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Cemented conglomerate accumulation is a weak and heterogeneous medium that occurs in western China. It consists mainly of argillaceous cement that loses strength rapidly upon contact with water, leading to collapse instability failure. Its deformation failure mechanism is complex and poorly understood. In this paper, the erosion failure mechanism of cemented conglomerate accumulation is investigated.

The collapse failure process after erosion of the slope foot for typical cemented conglomerate accumulation is studied based on field investigation using the particle discrete element method. And how the medium composition, slope angle and cementation degree influence the failure mode and process of the cemented conglomerate accumulation is examined.

The foot erosion of slope induces a tensile failure that typically manifests as “erosion at the foot of slope – tensile cracking at the back edge of slope top – integral collapse.” The collapse failure is more likely to occur when the cemented conglomerate accumulation has a higher rock content, a steeper slope angle or a weaker cementation degree.

A model based on rigid blocks and disk particles to simulate the cemented conglomerate accumulation is developed. It shows that the hydraulic erosion at the foot of the slope resulted in a different failure mechanism than that of general slopes. The results can inform the stability management, disaster prevention and mitigation of similar slopes.

Optimization of structural systems under reliability‐based performance constraints is an important problem at present receiving too little attention. This problem is investigated in this paper. In developing the reliability‐based optimization approach to the design of framed structures, we review first the general formulation of the deterministic optimization problem and present some of the main features of two general‐purpose deterministic optimization programs. A computer‐automated reliability‐based optimum design procedure is then presented by which the concept of reliability analysis with regard to both serviceability and ultimate performance constraints is combined with that of the minimum weight design to achieve an optimum trade‐off between the global reliability and the total cost. The procedure is feasible for application in system optimization of both steel and reinforced concrete structures.

A self‐help guide to achieving success in business. Directed more towards the self‐employed, it is relevant to other managers in organizations. Divided into clear sections on creativity and dealing with change; importance of clear goal setting; developing winning business and marketing strategies; negotiating skills; leadership; financial skills; and time management.

FEW engineering products receive the abuse to which aero engines are subjected in wartime and few mechanical devices are produced in which the margin of safety and failure is so small and yet so vital. Failures on a large scale are, therefore, inevitable and their consideration in detail would present a task of prohibitive magnitude but what little is known with any completeness and certainty can offer some useful data. Consideration of a large number of different makes of engines overhauled during wartime has revealed an amazing complexity of facts; it has shown that failures have developed from almost every conceivable cause which, in turn, have produced every conceivable result. There are few tangible pronouncements which can be made on the subject but nevertheless distinct common tendency has been observed which is sufficiently consistent to be worth consideration. This concerns the general trend of failures and will be referred to later; but with regard to failures in detail, the only safe statement to make is that invariably different parts‐fail on different types of engines subjected to similar conditions of severity in operation. The reason for this is not hard to find, and complexity of design in modern aero engines prohibits the mechanical ideal of simultaneous failure of adjacent parts subjected to a given overload. Not only is the exact functional strength of each individual part hardly known but the loadings which it has to endure cannot be foreseen.

Social scientists have long been interested in how political institutions affect economic performance. Nowhere are these effects more apparent today than in the current U.S. financial meltdown. This article offers an analysis of the meltdown by showing how government regulation among other things helped cause it. Specifically, the article shows how regulatory reforms closely associated with neoliberalism created perverse incentives that contributed significantly to the increased lending in the mortgage market and increased speculation in other financial markets even as such behavior was becoming increasingly risky. The result was the failure of mortgage firms, banks, a major insurance company, and eventually the market for short-term business loans, which triggered a general liquidity crisis thereby thrusting the entire economy into a severe recession. Implications for future research are explored. The article also offers a few policy prescriptions and an assessment of their political viability going forward.

This opinion piece draws on the author's experience as a thought leader and expert practitioner in risk management to explore possible routes to applying antifragility in the organisational context, drawing on three metaphors from outside the business domain. Organisational responses to stressors have focused on the development of robustness and resilience. Recent global events have highlighted weaknesses in both these approaches. Antifragility might prove to be a valuable addition to the organisational armoury, but little progress has been made in finding practical implementations of the concept since it was first proposed over 10 years ago (Taleb, 2012).

Distinctions between robustness, resilience and antifragility are clarified. Descriptive analogy is used to expose ways in which antifragility might be implemented in practice, by comparison with three disparate metaphors.

Antifragility is currently not well understood or implemented, but it offers a potentially powerful additional organisational strategy in response to stress, to complement more traditional robustness and resilience approaches. Drawing on the three metaphors, four distinct types of antifragility are outlined which suggest how organisations might begin to develop antifragility in practice: innate antifragility, adaptive antifragility, rheopectic antifragility and emergent antifragility. These are presented as an organisational antifragility taxonomy that can support further research and practice.

The use of metaphor to explore antifragility is unique, providing insights into ways it might be applied.

The fierce debate on CSR is often linked to different understandings of CSR from different perspectives. Although there is no strong consensus on CSR, Carroll's pyramid of CSR encompassing economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic responsibilities (Carroll, 1979) is a good starting point for discussion.

This paper aims to investigate the compliance of Saudi shareholding companies with the requirements of internal control as set by the Saudi standard on internal control and its impact on the profitability of these companies.

A questionnaire was used to collect data about the compliance with internal control requirements, and four measures of profitability including earnings per share (EPS), return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE) and profit margin (PM) for profitability were calculated using data from the financial statements of these companies. Then, Multiple Regression and t-test were used to analyze the data and test the hypotheses.

The results of the study revealed that the degree of compliance with all components of internal control is very high. It also appears from the analysis that the effect of internal control and its components on ROA and ROE is significant and positive, while the effect on EPS and PM is positive but statistically insignificant.

Corporate managements should review the effectiveness of the implementation of internal control requirements, especially those related to control environment, information and communication and monitoring.

The findings of the study shed light on the relevance of internal control systems of the Saudi shareholding companies in improving the financial performance of the these companies, which is expected to help in safeguarding the interests of all interest groups and improve the society’s well-being.

The paper provides new evidence about the relationship between internal control and profitability in the Saudi Arabian environment. The findings of the study add good contribution to the literature because they direct our attention to the expected effect of the environment on the relationship between internal control and performance. The results may suggest that there is a need to expand this study using other methodologies to delve into the depths and understand this phenomenon within its context.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the link between causes of corporate collapse/demise and the concept of quality.

The paper is informed by a review of literature on corporate collapse and quality management. A literature review and global web search of corporate demises is then conducted. Actual causes of corporate demise are established and compared/contrasted with those in the literature to ascertain any similarities/dissimilarities. The link between causes of corporate demise and the concept of quality is then explored and appropriate implications and conclusion drawn.

Evidence from the research suggests a clear linkage between causes of corporate demise and the concept of quality. Quality deficiencies/flaws if unattended may occasion corporate demise, which may be instant or gradual depending on the degree of corporate resilience.

Corporations can only afford to ignore the concept of quality at their own peril. The linkage between the causes of corporate demise and the concept of quality requires managers to prioritise the concept quality and by extension quality management more seriously than ever before.

The line of inquiry pursued by this paper provides additional insights into the phenomenon of corporate demise from a quality management perspective, thereby broadening its understanding.

The paper attempts to establish the connection between structural reliability and structural optimization for the particular case of plastic structures. Along this line, the paper outlines a reliability‐based optimization approach to design plastic structures with uncertain interdependent strengths and acted on by random interdependent loads. The importance of such interdependencies, and of some of the other statistical parameters used as input data in probabilistic computations, is demonstrated by several examples of sensitivity studies on both the probability of collapse failure as well as the reliability‐based optimum solution.