bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Blood Pressure Variability Early After Liver Transplantation Predicts Long‐Term Mortality
Authors: Truitt Katie , Chen Kevin , Yano Yuichiro , Gregory Dyanna L. , VanWagner Lisa B.
Published: November 2021

Cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of mortality after liver transplantation (LT). Elevated blood pressure (BP) in LT recipients (LTRs) is associated with increased cardiovascular events (CVEs) and decreased survival. Increased visit‐to‐visit BP variability in the general population is associated with adverse outcomes. Whether BP variability is associated with adverse outcomes in LTRs is unknown. We analyzed data from adult LTRs within a single large transplant center in the United States between 2010 and 2016. Day‐to‐day BP variability within the first 60 days after LT was measured using variability independent of the mean (VIM). To assess the association between early post‐LT BP variability and future CVEs or mortality, we used Cox proportional hazard regression. Among 512 LTRs (34.4% women; 10.7% Black; mean age, 56.5 years), increased systolic BP (SBP) variability was associated with a decreased risk of mortality (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR], 0.97/1 unit VIM; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.94‐0.99). This was particularly true for men (aHR, 0.94; 95% CI, 0.91‐0.98), patients with pre‐LT atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (aHR, 0.95; 95% CI, 0.92‐0.98), and patients without pre‐LT diabetes mellitus (aHR, 0.96; 95% CI, 0.93‐1.00). There was no significant effect of BP variability on CVEs. Results were consistent when competing risk analysis was used with death as the competing risk. Increased diastolic BP variability was not associated with a significant effect on CVEs (hazard ratio [HR], 0.96; 95% CI, 0.90‐1.02) nor mortality (HR, 1.00; 95% CI, 0.95‐1.06). Increased SBP variability, independent of mean BP, is associated with decreased mortality in LTRs. We postulate that increased BP variability reflects a better vascular recovery in patients undergoing LT, but further research is needed as to the mechanism underlying our observation.
Single‐Trajectory Multiple‐Target Deep Brain Stimulation for Parkinsonian Mobility and Cognition
Authors: Sasikumar Sanskriti , Cohn Melanie , Harmsen Irene E. , Loh Aaron , Cho Sang Soo , Sáenz‐Farret Michel , Maciel Ricardo , Soh Derrick , Boutet Alexandre , Germann Jürgen , Elias Gavin , Youm Ariana , Duncan Katherine , Rowland Nathan C. , Strafella Antonio P. , Kalia Suneil K. , Lozano Andres M. , Fasano Alfonso
Published: November 2021

Background

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the nucleus basalis of Meynert (NBM) is an emerging target to potentially treat cognitive dysfunction.

Objectives

The aim of this study is to achieve feasibility and safety of globus pallidus pars interna (GPi) and NBM DBS in advanced PD with cognitive impairment.

Methods

We performed a phase‐II double‐blind crossover pilot trial in six participants to assess safety and cognitive measures, the acute effect of NBM stimulation on attention, motor and neuropsychological data at one year, and neuroimaging biomarkers of NBM stimulation.

Results

NBM DBS was well tolerated but did not improve cognition. GPi DBS improved dyskinesia and motor fluctuations (P = 0.04) at one year. NBM stimulation was associated with reduced right frontal and parietal glucose metabolism (P < 0.01) and increased low‐ and high‐frequency power and functional connectivity. Volume of tissue activated in the left NBM was associated with stable cognition (P < 0.05).

Conclusions

Simultaneous GPi and NBM stimulation is safe and improves motor complications. NBM stimulation altered neuroimaging biomarkers but without lasting cognitive improvement. © 2021 International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society
A multitask dual‐stream attention network for the identification of KRAS mutation in colorectal cancer
Authors: Song Kai , Zhao Zijuan , Ma Yulan , Wang JiaWen , Wu Wei , Qiang Yan , Zhao Juanjuan , Chaudhary Suman
Published: November 2021

Purpose

It is of great significance to accurately identify the KRAS gene mutation status for patients in tumor prognosis and personalized treatment. Although the computer‐aided diagnosis system based on deep learning has gotten all‐round development, its performance still cannot meet the current clinical application requirements due to the inherent limitations of small‐scale medical image data set and inaccurate lesion feature extraction. Therefore, our aim is to propose a deep learning model based on T2 MRI of colorectal cancer (CRC) patients to identify whether KRAS gene is mutated.

Methods

In this research, a multitask attentive model is proposed to identify KRAS gene mutations in patients, which is mainly composed of a segmentation subnetwork and an identification subnetwork. Specifically, at first, the features extracted by the encoder of segmentation model are used as guidance information to guide the two attention modules in the identification network for precise activation of the lesion area. Then the original image of the lesion and the segmentation result are concatenated for feature extraction. Finally, features extracted from the second step are combined with features activated by the attention modules to identify the gene mutation status. In this process, we introduce the interlayer loss function to encourage the similarity of the two subnetwork parameters and ensure that the key features are fully extracted to alleviate the overfitting problem caused by small data set to some extent.

Results

The proposed identification model is benchmarked primarily using 15‐fold cross validation. Three hundred and eighty‐two images from 36 clinical cases were used to test the model. For the identification of KRAS mutation status, the average accuracy is 89.951.23%, the average sensitivity is 89.291.79%, the average specificity is 90.53 2.45%, and the average area under the curve (AUC) is 95.73 0.52%. For segmentation of lesions, the average dice is 88.11 0.86%.

Conclusions

We developed a novel deep learning–based model to identify the KRAS status in CRC. We demonstrated the excellent properties of the proposed identification through comparison with ground truth gene mutation status of 36 clinical cases. And all these results show that the novel method has great potential for clinical application.
Toward personalized medicine for pharmacological interventions in neonates using vital signs
Authors: Hartley Caroline
Published: November 2021

Vital signs, such as heart rate and oxygen saturation, are continuously monitored for infants in neonatal care units. Pharmacological interventions can alter an infant's vital signs, either as an intended effect or as a side effect, and consequently could provide an approach to explore the wide variability in pharmacodynamics across infants and could be used to develop models to predict outcome (efficacy or adverse effects) in an individual infant. This will enable doses to be tailored according to the individual, shifting the balance toward efficacy and away from the adverse effects of a drug. Pharmacological analgesics are frequently not given in part due to the risk of adverse effects, yet this exposes infants to the short‐ and long‐term effects of painful procedures. Personalized analgesic dosing will be an important step forward in providing safer effective pain relief in infants. The aim of this paper was to describe a framework to develop predictive models of drug outcome from analysis of vital signs data, focusing on analgesics as a representative example. This framework investigates changes in vital signs in response to the analgesic (prior to the painful procedure) and proposes using machine learning to examine if these changes are predictive of outcome—either efficacy (with pain response measured using a multimodal approach, as changes in vital signs alone have limited sensitivity and specificity) or adverse effects. The framework could be applied to both preterm and term infants in neonatal care units, as well as older children. Sharing vital signs data are proposed as a means to achieve this aim and bring personalized medicine rapidly to the forefront in neonatology.
SPOPB: Reducing solid state drive write traffic for flash‐based key‐value caching
Authors: Li Zongwei , Feng Dan , Hu Yuchong , Lu Mengting
Published: November 2021

Flash‐based key‐value (KV) caching has received increasing attention in recent years with the advantages of flash‐based solid state drives (SSDs) in capacity and cost. By caching most data in SSD, the caching system can eliminate lots of time‐consuming requests to back‐end data stores to provide low‐latency services. To adapt to the unique technical constraints of flash memory, flash‐based KV caching adopts a slab‐based log‐structured management scheme in which the slab is the basic storage unit, and uses a small memory space as a write buffer to eliminate small random writes to SSD for consistent performance and increased lifetime of SSD. However, we have observed that under update‐intensive workloads with strong temporal locality, the slab‐based management in flash‐based KV caching introduces substantial SSD write traffic because of indistinguishable SSD flushing of hot items in slabs, which shortens the SSD lifetime and degrades the performance with increased erase operations. In this article, we first analyze the SSD write traffic in the flash‐based KV caching, and then propose a novel slab popularity‐based storage management scheme‐SPOPB, to extend SSD lifetime and improve performance. Our scheme identifies hot items using a self‐adaptive threshold to reorganize and classify slabs with both the hotness and size of items. Then SPOPB filters and retains the popular slabs containing hot items in the write buffer with redesigned replacement policy to reduce the SSD write traffic. Our experiments show that our design can effectively reduce the SSD write traffic by 63.6%, the erase counts by 55.6%, and improve the performance by 42%.
Social influence‐based privacy inference attacks in online social networks
Authors: Yi Yuzi , He Jingsha , Zhu Nafei , Ma Xiangjun
Published: November 2021

Privacy inference attacks in online social networks aim at inferring hidden attributes of target users based on released attributes of the users as well as information about social relationships in the networks. Although many privacy inference methods have been proposed in recent years, most of the methods have mostly focused on pursuing high accuracy of the inference results without paying too much attention on identifying users who make the most contributions to the inference, making it less useful in the development of effective countermeasures. In this paper, by taking full consideration of the roles of users in privacy inference, we propose a privacy inference method based on graph attention networks that can provide information about not only the private attributes of the target users, but also the importance of the users in the process of inferring the results. We also design a novel mechanism for the selection of influential users to make our proposed method adaptive to the characteristics of user influence diffusion, resulting in involving fewer number of users in privacy inference and hence improving the efficiency. We also performed some experiment to evaluate the proposed method using a real online social network dataset to show the effectiveness of the proposed method. Comparison with other comparable methods also shows that the results of our proposed method are more accurate.
Long‐Term Stability of Reference Measuring System for Impulse High Voltage
Authors: Miyazaki Satoru , Goshima Hisashi , Wakimoto Takayuki , Ishii Masaru
Published: November 2021

Long‐term stabilities of shielded resistive voltage dividers for lightning and switching impulse, employed as the reference dividers of Japan High‐voltage Impulse testing Laboratory Liaison (JHILL) are investigated. The DC scale factors and the step‐response parameters have been annually measured for 20 years. Annual variations of impulse parameters, namely the peak value, the front time, and the time to half value of the calculated waveform from the step‐response waveforms by the convolution algorithm are investigated. Furthermore, long‐term stabilities of reference low‐voltage impulse calibrators are investigated. The parameters of circuit elements of the calibrators have been annually measured for 18 years. The impulse parameters of the output waveforms of the calibrators are calculated, and the annual variations of them are investigated. After the detailed evaluation, it can be expected that the measurement system employing the voltage dividers and the calibrators, including the analytical method of the data, has the similar performance to those of NMIs of developed countries. © 2021 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.
Bin mapping‐based QTL analyses using three genetic populations derived from indica–japonica crosses uncover multiple grain shape heterosis‐related loci in rice
Authors: Deng Xiaoxiao , Kong Weilong , Sun Tong , Zhang Chenhao , Zhong Hua , Zhao Gangqing , Liu Xuhui , Qiang Yalin , Li Yangsheng
Published: November 2021

Exploitation of heterosis between indica and japonica has important significance in scientific research and agriculture application. However, the molecular mechanism of grain shape heterosis in indica–japonica hybrid remains unknown in rice (Oryza sativa L.). To reveal the genetic mechanism of grain shape in indica‐‐japonica hybrid, we constructed a high‐generation recombinant inbred line (RIL) population and two testcross hybrid populations derived from the cross of RILs and two cytoplasmic male sterile material (YTA and Z7A) and then performed a bin mapping‐based quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping of multiple grain shape traits, such as grain length (GL), grain width (GW), and grain length‐to‐width ratio (GLWR). A total of sixteen QTLs and 30 heterosis‐related QTLs of grain shape traits were detected. We found that GS3, GS5, and OsPPKL2 were also correlated with grain shape both in RILs and two testcross hybrid populations. Homologous gene analysis emphasized two candidate grain shape‐associated genes (LOC_Os06g14260 and LOC_Os04g51950). Our findings uncover multiple grain shape heterosis‐related loci and provides a new insight into heterosis mechanism of grain shape in rice.
Temporal changes in the presence and intensity of innocent cardiac murmurs in clinically healthy Cairn terrier and Dachshund puppies between 4 and 8 weeks of age
Authors: Rigterink Donny , L'Herminez Mariska A. , Szatmári Viktor
Published: November 2021

Background

Spontaneous week‐to‐week variation in the presence and intensity of innocent cardiac murmurs in individual puppies is unknown.

Methods

Sixty privately owned, clinically healthy Cairn terrier and Dachshund puppies between 4 and 8 weeks of age were included. All dogs underwent weekly cardiac auscultation at the breeders’ home by a veterinary cardiology specialist using an acoustic stethoscope. On each occasion, a phonocardiogram was recorded with an electronic stethoscope. Furthermore, all dogs were auscultated once at a first opinion veterinary practise and once at the authors’ institution, where they also underwent an echocardiographic examination.

Results

Two‐hundred and eighty‐one auscultations were conducted on 32 Cairn terriers and 28 Dachshunds, at the breeders’ homes. Innocent murmurs were detected in 19 puppies. Two of these puppies had a detectable murmur on each auscultation. In five of the puppies, the murmur became undetectable during the observation period and in 12 puppies the murmur was intermittently audible. Auscultation at the authors’ institution had an unpredictable effect on murmur presence and intensity. Phonocardiography revealed murmurs in 42 puppies. Interpretation of phonocardiograms by two independent observers showed nearly perfect agreement (κ = 0.859).

Conclusions

Remarkable and unpredictable spontaneous week‐to‐week variation was documented in the presence and intensity of innocent murmurs.
Evaluation of urinary extravasation after non-operative management of traumatic renal injury: a multi-center retrospective study
Authors: Muratsu Arisa , Nakao Shunichiro , Yoshimura Jumpei , Muroya Takashi , Shimazaki Junya , Nakagawa Yuko , Ogura Hiroshi , Shimazu Takeshi
Published: November 2021

Purpose

Urinary extravasation is one of the major complications after non-operative management of traumatic renal injury and may lead to urinary tract infection and sepsis. The purpose of this study was to evaluate these factors in patients with traumatic renal injury.

Methods

This was a multi-center, retrospective, observational study performed at three tertiary referral hospitals in Osaka prefecture. We included patients with traumatic renal injury transported to the centers between January 2008 and December 2018. We excluded patients who either died or underwent nephrectomy within 24 h after admission. We investigated the occurrence of urinary extravasation and the related factors after traumatic renal injury using multivariable logistic regression analysis.

Results

In total, 146 patients were eligible for analysis. Their median age was 44 years and 68.5% were male. Their median Injury Severity Score was 17. Renal injuries were graded as American Association for Surgery of Trauma (AAST) grade I in 33 (22.6%), II in 27 (18.5%), III in 38 (26.0%), IV in 28 (19.2%), and V in 20 (13.7%) patients. Urinary extravasation was diagnosed in 26 patients (17.8%) and was statistically significantly associated with AAST grades IV–V (adjusted odds ratio, 33.8 [95% confidence interval 7.12–160], p < 0.001).

Conclusion

We observed urinary extravasation in 17.8% of patients with non-operative management of traumatic renal injury and the diagnosed was made in mostly within 7 days after admission. In this study, the patients with AAST grade IV–V injury were associated with having urinary extravasation.
Assessment of genomic prediction reliability and optimization of experimental designs in multi-environment trials
Authors: Rio Simon , Akdemir Deniz , Carvalho Tiago , Sánchez Julio Isidro y
Published: November 2021

Key message

New forms of the coefficient of determination can help to forecast the accuracy of genomic prediction and optimize experimental designs in multi-environment trials with genotype-by-environment interactions.

In multi-environment trials, the relative performance of genotypes may vary depending on the environmental conditions, and this phenomenon is commonly referred to as genotype-by-environment interaction (G$$\times$$×E). With genomic prediction, G$$\times$$×E can be accounted for by modeling the genetic covariance between trials, even when the overall experimental design is highly unbalanced between trials, thanks to the genomic relationship between genotypes. In this study, we propose new forms of the coefficient of determination (CD, i.e., the expected model-based square correlation between a genetic value and its corresponding prediction) that can be used to forecast the genomic prediction reliability of genotypes, both for their trial-specific performance and their mean performance. As the expected prediction reliability based on these new CD criteria is generally a good approximation of the observed reliability, we demonstrate that they can be used to optimize multi-environment trials in the presence of G$$\times$$×E. In addition, this reliability may be highly variable between genotypes, especially in unbalanced designs with complex pedigree relationships between genotypes. Therefore, it can be useful for breeders to assess it before selecting genotypes based on their predicted genetic values. Using a wheat population evaluated both for simulated and phenology traits, and two maize populations evaluated for grain yield, we illustrate this approach and confirm the value of our new CD criteria.
The performance of phenomic selection depends on the genetic architecture of the target trait
Authors: Zhu Xintian , Maurer Hans Peter , Jenz Mario , Hahn Volker , Ruckelshausen Arno , Leiser Willmar L. , Würschum Tobias
Published: November 2021

Key message

The phenomic predictive ability depends on the genetic architecture of the target trait, being high for complex traits and low for traits with major QTL.

Genomic selection is a powerful tool to assist breeding of complex traits, but a limitation is the costs required for genotyping. Recently, phenomic selection has been suggested, which uses spectral data instead of molecular markers as predictors. It was shown to be competitive with genomic prediction, as it achieved predictive abilities as high or even higher than its genomic counterpart. The objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of phenomic prediction for triticale and the dependency of the predictive ability on the genetic architecture of the target trait. We found that for traits with a complex genetic architecture, like grain yield, phenomic prediction with NIRS data as predictors achieved high predictive abilities and performed better than genomic prediction. By contrast, for mono- or oligogenic traits, for example, yellow rust, marker-based approaches achieved high predictive abilities, while those of phenomic prediction were very low. Compared with molecular markers, the predictive ability obtained using NIRS data was more robust to varying degrees of genetic relatedness between the training and prediction set. Moreover, for grain yield, smaller training sets were required to achieve a similar predictive ability for phenomic prediction than for genomic prediction. In addition, our results illustrate the potential of using field-based spectral data for phenomic prediction. Overall, our result confirmed phenomic prediction as an efficient approach to improve the selection gain for complex traits in plant breeding.
The use of hydroxyapatite toothpaste to prevent dental caries
Authors: O’Hagan-Wong Kelsey , Enax Joachim , Meyer Frederic , Ganss Bernhard
Published: November 2021

Dissolution of hydroxyapatite from the tooth structure at low pH can lead to the irreversible destruction of enamel and dentin, which if left untreated can result in pain and tooth loss. Hydroxyapatite toothpastes contain hydroxyapatite particles in micro- or nanocrystalline form that have been shown to deposit and restore demineralized enamel surfaces. As such, they are currently being explored as a fluoride-free anti-caries agent. This narrative review article aims to summarize the recent findings of the research investigating the remineralization potential of HAP toothpaste in vitro, in situ and in vivo, as well as some other applications in dentistry.
Aging-related fears and their associations with ideal life expectancy
Authors: Rupprecht Fiona S. , Martin Kristina , Lang Frieder R.
Published: November 2021

Fears regarding various aspects tend to stimulate individuals to escape or to avoid the sources of the threat. We concluded that fears associated with the future aging process, like the fear of aging-related diseases, the fear of loneliness in old age, and the fear of death, would stimulate patterns of avoidance when it comes to ideal life expectancy. We expected fear of aging-related diseases and fear of loneliness in old age to be related to lower ideal life expectancies. We expected fear of death to be related to higher ideal life expectancies. In two adult lifespan samples [N1 = 1065 andN2 = 591; ages ranging from 18 to 95 years,M(SD)1 = 58.1 (17.2) years,M(SD)2 = 52.6 (18.1) years], we were able to support our hypothesis regarding fear of death. We furthermore found significant interactions among the fears, indicating that individuals fearing diseases or loneliness but being unafraid of death opted for the shortest lives. Our results indicate that fears regarding life in very old age might be associated with the wish to avoid this age period; the fear of death was however associated with the wish for particularly long lives, and thus, with distancing oneself from the dreaded event of death. We conclude that fears seem to be associated with how individuals approach old age and with what they wish for in their own future as aged people.
Autonomy-related Parenting Profiles and their Effects on Adolescents’ Academic and Psychological Development: A Longitudinal Person-oriented Analysis
Authors: Teuber Ziwen , Tang Xin , Sielemann Lena , Otterpohl Nantje , Wild Elke
Published: November 2021

The important role of parenting is widely acknowledged, but as most studies have understood and examined it as a stable attribute (e.g., parenting style), the stability of and changes in parenting are less well understood. Using longitudinal person-oriented approaches (i.e., latent profile analyses and latent transition analyses), this study aimed to examine the stability of and changes in autonomy-related parenting profiles and their effects on adolescents’ academic and psychological development. Four autonomy-related dimensions (i.e., autonomy support, warmth, psychological control, conditional regard) were chosen to identify parenting profiles on the basis of Self-Determination Theory. Using five-year longitudinal data from 789 German secondary school students (50.06% female,Mageat T1 = 10.82 years, age span = 10–17), four autonomy-related parenting profiles were found:Supportive(~17%),Controlling(~31%),Unsupportive-Uncontrolling(~17%), andLimited Supportive(~35%). The results suggest that theSupportiveprofile contributes to adolescents’ positive academic and psychological development, whereas theControllingprofile, which thwarts autonomy development, exacerbates the development of psychopathology, and impairs academic achievement. More importantly, theLimited Supportiveprofile is as maladaptive as theUnsupportive-Uncontrollingprofile. Regarding parenting profiles’ stability and changes, the results showed that about half of each profile stayed in the same group. Overall, it could be observed that parents became more supportive and less controlling over time. However, the findings also indicate that parenting profiles are less stable than expected and can still change during early-to-mid adolescence.
Variance Bounding of Delayed-Acceptance Kernels
Authors: Sherlock Chris , Lee Anthony
Published: November 2021

A delayed-acceptance version of a Metropolis–Hastings algorithm can be useful for Bayesian inference when it is computationally expensive to calculate the true posterior, but a computationally cheap approximation is available; the delayed-acceptance kernel targets the same posterior as its associated “parent” Metropolis-Hastings kernel. Although the asymptotic variance of the ergodic average of any functional of the delayed-acceptance chain cannot be less than that obtained using its parent, the average computational time per iteration can be much smaller and so for a given computational budget the delayed-acceptance kernel can be more efficient. When the asymptotic variance of the ergodic averages of all$$L^2$$L2functionals of the chain are finite, the kernel is said to be variance bounding. It has recently been noted that a delayed-acceptance kernel need not be variance bounding even when its parent is. We provide sufficient conditions for inheritance: for non-local algorithms, such as the independence sampler, the discrepancy between the log density of the approximation and that of the truth should be bounded; for local algorithms, two alternative sets of conditions are provided. As a by-product of our initial, general result we also supply sufficient conditions on any pair of proposals such that, for any shared target distribution, if a Metropolis-Hastings kernel using one of the proposals is variance bounding then so is the Metropolis-Hastings kernel using the other proposal.
Photosynthetic performance in cyanobacteria with increased sulphide tolerance: an analysis comparing wild-type and experimentally derived strains
Authors: Martín-Clemente Elena , Melero-Jiménez Ignacio J. , Bañares-España Elena , Flores-Moya Antonio , García-Sánchez María J.
Published: November 2021

Sulphide is proposed to have influenced the evolution of primary stages of oxygenic photosynthesis in cyanobacteria. However, sulphide is toxic to most of the species of this phylum, except for some sulphide-tolerant species showing various sulphide-resistance mechanisms. In a previous study, we found that this tolerance can be induced by environmental sulphidic conditions, in which two experimentally derived strains with an enhanced tolerance to sulphide were obtained from Microcystis aeruginosa, a sensitive species, and Oscillatoria, a sulphide-tolerant genus. We have now analysed the photosynthetic performance of the wild-type and derived strains in the presence of sulphide to shed light on the characteristics underlying the increased tolerance. We checked whether the sulphide tolerance was a result of higher PSII sulphide resistance and/or the induction of sulphide-dependent anoxygenic photosynthesis. We observed that growth, maximum quantum yield, maximum electron transport rate and photosynthetic efficiency in the presence of sulphide were less affected in the derived strains compared to their wild-type counterparts. Nevertheless, in 14C photoincoporation assays, neither Oscillatoria nor M. aeruginosa exhibited anoxygenic photosynthesis using sulphide as an electron donor. On the other hand, the content of photosynthetic pigments in the derived strains was different to that observed in the wild-type strains. Thus, an enhanced PSII sulphide resistance appears to be behind the increased sulphide tolerance displayed by the experimentally derived strains, as observed in most natural sulphide-tolerant cyanobacterial strains. However, other changes in the photosynthetic machinery cannot be excluded.
Different Phenomena Encountered during Dilatometry of Low-density Steels
Authors: Jimbert Pello , Guraya Teresa , Kaltzakorta Idurre , Gutiérrez Teresa , Elvira Roberto , Tafaghodi Khajavi Leili
Published: November 2021

In recent decades, highly alloyed low-density steels are being developed to reduce the weight of different automotive parts. Dilatometry can be a very useful experimental technique to understand phase transformations during heating or cooling of new low-density steel alloys. When performing dilatometry measurements some assumptions are made such as the homogeneity of the sample material tested during the experiment. In this study, dilatometry tests were performed for two different low-density steels, and the variations of the composition between the surface and the inner part of the sample were analyzed. The migration of manganese by diffusion from the interior of the samples and finally its evaporation on the surface under vacuum were observed. This compositional gradient generated in the samples may influence the veracity and interpretation of the results obtained in dilatometry when working with high manganese steel alloys. The detachment of surface grains created by this compositional change near the surface of the samples is also investigated.
Obstruktive Schlafapnoe: Klug entscheiden, das Richtige tun
Authors: Stuck B. A. , Schöbel C. , Wiater A. , Triché D.
Published: November 2021

Die obstruktive Schlafapnoe (OSA) kann zu einer erheblichen Einschränkung der Lebensqualität führen, und eine nicht behandelte mittel- bis schwergradige OSA (Apnoe-Hypopnoe-Index ≥ 15/h) erhöht das Risiko vieler – überwiegend kardiovaskulärer – Erkrankungen deutlich. In Anbetracht der Häufigkeit des Krankheitsbilds und der damit verbundenen Beeinträchtigungen ist eine effektive Diagnostik und Therapie der OSA von besonderer Bedeutung.

Die Deutsche Gesellschaft für Schlafforschung und Schlafmedizin (DGSM) hat daher jeweils fünf praxisnahe Positiv- und Negativempfehlungen zusammengestellt, die das diagnostische und therapeutische Vorgehen bei OSA erleichtern sollen. Sie beziehen sich insbesondere auf die Indikationen zur schlafmedizinischen Diagnostik und zu spezifischen Therapieoptionen unter Berücksichtigung von Alter, Klinik, Risikofaktoren und Komorbiditäten.

Die Auswahl der Empfehlungen orientiert sich an der klinischen Relevanz, an bestehenden Defiziten im Sinne einer Über- oder Unterversorgung und an der Stärke der Empfehlungen in der aktuellen S3-Leitlinie der DGSM zu den schlafbezogenen Atmungsstörungen.
A Black-Box yet To Be Opened: Multi-level Processes During Migrants’ Organizational Socialization
Authors: Grosskopf Sina , Landes Andreas , Barmeyer Christoph
Published: November 2021

Migrants entering a new country also search for belonging. Through employment, migrants work in organizations and experience socialization in these new contexts. Thereby, organizations offer migrants a wide range of possibilities for identification and are thus places to regain a sense of belonging. We rely on prior research showing what migrants experience during the process of organizational socialization to organizational identification, more specifically through (a) sense-making which (b) provides self-esteem and self-enhancement, and (c) reduces uncertainty. Furthermore, we also investigate the interplay of various in-groups (multiple cultures) and levels (micro, meso, macro) that migrants identify with. Consequently, we follow a cross-level approach to identity in and beyond organizations and combine migration, organizational, and intercultural research. Based on a qualitative interview study in Germany, we highlight how positive organizational identification results not only in companies’ workforce retention but also in migrants’ increased societal identification. Moreover, we emphasize the important role German colleagues play in the socialization process across various levels. They serve as socialization agents being individual interaction partners and team members, but also representatives of professional cultures and of the German society. In sum, our research yields important theoretical and practical implications. We provide interesting avenues for future research to uncover the complex interrelationships in more detail, open up the black-box of organizational socialization, and rely on interdisciplinarity in a complementary way. Human Resources Management could consider identification as a multi-layered opportunity, recognize the potentials of migrants’ identification, and thus strive for the sustainable development of their competencies.
Experiences of adult siblings of those with developmental coordination disorder (DCD): a qualitative study
Authors: Morris Brendan , Ogden Jane , Gentle Judith
Published: November 2021

This qualitative study explored the childhood experiences of growing up with a sibling with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) to offer an ‘outsider’s’ view of this condition. Ten individuals who had grown up with a sibling with DCD were interviewed about their experiences. Data were analysed using Thematic Analysis. Analysis described three main themes: i)‘witnessing the challenges for their sibling with DCD’ ii) ‘experiencing the impact on the family’; iii) ‘a vacuum of knowledge’. Not all experiences were negative and transcending these themes was the notion ‘resolution and finding benefit’ highlighting access to support, being more empathic and resilient, becoming a role model for others and finding success. Participants play witness to their sibling’s experiences which can often be negative sometimes impacted by a vacuum of knowledge but they also describe how a diagnosis of DCD comes with some benefits which are discussed in the context of ‘posttraumatic growth’.
Optimising multi-layered security screening
Authors: Anderson David
Published: November 2021

Screening for prohibited items at airports is an example of a multi-layered screening process. Multiple layers of screening – often comprising different technologies with complementary strengths and weaknesses – are combined to create a single screening process. The detection performance of the overall system depends on multiple factors, including the performance of individual layers, the complementarity of different layers, and the decision rule(s) for determining how outputs from individual layers are combined. The aim of this work is to understand and optimise the overall system performance of a multi-layered screening process. Novel aspects include the use of realistic profiles of alarm distributions based on experimental observations and a focus on the influence of correlation/orthogonality amongst the layers of screening. The results show that a cumulative screening architecture can outperform a cascading one, yielding a significant increase in system-level true positive rate for only a modest increase in false positive rate. A cumulative screening process is also more resilient to weaknesses in the individual layers. The performance of a multi-layered screening process using a cascading approach is maximised when the false positives are orthogonal across the different layers and the true positives are correlated. The system-level performance of a cumulative screening process, on the other hand, is maximised when both false positives and true positives are as orthogonal as possible. The cost of ignoring orthogonality between screening layers is explored with some numerical examples. The underlying software model is provided in a Jupyter Notebook as supplementary material.
Clinicopathological factors associated with recurrence in patients undergoing resection of pancreatic solid pseudopapillary neoplasm
Authors: Paredes Oscar , Paredes Kori , Kawaguchi Yoshikuni , Luque-Vasquez Carlos , Chavez Iván , Celis Juan , Payet Eduardo , Ruiz Eloy , Berrospi Francisco
Published: November 2021

Purpose

Solid pseudopapillary neoplasm (SPN) is an uncommon pathology with a low-grade malignancy. Surgery is the milestone treatment. Nevertheless, despite appropriate management, some patients present recurrence. Risk factors associated with recurrence are unclear. The objective was to identify the clinicopathological factors associated with recurrence in patients with SPN treated with pancreatic resection.

Methods

Medical records of patients treated with pancreatic resection during 2006–2020 were evaluated. Patients with histological diagnosis of SPN were included. Survival analysis was performed to identify the clinicopathological factors related to recurrence.

Results

Seventy-four patients were diagnosed with SPN; 70 (94.6%) patients were female, and the median age was 20 years old. The median tumor diameter was 7.9 cm. Multivisceral resection was performed in 9 (12.2%) patients. Four (5.4%) patients presented lymph node metastasis.R0 resection was achieved in all cases. Six (8%) patients presented recurrence and the liver was the most frequent recurrence site (n = 5).After a median follow-up of 40.2 months, 9 (12%) patients died. Five (6.8%) patients died of disease progression. The 1–3- and 5-year overall survival (OS) was 97.1%, 90.2% and 79.9%, respectively. The 1–3-and-5-year recurrence-free survival (RFS) was 98.4%, 89.9% and 87%, respectively. In the univariate Cox-regression analysis, age ≥ 28 years(HR = 8.61, 95% CI 1.1–73.8),tumor diameter ≥ 10 cm(HR = 9.3, 95% CI 1.12–79.6),invasion of adjacent organs (HR = 7.45, 95% CI 1.5–36.9), lymph node metastasis (pN +) (HR = 16.8, 95% CI 2.96–94.9) and, AJCC Stage III (HR = 10.1, 95% CI 1.2–90.9) were identified as predictors for recurrence.

Conclusions

SPN is more frequently diagnosed in young women with a good overall prognosis after an R0 surgical resection even with disease recurrence. Age ≥ 28 years, larger tumors ≥ 10 cm, invasion of adjacent organs, lymph node metastasis(pN +) and, AJCC Stage III were predictors factors of recurrence in resected SPN.
Good manufacturing practice- and good distribution practice-compliant cold storage and refrigerated transport of allergen products: what is important?
Authors: Rost Johanna , Langhein Steve , Bartel Detlef , Bonertz Andreas , Mahler Vera
Published: November 2021

Background

All currently available products for diagnosis and therapy of type I allergies are protein extracts from allergenic source material. The extracted proteins have different properties and their structure is differently labile to temperature variations. Despite various pharmaceutical formulations to increase product stability, with few exceptions, allergen products must be refrigerated to ensure that their quality and native protein structure do not change during storage and transport. Maintaining quality is a challenge in complex distribution chains.

Methods

Regulatory requirements and guidelines that apply to cold storage and transport of allergen products are summarized and the responsibilities of the stakeholders are explained.

Results

The storage conditions determined in stability studies correspond to the transport conditions. These stability data can also be used to assess tolerable conditions during transport. According to a good distribution practice (GDP) contracts must be concluded between the responsible pharmaceutical entrepreneur and the qualified distribution service provider that regulate storage and transport in accordance with the product requirements.

Conclusion

Monitoring of storage and transport conditions is achieved by transport in qualified means of transport (e.g. truck). Alternatively, qualified transport packaging with active or passive cooling (e.g. cold packs) and qualified “data loggers” that record the transport temperatures can be used. Regardless of the system used, it must be demonstrated—by validating the transport conditions, routes and packaging at different times of the year and over the entire duration of transport—that regulatory requirements are met and that the quality of the products is maintained during shipment.
Believable Normative Error Theory
Authors: HARRISON GERALD K.
Published: November 2021

Normative error theory is thought by some to be unbelievable because they suppose the incompatibility of believing a proposition at the same time as believing that one has no normative reason to believe it—which believing in normative error theory would seem to involve. In this article, I argue that normative holism is believable and that a normative holist will believe that the truth of a proposition does not invariably generate a normative reason to believe it. I outline five different scenarios in which this is believably the case. I then show how each example can be used to generate a counterexample to the incompatibility claim. I conclude that believing a proposition is compatible with believing there is no reason to believe it and that as such normative error theory has not yet been shown to be unbelievable.
Random intersection graphs with communities
Authors: van der Hofstad Remco , Komjáthy Júlia , Vadon Viktória
Published: November 2021

Random intersection graphs model networks with communities, assuming an underlying bipartite structure of communities and individuals, where these communities may overlap. We generalize the model, allowing for arbitrary community structures within the communities. In our new model, communities may overlap, and they have their own internal structure described by arbitrary finite community graphs. Our model turns out to be tractable. We analyze the overlapping structure of the communities, show local weak convergence (including convergence of subgraph counts), and derive the asymptotic degree distribution and the local clustering coefficient.
Percolation phase transition in weight-dependent random connection models
Authors: Gracar Peter , Lüchtrath Lukas , Mörters Peter
Published: November 2021

We investigate spatial random graphs defined on the points of a Poisson process in d-dimensional space, which combine scale-free degree distributions and long-range effects. Every Poisson point is assigned an independent weight. Given the weight and position of the points, we form an edge between any pair of points independently with a probability depending on the two weights of the points and their distance. Preference is given to short edges and connections to vertices with large weights. We characterize the parameter regime where there is a non-trivial percolation phase transition and show that it depends not only on the power-law exponent of the degree distribution but also on a geometric model parameter. We apply this result to characterize robustness of age-based spatial preferential attachment networks.
Intensification of non-uniformity in convergent near-conical hypersonic flow
Authors: Ji Junze , Li Zhufei , Zhang Enlai , Si Dongxian , Yang Jiming
Published: November 2021

The inevitable formation of a Mach disk at the central axis of a convergent conical shock wave may suffer from fundamental changes when the flow deviates from the axisymmetric condition. In this paper, the behaviours of near-conical shocks, which are generated by a circular ring wedge of

$10^{\circ }$

at typical angles of attack (AoAs), are investigated at a free stream Mach number of 6 in a shock tunnel. To reveal the characteristics and mechanism of the flow, numerical analyses are carried out under the same conditions. The results indicate that when the flow deviates from axial symmetry, the circumferential non-uniformity is remarkably intensified as the shock converges downstream. The converging centre shifts against the inclination of the incoming flow and moves to the leeward side. For a sufficiently small AoA, the formation of a Mach disk remains similar to that in the axisymmetric case, although the Mach disk shrinks in size and is slightly flattened. As the circumferential non-uniformity of the shock increases at an AoA of approximately

$3^{\circ }$

, a pair of kinks separate the shock surface into two discontinuous segments with the stronger shock segment on the windward side and the weaker shock segment on the leeward side. When the AoA increases further, the shrinkage of the Mach disk continuously occurs, and the Mach disk is eventually replaced by a regular reflection. The discontinuity of a convergent shock with flattening on the separated shock segments and the insufficient strength increase during the subsequent convergence are responsible for the appearance of regular reflection.
Thermohaline staircase formation in the diffusive convection regime: a theory based upon stratified turbulence asymptotics
Authors: Ma Yuchen , Peltier W.R.
Published: November 2021

We describe a mechanism that leads to the spontaneous formation of a thermohaline staircase in the high-latitude oceans. Our analysis of this mechanism is based upon a model in which uniform gradients of temperature and salinity are assumed and is applied to a simplified mean-field model of stratified turbulence. Detailed analysis employs a parametrization of turbulent diapycnal diffusivities (Bouffard & Boegman, Dyn. Atmos. Oceans, vol. 61, 2013, pp. 14–34). This parametrization is apparently unique in that it distinguishes between the diapycnal diffusivities for heat and salt on the basis of their Prandtl (Schmidt) numbers. Our model predicts that the temperature and salinity profiles will be susceptible to linear instability if the buoyancy Reynolds number lies in the range 0.18–91, and a nonlinear mean-field model simulation demonstrates that it evolves into a well-defined thermohaline staircase that matches the characteristics of those found in the high-latitude oceans. The criterion for initial instability is furthermore shown to be consistent with the observed regional variability of staircase occurrence in the Arctic Ocean as determined by the most recent observational datasets.