bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Assessing speech, language and communication difficulties in children referred for ADHD: A qualitative evaluation of a UK child and adolescent mental health service
Authors: Chan Kelly MY , Fugard Andrew JB
Published: March 2018

Background:

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common childhood neuropsychiatric disorders and is highly comorbid with speech, language and communication difficulties (SLCDs). However, it is unclear how often SLCDs are identified in ADHD referrals in routine practice and whether there are unidentified SLCDs within this population.

Method:

A thematic analysis was conducted on a random sample of case notes from 18 referrals for ADHD made to a child and adolescent mental health service (CAMHS) in London, United Kingdom. Analyses aimed to identify (a) the types of SLCDs detected during assessment, (b) at which point of the episode of care these SLCDs were suspected and (c) whether a referral or consultation was made to a speech and language therapist (SLT) for further evaluation.

Results:

Out of 18 cases investigated, 15 were found to have possible SLCDs based on case notes and reports provided by external agencies. However, only four were referred by CAMHS for further assessment. It is unclear what, if any, steps other external agencies took. Themes describing types of SLCDs, comorbidities and the process of identification are discussed.

Conclusion:

The analysis of this service’s case notes revealed a range of different routes to the identification of SLCDs, and it was unclear what steps were taken as a result of assessment. A limitation is that this is just one service and the results may not generalise. However, given the similarity in practitioner training received across the country and that practitioners move from service to service, there are grounds for repeating the study in other services. We recommend a more structured approach to identifying SLCDs and recording assessment and treatment decisions made.
Adaptive backstepping fuzzy sliding mode vibration control of flexible structure
Authors: Fang Yunmei , Fei Juntao , Hu Tongyue
Published: March 2018

An adaptive backstepping fuzzy sliding mode control is proposed to approximate the unknown system dynamics for a cantilever beam in this paper. The adaptive backstepping fuzzy sliding mode control is developed by combining the backstepping method with adaptive fuzzy strategy, where backstepping design approach is used to drive the trajectory tracking errors to converge to zero rapidly with global asymptotic stability and fuzzy logic system is designed to approximate the unknown nonlinear function in the adaptive backstepping fuzzy sliding mode control. The proposed backstepping controllers can ensure proper tracking of the reference trajectory, and impose a desired dynamic behavior, giving robustness and insensitivity to parameter variations. Numerical simulation for cantilever beam is investigated to verify the effectiveness of the proposed adaptive backstepping fuzzy sliding mode control scheme and demonstrate the satisfactory vibration suppression performance.
Spiral of silence on social media and the moderating role of disagreement and publicness in the network: Analyzing expressive and withdrawal behaviors
Authors: Chen Hsuan-Ting
Published: March 2018

Using two-wave panel data from Hong Kong, this study examines the spiral of silence process on social media. It extends the theoretical framework by including both supporting and disagreeing opinion expression and examining not only expressive but also withdrawal behaviors on social media. This study also investigates the moderating roles of disagreement and publicness as two affordances on social media that influence the spiral of silence process. Results from the moderated mediation model with a panel lagged and autoregressive analysis suggest that fear of social isolation (FSI) has an indirect effect on discouraging disagreeing opinion expression but not supporting opinion expression and on encouraging withdrawal behaviors through enhancing willingness to self-censor (WTSC) on social media. This indirect effect is contingent on the levels of disagreement and publicness in one’s network. Higher levels of disagreement and publicness promote the spiral of silence. Implications of the findings are discussed.
Predictors of secondary traumatic stress among social workers: Supervision, income, and caseload size
Authors: Quinn Adam , Ji Pengsheng , Nackerud Larry
Published: March 2018

In the past 20 years, research suggests that social workers and counselors are at risk of developing secondary traumatic stress from working with traumatized client populations. However, only a few studies have examined specific risk and protective factors that may buffer the social worker from developing secondary trauma symptoms. This article reports the results from a cross-sectional survey-based study of clinical social workers in which a predictive model of secondary traumatic stress was sought. In order to obtain an optimally predictive subset of variables from a larger set of candidate variables, this study employed a rigorous variable selection procedure using criteria-based methods for arriving at a final model predicting secondary trauma.

Findings

The results suggest that the ratings of the supervisory relationship, salary, caseload size, and personal anxiety may be salient factors that impact the development of secondary trauma among clinical social workers. Specifically, positive ratings of supervision and higher income level were found to predict a substantial decrease in the degree to which a social worker possessed secondary trauma symptoms.

Applications

Secondary trauma threatens clinician health, client quality of services, and contributes to increased financial burdens to nonprofit agencies due to burnout and employee turnover. At an organizational level, administrators and policymakers can address these problems by providing higher salaries, encouraging reasonable client caseloads, and ensuring that social workers have access to skilled clinical supervisors. At an individual level, personal self-care to reduce daily anxiety may be important to protect clinical social workers from developing secondary trauma symptoms.
Beyond the search for the subject: An anti-essentialist ontology for liberal democracy
Authors: Bagg Samuel
Published: March 2018

Reading Foucault’s work on power and subjectivity alongside “developmentalist” approaches to evolutionary biology, this article endorses poststructuralist critiques of political ideals grounded in the value of subjective agency. Many political theorists embrace such critiques, of course, but those who do are often skeptical of liberal democracy, and even of normative theory itself. By contrast, those who are left to theorize liberal democracy tend to reject or ignore poststructuralist insights, and have continued to employ dubious ontological assumptions regarding human agents. Against both groups, I argue that Foucault’s poststructuralism must be taken seriously, but that it is ultimately consistent with normative theory and liberal democracy. Linking poststructuralist attempts to transcend the dichotomy between agency and structure with recent efforts by evolutionary theorists to dissolve a similarly stubborn opposition between nature and nurture, I develop an anti-essentialist account of human nature and agency that vindicates poststructuralist criticism while enabling a novel defense of liberal democracy.
‘You went to Europe and returned different’: Transformative learning experiences of international students in Portugal
Authors: Nada Cosmin I , Montgomery Catherine , Araújo Helena C
Published: March 2018

Despite the increase of research on international students, the complexity of their learning experiences is yet to be fully understood. This study seeks to provide an expanded vision of their learning by considering students’ experiences beyond formal educational spaces, focusing especially on their out-of-classroom experiences. To achieve this, the narratives of 12 international students in Portugal were analysed in light of the theory of transformative learning. The results indicate that all students experienced particular forms of learning as an outcome of their international experience and were engaged in transformative learning processes. Moreover, the theory of transformative learning proved to be an appropriate analytical tool for understanding the learning narratives of international higher education students. Through the analysis of the transformative effects of engaging with a foreign cultural context, this paper makes a contribution to the ongoing debate on transformative learning and the experience of international students in the European context.
Value-impregnated factual claims may undermine medical decision-making
Authors: Lynøe Niels , Helgesson Gert , Juth Niklas
Published: March 2018

Clinical decisions are expected to be based on factual evidence and official values derived from healthcare law and soft laws such as regulations and guidelines. But sometimes personal values instead influence clinical decisions. One way in which personal values may influence medical decision-making is by their affecting factual claims or assumptions made by healthcare providers. Such influence, which we call ‘value-impregnation,’ may be concealed to all concerned stakeholders. We suggest as a hypothesis that healthcare providers’ decision making is sometimes affected by value-impregnated factual claims or assumptions. If such claims influence e.g. doctor–patient encounters, this will likely have a negative impact on the provision of correct information to patients and on patients’ influence on decision making regarding their own care. In this paper, we explore the idea that value-impregnated factual claims influence healthcare decisions through a series of medical examples. We suggest that more research is needed to further examine whether healthcare staff’s personal values influence clinical decision-making.
Popliteal Venous Aneurysm
Authors: Hannon Kathleen , Iafrati Mark , Ingrid Perry , Healey Christopher
Published: March 2018

Venous aneurysms are extremely rare and can have devastating consequences such as pulmonary embolism and death. We are reporting a case in which a patient who had two episodes of pulmonary embolism was found on duplex ultrasound to have a popliteal venous aneurysm. The patient was managed with operative repair. In this report we will examine the prevalence, diagnostic considerations, and treatment options for this unusual and potentially lethal clinical condition.
A grid-based reliable multi-hop routing protocol for energy-efficient wireless sensor networks
Authors: Chen Zhansheng , Shen Hong
Published: March 2018

Due to the limited energy and the non-equivalence of wireless sensor network nodes, it is imperative to reduce and rationally use the energy consumption of the nodes to prolong the network lifetime. Clustering routing algorithm can address the problem efficiently. In this article, a grid-based reliable multi-hop routing approach for wireless sensor networks is proposed. In order to minimize and balance the energy consumption, our proposed protocol, grid-based reliable multi-hop routing protocol, optimizes the cluster head election process by combining individual ability which consists of node’s residual energy and node’s location, and local cognition which can balance energy consumption among clusters via a consultative mechanism based on cluster head’s lifetime expectancy, while considering data forwarding delay and reliable transmission of data. Simulation results show that grid-based reliable multi-hop routing protocol has improved stability period as compared to other protocols. Meanwhile, grid-based reliable multi-hop routing protocol has better performance in energy efficiency, data forwarding delay, and reliable transmission of data.
Fingernail analysis management system using microscopy sensor and blockchain technology
Authors: Lee Shih Hsiung , Yang Chu Sing
Published: March 2018

In traditional Chinese medicine, the growth situation of the surface of nails reflects the physiological condition of the human body. Diagnosis by nail can effectively predict and prevent disease. Human nails have a high degree of uniqueness, and it can be used for biometric recognition. In this work, microscope sensor was used to capture the clear image and segment the lunula and nail plate effectively through image preprocessing. Fingernails’ image is managed as the identity authentication. Histogram of oriented gradients and local binary patterns are used to capture the characteristic value. It uses support vector machine and random forest tree for classification. The performance of each feature extraction algorithm was analyzed for the two classifiers and the deep neural network algorithm was used comparatively. Furthermore, the security and privacy of the Internet of Things is still a challenge. This work uses the highly anonymous blockchain technology to effectively protect data privacy and manage each user’s data through the blockchain, in which any change or manipulation can be recorded and tracked, and the data security is improved. Therefore, this article presents a nail analysis management system with the use of microscopy sensor and blockchain.
Energy proficient clustering technique for lifetime enhancement of cognitive radio–based heterogeneous wireless sensor network
Authors: Srividhya Venkatasubramanian , Shankar Thangavelu
Published: March 2018

Utilizing the available spectrum in a more optimized manner and selecting a proper routing technique for transferring the data, without any data collision, from the sensor node to the base station play a major role in any network for increasing their network lifetime. Cognitive radio techniques play a major role to achieve the same, and when combined with wireless sensor networks the above-said requirements can be greatly accomplished. In this article, a novel energy-efficient distance-based clustering and routing algorithm using multi-hop communication approach is proposed. Based on distance, the given heterogeneous cognitive radio–based wireless sensor networks are divided into regions and are allocated with a unique spectrum. Dynamic clustering through distance calculation and routing of data through multi-hop communication is done. The simulation results illustrate that the proposed algorithm has improved energy efficiency and is more stable. The first node death and 80% node death illustrate the improved scalability. Also, the increased throughput aids in maintaining the residual energy of the network, which further solves the problem of load balancing among nodes. All the above results combined with half node death analysis show that the proposed algorithm also has an improved network lifetime.
Profile design and displacement analysis of the low pulsating gear pump
Authors: Li Geqiang , Zhang Longfei , Han Weifeng
Published: March 2018

Aiming at the problems of the general involute external gear pump, a gear pump with double circular arc helical gear as motion pair is proposed. Based on the comparison and analysis of their meshing characteristics, the advantages of contact strength, bending strength, and transmission stability are significant with the double circular arc helical gear as motion pair. Taking the sine curve as the transition curve and on the basis of the conjugate principle of gear meshing, the surface tooth profile equation of double circular arc helical gear is given out by coordinate transformation. The equal area method is used to deduce the displacement of double circular arc gear pump, then the maximum and the minimum instantaneous displacement of the double helical gear pump are solved, thus the theoretical pulsation tends to 0. Using Fluent three-dimensional dynamic mesh technique, by comparing and simulating the flow pulsation of double circular arc helical gear pump and ordinary involute helical gear pump of the same gear parameters, it is concluded that the flow pulsation of the double circular helical gear pump is much smaller than that of the involute helical gear pump. In summary, this article provides reference for design of high-performance gear pump.
Research on short time and heavy load driving system of crank servo press based on feed-forward and decoupling control
Authors: Lu Wenqi , Zhang Zhenyi , Ji Kehui , Wu Di , Lin Jian , Qian Jie
Published: March 2018

In order to improve the speed control performance on the heavy load driving system of servo press, a control strategy based on speed observer with load torque identification and feed-forward compensation was proposed. It can identify and compensate the actual applied load torque by adjusting the machine quadrature axis current in real time. By identifying the problem in the traditional current feedback decoupling control scheme, a current vector control strategy based on voltage feed-forward decoupling control was proposed. Simulation analysis and experimental tests on a heavy load drive system were carried out using the proposed new control strategy. The results show that the control strategy is effective and the system designed by this method not only can identify the operating speed applied load torque, but also has good speed control performance.
A novel three-dimensional object detection with the modified You Only Look Once method
Authors: Zhao Xia , Jia Haihang , Ni Yingting
Published: March 2018

Three-dimensional object detection aims to produce a three-dimensional bounding box of an object at its full extent. Nowadays, three-dimensional object detection is mainly based on red green blue-depth (RGB-D) images. However, it remains an open problem because of the difficulty in labeling for three-dimensional training data. In this article, we present a novel three-dimensional object detection method based on two-dimensional object detection, which only takes a set of RGB images as input. First, aiming at the requirement of three-dimensional object detection and the low location accuracy of You Only Look Once, a modified two-dimensional object detection method based on You Only Look Once is proposed. Then, using a set of images from different visual angles, three-dimensional geometric data are reconstructed. In addition, making use of the modified You Only Look Once method, the two-dimensional object bounding boxes of the forward and side views are obtained. Finally, according to the transformation between the two-dimensional pixel coordinate and the three-dimensional space coordinate, the two-dimensional object bounding box is mapped onto the reconstructed three-dimensional scene to form the three-dimensional object box. Because this method only needs the collection of two-dimensional images to train the modified You Only Look Once model, it has a wide range of applications. The experimental results show that the modified You Only Look Once model can improve the location accuracy, and our algorithm can effectively realize the three-dimensional object detection without depth images.
Involvement of pro-inflammation signal pathway in inhibitory effects of rapamycin on oxaliplatin-induced neuropathic pain
Authors: Duan Zongsheng , Su Zhenbo , Wang Hushan , Pang Xiaochuan
Published: March 2018

Background

Oxaliplatin is a third-generation chemotherapeutic agent that is commonly used to treat metastatic digestive tumors; however, one of the main limiting complications of oxaliplatin is painful peripheral neuropathy. The purpose of this study was to examine the underlying mechanisms by which mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) and its signal are responsible for oxaliplatin-evoked neuropathic pain.

Methods

Neuropathic pain was induced by intraperitoneal injection of oxaliplatin in rats. ELISA and Western blot analysis were used to examine the levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines (including interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-6, and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α) and the expression of mTOR signal pathway.

Results

Oxaliplatin increased mechanical and cold sensitivity as compared with control animals ( P < 0.05 vs. control rats). Oxaliplatin also amplified the expression of p-mTOR and mTOR-mediated phosphorylation of p70 ribosomal S6 protein kinase 1 and 4E-binding protein 1 in the lumbar dorsal root ganglion. Blocking mTOR using rapamycin attenuated peripheral painful neuropathy observed in oxaliplatin rats ( P < 0.05 vs. vehicle control). This inhibitory effect was accompanied with decreases of IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α. In addition, inhibition of phosphatidylinositide 3-kinase (p-PI3K) attenuated the expression of p-mTOR and the levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines in oxaliplatin rats, and this further attenuated mechanical and cold hypersensitivity.

Conclusions

The data revealed specific signaling pathways leading to oxaliplatin-induced peripheral neuropathic pain, including the activation of PI3K-mTOR and pro-inflammatory cytokine signal. Inhibition of these pathways alleviates neuropathic pain. Targeting one or more of these molecular mediators may present new opportunities for treatment and management of neuropathic pain observed during chemotherapeutic application of oxaliplatin.
Working in small-scale, homelike dementia care: effects on staff burnout symptoms and job characteristics. A quasi-experimental, longitudinal study
Authors: Zwakhalen Sandra MG , Hamers Jan PH , van Rossum Erik , Ambergen Ton , Kempen Gertrudis IJM , Verbeek Hilde
Published: March 2018

Aim

This paper reports on a quasi-experimental, longitudinal study on the effects of working in a new type of dementia care facility (i.e. small-scale living facilities) on staff burnout symptoms and job characteristics (job autonomy, social support, physical demands and workload).

Methods

It is hypothesised that nursing staff working in small-scale facilities experience fewer burnout symptoms, more autonomy and social support, and fewer symptoms of physical demands and workload compared with staff in regular wards. Two types of long-term institutional nursing care settings were included: 28 houses in small-scale living facilities and 21 regular psychogeriatric wards in nursing homes. At baseline and at follow-ups after 6 and 12 months nursing staff were assessed by means of self-report questionnaires. In total, 305 nursing staff members were included in the study, 114 working in small-scale living facilities (intervention group) and 191 in regular wards (control group).

Results

No overall effects on burnout symptoms were detected. Significantly fewer physical demands and lower workload were experienced by staff working in small-scale living facilities compared with staff in regular wards. They also experienced more job autonomy. No significant effect was found for overall social support in the total group.

Conclusions

This study suggests positive effects of the work environment on several work characteristics. Organisational climate differs in the two conditions, which might account for our results. This may influence nursing staff well-being and has important implications for nursing home managers and policy makers. Future studies should enhance our understanding of the influence of job characteristics on outcomes.
An overview of e-learning in China: History, challenges and opportunities
Authors: Wang Yan , Liu Xuan , Zhang Zhenhong
Published: March 2018

The Chinese government has attached great importance to the development of e-learning since its emergence in the 1990s. As a consequence of the implementation of a series of policies, China has made significant achievements in the e-learning arena with respect to infrastructure construction, production of resources, academic education, non-academic training, and education for disadvantaged groups. However, due to the constraints of China’s traditional culture, information literacy, and educational mechanisms, challenges have emerged in the implementation of e-learning that need urgently to be addressed. As e-learning in China continues to grow, major research areas such as students’ and teachers’ perspectives on developments in e-learning, teachers’ pedagogical capacity and ongoing professional development in e-learning settings, and the production of more convenient and useful e-learning resources, are likely to be topics of continuing research interest.
Three Unresolved Issues in Human Morality
Authors: Kagan Jerome
Published: March 2018

This article discusses three major, but related, controversies surrounding the idea of morality. Is the complete pattern of features defining human morality unique to this species? How context dependent are moral beliefs and the emotions that often follow a violation of a moral standard? What developmental sequence establishes a moral code? This essay suggests that human morality rests on a combination of cognitive and emotional processes that are missing from the repertoires of other species. Second, the moral evaluation of every behavior, whether by self or others, depends on the agent, the action, the target of the behavior, and the context. The ontogeny of morality, which begins with processes that apes possess but adds language, inference, shame, and guilt, implies that humans are capable of experiencing blends of thoughts and feelings for which no semantic term exists. As a result, conclusions about a person’s moral emotions based only on questionnaires or interviews are limited to this evidence.
Object attraction effects during subject-verb agreement in Persian
Authors: Feiz Aazam , Cowles Wind
Published: March 2018

Subject-verb agreement provides insight into how grammatical and semantic features interact during sentence production, and prior studies have found attraction errors when an intervening local noun is grammatically part of the subject. Two major types of theories have emerged from these studies: control based and competition-based. The current study used an subject-object-verb language with optional subject-verb agreement, Persian, to test the competition-based hypothesis that intervening object nouns may also cause attraction effects, even though objects are not part of the syntactic relationship between the subject and verb. Our results, which did not require speakers to make grammatical errors, show that objects can be attractors for agreement, but this effect appears to be dependent on the type of plural marker on the object. These results support competition-based theories of agreement production, in which agreement may be influenced by attractors that are outside the scope of the subject-verb relationship.
Short- and mid-term effects of the 2010 rule changes on game-related statistics in European basketball championships: An interrupted time series analysis
Authors: Pérez-Ferreirós Alexandra , Kalén Anton , Rey Ezequiel
Published: March 2018

In 2010, one of the major rule changes in basketball came into effect. Including an extension of the 3-point line from 6.25 m to 6.75 m, changed shape of the 3-s area, the addition of no-charge semicircles, and modifications of the shot-clock. This study aimed to analyse if the rule modifications influenced the game-related statistics, both short- and mid-term using interrupted time series analysis, and if the rule changes had the same influence on different age groups and genders. The sample was composed by 5296 games from the European championships 2005–2016 for men and women in both senior and youth competitions. The standard game-related statistics were analysed. The game pace has increased or ceased to decrease after the rule modifications. The development towards a higher proportion of field goals being 3-pointers has continued, although the proportion was lowered directly after the rule modifications. The women senior seems to be the category where the rule modifications had the most effect on the continuous development. No general pattern of differences in effects between categories was found.
The case for IT transformation and big data for safety risk management on the GB railways
Authors: van Gulijk Coen , Hughes Peter , Figueres-Esteban Miguel , El-Rashidy Rawia , Bearfield George
Published: March 2018

This article presents the case for IT transformation and big data for safety risk management on the GB railways. This article explains why the interest in data-driven safety solutions is very high in the railways by describing the drivers that shape risk management for the railways. A brief overview of research projects in the big data risk analysis programme supports the case and helps understand the research agenda for the transformation of safety and risk on the GB railways. The drivers and the projects provide insight in the current research needs for the transformation and explains why safety researchers have to broaden their skill set to include digital skills and potentially even programming. The case for IT transformation of risk management systems is compelling, and this article describes just the tip of the iceberg of opportunities opening up for safety analysis that, after all, depends on data.
Realistic modelling of flexibility and dependence in production systems in Industry 4.0 for analysing their productivity and availability
Authors: Long Fei , Zeiler Peter , Bertsche Bernd
Published: March 2018

Industry 4.0 offers a new opportunity to realize flexible and efficient production. Through modelling the production systems in Industry 4.0, potential delays, interrupts and defaults could be prognosticated and treated on time. Consequently, the productivity and efficiency of production systems can be enhanced. Flexibility has a far-reaching impact on the design of production systems in Industry 4.0 and is still a challenge in the modelling yet. In order to achieve realistic results, dependence must also be taken into account. In this article, a concept of flexible production system in Industry 4.0 is first presented. Then, two models of extended coloured stochastic Petri nets are built and simulated using a software REALIST to investigate the features of flexibility and dependence in production systems in Industry 4.0. As a result, the productivity and availability of production systems are analysed and discussed in the end.
An audit of the accuracy of medication information in electronic medical discharge summaries linked to an electronic prescribing system
Authors: Tan Yixin , Elliott Rohan A , Richardson Belinda , Tanner Francine E , Dorevitch Michael I
Published: March 2018

Background:

Poor communication of medication information to general practitioners when patients are discharged from hospital is a widely recognised problem. There has been little research exploring the accuracy of medication information in electronic discharge summaries (EDS) linked to hospital e-prescribing systems.

Objective:

To evaluate the accuracy of medication lists and medication change information in EDS produced using an integrated e-prescribing and EDS system (where EDS discharge medication lists were imported from discharge e-prescription records, medication change information was manually entered, and medications were dispensed from paper copies of the patients' e-prescriptions).

Method:

Retrospective audit of EDSs for a random sample, representative of adult patients ( n = 87) discharged from a major teaching hospital. EDS medication lists were compared to pharmacist-verified paper discharge prescriptions (considered to be the most accurate discharge medication list) to identify discrepancies. EDS medication change information was compared to medication changes identified by comparing pharmacist-verified “Medication History on Admission” forms with pharmacist-verified paper discharge prescriptions.

Results:

There were 85/87 (98%) EDSs that included a discharge medication list. Of these, 50/85 (59%) contained one or more medication list discrepancies (median 1, range 0–15). The most common discrepancy was omission of medication (58%); 84/131 (64%) discrepancies were considered clinically significant (risk of adverse outcome); 162/351 (46%) clinically significant medication changes were stated in the EDS; and 153/351 (44%) changes were both stated and included a reason.

Conclusion:

EDS discrepancies were common despite integration with e-prescribing. Eliminating paper prescriptions, enhancing e-prescribing/EDS functionality and involving pharmacists in EDS preparation may reduce discrepancies.
Influence and Social Distance Consequences across Categories of Race and Mental Illness
Authors: Lucas Jeffrey W. , Phelan Jo C.
Published: March 2018

This paper describes an experimental study (N = 184) that investigated influence and social distance consequences of a number of attributes in interpersonal interactions. The attributes included race, education, panic disorder, depression, and schizophrenia. Participants interacted with fictitious partners whom they believed were real and who represented the attributes studied. Participants had opportunities to be influenced by and seek distance from their interaction partners. Results showed that low educational attainment and schizophrenia significantly reduced the influence of partners. Participants sought significantly more social distance from partners who were African American and partners with depression or schizophrenia than other partners. The results are noteworthy in (1) finding that race did not affect influence in the sample but did affect social distance; (2) showing that different mental illness labels led to different reactions, with schizophrenia leading to particularly strong negative reactions; and (3) demonstrating these effects behaviorally in an interactional setting.
Adolescent Socioeconomic Status and Parent-Child Emotional Bonds: Reexamining Gender Differences in Mental Well-being during Young Adulthood
Authors: Wilkinson Renae , Andersson Matthew A.
Published: March 2018

Links between elevated mental well-being in adulthood and higher social and economic resources growing up are well established. However, the role of gender remains unclear, especially whether gender influences how social and economic resources interact to produce disparities in mental well-being across young adulthood. Drawing on nationally representative longitudinal data, we illuminate gender differences in mental well-being, finding that young adult mental health advantages based in adolescent socioeconomic status pivot on parent-child emotional bonds for young men only. That is, for young adult men, lessened depressive symptom frequency linked to higher parental education only appears when perceived parent-child bonds are at least moderately close. This holds even after adjusting for earlier adolescent mental well-being, suggesting a stable mechanism across the transition to adulthood. Overall, our results uphold the argument that familial social and economic resources predict mental well-being during young adulthood while revealing that relevant mechanisms may differ by gender.
The Effect of Aging on Cervical Parameters in a Normative North American Population
Authors: Iorio Justin , Lafage Virginie , Lafage Renaud , Henry Jensen K. , Stein Dan , Lenke Lawrence G. , Gupta Munish , Kelly Michael P. , Sides Brenda , Kim Han Jo
Published: March 2018

Study Design:

Retrospective cohort study.

Objectives:

To investigate age-based changes in cervical alignment parameters in an asymptomatic population.

Methods:

Retrospective review of a prospective study of 118 asymptomatic subjects who underwent biplanar imaging with 3-dimensional capabilities. Demographic and health-related quality of life data was collected prior to imaging. Patients were stratified into 5 age groups: <35 years, 35-44 years, 45-54 years, 55-64 years, and ≥65 years. Radiographic measurements of the cervical spine and spinopelvic parameters were compared between age groups. The normal distribution of parameters was assessed followed by analysis of variance for comparison of variance between age groups.

Results:

C2-C7 lordosis, C0-C7 lordosis, and T1 slope demonstrated significant increases with age. C0-C7 lordosis was significantly less in subjects <35 years compared with ≥55 years. Significant differences in T1 slope were identified in patients <35 versus ≥65, 35-44 versus ≥65, and 45-54 versus ≥65 years. T1 slope demonstrated a positive correlation with age. Horizontal gaze parameters did not change linearly with age and mean averages of all age groups were within 10° of one another. Cervical kyphosis was present in approximately half of subjects who were <55 compared with approximately 10% of subjects ≥55 years. Differences in pelvic tilt, pelvic incidence-lumbar lordosis, and C7-S1 sagittal vertical axis were identified with age.

Conclusions:

C0-C7 lordosis, C2-C7 lordosis, and T1 slope demonstrate age-based changes while other cervical and horizontal gaze parameters remain relatively constant with age.
United Nations and the Arab Spring: Role in Libya, Syria, and Yemen
Authors: Murthy C.S.R.
Published: March 2018

The role of the United Nations (UN) in response to the developments in the Arab world should be viewed in the context of the larger trends of thought and action in the world organization in promoting democracy as a norm during the past nearly two decades. The norm of establishing accountability as against impunity has found wide acceptance to define the relationship between the rulers and the ruled in the new century. Against this background, the great expectations about the UN as a powerful transformational tool toward democratization had received a setback with tempering experiences in responding to developments in Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Yemen since 2011. While the UN remained a bystander in Egypt in the wake of a coup against President Mohammed Morsi in 2013, it is striking that UN actions in Libya had cascading effect on its failure to act in Syria, which in turn produced a sense of fatigue in dealing with the situation in Yemen. In Libya’s case, the UN authorized military intervention did more harm than good to the cause of civilian protection and establishment of peaceful transition, but in Syria’s case, the military and political developments took place outside in the region and between major powers because of the diplomatic deadlock in the Security Council. Yemen comes out as a humanitarian nightmare, because of the exploitation of internal tribal suspicions by the regional geopolitical interests, which primarily spoiled all prospects of a promising role of the UN in providing a democratic framework of constitutional governance. The UN was unfortunately unable to exploit the opportunities thrown up by the Arab Spring as shown by its experiences in Libya, Syria, and Yemen.
Bispecific antibodies in cancer immunotherapy
Authors: Dahlén Eva , Veitonmäki Niina , Norlén Per
Published: March 2018

Following the clinical success of immune checkpoint antibodies targeting CTLA-4, PD-1 or PD-L1 in cancer treatment, bispecific antibodies are now emerging as a growing class of immunotherapies with potential to further improve clinical efficacy and safety. We describe three classes of immunotherapeutic bispecific antibodies: (a) cytotoxic effector cell redirectors; (b) tumor-targeted immunomodulators; and (c) dual immunomodulators. Cytotoxic effector cell redirectors are dominated by T-cell redirecting compounds, bispecific compounds engaging a tumor-associated antigen and the T-cell receptor/CD3 complex, thereby redirecting T-cell cytotoxicity to malignant cells. This is the most established class of bispecific immunotherapies, with two compounds having reached the market and numerous compounds in clinical development. Tumor-targeted immunomodulators are bispecific compounds binding to a tumor-associated antigen and an immunomodulating receptor, such as CD40 or 4-1BB. Such compounds are usually designed to be inactive until binding the tumor antigen, thereby localizing immune stimulation to the tumor environment, while minimizing immune activation elsewhere. This is expected to induce powerful activation of tumor-specific T cells with reduced risk of immune-related adverse events. Finally, dual immunomodulators are bispecific compounds that bind two distinct immunomodulating targets, often combining targeting of PD-1 or PD-L1 with that of LAG-3 or TIM-3. The rationale is to induce superior tumor immunity compared to monospecific antibodies to the same targets. In this review, we describe each of these classes of bispecific antibodies, and present examples of compounds in development.
Improving Present Practices in the Visual Display of Interactions
Authors: McCabe Connor J. , Kim Dale S. , King Kevin M.
Published: March 2018

Interaction plots are used frequently in psychology research to make inferences about moderation hypotheses. A common method of analyzing and displaying interactions is to create simple-slopes or marginal-effects plots using standard software programs. However, these plots omit features that are essential to both graphic integrity and statistical inference. For example, they often do not display all quantities of interest, omit information about uncertainty, or do not show the observed data underlying an interaction, and failure to include these features undermines the strength of the inferences that may be drawn from such displays. Here, we review the strengths and limitations of present practices in analyzing and visualizing interaction effects in psychology. We provide simulated examples of the conditions under which visual displays may lead to inappropriate inferences and introduce open-source software that provides optimized utilities for analyzing and visualizing interactions.
Cadmium in tobacco smokers: a neglected link to lung disease?
Authors: Ganguly Koustav , Levänen Bettina , Palmberg Lena , Åkesson Agneta , Lindén Anders
Published: March 2018

Cadmium in tobacco smoke may contribute to the development of pulmonary emphysema. However, there is poor understanding of the mechanisms behind the pathogenic role of cadmium in this and other smoking-related lung diseases. The traditional focus on the total body burden of cadmium, estimated through analysis of urine, may not fully reflect the local burden of cadmium, since it is inhaled by smokers. Thus, assessing the local accumulation of cadmium in the lungs appears more relevant, given that there is tissue-specific retention of cadmium.

In this review, we outline the principal sources of cadmium exposure and the clinical effects of occupational exposure. In addition, we review evidence on local cadmium and its association with alterations in innate immunity in tobacco smokers. Moreover, we scrutinise the data on cadmium as a cause of lung disease in translational models.

We conclude that cadmium may contribute to smoking-related lung diseases, possiblyviaan altered redox balance and by making macrophages dysfunctional. However, there is a need for new studies on local cadmium levels and their relation to pathology in long-term tobacco smokers, as well as for more in-depth studies on cellular and molecular mechanisms, to elucidate the importance of cadmium in smoking-related lung diseases.
“Polluted Luxuries”: Consumer Resistance, the Senses of Horror, and Abolitionist Boycott Literature
Authors: Conrad Jessica
Published: March 2018

This essay examines the unique positionality of abolitionist boycott literature, situated within the sentimental trends of antebellum literature while employing the sensationalist language of consumer interaction with morally compromised goods. Boycott literature ultimately introduced into the literary landscape a complicated view of what readers and writers increasingly saw as a suspect “free” market. Writers such as Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Elizabeth Margaret Chandler, and John Greenleaf Whittier imagined a world of goods haunted by the touch of enslaved laborers—goods that in turn haunted consumers. By parsing out the language of abolitionist boycott literature alongside its historical and material cultural moment, this essay argues that such literature posits a very literal and as yet unaccounted-for version of material relations that collapses the boundaries between consumer and producer, self and other, in ways that have horrific, haunting implications for market society, then and now.
Ice Cores and the Temporalities of the Global Environment
Authors: Antonello Alessandro , Carey Mark
Published: March 2018

Ice cores from Antarctica, Greenland, and the high-mountain cryosphere have become essential sources of evidence on the climate dating back nearly 800,000 years. Earth scientists use ice cores to understand the chemical composition of the atmosphere, which has been trapped in the air bubbles between the ice crystals as they form annually; this knowledge also feeds into modeling the climate’s future. Ice cores are not simply important sources of environmental knowledge, but have become important elements of global environmental representations and politics since the 1980s. Ice cores do a lot of work. This article is specifically concerned with examining how the practices involved in drilling, analyzing, discussing, and using ice cores for both science and broader climate or environmental policies and cultures take part in constituting the temporalities of the global environment. We suggest that ice core discourses have constituted and advanced specific textures and sensibilities of time in relation to Earth’s past, the history of humans as both species and civilization, and certain apocalyptic and determined futures. While the evidence from ice cores is meant to point toward obvious choices to control our global future, the temporalities of ice cores might not lead the same way. This article joins an increasing concern in the environmental humanities with temporalities, and encourages greater attention to temporalities in environmental history.
In vivo imaging: shining a light on stem cells in the living animal
Authors: Nguyen Phong Dang , Currie Peter David
Published: March 2018

Stem cells are undifferentiated cells that play crucial roles during development, growth and regeneration. Traditionally, these cells have been primarily characterised by histology, cell sorting, cell culture and ex vivo methods. However, as stem cells interact in a complex environment within specific tissue niches, there has been increasing interest in examining their in vivo behaviours, particularly in response to injury. Advances in imaging technologies and genetic tools have converged to enable unprecedented access to the endogenous stem cell niche. In this Spotlight article, we highlight how in vivo imaging can probe a range of biological processes that relate to stem cell activity, behaviour and control.
The ontogeny, activation and function of the epicardium during heart development and regeneration
Authors: Simões Filipa C. , Riley Paul R.
Published: March 2018

The epicardium plays a key role during cardiac development, homeostasis and repair, and has thus emerged as a potential target in the treatment of cardiovascular disease. However, therapeutically manipulating the epicardium and epicardium-derived cells (EPDCs) requires insights into their developmental origin and the mechanisms driving their activation, recruitment and contribution to both the embryonic and adult injured heart. In recent years, studies of various model systems have provided us with a deeper understanding of the microenvironment in which EPDCs reside and emerge into, of the crosstalk between the multitude of cardiovascular cell types that influence the epicardium, and of the genetic programmes that orchestrate epicardial cell behaviour. Here, we review these discoveries and discuss how technological advances could further enhance our knowledge of epicardium-based repair mechanisms and ultimately influence potential therapeutic outcomes in cardiovascular regenerative medicine.