bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Pharmacological Characterisation of Novel Adenosine Receptor A3R Antagonists
Authors: Barkan Kerry , Lagarias Panagiotis , Stampelou Margarita , Stamatis Dimitrios , Hoare Sam , Klotz Karl-Norbert , Vrontaki Eleni , Kolocouris Antonios , Ladds Graham
Published: July 2019

Background and Purpose

The adenosine A3 receptor (A3R) belongs to a family of four adenosine receptor (AR) subtypes which all play distinct roles throughout the body. A3R antagonists have been described as potential treatments for numerous diseases including asthma. Given the similarity between ARs orthosteric binding sites, obtaining highly selective antagonists is a challenging but critical task.

Experimental approach

39 potential A3R, antagonists were screened using agonist-induced inhibition of cAMP. Positive hits were assessed for AR subtype selectivity through cAMP accumulation assays. The antagonist affinity was determined using Schild analysis (pA2 values) and fluorescent ligand binding. Further, a likely binding pose of the most potent antagonist (K18) was determined through molecular dynamic (MD) simulations and consistent calculated binding free energy differences between K18 and congeners, using a homology model of A3R, combined with mutagenesis studies.

Key Results

We demonstrate that K18, which contains a 3-(dichlorophenyl)-isoxazole group connected through carbonyloxycarboximidamide fragment with a 1,3-thiazole ring, is a specific A3R (<1 µM) competitive antagonist. Structure-activity relationship investigations revealed that loss of the 3-(dichlorophenyl)-isoxazole group significantly attenuated K18 antagonistic potency. Mutagenic studies supported by MD simulations identified the residues important for binding in the A3R orthosteric site. Finally, we introduce a model that enables estimates of the equilibrium binding affinity for rapidly disassociating compounds from real-time fluorescent ligand-binding studies.

Conclusions and Implications

These results demonstrate the pharmacological characterisation of a selective competitive A3R antagonist and the description of its orthosteric binding mode. Our findings may provide new insight for drug discovery.

What is already known

The search for AR subtype specific compounds often leads to ones with multiple subtype binding

What this study adds

This study demonstrates the pharmacological characterisation of a selective competitive A3R antagonist

MD simulations identified the residues important for binding in the A3R orthosteric site

Clinical significance

This study offers insight into A3R antagonists that may provide new opportunities for drug discovery
Evidence for a deep, distributed and dynamic semantic code in human ventral anterior temporal cortex
Authors: Rogers Timothy T. , Cox Christopher , Lu Qihong , Shimotake Akihiro , Kikuch Takayuki , Kunieda Takeharu , Miyamoto Susumu , Takahashi Ryosuke , Ikeda Akio , Matsumoto Riki , Ralph Matthew A. Lambon
Published: July 2019

How does the human brain encode semantic information about objects? This paper reconciles two seemingly contradictory views. The first proposes that local neural populations independently encode semantic features; the second, that semantic representations arise as a dynamic distributed code that changes radically with stimulus processing. Combining simulations with a well-known neural network model of semantic memory, multivariate pattern classification, and human electrocorticography, we find that both views are partially correct: semantic information is distributed across ventral temporal cortex in a dynamic code that possesses stable feature-like elements in posterior regions but with elements that change rapidly and nonlinearly in anterior regions. This pattern is consistent with the view that anterior temporal lobes serve as a deep cross-modal “hub” in an interactive semantic network, and more generally suggests that tertiary association cortices may adopt dynamic distributed codes difficult to detect with common brain imaging methods.
Historical contingency in the evolution of antibiotic resistance after decades of relaxed selection
Authors: Card Kyle J. , LaBar Thomas , Gomez Jasper B. , Lenski Richard E.
Published: July 2019

Populations often encounter changed environments that remove selection for the maintenance of particular phenotypic traits. The resulting genetic decay of those traits under relaxed selection reduces an organism’s fitness in its prior environment. However, whether and how such decay alters the subsequent evolvability of a population upon restoration of selection for a previously diminished trait is not well understood. We addressed this question usingEscherichia colistrains from the long-term evolution experiment (LTEE) that independently evolved for multiple decades in the absence of antibiotics. We first confirmed that these derived strains are typically more sensitive to various antibiotics than their common ancestor. We then subjected the ancestral and derived strains to various concentrations of these drugs to examine their potential to evolve increased resistance. We found that evolvability was idiosyncratic with respect to initial genotype; that is, the derived strains did not generally compensate for their greater susceptibility by “catching up” to the resistance level of the ancestor. Instead, the capacity to evolve increased resistance was constrained in some backgrounds, implying that evolvability depended upon prior mutations in a historically contingent fashion. We further subjected a time-series of clones from one LTEE population to tetracycline and determined that an evolutionary constraint arose early in that population, corroborating the role of contingency. In summary, relaxed selection not only can drive populations to increased antibiotic susceptibility, but it can also affect the subsequent evolvability of antibiotic resistance in an unpredictable manner. This conclusion has potential implications for public health, and it underscores the need to consider the genetic context of pathogens when designing drug-treatment strategies.
Cortical-like dynamics in recurrent circuits optimized for sampling-based probabilistic inference
Authors: Echeveste Rodrigo , Aitchison Laurence , Hennequin Guillaume , Lengyel Máté
Published: July 2019

Sensory cortices display a suite of ubiquitous dynamical features, such as ongoing noise variability, transient overshoots, and oscillations, that have so far escaped a common, principled theoretical account. We developed a unifying model for these phenomena by training a recurrent excitatory–inhibitory neural circuit model of a visual cortical hypercolumn to perform sampling-based probabilistic inference. The optimized network displayed several key biological properties, including divisive normalization, as well as stimulus-modulated noise variability, inhibition-dominated transients at stimulus onset, and strong gamma oscillations. These dynamical features had distinct functional roles in speeding up inferences and made predictions that we confirmed in novel analyses of awake monkey recordings. Our results suggest that the basic motifs of cortical dynamics emerge as a consequence of the efficient implementation of the same computational function—fast sampling-based inference—and predict further properties of these motifs that can be tested in future experiments.
Long solids retention times and attached growth phase favor prevalence of comammox bacteria in nitrogen removal systems
Authors: Cotto Irmarie , Dai Zihan , Huo Linxuan , Anderson Christopher L. , Vilardi Katherine J. , Ijaz Umer , Khunjar Wendell , Wilson Christopher , De Clippeleir Haydee , Gilmore Kevin , Bailey Erika , Pinto Ameet J.
Published: July 2019

The discovery of the complete ammonia oxidizing (comammox) bacteria overturns the traditional two-organism nitrification paradigm which largely underpins the design and operation of nitrogen removal during wastewater treatment. Quantifying the abundance, diversity, and activity of comammox bacteria in wastewater treatment systems is important for ensuring a clear understanding of the nitrogen biotransformations responsible for ammonia removal. To this end, we conducted a yearlong survey of 14 full-scale nitrogen removal systems including mainstream conventional and simultaneous nitrification-denitrification and side-stream partial nitrification-anammox systems with varying process configurations. Metagenomics and genome-resolved metagenomics identified comammox bacteria in mainstream conventional and simultaneous nitrification-denitrification systems, with no evidence for their presence in side-stream partial nitrification-anammox systems. Further, comammox bacterial diversity was restricted to clade A and these clade A comammox bacteria were detected in systems with long solids retention times (>10 days) and/or in the attached growth phase. Using a newly designed qPCR assay targeting theamoBgene of clade A comammox bacteria in combination with quantitation of other canonical nitrifiers, we show that long solids retention time is the key process parameter associated with the prevalence and abundance of comammox bacteria. The increase in comammox bacterial abundance was not associated with concomitant decrease in the abundance of canonical nitrifiers; however, systems with comammox bacteria showed significantly better and temporally stable ammonia removal compared to systems where they were not detected. Finally, in contrast to recent studies, we do not find any significant association of comammox bacterial prevalence and abundance with dissolved oxygen concentrations in this study.

Highlights

Clade A comammox bacteria were detected in wastewater nitrogen removal systems.

New qPCR assay targeting theamoBgene of clade A comammox bacteria was developed.

Comammox bacteria are prevalent in mainstream conventional and simultaneous nitrification-denitrification systems with long solids retention times (>10 days).

Comammox bacteria were not detected in sidestream partial nitrification-anammox systems included in this study.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
Codon-optimized TDP-43-mediated neurodegeneration in a Drosophila model for ALS/FTLD
Authors: Yusuff Tanzeen , Chatterjee Shreyasi , Chang Ya-Chu , Sang Tzu-Kang , Jackson George R.
Published: July 2019

Transactive response DNA binding protein-43 (TDP-43) is known to mediate neurodegeneration associated with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD). The exact mechanism by which TDP-43 exerts toxicity in the brains of affected patients remains unclear. In a novelDrosophila melanogastermodel, we report gain-of-function phenotypes due to misexpression of insect codon-optimized version of human wild-type TDP-43 (CO-TDP-43) using both the binary GAL4/UAS system and direct promoter fusion constructs. The CO-TDP-43 model showed robust tissue specific phenotypes in the adult eye, wing, and bristles in the notum. Compared to non-codon optimized transgenic flies, the CO-TDP-43 flies produced increased amount of high molecular weight protein, exhibited pathogenic phenotypes, and showed cytoplasmic aggregation with both nuclear and cytoplasmic expression of TDP-43. Further characterization of the adult retina showed a disruption in the morphology and function of the photoreceptor neurons with the presence of acidic vacuoles that are characteristic of autophagy. Based on our observations, we propose that TDP-43 has the propensity to form toxic protein aggregates via a gain-of-function mechanism, and such toxic overload leads to activation of protein degradation pathways such as autophagy. The novel codon optimized TDP-43 model is an excellent resource that could be used in genetic screens to identify and better understand the exact disease mechanism of TDP-43 proteinopathies and find potential therapeutic targets.
INeo-Epp: A novel T-cell HLA class-I immunogenicity or neoantigenic epitope prediction method based on sequence related amino acid features
Authors: Wang Guangzhi , Wan Huihui , Jian Xingxing , Li Yuyu , Ouyang Jian , Tan Xiaoxiu , Zhao Yong , Lin Yong , Xie Lu
Published: July 2019

In silico T-cell epitope prediction plays an important role in immunization experimental design and vaccine preparation. Currently, most epitope prediction research focuses on peptide processing and presentation, e.g. proteasomal cleavage, transporter associated with antigen processing (TAP) and major histocompatibility complex (MHC) combination. To date, however, the mechanism for immunogenicity of epitopes remains unclear. It is generally agreed upon that T-cell immunogenicity may be influenced by the foreignness, accessibility, molecular weight, molecular structure, molecular conformation, chemical properties and physical properties of target peptides to different degrees. In this work, we tried to combine these factors. Firstly, we collected significant experimental HLA-I T-cell immunogenic peptide data, as well as the potential immunogenic amino acid properties. Several characteristics were extracted, including amino acid physicochemical property of epitope sequence, peptide entropy, eluted ligand likelihood percentile rank (EL rank(%)) score and frequency score for immunogenic peptide. Subsequently, a random forest classifier for T cell immunogenic HLA-I presenting antigen epitopes and neoantigens was constructed. The classification results for the antigen epitopes outperformed the previous research (the optimal AUC=0.81, external validation data set AUC=0.77). As mutational epitopes generated by the coding region contain only the alterations of one or two amino acids, we assume that these characteristics might also be applied to the classification of the endogenic mutational neoepitopes also called ‘neoantigens’. Based on mutation information and sequence related amino acid characteristics, a prediction model of neoantigen was established as well (the optimal AUC=0.78). Further, an easy-to-use web-based tool ‘INeo-Epp’ was developed (available at http://www.biostatistics.online/INeo-Epp/neoantigen.php)for the prediction of human immunogenic antigen epitopes and neoantigen epitopes.
Urocortin-3 Neurons in the Mouse Perifornical Area Promote Infant-directed Neglect and Aggression
Authors: Autry Anita E , Wu Zheng , Kapoor Vikrant , Kohl Johannes , Bambah-Mukku Dhananjay , Rubinstein Nimrod D , Marin-Rodriguez Brenda , Carta Ilaria , Sedwick Victoria , Tang Ming , Dulac Catherine
Published: July 2019

While recent studies have uncovered dedicated neural pathways mediating the positive control of parenting, the regulation of infant-directed aggression and how it relates to adult-adult aggression is poorly understood. Here we show that urocortin-3 (Ucn3)-expressing neurons in the hypothalamic perifornical area (PeFAUcn3) are activated during infant-directed attacks in males and females, but not other behaviors. Functional manipulations of PeFAUcn3 neurons demonstrate the role of this population in the negative control of parenting in both sexes. PeFAUcn3 neurons receive input from areas associated with vomeronasal sensing, stress, and parenting, and send projections to hypothalamic and limbic areas. Optogenetic activation of PeFAUcn3 axon terminals in these regions triggers various aspects of infant-directed agonistic responses, such as neglect, repulsion and aggression. Thus, PeFAUcn3 neurons emerge as a dedicated circuit component controlling infant-directed neglect and aggression, providing a new framework to understand the positive and negative regulation of parenting in health and disease.
Metacontrast masking as a measure of change detection: Children with poor reading fluency show impaired change detection for both letters and shapes
Authors: Crewther David , Rutkowski Jacqueline , Crewther Sheila
Published: July 2019

Developmental dyslexia, a specific learning difficulty in reading, manifests as effortful decoding of words and as such is commonly associated with reduced phonemic awareness. However, its underlying cause remains elusive, with magnocellular visual processing, temporal auditory processing, visual attentional deficits and cerebellar dysfunction all gaining some traction. More recent theories have concerned visual attention span, measuring the parallel attentive capacity of the sensory visual system. However the VA span task as implemented requires reports, both conscious recall and recognition of letters, that activate many cortical areas beyond sensory visual cortex. Change detection, in contrast, does not require the conscious recognition of items, but simply awareness that the stimulus has changed, or not, again testing visual attention in a parallel fashion, but avoiding the complications of higher order cognitive processes. Thus, we investigated change detection in 33 good and poor readers with ages of around 10 yr, using a gap paradigm. Groups of 4 letters or 4 shapes were presented for a fixed time (0.7 s), followed after a 0.25 s gap, by a second similar group, each item surrounded by an annular frame filled with dynamic random noise of variable contrast. Detection performance was manipulated by varying the contrast of these meta-contrast mask frames, yielding a threshold contrast of the frames at which participants could just detect change. In two separate experiments, letters and rectangular shapes were used as target items, in order to test whether previous findings of superior change detection in good compared with poor readers was a result of greater automaticity in letter recognition of the good readers. The results indicate that the good readers were able to detect change at higher levels of masking distraction for both the letter and shape targets, indicating that this difference is not specifically related to to the training of graphemic or lexical information but more likely reflects a difference in alerting or pre-recognition stages of visual processing. Together, the results provide further support of the notion that there is a low level attentional performance difference between dyslexic and normal reading children. Thus, the results further bring transient spatial attention directly into the spotlight as an ability critical for learning to read.
Eye morphogenesis in the blind Mexican cavefish
Authors: Devos Lucie , Agnès François , Edouard Joanne , Simon Victor , Legendre Laurent , Khallouki Naima El , Barbachou Sosthène , Sohm Frédéric , Rétaux Sylvie
Published: July 2019

The morphogenesis of the vertebrate eye consists of a complex choreography of cell movements, tightly coupled to axial regionalization and cell type specification processes. Disturbances in these events can lead to developmental defects and blindness. Here, we have deciphered the sequence of defective events leading to coloboma in the embryonic eye of the blind cavefish of the speciesAstyanax mexicanus. Using comparative live imaging on targeted enhancer-trapZic1:hsp70:GFPreporter lines of both the normal, river-dwelling morph and the cave morph of the species, we identified defects in migratory cell behaviors during evagination which participate in the reduced optic vesicle size in cavefish, without proliferation defect. Further, impaired optic cup invagination shifts the relative position of the lens and contributes to coloboma in cavefish. Based on these results, we propose a developmental scenario to explain the cavefish phenotype and discuss developmental constraints to morphological evolution. The cavefish eye appears as an outstanding natural mutant model to study molecular and cellular processes involved in optic region morphogenesis.
Hotspot coevolution at protein-protein interfaces is a key identifier of native protein complexes
Authors: Mishra Sambit K. , Cooper Sarah J. , Parks Jerry M. , Mitchell Julie C.
Published: July 2019

Protein-protein interactions play a key role in mediating numerous biological functions, with more than half the proteins in living organisms existing as either homo- or hetero-oligomeric assemblies. Protein subunits that form oligomers minimize the free energy of the complex, but exhaustive computational search-based docking methods have not comprehensively addressed the protein docking challenge of distinguishing a natively bound complex from non-native forms. In this study, we propose a scoring function, KFC-E, that accounts for both conservation and coevolution of putative binding hotspot residues at protein-protein interfaces. For a benchmark set of 53 bound complexes, KFC-E identifies a near-native binding mode as the top-scoring pose in 38% and in the top 5 in 55% of the complexes. For a set of 17 unbound complexes, KFC-E identifies a near-native pose in the top 10 ranked poses in more than 50% of the cases. By contrast, a scoring function that incorporates information on coevolution at predicted non-hotspots performs poorly by comparison. Our study highlights the importance of coevolution at hotspot residues in forming natively bound complexes and suggests a novel approach for coevolutionary scoring in protein docking.

Author Summary

A fundamental problem in biology is to distinguish between the native and non-native bound forms of protein-protein complexes. Experimental methods are often used to detect the native bound forms of proteins but, are demanding in terms of time and resources. Computational approaches have proven to be a useful alternative; they sample the different binding configurations for a pair of interacting proteins and then use an heuristic or physical model to score them. In this study we propose a new scoring approach, KFC-E, which focuses on the evolutionary contributions from a subset of key interface residues (hotspots) to identify native bound complexes. KFC-E capitalizes on the wealth of information in protein sequence databases by incorporating residue-level conservation and coevolution of putative binding hotspots. As hotspot residues mediate the binding energetics of protein-protein interactions, we hypothesize that the knowledge of putative hotspots coupled with their evolutionary information should be helpful in the identification of native bound protein-protein complexes.
Determinants of Nutritional Status among Children Under five age in Ethiopia: A Further Analysis of the Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS) 2016 Data
Authors: Amare Zerihun Yohannes , Ahmed Mossa Endris , Mehari AdeyBelete
Published: July 2019

Child malnutrition is an underlying cause for almost half (45%) of child deaths, particularly in low socioeconomic communities of developing countries like Ethiopia. Globally, in 2018, 149 million children under five were stunted and over 49 million children were wasted. In Ethiopia, from the year 2005 to 2016, there is a decrease in stunting from 47% to 39%, but the prevalence of wasting changed little over the same time period (11% to 10%). Despite efforts made by the Ethiopian government and improvements in reducing malnutrition, the current rate of progress is not fast enough to have reached the global target by 2025.The aim of this study was to examine the determinants of nutritional status among children under five in Ethiopia. This study used data from 2016 Ethiopia Demographic and Heath Survey (EDHS) to examine determinants of nutritional status among children under five (0-59 months). This study used stunting and wasting as dependent variables for the analysis. Children’s, mothers, households, and environmental characteristics were used as determinant variables. Children not alive, and other missing values were considered as missing and was not included in the analyses. Sample weights were applied in all analysis due to the two stage cluster sampling design in the EDHS datasets. Multicollinearity among independent variables were checked. Logistic regression was used to analyse the determinants of nutritional status among under five age children. Bivariate analysis was also used to analyse the association between the dependent and independent variables. The chi-square test used to see the significance of association. The level of significance for the analysis was p<0.05. Age, and sex of child, educational status and body mass index, and short stature of mothers, residence, region, wealth quintile, toilet facilities and fuel types of households’ have significant association with stunting and wasting. However, mother’s short stature has significant association with only stunting. The study found child, maternal, household and environmental characteristics were significantly associated with stunting and wasting among of children under five. This implies a multi-sectorial and multidimensional approach is important to address malnutrition in Ethiopia.
Squamous differentiation portends poor prognosis in low and intermediate-risk endometrioid endometrial cancer
Authors: de Andrade Diocésio Alves Pinto , da Silva Vinicius Duval , de Macedo Matsushita Graziela , Alves de Lima Marcos , de Andrade Vieira Marcelo , Cunha Andrade Carlos Eduardo Mattos , Luís Schmidt Ronaldo , Reis Rui Manuel , Reis Ricardo dos
Published: July 2019

Background

Endometrial cancer presents well-defined risk factors (myometrial invasion, histological subtype, tumor grade, lymphovascular space invasion (LVSI)). Some low and intermediate-risk endometrioid endometrial cancer patients exhibited unexpected outcomes. The aim of this study was to investigate other clinical-pathological factors that might influence the recurrence rates of patients diagnosed with low and intermediate-risk endometrioid endometrial cancer.

Methods

A case-control study from a cohort retrospective of 196 patients diagnosed with low and intermediate-risk endometrioid endometrial cancer at a single institution between 2009 and 2014 was conducted. Medical records were reviewed to compare clinical (race, smoking, menopause age, body mass index) and pathological (histological characteristics (endometrioid vs endometrioid with squamous differentiation), tumor differentiation grade, tumor location, endocervical invasion, LVSI) features of patients with recurrence (case) and without recurrence (control) of disease. Three controls for each case were matched for age and staging.

Results

Twenty-one patients with recurrence were found (10.7%), of which 14 were stage IA, and 7 were stage IB. In accordance, 63 patients without recurrence were selected as controls. There were no significant differences in any clinical characteristics between cases and controls. Among pathological variables, presence of squamous differentiation (28.6% vs. 4.8%, p=0.007), tumor differentiation grade 2 or 3 (57.1% vs. 30.2%, p=0.037) and presence of endocervical invasion (28.6% vs. 12.7%, p=0.103) were associated with disease recurrence on univariate analysis. On multivariable analysis, only squamous differentiation was a significant risk factor for recurrence (p=0.031).

Conclusion

Our data suggest that squamous differentiation may be an adverse prognostic factor in patients with low and intermediate-risk endometrioid endometrial cancer, that showed a 5.6-fold increased risk for recurrence.
Real-time integrated turboprop take-off model under propeller-wing interaction
Authors: Wang Yiwei , Huang Xianghua , Huang Jiaqin
Published: July 2019

Purpose

The purpose of the paper is to build a real-time integrated turboprop take-off model which fully takes the interaction between diverse parts of aircraft into consideration. Turboprops have the advantage of short take-off distance derived from propeller-wing interaction. Traditional turboprop take-off model is inappropriate because interactions between diverse parts of aircrafts are not fully considered or longer calculation time is required. To make full use of the advantage of short take-off distance, a real-time integrated take-off model is needed for analysing flight performance and developing an integrated propeller-engine-aircraft control system.

Design/methodology/approach

A new integrated three-degree-of-freedom take-off model is developed, which takes a modified propeller model, a wing model and the predominant propeller-wing interaction into account. The propeller model, based on strip theory, overcomes the shortage that the strip theory does not work if the angle of propeller axis and inflow velocity is non-zero. The wing model uses the lifting line method. The proposed propeller-wing interaction model simplifies the complex propeller-wing flow field. Simulations of ATR42 take-off model are conducted in the following three modes: propeller-wing interaction is ignored; influence of propeller on wing is considered only; and propeller-wing interaction is considered.

Findings

Comparison of take-off distances and flight parameters shows that propeller-wing interaction has a vital impact on take-off distance and flight parameters of turboprops.

Practical implications

The real-time integrated take-off model provides time-history flight parameters, which plays an important role in an integrated propeller-engine-aircraft control system to analyse and improve flight performance.

Originality/value

The real-time integrated take-off model is more precise because propeller-wing interaction is considered. Each calculation step costs less than 20 ms, which meets real-time calculation requirements. The modified propeller model overcomes the shortage of strip theory.
Improvement of students problem-solving skills through project execution planning in civil engineering and construction management education
Authors: Zhang Jingxiao , Xie Haiyan , Li Hui
Published: July 2019

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to improve students’ problem-solving skills in civil engineering and construction management education.

Design/methodology/approach

The design includes structured role-playing as a pedagogical method in 21 project teams with a total of 82 undergraduate students at Chang’an University, China, in a nine-week Building Information Modeling (BIM) capstone course. The methodology is a teaching–learning experiment in a civil engineering education program with a detailed description of the empirical case and assessment instruments. The approach is to train project execution planning in a capstone course by role-playing with a real-world project using the procedures of the BIM Project Execution Planning Guide (PEPG) and process mapping.

Findings

The study finds that students can significantly improve their problem-solving skills through planning and role-specific communication during projects.

Research limitations/implications

The research sample needs to be expanded from senior-level undergraduate students to consider the different backgrounds and motivations of students.

Practical implications

This pedagogy is helpful to educators who are interested in group learning with a real-world project; the procedures of BIM PEPG; self-chosen responsibilities within a capstone course time framework; raising the awareness of the importance of planning; information exchange; and team cooperation.

Originality/value

This paper fulfills an identified need to study how role-playing in information and technology rich environments can be structured.
Integrating international student mobility in the belt and road initiative
Authors: Wu Xuan , Chan Wing Kit
Published: July 2019

Purpose

Before the turn of the century, taking overseas students was more about a diplomatic issue dominated by the state in China, for which reason this section is relatively independent within the higher education system. However, evidence from a series of new policy documents and their impacts suggests that international student mobility (ISM) has been intensively shaped by the central government in the desire to promote its national strategy, namely the belt and road initiative. ISM policy, although with a significant proportion marketized, was introduced for a clear purpose of cultural diplomacy. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

Looking beyond the debate of market-driven vs state-dominated, this paper attempts to provide a thorough understanding of this changing pattern based on examination of key changes of policy statements along with official data analysis.

Findings

This paper argues that the new pattern must be understood against a context of a hierarchy of higher education institutes in contemporary China: a sector led by a small number of prestigious universities generously funded by the central government with a large number of ordinary universities underfunded and eager to generate income. Prestigious institutes enroll international students to satisfy performance indicators listed by policies like “Double First-rate”; other universities, benefiting from the reputation and momentum generated by the top ones, take self-funded students for profit.

Originality/value

By making good use of both performance indicators and market motives, the country managed to move a state-dominated ISM policy in the twentieth century into the existing state-steering marketization model and made China a major destination for overseas study.
Characteristics of the breather waves, rogue waves and solitary waves in an extended (3 + 1)-dimensional Kadomtsev–Petviashvili equation
Authors: Wang Hui , Tian Shou-Fu , Chen Yi
Published: July 2019

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to study the breather waves, rogue waves and solitary waves of an extended (3 + 1)-dimensional Kadomtsev–Petviashvili (KP) equation, which can be used to depict many nonlinear phenomena in fluid dynamics and plasma physics.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors apply the Bell’s polynomial approach, the homoclinic test technique and Hirota’s bilinear method to find the breather waves, rogue waves and solitary waves of the extended (3 + 1)-dimensional KP equation.

Findings

The results imply that the extended (3 + 1)-dimensional KP equation has breather wave, rogue wave and solitary wave solutions. Meanwhile, the authors provide the graphical analysis of such solutions to better understand their dynamical behavior.

Originality/value

These results may help us to further study the local structure and the interaction of solutions in KP-type equations. The authors hope that the results provided in this work can help enrich the dynamic behavior of such equations.
The politics of the executive, legislative veto players and foreign debt
Authors: Choi Seung-Whan , Luo Shali
Published: July 2019

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine a curvilinear effect of legislative constraints on foreign debt.

Design/methodology/approach

A cross-sectional, time-series data analysis of 68 developing countries during the period from 1981 to 1999 was performed.

Findings

Foreign borrowing is most likely to increase at both low and high levels of legislative constraints, while it is most likely to decrease at moderate levels.

Originality/value

The paper is a first-cut empirical analysis of a curvilinear relationship between legislative constraints and foreign debt.
Integrating to one program for re-accreditation
Authors: Michael Boniface
Published: July 2019

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to delineate lessons for business schools seeking re-accreditation and that face previous peer-review improvement expectations, strategic and operational imperatives similar to those faced at College of Business Administration (CBA) in University of the State Capital, all pseudonyms to mask their true identity.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on qualitative case study method, CBA’s Assessment Director, Gabriel Mouton, again a pseudonym, serves as the central protagonist whose interactive dialogical and technology-enabled change processes provide instructive practical lessons around the management of assurance of learning (AoL) for re-accreditation.

Findings

This paper offers a tripartite change focus in AoL for re-accreditation: balancing program goal integration with discipline differentiation, adopting an interactive dialogical shared governance process over a top-down or bottom-up process and technology-enabled straddling program depth and breadth.

Research limitations/implications

This paper is unique to CBA’s path-historical institutional change experiences in the USA with rich-shared faculty governance that may need to be first developed before emulation in institutions where such a tradition is absent.

Practical implications

The experiences narrated in this paper offer universal lessons for business schools aspiring to continuously improve their AoL and, in the process, uphold program meaning and quality standards for stakeholder relevance and re-accreditation.

Social implications

The experiences narrated in this paper offers lessons for tying program quality to external stakeholders’ expectations in the community, including for international business schools.

Originality/value

This paper advances an original tripartite change focus specifically relevant for business schools seeking re-accreditation and that are concurrently grappling with multiple strategic and operational imperatives.
A critique of the progress of eTourism technology acceptance research: time for a hike?
Authors: Pourfakhimi Shahab , Duncan Tara , Coetzee Willem
Published: July 2019

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to evaluate eTourism technology acceptance literature to illustrate current gaps in the field and suggest two alternative perspectives that could be adopted.

Design/methodology/approach

A review of academic literature in the field of eTourism technology acceptance was undertaken combining a systematic keyword-based search and snowballing techniques leading to the identification of relevant academic journal articles published since the year 2000.

Findings

While the field of eTourism technology acceptance research has grown substantially over the past few decades, this study highlights that the majority of this research seems to have been conducted within a narrow theoretical scope. The study suggests that this has led to contemporary theoretical and philosophical advancements in understanding the psychological, sociological and neuroscientific aspects of consumer behaviour not yet being mirrored in the eTourism technology acceptance research.

Research limitations/implications

This study invites researchers to adapt alternative theoretical perspectives to create a more in-depth understanding of aspects of technology acceptance behaviour that have yet to be understood. Two distinct alternative perspectives, NeuroIS and interpretivism, are suggested.

Practical implications

This study assists researchers in developing alternative research agendas and diversifying the theoretical foundations of eTourism technology acceptance research.

Originality/value

eTourism technology acceptance research risks being left behind if it does not begin to think beyond current theoretical conceptions of consumer behaviour research. This study contributes to the wider literature by highlighting how eTourism literature is falling behind and by suggesting two innovative alternatives that allow eTourism research an exciting way forward.
Seismic wavefield modelling in two‐phase media including undulating topography with the modified Biot/squirt model by a curvilinear‐grid finite difference method
Authors: Yang Shang‐bei , Bai Chao‐ying , Greenhalgh Stewart
Published: July 2019

In this paper, we deduced the corresponding first‐order velocity–stress equation for curvilinear coordinates from the first‐order velocity–stress equation based on the modified Biot/squirt model for a two‐dimensional two‐phase medium. The equations are then numerically solved by an optimized high‐order non‐staggered finite difference scheme, that is, the dispersion relation preserving/optimization MacCormack scheme. To implement undulating free‐surface topography, we derive an analytical relationship between the derivatives of the particle velocity components and use the compact finite‐difference scheme plus a traction‐image method. In the undulating free surface and the undulating subsurface interface of two‐phase medium, the complex reflected wave and transmitted wave can be clearly recognized in the numerical simulation results. The simulation results show that the curvilinear‐grid finite‐difference method, which uses a body‐conforming grid to describe the undulating surface, can accurately reduce the numerical scattering effect of seismic wave propagation caused by the use of ladder‐shaped grid to fit the surfaces when undulating topography is present in a two‐phase isotropic medium.
Lead soaps formation and biodiversity in a XVIII Century wax seal coloured with minium
Authors: Šoltys Katarína , Planý Matej , Biocca Paola , Vianello Valentina , Bučková Mária , Puškárová Andrea , Sclocchi Maria Carla , Colaizzi Piero , Bicchieri Marina , Pangallo Domenico , Pinzari Flavia
Published: July 2019

A multidisciplinary approach was carried out in order to study the biodeterioration and the associated microbiome of a XVIII Century wax seal coloured with minium. A small wax seal fragment was observed by scanning electron microscopy combined with energy dispersive spectroscopy in non‐destructive mode. The same object was analysed by Raman and Fourier‐transform infrared spectroscopy. The identification of the microbiota growing on the seal was performed with both a culture‐dependent strategy, combined with hydrolytic assays, and high‐throughput sequencing using the MinION platform. The whole bacterial 16S rRNA gene and the fungal markers ITS and 28S rRNA were targeted. It was observed that the carnauba wax coloured with lead tetroxide (minium) was covered by a biofilm consisting of a network of filaments and other structures of microbial origin. The culture‐dependent and culture‐independent investigations showed the presence of a complex microbiota composed mainly by fungal members, which demonstrated interesting properties related to lipids and lead processing. The formation of lead soaps and secondary biogenic minerals was also described.
Aspiration, austerity and ableism: to what extent are the 2014 SEND reforms supporting young people with a life‐limiting impairment and their families to get the lives they want?
Authors: Hoskin Janet
Published: July 2019

In England, legislation introduced in 2014 to reform support for children and young people with special educational needs and disability (SEND) from birth to 25 years of age has been described as the biggest change in SEND for 30 years. Support now focuses on improved outcomes for young people with SEND, and aims to be more aspirational and person‐centred, with the child and family ‘at the heart of the process’. This could be viewed as timely for young people with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), a genetic life‐limiting impairment, who, due to improved care and interventions, are now living longer. The aim of this small‐scale qualitative study is to explore whether young people with DMD, their parents and schools feel that these reforms are able to support young people with life‐limiting impairments to get the lives they want. Findings suggest that parents and children with DMD welcome the new person‐centred philosophy, but are still forced to fight for funding and support in a system of reduced resources. Austerity and its role in the narrative of neo‐liberalism is also explored.
Dietary preferences and diabetic risk in China: A large‐scale nationwide Internet data‐based study
Authors: Zhao Zhiyun , Li Mian , Li Chao , Wang Tiange , Xu Yu , Zhan Zhizheng , Dong Weishan , Shen Zhiyong , Xu Min , Lu Jieli , Chen Yuhong , Lai Shenghan , Fan Wei , Bi Yufang , Wang Weiqing , Ning Guang
Published: July 2019

Background

Unhealthy diet is one of the important risk factors of diabetes, which is one of the major public health problems in China. The Internet tools provide large‐scale passively collected data that show people's dietary preferences and their relationship with diabetes risk.

Methods

212 341 708 individuals' dietary preference labels were created based on Internet data from online search and shopping software. Metabolic data obtained from the 2010 China Noncommunicable Disease Surveillance, which had 98 658 participants, was used to estimate the relation between dietary preferences geographical distribution and diabetes risk.

Results

Chinese dietary preferences had different geographical distribution, which is related to the local climate and consumption level. Fried food preference proportion distribution was significantly positively correlated with diabetes prevalence, hypertension prevalence and body mass index (BMI). Similarly, grilled food preference proportion distribution had significantly positive correlation with the prevalence of diabetes and hypertension. In contrast, spicy food preference proportion distribution was negatively correlated with diabetes prevalence. Sweet food preference proportion distribution was positively related to diabetes prevalence. Using dietary preferences data to predict regional prevalence of diabetes, hypertension and BMI, the average values of error (95% CI) between the three paired predicted and observed values were 9.8% (6.9%‐12.7%), 7.5% (5.0%‐10.0%) and 1.6% (1.2%‐2.0%), respectively.

Conclusions

Fried food, grilled food, and sweet food preferences were positively related to diabetes risk whereas spicy food preference was negatively correlated with diabetes risk. Dietary preferences based on passively collected Internet data could be used to predict regional prevalence of diabetes, hypertension, and BMI and showed good value for public health monitoring.
Austerity and Hospitals in Deficit: Is PPP Termination the Answer?
Authors: Hellowell Mark , Stafford Anne , Stapleton Pamela
Published: July 2019

While austerity is commonly presented as a necessary, although undesirable, reduction in public expenditure, this framing may disguise a re‐imagining of the state whereby governments seize the opportunity of economic difficulties to shrink the state. This paper offers a critical examination of the nature of austerity by exploring the case of the UK's National Health Service (NHS), which according to political rhetoric is protected from austerity cuts. However, in the context of eight years of historically low funding growth coupled with increasing demand pressures from a growing and ageing population, the NHS has for several consecutive years faced substantial overspending by NHS provider organizations. With the Government intent on continuing its deficit and debt reduction path within a framework of ‘austerity’ focused almost exclusively on the expenditure side, NHS organizations have begun to explore radical solutions for reducing their costs. Following reported savings obtained by the early termination of a PPP contract at the Hexham General Hospital, politicians and some NHS managers have considered whether this experience might be repeated elsewhere. Our aims in this paper are to examine the financial feasibility of responding to the pressures created by austerity in this particular way, and to challenge the notion that the NHS has been protected from austerity. We extend the evidence base on PPP contract termination and analyze statistical information and financial statements in the public domain to highlight the legal and financial realities of early PPP termination.