bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Iran-US Relations
Authors: Shannon Kelly J.
Published: February 2019

Historian James A. Bill famously described America’s relationship with Iran as a tragedy. “Few international relationships,” he wrote, “have had a more positive beginning than that which characterized Iranian-American contacts for more than a century.” The nations’ first diplomatic dealings in the 1850s resulted in a treaty of friendship, and although the U.S. government remained largely aloof from Iranian affairs until World War II, many Iranians saw Americans and the United States positively by the early 20th century. The United States became more deeply involved with Iran during the Second World War, and the two nations were close allies during the Cold War. Yet they became enemies following the 1979 Iranian Revolution. How did this happen?

The events that led to the Islamic Republic of Iran dubbing the United States the “Great Satan” in 1979 do indeed contain elements of tragedy. By the late 19th century, Iran—known to Americans as “Persia” until the 1930s—was caught in the middle of the imperial “Great Game” between Great Britain and Russia. Although no European power formally colonized Iran, Britain and Russia developed “spheres of influence” in the country and meddled constantly in Iran’s affairs. As Iranians struggled to create a modern, independent nation-state, they looked to disinterested third parties for help in their struggle to break free from British and Russian control. Consequently, many Iranians came to see the United States as a desirable ally. Activities of individual Americans in Iran from the mid-19th century onward, ranging from Presbyterian missionaries who built hospitals and schools to economic experts who advised Iran’s government, as well as the United States’ own revolutionary and democratic history, fostered a positive view of the United States among Iranians. The two world wars drew the United States into more active involvement in the Middle East, and following both conflicts, the U.S. government defended Iran’s sovereignty against British and Soviet manipulation.

The event that caused the United States to lose the admiration of many Iranians occurred in 1953, when the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and the British Secret Intelligence Service staged a coup, which overthrew Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, because he nationalized Iran’s oil industry. The coup allowed Iran’s shah, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, to transform himself from a constitutional monarch into an absolute ruler. The 1953 coup, coupled with the subsequent decades of U.S. support for the Shah’s politically repressive regime, resulted in anti-American resentment that burst forth during the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The two nations have been enemies ever since. This article traces the origins and evolution of the U.S. relationship with Iran from the 19th through the early 21st centuries.
Gender Roles, Women’s Rights, and the Polarization of American Politics in the Late 20th Century
Authors: Spruill Marjorie J.
Published: February 2019

The late 20th century saw gender roles transformed as the so-called Second Wave of American feminism that began in the 1960s gained support. By the early 1970s public opinion increasingly favored the movement and politicians in both major political parties supported it. In 1972 Congress overwhelmingly approved the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) and sent it to the states. Many quickly ratified, prompting women committed to traditional gender roles to organize. However, by 1975 ERA opponents led by veteran Republican activist Phyllis Schlafly, founder of Stop ERA, had slowed the ratification process, although federal support for feminism continued. Congresswoman Bella Abzug (D-NY), inspired by the United Nations’ International Women’s Year (IWY) program, introduced a bill approved by Congress that mandated state and national IWY conferences at which women would produce recommendations to guide the federal government on policy regarding women. Federal funding of these conferences (held in 1977), and the fact that feminists were appointed to organize them, led to an escalation in tensions between feminist and conservative women, and the conferences proved to be profoundly polarizing events. Feminists elected most of the delegates to the culminating IWY event, the National Women’s Conference held in Houston, Texas, and the “National Plan of Action” adopted there endorsed a wide range of feminist goals including the ERA, abortion rights, and gay rights. But the IWY conferences presented conservatives with a golden opportunity to mobilize, and anti-ERA, pro-life, and anti-gay groups banded together as never before. By the end of 1977, these groups, supported by conservative Catholics,

Mormons, and evangelical and fundamentalist Protestants, had come together to form a “Pro-Family Movement” that became a powerful force in American politics. By 1980 they had persuaded the Republican Party to drop its support for women’s rights. Afterward, as Democrats continued to support feminist goals and the GOP presented itself as the defender of “family values,” national politics became more deeply polarized and bitterly partisan.
Food Waste and Biomass Recovery
Authors: Ng Wun Jern , Xiao Keke , Tyagi Vinay Kumar , Pan Chaozhi , Poh Leong Soon
Published: February 2019

Agriculture waste can be a significant issue in waste management as its impact can be felt far from its place of origin. Post-harvest crop residues require clearance prior to the next planting and a common practice is burning on the field. The uncontrolled burning results in air pollution and can adversely impact the environment far from the burn site. Agriculture waste can also include animal husbandry waste such as from cattle, swine, and poultry. Animal manure not only causes odors but also pollutes water if discharged untreated. However, agricultural activities, particularly on a large scale, are typically at some distance from urban centers. The environmental impacts associated with production may not be well recognized by the consumers. As the consumption terminal of agricultural produce, urban areas in turn generate food waste, which can contribute significantly to municipal solid wastes. There is a correlation between the quantity of food waste generated and a community’s economic progress.

Managing waste carries a cost, which may illustrate cost transfer from waste generators to the public. However, waste need not be seen only as an unwanted material that requires costly treatment before disposal. The waste may instead be perceived as a raw material for resource recovery. For example, the material may have substantial quantities of organic carbon, which can be recovered for energy generation. This offers opportunity for producing and using renewable and environment-friendly fuels. The “waste” may also include quantities of recoverable nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus.
‘What the f**k Is Maturity?’: Young Adulthood, Subjective Maturity and Desistance From Crime
Authors: Coyle Brendan
Published: February 2019

This article contributes to the ‘dissection’ of maturation by advancing previously overlooked, subjective aspects of the concept. The article draws upon life story research with 20 young adults in Belfast, Northern Ireland. An analysis of their accounts and narratives highlights the importance of maturity as an adaptive narrative coping mechanism for young adults who are structurally disbarred from achieving normative expressions of adult status. The analysis further explores the relationship between subjective maturity and desistance from crime, indicating the potential risks that a selective criminal justice policy focus on an absence of maturity among 18–25-year-olds may have on young adults coming into contact with the criminal justice system.
The independent and add-on values of radial intima thickness measured by ultrasound biomicroscopy for diagnosis of coronary artery disease
Authors: Xu Mingjun , Zhang Mei , Xu Jinfeng , Zhu Mei , Zhang Cheng , Zhang Pengfei , Zhang Yun
Published: February 2019

Aims

Carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT) has been widely used to risk stratify and predict coronary artery disease (CAD) despite its significant limitations. To test whether radial artery intima thickness (RIT) is closely associated with atherosclerotic risk factors, and whether RIT has an independent and additive value for diagnosis of CAD.

Methods and results

One hundred and sixteen consecutive CAD patients and 79 age and gender-matched healthy controls were enrolled in this study. RIT, radial media thickness, radial intima-media thickness, and CIMT were measured with a high-resolution ultrasound biomicroscopy. Binary logistic regression was used to assess association between CAD and ultrasonic parameters, biochemical biomarkers or traditional risk factors. Receiver-operating characteristic curves were plotted to compare performances of several diagnostic models. RIT was positively associated with age, systolic blood pressure, statin administration, and hypertension. The independent value of RIT for differentiating CAD was similar to that of CIMT, but the add-on value of RIT to traditional risk factors for detecting CAD was superior to that of CIMT. Moreover, addition of RIT and CIMT to traditional risk factors increased AUC for detecting CAD from 0.724 to 0.867 significantly (P = 0.003).

Conclusion

RIT could detect CAD independently similarly to CIMT. The add-on value of RIT to traditional risk factors for detecting CAD was superior to CIMT and addition of RIT and CIMT to traditional risk factors markedly increased the power to diagnose CAD. Thus, RIT measured by ultrasound biomicroscopy provided a novel approach to non-invasive diagnosis of CAD.
Market adjacency and competing technologies: evidence from the flat panel display industry
Authors: Lehmberg Derek , Dhanaraj Charles , White Rod
Published: February 2019

What determines the emergence of a winner between competing technologies? We examine competition between flat panel display technologies, with the purpose of understanding of how liquid crystal display was able to surpass plasma display panel technology despite the initial lack of a convincing technological or cost advantage, and in the absence of network externalities. We propose an explanation whereby the relative availability of pathways of suitable adjacent applications markets provides differential opportunities for technologies to increase their scope and scale of application incrementally, effecting the speed of development as well as the cost effectiveness of the end products. Our findings suggest that these sets of adjacent application markets available can strongly influence which technologies emerge as winners and which are eventually abandoned.
The Devil is in the Detail: Growth, Inequality and Poverty Reduction in Africa in the Last Two Decades
Authors: Clementi Fabio , Fabiani Michele , Molini Vasco
Published: February 2019

The present paper, starting from evidence of low growth-to-poverty elasticity characterising Africa, purports to identify the distributional changes that limited the pro-poor impact of the last two decades’ growth. Distributional changes that went undetected by standard inequality measures were not showing a clear pattern of inequality on the continent. By applying a new decomposition technique based on a non-parametric method—the ‘relative distribution’—we found a clear distributional pattern affecting almost all analysed countries. Nineteen out twenty four countries experienced a significant increase in polarisation, particularly in the lower tail of the distribution, and this distributional change lowered the pro-poor impact of growth substantially. Without this unfavourable redistribution, poverty could have decreased in these countries by an additional five percentage points.
The Strategic Logic of Ethnoterritorial Competition: Violence against Civilians in Africa's Civil Wars
Authors: Wimmer Andreas , Miner Chris
Published: February 2019

This article develops and tests a new theory of violence against civilians during civil wars by combining geocoded data on African armed conflicts over the past two decades with a range of other geocoded information. The theory suggests a twofold logic of ethnic targeting aimed to enlarge the territory dominated by one's coethnics in the most effective way. First, rebels and government fighters kill civilians in areas populated in equal shares by their own and their adversary's coethnics because, in such areas, small amounts of violence suffice to tilt the local balance of power in their favor. Second, they target places close to the border between the settlement areas of their own and their adversary's coethnics as this will allow expanding the contiguous area under their control. We do not find empirical support for the three most prominent alternative theories, all of which assume that civilian victimization is independent of the political conflict over which the civil war is fought. Civilians are not more likely to be killed in areas where lootable natural resources can be found, in recently conquered territories where fighters are supposed to eliminate enemy collaborators, or where rebel forces who have established only weak control over their fighters operate.
‘To be or not to be’: Hamlet’s Humanistic Quaestio
Authors: Lim Vanessa
Published: February 2019

Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ speech has long been the subject of intense scholarly attention. By situating the speech against the backdrop of classical and Renaissance rhetorical theory, this essay demonstrates that there is still much more to be said about it. The speech ostensibly examines a quaestio infinita or a thesis, and follows the rhetorical rule that the right way to do so is by the invocation of commonplaces. This reading of Hamlet’s speech is not only consistent with Shakespeare’s characterization of the university-educated prince, who frequently invokes commonplaces, but also has significant implications for our understanding of the play and Shakespeare’s own practice as a writer. The book that Hamlet is reading could well be his own commonplace collection, and it is perhaps in looking up his entries under the heading of ‘Death’ that Hamlet finds what he needs in order to examine his quaestio.
Safety and Efficacy of OnabotulinumtoxinA for Treatment of Crow’s Feet Lines in Chinese Subjects
Authors: Wu Yan , Wang Gang , Li Chengxin , Mao Cheri , Lei Xiaofang , Lee Elisabeth
Published: February 2019

Background:

This study evaluated the safety and efficacy of onabotulinumtoxinA for the treatment of crow’s feet lines (CFL) in Chinese subjects.

Methods:

This 5-month, double-blind, randomized, parallel-group, placebo-controlled phase 3 study was conducted in China. Subjects with moderate-to-severe CFL at maximum smile received a single treatment of onabotulinumtoxinA 24 U (total; n = 316) or placebo (n = 101) on day 1. The primary efficacy measure was the proportion of investigator-assessed responders (achieved CFL severity of none or mild at maximum smile using the Facial Wrinkle Scale with Asian Photonumeric Guide at day 30). Additional endpoints included other response definitions (achieving at least 1-grade improvement at maximum smile and at rest using the Facial Wrinkle Scale with Asian Photonumeric Guide at day 30), duration of effect, subject-reported outcomes, and safety.

Results:

All efficacy endpoints were met. At day 30, the proportion of subjects achieving none or mild severity at maximum smile was significantly greater (P < 0.001) in the onabotulinumtoxinA group (63.9%) versus the placebo group (5.0%). The proportion of subjects assessing the change in CFL appearance as much improved/very much improved was also significantly greater with onabotulinumtoxinA than placebo (P < 0.001). Subjects’ self-assessed outcomes were similar to investigator-assessed results. Median duration of effect with onabotulinumtoxinA was ≥5 months using all responder definitions. A low occurrence of treatment-related adverse events was reported, with no new safety findings.

Conclusions:

OnabotulinumtoxinA 24 U was effective and well tolerated for the treatment of CFL in Chinese subjects, with responses maintained over 5 months.
Effect of sofosbuvir plus daclatasvir for treatment of chronic hepatitis C on patients with psoriasis
Authors: Ismail Waleed A. , Yousef Ayman E.
Published: February 2019

Aim

Until recently, clinicians caring for patients with psoriasis who were infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) were concerned that treating one condition could exacerbate the other. We evaluated the outcome of treatment with direct-acting antiviral agents (DAAs) on patients with psoriasis having chronic hepatitis C (CHC) infection.

Patients and methods

This was an observational prospective cross-sectional study. It included CHC-naive patients with plaque psoriasis. All patients received sofosbuvir plus daclatasvir once daily for 12 weeks for treatment of CHC. Psoriasis area severity index (PASI) scores and the dermatology quality-of-life index were evaluated at the start of treatment with DAAs and then at 12 and 24 weeks after the end of HCV treatment. The primary end point was sustained virological response 12 weeks after treatment (SVR12).

Results

A total of 34 CHC-naive patients were enrolled in this study. Most of them were of male sex (76.5%), and most of them had severe psoriasis, as the mean PASI score was 32. The primary and secondary end points (SVR12 and SVR24) for our patients were 100%. Regarding PASI and dermatology quality-of-life index scores, there was a highly significant difference before start of treatment and after treatment at 12 and 24 weeks. The most common adverse events are fatigue and headache.

Conclusion

Sofosbuvir plus daclatasvir is effective in the eradication of HCV and improvement of symptoms in patients with psoriasis having CHC infection. Future large series studies are needed to evaluate this promising effect of DAAs.
Horizontal transmission of the entomopathogenic fungal isolate INRS-242 of Beauveria bassiana in emerald ash borer, Agrilus planipennis Fairmaire
Authors: Srei Narin , Lavallée Robert , Guertin Claude
Published: February 2019

Emerald ash borer (EAB), Agrilus planipennis Fairmaire, is an invasive and destructive beetle that causes extensive damages to ash trees in North America. The entomopathogenic fungus Beauveria bassiana is considered as an effective biological control agent for EAB adult populations. Using an assisted autodissemination with the fungal isolate INRS-242 of B. bassiana, our research aims to investigate the possibility of horizontal transmission of the fungal disease from infected to uninfected EAB adults during mating. Results show that the efficiency of fungal transmission is significantly related to the sex of EAB carrying the pathogen. EAB males are the promising vector to transmit INRS-242 isolate of B. bassiana to their partners during mating. Results strengthen the potential of the fungal autodissemination device as a powerful biological strategy to control EAB populations.
Mouse Norovirus infection arrests host cell translation uncoupled from the stress granule-PKR-eIF2α axis
Authors: Fritzlar Svenja , Aktepe Turgut E. , Chao Yi-Wei , McAllaster Michael R. , Wilen Craig B. , White Peter A. , Mackenzie Jason M.
Published: February 2019

The integrated stress response (ISR) is a cellular response system activated upon different types of stresses, including viral infection, to restore cellular homeostasis. However, many viruses manipulate this response for their own advantage. In this study we investigated the association between murine norovirus (MNV) infection and the ISR and demonstrate that MNV regulates the ISR by activating and recruiting key ISR host factors. We observed that during MNV infection, there is a progressive increase in phosphorylated eukaryotic initiation factor 2 alpha (p-eIF2α) resulting in the suppression of host translation, yet MNV translation still progresses under these conditions. Interestingly, the shutoff of host translation also impacts the translation of key signalling cytokines such as IFNβ, IL-6 and TNFα. Our subsequent analyses revealed that the phosphorylation of eIF2α was mediated via Protein kinase-R (PKR), but further investigation revealed that PKR activation, phosphorylation of eIF2α and translational arrest were uncoupled during infection. We further observed that stress granules (SGs) are not induced during MNV infection, and MNV has the capacity to restrict SG nucleation and formation. We observed that MNV recruited the key SG nucleating protein G3BP1 to its replication sites and intriguingly the silencing of G3BP1 negatively impacts MNV replication. Thus, it appears, MNV utilises G3BP1 to enhance replication, but equally to prevent SG formation, intimating an anti-MNV property of SGs. Overall, thus study highlights MNV manipulation of SGs, PKR and translational control to regulate cytokine translation and to promote viral replication.

Importance

Viruses hijack host machinery and regulate cellular homeostasis to actively replicate their genome, propagate and cause disease. In retaliation, cells possess various defence mechanisms to detect, destroy and clear infecting viruses as well as signal to neighbouring cells to inform them of the imminent threat. In this study, we demonstrate that the murine norovirus (MNV) infection stalls host protein translation and the production of antiviral and pro-inflammatory cytokines. However, virus replication and protein translation still ensues. We show that MNV further prevents the formation of cytoplasmic RNA granules, called stress granules (SG), by recruiting the key host protein G3BP1 to the MNV replication complex; a recruitment that is crucial to establishing and maintaining virus replication. Thus MNV promotes immune evasion of the virus by altering protein translation. Together, this evasion strategy delays innate immune responses to MNV infection and accelerates disease onset.
Water quality assessments and metagenomic analysis of the polluted river Apatlaco, Mexico
Authors: Breton-Deval Luz , Juárez Katy , Sánchez-Flores Alejandro , Vera-Estrella Rosario
Published: February 2019

The aim of this study is to analyze the water quality parameters and bacterial diversity and thereby understand the effect of water quality on the microbial population structure in the river. The following parameters: total coliforms, chemical oxygen demand, harness, ammonium, nitrite, nitrate, total Kjeldahl nitrogen, dissolved oxygen, total phosphorus, total dissolved solids, and temperature were analyzing along 17 sampling points in the river. The worst levels of pollution were 510 mg/L chemical oxygen demand, 7 mg/L nitrite, 45 mg/L nitrate, 2 mg/L dissolved oxygen, and 756 mg/L of total dissolved solids. Whole metagenome shotgun sequencing was performed at 4 key points along the river (P1,P7,P10 and P17), the first point had clean water and the other points were polluted, as a result of this pollution, the structure of microbial communities along the river have changed. Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes were the most representative phyla with a relative abundance of 57 and 43% respectively for P1, 82 and 15% for P7, 69 and 27% for P10 and 87 and 10% for the last point P17. P1 is rich in microorganism such as Limnohabitans a planktonic bacterium very common in freshwater ecosystems. However, in P7, P10 and P17 are rich in opportunistic pathogens such as Acinetobacter Arcobacter and Myroides that endangers the health of around 1.6 million people which live around the area. These results elucidate the influence of the pollution on the microbial community and the likely effects on the health of the people around.
Testing the exteroceptive function of nociception: the role of visual experience in shaping the spatial representations of nociceptive inputs
Authors: Vanderclausen Camille , Bourgois Marion , Volder Anne De , Legrain Valéry
Published: February 2019

Adequately localizing pain is crucial to protect the body against physical damage and react to the stimulus in external space having caused such damage. Accordingly, it is hypothesized that nociceptive inputs are remapped from a somatotopic reference frame, representing the skin surface, towards a spatiotopic frame, representing the body parts in external space. This ability is thought to be developed and shaped by early visual experience. To test this hypothesis, normally sighted and early blind participants performed temporal order judgment tasks during which they judged which of two nociceptive stimuli applied on each hand’s dorsum was perceived as first delivered. Crucially, tasks were performed with the hands either in an uncrossed posture or crossed over body midline. While early blinds were not affected by the posture, performances of the normally sighted participants decreased in the crossed condition relative to the uncrossed condition. This indicates that nociceptive stimuli were automatically remapped into a spatiotopic representation that interfered with somatotopy in normally sighted individuals, whereas early blinds seemed to mostly rely on a somatotopic representation to localize nociceptive inputs. Accordingly, the plasticity of the nociceptive system would not purely depend on bodily experiences but also on crossmodal interactions between nociception and vision during early sensory experience.
Molecular dating for phylogenies containing a mix of populations and species
Authors: Mello Beatriz , Tao Qiqing , Kumar Sudhir
Published: February 2019

Concurrent molecular dating of population and species divergences is essential in many biological investigations, including phylogeography, phylodynamics, and species delimitation studies. Multiple sequence alignments used in these investigations frequently consist of both intra- and inter-species samples (mixed samples). As a result, the phylogenetic trees contain inter-species, inter-population, and within population divergences. To date these sequence divergences, Bayesian relaxed clock methods are often employed, but they assume the same tree prior for both inter- and intra-species branching processes and require specification of a clock model for branch rates (independent vs. autocorrelated rates models). We evaluated the impact of using the same tree prior on the Bayesian divergence time estimates by analyzing computer-simulated datasets. We also examined the effect of the assumption of independence of evolutionary rate variation among branches when the branch rates are autocorrelated. Bayesian approach with Skyline-coalescent tree priors generally produced excellent molecular dates, with some tree priors (e.g., Yule) performing the best when evolutionary rates were autocorrelated, and lineage sorting was incomplete. We compared the performance of the Bayesian approach with a non-Bayesian, the RelTime method, which does not require specification of a tree prior or selection of a clock model. We found that RelTime performed as well as the Bayesian approach, and when the clock model was mis-specified, RelTime performed slightly better. These results suggest that the computationally efficient RelTime approach is also suitable to analyze datasets containing both populations and species variation.
Free water in white matter differentiates MCI and AD from control subjects
Authors: Dumont Matthieu , Roy Maggie , Jodoin Pierre-Marc , Morency Felix C. , Houde Jean-Christophe , Xie Zhiyong , Bauer Cici , Samad Tarek A. , Van Dijk Koene R. A. , Goodman James A. , Descoteaux Maxime
Published: February 2019

Recent evidence show that neuroinflammation plays a role in many neurological diseases including mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and that free water (FW) modeling from clinically acquired diffusion MRI (DTI-like acquisitions) can be sensitive to this phenomenon. This FW index measures the fraction of the diffusion signal explained by isotropically unconstrained water, as estimated from a bi-tensor model. In this study, we developed a simple FW processing pipeline that uses a safe white matter (WM) mask without gray matter (GM)/CSF partial volume contamination (WMsafe) near ventricles and sulci. We investigated if FW inside the WMsafe mask, including and excluding areas of white matter damage such as white matter hyperintensities (WMHs) as shown on T2 FLAIR, computed across the whole white matter could be indicative of diagnostic grouping along the AD continuum.

After careful quality control, 81 cognitively normal controls (NC), 103 subjects with MCI and 42 with AD were selected from the ADNIGO and ADNI2 databases. We show that MCI and AD have significantly higher FW measures even after removing all partial volume contamination. We also show, for the first time, that when WMHs are removed from the masks, the significant results are maintained, which demonstrates that the FW measures are not just a byproduct of WMHs. Our new and simple FW measures can be used to increase our understanding of the role of inflammation-associated edema in AD and may aid in the differentiation of healthy subjects from MCI and AD patients.
“Multiple human adipocyte subtypes and mechanisms of their development”
Authors: Min So Yun , Desai Anand , Yang Zinger , Sharma Agastya , Genga Ryan M.J. , Kucukural Alper , Lifshitz Lawrence , Maehr René , Garber Manuel , Corvera Silvia
Published: February 2019

Human adipose tissue depots perform numerous diverse physiological functions, and are differentially linked to metabolic disease risk, yet only two major human adipocyte subtypes have been described, white and “brown/brite/beige.” The diversity and lineages of adipocyte classes have been studied in mice using genetic methods that cannot be applied in humans. Here we circumvent this problem by studying the fate of single mesenchymal progenitor cells obtained from human adipose tissue. We report that a minimum of four human adipocyte subtypes can be distinguished by transcriptomic analysis, specialized for functionally distinct processes such as adipokine secretion and thermogenesis. Evidence for the presence of these adipocytes subtypes in adult humans is evidenced by differential expression of key adipokines leptin and adiponectin in isolated mature adipocytes. The human adipocytes most similar to the mouse “brite/beige” adipocytes are enriched in mechanisms that promote iron accumulation and protect from oxidative stress, and are derived from progenitors that express high levels of cytokines such as IL1B, IL8, IL11 and the IL6 family cytokine LIF, and low levels of the transcriptional repressors ID1 and ID3. Our finding of this adipocyte repertoire and its developmental mechanisms provides a high-resolution framework to analyze human adipose tissue architecture and its role in systemic metabolism and metabolic disease.
Plasmodium knowlesi clinical isolates from Malaysia show extensive diversity and strong differential selection pressure at the merozoite surface protein 7D (MSP7D)
Authors: Ahmed Md Atique , Quan Fu-Shi
Published: February 2019

Background

High proportion of human cases due to the simian malaria parasite Plasmodium knowlesi in Malaysia has been a cause of concern, as it can be severe and fatal. Merozoite surface protein 7 (MSP7) is a multigene family which forms a non-covalent complex with MSP-1 prior to receptor-ligand recognition in Plasmodium falciparum and thus an important antigen for vaccine development. However, no study has been done in any of the ortholog family members in Plasmodium knowlesi from clinical samples. Thus in this study we investigated the level of polymorphism, haplotypes, and natural selection acting at the pkmsp-7D gene in clinical samples from Malaysia.

Methods

We analyzed 36 full-length pkmsp7D gene sequences (along with the reference H-strain: PKNH_1266000) which were orthologous to pvmsp7H (PVX_082680) from clinical isolates of Malaysia available from public databases. Population genetic, evolutionary and phylogenetic analyses were performed to determine the level of genetic diversity, polymorphism, recombination and natural selection.

Results

Analysis of 36 full-length pkmsp7D sequences identified 147 SNPs (91 non-synonymous and 56 synonymous substitutions). Nucleotide diversity across the full-length gene was higher than its ortholog in P. vivax (msp7H). Region-wise analysis of the gene indicated that the nucleotide diversity at the central region was very high (π = 0.14) compared to the 5’ and 3’ regions. Most hyper-variable SNPs were detected at the central domain. Multiple test for natural selection indicated the central region was under strong positive natural selection however, the 5’ and 3’ regions were under negative/purifying selection. Evidence of intragenic recombination were detected at the central region of the gene. Phylogenetic analysis using full-length msp7D genes indicated there was no geographical clustering of parasite population.

Conclusions

High genetic diversity with hyper-variable SNPs and strong evidence of positive natural selection at the central region of MSP7D indicated exposure of the region to host immune pressure. Negative selection at the 5’ and the 3’ regions of MSP7D might be because of functional constraints at the unexposed regions during the merozoite invasion process of P. knowlesi. No evidence of geographical clustering among the clinical isolates from Malaysia indicated uniform selection pressure in all populations. These findings highlight the further evaluation of the regions and functional characterization of the protein as a potential blood stage vaccine candidate for P. knowlesi.
Quartz conditioning crystal for X-ray rocking curve topography
Authors: Macrander Albert , Pereira Nino , Stoeckl Christian , Huang XianRong , Kasman Elina
Published: February 2019

A large α-quartz crystal designed to condition the monochromatic beam at beamline 1-BM of the Advanced Photon Source is presented. The purpose of this crystal was to provide a precise match to the Bragg angle of quartz crystals that are commonly used to make analyzers for plasma diagnostics. In order to characterize these analyzers, area detectors need to be positioned at distances from the analyzer at upwards of 1000 mm. As a result of this precise matching, a Bragg-reflected beam from such an analyzer is precisely parallel to the beam incident on the conditioning crystal. This situation alleviates the need to adjust the position of the area detector as the distance between the analyzer and the area detector is varied. That is, there is no need to account for vertical displacement of the diffracted-beam image as a function of this distance. Additionally, verification that the analyzer is set to the correct Bragg reflection is obtained by scanning this distance, because only for a spurious reflection will there be a vertical displacement. This is a very useful check. To commission the conditioning crystal, diffraction from a high-quality flat quartz crystal was mapped using a CCD. Bragg diffraction from the 40\overline 40 reflection at 8.5 keV was studied over an area of 23 × 31 mm. The theoretical Darwin width of the flat sample in this case was 4.7 µrad. An FWHM value near 6 µrad was measured over almost the entire mapped area. These data demonstrate that the resolution function for this four-crystal arrangement is ∼4 µrad. Data are also presented for a 0.1 mm-thick α-quartz wafer pressed into a concave form, having a nominal radius of 500 mm and intended for use as an analyzer. Because analyzers are bent crystals, diffraction occurs in narrow bands. When a multiple exposure is made as a function of rocking angle a striped pattern is obtained, which is commonly referred to as a zebra-stripe pattern. A series of zebra stripes from the 30\overline 3\overline 3 Bragg reflection of the bent wafer over its 25 mm-diameter area were recorded on a CCD. The zebra-stripe pattern was analyzed to show a uniform bending to a radius of 497.0 ± 0.3 mm, in support of the nominal value. An r.m.s. slope error of 7 µrad was also obtained from this analysis.
Flow characteristics of two-dimensional synthetic jets under diaphragm resonance excitation
Authors: Lin Chi-Yu , Lin Jih Lung
Published: February 2019

Purpose

This paper aims to experimentally study the external flow characteristic of an isolated two-dimensional synthetic jet actuator undergoing diaphragm resonance.

Design/methodology/approach

The resonance frequency of the diaphragm (40 Hz) depends on the excitation mechanism in the actuator, whereas it is independent of cavity geometry, excitation waveform and excitation voltage. The velocity response of the synthetic jet is influenced by excitation voltage rather than excitation waveform. Thus, this investigation selected four different voltages (5, 10, 15 and 20 V) under the same sine waveform as experiment parameters.

Findings

The velocity field along the downstream direction is classified into five regions, which can be obtained by hot-wire measurement. The first region refers to an area in which flow moves from within the cavity to the exit of orifice through the oscillation of the diaphragm, but prior to the formation of the vortex of a synthetic jet. In this region, two characteristic frequencies exist at 20 and 40 Hz in the flow field. The second region refers to the area in which the vortices of a synthetic jet fully develop following their initial formation. In this region, the characteristic frequencies at 20 and 40 Hz still occur in the flow field. The third region refers to the area in which both fully developed vortices continue traveling downstream. It is difficult to obtain the characteristic frequency in this flow field, because the mean center velocities (ū) decay downstream and are proportional to (x/w)−1/2 for the four excitation voltages. The fourth region reveals variations in both vortices as they merge into a single vortex. The mean center velocities (ū) are approximately proportional to (x/w)0 in this region for the four excitation voltages. A fifth region deals with variations in the vortex of a synthetic jet after both vortices merge into one, in which the mean center velocities (ū) are approximately proportional to (x/w)−1 in this region for the four excitation voltages (x/w is the dimensionless streamwise distance).

Originality/value

Although the flow characteristics of synthetic jets had reported for flow control in some literatures, variations of flow structure for synthetic jets are still not studied under the excitation of diaphragm resonance. This paper showed some novel results that our velocity response results obtained by hot-wire measurement along the downstream direction compared with flow visualization resulted in the classification of five regions under the excitation of diaphragm resonance. In the future, it makes valuable contributions for experimental findings to provide researchers with further development of flow control.
Further Development of a Specific Conductivity Approach to Measure Groundwater Discharge Area within Lakes
Authors: Bischof Stefan M. , Herwig Brian R. , Sebestyen Stephen D. , Hanson Mark A. , Zimmer Kyle D. , Cotner James B. , Kroeger Timothy J.
Published: February 2019

Groundwater exchanges with most lakes are rarely quantified because there are many technical challenges to quantification. We investigated a lakebed mapping approach to infer the relative areas of groundwater exchange in 12 prairie shallow lakes and five Laurentian mixed forest shallow lakes in Minnesota, USA in 2011. We used a relatively common approach (seepage meters) to provide baseline information on the magnitude and direction of flow at four locations in each lake. To expand from point measurements to the whole‐lake scale, we explored use of specific conductivity as a cheaper and more time efficient proxy for groundwater discharge to lakes. We validated the approach at near shore stations in each lake where seepage meter measurements and specific conductivity surveys overlapped. Specific conductivity surveys provided a similar assessment of groundwater discharge compared to seepage meters for 50% of the lake‐sampling period combinations. The lakebed mapping approach, when validated for a lake with a limited number of seepage meter (or alternative methods) measurements, offers the advantages of being more time and labor efficient over the use of a similar number of seepage meter monitoring locations; seepage meters (or piezometers, for example) are costlier in terms of equipment and labor, even for single‐lake studies. We show the combined approach could provide useful baselines for understanding and mapping groundwater exchange in shallow lakes.
Career caseload predicts interobserver agreement on the final classification of a mammogram
Authors: Abdelrahman Mostafa A , Rawashdeh Mohammad A , McEntee Mark , Abu Tahoun Laila , Brennan Patrick
Published: February 2019

Introduction

Differences in radiologists’ experience can potentially introduce interobserver variability in reading mammograms. This work investigated the effect of radiologists’ experience on agreement on mammographic final classification.

Methods

This was a cross‐sectional study. Seventeen radiologists were asked to provide their final impression on 60 mammogram cases. Experience parameters included breast subspecialty, years reading mammograms, cases read per year and career caseload. Career caseload was calculated by multiplying years reading mammograms by the average number of cases read per year. The interobserver agreement was calculated using Cohen kappa (κ). The difference in κ between radiologists’ groups was compared using the independent‐sample t‐test and analysis of variance.

Results

The average interobserver agreement was 0.25 (fair). A small difference was found in favour of breast radiologists against general radiologists (κ = 0.21 and 0.29, respectively, P = 0.019). Years reading mammograms and cases read per year did not seem to significantly affect the interobserver agreement (P = 0.056 and 0.273 respectively). Radiologist who had career caseload of at least 2500 cases showed significantly higher consistency than those who read less. κ for radiologists who had career caseload of 2500–4000 cases and >4000 cases was 0.33 and 0.28, respectively, whereas for <2500 κ was 0.17 (P = 0.001).

Conclusion

A fair level of interobserver agreement on the final classification of a mammogram was demonstrated. Career caseload was the most important experience parameter to associate with the interobserver agreement. Training strategies aiming to increase radiologists’ career caseload may be beneficial.
Diabetes mellitus and survival of non‐small cell lung cancer patients after surgery: A comprehensive systematic review and meta‐analysis
Authors: Deng Han‐Yu , Zheng Xi , Zha Panpan , Peng Lei , Huang Kai‐Li , Qiu Xiao‐Ming
Published: February 2019

Background

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is one of the most common comorbidities in surgically treated non‐small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients and has a negative impact on short‐term outcomes. However, the impact of DM on long‐term survival of such patients remains controversial; therefore, we conducted a comprehensive updated meta‐analysis.

Methods

We systematically searched relevant studies in PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science up to 6 September 2018. Hazard ratios (HRs) for the impact of DM on overall survival (OS) and recurrence‐free survival (RFS) of patients with surgically treated NSCLC were extracted and analyzed using the STATA 12.0 package.

Results

We included 13 cohort studies consisting of 4343 patients (730 patients with DM and 3613 patients without) with surgically treated NSCLC. Meta‐analysis showed that patients with DM had significantly poorer OS (random effects: HR 1.30, 95% confidence interval 1.05–1.60; P = 0.016) than those without. However, with a limited sample size, there was no significant difference in RFS (random effects: HR 1.06, 95% confidence interval 0.71–1.58; P = 0.786) between patients with and without DM after surgical resection of NSCLC.

Conclusion

DM is an independent unfavorable prognostic factor for patients with surgically treated NSCLC. High‐quality studies with appropriate adjustment for confounding factors are needed to confirm our conclusions.
Is peritonectomy and hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy a new standard of treatment for advanced epithelial ovarian cancer?
Authors: Farrell Rhonda
Published: February 2019

Ovarian cancer is the leading cause of death due to gynaecological malignancy with a five‐year relative survival of only 20–30% for Australian women with stage 3 and 4 disease. Most cases present with spread of cancer cells outside the pelvis to the peritoneal surfaces of the abdomen and associated viscera. Efforts to improve survival from advanced disease have therefore led to more extensive cytoreductive surgery, including the use of peritonectomy surgery, which is usually combined with hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC). There is an increased interest in this treatment approach by gynaecological oncologists, particularly after the results of a recent randomised controlled trial (RCT) from the Netherlands showed improved survival in women who were given HIPEC at the time of cytoreductive surgery for primary disease. This article discusses the technique of peritonectomy and HIPEC, the evidence for its use, and the potential role of this treatment approach for advanced epithelial ovarian cancer in Australian centres.
Significance of drain fluid amylase check on day 3 after pancreatectomy
Authors: Lee Sung Ryol , Kim Hyung Ook , Shin Jun Ho
Published: February 2019

Background

The occurrence of pancreatic fistulae (PF) after pancreatectomy is the main cause of prolonged hospital stay, delayed chemotherapy, poor quality of life and post‐operative death. The surgical drainage after pancreatectomy can induce ascending infection, early removal is recommended if the possibility of PF is low. The present study analysed the risk factors and predictors of PF, and confirmed the significance of drain fluid amylase concentration (DFA, U/L) among various factors identified. On the basis of these results, we tried to evaluate the practical clinical applicability of DFA and obtain appropriate baseline values.

Methods

From January 2014 to December 2017, 117 patients underwent major pancreatectomy with pylorus‐preserving pancreatoduodenectomy, Whipple procedure, subtotal pancreatectomy or distal pancreatectomy. This study retrospectively collected and analysed demographics, pathological results and prognoses of these patients.

Results

Multivariate analysis indicated that the DFA obtained on day 3 after surgery (DFA 3) was the only predictor of PF with statistical significance (P < 0.001). Of all the factors tested, area under the curve was highest for DFA 3 (0.89). In addition, of all the factors tested, DFA 3 with a cut‐off value of 1004 U/L had the best sensitivity (92%) and specificity (82%).

Conclusions

DFA 3 of a cut‐off value of 1004 U/L might be determined to be the best predictor of PF, and early removal of the surgical drain could be considered if DFA (1004 U/L) is lower than the cut‐off value at 3 days after surgery.