bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Intelligent Media Forensics and Traffic Handling Scheme in 5G Edge Networks
Authors: Math Sa , Tam Prohim , Kim Seokhoon
Published: April 2021

The 5th generation (5G) communications evolved with heterogeneous user terminals and applications. A convergence of Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) and Software-Defined Networks (SDN) delivers gigantic challenges and opportunities for enhancing computing resources and user Quality of Service (QoS) in fronthaul and backhaul networks. Due to the precipitous expansion of user media in the 5G epoch, efficient media forensics methods are mandatory for specifying and offering effective safety handling based on individual application requirements. According to the exponential increment of Heterogeneous Internet of Things (HetIoT) devices, gigantic traffic will generate through bottleneck 5G fronthaul gateways. 5G fronthaul network environments consist of inadequate resources to surmount the enormous user traffic and communications, QoS will be reduced when the existence of traffic congestion occurs. To confront the aforementioned issues, this paper proposed intelligent media forensics and traffic handling scheme for controlling the Uplink (UL) transmission according to the Downlink (DL) statuses. Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithm was applied to conduct the media forensics and MEC server integrated into fronthaul gateways, in which gateways resources are divided into UL and DL. Caching technology will be a part of 5G environments, and DL will be utilized for traffic caching. So, it is compulsory to adjust the communication traffic according to UL/DL resource utilization and control the forwarding traffic which relies on resource availability. The experiment was conducted by using computer software, and the proposed scheme illustrated a noteworthy outperformance over the conventional method in terms of diverse significant QoS factors including reliability, latency, and communication throughput.
Influence of Acidic Substances on Compression Deformation Characteristics of Loess
Authors: Tang Hao , Liu Chiyang , Wang Nianqin , Li Huahua , Wu Guannan , Luo Jinzhi , Zeng Mengli
Published: April 2021

Current research theories on acid‐contaminated soils indicate that acids can alter the physical properties of soils, which in turn can affect their engineering mechanical properties. However, compressibility, one of the most important mechanical properties of loess, may be affected by acidic substances. To investigate the influence of acid on the compression properties of loess, this study uses a uniaxial compressor to investigate the changes of compression properties of loess under different acid concentrations and different acid immersion times and attempts to predict the causes of macroscopic compressibility changes from the microscopic pore changes of acid‐etched loess. The test results show that when the soaking time is the same, the hydrochloric acid concentration increases from 0 to 3.0 mol/L, the compression coefficient Cc increases by 43.20–87.5%, and the compression yield stress σpc decreases by 51.36–60.86%; when the concentration of hydrochloric acid is the same, the soaking time increases from 1 day to 12 days, the compression coefficient Cc increases by 119.05–197.46%, and compressive yield stress σpc decreases by 10.67–22.02%. The microscopic images of loess soaked for 12 days at 3.0 mol/L hydrochloric acid concentration were compared with those of the original loess. The percentages of micropore, small pore, mesopore, and macropore areas of original loess were 20.90%, 79.10%, 0%, and 0%, respectively. The percentages of micropore, small pore, mesopore, and macropore areas of acid‐etched loess were 6.24%, 37.21%, 1.14%, and 55.40%, respectively. The enhancement of the compressive properties of acid‐etched loess is the result of the coupling of acid concentration and soaking time, and the change of macroscopic compressive properties may be related to the increase of microscopic macropore area after acid erosion. The results of this study can be used as a reference for the study of soil mechanical properties in acid‐contaminated soils.
Factors Associated with Serious Injuries among Adolescents in Ghana: Findings from 2012 Global School Health Survey
Authors: Ackah Martin , Salifu Mohammed Gazali , Boakye Hosea
Published: April 2021

Introduction. Injuries are of public health concern and the leading cause of residual disability and death among teenagers, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). In Ghana, the burden of injury among adolescents is under-reported. Hence, the study sought to determine the prevalence of serious injuries (SI) and the potential factors influencing these injuries among school children in Ghana. Methods. This study was conducted in Ghana among Junior High School (JHS) and senior high school students (SHS) using the 2012 Global School-Based Student Health Survey (GSHS) data. The GSHS employed two-stage cluster sampling method. Serious injuries (SI) and independent factors were measured via self-administered questionnaires. Pearson chi-square test between each explanatory variable and serious injuries was conducted and the level of statistical significance was set at 5%. The significant variables from the chi-square test were selected for multiple logistic regression analysis. Multiple logistic regression was performed to estimate the adjusted odds ratio (AOR) at 95% confidence interval (CI). Results. The prevalence of SI in the past 12 months was 66% [CI=61.8–70.2] . The most common cause of SI was fall, 36%. The common types of injuries were cut/stab wounds and broken/dislocated bone. In the multiple logistic regression analysis, after controlling for other variables, educational level (AOR = 0.64, CI = 0.44–0.90,

p

 < 0.015), suicidal ideation (AOR = 1.58, CI = 1.00–2.48,

p

 < 0.002), suicidal attempt (AOR = 1.88, CI = 1.29–2.72,

p

 < 0.001), having at least one close friend (AOR = 1.49, CI = 1.17–1.89,

p

 < 0.002), school truancy (AOR = 1.66, CI = 1.31–2.09,

p

 < 0.000), smoking marijuana (AOR = 2.64, CI = 1.22–5.69), and amphetamine use (AOR = 2.95, CI = 1.46–5.69) were independently associated with SI. Conclusion. The findings of the study established a high prevalence of SI among adolescents in Ghana, with cut/stab wound and broken/dislocated bone being the most reported type of injuries. This study also revealed that factors such as educational level, suicidal ideation, suicidal attempt, at least one close friend, school truancy, smoking marijuana, and amphetamine use are associated with SI among the adolescents. Therefore, pragmatic interventional programs should be targeted at these factors to curb the rate of SI among junior and senior school students.
Network Pharmacology-Based Prediction of Mechanism of Shenzhuo Formula for Application to DKD
Authors: Wang Xinmiao , Yang Haoyu , Zhang Lili , Han Lin , Di Sha , Wei Xiuxiu , Wu Haoran , Zhang Haiyu , Zhao Linhua , Tong Xiaolin
Published: April 2021

Background. Shenzhuo formula (SZF) is a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) prescription which has significant therapeutic effects on diabetic kidney disease (DKD). However, its mechanism remains unknown. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the underlying anti-DKD mechanism of SZF. Methods. The active ingredients and targets of SZF were obtained by searching TCMSP, TCMID, SwissTargetPrediction, HIT, and literature. The DKD target was identified from TTD, DrugBank, and DisGeNet. The potential targets were obtained and PPI network were built after mapping SZF targets and DKD targets. The key targets were screened out by network topology and the “SZF-key targets-DKD” network was constructed by Cytoscape. GO analysis and KEGG pathway enrichment analysis were performed by using DAVID, and the results were visualized by Omicshare Tools. Results. We obtained 182 potential targets and 30 key targets. Furthermore, a “SZF-key targets-DKD” network topological analysis showed that active ingredients like M51, M21, M5, M71, and M28 and targets like EGFR, MMP9, MAPK8, PIK3CA, and STAT3 might play important roles in the process of SZF treating in DKD. GO analysis results showed that targets were mainly involved in positive regulation of transcription from RNA polymerase II promoter, inflammatory response, lipopolysaccharide-mediated signaling pathway, and other biological processes. KEGG showed that DKD-related pathways like TNF signaling pathway and PI3K-Akt signaling pathway were at the top of the list. Conclusion. This research reveals the potential pharmacological targets of SZF in the treatment of DKD through network pharmacology and lays a foundation for further studies.
PPAR-Alpha Agonist Fenofibrate Combined with Octreotide Acetate in the Treatment of Acute Hyperlipidemia Pancreatitis
Authors: Bao Wen , Kong Rui , Wang Nan , Han Wei , Lu Jie
Published: April 2021

At present, there are more and more patients with acute hypertriglyceridemia pancreatitis in clinical practice. Common treatment measures include fasting and water withdrawal, fluid resuscitation, and somatostatin. In recent years, studies have pointed out that the PPARa agonist fenofibrate may help improve the condition of such patients. Therefore, through clinical research and analysis, we reported for the first time that fenofibrate combined with octreotide acetate has a more excellent effect in the treatment of patients with acute hypertriglyceridemia pancreatitis, and from the perspective of signal pathways, we revealed that the combination of the two drugs has an effect on NF-κB P65. The synergistic inhibitory effect proves that the combined treatment is beneficial to control inflammation, protect liver function, and improve the prognosis of patients. It is worthy of clinical promotion.
An Efficient Communication Intrusion Detection Scheme in AMI Combining Feature Dimensionality Reduction and Improved LSTM
Authors: Lu Guanyu , Tian Xiuxia
Published: April 2021

Communication intrusion detection in Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) is an eminent security technology to ensure the stable operation of the Smart Grid. However, methods based on traditional machine learning are not appropriate for learning high-dimensional features and dealing with the data imbalance of communication traffic in AMI. To solve the above problems, we propose an intrusion detection scheme by combining feature dimensionality reduction and improved Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM). The Stacked Autoencoder (SAE) has shown excellent performance in feature dimensionality reduction. We compress high-dimensional feature input into low-dimensional feature output through SAE, narrowing the complexity of the model. Methods based on LSTM have a superior ability to detect abnormal traffic but cannot extract bidirectional structural features. We designed a Bi-directional Long Short-Term Memory (BiLSTM) model that added an Attention Mechanism. It can determine the criticality of the dimensionality and improve the accuracy of the classification model. Finally, we conduct experiments on the UNSW-NB15 dataset and the NSL-KDD dataset. The proposed scheme has obvious advantages in performance metrics such as accuracy and False Alarm Rate (FAR). The experimental results demonstrate that it can effectively identify the intrusion attack of communication in AMI.
Application of Resolvability Technique to Investigate the Different Polyphenyl Structures for Polymer Industry
Authors: Nadeem Muhammad Faisal , Hassan Mohsan , Azeem Muhammad , Ud-Din Khan Salah , Shaik Mohammed Rafi , Sharaf Mohammed A. F. , Abdelgawad Abdelatty , Awwad Emad Mahrous
Published: April 2021

Polyphenyl is used in a variety of applications including high-vacuum devices, optics, and electronics, and in high-temperature and radiation-resistant fluids and greases, it has low volatility, ionizing radiation stability, and high thermal-oxidative properties. The structure of polyphenyls can be represented using a molecular graph, where atoms represent vertices and bonds between atom edges. In a chemical structure, an item/vertex

v

resolves two items

v

1

 and 

v

2

if

d

v

1

,
v

≠
d

v

2

,
v

; similarly, the ordered subset

ϕ

of vertices resolves each pair of distinct vertices named as the resolving set, and its minimum cardinality is described as metric dimension. In the pharmaceutical industry, the competition to find new chemical entities for treating a disease dictates larger project teams that encompass more extensive and diverse synthetic efforts directed at increasingly complicated activity spectra. In this paper, we determine the metric dimension of para-, meta-, and ortho-polyphenyl structures, which are used for structure-activity analysis of these polyphenyl structures.
Extended TOPSIS Method for Supplier Selection under Picture Hesitant Fuzzy Environment Using Linguistic Variables
Authors: Ambrin Rabia , Ibrar Muhammad , De La Sen Manuel , Rabbi Ihsan , Khan Asghar
Published: April 2021

The main purpose of this planned manuscript is to establish an algorithm for the solution of multiattribute decision-making (MADM) issues, where the experts utilizing linguistic variables provide the information about attributes in the form of picture hesitant fuzzy numbers. So, for the solution of these kinds of issues, we develop the TOPSIS algorithm under picture hesitant fuzzy environment using linguistic variables, which plays a vital role in practical applications, notably MADM issues, where the decision information is arranged by the decision-makers (DMs) in the form of picture hesitant fuzzy numbers. Finally, a sample example is given as an application and appropriateness of the planned method. At the end, we conduct comparison analysis of the planned method with picture fuzzy TOPSIS method and intuitionistic fuzzy TOPSIS method.
Verification of Energy Usage Based on Standard Building Model Development of Low‐Rise Residential Buildings in South Korea
Authors: Kim KyungSoo , Yoo DongChul , Choi ChangHo , Jang HyangIn
Published: April 2021

The energy consumption of low‐rise residential buildings in South Korea exceeds the targets set in national policies and the standards of other countries. Moreover, there are insufficient policies in place to improve the energy performance of existing low‐rise residential buildings and no means to investigate the current status. A standard model enables cost‐effective and fast load forecasting and can also be used to establish long‐term policies through evaluation of energy saving in buildings before and after the application of energy policies. This study developed a standard model for predicting energy consumption by reflecting the characteristics of low‐rise residential buildings in Korea. The standard model was developed based on reliable related standards, national statistical data, and national reports, and the energy variables applied were validated through a sensitivity analysis. Surveys and field measurements were conducted to investigate the energy usage of 70 households in low‐rise residential buildings in Korea, and the developed model was validated through comparison with the actual energy usage data. Consequently, the total energy consumption error rate was 12.67% (R2 value: 0.8164), with a significance level higher than 80%, which indicated that the developed model was highly efficient and reliable.
An Improved and Privacy-Preserving Mutual Authentication Scheme with Forward Secrecy in VANETs
Authors: Yao Mengting , Wang Xiaoming , Gan Qingqing , Lin Yijian , Huang Chengpeng
Published: April 2021

Vehicular ad hoc network (VANETs) plays a major part in intelligent transportation to enhance traffic efficiency and safety. Security and privacy are the essential matters needed to be tackled due to the open communication channel. Most of the existing schemes only provide message authentication without identity authentication, especially the inability to support forward secrecy which is a major security goal of authentication schemes. In this article, we propose a privacy-preserving mutual authentication scheme with batch verification for VANETs which support both message authentication and identity authentication. More importantly, the proposed scheme achieves forward secrecy, which means the exposure of the shared key will not compromise the previous interaction. The security proof shows that our scheme can withstand various known security attacks, such as the impersonation attack and forgery attack. The experiment analysis results based on communication and computation cost demonstrate that our scheme is more efficient compared with the related schemes.
Inhibition of miR-128-3p Attenuated Doxorubicin-Triggered Acute Cardiac Injury in Mice by the Regulation of PPAR-γ
Authors: Zhang Wen-Bin , Zheng Yong-Fa , Wu Yao-Gui
Published: April 2021

Background. The clinical usefulness of doxorubicin (DOX), an anthracycline with antitumor activity, is limited by its cardiotoxicity. Oxidative stress and myocardial apoptosis were closely associated with DOX-induced cardiac dysfunction. It has been reported that microRNA-128-3p (miR-128-3p) was involved into the regulation of redox balance. However, the role of miR-128-3p in DOX-related cardiac injury remains not yet understood. The aim of this study was to investigate the biological effect of miR-128-3p in DOX-induced cardiotoxicity. Methods. To induce DOX-related acute cardiac injury, mice were subjected to a single injection of DOX. Inhibition of myocardial miR-128-3p was achieved by an adeno-associated virus (AAV9) system carrying a miR-128-3p sponge. Results. The data in our study indicated that miR-128-3p was upregulated in DOX-treated hearts and cardiomyocytes. Inhibition of miR-128-3p attenuated DOX-related cardiac injury and improved cardiac function in mice. Moreover, miR-128-3p inhibition could suppress myocardial inflammatory response, oxidative damage, and cell apoptotic death in DOX-treated mice. Further analysis showed that miR-128-3p could directly target peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPAR-γ) and decrease PPAR-γ expression. Moreover, the protective effects provided by miR-128-3p inhibition were abolished by a PPAR-γ antagonist in vivo and in vitro. Conclusions. miR-128-3p inhibition attenuated DOX-related acute cardiac injury via the regulation of PPAR-γ in mice.
Pneumonia Detection Using an Improved Algorithm Based on Faster R-CNN
Authors: Yao Shangjie , Chen Yaowu , Tian Xiang , Jiang Rongxin
Published: April 2021

Pneumonia remains a threat to human health; the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) that began at the end of 2019 had a major impact on the world. It is still raging in many countries and has caused great losses to people’s lives and property. In this paper, we present a method based on DeepConv-DilatedNet of identifying and localizing pneumonia in chest X-ray (CXR) images. Two-stage detector Faster R-CNN is adopted as the structure of a network. Feature Pyramid Network (FPN) is integrated into the residual neural network of a dilated bottleneck so that the deep features are expanded to preserve the deep feature and position information of the object. In the case of DeepConv-DilatedNet, the deconvolution network is used to restore high-level feature maps into its original size, and the target information is further retained. On the other hand, DeepConv-DilatedNet uses a popular fully convolution architecture with computation shared on the entire image. Then, Soft-NMS is used to screen boxes and ensure sample quality. Also, K-Means++ is used to generate anchor boxes to improve the localization accuracy. The algorithm obtained 39.23% Mean Average Precision (mAP) on the X-ray image dataset from the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) and got 38.02% Mean Average Precision (mAP) on the ChestX-ray14 dataset, surpassing other detection algorithms. So, in this paper, an improved algorithm that can provide doctors with location information of pneumonia lesions is proposed.
Nearly Fatal Hydroxychloroquine Overdose Successfully Treated with Midazolam, Propofol, Sodium Bicarbonate, Norepinephrine, and Intravenous Lipid Emulsion
Authors: Onsia Goswin , Bots Sarah
Published: April 2021

Background. In the context of the current COVID-19 pandemic, there has been renewed interest in the drug hydroxychloroquine. However, clinicians should be aware of the dangers of hydroxychloroquine intoxication, an insufficiently studied condition. Case Report. We present a case of autointoxication with 20 g hydroxychloroquine in a 35-year-old woman. Cardiac monitoring showed ventricular arrhythmias for which high-dose midazolam and propofol were initiated, resulting in a brief normalization of the cardiac rhythm. Because of the reoccurrence of these arrhythmias, intravenous lipid emulsion was administered with fast cardiac stabilization. Treatment with continuous norepinephrine, potassium chloride/phosphate, and sodium bicarbonate was initiated. On day 6, she was extubated and after 11 days, she was discharged from the hospital without complications. Conclusion. Since high-quality scientific evidence is lacking, treatment options are based on experience in chloroquine toxicity. Activated charcoal is advised if the patient presents early. Sedation with diazepam, early ventilation, and continuous epinephrine infusion are considered effective in treating severe intoxication. Caution is advised when substituting potassium. Despite the lack of formal evidence, sodium bicarbonate appears to be useful and safe in case of QRS widening. Intravenous lipid emulsion, with or without hemodialysis, remains controversial but appears to be safe. As a last resort, extracorporeal life support might be considered in case of persisting hemodynamic instability.
Arrhythmia Classification Techniques Using Deep Neural Network
Authors: Khan Ali Haider , Hussain Muzammil , Malik Muhammad Kamran
Published: April 2021

Electrocardiogram (ECG) is the most common and low‐cost diagnostic tool used in healthcare institutes for screening heart electrical signals. The abnormal heart signals are commonly known as arrhythmia. Cardiac arrhythmia can be dangerous, or in most cases, it can cause death. The arrhythmia can be of different types, and it can be detected by an ECG test. The automated screening of arrhythmia classification using ECG beats is developed for ages. The automated systems that can be adapted as a tool for screening arrhythmia classification play a vital role not only for the patients but can also assist the doctors. The deep learning‐based automated arrhythmia classification techniques are developed with high accuracy results but still not adopted by healthcare professionals as the generalized approach. The primary concerns that affect the success of the developed arrhythmia detection systems are (i) manual features selection, (ii) techniques used for features extraction, and (iii) algorithm used for classification and the most important is the use of imbalanced data for classification. This study focuses on the recent trends in arrhythmia classification techniques, and through extensive simulations, the performance of the various arrhythmia classification and detection models has been evaluated. Finally, the study presents insights into arrhythmia classification techniques to overcome the limitation in the existing methodologies.
Recombinant Human Thymosin Beta-4 Protects against Mouse Coronavirus Infection
Authors: Yu Rui , Mao Yunyun , Li Kai , Zhai Yanfang , Zhang Yue , Liu Shuling , Gao Yuemei , Chen Zhengshan , Liu Yanhong , Fang Ting , Zhao Mengsu , Li Ruihua , Xu Junjie , Chen Wei
Published: April 2021

Coronaviruses (CoVs) are enveloped and harbor an unusually large (30–32 kb) positive-strand linear RNA genome. Highly pathogenic coronaviruses cause severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) (SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) (MERS-CoV) in humans. The coronavirus mouse hepatitis virus (MHV) infects mice and serves as an ideal model of viral pathogenesis, mainly because experiments can be conducted using animal-biosafety level-2 (A-BSL2) containment. Human thymosin beta-4 (Tβ4), a 43-residue peptide with an acetylated N-terminus, is widely expressed in human tissues. Tβ4 regulates actin polymerization and functions as an anti-inflammatory molecule and an antioxidant as well as a promoter of wound healing and angiogenesis. These activities led us to test whether Tβ4 serves to treat coronavirus infections of humans. To test this possibility, here, we established a BALB/c mouse model of coronavirus infection using mouse CoV MHV-A59 to evaluate the potential protective effect of recombinant human Tβ4 (rhTβ4). Such a system can be employed under A-BSL2 containment instead of A-BSL3 that is required to study coronaviruses infectious for humans. We found that rhTβ4 significantly increased the survival rate of mice infected with MHV-A59 through inhibiting virus replication, balancing the host’s immune response, alleviating pathological damage, and promoting repair of the liver. These results will serve as the basis for further application of rhTβ4 to the treatment of human CoV diseases such as COVID-19.
ZEBRA: A Multicenter Phase II Study of Pembrolizumab in Patients with Advanced Small-Bowel Adenocarcinoma
Authors: Pedersen Katrina S. , Foster Nathan R. , Overman Michael J. , Boland Patrick M. , Kim Sunnie S. , Arrambide Kathryn A. , Jaszewski Brandy L. , Bekaii-Saab Tanios , Graham Rondell P. , Welch Jack , Wilson Richard H. , McWilliams Robert R.
Published: April 2021

Purpose:

Small-bowel adenocarcinoma (SBA) is rare, and no standard of care exists for metastatic disease beyond first-line FOLFOX/CAPOX. SBA has higher rates of microsatellite instability (MSI-H) and T-lymphocyte infiltration than other gastrointestinal cancers. We hypothesize that pembrolizumab, a PD-1 inhibitor, will induce antitumor response.

Patients and Methods:

Patients with previously treated advanced SBA received pembrolizumab 200 mg i.v. every 3 weeks until disease progression (PD), toxicity, or 35 doses maximum. Primary endpoint was confirmed overall response rate (ORR) with secondary progression-free survival (PFS), overall survival (OS), and toxicity assessment endpoints. Outcomes were stratified by tumor location, microsatellite stability (MSS) or instability (MSI-H), and PD-L1 level.

Results:

Forty patients were treated for a median duration of four cycles (range, 1–35). All patients are off study treatment due to PD (75%), death (10%), 35 cycles completed (8%), refusal (3%), and adverse effects (AEs, 5%). Three confirmed partial responses [PRs; 8%; 95% confidence interval (CI), 2–20] did not meet predefined success criteria of ORR 30%. Median OS (7.1 months; 95% CI, 5.1–17.1) and median PFS (2.8 months; 95% CI, 2.7–4.2) were similar across primary tumor sites. One confirmed PR (3%) was seen in patients with low MSS/MSI tumors and correlated with high tumor mutation burden (TMB). Fifty percent of patients with MSI-H tumors achieved PR and remain alive without progression. Twenty-five patients (63%) had grade ≥3 AEs and 11 patients (28%) had grade 4/5 AEs.

Conclusions:

In the largest study of SBA to date, pembrolizumab did not induce the hypothesized response rate; however, we did identify responses in key biomarker-selected cohorts.
Genomic Landscape of Primary and Recurrent Anal Squamous Cell Carcinomas in Relation to HPV Integration, Copy-Number Variation, and DNA Damage Response Genes
Authors: Aldersley Jordan , Lorenz David R. , Mouw Kent W. , D'Andrea Alan D. , Gabuzda Dana
Published: April 2021

The incidence of anal squamous cell carcinoma (ASCC) has been increasing, particularly in populations with HIV. Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the causal factor in 85% to 90% of ASCCs, but few studies evaluated HPV genotypes and integrations in relation to genomic alterations in ASCC. Using whole-exome sequence data for primary (n = 56) and recurrent (n = 31) ASCC from 72 patients, we detected HPV DNA in 87.5% of ASCC, of which HPV-16, HPV-18, and HPV-6 were detected in 56%, 22%, and 33% of HIV-positive (n = 9) compared with 83%, 3.2%, and 1.6% of HIV-negative cases (n = 63), respectively. Recurrent copy-number variations (CNV) involving genes with documented roles in cancer included amplification of PI3KCA and deletion of APC in primary and recurrent tumors; amplifications of CCND1, MYC, and NOTCH1 and deletions of BRCA2 and RB1 in primary tumors; and deletions of ATR, FANCD2, and FHIT in recurrent tumors. DNA damage response genes were enriched among recurrently deleted genes in recurrent ASCCs (P = 0.001). HPV integrations were detected in 29 of 76 (38%) ASCCs and were more frequent in stage III–IV versus stage I–II tumors. HPV integrations were detected near MYC and CCND1 amplifications and recurrent targets included NFI and MUC genes. These results suggest HPV genotypes in ASCC differ by HIV status, HPV integration is associated with ASCC progression, and DNA damage response genes are commonly disrupted in recurrent ASCCs.

Implications:

These data provide the largest whole-exome sequencing study of the ASCC genomic landscape to date and identify HPV genotypes, integrations, and recurrent CNVs in primary or recurrent ASCCs.
Hypomagnesemia Is a Risk Factor for Cardiovascular Disease- and Noncardiovascular Disease-Related Mortality in Peritoneal Dialysis Patients
Authors: Zhang Fengping , Wu Xianfeng , Wen Yueqiang , Zhan Xiaojiang , Peng Fen Fen , Wang Xiaoyang , Qian Zhou , Feng Xiaoran
Published: April 2021

Purpose: Recent research has shown that hypomagnesemia is associated with increased all-cause mortality in hemodialysis patients. However, the relationship between the long-term prognosis of peritoneal dialysis (PD) and the study is not yet clear. This study will analyze the effects of hypomagnesemia on all-cause, cardiovascular diseases (CVD), and non-CVD mortality in PD patients. Method: In a retrospective cohort study, 1,004 samples were selected from 7 PD centers in China. Based on the baseline blood magnesium level at the beginning of stable dialysis, all patients were classified into blood magnesium <0.7 mmol/L group, 0.7–1.2 mmol/L group, and >1.2 mmol/L group (the end event was death). The Kaplan-Meier method was used to calculate the difference in cumulative survival rate; the Cox proportional hazard model was used to analyze the risk factors of all-cause, CVD, and non-CVD death causes. Results: Cox multiple regression analysis results (reference comparison of 0.7–1.2 mmol/L group): patients with serum magnesium <0.7 mmol/L have a higher risk ratio of all-cause mortality (HR = 1.580, 95% CI: 1.222–2.042, p = 0.001), and it is also obvious after correction by multiple models (HR = 1.578, 95% CI: 1.196–2.083, p = 0.001). Subgroup analysis of the causes of death was as follows: CVD risk (HR = 1.628, 95% CI: 1.114–2.379, p = 0.012) and non-CVD risk (HR = 1.521, 95% CI: 1.011–2.288, p = 0.044). Further analysis of the causes of infection-related death in non-CVD is also significant (HR = 1.919, 95% CI: 1.131–3.1257, p = 0.016). On the other hand, the serum magnesium>1.2 mmol/L group had lower all-cause mortality after correction (HR = 0.687, 95% CI: 0.480–0.985, p = 0.041), and subgroup analysis of the cause of death had no statistical significance (p > 0.05). Conclusions: Hypomagnesemia (serum magnesium <0.7 mmol/L) during stable dialysis in PD patients is a risk factor for CVD- and non-CVD-related mortality, especially infection-related death causes.
Arterial Platelet Adhesion in Atherosclerosis‐Prone Arteries of Obese, Insulin‐Resistant Nonhuman Primates
Authors: Brown Eran , Ozawa Koya , Moccetti Federico , Vinson Amanda , Hodovan James , Nguyen The Anh , Bader Lindsay , López José A. , Kievit Paul , Shaw Gray D. , Chung Dominic W. , Osborn Warren , Fu Xiaoyun , Chen Junmei , Lindner Jonathan R.
Published: April 2021

Background

Platelet–endothelial interactions are thought to contribute to early atherogenesis. These interactions are potentiated by oxidative stress. We used in vivo molecular imaging to test the hypothesis that platelet–endothelial interactions occur at early stages of plaque development in obese, insulin‐resistant nonhuman primates, and are suppressed by NADPH‐oxidase‐2 inhibition.

Methods and Results

Six adult rhesus macaques fed a Western‐style diet for a median of 4.0 years were studied at baseline and after 8 weeks of therapy with the NADPH‐oxidase‐2‐inhibitor apocynin (50 mg/kg per day). Six lean control animals were also studied. Measurements included intravenous glucose tolerance test, body composition by dual‐energy X‐ray absorptiometry, carotid intimal medial thickness, carotid artery contrast ultrasound molecular imaging for platelet GPIbα (glycoprotein‐ Ibα) and vascular cell adhesion molecule‐1, and blood oxidative markers on mass spectrometry. Compared with lean controls, animals on a Western‐style diet were obese (median body mass: 16.0 versus 8.7 kg,
P
=0.003; median truncal fat: 49% versus 20%,
P
=0.002), were insulin resistant (4‐fold higher insulin–glucose area under the curve on intravenous glucose tolerance test,
P
=0.002), had 40% larger carotid intimal medial thickness (
P
=0.004), and exhibited oxidative signatures on proteomics. In obese but not lean animals, signal enhancement on molecular imaging was significantly elevated for GPIbα and vascular cell adhesion molecule‐1. The signal correlated modestly with intimal medial thickness but not with the degree of insulin resistance. Apocynin significantly (
P
<0.01) reduced median signal for GPIbα by >80% and vascular cell adhesion molecule‐1 signal by 75%, but did not affect intimal medial thickness, body mass, or intravenous glucose tolerance test results.

Conclusion

In nonhuman primates, diet‐induced obesity and insulin resistance leads to platelet–endothelial adhesion at early atherosclerotic lesion sites, which is associated with the expression of pro‐inflammatory adhesion molecules. These responses appear to be mediated, in part, through oxidative pathways.
Supertagging the Long Tail with Tree-Structured Decoding of Complex Categories
Authors: Prange Jakob , Schneider Nathan , Srikumar Vivek
Published: April 2021

Although current CCG supertaggers achieve high accuracy on the standard WSJ test set, few systems make use of the categories’ internal structure that will drive the syntactic derivation during parsing. The tagset is traditionally truncated, discarding the many rare and complex category types in the long tail. However, supertags are themselves trees. Rather than give up on rare tags, we investigate constructive models that account for their internal structure, including novel methods for tree-structured prediction. Our best tagger is capable of recovering a sizeable fraction of the long-tail supertags and even generates CCG categories that have never been seen in training, while approximating the prior state of the art in overall tag accuracy with fewer parameters. We further investigate how well different approaches generalize to out-of-domain evaluation sets.
The Effect of Motion Direction and Eccentricity on Vection, VR Sickness and Head Movements in Virtual Reality
Authors: Pöhlmann Katharina Margareta Theresa , Föcker Julia , Dickinson Patrick , Parke Adrian , O’Hare Louise
Published: April 2021

Virtual Reality (VR) experienced through head-mounted displays often leads to vection, discomfort and sway in the user. This study investigated the effect of motion direction and eccentricity on these three phenomena using optic flow patterns displayed using the Valve Index. Visual motion stimuli were presented in the centre, periphery or far periphery and moved either in depth (back and forth) or laterally (left and right). Overall vection was stronger for motion in depth compared to lateral motion. Additionally, eccentricity primarily affected stimuli moving in depth with stronger vection for more peripherally presented motion patterns compared to more central ones. Motion direction affected the various aspects of VR sickness differently and modulated the effect of eccentricity on VR sickness. For stimuli moving in depth far peripheral presentation caused more discomfort, whereas for lateral motion the central stimuli caused more discomfort. Stimuli moving in depth led to more head movements in the anterior–posterior direction when the entire visual field was stimulated. Observers demonstrated more head movements in the anterior–posterior direction compared to the medio-lateral direction throughout the entire experiment independent of motion direction or eccentricity of the presented moving stimulus. Head movements were elicited on the same plane as the moving stimulus only for stimuli moving in depth covering the entire visual field. A correlation showed a positive relationship between dizziness and vection duration and between general discomfort and sway. Identifying where in the visual field motion presented to an individual causes the least amount of VR sickness without losing vection and presence can guide development for Virtual Reality games, training and treatment programmes.
Marriage quandaries in Central Asia
Authors: Cleuziou Juliette , McBrien Julie
Published: April 2021

Many Central Asians speak of marriage as important and self-evident despite the fact that marriage in practice across the region presents a more complicated story. There is not only an extensive array of practices indicated by the single term marriage and a wide variety of things accomplishes by its conclusion and duration, but many non-marital sets of relations in Central Asia similarly realise what marriage does. This may lead one to question whether there is any sense in trying to pin marriage down at all. Yet, this tension — the flexibility of marriage in form and function, and its overlap with nonmarriage on the one hand, and its abiding importance and, at times, self-evidentiary nature, on the other — we suggest, lies at the heart of marriage-as-practice in Central Asia. Following recent turns in kinship studies, and long-standing feminist traditions, this paper envisages marriage as a relational practice of legitimization rather than pinning it down as a particular content. We argue that by focusing on the act of getting married in particular, its particular efficacy, as well as the disputes, questions, and conflicts that sometime arise as a result – in short, the quandaries of getting married – we get not only at this tensional nature of marriage, but at the everyday concerns and major societal issues wrapped up in marriage in Central Asia.
“What Does Marriage Stand for?” Getting Married and Divorced in Contemporary Tajikistan
Authors: Cleuziou Juliette
Published: April 2021

This paper aims to show that marriage in Tajikistan does not have a single meaning or encapsulate a single practice. Although marriage is considered to be a crucial matter in the country, both for men and women, and is usually talked in terms of normative rules and prescriptions, marriage practices show the constant negotiations in daily life which contribute to defining what marriage is and is not, and what relations are being valued when others are discredited. Through the example of two life stories collected among “demarried” women, I argue that the heterogeneous practice of marriage reveals that it works as a practice of legitimizing one’s position in the community, but also as a means, for women, of overcoming life’s obstacles. As such, marriage comes across as a highly context-dependent practice.
Araceae from Serra do Brigadeiro State Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil

Authors: HENTZ JÚNIOR ELMAR J. , HAMMES JANAINE K. , CAMELO MEL C. , COELHO MARCUS A.N. , TEMPONI LÍVIA G.
Published: April 2021

In Brazil, the family Araceae has 47 genera, approximately 519 species, 276 of which are endemic, it is characterized by the presence of the spadix associated with a bract, the spathe, and its one of the families with the highest species richness for the Atlantic Forest. This survey aims to inventory the Araceae of the Serra do Brigadeiro State Park (PESB), providing identification keys, descriptions, photos, and illustrations of diagnostic characters of the species, contributing to the Araceae Flora for Minas Gerais. To collect data, field trips were carried out in November 2018, July 2019, and February 2020, and the collected materials were deposited in the UNOP and RB herbaria. A total of 13 species, belonging to three genera, were documented. The genus Anthurium was the most diverse with eight species, followed by Philodendron with four species and Asterostigma with only one species. Through this survey, two species of Anthurium were found (A. atrovinosum and A. brigadeiroense) and recently described. Also, A. comtum, A. gladiifolium, and P. edmundoi are new for this area, and A. fontellanum was collected for the first time since 2004, reinforcing the importance of floristic studies and the conservation of Atlantic Forest remnants, such as the PESB.
Checklist, typifications, and nomenclatural notes on Comolia (Melastomataceae, Marcetieae)
Authors: SILVA DIEGO NUNES DA , ROCHA MARIA JOSÉ REIS DA , MAIA VÍTOR HUGO , GUIMARÃES ELSIE FRANKLIN , GUIMARÃES PAULO JOSÉ FERNANDES
Published: April 2021

Comolia is a neotropical genus currently represented by 10 accepted species. Since the description of the genus, 47 names have been published within it. When investigating these names, we found that some of them needed to be typified. The aim of the present study was to provide the nomenclatural treatment for Comolia, including a list of all synonyms related to its species, typifications and nomenclatural comments, when necessary. Thirteen lectotypes and one neotype are designated here. Six names were lectotypified using two illustrations. In addition, we synonymized C. ovalifolia var. blanchetiana and C. ovalifolia var. denudata under C. ovalifolia, and we typified Melastoma rhexioides and exclude it from Comolia.
Ainsliaea polystachya (Asteraceae), a new species from Fujian, China based on morphological and molecular evidence

Authors: ZHANG MEI-JIAO , SU XIANG-XIU , AN CHANG , LI HONG-QING , ZHANG ZHEN
Published: April 2021

A new species, Ainsliaea polystachya X. X. Su & M. J. Zhang is described from Fujian, China, based on morphological traits and molecular markers. The new species is distinct by open panicles, capitula bearing only one flower, and actinomorphic corolla. Keys to the morphologically similar species and phylogenetic allies are proposed.
Two new species of the genus Nemaspela Šilhavý from caves in Georgia (Opiliones: Nemastomatidae)
Authors: MARTENS JOCHEN , MAGHRADZE ETER , BARJADZE SHALVA
Published: April 2021

Two highly specialized endemic troglobiotic harvestman species of the genus Nemaspela Šilhavý, 1966 are described. N. melouri sp. nov. from Melouri Cave and N. prometheus sp. nov. from Prometheus Cave (Sataplia-Tskaltubo karst massif, Imereti region, western Georgia), respectively. Despite the fact that the entrances of the caves are positioned only 2.5 km apart, the new taxa differ from each other distinctly by presence vs. absence of male cheliceral apophysis, which is lacking in the second species. A key to the Caucasian species of the genus is provided. Relationships of Nemaspela species within the genus and with hypothetical epigean ancestors are discussed.
New species and findings of Pagastia Oliver (Diptera: Chironomidae: Diamesinae) from Central Asia, with DNA barcoding of known species of the genus
Authors: MAKARCHENKO EUGENYI A.  , SEMENCHENKO ALEXANDER A. , PALATOV DMITRY M.
Published: April 2021

Chironomids of the genus Pagastia Oliver (Diamesinae, Diamesini) from the mountains of Central Asia are revised using both morphological characters and molecular data. Illustrated descriptions of the adult male Pagastia (P.) caelestomontana sp. nov. from Kirgizstan and Tajikistan, P. (P.) hanseni sp. nov. from Tajikistan, and record of a finding apparently a new species P. (P.) aff. lanceolata (Tokunaga) from Tajikistan as well as an updated a key to the determination of the adult males of all known species of Pagastia are provided. A phylogenetic framework is reconstructed based on two mitochondrial genes cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) sequences of 34 samples belonging to 7 species of the genus Pagastia and cytochrome oxidase subunit II (COII) available for most samples. Phylogenetic trees of some known species of the genus Pagastia were reconstructed using the combined dataset and Bayesian inference (BI) and Maximum Likelihood (ML) methods. The interspecific K2P distances between seven Pagastia species including P. (P.) caelestomontana sp. nov., P. (P.) hanseni sp. nov. and undescribed P. (P.) aff. lanceolata (Tokunaga) are 6.3–13.2 which corresponding to species level.
Two new endemic species of Abantiades Herrich-Schäffer (Lepidoptera: Hepialidae) from Kangaroo Island, Australia
Authors: MOORE MICHAEL D. , BEAVER ETHAN P. , VELASCO-CASTRILLÓN ALEJANDRO , STEVENS MARK I.
Published: April 2021

Abantiades penneshawensis Moore & Beaver sp. nov. and Abantiades rubrus Moore & Beaver sp. nov. are described as new. Both species are endemic to Kangaroo Island, and although both are related to species that occur on the Australian mainland and other islands, they are distinguished from those sister and phenotypically similar species by morphology and mtDNA (COI) barcodes. These two new species raise the number of Abantiades species on Kangaroo Island to six, three being endemic, and 45 species in the genus for the whole of Australia. There are now 13 species of Hepialidae (one undescribed) known from Kangaroo Island and we discuss the potential effects of recent catastrophic fire on some distributions.
A new species and comparative morphology of Philippine sea biscuits (Echinoidea: Clypeaster)
Authors: MOOI RICH , NOORDENBURG HENK VAN
Published: April 2021

A new species of clypeasterid sea biscuit, Clypeaster brigitteae n. sp., is described from material collected in the Philippines at depths between 100 and 200 m. The new taxon increases the number of Clypeaster species recorded from the Philippines to nine, representing nearly a quarter of the world’s diversity of the genus. Other Philippine species include: C. annandalei Koehler, 1922; C. fervens Koehler, 1922; C. humilis (Leske, 1778); C. japonicus Döderlein, 1885; C. latissimus (Lamarck, 1816); C. pateriformis Mortensen, 1948; C. reticulatus (Linnaeus, 1758); and C. virescens Döderlein, 1885. Using type material where available, each of these species is compared and contrasted with C. brigitteae n. sp. in tables consisting of new data derived from general test shape and size, petal structure, food grooves, plate architecture, internal structure, and morphology of spines, pedicellariae, and tube feet.
Review of the leafhopper genus Protensus Zhang & Dai (Hemiptera, Cicadellidae, Deltocephalinae) with description of a new species
Authors: ZHANG LAN , WEBB M.D. , XING JICHUN
Published: April 2021

Species of the leafhopper genus Protensus Zhang & Dai, 2001 (Deltocephalinae: Athysanini) from Japan and China are reviewed, and a new species Protensus lii sp. nov. is described and illustrated from China. Protensus nigrifrons Li & Xing, 2011 is treated as incertae sedis in the tribe Mukariini (Deltocephalinae). A checklist and key to species of Protensus is provided.
Trade Unions and the Welfare of Rural-Urban Migrant Workers in China
Authors: Booth Alison , Freeman Richard , Meng Xin , Zhang Jilu
Published: April 2021

Using a panel survey, the authors investigate how the welfare of rural-urban migrant workers in China is affected by trade union presence at the workplace. Controlling for individual fixed effects, they find the following. Relative to workers from workplaces without union presence or with inactive unions, both union-covered non-members and union members in workplaces with active unions earn higher monthly income, are more likely to have a written contract, be covered by social insurances, receive fringe benefits, express work-related grievances through official channels, feel more satisfied with their lives, and are less likely to have mental health problems.