The Impact of Interorganizational Imitation on New Venture International Entry and Performance

We examine the impact of interorganizational imitation on new venture international entry and subsequent performance. Using a sample of 150 U.S.-based publicly held new ventures, we find that new venture international entry is in part an imitative response to the internationalization of other firms in the venture\u27s home country industry and/or subsets of firms with certain traits or outcomes. We also find that interorganizational imitation moderates the relationship between new venture international entry and profitability, but not the relationship between new venture international entry and sales growth. These findings contribute to the growing body of literature on new venture internationalization

Meta-analysis of type 2 Diabetes in African Americans Consortium

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is more prevalent in African Americans than in Europeans. However, little is known about the genetic risk in African Americans despite the recent identification of more than 70 T2D loci primarily by genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in individuals of European ancestry. In order to investigate the genetic architecture of T2D in African Americans, the MEta-analysis of type 2 DIabetes in African Americans (MEDIA) Consortium examined 17 GWAS on T2D comprising 8,284 cases and 15,543 controls in African Americans in stage 1 analysis. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) association analysis was conducted in each study under the additive model after adjustment for age, sex, study site, and principal components. Meta-analysis of approximately 2.6 million genotyped and imputed SNPs in all studies was conducted using an inverse variance-weighted fixed effect model. Replications were performed to follow up 21 loci in up to 6,061 cases and 5,483 controls in African Americans, and 8,130 cases and 38,987 controls of European ancestry. We identified three known loci (TCF7L2, HMGA2 and KCNQ1) and two novel loci (HLA-B and INS-IGF2) at genome-wide significance (4.15 × 10(-94)<P<5 × 10(-8), odds ratio (OR)  = 1.09 to 1.36). Fine-mapping revealed that 88 of 158 previously identified T2D or glucose homeostasis loci demonstrated nominal to highly significant association (2.2 × 10(-23) < locus-wide P<0.05). These novel and previously identified loci yielded a sibling relative risk of 1.19, explaining 17.5% of the phenotypic variance of T2D on the liability scale in African Americans. Overall, this study identified two novel susceptibility loci for T2D in African Americans. A substantial number of previously reported loci are transferable to African Americans after accounting for linkage disequilibrium, enabling fine mapping of causal variants in trans-ethnic meta-analysis studies.Peer reviewe

Biodiversity, Biological Uncertainty, and Setting Conservation Priorities

In a world of massive extinctions where not all taxa can be saved, how ought biologists to decide their preservation priorities? When biologists make recommendations regarding conservation, should their analyses be based on scientific criteria, on public or lay criteria, on economic or some other criteria? As a first step in answering this question, we examine the issue of whether biologists ought to try to save the endangered Florida panther, a well known “glamour” taxon. To evaluate the merits of panther preservation, we examine three important arguments of biologists who are skeptical about the desirability of panther preservation. These arguments are (1) that conservation dollars ought to be spent in more efficient ways than panther preservation; (2) that biologists and conservationists ought to work to preserve species before subspecies; and (3) that biologists and conservationists ought to work to save habitats before species or subspecies. We conclude that, although all three arguments are persuasive, none of them provides convincing grounds for foregoing panther preservation in favor of other, more scientifically significant conservation efforts. Our conclusion is based, in part, on the argument that biologists ought to employ ethical, as well as scientific, rationality in setting conservation priorities and that ethical rationality may provide persuasive grounds for preserving taxa that often are not viewed by biologists as of great importance

Growth and age determination of African savanna elephants

Understanding the population dynamics of savanna elephants depends on estimating population parameters such as the age at first reproduction, calving interval and age-specific survival rates. The generation of these parameters, however, relies on the ability to determine accurately the age of individuals, but a reliable age estimation technique for free-ranging elephants is presently not available. Shoulder heights of elephants were measured in 10 populations in five countries across southern and eastern Africa. Data included shoulder height measurements from two populations where the age of each individual was known (i.e. Addo Elephant National Park, South Africa and Amboseli National Park, Kenya). From the known-age data, Von Bertalanffy growth functions were constructed for both male and female elephants. Savanna elephants were found to attain similar asymptotic shoulder heights in the 10 populations, while individuals in the two known-age populations grew at the same rate. The Von Bertalanffy growth curves allowed for the accurate age estimation of females up to 15 years of age and males up to 36 years of age. The results indicate that shoulder height can serve as an indicator of chronological age for elephants below 15 years of age for females and 36 years of age for males. Ages derived from these growth curves can then be used to generate age-specific population variables, which will help assess the demographic status of savanna elephant populations across Africa