bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Resilience and Its Predictors Among Chinese Liver Cancer Patients Undergoing Transarterial Chemoembolization
Authors: Li Caixia , Lu Huijuan , Qin Wei , Li Xiaorong , Yu Jingxian , Fang Fang 
Published: August 2018

Background
Although resilience has many positive effects on cancer patients, little is known about the level of resilience and its predictors in Chinese liver cancer patients undergoing transarterial chemoembolization (TACE).

Objective
The aims of this study were to evaluate resilience level and identify its predictors among Chinese liver cancer patients undergoing TACE.

Methods
Two hundred fifty-one patients were recruited from a tertiary hospital in Shanghai, China. According to Kumpfer's resilience framework, participants were assessed with Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, Demographic and Disease-Related Information, Family Apgar Scale, Social Support Rating Scale, Herth Hope Index, General Self-efficacy Scale, and Simplified Coping Style Questionnaire. Multiple regression analysis was conducted to find predictors of resilience.

Results
The average score for Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale was 70.33 (11.70). Multiple regression identified that educational level, time span since diagnosis, family function, social support, hope, self-efficacy, and positive coping strategies predicted higher resilience, whereas metastasis predicted lower resilience. These predictors accounted for 61.8% of the total variance in resilience.

Conclusions
Resilience in liver cancer patients undergoing TACE needs to be further improved, which was positively predicted by educational level, time span since diagnosis, family function, social support, hope, self-efficacy, and positive coping strategies, but was negatively predicted by metastasis. Hope had the largest influence on resilience.

Implications for Practice
Interventions aimed to improve hope are crucial to patients' resilience. Additional attention should be given to patients who had lower educational level or had metastasis. Family-centered interventions and strategies used to strengthen self-efficacy and positive coping strategies are also important in improving patients' resilience.
Pollinator size and its consequences: Predictive allometry for pollinating insects
Authors: Kendall Liam K. , Rader Romina , Gagic Vesna , Cariveau Daniel P. , Albrecht Matthias , Baldock Katherine C. R. , Freitas Breno M. , Hall Mark , Holzschuh Andrea , Molina Francisco P. , Morten Joanne M. , Pereira Janaely S. , Portman Zachary M. , Roberts Stuart P. M. , Rodriguez Juanita , Russo Laura , Sutter Louis , Vereecken Nicolas J. , Bartomeus Ignasi 
Published: August 2018

AbstractBody size is an integral functional trait that underlies pollination-related ecological processes, yet it is often impractical to measure directly. Allometric scaling laws have been used to overcome this problem. However, most existing models rely upon small sample sizes, geographically restricted sampling and have limited applicability for non-bee taxa. Predictive allometric models that consider biogeography, phylogenetic relatedness and intraspecific variation are urgently required to ensure greater accuracy.Here, we measured body size, as dry weight, and intertegular distance (ITD) of 391 bee species (4035 specimens) and 103 hoverfly species (399 specimens) across four biogeographic regions: Australia, Europe, North America and South America. We updated existing models within a Bayesian mixed-model framework to test the power of ITD to predict interspecific variation in pollinator dry weight in interaction with different co-variates: phylogeny or taxonomy, sexual dimorphism and biogeographic region. In addition, we used ordinary least squares (OLS) regression to assess intraspecific dry weight – ITD relationships for 10 bee and five hoverfly species.Including co-variates led to more robust interspecific body size predictions for both bees (BayesianR2: 0.946; ΔR20.047) and hoverflies (BayesianR2: 0.821; ΔR20.058) relative to models with ITD alone. In contrast, at the intraspecific level, our results demonstrate that ITD is an inconsistent predictor of body size for bees (R2: 0.02 – 0.66) and hoverflies (R2: −0.11 – 0.44).Therefore, predictive allometry is more suitable for interspecific comparative analyses than assessing intraspecific variation. Collectively, these models form the basis of the dynamicRpackage, ‘pollimetry’, which provides a comprehensive resource for allometric research concerning insect pollinators worldwide.
Characterization of emetic and diarrheal Bacillus cereus strains from a 2016 foodborne outbreak using whole-genome sequencing: addressing the microbiological, epidemiological, and bioinformatic challenges
Authors: Carroll Laura M. , Wiedmann Martin , Mukherjee Manjari , Nicholas David C. , Mingle Lisa A. , Dumas Nellie B. , Cole Jocelyn A. , Kovac Jasna 
Published: August 2018

AbstractThe Bacillus cereus group comprises multiple species capable of causing emetic or diarrheal foodborne illness. Despite being responsible for tens of thousands of illnesses each year in the U.S. alone, whole-genome sequencing (WGS) has not been routinely employed to characterize B. cereus group isolates from foodborne outbreaks. Here, we describe the first WGS-based characterization of isolates linked to an outbreak caused by members of the B. cereus group. In conjunction with a 2016 outbreak traced to a supplier of refried beans served by a fast food restaurant chain in upstate New York, a total of 33 B. cereus group strains were obtained from human cases (n =7) and food samples (n = 26). Emetic (n = 30) and diarrheal (n = 3) isolates were most closely related to B. paranthracis (clade III) and B. cereus sensu stricto (clade IV), respectively. WGS indicated that the 30 emetic isolates (24 and 6 from food and humans, respectively) were closely-related and formed a well-supported clade relative to publicly-available emetic clade III genomes with an identical sequence type (ST 26). When compared to publicly-available emetic clade III ST 26 B. cereus group genomes, the 30 emetic clade III isolates from this outbreak differed from each other by a mean of 8.3 to 11.9 core single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), while differing from publicly-available genomes by a mean of 301.7 to 528.0 core SNPs, depending on the SNP calling methodology used. Using a WST-1 cell proliferation assay, the strains isolated from this outbreak had only mild detrimental effects on HeLa cell metabolic activity compared to reference diarrheal strain B. cereus ATCC 14579. Based on both WGS and epidemiological data, we hypothesize that the outbreak was a single source outbreak caused by emetic clade III B. cereus belonging to the B. paranthracis species. In addition to showcasing how WGS can be used to characterize B. cereus group strains linked to a foodborne outbreak, we also discuss potential microbiological and epidemiological challenges presented by B. cereus group outbreaks, and we offer recommendations for analyzing WGS data from the isolates associated with them.
Structural insights into unique features of the human mitochondrial ribosome recycling
Authors: Koripella Ravi K. , Sharma Manjuli R. , Risteff Paul , Keshavan Pooja , Agrawal Rajendra K. 
Published: August 2018

AbstractMammalian mitochondrial ribosomes (mitoribosomes) are responsible for synthesizing proteins that are essential for oxidative phosphorylation or energy (ATP) generation. Despite their proposed bacterial origin, the composition and structure of the human mitoribosome and its translational factors are dramatically different from their bacterial counterparts. The mammalian mitoribosome recycling factor (RRFmt) carries a mito-specific N-terminus extension (NTE), which is necessary for the function of RRFmt. Here we present a 3.7 Å resolution cryo-EM structure of the human 55S mitoribosome-RRFmt complex, which reveals α-helix and loop structures for a portion of the NTE that makes multiple mito-specific interactions with functionally critical regions of the mitoribosome. These include ribosomal RNAs segments that constitute the peptidyl transferase center (PTC), those that connect PTC with the GTPase-associated center, and with multiple mitoribosomal proteins. Our structure also reveals novel conformational changes in mitoribosome due to RRFmt binding. Together, these findings help understand the unique features of mitoribosome recycling.
nsearch: An open source C++ library for processing and similarity searching of next-generation sequencing data
Authors: Steven Schmid , Timothy R. Julian , Manu Tamminen 
Published: August 2018

AbstractAdvancements in DNA sequencing technologies rapidly change the landscape of modern biology. The novel next-generation sequencing (NGS) applications often have special requirements regarding experimental data processing. Software tools developed and used for novel applications are generally designed for specific use cases and as such may be difficult to adapt to new uses. Simultaneously, software tools designed to be general are often difficult to adapt to special use cases.Here, we present nsearch, a modern open source C++11 library and command-line tool for biological sequence data processing. nsearch offers commonly used components for handling of biological sequences including paired-end read merging, quality filtering and sequence similarity searching. nsearch can either be embedded natively into other C++ applications or be packaged as a standalone executable.Functionality and performance of nsearch is shown using benchmark data created using the Rfam 13 database. Benchmarking against common general purpose tools USEARCH and VSEARCH demonstrates that nsearch delivers performance comparable these state-of-the-art tools.nsearch is available on GitHub under the permissive BSD-3-clause license: https://github.com/stevschmid/nsearch
A simple cloning-free method to efficiently induce gene expression using CRISPR/Cas9
Authors: Fang Lyujie , Hung Sandy S.C. , Yek Jennifer , Nguyen Tu , Khan Shahnaz , Hewitt Alex W , Wong Raymond C.B. 
Published: August 2018

AbstractGain-of-function studies often require the tedious cloning of transgene cDNA into vectors for overexpression beyond the physiological expression levels. The rapid development of CRISPR/Cas technology presents promising opportunities to address these issues. Here we report a simple, cloning-free method to induce gene expression at endogenous locus using CRISPR/Cas9 activators. Our strategy utilises synthesized sgRNA expression cassettes to direct a nuclease-null Cas9 complex fused with transcriptional activators (VP64, p65 and Rta) for site-specific induction of endogenous genes. This strategy allows rapid initiation of gain-of-function studies in the same day. Using this cloning-free approach, we tested two CRISPR activation systems, dSpCas9VPR and dSaCas9VPR, for induction of multiple genes in human and rat cells. Our results showed that both CRISPR activators allow efficient induction of six different neural development genes (CRX, RORB, RAX, OTX2, ASCL1 and NEUROD1) in human cells, whereas the rat cells exhibit a more variable and less efficient levels of gene induction, as observed in three different genes (Ascl1, Neurod1, Nrl). Altogether, this study provides a simple method to efficiently activate endogenous gene expression using CRISPR/Cas9 activators, which can be applies as a rapid workflow to initiate gain-of-function studies for a range of molecular and cell biology disciplines.
A cross-cultural consumers’ perspective on social media-based short food supply chains
Authors: Elghannam Ahmed , Arroyo Julian , Eldesouky Ali , Mesias Francisco J. 
Published: August 2018

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to get a consumer’s cross-cultural insight on the potential of using social networking sites as short food supply chains.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative approach, using free listing tasks and sentence completion techniques, was adopted in this research. The research group decided to apply the study in three countries with different cultural backgrounds, namely, Mexico, Spain and Egypt. The final sample consisted of 424 respondents in total, including 209 Spanish, 111 Mexicans and 104 Egyptians, all of them actual users of social networks.FindingsThe most significant result that emerges from this study is that a high percentage of consumers within the three countries might be interested in these new short food chains. Also, the study offers food companies the most relevant motivations and barriers of consumers for their engagement to this initiative. Also, the study provides categories of foods that consumers would purchase via these chains in each country.Originality/valueThe multicultural perspective of this study might open new opportunities for food businesses around the world, especially for SMEs, to develop new short food supply chains enabling them to increase sale levels and, therefore, increase profitability and reduce costs.
Innovation in construction firms of different sizes: drivers and strategies
Authors: Meng Xianhai , Brown Andrew 
Published: August 2018

Purpose
The importance of innovation has been increasingly highlighted in construction as a large and complex industry sector that is more challenging than ever before. To bridge the knowledge gap about how firm size affects innovation in construction, the purpose of this paper is to explore firm-level innovation through an empirical investigation and compare innovation in construction firms of different sizes in terms of drivers and strategies.

Design/methodology/approach
This research adopts a combination of a literature review, a group of qualitative interviews and a quantitative questionnaire survey. In this research, the questionnaire survey is the main instrument to collect empirical data. Main contractors, subcontractors and specialist contractors as well as suppliers of labor, material and equipment are used in this research to represent construction firms of different sizes. On the other hand, client organizations, design firms and management consultants are not included in this research.

Findings
This research provides clear evidence for the embrace of innovation in construction. Many forces can drive construction firms to innovate and many strategies can be applied to construction innovation. Innovation drivers can be either internal or external. On the other hand, innovation strategies fall into four categories: technology, resource, marketing and management. For innovation drivers and strategies, both commonalities and differences can be found among construction firms of different sizes.

Originality/value
The finding of commonalities describes the general trend of innovation development in construction. It also encourages all construction firms to innovate regardless of firm size. On the other hand, the finding of differences enables construction firms of different sizes to realize what forces better drive their innovation and what strategies are more appropriate for their innovation. A thorough understanding of innovation drivers and strategies offers an important framework for construction organizations and practitioners to pursue best practice.
Open-plan office post-occupancy evaluation: inquiring Algerian gender specificity
Authors: Benammar Abdelkrim , Anouche Karima , Lesgaa Hasnia , Hamza Cherif Yamina 
Published: August 2018

Purpose
This paper aims to examine the impact of an open-plan office (OPO) space organisation on a user’s attitude in the Algerian context; more specifically, it investigates gender differences in the occupants’ perception of such working environment. It, principally, aims to explore the employees’ reaction towards OPO and sees how much such local office type complies with indoor environment quality (IEQ) and psychological comfort.

Design/methodology/approach
The theoretical framework of the study is mainly related to environmental psychology referring to the interaction between users and their environment. Post-occupancy evaluation was carried out using exploratory study and questionnaires, followed by statistical analyses. It was performed on a large-scale sample of employees (296 employees) working in recently built OPO situated in Oran (Algeria).

Findings
Fundamentally, women appear to show more concern regarding comfort. They do not show much reluctance to be mixed with men in a large office space as opposed to more conservative reaction towards mixing up in outdoor public space environment. As for environmental factors (IEQ), indicators have shown the inadequacy of most buildings in terms of thermal, light or noise comfort. The study has also revealed that a majority of users recognise the professional advantages of the OPO, although it is suggested that their preferred type would be the individual office.

Originality/value
The paper provides a concise starting point for future research interested in developing Algerian context OPO design in terms of both indoor environmental and psychological comfort.
Does the political regime favor economic growth?
Authors: Guadalupe-Lanas Jorge , Cruz-Cárdenas Jorge , Arévalo-Chávez Patricio , Palacio-Fierro Andrés 
Published: August 2018

Purpose
This study aims to analyze the influence of political regime on economic growth.

Design/methodology/approach
The methodology was based on an inter-period comparison of the evolution of macroeconomic fundamentals in three different political regimes in Ecuador, a South American country.

Findings
The results showed that what determines the evolution of macroeconomic fundamentals is not the political regime that oversees it, but the size of a positive exogenous shock on the price of raw materials, which, by providing higher incomes, considerably increases the level of investment and net exports. However, the political regime does affect the distribution of income in sectors such as health and education.

Originality/value
As far as the authors know, this may be the first paper to explore the importance of a positive exogenous shock on a political regime for the case of primary-exporting Latin American economies, which are price takers subject to exogenous shocks.
The development and critique of validated assessment tools for pre-hospital resuscitation skills
Authors: Seymour-Walsh Amy 
Published: August 2018

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of clinically credible skill practice and assessment guides for intraosseous (IO) needle insertion and laryngeal mask airway (LMA) insertion as two essential components of advanced life support (ALS) training.

Design/methodology/approach
A modified Delphi approach was used to determine expert consensus in the application of IO and LMA devices for the pre-hospital and emergency setting. Nine pre-hospital clinical specialists were recruited to participate in this Delphi study to determine consensus of clinical expert practice.

Findings
Two rounds were required to obtain a performance and assessment checklist for each skill. Both lists were then further modified to maximise their useability. However, the development of a “validated” checklist using a pre-determined process such as a Delphi approach is challenged. Rather, the implementation of these tools in a stated context, and analysis of the data they generate, is an essential aspect of validation which the Delphi approach does not address.

Research limitations/implications
Participant feedback regarding the rationale for their scores was limited in this study in order to minimise participant input and maximise completion of all rounds of the study. Further, devices used in the study may no longer be first-line choices with the advent of more modern devices including semi-automatic IO devices and LMAs which do not have inflatable cuffs. The refined checklists are able to be adapted to these newer devices.

Practical implications
Pre-hospital education contexts which may not have access to expert assessors who are skilled in providing global judgements now have access to clinically relevant skill-specific assessment tools for IO and LMA insertion.

Originality/value
Worldwide, ALS accreditation and competence is demanded of countless health professionals, and to date, validated practice and assessment guides specifically developed for the emergency setting for which they are used, are not available in the published literature. This paper proposes to fill that gap, in addition to guiding clinical education researchers in strategies to develop valid assessment tools through rigorous critique.
Ethanol production in Brazil: empirical evidence based on persistence
Authors: Barros Carlos , Gil-Alana Luis A. , Wanke Peter 
Published: August 2018

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the production of sugar cane ethanol in Brazil for the time period 1983-2016, separating the data by geographical location.Design/methodology/approachFor this purpose, the authors use techniques based on the concept of fractional integration.FindingsThe authors show that the data corresponding to the total production is highly persistent, with an integration order smaller than 1 but close to it. In fact, the unit root hypothesis cannot be rejected implying that shocks have a permanent nature, and thus requiring policy measures to recover the level from exogenous shocks. Separating the data into two sub-regions, namely, North–Northeast and Central–South, higher levels of persistence are detected in the latter, while the former presents some evidence of mean reverting behavior, implying that shocks will disappear by themselves in the long run in the former regions. These results are obtained from all the different methods used.Originality/valueThe originality is based on the time series techniques used in the paper that departs from the classical methods based on unit roots and integer degrees of differentiation.
Exploring supply chain sustainability research in Latin America
Authors: Fritz Morgane Marie Caroline , Silva Minelle E. 
Published: August 2018

Purpose
The majority of the supply chain sustainability (SCS) literature is based on research perspectives and findings from studies conducted in developed countries. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the current Latin American publications on SCS (2007–2016) to explore whether another perspective exists.

Design/methodology/approach
As part of a structured literature review, 123 peer-reviewed articles published in four Latin American databases were scanned. This literature review was combined with a qualitative content analysis using an inductive and deductive approach to move away from top–down approaches and to illuminate the Latin American perspective on SCS.

Findings
The analysis of the scientific literature demonstrates that the traditional three pillars of sustainability are not enough to understand the specificities of the region. This review shows that cultural and institutional dimensions enhance the understanding of SCS locally. In addition, three major triggers for SCS in Latin American economies were found: green supply chain management practices, local development and stakeholder engagement.

Research limitations/implications
A deeper understanding of the Latin American perspective can support scholars worldwide in developing the field of SCS in relevant directions and in comprehending the specificities of their own countries by infusing cultural and institutional elements into their conceptualisations of SCS.

Originality/value
This paper provides an unexplored perspective on SCS because it analyses Latin American publications and presents a mapping of current SCS issues and research gaps that offers insights to guide future research in the field.