bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Strategic sourcing in Africa: the case for the labor market
Authors: Mayounga André T. 
Published: March 2021

Purpose
This paper aims to describe the impact of the labor market on the integration of Africa into the global supply chain (GSC).

Design/methodology/approach
The analysis of trends and comparison of data for 55 nations and territories in Africa using existing data from the World Bank and International Labor Organization, and government and nongovernment reports took place using qualitative content analysis methodology.

Findings
Africa’s labor market enhances the continent’s integration into the GSC despite challenges in other areas, with three pillars identifying the labor market’s strategic sourcing decisions.

Research limitations/implications
The analysis is limited to trends analysis, some of which may have changed during the study.

Practical implications
The findings will enable the global business industry and governments to envision the potential and design Africa’s labor market competitiveness across the African continent. The findings also establish the necessity and opportunity for enhanced infrastructure to attract additional foreign direct.

Social implications
The social implication of this paper is beyond the potential of Africa’s labor market. The paper illustrates how the African is setting to become the next sourcing hub for the global supply chain, allowing scholars to close any prevailing global sourcing gap in research.

Originality/value
This paper describes the potential of Africa’s supply of low-cost labor market and its integration in the GSC.
Strategic orientations, firm performance and the moderating effect of absorptive capacity
Authors: Ibarra-Cisneros Manuel-Alejandro , Demuner-Flores María del Rosario , Hernández-Perlines Felipe 
Published: March 2021

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to study the moderating effect of absorptive capacity, defined as the set of organizational routines and processes through which companies acquire, assimilate, transform and exploit knowledge to produce a dynamic organizational capacity (Zahra and George, 2002), in three strategic orientations: market orientation; technology orientation and entrepreneurial orientation and their positive relationship in the performance of the medium and large Mexican manufacturing firms. Likewise, it is determined whether these three combined SOs influence firm performance.Design/methodology/approachThe data was collected from 171 medium and large-sized Mexican manufacturing firms. The proposed hypotheses are tested using partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).FindingsDespite the importance of knowledge for the development of firms, the results indicate that the moderating effect of absorptive capacity is only present in the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance. That is, firms cannot take advantage of knowledge simultaneously between the three strategic orientations. For their part, market orientation and entrepreneurial orientation exert a positive influence on firm performance.Practical implicationsThe main practical implication for the manufacturing industry is that they must develop mechanisms to detect what kind of knowledge affects each strategic orientation, in this way it can make the absorptive capacity influence the relationships between SO and FP.Originality/valueThe main contribution consists of studying the moderating effect of the absorptive capacity on the relationship between three strategic orientations and firm performance, and not concentrating solely on the simultaneous use of these strategies as is commonly done.
Becoming morally disengaged: how long does it take?
Authors: Almeida Teresa , Abreu Francisca , Ramalho Nelson C. 
Published: March 2021

PurposeLeadership is a time-dependent process and a recent leadership research trend posits a central role of time-based variables. The dyadic tenure plays a keystone role in understanding leader–follower dynamics, especially as regards leader ethics. In line with this, from a social learning theory perspective, the authors propose a model that explains how and when ethical leaders' behaviors influence subordinates' moral disengagement.Design/methodology/approachWith a sample of 220 employees, the present study tests the conditional indirect effect of ethical leadership on followers' moral disengagement via instrumental ethical climate (IEC), using dyadic tenure as the moderator variable. The analyses were conducted with Hayes PROCESS macro.FindingsResults suggested that IEC fully mediates the relationship between ethical leadership and moral disengagement. Thus, when followers perceive low levels of ethical leadership, they notice higher levels of IEC, which is positively related to moral disengagement. However, IEC perception only influences moral disengagement when dyadic tenure approaches the third year.Originality/valueThis paper answers calls to include time-based variables in leadership studies. Hence, using dyadic tenure, this study gives support to previous propositions that were still awaiting empirical test.
Triaging online child abuse material: testing a decision support tool to enhance law enforcement and investigative prioritisation
Authors: Mount David , Mazerolle Lorraine , Zahnow Renee , James Leisa 
Published: March 2021

PurposeOnline production and transmission of child abuse material (CAM) is a complex and growing global problem. The exponential increase in the volume of CyberTips of CAM offending is placing information processing and decision-making strains on law enforcement. This paper presents the outcomes of a project that reviewed an existing risk assessment tool and then developed a new tool for CAM triaging and investigative prioritisation.Design/methodology/approachUsing a mixed method approach, the authors first explored the capacity of an existing risk assessment tool for predicting a police action. The authors then used these findings to design and implement a replacement CAM decision support tool. Using a random sample of CyberTip alert cases from 2018, the authors then tested the efficiency of the new tool.FindingsThe existing risk assessment tool was not fit for CAM triaging purposes. Just six questions from the old tool were found to be statistically and significantly associated with law enforcement agents achieving a police action. The authors found that an immediate threat of abuse/endangering a child, potential case solvability, CAM image assessment, chat assessment, criticality and some weighting for professional judgement were significant in being associated with a police action. The new decision support tool is more efficient to complete and achieved a 93.6% convergence of risk ratings with the old tool using 2018 case data.Originality/valueThis research is unique in its development of an evidence-based decision support tool that enhances the ability of law enforcement agents to objectively and efficiently triage and prioritise increasing numbers of CyberTip alerts.
Spatial patterns and ecological drivers of soil nematode β‐diversity in natural grasslands vary among vegetation types and trophic position
Authors: Xiong Dan , Wei Cunzheng , Wang Xugao , Lü Xiaotao , Fang Shuai , Li Yingbin , Wang Xiaobo , Liang Wenju , Han Xingguo , Bezemer Thiemo Martijn , Li Qi 
Published: March 2021

Abstract

Understanding biogeographic patterns of community assemblages is a core objective in ecology, but for soil communities these patterns are poorly understood. To understand the spatial patterns and underlying mechanisms of β‐diversity in soil communities, we investigated the β‐diversity of soil nematode communities along a 3,200‐km transect across semi‐arid and arid grasslands.

Spatial turnover and nested‐resultant are the two fundamental components of β‐diversity, which have been attributed to various processes of community assembly. We calculated the spatial turnover and nested‐resultant components of soil nematode β‐diversity based on the β‐partitioning framework. Distance matrices for the dissimilarity of soil nematode communities were computed using the ‘Sørensen’ method. We fitted negative exponential models to compare the distance decay patterns in nematode community similarity with geographic distance and plant community distance in three vegetation types (desert, desert steppe and typical steppe) and along the whole transect. Variation partitioning was used to distinguish the contribution of geographic distance and environmental variables to β‐diversity and the partitioned components.

Geographic distance and environmental filtering jointly drove the β‐diversity patterns of nematode community, but environmental filtering explained more of the variation in β‐diversity in the desert and typical steppe, whereas geographic distance was important in the desert steppe. Nematode community assembly was explained more by the spatial turnover component than by the nested‐resultant component. For nematode feeding groups, the β‐diversity in different vegetation types increased with geographic distance and plant community distance, but the nested‐resultant component of bacterial feeders in the desert ecosystem decreased with geographic distance and plant community distance.

Our findings show that spatial variation in soil nematode communities is regulated by environmental processes at the vegetation type scale, while spatial processes mainly work on the regional scale, and emphasize that the spatial patterns and drivers of nematode β‐diversity differ among trophic levels. Our study provides insight into the ecological processes that maintain soil biodiversity and biogeographic patterns of soil community assemblage at large spatial scales.
Journaling the COVID‐19 pandemic: Locality, scale, and spatialised bodies
Authors: Burton Alexander Luke 
Published: March 2021

AbstractCOVID‐19 has reconfigured, reaffirmed, and revealed socio‐material geographies in Australia and around the world. The pandemic is international but experiences of it exist in situated contexts. From strategies organising the human body by placing tape on supermarket floors to those using helicopter surveillance to identify illegal Easter barbecues, the impacts of COVID‐19 are mediated across different scales and are not experienced equally. In this article, I show how the COVID‐19 pandemic has revealed and compounded injustices and presented an opportunity to confront them. COVID‐19 is expressed via the production and circulation of meaning and diverse practices involving or implicating bodies, localities, and scales; among them one might include the advent of social distancing, the invention of “Fortress Tasmania,” from whence this work is written, and the constitution of bodies as dangerous yet vulnerable. I use autoethnography as an early career researcher and student trying to make sense of the COVID‐19 pandemic. This situated experience offers empirical diversity, context, and evocative narratives to enrich understandings of COVID‐19. The autoethnography is both a therapeutic outlet for a journaling, isolating honours student in suburban Tasmania and an attempt to make sense of body, locality, and scale in the geographies of pandemic.
Prognostic factors for progression‐free and overall survival in malignant pleural mesothelioma
Authors: Guzmán‐Casta Jordi , Carrasco‐CaraChards Sonia , Guzmán‐Huesca Jorge , Sánchez‐Ríos Carla Paola , Riera‐Sala Rodrigo , Martínez‐Herrera José Fabián , Peña‐Mirabal Erika Sagrario , Bonilla‐Molina Diana , Alatorre‐Alexander Jorge Arturo , Martínez‐Barrera Luis Manuel , Rodríguez‐Cid Jerónimo Rafael 
Published: March 2021

AbstractBackgroundMalignant pleural mesothelioma is an infrequent neoplasia with a poor prognosis and the majority of patients already have advanced disease at the time of presentation. Exposure to asbestos is the most important risk factor for malignant pleural mesothelioma. Mesothelioma is a neoplasia with a long preclinical stage that can span from 15 to 40 years.MethodsThis was a descriptive, observational, retrospective study of 136 patients with a confirmed diagnosis of mesothelioma, which compared histological subtypes, immunohistochemical biomarkers, concomitant chronic degenerative diseases, tobacco use, age at the time of diagnosis, clinical stage and chemotherapy agents used or other treatments such as radiotherapy and surgery to identify all the factors that impact in the prognosis of overall survival (OS) and progression‐free survival (PFS).ResultsA total of 136 patients were included in the study. In the total study population, 84 patients were male (61.8%) and 52 were female (38.2%). Median PFS was nine months (95% confidence interval [CI]: 8.4–9.5 months) and median OS was 12 months (95% CI: 11.3–12.6). The results indicated that the most determining prognostic factors for OS and PFS were cell differentiation measured by immunohistochemical biomarkers, the treatment chosen, and that RECIST was the most significant in the evaluation of patient response to treatment.ConclusionsMalignant pleural mesothelioma is a cancer with a poor prognosis usually diagnosed at an advanced stage of disease. Our study revealed that the prognostic factors for OS and PS were cell differentiation, the treatment chosen and RECIST.
Identifying neural signatures of tobacco retail outlet exposure: Preliminary validation of a “community neuroscience” paradigm
Authors: Oliver Jason A. , Sweitzer Maggie M. , Engelhard Matthew M. , Hallyburton Matthew B. , Ribisl Kurt M. , McClernon Francis Joseph 
Published: March 2021

AbstractAn extensive epidemiological literature indicates that increased exposure to tobacco retail outlets (TROs) places never smokers at greater risk for smoking uptake and current smokers at greater risk for increased consumption and smoking relapse. Yet research into the mechanisms underlying this effect has been limited. This preliminary study represents the first effort to examine the neurobiological consequences of exposure to personally relevant TROs among both smokers (n = 17) and nonsmokers (n = 17). Individuals carried a global positioning system (GPS) tracker for 2 weeks. Traces were used to identify TROs and control outlets that fell inside and outside their ideographically defined activity space. Participants underwent functional MRI (fMRI) scanning during which they were presented with images of these storefronts, along with similar store images from a different county and rated their familiarity with these stores. The main effect of activity space was additive with a Smoking status × Store type interaction, resulting in smokers exhibiting greater neural activation to TROs falling inside activity space within the parahippocampus, precuneus, medial prefrontal cortex, and dorsal anterior insula. A similar pattern was observed for familiarity ratings. Together, these preliminary findings suggest that the otherwise distinct neural systems involved in self‐orientation/self‐relevance and smoking motivation may act in concert and underlie TRO influence on smoking behavior. This study also offers a novel methodological framework for evaluating the influence of community features on neural activity that can be readily adapted to study other health behaviors.
The historic flowering behaviour of River Red‐gum and Black Box in a flooding forest
Authors: Keatley Marie R. , Bren Leon J. , Hudson Irene L. 
Published: March 2021

AbstractRiver Red‐gum (Eucalyptus camaldulensis) and Black Box (E. largiflorens) are the dominant tree species of Barmah forest, Victoria; part of a floodplain ecosystem which has been identified as being under threat due to the reduced frequency and duration and altered timing of flooding associated with river regulation, water extraction and drought. The flooding regime plays a significant role in the phenology in both these species. Hence, establishing past flowering behaviour using long‐term records (1934 to 1973) provides a historical baseline against which current and future flowering behaviour can be judged. Black Box was more consistent in its flowering, with an annual failure recurrence interval of 1 in 36 years less compared to 1 in 9.25 years for River Red‐gum. Black Box was also the more intense flowering species and flowered for longer (4.0 ± 1.9 months compared to 2.1 ± 1.4 months), with its flowering period encompassing River Red‐gum’s. The flowering of the two species was therefore synchronous. River Red‐gum displayed evidence of flowering more intensely every second year and therefore some dependence on the previous year’s flowering; this was absent in Black Box. The influence of flooding on flowering intensity over this 40‐year interval indicated that flooding 10 years out of 13 years with an inundation period greater than 6 months has a depressive effect on flowering intensity while flooding in 7 out of 13 years with an inundation period of no greater than 5 months enhances flowering intensity. This is more so for Black Box than River Red‐gum. However, flooding is a recurring event in this study, and therefore, it is difficult to isolate the effect of a single flood on flowering.
Description of larva and adult female ofGolofa claviger(Linnaeus, 1771) (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae), with notes on taxonomy and biology
Authors: Silva Fernando A B , Valois Marcely 
Published: March 2021

AbstractThe third‐stage larva ofGolofa claviger(Linnaeus, 1771) is described for the first time based on specimens collected in the municipalities of Acará and Tailândia, Pará state, northern Brazil. A diagnosis, updated description of the female, key for known third‐stage larvae ofGolofaHope, 1837, and illustrations of key morphological characters are also given. Furthermore, taxonomic literature on females and immature stages of Dynastini from the New World is tabulated to provide an overview of genera and possible historical trends.
Interspecific variation in post‐disturbance growth responses of a savanna tree community and its implications for escaping the fire trap
Authors: NeSmith Julienne E. , Twine Wayne , Holdo Ricardo M. 
Published: March 2021

AbstractVegetation states in savannas are highly sensitive to tree growth rates, which determine whether individual trees can “escape” periodic disturbances. Resprouting trees have lopsided shoot:root ratios and are often multi‐stemmed, and these variables can modify post‐disturbance growth rates and therefore the probability of escape. To date, few studies have systematically examined the implications of interspecific variation in these factors for escape. We conducted a two‐year field experiment across 16 tree species in a South African lowveld savanna to quantify growth metrics following topkill. We examined the dependence of growth on pre‐disturbance stem size and the relationship between growth rate and the tendency of trees to produce a few large vs. many small resprouts following disturbance. We found that resprout growth was strongly influenced by pre‐disturbance size, but the strength of this relationship did not vary across species. In contrast, our results showed that fast‐growing species tended to allocate resources toward a few dominant stems, while slow‐growing species allocated new biomass towards many smaller stems. Tree species that produced a few large stems also tended to produce individual stems that were tall and thin, further suggesting that the “few large vs. many small” axis is linked to intrinsic species attributes. These findings have implications for understanding how interspecific variation in savanna tree communities may influence their ability to escape disturbance traps.
Prevalence and factors associated with child health record book utilization among parents attending government health clinics in Putrajaya, Malaysia
Authors: Abdul Halim Siti Hafsah , Mohd Zulkefli Nor Afiah 
Published: March 2021

AbstractBackgroundUse of a child health record book has long been established in Malaysia. The objective of the study was to determine the proportion of optimum child health record book utilization and its associated factors among parents attending government child health clinics in Putrajaya, the administrative capital of Malaysia.MethodsA cross‐sectional study was conducted among randomly selected group of 450 parents using a self‐administered questionnaire. Optimum utilization of the book was defined as respondents reading all sections and recording comments in the book. Independent variables studied were sociodemographic characteristics; antenatal and breastfeeding history; child health and immunization status; perceptions and level of knowledge on the book and child health; and healthcare providers' performance. A multiple logistic regression analysis was used to identify the associated factors of optimum utilization.ResultsOut of 450 study participants, 415 completed the questionnaire and 150 (36.1%) were found to optimally utilized the book. Participants who read all sections totalled 245 (59.0%), and 242 (58.3%) respondents reported to record some comments in the book. Optimum utilization of the book was associated with older parents' age (adjusted odds ratio [AOR]: 1.06, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.01–1.11) and higher education attainment (AOR: 2.21, 95% CI 1.24–3.91), with a good level of knowledge on child health record books and general child health (AOR: 3.87, 95% CI 2.27–6.61; AOR: 2.05, 95% CI 1.25–3.36) and among parents who delivered their children in government hospitals (AOR: 2.93, 95% CI 1.11–7.73).ConclusionsThe prevalence of child health record book utilization was low at 36.1% but difficult to compare with other studies. Based on the findings, improving the parents' knowledge of the book and general child health, particularly among younger parents with lower educational levels, and delivering the book to institutions outside government hospitals might be useful to increase the utilization.
Factors influencing the reference interval of thyroid‐stimulating hormone in healthy adults: A systematic review and meta‐analysis
Authors: Xing Dongyang , Liu Delong , Li Ri , Zhou Qi , Xu Jiancheng 
Published: March 2021

AbstractBackgroundMany studies have reported that the thyroid‐stimulating hormone (TSH) reference interval is susceptible to external factors, such as age, sex, race, region and iodine intake. However, no meta‐analysis has comprehensively explored the effect of these factors on the TSH reference interval.MethodsArticles published from January 1960 to January 2020 were searched in PubMed, Embase, Cochrane, Scopus, Medline English databases and CNKI, WanFang and CQVIP Chinese databases. In total, 19 studies were ultimately included. All data were analysed using Review Manager 5.3, STATA 16.0 software, GraphPad Prism 8.0 and Microsoft Excel 2010 to draw the TSH concentration curve.ResultsThe TSH reference interval was significantly influenced by sex and age. The mean of TSH concentration in females was 0.27 mIU/L higher than that in males. Reference interval of TSH is divided into 20–59 years old and >60 years old age groups in males, and 20–39 years old and >40 years old age groups in females. Regardless of sex, TSH concentrations all increase with age. In iodine‐deficient areas, TSH reference intervals were generally lower than those in iodine‐sufficient or iodine‐excessive areas. The TSH reference interval in Asia and North American countries was generally higher than that in most European countries. In the subgroup analyses of sample size, region and assay methods and manufacturers, the between‐group differences were significant.ConclusionThe TSH reference interval was significantly influenced by sex, age, iodine intake, sample size, region, and assay methods and manufacturers, but other factors should not be ignored. Therefore, it is necessary for each laboratory to validate an appropriate TSH reference interval based on local conditions.