bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
What explains local policy cleavages? Examining the policy preferences of public officials at the municipal level
Authors: Bucchianeri Peter , Carney Riley , Enos Ryan , Lakeman Amy , Malina Gabrielle 
Published: August 2021

AbstractObjectiveA growing literature argues that national issues and partisanship structure local‐level conflict in the United States. This argument contrasts starkly with the traditional view of local politics as fundamentally nonpartisan and nonideological. We reconsider these diverging arguments.MethodsWe use a large‐scale survey of municipal officials to examine elite preferences on a series of policy tradeoffs. We identify latent dimensions that underlie elite preferences across cities and on a common scale. We examine correlates of these dimensions including individual‐ and city‐level demographics and electoral support from constituent groups.ResultsOur results demonstrate that elite preferences in local politics—unlike in national politics—are multidimensional, with two underlying cleavages: one based on partisanship, the other a market orientation to the provision of local services. These latent dimensions align with indicators of constituent group support, suggesting that each dimension reflects substantively meaningful features of conflict in local electoral politics.ConclusionsThese findings suggest that local politics are not completely structured by national‐level partisan politics. Future research should aim to measure and understand local conflict along both partisan and market‐orientation dimensions.
Action Selection and Execution in Everyday Activities: A Cognitive Robotics and Situation Model Perspective
Authors: Vernon David , Albert Josefine , Beetz Michael , Chiou Shiau‐Chuen , Ritter Helge , Schneider Werner X. 
Published: August 2021

AbstractWe examine the mechanisms required to handle everyday activities from the standpoint of cognitive robotics, distinguishing activities on the basis of complexity and transparency. Task complexity (simple or complex) reflects the intrinsic nature of a task, while task transparency (easy or difficult) reflects an agent's ability to identify a solution strategy in a given task. We show how the CRAM cognitive architecture allows a robot to carry out simple and complex activities such as laying a table for a meal and loading a dishwasher afterward. It achieves this by using generalized action plans that exploit reasoning with modular, composable knowledge chunks representing general knowledge to transform underdetermined everyday action requests into motion plans that successfully accomplish the required task. Noting that CRAM does not yet have the ability to deal with difficult activities, we leverage insights from the situation model perspective on the cognitive mechanisms underlying flexible context‐sensitive behavior with a view to extending CRAM to overcome this deficit.
Reducing surgical cancellations: a successful application of Lean Six Sigma in healthcare
Authors: Schretlen Stijn , Hoefsmit Paulien , Kats Suzanne , van Merode Godefridus , Maessen Jos , Zandbergen Reinier 
Published: August 2021

ObjectiveThe COVID-19 pandemic emphasises the need to use healthcare resources efficient and effective to guarantee access to high-quality healthcare in an affordable manner. Surgical cancellations have a negative impact on these. We used the Lean Six Sigma (LSS) methodology to reduce cardiac surgical cancellations in a University Medical Center in the Netherlands, where approximately 20% of cardiac surgeries were being cancelled.MethodA multifunctional project team used the data-driven LSS process improvement methodology and followed the ‘DMAIC’ improvement cycle (Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, Control). Through all DMAIC phases, real-world data from the hospital information system supported the team during biweekly problem-solving sessions. This quality improvement study used an ‘interrupted time series’ study design. Data were collected between January 2014 and December 2016, covering 20 months prior and 16 months after implementation. Outcomes were number of last-minute coronary artery bypass graft cancellations, number of repeated diagnostics, referral to treatment time and patient satisfaction. Statistical process control charts visualised the change and impact over time. Students two-sample t-test was used to test statistical significance. A p<0.05 was considered as statistically significant.ResultsLast-minute cancellations were reduced by 50% (p=0.010), repeated preoperative diagnostics (X-ray) declined by 67% (p=0.021), referral to treatment time reduced by 35% (p=0.000) and patient Net Promoter Score increased by 14% (p=0.005).ConclusionThis study shows that LSS is an effective quality improvement approach to help healthcare organisations to deliver more safe, timely, effective, efficient, equitable and patient-centred care. Crucial success factors were the use of a structured data-driven problem-solving approach, focus on patient value and process flow, leadership support and engagement of involved healthcare professionals through the entire care pathway. Ongoing monitoring of key performance indicators is helpful in engaging the organisation to maintain continuous process improvement and sustaining long-term impact.
Change in cardiovascular risk assessment tool and updated Norwegian guidelines for cardiovascular disease in primary prevention increase the population proportion at risk: the Tromsø Study 2015–2016
Authors: Nilsen Amalie , Hanssen Tove Aminda , Lappegård Knut Tore , Eggen Anne Elise , Løchen Maja-Lisa , Selmer Randi Marie , Njølstad Inger , Wilsgaard Tom , Hopstock Laila A 
Published: August 2021

AimsTo compare the population proportion at high risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) using the Norwegian NORRISK 1 that predicts 10-year risk of CVD mortality and the Norwegian national guidelines from 2009, with the updated NORRISK 2 that predicts 10-year risk of both fatal and non-fatal risk of CVD and the Norwegian national guidelines from 2017.MethodsWe included participants from the Norwegian population-based Tromsø Study (2015–2016) aged 40–69 years without a history of CVD (n=16 566). The total proportion eligible for intervention was identified by NORRISK 1 and the 2009 guidelines (serum total cholesterol ≥8 mmol/L, systolic blood pressure ≥160 mm Hg or diastolic blood pressure ≥100 mm Hg) and NORRISK 2 and the 2017 guidelines (serum total cholesterol ≥7 mmol/L, low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol ≥5 mmol/L, systolic blood pressure ≥160 mm Hg or diastolic blood pressure ≥100 mm Hg).ResultsThe total proportion at high risk as defined by a risk score was 12.0% using NORRISK 1 and 9.8% using NORRISK 2. When including single risk factors specified by the guidelines, the total proportion eligible for intervention was 15.5% using NORRISK 1 and the 2009 guidelines and 18.9% using NORRISK 2 and the 2017 guidelines. The lowered threshold for total cholesterol and specified cut-off for LDL cholesterol stand for a large proportion of the increase in population at risk.ConclusionThe population proportion eligible for intervention increased by 3.4 percentage points from 2009 to 2017 using the revised NORRISK 2 score and guidelines.
Fuzzy dark matter black holes and droplets
Authors: Batic D. , Abuhejleh D. Asem , Nowakowski M. 
Published: August 2021

AbstractWe consider the possibility of having Dark Matter (DM) black holes motivated by the Einasto density profile. This generalizes both the noncommutative mini black hole model and allows DM to enter as the matter constituent which makes up the black hole. We show that it is possible to construct a black hole solution for each value of the Einasto index and for different values of the mass parameter, provided that the we work with the energy–momentum tensor of an anisotropic fluid. In particular, we achieve that by first considering the equation of state (EOS)$$p_r=-\rho $$pr=-ρ. It turns out that the corresponding black hole solution exhibits a horizon structure similar to that of a Reissner–Nordström black hole and the central singularity is replaced by a regular de Sitter core. We also show that if the previous EOS is replaced by a nonlocal one, it is possible to construct a self-gravitating fuzzy DM droplet but also in this case, the radial pressure is negative. Finally, we contemplate scenarios of different dark matter black holes with moderate mass values which could have formed in galaxies. In particular, we probe the possibility whether such black holes could also be the central galactic objects.
FDA Approval Summary: Nivolumab in Combination with Ipilimumab for the Treatment of Unresectable Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma
Authors: Nakajima Erica C. , Vellanki Paz J. , Larkins Erin , Chatterjee Somak , Mishra-Kalyani Pallavi S. , Bi Youwei , Qosa Hisham , Liu Jiang , Zhao Hong , Biable Missiratch , Hotaki Lauren Tesh , Shen Yuan-Li , Pazdur Richard , Beaver Julia A. , Singh Harpreet , Donoghue Martha 
Published: August 2021

Abstract
On October 2, 2020, FDA approved nivolumab with ipilimumab as first-line treatment for adult patients with unresectable malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM). The approval was based on results from Study CA209743 (CHECKMATE-743), an open-label trial of patients with MPM randomized to receive nivolumab and ipilimumab for up to 2 years (n = 303) or six cycles of chemotherapy with cisplatin or carboplatin plus pemetrexed (n = 302). Overall survival (OS) was improved for patients who received nivolumab and ipilimumab, with a median OS of 18.1 months [95% confidence interval (CI), 16.8–21.5] compared with 14.1 months (95% CI: 12.5–16.2; HR, 0.74; 95% CI, 0.61–0.89; P = 0.002), for patients who received chemotherapy. The magnitude of benefit was larger for patients with non-epithelioid versus epithelioid histology. Additional clinical pharmacology data support an alternative dosing regimen of nivolumab than evaluated in the trial, which will reduce the number of required treatment visits. This application was reviewed under FDA's Project Orbis, in collaboration with Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration, Switzerland's Swissmedic, Health Canada, and Brazil's National Health Surveillance Agency or ANVISA (Agência Nacional de Vigilância Sanitária). Nivolumab and ipilimumab is the first drug regimen approved by FDA for MPM since 2004.
Ethnic Differences in Informal Caregiving After Stroke
Authors: Morgenstern Lewis B. , Hollenhorst Cecilia N. , Gallo Linda C. , Hsu Chia-Wei , Kim Sehee , Gibbs River , Case Erin , Lisabeth Lynda D. 
Published: August 2021

Background and Purpose:
Informal (unpaid) caregiving usually provided by family is important poststroke. We studied whether the prevalence of informal caregiving after stroke differs between Mexican Americans (MAs) and non-Hispanic Whites (NHWs).

Methods:
Between October 2014 and December 2018, participants in the BASIC (Brain Attack Surveillance in Corpus Christi) project in Nueces County, Texas, were interviewed 90 days after stroke to determine which activities of daily living they required help with and whether family provided informal caregiving. Ethnic differences between MAs and NHWs were determined by logistic regression. The logistic models were stratified by formal (paid) care status. Odds ratios (95% CIs) are reported with NHW as the referent group. Fisher exact tests were used to assess the association of ethnicity with relationship of caregiver and with individual activities of daily living.

Results:

Eight hundred thirty-one patients answered the caregiving questions. Of these, 242 (29%) received family caregiving (33% of MAs and 23% of NHWs), and 142 (17%) received paid caregiving (21% of MAs and 10% of NHWs). There were no ethnic differences in stroke severity. In logistic regression analyses, among those without formal, paid care, MAs were more likely to have informal caregiving (odds ratio, 1.75 [95% CI, 1.12–2.73]) adjusted for age, National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale, prestroke modified Rankin Scale, and insurance. No ethnic differences in informal care were found among those who had formal care. There were no differences between ethnic groups in which family members provided the informal care. MAs were more likely to require help compared with NHWs for walking (
P
<0.0001), bathing (
P
<0.0001), hygiene (
P
=0.0012), eating (
P
=0.0004), dressing (
P
<0.0001), ambulating (
P
=0.0304), and toileting (
P
=0.0003).

Conclusions:
MAs required more help poststroke than NHWs for assistance with activities of daily living. MAs received more help for activities of daily living through informal, unpaid caregiving than NHWs if they were not also receiving formal, paid care. Efforts to help minority and low-resource populations provide stroke care are needed.
Lumumba, Hammarskjoeld, and the 1960 Congo Crisis: A case of international misunderstanding?
Authors: Blommaert Jan 
Published: August 2021

Lumumba, Hammarskjoeld, and The 1960 Congo Crisis. A Case of International Misunderstanding?
A number of influential works on the 1960 Congo Crisis, as well as most theoretical models of intercultural communication, consistently explain conflicts between culturally different participants in terms of features of ethnic communication style, cognition, value systems etc. A general picture emerges in which culture is seen as the cause of conflicts, misunderstandings, or communication breakdown. An analysis of six Letters exchanged between Lumumba and Hammarskjoeld during one of the crucial episodes of the Congo Crisis reveals that ethnic features of communication style are the consequence, rather than the cause of conflicts.
Tijdsconcepten en Tijdsbeleving, een Probleem uit de Interculturele Communicatie. Case-Study: Rwanda
Authors: Cammaer Gerda 
Published: August 2021

Conceptions of Time and Time Experience, A Problem in Intercultural Communication. Case-Study: Rwanda.
The confrontation between people from different cultures causes a lot of problems, most of all communication problems. They are too often considered as only language-problems, but the so-called “cultural-shock” is a lot more comprehensive. Reducing any cultural problem to language troubles, means ignoring the non-verbal and other cultural principles that make cultures so rich and different.
The experience of time and the concepts of time are such principles, rooted in culture and traditions. For the members of the culture in question, these time-principles have become so natural that they remain unexperienced or even unconscious, but they might surprise, even irritate, the members of other cultures. The scientific discipline called “chronemics” examines how humans perceive, structure and use time as communication. Every culture has its own conception of time and its own customs for the use of time. In this sense the Western culture is totally different from the Central African culture in Rwanda. This often causes intercultural conflicts when Europeans working in Rwanda are confronted with the different attitudes towards time of the Rwandese people and vice versa.
The purpose of this research is to find an answer to the question whether the intercultural communication between Rwandese people and Europeans (sometimes, often, always) is disturbed because of misunderstandings caused by the differences in their time-codes. This survey contains two parts: first, a literature study on intercultural communication and time as a message system with references to the two cultures in question and second, a field study in Rwanda consisting of 120 questionnaires answered by Europeans and Rwandese people who work together.
La Femme et le Développement au Maghreb. Une Approche Socio-Culturelle
Authors: Hachlouf Brahim 
Published: August 2021

Woman and Development in the Maghreb. A Socio-Cultural Approach.
The under-development problem of the Third World can not exclusively be attributed to economic backlogging, political crises or supernatural events. The perseverance of old ancestral values, cultural, social and psychological, still remain obstructions to any social evolution in a country.
The woman’s role in society in these countries, is restricted to house-keeping and the bearing of children. A situation which weighs heavy on their economies. This article will shed light on the essential elements which hinder active woman participation in development of their economies, in particular in the Maghreb-countries. Discussed is their personal status, women's position in education and in the work-force.
Spatial Utilization and Microhabitat Selection of the Snow Leopard (Panthera uncia) under Different Livestock Grazing Intensities
Authors: Hong Yang , Connor Thomas , Luo Huan , Bian Xiaoxing , Duan Zhaogang , Tang Zhuo , Zhang Jindong 
Published: August 2021

AbstractThere is increasing conflict between snow leopards and humans in many protected areas, the main driver of which is the overlap in spatial utilization between snow leopards and livestock. Understanding the spatial utilization and microhabitat selection of snow leopards in areas featuring different levels of livestock grazing is important to better understand and resolve this conflict, but such studies are rare. Here, we conducted line transect and plot surveys in low- and high-grazing-disturbance areas (LGDAs and HGDAs) in Wolong National Reserve, southwestern China. We compared snow leopard spatial utilization and microhabitat characteristics between LGDAs and HGDAs. Results showed that snow leopards had aggregated distribution in both LGDAs and HGDAs, but the distribution of snow leopards in HGDAs was more centralized than in LGDAs. Herb cover and height in LGDAs were greater than in HGDAs. We fit a resource selection function (RSF) that showed that snow leopards preferentially selected higher elevation, smaller basal diameter of shrubs, and lower height of herbs in LGDAs. In contrast, there were no significant microhabitat factors in our snow leopard RSF in HGDAs. Our results indicate that high-intensity grazing tends to reduce the habitat types available to and preferential selectivity of habitat by snow leopards. We recommend that livestock grazing should be controlled to restore the diversity of the alpine ecosystems in Wolong Nature Reserve. Our findings also highlight the need for evaluating the impact of livestock grazing on rare animals in alpine environments (e.g., snow leopard) in other areas facing similar issues.
Observations of tropical cyclone inner-core fine-scale structure, and its link to intensity variations
Authors: Vinour Léo , Jullien Swen , Mouche Alexis , Combot Clément , Mangeas Morgan 
Published: August 2021

AbstractTropical Cyclone (TC) internal dynamics have emerged over recent decades as a key to understand their intensity variations, but are difficult to observe, as they are sporadic, multi-scale, and occur in areas of very strong wind gradients. The present work aims at describing the internal structure of TCs, as observed with newly available satellite synthetic aperture radars (SARs) wind products, and at evaluating relations between this structure and the TC life cycle. It is based on a unique dataset of 188 SAR high-resolution (1 km) images, containing 15 to 47 by intensity category. An extraction method is designed to retrieve and characterize, the TC radial profile, its azimuthal degree of asymmetry, and the energy distribution in the eyewall and maximum wind areas. Vortex contraction and sharpening of the eyewall wind radial gradient with increasing TC intensity are observed, as well as a symmetrization of energy distribution around the vortex. Eyewall high wave number structures show a dependence on the life cycle phase, supporting previous findings discussing the vortex rapid evolution with onset and propagation of eyewall mesovortices and associated vortex Rossby wave generation. A machine learning approach finally highlights that the eye shape and eyewall radial wind gradient fine-scale dynamics have the potential to improve the statistical prediction of TC intensity variations, compared to the sole use of vortex averaged parameters and synoptic information. The high-resolution radial and azimuthal coverage provided by SARs make these acquisitions a very valuable tool for TC research and operational application.
Partitioning Solid and Liquid Precipitation over the Tibetan Plateau Based on Satellite Radar Observations
Authors: Song Ping , Liu Guosheng 
Published: August 2021

AbstractWhether precipitation falls in the form of rain or snow is of great importance to glacier accumulation and ablation. Assessments of the phase-aware precipitation have been lacking over the vast area of the Tibetan Plateau (TP) due to the scarcity of surface measurements and the low quality of satellite estimates in this region. In this study, we attempt a satellite radar-based method for this precipitation partition, in which the CloudSat radar is used for snowfall while the Global Precipitation Measurement Mission radar is used for rainfall estimation. Assuming that a 11-year snowfall and a 5-year rainfall estimates represent the mean states of precipitation at each phase, the phase partition characteristics including its annual mean, spatial pattern, seasonal dependence and variation with elevations are then discussed. Averaged over the highland area (over 1 km above sea level) in TP, the annual total precipitation is estimated to be around 400 mm, of which about 40% fall as snow. The snowfall mass fraction is about 45% in the northern and 30% in the southern part of TP, and about 80% in the cold and 30% in the warm half year. Surface elevation is found to be a high-impact factor on total precipitation and its phase partition, generally with total precipitation decreasing but snowfall fraction increasing with the increase of elevation. While there are some shortcomings, the current approach in combining snowfall and rainfall estimates from two satellite radars presents a useful pathway to assessing phase-aware precipitation over the TP region.