bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Prepatellar bursitis: a rare manifestation of chronic brucellosis
Authors: Mawer Damian P. C. , McGann P. Hugh , Sandoe Jonathan A. T. , Emerton Mark , Beeching Nicholas J. , Wilcox Mark H. 
Published: July 2015

Introduction:Bursitis is a rare complication of brucellosis that has only once been described in a country where disease has been eradicated in domestic animals.Case Presentation:A 63-year-old diabetic man presented with an 11-year history of painless swelling over his right knee. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed a large, multiloculated cyst overlying the knee joint. The patient underwent bursectomy which revealed caseous necrosis. Operative samples culturedBrucella abortus. The patient was treated with a combination of surgery and antimicrobials (doxycycline, rifampicin and gentamicin). His only risk factor for acquiringBrucellawas drinking unpasteurized milk during childhood. Fifty eight cases ofBrucellabursitis have been described in the English-language medical literature. Half have involved the prepatellar bursa. Only one case, from Australia, occurred in a country that has eradicated brucellosis in domestic animals. Although symptoms are often prolonged, local features of inflammation are usually absent. Diagnosis is primarily by bursal fluid culture. Treatment involves antimicrobials with or without aspiration or excision of the bursa. As the diagnosis was unexpected, several laboratory workers were exposed to theBrucellaisolate before its identification. Follow up according to UK guidelines revealed no cases of occupationally acquired infection.Conclusion:Bursitis is an unusual manifestation of brucellosis. It is extremely rare outside countries where the infection is endemic, but the chronicity of symptoms and increase in global travel mean that patients with the condition may present in non-endemic settings. Clinicians should therefore consider the diagnosis in cases of unexplained chronic bursitis.
Whole genome sequence analyses of Western Central African Pygmy hunter-gatherers reveal a complex demographic history and identify candidate genes under positive natural selection
Authors: Hsieh PingHsun , Veeramah Krishna R. , Lachance Joseph , Tishkoff Sarah A. , Wall Jeffrey D. , Hammer Michael F. , Gutenkunst Ryan N. 
Published: July 2015

AbstractAfrican Pygmies practicing a mobile hunter-gatherer lifestyle are phenotypically and genetically diverged from other anatomically modern humans, and they likely experienced strong selective pressures due to their unique lifestyle in the Central African rainforest. To identify genomic targets of adaptation, we sequenced the genomes of four Biaka Pygmies from the Central African Republic and jointly analyzed these data with the genome sequences of three Baka Pygmies from Cameroon and nine Yoruba famers. To account for the complex demographic history of these populations that includes both isolation and gene flow, we fit models using the joint allele frequency spectrum and validated them using independent approaches. Our two best-fit models both suggest ancient divergence between the ancestors of the farmers and Pygmies, 90,000 or 150,000 years ago. We also find that bi-directional asymmetric gene-flow is statistically better supported than a single pulse of unidirectional gene flow from farmers to Pygmies, as previously suggested. We then applied complementary statistics to scan the genome for evidence of selective sweeps and polygenic selection. We found that conventional statistical outlier approaches were biased toward identifying candidates in regions of high mutation or low recombination rate. To avoid this bias, we assignedP-values for candidates using whole-genome simulations incorporating demography and variation in both recombination and mutation rates. We found that genes and gene sets involved in muscle development, bone synthesis, immunity, reproduction, cell signaling and development, and energy metabolism are likely to be targets of positive natural selection in Western African Pygmies or their recent ancestors.
How Competition Affects Evolutionary Rescue
Authors: Osmond Matthew Miles , Mazancourt Claire de 
Published: July 2015

AbstractPopulations facing novel environments can persist by adapting. In nature, the ability to adapt and persist will depend on interactions between coexisting individuals. Here we use an adaptive dynamic model to assess how the potential for evolutionary rescue is affected by intra- and interspecific competition. Intraspecific competition (negative density-dependence) lowers abundance, which decreases the supply rate of beneficial mutations, hindering evolutionary rescue. On the other hand, interspecific competition can aid evolutionary rescue when it speeds adaptation by increasing the strength of selection. Our results clarify this point and give an additional requirement: competition must increase selection pressure enough to overcome the negative effect of reduced abundance. We therefore expect evolutionary rescue to be most likely in communities which facilitate rapid niche displacement. Our model, which aligns to previous quantitative and population genetic models in the absence of competition, provides a first analysis of when competitors should help or hinder evolutionary rescue.
Eukaryotic core histone diversification in light of the histone doublet and DNA topo II genes of Marseilleviridae
Authors: Erives Albert J. 
Published: July 2015

AbstractWhile eukaryotic and archaean genomes encode the histone fold domain, only eukaryotes encode the core histones H2A, H2B, H3, and H4. Core histones assemble into a hetero-octamer rather than the homo-tetramer of Archaea. Thus it was unexpected that core histone “doublets” were identified in the cytoplasmic replication factories of the Marseilleviridae (MV), one family of Nucleo-Cytoplasmic Large DNA Viruses (NCLDV). Here we analyze the core histone doublet genes from all known Marseilleviridae genomes and show that they encode obligate H2B-H2A and H4-H3 dimers of likely proto-eukaryotic origin. Each MV core histone moiety forms a sister clade to a eukaryotic core histone clade inclusive of canonical core histone paralogs, suggesting that MV core histone moieties diverged prior to eukaryotic neofunctionalizations associated with paired linear chromosomes and variant histone octamer assembly. We also show that all MV genomes encode a eukaryote-like DNA topoisomerase II enzyme that forms a clade that is sister to the eukaryotic clade. As DNA topo II influences histone deposition and chromatin compaction and is the second most abundant nuclear protein after histones, we suggest MV genes underlie a proto-chromatinized replisome that diverged prior to diversification of eukaryotic core histone variants. Thus, combined domain architecture and phylogenomic analyses suggest that a primitive origin for MV chromatin genes is a more parsimonious explanation than horizontal gene transfers + gene fusions + long-branch attraction constrained to each core histone clade. These results imply that core histones were utilized ancestrally in viral DNA compaction, protection from host endonucleases, and/or other unknown processes associated with NCLDV-like progenitors.
Group medical Takaful for Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) staff in 2011
Authors: Lim Chee Chee , Ahmad Shahrul Nizam 
Published: July 2015

Subject area
Human resource management; Employee benefits management.

Study level/applicability
It can be used at undergraduate or postgraduate level for students at institutions of higher learning taking courses related to employee benefits management or human resource management.

Case overview
The case is about the intention of Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) in purchasing health insurance for its employees in early 2011. For this purpose, a tender for group medical Takaful for UUM staff was placed in two major Malaysian newspapers on 20 February 2011. Then, after the tender closing date, a report was prepared and sent to the bursar of UUM, En Amron, on 28 April 2011. Ten companies had submitted their tenders; thus, En Amron had to identify the optimal group medical Takaful offered by the tenderers, so that he could put forward his recommendation to UUM tender committee board for its consideration and approval before the matter was brought to higher authorities for endorsement and implementation.

Expected learning outcomes
This teaching case will enable students to explain the reasons why an employer provides health insurance, to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of providing health insurance programme as non-contributory and contributory plans, to conduct company and plan assessment in making decision to purchase group medical Takaful and to evaluate either to purchase group health insurance directly from life insurer or to engage insurance broker.

Supplementary materials
Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.
Slices: what is next?
Authors: Jabeen Fauzia , Ahmad Syed Zamberi , Khan Mehmood 
Published: July 2015

Subject areaEntrepreneurship and Strategic Management.Study level/applicabilityThis case is intended for teaching entrepreneurship and strategic management courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels.Case overviewThis is a field-researched real case about a growing food business started by local entrepreneurs in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Slices, a UAE-based organic food pioneer company is becoming popular in the UAE nowadays. The company was poised for growth as demand was exceeding all expectations. There were many challenges Slices had to face: increasing demand and brand awareness of Western Fast Food Giants; and what future skills Slices needed to develop to meet the regional and global challenges. Slices specializes in organic food, and they came up with different varieties in their menu every day. This, in turn, expanded the outlet greatly and they gained high revenues in a short period of time. Based on resource-based theory, Slices entrepreneurs have developed their business which is unique in terms of food with a flare of community service that involves offering healthy food to the customers and also a philanthropic attitude toward the poor. Slices is novel not only because they have more or better resources but also because of their distinctive competences (unique healthy food, community service and philanthropic attitude). Slices adopted a simple concept in which they sell their healthy food in a healthy atmosphere with delicious recipes that appeal to many different nationalities. But the challenges and hurdles are many which the company has to think of if they want to sustain in the long run. Faisal, Khalid, Hamad and Amina are wondering what their next step ought to be in light of the stiff competition. Do they have the dynamic capability to strategize? Do they have enough resources to expand locally and internationally? If yes, where and how? This case will enable the students to critically think in various facets and reach a decision based on the facts provided.Expected learning outcomesThe case will help the students identify and evaluate the entrepreneurial strategy adopted by the company for start-up and future growth. This will also enable the students to critically think in various facets and reach a decision based on the facts provided.Supplementary materialsTeaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or emailsupport@emeraldinsight.comto request teaching notes.
Quantitative comparisons of urgent care service providers
Authors: Qin Hong , Prybutok Gayle L. , Prybutok Victor R. , Wang Bin 
Published: July 2015

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to develop, validate, and use a survey instrument to measure and compare the perceived quality of three types of US urgent care (UC) service providers: hospital emergency rooms, urgent care centres (UCC), and primary care physician offices.Design/methodology/approach– This study develops, validates, and uses a survey instrument to measure/compare differences in perceived service quality among three types of UC service providers. Six dimensions measured the components of service quality: tangibles, professionalism, interaction, accessibility, efficiency, and technical quality.Findings– Primary care physicians’ offices scored higher for service quality and perceived value, followed by UCC. Hospital emergency rooms scored lower in both quality and perceived value. No significant difference was identified between UCC and primary care physicians across all the perspectives, except for interactions.Research limitations/implications– The homogenous nature of the sample population (college students), and the fact that the respondents were recruited from a single university limits the generalizability of the findings.Practical implications– The patient’s choice of a health care provider influences not only the continuity of the care that he or she receives, but compliance with a medical regime, and the evolution of the health care landscape.Social implications– This work contributes to the understanding of how to provide cost effective and efficient UC services.Originality/value– This study developed and validated a survey instrument to measure/compare six dimensions of service quality for three types of UC service providers. The authors provide valuable data for UC service providers seeking to improve patient perceptions of service quality.
Resource utilization in surgery after the revision of surgical fee schedule in Japan
Authors: Nakata Yoshinori , Yoshimura Tatsuya , Watanabe Yuichi , Otake Hiroshi , Oiso Giichiro , Sawa Tomohiro 
Published: July 2015

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the current surgical reimbursement system in Japan reflects resource utilization after the revision of fee schedule in 2014.Design/methodology/approach– The authors collected data from all the surgical procedures performed at Teikyo University Hospital from April 1 through September 30, 2014. The authors defined the decision-making unit as a surgeon with the highest academic rank in the surgery. Inputs were defined as the number of medical doctors who assisted surgery, and the time of operation from skin incision to closure. An output was defined as the surgical fee. The authors calculated surgeons’ efficiency scores using data envelopment analysis.Findings– The efficiency scores of each surgical specialty were significantly different (p=0.000).Originality/value– This result demonstrates that the Japanese surgical reimbursement scales still fail to reflect resource utilization despite the revision of surgical fee schedule.
Quality of Big Data in health care
Authors: Sukumar Sreenivas R. , Natarajan Ramachandran , Ferrell Regina K. 
Published: July 2015

Purpose
– The current trend in Big Data analytics and in particular health information technology is toward building sophisticated models, methods and tools for business, operational and clinical intelligence. However, the critical issue of data quality required for these models is not getting the attention it deserves. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the issues of data quality in the context of Big Data health care analytics.

Design/methodology/approach
– The insights presented in this paper are the results of analytics work that was done in different organizations on a variety of health data sets. The data sets include Medicare and Medicaid claims, provider enrollment data sets from both public and private sources, electronic health records from regional health centers accessed through partnerships with health care claims processing entities under health privacy protected guidelines.

Findings
– Assessment of data quality in health care has to consider: first, the entire lifecycle of health data; second, problems arising from errors and inaccuracies in the data itself; third, the source(s) and the pedigree of the data; and fourth, how the underlying purpose of data collection impact the analytic processing and knowledge expected to be derived. Automation in the form of data handling, storage, entry and processing technologies is to be viewed as a double-edged sword. At one level, automation can be a good solution, while at another level it can create a different set of data quality issues. Implementation of health care analytics with Big Data is enabled by a road map that addresses the organizational and technological aspects of data quality assurance.

Practical implications
– The value derived from the use of analytics should be the primary determinant of data quality. Based on this premise, health care enterprises embracing Big Data should have a road map for a systematic approach to data quality. Health care data quality problems can be so very specific that organizations might have to build their own custom software or data quality rule engines.

Originality/value
– Today, data quality issues are diagnosed and addressed in a piece-meal fashion. The authors recommend a data lifecycle approach and provide a road map, that is more appropriate with the dimensions of Big Data and fits different stages in the analytical workflow.
Does electronic medication reconciliation at hospital discharge decrease prescription medication errors?
Authors: Allison Geneve M. , Weigel Bernard , Holcroft Christina 
Published: July 2015

Purpose
– Medication errors are an important patient safety issue. Electronic medication reconciliation is a system designed to correct medication discrepancies at transitions in healthcare. The purpose of this paper is to measure types and prevalence of intravenous antibiotic errors at hospital discharge before and after the addition of an electronic discharge medication reconciliation tool (EDMRT).

Design/methodology/approach
– A retrospective study was conducted at a tertiary hospital where house officers order discharge medications. In total, 100 pre-EDMRT and 100 post-EDMRT subjects were randomly recruited from the study center’s clinical Outpatient Parenteral Antimicrobial Therapy (OPAT) program. Using infectious disease consultant recommendations as gold standard, each antibiotic listed in these consultant notes was compared to the hospital discharge orders to ascertain the primary outcome: presence of an intravenous antibiotic error in the discharge orders. The primary covariate of interest was pre- vs post-EDMRT group. After generating the crude prevalence of antibiotic errors, logistic regression accounted for potential confounding: discharge day (weekend vs weekday), average years of practice by prescribing physician, inpatient service (medicine vs surgery) and number of discharge mediations per patient.

Findings
– Prevalence of medication errors decreased from 30 percent (30/100) among pre-EDMRT subjects to 15 percent (15/100) errors among post-EDMRT subjects. Dosage errors were the most common type of medication error. The adjusted odds ratio of discharge with intravenous antibiotic error in the post-EDMRT era was 0.39 (0.18, 0.87) compared to the pre-EDMRT era. In the adjusted model, the total number of discharge medications was associated with increased OR of discharge error.

Originality/value
– To the authors’ knowledge, no other study has examined the impact of reconciliation on types and prevalence of medication errors at hospital discharge. The focus on intravenous antibiotics as a class of high-stakes medications with serious risks to patient safety during error events highlights the clinical importance of the findings. Electronic medication reconciliation may be an important tool in efforts to improve patient safety.
Examining the role of emotional intelligence and political skill to educational leadership and their effects to teachers’ job satisfaction
Authors: Taliadorou Nikoletta , Pashiardis Petros 
Published: July 2015

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to examine whether emotional intelligence and political skill (PS) of school principals influence the way they exercise leadership and the job satisfaction of their teachers.Design/methodology/approach– As regards to the methodology, quantitative research methods were used to conduct the research. Specifically, the data analysis was performed with the statistical program SPSS and the EQS program for the development of structural equation models. Participants were 182 principals of Cyprus public elementary schools and 910 teachers.Findings– The findings indicated that the emotional intelligence and PS of school principals are related to the educational leadership styles they use and to teachers’ job satisfaction. Such a relationship highlights the social skills of principals as an important area for further research.Research limitations/implications– Future research may benefit from developing and validating an investigating tool which rates school principals’ Emotional-Political Capacity because, as revealed from the current research, this new construct directly affects the leadership radius and teachers’ job satisfaction.Practical implications– This research provides important feedback to those organizations interested in educational leadership and reform, as it can further illuminate (unknown until now) qualities that an effective school principal must have.Originality/value– The importance of this research and its contribution to science, is illustrated by the fact that this is one of the first research efforts undertaken, which indicates that the emotional and political skills may be factors that shape effective educational leadership styles.
Conceptualizing the critical path linked by teacher commitment
Authors: Sun Jingping 
Published: July 2015

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to propose a critical path through which school leadership travels to students by highlighting the importance of teacher commitment.Design/methodology/approach– Using both meta-analytic and narrative review methods, this paper systematically reviews the evidence in the past 20 years about the conceptualizations and measurements of teacher commitment and its relationships with principal leadership and student learning.Findings– This paper presents: first, the four dimensions of teacher commitment and the ten constituents involved in the conceptualization of teacher commitment; and second, the five measures used in empirical studies for measuring teacher commitment. It concludes that: teacher commitment is significantly related to student learning; the extent to which school leadership influences teacher commitment is large and is aligned with the value systems of both leaders and teachers; and teacher commitment mediates leadership impacts on student learning in three ways: at the personal level, at the dyad level and at the collective level.Research limitations/implications– This study conceptualizes a critical path through which school leadership improves student learning, mediated by teacher commitment. A framework of such critical paths will provide educational leaders and policy makers at both local and state levels with much needed guidance for improving student learning.Originality/value– This study adds to the understanding of the indirect influence of school leadership on student learning by illustrating how and to what extent principal leadership influences teacher commitment, which in turn influences student learning.