bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Effects of total quality management in local authorities
Authors: Psomas Evangelos , Vouzas Fotis , Bouranta Nancy , Tasiou Mary 
Published: March 2017

Purpose
The purpose of this study is to determine the main total quality management (TQM) factors adopted and the respective results achieved by local authorities – municipalities. Determining the degree to which TQM influences the respective results is also an aim of the present study.

Design/methodology/approach
A research study was designed to be carried out in Greek local authorities – municipalities, 125 of which were approached through interviews with chief executive officers (CEOs) based on a structured questionnaire. The TQM practices and results identified in the literature were used as measured variables of the questionnaire. Descriptive statistics and linear regression analyses were applied for the purpose of the study.

Findings
The TQM philosophy is not highly adopted by the Greek local authorities participating in the present study. Moreover, the Greek local authorities do not seem to derive significant TQM benefits. Finally, adopting TQM strongly and positively influences, first, operational and quality performance of the local authorities; second, citizen satisfaction and society results; and third, employee satisfaction.

Research limitations/implications
Subjective data were collected from the CEOs of a small sample of local authorities operating in a European Union country, under circumstances of financial crisis. Based on these limitations, future research studies are recommended.

Practical implications
Areas for improvement are identified for a local authority to develop a robust TQM model, approach business excellence and derive significant benefits.

Originality/value
This is the first research study in the field of TQM to be conducted at city-level administration in Greece.
Corporate reputation and reputation risk
Authors: Eckert Christian 
Published: March 2017

Purpose
The corporate reputation of a firm and reputation risk is becoming increasingly important because of the rise of social media and the ongoing globalization. While defining and measuring corporate reputation and reputation risk represent the first steps in corporate reputation (risk) management, there is no general agreement in defining and measuring these two terms. Hence, this paper aims to give an overview of the existing literature in this regard, discuss it with respect to the operability in corporate reputation (risk) management and, based on this, present a holistic and consistent approach to define and measure corporate reputation and reputation risk.

Design/methodology/approach
The paper gives an overview of the literature regarding definitions and measurement methods of corporate reputation and reputation risk. Moreover, it discusses such definitions and measurement methods with respect to the operability in corporate reputation (risk) management.

Findings
Based on an overview of the literature regarding definitions and measurement methods of corporate reputation and reputation risk, the authors present a holistic and consistent approach to define and measure corporate reputation and reputation risk.

Originality/value
The authors present an holistic and consistent approach to define and measure corporate reputation and reputation risk with focus on (risk) management purposes.
Can mutual fund flows serve as market risk sentiment?
Authors: Chiu Hsin-Hui , Zhu Lu 
Published: March 2017

Purpose
This paper aims to examine the information content of mutual fund flows and its indication on investors’ preference/tolerance toward risk.

Design/methodology/approach
Mutual funds are grouped into different categories based on assets with different levels of risk perceptions (e.g. equity fund, money market fund), and this information is publicly accessible. This paper examines the correlation patterns between fund flows and changes in credit default swaps (CDS) spreads. In addition, it also examines such a relation by dividing the samples into different fund types (e.g. retail vs institutional fund flows).

Findings
This paper suggests that equity fund flows are negatively related to CDS spreads, whereas money market fund flows are positively related to CDS spreads. Furthermore, it indicates that retail fund flows provide insightful information and serve as the primary driver behind the relation between fund flows and CDS spreads.

Originality/value
The findings of this paper indicate that flows into equity and money market funds could serve as a risk sentiment in credit markets. And this is the first study, to the best of the author’s knowledge, to establish such a linkage between fund flows and CDS spreads to help investors gauge credit market sentiment.
Numerical analysis for force distribution along the swing jaw plate of a single toggle jaw crusher
Authors: Deepak B.B.V.L. , Bahubalendruni M.V.A. Raju 
Published: March 2017

Purpose
The purpose of this research work is helpful for recognizing the crushing characteristics of a single toggle jaw crusher during its operation. It is useful for designing a new prototype of this kind of machine with optimal dimensions of the jaw crusher frame and the crushing chamber.

Design/methodology/approach
The efficiency of the jaw crusher primarily depends on the kinematic characteristics of the swing jaw plate during the crushing process. The present research work deals with the kinematic analysis of the swing jaw plate of a single toggle jaw crusher.

Findings
During the analysis, the system is considered as a four-bar crank rocker mechanism. The force distribution is analyzed based on the results obtained from the motion analysis of the swing jaw plate.

Originality/value
The movement of the swing jaw plate is explained in detail while the machine is in operation. Kinematic analysis of the liner has been performed by considering some points along the swing jaw plate. The results obtained from the movement analysis of the swing jaw plate force distribution along the liner are analyzed. From this analysis, the chamber geometry can be optimized according to the requirement for the crushing motion of different zones in the crushing chamber.
An efficient architecture for carry select adder
Authors: Dhandapani Vaithiyanathan 
Published: March 2017

Purpose
Adders play a vital role in almost all digital designs, as all four arithmetic operations can be confined within addition. Hence, area and power optimization of the adders will result in overall circuit optimization. Being the fastest adder, the carry select adder (CSLA) gains higher importance among the different adder styles. However, it suffers from the drawback of increased power and area. The implementation of CSLA in digital circuits requires lots of study for optimization. Hence, to overcome this problem, various improvements were made to the CSLA structure to reduce area and, consequently, reduce power. Among these, modified CSLAs show a significant improvement, as they utilize a binary excess-1 code (BEC) to replace the add-one circuit.

Design/methodology/approach
This paper presents further enhancement in the modified CSLA by proposing a decision-based CSLA, which activates BEC on demand. This leads to reduced switching activity. The performance of the proposal is done by analyzing and comparing it with different adders. The comparison is done on the basis of three performance parameters: area, speed and power consumption. This is done by implementing the architecture on Xilinx Virtex5 XC5VLX30 in Verilog environment and is synthesized using Cadence® RTL Compiler® using TSMC 180-nm CMOS cell library.

Findings
Optimization of power, area and increasing the speed of operation are the three main areas of research in very-large-scale integration (VLSI) design for portable devices. As adders are the most fundamental units for any VLSI design, optimization at the adder level has a huge impact on the overall circuit. The modified CSLA has a BEC which continuously switches irrespective of the previous carry bit generated. The unwanted switching results in excess power consumption while also introducing additional delay. Hence, the author has proposed a decider circuit to avoid this excess switching activity. This allows switching of the BEC only when a previous carry is generated. The modified CSLA is based on the ripple carry adder, while the decider-based CSLA utilizes a carry look-ahead adder. This makes a decider-based CSLA faster while utilizing less area and power consumption when compared to the modified CSLA.

Originality/value
The efficiency of the proposed decider-based CSLA has been verified using Cadence RTL Compiler using TSMC 180-nm CMOS cell library and has been found to have 17 per cent power and 11.57 per cent area optimization when compared to the modified CSLA, while maintaining operating frequency.
Water hydraulic axial piston motor cavitation characteristics based on CFD technology
Authors: Yang Lijie , Yin Shuai , Niu Qingna 
Published: March 2017

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the cavitation characteristics of a water hydraulic axial piston motor (WHAPM) to improve the water motor performance, to reduce the vibration and noise and to prolong the service life of the motor.

Design/methodology/approach
The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software PumpLinx is chosen to do cavitation analysis of the WHAPM. In this case, first, cavitation mechanism of the water piston motor is analyzed in depth. Then, considering the effects of bubble dynamics, the rate of phase transition, turbulence effects and non-condensable gas, the full cavitation model is selected, the dynamic CFD numerical model of internal flow field on the water hydraulic piston motor is established based on PumpLinx software and the fluid cavitation inside is numerically studied. Finally, the influence of the valve plate and pistons on motor cavitation is analyzed.

Findings
Research results show that there are two serious cavitation regions: one is the pressure transition region of the valve plate that is near the top dead center, and the other is the low-pressure region of the piston that is near the low-pressure transition area. Moreover, the more serious cavitation area is on the valve plate region.

Originality/value
The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm is able to detect the cavitation characteristics of the water piston motor. Besides, it is deduced that valve-plate structure optimization is more important than pistons to reduce cavitation influence.
Review paper: Virtual sources and their responses, Part II: data‐driven single‐sided focusing
Authors: Wapenaar Kees , Thorbecke Jan , van der Neut Joost , Slob Evert , Snieder Roel 
Published: March 2017

ABSTRACTIn Part I of this paper, we defined a focusing wave field as the time reversal of an observed point‐source response. We showed that emitting a time‐reversed field from a closed boundary yields a focal spot that acts as an isotropic virtual source. However, when emitting the field from an open boundary, the virtual source is highly directional and significant artefacts occur related to multiple scattering. The aim of this paper is to discuss a focusing wave field, which, when emitted into the medium from an open boundary, yields an isotropic virtual source and does not give rise to artefacts. We start the discussion from a horizontally layered medium and introduce the single‐sided focusing wave field in an intuitive way as an inverse filter. Next, we discuss single‐sided focusing in two‐dimensional and three‐dimensional inhomogeneous media and support the discussion with mathematical derivations. The focusing functions needed for single‐sided focusing can be retrieved from the single‐sided reflection response and an estimate of the direct arrivals between the focal point and the accessible boundary. The focal spot, obtained with this single‐sided data‐driven focusing method, acts as an isotropic virtual source, similar to that obtained by emitting a time‐reversed point‐source response from a closed boundary.
Research Note: Near‐surface layer replacement for sparse data: is interpolation needed?
Authors: Sun Yimin , Verschuur Eric , Luo Yi 
Published: March 2017

ABSTRACTNear‐surface problem is a common challenge faced by land seismic data processing, where often, due to near‐surface anomalies, events of interest are obscured. One method to handle this challenge is near‐surface layer replacement, which is a wavefield reconstruction process based on downward wavefield extrapolation with the near‐surface velocity model and upward wavefield extrapolation with a replacement velocity model. This requires, in theory, that the original wavefield should be densely sampled. In reality, data acquisition is always sparse due to economic reasons, and as a result in the near‐surface layer replacement data interpolation should be resorted to. For datasets with near‐surface challenges, because of the complex event behaviour, a suitable interpolation scheme by itself is a challenging problem, and this, in turn, makes it difficult to carry out the near‐surface layer replacement. In this research note, we first point out that the final objective of the near‐surface layer replacement is not to obtain a newly reconstructed wavefield but to obtain a better final image. Next, based upon this finding, we propose a new thinking, interpolation‐free near‐surface layer replacement, which can handle complex datasets without any interpolation. Data volume expansion is the key idea, and with its help, the interpolation‐free near‐surface layer replacement is capable of preserving the valuable information of areas of interest in the original dataset. Two datasets, i.e., a two‐dimensional synthetic dataset and a three‐dimensional field dataset, are used to demonstrate this idea. One conclusion that can be drawn is that an attempt to interpolate data before layer replacement may deteriorate the final image after layer replacement, whereas interpolation‐free near‐surface layer replacement preserves all image details in the subsurface.
Seismic facies analysis through musical attributes
Authors: Amendola A. , Gabbriellini G. , Dell'Aversana P. , Marini A. J. 
Published: March 2017

ABSTRACTSeismic facies analysis is a well‐established technique in the workflow followed by seismic interpreters. Typically, huge volumes of seismic data are scanned to derive maps of interesting features and find particular patterns, correlating them with the subsurface lithology and the lateral changes in the reservoir. In this paper, we show how seismic facies analysis can be accomplished in an effective and complementary way to the usual one. Our idea is to translate the seismic data in the musical domain through a process called sonification, mainly based on a very accurate time–frequency analysis of the original seismic signals. From these sonified seismic data, we extract several original musical attributes for seismic facies analysis, and we show that they can capture and explain underlying stratigraphic and structural features. Moreover, we introduce a complete workflow for seismic facies analysis starting exclusively from musical attributes, based on state‐of‐the‐art machine learning computational techniques applied to the classification of the aforementioned musical attributes. We apply this workflow to two case studies: a sub‐salt two‐dimensional seismic section and a three‐dimensional seismic cube. Seismic facies analysis through musical attributes proves to be very useful in enhancing the interpretation of complicated structural features and in anticipating the presence of hydrocarbon‐bearing layers.
An alternative approach in establishing relation between vertical and horizontal gradients of 2D potential field
Authors: Roy Indrajit G. 
Published: March 2017

ABSTRACTThe relation in which the vertical and horizontal gradients of potential field data measured along a profile across a two‐dimensional source are a Hilbert transform pair is re‐established using complex domain mathematics. In addition, a relation between the measured field and its vertical gradient in terms of a closed‐form formula is also established. The formula is based on hypersingular or Hadamard's finite‐part integral. To estimate the vertical gradient directly from the field data, Linz's algorithm of computing Hadamard's finite‐part integral is implemented. Numerical experiments are conducted on synthetically generated total magnetic intensity data with a mild level of noise contamination. A model of a magnetically polarised vertical thin sheet buried at a finite depth within a non‐magnetic half‐space was considered in generating the synthetic response. The results from numerical experiments on the mildly noise‐contaminated synthetic response are compared with those from using classical Fourier and robust regularised Hilbert transform‐based techniques.
Urban development, land sharing and land sparing: the importance of considering restoration
Authors: Collas Lydia , Green Rhys E. , Ross Alexander , Wastell Josie H. , Balmford Andrew 
Published: March 2017

Summary

At present, there is limited knowledge of how best to reconcile urban development with biodiversity conservation, and in particular whether populations of wild species would be greater under low‐density housing (with larger gardens), or high‐density housing (allowing more area to be left as undeveloped green spaces). The land sharing/sparing framework – originally developed in the context of farming – can be applied to address this question.

We sampled the abundance of trees in the city of Cambridge, UK, along a gradient of human density. We designed different scenarios of urban growth to accommodate the human population predicted in 2031. For each scenario, we projected the future city‐wide tree population size and quantified its carbon sequestration potential. We also considered, for the first time in an urban sharing‐sparing context, the implications of habitat restoration on degraded urban green space.

We found that the density of most native and non‐native tree species is presently highest in areas of low human density, compared to both higher density areas and green space (which is largely maintained with few trees). However, restoring woodland in green spaces would lead to far greater densities of native trees than on any existing land use. Hence, provided >2% of green space is restored, native tree population sizes would be larger if urban growth followed a land‐sparing approach. Likewise, carbon sequestration would be maximised under land sparing coupled with restoration, but even so only a maximum of 2·5% of the city's annual greenhouse gas emissions could be offset.

Although both tree populations and carbon storage thus appear to benefit from land‐sparing development, the risk that this might widen the existing disconnect between people and nature must also be addressed – perhaps through a combination of adding housing in low‐density areas while ensuring these are in close proximity to high‐quality green space.

Synthesis and applications. In regions which have already been cleared of intact habitat, a combination of land‐sparing urban development with the restoration of green space could accommodate urban population growth whilst dramatically improving the existing status of local tree populations. Where cities are expanding into intact habitat, the merits of urban development by land sparing may be even more pronounced. Studies in such regions are urgently needed.
Phenological responsiveness to climate differs among four species of Quercus in North America
Authors: Gerst Katharine L. , Rossington Natalie L. , Mazer Susan J. 
Published: March 2017

Summary

The timing of the seasonal activity of organisms is a tractable indicator of climate change. Many studies in North America have investigated the role of temperature on the onset date of phenological transitions in temperate deciduous trees and found that the onset of leafing and flowering in numerous species has occurred earlier in recent years, apparently in response to higher temperatures in winter and spring.

Few studies have examined the climatic and biogeographic drivers of phenological responses in water‐limited ecosystems or explored interspecific variation in responses of phenological metrics other than the timing of onset, such as the periodicity or duration of phenological activity.

This study used phenological observations of four species of Quercus contributed to the USA National Phenology Network database from 2009 to 2014 to investigate how responses to climate (temperature and precipitation) and geographic location (latitude, longitude and elevation) varied among two western North American species (Q. agrifolia and Q. lobata) and two eastern and central North American species (Q. alba and Q. rubra).

Within years, in species in the western, water‐limited ecosystems, the phenological phases observed here (bud break, flowers or flower buds) tend to occur intermittently throughout the growing season, and each event is of longer duration than the same phenophases of the temperate‐zone species, rendering a single onset date an incomplete metric with which to track responsiveness or to compare species. By contrast, the eastern/central U.S. species were phenologically more responsive than the western species to spatial and temporal variation in winter, spring, and fall precipitation and maximum temperature.

Synthesis. Within and between regions these congeners exhibited a diversity of responses to seasonal temperature and precipitation. This indicates that for predictive model development it is critical to understand how each underlying driver influences species that are adapted to different climatic regimes. These results underscore the value of studying a range of phenological metrics and species from a variety of ecosystems to better predict phenological responses to short‐term variation and to long‐term change in climate.
Unbroken: RADseq remains a powerful tool for understanding the genetics of adaptation in natural populations
Authors: Catchen Julian M. , Hohenlohe Paul A. , Bernatchez Louis , Funk W. Chris , Andrews Kimberly R. , Allendorf Fred W. 
Published: March 2017

AbstractRecently, Lowry et al. addressed the ability of RADseq approaches to detect loci under selection in genome scans. While the authors raise important considerations, such as accounting for the extent of linkage disequilibrium in a study system, we strongly disagree with their overall view of the ability of RADseq to inform our understanding of the genetic basis of adaptation. The family of RADseq protocols has radically improved the field of population genomics, expanding by several orders of magnitude the number of markers available while substantially reducing the cost per marker. Researchers whose goal is to identify regions of the genome under selection must consider the LD of the experimental system; however, there is no magical LD cutoff below which researchers should refuse to use RADseq. Lowry et al. further made two major arguments: a theoretical argument that modeled the likelihood of detecting selective sweeps with RAD markers, and gross summaries based on an anecdotal collection of RAD studies. Unfortunately, their simulations were off by two orders of magnitude in the worst case, while their anecdotes merely showed that it is possible to get widely divergent densities of RAD tags for any particular experiment, either by design or due to experimental efficacy. We strongly argue that RADseq remains a powerful and efficient approach that provides sufficient marker density for studying selection in many natural populations. Given limited resources, we argue that researchers should consider a wide range of trade‐offs among genomic techniques, in light of their study question and the power of different techniques to answer it.