bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Construction contracts with conversion capability: a way forward
Authors: Carmichael David G. , Karantonis John P. 
Published: July 2015

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to explore the role and viability of changing contract terms as a project progresses and to offer an original analysis in this respect. Commonly, projects start out with broadly defined information, and this gets refined as the project progresses. This suggests that a prudent approach would be to tailor the contract between the project owner and the project contractor to the project stage, with conversions along the way. Information asymmetry between owner and contractor also suggests the need to tailor a contract to a project
'
s situation.

Design/methodology/approach
– An original method of analysis of the conversion of contract terms within projects is given, along with discussion on the risk transfer between owner and contractor, the common law issues associated with implementing such conversions, any compensation that the owner might need to pay, the timing of the conversion and associated practical implementation issues. The paper, for definiteness, concentrates on construction contracts with conversion between payment types, but the paper’s approach applies to all contracts and all terms within contracts.

Findings
– The paper provides a readily usable method for analysing the value of having a convertible contract, couched within acceptable common law practice.

Practical implications
– The paper offers a novel method and framework usable by practitioners for establishing the value of convertibility within a contract. Having convertibility within a contract can be shown to offer benefits to both contracting parties.

Originality/value
– The idea of having flexible contracts is not new, but, hitherto, a rational method of analysing their value has been missing. This paper gives an original analysis of contracts with conversion capabilities. Current literature does not deal directly with the matter addressed in the paper.
Broadband, digital literacy and public libraries: the Mill Park story
Authors: Rolan Greg , Denison Tom , Mackenzie Christine 
Published: July 2015

Purpose
– The paper aims to present the results of a research project designed to explore the impact of the establishment and operation of a broadband enabled digital training facility at the Mill Park public library, focusing on the role of public libraries in both engaging and educating local communities and exploring issues related to the provision of training through public libraries, benefits or problems in doing so and the relationship to new and existing services.

Design/methodology/approach
– The paper takes a case study approach, following the development of the training program and changes implemented throughout the first two years of operation.

Findings
– The Mill Park Library has successfully met, if not exceeded, the goals of promoting broadband services, up-skilling the community and promoting digital readiness within it local community. Both directly and through partnerships with other organisations and schools, it has not only addressed the needs of community members but also engaged them more fully with the library’s other services.

Practical implications
– The paper offers insight into the value of strong community-based networks in supporting the successful design and implementation of information and communication technology (ICT)-related training programs.

Originality/value
– The paper offers insight into the value of strong community-based networks in supporting the successful design and implementation of ICT-related training programs.
Personal Digital Archiving Conference, New York University, April 24-26, 2015
Authors: Gasparotto Melissa 
Published: July 2015

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of presentations and discussions held at the sixth Personal Digital Archiving Conference held at New York University, April 24-26, 2015.

Design/methodology/approach
– A narrative approach is used to describe the event.

Findings
– As individuals lead increasingly online lives and digital objects become correspondingly important to the archive, a whole host of issues from the technical to the ethical arises. Conference presentations ran the gamut, touching on all of these complicated areas and fleshing out the scope of the challenges that lie ahead for individuals grappling with their own data as well as archivists working to be responsible stewards of that data into the future.

Practical implications
– This review touches on key practical, technical and ethical issues in the field of personal digital archiving, a new and increasingly important area for libraries and archives.

Originality/value
– The conference explores current challenges and practices in personal digital archiving.
CSR disclosures in the banking industry. Empirical evidence from Poland
Authors: Krasodomska Joanna 
Published: July 2015

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of the concepts of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in banks and integrated reporting, a review of the literature on the subject and the author’s own research results. The author’s research was designed to identify information on CSR included in the management commentaries of selected banks operating in Poland and to evaluate the disclosures with regard to their quality, diversity and the ways they change over time.

Design/methodology/approach
– The author formulates three hypotheses relating to the social and environmental disclosures and verifies them using a disclosure index approach based on the analysis of 84 management commentaries of 12 banks operating in Poland in 2005-2011.

Findings
– Banks tend to include CSR disclosures in the management commentary. They present CSR information in a diverse manner, focusing mainly on community involvement. The quality of CSR disclosures in 2011 was higher as compared with 2005. None of the banks in the sample produced integrated reports.

Research limitations/implications
– The study concentrates on CSR disclosures only in management commentaries and relies on the review of information presented by a limited number of banks.

Originality/value
– The study contributes to the scarce literature on social responsibility disclosures by financial institutions in Central and Eastern Europe; it also discusses a new integrated reporting model.
Corporate ownership and company performance: a study of Malaysian listed companies
Authors: Fauzi Hasan , Musallam Sami R.M. 
Published: July 2015

Purpose– This study aims to examine the effects of corporate ownership (government-linked investment companies, GLICs), linearity of GLICs, board ownership and linearity of board ownership on company performance.Design/methodology/approach– Using panel data from companies that are listed on the Malaysian Stock Exchange during the period of 2000 to 2009, this study uses weighted least square models.Findings– The results show that GLICs ownership is positively and significantly related to company performance, while board ownership is negatively and significantly related to company performance. These findings suggest that GLICs ownership improves company performance, while board ownership destroys company performance. The results also show that while GLICs ownership has an inverted U-shaped relationship with company performance, board ownership has a U-shaped relationship with company performance.Research limitations/implications– The theoretical implication of this study is that agency problem decreases in companies with low and high levels of board ownership concentration, while it increases in companies with middle level of board ownership concentration. Furthermore, agency cost decreases in companies with a certain level of GLICs ownership concentration as the government’s New Economic Model (NEM) expects. However, agency cost increases in companies after a certain level of GLICs ownership concentration.Practical implications– In practical perspectives, this study provides evidence to policy makers that the government’s proposal to reduce GLICs’ investments in Malaysia and diversify them aboard as mentioned in NEM is supported because the decrease in GLICs stakes in certain level may increase company performance. On the other hand, if the policy of the government is to increase GLICs stakes, the company performance may decrease after a certain level of ownership concentration. This study also provides evidence that investors can invest in companies with low and high board ownership concentration. Furthermore, the NEM policy gives investors an opportunity to invest in the companies with GLICs. Reducing GLICs stakes in the Malaysian market and putting them in the international markets, as mentioned in the Malaysian Government’s NEM policy, will create more opportunities for international investors to invest their fund in the Malaysian market. Thus, the emerging markets exist. In addition, the NEM policy also encourages institutional ownerships like domestic and foreign to increase their stakes instead of GLICs in the Malaysian market.Originality/value– So far, most of the previous studies on GLICs and board ownerships in the Malaysian setting focused on the relationship of the ownership structure with company performance. However, no study has been done to examine the linearity effects of GLICs and board ownerships on company performance. The study is very important to perform to provide the policy makers and investors with clear guidance before their decisions.
Water-related mutual funds: investment performance and social role
Authors: Alvarez Marta , Rodríguez Javier 
Published: July 2015

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to examine the performance and diversification value of water-related funds. As pollution, climate change and accelerated population growth threaten water resources worldwide, such resources have become a sought-after asset. For most investors, it is impractical to physically hold water as part of a portfolio; therefore, an open question is how to better gain exposure to this asset. The authors propose a look at water-related mutual funds, an issue not found addressed in the literature. In addition to the investment potential of these funds, investors might be drawn to them as part of a more comprehensive socially responsible agenda.

Design/methodology/approach
– In the present study, the authors identify and measure the risk-adjusted performance and diversification value of open-end funds dedicated to investments in water-related securities. Jensen’s alpha is used to measure risk-adjusted performance, whereas diversification value is examined by implementing a methodology widely used in the mutual fund literature.

Findings
– Consistent with previous studies on the performance of ethical or socially responsible mutual funds, the authors found that their sample of water-related mutual funds neither outperform nor underperform two benchmarks. However, the authors also found that they offer potential diversification gains for international mutual funds’ portfolios.

Research limitations/implications
– Open-end water-related mutual funds have only been recently created, and currently, very few funds are available to investors. These facts limit the sample size and the length of the return series examined.

Originality/value
– The authors have not found a paper that examines the performance and diversification value of water-related mutual funds. These funds present themselves as a practical way for individual investors to gain exposure to the commodity of water.
Leveraging big-data for business process analytics
Authors: Vera-Baquero Alejandro , Colomo Palacios Ricardo , Stantchev Vladimir , Molloy Owen 
Published: July 2015

Purpose
– This paper aims to present a solution that enables organizations to monitor and analyse the performance of their business processes by means of Big Data technology. Business process improvement can drastically influence in the profit of corporations and helps them to remain viable. However, the use of traditional Business Intelligence systems is not sufficient to meet today
'
s business needs. They normally are business domain-specific and have not been sufficiently process-aware to support the needs of process improvement-type activities, especially on large and complex supply chains, where it entails integrating, monitoring and analysing a vast amount of dispersed event logs, with no structure, and produced on a variety of heterogeneous environments. This paper tackles this variability by devising different Big-Data-based approaches that aim to gain visibility into process performance.

Design/methodology/approach
– Authors present a cloud-based solution that leverages (BD) technology to provide essential insights into business process improvement. The proposed solution is aimed at measuring and improving overall business performance, especially in very large and complex cross-organisational business processes, where this type of visibility is hard to achieve across heterogeneous systems.

Findings
– Three different (BD) approaches have been undertaken based on Hadoop and HBase. We introduced first, a map-reduce approach that it is suitable for batch processing and presents a very high scalability. Secondly, we have described an alternative solution by integrating the proposed system with Impala. This approach has significant improvements in respect with map reduce as it is focused on performing real-time queries over HBase. Finally, the use of secondary indexes has been also proposed with the aim of enabling immediate access to event instances for correlation in detriment of high duplication storage and synchronization issues. This approach has produced remarkable results in two real functional environments presented in the paper.

Originality/value
– The value of the contribution relies on the comparison and integration of software packages towards an integrated solution that is aimed to be adopted by industry. Apart from that, in this paper, authors illustrate the deployment of the architecture in two different settings.
Live fast, die old: no evidence of reproductive senescence or costs of mating in a damselfly (Odonata: Zygoptera)
Authors: Hassall Christopher , Sherratt Thomas N. , Watts Phillip C. , Thompson David J. 
Published: July 2015

Summary

Recent examples of actuarial senescence in wild insect populations have challenged the long‐held assumption that the brevity of wild insect life spans precludes senescence.

We investigate age‐related patterns in mating behaviour in adults of a short‐lived damselfly, Coenagrion puella and the implications of this mating. Using capture histories for 1033 individuals over two field seasons, we conduct both pooled and stratified analyses of variations in breeding activity.

Pooled analyses suggest that there is strong age‐related variation in the probability of being present at the mating rendezvous. However, no age‐related variation was observed in the probability of mating. Stratified approaches confirmed a general pattern of age‐related declines in survival probability, but provided only equivocal evidence of an effect of age on transition between temporary breeding states. Mating males and females showed greater survival than non‐mating individuals, possibly as a consequence of higher body condition. Older males that were not currently breeding were less likely to commence breeding on the next day, but showed no patterns in breeding cessation. Overall, transitions between both breeding states declined with age, suggesting that males that breed tend to continue breeding while those that do not breed continue to be unsuccessful. Female mating rates were consistently high across all ages with no age‐related decline apparent.

While previous research has demonstrated actuarial senescence in this population, as does this study, we find little evidence of either age‐related declines in reproductive behaviour or breeding‐related declines in survival, which might indicate functional senescence or costs of mating, respectively. Indeed, the greater survival in mating individuals of both sexes suggests that variations in individual quality may mediate both reproductive success and longevity.

Contrary to recent studies, we found no compelling evidence for reproductive senescence or a cost of mating in an important and well‐studied model odonate. The possible link between condition and ageing suggests that individual quality needs to be taken into account when studying senescence. We recommend the use of multistrata models for the future investigation of these phenomena.
Pelvic nerve injury negatively impacts female genital blood flow and induces vaginal fibrosis—implications for human nerve‐sparing radical hysterectomy
Authors: Castiglione F , Bergamini A , Albersen M , Hannan JL , Bivalacqua TJ , Bettiga A , Benigni F , Salonia A , Montorsi F , Hedlund P 
Published: July 2015

ObjectiveThis study sought to develop a novel animal model to study the impact of nerve‐sparing radical hysterectomy (NSRH) on female genital blood flow.DesignIn vivo animal study.PopulationThirty Sprague‐Dawley female rats.Materials and methodsFemale rats underwent either unilateral pelvic nerve (PN) crush (PNC; n = 9), or crush of both the PNs and all efferent nerves in the pelvic plexus (‘clock‐nerve crush’, CNC; n = 9). Under anaesthesia, we electrically stimulated the crushed PN at 3 and 10 days after crush while monitoring blood pressure and recording clitoral and vaginal blood flows by laser Doppler. Uninjured PNs were stimulated as an internal control. Twelve additional rats were assigned either to bilateral PNC or sham surgery, and genital tissues were processed 10 days after injury for in vitro analysis.Main outcome measuresGenital blood flow, nNOS, eNOS, collagen I‐III.ResultsStimulation of the crushed PN in both groups subjected to PNC and CNC induced significantly lower peak genital blood flow at 3 and 10 days (P < 0.05) compared to stimulation of the non‐crushed control PN. The immunofluorescence and Western blot analyses revealed that all injured rats exhibited more vaginal collagen III and collagen I than rats did that ad undergone sham surgeries (P < 0.05). PCN reduced nNOS expression in both clitoral and vaginal tissue.ConclusionsBased on our study it may be hypothesised that NSRH might cause reductions of genital blood flow and vaginal fibrosis due to neurapraxia of the pelvic nerve and reductions of nNOS nerve fibres in clitoral and distal vaginal tissue.Tweetable AbstractPelvic nerve neurapraxia during nerve‐sparing radical hysterectomy could lead to sexual arousal dysfunction.
Disrupted white matter structural connectivity in heroin abusers
Authors: Sun Yan , Wang Gui‐Bin , Lin Qi‐Xiang , Lu Lin , Shu Ni , Meng Shi‐Qiu , Wang Jun , Han Hong‐Bin , He Yong , Shi Jie 
Published: July 2015

AbstractNeurocognitive impairment is one of the factors that put heroin abusers at greater risk for relapse, and deficits in related functional brain connections have been found. However, the alterations in structural brain connections that may underlie these functional and neurocognitive impairments remain largely unknown. In the present study, we investigated topological organization alterations in the structural network of white matter in heroin abusers and examined the relationships between the network changes and clinical measures. We acquired diffusion tensor imaging datasets from 76 heroin abusers and 78 healthy controls. Network‐based statistic was applied to identify alterations in interregional white matter connectivity, and graph theory methods were used to analyze the properties of global networks. The participants also completed a battery of neurocognitive measures. One increased subnetwork characterizing widespread abnormalities in structural connectivity was present in heroin users, which mainly composed of default‐mode, attentional and visual systems. The connection strength was positively correlated with increases in fractional anisotropy in heroin abusers. Intriguingly, the changes in within‐frontal and within‐temporal connections in heroin abusers were significantly correlated with daily heroin dosage and impulsivity scores, respectively. These findings suggest that heroin abusers have extensive abnormal white matter connectivity, which may mediate the relationship between heroin dependence and clinical measures. The increase in white matter connectivity may be attributable to the inefficient microstructure integrity of white matter. The present findings extend our understanding of cerebral structural disruptions that underlie neurocognitive and functional deficits in heroin addiction and provide circuit‐level markers for this chronic disorder.
Changing the protocol for gestational diabetes mellitus screening
Authors: Ng Dora , Beckmann Michael , Mcintyre Harold David , Wilkinson Shelley A 
Published: July 2015

BackgroundGestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) affects 5–8% of pregnant women in Australia and is linked to adverse maternal and neonatal outcomes. Earlier diagnosis and treatment has been suggested to improve these outcomes.AimTo describe the experience of a change in GDM screening policy at a large tertiary hospital.Materials and MethodsA 6‐month audit was performed following a policy change involving introduction of screening for all women early in pregnancy (by either random blood glucose level (BGL) or oral glucose tolerance testing (OGTT), depending on their perceived risk of developing GDM), followed by universal OGTT at 26–28 weeks' gestation. The prevalence of GDM (including changes expected from new Australasian Diabetes in Pregnancy Society (ADIPS) criteria), maternal and neonatal outcomes and adherence to new screening policy are reported.ResultsThe prevalence of GDM was 7.9% (1.6% early, 6.3% later diagnoses). More women with early diagnoses required insulin. Early testing with random BGL for low‐risk women only identified 1.7% of those with GDM. Early OGTT for high‐risk women identified 24.9% of GDM diagnoses. Adherence to the new screening protocol was generally poor, with 26% adherence at booking, 64% at 26 weeks' gestation and 27% with unknown GDM status.ConclusionsWhile early testing with OGTT for high‐risk women may be helpful, the value of early testing with random BGL for low‐risk women is questionable. The new ADIPS criteria are likely to increase the number of women diagnosed with GDM (with an emphasis on earlier diagnosis), but the absolute increase remains small.
Interventions to improve breastfeeding outcomes: a systematic review and meta‐analysis
Authors: Sinha Bireshwar , Chowdhury Ranadip , Sankar M Jeeva , Martines Jose , Taneja Sunita , Mazumder Sarmila , Rollins Nigel , Bahl Rajiv , Bhandari Nita 
Published: July 2015

AbstractAimTo provide comprehensive evidence of the effect of interventions on early initiation, exclusive, continued and any breastfeeding rates when delivered in five settings: (i) Health systems and services (ii) Home and family environment (iii) Community environment (iv) Work environment (v) Policy environment or a combination of any of above.MethodsOf 23977 titles identified through a systematic literature search in PUBMED, Cochrane and CABI, 195 articles relevant to our objective, were included. We reported the pooled relative risk and corresponding 95% confidence intervals as our outcome estimate. In cases of high heterogeneity, we explored its causes by subgroup analysis and meta‐regression and applied random effects model.ResultsIntervention delivery in combination of settings seemed to have higher improvements in breastfeeding rates. Greatest improvements in early initiation of breastfeeding, exclusive breastfeeding and continued breastfeeding rates, were seen when counselling or education were provided concurrently in home and community, health systems and community, health systems and home settings, respectively. Baby friendly hospital support at health system was the most effective intervention to improve rates of any breastfeeding.ConclusionTo promote breastfeeding, interventions should be delivered in a combination of settings by involving health systems, home and family and the community environment concurrently.