1,720,962 research outputs found
Member Psychological Ownership and Sustainability of Urban Primary Consumer Cooperative Societies in Ethiopia
Get PDFThis research analyses the relationship between psychological ownership and sustainability of urban primary consumer cooperatives operating in Ethiopia. In Ethiopia the concept of psychological ownership is not well studied especially on cooperatives. This study attempts to fill the gap by analyzing the relationship between member psychological ownership and sustainability of urban primary consumer cooperatives. Member psychological ownership was measured using member accountability, self-efficacy, sense of place/belongingness, self-identity and territoriality. Current study employed a survey research design to investigate the hypothesized relationships. Data were collected from 384 randomly selected members of urban primary consumer cooperatives in Bahir Dar, Adama, and Addis Ababa, representing a target population of 118,538 members across 275 cooperatives. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) served as the primary data analysis technique. SEM allowed for the assessment of the direct relationships between member psychological ownership – measured through dimensions of accountability, self-efficacy, sense of place/belongingness, self-identity, and territoriality – and the sustainability of these cooperatives. Results revealed positive significant relationship between member psychological ownership and sustainability of urban primary consumer cooperatives. These findings highlight the practical importance of fostering a strong sense of ownership among members. Key words: Consumer cooperative; psychological ownership; accountability; self-efficacy; sense of place/belongingness; self-identity; territoriality; SEM DOI: 10.7176/JMCR/94-03 Publication date: January 30th 202
Price Volatility Management of Urban Primary Consumer Cooperatives: A Correlation Analysis
Get PDFThis study investigates the factors influencing urban primary consumer cooperatives' management of price volatility of essential goods in Bahir Dar, Adama and Addis Ababa cities. Data was collected from 93 chairpersons and vice-chairpersons of these cooperatives. The study examines the relationship between management of price volatility, cooperative governance, supply chain management, financial access and capital constraint, technological innovations and digital tools, and regulatory and government support. Correlation analysis was employed to assess the strength of these relationships. The findings indicate that all the factors studied have a moderate to strong statistically significant correlation with the management of price volatility of essential goods in urban primary consumer cooperatives. This suggests that a comprehensive approach involving effective governance, efficient supply chain management, adequate financial resource and capital, technological and digital tools adoption, and supportive regulatory and government policies are crucial for urban primary consumer cooperatives to mitigate the impact of price volatility on their members and communities. Key words: Consumer cooperative; Price volatility; Governance; supply chain; finance; technology; digital tools; regulatory and government support DOI: 10.7176/RJFA/16-1-03 Publication date: January 30th 202
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Molecular epidemiology of vancomycin-resistant enterococci isolated from selected human, poultry and pig populations in Peninsular Malaysia
Get PDFFarm animals have been implicated as source and reservoirs of vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) for human colonization. However, the relative importance of the major food animal reservoirs compared to human and environmental reservoirs is difficult to quantify. In Malaysia, VRE have been a great concern to the poultry farmers in general, especially farms that export their animals to the neighbouring country because of the restriction imposed by the importing country due to the potential risk of VRE transmission to their human population. The present study was carried out to investigate the epidemiology of VRE in selected human (poultry workers, veterinary students and pig butchers), poultry and pig populations in Peninsular Malaysia. The specific objectives of the study were to detect and describe VRE, identify the epidemiological risk factors for colonization with VRE, determine the vancomycin-resistance genes and vancomycin-susceptibility pattern, detect virulence and enterocin genes, determine genetic diversity of VRE species, and elucidate the genetic relatedness of E. faecalis and E. faecium isolates from human and animals.
VRE were detected in 28 (9.4%) of apparently healthy humans, specifically in four (4.3%) of the veterinary students, 15 (13.5%) of poultry workers and 9 (9.5%) of pig butchers. Risk factor analyses showed that previously hospitalized individuals were 4 times more likely to be VRE positive than non-hospitalized. Older (age ≥ 40 years) individuals were 5 times more likely to be colonized than younger subjects (age < 40 years). VRE were detected in 32 (12%) and 1 (0.4%) of pigs and poultry samples respectively. However, factors contributing for VRE colonization in pigs and poultry were not evident. There was no evidence to suggest that contact with animals significantly contribute to VRE among the examined human population.
Enterococcus faecalis, E. faecium, E. gallinarum, E. casseliflavus, E. durans and E. hirae were detected. E. faecium was the dominant species in human, E. faecalis was common in poultry while E. casseliflavus was abundant in pigs. Interestingly, other than VRE, highly vancomycin-resistant Gram-positive cocci (VRC) bacteria were detected. Selected VRC were identified as Pediococcus species. This incidental finding suggested that potentially high numbers of VRE false positive farms have been detected using the conventional VRE identification system.
Vancomycin-resistance gene vanB was only detected in one of E. faecalis isolate obtained from human making it the first report in Malaysia. The gene vanA was detected in 20 (71%), 7 (13%) and 51 (36%) humans, pigs and poultry VRE isolates respectively. The prevalence of intrinsic vancomycin resistance genes vanC1 and vanC2/3 was the same as E. gallinarum and E. casseliflavus respectively. However,E. gallinarum isolates that acquired vanA gene were observed. In general vanA carrying VRE isolates were noted to be highly resistant (MIC ≥ 256μg/mL) while majority of vanC isolates were intermediately resistant.
Virulence gene gelE was detected in 75 (95%) of E. faecalis and 41(71%) of E. faecium isolates. CylA gene was present in 5 (6%) E. faecalis and 2 (3%) E. faecium isolates. The esp gene was detected in 4 (5%) and 8 (14%) of E. faecalis and E. faecium isolates respectively. Among 79 E. faecalis, 3 (4%) entA, 4 (5%) entB, 6 (7.6%) entP and 19 (24%) ent31 gene harbouring isolates were identified. Likewise, from 58 E. faecium isolates, 31 (53%), 8 (14%), 21 (36%) and 1 (0.6%) of them were positive for entA, entB, ent31 and entL50AB genes, respectively. Meanwhile, enterocin genes were rare in other species. The finding highlighted the presence of trait aiding spread, survival and dominance of VRE in microbial ecology.
In this study RAPD was used to determine the genetic diversity of VRE isolates obtained from humans, pigs and poultry. High genetic diversity was generally seen in E. faecalis, E. faecium, E. gallinarum and E. casseliflavus. RAPD was a rapid technique that allowed characterizing a number of isolates at a time. However, RAPD method showed low reproducibility and failed to differentiate strains with vanA genes from those without van genes.
Multilocus sequence typing of selected 14 E. faecium and 11 E. faecalis revealed six sequence types (ST) for E. faecium (ST203, ST17, ST55, ST29 and ST79) and E. faecalis (ST4, ST6, ST87, ST108, ST274 and ST244) respectively. Clustering analysis showed that more than 70% of E. faecium and all E. faecalis were hosts specific (human, pig and poultry). E. faecium isolates from healthy individuals had close similarity to clinical isolate (D, 0-14), but there was high dissimilarity (D, 20) between animal and human isolates in general. Most of human E. faecium isolates were derivatives of the epidemic strain clonal complex (CC) -17. Two of human E. faecalis were derived from epidemic CC2 and CC87. Only one poultry E. faecium was part of the epidemic CC17. E. faecium strains reported from Singapore have close similarity to human isolates (D, 7) but high degree of variation (Distance 19 – 29) from animal isolates characterized in this study. Similar E. faecium ST17 stains are reported from 21 countries. Mainly from the Western countries, Australia and Korea. E. faecium ST203 is reported from four Asian and three European countries. Australia, Belgium, France, Brazil and Netherlands were countries that reported ST57 and ST29. Netherland was the only country in MLST database where ST55 was reported. Similar strain of E. faecalis ST4 identified in present study was reported from Thailand. The overall finding from this part of the study is highly significant in the context of refuting the claims that poultry products in Malaysia potentially lead to human VRE colonization in Singapore.
The findings from this study have contributed significantly to the understanding on the distribution and types of VRE among healthy humans, pigs and poultry. The study has elucidated the potential risk factors among humans for VRE colonization, types of resistances, virulence and enterocin genes present, genetic characteristics, and has given first insight into MLST profiles and genetic relatedness of human and animal VRE stains circulating in Malaysia. The study has provided evidence that can be used in the future should the issue on human-animal VRE transmission arise in Malaysia
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
The role of working capital management of urban primary consumer cooperative societies in managing price volatility in Ethiopia
Get PDFThis study examines the role of working capital management in managing price volatility in urban primary consumer cooperative societies in Ethiopia. It analyzes the impact cash management, receivables management, inventory management and payables management on price volatility management. Data were collected through a survey questionnaire from 114 chairpersons and vice-chairpersons of 57 urban primary consumer cooperatives operating in Bahir Dar, Adama and Addis Ababa cities achieving a response rate of 81.58%. Target urban primary consumer cooperatives were selected using a two-stage cluster sampling method. Structural Equation Model (SEM) analysis was employed to assess the relationships. The findings reveal that cash, receivables and payables management do not have statistically significant impacts on managing price volatility. However, inventory management demonstrates a statistically significant positive impact. The study concludes that urban primary consumer cooperatives should prioritize inventory management as a strategic tool for stabilizing prices while other working capital components serve broader financial management purposes. Key words: primary consumer cooperative; working capital management; price volatility; SE
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