bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Bridging academic and everyday language
Authors: Axelsson Monica , Slotte Anna
Published: July 2017

This article presents findings from a Grade 7 religion lesson with 12–13 year-old multilingual Finnish-Swedish students in Finland. Here, focus is on the development of academic language and disciplinary literacy in multilingual environments, as they are crucial to students’ success and an area in need of both attention and support. A total of 117 minutes of six video-recorded group discussions, collected in a classroom study in a Swedish-medium school in Finland, were analyzed. The aim was to explore how students used everyday language and academic language to co-construct meaning of academic text and to investigate resources that were used by multilingual students and teachers to facilitate access to content for students instructed through Swedish. Our findings focus mainly on discussions in one group of four students as they were answering text questions. This group bridged academic and everyday language by creating linguistic chains that linked the two and used multiple resources, such as previous knowledge, the textbook, asking the teacher, and using Finnish in order to ensure each participant’s full understanding of the subject.
English first
Authors: Toth Jeanette
Published: July 2017

This case study explores the questions of how national and local education policies address languages of instruction for a Swedish compulsory school offering English-medium instruction (hereafter EMI) as well as how these policies are interpreted and implemented in practice. Critical discourse analysis provides a framework for examining the relationship between stated and enacted policies at the various institutional levels. Methods from linguistic ethnography yielded rich data including classroom observations, interviews, and artifact collection over a period of three school years in grades four through six. Findings from the study reveal discourses of language hierarchies, a native speaker ideal privileging English and practices that reflect varying degrees of language separation. While Swedish is occasionally used to support English-medium content learning, there is little space for students’ mother tongues in the mainstream classroom. The findings from this study have implications for how stakeholders may put language-in-education policies into practice in EMI programs.
Syntax
Authors: van Gelderen Elly
Published: July 2017

Using a concise and clear style, this book highlights insights from current syntactic theory and minimalism. Chapter 1 starts with the general idea behind generative grammar and should be read from a big picture perspective. Because the book expects no prior syntactic background, its next two chapters are on lexical and grammatical categories and on basic phrase structure rules. After these introductory chapters, the book covers the clausal spine, the VP, TP, and CP in Chapters 4, 5, and 6, respectively. For the VP, it emphasizes lexical aspect, theta-roles, and the VP-shell; for the TP and CP, it uses a cartographic approach and juxtaposes that to free adjunction. Chapter 7 covers the DP and Chapter 8 discusses the importance of features. Chapter 9 returns to some of the issues raised in Chapter 1 and summarizes the approach. It includes keywords, frequent summaries, exercises, and suggested answers to the exercises. Cartoons and frequent corpus examples enliven the text.
Thomas Goff, Four Harpsichords, J.S. Bach and the Royal Festival Hall
Authors: Rogers Victoria
Published: July 2017

During the 1950s and 1960s in London, in the Royal Festival Hall, an unusual series of concerts took place. These concerts stood apart from the usual offerings in London's post-war musical life. What they offered was early music, principally J.S. Bach's concertos for two, three and four keyboards, played not on the piano, as had hitherto been the case, but on the harpsichord. This article documents, for the first time, the facts, and the implications, of the Royal Festival Hall concert series: how it came about; the repertoire; the performers; and the performances. The article concludes that the Royal Festival Hall concerts were notable in the evolution of the early music movement in the UK, deepening its reach to a broader audience and nurturing an awareness of an issue that was increasingly to gain traction in the later decades of the twentieth century: the idea of historical authenticity in the performance of early music.
Reciprocal regulation of signaling and endocytosis: Implications for the evolving cancer cell
Authors: Schmid Sandra L.
Published: July 2017

Cell surface receptor uptake via clathrin-mediated endocytosis (CME) and subsequent intracellular sorting for degradation or recycling regulates the strength and specificity of downstream signaling. Signaling, in turn, modulates early endocytic trafficking. This reciprocal regulation of signaling and endocytosis provides opportunities for the establishment of feedback loops to enhance or suppress surface-derived signals. Recent studies suggest that dynamin-1, a presumed neuron-specific isoform of the large, membrane fission GTPase, can be activated in nonneuronal cells downstream of cancer-relevant signaling pathways and thereby function as a nexus between signaling and early endocytic trafficking. I speculate that sustained up-regulation and/or acute activation of dynamin-1 in cancer cells contributes to a program of “adaptive” CME that alters signaling to enhance cancer cell survival, migration, and proliferation.
Medical emergencies in pregnancy
Authors: Doumouchtsis Stergios K. , Arulkumaran S. , Doumouchtsis Stergios K. , Hordern Claire , Mukhopadhyay Sambit , Papageorghiou Aris , Tamizian Onnig , Watt-Coote Ingrid
Published: July 2017

This chapter outlines medical emergencies in pregnancy. It discusses the guidelines for resuscitation in pregnancy, abdominal pain, headache and generally feeling unwell, convulsions, chest pain and discomfort, breathlessness and difficulties in breathing, jaundice and obstetric cholestasis, and diarrhoea.
USim: A New Device and App for Case-Specific, Intraoperative Ultrasound Simulation and Rehearsal in Neurosurgery. A Preliminary Study
Authors: Perin Alessandro , Prada Francesco Ugo , Moraldo Michela , Schiappacasse Andrea , Galbiati Tommaso Francesco , Gambatesa Enrico , d’Orio Piergiorgio , Riker Nicole Irene , Basso Curzio , Santoro Matteo , Meling Torstein Ragnar , Schaller Karl , DiMeco Francesco
Published: July 2017

BACKGROUND

Intraoperative ultrasound (iUS) is an excellent aid for neurosurgeons to perform better and safer operations thanks to real time, continuous, and high-quality intraoperative visualization.

OBJECTIVE

To develop an innovative training method to teach how to perform iUS in neurosurgery.

METHODS

Patients undergoing surgery for different brain or spine lesions were iUS scanned (before opening the dura) in order to arrange a collection of 3-dimensional, US images; this set of data was matched and paired to preoperatively acquired magnetic resonance images in order to create a library of neurosurgical cases to be studied offline for training and rehearsal purposes. This new iUS training approach was preliminarily tested on 14 European neurosurgery residents, who participated at the 2016 European Association of Neurosurgical Societies Training Course (Sofia, Bulgaria).

RESULTS

USim was developed by Camelot and the Besta NeuroSim Center as a dedicated app that transforms any smartphone into a “virtual US probe,” in order to simulate iUS applied to neurosurgery on a series of anonymized, patient-specific cases of different central nervous system tumors (eg, gliomas, metastases, meningiomas) for education, simulation, and rehearsal purposes. USim proved to be easy to use and allowed residents to quickly learn to handle a US probe and interpret iUS semiotics.

CONCLUSION

USim could help neurosurgeons learn neurosurgical iUS safely. Furthermore, neurosurgeons could simulate many cases, of different brain/spinal cord tumors, that resemble the specific cases they have to operate on. Finally, the library of cases would be continuously updated, upgraded, and made available to neurosurgeons.
An untypeable enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli represents one of the dominant types causing human disease
Authors: Iguchi Atsushi , von Mentzer Astrid , Kikuchi Taisei , Thomson Nicholas R.
Published: July 2017

Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) is a major cause of diarrhoea in children below 5 years of age in endemic areas, and is a primary cause of diarrhoea in travellers visiting developing countries. Epidemiological analysis of E. coli pathovars is traditionally carried out based on the results of serotyping. However, genomic analysis of a global ETEC collection of 362 isolates taken from patients revealed nine novel O-antigen biosynthesis gene clusters that were previously unrecognized, and have collectively been called unclassified. When put in the context of all isolates sequenced, one of the novel O-genotypes, OgN5, was found to be the second most common ETEC O-genotype causing disease, after O6, in a globally representative ETEC collection. It’s also clear that ETEC OgN5 isolates have spread globally. These novel O-genotypes have now been included in our comprehensive O-genotyping scheme, and can be detected using a PCR-based and an in silico typing method. This will assist in epidemiological studies, as well as in ETEC vaccine development.
Resources for Interpreting Variants in Precision Genomic Oncology Applications
Authors: Tsang Hsinyi , Addepalli Durga , Davis Sean R.
Published: July 2017

Precision genomic oncology–applying high throughput sequencing (HTS) at the point-of-care to inform clinical decisions–is a developing precision medicine paradigm that is seeing increasing adoption. Simultaneously, new developments in targeted agents and immunotherapy, when informed by rich genomic characterization, offer potential benefit to a growing subset of patients. Multiple previous studies have commented on methods for identifying both germline and somatic variants. However, interpreting individual variants remains a significant challenge, relying in large part on the integration of observed variants with biological knowledge. A number of data and software resources have been developed to assist in interpreting observed variants, determining their potential clinical actionability, and augmenting them with ancillary information that can inform clinical decisions and even generate new hypotheses for exploration in the laboratory. Here, we review available variant catalogs, variant and functional annotation software and tools, and databases of clinically actionable variants that can be used in an ad hoc approach with research samples or incorporated into a data platform for interpreting and formally reporting clinical results.
Cortical circuits implement optimal context integration
Authors: Iyer Ramakrishnan , Mihalas Stefan
Published: July 2017

Neurons in the primary visual cortex (V1) predominantly respond to a patch of the visual input, their classical receptive field. These responses are modulated by the visual input in the surround [2]. This reflects the fact that features in natural scenes do not occur in isolation: lines, surfaces are generally continuous, and the surround provides context for the information in the classical receptive field. It is generally assumed that the information in the near surround is transmitted via lateral connections between neurons in the same area [2]. A series of large scale efforts have recently described the relation between lateral connectivity and visual evoked responses and found like-to-like connectivity between excitatory neurons [16, 18]. Additionally, specific cell type connectivity for inhibitory neuron types has been described [11, 31]. Current normative models of cortical function relying on sparsity [27], saliency [4] predict functional inhibition between similarly tuned neurons. What computations are consistent with the observed structure of the lateral connections between the excitatory and diverse types of inhibitory neurons?

We combined natural scene statistics [24] and mouse V1 neuron responses [7] to compute the lateral connections and computations of individual neurons which optimally integrate information from the classical receptive field with that from the surround by directly implementing Bayes rule. This increases the accuracy of representation of a natural scene under noisy conditions. We show that this network has like-to-like connectivity between excitatory neurons, similar to the observed one [16, 18, 11], and has three types of inhibition: local normalization, surround inhibition and gating of inhibition from the surround - that can be attributed to three classes of inhibitory neurons. We hypothesize that this computation: optimal integration of contextual cues with a gate to ignore context when necessary is a general property of cortical circuits, and the rules constructed for mouse V1 generalize to other areas and species.
Cerebral ischemia-induced genes are increased in acute schizophrenia: an opportunity for clinical translation of genomic research findings
Authors: Moises Hans W. , Hess Moritz , Binder Harald
Published: July 2017

Schizophrenia is a brain disorder of unknown etiology. Brain imaging studies have revealed evidence for hypoperfusion of the frontal cortex (hypofrontality) and progressive brain volume reduction in schizophrenic patients. Mild cerebral ischemia (oligemia) has been postulated as a cause of the disorder. If the ischemia hypothesis for the adult brain is correct, genes induced by cerebral ischemia should be increased in the frontal cortex of schizophrenic patients during acute psychosis. Here, we show for the first time through a combined analysis of gene expression data from all the studies of the Stanley Brain Collection covering the Brodmann area 46 of the frontal cortex and employing the well-established Affymetrix HGU133a microarray platform that genes upregulated by cerebral ischemia are significantly overexpressed (4.5-fold) in the frontal cortex of acute schizophrenic patients (representation factor (RF) 4.5,p< 0.0002) and to a lesser degree in chronic patients (RF 3.9,p< 0.008) in comparison to normal controls. Neurodevelopmental-, repair-, inflammation- and synapse-related genes showed no significant change. The difference between acute and chronic schizophrenic patients regarding cerebral ischemia-induced genes was highly significant (RF 2.8,p< 0.00007). The results reported here are in line with evidence from biochemical, cellular, electroencephalographic, brain imaging, cerebral near-infrared spectroscopy, vascular, and genetic association studies. In summary, our genomic analysis revealed a clear ischemic signature in the frontal cortex of schizophrenia patients, confirming the prediction of the adult ischemia hypothesis for this disorder. This finding suggests new possibilities for the treatment and prevention of schizophrenia.
Long non-coding RNA repertoire and regulation by nuclear exosome, cytoplasmic exonuclease and RNAi in fission yeast
Authors: Atkinson Sophie R , Marguerat Samuel , Bitton Danny A , Rodríguez-López Maria , Rallis Charalampos , Lemay Jean-François , Cotobal Cristina , Malecki Michal , Mata Juan , Bachand François , Bähler Jürg
Published: July 2017

Transcriptomes feature pervasive, but poorly defined long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs). We identify 5775 novel lncRNAs in Schizosaccharomyces pombe, nearly 4-times the previously annotated lncRNAs. Most lncRNAs become derepressed under genetic and physiological perturbations, especially during late meiosis. These lncRNAs are targeted by three RNA-processing pathways: the nuclear exosome, cytoplasmic exonuclease and RNAi, with substantial coordination and redundancy among pathways. We classify lncRNAs into cryptic unstable transcripts (CUTs), Xrn1-sensitive unstable transcripts (XUTs), and Dicer-sensitive unstable transcripts (DUTs). XUTs and DUTs are enriched for antisense lncRNAs, while CUTs are often bidirectional and actively translated. The cytoplasmic exonuclease and RNAi repress thousands of meiotically induced RNAs. Antisense lncRNA and sense mRNA expression often negatively correlate in the physiological, but not the genetic conditions. Intergenic and bidirectional lncRNAs emerge from nucleosome-depleted regions, upstream of positioned nucleosomes. This broad survey of the S. pombe lncRNA repertoire and characteristics provides a rich resource for functional analyses.
Nonpolio enteroviruses can also be recovered from non-reproducible cytopathology in L20B cell line
Authors: Adeniji J. A. , Ibok U.I. , Ayinde O.T. , Oragwa A.O. , George U.E. , Faleye T.O.C. , Adewumi M.O.
Published: July 2017

Samples showing cytopathology (CPE) on initial inoculation into L20B cell line but with no observed or reproducible CPE on passage in L20B or RD are considered negative for both poliovirus and nonpolio enteroviruses (NPEVs). The phenomenon is termed ‘non-reproducible CPE’. Its occurrence is usually ascribed to the likely presence of reoviruses, adenoviruses and other non-enteroviruses. This study aimed to investigate the likelihood that NPEVs are also present in cases with non-reproducible CPE.

Twenty-six (26) cell culture suspensions were analyzed in this study. The suspensions were collected from the WHO National Polio Laboratory, Department of Virology, College of Medicine, University of Ibadan. The suspensions emanated from 13 L20B cell culture tubes that showed cytopathology within 5 days of inoculation with fecal suspension from AFP cases. However, on passage into one each of RD and L20B cell lines, the CPE was not reproducible. All samples were subjected to RNA extraction, cDNA synthesis, the WHO recommended VP1 RT-seminestedPCR assay, species resolution PCR assay, sequencing and phylogenetic analysis.

Six (6) samples were positive for the VP1 RT-seminested PCR assay. Only four of which were positive by the species resolution PCR assay. The four amplicons were sequenced, however, only three (3) were successfully identified as Coxsackievirus A20 (2 isolates) and Echovirus 29 (1 isolate).

The results of this study unambiguously showed the presence of NPEVs (particularly CVA20 and E29) in cell culture supernatants of samples with CPE on initial inoculation into L20B cell line but with no observed or reproducible CPE on passage in RD cell line. Therefore, like reoviruses, adenoviruses and other non-enteroviruses, NPEVs can also be recovered in cases with non-reproducible CPE.
Fibronectin type III and intracellular domains of Toll-like receptor 4 interactor with leucine-rich repeats (Tril) are required for developmental signaling
Authors: Kim Hyung-Seok , McKnite Autumn , Xie Yuanyuan , Christian Jan L.
Published: July 2017

Toll-like receptor 4 interactor with leucine-rich repeats (Tril) is a transmembrane protein that functions as a coreceptor for Toll-like receptors (Tlrs) to mediate innate immune responses in the adult brain. Tril also triggers degradation of the Bmp inhibitor, Smad7, during early embryonic development to allow for normal blood formation. Tril most likely plays additional, yet to be discovered, roles during embryogenesis. In the current studies, we performed a structure-function analysis, which indicated that the extracellular domain, including the fibronectin type III (FN) domain, and the intracellular domain of Tril are required to trigger Smad7 degradation in the earlyXenopusembryo. Furthermore, we found that a Tril deletion mutant lacking the FN domain (TrilΔFN) can dominantly inhibit signaling by endogenous Tril when overexpressed in vivo. This finding raises the intriguing possibility that the FN domain functions to bind endogenous Tril/Tlr4 ligands, perhaps including extracellular matrix molecules. We also show that Tril normally cycles between the cell surface and endosomes, and that the Tril extracellular domain is required to retain Tril at the cell surface, while the intracellular domain is required for Tril internalization inXenopusectodermal explants. Using a CHO cell aggregation assay, we further show that, unlike other transmembrane proteins that contain leucine rich repeats in the extracellular domain, Tril is not sufficient to mediate homophilic adhesion. Our findings identify TrilΔFN as a valuable tool that can be used to block the function of endogenous Tril in vivo in order to discover additional roles during embryonic development.
Influence of evolving culture on leadership: a study of Fijian cooperatives
Authors: Eti-Tofinga Buriata , Douglas Heather , Singh Gurmeet
Published: July 2017

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine how leadership is shaped by a changing cultural context.

Design/methodology/approach

This is an exploratory study based on semi-structured interviews with leaders of Fijian cooperatives.

Findings

The political and cultural environment in Fiji has changed over time, and these changing arrangements shape expectations of what is considered to be appropriate leadership in Fijian cooperatives. To be consistent with changing societal values, leaders of Fijian cooperatives employ a context-sensitive hybrid leadership style in which legitimacy is an important dimension.

Research implications

Researchers need to examine the cultural context as a dynamic influencing element of leadership.

Practical implications

Leaders of cooperatives and similar values-based organizations would benefit from applying a legitimate and context-sensitive hybrid leadership style.

Originality/value

This study contributes new understandings of the cultural influences on organizational leadership.
Emotion evolutions of sub-topics about popular events on microblogs
Authors: Zhou Qingqing , Zhang Chengzhi
Published: July 2017

Purpose

The development of social media has led to large numbers of internet users now producing massive amounts of user-generated content (UGC). UGC, which shows users’ opinions about events directly, is valuable for monitoring public opinion. Current researches have focused on analysing topic evolutions in UGC. However, few researches pay attention to emotion evolutions of sub-topics about popular events. Important details about users’ opinions might be missed, as users’ emotions are ignored. This paper aims to extract sub-topics about a popular event from UGC and investigate the emotion evolutions of each sub-topic.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper first collects UGC about a popular event as experimental data and conducts subjectivity classification on the data to get subjective corpus. Second, the subjective corpus is classified into different emotion categories using supervised emotion classification. Meanwhile, a topic model is used to extract sub-topics about the event from the subjective corpora. Finally, the authors use the results of emotion classification and sub-topic extraction to analyze emotion evolutions over time.

Findings

Experimental results show that specific primary emotions exist in each sub-topic and undergo evolutions differently. Moreover, the authors find that performance of emotion classifier is optimal with term frequency and relevance frequency as the feature-weighting method.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first research to mine emotion evolutions of sub-topics about an event with UGC. It mines users’ opinions about sub-topics of event, which may offer more details that are useful for analysing users’ emotions in preparation for decision-making.
Semantically linking events for massive scientific literature research
Authors: Zhang Junsheng , Sun Yunchuan , Yao Changqing
Published: July 2017

Purpose

This paper aims to semantically linking scientific research events implied by scientific and technical literature to support information analysis and information service applications. Literature research is an important method to acquire scientific and technical information which is important for research, development and innovation of science and technology. It is difficult but urgently required to acquire accurate, timely, rapid, short and comprehensive information from the large-scale and fast-growing literature, especially in the big data era. Existing literature-based information retrieval systems focus on basic data organization, and they are far from meeting the needs of information analytics. It becomes urgent to organize and analyze scientific research events related to scientific and technical literature for forecasting development trend of science and technology.

Design/methodology/approach

Scientific literature such as a paper or a patent is represented as a scientific research event, which contains elements including when, where, who, what, how and why. Metadata of literature is used to formulate scientific research events that are implied in introduction and related work sections of literature. Named entities and research objects such as methods, materials and algorithms can be extracted from texts of literature by using text analysis. The authors semantically link scientific research events, entities and objects, and then, they construct the event space for supporting scientific and technical information analysis.

Findings

This paper represents scientific literature as events, which are coarse-grained units comparing with entities and relations in current information organizations. Events and semantic relations among them together formulate a semantic link network, which could support event-centric information browsing, search and recommendation.

Research limitations/implications

The proposed model is a theoretical model, and it needs to verify the efficiency in further experimental application research. The evaluation and applications of semantic link network of scientific research events are further research issues.

Originality/value

This paper regards scientific literature as scientific research events and proposes an approach to semantically link events into a network with multiple-typed entities and relations. According to the needs of scientific and technical information analysis, scientific research events are organized into event cubes which are distributed in a three-dimensioned space for easy-to-understand and information visualization.
The rough journey into arts entrepreneurship
Authors: Thom Marco
Published: July 2017

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the current state of arts entrepreneurship education at higher educational institutions (HEIs) by reviewing the relevant literature and surveying lecturers in Fine Art.

Design/methodology/approach

The analysis of fine art students’ educational situation at HEIs in the UK and Germany is conducted in two steps: first, a literature review provides an overview of the current state of arts entrepreneurship education, followed by the second step of a cross-sectional survey by questionnaires among fine art lecturers to capture their perspectives of fine art students’ professional preparation.

Findings

The study confirms the assumed poor state of arts entrepreneurship education at HEIs by showing evidence that an entrepreneurial education of fine art students is definitely not implemented at HEIs, neither in the UK nor in Germany.

Practical implications

The findings stimulate the discussion of HEIs’ task and responsibility to professionally prepare fine art graduates for their entrepreneurial and professional career.

Originality/value

The study contributes to knowledge by presenting relevant findings related to fine art curriculum and current state of fine art graduates’ vocational preparation.
Is “entrepreneurship” the problem in entrepreneurship education?
Authors: Bridge Simon
Published: July 2017

Purpose

In entrepreneurship education there are different interpretations of entrepreneurship which leads to considerable confusion. The purpose of this paper is to consider whether it is the word entrepreneurship itself which is the source of this problem.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper seeks, not to examine the different meanings of entrepreneurship in an education context, but instead to explore the confusion those different meanings can cause.

Findings

The word entrepreneurship is used as a label for what sometimes are essentially different things. But, even when a difference is acknowledged, the application of the same label implies a misleading commonality. A result is that false parallels can be drawn and differences among the requirements of funders, providers and consumers of entrepreneurship education can go unrecognised and not addressed. Attempts to restrict the label “entrepreneurship” to some uses and to use the label “enterprise” for others fail because it is only partially done and the two words are still often used interchangeably. Therefore, because the label “entrepreneurship” is the source of this problem, it is suggested that its use should be dropped.

Practical implications

Dropping the word entrepreneurship would force the various stakeholders in entrepreneurship education to specify more clearly what they want and/or expect to get from it. That could lead to clearer debate and better resolution of misunderstandings.

Originality/value

Possibly because we are accustomed to using the word entrepreneurship in different ways we fail to see and address the confusion that causes. This paper suggests a change.
The role of creativity in entrepreneurship: an empirical study on business undergraduates
Authors: Camacho-Miñano María-del-Mar , del Campo Cristina
Published: July 2017

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the creativity level of business administration undergraduates who have attended an entrepreneurship seminar in contrast to those that have not.

Design/methodology/approach

Using two samples of Spanish students, the factors that condition the creation of new start-ups are analysed. A survey following the creativity items from the Kirton Adaption-Innovation (KAI) inventory was employed for a start-up seminar students and a control sample. Non-parametric tests were carried out on the responses.

Findings

The results show that Spanish business students’ entrepreneurial intentions are not conditioned by entrepreneurial courses, parental self-employment or by their creativity level. However, there are differences in creativity level by genders for their future ability to start-up a company.

Practical implications

There are no external constraints on not being an entrepreneur, who plays a fundamental role in the future of a country and it is a way to reduce current youth unemployment rates. Social and educational implications are also presented.

Originality/value

The use of the KAI inventory as a proxy of creativity index is original in the research. Moreover, this study contributes to a better understanding of the factors in becoming an entrepreneur, through exposure to creativity, growing up around businesses and awareness of individual creativity index. Integration of university courses with entrepreneurship actions will be of interest to the society development.
Assessment of internship effectiveness in South Italy Universities
Authors: della Volpe Maddalena
Published: July 2017

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to describe and discuss the way internships are currently evaluated in Campania Universities by host institutions.

Design/methodology/approach

The author collected and described questionnaires used by the universities of the Regional Observatory of Campania University System. These questionnaires are given by the host institutions to interns to fill out, and they evaluate skills growth in terms of initial and final assessment. Data related to these questionnaires are not publicly available, therefore the main data source comes from 732 post-internship questionnaires collected by the University of Suor Orsola Benincasa in 2013-2014.

Findings

Out of the 732 participants considered, 65 per cent rated excellent for motivation and interest, 55 per cent were rated excellent for the responsibility demonstrated, but only 37 per cent were rated excellent for the level of work autonomy achieved: a signal of the need to better prepare students for internships. Cross-technical and professional skills, which increase of +37 and +32 per cent, suggest that the experience has a very positive value. Regarding the experience outcome, the author detected a positive indicator: in 6 per cent of cases, an early employment occurred.

Research limitations/implications

It has only been possible to analyze the questionnaires from one of the Campania universities. The results encourage us to explore further, extending instruments and research methods at a national level, too.

Originality/value

The author built a research database form to compare current questionnaires in Campania. The author collected internship evaluation data from Suor Orsola University to propose a common questionnaire among Campania Universities. By sharing the findings, other universities, national and international, could benefit from the results.
Enhancing students’ entrepreneurial mindset: a Swedish experience
Authors: Lindberg Erik , Bohman Håkan , Hulten Peter , Wilson Timothy
Published: July 2017

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to report on the test of a pedagogical intervention to enhance students’ entrepreneurial mindset on a university course.

Design/methodology/approach

The course where the authors tested the new course design is a mandatory one in the business school’s undergraduate business program. Pre- and post-evaluations of the students’ opportunity recognition (OR) and individual entrepreneurial orientation (IEO) were carried out to measure the effects of an intervention aimed at enhancing these capabilities.

Findings

The results from paired-samples t-tests indicate significant positive changes (enhancements) of the students’ OR and IEO. The positive effects of the intervention methods are accounted for as evidence of the benefits of applying pedagogical methods that fit the learning style of young adults.

Practical implications

The findings suggest that students’ mindsets can be positively affected by an intervention tailored to enhance their OR and IEO capabilities. The findings have implications for curriculum development because the strengthening of these capabilities is a precondition for further development of the participants’ innovative and creative thinking, as well as their entrepreneurial orientation. Since innovative and entrepreneurial activities have a positive impact on economies worldwide, the authors encourage the adaption of the intervention methods applied in this study in other settings.

Originality/value

This paper reports the results of a pedagogical intervention aimed at enhancing students’ entrepreneurial mindset. The findings from the study demonstrate that the applied intervention method supports the development of functional skills, which complement the conceptual knowledge gained from other courses in the undergraduate program.
A manifesto for higher education, skills and work-based learning
Authors: Wall Tony
Published: July 2017

Purpose

This paper is prompted by recent professional and political events and specifically the politically oriented “Manifesto for Work” recently published by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). The purpose of this paper is to propose a manifesto for the broad professional sphere of higher education, skills and work-based learning.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper utilises a unique form of political ideology critique, applied to the CIPD’s manifesto for work, to propose alternative directions for practice, research and policy.

Findings

This paper highlights four key areas which need further research and development in the area of higher education, skills and work-based learning. These are discussed in relation to: overhauling corporate governance; inclusive workplaces, flexible working and disadvantaged groups; investment in skills, lifelong learning and well-being; and re-balancing working practices and rights.

Research limitations/implications

This paper highlights areas for further research in the broad professional area of higher education, skills and work-based learning.

Originality/value

This paper is a unique, time-bound political respond to the current political landscape, and is the first to propose a manifesto for the professional sphere of higher education, skills and work-based learning.
Comparative study of swarm intelligence-based saliency computation
Authors: Xian Ning
Published: July 2017

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to propose a new algorithm chaotic pigeon-inspired optimization (CPIO), which can effectively improve the computing efficiency of the basic Itti’s model for saliency-based detection. The CPIO algorithm and relevant applications are aimed at air surveillance for target detection.

Design/methodology/approach

To compare the improvements of the performance on Itti’s model, three bio-inspired algorithms including particle swarm optimization (PSO), brain storm optimization (BSO) and CPIO are applied to optimize the weight coefficients of each feature map in the saliency computation.

Findings

According to the experimental results in optimized Itti’s model, CPIO outperforms PSO in terms of computing efficiency and is superior to BSO in terms of searching ability. Therefore, CPIO provides the best overall properties among the three algorithms.

Practical implications

The algorithm proposed in this paper can be extensively applied for fast, accurate and multi-target detections in aerial images.

Originality/value

CPIO algorithm is originally proposed, which is very promising in solving complicated optimization problems.
A semantic-based decision support platform to assist products’ eco-labeling process
Authors: Xu Da , Karray Mohamed Hedi , Archimède Bernard
Published: July 2017

Purpose

With the rising concern of safety, health and environmental performance, eco-labeled product and service are becoming more and more popular. However, the long and complex process of eco-labeling sometimes demotivates manufacturers and service providers to be certificated. The purpose of this paper is to propose a decision support platform aiming at further improvement and acceleration of the eco-labeling process in order to democratize a broader application and certification of eco-labels, also to consolidate the credibility and validity of eco-labels.

Design/methodology/approach

This decision support platform is based on a comprehensive knowledge base composed of various domain ontologies that are constructed according to an official eco-label criteria documentation.

Findings

Through standard Resource Description Framework and Web Ontology Language ontology query interface, the assets of the decision support platform will stimulate domain knowledge sharing and can be applied into other applications. A case study of laundry detergent eco-labeling process is also presented in this paper.

Originality/value

The authors present a reasoning methodology based on inference with Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL) rules which allows decision making with explanation.
Decision support systems for sustainable logistics: a review and bibliometric analysis
Authors: Qaiser Fahham Hasan , Ahmed Karim , Sykora Martin , Choudhary Alok , Simpson Mike
Published: July 2017

Purpose

Decision making in logistics is an increasingly complex task for organizations as these involve decisions at strategic, tactical and operational levels coupled with the triple-bottom line of sustainability. Decision support systems (DSS) played a vital role in arguably solving the challenges associated with decision making in sustainable logistics. The purpose of this paper is to explore the current state of the research in the domain of DSS for logistics while considering sustainability aspects.

Design/methodology/approach

A systematic review approach using a set of relevant keywords with several exclusion criteria was adopted to identify literature related to DSS for sustainable logistics. A total of 40 papers were found from 1994 to 2015, which were then analyzed along the dimensions of publishing trend, geographic distribution and collaboration, the most influential journals, affiliations and authors as well as the key themes of identified literature. The analysis was conducted by means of bibliometric and text mapping tools, namely BibExcel, gpsvisualizer and VOSviewer.

Findings

The bibliometric analysis showed that DSS for sustainable logistics is an emerging field; however, it is still evolving but at a slower pace. Furthermore, most of the contributing affiliations belong to the USA and the UK. The text mining and keyword analysis revealed key themes of identified papers. The inherent key themes were decision models and frameworks to address sustainable logistics issues covering transport, distribution and third-party logistics. The most prominent sustainable logistics issue was carbon footprinting. Social impact has been given less attention in comparison to economic and environmental aspects. The literature has adequate room for proposing more effective solutions by considering various types of multi-criteria decision analysis methods and DSS configurations while simultaneously considering economic, environmental and social aspects of sustainable logistics. Moreover, the field has potential to include logistics from wide application areas including freight transport through road, rail, sea, air as well as inter-modal transport, port operations, material handling and warehousing.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first systematic review of DSS for sustainable logistics using bibliometric and text analysis. The key themes and research gaps identified in this paper will provide a reference point that will encourage and guide interested researchers for future study, thus aiding both theoretical and practical advancements in this discipline.
Coercive pressures on occupational health and safety disclosures
Authors: Cahaya Fitra Roman , Porter Stacey , Tower Greg , Brown Alistair
Published: July 2017

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors explaining voluntary occupational health and safety disclosures (OHSDs).

Design/methodology/approach

Annual report disclosures of 223 Indonesia Stock Exchange listed companies for the year ending 2007 are analyzed. The OHSD components of the 2006 Global Reporting Initiative guidelines are used as the disclosure index checklist.

Findings

The results show that approximately 30 percent of Indonesian listed companies provide OHSD. The most disclosed item is health and safety programs. Logistical regression analysis reveals that industry type and international operations significantly influence the propensity to provide OHSD. These findings suggest that coercive isomorphism partially explains OHSD practices in Indonesia.

Research limitations/implications

The main implications of the findings are that Indonesian listed companies generally have poor health and safety information disclosure sets and largely ignore the potential roles of their workers in any health and safety committees.

Originality/value

This paper provides insights into the disclosure practices of occupational health and safety issues, a vital subset of corporate social responsibility disclosure which is still under-researched. The paper also empirically investigates the key determinants of OHSD, an empirical test which is largely ignored in past OHSD-related studies.
IFRS convergence and revisions: value relevance of accounting information from East Africa
Authors: Outa Erick Rading , Ozili Peterson , Eisenberg Paul
Published: July 2017

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relative value relevance of accounting information arising from the adoption of converged and revised International Accounting Standards (IAS)/International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in East Africa.

Design/methodology/approach

The research applies “same firm year” design for identification of the effects of changes in accounting standards. A model similar to Ohlson’s price model and random-effects GLS are used to estimate R2 of the regressions of share prices on book values and earnings.

Findings

The results show that accounting information prepared from revised and converged IAS/IFRS display higher value relevance and also increased following the revision and convergence of IAS/IFRS. The cross-product term is more significant in the post-revision/convergence period thus providing further evidence for increased value relevance after the revision of IAS/IFRS. The results are robust to various models and show that value relevance in East Africa is relatively lower than that of the developed markets.

Originality/value

The current study provides empirical evidence that value relevance increases with converged/revised IAS/IFRS based on quasi natural experimental setting in East Africa. The authors also extend the debate on whether value relevance is relevant in emerging markets, which are regarded as imperfect markets with few regulations, weak enforcement and limited sources of information. The results may be useful to accounting preparers, regulators, investors, standard setters and countries seeking to adopt IAS/IFRS in developing countries.
Local entrepreneurial programming: myth or reality– a southern case study
Authors: Dickes Lori , Crouch Elizabeth , Walker Thomas C.
Published: July 2017

Purpose

Entrepreneurship is argued to be a critical driver of economic growth for both individual communities and the nation. Regional scientists, economists, and policy makers underscore the importance of a diverse economy that supports recruitment of new firms, existing firms, and entrepreneurship efforts. However, there remains evidence that many states and localities prefer traditional industrial recruitment efforts and that local and state entrepreneurial efforts may be less coordinated. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

This research explores the commitment and priorities of local and regional developers to entrepreneurial policy and other economic development policy efforts. This study uses a statewide survey to local economic developers and logistic regression to determine the likelihood of local entrepreneurial program efforts across South Carolina.

Findings

The model results reveal that the probability of local or regional entrepreneurial development programming is complex and dependent on the type of organization involved in economic development along with other community and state characteristics. However, results further confirm that barriers to entrepreneurship, like access to seed capital, and the influence of perceived alternative policies affect local and regional support of entrepreneurship.

Originality/value

The policy priorities of local economic developers appear to play a significant role in the probability of having local entrepreneurship policy and programs. This confirms that the signals local policymakers receive from the state may impact the programming choices and policy emphasis at the local and regional level. In conclusion, if states want entrepreneurial efforts to be a critical driver of economic growth and development, there must be a coordinated and focused state driver supporting these efforts.