High Proportion Of Members Research Articles

Information Technology Governance and Corporate Boards’ Relationship with Companies’ Performance and Earnings Management: A Longitudinal Approach

In accordance with the segregation of oversight from management decision making, the board-level information technology governance is accountable for supervising managerial IT activities. This research empirically analyzes the impact of board-level IT governance on the performance and earnings management practices of Saudi Arabian stock exchange (Tadawul)-listed companies between 2008 and 2020. The study sample includes cross-sectional time-series data from 154 firms with 18,018 firm-year observations. This study used regression analysis and other econometric models to examine probable endogeneities. The findings show that only the return on assets’ operational performance is positively and significantly related to board-level IT governance among the three performance metrics (return on assets, return on equity, and Tobin’s Q). This indicates that a higher proportion of members with IT experience and the presence of a board-level IT professional as chief information officer/chief technology officer and an IT committee positively impact operational performance. Finally, board-level IT governance competence and other governance attributes do not deter earnings management practices. Therefore, countries like Saudi Arabia should enhance their corporate governance environment considering the increasing significance of IT governance (control, service, and monitoring). There is also a need to review provisions of the Saudi Arabia Corporate Governance Regulations, especially for board composition, the appointment of independent and IT-literate directors, and penalties for non-compliance with regulations.

Label noise detection under the noise at random model with ensemble filters

Label noise detection has been widely studied in Machine Learning because of its importance in improving training data quality. Satisfactory noise detection has been achieved by adopting ensembles of classifiers. In this approach, an instance is assigned as mislabeled if a high proportion of members in the pool misclassifies it. Previous authors have empirically evaluated this approach; nevertheless, they mostly assumed that label noise is generated completely at random in a dataset. This is a strong assumption since other types of label noise are feasible in practice and can influence noise detection results. This work investigates the performance of ensemble noise detection under two different noise models: the Noisy at Random (NAR), in which the probability of label noise depends on the instance class, in comparison to the Noisy Completely at Random model, in which the probability of label noise is entirely independent. In this setting, we investigate the effect of class distribution on noise detection performance since it changes the total noise level observed in a dataset under the NAR assumption. Further, an evaluation of the ensemble vote threshold is conducted to contrast with the most common approaches in the literature. In many performed experiments, choosing a noise generation model over another can lead to different results when considering aspects such as class imbalance and noise level ratio among different classes.

Gender balance in Research Group Leadership at UiT

UiT The Arctic University of Norway has a decade-long tradition of channelling research through formally accredited research groups. These research groups have dynamic structures and networks, unlimited duration, a defined leader, and gather academics of all levels to pursue research on a common topic of interest. The formalisation of research groups at the institution followed strategies aimed at supporting the creation of more robust and resilient research communities and boost cutting-edge research produced at the university.
 Ten years after initiating the formalisation process, UiT has around 196 research groups distributed fairly evenly across faculties by their size. HELSE and HSL are the largest faculties and also the ones with the largest number of research groups. As of June 2020, 57% of these research groups were led by men. This shows that gender balance has been achieved in research group leadership at the university level in terms of numerical parity. While the formalisation of the research groups may have contributed to achieving this balance, data collected for this study represents an inaugural attempt to map gender-disaggregated research group leadership at UiT.
 This report shows that the gender distribution in research group leadership across faculties and departments or centres follows the remaining disparities existing in top academic positions (professor and docent) as they were observed in former studies conducted by the Prestige Project. This result is consistent since 93% of all research groups at UiT are led either by associate professors or professors. BFE, HELSE, and HSL are the most gender-balanced faculties, while IVT and NT are the least balanced. At IVT and NT faculties, 80% of the research groups are led by men. At the faculties that follow a level system for research groups (HSL and JUR), women currently lead more top-level groups than men.
 Despite the achievement of gender balance in research group leadership functions at UiT, a survey conducted by the Prestige Project that complements the dataset showed that gender shapes relevant differences regarding the basic structure of research groups and their leadership roles. Highlights of these differences can be systematised as follows:
 (1) The average size of research groups at UiT is 12.6 members. Men tend to lead smaller groups with a higher proportion of members holding 50% or more research contracts. (2) Most of the research groups at UiT follows a “stjerneklubb” structure, in which leaders are one of the several key researchers within the group. Three times more men than women reported leading a group with a “rakett” structure, in which the leader is the group’s key researcher. (3) Concerning the reported activity level following each groups evaluated potential from the leader’s perspective, men reported a higher maximal achievement of the group’s potential. At the same time, women indicated greater room for improvement. (4) Finally, regarding leadership and leadership roles, men have been more often appointed as leaders by the head of departments or centres, while women have more often been chosen by the group members. Furthermore, while both men and women in leadership roles engage equally in managerial tasks in their functions as research group leaders, men reported performing more of the tasks associated with a leadership role. Twice as many men reported that they set the group's research agenda and control the workflow of delegated tasks.
 We do not claim that these differences are necessarily negative since they can also be seen as a sign that gender balance increases the diversity of approaches in leadership at the university, which is a desirable aim in fostering excellence. The meaning of these differences has to be investigated further in future research.

Covid 19: Need of vaccine induced herd immunity in India

Introduction: Herd immunity is a traditional concept nothing but a form of indirect protection from contagious diseases. In a mass community, there is no need to be everyone immune. If a high proportion of members in the community are immune, spreading of the disease is reduced even to non-immunized patients. This study offers an overview of vaccine-induced herd immunity importance in this pandemic and how it will be achieved. Methodology: The data of basic reproduction number Ro values for COVID 19 of 10 weeks in India which were estimated by Ro package in R software are extracted from a research article (reference no.4) and taken the mean Ro value due to fluctuations as well as to avoid great errors by using MS Excel. Herd immunity is calculated by using a standard equation stated as R=(1-Pc )(1-P1)Ro Results: The mean basic reproduction number Ro for COVID 19 in India was calculated as 1.671 by using MS excel and the herd 3 determines that only 40.16% proportion of individuals need to immunized through a vaccine to achieve herd immunity towards COVID 19 in India. Conclusion: This study estimates mean base reproduction Ro as 1.671 and Herd Immunity Threshold (HIT) as 40.16% by using past data. This study concludes that vaccine-induced herd immunity helps us by playing a key role to eliminate novel coronavirus.

Cloacal and Ocular Microbiota of the Endangered Australian Northern Quoll

The Australian northern quoll is an important predatory marsupial carnivore that is currently endangered due to inappropriate fire regimes, predation, and the spread of invasive cane toads. The microbiota of Australian marsupials has not been extensively studied, but is thought to play a role in their health. This study provides an initial characterization of the cloacal microbiota of the northern quoll, as well as other marsupials including possums and kangaroos which were opportunistically sampled. The northern quoll cloaca microbiota was dominated by Enterococcus and Lactobacillus and had a relatively high proportion of members of the Proteobacteria phylum, which has been observed in other carnivorous marsupials. The diversity and structure of the microbiota was not influenced by presence of Chlamydiales which are intracellular bacteria and potential pathogens. The microbiota of the other marsupials was quite varied, which may be related to their health status. Characterization of the northern quoll microbiota will help to better understand the biology of this endangered animal.

Relationship of community integration of persons with severe mental illness and mental health service intensity.

Community integration is integral to recovery for individuals with severe mental illness. This study explored the integration of individuals with severe mental illness into mental health and non-mental health communities and associations with mental health service intensity. Thirty-three ethnically diverse participants with severe mental illness were categorized in high-intensity (N=18) or low-intensity (N=15) mental health service groups. Community integration was assessed with measures of involvement in community activities, social capital resources, social support, social network maps, and subjective integration. Although participants rated themselves as being more integrated into the mental health community, their social networks and social capital were primarily derived from the non-mental health community. The high-intensity group had a higher proportion of members from the mental health community in their networks and had less overall social capital resources than the low-intensity group. The findings suggest opportunities and possible incongruities in the experience of community integration.

Cultivating Greater Well-being: The Benefits Thai Organic Farmers Experience from Adopting Buddhist Eco-spirituality

Organic farming is spreading throughout Asia, including in Thailand. Little is known about whether farmers’ values change as they make the shift from conventional farming to organic farming. The benefits farmers perceive from making the shift have also scarcely been studied. We investigated these factors in Northeastern Thailand by conducting observations, key informant interviews, semi-structured interviews and questionnaire interviews. We found that as Thai farmers adopted organic methods, they developed an eco-consciousness. In comparing members of a Buddhist temple-based organic farmer support group with members of a non-profit organic agriculture support group, we found that the temple-based group adopted deeper Buddhist eco-spiritual values while the non-profit group remained more commercially oriented. Farmers who adopted Buddhist eco-spiritual values enjoyed greater financial and health benefits from making the organic shift. A higher proportion of the temple-based group eliminated their debts after making the shift (p > 0.001). Additionally, a higher proportion of members in the temple-based group felt that their physical health improved after becoming an organic farmer (p = 0.003). Interestingly, the less debt farmers carried, the healthier they felt (p > 0.001). Participants believed that eliminating the use of agro-chemicals, using organic fertilizers, consuming organic food, and increasing biodiversity on their farms also contributed to improving their health. We conclude that for Thai farmers who are devoutly committed to Buddhism, temple-based organic support programs provided an effective pathway to improving their finances, health and well-being. For Thai farmers generally, a fundamental adoption of eco-conscious values is integral to experiencing deeper non-commercial benefits from organic farming. Findings suggest that the expansion of organic farming systems depends on changing perspectives about well-being.

Suicide in psychiatric patients.

The study relates to suicides occurring in Shropshire during 1965 to 1973 inclusive. Psychiatric patients who had committed suicide were compared with others, matched by sex and age who had not done so. The suicide group included a higher proportion of members who had behaved violently, experienced a broken marriage (through death, separation or divorce) or earlier had deliberately harmed themselves, often by dangerous means. Of the psychiatric patients who committed suicide 63 per cent had seen a doctor within a month beforehand, yet very few were receiving adequate physical treatment for depressive illness at the time of their death. Immigrants from eastern Europe were found to be particularly prone to suicide.