bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Impact of new attractions on theme park attendance
Authors: Cornelis Pieter C.M. 
Published: June 2010

PurposeWhereas investments in new attractions continue to rise within the theme park industry, knowledge regarding the effects of new attractions on theme park performance and attendance remains scarce. In order to isolate these effects, the purpose of this paper is to present the results of an econometric study explaining the variance in theme park visitor numbers and quantifying the effects of new attractions on theme park attendance.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on an econometric study, in which models were produced for four European theme parks. No pooled modelling was used, meaning that four different models were created; one for each participating theme park. Various variables affecting theme park attendance were identified and quantified, and subsequently the effects of new attractions on visitor numbers were isolated.FindingsFindings indicate that all new attractions opened at Park D during the research period have had a positive long‐term influence on attendance. This positive influence lasted for no more than two years. No significant short‐term influence was found. There were significant differences in effect between new attractions which could not yet be explained.Research limitations/implicationsThe research by design only takes into account the economic effects of new attractions and disregards all environmental and socio‐cultural effects. Even though the research provides an accurate approximation of the effects of new attractions on attendance, this effect should, according to the author, not be perceived as a stand‐alone effect yet as a part of a complex system. A situational approach taking into account several other situational as well as qualitative factors would do the complex reality more justice than a, even though effective, simplified and general approach.Practical implicationsIndustry operators can now use the econometric model presented in this paper to determine the effects of new attractions on their theme park's attendance and use this knowledge to further fine‐tune their investment policy.Originality/valueThe paper presents the first econometric model successful at isolating and quantifying a new attraction's effect on theme park attendance and can thus be a valuable tool in perfecting one's investment policy. The paper furthermore includes a brief introduction to a situational approach of determining a new attraction's effects on theme park performance.
Corporate social responsibility: what are the top three Orlando theme parks reporting?
Authors: Holcomb Judy , Okumus Fevzi , Bilgihan Anil 
Published: June 2010

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine what the top three Orlando theme parks report about their corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities.Design/methodology/approachThrough content analysis, web sites, annual reports, and CSR reports of the top three theme park companies in Orlando, namely, Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando, and SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment were examined.FindingsThe top three theme parks in Orlando mainly reported their CSR activities in relation to environment, community, and customers. Their diversity policies, employee welfare programs and employee volunteerism were also widely reported. Walt Disney World seemed to provide the most detailed CSR reporting in all areas.Research limitations/implicationsIn addition to content analysis of web sites and CSR reports, future studies may look at a single company and try to collect data via interviews and surveys. In addition, this paper only offers a view of the theme park's CSR reporting, since, each of the companies do not have any form of verification of their CSR activities. Therefore, it should not attest to the performance of each theme park in such activities.Practical implicationsThe research findings suggest that according to their reporting efforts the top three theme park companies in Orlando undertake and participate in various CSR activities and initiatives, which are important for the environment, local community, customers, and employees. However, their reporting and emphasis of certain CSR activities seem to vary. These companies can better publicize and promote their CSR activities. With rising awareness regarding CSR activities, it is important for the theme park industry to begin profiling their CSR efforts as part of their overall corporate and business strategies. Again creating a CSR department to oversee and coordinate all CSR activities would be helpful for theme park companies.Originality/valueThis is perhaps one of the first papers looking at CSR activities of theme park companies. It provides practical implications about reporting of CSR activities for theme parks. It is hoped that this paper stimulates further research into this area in the theme park industry.
An objective function utilizing complex sparsity for efficient segmentation in multi‐layer oscillatory networks
Authors: Ravishankar Rao A. , Cecchi Guillermo A. 
Published: June 2010

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to extend an analysis presented in earlier work which investigated the dynamical behavior of a network of oscillatory units described by the amplitude of and phase of oscillations, and to present an objective function that can be successfully applied to multi‐layer networks.Design/methodology/approachIn this paper, an objective function is presented that can be successfully applied to multi‐layer networks. The behavior of the objective function is explained through its ability to achieve a sparse representation of the inputs in complex‐valued space.FindingsIt is found that if the activity of each network unit is represented by a phasor in the complex plane, then sparsity is achieved when there is maximal phase separation in the complex plane. Increasing the spread of feedback connections is shown to improve segmentation performance significantly but does not affect separation performance. This enables a quantitative approach to characterizing and understanding cortical function.Originality/valueThe formulation of the multi‐layer objective function and the interpretation of its behavior through sparsity in complex space are novel contributions of this paper.
Solving two‐armed Bernoulli bandit problems using a Bayesian learning automaton
Authors: Granmo Ole‐Christoffer 
Published: June 2010

PurposeThe two‐armed Bernoulli bandit (TABB) problem is a classical optimization problem where an agent sequentially pulls one of two arms attached to a gambling machine, with each pull resulting either in a reward or a penalty. The reward probabilities of each arm are unknown, and thus one must balance between exploiting existing knowledge about the arms, and obtaining new information. The purpose of this paper is to report research into a completely new family of solution schemes for the TABB problem: the Bayesian learning automaton (BLA) family.Design/methodology/approachAlthough computationally intractable in many cases, Bayesian methods provide a standard for optimal decision making. BLA avoids the problem of computational intractability by not explicitly performing the Bayesian computations. Rather, it is based upon merely counting rewards/penalties, combined with random sampling from a pair of twin Beta distributions. This is intuitively appealing since the Bayesian conjugate prior for a binomial parameter is the Beta distribution.FindingsBLA is to be proven instantaneously self‐correcting, and it converges to only pulling the optimal arm with probability as close to unity as desired. Extensive experiments demonstrate that the BLA does not rely on external learning speed/accuracy control. It also outperforms established non‐Bayesian top performers for the TABB problem. Finally, the BLA provides superior performance in a distributed application, namely, the Goore game (GG).Originality/valueThe value of this paper is threefold. First of all, the reported BLA takes advantage of the Bayesian perspective for tackling TABBs, yet avoids the computational complexity inherent in Bayesian approaches. Second, the improved performance offered by the BLA opens up for increased accuracy in a number of TABB‐related applications, such as the GG. Third, the reported results form the basis for a new avenue of research – even for cases when the reward/penalty distribution is not Bernoulli distributed. Indeed, the paper advocates the use of a Bayesian methodology, used in conjunction with the corresponding appropriate conjugate prior.
Dynamic scheduling for real‐time distributed systems using ant colony optimization
Authors: Shah Apurva , Kotecha Ketan , Shah Dipti 
Published: June 2010

PurposeIn client/server distributed systems, the server is often the bottleneck. Improving the server performance is thus crucial for improving the overall performance of distributed information systems. Real‐time system is required to complete its work and deliver its services on a timely basis. The purpose of this paper is to propose a new scheduling algorithm for real‐time distributed system (client/server model) to achieve the above‐mentioned goal.Design/methodology/approachThe ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithms are computational models inspired by the collective foraging behavior of ants. They provide inherent parallelism and robustness. Therefore, they are appropriate for scheduling of tasks in soft real‐time systems. During simulation, results are obtained with periodic tasks, measured in terms of success ratio and effective CPU utilization; and compared with results of earliest deadline first (EDF) algorithm in the same environment.FindingsAnalysis and experiments show that the proposed algorithm is equally efficient during underloaded conditions. The performance of EDF decreases as the load increases, but the proposed algorithm works well in overloaded conditions also. Because of this type of property, the proposed algorithm is more suitable for the situation when future workload of the system is unpredictable.Originality/valueThe application of ACO algorithms for scheduling of client/server real‐time distributed system, never found before in the literature. The new concept proposed in this paper will be of great significance to both theoretical and practical research in scheduling of distributed systems in the years to come.
Organizational socialization, organizational identification and organizational citizenship behavior
Authors: Ge Jianhua , Su Xuemei , Zhou Yan 
Published: June 2010

PurposeThis paper aims to: provide theoretical analysis and empirical study on the relationship between organizational socialization and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB); analyze the mediating role of organizational identification in their relationship; and draw from both of these to suggest practical implications to organizations aiming to effectively socialize employees, and for employees themselves.Design/methodology/approachFirst, the paper reviews the literature regarding organizational socialization, OCB and organizational identification. Second, it develops a theoretical model linking organizational socialization, organizational identification and OCB, and then proposes a series of research hypotheses. Third, drawing on samples of seven high‐tech manufacturing enterprises in China, it tests hypotheses based on a series of measurement and statistical analysis.FindingsOrganizational history, language, values and goals socialization are positively related to OCB and organizational identification. Further, organizational identification fully mediates the relationship between language, values and goals socialization and OCB, and partially mediates the relationship between history socialization and OCB.Research limitations/implicationsThe cross‐sectional design prevented the making of causal statements. Data are from employees' self‐report, giving rise to concern about possible common source bias.Originality/valueThe paper explores the relationships between organizational socialization and OCB, and proposes and tests the mediating role of organizational identification.
How members' managerial social capital influences their opportunism in interfirm relationships
Authors: Jiang Han , Jin Zhan‐Ming 
Published: June 2010

PurposeManagerial social capital could exert valuable influences to firms' operating performance in social networks. Through the lens of structural hole theory, the relational rents of managerial social capital partly results from certain controlling power endured by the network structure, thereby potentially signifying opportunistic behaviors once such relational rents are acquired at the cost of other parties' potential value loss. As such, it can be expected that using managerial social capital may inherently evoke a focal firm's high tendency of opportunism in its cooperative arrangement. This paper mainly aims at shedding lights on the opportunism implications of managerial social capital in the context of interorganizational relationships.Design/methodology/approachThe authors collected data from 197 manufacturing joint ventures in China mainland.FindingsBased on these sample Chinese‐foreign joint ventures, this paper found that member firms' managerial social capital tend to strengthen their opportunistic behaviors in special interfirm relationships, such that opportunistic behaviors mainly aim at taking control of the procedure of relation arrangement without significantly influencing relationship performance as well as its outcome distribution.Originality/valueBy demonstrating certain downsides of social capital, such that using social capital could induce opportunistic behaviors in interfirm relationships, it is expected that the study to contribute to both future social capital and joint venture research and business practices, especially to joint venture operations in China.
Financial reporting quality and corporate investment efficiency: Chinese experience
Authors: Li Qingyuan , Wang Tielin 
Published: June 2010

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to study the relationship between financial reporting quality and investment efficiency in China.Design/methodology/approachBy analyzing institutional background and hypotheses development, the paper selected listed firms in China to be the study samples. On the base of that, the relationship between financial reporting quality and investment efficiency of the samples were discussed.FindingsConsistent with this claim, the paper finds proxies for financial reporting quality, namely self‐constructed composite measures, are negatively associated with both under‐ and overinvestment of the listed corporations; of which the effects of accrual quality and earnings smoothness on under‐ and overinvestment are most significant.Research limitations/implicationsOverall, this paper has implications for research examining the determinants of investment efficiency and the economic consequences of enhanced financial reporting.Practical implicationsThis paper seeks to develop Chinese economic infrastructure into an economically efficient system of public financial reporting and disclosure in order to improve accounting information's role of allocating capital.Originality/valueThe conclusion of this paper might be the first empirical evidence to support prior research that financial reporting quality is positively related to investment efficiency for large, US publicly traded firms, thus the findings extend to public firms in emerging markets.
Outcome of adults with sickle cell disease admitted to critical care – experience of a single institution in the UK
Authors: Gardner Kate , Bell Cathy , Bartram Jack L. , Allman Marlene , Awogbade Moji , Rees David C. , Ervine Max , Thein Swee L. 
Published: June 2010

SummarySickle cell disease (SCD) patients are perceived to have a high mortality when admitted to the Critical Care Unit (CCU). We performed a retrospective analysis of all adult sickle admissions to CCU at a single centre over an 8‐year period (1 January 2000 to 31 December 2007). Thirty‐eight patients (14 male) were admitted 46 times to CCU; the commonest reasons for admission were acute chest syndrome (14, 30%), multi‐organ failure (8, 17%) and planned post‐elective surgery (7, 15%). CCU mortality for SCD patients was 19·6%, comparable to a CCU‐wide mortality of 17·6% during the study period in the same institution. Re‐admission to CCU was high (16% over the 8‐year period) but did not increase mortality risk.
Increased inflammation and lethality of Dusp1−/− mice in polymicrobial peritonitis models
Authors: Hammer Michael , Echtenachter Bernd , Weighardt Heike , Jozefowski Katrin , Rose‐John Stefan , Männel Daniela N. , Holzmann Bernhard , Lang Roland 
Published: June 2010

SummaryThe mitogen‐activated protein kinase phosphatase Dusp1 (also known as MKP‐1) is essential for control of the inflammatory response to systemic challenge with the lipopolysaccharide of Gram‐negative bacteria. Here, we have investigated the consequences of Dusp1‐deficiency in colon ascendens stent peritonitis (CASP) and caecal ligation and puncture (CLP), two mouse models of septic peritonitis. Following CASP, Dusp1−/− mice had increased serum levels of CCL4, interleukin‐10 (IL‐10) and IL‐6, with differences from wild‐type mice being dependent on severity of sepsis. These cytokines, along with inducible nitric oxide synthase messenger RNA, were also expressed at higher levels in spleen and liver. Similar over‐production of these cytokines was detected in the CLP model, with even larger differences from wild‐type mice. Despite the increased inflammatory response, bacterial clearance was impaired in Dusp1−/− mice subjected to CASP and CLP. Dusp1−/− mice suffered increased lethality in both peritonitis models. Together our data indicate that exaggerated inflammatory responses to gut bacteria introduced into the peritoneum in the absence of Dusp1 do not help to control bacterial replication but are detrimental for the host.
Expression of Arabidopsis NPR1 in Transgenic Cotton Confers Resistance to Non‐defoliating Isolates of Verticillium dahliae but not the Defoliating Isolates
Authors: Parkhi Vilas , Kumar Vinod , Campbell Le Anne M. , Bell Alois A. , Rathore Keerti S. 
Published: June 2010

AbstractVerticillium wilt, caused by Verticillium dahliae Kleb., causes severe yield and quality losses in most cotton growing areas of the world. Only moderate resistance has been achieved by traditional breeding. Therefore, transgenic approaches offer a possible alternative to obtain resistance against this disease. Overexpression of a homologous or heterologous NPR1 gene has been effective in conferring broad‐spectrum resistance to diverse pathogens in a variety of plants. We investigated the resistance of cotton plants, expressing the Arabidopsis NPR1 (AtNPR1) gene, to defoliating and non‐defoliating pathotypes of V. dahliae. The transgenic cotton plants showed significant resistance against two non‐defoliating V. dahliae isolates. Both visual symptoms and pathogen colonization were reduced, indicating that disease progression was curtailed in the AtNPR1‐transformants. In contrast, the same transgenic lines showed little, if any, resistance to two defoliating isolates. The NPR1‐mediated activation of cotton’s defences apparently is not sufficient to counter the disease mechanism(s) utilized by the defoliating pathotype of V. dahliae.
Decreased GABAB receptors in the cingulate cortex and fusiform gyrus in Autism
Authors: Oblak Adrian L. , Gibbs Terrell T. , Blatt Gene J. 
Published: June 2010

J. Neurochem. (2010) 114, 1414–1423.AbstractAutism is a behaviorally defined neurodevelopmental disorder and among its symptoms are disturbances in face and emotional processing. Emerging evidence demonstrates abnormalities in the GABAergic (gamma‐aminobutyric acid) system in autism, which likely contributes to these deficits. GABAB receptors play an important role in modulating synapses and maintaining the balance of excitation‐inhibition in the brain. The density of GABAB receptors in subjects with autism and matched controls was quantified in the anterior and posterior cingulate cortex, important for socio‐emotional and cognitive processing, and the fusiform gyrus, important for identification of faces and facial expressions. Significant reductions in GABAB receptor density were demonstrated in all three regions examined suggesting that alterations in this key inhibitory receptor subtype may contribute to the functional deficits in individuals with autism. Interestingly, the presence of seizure in a subset of autism cases did not have a significant effect on the density of GABAB receptors in any of the three regions.
Making Art, Teaching Art, Learning Art: Exploring the Concept of the Artist Teacher
Authors: Hall James 
Published: June 2010

AbstractThe article explores the concept of the artist teacher, drawing upon an overview of relevant literature and two related pieces of research: the first investigated practices within the Artist Teacher Scheme (ATS); the second sought to understand the perceptions of practice‐based coursework in an MA Art Education programme at Roehampton University in London. Commonalities and differences between the perceptions and understandings of artist teachers (including masters' students), their tutors and gallery educators were explored. The data for each piece of research were collected through unstructured, open‐ended interviews. A significant reflexive and autobiographical dimension for the research was motivated by my own identity as an artist teacher, and by the exploration of reflective practice as a potential framework for realising and sustaining an artist teacher identity and practice.The research concluded that connections between art practice and teaching are complex, diverse, difficult to articulate, challenging to implement and do not easily lend themselves to simple impact measurement. The ATS operates in a context that includes languages, cultures and identities from frameworks in education and art that can be both complementary and oppositional. Artist teachers need to develop skills of negotiation through which they can articulate and continuously reappraise their art practice and, at an appropriate stage, use that practice to inform their teaching.
The role of human papillomavirus in head and neck cancer
Authors: LAJER CHRISTEL BRAEMER , BUCHWALD CHRISTIAN VON 
Published: June 2010

Lajer CB, von Buchwald C. The role of human papillomavirus in head and neck cancer. APMIS 2010; 118: 510–519.Over the last 20 years, there has been increasing awareness of a subset of squamous cell carcinomas of the head and neck (HNSCC), i.e. HPV‐positive HNSCC. These cancers seem to differ somewhat from HPV‐negative HNSCC. Patients with HPV‐positive HNSCC tend to be younger and have a lower intake of tobacco and alcohol. Distinct molecular profiles separate them from HPV‐negative cancers and show similarities with HPV‐positive cervical SCC. There is evidence that HPV‐positive HNSCC is a sexually transmitted disease. Patients with HPV‐positive HNSCC are often diagnosed at a late stage with large cystic lymph nodes in the neck. HPV‐positive HNSCC show an affinity for the oropharynx, especially the tonsils and the base of the tongue, and tend to show low differentiation histopathologically. There is a better prognosis regardless of the treatment regimen for HPV‐positive HNSCC compared with HPV‐negative HNSCC, and this seems to be related to the immune system. Whether the new vaccines for HPV will protect not only against cervical cancer but also against HPV‐positive HNSCC remains unknown.