Comprehensive assessment of patients with irritable bowel syndrome with constipation and chronic idiopathic constipation using deterministically linked administrative claims and patient-reported data: the Chronic Constipation and IBS-C Treatment and Outcomes Real-World Research Platform (CONTOR)

Abstract

Aims

To characterize a US population of patients with irritable bowel syndrome with constipation (IBS-C) or chronic idiopathic constipation (CIC) using CONTOR, a real-world longitudinal research platform that deterministically linked administrative claims data with patient-reported outcomes data among patients with these conditions.     

Competitive strategies,innovation, and firm performance: an empirical study in a developing economy environment

This paper studies the relationships between competitive strategies, innovation, and firm performance within the context of Turkish manufacturing companies. The data were collected from top management of the firms via Computer Assistant Telephone Interviewing method. One hundred and forty manufacturing firms operating in various sectors including textile, automotive supply, computer and electronics provide the basis for this empirical research. In order to test our model, we employ structural equation modelling using partial least squares. The results show that competitive strategies such as cost-leadership and differentiation can lead to innovation, which, in turn, increase firm performance. Managers implement cost-leadership and differentiation strategies to take part in competitive market conditions; however, they should put additional importance on innovation that plays a significant role as a bridge between competitive strategies and firm performance.     

The tortoise and the hare: the impact of employment instability on firm performance

The main objective of this study is to assess the influence of employment instability on firm performance in a sample of publicly traded firms. Competing theoretical arguments are considered with regard to likely outcomes associated with employment instability. A large sample of cross‐sectional time‐series data is then analysed using generalised estimating equations (GEE) regression techniques. Results indicate that employment instability is negatively associated with firm performance, although the relationship is also demonstrated to be quadratic (an inverse U‐shaped relationship). This suggests that the main relationship varies depending upon the level of employment instability. Industry characteristics are also examined as moderators of this main effect. The results suggest a disordinal interaction effect for industry differentiation, where employment instability is negatively associated with firm performance for firms in highly differentiated industries and positively associated in less differentiated industries.     

Marginal Economy: Growth Strategies for Post-Growth Societies

A sharp problem focus sharpens the problem. Sustainably growing bodies of literature on degrowth are not the key to post-growth scenarios because evocations of the limits of growth reinforce rather than transcend the economic principle, which is in the observation of scarcity. Therefore, I focus on alternative forms of growth rather than alternatives to growth. My form-theoretical analysis of growth dismoralizes growth and disembeds it from the economic medium in which it is preferably drawn. I suggest that the key to a post-growth society is in a regrowth of interest in growth in, so far, neglected non-economic function systems.     

Quality in competitive fresh produce supply chains with application to farmers' markets

Fresh produce supply chains have special characteristics, notably, that the quality of the product (fruit or vegetable) deteriorates continuously over time, even under ideal conditions. In this paper, we begin with explicit formulae for fresh produce quality deterioration based on chemistry and temperature and provide a path-based framework. We then focus on farmers' markets, the popularity of which has been growing due to consumers' greater awareness of and interest in product quality and emphasis on health. Farmers' markets, as examples of direct to consumer channels and shorter supply chains, are studied in the framework of game theory in both uncapacitated and capacitated versions. A case study of apples in Massachusetts, under various scenarios, including production disruptions, provides quantitative evidence of the applicability of our supply chain network approach.     

HR managers’ talent philosophies: prevalence and relationships with perceived talent management practices

Abstract

HR managers have different beliefs about the nature, value, and instrumentality of talent—referred to as ‘talent philosophies’. In line with cognitive psychology, we reason that talent philosophies are similar to mental models that influence how HR managers interpret and use talent management (TM) practices within their organizations. In this article, we explore the prevalence of four different talent philosophies (exclusive/stable; exclusive/developable; inclusive/stable; inclusive/developable) in a sample of 321?HR managers. We then explore how talent philosophies relate to organizational context (i.e. size, ownership form, multinational orientation) as well as to HR managers’ perceptions of their organization’s TM practices. Cluster analysis corroborated the presence of the four talent philosophies in our dataset. All four talent philosophies were represented almost equally often in the overall dataset. Organizational size was found to be related to talent philosophies, such that HR managers who worked in smaller organizations were more likely to hold an inclusive talent philosophy. We also found support for the relationship between talent philosophies and perceptions of the exclusiveness or inclusiveness of the organization’s definition of talent, and its degree of workforce differentiation. Contrary to expectations, results did not support a link between talent philosophies and perceived talent identification criteria.     

Clustered airline flight scheduling: Evidence from airline deregulation in Korea

This paper explores the impacts of competition level on airline scheduling in the Korean domestic short-haul routes where a hub-and-spoke system is not the optimal air transport network strategy. The empirical findings using the Korean airline panel data for the period 2006–2010 suggest that competition leads to less differentiated departure flight times as expected from spatial competition theory. Unlike the previous study on the U.S airline industry, the degree of this tendency for less differentiation differs across the type of routes: the Jeju island routes (leisure type) and the inland routes (business type), in the deregulated period. Following the May 2008 Deregulation Act we find an increasingly clustered pattern of airline scheduling in the Jeju island routes where there have been competitive pressures associated with new low cost entrants. This recent evidence would imply that airline carriers strategically schedule departure flight times and allocate flights between routes as competition increases in the deregulated period.     

Innovative restaurants in a mass-tourism city: Evidence from Antalya

This paper is about innovative restaurants in the single-asset (sun-sea-sand) mass-tourism city of Antalya, and focuses on the supply side of the restaurant market. The broader aim of the paper is to show that the mass-tourism city of Antalya is more differentiated than one might expect. The specific aim of the paper is to find out what types of restaurants are more innovative than others and in what types of tourism places in the city they are located. The empirical research is based on interviews with 54 managers and chefs, the results of which are analysed with quantitative methods of relational analysis such as correspondence- and chi-square analysis. The main result of the empirical research is that high-quality restaurants, visited by a mix of locals and tourists, and are located in a specific urban places, are most innovative.     

试探IGF2和H19基因与韦伯综合征的关系

笔者就韦伯综合征（Beckwith Wiedemannsyndrome,BWS）的特征,及IGF2与H19印迹基因各自生物学生性、印迹状况以及与BWS疾病的关系展开了详尽阐述。     

Designing the content of advertising in a differentiated market

In many markets, consumers use attribute information to assess the value they expect from purchasing a product or service. This includes many low involvement experience goods including take-out food, many packaged good categories and restaurants. In these markets, quality differences exist but many differences are horizontal in nature: the consumer is interested in finding a product that meets her unique tastes. Beyond ensuring that consumers know the brand, the category and the price; it seems advertising should provide consumers with attribute information. However, a significant proportion of advertising does not provide it. In fact, within the same category, competitors respond to messages that emphasize detailed attribute information with messages that are devoid of attribute information. These messages are uninformative about product attributes. We explore how competition in a differentiated market is affected by the ability of a firm has to choose uninformative messages. We construct a model to investigate the factors that affect a firm’s decision to use advertising with detailed attribute information or advertising that does not provide it. The model demonstrates that content decisions about advertising are affected by the differences between products, the range of heterogeneity in consumer tastes and the degree to which costs increase as a function of the quantity of information in advertising. Surprisingly, even when the cost to increase the quantity of information in advertising is low, uninformative campaigns can be more profitable than campaigns with attribute information. The analysis also demonstrates that firms can be more likely to provide attribute information when there are less consumers that are attribute-sensitive. Finally, the model shows that uninformative messages can create “artificial differentiation” in some situations.