bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Rating Scales in Accounting Research: The Impact of Scale Points and Labels
Authors: Eutsler Jared , Lang Bradley 
Published: July 2015

ABSTRACT
Rating scales are one of the most widely used tools in behavioral research. Decisions regarding scale design can have a potentially profound effect on research findings. Despite this importance, an analysis of extant literature in top accounting journals reveals a wide variety of rating scale compositions. The purpose of this paper is to experimentally investigate the impact of scale characteristics on participants' responses. Two experiments are conducted that manipulate the number of scale points and the corresponding labels to study their influence on the statistical properties of the resultant data. Results suggest that scale design impacts the statistical characteristics of response data and emphasize the importance of labeling all scale points. A scale with all points labeled effectively minimizes response bias, maximizes variance, maximizes power, and minimizes error. This analysis also suggests variance may be maximized when the scale length is set at 7 points. Although researchers commonly believe using additional scale points will maximize variance, results indicate increasing scale points beyond 7 does not increase variance. Taken together, a fully labeled 7-point scale may provide the greatest benefits to researchers. The importance of scale labels provides a significant contribution to accounting research as only 5 percent of the accounting studies reviewed have reported scales with all points labeled.
Trading Styles, Inc.: An Analysis of the Going Concern Assessment
Authors: Popova Velina K. , Stein Sarah E. 
Published: July 2015

ABSTRACT
This instructional case focuses on the auditor's going concern decision for a private retail client. The primary objective of this case is to understand and examine the auditor's consideration of the client's ability to continue as a going concern in a real-world setting. The case provides students with the financial aspects as well as the personal aspects of such a decision. Specifically, students must complete analytical procedures and evaluate information from several sources when forming their opinion. We also ask students to contemplate the auditor's relationship with the client in order to understand issues involving auditor independence. Throughout the case, students have the opportunity to review applicable auditing standards and to draft a going concern audit report. We expect this case would be most applicable for an undergraduate or a graduate audit course.
14-3-3η Autoantibodies: Diagnostic Use in Early Rheumatoid Arthritis
Authors: Maksymowych Walter P. , Boire Gilles , van Schaardenburg Dirkjan , Wichuk Stephanie , Turk Samina , Boers Maarten , Siminovitch Katherine A. , Bykerk Vivian , Keystone Ed , Tak Paul Peter , van Kuijk Arno W. , Landewé Robert , van der Heijde Desiree , Murphy Mairead , Marotta Anthony 
Published: July 2015

Objective.To describe the expression and diagnostic use of 14-3-3η autoantibodies in early rheumatoid arthritis (RA).Methods.14-3-3η autoantibody levels were measured using an electrochemiluminescent multiplexed assay in 500 subjects (114 disease-modifying antirheumatic drug-naive patients with early RA, 135 with established RA, 55 healthy, 70 autoimmune, and 126 other non-RA arthropathy controls). 14-3-3η protein levels were determined in an earlier analysis. Two-tailed Student t tests and Mann-Whitney U tests compared differences among groups. Receiver-operator characteristic (ROC) curves were generated and diagnostic performance was estimated by area under the curve (AUC), as well as specificity, sensitivity, and likelihood ratios (LR) for optimal cutoffs.Results.Median serum 14-3-3η autoantibody concentrations were significantly higher (p < 0.0001) in patients with early RA (525 U/ml) when compared with healthy controls (235 U/ml), disease controls (274 U/ml), autoimmune disease controls (274 U/ml), patients with osteoarthritis (259 U/ml), and all controls (265 U/ml). ROC curve analysis comparing early RA with healthy controls demonstrated a significant (p < 0.0001) AUC of 0.90 (95% CI 0.85–0.95). At an optimal cutoff of ≥ 380 U/ml, the ROC curve yielded a sensitivity of 73%, a specificity of 91%, and a positive LR of 8.0. Adding 14-3-3η autoantibodies to 14-3-3η protein positivity enhanced the identification of patients with early RA from 59% to 90%; addition of 14-3-3η autoantibodies to anticitrullinated protein antibodies (ACPA) and/or rheumatoid factor (RF) increased identification from 72% to 92%. Seventy-two percent of RF- and ACPA-seronegative patients were positive for 14-3-3η autoantibodies.Conclusion.14-3-3η autoantibodies, alone and in combination with the 14-3-3η protein, RF, and/or ACPA identified most patients with early RA.
Barriers to Medication Decision Making in Women with Lupus Nephritis: A Formative Study using Nominal Group Technique
Authors: Singh Jasvinder A. , Qu Haiyan , Yazdany Jinoos , Chatham Winn , Dall’era Maria , Shewchuk Richard M. 
Published: July 2015

Objective.To assess the perspectives of women with lupus nephritis on barriers to medication decision making.Methods.We used the nominal group technique (NGT), a structured process to elicit ideas from participants, for a formative assessment. Eight NGT meetings were conducted in English and moderated by an expert NGT researcher at 2 medical centers. Participants responded to the question: “What sorts of things make it hard for people to decide to take the medicines that doctors prescribe for treating their lupus kidney disease?” Patients nominated, discussed, and prioritized barriers to decisional processes involving medications for treating lupus nephritis.Results.Fifty-one women with lupus nephritis with a mean age of 40.6 ± 13.3 years and disease duration of 11.8 ± 8.3 years participated in 8 NGT meetings: 26 African Americans (4 panels), 13 Hispanics (2 panels), and 12 whites (2 panels). Of the participants, 36.5% had obtained at least a college degree and 55.8% needed some help in reading health materials. Of the 248 responses generated (range 19–37 responses/panel), 100 responses (40%) were perceived by patients as having relatively greater importance than other barriers in their own decision-making processes. The most salient perceived barriers, as indicated by percent-weighted votes assigned, were known/anticipated side effects (15.6%), medication expense/ability to afford medications (8.2%), and the fear that the medication could cause other diseases (7.8%).Conclusion.Women with lupus nephritis identified specific barriers to decisions related to medications. Information relevant to known/anticipated medication side effects and medication cost will form the basis of a patient guide for women with systemic lupus erythematosus, currently under development.
Cutting Edge: Hypoxia-Inducible Factor 1 Negatively Regulates Th1 Function
Authors: Shehade Hussein , Acolty Valérie , Moser Muriel , Oldenhove Guillaume 
Published: July 2015

Abstract
Tissue hypoxia can occur in physiological and pathological conditions. When O2 availability decreases, the transcription factor hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF)-1α is stabilized and regulates cellular adaptation to hypoxia. The objective of this study was to test whether HIF-1α regulates T cell fate and to define the molecular mechanisms of this control. Our data demonstrate that Th1 cells lose their capacity to produce IFN-γ when cultured under hypoxia. HIF-1α−/− Th1 cells were insensitive to hypoxia, underlining a critical role for HIF-1α. Our results point to a role for IL-10, as suggested by the increased IL-10 expression at low O2 levels and the unchanged IFN-γ production by IL-10–deficient Th1 cells stimulated in hypoxic conditions. Accordingly, STAT3 phosphorylation is increased in Th1 cells under hypoxia, leading to enhanced HIF-1α transcription, which, in turn, may inhibit suppressor of cytokine signaling 3 transcription. This positive-feedback loop reinforces STAT3 activation and downregulates Th1 responses that may cause collateral damage to the host.
Valproic Acid Ameliorates Graft-versus-Host Disease by Downregulating Th1 and Th17 Cells
Authors: Long Jun , Chang Li , Shen Yan , Gao Wen-Hui , Wu Yue-Nv , Dou Han-Bo , Huang Meng-Meng , Wang Ying , Fang Wei-Yue , Shan Jie-Hui , Wang Yue-Ying , Zhu Jiang , Chen Zhu , Hu Jiong 
Published: July 2015

Abstract
Graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) is the major complication after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation. Valproic acid (VPA) was described as a histone deacetylase inhibitor that had anti-inflammatory effects and reduced the production of proinflammatory cytokines in experimental autoimmune disease models. Using well-characterized mouse models of MHC-mismatched transplantation, we studied the effects of VPA on GVHD severity and graft-versus-leukemia (GVL) activity. Administration of VPA significantly attenuated the clinical severity of GVHD, the histopathology of GVHD-involved organs, and the overall mortality from GVHD. VPA downregulated Th1 and Th17 cell responses and cytokine production in vitro and in vivo, whereas its effect on GVHD was regulatory T cell independent. The effect of VPA was related to its ability to directly reduce the activity of Akt, an important regulator of T cell immune responses. Importantly, when mice received lethal doses of host-type acute leukemia cells, administration of VPA did not impair GVL activity and resulted in significantly improved leukemia-free survival. These findings reveal a unique role for VPA as a histone deacetylase inhibitor in reducing the donor CD4+ T cells that contribute to GVHD, which may provide a strategy to reduce GVHD while preserving the GVL effect.
Constrained Approximation with Jacobi Weights
Authors: Kopotun Kirill , Leviatan Dany , Shevchuk Igor 
Published: July 2015

AbstractIn this paper, we prove that for ℓ = 1 or 2 the rate of best ℓ- monotone polynomial approximation in the Lp norm (1 ≤ p ≤) weighted by the Jacobi weight with , is bounded by an appropriate (ℓ + 1)-st modulus of smoothness with the same weight, and that this rate cannot be bounded by the (ℓ + 2)-nd modulus. Related results on constrained weighted spline approximation and applications of our estimates are also given.
Development of the Inventory Management and Tracking System (IMATS) to Track the Availability of Public Health Department Medical Countermeasures During Public Health Emergencies
Authors: Sahar Liora , Faler Guy , Hristov Emil , Hughes Susan , Lee Leslie , Westnedge Caroline , Erickson Benjamin , Nichols Barbara 
Published: July 2015

Objective: To bridge gaps identified during the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic by developing a system that provides public health departments improved capability to manage and track medical countermeasures at the state and local levels and to report their inventory levels to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Materials and Methods: The CDC Countermeasure Tracking Systems (CTS) program designed and implemented the Inventory Management and Tracking System (IMATS) to manage, track, and report medical countermeasure inventories at the state and local levels. IMATS was designed by CDC in collaboration with state and local public health departments to ensure a “user-centered design approach.” A survey was completed to assess functionality and user satisfaction.Results: IMATS was deployed in September 2011 and is provided at no cost to public health departments. Many state and local public health departments nationwide have adopted IMATS and use it to track countermeasure inventories during public health emergencies and daily operations. Discussion: A successful response to public health emergencies requires efficient, accurate reporting of countermeasure inventory levels. IMATS is designed to support both emergency operations and everyday activities. Future improvements to the system include integrating barcoding technology and streamlining user access. To maintain system readiness, we continue to collect user feedback, improve technology, and enhance its functionality. Conclusion: IMATS satisfies the need for a system for monitoring and reporting health departments’ countermeasure quantities so that decision makers are better informed. The “user-centered design approach” was successful, as evident by the many public health departments that adopted IMATS.
Enhancing health policymakers’ information literacy capacity for policymaking on control of infectious diseases of poverty in Nigeria
Authors: Uneke Chigozie Jesse , Ezeoha Abel Abeh , Uro-Chukwu Henry , Ezeonu Chinonyelum Thecla , Ogbu Ogbonnaya , Onwe Friday , Edoga Chima 
Published: July 2015

Background: In Nigeria, one of the major challenges associated with evidence-to-policy link in the control of infectious diseases of poverty (IDP), is the deficient information literacy capacity among policymakers. There is need for policymakers to develop capacity to discover relevant information, accurately evaluate retrieved information and to apply it correctly.Objectives: To use information literacy tool of International Network for Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) to enhance policymakers’ capacity for policymaking on control of IDP in Nigeria.Methods: Modified “before and after” intervention study design was used in which outcomes were measured on target participants both before the intervention is implemented and after. This study was conducted in Ebonyi State, south-eastern Nigeria and participants were career health policy makers. A two-day health-policy information literacy training workshop was organized to enhance participants’ information literacy capacity. Topics covered included: introduction to information literacy; defining information problem; searching for information online; evaluating information; science information; knowledge sharing interviews; and training skills. Results: A total of 52 policymakers attended the workshop. The pre-workshop mean of knowledge and capacity for information literacy ranged from 2.15-2.97, while the post-workshop mean ranged from 3.34-3.64 on 4point scale. The percentage increase in mean of knowledge and capacity at the end of the workshop ranged from 22.6%-55.3%.Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that through information literacy training workshop policy makers can acquire the capacity to identify, capture and share the right kind of information in the right contexts to influence relevant action or a policy decision.Key Words: Policymakers, information literacy, capacity, infectious diseases of poverty, workshop
Made in Translation:
Authors: Karni Rebecca 
Published: July 2015

Abstract
My paper aims to highlight an inherently translated quality—an “originary translatedness”—of the Japanese British author Kazuo Ishiguro's prose, which has often been read in terms of its supposed “English” and/or “Japanese” characteristics and that works on the levels of realism, genre, mood, and visuality. More specifically, focusing on the author's first three novels, A Pale View of Hills (1982), An Artist of the Floating World (1986), and The Remains of the Day (1989), my article examines a type of translational realism at work in Ishiguro's fiction that thwarts the “Englishness” and “Japaneseness” it simultaneously invokes, thus foregrounding the cultural–mythological construction of its images of “Japan” and “England.” In this way, as I argue, Ishiguro's texts introduce readers to their own cultural preconceptions and stereotypes, providing the basis for the culturalist approaches dominating the critical response to his oeuvre. The final part of the article turns to a discussion of another of the author's novels, When We Were Orphans (2000), highlighting how Ishiguro, through manipulation of traditional narrative categories—especially unreliability and realism—as well as through recycling of images and the language of mass media, constructs an inherently mediated fictional world of “global culture.”
Les plaideurs en Cour supérieure, 1880-1890 : classe, genre et juridicité durant la transition au capitalisme industriel1
Authors: Nootens Thierry 
Published: July 2015

Nous avons examiné près de 700 poursuites entendues par la Cour supérieure dans le district de Trois-Rivières durant les années 1880. Plus d’une douzaine d’années se sont alors écoulées depuis la promulgation du Code civil du Bas-Canada de 1866. Au même moment, la transition au capitalisme industriel transforme les rapports de production. Deux questions générales ont guidé l’analyse : qu’est-ce que les dossiers de cette cour dévoilent quant aux enjeux sociojuridiques propres à une société régionale en transformation ? Cette documentation renvoie-t-elle à une phase particulière de l’histoire de la juridicisation et de la judiciarisation des rapports sociaux au Québec ?
Le droit à la liberté face aux formes modernes de travail « non libre » : le cas de l’obligation de résidence chez l’employeur
Authors: Gallié Martin , Galerand Elsa , Bourbeau Andrée 
Published: July 2015

Cet article interroge la portée du droit à la liberté garanti par l’article 7 de la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés, en matière de protection des travailleurs dépendants qui sont de facto assignés à des formes de travail non libre. L’analyse est centrée sur l’obligation de résidence en tant que mécanisme particulier de privation de liberté. Les auteurs avancent que si, selon la jurisprudence constante de la Cour suprême, le droit à la liberté de sa personne ne protège pas le droit au travail ou le droit à l’emploi, il n’exclut pas certaines dispositions du droit du travail (la réglementation des rapports entre employés et employeurs) de son champ de protection. Dans cette perspective, le droit notamment de ne pas être soumis au travail forcé, de pouvoir quitter un emploi et un employeur, de ne pas vivre chez son employeur et d’être payé pour toutes les heures travaillées pourrait être protégé par les garanties offertes par l’article 7 de la Charte. L’obligation de résider chez l’employeur, qui s’impose actuellement de facto aux travailleurs agricoles et travailleuses domestiques, pourrait alors être contestée sur le fondement du droit à la liberté.
Challenges of Transnational Trademark Law Practice: The Case of Nigerian Companies’ Brands in OAPI States
Authors: Nwabueze Caroline Joëlle 
Published: July 2015

Nigeria industrial growth has turned the country into an indispensable economic support for its neighbours. Only for the case of Cameroon, Nigeria has been the leading supplier with respectively 22% and 17.8% of imports in 2011 and 2012 with trade amounting to 328 billion FCFA per annum. This results in part from Nigerian companies’ exportations in local markets. Nigerian trademarks related to cosmetics, furniture, electronics, and pharmaceutical goods abound in neighbouring countries. However, a strengthening of Nigerian companies in regional markets encompasses strategies to avoid infringing on the trademark rights. Such strategies should include the consideration of special trademarks features by different institutions of the intellectual property (IP) system in the relevant neighbour export markets. This is by the mere fact that the legal status of those goods, although physical property, relies mainly on the material law applicable, which is trademark in the present case. Because the principle of territoriality requires that trademark protection be sought in the place where the goods are sold—and trademark applications filed in each country in which protection is sought—, Nigerian companies planning to outsource some business activity in neighbour markets will seek compliance with trademarks norms applicable in the Organisation africaine de la propriété intellectuelle (OAPI) of which those countries—Benin, Cameroon, Chad, and Guinea—are part. The trade partnership between companies from a common law trademark background on one hand, and civil law intellectual property community on the other, inevitably raises some frictions and trademarks issues. This article analyses the trademark challenges arising from Nigerian companies’ business decision to enter OAPI markets and export goods and services. The article firstly underlines the issues to be taken into consideration, including registration and enforcement of the companies’ marks in OAPI. Then the paper simultaneously reviews the dissimilarities issues between the Nigerian Trademark Act and the OAPI Trademark System to which the Nigerian companies are confronted. If trademark protection makes it easier for an enterprise to access transnational markets, the establishment of a Trademark Community with neighbouring countries helps for sure national industries to establish partnerships with other firms for sustainable development in the areas such as production, marketing, distribution or delivery of goods and services. In light of the trademark harmonisation in the European Union internal market, the present paper concludes by recommending the creation of a Trademark Community in the West and Central African region between Nigeria and its neighbouring countries.
Gastrointestinal Tolerability of Delayed-Release Dimethyl Fumarate in a Multicenter, Open-Label Study of Patients with Relapsing Forms of Multiple Sclerosis (MANAGE)
Authors: Fox Edward J. , Vasquez Alberto , Grainger William , Ma Tina S. , von Hehn Christian , Walsh John , Li Jie , Zambrano Javier 
Published: July 2015

Background: In phase 3 trials, delayed-release dimethyl fumarate (DMF; also known as gastroresistant DMF) demonstrated efficacy in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS). Gastrointestinal (GI) events were associated with DMF treatment. The single-arm, open-label MANAGE study examined the incidence, severity, duration, and management of GI events in adults with relapsing MS initiating DMF treatment in clinical practice in the United States shortly after marketing approval.Patients and Methods: Patients (N = 233) took DMF for up to 12 weeks and recorded information regarding GI events using an eDiary and numerical rating scales.Results: Overall, 54.1% of patients used symptomatic therapy and had GI symptoms. The incidence of GI events was highest in the first month of treatment. The duration of GI events varied by event type, and severity was generally mild to moderate. Decreased severity was seen in patients treated with antacids, bismuth subsalicylate, acid-secretion blockers, antidiarrheals, and antiemetics. Less than 10% of patients were using symptomatic therapy for GI events by week 12 of DMF treatment. A modest reduction in severe GI events was observed in patients who regularly took DMF with food compared with patients who did not. The incidence of GI-related events was comparable in patients with or without a history of GI abnormalities and in patients who did or did not use alcohol or tobacco.Conclusions: Gastrointestinal events associated with DMF are generally transient, mild to moderate in severity, and manageable. Symptomatic therapy and dosing with food may mitigate these events.