Early Success Research Articles

Supporting Children Who Are English Language Learners Succeed in Their Early Literacy Development

Introduction: The Better Start Literacy Approach is an example of a multi-tiered system of support (MTSS) to facilitate children’s early literacy success. It is set within a strengths-based and culturally responsive framework for literacy teaching and is being implemented in over 800 English medium schools across New Zealand. This report focuses on how children identified at school entry as English Language Learners (ELL) responded to the Better Start Literacy Approach during their first year at school. Method: Using a matched control design, the growth in phoneme awareness, phoneme-grapheme knowledge, and oral narrative skills for 1,853 ELL was compared to a cohort of 1,853 non-ELL. The cohorts were matched for ethnicity (mostly Asian, 46% and Pacific, 26%), age (M = 65 months), gender (53% male), and socioeconomic deprivation index (82% in areas of mid to high deprivation). Results: Data analyses indicated similar positive growth rates for ELL and non-ELL from baseline to the first monitoring assessment following 10 weeks of Tier 1 (universal/class level) teaching. Despite demonstrating lower phoneme awareness skills at baseline, following 10 weeks of teaching, the ELL cohort performed similarly to non-ELL in non-word reading and spelling tasks. Predictors of growth analyses indicated that ELL from areas of low socioeconomic deprivation, who used a greater number of different words in their English story retells at the baseline assessment, and females made the most growth in their phonic and phoneme awareness development. Following the 10-week monitoring assessment, 11% of the ELL and 13% of the non-ELL cohorts received supplementary Tier 2 (targeted small group) teaching. At the next monitoring assessment (20 weeks post baseline assessment) the ELL cohort showed accelerated growth in listening comprehension, phoneme-grapheme matching and phoneme blending skills, catching up to their non-ELL peers. Discussion: Despite limitations of the dataset available, it provides one of the few insights into the response of ELL to Tier 1 and Tier 2 teaching in their first year at school. The data suggest that the Better Start Literacy Approach, which includes high-quality professional learning and development for teachers, literacy specialists, and speech-language therapists, is an effective approach toward developing foundational literacy skills for ELL. The important role speech-language therapists have in collaborating with class teachers to support children’s early literacy success within a MTSS framework is discussed.

Designing an app for alternative access assessments: using interviews to uncover and define user needs

ABSTRACT To support effective alternative access assessment and service delivery for people with motor impairments, we are developing an app called Access Navigator. This paper describes the first stage of the project: the interviews we conducted as part of a discovery process to improve our understanding of user needs. We individually interviewed 8 assistive technology practitioners and 3 clients who use alternative access methods, to learn what practitioners were currently doing in their access assessments, identify opportunities for improving current practice, and understand what the assessment process was like for clients. We extracted 236 relevant quotes from interview transcripts, and clustered the quotes using the affinity wall method, yielding 42 themes. Here we present the 21 highest priority themes, along with the app requirements that support those themes. Results confirmed the need for a tool to support more effective assessments, with emphasis on taking the worry out of access assessments and supporting early success. Results also revealed specific needs such as flexible workflow, personalized test-drive tasks, and a choice of metrics (including client preference). With a richer understanding of user needs, we are in a much better position to design software that can address those needs.

Case Report of Improvement in Long-COVID Symptoms in an Air Force Medic Treated With Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Using Electro-Magnetic Brain Pulse Technique.

Long-coronavirus disease (COVID) is an ill-defined set of symptoms persisting in patients following infection with COVID-19 that range from any combination of persistent breathing difficulties to anosmia, impaired attention, memory, fatigue, or pain. Recently, noninvasive transcutaneous electrical brain stimulation techniques have been showing early signs of success in addressing some of these complaints. We postulate that the use of a stimulation technique with transcranial magnetic stimulation may also similarly be effective. A 36-year-old male suffering from symptoms of dyspnea, anosmia, and "brain fog" for 2 years following coronavirus infection was treated with 10 sessions of Electro-Magnetic Brain Pulse (EMBP®), a personalized transcranial magnetic stimulation protocol guided by the patient's electroencephalograph (EEG). At the conclusion of the treatment, the patient had improvements in mood, sense of smell, and brain fogging. Dyspnea also decreased with a gain of 11% forced expiratory volume 1/forced vital capacity. A high-sensitivity athletic training cognitive test showed an overall 27% increase in aggregate score. A significant portion of this was attributed to changes in visual clarity and decision-making speed. Post-treatment EEG showed a shift from predominantly delta waves to more synchronized alpha wave patterns during the resting state. Brain stimulation techniques appear to be showing early signs of success with long-COVID symptoms. This is the first case describing the use of a magnetic stimulation technique with quantitative test results and recorded EEG changes. Given the early success in this patient with cognition, dyspnea, and anosmia, this noninvasive treatment modality warrants further research.

Precarious Employment and Subjective Career Success During the School-to-Work Transition.

The transition from school to work is an important stage in the career development of university students, and precarious employment during this period can significantly impact their early career success. In today's unstable employment environment, this study examines how employment instability during the transition from school to work directly and indirectly affects college students' subjective career success. This contributes to a thorough understanding of this transitional period and provides university students with the necessary resources to cope with a smooth transition from school to work. We recruited senior students at five universities in Harbin, China, from May to July 2022. After obtaining participants' consent, questionnaires were distributed via social media, resulting in 967 valid questionnaires. Based on this sample, we examined the chain mediating effect of financial stress and occupational self-efficacy in the association between precarious employment and career success and the moderating effect of employability. The study found that precarious employment hurts career success and can also affect career success by increasing financial stress and decreasing occupational self-efficacy among college students. At the same time, financial stress can also decrease students' self-efficacy. Finally, employability can reduce the adverse effects of precarious employment on career success and occupational self-efficacy. The link between employment instability and subjective career success during the transition from school to work has been demonstrated for university students. Employment instability not only increases college students' financial stress but also reduces career self-efficacy, which in turn affects college students' perceptions of early subjective career success. Importantly, employability plays a positive role in the smooth school-to-work transition and subjective career success of university students.

Association of Nutritional Risk Index With Continuous Flow Left Ventricular Assist Device Complications

Studies revealing the relationship between major surgery outcomes and nutritional parameters are increasing daily. Publications demonstrating the relationship between early postoperative success and surgical complications in patients with chronic heart failure and continuous flow left ventricular assist device (cf-LVAD) are limited. The vast majority of patients with advanced chronic heart failure are cachexic, and the reason for this is multifactorial. The aim of this study is to investigate the link between the modified nutritional risk index (NRI) and 6-month survival and complication rates in patients with a cf-LVAD. This study included statistical analysis of NRI and postoperative parameters of 456 patients with advanced heart failure who had cf-LVAD implantation between 2010 and 2020. The results of this study showed a statistically significant difference between mean NRI values and postoperative parameters such as 6-month survival (P=.001), right ventricular failure (P=.003), infection (P=.001), driveline infection (P=.000), and sepsis (P=.000). This study revealed that 6-month postoperative complications and mortality rates of patients with advanced heart failure in patients with cf-LVAD are closely related to malnutrition status. In these patients, nutrition specialist use would be beneficial both preoperatively and postoperatively to increase surveillance and reduce postoperative complications.

Yrityshistoria ja kasvuyrittäjyys

In recent years, there has been lively discussion in Finland on why the country does not have more young and fast-growing companies. These debates usually lack historical perspective. Entrepreneurship has always existed in Finland. Yet, the operational environment, values, gender roles and social structures have had an impact throughout history on who is willing and able to establish a company. These factors also influence the ability and willingness of new companies to grow. History can provide us with insights into why the Finnish economy has certain weaknesses, for example a lack of economic and social diversity and a shortage of old and successful middle-sized companies as well as younger high-growth companies. The most successful startup period in Finland was 1850–1914. Many of the companies founded during that time grew quite large. Since then, it has been more difficult for the country to replicate this early success.

Adolescent caregiving success as a predictor of social functioning from ages 13 to 33.

Adolescent success providing satisfying support in response to a close friend's call in a caregiving task was examined as a potentially fundamental developmental competence likely to predict future social functioning, adult caregiving security, and physical health. Adolescents (86 males, 98 females; 58% White, 29% African American, 8% mixed race/ethnicity, 5% other) were followed from ages 13 to 33 (1998-2021) using multiple methods and reporters. Early caregiving success was found to predict greater self- and partner-reported caregiving security, lower negativity in adult relationships, and higher adult vagal tone. Results are interpreted as advancing our understanding beyond simply recognizing that adolescent friendships have long-term import, to now identifying specific capacities within friendships that are linked to longer-term outcomes.

529 Job Sharing: An Innovative Approach to Increasing Research Resources and Improving Staff Satisfaction

Abstract Introduction Pre-pandemic job openings for clinical research staff increased by nearly 10% a month nationwide yet was outpaced by an increase of greater than 12% in clinical trial activity. With the onset of the pandemic, the gulf between supply and demand widened in research. Simultaneously hospitals were stretched to capacity, staff suffered extreme burn-out and there was a dire need for additional bedside nurses. The pandemic shown a bright light on an age-old problem in nursing, whereas for a nurse to grow professionally, it often required leaving the bedside and giving up vital clinical skills, skills that were suddenly in great demand. The purpose of this project was to create a novel new job role, utilizing existing burn nursing staff to job share a research position, while maintaining their clinical expertise. Methods Nurse leaders from both areas worked in concert with the burn center’s director of research, senior hospital administration, human resources and existing staff to develop a new job role. The job description incorporated the scope and standards for nursing practice in both areas into one document. Additionally, a second-level position was created which allowed bedside nurses to trial the new role without a formal commitment to the permanent position. Staff were scheduled to rotate every 2 weeks between the two areas. Two months following implementation, core research staff and job-sharing staff were polled for feedback on benefits and challenges. Results Staff members (n=4) provided feedback independently from each other. A total of 41 comments were received, 27 benefit responses vs 14 challenges responses. Responses were grouped into themes and both benefits and challenges had 6 themes each. Benefit themes included: increased interdepartmental collaboration / trust (26%), professional growth (26%), supported learning (22%), enhanced screening for research patients (11%), unit-based resources (7%) and prevention of burnout (7%). Challenge themes included: scheduling (29%), variability in training opportunities (21%), role transitioning (21%), communication (14%), success personnel driven (7%), compensation (7%). Anecdotally, study investigators have expressed great satisfaction with the new position and there has been an increased interest expressed by other bedside staff in research involvement. Conclusions The response to the new position has been overwhelmingly positive. Staff entered the trial period realizing that it may be “messy” at first but quickly adapted and have worked through many of the challenges. Based on this early success, we are exploring the viability of cross training additional staff. Applicability of Research to Practice Cross training has been demonstrated to increase efficiencies, improve collaboration, trust and job satisfaction.

Long-term results of strabismus surgery for treatment of esotropia in patients with Möbius syndrome

To evaluate the surgical results of Möbius syndrome esotropia following bilateral medial rectus recession with and without bilateral Hummelsheim procedure. The medical records of patients with Möbius syndrome operated on by a single surgeon from 1993 to 2022 were studied retrospectively. For each patient, age, sex, and ocular deviation before and after surgery were retrieved. Success was defined as a horizontal deviation of up to 15Δ and vertical deviation of <10Δ. Eleven patients were included. Average patient age at the time of surgery was 4 years. Eight patients with esodeviation up to 70Δ underwent bilateral medial rectus recession; 3 patients with esotropia >70Δ underwent recession plus bilateral Hummelsheim procedure. The mean esodeviation before surgery was 52.5Δ in the first group and 86.6Δ in the second group. The mean horizontal deviation at early follow-up was esotropia of 7.4Δ in the first group and of 15Δ in the second group. The early success rate was 87% in the first group and 67% in the second group. Long-term follow-up revealed exoshift in 43% of the patients in the first group and all 3 patients in the second group. In our small patient cohort of patients with Möbius syndrome, bilateral medial rectus recession corrected esodeviations of up to 70Δ. In more severe cases (>70Δ), adding bilateral Hummelsheim procedure was beneficial.

Move Fast and Break Things? The Contingent Nature of Product Acceleration in Nascent Markets

Acceleration allows firms to lock in early success upon entering a nascent market, but whether it enables firms to sustain competitive advantage after the entry is unclear. Using a granular data set on the U.S. LED lightbulb market 2010–2017, we apply an abductive approach to examine the relationship between postentry product acceleration and market acceptance. We find that, although acceleration is slightly more beneficial for firms that have accumulated greater pioneering experience, incumbents with more recognizable brands are able to achieve even greater market acceptance by slowing down their product iterations. Meanwhile, deceleration seems to be a better strategy among firms striving to build legitimacy via regulatory engagement, whereas acceleration could be more beneficial for firms competing in subproduct markets with greater technological uncertainties. We contribute to the nascent market literature by showing that the extent to which firms gain market acceptance through postentry product acceleration hinges on their abilities to assess, learn from, and shape both market and nonmarket stakeholders. Funding: This research is supported by grants from the Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Technology Research Grant provided by Cornell University’s Johnson College of Business and Daigle Labs at the University of Connecticut, School of Business. Supplemental Material: The online appendices are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/stsc.2023.0192 .

Moving beyond our borders to inspire education change

Purpose This paper contextualises a keynote address delivered at the 2022 Speech Pathology Australia National Conference in Melbourne, Australia. The paper aligns with the conference theme of Beyond Borders from the perspective of moving beyond borders of regular practice to develop strong partnerships and networks within our communities to advocate and support necessary change. Method Change or enhancement to current practice is necessary if we are to reduce current inequities in education experienced by many children in our communities, including those with communication challenges. Strengths-based and culturally responsive literacy approaches to supporting children within the context of their family and community are increasingly gaining support as we address this challenge. The Better Start Literacy Approach (Te Ara Reo Matatini), currently being implemented in junior school classrooms across New Zealand is described. It is one example of large-scale implementation of a strengths-based and culturally responsive early literacy approach, based on the science of reading. Result Data support the effectiveness of the Better Start Literacy Approach in significantly enhancing the foundational literacy skills of 5- and 6-year-old children, including those who commence school with lower levels of oral language ability. Conclusion Through establishing strong partnerships within communities, speech pathologists have much to offer in motivating systems level change to enhance early literacy success for all learners.

Correlates of early reproduction and apparent fitness consequences in male Soay sheep.

Life history trade-offs are ubiquitous across species and place constraints on the timing of life history events, including the optimal age at first reproduction. However, studies on lifetime breeding success of male mammals are rare due to sex-biased dispersal and the requirement for genetic paternity inferences. We studied the correlates and apparent fitness consequences of early life reproduction among males in a free-living population of Soay sheep (Ovis aries) on St Kilda, Scotland. We investigated the factors associated with early breeding success and the apparent consequences of early success for survival and future reproduction. We used genetic paternity inferences, population data, and individual morphology measurements collected over 30 years. We found that individuals born in years with low-density population size had the highest early life breeding success and singletons were more likely to be successful than twins. Individuals that bred successfully at 7 months were more likely to survive their first winter. For individuals that survived their first winter, early breeding success was not associated with later breeding success. As individual heterogeneity affects breeding success, we believe that variation in individual quality masks the costs of early reproduction in this population. Our findings provide no evidence for selection for delayed age at reproduction in male Soay sheep.

Abstract A032: Targeting RAS beyond KRAS, a review

Abstract RAS proteins belong to the family of GTPases and plays instrumental role in cellular growth and proliferation and dysregulation of RAS signalling is one of the key drivers of tumorigenesis. The RAS protein has four isoforms namely KRAS4A, KRAS4B, NRAS and HRAS with amino acid codons 12, 13 and 61 as common hotspots for RAS mutations. Each of these hotspot mutations appears across several cancer types, however each of them have been noted to have specific distribution across different tissues. For example, mutations in codon 12 of KRAS are most common in pancreatic, lung and colorectal cancer, NRAS mutations affecting Q61 and G12 are most prevalent in melanoma and haematological malignancies, respectively, and HRAS mutations are more frequently altered in thyroid, bladder and head and neck cancers. Substantial efforts have been made to develop small molecule inhibitors targeting KRASG12C, with demonstrated success in clinic. Early success with KRASG12C has prompted researchers targeting other RAS isoforms, such as H-RAS and N-RAS to address RAS mutated cancer burden. Discovery of pan-RAS monobody that binds to all RAS isoforms have opened new opportunities. Development of small molecule inhibitors of RAS membrane association is gaining potential as a therapeutic strategy to curb RAS signalling; Lonafarnib and Tipifarnib, inhibitors of farnesyltransferase that lipidate Ras to facilitate membrane localization, have shown effectiveness in HRAS mutated cancers and are in active clinical evaluation. Although the lack of a hydrophobic binding pocket in NRAS poses challenges to drug targeting, specific strategies such as amphiphile-mediated depalmitoylation to target the post-translational modification of NRAS and reduce its activity are being investigated. The wide variety of approaches to target the RAS signalling pathway, beyond KRAS, have resulted in a broadening patent landscape. While finding ways to specifically target RAS mutants remains a daunting challenge, herculean efforts to make clinically useful RAS-targeted drugs are beginning to provide a bounty of weapons to fight against RAS-driven tumors. Citation Format: Neetu Singh, Darren R. Tyson, Partha Pratim Sarma, Sathish Katike, Prashant K. Bhavar, Uday Kumar Surampudi. Targeting RAS beyond KRAS, a review [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference: Targeting RAS; 2023 Mar 5-8; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Mol Cancer Res 2023;21(5_Suppl):Abstract nr A032.

Estimating vital rate variation to assess early success of scrub mint translocations

AbstractSpecies translocations are increasingly common in rare plant conservation. Wild populations can provide basic ecological knowledge to improve their chance of success. In the heavily fragmented Florida scrub, USA, many listed species require translocations to persist, including Dicerandra christmanii. In 1994, we began monitoring the only protected population of D. christmanii growing both in gaps (open areas) within the shrub matrix and on roadsides. In 2010, we augmented this population by adding plants and seeds to unoccupied gaps. In 2012, we introduced plants to a separate protected site to create a new population. We evaluated early translocation success using generalized linear mixed‐effect models of vital rate variation among habitat types. Survival probability increased with size, peaking at 0.6–0.8, and was lowest in augmentations and highest in introductions. Growth increased with plant size across all habitat types, except for the largest adults which experienced senescence. Naturally recruited plants in gaps showed the highest reproduction probability and fecundity at smaller sizes, but larger plants in translocations had the highest fecundity. Yearling recruitment was higher in translocated plants relative to naturally recruited plants in gaps during the initial years following outplanting. Experimental components of translocations also affected outplanting performance with positive effects of fire. These analyses suggest a high potential for translocations to become established and contribute to species recovery.

Creation of a Faculty Development Curriculum to Reduce the Impact of Racial/Ethnic Bias on Medical Students (P5-2.003)

<h3>Objective:</h3> To design, implement, and evaluate a curriculum for faculty to reduce the impact of racial/ethnic bias on neurology clerkship students. <h3>Background:</h3> Bias in medical education leads to inequity in student grading for those who identify with a marginalized racial/ethnic group. Although numerous studies document this problem, strategies to counteract bias remain a topic of active inquiry. <h3>Design/Methods:</h3> Students who rotated on the Neurology clerkship between 2018–2020 completed an anonymous needs assessment survey focused on race/ethnicity, clerkship grade, and experiences of bias and/or stereotype threat. Using Kern’s framework of curricular development, we designed a 90-minute faculty workshop, dedicating 30 minutes to educating with descriptive statistics and exemplar quotes from student survey results and 60 minutes to discussion exercises. Effectiveness of the workshop was evaluated through (1) student surveys administered during the 2020–2022 academic years in tandem with curriculum rollout, and (2) a post-session faculty survey assessing participant knowledge and awareness. <h3>Results:</h3> 55 students (response rate = 28%) completed our needs assessment survey, and our follow-up survey was completed by 108 students (response rate = 50%). 23.6% of students in the initial survey reported they felt their evaluation was “moderately” or “considerably” influenced by bias versus 6.5% in the follow-up survey. In the initial survey, 46.2% of individuals who identified with a race/ethnic background marginalized in medicine reported experiencing “moderate” or “considerable” stereotype threat that impacted their clerkship performance, versus 15% in the follow-up survey. 35 of 58 faculty responded to our survey after the initial workshop (response rate = 60%). 40% “never” or “rarely” considered the impact of bias on clerkship students, and 74% could not recall any witnessed specific examples of bias over the last year. <h3>Conclusions:</h3> We successfully created and implemented a workshop to educate faculty on the impact of racial/ethnic bias on clerkship students, and have seen early success on student perception. <b>Disclosure:</b> Dr. Thompson-Stone has received personal compensation in the range of $5,000-$9,999 for serving as a Consultant for Conway Homer PC. Dr. Jay has nothing to disclose. Mrs. Sampath has nothing to disclose. Racquel Whyte has nothing to disclose. Dr. Braun has nothing to disclose.

Introduction of the professional nurse advocate role using a quality implementation framework

Implementation of the professional nurse advocate (PNA) role and the Advocating and Educating for QUality ImProvement model (A-EQUIP) in nursing is relatively new. The model aims to build personal and professional resilience, enhance the quality of care and support preparedness for appraisal and professional revalidation. To describe the implementation of the PNA role in a combined acute and community trust in England. A quality implementation framework was used to appraise and represent locally derived strategic activities for successful implementation of the role in an acute and community hospital in England. The content of this framework was derived from a synthesis of 25 implementation frameworks focusing on important elements understood to represent quality implementation. The article identifies strengths and weaknesses to implementation and ways to sustain early implementation success. Using a quality implementation framework can provide a clear path for the successful implementation of the professional nurse advocate role. Professional nurse advocates should be supported to develop a culture of effective supervision within their organisation.

Characteristics and Outcomes in Preterm Infants with Extubation Failure in the First Week of Life.

This study aimed to evaluate characteristics and outcomes in preterm infants with extubation failures in their first week of life. Retrospective chart review of infants born between 24 and 27 weeks' gestational age at the Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women and Newborns between January 2014 and December 2020 who had an extubation attempt within the first 7 days of life. Infants that were successfully extubated were compared with those who required reintubation in the first 7 days. Maternal and neonatal outcome measures were analyzed. A total of 215 extremely preterm infants had an extubation attempt in the first 7 days of life. Forty-six infants (21.4%) failed extubation and were reintubated within the first 7 days. Infants who failed extubation had a lower pH (p < 0.01), increased base deficit (p < 0.01), and more surfactant doses prior to first extubation (p < 0.01). Birth weight, Apgar scores, antenatal steroid doses, and maternal risk factors such as preeclampsia, chorioamnionitis, and duration of ruptured membranes were not different between success and failure groups. Rates of moderate to large patent ductus arteriosus (p < 0.01), severe intraventricular hemorrhage (p < 0.01), posthemorrhagic hydrocephalus (p < 0.05), periventricular leukomalacia (p < 0.01), and retinopathy of prematurity stage 3 or greater (p < 0.05) were higher in the failure group. In this cohort of extremely preterm infants that failed extubation in the first week of life, there were as increased risk of multiple morbidities. Base deficit, pH, and number of surfactant doses prior to first extubation may be useful tools in predicting which infants are likely to have early extubation success, but this needs prospective study. · Predicting extubation readiness in preterm infants remains challenging.. · Extubation failure is associated with multiple neonatal morbidities.. · Infant clinical characteristics may help predict extubation failure..

Note from the Editor

Free AccessAboutSectionsView PDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail Go to SectionFree Access HomeINFORMS Journal on ComputingAhead of Print Note from the EditorAlice E. Smith Alice E. Smith Published Online:12 Apr 2023https://doi.org/10.1287/ijoc.2023.1299000We continue to announce the winners of the INFORMS Journal on Computing (IJOC) Test of Time Paper Award to cover the backlog of awards since the journal’s inception. The energetic and able committee chaired by John Chinneck with members Bill Cook (recused for this selection), Bruce Golden, Pascal Van Hentenryck, and David Woodruff have selected the awardee, covering the period 1990 through 1994. What follows is the citation from the award committee and then a reflection on the paper and this award by the authors. We have also made the landmark code from this paper available at the IJOC GitHub site (please see the link below).I want to thank the committee members for their superb efforts and am very pleased to share this recognition of the impactful heritage of our journal.All my best,The Test of Time Award for papers published in the INFORMS Journal on Computing in the years 1990–1994 is awarded toA Computational Study of the Job-Shop Scheduling ProblemDavid Applegate and William CookORSA Journal on Computing 3(2):149–156https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/ijoc.3.2.149Test of Time Award Citation 1990–1994This paper, together with one by Carlier and Pinson that closed the famous MT-10 problem, started a golden decade for research in job-shop scheduling and scheduling in general. It demonstrated that challenging job-shop problems could now be solved optimally in a few minutes, using beautiful mathematical programming concepts, including cutting planes and combinatorial relaxations. It was widely influential, studied both complete and heuristic methods, closed a number of open problems, and promoted the edge-finder algorithm that became standard in commercial scheduling packages.Comments on this IJOC Test of Time Paper Award from the Authors David Applegate and William CookWe thank IJOC editor-in-chief Alice E. Smith and the selection committee for the recognition of our work. At the time of the paper’s submission, Jan Karel Lenstra was the journal’s area editor for optimization. That was a great fortune for us. We still appreciate his encouragement and his smooth handling of the review process.In the job-shop scheduling project reported in our paper, we set out to solve instances of a model that had a well-earned reputation as a tough nut to crack. We were therefore more than happy to adopt all ideas we could find in the literature. This gives the paper a survey flavor, providing a snapshot of the computational techniques available at the time. In this, we were following up groundbreaking work by Carlier and Pinson, who had several years earlier solved for the first time a 10 × 10 problem that had been open for 25 years.One idea we would like to single out is our use of a simple branching rule in a combinatorial branch-and-bound algorithm. When evaluating a branching choice, we computed lower bounds that would be produced for the two child subproblems. Because we wanted to increase the overall lower bound, we chose the branch that maximized the minimum of these two bounds. Simple enough. However, to our great surprise, this rule, together with a fast lower-bound algorithm, was able to solve the famous 10 × 10 example. We adopted it in our branch-and-bound code, and it evolved into the “strong-branching rule” used in the Concorde TSP solver, written together with Robert Bixby and Vasek Chvatal.In looking back at our scheduling paper, it occurs to us that a reason for its early success is that we made the source code and problem instances easily available. We are therefore happy that IJOC now hosts this material at https://github.com/INFORMSJoC/TestOfTime2023.1. The authors thank Ted Ralphs for setting up the repository.On a personal note, this was our first joint project. It was Bill’s introduction to computational work and David’s introduction to combinatorial optimization. Previous Back to Top Next FiguresReferencesRelatedInformation Articles In Advance Article Information Metrics Information Published Online:April 12, 2023 Copyright © 2023, INFORMSCite asAlice E. Smith (2023) Note from the Editor. INFORMS Journal on Computing 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1287/ijoc.2023.1299000 PDF download

Empirical Research on Early Internationalization of Firms in Sufficiently-Sized Domestic Market Country

Early internationalization and success in foreign markets play an important role in both a firm’s growth and its impact on the global economy. We conducted a study on Japanese high-tech startups to investigate the factors that derive early internationalization in firms founded in countries with a large domestic market, despite the absence of strong incentives to operate overseas. Quantitative data were collected from 71 startups and analyzed with PLS-SEM (Partial least squares path modeling). Our result showed that the factors we extracted from the previous studies on the internationalization process in small-size markets would also apply in countries with large domestic markets. In addition, considerations and the types of technology, which we extracted from qualitative research, verified the effect. According to our mediator analysis, an entrepreneur’s international orientation explains certain conditions related to a domestic market that affect a firms’ decision to pursue early internationalization. Our study makes contributions at multiple levels, benefiting entrepreneurs who are considering overseas expansion as well as policymakers who aim to promote early internationalization efforts.

Abstract 5364: Language modeling of peptide-HLA interactions achieves state-of-the-art performance on prediction of peptide presentation by HLA Class II

Abstract Precise and sensitive prediction of neoantigen presentation to the immune system via human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class II molecules remains a challenge despite the early success of neural networks applied to HLA class I. However, it is necessary to address this modeling challenge because presentation of a neoantigen epitope by both classes of HLA molecules may be valuable to induce a sustained immune response with therapeutic cancer vaccines. Previously we have developed a machine-learning based platform, EDGETM, that provides a state-of-the-art model to predict presentation of peptides by HLA Class I. Here we propose a new addition to our EDGETM platform: a model that leverages structural information of putative epitopes and HLA class II alleles from their in-situ context to predict presentation of peptides by HLA class II. Our model achieves this by leveraging the Evolutionary Scale Model pre-trained protein language model (LM), which has been demonstrated to embed protein sequences with rich structural information. The input to the model is a linear peptide consisting of an epitope and its flanking amino acids, concatenated with structurally relevant amino acids from each HLA allele. This allows our model to treat the modeling problem entirely as a natural language processing task, which minimizes imputation of covariates found in prior approaches when performing inference in the context of vaccine design, while maximizing the richness of the LM embeddings on longer linear peptides. Crucially, this also allows our model to generalize to any allele that has a known sequence. Additionally, DR-, DP-, and DQ-specific immunoaffinity purified mass spectrometry multi-allelic (MA) presentation data were generated per tumor or cell line sample, spanning 89 alleles in aggregate. We demonstrate that incrementally decreasing HLA class II allele MA resolution during training results in substantially improved predictions for situations where MA presentation data has completely ambiguous epitope presentation across DR/DP/DQ alleles. Our model achieves an Average Precision (AP) of 0.92 and ROC-AUC of 0.98 on the same benchmark validation data as the current state-of-the-art model BERTMHC, which achieved an AP of 0.81 and ROC-AUC of 0.95. These are the best AP and ROC-AUC for an HLA Class II presentation model on this benchmark dataset to the best of our knowledge. Our model is a significant advancement in HLA class II epitope prediction that allows our EDGETM platform to bring neoantigen vaccine design optimized for both class I and class II presentation within reach. Citation Format: Daniel Sprague, Joshua Klein, Italo Faria do Valle, Olivia Petrillo, Melissa Rotunno, Matthew Davis, Monica Lane, Karin Jooss, Ankur Dhanik. Language modeling of peptide-HLA interactions achieves state-of-the-art performance on prediction of peptide presentation by HLA Class II. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2023; Part 1 (Regular and Invited Abstracts); 2023 Apr 14-19; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2023;83(7_Suppl):Abstract nr 5364.