Finding design value in modern mundanity

This pictorial is a visual pondering of the potential hidden within the mundane aspects of everyday life. Grounded in the theoretical concepts of ‘design futuring’ and ‘undesign’, it is framed in a speculative context and seeks to propose avenues for thought within the design space. This paper is not a reflection of a design process, nor is it presenting new and novel concept designs. Instead, this paper combines visuals and literature to encourage the reader into a mode of theoretical and personal reflection on the open possibilities for the future of design - through the reimagining of the mundane.

A Shapley value analysis to coordinate the formation of procurement

In this paper we address the problem of forming procurement networks for items with value adding stages that are linearly arranged. Formation of such procurement networks involves a bottom-up assembly of complex production, assembly, and exchange relationships through supplier selection and contracting decisions. Recent research in supply chain management has emphasized that such decisions need to take into account the fact that suppliers and buyers are intelligent and rational agents who act strategically. In this paper, we view the problem of Procurement Network Formation (PNF) for multiple units of a single item as a cooperative game where agents cooperate to form a surplus maximizing procurement network and then share the surplus in a fair manner. We study the implications of using the Shapley value as a solution concept for forming such procurement networks. We also present a protocol, based on the extensive form game realization of the Shapley value, for forming these networks.

Sensitivity of Eigen Value to Damage and Its Identification

The reduction in natural frequencies,however small, of a civil engineering structure, is the first and the easiest method of estimating its impending damage. As a first level screening for health-monitoring, information on the frequency reduction of a few fundamentalmodes can be used to estimate the positions and the magnitude of damage in a smeared fashion. The paper presents the Eigen value sensitivity equations, derived from first-order perturbation technique, for typical infra-structural systems like a simply supported bridge girder, modelled as a beam, an endbearing pile, modelled as an axial rod and a simply supported plate as a continuum dynamic system. A discrete structure, like a building frame is solved for damage using Eigen-sensitivity derived by a computationalmodel. Lastly, neural network based damage identification is also demonstrated for a simply supported bridge beam, where the known-pairs of damage-frequency vector is used to train a neural network. The performance of these methods under the influence of measurement error is outlined. It is hoped that the developed method could be integrated in a typical infra-structural management program, such that magnitudes of damage and their positions can be obtained using acquired natural frequencies, synthesized from the excited/ambient vibration signatures.

Disclosures of social value creation and managing legitimacy: A case study of three global social enterprises

This study seeks to fill the gap in the existing literature by examining at how and whether disclosure of social value creation becomes a part of legitimation strategies of social enterprises. By using Suchman’s (1995) moral dimension of legitimacy theory this study sets out that three global social organizations, Grameen Bank, Charity Water, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, disclose social value creation as if they conform to expectations of the broader community. The study finds that there is an apparent disconnection between disclosure and actions by social enterprises. With references to few incidents highlighted in this study, social enterprises, use disclosures as their managerial efforts, rather than creating moral legitimacy. The notion of apparent disconnection between disclosure and real action by the case social enterprises is common with the notion of the motivation behind disclosure practices by corporations as captured in extant disclosure literature. The finding suggest that when an organisation (whether it is a corporation or a social enterprise) face legitimacy crisis, it appears to disclose good news than bad news questioning organizational moral legitimacy.

Adding value: Principals’ perceptions of the role of the teacher-librarian

This paper reports on a study into principals’ perceptions of the role of the teacher-librarian. Nine principals in Australia were interviewed about the role of the teacher-librarian and library in their school. The findings indicated a range of ways in which the teacher-librarian adds value to the school, including in their role as teacher, providing the principal with a broad perspective on the workings of the school, providing advice and ideas, and providing leadership in the use of information and communications technology (ICT) at the school. It also identified a number of personal qualities valued by principals.

Tendency toward crossover of the effective susceptibility exponent from its doubled Ising value to its doubled mean-field value near a double critical point

The critical behavior of osmotic susceptibility in an aqueous electrolyte mixture 1-propanol (1P)+water (W)+potassium chloride is reported. This mixture exhibits re-entrant phase transitions and has a nearly parabolic critical line with its apex representing a double critical point (DCP). The behavior of the susceptibility exponent is deduced from static light-scattering measurements, on approaching the lower critical solution temperatures (TL’s) along different experimental paths (by varying t) in the one-phase region. The light-scattering data analysis substantiates the existence of a nonmonotonic crossover behavior of the susceptibility exponent in this mixture. For the TL far away from the DCP, the effective susceptibility exponent γeff as a function of t displays a nonmonotonic crossover from its single limit three-dimensional (3D)-Ising value ( ∼ 1.24) toward its mean-field value with increase in t. While for that closest to the DCP, γeff displays a sharp, nonmonotonic crossover from its nearly doubled 3D-Ising value toward its nearly doubled mean-field value with increase in t. The renormalized Ising regime extends over a relatively larger t range for the TL closest to the DCP, and a trend toward shrinkage in the renormalized Ising regime is observed as TL shifts away from the DCP. Nevertheless, the crossover to the mean-field limit extends well beyond t>10−2 for the TL’s studied. The observed crossover behavior is attributed to the presence of strong ion-induced clustering in this mixture, as revealed by various structure probing techniques. As far as the critical behavior in complex or associating mixtures with special critical points (like the DCP) is concerned, our results indicate that the influence of the DCP on the critical behavior must be taken into account not only on the renormalization of the critical exponent but also on the range of the Ising regime, which can shrink with decrease in the influence of the DCP and with the extent of structuring in the system. The utility of the field variable tUL in analyzing re-entrant phase transitions is demonstrated. The effective susceptibility exponent as a function of tUL displays a nonmonotonic crossover from its asymptotic 3D-Ising value toward a value slightly lower than its nonasymptotic mean-field value of 1. This behavior in the nonasymptotic, high tUL region is interpreted in terms of the possibility of a nonmonotonic crossover to the mean-field value from lower values, as foreseen earlier in micellar systems.

The core and shapley value analysis for cooperative formation of procurement networks

Formation of high value procurement networks involves a bottom-up assembly of complex production, assembly, and exchange relationships through supplier selection and contracting decisions, where suppliers are intelligent and rational agents who act strategically. In this paper we address the problem of forming procurement networks for items with value adding stages that are linearly arranged We model the problem of Procurement Network Formation (PNF) for multiple units of a single item as a cooperative game where agents cooperate to form a surplus maximizing procurement network and then share the surplus in a stable and fair manner We first investigate the stability of such networks by examining the conditions under which the core of the game is non-empty. We then present a protocol, based on the extensive form game realization of the core, for forming such networks so that the resulting network is stable. We also mention a key result when the Shapley value is applied as a solution concept.

The determinants of fair value measurements of banks: International evidence

The purpose of this study is to investigate the accounting choice decisions of banks to employ Level 3 inputs in estimating the value of their financial assets and liabilities. Using a sample of 146 bank-year observations from 18 countries over 2009-2012, this study finds banks’ incentives to use Level 3 valuation inputs are associated with both firm-level and country-level determinants. At the firm-level, leverage, profitability (in term of net income), Tier 1 capital ratio, size and audit committee independence are associated with the percentage of Level 3 valuation inputs. At the country-level, economy development, legal region, legal enforcement and investor rights are also associated with the Level 3 classification choice. Lastly, ‘secrecy’, the proxy for culture dimensions and values, is found to be positively associated with the use of Level 3 valuation inputs. Altogether, these findings suggest that banks use the discretion available under Level 3 inputs opportunistically to avoid violating debt covenants limits, to increase earnings and manage their capital ratios. Results of this study also highlight that corporate governance quality at the firm-level (e.g. audit committee independence) and institutional features can constrain banks’ opportunistic behaviors in using the discretion available under Level 3 inputs. The results of this study have important implications for standard setters and contribute to the debate on the use of fair value accounting in an international context.

The determinants of fair value measurements of banks: International evidence

The purpose of this study is to investigate the accounting choice decisions of banks to employ Level 3 inputs in estimating the value of their financial assets and liabilities. Using a sample of 146 bank-year observations from 18 countries over 2009-2012, this study finds banks’ incentives to use Level 3 valuation inputs are associated with both firm-level and country-level determinants. At the firm-level, leverage, profitability (in term of net income), Tier 1 capital ratio, size and audit committee independence are associated with the percentage of Level 3 valuation inputs. At the country-level, economy development, legal region, legal enforcement and investor rights are also associated with the Level 3 classification choice. Lastly, ‘secrecy’, the proxy for culture dimensions and values, is found to be positively associated with the use of Level 3 valuation inputs. Altogether, these findings suggest that banks use the discretion available under Level 3 inputs opportunistically to avoid violating debt covenants limits, to increase earnings and manage their capital ratios. Results of this study also highlight that corporate governance quality at the firm-level (e.g. audit committee independence) and institutional features can constrain banks’ opportunistic behaviors in using the discretion available under Level 3 inputs. The results of this study have important implications for standard setters and contribute to the debate on the use of fair value accounting in an international context.

Corporate philanthropy, reputation risk management and shareholder value: A study of Australian corporate giving

This study examines the role of corporate philanthropy in the management of reputation risk and shareholder value of the top 100 ASX listed Australian firms for the three years 2011-2013. The results of this study demonstrate the business case for corporate philanthropy and hence encourage corporate philanthropy by showing increasing firms’ investment in corporate giving as a percentage of profit before tax, increases the likelihood of an increase in shareholder value. However, the proviso is that firms must also manage their reputation risk at the same time. There is a negative association between corporate giving and shareholder value (Tobin’s Q) which is mitigated by firms’ management of reputation. The economic significance of this result is that for every cent in the dollar the firm spends on corporate giving, Tobin’s Q will decrease by 0.413%. In contrast, if the firm increase their reputation by 1 point then Tobin’s Q will increase by 0.267%. Consequently, the interaction of corporate giving and reputation risk management is positively associated with shareholder value. These results are robust while controlling for potential endogeneity and reverse causality. This paper assists both academics and practitioners by demonstrating that the benefits of corporate philanthropy extend beyond a gesture to improve reputation or an attempt to increase financial performance, to a direct collaboration between all the factors where the benefits far outweigh the costs.

Boundary value problems for third-order nonlinear ordinary differential equations

In this paper, we describe how to analyze boundary value problems for third-order nonlinear ordinary differential equations over an infinite interval. Several physical problems of interest are governed by such systems. The seminumerical schemes described here offer some advantages over solutions obtained by using traditional methods such as finite differences, shooting method, etc. These techniques also reveal the analytic structure of the solution function. For illustrative purposes, several physical problems, mainly drawn from fluid mechanics, are considered; they clearly demonstrate the efficiency of the techniques presented here.

Simulation design in information systems research: example of studying it value cocreation with NK model

As an emerging research method that has showed promising potential in several research disciplines, simulation received relatively few attention in information systems research. This paper illustrates a framework for employing simulation to study IT value cocreation. Although previous studies identified factors driving IT value cocreation, its underlying process remains unclear. Simulation can address this limitation through exploring such underlying process with computational experiments. The simulation framework in this paper is based on an extended NK model. Agent-based modeling is employed as the theoretical basis for the NK model extensions.

Solution of MDPS using simulation-based value iteration

This article proposes a three-timescale simulation based algorithm for solution of infinite horizon Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). We assume a finite state space and discounted cost criterion and adopt the value iteration approach. An approximation of the Dynamic Programming operator T is applied to the value function iterates. This 'approximate' operator is implemented using three timescales, the slowest of which updates the value function iterates. On the middle timescale we perform a gradient search over the feasible action set of each state using Simultaneous Perturbation Stochastic Approximation (SPSA) gradient estimates, thus finding the minimizing action in T. On the fastest timescale, the 'critic' estimates, over which the gradient search is performed, are obtained. A sketch of convergence explaining the dynamics of the algorithm using associated ODEs is also presented. Numerical experiments on rate based flow control on a bottleneck node using a continuous-time queueing model are performed using the proposed algorithm. The results obtained are verified against classical value iteration where the feasible set is suitably discretized. Over such a discretized setting, a variant of the algorithm of [12] is compared and the proposed algorithm is found to converge faster.

Boundary value problems for third-order nonlinear ordinary differential equations

In this paper, we describe how to analyze boundary value problems for third-order nonlinear ordinary differential equations over an infinite interval. Several physical problems of interest are governed by such systems. The seminumerical schemes described here offer some advantages over solutions obtained by using traditional methods such as finite differences, shooting method, etc. These techniques also reveal the analytic structure of the solution function. For illustrative purposes, several physical problems, mainly drawn from fluid mechanics, are considered; they clearly demonstrate the efficiency of the techniques presented here.

Effect of boundary condition description on convergence of solution in a boundary-value problem

It is well known that the numerical accuracy of a series solution to a boundary-value problem by the direct method depends on the technique of approximate satisfaction of the boundary conditions and on the stage of truncation of the series. On the other hand, it does not appear to be generally recognized that, when the boundary conditions can be described in alternative equivalent forms, the convergence of the solution is significantly affected by the actual form in which they are stated. The importance of the last aspect is studied for three different techniques of computing the deflections of simply supported regular polygonal plates under uniform pressure. It is also shown that it is sometimes possible to modify the technique of analysis to make the accuracy independent of the description of the boundary conditions.