bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Single-Use Detergent Sacs
Authors: Rosenfield Daniel , Eltorki Mohamed , VandenBerg Stephanie , Allain Dominic , Freedman Stephen B. , Beno Suzanne
Published: July 2016

Background

Single-use detergent sacs (SUDS) are widely used in North America and Europe with emerging literature on their toxicity. This is the first Canadian multicenter study aimed to quantify and compare SUDS exposures to traditional detergent exposures.

Methods

A retrospective review of the Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and Prevention Program databases was conducted at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Alberta Children's Hospital in Calgary and the Stollery Children's Hospital in Edmonton. All exposures presenting to these 3 centers between 2009 and 2014 were identified, a case form was completed, and data were analyzed.

Results

Forty cases of SUDS exposure were identified alongside 35 cases of traditional detergent exposure during the study period resulting in an incidence of 3.16 SUDS exposures per million children per year presenting to tertiary pediatric emergency departments (EDs). In contrast, traditional detergent exposures had an incidence of 2.78 exposures per million children per year presenting to tertiary pediatric EDs over the study period. Although there was no change in incidence of exposure to traditional detergent over the study period, there was an increase in the incidence of SUDS exposures from 2010 to 2013, with a decrease seen in 2014. There was no significant difference seen in age, sex, location of exposure, transportation to hospital, morbidity, or mortality associated with SUDS exposures compared with traditional detergent exposure. Although not statistically more likely to cause long-term complications, SUDS-exposed children required more follow-up visits to health care providers than traditional detergents.

Conclusions

This multicenter study is the first to establish the incidence of SUDS and traditional detergent exposure in 3 Canadian cities. Overall, the frequency of exposure to detergents—both traditional and SUDS—is very low. Given the increase in SUDS exposure seen from 2011 to 2013, alongside larger sales of SUDS, continued efforts are required to monitor exposures, and reduce potential exposures to SUDS and traditional detergents in the future.
Coaching From the Sidelines
Authors: Ahmed Rami A. , Atkinson Steven Scott , Gable Brad , Yee Jennifer , Gardner Aimee K.
Published: July 2016

Introduction

Although simulation facilities are available at most teaching institutions, the number of qualified instructors and/or content experts that facilitate postsimulation debriefing is inadequate at many institutions. There remains a paucity of evidence-based data regarding several aspects of debriefing, including debriefing with a facilitator present versus teledebriefing, in which participants undergo debriefing with a facilitator providing instruction and direction from an off-site location while they observe the simulation in real-time. We conducted this study to identify the effectiveness and feasibility of teledebriefing as an alternative form of instruction.

Methods

This study was conducted with emergency medicine residents randomized into either a teledebriefing or on-site debriefing group during 11 simulation training sessions implemented for a 9-month period. The primary outcome of interest was resident perception of debriefing effectiveness, as measured by the Debriefing Assessment for Simulation in Healthcare-Student Version (See Appendix, Supplemental Digital Content 1, http://links.lww.com/SIH/A282) completed at the end of every simulation session.

Results

A total of 44 debriefings occurred during the study period with a total number of 246 Debriefing Assessment for Simulation in Healthcare-Student Version completed. The data revealed a statistically significant difference between the effectiveness of on-site debriefing [6.64 (0.45)] and teledebriefing [6.08 (0.57), P < 0.001]. Residents regularly evaluated both traditional debriefing and teledebriefing as “consistently effective/very good.”

Conclusions

Teledebriefing was found to be rated lower than in-person debriefing but was still consistently effective. Further research is necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of teledebriefing in comparison with other alternatives. Teledebriefing potentially provides an alternative form of instruction within simulation environments for programs lacking access to expert faculty.
Multiple morphological clocks and total-evidence tip-dating in mammals
Authors: Lee Michael S. Y.
Published: July 2016

Morphological integration predicts that correlated characters will coevolve; thus, each distinct suite of correlated characters might be expected to evolve according to a separate clock or ‘pacemaker’. Characters in a large morphological dataset for mammals were found to be evolving according to seven separate clocks, each distinct from the molecular clock. Total-evidence tip-dating using these multiple clocks inflated divergence time estimates, but potentially improved topological inference. In particular, single-clock analyses placed several meridiungulates and condylarths in a heterodox position as stem placentals, but multi-clock analyses retrieved a more plausible and orthodox position within crown placentals. Several shortcomings (including uneven character sampling) currently impact upon the accuracy of total-evidence dating, but this study suggests that when sufficiently large and appropriately constructed phenotypic datasets become more commonplace, multi-clock approaches are feasible and can affect both divergence dates and phylogenetic relationships.
Coupling volume-excluding compartment-based models of diffusion at different scales: Voronoi and pseudo-compartment approaches
Authors: Taylor P. R. , Baker R. E. , Simpson M. J. , Yates C. A.
Published: July 2016

Numerous processes across both the physical and biological sciences are driven by diffusion. Partial differential equations are a popular tool for modelling such phenomena deterministically, but it is often necessary to use stochastic models to accurately capture the behaviour of a system, especially when the number of diffusing particles is low. The stochastic models we consider in this paper are ‘compartment-based’: the domain is discretized into compartments, and particles can jump between these compartments. Volume-excluding effects (crowding) can be incorporated by blocking movement with some probability. Recent work has established the connection between fine- and coarse-grained models incorporating volume exclusion, but only for uniform lattices. In this paper, we consider non-uniform, hybrid lattices that incorporate both fine- and coarse-grained regions, and present two different approaches to describe the interface of the regions. We test both techniques in a range of scenarios to establish their accuracy, benchmarking against fine-grained models, and show that the hybrid models developed in this paper can be significantly faster to simulate than the fine-grained models in certain situations and are at least as fast otherwise.
Cold-stress responses in the Antarctic basidiomycetous yeast
Mrakia blollopis
Authors: Tsuji Masaharu
Published: July 2016

Microbes growing at subzero temperatures encounter numerous growth constraints. However, fungi that inhabit cold environments can grow and decompose organic compounds under subzero temperatures. Thus, understanding the cold-adaptation strategies of fungi under extreme environments is critical for elucidating polar-region ecosystems. Here, I report that two strains of the Antarctic basidiomycetous yeast
Mrakia blollopis
exhibited distinct growth characteristics under subzero conditions: SK-4 grew efficiently, whereas TKG1-2 did not. I analysed the metabolite responses elicited by cold stress in these two
M. blollopis
strains by using capillary electrophoresis–time-of-flight mass spectrometry.
M. blollopis
SK-4, which grew well under subzero temperatures, accumulated high levels of TCA-cycle metabolites, lactic acid, aromatic amino acids and polyamines in response to cold shock. Polyamines are recognized to function in cell-growth and developmental processes, and aromatic amino acids are also known to improve cell growth at low temperatures. By contrast, in TKG1-2, which did not grow efficiently, cold stress strongly induced the metabolites of the TCA cycle, but other metabolites were not highly accumulated in the cell. Thus, these differences in metabolite responses could contribute to the distinct abilities of SK-4 and TKG1-2 cells to grow under subzero temperature conditions.
Does density influence relative growth performance of farm, wild and F
1
hybrid Atlantic salmon in semi-natural and hatchery common garden conditions?
Authors: Harvey Alison C. , Juleff Gareth , Carvalho Gary R. , Taylor Martin I. , Solberg Monica F. , Creer Simon , Dyrhovden Lise , Matre Ivar-Helge , Glover Kevin A.
Published: July 2016

The conditions encountered by Atlantic salmon,
Salmo salar
L., in aquaculture are markedly different from the natural environment. Typically, farmed salmon experience much higher densities than wild individuals, and may therefore have adapted to living in high densities. Previous studies have demonstrated that farmed salmon typically outgrow wild salmon by large ratios in the hatchery, but these differences are much less pronounced in the wild. Such divergence in growth may be explained partly by the offspring of wild salmon experiencing higher stress and thus lower growth when compared under high-density farming conditions. Here, growth of farmed, wild and F
1
hybrid salmon was studied at contrasting densities within a hatchery and semi-natural environment. Farmed salmon significantly outgrew hybrid and wild salmon in all treatments. Importantly, however, the reaction norms were similar across treatments for all groups. Thus, this study was unable to find evidence that the offspring of farmed salmon have adapted more readily to higher fish densities than wild salmon as a result of domestication. It is suggested that the substantially higher growth rate of farmed salmon observed in the hatchery compared with wild individuals may not solely be caused by differences in their ability to grow in high-density hatchery scenarios.
Anthropogenic noise, but not artificial light levels predicts song behaviour in an equatorial bird
Authors: Dorado-Correa Adriana M. , Rodríguez-Rocha Manuel , Brumm Henrik
Published: July 2016

Birds in cities start singing earlier in the morning than in rural areas; commonly this shift is attributed to light pollution. Some studies have suggested that traffic noise has a stronger influence on singing activity than artificial light does. Changes in the timing of singing behaviour in relation to noise and light pollution have only been investigated in the temperate zones. Tropical birds, however, experience little seasonal variation in day length and may be less dependent on light intensity as a modifier for reproductive behaviours such as song. To test whether noise or light pollution has a stronger impact on the dawn chorus of a tropical bird, we investigated the singing behaviour of rufous-collared sparrows (
Zonotrichia capensis
) in Bogota, Colombia at two times during the year. We found that birds in places with high noise levels started to sing earlier. Light pollution did not have a significant effect. Birds may begin to sing earlier in noisy areas to avoid acoustic masking by traffic later in the morning. Our results also suggest that some tropical birds may be less sensitive to variations in day length and thus less sensitive to light pollution.
Unidirectional invisibility and non-reciprocal transmission in two and three dimensions
Authors: Loran Farhang , Mostafazadeh Ali
Published: July 2016

We explore the phenomenon of unidirectional invisibility in two dimensions, examine its optical realizations and discuss its three-dimensional generalization. In particular, we construct an infinite class of unidirectionally invisible optical potentials that describe the scattering of normally incident transverse electric waves by an infinite planar slab with refractive-index modulations along both the normal directions to the electric field. A by-product of this investigation is a demonstration of non-reciprocal transmission in two dimensions. To elucidate this phenomenon, we state and prove a general reciprocity theorem that applies to quantum scattering theory of real and complex potentials in two and three dimensions.
Surface plasmon resonances of arbitrarily shaped nanometallic structures in the small-screening-length limit
Authors: Schnitzer Ory , Giannini Vincenzo , Maier Stefan A. , Craster Richard V.
Published: July 2016

According to the hydrodynamic Drude model, surface plasmon resonances of metallic nanostructures blueshift owing to the non-local response of the metal’s electron gas. The screening length characterizing the non-local effect is often small relative to the overall dimensions of the metallic structure, which enables us to derive a coarse-grained non-local description using matched asymptotic expansions; a perturbation theory for the blueshifts of arbitrary-shaped nanometallic structures is then developed. The effect of non-locality is not always a perturbation and we present a detailed analysis of the ‘bonding’ modes of a dimer of nearly touching nanowires where the leading-order eigenfrequencies and eigenmode distributions are shown to be a renormalization of those predicted assuming a local metal permittivity.
Tree phylogenetic diversity promotes host–parasitoid interactions
Authors: Staab Michael , Bruelheide Helge , Durka Walter , Michalski Stefan , Purschke Oliver , Zhu Chao-Dong , Klein Alexandra-Maria
Published: July 2016

Evidence from grassland experiments suggests that a plant community's phylogenetic diversity (PD) is a strong predictor of ecosystem processes, even stronger than species richnessper se. This has, however, never been extended to species-rich forests and host–parasitoid interactions. We used cavity-nesting Hymenoptera and their parasitoids collected in a subtropical forest as a model system to test whether hosts, parasitoids, and their interactions are influenced by tree PD and a comprehensive set of environmental variables, including tree species richness. Parasitism rate and parasitoid abundance were positively correlated with tree PD. All variables describing parasitoids decreased with elevation, and were, except parasitism rate, dependent on host abundance. Quantitative descriptors of host–parasitoid networks were independent of the environment. Our study indicates that host–parasitoid interactions in species-rich forests are related to the PD of the tree community, which influences parasitism rates through parasitoid abundance. We show that effects of tree community PD are much stronger than effects of tree species richness, can cascade to high trophic levels, and promote trophic interactions. As during habitat modification phylogenetic information is usually lost non-randomly, even species-rich habitats may not be able to continuously provide the ecosystem process parasitism if the evolutionarily most distinct plant lineages vanish.
Visual pigments in a palaeognath bird, the emuDromaius novaehollandiae: implications for spectral sensitivity and the origin of ultraviolet vision
Authors: Hart Nathan S. , Mountford Jessica K. , Davies Wayne I. L. , Collin Shaun P. , Hunt David M.
Published: July 2016

A comprehensive description of the spectral characteristics of retinal photoreceptors in palaeognaths is lacking. Moreover, controversy exists with respect to the spectral sensitivity of the short-wavelength-sensitive-1 (SWS1) opsin-based visual pigment expressed in one type of single cone: previous microspectrophotometric (MSP) measurements in the ostrich (Struthio camelus) suggested a violet-sensitive (VS) SWS1 pigment, but all palaeognath SWS1 opsin sequences obtained to date (including the ostrich) imply that the visual pigment is ultraviolet-sensitive (UVS). In this study, MSP was used to measure the spectral properties of visual pigments and oil droplets in the retinal photoreceptors of the emu (Dromaius novaehollandiae). Results show that the emu resembles most other bird species in possessing four spectrally distinct single cones, as well as double cones and rods. Four cone and a single rod opsin are expressed, each an orthologue of a previously identified pigment. The SWS1 pigment is clearly UVS (wavelength of maximum absorbance [λmax] = 376 nm), with key tuning sites (Phe86 and Cys90) consistent with other vertebrate UVS SWS1 pigments. Palaeognaths would appear, therefore, to have UVS SWS1 pigments. As they are considered to be basal in avian evolution, this suggests that UVS is the most likely ancestral state for birds. The functional significance of a dedicated UVS cone type in the emu is discussed.
Pelvic abscess due to Mycoplasma hominis following caesarean section
Authors: Mori Nobuaki , Takigawa Aya , Kagawa Narito , Kenri Tsuyoshi , Yoshida Shinji , Shibayama Keigo , Aoki Yasuko
Published: July 2016

Introduction:

Mycoplasma hominis is associated with genito-urinary tract infection and adverse pregnancy outcomes. However, whether the species is a true pathogen or part of the genito-urinary tracts natural flora remains unclear.

Case presentation:

A 41-year-old pregnant woman was admitted to our hospital at 38 weeks and 5 days of gestation owing to premature rupture of the membranes. The patient delivered by caesarean section. Subsequently, the patient complained of lower abdominal pain and had persistent fever. Enhanced computed tomography revealed pelvic abscesses. Gram staining of pus from the abscess and vaginal secretions indicated presence of polymorphonuclear leucocytes but no pathogens. Cultures on blood agar showed growth of pinpoint-sized colonies in an anaerobic environment within 48 h. Although administration of carbapenem and metronidazole was ineffective and we could not fully drain the abscess, administration of clindamycin led to clinical improvement. The isolates 16S rRNA gene and yidC gene sequences exhibited identity with those of M. hominis.

Conclusion:

Physicians should consider M. hominis in cases of pelvic abscesses where Gram staining yields negative results, small colonies are isolated from the abscess and treatment with β-lactam antibiotics is ineffective.
A mechanism of T cell dependent selection of antigen engaged Germinal Center B cells
Authors: Krishna Vinod , Bachman Kurtis E.
Published: July 2016

A model of B cell affinity selection is proposed, and an explanation of peripheral tolerance mechanisms through antibody repertoire editing is presented. We show that affinity discrimination between B cells is driven by a competition between obtaining T cell help and removal of B cells from the light zone, either through apoptosis or by a return to the dark zone of germinal centers. We demonstrate that this mechanism also allows for the negative selection of self reactive B cells and maintenance of B cell tolerance during the germinal center reaction. Finally, we demonstrate that clonal expansion upon return to the germinal center dark zone amplifies differences in the antigen affinity of B cells that survive the light zone.
cy3sabiork: A Cytoscape app for visualizing kinetic data from SABIO-RK
Authors: König Matthias
Published: July 2016

Kinetic data of biochemical reactions are essential for the creation of kinetic models of biochemical networks. One of the main resources of such information is SABIO-RK, a curated database for kinetic data of biochemical reactions and their related information. Despite the importance for computational modelling there has been no simple solution to visualize the kinetic data from SABIO-RK.

In this work, I present cy3sabiork, an app for querying and visualization of kinetic data from SABIO-RK in Cytoscape. The kinetic information is accessible via a combination of graph structure and annotations of nodes, with provided information consisting of: (I) reaction details, enzyme and organism; (II) kinetic law, formula, parameters; (III) experimental conditions; (IV) publication; (V) additional annotations. cy3sabiork creates an intuitive visualization of kinetic entries in form of a species-reaction-kinetics graph, which reflects the reaction-centered approach of SABIO-RK. Kinetic entries can be imported in SBML format from either the SABIO-RK web interface or via web service queries. The app allows for easy comparison of kinetic data, visual inspection of the elements involved in the kinetic record and simple access to the annotation information of the kinetic record.

I applied cy3sabiork in the computational modelling of galactose metabolism in the Human liver.
SVAPLSseq: A Method to correct for hidden sources of variability in differential gene expression studies based on RNAseq data
Authors: Chakraborty Sutirtha
Published: July 2016

RNAseq technology has revolutionized the face of gene expression profiling by generating read count data measuring the transcript abundances for each queried gene. But on the other side, the underlying technical artefacts generate a wide variety of hidden effects that may potentially distort the primary signals of differential expression between two sample groups. This is in addition to the factors of unwanted biological variability may give rise to a highly complicated pattern of residual expression heterogeneity in the data. Standard normalization techniques fail to correct for these latent variables and leads to a substantial reduction in the power of common statistical tests for differential expression. Here I introduce a novel method SVAPLSseq that aims to capture the traces of hidden variability in the data and incorporate them in a regression framework to re-estimate the primary signals for finding the truly positive genes. Application on both simulated and real-life RNAseq data shows the superior performance of the method compared to other available techniques. The method is provided as an R package ‘SVAPLSseq’ that has been submitted to Bioconductor.
The velocity-curvature power law inDrosophilalarval locomotion
Authors: Zago Myrka , Lacquaniti Francesco , Gomez-Marin Alex
Published: July 2016

We report the discovery that the locomotor trajectories generated by crawling fruit fly larvae follow the same power law relationship between speed and curvature previously found in the human motor control of hand-drawing, walking, eye movements and speech. Using high resolution behavioral tracking of individual flies in different sensory environments, we tested the power law by making maggots trace different trajectory types in naturalistic conditions, from reaching-like movements to scribbles. In all these conditions, we found that the law holds, and also that the exponent of the larval scaling law approaches 3/4, rather than the usual 2/3 exponent found in almost all human situations. This is consistent with recent findings on humans drawing ellipses on water, where dynamic effects related to medium viscosity have been shown to increase the exponent that would emerge from purely kinematic-geometric constraints. To our knowledge, the speed-curvature power law has only been studied in human and non-human primates, our work then being the first demonstration of the speed-curvature scaling principle in other species. As there are still different competing hypotheses for the origin of such law in humans (one invoking complex cortical computations in primates; another postulating its emergence from the coupling of viscoelastic muscle properties with simple central pattern generation) our findings in the larva demonstrate that the law is possible in an animal with a nervous system orders of magnitude simpler than that of humans, thus supporting the latter view. Given that our discovery is inDrosophila(amenable to precise genetic manipulations, electron microscopy reconstruction of neural circuits, imaging in behaving animals, electrophysiology, and other techniques) this opens great potential for uncovering the mechanistic implementation of the velocity-curvature power law. Such scaling laws might exist because natural selection favors processes that remain behaviorally efficient across a wide range of contexts in distantly related species. Our work is an effort to search for shared principles of animal behavior across phyla.
Periodic Non-Sinusoidal Activity Can Produce Cross-Frequency Coupling in Cortical Signals in the Absence of Functional Interaction Between Neural Sources
Authors: Gerber Edden M. , Sadeh Boaz , Ward Andrew , Knight Robert T. , Deouell Leon Y.
Published: July 2016

The analysis of cross-frequency coupling (CFC) has become popular in studies involving intracranial and scalp EEG recordings in humans. It has been argued that some cases where CFC is mathematically present may not reflect an interaction of two distinct yet functionally coupled neural sources with different frequencies. Here we provide two empirical examples from intracranial recordings where CFC can be shown to be driven by the shape of a periodic waveform rather than by a functional interaction between distinct sources. Using simulations, we also present a generalized and realistic scenario where such coupling may arise. This scenario, which we term waveform-dependent CFC, arises when sharp waveforms (e.g., cortical potentials) occur in a periodic manner throughout parts of the data. Since the waveforms are repeated periodically, they constitute a slow wave that is inherently phase-aligned with the high-frequency component carried by the same waveforms. We submit that such behavior of the data, which seems to be present in various cortical signals, cannot be interpreted as reflecting functional modulation between distinct neural sources without additional evidence. In addition, we show that even low amplitude periodic potentials that cannot be readily observed or controlled for, are sufficient for significant CFC to occur.
Inference of distribution of fitness effects and proportion of adaptive substitutions from polymorphism data
Authors: Tataru Paula , Mollion Maéva , Glemin Sylvain , Bataillon Thomas
Published: July 2016

The distribution of fitness effects (DFE) encompasses deleterious, neutral and beneficial mutations. It conditions the evolutionary trajectory of populations, as well as the rate of adaptive molecular evolution (α). Inference of DFE andαfrom patterns of polymorphism (SFS) and divergence data has been a longstanding goal of evolutionary genetics. A widespread assumption shared by numerous methods developed so far to infer DFE andαfrom such data is that beneficial mutations contribute only negligibly to the polymorphism data. Hence, a DFE comprising only deleterious mutations tends to be estimated from SFS data, andαis only predicted by contrasting the SFS with divergence data from an outgroup. Here, we develop a hierarchical probabilistic framework that extends on previous methods and also can infer DFE andαfrom polymorphism data alone. We use extensive simulations to examine the performance of our method. We show that both a full DFE, comprising both deleterious and beneficial mutations, andαcan be inferred without resorting to divergence data. We demonstrate that inference of DFE from polymorphism data alone can in fact provide more reliable estimates, as it does not rely on strong assumptions about a shared DFE between the outgroup and ingroup species used to obtain the SFS and divergence data. We also show that not accounting for the contribution of beneficial mutations to polymorphism data leads to substantially biased estimates of the DFE andα. We illustrate these points using our newly developed framework, while also comparing to one of the most widely used inference methods available.
Lognormal firing rate distribution reveals prominent fluctuation-driven regime in spinal motor networks
Authors: Petersen Peter C. , Berg Rune W.
Published: July 2016

When spinal circuits generate rhythmic movements it is important that the neuronal activity remains within stable bounds to avoid saturation and to preserve responsiveness. In what dynamical regime does the neuronal population operate in order to achieve this? Here, we simultaneously record from hundreds of neurons in lumbar spinal circuits and establish the neuronal fraction that operates within either a ‘mean-driven’ or a ‘fluctuation–driven’ regime during generation of multiple motor behaviors. We find a rich diversity of firing rates across the neuronal population as reflected in a lognormal distribution and demonstrate that half of the neurons spend at least 50% of the time in the ‘fluctuation–driven’ regime regardless of behavior. Since neurons in this regime have a ‘supralinear’ input–output curve, which enhances sensitivity, whereas the mean–driven regime reduces sensitivity, this fraction may reflect a fine trade–off between stability and sensitivity in order to maintain flexibility across motor behaviors.
Autism spectrum disorder traits among prisoners
Authors: Underwood Lisa , McCarthy Jane , Chaplin Eddie , Forrester Andrew , Mills Richard , Murphy Declan
Published: July 2016

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to determine the extent of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) traits among prisoners. The authors tested the hypotheses that ASD traits would: be continuously distributed among prisoners; be unrecognised by prison staff; and predict whether a prisoner met diagnostic criteria for ASD.

Design/methodology/approach

– ASD traits were measured among 240 prisoners in a male prison in London, UK using the 20-item Autism Quotient (AQ-20). Further diagnostic assessment was carried out using the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule. Results were compared with ASD data from the 2007 Psychiatric Morbidity Survey.

Findings

– There were 39 participants with an AQ-20 score=10; indicating significant autistic traits. The distribution of ASD traits among participants appeared to be normal and was not significantly higher than the rate found in a population-based sample from England.

Originality/value

– Few studies have explored ASD traits among prisoners. The authors identified high levels of unrecognised ASD traits among a group of male prisoners, many of whom went on to meet diagnostic criteria for ASD. The study highlights the need for specialist assessment within the criminal justice system for individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders including ASD. The authors discuss the process of carrying out an ASD assessment project in a prison.
How might we study international business to account for marginalized subjects?
Authors: Durepos Gabrielle , Prasad Ajnesh , Villanueva Cristian E.
Published: July 2016

Purpose

The aim of this article is to encourage critical scholars of international business (IB) to engage with scholarship that turns to practice and situates knowledges. The paper contends that such undertakings have the potential to constructively politicize research in the field of international business.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper discusses the need for future research in the field to be studied more critically so as to be able to focus attention on those subjects detrimentally impacted by the operation of IB. It further identifies possibilities for doing so.

Findings

The paper argues that turning to practice and situating knowledges represents a move towards the emancipation of subjects marginalized – and, all too often, silenced – in the ordinary functioning of IB.

Originality/value

Moving against the grain of positivist orientated approaches to research in the field, whilst simultaneously building on the critical traditions to the study of IB, we consider how future scholarship might account for marginalized subjects.
The funeralesque as the experience of workers at the margins of international business
Authors: Jagannathan Srinath , Selvaraj Patturaja , Joseph Jerome
Published: July 2016

Purpose

This paper aims to show that the experience of workers on the margins of international business is akin to the funeralesque. The funeralesque is understood as the appropriation of the value generated by workers across the production networks of international business.

Design/methodology/approach

Drawing from the engagement with crematorium workers, the narratives of workers are articulated, describing the insecurities and injustices experienced by them. The authors draw from six-month-long qualitative engagement with seven workers in a crematorium in Ahmedabad, India.

Findings

The experience of marginal subjects provides important insights into how international business, in conjunction with states, structures inequality for marginal subjects. Precariousness, social exclusion, low wages and subjectivities of humiliation are the experiences of marginal subjects. The reproduction of marginality in globalising cities is an important element of the funeralesque through which extraction and re-distribution of value across international networks is legitimised.

Practical implications

In understanding international business as the funeralesque, the authors demystify the power relations constituted by it. The authors provide a metaphor for dethroning the legitimacy of international business and indicate that its modern practices are similar to the practices of value appropriation that occur in a funeral.

Originality/value

The authors develop the metaphor of the funeralesque to gain insights into the experiences of workers on the margins of international business. The authors are, thus, able to theorise the underbelly of globalising cities in a poetic, subversive way.
A transaction costs-based model to choose PPP procurement procedures
Authors: Carbonara Nunzia , Costantino Nicola , Pellegrino Roberta
Published: July 2016

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to develop a decision model for choosing the tendering procedure in PPP that minimizes the transaction costs borne by the public sector.

Design/methodology/approach

– A conceptual model that relates the procurement procedures described in the EU legal framework to launch PPPs and the transaction costs, considering the level of information managed by each procurement procedure has been developed. The authors use this conceptual model to develop propositions about the impact that specific project- and country-related factors have on the choice of the procurement procedure that minimizes the transaction costs.

Findings

– The application of the proposed model to the case of the Italian highway “Cispadana” shows its usefulness in orienting the public authority’s choice between the different tendering procedures, taking into account project- and country-related factors.

Research limitations/implications

– The present study fills the gap existing in the literature on transaction costs of PPP projects and the procurement procedure used to launch those projects by developing a model that relates the level of transaction costs with a set of key factors, namely the level of information managed during the tendering process, the number of bidders, the project size, the project complexity, and the institutional environment.

Practical implications

– As for practitioners, the main contribution of this study lies in offering a tool for supporting the public authority in the decision-making process about the tendering procedures in PPPs without imposing the selection of a specific procedure.

Originality/value

– The approach developed provides a new tool to support the contracting authority in the design and choice of the tendering procedures in PPP.
Labour and skill shortages in Hong Kong’s construction industry
Authors: Ho Paul H. K.
Published: July 2016

Purpose

– With many large-scale infrastructural and residential projects in Hong Kong, the construction industry is suffering from serious labour and skill shortages. The purpose of this paper is to identify practicable strategies for resolving these problems, assess the effectiveness of these identified strategies and finally develop a conceptual labour supply model.

Design/methodology/approach

– Data were collected qualitatively and quantitatively through discussion forums and questionnaire surveys. Comprising 30 expert members, two discussion forums were held to identify both practical response strategies and conceptual labour supply framework. Based on ten identified strategies, surveys were then conducted in the form of a web-based questionnaire. In total, 2,900 respondents were invited to take part and 438 questionnaires were completed. Grounded theory approach was adopted to develop a labour supply theory.

Findings

– In total, three identified strategies which could deliver quick results to the industry were increasing worker wages, importing foreign workers and engaging employers to provide training. Other identified strategies were also effective over the medium and long terms.

Practical implications

– Many of the identified solutions are enforceable. These are not only applicable to Hong Kong, but also transferable to other countries where voluntarily based measures under the free-market economy do not work in an effective manner.

Originality/value

– Unlike previous studies largely relied on voluntarily based measures, most of the identified strategies in this study are enforceable to ensure its effectiveness. In addition, based on the grounded theory approach, this study has developed a conceptual model for analysing labour supply issues in both local and overseas situations, thus contributing to the new knowledge in this area.
Managing employees beyond age 65: from the margins to the mainstream?
Authors: Lain David , Loretto Wendy
Published: July 2016

Purpose

– Against a backdrop of legislative and policy changes, this paper assesses the extent to which the over-65 age-group is moving from the margins to the mainstream of UK employment. The purpose of this paper is to fill a gap in HR research and practice which, it is argued, has paid relatively little attention to the over-65s.

Design/methodology/approach

– The analysis draws on three waves of the Labour Force Survey (LFS) (2001, 2008, 2014), to explore the extent to which organisational, occupational and sectoral marginalisation of the over-65s has changed in the twenty-first century.

Findings

– The results show that the share of 65-69 year olds working as employees doubled between 2001 and 2014, primarily because long-term established employees worked longer. Overrepresentations of lower-level “Lopaq” occupations reduced, and over-65s became more integrated across occupations and sectors.

Research limitations/implications

– More research is needed to understand the factors driving the steady move from the margins to the mainstream (e.g. LFS does not measure pensions), and future research on the older workforce should automatically include workers in this age-group.

Practical implications

– The discussion considers the implications for managerial practice, in a context of increasingly age-diverse workforces.

Originality/value

– This paper addresses a gap in research into later life working and also demonstrates the ways in which the nature of employment among the over-65s is changing, thereby challenging some of the assumptions about those who work into later life and how they are – or should be managed.
Target experiences of workplace bullying: insights from Australia, India and Turkey
Authors: D'Cruz Premilla , Paull Megan , Omari Maryam , Guneri-Cangarli Burcu
Published: July 2016

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to explore target experiences of workplace bullying across Australia, India and Turkey, uncovering cross-cultural convergence and divergence.

Design/methodology/approach

– A questionnaire-based qualitative data survey of business school students with current/prior work experience (n=399) was undertaken. In total, 114 respondents (57 Australian, 34 Indian, 23 Turkish) identified themselves as targets of workplace bullying. Close-ended data pertaining to sociodemographic details were analysed via Statistical Package for the Social Sciences for descriptive statistics while open-ended data pertaining to experiences of bullying were thematically analysed against pre-figured categories derived from literature.

Findings

– Manifestations of, etiology of and coping with workplace bullying were similar across all three countries, highlighting cultural universals. Clear variations in source of bullying behaviour and availability and use of formal interventions as well as more subtle variations relating to coexistence with category-based harassment, outcomes and bystander behaviour underscored the influence of national culture.

Research limitations/implications

– Inclusion of a student population, notwithstanding their work experience, as well as reliance on the questionnaire as a tool pose limits in terms of external validity and communication congruence.

Practical implications

– Understanding into the similarities and differences of workplace bullying across cultures facilitates the design of interventions tailor-made for a particular society, serving as inputs for international/multi-national and offshored business enterprises.

Originality/value

– The study, focusing on multiple aspects of target experiences, not only draws on both dimensional and metaphorical cross-cultural frameworks but also includes geographically dispersed and socially diverse nations. Thus, it extends insights from previous cross-cultural explorations of workplace bullying which, apart from being few in number, are limited either by their frameworks, spatial range and/or thematic coverage.
High performance work systems and organization attraction
Authors: Lee Hwanwoo , Werner Steve , Kim Tae-Yeol
Published: July 2016

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to test the effect of human resource systems on organization attraction. Furthermore, the authors theorize and test how the vocational interests of prospective employees can serve as boundary conditions that affect the relationship between high-performance work systems (HPWS) and organization attraction.

Design/methodology/approach

– To achieve these ends, this study conducts a scenario-based experiment with prospective employees to examine the effects of HPWS and vocational interests on organization attraction.

Findings

– The authors demonstrated that HPWS is an important feature for organization attraction. Despite the generally positive linkage between HPWS and organization attraction, the most important implication of the findings is that job applicants also have an important role in responding to the features being used by a firm to attract applicants through HPWS. For example, potential job applicants with higher (rather than lower) social vocational interests are more likely to be attracted to the HPWS of firms.

Research limitations/implications

– This study has limitations that must be considered. In particular, the authors treated HPWS as a unidimensional construct. Given the study design, it is unclear whether the attraction effects are driven by HPWS as a whole or whether they are being driven by any single or multiple component(s) of the system. Future research needs to consider examining how specific practices are matched with specific vocational interests by using multiple scenarios where they bundle different high-performance work practices. Doing so would further the understanding of which specific practices affect attraction and for whom.

Originality/value

– This study contributes to the authors’ knowledge of the effects of HPWS on organization attraction. In addition, job applicants’ social vocational interest plays an important role in strengthening the relationship between HPWS and organization attraction.
Fight fire with fire: the ultimate active defence
Authors: Miraglia Armando , Casenove Matteo
Published: July 2016

Purpose

This paper proposes an approach to deal with malware and botnets, which in recent years have become one of the major threats in the cyber world. These malicious pieces of software can cause harm not only to the infected victims but also to actors at a much larger scale. For this reason, defenders, namely, security researchers and analysts, and law enforcement have fought back and contained the spreading infections. However, the fight is fundamentally asymmetric.

Design/methodology/approach

In this paper, the authors argue the need to equip defenders with more powerful active defence tools such as malware and botnets, called antidotes, which must be used as last resort to mitigate malware epidemics. Additionally, the authors argue the validity of this approach by considering the ethical and legal concerns of leveraging sane and compromised hosts to mitigate malware epidemics. Finally, the authors further provide evidence of the possible success of these practices by applying their approach to Hlux, Sality and Zeus malware families.

Findings

Although attackers have neither ethical nor legal constraints, defenders are required to follow much stricter rules and develop significantly more intricate tools. Additionally, attackers have been improving their malware to make them more resilient to takeovers.

Originality/value

By combining existing research, the authors provide an analysis and possible implication of a more intrusive yet effective solution for fighting the spreading of malware.
Family ownership, control and corporate capital structure
Authors: Baek Hyungkee Young , Cho David D. , Fazio Philip L
Published: July 2016

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to explain how family firm ownership and management control affect corporate capital structure strategy after controlling for other significant variables. The authors argue that, although family ownership has a positive effect on a firm’s leverage, family control through the CEO position and equity performance moderate its impact.

Design/methodology/approach

– Using a stratified random sample of 200 US public firms in the S
&
P Small-Cap 600 index from 1999 to 2007, this study uses random effect panel regressions to test the impact of family ownership on market value and book value debt ratios and the moderating effects of family control and equity performance after controlling for firm, industry, and macroeconomic variables.

Findings

– The initial panel regression suggests that family ownership is not related to debt ratios. However, further examination with controls for family CEO and equity performance shows that family ownership is positively related to market and book value debt ratios, but its effect is offset by family control through the CEO position and equity performance.

Research limitations/implications

– This study’s methodology can be extended to examine how family firm governance factors affect other firm behaviors such as investment, risk management, and CEO compensation.

Practical implications

– Practitioners should consider family ownership and management control factors when establishing financing strategy. The Small Business Administration and other government agencies should make similar considerations when setting policies.

Originality/value

– This paper separates ownership and management control factors to explain why family firms use more or less leverage. This study, thus, reconciles the mixed results of prior studies, which do not differentiate between these two governance factors.