bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
miR-146a, an IL-1β responsive miRNA, induces vascular endothelial growth factor and chondrocyte apoptosis by targeting Smad4
Authors: Li Jing , Huang Jingang , Dai Liming , Yu Degang , Chen Qian , Zhang Xiaoling , Dai Kerong 
Published: April 2012

Abstract
Introduction
miR-146a is one of the first identified miRNAs expressed differentially in osteoarthritis (OA) cartilage. However, the role it plays in OA pathogenesis is not clear. The aim of this study is to identify a molecular target of miR-146a, thereby elucidating its function in chondrocytes during OA pathogenesis.

Methods
Primary chondrocytes from Sprague-Dawley rats were treated with IL-1β before the expression levels of miR-146a, Smad4 and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) were quantified by real-time PCR and/or western blotting. The effect of miR-146a on cellular response to transforming growth factor (TGF)-β1 was quantified by a luciferase reporter harboring TGF-β1 responsive elements and by extracellular signal-regulated kinase assay. The effect of miR-146a on apoptosis was quantified by the TUNEL assay. OA pathogenesis was surgically induced with joint instability in rats, evaluated by histopathological analysis with safranin O staining, and the expression levels of miR-146a, Smad4, and VEGF were quantified using real-time PCR and/or immunohistochemistry.

Results
IL-1β treatment of chondrocytes increased the expression levels of miR-146a and VEGF and decreased the levels of Smad4 in a time-dependent manner. miR-146a upregulated VEGF expression and downregulated Smad4 expression in chondrocytes, while a miR-146a inhibitor acted in a converse manner. Smad4, a common mediator of the TGF-β pathway, is identified as a direct target of miR-146a by harboring a miR-146a binding sequence in the 3'-UTR region of its mRNA. Mutation of the binding sequence significantly relieved the inhibition of the Smad4 reporter activity by miR-146a. Furthermore, miR-146a upregulation of VEGF is mediated by Smad4. Expression of miR-146a led to a reduction of cellular responsiveness to TGF-β and an increase of apoptosis rate in chondrocytes. In vivo, cartilage from surgically induced OA rats displayed higher levels of miR-146a and VEGF compared with the sham group. In contrast, Smad4 expression level was lower in the OA group than the sham group.

Conclusion
IL-1β responsive miR-146a is overexpressed in an experimentally induced OA model, accompanied by upregulation of VEGF and downregulation of Smad4 in vivo. miR-146a may contribute to OA pathogenesis by increasing VEGF levels and by impairing the TGF-β signaling pathway through targeted inhibition of Smad4 in cartilage.
Enoxaparin sodium prevents intestinal microcirculatory dysfunction in endotoxemic rats
Authors: Yeh Yu-Chang , Wang Ming-Jiuh , Lin Chih-Peng , Fan Shou-Zen , Tsai Jui-Chang , Sun Wei-Zen , Ko Wen-Je 
Published: April 2012

Abstract
Introduction
During severe sepsis or septic shock, activation of the inflammatory and coagulatory systems can result in microcirculatory dysfunction as well as microvascular thrombosis, culminating in multiple organ dysfunction and death. Enoxaparin can inhibit factor Xa and attenuate endothelial damage. The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of enoxaparin on intestinal microcirculation in endotoxemic rats.

Methods
Thirty male Wistar rats were divided into the following three groups: sham operated (OP); lipopolysaccharide (LPS); and LPS + Enoxaparin group. The rats received a midline laparotomy to exteriorize a segment of terminal ileum for microcirculation examination by full-field laser perfusion imager and sidestream dark field video microscope on mucosa, muscle, and Peyer's patch. In the LPS and LPS + Enoxaparin groups, 15 mg/kg LPS was administered intravenously to induce endotoxemia, and 400 IU/kg enoxaparin sodium was also administered in the LPS + Enoxaparin group.

Results
At 240 minutes, the mean arterial pressure was higher in the LPS + Enoxaparin group than in the LPS group (93 ± 9 versus 64 ± 16 mm Hg, P < 0.001). Microcirculatory blood flow intensity was higher in the LPS + Enoxaparin group than in the LPS group as follows: mucosa (1085 ± 215 versus 617 ± 214 perfusion unit [PU], P < 0.001); muscle (760 ± 202 versus 416 ± 223 PU, P = 0.001); and Peyer's patch (1,116 ± 245 versus 570 ± 280 PU, P < 0.001). Enoxaparin inhibited LPS-induced reduction in perfused small vessel density and increase in heterogeneity of microcirculation.

Conclusions
Enoxaparin can prevent intestinal microcirculatory dysfunction in endotoxemic rats by preventing microvascular thrombosis formation and maintaining normal mean arterial pressure.
What do surgical trainees think about patient safety culture, and is this different from their consultants?
Authors: Bethune Rob , Canter Richard , Abrams Paul 
Published: April 2012

Introduction Little is known about the patient safety culture within surgical departments in UK hospitals. What has been done to date is to survey only permanent senior staff opinion of the safety culture in their institution. This study surveyed both consultant and trainee views on perceived patient safety and compared the results between these two groups. Material and methods The previously validated Team Work and Safety Climate Questionnaire was configured in Survey Monkey format and sent to all surgical trainees and consultant surgeons in the South West Strategic Health Authority. Two reminders were sent to achieve as high a return rate as possible. Results Two hundred and ninety-six replies were received. Forty-four percent of trainees and 30% of consultants responded to the survey. Consultants consistently rated a higher safety culture than surgical trainees. Only 2.9% of trainees believe their patient safety concerns would be acted upon by hospital management. There is notable variation in perceived patient safety culture between hospitals. Conclusion This study has suggested that the patient safety culture in hospitals, within a Strategic Health Authority, is variable and sub-optimal when viewed by surgical trainees and their consultants. This study also provides some evidence that the perception of patient safety in an organization varies according to clinical experience. As trainees deliver a great deal of clinical care, surveys of safety culture should include this group. As perceived patient safety culture is correlated to clinical outcomes, validated safety surveys might form part of the assessment of a hospital's performance, along with outcome and patient satisfaction.
Research Note—Some Characteristics of Human Resources in the Service Sector
Authors: Berg Daniel , Einspruch Norman G. 
Published: April 2012

As part of an ongoing study of the similarities and differences between the Goods and Services Sectors of the economy, a technique labelled “Data Surface Mining” (DSM) was used to analyze three independently generated and previously published data sets that focused on three different aspects of human resources. The three aspects are: in which economic sector to launch a career (young people), the relative presence of powerful women in the two sectors (women) and the relative presence of seniors in top positions in the two sectors (aging). Such matters are of major managerial significance in light of the fact that the Services Sector represents 80% (GDP and/or employment) of the United States economy and is of increasing importance in the global economy. [Service Science, ISSN 2164-3962 (print), ISSN 2164-3970 (online), was published by Services Science Global (SSG) from 2009 to 2011 as issues under ISBN 978-1-4276-2090-3.]
Structural Analysis of a Business Enterprise
Authors: Leung Ying Tat , Bockstedt Jesse 
Published: April 2012

A business enterprise is composed of a number of entities, such as resources, people, activities, and products. These entities are sometimes collectively called the business architecture of the enterprise and are clearly useful for information system design and integration. In this paper we show how these entities can be useful far beyond information system related purposes. We introduce the concept of structural analysis, which is a methodology for analyzing the different relationships between these entities. One or few selected relationships give rise to a representation or view of the enterprise. As we demonstrate through a simple yet illustrative example of a hypothetical coffee shop business, these different views can provide many insights and points of analysis valuable for various purposes. Structural analysis provides an interactive, analytical environment for a user to examine an enterprise from multiple perspectives, an approach not unlike On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) but for analyzing the qualitative or structural aspects of the enterprise. [Service Science, ISSN 2164-3962 (print), ISSN 2164-3970 (online), was published by Services Science Global (SSG) from 2009 to 2011 as issues under ISBN 978-1-4276-2090-3.]
Communication Paper—Common Assumptions that are Barriers to Service Improvement
Authors: Goodman John 
Published: April 2012

[Modified excerpt] There is an ongoing drumbeat of service innovation in approximately the top twenty percent of companies. These innovations can be classified into three areas: (1) Delivering products and services that completely meet customer expectations, (2) Enhanced customer service delivery and problem solving process, (3) An enhanced use of Voice of the Customer (VOC) to improve the basic product and service delivery process. [Service Science, ISSN 2164-3962 (print), ISSN 2164-3970 (online), was published by Services Science Global (SSG) from 2009 to 2011 as issues under ISBN 978-1-4276-2090-3.]
Editorial Column—Service Innovation: Is it Part of the Service Science Discipline?
Authors: Fragnière Emmanuel 
Published: April 2012

[Excerpt] The Taylor organizational model, which originated in the industrial world, no longer has a place in today's service sector. In fact, the modern service sector is actually less standardized, and has begun to incorporate specific expertise and skills more and more heavily. This evolution supposes a different organizational model that relies more on creativity and on “implicit knowledge,” which is the essence of expertise. This new organizational model, which is starting to be sketched out in certain larger service enterprises, has yet to be fully created. [Service Science, ISSN 2164-3962 (print), ISSN 2164-3970 (online), was published by Services Science Global (SSG) from 2009 to 2011 as issues under ISBN 978-1-4276-2090-3.]
ER-SERVCOMPSQUAL: A Measure of E-Retailing Service Components Quality
Authors: Rossiter John R. 
Published: April 2012

In a recent article in this Journal, S. Vargo, the service-dominant logic theorist, makes the unarguable claim that “What is needed is a true science of service (Vargo and Akaka, Service Science, 2009, p. 39, emphasis in original). To constitute a true science of service, services research must use valid measures. The sine qua non requirement for a valid measure is content validity, which comprises item-content validity and answer-scale validity (see Rossiter, International Journal of Research in Marketing, 2002, and C-OAR-SE Construct Measurement for the Social Sciences, Springer, forthcoming). The present article begins by criticizing the content validity of E-S-QUAL (Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Malhotra [Parasuraman, A., V. A. Zeithaml, A. Malhotra. 2005. E-S-QUAL: A Multiple-Item Scale for Assessing Electronic Service Quality. Journal of Service Research 7(3) 213–233.]), the principal academic measure of e-retailer service quality, which is probably the most important construct in contemporary services research. Rossiter's (Rossiter, J. R. 2002. The C-OAR-SE Procedure for Scale Development in Marketing. International Journal of Research in Marketing 19(4) 305–335.) C-OAR-SE construct measurement theory is then applied to develop a new and more valid measure, called ER-SERVCOMPSQUAL. This new measure seeks potential customers' and current customers' judgments about the quality of the components of e-retail service (thus ensuring high item-content validity), which are rated in terms of behavioral answer categories (which have high answer-scale validity). The new measure clearly shows e-retail managers where to make improvements in their service quality. [Service Science, ISSN 2164-3962 (print), ISSN 2164-3970 (online), was published by Services Science Global (SSG) from 2009 to 2011 as issues under ISBN 978-1-4276-2090-3.]
Multi-Level Coordination and Decision-Making in Service Operations
Authors: Wernz Christian , Henry Andrew 
Published: April 2012

Decisions in service operations are complex since they involve various interdependent decision-makers (agents) at different hierarchical levels, ranging from customer representatives over account managers to top executives. We formulate a three-level maintenance service problem as a stochastic decision-making model, with an account manager, supervisor, and worker at each of the three levels. The proposed incentive mechanism aligns the interests of lower level agents with the goals of the top agent. The agents' strategic interactions are analyzed game-theoretically and results show that a Pareto-efficient Nash equilibrium can be attained given certain organizational properties. Furthermore, we show that local information can be sufficient for organization-wide optimal decisions. In a final step, the three-level model is generalized for multi-level, i.e., multi-organizational-scale, systems. [Service Science, ISSN 2164-3962 (print), ISSN 2164-3970 (online), was published by Services Science Global (SSG) from 2009 to 2011 as issues under ISBN 978-1-4276-2090-3.]
Service as Mutualism: A Question of Viability in Systems
Authors: Metcalf Gary S. 
Published: April 2012

Service-based industries now dominate the most advanced economies of the world. There is, however, no fully interdisciplinary foundation for research into the development of service, per se. The creation of a service science has been proposed, which would bring into question many traditional assumptions about economics. This paper explores service as a science, and proposes that the biological concept of mutualism be used as one aspect for developing a foundation of service science. [Service Science, ISSN 2164-3962 (print), ISSN 2164-3970 (online), was published by Services Science Global (SSG) from 2009 to 2011 as issues under ISBN 978-1-4276-2090-3.]
Service Systems Through the Prism of Conceptual Modeling
Authors: Stanicek Zdenko , Winkler Marek 
Published: April 2012

We seek means of further improving the process of service innovation by providing conceptual framework that would uniformly model information about a service system. Since value co-creation is achieved through knowledge-based interactions, such a framework should be a connection-oriented one. We propose uniform approach to context-sensitive relationships modeling and representation, based on semantic conceptual modeling, suitable for modeling both service system interactions and information about a service system itself. Its application is illustrated on digital libraries domain. The proposed representation may be combined with goal-driven development methods to allow closer interconnection of goals and value proposition. The paper presents application of an original conceptual reference model of service system, which may provide more elaborated background for service innovation process. [Service Science, ISSN 2164-3962 (print), ISSN 2164-3970 (online), was published by Services Science Global (SSG) from 2009 to 2011 as issues under ISBN 978-1-4276-2090-3.]
A Brief Review of Systems Theories and Their Managerial Applications
Authors: Mele Cristina , Pels Jacqueline , Polese Francesco 
Published: April 2012

[Modified excerpt] Systems theory is an interdisciplinary theory about every system in nature, in society and in many scientific domains as well as a framework with which we can investigate phenomena from a holistic approach. Systems thinking comes from the shift in attention from the part to the whole, considering the observed reality as an integrated and interacting unicuum of phenomena where the individual properties of the single parts become indistinct. In contrast, the relationships between the parts themselves and the events they produce through their interaction become much more important, with the result that system elements are rationally connected towards a shared purpose. The systemic perspective argues that we are not able to fully comprehend a phenomenon simply by breaking it up into elementary parts and then reforming it; we instead need to apply a global vision to underline its functioning. Although we can start from the analysis of the elementary components of a phenomenon, in order to fully comprehend the phenomenon in its entirety we have to observe it also from a higher level: a holistic perspective. [Service Science, ISSN 2164-3962 (print), ISSN 2164-3970 (online), was published by Services Science Global (SSG) from 2009 to 2011 as issues under ISBN 978-1-4276-2090-3.]
Smart Service Systems and Viable Service Systems: Applying Systems Theory to Service Science
Authors: Barile Sergio , Polese Francesco 
Published: April 2012

The objective of this paper is to review recent developments in service theory and systems theory with a view to identifying common features between the two. In particular, the study explores the issue of whether so-called ‘smart service systems’ can be understood in terms of the ‘viable systems approach’ of systems theory. The paper begins with a review of recent developments in service theory by examining the fundamental principles of service-dominant logic (S-D logic) and service science (SS). The similarities and differences of the two are explored, with particular emphasis on the common feature of the service system. The study then moves to the realm of systems theory by exploring the main proposals of the viable systems approach (VSA), which is an interdisciplinary systems theory that includes elements derived from resource-based theory, biology, sociology, and mechanics. The paper then draws together service theory and systems theory by examining whether ‘smart service systems’ can be best understood in terms of ‘viable service systems.’ The most important finding of the study is that the VSA provides valuable insights into the design and management of smart service systems, especially with regard to harmonisation, systems governance, and successful value co-creation processes. [Service Science, ISSN 2164-3962 (print), ISSN 2164-3970 (online), was published by Services Science Global (SSG) from 2009 to 2011 as issues under ISBN 978-1-4276-2090-3.]
A VSA-SS Approach to Healthcare Service Systems the Triple Target of Efficiency, Effectiveness and Sustainability
Authors: Saviano Marialuisa , Bassano Clara , Calabrese Mario 
Published: April 2012

The main purpose of this paper is to highlight the new opportunities that the Viable Systems Approach (VSA) can provide for observing complex service systems and explaining social phenomena through general schemes of interpretation. At the same time, it explores methodological links with the Service Science (SS) approach in order to propose (VSA)'s contribution to moulding a unified vision of complex objects of analysis, and to evidence the many converging elements that emerge from the two perspectives as well as the benefits that derive from different interpretation schemes. In particular, in our paper we analyze healthcare service complexity in a relational perspective, using a VSA-SS conceptual framework to interpret the emergent systems instability in the Italian Health Service. The application of principles and concepts proper to the (VSA) and the SS approaches to articulated service structures, such as healthcare, identifies critical features and interesting new “therapeutic” prospects for healthcare service systems in order to guarantee their viability. The paper proposes an innovative methodological basis for evaluating the level of appropriateness of the healthcare service and, at the same time, evidences the need for achieving a balanced triple target of efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability (EES) in healthcare service systems governance. As a result, a new area of cross fertilization for collaborative research emerges. [Service Science, ISSN 2164-3962 (print), ISSN 2164-3970 (online), was published by Services Science Global (SSG) from 2009 to 2011 as issues under ISBN 978-1-4276-2090-3.]
Descriptive Evidence on the Role of Corporate Brands in Marketing Higher Education Services
Authors: Mourad Maha , Ennew Christine , Kortam Wael 
Published: April 2012

The intangible and inseparable nature of services is generally thought to increase the risk perceived by consumers when making purchase decisions. This higher level of perceived risk arises because, relative to physical goods, services are characterized by higher levels of experience and credence qualities and lower levels of search qualities. Building brand equity for a service is increasingly recognized as a means of mitigating that risk and creating a strong identity for a service in an increasingly competitive marketplace. The service sector chosen for the empirical research was higher education services in Egypt. In essence, higher education is a professional service characterized by a high level of experience qualities which make the purchase risky and means that branding is important as a source of reassurance to students about the quality of what they will receive. The paper begins with a brief overview of relevant literature and then proceeds to outline the components of brand equity providing the conceptual framework which guides the research. Subsequently, the empirical work is presented, focusing on the comparison between experienced and inexperienced consumers to assess the extent to which corporate brands are able to communicate information about key features of a service. Finally, the results of the survey are discussed and the managerial implications are presented. [Service Science, ISSN 2164-3962 (print), ISSN 2164-3970 (online), was published by Services Science Global (SSG) from 2009 to 2011 as issues under ISBN 978-1-4276-2090-3.]
Quality of University Services: Dimensional Structure of SERVQUAL VS. ESQS
Authors: Salvador-Ferrer Carmen María 
Published: April 2012

Analysis of service quality from the perspective of the customer has generated much attention. The scale most used to develop such studies is the SERVQUAL. This tool has undergone much criticism, mainly focusing on the situational instability shown by the dimensions in certain cases. This work does not reject the proposals of that instrument, but attempts to improve its internal consistency and assess its dimensional structure. To do this, the Enlarged Service Quality Scale (ESQS) has been designed and applied to the university context. The ESQS is mainly characterized by compensating the number of items in all the dimensions, seeking better intra-dimensional consistency. The results confirm the applicability of this scale in non-educational university services, show considerable improvement in its consistency and, further, indicate that the traditional dimensions of SERVQUAL can be reduced and clustered in the macro categories, interactive quality and physical quality. The data also demonstrate the importance of the dimensions related to personalized treatment and interaction in user satisfaction. [Service Science, ISSN 2164-3962 (print), ISSN 2164-3970 (online), was published by Services Science Global (SSG) from 2009 to 2011 as issues under ISBN 978-1-4276-2090-3.]