Pool Of Knowledge Research Articles

Learning from institutional diversity to innovate: a study of Chinese exporters in digital industries

While Chinese digital exporters such as Huawei and Lenovo are well known for their broad overseas markets, it is less explored how the markets' institutional diversity influences their innovation performance. We propose that the institutional diversity of an exporter's overseas markets tends to facilitate the exporter's deliberate learning and adaptation, building a diverse knowledge pool that gives rise to innovation. The exporter's capabilities and incentives for learning strengthen that positive relationship. We examined the argument with data of 14,701 Chinese digital exporters covering 2000-2007. We found that Chinese firms exporting to more institutionally-diverse markets sold more new products than those whose markets were less institutionally diverse. The benefits accrue more to the exporters with more carry-along trade business but less state-ownership. Managerial implications and future research directions are discussed.

Learning from institutional diversity to innovate: a study of Chinese exporters in digital industries

While Chinese digital exporters such as Huawei and Lenovo are well known for their broad overseas markets, it is less explored how the markets' institutional diversity influences their innovation performance. We propose that the institutional diversity of an exporter's overseas markets tends to facilitate the exporter's deliberate learning and adaptation, building a diverse knowledge pool that gives rise to innovation. The exporter's capabilities and incentives for learning strengthen that positive relationship. We examined the argument with data of 14,701 Chinese digital exporters covering 2000-2007. We found that Chinese firms exporting to more institutionally-diverse markets sold more new products than those whose markets were less institutionally diverse. The benefits accrue more to the exporters with more carry-along trade business but less state-ownership. Managerial implications and future research directions are discussed.

Forensics at the Port: Can Diagnostic Testing Benefit Trade?

A growing pool of genomic knowledge and remarkable reductions in the cost of genetic sequencing is revolutionizing the identification of plant pathogens and phytosanitary risks. This article examines available technologies of plant testing for genetics, residues, and contamination that can be imposed at port locations for the trade of bulk commodity crops. Access and deployment of lower-cost detection technologies could fundamentally change phytosanitary practices with potential consequences for agricultural trade. Investment in testing for the presence of transgenic dockage or plant and soil diseases will likely decrease time and arbitration costs. Implementation of diagnostics testing could not only protect the exporters’ position, but it could also lead to future implications of trusted trade or higher standards of phytosanitary policy. The lack of rigorous export testing creates the opportunity for trade protectionist countries to claim that commodity imports fail to meet import standards, which can either lower the price or result in shipment rejection. The failure of commodity shipments to comply with import thresholds is a regular occurrence, yet resolutions are achieved that do not disrupt international trade. This rise in the ability to accurately test for pathogen detection provides the opportunity for safer commodity trade, but also the rise in protectionism.

The reverse transfer of knowledge in MNEs: the perspective of foreign subsidiaries in a post-transition country

PurposeThe aim of the paper is to identify the determinants of the marketing and managerial knowledge transfer from a foreign subsidiary located in a post-transition country to its headquarters established in a developed country.Design/methodology/approachThe authors combined the critical literature studies and empirical research, where the method of Computer-assisted Telephone Interview (CATI) was applied. The empirical data was gathered from 231 manufacturing foreign subsidiaries established in Poland (as one of the post-transition economy). To test the hypotheses logistic regression was applied.FindingsThe knowledge accumulated in the foreign subsidiary, the amount and level of novelty of innovation in the foreign subsidiary and its strategic autonomy is crucial for the occurrence of the reverse knowledge transfer. However, the more powerful the foreign subsidiary is, the less eager it is to transfer marketing and managerial knowledge to the headquarters.Research limitations/implicationsThe study is concentrated just on the manufacturing sector in the Polish economy. The results are based on the opinions and perception of managers, but they represent the corporate perspective (not their individual ones).Practical implicationsThe study provokes asking the question about the proper level of strategic autonomy of a foreign subsidiary. The implication related to the autonomy is much about the proper strategy for human resources management. The obtained results indicate that the intensity of innovation in a foreign subsidiary “translates” to the outflow of knowledge from a foreign subsidiary to its headquarters. Thus, encourages headquarters to let their subsidiaries innovate still monitoring their power.Social implicationsFSs are entities more or less embedded in the host markets, thus their strength and sustainable existence is important for their stakeholders, in particular – internal entities such as employees and external entities such as suppliers, and other cooperating organisations and institutions in the host market. The contribution of FSs to the innovation performance and knowledge pool of external partners is determined much by their absorptive capacity. Thus, the results obtained indirectly point to the importance of external agents ability to absorb and exploit the knowledge.Originality/valueThe originality of the paper concerns three issues. Firstly, the previous studies are mainly focused on either developed or emerging markets and as a result, the peculiarity of post-transition economies, like Poland has been neglected. Secondly, the determinants of reverse knowledge transfer are presented from the corporate perspective. Thirdly, authors focus on marketing and management knowledge distributed from a foreign subsidiary to its headquarter.

DoFE: Domain-Oriented Feature Embedding for Generalizable Fundus Image Segmentation on Unseen Datasets.

Deep convolutional neural networks have significantly boosted the performance of fundus image segmentation when test datasets have the same distribution as the training datasets. However, in clinical practice, medical images often exhibit variations in appearance for various reasons, e.g., different scanner vendors and image quality. These distribution discrepancies could lead the deep networks to over-fit on the training datasets and lack generalization ability on the unseen test datasets. To alleviate this issue, we present a novel Domain-oriented Feature Embedding (DoFE) framework to improve the generalization ability of CNNs on unseen target domains by exploring the knowledge from multiple source domains. Our DoFE framework dynamically enriches the image features with additional domain prior knowledge learned from multi-source domains to make the semantic features more discriminative. Specifically, we introduce a Domain Knowledge Pool to learn and memorize the prior information extracted from multi-source domains. Then the original image features are augmented with domain-oriented aggregated features, which are induced from the knowledge pool based on the similarity between the input image and multi-source domain images. We further design a novel domain code prediction branch to infer this similarity and employ an attention-guided mechanism to dynamically combine the aggregated features with the semantic features. We comprehensively evaluate our DoFE framework on two fundus image segmentation tasks, including the optic cup and disc segmentation and vessel segmentation. Our DoFE framework generates satisfying segmentation results on unseen datasets and surpasses other domain generalization and network regularization methods.

Awareness and Knowledge Among Dental and Medical Undergraduate Students Regarding Human Papilloma Virus and Its Available Preventive Measures.

Background:India is a major contributor to the global burden of human papilloma virus (HPV) infection and associated diseases like cervical and oropharyngeal cancers. Hence, it is essential to recognize the existing knowledge pool of current healthcare students about HPV and its preventive measures to translate this into benefits for the society in the future.Objective:To determine the awareness and knowledge among dental and medical undergraduate students regarding HPV and its diagnosis and prevention.Methods:This cross-sectional study enrolled in 577 dental and undergraduate medical students from a tertiary-care teaching hospital. A questionnaire containing 20 closed-ended multiple-choice questions was used to assess their knowledge regarding HPV and its transmission, cervical cancer and its screening, as well as HPV vaccines and their attitude towards them. Descriptive statistics, Mann Whitney U test, and Chi square test were employed for statistical analysis. p ≤ 0.05 was considered statistically significant.Results:The study consisted of 52.68% dental and 47.31% medical students, with a mean age of 20.95 ± 1.82 years, M:F ratio of 0.7:1, and a mean overall score of 10.75 ± 5.18 (average). The mean scores for knowledge about HPV, its vaccination, and its diagnosis were 7.98 ± 3.26 (good), 1.61 ± 0.95 (average), and 1.15 ± 1.16 (average), respectively. These scores showed no significant difference between the courses as well as the genders (p > 0.05).Conclusion:Overall, the dental and medical undergraduate students presented an average level of knowledge and awareness regarding HPV and its prevention. This reflects a greater need for educating healthcare professionals in order to have a ripple effect on society at large.

Quantifying simultaneous innovations in evolutionary medicine

To what extent do simultaneous innovations occur and are independently from each other? In this paper we use a novel persistent keyword framework to systematically identify innovations in a large corpus containing academic papers in evolutionary medicine between 2007 and 2011. We examine whether innovative papers occurring simultaneously are independent from each other by evaluating the citation and co-authorship information gathered from the corpus metadata. We find that 19 out of 22 simultaneous innovative papers do, in fact, occur independently from each other. In particular, co-authors of simultaneous innovative papers are no more geographically concentrated than the co-authors of similar non-innovative papers in the field. Our result suggests producing innovative work draws from a collective knowledge pool, rather than from knowledge circulating in distinct localized collaboration networks. Therefore, new ideas can appear at multiple locations and with geographically dispersed co-authorship networks. Our findings support the perspective that simultaneous innovations are the outcome of collective behavior.

Association of MICA and HLA‐B alleles with leprosy in two endemic populations in Brazil

Leprosy is a prevalent disease in Brazil, which ranks as the country with the second highest number of cases in the world. The disease manifests in a spectrum of forms, and genetic differences in the host can help to elucidate the immunopathogenesis. For a better understanding of MICA association with leprosy, we performed a case-control and a family-based study in two endemic populations in Brazil. MICA and HLA-B alleles were evaluated in 409 leprosy patients and in 419 healthy contacts by PCR-SSOP-Luminex-based technology. In the familial study, analysis of 46 families was completed by direct sequencing of all exons and 3'/5'untranslated regions, using the Ilumina MiSeq platform. All data were collected between 2006 and 2009. Statistical analysis was performed using the Chi-square or Fisher's exact test together with a multivariate analysis. Family-based association was assessed by transmission disequilibrium test (TDT) software FBAT 2.0.4. We found associations between the haplotype MICA*002-HLA-B*35 with leprosy in both the per se and the multibacillary (MB) forms when compared to healthy contacts. The MICA allele *008 was associated with the clinical forms of paucibacillary (PB). Additionally, MICA*029 was associated with the clinical forms of MB. The association of MICA*029 allele (MICA-A4 variant) with the susceptibility to the MB form suggests this variant for the transmembrane domain of the MICA molecule may be a risk factor for leprosy. Two MICA and nine HLA-B variants were found associated with leprosy per se in the Colônia do Prata population. Linkage disequilibrium analysis revealed perfect linkage disequilibrium (LD) between HLA-B markers rs2596498 and rs2507992, and high LD (R2 =.92) between these and the marker rs2442718. This familial study demonstrates that MICA association signals are not independent from those observed for HLA-B. Our findings contribute the knowledge pool of the immunogenetics of Hansen's disease and reveals a new association of the MICA*029 allele.

Indian Engineering, Procurement, and Construction Companies: Which Non-Price Attributes Impact Their Willingness to Pay When Buying Switchgear?

This paper on industrial marketing, attempts to identify the non-price attributes (desired values) affecting the willingness to pay (WTP) of the Indian engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) companies when buying medium- and high-voltage switchgears from manufacturers. A review of literature until 2018, covering theoretical framework and empirical results in varied market environments was conducted. An initial experiential survey with 22 manufacturers was conducted to understand their business pain points with EPCs. To obtain a comprehensive list of the desired values affecting EPC’s WTP, another experiential survey was conducted with both manufacturers and EPCs. The study revealed that insufficient price realization or low WTP was among the top three pain points. Further, in conjunction with literature reviews, the study revealed 10 major desired values affecting WTP, offering manufacturers a reliable EPC value driver guide. A theoretical model on WTP was proposed by authors, setting out that WTP is impacted by customer satisfaction, and in turn by the perceived value, thereby contributing to the academic knowledge pool. As a scope for further study, data may be collected from EPCs and statistically analyzed to understand the relative importance of these desired values and to verify if a higher perceived value translates to satisfaction and WTP.

Web of Science and Scopus are not global databases of knowledge

Both Web of Science and Scopus are critical components of our research ecosystem, providing the basis for university and global rankings, as well as for bibliometric research. However, both are structurally biased against research produced in non-western countries, non-English language research, and research from the arts, humanities and social sciences. This viewpoint emphasises the damage that these systematic inequities pose upon our global knowledge production systems, and the need to research funders to unite to form a more globally-representative, non-profit, community-controlled infrastructure for our global research knowledge pool.

Approaches on Mitigating Variation Orders in Road Construction Industry in Kenya: The Case of Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA)

Variation orders have been globally identified as a significant reason for poor performance of construction projects. Several variation orders have been identified in the Kenyan construction industry, however, there is a paucity of information on the approaches to minimize their occurrence. The aim of this study is to identify the practices for variation order mitigation in the public road construction sector in Kenya. This is a cross-sectional study that was carried out among the stakeholders (clients, consultants, and contractors) involved in road construction projects. The study used the purposive sampling technique whereby the data were collected with the use of distributed questionnaires among clients, consultants, and contractors’ staff with a technical background in civil engineering. The Relative Importance Index (RII) was used for data analysis. According to the findings of the study, the top five recommended approaches for minimizing variation orders include the provision of adequate planning before the initiation of road construction projects, understanding of the contract provisions by all the parties before project implementation, solving of land disputes before the project tender awards, provision of complete project designs, and provision of a brief project scope during the tendering process. This research, therefore, contributes to a pool of knowledge that will enable practitioners and researchers in the construction industry to develop effective models for minimizing variation orders.

Anti-Obesity Attributes; UHPLC-QTOF-MS/MS-Based Metabolite Profiling and Molecular Docking Insights of Taraxacum officinale.

The naturopathic treatment of obesity is a matter of keen interest to develop efficient natural pharmacological routes for disease management with low or negligible toxicity and side effects. For this purpose, optimized ultrasonicated hydroethanolic extracts of Taraxacum officinale were evaluated for antiobesity attributes. The 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl method was adopted to evaluate antioxidant potential. Porcine pancreatic lipase inhibitory assay was conducted to assess the in vitro antiobesity property. Ultra-high performance chromatography equipped with a mass spectrometer was utilized to profile the secondary metabolites in the most potent extract. The 60% ethanolic extract exhibited highest extract yield (25.05 ± 0.07%), total phenolic contents (123.42 ± 0.007 mg GAE/g DE), total flavonoid contents (55.81 ± 0.004 RE/g DE), DPPH-radical-scavenging activity (IC50 = 81.05 ± 0.96 µg/mL) and pancreatic lipase inhibitory properties (IC50 = 146.49 ± 4.24 µg/mL). The targeted metabolite fingerprinting highlighted the presence of high-value secondary metabolites. Molecular-binding energies computed by docking tool revealed the possible contribution towards pancreatic lipase inhibitory properties of secondary metabolites including myricetin, isomangiferin, icariside B4, kaempferol and luteolin derivatives when compared to the standard drug orlistat. In vivo investigations revealed a positive impact on the lipid profile and obesity biomarkers of obese mice. The study presents Taraxacum officinale as a potent source of functional bioactive ingredients to impart new insights into the existing pool of knowledge of naturopathic approaches towards obesity management.

Kebijakan Sinergitas R & D Pemerintah, Komunitas Epistemik, dan Sektor Swasta dalam Percepatan Kemandirian Industri Pertahanan

The purpose of this research is to discuss R&D synergy policies of government, epistemic community, and private sector in accelerating the independence of the Indonesian defense industry. This research is a qualitative research, the type of research uses a comprehensive analytical study and analytical normative approach. The government is aware of the importance of building national research capacity in defense technology. That awareness must be followed up with concrete policies, measurable results, and strategic cooperation with other national components. Human resources or researchers, academics, and innovators who are members of various research institutions are basically a "pool of knowledge" that studies and understands various aspects of the technology, managerial, and social-political industry of the defense, so that it is in an irreplaceable position as the driving force of the ideals of independence in the defense industry. Increasing the capability and mastery of defense industry technology must be done through research and development (R&D) and engineering activities. R&D activities are also an absolute requirement for defense independence and the ability to respond to the development of defense and security technology.

Analysing Zakir Naik’s Illocutionary Acts in His Speech about Islam’s View on Terrorism & Jihad

Zakir Naik is an infamous Indian preacher who conveys the meaning of Qur’anic verses on today’s social media, primarily using English to reach the widest international audience. The study aims to find out the dominant types of illocutionary acts and functions of speech acts in his speech on terrorism and jihad in Islam’s perspective. This mixed method study uses quantitative and qualitative data from his lecture on “Islam and Jihad”, analysing the data with Searle’s (1986) speech act theory. This study contributes to the pool of linguistics knowledge on the delivery of sensitive topics by detailing how an English as a second language (ESL) speaker conveys religious beliefs to the world.

Adverse Impacts of Unethical Anthropogenic Activities upon the Teknaf Peninsula Ecologically Critical Area, Cox’s Bazar

The coastal zone of Bangladesh is endowed with dynamic ‘Terrestrial’ and ‘Coastal and Marine ecosystem’. The zone confronts with declined environmental quality owing to unethical anthropogenic interventions. Few studies regarding ethical attitudes of local communities to conserve the coast were conducted earlier. Two objectives, such as (i) heavy metal concentration, and (ii) physio-chemical quality of sample soil and water were selected to reveal the environmental state of study area. Five heavy metals like- Cadmium, Copper, Iron, Lead, and Zinc; and four physio-chemical parameters such as, the pH, Electrical Conductivity, Temperature, and Turbidity of sample soil and water were measured. The average concentration of Pb in soil is 10 times higher than world average (0.03 mg/g), while Cd concentration in soil is two times more than world average (0.11 mg/L). The concentration of Fe at Inani beach water is 1.54 mg/g more than world average (3.4 mg/g). The physio-chemical parameters are within standard range. Unethical discharge of toxic effluents from shrimp hatcheries, and municipal garbage are main sources of pollution, which ensue into environmental degradations. Concentration of five heavy metals and Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3) in sample mollusk shells exhibit biodiversity deterioration. The mollusk shells from Inani beach contains 0.04 mg/L Cd,0.08 mg/L Cu, 0.42 mg/L Fe, 0.38 mg/L Pb, and 0.07 mg/L Zn. The CaCO3 content in mollusk shells at Inani beach is 49.5%, which indicates the degradation of the mollusks, as shells normally are made with 95% - 97% Calcium Carbonate. Hence, the Department of Environment (DOE), Bangladesh (GoB) declared the area as an ‘Ecologically Critical Area’ (ECA). The concerned stakeholders, like- CPP volunteers and officials, Forest Division, Fisheries Research Institute, Bangladesh Water Development Board, Union Chairman and Journalists of Cox’s Bazar recommended insertion of moral values among local stakeholders through trainings, motivational lectures, demonstrations and dramas, as well as, incorporation of lessons about consequences of unethical activities upon geo-environment into text books. Though least practice has been found regarding moral values during survey, the present research advocates in developing ‘Knowledge pool’ about coastal environment, creating awareness, and developing moral ethics among the local, regional and national stakeholders.

CrustyBase: an interactive online database for crustacean transcriptomes

Transcriptome sequencing has opened the field of genomics to a wide variety of researchers, owing to its efficiency, applicability across species and ability to quantify gene expression. The resulting datasets are a rich source of information that can be mined for many years into the future, with each dataset providing a unique angle on a specific context in biology. Maintaining accessibility to this accumulation of data presents quite a challenge for researchers.The primary focus of conventional genomics databases is the storage, navigation and interpretation of sequence data, which is typically classified down to the level of a species or individual. The addition of expression data adds a new dimension to this paradigm – the sampling context. Does gene expression describe different tissues, a temporal distribution or an experimental treatment? These data not only describe an individual, but the biological context surrounding that individual. The structure and utility of a transcriptome database must therefore reflect these attributes. We present an online database which has been designed to maximise the accessibility of crustacean transcriptome data by providing intuitive navigation within and between datasets and instant visualization of gene expression and protein structure.The site is accessible at https://crustybase.org and currently holds 10 datasets from a range of crustacean species. It also allows for upload of novel transcriptome datasets through a simple web interface, allowing the research community to contribute their own data to a pool of shared knowledge.

A Diverse View of Science to Catalyse Change.

Valuing diversity leads to scientific excellence, the progress of science and most importantly, it is simply the right thing to do. We can value diversity not only in words, but also in actions.

Factors influencing corporate social responsibility disclosures in Nepalese banks

PurposeThis paper examines the relationship between selected firm-specific variables and the extent of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosures made by Nepalese banks.Design/methodology/approachA content analysis approach of the banks' annual reports is applied using a CSR disclosure index based on the Global Reporting Initiative guidelines. The factors identified in this study – bank size, bank age and bank profitability – are analyzed against the extent of CSR disclosures in the Nepalese banks using multiple regression.FindingsThe main finding from the content analysis indicates that the extent of CSR disclosures made by Nepalese banks in their annual reports is mostly descriptive, with charity and donation being the most disclosed items. The main findings from the correlation and regression analyses show that there are positive and significant relationships between both bank size and profitability and the extent of CSR disclosures in the Nepalese banks, while bank age is a partial determinant.Originality/valueBanks have a significant role in the Nepalese economy. This study offers insights into the CSR disclosure practices of Nepalese banks, examines the potential factors affecting CSR disclosure and expands the pool of CSR knowledge in the developing country context, especially in the banking sector.

Negotiating the expertise paradox in new mothers’ WhatsApp group interactions

This paper reports on a discourse-ethnographic study of WhatsApp communication between new mums affiliated with the National Childbirth Trust (NCT). The data consists of over 600 screenshots collected over a 13-month period and supplemented by semi-formal interviews.The focus is on the nature of NCT WhatsApp messaging, with its semi-private character, as a platform for gathering and evaluating knowledge, sharing embodied experiences, and self-positioning with respect to medical professionals and medical advice. Analysis focuses on the process of constructing and de-constructing expertise and negotiating the expertise paradox, which involves new parents being positioned as fully responsible for their child’s wellbeing and development, while also requiring training in the art of childcare provided by health care professionals. With virtually unrestricted access to information, mothers are expected to act as responsible moral actors, evaluating existing advice, managing cultural expectations and adopting a highly reflexive orientation to their maternal responsibilities.The study shows that, through an ongoing WhatsApp engagement with each other, new mums create a pool of parenthood-related expert and experiential knowledge, which is both similar and different from that experienced in “intimate mothering publics” (Johnson 2015) online.

The Relevance of the Economic Environment to the Development and Growth of Academic Spin-Offs. A Panel Approach

The importance of academic research ("AR") to economic growth is widely accepted but quantification of incremental impacts, and their attribution to any one country's expenditures, is difficult. Yet quantitative justification of government AR funding is highly desirable. We therefore attempt to quantify one impact which can be directly and causally attributed to one country's funding: spin-off companies.
 
 Although there is great interest in the new knowledge economy, less favoured regions seem permanently disadvantaged because they lack a critical mass of knowledge capital to initiate accumulation, growth and economic development processes. This is a problem for policy-makers seeking to promote economic growth and territorial cohesion in such regions. This paper seeks to develop four empirical models of how Academic spin-off companies can improve their economic performances. The economic benefits that such companies bring are explored, to identify those elements which can potentially upgrade regional economies through knowledge accumulation, which are termed ‘building up territorial knowledge pools’.
 
 We argue that the impacts of valid and ongoing policies in support of the Third Mission represent incremental contributions to the ROI of academic spin-offs, much greater (also on a updated base). The impacts therefore provide a quantitative justification for public investment, allowing much more important (but less quantifiable) long-term benefits be considered as a "free" bonus.