bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
School–Based Early Intervention and Later Child Maltreatment in the Chicago Longitudinal Study
Authors: Reynolds Arthur J. , Robertson Dylan L.
Published: March 2003

Investigated were the effects of participation in the Title I Child–Parent Centers (CPC) on substantiated reports of child maltreatment for 1,408 children (93% of whom are African American) in the Chicago Longitudinal Study. The CPCs provide child education and family support services in high–poverty areas. After adjusting for preprogram maltreatment and background factors, 913 preschool participants had significantly lower rates of court petitions of maltreatment by age 17 than 495 children of the same age who participated in alternative kindergarten interventions (5.0% vs. 10.5%, a 52% reduction). Participation for 4 to 6 years was significantly associated with lower rates of maltreatment (3.6% vs. 6.9%, a 33% reduction). Findings based on child protective service records (as well as combined protective service and court records) were similar. Preschool length, family risk, and school poverty were associated with lower rates of maltreatment. Parental involvement in school and school mobility were significant mediators of intervention effects.
The Neuropsychology of Down Syndrome: Evidence for Hippocampal Dysfunction
Authors: Pennington Bruce F. , Moon Jennifer , Edgin Jamie , Stedron Jennifer , Nadel Lynn
Published: March 2003

This study tested prefrontal and hippocampal functions in a sample of 28 school–aged (M = 14.7 years, SD = 2.7) individuals with Down syndrome (DS) compared with 28 (M = 4.9 years, SD = .75) typically developing children individually matched on mental age (MA). Both neuropsychological domains were tested with multiple behavioral measures. Benchmark measures of verbal and spatial function demonstrated that this DS sample was similar to others in the literature. The main finding was a significant Group x Domain interaction effect indicating differential hippocampal dysfunction in the group with DS. However, there was a moderate partial correlation (r = .54, controlling for chronological age) between hippocampal and prefrontal composite scores in the DS group, and both composites contributed unique variance to the prediction of MA and adaptive behavior in that group. In sum, these results indicate a particular weakness in hippocampal functions in DS in the context of overall cognitive dysfunction. It is interesting that these results are similar to what has been found in a mouse model of DS. Such a model will make it easier to understand the neurobiological mechanisms that lead to the development of hippocampal dysfunction in DS.
Reciprocal Influences Between Stressful Life Events and Adolescent Internalizing and Externalizing Problems
Authors: Kim Kee Jeong , Conger Rand D. , Elder Jr. Glen H. , Lorenz Frederick O.
Published: March 2003

Investigated in this study were hypothesized reciprocal influences between stressful life events and adolescent maladjustment using data from a 6–year, prospective longitudinal study. Stressful life experiences, internalizing symptoms, and externalizing behaviors were assessed for a sample of adolescents (215 males, 236 females) living in the rural Midwest. From 7th to 12th grades, autoregressive analyses showed that stressful life events and these two forms of maladjustment were reciprocally interrelated over time. For example, stressful life events at one point significantly predicted delinquent behaviors 1 year later, which, in turn, significantly predicted stressful life events 1 year later, and vice versa. The findings provide evidence for the accumulating disadvantage for adolescents that results from the mutual reinforcement of problematic situations and adjustment problems over time.
Design of a Multi–Unit Double Auction E–Market
Authors: Huang Pu , Scheller–Wolf Alan , Sycara Katia
Published: March 2003

We envision a future economy where e–markets will play an essential role as exchange hubs for commodities and services. Future e–markets should be designed to be robust to manipulation, flexible, and sufficiently efficient in facilitating exchanges. One of the most important aspects of designing an e–market is market mechanism design. A market mechanism defines the organization, information exchange process, trading procedure, and clearance rules of a market. If we view an e–market as a multi–agent system, the market mechanism also defines the structure and rules of the environment in which agents (buyers and sellers) play the market game. We design an e–market mechanism that is strategy–proof with respect to reservation price, weakly budget–balanced, and individually rational. Our mechanism also makes sellers unlikely to underreport the supply volume to drive up the market price. In addition, by bounding our market’s efficiency loss, we provide fairly unrestrictive sufficient conditions for the efficiency of our mechanism to converge in a strong sense when (1) the number of agents who successfully trade is large, or (2) the number of agents, trading and not, is large. We implement our design using the RETSINA infrastructure, a multi–agent system development toolkit. This enables us to validate our analytically derived bounds by numerically testing our e–market.
An Algorithmic Reflectance and Transmittance Model for Plant Tissue
Authors: Baranoski Gladimir V.G. , Rokne Jon G.
Published: March 2003

Recent developments in rendering have provided very realistic images. However, these images rarely show organic objects. We believe that one of the main difficulties of rendering these objects realistically is the lack of reflectance and transmittance models oriented to organic materials. In this paper an algorithmic reflectance and transmittance model for plant tissue oriented to computer graphics applications is presented. The model accounts for the three components of light propagation in plant tissues, namely surface reflectance, subsurface reflectance and transmittance, and mechanisms of light absorption by pigments present in these tissues. The model design is based on the available biological information, and it is controlled by a small number of biologically meaningful parameters. Its formulation, based on standard Monte Carlo techniques, guarantees its easy incorporation into most rendering systems. The spectral curves of reflectance and transmittance computed by the model are compared with measured curves from actual experiments.
Metro: Measuring Error on Simplified Surfaces
Authors: Cignoni P. , Rocchini C. , Scopigno R.
Published: March 2003

This paper presents a new tool, Metro, designed to compensate for a deficiency in many simplification methods proposed in literature. Metro allows one to compare the difference between a pair of surfaces (e.g. a triangulated mesh and its simplified representation) by adopting a surface sampling approach. It has been designed as a highly general tool, and it does no assumption on the particular approach used to build the simplified representation. It returns both numerical results (meshes areas and volumes, maximum and mean error, etc.) and visual results, by coloring the input surface according to the approximation error.
Anisotropic Solid Texture Synthesis Using Orthogonal 2D Views
Authors: Dischler J.M. , Ghazanfarpour D. , Freydier R.
Published: March 2003

Analytical approaches, based on digitised 2D texture models, for an automatic solid (3D) texture synthesis have been recently introduced to Computer Graphics. However, these approaches cannot provide satisfactory solutions in the usual case of natural anisotropic textures (wood grain for example). Indeed, solid texture synthesis requires particular care, and sometimes external knowledge to "guess" the internal structure of solid textures because only 2D texture models are used for analysis. By making some basic assumptions about the internal structure of solid textures, we propose a very efficient method based on a hybrid analysis (spectral and histogram) for an automatic synthesis of solid textures. This new method allows us to obtain high precision solid textures (closely resembling initial models) in a large number of cases, including the difficult case of anisotropic textures.
Wavelet‐Based 3D Compression Scheme for Interactive Visualization of Very Large Volume Data
Authors: Ihm Insung , Park Sanghun
Published: March 2003

Interactive visualization of very large volume data has been recognized as a task requiring great effort in a variety of science and engineering fields. In particular, such data usually places considerable demands on run‐time memory space. In this paper, we present an effective 3D compression scheme for interactive visualization of very large volume data, that exploits the power of wavelet theory. In designing our method, we have compromised between two important factors: high compression ratio and fast run‐time random access ability. Our experimental results on the Visual Human data sets show that our method achieves fairly good compression ratios. In addition, it minimizes the overhead caused during run‐time reconstruction of voxel values. This 3D compression scheme will be useful in developing many interactive visualization systems for huge volume data, especially when they are based on personal computers or workstations with limited memory.
A Shrink Wrapping Approach to Remeshing Polygonal Surfaces
Authors: Kobbelt Leif P. , Vorsatz Jens , Labsik Ulf , Hans‐Peter Seidel
Published: March 2003

Due to their simplicity and flexibility, polygonal meshes are about to become the standard representation for surface geometry in computer graphics applications. Some algorithms in the context of multiresolution representation and modeling can be performed much more efficiently and robustly if the underlying surface tesselations have the special subdivision connectivity. In this paper, we propose a new algorithm for converting a given unstructured triangle mesh into one having subdivision connectivity. The basic idea is to simulate the shrink wrapping process by adapting the deformable surface technique known from image processing. The resulting algorithm generates subdivision connectivity meshes whose base meshes only have a very small number of triangles. The iterative optimization process that distributes the mesh vertices over the given surface geometry guarantees low local distortion of the triangular faces. We show several examples and applications including the progressive transmission of subdivision surfaces.
A Practical Analysis of Clustering Strategies for Hierarchical Radiosity
Authors: Hasenfratz Jean‐Marc , Damez Cyrille , Sillion Franĉois , Drettakis George
Published: March 2003

The calculation of radiant energy balance in complex scenes has been made possible by hierarchical radiosity methods based on clustering mechanisms. Although clustering offers an elegant theoretical solution by reducing the asymptotic complexity of the algorithm, its practical use raises many difficulties, and may result in image artifacts or unexpected behavior. This paper proposes a detailed analysis of the expectations placed on clustering and compares the relative merits of existing, as well as newly introduced, clustering algorithms. This comparison starts from the precise definition of various clustering strategies based on a taxonomy of data structures and construction algorithms, and proceeds to an experimental study of the clustering behavior for real‐world scenes. Interestingly, we observe that for some scenes light is difficult to simulate even with clustering. Our results lead to a series of observations characterizing the adequacy of clustering methods for meeting such diverse goals as progressive solution improvement, efficient ray casting acceleration, and faithful representation of object density for approximate visibility calculations.
Binding Virtual Environments to Toolkit Capabilities
Authors: Smith Shamus P. , Duke David J.
Published: March 2003

There are many toolkits and development environments that aid the process of constructing virtual environment applications. Many of these development environments encourage customising a virtual environment's design while rapid prototyping within the confines of a toolkit's capabilities. Thus the choice of the technology and its associated support has been made independent of the end‐use requirements of the final system. This can bias a virtual environment's design by implementation based constraints. We propose that an alternative approach is the consideration of virtual environment requirements in the context of an inspectable design model, to identify the requirements that a toolkit will need to support. In the context of an example, we present a selection of design requirements that we consider important for virtual environment design in general. We explore how these requirements might be mapped to different capabilities using Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML) as a concrete example of a platform technology.
Video‐based Approach to Human Animation
Authors: Lao Zhiqiang , Li Ling
Published: March 2003

A method based on computer vision technologies is presented to determine the 3‐D spatial locations of joints or feature points of a human body from human motion video. The proposed method first applies the geometric projection theory to obtain a set of feasible postures in some key frames according to predefined 2D video features and 3D‐model features correspondence. Next it makes use of the available skeleton controlled human model to get a feasible posture for each key frame. The method is applied to a series of video images to animate artificial 3D human models.
Generating Consistent Motion Transition via Decoupled Framespace Interpolation
Authors: Ashraf G. , Wong K. C.
Published: March 2003

The framespace interpolation algorithm abstracts motion sequences as 1D signals, and interpolates between them to create higher dimension signals, with weights drawn from a user specified curve in a bounded region. We reformulate the algorithm to achieve motion‐state based transition via dynamic warping of framespaces and automatic transition timing via framespace frequency interpolation. Basis motions displaying diverse coordination configurations between upper and lower body‐halves, cannot be consistently corresponded at a macro level. We address this problem here, through decoupled blending of these halves to achieve true consistency, and eliminate accumulated phase differences via cosine phase warp functions. This generalization enables interpolation of motions with diverse coordinations between the upper and lower bodies.
Automatic Camera Placement for Image‐Based Modeling
Authors: Fleishman Shachar , Cohen‐Or Daniel , Lischinski Dani
Published: March 2003

We present an automatic camera placement method for generating image‐based models from scenes with known geometry. Our method first approximately determines the set of surfaces visible from a given viewing area and then selects a small set of appropriate camera positions to sample the scene from. We define a quality measure for a surface as seen, or covered, from the given viewing area. Along with each camera position, we store the set of surfaces which are best covered by this camera. Next, one reference view is generated from each camera position by rendering the scene. Pixels in each reference view that do not belong to the selected set of polygons are masked out.

The image‐based model generated by our method, covers every visible surface only once, associating it with a camera position from which it is covered with quality that exceeds a user‐specified quality threshold. The result is a compact non‐redundant image‐based model with controlled quality.

The problem of covering every visible surface with a minimum number of cameras (guards) can be regarded as an extension to the well‐known Art Gallery Problem. However, since the 3D polygonal model is textured, the camera‐polygon visibility relation is not binary; instead, it has a weight — the quality of the polygon's coverage.
Morphing the BlobTree
Authors: Galin Eric , Leclercq Antoine , Akkouche Samir
Published: March 2003

Implicit surfaces have proved to be a particularly well suited and efficient model for animating and morphing shapes of arbitrary topologies. The BlobTree model is characterized as a hierarchical combination of skeletal primitives organized in a tree. The nodes hold blending, boolean and warping operators, which allows the design of complex objects.

In this paper, we address the metamorphosis of the BlobTree. This appears a difficult task as the tree data‐structures of the initial and final shapes are completely different in the general case, and consequently cannot be matched easily. We propose an original technique that solves the correspondence process and creates an intermediate generic BlobTree model whose instances interpolate the initial and final shapes.

The animator may control the correspondence between features and can specify both the speed of transformation and the trajectory of the nodes and the leaves of the generic BlobTree model. This provides the end user with a tight control over the transformation so as to achieve good visual effects.
Adaptive Implicit Surface Polygonization Using Marching Triangles
Authors: Akkouche Samir , Galin Eric
Published: March 2003

This paper presents several improvements to the marching triangles algorithm for general implicit surfaces. The original method generates equilateral triangles of constant size almost everywhere on the surface. We present several modifications to adapt the size of the triangles to the curvature of the surface. As cracks may arise in the resulting polygonization, we propose a specific crack‐closing method invoked at the end of the mesh growing step. Eventually, we show that the marching triangles can be used as an incremental meshing technique in an interactive modeling environment. In contrast to existing incremental techniques based on spatial subdvision, no extra data‐structure is needed to incrementally edit skeletal implicit surfaces, which saves both memory and computation time.
Adaptive Representation of Specular Light
Authors: Brière Normand , Poulin Pierre
Published: March 2003

Caustics produce beautiful and intriguing illumination patterns. However, their complex behavior makes them difficult to simulate accurately in all but the simplest configurations. To capture their appearance, we present an adaptive approach based upon light beams. Exploiting the coherence between the light rays forming a beam greatly reduces the number of samples required for precise illumination reconstruction. The beams characterize the light distribution due to interactions with specular surfaces in 3D space. They thus allow for the treatment of illumination within single‐scattering participating media. A hierarchical structure enclosing the light beams possesses inherent properties to detect efficiently all beams reaching any 3D point, to adapt itself according to illumination effects in the final image, and to reduce memory consumption via caching.
Recent Advances in Mesh Morphing
Authors: Alexa Marc
Published: March 2003

Meshes have become a widespread and popular representation of models in computer graphics. Morphing techniques aim at transforming a given source shape into a target shape. Morphing techniques have various applications ranging from special effects in television and movies to medical imaging and scientific visualization. Not surprisingly, morphing techniques for meshes have received a lot of interest lately.

This work sums up recent developments in the area of mesh morphing. It presents a consistent framework to classify and compare various techniques approaching the same underlying problems from different angles.
A New Approach for the Generation of Circles
Authors: Hsu S. Y. , Chow Louis R. , Liu H. C.
Published: March 2003

Two incremental algorithms for drawing circles using short line segments are proposed in this paper. The proposed algorithms can draw manypoints at one time. They use only addition, subtraction, and shift operations except in the initialization of the algorithm. Using this simplified approach we can greatly increase the speed of drawing circles, relative to other conventional algorithms.
Pictorial Editing by Shape Matching Techniques
Authors: Ventura A. Della , Ongaro P. , Schettini R.
Published: March 2003

A number ofpainting and retouching packages operate much like the artist's traditional canvas andpalette, with electronic toolsfunctioning like their studio counterparts. These programs, while offering an ample set of tools for creating an image, suffer from an intrinsic limitation as regards its modification, which lies in the fact that changes to the shape of objects and those requiring some kind ofpattern recognition are generally difficult and cannot be accomplished automatically. This paper deals with an original methodfor providing a pictorial editor with the “search‐and‐replace” facility, that works rather like text substitution in a word processor. The user defines the search (model) and the replacement (target) patterns by example, i.e. by showing the system the patterns taken from the image or an existing catalogue. The editor then searchesfor objects that match the model's pattern and replaces them with the target one in an automatic or user‐controlled mode. The method is based on a model‐driven matching technique, capable of measuring the similarity of objects that are partially occluded or transformed by translation, rotation, or change of scale. Salient features of the method are its robustness and the limited number of parameters needed to adapt the search procedure to different application contexts. A search‐and‐replace function used for pattern‐editing in the field of textile design, is presented as a working example.
A Robust and Consistent Algorithm for Intersecting Convex Polyhedra
Authors: Sugihara Kokichi
Published: March 2003

This paper presents a numerically robust and topologically consistent algorithm for intersecting convex polyhedra. This algorithm is new in the sense that the consistency issue is completely separated from the numerical error issue. The intersection operation is combinatorially abstracted as the operation of changing the vertex‐edge graphs associated with the input polyhedra, and numerical computation is employed only for choosing the branch of processing which is most likely to lead to the correct solution of the problem. Hence, the resultant algorithm is completely free from topological inconsistency.
Variational Design and Fairing of Spline Surfaces
Authors: Greiner Günther
Published: March 2003

Variational principles have become quite popular in the design of free form surfaces. Among others they are used for fairing purposes. The choice of the ‘right’ fairness functional is a crucial step. There is always a tradeoff between high quality and computational effort. In this paper we present fairness functionals that allow fairing efficiently, i.e., produce high quality surfaces in a reasonable amount of time. These functionals can be considered as simplified thin plate energy functionals for parametric surfaces or as simplified MVC functionals.
Efficient self‐collision detection on smoothly discretized surface animations using geometrical shape regularity
Authors: VOLINO Pascal , THALMANN Nadia Magnenat
Published: March 2003

We present a new algorithm for detecting self‐collisionson highly discretized moving polygonal surfaces. If is based on geometrical shape regularity properties that permit avoiding many useless collision tests. We use an improved hierarchical representation of our surface that, besides the optimizations inherent to hierarchisation, allows us to fake adjacency information to our advantage for applying efficiently our geometrical optimizations. We reduce the computation time between each frame by building automatically the hierarchical structure once as a preprocessing task. We describe the main principles of our algorithm, followed by some performance tests.
A Hand Control and Automatic Grasping System for Synthetic Actors
Authors: Sanso Ramon Mas , Thalmann Daniel
Published: March 2003

In the computer animation field, the interest for grasping has appeared with the development of synthetic actors. Based on a grasp taxonomy, we propose a completely automatic grasping system for synthetic actors. In particular, the system can decide to use a pinch when the object is too small to be grasped by more than two fingers or to use a two‐handed grasp when the object is too large. The system also offers both direct and inverse kinematics to control the articulations. In order to ensure realistic looking closing of the hand, several of the joints are constrained. A brief description of the system and results are also presented.
Magicsphere: an insight tool for 3D data visualization
Authors: Cignoni P. , Montani C. , Scopigno R.
Published: March 2003

How to render very complex datasets, and yet maintain interactive response times, is a hot topic in computer graphics. The MagicSphere idea originated as a solution to this problem, but its potential goes much further than this original scope. In fact, it has been designed as a very generical 3D widget: it defines a spherical volume of interest in the dataset modeling space. Then, several filters can be associated with the Magicsphere, which apply different visualization modalities to the data contained in the volume of interest. The visualization of multi‐resolution datasets is selected here as a case study and an ad hoc filter has been designed, the MultiRes filter. Some results of a prototipal implementation are presented and discussed.
Selective Visualization of Vector Fields
Authors: van Walsum Theo , Post Frits H.
Published: March 2003

In this paper, we present an approach to selective vector field visualization. This selective visualization approach consists of three stages: selectdon creation, selection processing and selective visualization mapping. It is described how selected regions, called selections, can be represented and created, how selections can be processed and how they can be used in the visualization mapping. Combination of these techniques with a standard visualization pipeline improves the visualization process and offers new facilities for visualization. Examples of selective visualization of fluid flow datasets are provided.
How to Render Frames and Influence People
Authors: Strothotte Thomas , Preim Bernhard , Raab Andreas , Schumann Jutta , Forsey David R.
Published: March 2003

Rendering systems generally treat the production of images as an objective process governed by the laws of physics. However, perception and understanding on the part of viewers are subjective processes influenced by a variety offactors. For example, in the presentation of architectural drawings, the apparent precision with which the drawings are made will affect whether the viewer considers the design as part of a preliminary design or as part of a final polished project, and to some extent the level of confidence the viewer has in the encoded information.

In this paper we develop techniques for rendering images in a way that differs from the usual photorealistic or wire‐frame output of renderers. In particular, our techniques allow a user to adjust the rendering of a scene to produce images using primitives with variable degrees of precision, from approximations that resemble vague “five‐minute‐sketches” to more mature but still hand‐drawn images. We provide a theoretical framework for analysing the information flow from the computer to the user via such images. Finally, we describe the design and implementation of a prototypical renderer and show examples of its output.
Contextual Animation of Gestural Commands
Authors: Kurtenbach G. , Moran T. P. , Buxton W.
Published: March 2003

Drawing a mark can be an efficient command input technique when using a pen‐based computer. However, marks are not intrinsically self‐explanatory as are other interactive techniques such as buttons and menus. We present design principles for interaction mechanisms which make marks self explanatory for novices but still allow experts to use efficient command marks. The key notion is that use of the explanation mechanism physically trains a novice to use the efficient command marks. Two novel interaction mechanisms we have developed using these principles are presented.
Efficient Parallel Gouraud Shading and Linear Interpolation over Triangles
Authors: Narayanaswami Chandrasekhar
Published: March 2003

A parallel raster algorithm to draw Gouraud shaded triangles is presented. At the heart of the algorithm is a new constrained parallel edge‐traversal technique. This parallel traversal represents an increased level of parallelism compared to the existing solutions. Next, traditional algorithms take different amounts of time to advance from one horizontal span to another for the left edge and the right edge of the triangle when the slope of one of the edges is more than one and that of the other edge is less than one. This causes one processor to wait for another processor. The parallel constrained edge traversal technique removes this problem by directly jumping from one span to the next. It also ensures that adjacent triangles that share an edge do not share any pixels. Moreover, no cracks occur between adjacent polygons. Unlike some existing algorithms whose complexity depends on the size of the bounding box of the triangle, the complexity of our algorithm is solely dependenton the perimeter and area of the triangle.

Due to the above features, the algorithm presented here exposes a greater degree of parallelism at considerably lesser cost and achieves better processor utilization, compared to existing algorithms for this problem1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. The algorithm is well suited for hardware implementation.
3D Interaction with the Desktop Bat
Authors: Steed Anthony , Slater Mel
Published: March 2003

Many applications now demand interaction with visualizations of 3D scenes and data sets. Current flat 2D displays are limited in their capacity to provide this not only by the display technology but the interaction metaphors and devices used. The Desktop Bat is a device that has 5 degrees of freedom whilst retaining the simplicity of use o fa mouse. To use it for general 3D interaction several metaphors were created for the tasks of navigation and cursor manipulation and a set of experiments were conducted to determine which metaphors were the most efficient in use. Of these metaphors, a velocity control metaphor was the best for navigation and a metaphor that applied rotations and translations relative to the eyepoint coordinate system was best for object control.
Head‐Tracked Stereo Viewing with Two‐Handed 3 D Interaction for Animated Character Construction
Authors: Turner Russell , Gobbetti Enrico , Soboroff Ian
Published: March 2003

In this paper, we demonstrate how a new interactive 3 D desktop metaphor based on two‐handed 3 D direct manipulation registered with head‐tracked stereo viewing can be applied to the task of constructing animated characters. In our configuration, a six degree‐of‐freedom head‐tracker and CrystalEyes shutter glasses are used to produce stereo images that dynamically follow the user head motion. 3 D virtual objects can be made to appear at a fixed location in physical space which the user may view from different angles by moving his head. To construct 3 D animated characters, the user interacts with the simulated environment using both hands simultaneously: the left hand, controlling a Spaceball, is used for 3 D navigation and object movement, while the right hand, holding a 3 D mouse, is used to manipulate through a virtual tool metaphor the objects appearing in front of the screen. In this way, both incremental and absolute interactive input techniques are provided by the system. Hand‐eye coordination is made possible by registering virtual space exactly to physical space, allowing a variety of complex 3 D tasks necessary for constructing 3 D animated characters to be performed more easily and more rapidly than is possible using traditional interactive techniques. The system has been tested using both Polhemus Fastrak and Logitech ultrasonic input devices for tracking the head and 3 D mouse.
Does CEO Pay Reflect Performance? Some Australian Evidence
Authors: Izan H.Y. , Sidhu Baljit , Taylor Stephen
Published: March 2003

We examine the relation between Australian CEO pay and accounting and share price performance indicators, as well as firm size, from 1987 to 1992 inclusive. Our results show no evidence of a linkage between CEO pay and performance. This finding is robust to the use of single year or pooled tests, as well as the specific identification of CEO changes. “Long window” analysis of the pay‐performance relation yields similar results. Possible explanations include incomplete disclosure of CEO compensation, the influence of other claimholders (e.g., debtholders), the existence of alternative monitoring mechanisms and the extent to which CEO compensation is effectively deferred. However, subject to these possibilities, our results can be interpreted as consistent with allegations that Australian CEOs have had, by international standards, a relatively small proportion of total compensation “at risk”.
Mutuality versus Public Company – the Debate in Europe and the USA
Authors: Howcroft Barry
Published: March 2003

The paper takes both an historical and an international perspective on the issue of mutuality and identifies a number of important themes in the current debate on mutuality versus “plc” conversion. The paper accordingly argues that in the short term the problem of excess capacity and the need to reduce capital is an important motive behind the recent spate of conversions. In the long term, however, the greater flexibility and the opportunities to raise additional capital which are associated with public company status are an important impetus behind this debate. In this respect, a number of alternatives to outright conversion which have not been sufficiently debated in the literature are identified and examined. Emphasis is placed on the European and US experience where savings and loans institutions have introduced a number of alternatives to outright flotation. In particular, the various merits and de‐merits of mutual holding companies are examined as an alternative to outright conversion.
Women Directors on Top UK Boards
Authors: Singh Val , Vinnicombe Susan , Johnson Phyl
Published: March 2003

Research suggests that more diversity in board membership could improve overall performance. This paper considers the business case for increased numbers of female directors, and the lack of female representation on UK FTSE 100 company boards in 1999 and 2000. It also offers a comparison to US data. In 1999, almost two‐thirds of FTSE 100 companies had at least one female director, but numbers had dropped by July 2000 from 64 per cent to 58 per cent, paralleling the levelling‐off at top level reported in North America. More firms having female directors are to be found amongst those with the highest turnover, profit and number of employees in the FTSE 100, again paralleling the findings from the US.
The CEO in Law and in Practice: a study of categorisation and control
Authors: Kirkbride James , Letza Steve
Published: March 2003

The purpose of this work is to draw upon empirical evidence supporting concerns over the perception and reality of the power and control exercised by chief executive officers (CEO). It provides a focus on the role of the CEO (the “clout” title) and provides an analysis of the legal framework within which that role is both recognised and controlled. It also tests the assertion that “the law has not fully come to terms with the variety of management structures and practices in modern companies – including terminology” (Farrar’s Company Law 1998).

The paper begins by examining the existence in law of the position and power of the CEO. In doing so, the study draws upon the applied and developed principles of agency, attribution and alter ego theories, and the concept of controlling minds in an attempt to provide a category of definition, albeit one of negative recognition and the implications that that might have in developing effective legal controls.

Control is then examined in the context of both theory and practice. Practice is based upon the study of 150 listed companies. It builds upon the earlier research undertaken by Franks et al. (1999) and looked to examine the relationship between CEO and executive board turnover and corporate performance, ownership and structure. It seeks to provide some information in terms of a relationship for both recognition and control of CEOs. It identifies categories of “controllers” and categories of “definition” in an attempt to present a contemporary legal framework for recognition and control.
Ownership Patterns and Control in Turkish Listed Companies
Authors: Demirag Istemi , Serter Mehmet
Published: March 2003

The purpose of this paper is to document the prevalent ownership concentration, structure and control in the top 100 companies listed on the Istanbul Stock Exchange. The results are discussed in the context of emerging corporate governance trends in Turkey. Where appropriate, comparisons with other countries are provided.

The results of the study indicate that ownership of Turkish companies is highly concentrated, families being the dominant shareholders. The separation of ownership and control among Turkish companies is mainly achieved through pyramidal ownership structures and the presence of big business groups. However, the cash flow and voting rights in Turkish companies are relatively more aligned compared to other family–ownership–dominated insider–system countries.
Simplex Creative Problem Solving
Authors: Wilson Peter
Published: March 2003

Einstein is reputed to have said that if he had one hour to save the world he would spend fifty‐five minutes defining the problem and five minutes finding the solution. This is the opposite approach to the staff in most public and private offices, factories and construction sites. Simplex creative problem solving process is a system developed by Min Basadur at McMaster University, Ontario that does allow time to spend finding the real problem. It then finds a solution and programmes the implementation.
Education and Genius
Authors: Carr Raymond T.
Published: March 2003

We can hardly hope to define genius with precision when we start investigating its nature. If, alternatively, we defined it broadly as a (limited) capacity for independent thinking and invention, perhaps we should all qualify as geniuses. Instead we can study biographically the lives of those whose works have long been acclaimed, acknowledging provisionally that there could be more than one kind of genius but seeking common factors nevertheless. This article is a digest of such a study (originally one hundred times longer) and is particularly angled towards educational factors.
Benchmarking Innovation: A Short Report
Authors: Radnor Zoe , Robinson Judith
Published: March 2003

A project is reported that benchmarked ‘best practice’ mature organisations, with a base in the United Kingdom, on the processes and practices that they perceive underpinned successful innovation projects. The majority of organisations had director level personnel involved in the innovation process but only three had active involvement of the top management. However, the majority saw the greatest level of innovation being obtained through the use of cross‐functional teams. Five key innovation supports were identified during the benchmarking exercise. These were top management support for, and involvement in the process; the appointment of an innovation champion or sponsor; rewards for innovative behaviours and ideas; and finally a positive attitude to building on creative ideas, irrespective of their source. It is suggested that benchmarking can play a role in identifying best‐practice innovation structures and procedures.
Collaborative Problem Solving Through Creativity in Problem Definition: Expanding the Pie
Authors: Basadur Min , Pringle Pam , Speranzini Gwen , Bacot Marie
Published: March 2003

The classic models of two party problem solving in situations of potential conflict are reviewed and the growing impetus for a process that would encourage collaborative win‐win solutions is summarized. In is demonstrated that in‐win collaboration requires innovative thinking, and that a four stage process of deliberate creativity with a track record of success is described. The process, called Simplex, emphasizes ‘out of the box’ thinking in problem defining (before solving) as the key to making a perceived ‘fixed pie’ larger, moving beyond the shackles of zero‐sum, win‐lose, compromise thinking. If a problem can be conceptualized from a new angle in such a way that each party believes its resolution would provide a high level of satisfaction, then the parties will be more likely to work together collaboratively. This process uses four specific creative thinking skills. A case study is described in which the Simplex process was used in union management bargaining. In the case study, when the creative process was deliberately applied, success was achieved in building trust and developing expanded pies and new solutions. However, when the process was abandoned, the trust was lost, no creative solutions were developed, and a sub‐optimal lose‐lose situation resulted. A two‐dimensional diagnostic model which shows the relationship between skill level in the process and motivation to use it is provided. This model defines four modes of pure and mixed distributive and integrative bargaining.
Critical Success Factors for Radical Technological Innovation: A Five Case Study
Authors: Abetti Pier A.
Published: March 2003

We analyze the critical success factors for radical technological innovation according to four perspectives: as R&D projects, as technological innovations, as internal ventures, and as changes in corporate strategy. We apply ex‐post eleven critical success factors to the pairwaise comparison of three radical innovations: GE Project EHV‐UHV (success), GE non‐impact printer (failure), and Xerox non‐impact printer (success). We then apply ex‐ante the same factors to “predict” the failure of Motorola’s Iridium satellite communication system and the success of Nokia’s cellular phones.
Book of the Quarter
Authors: Manimala Mathew J.
Published: March 2003

Book reviewed in this article:

Khandwalla, Pradip N., Turnaround Excellence: Insights from 120 Cases
Configurations of NPD – Production Interfaces and Interface Integration Mechanisms
Authors: Smulders Frido E. , Boer Harry , Hansen Poul H.K. , Gubi Ebbe , Dorst Kees
Published: March 2003

This paper describes and illustrates different configurations of the interface between new product development and production processes, including both intra–firm and inter–firm interfaces. These configurations are partly based on a process view of product innovation and partly on a structural view of product innovation. In addition to this typology of interfaces some integration mechanisms are described. The typology will serve as a basis for further research aimed at identifying consistent configurations of the different types of integration mechanisms that are available for industry to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of product innovation processes.
Inter–organisational Relationships in the Worldwide Popular Recorded Music Industry
Authors: Gander Jonathan , Rieple Alison
Published: March 2003

This paper analyses the worldwide popular recorded music industry and examines how product, firm and industry features result in key resources coagulating around the two firm types; the major and independent. We argue that these firm specific resources are complementary and participating firms would benefit from their union. However though complementary, they are inimical and close association risks damaging their value. Collaboration between the two firm types that hold these resources therefore needs to be designed not along traditional concerns of protection from opportunism, or the requirement to control key resources. Instead competitive advantage may be gained by designing and managing structural relationships that protect each partner’s resource set from the hostile elements of the others; a contamination rather than an appropriation focus.
Affect and Performance in Organizational Settings
Authors: Côté Stéphane
Published: March 2003

The recent literature on affect and performance in organizations is reviewed. The evidence suggests that affect is a stronger predictor of job performance than is job satisfaction. Job performance can be predicted from both dispositional (i.e., long-term) and state (i.e., short-term) affect. Pleasant affect is associated with new dimensions of performance such as extra-role proficiency. The evidence suggests that pleasant affect leads to strong performance, and also that strong performance leads to pleasant affect. Recent literature concerning psychological mechanisms linking affect and performance suggests that pleasant affect and unpleasant affect might be associated with strong performance on different dimensions. Suggestions for future research on the affective correlates of job performance are presented.
Differences in Parental Investment Contribute to Important Differences Between Men and Women
Authors: Bjorklund David F. , Shackelford Todd K.
Published: March 2003

Parental investment theory addresses sex differences that result from the trade-off between parenting effort and mating effort. For example, relative to men, women spend more time caring for offspring, are more selective in assenting to sexual intercourse, are more upset by a partner's emotional infidelity than by a partner's sexual infidelity, and are better able to inhibit their behaviors in certain situations. These and other sex differences are attributable to evolved mechanisms that work in interaction with the physical and social environments.
Recent Developments in Close-Relationships Theory
Authors: Harvey John H. , Pauwels Brian G.
Published: March 2003

A selective review of some recent theoretical developments in the field of close relationships is presented. We describe demographic developments reflecting flux in relationships and the family and what may be viewed as a revolution in gender relations and the family over the past three to four decades. Also reviewed are theories on the development, maintenance, and ending of relationships, as well as the “dark side” of close relationships. We conclude that the close-relationships field is likely to continue to develop and prosper as people search for answers to daunting relationship problems.
Social Support, Physiological Processes, and Health
Authors: Uchino Bert N. , Uno Darcy , Holt-Lunstad Julianne
Published: March 2003

Social relationships serve important functions in people's everyday lives. Epidemiological research indicates that supportive relationships may also significantly protect individuals from various causes of mortality, including cardiovascular disease. An important issue is how social support influences such long-term health outcomes. In this article, we review evidence indicating that social support may influence mortality via changes in the cardiovascular, endocrine, and immune systems. These data suggest that it may be worthwhile to incorporate social-support interventions in the prevention and treatment of physical health problems.
Parent Care in the Context of Women's Multiple Roles
Authors: Stephens Mary Ann Parris , Franks Melissa M.
Published: March 2003

This article addresses the multiple roles held by women involved in parent care and the ways in which these roles affect the women's well-being. Research on women's roles (including that of caregiver) has been guided by two opposing perspectives, the scarcity hypothesis and the expansion hypothesis. Findings from our studies of role quality, role combinations, and role spillover have provided abundant evidence that the lives of these women cannot be easily captured by either the scarcity or the expansion hypothesis alone.