Showing papers by "City University London published in 2015"

Risks associated with obesity in pregnancy, for the mother and baby: a systematic review of reviews

Abstract: Maternal obesity is linked with adverse outcomes for mothers and babies. To get an overview of risks related to obesity in pregnant women, a systematic review of reviews was conducted. For inclusion, reviews had to compare pregnant women of healthy weight with women with obesity, and measure a health outcome for mother and/or baby. Authors conducted full-text screening, quality assurance using the AMSTAR tool and data extraction steps in pairs. Narrative analysis of the 22 reviews included show gestational diabetes, pre-eclampsia, gestational hypertension, depression, instrumental and caesarean birth, and surgical site infection to be more likely to occur in pregnant women with obesity compared with women with a healthy weight. Maternal obesity is also linked to greater risk of preterm birth, large-for-gestational-age babies, foetal defects, congenital anomalies and perinatal death. Furthermore, breastfeeding initiation rates are lower and there is greater risk of early breastfeeding cessation in women with obesity compared with healthy weight women. These adverse outcomes may result in longer duration of hospital stay, with concomitant resource implications. It is crucial to reduce the burden of adverse maternal and foetal/child outcomes caused by maternal obesity. Women with obesity need support to lose weight before they conceive, and to minimize their weight gain in pregnancy.

Android Security: A Survey of Issues, Malware Penetration, and Defenses

Abstract: Smartphones have become pervasive due to the availability of office applications, Internet, games, vehicle guidance using location-based services apart from conventional services such as voice calls, SMSes, and multimedia services. Android devices have gained huge market share due to the open architecture of Android and the popularity of its application programming interface (APIs) in the developer community. Increased popularity of the Android devices and associated monetary benefits attracted the malware developers, resulting in big rise of the Android malware apps between 2010 and 2014. Academic researchers and commercial antimalware companies have realized that the conventional signature-based and static analysis methods are vulnerable. In particular, the prevalent stealth techniques, such as encryption, code transformation, and environment-aware approaches, are capable of generating variants of known malware. This has led to the use of behavior-, anomaly-, and dynamic-analysis-based methods. Since a single approach may be ineffective against the advanced techniques, multiple complementary approaches can be used in tandem for effective malware detection. The existing reviews extensively cover the smartphone OS security. However, we believe that the security of Android, with particular focus on malware growth, study of antianalysis techniques, and existing detection methodologies, needs an extensive coverage. In this survey, we discuss the Android security enforcement mechanisms, threats to the existing security enforcements and related issues, malware growth timeline between 2010 and 2014, and stealth techniques employed by the malware authors, in addition to the existing detection methods. This review gives an insight into the strengths and shortcomings of the known research methodologies and provides a platform, to the researchers and practitioners, toward proposing the next-generation Android security, analysis, and malware detection techniques.

Principles of Explanatory Debugging to Personalize Interactive Machine Learning

Abstract: How can end users efficiently influence the predictions that machine learning systems make on their behalf? This paper presents Explanatory Debugging, an approach in which the system explains to users how it made each of its predictions, and the user then explains any necessary corrections back to the learning system. We present the principles underlying this approach and a prototype instantiating it. An empirical evaluation shows that Explanatory Debugging increased participants' understanding of the learning system by 52% and allowed participants to correct its mistakes up to twice as efficiently as participants using a traditional learning system.

Strategy tools-in-use: A framework for understanding “technologies of rationality” in practice

Abstract: In response to critiques of strategy tools as unhelpful or potentially dangerous for organizations, we suggest casting a sociological eye on how tools are actually mobilized by strategy makers. In conceptualizing strategy tools as tools-in-use, we offer a framework for examining the ways that the affordances of strategy tools and the agency of strategy makers interact to shape how and when tools are selected and applied. Further, rather than evaluating the ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’ use of tools, we highlight the variety of outcomes that result, not just for organizations but also for the tools and the individuals who use them. We illustrate this framework with a vignette and propose an agenda and methodological approaches for further scholarship on the use of strategy tools.

Does Twitter matter? The impact of microblogging word of mouth on consumers’ adoption of new movies

Abstract: This research provides an empirical test of the “Twitter effect,” which postulates that microblogging word of mouth (MWOM) shared through Twitter and similar services affects early product adoption behaviors by immediately disseminating consumers’ post-purchase quality evaluations. This is a potentially crucial factor for the success of experiential media products and other products whose distribution strategy relies on a hyped release. Studying the four million MWOM messages sent via Twitter concerning 105 movies on their respective opening weekends, the authors find support for the Twitter effect and report evidence of a negativity bias. In a follow-up incident study of 600 Twitter users who decided not to see a movie based on negative MWOM, the authors shed additional light on the Twitter effect by investigating how consumers use MWOM information in their decision-making processes and describing MWOM’s defining characteristics. They use these insights to position MWOM in the word-of-mouth landscape, to identify future word-of-mouth research opportunities based on this conceptual positioning, and to develop managerial implications.

The Role of Explanations on Trust and Reliance in Clinical Decision Support Systems

Abstract: Clinical decision support systems (CDSS) are increasingly used by healthcare professionals for evidence-based diagnosis and treatment support. However, research has suggested that users often over-rely on system suggestions -- even if the suggestions are wrong. Providing explanations could potentially mitigate misplaced trust in the system and over-reliance. In this paper, we explore how explanations are related to user trust and reliance, as well as what information users would find helpful to better understand the reliability of a system's decision-making. We investigated these questions through an exploratory user study in which healthcare professionals were observed using a CDSS prototype to diagnose hypothetic cases using fictional patients suffering from a balance-related disorder. Our results show that the amount of system confidence had only a slight effect on trust and reliance. More importantly, giving a fuller explanation of the facts used in making a diagnosis had a positive effect on trust but also led to over-reliance issues, whereas less detailed explanations made participants question the system's reliability and led to self-reliance problems. To help them in their assessment of the reliability of the system's decisions, study participants wanted better explanations to help them interpret the system's confidence, to verify that the disorder fit the suggestion, to better understand the reasoning chain of the decision model, and to make differential diagnoses. Our work is a first step toward improved CDSS design that better supports clinicians in making correct diagnoses.

Debiasing Decisions. Improved Decision Making With A Single Training Intervention

Abstract: From failures of intelligence analysis to misguided beliefs about vaccinations, biased judgment and decision making contributes to problems in policy, business, medicine, law, education, and private life. Early attempts to reduce decision biases with training met with little success, leading scientists and policy makers to focus on debiasing by using incentives and changes in the presentation and elicitation of decisions. We report the results of two longitudinal experiments that found medium to large effects of one-shot debiasing training interventions. Participants received a single training intervention, played a computer game or watched an instructional video, which addressed biases critical to intelligence analysis (in Experiment 1: bias blind spot, confirmation bias, and fundamental attribution error; in Experiment 2: anchoring, representativeness, and social projection). Both kinds of interventions produced medium to large debiasing effects immediately (games ≥ −31.94% and videos ≥ −18.60%) that persisted at least 2 months later (games ≥ −23.57% and videos ≥ −19.20%). Games that provided personalized feedback and practice produced larger effects than did videos. Debiasing effects were domain general: bias reduction occurred across problems in different contexts, and problem formats that were taught and not taught in the interventions. The results suggest that a single training intervention can improve decision making. We suggest its use alongside improved incentives, information presentation, and nudges to reduce costly errors associated with biased judgments and decisions.

Motivated Monitors: The Importance of Institutional Investors’ Portfolio Weights

Abstract: Studies of institutional monitoring focus on the fraction of the firm held by institutions. We focus on the fraction of the institution’s portfolio represented by the firm. In the context of acquisitions, we hypothesize that institutional monitoring will be greatest when the target firm represents a significant allocation of funds in the institution’s portfolio. We show that this measure is important in reconciling mixed findings for total institutional ownership in the prior literature. The results indicate that our measure of institutional holdings leads to greater bid completion rates, higher premiums and lower acquirer returns. This empirical evidence provides support for theories predicting a beneficial effect of blockholders in monitoring the firm in general and in enhancing the gains to takeover targets in particular.

Cognition and brain function in schizotypy: a selective review.

Abstract: Schizotypy refers to a set of personality traits thought to reflect the subclinical expression of the signs and symptoms of schizophrenia. Here, we review the cognitive and brain functional profile associated with high questionnaire scores in schizotypy. We discuss empirical evidence from the domains of perception, attention, memory, imagery and representation, language, and motor control. Perceptual deficits occur early and across various modalities. While the neural mechanisms underlying visual impairments may be linked to magnocellular dysfunction, further effects may be seen downstream in higher cognitive functions. Cognitive deficits are observed in inhibitory control, selective and sustained attention, incidental learning, and memory. In concordance with the cognitive nature of many of the aberrations of schizotypy, higher levels of schizotypy are associated with enhanced vividness and better performance on tasks of mental rotation. Language deficits seem most pronounced in higher-level processes. Finally, higher levels of schizotypy are associated with reduced performance on oculomotor tasks, resembling the impairments seen in schizophrenia. Some of these deficits are accompanied by reduced brain activation, akin to the pattern of hypoactivations in schizophrenia spectrum individuals. We conclude that schizotypy is a construct with apparent phenomenological overlap with schizophrenia and stable interindividual differences that covary with performance on a wide range of perceptual, cognitive, and motor tasks known to be impaired in schizophrenia. The importance of these findings lies not only in providing a fine-grained neurocognitive characterization of a personality constellation known to be associated with real-life impairments, but also in generating hypotheses concerning the aetiology of schizophrenia.

The spontaneous emergence of conventions: An experimental study of cultural evolution

Abstract: How do shared conventions emerge in complex decentralized social systems? This question engages fields as diverse as linguistics, sociology, and cognitive science. Previous empirical attempts to solve this puzzle all presuppose that formal or informal institutions, such as incentives for global agreement, coordinated leadership, or aggregated information about the population, are needed to facilitate a solution. Evolutionary theories of social conventions, by contrast, hypothesize that such institutions are not necessary in order for social conventions to form. However, empirical tests of this hypothesis have been hindered by the difficulties of evaluating the real-time creation of new collective behaviors in large decentralized populations. Here, we present experimental results—replicated at several scales—that demonstrate the spontaneous creation of universally adopted social conventions and show how simple changes in a population’s network structure can direct the dynamics of norm formation, driving human populations with no ambition for large scale coordination to rapidly evolve shared social conventions.

HRM practices used to promote pro-environmental behavior: a UK survey

Abstract: To date, the extent to which UK organizations use human resource management (HRM) practices to promote pro-environmental behavior through workplace HRM policies and initiatives is under-researched within the literature Therefore, this paper presents results of a survey investigating current HRM practices used to promote pro-environmental behavior in a sample of 214 UK organizations representing different sizes and industry sectors Overall, findings indicated that HRM practices are not used to a great extent to encourage employees to become more pro-environmental The most prevalent practices used within organizations incorporated elements of management involvement supporting the idea that managers are the gatekeepers to environmental performance Although organizations indicated that some HRM practices were more effective than others at encouraging pro-environmental behavior in their staff, only a very small percentage of organizations actually conducted any form of evaluation; organizations consequentl

The Politics of Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives: The Crisis of the Forest Stewardship Council

Abstract: Multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) have become a vital part of the organizational landscape for corporate social responsibility. Recent debates have explored whether these initiatives represent opportunities for the “democratization” of transnational corporations, facilitating civic participation in the extension of corporate responsibility, or whether they constitute new arenas for the expansion of corporate influence and the private capture of regulatory power. In this article, we explore the political dynamics of these new governance initiatives by presenting an in-depth case study of an organization often heralded as a model MSI: the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). An effort to address global deforestation in the wake of failed efforts to agree a multilateral convention on forests at the Rio Summit (UNCED) in 1992, the FSC was launched in 1993 as a non-state regulatory experiment: a transnational MSI, administering a global eco-labeling scheme for timber and forest products. We trace the scheme’s evolution over the past two decades, showing that while the FSC has successfully facilitated multi-sectoral determination of new standards for forestry, it has nevertheless failed to transform commercial forestry practices or stem the tide of tropical deforestation. Applying a neo-Gramscian analysis to the organizational evolution of the FSC, we examine how broader market forces and resource imbalances between non-governmental and market actors can serve to limit the effectiveness of MSIs in the current neo-liberal environment. This presents dilemmas for NGOs which can lead to their defection, ultimately undermining the organizational legitimacy of MSIs.

Resilience through the lens of interactionism: a systematic review

Abstract: This systematic review presents findings from a conceptual and methodological review of resilience measures using an interactionist theoretical framework. The review is also intended to update findings from previous systematic reviews. Two databases (EBSCOHost and Scopus) were searched to retrieve empirical studies published up until 2013, with no lower time limit. All articles had to meet specific inclusion criteria, which resulted in 17 resilience measures selected for full review. Measures were conceptually evaluated against an interactionist framework and methodologically reviewed using Skinner's (1981) validity evidence framework. We conclude that inconsistencies associated with the definition and operationalization of resilience warrant further conceptual development to explain resilience as a dynamic and interactive phenomenon. In particular, measures of resilience may benefit from a greater focus on within-person variance typically associated with behavioral consistency across situations. The use of alternative measurement modalities to self-report scales, such as situational judgment tests, is proposed as a way of advancing knowledge in this area.

Gender and Creative Labour

Abstract: Inequalities within the cultural and creative industries (CCI) have been insufficiently explored. International research across a range of industries reveals gendered patterns of disadvantage and exclusion which are, unsurprisingly, further complicated by divisions of class, and also disability and race and ethnicity. These persistent inequalities are amplified by the precariousness, informality and requirements for flexibility which are widely noted features of contemporary creative employment. In addition, women in particular are disadvantaged by the boundary-crossing (for instance, between home and work, paid work and unpaid work) and new pressures around identity-making and self-presentation, as well as continuing difficulties related to sexism and the need to manage parenting responsibilities alongside earning. This article introduces a new collection which explores these issues, marking the significance of gender for an understanding of creative labour in the neoliberal economy.

A Meta-Analysis of International Tourism Demand Elasticities

Abstract: This study uses meta-analysis to examine the relationship between estimated international tourism demand elasticities and the data characteristics and study features that may affect such empirical estimates. By reviewing 195 studies published during the period 1961–2011, the meta-regression analysis shows that origin, destination, time period, modeling method, data frequency, the inclusion/omission of other explanatory variables and their measures, and sample size all significantly influence the estimates of the demand elasticities generated by a model. Moreover, the demand elasticities at both product and destination levels are generalized by statistically integrating previous empirical estimates. The findings of this meta-analysis will be useful wherever an understanding of the drivers of tourism demand is critically important.

Labor Protection and Leverage

Abstract: This paper exploits inter-temporal variations in employment protection across countries and finds that rigidities in labor markets are an important determinant of firms’ capital structure decisions. Over the 1985-2007 period, we find that reforms increasing employment protection are associated with a 187 basis point reduction in leverage. We interpret this finding to suggest that employment protection increases operating leverage, crowding out financial leverage. This result is robust across measures of employment protection and leverage, and does not appear to be due to pre-treatment differences between treated and control firms, omitted variables, unobserved changes in regional economic conditions, and reverse causality. Heterogeneous treatment effects are consistent with our economic intuition: we find that the negative effect is more pronounced in firms that are subject to frequent hiring and firing.

How Streams of Communication Reproduce and Change Institutional Logics: The Role of Categories

Abstract: We examine how streams of communication enable the reproduction and change of the underlying principles that constitute institutional logics. While past research has shown that communication provides instantiations of institutional logics, the link between specific instances of communication and the emergence of institutional logics has not been explicitly shown. To remedy this gap, we propose that collections of communicative events distributed throughout organizations and institutional fields can converge on systems of categories so as to yield the meaningful and durable principles that constitute institutional logics. We explore how four analytically distinct communicative functions—coordinating, sensegiving, translating, and theorizing—enable this emergent process of reproduction and change.

Activity tracking: barriers, workarounds and customisation

Abstract: Activity trackers are increasingly popular, but they have high levels of abandonment and little evidence exists to suggest why this is. This paper explores barriers to engagement with activity trackers. We extend previous research by not only characterising the barriers users experienced, such as tracking accuracy and device aesthetics, but also by reporting the workarounds they created. We discuss implications for the design of activity tracking systems by reflecting on these workarounds, the potential for activity tracker design to help overcome existing barriers, and how customisation could play a role.

Neural-Symbolic Learning and Reasoning: Contributions and Challenges

Abstract: The goal of neural-symbolic computation is to integrate robust connectionist learning and sound symbolic reasoning. With the recent advances in connectionist learning, in particular deep neural networks, forms of representation learning have emerged. However, such representations have not become useful for reasoning. Results from neural-symbolic computation have shown to offer powerful alternatives for knowledge representation, learning and reasoning in neural computation. This paper recalls the main contributions and discusses key challenges for neural-symbolic integration which have been identified at a recent Dagstuhl seminar.

Complaints of rape and the criminal justice system: Fresh evidence on the attrition problem in England and Wales

Abstract: The UK has one of the lowest conviction rates for rape in Europe. This article presents unique evidence on the factors that influence the attrition of rape allegations in the English criminal justice system. The study is based on a large, representative sample of rape allegations reported to the London Metropolitan Police, the UK’s biggest police force. The dataset contains unprecedented detail on the incident, the victim, the suspect and the police investigation. The results lend support to the influence of some rape myths and stereotypes on attrition. These findings suggest that further central factors include the ethnicity of the suspect as well as what police officers and prosecutors perceive as evidence against the truthfulness of the allegation: police records noting a previous false allegation by the victim, inconsistencies in the victim’s account of the alleged rape, and evidence or police opinion casting doubt on the allegation.

Behavioral Finance: Quo Vadis?

Abstract: Behavioral finance endeavors to bridge the gap between finance and psychology. Now an established field, behavioral finance studies investor decision processes which in turn shed light on anomalies, i.e., departures from neoclassical finance theory. This paper is the summary of a panel discussion. It begins by reviewing the foundations of finance and it ends with a discussion of the future of behavioral finance and a self-critique. We describe the move from the standard view that financial decision making is rational to a behavioral approach based on judgmental heuristics, biases, mental frames, and new theories of choice under risk. A new class of asset pricing models, which adds behavioral elements to the standard framework, is proposed.