Board structure, R&D intensity and firm value relationship: Evidence from the Anglo-Saxon technology sector

A modeling approach for canal water distribution considering one-leader-multi-follower gaming structure and cooperative relationship of water users — A case study of Hetao Irrigation District, China

Extended-spectrum β-lactamase-producing Escherichia coli are globally disseminated pathogens whose success is driven by clonal expansion and horizontal gene transfer. However, the population structure and evolutionary relationships of these organisms in the United Arab Emirates remain insufficiently characterized. In this study, we applied a population genomic and phylogenomic approach to investigate ESBL-producing E. coli causing bloodstream infections and their genetic relatedness to strains from non-human reservoirs within a One Health framework. Forty-five ESBL-producing E. coli isolates recovered from bloodstream infections between 2021 and 2024 were analyzed, with whole-genome sequencing performed on 29 representative isolates. Genomic analyses revealed the predominance of internationally disseminated high-risk lineages, particularly sequence types ST131 and ST1193, largely associated with the ESBL gene blaCTX-M-15. Conserved genetic contexts of blaCTX-M-15 in these lineages suggested stable vertical inheritance, whereas greater diversity of mobile genetic elements was observed among non-ST131 isolates, indicating ongoing horizontal gene transfer. Additional resistance determinants, including blaDHA-1, blaSHV-12, and notably the carbapenemase gene blaNDM-5, contributed to multidrug-resistant genotypes, indicating the coexistence of ESBL and carbapenemase activity in a subset of isolates. Phylogenomic comparisons based on core genome variation demonstrated close genetic relatedness between clinical isolates and E. coli from food, poultry, and environmental sources in the United Arab Emirates. These findings indicate that bloodstream infections are associated with shared circulating ESBL-producing E. coli lineages exhibiting genetic relatedness across human and non-human reservoirs. The results highlight the evolutionary connectivity of E. coli populations and emphasize the importance of integrated genomic surveillance to track and limit the spread of multidrug-resistant pathogens.

Research on the phase interface structure and orientation relationship of the intermetallic compounds layer in Sn-3.0Ag-0.5Cu/Cu joints during isothermal aging

This study examines the structural relationships among Joyful Learning, Intrinsic Motivation, and Academic Achievement within the socio-religious educational environment of an Indonesian pesantren. Grounded in contemporary motivational theory, particularly Self-Determination Theory, the research addresses the limited empirical evidence on how emotionally engaging pedagogical climates interact with internal motivational processes in faith-based boarding schools. Employing an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design, quantitative data were collected from 60 junior secondary students using validated Likert-scale instruments, followed by qualitative interviews and classroom observations to contextualize statistical findings. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, reliability and validity testing, normality assessment, and Pearson correlation analysis. The results reveal strong and statistically significant positive correlations between Joyful Learning and Intrinsic Motivation (r = .921, p < .001), Joyful Learning and Academic Achievement (r = .875, p < .001), and Intrinsic Motivation and Academic Achievement (r = .895, p < .001), indicating a mutually reinforcing relationship among the three constructs. Qualitative findings further demonstrate that relational mentorship, communal discipline, and value-integrated instruction within the pesantren environment strengthen students’ intrinsic engagement and meaning-making processes. The study concludes that joyful pedagogical practices can be effectively integrated within structured religious educational systems and function as catalysts for enhancing intrinsic motivation and multidimensional academic achievement. The implications of this research highlight the importance of relational pedagogy, teacher professional development, and the integration of affective-motivational indicators into assessment systems, thereby advancing culturally grounded motivational theory and educational innovation in faith-based institutions.

Muscles can be categorized broadly into striated and smooth muscle types. Physiology textbooks consistently describe how the repeating sarcomeric organization of vertebrate skeletal and cardiac muscle generates a striated appearance. Unfortunately, very few texts discuss the common functional role of this sarcomeric organization. Briefly, the repeating sarcomeres in striated muscles provide a mechanism to amplify the nanometer scale steps of myosin cross bridges into the dynamic large-scale movements embodied by diverse animals. That is, the sarcomeres contracting in unison dramatically expand the speed of muscle shortening. This functional role was recognized by the proponents of the sliding filament theory in the mid-1950's. Striated muscles are found not only in vertebrate skeletal and cardiac muscles but are used to power movement in animals as disparate as jellyfish, clams, swimming crabs, and flying insects. Historically, several different invertebrate muscles have been studied in great detail. Recent studies based on whole sequenced genomes and transcriptome sequencing are providing new evidence that striated muscles evolved at the dawn of animal life. Although there is a deep evolutionary divergence of striated and smooth muscle myosins, striated muscles have likely arisen multiple times through convergent evolution. Several well studied examples of these striated muscles from diverse animals are discussed to illustrate their common functional roles. The central thesis presented here is that striations provide a structural mechanism to amplify the speed of muscle shortening. Comprehending this principle is foundational to the teaching of basic muscle structure and function relationships.

This study aimed to assess the psychometric properties and structural relationships among dimensions of academic engagement (AE) in fully online dental courses within a traditional dental education program for first-year students. A cross-sectional design was employed involving 593 dental students from a public university in Mexico, each enrolled in at least one fully online course. AE was measured using the 9-item Spanish version of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES), culturally adapted and validated for Mexican populations. Internal consistency was examined using Cronbach's alpha, while interrelationships among AE dimensions, "Vigour", "Dedication", and "Absorption", were analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM). Model fit was evaluated using standard indices (CFI, RMSEA, SRMR). Internal consistency was strong across dimensions (α = 0.77-0.88) and excellent for the total scale (α = 0.92). SEM analysis revealed optimal model fit (χ2(24) = 69.51; CFI = 0.98; RMSEA = 0.03), with "Vigour" significantly predicting "Dedication" (β = 0.65) and "Absorption" (β = 0.60), while "Dedication" also predicted "Absorption" (β = 0.58). These findings validated the multidimensional structure of AE in virtual learning. The results support the relevance of AE constructs in online dental education and confirm "Vigour" as a key driver of engagement. These findings suggest that online learning, when well structured, can foster meaningful academic involvement early in dental training. Importantly, this early engagement may contribute to improved academic persistence and preparedness for subsequent clinical training, reinforcing the role of digital education in preparing future dental professionals.

Recent concerns have arisen over adverse reactions caused by drug combinations, and drug-drug interaction (DDI) prediction helps identify potential risks by forecasting interactions between drugs. Previous methods have primarily explored drug interactions from the superficial level of drug molecules, often overlooking the internal structural information of the molecules. To this end, we propose Mol-HCL, a multi-view hypergraph contrastive learning framework based on molecular view. In this framework, we construct the molecular view to learn the internal information of drug molecules and, based on this, develop structural view and semantic view. These three views collaboratively learn both intra-molecular and inter-molecular information. Subsequently, we incorporate hypernodes into the structural view and design a novel hyperchain, integrating it into the semantic view to capture latent neighbor drug node structural relationships and long-range DDI chain semantic information. After that, contrastive learning is performed between the structural hypergraph and the molecular view, as well as between the semantic hypergraph and the molecular view, to enhance the representations learned from the molecular view. Finally, we conduct experiments on two real-world scientific datasets. The experimental results demonstrate a significant improvement of Mol-HCL over existing methods, showcasing its effectiveness and advantages in DDI prediction. The data and source code are available at https://github.com/ningq669/Mol-HCL.

Abstract In practical rolling bearing fault diagnosis, complex load variations and composite fault scenarios frequently induce substantial shifts in feature distributions, which significantly impair the generalization capability of diagnostic models. To mitigate this challenge, this paper proposes an unsupervised domain adaptation diagnostic network (TAAGNet) integrating temporal modeling, attribute enhancement, and structural alignment. The proposed method initially constructs a hybrid feature extractor based on residual one-dimensional convolutional networks (ResNet1D) and bidirectional gated recurrent units (BiGRU), enabling simultaneous extraction of local frequency-domain features and global temporal dependencies from vibration signals. Subsequently, fine-grained category attribute modeling and soft allocation mechanisms are incorporated to guide the model in producing semantically consistent and discriminative feature representations. Additionally, a K-nearest neighbor graph is utilized to establish structural relationships between samples. In contrast, a graph convolutional network (GCN) is employed to jointly model structure and semantics, thereby enhancing the model's class discrimination capability in the target domain. Furthermore, by incorporating attribute consistency loss, structural triplet loss, and adversarial transfer strategies, a multi-task joint optimization objective is formulated to achieve feature alignment and structural preservation. In this study, six load variation tasks and ten composite fault identification tasks were designed on two representative bearing datasets, CWRU and HUST. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method achieves excellent diagnostic accuracy and robustness in all transfer tasks, significantly outperforming current mainstream adaptive comparison methods.

Background: Work motivation and work discipline are widely recognized as determinants of employee performance; however, most empirical studies focus on general organizational contexts, with limited evidence from high-risk, safety-critical manufacturing environments. This gap is significant in flat glass production, where declining performance—reflected in rising absenteeism, tardiness, and disciplinary violations—may directly threaten operational reliability and safety compliance. Objective: This study examines the partial and simultaneous effects of work motivation and work discipline on employee performance in a safety-sensitive industrial setting at PT Muliaglass Float 1 Division. Methods: An associative quantitative approach was employed using data collected from 110 employees through a structured Likert-scale questionnaire. The data were analyzed using Partial Least Squares–Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) to assess measurement validity, construct reliability, and structural relationships. Results: Work motivation and work discipline positively and significantly affect employee performance, explaining 70% of the variance (R² = 0.700). Work discipline demonstrates a stronger effect, highlighting the critical role of procedural compliance and behavioral consistency in high-risk production environments. Conclusion: Work motivation and work discipline significantly influence employee performance in a safety-critical manufacturing environment, with discipline showing a stronger effect and jointly explaining 70% of performance variance. The findings highlight the central role of procedural compliance and safety adherence in stabilizing performance in high-risk settings. Practically, organizations should align motivational programs with strong disciplinary and safety systems. The study is limited by its cross-sectional design and single-company scope; therefore, future research should adopt longitudinal approaches and incorporate additional contextual variables to enhance generalizability.

Predation risk influences how animals approach predictable food sources where ambush predators may be present. In parids, chick-a-dee calls are used in a wide variety of contexts related to social cohesion and are well known as mobbing signals. Here, we examined whether they are also produced in the absence of visible predators in contexts in which predation risk may nevertheless be latent or uncertain. We tested whether chick-a-dee calls emitted by Willow Tits (Poecile montanus) during feeder approach exhibit acoustic and recruitment characteristics comparable to mobbing calls elicited by predator models. The study included repeated observations of 44 individuals across 11 flocks, enabling within-individual comparisons across habitat contexts. We analyzed call structure, calling duration, and recruitment latency in relation to habitat visibility and dominance status. Calls produced during the feeder approach showed overlapping structural features with mobbing calls and were associated with the recruitment of flock members, particularly in dense habitat. Mixed-effects models confirmed significant effects of habitat structure, predator presentation, and social rank on calling behavior and recruitment dynamics. These patterns are consistent with mobbing-like signaling under conditions of uncertain predation risk. Because predator presence and detection outcomes were not directly measured, our findings provide behavioral evidence compatible with proactive signaling rather than functional confirmation of predator probing.

Ultraviolet photodissociation (UVPD) of proteins is known to exhibit conformation-dependent fragmentation patterns, but direct structural evidence linking precursor protein and fragment ions has been limited. Here, we apply tandem trapped-ion mobility spectrometry/tandem-mass spectrometry to compare collision cross sections of UVPD fragment ions generated from distinct conformers of ubiquitin. Under the high-pressure (∼4 mbar) and low-photon density (∼10 μJ laser pulse energies) conditions employed here, UVPD produces predominantly [b + 2] and [y - 2] ions at proline residues, consistent with direct bond cleavage from the electronically excited state. Our data show that these ions can retain a clear structural relationship to the precursor conformation: UVPD of compact, native-like ubiquitin yields fragments with collision cross sections ∼20% smaller than the corresponding ions produced from extended precursors or by collision-induced dissociation. Further, these compact UVPD fragments are kinetically trapped in metastable conformations, with substantial barriers preventing relaxation toward energetically favored gas-phase structures. We attribute this behavior to limited vibrational energy deposition per absorbed 213 nm photon combined with rapid collisional cooling, which suppress cumulative thermal activation and disfavor statistical fragmentation pathways, leaving direct excited-state dissociation as the dominant observable process. Together with prior UVPD studies on holo-myoglobin, our results suggest that UVPD fragments can retain aspects of their precursor tertiary structure.

Introduction: Palliative care is a fundamental field within nursing, yet it poses an emotional challenge for many students in training. It is therefore essential to consider the role of affective variables in the caregiving process, such as empathic competencies and expressed attitudes toward death. Objective: To examine the structural relationships between medical empathy and attitudes toward death among nursing students, identifying the most influential variables, their clusters, and the stability of their interconnections. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional survey study was conducted with a sample of 354 adult nursing students (276 women) who were doing professional internships in palliative care. The Jefferson Scale of Empathy – Student Version (JSE-S) and the Revised Death Attitude Profile (DAP-R) were used. Data were analyzed using psychological network analysis, with 5,000 bootstrap samples to assess metric stability, and Spearman’s coefficient was applied to examine the structure of correlations. Results: The empathic dimension of compassionate care was negatively associated with the tendency to avoid death (ρ = -0.218, p < 0.001) or escape (ρ = -0.252, p < 0.001) when reflecting on patients’ deaths, while perspective taking emerged as the most stable variable within the network structure. Both empathic dimensions were positively related to neutral acceptance of death (p < 0.001). Conclusion: Clinical empathy generates less polarization toward patient death in nursing students; their professionalization requires training in emotional skills that impact the quality of their care.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the longitudinal structural relationships among top management's support for employee development, the perceived strength of the HR department's strategic role and organizational commitment in the context of South Korean business. In particular, this study focuses on the mediating role of the perceived strength of the HR department's strategic role in bridging the relationship between top management's support for employee development and organizational commitment during the COVID-19 pandemic, when external uncertainty was prevalent. Design/methodology/approach Multivariate Latent Growth Modeling was applied to analyze three-wave longitudinal data collected from 2020 to 2022. Findings Significant and positive relationships were found among top management's support for employee development, the perceived strength of the HR department's strategic role and organizational commitment over time. This study confirms the mediating effect of the perceived strength of the HR department's strategic role in the relationship between top management's support for employee development and organizational commitment over time. Originality/value The results of this study extend the concept of HR system strength by highlighting the importance of consistency in implementing HR practices, particularly during environmental disruptions.

This study examines the perceptions, learning sources, ethical–social associations, and academic influences that shape Ecuadorian undergraduate students’ relationship with science, incorporating a gender perspective. A cross-sectional quantitative design was employed using a survey administered to undergraduate students from four urban universities in Quito, Ecuador. Participants were recruited through institutional mailing lists and academic coordination channels, resulting in a non-probabilistic, institutionally distributed sample of 212 complete responses. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to test the hypothesized relationships among latent constructs. The findings indicate an absence of statistically significant differences between genders, thereby suggesting a homogeneous perception of science. The results demonstrated that a robust correlation exists between conceptual understanding and ethical–social awareness. Furthermore, they indicated a significant relationship between the academic impact of science and personal and social appropriation. The originality of the study lies in its critical, intersectional and situated approach to conceptualizing science, with a focus on factors such as gender and educational context. The findings provide valuable insights for the design of educational policies that promote the social appropriation of science in Ecuador and Latin America.

The aim of this article is to provide a comparative assessment of life satisfaction and key quality-of-life indicators among older adults in six European Union countries: Czechia, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Spain and Sweden. Using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE, Wave 8; 2019–2020), complemented by macroeconomic indicators, the study examines how pension expenditure and the gender pension gap relate to self-rated health, the frequency and extent of social contacts (including social network size), and overall life satisfaction. By combining subjective and objective indicators, the analysis reflects the multidimensional nature of quality of life in later life. The findings reveal clear discrepancies between objective living conditions and reported life satisfaction. Countries characterised by high pension expenditure and well-developed social services — notably Sweden and Germany — display relatively high levels of life satisfaction despite only moderate outcomes in self-rated health and social contact frequency. By contrast, Poland and Spain, despite comparable levels of self-rated health and similar intensity of social contacts, report lower life satisfaction, suggesting a stronger influence of institutional stability, perceived security and culturally shaped expectations. Lithuania and Czechia — countries with lower income levels and poorer health indicators — nonetheless demonstrate higher life satisfaction than Poland and Spain, indicating that life satisfaction cannot be explained solely by material or structural conditions. Overall, the study highlights the importance of public policies that account not only for economic and health-related factors but also for institutional stability, the quality of public services, levels of social trust and the alignment of pension systems with citizens’ expectations. These findings underline that subjective evaluations of quality of life in older age are shaped by a complex interplay of structural conditions, social relationships and cultural response patterns.

Wellness tourism represents a significant growth sector within the global tourism industry; however, empirical research examining development determinants in resource-constrained, emerging African destinations remains limited. This study investigates the structural relationships among infrastructure development, community involvement, marketing and promotion, and visitor expectations/service quality in advancing wellness tourism at Allelobad Hot Spring in Ethiopia’s Afar Region. Using a quantitative methodology, structured questionnaires were administered to 210 respondents (visitors, local community members, and tourism stakeholders), resulting in 186 valid responses. Data were analyzed through Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). Results demonstrate that all four determinants exert statistically significant positive effects on wellness tourism development (p < 0.001), with visitor expectations and service quality emerging as the strongest predictor (β = 0.35), followed by infrastructure development (β = 0.32), marketing and promotion (β = 0.30), and community involvement (β = 0.27). The structural model explains 68% of the variance in wellness tourism development, indicating substantial explanatory power. These findings underscore that sustainable wellness tourism growth in emerging destinations necessitates integrated, multidimensional strategies that simultaneously address physical infrastructure, stakeholder engagement, strategic positioning, and experiential excellence, rather than isolated sector-specific interventions.

The significance of human capital for sustainable development has become a key area of research, especially in the context of regional disparities. The study contributes new knowledge by revealing statistically measurable links between the level of human capital development and the degree of achievement of sustainable development goals at the regional level. The main goal of this paper is to assess the impact of human capital on sustainable development across all 16 voivodeships in Poland, analysing the social, economic, and environmental dimensions. To provide a more comprehensive understanding, typological analyses were also conducted to classify regions based on synthetic indicators of human capital and sustainable development. Using cross-sectional data from 2022 provided by Statistics Poland, we employed partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to examine the structural relationships. Our results reveal a strong and statistically significant positive relationship between human capital and sustainable development (path coefficient = 0.875, p < 0.001). The social (loading = 0.912) and economic (loading = 0.884) dimensions strongly, positively reflect the sustainability construct, while the environmental dimension exhibits a moderately negative loading (–0.678), indicating possible trade-offs in policy priorities. The findings highlight regional variation, with Mazowieckie, Małopolskie, Dolnośląskie, and Pomorskie achieving the highest scores, and Lubuskie performing the lowest across both human capital and sustainability categories. This study contributes novel insights by applying a hierarchical PLS-SEM model and offering a regionally comparative typology. It underscores the importance of tailoring environmental policies to specific regional contexts to ensure that investments in human capital do not undermine ecological sustainability.

Purpose Organizational environments have become increasingly dynamic, competitive and multicultural. In such high-pressure contexts, conflict among employees is unavoidable because of their divergent goals, interdependence and limited resources. This study aims to investigate the interplay between emotional intelligence (EI) and conflict resolution styles and examined the mediating role of psychological empowerment (PE) in the relationship between EI and conflict resolution styles. Design/methodology/approach The study modeled three constructs EI, conflict resolution styles and PE as higher-order constructs or second-order constructs. The higher-order constructs were assessed along with the lower-order constructs. Confirmatory factor analysis was carried out to unravel the structural relationships among the constructs, and the hypotheses were tested via structural equation modeling. The data were collected from employees working in the information technology (IT) industry in the cities of Hyderabad, Pune and Bangalore in India. Findings The SEM results for lower-order individuals reveal that the EI constructs self-emotional appraisal and regulation of emotions are positive, statistically significant and good predictors of conflict resolution styles. Similarly, the lower-order constructs of PE meaning and competence are also good predictors of conflict resolution styles. The SEM results for the higher-order constructs reveal that EI predicts PE and that PE fully mediates the relationship between EI and conflict resolution styles. However, EI is not a good predictor of conflict resolution styles. Research limitations/implications The causal inference is limited by cross-sectional design. Self-reported and single-source data increase the possibility of common-method bias, even though the data were collected from the three cities from India and the respondents are diverse functional, cultural, educational and from different cities. Scale coverage: The conflict resolution styles (CRS) measure omitted two of Thomas’ and Kilmann’s five styles (avoidance and compromise), and PE excluded the “impact” dimension; this may reduce construct completeness. Generalizability: The sample is restricted to Indian IT firms in metropolitan cities; findings may not be generalizable to other sectors, cultures or less interdependent work contexts. High explained variance: The higher-order model yielded R² ≈ 0.96 for CRS, which is unusually high for behavioral research and may indicate shared method variance or overfitting; further replication is warranted. Practical implications To enhance the positive behavior and benefit the high EI employees the organizations must empower them with autonomy and some decision-making powers. The organizations should develop a culture that their work is meaningful (Spreitzer, 1995). The employees should perceive they have the competence, autonomy and impact to make a difference. Delegating real decision-making authority, encouraging open participation in team discussions, transparent communication and recognizing individual and team contributions are the important aspects of employee empowerment. Empowerment strategies can enhance employees’ EI, improve their interactions and foster collaboration within organizations. By incorporating these strategies into development programs and HR policies, organizations can foster better performance. Integrating EI training and empowerment indicators into HR policies, conflict management workshops and team-building exercises can nurture a sustainable, emotionally healthy work culture, enhancing employee retention and trust. Social implications It is evident from this empirical study that EI alone is not sufficing to address the conflicts among the employees. Empowering the employees that can provide autonomy will lead to a positive and collaborative conflict resolution solutions constructively. Employees who experience psychologically empowered will be proactive, team member, conflict-resolution oriented individuals (Blau, 1964; Deci and Ryan, 2000). Although EI helps individuals develop emotional awareness, regulation and empathy to understand interpersonal dynamics (Goleman, 1995), it is PE that equips them with a sense of autonomy and competence, thereby converting emotional potential into behavioral effectiveness (Spreitzer, 1995). The PE operates as the critical conduit through which EI to transform constructive conflict resolution behaviors. Originality/value This empirical research is an attempt to unravel the role of EI and PE in conflict resolution styles. Furthermore, PE plays an important role in conflict resolution styles in general and in IT employees in particular.

What does it mean to “embody” paradox? In this paper, we adopt a "literal" interpretation of this question, examining how physical bodies experience, enact, and respond to knotted paradoxical tensions within the context of interpersonal and structural power relationships. We draw on a qualitative study of self-employed, community midwives (N=47) whom we interviewed jointly with their family members (N=51). Our findings paint a rich picture of how midwives experience knotted tensions through embodied polarities of presence-absence and energy-fatigue. We also elucidate how paradox knotting and power relations combine to transform midwives’ experiences of embodied tensions into a restrictive “triple bind,” where physical depletion adds a “third dimension” of material constraint to the interpersonal and structural constraints that characterize double binds. We detail three response patterns midwives use in attempting to navigate the triple bind, highlighting both the importance and limits of interpersonal support and gendered role negotiations. Our work advances understanding of paradox as a non-rational, embodied phenomenon, the navigation of which may require radical systemic change.