bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Better Outcomes Among HIV-Infected Rwandan Children 18–60 Months of Age After the Implementation of “Treat All”
Authors: Arpadi Stephen , Lamb Matthew , Nzeyimana Isaie N. , Vandebriel Greet , Anyalechi Gloria , Wong Marcia , Smith Rebecca , Rivadeneira Emilia D. , Kayirangwa Eugenie , Malamba Samuel S. , Musoni Canisious , Koumans Emilia H. , Braaten Mollie , Nsanzimana Sabin 
Published: November 2018

Background:
In 2012, Rwanda introduced a Treat All approach for HIV-infected children younger than 5 years. We compared antiretroviral therapy (ART) initiation, outcomes, and retention, before and after this change.

Methods:
We conducted a retrospective study of children enrolled into care between June 2009 and December 2011 [Before Treat All (BTA) cohort] and between July 2012 and April 2015 [Treat All (TA) cohort].

Setting:
Medical records of a nationally representative sample were abstracted for all eligible aged 18–60 months from 100 Rwandan public health facilities.

Results:
We abstracted 374 medical records: 227 in the BTA and 147 in the TA cohorts. Mean (SD) age at enrollment was [3 years (1.1)]. Among BTA, 59% initiated ART within 1 year, vs. 89% in the TA cohort. Median time to ART initiation was 68 days (interquartile range 14–494) for BTA and 9 days (interquartile range 0–28) for TA (P < 0.0001), with 9 (5%) undergoing same-day initiation in BTA compared with 50 (37%) in TA (P < 0.0001). Before ART initiation, 59% in the BTA reported at least one health condition compared with 35% in the TA cohort (P < 0.0001). Although overall loss to follow-up was similar between cohorts (BTA: 13%, TA: 8%, P = 0.18), loss to follow-up before ART was significantly higher in the BTA (8%) compared with the TA cohort (2%) (P = 0.02).

Conclusions:
Nearly 90% of Rwandan children started on ART within 1 year of enrollment, most within 1 month, with greater than 90% retention after implementation of TA. TA was also associated with fewer morbidities.
Efficacy and Safety of Tenofovir Disoproxil Fumarate Versus Low-Dose Stavudine Over 96 Weeks: A Multicountry Randomized, Noninferiority Trial
Authors: Venter Willem Daniel Francois , Kambugu Andrew , Chersich Matthew F. , Becker Stephen , Hill Andrew , Arulappan Natasha , Moorhouse Michelle , Majam Mohammed , Akpomiemie Godspower , Sokhela Simiso , Poongulali Selvamuthu , Feldman Charles , Duncombe Chris , Ripin David H. Brown , Vos Alinda , Kumarasamy Nagalingeswaran 
Published: November 2018

Background:
Reducing doses of antiretroviral drugs, including stavudine (d4T), may lower toxicity, while preserving efficacy. There are substantial concerns about renal and bone toxicities of tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF).

Setting:
HIV-1–infected treatment-naive adults in India, South Africa, and Uganda.

Methods:
A phase-4, 96-week, randomized, double-blind, noninferiority trial compared d4T 20 mg twice daily and TDF, taken in combination with lamivudine (3TC) and efavirenz (EFV). The primary endpoint was the proportion of participants with HIV-1 RNA <50 copies per milliliter at 48 weeks. Adverse events assessments included measures of bone density and body fat. The trial is registered on Clinicaltrials.gov (NCT02670772).

Results:
Between 2012 and 2014, 536 participants were recruited per arm. At week 96, trial completion rates were 75.7% with d4T/3TC/EFV (n = 406) and 82.1% with TDF/3TC/EFV (n = 440, P = 0.011). Noncompletion was largely due to virological failure [6.2% (33) with d4T/3TC/EFV versus 5.4% (29) with TDF/3TC/EFV; P = 0.60]. For the primary endpoint, d4T/3TC/EFV was noninferior to TDF/3TC/EFV (79.3%, 425/536 versus 80.8% 433/536; difference = −1.49%, 95% CI: −6.3 to 3.3; P < 0.001). Drug-related adverse event discontinuations were higher with d4T (6.7%, 36), than TDF (1.1%, 6; P < 0.001). Lipodystrophy was more common with d4T (5.6%, 30) than TDF (0.2%, 1; P < 0.001). Creatinine clearance increased in both arms, by 18.1 mL/min in the d4T arm and 14.2 mL/min with TDF (P = 0.03). Hip bone density measures, however, showed greater loss with TDF.

Conclusions:
Low-dose d4T combined with 3TC/EFV demonstrated noninferior virological efficacy compared with TDF/3TC/EFV, but mitochondrial toxicity remained high. Little renal toxicity occurred in either arm. Implications of bone mineral density changes with TDF warrant investigation.
Intraspecific size variation in planktonic foraminifera cannot be consistently predicted by the environment
Authors: Rillo Marina C. , Miller C. Giles , Kucera Michal , Ezard Thomas H. G. 
Published: November 2018

AbstractThe size structure of plankton communities is an important determinant of their functions in marine ecosystems. However, few studies have quantified how organism size varies within species across space. Using a recently-digitised museum collection, we investigate at high intraspecific resolution how planktonic foraminifera, an important microfossil group, vary in size across the tropical and subtropical oceans of the world. We measured 3799 individuals of nine species in 53 seafloor sediments and analysed potential size biases in the museum collection. For each site, we obtained corresponding local values of mean annual sea-surface temperature (SST), net primary productivity (NPP), and relative abundance of each species. Given former studies, we expected species to reach largest shell sizes under optimal environmental conditions. At species level, we find the expected pattern; however, at population level, species greatly differ in how much size variation is explained by SST, NPP and/or relative abundance. While some species show a high predictability of size variation given one single variable (Trilobatus sacculifer, Globigerinella siphonifera, Pulleniatina obliquiloculata, Globorotalia truncatulinoides), other species showed either weak or no relationships between size and the studied covariates (Globigerinoides ruber, G. conglobatus, Neogloboquadrina dutertrei, G. menardii, Globoconella inflata). By incorporating intraspecific variation and sampling broader geographical ranges compared to previous studies, we conclude that shell size variation in planktonic foraminifera species cannot be consistently predicted by the environment. Our results caution against the general use of size as a proxy for planktonic foraminifera environmental optima, and emphasise the need for more studies analysing their within-species size variation. More generally, our findings show that contrasting results can be obtained when analysing patterns at different organisational levels, and highlights the utility of natural history collections.
WUSCHEL acts as a rheostat on the auxin pathway to maintain apical stem cells inArabidopsis
Authors: Ma Yanfei , Miotk Andrej , Šutiković Zoran , Medzihradszky Anna , Wenzl Christian , Ermakova Olga , Gaillochet Christophe , Forner Joachim , Utan Gözde , Brackmann Klaus , Galvan-Ampudia Carlos S. , Vernoux Teva , Greb Thomas , Lohmann Jan U. 
Published: November 2018

ABSTRACTTo maintain the balance between long-term stem cell self-renewal and differentiation, dynamic signals need to be translated into spatially precise and temporally stable gene expression states. In the apical plant stem cell system, local accumulation of the small, highly mobile phytohormone auxin triggers differentiation while at the same time, pluripotent stem cells are maintained throughout the entire life-cycle. We find that stem cells are resistant to auxin mediated differentiation, but require low levels of signaling for their maintenance. We demonstrate that the WUSCHEL transcription factor confers this behavior by rheostatically controlling the auxin signaling and response pathway. Finally, we show that WUSCHEL acts via regulation of histone acetylation at target loci, including those with functions in the auxin pathway. Our results reveal an important mechanism that allows cells to differentially translate a potent and highly dynamic developmental signal into stable cell behavior with high spatial precision and temporal robustness.
Physical Linkage and Mate Preference Generate Linkage Disequilibrium for Behavioral Isolation in two Parapatric Crickets
Authors: Blankers Thomas , Berdan Emma L. , Hennig R. Matthias , Mayer Frieder 
Published: November 2018

ABSTRACTBehavioral isolation is a potent barrier to gene flow and a source of striking diversity in the animal kingdom. However, it remains unclear if the linkage disequilibrium (LD) between sex-specific traits required for behavioral isolation results mostly from physical linkage between signal and preference loci or from directional mate preferences. Here, we test this in the field cricketsGryllus rubensandG. texensis. These closely related species diverged with gene flow and have strongly diverged songs and preference functions for the mate calling song rhythm. We map quantitative trait loci for signal and preference traits (pQTL) as well as for gene expression associated with these traits (eQTL). We find strong, positive genetic covariance between song traits and between song and preference. Our results show that this is in part explained by incomplete physical linkage: although both linked pQTL and eQTL couple male and female traits, major effect loci for different traits were never on the same chromosome. We suggest that the finely-tuned, highly divergent preference functions are likely an additional source of LD between male and female traits in this system. Furthermore, pleiotropy of gene expression presents an underappreciated mechanism to link sexually dimorphic phenotypes.
Testing for Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium in Structured Populations using NGS Data
Authors: Meisner Jonas , Albrechtsen Anders 
Published: November 2018

AbstractTesting for Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium (HWE) is a common practice for quality control in genetic studies. Variable sites violating HWE may be identiﬁed as technical errors in the sequencing or genotyping process, or they may be of special evolutionary interest. Large-scale genetic studies based on next-generation sequencing (NGS) methods have become more prevalent as cost is decreasing but these methods are still associated with statistical uncertainty. The large-scale studies usually consist of samples from diverse ancestries that make the existence of some degree of population structure almost inevitable. Precautions are therefore needed when analyzing these datasets, as population structure causes deviations from HWE. Here we propose a method that takes population structure into account in the testing for HWE, such that other factors causing deviations from HWE can be detected. We show the effectiveness of our method in NGS data, as well as in genotype data, for both simulated and real datasets, where the use of genotype likelihoods enables us to model the uncertainty for low-depth sequencing data.
Activation of rod input in a model of retinal degeneration reverses retinal remodeling and induces formation of normal synapses, circuitry and visual signaling in the adult retina
Authors: Wang Tian , Pahlberg Johan , Cafaro Jon , Sampath Alapakkam P. , Field Greg D. , Chen Jeannie 
Published: November 2018

AbstractA major cause of human blindness is the death of rod photoreceptors. As rods degenerate, synaptic structures between rod and rod bipolar cells dissolve and the rod bipolar cells extend their dendrites and occasionally make aberrant contacts. Such changes are broadly observed in blinding disorders caused by photoreceptor cell death and is thought to occur in response to deafferentation. How the remodeled retinal circuit affect visual processing following rod rescue is not known. To address this question, we generated transgenic mice wherein a disrupted cGMP-gated channel (CNG) gene can be repaired at the endogenous locus and at different stages of degeneration by tamoxifen-inducible cre-mediated recombination. In normal rods, light-induced closure of CNG channels leads to hyperpolarization of the cell, reducing neurotransmitter release at the synapse. Similarly, rods lacking CNG channel exhibit a resting membrane potential that was ~10mV hyperpolarized compared to WT rods, indicating diminished glutamate release. Retinas from these mice undergo stereotypic retinal remodeling as a consequence of rod malfunction and degeneration. Upon tamoxifen-induced expression of CNG channels, rods recovered their structure and exhibited normal light responses. Moreover, we show that the adult mouse retina displays a surprising degree of plasticity upon activation of rod input. Wayward bipolar cell dendrites establish contact with rods to support normal synaptic transmission, which is propagated to the retinal ganglion cells. These findings demonstrate remarkable plasticity extending beyond the developmental period and support efforts to repair or replace defective rods in patients blinded by rod degeneration.Significance StatementCurrent strategies for treatment of neurodegenerative disorders are focused on the repair of the primary affected cell type. However, the defective neuron functions within a complex neural circuitry, which also becomes degraded during disease. It is not known whether a rescued neuron and the remodeled circuit will establish communication to regain normal function. We show that the adult mammalian neural retina exhibits a surprising degree of plasticity following rescue of rod photoreceptors. The wayward rod bipolar cell dendrites re-establish contact with rods to support normal synaptic transmission, which is propagated to the retinal ganglion cells. These findings support efforts to repair or replace defective rods in patients blinded by rod cell loss.
Autonomous planetary rover navigation via active SLAM
Authors: Li Guoqing , Geng Yunhai , Zhang Wenzheng 
Published: November 2018

PurposeThis paper aims to introduce an efficient active-simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) approach for rover navigation, future planetary rover exploration mission requires the rover to automatically localize itself with high accuracy.Design/methodology/approachA three-dimensional (3D) feature detection method is first proposed to extract salient features from the observed point cloud, after that, the salient features are employed as the candidate destinations for re-visiting under SLAM structure, followed by a path planning algorithm integrated with SLAM, wherein the path length and map utility are leveraged to reduce the growth rate of state estimation uncertainty.FindingsThe proposed approach is able to extract distinguishable 3D landmarks for feature re-visiting, and can be naturally integrated with any SLAM algorithms in an efficient manner to improve the navigation accuracy.Originality/valueThis paper proposes a novel active-SLAM structure for planetary rover exploration mission, the salient feature extraction method and active revisit patch planning method are validated to improve the accuracy of pose estimation.
Supportive leadership, proactive personality and employee voice behavior
Authors: Elsaied Mervat Mohamed 
Published: November 2018

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mediating role of psychological safety in the relationships among supportive leadership, proactive personality and employee voice behavior.

Design/methodology/approach
The data were collected from 268 employees, and 56 were their immediate supervisors, in three Egyptian companies belonging to footwear and headgear sector. Employees and their immediate supervisors provided data on separate questionnaires and different occasions; an identification number was used to match each employee’s questionnaire with the response of his/her immediate supervisor.

Findings
The results indicated that both supportive leadership and proactive personality had a positive and significant effect on voice behavior. In addition, the results showed that psychological safety fully mediated the relationships among supportive leadership, proactive personality and employee voice behavior.

Originality/value
This study contributes to the literature by linking supportive leadership, proactive personality and employee voice behavior. It clarifies how and why supportive leadership and proactive personality can stimulate voice behavior.
Let home nursing assistant robots see your heart rate
Authors: Wu Han , Wang Tao , Dai Tuo , Wang Xiaoyu , Lin Yuanzhen , Wang Yizhou 
Published: November 2018

Purpose
This paper aims to design a vision-based non-contact real-time accurate heart rate (HR) measurement framework for home nursing assistant.

Design/methodology/approach
The study applied Second-Order Blind Signal Identification (SOBI) algorithm to extract remote HR signal and analyzed it with Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). Multiple regions of interest are chosen and analyzed to obtain a more accurate result.

Findings
An accurate non-contact hear rate (HR) measurement framework is proposed and proved to be efficient.

Originality/value
The contributions of this HR measurement framework are as follows: accurate measurement of HR, real-time performance, robust under various scenes such as conversation, lightweight computation which is suitable and necessary for home nursing assistance. This framework is designed to be flexibly used in various real-life scenes such as domestic health assistance and affectively intelligent agents and is proved to be robust under such scenes.
Mobile devices compatibility testing strategy via crowdsourcing
Authors: Naith Qamar , Ciravegna Fabio 
Published: November 2018

Purpose
This paper aims to support small mobile application development teams or companies performing testing on a large variety of operating systems versions and mobile devices to ensure their seamless working.

Design/methodology/approach
This paper proposes a “hybrid crowdsourcing” method that leverages the power of public crowd testers. This leads to generating a novel crowdtesting workflow Developer/Tester- Crowdtesting (DT-CT) that focuses on developers and crowd testers as key elements in the testing process without the need for intermediate as managers or leaders. This workflow has been used in a novel crowdtesting platform (AskCrowd2Test). This platform enables testing the compatibility of mobile devices and applications at two different levels, high-level (device characteristics) or low-level (code). Additionally, a “crowd-powered knowledge base” has been developed that stores testing results, relevant issues and their solutions.

Findings
The comparison of the presented DT-CT workflow with the common and most recent crowdtesting workflows showed that DT-CT may positively impact the testing process by reducing time-consuming and budget spend because of the direct interaction of developers and crowd testers.

Originality/value
To authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to propose crowdtesting workflow based on developers and public crowd testers without crowd managers or leaders, which light the beacon for the future research in this field. Additionally, this work is the first that authorizes crowd testers with a limited level of experience to participate in the testing process, which helps in studying the behaviors and interaction of end-users with apps and obtains more concrete results.
Franchising and initial public offering: a signaling perspective
Authors: Alon Ilan , Elango B. 
Published: November 2018

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the factors associated with franchisors going public using signaling theory. Listing on the stock market is a sign that the business concept has reached a threshold level of acceptance and success. To increase the relevance of this study to practitioners, the authors focus on franchising-specific controllable variables.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses a sample of 2,134 franchisors from US drawn from a survey by Entrepreneur magazine during the years 2015–2016. Binominal logistic regression models are used for analysis of the data.FindingsFindings indicate that time to franchise, international operations, franchise association affiliation, disclosure and extent of top management commitment are factors positively related to the likelihood of a franchisor being publicly listed.Research limitations/implicationsStudy findings are based on a sample of franchisors from North America, where financial markets are well developed, and due caution should be exercised before generalizations are made to other contexts. A major implication of this study is that signaling theory may provide an important supplement to the already well-entrenched resource-scarcity and agency theoretic explanations in franchising research.Originality/valueWhile signaling theory is growing in importance in the franchising literature, this study is the first to uncover the relationship between company signals and initial public offering.
Determinants, transactional alignment, and performance outcomes of franchise contract length
Authors: Gorovaia Nina 
Published: November 2018

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the determinants, transactional alignment and performance outcomes of franchise contract length using transaction costs theory (TCT) and resource-based theory (RBT).Design/methodology/approachThe author hypothesizes that franchisors choose contract length according to TCT and RBT arguments. TCT explains the safeguarding function of contracts: the franchisors will offer longer contracts when franchisees’ specific investments are high and environmental uncertainty is low. RBT highlights the knowledge leverage function of contracts: the franchisors will offer longer contracts when the brand name and intangible knowledge assets are high. Franchise companies that design contract length aligned with transactional attributes will perform better. The author tests the misalignment hypothesis and comparative performance of franchise contracts by estimating two-stage least squares regression and Heckman two-stage procedure that control for endogeneity and self-selection.FindingsEmpirical data from the German franchise sector support the hypotheses. In addition to the safeguarding function, franchise contracts have an important knowledge leverage function. Longer contracts perform better due to the development of relational strategic assets and stronger commitment.Research limitations/implicationsFranchisors must offer longer contracts when specific investments of franchisees, brand name, intangible knowledge assets are high, and environmental uncertainty is low. Franchisors should invest in the development of relational strategic assets and offer longer contracts for the benefit of superior performance.Originality/valueThe study addresses the significant question of transactional alignment and comparative performance of franchise contracts. It empirically confirms the importance of RBT in explaining contractual choices and performance.