Agricultural Economics in the <em>JAE</em>: Some Editorial Reflections

\ua9 2023 The Authors. Journal of Agricultural Economics published by John Wiley &amp; Sons Ltd on behalf of Agricultural Economics Society. On retirement from the post of Editor in Chief of the JAE, it is appropriate that I offer some reflections on my editorship. First, I review the general performance of the journal over the period 2005-2023, and conclude that the JAE has held its own amongst our peers though this is is largely due to our authors and reviewers, rather than the Editor. Second, I consider the subject matter and citation scores of our published papers over this period, as a reflection of the evolution of the state of the art of the Agricultural Economics profession. Here, I illustrate the increasing number and subject/method range of published papers, but raise some questions about what, exactly, citations really indicate. I conclude with some reflections on the challenges and opportunities for the profession

Examining Group Differences in Emotion Regulation Strategies and the State and Trait Anxiety of Lifeguards and Non-Lifeguards in a Real-World Precompetitive Situation

The purpose of this study was to investigate differences, between swimmer-lifeguards and swimmer-non-lifeguards, in trait and state anxiety and emotion regulation techniques in a real-life precompetitive situation with a secondary focus on gender differences. The Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, Sport Anxiety Scale – 2 and the Mental Readiness Form – 3 were distributed to 100 participants at university swimming competitions in the United Kingdom. Swimmer-lifeguards displayed significantly lower cognitive (p=.03) and somatic state (p=.05) anxiety and cognitive trait anxiety (p=.02) than swimmer-non-lifeguards. Males reported significantly lower levels of cognitive and somatic trait anxiety (ppp=.01); no other effects were observed. These results support previous research regarding lifeguard characteristics, however the nature of these qualities and how they originate require further exploration

Global organizations and supply chain: new research avenues in the international human resource management

Purpose: This article aims at proposing a research agenda in the intersection of strategic supply chain management and logistics (SCML) of global organizations from the perspective of international human resource management (IHRM). Design/methodology/approach: To disclose the intellectual structure of research to date across both fields, the content of up to 280 articles dealing with IHRM and 174 papers addressing challenges in SCML in global organizations from a human resource management (HRM) viewpoint were analyzed. A stepwise hierarchical cluster and discriminant analysis were conducted to map a joint research agenda. Approaches from Upper Echelons theory and co-evolutionary theory of global organizations were adopted. Findings: Top management teams are crucial to manage SCML successfully in today’s global organizations. Research on this intersection should draw attention to find antecedents, consequences and the process showing how those talented people grouped in dispersed teams can be a source of competitive advantage. Six different areas of research are proposed. After discussing them, it is proposed that the mainstream should focus on the human capital, those key individuals of an organization that make things happen. In the near future, the global organization’s competitiveness will be shaped by how the organization manages its Human Capital (HC) in SCML. Methodologies such as meta-analysis are suggested to summarize the extant literature on IHRM when applied to SCML in global organizations. Research limitations/implications: The search was conducted in SSCI-ISIWoK and Scopus databases. As a limitation, some articles and other scientific contributions not abstracted there were not included. Nevertheless, both searches enabled obtaining balanced results between scope and richness of content. Originality/value: Only a marginal portion of literature reviews have been conducted by using mixed methods in the fields of IHRM and SCML. The results will be useful for scholars of both fields in their attempts to enlarge the knowledge boundaries in these areas. From a practitioner’s viewpoint, this research may provide an integrative framework for global organizations to build a competitive advantage based on managing HC and its SCML strategically

Perceived Role of Social Media in the Vocabulary Development of University Students

In the academe, stakeholders are starting to acknowledge the impact of social media in the teaching and learning process. Aware of this, the researchers conducted this study to determine the role of social media in the language learning experiences of students. Specifically, it identified the social media profile of the students and the platforms’ perceived use and advantages to vocabulary development. In realizing its objectives, the study employed a descriptive research design that involved 83 university students from a state university in the Philippines. Respondents answered an online survey questionnaire, which was tried out first to potential respondents before its actual use. The researchers used descriptive statistics to make sense of the data gathered. Results show that the students have high social media engagement as manifested by the number of social media accounts that they created for themselves (the majority have two or more accounts) and the number of hours that they spend a day online (majority are online for at least three hours a day). All the respondents use Facebook.com, making it the most commonly used social media platform among them. In addition, the study found that students perceive social media as contributory and effective applications for the enhancement of language and vocabulary skills due to the media’s accessibility, universality, ease of use, multimodality, general appeal, and its role in lowering communication anxieties. With these findings, educators are encouraged to explore the possibility of using social media platforms, preferably Facebook, as instructional media, specifically for the teaching of vocabulary.

Design of a Professional Development Framework in Teaching and Learning for Engineering Educators

Ireland’s National Professional Development Framework for Those who Teach in Higher Education, aims to provide guidance and leadership in the planning, developing and engaging in professional development practices. A series of pilot projects have been initiated to help explore the framework’s likely utility and acceptance by educators and their institutions. These projects require engagement with staff in the interpretation and adaption of the framework within their working contexts. The purpose of this paper is to outline the development of one such project with engineering educators at three Institutes of Technology seeking designation as a technological university. The initiative aims to gain traction in the acceptance of the framework with the engineering education community by linking core and discipline-specific teaching and learning competencies with professional development activities most valued by engineering educators. Informed by three strands of literature: professional development in higher education; engineering education; and teaching and learning training provisions, the project begins with a survey of all those involved in teaching and learning in engineering across the three institutes. Based on engagement with key stakeholders, subsequent qualitative research informs the contextualization of the national framework for discipline-specific and institutional piloting. The paper concludes by exploring engineering educator perceptions of the national framework’s utility based on their engagement with the pilot process. Feedback from the pilot indicates that there is a significant gap between the professional development needs of engineering educators and the current professional development provision in teaching and learning

Investigation into how the floor plan layout of a manufactured PCB influences flip-chip susceptibility to vibration

This article investigates how floor plan layout of a printed circuit board (PCB) influences the reliability of the component's solder joint connections when operated in a vibrating environment. A random vibration profile as seen in an automotive environment was used in full lifetime tests. An industry-standard FR4 PCB with electroless nickel immersion gold (ENIG) surface finish was manufactured with double-sided component placement including 14 flip chips, eight on the top side and six on the bottom side. Ultrasound scans were used as a nondestructive test to assess the integrity of solder joints from manufacture to failure. This enabled monitoring of the important interface between solder joints and flip chip where failure mostly occurs. The initial failure pattern was found by experiment where 86 cycles of random vibration caused all flip chips to mechanically fail. Failure followed a Weibull probability with a value of β = 1.297, indicating that failure rates increase with time. The results show that the reliability of a flip chip varies with its position on a PCB with some marked differences to component lifetimes. The results also show that for two-sided flip-chip placements on a PCB, back-to-back, overlapped, and single-sided orientations have subtle effects on flip-chip lifetimes. Similarly, reliability varied with solder joint positions since joints on the sides of a flip chip nearest the PCB edges were less reliable than those on sides on a flip chip furthest away. Finally, design guidelines are offered to effect the most reliable flip-chip placement on a two-sided PCB when operated in a vibrating environment. © 2011-2012 IEEE

Intersection of Indigenous Peoples and Police: Questions about Contact and Confidence

Despite much anecdotal, journalistic, and statistical evidence of their oppression by colonial and neocolonial police practices, little is known about Indigenous peoples’ attitudes towards the police in Canada. Th e theory that involuntary police–citizen contacts increase citizens’ mistrust, fear, and dissat- isfaction and, ultimately, decreases confi dence in the police was advanced. Hypotheses arising from this historical-theoretical context were tested with the 2014 panel of Canada’s General Social Survey, including 951 Indigenous (First Nations, Métis, or Inuit) and 21,576 non-Indigenous white participants. Indigenous identity and involuntary contacts were both signifi cantly associated with a lack of confi dence in police, p \u3c .001. As hypothesized, the odds associated with involuntary contacts (odds ratio [OR] = 2.66) were stronger than those associated with being Indigenous (OR = 1.81). While the hypothesized ethnicity by contact interaction was not observed, Indigenous participants (5%) were two and a half times as likely as non-Indigenous white participants (2%) to have had relatively frequent (two or more) involuntary contacts with the police during the past year. Th erefore, at the population level Indigenous people are at much greater risk of coming into involuntary contact with the police and of consequently lacking confi dence in police. Policy implications and future research needs are discussed

Brk expression may affect the differentiation status of breast cancer cells

The breast tumour kinase Brk (PTK6) is found in over two-thirds of breast cancer cell lines and tumours but is not expressed in normal mammary cells. Brk has previously been shown to play a role in regulating proliferation in breast tumour cells [1]. However, in vivo, the site of Brk expression in normal tissues is restricted to nonproliferating cells that are undergoing terminal differentiation such as those in the gut or the skin [2,3]. This led us to hypothesise that Brk expression in breast tumours could be reflective of a differentiation phenotype, especially as a previous study had shown that involucrin, a marker of terminal keratinocyte differentiation, was expressed in a subset of tumours [4]. We therefore examined involucrin expression in breast tumour cells lines and patient biopsy samples. In addition we investigated whether inducers of differentiation in keratinocytes such as prolonged culture in suspension or vitamin D3 treatment could also affect differentiation of breast tumour cells. We found that the expression of Brk in cultured cell lines correlated with involucrin expression. In addition the change in Brk expression, as a result of culture conditions, was accompanied by a change in involucrin levels. Moreover, treatment with vitamin D3 resulted in a decrease in cell numbers in the Brk-positive cell lines relative to the control treatments. The Brk-negative cell line was unaffected by vitamin D3 treatment. These data suggest that Brk and involucrin may be coregulated and that inducers of differentiation such as vitamin D3 could be considered potential therapeutic strategies