bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Exploring traditional end-of-life beliefs, values, expectations, and practices among Chinese women living in England: Informing culturally safe care
Authors: Fang Mei Lan , Malcoe Lorraine Halinka , Sixsmith Judith , Wong Louise Yuen Ming , Callender Matthew 
Published: October 2014

AbstractObjective:This study explores the end-of-life (EoL) beliefs, values, practices, and expectations of a select group of harder-to-reach Chinese women living in England.Method:A cultural safety approach was undertaken to interpret 11 in-depth, semistructured interviews. Interviews were conducted in Mandarin and Cantonese. Transcripts were translated and back-translated by two researchers. Findings were analyzed using the technical analytical principles of grounded theory.Results:The key themes generated from our analysis include: acculturation; differential beliefs and norms in providing care: family versus health services; language and communication; Eastern versus Western spiritual practices and beliefs; and dying, death, and the hereafter.Significance of Results:End-of-life discussions can be part of an arduous, painful, and uncomfortable process, particularly for migrants living on the margins of society in a new cultural setting. For some Chinese people living in the United Kingdom, end-of-life care requires attention to acculturation, particularly Western versus Eastern beliefs on religion, spirituality, burial practices, and provision of care, and the availability of culturally specific care, all of which encompass issues related to gender. Stories of a purposive sample of Chinese women were viewed through a cultural safety lens to gain a deeper understanding of how social and cultural norms and expectations, in addition to the pressures of acculturation, impact gendered roles and responsibilities. The analysis revealed variations between/within Eastern and Western culture that resulted in pronounced, and oftentimes gendered, differences in EoL care expectations.
Ambiguity, Authority, and Legitimacy: Reciprocal Echoes among Political Levels in Bangkok
Authors: Herzfeld Michael 
Published: October 2014

AbstractThai political life is caught in a tension, sometimes temporally rendered as an oscillation, between extremes of democracy and egalitarianism on the one hand and authoritarian relics of older structures on the other. The confrontation between Red and Yellow Shirts leading up to the 2014 coup might seem to suggest a binary model of Thai political ideology, but the internal complexities of both groups belie a simplistic model of two parties with diametrically opposed views and homogeneous composition. In this article, I argue that it is more productive to approach these tendencies in terms of political performances by politicians representing mutually overlapping and often strikingly convergent ideological tendencies. With the benefit of hindsight, I analyse the 2004 Bangkok gubernatorial election – and in particular one key rally held at Thammasat University ten days before polling day – as a case study in the value of an approach from what I have called ‘social poetics’ for understanding the dynamics of electoral performance, showing how the relevant social actors play more or less creatively with established norms of electoral conduct.
Critical behaviours of contact near phase transitions
Authors: Chen Y.-Y. , Jiang Y.-Z. , Guan X.-W. , Zhou Qi 
Published: October 2014

AbstractA central quantity of importance for ultracold atoms is contact, which measures two-body correlations at short distances in dilute systems. It appears in universal relations among thermodynamic quantities, such as large momentum tails, energy and dynamic structure factors, through the renowned Tan relations. However, a conceptual question remains open as to whether or not contact can signify phase transitions that are insensitive to short-range physics. Here we show that, near a continuous classical or quantum phase transition, contact exhibits a variety of critical behaviours, including scaling laws and critical exponents that are uniquely determined by the universality class of the phase transition, and a constant contact per particle. We also use a prototypical exactly solvable model to demonstrate these critical behaviours in one-dimensional strongly interacting fermions. Our work establishes an intrinsic connection between the universality of dilute many-body systems and universal critical phenomena near a phase transition.
Phase transitions, mechanical properties and electronic structures of novel boron phases under high-pressure: A first-principles study
Authors: Fan Changzeng , Li Jian , Wang Limin 
Published: October 2014

AbstractWe have explored the mechanical properties, electronic structures and phase transition behaviors of three designed new phases for element boron from ambient condition to high-pressure of 120 GPa including (1) a C2/c symmetric structure (m-B16); (2) a "Equation missing" symmetric structure (c-B56) and (3) a Pmna symmetric structure (o-B24). The calculation of the elastic constants and phonon dispersions shows that the phases are of mechanical and dynamic stability. The m-B16 phase is found to transform into another new phase (the o-B16 phase) when pressure exceeds 68 GPa. This might offer a new synthesis strategy for o-B16 from the metastable m-B16 at low temperature under high pressure, bypassing the thermodynamically stable γ-B28. The enthalpies of the c-B56 and o-B24 phases are observed to increase with pressure. The hardness of m-B16 and o-B16 is calculated to be about 56 GPa and 61 GPa, approaching to the highest value of 61 GPa recorded for α-Ga-B among all available Boron phases. The electronic structures and bonding characters are analyzed according to the difference charge-density and crystal orbital Hamilton population (COHP), revealing the metallic nature of the three phases.
Understanding shape entropy through local dense packing
Authors: van Anders Greg , Klotsa Daphne , Ahmed N. Khalid , Engel Michael , Glotzer Sharon C. 
Published: October 2014

Significance
Many natural systems are structured by the ordering of repeated, distinct shapes. Understanding how this happens is difficult because shape affects structure in two ways. One is how the shape of a cell or nanoparticle, for example, affects its surface, chemical, or other intrinsic properties. The other is an emergent, entropic effect that arises from the geometry of the shape itself, which we term “shape entropy,” and is not well understood. In this paper, we determine how shape entropy affects structure. We quantify the mechanism and determine when shape entropy competes with intrinsic shape effects. Our results show that in a wide class of systems, shape affects bulk structure because crowded particles optimize their local packing.
Using 2k + 2 bubble searches to find single nucleotide polymorphisms in k-mer graphs
Authors: Younsi Reda , MacLean Dan 
Published: October 2014

Motivation: Single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) discovery is an important preliminary for understanding genetic variation. With current sequencing methods, we can sample genomes comprehensively. SNPs are found by aligning sequence reads against longer assembled references. De Bruijn graphs are efficient data structures that can deal with the vast amount of data from modern technologies. Recent work has shown that the topology of these graphs captures enough information to allow the detection and characterization of genetic variants, offering an alternative to alignment-based methods. Such methods rely on depth-first walks of the graph to identify closing bifurcations. These methods are conservative or generate many false-positive results, particularly when traversing highly inter-connected (complex) regions of the graph or in regions of very high coverage.
Results: We devised an algorithm that calls SNPs in converted De Bruijn graphs by enumerating 2k + 2 cycles. We evaluated the accuracy of predicted SNPs by comparison with SNP lists from alignment-based methods. We tested accuracy of the SNP calling using sequence data from 16 ecotypes of Arabidopsis thaliana and found that accuracy was high. We found that SNP calling was even across the genome and genomic feature types. Using sequence-based attributes of the graph to train a decision tree allowed us to increase accuracy of SNP calls further. Together these results indicate that our algorithm is capable of finding SNPs accurately in complex sub-graphs and potentially comprehensively from whole genome graphs.
Availability and implementation: The source code for a C++ implementation of our algorithm is available under the GNU Public Licence v3 at: https://github.com/danmaclean/2kplus2. The datasets used in this study are available at the European Nucleotide Archive, reference ERP00565, http://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/data/view/ERP000565
Contact: dan.maclean@tsl.ac.uk
Supplementary information: Supplementary Data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Mumps Serum Antibody Levels Before and After an Outbreak to Assess Infection and Immunity in Vaccinated Students
Authors: Gouma Sigrid , Schurink-van't Klooster Tessa M. , de Melker Hester E. , Kerkhof Jeroen , Smits Gaby P. , Hahné Susan J. M. , van Els Cécile A. C. M. , Boland Greet J. , Vossen Ann C. T. M. , Goswami Pulak R. , Koopmans Marion P. G. , van Binnendijk Rob S. 
Published: October 2014

AbstractBackground.  Since 2009, various mumps outbreaks have occurred in the Netherlands, affecting mostly young adults vaccinated against mumps. In this retrospective study, we estimated attack rates for symptomatic and asymptomatic mumps virus infection based on mumps-specific immunoglobulin (Ig)G concentrations in paired blood samples obtained before and after the mumps outbreaks, collected in 2 university cities. We aimed to identify a serological correlate of immune protection and risk factors for mumps virus infection.Methods.  Mumps-specific IgG levels were measured by Luminex technology in paired pre- and post-outbreak samples from students from Leiden (n = 135) and Utrecht (n = 619). Persons with a 4-fold increase in mumps IgG concentrations or mumps IgG concentrations &gt;1500 RU/mL were assumed to have had a mumps virus infection.Results.  Attack rates for symptomatic and asymptomatic mumps virus infection were 2.0% and 3.8%, respectively. Pre-outbreak mumps-specific IgG concentrations were lower among cases than among noncases (P = .005) despite vaccination history, but no serological cutoff for immune protection could be established. Mumps among housemates was significantly associated with serological evidence for mumps virus infection (odds ratio, 7.25 [95% confidence interval, 3.20–16.40]; P &lt; .001).Conclusions.  Symptomatic and asymptomatic mumps virus infections in vaccinated persons can be identified by retrospective assessment of mumps-specific IgG antibodies in blood samples.
Assessment of Neutrophil Gelatinase-associated Lipocalin in the Brain-dead Organ Donor to Predict Immediate Graft Function in Kidney Recipients
Authors: Muller Laurent , Nicolas-Robin Armelle , Bastide Sophie , Martinez Orianne , Louart Guillaume , Colavolpe Jean-Christian , Vachiery Florence , Alonso Sandrine , Lefrant Jean-Yves , Riou Bruno ,   AzuRea Group
Published: October 2014

Abstract

Background:
Delayed graft function is a major determinant of long-term renal allograft survival. Despite considerable efforts to improve donor selection and matching, incidence of delayed graft function remains close to 25%. As neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) has been shown to predict acute renal failure, the authors tested the hypothesis that NGAL measurement in brain-dead donors predicts delayed graft function in kidney recipients.

Methods:
In a prospective, multicenter, observational study, serum NGAL was measured in donors at the time of transfer to operating room. The primary endpoint was the delayed graft function, defined as the need for renal replacement therapy during the first week posttransplantation.

Results:
Among 159 included brain-dead donors, 146 were analyzable leading to 243 renal transplantations. Of these, 56 (23%) needed renal replacement therapy. Donors’ NGAL values were similar in case of both delayed and normal graft function in recipients. The area under the receiver-operating curve for NGAL to predict the need for renal replacement therapy before day 8 was 0.50 (95% CI, 0.42 to 0.59). The area under curve for NGAL to predict failure to return to a normal graft function at day 8 was 0.51 (95% CI, 0.44 to 0.59). Using multivariate analysis, NGAL was not associated to the need for renal replacement therapy (odds ratio, 0.99; 95% CI, 0.98 to1.00) or failure to return to a normal graft function at day 8 (odds ratio, 1.00; 95% CI, 0.99 to 1.00).

Conclusion:
NGAL measurement in brain-dead donors at the time of recovery failed to predict delayed or normal graft function in kidney recipients.
A 22,403 marker composite genetic linkage map for cassava (Manihot esculentaCrantz) derived from ten populations
Authors:   International Cassava Genetic Map Consortium (ICGMC).
Published: October 2014

ABSTRACTCassava (Manihot esculentaCrantz) is a major staple crop in Africa, Asia, and South America, and its starchy roots provide nourishment for 800 million people worldwide. Although native to South America, cassava was brought to Africa approximately 400 years ago and is now widely cultivated across sub-Saharan Africa. The widespread use of clonal planting material, however, aids the spread of disease. Breeding for disease resistance and improved yield began in the 1920s and has accelerated in the last 45 years. To assist in the rapid identification of markers for pathogen resistance and crop traits, and to accelerate breeding programs, we generated a framework map forM. esculentaCrantz derived from reduced representation sequencing (genotyping-by-sequencing [GBS]). The composite 2,412 cM map integrates ten biparental maps (comprising 3,480 meioses) and organizes 22,403 genetic markers on 18 chromosomes, in agreement with the observed karyotype. The map anchors 71.9% of the draft genome assembly and 90.7% of the predicted protein-coding genes. The resulting chromosome-anchored genome sequence provides an essential framework for identification of trait markers and causal genes as well as genomics-enhanced breeding of this important crop.
Hedging weather risk for corn production in Northeastern China
Authors: Sun Baojing , Guo Changhao , Cornelis van Kooten G. 
Published: October 2014

Purpose
– The paper analyzes the hedging efficiency of weather-indexed insurance for corn production in Northeast of China. The purpose of this paper is to identify the potential weather variables that impact corn yields and to analyze the efficiency of weather-indexed insurance under varying thresholds for payouts (strike values).

Design/methodology/approach
– Statistical relationships between climate variables and crop yields are used to construct weather-indexed insurance that enable a farmer to hedge against adverse precipitation outcomes. Mean root square loss is used to compare the efficiency of various weather products.

Findings
– Based on efficiency comparisons, it turns out that in some, but not all circumstances, cumulative rainfall (CR) insurance can be used to hedge weather risk. When CR explains one-third or more of the variation in corn yields, a hedge can offset the revenue loss caused by the corresponding weather risk; but when it explains much less of the yield variation, it is inefficient for hedgers to buy weather insurance. If CR explains variation in crop yields, it is increasingly efficient to employ CR-indexed insurance as strike values decline for put options or increase for call options.

Practical implications
– The paper provides a method for calculating the premium for an insurance product that provides a payout if CR in a growing season is too low.

Originality/value
– This research is important because it illustrates the potential benefits of using weather insurance as an agricultural risk management strategy in China.
Are agribusiness stocks an investor safe haven?
Authors: M. D’Antoni Jeremy , Dean Detre Joshua 
Published: October 2014

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to determine how an index of agribusiness stocks performs relative to the S&P 500 particularly in times of recession.

Design/methodology/approach
– Using value-weighted indexes of agribusiness stocks, large cap US stocks, and copula estimation, the paper quantifies the correlation in potential investment portfolios. The information obtained from the copula estimated dependence measures and Value at Risk (VaR) allows to examine the diversification benefits of holding agribusiness stocks in the portfolio relative to the S&P 500.

Findings
– The results provide limited evidence that the addition of agribusiness stocks to a portfolio are able to provide significant diversification benefits to a portfolio of domestic equities, as represented by the S&P 500 index. The VaR analysis also indicates the risk of extreme losses remained relatively stable both across time and portfolio weightings.

Research limitations/implications
– While this research examines a broad-based agribusiness stock index, there exists a number of sub-assets classes within the analyzed index that should be analyzed to see if the offer benefits to investors. In addition, only stocks traded on US-based stock indexes are included in this analysis; as such, the authors would like to extend the research to have a more global approach.

Practical implications
– The findings suggest that investors who are looking to a broad-based agribusiness stock index to provide more diversification in their portfolio, may find it unattractive from a both a risk management and profit maximizing perspective. However, that does not mean that the agribusiness stock index might be an affective complement to a portfolio that contains multiple other assets classes.

Originality/value
– The issue of correlation convergence during financial crises is one of great concern to investors. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper that uses copulas to evaluate the role of agribusiness stocks in an investor's portfolio.
Willingness to pay for agricultural crop insurance in the northern EU
Authors: Liesivaara Petri , Myyrä Sami 
Published: October 2014

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to investigate the demand for crop insurance. Moreover, farmer willingness to pay (WTP) for crop insurance was derived. Factors affecting the demand were also examined in a country where crop insurance products are not currently available. Sensitivity analysis was conducted by studying the price-anchoring effect.

Design/methodology/approach
– Data from a choice experiment (CE) were analyzed with mixed logit models and the distribution of farmer WTP for crop insurance was derived. A split sample approach with varying premium vectors was used to analyze the price-anchoring effect.

Findings
– Demand was revealed for crop insurance products in Finland. The demand was higher among younger farmers and farms with more arable land. WTP for crop insurance products was very sensitive to the premium interval presented in the CE design.

Research limitations/implications
– The price-anchoring effect may disrupt the market development of crop insurance products, because insurance companies may take advantage of the lack of awareness among farmers of crop insurance pricing.

Practical implications
– The insurance product expected indemnity was a more important factor than the deductible in determining farmer WTP for crop insurance. Therefore, the 30 percent deductible level set for subsidized crop insurance products is not an obstacle for the development of such products in the EU.

Originality/value
– The study applied a well-known method (CE) to crop insurance in a country where these products are non-existent. The split sample approach was used to examine the price-anchoring effect on crop insurance.
Big assumptions for small samples in crop insurance
Authors: Elaine Hungerford Ashley , Goodwin Barry 
Published: October 2014

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of crop insurance premiums being determined by small samples of yields that are spatially correlated. If spatial autocorrelation and small sample size are not properly accounted for in premium ratings, the premium rates may inaccurately reflect the risk of a loss.

Design/methodology/approach
– The paper first examines the spatial autocorrelation among county-level yields of corn and soybeans in the Corn Belt by calculating Moran's I and the effective spatial degrees of freedom. After establishing the existence of spatial autocorrelation, copula models are used to estimate the joint distribution of corn yields and the joint distribution of soybean yields for a group of nine counties in Illinois. Bootstrap samples of the corn and soybean yields are generated to estimate copula models with the purpose of creating sampling distributions.

Findings
– The estimated bootstrap confidence intervals demonstrate that the copula parameter estimates and the premium rates derived from the parameter estimates can vary greatly. There is also evidence of bias in the parameter estimates.

Originality/value
– Although small samples will always be an issue in crop insurance ratings and assumptions must be made for the federal crop insurance program to operate at its current scale, this analysis sheds light on some of the issues caused by using small samples and will hopefully lead to the mitigation of these small sample issues.
Evaluation of aviation-based safety team training in a hospital in The Netherlands
Authors: F. de Korne Dirk , D.H. van Wijngaarden Jeroen , van Dyck Cathy , Francis Hiddema U. , S. Klazinga Niek 
Published: October 2014

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the implementation of a broad-scale team resource management (TRM) program on safety culture in a Dutch eye hospital, detailing the program’s content and procedures. Aviation-based TRM training is recognized as a useful approach to increase patient safety, but little is known about how it affects safety culture.

Design/methodology/approach
– Pre- and post-assessments of the hospitals’ safety culture was based on interviews with ophthalmologists, anesthesiologists, residents, nurses, and support staff. Interim observations were made at training sessions and in daily hospital practice.

Findings
– The program consisted of safety audits of processes and (team) activities, interactive classroom training sessions by aviation experts, a flight simulator session, and video recording of team activities with subsequent feedback. Medical professionals considered aviation experts inspiring role models and respected their non-hierarchical external perspective and focus on medical-technical issues. The post-assessment showed that ophthalmologists and other hospital staff had become increasingly aware of safety issues. The multidisciplinary approach promoted social (team) orientation that replaced the former functionally-oriented culture. The number of reported near-incidents greatly increased; the number of wrong-side surgeries stabilized to a minimum after an initial substantial reduction.

Research limitations/implications
– The study was observational and the hospital’s variety of efforts to improve safety culture prevented us from establishing a causal relation between improvement and any one specific intervention.

Originality/value
– Aviation-based TRM training can be a useful to stimulate safety culture in hospitals. Safety and quality improvements are not single treatment interventions but complex socio-technical interventions. A multidisciplinary system approach and focus on “team” instead of “profession” seems both necessary and difficult in hospital care.