bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Effect of the macroalgaeAsparagopsis taxiformison methane production and the rumen microbiome assemblage
Authors: Roque Breanna Michelle , Brooke Charles Garrett , Ladau Joshua , Polley Tamsen , Marsh Lyndsey , Najafi Negeen , Pandey Pramod , Singh Latika , Salwen Joan King , Eloe-Fadrosh Emiley , Kebreab Ermias , Hess Matthias 
Published: October 2018

ABSTRACTBackgroundRecent studies using batch-fermentation suggest that the red macroalgaeAsparagopsis taxiformismight reduce methane (CH4) emission from beef cattle by up to ~99% when added to rhodes grass hay, a common feed in the Australian beef industry. These experiments have shown significant reductions in methane without compromising other fermentation parameters (i.e. volatile fatty acid production) withA. taxiformisorganic matter (OM) inclusion rates of up to 5%. In the study presented here,A. taxiformiswas evaluated for its ability to reduce methane production from dairy cattle fed a mixed ration widely utilized in California; the largest milk producer in the US.ResultsFermentation in a semi-continuousin-vitrorumen system suggests thatA. taxiformiscan reduce methane production from enteric fermentation in dairy cattle by 95% when added at a 5% OM inclusion rate without any obvious negative impacts on volatile fatty acid production. High-throughput 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene amplicon sequencing showed that seaweed amendment effects rumen microbiome communities consistent with the Anna Karenina hypothesis, with increased beta-diversity, over time scales of approximately three days. The relative abundance of methanogens in the fermentation vessels amended withA. taxiformisdecreased significantly compared to control vessels, but this reduction in methanogen abundance was only significant when averaged over the course of the experiment. Alternatively, significant reductions of methane in theA. taxiformisamended vessels was measured in the early stages of the experiment. This suggests thatA. taxiformishas an immediate effect on the metabolic functionality of rumen methanogens whereas its impact on microbiome assemblage, specifically methanogen abundance, is delayed.ConclusionsThe methane reducing effect ofA. taxiformisduring rumen fermentation makes this macroalgae a promising candidate as a biotic methane mitigation strategy in the largest milk producing state in the US. But its effectin-vivo(i.e. in dairy cattle) remains to be investigated in animal trials. Furthermore, to obtain a holistic understanding of the biochemistry responsible for the significant reduction of methane, gene expression profiles of the rumen microbiome and the host animal are warranted.
Does supply chain finance improve SMEs performance? The moderating role of trade digitization
Authors: Ali Zulqurnain , Gongbing Bi , Mehreen Aqsa 
Published: October 2018

Purpose
A growing need for financing in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) has become a significant obstacle to the development of firms. To remove this barrier, the purpose of this paper is to examine how supply chain finance (SCF) assists the firms to improve their performance by utilizing the resource-based view (RBV). Furthermore, the present study also pursues to test the effect of trade digitization as a moderating variable in the relationship between SC finance and the firm performance.

Design/methodology/approach
Using data from the textile sector, the authors run confirmatory factor analysis in AMOS 24 and hierarchical linear regression model in SPSS 23 to measure the proposed model and hypotheses, respectively.

Findings
The study suggests that SCF significantly improves the SMEs performance. Moreover, trade digitization strengthens the relationship between SCF and SMEs performance. Thus, the current study significantly describes the firm RBV through SCF and trade digitization to predict the SMEs performance.

Practical implications
SMEs entrepreneurs or executives can optimize the working capital through SCF and enhance the visibility of transactions through digitization for improving SMEs performance. Moreover, SCF protects the SMEs due to its nature of risk mitigation strategy.

Originality/value
This study covered the unexplored gap in the previous literature of supply chain management by establishing the relationship between SCF and the firm performance empirically while identifying the role of trade digitization as moderating variable in the context of textile SMEs by employing RBV theory.
Moving the 2030 agenda forward: SDG implementation in Colombia
Authors: Pineda-Escobar Maria A. 
Published: October 2018

Purpose
This paper aims to contribute to the debate regarding the understanding of the multiple manifestations and alternatives for the implementation of sustainable development goals (SDGs) across national borders. For this purpose, the Colombian context is taken as a case study.

Design/methodology/approach
The present study performs an exploration of SDGs implementation in Colombia, cutting across the macro and meso levels and the perspectives of governance-making and governance-taking. To answer the research questions, this study applies a two-stage qualitative research design with summative content analysis.

Findings
The study finds that the companies in Colombia are showing an interest in incorporating the SDGs into their corporate sustainability reporting. Although companies show a general interest in adopting the SDGs as part of their sustainability strategies, the findings demonstrate that very few would go deeply into the analysis of the SDG targets. The Colombian case might be a good example of how local governments are taking actions for the implementation of SDGs in their national action plans, policies and strategies.

Research limitations/implications
As is frequent with qualitative research, and particularly with content analysis, the generalizability of the findings obtained may only be applicable to those organizations included in the sample. The analysis at the meso level is limited to the private sector, and the findings are not applicable to other organizational actors, such as civil society organizations or academia. Future research can broaden the spectrum of analysis, both at a national and cross-national level.

Practical implications
The paper is of use for actors from the public, private and civil society sectors in Colombia, as well as for international actors with an interest in the ways in which the global sustainable development agenda can be translated into local action.

Originality/value
This paper contributes to the understanding of the different ways in which the sustainable development agenda is moving from the global level to the local implementation.
Cash holdings and corporate governance: theory and contrary evidence from hotel firms
Authors: Dogru Tarik , Sirakaya-Turk Ercan 
Published: October 2018

Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which the quality of corporate governance mechanisms and growth opportunities affect agency problems in hotel firms.

Design/methodology/approach
The effects of cash flows on investments and cash holdings were analyzed using three-stage least square analysis to determine the extent to which agency problems are due to the quality of corporate governance in hotel firms.

Findings
The findings showed that the effects of cash flows on investments and cash holdings were greater in well-governed hotel firms than in poorly governed hotel firms. These effects were also greater in low-growth hotel firms than in high-growth hotel firms. However, the results from a concurrent examination of the quality of corporate governance and growth opportunities showed that poorly governed hotel firms with low-growth opportunities are exposed to agency problems.

Research limitations/implications
These results suggest that neither corporate governance mechanisms nor growth opportunities alone indicate agency problems. Theoretical implications are discussed within the realms of free cash flow theory and growth hypothesis.

Practical implications
High-growth hotel firms should retain all of their cash and cash flows to undertake value-increasing projects when they become available. Shareholders’ wealth is more likely to be maximized in high-growth firms regardless of the quality of corporate governance.

Originality/value
Although various aspects of corporate governance have been investigated in hospitality literature, previous studies did not examine the concurrent effects of corporate governance and growth opportunities on agency problems.
Investor confidence and mutual fund performance in emerging markets
Authors: Nguyen Ann-Ngoc , Shahid Muhammad Sadiq , Kernohan David 
Published: October 2018

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of investor confidence on mutual fund performance in two relatively vulnerable but leading emerging markets, India and Pakistan.

Design/methodology/approach
A pooled ordinary least squared (OLS) model is used to look at two alternative measures of investor confidence and test for the relationship between investor confidence and mutual fund returns. To check the robustness of the findings, the authors also implement two-stage least squares and generalized method of moments techniques to control for unobserved heterogeneity, simultaneity and dynamic endogeneity problems in the regressors.

Findings
The paper finds that the returns of mutual funds are positively associated with investor confidence and an interaction effect exists between investor confidence and persistence in performance. The paper also confirms that returns from mutual funds are associated with different fund characteristics such as fund size, turnover, expense, liquidity, performance persistence and the fund’s age. These findings remain robust to alternative model specifications and measures of investor confidence.

Originality/value
While the previous literature mainly focuses on mutual fund characteristics and the macroeconomic determinants of mutual fund returns, this paper demonstrates that investor confidence plays an important role in determining mutual fund performance. The authors attribute this finding to two relatively unique features of the emerging markets in the study. A lack of awareness of mutual funds as being a low-cost investment vehicle and the interplay of cultural and behavioral changes have prevented investor’s savings from being channeled into investment products, away from gold or property.
Green supply chain management assessment under chains of uncertain indices
Authors: Sahu Nitin Kumar , Sahu Atul Kumar , Sahu Anoop Kumar 
Published: October 2018

Purpose
Around the world, protecting environment and purchasing green products by the manufacturing firms progressively becomes a popular and important issue. Manufacturers are realizing the importance of producing green products under green practices. This study aims to propose an appraisement platform to evaluate the overall performance index of a firm under green practices. Furthermore, the study also helps in identifying ill-performing areas, which necessarily require future attention to augment green supply chain (GSC) of a firm. A case research is conducted to assess the real-life application by the proposed approach.

Design/methodology/approach
The authors used fuzzy performance index to measure the overall performance index of a firm. Beside this, they proposed a degree of similarity approach amalgamated with fuzzy performance importance index to classify the ills and strong indices in GSC extent.

Finding
The intermittent assessment of green practices and their metrics in the organizational supply chain management (SCM) is indeed necessary. The present study provides an appraisement module to assess overall GSC fuzzy performance index and also helps in identifying the ill-performing areas which require future augmentation toward successful green implementation.

Originality/value
The exposed research work dealt with chains of subjective indices (measure and their interrelated metrics), which are induced into hierarchical appraisement module. To tackle the uncertainty of indices, the subjective indices are transposed into interval-valued fuzzy number set (IVFNS), as IVFNs are preferred to undertake the uncertainty of GSC indices. The proposed approach is demonstrated with a case research to justify its validity and originality.
The effect of network size and sampling completeness in depauperate networks
Authors: Henriksen Marie V. , Chapple David G. , Chown Steven L. , McGeoch Melodie A. 
Published: October 2018

Abstract

The accurate estimation of interaction network structure is essential for understanding network stability and function. A growing number of studies evaluate under‐sampling as the degree of sampling completeness (proportional richness observed). How the relationship between network structural metrics and sampling completeness varies across networks of different sizes remains unclear, but this relationship has implications for the within‐ and between‐system comparability of network structure.

Here, we test the combined effects of network size and sampling completeness on the structure of spatially distinct networks (i.e., subwebs) in a host–parasitoid model system to better understand the within‐system variability in metric bias.

Richness estimates were used to quantify a gradient of sampling completeness of species and interactions across randomly subsampled subwebs. The combined impacts of network size and sampling completeness on the estimated values of twelve unweighted and weighted network metrics were tested.

The robustness of network metrics to under‐sampling was strongly related to network size, and sampling completeness of interactions were generally a better predictor of metric bias than sampling completeness of species. Weighted metrics often performed better than unweighted metrics at low sampling completeness; however, this was mainly evident at large rather than small subweb size.

These outcomes highlight the significance of under‐sampling for the comparability of both unweighted and weighted network metrics when networks are small and vary in size. This has implications for within‐system comparability of species‐poor networks and, more generally, reveals problems with under‐sampling ecological networks that may otherwise be difficult to detect in species‐rich networks. To mitigate the impacts of under‐sampling, more careful considerations of system‐specific variation in metric bias are needed.
Implications of evergreen shrub expansion in the Arctic
Authors: Vowles Tage , Björk Robert G. 
Published: October 2018

Abstract

Arctic shrub expansion is occurring across large parts of the tundra biome and its potential ecological repercussions have been widely discussed. But while the term “shrub expansion” often implicitly refers to an increase in tall, deciduous species such as birch and willow, several studies have also found a strong increase in evergreen dwarf shrubs in response to warming, a fact which has received far less attention.

The effects of an evergreen dwarf shrub expansion are markedly different from the effects of an increase in taller, deciduous species. While deciduous shrubs may increase carbon (C) cycling through changes in albedo, litter input, and snow depth, the low stature of evergreen dwarf shrubs means that they are unlikely to influence snow cover. They also produce more recalcitrant litter, which reduces microbial activity. Furthermore, recent research suggests that ericoid mycorrhiza associated with evergreen shrubs may help to decelerate litter and soil organic matter turnover rates through the production of melanized hyphae that resist decomposition. Through selective browsing, herbivores may promote evergreen shrubs and facilitate C storage.

Synthesis. In this mini review, we argue that basing predictions of how shrub expansion will affect tundra ecosystems on characteristics only applicable to tall deciduous shrubs hampers our understanding of the complex feedbacks related to Arctic vegetation shifts.
A profile of the language and cognitive skills contributing to oral inferential comprehension in young children with developmental language disorder*
Authors: Dawes Emily , Leitão Suze , Claessen Mary , Kane Robert 
Published: October 2018

AbstractBackgroundChildren with developmental language disorder (DLD) demonstrate poor oral inferential comprehension. Research investigating the skills that underpin oral inferential comprehension in young children with DLD is necessary in order to better understand and improve inferential comprehension in this population.AimsTo profile the language and cognitive skills that contribute to oral inferential comprehension in young children with DLD.Methods & ProceduresSeventy‐six children aged 5–6 years with a diagnosis of DLD were assessed on a wide range of language and cognitive measures. Oral inferential comprehension of narrative was the primary outcome measure.Outcomes & ResultsNarrative macrostructure and microstructure, literal comprehension, vocabulary, phonological loop, and theory of mind were significant predictors of inferential comprehension in bivariate analyses. However, multivariate regression analysis indicated that only narrative retell macrostructure and theory of mind contributed a significant amount of unique variance to inferential comprehension.Conclusions & ImplicationsThis study profiled the skills contributing to oral inferential comprehension in young children with DLD, to support the clinical and theoretical understanding of the ability in this population. The findings have implications for future intervention studies.
Mycoviruses mediate mycotoxin regulation in Aspergillus ochraceus
Authors: Nerva L. , Chitarra W. , Siciliano I. , Gaiotti F. , Ciuffo M. , Forgia M. , Varese G. C. , Turina M. 
Published: October 2018

SummaryTo date, no demonstration of a direct correlation between the presence of mycoviruses and the quantitative or qualitative modulation of mycotoxins has been shown. In our study, we transfected a virus‐free ochratoxin A (OTA)‐producing isolate of Aspergillus ochraceus with purified mycoviruses from a different A. ochraceus isolate and from Penicillium aurantiogriseum. Among the mycoviruses tested, only Aspergillus ochraceus virus (AoV), a partitivirus widespread in A. ochraceus, caused a specific interaction that led to an overproduction of OTA, which is regulated by the European Commission and is the second most important contaminant of food and feed commodities. Gene expression analysis failed to reveal a specific viral upregulation of the mRNA of genes considered to play a role in the OTA biosynthetic pathway. Furthermore, AoOTApks1, a polyketide synthase gene considered essential for OTA production, is surprisingly absent in the genome of our OTA‐producing isolate. The possible biological and evolutionary implications of the mycoviral regulation of mycotoxin production are discussed.
Antagonistic recursivities and successive cover‐ups: the case of private nuclear proliferation
Authors: Mallard Grégoire 
Published: October 2018

Abstract“Legal recursivity” is a concept introduced by socio‐legal scholars to capture the progressive elaboration of transnational rules through policy linkages at the international and domestic levels, and the associated jurisdictional expansion of international institutions to new policy areas. Recursivity can take many forms, and this article introduces the concept of “antagonistic recursivity” to capture a dual process of recursive legal innovation and antagonistic obstruction by the same policy actors. The article shows how such antagonistic recursivity worked in the case of the global fight against private nuclear proliferators after the 2003 revelations about the reach of the A. Q. Khan network. In the case under study, antagonistic recursivities took the form of executive‐driven innovation in rule‐making and simultaneous subversion of the same rules by the executive most implicated in the new cycle of policy innovation: the United States government. This paradox can be explained in the following manner. Antagonistic recursivity, the article demonstrates, is likely to emerge when legal rules of global governance have already been previously defined in an opaque manner, so as to help hegemons follow multiple foreign policy goals: the subversion of the most recent policy innovations is then the unfortunate result of attempts to hide prior cover‐ups rather than a purposeful violation of new rules.
Comparison of Decision Tree and Logistic Regression Models for Utilization in Sexual Assault Kit Processing,
Authors: Wentzlof Chloe A. , Kerka Jaimie E. , Albert James H. , Sprague Jon E. , Maddox Lewis O. 
Published: October 2018

AbstractTo combat the influx of sexual assault kits (SAKs) that need to be tested, an exploration of data from Ohio's SAK Testing Initiative was carried out to identify variables that impact whether a SAK contains a probative DNA profile that is eligible for the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) database. A validation study was completed to confirm the existence of variable relationships from the initial examination of data; new and modified statistical models were introduced to improve the predictive accuracy to determine if a SAK will contain at least one CODIS eligible DNA profile. Descriptive statistics from the validation data set confirmed conclusions about the effects of days between the assault and kit collection, the age of the victim, and consensual sex around the time of the kit collection for obtaining CODIS eligibility of DNA. The decision tree was selected as the best model.
Status of Mandibular Third Molar Development as Evidence in Legal Age Threshold Cases
Authors: Konigsberg Lyle W. , Frankenberg Susan R. , Liversidge Helen M. 
Published: October 2018

AbstractThe completion of the third molar roots has played an important role in ascertaining whether individuals may be at or over a legal threshold of age, often taken as 18 years. This study demonstrates that root apex completion in the third molar is relatively uninformative regarding the threshold of age 18 years in a sample of 1184 males, where mean age‐of‐attainment of root apex completion for third mandibular molars is about 19.4 years. This paper also considers the legal age threshold problem for cases where the third mandibular molar is not completely formed, and outlines the use of parametric models and Bayes’ factors to evaluate dental evidence in statistically appropriate ways. It attempts to resolve confusion over age‐within‐stage versus age‐of‐attainment, likelihood ratios versus other diagnostic tests, and prior odds for a case versus the prior density for an age distribution.