bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Consumer acceptance of food nanotechnology in Italy
Authors: Sodano Valeria , Gorgitano Maria Teresa , Verneau Fabio , Vitale Cosimo Damiano 
Published: February 2016

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to investigate attitudes of Italian consumers towards a set of applications of nanotechnology in the food domain. The chief goal is to identify the main factors influencing the willingness to buy nanofoods (WTBN), distinguishing between factors related to the products, in terms of perceived risks and benefits and psychological factors.

Design/methodology/approach
– A questionnaire was administered to a sample of about 300 people to gather information about the willingness to buy six nanofoods (namely: creamier ice cream with the same fat content; salt and sugar that do not form lumps with moisture; fruit juices enriched with bioactive molecules; bread enriched with Omega-3; plastic bottles for beer; antimicrobial food packaging for meat) and psychological characteristics, measured by several attitudinal scales. In order to study the influence of the attitudinal factors on the WTBN a simultaneous equations model was estimated, defining both its structural and reduced form.

Findings
– Respondents show a certain reluctance to buy foods produced using nanotechnologies The estimates of the econometric model indicate that WTBN is affected by the risks and benefits perceived with respect to the six nanofoods under consideration; the level of neophobia, as captured through the food technology neophobia scale; and the level of trust in food industry.

Originality/value
– The study extends the literature on nanofood consumer acceptance by adding useful evidence from the Italian case, which has not yet been studied.
Performance comparisons of bonding box-based contact detection algorithms and a new improvement technique based on parallelization
Authors: Yazdani Mahmoud , Paseh Hamidreza , Sharifzadeh Mostafa 
Published: February 2016

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to find a convenient contact detection algorithm in order to apply in distinct element simulation.

Design/methodology/approach
– Taking the most computation effort, the performance of the contact detection algorithm highly affects the running time. The algorithms investigated in this study consist of Incremental Sort-and-Update (ISU) and Double-Ended Spatial Sorting (DESS). These algorithms are based on bounding boxes, which makes the algorithm independent of blocks shapes. ISU and DESS algorithms contain sorting and updating phases. To compare the algorithms, they were implemented in identical examples of rock engineering problems with varying parameters.

Findings
– The results show that the ISU algorithm gives lower running time and shows better performance when blocks are unevenly distributed in both axes. The conventional ISU merges the sorting and updating phases in its naïve implementation. In this paper, a new computational technique is proposed based on parallelization in order to effectively improve the ISU algorithm and decrease the running time of numerical analysis in large-scale rock mass projects.

Originality/value
– In this approach, the sorting and updating phases are separated by minor changes in the algorithm. This tends to a minimal overhead of running time and a little extra memory usage and then the parallelization of phases can be applied. On the other hand, the time consumed by the updating phase of ISU algorithm is about 30 percent of the total time, which makes the parallelization justifiable. Here, according to the results for the large-scale problems, this improved technique can increase the performance of the ISU algorithm up to 20 percent.
The numerical simulation of draft tube cavitation in Francis turbine at off-design conditions
Authors: Yang Jing , Zhou Lingjiu , Wang Zhengwei 
Published: February 2016

Purpose
– The vortex ropes in draft tube of Francis turbine always cause fluctuation and vibration, which consequently threaten the safety and stability of hydro turbines. The purpose of this paper is to use a cavitation flow computational method to simulate spiral vortex ropes under part load conditions and columnar vortex ropes under high-load conditions in draft tube. The unsteady cavitating flow characteristics in draft tube and its interaction with runner cavitation were analyzed.

Design/methodology/approach
– The calculation method was verified by cavitation simulation around a 3D hydrofoil. The results show that the Large Eddy Simulation (LES) turbulence model with the Zwart-Gerber-Blemari cavitation model have comparative advantage in cavitation simulations whether from capture of cavity shape or prediction of pressure changes. So it was chosen to simulate the two-phase cavitation flow in Francis turbine. The boundary conditions for inlet and outlet were set to inlet total pressure and outlet static pressure. The finite volume method with the central difference was adopted to discretize the equations.

Findings
– The calculated Thoma number agreed well with the experimental data. The vortex rope diameter and length increased with the cavitation development for both of the two types of vortex ropes conditions. The maximum peak-to-peak values of pressure pulsations located in the draft tube elbow part under all of the Thoma numbers conditions. Under spiral vortex rope conditions, the pressure pulsation in the same section of draft tube cone show obviously phase shift. The vortex rope affects the development of runner cavitation, which induces the symmetric and axisymmetric cavitation region in the suction side of blades for spiral and columnar vortex rope condition, respectively.

Research limitations/implications
– The mesh independence had been checked only in non-cavitation flow; in addition, the mesh density did not well satisfy the requirements of LES due to the limitations of computing power. The higher mesh density on a simplified model with one blade flow path and the entire draft tube may be helpful for obtaining more precise results.

Originality/value
– The spiral and columnar vortex ropes in a Francis turbine were compared and analyzed. The annular hydraulic jump appeared in the columnar vortex rope conditions has little effects on the pressure pulsations. The uneven flow field caused by spiral vortex led to the asymmetric cavitation development.
Predictive validity of evidence-based persuasion principles
Authors: Armstrong J. Scott , Du Rui , Green Kesten C. , Graefe Andreas 
Published: February 2016

Purpose– This paper aims to test whether a structured application of persuasion principles might help improve advertising decisions. Evidence-based principles are currently used to improve decisions in other complex situations, such as those faced in engineering and medicine.Design/methodology/approach– Scores were calculated from the ratings of 17 self-trained novices who rated 96 matched pairs of print advertisements for adherence to evidence-based persuasion principles. Predictions from traditional methods – 10,809 unaided judgments from novices and 2,764 judgments from people with some expertise in advertising and 288 copy-testing predictions – provided benchmarks.Findings– A higher adherence-to-principles-score correctly predicted the more effective advertisement for 75 per cent of the pairs. Copy testing was correct for 59 per cent, and expert judgment was correct for 55 per cent. Guessing would provide 50 per cent accurate predictions. Combining judgmental predictions led to substantial improvements in accuracy.Research limitations/implications– Advertisements for high-involvement utilitarian products were tested on the assumption that persuasion principles would be more effective for such products. The measure of effectiveness that was available –day-after-recall – is a proxy for persuasion or behavioral measures.Practical/implications– Pretesting advertisements by assessing adherence to evidence-based persuasion principles in a structured way helps in deciding which advertisements would be best to run. That procedure also identifies how to make an advertisement more effective.Originality/value– This is the first study in marketing, and in advertising specifically, to test the predictive validity of evidence-based principles. In addition, the study provides the first test of the predictive validity of the index method for a marketing problem.
Persuasion Principles Index: ready for pretesting advertisements
Authors: Green Kesten C. , Armstrong J. Scott , Du Rui , Graefe Andreas 
Published: February 2016

Purpose– This paper aims to respond to issues posed in the four commentaries on Armstrong, Du, Green and Graefe (2016, this issue) regarding the immediate usefulness of that paper’s test of advertisements’ compliance with persuasion principles, and regarding the need for further research.Design/methodology/approach– This paper addresses commentators’ concerns using logic, prior research findings and further analyses of the data.Findings– The superiority of the index method remains when a simple, theory-based, alternative weighting-scheme is used in the index model. Combinations of three unaided experts’ forecasts were more accurate than the individual forecasts, but the gain was only one-third of the gain achieved by using the Persuasion Principles Index (PPI).Research limitations/implications– Replications and extensions using behavioral data and alternative implementations of the index method would help to better assess the effects of judging conformity with principles as a means of predicting relative advertising effectiveness. Advertisers can expect more accurate pretest results if they combine the predictions of three experts or, even better, if they use tests of compliance with persuasion principles, such as the PPI. The PPI software is copyrighted, but is available now and is free to use.Originality/value– New analysis and findings provide further support for the claim that advertisers who use the PPI approach proposed by Armstrong, Du, Green and Graefe (2016, this issue) to choose among alternative advertisements will be more profitable than those who do not.
Managing occupational identity and institutional pressure within French business schools
Authors: Kodeih Farah 
Published: February 2016

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to examine how faculty members in French business schools (FBSs) manage intense pressure to adapt their practices and roles to new international academic standards. It stresses that in order to stimulate people’s accommodation of new institutional demands it is important to apprehend and manage occupational identity (OI).Design/methodology/approach– This is an inductive qualitative study that draws on 48 interviews in ten FBSs and written data.Findings– The paper categorizes faculty members’ responses to demands for more international academic research based on their initial OI. It also discusses the strategies schools employ to manage this transition and faculty’s professional roles.Originality/value– The originality lies in the empirical examination of a phenomenon that has so far been studied only theoretically. Business schools can improve their performance and avoid mission drift by apprehending and managing faculty members’ occupational identities.
Current CITE-ings from the popular and trade computing press: telework and telecommuting
Authors: Kesselman Martin 
Published: February 2016

Purpose
– This article examines Current CITE-ings from the Popular and Trade Computing Press, Telework and Telecommuting

Design/methodology/approach
– The methodology adopted is a literature review.

Findings
– Readily available technologies now allow librarians to perform most of their work-offsite. Some traditional building-based services such as reference, have been taken over by virtual reference and now even instruction offers options on par with or even better than classroombased questions such as a webinar that can be viewed and reviewed at any time or by having librarians embedded into various courseware packages.

Researchlimitations/implications
– Librarians no longer need be limited to a single library; groups of subject librarians can work together in the cloud to provide services to multiple universities.

Originality/value
– This article collates some articles from the non-library literature that mayprovide some ideas and review advantages and disadvantages for both the library and employee
Outsourcing in the Persian Gulf petroleum supply chain
Authors: Modarress Batoul , Ansari Al , Thies Emil 
Published: February 2016

Purpose
– The purpose of this study is to identify the challenges, the benefits, the risks and the motives of petroleum companies in the Persian Gulf toward outsourcing strategy. While the petroleum companies are faced with massive costs of operation that stem from the aging infrastructure, human capital deficit, inefficient fragmented business processes and lack of access to new technologies, outsourcing strategy toward cost savings and the overt and covert resistance of management and employees are significant barriers for creation of continuous process.

Design/methodology/approach
– Based on the review of existing literature, the industry
'
s archives and in-depth personal interviews with senior executives of the national oil and gas companies in five Gulf countries and seven global outsourcing companies and 87 survey responses, this study develops a methodological framework which substantiates or refutes the hypotheses based on the objectives: industry challenges are the driving forces behind outsourcing strategy; the potential risks of cost savings of outsourcing outweigh the consequential loss in control over the product or service, companies
'
safety and security of the region.

Findings
– The findings indicate that the oil and gas exporters have mixed but broad positive view of outsourcing strategy. While outsourcing could provide savings across the entire supply chain, it also generates a distracting resistance due to the fear of unknown in a complex range of culture, infrastructures and sequential processes that requires resiliency for continuity of operations.

Originality/value
– This study is the first of its kind in the Persian Gulf oil and gas industry investigating the implementation of outsourcing strategy. The result of this investigation reveals the compromise between the potential benefits in cost reduction and the security of petroleum supply. This study contributes to all who are in the industry or who are involved with it to share a clear assessment of the future.
Social responsibility in the Spanish financial system
Authors: Ruiviejo Antonio Carlos Aranda , Sotomayor Morales Eva Maria 
Published: February 2016

Purpose– This paper aims to analyze the degree of implementation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies in the Spanish financial system.Design/methodology/approach– The study includes nine entities within the same organizational field to explore the pressure mechanisms that can affect the behavior of organizations.Findings– It concludes that the strategic nature of CSR is limited by the highly institutionalized character of this practice, a fact that causes isomorphic social structures among the approaches to responsibility of diverse entities.Originality/value– The results obtained are of great value to those responsible for the management bodies, as they show evidence of the need for a new approach to corporate governance policies if it is to achieve a competitive advantage in the industry, especially in the case of savings banks, where social work can play a fundamental role.
Land use change in the Amazon rain forest favours generalist fungi
Authors: Mueller Rebecca C. , Rodrigues Jorge L. M. , Nüsslein Klaus , Bohannan Brendan J. M. 
Published: February 2016

Summary

Land use change is a significant threat to biodiversity, particularly within tropical ecosystems, but the responses of microbial communities remain poorly understood.

We used long‐term plots established in multiple land use types in the Brazilian Amazon to examine the effect of land use change on soil fungal communities. We measured fungal richness and composition and identified factors associated with shifts in community composition across multiple land use types, including primary forest, two secondary forests and a chronosequence of differently aged pastures. Additionally, we used distribution patterns to estimate the niche breadth of fungal taxa in order to quantify changes in the relative abundance of generalists, or fungi with broad environmental tolerance, in response to land use change.

Conversion of primary forest to pasture resulted in large reductions in fungal richness coupled with substantial changes in community composition. Generalist fungi were strongly favoured in all pasture sites, regardless of time since conversion. Distance to primary forests was the strongest correlate of community composition in pastures, indicating that primary forests can act as reservoirs for recolonization by forest‐associated fungi. The two secondary forests showed variable patterns of richness, composition and the overall abundance of generalist fungi, suggesting that community recovery is stochastic.

Fungal community response to land use change mirrors patterns observed in macroscopic organisms, which indicates that the increased prevalence of generalist taxa is a consistent response to disturbance across broad taxonomic groups.

A lay summary is available for this article.
PAK1‐cofilin phosphorylation mediates human lung adenocarcinoma cells migration induced by apelin‐13
Authors: Lv Deguan , Li Lanfang , Lu Qixuan , Li Yao , Xie Feng , Li Hening , Cao Jiangang , Liu Meiqing , Wu Di , He Lu , Chen Linxi 
Published: February 2016

SummaryAdipocytokines apelin peptide, the ligand of APJ (putative receptor related to the angiotensin receptor AT1), plays key roles in the pathogenesis and deterioration of cancer. In lung cancer, apelin elevating microvessel densities has been reported. Our previous research has characterized that apelin‐13 promoted lung adenocarcinoma cell proliferation. However, the effect of apelin on metastasis in lung adenocarcinoma and the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. This study shows that apelin‐13 induced human adenocarcinoma cell migration via the APJ receptor. Apelin‐13 phosphorylated PAK1 and cofilin increase the migration of lung adenocarcinoma cells. Moreover, the results verify that over‐exprssion of apelin and APJ contributed to reducing the effect of doxorubicin and razoxane on inhibiting lung adenocarcinoma cells metastasis. Hypoxia activated APJ expression and apelin release in lung adenocarcinoma cells. The results demonstrate a PAK1‐cofilin phosphorylation mechanism to mediate lung adenocarcinoma cells migration promoted by apelin‐13. This discovery further suggests that APJ and its downstream signalling is a potential target for anti‐metastatic therapies in lung adenocarcinoma patients.
Spatial scale drives patterns in soil bacterial diversity
Authors: O'Brien Sarah L. , Gibbons Sean M. , Owens Sarah M. , Hampton‐Marcell Jarrad , Johnston Eric R. , Jastrow Julie D. , Gilbert Jack A. , Meyer Folker , Antonopoulos Dionysios A. 
Published: February 2016

SummarySoil microbial communities are essential for ecosystem function, but linking community composition to biogeochemical processes is challenging because of high microbial diversity and large spatial variability of most soil characteristics. We investigated soil bacterial community structure in a switchgrass stand planted on soil with a history of grassland vegetation at high spatial resolution to determine whether biogeographic trends occurred at the centimeter scale. Moreover, we tested whether such heterogeneity, if present, influenced community structure within or among ecosystems. Pronounced heterogeneity was observed at centimeter scales, with abrupt changes in relative abundance of phyla from sample to sample. At the ecosystem scale (> 10 m), however, bacterial community composition and structure were subtly, but significantly, altered by fertilization, with higher alpha diversity in fertilized plots. Moreover, by comparing these data with data from 1772 soils from the Earth Microbiome Project, it was found that 20% of bacterial taxa were shared between their site and diverse globally sourced soil samples, while grassland soils shared approximately 40% of their operational taxonomic units with the current study. By spanning several orders of magnitude, the analysis suggested that extreme patchiness characterized community structure at smaller scales but that coherent patterns emerged at larger length scales.
Thiosulfate oxidation by Thiomicrospira thermophila: metabolic flexibility in response to ambient geochemistry
Authors: Houghton J. L. , Foustoukos D. I. , Flynn T. M. , Vetriani C. , Bradley Alexander S. , Fike D. A. 
Published: February 2016

SummaryPrevious studies of the stoichiometry of thiosulfate oxidation by colorless sulfur bacteria have failed to demonstrate mass balance of sulfur, indicating that unidentified oxidized products must be present. Here the reaction stoichiometry and kinetics under variable pH conditions during the growth of Thiomicrospira thermophila strain EPR85, isolated from diffuse hydrothermal fluids at the East Pacific Rise, is presented. At pH 8.0, thiosulfate was stoichiometrically converted to sulfate. At lower pH, the products of thiosulfate oxidation were extracellular elemental sulfur and sulfate. We were able to replicate previous experiments and identify the missing sulfur as tetrathionate, consistent with previous reports of the activity of thiosulfate dehydrogenase. Tetrathionate was formed under slightly acidic conditions. Genomic DNA from T. thermophila strain EPR85 contains genes homologous to those in the Sox pathway (soxAXYZBCDL), as well as rhodanese and thiosulfate dehydrogenase. No other sulfur oxidizing bacteria containing sox(CD)2 genes have been reported to produce extracellular elemental sulfur. If the apparent modified Sox pathway we observed in T. thermophila is present in marine Thiobacillus and Thiomicrospira species, production of extracellular elemental sulfur may be biogeochemically important in marine sulfur cycling.
Biosynthesis of the acetyl‐CoA carboxylase‐inhibiting antibiotic, andrimid in Serratia is regulated by Hfq and the LysR‐type transcriptional regulator, AdmX
Authors: Matilla Miguel A. , Nogellova Veronika , Morel Bertrand , Krell Tino , Salmond George P. C. 
Published: February 2016

SummaryInfections due to multidrug‐resistant bacteria represent a major global health challenge. To combat this problem, new antibiotics are urgently needed and some plant‐associated bacteria are a promising source. The rhizobacterium Serratia plymuthica A153 produces several bioactive secondary metabolites, including the anti‐oomycete and antifungal haterumalide, oocydin A and the broad spectrum polyamine antibiotic, zeamine. In this study, we show that A153 produces a second broad spectrum antibiotic, andrimid. Using genome sequencing, comparative genomics and mutagenesis, we defined new genes involved in andrimid (adm) biosynthesis. Both the expression of the adm gene cluster and regulation of andrimid synthesis were investigated. The biosynthetic cluster is operonic and its expression is modulated by various environmental cues, including temperature and carbon source. Analysis of the genome context of the adm operon revealed a gene encoding a predicted LysR‐type regulator, AdmX, apparently unique to Serratia strains. Mutagenesis and gene expression assays demonstrated that AdmX is a transcriptional activator of the adm gene cluster. At the post‐transcriptional level, the expression of the adm cluster is positively regulated by the RNA chaperone, Hfq, in an RpoS‐independent manner. Our results highlight the complexity of andrimid biosynthesis – an antibiotic with potential clinical and agricultural utility.