Independent Foundation Research Articles

Social Media Management

Do foundations effectively use social media to engage stakeholders? Do usage and engagement vary by foundation type? This article has been written to stimulate discussion and research about social media use and user engagement by foundations beyond measuring social media presence. We analyzed Facebook usage and stakeholder engagement for three types of foundations: community, corporate, and independent grant-making foundations. We found that although community foundations are more likely to have a social media presence, corporate and independent foundations are more likely to use Facebook and to effectively engage stakeholders. Findings illuminate the need to understand social media usage and engagement in addition to presence. We discuss potential benefits of social media use and provide practical communication management recommendations for nonprofit practitioners.

After the Ayatollah: Institutionalisation and Succession in the marjaʿiyya of Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥusayn Faḍl Allāh

This paper deals with the death of a high religious authority, the Twelver Shiʿi marjaʿ al-taqlīd, or “Grand Ayatollah”, Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥusayn Faḍl Allāh. The emphasis given to following a living authority within the Twelver Shiʿi tradition makes their passing a moment of crisis, all the more so in the case of a figure who made “contemporaneity” a cornerstone of his distinctive appeal. I examine not only the events surrounding Faḍl Allāh’s death but also its aftermath, in particular the question of the “succession” to his legacy. In an unorthodox move that maintains his reputation for controversy, Faḍl Allāh’s organisation has continued to operate as an independent foundation in his name without falling under the aegis of a living authority. This serves as an illuminating case study of issues of succession and institutionalisation within the Twelver Shiʿi tradition and beyond.

Discovery of independent‐founding solitary queens in the yellow crazy ant Anoplolepis gracilipes in East Java, Indonesia (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

AbstractWe collected four solitary queens of the invasive ant Anoplolepis gracilipes under stones in East Java, Indonesia. They produced nanitic workers by claustral colony foundation. This is the first report of independent colony foundation by queens in this species. The discovery may give an important insight into discussion on the origin of this invasive ant.

Coping with Multiple Institutional Logics: Temporal Process of Institutional Work during the Emergence of the One Foundation in China

ABSTRACTAn increasing body of research has applied an institutional perspective to understand actors’ responses to conflicting institutional logics and the creation process of new organizational forms. Although China provides a natural, real-time laboratory to study this topic, scant empirical research has been done. Moreover, we find it is insufficient to apply current frameworks, which have been mainly driven by studies conducted in Western contexts, to study actors’ responses to institutional multiplicity in China, especially in its emerging non-profit sector. This article fills research gaps by providing an in-depth case analysis of the creation and legitimation process of the One Foundation – the first independent charity foundation established by civic individuals in China. Our study shows that the coexisting and competing relationship among state, civil society, social mission, and market logics provides impetus for organizational change and innovation. This article theorizes a temporal model by showing that actors seek provisional solutions in different organizational stages and gradually develop capabilities to progress institutional work from individual to organizational and to societal level to achieve their goals. By showing how a charity foundation plays a role as a change agent, this article also sheds light on the condition and process that drive innovation in China's non-profit sector.

Practical Foundations of History Independence

The way data structures organize data is often a function of the sequence of past operations. The organization of data is referred to as the data structure's state, and the sequence of past operations constitutes the data structure's history. A data structure state can, therefore, be used as an oracle to derive information about its history. For history-sensitive applications, such as privacy in e-voting, it is imperative to conceal historical information contained within data structure states. Data structure history can be hidden by making data structures history independent. In this paper, we explore how to achieve history independence (HI). We observe that the current HI notions are significantly limited in number and scope. There are two existing notions of HI: 1) weak HI (WHI) and 2) strong HI (SHI). WHI does not protect against insider adversaries, and SHI mandates canonical representations, resulting in inefficiency. We postulate the need for a broad, encompassing notion of HI, which can capture WHI, SHI, and a broad spectrum of new HI notions. To this end, we introduce $\Delta $ HI, a generic game-based framework that is malleable enough to accommodate the existing and new HI notions. As an essential step toward formalizing $\Delta $ HI, we explore the concepts of abstract data types, data structures, machine models, memory representations, and HI. Finally, to bridge the gap between theory and practice, we outline a general recipe for building end-to-end, history-independent systems and demonstrate the use of the recipe in designing two history-independent file systems.

COMMENTARY––A Public Interest View of Auditor Independence: Moving Toward Auditor Reliability When Considering and Promoting Audit Quality

ABSTRACT A longstanding view inside and outside the auditing profession is that the public accounting profession rests on the foundation of independence (Previts and Merino 1998), with regulatory bodies requiring auditors to be independent both in appearance and in fact. For many decades, regulators and stakeholders alike have held the view that auditor independence is the auditor's endgame. We review recent research on the Reliability Framework, which recasts auditor independence with other professional constructs, including integrity, competence, and objectivity, as co-antecedents of auditor reliability and audit quality. On that basis, this commentary advocates that a public interest view of auditor independence must account for the auditor's real reason for existence based on what stakeholders want and need: reliable audit services that facilitate financial reporting quality and protect the public interest. Recent initiatives by the Center for Audit Quality and its member firms, as well as the profession's regulators, reveal movement consistent with this holistic view. These developments indicate that the public interest view of auditor reliability is shifting toward a revised view of independence, along with other professional constructs that co-create audit quality and reliable financial reporting.

Seasonal Dynamics in the Chemistry and Structure of the Fat Bodies of Bumblebee Queens.

Insects’ fat bodies are responsible for nutrient storage and for a significant part of intermediary metabolism. Thus, it can be expected that the structure and content of the fat body will adaptively change, if an insect is going through different life stages. Bumblebee queens belong to such insects as they dramatically change their physiology several times over their lives in relation to their solitary overwintering, independent colony foundation stage, and during the colony life-cycle ending in the senescent stage. Here, we report on changes in the ultrastructure and lipid composition of the peripheral fat body of Bombus terrestris queens in relation to seasonal changes in the queens’ activity. Six life stages are defined and evaluated in particular: pharate, callow, before and after hibernation, egg-laying, and senescence. Transmission electron microscopy revealed that the fat body contained two main cell types–adipocytes and oenocytes. Only adipocytes reveal important changes related to the life phase, and mostly the ration between inclusion and cytoplasm volume varies among particular stages. Both electron microscopy and chemical analyses of lipids highlighted seasonal variability in the quantity of the stored lipids, which peaked prior to hibernation. Triacylglycerols appeared to be the main energy source during hibernation, while the amount of glycogen before and after hibernation remained unchanged. In addition, we observed that the representation of some fatty acids within the triacylglycerols change during the queen’s life. Last but not least, we show that fat body cell membranes do not undergo substantial changes concerning phospholipid composition in relation to overwintering. This finding supports the hypothesis that the cold-adaptation strategy of bumblebee queens is more likely to be based on polyol accumulation than on the restructuring of lipid membranes.

Regulating European grant-making foundations. Lessons from the USA experience?

Grant-making foundations are private institutions that distribute their income to deserving organisations. In the USA, they enjoy fiscal incentives, but have to comply with complex rules securing that incentives are well deserved. In contrast, European countries have an embryonic legislation. This paper investigates whether the different tax rules adopted in the USA for independent and community foundations influence the grant-making behaviour of these organisations. Our econometric investigation underlines the existence of a large heterogeneity in the activities of both types, suggesting that the introduction of new regulations could benefit from a careful analysis of the nature and the features of these organisations.

Electrical Conduction in Deuterated Ammonium Dihydrogen Phosphate Crystals with Different Degrees of Deuteration**Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos 51323002 and 51402173, the Independent Innovation Foundation of Shandong University under Grant No 2012JC016, the Natural Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholar of Shandong Province under Grant No JQ201218, and the Project of Key Laboratory of

Conductivity measurements of deuterated ammonium dihydrogen phosphate (DADP) crystals with different deuterated degrees are described. The conductivities increase with the deuterium content, and the value of the a-direction is larger than that of the c-direction. Compared with DKDP crystals, DADP crystals have larger conductivities, which is partly due to the existence of A defects. The ac conductivity over the temperature range 25–170°C has shown a knee in the curve of ln(σT) versus T−1. The conductivity activation energy calculated by the slope of the high temperature region decreases with the deuterium content. The previously reported phase transition is not seen.

Raman gains of ADP and KDP crystals**Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51323002 and 51402173), the Independent Innovation Foundation of Shandong University, China (Grant Nos. IIFSDU and 2012JC016), the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University, China (Grant No. NCET-10-0552), the Fund from the Key Laboratory of Neutron Physics, China Academy of Engineering

In this paper, the Raman gain coefficients of ammonium dihydrogen phosphate (ADP) and potassium dihydrogen phosphate (KDP) crystals are measured. By using a pump source of a 30-ps, 532-nm laser, the gain coefficients of ADP and KDP are 1.22 cm/GW, and 0.91 cm/GW, respectively. While for a 20-ps, 355-nm pump laser, the gain coefficients of these two crystals are similar, which are 1.95 cm/GW for ADP and 1.86 for KDP. The present results indicate that for ultra-violet frequency conversion, the problem of stimulated Raman scattering for ADP crystal will not be more serious than that for KDP crystal. Considering other advantages such the larger nonlinear optical coefficient, higher laser damage threshold, and lower noncritical phase-matching temperature, it can be anticipated that ADP will be a powerful competitor to KDP in large aperture, high energy third-harmonic generation or fourth-harmonic generation applications.

Modal Analysis of Gantry in Axle Multi-Parameter Measurement System

As the key part of EMU axle measurement system , the gantry, which carrying on high-precision sensors,its vibration frequency generated by the external excitation has an important influence on measurement accuracy, so the analysis about gantry’s natural frequency and model shapes. This paper describes the finite element modal analysis theory briefly , establishes analysis model structure of gantry by ABAQUS, obtains each vibration mode shapes and its corresponding natural frequency through the analysis for model. Finally, we figure out the frequency range that the external excitation should avoid. Meanwhile, a method that decreases external influence by using an independent foundation and air mounts is proposed. This work lays a solid foundation of large-size and high-precision EMU axle measurement.

Enhancement of Thermoelectric Performance of Sr0.9Ba0.1Ti0.8Nb0.2O3 Ceramics by A-Site Cation Nonstoichiometry**Supported by the National Basic Research Program of China under Grant No 2013CB632506, the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos 51202132, 51002087 and 11374186, and the Independent Innovation Foundation of Shandong University under Grant No IIFSDU 2012TS028.

Sr0.9Ba0.1-x Ti0.8Nb0.2 O3 ceramics (x=0, 0.01, 0.02 and 0.05) are prepared by solid state reaction, whose thermoelectric properties are investigated from 323 K to 1073 K. By introducing A-site nonstoichiometry, the absolute See-beck coefficient is enhanced, while the electrical resistivity is surprisingly reduced due to the significantly enhanced carrier mobility. These results are dramatic in thermoelectric materials, effectively enhancing the power factor. Moreover, the thermal conductivity is reduced, thus the thermoelectric performance of Sr0.9Ba0.1 Ti0.8Nb0.2O3 ceramic is significantly enhanced by A-site nonstoichiometry.

Time fractional dual-phase-lag heat conduction equation**Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11102102, 11472161, and 91130017), the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province, China (Grant No. ZR2014AQ015), and the Independent Innovation Foundation of Shandong University, China (Grant No. 2013ZRYQ002).

We build a fractional dual-phase-lag model and the corresponding bioheat transfer equation, which we use to interpret the experiment results for processed meat that have been explained by applying the hyperbolic conduction. Analytical solutions expressed by H-functions are obtained by using the Laplace and Fourier transforms method. The inverse fractional dual-phase-lag heat conduction problem for the simultaneous estimation of two relaxation times and orders of fractionality is solved by applying the nonlinear least-square method. The estimated model parameters are given. Finally, the measured and the calculated temperatures versus time are compared and discussed. Some numerical examples are also given and discussed.

Two-dimensional metallic behavior at polar MgO/BaTiO3 (110) interfaces**Project supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (Grant No. 2013CB632506), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11374186, 51231007, 51202132, and 51102153), and the Independent Innovation Foundation of Shandong University, China (Grant No. 2012TS027).

The first-principles calculations are employed to investigate the electrical properties of polar MgO/BaTiO3 (110) interfaces. Both n-type and p-type polar interfaces show a two-dimensional metallic behavior. For the n-type polar interface, the interface Ti 3d electrons are the origin of the metallic and magnetic properties. Varying the thickness of BaTiO3 may induce an insulator–metal transition, and the critical thickness is 4 unit cells. For the p-type polar interface, holes preferentially occupy the interface O 2py state, resulting in a conducting interface. The unbalance of the spin splitting of the O 2p states in the interface MgO layer leads to a magnetic moment of about 0.25μ B per O atom at the interface. These results further demonstrate that other polar interfaces, besides LaAlO3/SrTiO3, can show a two-dimensional metallic behavior. It is helpful to fully understand the role of polar discontinuity on the properties of the interface, which widens the field of polar-nonpolar interfaces.

A Comparative Analysis of Corporate and Independent Foundations

Notwithstanding some visible debates, systematic evidence about the implications of greater corporate involvement in the social sector is sparse. We provide some of this evidence by examining one channel of corporate influence within the nonprofit sector–company sponsorship of philanthropic foundations. Our analysis shows that corporate foundations raise more funds and distribute grants with lower overhead than similar independent (i.e., non-corporate) foundations. However, their grantmaking is also more dispersed and less relational, and they tend to be governed by more ephemeral groups of officers and trustees. These findings suggest that corporate foundations benefit from having access to the resources of the companies that sponsor them but are constrained by their additional market-based motivations. The findings also update and refine what nonprofits might expect from corporate foundations relative to their more traditional independent counterparts.

(A Background Research on Charitable Foundations in China)

Chinese Abstract: 我国基金会在过去十余年里经历了飞速发展，截止到本文写作，数量几乎是2003年的五倍。业界一般从规模、治理和能力等方面衡量基金会行业整体发展水平，另外就是从财务和法律等角度进行阐述。作为对现行研究的一点儿补充，本文简要概括基金会的性质、类型和动因，将基金会按性质分为民间和非民间，按类型分为企业基金会、学校基金会等七类，并结合动因展开讨论。本文的样本为截止到2013年底的3342家基金会，接近基金会中心网和《中国统计年鉴》同期数据，主要参考中国基金会研究基础数据库、基金会年报、章程、官网、和比较可靠的新闻。English Abstract: This paper investigates the background information of Chinese foundations. Such information is not readily visible from the outside. This paper first divide the foundations into two groups, civil and noncivil, depending on their relationship with the government. And then by their founder, funding and mission, it classifies the foundations into seven types: government-related foundations, corporate foundations, independent foundations, school foundations, religious foundations, community foundations and family foundations. This is the very first effort to study such a large sample of Chinese foundations. The data used in this paper is exclusively from the Research Infrastructure of China Foundations (RICF) database.

Settlement Calculation of Turbine and Generator Foundation

turbo generator is the heart of the power plant, and is a precision instrument for high speed operation. In order to ensure the normal operation of the turbo generator, as the foundation of its supporting structure, the design requirement (especially settlement control) is very high. The settlement calculation method provided by the foundation design specification is applicable to the independent foundation, and the calculation result is a settlement of a point, which is not suitable for the turbine generator foundation. There are three parts in this paper. First, through appropriate assumption, the settlement calculation method based on the independent foundation is extended to other arbitrary foundation forms. Second, based on the actual engineering practice example, the design method based on the above assumptions is shown; third, the author tries to simplify the design process, and to establish a more general standard for the eccentric design of dynamic machine and other building and structure, which is sensitive to uneven settlement.

扩底墩基础设计方法探讨

墩基础的设计方法在现行规范中没有明确的规定，造成了土木工程设计中的浪费或安全隐患。本文分析了墩基础在岩石和非岩石地基中的受力机理和破坏模式，认为不能简单地按墩基础墩径比确定其承载力计算方法，应根据墩端地基土的特性合理确定，并提出了墩基础必须满足的独立基础和桩基础的设计构造要求。 The design for the expanded-pier-foundation has no definition in the current criterion, causing diseconomy or safety loophole. The stress mechanism and demolition of the expanded-pier- foundation in rock foundation and foundation without rock are discussed. It is deemed that the bearing capacity of the expanded-pier-foundation should not be decided simply on the ratio of length to diameter, and it should be confirmed rationally on the soil property. Furthermore, the structural design requirement of independent and pile foundation for the expanded-pier-founda- tion is proposed.

Study on Effect of Frame Structures Crossed by Shallow-Buried and Mining Tunnelling

During the shallow-buried tunnel excavation, the formation will be affected and the nearby buildings will be caused fracture. By using three dimensional software MIDAS/GTS, the interactions among structures-soil-tunnel system is considered in this paper, and the working condition of shallow-buried underground excavation is simulated in the independent foundation of frame structures. It is indicated that building will tilt to the side of tunnel as the horizontal distance L between building and tunnels is increasing, after reaching certain distance, the influence to the building tends to little, at the same time, the maximum first principal stress P1 and maximum deformation rate E1 show a trend of decrease. When the kind of soil is worse, the settlement and non-uniform settlement of buildings increase, meanwhile P1 and E1 increase. With the increasing story of the framework, the settlement of building is nearly not affected, and P1 and E1 decrease slightly.

Академическая мобильность: инструмент глобализации образования или вызов высшему образованию России?

In this paper we propose to consider how globalization affects education, as radical reforms associated with the transition to innovative technologies and principles of the globalization of the labor market in Western civilization affect the emerging economies, in particular to Russia, what is happening now in higher school in the context of globalization, how universities respond to changes in the external environment, how they change their programs, approaches to learning. The author deals with the universalization and individualization of education, defines the role of the Bologna process, its architecture in the modernization programs and levels of education in the Russian Federation and the influence of various international and independent foundations in Russia’s integration processes in a common economic and social space in Europe. On the example of the design and implementation of the dual degree program the author provides details of how the integration processes are taking place in the Russian State University of Tourism and Service, through which instruments carried out are academic exchanges and research. The article analyzes the compatibility of curricula, practice-modular programs, the feasibility of the use of innovative teaching technologies, interactive teaching methods, and competence-based approach to labor market requirements. On the basis of the author´s survey it’s highlighted what problems arise in the implementation of dual degree programs, what the benefits and difficulties of students and teachers are in the process of participation in international academic mobility.