How Do Personality Traits Affect Construction Dispute Negotiation? Study of Big Five Personality Model

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by the American Society of Civil Engineers in the Journal of Construction Engineering and Management. August 2010. This material may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the American Society of Civil Engineers. This material may be found at https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0000271Publishe

The contemporary role of guanxi in Chinese entrepreneurship.

This thesis explores the contemporary role of guanxi in Chinese entrepreneurship. Although previous research has considered the subject of guanxi and Chinese entrepreneurship, this study aims at providing a deeper and richer understanding of its roles and nature. The study focuses on the relationship between guanxi and Chinese entrepreneurs and specifically deals with the question, Has the importance of guanxi been diminishing in Chinese entrepreneurship? In order to deepen the understanding of guanxi, its nature, characteristics, benefits, advantages, disadvantages, process and applications are explored. Furthermore, as there are many commonalities between networking and guanxi, the study also distinguishes the differences between the two subject matters. In many aspects, it is important to understand the attitude and behaviour of Chinese entrepreneurs. As Chinese entrepreneurs are affected by traditional Chinese heritage, the study also uses different approaches to explain the difference between western and eastern entrepreneurship. The specific qualitative and quantitative technique used for data generation is the adoption of case studies, surveys and telephone interviews. A total of two in-depth case studies, two surveys and thirty telephone interviews have been conducted. From these findings, respondents and interviewees expressed their view points on how guanxi related to their businesses. The findings are used to identify the relationship between guanxi and modern Chinese entrepreneurs, the changing nature of guanxi, and in turn how the changing business environment affects guanxi. The findings from this study conclude that although guanxi is important in China, it is only a tool to implement business strategies but never a substitution, and its importance has been diminishing in Chinese entrepreneurship

Sharing and Access Right Delegation for Confidential Documents: A Practical Solution

This paper addresses a practical problem in Document Management Systems for which no existing solution is available in the market. To store confidential documents in a Document Management System, a common approach is to keep only the encrypted version of the documents to ensure the confidentiality of the contents. However, how to share these encrypted documents and how to delegate the access rights of these documents are not straightforward while these operations are common in most companies. In this paper, we discuss the issues related to this problem and provide a practical and easy-to-implement solution for solving the problem. Our solution has been shown to be feasible by a prototype implementation. We also show how to extend our solution to take advantage of the hierarchical structure of a company to make it more scalable. As a remark, this problem was initiated by a local company based on its actual needs to fulfil a set of business objectives and requirements

Streamlines for Motion Planning in Underwater Currents

Motion planning for underwater vehicles must consider the effect of ocean currents. We present an efficient method to compute reachability and cost between sample points in sampling-based motion planning that supports long-range planning over hundreds of kilometres in complicated flows. The idea is to search a reduced space of control inputs that consists of stream functions whose level sets, or streamlines, optimally connect two given points. Such stream functions are generated by superimposing a control input onto the underlying current flow. A streamline represents the resulting path that a vehicle would follow as it is carried along by the current given that control input. We provide rigorous analysis that shows how our method avoids exhaustive search of the control space, and demonstrate simulated examples in complicated flows including a traversal along the east coast of Australia, using actual current predictions, between Sydney and Brisbane.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, accepted to IEEE ICRA 2019. Copyright 2019 IEE

Developing clinical practice guidelines for caries prevention and management for pre-school children through the ADAPTE process and Delphi consensus

Background This study aims to develop consensus evidence-based clinical guidelines for caries prevention and management by caries risk assessment for pre-school children in Hong Kong. Methods Employing the ADAPTE process, guidelines for caries prevention and management by caries risk assessment for pre-school children with a preliminary list of 91 recommendations was complied. External review of the guidelines was conducted by a panel of 41 reviewers from the Hong Kong Society of Paediatric Dentistry using a two-round web-based Delphi process. The reviewers were invited to contribute any comments on the draft-adapted guidelines and rated their agreement with each recommendation using a 9-point Likert scale. During the second round, 36 participants received anonymous feedback from the first round and assessed a narrowed list of 28 recommendations. Recommendations were retained and classified according to the median score and rating percentages by the reviewers. Results A total of 70 out of 91 recommendations were retained (five reached high consensus, 65 reached consensus), and 21 recommendations were discarded. Recommendations and guidelines were outlined. Conclusions Caries prevention and management guidelines for pre-school children were developed for use in Hong Kong using the ADAPTE process and Delphi consensus to develop evidence-based recommendations. This can facilitate the translation of guidelines into dental practice.published_or_final_versio

Evaluating the impact of caries prevention and management by caries risk assessment guidelines on clinical practice in a dental teaching hospital

Background Clinical practice guidelines on ‘Dental caries prevention and management by caries risk assessment for pre-school children in Hong Kong’ were developed using ADAPTE process and Delphi consensus technique. This study aimed to evaluate the feasibility of disseminating and implementing the guidelines, and to evaluate their effectiveness in changing clinical practice. Methods The study was conducted in two phases, examining clinical records of pre-school aged patients being treated by non-academic clinical staff in the Paediatric Dentistry Clinic of a dental teaching hospital in Hong Kong. The clinical guidelines were introduced to the staff in a departmental seminar at the end of pre-intervention phase. Post-intervention phase began one month after the introduction of guidelines. Clinical records for three consecutive months were reviewed against standards and recommendations derived from the newly developed clinical guidelines in both phases. The results were assessed by Chi-square test, ANOVA and regression analyses. Results A total of 237 and 147 clinical records were reviewed in pre-intervention and post-intervention phases, respectively. Guideline adherence percentage increased significantly on almost all aspects of the guidelines in the post-intervention phase (P < 0.05). There were a significant difference in the mean overall guideline adherence score (pre-intervention phase: x⎯⎯⎯x¯ = 14.86 ± 6.11; post-intervention phase: x⎯⎯⎯x¯ = 28.88 ± 8.75) and sub-domain adherence scores between the two phases (P < 0.001). The training grade of the clinicians was the factor associated with changes in evidence-based practice (P < 0.001). Conclusions The developed guidelines were effective in translating evidence into best practice. The findings have implication for widespread implementation.published_or_final_versio

Stationary localized states due to nonlinear impurities described by the modified discrete nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation

The modified discrete nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation is used to study the formation of stationary localized states in a one-dimensional lattice with a single impurity and an asymmetric dimer impurity. A periodically modulated and a perfectly nonlinear chain is also considered. Phase diagrams of localized states for all systems are presented. From the mean square displacement calculation, it is found that all states are not localized even though the system comprises random nonlinear site energies. Stability of the states is discussed.Comment: Six pages including five figure

From tradition to modern: attitudes and applications of guanxi in Chinese entrepreneurship.

Purpose - This article aims to examine one aspect of Chinese culture, guanxi. Guanxi, "special relationships" has long been employed to facilitate business in China. The authors ask whether this is likely to continue in the rapidly changing environment. China's long history of insularity has created a culture and business environment considered to be uniquely based on Confucian values. Yet in the last couple of decades China has opened its doors to globalisation. These forces, in conjunction with what many see as Confucian dynamism of Chinese entrepreneurship, have generated economic growth levels in excess of 11 per cent per annum. This blending of the old and the new raises questions about how practices may be changing. Design/methodology/approach - The authors employed a survey of two groups; middle managers in Hong Kong and young middle class in mainland China. These groups represent the modern, Hong Kong as westernised; the old, but with new perspectives, the affluent middle classes of present day China. Open-ended questions about perceptions of understanding and use of guanxi were asked. Findings - The research finds many contrasts between the respondent groups. The Hong Kong respondents did not really understand guanxi, but still thought it important in China. The mainland group both understood and used guanxi, but similarly to the Hong Kong group, did not like it or enjoy its use. Both groups saw a diminishing application of guanxi as China's regulatory and market environment improves. Originality/value - The paper establishes that guanxi persists and may remain essential in China. However guanxi will work in conjunction with markets and regulations, rather than as a replacement

Oral health of Hong Kong children: a historical and epidemiological perspective

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