bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A research on the relationship between the structure of nuclear energy and string theory, energy, wormhole
Authors: Tiancheng Zhang
Published: January 2020

In the 1870s, Europe entered the era of electric revolution. Not only large enterprises, but also small enterprises have adopted new power - electric energy. At first, an engine equipment only supplies lighting power for a house or a street. People call this kind of power station a “household type” power station, which produces very little power.

The power plant was originally direct current. Edison, a famous American inventor, started to build the central power plant in 1881. In 1882, two power plants with initial scale were put into operation. In January 1882, the Edison Company of Holland bridge in London began to generate electricity to supply the city cathedral and bridgehead hotel in the west of the post office bridge of the San Marco factory. Later, a water power station appeared on the fintan River in Petersburg, Russia. The power station was built on a barge to provide power for the lighting of Nevsky street. In the early stage of power production and transmission, there was a long and fierce debate about whether it was DC or AC. Edison advocated the use of DC, and people have thought about various ways to expand the scope of DC power supply, so that the power supply situation in small and medium-sized cities has been significantly improved. The use of nuclear energy to produce power plants, also known as nuclear power plants (NPPs). There is a strong binding force between the nuclei (neutrons and protons). When heavy nucleus splits and light nucleus polymerizes, it will release huge energy, which is called nuclear energy.

The technology has been relatively mature, forming a scale of operation, but the nuclear power plant that produces electric energy from the nuclear energy released by heavy nuclear fission is analyzed from the point of view of energy conversion, which is a conversion process from heavy nuclear fission nuclear energy to heat energy to mechanical energy to electric energy. Now that we have more advanced nuclear power technology, this paper introduces a new power plant concept and its relationship with microphysics.
Compression property of hierarchical pyramid lattice
Authors: Tao Liu , Guodong Zhu , Na Yang , Jianfeng Wang
Published: January 2020

Hierarchical lattice structures have excellent mechanical and multi-functional properties. A novel hierarchical pyramid lattice structure was designed and the mechanical behaviours were studied using a finite element method. In order to reflect the advantages of hierarchical pyramid lattice structure, the compression simulation of the traditional pyramid lattice structure with the same relative density was also carried out. The results showed that the designed hierarchical pyramid lattice structure increased the buckling resistance, reduced the stress concentration at the joint of panel and core, and increased the energy absorption performance and specific strength. The designed hierarchical pyramid lattice structure contributes to the expansion of hierarchical lattice structure.
Effect of different synthesis temperature on the bleeding performance of polycarboxylate superplasticizer
Authors: Xiong Qiumin , Lai Guangxing , Dang Wei , Xu Han , Li Guangzhou , Guan Jican , Guo Xiujuan , Xie Muhe , Chen Xiaobing
Published: January 2020

In this paper, polycarboxylate superplasticizers were synthesized by free radical solution polymerization under different synthesis temperature conditions. The bleeding performance of polycarboxylate superplasticizers under different synthesis temperature conditions was discussed by paste test and concrete test, and the structure of polycarboxylate superplasticizers was characterized by infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and gel permeation chromatography (GPC). The results show that the bleeding and slump retention performance of polycarboxylate superplasticizer can be effectively improved by properly increasing the synthesis temperature, and the better synthesis temperature was 55 °C. With the temperature increase, the molecular weight of polycarboxylate superplasticizers increases first and then decreases. The infrared spectra of polycarboxylate superplasticizers synthesized at different temperatures were not significantly different.
Research of Properties and Preparation of Waterborne Polyurethane Adhesives for Shoes
Authors: Xi-Lan LI , Jia-Long SONG , Xiu-Fen GUO , Guag-Yan SUN
Published: January 2020

In this paper, a waterborne polyurethane adhesive for shoes has been prepared by a composite method, and a series of tests such as peel strength, heat resistance, yellowing resistance, and hydrolysis resistance were performed on the sample. The results show that the performance of the water-based polyurethane adhesive prepared by this method has reached the level of similar products in the market. It has great promotion significance in shoe factories.
Dynamic and static quenching of 2-aminopurine fluorescence by the natural DNA nucleotides in solution
Authors: Paterson Kyle A , Arlt Jochen , Jones Anita C
Published: January 2020

2-aminopurine (2AP) is a responsive fluorescent base analogue that is used widely as a probe of the local molecular environment in DNA. The ability of 2AP to report changes in local conformation and base-stacking interactions arises from the efficient quenching of its fluorescence by the natural DNA bases. However, the mechanism of this inter-base quenching remains imperfectly understood. Two previous studies of the collisional quenching of 2AP by the natural bases, in different buffer solutions, showed that dynamic quenching efficiency depends on the identity of the natural base, but disagreed on the relative quenching efficiencies of the bases. We report a comprehensive investigation of inter-base quenching of 2AP by the natural nucleoside monophosphates (NMPs), replicating the buffer conditions used in the previous studies. Using time-resolved fluorescence measurements to distinguish between dynamic and static quenching, we find that the dynamic quenching rate constants of the different bases show a consistent trend across both buffers, and this is in line with a charge-transfer mechanism. Time-resolved measurements also provide insight into static quenching, revealing formation of 2AP-NMP ground-state complexes in which 2AP displays a very short fluorescence lifetime, comparable to that seen in oligonucleotides. In these complexes, the dependence of the rate of quenching on the partner base also supports a charge-transfer mechanism.
Latinx Popular Culture and Social Conflict: Comics, Graphic Novels, and Film
Authors: Aldama Frederick Luis
Published: January 2020

Despite Latinxs being the largest growing demographic in the United States, their experiences and identities continue to be underrepresented and misrepresented in the mainstream pop cultural imaginary. However, for all the negative stereotypes and restrictive ways that the mainstream boxes in Latinxs, Latinx musicians, writers, artists, comic book creators, and performers actively metabolize all cultural phenomena to clear positive spaces of empowerment and to make new perception, thought, and feeling about Latinx identities and experiences. It is important to understand, though, that Latinxs today consume all variety of cultural phenomena. For corporate America, therefore, the Latinx demographic represents a huge buying demographic. Viewed through cynical and skeptical eyes, increased representation of Latinxs in mainstream comic books and film results from this push to capture the Latinx consumer market. Within mainstream comic books and films, Latinx subjects are rarely the protagonists. However, Latinx comic book and film creators are actively creating Latinx protagonists within richly rendered Latinx story worlds. Latinx comic book and film creators work in all the storytelling genres and modes (realism, sci-fi, romance, memoir, biography, among many others) to clear new spaces for the expression of Latinx subjectivities and experiences.
Object Theory and Asian American Literature
Authors: Shomura Chad
Published: January 2020

Do considerations of Asian America as, to use Kandice Chuh’s words, a “subjectless discourse” entail a turn toward objects? “Object theory” refers to a broad range of intellectual currents that take up objecthood, things, and matter as starting points for reconceptualizing identity, experience, politics, and critique. A few prominent threads of object theory include new materialism, thing theory, speculative realism, and object-oriented ontology. Versions of object theory have also been developed in disability studies, critical ethnic studies, posthumanism, and multispecies studies. What spans these varied, sometimes contentious fields is an effort to displace anthropocentrism as the measure of being and knowledge. By troubling the (human) subject, the poststructural and deconstructive turns in Asian American studies have especially primed the field to more closely engage the place of objects in Asian America. While Asian American writers and critics have tirelessly explored subjectivity and its mixed fortunes—from providing access to legal rights, political representation, and social resources to facilitating the reinforcement of racial and ethnic hierarchies—they have also sought to tweak the historical relationship of Asian Americans to objects. Asian Americans have been excluded, exploited, and treated as capital because they have been more closely associated to nonhuman objects than to human subjects. Asian American literary studies develops object theories to grasp these dynamics through investigations of racial form, modes of objecthood, material things, ecology, and speculative fiction. Ultimately, object theory leads Asian American literary studies to reconsider the place of human subjectivity in politics, attend to the formation of Asian America through nonhuman matter, and develop positive visions for Asian American futures from speculative imaginations of being and reality. This article discusses the place of object theory in Asian American literature and surveys key topics, including phenomenologies of race, transvaluations of objecthood, speculative realisms, and ontologies of Asian America.
Strategic Decision-Making in Business
Authors: Wooldridge Bill , Cowden Birton
Published: January 2020

Scholarly interest in how managers make strategic decisions dates from the inception of the strategic management field and continues in the present. Although such decision-making was originally conceived as a completely rational, top-management process, contemporary thinking recognizes that strategies from across multiple organizational levels change within social and political contexts. Within this broad domain, multiple research streams address a wide variety of topics and issues. Prominent among these are, (1) the extent to which strategic decisions are formed through comprehensive analysis versus piecemeal decision-making, (2) how characteristics of top managers and the composition of top management teams affect strategic decision-making, (3) the role of politics, conflict, and consensus in strategy making, (4) how cognitive biases and heuristics influence the process, (5) when and how intuitive judgments can form the basis for effective decision-making, and (6) how managers at various organizational levels participate in the process. Research across these streams is both descriptive and normative, with a focus on contextual contingencies and relationships to firm performance. Taken as a whole this literature has significantly enhanced understanding of how strategies form within organizations. Contemporary work continues to provide new insights and demonstrates the continued value of this productive area of study.
How Motivation Influences Political Decision Making
Authors: Gaines Brian J. , Kantack Benjamin R.
Published: January 2020

Although motivation undergirds virtually all aspects of political decision making, its influence is often unacknowledged, or taken for granted, in behavioral political science. Motivations are inevitably important in generic models of decision theory. In real-world politics, two crucially important venues for motivational effects are the decision of whether or not to vote, and how (or, whether) partisanship and other policy views color information-collection, so that people choose and then justify, rather than studying options before choosing. For researchers, motivations of survey respondents and experimental subjects are deeply important, but only just beginning to garner the attention they deserve.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union
Authors: Sperling James , Webber Mark
Published: January 2020

Neither NATO nor the EU are full-spectrum security providers. They are complementary institutions with offsetting strengths and weaknesses. The EU, unlike NATO, has treaty-based legislative prerogatives enabling it to implement common policies on a pan-European basis that touch upon both internal and external components of security. It also commands substantial technical and financial resources devoted to coherent regional security strategies. But if the EU is the more capable actor where security threats have a substantial civilian component, it is NATO that retains an unchallenged primacy on matters of collective defense and deterrence. Together, the two organizations function as agents of collective securitization across a wide range of issues to shape the security agenda and the allocation of national resources. The institutional interlocking of NATO and the EU has evolved over the course of the post–Cold War period. In most cases, the development of the EU as a security actor has not impeded NATO or undermined the cohesion of the alliance. Such complementarity can be demonstrated by reference to defense-related institutions within the EU that reinforce NATO efforts, the emergence of a “fuzzy” division of labor between both bodies, and an operational level of ambition derived from their security strategies. Institutional complementarity is evidenced by two empirical cases: the eastward and southern enlargements of the EU and NATO and out-of-area military and civilian operations beginning with the Balkan wars in the mid-1990s.
History of Feminist Psychology at the University of Vienna, 1984–2000
Authors: Luckgei Vera , Ruck Nora , Slunecko Thomas
Published: January 2020

Feminist psychological knowledge production has flourished in the German-speaking countries since the late 1970s. But, in contrast to countries like the United States, Canada, or Great Britain, it only gained finite traction in the academy. During the late 1970s and 1980s, the so-called “project phase” of the second wave women’s movement saw the founding of counseling centers for women in Vienna and all over Austria. During the mid-1980s, students at the University of Vienna started recruiting feminist psychologists from the feminist counseling center Frauen beraten Frauen to teach courses on the psychology of women. From the mid-1980s until 2000, the Department of Psychology at the University of Vienna offered an unusually high number of courses in the psychology of women (up to ten seminars per semester and about 200 in total), turning the department into an unofficial and temporary teaching hub for feminist psychology. With 14 courses on the psychology of women, the academic year 1987/1988 marks the apogee of feminist psychological teaching by adjunct lecturers at the Department of Psychology. During the 1990s, it was again students who fought for and succeeded in having several guest professors in the psychology of women appointed at the Department of Psychology. This pinnacle period for the interrelation of feminist teaching and research saw not only the development of new didactic methods but also some continuity in the collaboration of a guest professor, adjunct lecturers, and students as well as a plethora of feminist psychological theses written by students.
Imprinting as Social Learning
Authors: Johnston Timothy D.
Published: January 2020

Imprinting is a form of rapid, supposedly irreversible learning that results from exposure to an object during a specific period (a critical or sensitive period) during early life and produces a preference for the imprinted object. The word “imprinting” is an English translation of the German Prägung (“stamping in”), coined by Konrad Lorenz in 1935 to refer to the process that he studied in geese. Two types of imprinting have traditionally been distinguished: filial imprinting, involving the formation of an immediate social attachment to the mother or a mother-substitute, and sexual imprinting, involving the formation of a sexual preference that is manifested later in life. Both types of imprinting were subject to extensive experimental study beginning around 1950. Originally described in precocial birds (ducks, geese, and domestic chickens), imprinting has also been used to explain the formation of early social attachments in other species, including human infants. Imprinting has served as a useful model for studying the neural processes involved in learning and behavioral development and has provided a framework for thinking about other developmental processes.
Criticality in the Field of Educational Administration
Authors: Gunter Helen
Published: January 2020

The field of educational administration has a long and embedded history of taking a critical approach to practice, research, and theory. While there are a range of reviews from within and external to the field, there is no comprehensive contemporary historical overview of the meaning and actuality of critical approaches. A novel mapping and codification project aims to fill this gap by providing six approaches to criticality in the field. Three are professional self–focused—biographical, hierarchical, and entrepreneurial—and three are focused on professional and policy issues as primary research projects—functional, realistic, and activist. An overview is provided for each with examples of field projects/outputs, followed by an examination of the trends in the field. The state of the field is identified as a site for intervention from non-education interests (e.g., business), where non-research forms of criticality, often allied with functional research, tend to be dominant.
School Leadership Challenges in Canada
Authors: Xiao Jing , Newton Paul
Published: January 2020

Educational leadership as a concept refers to leadership across multiple levels and forms of educational institutions. The challenges facing school leaders in Canada center on the changing demographics of communities and school populations, shifts in Canadian society, and workload intensification related to factors such as increasing accountability regimes and changing expectations of schools.

Although education in Canada is largely a matter of provincial jurisdiction, there are some similarities with respect to the challenges facing institutions across Canada. While regional differences occur, general trends in challenges can be observed throughout Canada. There are challenges related to the changing demographics and social context that include increases in immigrant and refugee populations, the growing numbers of Indigenous students and the implications of truth and reconciliation for settler and indigenous communities, the increased awareness of gender and sexual identity, and linguistic and religious diversity. There are also challenges related to the shifting policy context and public discourse with respect to the expectations of public schooling. These challenges include the necessity for schools to respond to the mental health and well-being of students and staff, the increasing pressures with respect to accountability and large-scale assessments, and the demands of parents and community members of schools and school leaders. The changing roles and responsibilities of school leaders have resulted in workload intensification and implications for leader recruitment and retention.
Reading Comprehension
Authors: Butterfuss Reese , Kim Jasmine , Kendeou Panayiota
Published: January 2020

Reading comprehension requires the construction of a coherent mental representation of the information in a text. Reading involves three interrelated elements—the reader, the text, and the activity, all situated into a broader sociocultural context. The complexity inherent in reading comprehension has given rise to a multitude of influential models and frameworks that attempt to account for the various processes that give rise to reading comprehension: for example, activation of prior knowledge and integration of incoming information with currently active memory contents. Other models and frameworks attempt to account for the components that constitute reading comprehension, such as decoding, vocabulary, and language comprehension.

Many of the most prominent models of reading comprehension describe single readers engaging with single texts. Several recent models attempt to account for the additional complexity of comprehending multiple texts. Along with engaging in comprehension of multiple texts comes the need to contend with multiple information sources (i.e., sourcing). As such, researchers have developed models and frameworks to capture the processes learners engage in when the need to engage in sourcing arises, such as when readers encounter conflicting information.

Much theorizing in the reading comprehension literature has implicated typical readers, which suggests that many models and frameworks may not represent all readers across various skill levels. Existing research has identified several sources of individual differences in reading comprehension that in part determine the success of comprehension processes. Such individual differences include working memory, executive functions, vocabulary, inferencing, and prior knowledge. Prior knowledge is particularly important because of its power to both facilitate and interfere with comprehension processes. As such, the need to overcome the disruptive influence of incorrect prior knowledge (i.e., knowledge revision) becomes especially important when readers encounter information that conflicts with that prior knowledge.
Public Impact of Planetary Science
Authors: Billings Linda
Published: January 2020

The public impact of planetary science, or, alternatively, the public value of planetary science, is poorly understood, as little research has been published on the subject. Public impact may be linked to scientific impact, but it is not the same as public impact. Nor is it the same as public benefit or public understanding. No clear, agreed-upon definition of “public impact” exists, and certainly no definition of “the public impact of planetary science” exists. It is a matter of judgment as to whether global spending on planetary science has yielded positive public impacts, let alone impacts that are worth the investment.

More research on the public impact of planetary science is needed. However, the study of public impact is a social scientific enterprise, and space agencies, space research institutes, and aerospace companies historically have invested very little in social scientific research. Without further study of the subject, the public impact of planetary science will remain poorly understood.
The Korean Peninsula and US Foreign Relations
Authors: Fields David P.
Published: January 2020

The United States and the Kingdom of Joseon (Korea) established formal diplomatic relations after signing a “Treaty of Peace, Commerce, Amity, and Navigation” in 1882. Relations between the two states were not close and the United States closed its legation in 1905 following the Japanese annexation of Korea subsequent to the Russo-Japanese War. No formal relations existed for the following forty-four years, but American interest in Korea grew following the 1907 Pyongyang Revival and the rapid growth of Christianity there. Activists in the Korean Independence movement kept the issue of Korea alive in the United States, especially during World War I and World War II, and pressured the American government to support the re-emergence of an independent Korea. Their activism, as well as a distrust of the Soviet Union, was among the factors that spurred the United States to suggest the joint occupation of the Korean peninsula in 1945, which subsequently led to the creation of the Republic of Korea (ROK) in the American zone and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in the Soviet zone. The United States withdrew from the ROK in 1948 only to return in 1950 to thwart the DPRK’s attempt to reunite the peninsula by force during the Korean War. The war ended in stalemate, with an armistice agreement in 1953. In the same year the United States and the ROK signed a military alliance and American forces have remained on the peninsula ever since. While the United States has enjoyed close political and security relations with the ROK, formal diplomatic relations have never been established between the United States and the DPRK, and the relationship between the two has been marked by increasing tensions over the latter’s nuclear program since the early 1990s.
The New South
Authors: Brundage W. Fitzhugh
Published: January 2020

Rapid and far-reaching environmental, economic, and social transformations marked the New South (1880–1910). Substantial industrialization and urbanization followed the expansion of rail networks across the region, and produced unprecedented changes in daily life for both urban and rural residents. White southern elites embraced these innovations and worked to ensure that state governments evolved in order to advance them. One of their most significant endeavors was the institutionalization of white supremacy in virtually every facet of public life. Black and white voluntary organizations complemented, and sometimes contested, the emerging economic and social order in the New South. Similarly, while many contemporary representations of the region in national culture trivialized the scale and costs of the changes underway, some artists offered revelatory portraits of a region consumed by upheaval.
Tibetan Medicine and Its Buddhist Contexts
Authors: Yoeli-Tlalim Ronit
Published: January 2020

Tibetan medicine, also known as Sowa Rigpa (gso ba rig pa, the art, or knowledge of healing), has had a long and illustrious history, which has been intertwined with Buddhism in various aspects. It has been taught and practiced along with Tibetan Buddhism in areas that encompass the TAR (Tibetan Autonomous Region, since the mid-20th century part of China), areas of mainland China (Sichuan, Gansu, Qinghai, Yunnan), Ladakh, Nepal, Bhutan, Mongolia, and Buryatia (south Siberia, Russia). It is also practiced in India, particularly among the Tibetan exiled community, and in various parts of Europe and the United States.
Violence and New Religions
Authors: Moore Rebecca
Published: January 2020

Although new religions have a reputation for being intrinsically violent, research shows that they are no more aggressive than the world’s major religious traditions. Memes in popular culture tend to stigmatize adherents of these marginalized groups because of their unusual clothing, habits, lifestyles, and beliefs. Rather than employing the neutral term “new religious movement” (or NRM), journalists and others often use the pejorative label “cults.” Nevertheless, violent outbursts involving members of NRMs have exploded at moments of crisis—or perceived crisis—throughout history. Scholars attempting to identify the factors involved in these eruptions have determined that external as well as internal elements dynamically collide to create conditions that precipitate violent outcomes. Internal causes may include apocalyptic beliefs, charismatic leadership, and social encapsulation. A few groups may develop a worldview that justifies, or even welcomes, the use of violence; they may stockpile weapons for self-defense or develop plans to prepare for a final reckoning. External influences include provocative, aggressive, or combative actions by government authorities prompted by news media and cultural opponents comprising family members and professional anticultists. This outside pressure may trigger violent measures within the group, as leaders and members tighten social controls, quash dissent, and demand unquestioning loyalty in the face of opposition. Since violence is a social relationship in which the actions of each opponent serve to shape the responses of the other, destructive interactions with new religious groups are not inevitable. They may be forestalled when dangerous situations are adequately identified and intelligently addressed through careful investigation, patience, and well-managed negotiations.
Public–Private Partnerships and Natural Hazards Governance
Authors: Egli Dane S.
Published: January 2020

The level of interest in public–private partnerships (P3s) is growing—along with supporting literature—and applications are expanding to include new areas where industry supplements public investments in return for measurable rewards. In what follows are timely observations to support P3 operating principles for natural hazards governance—working as an integrated team, sharing innovations, solving technical and operational problems, and engaging in voluntary associations to creatively solve problems.

P3s involve voluntary collaboration to achieve common goals and financial benefit. In a globalized economy with highly interconnected systems, this spirit of innovation, sense of personal responsibility, and vision for collective partnerships can be seen throughout the world in the application of P3s. The impact and efficacy of P3s is not just realized in the pursuit of economic, security, safety, social, and environmental goals, but also in establishing integrated governance policies to contend with the persistent vulnerabilities of natural hazards.

The emerging world of P3s and natural hazards governance can be illustrated by three real-world examples: (1) a catastrophic regional natural disaster; (2) an urban research-study focused on the measurement of critical infrastructure resilience; and (3) a summary of transportation systems in the unique environment of maritime ports. From these case studies, and a diverse selection of references, it highlights key findings that will benefit future research, critical analysis, and policy application, including academic value, integrated participation, evidence-based metrics, smart resilience, and future innovation.
Cardiac Troponin I and T Are Associated with Left Ventricular Function and Structure: Data from the Akershus Cardiac Examination 1950 Study
Authors: Lyngbakken Magnus Nakrem , Aagaard Erika Nerdrum , Kvisvik Brede , Berge Trygve , Pervez Mohammad Osman , Brynildsen Jon , Tveit Arnljot , Steine Kjetil , Røsjø Helge , Omland Torbjørn
Published: January 2020

Background

Concentrations of cardiac troponin I (cTnI) and T (cTnT) are associated with clinical cardiac outcomes, but do not correlate closely in subjects recruited from the general population. Accordingly, we hypothesized that cTnI and cTnT concentrations would be influenced by different cardiovascular (CV) and non-CV risk factors and reflect different CV phenotypes.

Methods

We measured cTnI and cTnT with last generation assays in 1236 women and 1157 men with no known CV disease participating in the prospective observational Akershus Cardiac Examination 1950 Study. All study participants underwent extensive CV phenotyping at baseline, including detailed echocardiography.

Results

Concentrations of cTnI were measurable in 60.3% and cTnT in 72.5% of study participants (P < 0.001), and correlated moderately (r = 0.53; P < 0.001). cTnI was more strongly associated with male sex (P = 0.018), higher education (P < 0.001), history of hypertension (P < 0.001), and age (P < 0.001), whereas cTnT was more strongly associated with eGFR (P = 0.015). Both cTnI and cTnT were inversely associated with global longitudinal strain and positively associated with LV mass index (LVMI) in analyses adjusted for CV risk factors. The association between cTnI and LVMI was stronger than the association between cTnT and LVMI (P = 0.035). Concentrations of cTnI improved diagnostic accuracy for LV hypertrophy when added to established CV risk factors, but concentrations of cTnT did not improve these models further.

Conclusions

In a large community-based cohort examined with extensive echocardiography, concentrations of cTnI and cTnT are associated with subclinical LV hypertrophy and dysfunction. Concentrations of cTnI appear superior to cTnT in predicting subclinical LV hypertrophy.
KRGDB: the large-scale variant database of 1722 Koreans based on whole genome sequencing
Authors: Jung Kwang Su , Hong Kyung-Won , Jo Hyun Youn , Choi Jongpill , Ban Hyo-Jeong , Cho Seong Beom , Chung Myungguen
Published: January 2020

Since 2012, the Center for Genome Science of the Korea National Institute of Health (KNIH) has been sequencing complete genomes of 1722 Korean individuals. As a result, more than 32 million variant sites have been identified, and a large proportion of the variant sites have been detected for the first time. In this article, we describe the Korean Reference Genome Database (KRGDB) and its genome browser. The current version of our database contains both single nucleotide and short insertion/deletion variants. The DNA samples were obtained from four different origins and sequenced in different sequencing depths (10× coverage of 63 individuals, 20× coverage of 194 individuals, combined 10× and 20× coverage of 135 individuals, 30× coverage of 230 individuals and 30× coverage of 1100 individuals). The major features of the KRGDB are that it contains information on the Korean genomic variant frequency, frequency difference between the Korean and other populations and the variant functional annotation (such as regulatory elements in ENCODE regions and coding variant functions) of the variant sites. Additionally, we performed the genome-wide association study (GWAS) between Korean genome variant sites for the 30×230 individuals and three major common diseases (diabetes, hypertension and metabolic syndrome). The association results are displayed on our browser. The KRGDB uses the MySQL database and Apache-Tomcat web server adopted with Java Server Page (JSP) and is freely available at http://coda.nih.go.kr/coda/KRGDB/index.jsp.

Availability: http://coda.nih.go.kr/coda/KRGDB/index.jsp
Left ventricular myocardial crypts: morphological patterns and prognostic implications
Authors: Sigvardsen Per E , Pham Michael H C , Kühl Jørgen T , Fuchs Andreas , Afzal Shoaib , Møgelvang Rasmus , Nordestgaard Børge G , Køber Lars , Kofoed Klaus F
Published: January 2020

Aims 

Left ventricular (LV) myocardial crypts are considered a subtle marker of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. However, crypts have also been observed in seemingly healthy individuals and it is unknown whether myocardial crypts are associated with adverse outcome.

Methods and results 

Myocardial crypts were defined as invaginations traversing >50% of the myocardial wall and assessed using contrast-enhanced cardiac computed tomography in 10 097 individuals from the Copenhagen General Population Study. Number of crypts, location, shape, penetrance, and volume were assessed. The endpoint was a composite of major adverse cardiovascular events and defined as death, myocardial infarction, heart failure, or stroke. Cox regression models were adjusted for clinical variables, medical history, electrocardiographic parameters, and cardiac chamber sizes. A total of 1199 LV myocardial crypts were identified in 915 (9.1%) individuals. Seven hundred (6.9%) had one crypt and 215 (2.1%) had multiple crypts. During a median follow-up of 4.0 years (interquartile range 1.5–6.7), major adverse cardiovascular events occurred in 619 individuals. Individuals with one or multiple crypts had a hazard ratio for major adverse cardiovascular events of 1.00 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.72–1.40; P = 0.98] and 0.90 (95% CI: 0.47–1.75; P = 0.76), respectively, compared with those with no crypts. No specific pattern of crypt location, shape, penetrance, or volume was associated to an increased hazard ratio for major adverse cardiovascular events.

Conclusion 

LV myocardial crypts are frequent in the general population and are not associated with intermediate-term major adverse cardiovascular events.
Surface rupture in stochastic slip models
Authors: Murphy S , Herrero A
Published: January 2020

As an alternative to spectral methods, stochastic self-similar slip can be produced through a composite source model by placing a power-law scaling size-frequency distribution of circular slip dislocations on a fault surface. However these models do not accurately account for observed surface rupture behaviour. We propose a modification to the composite source model that corrects this issue. The advantage of this technique is that it accommodates the use of fractal slip distributions on non-planar fault surfaces. However to mimic a surface rupture using this technique, releasing the boundary condition at the top of the fault, we observed a systematic decrease in slip at shallow depths. We propose a new strategy whereby the surface is treated like a reflector with the slip being folded back onto the fault. Two different techniques based on this principal are presented: the first is the method of images. It requires a small change to pre-existing codes and works for planar faults. The second involves the use of a multistage trilateration technique. It is applied to non-planar faults described by an unstructured mesh. The reflected slip calculated using the two techniques is near identical on a planar fault, suggesting they are equivalent. Applying this correction, where reflected slip is accounted for in the composite source model, the lack of slip at shallow depths is not observed any more and there is no systematic trend with depth. However, there are other parameters which may affect the spatial distribution of slip across the fault plane. For example, the type of probability density function used in the placement of the subevent is also important. In the case where the location of maximum slip is known to a first order, a Gaussian may be appropriate to describe the probability function. For hazard assessment studies a uniform probability density function is more suitable as it provides no underlying systematic spatial trend.
Prolonged carriage of (livestock-associated) MRSA in individuals without professional livestock contact
Authors: Meijs Anouk P , Hengeveld Paul D , Dierikx Cindy M , Maassen Catharina B M , de Greeff Sabine C , de Haan Angela , Bosch Thijs , van Duijkeren Engeline
Published: January 2020

Objectives

To investigate prolonged carriage of MRSA in adults from the general population living in a livestock-dense area, using WGS.

Methods

A cross-sectional study during 2014–15 among 2492 adults without professional livestock contact identified 14 (0.6%) nasal MRSA carriers, 10 of which carried livestock-associated (LA)-MRSA of multiple-locus variable-number tandem repeat analysis (MLVA) complex (MC) 398. Two years later, 12 MRSA-positive and 88 MRSA-negative participants provided a second nasal swab and filled in a short questionnaire. Isolates from persons who were MRSA positive at both timepoints were compared using MLVA and isolates with the same MLVA type were sequenced. The WGS data were used for core-genome MLST (cgMLST) and resistome analysis, including sequenced isolates from the national MRSA surveillance.

Results

All MRSA-negative persons tested negative again, while 6 of the 12 initially MRSA-positive persons tested positive again. MLVA revealed that isolate pairs from five individuals had the same MLVA type, of which three were LA-MRSA. cgMLST showed that the distance between these isolate pairs ranged between 3 and 13 genes, while the minimum distance to unrelated isolates from the national MRSA surveillance was 38 genes. Moreover, the resistome present in the five isolate pairs was identical within each pair. None of the prolonged carriers was hospitalized during the 3 months before the sampling moment and none of them with LA-MRSA had contact with livestock in this period.

Conclusions

Prolonged carriage of MRSA, including LA-MRSA, can be demonstrated after more than 30 months in persons without professional livestock contact.
Establishment of a Measurement System for Sphingolipids in the Cerebrospinal Fluid Based on Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry, and Its Application in the Diagnosis of Carcinomatous Meningitis
Authors: Sakai Eri , Kurano Makoto , Morita Yoshifumi , Aoki Junken , Yatomi Yutaka
Published: January 2020

Objectives

Sphingolipids have been demonstrated to be involved in many human diseases. However, measurement of sphingolipids, especially of sphingosine 1-phosphate (S1P) and dihydro-sphingosine 1-phosphate (dhS1P), in blood samples requires strict sampling, since blood cells easily secrete these substances during sampling and storage, making it difficult to introduce measurement of sphingolipids in clinical laboratory medicine. On the other hand, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) contains few blood cells. Therefore, we attempted to establish a system based on liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) for the measurement of sphingolipids in the CSF, and applied it for the diagnosis of carcinomatous meningitis.

Methods

We developed and validated a LC-MS/MS-based measurement system for S1P and dhS1P and for ceramides and sphingosines, used this system to measure the levels of these sphingolipids in the CSF collected from the subjects with cancerous meningitis, and compared the levels with those in normal routine CSF samples.

Results

Both the measurement systems for S1P/dhS1P and for ceramides/sphingosines provided precision with the coefficient of variation below 20% for sphingolipids in the CSF samples. We also confirmed that the levels of S1P, as well as ceramides/sphingosines, in the CSF samples did not increase after the sampling. In the CSF samples collected from patients with cancerous meningitis, we observed that the ratio of S1P to ceramides/sphingosine and that of dhS1P to dihydro-sphingosine were higher than those in control samples.

Conclusions

We established and validated a measurement system for sphingolipids in the CSF. The system offers promise for being introduced into clinical laboratory testing.
Dietary phytonutrients and animal health: regulation of immune function during gastrointestinal infections
Authors: Williams Andrew R , Andersen-Civil Audrey I S , Zhu Ling , Blanchard Alexandra
Published: January 2020

The composition of dietary macronutrients (proteins, carbohydrates, and fibers) and micronutrients (vitamins, phytochemicals) can markedly influence the development of immune responses to enteric infection. This has important implications for livestock production, where a significant challenge exists to ensure healthy and productive animals in an era of increasing drug resistance and concerns about the sector’s environmental footprint. Nutritional intervention may ultimately be a sustainable method to prevent disease and improve efficiency of livestock enterprises, and it is now well established that certain phytonutrients can significantly improve animal performance during challenge with infectious pathogens. However, many questions remain unanswered concerning the complex interplay between diet, immunity, and infection. In this review, we examine the role of phytonutrients in regulating immune and inflammatory responses during enteric bacterial and parasitic infections in livestock, with a specific focus on some increasingly well-studied phytochemical classes—polyphenols (especially proanthocyanidins), essential oil components (cinnamaldehyde, eugenol, and carvacrol), and curcumin. Despite the contrasting chemical structures of these molecules, they appear to induce a number of similar immunological responses. These include promotion of mucosal antibody and antimicrobial peptide production, coupled with a strong suppression of inflammatory cytokines and reactive oxygen species. Although there have been some recent advances in our understanding of the mechanisms underlying their bioactivity, how these phytonutrients modulate immune responses in the intestine remains mostly unknown. We discuss the complex inter-relationships between metabolism of dietary phytonutrients, the gut microbiota, and the mucosal immune system, and propose that an increased understanding of the basic immunological mechanisms involved will allow the rational development of novel dietary additives to promote intestinal health in farmed animals.
Changes in genetic parameters for fitness and growth traits in pigs under genomic selection
Authors: Hidalgo Jorge , Tsuruta Shogo , Lourenco Daniela , Masuda Yutaka , Huang Yijian , Gray Kent A , Misztal Ignacy
Published: January 2020

Genomic selection increases accuracy and decreases generation interval, speeding up genetic changes in the populations. However, intensive changes caused by selection can reduce the genetic variation and can strengthen undesirable genetic correlations. The purpose of this study was to investigate changes in genetic parameters for fitness traits related with prolificacy (FT1) and litter survival (FT2 and FT3), and for growth (GT1 and GT2) traits in pigs over time. The data set contained 21,269 (FT1), 23,246 (FT2), 23,246 (FT3), 150,492 (GT1), and 150,493 (GT2) phenotypic records obtained from 2009 to 2018. The pedigree file included 369,776 animals born between 2001 and 2018, of which 39,103 were genotyped. Genetic parameters were estimated with bivariate models (FT1-GT1, FT1-GT2, FT2-GT1, FT2-GT2, FT3-GT1, and FT3-GT2) using 3-yr sliding subsets. With a Bayesian implementation using the GIBBS3F90 program computations were performed as genomic analysis (GEN) or pedigree-based analysis (PED), that is, with or without genotypes, respectively. For GEN (PED), the changes in heritability from the first to the last year interval, that is, from 2009–2011 to 2015–2018 were 8.6 to 5.6 (7.9 to 8.8) for FT1, 7.8 to 7.2 (7.7 to 10.8) for FT2, 11.4 to 7.6 (10.1 to 7.5) for FT3, 35.1 to 16.5 (32.5 to 23.7) for GT1, and 35.9 to 16.5 (32.6 to 24.1) for GT2. Differences were also observed for genetic correlations as they changed from −0.31 to −0.58 (−0.28 to −0.73) for FT1-GT1, −0.32 to −0.50 (−0.29 to −0.74) for FT1-GT2, −0.27 to −0.45 (−0.30 to −0.65) for FT2-GT1, −0.28 to −0.45 (−0.32 to −0.66) for FT2-GT2, 0.14 to 0.17 (0.11 to 0.04) for FT3-GT1, and 0.14 to 0.18 (0.11 to 0.05) for FT3-GT2. Strong selection in pigs reduced heritabilities and emphasized the antagonistic genetic relationships between fitness and growth traits. With genotypes considered, heritability estimates were smaller and genetic correlations were greater than estimates with only pedigree and phenotypes. When selection is based on genomic information, genetic parameters estimated without this information can be biased because preselection is not accounted for by the model.