Co-constructing a new framework for evaluating social innovation in marginalized rural areas

The EU funded H2020 project \u2018Social Innovation in Marginalised Rural Areas\u2019 (SIMRA; www.simra-h2020.eu) has the overall objective of advancing the state-of-the-art in social innovation. This paper outlines the process for co- developing an evaluation framework with stakeholders, drawn from across Europe and the Mediterranean area, in the fields of agriculture, forestry and rural development. Preliminary results show the importance of integrating process and outcome-oriented evaluations, and implementing participatory approaches in evaluation practice. They also raise critical issues related to the comparability of primary data in diverse regional contexts and highlight the need for mixed methods approaches in evaluation

Inter-reader agreement of high-resolution computed tomography findings in patients with COVID-19 pneumonia: A multi-reader study

Purpose: To investigate the inter-reader agreement in assessing high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) features of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pneumonia. Method: Seventy-seven consecutive patients (mean age, 64 \ub1 15\ua0years) with mild COVID-19 pneumonia that underwent HRCT were retrospectively included. Three radiologists [two devoted to thoracic imaging (R1, R2), and one generalist (R3)] on a per-examination basis independently assessed ground-glass opacity (GGO), consolidation, and crazy-paving pattern. The extent of each feature (total feature score, TFS) was semi-quantitatively assessed, and each TFS summed up to obtain total lung score (TLS). Presence of organizing pneumonia (OP) pattern was also recorded. The inter-reader agreement was calculated with Cohen\u2019s Kappa (k) and Free-Marginal Multirater k. Multivariable analysis was run to determine whether imaging features were predictive of short-term evolution to severe disease (need for ventilation). Results: Most features showed substantial inter-reader agreement, including TLS > 6 (k = 0.69), which was an independent predictor of short-term occurrence of severe disease, regardless of the reader (OR 9\u201353.19). Consolidation TFS > 2 and OP pattern showed substantial and moderate agreement, respectively, only when comparing R1 and R2. Consolidation TFS > 2 and OP pattern were independent predictors of severe disease for R2 (OR 4.87) and R1 (OR 6), respectively. Conclusions: The inter-reader agreement for most HRCT features of COVID-19 pneumonia ranges moderate-to-substantial, though it depends on readers\u2019 experience in the case of consolidation and OP pattern

A cross validation of Consumer-Based Brand Equity (CBBE) with Private Labels in Spain

Molinillo,S., Ekinci, Y., Japutra, A. (2014)'A cross validation of Consumer-Based Brand Equity (CBBE) with Private Labels in Spain'. in Martínez-López, Gázquez-Abad, J.C. and Sethuraman, R. J.A. (eds.) Advances in National Brand and Private Label Marketing. Second International Conference, 2015. Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics, pp. 113-125In recent years a number of Consumer-Based Brand Equity (CBBE) models and measurement scales have been introduced in the branding literature. However, examinations of brand equity in Private Labels (PL) are rather limited. This study aims to compare the validity of the two prominent CBBE models those introduced by Yoo and Donthu (2001) and Nam et al. (2011). In order to test the models and make this comparison, the study collected data from 236 respondents who rated private labels in Spain. A list of 30 different fashion and sportswear PL was introduced to respondents. These brands do not make any reference to the retail store in which they are sold. Research findings suggest that the extended CBBE model introduced by Nam et al. (2011) and Ciftci et al. (2014) is more reliable and valid than Yoo and Donthu’s model for assessing PL. Theoretical contributions and managerial implications are discussed.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

The role of the exit in the initial screening of investment opportunities: The case of business angel syndicate gatekeepers

The exit process has been largely ignored in business angel research.. The practitioner community identifies the difficulty in achieving exits as the most pressing problem for investors. This has been attributed to the failure of investors to adopt an exit-centric approach to investing. The validity of this claim is examined via a study of the investment approach of 21 ‘gatekeepers’ (managers) of angel groups in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Most gatekeepers say that they do consider the exit when they invest. However, this is contradicted by a verbal protocol analysis which indicates that the exit is not a significant consideration in their initial screening process. The small number of exits achieved by the groups is consistent with the general lack of an exit-centric approach to investing. Only three groups exhibit evidence of a strong exit-centric approach to investing. The lack of exits may have a negative impact on the level of future angel investment activity

Attachment styles and personal growth following romantic breakups: The mediating roles of distress, rumination, and tendency to rebound

© 2013 Marshall et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.The purpose of this research was to examine the associations of attachment anxiety and avoidance with personal growth following relationship dissolution, and to test breakup distress, rumination, and tendency to rebound with new partners as mediators of these associations. Study 1 (N = 411) and Study 2 (N = 465) measured attachment style, breakup distress, and personal growth; Study 2 additionally measured ruminative reflection, brooding, and proclivity to rebound with new partners. Structural equation modelling revealed in both studies that anxiety was indirectly associated with greater personal growth through heightened breakup distress, whereas avoidance was indirectly associated with lower personal growth through inhibited breakup distress. Study 2 further showed that the positive association of breakup distress with personal growth was accounted for by enhanced reflection and brooding, and that anxious individuals’ greater personal growth was also explained by their proclivity to rebound. These findings suggest that anxious individuals’ hyperactivated breakup distress may act as a catalyst for personal growth by promoting the cognitive processing of breakup-related thoughts and emotions, whereas avoidant individuals’ deactivated distress may inhibit personal growth by suppressing this cognitive work

Revertant Fibers in the mdx Murine Model of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy: An Age- and Muscle-Related reappraisal

Muscles in Duchenne dystrophy patients are characterized by the absence of dystrophin, yet transverse sections show a small percentage of fibers (termed “revertant fibers”) positive for dystrophin expression. This phenomenon, whose biological bases have not been fully elucidated, is present also in the murine and canine models of DMD and can confound the evaluation of therapeutic approaches. We analyzed 11 different muscles in a cohort of 40 mdx mice, the most commonly model used in pre-clinical studies, belonging to four age groups; such number of animals allowed us to perform solid ANOVA statistical analysis. We assessed the average number of dystrophin-positive fibers, both absolute and normalized for muscle size, and the correlation between their formation and the ageing process. Our results indicate that various muscles develop different numbers of revertant fibers, with different time trends; besides, they suggest that the biological mechanism(s) behind dystrophin re-expression might not be limited to the early development phases but could actually continue during adulthood. Importantly, such finding was seen also in cardiac muscle, a fact that does not fit into the current hypothesis of the clonal origin of “revertant” myonuclei from satellite cells. This work represents the largest, statistically significant analysis of revertant fibers in mdx mice so far, which can now be used as a reference point for improving the evaluation of therapeutic approaches for DMD. At the same time, it provides new clues about the formation of revertant fibers/cardiomyocytes in dystrophic skeletal and cardiac muscle

Time-lapsing biodiversity: an open source method for measuring diversity changes by remote sensing

Understanding biodiversity changes in time is crucial to promptly provide management practices against diversity loss. This is overall true when considering global scales, since human-induced global change is expected to make significant changes on the Earth's biota. Biodiversity management and planning is mainly based on field observations related to community diversity, considering different taxa. However, such methods are time and cost demanding and do not allow in most cases to get temporal replicates. In this view, remote sensing can provide a wide data coverage in a short period of time. Recently, the use of Rao's Q diversity as a measure of spectral diversity has been proposed in order to explicitly take into account differences in a neighbourhood considering abundance and relative distance among pixels. The aim of this paper was to extend such a measure over the temporal dimension and to present an innovative approach to calculate remotely sensed temporal diversity. We demonstrated that temporal beta-diversity (spectral turnover) can be calculated pixel-wise in terms of both slope and coefficient of variation and further plotted over the whole matrix / image. From an ecological and operational point of view, for prioritisation practices in biodiversity protection, temporal variability could be beneficial in order to plan more efficient conservation practices starting from spectral diversity hotspots in space and time. In this paper, we delivered a highly reproducible approach to calculate spatio-temporal diversity in a robust and straightforward manner. Since it is based on open source code, we expect that our method will be further used by several researchers and landscape managers

Establishing comprehensive oral assessments for children with safeguarding concerns.

The dental profession is well placed to contribute important information in child protection cases but no previous research has been reported that assesses the volume or impact of this information. Comprehensive oral assessment clinics were introduced and established as an integral part of comprehensive medical assessments for children with welfare concerns in Greater Glasgow and Clyde. An assessment protocol and standardised paperwork for comprehensive oral assessments were developed to enhance information sharing and patient access to appropriate care. Two cases are presented and discussed to demonstrate the value of dental input

Unusual explosive growth of a squamous cell carcinoma of the scalp after electrical burn injury and subsequent coverage by sequential free flap vascular connection – a case report

BACKGROUND: Squamous cell carcinomos may arise from chronic ulcerating wounds in scars, most commonly postburn scars. Tumour growth usually takes place over months to years. Localization on the scalp is a relatively rare condition. CASE PRESENTATION: This report presents the case of a 63-year-old man with chronic ulceration of a postburn scar of the scalp due to an electrical burn 58 years ago. Sudden tumour growth started within weeks and on presentation already had extended through the skull into frontal cortex. After radical tumour resection, defect was covered with a free radial forearm flap. Local recurrence occurred 6 weeks later. Subsequent wide excision including discard of the flap and preservation of the radial vessels was followed by transfer of a free latissimus dorsi muscle flap, using the radial vessels of the first flap as recipient vessels. The patient received radiotherapy post-operatively. There were no problems with flap survivals or wound healing. Due to rapidly growing recurrence the patient died 2 months later. CONCLUSION: Explosive SCC tumour growth might occur in post-burn scars after more than 50 years. As a treatment option the use of sequential free flap connections might serve in repeated extensive tumour resections, especially in the scalp region, where suitable donor vessels are often located in distance to the defect

Terahertz underdamped vibrational motion governs protein-ligand binding in solution

Low-frequency collective vibrational modes in proteins have been proposed as being responsible for efficiently directing biochemical reactions and biological energy transport. However, evidence of the existence of delocalized vibrational modes is scarce and proof of their involvement in biological function absent. Here we apply extremely sensitive femtosecond optical Kerr-effect spectroscopy to study the depolarized Raman spectra of lysozyme and its complex with the inhibitor triacetylchitotriose in solution. Underdamped delocalized vibrational modes in the terahertz frequency domain are identified and shown to blue-shift and strengthen upon inhibitor binding. This demonstrates that the ligand-binding coordinate in proteins is underdamped and not simply solvent-controlled as previously assumed. The presence of such underdamped delocalized modes in proteins may have significant implications for the understanding of the efficiency of ligand binding and protein–molecule interactions, and has wider implications for biochemical reactivity and biological function