bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Accessing bioscience images from abstract sentences
Authors: Yu Hong , Lee Minsuk
Published: July 2006

Images (e.g., figures) are important experimental results that are typically reported in bioscience full-text articles. Biologists need to access images to validate research facts and to formulate or to test novel research hypotheses. On the other hand, biologists live in an age of information explosion. As thousands of biomedical articles are published every day, systems that help biologists efficiently access images in literature would greatly facilitate biomedical research. We hypothesize that much of image content reported in a full-text article can be summarized by the sentences in the abstract of the article. In our study, more than one hundred biologists had tested this hypothesis and more than 40 biologists had evaluated a novel user-interface BioEx that allows biologists to access images directly from abstract sentences. Our results show that 87.8% biologists were in favor of BioEx over two other baseline user-interfaces. We further developed systems that explored hierarchical clustering algorithms to automatically identify abstract sentences that summarize the images. One of the systems achieves a precision of 100% that corresponds to a recall of 4.6%.

Contact:  hongyu@uwm.edu or hy52@columbia.edu
Identification of function-associated loop motifs and application to protein function prediction
Authors: Espadaler Jordi , Querol Enrique , Aviles Francesc X. , Oliva Baldo
Published: July 2006

Motivation: The detection of function-related local 3D-motifs in protein structures can provide insights towards protein function in absence of sequence or fold similarity. Protein loops are known to play important roles in protein function and several loop classifications have been described, but the automated identification of putative functional 3D-motifs in such classifications has not yet been addressed. This identification can be used on sequence annotations.

Results: We evaluated three different scoring methods for their ability to identify known motifs from the PROSITE database in ArchDB. More than 500 new putative function-related motifs not reported in PROSITE were identified. Sequence patterns derived from these motifs were especially useful at predicting precise annotations. The number of reliable sequence annotations could be increased up to 100% with respect to standard BLAST.

Contact:  boliva@imim.es

Supplementary information: Supplementary Data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Semi-supervised learning via penalized mixture model with application to microarray sample classification
Authors: Pan Wei , Shen Xiaotong , Jiang Aixiang , Hebbel Robert P.
Published: July 2006

Motivation: It is biologically interesting to address whether human blood outgrowth endothelial cells (BOECs) belong to or are closer to large vessel endothelial cells (LVECs) or microvascular endothelial cells (MVECs) based on global expression profiling. An earlier analysis using a hierarchical clustering and a small set of genes suggested that BOECs seemed to be closer to MVECs. By taking advantage of the two known classes, LVEC and MVEC, while allowing BOEC samples to belong to either of the two classes or to form their own new class, we take a semi-supervised learning approach; for high-dimensional data as encountered here, we propose a penalized mixture model with a weighted L1 penalty to realize automatic feature selection while fitting the model.

Results: We applied our penalized mixture model to a combined dataset containing 27 BOEC, 28 LVEC and 25 MVEC samples. Analysis results indicated that the BOEC samples appeared to form their own new class. A simulation study confirmed that, compared with the standard mixture model with or without initial variable selection, the penalized mixture model performed much better in identifying relevant genes and forming corresponding clusters. The penalized mixture model seems to be promising for high-dimensional data with the capability of novel class discovery and automatic feature selection.

Contact:  weip@biostat.umn.edu
Prediction of mRNA polyadenylation sites by support vector machine
Authors: Cheng Yiming , Miura Robert M. , Tian Bin
Published: July 2006

mRNA polyadenylation is responsible for the 3′ end formation of most mRNAs in eukaryotic cells and is linked to termination of transcription. Prediction of mRNA polyadenylation sites [poly(A) sites] can help identify genes, define gene boundaries, and elucidate regulatory mechanisms. Current methods for poly(A) site prediction achieve moderate sensitivity and specificity. Here, we present a method using support vector machine for poly(A) site prediction. Using 15 cis-regulatory elements that are over-represented in various regions surrounding poly(A) sites, this method achieves higher sensitivity and similar specificity when compared with polyadq, a common tool for poly(A) site prediction. In addition, we found that while the polyadenylation signal AAUAAA and U-rich elements are primary determinants for poly(A) site prediction, other elements contribute to both sensitivity and specificity of the prediction, indicating a combinatorial mechanism involving multiple elements when choosing poly(A) sites in human cells.

Contact:  btian@umdnj.edu
A novel structure-based encoding for machine-learning applied to the inference of SH3 domain specificity
Authors: Ferraro E. , Via A. , Ausiello G. , Helmer-Citterich M.
Published: July 2006

Motivation: Unravelling the rules underlying protein–protein and protein–ligand interactions is a crucial step in understanding cell machinery. Peptide recognition modules (PRMs) are globular protein domains which focus their binding targets on short protein sequences and play a key role in the frame of protein–protein interactions. High-throughput techniques permit the whole proteome scanning of each domain, but they are characterized by a high incidence of false positives. In this context, there is a pressing need for the development of in silico experiments to validate experimental results and of computational tools for the inference of domain–peptide interactions.

Results: We focused on the SH3 domain family and developed a machine-learning approach for inferring interaction specificity. SH3 domains are well-studied PRMs which typically bind proline-rich short sequences characterized by the PxxP consensus. The binding information is known to be held in the conformation of the domain surface and in the short sequence of the peptide. Our method relies on interaction data from high-throughput techniques and benefits from the integration of sequence and structure data of the interacting partners. Here, we propose a novel encoding technique aimed at representing binding information on the basis of the domain–peptide contact residues in complexes of known structure. Remarkably, the new encoding requires few variables to represent an interaction, thus avoiding the ‘curse of dimension’. Our results display an accuracy >90% in detecting new binders of known SH3 domains, thus outperforming neural models on standard binary encodings, profile methods and recent statistical predictors. The method, moreover, shows a generalization capability, inferring specificity of unknown SH3 domains displaying some degree of similarity with the known data.

Contacts:  enrico@cbm.bio.uniroma2.it

Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Bio-Ontology and text: bridging the modeling gap
Authors: Friedman Carol , Borlawsky Tara , Shagina Lyudmila , Xing H. Rosie , Lussier Yves A.
Published: July 2006

Motivation: Natural language processing (NLP) techniques are increasingly being used in biology to automate the capture of new biological discoveries in text, which are being reported at a rapid rate. Yet, information represented in NLP data structures is classically very different from information organized with ontologies as found in model organisms or genetic databases. To facilitate the computational reuse and integration of information buried in unstructured text with that of genetic databases, we propose and evaluate a translational schema that represents a comprehensive set of phenotypic and genetic entities, as well as their closely related biomedical entities and relations as expressed in natural language. In addition, the schema connects different scales of biological information, and provides mappings from the textual information to existing ontologies, which are essential in biology for integration, organization, dissemination and knowledge management of heterogeneous phenotypic information. A common comprehensive representation for otherwise heterogeneous phenotypic and genetic datasets, such as the one proposed, is critical for advancing systems biology because it enables acquisition and reuse of unprecedented volumes of diverse types of knowledge and information from text.

Results: A novel representational schema, PGschema, was developed that enables translation of phenotypic, genetic and their closely related information found in textual narratives to a well-defined data structure comprising phenotypic and genetic concepts from established ontologies along with modifiers and relationships. Evaluation for coverage of a selected set of entities showed that 90% of the information could be represented (95% confidence interval: 86–93%; n = 268). Moreover, PGschema can be expressed automatically in an XML format using natural language techniques to process the text. To our knowledge, we are providing the first evaluation of a translational schema for NLP that contains declarative knowledge about genes and their associated biomedical data (e.g. phenotypes).

Availability:

Contact:  Friedman@dbmi.columbia.edu or Lussier@uchicago.edu
AliBaba: PubMed as a graph
Authors: Plake Conrad , Schiemann Torsten , Pankalla Marcus , Hakenberg Jörg , Leser Ulf
Published: July 2006

The biomedical literature contains a wealth of information on associations between many different types of objects, such as protein–protein interactions, gene–disease associations and subcellular locations of proteins. When searching such information using conventional search engines, e.g. PubMed, users see the data only one-abstract at a time and ‘hidden’ in natural language text. AliBaba is an interactive tool for graphical summarization of search results. It parses the set of abstracts that fit a PubMed query and presents extracted information on biomedical objects and their relationships as a graphical network. AliBaba extracts associations between cells, diseases, drugs, proteins, species and tissues. Several filter options allow for a more focused search. Thus, researchers can grasp complex networks described in various articles at a glance.

Availability:  

Contact:  hakenberg@informatik.hu-berlin.de
Housing in Pyramid Counteracts Neuroendocrine and Oxidative Stress Caused by Chronic Restraint in Rats
Authors: Bhat M. Surekha , Rao Guruprasad , Murthy K. Dilip , Bhat P. Gopalakrishna
Published: July 2006

The space within the great pyramid and its smaller replicas is believed to have an antistress effect. Research has shown that the energy field within the pyramid can protect the hippocampal neurons of mice from stress‐induced atrophy and also reduce neuroendocrine stress, oxidative stress and increase antioxidant defence in rats. In this study, we have, for the first time, attempted to study the antistress effects of pyramid exposure on the status of cortisol level, oxidative damage and antioxidant status in rats during chronic restraint stress. Adult female Wistar rats were divided into four groups as follows: normal controls (NC) housed in home cage and left in the laboratory; restrained rats (with three subgroups) subject to chronic restraint stress by placing in a wire mesh restrainer for 6 h per day for 14 days, the restrained controls (RC) having their restrainers kept in the laboratory; restrained pyramid rats (RP) being kept in the pyramid; and restrained square box rats (RS) in the square box during the period of restraint stress everyday. Erythrocyte malondialdehyde (MDA) and plasma cortisol levels were significantly increased and erythrocyte‐reduced glutathione (GSH) levels, erythrocyte glutathione peroxidase (GSH‐Px) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) activities were significantly decreased in RC and RS rats as compared to NC. However, these parameters were maintained to near normal levels in RP rats which showed significantly decreased erythrocyte MDA and plasma cortisol and significantly increased erythrocyte GSH levels, erythrocyte GSH‐Px and SOD activities when compared with RS rats. The results showed that housing in pyramid counteracts neuroendocrine and oxidative stress caused by chronic restraint in rats.
Dipping their big toe into the blogosphere
Authors: Jackson Nigel
Published: July 2006

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of weblogs by political parties in the 2005 general election campaign. It seeks to identify why, why not, and how parties used their weblogs during the election campaign.

Design/methodology/approach

The weblogs of the five political parties which had a weblog were assessed, and eight party e‐campaigners were interviewed.

Findings

The findings contrast with those of studies of the 2004 US presidential campaign where blogs appeared to play a significant campaigning role. Rather, in the UK, party blogs were essentially used as one‐way communication channels which added colour to party web sites. As a result, such weblogs may have encouraged visitors to return because of some form of voyeurism, but they were not either effective conversational, campaigning, or promotional tools.

Research limitations/implications

The paper is based on a UK general election of an experimental political communication channel.

Practical implications

Suggests the key elements required for the effective use of weblogs. Also suggests that individual candidate weblogs may be a more appropriate channel to reach electors than party‐controlled weblogs. The motivation for using a weblog seems to be essentially a judgement that it might be worthwhile experimenting with one. However, until there is significant evidence that weblogs can have a tangible effect, it is likely that they will remain merely part of the background to a UK general election campaign.

Originality/value

The paper provides a means of judging the value of weblogs within political communication by political actors.
Seen and heard: duality at the access points to television databases
Authors: Caldera‐Serrano Jorge , Zapico‐Alonso Felipe
Published: July 2006

Purpose

To show how the double nature of audiovisual material, that it is viewed and referenced, is reflected at the access points of a documentary database.

Design/methodology/approach

To achieve this aim a journey through the indexation elements – supported by explanatory examples – is undertaken, so as to identify and analyze onomastic, thematic, geographical and chronological aspects.

Findings

The findings reveal the need to identify in indexation the elements viewed in the image track and referenced in the sound track; such a need is supported by user/journalist requests, so that the documentation service is adapted to such information needs.

Research limitations

The management method displayed is only valid for medium and large television companies. This derives from the complexity and cost of human resources and time dedicated.

Practical implications

The practical value lies in the fact that the best proven structure for indexation of TV audiovisual documents is shown, with this being a useful and agile guide for the implantation of information services.

Originality/value

There are few studies that develop the documentation management of audiovisual documents, of those that count on valid work that stems from the study of indexation in television.
Digital libraries: to meet or manage user expectations
Authors: Bawden David , Vilar Polona
Published: July 2006

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to review the nature of, and rationale for, user expectations in the digital library setting, and ways in which they may best be met and/or managed.

Design/methodology/approach

An analysis of the literature, focusing on empirical studies, and bringing out main themes and issues.

Findings

User expectations of digital libraries are often unrealistic, usually unrealistically high, mainly due to the ubiquity of the web search engine as an information environment. Expectations differ between user groups. Both meeting and managing expectations have been promoted as a solution; it is likely that a mix of the two will be most effective. More empirical and conceptual studies are needed. Ways of making the nature of digital library collections and their organisation “visible”, embedded in a natural way within their interfaces, are desirable.

Originality/value

This is the first paper to review the literature of this topic.
Creating a coaching culture
Authors: Megginson David , Clutterbuck David
Published: July 2006

Purpose

This paper aims to summarise the author's recent research into what is involved in creating a coaching culture.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on a series of organisation cases six dimensions are identified and four sub‐dimensions within each, and an instrument is developed that assesses the level of development of organisations across these dimensions. More work remains to be done in validating the instrument, but it has already been found to provide a framework for consideration of the issues in creating a coaching culture in a number of international organisations.

Findings

The study finds that addressing the organisational dimension by exploring the agenda for creating a coaching culture is one way to direct attention and energy towards the business benefits. The fuller findings of this study are published as in Making Coaching Work: Creating a Coaching Culture.

Practical implications

The article provides an agenda for practitioners – both business leaders and development advisors, and also offers a framework for future research.

Originality/value

This article seeks to highlight the paucity of previous research in this area and to outline what can be done in practice to enhance the impact of coaching so that it affects the organisation culture, not simply the behaviour of individual managers.
Team working: part I – an evaluation of current thinking
Authors: McGreevy Malcolm
Published: July 2006

Purpose

The received wisdom is that team working is a good thing and is spoken about positively as a means of promoting co‐operation and of making the best use of employees' strengths. This article seeks to examine why this may be and to address the four areas highlighted by ACAS where improvements are made, i.e. productivity, quality, the use of new technology, and motivation.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper explores here in the light of the current organisational environment.

Findings

The study outlines the lessons learned in introducing teamwork, the need for managerial commitment, the changes in culture that can be promoted by team working and how to go about planning for change.

Originality/value

The paper presents a practical and realistic view. This is the first of two articles on the subject. The second will deal with the issues of establishing and running teams.
William Stetson Merrill and bricolage for information studies
Authors: Coleman Anita S.
Published: July 2006

Purpose– This paper examines William Stetson Merrill, the compiler ofA Code for Classifiersand a Newberry Library employee (1889‐1930) in an attempt to glean lessons for modern information studies from an early librarian's career.Design/methodology/approach– Merrill's career at the Newberry Library and three editions of the code are briefly examined using historical, bibliographic, and conceptual methods. Primary and secondary sources in archives and libraries are summarized to provide insight into Merrill's attempts to develop or modify tools to solve the knowledge organization problems he faced. The concept of bricolage, developed by Levi‐Strauss to explain modalities of thinking, is applied to Merrill's career. Excerpts from his works and reminisces are used to explain Merrill as a bricoleur and highlight the characteristics of bricolage.Findings– Findings show that Merrill worked collaboratively to collocate and integrate a variety of ideas from a diverse group of librarians such as Cutter, Pettee, Poole, Kelley, Rudolph, and Fellows. Bliss and Ranganathan were aware of the code but the extent to which they were influenced by it remains to be explored. Although this is an anachronistic evaluation, Merrill serves as an example of the archetypal information scientist who improvises and integrates methods from bibliography, cataloging, classification, and indexing to solve problems of information retrieval and design usable information products and services for human consumption.Originality/value– Bricolage offers great potential to information practitioners and researchers today as we continue to try and find user‐centered solutions to the problems of digital information organization and services.
Query expansion via conceptual distance in thesaurus indexed collections
Authors: Tudhope Douglas , Binding Ceri , Blocks Dorothee , Cunliffe Daniel
Published: July 2006

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore query expansion via conceptual distance in thesaurus indexed collections

Design/methodology/approach

An extract of the National Museum of Science and Industry's collections database, indexed with the Getty Art and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT), was the dataset for the research. The system architecture and algorithms for semantic closeness and the matching function are outlined. Standalone and web interfaces are described and formative qualitative user studies are discussed. One user session is discussed in detail, together with a scenario based on a related public inquiry. Findings are set in context of the literature on thesaurus‐based query expansion. This paper discusses the potential of query expansion techniques using the semantic relationships in a faceted thesaurus.

Findings

Thesaurus‐assisted retrieval systems have potential for multi‐concept descriptors, permitting very precise queries and indexing. However, indexer and searcher may differ in terminology judgments and there may not be any exactly matching results. The integration of semantic closeness in the matching function permits ranked results for multi‐concept queries in thesaurus‐indexed applications. An in‐memory representation of the thesaurus semantic network allows a combination of automatic and interactive control of expansion and control of expansion on individual query terms.

Originality/value

The application of semantic expansion to browsing may be useful in interface options where thesaurus structure is hidden.
Using OAI‐PMH and METS for exporting metadata and digital objects between repositories
Authors: Bell Jonathan , Lewis Stuart
Published: July 2006

Purpose

To examine the relationship between deposit of electronic theses in institutional and archival repositories. Specifically the paper considers the automated export of theses for deposit in the archival repository in continuation of the existing arrangement in Wales for paper‐based theses.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper presents a description of software that makes use of the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI‐PMH) as the first stage in the automatic import and ingest of items between institutional and archival repositories. The implications of this approach on the management of the institutional repository are also considered.

Findings

The paper shows that OAI‐PMH is a useful approach to harvesting the metadata for items to be imported into an archival repository. This reduces the difficulty of maintenance of the import and export software components albeit at the possible expense of necessitating certain requirements on the management of the institutional repository.

Research implications/limitations

The research shows that institutions can make use of OAI‐PMH as a part of an automated export/import process, encouraging the preservation of multiple copies of digital items for increased safety of the content.

Practical implications

The software has been developed and is being tested. It is proving capable of performing the required harvesting but the relative imprecision of searching in OAI‐PMH has implications for the management of the exporting repository. These are discussed.

Originality/value

The paper presents a description and discussion of novel software components that enable the use of OAI‐PMH as the first stage in the export and import of digital items between repositories, independently (as far as is practicable) of the software used by the repositories themselves.
Production system design elements influencing productivity and ergonomics
Authors: Neumann W.P. , Winkel J. , Medbo L. , Magneberg R. , Mathiassen S.E.
Published: July 2006

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate a strategic change from parallel cell‐based assembly (old) to serial‐line assembly (new) in a Swedish company with special reference to how production system design elements affect both productivity and ergonomics.

Design/methodology/approach

Multiple methods, including records and video analysis, questionnaires, interviews, biomechanical modelling, and flow simulation were applied.

Findings

The new system, unlike the old, showed the emergence of system and balance losses as well as vulnerability to disturbances and difficulty handling all product variants. Nevertheless, the new system as realised partially overcame productivity barriers in the operation and management of the old system. The new system had impaired ergonomics due to decreased physical variation and increased repetitiveness with cycle times that were 6 per cent of previous thus increasing repetitiveness, and significantly reducing perceived influence over work. Workstations' uneven exposure to physical tasks such as nut running created a potential problem for workload management. The adoption of teamwork in the new system contributed to significantly increased co‐worker support – an ergonomic benefit.

Practical implications

Design decisions made early in the development process affect both ergonomics and productivity in the resulting system. While the time pattern of physical loading appeared to be controlled by flow and work organisation elements, the amplitude of loading was determined more by workstation layout. Psychosocial conditions appear to be affected by a combination of system elements including layout, flow, and work organisation elements. Strategic use of parallelisation elements in assembly, perhaps in hybrid forms from configurations observed here, appears to be a viable design option for improved performance by reducing the fragility and ergonomic problems of assembly lines.

Originality/value

The interacting design elements examined here pose potential “levers” of control by which productivity and ergonomics could be jointly optimised for improved total system performance.
Vision today for assembly automation
Authors: Braggins Donald
Published: July 2006

Purpose

To show how advances in machine vision technology are of particular benefit to automated assembly.

Design/methodology/approach

The review concentrates on algorithms, cost effectiveness, and communications aspects of currently available commercial systems.

Findings

Vision is now very robust, affordable, and capable of being used at every stage in the assembly process.

Originality/value

The vision industry continues to evolve at a rapid pace and readers who may have been disappointed when they investigated the technology only a few years ago should learn how today's systems have improved.
Six sigma: effective handling of deep rooted quality problems
Authors: Lee‐Mortimer Andrew
Published: July 2006

Purpose

Details the implementation of six sigma at one UK based manufacturing company.

Design/methodology/approach

Describes how and why one company has introduced six sigma, and looks at a number of specific improvement projects – the approach taken, the common fault causes and the benefits gained from introducing new practices.

Findings

Six sigma has enabled the company to eliminate a wide range of long standing process variation problems. The projects undertaken highlight the importance of a structured process and the importance of data collection. Only when working with the facts, rather than on “gut feeling” do the real causes become clear and solutions effective.

Originality/value

Brings to the attention of managers how six sigma can be used to enhance existing improvement efforts, and uses specific examples to show how the approach can be used to tackle long standing, and often hidden, quality issues.
Blades for feeding 3D parts on vibratory tracks
Authors: Goemans Onno C. , Goldberg Ken , van der Stappen A. Frank
Published: July 2006

Purpose

Proposes a simple bowl feeder primitive, consisting of one horizontally mounted convex polygonal metal “blade” that can feed a broad class of three‐dimensional polyhedral parts by reorienting and rejecting all but those in a desired orientation. Owing to its simplicity, the proposed primitive allows for the development of methods to automate its design process.

Design/methodology/approach

Presents a computational geometric approach to construct the solution space for a given part and then use this space to report all designs that feed the part.

Findings

Given a polyhedral part and its center of mass as input, the complete algorithm identifies all single blade solutions that feed the part. The output is either the set of all valid blade designs or a notification that the part cannot be fed using a single blade.

Research limitations/implications

Aims to take a first step in the design of complete algorithms for three‐dimensional parts in the context of vibratory bowls. Future research encompasses the relaxation of several simplifying assumptions with regard to the physical modeling of the motion and interaction with the part.

Practical implications

Algorithms like the one proposed can be applied to generate an initial vibratory bowl design. The strength of our algorithm lies in its completeness which means that it identifies the complete universe of all possible designs. Such a rigorous exploration can neither be accomplished through human trail‐and‐error nor through heuristic approaches to automated design.

Originality/value

Proposes the first complete algorithm for automated design of a 3D part manipulator for vibratory bowls, which may serve as a building block for fully automated bowl design.
Networked embedded automation
Authors: Hayslip Nunzio , Sastry Shivakumar , Gerhardt Jon S.
Published: July 2006

Purpose

The aim of this research is to investigate whether a collection of tiny, resource constrained, microcontrollers that communicate with each other over wireless links can perform rigorous automation tasks.

Design/methodology/approach

We identify three building blocks that are necessary to obtain large conveyor systems. The operation of each building block is regulated by a local microcontroller and the microcontrollers interact via wireless links to coordinate the operations across blocks. We define the actions necessary in each block and discuss two example applications for this method.

Findings

It is necessary to fundamentally revisit how automation applications are engineered to get the benefits of new technologies. We show that the three blocks that we call segment, turnaround and crossover are sufficient to obtain a large variety of conveyor systems. By embedding the blocks in a grid, we can simplify the design of the conveyor systems.

Research limitations/implications

Extensions of this research to identify a set of building blocks for discrete automation applications and motion control applications could provide new insights, architectures and methods for future automation systems.

Practical implications

When fully realized, this approach can save engineering costs, commissioning costs and provide new approaches for managing faults in automation systems.

Originality/value

The three building blocks for conveyor systems and the method of programming the blocks that allows the blocks to be configured in a variety of ways to realize conveyor systems for many applications.
Tying collection development's loose ends with interlibrary loan
Authors: Ruppel Margie
Published: July 2006

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to discover the characteristics and quality of interlibrary loan (ILL) titles, and determine whether purchasing ILL titles is a useful collection development method.

Design/methodology/approach

The study analyzed document containing 18,322 monographic education and psychology monographs borrowed by Southern Illinois University Carbondale patrons through I‐Share, Illinois' statewide catalog, during the 2004 calendar year. Education and psychology books account for 574 of the 18,322 titles. The study located 132 reviews for 92 of the titles by searching PsycINFO and Education Abstracts. It recorded reviewer recommendation, publication date, publisher, source of review, and list price.

Findings

The paper finds that ILL titles are high quality, inexpensive, new, and easy to obtain. Average list price of education and psychology ILL titles is $48.82. A total of 60 percent of the titles were published in the last three years. Only 7 percent of the titles received negative reviews.

Practical implications

The paper recommends that Southern Illinois University Carbondale and, potentially, other academic libraries develop books‐on‐demand programs because most of the books in the present study are high‐quality, inexpensive, new, and easy to obtain; ILL titles represent research needs of university community; multiple library patrons will benefit; equity will be added to the library's collection; and ILL titles are likely to circulate again.

Originality/value

Previous studies report results of pilot books‐on demand programs. The current study provides background reasons for a books‐on‐demand program (reading book reviews of titles borrowed through ILL) and presents a new aspect of the relationship between collection development and ILL.
Our digital heritage as source material to end‐users: collection of and access to net publications in the National Library of Norway
Authors: Rustad Kjersti
Published: July 2006

Purpose

This paper aims to look at the collecting of internet documents in The National Library of Norway.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper discusses the collecting of internet documents in The National Library of Norway in accordance with the Norwegian Legal Deposit Act and how these documents will be made available for end‐users.

Findings

The paper finds that this harvesting of the Norwegian internet domain will provide access for users to many documents. The documents will be available via free text search and via a timeline of the history of the document that the user might follow.

Originality/value

This paper discusses the Norwegian experience, which should be relevant to institutions planning similar activities, and also to those who want to know more about harvesting and archiving net publications.
Optimal placement of dampers in structures using genetic algorithm
Authors: Movaffaghi Hamid , Friberg Olof
Published: July 2006

Purpose

The objective is to study the optimal damper placement of a given number of passive viscoelastic dampers, when the structure (nuclear plant) is subjected to motions from earthquake, in order to reduce the acceleration responses at a particular location, for example, a vibration‐sensitive room (nuclear reactor).

Design/methodology/approach

The IDESIGN software including genetic algorithms for the optimisation task has been interfaced with a finite element program, ABAQUS, to create a structural optimisation tool. The tool has been tested on a 3D building structure.

Findings

Optimisation results for different constraints on number of dampers shows that eight optimally located dampers results in an overall maximum reduction of 59 per cent of the cost function for the uncontrolled structure. It is also found that six optimally placed dampers are more effective than the fully damped case with 12 dampers.

Research limitations/implications

More powerful computers are needed in order to reduce the computational time for many engineering models. Especially parallel processing would make more efficient use of the genetic algorithm. It is also necessary to perform stochastic finite element analysis to investigate the impact on the cost function due to different earthquakes.

Practical implications

The study of vibration reduction by an optimal number and location of viscoelastic dampers indicate that structures subjected to dynamic forces can be designed both safely and economically.

Originality/value

The tool developed is quite general and is believed to be applicable to many types of structural optimisation analyses.
Probability characteristic of perturbing moments in contactless suspension systems for mass unbalance measurement of sphere
Authors: He Xiao‐Xia , Gao Zhong‐Yu , Wang Yong‐Liang
Published: July 2006

Purpose

It is well known that precision of mass unbalance measurement of sphere is determined by perturbing moments in contactless suspension systems. Therefore, estimating perturbing moment level in those systems is important and necessary to meet the requirements of a specified precision of mass unbalance measurement.

Design/methodology/approach

In this paper, probability‐theoretic method is employed to determine probability characteristics of the perturbing moments in both electrostatic suspension system and gas suspension system by statistically estimating of the quality of sphere surface. As a result, the relationship between probability characteristics of the perturbing moment and statistical estimates of the quality of sphere surface is established. It is expressed as a simple formula by specifying the correlation function of random field of sphere surface.

Findings

Numerical experiments of the perturbing moment calculation in the two suspension systems show that for sphere with small correlation coefficient α, it is better to use gas suspension system for mass unbalance measurement. While for sphere with large correlation coefficient α, electrostatic suspension system is more suitable for its perturbing moment are less than gas suspension system.

Originality/value

Knowledge of this relationship is of great theoretic and practical importance, since the probabilistic depiction of the perturbing moments, and hence the accuracy of the mass unbalance measurement systems can be estimated without a detailed roundness measurement of the sphere surface.
Worker morale in Russia: an exploratory study
Authors: Linz Susan J. , Good Linda K. , Huddleston Patricia
Published: July 2006

Purpose

Despite unanimous agreement in the existing literature that morale influences employee performance, no well‐defined measure of morale exists. In Russia, identifying the factors that contribute to employee morale is particularly important since firms face difficult financial challenges imposed by the decade‐long economic and political transition that began in January 1992. The study aims to develop a robust measure of morale and focuses on the factors that influence morale among Russian workers.

Design/methodology/approach

Survey data were collected from Russian employees at two different points in time, 1995 and 2002, in five Russian cities (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Taganrog, Rostov and Azov). The study used regression analysis to assess the influence of expected rewards on employee morale.

Findings

The paper finds that among the workers participating in the study, expectation of receiving a desired reward contributes to high morale, with expected monetary rewards having a higher influence that expected non‐monetary rewards, but praise for a job well done and a feeling of accomplishment also contribute positively to employee morale. There is a significant correlation between positive attitudes toward work and morale, and a positive correlation between performance assessment and morale. Demographic characteristics (age and gender) have no discernable influence on morale when controls are included for work experience.

Research limitations/implications

Data are cross‐sectional rather than longitudinal and sampling is purposive rather than random.

Practical implications

The research suggests that if companies are not financially able to provide monetary rewards, managers can focus on developing a work environment that is friendly and fosters mutual respect. Managers have control over praise and it costs nothing to praise employees for a “job well done.”

Originality/value

No study to date has examined Russian worker morale nor tested morale measures developed in developed market economies on Russian workers. The study develops three reliable measures of morale.
Expectations of recruiters and applicants in large cities of China
Authors: Zhao Hao
Published: July 2006

Purpose

This paper has three purposes. First, it aims to explore important factors in the Chinese employment market. Second, it aims to find whether recruiters and applicants understand each other's expectations. Third, it aims to find whether applicants with different Hukou (locals vs non‐locals) have different expectations on position/organization characteristics and whether recruiters from organizations of different ownerships (foreign vs state‐owned) have different expectations on applicant qualifications.

Design/methodology/approach

A list of 15 applicant qualifications items and 15 position/organization characteristics items that are relevant in the Chinese context were generated by interviewing ten applicants and recruiters. Then 141 college graduates and 44 recruiters were surveyed in four job fairs in Beijing, and asked them to rank the importance of position/organization characteristics and applicant qualifications.

Findings

The study found that recruiters overestimated applicants' expectations on extrinsic rewards (e.g. salary) but underestimated their needs on intrinsic rewards (e.g. job security). Applicants overestimated recruiters' expectations on exogenous qualifications (e.g. local Hukou) but underestimated their expectations on endogenous qualifications (e.g. analysis skills). Local applicants have higher expectations on job locations and voice opportunities while non‐local applicants have higher expectations on local Hukou quota. Recruiters from foreign organizations have higher expectations on endogenous qualifications than recruiters from state‐owned organizations.

Research limitations/implications

The applicant samples were college graduates in Beijing, and the findings may not be generalized to the whole job applicant population in China.

Originality/value

This paper represents an early attempt to investigate both recruiters' and job applicants' expectations at the pre‐employment stage in the contemporary Chinese context, and it provides practical suggestions to recruiters, students, and policy makers.
Governance structures, ethnicity, and audit fees of Malaysian listed firms
Authors: Yatim Puan , Kent Pamela , Clarkson Peter
Published: July 2006

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to examine the association between external audit fees, and board and audit committee characteristics of 736 Malaysian listed firms. It is hypothesised that good corporate governance practices reduce auditors' risk assessments, resulting in lower audit fees. Drawing on the existence of a clearly identifiable ethnic domination of board membership and ownership of Malaysian listed firms, the study also posits that Bumiputera‐controlled firms pay higher audit fees because of their weaker governance practices.

Design/methodology/approach

This study employs a cross‐sectional analysis of 736 firms listed on the Bursa Malaysia for the financial year ending in 2003. Multiple regression analysis is used to estimate the relationships proposed in the hypotheses.

Findings

Overall, the results of this study reveal that external audit fees are positively and significantly related to board independence, audit committee expertise, and the frequency of audit committee meetings. The study also finds a strong negative association between external audit fees and Bumiputera‐owned firms. An additional analysis into the internal governance structures of firms in the sample show that Bumiputera firms practice more favourable corporate governance practices compared to their non‐Bumiputera counterparts.

Originality/value

This study is a unique contribution in that it provides data on corporate governance practices in Malaysia for a large sample in the period after the corporate governance reforms taken by Malaysian capital market regulators and participants. Previous studies have shown that Bumiputera‐controlled firms pay higher audit fees than non‐Bumiputera‐controlled firms. These studies have not tested theoretical explanations for this fee differential. A theoretical explanation provided in the current study is that Bumiputera‐controlled firms pay higher audit fees than non‐Bumiputera‐controlled firms partially because of differences in corporate governance practices. The study finds conflicting results with previous research suggesting that corporate governance practices have changed in Malaysia since the amendments of Bursa Malaysia Listing Requirements, 2001.
Cash flow estimation practices in Mediterranean countries
Authors: T. Lazaridis Ioannis
Published: July 2006

Purpose

– To examine, determine, investigate and compare the extent to which enterprises in Greece and Cyprus use the theoretical framework to evaluate investments which are the discouraging factors concerning the use of this framework with particular emphasis to investigate the type, size and percentage of total capital expenditures detailed cash flow estimates; cash flow estimation practices and forecasting errors experience in the businesses in Greece and Cyprus.

Design/methodology/approach

– The investigation was conducted by the distribution of a questionnaire to adequate number of small sized companies of Greece and Cyprus. The study was based on a questionnaire that was promoted to 800 firms in Greece and 120 in Cyprus.

Findings

– The results of our survey have indicated the perceived important of some financial, marketing, and production factors on the cash flow forecasting process, as borrowing and repayment of funds, sales forecast, and operating expenses. The results of our study have indicated that the majority of forecasting methods used to generate cash flow estimates is management's subjective estimates and that the majority of the Greek firms adjust capital expenditure cash flow for inflation.

Practical implications

– This study could potentially stimulate further research on cash flow forecasting practices of firms in other countries, such as Italy, France, and other Mediterranean countries, in order to compare the results.

Originality/value

– This study provides evidence on the forecasting practices of small and medium-sized companies of Mediterranean companies.