bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Methods for discovering genomic loci exhibiting complex patterns of differential methylation
Authors: Hardcastle Thomas J 
Published: June 2015

AbstractCytosine methylation is widespread in most eukaryotic genomes and is known to play a substantial role in various regulatory pathways. Unmethylated cytosines may be converted to uracil through the addition of sodium bisulphite, allowing genome-wide quantification of cytosine methylation via high-throughput sequencing. The data thus acquired allows the discovery of methylation ‘loci’; contiguous regions of methylation consistently methylated across biological replicates. The mapping of these loci allows for associations with other genomic factors to be identified, and for analyses of differential methylation to take place.The segmentSeqRpackage is extended to identify methylation loci from high-throughput sequencing data from multiple experimental conditions. A statistical model is then developed that accounts for biological replication and variable rates of non-conversion of cytosines in each sample to compute posterior likelihoods of methylation at each locus within an empirical Bayesian framework. The same model is used as a basis for analysis of differential methylation between multiple experimental conditions with the baySeqRpackage. We demonstrate this method through an analysis of data derived from Dicer-like mutants inArabidopsisthat reveals complex interactions between the different Dicer-like mutants and their methylation pathways. We also show in simulation studies that this approach can be significantly more powerful in the detection of differential methylation than existing methods.
Do payday loans help the working poor?
Authors: Koku Paul Sergius , Jagpal Sharan 
Published: June 2015

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is twofold: to examine the plight of a particular segment of the poor – the working poor – in the USA relative to their exclusion from traditional financial markets and their patronage of the payday loan market; and to propose a framework that offers guidance to law makers in making laws/crafting policies that help the working poor gain better access to credit.Design/methodology/approach– This is a conceptual paper that reviews the literature on the payday loan market and uses its findings to propose a strategy to ameliorate the plight of the working poor.Findings– The study integrates the findings of studies on the payday loan market with theories of corporate social responsibility. Using these findings the authors develop a framework that can guide policy makers in making policies that address the exclusion of the working poor from financial markets.Research limitations/implications– As a conceptual paper based on theories, the study does not provide empirical validation. The paper develops a framework that could guide policy makers as they consider legislation to address the financial exclusion of the poor, particularly with regard to payday loans.Practical implications– The paper proposes a policy framework to solve the “debt treadmill” problems of the working poor.Social implications– The consequent improvement of the financial conditions of the working poor improves society in general.Originality/value– To the best of the knowledge, this is the first marketing paper that has proposed a structural framework to address the exclusion of the working poor from the credit markets.
Employee suggestion scheme sustainability excellence model and linking organizational learning
Authors: Lasrado Flevy , Arif M. , Rizvi Aftab 
Published: June 2015

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to propose a sustainability assessment model and to discuss the implications for organizational learning. Paper presents a sustainability excellence model comprising of three stages and discuss the good practices for sustaining the employee suggestion scheme.Design/methodology/approach– The assessment framework was developed drawing on a thorough review of the literature and data collected and analyzed using various statistical tools. The developed assessment framework was validated through a case of an organization based in the United Arab Emirates. Semi-structured interviews were used to elicit relevant information during the case study.Findings– An assessment framework comprising five major factors for sustainability of suggestion scheme of has been presented. The five factors include: leadership and work environment, system capability, system effectiveness, organizational encouragement and system barriers. Sustainability of a suggestion system can be understood as a three-stage model comprising the initial stage, the developmental stage and the advanced stage. The key practices associated for each of these stages are discussed in detail.Practical implications– The framework has taken into consideration the critical success factors and critical success factors emerged from the literature review conducted for this study. Therefore, the framework could be further refined by conducting more case studies and can propose maturity levels.Originality/value– The paper has developed a framework that can be used to assess the sustainability of the suggestion scheme in an organization. This model has been applied to assess the individual schemes and draw upon potential change strategies.
Expatriate leadership competencies and performance: a qualitative study
Authors: AlMazrouei Hanan , Zacca Robert 
Published: June 2015

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to investigate leadership competencies of expatriate managers working within the UAE and identify if these competencies are unique from those needed in their home country. Additionally, the paper aims to identify how new competencies expatriate leaders have developed while in their current position and how this enhances their ability to better manage staff in the UAE. Leadership competencies are skills and behaviors that contribute to enhanced performance. While some leadership competencies are essential to all firms, some distinctive leadership attributes may be particularly relevant to organizations possessing a large expatriate community.Design/methodology/approach– Personal interviews and stratified sampling were used to examine the qualities and skills relating to expatriate managers’ success in leading UAE organizations. The research design did not differentiate between the origins and ethnicities of the leaders. The leaders, whether American, European, Indo-Pakistani or Asian, were treated as one entity.Findings– Factors such as communication ability, team building qualities and ability to handle local nationals were found to have a significant effect on expatriate adjustment and success in managing UAE organizations.Practical implications– By investigating specific competencies and skills that expatriate managers need to lead organizations in the UAE and the broader Gulf region, the study informs organizations on how they can better identify and develop leadership skills that lead to enhanced performance.Originality/value– The study focuses on leadership competencies within the expatriate community of the UAE.
Interpersonal communication and diversity climate: promoting workforce localization in the UAE
Authors: Goby Valerie Priscilla , Nickerson Catherine , David Emily 
Published: June 2015

Purpose– This paper aims to identify the rudiments of an organizational communication framework which can serve as a facilitator of a positive diversity climate, which, in turn, could enhance the integration of locals into the expatriate-dominated workforce of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). As UAE citizens constitute a small minority of the workforce, the local style of communication is not, ipso facto, the dominant one in organizations.Design/methodology/approach– The study elicited 458 Emirati respondents’ narratives of positive and negative workplace communication experiences. The authors identified emerging themes to highlight the key features of interpersonal interactions likely to foster or hinder a supportive diversity climate.Findings– The critical incidents reported are interpreted in terms of UAE cultural traditions, more specifically, the communication patterns valued by local workers.Research limitations/implications– Outside of the Arabian Gulf, there are perhaps no other national workforces that are so multicultural that local communication strategies are overshadowed. This research is, therefore, a pioneering attempt to re-establish a preference for indigenous communication practices to facilitate the workforce localization policies that are present in many Gulf countries.Practical implications– The communication preferences identified could inform the implementation of an organizational communication model centered around indigenous communication preferences, including the communication strategies that would be most effective for organizational leadership to use. At the same time, this could contribute to the creation of a positive diversity climate that, in turn, could decrease levels of attrition among Emirati employees and enhance workforce localization.Originality/value– This study represents an innovative attempt to construct a communication model around which a positive diversity climate can coalesce and, in so doing, it serves as an initial contribution to the management of diversity within the context of Arabian Gulf workplaces.
The effects of human resource management practices on employees’ organisational commitment
Authors: Aladwan Khaled , Bhanugopan Ramudu , D'Netto Brian 
Published: June 2015

Purpose– This study aims to examine the effects of human resource management (HRM) practices on organisational commitment (OC) in the Middle Eastern context.Design/methodology/approach– Survey data were collected from 493 front-line employees across a variety of industries in Jordan. A structural equation modelling analysis was performed to delineate the relationship between HRM practices and OC.Findings– A test of the model was conducted using a path analytic approach hypothesising that HRM factors influence OC. The findings indicate that the causal model is consistent with the data and contributes to a fuller understanding of the association between HRM practices and OC.Originality/value– This is the first study that represents a little-researched area of recent times and even less so in Middle Eastern countries. The findings of the study offer new perspectives on how HRM practices have direct and indirect effects on employees’ OC and would assist in reshaping the HR policies in organisations located in the Middle Eastern regions.
Struggle over public space: grassroots movements in Moscow and Vilnius
Authors: Aidukaite Jolanta , Fröhlich Christian 
Published: June 2015

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to explore urban mobilisation patterns in two post-Soviet cities: Vilnius and Moscow. Both cities were subject to similar housing and urban policy during Soviet times, and they have implemented urban development using neoliberal market principles, provoking grassroots opposition from citizens to privatisation and marketisation of their housing environment and local public space. However, the differing conditions of democratic Lithuanian and authoritarian Russian public governance offer different opportunities and set different constraints for neighbourhood mobilisation. The purpose is to contrast local community mobilisations under the two regimes and highlight the differences between and similarities in the activists’ repertoires of actions in two distinct political and economic urban settings.Design/methodology/approach– The paper employs qualitative methodology using data from semi-structured interviews conducted with community activists and state officials, presented using a comparative case study design.Findings– Although, citizens’ mobilisations in the two cities are reactions to the neoliberalisation of housing and local public space, they take different forms. In Vilnius they are institutionalised and receive formal support from national and local authorities. Moreover, support from the EU encourages organisational development and provides material and cognitive resources for grassroots urban mobilisations. In contrast, residents’ mobilisations in Moscow are informal and face fierce opposition from local authorities. However, even in an authoritarian setting, grassroots mobilisations evolve using creative strategies to circumvent institutional constraints.Originality/value– Little attention has been paid to grassroots urban mobilisations in post-Soviet cities. There is also a lack of comparative attempts to show variation in post-Soviet urban activism related to housing and local public space.
Intimacy and exposure – the Armenian “tun” and Yerevan’s public space
Authors: Fehlings Susanne Helma Christiane 
Published: June 2015

Purpose– In contrast to the dominant accounts in post-Soviet studies that see public and private as two spheres existing in parallel, the purpose of this paper is to argue that in Armenia the public-private dichotomy can be better understood as a spectrum of different kinds of interactions between the state and private actors/social groups representing different sets of socio-cultural values, which are mirrored in Yerevan’s city planning and housing.Design/methodology/approach– The data derives from long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Yerevan. To analyse the data set the author used methods common in social and cultural anthropology. The theoretical background derives from urban anthropology (Liu), theories on housing (Carsten and Hugh-Jones), the anthropology of values (Dumont), and the anthropology of states (Herzfeld) linked to the debate on modernity.Findings– The author demonstrates that basic cultural concepts, norms, expectations, rules, beliefs, and values currently take effect on both sides (public and private/state and people), and that personal networks in Armenia are no longer used to trick an alien state, but also used by the state elites to gain advantage. The degree of intimacy of social relations thereby structures urban space and behaviour.Originality/value– The paper looks at the public-private dichotomy in post-Soviet states from a new perspective, which is inspired by the anthropology of (socio-cultural) values, and argues that cultural intimacy (Herzfeld) is – simultaneously – a unifying and a separating fact in the relationship of states and people.
Rhythms of being together: public space in Urban Tajikistan through the lens of rhythmanalysis
Authors: Sgibnev Wladimir 
Published: June 2015

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to identify, describe and critically assess public space in the Central Asian republic of Tajikistan, recurring to Henri Lefebvre’s concept of rhythmanalysis.Design/Methodology/Approach– The empirical findings are based on ethnographic fieldwork on a courtyard in a housing estate in Khujand in northern Tajikistan.Findings– The paper argues that an analytic dichotomy between the private and the public realm conceals more than it reveals, for the Central Asian case at least. The rhythmanalysis framework is presented as a possible solution to the deficiencies of dichotomic categories.Originality/value– Even if we find a series of scholarly works dealing with (post-)Soviet and/or Central Asian public spaces, they very scarcely provide a critical assessment of the roots and the usefulness of this concept for the regional setting they work in. The paper strives to close this gap and to present Henri Lefebvre’s rhythmanalysis framework as a possible solution for overcoming dichotomic categories.
A decision model for selecting parts feeding policies in assembly lines
Authors: Caputo Antonio C. , Pelagagge Pacifico M. , Salini Paolo 
Published: June 2015

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to develop an optimization model allowing the choice of parts feeding policy to assembly lines in order to minimize total cost.

Design/methodology/approach
– An integer linear programming mathematical model is developed to assign the optimal material feeding policy to each part type. The model allows choice between kitting, line stocking and just in time delivery policies.

Findings
– The choice of assembly lines feeding policy is not trivial and requires a thorough economic comparison of alternatives. It is found that a proper mix of parts feeding policies may be better that adopting a single material delivery policy for all parts.

Research limitations/implications
– The model is aimed at single-model assembly lines operating in a deterministic environment, but can be extended to the multi-model line case. While relevant quantitative cost drivers are included, some context-related qualitative factors are not included yet. The model assumes that information about product structure and part requirements are known and that a preliminary design of the assembly system has been carried out.

Practical implications
– Production managers are given a quantitative-decision tool to determine the optimal mix of material supply policies at an early decision stage.

Originality/value
– Respect previous simplified literature models, this approach allows to quantify a number of additional factors which are critical for successful implementation of cost-effective parts feeding systems, allowing comparison of alternative policies on a consistent basis.
Multi-objective production-distribution planning based on vendor-managed inventory strategy in a supply chain
Authors: Niknamfar Amir Hossein 
Published: June 2015

Purpose
– The production-distribution (P-D) problems are two critical problems in many industries, in particular, in manufacturing systems and the supply chain management. In previous researches on P-D planning, the demands of the retailers and their inventory levels have less been controlled. This may lead into huge challenges for a P-D plan such as the bullwhip effects. Therefore, to remove this challenge, the purpose of this paper is to integrate a P-D planning and the vendor-managed inventory (VMI) as a strong strategy to manage the bullwhip effects in supply chains. The proposed P-D-VMI aims to minimize the total cost of the manufacturer, the total cost of the retailers, and the total distribution time simultaneously.

Design/methodology/approach
– This paper presents a multi-objective non-linear model for a P-D planning in a three-level supply chain including several external suppliers at the first level, a single manufacturer at the second level, and multi-retailer at the third level. A non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm and a non-dominated ranking genetic algorithm are designed and tuned to solve the proposed problem. Then, their performances are statistically analyzed and ranked by the TOPSIS method.

Findings
– The applicability of the proposed model and solution methodologies are demonstrated under several problems. A sensitivity analysis indicates the market scale and demand elasticity have a substantial impact on the total cost of the manufacturer in the proposed P-D-VMI.

Originality/value
– Although the P-D planning is a popular approach, there has been little discussion about the P-D planning based on VMI so far. The novelty comes from developing a practical and new approach that integrates the P-D planning and VMI.
Effects of suppliers’ trust and commitment on customer involvement
Authors: Li Yi , Li Gang , Feng Taiwen 
Published: June 2015

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships among suppliers’ trust and commitment, transaction-specific investment, switching cost, and customer involvement within the context of relational governance mechanism and the social exchange theory.Design/methodology/approach– The authors use survey data from 214 Chinese manufacturing firms and employ the structural equation model to verify the conceptual model.Findings– Relational governance benefits customer involvement. Transaction-specific investment mediates the relationship between trust and commitment of suppliers. Switching costs negatively moderate the relationship between suppliers’ trust and customer involvement, but positively moderate the relationship between suppliers’ commitment and customer involvement.Research limitations/implications– The authors focus on two key elements of relationship, namely, trust and commitment of suppliers, but neglect other relational factors, such as relational norms and interdependence.Originality/value– These findings broaden the understanding and present new directions for the implementation of customer involvement from the perspective of relational governance and social exchange theory.
How to pitch an algorithm
Authors: Hirsch Peter Buell 
Published: June 2015

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to determine whether there are some specific practices that communications professionals should follow in creating influence in a world in which people increasingly get their news via Facebook and other social media.

Design/methodology/approach
– The article examines how social media deliver news items to members to determine whether that process can be influenced by aspects of content design.

Findings
– There appears to be evidence that adopting specific sharing strategies, focusing on visual design and constructing narratives that feed into people’s existing beliefs increases the likelihood that one’s content becomes influential.

Research limitations/implications
– While the evidence seems compelling that certain strategies do have an impact on degree of influence, there are few hard metrics to prove causation.

Practical implications
– By adopting the strategies proposed in the article, communications professionals will have a set of guidelines for creating content that becomes influential in social media.

Originality/value
– While the literature already contains studies on sharing strategies, this article is one of the first to consider the implications for advocacy of the fact that in social media, algorithms are responsible for selecting what people see in their news feeds.
Social semiotics as theory and practice in library and information science
Authors: Wells Matthew Jason 
Published: June 2015

Purpose– Information scholars frequently make use of “conceptual imports” – epistemological and methodological models developed in other disciplines – when conducting their own research. The purpose of this paper is to make the case that social semiotics is a worthy candidate to add to the information sciences toolkit.Design/methodology/approach– Both traditional and social semiotics are described in detail, with key texts cited. To demonstrate the benefits social semiotic methods may bring to the information sciences, the digital display screen is then employed as a test case.Findings– By treating the display as a semiotic resource, the author is able to demonstrate that, rather than being a transparent window by which the author may access all of the data, the screen actually distorts and conceals a significant amount of information, and severely restricts the control users have over software packages such as online public access catalogues. A programming paradigm known as language-oriented programming (LOP), however, can help to remedy these issues.Originality/value– The test case is meant to provide a framework by which other information sciences issues may be explores via social semiotic methods. Social semiotics, moreover, is still evolving as a subject matter, so IS scholars could also potentially contribute to its continued development with their work.