bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Unexpected Protective Role of Thrombosis in Sepsis-Induced Inflammatory Lung Injury Via Endothelial Alox15
Authors: Evans Colin E. , Zhang Xianming , Machireddy Narsa , Zhao You-Yang
Published: March 2023

Background

Patients with sepsis-induced acute lung injury (ALI)/acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) commonly suffer from severe pulmonary thrombosis, but clinical trials of anti-coagulant therapies in sepsis and ARDS patients have failed. ARDS patients with thrombocytopenia also exhibit increased mortality, and widespread pulmonary thrombosis is often seen in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) ARDS patients.

Methods

Employing different amounts of microbeads to induce various levels of pulmonary thrombosis. Acute lung injury was induced by either lipopolysaccharide i.p. or cecal ligation and puncture. Endothelial cell (EC)-targeted nanoparticle coupled with CDH5 promoter was employed to delivery plasmid DNA expressing the CRISPR/Cas9 system for EC-specific gene knockout or expressing Alox15 for EC-specific overexpression. Additionally, thrombocytopenia was induced by genetic depletion of platelets usingDTRPf4Cremice by breedingPf4Cre mice into the genetic background ofDTRmice.

Results

We show that while severe pulmonary thrombosis or thrombocytopenia augments sepsis-induced ALI, the induction of mild pulmonary thrombosis conversely reduces endothelial cell (EC) apoptosis, ALI, and mortality via sustained expression of endothelial arachidonate 15-lipoxygenase (Alox15). EndothelialAlox15knockout via EC-targeted nanoparticle delivery of CRISPR/Cas9 plasmid DNA in adult mice abolished the protective impact of mild lung thrombosis. Conversely, overexpression of endothelialAlox15inhibited the increases in ALI caused by severe pulmonary thrombosis. The clinical relevance of the findings was validated by the observation of reduced ALOX15-expressing ECs in lung autopsy samples of ARDS patients. Additionally, restoration of pulmonary thrombosis in thrombocytopenic mice also normalized endotoxemia-induced ALI.

Conclusion

We have demonstrated that moderate levels of thrombosis protect against sepsis-induced inflammatory lung injury via endothelial Alox15. Overexpression of Alox5 inhibits severe pulmonary thrombosis-induced increase of ALI. Thus, activation of ALOX15 signaling represents a promising therapeutic strategy for treatment of ARDS, especially in sub-populations of patients with thrombocytopenia and/or severe pulmonary thrombosis.
Atypical beta-band effects in children with dyslexia in response to rhythmic audio-visual speech
Authors: Keshavarzi Mahmoud , Mandke Kanad , Macfarlane Annabel , Parvez Lyla , Gabrielczyk Fiona , Wilson Angela , Goswami Usha
Published: March 2023

Children with dyslexia are known to show impairments in perceiving speech rhythm, which impact their phonological development. Neural rhythmic speech studies have reported atypical delta phase in children with dyslexia, but beta band effects have not yet been studied. It is known that delta phase modulates the amplitude of the beta band response during rhythmic tasks via delta-beta phase-amplitude coupling (PAC). Accordingly, the atypical delta band effects reported for children with dyslexia may imply related atypical beta band effects. Here we analyse EEG data collected during a rhythmic speech paradigm from 51 children (21 typically-developing; 30 with dyslexia) who attended to a talking head repeating “ba” at 2Hz. Phase entrainment in the beta band, angular velocity in the beta band, power responses in the beta band and delta-beta PAC were assessed for each child and each group. Phase entrainment in the beta band was only significant for children without dyslexia. Children with dyslexia did not exhibit any phase consistency, and beta-band angular velocity was significantly faster compared to control children. Power in the beta band was significantly greater in the children with dyslexia. Delta-beta PAC was significant in both groups. The data are interpreted with respect to temporal sampling theory.
Sequencing accuracy and systematic errors of nanopore direct RNA sequencing
Authors: Liu-Wei Wang , van der Toorn Wiep , Bohn Patrick , Hölzer Martin , Smyth Redmond , von Kleist Max
Published: March 2023

Direct RNA sequencing (dRNA-seq) on the Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) platforms can produce reads covering up to full-length gene transcripts while containing decipherable information about RNA base modifications and poly-A tail lengths. Although many published studies have been exploring and expanding the potential of dRNA-seq, the sequencing accuracy and error patterns remain understudied. We present the first comprehensive evaluation of accuracy and systematic errors in dRNA-seq data from diverse species, as well as synthetic RNA. Deletions significantly outnumbered mismatches/insertions, while the median read accuracy exhibited species-level variation. In addition to homopolymer errors, we observed systematic biases across nucleotides and heteropolymeric motifs in all species. In general, cytosine/uracil-rich regions were more likely to be erroneous than guanines/adenines. Moreover, the systematic errors were strongly dependent on local sequence contexts. By examining raw signal data, we identified underlying signal-level features potentially associated with the error patterns. While read quality scores approximated error rates at base and read levels, failure to detect DNA adapters may lead to data loss. By comparing distinct basecallers, we reason that some sequencing errors are attributable to signal insufficiency rather than algorithmic (base-calling) artefacts. Lastly, we discuss the implications of such error patterns for downstream applications of dRNA-seq data.
High-Throughput Bioprinting of the Nasal Epithelium using Patient-derived Nasal Epithelial Cells
Authors: Derman I. Deniz , Yeo Miji , Castaneda Diana Cadena , Callender Megan , Horvath Mian , Mo Zengshuo , Xiong Ruoyun , Fleming Elizabeth , Chen Phylip , Peeples Mark E. , Palucka Karolina , Oh Julia , Ozbolat Ibrahim T.
Published: March 2023

Human nasal epithelial cells (hNECs) are an essential cell source for the reconstruction of the respiratory pseudostratified columnar epithelium composed of multiple cell types in the context of infection studies and disease modeling. Hitherto, manual seeding has been the dominant method for creating nasal epithelial tissue models. However, the manual approach is slow, low-throughput and has limitations in terms of achieving the intricate 3D structure of the natural nasal epithelium in a uniform manner. 3D Bioprinting has been utilized to reconstruct various epithelial tissue models, such as cutaneous, intestinal, alveolar, and bronchial epithelium, but there has been no attempt to use of 3D bioprinting technologies for reconstruction of the nasal epithelium. In this study, for the first time, we demonstrate the reconstruction of the nasal epithelium with the use of primary hNECs deposited on Transwell inserts via droplet-based bioprinting (DBB), which enabled high-throughput fabrication of the nasal epithelium in Transwell inserts of 24-well plates. DBB of nasal progenitor cells ranging from one-tenth to one-half of the cell seeding density employed during the conventional cell seeding approach enabled a high degree of differentiation with the presence of cilia and tight-junctions over a 4-week air-liquid interface culture. Single cell RNA sequencing of these cultures identified five major epithelial cells populations, including basal, suprabasal, goblet, club, and ciliated cells. These cultures recapitulated the pseudostratified columnar epithelial architecture present in the native nasal epithelium and were permissive to respiratory virus infection. These results denote the potential of 3D bioprinting for high-throughput fabrication of nasal epithelial tissue models not only for infection studies but also for other purposes such as disease modeling, immunological studies, and drug screening.
Towards a Neurobiologically-driven Ontology of Mental Functions: A Data-driven Summary of the Twenty Years of Neuroimaging Meta-Analyses
Authors: Dugré Jules R. , Potvin Stéphane
Published: March 2023

A persistent effort in neuroscience has been to pinpoint the neurobiological substrates that support mental processes. The Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) aims to develop a new framework based on fundamental neurobiological dimensions. However, results from several meta-analysis of task-based fMRI showed substantial spatial overlap between several mental processes including emotion and anticipatory processes, irrespectively of the valence. Consequently, there is a crucial need to better characterize the core neurobiological processes using a data-driven techniques, given that these analytic approaches can capture the core neurobiological processes across neuroimaging literature that may not be identifiable through expert-driven categories. Therefore, we sought to examine the main data-driven co-activation networks across the past 20 years of published meta-analyses on task-based fMRI studies. We manually extracted 19,822 coordinates from 1,347 identified meta-analytic experiments. A Correlation-Matrix-Based Hierarchical Clustering was conducted on spatial similarity between these meta-analytic experiments, to identify the main co-activation networks. Activation likelihood estimation was then used to identify spatially convergent brain regions across experiments in each network. Across 1,347 meta-analyses, we found 13 co-activation networks which were further characterized by various psychological terms and distinct association with receptor density maps and intrinsic functional connectivity networks. At a fMRI activation resolution, neurobiological processes seem more similar than different across various mental functions. We discussed the potential limitation of linking brain activation to psychological labels and investigated potential avenues to tackle this long-lasting research question.
A transthalamic pathway crucial for perception
Authors: Mo C. , McKinnon C. , Sherman S. M.
Published: March 2023

Perception arises from activity between cortical areas, first primary cortex and then higher order cortices. This communication is served in part by transthalamic (cortico-thalamo-cortical) pathways, which ubiquitously parallel direct corticocortical pathways, but their role in sensory processing has largely remained unexplored. Here, we show that the transthalamic pathway linking somatosensory cortices propagates task-relevant information required for correct sensory decisions. Using optogenetics, we specifically inhibited the pathway at its synapse in higher order somatosensory thalamus of mice performing a texture-based discrimination task. We concurrently monitored the cellular effects of inhibition in primary or secondary cortex using two-photon calcium imaging. Inhibition severely impaired performance despite intact direct corticocortical projections, thus challenging the purely corticocentric map of perception. Interestingly, the inhibition did not reduce overall cell responsiveness to texture stimulation in somatosensory cortex, but rather disrupted the texture selectivity of cells, a discriminability that develops over task learning. This discriminability was more disrupted in the secondary than primary somatosensory cortex, emphasizing the feedforward influence of the transthalamic route. Transthalamic pathways thus appear critical in delivering performance-relevant information to higher order cortex and are critical hierarchical pathways in perceptual decision-making.
Micropolarity governs the structural organization of biomolecular condensates
Authors: Ye Songtao , Latham Andrew P. , Tang Yuqi , Hsiung Chia-Heng , Chen Junlin , Luo Feng , Liu Yu , Zhang Bin , Zhang Xin
Published: March 2023

Microenvironment is critical to the function of cells and organisms. One example is provided by biomolecular condensates, whose microenvironment can be vastly different from the surrounding cellular environments to engage unique biological functions. How microenvironments of biomolecular condensates affect their structure and function remains unknown. Here, we show that the arrangements and partitioning of biomolecules are dictated by the differences between the micropolarity of each subcompartment. Sufficient difference in micropolarity results in layered structures with the exterior shell presenting a more polar microenvironment than the interior core. Accordingly, micropolarity inversion is accompanied by conversions of the layered structures. These findings demonstrated the central role of the previously overlooked microenvironment in regulating the structural organization and function of membraneless organelles.
Spatial Transcriptomics Analysis of Gene Expression Prediction using Exemplar Guided Graph Neural Network
Authors: Yang Yan , Hossain Md Zakir , Stone Eric , Rahman Shafin
Published: March 2023

Spatial transcriptomics (ST) is essential for understanding diseases and developing novel treatments. It measures the gene expression of each fine-grained area (i.e., different windows) in the tissue slide with low throughput. This paper proposes an exemplar guided graph network dubbed EGGN to accurately and efficiently predict gene expression from each window of a tissue slide image. We apply exemplar learning to dynamically boost gene expression prediction from nearest/similar exemplars of a given tissue slide image window. Our framework has three main components connected in a sequence: i) an extractor to structure a feature space for exemplar retrievals; ii) a graph construction strategy to connect windows and exemplars as a graph; iii) a graph convolutional network backbone to process window and exemplar features, and a graph exemplar bridging block to adaptively revise the window features using its exemplars. Finally, we complete the gene expression prediction task with a simple attention-based prediction block. Experiments on standard benchmark datasets indicate the superiority of our approach when compared with past state-of-the-art methods.

Graphical Abstract

In this paper, we aim to predict gene expression of each window in a tissue slide image. Given a tissue slide image, we encode the windows to feature space, retrieve its exemplars from the reference dataset, construct a graph, and then dynamically predict gene expression of each window with our exemplar guided graph network.

Highlights

We propose an exemplar guided graph network to accurately predict gene expression from a slide image window.

We design a graph construction strategy to connect windows and exemplars for performing exemplar learning of gene expression prediction.

We propose a graph exemplar bridging block to revise the window feature by using its nearest exemplars.

Experiments on two standard benchmark datasets demonstrate our superiority when compared with state-of-the-art approaches.
Difluoromethylornithine rebalances aberrant polyamine ratios in Snyder-Robinson syndrome: mechanism of action and therapeutic potential
Authors: Stewart Tracy Murray , Foley Jackson R. , Holbert Cassandra E. , Khomutov Maxim , Rastkari Noushin , Tao Xianzun , Khomutov Alex R. , Zhai R. Grace , Casero Robert A.
Published: March 2023

Snyder-Robinson Syndrome (SRS) is caused by mutations in the spermine synthase (SMS) gene, the enzyme product of which converts the polyamine spermidine into spermine. Affecting primarily males, common manifestations of SRS include intellectual disability, osteoporosis, hypotonic musculature, and seizures, along with other, more variable symptoms. Currently, medical management focuses on treating symptoms without addressing the underlying molecular cause of the disease.

Reduced SMS catalytic activity in cells of SRS patients causes the accumulation of spermidine, while spermine levels are reduced. The resulting exaggeration in spermidine-to-spermine ratio is a biochemical hallmark of SRS that tends to correlate with symptom severity in the patient. Our studies aim to pharmacologically manipulate polyamine metabolism to correct this polyamine imbalance and investigate the potential of this approach as a therapeutic strategy for affected individuals.

Here we report the use of 2-difluoromethylornithine (DFMO; eflornithine), an FDA-approved inhibitor of polyamine biosynthesis, in re-establishing normal spermidine-to-spermine ratios in SRS patient cells. Through mechanistic studies, we demonstrate that, while reducing spermidine biosynthesis, DFMO also stimulates the conversion of existing spermidine into spermine in cell lines with hypomorphic variants ofSMS. Further, DFMO treatment induces a compensatory uptake of exogenous polyamines, including spermine and spermine mimetics, cooperatively reducing spermidine and increasing spermine levels. In aDrosophilaSRS model characterized by reduced lifespan, adding DFMO to the feed extends lifespan. As nearly all known SRS patient mutations are hypomorphic, these studies form a foundation for future translational studies with significant therapeutic potential.
Prenatal urban environment and blood pressure trajectories from childhood to early adulthood
Authors: Soares Ana Gonçalves , Santos Susana , Seyve Emie , Nedelec Rozenn , Puhakka Soile , Eloranta Aino-Maija , Mikkonen Santtu , Yuan Wen Lun , Lawlor Deborah A , Heron Jon , Vrijheid Martine , Lepeule Johanna , Nieuwenhuijsen Mark , Fossati Serena , Jaddoe Vincent W V , Lakka Timo , Sebert Sylvain , Heude Barbara , Felix Janine F , Elhakeem Ahmed , Timpson Nicholas J
Published: March 2023

Background

Prenatal urban environmental exposures have been associated with blood pressure in children. The dynamic of these associations across childhood and later ages is unknown.

Objectives

To assess associations of prenatal urban environmental exposures with blood pressure trajectories from childhood to early adulthood.

Methods

Repeated measures of systolic (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) were collected in up to 7,454 participants from a UK birth cohort. Prenatal urban exposures (n=42) covered measures of noise, air pollution, built environment, natural spaces, traffic, meteorology, and food environment. An exposome-wide association study approach was used. Linear spline mixed-effects models were used to model associations of each exposure with trajectories of blood pressure. Replication was sought in four independent European cohorts (N up to 9,261).

Results

In discovery analyses, higher humidity was associated with a faster increase (mean yearly change in SBP for an interquartile range [IQR] increase in humidity: 0.29 mmHg/year, 95%CI 0.20; 0.39) and higher temperature with a slower increase (mean yearly change in SBP per IQR increase in temperature: -0.17 mmHg/year, 95%CI -0.28; -0.07) in SBP in childhood. Higher levels of humidity and air pollution were associated with faster increase in DBP in childhood and slower increase in adolescence. There was little evidence of an association of other exposures with change in SBP or DBP. Results for humidity and temperature, but not for air pollution, were replicated in other cohorts.

Conclusion

Replicated findings suggest that higher prenatal humidity and temperature could modulate blood pressure changes across childhood.
Disentangling the distal association between β-Amyloid and tau pathology at varying stages of tau deposition
Authors: Hojjati Seyed Hani , Chiang Gloria C. , Butler Tracy A. , De Leon Mony , Gupta Ajay , Li Yi , Sabuncu Mert R. , Feiz Farnia , Nayak Siddharth , Shteingart Jacob , Ozoria Sindy , Picha Saman Gholipour , Fernández Antonio , Stern Yaakov , Luchsinger José A. , Devanand Davangere P. , Razlighi Qolamreza R.
Published: March 2023

Studies on the histopathology of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) strongly suggest that extracellular β-amyloid (Aβ) plaques promote the spread of neurofibrillary tau tangles. Despite well-documented spatial discrepancies between these two proteinopathies, their association remains elusive. In this study, we aimed to investigate the distal (non-local) association between tau and Aβ deposition by studying the Aβ, and tau positron emission tomography (PET) scans of 572 elderly subjects, aged 67.11 ± 6.08 years (476 healthy controls (HC), 14 with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), 82 mild AD). We also leveraged 47 tau-PET and 97 Aβ-PET scans of healthy young individuals (aged 20-40) to find regional cut-points for tau- and Aβ-positivity in 68 cortical regions in the brain. Based on these cut-points, we implemented a pseudo longitudinal technique to categorize the elderly subjects into four pathologic phases of AD progression: a no-tau phase, a pre-acceleration phase, an acceleration phase, and a post-acceleration phase. We then assessed the distal association between tau and Aβ in each phase using multiple linear regression models. First, we show that the association between tau and Aβ starts distally in medial temporal lobe (MTL) regions of tau (e.g., left and right entorhinal cortex and right parahippocampal gyrus) in the early stage of tau aggregation (pre-acceleration phase). We then show that tau in several bilateral brain regions (particularly the entorhinal cortex and parahippocampal gyrus) exhibits strong distal associations with Aβ in several cortical brain regions during the acceleration phase. We found a weak distal association in the post-acceleration phase, comprising 96% of MCI or mild AD and Aβ+ subjects. Most importantly, we show that the HC Aβ+ subjects have the highest degree of distal association between tau and Aβ of all the subjects in the acceleration phase. The results of this study characterize the distal association between the two key proteinopathies of AD. This information has potential use for understanding disease progression in the brain and for the development of anti-tau therapeutic agents.
Development of a significant index model for assessing heritage building maintenance management challenges
Authors: Adegoriola Mayowa I. , Lai Joseph H.K. , Yung Esther H.K. , Chan Edwin H.W.
Published: March 2023

Purpose

The paper aims to identify the critical constraints that impede heritage building (HB) facility managers from discharging their duties effectively and develop an index model to guide HB maintenance management (HBMM) practitioners to the critical constraints.

Design/methodology/approach

A literature review was conducted to identify HBMM constraints. Facilty management practitioners assessed the constraints' significance through an online survey. The factor analysis was used to shortlist and group the constraints, and the constraint clusters were analyzed by the fuzzy synthetic evaluation technique. A significant index cluster to determine HBMM constraints criticality was generated using the linear additive model.

Findings

Embracing a total of 16 HBMM constraints, the three clusters identified are: (1) managerial and inadequacy constraints, (2) pressure and bureaucracy constraints and (3) HB peculiarities constraints. Based on the generated significant index, the HB peculiarities cluster was identified as the most significant.

Research limitations/implications

The study was conducted in a particular jurisdiction, limiting the generalizability of the result. Future research should address this limitation by covering more jurisdictions.

Practical implications

The significant index model (SIM) developed enables HBMM practitioners to objectively assess the criticality of HB constraints and facilitates them to effectively strategize and allocate resources for HBMM.

Originality/value

The SIM, which transforms subjective judgment into the objective assessment of the HBMM constraints' criticality, can assist practitioners, policymakers and other HBMM stakeholders in implementing strategies for the sustainability of HBs.
Bidding under uncertainty: Harsh Constructions
Authors: Iyer Sesha , Krishna Malay , Arora Sunny Vijay
Published: March 2023

Learning outcomes

1. Probabilistic calculations of cost, and profit/loss using standard probability functions

2. Decision tree to find the expected monetary value (EMV) of different options.

3. Monte Carlo simulation for risk analysis.

4. Risk analysis in project management.

Learning objectives

Learners will be able to understand and apply the following: how to approach uncertainty in business decisions using probabilistic calculations of cost, and profit/loss using standard probability functions; how to address uncertainty in business decisions by looking forward and reasoning backward, using the decision tree technique and the EMV of different decisions; how to analyse the risk inherent in business decisions by incorporating probability distributions for all critical variables in the form of Monte Carlo simulation; and appreciation of strategic considerations in risk analysis as it applies to project management

Case overview/synopsis

The case describes the challenge facing Vilas Birari, the owner and chief executive of Harsh Constructions, a construction company headquartered in Nasik, India. Birari had to decide on the bid for a construction project in September of 2021, during the COVID-19 (COVID) pandemic. Due to successive waves of the pandemic, the state and federal governments announced lockdowns intermittently, causing uncertainty in costs related to labor, material and project completion. The dilemma before Birari was how to set a bid price that was not so low as to incur a loss and not so high as to lose the bid to competitors. The uncertainty made Birari’s decision-making complex. The case invites students to help Birari find an optimum bid price by using various quantitative techniques, such as Monte Carlo simulation and decision trees.

Complexity academic level

This case is intended for students of management at a master’s level, in an elective course on management science, which is often also known as decision science. This compact case can be positioned in the second half of the course, when exploring risk management using computer simulation as a tool. The case serves both as an introduction to using simulation to manage uncertainty as well a contrast with simpler methods that are covered earlier in the course.

Supplementary material

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

Subject code

CSS 7: Management Science.
The impact of oil prices, financial development and economic growth on renewable energy use
Authors: Deka Abraham , Özdeşer Hüseyin , Seraj Mehdi
Published: March 2023

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to verify all factors that promote renewable energy (RE) consumption. Past studies have shown that financial development (FD) and economic growth (EG) are the major drivers toward RE development, while oil prices had mixed outcomes in different regions by different studies.

Design/methodology/approach

Global warming effects have been the major reason of the transition by nations from fossil fuel use to RE sources that are considered as friendly to the environment. This research uses the fixed effects and random effects techniques, to ascertain the factors which impact RE development. The generalized linear model is also used to check the robustness of the Fixed Effects and Random Effects models’ results, while the Kao, Pedroni and Westerlund tests are used to check cointegration in the specified model.

Findings

The major findings of this study show the importance of EG and FD in promoting RE development. Oil prices, inflation rate and public sector credit present a negative effect on RE development, while foreign direct investment does not significantly impact RE development.

Practical implications

This research recommends the use of FD in promoting RE sources, as well as the stabilization of oil prices and consumer prices.

Originality/value

This research is important because it specifies the three proxies of FD, together with foreign direct investment inflation rate, EG and oil prices, in modeling RE. By investigating the impact of oil prices on RE in the emerging seven economies, this research becomes one of the few studies done in this region, as per the authors’ knowhow.
The critical success factors for Security Education, Training and Awareness (SETA) program effectiveness: a lifecycle model
Authors: Alyami Areej , Sammon David , Neville Karen , Mahony Carolanne
Published: March 2023

Purpose

This study explores the critical success factors (CSFs) for Security Education, Training and Awareness (SETA) program effectiveness. The questionable effectiveness of SETA programs at changing employee behavior and an absence of empirical studies on the CSFs for SETA program effectiveness is the key motivation for this study.

Design/methodology/approach

This exploratory study follows a systematic inductive approach to concept development. The methodology adopts the “key informant” approach to give voice to practitioners with SETA program expertise. Data are gathered using semi-structured interviews with 20 key informants from various geographic locations including the Gulf nations, Middle East, USA, UK and Ireland.

Findings

In this study, the analysis of these key informant interviews, following an inductive open, axial and selective coding approach, produces 11 CSFs for SETA program effectiveness. These CSFs are mapped along the phases of a SETA program lifecycle (design, development, implementation and evaluation) and nine relationships identified between the CSFs (within and across the lifecycle phases) are highlighted. The CSFs and CSFs' relationships are visualized in a Lifecycle Model of CSFs for SETA program effectiveness.

Originality/value

This research advances the first comprehensive conceptualization of the CSFs for SETA program effectiveness. The Lifecycle Model of CSFs for SETA program effectiveness provides valuable insights into the process of introducing and sustaining an effective SETA program in practice. The Lifecycle Model contributes to both theory and practice and lays the foundation for future studies.
Big data ethics and its role in the innovation and technology adoption process
Authors: Bosman Lisa , Oladepo Taofeek , Ngambeki Ida
Published: March 2023

Purpose

Upon graduating from university, many engineers will work in new product development and/or technology adoption for continuous improvement and production optimization. These jobs require employees to be cognizant of ethical practices and implications for design. However, little engineering coursework, outside the traditional ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology) required Engineering Ethics course, accounts for the role of ethics within this process. Because of this, engineering students have few learning opportunities to practice and reflect on ethical decision-making.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper highlights one approach to integrating ethics into an engineering course (outside of engineering ethics). Specifically, the study is implemented within a five-week module with a focus on big data ethics, as part of a Supply Chain Management Technology course (required for Industrial Engineering Technology majors), using metacognition as the core assessment.

Findings

Four main themes were identified through the qualitative data analysis of the metacognitive reflections: (1) overreliance on content knowledge, (2) time management skills, (3) career connections and (4) knowledge extensions.

Originality/value

Three notable points emerged which contribute to the literature. First, this study showcased one example of how an ethics module can be integrated into an engineering course (other than Engineering Ethics). Second, this study demonstrated how metacognitive reflections can be used to reinforce student self-awareness of the learning process and connections to big data ethics in the workplace. Finally, this study exhibited how metacognitive reflection assignments can be deployed as a teaching and learning assessment tool, providing an opportunity for the instructor to make immediate changes as needed.
Network analysis of innovation mentor community of practice
Authors: Altinisik Gunda Esra , Aydin Mehmet Nafiz , Perdahci Ziya Nazim , Pasin Merih
Published: March 2023

Purpose

Positive effect of knowledge sharing (KS) on innovation has come to the fore and government-supported innovation and mentoring communities or mentor networks have become widespread. This article aims to examine the community connectedness and mentors' preferences for professional competency-based KS of such innovation community of practice networks (CoPNs).

Design/methodology/approach

The paper constructs a directed weighted CoPN model with a node-attribute-based novel fingerprint edge weights. Based on the CoPN, Social Network Analysis (SNA) metrics and measures including Giant Component (GC) were proposed and analyzed to identify mentors' connectedness preferences. The fingerprint was proposed as a novel binarized node attribute of competence. Jaccard similarity of fingerprints was proposed as edge weights to reveal correlations between competences and preferences for KS.

Findings

The work opted to conduct a survey of 28 innovation mentors to measure a CoPN. Both a name generator question and a second set of questions were employed to invite respondents to name their collaborators and indicate their professional competence. SNA metrics result in differing values for GC and the rest, which lead us to focus on GC to reveal salient metrics of connectedness. Jaccard similarity analysis results on GC demonstrate that mentors collaborate in an interdisciplinary manner.

Originality/value

Based on the CoPN, the methods proposed may be effective in predicting preferred relationships for interdisciplinary collaborations, providing the managers with an analytical decision support tool for KS in practice.
The benefits for European companies and investors of promoting happiness through high-performing work policies
Authors: De la Torre-Torres Oscar Valdemar , Martínez Torre-Enciso María Isabel , Del Río-Rama María de la Cruz , Álvarez-García José
Published: March 2023

Purpose

In this paper, the authors tested if promoting the workforce's happiness (through high performance work policies or HPWP) and well-being in European Public companies relates to their profitability (return on equity, ROE), market risk (beta) and stock price return. Also, the authors tested if investors have a performance benefit if they buy a portfolio screened with companies with HPWP.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors proxied the quality of the HPWP efforts in the first method with the Refinitiv workforce score. They used this data in an unbalanced panel of eastern, western, northern and southern Europe companies from 2011 to 2022. The panel data also included the ROE, the market risk (beta) and the stock price return of these companies. The authors estimated the corresponding regressions with the panel data and tested the relationship between the workforce score and these three variables. In a second method, they simulated the weekly performance of a portfolio that invested only in European companies with high standards in their HPWP and compared its performance against a conventional market portfolio (with no HPWP screening).

Findings

In the first method, the authors found no significant relationship between the workforce score and the ROE, beta, or stock price return in the panel regression, controlling for random effects. In the second one, they found no over or underperformance in the HPWP portfolio against the European market one in the second method.

Practical implications

The results suggest that there is no risk or cost for European Public companies and investors alike if they promote, with better HPWP, the happiness and well-being of their workforce. The findings suggest that if European companies promote HPWP, there will be no adverse impact on their profits, market risk, or stock price performance. Also, investors will not lose performance (against a conventional market portfolio) if they screen their portfolios with this type of workforce-friendly companies.

Originality/value

Increase the scarce literature on the test of the workforce score with company profitability (ROE), stock market price variation and stock market risk level.
Response of habitat quality to mixed severity disturbance regime in Norway spruce forests
Authors: Bace Radek , Hofmeister Jenyk , Vitkova Lucie , Brabec Marek , Begovic Kresimir , Cada Vojtech , Janda Pavel , Kozak Daniel , Mikolas Martin , Nagel Thomas A. , Pavlin Jakob , Rodrigo Ruffy , Vostarek Ondrej , Svoboda Miroslav
Published: March 2023

Natural disturbances change forest habitat quality for many species. As the extent and intensity of natural disturbances may increase under climate change, it is unclear how this increase can affect habitat quality on different spatial scales. To support management tools and policies aiming to prevent habitat loss, we studied how habitat quality develops in the long run depending on the disturbance severity using a space‐for‐time substitution approach.

We explored the effects of time since disturbance (0–250 years) and disturbance severity (20%–100% canopy removal) on structure‐based habitat quality indicators in European primary Norway sprucePicea abiesforests using 1000 m2circular plots in hierarchical design (a total of 407 plots in 35 stands). Disturbance history was reconstructed from tree cores. Habitat quality indicators were modelled as a function of the severity of the most severe disturbance and the time since this disturbance. We hypothesised that high within‐stand habitat heterogeneity is formed by different successional stages after disturbances of various intensities.

The results showed a U‐shaped response of habitat quality to post‐disturbance habitat succession on the plot scale. The decline deepened with disturbance severity. The U‐shape response occurred in: large tree occurrence, amount of standing and lying deadwood, diversity of understory and understory openness. The spatial diversity in disturbance parameters increased spatial diversity of habitat quality on a stand level as expected. This high within‐stand habitat heterogeneity also decreased with increasing age of the most recent disturbance. This suggests that the absence of young successional stages results in the absence of some important elements for biodiversity, for example sun‐exposed snags.

Synthesis and applications.Our results demonstrate that currently intensifying natural disturbance regime can consequently result in a lower habitat heterogeneity. In managed spruce forests after natural disturbances, we recommend at least the partial retention of biological legacies to preserve habitat heterogeneity and to avoid uniform and dense plantations resulting in a greater homogenisation. To emulate the natural disturbances pattern, spruce forests should be managed with a wide range of harvested patches of the size limited by a local natural disturbance regime creating spatial heterogeneity.
Hearts in their hands—Physicians’ gestures embodying shared professional knowledge around the world
Authors: Quasinowski Benjamin , Assa Solmaz , Bachmann Cadja , Chen Wei , Elcin Melih , Kamisli Caner , Liu Tao , Maass Alexander H. , Merse Stefanie , Morbach Caroline , Neumann Anja , Neumann Till , Sommer Ilka , Stoerk Stefan , Weingartz Sarah , Weiss Anja , Wietasch Goetz
Published: March 2023

The biomedical approach to medical knowledge is widely accepted around the world. This article considers whether the incorporated aspects of physician‐patient interaction have become similarly common across the globe by comparing the gestures that physicians use in their interactions with patients. Up to this point, there has been little research on physicians’ use of gestures in health‐care settings. We explore how—in four university hospitals in Turkey, the People’s Republic of China, The Netherlands and Germany—physicians use gesture in their discussions with simulated patients about the condition of heart failure. Our analysis confirms the importance of gestures for organising both the personal interaction and the knowledge transfer between physician and patient. From the perspective of global comparison, it is notable that physicians in all four hospitals used similar gestures. This demonstrates the globality of biomedical knowledge in an embodied mode. Physicians used gestures for a range of purposes, including to convey the idea of an ‘anatomical map’ and for constructing visual models of (patho‐)physiological processes. Since biomedical language is rife with metaphor, it was not surprising that we also identified an accompanying metaphorical gesture which has a similar form in the various locations that were part of the study.
Target‐capture probes for phylogenomics of the Caenogastropoda
Authors: Goulding Tricia C. , Strong Ellen E. , Quattrini Andrea M.
Published: March 2023

Target‐capture approaches have facilitated a rapid growth in the field of phylogenomics but few probe sets exist for molluscs, an exceptionally rich phylum with unparalleled ecological and morphological diversity. We designed and tested the first universal probe set using Phyluce to capture ultraconserved elements (UCEs) and exon loci from the Subclass Caenogastropoda ‐ one of six major lineages of gastropods. The probe set consists of 29,441 probes designed to target 1142 UCE loci and 1933 exon loci (3075 total). In silico analyses of our probe set yielded an average of 2110 loci from genomes and 1389 loci from transcriptomes of diverse caenogastropods, from which an average of 1669 and 849 loci were retained respectively after screening to remove those that matched multiple contigs. Phylogenetic analyses of the loci extracted from transcriptomes produced well‐supported trees very similar to those published based on transcriptomic analyses. Phylogenetic relationships estimated from loci extracted from genomes recover similar phylogenetic relationships, and indicate that the loci targeted with this probe set are informative for resolving deep phylogenetic relationships. An in vitro analysis of the probe set with the Epitoniidae, a diverse caenogastropod family of uncertain affinity and with poorly resolved evolutionary relationships, recovered a total of 2850 loci. Although preliminary, the analysis of loci captured by our probe set for a small number of epitoniid taxa produced a well‐resolved tree indicating that this probe set is also able to resolve relationships at shallower hierarchical scales. Together, the in silico and in vitro analyses indicate that target‐capture enrichment with this probe set is a useful tool for reconstructing phylogenetic relationships across taxonomic levels and evolutionary time scales.
Comparison of rapid preparation methods for Pb isotope analysis of high‐Pb ceramic glazes: A case study of late medieval Besztercebánya/Banská Bystrica‐type stove tiles
Authors: Horváth Anikó , Bajnóczi Bernadett , Györkös Dorottya , Palcsu László
Published: March 2023

This study identified the provenance of Pb flux used in the production of the glaze of unique, high‐quality late medieval stove tiles from the northern part of the Carpathian Basin, and elaborated and evaluated a fast preparation process to measure Pb isotope ratios in high‐Pb glazes. We compared three different methods of preparation. Method 1 consisted of the dissolution of bulk chips of glaze, dilution of the solution and mass spectrometric analysis without Pb purification. Method 2 collected the Pb from the surface of the glaze with acid‐impregnated swabs, subsequent dilution and direct analysis of the sample solution. Method 3 used solutions from method 1, extraction of Pb by ion‐exchange chromatography and analysis of the purified Pb. Each preparation method produced a similar Pb isotope ratio. The majority of the Pb isotope ratios fall into one group and indicate that lead imported from the Krakow–Silesia mining region was mainly used for production of the glazes of the stove tiles made by different workshops.
‘How dare you call that playground banter?!’: Service provider perspectives on coercive control and young people
Authors: Burton Victoria , Gormally Sinéad
Published: March 2023

This article presents service provider perspectives on young people and coercive control. Findings illustrate that young people need help from service providers to identify coercive control whilst simultaneously, some service providers minimise young people's experiences using an adult focused frame of reference. This has the potential to deny their agency and render young people's experiences invisible. We highlight the need for education on the specific issues young people face including how that might differ from adults. Finally, we examine the paradoxical role of social media as having transformative possibilities yet in a parallel process, creating opportunities for continued abuse.
Additional effects of exercise to hypocaloric diet on body weight, body composition, glycaemic control and cardio‐respiratory fitness in adults with overweight or obesity and type 2 diabetes: A systematic review and meta‐analysis
Authors: Memelink Robert G. , Hummel Mitchell , Hijlkema Aveline , Streppel Martinet T. , Bautmans Ivan , Weijs Peter J. M. , Berk Kirsten A. , Tieland Michael
Published: March 2023

Aims

This systematic review and meta‐analysis evaluates the additional effect of exercise to hypocaloric diet on body weight, body composition, glycaemic control and cardio‐respiratory fitness in adults with overweight or obesity and type 2 diabetes.

Methods

Embase, Medline, Web of Science and Cochrane Central databases were evaluated, and 11 studies were included. Random‐effects meta‐analysis was performed on body weight and measures of body composition and glycaemic control, to compare the effect of hypocaloric diet plus exercise with hypocaloric diet alone.

Results

Exercise interventions consisted of walking or jogging, cycle ergometer training, football training or resistance training and duration varied from 2 to 52 weeks. Body weight and measures of body composition and glycaemic control decreased during both the combined intervention and hypocaloric diet alone. Mean difference in change of body weight (−0.77 kg [95% CI: −2.03; 0.50]), BMI (−0.34 kg/m2 [95% CI: −0.73; 0.05]), waist circumference (−1.42 cm [95% CI: −3.84; 1.00]), fat‐free mass (−0.18 kg [95% CI: −0.52; 0.17]), fat mass (−1.61 kg [95% CI: −4.42; 1.19]), fasting glucose (+0.14 mmol/L [95% CI: −0.02; 0.30]), HbA1c (−1 mmol/mol [95% CI: −3; 1], −0.1% [95% CI: −0.2; 0.1]) and HOMA‐IR (+0.01 [95% CI: −0.40; 0.42]) was not statistically different between the combined intervention and hypocaloric diet alone. Two studies reported VO2max and showed significant increases upon the addition of exercise to hypocaloric diet.

Conclusions

Based on limited data, we did not find additional effects of exercise to hypocaloric diet in adults with overweight or obesity and type 2 diabetes on body weight, body composition or glycaemic control, while cardio‐respiratory fitness improved.