Explaining knowledge sharing: The role of team communication styles, job satisfaction, and performance beliefs

In this study, the authors investigate the relationships between team communication styles and job-related cognitions on one hand and knowledge-sharing attitudes and behaviors on the other using 424 members of different work-related teams. Both eagerness and willingness to share are positively related to knowledge sharing - both donating and collecting knowledge. These attitudes mediate the relationships of communication styles, job satisfaction, and performance beliefs with knowledge-collecting and donating behaviors. In terms of team communication styles, an agreeable style is positively related to team members' willingness to share their knowledge, whereas an extravert communication style of a team is positively related to both eagerness and willingness to share. Performance beliefs and job satisfaction are both related to willingness and eagerness to share knowledge. However, in contrast with the authors' expectations, the relationship between eagerness to share knowledge and knowledge donating is not stronger than the one between eagerness and knowledge collecting. © 2006 Sage Publications

Incidence rates of narcolepsy diagnoses in Taiwan, Canada, and Europe: The use of statistical simulation to evaluate methods for the rapid assessment of potential safety issues on a population level in the SOMNIA study

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES: Vaccine safety signals require investigation, which may be done rapidly at the population level using ecological studies, before embarking on hypothesis-testing studies. Incidence rates were used to assess a signal of narcolepsy following AS03-adjuvanted monovalent pandemic H1N1 (pH1N1) influenza vaccination among children and adolescents in Sweden and Finland in 2010. We explored the utility of ecological data to assess incidence of narcolepsy following exposure to pandemic H1N1 virus or vaccination in 10 sites that used different vaccines, adjuvants, and had varying vaccine coverage.METHODS: We calculated incidence rates of diagnosed narcolepsy for periods defined by influenza virus circulation and vaccination campaign dates, and used Poisson regression to estimate incidence rate ratios (IRRs) comparing the periods during which wild-type virus circulated and after the start of vaccination campaigns vs. the period prior to pH1N1 virus circulation. We used electronic health care data from Sweden, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Canada (3 provinces), Taiwan, Netherlands, and Spain (2 regions) from 2003 to 2013. We investigated interactions between age group and adjuvant in European sites and conducted a simulation study to investigate how vaccine coverage, age, and the interval from onset to diagnosis may impact the ability to detect safety signals.RESULTS: Incidence rates of narcolepsy varied by age, continent, and period. Only in Taiwan and Sweden were significant time-period-by-age-group interactions observed. Associations were found for children in Taiwan (following pH1N1 virus circulation) and Sweden (following vaccination). Simulations showed that the individual-level relative risk of narcolepsy was underestimated using ecological methods comparing post- vs. pre-vaccination periods; this effect was attenuated with higher vaccine coverage and a shorter interval from disease onset to diagnosis.CONCLUSIONS: Ecological methods can be useful for vaccine safety assessment but the results are influenced by diagnostic delay and vaccine coverage. Because ecological methods assess risk at the population level, these methods should be treated as signal-generating methods and drawing conclusions regarding individual-level risk should be avoided

Short-term and long-term outcomes of a disruption and disconnection of the pancreatic duct in necrotizing pancreatitis: a multicenter cohort study in 896 patients

INTRODUCTION: Necrotizing pancreatitis may result in a disrupted or disconnected pancreatic duct (DPD) with the potential for long-lasting negative impact on a patient's clinical outcome. There is a lack of detailed data on the full clinical spectrum of DPD, which is critical for the development of better diagnostic and treatment strategies. METHODS: We performed a long-term post hoc analysis of a prospectively collected nationwide cohort of 896 patients with necrotizing pancreatitis (2005-2015). The median follow-up after hospital admission was 75 months (P25-P75: 41-151). Clinical outcomes of patients with and without DPD were compared using regression analyses, adjusted for potential confounders. Predictive features for DPD were explored. RESULTS:  DPD was confirmed in 243 (27%) of the 896 patients and resulted in worse clinical outcomes during both the patient's initial admission and follow-up. During hospital admission, DPD was associated with an increased rate of new-onset intensive care unit admission (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 2.52; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.62-3.93), new-onset organ failure (aOR 2.26; 95% CI 1.45-3.55), infected necrosis (aOR 4.63; 95% CI 2.87-7.64), and pancreatic interventions (aOR 7.55; 95% CI 4.23-13.96). During long-term follow-up, DPD increased the risk of pancreatic intervention (aOR 9.71; 95% CI 5.37-18.30), recurrent pancreatitis (aOR 2.08; 95% CI 1.32-3.29), chronic pancreatitis (aOR 2.73; 95% CI 1.47-5.15), and endocrine pancreatic insufficiency (aOR 1.63; 95% CI 1.05-2.53). Central or subtotal pancreatic necrosis on computed tomography (OR 9.49; 95% CI 6.31-14.29) and a high level of serum C-reactive protein in the first 48 hours after admission (per 10-point increase, OR 1.02; 95% CI 1.00-1.03) were identified as independent predictors for developing DPD. DISCUSSION:  At least 1 of every 4 patients with necrotizing pancreatitis experience DPD, which is associated with detrimental, short-term and long-term interventions, and complications. Central and subtotal pancreatic necrosis and high levels of serum C-reactive protein in the first 48 hours are independent predictors for DPD.Cellular mechanisms in basic and clinical gastroenterology and hepatolog

Neutrino oscillation studies with IceCube-DeepCore

AbstractIceCube, a gigaton-scale neutrino detector located at the South Pole, was primarily designed to search for astrophysical neutrinos with energies of PeV and higher. This goal has been achieved with the detection of the highest energy neutrinos to date. At the other end of the energy spectrum, the DeepCore extension lowers the energy threshold of the detector to approximately 10 GeV and opens the door for oscillation studies using atmospheric neutrinos. An analysis of the disappearance of these neutrinos has been completed, with the results produced being complementary with dedicated oscillation experiments. Following a review of the detector principle and performance, the method used to make these calculations, as well as the results, is detailed. Finally, the future prospects of IceCube-DeepCore and the next generation of neutrino experiments at the South Pole (IceCube-Gen2, specifically the PINGU sub-detector) are briefly discussed

A muon-track reconstruction exploiting stochastic losses for large-scale Cherenkov detectors

IceCube is a cubic-kilometer Cherenkov telescope operating at the South Pole. The main goal of IceCube is the detection of astrophysical neutrinos and the identification of their sources. High-energy muon neutrinos are observed via the secondary muons produced in charge current interactions with nuclei in the ice. Currently, the best performing muon track directional reconstruction is based on a maximum likelihood method using the arrival time distribution of Cherenkov photons registered by the experiment\u27s photomultipliers. A known systematic shortcoming of the prevailing method is to assume a continuous energy loss along the muon track. However at energies >1 TeV the light yield from muons is dominated by stochastic showers. This paper discusses a generalized ansatz where the expected arrival time distribution is parametrized by a stochastic muon energy loss pattern. This more realistic parametrization of the loss profile leads to an improvement of the muon angular resolution of up to 20% for through-going tracks and up to a factor 2 for starting tracks over existing algorithms. Additionally, the procedure to estimate the directional reconstruction uncertainty has been improved to be more robust against numerical errors

Computational pan-genomics: Status, promises and challenges

Many disciplines, from human genetics and oncology to plant breeding, microbiology and virology, commonly face the challenge of analyzing rapidly increasing numbers of genomes. In case of Homo sapiens, the number of sequenced genomes will approach hundreds of thousands in the next few years. Simply scaling up established bioinformatics pipelines will not be sufficient for leveraging the full potential of such rich genomic data sets. Instead, novel, qualitatively different Computational methods and paradigms are needed.We will witness the rapid extension of Computational pan-genomics, a new sub-area of research in Computational biology. In this article, we generalize existing definitions and understand a pangenome as any collection of genomic sequences to be analyzed jointly or to be used as a reference. We examine already available approaches to construct and use pan-genomes, discuss the potential benefits of future technologies and methodologies and review open challenges from the vantage point of the above-mentioned biological disciplines. As a prominent example for a Computational paradigm shift, we particularly highlight the transition from the representation of reference genomes as strings to representations

Narcolepsy and adjuvanted pandemic influenza A (H1N1) 2009 vaccines – Multi-country assessment

Background: In 2010, a safety signal was detected for narcolepsy following vaccination with Pandemrix, an AS03-adjuvanted monovalent pandemic H1N1 influenza (pH1N1) vaccine. To further assess a possible association and inform policy on future use of adjuvants, we conducted a multi-country study of narcolepsy and adjuvanted pH1N1 vaccines. Methods: We used electronic health databases to conduct a dynamic retrospective cohort study to assess narcolepsy incidence rates (IR) before and during pH1N1 virus circulation, and after pH1N1 vaccination campaigns in Canada, Denmark, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Using a case-control study design, we evaluated the risk of narcolepsy following AS03- and MF59-adjuvanted pH1N1 vaccines in Argentina, Canada, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, and the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, we also conducted a case-coverage study in children born between 2004 and 2009. Results: No changes in narcolepsy IRs were observed in any periods in single study sites except Sweden and Taiwan; in Taiwan incidence increased after wild-type pH1N1 virus circulation and in Sweden (a previously identified signaling country), incidence increased after the start of pH1N1 vaccination. No association was observed for Arepanrix-AS03 or Focetria-MF59 adjuvanted pH1N1 vaccines and narcolepsy in children or adults in the case-control study nor for children born between 2004 and 2009 in the Netherlands case-coverage study for Pandemrix-AS03. Conclusions: Other than elevated narcolepsy IRs in the period after vaccination campaigns in Sweden, we did not find an association between AS03- or MF59-adjuvanted pH1N1 vaccines and narcolepsy in children or adults in the sites studied, although power to evaluate the AS03-adjuvanted Pandemrix brand vaccine was limited in our study

Fluidization behavior of wood/sand mixtures

In conversion of biomass to secondary energy carriers, several routes are possible, such as gasification, combustion and pyrolysis. In many of these processes it is necessary or advantageous to dry the biomass before further processing. For wooden biomass, fluidized bed drying in superheated steam is a promising option. Given the difficulty to fluidize wood particles alone, it is very common to fluidize these kinds of particles with sand. This also gives better defined fluidization behavior. Especially when the wood particles come in various size and shape (i.e. from sawdust to chopped wood), this gives a more reliable scale-up. Also heat transfer to the wood particles may benefit from the use of sand. However, not much is known about fluidization behavior in pressurized steam of binary mixtures with large particle size ratio and large particle density ratio. Therefore minimum fluidization velocity and bed porosity of wood/sand mixtures in air have been experimentally determined and compared to correlations known from literature. The experimental values show a clear trend, but correlations from literature appear not to be very accurate. So more experiments have to be done to find a correlation that gives more accurate predictions in case of the specific particles used in this work. From segregation experiments could be found that, to keep the wood/sand bed well-mixed, finer sand (0.1-0.5 mm) with maximum 10 weight-% wood should be used, and the superficial gas velocity should be at least 3-4 times the minimum fluidization velocity