bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Regularity of a Renewal Process Estimated from Binary Data
Authors: Rice John D. , Strawderman Robert L. , Johnson Brent A. 
Published: October 2017

SummaryAssessment of the regularity of a sequence of events over time is important for clinical decision-making as well as informing public health policy. Our motivating example involves determining the effect of an intervention on the regularity of HIV self-testing behavior among high-risk individuals when exact self-testing times are not recorded. Assuming that these unobserved testing times follow a renewal process, the goals of this work are to develop suitable methods for estimating its distributional parameters when only the presence or absence of at least one event per subject in each of several observation windows is recorded. We propose two approaches to estimation and inference: a likelihood-based discrete survival model using only time to first event; and a potentially more efficient quasi-likelihood approach based on the forward recurrence time distribution using all available data. Regularity is quantified and estimated by the coefficient of variation (CV) of the interevent time distribution. Focusing on the gamma renewal process, where the shape parameter of the corresponding interevent time distribution has a monotone relationship with its CV, we conduct simulation studies to evaluate the performance of the proposed methods. We then apply them to our motivating example, concluding that the use of text message reminders significantly improves the regularity of self-testing, but not its frequency. A discussion on interesting directions for further research is provided.
A randomized waitlist control community study of Social Cognition and Interaction Training for people with schizophrenia
Authors: Gordon Anne , Davis Penelope J. , Patterson Susan , Pepping Christopher A. , Scott James G. , Salter Kerri , Connell Melissa 
Published: October 2017

ObjectiveSocial Cognition and Interaction Training (SCIT) has demonstrated effectiveness in improving social cognition and functioning of people with schizophrenia. This pilot study examines the acceptability, feasibility, and effectiveness of SCIT with individuals who have schizophrenia‐spectrum disorders and are receiving care through a public mental health service.MethodIn a pragmatic randomized waitlist controlled trial, 36 participants (aged 19–55 years) with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder were randomly allocated to SCIT or treatment as usual (TAU). Measures of theory of mind, emotion perception, attributional bias, social skills, quality of life, life skills, depression, anxiety, and stress were administered pre‐ and post‐intervention with follow‐up conducted 4 months later. All wait‐list controls subsequently received the intervention and a secondary within‐group analysis was conducted including these participants.ResultsWhile no significant differences were found between groups on any outcomes, there was strong engagement with the SCIT intervention. Of the 21 participants in the intervention group, the completion rate was 85.71% with a median attendance rate of 17 sessions. Within subject analyses of SCIT participants over time showed significant improvements in quality of life, emotion recognition, social skills, and a trend towards better life skills from pre‐ to post‐intervention. These gains were sustained at the 4‐month follow‐up time.Conclusions and implications for practiceAlthough this study showed limited benefits in outcomes associated with SCIT compared with TAU, it demonstrated the acceptability of SCIT to participants in a real world public health setting shown by high retention, attendance, and positive feedback.This pilot shows SCIT can be implemented in routine clinical practice and lays the foundation for a larger pragmatic study.Practitioner points

SCIT can be implemented successfully in a real‐world community mental health setting.

SCIT had high levels of acceptability to these participants.

Limitations

The small sample size meant there was insufficient power to detect differences between groups on outcome measures.

The study did not include measures of psychiatric symptoms or neuropsychological functioning which may have influenced participants’ capacity to benefit from SCIT.
Optimization of rituximab for the treatment of DLBCL: increasing the dose for elderly male patients
Authors: Pfreundschuh Michael , Murawski Niels , Zeynalova Samira , Ziepert Marita , Loeffler M. , Hänel Matthias , Dierlamm Judith , Keller Ulrich , Dreyling Martin , Truemper Lorenz , Frickhofen Norbert , Hünerlitürkoglu Ali‐Nuri , Schmitz Norbert , Pöschel Viola , Rixecker Tanja , Berdel Christian , Rübe Christian , Held Gerhard , Zwick Carsten 
Published: October 2017

SummaryMale sex is associated with unfavourable pharmacokinetics and prognosis in elderly patients with diffuse large B‐cell lymphoma (DLBCL). We investigated higher rituximab doses for elderly male DLBCL patients. Elderly patients (61–80 years) received 6 cycles CHOP‐14 (cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine and prednisone at 14‐day intervals) and were randomized to 8 cycles rituximab (males 500 mg/m2, females 375 mg/m2) every 2 weeks or according to an upfront dose‐dense schedule. In 268 (120 females, 148 males) no difference between the standard and the upfront dose‐dense rituximab schedule was found (3‐year PFS 72% vs. 74%; OS 74% vs. 77%; P = 0.651). The 500 mg/m2 dose of rituximab for male patients was associated with serum levels and exposure times slightly better than in females and a male/female hazard ratio of 0.9 for progression‐free survival (PFS) and 0.8 for overall survival. For elderly males, 500 mg/m2 was not more toxic than 375 mg/m2 rituximab, but improved PFS by 32.5% (P = 0.039), with a trend for a (30%) better overall survival (P = 0.076) in a planned subgroup analysis adjusting for International Prognostic Index risk factors. We conclude that the higher rituximab dose for elderly male patients abrogated the adverse prognosis of male sex without increasing toxicity. In the era of personalized medicine, sex‐specific pharmacokinetics and toxicities should be investigated for all drugs where these parameters impact on outcome.
Control of GABARAP‐mediated autophagy by the Golgi complex, centrosome and centriolar satellites
Authors: Joachim Justin , Tooze Sharon A. 
Published: October 2017

AbstractWithin minutes of induction of autophagy by amino‐acid starvation in mammalian cells, multiple autophagosomes form throughout the cell cytoplasm. During their formation, the autophagosomes sequester cytoplasmic material and deliver it to lysosomes for degradation. How these organelles can be so rapidly formed and how their formation is acutely regulated are major questions in the autophagy field. Protein and lipid trafficking from diverse cell compartments contribute membrane to, or regulate the formation of the autophagosome. In addition, recruitment of Atg8 (in yeast), and the ATG8‐family members (in mammalian cells) to autophagosomes is required for efficient autophagy. Recently, it was discovered that the centrosome and centriolar satellites regulate autophagosome formation by delivery of an ATG8‐family member, GABARAP, to the forming autophagosome membrane, the phagophore. We propose that GABARAP regulates phagophore expansion by activating the ULK complex, the amino‐acid controlled initiator complex. This finding reveals a previously unknown link between the centrosome, centriolar satellites and autophagy.
Ecological and evolutionary legacy of megafauna extinctions
Authors: Galetti Mauro , Moleón Marcos , Jordano Pedro , Pires Mathias M. , Guimarães Paulo R. , Pape Thomas , Nichols Elizabeth , Hansen Dennis , Olesen Jens M. , Munk Michael , de Mattos Jacqueline S. , Schweiger Andreas H. , Owen‐Smith Norman , Johnson Christopher N. , Marquis Robert J. , Svenning Jens‐Christian 
Published: October 2017

ABSTRACTFor hundreds of millions of years, large vertebrates (megafauna) have inhabited most of the ecosystems on our planet. During the late Quaternary, notably during the Late Pleistocene and the early Holocene, Earth experienced a rapid extinction of large, terrestrial vertebrates. While much attention has been paid to understanding the causes of this massive megafauna extinction, less attention has been given to understanding the impacts of loss of megafauna on other organisms with whom they interacted. In this review, we discuss how the loss of megafauna disrupted and reshaped ecological interactions, and explore the ecological consequences of the ongoing decline of large vertebrates. Numerous late Quaternary extinct species of predators, parasites, commensals and mutualistic partners were associated with megafauna and were probably lost due to their strict dependence upon them (co‐extinctions). Moreover, many extant species have megafauna‐adapted traits that provided evolutionary benefits under past megafauna‐rich conditions, but are now of no or limited use (anachronisms). Morphological evolution and behavioural changes allowed some of these species partially to overcome the absence of megafauna. Although the extinction of megafauna led to a number of co‐extinction events, several species that likely co‐evolved with megafauna established new interactions with humans and their domestic animals. Species that were highly specialized in interactions with megafauna, such as large predators, specialized parasites, and large commensalists (e.g. scavengers, dung beetles), and could not adapt to new hosts or prey were more likely to die out. Partners that were less megafauna dependent persisted because of behavioural plasticity or by shifting their dependency to humans via domestication, facilitation or pathogen spill‐over, or through interactions with domestic megafauna. We argue that the ongoing extinction of the extant megafauna in the Anthropocene will catalyse another wave of co‐extinctions due to the enormous diversity of key ecological interactions and functional roles provided by the megafauna.
Phylogenetic and functional underdispersion in Neotropical phyllostomid bat communities
Authors: Presley Steven J. , Cisneros Laura M. , Higgins Christopher L. , Klingbeil Brian T. , Scheiner Samuel M. , Willig Michael R. 
Published: October 2017

AbstractHabitat conversion creates a mosaic of land cover types, which affect the spatial distribution, diversity, and abundance of resources. We used abundance, functional, and phylogenetic information to determine if Neotropical bat communities exhibited phylogenetic or functional overdispersion or underdispersion in response to habitat conversion. Overdispersion suggests the operation of intraclade competition, niche partitioning, limiting similarity, or character displacement, whereas underdispersion indicates the operation of interclade competition, abiotic filtering, or biotic filtering. We expected (1) biotic filtering in landscapes with extensive forest loss to result in underdispersion; (2) niche partitioning in heterogeneous landscapes with intermediate forest loss to result in overdispersion; and (3) intraclade competition during times of low resource abundance (i.e., dry season) to increase, resulting in overdispersion. Most bat communities exhibited phylogenetic or functional underdispersion; none exhibited overdispersion. Expectations were not met: underdispersion did not increase with forest loss, heterogeneous landscapes did not induce overdispersion, and no evidence supported the contention that intraclade competition changed with season. Empirical responses were season‐specific, likely because resource availability may affect relationships between forest cover and underdispersion and between biodiversity and underdispersion. During the dry season, only high diversity sites exhibited underdispersion (i.e., functional or phylogenetic redundancy), whereas underdispersion occurred in low, intermediate, or high diversity communities during the wet season; we suggest that this difference likely arises due to changes in resource abundance. Communities with high diversity and redundancy occupied heterogeneous sites during the dry season, but communities with high redundancy were restricted to large forest reserves during the wet season.
Measuring Early Care and Education Quality
Authors: Burchinal Margaret 
Published: October 2017

AbstractHigh‐quality early care and education (ECE) programs are thought to increase opportunities for all children to succeed in school, but recent findings call into question whether these programs affect children as anticipated. In this article, I examine research relating the quality of ECE to children's outcomes, finding somewhat inconsistent and modest associations with widely used measures of process and structural quality, and more consistent and stronger associations with other dimensions of ECE such as curricula and type of ECE program. I discuss why the associations between ECE quality and outcomes are so modest, including limited children's outcomes, psychometric issues with quality measures, and a need to revise and expand measures of ECE quality. The evidence indicates that we need to focus on the content of instruction and teaching practices, as well as the extent to which teachers actively scaffold learning opportunities. We also need to continue to focus on the quality of interactions between teachers and children, and on children's access to age‐appropriate activities.
Threaded ensembles of autoencoders for stream learning
Authors: Dong Yue , Japkowicz Nathalie 
Published: October 2017

AbstractAnomaly detection in streaming data is an important problem in numerous application domains. Most existing model‐based approaches to stream learning are based on decision trees due to their fast construction speed. This paper introduces streaming autoencoder (SA), a fast and novel anomaly detection algorithm based on ensembles of neural networks for evolving data streams. It is a one‐class learner, which only requires data from the positive class for training and is accurate even when anomalous training data are rare. It features an ensemble of threaded autoencoders with continuous learning capacity. Furthermore, the SA uses a 2‐step detection mechanism to ensure that real anomalies are detected with low false‐positive rates. The method is highly efficient because it processes data streams in parallel with multithreads and alternating buffers. Our analysis shows that SA has a linear runtime and requires constant memory space. Empirical comparisons to the state‐of‐the‐art methods on multiple benchmark data sets demonstrate that the proposed method detects anomalies efficiently with fewer false alarms.
Balancing exploration and exploitation in memetic algorithms: A learning automata approach
Authors: Rezapoor Mirsaleh Mehdi , Meybodi Mohammad Reza 
Published: October 2017

AbstractOne of the problems with traditional genetic algorithms (GAs) is premature convergence, which makes them incapable of finding good solutions to the problem. The memetic algorithm (MA) is an extension of the GA. It uses a local search method to either accelerate the discovery of good solutions, for which evolution alone would take too long to discover, or reach solutions that would otherwise be unreachable by evolution or a local search method alone. In this paper, we introduce a new algorithm based on learning automata (LAs) and an MA, and we refer to it as LA‐MA. This algorithm is composed of 2 parts: a genetic section and a memetic section. Evolution is performed in the genetic section, and local search is performed in the memetic section. The basic idea of LA‐MA is to use LAs during the process of searching for solutions in order to create a balance between exploration performed by evolution and exploitation performed by local search. For this purpose, we present a criterion for the estimation of success of the local search at each generation. This criterion is used to calculate the probability of applying the local search to each chromosome. We show that in practice, the proposed probabilistic measure can be estimated reliably. On the basis of the relationship between the genetic section and the memetic section, 3 versions of LA‐MA are introduced. LLA‐MA behaves according to the Lamarckian learning model, BLA‐MA behaves according to the Baldwinian learning model, and HLA‐MA behaves according to both the Baldwinian and Lamarckian learning models. To evaluate the efficiency of these algorithms, they have been used to solve the graph isomorphism problem. The results of computer experimentations have shown that all the proposed algorithms outperform the existing algorithms in terms of quality of solution and rate of convergence.
Encouraging State Governments to Protect and Restore Forests Using Ecological Fiscal Transfers: India's Tax Revenue Distribution Reform
Authors: Busch Jonah , Mukherjee Anit 
Published: October 2017

AbstractIn February 2014, India's 14th Finance Commission added forest cover to the formula that determines the amount of tax revenue the central government distributes annually to each of India's 29 states. The Government of India estimates that from 2015 to 2019 it will distribute $6.9–$12 billion per year to states in proportion to their 2013 forest cover, amounting to around $174–$303 per hectare of forest per year. Assuming that contemporary forest cover will remain an element of the formula beyond 2020, Indian states now have a sizeable new fiscal incentive to protect and restore forests, contributing to the achievement of India's climate goals. India's tax revenue distribution reform creates the world's first ecological fiscal transfers (EFTs) for forest cover, and a potential model for other countries. In this article, we discuss the origin of India's EFTs and their potential effects. In a simple preliminary analysis, we do not yet observe that the EFTs have increased forest cover across states, consistent with our hypothesis that 1 to 2 years of operation is too soon for the reform to have had an effect. This means there remains substantial scope for state governments to protect and restore forests as an investment in future state revenues.
Shareholder Coordination, Information Diffusion and Stock Returns
Authors: Pantzalis Christos , Wang Bin 
Published: October 2017

AbstractWe show that the quality of information‐sharing networks linking firms’ institutional investors has stock return predictability implications. We find that firms with high shareholder coordination experience less local comovement and less post‐earnings announcement drift, consistent with the notion that information‐sharing networks facilitate information diffusion and improve stock price efficiency. In support of the view that coordination acts as an information diffusion channel, we document that the stock return performance of firms with high shareholder coordination leads that of firms with low shareholder coordination.
Passive Institutional Ownership, R2 Trends, and Price Informativeness
Authors: DeLisle R. Jared , French Dan W. , Schutte Maria Gabriela 
Published: October 2017

AbstractA distinctive trend in the capital markets over the past two decades is the rise in equity ownership of passive financial institutions. We propose that this rise has a negative effect on price informativeness. By not trading around firm‐specific news, passive investors reduce the firm‐specific component of total volatility and increase stock correlations. Consistent with this hypothesis, we find that the growth in passive institutional ownership is robustly associated with the growth in market model R2s of individual stocks since the early 1990s. Additionally, we find a negative relation between passive ownership and earnings predictability, an informativeness proxy.
Tailored versus Mass Produced: Portfolio Managers Concurrently Managing Separately Managed Accounts and Mutual Funds
Authors: Chen Fan , Chen Li‐Wen , Johnson Hardy , Sardarli Sabuhi 
Published: October 2017

AbstractUsing a matched sample of separately managed accounts (SMAs) and mutual funds (MFs) with the same portfolio manager and investment style, we find that concurrently managed MFs consistently underperform their SMA counterparts and generate more negative return gaps. Fund characteristics and liquidity betas fail to fully explain the underperformance. An event‐study analysis finds that the weights placed into top (bottom)‐performing stocks increase for existing SMAs (MFs) and negative return gaps increase for the MFs after the onset of concurrent management. We find that higher compensation collected by SMA fund managers are associated with more unseen managerial actions which positively contribute to the SMA return gap. Our results suggest that when managers concurrently manage both SMAs and MFs, they favor SMA performance over their MF performance.
Tipping point in plant–fungal interactions under severe drought causes abrupt rise in peatland ecosystem respiration
Authors: Jassey Vincent E. J. , Reczuga Monika K. , Zielińska Małgorzata , Słowińska Sandra , Robroek Bjorn J. M. , Mariotte Pierre , Seppey Christophe V. W. , Lara Enrique , Barabach Jan , Słowiński Michał , Bragazza Luca , Chojnicki Bogdan H. , Lamentowicz Mariusz , Mitchell Edward A. D. , Buttler Alexandre 
Published: October 2017

AbstractEcosystems are increasingly prone to climate extremes, such as drought, with long‐lasting effects on both plant and soil communities and, subsequently, on carbon (C) cycling. However, recent studies underlined the strong variability in ecosystem's response to droughts, raising the issue of nonlinear responses in plant and soil communities. The conundrum is what causes ecosystems to shift in response to drought. Here, we investigated the response of plant and soil fungi to drought of different intensities using a water table gradient in peatlands—a major C sink ecosystem. Using moving window structural equation models, we show that substantial changes in ecosystem respiration, plant and soil fungal communities occurred when the water level fell below a tipping point of −24 cm. As a corollary, ecosystem respiration was the greatest when graminoids and saprotrophic fungi became prevalent as a response to the extreme drought. Graminoids indirectly influenced fungal functional composition and soil enzyme activities through their direct effect on dissolved organic matter quality, while saprotrophic fungi directly influenced soil enzyme activities. In turn, increasing enzyme activities promoted ecosystem respiration. We show that functional transitions in ecosystem respiration critically depend on the degree of response of graminoids and saprotrophic fungi to drought. Our results represent a major advance in understanding the nonlinear nature of ecosystem properties to drought and pave the way towards a truly mechanistic understanding of the effects of drought on ecosystem processes.