Establishing Data Collection Procedures Equivalence in International Business Research

Following a number of earlier studies on data equivalence in cross-cultural international business research, this article uses a content analysis of articles published in four leading international business journals from 2000 to 2009, to uncover the equivalence in current state of data collection procedures used by researchers in mail surveys. The results show that, despite repeated calls and the existence of a well established theoretical framework for mail survey data collection by Don Dillman (1978, 1999), international business scholars have not been inspired to adopt and report the data collection procedures adequately in their work. We hope this work will draw due attention to the aspect in international business research.International business research · Mail survey · Data collection procedure · Equivalence and Content analysis

"The pain, the pain": Modelling music information behavior and the songs we hate

The paper presents a grounded theory analysis of 395 user responses to the survey question, "What is the worst song ever?" Important factors uncovered include: lyric quality, the "earworm" effect, voice quality, the influence of associated music videos, over-exposure, perceptions of pretentiousness, and associations with unpleasant personal experiences

Flabase: towards the creation of a flamenco music knowledge base

Online information about flamenco music is scattered overdifferent sites and knowledge bases. Unfortunately, thereis no common repository that indexes all these data. Inthis work, information related to flamenco music is gath-ered from general knowledge bases (e.g., Wikipedia, DB-pedia), music encyclopedias (e.g., MusicBrainz), and spe-cialized flamenco websites, and is then integrated into anew knowledge base called FlaBase. As resources fromdifferent data sources do not share common identifiers, aprocess of pair-wise entity resolution has been performed.FlaBase contains information about 1,174 artists, 76pa-los(flamenco genres), 2,913 albums, 14,078 tracks, and771 Andalusian locations. It is freely available in RDF andJSON formats. In addition, a method for entity recognitionand disambiguation for FlaBase has been created. The sys-tem can recognize and disambiguate FlaBase entity refer-ences in Spanish texts with an f-measure value of 0.77. Weapplied it to biographical texts present in Flabase. By usingthe extracted information, the knowledge base is populatedwith relevant information and a semantic graph is createdconnecting the entities of FlaBase. Artists relevance is thencomputed over the graph and evaluated according to a fla-menco expert criteria. Accuracy of results shows a highdegree of quality and completeness of the knowledge base

Functional Effects of let-7g Expression in Colon Cancer Metastasis.

MicroRNA regulation is crucial for gene expression and cell functions. It has been linked to tumorigenesis, development and metastasis in colorectal cancer (CRC). Recently, the let-7 family has been identified as a tumor suppressor in different types of cancers. However, the function of the let-7 family in CRC metastasis has not been fully investigated. Here, we focused on analyzing the role of let-7g in CRC. The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) genomic datasets of CRC and detailed data from a Taiwanese CRC cohort were applied to study the expression pattern of let-7g. In addition, in vitro as well as in vivo studies have been performed to uncover the effects of let-7g on CRC. We found that the expression of let-7g was significantly lower in CRC specimens. Our results further supported the inhibitory effects of let-7g on CRC cell migration, invasion and extracellular calcium influx through store-operated calcium channels. We report a critical role for let-7g in the pathogenesis of CRC and suggest let-7g as a potential therapeutic target for CRC treatment

Researching inequalities: lessons from an ethnographic study

Studies exploring health inequalities have often demonstrated the inappropriateness of service provision in relation to the needs of disadvantaged communities. However, the research methods used to explore these issues have been subject to less scrutiny. This chapter considers whether research methods used for a study of long-term illness in a Pakistani community in the UK were appropriate and sensitive to the needs and priorities of Pakistani people. Findings in relation to fieldwork revealed the value of ethnographic methodology in providing context to data from semi-structured interviews. However, attitudes towards research within the Pakistani community, which formed part of this context, indicated that many Pakistani respondents felt disengaged from and cynical about the research process. They also felt vulnerable to exploitation and to abuse of trust from researchers and other professionals. These findings have implications for the methodological approaches adopted during research and their acceptability to research subjects in marginalised communities. Research methods and designs that engage individuals and offer reciprocity through practical outcomes that meet their needs are suggested as more appropriate than traditional qualitative methods

Focal Spot, Spring 1975

https://digitalcommons.wustl.edu/focal_spot_archives/1011/thumbnail.jp

Can we measure hospital quality from physicians' choices?

In this paper, we propose an alternative methodology for ranking hospitals based on the choices of Medical School graduates over hospital training vacancies. Our methodology is therefore a revealed preference approach. Our methodology for measuring relative hospital quality has the following desirable properties: a) robust to manipulation from hospital administrators; b) conditional on having enough observations, it allows for differences in quality across specialties within a hospital; c) inexpensive in terms of data requirements, d) not subject to selection bias from patients nor hospital screening of patients; and e) unlike other rankings based on experts' evaluations, it does not require physicians to provide a complete ranking of all hospitals. We apply our methodology to the Spanish case and find, among other results, the following: First, the probability of choosing the best hospital relative to the worst hospital is statistically significantly different from zero. Second, physicians value proximity and nearby hospitals are seen as more substitutable. Third, observable time-invariant city characteristics are unrelated to results. Finally, our estimates for physicians' hospital valuations are significantly correlated to more traditional hospital quality measures

Comparing leadership internationally: challenges and reflections

This paper is a co-written paper by five MA Education students at the University of Northampton and James Underwood, Principal Lecturer at the University of Northampton and a PhD student at the University of Cambridge. We are all currently engaged in research that involves comparing aspects of education in the UK with another nation. The research that we are each personally undertaking addresses a range of topics. These all relate to an aspect of education leadership ranging from student leadership to school and university management. There is one common underlying research question which underpins all the studies which is: in what ways has comparison between nations been a valid approach to understanding education and leadership? This question is addressed successively via our individual stories in this paper. This paper is linked to a paper presented in May 2015 at the University of Cambridge entitled: “Breaking boundaries as writers, researchers and me-searchers, the challenges and rewards of completing an MA as a community of practice.” In which we discussed in depth our experience as a research community. This paper has therefore also been informed by a distinct perspective on the nature of Masters’ level study

Social music in cars

This paper builds an understanding of how music is currently experienced by a social group travelling together in a car - how songs are chosen for playing, how music both reflects and influences the group’s mood and social interaction, who supplies the music, the hardware/software that supports song selection and presentation. This fine-grained context emerges from a qualitative analysis of a rich set of ethnographic data (participant observations and interviews) focusing primarily on the experience of in-car music on moderate length and long trips. We suggest features and functionality for music software to enhance the social experience when travelling in cars, and prototype and test a user interface based on design suggestions drawn from the data