bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Adaptability of turbulence models to predict the performance and blade surface pressure prediction of a Francis turbine
Authors: Zhu WenRuo , Gao ZhongXin , Tang YongJun , Zhang JianGuang , Lu Li 
Published: February 2016

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to analyze the ability of turbulence models to model the flow field in the runner of a Francis turbine. Although the complex flow in the turbine can be simulated by CFD models, the prediction accuracy still needs to be improved. The choice of the turbulence model is one key tool that affects the prediction accuracy of numerical simulations.

Design/methodology/approach
– This study used the SST k-w and RNG k-e turbulence models, which can both accurately predict complex flow fields in numerical simulations, to simulate the flow in the entire flow passage of a Francis turbine with the results compared against experimental data for the performance and blade pressure distribution in the turbine to evaluate the applicability of the turbulence models.

Findings
– The results show that the SST k-w turbulence model more accurately predicts the turbine performance than the RNG turbulence model. However, the blade surface pressures predicted by the SST k-w turbulence model were basically identical to those predicted by the RNG k-e turbulence model, with both accurately predicting the experimental data.

Research limitations/implications
– Due to the lack of space, the method used to measure the blade surface pressure distributions is not introduced in this paper.

Practical implications
– Turbine performance and flow field pressure in the runner, which are the basis of turbine preliminary performance judgment and optimization through CFD, can be used to judge the rationality of the turbine runner design. The paper provides an evidence for the turbulence selection in numerical simulation to predict turbine performance and flow field pressure in the runner and improves the CFD prediction accuracy.

Originality/value
– This paper fulfils a test of the flow field pressure in the runner, which provide an evidence for judge the adaptability of turbulence model on the flow field in runner. And this paper also provides important evaluations of two turbulence models for modeling the flow field pressure distribution in the runner of a Francis turbine to improve the accuracy of CFD models for predicting turbine performance.
Influence of impeller-tongue interaction on the unsteady cavitation behavior in a centrifugal pump
Authors: Meng Long , He Min , Zhou Lingjiu , Yang Jing , Wang Zhengwei , Karney Bryan 
Published: February 2016

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to analyze the cavitation dynamics in the blade channel of a centrifugal pump with a particular focus on the direct influence of the pump’s volute.

Design/methodology/approach
– A homogeneous multiphase model, namely the Zwart-Gerber-Belamri cavitation model, is employed to numerically describe the evolution of the process of cavitation within the pump. The RNG k-e turbulence model is applied to analyze the unsteady turbulent flow. A second order implicit formulation is used for the time discretization for the unsteady flow calculation and a finite volume algorithm is used for the space discretization.

Findings
– The cavities in the passage exhibit an obvious life cycle which includes initiation, growth, contraction, and separation, and collapse with a frequency corresponding to the impeller rotation frequency under off-design conditions. This phenomenon arises through an alternating interaction between reverse flow with the cavity interface and is associated with the response of the vortex region to the effect of uneven pressure distribution on volute and impeller-tongue interaction.

Originality/value
– This study simulated and analyzed the complex transient cavitation flow patterns inside a centrifugal pump and explains the reason for the unsteadiness. This knowledge is instructive in achieving the stable operation of pumps and in trouble shooting rough or cavitating operation.
A weak form quadrature element method for nonlinear free vibrations of Timoshenko beams
Authors: Liao Minmao , Zhong Hongzhi 
Published: February 2016

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to highlight the implementation of a recently developed weak form quadrature element method for nonlinear free vibrations of Timoshenko beams subjected to three different boundary conditions.Design/methodology/approach– The design of the paper is based on considering the geometrically nonlinear effects of axial strain, bending curvature, and shear strain. Then the quadrature element formulation of the beam is introduced.Findings– The efficiency of the method is demonstrated by a convergence study. Ratios of the nonlinear fundamental frequencies to the corresponding linear frequencies are extracted. Their variations with the ratio of amplitude to radius of gyration and the slenderness ratio are examined. The effects of the nonlinearity on higher order frequencies and mode shapes are also investigated.Originality/value– The computed results show fast convergence and compare well with available literature results.
A class of generic factored and multi-level recursive approximate inverse techniques for solving general sparse systems
Authors: Filelis-Papadopoulos Christos K. , Gravvanis George A. 
Published: February 2016

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to propose novel factored approximate sparse inverse schemes and multi-level methods for the solution of large sparse linear systems.

Design/methodology/approach
– The main motive for the derivation of the various generic preconditioning schemes lies to the efficiency and effectiveness of factored preconditioning schemes in conjunction with Krylov subspace iterative methods as well as multi-level techniques for solving various model problems. Factored approximate inverses, namely, Generic Factored Approximate Sparse Inverse, require less fill-in and are computed faster due to the reduced number of nonzero elements. A modified column wise approach, namely, Modified Generic Factored Approximate Sparse Inverse, is also proposed to further enhance performance. The multi-level approximate inverse scheme, namely, Multi-level Algebraic Recursive Generic Approximate Inverse Solver, utilizes a multi-level hierarchy formed using Block Independent Set reordering scheme and an approximation of the Schur complement that results in the solution of reduced order linear systems thus enhancing performance and convergence behavior. Moreover, a theoretical estimate for the quality of the multi-level approximate inverse is also provided.

Findings
– Application of the proposed schemes to various model problems is discussed and numerical results are given concerning the convergence behavior and the convergence factors. The results are comparatively better than results by other researchers for some of the model problems.

Research limitations/implications
– Further enhancements are investigated for the proposed factored approximate inverse schemes as well as the multi-level techniques to improve quality of the schemes. Furthermore, the proposed schemes rely on the definition of multiple parameters that for some problems require thorough testing, thus adaptive techniques to define the values of the various parameters are currently under research. Moreover, parallel schemes will be investigated.

Originality/value
– The proposed approximate inverse preconditioning schemes as well as multi-level schemes are efficient computational methods that are valuable for computer scientists and for scientists and engineers in engineering computations.
Send-for-review decisions, brand equity, and pricing
Authors: Qiu Chun , Popkowski Leszczyc Peter 
Published: February 2016

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to study firms’ decisions of voluntary disclosure of high product quality by sending their products to intermediaries for review, and how the nature of the reviews subsequently substitutes the brand names in terms of affecting the price of the product.

Design/methodology/approach
– Using data on camcorders and point
&
shoot digital cameras collected from multiple intermediary sources, this paper empirically tests the relationships among brand equity, send for review decisions, the nature of reviews and pricing, controlling for endogeneity.

Findings
– This paper finds that firms are likely to send their high-quality products to the intermediaries for review, but such likelihood varies across different brands. Relatively weak brands are more likely to send their products for review than relatively strong brands. By doing so, weak brands receive two benefits: first, intermediary reviews help eliminate price differentials between weak brands and strong brands. The more positive is the review, the higher is the price. When intermediary reviews are not obtained, some strong brands effectively charge a price premium over weak brands. Second, intermediary reviews subsequently attract more consumer word of mouth (WOM). The more positive is the review, the more consumer WOM is attracted.

Researchlimitations/implications
– One limitation is that this paper does not account for the influence of intra-brand competition. The second limitation is related to the assumption that intermediary reviews are accurate.

Practicalimplications
– This paper offers managerial implications to brand managers concerning send-for-review and pricing decisions. It proposes how managers leverage third-party endorsement in launching a new product.

Originality/value
– This paper is one of the few papers empirically studying the interaction of two communication approaches: disclosure and brand signaling. It modifies the commonly assumed relationships among brand, quality and price by demonstrating the substitute effect of intermediary reviews and brand names on price. This paper is also the first research that empirically examines the impact of firms’ “send-for-review” decisions on generating consumer WOM. Managerially, this paper substantiates Godes et al.’s (2005) framework on how firms should manage social interactions upon the release of new products.
Leadership development methods and activities: content, purposes, and implementation
Authors: Megheirkouni Majd 
Published: February 2016

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to understand the nature of leadership development (LD) methods adopted by companies operating in Syria by exploring the content, purpose, and the implantation of LD methods.Design/methodology/approach– Middle and top managers were asked via semi-structured interviews to describe the content, purposes, and implementation of LD practices.Findings– The findings revealed that the LD interventions are mixed between experiential learning and self and team analysis. Specifically, five major methods or activities used in Syria: action learning, coaching, feedback, rotation, and networking. These methods and activities were not only used for a specific purpose, but also for multiple purposes.Research limitations/implications– Research data were conducted during what was called the Arab Spring, which has negative implications not only on the participants, but also on the way they responded to questions. In addition, the for-profit sector was only involved in the study because of its flexibility, lack of bureaucracy, and the application of LD.Originality/value– This study is the only study that investigated LD methods and activities in Syria.
iTech in library instruction: tips and best practices
Authors: Eng-Ziskin Susanna , Johnson Jamie 
Published: February 2016

Purpose
– This paper aims to describe some best practices and tips for librarians who will be teaching in iPad classrooms.

Design/methodology/approach
– California State University Northridge librarians recently began teaching information literacy sessions to freshmen seminar students in a dedicated iPad classroom. Prior to this, they scoured the literature to find information on how to use the iPads to enhance their instruction. The kinds of papers they were looking for did not seem to exist so they began a process of trial and error during their instruction sessions to formulate their own best practices which are enumerated in this paper.

Findings
– A list of best practices for teaching information literacy sessions with iPads.

Originality/value
– This paper will be of value to instruction librarians who will be teaching in iPad or tablet classrooms. A search of the library literature shows there are no similar articles with practical tips and best practices for librarians.
Fall 2015 Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference
Authors: Klose Hrubes Annamarie 
Published: February 2016

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to report on the Fall 2015 MARAC Conference.

Design/methodology/approach
– This paper focuses on the use of technology in archives, libraries and museums, as presented in various sessions at the Fall 2015 MARAC Conference.

Findings
– Archives, libraries and museums are harnessing technology to archive Twitter feeds, digitize obsolete media, provide better online access to collections, automate workflows for patron-driven requests, conduct forensic recovery of born-digital objects and manage long-term access and preservation of diverse digital collections.

Originality/value
– The paper condenses the authors’ notes from various sessions.
Corporate involvement brings environmental improvement: the language of disclosure in Malaysian CSR reports
Authors: Rajandran Kumaran 
Published: February 2016

Purpose
– This paper aims to analyse how Environment Sections in Malaysian corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports disclose environmental CSR.

Design/methodology/approach
– The analysis is grounded in Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), which helps to examine the macrostructure (topics) and microstructure (language features) of Environment Sections. It is complemented by interviews with corporate representatives to obtain insights about these structures.

Findings
– The macrostructure consists of five topics of Introduction, Initiative, Featured Initiative, Adherence and Finance to enable a comprehensive understanding about environmental CSR. The microstructure emphasizes language features about corporate actions and descriptions to enable environmental CSR in a particular time, place and way. Through the macro- and microstructures, the disclosure in Environment Sections portrays corporate involvement as bringing environmental improvement. It displays the corporate perspective, which promotes corporations as agents of positive social change. The disclosure is seen to be influenced by Malaysia’s corporate context.

Research limitations/implications
– As the corpus is limited to ten corporations in three years, future research should expand the corpus to comprise Environment Sections from other years, countries, languages and industries.

Originality/value
– The paper is useful to people practicing and studying corporate communication, as knowing SFL can improve discursive competence or a systematic way to decipher and deploy language.
Profitability, state ownership, tax reporting and corporate social responsibility: evidence from Chinese listed firms
Authors: Xu Bixia , Zeng Tao 
Published: February 2016

Purpose– This paper aims to examine corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the context of listed Chinese firms. In particular, it examines the relationships between CSR and profitability, state ownership and tax reporting behavior.Design/methodology/approach– The paper is an empirical study using CSR reports published by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and financial data collected from the China Stock Market Financial Statement Database (CSMAR).Findings– The paper finds that state ownership is positively associated with CSR and its three components including the governance, social and environmental scores; firm profitability is positively associated with CSR and its market score; and tax reporting behavior is negatively associated with the environmental score. But the result is weak.Research limitations/implications– The results in this study should be treated with some caution as the sample size of 85 observations represents only a small fraction of China’s listed firms. A larger sample size is desirable and may affect our results.Social implications– This paper is of interest to policy-makers, corporate management and academics who wish to explore the relationship between CSR and other firm characteristics.Originality/value– This paper is the first study which provides a comprehensive examination of CSR and its four components in connection with Chinese firms. In particular, it examines the relationship between CSR and profitability and state ownership.
Do ethical firms create value?
Authors: Karim Khondkar , Suh SangHyun , Tang Jiali 
Published: February 2016

Purpose– This study aims to examine the value relevance of ethics information.Design/methodology/approach– This study adopts event study methodology to test the market’s reaction around the announcements of World’s Most Ethical Companies (WME), a ranking based on firms’ overall corporate social responsibility performance. The authors calculate the abnormal returns of firms on the WME lists to investigate how stockholders respond to the disclosure of ethical information.Findings– The authors find significant and positive abnormal returns around the announcements of the lists of ethical firms. Specifically, positive market reaction on the first day after the WME announcement (Day 1) is observed.Originality/value– This study contributes to the existing literature of the relationship between business ethics and firm value. The authors provide evidence that ethics can be aligned with firms’ financial goals. Further, this study is the first to use the WME announcement as a proxy for ethical firms.
Longitudinal diffusion MRI for treatment response assessment: Preliminary experience using an MRI‐guided tri‐cobalt 60 radiotherapy system
Authors: Yang Yingli , Cao Minsong , Sheng Ke , Gao Yu , Chen Allen , Kamrava Mitch , Lee Percy , Agazaryan Nzhde , Lamb James , Thomas David , Low Daniel , Hu Peng 
Published: February 2016

Purpose:To demonstrate the preliminary feasibility of a longitudinal diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) strategy for assessing patient response to radiotherapy at 0.35 T using an MRI‐guided radiotherapy system (ViewRay).Methods:Six patients (three head and neck cancer, three sarcoma) who underwent fractionated radiotherapy were enrolled in this study. A 2D multislice spin echo single‐shot echo planar imaging diffusion pulse sequence was implemented on the ViewRay system and tested in phantom studies. The same pulse sequence was used to acquire longitudinal diffusion data (every 2–5 fractions) on the six patients throughout the entire course of radiotherapy. The reproducibility of the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) measurements was assessed using reference regions and the temporal variations of the tumor ADC values were evaluated.Results:In diffusion phantom studies, the ADC values measured on the ViewRay system matched well with reference ADC values with <5% error for a range of ground truth diffusion coefficients of 0.4–1.1 × 10−3 mm2/s. The remote reference regions (i.e., brainstem in head and neck patients) had consistent ADC values throughout the therapy for all three head and neck patients, indicating acceptable reproducibility of the diffusion imaging sequence. The tumor ADC values changed throughout therapy, with the change differing between patients, ranging from a 40% drop in ADC within the first week of therapy to gradually increasing throughout therapy. For larger tumors, intratumoral heterogeneity was observed. For one sarcoma patient, postradiotherapy biopsy showed less than 10% necrosis score, which correlated with the observed 40% decrease in ADC from the fifth fraction to the eighth treatment fraction.Conclusions:This pilot study demonstrated that longitudinal diffusion MRI is feasible using the 0.35 T ViewRay MRI. Larger patient cohort studies are warranted to correlate the longitudinal diffusion measurements to patient outcomes. Such an approach may enable response‐guided adaptive radiotherapy.
Acupuncture for urinary incontinence after stroke: a protocol for systematic review
Authors: Sun Zhongren , Yu Nannan , Yue Jinhuan , Zhang Qinhong 
Published: February 2016

IntroductionThe aim of this study, which will include randomised controlled trials (RCTs), is to assess the efficacy and safety of acupuncture for patients with stroke and urinary incontinence.Methods and analysisRCTs will be searched electronically in the MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane CENTRAL, CINAHL and four Chinese medical databases from their inception to present. Manual retrieval will also be conducted. RCTs will be included if acupuncture was evaluated as the sole or adjunct treatment for patients with stroke and urinary incontinence. The primary outcome will be measured by using the pad-weighing test. The secondary outcomes will include urination diary, bladder capacity, clinical symptom scores, the number of patients healed completely in trial follow-up period and adverse events. The study selection, data extraction and evaluation of study quality will be performed independently by two researchers. The methodological quality of the included trials will be assessed by using the Cochrane risk-of-bias criteria and the Standards for Reporting Interventions in Controlled Trials of Acupuncture (STRICTA) checklist.DisseminationThis systematic review will assess the current evidence of acupuncture treatment for patients with stroke and urinary incontinence. The findings of this study will be published through a peer-reviewed journal and presented at a relevant conference.Trial registration numberCRD42014015611.
Economic burden of multidrug-resistant bacteria in nursing homes in Germany: a cost analysis based on empirical data
Authors: Huebner Claudia , Roggelin Marcus , Flessa Steffen 
Published: February 2016

ObjectivesInfections and colonisations with multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs) increasingly affect different types of healthcare facilities worldwide. So far, little is known about additional costs attributable to MDROs outside hospitals. The aim of this study was to analysis the economic burden of multidrug-resistant bacteria in nursing homes in Germany.SettingThe cost analysis is performed from a microeconomic perspective of the healthcare facilities. Study took place in six long-term care facilities in north-eastern Germany.ParticipantsData of 71 residents with a positive MDRO status were included.Primary and secondary outcome measuresThe study analysed MDRO surveillance data from 2011 to 2013. It was supplemented by an empirical analysis to determine the burden on staff capacity and materials consumption.Results11 793 days with a positive multidrug-resistant pathogen diagnosis could be included in the analysis. On average, 11.8 (SD±6.3) MDRO cases occurred per nursing home. Mean duration per case was 163.3 days (SD±97.1). The annual MDRO-related costs varied in nursing homes between €2449.72 and €153 263.74 on an average €12 682.23 per case. Main cost drivers were staff capacity (€43.95 per day and €7177.04 per case) and isolation materials (€24.70 per day and €4033.51 per case).ConclusionsThe importance of MDROs in nursing homes could be confirmed. MDRO-related cost data in this specific healthcare sector were collected for the first time. Knowledge about the burden of MDROs will enable to assess the efficiency of hygiene intervention measures in nursing homes in the future.