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In de Ronde and Massri (Against 'particle metaphysics' and 'collapses' within the definition of quantum entanglement, submitted, 2019b) it was argued against the orthodox definition of quantum entanglement in terms of pure and separable states. In this paper we attempt to discuss how the logos categorical approach to quantum mechanics (de Ronde and Massri in Int J Theor Phys, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10773-018-3914-0; in Int J Theor Phys 58:1968–1988, 2019a) is able to provide an objective formal account of the notion of entanglement—completely independent of both purity and separability—in terms of the potential coding of intensive relations and effective relations. We will show how our novel redefinition allows us to provide an anschaulich content to the notion of entanglement, erasing in this way the "spookiness" still present within its orthodox understanding in terms of space-time separated collapse particles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A numerical-analytic structural model of thermoelastoplastic deformation of a composite material cross-reinforced with fibers in arbitrary directions is developed on the basis of the time-steps algorithm. The materials of constituents of the composition are isotropic; their plastic deformation is described by the theory of flow with isotropic hardening taking into account the dependence of the loading function on temperature. Conditions determining thermoelastic deformation, unloading, neutral and active loading of thermosensitive constituents of the composition are obtained. The coupled problems of the thermophysical and mechanical behavior of reinforced materials are considered. Structural relationships that are necessary for solving the thermophysical component of the investigated problem are presented. The developed structural model is focused on the use of explicit numerical integration schemes for both elastoplastic and thermophysical problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maxwell's equations are used to obtain effective relations for components of the vector potential of a three-dimensional extremely short laser pulse propagating in the medium of an optically anisotropic photonic crystal based on semiconductor carbon nanotubes. The evolution of two components of pulse strength in such a medium is modeled numerically at times exceeding several dispersion lengths. The shape and delay of pulses are shown as functions of the angle of anisotropy. The dependence of the angle of rotation of a pulse's plane of polarization on the distance traveled by it is shown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to investigate the correlation between career adaptability and developmental tasks among young adults concerning life orientation. Additionally, it sought to ascertain whether self-regulation functions as a mediator in the relationship between life orientation and career adaptability. The study included a total of 435 young adults aged between 18 and 34 years. The research employed the Polish versions of three questionnaires: the Social Participation Questionnaire, the Self-Regulation Scale, and the Career Adapt-Abilities Scale-5. The conducted research demonstrated that the assimilation and integrative social participation types predominated, and young adults were more likely to display a transitive life orientation than a moratorium orientation. The results also showed, as expected, a positive relationship between the promotional strategy and all components of the career adaptability. Mediation analysis revealed that the promotion regulatory focus acted as a mediator in the relationship between transitive life orientation and all five categories of career adaptability within the transitive orientation dependence model and, similarly to preventive regulatory focus, between moratorium orientation and the dimensions of concern and control. Preventive regulatory focus turned out to be a mediator between transitive orientation and career adaptability variables only in the case of three out of five variables—concern, control and curiosity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Results of analysis of transient states in a series circuit of the class $${RL}_{\beta }{C}_{\alpha }$$ , supplied by an ideal voltage source, have been described in the paper. This circuit consists of a coil $${L}_{\beta }$$ and a supercapacitor $${C}_{\alpha }$$ described by fractional-order differential equations. A method for determining the current and voltage waveforms in the analyzed circuit, based on the decomposition of rational functions into partial fractions, has been described. This method allows to determine transient waveform shapes in the system for any kind of voltage excitation. Two cases of the problem solutions have been considered. The first case concerns a situation where poles of rational functions are real, and the second where rational functions have complex poles. Effective relations enabling the determination of transient waveforms in a closed form have been given. Analytical formulae describing transient state waveforms in the system for different types of voltage excitations: constant, monoharmonic, periodic and arbitrary being an element of a Hilbert space, have been determined, too. The obtained results have been illustrated by an example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current paper concentrates on discovering the exact solutions of the time-fractional regular and singular coupled Burger's equations by involving a new technique known as the double Sumudu-generalized Laplace and Adomian decomposition method. Furthermore, some theorems of the double Sumudu-generalized Laplace properties are proved. Further, the offered method is a powerful tool for solving an enormous number of problems. The precision of the technique is evaluated with the aid of some examples, this method offers a solution precisely and successfully in a series form with smoothly calculated coefficients. The relation between both the approximate and exact solution is represented by a graph to display the high speed of this method's convergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose an approach for describing wave propagation in finite-size microstructured metamaterials using a reduced relaxed micromorphic model. This method introduces an additional kinematic field with respect to the classical Cauchy continua, allowing to capture the effects of the underlying microstructure with a homogeneous model. We show that the reduced relaxed micromorphic model is not only effective for studying infinite-size metamaterials, but also efficient for numerical simulations and analysis on specimens of finite size. This makes it an essential tool for designing and optimizing metamaterials structures with specific wave propagation properties. The proposed model's efficiency is assessed through numerical simulations for finite-size benchmark problems, and shows a good agreement for a wide range of frequencies. The possibility of producing the same macroscopic metamaterial with different but equivalent unit cell "cuts" is also analyzed, showing that, even close to the boundary, the reduced relaxed micromorphic model is capable of giving accurate responses for the considered loading and boundary conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stock prices movement prediction has been a longstanding research topic. Many studies have introduced several kinds of external information like relations of stocks, combined with internal information of trading characteristics to promote forecasting. Different from previous cases, this article proposes a reasonable assumption that major fluctuations of stock prices are mainly triggered by high-volume transactions which usually occur on a group of stocks that share some common features (e.g., stocks in the same industry, region, concept or yield similar volatility), and further develops an integrated GCN-LSTM method to achieve more precise predictions from the perspective of modelling capital flows. First, we construct four kinds of graphs incorporating various relational knowledge (edge) and utilize graph convolutional network (GCN) to extract stock (node) embeddings in multiple time-periods. Then, the obtained temporal sequences of stock embeddings are put into long short-term memory recurrent neural network (LSTM) to discriminate the moving direction of prices. Extensive experiments on major Chinese stock indexes have demonstrated the effectiveness of our model with best accuracy of 57.81% acquired, which is much better than baselines. Moreover, experimental results of GCN-LSTM under different graphs and various node embedding dimensions have been compared and analyzed, indicating the selection of key parameters to achieve optimal performances. Our research findings provide an improved model to forecast stock prices movement directions with a reliable theoretical interpretation, and in depth exhibit insights for further applications of graph neural networks and graph data in business analytics, quantitative finance, and risk management decision-makings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present study, the consistent effective elastic properties of straight, circular carbon nanotube epoxy composites are derived using the micromechanics theory. The CNT composites are known to provide high stiffness and elastic properties when the shape of the fibers is cylindrical and straight. Accordingly, in the present work, the effective elastic moduli of composite are newly obtained for straight, circular CNTs aligned in the specified direction as well as distributed randomly in the matrix. In this direction, novel analytical expressions are proposed for four cases of fiber property. First, aligned, and straight CNTs are considered with transverse isotropy in fiber coordinates, and the composite properties are also transversely isotropic in global coordinates. The short comings in the earlier developments are effectively addressed by deriving the consistent form of the strain tensor and the stiffness tensor of the CNT nanocomposite. Subsequently, effective relations for composites reinforced with aligned, straight CNTs but fibers isotropic in local coordinates are newly developed under hydrostatic loading. The effect of the unsymmetric Eshelby tensor for cylindrical fibers on the overall properties of the nanocomposite is included by deriving the strain concentration tensors. Next, the random distribution of CNT fibers in the matrix is studied with fibers being transversely isotropic as well as isotropic when CNT nanocomposites are subjected to uniform loading. The corresponding relations for the effective elastic properties are newly derived. The modeling technique is validated with results reported, and the variations in the effective properties for different CNT volume fractions are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This report analyses the results of the human error classification scheme of CREAM applied to organisation-committed human errors related to six departments. These human errors were not caused by the tasks spotlighted by CREAM, but were concentrated on managerial or administrative tasks, so that the authors have corrected and analysed the definitions and links of cause–effect relations related to the large organisation by means of an extended method of CREAM. Considering human errors on the basis of these analyses, findings have allowed the authors to come up with effective relations between organisation-related causal factors and person-related ones. This has demonstrated that organisation-caused human errors are sufficiently analysable by means of the extended method of CREAM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the author provides critical accounts of current world economic trends. It addresses contemporary upheavals in Latin American nations, particularly the region's longstanding condition of economic and political subordination. The author proposes a Latin American regionalization model built upon development policies employed by world powers and characterized by highly interactive and effective relations between public and private sectors. Economic growth has never been achieved by bowing to market forces, free enterprise and laissez-faire policies which effectively have kept regions like Latin America underdeveloped. This article discusses complex topics and issues related to patterns of industrialization and deindustrialization present in Latin America as it approaches third millennium. It also addresses the nature and extent of the transformations of the capitalist state and its economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: Wildfires have severe impacts on landscapes' hydrological and sediment processes. They are linked to events such as flash floods and droughts, and high erosion rates which lead to loss of soil organic matter and detachment of seeds and seedlings. Mulching is an effective measure implemented directly after a fire to reduce soil erosion and increase soil water retention. However, its implementation has proved a challenge, mainly due to factors such as cost and public acceptance. Objectives: This research aims to optimize the application of post-fire mulching by using decision-making criteria to select "how" and "where" the technique should be used. The specific objectives were to: (i) investigate the decision-making criteria on "how" to apply mulch by interviewing experts; (ii) define the cost-effectiveness relations of erosion modelling scenarios. Methods: The Monchique 2003 wildfire in Southern Portugal was used as a case study Experts' interviews and literature review were used to construct prioritization scenarios. Post-fire soil erosion was then modelled with the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) model and the Sediment Connectivity Index for the three resulting scenarios (the "Soil" scenario, considering the net potential erosion; the "Water" scenario, focusing on th1e protection of water bodies from sedimentation; and the "Road" scenario, focusing on road protection); and at two erosion thresholds (1 and 10 Mg ha−1 year−1). Results: The interviews and the literature review highlighted the importance of socio-economic parameters when it comes to mulch application. Moreover, models showed that small interventions, aimed at areas nearby water bodies and road networks can be more cost-effective than large interventions. Conclusions: Models helped to create a hierarchy of scenarios, enabling land managers to assess decision making tools at the landscape level, linking their priorities with practical issues of emergency stabilization practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a new family of U(1) duality-invariant models for nonlinear N = 1 supersymmetric electrodynamics coupled to supergravity. It includes the Cribiori-Farakos-Tournoy-van Proeyen supergravity-matter theory for spontaneously broken local supersymmetry with a novel Fayet-Iliopoulos term without gauged R-symmetry. We present superconformal duality-invariant models, as well as new U(1) duality-invariant models for spontaneously broken local supersymmetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents and critically discusses the "logos approach to quantum mechanics" from the point of view of the current debates concerning the relation between metaphysics and science. Due to its alleged direct connection with quantum formalism, the logos approach presents itself as a better alternative for understanding quantum mechanics than other available views. However, we present metaphysical and methodological difficulties that seem to clearly point to a different conclusion: the logos approach is on an epistemic equal footing among alternative realist approaches to quantum mechanics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The significant impact of software design patterns on software design quality has led to conducting more research in this field. A design pattern is a proven solution based on software developers' experience to solve recurring problems, which is used to acquire quality software design. However, due to a large number of design patterns, selecting an appropriate one is quite difficult. To tackle this issue, researchers have proposed different methods to automatically suggest a suitable design pattern (DP) to the designer. Among the various proposed methods, the text classification–based approach has used supervised and unsupervised methods, which have certain issues such as the need for manual dataset labeling, the need for using separate classifiers for each design pattern class, and the multi-class problem. This study addresses the mentioned issues by providing a three-phase method for choosing the appropriate design pattern. The proposed method exploits the semi-supervised learning method. Subsequently, this study proposes an evaluation model using three widely used case studies and 109 real design problems to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The evaluation results indicate that the performance of the proposed method has improved compared to the supervised learning techniques of Naïve Bayes and KNearestNeighbor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

School closures because of the COVID-19 emergency forced a rapid transition to distance learning worldwide. In this study, we investigated teachers' experiences with distance learning during the first Italian lockdown. A sample of 270 primary and secondary teachers answered a semi-structured questionnaire administered between April and May 2020. Didactic modalities, students' and teachers' difficulties with distance learning, and teachers' feelings during school closure were investigated through open-ended questions. Content analysis indicated that most teachers adopted both synchronous and asynchronous modalities, which resembled the traditional classroom learning environment. Moreover, technological weaknesses (lack of proper digital equipment and poor digital skills) and lack of interactions appeared to be the main threats to the quality of distance learning. The implementation of distance learning in primary schools emerged as more challenging than in secondary education. Furthermore, most teachers experienced negative feelings during online teaching. However, 13% of the sample reported a sense of resilience and opportunity. Particularly, older teachers reported more resilience compared with younger teachers, indicating the importance of experience in managing stressful teaching events. Overall, findings suggest that—in this novel educational environment—teachers' role has changed significantly, placing strong emphasis on the ability to encourage communication, discussion, and contact with students. Future work should focus on how information and communications technology could sustain meaningful interactions between students and teachers, especially in primary education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this work is to study the mechanical behavior of microstructured materials, in particular porous media. We consider a detailed description of the material through a discrete model, considered as the benchmark of the problem. Two continuous models, one micropolar and one classic, obtained through a homogenization procedure of the material, are studied both in static and dynamic conditions. Furthermore, the internal characteristics of the material, such as the internal scale of the microstructure and the percentage of the voids, are made to vary in order to investigate the mechanical response and to have an exhaustive comparison among the models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a step-by-step procedure over time, a numerical-analytical model of the nonisothermal viscoelastic–plastic behavior of crisscrossed-reinforced material is constructed. The components of the composition are isotropic; their viscoelastic deformation is described by the Maxwell–Boltzmann model of the body, and instantaneous inelastic behavior is described by the relations of the theory of elastoplastic deformation with isotropic hardening. The loading function and material constants depend on temperature. The conditions of the viscoelastic deformation, the beginning of unloading, neutral and active viscoelastic–plastic loading of the thermosensitive materials of the composition are formulated. Relationship between the mechanical and thermophysical characteristics of the composite material is taken into account. The structural relationships of the thermophysical component of the problem are presented. The developed mathematical model is focused on the use of explicit schemes for the numerical integration of viscoelastic–plastic and thermophysical problems. The initial-boundary problem of nonisothermal viscoelastic–plastic bending deformation of fibrous plates is formulated. The poor resistance of such thin-walled constructions to transverse shear is described in the framework of Ambartsumian's theory. Geometric nonlinearity of the problem is taken into account in the Kármán approximation. In the transverse direction, the temperature is approximated by a second-order polynomial. The method of additional boundary conditions is used to reduce the three-dimensional heat conduction problem to two-dimensional expressions. Dynamic bending of a flat-crisscrossed-reinforced fiberglass plate under the influence of an air blast wave is investigated. It is shown that in the absence of external thermal heating by oscillations, this structure heats by only 2–3°С. In such cases, the calculation can reasonably be carried out without taking into account the temperature effect. In the presence of intense thermal loading of the structure, the heat sensitivity of the materials of the composition must be taken into account. It has been demonstrated that in the presence of a temperature field nonuniformity over the thickness of the plate, the shape and magnitude of the residual deflection significantly depend on which face surface an external dynamic load is applied to. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current link prediction strategies are about finding new probable strong relations to establish or weak ones to remove. An interesting strategy is utilizing link prediction to prioritize the edges in the network and finding newly probable established relations. In this paper we will introduce and explain RLP, reverse link prediction, as a new paradigm, and use popular basic scoring methods including CN, JC, AA, RA, and PA, as its core to examine. The test cases are nine datasets. Half of them are contact networks in different levels from personal contact to aviation, and another half is for covering different test situations. After reviewing the edge removal based epidemic mitigation methods, we show that RLP can be used to decrease the epidemics spreading speed as a general method with various link prediction algorithms, and here in this paper, preferential attachment (PA) has the best results overall. But the results heavily depend on the nature of the examined networks: regular, scale-free or small-world. We also propose an easy to understand criteria, path count, for comparing the efficacy of epidemics mitigation methods. RLP can be extended to use other link prediction scoring methods in various types of graphs as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how science parks (SPs) act as innovation intermediaries to facilitate university-industry research and development (U-I R&D) collaboration and how the SPs' roles influence the collaboration effectiveness. Data was collected from documents and interviews with 52 participants in 19 collaboration projects across four SPs in northern Thailand. This data is unique because it includes the perspectives of the SPs' project managers as well as those of the university researchers, firm owners and managers in a developing economy context. Our findings show that the SPs performed consulting, brokering, mediating, and providing resource roles and thereby enhanced the attributes of researchers, firms, relationships between partners and collaboration projects, to ultimately improve the success of the collaborations. The SPs in Thailand are not only property-based organisations that provide space and facilities for firms to locate in. It is the SPs' active involvement in the U-I R&D collaboration that contributes to its effectiveness. SPs in a developing economy thus evolve their roles to offer greater support to firms in low-tech industries. We also offer evidence of trade-off effects and show how the SPs' roles and attributes of firms, researchers and relationships can substitute for one another to create effective U-I R&D collaborations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well known that classical linear elasticity equations are not form-invariant under local transformations. This is intrinsically related to the inhomogeneity of elastic media. However, the reported new linear elasticity equations for inhomogeneous media may appear in different forms. This paper tries to clarify this issue by investigating the form-invariance of the Lagrangian under local temporal or spatial gauge transformations. In this way, these new equations in different forms can be easily understood as the results from different choices of gauge fixing schemes. It recommends to choose appropriate gauges with clear physical meanings to simplify calculations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The brain's functional connectivity fluctuates over time instead of remaining steady in a stationary mode even during the resting state. This fluctuation establishes the dynamical functional connectivity that transitions in a non-random order between multiple modes. Yet it remains unexplored how the transition facilitates the entire brain network as a dynamical system and what utility this mechanism for dynamic reconfiguration can bring over the widely used graph theoretical measurements. To address these questions, we propose to conduct an energetic analysis of functional brain networks using resting-state fMRI and behavioral measurements from the Human Connectome Project. Through comparing the state transition energy under distinct adjacent matrices, we justify that dynamic functional connectivity leads to 60% less energy cost to support the resting state dynamics than static connectivity when driving the transition through default mode network. Moreover, we demonstrate that combining graph theoretical measurements and our energy-based control measurements as the feature vector can provide complementary prediction power for the behavioral scores (Combination vs. Control: t = 9.41, p = 1.64e−13; Combination vs. Graph: t = 4.92, p = 3.81e−6). Our approach integrates statistical inference and dynamical system inspection towards understanding brain networks. A framework that allows for the statistical investigation of the dynamic aspect of functional connectivity derived from resting-state fMRI is developed that is shown to complementarily predict individual differences in behavioral measurements compared to existing approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, particle composite materials with different kind of microstructures are analyzed. Such materials are described as made of rigid particles and elastic interfaces. Rigid particles of arbitrary hexagonal shape are considered and their geometry is described by a limited set of parameters. Three different textures are analyzed and static analyses are performed for a comparison among the solutions of discrete, micropolar (Cosserat) and classical models. In particular, the displacements of the discrete model are compared to the displacement fields of equivalent micropolar and classical continua realized through a homogenization technique, starting from the representative elementary volume detected with a numeric approach. The performed analyses show the effectiveness of adopting the micropolar continuum theory for describing such materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study investigates the relations between the following variables customer response, operations management, and financial performance. The questionnaires were distributed among the board of upper management, middle management, and first-line management in Al-Tadamon Islamic bank in Sudan. Then, the feedbacks were analyzed using SPSS, and the response rate was 77%. The outcomes displayed that, the customer response effect positively operations management and financial performance. Similarly, operations management influences financial performance, but operations management does not mediate the relations between customer response and financial performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposed a robust novel method that is called the extended complex variables method (ECVM) for the first- and second-order sensitivity analysis. In the most previous versions of complex variables method, only an imaginary step was used to analyze the sensitivity. However, ECVM is employed both the real and imaginary parts to improve the efficiency of it. The proposed method is applied for several problems with a closed-form solution, and the results are compared by past methods. It is illustrated that the first-order sensitivity analysis is not influenced by the change of the step size for both the traditional and extended complex variables methods. However, it is shown that, unlike the complex variable's method, the efficiency of ECVM is high and it is independent of the step size for calculating the second-order sensitivity. The range of accurate results for second-order sensitivity analysis by ECVM is between two until four times more than CVM and FDM. Hence, this approach is suggested as an appropriate technique for calculating simultaneously the first- and second-order sensitivities with high accuracy as well as low computational cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A model is proposed to describe the mechanical behavior of structurally heterogeneous porous metallic materials, which are considered as a composite material or a three-component medium consisting of pores, an elastic part of the matrix, and microplasticity zones. The main attention is paid to the concentration of microplastic zones, which appear near pores during uniaxial tension. The influence of microplasticity on the effective loading diagram is considered for 07Kh18N12M2 steel samples of various porosities fabricated by layer-by-layer laser sintering of a powder. The calculation results are compared with the experimental data, and their satisfactory agreement is achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present a fully-coupled, two-scale homogenization method for dynamic loading in the spirit of FE 2 methods. The framework considers the balance of linear momentum including inertia at the microscale to capture possible dynamic effects arising from micro heterogeneities. A finite-strain formulation is adapted to account for geometrical nonlinearities enabling the study of e.g. plasticity or fiber pullout, which may be associated with large deformations. A consistent kinematic scale link is established as displacement constraint on the whole representative volume element. The consistent macroscopic material tangent moduli are derived including micro inertia in closed form. These can easily be calculated with a loop over all microscopic finite elements, only applying existing assembly and solving procedures. Thus, making it suitable for standard finite element program architectures. Numerical examples of a layered periodic material are presented and compared to direct numerical simulations to demonstrate the capability of the proposed framework. In addition, a simulation of a split Hopkinson tension test showcases the applicability of the framework to engineering problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the mechanical properties plays pivotal roles in rock engineering. This work aims to establish novel relations linking the porosity, ultrasonic wave and fluid saturation to estimate the uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) fast and simply. The uniaxial compressive coupled with ultrasonic wave tests on sandstone samples are carried out to obtain the datasets of the UCS, P-wave and S-wave velocities. X-ray CT imaging technique is employed to capture the microstructure information. The color difference phase separation approach to segment the pore, water and solid phases is proposed, and pore-scale variables to describe the microstructure characteristics are defined. Novel relations to determine the micro velocities of P-wave and S-wave are established, and the modulus of deformation and the physical properties of rocks are evaluated. Novel relation to determine the UCS is established and validated by the real and virtual experiment datasets. Results show that the UCS, P-wave and S-wave velocities computed by the proposed method decrease with increasing fluid saturation. The errors between the calculated and experimental UCS, P-wave and S-wave velocities are all < 5%, showing excellent consistency with each other. The proposed method is effective to estimate the mechanical properties fast and accurately, simplifying the estimation of the UCS in rock engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid growth of social networks facilitates the exchange of information whereas malicious behaviors are also steadily increasing in these ecosystems. This results in a challenging situation for individuals to trust other parties. This paper studies the propagation of trust within a chain of trust relations to calculate the trust values of existing users. In this research, an approach for the precise selection of trustworthiness paths as well as the integration of indirect trust values based on the most reliable routes is introduced. The presented approach fuses the ideas from the A* algorithm and multi-criteria decision making approaches using (i.e. TOPSIS method) under fuzzy environments for finding the most reliable path. Moreover, for selecting the most appropriate middle node, a set of criteria such as topological similarity, profile similarity, Dunbar's theorem, local trust, and contextual trust are considered. The evaluation results of the proposed approach demonstrate the propagated trust distance with the different average path lengths while preserving the accuracy of the inferred trust values between each unconnected pair of nodes. The evaluations are performed using the Facebook and Twitter networks having different topologies and the results are compared to the TidalTrust and the MoleTrust algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite decades of managerial university reforms, collegiality emerges as an idea that unites academics, and that both symbolises and legitimises the collective aspirations of the academy. Typically, collegiality is positioned as an unquestionably "good thing"—an unproblematic academic ideal or an academic structure—obscuring the contingency of social arrangements in universities. This paper investigates the plurality of collegial practices that unfold "on the ground" in the context of university reforms and the diversification of the academic workforce over recent decades. The paper presents a qualitative and exploratory study of collegial practices in seven contemporary Australian and New Zealand/Aotearoa universities, employing a social cartographic analysis. Eleven types of logics underpinning collegial practices are identified and described in detail, by drawing on examples of collegial practices offered by fifteen research participants. A reconfigured picture of academic relations is presented, revealing the range of collegial practices that tend to be subsumed under a generic notion of collegiality. The effects of different types of collegial practices are examined, contesting exclusionary collegial relations and highlighting practices that have the potential to produce a more inclusive and socially just academy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two critical theories—both contemporaneous and complementary—in Western philosophy of education spanning the 1960s to the 1980s will first be explicated, and then their significant intellectual values will be discussed on the basis of such a comparative account. These two critical models are the practical theory of education in the Anglophone world (typically in the UK) and the critical theory of education in the Continental Germany. I will introduce them—namely, analytic practical educational theory and German critical pädagogik—one after another, by focusing on their complementary differences, involving characteristic rationalities, typical forms of criticism, corresponding ways of exercising criticalities, and frames of reference regarding the sources of their criticalities. Based on such distinctions and contrasts, I will in the final section argue for their inherent value of coexistence, their practical value in illustrating the unique construction of academic educational studies which has respectively developed in the Anglo-American world and in the Continental world. As an additional point about their epistemic value to understand educational knowledge and scholarship accumulated in the West, I will further argue that these two philosophical–critical theories of education in parallel constitute peak academic experiences. This is mainly because they are compelling evidence, demonstrating how differently yet legitimately the two camps of Western educational scholarships deal with the same issue of criticality in contrasting yet complementary ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We answer affirmatively a question of Srinivas–Trivedi (J Algebra 186(1):1–19, 1996): in a Noetherian local ring (R , m) , if f 1 , ⋯ , f r is a filter-regular sequence and J is an ideal such that (f 1 , ... , f r) + J is m -primary, then there exists N > 0 such that for any ε 1 , ⋯ , ε r ∈ m N , we have an equality of Hilbert functions: H (J , R / (f 1 , ⋯ , f r)) (n) = H (J , R / (f 1 + ε 1 , ⋯ , f r + ε r)) (n) for all n ≥ 0 . We also prove that the dimension of the non Cohen–Macaulay locus does not increase under small perturbations, generalizing another result of [20]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate effective equations governing the volume expansion of spatially averaged portions of inhomogeneous cosmologies in spacetimes filled with an arbitrary fluid. This work is a follow-up to previous studies focused on irrotational dust models (Paper I) and irrotational perfect fluids (Paper II) in flow-orthogonal foliations of spacetime. It complements them by considering arbitrary foliations, arbitrary lapse and shift, and by allowing for a tilted fluid flow with vorticity. As for the first studies, the propagation of the spatial averaging domain is chosen to follow the congruence of the fluid, which avoids unphysical dependencies in the averaged system that is obtained. We present two different averaging schemes and corresponding systems of averaged evolution equations providing generalizations of Papers I and II. The first one retains the averaging operator used in several other generalizations found in the literature. We extensively discuss relations to these formalisms and pinpoint limitations, in particular regarding rest mass conservation on the averaging domain. The alternative averaging scheme that we subsequently introduce follows the spirit of Papers I and II and focuses on the fluid flow and the associated 1 + 3 threading congruence, used jointly with the 3 + 1 foliation that builds the surfaces of averaging. This results in compact averaged equations with a minimal number of cosmological backreaction terms. We highlight that this system becomes especially transparent when applied to a natural class of foliations which have constant fluid proper time slices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a computational frequency-domain boundary value analysis of acoustic metamaterials and phononic crystals based on a general homogenization framework, which features a novel definition of the macro-scale fields based on the Floquet-Bloch average in combination with a family of characteristic projection functions leading to a generalized macro-scale continuum. Restricting to 1D elastodynamics and the frequency-domain response for the sake of compactness, the boundary value problem on the generalized macro-scale continuum is elaborated. Several challenges are identified, in particular the non-uniqueness in selection of the boundary conditions for the homogenized continuum and the presence of spurious short wave solutions. To this end, procedures for the determination of the homogenized boundary conditions and mitigation of the spurious solutions are proposed. The methodology is validated against the direct numerical simulation on an example periodic 2-phase composite structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An alternative approach to Modified Cam-Clay (MCC) critical state plasticity coupled with damage is proposed. The provided hyper-elastoplastic/damage framework is motivated by a desire to ensure thermodynamic consistency of model predictions, and is shown to satisfy the principle of maximum plastic dissipation, enabling enforcement of the plastic dissipation (and Clausius–Planck) inequality. A small strain Eshelby-like stress is derived as being energy-conjugate to the plastic strain rate, and relation to the damage-energy release rate is exploited to pose a coupled damage/yield MCC criteria (MCC-D). Relations between volumetric damage and porosity changes are examined, along with a method for estimating the damage state from bulk moduli measurements. The model is shown to simulate well existing high pressure compression measurements of Boulder clay, and connections between damage-related model parameters and behavior exemplifying different microstructural states is examined through numerical experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elicitation of tacit knowledge is of paramount importance in organizations for novice people's use of experts' knowledge. One of the shortcomings of knowledge elicitation techniques is lack of consensus among experts in eliciting tacit knowledge. In other words, experienced individuals have different viewpoints regarding the statement of complicated knowledge activities. Hence, using soft thinking approach, it is tried to establish agreement among experts and solve the problems of previous techniques. In the present study, a combination of concept mapping, scenario making, teach back, and card sorting techniques within the framework of soft systems methodology have been used. In this way, a methodology is presented for eliciting tacit knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A framework is proposed to improve seismic performance of special steel moment resisting frame (SMRF) setback structures based on the reliability-based approach. In this procedure, seismic design of midrise setback structures is modified to improve the confidence level of meeting the life safety performance level in these structures to a reliable level. To achieve this, based on the results of the incremental dynamic analysis, an algorithm is proposed to introduce more accurate equations to predict the maximum inelastic inter-story drift ratio of setback structures in linear force-based design methods. It is observed that by applying the proposed relations in the seismic design of setback buildings, this type of structures demonstrates more reliable seismic performance compared to the code-designed approach. The proposed method is economically effective in reducing the possible losses during the lifetime of SMRF setback buildings located in seismic prone areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study contributes to the growing interest in how hybrid organizations manage paradoxical social-business tensions. Our empirical case is “impact sourcing”—hybrids in global supply chains that hire staff from disadvantaged communities to provide services to business clients. We identify two major growth orientations—“community-focused” and “client-focused” growth—their inherent tensions and ways that hybrids manage them. The former favors slow growth and manages tensions through highly integrated client and community relations; the latter promotes faster growth and manages client and community relations separately. Both growth orientations address social-business tensions in particular ways, but also create latent constraints that manifest when entrepreneurial aspirations conflict with the current growth path. In presenting and discussing our findings, we introduce preempting management practices of tensions, and the importance of geographic embeddedness and distance to the paradox literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A two-exposure nearly common-path point diffraction interferometric phase microscopy (IPM) is presented using polarization modulation and one-step grating shifting to implement quantitative phase imaging. The IPM is constructed by an improved Michelson configuration with a reflective grating, and its frequency spectrum generated by a circularly polarized object beam makes double copies through a beam splitter. One copy is low-pass filtered and reflected by a reflective pinhole mirror to create a reference beam, and the other copy is converted by a polarizer and then reflected by a reflective grating to achieve a 45° linearly polarized object beam. By the combination of a polarizing cube beam splitter with 45° tilted angle and a translation of the reflective grating with a π phase shift, four interferograms with π/2 phase shift can be obtained in two exposures. The standard four-step algorithm can then be used to reconstruct the phase of the specimen. The utility of the proposed method was demonstrated with measurements on a phase plate, cells and an oil drop. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider correlation functions in the Chern-Simons theory (knot polynomials) using an approach in which each knot diagram is associated with a hypercube. The number of cycles into which the link diagram is decomposed under different resolutions plays a central role. Certain functions of these numbers are further interpreted as dimensions of graded spaces associated with hypercube vertices, but finding these functions is a somewhat nontrivial problem. It was previously suggested to solve this problem using the matrix model technique by analogy with topological recursion. We develop this idea and provide a wide collection of nontrivial examples related to both ordinary and virtual knots and links. The most powerful version of the formalism freely connects ordinary knots/links with virtual ones. Moreover, it allows going beyond the limits of the knot-related set of ( 2, 2)-valent graphs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By using ICT in an innovative way, governments can improve the delivery of services and interaction with stakeholders. Open data is a way to help public organizations became more open and improve interaction with stakeholders. This paper aims to identify what are the public values enhancements acquired on smart city environment that discloses open data. We propose a conceptual model to analyze the smart city initiative. We contextualized the model taking a smart city domain by analyzing three related-initiatives that comprises open data in a smart city case carried at Rio de Janeiro Operations Center (COR) in Brazil by seven deep-interviewees directly involved - from inside and outside - in this case. The findings reveal evidences that open data initiatives contribute to enhance the delivery of public value in smart city contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses stability conditions and a chaotic behavior of the Lorenz dynamical system involving the Caputo fractional derivative of orders between 0 and 1. Contrary to some existing results on the topic, we study these problems with respect to a general (not specified) value of the Rayleigh number as a varying control parameter. Such a bifurcation analysis is known for the classical Lorenz system; we show that analysis of its fractional extension can yield different conclusions. In particular, we theoretically derive (and numerically illustrate) that nontrivial equilibria of the fractional Lorenz system become locally asymptotically stable for all values of the Rayleigh number large enough, which contradicts the behavior known from the classical case. As a main proof tool, we derive the optimal Routh-Hurwitz conditions of fractional type, i.e., necessary and sufficient conditions guaranteeing that all zeros of the corresponding characteristic polynomial are located inside the Matignon stability sector. Beside it, we perform other bifurcation investigations of the fractional Lorenz system, especially those documenting its transition from stability to chaotic behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a study related to measure of appraisals of community violence (CV) and their relation to psychological adjustment; and mentions role of victimization to predict youth's report of maladjustment and adaptive behaviors.