bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Towards comprehensive characterization of CRISPR-linked genes
Authors: Shmakov Sergey A. , Makarova Kira S. , Wolf Yuri I. , Severinov Konstantin V. , Koonin Eugene V.
Published: February 2018

The CRISPR-Cas systems of bacterial and archaeal adaptive immunity consist of arrays of direct repeats separated by unique spacers and multiple CRISPR-associated (cas) genes encoding proteins that mediate the adaptation, CRISPR RNA maturation and interference stages of the CRISPR response. In addition to the relatively small set of core cas genes that are typically present in all representatives of each (sub)type of CRISPR-Cas systems and are essential for the defense function, numerous genes occur in CRISPR-cas loci only sporadically. Some of these have been shown to perform various ancillary roles in CRISPR response whereas the functional relevance of many others, if any, remains obscure. We developed a computational strategy for systematically detecting genes that are likely to be functionally linked to CRISPR-Cas systems. The approach is based on a “CRISPRicity” metric that measures the strength of CRISPR association for all protein-coding genes from sequenced bacterial and archaeal genomes. Uncharacterized genes with CRISPRicity values comparable to those of known cas genes are considered candidate CRISPR-ancillary genes, and we describe additional criteria to identify functionally relevant genes in the candidate set. About 80 genes that were not previously reported to be associated with CRISPR-Cas were identified as probable CRISPR-ancillary genes. A substantial majority of these genes reside in type III CRISPR-cas loci which implies exceptional functional versatility of type III systems. Numerous candidate CRISPR-ancillary genes encode integral membrane proteins suggestive of tight membrane connections of type III CRISPR-Cas whereas many other candidates are proteins implicated in various signal transduction pathways. These predictions provide ample material for improving annotation of CRISPR-cas loci and experimental characterization of previously unsuspected aspects of CRISPR-Cas functionality.

SIGNIFICANCE

The CRISPR-Cas systems that mediate adaptive immunity in bacteria and archaea encompass a small set of core cas genes that are essential in a broad range of CRISPR-Cas systems. However, a much greater number of genes only sporadically co-occur with CRISPR-Cas, and for most of these, involvement in CRISPR-Cas functions has not been demonstrated. We developed a computational strategy that provides for systematic identification of CRISPR-linked proteins and prediction of their functional association with CRISPR-Cas systems. About 80 previously undetected, putative CRISPR-accessory proteins were identified. A large fraction of these proteins are predicted to be membrane-associated revealing an unknown side of CRISPR biology.
Long-term depression is independent of GluN2 subunit composition
Authors: Wong Jonathan M. , Gray John A.
Published: February 2018

NMDA receptors (NMDARs) mediate major forms of both long-term potentiation (LTP) and long-term depression (LTD) and understanding how a single receptor can initiate both phenomena remains a major question in neuroscience. A prominent hypothesis implicates the NMDAR subunit composition, specifically GluN2A and GluN2B, in dictating the rules of synaptic plasticity. However, studies testing this hypotheses have yielded inconsistent and often contradictory results, especially for LTD. These inconsistent results may be due to challenges in the interpretation of subunit-selective pharmacology and in dissecting out the contributions of differential channel properties versus the interacting proteins unique to GluN2A or GluN2B. In this study, we address the pharmacological and biochemical challenges by utilizing a single-neuron genetic approach to delete NMDAR subunits in both male and female conditional knock-out mice. In addition, emerging evidence that non-ionotropic signaling through the NMDAR is sufficient for NMDAR-dependent LTD allowed the rigorous assessment of unique subunit contributions to NMDAR-dependent LTD while eliminating the variable of differential charge transfer. Here we find that neither the GluN2A nor the GluN2B subunit is strictly necessary for either non-ionotropic or ionotropic LTD.
A Kaposi’s Sarcoma-Associated Herpesvirus Infection Mechanism is Independent of Integrins α3β1, αVβ3, and αVβ5
Authors: TerBush Allison Alwan , Hafkamp Florianne , Lee Hee Jun , Coscoy Laurent
Published: February 2018

Host receptor usage by KSHV has been best studied using primary microvascular endothelial and fibroblast cells, although the virus infects a wide variety of cell types in culture and in natural infections. In these two infection models, KSHV adheres to the cell though heparan sulfate (HS) binding, then interacts with a complex of EphA2, xct, and integrins α3β1, αVβ3, αVβ5 to catalyze viral entry. We dissected this receptor complex at the genetic level with CRISPR-Cas9 to precisely determine receptor usage in two epithelial cell lines. Surprisingly, we discovered an infection mechanism that requires HS and EphA2 but is independent of αV- and β1-family integrin expression. Furthermore, infection appears to be independent of the EphA2 intracellular domain. We also demonstrated while two other endogenous Eph receptors were dispensable for KSHV infection, transduced EphA4 and EphA5 significantly enhanced infection of cells lacking EphA2.

IMPORTANCE

Our data reveals an integrin-independent route of KSHV infection and suggests that multiple Eph receptors besides EphA2 can promote and regulate infection. Since integrins and Eph receptors are large protein families with diverse expression patterns across cells and tissues, we propose that KSHV may engage with several proteins from both families in different combinations to negotiate successful entry into diverse cell types.
Topological study of diverse hydrogen-bonded patterns found in a system of a nickel(II) complex and the sulfate anion
Authors: Harvey Miguel Angel , Suarez Sebastián , Zolotarev Pavel N. , Proserpio Davide M. , Baggio Ricardo
Published: February 2018

A nickel(II) coordination complex, bis[2,6-bis(1H-benzimidazol-2-yl-κN3)pyridine-κN]nickel(II) sulfate, [Ni(C19H13N5)2]SO4or [Ni(H2L)2]SO4, having four peripheral tetrahedrally oriented N—H donor units, combines with sulfate bridges to create hydrogen-bonded structures of varied dimensionality. The three crystal structures reported herein in the space groupsP212121,I\overline{4} andPccnare defined solely by strong charge-assisted N—H...O hydrogen bonds and contain disordered guests (water and dimethylformamide) that vary in size, shape and degree of hydrophilicity. Two of the compounds are channelled solids with three-dimensional structures, while the third is one-dimensional in nature. In spite of their differences, all three present a striking resemblance to the previously reported anhydrous relative [Guoet al.(2011).Chin. J. Inorg. Chem.27, 1517–1520], which is considered as the reference framework from which all three title compounds are derived. The hydrogen-bonded frameworks are described and compared using crystallographic and topological approaches.
Imperfect information and participation in insurance markets: evidence from Italy
Authors: Santeramo Fabio Gaetano
Published: February 2018

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how experience in insurance contracts may influence participation in the Italian crop insurance market.

Design/methodology/approach

From Italian farm-level data, the author estimates a dynamic discrete choice model of participation to investigate the role of experience. The methodology, coupled with exploratory analysis of the data, allows one to compare the relevance of different sources of experience in the crop insurance decision-making process.

Findings

The author found that experience tends to be a catalyst for insurance participation. Policy implications are discussed, in particular, the author discusses on the importance of bolstering uptake to exploit the advantages of the inertia that emerge from experience, and the importance of initiatives to increase the knowledge of crop insurance instruments.

Originality/value

To the best of the author’s knowledge, the role of experience has been underinvestigated. The analysis has the specific contribution of modeling the potential role of experience (exploited after buying an insurance contract) on uptake in crop insurance programs.
Building capacity on ecosystem-based adaptation strategy to cope with extreme events and sea-level rise on the Uruguayan coast
Authors: Carro Inti , Seijo Leonardo , Nagy Gustavo J. , Lagos Ximena , Gutiérrez Ofelia
Published: February 2018

Purpose

This study aims to show a case study of ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) measures to increase coastal system’s resilience to extreme weather events and sea-level rise (SLR) implemented at Kiyú (Uruguayan coast of the Rio de la Plata river estuary).

Design/methodology/approach

A participatory process involving the community and institutional stakeholders was carried out to select and prioritise adaptation measures to reduce the erosion of sandy beaches, dunes and bluffs due to extreme wind storm surge and rainfall, SLR and mismanagement practices. The recovery of coastal ecosystems was implemented through soft measures (green infrastructure) such as revegetation with native species, dune regeneration, sustainable drainage systems and the reduction of use pressures.

Findings

Main achievements of this case study include capacity building of municipal staff and stakeholders, knowledge exchanges with national-level decision makers and scientists and the incorporation of EbA approaches by subnational-level coastal governments. To consolidate EbA, the local government introduced innovations in the coastal management institutional structure.

Originality/value

The outcomes of the article include, besides the increase in the resilience of social-ecological systems, the strengthening of socio-institutional behaviour, structure and sustainability. This experience provides insights for developing a strategy for both Integrated Coastal Management and climate adaptation at the national scale.
Customer participation in services and employee innovative behavior
Authors: Li Minglong , Hsu Cathy H.C.
Published: February 2018

Purpose

This paper aims to investigate the influence of customer participation in services on the innovative behaviors of employees. Although previous studies have acknowledged the importance of customers in service innovation and investigated how customer participation in product development teams affect innovation, the effect of mandatory customer participation in services on the employee innovative behavior has not been examined. In addition to addressing such gap, this study proposed the mediating role of interpersonal trust in the relationship between customer participation and employee innovative behavior and then tested the hypotheses in a restaurant context.

Design/methodology/approach

A total of 514 valid questionnaires were collected from frontline employees or entry-level managers in 25 well-known restaurants (including 14 hotels and 11 freestanding restaurants) in Beijing, China. The relationships among customer participation, interpersonal trust and employee innovative behavior were examined using structural models analyzed in AMOS 20.0.

Findings

The structural equation modeling results indicate that customers’ information and emotional participation in services significantly influence the innovative behavior of employees, whereas behavioral participation does not. In addition, a high level of interpersonal trust between customers and employees may increase employee innovative behaviors. Moreover, unlike cognitive trust, affective trust mediates the relationship between customer information or emotional participation and employee innovative behavior.

Practical implications

Findings indicate that service firms can encourage customers to participate actively in service co-creation; their participation in terms of information is encouraged to foster employee innovative behaviors by training employees and establishing an appropriate climate for information exchange. Moreover, service firms must pay attention to the emotions of customers during the service processes. Furthermore, the affective trust between customers and employees is significant to service firms, which need to take measures for employees to manage their relationships with customers well.

Originality/value

Based on the concepts of service marketing and organizational behavior, this study contributes to the research on customer–employee co-production and employee innovative behavior from an interdisciplinary perspective. The study reveals the influencing mechanism of customer participation on employee innovative behavior and contributes to the research on customer–employee interpersonal trust. Previous studies emphasized the importance of trust among work group members in innovation, while this study supports the association between customer–employee interpersonal trust and employee innovative behaviors.
A multilevel investigation of China’s regional economic conditions on co-creation of dining experience and outcomes
Authors: Ji Mingjie , Wong IpKin Anthony , Eves Anita , Leong Aliana Man Wai
Published: February 2018

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to investigate how the presence of other customers in restaurant social settings becomes a resource (referred to as “customer-to-customer interaction” or “C2CI”) to co-create an escape dining experience and stimulate dining outcomes, namely, food attachment and dining frequency. The relationships are further tested under the effects of regional economic conditions.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected by using a multi-step approach. The first data set was obtained through a personally administered survey, which included a sample of 356 Chinese tourists who dined at fine Western (i.e. Portuguese) restaurants in Macau. The second data set concerned economic statistics and was obtained from the statistics departments of mainland China and Taiwan. A multilevel design with hierarchical linear modeling was used to test the proposed model. Multilevel mediating and moderating effects were also examined.

Findings

The results suggest that customer escape dining experience significantly mediated the relationship between C2CI and food attachment, while food attachment fully mediated the relationship between customer escape experience and dining frequency. The multilevel effect of regional economic conditions played a significant role in moderating the C2CI–escape experience relationship in which the effect of C2CI was more salient for tourists from less economically developed regions in China. The experience–food attachment relationship was also contingent on the regional economic conditions in which the relationship was stronger for tourists from less economically developed areas. A multilevel mediating effect was also presented in the study.

Originality/value

The study contributes to the literature on experience co-creation in restaurant dining by exploring and testing the possibility of the presence of other customers to become a resource of experience co-creation, which is currently overlooked in the restaurant dining literature. The study advances the concept of co-creation by including the presence of other customers and restates the active role of diners in creating experiences. It also considers the existence of structural patterns in individualized experiences.
Value co-creation on social media
Authors: Lin Shan , Yang Shuai , Ma Minghui , Huang Jian
Published: February 2018

Purpose

In recent years, hotels in China have been interested in leveraging social media platforms to facilitate interactions with and among consumers. Such brand engagement efforts on social media networks are believed to promote brands through co-creation of consumer experiences and values. This study was conducted in the context of Chinese hotels. The paper aims to identify two forms of brand engagement via social media platforms – consumer-initiated engagement and firm-initiated engagement – and to examine their effects on hotels’ display advertising effectiveness.

Design/methodology/approach

This study collected a comprehensive data set. First, the authors collected display advertisement data from two hotel chains in China. Second, the authors gathered the two hotels’ engagement data from Weibo. A generalized linear mixed model was used in data analysis.

Findings

The findings of the study indicate that both forms of brand engagement on social media network sites positively influence display advertising effectiveness. Moreover, for a strong brand, consumer-initiated engagement is more influential in increasing display advertising effectiveness; however, for a weak brand, firm-initiated engagement gains more clicks and conversions from advertisements.

Practical implications

As hotels in China continue to leverage online media platforms to reach, engage with and co-create value with potential and existing consumers, this study provides managers with insight as to how they can achieve higher advertising effectiveness by engaging with consumers on a consistent basis on social media.

Originality/value

This study mainly contributes to recent increasing research on engagement and value co-creation by providing a lens through which to assess the relationship between brand engagement via social media networks and online display advertising effectiveness.
When co-creation pays: stimulating engagement to increase revenues
Authors: Tu YaoJen , Neuhofer Barbara , Viglia Giampaolo
Published: February 2018

Purpose

Customer willingness to pay (WTP) was initially set out to estimate the perceived value from a purchasing experience. However, purchasing decisions have changed as value co-creation has been increasingly applied in the hospitality industry. In adopting a service-dominant (S-D) logic lens, this paper aims to empirically test how co-creation affects WTP through customer engagement (CE).

Design/methodology/approach

The context for the empirical analysis is the Chinese market, one of the largest online purchasing markets that has been significantly transformed since the proliferation of co-creation. The study is a within-design online experiment with 488 Chinese participants. The analysis makes use of mediation models to evaluate the proposed mechanisms behind co-creation, CE and the moderated role of frequency of stay, and their impacts on WTP.

Findings

The data confirm the hypothesised positive impact of value co-creation on customer WTP. This impact is fully mediated by CE, i.e. CE is the mechanism behind a higher WTP propensity for co-created hotel rooms. Notably, the frequency of stay at a hotel, thus positively influencing WTP, does not have a moderated mediation effect on this relationship.

Originality/value

Limited research to date has investigated the price effectiveness of value co-creation in the hospitality context. This study contributes to the S-D logic and value co-creation discourses by testing the effectiveness of these concepts in relation to customer pricing decisions. This study empirically confirms the hypothesised model and provides recommendations for hospitality research and practice.
A taxonomy of value co-creation on Weibo – a communication perspective
Authors: Ge Jing , Gretzel Ulrike
Published: February 2018

Purpose

This paper aims to develop a taxonomy of value co-creation types occurring in firm-customer interactions on social media.

Design/methodology/approach

In total, 570 destination marketing organization (DMO)-initiated posts on Weibo and 3,137 responses were collected to develop a taxonomy by conducting qualitative empirical-to-conceptual analysis. To apply the taxonomy through conceptual-to-empirical analysis, 100 DMO-initiated posts and 823 responses were collected.

Findings

The communication-focused value co-creation taxonomy shows a variety of co-creators, verbal and non-verbal communicative co-creation actions facilitated by social media, and different co-created value types.

Research limitations/implications

This study used a single social media platform and selected three DMOs’ Weibo accounts. Future research should focus on other types of firms and different social media platforms.

Practical implications

This study used a single social media platform and selected three DMOs’ Weibo accounts. Future research should focus on other types of firms and different social media platforms.

Originality/value

This study enriches the tourism literature and the general marketing literature by examining value co-creation from a communication perspective and provides a comprehensive classification of value co-creation opportunities on social media.
Risk factors influencing environmental protest severity in China
Authors: Xue Ming , Shen Huizhang , Zhao Jidi
Published: February 2018

Purpose

Using protest event analysis, this study aims to investigate which risk factors influence the severity of environmental protests in China, thus filling a gap in China-related environmental protest literature.

Design/methodology/approach

Using a database derived from media coverage of 129 environmental protests in China from 2009 to 2015, this empirical study identifies underlying risk factors influencing environmental protest severity, quantifies these protest cases and verifies the associations between risk factors and severity using ordered logistic regression.

Findings

The results show that higher environmental health threat, economic loss, distrust of local government, lack of local governmental response, improper local government action and higher population density are likely to increase environmental protest severity; however, contrary to expectations, environmental information disclosure has no significant effect. These findings illuminate the vital and variational role of local government throughout all stages of the evolutionary process in environmental protests. Moreover, public distrust of local government is the principal cause of these protests.

Originality/value

This study enhances the understanding of how Chinese environmental protests arise from the identified risk factors and contributes to quantitative multi-case research in this area. Furthermore, the findings may help local governments in China, as well as in other countries, to enact positive measures to prevent serious environmental protests and improve their ability to address the environmental problems that cause protests. More effective governance can decrease the number and severity of environmental protests and thus promote social stability.
The applicability of growth machine theory to the knowledge economy
Authors: Chilton Kenneth , Jung Kyujin
Published: February 2018

Purpose

Neoliberal urban regimes focus on redeveloping downtowns to compete for economic development. Chattanooga has been lauded by urban development organizations such as Brookings and the Urban Institute for its public-private partnership model dubbed the Chattanooga Way. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

In this paper, the authors use social network analysis to analyze elites highly involved in local economic development, education policy and social entrepreneurship in Chattanooga, TN.

Findings

The results suggest a strong group of nonelected local elites dominate policymaking in policy arenas traditionally reserved for elected elites. The overlap between elites who shape local policy and elites who fiscally benefit from local policies raises troubling questions for local democracy, public accountability and transparency.

Originality/value

This analysis is valuable to public policy scholars who are interested in analyzing neoliberal coalitions and their impact on local development initiatives.
Cash-based response in relief: the impact for humanitarian logistics
Authors: Heaslip Graham , Kovács Gyöngyi , Haavisto Ira
Published: February 2018

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the financial and material flows in cash-based responses (CBRs) and their implications for humanitarian operations. This research proposes to view cash as a commodity used by humanitarian actors in emergency operations and therefore aims to explore how CBRs impact on humanitarian logistics and ultimately, affect beneficiaries.

Design/methodology/approach

The methodological approach of grounded theory was chosen for this inquiry because it allowed the researchers to generate a general explanation for the process of CBRs in emergency situations based on the views of participants interviewed. Interviews were conducted with senior managers, supply chain managements and logistics officers from international humanitarian organisations (HOs), United Nations agencies and commercial organisations involved in humanitarian operations. Examples of topics covered during the field work included, procedures and policy; knowledge and information management; systems and technology; actors and agents.

Findings

The impact of CBRs on humanitarian operations can though not be understated. They alter supply chain design, the very role of beneficiaries as well as HOs, and change the strategy of aid delivery from push to pull. Perhaps, the most important factor is the elimination of many logistical activities that needed to be performed by HOs. Delivering cash diminishes the needs for lengthy procurement and assessment processes, pre-positioning, transportation and distribution. This bears the potential of significant reductions in costs for delivering humanitarian aid at the same time as it is an important move from aid to trade.

Practical implications

The challenge for humanitarian agencies in the coming years is to overcome their fears surrounding CBRs, and to implement cash programmes where they are judged to be the most appropriate response. This will require not only a change in donor policies, but also a fundamental change in the skill set of humanitarian logisticians, who are used to identifying needs and providing commodities and thus to maintaining control over the provision of assistance.

Originality/value

The contribution of this research is twofold: this is the first examination of cash-based interventions in humanitarian operations through the prism of supply chain management. Second, the research is field based and grounded in empirical observations thus adding to the literature and offering insights to practice.
Narrating the narrative turn in narrative accounting research:
Authors: Rutherford Brian A.
Published: February 2018

Purpose

This paper aims to analyse the nature and extent of convergence within the literature of the narrative turn in narrative accounting research.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper offers an actor–network–theoretic perspective drawing on Latour’s theory of citation and Shwed and Bearman’s development of that theory to analyse patterns of convergence.

Findings

The paper finds that across the exemplars of narrative turn research examined, there is only a limited level of epistemic engagement so that exemplars achieve their status without undergoing trials of strength.

Research limitations/implications

The paper argues that the resources of the relevant academic community are spread so thinly that each seam – each research question, methodology or method and research context – is mined by no more than a small handful of researchers unable to generate a meaningful volume of contestation. Steps are suggested to better focus research activity.

Originality/value

The use of Latour’s theory of citation to analyse patterns of convergence in accounting research is innovative. The paper proposes a substantial change in the community’s approach to narrative turn research on accounting narratives.
What did I say that was wrong? Re/worlding the word
Authors: Vicars Mark
Published: February 2018

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to interrogate practice of research and discursively problematise the role of the researcher in relation to the ways in which knowledge is constructed and represented in and as a centre/periphery relation. It considers the ways in which research practices can refocus attention on claims made about knowing and speaking about the lives of Others and within the academe.

Design/methodology/approach

Underlying this interrogation is Spivak’s (1998) work “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Methodologically, I reflect on, and address my experiences of research in the context of re-reading ontology as a signifying presence from which to address, contest and rearticulate the methodological norm in qualitative enquiry.

Findings

The paper suggests that it is relevant to attend to the ways, in which qualitative researchers, in the process of making the Other culturally intelligible and subsequent representation, acknowledge the process and product as a contested epistemic space.

Originality/value

The paper problematizes the notion of “giving voice” to ontological understandings of being and speaking as a unified subject.
Decolonizing interpretive research: subaltern sensibilities and the politics of voice
Authors: Darder Antonia
Published: February 2018

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore the notion of decolonizing interpretive research in ways that respect and integrate the qualitative sensibilities of subaltern voices in the knowledge production of anti-colonial possibilities.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper draws from the decolonizing and post-colonial theoretical tradition, with a specific reference to Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s contribution to this analysis.

Findings

Through a critical discussion of decolonizing concerns tied to qualitative interpretive interrogations, the paper points to the key assumptions that support and reinforce the sensibilities of subaltern voices in efforts to move western research approaches toward anti-colonial possibilities. In the process, this discussion supports the emergence of an itinerant epistemological lens that opens the field to decolonizing inquiry.

Practical implications

Its practical implications are tied to discursive transformations, which can impact social and material transformations within the context of research and society.

Originality/value

Moreover, the paper provides an innovative rethinking of interpretive research, in an effort to extend the analysis of decolonizing methodology to the construction of subaltern inspired intellectual labor.
Benefits Communications Survey: employees want more direction
Authors: Harkin Justyn
Published: February 2018

Purpose

The purpose of 2017 ALEX® Benefits Communication Survey is to explore what employees think of the ways their companies talk to them about their benefits. Specifically, the survey focuses on whether employees understand the benefits communication material that is put in front of them, and it tries to provide insights on how employers can help employees improve their ability to make informed decisions about their healthcare options.

Design/methodology/approach

The survey was conducted online from February 24 to March 17, 2017, by Harris Poll on behalf of Jellyvision. It included 2,043 US adults (ages 18+) who were employed full-time, eligible for company-provided benefits and did not currently have health insurance through Medicare, Medicaid or the VA. Data were weighted where necessary by age, gender, race/ethnicity, region, education, income, marital status, household size and propensity to be online for aligning them with their actual proportions in the population. Results of this research were compared with Jellyvision’s April 2016 survey of 2,105 employed adults.

Findings

Of the employees whose companies offer health insurance benefits, approximately half (49 per cent) say making health insurance decisions is “always very stressful” for them, and 55 per cent say that they would like help from their employer when choosing a plan. One in five employees (21 per cent) say they often regret the benefit choices they make during open enrollment. Further, while 89 per cent say they generally understand their options, only 59 per cent can actually identify the different elements involved in the full cost of their health care. In terms of communication preferences, 65 per cent of employees prefer to look over benefit enrollment instructions outside of working hours.

Originality/value

Jellyvision commissioned this study to provide employers with valuable insights about how employees process and respond to benefit communications. The data can help employers understand the sources of enrollment-related stress and critical gaps in health insurance and benefits knowledge, which can lead to poor decision-making and regret among employees. The survey also reveals employee communication preferences, which employers can use to optimize their content, drive engagement, and empower employees to make more informed benefit enrollment decisions.
Time for change – HR’s role in eradicating workplace sexual harassment
Authors: Smedley David , Rayment Andrew
Published: February 2018

Purpose

In the space of just a few months or so, there has been nothing short of a tectonic shift in the expected approach to sexual harassment allegations especially where the alleged harasser is in a position of power in relation to the accuser. The allegations against Harvey Weinstein, MPs and other public figures together with the #metoo campaign arguably mark a step change in public perception. HR professionals are no strangers to this issue. The authors look at what, if anything, has changed when handling sexual harassment complaints in the workplace.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors examine whether this is just a media news story or is it backed up by evidence. They look at statistics from a Trades Union Congress (TUC) survey and the Everyday Sexism Project. The authors define “what is sexual harassment” from a legal view point and provide advice to HR professionals in dealing with such complaints and in examining risk to their organisation.

Findings

There are solid business and ethical reason to stamp out discriminatory practices. Organisations with good equality and diversity practices are in a good position but should guard against complacency.

Originality/value

The allegations against Harvey Weinstein, MPs and other public figures together with the #metoo campaign arguably mark a step change in public perception. HR professionals are no strangers to this issue. Time spent examining your organisation’s vulnerability to such claim and refreshing your knowledge could be time well spent when considering the potential costs and reputational damage of a case.
Young tourists’ perceptions of authenticity, perceived value and satisfaction: the case of Little India, Singapore
Authors: Lee Sean , Phau Ian
Published: February 2018

Purpose

This study aims to empirically examine young tourists’ perceptions of object-based authenticity, existential authenticity and perceived value perceptions on satisfaction. Data were collected from young heritage tourists at the Little India heritage precinct in Singapore.

Design/methodology/approach

Qualitative data were collected via a pen and paper questionnaire at Little India in Singapore. Young tourists below 30 years of age were identified to complete the questionnaire. A total of 288 sets of valid responses were collected to perform statistical analysis to test the relationships between the key constructs in the research model.

Findings

The results of the study reaffirmed the application of the perceived value framework to authenticity. Object-based authenticity, existential authenticity and perceived monetary value yielded significant and positive effects on overall perceived value and, subsequently, satisfaction. Further, overall perceived value was found to mediate the relationships between object-based authenticity, existential authenticity and perceived monetary with satisfaction.

Research limitations/implications

This study provides researchers with a better understanding of authenticity and value perceptions of young tourists. It also lends further support for the integration of object-based and existential authenticity into the multidimensional approach to perceived value.

Practical implications

The results help destination marketers and policymakers better understand this important segment to develop more effective and sustainable marketing and management strategies.

Originality/value

This study addresses the lack of research in the literature on young tourists who will shape the tourism landscape of the future. It also further assesses the propriety of integrating authenticity measures into the measurement of perceived value.
When persuasive intent and product’s healthiness make a difference for young consumers
Authors: Tarabashkina Liudmila , Quester Pascale , Tarabashkina Olga , Proksch Michael
Published: February 2018

Purpose

This study aims to fill in the above-mentioned gap by looking at both children’s understanding of advertising and product cues during decision-making. Currently, it is assumed that understanding of advertisements’ persuasive intent represents the sole factor that children consider during decision-making, which overlooks the role of intrinsic product cues (taste or healthiness) and more complex interaction between the latter and the perceived persuasive intent.

Design/methodology/approach

An experiment with children (of ages 7-13 years) and a survey of their parents were carried out.

Findings

When exposed to an advertisement, children exhibited less favorable food preferences when they grasped the advertisement’s intended persuasive intent and evaluated the product as less healthy. Participants who did not believe that the advertisement aimed to influence them and rated the product as healthy, exhibited more favorable intention to consume the advertised snack.

Research limitations/implications

This study shows that persuasive intent and healthiness product cues are used simultaneously by young consumers and need to be considered in future research to provide more in-depth understanding of children’s decision-making.

Originality/value

The findings highlight the importance of previously overlooked intrinsic product cues and the need to consider both persuasive intent and product cue evaluations to better understand why children may exhibit less healthy food choices.
How young Chinese consumers view Chinese brands
Authors: Jin Ting , Shao Wei , Griffin Deborah , Ross Mitchell
Published: February 2018

Purpose

This study aims to explore the perceptions about Chinese brands from the point of views of young Chinese consumers.

Design/methodology/approach

A qualitative method is used including focus groups and in-depth personal interviews with young Chinese consumers who are currently living and working in Australia.

Findings

Two key findings emerge from the results, namely, young Chinese consumers attach symbolic values to Chinese brands and Chinese brands are perceived positively by young Chinese consumers.

Research limitations/implications

This study demonstrates that symbolic values (such as pride, lifestyle, feeling of home and being happy) constitute one of the primary motivations for young Chinese consumers’ purchase of domestic brands. The results of this study challenge the traditional view that Chinese brands are perceived negatively in the Chinese market.

Originality/value

This is one of the very few studies investigating how young Chinese consumers perceive brands from their home country rather than foreign brands.
Primary cutaneous aspergillosis caused by Aspergillus tamarii in a premature infant with extremely low birthweight: A case report with short review
Authors: Kimura Hiroshi , Mitsuto Isamu , Taguchi Ritsuyo , Anzawa Kazushi , Mochizuki Takashi
Published: February 2018

Primary cutaneous aspergillosis is a rare, life‐threatening fungal infection in premature infants. We report a case of primary cutaneous aspergillosis caused by Aspergillus tamarii in an extremely low birthweight infant. The infant was delivered by cesarean section with complications from an intrauterine infection, brain intraventricular hemorrhage, tension pneumothorax and cardiac tamponade. On the 12th day of life, he developed erythematous maceration with erosion on his back. Septate hyphae were detected on two occasions from specimens of the skin lesion. The manifestations of the colony and slide culture showed the characteristics of A. tamarii. The nucleotide sequences of internal transcribed spacer regions of the ribosomal RNA gene, partial sequences of β‐tubulin and calmodulin gene were compatible with those of A. tamarii. Of the known Aspergillus species, Aspergillus fumigatus and Aspergillus flavus have been reported in previous studies as the major causative agents in primary cutaneous aspergillosis, whereas human infection by A. tamarii is rare. We consider that A. tamarii is important as an unusual opportunistic human pathogen among premature infants.
Materialities of mundane care and the art of holding one's own
Authors: Brownlie Julie , Spandler Helen
Published: February 2018

The focus of this special issue is on how everyday or mundane materialities actively mediate health and care practices. This article extends this concern with the mundane to care itself and explores how specific materialities, such as shared spaces and everyday objects, not only mediate mundane care but enable it to happen. Our focus is on mundane help in the context of ill health, between people who are not immediate family, such as neighbours, acquaintances and others with whom we interact in our daily lives. Drawing on recent empirical studies of low‐level support in two different parts of theUK, we show how the materialities of care can mediate the affective risks associated with receiving such help. Specifically, we investigate how materialities help people to balance the expression of their vulnerability with a need to retain their dignity, a practice referred to as ‘holding one's own’. In doing so, we argue that materialities are not just the conduits for care – what care passes through – or things that mediate care. We suggest instead that materialities are part of how relationships of mundane care are constituted and maintained.
Placing care: embodying architecture in hospital clinics for immigrant and refugee patients
Authors: Bell Susan E.
Published: February 2018

This article is part of a hospital ethnography that investigates healthcare architecture as an aspect of an increasingly large, complex, and urgent global health issue: caring for refugees and other immigrants. It argues that hospitals are nodes in transnational social networks of immigrant and refugee patients that form assemblages of human and non‐human objects. These assemblages co‐produce place‐specific hospital care in different hospital spaces. Place‐specific tensions and power dynamics arise when refugees and immigrants come into contact with these biomedical spaces. The argument is developed by analysing waiting rooms and exam rooms in two outpatient clinics in one US hospital. The article draws its analysis from 9 months of fieldwork in 2012 that included following 69 adult immigrant and refugee patients and observing their encounters with interpreters and clinic staff. Its inclusion of a transnational dimension for understanding place‐specific hospital care adds conceptual and empirical depth to the study of how place matters in 21st century hospitals.
Family food practices: relationships, materiality and the everyday at the end of life
Authors: Ellis Julie
Published: February 2018

This article draws on data from a research project that combined participant observation with in‐depth interviews to explore family relationships and experiences of everyday life during life‐threatening illness. In it I suggest that death has often been theorised in ways that make its ‘mundane’ practices less discernible. As a means to foreground the everyday, and to demonstrate its importance to the study of dying, this article explores the (re)negotiation of food and eating in families facing the end of life. Three themes that emerged from the study's broader focus on family life are discussed: ‘food talk’ and making sense of illness; food, family and identity; and food ‘fights’. Together the findings illustrate the material, social and symbolic ways in which food acts relationally in the context of dying, extending conceptual work on materiality in death studies in novel directions. The article also contributes new empirical insights to a limited sociological literature on food, families and terminal illness, building on work that theorises the entanglements of materiality, food, bodies and care. The article concludes by highlighting the analytical value of everyday materialities such as food practices for future research on dying as a relational experience.
The art and nature of health: a study of therapeutic practice in museums
Authors: Mangione Gemma
Published: February 2018

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews at a major metropolitan art museum and botanic garden, this article considers the practical accomplishment of American museums’ ‘health turn’ by tracing how museum staff develop therapeutic programmes for visitors with disabilities. In doing so, it considers one of medical sociology's fundamental theoretical questions – how ideologies of health order social life – in an unconventional empirical setting. Acknowledging contemporary arguments for both the relative merits and unintended consequences of this policy trend, I focus instead on the particular institutional arrangements, professional norms, and material cultures of art and nature that shape museums’ therapeutic work, so as to reveal its effects. Data reveals ideological similarities, but practical differences, between museological and medical understandings of wellness. Extending a ‘medical sociology of practice’ to new contexts ultimately foregrounds the contingencies, and diversity, of therapeutic mechanisms and meanings, thereby broadening sociological research on healing and healthism.
Extravillous trophoblast invasion in placenta accreta is associated with differential local expression of angiogenic and growth factors: a cross‐sectional study
Authors: Duzyj CM , Buhimschi IA , Laky CA , Cozzini G , Zhao G , Wehrum M , Buhimschi CS
Published: February 2018

Objective

Placenta accreta is clinically associated with maternal uterine scar. Our objective was to investigate the biochemical contribution of maternal scarring to hyperinvasive trophoblast. We hypothesised that trophoblast over‐invasion in placenta accreta is associated with aberrant invasion‐site signalling of growth and angiogenic factors known to be involved in wound healing and promotion of cell invasion through the epithelial to mesenchymal cellular programme.

Design

Cross‐sectional series.

Setting

Yale–New Haven Hospital.

Population

Women with histologically confirmed normal and abnormal placentation.

Methods

Placental invasion site tissue sections were immunostained for endoglin and other angiogenic regulators, and transforming growth factor β (TGFβ) proteins. Maternal serum endoglin, and the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) mediators hypoxia‐inducible factor‐1α (HIF1α) and endostatin, were assessed using immunoassay.

Main outcome measures

Differences in median H‐score by immunostaining and in mean serum level by immunoassay.

Results

By immunostaining, placenta accreta samples demonstrated intervillous endoglin shedding and increased trophoblast expression of its cleavage protein matrix metalloproteinase‐14. Absent decidual HIF1α and endostatin were observed in areas of VEGF upregulation. TGFβ1 was present in myocytes but not in collagen bundles into which accreta trophoblast invaded. Maternal serum endoglin decreased in praevia and accreta when corrected for gestational age.

Conclusion

Angiogenic and growth factors at the placental invasion site are altered in accreta, both by decidual absence and within myometrial scar. We postulate this promotes the invasive phenotype of placenta accreta by activating hyperinvasive trophoblast and by dysregulating placental vascular remodelling.

Funding

Yale Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences funds.

Tweetable abstract

Placenta accreta histology shows dysregulation of angiogenic and growth factors.