bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Project management aided by verbal decision analysis approaches: a case study for the selection of the best SCRUM practices
Authors: Machado Thais Cristina Sampaio , Pinheiro Plácido Rogério , Tamanini Isabelle 
Published: February 2014

AbstractAgile methodologies, in particular the framework SCRUM, are popular in software development companies. Most of the time, however, it is not feasible for these companies to apply every characteristic of the framework. This paper presents a hybrid application of verbal decision analysis methodologies in order to select some of the most relevant SCRUM approaches to be applied by a company. A questionnaire was developed and a group of experienced ScrumMasters was selected to answer it, aiming at characterizing every SCRUM approach into criteria values. The hybrid application consists in dividing the SCRUM practices into groups (stage supported by the ORCLASS method application), using the ORCLASSWEB tool. Then, the rank of the preferred practices will be generated by the application of the ZAPROS‐LM method.
Semantic dominance analysis for multicriteria decision‐making problems with unbalanced linguistic scale
Authors: Yang Wu‐E 
Published: February 2014

AbstractThe multicriteria decision‐making problem with an unbalanced linguistic scale is analyzed by multicriteria semantic dominance (MCSD) technique. The technique only requires the available partial semantics information about the scale. The MCSD rules on two types of unbalanced linguistic scale are introduced and proven. With these rules, alternatives are divided into two mutually exclusive sets called the efficient set and inefficient set. The decision maker with a specific type of linguistic scale will never choose the alternative from the corresponding inefficient set as the feasible one. Thus he/she can easily choose from the original alternative set. An example is also provided to illustrate the procedure of the proposed method.
A prospective, randomised comparative study of weekly versus biweekly application of dehydrated human amnion/chorion membrane allograft in the management of diabetic foot ulcers
Authors: Zelen Charles M , Serena Thomas E , Snyder Robert J 
Published: February 2014

AbstractThe aim of this study is to determine if weekly application of dehydrated human amnion/chorion membrane allograft reduce time to heal more effectively than biweekly application for treatment of diabetic foot ulcers.This was an institutional review board‐approved, registered, prospective, randomised, comparative, non‐blinded, single‐centre clinical trial. Patients with non‐infected ulcers of ≥ 4 weeks duration were included for the study. They were randomised to receive weekly or biweekly application of allograft in addition to a non‐adherent, moist dressing with compressive wrapping. All wounds were offloaded. The primary study outcome was mean time to healing.Overall, during the 12‐week study period, 92·5% (37/40) ulcers completely healed. Mean time to complete healing was 4·1 ± 2·9 versus 2·4 ± 1·8 weeks (P = 0·039) in the biweekly versus weekly groups, respectively. Complete healing occurred in 50% versus 90% by 4 weeks in the biweekly and weekly groups, respectively (P = 0·014). Number of grafts applied to healed wounds was similar at 2·4 ± 1·5 and 2·3 ± 1·8 for biweekly versus weekly groups, respectively (P = 0·841).These results validate previous studies showing that the allograft is an effective treatment for diabetic ulcers and show that wounds treated with weekly application heal more rapidly than with biweekly application. More rapid healing may decrease clinical operational costs and prevent long‐term medical complications.
DO IRON GUIDELINES TRANSLATE INTO GOOD CLINICAL PRACTICE FOR PATIENTS ON HAEMODIALYSIS?
Authors: Morris Margaret , Snedeker Marianne , Reed Gail , Butcher Belinda , Bradley Jennifer 
Published: February 2014

SUMMARYBackgroundPatients on haemodialysis (HD) have greater iron needs than the normal population. In 2004, the Caring for Australasians with Renal Impairment (CARI) group audited six Australian renal centres and found considerable variability in achievement of iron and haemoglobin targets.ObjectivesThe aim of this study was to determine whether intravenous iron guidelines and evidence translate into good clinical outcomes for patients on HD.Design and MeasurementData were extracted from the Renal Anaemia Management database for the period of 2007–2009. These data were compared with the target levels described in the CARI guidelines.ResultsMost patients were not achieving recommended haemoglobin, ferritin or transferrin saturation levels. Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were less likely to achieve targets.ConclusionsIron guidelines are not translating into good clinical practice for patients on HD. This situation may be improved by updating the CARI guidelines (as has recently been carried out for haemoglobin targets), introduction of more consistent dosing protocols across hospitals and greater assessment of safe levels of cumulative iron and ferritin.
Measuring Country Differences in Enforcement of Accounting Standards: An Audit and Enforcement Proxy
Authors: Brown Philip , Preiato John , Tarca Ann 
Published: February 2014

AbstractIn this paper we present an index designed to capture differences between countries in relation to the institutional setting for financial reporting, specifically the auditing of financial statements and the enforcement of compliance with each country's accounting standards. The use of a common set of standards such as International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) aims, in broad terms, to promote the comparability and transparency of financial statements and to improve the quality of financial reporting. However, the effectiveness of IFRS adoption may be hampered by differences, across countries, in the institutional setting in which financial reporting occurs. Studies of outcomes from adopting IFRS use a range of legal system proxies to capture these country differences, but the proxies are deficient in that they seldom focus explicitly on factors that affect how compliance with accounting standards is promoted through external audit and the activities of independent enforcement bodies. To address this deficiency, we calculate measures of the quality of the public company auditors’ working environment (AUDIT) and the degree of accounting enforcement activity (ENFORCE) by independent enforcement bodies. We do this for 51 countries for each of the years 2002, 2005 and 2008, using publicly available data provided by the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC), the World Bank and the national securities regulators. Preliminary tests suggest our indices have additional explanatory power (over more general legal proxies) for country‐level measures of economic and market activity, financial transparency and earnings management. We expect they will prove useful to researchers and other interested parties who require country‐level measures that focus on the degree of enforcement of financial reporting practices.
Stability of a Neotropical microrefugium during climatic instability
Authors: Montade Vincent , Ledru Marie‐Pierre , Burte Julien , Martins Eduardo Sávio Passos Rodrigues , Verola Christiano Franco , Costa Itayguara Ribeiro da , Magalhães e Silva Francisco Hilder 
Published: February 2014

AbstractAimThe primary objectives of this study were (1) to assess, in the light of palaeoecological reconstruction, the climate stability hypothesis used by evolutionary biologists to explain high diversity in historically stable areas, and (2) to identify the response mechanisms of a tropical rain forest microrefugium to climatic variability.LocationNorth‐eastern Brazil, Serra de Maranguape.MethodsVegetation and climatic changes were reconstructed using a pollen record in a sediment core from a forest hollow, and the chronology was based on accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon analyses.ResultsPast vegetation dynamics consisted of three main forest types, shown by major compositional changes in rain forest assemblages between 5000 and 1000 cal. yr bp. Dense ombrophilous forest was abruptly replaced by heliophilous early successional tree taxa at 4275 cal. yr bp. These early successional tree taxa were established over a period of c. 100 years, and their dominance lasted for c. 750 years and was associated with dry conditions until 3525 cal. yr bp. Subsequently, the expansion of secondary successional tree taxa over a period of c. 550 years enabled the recovery of ombrophilous forest.Main conclusionsThe vegetation changes in the Serra de Maranguape provide evidence for the high sensitivity of this rain forest microrefugium to climatic variability on a multidecadal to millennial time‐scale during the mid‐ to late Holocene. Despite the substantial compositional and climatic changes, this microrefugium apparently was continuously forested and responded to climatic instability by recruiting key species to its highly diverse stock. This evidence helps to address the joint concerns of evolutionary biologists and palaeoecologists regarding how forests can persist during periods of climatic variability by showing that some tropical regions can remain continuously forested despite reorganization during abrupt and short‐term climatic changes.
Pyrogeography, historical ecology, and the human dimensions of fire regimes
Authors: Roos Christopher I. , Bowman David M. J. S. , Balch Jennifer K. , Artaxo Paulo , Bond William J. , Cochrane Mark , D'Antonio Carla M. , DeFries Ruth , Mack Michelle , Johnston Fay H. , Krawchuk Meg A. , Kull Christian A. , Moritz Max A. , Pyne Stephen , Scott Andrew C. , Swetnam Thomas W. 
Published: February 2014

AbstractIn our 2011 synthesis (Bowman et al., Journal of Biogeography, 2011, 38, 2223–2236), we argued for a holistic approach to human issues in fire science that we term ‘pyrogeography’. Coughlan & Petty (Journal of Biogeography, 2013, 40, 1010–1012) critiqued our paper on the grounds that our ‘pyric phase’ model was built on outdated views of cultural development, claiming we developed it to be the unifying explanatory framework for all human–fire sciences. Rather, they suggest that ‘historical ecology’ could provide such a framework. We used the ‘pyric transition’ for multiple purposes but did not offer it as an exclusive explanatory framework for pyrogeography. Although ‘historical ecology’ is one of many useful approaches to studying human–fire relationships, scholars should also look to political and evolutionary ecology, ecosystems and complexity theories, as well as empirical generalizations to build an interdisciplinary fire science that incorporates human, ecological and biophysical dimensions of fire regimes.
Advancing towards novel tree lines? A multispecies approach to recent tree line dynamics in subarctic alpine Labrador, northern Canada
Authors: Trant Andrew J. , Hermanutz Luise 
Published: February 2014

AbstractAimComparisons of how different species respond to changing climatic conditions offer insight into future community composition and the potential formation of novel communities. This study investigated changes at a subarctic forest–tundra ecotone, or ‘tree line’. Our objectives were: (1) to explore species‐specific growth forms; (2) to identify temporal patterns of establishment and stand density; and (3) to explore relationships between climate and recruitment/survival amongst co‐dominant tree species, with the expectation that climate change will affect species differentially.LocationThe Mealy Mountains in the High Subarctic Tundra ecoregion in central Labrador, Canada.MethodsWe examined tree line dynamics for four tree species over the past two centuries. Using ecological and age‐structure data, we compared diameter/height relationships across the tree line and generated static age structures from which changes in stand density through time were compared. In addition, model residuals were used to quantify relationships between multi‐decadal windows of temperature/palaeotemperature/Palmer Drought Severity Index and decadal tree recruitment.ResultsTrees were more stunted as elevation increased, except for white spruce (Picea glauca) for which tree islands became the dominant growth form. The only tree seedlings found at the tree line were of larch (Larix laricina) and to a lesser extent black spruce (Picea mariana). From the age structure of trees (height > 2.0 m), only black spruce showed evidence of an advancing tree line. Larch and balsam fir (Abies balsamea) have become established at the tree line most recently and have undergone greater increases in density over the past few decades. Variability in recruitment increased with elevation: larch recruitment was positively correlated with temperature and negatively correlated with drought at low elevations but negatively correlated with temperature and positively correlated with drought at high elevations, whereas black spruce recruitment was consistently positively correlated with temperature and drought.Main conclusionsThe multispecies approach provides evidence that species are responding differentially to climate. With continued climate change, we expect density increases and advances of larch and black spruce, giving rise to novel tree line communities.
Diversity versus disparity and the role of ecological opportunity in a continental bird radiation
Authors: Schweizer Manuel , Hertwig Stefan T. , Seehausen Ole 
Published: February 2014

AbstractAimThe Neotropical parrots (Arini) are an unusually diverse group which colonized South America in the Oligocene. The newly invaded Neotropics may have functioned as an underused adaptive zone and provided novel ecological opportunities that facilitated diversification. Alternatively, diversification may have been driven by ecological changes caused by Andean uplift and/or climate change from the Miocene onwards. Our aim was to find out whether Arini diversified in a classical adaptive radiation after their colonization of South America, or whether their diversification occurred later and was influenced by more recent environmental change.LocationNeotropics.MethodsWe generated a time‐calibrated phylogeny of more than 80% of all Arini species in order to analyse lineage diversification. This chronogram was also used as the basis for the reconstruction of morphological evolution within Arini using a multivariate ratio analysis of three size measurements.ResultsWe found a concentration of size evolution and partitioning of size niches in the early history of Arini consistent with the process of adaptive radiation, but there were no signs of an early burst of speciation or a decrease in speciation rates through time. Although we detected no overall temporal shifts in diversification rates, we discovered two young, unexpectedly species‐rich clades.Main conclusionsArini show signs of an early adaptive radiation, but we found no evidence of the slowdown in speciation rate generally considered a feature of island or lake radiations. Historical processes and environmental change from the Miocene onwards may have kept diversification rates roughly constant ever since the colonization of the Neotropics. Thus, Arini may not yet have reached equilibrium diversity. The lack of diversity‐dependent speciation might be a general feature of adaptive radiations on a continental scale, and diversification processes on continents might therefore not be as ecologically limited as in isolated lakes or on oceanic islands.
Gender differences in online reading engagement, metacognitive strategies, navigation skills and reading literacy
Authors: Wu J‐Y. 
Published: February 2014

AbstractThis study examined how knowledge of metacognitive strategies and navigation skills mediate the relationship between online reading activities and printed reading assessment (PRA) and electronic reading assessment (ERA) across 19 countries using the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) 2009 database. Participants were 34 104 fifteen‐year‐old students (female: 50.1%). The results showed that information‐seeking activity, knowledge of metacognitive strategies and navigations skills positively predicted ERA and PRA. Social reading activities negatively predicted knowledge of metacognitive strategies and PRA but had no effect on ERA and the navigation skills in most countries. Increased information‐seeking reading resulted in higher ERA and PRA as demonstrated by navigation skills and knowledge of metacognitive strategies. Gender differences in online reading engagement were not statistically significant in most countries. However, girls performed better in knowledge of metacognitive strategies, navigation skills and PRA but were not significantly better on ERA. Multiple group comparisons of gender indicated that the hypothesized model held for both boys and girls. Besides the infrastructure of information and communications technology as a tool to access the cyber informational space, students should be empowered to use appropriate strategies and navigation skills to achieve their goals. Implications for teaching and learning practices are discussed.
Platform switch versus platform match in the posterior mandible – 1‐year results of a multicentre randomized clinical trial
Authors: Guerra Fernando , Wagner Wilfried , Wiltfang Jörg , Rocha Salomão , Moergel Maximilian , Behrens Eleonore , Nicolau Pedro 
Published: February 2014

AbstractObjectiveThe purpose of this ongoing randomized study was to assess differences in bone level changes and success rates using implants supporting single crowns in the posterior mandible either with platform matched or platform switched abutments.Material and MethodsPatients aged 18 and above, missing at least two teeth in the posterior mandible and with a natural tooth mesial to the most proximal implant site were enrolled. Randomization followed implant placement. Definitive restorations were placed after a minimum transgingival healing period of 8 weeks. Changes in crestal bone level from surgery and loading (baseline) to 12‐month post‐loading were radiographically measured. Implant survival and success were determined.ResultsSixty‐eight patients received 74 implants in the platform switching group and 72 in the other one. The difference of mean marginal bone level change from surgery to 12 months was significant between groups (p < 0.004). Radiographical mean bone gain or no bone loss from loading was noted for 67.1% of the platform switching and 49.2% of the platform matching implants. Implant success rates were 97.3% and 100%, respectively.ConclusionsWithin the same implant system the platform switching concept showed a positive effect on marginal bone levels when compared with restorations with platform matching.
Double disadvantage: the influence of childhood maltreatment and community violence exposure on adolescent mental health
Authors: Cecil Charlotte A.M. , Viding Essi , Barker Edward D. , Guiney Jo , McCrory Eamon J. 
Published: February 2014

BackgroundChildhood maltreatment is a key risk factor for maladjustment and psychopathology. Although maltreated youth are more likely to experience community violence, both forms of adversity are generally examined separately. Consequently, little is known about the unique and interactive effects that characterize maltreatment and community violence exposure (CVE) on mental health.MethodsLatent Profile Analysis (LPA) was applied to data from a community sample of high‐risk adolescents and young adults (n = 204, M = 18.85) to categorize groups of participants with similar patterns of childhood (i.e. past) maltreatment exposure. Associations between childhood maltreatment, CVE and mental health outcomes were then explored using multivariate regression and moderation analyses.ResultsLatent Profile Analysis identified three groups of individuals with low, moderate and severe levels of childhood maltreatment. Maltreatment was associated with more internalizing, externalizing, and trauma‐related symptoms. By contrast, CVE showed independent associations with only externalizing and trauma‐related symptoms. Typically, childhood maltreatment and CVE exerted additive effects; however, these forms of adversity interacted to predict levels of anger.ConclusionsExposure to maltreatment and community violence is associated with increased levels of clinical symptoms. However, while maltreatment is associated with increased symptoms across a broad range of mental health domains, the impact of community violence is more constrained, suggesting that these environmental risk factors differentially impact mental health functioning.
Research Review: Two pathways toward impulsive action: an integrative risk model for bulimic behavior in youth
Authors: Pearson Carolyn M. , Riley Elizabeth N. , Davis Heather A. , Smith Gregory T. 
Published: February 2014

BackgroundThis study provides an integrative review of existing risk factors and models for bulimia nervosa (BN) in young girls. We offer a new model for BN that describes two pathways of risk that may lead to the initial impulsive act of binge eating and purging in children and adolescents.ScopeWe conducted a selective literature review, focusing on existing and new risk processes for BN in this select population.FindingsWe identify two ways in which girls increase their risk to begin engaging in the impulsive behavior of binge eating and purging. The first is state‐based: the experience of negative mood, in girls attempting to restrain eating, leads to the depletion of self‐control and thus increased risk for loss of control eating. The second is personality‐based: elevations on the trait of negative urgency, or the tendency to act rashly when distressed, increase risk, particularly in conjunction with high‐risk psychosocial learning. We then briefly discuss how these behaviors are reinforced, putting girls at further risk for developing BN.ConclusionsWe highlight several areas in which further inquiry is necessary, and we discuss the clinical implications of the new risk model we described.
A System‐Wide Enhanced Recovery Program Focusing on Two Key Process Steps Reduces Complications and Readmissions in Patients Undergoing Bowel Surgery
Authors: Loftus Terrence J. , Stelton Susan , Efaw Brett W. , Bloomstone Joshua 
Published: February 2014

Abstract:
Enhanced recovery programs (ERPs) can improve outcomes following bowel surgery, but implementing an ERP across a large healthcare system remains challenging. In this study, a simplified ERP that focused on two process steps, early and frequent ambulation and early alimentation, was evaluated to determine its impact on outcomes. Data were collected on 5,000 adult patients undergoing elective small and large bowel operations over a 3‐year period. Complication, readmission, and mortality rates were evaluated before and after ERP implementation. A composite score was calculated based on the successful completion of the two process steps. Following implementation, there was a 35.1% increase in the composite score, which was associated with significant (p < .05) reductions in overall complications, gastrointestinal complications, pulmonary complications, and readmissions. A system‐wide ERP focusing on early and frequent ambulation and early alimentation is associated with decreased complications and readmissions in adult patients admitted for elective small or large bowel operations.