bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Taste loss as a distinct symptom of COVID-19: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Authors: Hannum Mackenzie E. , Koch Riley J. , Ramirez Vicente A. , Marks Sarah S. , Toskala Aurora K. , Herriman Riley D. , Lin Cailu , Joseph Paule V. , Reed Danielle R.
Published: October 2021

Chemosensory scientists have been skeptical that reports of COVID-19 taste loss are genuine, in part because before COVID-19, taste loss was rare and often confused with smell loss. Therefore, to establish the predicted prevalence rate of taste loss in COVID-19 patients, we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of 376 papers published in 2020–2021, with 241 meeting all inclusion criteria. Additionally, we explored how methodological differences (direct vs. self-report measures) may affect these estimates. We hypothesized that direct prevalence measures of taste loss would be the most valid because they avoid the taste/smell confusion of self-report. The meta-analysis showed that, among 138,897 COVID-19-positive patients, 39.2% reported taste dysfunction (95% CI: 35.34–43.12%), and the prevalence estimates were slightly but not significantly higher from studies using direct (n = 18) versus self-report (n = 223) methodologies (Q = 0.57, df = 1, p = 0.45). Generally, males reported lower rates of taste loss than did females and taste loss was highest in middle-aged groups. Thus, taste loss is a bona fide symptom COVID-19, meriting further research into the most appropriate direct methods to measure it and its underlying mechanisms.
Metabolomic and transcriptomic analyses reveal the effects of grafting on anthocyanin synthesis in grapevine
Authors: Zhong Haixia , Liu Zhongjie , Zhang Fuchun , Zhou Xiaoming , Sun Xiaoxia , Liu Wenwen , Xiao Hua , Wang Nan , Pan Mingqi , Wu Xinyu , Zhou Yongfeng
Published: October 2021

The grafting has been commonly used in viticulture, which joints the scion from a cultivar with the stem of a rootstock. Grafting has crucial impacts on various phenotypes of the cultivar including berry metabolome and berry coloring, however, the genetics and regulation mechanisms are largely unexplored. In this study, we analyzed the phenotypic, metabolomic and transcriptomic profiles at three stages (45, 75 and105 days after flowering) of the Crimson Seedless (Vitis vinifera, CS) cultivar grafted to four rootstocks (three heterografting: CS/101-14MG, CS/SO4, CS/110R and one self-grafting CS/CS) with an own-rooted grafting-free Crimson Seedless (CS) as a control. All the heterografting plants had a significant influence on berry reddening as early as ~45 days after flowering. The grafting of rootstocks promoted anthocyanin synthesis and accumulation in grape berries. The metabolomic features showed that Cyanidin 3-O-glucoside, Delphinidin 3-O-glucosid, Malvidin 3-O-glucoside, Peonidin 3-O-glucoside and Petunidin 3-O-glucoside were the pigments responsible for the purplish-red color peels. Transcriptomic analyses revealed that the anthocyanins biosynthetic related genes from the upstream (phenylalanine ammonia-lyase) to the downstream (anthocyanidin 3-O-glucosyltransferase and anthocyanidin synthase) were upregulated with the accumulations of anthocyanins in CS/101-14MG, CS/SO4 and CS/110R. At the same time, all these genes were also highly expressed and more anthocyanin was accumulated in CS/CS samples compared to CS samples, suggesting that self-grafting rootstocks might also have promoted berry reddening in grapevine. Our results provide global transcriptomic and metabolomic features in berry coloring regulation under different grafting conditions for improving the berry quality in grapevine production.
Polygenic sex determination produces modular sex polymorphism in an African cichlid fish
Authors: Moore Emily C. , Ciccotto Patrick J. , Peterson Erin N. , Lamm Melissa S. , Albertson R. Craig , Roberts Reade B.
Published: October 2021

For many vertebrates, a single genetic locus initiates a cascade of developmental sex differences in the gonad and throughout the organism, resulting in adults with two, phenotypically distinct sexes. Species with polygenic sex determination (PSD) have multiple interacting sex determination alleles segregating within a single species, allowing for more than two genotypic sexes, and scenarios where sex genotype at a given locus can be decoupled from gonadal sex. Here we investigate the effects of PSD on secondary sexual characteristics in the cichlid fish Metriaclima mbenjii, where one female (W) and one male (Y) sex determination allele interact to produce siblings with four possible sex classes: ZZXX females, ZWXX females, ZWXY females, and ZZXY males. We find that PSD in M. mbenjii produces an interplay of sex-linkage and sex-limitation resulting in modular variation in morphological and behavioral traits. Further, the evolution or introgression of a novel sex determiner creates additional axes of phenotypic variation for varied traits, including genital morphology, craniofacial morphology, gastrointestinal morphology, and home tank behaviors. In contrast to single-locus sex determination, which broadly results in sexual dimorphism, polygenic sex determination can induce higher-order sexual polymorphism. The modularity of secondary sexual characteristics produced by PSD provides novel context for understanding the evolutionary causes and consequences of maintenance, gain, or loss of sex determination alleles in populations.

Significance Statement

Sex differences in traits can occur when those traits are modified by genetic factors inherited on sex chromosomes. We investigated how sex differences emerge in a species with more than one set of sex chromosomes, measuring a variety of morphological, physiological, and behavioral traits. Rather than exhibiting sexual dimorphism associated with primary sex, the species has higher-order sexual polymorphism in secondary sexual characteristics, or more than two phenotypic sexes. Variation in secondary sexual characteristics is modular, involving the interplay of sex-linked and sex-limited traits. Our findings provide novel implications for how sex determination systems and whole-organism fitness traits co-evolve, including that significant creation or loss of variation in diverse traits can occur during transitions among sex chromosome systems.
The initiation of the wound healing program is regulated by the convergence of mechanical and epigenetic cues
Authors: Bhatt Tanay , Dey Rakesh , Hegde Akshay M. , Ketkar Alhad Ashok , Pulianmackal Ajai J. , Deb Ashim P. , Rampalli Shravanti , Jamora Colin
Published: October 2021

Wound healing in the skin is a complex physiological process that is a product of a cell state transition from homeostasis to repair. Mechanical cues are increasingly being recognized as important regulators of cellular reprogramming, but the mechanism by which it is translated to changes in gene expression and ultimately cellular behavior remains largely a mystery. To probe the molecular underpinnings of this phenomenon further, we used the downregulation of caspase-8 as a biomarker of a cell entering the wound-healing program. We found that the wound-induced release of tension within the epidermis leads to the alteration of gene expression via the nuclear translocation of the DNA methyltransferase 3A (DNMT3a). This enzyme then methylates promoters of genes that are known to be downregulated in response to wound stimuli as well as potentially novel players in the repair program. Overall, these findings illuminate the convergence of mechanical and epigenetic signaling modules that are important regulators of the transcriptome landscape required to initiate the tissue repair process in the differentiated layers of the epidermis.

Graphical Abstract
Efficient Suppression of Endogenous CFTR Nonsense Mutations Using Anticodon Engineered Transfer RNAs
Authors: Ko Wooree , Porter Joseph J. , Sipple Matthew T. , Edwards Katherine M. , Lueck John D.
Published: October 2021

Nonsense mutations or premature termination codons (PTCs) comprise ∼11% of all genetic lesions, which result in over 7,000 distinct genetic diseases. Due to their outsized impact on human health, considerable effort has been made to find therapies for nonsense-associated diseases. Suppressor tRNAs have long been identified as a possible therapeutic for nonsense-associated diseases, however their ability to inhibit nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) and support significant protein translation from endogenous transcripts has not been determined in mammalian cells. Here we investigated the ability of anticodon edited (ACE)-tRNAs to suppress cystic fibrosis (CF) causing PTCs in the cystic fibrosis transmembrane regulator (CFTR) gene in gene-edited immortalized human bronchial epithelial (16HBEge) cells. Delivery of ACE-tRNAs to 16HBEge cells harboring three common CF mutations G542X-, R1162X- and W1282X-CFTR PTCs significantly inhibited NMD and rescued endogenous mRNA expression. Furthermore, delivery of our highly active leucine encoding ACE-tRNA resulted in rescue of W1282X-CFTR channel function to levels that significantly exceed the necessary CFTR channel function for therapeutic relevance. This study establishes the ACE-tRNA approach as a potential stand-alone therapeutic for nonsense-associated diseases due to its ability to rescue both mRNA and full-length protein expression from PTC containing endogenous genes.

One Sentence Summary

Suppression of endogenous CFTR nonsense mutations by anticodon engineered tRNAs significantly increases mRNA expression and channel function.
Astrocytes encode complex behaviorally relevant information
Authors: Merten Katharina , Folk Robert W. , Duarte Daniela , Nimmerjahn Axel
Published: October 2021

Astrocytes, glial cells of the central nervous system, help to regulate neural circuit operation and adaptation. They exhibit complex forms of chemical excitation, most prominently calcium transients, evoked by neuromodulator and -transmitter receptor activation1–4. However, whether and how astrocytes contribute to cortical processing of complex behavior remains unknown1. One of the puzzling features of astrocyte calcium transients is the high degree of variability in their spatial and temporal patterns under behaving conditions. Here, we provide mechanistic links between astrocytes’ activity patterns, molecular signaling, and behavioral cognitive and motor activity variables by employing a visual detection task that allows for in vivo calcium imaging, robust statistical analyses, and machine learning approaches. We show that trial type and performance levels deterministically shape astrocytes’ spatial and temporal response properties. Astrocytes encode the animals’ decision, reward, and sensory properties. Our error analysis confirms that astrocytes carry behaviorally relevant information depending on and complementing neuronal coding. We also report that cell-intrinsic mechanisms curb astrocyte calcium activity. Additionally, we show that motor activity-related parameters strongly impact astrocyte responses and must be considered in sensorimotor study designs. Our data inform and constrain current models of astrocytes’ contribution to complex behavior and brain computation beyond their established homeostatic and metabolic roles.
Trade-off between competition ability and invulnerability to predation in marine microbes; protist grazing versus viral lysis effects
Authors: Yang Jinny Wu , Chang Feng-Hsun , Yeh Yi-Chun , Tsai An-Yi , Chiang Kuo-Ping , Shiah Fuh-Kwo , Gong Gwo-Ching , Hsieh Chih-hao
Published: October 2021

Trade-offs between competition ability and invulnerability to predation are important mechanisms explaining how predation promotes bacterial diversity. However, existence of these trade-offs has apparently not been investigated in natural marine bacterial communities. Here, we address this question with growth-based measurements for each marine bacterial taxon by conducting on-board dilution experiments to manipulate predation pressure and using high-throughput sequencing to assess the response of bacterial communities. We determined that bacterial taxa with a higher predation-free growth rate were accompanied with higher predation-caused mortality, supporting existence of competitiveness-invulnerability trade-off. This trade-off was stronger and more consistent under viral lysis than protist grazing. In addition, predation generally flattened out the rank-abundance distribution and increased the evenness and richness of the bacterial community. These findings supported the “Kill-the-Winner” hypothesis. All experiments supported a significant competitiveness-invulnerability trade-off, but there was substantial variation among bacterial communities in response to predation across experiments conducted in various sites and seasons. Therefore, we inferred that the Kill-the-Winner hypothesis is important but likely not the only deterministic mechanism explaining how predation shapes bacterial assemblages in natural marine systems.
Purchasing power parity in GIIPS countries: evidence from unit root tests with breaks and non-linearity
Authors: Nazlioglu Saban , Altuntas Mehmet , Kilic Emre , Kucukkkaplan Ilhan
Published: October 2021

Purpose

This paper aims to test purchasing power parity (PPP) hypothesis for Greece, Italy, Ireland, Portugal and Spain, which are known as the GIIPS countries.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors conduct a comprehensive analysis by using unit root approaches without and with structural breaks and non-linearity.

Findings

The PPP is valid for the GIIPS countries. Considering structural breaks in non-linear framework plays a crucial role.

Originality/value

There is no empirical study testing PPP hypothesis by focusing on the GIIPS countries. This study further takes into account for structural breaks and non-linearity in the real exchange rates of these countries.
Analyzing online discussion data for understanding the student's critical thinking
Authors: Yang Juan , Du Xu , Hung Jui-Long , Tu Chih-hsiung
Published: October 2021

Purpose

Critical thinking is considered important in psychological science because it enables students to make effective decisions and optimizes their performance. Aiming at the challenges and issues of understanding the student's critical thinking, the objective of this study is to analyze online discussion data through an advanced multi-feature fusion modeling (MFFM) approach for automatically and accurately understanding the student's critical thinking levels.

Design/methodology/approach

An advanced MFFM approach is proposed in this study. Specifically, with considering the time-series characteristic and the high correlations between adjacent words in discussion contents, the long short-term memory–convolutional neural network (LSTM-CNN) architecture is proposed to extract deep semantic features, and then these semantic features are combined with linguistic and psychological knowledge generated by the LIWC2015 tool as the inputs of full-connected layers to automatically and accurately predict students' critical thinking levels that are hidden in online discussion data.

Findings

A series of experiments with 94 students' 7,691 posts were conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The experimental results show that the proposed MFFM approach that combines two types of textual features outperforms baseline methods, and the semantic-based padding can further improve the prediction performance of MFFM. It can achieve 0.8205 overall accuracy and 0.6172 F1 score for the “high” category on the validation dataset. Furthermore, it is found that the semantic features extracted by LSTM-CNN are more powerful for identifying self-introduction or off-topic discussions, while the linguistic, as well as psychological features, can better distinguish the discussion posts with the highest critical thinking level.

Originality/value

With the support of the proposed MFFM approach, online teachers can conveniently and effectively understand the interaction quality of online discussions, which can support instructional decision-making to better promote the student's knowledge construction process and improve learning performance.
Deep learning-based detection of tax frauds: an application to property acquisition tax
Authors: Lee Changro
Published: October 2021

Purpose

Sampling taxpayers for audits has always been a major concern for policymakers of tax administration. The purpose of this study is to propose a systematic method to select a small number of taxpayers with a high probability of tax fraud.

Design/methodology/approach

An efficient sampling method for taxpayers for an audit is investigated in the context of a property acquisition tax. An autoencoder, a popular unsupervised learning algorithm, is applied to 2,228 tax returns, and reconstruction errors are calculated to determine the probability of tax deficiencies for each return. The reasonableness of the estimated reconstruction errors is verified using the Apriori algorithm, a well-known marketing tool for identifying patterns in purchased item sets.

Findings

The sorted reconstruction scores are reasonably consistent with actual fraudulent/non-fraudulent cases, indicating that the reconstruction errors can be utilized to select suspected taxpayers for an audit in a cost-effective manner.

Originality/value

The proposed deep learning-based approach is expected to be applied in a real-world tax administration, promoting voluntary compliance of taxpayers, and reinforcing the self-assessing acquisition tax system.
Reconciling access to information and political party funding in Malawi: a comparative analysis of legislation
Authors: Mapulanga Patrick , Eneya Dorothy Doreen , Chiweza Diston Store
Published: October 2021

Purpose

The purpose of this paper was to assess the similarities and differences between the Political Parties and the Access to Information Acts in Malawi. While political parties are largely funded by donations that are frequently kept as a secret, the Access to Information Act does not include political party funding among the categories of non-disclosed information.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper is based on the qualitative content analysis of the legislation in Malawi. Content analysis of the two pieces of legislation was adopted. This paper is a review of the literature and an examination of Malawi's Political Parties and Access to Information Acts. The document study was supplemented by a review of related literature on the two legislations.

Findings

The Political Parties Act prohibits the government, ministries and departments from directly or indirectly funding political parties. The Access to Information Act to ensure information generated by Malawi government ministries, departments and agencies is readily made available by the citizens when needed or requested. The Access to Information Act does not exempt political parties from disclosing their funding sources. The two acts work in tandem to promote accountability and transparency in political party funding and sources.

Research limitations/implications

This study is limited to Malawi's Political Parties and Access to Information Acts. Only the South African related acts have informed the paper. However, several acts within developing countries would have greatly aided the paper.

Practical implications

The implementation of the two pieces of legislation has implications for the balance between disclosure and non-disclosure of political party funding. Oversight functions and credible human resource capacity are needed in both political parties and government enforcement institutions.

Social implications

Oversight functions by the Administrator-General through the Registrar of Political Parties and the Malawi Human Rights Commission are key to the implementation of Malawi's Political Parties and Access to Information Acts, respectively. Proper enforcement of the oversight functions is expected to result in an open, transparent and accountable Malawian society.

Originality/value

Various players are needed in the accountability chain to protect disclosure and non-disclosure of information. Very little information is known on the powers, functions and duties of office bearers capable of enforcing legislation to keep political parties' funding clean. Little is known on how the citizens can access information regarding political parties funding.
A critical review of moderation analysis in tourism and hospitality research toward robust guidelines
Authors: Rasoolimanesh S. Mostafa , Wang Mingzhuo , Mikulić Josip , Kunasekaran Puvaneswaran
Published: October 2021

Purpose

This article aims to propose guidelines to develop moderation hypotheses, assess moderators using the multigroup analysis and interaction effect approaches and interpret the results of moderation analysis in tourism and hospitality research.

Design/methodology/approach

Through a review of 600 articles published in top tourism and hospitality journals from the year 2016 to 2020, and reviewing the literature related to moderation analysis, this study identifies key issues in different steps of moderation analysis and proposes robust guidelines to aid future research.

Findings

The results of the systematic review uncovered some key issues in different steps of moderation analysis, such as hypothesis development, moderation assessment and results interpretation. The findings emphasized the typical methodological misconceptions and improper practices for moderation analysis.

Research limitations/implications

Moderation analysis is of great significance to the advancement of theory, and its application has increased significantly in recent years. However, many studies appear to have a limited understanding of moderation analysis and follow questionable practices regarding hypothesis development, moderation assessment and results interpretation, thus leading to suspicious conclusions for theory advancement. By highlighting these methodological issues, this article provides robust guidelines for moderation analysis, which is of great theoretical and methodological significance to the academic research in tourism and hospitality.

Originality/value

As one of the first studies to provide robust guidelines for moderation analysis, based on a critical and systematic review of papers published in top-tier journals in tourism and hospitality and the latest developments on moderation analysis in the wider literature, this article has important theoretical and methodological significance for the academic research in tourism and hospitality as well as general social science disciplines.
Examining restaurant purchase intention during crises: the role of message appeal
Authors: Kim Minji , Kim Eun Joo , Bai Billy
Published: October 2021

Purpose

This paper aims to examine the joint role of the pandemic-induced source of crisis (i.e. health and social crisis) based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and message appeal in customer perception of and behavioral intention toward a restaurant.

Design/methodology/approach

This study uses a 2 (source of crisis: social, health) × 2 (message appeal: social, health) between-subjects factorial design. A total of 181 samples was collected and data was analyzed by using ANCOVA and PROCESS.

Findings

The results showed a significant two-way interaction between source of crisis and message appeal on to-go intention. With the potential effect of risk aversion being controlled, message appeal significantly impacted perceived competence, which influenced both dine-in and to-go intentions.

Practical implications

The research findings suggest a crucial role of perceived fit between message appeal and customer concerns during crises. Therefore, restaurant managers should actively communicate their safety practices with their customers to inspire customer confidence.

Originality/value

This study identifies crisis dimensions based on human needs during crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, which determines the persuasiveness of marketing messages.
Delivering warmth and expediting love: just-in-time CSR in the midst of COVID-19 mega disruption
Authors: Lin Zhiwei (CJ) , Wong IpKin Anthony , Lin Shuyi Kara , Yang Yun
Published: October 2021

Purpose

This study aims to move beyond the current understanding of corporate social responsibility (CSR) to propose the concept of just-in-time (JIT) CSR as a metaphor that reflects hospitality operators’ endeavors to expedite socially responsible measures to both internal and external organizational stakeholders during times when functional and emotional supports are urgently needed.

Design/methodology/approach

This research used a qualitative approach in two studies. Study 1 engaged a media analysis to better grasp the knowledge of the research problem at hand. Study 2 involved interviews from stakeholders to assess their emotions and perceptions of meanings of major contents discerned from the first study.

Findings

This research highlights a process in which operators’ CSR practices (e.g. for business practices, for organizational strategy and for stakeholder well-being) during the COVID-19 crisis are imbued with connotative meanings (e.g. place-as-safety, place-as-partnership and place-as-warmth) that ultimately give shape to three core outcomes (e.g. individual rejoinder, brand resonance and societal resilience).

Research limitations/implications

While JIT CSR is not an antidote for all devastations caused by COVID-19, it is posited as a needed mechanism that operators could use to ameliorate the situation and to go beyond their own stake to bring a broader array of societal benefits to humanity.

Originality/value

This research underscores how hospitality operators expedite crisis responses to the pandemic, and how their societal objectives transform the image of a place from a commercial venue into a place imbued with meaning associated with safety, partnership and warmth.
Valuation of short-lived firms following waves of new listings
Authors: Saito Yoshie
Published: October 2021

Purpose

The survival rate of newly listed firms is low, and there is evidence of a surge of poorly performing new listed firms leading up to the crash of the dot.com bubble. The author investigates this phenomenon and analyzes investors' ability to understand the quality of accounting information and to adjust their expectations.

Design/methodology/approach

The author employs the dividend discount model in conjunction with clean surplus accounting discussed by Ohlson (1995) to compare the value relevance of earnings and research and development (R&D) expenditures for short and longer listed National Association of Security Dealer Automated Quotations (NASDAQ) firms between 1980 and 2014. The author also uses univariate tests and logistic regression to analyze both recently listed and short-listed firms. In this analysis, the author compares the differences in investors' expectations for the first five years for both types of firms.

Findings

The author provides convincing evidence that markets clearly placed lower valuation weights on accounting earnings and R&D expenditures for short-listed firms on NASDAQ. Market participants originally had high expectations for these ventures. But, they gradually understood the lower quality of accounting information and adjusted their expectations downward.

Originality/value

The author’s results show that optimistic expectations along with easy equity financing created a surge of new listings. My analysis of the interplay between the quality of accounting information and investors' expectations indicates a negative spillover effect where investors are overoptimistic about firms that rode on waves of new listings backed by liberal financing. The author shows that analysis of Tobin's Q and negative earnings can separate ill-prepared from longer-listed firms.
Does the perceived efficiency of the HR department matter in influencing satisfaction and employee performance?
Authors: Dhir Swati , Chakraborty Tanusree
Published: October 2021

Purpose

This paper aims to understand the role of perception of HR capability, HR service quality, along with HR inducements, which, in turn, provides satisfaction with HR practices and affects employee performance.

Design/methodology/approach

The data of 155 managers have been collected through a questionnaire to understand the relationship among the studied constructs using partial least square structured equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

Findings

The results suggest that employers should attempt to create a positive perception by providing quality services in the HR domain, and quality services will certainly enhance employee performance.

Originality/value

This study is unique in terms of its contribution. This study has tried to link service quality and satisfaction to HR practices with employee performance. Further, it also shows that HR should be capable and have high HR inducements to provide the necessary and expected HR services, which leads to employee satisfaction with HR practices and employee performance.
Rice planting technologies and farm performance under different production systems in Ghana
Authors: Amfo Bismark , Abdul-Rahaman Awal , Issaka Yakubu Balma
Published: October 2021

Purpose

This paper examines the performance of smallholder rice farms established using improved planting technologies – broadcasting, dibbling and transplanting – under different production systems – rain-fed and irrigation – in Ghana.

Design/methodology/approach

Using recent cross-sectional data of 200 smallholder rice farmers from the upper east region of Ghana, this study employed multinomial logit model and descriptive and inferential statistics for the analysis.

Findings

The results revealed that rice production under irrigation system contributes significantly to increasing farm productivity and profitability. Rice farmers who adopted dibbling and transplanting technologies under both irrigation and rain-fed production system obtained higher productivity and profitability than those who used broadcasting technology. Adoption of improved rice planting technologies by smallholder farmers is significantly influenced by education, farm size, improved rice varieties, sales outlets, hired labour and percentage of paddy sold.

Research limitations/implications

The sample size is relatively small, even though findings are still very important in terms of policy formulation for improved smallholder farm performance in a developing country like Ghana.

Practical implications

This study calls for collaborative efforts by government, donor agencies and NGOs to establish irrigation facilities and/or expand existing ones, increase sensitization and dissemination of improved planting technologies, as well as intensify the input subsidy programme in Ghana.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors knowledge, this is the first study that focuses on farmers' choice of rice planting technologies under irrigation and rain-fed production systems, and how these technologies impact on smallholder farm performance in Ghana.
Examining the determinants of small firms' performance in India
Authors: Sinha Abhishek Kumar , Mishra Aswini Kumar , RL Manogna , Prabhudesai Rohit
Published: October 2021

Purpose

The objective of the study is to analyse the impact of research and development investment on the firm performance of “small” scale firms vis-a-vis “medium”-scale firms.

Design/methodology/approach

The dataset comprised of a balanced panel of 486 research and development conducting Indian manufacturing small and medium enterprises, constructed for the period of 2006–2017. Fixed Effects, Random Effects Model and Hausmann test were used to analyse the determinants of firm performance in manufacturing small and medium enterprises in India.

Findings

It was found that from firms’ research and development (R&D) investments in terms of performance could be attained if simultaneously internationalisation and higher capital intensity could be achieved.

Practical implications

Managers could pay specific attention to the antecedents of firm performance and calibrate their R&D investment, internationalisation efforts and capital intensity simultaneously to achieve higher growth and productivity. For policymakers, the results provide an insight into how the firms in both categories could be differently incentivised, such that resources are better utilised.

Originality/value

The study analysed the determinants of firm performance in small and medium-sized firms at a disaggregate level as well as at a sectoral level using fixed effects, random effects and lagged effects to arrive at novel results, which have important implications for their competitiveness.
Bootstrap beta control chart for monitoring proportion data
Authors: Chowdhury Shovan , Kundu Amarjit , Modok Bidhan
Published: October 2021

Purpose

As an alternative to the standardpandnpcharts along with their various modifications, beta control charts are used in the literature for monitoring proportion data. These charts in general use average of proportions to set up the control limits assuming in-control parameters known. The purpose of the paper is to propose a control chart for detecting shift(s) in the percentiles of a beta distributed process monitoring scheme when in-control parameters are unknown. Such situations arise when specific percentile of proportion of conforming or non-conforming units is the quality parameter of interest.

Design/methodology/approach

Parametric bootstrap method is used to develop the control chart for monitoring percentiles of a beta distributed process when in-control parameters are unknown. Extensive Monte Carlo simulations are conducted for various combinations of percentiles, false-alarm rates and sample sizes to evaluate the in-control performance of the proposed bootstrap control charts in terms of average run lengths (ARL). The out-of-control behavior and performance of the proposed bootstrap percentile chart is thoroughly investigated for several choices of shifts in the parameters of beta distribution. The proposed chart is finally applied to two skewed data sets for illustration.

Findings

The simulated values of in-control ARL are found to be closer to the theoretical results implying that the proposed chart for percentiles performs well with both positively and negatively skewed data. Also, the out-of-control ARL values for the percentiles decrease sharply with both downward and upward small, medium and large shifts in the parameters. The phenomenon indicates that the chart is effective in detecting shifts in the parameters. However, the speed of detection of shifts varies depending on the type of shift, the parameters and the percentile being considered. The proposed chart is found to be effective in comparison to the Shewhart-type chart and bootstrap-based unit gamma chart.

Originality/value

It is worthwhile to mention that the beta control charts proposed in the literature use average of proportion to set up the control limits. However, in practice, specific percentile of proportion of conforming or non-conforming items should be more useful as the quality parameter of interest than average. To the best of our knowledge, no research addresses beta control chart for percentiles of proportion in the literature. Moreover, the proposed control chart assumes in-control parameters to be unknown, and hence captures additional variability introduced into the monitoring scheme through parameter estimation. In this sense, the proposed chart is original and unique.
Impact of socio and demographic factors on multidimensional poverty profile of smallholder arable crop farmers – evidence from Nigeria
Authors: Aminu Raheem Olatunji , Si Wei , Ibrahim Shakirat Bolatito , Arowolo Aisha Olushola , Ayinde Adefunke Fadilat O.
Published: October 2021

Purpose

This paper evaluates the impact of socio and demographic factors on the multidimensional poverty of smallholder arable crop farming households in Nigeria.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were drawn from the second wave of the LSMS-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture General Household Survey Panel 2012/2013. The methods adopted in analysing the data were descriptive statistics, Alkire and Foster Method (AFM) and logit regression model.

Findings

The result shows that 84.34% of the households were headed by a male while 80.26% of the respondents were married with a mean household size of seven persons. The multidimensional poverty of arable crop farm households in Nigeria is 0.60, while the adjusted headcount ratio (MPI) is 0.27, with an average intensity of 0.45. We found that deprivation in the dimension of living standard accounted for 45.5% of the overall multidimensional poverty index (MPI). The result of the logistic regression indicates that household location, gender, household size and non-farm income are negatively correlated to poverty. The factors that increase poverty among households are the age of the household head and access to extension services.

Originality/value

The study presents an alternative means of assessing poverty among smallholder arable crop farming households in Nigeria. This study recommends that policymakers should focus more on improving the living standard of arable crop farming households to reduce poverty in rural areas. Similarly, concerted efforts should be made towards providing adequate health care and improved sanitation, supply of electricity and educational training that goes beyond primary education for farming household members.
Forecasting the risk at infractions: an ensemble comparison of machine learning approach
Authors: Li Lei , Wu Desheng
Published: October 2021

Purpose

The infraction of securities regulations (ISRs) of listed firms in their day-to-day operations and management has become one of common problems. This paper proposed several machine learning approaches to forecast the risk at infractions of listed corporates to solve financial problems that are not effective and precise in supervision.

Design/methodology/approach

The overall proposed research framework designed for forecasting the infractions (ISRs) include data collection and cleaning, feature engineering, data split, prediction approach application and model performance evaluation. We select Logistic Regression, Naïve Bayes, Random Forest, Support Vector Machines, Artificial Neural Network and Long Short-Term Memory Networks (LSTMs) as ISRs prediction models.

Findings

The research results show that prediction performance of proposed models with the prior infractions provides a significant improvement of the ISRs than those without prior, especially for large sample set. The results also indicate when judging whether a company has infractions, we should pay attention to novel artificial intelligence methods, previous infractions of the company, and large data sets.

Originality/value

The findings could be utilized to address the problems of identifying listed corporates' ISRs at hand to a certain degree. Overall, results elucidate the value of the prior infraction of securities regulations (ISRs). This shows the importance of including more data sources when constructing distress models and not only focus on building increasingly more complex models on the same data. This is also beneficial to the regulatory authorities.
The effect of knowledge management capacity on firm performance through sequential mediations of strategic HRM, administrative and technical innovations
Authors: Chawla Arshinder Singh , Kundu Subhash C. , Kumar Sandeep , Gahlawat Neha , Kundu Homesh
Published: October 2021

Purpose

This study aims to explore the relationship between knowledge management (KM) and firm performance through mediating effects of strategic human resource management (HRM) and organizational innovations.

Design/methodology/approach

Usable responses from 638 employees belonging to 230 organizations operating in India were collected via questionnaires. To determine the hypothesized relationships between the study variables, namely, KM capacity, strategic HRM, administrative innovation, technical innovation and firm performance, bootstrapping method via PROCESS was put into use.

Findings

The findings strengthen the notion that effective KM in firms leads to better innovation capabilities and higher firm performance. Further, the study reveals that the effects of KM capacity on firm performance go through a relationship chain (serial mediation) consisting of strategic HRM, administrative innovation and technical innovation.

Practical implications

The results undeniably infer that the effective management of knowledge is critical for leveraging innovations and other performance indicators in organizations. More specifically, it does not only result in enhanced firm performance but also in proper utilization of strategic HR practices for the benefits of employees, with a boost in administrative and technical innovations in organizations.

Originality/value

By confirming several mediation paths through strategic HRM, administrative and technical innovations, this study offers some noteworthy insights in expounding the relationship between KM and firm performance.
Recognizing leadership styles through the use of a serious game
Authors: Almeida Fernando , Buzady Zoltan
Published: October 2021

Purpose

This study aims to present a practical approach to recognizing leadership styles by adopting a serious game in the context of an entrepreneurship course in higher education.

Design/methodology/approach

The action-research methodology is adopted to explore how the various leadership styles are perceived and assimilated by students. Furthermore, students are organized into eight groups to explore this phenomenon through a thematic analysis.

Findings

The findings reveal that transformational and transactional leadership can coexist and be applied in organizational management. The results also indicate that students with relevant professional experience have a greater ability to identify the benefits and challenges associated with each leadership style as they recognize these styles throughout their professional careers.

Originality/value

This paper mainly offers practical implications by presenting an alternative and complementary approach to exploring leadership styles. Through this approach, students can recognize the various leadership styles in the game personas and realize their impact on the dynamics of an organization.
Understanding the ease of doing agribusiness in emerging Asian economies: evidence from world enterprises survey
Authors: Khan Waseem , Singh Trilok Pratap , Jamshed Mohammed
Published: October 2021

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the characteristics of agribusiness firms in India, China and Pakistan, as well as the challenges they face in doing business.

Design/methodology/approach

This study is based on the World Bank’s Enterprises Survey (WBES) data. The survey was carried out through a questionnaire survey from the owner and top managers of 716, 247 and 174 agribusiness from India, Pakistan and China, respectively. This enterprises survey has comprised the information regarding the wide range of firms’ characteristics and 16 parameters of business obstacles. Simple statistical tools such as chi-square and analysis of variance have been used to analyze the data.

Findings

Chi-square test shows the statistically significance difference in firms’ characteristics across agribusiness firms of India, China and Pakistan. Chinese firms are better in terms of having an international quality certification, own websites and getting credit. In Pakistan, access to land for agribusiness is an obstacle while for India and China, it is easy to acquire land for agribusiness purposes. In Pakistan, tax rate and political stability is a moderate obstacle while in India and China, it is a minor obstacle in agribusiness. Labor regulation does not perceive any considerable obstacle in doing business in India and Pakistan.

Practical implications

This study provides an understanding of differences in the agribusiness environment in emerging economies such as India, Pakistan and China based on WBES data. This study can be helpful for agribusiness managers and government policymakers for promoting agriculture-based entrepreneurship.

Originality/value

It is the first attempt to compare the profile of agribusiness firms in growing Asian economies such as India, Pakistan and China, as well as perceived business hurdles, using a comprehensive enterprises survey data of World Bank.
Forecasting sustainability of supply chains in the circular economy context: a dynamic network data envelopment analysis and artificial neural network approach
Authors: Shabanpour Hadi , Yousefi Saeed , Farzipoor Saen Reza
Published: October 2021

Purpose

The objective of this research is to put forward a novel closed-loop circular economy (CE) approach to forecast the sustainability of supply chains (SCs). We provide a practical and real-world CE framework to improve and fill the current knowledge gap in evaluating sustainability of SCs. Besides, we aim to propose a real-life managerial forecasting approach to alert the decision-makers on the future unsustainability of SCs.

Design/methodology/approach

It is needed to develop an integrated mathematical model to deal with the complexity of sustainability and CE criteria. To address this necessity, for the first time, network data envelopment analysis (NDEA) is incorporated into the dynamic data envelopment analysis (DEA) and artificial neural network (ANN). In general, methodologically, the paper uses a novel hybrid decision-making approach based on a combination of dynamic and network DEA and ANN models to evaluate sustainability of supply chains using environmental, social, and economic criteria based on real life data and experiences of knowledge-based companies so that the study has a good adaptation with the scope of the journal.

Findings

A practical CE evaluation framework is proposed by incorporating recyclable undesirable outputs into the models and developing a new hybrid “dynamic NDEA” and “ANN” model. Using ANN, the sustainability trend of supply chains for future periods is forecasted, and the benchmarks are proposed. We deal with the undesirable recycling outputs, inputs, desirable outputs and carry-overs simultaneously.

Originality/value

We propose a novel hybrid dynamic NDEA and ANN approach for forecasting the sustainability of SCs. To do so, for the first time, we incorporate a practical CE concept into the NDEA. Applying the hybrid framework provides us a new ranking approach based on the sustainability trend of SCs, so that we can forecast unsustainable supply chains and recommend preventive solutions (benchmarks) to avoid future losses. A practicable case study is given to demonstrate the real-life applications of the proposed method.
Exploring the effects of studentification on neighbourhoods in Nigeria
Authors: Adebowale Oluseyi , Simpeh Fredrick
Published: October 2021

Purpose

The increase in enrolment into higher education and the inadequate student housing in educational institutions has led to the growth of off-campus private student housing in Nigeria. Studentification as a research area has received attention in most countries in the global North, whereas there is dearth of studies on studentification in Nigeria. Therefore, this paper aims to examine the effects of studentification on the residents of selected Nigerian communities.

Design/methodology/approach

The study adopted an exploratory research strategy. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to gather qualitative data from respondents, who were landlords and indigenous tenants of the host communities of two tertiary institutions. The data collected were analysed by means of the thematic analysis technique.

Findings

It became evident that studentification has some effects on the communities. Significant positive effects are business patronage and liveliness, while socio-economic-related factors, which include indecent clothing and theft, were noted as the most significant negative factors.

Practical implications

Implementing the outcomes of this study will contribute to promoting societal ethical values and economic prosperity of the communities.

Originality/value

The paper contributes to building the body of knowledge on the effect of studentification in the Nigerian context.