bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Electron Microscopic Features of Intraluminal Portion of Nasolacrimal Silastic Stents Following Dacryocystorhinostomy: Is There a Need for Stents Without a Lumen?
Authors: Ali Mohammad Javed , Baig Farhana , Naik Milind N. 
Published: April 2015

Aim:
The aim of this study was to examine the presence of biofilms and physical deposits within the lumen of silastic nasolacrimal duct stents inserted during dacryocystorhinostomy.

Methods:
A prospective interventional study was performed on consecutive patients undergoing endoscopic dacryocystorhinostomy with Crawford stent insertion. All the patient samples were retrieved 4 weeks after the surgery. None of the patients had any clinical evidence of postoperative infection. The intraluminal portions studied include the distal cut ends and the entire intraluminal surface. The analysis was performed using the standard protocols of scanning electron microscopy. The luminal surfaces were compared against sterile stents that acted as controls.

Results:
A total of 7 stents were studied. Five were consecutive patient samples and 2 were sterile stents. The cut ends and intraluminal surfaces of all the patient stents demonstrated evidence of biofilm formation and physical deposits. The luminal cut ends demonstrated extensive deposits and thick mixed biofilms constituted by fungal filaments and bacteria. The entire stretch of intraluminal surfaces showed thin, fine layers of deposits and bacterial biofilms with skip areas.

Conclusions:
Intraluminal surfaces of lacrimal stents harbor physical deposits and mixed biofilms. Because the purpose and functions of stents are not influenced by the presence or absence of its lumen, the use of nonluminal stents may prevent additional surfaces from acting as nidus for microbes.
Inadequate Preoperative Team Briefings Lead to More Intraoperative Adverse Events
Authors: Phadnis Joideep , Templeton-Ward Oliver 
Published: April 2015

Introduction
Implementation of the World Health Organization checklists has reduced major surgical complications and errors; however, the impact of preoperative briefings on intraoperative adverse events has not been assessed.

Materials and Methods
A prospective case-control study assessing the association between preoperative briefings and minor, potentially major, and major adverse intraoperative events was performed in 2 phases. Phase 1 involved prospective data collection for all trauma and orthopedic lists during a 2-week period. Changes were implemented as a result of the findings, and after this, the study was repeated (phase 2) to assess for the effect of the changes made to the practice.

Results
Forty-one lists were audited during phase 1 and 47 lists were audited during phase 2 of the study. Adequate preoperative briefings were performed in 10 (24%) of 41 lists in phase 1. There was a significant association between the occurrences of intraoperative adverse events (n = 37) when a briefing was not performed (P = < 0.01) and when a briefing was performed incompletely (P = 0.01). In phase 2, after staff reeducation and policy change, briefings were found to be adequate in 38 (81%) of 47 lists with the occurrence of only 3 adverse events. Team familiarity also improved significantly as a result of better preoperative briefings (P = 0.02).

Conclusions
Inadequate preoperative briefings are associated with an increase in minor adverse events and are detrimental to team familiarity. On the basis of our findings, we recommend that all surgical units perform preoperative briefings thoroughly to minimize these factors.
A Factorial Survey on Safety Behavior Providing Opportunities to Improve Safety
Authors: Simons Pascale , Houben Ruud , Reijnders Petra , Pijls-Johannesma Madelon , Marneffe Wim , Vlayen Annemie , Hellings Johan , Vandijck Dominique 
Published: April 2015

Objectives
To realize safe, high-quality treatment, employees should behave according to patient safety standards. Periodic measurement of safety behavior could provide management-relevant information to adjust the implementation of interventions and maximize improvement. Therefore, we constructed a factorial survey measuring safety awareness and intentions for behavior.

Methods
Cross-sectional results of the factorial survey were compared with results from the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture, distributed in MAASTRO radiotherapy in 2010 to 2011. Respondents were presented 20 scenarios about incidents, randomly varying on work pressure, person causing incident, whether patient level was reached, severity of harm, notification by patient, and management support. After each scenario, questions were asked about safety awareness and behavior. χ2 and multilevel regression analyses were used.

Results
Response rates were 64% (n = 54) for the culture survey and 62% (n = 52) for the factorial survey on intentions. The culture survey reflected positive opinions regarding nonpunitive response and incident reporting, in accordance with high scores (factorial survey) on safety awareness (9.0; scale, 1-10) and reporting intentions (8.7). Whether an incident reached the patient level predicted safety awareness and intentions for safety behavior (β = −1.3/−3.08) most strongly. Severity of harm showed minimal additional effects (β = −0.24/−0.42).

Conclusions
The factorial survey presented practical information on safety awareness and intentions for behavior. Therefore, it created additional opportunities for improving safety interventions. Because behavior is expected to change before values, one could hypothesize that factorial surveys would be more sensitive to change than culture surveys. Longitudinal research should further study the surveys’ sensitivity to measure changes.
Tribolium castaneumas a model for microRNA evolution, expression and function during short germband development
Authors: Ninova Maria , Ronshaugen Matthew , Griffiths-Jones Sam 
Published: April 2015

AbstractMicroRNAs are well-established players in the development of multicellular animals. Most of our understanding of microRNA function in arthropod development comes from studies inDrosophila.Despite their advantages as model systems, the long germband embryogenesis of fruit flies is an evolutionary derived state restricted to several holometabolous insect lineages. MicroRNA evolution and expression across development in animals exhibiting the ancestral and more widespread short germband mode of embryogenesis has not been characterized. We sequenced small RNA libraries of oocytes and successive time intervals covering the embryonic development of the short germband model organism, the red flour beetleTribolium castaneum.We analysed the evolution and temporal expression of the microRNA complement, and sequenced libraries of total RNA to investigate the relationships with microRNA target expression. We show microRNA maternal loading and sequence-specific 3’-end non-template oligoadenylation of maternally deposited microRNAs that is conserved betweenTriboliumandDrosophila.We further uncover large clusters encoding multiple paralogs from severalTribolium-specificmicroRNA families expressed during a narrow interval of time immediately after the activation of zygotic transcription. These novel microRNAs, together with several early expressed conserved microRNAs, target a significant number of maternally deposited transcripts. Comparison withDrosophilashows that microRNA-mediated maternal transcript targeting is a conserved phenomenon in insects, but the number and sequences of microRNAs involved in this process have diverged. The expression of fast-evolving and species-specific microRNAs in the early blastoderm ofT. castaneumis consistent with previous findings inDrosophilaand shows that the unique permissiveness for microRNA innovation at this stage is a conserved phenomenon.
Getting published: achieving acceptance from reviewers and editors
Authors: Sheppard Jerry Paul 
Published: April 2015

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to develop an understanding how to successfully develop, write up and get research work accepted and published in an English language business research journal.

Design/methodology/approach
– A review of good basics in writing, producing good scholarly academic writing, presentation of papers that are in a style that is proper for academic English language journals and how to avoid common writing problems and mistakes.

Findings
– Getting research work published requires persistence, people and progress. One must have persistence in seriously approaching and improving one’s research work. Researchers need to involve a network of people (conference attendees, people who understand the area, reviewers and editors) to develop good research. Research should lead to progress in our understanding of the way the world works.

Practical implications
– This paper helps authors readily bring their research to publishable quality in English language research journals by reducing pitfalls to authors writing in English as a foreign language.

Originality/value
– By providing not only sound practical advice, and how to avoid potential errors, the paper also provides graphic diagrams and a checklist for research writing that will aid authors writing in English as a foreign language in readily bringing their research to publishable quality in English language research journals.
Measuring the effectiveness of the communication strategy by using the brand score technique – a conceptual study
Authors: Srivastava Rajesh 
Published: April 2015

Purpose
– The aim of the study is to find the relation between brand score and strategy through measurement of brand score. Quantitative methods to assess consumer awareness, satisfaction and preferences are the main purpose of the study.

Design/methodology/approach
– One hundred twenty respondents participated in the study of brands in dish washing category. A survey was conducted to test the brand score and to see if communication effectiveness impacts the brand score of extensions.

Findings
– The report finds that brand score is an indicator of how effective a brand is. Higher brand equity help in getting better acceptance in brand extensions of a new market and results of brand scores confirms the same. There should be clear distinguish between the brand as a whole and its sub-brands and extensions so that it may have a differential approach to each sub-brand and extensions.

Research limitations/implications
– This study conducted across the metro cities may represent different cultures. However, it may not represent the Tier 2 cities including the rural population. However, with the penetration of such goods sweeping in to these markets, it will be interesting to explore if similar strategy clicks with these consumers. The paper lacks of theoretical support in depth due to conceptual in nature.

Practical implications
– Application of brand scorecard would be useful for the managers to conduct analysis of brand mapping score in reference to brand strategy vs others. The brand score tools help in measuring the impact on various markets drivers’ measures on ten parameters on the performance of brands.

Originality/value
– Brand score is a new concept, as there is paucity of similar research. Brand score analysis and mapping of a brand plays a major role in measuring the performance of brand in the market. This research will improve the effectiveness of communication in marketing.
Emotional timescapes: the temporal perspective and consumption emotions in services
Authors: Maguire Louise , Geiger Susi 
Published: April 2015

Purpose
– This study aims to examine how the temporal aspect of service consumption impacts the emotions that are created within consumers during service encounters.

Design/methodology/approach
– The authors adopted mobile phone or ‘SMS’ diaries to capture the emotions that participants experienced at the very moment they were being felt or ‘in-vivo’. The study included thirteen different services including both ‘brief’ and ‘extended service transactions’.

Findings
– The study suggests that the temporal perspective is a dominant cause of consumption emotions in services, influencing consumers’ emotions from before the service encounter commences to its conclusion and, in some cases, beyond the conclusion of the service event. Other antecedents of consumption emotions such as interactions with staff and the servicescape are influenced by and interwoven with this temporal aspect. By capturing emotions as they were experienced, recall difficulties that might have been encountered had the emotions been measured retrospectively were eliminated, allowing the researchers to construct a comprehensive account of the chronology and contiguity of the emotions created within consumers during service encounters.

Originality/value
– Although certain aspects of time such as the consequences of queuing and waiting have been addressed in the services marketing literature, a detailed understanding of how time impacts consumption emotions in services from the start to the conclusion of service encounters has not been undertaken to date. This research addresses that gap by examining how the temporal perspective influences not only consumption emotions in customers per se but how it also influences other causes of consumption emotions that customers encounter during service transactions.
Mass customization for financial services: an empirical study of adoption and usage behavior
Authors: Koch Stefan , Inanc Duygu 
Published: April 2015

Purpose
– This paper aims to report findings from an exploratory empirical study focusing on an application of mass customization in financial services. Based on the study of configurations and usage data, the authors evaluate a series of hypotheses relating to the interplay of adoption and usage by customers.

Design/methodology/approach
– The study is based on quantitative analysis of data from a Turkish bank which offers customizable credit cards, encompassing both configurations as well as credit card usage.

Findings
– The results confirm that trial-and-error learning will not end with product definition, but will continue afterwards and lead to changes in customization. Especially active usage length shows a significant positive effect on the number of changes. The effect of base category usage could only partly be confirmed for changes, but was significant for adoption. It was also found that a series of smaller changes in a limited number of attributes has a higher likelihood than a smaller number of changes in a large number of aspects.

Research limitations/implications
– The study uses data from a single financial service provider, from a specific country. In addition, anonymized data on adoption and usage were used, thus demographic data as well as subjective measures from customers were not available.

Practical implications
– The results highlight the importance of specifying the correct solution space, as the authors could at least partially confirm the negative effect of both a large number of options, as well as basing on alternatives rather than attributes on several levels. Although overall mass customization seems less interesting than traditional credit cards, the authors discuss several positive implications for financial sector companies from offering this option.

Originality/value
– The paper extends current literature in focusing for the first time on mass customization for financial services. In addition, this is the first study using longitudinal data on adoption and modification of mass-customized solutions to analyze the long-term behavior of usage.
New regulations: challenge or opportunity for Turkish SMEs?
Authors: Bayraktar Sema 
Published: April 2015

Purpose
– This study aims to analyze how recent regulation changes, namely, Basel II and the New Turkish Commercial Code, affect small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and the relationship between SMEs and banks in Turkey through the eyes of SME managers. The author believes that the answers could differ for various types of SME.

Design/methodology/approach
– In-depth interviews enabled a refined analysis of the effects of regulations in the eyes of firms’ representatives. The study was conducted for SMEs in the Anatolia Organized Industrial Zone.

Findings
– One of the important conclusions of the paper is the fact that the loan approval process has been standardized and centralized. The results also show that regulations have different effects on larger and already stable firms than on smaller and/or start-up SMEs that do not have sufficient resources for the transformation required by regulations.

Originality/value
– First, this study is a qualitative study that has the advantage of reaching richer and more plausible information that cannot be obtained by analyzing the numbers. Second, this study tries to analyze the perceptions of SMEs’ financial representatives rather than the perspectives of bank representatives. Finally, to the author’s knowledge, there has been no other study that analyzed a developing country on this topic.
A borrowing cost model for effective performance of SMEs in Uganda
Authors: Tumwine Sulait , Akisimire Richard , Kamukama Nixon , Mutaremwa Gad 
Published: April 2015

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to develop an effective cost borrowing model of qualitative factors that are relevant to micro and small enterprises (SMEs) better performance.

Design/methodology/approach
– A valid research instrument was utilized to conduct a survey on 359 SMEs (131 retail businesses, 125 service businesses, 48 farming businesses and 55 other businesses) and 897 respondents that are representative of 397 SMEs and 1,087 respondents. Correlation and regression analysis were conducted to ascertain the validity of the hypotheses.

Findings
– It was established that cost of borrowing elements (interest rate and loan processing costs) are associated with SME performance. Furthermore, cost of borrowing as a whole accounts for 31.1 percent of the variation in performance Uganda’s SMEs.

Research limitations/implications
– Only a single research methodological approach was employed, future research through interviews could be undertaken to triangulate. Multiple respondents in SMEs (owner, manager and cashier) were studied neglecting others. Furthermore, the study used the cross-sectional approach – a longitudinal approach should be employed to study the trend over years. Finally, cost of borrowing was studied and by the virtual of the results, there are other factors that contribute to SME performance that were not part of this study.

Practical implications
– There is need to intensify initiatives to encourage greater understanding and acceptance of cost of borrowing, select appropriate elements that includes interest rate and loan processing costs in order to have affordable source of financing to establish and grow SMEs, provide employment, competitive and contribute to countries GDP.

Originality/value
– This is the first paper in Sub-Saharan Africa to test empirically the relationship between cost of borrowing and performance of SMEs in the Ugandan context.
Challenges and constrains faced by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Al Batinah governorate of Oman
Authors: Bilal Zaroug Osman , Al Mqbali Nawal Said 
Published: April 2015

Purpose
– Although many studies have been conducted in this area in many countries, there is still, a few studies on these enterprises have been done in Oman concerning the obstacles and constrains. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Design/methodology/approach
– The main purpose of this paper is to throw light on the challenges and constraints faced by small and medium enterprise (SMEs) in Al Batinah Governorate of Oman and try to give some suggestions to solve problems.

Findings
– The data have been gathered through questionnaires from SMEs in Al Batinah Governorate in Oman. The descriptive analysis has been used to analyze the data, nonparametric testing and analysis of variance.

Originality/value
– After the data have been analyzed, the results show that obstacles and constrains facing SMEs in Al Batinah Governorate accordance to their importance are as follows: the investment environment come fist obstacles, capabilities of business owners come second, followed by the marketing obstacles, finance obstacles, while the legislations and regulations obstacles came last. Some of the recommendations have been presented which call for more attention and concentration on solving the obstacles facing SMES in Oman.
What is the animal doing? Tools for exploring behavioural structure in animal movements
Authors: Gurarie Eliezer , Bracis Chloe , Delgado Maria , Meckley Trevor D. , Kojola Ilpo , Wagner C. Michael 
Published: April 2015

Summary

Movement data provide a window – often our only window – into the cognitive, social and biological processes that underlie the behavioural ecology of animals in the wild. Robust methods for identifying and interpreting distinct modes of movement behaviour are of great importance, but complicated by the fact that movement data are complex, multivariate and dependent. Many different approaches to exploratory analysis of movement have been developed to answer similar questions, and practitioners are often at a loss for how to choose an appropriate tool for a specific question.

We apply and compare four methodological approaches: first passage time (FPT), Bayesian partitioning of Markov models (BPMM), behavioural change point analysis (BCPA) and a fitted multistate random walk (MRW) to three simulated tracks and two animal trajectories – a sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) tracked for 12 h and a wolf (Canis lupus) tracked for 1 year.

The simulations – in which, respectively, velocity, tortuosity and spatial bias change – highlight the sensitivity of all methods to model misspecification. Methods that do not account for autocorrelation in the movement variables lead to spurious change points, while methods that do not account for spatial bias completely miss changes in orientation.

When applied to the animal data, the methods broadly agree on the structure of the movement behaviours. Important discrepancies, however, reflect differences in the assumptions and nature of the outputs. Important trade‐offs are between the strength of the a priori assumptions (low in BCPA, high in MRW), complexity of output (high in the BCPA, low in the BPMM and MRW) and explanatory potential (highest in the MRW).

The animal track analysis suggests some general principles for the exploratory analysis of movement data, including ways to exploit the strengths of the various methods. We argue for close and detailed exploratory analysis of movement before fitting complex movement models.