bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Letter to the editor: Aggressive variant prostate cancer: An exemplary case study and comprehensive literature survey
Authors: Ke Han-Wei , Zhang Wei-Yu , Xu Ke-Xin
Published: December 2023

This article enthusiastically explores the study of highly aggressive variant prostate cancer (AVPC), acknowledging its relatively rare yet highly menacing presence within the realm of prostate cancer. The paper delves into the pathological characteristics of AVPC, diagnostic and therapeutic challenges, and the potential applications of precision medicine and molecular imaging in the future.
Burnout syndrome and anxiety among healthcare workers during global pandemics: An umbrella review
Authors: Bey Clayton Yang Teng , Koh Jin-Uu , Lai Christopher Wai Keung
Published: December 2023

BACKGROUND

Burnout syndrome and anxiety are two mental health symptoms experienced by healthcare workers (HCWs) that can be exacerbated during pandemics due to increased job demands and the global health workforce crisis.

AIM

To provide a comprehensive review and summary of evidence on burnout and anxiety in HCWs during previous global pandemics.

METHODS

A systematic search on electronic databases such as PubMed Central and MEDLINE was conducted to identify high-quality systematic review studies that reported on the prevalence of burnout and/or anxiety in HCWs during any previous global pandemic.

RESULTS

Twenty-four high quality systematic review articles were found to be suitable for inclusion. Twenty articles focused merely on Coronavirus disease 2019, while four articles examined multiple pandemics. Burnout was examined in nine articles, while anxiety was examined in the remaining 21 articles. Female HCWs and nurses were identified to be at a higher risk of developing burnout and anxiety during pandemic. We also observed a variation in the prevalence of burnouts and anxiety across different studies due to different mental health instruments were used in different studies.

CONCLUSION

Nurses and females HCWs had a high prevalence of burnout syndrome and anxiety during pandemic. More emphasis and attention should be paid to safeguarding the psychological well-being of these at-risk populations in the future pandemics.
Cuban Medical Internationalism: A Paradigm for South–South Cooperation
Authors: Yaffe Helen
Published: December 2023

In 2023, Cuba assumed the presidency of the Group of 77 + China, the world’s largest and most diverse multilateral bloc of countries. The election of Cuba to this role testifies to the island’s prestige among the Global South, recognition of its material contribution to developing countries, and promotion of South–South cooperation, particularly in the healthcare sector. Cuban medical internationalism tends to be discussed in the rather lonely and nostalgic category of “international solidarity”. While there is a rationale for underscoring its uniqueness in motivation, quantity and quality, doing so also facilitates the censoring or sidelining of this extraordinary assistance in international analysis. In the context of Cuba’s presidency of the Group of 77 + China, this article frames Cuban medical internationalism in relation to the United Nations principles for South–South cooperation, and the commitment to healthcare as a human right. It also draws on calculations of the monetary value of Cuba’s overseas development aid to provide a comparative assessment of the island’s contribution to the global south. After noting the key steps and achievements in the development of Cuba’s own public healthcare system, the article explores the origins of and motivations for Cuban medical internationalism, providing examples of the four forms of assistance which emerged in response to global circumstances, and which endure today. The article then demonstrates how Cuban international assistance is consistent with the UN’s Plan of Action to promote cooperation between developing nations. Finally, it discusses the economics of Cuban medical internationalism, and the campaign to discredit and sabotage Cuban medical exports by opponents of Cuban socialism.
Emerging Vitality in “Endangered” Forms of Verbal Art in Naso
Authors: Mejía Tulio Bermúdez
Published: December 2023

Abstract: This article provides evidence of change in verbal art in Naso (Chibchan, Panama). ‘Profound words’ ( tjlõkwo rong ) are ideologized as a poetic lexical category practiced exclusively by Naso ancestors, but are emergent in practice. Profound words number upwards of four hundred lexical constructions of different patternings, but primarily difrasismos . In a language documentation project, Nasos innovatively determine membership in the profound words category on the basis of formal analogization to difrasismos , and noncompositional meaning. Thus, the category is productively and creatively determined.
Dramatic Spectacle in LaƷamon: The Brut 's Direct Speeches, Aestheticized Violence, and Gendered Historical Reenactments
Authors: Alden Johanna
Published: December 2023

Abstract: This article explores the phenomena of dramatized direct speech and public performative spectacle within LaƷamon's Brut . In examining the text's largely historically unexplored dramatic dimensions, the piece also engages with the way that speech and performance are politicized and gendered in the Brut .
New Data on the Ben Levy Anticline, With Reverse Reactivation on the Coolin Fault Giving Up-Side-Down Silurian Rocks in Joyces Country, Connemara
Authors: Leake Bernard Elgey
Published: December 2023

In Joyces Country in western Ireland, the ~ E-W striking axial plane of the D7 Ben Levy anticline folded Dalradian and unconformable Silurian rocks. The north side of the fold is mostly coincident with the contemporaneous ESE-WNW striking steeply dipping Coolin Fault close to the Dalradian-basal Silurian contact. This fault was first initiated by sinistral strike-slip motion, probably of Ordovician age, and then secondly used by post-Wenlock down throw on the north side to form the D7 anticline. Later a newly recognised third motion of reverse reactivation on the fault uplifted the north limb of the fold and locally overturned the Silurian succession against irregularities in the SSW dip of the fault. Still later, but pre-374Ma (Devonian), NE-SW faulting exposed different previous levels of the Coolin Fault zone. The superb Dalradian rock exposure provides details not generally apparent on other reactivated faults in Connemara.
“Servants not Soldiers”: The Origins of Slavery in the United States Army, 1797–1816
Authors: Hamdani Yoav
Published: December 2023

Abstract: This article illuminates a lesser-explored aspect of the United States as a “slaveholding republic.” Between 1816–1861, the U.S. Army relied on thousands of enslaved persons who served as officers' servants. In 1816, Congress authorized allowances, rations, and bonuses for officers' private servants while putting an end to the practice of soldiers serving as servants. This legislative move effectively subsidized and incentivized military slaveholding. The paper delves into the political circumstances and legislative maneuvers that led Congress to institutionalize military slavery, establishing mechanisms to sustain, fund, and expand the number of enslaved servants. Military slavery developed gradually with the foundation, bureaucratization, and professionalization of an American military peace establishment. It evolved from 1797 to 1816 through competing policy objectives, resulting in a long-lasting bureaucratic workaround euphemistically termed "servants not soldiers." Facing public criticism over officers’ abuse of soldiers’ labor, the army “outsourced” officers’ servants through a dual process of privatization and racialization, differentiating between “public” and “private” service, between free, white soldiers and enslaved, black servants. Though serving slaveholders’ interests, the adopted solution was a product of bureaucratic contingencies and ad-hoc decision-making and not a policy orchestrated by a cabal of enslavers. Interestingly, a basic question of reimbursement led somewhere unanticipated, ending in government-sponsored enslaved servitude. Acknowledging this contingency does not excuse the actions but underscores how slavery was often "solved" through institutional accommodation rather than political or moral opposition. Thus, slavery directly impacted the U.S. Army, a central national institution, altering the military system at its pivotal, formative moments.
On the Distinctions Between Spoken and Written Language in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Authors: Leahy Frank
Published: December 2023

Abstract: Figures as diverse as Samuel Beckett and Marshall McLuhan have lauded Joyce for his unusual awareness of the distinct conventions and characteristics of language as it occurs in different forms (primarily spoken and written). Such commentary usually focuses on Ulysses and Finnegans Wake . While more formally restrained than Joyce’s two greatest works, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man shows Joyce forging the philosophy and aesthetic which consciously treats language in these different forms, implicitly (through, for example, the strategies he develops to represent sound) and explicitly (through, for example, ruminations on the properties of writing and speech). This is shown not least by the fact the book begins not (as is sometimes claimed) at the beginning of Stephen’s life, but at the beginning of his linguistic life, and from the outset uses a variety of print-oriented techniques (such as italicization, indentation, and ellipsis points) to represent the phonic world. This implicitly demonstrates a further distinction, also crucial to Joyce’s later work, not only between speech and writing, but between handwriting and print. The distinction also looms large in A Portrait , which at various times references the manual in a way that emphasizes the labored means of production of the yet-to-be published writer, but also is written very distinctly (as Hugh Kenner observes about Ulysses ), for “technological space” or “printed pages for which it was designed from the beginning.” It is notable in this context that Joyce rejected one strategy in particular for representing the sounds of speech within the visual medium of writing: non-standard spelling. He experimented with a more phoneticized style in Stephen Hero , but this is largely abandoned by the time it becomes A Portrait . We are left with one notable dialectal spelling: “shite.” The deployment of this word speaks volumes about Joyce’s journey from sound to print.
“Wandering Rocks” and the Politics of Social Complexity
Authors: Jenson Emery
Published: December 2023

Abstract: Joyce famously composed the tenth episode of Ulysses , “Wandering Rocks,” with painstaking reference to a map of Dublin, becoming, in his words, “a scissors and paste man.” This essay asks—what might it mean to become scissors and paste readers? Radicalizing the form of repetition and interpolation in “Wandering Rocks,” this study conducts an experimental reading of the episode to show how “Wandering Rocks” might intervene on contemporary debates about the structure and representability of the social. Reading “Wandering Rocks” against recent scholarship on the representability of social space, especially that of Bruno Latour and Fredric Jameson, this essay suggests that “Wandering Rocks” provides a thesis regarding the interplay of signs, traces, and complex governing structures that lends nuance to studies of the social, especially regarding the notion of social totality.
Why Democracy Survives Populism
Authors: Weyland Kurt
Published: December 2023

Abstract: This essay suggests that while populism certainly can be a mortal threat to democracy, the worst outcome is less common than observers have feared. The author's research shows that among forty populist governments in Latin America and Europe from 1985 to 2020, only seven led to authoritarian rule. It concludes that democracy often shows considerable resilience, with most populist leaders failing to suffocate liberal pluralism due to institutional checks, balances, and opposition mobilization. While the threat of populism requires constant attention and energetic countermeasures, there is no need for global alarmism.
Relating Substances
Authors: Carli Silvia
Published: December 2023

Abstract: Can Aristotle’s ontology account for the centrality of relations in the nature of political animals? This article responds to scholars who claim that it cannot, and argues that Aristotle’s conceptual framework in the practical writings is consistent, and continuous, with his first philosophy. Aristotle’s ontology of living beings already assigns a central and constitutive role to relations, both with respect to the exercise of their essential activities and with respect to their connections to other members of their group. Moreover, his thought is hospitable to relational thinking because of the role that it assigns to active receptivity. The fact that our lives are more interconnected than those of any other species does not call into question his ontology; rather, it illustrates how his metaphysics works in the case of the distinctive substances that we are, namely, animals with logos.
Is Grounding Essentially Ordered Causation?
Authors: Flynn Patrick , Gel Enric F.
Published: December 2023

Abstract: This article aims to test the hypothesis that metaphysical grounding is an instance of essentially ordered (or per se ) causation, a species of causation identified by medieval philosophers and theologians like Aquinas and Scotus, but largely forgotten from then on. The article reviews some of the consensus of grounding theorists on the nature of metaphysical grounding (or ontological dependence) compared to some of the crucial characteristics of essentially ordered causal series as articulated by scholastic and neo-Aristotelian philosophers then and now. The authors emphasize their similarities, which they hold is enough to render strongly plausible the thesis that grounding is essentially ordered causation (G = EOC). Moreover, they highlight the potential benefits of this identification both for theories of grounding and EOC, especially as it concerns matters of fundamentality. Finally, they consider the limits of their hypothesis,
Why Ancient Monism Matters Today: Heidegger and Plato’s Sophist
Authors: Vardoulakis Dimitris
Published: December 2023

Abstract: Ancient monism matters today because it reveals an alternative answer to a problem faced by ontology “after the death of god,” namely, how to distinguish between good and bad actions after the disappearance of transcendence. The modern answer in Continental philosophy was systematized by Heidegger and consists in positing that the everyday is permeated by instrumentality whereas there is a different kind of action that is noninstrumental, such as art or the thinking of being. By contrast, ancient monism holds that all actions are instrumental and employs on a typology of action that relies on the distinction between techne and phronesis . Recognizing a different answer from the dominant Heideggerian one has the potential to renew the conception of the ethical and the political in Continental philosophy.
Temporal dynamics of pro-inflammatory cytokines and serum corticosterone following acute sleep fragmentation in male mice
Authors: Nguyen Van Thuan , Fields Cameron J. , Ashley Noah T.
Published: December 2023

Obstructive sleep apnea is increasing worldwide, leading to disordered sleep patterns and inflammatory responses in brain and peripheral tissues that predispose individuals to chronic disease. Pro-inflammatory cytokines activate the inflammatory response and are normally regulated by glucocorticoids secreted from adrenal glands. However, the temporal dynamics of inflammatory responses and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activation in relation to acute sleep fragmentation (ASF) are undescribed. Male C57BL/6J mice were exposed to ASF or control conditions (no ASF) over specified intervals (1, 2, 6, or 24 h) and cytokine gene expression (IL-1β, TNF-α) in brain and peripheral tissues as well as serum glucocorticoid and interleukin-6 (IL-6) concentration were assessed. The HPA axis was rapidly activated, leading to elevated serum corticosterone from 1–24 h of ASF compared with controls. This activation was followed by elevated serum IL-6 concentration from 6–24 h of ASF. The tissue to first exhibit increased pro-inflammatory gene expression from ASF was heart (1 h of ASF). In contrast, pro-inflammatory gene expression was suppressed in hypothalamus from 1 h of ASF, but elevated at 6 h. Because the HPA axis was activated throughout ASF, this suggests that brain, but not peripheral, pro-inflammatory responses were rapidly inhibited by glucocorticoid immunosuppression.
Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on surgical activity in the Brazilian private healthcare system
Authors: Degani Costa Luiza Helena , Yepes Pereira Barbara , Queiros Castro Isabela , Werneck Heitor , Mizubuti Glenio B. , Falcão Luiz Fernando dos Reis
Published: December 2023

Introduction

Surgical volume was drastically reduced in many countries due to challenges imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Objectives

We sought to estimate the number of cancelled surgical and diagnostic procedures within the Brazilian private healthcare system between 2020 and 2021 over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, and to project the procedural backlog generated for specific elective and time-sensitive surgeries, and diagnostic procedures.

Methods

Data were systematically extracted from the Brazilian national regulatory agency for the private healthcare system and included (i) quarterly and annual surgical and diagnostic volume, and (ii) the number of private health insurance beneficiaries between January 2016 and June 2021. Based on pre-pandemic data we estimated the expected number of surgical and diagnostic procedures that failed to be performed between 2020 and 2021.

Results

The average quarterly surgical and diagnostic procedures declined by 29.5% in 2020 and by 21.5% in 2021 compared to 2019. In 2020, such reduction reflected a lower number of diagnostic procedures under anesthesia (-35.1%), as well as elective (-14.7%), time-sensitive (-18.8%), and urgent (-4.6%) surgeries. In the first half of 2021, though the surgical and diagnostic procedures increased compared to 2020, they remained significantly below their historical average. The estimated backlogs were 134.385,64 for total surgical procedures, 2.634,64 for bariatric surgery and arthroplasty revision (elective surgeries), 2.845,61 for oncologic (time-sensitive) surgeries, and 304.193,99 for diagnostic procedures, requiring 1.7, 15.9, and 6.8 years, respectively, to make up for such backlogs.

Conclusion

There was a major decline on the number of surgical and diagnostic procedures due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite a slight recovery of elective surgeries throughout the pandemic, many time-sensitive surgeries and diagnostic procedures were cancelled, with potential medium- to long-term consequences to patients and the system as a whole.
Effects of landscape simplicity on crop yield: A reanalysis of a global database
Authors: Madin Michael Biwalib , Nelson Katherine S.
Published: December 2023

Ecological theory on diversity suggests that agriculture requires sufficient biodiversity, ecological function, and critical ecosystem services to remain sustainable and resilient. As such, research related to the effect of ecosystem services and diversity on crop yields has increased significantly in the past decade. One such study by Dainese and colleagues that presented a global synthesis of a compiled database of 1,475 crop experiments related to pollination and pest control ecosystem services and crop yields quickly garnered attention in the literature with more than 540 citations since its publication in 2019. Given the strong influence of this study on the research on diversity and agricultural production, we conduct a reanalysis on the publicly available dataset from the global synthesis study to test the robustness of findings to modeling approach and assumptions. In our reanalysis we apply ordinary least squares regression methods rather than Bayesian path analysis to the same data to examine the robustness of observed field-scale landscape diversity-ecosystem services-crop yield relationships. The result of our reanalysis supports the findings of Dainese and colleagues, illustrating the robustness of findings that suggest that increasing landscape simplicity is associated with lower rates of pollination and pest control ecosystem service provisioning and lower crop yields. However, our analyses also suggest that provisioning of pollination and pest control services account for only a small fraction of the total effect of landscape simplicity on crop yields. Furthermore, we find that management and soil health may mediate the effects of landscape simplicity on ecosystem services and crop yields. While our results complement previous findings for landscape simplicity and ecosystem services, they also indicate that above and below ground ecosystem services are not mutually exclusive but concurrently contribute to support crop production in agriculture.
Performance of the cobas EZH2 mutation test on clinical samples from non-Hodgkin lymphoma patients
Authors: Shyu Johnny Y. , Schlag Peter A. , Karwowska Sylwia M. , Manohar Chitra F. , Truong Huan M. , Longshore John W. , Zhang Guili
Published: December 2023

Objective

To present the technical verification and clinical validation of the companion diagnostic assay, cobas® EZH2 Mutation Test (cobas EZH2 Test), targeting gain-of-function EZH2 mutations in follicular lymphoma (FL) and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). The focus is on patient clinical samples proving that the test met the performance criteria required for FDA approval of a companion diagnostic test.

Design

Epizyme, Inc., Eisai Co., Ltd., and Roche Molecular Systems, Inc., collaborated to develop the cobas EZH2 Test on an RT-PCR platform. The assay design needed to detect the gain-of-function EZH2 mutations found in FL and DLBCL indications. Thus, the test was optimized for investigational purposes in a clinical trial setting. Part of its technical verification included testing of patient tumor samples with a documented diagnosis of FL and DLBCL procured from commercial vendors, and the clinical validation used patient samples from the Epizyme clinical study. Both the technical performance verification method correlation study (104 clinical commercially acquired samples) and the clinical validation accuracy study (341 patient samples from the therapeutic study) used next-generation sequencing as a reference method to establish true vs. false results by cobas EZH2 Test. The reproducibility study used a 15-member panel of DNA samples with varying EZH2 mutation status from procured clinical FL and DLBCL patient samples under multiple variables.

Results

Single and rare, infrequent double EZH2 mutations were detected in FL and DLBCL samples. Agreements between results from cobas EZH2 and sequencing were >98% from commercial clinical samples and from the therapeutic study clinical samples.

The reproducibility study obtained 178 to 180 valid results for each panel member, with an overall invalid rate of 0.37%. The agreement for each per panel member was 100%.

Conclusion

cobas EZH2 Test data demonstrated that the test is reliable and will perform well in a commercial customer environment.
“It would really support the wider harm reduction agenda across the board”: A qualitative study of the potential impacts of drug checking service delivery in Scotland
Authors: Falzon Danilo , Parkes Tessa , Carver Hannah , Masterton Wendy , Wallace Bruce , Craik Vicki , Measham Fiona , Sumnall Harry , Gittins Rosalind , Hunter Carole , Watson Kira , Mooney John D. , Aston Elizabeth V.
Published: December 2023

Drug checking services (DCS) enable individuals to voluntarily submit a small amount of a substance for analysis, providing information about the content of the substance along with tailored harm reduction support and advice. There is some evidence suggesting that DCS may lead to behaviour and system change, with impacts for people who use drugs, staff and services, and public health structures. The evidence base is still relatively nascent, however, and several evidence gaps persist. This paper reports on qualitative interviews with forty-three participants across three Scottish cities where the implementation of community-based DCS is being planned. Participants were drawn from three groups: professional participants; people with experience of drug use; and affected family members. Findings focus on perceived harm reduction impacts of DCS delivery in Scotland, with participants highlighting the potential for drug checking to impact a number of key groups including: individual service users; harm reduction services and staff; drug market monitoring structures and networks; and wider groups of people who use and sell drugs, in shaping their interactions with the drug market. Whilst continued evaluation of individual health behaviour outcomes is crucial to building the evidence base for DCS, the findings highlight the importance of extending evaluation beyond these outcomes. This would include evaluation of processes such as: information sharing across a range of parties; engagement with harm reduction and treatment services; knowledge building; and increased drug literacy. These broader dynamics may be particularly important for evaluations of community-based DCS serving individuals at higher-risk, given the complex relationship between information provision and health behaviour change which may be mediated by mental and physical health, stigma, criminalisation and the risk environment. This paper is of international relevance and adds to existing literature on the potential impact of DCS on individuals, organisations, and public health structures.
Testing a new platform to screen disease-modifying therapy in type 1 diabetes
Authors: Lord Sandra M. , Bahnson Henry T. , Greenbaum Carla J. , Liljenquist David R. , Virostko John , Speake Cate
Published: December 2023

Studies of new therapies to preserve insulin secretion in early type 1 diabetes require several years to recruit eligible subjects and to see a treatment effect; thus, there is interest in alternative study designs to speed this process. Most people with longstanding type 1 diabetes no longer secrete insulin. However, studies from pancreata of those with longstanding T1D show that beta cells staining for insulin can persist for decades after diagnosis, and this is paralleled in work showing proinsulin secretion in individuals with longstanding disease; collectively this suggests that there is a reserve of alive but “sleeping” beta cells. Here, we designed a novel clinical trial platform to test whether a short course of therapy with an agent known to have effects in type 1 diabetes with residual endogenous insulin could transiently induce insulin secretion in those who no longer produce insulin. A therapy that transiently “wakes up” sleeping beta cells might be tested next in a fully powered trial in those with endogenous insulin secretion. In this three-arm non-randomized pilot study, we tested three therapies known to impact disease: two beta-cell supportive agents, liraglutide and verapamil, and an immunomodulatory agent, golimumab. The golimumab treated arm was not fully enrolled due to uncertainties about immunotherapy during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants had mixed-meal tolerance test (MMTT)-stimulated C-peptide below the quantitation limit (<0.02 ng/mL) at enrollment and received 8 to 12 weeks of therapy. At the completion of therapy, none of the individuals achieved the primary outcome of MMTT-stimulated C-peptide ≥ 0.02 ng/mL. An exploratory outcome of the verapamil arm was MRI-assessed pancreas size, diffusion, and longitudinal relaxation time, which showed repeatability of these measures but no treatment effect. The liraglutide and golimumab arms were registered on clinicaltrials.gov under accession number NCT03632759 and the verapamil arm under accession number NCT05847413.

Trail registration: Protocols are registered in ClinicalTrials.gov under accession numbers NCT03632759 and NCT05847413.
Bio-inspired apparatus to produce luminescent cavitation in a rigid walled chamber
Authors: Cruz Samuel , Godínez Francisco A. , Martínez-Alvarado Luis Enrique , Ramos-Garcia Rubén
Published: December 2023

A mechanical device inspired by the rapid rotational motion of the pistol shrimp plunger has been developed to experimentally study the contraction/expansion dynamics of a gas bubble inside a confined liquid volume and in the vicinity of solid surfaces. The apparatus consists of a limb with a V-shaped end, which fits into a socket forming a cylindrical compression chamber. Air bubbles of different sizes and in different positions inside the chamber were seeded to study their shape evolution in liquids when subjected to pressure pulses induced by the limb closure. By changing the standoff and curvature parameters, as well as the closing power of the limb it was possible to control the dynamical behavior of the cavity. Four stages describing the dynamic behavior of the bubble were found: 1) A slight expansion-contraction stage accompanied by very weak volumetric oscillations. 2) First compression stage. The formation of gas and liquid micro-jets is observed when the vertical symmetry axis of the bubble is initially located outside of the chamber symmetry axis, on the other hand, when there is a coincidence between these axes, the bubble only contracts exhibiting non-spherical shapes, alternating between oblate and prolate spheroidal structures. 3) An expansion stage where the cavity reaches the walls of the chamber exhibiting irregular shapes on its surface. 4) Second compression stage. This process begins when the limb rebounds and stops sealing the chamber allowing a jet of liquid to enter from the fluid medium outside, inducing a very violent collapse accompanied by the emission of light. The proposed technique represents a novel alternative to study the dynamic evolution of bubbles near and on solid boundaries of various geometries. Other attractive features of the apparatus are its low manufacturing cost, simple design and compact size which makes it easily portable.
Estimation of factors contributing to level differences in Japanese university decathlon athletes
Authors: Ashino Yuki , Ikuta Yasushi , Kida Noriyuki
Published: December 2023

This study aimed to estimate the factors that cause differences in competition level based on the competition performance structure among university student decathletes in Japan. The results of factor analysis using the maximum likelihood method (Oblimin rotation), assuming a five-factor structure estimated from parallel analysis and the information criterion, revealed the following competitive performance structures: "running speed and body projection,” "running endurance,” "rotational throwing power,” "translational throwing power,” and "vertical leaping power.” Some of these were similar to the competitive performance structures of the world’s top athletes, but they were found to have a unique structure: two throwing powers. The analysis results using latent rank theory allowed us to evaluate them on a seven-point scale. The calculated item reference profile, difficulty index, and discrimination index for each rank indicated that shot put and 100 and 400 m performance formed the basis of decathlon performance. In addition, high jump and pole vault, which fall under the category of "vertical leaping power," retained high difficulty and discrimination and were revealed to affect the stage of achievement of overall performance in the decathlon.
Improving the availability of antihypertensive drugs in the India Hypertension Control Initiative, India, 2019–2020
Authors: Kunwar Abhishek , Kaur Prabhdeep , Durgad Kiran , Parasuraman Ganeshkumar , Sharma Meenakshi , Gupta Sudhir , Bhargava Balram ,   on behalf of "India Hypertension Control Initiative (IHCI) collaboration
Published: December 2023

Background

Antihypertensive drug supply is sometimes inadequate in public sector health facilities in India. One of the core strategies of the India Hypertension Control Initiative (IHCI) is to improve the availability of antihypertensive drugs in primary and secondary care facilities. We quantified the availability of antihypertensive drugs in 2019–20 and described the practices in supply chain management in 22 districts across four states of India.

Methods

Twenty-two districts from 4 states (Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, and Maharashtra) were studied. We described the practices and challenges in supply chain management. We collected data on drug procurement from 2018 to 2020 and drug availability from April 2019 to March 2020. Quantity procured, the proportion of facilities with stockout at the end of each quarter, and availability of drugs in patient days were tabulated.

Results

All states selected drug- and dose-specific protocols with Amlodipine as the initial drug and shifted to morbidity-based forecasting. The total number of antihypertensive tablets procured for the 22 districts increased from 16 million in 2017–2018 to 160 million in 2019–2020. The proportion of facilities with Amlodipine stock-out was below 5% during the study period. Amlodipine stock was available for at least 60 patient days from the third quarter of 2019 onward in all districts.

Conclusions

This study demonstrates that including best practices can gradually strengthen the procurement and supply chain for antihypertensives in a low-resource setting. As the program was rapidly growing, there were still gaps in the procurement and distribution system which needed to be addressed to ensure the adequacy of drugs. We recommend that best practices, including choosing a single protocol, basing supply on projected patient load rather than an increment from historical levels, and using simple stock management tools, be replicated in other districts in India to increase and sustain coverage of hypertension treatment.
Deep learning-based idiomatic expression recognition for the Amharic language
Authors: Endalie Demeke , Haile Getamesay , Taye Wondmagegn
Published: December 2023

Idiomatic expressions are built into all languages and are common in ordinary conversation. Idioms are difficult to understand because they cannot be deduced directly from the source word. Previous studies reported that idiomatic expression affects many Natural language processing tasks in the Amharic language. However, most natural language processing models used with the Amharic language, such as machine translation, semantic analysis, sentiment analysis, information retrieval, question answering, and next-word prediction, do not consider idiomatic expressions. As a result, in this paper, we proposed a convolutional neural network (CNN) with a FastText embedding model for detecting idioms in an Amharic text. We collected 1700 idiomatic and 1600 non-idiomatic expressions from Amharic books to test the proposed model’s performance. The proposed model is then evaluated using this dataset. We employed an 80 by 10,10 splitting ratio to train, validate, and test the proposed idiomatic recognition model. The proposed model’s learning accuracy across the training dataset is 98%, and the model achieves 80% accuracy on the testing dataset. We compared the proposed model to machine learning models like K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN), Support Vector Machine (SVM), and Random Forest classifiers. According to the experimental results, the proposed model produces promising results.
Measuring constitutional preferences: A new method for analyzing public consultation data
Authors: Cruz Andrés , Elkins Zachary , Gardner Roy , Martin Matthew , Moran Ashley
Published: December 2023

Public consultation has become an indispensable part of constitutional design, yet the voluminous, narrative data produced are often impractical to analyze. There are also few, if any, standards for such analysis. Using a comprehensive reference ontology from the Comparative Constitutions Project (CCP), we develop a new methodology to identify constitutional topics of most concern to citizens and compare these to topics in constitutions globally. We analyze data from Chile’s 2016 public consultations—an ambitious process that produced nearly 265,000 narrative responses and launched the constitutional reform process that remains underway today. We leverage advances in natural language processing, in particular sentence-level semantic similarity technology, to classify consultation responses with respect to constitutional topics. Our methodology has potential for advocates, drafters, and researchers seeking to analyze public consultation data that too often go unexamined.
Polymorphisms in the glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor gene and their interactions on the risk of osteoporosis in postmenopausal Chinese women
Authors: Liu Chang , Bao Xiaoxue , Tian Yawei , Xue Peng , Wang Yan , Li Yukun
Published: December 2023

Postmenopausal osteoporosis (PMOP) is a prevalent form of primary osteoporosis, affecting over 40% of postmenopausal women. Previous studies have suggested a potential association between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor (GLP-1R) and PMOP in postmenopausal Chinese women. However, available evidence remains inconclusive. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the possible association between GLP-1R SNPs and PMOP in Han Chinese women. Thus, we conducted a case-control study with 152 postmenopausal Han Chinese women aged 45–80 years, including 76 women with osteoporosis and 76 without osteoporosis. Seven SNPs of the GLP-1R were obtained from the National Center of Biotechnology Information and Genome Variation Server. We employed three genetic models to assess the association between GLP-1R genetic variants and osteoporosis in postmenopausal women, while also investigating SNP-SNP and SNP-environment interactions with the risk of PMOP. In this study, we selected seven GLP-1R SNPs (rs1042044, rs2268641, rs10305492, rs6923761, rs1126476, rs2268657, and rs2295006). Of these, the minor allele A of rs1042044 was significantly associated with an increased risk of PMOP. Genetic model analysis revealed that individuals carrying the A allele of rs1042044 had a higher risk of developing osteoporosis in the dominant model (P = 0.029, OR = 2.76, 95%CI: 1.09–6.99). Furthermore, a multiplicative interaction was found between rs1042044 and rs2268641 that was associated with osteoporosis in postmenopausal women (Pinteraction = 0.034). Importantly, this association remained independent of age, menopausal duration, family history of osteoporosis, and body mass index. However, no significant relationship was observed between GLP-1R haplotypes and PMOP. In conclusion, this study suggests a close association between the A allele on the GLP-1R rs1042044 and an increased risk of PMOP. Furthermore, this risk was significantly augmented by an SNP-SNP interaction with rs2268641. These results provide new scientific insights into the development of personalized prevention strategies and treatment approaches for PMOP.
Transcriptomic meta-analysis reveals ERRα-mediated oxidative phosphorylation is downregulated in Fuchs’ endothelial corneal dystrophy
Authors: Zhang Xunzhi , Kumar Ashwani , Sathe Adwait A. , Mootha V. Vinod , Xing Chao
Published: December 2023

Background

Late-onset Fuchs’ endothelial corneal dystrophy (FECD) is a degenerative disease of cornea and the leading indication for corneal transplantation. Genetically, FECD patients can be categorized as with (RE+) or without (RE-) the CTG trinucleotide repeat expansion in the transcription factor 4 gene. The molecular mechanisms underlying FECD remain unclear, though there are plausible pathogenic models proposed for RE+ FECD.

Method

In this study, we performed a meta-analysis on RNA sequencing datasets of FECD corneal endothelium including 3 RE+ datasets and 2 RE- datasets, aiming to compare the transcriptomic profiles of RE+ and RE- FECD. Gene differential expression analysis, co-expression networks analysis, and pathway analysis were conducted.

Results

There was a striking similarity between RE+ and RE- transcriptomes. There were 1,184 genes significantly upregulated and 1,018 genes significantly downregulated in both RE+ and RE- cases. Pathway analysis identified multiple biological processes significantly enriched in both—mitochondrial functions, energy-related processes, ER-nucleus signaling pathway, demethylation, and RNA splicing were negatively enriched, whereas small GTPase mediated signaling, actin-filament processes, extracellular matrix organization, stem cell differentiation, and neutrophil mediated immunity were positively enriched. The translational initiation process was downregulated in the RE+ transcriptomes. Gene co-expression analysis identified modules with relatively distinct biological processes enriched including downregulation of mitochondrial respiratory chain complex assembly. The majority of oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) subunit genes, as well as their upstream regulator gene estrogen-related receptor alpha (ESRRA), encoding ERRα, were downregulated in both RE+ and RE- cases, and the expression level of ESRRA was correlated with that of OXPHOS subunit genes.

Conclusion

Meta-analysis increased the power of detecting differentially expressed genes. Integrating differential expression analysis with co-expression analysis helped understand the underlying molecular mechanisms. FECD RE+ and RE- transcriptomic profiles are much alike with the hallmark of downregulation of genes in pathways related to ERRα-mediated OXPHOS.
Dynamics of human resource department ecosystem in developing human resource role: An ecosystem perspective
Authors: Ginting Henndy , Khristiningrum Veronica Afridita , Gustomo Aurik , Wisesa Anggara , Saputra Jumadil
Published: December 2023

Over the last decade, management scholars have paid increasing attention to ecosystems. The ecosystem approach has recently received much attention in business and innovation studies as a comprehensive way of understanding multi-aspect environments. This exploratory study aims to investigate the dynamics of human resource department ecosystem (HRDE) and the role of HRDE in shaping the human resource business partner role. This study employed a mixed-methods approach, following an exploratory sequential design. First, a conceptual model was developed based on qualitative data collected from expert interviews and analyzed through grounded theory. This stage uncovered eight actors and four factors, further organized into three layers of the ecosystem and hypothesis paths. Then, the structural model was measured and validated using PLS-SEM. This study is unique in applying the HRDE to the HR role’s development to deepen our understanding of how a human resource business partner role is shaped by actors’ interactions within and between ecosystem layers (micro, meso, and macro). The results revealed actors and factors supporting the HRDE in developing the HR role from the micro to macro layers of the ecosystem. The results suggest that the macro, meso, and micro layers of the HRDE positively impact the human resource business partner role’s development.
Identifying technology clusters based on automated patent landscaping
Authors: Antonin Bergeaud , Cyril Verluise
Published: December 2023

We introduce a new general methodological approach for accurately and consistently retrieving a large set of patents related to specific technologies. We build upon the automated patent landscaping algorithm by incorporating a tractable amount of human supervision to improve the accuracy and consistency of our results. We demonstrate the efficacy of our approach by applying it to six novel and representative technologies: additive manufacturing, blockchain, computer vision, genome editing, hydrogen storage, and self-driving vehicles.
Comparison of yeast-derived commercial feed additives on Salmonella Enteritidis survival and microbiota populations in rooster cecal in vitro incubations
Authors: Costello Margaret , Rubinelli Peter , Brown Jessica , Olson Elena , Dittoe Dana , Park Si Hong , Korver Douglas , Lawless Zachary , Thompson Dale , Ricke Steven
Published: December 2023

Yeast-derived products have become more of an interest in the poultry industry as of late because of their use in modulating the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) microbiome to both improve production parameters and prevent infection. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of various yeast-derived products on Salmonella enterica inoculation in un in vitro rooster cecal incubations and associated effects on the cecal microbiome. Cecal contents were obtained from 53-wk old White Leghorn H & N Nick Chick roosters (n = 3) fed a wheat-based, commercial-type basal diet. Cecal contents were diluted 1:3000 in anaerobic dilution solution (ADS) in an anaerobic chamber, with 20 mL aliquoted to each serum bottle. There were three controls (n = 3): basal diet only, diluted cecal contents only, and basal diet and diluted cecal contents; and five treatments containing the basal diet and diluted cecal contents (n = 3): Citristim® (ADM), ImmunoWall® (ICC), Maxi-Gen Plus® (CBS Bio Platforms), Hilyses® (ICC), and Original XPC® (Diamond V). All treatments were applied at a rate of 2.5 kg/tonne or less. All groups were inoculated with a nalidixic acid-resistant strain of Salmonella Enteritidis at 10^7 CFU/mL and incubated at 37 deg C. Samples were collected at 0, 24, and 48 h for S. Enteritidis enumeration and 16S rDNA microbial sequencing. Salmonella data were log-transformed and analyzed in a two-way ANOVA with means separated using Tukey’s HSD (P≤0.05). Genomic DNA was extracted, and resulting libraries were prepared and sequenced using an Illumina MiSeq. Sequencing data were analyzed in QIIME2 (2021.4) with diversity metrics (alpha and beta), and an analysis of the composition of microbiomes (ANCOM) was performed. Main effects were considered significant at P≤0.05, with pairwise differences considered significant at Q≤0.05. There was an interaction of treatment and time on the enumeration of Salmonella where treatments of Citristim, Immunowall, Hilyses, and XPC reduced Salmonella by 1 log CFU/mL compared to the controls. At 48 h, each yeast product treatment reduced Salmonella by 3 log CFU/mL compared to the controls. There was no main effect of treatment on the alpha diversity metrics, richness, or evenness (P > 0.05). Treatment affected the beta diversity, abundance, and phylogenetic differences, but there were no pairwise differences (P>0.05, Q>0.05). Using ANCOM at the genus level, the taxa Synergistes, Alloprevotella, Sutterella, and Megasphaera abundance were significantly different (W = 154,147,145,140, respectively). These results demonstrate the potential of these yeast-derived products to reduce foodborne pathogens, such as Salmonella Enteriditis, in vitro, without negatively disrupting the cecal microbiome.