bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Precise vocal cord medialization using an adjustable laryngeal implant: A preliminary study
Authors: Desrosiers Martin , Ahmarani Christian , Bettez Maurice 
Published: January 2017

Treatment of symptomatic unilateral vocal cord paralysis is most frequently surgical. Medialization of the vocal cord using Teflon injection has proved effective; however, studies have shown this technique to produce stiffness of the vocal fold with loss of the “mucosal wave” and concomitantly poor vocal function. As well, overcorrection may occur and is not reversible. Isshiki type 1 medialization thyroplasty has been shown to produce a substantial improvement In vocal quality, as well as preserve the mucosal wave. A number of problems encountered during the performance of isshiki type 1 thyroplasty has led us to modify the original technique. We have developed a new implant that allows for precise, easily adjustable control of vocal cord medialization. To evaluate the degree of vocal cord medialization afforded by this implant, larynges of fresh male and female cadavers were used as an experimental model. In both larynges, vocal cord medialization was shown to occur in a predictable fashion for the anterior, middle, and posterior segments, as well as In the functionally Important inter‐arytenoid region. We believe the use of this implant in medialization thyroplasty will allow precise, atraumatic medialization of the paralyzed vocal cord. This greater control over positioning and ease of adjustment should contribute to enhanced vocal quality.
Comparison of Results of Immunotherapy Based on Skin End‐Point Titration, Prick Testing, and Scratch Testing
Authors: Trevino Richard J. 
Published: January 2017

Presented is a clinical study comparing the results of immunotherapy based on allergy testing with three different test modalities: skin end‐point titration, prick testing, and scratch testing. Thirty patients with allergic rhinitis were randomly assigned to one of the three test groups. Treatment vials were made on test results according to the Instructions for each test. For skin end‐point titration, each antigen was included at a concentration based on the patient's sensitivity, found with the fivefold dilution testing procedure. For the prick test, treatment vials were based on a two‐level test response scale of stronger or lesser positive results. The scratch test yields vials used in one concentration based simply on a positive vs. negative test result. Patients in all three groups were treated at weekly intervals with immunotherapy, progressing in volume until the maximum tolerated dose was achieved. Relief of symptoms was evaluated after 6 months of treatment. Nine of the 10 patient receiving skin end‐point titration based immunotherapy had complete relief of symptoms, and one had partial relief. None of the patients in the prick or scratch test groups achieved relief of symptoms after 6 months of treatment. Results dramatically demonstrate the need to base allergy immunotherapy treatment on a test that quantifies the patient's level of sensitivity to each antigen.
Facial Nerve Outcome after Acoustic Neuroma Surgery: A Study from the Era of Cranial Nerve Monitoring
Authors: Lalwani Anil K. , Butt Fidelia Yuan‐Shin , Jackler Robert K. , Pitts Lawrence H. , Yingling Charles D. 
Published: January 2017

The introduction of intraoperative cranial nerve monitoring in posterior fossa surgery has greatly aided the surgeon in identification and anatomic preservation of cranial nerves. As a result, the long‐term function of the facial nerve continues to improve after removal of acoustic neuroma. Herein, we report our long‐term (1 year or greater) facial nerve outcome in 129 patients who underwent surgical removal of their acoustic neuromas with the aid of Intraoperative neurophysiologic monitoring between 1986 and 1990. The facial nerve was anatomically preserved in 99.2% of the patients, and 90% of all the patients had grade 1 or 2 facial nerve function 1 year after surgery. Long‐term facial function was inversely correlated with the size of tumor (chi‐squared, p < 0.02) and was not related to the side of tumor, the age and sex of the patient, or the surgical approach. In a comparison among tumor groups matched for size, no statistically significant difference in facial nerve outcome between the translabyrinthine and retrosigmoid approaches was detected. The proximal facial nerve stimulation threshold at the end of surgical removal was predictive of long‐term facial nerve function (analysis of variance, p < 0.02). At 1 year, 98% (87 of 89) of the patients with electrical thresholds of 0.2 V or less had grade 1 or 2 facial nerve function compared with only 50% (8 of 16) of those with thresholds between 0.21 and 0.6 V. In the era of cranial nerve monitoring, patients can be better advised about long‐term facial nerve outcome after surgical intervention. Preoperatively, the size of the tumor is the most critical factor in predicting long‐term facial function. Postoperatively, the proximal seventh nerve stimulation threshold at the end of the surgical procedure can be used as one prognostic measure of long‐term facial nerve function.
Social Context of Management Education: Institution Building Experiences at IIMs
Authors: Patel I G , Paul Samuel , Khandwalla Pradip N , Bose Amitava , Murthy K R S , Vittal N , Krishnan Rishikesha T , Jain Arun Kumar , Gupta Anil K 
Published: January 2017

IIMs have played a significant role in realizing the societal aspirations of India becoming a creative, compassionate, and developed nation. This needs attention of all stakeholders. Very few people know that IIMs contribute as much, if not more, to public action and management as to the private sector management. The purpose of this Colloquium is to proactively ask questions which will help IIMs to explicitly state their contributions to the society and be ready for challenges ahead. Some of the key issues discussed in this Colloquium are: The processes through which IIMs have defined their goals and directions over the years. Adequacy of initiatives taken by IIMs to generate greater social, ethical, and professional accountability among students and executives trained at IIMs. IIMs' institution building role and its impact on the quality of management education and practice in India. Factors contributing to the elitist character of IIMs and its social context and significance. The potential for IIMs playing a catalytic role in facilitating, empowering or serving the small-scale, unorganized/under-managed sectors and other civil society organizations. The role that IIMs see for themselves in building India into a developed nation. The following points emerged from the discussion: IIMs have made a tremendous contribution to the Indian economy by providing corporate leadership. The skills developed and honed in IIMs should be extended to other sectors and institutions. IIMs form the backbone of our country's economic success by helping professionalize management for all sectors of the economy and providing the entrepreneurial, technical, and skilled personnel for superior wealth generation. IIMs offer a model for management education with open and merit-based admissions, good and relevant curriculum, campus placement, and a general motivation to be relevant to the social needs. The participative, decentralized, and transparent governance system can make IIMs the role model for excellence-seeking institutions. If global reputation for distinctive contribution and institutional excellence has to be sustained, IIMs would need to coordinate their approaches to addressing opportunities in globalization. To gain social legitimacy and respect of various stakeholders, IIMs need to take proactive steps to bring students from less privileged social backgrounds. Higher management education institutions such as IIMs should develop a coherent and compelling vision of how they would want to contribute to the new, liberalized India. Visioning must be participative and must involve all the stakeholders.
Differences in Occupational Commitment amongst Scientists in Indian Defence, Academic, and Commercial R&D Organizations
Authors: Goswami Sanghamitra , Mathew Mary , Chadha N.K. 
Published: January 2017

Occupational commitment is referred to as the psychological link between an individual and his occupation that is based on an affective reaction to that occupation. Thus a person with higher occupational commitment strongly identifies and has positive feelings towards his occupation. It has been observed that R&D professionals have a very distinctive nature in their career orientations, value systems, and reward preferences. In R&D organizations, due to complexity of tasks, the employee and the employer often do not understand the nature of the job performance and therefore commitment to occupation is seen as an important contributing factor. Hence, this study addresses the following research questions: How does occupational commitment differ with the different types of R&D organizations? How do personal demographic, job satisfaction, and personality variables influence occupational commitment of different types? This study empirically examines the relationship among the personal characteristics of R&D scientists across three types of R&D organizations: A government commercial organization A government defence organization A government academic organization. The objective is to find out the influence of age, occupational tenure, job satisfaction, and occupational commitment on the five factor model of personality. A questionnaire of job satisfaction followed by the neo five factor personality inventory and occupational commitment questionnaires were administered on a sample of 126 R&D professionals. The results of the analysis revealed that: Occupational commitment of scientists does differ in these different R&D organizations. Occupational tenure is much higher for the scientists of the government commercial R&D organization and the government academic R&D organization compared to the scientists of government defence R&D organization. Job-satisfaction is the highest amongst the scientists of the government defence R&D organization followed by the scientists of the government academic R&D organization. Personality scores of the scientists also differ across these three organizations. Occupational tenure and age are not related to personality. Affective commitment is shown to have a positive and significant relationship with conscientiousness for scientists of the government academic R&D organization. Affective commitment is explained by occupational tenure and extraversion while continuance commitment is explained by job satisfaction and agreeableness in the government commercial R&D organizations. Extraversion (factor of personality) emerged as the strongest predictor of affective commitment in the presence of conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticism. For managers of R&D organizations, it is important to note that in the information-enabled world of today, occupational commitment rather than organizational commitment is likely to be the key variable in deciding whether to stay or leave.
Role of Dynamic Capability and Information Technology in Customer Relationship Management: A Study of Indian Companies
Authors: Desai Darshan , Sahu Subrat , Sinha Piyush Kumar 
Published: January 2017

There is a growing body of academic and practitioner literature on Customer Relationship Management (CRM), most of the research in this field being conducted in the Western context. In the emerging countries of Asia, the difference is not only about the level of technology adoption and infrastructure, but also about the way decisions are made the and technology is used to form relations, and the deeply-rooted values of employees and customers who drive the competitive performance of CRM. These contextual peculiarities of CRM have got important implications for the sources of competitive performance in the process of CRM. It has been well accepted that CRM is a strategic initiative. But, surprisingly, the CRM literature is largely silent on the issue of competitive reaction in dynamic markets of emerging Asian economies. In such markets, the domain of CRM is characterized by lots of changes. Managers cannot rely on only static firm's resources that they have assembled to take CRM decisions and drive competitive advantage. Drawing from the theoretical argument in strategic management, i.e., dynamic capability approach, this study identifies sources of competitive performance for the process of CRM in dynamic capability. It is an organization's ability to continuously improve, innovate, and reconfigure resources to match the evolving environmental needs. Information technology (IT) competence has been considered as an important moderator of the relationship between dynamic capability and competitive performance. The study articulates the drivers of dynamic capability for CRM. Further, the study investigates the main effects, as well as the interaction effects of IT and dynamic capability on competitive performance of the CRM process. A questionnaire survey has been conducted, and data collected from a sample of 334 cross-functional executives of 29 organizations from Indian banking, telecom, and retail industry. Some of the important findings of the study are as follows: In the emerging markets of Asia, dynamic capability played a crucial role in gaining competitive CRM performance across all three industries. In the highly dynamic and competitive Indian telecom industry, the dynamic capability played the most important role. Important drivers of dynamic capability also include social networking capability with the other capabilities related to integration and market orientation. Contrary to the findings of the few studies in the Western context, CRM technology had positive effects on competitive CRM performance; it also enhanced the dynamic capability- competitive CRM performance relationships. In the absence of appropriate dynamic capabilities in the CRM process, the use of CRM technology might do more harm than good.
Edging Past Sixty: Towards a Strategic Stock-taking of the Republic
Authors: Kumar Saurabh 
Published: January 2017

This essay, addressed to the intelligentsia of the country, on the one hand, and the nation's political class, on the other, makes a case for a ‘National Dialogue’ for taking stock of the record of the post-independence Indian State, yet a work-in-progress in many ways, in a forward-looking perspective by bringing together three key constituencies of the national polity: political activists (and others from civil society, business, commerce, and media circles) working at the grassroots level apex level State functionaries expert observer-media analyst-academic-scholar ‘commentariat’. Such a deliberation can, drawing lessons from experience, throw up an agenda for structural reform that goes beyond mere governance issues and identify (people-centred) pathways for rendering the institutions of the Republic more functional and efficacious in translating its elegantly egalitarian founding vision, enabling an environment of opportunity, into reality more substantially and substantively. It could make an exploration, in other words, of possibilities of corrective intervention at the base of the ‘structure strategy processes behaviour outcome’ (performance determinant) model posited in organizational theory and ‘strategic management’ literature, extrapolated to a State setting. And, in the process, attempt an eclectic revisiting of the grand Nehruvian poser about a structural-strategic stance seeking (to craft) a “just State by just means”, albeit more from an efficacy (i.e. ‘raison d'etat’) standpoint now (in the light of experience). With fine-tuning of the apparatus of the Republic for maintenance of socio-political stability in the country in the face of new mega-trends in the global politico-diplomatic arena — international terrorism, the emerging binding constraint of global warming, the global turn to neo-liberalism sans serious striving for equitable global governance mechanisms and other challenges stemming from the global geo-political and geo-economic dynamics — as the critical consideration. The (radical or other) reform options examined would need to build upon the gains of firm grounding of political pluralism and constitutionalism, and flowering and deepening of democracy — on the social emancipation and political empowerment fronts, above all � made in the first six decades, while bracing up for the future: the challenge of conceptualizing (structural) change conducive for ‘coherent synergizing’ of the institutions of the State and spawning of an alternative politics evocative of the transformative ethos of the early post-independence years.
A Study of Wealth Effects of Takeover Announcements in India on Target Company Shareholders
Authors: Mallikarjunappa T , Nayak Panduranga 
Published: January 2017

The business strategy of inorganic growth is carried out by companies by resorting to actions which prominently include mergers, takeovers, and strategic alliances. There is a rapid growth of both mergers and takeovers in India subsequent to the economic liberalization. The companies consider takeover activity as the quickest means of corporate growth to enhance their size and face the domestic and global competition. In spite of several decades of vast research, researchers have not come to the final conclusion on the wealth effect of announcements of takeovers on the shareholders of participating companies. While some studies justify takeover as a socially productive activity which creates value for the shareholders, others provide contrary evidences to show that they destroy value for the shareholders. In India, only some studies have analysed the impact of M&A announcements on the stock return performance of companies involved and there is lack of evidences on wealth effects on shareholders. Therefore, this paper assesses the impact of takeover announcement on the stock price performance of target companies by taking a sample of 227 companies which received takeover bids during 1998–2007. The stock price reaction is examined for a period of 61 days surrounding the bid announcement day employing standard market model. BSE- 200 index is used as a proxy for the market. The regression co-efficient and the constant terms are estimated over a period of 250 days (-280 to -31) and the statistical significance of the results of the study is determined by non-standardized and standardized abnormal return methods. Both raw returns and log returns are examined. Results of the study show that target company shareholders experience substantial and statistically significant cumulative average abnormal returns (CAARs) of 27-37 percent — 37 percent when raw returns are employed and 27 percent when log returns are employed. The conclusions remain unchanged irrespective of the testing procedure used (i.e., non-standardized or standardized abnormal returns method) and even for several shorter event window periods within a broader event window of 61 days. The results for target companies are consistent with the evidence of extant research that major benefits from M&As accrue to target company shareholders. The practical implication of the study is that there is a large and significantly positive wealth effect on the target company shareholders in response to the announcement of takeovers. Takeovers offer an opportunity to shareholders of target companies and general investors to make profits both in the period before and after the announcement of the takeover bid.
Differentiating Adopters and Non-adopters of Smart Cards: Comparative Analysis of Public, Private and Foreign Sector Banks in India
Authors: Kaur Kamalpreet , Kaur Mandeep 
Published: January 2017

Progressive development in the field of information technology (IT) has brought in remarkable changes in the products as well as methods of payment and settlement system in the banking sector. In India, various types of payment systems are functioning apart from the traditional payment systems where the instruments are physically exchanged and settled manually. Smart cards are a new form of retail payment instrument, installed to facilitate retail transactions through electronic means. In 1999, the Reserve Bank of India issued guidelines to the banks regarding introduction and usage of smart cards. Smart cards are currently being issued by several banks in India which have tied up with Financial Information Network and Operations Ltd. (FINO). The IDBI bank has introduced its smart card called MoneySmart; Corporation Bank has issued CorpSmart; and Bank of India has issued its e-purse cards. PNB, SBI, ABN Amro, ICICI Bank, Bank of Baroda and some other banks have also launched smart card-based banking solutions (Kaur & Kaur, 2008). The main objective of this study is to identify the factors that may vary between the adopters and the non-adopters of smart cards in Indian banks. Banks that have adopted the cards may have different characteristics from those that have not yet adopted the cards. In other words, with the exploration of various characteristics of the banks, the study tries to differentiate between the adopter and non-adopter categories of the banks regarding smart cards with respect to their profitability, size, competitive advantage, efficiency, asset quality, financing pattern, diversification, cost of operations, etc. The empirical results evidently reveal that the banks providing smart cards differ in their characteristics from that of the banks that have not yet adopted it. It shows that the banks that adopted smart cards are larger in size, more efficient, pay lesser wages, and have more industry advantage and thus, in terms of some characteristics, outperform the non-adopter banks.