bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Rethinking Decentralization: Assessing Challenges to a Popular Public Sector Reform
Authors: Smoke Paul 
Published: June 2015

SummaryDecentralization is among the most globally ubiquitous public sector reforms. In the past few decades, many countries have taken formal steps to empower local governments, typically with a mix of stated developmental and governance goals. Although decentralization receives much attention, our systematic practical knowledge about it remains limited, and it is fair to say that it often does not meet expectations. Even supporters have begun to express frustration, and references to stalled decentralization or even recentralization have emerged in both policy debates and in practice. This paper briefly recaps what decentralization was expected to achieve, broadly summarizes what we know about performance, and highlights factors that support and impede reform. It also discusses weaknesses and challenges in how decentralization has been conceived, analyzed, designed, and implemented. The core argument is that this type of reform is more diverse and complex than has conventionally been acknowledged and that more careful analysis and strategic action tailored to a specific country are needed to help to realize more effective and sustainable decentralization. The paper closes with thoughts about future directions for how we conceptualize and pragmatically approach this diverse and consequential reform. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Performance Measurement and Management in the Public Sector: Some Lessons from Research Evidence
Authors: Gao Jie 
Published: June 2015

SummaryDuring the past decade, there has been an explosion in the literature on performance‐oriented reforms around the globe. What are the major topics discussed in this literature? What can scholars and practitioners learn from it? This study provides an overview of the major themes, strategies, challenges, and outcomes of performance measurement and management reforms by reviewing the literature produced during this period. It shows that useful strategies and tools have been developed for public sector organizational performance improvement. Apart from continuing efforts to examine the role of measurement per se, there has been a shift in focus from performance measurement to performance management in this literature. Nevertheless, research evidence from both developed and developing countries shows that most reforms achieve only mixed results, with both costs and gains and with daunting challenges, such as gaming, remaining. The paper concludes by discussing issues that deserve attention from future research. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The Risks of Chinese Subnational Debt for Public Financial Management
Authors: Guess George M. , Ma Jun 
Published: June 2015

SummaryThis paper examines the important challenge to effective public financial management (PFM) of fiscal risk. In the case of China, a middle‐income country with space to borrow, a major source of risk to the central government is exposure from subnational government debts. In order to control this exposure and manage it properly, it is important that the level of debt be included in consolidated balance sheets and that liabilities be recognized. This is important not only for narrow maintenance of financial position (or PFM discipline) purposes but also to increase national welfare. Managing fiscal risks from this broader perspective suggests that governments may want to absorb particular risks for purposes such as: unemployment, old age, and poverty spending. Governments often need to cost‐effectively bear some of these risks in order lower social costs and maximize national well‐being. But to do this properly, the government must know first the stock and flow of its total debt. To date, subnational debts in China have not been properly quantified, and available donor tools such as the Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) framework are weak. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Impact of assimilating temperature and salinity measurements by animal‐borne sensors on FOAM ocean model fields
Authors: Carse Fiona , Martin Matthew J. , Sellar Alistair , Blockley Edward W. 
Published: June 2015

Temperature and salinity profiles are being obtained from instrumented marine mammals in near real‐time. The mammals, mostly elephant seals, sample to depths of up to 2000 m in high‐latitude regions where there are very few other in situ observations. This study investigates the impact of mammal temperature and salinity observations on the UK Met Office's global ocean forecasting model, focussing on impacts in the Southern Ocean region. Three reanalyses were performed, each assimilating a varying amount of seal data whilst holding all other conditions constant.Assimilation of both temperature and salinity profiles from mammals has a detrimental effect on the model's temperature and salinity fields due to a high bias in the salinity values. Restricting assimilation to temperature profiles only has benefits for both temperature and salinity fields in regions of the ocean where seals are sampling, improving root‐mean‐square error statistics by between 1 and 6% compared to the case where no mammal data were assimilated. In addition, the assimilation of seal temperature profiles alters the mixed‐layer depth and repositions and increases gradients of some fronts compared to the no‐seals case.
Isolation and characterization of Paenibacillus polymyxa LY214, a camptothecin-producing endophytic bacterium from Camptotheca acuminata
Authors: Pu Xiang , Chen Fei , Yang Yun , Qu Xixing , Zhang Guolin , Luo Yinggang 
Published: June 2015

Abstract
Camptothecin (CPT) is mainly produced and extracted from Camptotheca acuminata and Nothapodytes foetida for pharmaceutical use, i.e., the starting material for chemical conversion to the clinical CPT-type drugs. As the third largest plant anticancer drug, the heavy demand on CPT from global market leads to many research efforts to identify new sources for CPT production. Herein we report the isolation and characterization of a CPT-producing endophytic bacterium Paenibacillus polymyxa LY214 from Camptotheca acuminata. A 10.7 μg l−1 of CPT was presented in the fermentation broth of P. polymyxa LY214. Its CPT production decreased sharply when the strain of the 2nd generation of P. polymyxa LY214 was cultured and fermented. However, the CPT production remained relatively constant from 2.8 μg l−1 of the 2nd generation to 0.8 μg l−1 of the 8th generation of P. polymyxa LY214 under optimized fermentation conditions. A 15- to 30-fold increase of CPT yield was observed when the optimized fermentation conditions, together with the addition of putative biosynthetic precursors of CPT and adsorbent resin XAD16, were applied to ferment the strains of the 7th and 8th generation of P. polymyxa LY214. Bioinformatics analysis of the relative species of P. polymyxa LY214 indicates its potential to produce CPT, which will be helpful to decipher the mysteries of CPT biosynthesis.
Evolutionary annotation of conserved long non-coding RNAs in major mammalian species
Authors: Bu DeChao , Luo HaiTao , Jiao Fei , Fang ShuangSang , Tan ChengFu , Liu ZhiYong , Zhao Yi 
Published: June 2015

Abstract
Mammalian genomes contain tens of thousands of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) that have been implicated in diverse biological processes. However, the lncRNA transcriptomes of most mammalian species have not been established, limiting the evolutionary annotation of these novel transcripts. Based on RNA sequencing data from six tissues of nine species, we built comprehensive lncRNA catalogs (4,142–42,558 lncRNAs) covering the major mammalian species. Compared to protein- coding RNAs, expression of lncRNAs exhibits striking lineage specificity. Notably, although 30%–99% human lncRNAs are conserved across different species on DNA locus level, only 20%–27% of these conserved lncRNA loci are detected to transcription, which represents a stark contrast to the proportion of conserved protein-coding genes (48%–80%). This finding provides a valuable resource for experimental scientists to study the mechanisms of lncRNAs. Moreover, we constructed lncRNA expression phylogenetic trees across nine mammals and demonstrated that lncRNA expression profiles can reliably determine phylogenic placement in a manner similar to their coding counterparts. Our data also reveal that the evolutionary rate of lncRNA expression varies among tissues and is significantly higher than those for protein-coding genes. To streamline the processes of browsing lncRNAs and detecting their evolutionary statuses, we integrate all the data produced in this study into a database named PhyloNONCODE (http://www.bioinfo.org/phyloNoncode). Our work starts to place mammalian lncRNAs in an evolutionary context and represent a rich resource for comparative and functional analyses of this critical layer of genome.
Assessment of Site Suitability for Landfill Construction in Gbekele, Nigeria
Authors: Anomohanran Ochuko 
Published: June 2015

Abstract:
Efficient management of solid waste is one problem which environmentalist, health workers and city planners face in Nigeria. This problem caused by the generation of over 80 million kilograms of solid waste per day requires adequate and modern facilities to guarantee a healthy environment. That is why this study seeks to evaluate the suitability of the study location for the siting of a landfill with negligible impact on the environment and the people of the area. In carrying out this study, geoelectric survey, geological logging and laboratory test of borehole cuttings were employed in determining the geotechnical and hydrogeological properties relevant for the siting of landfill. Other attributes such as topology and distances to major rivers, settlements, railway and airport were also determined in this study. Window based groundwater models known as WINFLOW and WINTRAN were used to investigate the migration patterns of selected contaminants and travel times from the landfill. The gradient of the area and the values obtained from the social economic parameters studied showed that the landfill will not have negative impact on the surrounding environment. Analysis of the groundwater flow, contaminant field and transport modelling showed that there is a diminutive risk of contamination from the landfill reaching the various settlements around the landfill and the major river. From the findings it is recommended that the landfill be sited in the area.
Post-Soviet collective memory: Russian youths about Soviet past
Authors: Kasamara Valeria , Sorokina Anna 
Published: June 2015

The research is focused on the image of the Soviet Union and that of its successor — the Russian Federation — in the minds of the Russian student youth. The concept of collective memory, being interdisciplinary and highly debatable, has been used in the given paper in its broad socio-cultural sense meaning the attitudes of interconnected social groups regarding the past and the present.
The participants of the poll were 100 students from the leading Moscow universities. They had been born after the Soviet Union collapse, so, the majority of them have a very obscure idea of the Soviet reality, simultaneously feeling nostalgia for the Soviet political past. The results of the research show that the image of the Soviet Union drastically differs from that of Russia in the young people’s minds being positive and negative, respectively.
nextflu: real-time tracking of seasonal influenza virus evolution in humans
Authors: Neher Richard A. , Bedford Trevor 
Published: June 2015

Abstract
Summary: Seasonal influenza viruses evolve rapidly, allowing them to evade immunity in their human hosts and reinfect previously infected individuals. Similarly, vaccines against seasonal influenza need to be updated frequently to protect against an evolving virus population. We have thus developed a processing pipeline and browser-based visualization that allows convenient exploration and analysis of the most recent influenza virus sequence data. This web-application displays a phylogenetic tree that can be decorated with additional information such as the viral genotype at specific sites, sampling location and derived statistics that have been shown to be predictive of future virus dynamics. In addition, mutation, genotype and clade frequency trajectories are calculated and displayed.
Availability and implementation: Python and Javascript source code is freely available from https://github.com/blab/nextflu, while the web-application is live at http://nextflu.org.
Contact: tbedford@fredhutch.org
Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) Vertical Transmission in 12-Month-Old Infants Born to HCV-Infected Women and Assessment of Maternal Risk Factors
Authors: Jhaveri Ravi , Hashem Mohamed , El-Kamary Samer S. , Saleh Doa'a A. , Sharaf Sahar A. , El-Mougy Fatma , Abdelsalam Lobna , Ehab Mohamed , El-Ghazaly Hesham 
Published: June 2015

Background.  Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is an underappreciated cause of pediatric liver disease, most frequently acquired by vertical transmission (VT). Current guidelines that include the option of screening infants for HCV RNA at 1–2 months are based on data prior to current real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based testing. Previous studies have demonstrated VT rates of 4%–15% and an association with high maternal viral load. We evaluated HCV RNA in infants with HCV VT and assessed maternal risk factors in a prospective cohort in Cairo, Egypt.
Methods.  Pregnant women were screened for HCV from December 2012 to March 2014. For those with HCV viremia, their infants were tested at 12 months for HCV RNA using real-time PCR. Maternal risk factors assessed for HCV VT association included HCV RNA levels, mode of delivery, and maternal IL28B genotype.
Results.  Of 2514 women screened, a total of 54 women were viremic (2.1%) and delivered 56 infants. Of those, 51 infants of 49 women were tested at 12 months of age. Only 7 infants were viremic, with an HCV VT rate of 14.3% (7 of 49). Median HCV RNA in the infants was 2100 IU/mL. None of the maternal risk factors analyzed were associated with transmission.
Conclusions.  In Egypt where HCV is highly endemic, we observed an overall 12-month HCV VT rate of 14.3%. Further studies should focus on better identification of pregnant women more likely to vertically transmit HCV and earlier testing of infants to identify those likely to develop chronicity.
Pharmacokinetics and Acid‐suppressive Effects of Esomeprazole in Infants 1–24 Months Old With Symptoms of Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease
Authors: Omari Taher , Davidson Geoffrey , Bondarov Patrik , Nauclér Emma , Nilsson Catarina , Lundborg Per 
Published: June 2015

ABSTRACTObjectives:To evaluate the pharmacokinetics and acid‐suppressive effects of esomeprazole in infants with gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD).Patients and Methods:In this single‐blind, randomized, parallel‐group study, 50 infants 1 to 24 months old with symptoms of GERD, and ≥5% of time with intraesophageal pH <4 during 24‐hour dual pH monitoring, received oral esomeprazole 0.25 mg/kg (n = 26) or 1 mg/kg (n = 24) once daily for 1 week. Intraesophageal and intragastric pH were recorded at 1 week, and blood samples were taken for pharmacokinetic analysis.Results:At baseline, mean percentages of time with intragastric pH >4 and intraesophageal pH <4 were 30.5% and 11.6%, respectively, in the esomeprazole 0.25 mg/kg group and 28.6% and 12.5% in the esomeprazole 1 mg/kg group. After 1 week of treatment, times with intragastric pH >4 were 47.9% and 69.3% in the esomeprazole 0.25 mg/kg and 1 mg/kg groups, respectively (P < 0.001 vs baseline), and times with intraesophageal pH <4 were 8.4% (P < 0.05 vs baseline) and 5.5% (P < 0.001 vs. baseline), respectively. The mean number of acid reflux episodes of >5 minutes duration decreased from 6 at baseline to 3 and 2 with esomeprazole 0.25 mg/kg and 1 mg/kg, respectively. The geometric mean AUC0–t of esomeprazole were 0.24 and 1.79 μmol·h/L for the 0.25 mg/kg and 1 mg/kg dosages of esomeprazole, respectively. Both esomeprazole dosages were well tolerated.Conclusions:Oral treatment with esomeprazole 0.25 mg/kg and 1 mg/kg was well tolerated and provided dose‐related acid suppression, dose‐related exposure to esomeprazole, and decreased esophageal acid exposure in infants 1–24 months old with GERD.
Esomeprazole for the Treatment of Erosive Esophagitis in Children
Authors: Tolia Vasundhara , Youssef Nader N. , Gilger Mark A. , Traxler Barry , Illueca Marta 
Published: June 2015

ABSTRACTBackground:Acid suppression with a proton pump inhibitor is standard treatment for gastroesophageal reflux disease and erosive esophagitis in adults and increasingly is becoming first‐line therapy for children aged 1–17 years. We evaluated endoscopic healing of erosive esophagitis with esomeprazole in young children with gastroesophageal reflux disease and described esophageal histology.Methods:Children aged 1–11 years with endoscopically or histologically confirmed gastroesophageal reflux disease were randomized to esomeprazole 5 or 10 mg daily (<20 kg) or 10 or 20 mg daily (≥20 kg) for 8 weeks. Patients with erosive esophagitis underwent an endoscopy after 8 weeks to assess healing of erosions.Results:Of 109 patients, 49% had erosive esophagitis and 51% had histologic evidence of reflux esophagitis without erosive esophagitis. Of the 45 patients who had erosive esophagitis and underwent follow‐up endoscopy, 89% experienced erosion resolution. Dilation of intercellular space was reported in 24% of patients with histologic examination.Conclusions:Esomeprazole (0.2–1.0 mg/kg) effectively heals macroscopic and microscopic erosive esophagitis in this pediatric population with gastroesophageal reflux disease. Dilation of intercellular space may be an important histologic marker of erosive esophagitis in children.
Halothane Modulates the Type I Interferon Response to Influenza and Minimizes the Risk of Secondary Bacterial Pneumonia through Maintenance of Neutrophil Recruitment in an Animal Model
Authors: MacDonald Brian A. , Chakravarthy Krishnan V. , Davidson Bruce A. , Mullan Barbara A. , Alluri Ravi , Hakansson Anders P. , Knight Paul R. 
Published: June 2015

AbstractAbstract
By using mice exposed to halothane or ketamine and infected with influenza and Streptococcus pneumoniae, the authors demonstrated that the use of halogenated volatile anesthetics modulate the type I interferon response to influenza and enhance postinfection antibacterial immunity.

Background:
To minimize the risk of pneumonia, many anesthesiologists delay anesthesia-requiring procedures when patients exhibit signs of viral upper respiratory tract infection. Postinfluenza secondary bacterial pneumonias (SBPs) are a major cause of morbidity and mortality. An increased host susceptibility to SBP postinfluenza has been attributed to physical damage to the pulmonary epithelium, but flu-induced effects on the immune system are being shown to also play an important role. The authors demonstrate that halothane mitigates the risk of SBP postflu through modulation of the effects of type I interferon (IFN).

Methods:
Mice (n = 6 to 15) were exposed to halothane or ketamine and treated with influenza and Streptococcus pneumoniae. Bronchoalveolar lavage and lung homogenate were procured for the measurement of inflammatory cells, cytokines, chemokines, albumin, myeloperoxidase, and bacterial load.

Results:
Halothane exposure resulted in decreased bacterial burden (7.9 ± 3.9 × 105
vs. 3.4 ± 1.6 × 108 colony-forming units, P < 0.01), clinical score (0.6 ± 0.2 vs. 2.3 ± 0.2, P < 0.0001), and lung injury (as measured by bronchoalveolar lavage albumin, 1.5 ± 0.7 vs. 6.8 ± 1.6 mg/ml, P < 0.01) in CD-1 mice infected with flu for 7 days and challenged with S. pneumoniae on day 6 postflu. IFN receptor A1 knockout mice similarly infected with flu and S. pneumoniae, but not exposed to halothane, demonstrated a reduction of lung bacterial burden equivalent to that achieved in halothane-exposed wild-type mice.

Conclusion:
These findings indicate that the use of halogenated volatile anesthetics modulates the type I IFN response to influenza and enhance postinfection antibacterial immunity.
Improved ribosome-footprint and mRNA measurements provide insights into dynamics and regulation of yeast translation
Authors: Weinberg David E. , Shah Premal , Eichhorn Stephen W. , Hussmann Jeffrey A. , Plotkin Joshua B. , Bartel David P. 
Published: June 2015

AbstractRibosome-footprint profiling provides genome-wide snapshots of translation, but technical challenges can confound its analysis. Here, we use improved methods to obtain ribosome-footprint profiles and mRNA abundances that more faithfully reflect gene expression inSaccharomyces cerevisiae. Our results support proposals that both the beginning of coding regions and codons matching rare tRNAs are more slowly translated. They also indicate that emergent polypeptides with as few as three basic residues within a 10-residue window tend to slow translation. With the improved mRNA measurements, the variation attributable to translational control in exponentially growing yeast was less than previously reported, and most of this variation could be predicted with a simple model that considered mRNA abundance, upstream open reading frames, cap-proximal structure and nucleotide composition, and lengths of the coding and 5’-untranslated regions. Collectively, our results reveal key features of translational control in yeast and provide a framework for executing and interpreting ribosome-profiling studies.
SSCM: A method to analyze and predict the pathogenicity of sequence variants
Authors: Vikram Sharad , Rasmussen Matthew D. , Evans Eric A. , Haque Imran S. 
Published: June 2015

AbstractThe advent of cost-effective DNA sequencing has provided clinics with high-resolution information about patient’s genetic variants, which has resulted in the need for efficient interpretation of this genomic data. Traditionally, variant interpretation has been dominated by many manual, time-consuming processes due to the disparate forms of relevant information in clinical databases and literature. Computational techniques promise to automate much of this, and while they currently play only a supporting role, their continued improvement for variant interpretation is necessary to tackle the problem of scaling genetic sequencing to ever larger populations. Here, we present SSCM-Pathogenic, a genome-wide, allele-specific score for predicting variant pathogenicity. The score, generated by a semi-supervised clustering algorithm, shows predictive power on clinically relevant mutations, while also displaying predictive ability in noncoding regions of the genome.
Ordering structured populations in multiplayer cooperation games
Authors: Peña Jorge , Wu Bin , Traulsen Arne 
Published: June 2015

AbstractSpatial structure greatly affects the evolution of cooperation. While in two-player games the condition for cooperation to evolve depends on a single structure coefficient, in multiplayer games the condition might depend on several structure coefficients, making it difficult to compare different population structures. We propose a solution to this issue by introducing two simple ways of ordering population structures: the containment order and the volume order. If population structure 𝒮1is greater than population structure 𝒮2in the containment or the volume order, then 𝒮1can be considered a stronger promoter of cooperation. We provide conditions for establishing the containment order, give general results on the volume order, and illustrate our theory by comparing different models of spatial games and associated update rules. Our results hold for a large class of population structures and can be easily applied to specific cases once the structure coefficients have been calculated or estimated.