bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Electron-phonon interaction effect on the energy levels and diamagnetic susceptibility of quantum wires: Parallelogram and triangle cross section
Authors: Khordad R. , Bahramiyan H.
Published: March 2014

In this paper, optical phonon modes are studied within the framework of dielectric continuum approach for parallelogram and triangular quantum wires, including the derivation of the electron-phonon interaction Hamiltonian and a discussion on the effects of this interaction on the electronic energy levels. The polaronic energy shift is calculated for both ground-state and excited-state electron energy levels by applying the perturbative approach. The effects of the electron-phonon interaction on the expectation value of r2 and diamagnetic susceptibility for both quantum wires are discussed.
Influence of laser pulse duration on extreme ultraviolet and ion emission features from tin plasmas
Authors: Roy A. , Harilal S. S. , Polek M. P. , Hassan S. M. , Endo A. , Hassanein A.
Published: March 2014

We investigated the role of laser pulse duration and intensity on extreme ultraviolet (EUV) generation and ion emission from a laser produced Sn plasma. For producing plasmas, planar slabs of pure Sn were irradiated with 1064 nm Nd:YAG laser pulses with varying pulse duration (5–20 ns) and intensity. Experimental results performed at CMUXE indicate that the conversion efficiency (CE) of the EUV radiation strongly depend on laser pulse width and intensity, with a maximum CE of ∼2.0% measured for the shortest laser pulse width used (5 ns). Faraday Cup ion analysis of Sn plasma showed that the ion flux kinetic profiles are shifted to higher energy side with the reduction in laser pulse duration and narrower ion kinetic profiles are obtained for the longest pulse width used. However, our initial results showed that at a constant laser energy, the ion flux is more or less constant regardless of the excitation laser pulse width. The enhanced EUV emission obtained at shortest laser pulse duration studied is related to efficient laser-plasma reheating supported by presence of higher energy ions at these pulse durations.
The role of helium implantation induced vacancy defect on hardening of tungsten
Authors: Ou Xin , Anwand Wolfgang , Kögler Reinhard , Zhou Hong-Bo , Richter Asta
Published: March 2014

Vacancy-type defects created by helium implantation in tungsten and their impact on the nano-hardness characteristics were investigated by correlating the results from the positron annihilation spectroscopy and the nano-indentation technique. Helium implantation was performed at room temperature (RT) and at an elevated temperate of 600 °C. Also, the effect of post-annealing of the RT implanted sample was studied. The S parameter characterizing the open volume in the material was found to increase after helium irradiation and is significantly enhanced for the samples thermally treated at 600 °C either by irradiation at high temperature or by post-annealing. Two types of helium-vacancy defects were detected after helium irradiation; small defects with high helium-to-vacancy ratio (low S parameter) for RT irradiation and large defects with low helium-to-vacancy ratio (high S parameter) for thermally treated tungsten. The hardness of the heat treated tungsten coincides with the S parameter, and hence is controlled by the large helium-vacancy defects. The hardness of tungsten irradiated at RT without thermal treatment is dominated by manufacturing related defects such as dislocation loops and impurity clusters and additionally by trapped He atoms from irradiation effects, which enhance hardness. He-stabilized dislocation loops mainly cause the very high hardness values in RT irradiated samples without post-annealing.
Scanned stripping chronopotentiometry at bismuth film rotating disc electrodes: a method for quantitative dynamic metal speciation
Authors: Pinheiro Jose Paulo , Rocha Luciana S. , Goveia Danielle , Town Raewyn M.
Published: March 2014

Environmental context
Electroanalytical methods have found wide application in trace metal speciation analysis in environmental systems. The need to find functional alternatives to mercury electrodes for in situ speciation studies has encouraged the use of bismuth as a solid-state electrode substrate. We demonstrate the utility of bismuth electrodes for quantitative dynamic speciation analysis.

Abstract
Bismuth film electrodes are employed for dynamic metal speciation analysis of PbII complexes by stripping chronopotentiometry at scanned deposition potential (SSCP). Their performance is found to be comparable to that of mercury-film electrodes. The quantitative SSCP expressions that describe the thermodynamic and kinetic complexation parameters are straightforwardly applicable to this solid electrode.
Soil microbial responses to labile carbon input differ in adjacent sugarcane and forest soils
Authors: Brackin Richard , Robinson Nicole , Lakshmanan Prakash , Schmidt Susanne
Published: March 2014

Soil microbial activity can be constrained by availability of energy because soil carbon (C) occurs mostly as complex soil organic matter (SOM), with relatively small quantities of high-energy, labile C. Decomposition of SOM is mediated by energy-requiring processes that need extracellular enzymes produced by soil microbial communities. We examined how an increase in energy status via sucrose supplementation affects the production of SOM-degrading enzymes, comparing matched soils under forest and sugarcane agriculture with histories of contrasting inputs of complex and labile C. Activities of SOM-degrading enzymes increased in both soils after sucrose addition, but CO2 production increased more rapidly in the sugarcane soil. The forest soil had greater increases in phosphatase and glucosidase activities, whereas the sugarcane soil had greater increases in protease and urease activity. The contrasting microbial community-level physiological profiles of the soils further diverged at 30 and 61 days after sucrose amendment, before returning to near pre-treatment profiles by 150 days. We interpreted the increasing soil enzyme production as indicative that enzyme production was limited by energy availability in both soils, despite contrasting histories of labile v. recalcitrant C supply. Quicker responses in sugarcane soil suggest pre-selection towards populations that exploit labile inputs.
Differential Cav2.1 and Cav2.3 channel inhibition by baclofen and α-conotoxin Vc1.1 via GABAB receptor activation
Authors: Berecki Géza , McArthur Jeffrey R. , Cuny Hartmut , Clark Richard J. , Adams David J.
Published: March 2014

Neuronal Cav2.1 (P/Q-type), Cav2.2 (N-type), and Cav2.3 (R-type) calcium channels contribute to synaptic transmission and are modulated through G protein–coupled receptor pathways. The analgesic α-conotoxin Vc1.1 acts through γ-aminobutyric acid type B (GABAB) receptors (GABABRs) to inhibit Cav2.2 channels. We investigated GABABR-mediated modulation by Vc1.1, a cyclized form of Vc1.1 (c-Vc1.1), and the GABABR agonist baclofen of human Cav2.1 or Cav2.3 channels heterologously expressed in human embryonic kidney cells. 50 µM baclofen inhibited Cav2.1 and Cav2.3 channel Ba2+ currents by ∼40%, whereas c-Vc1.1 did not affect Cav2.1 but potently inhibited Cav2.3, with a half-maximal inhibitory concentration of ∼300 pM. Depolarizing paired pulses revealed that ∼75% of the baclofen inhibition of Cav2.1 was voltage dependent and could be relieved by strong depolarization. In contrast, baclofen or Vc1.1 inhibition of Cav2.3 channels was solely mediated through voltage-independent pathways that could be disrupted by pertussis toxin, guanosine 5′-[β-thio]diphosphate trilithium salt, or the GABABR antagonist CGP55845. Overexpression of the kinase c-Src significantly increased inhibition of Cav2.3 by c-Vc1.1. Conversely, coexpression of a catalytically inactive double mutant form of c-Src or pretreatment with a phosphorylated pp60c-Src peptide abolished the effect of c-Vc1.1. Site-directed mutational analyses of Cav2.3 demonstrated that tyrosines 1761 and 1765 within exon 37 are critical for inhibition of Cav2.3 by c-Vc1.1 and are involved in baclofen inhibition of these channels. Remarkably, point mutations introducing specific c-Src phosphorylation sites into human Cav2.1 channels conferred c-Vc1.1 sensitivity. Our findings show that Vc1.1 inhibition of Cav2.3, which defines Cav2.3 channels as potential targets for analgesic α-conotoxins, is caused by specific c-Src phosphorylation sites in the C terminus.
Cornelius Nepos
Authors: Stem Rex
Published: March 2014

Cornelius Nepos (b. c. 110–d. c. 25 bce) is the first biographer in Latin whose works survive and the first biographer from antiquity whose surviving works include a series of lives of political men. He is not known to have been involved in politics, and he seems to have lived a quiet, scholarly life. He was friends with some of the distinguished literary minds of his time: Catullus dedicated a collection of poems to him, two books of his correspondence with Cicero were later collected, and Atticus shared his interest in chronological and antiquarian research. Most of his attested corpus is lost: the Chronica in three books, an Exempla in at least five books, and a very large biographical collection titled On Famous Men, which probably contained over three hundred brief lives in at least sixteen paired books comparing Romans and non-Romans in different areas of achievement. All that survives of On Famous Men (and, in fact, of Nepos’s entire corpus) are two individual lives (Cato [the Elder], Atticus) from the book On Roman Historians and the complete book On Foreign Generals, which contains the lives of twenty-two subjects (averaging less than four pages each). His style is plain and his tone moralizing, but he brings the Greek past to bear on his Roman present in a direct and highly accessible way. No ancient author cites the surviving portion of Nepos’s corpus, yet his influence can be perceived on later biographers such as Suetonius and Plutarch as well as on other scholarly Latin writers such as Pliny the Elder and Aulus Gellius.
Organizational Development and Change
Authors: Guerrero Erick G. , Fenwick Karissa
Published: March 2014

This literature review is designed to provide an overview of the major theories of organizational change and development needed for understanding macro social work practice. It introduces the reader to theoretical frameworks underpinning organizational change from different perspectives. These perspectives will provide readers with an opportunity to critically assess theories and their applications to social work management and planning in human services settings. The review’s main emphasis is on social work’s principle of system change. Particular attention is focused on the study of relevant issues, such as the role of external and internal factors associated with organizational change in terms of changing of routines, practices, or structure. The compilation of studies in this comprehensive literature review includes seminal readings on the foundations of organizational thought regarding change and development, as well as studies that successfully incorporate such foundations to inform an evidentiary base on organizational responses to lead planned change.
Alfred Tarski
Authors: Gómez-Torrente Mario
Published: March 2014

Alfred Tarski (b. 1901–d. 1983) was a Polish–American mathematician, widely regarded as one of the greatest logicians of all time. Tarski’s work has been influential in philosophy, especially through his theories of three concepts of traditional philosophical and, specifically, logical interest: the concepts of truth, of logical consequence, and of a logical constant. These theories amount to methods for the mathematical characterization of those concepts relative to particular formalized languages. However, he wrote very little on strictly philosophical matters, including issues concerning the philosophical (as opposed to mathematical) aspects of those three theories. The literature bearing on Tarski’s work on philosophical issues, therefore, consists for the most part of discussions of the abstract nature of those theories, and it does not make special efforts to elucidate Tarski’s actual philosophical views on them. Philosophical discussions of Tarski’s theory of truth have considered issues such as whether the theory is compatible with physicalism, whether it is in some sense an analysis of the concept of truth, whether it can be the basis for a theory of linguistic meaning, whether it provides an adequate solution to the liar paradox, and others. Philosophical discussions of his theory of logical consequence have dealt with issues such as whether it is in some sense an analysis of the concept and whether it is extensionally adequate. Philosophical discussions of the theory of logical constants have dealt especially with the question of whether it provides a plausible view of the extent and nature of logic. Nevertheless, interest in Tarski’s actual philosophical views on his theories has steadily grown over the years, and there is currently a considerable literature on these and other historical and exegetical aspects of Tarski’s work, including especially issues concerning truth and logical consequence. There is now also a rich literature that explores Tarski’s philosophical background and his general philosophical views. Finally, Tarski’s more strictly mathematical work, though largely unfamiliar to philosophers, is of enormous importance for mathematical logicians, and it is also of great interest to philosophically oriented historians of logic. This mathematical work includes work spanning set theory, model theory, algebra and geometry, and features results and developments such as the Banach-Tarski paradox, the theorem on the indefinability of truth, the completeness and decidability of elementary algebra and geometry, and the creation and mathematical study of the notions of cardinal, ordinal, relation, and cylindric algebras.
John McTaggart
Authors: Thomas Emily
Published: March 2014

Cambridge philosopher J. M. E. McTaggart (b. 1866–d. 1925) was a major proponent of British idealism. Today, he is especially remembered for his argument against the unreality of time. McTaggart’s broader metaphysical system, delivered in his two-volume The Nature of Existence, argued for a personal idealism on which the universe comprises many minds and their perceptions. McTaggart produced lengthy critiques of Hegel’s philosophy, and his system borrows from Hegel, but the final result is uniquely his own. McTaggart wrote on many other topics too, including the philosophy of religion, love, and ethics. Although he belonged to the British idealist school, McTaggart enjoyed close relationships with several Cambridge “new realists”—his pupils included Bertrand Russell, G. E. Moore, and C. D. Broad. Most of the scholarship on McTaggart concerns his views on time, but several studies also cover his idealism and other aspects of his thought.
Affixation
Authors: Manova Stela
Published: March 2014

Affixation is a morphological process whereby a bound morpheme, an affix, is attached to a morphological base. Diachronically, the English word affix was first used as a verb and has its origin in Latin: affixus, past participle of the verb affigere, ad- ‘to’ + figere ‘to fix’. Affixation falls in the scope of Morphology where bound morphemes are either roots or affixes. Prefixes (affixes that precede the root) and suffixes (affixes that follow the root) are the most common types of affixes cross-linguistically. Affixes mark derivational (-er in teach-er) and inflectional (-s in teacher-s) changes, and affixation is the most common strategy that human languages employ for derivation of new words and word forms. However, languages vary in the ways they express the same semantics, and if in English the noun biolog-ist is derived from biology through the addition of the suffix -ist, in Russian (and other Slavic languages) the same derivation does not involve the addition of an affix but subtraction of form: biolog-ija ‘biology’ → biolog ‘biologist’. Most languages make an extensive use of affixes (most European, African, Australian, and Amerindian languages are of this type), whereas others (e.g., Vietnamese), hardly do. In languages that use affixes, there is a general preference for suffixes over prefixes.
Sex Education in the United States
Authors: Scott Maggie , Marsh Carolyn S. , Fields Jessica
Published: March 2014

The terms sex education, sexuality education, and sexual health education—mentioned throughout this article—all reflect the diverse scholarship that considers how sex and sexuality are taught and learned in different contexts across the lifespan. While people learn about sex and sexuality throughout their lives, most discussion of sexuality education focuses on the lessons learned by children, adolescents, and youth. And, though young people learn about sex and sexuality from various sources, US debates about sexuality education focus on school-based learning. This article considers the social construction of childhood and debates around school-based sex education as well as scholarship that examines other sites of sex and sexuality education. Families, religious and secular communities, media, and the Internet all play significant roles in dispersing information and values surrounding sex and sexuality. These and other sites of sexuality education reflect and contribute to societal and cultural ideologies around sex and sexuality. Research on sexuality education has also considered the ways sex education has the potential to reproduce, as well as contest, societal inequalities. This article focuses on sexuality education in the United States, and while the majority of the scholarship reflects this focus, included are some texts written within other national contexts that have influenced scholarship or thinking about sexuality education research and practice within the United States. While this article does not contain a section explicitly engaging with citizenship, the ways sexuality education has been involved in constructing and policing US national identity comes up in several sections. (The authors thank Jen Gilbert and anonymous reviewers for feedback on earlier versions of this article.)
Sino-Japanese Wars, 1895-1945
Authors: Paine S.C.M.
Published: March 2014

The First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) shattered the traditional Confucian order in East Asia and produced a historically anomalous situation with Japan, not China, the dominant regional power. The Second Sino-Japanese War (1931–1945) marked Japan’s failed attempt to carve out an empire on the Asia mainland sufficient to practice autarky amidst the Great Depression. These were also two of Japan’s three wars aimed at Russian containment. (The third was the intervening Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905.) The literature mainly vilifies Japanese militarism and presents China as the victim. Coverage in the English language is limited but growing. In Taiwan, and particularly China, there is a burgeoning literature that tends to focus on the Chinese side. In Japan, the literature is not as extensive and it tends to focus on the Japanese side. Yet, understanding these wars requires analyses of both sides and of their geographical neighbors, as Russia figured prominently in both Chinese and Japanese strategic thinking. Articles are a particularly useful way to bypass the polemics and focus on specific topics.
Dispute Settlement in International Law
Authors: Marotti Loris , Palchetti Paolo
Published: March 2014

The basic principles and methods governing the settlement of international disputes today—particularly interstate disputes—are substantially the same as those that were identified and enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations in 1945. Parties to a dispute are under a duty to settle it in a peaceful way (Article 2, paragraph 3 of the UN Charter). While barred from resorting to armed force, the parties remain however, at least in principle, “masters” of the procedure for dispute settlement, and of the outcome. In the absence of a precise treaty obligation, they are free to decide the particular means of dispute settlement they prefer (Article 33 of the UN Charter). More broadly, any settlement will inevitably depend, directly or indirectly, on the agreement of the parties. Thus, the whole edifice of dispute settlement at the international level is characterized by an inherent tension between a legal duty to settle disputes in a peaceful way and the absence of any real compulsory mechanism that may render such obligation effective. Against this legal background, the notion of dispute settlement covers a great variety of different settlement devices. Such procedures can be distinguished one from the other on the basis of different criteria, such as whether they contemplate the intervention of a third party, whether the settlement is based on the application of rules of international law, or whether the final outcome of the procedure has a binding or nonbinding character. The classification of these different procedures; the identification of their respective merits and shortcomings, in absolute or comparative terms; their suitability in relation to different categories of disputes—these are all issues that have been traditionally the object of a vast body of literature. On a broader perspective, recent trends, which have brought some changes in the field of the international dispute settlement, have also attracted the attention of doctrine. These trends include the progressive institutionalization of the procedures, thanks also to the growing role of international organizations in this area, the multiplication of settlement mechanisms and the ensuing problem of the possible interaction or conflict between them, the creation of new courts and tribunals, and the rise of adjudication as a means of dispute settlement.
World Cities
Authors: Derudder Ben
Published: March 2014

Large and significant cities have fascinated researchers since the early twentieth century. This is indicated by the wide range of terms used to describe cities, whereby since the 2000s “global cities” and “world cities” have gradually become key—yet at times also contested—concepts. This article provides a bibliographic introduction to this wide-ranging and sometimes seemingly incoherent literature. A first major reason for the sometimes-fuzzy character of “the global/world city literature” is that there have been earlier, related uses of these terms. Although it is difficult to identify a straightforward disjuncture between these earlier uses of the terms and what are commonly seen as key foundational texts in the present-day literature, we can observe a gradual trend toward conceptualizing urbanization processes at transnational rather than national scales. In earlier writings using the global/world cities terminology, the cosmopolitan character of cities was above all interpreted as an expression of their host states’ geopolitical and geo-economic power. Contemporary literature, however, considers city/state relations to be either fundamentally reworked or less consequential for understanding major cities. A second reason for the wide-ranging meaning of the “global city” and “world city” concepts is that, in addition to both terms sometimes having different meanings and connotations in their own right, they are also part of an increasingly diverse literature exploring transnationalization processes and/in contemporary cities, including research on “global city-regions” and more recently also “globalizing cities” and “cities in globalization.” Although the terminology and what it seeks to capture is therefore inevitably to some degree confounded, in the remainder of this article, a straightforward distinction will be made between “world cities” (the more specific literature detailed in this article) and “cities in globalization” (the increasingly broad and diversified literature in which the world city literature itself is embedded).
Geography and Film
Authors: Lukinbeal Christopher
Published: March 2014

A sustained inquiry into film by geographers began in the 1980s. Films were studied as cultural texts and as cultural commodities. Film as text assumes that it is authored, read, and interpreted according to the unique positionalities and contexts of viewing. Geographers deploying the author-text-reader (ATR) model tend to operate from a variety of anti-essentialist standpoints and have used this approach to answer questions about how the internal meanings of films are produced and consumed, paying particular attention to issues such as the city, mobility, landscape, gender, sexuality, and geopolitics. Conversely, geographers interested in film as a cultural commodity, an object of symbolic value circulating within the global economy, may choose instead to follow a production-product-distribution-consumption approach. According to this model, the significance of cinematic goods cannot be wholly understood by focusing on the film texts’ internal meaning but must be examined in relation to the economic conditions of their production and consumption. Film is therefore an assemblage of textual and extratextual processes and actors. Research in this area has focused on issues such as the industrial complex of film production, distribution, and consumption; the transnational practices of film industries following the information revolution of the 1970s; and the ensuing cultural hegemony of Hollywood on the global stage. Although the continued use of the text metaphor has been the subject of debate since the turn of the twenty-first century, this approach and its attention to film content has come to prevail in film geography research and hence constitutes a large portion of the works selected in this article. There has been a rising interest in cinematic cartography with some special journal collections published as notable books, including Tom Conley’s Cartographic Cinema in 2007 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press); a special issue on cinematic cartography (Cartographic Journal 46, no. 1 [2009]), edited by Sébastien Caquard and D. R. Fraser Taylor; Film, Mobility and Urban Space: A Cinematic Geography of Liverpool by Les Roberts in 2012 from Liverpool University Press; the special collection “#Mapping” in NECSUS 18, no. 2 (2018) by Avezzù, Castro, and Fidotta; and Media’s Mapping Impulse by Lukinbeal et al. in 2019 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag). More recent publications are reflective of place-based film studies where landscapes are produced or consumed. A special issue, Doing Film Geography (Volume 87, Supplement 1), with fifteen papers was edited by Chris Lukinbeal and Elisabeth Sommerlad for GeoJournal in 2022. The editors’ work reflects a growing movement toward empiric place-based fieldwork paired with a variety of analytic techniques, such as hermeneutics, economics, cartographic, and nonrepresentational theories, to name a few.
Development and Evaluation of AmplifyRP Acceler8 Diagnostic Assay for the Detection of Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. vasinfectum Race 4 in Cotton
Authors: Doan Hung K. , Zhang Shulu , Davis R. Michael
Published: March 2014

A rapid and reliable molecular diagnostic assay, AmplifyRP Acceler8, was developed for the direct detection of Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. vasinfectum (FOV) race 4, a virulent genotype of the Fusarium wilt pathogen of cotton (Gossypium spp.), in soil and cotton tissue. Unlike traditional polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays, the recombinase polymerase amplification based-assay described here utilizes an advanced isothermal technology where the amplification is carried out at a single constant temperature, 39°C, without the need of a thermal cycler. The AmplifyRP Acceler8 diagnostic assay consistently detected FOV race 4 from all infected tissue samples. The test is rapid, simple, and more sensitive than conventional PCR. The AmplifyRP Acceler8 diagnostic assay detected DNA from FOV race 4 at concentrations of 1 ng/μL and above. In addition, it did not amplify DNA from other known FOV races (races 1, 2, 3, 6, and 8). The whole process from sample preparation to reading the results can be completed in as little as 30 min. The test can detect FOV race 4 from cotton taproots, petioles, and stems.

Accepted for publication 6 January 2014. Published 15 March 2014.
Body Composition by Computed Tomography as a Predictor of Toxicity in Patients With Renal Cell Carcinoma Treated With Sunitinib
Authors: Cushen Samantha J. , Power Derek G. , Teo Min Y. , MacEneaney Peter , Maher Michael M. , McDermott Ray , O’Sullivan Kathleen , Ryan Aoife M.
Published: March 2014

Background:

Sunitinib is a standard first-line option for metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC). Body composition is a prognostic factor in cancer patients and patients with loss of skeletal muscle mass and fat-free mass (FFM) are prone to dose-limiting toxicity (DLT) during targeted drug therapy. We investigated whether body composition by computed tomography predicted DLT from sunitinib in mRCC.

Methods:

Patients with clear cell mRCC receiving sunitinib (50 mg) were included. Skeletal muscle cross-sectional area at L3 was measured by computed tomography. Sarcopenia was defined using published cutoffs. Toxicity was assessed after 4 cycles of the drug.

Results:

Fifty-five patients (43 male), mean age 64 years were included. Overall, 33% (N=18) of all patients were sarcopenic and of these 12.7% (N=7) were sarcopenic and overweight or obese. DLT occurred in <6 months in 53% of patients (44% male vs. 83% female) and those who experienced DLT were older (68 vs. 60 y), had a lower skeletal muscle index (51.7 vs. 59.4 cm2/m2), a lower FFM (51.4 vs. 57.7 kg), and received a higher drug dose in mg/kg FFM (0.9 vs. 0.8). Patients with the lowest compared with the highest measurements of skeletal muscle mass experienced more DLT, respectively, 92% versus 57% and experienced on average 5 toxicities versus 2.

Conclusions:

Sarcopenia is prevalent in patients with mRCC, is an occult condition in patients with normal/high body mass index, and is a significant predictor of DLT in patients receiving sunitinib. Our results highlight the potential use of baseline body composition to predict toxicity.
Randomized Phase II Trial of Irinotecan/Docetaxel or Irinotecan/Docetaxel Plus Cetuximab for Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer
Authors: Burtness Barbara , Powell Mark , Catalano Paul , Berlin Jordan , Liles Darla K. , Chapman Andrew E. , Mitchell Edith , Benson Al B.
Published: March 2014

Objectives:

The primary objective was to determine the response rate in patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer treated in first line with irinotecan/docetaxel combination (Arm A) or with irinotecan/docetaxel/cetuximab combination (Arm B). Secondary endpoints were progression-free survival (PFS), overall survival (OS), toxicity, and the rate of thromboembolic events with prophylactic enoxaparin sodium.

Patients and Methods:

Patients were eligible who had measurable, metastatic adenocarcinoma of the pancreas, and normal bilirubin. All patients received anticoagulation. Docetaxel (35 mg/m2) and irinotecan (50 mg/m2) were administered once a week for 4 weeks followed by 2 weeks rest (Arm A) alone or with the addition of cetuximab (Arm B). The primary endpoint was response rate.

Results:

A total of 87 eligible patients were enrolled and treated. Grade 3/4 toxicity was observed in 74% of patients in Arm A and 76% in Arm B. The principal grade 3/4 toxicity was diarrhea. Response rates were 4.5% in Arm A and 7% in Arm B. Median PFS and OS were 3.9 and 6.5 months in Arm A and 4.5 and 5.4 months in Arm B.

Conclusions:

Docetaxel/irinotecan combination is associated with considerable toxicity. Objective responses were infrequent and addition of cetuximab in an unselected population was not beneficial, but PFS and OS were comparable with those achieved with other regimens. Docetaxel/irinotecan therapy is active in metastatic pancreatic cancer.
Comparison of SEER Treatment Data With Medicare Claims
Authors: Noone Anne-Michelle , Lund Jennifer L. , Mariotto Angela , Cronin Kathleen , McNeel Timothy , Deapen Dennis , Warren Joan L.
Published: March 2014

Background:

The population-based Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) registries collect information on first-course treatment, including surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and hormone therapy. However, the SEER program does not release data on chemotherapy or hormone therapy due to uncertainties regarding data completeness. Activities are ongoing to investigate the opportunity to supplement SEER treatment data with other data sources.

Methods:

Using the linked SEER-Medicare data, we examined the validity of the SEER data to identify receipt of chemotherapy and radiation therapy among those aged 65 and older diagnosed from 2000 to 2006 with bladder, female breast, colorectal, lung, ovarian, pancreas, or prostate cancer and hormone therapy among men diagnosed with prostate cancer at age 65 or older. Treatment collected by SEER was compared with treatment as determined by Medicare claims, using Medicare claims as the gold standard. The κ, sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive values, and negative predictive values were calculated for the receipt of each treatment modality.

Results:

The overall sensitivity of SEER data to identify chemotherapy, radiation, and hormone therapy receipt was moderate (68%, 80%, and 69%, respectively) and varied by cancer site, stage, and patient characteristics. The overall positive predictive value was high (>85%) for all treatment types and cancer sites except chemotherapy for prostate cancer.

Conclusions:

SEER data should not generally be used for comparisons of treated and untreated individuals or to estimate the proportion of treated individuals in the population. Augmenting SEER data with other data sources will provide the most accurate treatment information.
Exploring the spatially explicit predictions of the Maximum Entropy Theory of Ecology
Authors: McGlinn Daniel , Xiao Xiao , Kitzes Justin , White Ethan P
Published: March 2014

The Maximum Entropy Theory of Ecology (METE) is a unified theory of biodiversity that attempts to simultaneously predict patterns of species abundance, size, and spatial structure. The spatial predictions of this theory have repeatedly performed well at predicting diversity patterns across scales. However, the theoretical development and evaluation of METE has focused on predicting patterns that ignore inter-site spatial correlations. As a result the theory has not been evaluated using one of the core components of spatial structure. We develop and test a semi-recursive version of METE?s spatially explicit predictions for the distance decay relationship of community similarity and compare METE?s performance to the classic random placement model of completely random species distributions. This provides a better understanding and stronger test of METE?s spatial community predictions. We analytically derived and simulated METE?s spatially explicit expectations for the Sorensen index of community similarity. We then compared the distance decay of community similarity of 16 mapped plant communities to METE and the random placement model. The version of METE we examined was successful at capturing the general functional form of empirical distance decay relationships, a negative power function relationship between community similarity and distance. However, the semi-recursive approach consistently over-predicted the degree and rate of species turnover and yielded worse predictions than the random placement model. Our results suggest that while METE's current spatial models accurately predict the spatial scaling of species occupancy, and therefore core ecological patterns like the species-area relationship, its semi-recursive form does not accurately characterize spatially-explicit patterns of correlation. More generally, this suggests that tests of spatial theories based only on the species-area relationship may appear to support the underlying theory despite significant deviations in important aspects of spatial structure.
Geometry shapes evolution of early multicellularity
Authors: Libby Eric , Ratcliff Will , Travisano Mike , Kerr Ben
Published: March 2014

Organisms have increased in complexity through a series of major evolutionary transitions, in which formerly autonomous entities become parts of a novel higher-level entity. One intriguing feature of the higher-level entity after some major transitions is a division of reproductive labor among its lower-level units. Although it can have clear benefits once established, it is unknown how such reproductive division of labor originates. We consider a recent evolution experiment on the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a unique platform to address the issue of reproductive differentiation during an evolutionary transition in individuality. In the experiment, independent yeast lineages evolved a multicellular snowflake-like cluster form in response to gravity selection. Shortly after the evolution of clusters, the yeast evolved higher rates of cell death. While cell death enables clusters to split apart and form new groups, it also reduces their performance in the face of gravity selection. To understand the selective value of increased cell death, we create a mathematical model of the cellular arrangement within snowflake yeast clusters. The model reveals that the mechanism of cell death and the geometry of the snowflake interact in complex, evolutionarily important ways. We find that the organization of snowflake yeast imposes powerful limitations on the available space for new cell growth. By dying more frequently, cells in clusters avoid encountering space limitations, and, paradoxically, reach higher numbers. In addition, selection for particular group sizes can explain the increased rate of apoptosis both in terms of total cell number and total numbers of collectives. Thus, by considering the geometry of a primitive multicellular organism we can gain insight into the initial emergence of reproductive division of labor during an evolutionary transition in individuality.
Unified approach for determining tetragonal tungsten bronze crystal structures
Authors: Smirnov M. , Saint-Grégoire P.
Published: March 2014

Tetragonal tungsten bronze (TTB) oxides are one of the most important classes of ferroelectrics. Many of these framework structures undergo ferroelastic transformations related to octahedron tilting deformations. Such tilting deformations are closely related to the rigid unit modes (RUMs). This paper discusses the whole set of RUMs in an ideal TTB lattice and possible crystal structures which can emerge owing to the condensation of some of them. Analysis of available experimental data for the TTB-like niobates lends credence to the obtained theoretical predictions.
Staying or leaving
Authors: Avanzi Lorenzo , Fraccaroli Franco , Sarchielli Guido , Ullrich Johannes , van Dick Rolf
Published: March 2014

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to combine social identity and social exchange theories into a model explaining turnover intentions.

Design/methodology/approach

– Questionnaires measuring the constructs of organizational identification, perceived organizational support, emotional exhaustion, and turnover intentions were completed by 195 employees.

Findings

– Results supported our hypotheses: social identification increased the perception of organizational support which in turn reduced emotional exhaustion which was finally related to turnover intentions. Furthermore, social identification moderated the relation between organizational support and turnover intentions.

Research limitations/implications

– The study design was cross-sectional and data were collected using self-report with no assessment of objective data.

Practical implications

– To reduce turnover, managers should focus on both support and employees’ identification with teams and organizations.

Originality/value

– This study combines two theoretical perspectives into an integrative framework and simultaneous moderated-mediation was used to test the model.
A dynamic model for hardware/software obsolescence
Authors: Jenab Kouroush , Noori Kourosh , D. Weinsier Philip , Khoury Sam
Published: March 2014

Purpose

– Since technological lifecycles do not always match hardware/software (HW/SW) lifecycles, obsolescence becomes a major issue in system lifecycle management as it can cause premature and unscheduled replacement of HW/SW subsystems. The purpose of this paper is to report a dynamic model to predict the obsolescence dates for HW/SW subsystems.

Design/methodology/approach

– The dynamic model estimates obsolescence dates for HW/SW subsystems based on graph theory concept. The model depicts the stages of subsystem obsolescence through transmittances composed of probability and time-distribution elements. The model predicts probability and mean time to obsolescence for line replaceable units (LRUs) over the lifetime of the system. An illustrative example in signaling systems used in a train control system was used to demonstrate the application of this model.

Findings

– Generally, the short timespan for HW/SW subsystems, which are periodically replaced with newer technologies, results in the development of new product lines by suppliers while they try to support legacy systems for a reasonable period of time. Obsolescence of HW/SW subsystems increases operation and maintenance costs as legacy systems are typically more expensive to maintain. The costs can be reduced by an optimum time to obsolescence derived from the model.

Practical implications

– This research adds to the body of knowledge on asset management and maintenance strategy. This paper may be of particular interest to reliability, maintainability and availability practitioners and project managers.

Originality/value

– The originality of this paper lies in developing a graph-based model that predicts probability and mean time to obsolescence for LRUs over the lifetime of the system.
E-leadership effectiveness in virtual teams: motivating language perspective
Authors: Fan Kai-Tang , Chen Yuan-Ho , Wang Ching-Wen , Chen Minder
Published: March 2014

Purpose

– Virtual teams are becoming a norm in current knowledge-based society and offer a wide range of organizational benefits. This paper aims to investigate the effects of leaders’ motivating language (ML) and feedback approach on virtual team members’ creativity performance.

Design/methodology/approach

– A 2×2 with pre-test and post-test experimental design was employed to explore how to stimulate virtual team members’ creativity performance using a group decision support system.

Findings

– The results show that leaders’ ML and feedback approach via e-mail instructions have different interaction effects on members’ creativity and idea generation performance. Team members receiving direction-giving instructions generate more ideas under the demanding feedback approach and team member receiving instructions with more empathetic language exhibit higher creativity performance under the encouraging feedback approach.

Research limitations/implications

– Shortcomings of virtual environment and leadership remain the major factors influencing such findings. Since the results are also restrained by the functionality of the utilized software tool, tools for virtual teams are recommended to include features that can support the effective use of team leaders’ motivational language.

Social implications

– Virtual team leaders should provide proper guidance to members using understanding and empathetic wording approach. For task-oriented work, leaders should consider giving more specific instructions and provide constant feedback for completed work. For creative work, leaders should give positive encouragement as feedback or even challenge team members to stimulate their creativity. Additionally, facilitation rules can be set up in advance so that the intelligent agent can timely send out follow-up instructions/feedback.

Originality/value

– The gained insights beneficially help tool developers for virtual teams build/enhance their tools based on the need of team leaders. This paper also usefully offers important implications regarding how to motivate virtual team members’ creative thinking.
Data-driven optimized vehicle-level engineering specifications
Authors: Kang Kilmo , Kang Changmuk , S. Hong Yoo
Published: March 2014

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to propose a methodology that determines vehicle-level specifications for new-car program by balancing market environments and engineering feasibility in the early stages of the vehicle development processes using statistical analysis of historical data.

Design/methodology/approach

– The proposed methodology effectively captures the interplay among key factors in preliminary vehicle planning: engineering feasibility constraints, market demands, and economic conditions. Engineering design constraints, derived by statistical analysis of historical data, define the strategic feasible space. Within the defined design space, the methodology determines a set of specifications that maximize the customer utility which is built as a function of preferences on each attribute of a vehicle.

Findings

– The present paper develops an “extrapolation” approach using historical vehicle data, rather than attempt to model a complex system with limited information. In doing so, the proposed approach avoids the difficulties of understanding an entire complex system by determining only the moderate level of specifications. Moreover, its quantification of revealed customer preferences as expressed in sales data resolves the confusions in vehicle planning arising from the translation of customer requirements to engineering specification.

Originality/value

– The proposed methodology can provide feasible prediction values with a new, historical-data-based statistical approach that effectively surmounts the difficulty of mechanically understanding complex systems. Moreover, through quantification of the target market's customer requirements as well as effects of market-environmental changes, the methodology enables designers to plan complex products for new concept in objective and reasonable manner.
Does location matter to export performance?
Authors: Freeman Joanne , Styles Chris
Published: March 2014

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to build on the resource-based view to analyze the influence of location effects on a firm's ability to develop export-related resources and capabilities which then impacts on export performance.

Design/methodology/approach

– To test the proposed hypotheses, a sample of small-to-medium exporting firms located in Australia is analyzed using partial least squared modeling.

Findings

– The findings show that access to location specific advantages (i.e. access to sources of supply, government agencies, export-related services and infrastructure, managerial labor skills, and network opportunities) are essential antecedents for the firm's ability to develop export-related resources and capabilities which in turn drives export performance outcomes.

Research limitations/implications

– Results from this study are from one state in Australia, and caution should be exercised when generalizing findings to other geographic regions.

Practical implications

– These findings suggest that location effects do indeed present challenges to regional SME firms. Indeed the substantial impacts of sourcing experienced managerial staff with export-related skills affirm the critical role of human resources. This offers insights concerning the recruitment and reward policies for remote firms having to compete with firms in more attractive or sort after metropolitan locations. Also the findings suggest that managers should give serious thought to the appropriateness of the resources and capabilities needed to increase their export performance.

Originality/value

– Even though the role and importance of firm location has been highlighted in the export literature, previous export studies have not focussed on dimensions of location as antecedents to firm resources and capability development.