bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Raising the quality of teaching through Kyouzai Kenkyuu – the study of teaching materials
Authors: Sarkar Arani Mohammad Reza 
Published: January 2017

Purpose
This study attempts to provide cross-cultural learning by focusing on a very important aspect of research, the study of teaching materials, known as Kyouzai Kenkyuu in Japan. The purpose of this paper is to investigate teachers’ views and awareness about the study of teaching materials, in particular, the views and awareness of Iranian teachers, who are beginning to understand their teaching practice and professional development through lesson study.

Design/methodology/approach
Qualitative research methods were employed for data collection. These methods included comparative analysis of an Iranian mathematics lesson from the perspective of Japanese educators and semi-structured interviews with all participants of the lesson analysis meetings.

Findings
The findings are intended to position Kyouzai Kenkyuu as an important aspect of Japanese lesson study and to make explicit the beliefs and values that underpin and shape pedagogical reasoning that support researchers and practitioners to improve the quality of teaching through lesson study. This was achieved through post-lesson discussion meetings, and the beliefs and values were those the participants were largely unaware of but could be clarified through a cross-cultural comparison. For instance, Japanese teachers focus more on learners and the study of teaching materials for raising the quality of teaching, whereas Iranian teachers focus more on the content of teaching and teacher behavior.

Research limitations/implications
This study delivers a transnational learning opportunity for teachers and researchers to learn how to provide evidence-based analysis of a lesson to raise the quality of teaching. However, as this is a case study and focuses specifically on Kyouzai Kenkyuu, it opens up the possibility for comparative analysis of more sample lessons and other aspects of Japanese lesson study.

Practical implications
It may be interesting for teachers and researchers to see how such a study could help them revise their quality of teaching through lesson study and construct shared knowledge about how to teach and to clarify “the pedagogical theories” that underpin such knowledge building.

Social implications
The value of this study is in its ability to reveal to educators their own unconscious teaching script and knowledge and “the pedagogical theories” that underpin such knowledge. It provides an opportunity for evidence-based critiques of our own teaching script, theory, view and values that we accept culturally, share tacitly and may not even be aware of in the construction process.

Originality/value
This study combines careful measurement with an “insider’s perspective” from Iran and an “outsider’s perspective” from Japan of differing educational concepts within the same subject area. The objective is to provide a deeper understanding of the real world of lesson study and how it can help educators to construct shared knowledge about how to teach in practice and to support teachers to revise the cultural context of teaching.
Pedagogical potentialities of lesson study for the reconstruction of teachers’ dispositions
Authors: Peña Trapero Noemi , Pérez Gómez Ángel I. 
Published: January 2017

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to show the relationship between lesson study (LS) and the reconstruction of teacher dispositions (practical knowledge).

Design/methodology/approach
This work consists of an exhaustive qualitative study, analysis and interpretation of the practical knowledge of an infant school teacher before and after her participation in a training process based on LS.

Findings
This work offers a response to this resistance to change and to progress in education. It demonstrates the potentiality of LS for the transformation of schools in the twenty-first century and the construction of a reflected, shared, emerging pedagogical capital for teachers.

Originality/value
The analysis focusses on practical knowledge (knowledge-in-action, (Schön, 1998); implicit theories (Pozo, 2006; Marrero, 2009); phronesis (Kinsella and Pitman, 2012); tacit knowledge (Contreras and Pérez de Lara, 2010)) because in accordance with the latest theories deriving from cognitive neuroscience, most of the resources the authors use in their action come from unconscious mechanisms. Hence, the procedures and mechanisms of qualitative research have been used to carry out in-depth analysis through prolonged daily observation of practice under a series of previously established dimensions (knowledge, skills, attitudes, values and emotions).
Communicating sustainability: student perceptions of a behavior change campaign
Authors: Godfrey D. Matthew , Feng Patrick 
Published: January 2017

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the impacts of a science-based environmental communication campaign at a university dining hall. The impacts are assessed in terms of student attitudes toward sustainability, food consumption choices and perceptions and understanding of the campaign and the information it communicated.Design/methodology/approachA communication campaign was designed to convey the water footprint of food entrées available at a university dining hall. This campaign was tested during a three-week field experiment in which students at the dining hall were exposed to information about the sustainability of their food. To measure behavior and attitude change, sales and production data were collected before, during and after the campaign, and pre- and post-test surveys were administered. To better understand perceptions, the authors conducted in-depth interviews with undergraduate students who frequented the dining hall.FindingsConsumption patterns did not change significantly as a result of the campaign, and students’ attitude scores actually became slightly less positive toward choosing low water footprint foods. Interview data helped explain these results by showing that the ability and desire of students to choose sustainable food were overwhelmed by convenience and time pressures; other food attributes often outweighed sustainability; limited food source information could not verify the benefits of sustainable food; and the science of water footprints was disconnected from students’ subjective concepts of sustainability.Originality/valueThis paper empirically examines how students understand and interpret an environmental change campaign focused on sustainable food. It addresses an important gap in the literature by augmenting experimental and survey results with in-depth interview data, which help explain the often ineffective outcomes of behavior change campaigns. The research was conducted in the novel setting of a university dining hall.
University’s multi-scale initiatives for redefining city development
Authors: Ratajczyk Natalia , Wagner Iwona , Wolanska-Kaminska Agnieszka , Jurczak Tomasz , Zalewski Maciej 
Published: January 2017

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present the varied roles played by the University of Lódz (UL) in maintaining and restoring the natural capital of a city as a driver for sustainable city development. The higher education institution can be perceived as visionary, originator and executor of natural capital projects.

Design/methodology/approach
The paper analyses three cases performed by the Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection, UL, in the city of Lódz. The activities are based on different scales ranging from city-wide to local, e.g. river and green infrastructure, and which vary in character from policy planning to implementation.

Findings
Natural capital projects influence city development on different levels: by the initiation of legal protection, by the implementation of rehabilitation concepts for rivers and by influencing the strategic documents for mid-term and long-term urban development.

Originality/value
The university has the potential for multidisciplinary engagement in the development of urban sustainability. In large-scale projects, academics play a more conceptual role, in capacity building and knowledge transfer, while in local-scale implementations, their role includes innovation, know-how and technology transfer. Moreover, it may act as a reinforcement hub, by safeguarding and strengthening the natural capital of the city.
Identifying critical HR practices impacting employee perception and commitment during organizational change
Authors: Maheshwari Shweta , Vohra Veena 
Published: January 2017

Purpose– Prior research in the area of organizational change highlights the critical role played by HR practices during organizational change as it may require altering employee behavior to support the change direction. human resource (HR) function is considered to be well positioned to influence employee behavior by institutionalizing HR practices that support change. Further there is a significant body of literature that suggests that employee behavior is significantly influenced by the perceptions of HR practices during change. HR practices which create positive employee perceptions increase employee commitment to change. The purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework that identifies critical HR practices that support organizational change and examines their impact on employee perception and commitment to change.Design/methodology/approach– First, an extensive literature review on organizational change at macro level has been done to identify critical practices desired from key organizational members during organizational change. Second, a case for importance of HR function as a key organizational member during change is presented. Further literature on effectiveness of HR practices adopted by HR professionals during organizational change is examined to find out the gap areas. Third, literature on employee perception and commitment to change is examined to find out possible linkages to HR practices during organizational change. Finally, eight propositions are presented to build an integrated conceptual framework identifying critical HR practices during organizational change and their impact on employee perception and commitment to change.Findings– The study suggests that HR practices undertaken in the area of culture, leadership, cross functional integration, training, communication and technology if introduced and implemented will positively influence employee perception reducing resistance and increasing commitment to change. Therefore assessing employee perception about critical HR practices at different stages of change initiation, implementation and consolidation can enable understanding about employee commitment to change. This would also help HR professionals understand how effective the HR practices implemented during change have been.Originality/value– This framework can be used by the researchers and practitioners to study, guide, frame and model empirical research into the area of studying critical HR practices during organizational change. So far literature provides a generic view of desired organizational practices during change. Moreover there are few studies available on employee perception about HR practices implemented during organizational change and its impact on employee commitment to change. The framework presented in this paper would help explore the effectiveness of specific HR practices implemented during change by evaluating its impact on employee perception and commitment to change.
Crossing disciplinary, epistemological and conceptual boundaries in search of better cultural sense-making tools
Authors: Patel Taran 
Published: January 2017

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to compare three cultural approaches from anthropology and business literature: National Culture Approach (NCA), Corporate Culture Approach (CCA), and Transactional Culture Approach (TCA). The author grounds these approaches in different epistemological standpoints and locate them at different positions on the unity-infinity continuum. The author outlines their strengths and weaknesses, and offer the Douglasian Cultural Framework (DCF) as a transactional tool for cultural sense-making.Design/methodology/approach– Reviewing conventional NCA/CCA frameworks reveals that while their simplicity renders them attractive to users, their assumption of stable, internally homogenous and coherent cultures has its limitations. Conversely, reviewing anthropology-based TCA literature reveals that while TCA overcomes some limitations of NCA/CCA frameworks, it also has its weaknesses – it overemphasizes “self-interest” as the preferred form of rationality, and some TCA scholars render cultural comparisons impossible by supporting cultural infinity. Finally, examining DCF reveals that it overcomes some limitations of NCA/CCA frameworks, while simultaneously advancing TCA. Nevertheless, DCF too has limitations which are also exposed.Findings– Most NCA/CCA scholars support the “unity” argument of culture, while some transactional scholars support the “infinity” argument. DCF finds a perfect balance between the two through “constrained relativism”. Also, since DCF focuses on human transactions, it is not limited in its applications to specific levels and scales. It can therefore be applied to scenarios spanning across levels and scales. Finally, it offers a compromise between the differentiation and fragmentation perspectives of corporate culture, and brings out the best of the interpretivist and post-modernistic traditions.Research limitations/implications– The exposition of DCF opens up new avenues for research which have hitherto remained unexplored for want of appropriate frameworks, for instance the UN Peace Corps., NATO, Medecins Sans Frontiers, etc.Originality/value– By focusing on human transactions, the paper allows for a much more dynamic conceptualization of culture as compared to static NCA/CCA frameworks.
Quiet unintended transitions? Neo-Durkheimian explanation of institutional change
Authors: 6 Perri 
Published: January 2017

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to resolve a puzzle in the explanation of organisational change, where change appears to be within-form but results unintendedly in a transition between forms, yet first appearances suggest the absence of “noise” of the kind expected during shifts between forms.Design/methodology/approach– The paper uses qualitative analysis of primary archival and secondary sources on an historical case, analysing the data by coding using categories derived from neo-Durkheimian institutional theory. It examines the case of the cabinet, treated as an organisation, in the British government led by premier Harold Macmillan between 1959 and 1963, when a strategy for increasing hierarchy resulted unintendedly in an isolation dynamic.Findings– It demonstrates that the neo-Durkheimian institutional approach can explain such puzzling cases. Appropriately for a special issue in honour of Mars’ work, it shows that his method of following rule violation and an adapted version of his concept of capture can provide a method of causal process tracing and a causal mechanism for resolving the puzzle.Research limitations/implications– The argument is presented for purposes of theory development, not testing. It examines a single case study in depth.Social implications– The findings demonstrate some of the risks which arise in changing informal institutional ordering, especially within decision-making executives, from the process by which informal institutions shape styles of judgement and decisions driven by those styles then feed back upon those executive bodies.Originality/value– This is the first examination of puzzling unintended between-form transitions, the first to propose an adaptation of Mars’ concept of capture to resolve such puzzles and the first detailed causal process tracing analysis of such a case using neo-Durkheimian institutional theoretic tools. It therefore offers a significant advance in institutional explanation of organisational change.
A Set of Handwriting Features for Use in Automated Writer Identification,
Authors: Miller John J. , Patterson Robert Bradley , Gantz Donald T. , Saunders Christopher P. , Walch Mark A. , Buscaglia JoAnn 
Published: January 2017

AbstractA writer's biometric identity can be characterized through the distribution of physical feature measurements (“writer's profile”); a graph‐based system that facilitates the quantification of these features is described. To accomplish this quantification, handwriting is segmented into basic graphical forms (“graphemes”), which are “skeletonized” to yield the graphical topology of the handwritten segment. The graph‐based matching algorithm compares the graphemes first by their graphical topology and then by their geometric features. Graphs derived from known writers can be compared against graphs extracted from unknown writings. The process is computationally intensive and relies heavily upon statistical pattern recognition algorithms. This article focuses on the quantification of these physical features and the construction of the associated pattern recognition methods for using the features to discriminate among writers. The graph‐based system described in this article has been implemented in a highly accurate and approximately language‐independent biometric recognition system of writers of cursive documents.
An assessment of conflict areas between alien and native species richness of terrestrial vertebrates on a macro‐ecological scale in a Mediterranean hotspot
Authors: Carpio A. J. , Barasona J. A. , Guerrero‐Casado J. , Oteros J. , Tortosa F. S. , Acevedo P. 
Published: January 2017

AbstractUnderstanding how the diversity of invasive species is geographically distributed and identifying the major drivers of that pattern is a relevant challenge as regards invasion biology. The aim of this paper was, therefore, to identify and characterize those areas colonized by a high number of alien species as a means to provide directional indications that can be used to minimize the potential negative effects that the alien species may have on host ecosystems. This is done by applying spatially explicit predictive modeling in order to explain the diversity of vertebrate alien species in Spain. The relative importance of the different factors was assessed using variation partitioning. Our results showed that the main factor as regards predicting the distribution of alien species was the anthropogenic variable, and that this was followed by abiotic variables. The other significant predictor of alien species was the number of native species, which had a positive relationship with the number of alien species. This accord with the ‘the rich get richer’ acceptance hypothesis, which predicts a higher number of alien species in areas with high native species diversity. In this study, we detected actual conflict areas (ACAs), which have high‐medium values for the number of both native and alien species. Many of the ACAs identified some overlap with protected areas, which further aggravate the problem as these areas are often the home to endangered species which may be adversely affected by the emergence of alien species. This signifies that eradication, control or mitigation programs should be carried out to reduce the undesirable impact of alien species in these areas. However, other areas of conflict also appeared in unprotected areas near to big cities, where monitoring and preventive measures are necessary to avoid the release of new species and their subsequent spread.
Opposite Modulatory Effects of Selective and Non‐Selective Cyclooxygenase Inhibition on Cardiovascular and Autonomic Consequences of Cyclosporine in Female Rats
Authors: Ibrahim Karim S. , El‐Yazbi Ahmed F. , El‐Gowelli Hanan M. , El‐Mas Mahmoud M. 
Published: January 2017

AbstractNon‐steroidal anti‐inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and the immunosuppressant drug cyclosporine (CSA) are concurrently administered in arthritis. Here, we investigated whether diclofenac (non‐selective inhibitor of cyclooxygenase‐1 and 2, COX‐1/COX‐2), celecoxib (selective COX‐2 inhibitor) or SC560 (selective COX‐1 inhibitor) interact variably with haemodynamic effects of CSA in conscious female rats. Changes caused by CSA (10 mg/kg i.v.) in blood pressure (BP), heart rate (HR), HR variability (HRV) and myocardial contractility were assessed in the absence and presence of individual NSAIDs (10 mg/kg each). Compared with vehicle values, CSA caused immediate and sustained (i) increases in BP and decreases in pulse pressure index (PPI) and HR, (ii) elevations in left ventricular (LV) contractility (dP/dtmax) and isovolumic relaxation constant (Τau) and (iii) increases in the time‐ and frequency‐domain indices of HRV and shifted the cardiac sympathovagal balance towards parasympathetic dominance. CSA hypertension was abolished in rats pre‐treated with celecoxib and intensified in the presence of diclofenac or SC560. Alternatively, the CSA‐evoked decreases in PPI, increases in HRV indices and cardiac parasympathetic dominance were blunted by celecoxib in contrast to no effect for diclofenac or SC560. Similarly, celecoxib, but not other NSAIDs, eliminated the elevated LV contractility (dP/dtmax) and isovolumic relaxation constant (Τau, τ), which reflect cardiac systolic and diastolic function, respectively, that accompanied the CSA‐induced pressure load. The data underscore the preferential capacity of selective COX‐2 inhibition by celecoxib to mitigate CSA hypertension and consequent alterations in cardiac performance and autonomic balance. By contrast, CSA effects are preserved or even exacerbated after COX‐1 inhibition.
A new energy‐based method to evaluate low‐cycle fatigue damage of AISI H11 at elevated temperature
Authors: Du W , Luo Y , Wang Y , Chen S , Yu D 
Published: January 2017

AbstractAISI H11 (X38CrMoV5‐1) hot‐work tool steel is widely used for making extrusion tools because of its good mechanical properties at high temperature and moderate cost. To predict its lifetime, an energy conservation‐based model was proposed in this paper by introducing the damage rate, which is expressed as the product of damage force and plastic strain rate. The strain‐controlled low‐cycle fatigue tests were conducted to obtain the parameters of the proposed model, while the stress‐controlled low‐cycle fatigue tests were used to validate the proposed model. The results demonstrate that the proposed model is accurate and reliable. Furthermore, the local misorientation was investigated by electron backscatter diffraction to analyse the correlation between the microstructure evolution and the cyclic behaviour, and crack propagation behaviour was identified.
Exploring the Double‐Sided Effect of Information Asymmetry and Uncertainty in Mergers and Acquisitions
Authors: Luypaert Mathieu , Van Caneghem Tom 
Published: January 2017

AbstractWe examine the joint effect of bidder and target information asymmetry and uncertainty on the payment consideration and subsequent wealth effects in a large sample of acquisitions with both listed and private targets. In line with a risk‐sharing argument, we find that acquisitions of targets characterized by higher uncertainty are more likely to be settled with stock. In contrast, higher target information asymmetry increases the likelihood of a cash payment, consistent with bidders strategically exploiting superior information. Acquirers of more opaque targets obtain a larger fraction of total acquisition gains and avoid sharing these gains with target shareholders by offering cash.