Emergency relief vent sizing for fire emergencies involving liquid-filled atmospheric storage vessels

For large atmospheric vessels the potential occurrence of sufficient liquid swell resulting in two-phase flow is of special importance. Based upon an extension of analytical work it would appear justifiable to ignore two-phase flow effects for non-foamy systems.     

Productivity of Singapore's Manufacturing Sector: An Industry Level Non-Parametric Study

This paper seeks to measure and to explain the productivity of Singapore's manufacturing sector using industry level data. It utilises a non-parametric approach consisting of a set of production distance functions, each of which is obtained by solving a linear programming problem. From a time-series of 1983 to 1993, across thirty industries, we obtain three indices: a Malmquist total factor productivity (TFP) index, an efficiency change index, and a technological change index. The resulting TFP growth stands at 4.6% per annum, considerably greater than previous estimates using aggregate country level data. Three-stage least squares are then applied to the pooled data. Foreign ownership and labour quality are found to have important impact on TFP growth.     

Does Service Employee Arrogance Discourage Sales of Luxury Brands in Emerging Economies?

Upscalex stores selling luxury brands from Western, developed countries are having a strong presence in many emerging markets. However, it is not uncommon to find that the service employees of these stores are arrogant and inhospitable. This article uses a dual attitudes perspective to show how service employee arrogance affects customers’ attitudes and purchase intentions toward luxury brands in emerging markets. Experimental findings show that arrogance produces dual attitudes, with positive implicit attitudes exerting a stronger influence than unfavorable explicit attitudes on purchase intentions. In addition, for customers with high self‐esteem, service employee arrogance has a negative effect on their purchase intentions. In line with the expectation disconfirmation model, when service employees change their arrogant attitudes and subsequently show hospitality, customers also change their expectations. When the improved service exceeds customers’ expectations, their explicit attitudes turn positive and exert a stronger influence on purchase intentions than when service employees are consistently hospitable.     

Relating International Trade to the Housing Market

Studies of tariffs have tended to ignore their impact on housing markets. This paper builds a simple dynamic general-equilibrium model to bridge the gap. The model is consistent with empirical findings that housing prices in several small open economies, and the price of nontradeables relative to tradeables, have increased over time. The model also allows closed-form solutions of the elasticity of the economic growth rate, the housing-stock growth rate, and the housing-price growth rate, with respect to the tariff rate. Other testable implications are generated.     

Technology Choice and Saving in the Presence of a Fixed Adoption Cost

This paper explores the relationship between technology choice and saving in the presence of fixed costs of technology adoption. While richer agents adopt the more productive technology immediately it is available, poorer agents optimally choose to wait before switching to the better technology. In the interim, they save more than others and more than in the absence of the prospect of switching to the new technology. The paper thus provides an explanation for the phenomenon that the saving rate and the growth rate of output increase over time in the transition.     

Assessment for Learning: Using Solo Taxonomy to Measure Design Performance of Design & Technology Students

One objective of Design &; Technology (D&;T) is to enable students to be inventive in designing practical solutions to problems. D&;T is viewed as being successful when students can demonstrate the ability to recognize problems, undertake inquiries by themselves, and contribute ideas accordingly. This article will discuss a study which investigated an alternative approach to assessing students’ design performances. In the study, a new item format was designed and a new criterion framework of assessment based on Biggs’ SOLO Taxonomy was developed. The evidence from this study indicates strong face validity for the new approach which maps closely to the goals and purposes of learning D&;T.     

Extending the institutional environment: the impact of internal and external factors on the green behaviors of an individual

Similar to the adaptation and evolution of organizations, individual consumers must live and exist within similar environmental conditions. The research presented utilizes a quantitative study to examine a consumer’s environment and the subsequent impact on green behaviors. The results suggest that internal factors (i.e. interest, altruism, willingness to conduct research) are significant predictors of green behavior. An examination of the external factors (i.e. organizational influence, media influence, governmental influence) suggests that consumers face numerous outside influences and are unsure of whom to trust. A discussion of the theoretical implications, as well as the practical implications for boardrooms, is presented. Areas for future study and the limitations of the research are also identified.     

Marketing Asian places: Attracting investment,industry, and tourism to cities,states and nations

Macro Marketing of Places. By Philip Kotler, Michael Alan, Irving Rein and Donald H. Haider John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York ISBN: 0–471–47913–6     

Why passengers’ geo-demographic characteristics matter to airport marketing

Passengers’ preference and origin location data (home postcodes) can be extremely useful for marketing purposes, with the potential for more effective customer segmentation and targeting, yet traditional airport market research has often neglected these aspects. This paper utilises passenger survey data from the Gold Coast Airport in the state of Queensland, Australia, to perform a geo-demographic classification analysis in conjunction with census data. With geo-coded passenger preference data, the trip characteristics and airport decision preferences were cross-compared with demographic data with socio-economic variables. The results revealed distinctive contrasts in passenger origin location for short-haul domestic trips and long-haul international trips, in which passengers from afar are willing to travel longer distances to reach a second-tier airport to make use of cheaper airfares. One of the implications of this study is that low-cost carriers’ businesses (the airlines or the airports) should better target their customers by offering geographically targeted marketing.     

Corporate governance and firm value during a financial crisis

The main purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effects of management ownership and other corporate governance variables on Hong Kong firms’ stock performance following the onset of the Asian Financial Crisis (1997–98). Our results show that Hong Kong firms with a more concentrated management (executive board) ownership displayed better capital market performance during the 13-month period of the Crisis. We also find that firms with more equity ownership by non-executive directors, and in which the positions of CEO and board chairperson were occupied by the same individual experienced a smaller stock price decline. Our findings are consistent with the notion that there is a greater alignment of insiders with outside owners, rather than the expropriation by insiders who have the opportunity to divert value, for firms with higher levels of management ownership during an unexpected capital market crisis.