Research summary: Although prior research highlights the organizational and cognitive challenges associated with achieving organizational ambidexterity, there has been comparatively less empirical attention focused on the cognitive characteristics that may differentiate top managers of firms that achieve ambidexterity. We build on emerging research and identify cognitive flexibility as a cognitive characteristic with particular relevance to the challenges associated with ambidexterity and suggest that it works through chief executive officers (CEOs)' information search activities. We find that cognitively flexible CEOs are more likely to engage in effortful and persistent information search and rely to a greater extent on outside sources of information. In turn, effortful and persistent information search activities are associated with higher levels of organizational ambidexterity. Our study pushes forward the research agenda on cognitive micro-foundations of firm capabilities. Managerial summary: Ambidextrous organizations, or organizations that have the capability to pursue both incremental and discontinuous innovation, enjoy more sustainable competitive advantages. However, the achievement of organizational ambidexterity poses unique demands for top managers, including cognitive challenges. To help managers better understand these challenges, this study focuses attention on the role of the CEO in the achievement of organizational

New ventures often form a formal board of directors for the first time at the initial public offering (IPO). The tumult of external changes places a premium on rapid decision making within a resource-constrained venture. According to the social psychological theory, group consensus and decision alternatives serve as two key drivers for making rapid decisions. Therefore, based on signaling theory, the valuation from investors at the IPO depends on the observable signals that can imply the group consensus and decision alternatives in a board. We argue and test the hypothesis that, when group consensus and decision alternative signals are jointly considered, the relationship between the ratio of founders on the board and the IPO price premium will have an inversed U shape. In addition, we analyze how three contextual factors (original chief executive officer [CEO], founders' ownership, and venture capitalist [VC] on the board) can influence their signal consistency with founder directors on group consensus and decision alternatives, which ultimately changes the pattern of the inverted U shape. Based on a unique sample of 274 Chinese new venture IPOs over the period from 2004 to 2009, our results show that if the firm is managed by a nonoriginal CEO, the relationship between the founder-board ratio and the IPO price premium is an inverse U shape. Furthermore, if a VC sits on the board, the presence of founder directors has a linear positive effect on IPO premium; otherwise, the inverse U-shaped relationship still holds.

New ventures are often launched for the purpose of pioneering an innovative new product or service in the marketplace. Entrepreneurs or founders of new ventures thus often have to make the decision whether to be the market pioneer or the first mover. While being a first mover potentially is advantageous, it also involves taking risks and facing uncertainties. Entrepreneurs must assess the benefits and risks of pioneering in the first‐mover decision‐making process to realize the potential competitive advantages associated with being a pioneer. Previous research has shown how entrepreneurs perceive potential gains and losses associated with exploring opportunities as the key defining element of entrepreneurial decision‐making. Past studies have also indicated that cultural and business environmental factors affect both perceptions and decision‐making. However, studies to date have insufficiently addressed the relationship between entrepreneurs' perceived pioneering advantages/disadvantages and their first‐mover decisions, with little attention to cross‐national differences. This study includes hypotheses postulating how entrepreneurs' perceived advantages and disadvantages of pioneering affect the number of first‐mover decisions made by entrepreneurs in two different cultural contexts, the United States and China. We collect data from 152 U.S. entrepreneurs and 140 Chinese entrepreneurs over a four‐year period and carry out empirical tests on the hypotheses using Poisson regression models. Our results provide insight on how culture affects perceptions of advantages and disadvantages of pioneering, and how these perceptions impact the likelihood of making a first‐mover decision. We find that a higher level of perceived advantages will drive first‐mover decisions, whereas perceived disadvantages will deter first‐mover decisions. The negative effect of perceived erosion disadvantages on the number of first‐mover decisions was higher for Chinese entrepreneurs, consistent with the high risk‐aversion culture in China. However, this effect was not found for perceived uncertainty disadvantages, suggesting that the risk‐averse characteristics of Chinese entrepreneurs is an oversimplification, and that the Chinese cultural, business, and legal environment helps offset uncertainty disadvantages. We also find an interesting positive moderating effect of perceived advantage on the relationship between perceived disadvantages and the number of first‐mover decisions in China only. That is, if perceived advantages are low, Chinese entrepreneurs are more risk averse than U.S. entrepreneurs; but if perceived advantages are high, Chinese entrepreneurs are more risk‐seeking than U.S. entrepreneurs. This finding again challenges the risk aversion conclusion found by previous studies of Chinese managers.

1Background: The colloidal gold immunochromatography assay (GICA) is a rapid 2 diagnostic tool for novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infections. However, 3 with significant numbers of false negatives, improvements to GICA are needed. 4Methods: Six recombinant HCoV-19 nucleocapsid and spike proteins were prepared 5 and evaluated. The optimal proteins were employed to develop a sandwich-format 6 GICA strip to detect total antibodies (IgM and IgG) against HCoV-19. GICA's 7 performance was assessed with comparison of viral RNA detection. 8Results: Recombinant HCoV-19 proteins were obtained, including three 9 prokaryotically expressed rN, rN1, rN2 nucleocapsid proteins, and three 10 eukaryotically expressed rS1, rS-RBD, rS-RBD-mFc spike proteins. The recombinant 11 proteins with the highest ELISA titers (rS1 and rS-RBD-mFc) against 12 coronavirus-specific IgM and IgG were chosen for GICA development. The GICA 13 has a sensitivity and specificity of 86.89% (106/122) and 99.39% (656/660), 14 respectively. Furthermore, 65.63% (21/32) of the clinically confirmed but RT-PCR 15 negative samples were GICA positive. 16 Conclusions:The eukaryotically-expressed spike proteins (rS1and rS-RBD-mFc) are 17 more suitable than the prokaryotically expressed nucleocapsid proteins for HCoV-19 18 serological diagnosis. The GICA sandwich used to detect total antibodies is a 19 powerful complement to the current standard RNA-based tests.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

In previous work, we designed peptides that showed potent inhibition of Newcastle disease virus (NDV) and infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) infections in chicken embryos. In this study, we demonstrate that peptides modified with cholesterol or 3 U of polyethylene glycol (PEG 3 ) conjugated to the peptides' N termini showed even more promising antiviral activities when tested in animal models. Both cholesterol-and cholesterol-PEG 3 -tagged peptides were able to protect chicken embryos from infection with different serotypes of NDV and IBV when administered 12 h prior to virus inoculation. In comparison, the untagged peptides required intervention closer to the time of viral inoculation to achieve a similar level of protection. Intramuscular injection of cholesterol-tagged peptide at 1.6 mg/kg 1 day before virus infection and then three times at 3-day intervals after viral inoculation protected 70% of the chickens from NDV infection. We further demonstrate that the cholesterol-tagged peptide has an in vivo half-life greater than that of untagged peptides. It also has the potential to cross the blood-brain barrier to enter the avian central nervous system (CNS). Finally, we show that the cholesterol-tagged peptide could play a role before the viral fusion peptide's insertion into the host cell and thereby target an earlier stage of fusion glycoprotein activation. Our findings are of importance for the further development of antivirals with broad-spectrum protective effects.