The importance of forest area and configuration relative to local habitat factors for conserving forest mammals: A case study of koalas in Queensland, Australia

The loss and fragmentation of forest habitats by human land use are recognised as important factors influencing the decline of forest-dependent fauna. Mammal species that are dependent upon forest habitats are particularly sensitive to habitat loss and fragmentation because they have highly specific habitat requirements, and in many cases have limited ability to move through and utilise the land use matrix. We addressed this problem using a case study of the koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) surveyed in a fragmented rural-urban landscape in southeast Queensland, Australia. We applied a logistic modelling and hierarchical partitioning analysis to determine the importance of forest area and its configuration relative to site (local) and patch-level habitat variables. After taking into account spatial auto-correlation and the year of survey, we found koala occurrence increased with the area of all forest habitats, habitat patch size and the proportion of primary Eucalyptus tree species; and decreased with mean nearest neighbour distance between forest patches, the density of forest patches, and the density of sealed roads. The difference between the effect of habitat area and configuration was not as strong as theory predicts, with the configuration of remnant forest becoming increasingly important as the area of forest habitat declines. We conclude that the area of forest, its configuration across the landscape, as well as the land use matrix, are important determinants of koala occurrence, and that habitat configuration should not be overlooked in the conservation of forest-dependent mammals, such as the koala. We highlight the implications of these findings for koala conservation. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Implicating trust in the innovation process

In this paper, we describe the development of two new measures of innovation trust, ‘trust that heard’ and ‘trust that benefit’. We report the findings from their use in a survey of design engineers in two large aerospace companies. We test a range of hypotheses covering different plausible roles for trust and confirm a ‘main effects’ model, whereby the variables predict the number of ideas suggested and the number of ideas implemented. In addition, we replicate earlier findings by Axtel et al. (2000), namely that personal and job variables predict idea suggestion, whereas organizational variables predict implementation.

Employee negative emotions in supervisory relationships : an attachment theory perspective

Relationships with supervisors are a major source of negative emotions at work, but little is known about why this is so. The aim of the research was to use attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969, 1973; 1980) as a framework for investigating the nature and causes of employee negative emotional experiences, in the context of their supervisory relationships. The research was conducted in three stages. In Stage 1 two studies were conducted to develop a measure of employee perceptions of supervisor caregiving (SCS). Results indicated that the 20-item scale had good reliability and validity. Stage 2 required participants (N=183) to complete a questionnaire that was designed to examine the roles of supervisor caregiving and working models (specific and global) in determining cognitive and emotional responses to hypothetical supervisor behaviours. The results provided partial support for an Independent Effects Model. Supervisor caregiving predicted specific anxiety and avoidance. In tum, both dimensions of attachment predicted negative emotions, but this relationship was mediated by event interpretation only in the case of avoidance. Global models made a smaller but significant contribution to negative emotions overall. There was no support for an interaction effect between specific and global models in determining event interpretation. In stage 3 a sub-sample of questionnaire respondents (N=24) were interviewed about 'real-life' caregiving and negative emotional experiences in their supervisory relationships. Secure individuals experienced supervisors as consistently warm, available, and responsive. They reported few negative events or emotions. Individuals with insecure specific working models experienced rejecting or inconsistent supervisor caregiving. They were sensitised to trust and closeness issues in their relationships, and reported negative events and emotions underpinned by these themes. Overall, results broadly supported attachment theory predictions. It is concluded that an attachment theory perspective provides new insight into the nature and causes of employee negative emotions in supervisory relationships.

Public sector investment appraisal:the place of flexibility in the decision making process

This thesis reviews the main methodological developments in public sector investment appraisal and finds growing evidence that appraisal techniques are not fulfilling their earlier promise. It is suggested that an important reason for this failure lies in the inability of these techniques to handle uncertainty except in a highly circumscribed fashion. It is argued that a more fruitful approach is to strive for flexibility. Investment projects should be formulated with a view to making them responsive to a wide range of possible future events, rather than embodying a solution which is optimal for one configuration of circumstances only. The distinction drawn in economics between the short and the long run is used to examine the nature of flexibility. The concept of long run flexibility is applied to the pre-investment range of choice open to the decisionmaker. It is demonstrated that flexibility is reduced at a very early stage of decisionmaking by the conventional system of appraisal which evaluates only a small number of options. The pre-appraisal filtering process is considered further in relation to decisionmaking models. It is argued that for public sector projects the narrowing down of options is best understood in relation to an amended mixed scanning model which places importance on the process by which the 'national interest ' is determined. Short run flexibility deals with operational characteristics, the degree to which particular projects may respond to changing demands when the basic investment is already in place. The tension between flexibility and cost is noted. A short case study on the choice of electricity generating plant is presented. The thesis concludes with a brief examination of the approaches used by successive British governments to public sector investment, particularly in relation to the nationalised industries

Efficacy of memantine on behavioral and psychological symptoms related to dementia:a systematic meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: The behavioral and psychological symptoms related to dementia (BPSD) are difficult to manage and are associated with adverse patient outcomes. OBJECTIVE: To systematically analyze the data on memantine in the treatment of BPSD. METHODS: We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, Pharm-line, the Cochrane Centre Collaboration, www.clinicaltrials.gov, www.controlled-trials.com, and PsycINFO (1966-July 2007). We contacted manufacturers and scrutinized the reference sections of articles identified in our search for further references, including conference proceedings. Two researchers (IM and CF) independently reviewed all studies identified by the search strategy. We included 6 randomized, parallel-group, double-blind studies that rated BPSD with the Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI) in our meta-analysis. Patients had probable Alzheimer's disease and received treatment with memantine for at least one month. Overall efficacy of memantine on the NPI was established with a t-test for the average difference between means across studies, using a random effects model. RESULTS: Five of the 6 studies identified had NPI outcome data. In these 5 studies, 868 patients were treated with memantine and 882 patients were treated with placebo. Patients on memantine improved by 1.99 on the NPI scale (95% Cl -0.08 to -3.91; p = 0.041) compared with the placebo group. CONCLUSIONS: Initial data appear to indicate that memantine decreases NPI scores and may have a role in managing BPSD. However, there are a number of limitations with the current data; the effect size was relatively small, and whether memantine produces significant clinical benefit is not clear.

Success factors of product innovation:an updated meta-analysis

Assessing factors that predict new product success (NPS) holds critical importance for companies, as research shows that despite considerable new product investment, success rates are generally below 25%. Over the decades, meta-analytical attempts have been made to summarize empirical findings on NPS factors. However, market environment changes such as increased global competition, as well as methodological advancements in meta-analytical research, present a timely opportunity to augment their results. Hence, a key objective of this research is to provide an updated and extended meta-analytic investigation of the factors affecting NPS. Using Henard and Szymanski's meta-analysis as the most comprehensive recent summary of empirical findings, this study updates their findings by analyzing articles published from 1999 through 2011, the period following the original meta-analysis. Based on 233 empirical studies (from 204 manuscripts) on NPS, with a total 2618 effect sizes, this study also takes advantage of more recent methodological developments by re-calculating effects of the meta-analysis employing a random effects model. The study's scope broadens by including overlooked but important additional variables, notably “country culture,” and discusses substantive differences between the updated meta-analysis and its predecessor. Results reveal generally weaker effect sizes than those reported by Henard and Szymanski in 2001, and provide evolutionary evidence of decreased effects of common success factors over time. Moreover, culture emerges as an important moderating factor, weakening effect sizes for individualistic countries and strengthening effects for risk-averse countries, highlighting the importance of further investigating culture's role in product innovation studies, and of tracking changes of success factors of product innovations. Finally, a sharp increase since 1999 in studies investigating product and process characteristics identifies a significant shift in research interest in new product development success factors. The finding that the importance of success factors generally declines over time calls for new theoretical approaches to better capture the nature of new product development (NPD) success factors. One might speculate that the potential to create competitive advantages through an understanding of NPD success factors is reduced as knowledge of these factors becomes more widespread among managers. Results also imply that managers attempting to improve success rates of NPDs need to consider national culture as this factor exhibits a strong moderating effect: Working in varied cultural contexts will result in differing antecedents of successful new product ventures.

Three essays on a longitudinal analysis of business start-ups using the Kauffman Firm Survey

This dissertation focused on the longitudinal analysis of business start-ups using three waves of data from the Kauffman Firm Survey. ^ The first essay used the data from years 2004-2008, and examined the simultaneous relationship between a firm's capital structure, human resource policies, and its impact on the level of innovation. The firm leverage was calculated as, debt divided by total financial resources. Index of employee well-being was determined by a set of nine dichotomous questions asked in the survey. A negative binomial fixed effects model was used to analyze the effect of employee well-being and leverage on the count data of patents and copyrights, which were used as a proxy for innovation. The paper demonstrated that employee well-being positively affects the firm's innovation, while a higher leverage ratio had a negative impact on the innovation. No significant relation was found between leverage and employee well-being.^ The second essay used the data from years 2004-2009, and inquired whether a higher entrepreneurial speed of learning is desirable, and whether there is a linkage between the speed of learning and growth rate of the firm. The change in the speed of learning was measured using a pooled OLS estimator in repeated cross-sections. There was evidence of a declining speed of learning over time, and it was concluded that a higher speed of learning is not necessarily a good thing, because speed of learning is contingent on the entrepreneur's initial knowledge, and the precision of the signals he receives from the market. Also, there was no reason to expect speed of learning to be related to the growth of the firm in one direction over another.^ The third essay used the data from years 2004-2010, and determined the timing of diversification activities by the business start-ups. It captured when a start-up diversified for the first time, and explored the association between an early diversification strategy adopted by a firm, and its survival rate. A semi-parametric Cox proportional hazard model was used to examine the survival pattern. The results demonstrated that firms diversifying at an early stage in their lives show a higher survival rate; however, this effect fades over time.^

Avaliação da efetividade do Programa de Alimentação do Trabalhador

This study analyzed the Worker’s Healthy Eating Program in Rio Grande do Norte state (RN) to assess its possible impact on the nutritional status of the workers benefitted. To that end, we conducted a cross-sectional observational prospective study based on a multistage stratified random sample comparing 26 small and medium-sized companies from the Manufacturing Sector (textiles, food and beverages, and nonmetallic minerals) of RN, divided into two equal groups (WFP and Non WFP). Interviews were conducted at each company by trained interviewers from Tuesday to Saturday between September and December 2014. Data were collected on the company (characterization and information regarding the program’s desired results) and workers (personal and professional information, anthropometrics, health, lifestyle and food consumed the previous day). Population estimates were calculated for RN on the characteristics of workers and the study variables. The main variable was BMI. The secondary variables were waist circumference (WC), nutritional diagnosis, calorie intake, blood pressure, metabolic variables and lifestyle indicators. The statistical method used was hierarchical mixed effects linear regression for interval variables and hierarchical mixed effects logistic regression for binary variables. The variables measured in ordinal scales were analyzed by ordinal logistic regression adjusted for correlated variables, adopting robust standard errors. The results for interval variables are presented as point estimates and their 95% confidence intervals; and as odds-ratios and their 95% confidence intervals for binary variables. The Fisher’s exact and Student’s t-tests were used for simple comparisons between proportions and means, respectively. Differences were considered statistically significant at p<0.05. A total of 1069 workers were interviewed, of which 541 were from the WFP group and 528 from the Non WFP group. Subjects were predominantly males and average age was 34.5 years. Significant intergroup differences were observed for schooling level, income above 1 MW (minimum wage) and specific training for their position at the company. The results indicated a significant difference between the BMI of workers benefitted, which was on average 0.989 kg/m2 higher than the BMI of workers from the Non WFP group (p=0.002); and between the WC, with the waist circumference of WFP group workers an average of 1.528 cm larger (p<0.05). Higher prevalence of overweight and obesity (p<0.001) and cardiovascular risk (p=0.038) were recorded in the WFP group. Tests on the possible effect of the WFP on health (blood pressure and metabolic indicators) and lifestyle indicators (smoking, alcohol consumption and exercise) were not significant. With respect to worker’s diets, differences were significant for consumption of saturated fat (lunch and daily intake), salt (lunch, other meals and daily intake) and proteins (other meals and daily intake), with higher consumption of these nutrients in the WFP group. The study showed a possible positive impact of the WFP on nutritional status (BMI and WC) among the workers benefitted. No possible effects of the program were observed for the lifestyle indicators studied. Workers benefitted consumed less salt, saturated fat and protein. The relevance of the WFP is recognized for this portion of society and it is understood that, if the program can reach and impact those involved, the development of educational initiatives aimed at nutritional and food safety may also exert a positive influence.

Polysemy advantage with abstract but not concrete words

Peer reviewed

Polysemy advantage with abstract but not concrete words

Peer reviewed

La thérapie cognitive-comportementale dans le traitement du TDAH chez l'adulte: état des connaissances

Essai doctoral présenté à la Faculté des Arts et des Sciences en vue de l'obtention du grade de doctorat en psychologie clinique (D.psy.)

Advances in Dynamic Modeling and Computation for Count Data

A class of multi-process models is developed for collections of time indexed count data. Autocorrelation in counts is achieved with dynamic models for the natural parameter of the binomial distribution. In addition to modeling binomial time series, the framework includes dynamic models for multinomial and Poisson time series. Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) and Po ́lya-Gamma data augmentation (Polson et al., 2013) are critical for fitting multi-process models of counts. To facilitate computation when the counts are high, a Gaussian approximation to the P ́olya- Gamma random variable is developed.

Three applied analyses are presented to explore the utility and versatility of the framework. The first analysis develops a model for complex dynamic behavior of themes in collections of text documents. Documents are modeled as a “bag of words”, and the multinomial distribution is used to characterize uncertainty in the vocabulary terms appearing in each document. State-space models for the natural parameters of the multinomial distribution induce autocorrelation in themes and their proportional representation in the corpus over time.

The second analysis develops a dynamic mixed membership model for Poisson counts. The model is applied to a collection of time series which record neuron level firing patterns in rhesus monkeys. The monkey is exposed to two sounds simultaneously, and Gaussian processes are used to smoothly model the time-varying rate at which the neuron’s firing pattern fluctuates between features associated with each sound in isolation.

The third analysis presents a switching dynamic generalized linear model for the time-varying home run totals of professional baseball players. The model endows each player with an age specific latent natural ability class and a performance enhancing drug (PED) use indicator. As players age, they randomly transition through a sequence of ability classes in a manner consistent with traditional aging patterns. When the performance of the player significantly deviates from the expected aging pattern, he is identified as a player whose performance is consistent with PED use.

All three models provide a mechanism for sharing information across related series locally in time. The models are fit with variations on the P ́olya-Gamma Gibbs sampler, MCMC convergence diagnostics are developed, and reproducible inference is emphasized throughout the dissertation.

La thérapie cognitive-comportementale dans le traitement du TDAH chez l'adulte: état des connaissances

Essai doctoral présenté à la Faculté des Arts et des Sciences en vue de l'obtention du grade de doctorat en psychologie clinique (D.psy.)