bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Reactive crisis strategies application of the corporate sector in Croatia
Authors: Jugo Damir 
Published: March 2017

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the practices of strategic crisis communication of most successful Croatian companies and the perception of these practices from the perspective of media. A framework of reactive strategies is applied to determine how Croatian companies from five major industries would communicate during crisis situations and how their communication is interpreted within the media as a group that conveys and presents their behavior and communication to the broader public.

Design/methodology/approach
A quantitative survey among 60 individuals in charge of communications in Croatian companies was conducted to identify which strategies they are likely to use when in crisis situations. In-depth interviews with 20 journalists regularly reporting on these companies were undertaken to determine their perception and experiences regarding how these companies would communicate during crisis situations.

Findings
Croatian companies are likely to communicate un-strategically, passively and without any risk. Journalists see the communication of the companies even more passive and reactive which seriously influences the manner they report about these companies during crisis situations.

Research limitations/implications
Although 60 companies and 20 journalists both represent a significantly representative sample in Croatian terms, the study provides an insight into only Croatian corporate environment. Conducting the research in different surroundings and other countries could provide additional insight. Nevertheless, the analyzed variables that influenced the selection of strategies provide notable insight for drawing conclusions on this subject.

Originality/value
Besides showing how analyzed companies are likely to communicate during crises, this paper provides an insight into the media’s perception of this communication. The research has shown that the media sees their communication as more passive and reactive than it actually is, which implicates a serious need of shift in communication patterns if these companies want to strive to gain mutual understanding and remotely positive attitude from the media during crisis situations.
How do derivative securities affect bank risk and profitability?
Authors: Ghosh Amit 
Published: March 2017

Purpose
Using data on 5,491 commercial banks in the USA that were operational between 2001 second quarter and 2016 first quarter, the present study aims to examine the impact of derivative securities and its different constituent categories on bank-specific risks and profitability.

Design/methodology/approach
The study uses panel data fixed effects model and Bayesian model averaging techniques.

Findings
This study finds aggregate derivatives and both interest-rate and exchange-rate derivatives and their different constituent categories to reduce banks insolvency risks for the entire time period and the pre-crisis era. Moreover, aggregate derivatives increase banks’ risk-adjusted return on assets that are driven by exchange-rate derivatives. Such findings are robust to the size of banks, the degree of derivative use and extent of profitability. However, in the post-crisis period, derivatives reduce bank profits.

Practical implications
While the results largely provide evidence of the beneficial effects of derivatives, the findings for the post-crisis period are rather concerning. It underscores a clear need to improve regulation and supervision across different categories of derivatives to ensure the benefits exceed their costs for banks.

Originality/value
Disaggregate analysis of derivatives can not only unmask important differences in how they affect banks risks, profits, etc. but also help banks mitigate risks arising from specific types of derivative securities banks hold. Furthermore, discerning the impact of derivatives on banks risks and profits in the post-crisis era vis-à-vis the pre-crisis one is extremely important to restore a sounder banking system and foster overall financial stability.
Designing medical expert system based on logical reduced rule for basic malaria diagnosis from malaria signs and symptoms
Authors: Selek Murat , Basçiftçi Fatih , Örücü Serkan 
Published: March 2017

Purpose
Malaria is one of the most sinister life-threatening disease and generally transmitted by the bite of an Anopheles mosquito which was infected. These mosquitoes carry the Plasmodium parasite. Worldwide risk of malaria thread is very hard to deal, because of extreme temperature and climate changes which lead to uncontrolled changes in the mosquito population, as many deaths from malaria occur outside the healthcare system and other infections might be misdiagnosed as malaria unless a diagnostic test is done. The purpose of this study is creating a system which is early diagnosing malaria for settlements adequate healthcare units and non-immune travellers.

Design/methodology/approach
In this study’s system, the authors developed a new medical expert system (MES) process using the decreased rule base to detect malaria. The authors’ purpose was to successfully identify the illness by taking all symptoms of malaria into consideration in the MES (six basic signs, 64 different conditions). In the proposed MES process, in place of inspecting all the malaria-related signs, the authors used the decreased rule bases.

Findings
So as to take the lessen decreased bases, Boolean functions are used in a two-level simplification method. Using this method, decreased cases were evaluated by taking six symptoms of malaria into account instead of assessing 64 individual conditions.

Research limitations/implications
The system can be used in diagnosis of asthma and chronic obstructive respiratory disease.

Practical implications
The system can be used in absence of adequate healthcare units. Thus, malaria can be diagnosed early.

Originality/value
The authors hope that the system they have developed will be useful for settlements in the absence of adequate healthcare units and non-immune travellers.
A unique mathematical optimization approach for examination of failure effects on electric power transmission grids by combined environmental and economic indicators
Authors: Azadeh Ali , Sattarian Maryam , Arjmand Azadeh 
Published: March 2017

Purpose
To achieve the optimum performance of electric transmission power system performance, the possibility of generators’ failure and the consequences are amongst the most important and real assumptions which should be taken into consideration. This paper aims to recognize the most influential factors on generators’ failures that can have a deep effect on the total cost and environmental issues. The integrated proposed approach is useful for investigating the generators’ failure effects on the performance of electric power transmission grids from the economic and environmental perspectives. In other words, the cost and pollution minimization policies are considered to decrease the unfavorable generators’ failure effects on electric power flow.

Design/methodology/approach
The data used in this study are gathered from a real case in USA in first step, the influential generator points that their failure has a significant effect on the objective function, have been recognized. Then, different failure scenarios are defined, and the optimum values in each of these scenarios through the GAMS modeling software are found. Consequently, by using a two-level factorial design approach, the critical generators across the power grid are determined.

Findings
The results show that by using such information, it is possible to detect the significant nodes in the power system grid and have a better maintenance plan. In addition, by means of this analysis and changing the capacity of main generators, it is possible to significantly reduce the operation costs. By comparing the indexes in case of the generator’s location, it seems that some of them are critical because of their capacity and position in the network (as their failure causes infeasibility in the model). Also, some of these deficiencies caused considerable index changes and critical consequences.

Practical implications
The integrated proposed approach is useful for investigating the generators’ failure effects on the performance of electric power transmission grids from the economic and environmental perspectives. In other words, the cost and pollution minimization policies are considered to decrease the unfavorable generators’ failure effects on electric power flow.

Social implications
This paper endeavors to recognize the most influential factors on generators’ failures that can have a deep effect on the total cost and environmental issues.

Originality/value
The integrated proposed approach is useful for investigating the generators’ failure effects on the performance of electric power transmission grids from the economic and environmental perspectives. In other words, the cost and pollution minimization policies are considered to decrease the unfavorable generators’ failure effects on electric power flow.
Enhancing plant diversity in agricultural landscapes promotes both rare bees and dominant crop‐pollinating bees through complementary increase in key floral resources
Authors: Sutter Louis , Jeanneret Philippe , Bartual Agustín M. , Bocci Gionata , Albrecht Matthias 
Published: March 2017

Summary

Enhancing key floral resources is essential to effectively mitigate the loss of pollinator diversity and associated provisioning of pollination functions in agro‐ecosystems. However, effective floral provisioning measures may diverge among different pollinator conservation targets, such as the conservation of rare species or the promotion of economically important crop pollinators. We examined to what extent such diverging conservation goals could be reconciled.

We analysed plant–bee visitation networks of 64 herbaceous semi‐natural habitats representing a gradient of plant species richness to identify key resource plants of the three distinct conservation target groups: rare bees (of conservation concern), dominant wild crop‐pollinating bees and managed crop‐pollinating bees (i.e. honeybees).

Considering overall flower visitation, rare bees tended to visit nested subsets of plant species that were also visited by crop pollinators (46% and 77% nestedness in the dissimilarity between rare bees and wild crop pollinators or managed honeybees respectively). However, the set of preferred plant species, henceforth ‘key plant species’ (i.e. those species disproportionately more visited than expected according to their floral abundance) was considerably more distinct and less nested among bee target groups.

Flower visits of all bee target groups increased with plant species richness at a similar rate. Importantly, our analyses revealed that an exponential increase in the flower abundance of the identified key plant species and complementarity in the bee visitation pattern across plant species ─ rather than total flower abundance ─ were the major drivers of these relationships.

Synthesis and applications. We conclude that the multiple goals of preserving high bee diversity, conserving rare species and sustaining crop pollinators can be reconciled if key plant species of different target groups are simultaneously available. This availability is facilitated by a high floral resource complementarity in the plant community. The list of identified key resource plant species we provide here can help practitioners such as land managers and conservationists to better design and evaluate pollinator conservation and restoration measures according to their goals. Our findings highlight the importance of identifying and promoting such plant species for pollinator conservation in agricultural landscapes.
Supporting emergent literacy for English language learners with computer‐assisted instruction
Authors: Cassady Jerrell C. , Smith Lawrence L. , Thomas Christopher L. 
Published: March 2017

The growing number of students whose primary language does not match the language of their schools and a steadily growing performance gap has prompted widespread attention to support emergent literacy gains for those students. This study randomly assigned schools in a Southwestern U.S. state with English language learners (ELLs) in kindergarten and first grade to an experimental computer‐assisted instruction (CAI) condition or a ‘business as usual’ control. The study tracked ELLs performance over one academic year using a nationally normed standardised reading test. The results demonstrated first‐grade students in the experimental condition demonstrated greater gains compared with the control students in the domains of vocabulary, phonics, phonological awareness and text comprehension. Gains for kindergarten were less consistent; however, the lowest language proficient students using CAI experienced greater gains in vocabulary when compared with controls. Results extend prior studies targeting ELL students' reading skill development with targeted CAI interventions.What is already known about this topic

English language learners (ELLs) face additional struggles in gaining literacy proficiency in the early grades.
Computer‐assisted instruction (CAI) programs support learning for non‐ELLs, provided the instructional materials target specific literacy needs directly.
Efficacy of CAIs (and any instructional program) is dependent upon the match between learner needs, classroom curriculum and programmatic features.
What this paper adds

Large randomised control trial testing the effects of a CAI on ELL literacy development in kindergarten and first‐grade students.
Measures of progressive learner development in critical literacy skills using a nationally normed measure of reading achievement.
Explicit attention to the levels of language proficiency intersecting with the use of the CAI to identify interaction effects
Implications for theory, policy or practice

Computer‐assisted instruction support for second language learners can be effective for targeted literacy gains, provided the program materials support critical literacy needs.
Use of CAI may be instrumental to support emergent literacy given the ability to capitalise on the proposed pedagogical interventions for second language learners.
Stress the importance of maintaining attention to the existing language skills of second language learners when examining the efficacy of literacy interventions.
‘No Condition IS Permanent': Informal Transport Workers and Labour Precarity in Africa's Largest City
Authors: Agbiboa Daniel E. 
Published: March 2017

AbstractThis article pieces together an understanding of everyday life grounded in the social imagination and everyday experiences of informal transport workers (ITWs) in Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital and Africa's largest city. The article has two core objectives: to elevate the everyday practices of ITWs to the status of a critical concept in order to advance a sociology of everyday life, and to ground these practices on the precarious rhythm of everyday life as lived by people with the experience of radical uncertainty. By using crisis as a context of action and meaning, the article shows how uncertainty serves as a social resource that ITWs leverage to negotiate the precarious nature of everyday life and to make the most of their time. This foregrounding of uncertainty enhances our hitherto tenuous grasp of labour precarity, informal agency and the everyday struggle for survival in Africa's informal transport sector.
Almond Polyphenols: Methods of Analysis, Contribution to Food Quality, and Health Promotion
Authors: Bolling Bradley W. 
Published: March 2017

AbstractAlmond is a nutrient‐dense tree nut recognized for its favorable lipid profile, vitamin E content, and polyphenols. The objectives of this review were to determine the polyphenols reported in almond, summarize the methods of analysis, and determine the polyphenol contribution to almond quality and health‐promoting activity. Approximately 130 different polyphenols have been identified in almond, although not all of these have been quantitated. The mean and 25% to 75% percentile contents reported in literature were 162 mg (67.1 to 257) proanthocyanidins (dimers or larger), 82.1 mg (72.9 to 91.5) hydrolysable tannins, 61.2 mg (13.0 to 93.8) flavonoids (non‐isoflavone), 5.5 mg (5.2 to 12) phenolic acids and aldehydes, and 0.7 mg (0.5 to 0.9) isoflavones, stilbenes, and lignans per 100 g almond. Following solvent extraction of almond, hydrolysis of the residue liberates additional proanthocyanidins, phenolic acids and aldehydes, and total phenols. Blanching and skin removal consistently reduces almond polyphenol content, but blanch water and almond skins retain enough polyphenols to be used as antimicrobial and antioxidant ingredients. Roasting and pasteurization have inconsistent effects on almond polyphenols. Almond polyphenols contribute to shelf life by inhibiting lipid oxidation and providing pigmentation, flavor, astringency, and antimicrobial activity. The health‐promoting activity of whole almonds has been widely investigated, but few have considered the contribution of polyphenols. Preclinical studies of polyphenol‐rich almond skin or almond extracts suggest putative effects on antioxidant function, detoxification, antiviral activity, anti‐inflammatory function, and topical use for inhibiting ultraviolet A damage. Therefore, almond has a diverse polyphenol profile contributing to both its food quality and health‐promoting actions.
Effect of Freezing Rate and Microwave Thawing on Texture and Microstructural Properties of Potato (Solanum tuberosum)
Authors: Phinney David M. , Frelka John C. , Wickramasinghe Anita , Heldman Dennis R. 
Published: March 2017

AbstractFood freezing is a preservation process that works by lowering temperature while simultaneously decreasing water activity. It is accepted that although freezing preserves foods, it generally has a negative effect on textural quality. This research investigated the texture response of potatoes (Solanum tuberosum) as a function of time to freeze (defined as the time for the center temperature to reach −20 °C) and thawing process. Potatoes slices (6 mm) were blanched then frozen in an ethanol/carbon dioxide bath, a pilot scale high velocity air freezer (HVAF) and a still air freezer to achieve various times to freeze. Slices were stabilized at –20 °C and thawed by 2 methods; room temperature air and microwave. Afterwards, samples were allowed to come to room temperature prior to texture profile analysis (TPA). Results indicate a maximum texture loss of the potato was reached at a time to freeze of approximately 8 min (corresponding to the HVAF). The texture difference between room temperature and microwave thawing methods was not shown to be significant (P = 0.05). SEM images showed the cellular structure of the potato in a HVAF to be similar to that of the still air freezer, validating that the matrix was maximally damaged in both conditions. This work created a continuous quality loss model for the potato as a function of time to freeze and showed no textural benefit to high velocity over still air freezing.
Water Prism: A Tool to Assess Water Availability Risk and Investigate Water Management Strategies
Authors: Weintraub Laura H.Z. , Tao Hua , Redder Todd M. 
Published: March 2017

AbstractWater availability risk is a local issue best understood with watershed‐scale quantification of both withdrawal and consumptive demands in the context of available supply. Collectively, all water use sectors must identify, understand, and respond to this risk. A highly visual and computationally robust decision support tool, Water Prism, quantitatively explores mitigation responses to water risk on both a facility‐level and basin‐aggregated basis. Water Prism examines a basin water balance for a 40‐ to 60‐year planning horizon, distinguishes among water use sectors, and accounts for ecosystem water needs. The 2012 Texas State Water Plan was used to apply Water Prism to the Big Cypress‐Sulphur Basin (Texas). The case study showed Water Prism to be an accurate and convenient tool to provide fine‐scale understanding of water use in the context of available supply, evaluate multi‐sector combinations of conservation strategies, and quantify the effects of future demands and water availability. Analyses demonstrated water availability risks for rivers and reservoirs can vary within a basin and must be calculated independently, simulation of water balance conditions can help illuminate potential impacts of increasing demands, and scenario simulations can be used to evaluate relative conservation efficacy of different water resource management strategies for each sector. Based on case study findings, Water Prism can serve as a useful assessment tool for regional water planners.
Soft tissue infections from fish spike wounds: normal commensal bacteria are more common than marine pathogens
Authors: Collins Hannah , Lee Kin Mun , Cheng Paul T.‐Y. , Hulme Sarah 
Published: March 2017

BackgroundA fish spike injury can be sustained by anyone handling fish; during fishing, meal preparation or in retail. Case reports of fish spikes inoculating victims with virulent marine‐specific pathogens and causing systemic illness led us to question whether empirical treatment of these injuries with amoxicillin and clavulanic acid is adequate.MethodsThis 2‐year prospective observational study was conducted at Middlemore Hospital, Auckland, New Zealand. Wound swabs and tissue samples belonging to patients presenting to the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery with an upper limb fish spike injury were sent to the laboratory (n = 60). A series of stains and cultures were performed to look specifically for marine bacteria not typically isolated in other soft tissue injuries. Patient demographic data and injury details were collected.ResultsOf the patients with adequate microbiology samples, 12% (6/50) grew clinically relevant bacteria resistant to amoxicillin and clavulanic acid. These included methicillin‐resistant Staphylococcus aureus (8%, 4/50), Enterobacter cloacae (2%, 1/50) and an anaerobic sporing bacillus (2%, 1/50). Only one patient grew a true marine‐specific bacteria, Photobacterium damselae, which was susceptible to amoxicillin and clavulanic acid.ConclusionThe authors concluded that amoxicillin and clavulanic acid is an adequate first‐line antibiotic for fish spike injuries but that flucloxacillin may be more appropriate given most bacteria were from patients’ own skin flora. The authors suggest that clinicians consider the presence of resistant marine‐specific bacteria in cases where there is sepsis or inadequate response to initial therapy.