bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Social capital and global mindset
Authors: Mikhaylov Natalie S. , Fierro Isidro 
Published: April 2015

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to explore the process of development of cultural knowledge and cosmopolitan identities among international management students in multicultural learning environments and to investigate how international business students develop global mindset during their studies.Design/methodology/approach– A comparative analysis was conducted within four undergraduate management and business administration programs in international higher educational institutions, based on constructivist grounded theory methodology. The empirical study is grounded in data that were collected from triangulated multiple sources: qualitative semi-structured interviews with students, faculty and student services professional (n= 95) from 23 countries, participant observation in four programs and document reviews, and were analyzed using the dimensional analysis.Findings– The study presents a global mindset development process model, which takes into the account social capital of the learners, as well as the existing and emergent social ties.Practical implications– The paper provides tentative recommendations for the steps that management educational programs and multinational companies can take to promote an environment conductive for cultural knowledge exchange.Originality/value– The paper presents the development of global mindset as a social learning process; in particular, it addresses the role social capital plays in knowledge generation and sharing in multicultural learning environment. It contributes to the understanding of cultural knowledge development in social networks. Additionally, the paper examines the feasibility of development of global mindset in international higher educational.
Improving the ability of qualitative assessments to discriminate student achievement levels
Authors: Mok Jeffrey Chi Hoe , Toh Anita Ann Lee 
Published: April 2015

Purpose
– This paper aims to investigate the use of blind marking to increase the ability of criterion-referenced marking to discriminate students’ varied levels of knowledge and skill mastery in a business communication skills course.

Design/methodology/approach
– The business communication course in this study involved more than 10 teachers and 350 students each semester. Data were collected from four semesters of assignment grades to compare the distribution of grades in semesters that used blind marking and in the one that did not (the control group). The standard deviations of marks for each assignment were calculated and compared.

Findings
– Findings show that blind marking contributed to a wider spread of marks. The study concludes that blind marking, when implemented together with criterion-referenced marking rubrics, can improve the ability of qualitative assessments to discriminate student achievement levels.

Originality/value
– Research in the use of criterion-referenced marking rubrics has revealed that assessing with marking rubrics resulted in a wider range of marks awarded because assessors felt that the rubrics helped them make more objective judgments of students’ work (Kuisma, 1999). By this token, it could be argued that because blind marking allows more objective judgment of students’ work (by reducing rater bias), it seems to reason that marks might be awarded on a wider range of the marking scale. However, current literature on blind marking and grade/mark dispersion has yet to reveal a study on whether blind marking is able to increase the spread of marks, and therefore, indicate that an assessment instrument is effective is discriminating a range of student achievement levels. This paper should add to the current research on higher quality of educational assessments.
Manuscript libraries and archival description in the Caribbean
Authors: Nero Lorraine M 
Published: April 2015

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to examine the indexing method used by Caribbean libraries to describe special collections and manuscripts.

Design/methodology/approach
– Various types of finding aids spanning 1960-2014 are used to show the pattern of descriptions adopted by the librarians. At the same time, the factors which have sustained the approach at national libraries and university libraries are highlighted.

Findings
– The paper concludes that while the indexing approach may be labour-intensive, this practice is perceived as developing a national and regional documentary heritage. The materials used for this study are primarily accessible to the public inclusive of published guides and online databases.

Originality/value
– The literature is replete with theories and cases from places such as the UK, the USA and Australia, this paper presents a perspective on the development of archival description in the Caribbean.
Service empathy
Authors: Fox Robert 
Published: April 2015

Purpose
– This column aims to advocate for taking an empathetic approach in the evaluation of patron-oriented digital services.

Design/methodology/approach
– This is a regular column with citations that the reader can use to investigate further.

Findings
– The column explores justification for this approach and how it fits into the larger evaluative picture. It then explores methods and tools that can be used to understand patron needs from a desirability-based approach.

Originality/value
– Design of effective online library services is becoming more nuanced by the need to understand patron needs from an insider’s perspective. Taking a more empathetic approach will greatly complement the standard objective metrics that libraries typically engage in when performing assessment on their services.
Product market competition and corporate investment decisions
Authors: Laksmana Indrarini , Yang Ya-wen 
Published: April 2015

Purpose
– The study aims to examine the association between product market competition and corporate investment decisions on, particularly, risk-taking and investment efficiency. Existing theoretical studies on whether product market competition mitigates or exacerbates agency problems are inconclusive. Prior research generally finds that competition constrains management opportunism in reporting operating performance. However, the association between product market competition and managerial investment decisions has largely been unexplored.

Design/methodology/approach
– The primary measure of product market competition is the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index. The authors use regression analysis to examine the association between corporate risk-taking and over-investment of free cash flow (FCF) (as dependent variables) and product market competition (as an independent variable).

Findings
– Using firm-year observations from 1990 to 2010, the authors find that competition encourages managers to invest in risky investment. They also find that competition disciplines management on its use of FCFs. Overall, their results provide support for the disciplining role of product market competition in management investment decisions. The results are robust after they control for shareholder activism and executive compensations.

Originality/value
– The paper contributes to the literature by providing evidence of the disciplining role of product market competition in management investment decisions. First, the results suggest that competition encourages managers to invest in risky investment. One potential explanation for the results is that competition reduces opportunities for resource diversion for management personal benefits and, in turn, decreases management risk aversion. Another explanation is that competition forces management to take more risks for the long-term survival of the company. Second, the results indicate that competition disciplines management on its use of FCFs. Although firms in highly competitive industries make investment decisions that are less conservative, they tend to avoid suboptimal investment decisions, such as over-investment of FCF, compared to their counterparts.
A study on the perception of POKM as the organizational knowledge sharing enabler
Authors: Angela Lee Siew Hoong , Lim Tong-Ming 
Published: April 2015

Purpose– The purpose of this study is to investigate the perception of knowledge workers on practice of knowledge management (POKM) as an organizational knowledge sharing enabler in an information technology shared services company to understand issues faced and provide recommendations on different technological characteristics of the system.Design/methodology/approach– The initial stage of the research involved a preliminary review of the existing knowledge management-related documents. This was followed by a top management interview to understand the organization’s business goals and knowledge management (KM) expectations. A total of 70 knowledge workers took part in the research activity. Twenty-five participants from nine departments took part in the preliminary interview, and 52 successful survey forms were collected from a total of 70 respondents. The entire investigation took close to nine months. Data compilation and research result analysis took about three months to complete.Findings– The outcomes of the research show that the quality of POKM is stable, easy to use and organization of the content is rated as good. However, POKM has poor response time and search capability. The content is found to be difficult to locate in the POKM but most participants agree that knowledge stored in the POKM is helpful, can be accessed anytime and anywhere and useful for their day-to-day job. As for the user interface, POKM is not very pleasant to use with a weak set of functions and features. For user satisfaction toward POKM, it is shown that users are not satisfied with the efficiency and effectiveness of the systems. However, employees generally are satisfied with the ease of access, download and reuse of knowledge contains in POKM. In term of perceived POKM benefits, users agree that POKM is an enabler for acquiring new knowledge and innovative ideas, managing and storing knowledge and accomplishing tasks more efficiently. Lastly, knowledge users agree that POKM functions enable knowledge networking, sharing and creation in the organization.Originality/value– POKM was launched and implemented for close to 10 years; however, the organization has failed to achieve some of the goals such as knowledge sharing among employees, creation of new skills and knowledge, measuring knowledge sharing activities and knowledge sharing strategy. The importance of this study is to understand and highlight the technological perspective of POKM from the knowledge workers. Findings will summarize issues faced by the case company for further action and remedy. The outcomes of the study also provide a comprehensive view and guideline to organizations who are interested to implement a KM system.
A critical examination of implementing government sponsored intellectual capital management and reporting programs for small and medium enterprises
Authors: Tee Jeok Inn Janice , Dumay John , Kokubu Katsuhiko 
Published: April 2015

Purpose
– This study aims to examine the impact of implementation of government-sponsored intellectual capital (IC) management and reporting (ICMR) programmes in Hong Kong and Japan for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) for the purpose of issuing an IC statement (ICS).

Design/methodology/approach
– The authors present a critical analysis using semi-structured interviews with employees and owners of Hong Kong and Japanese SMEs who participated in their respective government’s ICMR programmes and who published an ICS.

Findings
– The authors conclude that many enterprises did not achieve the full benefit of participating in the ICMR programme because consultants funded by the government prepared the ICS. Instead, consultants should take on more of a “missionary” role, educating enterprises about IC, rather than doing the work for them.

Research limitations/implications
– This research is restricted to enterprises that published one or more ICS. Future research should include enterprises participating in the ICMR programme that failed to publish an ICS.

Practical implications
– Enterprises that are able to utilise IC in their daily business routine will think IC is useful and continue using it. Conversely, those enterprises that relied on consultants to prepare the ICS will not understand its benefits.

Originality/value
– Policymakers should not solely concentrate on creating new IC reporting frameworks or guidelines for enterprises to follow because this focus limits the understanding of how enterprises can utilise IC concepts with the consequence that they may eventually give up on IC reporting.
The importance of spinner dolphin (Stenella longirostris) resting habitat: implications for management
Authors: Tyne Julian A. , Johnston David W. , Rankin Robert , Loneragan Neil R. , Bejder Lars 
Published: April 2015

Summary

Linking key ecological characteristics with animal behaviour is essential for identifying and protecting important habitats that support life functions. Spinner dolphins display a predictable diurnal behavioural pattern where they forage offshore at night and return to sheltered bays during daytime to rest. These bays, which are also subject to considerable use by humans, have long been recognized as key habitats for this species although the extent to which dolphins rely on specific characteristics of these habitats for rest has not been quantified.

An integration of boat‐based and land‐based group focal follow sampling regimes and three gradient boosting generalized additive models were developed to identify habitat features that contribute to the occurrence of resting spinner dolphins in coastal waters off Hawai'i Island. Two ‘in‐bay’ models used data collected within bays, and a third ‘coastal’ model (near‐shore, outside of bays) used data collected both inside and outside of bays.

The coastal model identified that spinner dolphins were unlikely to rest outside sheltered bays. In‐bay models showed that dolphins rested throughout daylight hours within bays with a peak resting period between 10.00 h to 14.00 h. The models also identified bottom‐substrate‐type as an important predictor of rest. Pseudo R2 values of 0·61 and 0·70 for the in‐bay models and 0·66 for the coastal model showed that these models provided a good fit to the behavioural data for the occurrence of resting spinner dolphins.

Synthesis and application. To date, studies evaluating spinner dolphin resting habitat have focussed on areas inside bays only. Here, we combined data collected inside and outside bays, and illustrate that should resting spinner dolphins be displaced from resting bays, they are unlikely to engage in resting behaviour elsewhere. Results provide further information on the importance of bays as important habitat for resting spinner dolphins. To mitigate the disturbance from human interactions during important rest periods, we recommend that management keep the spinner dolphin resting areas free from human activities. Our quantitative approach where models explicitly link behaviour with habitat characteristics is applicable to identify important habitats for protection of other taxa.
Partial recovery of a tropical rain forest a half‐century after clear‐cut and selective logging
Authors: Xu Han , Li Yide , Liu Shirong , Zang Runguo , He Fangliang , Spence John R. 
Published: April 2015

Summary

The extent to which tropical rain forests recover tree species richness, composition and community structure after clear‐cutting or selective harvest is controversial. Thus, the conservation value of forests regenerated after harvest remains unclear, but critically important for biodiversity.

We sampled trees from 164 25 × 25 m quadrats across a 160‐km2 tropical rain forest landscape on Hainan Island, China, which had been clear‐cut or selectively harvested and left to recover without management for up to 50 years. Species richness and species abundance distributions were compared among five successional categories to investigate changes in species richness and species abundance over time. Basal areas and three different species similarity indices were compared to reveal temporal changes in species composition and community structure.

Species richness recovered faster than species composition and structure in both selectively logged and clear‐cut forests. Both total number of species and number of rare species tended to increase from younger harvested forests through older harvested forests to old‐growth intact forests. Within 20–40 years after harvest species composition of harvested forests tended towards that of old‐growth forests, community similarity between harvested and old‐growth forests decreased subsequently and basal area did not recover, given even a half‐century of succession undisturbed by anthropogenic forces.

Shortly after harvest, pioneer species increased rapidly, but shade‐tolerant species required much more time to recover to former abundances. The shift from pioneer species to shade‐tolerant species indicates significant recovery of logged forests.

Selectively logged forests recovered more quickly and had higher conservation values than clear‐cut forests.

Synthesis and applications. Our findings indicate that logged tropical forests only partially recovered the characteristics of pre‐harvest, primary forest after a half‐century of succession. Recovery of the original tree biodiversity on such post‐harvest landscapes will be slow at best, if measured by species composition or stand structure. Our study amplifies the importance of conserving tropical forest integrity and developing harvest and management approaches that facilitate full recovery of logged tropical forests.
Protein transduction domain of transactivating transcriptional activator fused to outer membrane protein K of Vibrio parahaemolyticus to vaccinate marbled eels (Anguilla marmorata) confers protection against mortality caused by V. parahaemolyticus
Authors: Wang Hang , Yang Wei , Shen Guoying , Zhang Jianting , Lv Wei , Ji Binfeng , Meng Chun 
Published: April 2015

SummaryAlthough immersion and oral vaccination are the most practical methods for fish farmers, their applications are very limited due to low immune stimulation effect. We used the protein transduction domain (PTD) of transactivating transcriptional factor (TAT) derived from HIV TAT protein to increase the delivery efficiency of aquatic protein vaccines. Vibrio parahaemolyticus outer membrane protein K (ompK), a reported vaccine candidate for the prevention of V. parahaemolyticus infection, was fused with TAT‐PTD expressed in Escherichia coli. We found that PTD‐ompK fusion protein effectively penetrated into marbled eel bodies. Analysis of ompK antibody titres demonstrated that immersion vaccination with PTD‐ompK was superior to ompK alone and induced robust immune stimulation in marbled eels. Both active and passive protection analyses against immersive challenge with V. parahaemolyticus strains demonstrated that marbled eels immunized with PTD‐ompK survived significantly longer than those immunized with ompK alone. Our results indicated that TAT‐PTD could be served as is an efficient delivery system for aquatic immersion vaccinations against various infectious diseases commonly seen in aquatic farm industry.
Impact of enrichment conditions on cross‐species capture of fresh and degraded DNA
Authors: Paijmans Johanna L. A. , Fickel Joerns , Courtiol Alexandre , Hofreiter Michael , Förster Daniel W. 
Published: April 2015

AbstractBy combining high‐throughput sequencing with target enrichment (‘hybridization capture’), researchers are able to obtain molecular data from genomic regions of interest for projects that are otherwise constrained by sample quality (e.g. degraded and contamination‐rich samples) or a lack of a priori sequence information (e.g. studies on nonmodel species). Despite the use of hybridization capture in various fields of research for many years, the impact of enrichment conditions on capture success is not yet thoroughly understood. We evaluated the impact of a key parameter – hybridization temperature – on the capture success of mitochondrial genomes across the carnivoran family Felidae. Capture was carried out for a range of sample types (fresh, archival, ancient) with varying levels of sequence divergence between bait and target (i.e. across a range of species) using pools of individually indexed libraries on Agilent SureSelect™ arrays. Our results suggest that hybridization capture protocols require specific optimization for the sample type that is being investigated. Hybridization temperature affected the proportion of on‐target sequences following capture: for degraded samples, we obtained the best results with a hybridization temperature of 65 °C, while a touchdown approach (65 °C down to 50 °C) yielded the best results for fresh samples. Evaluation of capture performance at a regional scale (sliding window approach) revealed no significant improvement in the recovery of DNA fragments with high sequence divergence from the bait at any of the tested hybridization temperatures, suggesting that hybridization temperature may not be the critical parameter for the enrichment of divergent fragments.
Optimizing techniques to capture and extract environmental DNA for detection and quantification of fish
Authors: Eichmiller Jessica J. , Miller Loren M. , Sorensen Peter W. 
Published: April 2015

AbstractFew studies have examined capture and extraction methods for environmental DNA (eDNA) to identify techniques optimal for detection and quantification. In this study, precipitation, centrifugation and filtration eDNA capture methods and six commercially available DNA extraction kits were evaluated for their ability to detect and quantify common carp (Cyprinus carpio) mitochondrial DNA using quantitative PCR in a series of laboratory experiments. Filtration methods yielded the most carp eDNA, and a glass fibre (GF) filter performed better than a similar pore size polycarbonate (PC) filter. Smaller pore sized filters had higher regression slopes of biomass to eDNA, indicating that they were potentially more sensitive to changes in biomass. Comparison of DNA extraction kits showed that the MP Biomedicals FastDNA SPIN Kit yielded the most carp eDNA and was the most sensitive for detection purposes, despite minor inhibition. The MoBio PowerSoil DNA Isolation Kit had the lowest coefficient of variation in extraction efficiency between lake and well water and had no detectable inhibition, making it most suitable for comparisons across aquatic environments. Of the methods tested, we recommend using a 1.5 μm GF filter, followed by extraction with the MP Biomedicals FastDNA SPIN Kit for detection. For quantification of eDNA, filtration through a 0.2–0.6 μm pore size PC filter, followed by extraction with MoBio PowerSoil DNA Isolation Kit was optimal. These results are broadly applicable for laboratory studies on carps and potentially other cyprinids. The recommendations can also be used to inform choice of methodology for field studies.