Floristic composition and richness of urban domestic gardens in three urban socioeconomic stratifications in the city Heredia,Costa Rica

The urban domestic gardens that are part of urban green areas have become a very important element due to their ecosystematic benefits and the poor information about them. Information regarding the floristic richness of three socioeconomic stratifications from the city of Heredia, Costa Rica is presented in this study. Research was conducted from October 2011 to May 2012. Information was collected using a semi-structured questionnaire, which was provided to 61 garden owners, including the owner’s personal data, time living in the dwelling, area of the property and the garden, variation of its size in time and the garden’s location on the property. In addition, a floristic inventory was conducted in each garden as well as a taxonomic identification of all plants. Vegetative forms and substrates were also noted. Characteristics of the gardens and their owners were then analyzed to determine the relationship of species richness between the three sites studied. The number of plant species recorded was 618, corresponding to 102 families (19 % exotic). Regarding geographical origin, 64, 4 % were exotic, 35,6 % native. Orchidaceae (93 spp.) and Araceae (39 spp.) were the most dominant families. The variables of garden area and location and owner's age determined the garden’s floristic richness. In addition, the garden’s area and vegetative forms varied among the sites studied probably due to socioeconomic differences among them. Diversity of pioneer plants increased with the garden’s area. In sum, this research provides important floristic information of domestic gardens, since, being private property, data about them is scarce and municipal management guidelines are nonexistent.     

A Literature Review of Organizational Behavior Management Interventions in Human Service Settings from 1990 to 2016

We reviewed the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (JABA), Journal of Organizational Behavior Management (JOBM), and Behavior Analysis in Practice (BAP) from 1990 to 2016, to identify articles that evaluated organizational behavior management interventions in a human service setting. Of those articles, 75 articles met the inclusion criteria for the review, 44 from JABA (1990 to 2016), 22 from JOBM (1990 to 2016), and 7 from BAP (2008 to 2016). We categorized each selected article by setting, employee population, client population, assessment, dependent variable, independent variable, and outcome measures. Results from the review are discussed for all three journals. Recommendations are made to broaden the scope of population and dependent variable targets, include more assessments, and include outcome data when applicable.     

An empirical assessment of the operational performance through internal benchmarking: a case of a global logistics firm

This article solves an operational performance measurement problem of a global logistics firm through an internal benchmarking tool. The intended impact is to enable logistics firms to form a deeper understanding of their own internal processes and metrics. The methodology of this in-depth action research involves a sequential approach with a series of interviews, questionnaire-based surveys, operations data collated through observations and process mapping yielding real-world data. A series of statistical tests are conducted to analyse the collated data. Strategic priorities of the firm are integrated with the firm’s operational performance to ascertain the effective performance by considering both the tangible and intangible measures. The outcomes inform both practitioners and academics how the firm could improve its freight forwarding business’s profitability by ensuring that its operations meet the prioritised criteria. The ‘best practice’ derived from internal benchmarking forms an intermediate step towards external benchmarking. The outcomes facilitate investigating the current business strategy, the standard operating procedures and the scope of improving those.     

Institutional voids,international learning effort and internationalization of emerging market new ventures

Much of the existing scholarly works portray institutional voids (IVs) in emerging economies as impeding forces against the development of new ventures. However, little attention has been paid to how such voids generate positive outcomes in emerging market new ventures. Drawing on the institutional theory, we propose IVs as crucial enablers of new venture internationalization. In addition, we investigate both how and when IVs enhance the degree to which new ventures internationalize by examining international learning effort (ILE) as a mediator and two domestic market environmental factors (i.e., environmental dynamism and competitive intensity) as important contingencies. We test our moderated mediation model using primary data gathered from 211 new ventures from Ghana. We found that ILE mediates the relationship between IVs and new venture internationalization and that both environmental dynamism and competitive intensity moderate the indirect relationship between home-country IVs and new venture internationalization. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of this study.     

Quantal Risk Assessment Database: A Database for Exploring Patterns in Quantal Dose‐Response Data in Risk Assessment and its Application to Develop Priors for Bayesian Dose‐Response Analysis

Quantitative risk assessments for physical, chemical, biological, occupational, or environmental agents rely on scientific studies to support their conclusions. These studies often include relatively few observations, and, as a result, models used to characterize the risk may include large amounts of uncertainty. The motivation, development, and assessment of new methods for risk assessment is facilitated by the availability of a set of experimental studies that span a range of dose‐response patterns that are observed in practice. We describe construction of such a historical database focusing on quantal data in chemical risk assessment, and we employ this database to develop priors in Bayesian analyses. The database is assembled from a variety of existing toxicological data sources and contains 733 separate quantal dose‐response data sets. As an illustration of the database's use, prior distributions for individual model parameters in Bayesian dose‐response analysis are constructed. Results indicate that including prior information based on curated historical data in quantitative risk assessments may help stabilize eventual point estimates, producing dose‐response functions that are more stable and precisely estimated. These in turn produce potency estimates that share the same benefit. We are confident that quantitative risk analysts will find many other applications and issues to explore using this database.     

Stress and Unemployment: A Comparative Review and Research Model of Female and Male Managers

This paper presents a multifaceted approach to unemployment stress experienced by male and female managers, in the form of a literature review and comparative research model. In order to develop a working model which can be applied to both male and female managers, the paper covers a substantial range of the literature pertaining to the processes and effects of unemployment for managers. Previous studies often provide conflicting data which generally results from differential approaches taken to the study of unemployment. In addition, it is important to note that the majority of studies focus on blue-collar male workers and that the vast majority are based on a male model of work. The proposed model highlights sources of stress, moderators of stress and stress outcomes that may affect unemployed managers, and distinguishes areas in which gender differences are likely to be found. However, these differences are only hypothesized from the current literature and require in-depth research if they are to be fully understood.     

Health belief factors and dispositional optimism as predictors of STD and HIV preventive behavior

Identifying factors predictive of youth's engaging in preventive behaviors related to sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and HIV remains a prominent public health concern. The utility of the Health Belief Model (HBM) continues to be suggested in identifying preventive behaviors. This study sought to examine the full HBM, including self-efficacy, with regard to STD and HIV preventive behavioral intentions in college students. Self-efficacy was identified as the primary predictor for each of the behavioral intentions (condom use, STD testing, and HIV testing), whereas response efficacy was only predictive of testing intentions. Inconsistent with HBM assumptions, perceived HIV severity was negatively related to HIV testing intentions. Students who perceived HIV as high in severity were less likely to intend to obtain HIV testing. Overall, the utility of the HBM in predicting college students' sexual preventive behavior was unsupported. An argument for a change in the direction of research, away from the continued emphasis on the study of cognitive variables, is made.