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Encouraging fair management practices can foster positive behaviors among employees, such as loyalty. Previous studies have shown that organizational justice is one of the many key drivers of organizational loyalty. However, most of these studies have been carried out in different countries and in non-unionized organizations, leaving an opportunity to fill a gap in the literature. Guided by the social exchange theory, the present undertaking will narrow the gap by examining the direct influence of organizational justice on organizational loyalty in unionized firms and introduces union effectiveness as a moderator variable to investigate the direction of this relationship. The participants are union members (n = 383) from various manufacturing companies in the third district of NCR, Philippines. Using PLS-SEM, the study found that different domains of organizational justice (procedural, distributive, informational, and interpersonal justice) have a significant and direct impact on organizational loyalty. Furthermore, the study revealed that union effectiveness moderates the direct relationship of procedural, distributive, and informational justice to organizational loyalty. However, union effectiveness does not moderate the relationship between interpersonal justice and organizational loyalty. Research implications and limitations are discussed in this study.

Model development activities are increasing in pavement research and engineering applications. At the same time, there is ambiguity and a lack of consistency with regard to checking and quantifying credibility and suitability for the intended application. Specifically, usage of the terms Verification and Validation (V&V) is seen to vary across contributions. In this context, this paper was motivated by the desire to provide a best-practice reference that underlines the significance of the V&V terms, clarifies their definition, and promotes a more unified usage. Accordingly, the objective was to offer examples that introduce the V&V jargon, demonstrate basic V&V concepts and processes, and highlight certain fine points. A total of five distinct models were introduced and discussed: (1) load-related responses in asphalt pavements, (2) load-related responses in concrete pavements, (3) crack initiation and propagation in asphalt concrete, (4) linear viscoelasticity of asphalt concrete, and (5) water flow through asphalt concrete pores. A general conclusion from this work is that successful V&V efforts are closely linked to a clear definition of the intended usage, i.e., the specific reality of interest being targeted by the model. It is also concluded that documenting V&V efforts is integral to any computational model development. Doing so communicates to potential users the region of confidence for the model alongside the expected differences with the reality of interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electric vehicles offer higher acceleration than conventional internal combustion engines due to larger engine torque. The design and placement of battery packs in heavy-duty electric vehicles are still being optimized, as they can affect axle load distributions and consequently impact pavement analysis and design. This study presents a finite element model of a dual tire assembly considering varying load and acceleration conditions to investigate the effect of conventional and electric heavy-duty vehicles on tire–pavement contact forces. Three scenarios for battery pack locations were examined, leading to six loading conditions for both internal combustion engines and electric trucks. The resulting 3D contact forces, compared at a specific line of points along the contact patch and throughout the entire distribution via kernel density estimate, determined that the load increase due to battery location had a much greater impact than the change in torque for both internal combustion engine and electric trucks provided they are at the same rolling condition. Higher loads altered the vertical and longitudinal contact forces and led to a broader contact area. On the other hand, transverse contact forces showed the least variation, although this may differ under cornering scenarios. Finally, a higher slip ratio exacerbated the contact forces in the traveling direction, highlighting the importance of considering rolling conditions in future analyses of pavement damage caused by heavy-duty electric vehicles. Practical Applications: Truck loading usually governs pavement design, layer thicknesses, and corresponding materials while considering local environmental conditions. For flexible pavements, in particular, the details of the distribution of the forces at the tire–pavement interface play a significant role in driving failure near the pavement surface. As the electrification of heavy-duty truck platoons becomes a reality, it is paramount for pavement engineers to quantify the effect of the torque and battery location from electric trucks on contact forces and evaluate its impact on flexible pavements—this paper provides such quantification. The study found that battery location, rather than increased torque, is the controlling variable for the electric trucks due to increased load influence on vertical contact forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) membranes were used as templates to control orientation of an ionchannel forming columnar mesophase obtained by self assembly of a wedge-shaped sulfonate molecule. Inside the AAO structure, the director vector of the mesophase is oriented parallel to the pore axis due to the confinement effect. The molecular arrangement induced by the spatial confinement within the pores is extended over several microns into the remnant film on the AAO surface. The homeotropic alignment of the channels promotes unidimensional ion conduction through the film plane, which is manifested by a considerable increase in conductivity relative to isotropic samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the effect of wall slip on the measured values of the yield stress of magnetorheological (MR) fluids. For this aim we used a rheometer provided with parallel-plate geometries of two types, distinguished by having smooth or rough surfaces. We found that wall slip led to the underestimation of the yield stress when measuring geometries with smooth surfaces were used, and that this underestimation was more pronounced for the static than for the dynamic yield stress. Furthermore, we analysed the effect that both irreversible particle aggregation due to colloidal interactions and reversible magnetic fieldinduced particle aggregation had on the underestimation provoked by wall slip. We found that the higher the degree of aggregation the stronger the underestimation of the yield stress. At low intensity of the applied magnetic field irreversible particle aggregation was dominant and, thus, the underestimation of the yield stress was almost negligible for well-dispersed MR fluids, whereas it was rather pronounced for MR fluids suffering from irreversible aggregation. As the magnetic field was increased the underestimation of the yield stress became significant even for the best dispersed MR fluid.

The parent-school relationship for families of students with disabilities is clearly prescribed by law and is one of the main tenets of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), 2004 (Newman, Cameto, & Hernandez, 2005). The measurement of this relationship presents a challenge in the context of what is meaningful participation, particularly for families from culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) backgrounds. This challenge is intensified further by the limited research and literature centered on large-scale systematic measures of parent participation. Within the context of class-action lawsuits associated with special education, parental feedback serves as valuable testimony to demonstrate a district's noncompliance with IDEA. This feedback often may be limited to those parents who are dissatisfied and may not be representative of the population of parents of students with disabilities. Furthermore, this feedback may not adequately include the voices of traditionally underserved populations. Because it is evident that there is great variation among parents described as CLD, the findings of a survey in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) illustrate some of the key characteristics that may differentiate such families. The purpose of this article is twofold. The first is to highlight five characteristics that seem to make a difference to parental awareness, participation, involvement, and satisfaction. These characteristics are: (1) race/ethnicity; (2) socioeconomic status (SES); (3) native language; (4) the level of severity of the child's disability; and (5) the grade level of the child. The second aim is to compare findings for the LAUSD population with those of the national survey conducted by the National Longitudinal Transition Study (NLTS2). (Contains 11 footnotes and 6 tables.)

The phenomenon of persistent disproportionate representation of minority students in special education is now entering its fourth decade. Disproportionality is well documented in the literature and has been the focus of attention from federal agencies, including the Office of Civil Rights and the Office of Special Education Programs. In an effort to address this long-standing problem, Congress, in the 2004 reauthorization of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), required states to monitor disproportionality and provided them with broad discretion to impose sanctions on local education agencies. As school systems and states respond to this mandate, efforts to identify the causes of disproportionality must be coupled with sound solutions that are responsive to local-level variables. Despite persistent calls, the identification of effective interventions and solutions for disproportionate identification has been slow. This article describes the results of a longitudinal study that examined local-level variables in an effort to address the disproportionate identification of African American students as emotionally disturbed (ED) in a large urban school district. The article examines the effect of an intervention targeted at improving the referral and identification processes for students identified as ED, as well as the role of court oversight. Finally, the authors provide recommendations for addressing the mandates of IDEA 2004 as these pertain to the disproportionate identification of minority students. (Contains 4 tables and 4 footnotes.)

Recent technological advances enable gripper-equipped robots to perform many tasks traditionally associated with the human hand, allowing the use of grippers in a wide range of applications. Depending on the application, an ideal gripper design should be affordable, energy-efficient, and adaptable to many situations. However, regardless of the number of grippers available on the market, there are still many tasks that are difficult for grippers to perform, which indicates the demand and room for new designs to compete with the human hand. Thus, this paper provides a comprehensive review of robotic arm grippers to identify the benefits and drawbacks of various gripper designs. The research compares gripper designs by considering the actuation mechanism, degrees of freedom, grasping capabilities with multiple objects, and applications, concluding which should be the gripper design with the broader set of capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of individuals with upper or lower extremities dysfunction (ULED) has considerably increased in the past few decades, resulting in a high economic burden for their families and society. Individuals with ULEDs require assistive robots to fulfill all their activities of daily living (ADLs). However, a theory for the optimal design of assistive robots that reduces energy consumption while increasing the workspace is unavailable. Thus, this research presents an algorithm for the optimal link length selection of an assistive robot mounted on a wheelchair to minimize the torque demands of each joint while increasing the workspace coverage. For this purpose, this research developed a workspace to satisfy a list of 18 ADLs. Then, three torque indices from the literature were considered as performance measures to minimize; the three torque measures are the quadratic average torque (QAT), the weighted root square mean (WRMS), and the absolute sum of torques (AST). The proposed algorithm evaluates any of the three torque measures within the workspace, given the robot dimensions. This proposed algorithm acts as an objective function, which is optimized using a genetic algorithm for each torque measure. The results show that all tree torque measures are suitable criteria for assistance robot optimization. However, each torque measures yield different optimal results; in the case of the QAT optimization, it produces the least workspace with the minimum overall torques of all the joints. Contrarily, the WRMS and AST optimization yield similar results generating the maximum workspace coverage but with a greater overall torque of all joints. Thus, the selection between the three methods depends on the designer's criteria. Based on the results, the presented methodology is a reliable tool for the optimal dimensioning of assistive robots. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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