bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Board involvement in corporate sustainability reporting: evidence from Sri Lanka
Authors: Rathnayaka Mudiyanselage Nayana Chandani Swarnapali 
Published: April 2018

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the role played by the board of directors in corporate sustainability (CS) disclosure within the Asian context in which sustainability reporting (SR) is an emerging phenomenon.

Design/methodology/approach
Data are collected from a sample of 100 listed Sri Lankan companies over a period of four years (2012-2016), representing practically all the business sectors. This study draws on both agency and resource dependence theories, while binary logistic regression is performed for the data analysis.

Findings
The results point out that firms that follow a sustainability disclosure policy have larger boards, a higher proportion of independent directors and more female directors. Contrary to certain common assumptions, firms that practice sustainability disclosure are not influenced by dual leadership, board ethnicity and board ownership. This study helps firms to understand whether their boards can influence the sustainability disclosure choice or not and further, to validate the appropriateness of the agency theory and the resource dependence theory for examining issues of this nature.

Originality/value
This study contributes significantly to the extant literature on this subject by broadening the geographical coverage, which has generally been limited to the West in corporate disclosure studies.
Objective evaluation of fabric pilling based on data-driven visual attention model
Authors: Guan Shengqi , Li Wensen , Wang Jie , Lei Ming 
Published: April 2018

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop a new objective evaluation method of fabric pilling using data-driven visual attention model.

Design/methodology/approach
First, the multi-scale filtering images are formed by Gaussian pyramid decomposition. Second, center-surround differences algorithm is used between multi-scale filtering images to build saliency map. On this basis, the pilling information is segmented from saliency map by the segmentation threshold. Finally, the pilling is objectively evaluated by extracting pilling feature. Experimental result shows that compared with the traditional detection methods, the proposed objective evaluation method has strong anti-interference ability, and correct classification rate (CCR) is 96 percent.

Findings
Fabric pilling saliency can be effectively improved by data-driven visual attention model, which will lead to stronger anti-interference ability and higher correct classification rate.

Originality/value
To void uneven illumination, noise, and texture interference, the proposed method can enhance the saliency of small targets in saliency map using a bottom-up visual attention model. Through the threshold segmentation according to pilling feature, the pilling information is effectively from the fabric texture. Pilling feature about pilling area density is extracted to pilling grade evaluation.
Factors encouraging complete adoption of agricultural technologies
Authors: Khandker Varsha , Thakurata Indrajit 
Published: April 2018

Purpose
Hybrid rice is considered as one of the technologies having the potential to push the production frontier to meet the growing demand for rice in India. The technology was introduced in India in 1994 but is yet to see widespread adoption. The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors that influence the partial/complete adoption of hybrid rice technology by the farmers in India. This study also assesses the factors behind difference in the share of land allocated to hybrid rice cultivation by farmers.

Design/methodology/approach
The study employs a Tobit model to evaluate the impact of factors related to technology, farmer, farm and geographical location on the decision to adopt hybrid rice. Data for this study are compiled from surveys of 441 hybrid rice growing farmers across 3 Indian states conducted during 2012-2013.

Findings
The paper finds that farmers with smaller landholdings, higher education and higher experience of growing hybrid rice are more likely to be complete adopters. Farmers reporting good demand for hybrid rice output and availability of subsidy on hybrid rice seeds also have higher probability of being complete adopters. However, the availability of hybrid rice seeds in government outlets and cultivating multiple kharif crops are negatively related to the extent of hybrid rice adoption. The results suggest insignificant impact of age, family size, ownership of cattle and machinery on the adoption level of hybrid rice by the farmers.

Research limitations/implications
Although the sample for this study has been collected from three states with different agro-climatic zones and productivity, the results cannot be generalized for other states.

Originality/value
There is a great potential to increase the area under hybrid rice cultivation in India. This study is one of the first attempts to look at the adoption levels of hybrid rice in India and determine the factors which might be hindering the complete adoption of the technology. Focusing on the factors positively related to complete adoption can help in enhancing the area under hybrid rice and similar approach can be used for other new agricultural technologies in the developing country context.
Potential impacts of desiccant-based drying and hermetic storage on the value chain for onion seeds in Nepal
Authors: Timsina Krishna P. , Bradford Kent J. , Dahal Peetambar , Shivakoti Ganesh P. , Kunusoth Keshavulu , Van Asbrouck Johan , Bajracharya Jwala , Pandey Indra Raj 
Published: April 2018

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the potential returns to value chain actors from employing desiccant bead drying and hermetic storage technology.

Design/methodology/approach
Information was collected from 175 different onion (Allium cepa L.) seed value chain actors in Nepal. Four different business models for the introduction of new bead drying and hermetic storage technology were compared to current practices through use of partial budgeting.

Findings
The increase in net income throughout the chain was quite similar in all four models, ranging from US$28.86 to 29.61 per kg of onion seed, making it difficult to say that any single model is best for all situations. However, there are differences in sharing of positive net income and negative net income for different actors in different models. Moreover, about US$5.85 million incremental return could be earned per year in Nepal from improved preservation of onion seed alone.

Research limitations/implications
This research assesses how to introduce a new technology, the dry chain concept to maintain seed quality, into the existing marketplace.

Originality/value
This paper focuses on the economics of a novel technology and compares different business models and scenarios.
Assessing competitive position of Uruguay’s beef sector
Authors: Lanfranco Bruno , Ferraro Bruno , Rava Catalina 
Published: April 2018

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present an economic evaluation of Uruguay’s beef industry competitiveness to quantify the effects of public policies (taxes, subsidies, social charges) on the various links constituting the beef export chain and estimate the impact of transfers of resources between the beef industry and other sectors of the economy.

Design/methodology/approach
The Policy Analysis Matrix (PAM) techniques were employed to quantify the effects of public policies on the competitiveness of Uruguay’s beef industry. A series of PAM coefficients were calculated to assess the competitiveness of the beef export chain in 2010 and 2013 with comparison between the two years to make policy recommendations.

Findings
Beef sector returns captured by private agents decreased from 30 percent in 2010 to 10 percent in 2013. Competitiveness of the beef export chain deteriorated between 2010 and 2013 due primarily to higher prices paid for live cattle by the beef slaughtering, manufacturing, and packing sector. Uruguay’s beef industry transfers resources to the larger economy via social security payments and is penalized as a result of high capital costs.

Research limitations/implications
Although three different sources of resource transfers were identified, more effort is needed to improve the precision of estimations.

Originality/value
The competitiveness of export chains is critical to the economic and social wellbeing of small-economy countries. They must be efficient producing for the international markets at the time they constitute pillars of the whole economy.
The role of television in perceptions of dangerousness
Authors: Alexander Louise , Sheen Jade , Rinehart Nicole , Hay Margaret , Boyd Lee 
Published: April 2018

PurposeThis critical review of historical and contemporary literature explores the role of television media in the prevalence of stigma towards persons experiencing a mental health challenge. In addition to this, the purpose of this paper is to examine the notion of perceived dangerousness, which is a concept where persons with mental illness are thought by others to be inherently dangerous.Design/methodology/approachA vigorous search of databases was undertaken for articles published between 2000 and 2016. Some seminal literature prior to 2000 was used to compare historical data with current literature. In total, 1,037 publications were reviewed against inclusion criteria.FindingsWhile mental illness stigma has received much attention in the literature, television media and public perceptions of dangerousness have not. While these concepts are complex and multi-factorial, what we do understand is that approaches to address stigma have been largely unsuccessful, and that persons experiencing mental health challenges continue to be significantly disadvantaged.Practical implicationsImplications to practice for clinicians working in mental health on this issue have not been adequately explored within the literature. While media guidelines assist journalists to make informed choices when they portray mental health issues in television news, there are no such guidelines to inform drama television viewing.Originality/valueSignificantly, television’s role in perpetuation of perceptions of dangerousness has not been adequately explored as a combined co-occurring factor associated with the stigmatisation and avoidance of persons experiencing a mental health challenge. In an era when mental health challenges are on the rise, it is of great importance that we collectively seek to minimise negative impacts and improve the experiences of those with a mental health challenge through addressing stigma both individually and in television media.
Morphological analysis of legal ideology: locating interpretive divergence
Authors: Lees Emma , Shepherd Edward 
Published: April 2018

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a “manifesto” exploring a methodological approach to legal analysis, relying upon a morphological understanding of ideology.

Design/methodology/approach
The authors explore ideology within law and legal culture. They examine one such ideology – rule of law – and consider how this can shape judicial decision-making. They suggest techniques by which such influences can be identified.

Findings
The authors make four findings. First, following Freeden, ideology can be understood as a ubiquitous form of political thinking which seeks to fix the meanings of essentially contested concepts. Second, ideology in this sense forms an important part, but is distinguishable from the wider notion of legal culture. Considering ideology in law as a sub-system of legal culture can therefore be fruitful in providing a rich understanding of interpretive disagreements among the judiciary. Third, rule of law as an ideal is itself ideological, as it comprises contested concepts such as certainty, equality, stability and legality. It can be considered to constitute an internal ideology of law and it can be analysed how the concepts are de-contested in individual decisions. Finally, understanding this can help in the analysis of judgments in areas with high levels of administrative discretion and political contestation, such as planning and environmental law, as it helps us to understand how any particular judge sees the role of the court in its wider political context.

Originality/value
The originality of the authors’ approach lies in the drawing together of methodological techniques and understandings of ideology in, and in relation to, law.
Review article: Isolated proximal tibiofibular joint dislocation
Authors: Cunningham Neil J , Farebrother Nicholas , Miles Jake 
Published: April 2018

AbstractProximal tibiofibular joint (PTFJ) dislocations are relatively rare injuries and this paper provides an up‐to‐date review and practical management approach for the assessment and management of these cases. Isolated PTFJ dislocations are a rare injury, accounting for less than 1% of all knee injuries. Thus, there does not appear to be a clear consensus on definitive management and post‐reduction care in the literature. This paper provides a review of the literature, anatomical analysis of the PTFJ in the dislocated state, and a technique for reduction. In the majority of cases, PTFJ dislocations are an injury that can be identified with simple imaging modalities and treated in the ED with manipulation under procedural sedation.
A MinION™‐based pipeline for fast and cost‐effective DNA barcoding
Authors: Srivathsan Amrita , Baloğlu Bilgenur , Wang Wendy , Tan Wei X. , Bertrand Denis , Ng Amanda H. Q. , Boey Esther J. H. , Koh Jayce J. Y. , Nagarajan Niranjan , Meier Rudolf 
Published: April 2018

AbstractDNA barcodes are useful for species discovery and species identification, but obtaining barcodes currently requires a well‐equipped molecular laboratory and is time‐consuming, and/or expensive. We here address these issues by developing a barcoding pipeline for Oxford Nanopore MinION™ and demonstrating that one flow cell can generate barcodes for ~500 specimens despite the high basecall error rates of MinION™ reads. The pipeline overcomes these errors by first summarizing all reads for the same tagged amplicon as a consensus barcode. Consensus barcodes are overall mismatch‐free but retain indel errors that are concentrated in homopolymeric regions. They are addressed with an optional error correction pipeline that is based on conserved amino acid motifs from publicly available barcodes. The effectiveness of this pipeline is documented by analysing reads from three MinION™ runs that represent three different stages of MinION™ development. They generated data for (i) 511 specimens of a mixed Diptera sample, (ii) 575 specimens of ants and (iii) 50 specimens of Chironomidae. The run based on the latest chemistry yielded MinION™ barcodes for 490 of the 511 specimens which were assessed against reference Sanger barcodes (N = 471). Overall, the MinION™ barcodes have an accuracy of 99.3%–100% with the number of ambiguous bases after correction ranging from <0.01% to 1.5% depending on which correction pipeline is used. We demonstrate that it requires ~2 hr of sequencing to gather all information needed for obtaining reliable barcodes for most specimens (>90%). We estimate that up to 1,000 barcodes can be generated in one flow cell and that the cost per barcode can be <USD 2.
Linkage disequilibrium clustering‐based approach for association mapping with tightly linked genomewide data
Authors: Li Zitong , Kemppainen Petri , Rastas Pasi , Merilä Juha 
Published: April 2018

AbstractGenomewide association studies (GWAS) aim to identify genetic markers strongly associated with quantitative traits by utilizing linkage disequilibrium (LD) between candidate genes and markers. However, because ofLDbetween nearby genetic markers, the standardGWASapproaches typically detect a number of correlatedSNPs covering long genomic regions, making corrections for multiple testing overly conservative. Additionally, the high dimensionality of modernGWASdata poses considerable challenges forGWASprocedures such as permutation tests, which are computationally intensive. We propose a cluster‐basedGWASapproach that first divides the genome into many large nonoverlapping windows and uses linkage disequilibrium network analysis in combination with principal component (PC) analysis as dimensional reduction tools to summarize theSNPdata to independentPCs within clusters of loci connected by highLD. We then introduce single‐ and multilocus models that can efficiently conduct the association tests on such high‐dimensional data. The methods can be adapted to different model structures and used to analyse samples collected from the wild or from biparental F2populations, which are commonly used in ecological genetics mapping studies. We demonstrate the performance of our approaches with two publicly available data sets from a plant (Arabidopsis thaliana) and a fish (Pungitius pungitius), as well as with simulated data.
Climate change and the health of older people in Australia: A scoping review on the role of mobile applications (apps) in ameliorating impact
Authors: Black Deborah A , O'Loughlin Kate , Wilson Leigh A 
Published: April 2018

ObjectivesDue to the impact of climate change, mobile applications (apps) providing information about the external environment have the potential to improve the health of older people. The purpose of this research was to undertake a scoping review of the evidence on the usability, feasibility and effectiveness of mobile apps to encourage access to activities outside the home in older people.MethodsA search of databases was undertaken with relevant keywords. Selected manuscripts were judged for relevance to the inclusion criteria and assessed for quality.ResultsVery few published studies examined mobile apps specifically designed to prevent, or to treat, chronic disease in ageing populations, and fewer had rigorous designs. No study addressed accessing the external environment in the context of climate change.ConclusionThis study demonstrates that there is a gap in the evidence about the mobile apps designed for healthy ageing and, more specifically, to improve access to the external environment.
Langerhans and inflammatory dendritic epidermal cells in atopic dermatitis are tolerized toward TLR2 activation
Authors: Iwamoto K. , Nümm T. J. , Koch S. , Herrmann N. , Leib N. , Bieber T. 
Published: April 2018

AbstractBackgroundThe skin of atopic dermatitis (AD) patients presents a significant dysbalance of the microbiome with a high colonization by Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), which positively correlates with the severity of the disease.ObjectiveUnderstanding the role of epidermal dendritic cells (DC) as link between the innate and the adaptive immune systems in AD.MethodsComparative phenotypic and functional analysis of TLR2 on Langerhans cells (LC) and inflammatory dendritic epidermal cells (IDEC) in organotypic models as well as freshly isolated cells from healthy and AD skin.ResultsIn situ analysis of freshly isolated LC and IDEC from AD skin revealed decreased TLR2 expression compared to LC from healthy skin. In contrast to IDEC, LC from AD skin failed to display any evidence for in situ activation. Exposure to TLR2 ligand Pam3Cys resulted in maturation and increased migratory activity of LC from normal skin. LC and IDEC from AD were unresponsive to TLR2 ligand in that they failed to mature and displayed a high spontaneous migratory activity. Keratinocytes from both healthy and AD skin expressed similar levels of TLR2. The production of IL‐6 and IL‐10 was impaired by Pam3Cys in supernatants from AD skin. IL‐18 was significantly higher in supernatants from AD skin and not influenced by TLR2 ligation, when compared to healthy skin.ConclusionOur results suggest that TLR2‐mediated sensing of S. aureus‐derived signals is strongly impaired in LC from AD skin. This phenomenon may partly contribute to the immune deviation in AD and the lack of S. aureus clearance.
Comparing Types of Financial Incentives to Promote Walking: An Experimental Test
Authors: Burns Rachel J. , Rothman Alexander J. 
Published: April 2018

BackgroundOffering people financial incentives to increase their physical activity is an increasingly prevalent intervention strategy. However, little is known about the relative effectiveness of different types of incentives. This study tested whether incentives based on specified reinforcement types and schedules differentially affected the likelihood of meeting a walking goal and explored if observed behavioural changes may have been attributable to the perceived value of the incentive.MethodsA 2 (reinforcement type: cash reward, deposit contract) × 2 (schedule: fixed, variable) between‐subjects experiment with a hanging control condition was conducted over 8 weeks (n = 153).ResultsAlthough walking was greater in the incentive conditions relative to the control condition, walking did not differ across incentive conditions. Exploratory analyses indicated that the perceived value of the incentive was associated with the likelihood of meeting the walking goal, but was not affected by reinforcement type or schedule.ConclusionsThe reinforcement type and schedule manipulations tested in this study did not differentially affect walking. Given that walking behaviour was associated with perceived value, designing incentive strategies that optimise the perceived value of the incentive may be a promising avenue for future research.
Mechanisms of Change in the Relationship between Self‐Compassion, Emotion Regulation, and Mental Health: A Systematic Review
Authors: Inwood Elisa , Ferrari Madeleine 
Published: April 2018

BackgroundResearch suggests that self‐compassion may improve mental health by promoting emotion regulation (Berking & Whitley, ). This review aimed to identify studies which investigated the relationship between self‐compassion, emotion regulation, and mental health in order to examine the role of emotional regulation as a mechanism of change.MethodsSearches were conducted in PsycINFO, CINAHL, Medline complete, Web of Science and Scopus databases. Inclusion criteria required publications to be: peer reviewed, published in English, contain validated measures of self‐compassion and emotion regulation, and report a direct analysis on the relationship between these constructs.ResultsThe search yielded five studies which met inclusion criteria. Emotion regulation significantly mediated the relationship between self‐compassion and mental health. This pattern was consistent across community and clinical samples, for a range of mental health symptoms including stress, depression, and post‐traumatic stress disorder. A critical limitation of the review was that all included studies used cross‐sectional data, limiting interpretations regarding causation.ConclusionsResults provide preliminary evidence that emotion regulation may be a mechanism of change in the relationship between self‐compassion and mental health. Self‐compassion may be a pertinent preliminary treatment target for individuals who avoid experiences of emotions.