bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Effect of Compound 21, a Selective Angiotensin II Type 2 Receptor Agonist, in a Murine Xenograft Model of Dupuytren Disease
Authors: Chisholm Jessica , Gareau Alison J. , Byun Stephanie , Paletz Justin L. , Tang David , Williams Jason , LeVatte Terry , Bezuhly Michael
Published: October 2017

Background:

Although surgical excision and intralesional collagenase injection are mainstays in Dupuytren disease treatment, no effective medical therapy exists for recurrent disease. Compound 21, a selective agonist of the angiotensin II type 2 receptor, has been shown to protect against fibrosis in models of myocardial infarction and stroke. The authors investigated the potential use of compound 21 in the treatment of Dupuytren disease.

Methods:

Human dermal fibroblasts were treated in vitro with compound 21 and assessed for viability using a 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide assay, migration by means of scratch assay, and profibrotic gene transcription by means of quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction. Compound 21 effects in vivo were assessed using a xenograft model. Dupuytren disease cord specimens from patients undergoing open partial fasciectomy were divided into two segments. Segments were implanted under the dorsal skin of nude mouse pairs. Beginning on day 5, one mouse from each pair received daily intraperitoneal injections of compound 21 (10 μg/kg/day), and the other received vehicle. On day 10, segments were explanted and submitted for immunohistochemistry.

Results:

Human dermal fibroblasts treated with compound 21 displayed decreased migration and decreased gene expression of connective tissue growth factor, fibroblast specific protein-1, transforming growth factor-β1, Smad3, and Smad4. Dupuytren disease segments from compound 21–treated mice demonstrated significantly reduced alpha-smooth muscle actin and Ki67 staining, with increased density of CD31+ staining vessels.

Conclusions:

Compound 21 significantly decreases expression of profibrotic genes and decreases myofibroblast proliferation as indicated by reduced Ki67 and alpha-smooth muscle actin expression. These findings support compound 21 as a potential novel treatment modality for Dupuytren disease.
An Unexpected and Less Recognized Altered Distribution on Bone Scintigraphy; Possibility of 99mTc-Dextrose Complex as a Cause
Authors: Qutbi Mohsen , Shafiei Babak , Khoshbakht Sepideh , Asadi Ali , Neshandar Asli Isa
Published: October 2017

Optimal performance of diagnostic tests and correct interpretation depend on multiple factors, one of which is proper radiopharmaceutical preparation. Unwanted impurities result in altered distribution of radiopharmaceuticals and then poor-quality or uninterpretable studies. Therefore, following the reconstitution steps according to standard and validated protocols by the technologist is mandatory. Here, we present 2 cases with unexpected and less recognized distribution of 99mTc–methylene diphosphonate on bone scintigraphy.
A Case of Anaplastic Oligodendroglioma With Extensive Extraneural Metastases Imaged With FDG PET
Authors: Ambinder Emily B. , Rowe Steven P.
Published: October 2017

A 28-year-old man with history of anaplastic oligodendroglimoma in the left frontal lobe presented with worsening right leg weakness 2 months after surgical resection. MRI of the brain and spine demonstrated a new mass in the left parietal lobe, as well as extraneural osseous metastases. FDG PET scan subsequently showed widespread extraneural metastatic disease. Extraneural metastases from primary brain tumors are a rare occurrence, although anaplastic oligodendroglioma has a propensity for spreading in such a manner. FDG PET can effectively stage patients with extraneural metastases from anaplastic oligodendroglioma by detecting metastatic disease in sites such as the skeleton and liver.
Intracardiac Metastases Detected by 18F-FSPG PET/CT
Authors: Magarik Meaghan A. , Walker Ronald C. , Gilbert Jill , Manning H. Charles , Massion Pierre P.
Published: October 2017

PET/CT imaging is frequently used for cancer diagnosis and restaging as metabolically active cells, including cancer, utilize glucose for proliferation. 18F-FDG is the most commonly utilized radiopharmaceutical in PET/CT imaging. Limitations of 18F-FDG imaging include intense physiologic uptake in benign tissues such as the brain and myocardium. We present a case of non–small cell lung cancer with myocardial and pericardial metastases obscured by physiologic 18F-FDG cardiac uptake but detected with the investigational PET radiotracer (4S)-4-(3-18F-fluoropropyl)-l-glutamate (18F-FSPG), which targets a pathway associated with glutathione biosynthesis. This case demonstrates the added value of 18F-FSPG PET/CT imaging.
The Call and the Challenge of Pediatric Resuscitation and Simulation Research in Low-Resource Settings
Authors: Rule Amy R.L. , Tabangin Meredith , Cheruiyot David , Mueri Priscilla , Kamath-Rayne Beena D.
Published: October 2017

Summary Statement

The greatest burden of younger than 5 years mortality is in low- and middle-income nations where education resources are often few. The World Health Organization recommends scale-up of simulation in these settings, but it has been poorly studied. Although there has been an increase of contextualized resuscitation simulation programs designed for these settings, sustaining clinical outcomes and provider skill retention have remained research gaps. Our team designed a study to evaluate skill retention after an initial Helping Babies Breathe training at a rural Kenya referral hospital between randomized learner groups receiving supervised mock codes with debriefing versus just-in-time training with a peer. Although we saw sustained skills retention and some clinical improvements, we were unable to answer our research question because of numerous challenges, mainly that hospital leadership preferred the implementation of 1 arm of the study over another because of lack of protected education time and resources, eliminating differences between randomized study groups. Further challenges included lack of familiarity with simulation and debriefing and lack of protected educational resources and time, cultural differences in giving feedback, undeveloped systems for documentation, and high acuity and clinical volume. Our experience teaches many important lessons in how best to implement and study simulation in low-resource settings. Best practices include long-term partnerships, flexibility, community and staff engagement, mixed methodologies including community-based participatory methods, and careful attention to educational and research capacity building.
The Undisclosed Usage of Dietary Supplements in Chinese Elderly Patients
Authors: Sum Simon Siu-Man , Ziegler Jane
Published: October 2017

The use of dietary herbal supplements in patients taking prescribed or over-the-counter medications may not be appropriate due to potential herb-drug interactions. The case report of an 81-year-old Chinese American woman taking nonprescribed, over-the-counter, dietary herbal supplements is presented to demonstrate the risk of undisclosed use of supplements. This article emphasizes the need for registered dietitian nutritionists and other health care professionals to encourage patients disclose their use of dietary supplements and conduct evaluations on potential adverse herb-drug interactions. Recommendations should be provided to patients regarding the use of dietary supplements as part of the comprehensive patient care.
Entrained audiovisual speech integration implemented by two independent computational mechanisms: Redundancy in left posterior superior temporal gyrus and Synergy in left motor cortex
Authors: Park Hyojin , Ince Robin A. A. , Schyns Philippe G. , Thut Gregor , Gross Joachim
Published: October 2017

Information integration is fundamental to many aspects of human behavior, and yet its neural mechanism remains to be understood. For example, during face-to-face communication we know that the brain integrates the auditory and visual inputs but we do not yet understand where and how such integration mechanisms support speech comprehension. Here we show that two independent mechanisms forge audiovisual representations for speech comprehension in different brain regions. With a novel information theoretic measure, we found that theta (3-7 Hz) oscillations in the posterior superior temporal gyrus/sulcus (pSTG/S) code speech information that is common (i.e. redundant) to the auditory and visual inputs whereas the same oscillations in left motor and inferior temporal cortex code synergistic information between the same inputs. Importantly, redundant coding in the left pSTG/S and synergistic coding in the left motor cortex predict behavior - i.e. speech comprehension performance. Our findings therefore demonstrate that processes classically described as integration effectively reflect independent mechanisms that occur in different brain regions to support audiovisual speech comprehension.
Data Science Issues in Understanding Protein-RNA Interactions
Authors: Chakrabarti Anob M. , Haberman Nejc , Praznik Arne , Luscombe Nicholas M. , Ule Jernej
Published: October 2017

An interplay of experimental and computational methods is required to achieve a comprehensive understanding of protein-RNA interactions. Crosslinking and immunoprecipitation (CLIP) identifies endogenous interactions by sequencing RNA fragments that co-purify with a selected RBP under stringent conditions. Here we focus on approaches for the analysis of resulting data and appraise the methods for peak calling, visualisation, analysis and computational modelling of protein-RNA binding sites. We advocate a combined assessment of cDNA complexity and specificity for data quality control. Moreover, we demonstrate the value of analysing sequence motif enrichment in peaks assigned from CLIP data, and of visualising RNA maps, which examine the positional distribution of peaks around regulated landmarks in transcripts. We use these to assess how variations in CLIP data quality, and in different peak calling methods, affect the insights into regulatory mechanisms. We conclude by discussing future opportunities for the computational analysis of protein-RNA interaction experiments.
Machine learning of stem cell identities from single-cell expression data via regulatory network archetypes
Authors: Stumpf Patrick S , MacArthur Ben D
Published: October 2017

The molecular regulatory network underlying stem cell pluripotency has been intensively studied, and we now have a reliable ensemble model for the ‘average’ pluripotent cell. However, evidence of significant cell-to-cell variability suggests that the activity of this network varies within individual stem cells, leading to differential processing of environmental signals and variability in cell fates. Here, we adapt a method originally designed for face recognition to infer regulatory network patterns within individual cells from single-cell expression data. Using this method we identify three distinct network configurations in cultured mouse embryonic stem cells – corresponding to naïve and formative pluripotent states and an early primitive endoderm state – and associate these configurations with particular combinations of regulatory network activity archetypes that govern different aspects of the cell’s response to environmental stimuli, cell cycle status and core information processing circuitry. These results show how variability in cell identities arise naturally from alterations in underlying regulatory network dynamics and demonstrate how methods from machine learning may be used to better understand single cell biology, and the collective dynamics of cell communities.
Intrinsic specificity differences between transcription factor paralogs partly explain their differential in vivo binding
Authors: Shen Ning , Zhao Jingkang , Schipper Joshua , Zhang Yuning , Bepler Tristan , Leehr Dan , Bradley John , Horton John , Lapp Hilmar , Gordan Raluca
Published: October 2017

Members of transcription factor (TF) families, i.e. paralogous TFs, are oftentimes reported to have identical DNA-binding motifs, despite the fact that they perform distinct regulatory functions in the cell. Differential genomic targeting by paralogous TFs is generally assumed to be due to interactions with protein cofactors or the chromatin environment. Contrary to previous assumptions, we find that paralogous TFs have different intrinsic preferences for DNA, not captured by current motif models, and these differences partly explain differential genomic binding and functional specificity. Our finding was possible due to a unique combination of carefully designed high-throughput assays and rigorous computation modeling, integrated into a unified framework called iMADS. We used iMADS to quantify, model, and analyze specificity differences between 11 paralogous TFs from 4 distinct human TF families. Our finding of differential specificity between closely related TFs has important implications for the interpretation of the regulatory effects of non-coding genetic variants.
A computational model of MGUS progression to Multiple Myeloma identifies optimum screening strategies and their effects on mortality
Authors: Altrock Philipp M. , Ferlic Jeremy , Galla Tobias , Tomasson Michael H. , Michor Franziska
Published: October 2017

Recent advances uncovered therapeutic interventions that might reduce the risk of progression of premalignant diagnoses, such as from Monoclonal Gammopathy of Undetermined Significance (MGUS) to multiple myeloma (MM). It remains unclear how to best screen populations at risk and how to evaluate the ability of these interventions to reduce disease prevalence and mortality at the population level. To address these questions, we developed a computational modeling framework. We used individual-based computational modeling of MGUS incidence and progression across a population of diverse individuals, to determine best screening strategies in terms of screening start, intervals, and risk-group specificity. Inputs were life tables, MGUS incidence and baseline MM survival. We measured MM-specific mortality and MM prevalence following MGUS detection from simulations and mathematical precition modeling. We showed that our framework is applicable to a wide spectrum of screening and intervention scenarios, including variation of the baseline MGUS to MM progression rate and evolving MGUS, in which progression increases over time. Given the currently available progression risk-point estimate of 61% risk, starting screening at age 55 and follow-up screening every 6yrs reduced total MM prevalence by 19%. The same reduction could be achieved with starting age 65 and follow-up every 2yrs. A 40% progression risk reduction per MGUS patient per year would reduce MM-specific mortality by 40%. Generally, age of screening onset and frequency impact disease prevalence, progression risk reduction impacts both prevalence and disease-specific mortality, and screeenign would generally be favorable in high-risk individuals. Screening efforts should focus on specifically identified groups of high lifetime risk of MGUS, for which screening benefits can be significant. Screening low-risk MGUS individuals would require improved preventions.
Continuous Biomarker Assessment by Exhaustive Survival Analysis
Authors: Pearce Dominic A. , Nirmal Ajit J. , Freeman Tom C. , Sims Andrew H.
Published: October 2017

Publicly available high-throughput molecular data can enable biomarker identification and evaluation in a meta-analysis. However, a continuous biomarker’s underlying distribution and/or potential confounding factors associated with outcome will inevitably vary between cohorts and is often ignored. ThesurvivALLR package (https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=survivALL) allows researchers to generate visual and numerical comparisons of all possible points-of-separation, enabling quantitative biomarkers to be reliably evaluated within and across datasets, independent of compositional variation. Here, we demonstratesurvivALL’sability to robustly and reproducibly determine an applicable level of gene expression for patient prognostic classification, in datasets of similar and dissimilar compositions. We believesurvivALLrepresents a significant improvement over existing methodologies in stratifying patients and determining quantitative biomarker(s) cut-points for public and novel datasets.
Metabolic Interactions Between Dynamic Bacterial Subpopulations
Authors: Rosenthal Adam Z. , Qi Yutao , Hormoz Sahand , Park Jin , Hsin-Jung Li Sophia , Elowitz Michael
Published: October 2017

Within multi-species microbial communities, individual species are known to occupy distinct metabolic niches. By contrast, it has remained largely unclear whether and how metabolic specialization occurs within clonal bacterial populations. The possibility of such metabolic specialization in clonal populations raises several questions: Does specialization occur, and if it does, which metabolic processes are involved? How is specialization coordinated? How rapidly do cells switch between states? And finally, what functions might metabolic specialization provide? One potential function of metabolic specialization could be to manage overflow metabolites such as acetate, which presents a toxic challenge due to low pH, and protective pH-neutral overflow metabolites. Here we show that exponentially dividing Bacillus subtilis cultures divide into distinct interacting metabolic subpopulations including one population that produces acetate, and another population that differentially expresses metabolic genes for the production of acetoin, a pH-neutral storage molecule. These subpopulations grew at distinct rates, and cells switched dynamically between states, with acetate influencing the relative sizes of the different subpopulations. These results show that clonal populations can use metabolic specialization to control the environment through a process of dynamic, environmentally-sensitive state-switching.
Id proteins suppress E2A-driven innate-like T cell development prior to TCR selection
Authors: Roy Sumedha , Moore Amanda J. , Love Cassandra , Reddy Anupama , Rajagopalan Deepthi , Dave Sandeep S. , Li Leping , Murre Cornelis , Zhuang Yuan
Published: October 2017

Id proteins have been shown to promote the differentiation of conventional αβ and γδT cells, and to suppress the expansion of invariant Natural Killer T (iNKT) cells and innate-like γδNKT within their respective cell lineages. However, it remains to be determined whether Id proteins regulate lineage specification in developing T cells that give rise to these distinct cell fates. Here we report that in the absence of Id2 and Id3 proteins, E2A prematurely activates genes critical for the iNKT cell lineage prior to TCR expression. Enhanced iNKT development in Id3-deficient mice lacking γδ NKT cells suggests that Id3 regulates the lineage competition between these populations. RNA-Seq analysis establishes E2A as the transcriptional regulator of both iNKT and γδNKT development. In the absence of pre-TCR signaling, Id2/Id3 deletion gives rise to a large population of iNKT cells and a unique innate-like DP population, despite the block in conventional αβ T cell development. The transcriptional profile of these unique DP cells reflects enrichment of innate-like signature genes, including PLZF (Zbtb16) and Granzyme A (Gzma). Results from these genetic models and genome-wide analyses suggest that Id proteins suppress E2A-driven innate-like T cell programs prior to TCR selection to enforce predominance of conventional T cells.
Imitation Predicts Social Favor in Adolescent Rhesus Macaques (Macaca mulatta)
Authors: Anderson Jordan , Kinnally Erin L
Published: October 2017

Objectives

Imitation is a highly conserved component of animal behavior with multifaceted connections to sociality across taxa. One intriguing consequence of imitation in primates is that it promotes positive social feedback from the imitated toward the imitator. This suggests that imitation in primates may facilitate positive social interactions, but few studies have tracked imitation in socially housed primates. Here, we designed a novel ethogram to characterize imitation between conspecifics, to better understand whether imitation is associated with affiliation between primates in a semi-natural setting.

Materials and Methods

In this study, 15 juvenile rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) were observed at the California National Primate Research Center. Using focal sampling, frequencies of imitative events (e.g. following, postural mimicry, etc.) by the focal were observed over a course of 12 weeks. In separate observations, focal social behavior (e.g. aggression, play, etc.) was also observed.

Results

Subjects that exhibited higher degrees of imitation were not necessarily more prosocial, but, consistent with our hypothesis, they received significantly more play overtures from social partners (p<.01). In addition, imitation rates generally decrease with age.

Conclusions

Together, these results suggest that imitation is associated with receiving positive social behavior in a complex, semi-natural setting in primates, and that imitation may be more common in adolescence as opposed to adulthood. These preliminary results in a small sample set represent an important step in characterizing imitation in context of social interactions during development. Tracking these behaviors over time will elucidate whether imitation is directly recruiting these positive social interactions, as has been demonstrated in captivity.
HPViewer: Sensitive and specific genotyping of human papillomavirus in metagenomic DNA
Authors: Hao Yuhan , Yang Liying , Neto Antonio Galvao , Amin Milan R. , Kelly Dervla , Brown Stuart M. , Branski Ryan C. , Pei Zhiheng
Published: October 2017

Background

Shotgun DNA sequencing provides sensitive detection of all 182 HPV types in tissue and body fluid. However, existing computational methods either produce false positives misidentifying HPV types due to shared sequences among HPV, human, and prokaryotes, or produce false negative since they identify HPV by assembled contigs requiring large abundant of HPV reads.

Results

We show that HPV shares extensive simple repeats with human and prokaryotes and homologous sequences among different HPV types. The shared sequences caused errors in HPV genotyping and the repeats of human origin caused false positives in HPVDetector. Programs, such as VirusTAP and Vipie, which require de novo assembly of shotgun reads into contigs, eliminated false positives at a cost of substantial reduction in sensitivity. Here, we designed HPViewer with two custom HPV reference databases masking simple repeats and homology sequences respectively and one homology distance matrix to hybridize these two databases. It directly identified HPV from short DNA reads rather than assembled contigs. Using 100,100 simulated samples, we revealed that HPViewer was robust for samples containing either high or low number of HPV reads. Using 12 shotgun sequencing samples from respiratory papillomatosis, HPViewer was equal to VirusTAP, and Vipie and better than HPVDetector with the respect to specificity and was the most sensitive method in the detection of HPV types 6 and 11. We demonstrated that contigs-based approaches had disadvantages of detection of HPV. In 1,573 sets of metagenomic data from 18 human body sites, HPViewer identified 104 types of HPV in a body-site associated pattern and 89 types of HPV co-occurring in one sample with other types of HPV at least once.

Conclusions

We demonstrated HPViewer was sensitive and specific for HPV detection in metagenomic data. It was also suggested that masking shared sequences is an effective approach to avoid false positive detection and identifying HPV from short metagenomic reads is more sensitive than assembled contigs. The innovative homology distance matrix connecting two HPV databases, repeat-mask and homology-mask, optimized the balance of sensitivity and specificity. HPViewer can be accessed at https://github.com/yuhanH/HPViewer/.
Division-independent differentiation mandates proliferative competition among stem cells
Authors: Reilein Amy , Melamed David , Tavaré Simon , Kalderon Daniel
Published: October 2017

Cancer-initiating gatekeeper mutations that arise in stem cells would be especially potent if they stabilize and expand an affected stem lineage (1, 2). It is therefore important to understand how different stem cell organization strategies promote or prevent variant stem cell amplification in response to different types of mutation, including those that activate stem cell proliferation. Stem cell numbers can be maintained constant while producing differentiated products through individually asymmetric division outcomes or by population asymmetry strategies, in which individual stem cell lineages necessarily compete for niche space. We considered alternative mechanisms underlying population asymmetry and used quantitative modeling to predict starkly different consequences of altering proliferation rate: a variant, faster-proliferating mutant stem cell should compete better only when stem cell division and differentiation are independent processes. For most types of stem cell it has not been possible to ascertain experimentally whether division and differentiation are coupled. However, Drosophila Follicle Stem Cells (FSCs) provided a favorable model system to investigate population asymmetry mechanisms and also for measuring the impact of altered proliferation on competition. We found from detailed cell lineage studies that FSC division and FSC differentiation are not coupled. We also found that FSC representation, reflecting maintenance and amplification, was highly responsive to genetic changes that altered only the rate of FSC proliferation. The FSC paradigm therefore provides definitive experimental evidence for the general principle that relative proliferation rate will always be a major determinant of competition among stem cells specifically when stem cell division and differentiation are independent.

SIGNIFICANCE

Adult stem cells support tissue maintenance throughout life but they also can be cells of origin for cancer, allowing clonal expansion and long-term maintenance of the first oncogenic mutations. We considered how a mutation that increases the proliferation rate of a stem cell would affect the probability of its competitive survival and amplification for different potential organizations of stem cells. Quantitative modeling showed that the key characteristic predicting the impact of relative proliferation rate on competition is whether differentiation of a stem cell is coupled to its division. We then used Drosophila Follicle Stem Cells to provide definitive experimental evidence for the general prediction that relative proliferation rates dictate stem cell competition specifically for stem cells that exhibit division-independent differentiation.
Multi-objective optimized breeding strategies
Authors: Akdemir Deniz , Isidro Sánchez Julio
Published: October 2017

Multi-objective optimization is an emerging field in mathematical optimization which involves optimization a set of objective functions simultaneously. The purpose of most plant and animal breeding programs is to make decisions that will lead to sustainable genetic gains in more than one traits while controlling the amount of co-ancestry in the breeding population. The decisions at each cycle in a breeding program involve multiple, usually competing, objectives; these complex decisions can be supported by the insights that are gained by using the multi-objective optimization principles in breeding. The discussion here includes the definition of several multi-objective optimized breeding approaches and the comparison of these approaches with the standard multi-trait breeding schemes such as tandem selection, culling and index selection. We have illustrated the newly proposed methods with two empirical data sets and with simulations.
Synergism between a simple sugar and a small intrinsically disordered protein mitigate the lethal stresses of severe water loss
Authors: Kim Skylar X. , Çamdere Gamze , Hu Xuchen , Koshland Douglas , Tapia Hugo
Published: October 2017

Anhydrobiotes are rare microbes, plants and animals that tolerate severe water loss. Understanding the molecular basis for their desiccation tolerance may provide novel insights into stress biology and critical tools for engineering drought-tolerant crops. Using the anhydrobiote, budding yeast, we show that trehalose and Hsp12, a small intrinsically disordered protein (sIDP) of the hydrophilin family, synergize to mitigate completely the inviability caused by the lethal stresses of desiccation. We show that these two molecules help to stabilize the activity and prevent aggregation of model proteins both in vivo and in vitro. We also identify a novel role for Hsp12 as a membrane remodeler, a protective feature not shared by another yeast hydrophilin, suggesting that sIDPs have distinct biological functions.
Genome-wide discovery of active regulatory elements and transcription factor footprints in Caenorhabditis elegans using DNase-seq
Authors: Ho Margaret C.W. , Quintero-Cadena Porfirio , Sternberg Paul W.
Published: October 2017

Deep sequencing of size-selected DNase I–treated chromatin (DNase-seq) allows high-resolution measurement of chromatin accessibility to DNase I cleavage, permitting identification of de novo active cis-regulatory modules (CRMs) and individual transcription factor (TF) binding sites. We adapted DNase-seq to nuclei isolated from C. elegans embryos and L1 arrest larvae to generate high-resolution maps of TF binding. Over half of embryonic DNase I hypersensitive sites (DHSs) were annotated as noncoding, with 24% in intergenic, 12% in promoters, and 28% in introns, with similar statistics observed in L1 arrest larvae. Noncoding DHSs are highly conserved and enriched in marks of enhancer activity and transcription. We validated noncoding DHSs against known enhancers from myo-2, myo-3, hlh-1, elt-2, and lin-26/lir-1 and recapitulated 15 of 17 known enhancers. We then mined DNase-seq data to identify putative active CRMs and TF footprints. Using DNase-seq data improved predictions of tissue-specific expression compared with motifs alone. In a pilot functional test, 10 of 15 DHSs from pha-4, icl-1, and ceh-13 drove reporter gene expression in transgenic C. elegans. Overall, we provide experimental annotation of 26,644 putative CRMs in the embryo containing 55,890 TF footprints, as well as 15,841 putative CRMs in the L1 arrest larvae containing 32,685 TF footprints.
Improving Access to Psychological Therapies for people with intellectual disabilities – role of a reference group in achieving change
Authors: Dodd Karen , Burke Christine , Gibson Alex , Hines Emma , Howarth Patrick , Jennison Jo , Mackintosh Reiko , Radcliffe Alisdair , Vieira Filipe , Unsworth Gisela
Published: October 2017

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore the importance of equal access to Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) for people with intellectual disabilities.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper identifies barriers to access and shows how a reference group can work to solve the barriers and increase access.

Findings

The paper evaluates the authors’ progress to date and how the authors plan to continue to take the work forward.

Practical implications

The paper highlights some of the factors responsible for the authors’ success and gives information that will be helpful to other areas who are interested in facilitating equal access.

Originality/value

The paper demonstrates how the focus of a reference group can drive improvements across services to improve access for people with intellectual disabilities to IAPT services.
Mixed practices including use of ideas from narrative therapy with a woman with diagnosis of an intellectual disability and personality disorder
Authors: El-Tahir Mohamed Omer , Bayley Amanda
Published: October 2017

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present outcomes of mixed practices including use of ideas from narrative therapy (NT) in a case of mild intellectual disability (ID) and personality disorder. The formulation, therapy adaptation and outcomes are presented.

Design/methodology/approach

The study is a single case report describing patient presentation, assessments, psychological formulation and the mixed interventions approaches used, including ideas from NT. Adaptations to meet the needs of patients with ID were described, and therapy outcome measured using Health of the Nation Outcome scale and Psychiatric Assessment Schedule for Adults with Developmental Disorders was presented.

Findings

The ideas used from NT suggest this is potentially a useful approach in practice for people with intellectual disabilities and personality disorder. However, adaptation is needed for it to be used successfully in practice as a therapeutic intervention.

Research limitations/implications

A single case study has its limitations, and further work on using ideas from NT, its adaptation and use in this population will be needed.

Originality/value

There is no previous case of use of NT among patients with ID and personality disorder.
Management innovation and social innovation: convergences and divergences
Authors: Lopes Daniel Paulino Teixeira , Vieira Naldeir dos Santos , Barbosa Allan Claudius Queiroz , Parente Cristina
Published: October 2017

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to discuss recent developments in the fields of management innovation and social innovation, in order to discover any possible convergences and divergences between them.

Design/methodology/approach

By examining the state of the art of the literature in both fields of study, this paper proposes a framework of theoretical approaches, conceptual dimensions, goals and objectives, processes, agents, outcomes, methods, and literature gaps.

Findings

There are substantial differences between management and social innovation in terms of theoretical and conceptual foundations. Although both share similarities given the relevance of technology and their focus on social relations, their generation and diffusion processes, among their other characteristics, are distinct.

Research limitations/implications

As this is a theoretical paper concerning innovations that involve social elements at their core, the challenge is to incorporate technological innovation into the theoretical framework. This would help empirically oriented research on more types of innovation.

Practical implications

The agenda of practitioners, scholars, government, and civil society should take different types of innovation into account, particularly those that go beyond technology.

Originality/value

This paper contributes to a better understanding of innovations that go beyond technology, by analysing innovations (i.e. management and social innovation) that involve social aspects at their core. Few researchers have analysed these types of innovations jointly.
Geo-fencing to secure airport perimeter against sUAS
Authors: Boselli Chris , Danis Jason , McQueen Sandra , Breger Alex , Jiang Tao , Looze Douglas , Ni Daiheng
Published: October 2017

Purpose

Small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) are becoming increasingly popular among hobbyists, and with this popularity there comes the risk of runway incursion between a commercial aircraft and sUAS around airports. To keep airports safe and secure, the purpose of this paper is to propose a module, called the Airport Secure Perimeter Control System, that can be attached to every hobbyist’s sUAS for the purpose of notification and prevention.

Design/methodology/approach

Upon startup, the module connects to a database containing the central coordinates of every airport in the USA. A five-mile critical radius plus an additional one-mile buffer region is established around each point. The buffer region is created in order to inform the user that he/she is approaching a safe airspace and needs to take corrective action. Once the five-mile zone has been breached, autopilot software takes over the manual controls, and the sUAS is landed in a controlled manner, while the user still has lateral control of the vehicle in order to avoid any potential hazards below it. Then, both operator and airport receive messages about the event.

Findings

To demonstrate the proposed design, a prototype was developed that successfully implemented this system, and was formally tested within a controlled environment.

Originality/value

This solution would drastically reduce the security threat of sUAS breaching the critical regions surrounding airports, and its implementation is relatively simple.
Gold vis-à-vis money in Islam: the case against Dinarist Movement
Authors: Mohamad Azhar , Sifat Imtiaz Mohammad
Published: October 2017

Purpose

This paper aims to delve in an aspect of monetary economics, addressing its Islamic wing in general and dinar advocates in particular.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper argues that calls to reinstitution of dinar currencies are not only anachronistic and unnecessary but also counter-productive and potentially un-Islamic.

Findings

The paper further posits that regardless of the nature of economy, legal tender fiat money and bank money are of the same genus, and treating them otherwise is not consistent with Islamic jurisprudential precepts.

Originality/value

The study also highlights that mismanagement, avarice and human follies are to blame for financial maladies; regression to metallic currency is a panacea to neither the conundrums nor Islamic.
Shared parental leave: awareness is key
Authors: Ndzi Ernestine
Published: October 2017

Purpose

The legislation on shared parental leave that came into force on 1st of December 2014 is aimed at giving working mothers the opportunity to return to work early if they so choose after childbirth to continue with their career and also to give fathers the opportunity to be involved in the lives of their new-born. However, past research has demonstrated a very low uptake on shared parental leave. This paper aims to argue that working parents’ awareness on the existence of the legislation is key to its effectiveness.

Design/methodology/approach

A qualitative study approach was adopted to assess the importance of awareness. A sample of 40 eligible working parents were informally interviewed for 10 min to ascertain whether they know about shared parental leave. Participants were recruited at a primary school fair. The 40 parents were workers in different sectors which included care, hospitality, security, education, finance, retail and construction.

Findings

The findings indicated that awareness may be one key factor as to why the uptake of shared parental leave was low. It was also evident from the results that employers do not inform eligible employees of the existence of shared parental leave or support and encourage them to take shared parental leave. This paper concludes that to assess the effectiveness of shared parental leave, awareness is key.

Research limitations/implications

The findings of this article are obtained from a limited time interview data. This paper is a basis for a bigger research project particularly on the reasons why mothers may or may not want to share their maternity leave.

Originality/value

Existing research has surveyed some employers and their employees and concluded uptake statistics based on their data. This study demonstrates that more awareness is required which has not been done yet. This research is part of an ongoing project investigating the reasons why mothers may or may not want to share their maternity leave, given that the legislation made mothers “gatekeepers” to the effectiveness of shared parental leave.
Does cultural value affect board efficacy? Insights on international corporate governance
Authors: Nurunnabi Mohammad
Published: October 2017

Purpose

This study aims to investigate how culture can either reinforce or attenuate the board efficacy (a key element of corporate governance).

Design/methodology/approach

The study uses the data from the World Economic Forum (2006-2014) of 69 countries. The data were restricted to 69 countries because Hofstede et al. (2010) provided cultural value data from 111 countries. However, the data from 42 countries were incomplete for Hofstede et al.’s four dimensions.

Findings

The study is the first to show that more religious diversity has a significant negative impact on stronger board efficacy in evaluating corporate governance practices. The results also indicate that more uncertainty avoidance in a country has a significant negative impact and corporate ethics and auditing standards have a positive impact on board efficacy.

Originality/value

The study extends Hofstede et al.’s (2010) cultural value by incorporating religious diversity and corporate ethics as cultural variables in explaining board efficacy in corporate governance literature. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund should focus on cultural factors while developing a single set of Corporate Governance Code worldwide.
The effect of work environment, leadership style, and organizational culture towards job satisfaction and its implication towards employee performance in Parador Hotels and Resorts, Indonesia
Authors: Pawirosumarto Suharno , Sarjana Purwanto Katijan , Gunawan Rachmad
Published: October 2017

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to determine the effect of the work environment, leadership style and organizational culture on job satisfaction and its implication toward the performance of the employees.

Design/methodology/approach

The research population was the whole 642 employees of Parador Hotels and Resorts, Indonesia. The amount of the samples was determined with the formula of Slovin, and the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) sample consideration was equal to 200 employees. As many as 179 questionnaires were returned and sent for analysis. Proportionate stratified sampling was used for the sampling technique, and sample elements were determined by accidental sampling method. The analytical method used in this study was descriptive statistics and SEM–Partial Least Square with IBM Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (IBM SPSS) Statistics 22.0 software and WarpPLS 3.0 program.

Findings

The results show that work environment, leadership style and organizational culture have a positive and significant impact on job satisfaction, but only the leadership style has a positive and significant effect on the employee performance. Job satisfaction does not give a significant and positive effect on employee performance and it is not a mediating variable.

Originality/value

As indicated by the findings, the role of leaders in hotel industry, in this case general manager (gm), is of importance. Without a high-quality gm, job satisfaction and organizational culture will not be achieved.
The burden and order of proof in WTO claims: evolving issues
Authors: Ahmad Zeina , Malkawi Bashar H.
Published: October 2017

Purpose

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is one of the best dispute settlement mechanisms in the world. Under WTO rules, aggrieved parties must establish a “prima facie” case before the panel can call on the offending party to respond to the claims. The objective of the present study is to critically evaluate the application of the concept of burden of proof under WTO dispute settlement mechanism.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper examines the rule of “prima facie” in WTO jurisprudence. To do so, the first part will focus on the development of dispute settlement within WTO. The second part is divided into several subsections that will focus on the burden of proof concept, burden of proof in common law, burden of proof in civil law and the prima facie standard.

Findings

The DSU does not explicitly regulate how to allocate the burden of proof, but panels and the AB needed to address that issue early in their history. Despite this, all aggrieved parties to establish a prima facie case before the case can become the subject of a panel hearing. There is a need to adopt a burden of proof standard that assesses evidence on the basis of preponderance of the available evidence rather than on the basis of a party’s failure to adduce evidence to back up or dispute a claim.

Originality/value

The paper is an attempt to address an important issue on the presentation of evidence and proof in international litigation, i.e. WTO.
Assessing graduate sustainability capability post-degree completion
Authors: Sandri Orana , Holdsworth Sarah , Thomas Ian
Published: October 2017

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to highlight both the need for measurement of graduate capabilities post-degree completion and the challenges posed by such a task. Higher education institutions provide an important site of learning that can equip future professionals with capabilities to manage and respond to complex sustainability challenges in their careers. Measurement of graduate uptake and application of sustainability capabilities is an important part of advancing sustainability curriculum and pedagogy to educate the twenty-first century sustainability capable graduates.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper explores the nature of capabilities and reviews existing approaches to capability assessment.

Findings

The nature of capabilities and their assessment post-degree completion pose a number of challenges for the development of assessment and measurement tools, which is why sustainability capability assessment methods are deserving of specific research attention.

Research limitations/implications

The assessment and application of capability in graduates’ professional contexts are an important part of closing the loop between learning and teaching in higher education and professional application of this learning. It is imperative that more research be undertaken on the methodology of graduate assessment, given the need to understand graduate learning outcomes as they apply in professional settings for graduate employability, promoting sustainability and developing effective sustainability pedagogy.

Practical implications

Given that there is significant overlap between employability skills, generic graduate attributes and sustainability capabilities, this paper has relevance beyond the measurement of sustainability capability to the measurement of uptake and professional application of generic capabilities more broadly.

Social implications

The measurement of graduate capability offers potential to enhance learning for sustainability. Measurement of graduate capabilities is a critical part of closing the loop between workplace expectations, graduate learning outcomes, learning and teaching and curriculum development during degree programs.

Originality/value

The review provided in this paper highlights a critical gap in research on methodologies to undertake measurement of workplace application of graduate capability. The paper explores considerations for measurement of graduate learning outcomes, specifically the difference between measuring competencies, skills and capability and the necessity for the measurement of the latter in the context of sustainability education for future professionals.