Cross-cultural Analysis of Japanese and Mediterranean Entrepreneurs During the Global Economic Crisis

This paper aims to identify similarities and differences in the attitudes and traits of entrepreneurs in four countries, Japan and three Mediterranean countries, and it analyzes how cultural diversity can influence business and entrepreneurial experience. To this end, two questionnaires were completed by entrepreneurs of 188 small businesses in Japan, Italy, Spain and Portugal at a time when all these countries had been hit by the global economic crisis. The indices of the Hofstede dimensions were obtained from the VSM 94 questionnaire. The second open-ended questionnaire adds information about each case in the field of entrepreneurship. The qualitative case analysis shows a relationship between the cultural values of the countries and the traits and attitudes of entrepreneurs. The findings indicate that perseverance and tenacity traits emerge in times of economic crisis as values in entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurial motivation in Japanese society addresses personal achievement, while it seeks independence in the Mediterranean cultures. The index of individualism takes high values in the four countries. This supports the theory associating this dimension with the traits of creativity and achievement

Web-based data collection: detailed methods of a questionnaire and data gathering tool

There have been dramatic advances in the development of web-based data collection instruments. This paper outlines a systematic web-based approach to facilitate this process through locally developed code and to describe the results of using this process after two years of data collection. We provide a detailed example of a web-based method that we developed for a study in Starr County, Texas, assessing high school students' work and health status. This web-based application includes data instrument design, data entry and management, and data tables needed to store the results that attempt to maximize the advantages of this data collection method. The software also efficiently produces a coding manual, web-based statistical summary and crosstab reports, as well as input templates for use by statistical packages. Overall, web-based data entry using a dynamic approach proved to be a very efficient and effective data collection system. This data collection method expedited data processing and analysis and eliminated the need for cumbersome and expensive transfer and tracking of forms, data entry, and verification. The code has been made available for non-profit use only to the public health research community as a free download [1]

Revista de Vertebrados de la Estación Biológica de Doñana

Ritmo diario de actividad social en (Gambusia affinis)Sobre la herpetofauna de la Sierra de Estrella (Portugal) con especial referencia a Coronella austriaca austriaca y Vipera latastiNuevos datos sobre la distribución geográfica de los anfibios y reptiles ibéricosBiogeografía en la evolución de un grupo de formas de Coluber en el Paleártico OccidentalDatos sobre la alimentación de ofidiosEstructura de las galerías de nidificación del Abejaruco (Merops apiaster) en DoñanaComportamiento de la Perdiz Moruna ( Alectoris barbara) en cautividadEl paso otoñal de Sylvia borin y Sylvia conmmunis en la Reserva de DoñanaSobre el lirón Gris (Glis glis pyrenaicus Cabrera, 1908) en España.Sobre alimentación y biología de la Gineta (Genetta genetta lo) en EspañaEliomys quercinus valverdei, un nuevo lirón careto del noroeste de la Península IbéricaPeer reviewe

Can Simply Answering Research Questions Change Behaviour? Systematic Review and Meta Analyses of Brief Alcohol Intervention Trials

BACKGROUND: Participant reports of their own behaviour are critical for the provision and evaluation of behavioural interventions. Recent developments in brief alcohol intervention trials provide an opportunity to evaluate longstanding concerns that answering questions on behaviour as part of research assessments may inadvertently influence it and produce bias. The study objective was to evaluate the size and nature of effects observed in randomized manipulations of the effects of answering questions on drinking behaviour in brief intervention trials. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Multiple methods were used to identify primary studies. Between-group differences in total weekly alcohol consumption, quantity per drinking day and AUDIT scores were evaluated in random effects meta-analyses. Ten trials were included in this review, of which two did not provide findings for quantitative study, in which three outcomes were evaluated. Between-group differences were of the magnitude of 13.7 (-0.17 to 27.6) grams of alcohol per week (approximately 1.5 U.K. units or 1 standard U.S. drink) and 1 point (0.1 to 1.9) in AUDIT score. There was no difference in quantity per drinking day. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Answering questions on drinking in brief intervention trials appears to alter subsequent self-reported behaviour. This potentially generates bias by exposing non-intervention control groups to an integral component of the intervention. The effects of brief alcohol interventions may thus have been consistently under-estimated. These findings are relevant to evaluations of any interventions to alter behaviours which involve participant self-report

Can Research Assessments Themselves Cause Bias in Behaviour Change Trials? A Systematic Review of Evidence from Solomon 4-Group Studies

BACKGROUND: The possible effects of research assessments on participant behaviour have attracted research interest, especially in studies with behavioural interventions and/or outcomes. Assessments may introduce bias in randomised controlled trials by altering receptivity to intervention in experimental groups and differentially impacting on the behaviour of control groups. In a Solomon 4-group design, participants are randomly allocated to one of four arms: (1) assessed experimental group; (2) unassessed experimental group (3) assessed control group; or (4) unassessed control group. This design provides a test of the internal validity of effect sizes obtained in conventional two-group trials by controlling for the effects of baseline assessment, and assessing interactions between the intervention and baseline assessment. The aim of this systematic review is to evaluate evidence from Solomon 4-group studies with behavioural outcomes that baseline research assessments themselves can introduce bias into trials. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Electronic databases were searched, supplemented by citation searching. Studies were eligible if they reported appropriately analysed results in peer-reviewed journals and used Solomon 4-group designs in non-laboratory settings with behavioural outcome measures and sample sizes of 20 per group or greater. Ten studies from a range of applied areas were included. There was inconsistent evidence of main effects of assessment, sparse evidence of interactions with behavioural interventions, and a lack of convincing data in relation to the research question for this review. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: There were too few high quality completed studies to infer conclusively that biases stemming from baseline research assessments do or do not exist. There is, therefore a need for new rigorous Solomon 4-group studies that are purposively designed to evaluate the potential for research assessments to cause bias in behaviour change trials

Normal parameter reduction algorithm in soft set based on hybrid binary particle swarm and biogeography optimizer

© 2019, Springer-Verlag London Ltd., part of Springer Nature. Existing classification techniques that are proposed previously for eliminating data inconsistency could not achieve an efficient parameter reduction in soft set theory, which effects on the obtained decisions. Meanwhile, the computational cost made during combination generation process of soft sets could cause machine infinite state, which is known as nondeterministic polynomial time. The contributions of this study are mainly focused on minimizing choices costs through adjusting the original classifications by decision partition order and enhancing the probability of searching domain space using a developed Markov chain model. Furthermore, this study introduces an efficient soft set reduction-based binary particle swarm optimized by biogeography-based optimizer (SSR-BPSO-BBO) algorithm that generates an accurate decision for optimal and sub-optimal choices. The results show that the decision partition order technique is performing better in parameter reduction up to 50%, while other algorithms could not obtain high reduction rates in some scenarios. In terms of accuracy, the proposed SSR-BPSO-BBO algorithm outperforms the other optimization algorithms in achieving high accuracy percentage of a given soft dataset. On the other hand, the proposed Markov chain model could significantly represent the robustness of our parameter reduction technique in obtaining the optimal decision and minimizing the search domain.Published versio

Genetic determinants of risk in pulmonary arterial hypertension: international genome-wide association studies and meta-analysis

Background Rare genetic variants cause pulmonary arterial hypertension, but the contribution of common genetic variation to disease risk and natural history is poorly characterised. We tested for genome-wide association for pulmonary arterial hypertension in large international cohorts and assessed the contribution of associated regions to outcomes. Methods We did two separate genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and a meta-analysis of pulmonary arterial hypertension. These GWAS used data from four international case-control studies across 11744 individuals with European ancestry (including 2085 patients). One GWAS used genotypes from 5895 whole-genome sequences and the other GWAS used genotyping array data from an additional 5849 individuals. Cross-validation of loci reaching genome-wide significance was sought by meta-analysis. Conditional analysis corrected for the most significant variants at each locus was used to resolve signals for multiple associations. We functionally annotated associated variants and tested associations with duration of survival. All-cause mortality was the primary endpoint in survival analyses. Findings A locus near SOX17 (rs10103692, odds ratio 1·80 [95% CI 1·55–2·08], p=5·13×10– ¹⁵) and a second locus in HLA-DPA1 and HLA-DPB1 (collectively referred to as HLA-DPA1/DPB1 here; rs2856830, 1·56 [1·42–1·71], p=7·65×10– ²⁰) within the class II MHC region were associated with pulmonary arterial hypertension. The SOX17 locus had two independent signals associated with pulmonary arterial hypertension (rs13266183, 1·36 [1·25–1·48], p=1·69×10– ¹²; and rs10103692). Functional and epigenomic data indicate that the risk variants near SOX17 alter gene regulation via an enhancer active in endothelial cells. Pulmonary arterial hypertension risk variants determined haplotype-specific enhancer activity, and CRISPR-mediated inhibition of the enhancer reduced SOX17 expression. The HLA-DPA1/DPB1 rs2856830 genotype was strongly associated with survival. Median survival from diagnosis in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension with the C/C homozygous genotype was double (13·50 years [95% CI 12·07 to >13·50]) that of those with the T/T genotype (6·97 years [6·02–8·05]), despite similar baseline disease severity. Interpretation This is the first study to report that common genetic variation at loci in an enhancer near SOX17 and in HLA-DPA1/DPB1 is associated with pulmonary arterial hypertension. Impairment of SOX17 function might be more common in pulmonary arterial hypertension than suggested by rare mutations in SOX17. Further studies are needed to confirm the association between HLA typing or rs2856830 genotyping and survival, and to determine whether HLA typing or rs2856830 genotyping improves risk stratification in clinical practice or trials. Funding UK NIHR, BHF, UK MRC, Dinosaur Trust, NIH/NHLBI, ERS, EMBO, Wellcome Trust, EU, AHA, ACClinPharm, Netherlands CVRI, Dutch Heart Foundation, Dutch Federation of UMC, Netherlands OHRD and RNAS, German DFG, German BMBF, APH Paris, INSERM, Université Paris-Sud, and French ANR