bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
ALTERED MERISTEM PROGRAM1Suppresses Ectopic Stem Cell Niche Formation in the Shoot Apical Meristem in a Largely Cytokinin-Independent Manner
Authors: Huang Wenwen , Pitorre Delphine , Poretska Olena , Marizzi Christine , Winter Nikola , Poppenberger Brigitte , Sieberer Tobias 
Published: February 2015

AbstractPlants are able to reiteratively form new organs in an environmentally adaptive manner during postembryonic development. Organ formation in plants is dependent on stem cell niches (SCNs), which are located in the so-called meristems. Meristems show a functional zonation along the apical-basal axis and the radial axis. Shoot apical meristems of higher plants are dome-like structures, which contain a central SCN that consists of an apical stem cell pool and an underlying organizing center. Organ primordia are formed in the circular peripheral zone (PZ) from stem cell descendants in which differentiation programs are activated. One mechanism to keep this radial symmetry integrated is that the existing SCN actively suppresses stem cell identity in the PZ. However, how this lateral inhibition system works at the molecular level is far from understood. Here, we show that a defect in the putative carboxypeptidase ALTERED MERISTEM PROGRAM1 (AMP1) causes the formation of extra SCNs in the presence of an intact primary shoot apical meristem, which at least partially contributes to the enhanced shoot meristem size and leaf initiation rate found in the mutant. This defect appears to be neither a specific consequence of the altered cytokinin levels in amp1 nor directly mediated by the WUSCHEL/CLAVATA feedback loop. De novo formation of supernumerary stem cell pools was further enhanced in plants mutated in both AMP1 and its paralog LIKE AMP1, indicating that they exhibit partially overlapping roles to suppress SCN respecification in the PZ.
An empirical analysis of international consumers’ associations with Bavarian food products by means of concept mapping
Authors: Seitz Carolin Claudia , Roosen Jutta 
Published: February 2015

Purpose
– Knowledge of consumers’ perception of foreign food products can be a key element for successful international marketing strategies, as operating on a regional or global level requires deep knowledge about international markets. Purchase decisions for most products are strongly linked to a person’s attitude towards these products, which are determined by beliefs and meanings associated with the product. In this context, the purpose of this paper is to analyze and compare the perception of Bavarian food products in an international context.

Design/methodology/approach
– The qualitative technique of concept mapping has been used to uncover and visualise consumers’ semantic networks regarding Bavarian food products. Two European countries – Bulgaria and Romania – as well as two Asian ones – China and South Korea – are exemplary selected for this study.

Findings
– The results clearly show that the two frequently mentioned associations across all four countries are the same while the other associations which were enumerated show a greater heterogeneity. Furthermore the study provides empirical evidence that the associations regarding Bavarian food products of the European countries are more similar to each other than the Asian ones. South Koreans have more indirect than direct associations with Bavarian food products and Chinese semantic networks regarding Bavarian food products are the least complex. These findings are underpinned by network analysis.

Originality/value
– This study adds to the existing literature on country image by exploring international consumer’s cognitive networks regarding Bavarian food products by means of concept mapping.
Measuring office fit-out changes to determine recurring embodied energy in building life cycle assessment
Authors: Forsythe Perry , Wilkinson Sara 
Published: February 2015

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to quantify and profile the indicative amount of retrofits in office buildings as a necessary step in quantifying the recurring embodied energy in office buildings. Buildings are a major source of energy usage and emissions, and office buildings are a significant contributor to this situation. Life cycle assessments in this area have tended to neglect the potentially large impact arising from recurring embodied energy associated with office fit-out – which is often akin to a short-term consumable rather than a long-term durable in many multi-storey buildings.Design/methodology/approach– This study used building permit data from the Melbourne Central Business District (n= 986) over the period 2006-2010 (inclusive) to quantify the number of retrofits and related trends. Building on this, a small number of targeted case study buildings were used to probe specific issues in profiling trends associated with high-frequency trends arising from the main sample.Findings– The data show that the number of retrofits varies according to location, grade, size and the age of buildings. Using the case study data, there is initial evidence to suggest that between 46 and 70 per cent of the floors in a high-rise office building will undergo retrofit in a five-year period. Further research should apply these data to recurring energy modelling for office buildings.Research limitations/implications– One limitation which applies to this study is that the research is limited to a defined geographical area in one Australian city, Melbourne. Secondly the study covers a specific period, and the number of retrofits may be affected negatively or positively depending on the prevailing market conditions.Practical implications– This paper raises important questions in respect of life cycle carbon emissions in the context of prevailing trends to shorter lease terms and practices around fit-out.Originality/value– The retrofit of office buildings tends to go unnoticed and unmeasured in the debate about sustainable buildings. The paper provides original thought development and important measurement input which will assist in providing a more accurate and meaningful life cycle assessment of office buildings.
Stochastic interval-grey number VIKOR method based on prospect theory
Authors: LI Qingsheng , Zhao Ni 
Published: February 2015

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to deal with interval grey-stochastic multi-attribute decision-making problems. It proposes a VIKOR method based on prospect theory in which probabilities and the attribute value are both grey numbers.

Design/methodology/approach
– In the prospect theory the results values and probability weight are used while the utility and probability values in the expected utility theory, which the more realistically reflect and describe the decision makers on the optimal process. VIKOR method makes the decision acceptable superiority and decision process stability. At the same time, a new interval grey number entropy is put forward, which is used to calculate the index weight of unknown.

Findings
– The paper provides a VIKOR method based on prospect theory in which probabilities and the attribute value are both grey numbers. And the validity and feasibility of the method are illustrated by an example.

Research limitations/implications
– Although VIKOR is much closer to PIS than TOPSIS, at the same time VIKOR method can get the compromise solution with priority, researchers are encouraged to carry on comparative study further.

Practical implications
– The paper includes interval grey-stochastic multi-attribute decision-making method and implications. The validity and feasibility of the method are illustrated by a case.

Originality/value
– This paper proposes a VIKOR method based on prospect theory in which probabilities and the attribute value are both interval grey numbers. At the same time, a new interval grey number entropy is put forward, which is used to calculate the index weight of unknown.
Understanding broadband television users’ continuance intention to use
Authors: Liou Dah-Kwei , Hsu Li-Chun , Chih Wen-Hai 
Published: February 2015

Purpose
– Based on the tricomponent attitude model, a research model is developed to investigate the factors that influence users’ use intentions regarding broadband television. These factors are divided into vendor’s service and personal psychology perspectives. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach
– The research sample consisted of 631 respondents with experience in using broadband television. This study adopted structural equation modeling to test the proposed model.

Findings
– The results show that the structural model has a good fit and indicates that perceived system quality, perceived content quality, customization, perceived ease of use, and perceived risk directly influence users’ opinions toward broadband television and indirectly affect their continuance intention to use through attitude to use.

Practical implications
– From a managerial standpoint, this study can assist internet protocol television (IPTV) service providers in understanding the critical determinants that influence consumers’ continuance intention to use IPTV.

Originality/value
– This study contributes to the understanding of consumers’ continuance intention to use IPTV by introducing customers’ perspectives for vendor’s service factors (perceived system quality, perceived content quality, customization, and perceived ease of use) to current theoretical models. From a personal psychology perspective, this study provides sound evidence that the determinants of perceived price level and perceived risk are critical factors that affect consumers’ attitude to use and continuance intention to use of broadband televisions.
How travel agency reputation creates recommendation behavior
Authors: Chang Kuo-Chien 
Published: February 2015

Purpose– The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of travel agency’s reputation on customer recommendation behavior by examining the mediating effects of customer-perceived functional and emotional value as well as the moderating effects of tour leader performance and customer flow experience in the travel agency sector.Design/methodology/approach– A statistical analysis of the collected questionnaires was computed based on the 463 usable responses from Taiwan tourists who joining the group package tours traveling to China. Structural equation modeling is the essential analysis methodology used to examine the hypothesized relationships among the variables.Findings– The analysis results confirm that reputation has positive effects on customers recommendation behaviors in which perceived functional and emotional value work as necessary mediating roles. Nevertheless, the effect of reputation through emotional value on customer recommendation behavior provides a much better explanation than through functional value in the model. In addition, regarding the variables of tour leader performance and customer flow experience in the model, only the tour leader performance is confirmed that moderates the relationships among reputation, perceived value, and customer recommendation behavior. According to the findings, managerial implications are discussed as well.Originality/value– This study develops a conceptual stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model that, reflecting the mediating role of perceived value and the moderating role of tour leader performance, indicates the effect of reputation on customer recommendation behavior.
Involvement of private actors in the provision of urban sanitation services; potential challenges and precautions
Authors: Yeboah-Assiamah Emmanuel 
Published: February 2015

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to use relevant models and theories to conceptualize the prospects and challenges associated with private sector involvement in the provision of sanitation and environmental services in urban settlements of developing African economies.

Design/methodology/approach
– The study adopts the public choice theory and principal-agent model in its conceptualization and analysis. Retrospective literature analysis within the qualitative research approach has been employed for the study. It draws extensively on existing classical theoretical and current empirical literature on privatization of urban sanitation services in developing countries.

Findings
– The study observes that privatization is a necessary tool for enhancing quality and responsive sanitation service delivery but there must be some mechanisms to prevent any latent challenges. The study also observes that the same problems associated with the public sector could transcend into the private sector if key measures are not taken into consideration.

Practical implications
– The process of privatizing or contracting out must ensure competition, enough communication to all stakeholders as well as involving expertise in the bidding process. The process also requires strict monitoring and supervision; these call for an appropriate legal framework to regulate privatization. The paper reminds urban administrators and policy makers to be circumspect in the privatization process. If the process of privatization is carried out effectively, urban sanitation services will be provided effectively and efficiently.

Originality/value
– The paper adapts the public choice and principal-agent model to assess privatization processes in developing African countries. This study will be of importance to urban administrators, public officials and policy makers in general.
Significant factors influencing outsourcing decision for facilities management (FM) services
Authors: Ikediashi Dubem , Okwuashi Onuwa 
Published: February 2015

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to investigate and conceptualise significant factors influencing decision to outsource facilities management (FM) services in Nigeria’s public hospitals.Design/methodology/approach– Data for this study were collected using a cross-sectional questionnaire survey. A total of 85 responses were received from the six states comprising the study area while 11 of them were discarded due to missing data resulting in 74 usable responses. This gave an overall response rate of 61 per cent. Data collected were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics as well as principal component analysis.Findings– Findings revealed that 25 of the 31 factors were significant in explaining the decision to outsource FM service in Nigeria’s public hospitals; while 15 of them grouped into six broad categories were selected based on their factor loadings during further analysis. Besides, it was also established from the study that “to improve performance standard”, “to improve quality of services” and “to improve timely delivery of services” are the top three rated factors.Research limitations/implications– The study complements the body of knowledge on “make or buy” decision theory by provided empirical insight into key attributes of outsourcing decision motives for FM services from the point of view of Nigeria’s public sector spectrum that can serve as benchmark for deciding on whether to outsource or not.Practical implications– The study also has practical implications. More is now known as a result of this research about what factors constitute drivers for outsourcing FM services within the context of Nigeria’s public hospitals. With an aggregate opinion from 74 public hospitals, the study provides hospital administrators and public managers with a list of prioritised factors for making rational informed decision about outsourcing of services in the hospitals.Originality/value– The study complements the body of knowledge on “make or buy” decision theory by providing empirical insight into key attributes of outsourcing decision motives for FM services from the point of view of Nigeria’s public healthcare.
Intent vs. action: talented employees and leadership development
Authors: Khoreva Violetta , Vaiman Vlad 
Published: February 2015

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to investigate the responses of employees, who are identified as talents by their multinational enterprises, in regards to leadership development activities. By applying social exchange and expectancy theories, the authors examine the association between talent identification, perceived effectiveness of leadership development activities, willingness to participate in those activities and actual participation in them.Design/methodology/approach– The data were collected through a web-based questionnaire entitled “Leadership2020 Talent Survey”. Eight multinational enterprises joined the survey and delivered a sample based on the target group definition.Findings– The analysis shows that perceived effectiveness of leadership development activities is positively associated with willingness of employees to undertake those activities. The results also reveal that there is no significant association between the employees’ willingness to participate in leadership development activities and their actual participation in those activities.Research limitations/implications– Given its cross-sectional nature, the authors cannot completely exclude the possibility of common method bias having impact on the results of this study. The authors thus call for longitudinal research to examine the nature of causality within the relationships analyzed in this study.Practical implications– Managers and practitioners should keep in mind that willingness to participate in leadership development activities does not always result in actual participation of employees in those activities. Symbolic representations may be very different from representations in real-life situations. Investigations that rely on the willingness as a proxy for actual behaviour must thus be interpreted with caution.Originality/value– The authors found that employees often fail to act in accordance with their stated eagerness. According to the findings, there is a clear discrepancy between expressed willingness to implement certain behaviour and its actual implementation. This study poses a strong bias in overestimating the likelihood that an employee will engage in a desirable behaviour based on his/her willingness to do so.
Role stressors and employee deviance: the moderating effect of social support
Authors: Chiu Su-Fen , Yeh Shih-Pin , Huang Tun Chun 
Published: February 2015

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships among role stressors, social support, and employee deviance. Specifically, this study explores the relationships of role stressors (i.e. role conflict, role ambiguity, and role overload) to interpersonal and organisational employee deviance. Furthermore, this study examines the moderating role of social support (from supervisors and coworkers) on the above relationships.Design/methodology/approach– Data were collected from 326 paired samples of sales and customer service employees as well as their immediate supervisors in Taiwan.Findings– Role conflict had a positive relationship with both organisational and interpersonal deviance. Role ambiguity was positively, while role overload was negatively related to organisational deviance, respectively. Role ambiguity was more strongly related to organisational than to interpersonal deviance. Coworker support had a significant moderating effect on the role overload – interpersonal deviance relationship.Practical implications– Organisations may implement policies and programs, such as clarification of job responsibility, provision of performance feedback and training in stress coping techniques, to lessen the negative effect of role conflict, and role ambiguity on employee deviance.Originality/value– This study contributes to the literature in several ways. First, this study extends prior research on stressor-performance relationship by investigating the effect of role stressors on two forms of employee deviance (interpersonal deviance and organisational deviance) in a collectivist cultural context (i.e. Taiwan). Second, this study demonstrates that work-related characteristics (e.g. role stressors) have different degrees of effect on interpersonal and organisational deviance. Third, this research offers explanations on why there is little support for the moderating effect of social support on the stressor-deviance relationship.
Eosinophilic pustular folliculitis: The transition in sex differences and interracial characteristics between 1965 and 2013
Authors: Nomura Takashi , Katoh Mayumi , Yamamoto Yosuke , Kabashima Kenji , Miyachi Yoshiki 
Published: February 2015

AbstractEosinophilic pustular folliculitis (EPF) is characterized by a non‐infectious infiltration of eosinophils in the hair follicles. It has three variants: (i) classic EPF; (ii) immunosuppression‐associated EPF, which herein is subdivided into HIV‐associated (IS/HIV) and non‐HIV‐associated (IS/non‐HIV); and (iii) infancy‐associated EPF (I‐EPF). The rarity of EPF has hindered our understanding of this entity. To examine the characteristics of EPF, with respect to age, sex, race, and chronology, published in case reports to date, we queried PubMed using the following terms: (“eosinophilic pustular folliculitis” [All Fields] OR “eosinophilic folliculitis” [All Fields]) AND (“1965/1/1” [PDAT]: “2013/12/31” [PDAT]). Additional Japanese cases were collected from Igaku Chuo Zasshi through Ichushi‐Web, JDream III, and secondhand quotations from domestic periodicals published in Japan. Proceedings were excluded. The PubMed search produced 275 citations containing 358 cases of EPF (224 men, 132 women, and two of unspecified sex); these cases involved classic EPF (101 Japanese and 81 non‐Japanese), IS/HIV (4 Japanese and 85 non‐Japanese), IS/non‐HIV (4 Japanese and 20 non‐Japanese), and I‐EPF (4 Japanese and 59 non‐Japanese). Ichushi generated an additional 148 citations containing 207 cases of Japanese (148 men and 59 women), which included cases of classic EPF (181 cases), IS/HIV (14 cases), IS/non‐HIV (9 cases), and I‐EPF (3 cases). There was no sex difference in the classic EPF cases reported between 2003 and 2013, whereas IS/HIV, IS/non‐HIV, and I‐EPF were predominated by men. There is room for reconsideration of sex differences, particularly with regard to classic EPF. The rarity and specificity of I‐EPF in Japan may reflect a state of uncertainty about this entity.
The two paralogue phoN (phosphinothricin acetyl transferase) genes of Pseudomonas putida encode functionally different proteins
Authors: Páez‐Espino A. David , Chavarría Max , de Lorenzo Víctor 
Published: February 2015

SummaryPhosphinothricin (PPT) is a non‐specific inhibitor of glutamine synthetase that has been employed as herbicide for selection of transgenic plants expressing cognate resistance genes. While the soil bacterium Pseudomonas putida KT2440 has been generally considered PPT‐sensitive, inspection of its genome sequence reveals the presence of two highly similar open reading frames (PP_1924 and PP_4846) encoding acetylases with a potential to cause tolerance to the herbicide. To explore this possibility, each of these genes (named phoN1 and phoN2) was separately cloned and their activities examined in vivo and in vitro. Genetic and biochemical evidence indicated that phoN1 encodes a bona fide PPT‐acetyl transferase, the expression of which suffices to make P. putida tolerant to high concentrations of the herbicide. In contrast, PhoN2 does not act on PPT but displays instead activity against methionine sulfoximine (MetSox), another glutamine synthetase inhibitor. When the geometry of the substrate‐binding site of PhoN1 was grafted with the equivalent residues of the predicted PhoN2 structure, the resulting protein increased significantly MetSox resistance of the expression host concomitantly with the loss of activity on PPT. These observations uncover intricate biochemical and genetic interactions among soil microorganisms and how they can be perturbed by exposure to generic herbicides in soil.