bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
First Product Success: A Mediated Moderating Model of Resources, Founding Team Startup Experience, and Product‐Positioning Strategy
Authors: Zhao Y. Lisa , Libaers Dirk , Song Michael 
Published: October 2014

The success of the first product is of paramount importance for the future development of the new venture. Developing and launching a first product in the Chinese market is even more challenging than in a well‐developed market economy because of weak enforcement of intellectual property laws, a general consumer distrust of new products developed by Chinese firms, and the immediate threat of copycat.This article develops a mediated moderating model to examine first product success in Chinese new ventures, in which product‐positioning strategy (conceptualized as the degree of product differentiation) mediates the impacts of marketing resources, technical resources, and founding team startup experience on product success (conceptualized as timing of product launch and product market and financial performance). Furthermore, we argue that founding team startup experience moderates the impact of marketing and technical resources on building strong product‐positioning strategy.We test our conceptual model using a sample of 909 new products developed by 909 Chinese new ventures in a two‐step selection model. The empirical results provide important insight for new ventures' first product development. Product differentiation does not mediate the impact of marketing resource on product success; but it fully mediates the impact of technical resources on timing of product launch and partially mediates the impact of technical resources on product performance. Marketing resources have significant direct positive effects on both product performance and timing of product launch. Surprisingly, the impacts of marketing resources on product differentiation and product performance are negatively, not positively, moderated by founding team experience. When the founding team has nine years or less startup experience, an increase in marketing resources leads to a significant increase in product differentiation; and when the founding team has more than nine years of startup experience, an increase in marketing resources will not lead to an increase in product differentiation. The impact of marketing resources on product performance is smaller for founding teams with more prior startup experience than those with less prior startup experience. The impacts of technical resources are not moderated by founding team startup experience. Technical resources positively affect product market and financial performance directly as well as through its positive impacts on product differentiation. However, technical resources can negatively affect timing of the product launch because developing a highly differentiated produce can potentially delay the launch of the product. Therefore, new ventures have to be mindful in managing the available resources to succeed in the first product development.
Information Technology Tools in New Product Development: The Impact of Complementary Resources*,†
Authors: Kawakami Tomoko , Barczak Gloria , Durmuşoğlu Serdar S. 
Published: October 2014

Emergent research has examined the antecedents to using information technology (IT) in the new product development (NPD) process and the impact of IT on NPD performance. Based on the resource‐based view (RBV) of the firm, this study hypothesizes that particular resources create IT capabilities that significantly enhance NPD outcomes. More specifically, this research extends previous work by investigating whether three complementary resources, namely an executive champion for IT, global engagement, and organizational innovativeness, influence IT capabilities (IT use frequency and IT replacement frequency), which in turn affect NPD outcomes (NPD task proficiency and NPD performance).To test the conceptual model, survey data were collected from 220 NPD and IT managers in a variety of large Japanese firms. The results show that an executive champion for IT and global engagement are predictors of both IT tool use and replacement frequency while organizational innovativeness contributes only to IT tool replacement frequency. The results also indicate that both IT tool use and replacement frequency have a positive effect on NPD task proficiency, which improves NPD performance.This research contributes to the literature by adding understanding of the role of IT in NPD at the firm level in four ways. First, it examines particular organizational complementary resources and their relationship to IT capabilities. Second, it examines the RBV and IT in the context of NPD, an important business process. Third, it measures IT usage in a more granular fashion (i.e., IT tool use frequency and IT replacement frequency) rather than simply IT usage as a dichotomy. Finally, through testing the proposed model with data collected from Japanese firms, this study provides empirical evidence from an Asian country to answer the call for more NPD research to be conducted in countries other than North American and Western European contexts.The findings of the study also provide implications for managers. Importantly, they indicate that an executive level champion for IT is a key influencer in facilitating IT usage and replacement, and likely can help generate awareness of and support for greater IT investments so the firm can create IT capabilities for effective NPD.
Contemporary population structure and post‐glacial genetic demography in a migratory marine species, the blacknose shark, Carcharhinus acronotus
Authors: Portnoy D. S. , Hollenbeck C. M. , Belcher C. N. , Driggers W. B. , Frazier B. S. , Gelsleichter J. , Grubbs R. D. , Gold J. R. 
Published: October 2014

AbstractPatterns of population structure and historical genetic demography of blacknose sharks in the western North Atlantic Ocean were assessed using variation in nuclear‐encoded microsatellites and sequences of mitochondrial (mt)DNA. Significant heterogeneity and/or inferred barriers to gene flow, based on microsatellites and/or mtDNA, revealed the occurrence of five genetic populations localized to five geographic regions: the southeastern U.S Atlantic coast, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the western Gulf of Mexico, Bay of Campeche in the southern Gulf of Mexico and the Bahamas. Pairwise estimates of genetic divergence between sharks in the Bahamas and those in all other localities were more than an order of magnitude higher than between pairwise comparisons involving the other localities. Demographic modelling indicated that sharks in all five regions diverged after the last glacial maximum and, except for the Bahamas, experienced post‐glacial, population expansion. The patterns of genetic variation also suggest that the southern Gulf of Mexico may have served as a glacial refuge and source for the expansion. Results of the study demonstrate that barriers to gene flow and historical genetic demography contributed to contemporary patterns of population structure in a coastal migratory species living in an otherwise continuous marine habitat. The results also indicate that for many marine species, failure to properly characterize barriers in terms of levels of contemporary gene flow could in part be due to inferences based solely on equilibrium assumptions. This could lead to erroneous conclusions regarding levels of connectivity in species of conservation concern.
Strokes of Luck
Authors: Coffman E. J. 
Published: October 2014

AbstractThis essay aims to reorient current theorizing about luck as an aid to our discerning this concept's true philosophical significance. After introducing the literature's leading theories of luck, it presents and defends counterexamples to each of them. It then argues that recent luck theorists’ main target of analysis—the concept of an event's being lucky for a subject—is parasitic on the more fundamental notion of an event's being a stroke of luck for a subject, which thesis serves as at least a partial diagnosis of the leading theories’ failure. Next, it develops an analysis of strokes of luck that utilizes insights from the recent luck literature. Finally, having set out a comprehensive new analysis of luck—the Enriched Strokes Account of lucky events—the essay revisits the initial counterexamples to the literature's leading theories and argues that the Enriched Strokes Account properly handles all of them.
Frankfurt in Fake Barn Country
Authors: Levy Neil 
Published: October 2014

AbstractIt is very widely held that Frankfurt‐style cases—in which a counterfactual intervener stands by to bring it about that an agent performs an action but never actually acts because the agent performs that action on her own—show that free will does not require alternative possibilities. This essay argues that that conclusion is unjustified, because merely counterfactual interveners may make a difference to normative properties. It presents a modified version of a fake barn case to show how a counterfactual intervener can make the difference between an agent knowing a fact or merely truly believing that fact, by eliminating veretic epistemic luck. If counterfactual interveners can make this kind of difference to the epistemic status of agents, the essay argues, there is no reason why they can't make an analogous difference to agents' moral responsibility. It concludes that reflection on these cases reveals that despite the mountains of words spilled on the topic, we still don't fully understand what role access to alternative possibilities plays in whether or not agents are morally responsible for their actions.
Luck and Free Will
Authors: Mele Alfred R. 
Published: October 2014

AbstractThis essay sketches a problem about luck for typical incompatibilist views of free will posed inAlfredMele,Free Will and Luck(2006), and examines recent reactions to that problem. Reactions featuring appeals to agent causation receive special attention. Because the problem is focused on decision making, the control that agents have over what they decide is a central topic. Other topics discussed include the nature of lucky action and differences between directly and indirectly free actions.
Getting Moral Luck Right
Authors: Whittington Lee John 
Published: October 2014

AbstractMoral luck, until recently, has been understood either explicitly or implicitly through using a lack of control account of luck. For example, a case of resultant moral luck is a case where an agent is morally blameworthy or more morally blameworthy or praiseworthy for an outcome despite that outcome being significantly beyond that agent's control (Nagel 1993). Due to a shift in understanding the concept of luck itself in terms of modal robustness, however, other accounts of moral luck have surfaced. Both Duncan Pritchard (2006) and Julia Driver (2013) have offered an alternative way of understanding moral luck by employing versions of a modal account of luck. This essay considers some problems with these accounts and attempts to resolve them.
You Make Your Own Luck
Authors: McKinnon Rachel 
Published: October 2014

AbstractThis essay takes up two questions. First, what does it mean to say that someone creates her own luck? At least colloquially speaking, luck is conceived as something out of an agent's control. So how could an agent increase or decrease the likelihood that she'll be lucky? Building on some recent work on the metaphysics of luck, the essay argues that there is a sense in which agents can create their own luck because people with more skill tend to have more opportunities to benefit from luck. Second, what implications does this conception of luck have for related topics such as how we evaluate performances (like shooting an arrow), including coming to know something? The ubiquitous presence of luck in our actions is often underappreciated. The essay argues that when we combine an expected outcomes view of luck with a counterfactual view of causation, the distinction between environmental and intervening veritic luck seems to disappear. We need a more nuanced view of how luck sometimes undermines credit for success in agents' actions. The upshot of this view is that while luck may undermine the creditworthiness of an agent's success, it only partially undermines creditworthiness.
Altered expression of an RBP‐associated arginine methyltransferase 7 in Leishmania major affects parasite infection
Authors: Ferreira Tiago R. , Alves‐Ferreira Eliza V. C. , Defina Tania P. A. , Walrad Pegine , Papadopoulou Barbara , Cruz Angela K. 
Published: October 2014

SummaryProtein arginine methylation is a widely conserved post‐translational modification performed by arginine methyltransferases (PRMTs). However, its functional role in parasitic protozoa is still under‐explored. The Leishmania major genome encodes five PRMT homologs, including PRMT7. Here we show that LmjPRMT7 expression and arginine monomethylation are tightly regulated in a lifecycle stage‐dependent manner. LmjPRMT7 levels are higher during the early promastigote logarithmic phase, negligible at stationary and late‐stationary phases and rise once more post‐differentiation to intracellular amastigotes. Immunofluorescence and co‐immunoprecipitation studies demonstrate that LmjPRMT7 is a cytosolic protein associated with several RNA‐binding proteins (RBPs) from which Alba20 is monomethylated only in LmjPRMT7‐expressing promastigote stages. In addition, Alba20 protein levels are significantly altered in stationary promastigotes of the LmjPRMT7 knockout mutant. Considering RBPs are well‐known mammalian PRMT substrates, our data suggest that arginine methylation via LmjPRMT7 may modulate RBP function during Leishmania spp. lifecycle progression. Importantly, genomic deletion of the LmjPRMT7 gene leads to an increase in parasite infectivity both in vitro and in vivo, while lesion progression is significantly reduced in LmjPRMT7‐overexpressing parasites. This study is the first to describe a role of Leishmania protein arginine methylation in host–parasite interactions.
Spider mites suppress tomato defenses downstream of jasmonate and salicylate independently of hormonal crosstalk
Authors: Alba Juan M. , Schimmel Bernardus C. J. , Glas Joris J. , Ataide Livia M. S. , Pappas Maria L. , Villarroel Carlos A. , Schuurink Robert C. , Sabelis Maurice W. , Kant Merijn R. 
Published: October 2014

Summary

Plants respond to herbivory by mounting a defense. Some plant‐eating spider mites (Tetranychus spp.) have adapted to plant defenses to maintain a high reproductive performance. From natural populations we selected three spider mite strains from two species, Tetranychus urticae and Tetranychus evansi, that can suppress plant defenses, using a fourth defense‐inducing strain as a benchmark, to assess to which extent these strains suppress defenses differently.

We characterized timing and magnitude of phytohormone accumulation and defense‐gene expression, and determined if mites that cannot suppress defenses benefit from sharing a leaf with suppressors.

The nonsuppressor strain induced a mixture of jasmonate‐ (JA) and salicylate (SA)‐dependent defenses. Induced defense genes separated into three groups: ‘early’ (expression peak at 1 d postinfestation (dpi)); ‘intermediate’ (4 dpi); and ‘late’, whose expression increased until the leaf died. The T. evansi strains suppressed genes from all three groups, but the T. urticae strain only suppressed the late ones. Suppression occurred downstream of JA and SA accumulation, independently of the JA–SA antagonism, and was powerful enough to boost the reproductive performance of nonsuppressors up to 45%.

Our results show that suppressing defenses not only brings benefits but, within herbivore communities, can also generate a considerable ecological cost when promoting the population growth of a competitor.
Host diversity affects the abundance of the extraradical arbuscular mycorrhizal network
Authors: Engelmoer Daniel J. P. , Kiers E. Toby 
Published: October 2014

Summary

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) can form complex networks in the soil that connect different host plants. Previous studies have focused on the effects of these networks on individual hosts and host communities. However, very little is known about how different host species affect the success of the fungal network itself.

Given the potentially strong selection pressure against hosts that invest in a fungal network which benefits their competitors, we predict that the presence of multiple host species negatively affects the growth of the extraradical network.

We designed an experiment using an in vitro culture approach to investigate the effect of different hosts (carrot, chichory and medicago) on the formation of a common mycelial network. In vitro root cultures, each inoculated with their own fungal network, were grown in a double split plate design with two host compartments and a common central compartment where fungal networks could form.

We found that the size of fungal networks differs depending on the social environment of the host. When host species were propagated in a mixed species environment, the fungal abundance was significantly reduced compared to monoculture predictions. Our work demonstrates how host‐to‐host conflict can influence the abundance of the fungal partner.
For the Rest of Asia, America Might Be a Friend, but China Cannot Be an Enemy
Authors: YEO GEORGE 
Published: October 2014

In 1990, right after the Berlin Wall fell, NPQ published our Spring edition, titled “The New World Disorder,” about the nationalistic chaos and up‐in‐theair sensibility of that fraught new historical moment.Nearly a quarter of a century later, the regime of globalization that had supplanted the Cold War world of blocs is itself coming apart at the seams. Even Henry Kissinger these days says “the world order is crumbling.”Will this New World Disorder 2.0 revert to a system of conflicting blocs, as during the Cold War, or will we be mature enough to save the interdependence of plural identities that is the foundation of a new global civilization?In this section our contributors offer their perspectives on what the future holds.
Will Erdogan's Victory Mark the Rise of Illiberal Democracy?
Authors: ALTINAY ALI HAKAN 
Published: October 2014

In 1990, right after the Berlin Wall fell, NPQ published our Spring edition, titled “The New World Disorder,” about the nationalistic chaos and up‐in‐theair sensibility of that fraught new historical moment.Nearly a quarter of a century later, the regime of globalization that had supplanted the Cold War world of blocs is itself coming apart at the seams. Even Henry Kissinger these days says “the world order is crumbling.”Will this New World Disorder 2.0 revert to a system of conflicting blocs, as during the Cold War, or will we be mature enough to save the interdependence of plural identities that is the foundation of a new global civilization?In this section our contributors offer their perspectives on what the future holds.
Electronic Interactions of Michler's Ketone with DNA Bases in Synthetic Hairpins
Authors: Jalilov Almaz S. , Young Ryan M. , Eaton Samuel W. , Wasielewski Michael R. , Lewis Frederick D. 
Published: October 2014

AbstractThe mechanism and dynamics of photoinduced electron transfer in two families of DNA hairpins possessing Michler's ketone linkers have been investigated by means of steady state and time‐resolved transient absorption and emission spectroscopies. The excited state behavior of the diol linker employed in hairpin synthesis is similar to that of Michler's ketone in methanol solution. Hairpins possessing only a Michler's ketone linker undergo fast singlet state charge separation and charge recombination with an adjacent purine base, attributed to well‐stacked ground state conformations, and intersystem crossing to the triplet state, attributed to poorly stacked ground state conformations. The failure of the triplet to undergo electron transfer reactions on the 7 ns time scale of our measurements is attributed to the low triplet energy and reduction potential of the twisted triplet state. Hairpins possessing both a Michler's ketone linker and a perylenediimide base surrogate separated by four base pairs undergo photoinduced hole transport from the diimide to Michler's ketone upon excitation of the diimide. The efficiency of hole transport is dependent upon the sequence of the intervening purine bases.
The type of competition modulates the ecophysiological response of grassland species to elevated CO2 and drought
Authors: Miranda‐Apodaca J. , Pérez‐López U. , Lacuesta M. , Mena‐Petite A. , Muñoz‐Rueda A. 
Published: October 2014

AbstractThe effects of elevated CO2 and drought on ecophysiological parameters in grassland species have been examined, but few studies have investigated the effect of competition on those parameters under climate change conditions. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of elevated CO2 and drought on the response of plant water relations, gas exchange, chlorophyll a fluorescence and aboveground biomass in four grassland species, as well as to assess whether the type of competition modulates that response. Elevated CO2 in well‐watered conditions increased aboveground biomass by augmenting CO2 assimilation. Drought reduced biomass by reducing CO2 assimilation rate via stomatal limitation and, when drought was more severe, also non‐stomatal limitation. When plants were grown under the combined conditions of elevated CO2 and drought, drought limitation observed under ambient CO2 was reduced, permitting higher CO2 assimilation and consequently reducing the observed decrease in aboveground biomass. The response to climate change was species‐specific and dependent on the type of competition. Thus, the response to elevated CO2 in well‐watered grasses was higher in monoculture than in mixture, while it was higher in mixture compared to monoculture for forbs. On the other hand, forbs were more affected than grasses by drought in monoculture, while in mixture the negative effect of drought was higher in grasses than in forbs, due to a lower capacity to acquire water and mineral nutrients. These differences in species‐level growth responses to CO2 and drought may lead to changes in the composition and biodiversity of the grassland plant community in future climate conditions.