Modelling and prevention of acute kidney injury through ischemia and reperfusion in a combined human renal proximal Tubule/Blood Vessel-on-a-Chip

Analytical BioScience

Negative incentive steering in a policy network

In this article the process of developing a policy for the recent comprehensive retrenchment operation in the Dutch university system is analysed from a theoretical point of view on decisionmaking. The article especially addresses the question whether some empirical evidence can be found for the rationalist view of collective decision-making, which states that a process of social communication should eventually lead to a unanimous and rational consensus concerning the selection of the optimal policy.\ud \ud The actual analysis concerns the way a retrenchment policy has been developed in a process of social communication between the most important actors: the Minister of Education and Science and the thirteen Dutch universities. It is assumed that the various communicative linkages between these actors can be interpreted as a policy network in which both governmental and non-governmental actors operate.\ud \ud The article concludes that in the Dutch university policy-network a complicated balance of interdependencies exists and that several sub-networks can be distinguished. It is also concluded that the Minister, while recognizing the interdependencies in the network, was able to use a special kind of (negative) incentive, inducing the universities to act as he wished.\ud \ud This negative incentive steering, however, also persuaded the universities to go to the utmost in their consultation efforts, thus trying to reach the rationalist ideal of collective decision-making. The final conclusion therefore is that the rationalist view of collective decision-making does not appear to be unrealistic. The article ends with a warning against a common mistake made regarding the normative appearance of the rationalist perspective

Proposal for a multilevel university cybermetric analysis model

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11192-012-0868-5Universities’ online seats have gradually become complex systems of dynamic information where all their institutions and services are linked and potentially accessible. These online seats now constitute a central node around which universities construct and document their main activities and services. This information can be quantitative measured by cybermetric techniques in order to design university web rankings, taking the university as a global reference unit. However, previous research into web subunits shows that it is possible to carry out systemic web analyses, which open up the possibility of carrying out studies which address university diversity, necessary for both describing the university in greater detail and for establishing comparable ranking units. To address this issue, a multilevel university cybermetric analysis model is proposed, based on parts (core and satellite), levels (institutional and external) and sublevels (contour and internal), providing a deeper analysis of institutions. Finally the model is integrated into another which is independent of the technique used, and applied by analysing Harvard University as an example of use.Orduña Malea, E.; Ontalba Ruipérez, JA. (2013). Proposal for a multilevel university cybermetric analysis model. Scientometrics. 95(3):863-884. doi:10.1007/s11192-012-0868-5S863884953Acosta Márquez, T., Igartua Perosanz, J.J. & Gómez Isla, J. (2009). Páginas web de las universidades españolas. Enred: revista digital de la Universidad de Salamanca, 5 [online; discontinued].Aguillo, I. F. (1998). Hacia un concepto documental de sede web. El Profesional de la Información, 7(1–2), 45–46.Aguillo, I. F. (2009). Measuring the institutions’ footprint in the web. Library Hi Tech, 27(4), 540–556.Aguillo, I. F., Granadino, B., Ortega, J. L., & Prieto, J. A. (2006). Scientific research activity and communication measured with cybermetrics indicators. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 57(10), 1296–1302.Aguillo, I. F., Ortega, J. L., & Fernández, M. (2008). Webometric Ranking of World Universities: introduction, methodology, and future developments. Higher Education in Europe, 33(2/3), 234–244.Ayan, N., Li, W.-S., & Kolak, O. (2002). Automatic extraction of logical domains in a web site. Data & Knowledge Engineering, 43(2), 179–205.Barjak, F., Li, X., & Thelwall, M. (2007). Which factors explain the Web impact of scientists’ personal homepages? Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 58(2), 200–211.Berners-Lee, T., & Fischetti, M. (2000). Tejiendo la Red. Madrid: Siglo XXI.Björneborn, L., & Ingwersen, P. (2004). Toward a basic framework for webometrics. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 55(14), 1216–1227.Buenadicha, M., Chamorro, A., Miranda, F. J., & González, O. R. (2001). A new web assessment index: Spanish Universities Analysis. Internet Research, 11(3), 226–234.Castells, M. (2001). La galaxia Internet. Barcelona: Plaza y Janés.Chu, H., He, S., & Thelwall, M. (2002). Library and Information Science Schools in Canada and USA: a Webometric perspective. Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, 43(2), 110–125.Crowston, K., & Williams, M. (2000). Reproduced and Emergent Genres of Communication on the World Wide Web. The Information Society: an International Journal, 16(3), 201–215.Goldfarb, A. (2006). The (teaching) role of universities in the diffusion of the Internet. International Journal of Industrial Organization, 24(2), 203–225.Ingwersen, P. (1998). The calculation of web impact factors. Journal of Documentation, 54(2), 236–243.Katz, R. N. (2008a). The tower and the cloud: Higher education in the age of cloud computing. USA: Educause.Katz, R. N. (2008b). The gathering cloud: is this the end of the middle. In R. N. Katz (Ed.), The tower and the cloud: Higher education in the age of cloud computing (p. 2008). USA: Educause.Li, X. (2005). National and international university departmental Web site interlinking: a webometric analysis. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Wolverhampton, UK: University of Wolverhampton.Li, X., Thelwall, M., Musgrove, P., & Wilkinson, D. (2003). The relationship between the links/Web Impact Factors of computer science departments in UK and their RAE (Research Assessment Exercise) ranking in 2001. Scientometrics, 57(2), 239–255.Middleton, I., McConnell, M., & Davidson, G. (1999). Presenting a model for the structure and content of a University World Wide Web site. Journal of Information Science, 25(3), 217–219.Orduña-Malea, E. (2012). Propuesta de un modelo de análisis redinformétrico multinivel para el estudio sistémico de las universidades españolas (2010). Valencia: Polytechnic University of Valencia.Ortega, J. L., & Aguillo, Isidro. F. (2007). La web académica española en el contexto del Espacio Europeo de Educación Superior: estudio exploratorio. El profesional de la información, 16(5), 417–425.Pareja, V. M., Ortega, J. L., Prieto, J. A., Arroyo, N., & Aguillo, I. F. (2005). Desarrollo y aplicación del concepto de sede web como unidad documental de análisis en Cibermetría. Jornadas Españolas de Documentación, 9, 325–340.Saorín, T. (2012). Arquitectura de la dispersión: gestionar los riesgos cíclicos de fragmentación de las webs corporativas. Anuario ThinkEPI, 6, 281–287.Tang, R., & Thelwall, M. (2003). U.S. academic departmental Web-site interlinking: disciplinary differences. Library & Information Science Research, 25(4), 437–458.Tang, R., & Thelwall, M. (2004). Patterns of national and international web inlinks to US academic departments: an analysis of disciplinary variations. Scientometrics, 60(3), 475–485.Thelwall, M. (2002a). A research and institutional size based model for national university Web site interlinking. Journal of Documentation, 58(6), 683–694.Thelwall, M. (2002b). Conceptualizing documentation on the Web: an evaluation of different heuristic-based models for counting links between university web sites. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 53(12), 995–1005.Thelwall, M. (2003). Web use and peer interconnectivity metrics for academic Web sites. Journal of Information Science, 29(1), 11–20.Thelwall, M. (2009). Introduction to Webometrics: quantitative web research for the social sciences. San Rafael: Morgan & Claypool.Thelwall, M., & Harries, G. (2004a). Can personal Web pages that link to universities yield information about the wider dissemination of research? 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Use of news articles and announcements on official websites of universities. Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology, 10(2), 287–296

Quality Assurance Driving Factors as Antecedents of Knowledge Management: a Stakeholder-Focussed Perspective in Higher Education

Similar to many other types of organisations, the successful development of higher education institutions generally depends on proactive multi-stakeholder management strategy. As a social responsibility of universities, quality assurance (QA) of higher education is already an established research domain. However, the issues that serve as driving factors in higher education’s quality are acknowledged in this vast knowledge stream in a dispersed way. An objective of this paper is to provide a quick snapshot of the major QA driving factors in higher education. Another objective here is to discuss the significance of these existing QA driving factors in higher education as prospective antecedents of knowledge management among the key stakeholders in the higher education sector and beyond. An inductive constructivist approach is followed to review the relevant QA driving factors from the extant scholarly views. A number of relevant factors are précised from the literature that would be instrumental to uphold quality in higher education. The discussion demonstrates that these factors are also significant to transfer and share knowledge between the key stakeholders not only for universities, but also for businesses, governments and other organisational stakeholders. The paper proposes a framework of the QA drivers’ application for meaningful knowledge transfer between diverse stakeholders and clarifies the framework’s managerial implications. This conceptual framework specifies different scenarios and perspectives of QA drivers’ application in the global education sector. The academic novelty is based on the inductive approach applied in the paper. QA practitioners will be able to follow these factors as steering phenomena to effectively assure quality, in relation to their multi-stakeholder relationships in higher education and beyond

Erratum to: 36th International Symposium on Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1186/s13054-016-1208-6.]

Rare predicted loss-of-function variants of type I IFN immunity genes are associated with life-threatening COVID-19

Background: We previously reported that impaired type I IFN activity, due to inborn errors of TLR3- and TLR7-dependent type I interferon (IFN) immunity or to autoantibodies against type I IFN, account for 15–20% of cases of life-threatening COVID-19 in unvaccinated patients. Therefore, the determinants of life-threatening COVID-19 remain to be identified in ~ 80% of cases. Methods: We report here a genome-wide rare variant burden association analysis in 3269 unvaccinated patients with life-threatening COVID-19, and 1373 unvaccinated SARS-CoV-2-infected individuals without pneumonia. Among the 928 patients tested for autoantibodies against type I IFN, a quarter (234) were positive and were excluded. Results: No gene reached genome-wide significance. Under a recessive model, the most significant gene with at-risk variants was TLR7, with an OR of 27.68 (95%CI 1.5–528.7, P = 1.1 × 10−4) for biochemically loss-of-function (bLOF) variants. We replicated the enrichment in rare predicted LOF (pLOF) variants at 13 influenza susceptibility loci involved in TLR3-dependent type I IFN immunity (OR = 3.70[95%CI 1.3–8.2], P = 2.1 × 10−4). This enrichment was further strengthened by (1) adding the recently reported TYK2 and TLR7 COVID-19 loci, particularly under a recessive model (OR = 19.65[95%CI 2.1–2635.4], P = 3.4 × 10−3), and (2) considering as pLOF branchpoint variants with potentially strong impacts on splicing among the 15 loci (OR = 4.40[9%CI 2.3–8.4], P = 7.7 × 10−8). Finally, the patients with pLOF/bLOF variants at these 15 loci were significantly younger (mean age [SD] = 43.3 [20.3] years) than the other patients (56.0 [17.3] years; P = 1.68 × 10−5). Conclusions: Rare variants of TLR3- and TLR7-dependent type I IFN immunity genes can underlie life-threatening COVID-19, particularly with recessive inheritance, in patients under 60 years old

Differential profiling of lacrimal cytokines in patients suffering from thyroid-associated orbitopathy.

The aim was to investigate the levels of cytokines and soluble IL-6R in the tears of patients with thyroid-associated orbitopathy (TAO) disease. Schirmer's test was adopted to collect tears from TAO patients (N = 20, 17 women, mean age (±SD): 46.0 years (±13.4)) and healthy subjects (N = 18, 10 women, 45.4 years (±18.7)). Lacrimal cytokines and soluble IL-6R (sIL-6R) were measured using a 10-plex panel (Meso Scale Discovery Company) and Invitrogen Human sIL-6R Elisa kit, respectively. Tear levels of IL-10, IL-12p70, IL-13, IL-6 and TNF-α appeared significantly higher in TAO patients than in healthy subjects. Interestingly, IL-10, IL-12p70 and IL-8 levels increased in tears whatever the form of TAO whereas IL-13, IL-6 and TNF-α levels were significantly elevated in inflammatory TAO patients, meaning with a clinical score activity (CAS) ≥ 3, compared to controls. Furthermore, only 3 cytokines were strongly positively correlated with CAS (IL-13 Spearman coeff. r: 0.703, p = 0.0005; IL-6 r: 0.553, p = 0.011; IL-8 r: 0.618, p = 0.004, respectively). Finally, tobacco use disturbed the levels of several cytokines, especially in patient suffering of TAO. The differential profile of lacrimal cytokines could be useful for the diagnosis of TAO patients. Nevertheless, the tobacco use of these patients should be taken into account in the interpretation of the cytokine levels