bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Water quality assessment of Qarun Lake and heavy metals decontamination from its drains using nanocomposites
Authors: Goher M E , El-Rouby W M A , El-Dek S I , El-Sayed S M , Noaemy S G 
Published: December 2018

Abstract
Qarun Lake is one of the most important lakes in Egypt; it is the shrunken remnant of Moeris Lake. It is a closed ecosystem represented as a tank for discharged agricultural wastewater of El-Fayoum province. To assess the quality of the lake water for fishing and aquatic live utilization, Oregon water quality and metal pollution indices are computed. Based on the obtained results, water of the Qarun Lake is classified as very poor for the fishing utilization, where water quality index changed from 17.05 to 67.4 at the different stations. The metal indices; Pollution index (PI) and metal index (MI); showed that Qarun Lake water undergoes from a several grade of contamination for usage of aquatic life because of the enormous amount of wastes that discharging into the lake. Novel synthesized alginate nanocomposites (alginate, chitosan-alginate, and LDH-alginate and LDH-chitosan-alginate beads) were applied to remove heavy metal such as (Cd2+, Cu2+, Cr6+, Mn2+, Fe2+, Ni2+, Pb2+, and Zn2+) from different wastewater discharging into Qarun Lake. LDH-chitosan-alginate beads the exhibited the maximum removal efficiency that varied between 92.253 and 98.833 % for Cr6+ and Fe2+, respectively; in contrast, the alginate beads recorded the lowest one. The study indicated that the nanocomposite adsorbents, especially, LDH-chitosan-alginate beads are an effective substance for metal removal from different wastewater.
A Genetically Informed Study of Neighborhoods and Health: Results From the MIDUS Twin Sample
Authors: Robinette Jennifer W , Beam Christopher R 
Published: December 2018

Abstract

Objectives
To examine whether neighborhood income and neighborhood safety concerns influence multisystem physiological risk after adjusting for genetic and environmental selection effects that may have biased previous tests of this association.

Methods
We used structural equation modeling with a genetically informed sample of 686 male and female twin pairs in the Midlife in the United States Study II (2004).

Results
Controlling for additive genetic and shared environmental processes that may have biased neighborhood–health links in previous examinations, higher neighborhood safety concerns were associated with less physiological risk among women but not men.

Discussion
Our findings suggest a possible causal role of neighborhood features for a measure of physiological risk that is associated with the development of disease. Efforts to increase neighborhood safety, perhaps through increased street lighting or neighborhood watch programs, may improve community-level health.
Approximating Simple Locally Compact Groups by Their Dense Locally Compact Subgroups
Authors: Caprace Pierre-Emmanuel , Reid Colin , Wesolek Phillip 
Published: December 2018

Abstract
The class $\mathscr{S}$ of totally disconnected locally compact (tdlc) groups that are non-discrete, compactly generated, and topologically simple contains many compelling examples. In recent years, a general theory for these groups, which studies the interaction between the compact open subgroups and the global structure, has emerged. In this article, we study the non-discrete tdlc groups $H$ that admit a continuous embedding with dense image into some $G\in \mathscr{S}$; that is, we consider the dense locally compact subgroups of groups $G\in \mathscr{S}$. We identify a class $\mathscr{R}$ of almost simple groups that properly contains $\mathscr{S}$ and is moreover stable under passing to a non-discrete dense locally compact subgroup. We show that $\mathscr{R}$ enjoys many of the same properties previously obtained for $\mathscr{S}$ and establish various original results for $\mathscr{R}$ that are also new for the subclass $\mathscr{S}$, notably concerning the structure of the local Sylow subgroups and the full automorphism group.
Single-cell transcriptomes reveal molecular specializations of neuronal cell types in the developing cerebellum
Authors: Peng Jian , Sheng Ai-li , Xiao Qi , Shen Libing , Ju Xiang-Chun , Zhang Min , He Si-Ting , Wu Chao , Luo Zhen-Ge 
Published: December 2018

AbstractThe cerebellum is critical for controlling motor and non-motor functions via cerebellar circuit that is composed of defined cell types, which approximately account for more than half of neurons in mammals. The molecular mechanisms controlling developmental progression and maturation processes of various cerebellar cell types need systematic investigation. Here, we analyzed transcriptome profiles of 21119 single cells of the postnatal mouse cerebellum and identified eight main cell clusters. Functional annotation of differentially expressed genes revealed trajectory hierarchies of granule cells (GCs) at various states and implied roles of mitochondrion and ATPases in the maturation of Purkinje cells (PCs), the sole output cells of the cerebellar cortex. Furthermore, we analyzed gene expression patterns and co-expression networks of 28 ataxia risk genes, and found that most of them are related with biological process of mitochondrion and around half of them are enriched in PCs. Our results also suggested core transcription factors that are correlated with interneuron differentiation and characteristics for the expression of secretory proteins in glia cells, which may participate in neuronal modulation. Thus, this study presents a systematic landscape of cerebellar gene expression in defined cell types and a general gene expression framework for cerebellar development and dysfunction.
Managing the Behavior of Public Frontline Employees through Change-Oriented Training: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment
Authors: Jakobsen Morten , Jacobsen Christian Bøtcher , Serritzlew Søren 
Published: December 2018

AbstractMost public frontline employees work out of sight of management. Direct management through authority and incentives is therefore often challenging. We argue that managers can rely on change-oriented training as an effective management tool that can affect employee behavior and work as an alternative or supplement to commands and incentives. First, we outline the concept of change-oriented training and explain how it can direct the behavior of public employees towards organizational goals and political priorities. Second, we test the effect of change-oriented training on employee behavior in a large-scale field experiment of teachers in Danish public schools. We show that training has a substantial effect on teachers’ behavior in the classroom and infer from this that training should be seen as a valuable management tool with the ability to influence the behavior of frontline employees.
Effects of environmental conditions and space on species turnover for three plant functional groups in Brazilian savannas
Authors: Menegat Hélio , Silvério Divino Vicente , Mews Henrique A , Colli Guarino R , Abadia Ana Clara , Maracahipes-Santos Leonardo , Gonçalves Lorrayne A , Martins Jhany , Lenza Eddie 
Published: December 2018

Abstract

Aims
Different plant functional groups display diverging responses to the same environmental gradients. Here, we assess the effects of environmental and spatial predictors on species turnover of three functional groups of Brazilian savannas (Cerrado) plants—trees, palms and lianas—across the transition zone between the Cerrado and Amazon biomes in central Brazil.

Methods
We used edaphic, climatic and plant composition data from nine one-hectare plots to assess the effects of the environment and space on species turnover using a Redundancy Analysis and Generalized Dissimilarity Modeling (GDM), associated with variance partitioning.

Important Findings
We recorded 167 tree species, 5 palms and 4 liana species. Environmental variation was most important in explaining species turnover, relative to geographic distance, but the best predictors differed between functional groups: geographic distance and silt for lianas; silt for palms; geographic distance, temperature and elevation for trees. Geographic distances alone exerted little influence over species turnover for the three functional groups. The pure environmental variation explained most of the liana and palm turnover, while tree turnover was largely explained by the shared spatial and environmental contribution. The effects of geographic distance upon species turnover leveled off at about 300 km for trees, and 200 km for lianas, whereas they were unimportant for palm species turnover. Our results indicate that environmental factors that determine floristic composition and species turnover differ substantially between plant functional groups in savannas. Therefore, we recommend that studies that aim to investigate the role of environmental conditions in determining plant species turnover should examine plant functional groups separately.
scCapsNet: a deep learning classifier with the capability of interpretable feature extraction, applicable for single cell RNA data analysis
Authors: Wang Lifei , Nie Rui , Xin Ruyue , Zhang Jiang , Cai Jun 
Published: December 2018

AbstractRecently deep learning methods have been applied to process biological data and greatly pushed the development of the biological research forward. However, the interpretability of the deep learning methods still needs to improve. Here for the first time, we present scCapsNet, a totally interpretable deep learning model adapted from CapsNet. The scCapsNet model retains the capsule parts of CapsNet but replaces the part of convolutional neural networks with several parallel fully connected neural networks. We apply scCapsNet to scRNA-seq data. The results show that scCapsNet performs well as a classifier and also that the parallel fully connected neural networks function like feature extractors as we supposed. The scCapsNet model provides contribution of each extracted feature to the cell type recognition. Evidences show that some extracted features are nearly orthogonal to each other. After training, through analysis of the internal weights of each neural network connected inputs and primary capsule, and with the information about the contribution of each extracted feature to the cell type recognition, the scCapsNet model could relate gene sets from inputs to cell types. The specific gene set is responsible for the identification of its corresponding cell types but does not affect the recognition of other cell types by the model. Many well-studied cell type markers are in the gene set with corresponding cell type. The internal weights of neural network for those well-studied cell type markers are different for different primary capsules. The internal weights of neural network connected to a primary capsule could be viewed as an embedding for genes, convert genes to real value low dimensional vectors. Furthermore, we mix the RNA expression data of two cells with different cell types and then use the scCapsNet model trained with non-mixed data to predict the cell types in the mixed data. Our scCapsNet model could predict cell types in a cell mixture with high accuracy.
Assessing the bioenergy potential of grassland biomass from conservation areas in England
Authors: French Katherine E. 
Published: December 2018

AbstractBioenergy may be one of the ‘ecosystem services of the future’ for grasslands managed for conservation as the concept of bio-based economies is embraced worldwide. Although the idea of producing biogas and bioethanol from lignocellulosic material is not new, there are currently few regional-level comparisons of the bioenergy potential of high-diversity grasslands that would establish whether this could be a competitive bioenergy feedstock for farmers. Comparing the chemical composition and biogas yields of biomass samples from 13 grasslands in England and 73 other bioenergy feedstocks reveals that the lignin content of biomass from grasslands managed for conservation was up to 50% less than other bioenergy crops. Grasslands managed for conservation yielded up to 160% more biogas per ton dry matter than cereals or crop waste and only slightly less than Miscanthus. GIS modeling of the estimated biogas yields of grasslands managed for conservation and fields currently sown with Miscanthus show that grasslands are larger (20.57 ha) than Miscanthus fields (5.95 ha) and are projected to produce up to 117% more biogas per average field. Future incorporation of high-diversity grasslands into local and nation-wide energy plans may help reduce global fossil-fuel use in the 21st century.
Premeiotic and meiotic failures lead to hybrid male sterility in theAnopheles gambiaecomplex
Authors: Liang Jiangtao , Sharakhov Igor V. 
Published: December 2018

AbstractHybrid male sterility contributes to speciation by restricting gene flow between related taxa. Detailed cytological characterizations of reproductive organs in hybrid males is important for identifying phenotypes that can help guide searches of speciation genes. To investigate possible cellular causes of hybrid male sterility, we performed crosses between closely related species of theAnopheles gambiaecomplex:An. meruswithAn. gambiaeorAn. coluzzii. We demonstrate that hybrid male sterility in African malaria mosquitoes involves two defects in the reciprocal crosses: a premeiotic arrest of germline stem cells in degenerate testes and a failure of the reductional meiotic division of primary spermatocytes in normal-like testes. The premeiotic arrest in degenerate testes of hybrids is accompanied by a strong suppression of meiotic and postmeiotic genes. Unlike pure species, sex chromosomes in normal-like testes of F1 hybrids are largely unpaired during meiotic prophase I and all chromosomes show various degrees of insufficient condensation. Instead of entering reductional division in meiosis I, primary spermatocytes prematurely undergo an equational mitotic division producing nonmotile diploid sperm. Thus, our study identified cytogenetic errors in interspecies hybrids that arise during the early stages of postzygotic isolation.
Genetically regulated gene expression underlies lipid traits in Hispanic cohorts
Authors: Andaleon Angela , Mogil Lauren S. , Wheeler Heather E. 
Published: December 2018

AbstractPlasma lipid levels are risk factors for cardiovascular disease, a leading cause of death worldwide. While many studies have been conducted in genetic variation underlying lipid levels, they mainly comprise individuals of European ancestry and thus their transferability to non-European populations is unclear. We performed genome-wide (GWAS) and imputed transcriptome-wide association studies of four lipid traits in the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos cohort (HCHS/SoL, n = 11,103), replicated top hits in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA, n = 3,855), and compared the results to the larger, predominantly European ancestry meta-analysis by the Global Lipids Genetics Consortium (GLGC, n = 196,475). In our GWAS, we found significant SNP associations in regions within or near known lipid genes, but in our admixture mapping analysis, we did not find significant associations between local ancestry and lipid phenotypes. In the imputed transcriptome-wide association study in multiple tissues and in different ethnicities, we found 59 significant gene-tissue-phenotype associations (P < 3.61×10−8) with 14 unique significant genes, many of which occurred across multiple phenotypes, tissues, and ethnicities and replicated in MESA (45/59) and in GLGC (44/59). These include well-studied lipid genes such as SORT1, CETP, and PSRC1, as well as genes that have been implicated in cardiovascular phenotypes, such as CCL22 and ICAM1. The majority (40/59) of significant associations colocalized with expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs), indicating a possible mechanism of gene regulation in lipid level variation. To fully characterize the genetic architecture of lipid traits in diverse populations, larger studies in non-European ancestry populations are needed.
Process owners in business process management: a systematic literature review
Authors: Danilova Kjersti Berg 
Published: December 2018

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to determine the state-of-the-art in research on process owners, a key role within business process management and process governance, and thus to increase our understanding of the role of process owners.

Design/methodology/approach
The author conducts a systematic literature review of research shedding light on the role of process owners. The review includes 100 academic papers and 10 books on BPM.

Findings
Findings from the review demonstrate the significance of appointing process owners and showcase process owners’ role and responsibilities, as well as obstacles to and enablers of effective process ownership.

Originality/value
Based on the findings from the review, the author proposes a comprehensive framework on process ownership. The review provides a knowledge base for future research to build upon and can serve as a guide for practitioners. The review also identifies several research gaps and opportunities for future research.
Process ontology development using natural language processing: a multiple case study
Authors: Gurbuz Ozge , Rabhi Fethi , Demirors Onur 
Published: December 2018

Purpose
Integrating ontologies with process modeling has gained increasing attention in recent years since it enhances data representations and makes it easier to query, store and reuse knowledge at the semantic level. The authors focused on a process and ontology integration approach by extracting the activities, roles and other concepts related to the process models from organizational sources using natural language processing techniques. As part of this study, a process ontology population (PrOnPo) methodology and tool is developed, which uses natural language parsers for extracting and interpreting the sentences and populating an event-driven process chain ontology in a fully automated or semi-automated (user assisted) manner. The purpose of this paper is to present applications of PrOnPo tool in different domains.

Design/methodology/approach
A multiple case study is conducted by selecting five different domains with different types of guidelines. Process ontologies are developed using the PrOnPo tool in a semi-automated and fully automated fashion and manually. The resulting ontologies are compared and evaluated in terms of time-effort and recall-precision metrics.

Findings
From five different domains, the results give an average of 70 percent recall and 80 percent precision for fully automated usage of the PrOnPo tool, showing that it is applicable and generalizable. In terms of efficiency, the effort spent for process ontology development is decreased from 250 person-minutes to 57 person-minutes (semi-automated).

Originality/value
The PrOnPo tool is the first one to automatically generate integrated process ontologies and process models from guidelines written in natural language.
Improving the quality of Business Process Models: Lesson learned from the State of the Art
Authors: Yahya Fadwa , Boukadi Khouloud , Ben-Abdallah Hanêne 
Published: December 2018

Purpose
The quality of a Business Process (BP) model is vital for the successful accomplishment of all its lifecycle phases. Indeed, a high-quality BP model makes its implementation, execution and evaluation easier. In the literature, the improvement of BP model quality has been dealt with using several techniques. For instance, modeling guidelines, refactoring techniques, and transformation rules are the most used ones. The purpose of this paper is to exploit existing initiatives in this field to help designers improve their BP models.

Design/methodology/approach
This paper draws up a systematic inventory of the existing approaches to improve the quality of BP models. Moreover, it provides a comparative evaluation with the aim of identifying the particularities of each approach as well as the common gaps in the state of the art. Finally, it proposes a guiding framework, called BP-Quality, that supports designers in improving the quality of their BP models.

Findings
The usability of BP-Quality is illustrated through a case study and a set of experiments. The preliminary experimental evaluation of this guiding framework shows encouraging results.

Originality/value
The proposed guiding framework has the merit of exploiting existing initiatives in the field of BP quality improvement. In addition, it customizes and optimizes the quality improvement process according to the particularities of each BP model.
School leaders’ relational and management work orientation
Authors: Blossing Ulf , Liljenberg Mette 
Published: December 2018

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of Swedish school leaders’ relational and management work orientation, in terms of both techno and socio structure dimensions. The background is the neoliberal policy regime, underpinned by OECD and PISA, and an increased focus on school leaders’ management work.

Design/methodology/approach
In total, 26 school leaders in a Swedish municipality were interviewed, and their responses were analysed to score their expressed orientations in terms of techno structure (object and formal) and socio structure (person and symbolic) dimensions.

Findings
The school leaders had predominantly formal work orientations, expressed in comments about organising teams, scheduling teacher meetings, shaping working routines in meetings, making plans and (in some cases) creating an infrastructure. Scores for object (goal and result) and symbolic dimensions of their management orientation were low.

Practical implications
The results suggest a need to increase Swedish school leaders’ attention to object aspects, and both person and symbolic aspects of the formal or organising dimension, of their work. They also indicate the importance of establishing and communicating core symbols in compulsory schooling, like democracy and equity, to avoid external accountability pressures instrumentally shaping schools’ management.

Originality/value
In contrast to previous research, the analysis indicates that Swedish school leaders have a predominantly formal and organising work orientation, frequently with little clear goal and results orientation, or attention to professional needs and motivations of the teachers (important aspects of person orientation).