China Science

We have used thermodynamically calculated phase diagrams of Cu–Zr–Ti to identify two low-melting Cu-rich alloys denoted by A and B as bulk amorphous alloys where none were thought to exist. These alloys show greater stability of the glassy phase than previously discovered alloys in the same system, as evidenced by the critical casting diameter of 5 mm. We also calculated a temperature-composition diagram for alloy A as a function of Y using an approximate thermodynamic description of Cu–Zr–Ti–Y. This diagram shows that the liquidus temperature of alloy A decreases with the addition of Y, reaches a minimum, and increases again. Our experiments indeed showed the glass-forming ability of A reaches a maximum diameter of 10 mm when 2 at.% Y was added and then decreases again. We thus propose that the thermodynamically calculated liquidus temperature is an excellent guide to synthesize bulkier glasses, which can be readily obtained from calculated phase diagrams.

Hongbo Caoa?Ye Panb?Ling Dinga?Chuan Zhanga?Jun Zhua?Ker-Chang Hsiehc?Y. Austin Changa Email:chang@engr.wisc.edu
[a]Department of Materials Science; Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1509 University Avenue, Madison, WI 53706, USA;[b]School of Materials Science; Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China;[c]Institute of Materials Science; Engineering, Sun Yat Sen University, Kaohsiung 80424, Taiwan

Data on lattice rotations and dislocation structures induced in aluminium by tensile deformation are analysed together in order to extract the active slip systems. The analysis falls in two steps: (i) from the combination of lattice rotation and dislocation structure data, the grain orientation space represented by the stereographic triangle is subdivided into regions with the same active slip systems; and (ii) the active slip systems calculated from the lattice rotations are compared with those known to be active based on the dislocation structure. For the entire stereographic triangle active slip systems which are in good agreement with both lattice rotations and dislocation structures are identified, showing that the grain orientation is the primary factor controlling the slip systems.

Grethe Winther aEmail:grethe.winther@risoe.dk
[a]Center for Fundamental Research: Metal Structures in Four Dimensions, Materials Research Department, Ris DTU – National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy, Technical University of Denmark, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark

In 1920 the Shanghai Bankers Association launched an initiative to standardize Chinese bank accounting classification and terminology, which in 1924 led to the first standard terminology that was gradually adopted by all Chinese banks. This paper examines that neglected experience by employing a framework informed by Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice. We delineate the relations among foreign banks, Chinese modern banks, and native banks in the field of Chinese banking; explore the habitus of modern bankers that motivated the standardization initiative; and analyze how the initiative accrued cultural capital and social legitimacy to modern bankers and how social actors’ interaction with the state determined the interaction among them, resulting in the domination of modern banks in the field and the domination of the state over the field.

Yin XuaEmail:yxu@odu.edu?Xiaoqun Xub
[a]Department of Accounting, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA 23529, USA;[b]Department of History, Christopher Newport University, Newport News, VA 23606, USA

This paper analyses interpretive research in management accounting from the perspective of naturalistic philosophy of science. We focus on the relation of interpretive research to the subjective/objective dichotomy appearing in the methodological literature of the social sciences. In management accounting research, it is often routinely assumed that interpretive studies, following the reasoning by Burrell and Morgan [Burrell, G., & Morgan. G. (1979). Sociological paradigms and organisational analysis. London: Heinemann], are based on subjectivism only. The major purpose of this paper is to give flesh to the existing debates around the nature of interpretive research with the help of in depth analysis of one example of such research in management accounting. Since abstract and general philosophical arguments are often used merely to cloud more relevant case specific issues concerning the focus of explanation and the nature of empirical evidence offered, our analysis aims at providing conceptual tools for articulating with greater precision what is being asserted in a given study. The specific target of the examination is the interpretive study by Dent [Dent, J. F. (1991). Accounting and organisational cultures: A field study of the emergence of a new organisational reality. Accounting, Organisations and Society, 16, 693–703], which is one of the highly appreciated and extensively quoted pieces of research picked from the interpretive management accounting literature. Our analysis indicates that though there certainly are, and needs to be, unique subjectivist features in interpretive studies as compared to more ‘objectivist’ approaches, there are also important similarities, and that the view of sociological paradigms as necessarily mutually exclusive does not hold water. Hence interpretive research straddles between paradigms. As we argue that interpretive studies, in addition to including subjectivist elements, also encompass objectivist features, we invert the typical social theory critique of ‘scientific’ (management) accounting research that it cannot be an objective ‘mirror of reality’ by claiming that interpretive studies cannot be exclusively subjectivist and still they remain theoretically relevant. Our philosophically tuned analysis explicates how concepts from different paradigms, such as interpretations, understanding meanings, and causality, can successfully co-exist and co-operate within a single study.

Marja-Liisa Kakkuri-Knuuttilaa?Kari LukkabEmail:kari.lukka@tse.fi?Jaakko Kuorikoskic
[a]Helsinki School of Economics, Runeberginkatu 22-24, FI-00100 Helsinki, Finland;[b]Turku School of Economics, Rehtorinpellonkatu 3, FI-20500 Turku, Finland;[c]University of Helsinki, Department of Social and Moral Philosophy, P.O. Box 33, FI-00014 Helsingin yliopisto, Finland

This article presents the editors’ opinions regarding their future expectations for the “Academy of Management Journal,” and their goals for the magazine. They also express appreciation for individuals who have helped with the publication of the journal and discuss how they will continue to live up to the journal’s mission statement.

Ireland, R. Duane

This study examines investor response to three events that help define a federal class action securities lawsuit, specifically, the announcement that names an issuer as a defendant in the lawsuit (at the class action filing date), the disclosure or accounting restatement that ‘corrects’ the information deficiency (at the end of the class period), and the date at which the fraud on the market allegedly begins (at the beginning of the class period). (more…)

In the year 2000, a new phase of the dysfunctional power of religion exploded into the modern public space in Nigeria. Some regional states in the north of the country exploited a loophole in the 1999 constitution to declare themselves as sharia states. Debate on the constitutional legality, political, socio-economic and gender implications of this development became complicated by ethnicity and regionalism. (more…)

This article presents a survey of denial of service attacks and the methodsthat have been proposed for defense against these attacks. In this survey, we analyze the designdecisions in the Internet that have created the potential for denial of service attacks. (more…)