bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Governance quality, administrative values and disaster risk management
Authors: Kasdan David Oliver 
Published: November 2021

PurposeThis study explores the relationships between governance quality and disaster risk in respect to the pillar values of public administration. The objective is to strengthen the focus and resolve of bureaucratic institutions to engage with disaster risk management (DRM) as a core function.Design/methodology/approachMultiple correlation analysis is conducted using data from global indices of disaster risk and governance quality. This is situated in the argument for the importance of public administration to conduct DRM under the auspices of core values for governance.FindingsThere are strong relationships between measures of disaster risk and various qualities of governance that adhere to the administrative theories of public welfare management, particularly through measures for mitigation and preparedness.Research limitations/implicationsThis study is conducted at the national level and may obscure regional effects of governance quality and disaster risk that occur in larger and environmentally diverse countries.Originality/valueThere are few studies that champion the value of public administration's qualities and values in the efforts of DRM. This research provides support for such a position by connecting governance quality to disaster risk and overlaying the influence of the core administrative values of efficiency, effectiveness, the economy and equity.
Reach for the sky: analysis of behavioral competencies linked to project success
Authors: Sampaio Suzana , Wu Qiong , Cormican Kathryn , Varajão João 
Published: November 2021

PurposeThe issue of project managers’ competencies has gained much traction in practice and more recently in academic debate. However, they have become analogous to extensive wish lists where a project manager is expected to have an exhaustive list of aptitudes and capabilities. Therefore, identifying and defining the most critical competencies for project success is urgently needed. Moreover, although the vast number of studies emphasize the significance of behavioral competencies, there is a dearth of empirical research and studies within the context of information systems (IS) are scarce. Consequently, the present study aims to investigate the influence of project manager's behavioral competencies for the successful delivery of IS projects.Design/methodology/approachThis research conducted a systematic literature review (2009–2019) of 27 relevant studies incorporating 179 competencies. The authors also collected data from 121 professional IS project managers and used regression analysis and dominance analysis to test the hypotheses proposed.FindingsThe results confirm that behavioral competencies (including leadership, communication, result orientation, emotional intelligence, ethics, creativity and motivation) are significantly and positively related to IS project success. Furthermore, the findings show that emotional intelligence (resilience, stress management and self-control), creativity (resourcefulness, creativity thinking and imagination) and ethics (transparency, honesty and integrity) are the most influential behavioral competencies for IS project success.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is among the first to use a quantitative analysis to empirically investigate project manager's behavioral competencies for project success in the IS discipline. It brings much-needed empirical evidence for the most important competencies for IS project managers.
Does the country’s religion affect the financial performance of conventional and Islamic banks? Comparative study in the international framework
Authors: Haddad Achraf 
Published: November 2021

Purpose
The purpose of this study is to compare the impact of religion on the financial performance of conventional and Islamic banks in the framework of stakeholders’ theory.

Design/methodology/approach
Few studies have focused on studying the impact of religion on banking performance. Although religion represents an external governance mechanism for financial institutions, by using the generalized method of moments (GMM), this topic constitutes a research opportunity. The already modeled variables are collected from 76 countries located on 5 continents. The data were collected from DATASTREAM, banks’ annual reports, WIKIPEDIA and World Bank. It concerns 210 banks of each type during the period (2010–2020).

Findings
The author retained that religion negatively affects the financial performance of both conventional and Islamic banks. More specifically, results showed that religion affected the liquidity and solvency of two bank types. It also affected conventional banks’ profitability and efficiency.

Research limitations/implications
I summarized the theoretical contribution in the integration of a new original governance category to enhance its presence with impacts directly affecting the banks’ financial performance. Empirically, the study can be seen as a compass for all stakeholders to consider environmental, behavioral and doctrinal factors in studying the financial performance evolution and to become more competitive in the banking market.

Originality/value
Although conventional banks located in developed countries are different from those existing in emerging countries and Islamic banks located in developed countries are different from those existing in emerging countries, I carried out a diversified study in the global context. Referring to the comparative literature review between conventional and Islamic banks, the study was the first conditional research that compared the impacts of religion on the financial performance of conventional and Islamic banks.
The impact of COVID-19 on online product reviews
Authors: Kutlubay Omer Cem , Cicek Mesut , Yayla Serdar 
Published: November 2021

PurposeThe ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has led to drastic changes in the lives of customers. Social isolation, financial difficulties, fear of being infected and many other factors have caused the psychological well-being of customers to deteriorate. By taking up the role of online reviews in the regulation of consumers’ moods, this study aims to examine the changes that have occurred in online product ratings, as well as the negative tone and word counts of product reviews during the COVID-19 pandemic.Design/methodology/approachThis study examines the online reviews of 321 products in the pre-COVID, immediate COVID and extended COVID periods. This paper compares the changes that have taken place in product evaluations via various analysis of variance analyses. The authors also test the effect of COVID-related deaths on product evaluations via regression analyses.FindingsThe results indicate that online product ratings decreased sharply just after the outbreak of COVID-19. The study also found that the tone of reviews was found to be more negative and the length of reviews appeared to be longer in comparison to the pre-COVID-19 period. The results also revealed that the product type (experience vs search) moderated the effect of the pandemic in online reviews and the impact of COVID-19 on online product reviews diminished in the later stages of the ongoing pandemic.Practical implicationsManagers should be aware of the detrimental impact of pandemics on online product reviews and be more responsive to customer problems during the early stages of pandemics.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that analyzes the effects of a pandemic on online product ratings and review content. As such, this study offers a timely contribution to the marketing literature.
Self-disclosure in public and private groups of people with mental illnesses in Facebook
Authors: Rothschild Nava , Aharony Noa 
Published: November 2021

PurposeThe Internet enables various voices and opinions that previously did not participate in the community discourse to express themselves. People with mental illnesses make use of social networks to advance their special needs in varied ways. The study aims to examine the nature of the discourse that takes place in public and private groups of people with mental illnesses.Design/methodology/approachThe research corpus consisted of the content of 615 messages taken from public and private groups of people with mental illnesses in Facebook. Linguistic parameters (the total number of words, the number of words in the first person) were examined for each message. Two skilled judges classified the messages on a self-disclosure scale to determine the degree of disclosure of personal information, thoughts and emotions.FindingsThe results of the study indicate that the messages published in public groups are longer than the messages in private groups; however, the level of personal disclosure in messages written in private groups is deeper than in messages written in public groups. In addition, the level of self-disclosure in opening posts was found to be greater than the level of self-disclosure in comments.Practical implicationsIn the study, the authors focus on the ways people in excluded populations make use of virtual tools to advance both their personal and social needs.Originality/valueThe study is innovative, as it explores the discourse of people with mental illnesses in public and private groups on Facebook.
Understanding heuristics-based financial decision-making using behavioral portfolio strategies
Authors: Quddus Kamran , Banerjee Ashok 
Published: November 2021

PurposeThrough a portfolio choice model, the study empirically examines the influence of the heuristic simplification through peak-end rule (PER) and the associated neglect of the duration of the experience. The portfolio strategy adopted involves optimizing portfolios to capture the impact of heuristic-driven investors' experience of good and bad states. The study attempts to validate PER in an empirical context and is expected to generate trading rules, which would exploit pricing errors emerging out of the use of heuristics by investors.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical approach adopted in the study primarily examines returns to portfolios sorted according to various hedonic evaluation rules. Behavioral portfolios are constructed using hedonic experiences as conditioning variables.FindingsThe results imply that there is continued investor demand for such assets in the short run. An equal weight portfolio based on a three-month hedonic evaluation earns an average monthly return of 2.77% over the next 12 months.Originality/valueThe authors’ study may perhaps be the first attempt to use the peak-end heuristic in portfolio construction.
Beyond survey measures: exploring international male graduate students’ sense of belonging in electrical engineering
Authors: Antonio Anthony Lising , Baek Chanwoong 
Published: November 2021

Purpose
Although a student’s sense of belonging is a key factor of persistence in higher education, research on international students’ belonging tends to rely on domain-agnostic survey measures and promote interpretations that focus mainly on social integration and adjustment. This paper aims to examine how male international graduate students in engineering understand and describe their sense of belonging and how they perceive its development at their institution.

Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted in-depth interviews with 12 male electrical engineering doctoral students at a selective research university in the USA. This interpretive approach allowed students to articulate their subjective understanding of belonging within a specific disciplinary context.

Findings
Contrary to the broad notion that the social domain is the primary locus of students’ sense of belonging, participants emphasized the academic domain when referring to their struggles with, and attempts to develop, a sense of belonging. Results suggest that the meritocratic culture of engineering education may influence students to prioritize the academic domain when conceptualizing and developing their belonging. Moreover, the strong academic motivation endemic to international students pursuing graduate education at a top American research university intensified this mechanism.

Originality/value
This study argues that universities seeking to enhance international graduate students’ sense of belonging can be more intentional in providing opportunities for students to establish positive academic identities. Furthermore, addressing students’ non-academic identity and marginalization as relevant and essential topics in engineering will expand their understanding of what means to belong.
Variation in the location and timing of experimental severing demonstrates that the persistent rhizome serves multiple functions in a clonal forest understorey herb
Authors: Eisen Katherine E. , Siegmund Gregor‐Fausto , Watson Maxine A. , Geber Monica A. 
Published: November 2021

Abstract

In clonal plants, persistent rhizomes can serve multiple purposes, including resource storage, modulation of heterogeneous resource distributions, maintenance of bud banks and promotion of recovery from disturbance. Clonal plants are commonly long‐lived and, in temperate zones, often exhibit organ preformation. Thus, investigations of how the timing of disturbance to the rhizome affects plant performance must occur over multiple growing seasons, but these types of studies are rare.

We conducted a field experiment to examine how the persistent rhizome supports the existing shoot, new ramet production and recovery from damage using mayapple Podophyllum peltatum (Berberidaceae), a common herbaceous perennial of low‐light forest understories in Eastern North America. Mayapple maintains a long‐lived rhizome and exhibits a developmentally programmed seasonal pattern of resource transport and new ramet initiation. We varied both the position and timing of rhizome severing in rhizome systems with terminal sexual or vegetative shoots, and tracked plants for 2 years following severing.

The location and timing of severing affected both plant persistence (production of new shoots) and performance (leaf area), with effects differing for new shoots that developed at the front versus the back of the rhizome system. Across years, severing location and past years’ shoot size influenced plant persistence and performance, while the effect of timing of severing diminished. Initial sexual status had little effect on rhizome system response that was not accounted for by initial leaf area. Severing generally led to the establishment of two independent rhizome systems. Relative to unmanipulated control systems, these two systems had more total leaf area, but less average leaf area per system.

Synthesis. Our results point to the rhizome as a resource integrator that affects plant responses to disturbance immediately following damage and in subsequent growing seasons. Rhizome bud age and/or subtending rhizome size, and developmental programme influence responses to disturbance. While the effects of experimental disturbance on plant performance decreased 2 years after disturbance, further long‐term investigation is needed to fully understand the demographic consequences of damage to persistent rhizomes.

A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.
Directional selection shifts trait distributions of planted species in dryland restoration
Authors: Balazs Kathleen R. , Munson Seth M. , Havrilla Caroline A. , Butterfield Bradley J. 
Published: November 2021

Abstract

The match between species trait values and local abiotic filters can restrict community membership. An often‐implicit assumption of this relationship is that abiotic filters select for a single locally optimal strategy, though difficulty in isolating effects of the abiotic environment from those of dispersal limitation and biotic interactions has resulted in few empirical tests of this assumption. Similar constraints have made it difficult to assess whether the type and intensity of abiotic filters shift along gradients of environmental harshness, as predicted by the stress‐dominance hypothesis.

We planted 9,216 plants of 29 perennial grass and forb species that had a range of functional trait values and were assigned to a warm, intermediate or cool temperature tolerance pool across eight sites on the Colorado Plateau. We compared the distributions of traits of surviving individuals to null distributions to evaluate whether there were shifts in trait means and variation. Borrowing from phenotypic selection concepts in evolutionary biology, we assessed support for stabilizing, directional and disruptive abiotic filtering of trait distributions and whether these types of filtering varied with initial species pool.

Functional composition was significantly different from null distributions for nearly all traits at all sites, with trait variation more restricted in harsher abiotic conditions, supporting the stress‐dominance hypothesis. Contrary to expectations, we primarily found evidence for directional selection, which increased in frequency in warm species pools while disruptive selection was found more often in cool and intermediate species pools.

Synthesis. This study provides a controlled experimental approach to test the effect of the abiotic environment on plant trait filtering. We found that opportunistic strategies allowing for rapid water acquisition during favourable periods improved survival at warmer sites. Species with these strategies may be expected to benefit from increasing aridity and may be selected for active management efforts. More generally, the prevalence of directional selection may have important implications for dynamic vegetation models that rely on trait distributions for translating environmental variation into ecosystem processes.
Technological and nutritional properties of amaranth‐fortified yellow cassava pasta
Authors: Lawal Oluranti M. , van Stuijvenberg Louka , Boon Nienke , Awolu Olugbenga , Fogliano Vincenzo , Linnemann Anita R. 
Published: November 2021

AbstractYellow cassava is an affordable starting material to design a healthy food, having high β‐carotene content. White and yellow cassava functional pasta were fortified with 50 g/kg (w/w) amaranth dry leaf powder and analyzed to evaluate the impact of cultivar difference, processing, and addition of amaranth leaf powder on the physicochemical, functional, pasting, antioxidant, and cooking properties of the white and yellow cassava pasta samples. Significant differences were observed among the cassava pasta samples. Leaf powder addition significantly enhanced the dietary fiber (7.6–9.1 g/100 g) and protein (1.41–4.69 g/100 g) contents of formulated cassava pasta. Yellow cassava‐amaranth pasta had higher β‐carotene (2.07 µg/g), iron (59 mg/kg), and zinc (9 mg/kg) contents than the white cassava‐amaranth pasta. The addition of amaranth leaf powder also enhanced the antioxidant capacities of pasta products. Cooking time and gruel solid loss were reduced upon the addition of amaranth leaf powder, which is beneficial to the consumers. Data showed the potential of amaranth‐fortified yellow cassava pasta in contributing to a healthy diet in low‐ and middle‐income countries by combining a biofortified crop with leafy vegetables via food‐to‐food fortification.Practical Application: This work demonstrates the feasibility of a cassava‐based pasta fortified with amaranth vegetables as an affordable and nutritious food to benefit micronutrient deficient consumers in countries with high cassava consumption but low vegetable intake. The inclusion of amaranth leaf powder enhanced the developed pasta's nutritional and technological properties, thus presenting a healthy food choice with the potentials for scaling up commercially.
Understanding and addressing psychological distress experienced by farmers, from the perspective of rural financial counsellors
Authors: Gunn Kate M. , Hughes‐Barton Donna 
Published: November 2021

AbstractObjectiveTo explore rural financial counsellors' experiences interacting with psychologically distressed farmers and identify contextually appropriate methods to maintain their own well‐being and link farmers to psychological supports, within their existing roles.SettingRural, regional and remote Australia.ParticipantsFifty rural financial counsellors participated. They worked across 6 Australian states/territories.DesignIndividual semi‐structured telephone interviews were audio‐recorded with consent. Qualitative data were analysed using thematic analysis. Themes were identified using an essentialist, bottom‐up approach.ResultsForty‐six themes emerged relating to the 5 topics explored: (a) how to recognise distress in farmers (eg inability to focus/make decisions, deterioration in presentation/organisation, anger, blaming); (b) impact of farmers' psychological distress on the financial case management process (eg slows, disrupts or stops it, negatively impacts counsellor well‐being); (c) strategies for working effectively with distressed farmers (eg flexibility, open‐ended questions, listening to story, simplicity, instilling hope); (d) referral of distressed farmers to psychological support (eg willing if tried themselves/positive reports, lack of local rural face‐to‐face services, stigma and lack of understanding of importance challenging, a farming focus and support from family/ community assists); and (e) strategies to maintain their own well‐being (eg compartmentalising, exercise, supervision).ConclusionRural financial counsellors play an important role by recognising signs of distress in farmers and referring them to appropriate psychological supports. However, this is a demanding role and ensuring counsellors have appropriate services to refer farmers to, and support with their own well‐being, is imperative.
A novel peptide inhibitor of Dll4‐Notch1 signalling and its pro‐angiogenic functions
Authors: Zhu Guofu , Lin Ying , Ge Tandi , Singh Shekhar , Liu Hao , Fan Linlin , Wang Shumin , Rhen Jordan , Jiang Dongyang , Lyu Yuyan , Yin Yiheng , Li Xiankai , Benoit Danielle S. W. , Li Weiming , Xu Yawei , Pang Jinjiang 
Published: November 2021

Background and PurposeThe Dll4‐Notch1 signalling pathway plays an important role in sprouting angiogenesis, vascular remodelling and arterial or venous specificity. Genetic or pharmacological inhibition of Dll4‐Notch1 signalling leads to excessive sprouting angiogenesis. However, transcriptional inhibitors of Dll4‐Notch1 signalling have not been described.Experimental ApproachWe designed a new peptide targeting Notch signalling, referred to as TAT‐ANK, and assessed its effects on angiogenesis. In vitro, tube formation and fibrin gel bead assay were carried out, using human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs). In vivo, Matrigel plug angiogenesis assay, a developmental retinal model and tumour models in mice were used. The mechanisms underlying TAT‐ANK activity were investigated by immunochemistry, western blotting, immunoprecipitation, RT‐qPCR and luciferase reporter assays.Key ResultsThe amino acid residues 179–191 in the G‐protein‐coupled receptor‐kinase‐interacting protein‐1 (GIT1‐ankyrin domain) are crucial for GIT1 binding to the Notch transcription repressor, RBP‐J. We designed the peptide TAT‐ANK, based on residues 179–191 in GIT1. TAT‐ANK significantly inhibited Dll4 expression and Notch 1 activation in HUVECs by competing with activated Notch1 to bind to RBP‐J. The analyses of biological functions showed that TAT‐ANK promoted angiogenesis in vitro and in vivo by inhibiting Dll4‐Notch1 signalling.Conclusions and ImplicationsWe synthesized and investigated the biological actions of TAT‐ANK peptide, a new inhibitor of Notch signalling. This peptide will be of significant interest to research on Dll4‐Notch1 signalling and to clinicians carrying out clinical trials using Notch signalling inhibitors. Furthermore, our findings will have important conceptual and therapeutic implications for angiogenesis‐related diseases.