Matter Experiment Research Articles

Outcome of Sleeve Gastrectomy Versus Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass for Patients with Super Obesity (Body Mass Index > 50kg/m2).

With increasing BMI, the complexity of treating patients with obesity rises. The focus of this study is to investigate the effects of sleeve gastrectomy (SG) and Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) on perioperative morbidity and remission of comorbidities at 3years in patients with a BMI > 50kg/m2. A retrospective multicenter analysis of a prospectively maintained database was performed to enroll patients with a 3-year follow-up after SG or RYGB between 2005 and 2019 and a BMI of > 50kg/m2 preoperatively. Patients' BMI and comorbidity status were recorded preoperatively. We analyzed data from 2939 patients who had at least a preoperative BMI > 50kg/m2. A total of 1278 patients underwent RYGB surgery, and 1661 underwent SG. The distribution of sex, BMI, hypertension, reflux, and sleep apnea was significant between the two groups. Three years after surgery, the percent excess weight loss (%EWL) was 62.21% in RYGB and 55.87% in SG (p < 0.001). The change in hypertension (p < 0.001) and reflux (p < 0.001) was significantly in favor of RYGB. The change in diabetes mellitus was not significant between the two groups (p > 5%). There was a minimal difference in sleep apnea in favor of SG (p < 0.001). Mortality and overall complication rates were not significant in either group. Both procedures positively affected comorbidities, BMI, and %EWL in patients with super obesity 3years after surgery. In some categories, RYGB was better than SG. Nevertheless, the decision between the two methods remains a matter of the surgeon's experience and the patient's general condition.

Does Entrepreneurs' Military Experience Promote Corporate Environmental Investment? Evidence from Chinese Private Firms.

Although it is well established that the military experience of top executives has a profound influence on firms’ decisions, empirical evidence on how military experience matters to corporate environmental investment has been scarce. Drawn on imprinting theory and upper echelon theory, this study examines the impact of entrepreneurs’ military experience on corporate environmental investment. Using a nationwide survey of Chinese private firms, we find that entrepreneurs’ military experience significantly promotes corporate environmental investment. Further, the positive effect is more pronounced for firms with entrepreneurs who have experienced a wartime atmosphere and those located in regions with more minor public environmental concerns. Our study extends the literature on the determinants of corporate environmental investment and the economic consequences of individual military experience. Moreover, this also provides practical insights for policymakers on how to implement environmental governance and promote ecological construction.

CEO foreign experience and corporate sustainable development: Evidence from China

AbstractThis study examines the impact of CEO foreign experience on corporate sustainable development from the angle of firm green innovation. Using manually collected data of CEOs' foreign experience, we find that CEO foreign experience is positively associated with firm green innovation in China. The positive relationship between CEO foreign experience and green innovation (including green invention patents and green utility model patents) is more significant when the firm is state owned, when the firm has better corporate governance, and when the firm is subject to a better institutional environment. Further analyses indicate that both foreign work and foreign educational experiences matter; relative to experiences gained in underdeveloped countries, those related to developed economies tend to be more influential in facilitating green innovation. Finally, the documented association is robust to a series of robustness checks, including propensity score matching, instrumental variable approach, Heckman two‐stage model, and the inclusion of firm fixed effects. Overall, this paper contributes to the upper echelons perspective, and it also offers clear practical implications through showing that hiring returnee CEOs can enhance firms' sustainable development, which could be of interest to policy makers in other emerging markets.

The pace of a trauma resuscitation: experience matters

PurposeResuscitation quality and pace depend on effective team coordination, which can be facilitated by adequate leadership. Our primary aim was to assess the influence of trauma team leader experience on resuscitation pace. Second, we investigated the influence of injury severity on resuscitation pace.MethodsThe trauma team leaders were identified (Staff trauma surgeon vs Fellow trauma surgeon) and classified from video analysis during a 1-week period. Resuscitations were assessed for time to the treatment plan, total resuscitation time, and procedure time. Furthermore, patient and resuscitation characteristics were assessed and compared: age, gender, Injury Severity Score, Glasgow Coma Scale < 9, and the number (and duration) of surgical procedures during initial resuscitation. Correlations between total resuscitation time, Injury Severity Score, and time to treatment plan were calculated.ResultsAfter adjustment for the time needed for procedures, the time to treatment plan and total resuscitation time was significantly shorter in resuscitations led by a Staff trauma surgeon compared to a Fellow trauma surgeon (median 648 s (IQR 472–813) vs 852 s (IQR 694–1256); p 0.01 resp. median 1280 s (IQR 979–1494) vs 1535 s (IQR 1247–1864), p 0.04). Surgical procedures were only performed during resuscitations led by Staff trauma surgeons (4 thorax drains, 1 endotracheal intubation, 1 closed fracture reduction). Moreover, a significant negative correlation (r: – 0.698, p < 0.01) between Injury Severity Score and resuscitation time was found.ConclusionExperienced trauma team leaders may positively influence the pace of the resuscitation. Moreover, we found that the resuscitation pace increases when the patient is more severely injured.

The gravity of experience

AbstractIn this paper, we establish the importance of experience in international trade in reducing unmeasured trade costs and facilitating bilateral trade. We find a strong role for experience, measured in years of positive trade, for both aggregate and sectoral bilateral trade. In an augmented gravity framework, with a very comprehensive set of fixed effects and trend variables, we find that a 1% increase in experience at the country‐pair level increases bilateral exports by 0.417% and reduces trade costs by 0.105%. Non‐parametric estimates imply that nine years of experience is equivalent to a country pair joining a preferential trading area. We show that experience matters more for country pairs that are distant, non‐contiguous, do not share a common language, lack colonial links and legal ties to one another. Subsequently, we construct microfounded measures of trade costs and show how these decline with the accumulation of experience. Our results are consistent with experience reducing the bilateral unmeasured variable costs of trade and experience shared across firms and industries.

To cheat when continuously missing aspirations: Does CEO experience matter?

To cheat when continuously missing aspirations: Does CEO experience matter?

Probing Compressed Baryonic Matter

The objective of the compressed baryonic matter (CBM) experiment at the future Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) in Darmstadt, Germany, is the investigation of the fundamental properties of strongly interacting matter. Of particular interest for our understanding of compact stellar objects is the determination of the equation-of-state (EOS) at high baryon densities and the exploration of the microscopic degrees-of-freedom under these conditions. The results of these laboratory experiments will complement astronomical observations, which also constrain the high-density EOS. Recent results of QCD-based calculations suggest that a possible first-order chiral phase transition should be observable in heavy-ion collisions at FAIR energies. This article reviews relevant observables from heavy-ion collisions and describes the detector configuration and the physics performance of the CBM experiment.

Online course experiences matter: adapting and applying the CEQ to the online teaching context during COVID-19 in China

This paper reports two consecutive studies investigating Chinese students’ course experiences of online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. With a sample of 2,894 undergraduate students from 12 universities, Study one adapted the Course Experience Questionnaire in the context of online teaching and learning, and provided some evidence supporting the psychometric qualities of the refined six-factor, 33-item Chinese version of the Online Course Experience Questionnaire. Using this scale, Study two examined the relationships between students’ course experiences and their efficacy for completing online learning tasks and satisfaction with online teaching with a sample of 6,299 students from four universities. In general, the results showed that the Online Course Experience Questionnaire is a reliable and valid tool for assessing the quality of online teaching. After controlling for students’ demographic variables, various factors of students’ online course experiences were significantly associated with their academic efficacy for and satisfaction with online teaching. The results call for attention to the roles of clear goals and standards, emphasis on independence, and appropriate assessment in online teaching. These findings enrich the current knowledge of students’ course experience, and have implications for the improvement of online teaching during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.

Adolescent inguinal hernia repair: a review of the literature and recommendations for selective management.

The choice of how to repair inguinal hernias in adolescents has historically been a matter of experience and differed between pediatric surgeons who traditionally performed a high ligation of the sac and general surgeons who typically perform a repair using mesh. This up-to-date review thoroughly examines the subject and discusses the suitability of both types of repairs in this unique age group. A 20-year Pub Med search was performed for the following terms: adolescent hernia repair including reports of mesh hernia repair in adolescents and postoperative complications including chronic inguinal pain and recurrences. The evidence in the literature suggests that while there appears to be no difference between the two types of repairs with regards to recurrence and complications, changes in the pelvic floor physiology in adolescents suggest that a selective, individualized approach can be recommended depending on the size and nature of the presenting pathology. A selective approach to the inguinal hernia in adolescent patients based on the size of the defect appears justified.

Disempowerment Evaluation and the Risks of Avoiding Stakeholder Feedback

Evaluation can bring positive, often cathartic effects for those who participate in evaluation activities. Inviting stakeholder feedback conveys respect, a commitment to improvement, and lets program participants know their perspectives are valued. The absence of evaluation, on the other hand, can cause harm to program recipients by conveying the message that their voices don’t matter—and their experiences matter even less. This is particularly the case for programs and policies that mandate participation, such as recent hotel quarantine policies or federal vaccine mandates. In this article, the notion of disempowerment evaluation—the structural avoidance of stakeholder feedback— is introduced and its potential for negatively affecting participant health and well-being is discussed. Implications for evaluators of counseling and mental health programs are discussed.

Ethics and Law.

Ethics and Law.

Seminars AATS International Roundtable of Lung Transplantation for COVID-19

Seminars AATS International Roundtable of Lung Transplantation for COVID-19

Everyman and the Threefold Dante Subject in the Diegetic Structure of the Commedia

Everyman and the Threefold Dante Subject in the Diegetic Structure of the Commedia Catherine Adoyo (bio) [M]i volsi al suon del nome mio,che di necessità qui si registra.1 One of the most conspicuous features of the Commedia that shapes how the poem packages and delivers meaning also happens to be among the most significant keys to discerning how the text frames different degrees of epistemic authority in the poem's narrative voices. I refer here to Dante Alighieri's multifaceted subjectivity in the text. Numerous studies have dedicated attention to the first-person-singular speakers who, either intradiegetically or extradiegetically vis-à-vis the journey through the world beyond, answer to the identity "Dante."2 To date, the three figures generally recognized in this respect are Dante the pilgrim, Dante the narrator, and Dante the author. Undeveloped by critical tradition, however, is a clear structural map distinguishing these three figures and articulating the epistemic function that these [End Page 123] distinctions play in the self-exegesis of the poem. As we expound on how the threefold Dante subject is delineated in the text, we will also explore how each subject's testimonial expression contributes to the hermeneutic program of the Commedia and how this plural subjectivity signifies the structural unity of the poem. In a synthesis of critical treatments of the distinct Dante subjects, Giovanni Cecchetti dates their differentiation back to Dante's own time, associating them with auctor and agens, medieval concepts that do not apparently entail the question of Dante's textual subjectivity. Cecchetti also attributes Charles Singleton's more germane and influential 1941 reconfiguration of the Dante subjects in modern terms to Giovanni Venturi's 1924 commentary.3 In his 1941 study "Dante in the Divine Comedy," Singleton deliberates upon and identifies four "voices in the first person:" the voice of the narrator returned from the supernatural journey to recount his experience; the lone voice in the wilderness inveighing against contemporary ills in the apostrophes of the poem; the voice of the artist who continually comments on his poetic craft; and finally, the voice of the core narrative's protagonist whose onomastic identity is declared by Beatrice in Purgatorio (30.55–63) and alluded to by Cacciaguida in Paradiso (15.91–92 and 15.137–138).4 Singleton later narrows his focus on the protagonist of the journey, codifying the critical idea of Dante as the universal stand-in for the allegory of the soul's return to its Maker: [o]f the scene and of the journey in the prologue we might say "our life." Not so beyond the door. The journey beyond is too exceptional an event to bear any but a singular possessive. […] Whereas in the prologue […] in so far as we might see this as "our" journey, it takes place, as to time, in a kind of "ever-present," with Everyman as actor.5 Building on Singleton's concept of Dante as Everyman, Leo Spitzer frames the question as a distinction between the "poetic 'I'" and the "empirical person."6 Spitzer agrees with Singleton that Dante, as the poetic "I," is "representative of humanity" in his universal experience and deems it a necessary conceit in Dante's cultural context: this Odysseus of the Beyond who says "I" purports to have undertaken a voyage for which he offers no authentication by evidence transplanted from other sources: he is the only witness. How could the medieval public [End Page 124] have accepted as genuine the supposedly eye-witness report (in this poem "to which Heaven and Earth collaborated") on the supermundane world, unless the "poetic I" of Dante represented, for this medieval community, the human soul as such with all its capacity to attain to the Beyond and to reach out of space towards its Creator?7 The empirical "I" in Spitzer's configuration, namely, the historical figure Dante Alighieri, is present in the text to "perceive and to fix the matter of experience."8 Here Spitzer appears to conflate history and poetry, all the while ignoring their fictional function in the poem, when he points to the medieval audience's need for "authentication by evidence" of the Commedia as an "eye-witness...

Foreign entry timing, time since first entry, and internationalisation speed of exporting SMEs: when does manager domestic experience matter

Foreign entry timing, time since first entry, and internationalisation speed of exporting SMEs: when does manager domestic experience matter

COURIER REPORT OF THE DIPLOMAT OF THE MONARCHY: JÁNOS CSISZÁRIK, 8-24 JULY 1924

In 2022, press reports on churches are increasingly frequent. The war that broke out on 24 February brought to the fore once again such previously less central topics as the churches, the role of Christians, and within this the Catholic-Orthodox relationship. Partly because of this fact, it is worth taking a look at how Vatican diplomacy was shaped during Trianon, what role the churches played in the political decisions that were taken. Our analysis is based on the diary of a former elected Catholic bishop who served as a church adviser in the Austro-Hungarian Empire's diplomacy . The diary was recently processed and published by Péter Bertalan, following detailed archival research , and thus entirely new information has been made available to the public on this topic. In the following, we will show how János Csiszárik tried to achieve political results through the network of church connections that remained from the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy . In the following, we will shed light on how networks shape the events of a given era, how much human ties, friendships and personal experiences matter. The analysis of Peter Bertalan's travel diary, published for the first time, has highlighted the importance of the network of relationships that provide insights into the difficult situation of Vatican diplomacy in the period under study..

From the Editors

Welcome to the third volume of JoAE. Similar to the previous two editorials, here we offer an update regarding the journal, as well as ponder one of the stupefying dilemmas we have encountered: the “So What?” question.Last year we found ourselves in some manuscript submission conundrums. The primary issue involved the processing of manuscripts. As of this writing (September 2021), we have 90+ submissions for this year, and more than 200 manuscripts in some form of revision or review from the previous two years. Using Google’s G Suite for manuscript submission and correspondence was not sustainable. We needed to evolve.We migrated to the web-based journal management system Scholastica. We made some beginners’ mistakes, but the system makes organizing submissions quicker and easier. Moreover, we felt we were overwhelming our editorial board and ad hoc reviewers. After consultation with experienced journal editors, we began issuing more “desk rejects.” If manuscripts do not follow submission guidelines1 and/or disregards our previous editors’ introductions2 or the JoAE blog,3 we no longer send them out for peer review. We appreciate our reviewers and want to protect their time and effort; they offer their passion and unpaid labor to make this journal go.Another issue was the overwhelming number of COVID-19 submissions. We made the decision to reject a majority of these. Why? Most were chronologies: “This happened, and this happened, and this happened.” They did not satisfy the showing-telling characteristic of solid autoethnographic writing. Moreover, while providing personal experience, a majority of manuscripts did not answer the all-important “So What?” question: Why does (or should) your experience matter to others? Why should readers care about your issues and experiences? For COVID-19 manuscripts, we believe the So What? question was (is) difficult to answer because we are all still living with the pandemic.4The “So What?” dilemma was not just a challenge for COVID-19 submissions. Many submissions we desk rejected also did not answer the “So What?” question. In some manuscripts it was not clear if the author even considered the “So What?” question. Therefore, in this editorial, we thought it would be meaningful to consider the “So What?” question not only for JoAE but for autoethnographic research in general.5We reflected on why some autoethnographers appear to have difficulty answering the “So What?” question. We suggest that to answer the question, autoethnographers need to seriously consider four “How” questions:This list is not all-encompassing, nor do all the “how” questions need to be answered to fully answer the “So What?” question.Answering the “So What?” question is clearer when pursuing research in the sciences. “This analysis is the first in the United States to assess COVID-19 vaccination coverage among pregnant women.”8 This statement (and article) has obvious important health care implications. The Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration answered the “So What?” question when they showed “Our radio-wave observations thus provide powerful evidence for the presence of supermassive black holes in centers of galaxies and as the central engines of active galactic nuclei.”9 They are moving physics forward. Even in traditional quantitative and qualitative social science research, the “So What?” question is more easily answered. “Group identification and stream familiarity were found to be positively related to perceived credibility. These findings hold implications for using video game streams as a marketing tool…”10 But, for autoethnography, answering the question requires much more skill, deliberation, and nuance.We want to publish articles that use autoethnography to add to understandings of the complexities of personal and social experience. Or manuscripts that add to or complicate our understandings of the philosophical underpinnings of autoethnography. Or manuscripts that examine new subjects through an autoethnographic lens. The “So What?” question is critical, and authors must show and tell why their research is important and necessary, as well as why we, readers, should care about their work. Insightful and nuanced answers and analyses will help steer manuscripts away from a dreary desk reject

Social media destination information features and destination loyalty: does perceived coolness and memorable tourism experiences matter?

ABSTRACT The advent of social media in the business environment posed many opportunities and challenges for travel and tourism companies in establishing optimum customer relationships. Although the topics such as social media tourism information and its applicability in the diverse tourists’ behaviours and beliefs have received attention from tourists’ researchers, there was little empirical evidence linking the dimensions of social media destination information with destinations’ perceived coolness. This study looks at how tourism social media destination information elements affect travellers’ perceptions of coolness that ultimately contribute to shaping memorable experiences as well as destination loyalty (affective, cognitive and conative). A field survey method was used, and a PLS-SEM approach was used to test the model. The empirical results showed that the added value of social media destination information and the virtual presence of social media destination information is impacting the perceived coolness. Perceived coolness has a positive influence on memorable experiences, and memorable experiences have a positive effect on destination loyalty. On the basis of the study findings, theoretical and managerial implications are discussed, and future research directions are explained.

STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION PLAN AS A WEB SALES LEVEL

Being in a digital environment is challenging for a company in several aspects. It will be necessary to adapt its operational structure, reorganize its way of thinking, adjust the organizational culture, involve its employees in this way of acting, be up to the competitiveness of its competitors and, above all, be connected to its consumers. This means showing them that the company is aligned with the digital and “proving” that it works in this environment, offering good experiences in this relationship. In this sense, it is necessary to plan to be in the digital environment, get into digital marketing practices and understand the results it can bring. The study addresses the situation of a large company, which dominates the market in matters of customer service and experience, and which migrated on-site courses to a digital platform, but did not develop a strategic plan for dissemination and sale. The diagnostic analysis method was used, through qualitative research, from the observation and collection of internal data from the company and records of use by consumers of social networks taken into account - Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook, in order to verify profile and behavior of accesses. The work contributes to the use of digital channels for the use of products and services in the Internet environment. The methodology used was qualitative analysis based on diagnostic analysis to obtain general knowledge about the proposed study, thus the general profile of the challenge situation improving specific actions.

Experiences matter: Educators’ attitudes toward disability in higher education

This study investigated 128 post-secondary educators’ attitudes toward disability at a college and a university in southwestern Ontario, Canada. The participants completed the Educators’ Attitudes toward Disability Scale (EADS) and a demographic questionnaire that included questions about their experiences with disability. There were three research questions at the heart of this study: (1) What are post-secondary educators’ overall attitudes toward disability? (2) Do demographic factors predict post-secondary educators’ attitudes toward disability? (3) Does exposure to people with disability predict post-secondary educators’ attitudes toward disability? The findings of this study suggest post-secondary educators hold overallpositive attitudes toward disability and there were very few differences observed between groups (e.g., based on age, gender, discipline, etc.). Educators’ experiences with people who have a disability, however, were positively associated with their attitudes. This factor included personal experiences (e.g., friends, family, etc.), but also professional experiences (e.g., students in their classes).

You can't get there from here: The influence of an audit partner's prior non-public accounting experience on audit outcomes

We examine the importance of audit partners' prior non-public accounting experience (hereafter, “industry experience”) to audit outcomes. We conducted 20 (nine) semi-structured interviews of audit partners with (without) industry experience. These interviews shed light on industry-experienced partners’ career path choices, perceptions of the challenges and benefits stemming from industry experience, and perceptions of how this experience influences their current audit work. Grounded in theory and the results of these interviews, we empirically examine using a unique hand-collected dataset whether audit partners with industry experience conduct higher quality and more efficient audits. Our evidence implies that industry experience is associated with both higher audit quality and greater efficiency. In additional analyses, we examine the influence of potential mechanisms for these observed associations and find some evidence that the nature and timing of this experience matters. Specifically, actual first-hand experience in major oversight positions among boomerang auditors plays an integral role in the quality of the audits that these partners deliver, while experience in a major oversight position or specialized industry in which the partner audits translates into greater efficiencies.