Bridging Concept Research Articles

Buffering and bridging under institutional complexity - A configurational approach towards CVC

Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) units are hybrid organizations facing multiple institutional demands and inconsistent organizational goals. By employing a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) of 23 CVC units, we empirically explore how these hybrids configure and design their organizational structure to respond to institutional complexity and sustain hybridity over time. We identify two contextual variables - maturity and strategic focus - that influence how these hybrid organizations organize for high strategic performance. We find that successful responses of organizations facing institutional complexity are multifaceted, dynamic, and change over time as strategy and stakeholder demands vary. We contribute to institutional theory by introducing the concept of buffering and bridging to explain how successful hybrid organizations distance themselves from the institutional logic they originate when they become more mature (buffering). At the same time, they increase their efforts to maintain connections to representatives of the logic they stem from (bridging).

The uncharted territory in Uncharted 3: expectancy vs. Professional norms in translated games

Game localization and translation have an intricate connection with global business and marketing operations, allowing these products to cross complex sociocultural and linguistic borders and reach players from a growing variety of territories (O’Hagan and Mangiron, 2013). Aware of the diversity of its target audience and the profit provided by the distribution of its products in these locales, the game industry has increasingly invested in localization and translation for its titles. Although this is still a relatively new strategy, game localization and translation already witness the impact of expectancy and professional norms (Chesterman, Memes of Translation, “Bridge Concepts in Translation Sociology”). This study aimed to investigate how these norms operate and converge by analyzing the game Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception and the comments made by players about its fully localized version in Brazilian Portuguese. The results obtained from the analysis of gameplay and comments shed light on the relationship between expectancy and professional norms across the agents involved in the localization and translation of this sort of materials, which allowed for a better understanding both of what Brazilian users expect from a translated game and of what is actually done according to the professional norms.

Entrepreneurial ecosystems as a bridging concept? A conceptual contribution to the debate on entrepreneurship and regional development

AbstractThis paper explores the potential of considering entrepreneurial ecosystems as a bridging concept that enables a trans‐disciplinary exchange. We aim to contribute to the debate by offering a perspective that takes entrepreneurial ecosystems out of their systemic—often geographically fixed—notion of administrative and territorial boundaries by offering a novel conceptual understanding of it. So far, entrepreneurial ecosystems are appreciated for first exhibiting conceptual strengths in terms of integrating entrepreneurs as economic actors (rather than firms as the smallest unit of analysis), and, second, considering entrepreneurship as a process that focuses on the co‐evolution of entrepreneurial activities and their institutional environment. Criticism of this concept arises on its simplification by translating social elements into entrepreneurial ecosystem terminologies and on focusing on quantifiable indicators for measuring and comparing regional ecosystems rather than appreciating the complexity and interrelatedness of qualitative dimensions and their temporal dynamics. Against this background, we first argue for expanding the debate on entrepreneurial ecosystems by paying particular attention to the spatial as well as to temporal dynamics of entrepreneurship and its environment. Second, we regard entrepreneurial ecosystems as a communicative bridge that enables a fruitful exchange between academic disciplines and practitioners rather than approaching the concept as a mono‐disciplinary theoretical framework.

Bayesian network-based vulnerability assessment of a large-scale bridge network using improved ORDER-II-Dijkstra algorithm

Vulnerability analysis has become a recent concern for bridge administration authorities. This paper presents a Bayesian network-based vulnerability evaluation methodology for a large-scale national highway (NH) bridge network, using the improved ORDER-II-Dijkstra algorithm. The NH bridge network consists of 1772 bridges, and includes their spatial locations, types, completion years, and assessment states. The network vulnerability was defined by combining edge failure and its influence on network connectivity. Using the equivalent bridge concept for simplicity, the edge failure probability was determined by a series system composed of all bridges in the same edge, where the failure probability for one bridge could be calculated by incorporating its assessment state and design load. The large-scale bridge network connectivity probability was approximately evaluated using the Bayesian network. To avoid the NP-hard problem, the ORDER-II algorithm evaluated the most probable state combinations of equivalent bridges, by adding or deleting ordered state combinations to the minimum heap. The improved Dijkstra’s algorithm was chosen to determine the network connectivity under each state combination by seeking the shortest paths between node pairs. The application of vulnerability to the bridge network illustrates the effectiveness and accuracy of this method, and can provide guidance for decision-making.

Tiered public spaces – a new step in the development of megacities

The paper analyzes aspects of the formation and development of the concept of public spaces. The classification of public spaces and their requirements are considered. The concept of a pedestrian bridge in the floodplain of the Tsaritsa river is proposed on the basis of generalization and analysis, applying the practice of developing level public spaces to the city of Volgograd, which is characterized by a complex terrain. The bridge will play an important role here. Its main function is communicative, since it could be used for the transition between the Central and Voroshilovsky districts of the city and, especially, for facilitating walks in the Park zone of the floodplain of the Tsaritsa river, since at the moment this zone is divided by the structures of the Volga children’s railway and therefore cannot be fully accessible and permeable space. A recreational function can also be implemented – the bridge will allow you to get into the garden, which can also be arranged on the roof of the Museum “Russia-my history” without climbing stairs, you can also place viewing platforms and a recreation area on the widths of the bridge. The bridge structure itself should become the dominant space that attracts visitors to the “Razdol’e” park.

Salt: Fragments from the History of a Medium

This essay explores histories of common salt, sodium chloride, using concepts and methods from media theory. It contributes to research on media and environment and the general ‘material turn’ taken across the Humanities. I conceive of salt as what Peters calls an ‘elemental’ medium so as to show, first, the imbrication of naturally-occurring substances in the operations and supply chains of digital culture. Second, the many lives salt has lived materially, in techniques of survival and exchange, and metaphorically, in cultural expression, complicate conventional understandings of media. In showing how salt performs three functions, processing, storage, and transfer, which Kittler ascribed to technical and symbolic media, I argue for a more expansive use of ‘mediation’ as a bridge concept that speaks to matters of nature and culture, Arts and Science, and to account for deep histories of extraction and economy that shape digital culture and global supply chains.

Exploring Cluster Changes in Students’ Knowledge Structures Throughout General Chemistry

Chemistry is traditionally perceived as difficult to comprehend. Its mastery requires that a variety of concepts be linked to form an organized knowledge system. The connections need to be made not only between the concepts associated with the macroscopic level of the chemistry triplet but also between the submicroscopic and symbolic levels. Many factors influence a learner’s success in bridging concepts between these levels. In this study, the aim was to identify and examine the changes in general chemistry students’ knowledge structures by utilizing Word Association Tests. Although many studies have examined knowledge structures and aspects of the chemistry triplet, almost none has considered both at the same time. This study highlights the interconnectedness between the chemistry triplet and changing knowledge structures in overall student populations and in high- and low-achieving students. It provides insights on why students fail to understand chemistry and suggests ideas for future research as limiting factors were noted.

Habitus as a value lens to link customer engagement and value cocreation

PurposeThis paper uses practice theory to strengthen the theoretical relationship between customer engagement (CE) and value cocreation (VCC), thereby demonstrating how customers may become engaged and remain engaged through VCC practices.Design/methodology/approachThe study adopts a problematization approach to identify shared assumptions evident in service-dominant logic (SDL) and CE research. Practice theory, as a higher-order perspective, is used to integrate the iterative and cyclical processes of VCC and CE, specifically through the theoretical mechanism of habitus.FindingsHabitus acts as a customer value lens and provides a bridging concept to demonstrate how VCC and CE are joined via sensemaking processes. These processes determine how customers perceive, assess, and evaluate value, how they become engaged through VCC, and how their experience of engagement may lead to further VCC practice. The temporally bound experiences, states, and episodes are accumulated and aggregated through an enduring customer value lens comprised of habituated dispositions, interests, and attitudes.Research limitations/implicationsThis work responds to calls for research to strengthen the theoretical link between VCC and CE and to take account of customers' lived realities and their contextualized experiences. A key suggestion for future research is the use of a rope metaphor to stimulate thinking about the complex, temporally unfolding, and interrelated processes of VCC and CE.Practical implicationsThe customer value lens and CE rope are introduced to simplify the complex, abstract, theoretical research on VCC and CE for a nonacademic audience. To understand how customers' value lenses are formed and change, and how a CE rope is strengthened, firms, service designers, and practitioners need to understand sensemaking processes through customer narratives and to use platforms and feedback to support and trigger sensemaking.Originality/valueThis paper provides a theoretical mechanism to explain the iterative and cyclical nature of VCC and CE processes and how accumulation and aggregation occur in these processes. In doing so, it demonstrates that CE occurs by virtue of, and is typified by, sensemaking processes that reproduce and shape a customer's habituated value lens, which perceives, assesses, and determines VCC and thus provides a basis for further customer engagement.

Design Concept Long Span Bridge with Floating Foundation

Indonesia is a maritime country where the sea area is larger than the land area and consists of a group of islands stretching from west to east. Inter-territorial accsebility can become faster and smoother by structur long span bridges. In the deep sea and tidy ground conditions allow use of pile foundatio, however the floating foundation is an option that can be taken. The purpose of this paper is to propose the concept of a long-span bridge floating foundation that is capable and stable to support the load or forces that work.

Enhancing systems thinking in corporate sustainability through a transdisciplinary research process

Sustainability is no longer a peripheral topic for most corporations, as they increasingly adopt more proactive business strategies. In spite of this, there has not been sufficient positive change in corporate practice and research indicates that our ecosystems are continuing to deteriorate at an alarming rate. In this study, we analyse the extent to which social-ecological systems (SES) thinking can be used as a bridging concept in transdisciplinary sustainability research, in order to improve corporate sustainability practices. We draw on a case study of the Business Forum in the Sustainable Market Actors for Responsible Trade (SMART) project. The data was collected from two workshops, semi-structured interviews with corporate representatives, and autoethnographic accounts. Our findings show that a successful transdisciplinary research process requires both significant interest and capacity to act on the part of corporate representatives. Enabling factors for such collaboration are mutual understanding of concepts and having sufficient time to invest in the collaboration. We suggest that risk management can be used as a conceptual metaphor to translate SES thinking in order to make it more relevant in the context of corporate practice. On this basis, we conclude that SES thinking indeed can be used as a bridging concept in transdisciplinary research collaboration for corporate sustainability.

Future Infrastructural Replacement Through the Smart Bridge Concept.

Most of the bridges and viaducts in the Netherlands were built in the sixties and seventies of the last century, and an increasing number of them will have to be replaced due to technical or functional reasons. The Netherlands is not an exception, many industrialized countries will face a similar replacement task in the near future. With the increased traffic intensities and the importance of mobility, the design and construction strategies for new bridges have to be different from that in the past. New methods need to ensure that traffic hindrance due to construction works and (future) maintenance activities are minimized. At the Delft University of Technology, a SMART bridge concept is being developed for fast and hindrance-free infrastructural replacement. The optimal advantage is achieved by utilizing innovative but proven technologies, and by bringing academic research into practice. A combination of recent innovations in construction technology, such as advanced cementitious materials (ACM), structural health monitoring (SHM) techniques, advanced design methods (ADM), and accelerated bridge construction (ABC) is being used. These innovations represent a step towards the next generation of infrastructure where fast construction, intelligent bridge design, sustainability, zero-energy, no/low maintenance, and aesthetics are key features.

Designing and 3-D Modelling of a Sustainable Cable Stayed Bridge-A Case Study

In the world of Civil Engineering, bridges are an example of structural art expressing how much the structures have evolved till present times. The concept and design of bridges has been evolved over the past years, having numerous amounts of different geometrical models and methods to construct bridges. As the development and innovation has reached so far, the concept of bridges has made a great impact on global infrastructure by creating sustainable, effective, and aesthetical bridges around the world. development of the finest aesthetical and sustainable designs for bridges which are known as Cable Stayed BridgesThe bridge form in which the weight of the deck is supported by a number of nearly straight diagonal cables in tension running directly to one or more vertical towers. The towers transfer the cable forces to the foundations through vertical compression. The tensile forces in the cables also put the deck into horizontal compression. Cable stayed bridges are the types of bridges those are best suited for connecting wide-span crossings. Construction of cable stayed bridge is widely promoted all over the world and construction of more than 600 cable stayed bridges are recorded till date. This type of bridge is preferred over any other type due to its possible construction to the indefinite length, availability of multiple design options with the possibility of symmetrical design and excellent strength. In this paper we shall discuss numerous case studies of the cable stayed bridges, compile all the beneficial data for most of the cable stayed bridges located in India.

Artificial Intelligence Pipeline to Bridge the Gap between Bench Researchers and Clinical Researchers in Precision Medicine.

Precision medicine informatics is a field of research that incorporates learning systems that generate new knowledge to improve individualized treatments using integrated data sets and models. Given the ever-increasing volumes of data that are relevant to patient care, artificial intelligence (AI) pipelines need to be a central component of such research to speed discovery. Applying AI methodology to complex multidisciplinary information retrieval can support efforts to discover bridging concepts within collaborating communities. This dovetails with precision medicine research, given the information rich multi-omic data that are used in precision medicine analysis pipelines. In this perspective article we define a prototype AI pipeline to facilitate discovering research connections between bioinformatics and clinical researchers. We propose building knowledge representations that are iteratively improved through AI and human-informed learning feedback loops supported through crowdsourcing. To illustrate this, we will explore the specific use case of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, a growing health care problem. We will examine AI pipeline construction and utilization in relation to bench-to-bedside bridging concepts with interconnecting knowledge representations applicable to bioinformatics researchers and clinicians.

Moving Images: Visual Metaphors of Peace in the Movie Mango Dreams

Visual metaphors stand at the border between text and image, as they are linguistic figures that visualize the spoken. Based on this assumption and on the existing knowledge on the discourse analytical method of metaphor analysis, Part One of the article develops a method of visual metaphor analysis (VMA). Part Two uses this method to examine the metaphors of peace found in the acclaimed movie Mango Dreams, the winner of the Peace on Earth Film Festival 2017. The film by John Upchurch tells a story of Dr. Amit Singh, whose family was killed by Muslims during the partition of India and who is suffering from the onset of dementia. In order to confront his fading memories and in pursuit of peace, he commences on a journey to his childhood home in what today is Pakistan. On his travel, he is aided by Muslim rickshaw driver Salim, whose wife was raped and murdered by Hindus. During the long journey across India in a rickshaw, the two form a close friendship and help each other find the peace they have been searching for. Based on our visual metaphor analysis (VMA) of the film, as well as an interview with the director, the article demonstrates how metaphors are employed to visualize a positive concept of peace, particularly HOME, JOURNEY, and BRIDGE, which has a specific temporal, spatial, and moral dimension. In contrast to much of the international relations research on visualization of peace and conflict, the conceptualizations of peace in Mango Dreams metaphorically envision positive peace, instead of the more familiar conceptualization of negative peace, through a representation of PEACE not only in terms of a place (HOME) or process (JOURNEY) but as practice (BRIDGE).

A numerical study on the influences of underlying soil and backfill characteristics on the dynamic behaviour of typical integral bridges

Abstract The identification of the dynamic behaviour of a structure is one of the crucial steps in the design of the dynamic resistance of the structure. The dynamic behaviour is represented by the natural frequencies and damping which are subsequently used along with the considered dynamic actions in the design process. In regard of integral bridge concept, one of the consequences of the omission of joints and bearings is the substantial soil-structure interaction which in turn increases the sensitivity of the dynamic behaviour of the bridges to the surrounding soil characteristic. In this article, we extended our hybrid BEM-FEM steady-state dynamic numerical tool to the 3D regime, developed by utilizing an in-house BEM and the commercial FEM software ABAQUS and use it to analyse the dynamic interaction between the bridge and the underlying soil as well as the backfill. The numerical results from four typical integral bridges show that underlying soil characteristic has great effect on the resonant frequencies and the damping. The backfill material properties tend to have less significant role due to the abutment wingwalls dominating the force transfer between the soil and the superstructure. The results also show that the degree of influence of the soil-structure interaction on the coupled system is affected by the type of load pattern in addition to the flexural stiffness of the superstructure.

Towards a bridging concept for undesirable resilience in social-ecological systems

Non-technical summary Resilience is a cross-disciplinary concept that is relevant for understanding the sustainability of the social and environmental conditions in which we live. Most research normatively focuses on building or strengthening resilience, despite growing recognition of the importance of breaking the resilience of, and thus transforming, unsustainable social-ecological systems. Undesirable resilience (cf. lock-ins, social-ecological traps), however, is not only less explored in the academic literature, but its understanding is also more fragmented across different disciplines. This disparity can inhibit collaboration among researchers exploring interdependent challenges in sustainability sciences. In this article, we propose that the term lock-in may contribute to a common understanding of undesirable resilience across scientific fields.

Temperature Monitoring and Response of Deck-Extension Side-by-Side Box Girder Bridges

AbstractTo enhance the durability of side-by-side box girder bridges, a common source of maintenance issues can be eliminated using the jointless bridge concept. Accurate estimation of the average ...

Features of the climate and environmental conditions of Turkmenistan influencing the structural concepts of bridges

Features of the climate and environmental conditions of Turkmenistan influencing the structural concepts of bridges

Research methods as bridging devices: path and context mapping in governance

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the potential, both analytically and practically, of understanding research methods as bridging devices. Methods can bridge theory and empirics, but it is argued that they can perform several bridging functions: between theory and praxis, between analysis and strategy and between past and future. The focus is on those forms of bridging relevant for understanding and effectuating change in governance, at community level and at the scale of organizations.Design/methodology/approachThe paper develops a perspective on methods as bridging devices. It uses the newly minted methods of governance path and context mapping as a case study. These methods conceptually derive from evolutionary governance theory (EGT) and were developed and tested in Canadian empirical research. The case helps to develop insight in features, forms and limitations of methods as bridging devices in governance research and practice. The authors then use the case to further develop the initial concept of bridging more generally, emphasizing the shifting balance between methods as bridging and creating boundaries.FindingsBoth the case study and the theoretical analysis underline the necessary imperfection of any method as bridging device. The authors affirm the potential of method to perform different bridging functions at the same time, while revealing clear tradeoffs in each role. Tradeoffs occur with adapted versions of the method producing new strengths and weaknesses in new contexts. In each of the forms of bridging involved neither side can be reduced to the other, so a gap always remains. It is demonstrated that the practice of bridging through method in governance is greatly helped when methods are flexibly deployed in ongoing processes of bricolage, nesting and modification. Governance enables the continuous production of new framing devices and other methods.Originality/valueThe idea of methods as bridging devices is new, and can assist the development of a broader understanding of the various forms and functions of research methods. Moreover, it helps to discern roles of research methods in the functioning of governance. The context of governance helps to recognize the multi-functionality of research methods, and their transformation in a context of pressured decision-making. Moreover, this approach contributes to the understanding of governance as adumbrated by EGT.

Bridges with Random Length: Gamma Case

In this paper, we generalize the concept of gamma bridge in the sense that the length will be random, that is, the time to reach the given level is random. The main objective of this paper is to show that certain basic properties of gamma bridges with deterministic length stay true also for gamma bridges with random length. We show that the gamma bridge with random length is a pure jump process and that its jumping times are countable and dense in the random interval bounded by 0 and the random length. Moreover, we prove that this process is a Markov process with respect to its completed natural filtration as well as with respect to the usual augmentation of this filtration, which leads us to conclude that its completed natural filtration is right continuous. Finally, we give its canonical decomposition with respect to the usual augmentation of its natural filtration.