bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
CORPORATE GOVERNANCE OF BANKS: A SURVEY
Authors: de Haan Jakob , Vlahu Razvan 
Published: January 2015

AbstractThis paper reviews the empirical literature on the corporate governance of banks. We start by highlighting the main differences between banks and nonfinancial firms and focus on three characteristics that make banks special: (i) regulation, (ii) the capital structure of banks, and (iii) the complexity and opacity of their business and structure. Next, we discuss the characteristics of corporate governance in banks and how they differ from the governance of nonfinancial firms. We then review the evidence on three governance mechanisms: (i) boards, (ii) ownership structures, and (iii) executive compensation. Our review suggests that some of the empirical regularities found in the literature on corporate governance of nonfinancial institutions, such as the positive (negative) association between board independence (size) and performance, do not hold for banks. Also, existing work provides no conclusive results regarding the relationship between different governance mechanisms and various measures for banks’ performance. We discuss potential explanations for these mixed results.
Astrocyte and Microvascular Imaging in Awake Animals Using Two‐Photon Microscopy
Authors: Tran Cam Ha T. , Gordon Grant R. 
Published: January 2015

AbstractNeurovascular coupling is an important control mechanism in CBF regulation. New insights into the integrated relationship between synaptic activity, astrocytes Ca2+, and cerebral blood vessels using two‐photon fluorescence imaging are slowly emerging. Here, we provide a brief overview of the current understandings and controversies regarding astrocytes in activity‐dependent vasodilation. We highlight the key advantages and disadvantages of the in vitro and in vivo methodologies used to study this topic. In particular, we emphasize some of the drawbacks of acute brain slices as well as the confounding effects of anesthesia in in vivo preparations. To overcome these limitations, we discuss an emerging and important trend in imaging cell Ca2+ and blood flow control in awake and behaving animals. This new approach may help resolve existing controversies on astrocyte control of arteriole diameter by providing a more physiologically relevant preparation to study CBF regulation.
The Contribution of the Creative Economy to the Resilience of Rural Communities: Exploring Cultural and Digital Capital
Authors: Roberts Elisabeth , Townsend Leanne 
Published: January 2015

AbstractThis article develops understanding of cultural and digital capital in order to evaluate the contribution of creative practitioners to rural community resilience. Online practices today impact on creative work in rural locales in a number of ways. However, exactly how they extend ‘reach’ and contribute to rural creativity deserves greater attention. We examine how broadband Internet access and online practices impact on rural creative work and, in turn, how this enables creatives to participate at different levels in their rural communities, thus contributing to research into both rural community resilience and rural creative economies by providing in‐depth qualitative analysis. Through interviews undertaken in rural Scotland, the article outlines the implications of poor rural Internet connectivity for creative economies and explores the impact of this on the role of creatives in their rural communities and their ‘community‐focused’ creative activities. Our findings suggest creative practitioners are using digital technologies and adaptive approaches to overcome barriers to connectivity and to remain in rural locations. Creatives are invested in their communities and their rurality on a number of levels, contributing to community resilience through building cultural capital in diverse ways, and to ‘ripple effects’ from online activities.
Presentation and management of mycotic pseudoaneurysm after kidney transplantation
Authors: Patrono D. , Verhelst R. , Buemi A. , Darius T. , Godefroid N. , Mourad M. 
Published: January 2015

AbstractPseudoaneurysms (PAs) developing at the site of vascular anastomosis after organ transplantation are a rare but serious complication. We report a series of 3 cases of PA observed in a single center over a period of 18 years. The mode of presentation was acute bleeding in 2 cases. In the third patient, who underwent combined kidney and pancreas transplantation, the PA on the renal graft was discovered by chance. Graft removal associated with iliac artery ligation and extra‐anatomic femoro‐femoral bypass represents the standard treatment. However, interposition of a venous homograft may allow preservation of inferior limb perfusion and possibly graft salvage.
Conversion to a sirolimus‐based regimen is associated with lower incidence of BK viremia in low‐risk kidney transplant recipients
Authors: Tohme F.A. , Kalil R.S. , Thomas C.P. 
Published: January 2015

AbstractBackgroundBK viral nephropathy is an increasingly recognized cause of early allograft loss in kidney transplantation. This study aimed to determine whether a sirolimus (Sir)‐based calcineurin inhibitor‐sparing regimen is associated with a lower incidence of BK viremia.MethodsThis was a single‐center retrospective study. Patients were either on tacrolimus (Tac)‐based or on Sir‐based immunosuppression. Conversion from Tac to Sir occurred at or after 3 months if patients were <62 years of age, had calculated panel reactive antibodies of <20%, and did not have acute early rejection.ResultsIncidence of clinically significant BK viremia was 17.9% in the Tac group and 4.3% in the Sir group. Cox regression multivariate analysis showed that male gender (hazard ratio [HR] = 2.87) and switch to Sir (HR = 0.333) impacted the incidence of BK viremia. Kaplan–Meier analysis showed a higher BK‐free survival in the Sir group. A trend was seen toward shorter time to resolution of BK viremia and lower peak viremia in the Sir group. Patients on Sir had a higher estimated glomerular filtration rate at each time point; 34% of patients discontinued Sir because of side effects.ConclusionConversion to Sir‐based maintenance immunosuppression at or about 3 months after kidney transplantation correlates with a lower incidence of BK viremia.
Treatment of uncomplicated malaria with artesunate plus sulfadoxine–pyrimethamine is failing in Somalia: evidence from therapeutic efficacy studies and Pfdhfr and Pfdhps mutant alleles
Authors: Warsame Marian , Hassan Abdillahi Mohamed , Barrette Amy , Jibril Ali Mohamed , Elmi Husein Haji , Arale Abdulkadir Mohamed , Mohammady Hanan El , Nada Rania A. , Amran Jamal Ghilan Hefzullah , Muse Abdikarim , Yusuf Fahmi Essa , Omar Abdiqani Sheikh 
Published: January 2015

AbstractObjectiveArtesunate plus sulfadoxine–pyrimethamine (AS + SP) has been Somalia's national treatment policy since 2006. Routine monitoring of first‐line malaria treatment is needed to ensure appropriate national malaria treatment policy and early detection of drug resistance. For this purpose, we conducted therapeutic efficacy studies of AS + SP for the treatment of uncomplicated malaria in Somalia in 2011.MethodsStudies were conducted in three sentinel sites. Eligible patients were evaluated for clinical and parasitological outcomes according to the WHO standard protocol. Molecular surveillance was conducted on resistance conferring mutations in the P.falciparum dihydrofolate reductase (dfhr) and dihydropteroate synthase (dhps) genes.ResultsThe proportion of PCR‐corrected treatment failures was high in Jamame (22%, 95% CI: 13.7–32.8%) and low (<5%) in Janale and Jowhar. All patients cleared parasites by day 3. Molecular markers associated with SP resistance were detected in all three sites. Treatment failure was associated with the presence of the double mutant dhps A437G/K540E (OR = 22.4, 95% CI: 5.1–98.1), quadruple mutant dhfr N51I/S108N+dhps A437G/K540E (OR = 5.5, 95% CI: 2.3–13.6), quintuple mutant dhfr N51I/C59R/S108N+dhps A437G/K540E (OR = 3.5, 95% CI: 1.4–8.8) and younger age (OR=0.86, 95% CI: 0.76–0.96).ConclusionsThe high treatment failure rate observed in Jamame, together with the presence of molecular mutations associated with SP resistance, indicates P. falciparum resistance to SP. In Jowhar, high treatment failure rates were absent despite the presence of molecular mutations; signs of resistance in vivo may have been masked by the stronger immunity of the older study population. The study underscores the need to update Somalia's national malaria treatment policy.
Antimicrobial use in critically ill horses
Authors: Dunkel Bettina , Johns Imogen C. 
Published: January 2015

AbstractObjectiveTo discuss controversies surrounding antimicrobial use in critically ill horses.Data SourcesPubMed searches from 1970‐present for terms including, but not limited to: “horse,” “foal,” “antimicrobial,” “prophylaxis,” “infection,” “surgery,” “sepsis,” and “antimicrobial resistance.”Human Data SynthesisIncreasing bacterial antimicrobial resistance has changed first‐line antimicrobial choices and prompted shortening of the duration of prophylactic and therapeutic treatment. The need to decrease bacterial resistance development to critically important antimicrobials has been highlighted.Veterinary Data SynthesisVeterinary medicine has followed a similar trend but often without a high‐level evidence. Common dilemmas include diseases in which the theoretically most effective drug is a reserved antimicrobial, the inability to differentiate infectious from noninfectious disease, the duration and necessity of prophylactic antimicrobials and use of antimicrobials in primary gastrointestinal disease. These problems are illustrated using examples of purulent infections, neonatal sepsis, colic surgery, and treatment of colitis. Although enrofloxacin, cephalosporins, and doxycycline, in contrast to gentamicin, reach therapeutic concentrations within the lungs of healthy horses, the first two should not be used as first line treatment due to their reserved status. Due to the high risk of bacterial sepsis, antimicrobial treatment remains indispensable in compromised neonatal foals but shortening the length of antimicrobial treatment might be prudent. One prospective randomized study demonstrated no difference between 3 and 5 days of perioperative antimicrobial treatment in colic surgery but shorter durations were not evaluated. High‐level evidence to recommend antimicrobial treatment of adult horses with undifferentiated diarrhea does not exist.ConclusionsFew evidence‐based recommendations can be made. Commonly used antimicrobial combinations remain the mainstay for treating purulent infections. Antimicrobial treatment for compromised foals should not extend beyond recovery. Continuation of prophylactic antimicrobials >3 days is likely unnecessary after colic surgery; shorter durations might be equally effective. Antimicrobial prophylaxis in adult horses with diarrhea is unlikely to be beneficial.
Testing and Validation of a Series PHEV Control System
Authors: Golecki Christopher J. , Monaco Christopher D. , Sattler Benjamin J. 
Published: January 2015

EcoCAR 2: Plugging into the Future is an Advanced Vehicle Technology Competition managed by the U.S. Department of Energy at Argonne National Laboratory. The competition challenges 15 universities across North America to reduce the environmental impact of a production vehicle without compromising performance, safety and consumer acceptability. To meet this goal, the Pennsylvania State University Advanced Vehicle Team has designed a series plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) capable of achieving a 40 mile all-electric range. An auxiliary power unit (750 cc two-cylinder engine converted to run on E85 fuel) provides extended range greater than 200 miles. A rigorous development process has been followed to provide a control system that meets the safety, performance and fuel economy targets, including fault mitigation.
This paper summarizes the control system development strategy, starting with vehicle component selection. The strategies used to develop a control algorithm and plant model in parallel are described. Extensive testing is performed throughout the vehicle development process, including both software-in-the-loop (SiL), hardware-in-the-loop (HiL), and in-vehicle testing. In addition, it will be shown how pertinent testing data plays a crucial role in further plant model developments.
Application of Origami in the Starshade Spacecraft Blanket Design
Authors: Sigel Deborah , Trease Brian P. , Thomson Mark W. , Webb David R. , Willis Paul , Lisman P. Doug 
Published: January 2015

A Starshade is a large deployable structure and sole payload of an external occulter. At 34m in diameter or more, starshades are designed to block most of the light from a nearby star so that a small orbiting space telescope can image and characterize the Earth-like exoplanets in orbit around it. The starshade resembles a sunflower with a circular central disk supporting petals that are arrayed around its periphery. The petal edges are precisely shaped to match an optical profile that prevents diffraction. The area circumscribed by the edges must be completely opaque, black, and non-reflective. The petals and ring structure are covered by specially designed deployable blankets that must remain completely opaque even if they become perforated by micrometeorites. The blankets must also not cause any significant on-orbit thermoelastic loads on the lightweight supporting ring and petal structures despite very large differential thermal strains that are developed between these Kapton blankets and the thermally stable composite ring and petal structures. There are two types of blankets: one for the deployable petals and one for the central support disc that is formed by a lightweight deployable ring truss structure.
The starshade blankets cover such a large area that they must be unusually lightweight compared to conventional multi-layer insulated (MLI) spacecraft blankets. The blankets must also stow around the central hub of the spacecraft with the deployable ring and petal structures in a highly repeatable fashion. This makes them ideal candidates for origami folding schemes. Based on prior studies of large deployable rigid arrays, we began with variants on the origami flasher to fold the central ring blanket, which is a minimum of 20m in diameter. We looked at the simplest methods for integrating this large blanket with a mechanical ring truss while providing ample optical baffling and little to no thermally induced loads on the structure. Petal blankets were also developed using deployable softgoods with pseudo-mechanical and shingled designs with optically blocking folds for deployment. The design was developed iteratively utilizing a variety of prototypes to explore and demonstrate the interaction between the softgoods and rigid elements.
Emotional Break-In of Products
Authors: Fukuda Shuichi 
Published: January 2015

Although break-in is important in products, only the aspect of run-in is considered in mechanical products. But we feel happy when our shoes come to fit us. We feel happy, too, if our products come to fit us in our operating conditions and work very well as we expect and meet not only our needs but also our preferences.
Further, if our products come to fit us very well, we feel attached to them and will use them longer. Such emotional break-in has seldom been considered in mechanical design.
If a product or a machine degrades and does not satisfy its design requirements, it will be restored to its original design level. This is considered to be the most important task of maintenance.
But break-in is associated with the phenomenon of degradation. If we can manage our degradation more intelligently, we would feel happier because we feel the product or the machine is breaking in to our needs and to our preferences.
This is a position paper to discuss this issue.
Wheel Dynamics Fundamentals for Agile Tire Slippage Modeling and Control
Authors: Vantsevich Vladimir V. 
Published: January 2015

One of the technical problems in wheel dynamics is to establish and control the relationship between the tire kinematic and force characteristics related to tire slippage and thus to tire-soil power losses and wheel mobility estimation. This problem has been attracting a lot attention from the research community for decades. The electronization of modern vehicles can enhance their performance in complex and severe vehicle-road/terrain environments by implementing agile control decision within the scale of milliseconds. Thus, agility requires new approaches when considering and analyzing the tire slippage process.
This paper presents an analysis of the tire slippage process in stochastic terrain conditions for the purpose of agile tire slip modeling, estimation and control. Based on the introduced relations between the rolling radii of the tire, circumferential wheel force/wheel torque, wheel kinematic parameters and tire slippage, a set of agile tire-terrain characteristics is offered in the paper. The proposed characteristics take in consideration the rate of change of the listed parameters and thus allow a user to estimate the agile dynamics of the tire slip and evidence the closeness to the peak friction coefficient and hence estimate potential mobility loss. The characteristics establish relationships between the stochastic peak friction coefficient, rolling resistance coefficient, and wheel kinematic/force parameters. The characteristics are illustrated by computer simulation results in several terrain conditions.
Rigid Body Guidance of Human Gait as Constrained TRS Serial Chain
Authors: Soh Gim Song 
Published: January 2015

The motion of gait is a cyclical activity that requires the coordination between locomotion mechanism, motor control and musculoskeletal function. The basic assumption is that one stride is the same as the next. From a simplified kinematics point of view, the human gait can be considered as a TRS serial chain with six degrees-of-freedom driven by the pelvis rotational and tilting motion during walking. This paper presents a dimensional synthesis procedure for the design of two degrees-of-freedom of spatial eight-bar linkages by mechanically constraining a TRS serial chain. The goal is to develop a methodology for the design of under-actuated lower limb walking devices or passively driven exoskeleton systems.
The dimensional synthesis process starts with the specification of the links of a TRS chain according to the gait anthropometric data. We show the various ways how four TS constraints can be used to constrain the links of the this chain to obtain a two degrees-of-freedom spatial eight-bar linkage. We formulate and solve the design equations as well as analyze the resulting eight-bar linkage from the data we obtained from an optical motion capture system. An example demonstrates our results.
Comparing Sustainable Performance of Industrial System Alternatives by Integrating Environment, Costs, Clients and Exploitation Context
Authors: Leroy Yann , Cluzel François , Lame Guillaume 
Published: January 2015

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a methodology to assess environmental performances of products throughout their life cycles. Traditionally, LCA-based decision-making focuses on environmental impacts, excluding customer expectations and economic considerations. Moreover, it usually uses generic data while environmental performances of industrial systems often depend on local contexts. The aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive framework to identify the solution most adapted to a specific context, considering environmental, economic and commercial aspects. First, environmental performances of competing products are compared thanks to LCA. A sensitivity analysis highlights influential parameters on which operational scenarios are built. Costs are then incorporated into a set of exploitation scenarios.
Second, matrix-based approach is used. Products are ranked according to several client profiles. The most suitable solution for a given context is identified.
This framework is applied on three burners for forge furnaces. Results show that client profiles and operational contexts (namely client expectations, location and resources availability and costs) affect choices.
A Generic System Architecture for Energetic Optimization of Vehicles by Using Driver Assistance Systems
Authors: Korzenietz Peter , Kluin Matthias , Winner Hermann 
Published: January 2015

The increase of energy efficiency of vehicles in the course of rising energy costs and the limited range of electric vehicles can be realized with ecological driver assistance systems. Based on preview information these systems can assist the driver in providing energy efficient driving and operating strategies. But, many of these systems directly focus on specific functional approaches and do not consider a comprehensive system architecture. Thus, functional extensions and adoptions to other vehicle and propulsion concepts are hereby complicated.
In this paper a generic system architecture is introduced which represents a framework for present and future for assistance systems for ecological optimization. The framework provides hereby the overview of the necessary core modules and the interfaces between them. The innovative aspect of the introduced framework is the modularization in a vehicle independent optimization module and a vehicle dependent energy conversion model. This approach promotes a vehicle independent and efficient system development. The system architecture aims to provide a basis for assistance systems that are robust towards functional extensions and adoptions to other vehicle and propulsion concepts.
In an exemplary use case the application of the generic system architecture is demonstrated and the portability is discussed.
Flexible Multibody Approaches for Dynamical Simulation of Beam Structures in Drilling
Authors: Mikheev Gennady , Pogorelov Dmitry , Dmitrochenko Oleg , Gandikota Raju 
Published: January 2015

Two approaches for simulation of dynamics of complex beam structures such as drill strings are considered.
In the first approach, the drill string is presented as a set of uniform beams connected via force elements. The beams can undergo arbitrary large displacements as absolutely rigid bodies but its flexible displacements due to elastic deformations are assumed to be small. Flexibility of the beams is simulated using the modal approach. Thus, each beam has at least twelve degrees of freedom: six coordinates define position and orientation of a local frame and six modes are used for modeling flexibility.
The second approach is dynamic simulation of the drill string using nonlinear finite element model. The proposed beam finite element uses Cartesian coordinates of its nodes and node rotation angles around axis of Cartesian coordinate system as generalized coordinates. The nonlinear finite element is developed based on method of large rotation vectors. Rotation angles in the nodes can be arbitrary large.
Equations of motion of beam structure are derived in the paper. The number of degrees of freedom is decreased by factor two as compared with the modal approach. Thereby, computational efficiency under simulation of dynamics of long drill strings is considerably increased.
The features of creating the models and numerical methods as well as results obtained by applying both approaches are discussed in the paper.