bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Strategy, enrolment and accounting: the politics of strategic ideas
Authors: Whittle Andrea , Mueller Frank
Published: June 2010

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to use Actor Network Theory to explore the role of management accounting systems (MAS) in the construction of business strategy.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper draws on findings from an ethnographic study of a UK‐based firm. Theoretical concepts from Actor‐Network Theory are used to illuminate the findings of the study.

Findings

The study found that MAS acted as an obligatory point of passage into the strategic agenda of the firm. However, the findings also reveal the political tactics used by employees in order to work within, against and around the MAS.

Originality/value

The paper shows that MAS are a key player in the political contests that occur during the process of strategy formulation, as opposed to offering a neutral tool for measuring the strategic value of innovative ideas.
Do Australian and American consumers differ in their perceived shopping experiences?
Authors: Jones Marilyn Y. , Vilches‐Montero Sonia , Spence Mark T. , Eroglu Sevgin A. , Machleit Karen A.
Published: June 2010

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present findings from an experiment designed to test the impact of crowding perceptions (both human and spatial), emotions (positive and negative) and shopping values (utilitarian and hedonic) on shopper satisfaction. Culture is explored as a moderating variable with the expectation that it systematically affects perceptions and values, which, in turn, influence the shopper's experience with the store.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected via a 2×2×2 full factorial between subjects design with two variables, one manipulated and one measured. The two manipulated variables were spatial density (high versus low) and human density (high versus low). The measured variable was country of origin, where subjects were coded as either American or Australian.

Findings

Culture moderates the effects of perceived spatial crowding as well as both hedonic and utilitarian shopping values on shopper satisfaction. Specifically, the adverse effect of perceived spatial crowding on shopper satisfaction is less pronounced for Australians than is the case for Americans. With respect to both utilitarian and hedonic shopping values, the positive relationship between shopping values and shopper satisfaction is greater for Australians than for Americans.

Originality/value

Shopping has been generally described by Rintamakiet al.as “relativistic, because it involves preferences among objects, it varies among people, and it is specific to the context”. This paper demonstrates that culture clearly affects shopper's perceptions and shopping values, which in turn affect shopper satisfaction. It is reasonable to speculate that these effects would be even more pronounced had countries with greater cultural distance been examined.
An integrated scale for measuring an organizational learning system
Authors: Jyothibabu C. , Farooq Ayesha , Bhusan Pradhan Bibhuti
Published: June 2010

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to develop an integrated measurement scale for an organizational learning system by capturing the learning enablers, learning results and performance outcome in an organization.

Design/methodology/approach

A new measurement scale was developed by integrating and modifying two existing scales, identified through a literature survey. The new scale was validated through the responses of 502 managerial employees from 14 thermal power plants of the largest power company in India.

Findings

There were scales, which measure learning enablers or learning achieved or learning in general or the relation between some forms of learning with performance. This study could integrate learning enablers at three levels, learning achieved at three levels, and the organizational outcome in the form of performance in a single scale.

Research limitations/implications

The research study took place within the largest organization in one industry to control for potential industry effects across organizations. This may limit its generalizability.

Practical implications

The integrated scale developed in the study will help to specifically look for the presence of learning enablers and learning outcomes at individual, group or organizational level and relate them with each other as well as performance. Hence it can be of importance in the study of learning organizations and furthering the understanding of the complex relations involved.

Originality/value

This is the first study which clearly demarcates learning enablers at three levels, and learning achieved at three levels, and the organizational outcome in the form of performance in a single integrated scale.
Structural and informal knowledge acquisition and dissemination in organizational learning
Authors: Loon Hoe Siu , McShane Steven
Published: June 2010

Purpose

The topic of organizational learning is populated with many theories and models; many relate to the enduring organizational learning framework consisting of knowledge acquisition, knowledge dissemination, and knowledge use. However, most of the research either emphasizes structural knowledge acquisition and dissemination as a composite construct, or focuses solely on the structural aspect of knowledge acquisition and dissemination. The primary objective of this study is to develop and test a model of organizational learning that incorporates both structural and informal knowledge acquisition and dissemination and as separate processes. The predictors of these processes are also proposed

Design/methodology/approach

A model of organizational learning that incorporates both structural and informal knowledge acquisition and dissemination constructs, along with three predictors of these organizational learning constructs were developed and quantitatively tested.

Findings

An inference to the research questions and hypotheses suggests that informal knowledge acquisition and dissemination have significant paths to market knowledge use, whereas structural knowledge acquisition and dissemination have, at best, a weak association with market knowledge use. Although the results were based on exploratory analysis, they provide tentative quantitative evidence that informal knowledge processes are at least as important as structural knowledge processes in market‐based organizational learning.

Originality/value

While the hypothesized model did not satisfy the goodness‐of‐fit tests, data‐driven exploratory analysis helped to refine two separate structural and informal models for future testing. The statistical explanation provided and procedures used to remedy the non‐fit issues should help future researchers to deal with structural equation‐modeling issues when similar non‐fit problems arise.
Georgian consumers' evaluation of products sourced from European Union member countries
Authors: Riza Apil Ali , Kaynak Erdener
Published: June 2010

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine country of origin (COO) effects among Georgian consumers towards selected European Union (EU) member country products. Within this general framework, the present paper aims to determine Georgian consumers' perception of products sourced from Germany as the largest EU exporter to Georgia, Italy as the source of some well‐known product classes, and Poland as a new member of the EU.

Design/methodology/approach

The study was conducted among 313 consumers, from Tbilisi, Batumi, Kutaisi, and Rustavi in May and June of 2005. Based on the experiences and the findings of an earlier survey, ten products available in the Georgian market were identified as relevant for the study. A five‐point Likert scale was used to gauge respondents' perceptions of quality of each product from respective countries.

Findings

Most of the products made in Germany are perceived high in quality. Italy is rated high in some major product classes like clothing and fashion products. Poland is not rated high for any product class but, its products' lower prices are appreciated by Georgian consumers. Findings support the earlier research specifying the heuristic between product evaluation and degree of economic development of the sourcing country. COO evaluations vary according to product class. The results also confirm past research indicating the differentiating effect of demographic variables on COO perceptions. COO image of Germany and Italy contributes to general “made in Europe” image, the image of Poland moderates it.

Research limitations/implications

The paper's main tenet was that Georgian consumers had high regards for products coming from highly developed EU member countries. This is a static study and looked at the COO phenomenon during one period of time (static approach). Further studies are needed to determine the COO effect over a longer period of time (longitudinal studies). In addition to the study of COO effects on country's product class, the study of product form, product brand, and product brand options may produce more illuminating results.

Practical implications

Georgian importers and European exporters should consider the “made in” strength of each product for competitive advantage and build up their product assortments accordingly. For promotion, exporters to Georgia and resellers in Georgia may put more emphasis on COO of the products which have relatively strong product country image. Relatively, weaker products from Italy and Germany may be supported by using a general country image. The “made in Europe” label may also help to increase the appreciation of products coming from Poland.

Originality/value

The present paper provides empirical evidence about consumers' perception of foreign products in a less researched geography.
Pressure indicating film characterization of pressure distribution in eutectic Au/Sn wafer‐to‐wafer bonding
Authors: Spicer D. , Lai K. , Kornelsen K. , Brennan A. , Belov N. , Wang M. , Chou T‐K. , Heck J. , Zhu T. , Akhlaghi S.
Published: June 2010

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to characterize pressure non‐uniformity in a wafer‐to‐wafer bond chamber using pressure sensitive paper.

Design/methodology/approach

Pressure non‐uniformity in a wafer‐to‐wafer bond chamber is characterized using pressure sensitive paper. The effect of poor pressure uniformity is discussed, and the non‐uniformity corrected for use in a eutectic Au/Sn based wafer‐to‐wafer bond.

Findings

Several types of under solder metallization were also investigated, with Nb/Au seed metal providing the best overall result with good solder compression, liquid proof seal and minimal solder spill‐out. Solder compression versus pressure applied was studied to achieve an excellent gap control (2‐3 μm) between the bonded substrates.

Originality/value

This paper shows that characterization of applied pressure measured directly at the substrate is an important aspect in the development of high yielding bond processes.
Performance improvement of large area GaN MSM photodiode with thin AlGaN surface layer
Authors: Chuah L.S. , Hassan Z. , Abu Hassan H.
Published: June 2010

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to propose a new structure of GaN based metal‐semiconductor‐metal (MSM) photodiode, in which a thin unintentionally doped n‐type AlGaN layer is added on the conventional GaN on Si(111) device structure.

Design/methodology/approach

A thin Al0.50Ga0.50N cap layer of 100 nm was incorporated in GaN MSM photodiode to enhance the effective Schottky barrier height and reduce the dark current. When the incident light with photon energy higher than the band edge of GaN but lower than the bandgap of AlGaN illuminates the front face of photodiode, the light can be transparent in the top AlGaN layer and is only absorbed by the GaN layer. As a result, the photogenerated carriers in the GaN layer would be influenced by the interface states of AlGaN/GaN. It is known that the density of the interface states is normally lower than that of surface states, so the recombination of photogenerated electron‐hole pairs will be reduced. A barrier height of 0.54 eV for normal GaN MSM photodiode was increased to the effective barrier height of 0.60 eV.

Findings

The resulting MSM photodiode shows a dark current of as low as 8.0×10−4 A at 5 V bias, which is about two orders of magnitude lower than that of normal GaN (1.0×10−2 A at 5 V bias) MSM photodiode.

Originality/value

The paper reports on barrier enhanced GaN Schottky MSM photodiode using a thin AlGaN cap layer. AlGaN cap layers were found to effectively suppress the leakage current of the GaN Schottky MSM photodiode, resulting in improved device characteristics. The dark current for the Schottky contact with the AlGaN cap layer was shown to be about about two orders of magnitude smaller than that of conventional GaN Schottky MSM photodiode.
Zinc oxide microrods prepared by sol‐gel immerse technique
Authors: Ashikin Kamaruddin Sharul , Zainizan Sahdan Mohd , Chan Kah‐Yoong , Rusop Mohamad , Saim Hashim
Published: June 2010

Purpose

Zinc oxide (ZnO) is an emerging optoelectronic material due to its various functional behaviors. The purpose of this paper is to report on the fabrication and characterizations of ZnO microrods.

Design/methodology/approach

ZnO microrods were synthesized using sol‐gel immerse technique on oxidized silicon (Si) substrates. The oxidized Si substrates were immersed in ZnO aqueous solution for different times ranging from three to five hours. The surface morphologies of the ZnO microrods were examined using scanning electron microscope (SEM). In order to investigate the structural properties, the ZnO microrods were measured using an X‐ray diffractometer (XRD). The optical properties were measured using a photoluminescence (PL) spectrophotometer.

Findings

Characterization from SEM shows an enhanced growth of the ZnO rods with increasing immerse time. XRD characterizations demonstrate sharp and narrow diffraction peaks peculiar to ZnO, which implies that the rod is of high crystallinity. Based on the PL spectra, long immerse time results in the high peak in the UV region.

Originality/value

This paper concludes that the immerse time exerts an influence on the ZnO microrods. A longer immerse duration is preferred in the fabrication of the ZnO microrod, which is considered an emerging material for many advanced electronic and optoelectronic applications.
Flexible working times: effects on employees' exhaustion, work‐nonwork conflict and job performance
Authors: Kattenbach Ralph , Demerouti Evangelia , Nachreiner Friedhelm
Published: June 2010

Purpose

The aim of this study is to provide a useful conceptualization of flexible working times and to examine the relationships between flexible working times and employees' well‐being and peer ratings of performance. It is supposed that an employee's “time‐autonomy” would be positively related to performance and well‐being. On the contrary, an unfavorable effect of “time restriction” on well‐being is expected.

Design/methodology/approach

A questionnaire‐study was conducted among 167 German employees from 17 different organizations. Information about in‐role and extra‐role performance was also obtained via peer evaluations.

Findings

The data support a two‐factor structure of flexibility. The time restriction factor adds to the degree of exhaustion and the work‐nonwork conflict, while time autonomy diminishes these outcome variables. However, the flexibility dimensions are unrelated to performance.

Originality/value

The multidimensional conceptualization of flexibility allows for the detection of advantages and drawbacks regarding the effectiveness of flexible working time models.
Are Ghanaian MFIs' performance associated with corporate governance?
Authors: Aboagye Anthony Q. , Otieku James
Published: June 2010

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether in Ghana, corporate governance, outreach to clients, reduced dependence on subsidies and use of modern technology (together called corporate governance plus) are associated with the performance of rural and community banks (RCBs), which are microfinance institutions (MFI), in the context of newly adopted codes of conduct and regulations, ownership rules and quality of management.

Design/methodology/approach

A total of 30 randomly sampled RCBs were categorized into four groups based on analysis of several dimensions of financial performance. Next, RCBs were again categorized into four groups based on their corporate governance plus. A chi‐squared test of independence between the two groupings was performed.

Findings

The authors found no association between RCBs' categories based on corporate governance plus and their categories based on financial performance.

Practical implication

To enhance performance, corporate governance plus must impact financial performance as documented by OECD. Laws and codes of conduct recently designed to guide the conduct of business should be allowed to work. The restriction on individual ownership of RCBs to 30 percent should be relaxed. And RCBs should pay attention to developing the competencies of their boards and senior management.

Originality/value

This is the first formal test of the association between state of corporate governance plus and financial performance of microfinance institutions in Ghana.
Turbulent times require a greater focus on board effectiveness
Authors: Petri Tobias , Soublin Regis
Published: June 2010

Purpose

This paper seeks to explore the necessary considerations in assessing and improving board performance in a Fortune 50 organization facing complex strategy execution challenges.

Design/methodology/approach

Face‐to‐face interviews with all non‐executive directors, the CEO and other senior executives were used to conduct a detailed evaluation of board performance, so as to highlight any potential areas of execution or governance risk and underperformance arising from gaps in competence, process or culture. In addition, analysis was carried out of overall board effectiveness and of individual board member contribution using detailed 360‐degree and aggregate questionnaires completed by board and key members of the management team. Further insight was gained from detailed benchmarking against global peers.

Findings

The work highlights that for a board to be a valuable differentiating asset to a company it is vital to balance the governance and oversight role of the board with a supportive and partnering relationship with executive management. This requires that a board should possess the necessary depth and breadth of experience to gain the respect and trust of the executive; that the chairman and CEO should define a contract that describes the nature of the relationship and the division of responsibilities between executive and board; and that the chairman should strive to create an open and challenging dynamic and constantly seek to improve board behaviors and interaction.

Practical implications

It sets out clear objectives in building boards with complementary skill sets and experience and in embedding a culture of continuous self‐assessment and improvement.

Originality/value

Strategic HR practitioners are encouraged to consider the value of the board to management as a differentiating asset for the organization.
Fostering employee innovation: leveraging your “ground level” creative capital
Authors: Self Dennis R. , Bandow Diane , Schraeder Mike
Published: June 2010

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to argue for the importance of allowing operational or ground level employees to participate in the process of organizational innovation.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper looks at various examples of employee innovation. It suggests five ways of enacting active empowerment of employees.

Findings

Participation of operational or ground level employees in the innovation process can be facilitated through active empowerment. Active empowerment can be fostered through sharing accurate information, active listening, encouraging employees to take risks, using failure as a learning tool, and fostering mutual trust.

Practical implications

Organizations can enhance the overall innovation process by empowering employees to participate in the process. This approach leverages creative resources that may, otherwise, remain untapped.

Social implications

Leveraging employee innovation through active empowerment will not only enhance the overall organization, but will also encourage employee learning, thus collectively contributing to the workforce within society.

Originality/value

A discussion on the importance of allowing employees to participate in the process of innovation lead to the identification of five suggestions for enacting active empowerment.
Index futures trading, margin trading and securities lending in China finally launched
Authors: Dare Bryan Paget , TieCheng Yang , Phua Patrick
Published: June 2010

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the trial implementation of stock index futures trading, margin trading and securities lending in China – approved in principle by the State Council and confirmed by the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) on January 8, 2010.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper describes various preliminary rules and regulations for stock index futures trading, margin trading, and securities lending that have been issued starting in 2006 and the latest regulatory developments, requirements and timing related to the trial implementation.

Findings

The stringent requirements imposed by CSRC highlights its cautious approach to the trial process for margin trading and securities lending. By defining “securities lending” as the borrowing of securities and the subsequent sale of those securities in the 2006 Trial Administrative Measures, the regulator appears to leave open the possibility of short selling.

Practical implications

The Announcement has been warmly welcomed by market participants because index futures trading, margin trading and securities lending are expected to significantly add to the Chinese equity market's liquidity and price discovery process in the long run.

Originality/value

The paper provides practical guidance from experienced securities lawyers.
SEC amends the Advisers Act custody rule
Authors: Forbes Jessica , Molle Mark
Published: June 2010

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explain amendments to the Investment Advisers Act custody rule, that recently became effective, which are intended to provide advisory clients with additional protections when a registered investment adviser has access to client assets.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper explains changes to the custody rule related to the definition of custody, delivery of account statements, surprise examinations, exemptions related to pooled investment vehicles, required internal control reports for advisers who maintain client assets themselves, the surprise examination requirement for privately offered securities, and amendments to Form ADV. It also explains effective and compliance dates.

Findings

Advisers should consider how to revise and tailor their written policies and procedures relating to custody; whether to continue the use of affiliated custodians; how to allocate the expenses for compliance with the new requirements, including accountants' fees for surprise examinations, internal control reports and liquidation audits; and whether to amend fund disclosure documents or separate account agreements to address expense allocation or other issues arising as a result of the new requirements.

Originality/value

The paper provides practical guidance from experienced securities lawyers.
Efficient evaluation of relevance feedback algorithms for XML content‐based retrieval systems
Authors: Sayed Awny , Radwan Ahmed A. , Abdallah Mohamed M.
Published: June 2010

Purpose

Information retrieval (IR) and feedback in Extensible Markup Language (XML) are rather new fields for researchers; natural questions arise, such as: how good are the feedback algorithms in XML IR? Can they be evaluated with standard evaluation tools? Even though some evaluation methods have been proposed in the literature it is still not clear yet which of them are applicable in the context of XML IR, and which metrics they can be combined with to assess the quality of XML retrieval algorithms that use feedback. This paper aims to elaborate on this.

Design/methodology/approach

The efficient evaluation of relevance feedback (RF) algorithms for XML collection posed interesting challenges on the IR and database researchers. The system based on the keyword‐based queries whether on the main query or in the RF processing instead of the XPath and structure query languages which were more complex. For measuring the efficiency of the system, the paper used the extended RF algorithms (residual collection and freezeTop) for evaluating the performance of the XML search engines. Compared to previous approaches, the paper aimed at removing the effect of the results for which the system has knowledge about their relevance, and at measuring the improvement on unseen relevant elements. The paper implemented the proposed evaluation methodologies by extending a standard evaluation tool with a module capable of assessing feedback algorithms for a specific set of metrics.

Findings

In this paper, the authors create an efficient XML retrieval system that is based on a query refinement by making a feedback processing and extending the main query terms with new terms mostly related to the main terms.

Research limitations/implications

The authors are working on more efficient retrieval algorithms to get the top‐ten results related to the submitted query. Moreover, they plan to extend the system to handle complex XPath expression.

Originality/value

This paper presents an efficient evaluation of RF algorithms for XML collection retrieval system.
Efficient data representation for XML in peer‐based systems
Authors: Tripney Brian , Foley Christopher , Gourlay Richard , Wilson John
Published: June 2010

Purpose

New directions in the provision of end‐user computing experiences mean that the best way to share data between small mobile computing devices needs to be determined. Partitioning large structures so that they can be shared efficiently provides a basis for data‐intensive applications on such platforms. The partitioned structure can be compressed using dictionary‐based approaches and then directly queried without firstly decompressing the whole structure.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper describes an architecture for partitioning XML into structural and dictionary elements and the subsequent manipulation of the dictionary elements to make the best use of available space.

Findings

The results indicate that considerable savings are available by removing duplicate dictionaries. The paper also identifies the most effective strategy for defining dictionary scope.

Research limitations/implications

This evaluation is based on a range of benchmark XML structures and the approach to minimising dictionary size shows benefit in the majority of these. Where structures are small and regular, the benefits of efficient dictionary representation are lost. The authors' future research now focuses on heuristics for further partitioning of structural elements.

Practical implications

Mobile applications that need access to large data collections will benefit from the findings of this research. Traditional client/server architectures are not suited to dealing with high volume demands from a multitude of small mobile devices. Peer data sharing provides a more scalable solution and the experiments that the paper describes demonstrate the most effective way of sharing data in this context.

Social implications

Many services are available via smartphone devices but users are wary of exploiting the full potential because of the need to conserve battery power. The approach mitigates this challenge and consequently expands the potential for users to benefit from mobile information systems. This will have impact in areas such as advertising, entertainment and education but will depend on the acceptability of file sharing being extended from the desktop to the mobile environment.

Originality/value

The original work characterises the most effective way of sharing large data sets between small mobile devices. This will save battery power on devices such as smartphones, thus providing benefits to users of such devices.
Parallel holistic twig joins on a multi‐core system
Authors: Machdi Imam , Amagasa Toshiyuki , Kitagawa Hiroyuki
Published: June 2010

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to propose general parallelism techniques for holistic twig join algorithms to process queries against Extensible Markup Language (XML) databases on a multi‐core system.

Design/methodology/approach

The parallelism techniques comprised data and task parallelism. As for data parallelism, the paper adopted the stream‐based partitioning for XML to partition XML data as the basis of parallelism on multiple CPU cores. The XML data partitioning was performed in two levels. The first level was to create buckets for creating data independence and balancing loads among CPU cores; each bucket was assigned onto a CPU core. Within each bucket, the second level of XML data partitioning was performed to create finer partitions for providing finer parallelism. Each CPU core performed the holistic twig join algorithm on each finer partition of its own in parallel with other CPU cores. In task parallelism, the holistic twig join algorithm was decomposed into two main tasks, which were pipelined to create parallelism. The first task adopted the data parallelism technique and their outputs were transferred to the second task periodically. Since data transfers incurred overheads, the size of each data transfer needed to be estimated cautiously for achieving optimal performance.

Findings

The data and task parallelism techniques contribute to good performance especially for queries having complex structures and/or higher values of query selectivity. The performance of data parallelism can be further improved by task parallelism. Significant performance improvement is attained by queries having higher selectivity because more outputs computed by the second task is performed in parallel with the first task.

Research limitations/implications

The proposed parallelism techniques primarily deals with executing a single long‐running query for intra‐query parallelism, partitioning XML data on‐the‐fly, and allocating partitions on CPU cores statically. During the parallel execution, presumably there are no such dynamic XML data updates.

Practical implications

The effectiveness of the proposed parallel holistic twig joins relies fundamentally on some system parameter values that can be obtained from a benchmark of the system platform.

Originality/value

The paper proposes novel techniques to increase parallelism by combining techniques of data and task parallelism for achieving high performance. To the best of the author's knowledge, this is the first paper of parallelizing the holistic twig join algorithms on a multi‐core system.
Gender, entrepreneurship and motivational factors in an Irish context
Authors: Laure Humbert Anne , Drew Eileen
Published: June 2010

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore and critically analyse the relationship between gender and entrepreneurial motivations theories in an Irish context. The paper examines potential differences in motivational factors for entering entrepreneurship between men and women, with a particular emphasis on the distinction between push and pull factors, but also with respect to other social factors such as being a parent, marital status or age.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper draws upon data obtained from a national survey of 832 entrepreneurs undertaken in Ireland in 2003/2004. This survey is based on a sample of 3,498 Irish entrepreneurs, which was predominantly constructed using theKompass Directory2001and the majority of the city and county enterprise boards throughout Ireland. The analysis relies on ordinal logistic modelling to examine the impact of gender and other social factors on entrepreneurial motivations.

Findings

The paper shows that there is a strong gender effect on some motivational factors, but that gender itself needs to be examined along with other social factors in order to understand differences in motivations. In particular, marital status, being a parent and/or age, as well as their interaction with gender, are useful in explaining differences in pathways into entrepreneurship for men and women.

Originality/value

Motivations and gender have been widely debated in the international literature on entrepreneurship, but relatively little is known about gender and entrepreneurship in an Irish context. This paper seeks to address this gap. The results will be useful to other researchers in the field of gender and entrepreneurship, as well as practitioners and business support agencies.
The reproductive cycle of female Ballan wrasse Labrus bergylta in high latitude, temperate waters
Authors: Muncaster S. , Andersson E. , Kjesbu O. S. , Taranger G. L. , Skiftesvik A. B. , Norberg B.
Published: June 2010

This 2 year study examined the reproductive cycle of wild female Ballan wrasse Labrus bergylta in western Norway as a precursor to captive breeding trials. Light microscopy of ovarian histology was used to stage gonad maturity and enzyme‐linked immuno‐absorbent assay (ELISA) to measure plasma concentrations of the sex steroids testosterone (T) and 17β‐oestradiol (E2). Ovarian recrudescence began in late autumn to early winter with the growth of previtellogenic oocytes and the formation of cortical alveoli. Vitellogenic oocytes developed from January to June and ovaries containing postovulatory follicles (POF) were present between May and June. These POF occurred simultaneously among other late maturity stage oocytes. Plasma steroid concentration and organo‐somatic indices increased over winter and spring. Maximal (mean ±s.e.) values of plasma T (0·95 ± 0·26 ng ml−1), E2 (1·75 ± 0·43 ng ml−1) and gonado‐somatic index (IG; 10·71 ± 0·81) occurred in April and May and decreased greatly in July when only postspawned fish with atretic ovaries occurred. Evidence indicates that L. bergylta are group‐synchronous multiple spawners with spawning occurring in spring and peaking in May. A short resting period may occur between late summer and autumn when previtellogenic oocytes predominate and steroid levels are minimal.
Residence time and drift patterns of larval June sucker Chasmistes liorus in the lower Provo River as determined by otolith microstructure
Authors: Ellsworth C. M. , Belk M. C. , Keleher C. J.
Published: June 2010

Estimates of age derived from daily ring counts from otoliths and capture rates of larval June sucker Chasmistes liorus were used to determine the relationship between discharge rates of the Provo River and residence time and patterns of larval drift. During 1997, larval drift occurred over a 22 day period when discharge rates were low (mean ±s.d. 3·2 ± 0·0 m3 s−1). In 1998, larval drift occurred in two separate events over a 40 day period. Discharge was higher during the first larval drift period (19 days; 24·8 ± 1·3 m3 s−1) and lower during the second larval drift period (17 days; 7·0 ± 0·9 m3 s−1). In 1997, no larval fish were collected at the lowermost transect on the Provo River (nearest Utah Lake), and few larvae >21 days of age were found. During the first drift period of 1998, larval C. liorus were collected at all transects, and mean age of larvae collected between upstream and downstream transects increased by c. 7 days. During the second drift period of 1998, only a few were collected in the lowermost transects, and age did not increase with proximity to the lake. Patterns in catch and age distribution of larval C. liorus in the lower Provo River suggest that recruitment failure occurs during the larval drift period in years with insufficient discharge to transport larvae into the lake.
Novel classification based on immunohistochemistry combined with hierarchical clustering analysis in non‐functioning neuroendocrine tumor patients
Authors: Iida Shinya , Miki Yasuhiro , Ono Katsuhiko , Akahira Jun‐ichi , Suzuki Takashi , Ishida Kazuyuki , Watanabe Mika , Sasano Hironobu
Published: June 2010

Somatostatin analogues ameliorated many symptoms caused by neuroendocrine tumors (NET), but their antitumor activities are limited especially in non‐functioning cases. An overactivation of signaling pathways under receptor tyrosine‐kinase (RTK) has been recently demonstrated in some NET patients, but its details have remained largely unknown. Therefore, in this study, we immunolocalized therapeutic factors and evaluated the data to study the clinical significance of the molecules in non‐functioning Japanese gastrointestinal NET. Fifty‐two NET cases were available for examination in this study and expression of somatostatin receptor (sstr) 1, 2A, 2B, 3 and 5, activated form of mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), eukaryotic initiation factor 4‐binding protein 1 (4EBP1), ribosomal protein s6 (S6), extracellular signal‐regulated kinase (ERK) and insulin‐like growth factor 1 receptor (IGF‐1R) was evaluated using immunohistochemistry. We then studied the correlation among the immunohistochemical results of the individual cases using hierarchical clustering analysis. Results of clustering analysis demonstrated that NET cases were basically classified into Cluster I and II. Cluster I was associated with higher expression of sstr1, 2B and 3 and Cluster II was characterized by an activation of the PI3K/Akt pathway and IGF‐1R and higher proliferative status. Cluster II was further classified into Cluster IIa and IIb. Cluster IIa was associated with higher expression of sstr1 and 5 and higher proliferative status and Cluster IIb was characterized by ERK activation. Hierarchical clustering analysis of immunoreactivity of the therapeutic factors can classify NET cases into three distinctive groups and the medical treatment may be determined according to this novel classification method for non‐functioning NET patients. (Cancer Sci 2010; 00: 000–000)
Identifying freshwater conservation priorities in the Upper Yangtze River Basin
Authors: HEINER MICHAEL , HIGGINS JONATHAN , LI XINHAI , BAKER BARRY
Published: June 2010

1. The Upper Yangtze River drains a catchment of c. 1 million km2 from its headwaters on the Tibetan Plateau to the city of Yichang below the Three Gorges Dam. The Upper Yangtze River Basin supports a diverse aquatic fauna, including 118 endemic fish species. The river basin has a long history of human use and environmental alteration and is further threatened by the demands of a large population and rapid economic development.

2. We identified a set of areas that, with adequate protection and/or management, might maintain the aquatic biodiversity and ecological processes representative of the basin. Methods were developed to address the scope and scale of conservation planning across the entire Upper Yangtze Basin in a short time‐frame using available data. The analytical framework is a watershed hierarchy of five catchment size classes derived from a globally available hydrography dataset called HydroSHEDs. Catchments were assigned to ecosystem types according to catchment area and patterns of climate, catchment morphology, geology and sources of water. Catchments were also ranked by ecological condition using an index of cumulative anthropogenic impacts.

3. We defined conservation priorities as a combination of expert‐designated focal areas that support endemic fish assemblages and habitat in good condition; sites selected with the conservation planning software MARXAN to meet representation targets for ecosystems and optimise ecological condition and longitudinal connectivity; and a set of rivers selected to provide refugia for fishes affected by a hydropower and flood control infrastructure development project.

4. Areas selected as conservation priorities include 3200 km (27% of total length) of large rivers, 9900 km (39% of total length) of small rivers and 30% of small stream catchments in the basin. To evaluate the degree to which the set of conservation priority areas supports threatened and endemic fishes, we conducted a gap analysis using survey records and historic range maps of 131 threatened and/or endemic fish species. The conservation priority areas contain survey records or portions of the known historic range of 116 (88%) of the 131 species we evaluated, with an average of 49% of the survey records and/or 26% of the known historic ranges of each species.
Consumers’ disease information–seeking behaviour on the Internet in Korea
Authors: Yun Eun Kyoung , Park Hyeoun‐Ae
Published: June 2010

Aim and objectives.  This study was conducted to explain the relationships of the factors affecting consumers’ disease information–seeking behaviour on the Internet in Korea.

Background.  Similar to other countries, Korea is facing an increasing use of Internet as a resource of health information. With the paradigm shifts towards consumer‐centred health service, it is expected that more health care consumers will use the Internet actively in the future.

Design.  A survey was conducted using a self‐selected convenience sample.

Methods.  A conceptual model was derived by extending technology acceptance model and tested via structural equation modelling.

Results.  The overall goodness of fit of the conceptual model was acceptable. Consumers’ health consciousness, perceived health risk and Internet health information use efficacy were found to influence consumers’ beliefs, attitude and intention of use disease information on the Internet. But Internet health information use efficacy did not significantly influence perceived usefulness. It was also identified that consumers’ perceived credibility of the information in the websites was the main determinant in forming of attitude towards disease information on the Internet.

Conclusions.  Technology acceptance model has been extended and examined successfully in explaining consumers’ disease information–seeking behaviour on the Internet. It was found that consumers’ cognitive and affective characteristics, determined as initiators in health‐related behaviour, also impacted consumers’ disease information–seeking behaviour on the Internet.

Relevance to clinical practice.  These findings may be used to help nurses to predict and identify the factors affecting individual’s use of disease information on the Internet. Based on this knowledge, nurses will be able to develop nursing intervention programmes for the patients’ health management.
Social reasoning skills in adults with Down syndrome: the role of language, executive functions and socio‐emotional behaviour
Authors: Hippolyte L. , Iglesias K. , Van der Linden M. , Barisnikov K.
Published: June 2010

Background  Although the prevalence of mental illness and behaviour problems is lower in adults with Down syndrome (DS) than in other populations with intellectual disabilities, they do present emotional and relational problems, as well as social integration difficulties. However, studies reporting on specific competences known to be central in developing appropriate social relationships (e.g. social reasoning, emotion processing, theory of mind) remain rare in the adult DS population and the mechanisms underlying these people's emotional and relational difficulties are unclear.

Method  The present study investigated the ability to understand the appropriateness of others' social behaviour in 34 adults with DS, using the Social Resolution Task (SRT). Their results were compared with those of 34 typically developing (TD) children matched for gender and receptive vocabulary. The relationships among the SRT experimental task, cognitive competences (receptive and productive vocabulary, non‐verbal reasoning, inhibition, selective attention) and a caregiver‐rated measure of socio‐emotional behaviour were examined in the DS group.

Results  The DS participants' global SRT scores did not differ from those of the controls. However, analyses of the SRT subscores revealed that the DS group identified significantly fewer inappropriate situations than the control group. Nevertheless, when they correctly identified the behaviour as inappropriate, they were as well as the controls to explain the rules underlying their responses. Regression analyses showed that receptive vocabulary and selective attention and a specific dimension of the socio‐emotional profile (social relating skills) constituted the best predictors of the DS adults' performance on the SRT.

Conclusions  The main findings show that the DS participants demonstrate relatively good social reasoning skills in comparison with TD children matched for verbal age. However, the two groups present distinctions in their response patterns, and the influence of cognitive variables on success on the SRT also appears different. While selective attention skills are found to be significant predictors for both groups, the influence of receptive vocabulary level is much stronger in the DS group. The implications of particular cognitive and socio‐emotional factors for success on the SRT in this group are considered in more detail.
Profiling protein expression and interactions: proximity ligation as a tool for personalized medicine
Authors: Blokzijl A. , Friedman M. , Pontén F. , Landegren U.
Published: June 2010

Abstract.  Blokzijl A, Friedman M, Pontén F, Landegren U (From the Department of Genetics and Pathology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden). Profiling protein expression and interactions: proximity ligation as a tool for personalized medicine. (Review) J Intern Med 2010; 268: 232–245.

The ability to detect very low levels of expressed proteins has enormous potential for early diagnostics and intervention at curable stages of disease. An extended range of targets such as interacting or post‐translationally modified proteins can further improve the potential for diagnostics and patient stratification, and for monitoring response to treatment. These are critical building blocks for personalized treatment strategies to manage disease. The past few decades have seen a remarkably improved understanding of the molecular basis of disease in general, and of tumour formation and progression in particular. This accumulated knowledge creates opportunities to develop drugs that specifically target molecules or molecular complexes critical for survival and expansion of tumour cells. However, tumours are highly variable between patients, necessitating the development of diagnostic tools to individualize treatment through parallel analysis of sets of biomarkers.

The proximity ligation assay (PLA) can address many of the requirements for advanced molecular analysis. The method builds on the principle that recognition of target proteins by two, three or more antibodies can bring in proximity DNA strands attached to the antibodies. The DNA strands can then participate in ligation reactions, giving rise to molecules that are amplified for highly sensitive detection. PLA is particularly well suited for sensitive, specific and multiplexed analysis of protein expression, post‐translational modifications and protein–protein interactions. The analysis of this extended range of biomarkers will prove critical for the development and implementation of personalized medicine.