Does Co-Location Accelerate Knowledge Outflows from FDI? The Role of MMC Subsidiaries' Technology Sourcing Strategies

Despite the strategic importance of the knowledge outflows from FDI for local firms’ competitiveness, no study has focused on the speed at which this phenomenon takes place. However, this issue is crucial since the speed at which firms absorb external knowledge influences the time they need to carry out subsequent innovations, their ability to adapt to external changes and enter new markets, thus ultimately affecting their chances to achieve a competitive advantage. This paper tries to fill this gap, by investigating the temporal patterns of knowledge outflows between foreign subsidiaries and firms located in host-regions. Combining International Business literature with insights on Innovation Strategy, we provide evidence on the timing of this phenomenon, and discuss the role played by multinational firms’ technology sourcing strategies

Elementary art education : an expendable curriculum?

This ethnographic study was initiated by the concern that elementary art education is an endangered subject, not only marginalised but expendable. This concern was based on informal conversations with pre- and in-service teachers and observations during pre-service teacher evaluations in elementary schools in Ontario, Canada. From these conversations and observations, it seemed that the emphasis in elementary schools is on core subjects with anything else deemed to provide balance alongside initiatives to improve literacy, numeracy, character, and inclusion. The school day is teeming with subjects and initiatives and the resulting crowded curriculum may be affecting teaching and learning in non-core subjects, such as art, negatively. In addition to such external issues are individual challenges faced by generalist teachers with little or no background in visual arts. These teachers’ lack of comfort with art might, I surmised at the start of this study, impede the effective planning, implementation, and assessment of art education. To understand what impacts art education, specifically visual arts instruction, I used a variety of interpretive enquiry methods to interrogate what makes art in elementary schools a vulnerable if not an expendable subject. Initially seeking to find out if art was expendable, I went beyond this to explore perceptions of teachers on teaching art through a localised small-scale study involving 19 elementary teachers in two school boards in north-eastern Ontario. I conducted interviews, recorded observations, and read related documents to answer my research questions, which were as follows: Why is art education important, or not, for students, educators, parents, and other stakeholders? Is art jettisoned in favour of implementing other policies and curricular subjects? Do teachers use other programmes and initiatives as an excuse not to teach art? How do teachers feel about teaching art? Is art expendable? Nussbaum’s (1997) capacities (critical self-examination, connectedness with the world, narrative imagination, scientific understanding) provide the theoretical framework for the study, support the analysis of the state of art education, and help defend its importance at the elementary level. Possible barriers to effective art education (history, policy, practice, economics, geography) and how they may affect learners’ ability to connect with the capacities through visual arts instruction are also analysed and discussed. Through this study, I found that elementary art education is threatened in the participants’ schools for a number of reasons including external issues (minimal attention to, inconsistent delivery of, and poor funding for the mandated art curriculum; a high focus on literacy, numeracy, and other initiatives) and internal issues (discomfort with teaching art; wide range of concepts of art). The study concludes with concerns regarding overall problems with miscommunication and disconnection that threaten effective elementary art education. Recommendations for addressing external and internal issues, and these overall problems are outlined, along with plans to improve art education in pre-service teacher education, in-service practice, and the world beyond the classroom.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

A bibliometric review of financial market integration literature

We undertake a meta-literature review on the topic of financial market integration (FMI), covering 260 articles from 1981 to 2021. Our review consists of quantitative analysis of bibliometric citations concomitant with qualitative analysis of content, towards a goal of identifying primary research streams and proposing directions for future research. We identify five research groups: (1) portfolio diversification with financial market integration; (2) general equity market integration; (3) financial market linkage with respect to crises and events; (4) time-varying financial market integration; and (5) co-movements and spillovers between commodities and financial markets; as well as present a wide array of future research directions. We conduct an extensive review of FMI literature, answering several questions: (1) What is the domain of FMI research?; (2) What are the influential aspects of top journals and authors, and the characteristics of the most studied topics?; (3) What are the past and current key research streams in FMI literature?; and (4) What are the substantial future relevant research questions to explore regarding FMI? Given the ongoing attention on financial market integration by both academicians and policy makers, our results should be of great interest

Hydrogen charging in nickel and iron and its effect on their magnetic properties

The current study was undertaken to explore the possibility of detecting hydrogen cavitation in magnetic materials through magnetic propertymeasurements. It is known that dissolved hydrogen in a material causes microvoids. These voids may affect the structure‐sensitive magnetic properties such as coercivity and remanence. In this study, hydrogen was introduced into nickel and iron by two processes, namely thermal charging and cathodic charging. The effect on the magnetic properties was measured. In addition, the variation of the magnetic properties with porosity was studied

Knowledge, experiences, and attitudes toward Mantoux test among medical and health professional students in Italy: A cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: The World Health Organization's Action Framework for tuberculosis elimination in low-tuberculosis incidence countries includes the screening for active and latent tuberculosis in selected high-risk groups, including health care workers. In this context, medical and health profession students, exposed to nosocomial tuberculosis transmission during training and clinical rotations, are target populations for tuberculosis screening. No updated data are available on tuberculosis screening practice and knowledge of medical and health profession students in Italy. METHODS: Within the activities Italian Study Group on Hospital Hygiene of the Italian Society of Hygiene, Preventive Medicine and Public Health, we carried out a multicentre cross-sectional study to assess knowledge, attitude and practices on tuberculosis prevention and control among Medical, Dentistry, Nursing and other health professions' students. Students were enrolled in the study on a voluntary basis and were administered a previously piloted structured questionnaire. Logistic regression models were applied to explore knowledge on tuberculosis prevention by selected socio-demographic variables and University-based tuberculosis prevention practice. RESULTS: Students of seventeen Universities across Italy participated in the study, and 58.2% of them received compulsory tuberculin skin test either at enrollment or while attending clinical practice. A total of 5,209 students filled the questionnaire. 37.7% were medicine and dentistry students (Group 1), 44.9% were nursing students (Group 2) and 17.4% were other health professions' students (Group 3). Age and gender had different distributions by groups, as well as knowledge and practice on tuberculin skin test. 84.4% of the study population (95% CI = 83.3-85.3) was aware of the existence of the tuberculin skin test, 74.4% (95% CI = 73.2-75.6) knew what is the first-level screening test for latent tuberculosis and only 22.5% (95% CI = 21.4-23.6) knew how to proceed after a positive tuberculin skin test result. Overall, knowledge on tuberculosis prevention was higher in Group 2 and lower Group 3, as compared to Group 1. CONCLUSION: In Italy, the knowledge on tuberculosis screening among University students is generally good. To reduce some of the criticalities found among the different study courses, it would be appropriate to harmonize both the regulations on tuberculosis screening practices for admission to University courses, and the educational activities on the topic of tuberculosis, to be extended to all workers involved in health care setting

Predicting needlestick and sharps injuries in nursing students: Development of the SNNIP scale

Aim: To develop an instrument to investigate knowledge and predictive factors of needlestick and sharps injuries (NSIs) in nursing students during clinical placements. Design: Instrument development and cross-sectional study for psychometric testing. Methods: A self-administered instrument including demographic data, injury epidemiology and predictive factors of NSIs was developed between October 2018–January 2019. Content validity was assessed by a panel of experts. The instrument's factor structure and discriminant validity were explored using principal components analysis. The STROBE guidelines were followed. Results: Evidence of content validity was found (S-CVI 0.75; I-CVI 0.50–1.00). A three-factor structure was shown by exploratory factor analysis. Of the 238 participants, 39% had been injured at least once, of which 67.3% in the second year. Higher perceptions of “personal exposure” (4.06, SD 3.78) were reported by third-year students. Higher scores for “perceived benefits” of preventive behaviours (13.6, SD 1.46) were reported by second-year students

Waiting times for diagnosis of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder in children and adolescents referred to Italian ADHD centers must be reduced

BACKGROUND: To investigate timely access to and the time needed to complete the diagnostic path of children and adolescents with suspected attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in the 18 Italian Lombardy Region ADHD reference centers. METHODS: Data of children and adolescents enrolled in the Regional ADHD disease-oriented Registry for suspected ADHD who requested their first visit in 2013-2017 were analyzed. RESULTS: The sample comprised 2262 children and adolescents aged 5-17\u2009years who accessed the ADHD centers for diagnostic classification and management. The median waiting time was of 177\u2009days (range 66-375) from the request for the initial appointment to the completion of the diagnostic path, with a three - fold difference between centers. In addition to the center, the strongest significant predictors of long waiting times were age comorbidities, the severity of the disorder, and having already completed some diagnostic procedures provided by the common standard path. CONCLUSIONS: To guarantee an equal standard of care in ADHD centers for all children and adolescents there is a pressing need to reduce the times to complete the diagnostic path. It is the task of both policymakers and each center to optimize the quality of the service and of the care delivered

Uncertainty and the employment dynamics of small and large businesses

We examine the impact of uncertainty on employment dynamics. Alternative measures of uncertainty are constructed based on the survey of professional forecasters, and regression-based forecasting models for GDP growth, inflation, S&P500 stock price index, and fuel prices. Our results indicate that greater uncertainty has a negative impact on growth of employment, and the effects are primarily felt by the relatively smaller businesses; the impact on large businesses are generally non-existent or weaker. Our results suggest that to truly understand the effects of uncertainty on employment dynamics, we need to focus on the relatively smaller and entrepreneurial businesses. We discuss implications for the framing of economic policy

Acylsucrose-Producing Tomato Plants Forces Bemisia tabaci to Shift Its Preferred Settling and Feeding Site

[Background] The whitefly Bemisia tabaci (Genn.) causes dramatic damage to plants by transmitting yield-limiting virus diseases. Previous studies proved that the tomato breeding line ABL 14-8 was resistant to B. tabaci, the vector of tomato yellow leaf curl disease (TYLCD). This resistance is based on the presence of type IV glandular trichomes and acylsucrose production. These trichomes deter settling and probing of B. tabaci in ABL 14-8, which reduces primary and secondary spread of TYLCD.[Methodology/Principal Findings] Whitefly settlement preference was evaluated on the adaxial and abaxial leaf surfaces of nearly-isogenic tomato lines with and without B. tabaci-resistance traits, 'ABL 14-8 and Moneymaker' respectively, under non-choice and free-choice conditions. In addition, the Electrical Penetration Graph technique was used to study probing and feeding activities of B. tabaci on the adaxial and abaxial leaf surfaces of the same genotypes. B. tabaci preferred to settle on the abaxial than on the adaxial surface of 'Moneymaker' leaves, whereas no such preference was observed on ABL 14-8 tomato plants at the ten-leaf growth stage. Furthermore, B. tabaci preferred to feed on the abaxial than on the adaxial leaf surface of 'Moneymarker' susceptible tomato plants as shown by a higher number of sustained phloem feeding ingestion events and a shorter time to reach the phloem. However, B. tabaci standard probing and feeding behavior patterns were altered in ABL 14-8 plants and whiteflies were unable to feed from the phloem and spent more time in non-probing activities when exposed to the abaxial leaf surface.[Conclusions/Significance] The distorted behavior of B. tabaci on ABL 14-8 protects tomato plants from the transmission of phloem-restricted viruses such as Tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV), and forces whiteflies to feed on the adaxial side of leaves where they feed less efficiently and become more vulnerable to natural enemies. © 2012 Rodriguez-Lopez et al.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación Spain (co-financed by FEDER) projects: AGL2007-66760-C02-02/AGR, AGL2007-66399-CO3-02/AGR, and AGL2010-22287-C02-01/AGR, AGL2010-22287-C02-01/AGR Consejería de Innovación y Ciencia, Junta de Andalucía, Spain (co-financed by FEDER-FSE) projects: AGR-214 and AGR-129Peer Reviewe