bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
KCC2-dependent Steady-state Intracellular Chloride Concentration and pH in Cortical Layer 2/3 Neurons of Anesthetized and Awake Mice
Authors: Boffi Juan Carlos , Knabbe Johannes , Kaiser Michaela , Kuner Thomas 
Published: December 2017

AbstractNeuronal intracellular Cl- concentration ([Cl-]i) influences a wide range of processes such as neuronal inhibition, membrane potential dynamics, intracellular pH (pHi) or cell volume. Up to date, neuronal [Cl-]i has predominantly been studied in model systems of reduced complexity. Here, we implemented the genetically encoded ratiometric Cl- indicator Superclomeleon (SCLM) to estimate the steady-state [Cl-]i in cortical neurons from anesthetized and awake mice using 2-photon microscopy. Additionally, we implemented superecliptic pHluorin as a ratiometric sensor to estimate the intracellular steady-state pH (pHi) of mouse cortical neurons in vivo. We estimated an average resting [Cl-]i of 6 ± 2 mM with no evidence of subcellular gradients in the proximal somato-dendritic domain and an average somatic pHi of 7.1 ± 0.1. Neither [Cl-]i nor pHi were affected by isoflurane anesthesia. We deleted the cation-Cl- co-transporter KCC2 in single identified neurons of adult mice and found an increase of [Cl-]i to approximately 26 ± 8 mM, demonstrating that under in vivo conditions KCC2 produces low [Cl-]i in adult mouse neurons. In summary, neurons of the brain of awake adult mice exhibit a low and evenly distributed [Cl-]i in the proximal somato-dendritic compartment that is independent of anesthesia and requires KCC2 expression for its maintenance.
How peer monitoring and punishment affect the performance of the group contract
Authors: Wu Dan , Chen Yefeng , Zhang Weiwen , Xing Xiaoshi 
Published: December 2017

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of three types of peer monitoring and punishment tools on the performance of a group contract for the control of agricultural non-point source pollution (ANPSP) in China.

Design/methodology/approach
Experimental economics.

Findings
All the three tools result in efficiency improvement and show little difference in performance. In addition, they break the theoretical Nash equilibrium of the team entry auction and help to better reveal bidders’ private cost information.

Originality/value
To the authors’ knowledge, this study can be the first laboratory experiment study in the area of ANPSP in China and might provide some beneficial lessons for China’s policy-makers.
Religious motivation, nepotism and conflict management in Jordan
Authors: Caputo Andrea 
Published: December 2017

PurposeThe purpose of this research paper is to investigate the role of individual and cultural differences, specifically religious motivation and attitudes toward nepotism, in the selection of conflict management styles (obliging, avoiding, forcing, integrating and compromising), in the Middle-Eastern context.Design/methodology/approachThe research surveyed a sample of 588 individuals (both Muslims and Christians), representative of the Jordanian population. Data were analyzed through multiple ANOVAs and multiple regressions.FindingsResults suggest that both religious motivation and attitude toward nepotism affect the choice of conflict management styles, while demographic variables, such as age and gender, do not seem to have an effect.Originality/valueThis paper constitutes one of the first attempts to investigate the conflict management style preferences of a Middle-Eastern society and the role of two important cultural variables, namely, religious motivation and attitudes toward nepotism, which have not been previously investigated by conflict management research.
A mixed-methods analysis of mediator socialization through training
Authors: Borton Ian M. , Paul Gregory Dennis 
Published: December 2017

Purpose
This study aims to better understand the socialization process individuals undergo when training to become a conflict mediator.

Design/methodology/approach
This paper presents an analysis of Michigan’s state-wide training guidelines, training documents and eight semi-structured narrative interviews from participants of two 40-hour mediation trainings.

Findings
Results are presented with regard to pre-training and post-training beliefs about mediation alongside data gathered regarding mediator tactics, beliefs and potential for transformation. In sum, newly trained mediators often undergo a phase of “unlearning” before returning to a settlement-focused facilitative model of mediation.

Practical implications
The paper presents implications for facilitative mediator training, training materials and role-play activities.

Originality/value
Third-party interventions can impact conflicts both positively and negatively. Currently, many states and municipal districts have engaged individuals through mediation training to act as a positive force for conflict resolution. Thus far, very little is understood about the development of individuals through mediation training.
Measuring performance of US homeownership policies past and present
Authors: Graff Richard A. 
Published: December 2017

PurposeThe past century and a quarter can be divided into three successive eras for homeownership policy characterization. For the first four decades, the federal government pursued a laissez-faire policy that left housing issues to the individual states and private markets. For the next six decades, the federal government implemented a policy created as part of the Roosevelt New Deal program. Finally, the Clinton administration discarded the New Deal policy in favor of a more aggressive policy that has continued to the present day. The purpose of this study is to compare the performance of the respective policies.Design/methodology/approachThe study introduces two metrics. The first metric, based on government homeownership rate data, enables comparison of the laissez-faire and New Deal policies. The second metric, based on financial frictions in the mortgage market, enables comparison of the New Deal and Clinton policies.FindingsAnalysis based on the first metric suggests the New Deal policy was successful in meeting its macroeconomic objectives and was more effective overall than the laissez-faire policy. Analysis based on the second metric suggests the New Deal policy was also more successful in both respects than the Clinton policy.Practical implicationsThe findings suggest that the Clinton homeownership policy was the primary driver behind the recent US housing crisis and that vulnerability in the secondary mortgage market created by the Clinton policy represents systemic housing market risk.Originality/valueThe study introduces simple analytical tools to address problems related to systemic risk in the US housing and housing finance markets due to homeownership policy.
Conditional values of urban heritage: context and scale
Authors: Berg Sveinung K. 
Published: December 2017

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to show the gap between the authorised heritage discourse (AHD) as practised within Norwegian heritage management and the recommendations forwarded by UNESCO for the managing of the historic urban landscape (HUL), indicating that a shift is necessary to manage dynamic urban change.

Design/methodology/approach
A current development initiative in Oslo is used to show how heritage values can be differentiated by a spatial scale to prioritise between heritage goods at a practical level and as an attempt to balance financial interests and the values identified by heritage criteria.

Findings
The scaling of heritage assets is useful for distinguishing between different levels or types of value (cultural/economic, private/social/public) but is not sufficient for obtaining the aims forwarded by UNESCO within an AHD that does not support development of HULs. A contextual understanding of heritage value must be obtained to make heritage a vital resource in the contemporary urban context.

Practical implications
A broader understanding of what constitutes the urban environment, including economic viability, seems mandatory to make the current Norwegian practice of heritage management more adaptive to the dynamic nature of living cities and the ambitions reflected in the recommendations from UNESCO.

Originality/value
Integrating development potential as a criterion adds a dynamic aspect to the valuation of heritage not sufficiently present in the current practice and literature.
On the ranking of critical success factors
Authors: Hopland Arnt Ove , Kvamsdal Sturla 
Published: December 2017

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss rankings of critical success factors (CSFs) from survey data, both with respect to what information such rankings should be based on and how to evaluate and interpret uncertainty from sampling errors.

Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted a survey on CSFs in public facilities management. The survey data set covers two-thirds of all Norwegian local governments and 80 per cent of the Norwegian population. The authors analyze the data using basic statistics and bootstrap sampling techniques.

Findings
Rankings of CSFs are sensitive to the information one chooses to collect in the survey. With the survey data, the authors show that the typical approach of inquiring about importance of various factors leads to a different ranking of factors than if one inquires about cost efficiency. The authors further consider a ranking that reflects all information in the data; the authors look in particular at a ranking with equal weights to importance and cost efficiency. The authors also find that many factors, when controlling for sampling error, should be ranked equally, and that further considerations need to be consulted when priorities are decided.

Originality/value
The authors demonstrate the effect of cost efficiency and uncertainty considerations on rankings of CSFs for facilities management. The study paves the way for a broader and more comprehensive perspective on CSFs and what these factors should and could reflect.
Bridging the life cycle: a case study on facility management infrastructures and uses of BIM
Authors: Miettinen Reijo , Kerosuo Hannele , Metsälä Teemu , Paavola Sami 
Published: December 2017

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to study the conditions of the building information modelling (BIM) implementation in facility management (FM) specifically from the point of view of different groups of FM practitioners, and the FM infrastructures already in use.

Design/methodology/approach
A literature review on the gap between the uses of BIM in design and FM has been done. The key professional groups of FM in the Premises Centre of the City of Helsinki were interviewed on the information tools they use, and the needs and impediments of the BIM implementation in the FM. Cultural–historical activity theory is used as a theoretical framework.

Findings
The literature discussing the BIM implementation tends to omit the analysis of the existing FM information systems and software tools in use. The challenge in the BIM implementation is in which ways the relevant information included in the BIM models could be integrated with these systems. No well-articulated problems or developmental contradictions came up that would demand the investment in the BIM implementation.

Practical implications
The results call for experimenting with incremental implementation of BIM in different FM activities and in the FM information infrastructures in use.

Originality/value
This paper studies empirically different FM activities and information systems used by the professional groups. Such studies are needed for a realistic view of the potential integration of the BIM information to the FM information systems.
The need for economic performance measures for life cycle costing of sustainable commercial office buildings
Authors: Oduyemi Olufolahan , Okoroh Michael Iheoma , Fajana Oluwaseun Samuel , Arowosafe Oluwumi 
Published: December 2017

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the current level of awareness, usage and advocated benefits of economic performance measures of life cycle costing (LCC) in sustainable commercial office buildings.

Design/methodology/approach
Questionnaire survey to 120 construction professionals was used to gauge the current level of awareness, usage and advocated benefits of economic performance measures in LCC.

Findings
The key findings of the statistical analysis indicated that there is a low awareness and usage of economic performance measures, and revealing the entire value of capital outflow alternatives was the most advocated benefit of its application.

Research limitations/implications
Although the data used in this paper were from professionally qualified members of either the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) and the British Institute for Facilities Management (BIFM), the research is limited in some ways in that it does not cover all the professionals in the construction industry. Nevertheless, all the professionals who responded to the questionnaire have up-to-date level of awareness of economic performance measures in LCC.

Practical implications
The use of economic performance measures helps to make available the information required for building performance. Therefore, economic performance methods in LCC are useful devices for users to appraise and distribute recognisable values from initial costs, operating and maintenance costs to clients in the life cycle of an asset.

Social implications
Value for money for construction products and its facilities should not be viewed only in terms of costs to design and construction. Rather, it is vital for corporate occupants and society in general to consider other key variables such as operations, maintenance, renovation, replacement and end-of-life costs.

Originality/value
This study fills the gap in the existing knowledge by addressing concerns over performance measurement to improve the confidence in LCC for sustainable commercial office buildings.
On variation of charge carrier mobility under influence of mismatch-induced stress in a heterostructure
Authors: Pankratov Evgeny L. , Bulaeva Elena A. 
Published: December 2017

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze the manufacturing of diffusion-junction heterorectifier with account relaxation of mismatch-induced stress. On the basis of the analysis, the authors formulate recommendations to increase sharpness of thep-n-heterojunction, homogeneity of concentration of dopant in the junction and charge carrier mobility.Design/methodology/approachThe authors formulate recommendations to increase sharpness ofp-n-heterojunction, homogeneity of concentration of dopant in the junction and charge carrier mobility. To formulate the recommendations, the authors analyzed the manufacturing of the junction. The authors introduce an analytical approach to analyze the manufacturing.FindingsThe authors find a possibility to increase sharpness ofp-n-heterojunction, homogeneity of concentration of dopant in the junction and charge carrier mobility.Originality/valueThe results are original.
The use of academic libraries in turbulent times
Authors: de Jager Karin , Nassimbeni Mary , Daniels William , D’Angelo Alexander 
Published: December 2017

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how an innovation in the University Management Information System was leveraged to incorporate library data by an initially sceptical strategic management team. The rationale was to extract evidence of correlations between library use and student achievement. This kind of information is of particular interest to the institution, which is at present dealing with crises popularly summarised in the slogan “#FeesMustFall” among students who suffer from the effects of poverty and exclusion in higher education. Comment is offered on some of the relationships between student library behaviour before, during and after the nationwide disruptions that destabilised universities and threatened their survival at the end of 2016, just before the final examination period.

Design/methodology/approach
Data were extracted from the data warehouse from the comparative demographic perspectives of students’ degrees of disadvantage in an effort to uncover any hitherto hidden patterns of library use.

Findings
The use of the library as expressed by footfall and loans was mapped against students’ pass rates and their collective GPA, indicating that increased library use correlates positively with better academic performance. Some of the initial correlations between student library behaviour before, during and after the nationwide disruptions that destabilised universities and threatened their survival at the end of 2016 just before the final examination period are explored. The effects that library closures (under threat of damage) at a critical time in the academic year might have had on library use and on student performance are interrogated.

Practical implications
Students on financial aid, which was used as an indicator of disadvantage, come from schools and environments where access to information technology and libraries is very limited, so that library habits are either poorly established or not at all. At the University of Cape Town (UCT), considerable support is in place for students to encourage the development of library habits. An analysis of available data indicates that students who have acquired library habits regardless of unfavourable financial circumstances do not exhibit behaviour and academic outcomes markedly different from that of their more privileged peers.

Originality/value
Combining library data with data from the university data warehouse is a new approach in South Africa. It is an approach that is of value both to the library and the institution at large and has brought meaningful insights into the role the academic library might be seen to play in promoting student academic achievement.
Understanding students’ satisfaction with OERs as course materials
Authors: Jaggars Shanna Smith , Folk Amanda L. , Mullins David 
Published: December 2017

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to introduce a survey instrument to measure three components of students’ perceptions of open and affordable course materials – quality, integration, and experience – and discuss its reliability and predictive validity.

Design/methodology/approach
The authors distributed an end-of-semester online survey to students enrolled in sections of 12 courses that adopted OER in Fall 2016, as well as conducting a within-interview survey with the instructors of those courses. The authors calculated the descriptive statistics from the responses to the student survey, as well as examining the inter-item and inter-rater reliability of the instrument. Finally, explored correlations in the data gathered through both the student and faculty surveys were explored.

Findings
The authors found that both students and faculty were generally pleased with the quality and experience of using open and affordable digital materials. The authors also found that our three survey subscales had strong inter-item reliability, and that the quality and experience subscales had predictive validity in terms of whether students would choose a traditional or digital text in future courses.

Originality/value
In addition to providing evidence in terms of the full survey instrument’s reliability and predictive validity, factor analysis indicates that a short scale of quality and experience Likert scale items could be used by practitioners to effectively assess satisfaction of digital materials among traditionally aged undergraduate students.
English in the multilingual classroom: implications for research, policy and practice
Authors: Brutt-Griffler Janina 
Published: December 2017

Purpose
The shift in the function of English as a medium of instruction together with its use in knowledge construction and dissemination among scholars continue to fuel the global demand for high-level proficiency in the language. These components of the global knowledge economy mean that the ability of nations to produce multilinguals with advanced English proficiency alongside their mastery of other languages has become a key to global competitiveness. That need is helping to drive one of the greatest language learning experiments the world has ever known. It carries significant implications for new research agendas and teacher preparation in applied linguistics.

Design/methodology/approach
Evidence-based decision-making, whether it pertains to language policy decisions, instructional practices, teacher professional development or curricula/program building, needs to be based on a rigorous and systematically pursued program of research and assessment.

Findings
This paper seeks to advance these objectives by identifying new research foci that underscore a student-centered approach.

Originality/value
It introduces a new theoretical construct – multilingual proficiency – to underscore the knowledge that the learner develops in the process of language learning that makes for the surest route to the desired high levels of language proficiency. The paper highlights the advantages of a student-centered approach that focuses on multilingual proficiency for teachers and explores the concomitant conclusions for teacher development.
Interactions of Salmonella enterica Serovar Typhimurium and Pectobacterium carotovorum within a Tomato Soft Rot
Authors: George Andrée S. , Cox Clayton E. , Desai Prerak , Porwollik Steffen , Chu Weiping , de Moraes Marcos H. , McClelland Michael , Brandl Maria T. , Teplitski Max 
Published: December 2017

ABSTRACT

Salmonella
spp. are remarkably adaptable pathogens, and this adaptability allows these bacteria to thrive in a variety of environments and hosts. The mechanisms with which these pathogens establish within a niche amid the native microbiota remain poorly understood. Here, we aimed to uncover the mechanisms that enable
Salmonella enterica
serovar Typhimurium strain ATCC 14028 to benefit from the degradation of plant tissue by a soft rot plant pathogen,
Pectobacterium carotovorum
. The hypothesis that in the soft rot, the liberation of starch (not utilized by
P. carotovorum
) makes this polymer available to
Salmonella
spp., thus allowing it to colonize soft rots, was tested first and proven null. To identify the functions involved in
Salmonella
soft rot colonization, we carried out transposon insertion sequencing coupled with the phenotypic characterization of the mutants. The data indicate that
Salmonella
spp. experience a metabolic shift in response to the changes in the environment brought on by
Pectobacterium
spp. and likely coordinated by the
csrBC
small regulatory RNA. While
csrBC
and
flhD
appear to be of importance in the soft rot, the global two-component system encoded by
barA sirA
(which controls
csrBC
and
flhDC
under laboratory conditions) does not appear to be necessary for the observed phenotype. Motility and the synthesis of nucleotides and amino acids play critical roles in the growth of
Salmonella
spp. in the soft rot.

IMPORTANCE
Outbreaks of produce-associated illness continue to be a food safety concern. Earlier studies demonstrated that the presence of phytopathogens on produce was a significant risk factor associated with increased
Salmonella
carriage on fruits and vegetables. Here, we genetically characterize some of the requirements for interactions between
Salmonella
and phytobacteria that allow
Salmonella
spp. to establish a niche within an alternate host (tomato). Pathways necessary for nucleotide synthesis, amino acid synthesis, and motility are identified as contributors to the persistence of
Salmonella
spp. in soft rots.