The purpose of this study was to examine contextual factors (empowerment, ownership, and accountability) that facilitate and promote exploration and exploitation behavior. Data were obtained from an American manufacturing company using employee and supervisor surveys (n = 297). Findings indicate that empowerment improved exploitation and that when employees perceived they would have to be accountable for their actions, employees who felt empowered showed lower gains in exploration behaviors compared with those who felt less empowered; in contrast, those having feelings of ownership exhibited higher gains in exploration behavior than those who scored low in ownership. Although ownership was theorized to have a positive effect on exploitative behavior, we found evidence for its negative effects instead. We contribute to the limited individual-level ambidexterity literature by providing empirical evidence on the effects of contextual factors on ambidextrous behavior. This knowledge could help firms better manage employee behavior and implement effective supervisory oversight.

OBJECTIVES/SPECIFIC AIMS: Persons living with HIV (PLWH) are at increased risk for fragility bone disease. Current osteoporosis screening guidelines do not account for HIV status, and clinical risk assessment tools are not sensitive in PLWH. We examined the value of traditional osteoporosis risk factors, HIV-specific indices, and bone turnover biomarkers in predicting low bone mineral density (BMD) in PLWH. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: Demographic and clinical characteristics, dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA)-derived BMD, HIV indices (viral load, CD4 count, antiretroviral therapy [ART]), and biomarkers of bone turnover (C-terminal telopeptide of collagen [CTx], osteocalcin [OCN]) were evaluated in a cross-sectional analysis of PLWH (n=248) and HIV- controls (n=183). The primary outcome was low BMD, defined as osteopenia or osteoporosis by WHO criteria. Multivariable logistic and modified Poisson regression models were used to assess associations between low BMD and covariates of interest. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Overall, median age was 44 years, 48% were male, 88% were black, median body mass index (BMI) was 28 kg/m2, 72% smoked cigarettes, and 53% used alcohol; characteristics did not differ by HIV status. PLWH had a mean CD4 of 408 cells/mm3, 55% were ART-naïve, and 45% had viral suppression on ART. Overall, 25% (109/431) had low BMD, including 31% of PLWH compared to 16% of HIV- controls. In multivariable models, HIV was significantly associated with low BMD (aOR 2.46, 95%CI 1.39-4.34; aRR 1.90, 95%CI 1.18-3.07). Adjusting for HIV, three traditional risks– age, race, and BMI– were independently associated with low BMD in the full cohort. However, bone turnover markers, CTx and OCN, were better able to discriminate low vs. normal BMD in PLWH compared to HIV- controls. In PLWH, mean serum CTx was 23% higher in low vs. normal BMD (mean CTx difference=0.06 ug/mL); in HIV- controls, no association with BMD was observed (mean CTx difference=0 ug/mL). In PLWH, mean serum OCN was 38% higher in those with low vs. normal BMD (mean OCN difference=2.48 ug/mL); in HIV- controls, mean serum OCN was only 16% higher in those with low vs. normal BMD (mean OCN difference=1.08 ug/mL). DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT: In PLWH as opposed to HIV- controls, serum biomarkers reflecting a high bone turnover state, may discriminate individuals with low versus normal BMD. Because changes in biomarkers precede changes in BMD, these markers should be explored further either alone or in combination with traditional risk assessment tools to improve early screening for osteoporosis in PLWH.

Although food from grazed animals is increasingly sought by consumers because of perceived animal welfare advantages, grazing systems provide the farmer and the animal with unique challenges. The system is dependent almost daily on the climate for feed supply, with the importation of large amounts of feed from off farm, and associated labour and mechanisation costs, sometimes reducing economic viability. Furthermore, the cow may have to walk long distances and be able to harvest feed efficiently in a highly competitive environment because of the need for high levels of pasture utilisation. She must, also, be: (1) highly fertile, with a requirement for pregnancy within ~80 days post-calving; (2) ‘easy care’, because of the need for the management of large herds with limited labour; (3) able to walk long distances; and (4) robust to changes in feed supply and quality, so that short-term nutritional insults do not unduly influence her production and reproduction cycles. These are very different and are in addition to demands placed on cows in housed systems offered pre-made mixed rations. Furthermore, additional demands in environmental sustainability and animal welfare, in conjunction with the need for greater system-level biological efficiency (i.e. ‘sustainable intensification’), will add to the ‘robustness’ requirements of cows in the future. Increasingly, there is evidence that certain genotypes of cows perform better or worse in grazing systems, indicating a genotype×environment interaction. This has led to the development of tailored breeding objectives within countries for important heritable traits to maximise the profitability and sustainability of their production system. To date, these breeding objectives have focussed on the more easily measured traits and those of highest relative economic importance. In the future, there will be greater emphasis on more difficult to measure traits that are important to the quality of life of the animal in each production system and to reduce the system’s environmental footprint.

While a wealth of evidence exists about failure in organisational settings and the emotions evoked by failure, researchers have paid less attention to failure and its related emotional consequences in academic life. Given that failure is often a cause of significant stress, which in turn can lead to damaging consequences, we argue that this is an issue deserving of greater consideration. In this article, we adopt Ashkanasy’s five-level model of emotion in organisations, and explore the potential role of emotions in academics’ experiences of failure at five levels: within-person, between-persons, interpersonal interactions, groups and teams (and leadership), and organisation-wide. In doing so, we draw on findings from scholarly literature, anecdotal evidence, and our own experiences as academics to build arguments. Following discussion of the model, we suggest how academics might begin to normalise the experience of failure in academia and to build resilience in the coming generations of young scholars.

Genetic selection for litter size received little attention either by scientists or commercial pig breeders until recently. Low heritability of litter size, its sex-limited expression and the fact that it cannot be measured until reproductive maturity are often given as reasons. But the major reason may be that the reproductive rate of pigs is already quite high, and the economic value of genetic changes in litter size have been small relative to those of efficiency and composition of growth.

The economics of pig production have changed and technological and biological advances have caused us to re-examine the economic value of traits. Reducing fat in the carcass and more efficient conversion of feed to lean meat have always been, and will continue to be, high priority selection objectives for pig breeders. But expensive, environmentally controlled gestation, farrowing and nursery houses are the norm of modern pig production and increasing litter size will result in a significant reduction in the cost of producing lean meat (Tess et al., 1983).

Does more competition lead to more information production and greater investment efficiency? This question is largely unexplored in the finance literature. This article provides both a model and a series of extensive empirical tests. The model features a 2-stage Bayesian game in differentiated products market competition. We find that competition causes firms to acquire less information and investments to become more inefficient relative to a first-best case with the same market structure. Empirically, the panel regression analysis provides strong support for the theory and shows that investment is more efficient in concentrated industries.

In most models of the flow of glaciers on till beds, it has been assumed that till behaves as a viscoplastic fluid, despite contradictory evidence from laboratory studies. In accord with this assumption, displacement profiles measured in subglacial till have been fitted with viscoplastic models by estimating the stress distribution. Here we present a model that illustrates how observed displacement profiles can result from till deformation resisted solely by Coulomb friction. Motion in the till bed is assumed to be driven by brief departures from static equilibrium caused by fluctuations in effective normal stress. These fluctuations result from chains of particles that support intergranular forces that are higher than average and that form and fail at various depths in the bed during shearing. Newton’s second law is used to calculate displacements along slip planes and the depth to which deformation extends in the bed. Consequent displacement profiles are convex upward, similar to those measured by Boulton and colleagues at Breidamerkurjökull, Iceland. The model results, when considered together with the long-term and widespread empirical support for Coulomb models in soils engineering, indicate that efforts to fit viscoplastic flow models to till displacement profiles may be misguided.

Sequence-based association studies are at a critical inflexion point with the increasing availability of exome-sequencing data. A popular test of association is the sequence kernel association test (SKAT). Weights are embedded within SKAT to reflect the hypothesized contribution of the variants to the trait variance. Because the true weights are generally unknown, and so are subject to misspecification, we examined the efficiency of a data-driven weighting scheme. We propose the use of a set of theoretically defensible weighting schemes, of which, we assume, the one that gives the largest test statistic is likely to capture best the allele frequency–functional effect relationship. We show that the use of alternative weights obviates the need to impose arbitrary frequency thresholds. As both the score test and the likelihood ratio test (LRT) may be used in this context, and may differ in power, we characterize the behavior of both tests. The two tests have equal power, if the weights in the set included weights resembling the correct ones. However, if the weights are badly specified, the LRT shows superior power (due to its robustness to misspecification). With this data-driven weighting procedure the LRT detected significant signal in genes located in regions already confirmed as associated with schizophrenia — the PRRC2A (p = 1.020e-06) and the VARS2 (p = 2.383e-06) — in the Swedish schizophrenia case-control cohort of 11,040 individuals with exome-sequencing data. The score test is currently preferred for its computational efficiency and power. Indeed, assuming correct specification, in some circumstances, the score test is the most powerful test. However, LRT has the advantageous properties of being generally more robust and more powerful under weight misspecification. This is an important result given that, arguably, misspecified models are likely to be the rule rather than the exception in weighting-based approaches.

Government transparency is widely promoted, yet little is known about transparency’s effects. Survey experiments reported here, made on the streets of Lima, Peru, investigate a simple question: what are the effects of government-sponsored transparency websites, and the information revealed by those efforts, on attitudes about the Peruvian political system? Like many developing countries, Peru lacks much system support, making it more difficult to improve governance and democracy; transparency itself has little impact on political attitudes. However, some dimensions of the information provided by transparency matter: endorsement by a credible third party or framing that associates comparatively good community well-being with government performance. These conditions substantively increase Peruvians’ approval of the national political community, the regime’s performance, institutions, and local government.