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There is an increasing interest in the use of knowledge graphs to represent real-world knowledge and a common need to manage imprecise knowledge in many real-world applications. This paper aims to study approaches to solve flexible queries over knowledge graphs.

By introducing fuzzy logic in the query answering process, the authors are able to obtain a novel algorithm to solve flexible queries over knowledge graphs. This approach is implemented in the FUzzy Knowledge Graphs system, a software tool with an intuitive user-graphical interface.

This approach makes it possible to reuse semantic web standards (RDF, SPARQL and OWL 2) and builds a fuzzy layer on top of them. The application to a use case shows that the system can aggregate information in different ways by selecting different fusion operators and adapting to different user needs.

This approach is more general than similar previous works in the literature and provides a specific way to represent the flexible restrictions (using fuzzy OWL 2 datatypes).

This paper seeks to understand kaizen in practice as it travels through time and space in the organisational setting.

A qualitative case study was carried out at a multinational company using mainly interviews for the data collection that were analysed from an actor-network theory (ANT) perspective.

This paper finds that the company deals with a series of paradoxes while managing the kaizen process. Efficiency and quality paradoxes are the basis for starting kaizen projects. Furthermore, intrinsic, and extrinsic motivation, emerge in these processes, and paradoxes relate to how spontaneous ideas emerge in a deliberated context of cost-saving objectives. The supply chain finance team coordinates kaizen projects with the collaboration of plant managers, promoting the paradox of autonomy and control. In addition, as kaizen mobilises and enrols the actors, some trials of strength emerge, showing actors who oppose the kaizen network and create competing networks that mutually exist in the firm.

This study presents valuable insights for professionals to successfully implement kaizen methodologies that take advantage of developing a network for problem-solving in organizations.

This study highlights the supply chain finance team's role in enrolling the actors within a network built by practitioners engaged in kaizen projects. Usually, engineers, quality, or manufacturing teams lead kaizen projects, and only occasionally, accounting and financial teams participate, including multidisciplinary teams.

The purpose of this study is to analyse how different patterns of production factors consumption of Spanish universities lead to specific technology transfer (TT) profiles (outcomes).

Adopting a resource-based view perspective (RBV), qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) is used to analyse the relationship between different combinations of resources – human resources, financial resources and support services – and various portfolios of TT outcomes – intellectual or industrial property agreements, spin-offs and TT income.

Results indicate that there is no unique formula of resource consumption that leads to a specific portfolio of TT outcomes. These results seem to reflect the characteristics and competencies added by universities, along with the characteristics of their socioeconomic context. From a RVB perspective, this indicates that the considered resources are substitutable.

The effectiveness of university policies is expected to vary by university, for example depending on the type of resources that is most relevant in the university’s production process. To develop competitive advantages Spanish public universities must resort to internal intangible resources or specific and inimitable combinations of the available resources.

Since Spanish universities are heterogeneous and display different TT portfolios they address the needs of different users.

Previous studies have failed to acknowledge the heterogeneity among universities. To perform the analysis QCA is used, an innovative methodology in the higher education sector that enables us to purposefully acknowledge institutional diversity (in both resources and results). This allows us to indirectly take into account the capabilities of universities using a more holistic approach to evaluate their competitiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the impact of 2014–2015 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), the largest animal health emergency in US history to date, on agribusinesses’ market values.

Using the 2014–2015 HPAI outbreaks in US commercial poultry, event study analysis of meat processing and marketing companies is conducted to estimate the effects HPAI had on firm value and how these effects differed across meat marketing firms over distinct disease event dates. The analyses include an overall aggregate event study, chronological outbreak studies, and an analysis that separated firms specifically marketing poultry products from those marketing all other types of meat.

By tracing abnormal stock returns through the event dates, the results show heterogeneity of investors responses based on the nature of the event (i.e. backyard vs commercial flocks affected), timing of the event over the course of the entire HPAI outbreak, and if a firm marketed poultry products. Overall, negative abnormal returns, ranging from 2 to 4 percent of publicly traded meat processors’ equities, are predominant post-disease event. These negative effects are slightly higher, above 5 percent, for firms marketing poultry products.

This study is the first to analyze the effects of an HPAI outbreak on the market value of US agribusiness firms.

Several previous studies showed strong social stigma toward mental illness patients from the health-care providers (HCPs) in Saudi Arabia. This stigma affects the level of care provided by HCPs. Stigma is a major barrier in treating schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) patients. Thus, it is important to clarify the difference regarding the social stigma between both diagnoses. This study aimed to identify and compare the existence of social stigma among HCPs towards schizophrenia patients compared to OCD patients.

A total of 283 HCPs from King Abdullah Medical City (KAMC), Makkah, Saudi Arabia, were enrolled in this cross-sectional questionnaire-based study between middle and end of January 2021. The scale included a demographic questionnaire plus two vignette cases reflecting OCD and schizophrenia patients’ symptoms without mentioning diagnosis. Each case was followed with 18 questions, which measured some of the thoughts and attitudes of the social stigma of mental illnesses including negative stereotypes, discrimination, social distancing and emotional and cognitive prejudices against mental illness patients. The scale was validated by a pilot study (which included 15 other participants) with acceptable validity and reliability (Cronbach’s alpha: 81.4%).

Most participants’ responses were “low” in the total score of their stigma score for both diagnosis [OCD (84.1%), mean ± SD (1.15  ±  0.366) and schizophrenia (74.2%), mean ± SD (1.25  ±  0.438)]. However, those who responded “high” in their stigma score regarding the schizophrenia section were higher in their number than those who responded “high” in the OCD section (25.8% vs 15.9%). Most participants had “low” total stigma scores for both diagnoses [OCD (84.1%), mean ± SD (1.15  ±  0.366) and schizophrenia (74.2%), mean ± SD (1.25  ±  0.438)]. However, of those with “high” stigma score responses, more were for the schizophrenia section compared to the OCD section (25.8% vs 15.9%). Being flexible to recruit any of them was more related to promoting them if they deserve promotion. The sample that answered wrong regarding OCD vignette diagnosis and had “high” stigma score was higher (n = 40) than the sample that answered correctly and had “high” stigma score (n = 5). In contrast, the sample that answered wrong regarding the schizophrenia case diagnosis and had “high” stigma score (n = 41) was not significantly different in terms of its number compared to the one that answered correctly and had “high” stigma score (n = 32).

One aspect that reduces the strength of this study is that the target number of the participants could not be reached, meaning a 95% confidence level with a ±5% margin of error could not be reached. Another limitation is the lack of contact between HCPs at the KAMC in Makkah with mental illness patients owing to lack of psychiatric inpatient departments. However, this limitation may be a strength for this study, as we were able to primarily measure medical HCPs rather than psychiatric HCPs. Although the vignette methodology in stigma studies has many benefits, the participants do not respond to real patients, and therefore miss appearance and other nonverbal cues that are typically present in real interactions.

The social stigma level among HCPs against schizophrenia patients is higher than that against OCD patients. The factor of knowing the diagnosis of the case has a positive effect on decreasing stigma toward OCD patients but not toward schizophrenia patients. Educational awareness about stigma against mental illness patients to HCPs, rather than focusing on increasing literature knowledge, may decrease stigma among HCPs.