bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Erlotinibversuscarboplatin and paclitaxel in advanced lepidic adenocarcinoma: IFCT-0504
Authors: Cadranel Jacques , Gervais Radj , Merle Patrick , Moro-Sibilot Denis , Westeel Virginie , Bigay-Game Laurence , Quoix Elisabeth , Friard Sylvie , Barlesi Fabrice , Lethrosne Claire , Moreau Lionel , Monnet Isabelle , Salaun Mathieu , Oliviero Gérard , Souquet Pierre-Jean , Antoine Martine , Langlais Alexandra , Morin Franck , Wislez Marie , Zalcman Gérard
Published: September 2015

The IFCT-0504 phase II trial evaluated the efficacy of erlotinibversuscarboplatin–paclitaxel (CP) as first-line treatment in 130 cases of advanced lepidic-predominant adenocarcinoma (ADC).

The primary objective of the study was treatment efficacy, evaluated based on an end-point of disease control at 16 weeks.

The primary objective was met, with a disease control in 35 (53%) out of 66 patients treated with CP and in 25 (39.1%) out of 64 patients treated with erlotinib. Median progression-free survival (PFS) for the total population was 3.6 months. The disease control rate did not differ between either the therapeutic arms or pathological subtypes, whereas there was a strong interaction between treatment arms and tumour pathological subtypes for PFS (p=0.009). Mucinous tumour patients treated with erlotinib exhibited an increased progression risk (hazard ratio 3.4, 95% CI 1.7–6.5; p≤0.001). The PFS for nonmucinous tumour patients was similar in both arms. Median overall survival was 20.1 months and did not differ between therapeutic arms. These findings were not further elucidated by molecular analyses and the toxicity profiles were as expected.

Our study demonstrated the dominant role of CP alongside erlotinib in the management of advanced lepidic ADC. Based on these findings, erlotinib should not be administered in first-line therapy to patients with lepidic ADC in the absence of an epidermal growth factor receptor mutation.
The relationship of recombination rate, genome structure, and patterns of molecular evolution across angiosperms
Authors: Tiley George P. , Burleigh J. Gordon
Published: September 2015

Background

Although homologous recombination affects the efficacy of selection in populations, the pattern of recombination rate evolution and its effects on genome evolution across plants are largely unknown. Recombination can reduce genome size by enabling the removal of LTR retrotransposons, alter codon usage by GC biased gene conversion, contribute to complex histories of gene duplication and loss through tandem duplication, and enhance purifying selection on genes. Therefore, variation in recombination rate across species may explain some of the variation in genomic architecture as well as rates of molecular evolution. We used phylogenetic comparative methods to investigate the evolution of global meiotic recombination rate in angiosperms and its effects on genome architecture and selection at the molecular level using genetic maps and genome sequences from thirty angiosperm species.

Results

Recombination rate is negatively correlated with genome size, which is likely caused by the removal of LTR retrotransposons. After correcting recombination rates for euchromatin content, we also found an association between global recombination rate and average gene family size. This suggests a role for recombination in the preservation of duplicate genes or expansion of gene families. An analysis of the correlation between the ratio of nonsynonymous to synonymous substitution rates (dN/dS) and recombination rate in 3748 genes indicates that higher recombination rates are associated with an increased efficacy of purifying selection, suggesting that global recombination rates affect variation in rates of molecular evolution across distantly related angiosperm species, not just between populations. We also identified shifts indN/dSfor recombination proteins that are associated with shifts in global recombination rate across our sample of angiosperms.

Conclusions

Although our analyses only reveal correlations, not mechanisms, and do not include potential covariates of recombination rate, like effective population size, they suggest that global recombination rates may play an important role in shaping the macroevolutionary patterns of gene and genome evolution in plants. Interspecific recombination rate variation is tightly correlated with genome size as well as variation in overall LTR retrotransposon abundances. Recombination may shape gene-to-gene variation indN/dSbetween species, which might impact the overall gene duplication and loss rates.
Single origin of the Mascarene stick insects: ancient radiation on sunken islands?
Authors: Bradler Sven , Cliquennois Nicolas , Buckley Thomas R.
Published: September 2015

Background

The study of islands as model systems plays a key role in understanding many evolutionary processes. Knowledge of the historical events leading to present-day island communities is pivotal for exploring fundamental mechanisms of speciation and adaptation. The remote Mascarene archipelago (Mauritius, Réunion, Rodrigues), considered to be the product of an age-progressive trend of north-to-south volcanic activity in the Indian Ocean, hosts a remarkably diverse, endemic and threatened concentration of flora and fauna that has traditionally been considered to be biogeographically related to Madagascar and Africa. To explore the evolutionary diversity of the Mascarene stick insects (Phasmatodea), we constructed a global phylogeny from approximately 2.4 kb of mitochondrial and nuclear sequence data of more than 120 species representing all major phasmatodean lineages.

Results

Based on the obtained time-calibrated molecular tree we demonstrate that the current phasmid community of the Mascarene archipelago, which consists of members of four presumably unrelated traditional subfamilies, is the result of a single ancient dispersal event from Australasia and started radiating between 16–29 million years ago, significantly predating the age of Mauritius (8–10 million years).

Conclusions

We propose that the Mascarene stick insects diversified on landmasses now eroded away, presumably to the north of Mauritius. In consequence, ancient islands have probably persisted in the Indian Ocean until the emergence of Mauritius and not only served as stepping stones for colonisation events during sea-level lowstands, but as long-lasting cradles of evolution. These ancient landmasses most likely allowed for adaptive speciation and served as significant sources of diversity that contributed to the biomes of the Mascarene archipelago and the megadiverse Madagascar.
Females sample more males at high nesting densities, but ultimately obtain less attractive mates
Authors: Tinghitella Robin M. , Stehle Chelsea , Boughman Janette W.
Published: September 2015

Background

Sexual selection is largely driven by the availability of mates. Theory predicts that male competition and female choice should be density-dependent, with males competing more intensely at relatively high density, and females becoming increasingly discriminating when there are more males from whom to choose. Evidence for flexible mating decisions is growing, but we do not understandhowenvironmental variation is incorporated into mate sampling strategies. We mimicked threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) breeding conditions in pools with high and low densities of nesting males and allowed females to search for mates to determine whether 1) mate search strategies change with the density of breeding males and 2) pre-copulatory components of mate choice (signalling, competition, search patterns, and mating decisions) are modified in parallel.

Results

While females sampled more males at high male density, suggesting greater opportunity for sexual selection, the expanded search did not result in females choosing males with more attractive sexual signals. This is likely because red throat colouration was twice as great when half as many males competed. Instead, females chose similarly at high and low male density, using a relative strategy to compare male traits amongst potential suitors. Reduced throat colour could reflect a trade-off with costly male competition. However, we did not observe more intense competition at higher relative density. Density-dependent signalling appears largely responsible for females associating with males who have more attractive signals at low density. If we lacked knowledge of plasticity in signalling, we might have concluded that females are more discriminating at low male density.

Conclusions

To understand interactions between mate choice and population dynamics, we should consider how components of mate choice that precede the mating decision interact.
The entrapment of asymmetry: the Philippines between the US and China
Authors: Tolentino Elaine , Ham Myungsik
Published: September 2015

This paper aims to analyze the asymmetric dilemma facing the Philippines and China in the South China Sea tensions. Among American East Asian allies, the Philippines seems to stand on the frontline between two rival powers, the United States and China. Since the US declared its Pivot to Asia policy, the Philippines’ foreign policy towards China has become assertive and sometimes appears reckless with some military adventures against Chinese maritime patrols and naval ships, which also further forced China to take a tougher foreign policy against the Philippines. Considering the distinctive asymmetric indicators between China and the Philippines based on military forces, economic capacity, territorial size, and population, the aggressive policy behaviors that the Philippines and China have been displaying against each other cast an inquiry on what drives the two countries into head-to-head collision. While China as the larger power vis-à-vis the Philippines as the smaller power in the relationship has aimed for control and domination of their disputed territory, the Philippines’ drastic defiance has also led to China’s irritation and possible frustration. Furthermore, the US’ renewed attention to Asia has caused shifts of asymmetric bilateral dilemma to triangular entanglement between the US–China–Philippines. It is vital therefore to pay attention to the asymmetric interaction of states and their varying views in order to find possible solutions to the SCS tensions.
Survey of the State of Implementation of the American Society of Clinical Oncology/Oncology Nursing Society Safety Standards for Chemotherapy Administration in India
Authors: Patil Vijay M. , Chakraborty Santam , Bhattacharjee Atanu , Dessai Sampada
Published: September 2015

The present survey indicates that there is an urgent need to formulate national-level guidelines for safe chemotherapy administration.
Strategies for Monitoring the Effects of Proposition 13 on Health Services
Authors: Schwartz Jerome L.
Published: September 2015

The passage of Proposition 13 in California resulted in a reduction of funds available to support local programs. It is important to assess what is happening in California and to communicate that information to the rest of the nation. Background is presented on the origins of Proposition 13 and its potential effects on publicly funded health services. Specific strategies for monitoring the effects of Proposition 13 on health services are presented, along with types of data to be monitored. Early effects of Proposition 13 include personnel shortages, service reductions, introduction of fees for services, disruption of program continuity, service delays, demoralization of public employees, termination of contracts with community clinics, and drastic reductions in staff and services by special districts.
Rehabilitating the Severely Disabled: The Foreign Experience
Authors: Noble John H.
Published: September 2015

This paper sets forth a model for examining the relationships between fourteen policy and politicoeconomic variables, and the social benefits and costs of rehabilitation. Based on discussions in early 1977 with scholars, ministry officials, trade unionists, and politicians in several northwestern European countries, as well as on documentation relating to the rapid growth of disability expenditures and the factors thought to influence it, some “lessons” are presented for policymakers in the United States and other countries. In general, current trends are seen as depressing the post-service earnings of individual rehabilitants, limiting the stabilizing effects of rehabilitation on labor market turnover, and increasing available time for unpaid work in the home and elsewhere. Unequal intergovernmental cost sharing in the provision of benefits and services, it is argued, seems likely to promote inefficient allocation of scarce rehabilitation resources with negative consequences for goal attainment. The high rates of inflation which prevail in the United States and in many northwestern European countries are causing the immediate costs of providing rehabilitation services to rise and simultaneously increasing the opportunity costs of spending for rehabilitation. The net effect of these cost increases is a reduction in the overall benefit/cost ratio that results from investments in rehabilitation. A number of predictions are made about how the United States will shape its disability and rehabilitation policies in the course of the next twenty years.
The Plight of the Urban Public Hospital
Authors: Goff David W.
Published: September 2015

This paper reviews identifying characteristics of the urban public hospital and discusses some of the chronic problems, such as funding, image, constituency and acceptance, that this institution has faced. Alternative courses of action for dealing with these problems are considered. No single solution is recommended for every community, but suggestions are made about how to address specific areas of concern.
Antitrust Law and Physician Dominance of Other Health Practitioners
Authors: Dolan Andrew K.
Published: September 2015

This article surveys recent developments in federal antitrust law regarding the health professions and the delivery of medical care. In the last four years there has been a steady erosion of the affirmative defenses traditionally available to health care providers, both institutional and individual. The article surveys these developments in terms of their implications for mounting antitrust attacks against the domination of nonphysician health care providers by physicians and other sectors of the health care industry. Three specific practices are discussed in light of their susceptibility to antitrust remedy: the denial of admitting privileges, third-party reimbursement, and physician backup to nonphysician practitioners. The article concludes with some caveats and admonitions to judges presiding over any cases which arise in this area.
Decision Making Strategy Utilizing Priority Setting and Program Data
Authors: Haeuser Patricia
Published: September 2015

Formative evaluations, that is recurring evaluations which are primarily intended to yield information on the effectiveness of a program's activities, can be especially valuable to community policymakers.1 This paper develops a formative evaluation procedure for a community preventive health program. Specifically, the procedure enables one to evaluate the facilities or locations (access points) where the Milwaukee High Blood Pressure Control Program's services are offered. The procedure determines which access points most effectively achieve program objectives, thus providing information to improve program decisions.
Some Observations on the Soviet Health System
Authors: Kralewski John E.
Published: September 2015

The author wrote the following article after returning from a visit to the Soviet Union as a member of an HEW delegation. It identifies some of the underlying political and economic considerations that influenced health policy in the Soviet Union and comments on how the health system underpins the political system. The author also identifies some of the challenges being faced by the Soviet health system as consumer expectations increase, and how those challenges are causing the Soviets to ask many of the same questions currently being asked in the U.S. health system.
Hospital Planning in France and the Federal Republic of Germany
Authors: Altenstetter Christa
Published: September 2015

This article on hospital planning programs in France and North-Rhine Westfalia (a state in the Federal Republic of Germany), assembles information on the formal building blocks of inter-organizational relations in the formulation and implementation process. Because these planning programs are embedded in past social policy developments and institution-building, it is necessary to first compare the two countries' compulsory health insurance schemes. This is followed by a general profile of each health care system. A third section examines the formulation and implementation of the countries' hospital planning programs and participation patterns. Based on this comparison, inferences are drawn that are relevant to policy and research.

The analysis yields three major conclusions. First, despite abundant legal and administrative controls at the disposal of central health bureaucracies, the capability of the national leadership to influence the hospital system through innovative planning is limited by jurisdictional, institutional, functional and territorial fragmentation, and differentiation of control and public responsibility in health. However, the diverse goal orientations of participants may provide the necessary tension to allow for some change in otherwise highly structured political and administrative systems. Second, despite differences in historical, political and administrative developments, the decision making systems for health care policies in France and the Federal Republic, with the exception of health insurance, are strikingly similar to the fragmented decision making system in the United States. Third, the effect of government-mandated participation is empirically uncertain. Opening up the circle of participants seems to have reinforced alliances between public bureaucracies and corporate vested interests. Hospital planning continues to be carried out for rather than with the consumer and citizen. Hospital planning which is a mixture of goal and process-oriented planning does not change the basic orientation of health care systems, which are disease-oriented, and hospital- centered.
National Health Insurance and the New Health Occupations: Nurse Practitioners and Physicians' Assistants
Authors: Robyn Dorothy , Hadley Jack
Published: September 2015

This article considers a number of issues which might arise in formulating policy for new health occupations. Its particular focus is on nurse practitioners and physicians' assistants and their treatment under potential national health insurance arrangements. The development and expansion of these occupations are described, as is the evidence on their performance with respect to the quality of medical care provided, the impact on the cost of such care, and changes in access to care. We then discuss several issues which might arise in the context of national health insurance legislation, including reimbursement rates and methods, certification and licensure, training subsidies, deployment incentives, and compatibility with an increased supply of physicians.
Regional Variations in the Determinants of Professional Liability Claims
Authors: Langwell Kathryn M. , Werner Jack L.
Published: September 2015

The problem of professional liability claims and impact on the medical care market has become increasingly important in recent years. Professional liability insurance premiums, and the practice of defensive medicine by physicians in response to potential professional liability claims, have been cited as partly responsible for the increasing costs of medical care. This study is an analysis of factors which influence the probability of a professional liability claim occurring for physicians in each of the four Census Regions.

The data analyzed are from the Eleventh Periodic Survey of Physicians conducted by the American Medical Association in 1977, in which respondents indicated whether they had a professional liability claim filed against them. A logit analysis suggests that variations across Census Regions in population characteristics, availability of medical resources and supply of legal services are determinants of the occurrence of claims.
Seeing Hearing Thinking: Introducing the differences Dossier on Margarethe von Trotta’s Hannah Arendt
Authors: Steinberg Michael P.
Published: September 2015

This introduction to the differences dossier on Margarethe von Trotta’s film Hannah Arendt follows three registers simultaneously: the presentation and implied argument of the film, its foundation in Arendt’s 1963 articles and book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, and the foci and arguments of the other authors included in the issue: Ariella Azoulay, Bonnie Honig, Pamela Katz, Adi Ophir, and Margarethe von Trotta.
New Ionic Plastic Crystals Formed from Spherical-Type Cations Consisting of 1-Alkyl-4-aza-1-azoniabicyclo[2,2,2]octane with BEt3Me, BEt4, and BBu4 Anions
Authors: Hirakawa Satoru , Kotani Yuka , Hayasaki Tomoyuki , Honda Hisashi
Published: September 2015

Spherical-type cations of 1-alkyl-4-aza-1-azoniabicyclo[2,2,2]octane (N-R DABCO, R = Me, Et) form ionic plastic crystals with BEt3Me− and BEt4−. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis of [N-R DABCO][BEt3Me] and [N-R DABCO][BEt4] shows entropy changes of 49–73 J K−1 mol−1 at transition temperatures for the highest-temperature solid phase. X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectra show these salts form CsCl-type cubic structures. 1H and 13C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) shows that the cation and anion undergo isotropic reorientation in the highest-temperature solid phase. NMR spin-lattice relaxation times (T1) reveal that activation energies for this motion are smaller than reported for [NEtxMe(4−x)][BEt3Me] (x = 0–4), in contrast, electrical conductivity measurements show activation energies of ion transfer for these salts are similar to those of [NEtxMe(4−x)][BEt3Me]. In contrast to [N-R DABCO][BEt3Me−, BEt4−] salts, [N-R DABCO][BBu4] (R = Me, Et, Pr, Bu) show large entropy changes at their melting points. Complex XRD powder patterns and broad NMR spectra were also obtained. Based on these results, it can be concluded that the [N-R DABCO][BBu4] compounds show no plasticity under ambient conditions.
Zinc-catalyzed Enantioselective Electrophilic Amination of β-Ketocarbonyl Compounds with Axially Chiral Phenanthroline Ligands
Authors: Naganawa Yuki , Komatsu Hiroyuki , Nishiyama Hisao
Published: September 2015

Zinc-catalyzed asymmetric α-amination of β-ketocarbonyl compounds 2 using dialkyl azodicarboxylates 3 as the electrophilic nitrogen source is described. The complexes of Zn(OTf)2 and the axially chiral phenanthroline ligands (S)-1 were identified as effective catalysts for this transformation to provide α-amino-β-ketocarbonyl compounds 4 with up to 93% ee.
Maternal and newborn seroprevalence of Hepatitis E virus at Medani Hospital, Sudan
Authors: Eltayeb Reem , Gasim Gasim I. , Elhassan Elhassan M. , Abdullahi Halla , Rayis Duria A. , Adam Ishag
Published: September 2015

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection can lead to adverse maternal and perinatal outcomes and is a risk for mortality in pregnant women.  There are few published data on the seroepidemiology of HEV infection in pregnant women and none are available from Sudan specifically. A cross-sectional study was conducted to investigate the seroepidemiology of anti-HEV Immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies in mothers and newborns in Medani Hospital, Sudan. Socio-demographic, clinical and obstetric characteristics of the women were gathered using questionnaires. Anti-HEV IgG antibodies were investigated in the paired maternal and newborn sera using an enzyme-linked immunoassay (ELISA). Two hundred and nine women were enrolled to the study. The mean (SD) of their age, parity and gestational age was 27.5 (5.5) years, 2.2(1.5) and 38.8 (1.8) weeks, respectively. Out of these 209, 25 (12.5%) women had a positive result for anti-HEV IgG and two (1.0%) newborns had a positive result for anti-HEV IgG.In logistic regression none of the investigated factors (age, parity, gestational age, residency and education) were associated with anti-HEV IgG seropositivity. There is a high seroprevalence of HEV among pregnant women in central Sudan regardless of their age, parity and gestational age. Optimal preventive measures against HEV infection should be employed.
Childhood flu immunisation programme: Running the day
Authors: Voogd Caroline
Published: September 2015

The universal childhood influenza immunisation programme was launched in 2013-2014, and a number of pilots aimed at primary and secondary school-aged children have been undertaken since. Many of these have consisted of a school-based delivery model. This article is based on the experience of professionals who were involved in some of these pilots and shares their advice for successful delivery to help professionals prepare for the full roll-out of the programme to all 2–17-year-olds.
The impact of a school nurse intervention on adolescents' knowledge about healthy eating
Authors: Al-Yateem Nabeel , Attia Amal Kadry Nicola , AL-Yafei Taliaa , Mohammed Ameera , Mahmood Bushraa
Published: September 2015

Background:

The adolescent developmental stage has been described by researchers as a period in which decision-making abilities and independence skills are developed; therefore, this period may attract more attention from health-care providers as a key time for establishing healthy life styles and positive adaptive behaviours, such as nutritional behaviours.

Methods:

A quasi-experimental control group, and post-test only design was used. A school-based healthy nutrition educational programme was implemented to improve the nutritional knowledge of adolescents, and to promote a healthy life style among them. The ‘Let's Eat Healthy’ programme was delivered to 150 students in the intervention group, who were compared to another 150 students in the control group where the programme was not delivered.

Results:

Students that participated in the intervention group were significantly more knowledgeable about healthy nutrition compared to students that didn't participate (P<0.01). They also scored significantly higher in the dietary behaviours survey, which reflects the adoption of more healthy eating behaviours.

Conclusions:

The results of the study revealed that such a programme would be effective in promoting more nutritionally healthy life styles, thus preventing obesity and nutrition-related disease among adolescents in United Arab Emirates (UAE) schools.
Prevention and early detection of substance abuse is key
Authors: Thornton Stephanie
Published: September 2015

Drug and alcohol abuse can have a serious and lasting impact on the health and wellbeing of young people. Stephanie Thornton explains what to do if you or a member of school staff suspect drug or alcohol abuse in a student.
Gathering young people's views on the app's design
Authors: Menzies Alison
Published: September 2015

In her regular column, Alison Menzies shares her experiences as a research scholarship holder and on the development of an app aimed at young offenders.
Promoting healthy relationships through peer-to-peer learning
Authors: Dewar Emma
Published: September 2015

A peer-led healthy relationships project led by a qualified school nurse based in Herefordhsire will be supported by BJSN's £1 000 Innovation grant. Emma Dewar provides an overview of the project.
How we can rise to the occasion
Authors: Neville Sarah
Published: September 2015

The government has asked early years settings to promote British values; these lend themselves to various activities based on a classic folktale and on World Bread Day.
The halfway house rules
Authors: Webb Penny
Published: September 2015

A ‘childminder’ used to refer to someone working from a home environment, but not for much longer, from January 2016 rules regarding where you can practice are to be relaxed.
Write with ‘feeling’
Authors: Wolke Dieter
Published: September 2015

Have you thought of making writing a sensory experience by using scented pencils, or mark making in sand or with shaving foam? Kathy Brodie suggests ways that writing skills can be developed using a wide variety of resources.
Life down under
Authors: Williams Brenda
Published: September 2015

Use this month's poster poem to spark children's curiosity about tunnels and underground homes. Go outdoors to find evidence of wildlife or build your own tunnel in the setting, says Brenda Williams.
Spot the stripes
Authors: Hampshire Viv
Published: September 2015

Spots and stripes are two patterns commonly found in the setting, as well as in the natural world. Use the following pattern recognition activity to help children develop their mathematical skills.
On the Chudnovsky-Seymour-Sullivan conjecture on cycles in triangle-free digraphs
Authors: Chen Kevin , Karson Sean , Liu Dan , Shen Jian
Published: September 2015

For a simple digraph G without directed triangles or digons, let \beta(G) be the size of the smallest subset X of E(G) such that G\X has no directed cycles, and let \gamma(G) be the number of unordered pairs of nonadjacent vertices in G. In 2008, Chudnovsky, Seymour, and Sullivan showed that \beta(G) \leq \gamma(G) and conjectured that \beta(G) \leq \gamma(G)/2. Recently, Dunkum, Hamburger, and Por proved that \beta(G)\leq .88\gamma(G). In this note, we prove that \beta(G) \leq .8616 \gamma(G).
Conjugacy classes of torsion in GL_n(Z)
Authors: Yang Qingjie
Published: September 2015

The problem of integral similarity of block-triangular matrices over the ring of integers is connected to that of finding representatives of the classes of an equivalence relation on general integer matrices. A complete list of representatives of conjugacy classes of torsion in the 4 Ã 4 general linear group over ring of integers is given. There are 45 distinct such classes and each torsion element has order of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10 or 12.
On (T,f)-connections of matrices and generalized inverses of linear operators
Authors: Niezgoda Marek
Published: September 2015

In this note, generalized connections Ï_{T ,f} are investigated, where AÏ_{T ,f} B = T_Af(T_A)^â(B) for positive semidefinite matrix A and hermitian matrix B, and operator monotone function f : J â R on an interval J â R. Here the symbol (T_A)^â denotes a reflexive generalized inverse of a positive bounded linear operator T_A. The problem of estimating a given generalized connection by other ones is studied. The obtained results are specified for special cases of Î±-arithmetic, Î±-geometric and Î±-harmonic operator means.
Conservation status of the Family Orchidaceae in Mt. Sinaka, Arakan, North Cotabato, Philippines
Authors: PANAL CHERRY LEE T , OPISO JENNIFER G , OPISO GUILLER
Published: September 2015

Panal CLT, Opiso JG, Opiso G. 2015. Conservation status of the Family Orchidaceae in Mt. Sinaka, Arakan, NorthCotabato, Philippines. Biodiversitas 16: 213-224. This study determines the conservation status of the family Orchidaceae, as presenton Mt. Sinaka, Arakan, North Cotabato, Philippines. A thorough survey and alpha taxonomy was done, from base to peak of themountain. Identification of the specimens and assessment of their conservation status was based on the IUCN Red List of ThreatenedPlants 2013.2 and National List of Threatened Philippine Plants of Fernando et al. (2008). Based on the result conducted on October2013-March 2014, out of 59 identified species found in the area, 12 species are widespread, 22 are endemic, 1 vulnerable, 1 criticallyendangered (Paphiopedilum adductum), 1 endangered (Corybas sp.), 2 least concerned species, and 20 unassessed species (not yetassessed by the IUCN). It has been also noted that there are probably some new species, which need thorough study for furtheridentification. The result calls for a desperate need for conservation. Facts from this study helps in addition to the existing wildlifeconservation of flora in Mt. Sinaka and to the other forested mountains in Mindanao, the Philippines.
Molas: Displaying the quotidian before Andy Warhol
Authors: Marks Diana
Published: September 2015

Mola blouses have become identified with both the Kuna Indians and the nation of Panama. The iconography on mola blouses has included images from North American and Latin American popular culture since the early twentieth century. This article explores the selection and display of images of consumer and popular culture by Kuna women with the later depiction of similar quotidian images in the early work of Andy Warhol.
Irrational career beliefs among university applicants
Üniversite adaylarında meslek seçimine ilişkin akılcı olmayan inançlar
Authors: Kepir Savoly D. Didem , Korkut Owen Fidan
Published: September 2015

In this research, prospective university students' who have different level of career maturity and hope, irrational beliefs related to choice of profession were examined. The sample of the study was composed of 502 prospective university students who study at or graduated from general, anatolian and vocational high school at fall semester of 2010-2011. “Irrational Beliefs Relating to Career Choice Scale” developed by Yılmaz Erdem (2006), “Career Maturity Scale” developed by Kuzgun and Bacanlı (1996), “Hope Scale” developed by Snyder et. al. (1991) and adaptation study was carried out by Akman and Korkut (1993) and “Personal Information Form” developed by the researchers were used to collect data. For the analysis of data were conducted using SPSS 15.0 program. The main effects of variables of career maturity, gender and type of school on, also the common effect of variables of the hope level and type of school on irrational beliefs’ relating to career choice were found significant. These results were discussed in light of current research findings and recommendations were made.

 

Özet

Çalışmada umut ve mesleki olgunluk düzeyleri farklı üniversite adaylarının meslek seçimine ilişkin akılcı olmayan inançları cinsiyet, eğitim durumu ve okul türü değişkenleri açısından incelenmiştir. Çalışmanın araştırma grubunu, 2010-2011 öğretim yılının güz döneminde genel lise, anadolu lisesi, meslek lisesinde öğrenim gören ve bir yıl önce bu liselerden mezun olup üniversite sınavını kazanamamış toplam 502 üniversite adayı oluşturmaktadır. Çalışmada Yılmaz Erdem (2006) tarafından geliştirilen Meslek Seçimine İlişkin Akılcı Olmayan İnançlar Ölçeği, Snyder ve arkadaşları (1991) tarafından geliştirilen, Akman ve Korkut (1993) tarafından Türkçeye uyarlanan Umut Ölçeği, Kuzgun ve Bacanlı (1996) tarafından geliştirilen Mesleki Olgunluk Ölçeği ve araştırmacılar tarafından geliştirilmiş olan Kişisel Bilgi Formundan yararlanılmıştır. Veriler SPSS 15.0 kullanılarak analiz edilmiştir. Çalışmada mesleki olgunluk, cinsiyet ve okul türü değişkenlerinin meslek seçimine ilişkin akılcı olmayan inançlar üzerindeki temel etkileri, ayrıca umut düzeyi ve okul türünün temel etkisi ile umut düzeyi ile okul türü değişkenlerinin meslek seçimine ilişkin akılcı olmayan inançlar üzerindeki ortak etkisi anlamlı bulunmuştur. Araştırma bulguları, ilgili alanyazın ışığında tartışılmış ve çeşitli önerilerde bulunulmuştur.
Bonding vertex sets over distributed graph
Authors: Zhang Xiaofei , Cheng Hong , Chen Lei
Published: September 2015

Given two sets of vertices in a graph, it is often of a great interest to find out how these vertices are connected, especially to identify the vertices of high prominence defined on the topological structure. In this work, we formally define a

V
ertex
S
et
B
onding

query (shorted as VSB), which returns a minimum set of vertices with the maximum importance
w.r.t
total betweenness and shortest path reachability in connecting two sets of input vertices. We find that such a kind of query is representative and could be widely applied in many real world scenarios, e.g., logistic planning, social community bonding and etc. Challenges are that many of such applications are constructed on graphs that are too large to fit in single server, and the VSB query evaluation turns to be NP-hard. To cope with the scalability issue and return the near optimal result in almost real time, we propose a generic solution framework on a shared nothing distributed environment. With the development of two novel techniques, guided graph exploration and betweenness ranking on exploration, we are able to efficiently evaluate queries for error bounded results with bounded space cost. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our solution with extensive experiments over both real and synthetic large graphs on the Google's Cloud platform. Comparing to the exploration only baseline method, our method achieves several times of speedup.
Fuzzy joins in MapReduce
Authors: Kimmett Ben , Srinivasan Venkatesh , Thomo Alex
Published: September 2015

We report experimental results for the MapReduce algorithms proposed by Afrati, Das Sarma, Menestrina, Parameswaran and Ullman in ICDE'12 to compute fuzzy joins of binary strings using Hamming Distance. Their algorithms come with complete theoretical analysis, however, no experimental evaluation is provided. They argue that there is a tradeoff between communication cost and processing cost, and that there is a skyline of the proposed algorithms; i.e. none dominates another. We observe via experiments that, from a practical point of view, some algorithms are almost always preferable to others. We provide detailed experimental results and insights that show the different facets of each algorithm.
Lenses
Authors: Yang Ying , Meneghetti Niccolò , Fehling Ronny , Liu Zhen Hua , Kennedy Oliver
Published: September 2015

Three mentalities have emerged in analytics. One view holds that reliable analytics is impossible without high-quality data, and relies on heavy-duty ETL processes and upfront data curation to provide it. The second view takes a more ad-hoc approach, collecting data into a data lake, and placing responsibility for data quality on the analyst querying it. A third, on-demand approach has emerged over the past decade in the form of numerous systems like Paygo or HLog, which allow for incremental curation of the data and help analysts to make principled trade-offs between data quality and effort. Though quite useful in isolation, these systems target only specific quality problems (e.g., Paygo targets only schema matching and entity resolution). In this paper, we explore the design of a general, extensible infrastructure for on-demand curation that is based on probabilistic query processing. We illustrate its generality through examples and show how such an infrastructure can be used to gracefully make existing ETL workflows "on-demand". Finally, we present a user interface for On-Demand ETL and address ensuing challenges, including that of efficiently ranking potential data curation tasks. Our experimental results show that On-Demand ETL is feasible and that our greedy ranking strategy for curation tasks, called CPI, is effective.
Schema-agnostic indexing with Azure DocumentDB
Authors: Shukla Dharma , Thota Shireesh , Raman Karthik , Gajendran Madhan , Shah Ankur , Ziuzin Sergii , Sundaram Krishnan , Guajardo Miguel Gonzalez , Wawrzyniak Anna , Boshra Samer , Ferreira Renato , Nassar Mohamed , Koltachev Michael , Huang Ji , Sengupta Sudipta , Levandoski Justin , Lomet David
Published: September 2015

Azure DocumentDB is Microsoft's multi-tenant distributed database service for managing JSON documents at Internet scale. DocumentDB is now generally available to Azure developers. In this paper, we describe the DocumentDB indexing subsystem. DocumentDB indexing enables automatic indexing of documents without requiring a schema or secondary indices. Uniquely, DocumentDB provides real-time consistent queries in the face of very high rates of document updates. As a multi-tenant service, DocumentDB is designed to operate within extremely frugal resource budgets while providing predictable performance and robust resource isolation to its tenants. This paper describes the DocumentDB capabilities, including document representation, query language, document indexing approach, core index support, and early production experiences.
Differential privacy in telco big data platform
Authors: Hu Xueyang , Yuan Mingxuan , Yao Jianguo , Deng Yu , Chen Lei , Yang Qiang , Guan Haibing , Zeng Jia
Published: September 2015

Differential privacy (DP) has been widely explored in academia recently but less so in industry possibly due to its strong privacy guarantee. This paper makes the first attempt to implement three basic DP architectures in the deployed telecommunication (telco) big data platform for data mining applications. We find that all DP architectures have less than 5% loss of prediction accuracy when the weak privacy guarantee is adopted (e.g., privacy budget parameter ε ≥ 3). However, when the strong privacy guarantee is assumed (e.g., privacy budget parameter ε ≤ 0:1), all DP architectures lead to 15% ~ 30% accuracy loss, which implies that real-word industrial data mining systems cannot work well under such a strong privacy guarantee recommended by previous research works. Among the three basic DP architectures, the Hybridized DM (Data Mining) and DB (Database) architecture performs the best because of its complicated privacy protection design for the specific data mining algorithm. Through extensive experiments on big data, we also observe that the accuracy loss increases by increasing the variety of features, but decreases by increasing the volume of training data. Therefore, to make DP practically usable in large-scale industrial systems, our observations suggest that we may explore three possible research directions in future: (1) Relaxing the privacy guarantee (e.g., increasing privacy budget ε) and studying its effectiveness on specific industrial applications; (2) Designing specific privacy scheme for specific data mining algorithms; and (3) Using large volume of data but with low variety for training the classification models.
Real-time analytical processing with SQL server
Authors: Larson Per-Åke , Birka Adrian , Hanson Eric N. , Huang Weiyun , Nowakiewicz Michal , Papadimos Vassilis
Published: September 2015

Over the last two releases SQL Server has integrated two specialized engines into the core system: the Apollo column store engine for analytical workloads and the Hekaton in-memory engine for high-performance OLTP workloads. There is an increasing demand for real-time analytics, that is, for running analytical queries and reporting on the same system as transaction processing so as to have access to the freshest data. SQL Server 2016 will include enhancements to column store indexes and in-memory tables that significantly improve performance on such hybrid workloads. This paper describes four such enhancements: column store indexes on in-memory tables, making secondary column store indexes on disk-based tables updatable, allowing B-tree indexes on primary column store indexes, and further speeding up the column store scan oper ator.
FP-Hadoop
Authors: Liroz-Gistau Miguel , Akbarinia Reza , Valduriez Patrick
Published: September 2015

Big data parallel frameworks, such as MapReduce or Spark have been praised for their high scalability and performance, but show poor performance in the case of data skew. There are important cases where a high percentage of processing in the reduce side ends up being done by only one node. In this demonstration, we illustrate the use of
FP-Hadoop
, a system that efficiently deals with data skew in MapReduce jobs. In FP-Hadoop, there is a new phase, called
intermediate reduce (IR)
, in which blocks of intermediate values, constructed dynamically, are processed by intermediate reduce workers in parallel, by using a scheduling strategy. Within the IR phase, even if all intermediate values belong to only one key, the main part of the reducing work can be done in parallel using the computing resources of all available workers. We implemented a prototype of FP-Hadoop, and conducted extensive experiments over synthetic and real datasets. We achieve excellent performance gains compared to native Hadoop, e.g.
more than 10 times in reduce time and 5 times in total execution time.

During our demonstration, we give the users the possibility to execute and compare job executions in FP-Hadoop and Hadoop. They can retrieve general information about the job and the tasks and a summary of the phases. They can also visually compare different configurations to explore the difference between the approaches.
PRISM
Authors: Seah Boon Siew , Bhowmick Sourav S. , Sun Aixin
Published: September 2015

Most existing tag-based social image search engines present search results as a ranked list of images, which cannot be consumed by users in a natural and intuitive manner. In this demonstration, we present a novel
concept-preserving
image search results summarization system called
prism
.
prism
exploits both visual features and tags of the search results to generate high quality
summary
, which not only breaks the results into
visually
and
semantically coherent
clusters but it also maximizes the
coverage
of the original top-
k
search results. It first constructs a
visual similarity graph
where the nodes are images in the top-
k
search results and the edges represent
visual similarities
between pairs of images. This graph is
optimally decomposed
and
compressed
into a set of
concept-preserving subgraphs
based on a set of
summarization criteria.
One or more exemplar images from each subgraph is selected to form the
exemplar summary
of the result set. We demonstrate various innovative features of
prism
and the promise of superior quality summary construction of social image search results.
SDB
Authors: He Zhian , Wong Wai Kit , Kao Ben , Cheung David Wai Lok , Li Rongbin , Yiu Siu Ming , Lo Eric
Published: September 2015

We address security issues in a cloud database system which employs the DBaaS model --- a data owner (DO) exports data to a cloud database service provider (SP). To provide data security, sensitive data is encrypted by the DO before it is uploaded to the SP. Compared to existing secure query processing systems like CryptDB [7] and MONOMI [8], in which data operations (e.g., comparison or addition) are supported by specialized encryption schemes, our demo system, SDB, is implemented based on a set of data-interoperable secure operators, i.e., the output of an operator can be used as input of another operator. As a result, SDB can support a wide range of complex queries (e.g., all TPC-H queries) efficiently. In this demonstration, we show how our SDB prototype supports secure query processing on complex workload like TPC-H. We also demonstrate how our system protects sensitive information from malicious attackers.
TreeScope
Authors: Ying Shanshan , Korn Flip , Saha Barna , Srivastava Divesh
Published: September 2015

Semi-structured data are prevalent on the web, with formats such as XML and JSON soaring in popularity due to their generality, flexibility and easy customization. However, these very same features make semi-structured data prone to a range of data quality errors, from errors in content to errors in structure. While the former has been well studied, little attention has been paid to structural errors.

In this demonstration, we present TreeScope, which analyzes semi-structured data sets with the goal of automatically identifyingstructural anomaliesfrom the data. Our techniques learn robust structural models that have high support, to identify potential errors in the structure. Identified structural anomalies are then concisely summarized to provide plausible explanations of the potential errors. The goal of this demonstration is to enable an interactive exploration of the process of identifying and summarizing structural anomalies in semi-structured data sets.