bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
WeSME: uncovering mutual exclusivity of cancer drivers and beyond
Authors: Kim Yoo-Ah , Madan Sanna , Przytycka Teresa M
Published: May 2016

Motivation

Mutual exclusivity is a widely recognized property of many cancer drivers. Knowledge about these relationships can provide important insights into cancer drivers, cancer-driving pathways and cancer subtypes. It can also be used to predict new functional interactions between cancer driving genes and uncover novel cancer drivers. Currently, most of mutual exclusivity analyses are preformed focusing on a limited set of genes in part due to the computational cost required to rigorously compute P-values.

Results

To reduce the computing cost and perform less restricted mutual exclusivity analysis, we developed an efficient method to estimate P-values while controlling the mutation rates of individual patients and genes similar to the permutation test. A comprehensive mutual exclusivity analysis allowed us to uncover mutually exclusive pairs, some of which may have relatively low mutation rates. These pairs often included likely cancer drivers that have been missed in previous analyses. More importantly, our results demonstrated that mutual exclusivity can also provide information that goes beyond the interactions between cancer drivers and can, for example, elucidate different mutagenic processes in different cancer groups. In particular, including frequently mutated, long genes such as TTN in our analysis allowed us to observe interesting patterns of APOBEC activity in breast cancer and identify a set of related driver genes that are highly predictive of patient survival. In addition, we utilized our mutual exclusivity analysis in support of a previously proposed model where APOBEC activity is the underlying process that causes TP53 mutations in a subset of breast cancer cases.

Availability and Implementation

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/CBBresearch/Przytycka/index.cgi#wesme

Supplementary information

Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Kissing for Virtuosi: William Stukeley’s Philosophy of Pleasure (1757)
Authors: Klein Lawrence
Published: May 2016

The intellectual career of William Stukeley (1687–1765) has received much attention. However, one manuscript by Stukeley has never been discussed. In 1757 he composed a short treatise, ‘On the Philosophy of Pleasure’, in which he argued an unusual case, namely, that a man and woman ought to feel entitled to consummate their philosophic friendship with kissing. The manuscript illuminates an interesting episode in Stukeley’s private life, but it also has a broader significance. Firstly, it incorporates many of the themes developed elsewhere by Stukeley, showing how contemporary historical and scientific understanding could be synthesised with a mystical account, of ancient derivation, of the physical and social universe. Secondly, the manuscript sheds light on the changing relations of men and women. Social and cultural developments among the literate in eighteenth-century Britain were facilitating heterosocial interaction, outside the framework of courtship and marriage, in ways that enhanced both the possibilities for heterosocial friendship and the risks attached to it. In his manuscript, Stukeley sought to expand the physical expression of amicable affection between a woman and man: he was looking for ways to move beyond the constraints of Platonic love without falling into libertinism. His position accords with the idea that the pursuit of happiness in the eighteenth century had a sexual dimension. However, while Stukeley sought greater latitude in erotic expression, his effort illustrates the challenge of doing so without undermining the contemporary norms of social order.
Hot Spots Policing
Authors: Kochel Tammy , Nouri Seyvan
Published: May 2016

Since the 1980s, the nature of policing has expanded beyond a person-focused approach to include a location-based approach. Recently developed proactive policing strategies that are concerned with the geographic distribution and explanation of crime include hot spots policing and community policing, and oftentimes problem-oriented policing, broken windows policing, third-party policing, and focused deterrence strategies. Hot spots policing entails focusing police efforts at crime prevention in a very small geographic area where crime concentrates. This strategy is one of only a few policing strategies grounded in both theory and research. Crime concentrates at places even more than it concentrates in people. Research in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the 1980s demonstrated that 60 percent of the crime occurs at 6 percent of places (see Sherman, et al. 1989, cited under Theory and Basis of Hot Spots Policing). Place-based theories about routine activities and rational choice have led to deterrence-based strategies such as directed patrol, crackdowns, and other traditional approaches to hot spots policing, as well as more community-oriented, problem-solving, and situational crime prevention approaches at crime hot spots. Hot spots policing is one of few areas in criminal justice research that has been tested using randomized controlled trials, a gold standard for research. Several systematic reviews suggest that focusing police efforts in a small geographic area reduces crime. Furthermore, research on displacement and diffusion of benefits suggests that hot spots policing does not merely geographically displace crime. In fact, nearby places may experience a diffusion of crime benefits. Only a few studies have examined the noncrime impacts of hot spots policing, but these suggest that it does not harm public perceptions of police and may even promote informal social control. Cost-effectiveness analyses have been partially used to assess the relative costs and outcomes of hot spot policing interventions. Additionally, existing research has suggested the crime harm index (CHI) for assessing the crime impact of hot spot policing interventions. Several data sources are available from past National Institute of Justice–funded studies on hot spots of crime and hot spots policing.
Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) for Climate Change
Authors: Yang Zili , Wei Yi-Ming , Mi Zhifu
Published: May 2016

Integrated assessment models (IAMs) for climate change refers to a broad category of research approaches in climate change. Climate change is the most complicated global environmental problem. By the very nature of climate change, research has to be interdisciplinary and multifaceted. IAM is the mainstream methodological approach in climate change research. Most researchers in climate change utilize IAMs directly or indirectly. IAMs draw knowledge and strengths from various disciplines related to climate change; contributions from each discipline rely on the mathematical representations of certain relationships connected to climate change; disciplinary components are linked through a unified modeling platform(s). In particular, IAMs for climate change usually involve social-economic components as well as natural sciences components. The key linkages in IAM platforms are anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in climate systems and climate change impacts on social-economic systems. The outputs of IAMs are numerical simulation results based on assumptions, historical data, and scenario designs. IAMs are widely used in assessing various GHG mitigation policies and climate impacts. In fact, conclusions in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Reports are drawn substantially from numerous IAMs. IAMs for climate change started in the late 1980s. Since then, IAMs for climate change have developed into a full-fledged interdisciplinary research field that involves hundreds of models, thriving online resources, and thousands of academic publications and policy reports around the world. IAM for climate change, as an interdisciplinary research approach, has received recognition by mainstream disciplines. The Dynamic Integrated model of Climate and the Economy (DICE) and the Regional Integrated model of Climate and the Economy (RICE)—two IAMs for climate change—are part of the core contributions in William Nordhaus’s Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2018.
Post-Conflict and Transitional Justice
Authors: Kovras Iosif
Published: May 2016

Transitional justice refers to the range of formal, informal, or grassroots mechanisms deployed by societies emerging from civil war or authoritarian rule to address past human rights violations. These include, but are not limited to, criminal prosecution of perpetrators (see Trials), truth commissions tasked to document patterns of human rights abuses (see Truth Commissions), policies of lustration (or vetting), amnesty laws (see Amnesties), material or symbolic reparations to victims, public apologies, and revision of history textbooks (see Other Policies: Lustration, Apologies, Memorials, History Textbooks). Most often, transitional justice refers to official state policies, yet over the past two decades, there has been an increase in grassroots mechanisms led by civil society, victims groups, and NGOs, thus expanding the scope of transitional justice. Some observers distinguish between the transitional justice policies of post-conflict and post-authoritarian settings. Although certain challenges faced by political elites and victims are comparable across settings, this article focuses on the former. Debates of how to address the violent past are inevitable in societies emerging from conflict, and most hinge on the thorny issue of whether to hold perpetrators accountable or to let bygones be bygones. This, of course, is a perennial dilemma, but with the changing nature of warfare and the normative turn in international politics, such questions have become more prominent. Since the end of the Second World War, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of intrastate wars, marked by more civilian deaths away from battlefields (see Victims and Victimhood). In sharp contrast to previous forms of conventional warfare where the absence of violence was a sufficient condition for the consolidation of peace in times of transition, the higher civilian casualties in contemporary civil wars mean any peaceful transition requires a proactive policy of restoring social relations fractured by violence. In this context, concepts such as national reconciliation (see Reconciliation), truth recovery, and transitional justice have gained currency in the literature of international politics.
Environmental Politics among Advanced Industrial Democracies
Authors: Duit Andreas
Published: May 2016

Before the mid-1960s, the notion of environmental problems, and hence environmental politics and policy, were virtually nonexistent in public and scholarly debates. This changed abruptly when environmental problems were “discovered” during the second half of the 1960s, and by the beginning of the 1970s most industrialized democracies had issued a first round of policy responses, set up environmental administrations, and started to debate environmental issues in political assemblies and in civic society. In political science, the study of society’s efforts to address environmental problems has run in parallel with the expansion of environmental policymaking and the growing saliency of the environmental issue. A number of key themes have been present in the literature throughout almost the entire period. Among these the tripartite relationship between liberal democracy, economic growth, and environmental degradation has spurred the most controversy. This debate has revolved around the issue of whether environmental problems can be solved within the existing system of market economy and representational liberal democracy, or if the solution inevitably must entail a fundamental reorganization of core decision-making and economic institutions in contemporary society. Some argue that more advanced market economies tend to exhibit signs of ecological modernization in the form of stricter environmental regulation, new cleaner and more efficient production processes, and citizenries with more pro-environmental values. Opponents of this view are in turn arguing that the reduction in environmental pressures and the emergence of new cleaner technologies is really just a displacement of environmental harms to other forms of environmental damage and to other areas of the planet and that the very notion of green growth is just a myth promulgated by capitalist structures. Another long-standing debate concerns the issue of which governance arrangements are best suited for addressing environmental problems. In this debate, the role of stakeholder and citizen participation, deliberative democracy, and other types of participatory and consensus-building policy arrangements have been at the forefront of the research agenda. The central notion here is that environmental policy, if it is to be able to address and change social practices causing environmental harm, must strive to be inclusive, consensus-generating, deliberative, and participatory to overcome collective action problems in which environmental problems are generated. A third research topic concerns how the environmental issue has given rise to new values, attitudes, and behaviors among citizens, new social movements, and new political cleavages and parties. Some scholars argue that the environmental issue represents a new type of political value base that challenges the supremacy of the old left-right dimension of political value orientations among citizens and, by extension, party systems and the structure of civil society.
Juncture and Boundary
Authors: Scheer Tobias
Published: May 2016

This article is about the question of how morpho-syntactic information impacts phonology. Its broad subject matter is thus the morpho-syntax-phonology interface. Note that inquiry is restricted to the direction mentioned: there is also literature on how phonology conditions morpho-syntactic computation, which is not discussed here. There are two ways for morpho-syntax to affect phonology: by inserting an object into the linear string that is interpreted by the phonology, or by arranging the chunks that are submitted to phonological interpretation in a specific way. The former proposes a representational, the latter a derivational management of phonology. The derivational means of influencing phonology is implemented by inside-out interpretation (i.e., the idea that morpho-syntactic structure is interpreted phonologically from the most to the least embedded item). This genuinely generative device was introduced in the mid-1950s and successively known as the transformational cycle, the phonological cycle, cyclic derivation, and finally today as derivation by phase (in syntactic quarters). On the representational side (which has been a tradition since the 19th century), carriers of morpho-syntactic information that were inserted into the linear string have successively incarnated as (juncture) phonemes, SPE-type boundaries (# and the like), and prosodic constituency (the Prosodic Word, etc.), each being representative of its time. That is, carriers of morpho-syntactic information were (juncture) phonemes when phonemes were the basic units in phonological theory, they were made segments in SPE (# was supposed to be a [-segment] segment) when the basic phonological units were segments and finally became autosegmental domains (prosodic constituency) in the early 1980s when all areas of phonology were autosegmentalized. Since the early 1980s, the two channels that import morpho-syntactic information into phonology are each associated with a specific theory: Lexical Phonology is the derivational theory of the interface, while Prosodic Phonology organizes its representational management. The question of how exactly both can or should coexist is examined in Division of Labor Between Representational and Derivational Means of Influencing Phonology. Another question from the 1980s that has moved up on the agenda in the current minimalist environment is whether there should be a representational channel of communication at all: Direct Syntax approaches hold that no carriers of morpho-syntactic information are ever inserted into phonology. Instead, phonological instructions make direct reference to morpho-syntactic structure and labels (see Direct Syntax vs. Prosodic Phonology).
Adpositions
Authors: Libert Alan
Published: May 2016

Adposition is the name of a part of speech or word class. Although it may not be a familiar term to those outside of linguistics, the name of one of its subsets is: preposition. The latter type of word gets its name from the fact that it (generally) occurs before its complement; that is, the noun (or more correctly noun phrase) which it governs. Examples of these words in English are to, from, of, and under. In some languages, such as Turkish, the equivalent words are found after their complement, and they are called postpositions. The term adpositions is a general term that includes both prepositions and postpositions, as well as some more exotic items of the same sort: circumpositions (part of which occur before the complement, and part after it), inpositions (which occur within their complement) and what have been called ambipositions (which can occur either before or after their complement). Adpositions have been studied from various points of view, including syntax, semantics, and neurolinguistics, and this bibliography contains sections devoted to each of these. The number of works that has been written on them is very extensive (probably several thousand, leaving aside those works in which adpositions are not the main topic), and, because many of these works are descriptive, it is difficult to state that certain of them are seminal or of particular significance (unlike in more theoretical fields, such as generative syntax or grammaticalization). For these reasons, the list of works chosen for this article must necessarily be somewhat random—some have been more influential than others, but this may be in part because of their accessibility and/or the language(s) they treat. Nevertheless, this bibliography will give an idea of the type of research that has been done on adpositions, and it will include some of the best-known works on them. On the other hand, some lesser-known papers that deal with interesting or neglected aspects of prepositions are also listed. The works listed come from a variety of theoretical frameworks and a long span of time.
Oliver Goldsmith
Authors: Griffin Michael
Published: May 2016

The life and work of the Irish poet, playwright, essayist, historian, and novelist Oliver Goldsmith (b. 1728–d. 1774) had not received a tremendous amount of attention since the 1960s, a decade that saw a substantial burst of editorial and critical work, and, in particular, the publication of Arthur Friedman’s five-volume edition of the Collected Works (Goldsmith 1966, cited under Editions) and Roger Lonsdale’s edition of The Poems of Goldsmith, Gray and Collins (Goldsmith, et al. 1969, cited under Editions). A good deal of the critical scholarship that has emerged since then has been in dialogue with, or in response to, those editions and to two-book length works of criticism by Ricardo Quintana (Quintana 1967, cited under General Collections and Studies) and Robert H. Hopkins (Hopkins 1969, cited under General Collections and Studies), which argued for a greater appreciation of the ironic registers of Goldsmith’s work. Indeed, much Goldsmith criticism has focused on the question of whether he should be understood as a sentimentalist or as a satirist, since the oeuvre as a whole exists along a seam between the satirical tenor of his Augustan predecessors and the emerging sensibility of his literary milieu and an expanding middle-class audience. As such, Goldsmith’s writings are in many ways highly representative of his mid-18th-century contexts. The relative lack of sustained scholarly and critical work on Goldsmith since the 1960s is also partly attributable to his work being in some senses too various to accommodate in single thematic or generic studies: he moved across the modes of 18th-century writing with considerable ease and success. The eclectic nature of his oeuvre, and the variety of tones and registers he used in writing across the genres, has resulted in his being characterized in various, often-inconsistent ways. That said, clusters of essays and articles have appeared since the late 20th century that have illustrated the richness and instructive ambiguities of his writing and thinking. Also, his Irishness has been intermittently, and with varying degrees of insight or success, studied throughout the critical heritage as a contributing factor in his social and political worldview. In this article, items that Friedman acknowledged and incorporated into the editorial apparatus of his 1966 edition—including earlier scholarship on the history and sources of Goldsmith’s Greek, Roman, and English histories, the prefaces to which feature in Friedman’s work—are largely omitted. The emphasis here is primarily on the biographical tradition, on criticism and scholarship published after 1966, and within that period on the substantial bodies of criticism surrounding the major poetry and Goldsmith’s one novel.
Field of Study, Earnings, and Self-Selection*
Authors: Kirkeboen Lars J. , Leuven Edwin , Mogstad Magne
Published: May 2016

This article examines the labor market payoffs to different types of postsecondary education, including field and institution of study. Instrumental variables (IV) estimation of the payoff to choosing one type of education compared to another is made particularly challenging by individuals choosing between several types of education. Not only does identification require one instrument per alternative, but it is also necessary to deal with the issue that individuals who choose the same education may have different next-best alternatives. We address these difficulties using rich administrative data for Norway’s postsecondary education system. A centralized admission process creates credible instruments from discontinuities that effectively randomize applicants near unpredictable admission cutoffs into different institutions and fields of study. The admission process also provides information on preferred and next-best alternatives from strategy-proof measures of individuals’ ranking of institutions and fields. The results from our IV approach may be summarized with three broad conclusions. First, different fields of study have substantially different labor market payoffs, even after accounting for institution and peer quality. Second, the effect on earnings from attending a more selective institution tends to be relatively small compared to payoffs to field of study. Third, the estimated payoffs to field of study are consistent with individuals choosing fields in which they have a comparative advantage. Comparing our estimates to those obtained from other approaches highlights the importance of using instruments to correct for selection bias and information on individuals’ ranking of institutions and fields to measure their preferred and next-best alternatives.
Effect of Sugar Beet Variety and Nonhost Plant on Rhizoctonia solani AG2-2IIIB Soil Inoculum Potential Measured in Soil DNA Extracts
Authors: Schulze Sascha , Koch Heinz-Josef , Märländer Bernward , Varrelmann Mark
Published: May 2016

A direct soil DNA extraction method from soil samples (250 g) was applied for detection of the soilborne sugar-beet-infecting pathogen Rhizoctonia solani anastomosis group (AG) 2-2IIIB using a newly developed real-time polymerase chain reaction assay that showed specificity to AG2-2IIIB when tested against various R. solani AG. The assay showed a good relation between cycle threshold and amount of AG2-2IIIB sclerotia detected in three spiked field soils and was also able to detect the pathogen in naturally infested field soil samples. A field trial was conducted to quantify R. solani AG2-2IIIB soil inoculum potential (IP) before and after growing a susceptible and a resistant sugar beet variety as well as after subsequent growth of an expected nonhost winter rye. Plants of the susceptible sugar beet variety displayed a higher disease severity. A more than sixfold increase of the R. solani AG2-2IIIB soil IP was observed in contrast to the resistant variety that resulted in a constant IP. Growing winter rye significantly reduced soil IP to the initial level at sowing. Further research is required to better understand the interaction between disease occurrence and soil IP as well as the environmental influence on IP development.
The Effect of Transiliac–Transsacral Screw Fixation for Pelvic Ring Injuries on the Uninjured Sacroiliac Joint
Authors: Mardam-Bey Sami W. , Beebe Michael J. , Black James C. , Chang Ellen Y. , Kubiak Erik N. , Bishop Julius A. , McAndrew Christopher M. , Ricci William M. , Gardner Michael J.
Published: May 2016

Objective:

To evaluate the functional outcomes and pain in patients with unilateral posterior pelvic ring injuries treated with transiliac–transsacral screw fixation compared with unilateral iliosacral screw fixation.

Design:

Retrospective comparative study.

Setting:

Three academic level 1 trauma centers.

Patients/Participants:

From a group of 866 patients with pelvic ring injuries treated surgically, 86 patients with unilateral pelvic ring injuries treated with transiliac–transsacral screws and 97 patients treated with unilateral iliosacral screws were identified. Thirty-six patients treated with transiliac–transsacral fixation and 26 patients treated with unilateral iliosacral screws met the inclusion criteria and participated.

Intervention:

Patients were treated surgically for unstable pelvic ring injuries with either unilateral iliosacral screws or transiliac–transsacral screws at the discretion of the treating surgeon.

Main Outcome Measurement:

Majeed Pelvic Score.

Results:

There was no significant difference in Majeed Pelvic Scores between patients treated with transiliac–transsacral screws and those treated with unilateral iliosacral screws (72.8 ± 23.7 vs. 70.4 ± 19.0, P = 0.66). There was no difference in side-specific Numeric Rating Scale pain scores between patients treated with transiliac–transsacral screws and those treated with unilateral iliosacral screws on the injured side (2.5 ± 3.1 vs. 2.0 ± 2.4, P = 0.46) or the uninjured side (1.7 ± 2.8 vs. 0.8 ± 1.7, P = 0.12). Mean follow-up was greater than 3 years with no difference between the groups (mean 1270 vs. 1242 days, P = 0.84).

Conclusions:

Treatment of unilateral pelvic ring injuries with transiliac–transsacral screws does not adversely affect or improve patient outcomes or subjective pain scores when compared with those treated with unilateral iliosacral screws.

Level of Evidence:

Therapeutic Level III. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.
Compartment Syndrome of the Leg Associated With Fracture: An Algorithm to Avoid Releasing the Posterior Compartments
Authors: Tornetta Paul , Puskas Brian L. , Wang Kevin
Published: May 2016

Objective:

The purpose of this study is to report on a prospective series of patients in whom an algorithm was used to attempt to avoid releasing the posterior compartments in patients with lower leg compartment syndrome (CS) and the safety of such a practice.

Design:

Prospective cohort study.

Setting:

Level 1 trauma center.

Patients:

A consecutive series of 39 patients was managed by one surgeon for CS using the reported protocol.

Intervention:

Patients diagnosed with a CS of the leg were managed with a single operative protocol. After a standard anterior and lateral compartment release through a full-length lateral incision was performed, the superficial and deep posterior compartments were measured with the heel resting on a bolster. Using the preoperative diastolic blood pressure, a ΔP < 30 was considered to be a positive finding warranting a separate medial incision for release of the posterior compartments. If the ΔP was ≥30, the posterior compartments were not released.

Main Outcome Measurements:

Need for medial release or development of posterior CS or sequelae.

Results:

A consecutive series of 39 patients were managed by 1 surgeon for CS using the described protocol. Two patients with an isolated posterior CS were excluded. The other 37 had clinical symptoms or compartment pressures consistent with anterior compartment involvement. Of 37 patients, 21 had (57%) symptoms suggesting posterior compartment involvement. The preoperative pressure measurements averaged 41 mm Hg with an average ΔP of 38. After full-length release of the anterior and lateral compartments, only 3/37 (8%) required a posterior release for a ΔP of <30 mm Hg. The lowest ΔP in the posterior compartments of the remaining 34 patients averaged 59 (32–86). The compartment pressures in the superficial and deep posterior compartments decreased by 22 mm Hg and 24 mm Hg, respectively, after the anterolateral release. None of the patients who had only an anterolateral release developed sequelae of a missed posterior CS.

Conclusions:

The use of the reported algorithm is effective in avoiding posterior compartment release.

Level of Evidence:

Therapeutic Level IV. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.
Clinical Significance of Metastatic Lymph Nodes in the Gut of Patients with Pure and Mixed Primary Appendiceal Carcinoids
Authors: Ciarrocchi Andrea , Pietroletti Renato , Carlei Francesco , Amicucci Gianfranco
Published: May 2016

BACKGROUND:

Right hemicolectomy is indicated for primary appendiceal carcinoids with diameters greater than 2 cm because of an increased risk of metastasis to the lymph nodes of the gut. However, the natural history of positive nodes remains unknown.

OBJECTIVE:

The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of metastatic lymph nodes on survival among patients with pure or mixed primary appendiceal carcinoids, while controlling for potential confounders such as age, sex, tumor size, surgical intervention, and lymph node rate (number of positive lymph nodes/lymph node yield).

DESIGN:

This is a retrospective comparative study..

SETTINGS:

Data were retrieved from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results database.

PATIENTS:

Patients undergoing colectomy for appendiceal carcinoids between 1998 and 2009 were selected.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES:

The survival curves for the 2 groups were compared to evaluate differences in prognosis. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed.

RESULTS:

Lymph node rates did not significantly differ between the pure and mixed carcinoid groups (p = 0.768), although overall survival was poorer among patients with mixed carcinoids (p = 0.004; HR, 0.498; 95% CI, 0.310–0.800). For pure carcinoids, surgical intervention (p = 0.029; HR, 0.241; 95% CI, 0.067–0.867), age (p < 0.001; HR, 1.083; 95% CI, 1.051–1.116), and lymph node rate (p = 0.039; HR, 5.295; 95% CI, 1.089–25.754) were independent predictors of overall survival. For mixed carcinoids, surgical intervention (p = 0.019; HR, 1.675; 95% CI, 1.088–2.578), tumor size (p < 0.001; HR, 0.442; 95% CI, 0.286–0.683), age (p < 0.001; HR, 1.041; 95% CI, 1.026–1.056), and lymph node rate (p < 0.001; HR, 17.471; 95% CI, 10.047–0.382) were significant prognostic factors.

LIMITATIONS:

The study is limited by its retrospective nature and by the shortcomings of the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results database related to the availability and quality of data.

CONCLUSION:

Based on the data retrieved from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results database and adjusted for potential confounding factors, the lymph node rate of metastasis strongly impacts overall survival among patients with pure or mixed carcinoids. Nodal metastasis thus appears to be a reliable clinical hallmark of tumor aggressiveness.
Prevalence of Active Long-term Problems in Patients With Anorectal Malformations: A Systematic Review
Authors: Rigueros Springford Laurie , Connor Martin J. , Jones Katie , Kapetanakis Venediktos V. , Giuliani Stefano
Published: May 2016

BACKGROUND:

Anorectal malformations are a spectrum of congenital anomalies of the rectum with high infantile survival rates and variable outcomes. Long-term (>10 years old) active problems associated with this condition have been poorly investigated.

OBJECTIVE:

The purpose of this review was to systematically define the prevalence of the most common active long-term problems in patients with a history of anorectal malformation repair.

DATA SOURCES:

MEDLINE, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library were searched electronically using the OVID search platform.

STUDY SELECTION:

Original articles from August 1, 1994, to October 20, 2015, that included outcome data for patients aged ≥10 years with anorectal malformation. Cloaca was excluded from the study.

INTERVENTIONS:

Prevalence estimates of anorectal malformations were obtained from published articles. CIs were ascertained in the logit scale after transforming prevalence into log odds and were then transformed into the original scale. The same method was used for subgroup analysis investigating high and low anorectal malformations.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES:

The overall prevalences of fecal, urinary, and sexual dysfunction were analyzed.

RESULTS:

Twelve studies including 455 patients with a history of anorectal malformation repair were included for analysis. The range of reported prevalence of long-term active problems was as follows: fecal incontinence, 16.7% to 76.7%; chronic constipation, 22.2% to 86.7%; urinary incontinence, 1.7% to 30.5%; ejaculatory dysfunction, 15.6% to 41.2%; and erectile dysfunction, 5.6% to 11.8%.

LIMITATIONS:

The study was limited by its retrospective, small size; multiple complex associated anomalies often not reported; and heterogeneous composition of patients with limited stratification analysis.

CONCLUSIONS:

There is an overall high prevalence of active long-term issues in adolescents and young adults with anorectal malformations. Additional multicenter research is needed to define characteristics and predictors of long-term outcome, to implement effective follow-up, and to transition to adult health care.
Enabling Role of Manager in Engaging Clinicians and Staff in Quality Improvement
Authors: Jeffs Lianne , Indar Alyssa , Harvey Britt , McShane Julie , Bookey-Bassett Sue , Flintoft Virginia , Suhemat Abdullah , Maione Maria
Published: May 2016

Managers are uniquely placed to facilitate quality improvement (QI), yet little empirical evidence exists about their influence in engaging clinicians in QI. To address this gap, a qualitative study was undertaken and revealed 2 themes: balancing being present with letting frontline staff lead their QI projects, and leveraging flexibility in scheduling with protected time. Efforts are needed to enable managers to engage clinicians and staff in local QI efforts.
Use of a Needs Assessment in the Development of an Interprofessional Faculty Development Program
Authors: Bigbee Jeri L. , Rainwater Julie , Butani Lavjay
Published: May 2016

A needs assessment was conducted regarding an interprofessional faculty development program for promoting excellence in education. Nursing and medical faculty and administrators (N = 156) were surveyed about perceived need, program curriculum, and delivery. The results indicated strong support for the program, particularly related to teaching/learning strategies, leadership, and scholarship. Nursing faculty rated some topical areas significantly higher than did the medical faculty, including innovative classroom teaching, educational technology, interprofessional education, diversity/inclusion, and mentoring graduate students.
Light-dependent magnetoreception in birds: the crucial step occurs in the dark
Authors: Wiltschko Roswitha , Ahmad Margaret , Nießner Christine , Gehring Dennis , Wiltschko Wolfgang
Published: May 2016

The Radical Pair Model proposes that the avian magnetic compass is based on spin-chemical processes: since the ratio between the two spin states singlet and triplet of radical pairs depends on their alignment in the magnetic field, it can provide information on magnetic directions. Cryptochromes, blue light-absorbing flavoproteins, with flavin adenine dinucleotide as chromophore, are suggested as molecules forming the radical pairs underlying magnetoreception. When activated by light, cryptochromes undergo a redox cycle, in the course of which radical pairs are generated during photo-reduction as well as during light-independent re-oxidation. This raised the question as to which radical pair is crucial for mediating magnetic directions. Here, we present the results from behavioural experiments with intermittent light and magnetic field pulses that clearly show that magnetoreception is possible in the dark interval, pointing to the radical pair formed during flavin re-oxidation. This differs from the mechanism considered for cryptochrome signalling the presence of light and rules out most current models of an avian magnetic compass based on the radical pair generated during photo-reduction. Using the radical pair formed during re-oxidation may represent a specific adaptation of the avian magnetic compass.
Inferring muscle functional roles of the ostrich pelvic limb during walking and running using computer optimization
Authors: Rankin Jeffery W. , Rubenson Jonas , Hutchinson John R.
Published: May 2016

Owing to their cursorial background, ostriches (Struthio camelus) walk and run with high metabolic economy, can reach very fast running speeds and quickly execute cutting manoeuvres. These capabilities are believed to be a result of their ability to coordinate muscles to take advantage of specialized passive limb structures. This study aimed to infer the functional roles of ostrich pelvic limb muscles during gait. Existing gait data were combined with a newly developed musculoskeletal model to generate simulations of ostrich walking and running that predict muscle excitations, force and mechanical work. Consistent with previous avian electromyography studies, predicted excitation patterns showed that individual muscles tended to be excited primarily during only stance or swing. Work and force estimates show that ostrich gaits are partially hip-driven with the bi-articular hip–knee muscles driving stance mechanics. Conversely, the knee extensors acted as brakes, absorbing energy. The digital extensors generated large amounts of both negative and positive mechanical work, with increased magnitudes during running, providing further evidence that ostriches make extensive use of tendinous elastic energy storage to improve economy. The simulations also highlight the need to carefully consider non-muscular soft tissues that may play a role in ostrich gait.
A network-based framework for assessing infrastructure resilience: a case study of the London metro system
Authors: Chopra Shauhrat S. , Dillon Trent , Bilec Melissa M. , Khanna Vikas
Published: May 2016

Modern society is increasingly dependent on the stability of a complex system of interdependent infrastructure sectors. It is imperative to build resilience of large-scale infrastructures like metro systems for addressing the threat of natural disasters and man-made attacks in urban areas. Analysis is needed to ensure that these systems are capable of withstanding and containing unexpected perturbations, and develop heuristic strategies for guiding the design of more resilient networks in the future. We present a comprehensive, multi-pronged framework that analyses information on network topology, spatial organization and passenger flow to understand the resilience of the London metro system. Topology of the London metro system is not fault tolerant in terms of maintaining connectivity at the periphery of the network since it does not exhibit small-world properties. The passenger strength distribution follows a power law, suggesting that while the London metro system is robust to random failures, it is vulnerable to disruptions on a few critical stations. The analysis further identifies particular sources of structural and functional vulnerabilities that need to be mitigated for improving the resilience of the London metro network. The insights from our framework provide useful strategies to build resilience for both existing and upcoming metro systems.
Coevolutionary interactions between farmers and mafia induce host acceptance of avian brood parasites
Authors: Abou Chakra Maria , Hilbe Christian , Traulsen Arne
Published: May 2016

Brood parasites exploit their host in order to increase their own fitness. Typically, this results in an arms race between parasite trickery and host defence. Thus, it is puzzling to observe hosts that accept parasitism without any resistance. The ‘mafia’ hypothesis suggests that these hosts accept parasitism to avoid retaliation. Retaliation has been shown to evolve when the hosts condition their response to mafia parasites, who use depredation as a targeted response to rejection. However, it is unclear if acceptance would also emerge when ‘farming’ parasites are present in the population. Farming parasites use depredation to synchronize the timing with the host, destroying mature clutches to force the host to re-nest. Herein, we develop an evolutionary model to analyse the interaction between depredatory parasites and their hosts. We show that coevolutionary cycles between farmers and mafia can still induce host acceptance of brood parasites. However, this equilibrium is unstable and in the long-run the dynamics of this host–parasite interaction exhibits strong oscillations: when farmers are the majority, accepters conditional to mafia (the host will reject first and only accept after retaliation by the parasite) have a higher fitness than unconditional accepters (the host always accepts parasitism). This leads to an increase in mafia parasites’ fitness and in turn induce an optimal environment for accepter hosts.
Loss of safety in numbers and a novel driver of mass migration: radiotelemetry reveals heavy wasp predation on a band of Mormon crickets
Authors: Srygley Robert B. , Lorch Patrick D.
Published: May 2016

Coordinated movement of animals is a spectacular phenomenon that has received much attention. Experimental studies of Mormon crickets and locust nymphs have demonstrated that collective motion can arise from cannibalism that compensates for nutritional deficiencies arising from group living. Grouping into migratory bands confers protection from predators. By radiotracking migrating, Mormon crickets released over 3 days, we found that specialized, parasitoid digger wasps (Sphecidae) respond numerically and prey heavily on aggregated Mormon crickets leading to loss of safety in numbers.Palmodes laeviventrisparalysed and buried 42% of tagged females and 8% of the males on the final day of tracking. Risk of wasps and Mormon crickets hatching on the same site is high and may drive nymphal emigration. A preference to provision offspring with adult female Mormon crickets can be explained by their greater fat content and larger size compared with males, improving survival of wasps during diapause.
Unifying latitudinal gradients in range size and richness across marine and terrestrial systems
Authors: Tomašových Adam , Kennedy Jonathan D. , Betzner Tristan J. , Kuehnle Nicole Bitler , Edie Stewart , Kim Sora , Supriya K. , White Alexander E. , Rahbek Carsten , Huang Shan , Price Trevor D. , Jablonski David
Published: May 2016

Many marine and terrestrial clades show similar latitudinal gradients in species richness, but opposite gradients in range size—on land, ranges are the smallest in the tropics, whereas in the sea, ranges are the largest in the tropics. Therefore, richness gradients in marine and terrestrial systems do not arise from a shared latitudinal arrangement of species range sizes. Comparing terrestrial birds and marine bivalves, we find that gradients in range size are concordant at the level of genera. Here, both groups show a nested pattern in which narrow-ranging genera are confined to the tropics and broad-ranging genera extend across much of the gradient. We find that (i) genus range size and its variation with latitude is closely associated with per-genus species richness and (ii) broad-ranging genera contain more species both within and outside of the tropics when compared with tropical- or temperate-only genera. Within-genus species diversification thus promotes genus expansion to novel latitudes. Despite underlying differences in the species range-size gradients, species-rich genera are more likely to produce a descendant that extends its range relative to the ancestor's range. These results unify species richness gradients with those of genera, implying that birds and bivalves share similar latitudinal dynamics in net species diversification.
Rapid adaptive evolution of colour vision in the threespine stickleback radiation
Authors: Rennison Diana J. , Owens Gregory L. , Heckman Nancy , Schluter Dolph , Veen Thor
Published: May 2016

Vision is a sensory modality of fundamental importance for many animals, aiding in foraging, detection of predators and mate choice. Adaptation to local ambient light conditions is thought to be commonplace, and a match between spectral sensitivity and light spectrum is predicted. We use opsin gene expression to test for local adaptation and matching of spectral sensitivity in multiple independent lake populations of threespine stickleback populations derived since the last ice age from an ancestral marine form. We show that sensitivity across the visual spectrum is shifted repeatedly towards longer wavelengths in freshwater compared with the ancestral marine form. Laboratory rearing suggests that this shift is largely genetically based. Using a new metric, we found that the magnitude of shift in spectral sensitivity in each population corresponds strongly to the transition in the availability of different wavelengths of light between the marine and lake environments. We also found evidence of local adaptation by sympatric benthic and limnetic ecotypes to different light environments within lakes. Our findings indicate rapid parallel evolution of the visual system to altered light conditions. The changes have not, however, yielded a close matching of spectrum-wide sensitivity to wavelength availability, for reasons we discuss.
Nectar resource limitation affects butterfly flight performance and metabolism differently in intensive and extensive agricultural landscapes
Authors: Lebeau Julie , Wesselingh Renate A. , Van Dyck Hans
Published: May 2016

Flight is an essential biological ability of many insects, but is energetically costly. Environments under rapid human-induced change are characterized by habitat fragmentation and may impose constraints on the energy income budget of organisms. This may, in turn, affect locomotor performance and willingness to fly. We tested flight performance and metabolic rates in meadow brown butterflies (Maniola jurtina) of two contrasted agricultural landscapes: intensively managed, nectar-poor (IL) versus extensively managed, nectar-rich landscapes (EL). Young female adults were submitted to four nectar treatments (i.e. nectar quality and quantity) in outdoor flight cages. IL individuals had better flight capacities in a flight mill and had lower resting metabolic rates (RMR) than EL individuals, except under the severest treatment. Under this treatment, RMR increased in IL individuals, but decreased in EL individuals; flight performance was maintained by IL individuals, but dropped by a factor 2.5 in EL individuals. IL individuals had more canalized (i.e. less plastic) responses relative to the nectar treatments than EL individuals. Our results show significant intraspecific variation in the locomotor and metabolic response of a butterfly to different energy income regimes relative to the landscape of origin. Ecophysiological studies help to improve our mechanistic understanding of the eco-evolutionary impact of anthropogenic environments on rare and widespread species.