bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Linking organisational values and sustainability: the role of AMO practices
Authors: Rincon-Roldan Francisco , Lopez-Cabrales Alvaro 
Published: July 2021

PurposeThe aim of this study was to analyse the link between the values that govern the functioning of cooperatives and their sustainability. Furthermore, the authors propose that this relationship is mediated by AMO (ability, motivation and opportunity) practices, which generate different behaviours and attitudes in their employees, thus strengthening the message of sustainable management that the directors of this kind of companies aim to transmit.Design/methodology/approachThis article presents a theoretical and empirical research model about the relationship between organisational values, AMO practices and sustainability in social economy firms. The proposed model was tested using the multivariate method of partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) with a sample of 124 cooperative companies. The information was gathered through a questionnaire with questions composed of measurement scales that had been previously validated by the reference literature.FindingsThis work empirically demonstrates that the perceived support, respect and responsibility values are strongly related to sustainability, and that ability and opportunity-enhancing practices mediate the association of perceived support and responsibility with the sustainability of cooperatives.Originality/valueThis work contributes to covering the lack of studies about which values support and impact the sustainability of organisations, and it provides information about the mediating role of certain AMO practices in the search for a more sustainable organisation, demonstrating that some practices are more relevant than others.
Egg production: conventional or cage-free?
Authors: Trejo-Pech Carlos Omar , White Susan 
Published: July 2021

Research methodology
This case was primarily researched using academic research papers, industry reports (Egg Industry Center and others), and finance databases including Standard and Poor’s Capital IQ. Regarding the cost and investment budgets, the case relies mainly on an experiment conducted by the Coalition for Sustainable Egg Supply, updated by the authors of this case.

Case overview/synopsis
Eggs produced by cage-free birds, while more expensive than conventionally produced eggs, are gaining in popularity among consumers who want only eggs that are produced more humanely. A number of major distributors, including Whole Foods, McDonalds and Starbucks have pledged to sell only cage-free produced eggs by 2025. Several states including California, Oregon and Michigan have passed laws limiting conventional egg production. The case provides costs and industry information and needed to project free cash flows and risk-adjusted opportunity cost of capital and perform break-even capital budgeting analysis of the two egg production alternatives.

Complexity academic level
This case is appropriate for graduate corporate finance courses. It is particularly appropriate for agribusiness finance courses. A preliminary exercise was used during the fall 2018 in a land grant university, just after the “Prevention of Cruelty to Farm Animals Act,” also known as Proposition 12, was passed in California in favor of cage-free egg production. The exercise was revised and used in the fall 2019 in the same class. This extended version of the case, was classroom tested in the fall 2020 in an agribusiness finance graduate class, with agricultural economics and business students enrolled.
The greatest show on earth: organising and the performance of society
Authors: Blantern Chris 
Published: July 2021

Purpose
This paper aims to draw attention to the significance of “acculturation” in organisations and organising and how learning occurs as micro-practices (organisational poetics).

Design/methodology/approach
The recognition of the ontological significance of organisational acculturation invites a more critical view of the effects of organisational practices on individual identity, social norms and the accountability of organisations to society.

Findings
Organising and organisations are cast as nurseries of cultural practices that are so normalised we regard them as “unremarkable,” as “just the way things are,” yet “schooling” of identity and social norms.

Practical implications
If we want a better world, we should, as citizens, expect more from our organisations and their learning.

Social implications
The significance here is, from a post-structural, relational stance, that organising and organisations are significant agents in the performance of what it is to be human and our social conditions. As well as goods and services, organisations produce “humans.”

Originality/value
As distinct from the canon of organisational learning literature which is primarily concerned with learning for the effectiveness and resilience of organisations for their own benefit, this paper asserts that what we learn and normalise in organisations structures society – the world we live.
Color image watermarking using spatio-chromatic complex Hadamard transform in sequency domain
Authors: Jabeen Dure , Monir S.M. Ghazanfar , Noor Shaheena , Rafiullah Muhammad , Jatoi Munsif Ali 
Published: July 2021

Purpose
Watermarking technique is one of the significant methods in which carrier signal hides digital information in the form of watermark to prevent the authenticity of the stakeholders by manipulating different coefficients as watermark in time and frequency domain to sustain trade-off in performance parameters. One challenging component among others is to maintain the robustness, to limit perceptibility with embedding information. Transform domain is more popular to achieve the required results in color image watermarking. Variants of complex Hadamard transform (CHT) have been applied for gray image watermarking, and it has been proved that it has better performance than other orthogonal transforms. This paper is aimed at analyzing the performance of spatio-chromatic complex Hadamard transform (Sp-CHT) that is proposed as an application of color image watermarking in sequency domain (SD).

Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, color image watermarking technique is designed and implemented in SD using spatio-chromatic – conjugate symmetric sequency – ordered CHT. The color of a pixel is represented as complex number a*+jb*, where a* and b* are chromatic components of International Commission on Illumination (CIE) La*b* color space. The embedded watermark is almost transparent to human eye although robust against common signal processing attacks.

Findings
Based on the results, bit error rate (BER) and peak signal to noise ratio are measured and discussed in comparison of CIE La*b* and hue, saturation and value color model with spatio-chromatic discrete Fourier transform (Sp-DFT), and results are also analyzed with other discrete orthogonal transforms. It is observed from BER that Sp-CHT has 8%–12% better performance than Sp-DFT. Structural similarity index has been measured at different watermark strength and it is observed that presented transform performs better than other transforms.

Originality/value
This work presents the details and comparative analysis of two orthogonal transforms as color image watermarking application using MATLAB software. A finding from this study demonstrates that the Complex Hadamard transform is the competent candidate that can be replaced with DFT in many signal processing applications.
Glacier forelands reveal fundamental plant and microbial controls on short‐term ecosystem nitrogen retention
Authors: de Vries Franciska T. , Thion Cécile , Bahn Michael , Bergk Pinto Benoît , Cécillon Sébastien , Frey Beat , Grant Helen , Nicol Graeme W. , Wanek Wolfgang , Prosser James I. , Bardgett Richard D. 
Published: July 2021

AbstractHuman activities have massively increased the amount of reactive nitrogen in the biosphere, which is leading to increased nitrogen (N) inputs in terrestrial ecosystems. The retention of N is a crucial ecosystem function of both managed and natural ecosystems, and there is a long history of experimental, observational, and conceptual studies identifying its major controls. Yet, the plant and soil microbial controls on the retention of added N remain elusive.Here, we used three ecosystem chronosequences in front of retreating glaciers in the European Alps to test our hypothesis that the retention of added reactive15N increases as succession proceeds, and to identify the plant and microbial controls on ecosystem N retention.We found that the uptake and retention of N did not change during succession, despite consistent changes in plant, soil, and microbial properties with increasing time since deglaciation. Instead, we found that plant and microbial properties that remained constant during succession controlled15N uptake and retention: low root and microbial C/N ratios, as well as high root biomass, increased plant and microbial uptake of added N. In addition, high soil concentrations of nitrate and ammonium reduced the uptake of N in microbes and roots, respectively.Synthesis. Our results demonstrate that plant and microbial N demand, as well as soil N availability, drive the short‐term retention of added N during succession in glacier forelands. This finding represents an advance in our understanding of the fundamental controls on ecosystem N retention and the role of plant‐microbial interactions in this process. Such understanding is crucial for predicting and mitigating the response of terrestrial ecosystems to the ever‐increasing amounts of reactive N in the biosphere.
The Neoconservative Party, or Conservatism without Tradition?
Authors: Hoctor Tom 
Published: July 2021

AbstractThis article argues that the Conservative Party finds itself in a period of ideological crisis. The last significant period of intellectual realignment in the party led to the dominance of Hayekian market theory as a structuring logic for government. Under Boris Johnson, this economic logic is challenged by the political logic of neoconservatism, which restores the political through appeals to authority, hierarchy and quite particular articulations of the nature of the (national) community. To demonstrate this tension, the article examines how Brexit and the ‘levelling‐up’ agenda can be understood as structured by this division between the economic and the political. Both of these logics are incompatible with older, traditional forms of conservatism and whichever is ultimately successful, this signals a major shift in the character of British conservatism and potentially ushers in a new era of conservatism without tradition.
Divergent spender: State‐societal and meso‐organisational mechanisms in the containment of public spending on pharmaceuticals in a liberal capitalist democracy
Authors: Main Ben , Ozieranski Piotr 
Published: July 2021

AbstractFor two decades, New Zealand has been placed consistently at the foot of OECD rankings for state expenditure on pharmaceuticals. In this article, we explore New Zealand's containment of pharmaceutical spending as a ‘divergent’ case of pharmaceutical policy in a liberal democracy. To elucidate the likely institutional mechanisms and interests behind this phenomenon, we conducted a case study of New Zealand's drug reimbursement policy. In doing so, we derived sensitising concepts from major accounts of pharmaceutical policymaking (Corporate Bias Theories and Reputational Theory) and theories of the western state (Historical Institutionalism and Corporate Domination Theory). Drawing on 28 expert interviews and documentary analysis, we identified three main mechanisms of spending containment. First, New Zealand's state bureaucracy use pricing strategies that rely on a spending containment strategy coordinated by bureaucratic managers. Second, these managers shape the policy preferences of expert committees involved in scientific drug assessment. Third, on a meta‐level, conditions for spending containment are enabled by the judicial‐legislative arena. As such, we find support for Historical Institutionalism and Reputational Theory and more limited support for Corporate Bias Theory and Corporate Domination Theory. Our explanation posits further conceptual linkages between the macro/societal and meso‐organisational theoretical levels.
Caecal microbiota could effectively increase chicken growth performance by regulating fat metabolism
Authors: Zhang Xiaolong , Hu Yafang , Ansari Abdur Rahman , Akhtar Muhammad , Chen Yan , Cheng Ranran , Cui Lei , Nafady Abdallah A. , Elokil Abdelmotaleb A. , Abdel‐Kafy El‐Sayed M. , Liu Huazhen 
Published: July 2021

SummaryIt has been established that gut microbiota influences chicken growth performance and fat metabolism. However, whether gut microbiota affects chicken growth performance by regulating fat metabolism remains unclear. Therefore, seven‐week‐old chickens with high or low body weight were used in the present study. There were significant differences in body weight, breast and leg muscle indices, and cross‐sectional area of muscle cells, suggesting different growth performance. The relative abundance of gut microbiota in the caecal contents at the genus level was compared by 16S rRNA gene sequencing. The results of LEfSe indicated that high body weight chickens contained Microbacterium and Sphingomonas more abundantly (P < 0.05). In contrast, low body weight chickens contained Slackia more abundantly (P < 0.05). The results of H & E, qPCR, IHC, WB and blood analysis suggested significantly different fat metabolism level in serum, liver, abdominal adipose, breast and leg muscles between high and low body weight chickens. Spearman correlation analysis revealed that fat metabolism positively correlated with the relative abundance of Microbacterium and Sphingomonas while negatively correlated with the abundance of Slackia. Furthermore, faecal microbiota transplantation was performed, which verified that transferring faecal microbiota from adult chickens with high body weight into one‐day‐old chickens improved growth performance and fat metabolism in liver by remodelling the gut microbiota. Overall, these results suggested that gut microbiota could affect chicken growth performance by regulating fat metabolism.
Semi‐Automated Characterization of Streamwater Specific Conductivity Response to Storms
Authors: Demers Daniel J. , Green Mark B. , Bailey Scott W. 
Published: July 2021

AbstractSpecific electrical conductivity (SC) is a basic, effective indicator of water quality. The recent increase in SC data collected with high‐frequency sensors has created a strong need for algorithms that can aid interpretation of these data. This study presents an algorithm that finds and quantifies SC temporal patterns and applies that algorithm to a dataset from a 7.5 km2 forested catchment in central New Hampshire. During and after rain events, we show three patterns that emerge in SC time series: A solute flush, resulting in an initial increase in SC, followed by a dilution, followed by the SC’s recovery toward pre‐rain conditions. We compared these SC patterns to precipitation amount and intensity, antecedent wetness, and seasonality. Our results indicate that the magnitude of the flush was driven primarily by precipitation intensity and total rainfall during a storm, and secondarily by antecedent moisture conditions. The magnitude of the dilution was driven mainly by the precipitation amount. The rate of SC recovery was driven by precipitation amount and was correlated with dilution. Overall, the algorithm successfully extracted event‐driven characteristics in the SC time series, allowing the development of functional relationships with hydrologic drivers. Applying similar methodologies to more catchments in the future will help identify functional relationships at more sites and use these relationships to identify catchments most sensitive to future precipitation changes.
A comprehensive model for measuring real‐life cost‐effectiveness in eyecare: automation in care and evaluation of system (aces‐rwm™)
Authors: Tuulonen Anja , Kataja Marko , Aaltonen Vesa , Kinnunen Kati , Moilanen Jukka , Saarela Ville , Linna Miika , Malmivaara Antti , Uusitalo‐Jarvinen Hannele 
Published: July 2021

AbstractThis paper describes a holistic, yet simple and comprehensible, ecosystem model to deal with multiple and complex challenges in eyecare. It aims at producing the best possible wellbeing and eyesight with the available resources. When targeting to improve the real‐world cost‐effectiveness, what gets done in everyday practice needs be measured routinely, efficiently and unselectively. Collection of all real‐world data of all patients will enable evaluation and comparison of eyecare systems and departments between themselves nationally and internationally. The concept advocates a strategy to optimize real‐life effectiveness, sustainability and outcomes of the service delivery in ophthalmology. The model consists of three components: (1) resource‐governing principles (i.e., to deal with increasing demand and limited resources), (2) real‐world monitoring (i.e., to collect structured real‐world data utilizing automation and visualization of clinical parameters, health‐related quality of life and costs), and (3) digital innovation strategy (i.e., to evaluate and benchmark real‐world outcomes and cost‐effectiveness). The core value and strength of the model lies in the consensus and collaboration of all Finnish university eye clinics to collect and evaluate the uniformly structured real‐world outcomes data. In addition to ophthalmology, the approach is adaptable to any medical discipline to efficiently generate real‐world insights and resilience in health systems.
Antibiotic therapy in children with community‐acquired pneumonia
Authors: Korppi Matti 
Published: July 2021

AbstractPubMed was reviewed on antibiotic treatment of community‐acquired pneumonia (CAP) in children for the years 2011–2020, and three clinical trials in high‐income and eight in low‐income countries were found. Prospective studies combining laboratory and clinical findings for steering of antibiotic treatment found that five‐day courses were equally effective as longer courses. No new antibiotics were launched for children's CAP during the last 10 years. Five‐day courses are equally effective as 7‐ to 10‐day courses for CAP in children. Stewardship of antibiotics needs lessening of exposure to antibiotics by better targeting their use and by shortening the lengths of antibiotic courses.
Social media exposure during COVID‐19 lockdowns could lead to emotional overeating via anxiety: The moderating role of neuroticism
Authors: Gao Yuan , Ao Hua , Hu Xiaoyong , Wang Xinyu , Huang Duo , Huang Wanjun , Han Yan , Zhou Chao , He Ling , Lei Xu , Gao Xiao 
Published: July 2021

AbstractChina was a major hotspot during the beginning of the COVID‐19 pandemic. Several studies have reported changes in residents' eating behaviors and appetite during city wide lockdowns and home confinements. However, few have investigated how neuroticism interacts with the impact of COVID‐19 to influence eating behaviors during city lockdowns. Thus, the current study aims to establish a pathway model to understand social media exposure, negative affect, neuroticism, and their interaction with eating behaviors during the COVID‐19 lockdowns. We present data from 1,128 participants (Mage = 24.34 ± 10.48 years) who completed an online survey between February 17 and 27, 2020. The extent of respondents' social media exposure, negative affect, eating behaviors, and desire for high‐calorie food during city lockdowns, as well as the personality trait of neuroticism, were measured. Results show that city lockdowns and home confinements had a negative impact on residents' eating behaviors and appetite. Forty‐eight percent of respondents showed moderate to constant emotional overeating, and respondents' desire for high‐calorie food significantly increased. Correlation analysis showed that emotional overeating is positively associated with social media exposure, neuroticism, and anxiety. Then, a moderated mediation model was established, showing that heavy social media exposure could lead to emotional overeating through anxiety, and the association between social media exposure and anxiety varies depending on the extent of neuroticism. The current study provides novel insight into how the interaction of a personality trait and the stressful situation of COVID‐19 influence people's negative emotions and eating behaviors.
Neurostructural correlates of BDNF rs6265 genotype in youth bipolar disorder
Authors: Kennedy Kody G. , Shahatit Zaid , Dimick Mikaela K. , Fiksenbaum Lisa , Freeman Natalie , Zai Clement C. , Kennedy James L. , MacIntosh Bradley J. , Goldstein Benjamin I. 
Published: July 2021

AbstractObjectiveBrain‐derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) rs6265 single‐nucleotide polymorphism has been associated with bipolar disorder (BD), and with brain structure among adults with BD. We set out to investigate the association of the BDNF rs6265 Met allele with neurostructural phenotypes in youth BD.MethodsCaucasian youth (N = 99; 13–20 years; n = 56 BD, n = 43 age and sex‐matched healthy controls) underwent 3‐Tesla Magnetic Resonance Imaging and genotyping for BDNF rs6265. Region of interest (ROI) analyses of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and hippocampus were complemented by vertex‐wise analyses examining cortical thickness, surface area (SA) and volume. Multivariable models included the main effects of diagnosis and gene, and a diagnosis‐by‐genotype interaction term, controlling for age, sex, and intracranial volume.ResultsThere were no significant gene main effects or diagnosis‐by‐gene interaction effects in ROI analyses. The vertex‐wise analysis yielded a significant gene main effect whereby Met allele carriers had greater middle temporal gyrus SA (p = 0.001) and supramarginal gyrus volume (p = 0.03) than Val/Val individuals. Significant interaction effects were found on lateral occipital lobe SA (p = 0.03), whereby the Met allele was associated with increased SA in BD only. Interaction effects were also found on postcentral gyrus SA (p = 0.049) and supramarginal gyrus SA (p = 0.04), with smaller SA in BD Met carriers versus healthy control Met carriers.ConclusionThese findings suggest that BDNF rs6265 is differentially associated with regional SA in youth BD. Further investigation is warranted to evaluate whether BDNF protein levels mediate the observed effects, and to evaluate rs6265‐related developmental changes.