not be over-stressed. To different extents, the respondent school leaders of China were affected by both Chinese and Western values and practices in school leadership and management. Specifically, they were more influenced by Chinese culture in the areas of school management and organization and by Western values and practices in the areas of relationship building, staff performance, and promotion. Their leadership and management preferences were also influenced by other factors, including gender, domestic politics, and development.