bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The likelihood of heterogeneity or additional mutation in KRAS or associated oncogenes to compromise targeting of oncogenic KRAS G12C
Authors: Cannataro Vincent L. , Gaffney Stephen G. , Stender Carly , Zhao Zi-Ming , Philips Mark , Greenstein Andrew E. , Townsend Jeffrey P. 
Published: June 2017

AbstractActivating mutations in RAS genes are associated with approximately 20% of all human cancers. New targeted therapies show preclinical promise in inhibiting the KRAS G12C variant, however, concerns exist regarding the effectiveness of such therapiesin vivogiven the possibilities of existing intratumor heterogeneity orde novomutation leading to treatment resistance. We performed deep sequencing of 27 KRAS G12 positive lung tumors and found no evidence of other oncogenic mutations within KRAS or within commonly mutated downstream genes that could confer resistance at the time of treatment. Furthermore, we estimate thede novomutation rate in KRAS position 12 and in genes downstream ofKRAS.We find that mutations that confer resistance are about as likely to occur downstream of KRAS as within KRAS. Moreover, we present an approach for estimation of the selection intensity for these point mutations that explains their high prevalence in tumors. Our approach predicts that BRAF V600E would provide the highest fitness advantage forde novoresistant subclones. Overall, our findings suggest that resistance to targeted therapy of KRAS G12C positive tumors is unlikely to be present at the time of treatment and, among thede novomutations likely to confer resistance, mutations in BRAF, a gene with targeted inhibitors presently available, result in subclones with the highest fitness advantage.One Sentence SummaryMutations conferring resistance to KRAS G12C targeted therapy are unlikely to be present at the time of resection, and the likely mechanisms of evolved resistance are predicted be ones that are responsive to therapies that are in development or that are already available.
Drivers of genetic diversity in secondary metabolic gene clusters within a fungal species
Authors: Lind Abigail L. , Wisecaver Jennifer H. , Lameiras Catarina , Wiemann Philipp , Palmer Jonathan M. , Keller Nancy P. , Rodrigues Fernando , Goldman Gustavo H. , Rokas Antonis 
Published: June 2017

SummaryFilamentous fungi produce a diverse array of secondary metabolites (SMs) critical for defense, virulence, and communication. The metabolic pathways that produce SMs are found in contiguous gene clusters in fungal genomes, an atypical arrangement for metabolic pathways in other eukaryotes. Comparative studies of filamentous fungal species have shown that SM gene clusters are often either highly divergent or uniquely present in one or a handful of species, hampering efforts to determine the genetic basis and evolutionary drivers of SM gene cluster divergence. Here we examined SM variation in 66 cosmopolitan strains of a single species, the opportunistic human pathogenAspergillus fumigatus. Investigation of genome-wide within-species variation revealed five general types of variation in SM gene clusters: non-functional gene polymorphisms, gene gain and loss polymorphisms, whole cluster gain and loss polymorphisms, allelic polymorphisms where different alleles corresponded to distinct, non-homologous clusters, and location polymorphisms in which a cluster was found to differ in its genomic location across strains. These polymorphisms affect the function of representativeA. fumigatusSM gene clusters, such as those involved in the production of gliotoxin, fumigaclavine, and helvolic acid, as well as the function of clusters with undefined products. In addition to enabling the identification of polymorphisms whose detection requires extensive genome-wide synteny conservation (e.g., mobile gene clusters and non-homologous cluster alleles), our approach also implicated multiple underlying genetic drivers, including point mutations, recombination, genomic deletion and insertion events, as well as horizontal gene transfer from distant fungi. Finally, most of the variants that we uncover withinA. fumigatushave been previously hypothesized to contribute to SM gene cluster diversity across entire fungal classes and phyla. We suggest that the drivers of genetic diversity operating within a fungal species shown here are sufficient to explain SM cluster macroevolutionary patterns.
Managing the perception of service quality; the importance of understanding differences between demographic and behavioural customer segments amongst theme park visitors
Authors: Fotiadis Anestis , Kozak Metin 
Published: June 2017

Purpose
The aim of this study was to investigate the differences in the perception of service quality among various demographic and behavioural visitor segments within the theme park tourism market.

Design/methodology/approach
A quantitative survey was conducted using a structured questionnaire which was distributed to 655 theme park visitors. Different groups of visitors were identified through the use of cluster analysis based on the evaluation of both demographic variables and a number of behavioural factors associated with their characteristics in terms of “time and cost” allocations for visits to a theme park.

Findings
The findings confirm that differences in demographic characteristics significantly affect perceptions of visitors as demonstrated in the way they are likely to evaluate importance and performance factors in a theme park’s delivery of services. In contrast, behavioural segmentation in terms of time allocation and associated expenditure is unlikely to produce significant differences in the visitors’ perceptions of the level of service provided.

Originality/value
Although there are many studies related to visitors’ perceived service quality, none of them use the same methodology as applied in this study of theme park industry. The research results reveal important implications for the theme park industry because of this new understanding of the segmentation differences for visitor-perceived service quality. By directing attention of management to these differences, improvements in service quality perceptions can more readily be achieved.
Indoor living plants’ effects on an office environment
Authors: Smith Andrew J. , Fsadni Andrew , Holt Gary 
Published: June 2017

Purpose
The use of indoor living plants for enhancement of indoor relative humidity and the general environment of a large, modern, open plan office building are studied using a mixed-methods paradigm.

Design/methodology/approach
The quantitative element involved designated experimental and control zones within the building, selected using orientation, user density and users’ work roles criteria. For a period of six months, relative humidity was monitored using data loggers at 30 min intervals, and volatile organic compounds were measured using air sampling. Qualitative “perception data” of the building’s users were collected via a structured questionnaire survey among both experimental and control zones.

Findings
Study findings include that living plants did not achieve the positive effect on relative humidity predicted by (a-priori) theoretical calculations and that building users’ perceived improvements to indoor relative humidity, temperature and background noise levels were minimal. The strongest perceived improvement was for work environment aesthetics. Findings demonstrate the potential of indoor plants to reduce carbon emissions of the [as] built environment through elimination or reduction of energy use and capital-intensive humidification air-conditioning systems.

Originality/value
The study’s practical value lies in its unique application of (mainly laboratory-derived) existing theory in a real-life work environment.
Integrating contractor and property developer for product system innovations
Authors: Holmén Magnus , Bröchner Jan , Mokhlesian Shahin 
Published: June 2017

Purpose
The aim of this paper is to explain why construction groups facing opportunities for product system innovations, such as green buildings, may choose to integrate construction and property development, taking on facilities management (FM) for a limited period.

Design/methodology/approach
Conceptual analysis based on prior literature and illustrated by a single case of integration.

Findings
For product system innovations, an in-house developer should be more able to reduce uncertainty than independent developers, due to unobservable long-term technological quality for customers, because the property becomes associated with lower risk after having been owned and operated. Alternatives such as building certification systems support incremental innovations, warranties suffer from double moral hazard in the long run and risk allocation in public–private partnership projects often fails to encourage system innovations. Integration allows the contractor to work continuously with innovative projects, developing new capabilities, which allow the firm to signal proficiency to the market, employees and the investment community.

Research limitations/implications
The phenomenon is new, and further empirical surveys are needed to confirm the hypothetical conclusions drawn here.

Practical implications
The value of close collaboration between those who develop innovative green building technologies and facilities managers is outlined.

Originality/value
The relation between the scope of corporate activities in construction groups, technological innovations and FM has not been studied before.
Operational problems and solutions of statutory complex adjudication: stakeholders’ perspectives
Authors: Skaik Samer 
Published: June 2017

Purpose
Statutory adjudication was introduced into the security of payment (SOP) legislation as a fast-track payment dispute resolution process with an express object to facilitate cash flow within the construction contractual chain. After more than a decade of the operation of the regime in Australia and Singapore, it becomes apparent that there are many operational problems that jeopardise the intended object of the legislation, particularly in adjudicating complex payment disputes. The aim of this paper is to explore views of the industry stakeholders regarding some operational problems of statutory adjudication of as well as possible solutions.

Design/methodology/approach
“Expert interviews” method is adopted to collect the empirical data, involving interviews with 23 practitioners from Australia and Singapore.

Findings
The study identified many operational problems jeopardising the attainment of the object of the SOP legislation such as bias of authorised nominating authorities, short adjudication timeframes, inadequate regulations of adjudicators, jurisdictional challenges, involvement of courts and lawyers and complex drafting of the legislation. The study also analysed the views of industry experts with regard to the opportunities for improvement in the operation of the SOP legislation such as following the Queensland model as amended, and introducing a legislative review mechanism and establishing a peer review process. It also suggested specific amendments to make the legislation a more user-friendly.

Practical implications
The implication of this study is a better understanding of the most critical problems inherent in statutory adjudication that need serious consideration by the legislatures and policymakers. In addition, the study also provides some practical measures as suggested by the industry practitioners for each identified problem which may stand as a reliable reference for potential reform in the SOP laws.

Originality/value
There is inadequate empirical research conducted to investigate problems in the operation of statutory adjudication. The study provides original empirical findings which become much necessary nowadays in light of the dynamic moves towards law reform in SOP laws, particularly in Australia. The study provides some practical measures as suggested by the industry practitioners for each identified problem which may stand as a reliable reference for potential reform in the SOP laws.
Property rights revisited – are narratives the way forward?
Authors: Grecksch Kevin , Holzhausen Jessica 
Published: June 2017

Purpose
This paper aims to show how property rights predominantly shape discussions about the governance of natural resources and thereby neglect questions of (collective) identities and alternative solutions to govern natural resources. The purpose is to introduce narratives as an alternative approach to the discussion about the governance of natural resources.

Design/methodology/approach
Guided by the question of how we acquire property and what that tells us about our understanding of to whom natural resources belong to, the paper reviews the history of property rights by looking into property theories starting from Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. It then takes a closer look at The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) study and the Nagoya Protocol with regard to property rights. Second, the paper introduces the concept of narratives surrounding property rights in the past and present.

Findings
Property rights are a social concept dominant in the industrialised world. This has strong implications when looking at the way indigenous people look at natural resources. Mostly, property rights are unknown to them or alternative concepts exist. Yet, documents such as the Nagoya Protocol or the TEEB study presuppose an understanding of property rights originating in European property concepts. A narrative approach to property rights introduces new ideas and looks beyond legislation and policies at the stories people tell about property and natural resources, at property stereotypes and identities and what this might entail for future natural resource governance.

Originality/value
The paper fulfils a need to find alternative approaches to govern natural resources against the background of global environmental challenges.
Africa’s economic regionalism: is there any other obstacle?
Authors: Awad Atif , Yussof Ishak 
Published: June 2017

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to extend the gravity model to examine the role of infrastructure (including human capital (HC)), macroeconomic policies, the institutional quality and the colonial regimes on intra-African trade during the period 1990-2013. The results show that the basic gravity variables have substantial influence on the bilateral trade in the continent. Most interestingly, whilst internal conflicts appear to have harmful and significant impacts on the flow of such trade, HC, the flow of foreign direct investment (FDI) and the British colonial regime appear as encouraging factors. The results of the study imply that devoting more resources to HC and creating a favourable investment environment should come as a top priority in current efforts to facilitate Africa’s economic regionalism.

Design/methodology/approach
The paper employs Tobit technique on a semi-log extended form for the gravity model.

Findings
The results show that the basic gravity variables have substantial influence on the bilateral trade in the continent. Most interestingly, whilst internal conflicts appear to have harmful and significant impacts on the flow of such trade; HC, the flow of FDI and the British colonial regime come out as encouraging factors.

Originality/value
The results provided can be useful to design policies oriented to facilities intra-trade between African economies. So far, this is the first study that incorporates the soft type of infrastructures, colonization and institutional quality in the investigation of the factors that can influence intra-Africa trade.
Income convergence in India: evidence from nonparametric panel data
Authors: Sofi Arfat Ahmad , S. Raja Sethu Durai 
Published: June 2017

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate convergence hypothesis in a balanced panel of 22 Indian states for the time period of 1980-81 to 2010-11 by applying nonparametric model setting in a panel framework.

Design/methodology/approach
The present study uses nonparametric and semi-parametric panel data methods to test the absolute and conditional convergence, respectively, and examines the income convergence using nonparametric panel data methods with state specific effects taken into consideration. These models are being estimated by the iterative process for a balanced panel of state wise per capita income and other conditioning variables for the time period of 1980-81 to 2010-11. For removing the fixed effects, the authors follow within transformation procedure according to the feasibility of the problem. Since convergence is estimated by regressing dependent variable on initial level of independent variable (as growth rate of income and per capita income in this case). So using usual transformation for removing the fixed effects is not feasible because by doing so the authors may end up with singular matrices on both sides of the regression model.

Findings
The results reject the null of parametric specification for both absolute as well as conditional convergence model. As to the outcome of the empirical analysis, the findings reveal that the Indian states are diverging in absolute sense and converging on conditional basis. Convergence happens to be consistent and conditional upon public expenditure, power generation share of primary and tertiary sector to Gross State Domestic Product.

Originality/value
The originality of the study is in its application of advanced methodology to highlight the model misspecifications while testing the convergence hypothesis in earlier literature.
Block-pulse operational matrix method for solving fractional Black-Scholes equation
Authors: Mehrdoust Farshid , Refahi Sheikhani Amir Hosein , Mashoof Mohammad , Hasanzadeh Sabahat 
Published: June 2017

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate a European option using the fractional version of the Black-Scholes model.

Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, the authors employ the block-pulse operational matrix algorithm to approximate the solution of the fractional Black-Scholes equation with the initial condition for a European option pricing problem.

Findings
The fractional derivative will be described in the Caputo sense in this paper. The authors show the accuracy and computational efficiency of the proposed algorithm through some numerical examples.

Originality/value
This is the first paper that considers an alternative algorithm for pricing a European option using the fractional Black-Scholes model.
Inflation, interest rate and output gap in the US economy: a vine copula modeling
Authors: Candido Osvaldo , Divino Jose Angelo 
Published: June 2017

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between inflation, interest rate, and output gap in the US economy in the post Second World War period, without assuming any structure nor imposing any restriction on that relationship.

Design/methodology/approach
The authors apply vine copula modeling to investigate asymmetry and tail behavior on both conditional and unconditional dependence among those variables. The dependence parameter is allowed to evolve over time according to a stochastic autoregressive processes. Additionally, a conditional expectation based on vine copula is used to analyze the conditional expectation of interest rate.

Findings
The results suggest that the joint distribution, both conditional and unconditional, of the interest rate and inflation is asymmetric to the left, while the pair interest rate and output gap have symmetrical distributions coupled with low persistence and high volatility. Besides the unquestionable evidence that the US monetary policy has been mostly focused on inflation stabilization, there is also indication of nonlinearity in the conditional expected interest rate and asymmetric behavior by the Federal Reserve in the long run.

Originality/value
The vine copula modeling allows for several forms of asymmetries and tail dependence, which is a flexible modeling strategy for multivariate distributions. Moreover, the conditional expectation implied by vine copulas is suitable to account for nonlinearity in the interest rate conditional on inflation and output gap.
Socially responsible mining using project stakeholder identification and management
Authors: Famiyeh Samuel 
Published: June 2017

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to conduct an initial exploratory investigation to systematically identify and classify the stakeholders associated with the mining sector in West Africa into key and non-key stakeholders through the use of the comprehensive project stakeholder management tools and processes. The results can be used as an initial identification and classification of stakeholders associated with a typical mining project and can also be used as a basis for confirmation analysis to develop further knowledge and an improved understanding of the management of multiple stakeholders in mining sector projects.Design/methodology/approachThis exploratory work used mine managers from West Africa, asking them to identify stakeholders that are of importance to a typical open pit mining project and also to make some objective assessments of their attitudes and influence of the stakeholders identified. From this, a stakeholder power/interest grid was developed to classify stakeholders into key and non-key stakeholders.FindingsThe findings present an initial exploratory result indicating that the key stakeholders for a mining project are the Environmental Protection Agency, Minerals Commission, Geological Survey Department, Member of Parliament, the Ministry in charge of mining, Forestry Commission, farmers, Lands Commission, non-governmental organizations, Department of Feeder Roads, traditional chiefs, district or municipal assembly and youth associations within the concession area.Research limitations/implicationsThe research was limited to only respondents working in the mining sector in three West African countries.Practical implicationsPractically, this study highlights for mining companies and operators, some preliminary understanding of stakeholders that are critical for engagements to be successful in their operations.Social implicationsThis study, essentially, reveals the importance of the various stakeholder groups interested in a mining project and the level of influence.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the debate on project stakeholder management in the mining sector, especially from a developing country’s point of view.