Firm survival: The role of incubators and business characteristics

This paper analyzes the impact of business incubators on firm survival. Using a configurational comparative method, namely fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), the article also examines whether degree of business innovation, size, sector, and export activity affects firm survival. Results show that, when combined with other variables (i.e. sector, technology), business size is a sufficient condition for firm survival. Likewise, incubators alone cannot affect survival. A combination between incubators and other factors is necessary to ensure firm survival.Mas Verdú, F.; Ribeiro Soriano, D.; Roig Tierno, H. (2015). Firm survival: The role of incubators and business characteristics. Journal of Business Research. 68(4):793-796. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2014.11.030S79379668

Analyzing double degrees in Spain: A proposal

[EN] This article reviews the situation of single and double degrees in both public and private Spanish universities. To do so, this study analyzes information from the Registry of Universities, Centers, and Qualifications (RUCT) and Universia Spain. After analyzing the programs currently available to students, we present a proposal to establish a double degree in Administration and Business Management/Industrial Management Engineering. The proposal specifies the degree’s main objectives, specific nature, and fundamental aims and benefits in terms of technical, corporate, innovative, and entrepreneurial competencies.Roig-Tierno, N.; Mas Tur, A.; Ribeiro Navarrete, B. (2015). Analyzing double degrees in Spain: A proposal. En 1ST INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON HIGHER EDUCATION ADVANCES (HEAD' 15). Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 334-339. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAD15.2015.487OCS33433

A bibliometric overview of the Journal of Business Research

Abstract de la ponencia[EN] The Journal of Business Research is a leading international journal in business research dating back to 1973. This study analyzes all the publications in the journal since its creation by using a bibliometric approach. The objective is to provide a complete overview of the main factors that affect the journal. This analysis includes key issues such as the publication and citation structure of the journal, the most cited articles, and the leading authors, institutions, and countries in the journal. Unsurprisingly, the USA is the leading region in the journal although a considerable dispersion exists, especially during the last years when European and Asian universities are taking a more significant position.Merigó, J.; Mas-Tur, A.; Roig-Tierno, N.; Ribeiro-Soriano, D. (2016). A bibliometric overview of the Journal of Business Research. En CARMA 2016: 1st International Conference on Advanced Research Methods in Analytics. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 148-148. https://doi.org/10.4995/CARMA2016.2015.423814814

A bibliometric overview of the Journal of Business Research

Abstract de la ponencia[EN] The Journal of Business Research is a leading international journal in business research dating back to 1973. This study analyzes all the publications in the journal since its creation by using a bibliometric approach. The objective is to provide a complete overview of the main factors that affect the journal. This analysis includes key issues such as the publication and citation structure of the journal, the most cited articles, and the leading authors, institutions, and countries in the journal. Unsurprisingly, the USA is the leading region in the journal although a considerable dispersion exists, especially during the last years when European and Asian universities are taking a more significant position.Merigó, J.; Mas-Tur, A.; Roig-Tierno, N.; Ribeiro-Soriano, D. (2016). A bibliometric overview of the Journal of Business Research. En CARMA 2016: 1st International Conference on Advanced Research Methods in Analytics. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 148-148. https://doi.org/10.4995/CARMA2016.2015.423814814

Influence of dietary supplementation with an amino acid mixture on inflammatory markers, immune status and serum proteome in lps-challenged weaned piglets

In order to investigate the effect of a dietary amino acid mixture supplementation in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-challenged weaned piglets, twenty-seven 28-day-old (8.2 ± 1.0 kg) newly weaned piglets were randomly allocated to one of three experimental treatments for five weeks. Diet 1: a CTRL treatment. Diet 2: an LPS treatment, where piglets were intraperitoneally administered LPS (25 µg/kg) on day 7. Diet 3: an LPS+MIX treatment, where piglets were intraperitoneally administered LPS on day 7 and fed a diet supplemented with a mixture of 0.3% of arginine, branched-chain amino acids (leucine, valine, and isoleucine), and cystine (MIX). Blood samples were drawn on day 10 and day 35, and serum was analysed for selected chemical parameters and proteomics. The LPS and LPS+MIX groups exhibited an increase in haptoglobin concentrations on day 10. The LPS group showed an increased cortisol concentration, while this concentration was reduced in the LPS+MIX group compared to the control group. Similarly, the LPS+MIX group showed a decreased haptoglobin concentration on day 35 compared to the two other groups. Immunoglobulin concentrations were affected by treatments. Indeed, on day 10, the concentrations of IgG and IgM were decreased by the LPS challenge, as illustrated by the lower concentrations of these two immunoglobulins in the LPS group compared to the control group. In addition, the supplementation with the amino acid mixture in the LPS+MIX further decreased IgG and increased IgM concentrations compared to the LPS group. Although a proteomics approach did not reveal important alterations in the protein profile in response to treatments, LPS-challenged piglets had an increase in proteins linked to the immune response, when compared to piglets supplemented with the amino acid mixture. Overall, data indicate that LPS-challenged piglets supplemented with this amino acid mixture are more protected against the detrimental effects of LPS.This study was supported by Ajinomoto Animal Nutrition Europe, by Indukern Portugal, Lda., and by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT, Lisbon, Portugal) through projects UIDB/CVT/00276/2020 to CIISA and PEST/UID/AGR/4129/2020 to LEAF. It was also supported by national funds, through FCT Stimulus of Scientific Employment Program to author P.A.L. (DL57/2016/CP1438/CT0007) and a Ph.D. grant (SFRH/BD/143992/2019) to author D.M.R. This work had the support from the Portuguese Mass Spectrometry Net-work, integrated in the National Roadmap of Research Infrastructures of Strategic Relevance (ROTEIRO/0028/2013; LISBOA-01-0145-FEDER-022125)

Tree-based ensembles unveil the microhabitat suitability for the invasive bleak (Alburnus alburnus L.) and pumpkinseed (Lepomis gibbosus L.): Introducing XGBoost to eco-informatics

[EN] Random Forests (RFs) and Gradient Boosting Machines (GBMs) are popular approaches for habitat suitability modelling in environmental flow assessment. However, both present some limitations theoretically solved by alternative tree-based ensemble techniques (e.g. conditional RFs or oblique RFs). Among them, eXtreme Gradient Boosting machines (XGBoost) has proven to be another promising technique that mixes subroutines developed for RFs and GBMs. To inspect the capabilities of these alternative techniques, RFs and GBMs were compared with: conditional RFs, oblique RFs and XGBoost by modelling, at the micro-scale, the habitat suitability for the invasive bleak (Alburnus alburnus L.) and pumpkinseed (Lepomis gibbosus L). XGBoost outperformed the other approaches, particularly conditional and oblique RFs, although there were no statistical differences with standard RFs and GBMs. The partial dependence plots highlighted the lacustrine origins of pumpkinseed and the preference for lentic habitats of bleak. However, the latter depicted a larger tolerance for rapid microhabitats found in run-type river segments, which is likely to hinder the management of flow regimes to control its invasion. The difference in the computational burden and, especially, the characteristics of datasets on microhabitat use (low data prevalence and high overlapping between categories) led us to conclude that, in the short term, XGBoost is not destined to replace properly optimised RFs and GBMs in the process of habitat suitability modelling at the micro-scale.This project had the support of Fundacion Biodiversidad, of Spanish Ministry for Ecological Transition. We want to thank the volunteering students of the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia, Marina de Miguel, Carlos A. Puig-Mengual, Cristina Barea, Rares Hugianu, and Pau Rodriguez. R. Munoz-Mas benefitted from a postdoctoral Juan de la Cierva fellowship from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (ref. FJCI-2016-30829). This research was supported by the Government of Catalonia (ref. 2017 SGR 548).Muñoz-Mas, R.; Gil-Martínez, E.; Oliva-Paterna, FJ.; Belda, E.; Martinez-Capel, F. (2019). Tree-based ensembles unveil the microhabitat suitability for the invasive bleak (Alburnus alburnus L.) and pumpkinseed (Lepomis gibbosus L.): Introducing XGBoost to eco-informatics. Ecological Informatics. 53:1-12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoinf.2019.100974S1125

Organizational linkages for new product development: Implementation of innovation projects

Effective external and internal organization linkage characterizes new product development. Although prior research covers the external linkages to gain operational efficiencies and develop new products, the current body of scholarship on internal cross-functional linkages requires further attention. This study provides a certain level of inquiry into the antecedents of such internal linkages and presents a framework to establish the relationship between two internal functions at major fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG). The study examines the implementation of 150 innovation projects in 6 different countries over a period of three years. The objective is to study the influence of trust dimension on the perceived effectiveness of cross-functional linkage to highlight how organizational mechanisms like the amount and quality of shared communication affect trust and relationship between two functions

Comparing four methods for decision-tree induction: a case study on the invasive Iberian gudgeon (Gobio lozanoi; Doadrio & Madeira, 2004)

The invasion of freshwater ecosystems is a particularly alarming phenomenon in the Iberian Peninsula. Habitat suitability modelling is a proficient approach to extract knowledge about species ecology and to guide adequate management actions. Decision-trees are an interpretable modelling technique widely used in ecology, able to handle strongly nonlinear relationships with high order interactions and diverse variable types. Decision-trees recursively split the input space into two parts maximising child node homogeneity. This recursive partitioning is typically performed with axis-parallel splits in a top-down fashion. However, recent developments of the R packages oblique.tree, which allows the development of oblique split-based decision-trees, and evtree, which performs globally optimal searches with evolutionary algorithms to do so, seem to outperform the standard axis-parallel top-down algorithms; CART and C5.0. To evaluate their possible use in ecology, the two new partitioning algorithms were compared with the two well-known, standard axis-parallel algorithms. The entire process was performed in R by simultaneously tuning the decision-tree parameters and the variables subset with a genetic algorithm and modelling the presence-absence of the Iberian gudgeon (Gobio lozanoi; Doadrio & Madeira, 2004), an invasive fish species that has spread across the Iberian Peninsula. The accuracy and complexity of the trees, the modelled patterns of mesohabitat selection and the variables importance were compared. None of the new R packages, namely oblique.tree and evtree, outperformed the C5.0 algorithm. They rendered almost the same decision-trees as the CART algorithm, although they were completely interpretable they performed from four to eight partitions in comparison with C5.0, which resulted in a more complex structure with 17 partitions. Oblique.tree proved to be affected by prevalence and it does not include the possibility of weighting the observations, which potentially discourage its actual use. Although the use of evtree did not suggest a major improvement compared with the remaining packages, it allowed the development of regression trees which may be informative for additional modelling tasks such as abundance estimation. Looking at the resulting decision-trees, the optimal habitats for the Iberian gudgeon were large pools in lowland river segments with depositional areas and aquatic vegetation present, which typically appeared in the form of scattered macrophytes clumps. Furthermore, Iberian gudgeon seem to avoid habitats characterised by scouring phenomena and limited vegetated cover availability. Accordingly, we can assume that river regulation and artificial impoundment would have favoured the spread of the Iberian gudgeon across the entire peninsula.The study has been partially funded by the national Research project IMPADAPT (CGL2013-48424-C2-1-R) with MINECO (Spanish Ministry of Economy) and Feder funds and by the Confederacion Hidrografica del Jucar (Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment). This study was also supported in part by the University Research Administration Center of the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology. Finally, we are grateful to the colleagues who worked in the field data collection, especially Juan Diego Alcaraz-Henandez, Rui M. S. Costa and Aina Hernandez.Muñoz Mas, R.; Fukuda, S.; Vezza, P.; Martinez-Capel, F. (2016). Comparing four methods for decision-tree induction: a case study on the invasive Iberian gudgeon (Gobio lozanoi; Doadrio & Madeira, 2004). Ecological Informatics. 34:22-34. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoinf.2016.04.011S22343