High-level Resource Research Articles

When does it pay to be green? The strategic benefits of adoption speed

AbstractDoes the speed of adopting environmental practices impact financial benefits? The strategy literature discusses the contingencies under which firms can gain an early‐mover advantage or a late‐mover advantage. This research examines the effect of adoption speed on two types of environmental practices: environmental innovation practices (EIP) and environmental management practices (EMP). The results show that early adoption of EIP increases competitive advantage when firms face intense competition. In comparison, we show that early adoption of EMP increases competitive advantage when firms face extremely low competition or have moderate to high levels of slack resources. The study contributes to the literature by revealing the nuances, contingencies, and boundary conditions of when it pays to be green. Prior research shows mixed results when studying firms' decisions to implement environmental practices, which implies that it may not pay to be green. This study shows that firms can get an early mover advantage from environmental practices, but it depends on the type of environmental practices, the firm's internal slack resources, and the firm's external competitive environment.

Modern ideas about the predictions of postpartum hemorrhage

Postpartum hemorrhage is currently a pressing problem. Its increasing incidence over time is observed not only in developing countries but also in countries with high levels of income and resources that significantly contribute to the development and functioning of the health system, which is the cause of scientific debate worldwide. The risk factors of postpartum hemorrhage include low hemoglobin level before birth, older maternal age, first birth, prolonged duration of the first and second stages of labor, high birth weight of the newborn, abnormal placentation, surgical vaginal birth, cesarean section, episiotomy, and placental defects. This review outlines the main risk factors of postpartum hemorrhage, displays new data on the relationship between types of assisted reproductive technologies and postpartum hemorrhage, and discusses prospects for research regarding the problem. A link between assisted reproductive technologies and postpartum hemorrhage elucidates the increase in the incidence of postpartum hemorrhage in developed countries. It is crucial to further research on obstetric risks following the use of assisted reproductive technologies and identify additional risk categories for complications to provide quality medical care and reduce maternal and perinatal losses.

Smarter and Cleaner? The Carbon Reduction Effect of Smart Cities: A Perspective on Green Technology Progress

In the context of the global climate change problem intensifying due to a dramatic increase in carbon emissions, smart cities, as a topical application of digitalization and intelligence, have become a new urban governance mode for countries, which helps to achieve sustainable development. This research studies the relationship between smart city construction (SCC) and carbon dioxide emissions based on the differences-in-differences model (DID) and propensity score matching (PSM) to promote China to achieve dual carbon goals and high-quality development. The findings are as follows: (a) SCC could promote carbon emission reduction by reducing urban carbon dioxide emissions by an average of 11.4%, which also has significant long-term dynamic effects. Specifically, SCC has more obvious emission reduction effects on activities, such as industrial production and waste treatment. (b) Mechanism verification shows that green technology progress is a significant booster for the carbon reduction effect in SCC. The pilot project can increase output of green patents, which helps transfer production mode and consumption patterns in an environmentally friendly manner. SCC could increase the total factor productivity (TFP) through the rational allocation and efficient use of resources, and thus reducing carbon emissions. (c) Research on city heterogeneity shows that a high level of human capital, material, and financial resources can provide support for smart cities to better achieve the carbon reduction effect. Among them, material resources have the best carbon reduction effect in the process of SCC, which could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 6.6–17.7%. This study is useful for policymakers to continuously and dynamically adjust urban development strategies in the future, to achieve a balance between socioeconomic prosperity and environmental sustainability.

Recruitment-Potential-Oriented Mechanical Ventilation Protocol and Narrative Review for Patients with Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome.

Even though much progress has been made to improve clinical outcomes, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) remains a significant cause of acute respiratory failure. Protective mechanical ventilation is the backbone of supportive care for these patients; however, there are still many unresolved issues in its setting. The primary goal of mechanical ventilation is to improve oxygenation and ventilation. The use of positive pressure, especially positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP), is mandatory in this approach. However, PEEP is a double-edged sword. How to safely set positive end-inspiratory pressure has long been elusive to clinicians. We hereby propose a pressure-volume curve measurement-based method to assess whether injured lungs are recruitable in order to set an appropriate PEEP. For the most severe form of ARDS, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) is considered as the salvage therapy. However, the high level of medical resources required and associated complications make its use in patients with severe ARDS controversial. Our proposed protocol also attempts to propose how to improve patient outcomes by balancing the possible overuse of resources with minimizing patient harm due to dangerous ventilator settings. A recruitment-potential-oriented evaluation-based protocol can effectively stabilize hypoxemic conditions quickly and screen out truly serious patients.

Space Division and WGAN-GP Based Fast Generation Method of Practical Dynamic Security Region Boundary

Fast and accurate transient stability analysis is crucial to power system operation. With high penetration level of wind power resources, practical dynamic security region (PDSR) with hyper plane expression has outstanding advantages in situational awareness and series of optimization problems. The precondition of obtaining accurate PDSR boundary is to locate sufficient points around the boundary (critical points). Therefore, this paper proposes a space division and Wasserstein generative adversarial network with gradient penalty (WGAN-GP) based fast generation method of PDSR boundary. First, the typical differential topological characterizations of dynamic security region (DSR) provide strong theoretical foundation that the interior of DSR is hole-free and the boundaries of DSR are tight and knot-free. Then, the space division method is proposed to calculate critical operation area where the PDSR boundary is located, tremendously compressing the search space to locate critical points and improving the confidence level of boundary fitting result. Furthermore, the WGAN-GP model is utilized to fast obtain large number of critical points based on learning the data distribution of the small training set aforementioned. Finally, the PDSR boundary with hyperplanes is fitted by the least square method. The case study is tested on the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 39-bus system and the results verify the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method.

Directors’ exposure and social enterprise performance: does entrepreneurial mindset and financial resource availability matter?

PurposeBuilding on insights from the upper echelons theory and resource-based view (RBV), this study explains how directors’ exposure influences social enterprise performance through the mediating effect of entrepreneurial mindset, and the contingent role of financial resource availability.Design/methodology/approachThe study follows a quantitative approach. Data were gathered from a survey of 168 social enterprises (i.e. Community Interest Companies (CICs)) in the United Kingdom (UK), and covariance-based structural equation modelling (CB-SEM) was used to test the hypotheses.FindingsThe results show that directors’ exposure positively relates to social enterprise performance, and that the relationship is mediated by entrepreneurial mindset. Additionally, the findings reveal that financial resource availability moderates the indirect path between directors’ exposure and social enterprise performance such that the effect is more pronounced at high levels of financial resource availability.Originality/valueThis study is a pioneering attempt to uncover the linkage between directors’ exposure and social enterprise performance. Unlike past research, the study integrates the upper echelons theory and RBV to extend social enterprise research within the social entrepreneurship domain and provide important practical value for social enterprise practitioners.

Local government behavior in rural construction land marketization in China: An archetype analysis

There are various rural construction land marketization (RCLM) patterns in China. Explorations on the factors influencing the differences between patterns can provide policy inspirations for establishing a unified land market in China. Archetype analysis enables us to reveal the structural relationships between various factors and elucidate reappearing patterns in the cases. Based on 29 cases, this study analyzes the effects of different factor combinations on the behavioral choices of local governments using the archetype analysis approach. Six archetypes are extracted, and the main findings from the archetype analysis are as follows: 1) The combination of active rural land markets and the effective operation of village autonomy or informal dialogue mechanisms led by rural elites promote the emergence of self-organization models for RCLM. Local governments mainly play guiding, supervisory, and service roles. 2) When the self-organization model is challenging to sustain, local governments participate in the process of RCLM with different mechanisms due to social benefits orientation. 3) In certain well-developed rural areas with a high level of industrialization and limited land resources, extensive government intervention has emerged as a new governance model to achieve regional coordinated development goals. Our work reveals the mechanisms through which local governments play a role in the reform and innovation of RCLM, and it contributes to a better understanding of local government positioning in the future RCLM reform process.

Long-Acting Injectable ART in Practice: A Mixed Methods Implementation Study Assessing the Feasibility of Using LAI ART in High Risk Populations and At Alternative Low Barrier Care Sites.

Long-acting injectable (LAI) antiretroviral therapy (ART) has the potential to change the lives of people living with HIV (PLWH). To ensure equitable access to new treatment modalities, we examined the feasibility and acceptability of administering Cabotegravir Rilpivirine Long Acting (CAB/RPV LA) to individuals who experience challenging social determinants of health (SDoH) and struggle with adherence to traditional oral ART. Quantitative and qualitative data were used to assess feasibility of utilizing ART at alternative clinic. Data were collected on individuals eligible to receive CAB/RPV LA at an alternative street-based clinic and on individuals receiving CAB/RPV LA at a traditional HIV clinic. After 6 months, participants were interviewed about their experience. Providers involved in the implementation were also interviewed about their experiences. Only one participant (out of 5) who received CAB/RPV LA at the alternative clinic received consistent treatment, whereas 17 out of 18 participants receiving CAB/RPV LA at the traditional clinic site were adherent. Participants and providers believed that LAI had potential for making treatment adherence easier, but identified several barriers, including discrepancies between patients' desires and their lifestyles, impact of LAI on interactions with the medical system, risk of resistance accompanying sub-optimal adherence, and need for a very high level of resources. While LAI has major potential benefits for high-risk patients, these benefits must be balanced with the complexities of implementation. Despite challenges that impacted study outcomes, improving treatment outcomes for PLWH requires addressing SDoH and substance use.

Quality adjustment and analysis of human resource prices in China: Based on a hedonic price model.

The competition in the world has shifted from natural resources and capital resources to human resources. The human resources have become the real power source of the economic growth. Firstly, the price of human resources in China is calculated. Secondly, in order to measure the human resources quality adjustment index, the indicators system is constructed. Third, the Hedonic method is used to calculate the human resources "pure price" of 31 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government) in China. The "pure price" has no the factor of human resources quality. Lastly, comparing the price of human resources before and after quality adjustment. The results show that: first, the number of human resources in China increased continuously during 1995-2015 and decreased during 2016-2020. Second, the price of nominal human resources in China keeps rising. In 2020, the nominal price is 39,087 yuan per person which is 15.44 times as many as in 1995. Thirdly, after the quality adjustment, the price of human resources has decreased significantly. The multiple between the actual and nominal price of human resources is between 1.75 and 2.12. Fourthly, the province with high human resource quality adjustment index generally have high quality human resource level or quantity. Fifth, the top five provinces of actual human resource prices are Shanghai, Beijing, Guangdong, Tianjin, Zhejiang, the bottom five provinces are Guizhou, Yunnan, Henan, Xizang, Gansu. Finally, the paper puts forward some policy recommendations: Improving the data collection mechanism of human resources accounting to provide a basic guarantee for the accurate accounting of human resources. Improving the price of human resources in the central and western regions to attract the talents to transfer to the central and western regions. Enhancing the skills training of human resources to improve the quality of human resources in the western region.

Development and preliminary validation of a MERS-CoV ELISA for serological testing of camels and alpacas

This study describes the development and preliminary validation of a new serological assay using MERS-CoV S1 protein in an indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) format. This assay has the advantage of being able to test MERS-CoV serum samples in a PC2 laboratory without the need for a high-level biocontainment laboratory (PC3 or PC4), which requires highly trained and skilled staff and a high level of resources and equipment. Furthermore, this MERS-CoV S1 ELISA enables a larger number of samples to be tested quickly, with results obtained in approximately five hours. The MERS-CoV S1 ELISA demonstrated high analytical specificity, with no cross-reactivity observed in serum of animals infected with other viruses, including different coronaviruses. We tested 166 positive and 40 negative camel serum samples and have estimated the diagnostic sensitivity (DSe) to be 99.4% (95% CI: 96.7 – 100.0%) and diagnostic specificity (DSp) to be 100% (95% CI: 97.2%-100.0%) relative to the assigned serology results (ppNT and VNT) using a S/P ratio cut-off value of >0.58. The findings of this study showed that our MERS-CoV S1 ELISA was more sensitive than the commercial EUROIMMUN ELISA (Se 99.4% vs 84.9%) and comparable to the ppNT assay, and therefore could be used as a diagnostic aid in countries in the Middle East where MERS-CoV is endemic in dromedary camels. The assay reagents and protocol were easily adapted and transferred from an Australian laboratory to a laboratory in the University of Hong Kong. Thus, the results described here show that the MERS-CoV S1 ELISA represents a cheap, rapid, robust, and reliable assay to support surveillance of MERS-CoV in camels in endemic regions.

Everyday Life and Mental Health of Elderly with Cognitive Impairment During the Covid-19 Pandemic

The aim is to analyze pandemic-related effects on everyday life and psychosocial health in the understudied vulnerable group of cognitively impaired elderly people living at home. Structured telephone interviews in 2020 (n+=+141) and 2021 (n+=+107) were used to survey over-65s with cognitive impairment (MMSE Ø 23.4). The results from the 2021 survey presented here reflect experiences and attitudes, effects on daily life and health care, and psychosocial burdens and resources. Longitudinal analysis of selected indicators of burden is provided for n+=+66. Even in the face of increasing concerns and moderate impacts on everyday life and health care, overall psychosocial health is proving to be good and largely stable over time. Respondents have high levels of personal and social resources, and their coping with limitations is characterized by acceptance and willingness to adapt.

Polymorphic Reachability Types: Tracking Freshness, Aliasing, and Separation in Higher-Order Generic Programs

Fueled by the success of Rust, many programming languages are adding substructural features to their type systems. The promise of tracking properties such as lifetimes and sharing is tremendous, not just for low-level memory management, but also for controlling higher-level resources and capabilities. But so are the difficulties in adapting successful techniques from Rust to higher-level languages, where they need to interact with other advanced features, especially various flavors of functional and type-level abstraction. What would it take to bring full-fidelity reasoning about lifetimes and sharing to mainstream languages? Reachability types are a recent proposal that has shown promise in scaling to higher-order but monomorphic settings, tracking aliasing and separation on top of a substrate inspired by separation logic. However, naive extensions on top of the prior reachability type system λ * with type polymorphism and/or precise reachability polymorphism are unsound, making λ * unsuitable for adoption in real languages. Combining reachability and type polymorphism that is precise, sound, and parametric remains an open challenge. This paper presents a rethinking of the design of reachability tracking and proposes new polymorphic reachability type systems. We introduce a new freshness qualifier to indicate variables whose reachability sets may grow during evaluation steps. The new system tracks variables reachable in a single step and computes transitive closures only when necessary, thus preserving chains of reachability over known variables that can be refined using substitution. These ideas yield the simply-typed λ ✦ -calculus with precise lightweight, i.e., quantifier-free, reachability polymorphism, and the F <: ✦ -calculus with bounded parametric polymorphism over types and reachability qualifiers, paving the way for making true tracking of lifetimes and sharing practical for mainstream languages. We prove type soundness and the preservation of separation property in Coq. We discuss various applications (e.g., safe capability programming), possible effect system extensions, and compare our system with Scala’s capture types.

The Relevance of World Health Organization Surgical Safety Checklist to Spinal Surgery

Across the 193 member states of the World Health Organization (WHO) an estimated 234 million operations were conducted worldwide in 2008 (1 per every 25 human beings on the planet). These numbers have continued to increase to 312.9 million by 2016. Surgical errors involving the wrong site, wrong procedure or wrong patient occur at a rate of 1 in 112,000. This equates to 2,000 estimated ‘never events’ every year with a significant associated physical and psychological burden on patients and surgeons and financial and reputational burden on health organisations involved in litigation for such errors. The WHO Surgical Safety Checklist (WHOSSC), produced in 2009 is now synonymous with safety in the operating theatre. This checklist imposes a process of scrutiny at the key steps of the patients journey through theatre. The key details scrutinised have been shown to improve patient outcomes and theatre efficiency. Several studies have looked at adapted checklists specific to different specialties and it is becoming clearer that whilst the overall benefit of the original checklist is undeniable, in some speciality areas a more deliberate and nuanced application of the checklist to address specific problems could be of value. As a specialism, spinal surgery differs from others with a significant risk of a perioperative complication leading to harm and morbidity, permanent disability or even death. Iatrogenic spinal cord injury requires high-level resources and prolonged, sometimes lifelong rehabilitation. Other complications include cerebrospinal fluid leak, blood loss, new neurologic deficit, hardware failure, proximal junctional failure, pseudarthrosis, and surgical site infection. Wrong level spinal surgery (WLSS) is a complication specific to spinal surgery and studies have reported WLSS effecting 50-68% of spinal surgeons at some point in their career. The risks of these complications can be mitigated by factors, some of which are included in the WHOSSC and others with are lacking. This scoping review looks at how surgical checklists; both the original and modified versions have and could be used to address the surgical safety challenges specific to spinal surgery.

EVALUATION OF SOME GENETIC RESOURCES USED IN THE APPLE IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM AT SCDP VOINEŞTI

Apple improvement and the development of new varieties are of significant importance for increasing productivity and fruit quality. At SCDP Voinești, the apple improvement program began in 1950, when the first hybrid combinations were made, and has continued to this day. Over time, varieties or genotypes with a high level of genetic resources have been used as parents, especially for obtaining apple varieties with genetic resistance to diseases. From the numerous hybridisations performed, valuable elites were identified. This paper presents the characteristics of three elites with resistance to Venturia spp. and partial to powdery mildew, high productivity and fruit quality: H 4/17-04; H2/3-04; H 19/6-04.

Jobless and Burnt Out: Digital Inequality and Online Access to the Labor Market

This article examines how inequalities in digital skills shape the outcomes of online job‐seeking processes. Building on a representative survey of Spanish job seekers, we show that people with high digital skill levels have a greater probability of securing a job online, because of their ability to create a coherent profile and make their application visible. Additionally, it is less probable that they will experience burnout during this process than job seekers with low digital skill levels. Given the concentration of digital skills amongst people with high levels of material and digital resources, we conclude that the internet enforces existing material and health inequalities.

ФОРМИРОВАНИЕ И РАЗВИТИЕ НАУЧНО-ПРОМЫШЛЕННОГО КОМПЛЕКСА В ИННОВАЦИОННОЙ СИСТЕМЕ РЕСПУБЛИКИ БЕЛАРУСЬ

Ensuring the sustainable development of the state and increasing the real sector of the economy competitiveness through innovation is possible due to the effective interaction of state bodies, scientific and industrial organizations. At this stage of the innovative development of the industry of the Republic of Belarus, low- and medium-technological technologies are mainly used, which does not allow to fully realize the existing opportunities (a high level of human resources, a convenient geographical location, a developed industrial complex, a functioning national innovation system and an extensive network of scientific organizations) and thereby ensure high added value of products. The formation and development of the scientific and industrial complex will allow solving a complex of problems caused by the disintegration of industrial and scientific organizations (technological gap, difficulties of commercialization, reduction in the efficiency of production preparation).

Coordinating flexible ramping products with dynamics of the natural gas network

In electricity networks with high penetration levels of renewable resources, Flexible Ramping Products (FRPs) are among the utilized measures for dealing with the potential fluctuations in the net demand. This paper investigates the coordinated operation of Integrated Electricity-Gas Systems (IEGSs) with considering FRPs. To accurately model and reflect the effects of variations in the natural gas fuel demand on the natural gas network, a dynamic Optimal Gas Flow (OGF) formulation is utilized. The non-convex dynamic model of the natural gas system is represented in a convex form via a tight relaxation scheme. An improved distributed optimization method is proposed to solve the coordinated operation problem in a privacy-preserving manner, where the two infrastructures only share limited information. We introduce the Inexact Varying Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (IV-ADMM) and show that compared with the classic ADMM, it converges considerably faster and in fewer iterations. Through a comparison of day-ahead and real-time operation planning results, it is concluded that without accounting for natural gas network dynamics, the FRP model is not a trustworthy tool in day-ahead planning against uncertainties.

Mock trial as a simulation strategy allowing undergraduate nursing students to experience evidence-based practice: A scoping-review.

The purpose of this scoping review was to determine the underlying design of simulations that help undergraduate nursing students acquire evidence-based practice (EBP) experiences. The JBI methodology was used for this review. The inclusion criteria were studies conducted in academic, clinical, or virtual settings that examined simulation programs designed to facilitate the acquisition of EBP by undergraduate nursing students. A comprehensive search was performed on Jan 3, 2022, using the Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online (MEDLINE; PubMed), the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), and the Excerpta Medica database (EMBASE). Grey literature was not included. Publication year was limited to 2020 and later. There was no language restriction. Data were extracted using a tool developed by the reviewers and based on the National League for Nursing Jeffries Simulation Theory. A total of 12,931 articles were found, and after duplicate articles and articles deemed ineligible based on the title and abstract (12,914 articles), 17 published papers were examined. The full texts of these studies were reviewed for eligibility, and one study was selected for the present scoping review. The selected study examined a mock trial designed to allow undergraduate nursing students to experience the ethical decision-making based on a diversity of evidence. The program reported in the study consisted of a prebriefing-simulation (mock)-debriefing structure with verified positive effects on EBP education. A mock trial is a useful educational strategy for allowing undergraduate nursing students to experience EBP, but a creative method should be found that can modify the mock trial for practical operation as the designing the program demands high levels of human and material resources. OSF Registries, https://osf.io/gdtyu, We updated OSF registry data for documenting important protocol amendments.

The Effect of Corporate Resource Abundance on the Transformation and Upgrading of Manufacturing Enterprises from the Perspective of Whole Process Innovation

Exploiting a comparative advantage through resource endowment is a way to promote the transformation and upgrading of enterprises and high-quality economic development. Based on resource-based theory, this paper takes the listed companies of China’s manufacturing industry as a sample and classifies them into leading, potential, catching-up, and exiting enterprises according to the abundance of financial and human resources. In terms of the research perspective, this paper adopts resource abundance as the starting point to explore its impact on enterprise transformation and upgrading and incorporates technological innovation into the framework to investigate its transmission mechanism. The results indicate that the resource abundance of enterprises directly promotes the transformation and upgrading of enterprises. Notably, the mechanism identification test suggests the following. (1) From the perspective of innovation investment, innovation investment intensity is an important channel for manufacturing companies to transform and upgrade. (2) From the perspective of innovation direction, higher levels of resources allow leading enterprises to accelerate transformation and upgrading through product and process innovation. In contrast, catching-up enterprises tend to foster product innovation rather than process innovation to transform and update, while potential enterprises are likely to foster process innovation to transform and update rather than product innovation. On the other hand, the path of transformation and upgrading through product or process innovation is obstructed for the exiting enterprises. (3) From the perspective of innovation output, all but the exiting enterprises can be transformed and upgraded by increasing their innovation output. Overall, considering the impact of corporate innovation behavior, this research offers new insights into the relationship between resource abundance and transformation and upgrading, and it provides inspiration for promoting transformation and upgrading in Chinese manufacturing enterprises.

A Preliminary Longitudinal Analysis of Symptom Management, Post-traumatic Stress, and Depressive Symptoms in Chinese Adults with Dissociative Symptoms

ABSTRACT People with dissociative symptoms are generally poly-symptomatic and require high levels of healthcare resources. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depressive symptoms are two major disabling comorbid symptoms in people with dissociative symptoms. While the sense of control over symptoms may be associated with PTSD and dissociative symptoms, the interplay among these factors over time remains unexplored. This study examined the predictors of PTSD and depressive symptoms in people with dissociative symptoms. Longitudinal data from 61 participants with dissociative symptoms were analyzed. Participants completed self-report measures of dissociative, depressive, and PTSD symptoms and the sense of control over symptoms two times (T1 & T2) with an interval of over one month. PTSD and depressive symptoms were not transient or time-specific, but they persisted over time in our sample. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that, after controlling for age, treatment usage and baseline symptom severity, T1 symptom management scores (β = −.264, p = .006) negatively predicted T2 PTSD symptoms, while T1 PTSD symptoms (β = .268, p = .017) positively predicted T2 depressive symptoms. T1 depressive symptoms (β = −.087, p = .339) did not predict T2 PTSD symptoms. The findings highlight the importance of improving symptom management skills and treating comorbid PTSD symptoms when working with people with dissociative symptoms.