bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Identification of a cell-surface protein involved in glucose assimilation and disruption of the crystalline region of cellulose by Cytophaga hutchinsonii
Authors: Wang Sen , Zhao Dong , Zhang Weican , Lu Xuemei
Published: July 2019

The crystalline region of cellulose is the main barrier to the utilization of crystalline cellulose. Cytophaga hutchinsonii actively digests the crystalline region of cellulose by an unknown mechanism. Transposon mutagenesis was done to identify a novel gene locus chu_1557, which is required for efficient disruption of the crystalline region of cellulose, and the absence of CHU_1557 resulted in decreased glucose assimilation efficiency. The defect of the mutant in the disruption of the crystalline region of cellulose was partially retained by additional glucose or pre-culturing the mutant in a low glucose concentration medium which could improve its glucose absorption efficiency. These results suggested that extracellular glucose has important roles in the disruption of crystalline cellulose by C. hutchinsonii. Further study showed that the expression of an outer membrane protein CHU_3732 was downregulated by the absence of CHU_1557 in a low glucose concentration medium. CHU_3732 was involved in uptake of glucose and its expression was induced by a low concentration of glucose. CHU_3732 was predicted to be a porin, so we inferred that it may work as a glucose transport channel in the outer membrane. Based on these results, we deduced that CHU_1557 played a role in the process of glucose assimilation and its disruption affected the expression of other proteins related to glucose transportation such as CHU_3732, and then affected the cell growth in a low glucose concentration medium and disruption of the crystalline region of cellulose.
Impulse control under emotion processing: an fMRI investigation in borderline personality disorder compared to non-patients and cluster-C personality disorder patients
Authors: van Zutphen Linda , Siep Nicolette , Jacob Gitta A. , Domes Gregor , Sprenger Andreas , Willenborg Bastian , Goebel Rainer , Tüscher Oliver , Arntz Arnoud
Published: July 2019

Impulsivity is a characteristic syndromal and neurobehavioral feature of borderline personality disorder (BPD). Research suggests an important interaction between high negative emotions and low behavioral inhibition in BPD. However, knowledge about the generalizability across stimulus categories and diagnosis specificity is limited. We investigated neural correlates of hypothesized impaired response inhibition of BPD patients to negative, positive and erotic stimuli, by comparing them to non-patients and cluster-C personality disorder patients. During fMRI scanning, 53 BPD patients, 34 non-patients and 20 cluster-C personality disorder patients completed an affective go/no-go task, including social pictures. BPD patients showed more omission errors than non-patients, independent of the stimulus category. Furthermore, BPD patients showed higher activity in the inferior parietal lobule and frontal eye fields when inhibiting negative versus neutral stimuli. Activity of the inferior parietal lobule correlated positively with the BPD checklist subscale impulsivity. When inhibiting emotional stimuli, BPD patients showed an altered brain activity in the inferior parietal lobe and frontal eye fields, whereas previously shown dysfunctional prefrontal activity was not replicated. BPD patients showed a general responsivity across stimulus categories in the frontal eye fields, whereas effects in the inferior parietal lobe were specific for negative stimuli. Results of diagnosis specificity support a dimensional rather than a categorical differentiation between BPD and cluster-C patients during inhibition of social emotional stimuli. Supported by behavioral results, BPD patients showed no deficiencies in emotionally modulated response inhibition per se but the present findings rather hint at attentional difficulties for emotional information.
Resilience, sense of coherence and self-efficacy as predictors of stress coping style among university students
Authors: Konaszewski Karol , Kolemba Marcin , Niesiobędzka Małgorzata
Published: July 2019

The purpose of this study was to identify the personality predictors of individuals with a stress coping style. In the study, we have attempted to establish which traits play a crucial role in the prediction of tendencies applicable to a specific style of stress coping. In this study, all personality predictors were included in one model. The study was conducted with a group of 632 students. The results demonstrate a positive relationship between both self-efficacy and resilience with a task-oriented style of coping. Both traits related to a task-oriented style to a similar extent. The relationship between participants’ sense of coherence and task-oriented style was non-significant. Participants’ emotion-oriented style was negatively related with not just the sense of coherence variable, but also with self-efficacy and resilience. Significant predictors of avoidance-oriented styles were the sense of coherence and resilience variables. Further analysis of the two forms of avoidance-oriented styles demonstrate that the sense of coherence variable was a significant predictor of both engaging in substitute activities and seeking contact with other people. Resilience was a significant predictor solely with regard to seeking contact with other people.
Real-time prognosis of flowing bottom-hole pressure in a vertical well for a multiphase flow using computational intelligence techniques
Authors: Tariq Zeeshan , Mahmoud Mohamed , Abdulraheem Abdulazeez
Published: July 2019

An accurate prediction of well flowing bottom-hole pressure (FBHP) is highly needed in petroleum engineering applications such as for the field production optimization, cost per barrel of oil reduction, and quantification of workover remedial operations. A good number of empirical correlations and mechanistic models exist in the literature and are frequently used in oil industry to estimate FBHP. But majority of the empirical models were developed under a laboratory scale and are therefore inaccurate when scaled up for the field applications. The objective of this study is to present a new computational intelligence-based model to predict FBHP for a naturally flowing vertical well with multiphase flow. The present study shows that the accuracy of FBHP estimation using PSO-ANN is better than the conventional ANN model. A small average absolute percentage error of less than 2.1% is observed with the proposed model, while comparing the previous empirical correlations and mechanistic models on the same data gives more than 15% error. The new model is trained on a surface production data, which makes the prediction of FBHP in a real time. A group trend analysis tests were also carried out to assure that the proposed model is accurately capturing the underline physics behind the problem.
Unemployment in administrative data using survey data as a benchmark
Authors: Lafuente Cristina
Published: July 2019

Social security administrative data are increasingly becoming available in many countries. These data have a long panel structure (large N, large T) and allow for the measurement of many different variables with high accuracy. It also captures short-term unemployment spells which are normally unavailable in survey data due to its design. However, the measurement of unemployment differs in both types of datasets. The resulting gap between total unemployment and registered unemployment is not constant across workers characteristics or time. In this paper, I present a simple, systematic method to expand the raw Spanish Social Security administrative data. I identify unemployed workers who are not receiving unemployment benefits, using information from the institutional framework and using the Labour Force Survey as a benchmark. The resulting unemployment rates and labour market flows are comparable across both datasets. Administrative data can also overcome some of the problems of the Labour Force Survey, such as changes in the structure of the survey. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive guide on how to adapt administrative datasets to make them useful for studying unemployment.
Preventing dementia by preventing stroke: The Berlin Manifesto
Authors: Hachinski Vladimir , Einhäupl Karl , Ganten Detlev , Alladi Suvarna , Brayne Carol , Stephan Blossom C.M. , Sweeney Melanie D. , Zlokovic Berislav , Iturria‐Medina Yasser , Iadecola Costantino , Nishimura Nozomi , Schaffer Chris B. , Whitehead Shawn N. , Black Sandra E. , Østergaard Leif , Wardlaw Joanna , Greenberg Steven , Friberg Leif , Norrving Bo , Rowe Brian , Joanette Yves , Hacke Werner , Kuller Lewis , Dichgans Martin , Endres Matthias , Khachaturian Zaven S.
Published: July 2019

The incidence of stroke and dementia are diverging across the world, rising for those in low‐ and middle‐income countries and falling in those in high‐income countries. This suggests that whatever factors cause these trends are potentially modifiable. At the population level, neurological disorders as a group account for the largest proportion of disability‐adjusted life years globally (10%). Among neurological disorders, stroke (42%) and dementia (10%) dominate. Stroke and dementia confer risks for each other and share some of the same, largely modifiable, risk and protective factors. In principle, 90% of strokes and 35% of dementias have been estimated to be preventable. Because a stroke doubles the chance of developing dementia and stroke is more common than dementia, more than a third of dementias could be prevented by preventing stroke. Developments at the pathological, pathophysiological, and clinical level also point to new directions. Growing understanding of brain pathophysiology has unveiled the reciprocal interaction of cerebrovascular disease and neurodegeneration identifying new therapeutic targets to include protection of the endothelium, the blood‐brain barrier, and other components of the neurovascular unit. In addition, targeting amyloid angiopathy aspects of inflammation and genetic manipulation hold new testable promise. In the meantime, accumulating evidence suggests that whole populations experiencing improved education, and lower vascular risk factor profiles (e.g., reduced prevalence of smoking) and vascular disease, including stroke, have better cognitive function and lower dementia rates. At the individual levels, trials have demonstrated that anticoagulation of atrial fibrillation can reduce the risk of dementia by 48% and that systolic blood pressure lower than 140 mmHg may be better for the brain. Based on these considerations, the World Stroke Organization has issued a proclamation, endorsed by all the major international organizations focused on global brain and cardiovascular health, calling for the joint prevention of stroke and dementia. This article summarizes the evidence for translation into action.
The relative efficiency of time‐to‐progression and continuous measures of cognition in presymptomatic Alzheimer's disease
Authors: Li Dan , Iddi Samuel , Aisen Paul S. , Thompson Wesley K. , Donohue Michael C. ,   Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative
Published: July 2019

Introduction

Clinical trials on preclinical Alzheimer's disease are challenging because of the slow rate of disease progression. We use a simulation study to demonstrate that models of repeated cognitive assessments detect treatment effects more efficiently than models of time to progression.

Methods

Multivariate continuous data are simulated from a Bayesian joint mixed‐effects model fit to data from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative. Simulated progression events are algorithmically derived from the continuous assessments using a random forest model fit to the same data.

Results

We find that power is approximately doubled with models of repeated continuous outcomes compared with the time‐to‐progression analysis. The simulations also demonstrate that a plausible informative missing data pattern can induce a bias that inflates treatment effects, yet 5% type I error is maintained.

Discussion

Given the relative inefficiency of time to progression, it should be avoided as a primary analysis approach in clinical trials of preclinical Alzheimer's disease.
How to implement a robust BCDR plan
Authors: Weeks Ryan
Published: July 2019

Ransomware remains a problem and businesses in Europe are now suffering more from ransomware attacks than their global counterparts. For example, a recent survey among managed service providers (MSPs) found that 42% of European MSPs saw their small and medium-sized clients suffer multiple attacks in a single day. 1 This was higher than the global average of 35%.

Ransomware remains a problem and businesses in Europe are now suffering more from ransomware attacks than their global counterparts.

Such attacks can be crippling and are spreading to the cloud. It is essential for organisations to implement a solid business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) plan to minimise any risk of system downtime and loss of sensitive information, but they should also be aware there is no single ‘right’ approach, explains Ryan Weeks of Datto.
Making sense of the dark web
Authors: Acin Victor
Published: July 2019

At the end of April, one of the world's biggest dark websites, Dream Market, was shut down. Whatever the reasons, it's unlikely to make a serious long-term dent in what is estimated to be a trillion-dollar industry. The dark web and the cybercrime economy it facilitates are a phenomenon of our times, offering all the tools and resources that cyber criminals need to launch attacks on consumers and organisations, and a ready-made platform on which to sell their wares.
Detection of S-100β Protein in Plasma and Urine After a Mild Traumatic Brain Injury
Authors: Le Sage Natalie , Tardif Pier-Alexandre , Frenette Jérôme , Émond Marcel , Chauny Jean-Marc , Moore Lynne , Archambault Patrick , Perry Jeffrey , Boulanger-Piette Antoine
Published: July 2019

This study assessed whether S-100β protein could be measured in urine when detectable in plasma after a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). Clinical data, plasma and urine samples were collected for the 46 adult patients prospectively enrolled in the emergency department (ED) of a Level 1 trauma center. S-100β protein concentrations were analysed using ELISA. S-100β protein was detectable in 91% and 71% of plasma and urine samples, but values were not correlated (r = 0.002). Urine sampling would have been a non-invasive procedure, but it does not appear to be useful in the ED during the acute phase after an mTBI.
Online, cross-disciplinary team science training for health and medical professionals: Evaluation of COALESCE (teamscience.net)
Authors: Spring Bonnie , Klyachko Ekaterina A. , Rak Phillip W. , McFadden H. Gene , Hedeker Donald , Siddique Juned , Bardsley Leland R. , Pfammatter Angela Fidler
Published: July 2019

Introduction:

The National Academies of Sciences (NAS) emphasize the need for interdisciplinary team science (TS) training, but few training resources are available. COALESCE, an open-access tool developed with National Institutes of Health support and located at teamscience.net, is considered a gold standard resource but has not previously been evaluated. COALESCE launched four learning modules in 2011. The Science of TS (SciTS) module, an interactive encyclopedia, introduces foundational concepts. Three scenario-based modules simulate TS challenges in behavioral, clinical, and basic biomedical sciences. This study examined user characteristics, usage patterns, and effects of completing the four modules on TS knowledge, attitudes, and skills.

Methods:

Repeated measures ANOVA tested for pre-post changes in performance and compared learning by users with biomedical versus other disciplinary backgrounds.

Results:

From 2011 through 2017, the site attracted 16,280 new users who engaged in 6461 sessions that lasted more than 1 min. The modal registrant identified as working in a biomedical field (47%), in an academic institution (72%), and expressed greater interest in the practice than the SciTS (67%). Those completing pre- and post-tests (n = 989) showed significant improvement in knowledge, attitudes, and skills after taking all scenario-based modules (p < 0.005); knowledge and attitudes were unchanged after the SciTS encyclopedia. Biomedical and other health professionals improved comparably.

Conclusion:

Evaluation of the TS training tool at teamscience.net indicates broad dissemination and positive TS-related outcomes. Site upgrades implemented between 2018 and 2020, including adding five new modules, are expected to increase the robustness and accessibility of the COALESCE training resource.
Mining the Past: A Report of Four Archival Repositories in Zambia
Authors: Munene Hyden
Published: July 2019

Researchers and scholars have written on the history of mining in Zambia using a variety of sources and archives. But much of the history written from local archives has relied heavily on the National Archives of Zambia. Yet, important archival holdings for researchers of the history of Zambia’s mining industry also exist in the Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines Archive, the United National Independence Party Archive, and in the Mineworkers’ Union of Zambia Headquarters. These repositories house rich collections of data invaluable for understanding Zambia’s mining industry. Covering the period from the 1890s to the present, these archives make possible new questions and interpretations of Zambia’s mining industry.
Study of wave effect on vorticity in Langmuir turbulence using wave-phase-resolved large-eddy simulation
Authors: Xuan Anqing , Deng Bing-Qing , Shen Lian
Published: July 2019

The effects of a water surface wave on the vorticity in the turbulence underneath are studied for Langmuir turbulence using wave-phase-resolved large-eddy simulation. The simulations are performed on a dynamically evolving wave-surface-fitted grid such that the phase-resolved wave motions and their effects on the turbulence are explicitly captured. This study focuses on the vorticity structures and dynamics in Langmuir turbulence driven by a steady and co-aligned progressive wave and surface shear stress. For the first time, the detailed vorticity dynamics of the wave–turbulence interaction in Langmuir turbulence in a wave-phase-resolved frame is revealed. The wave-phase-resolved simulation provides detailed descriptions of many characteristic features of Langmuir turbulence, such as elongated quasi-streamwise vortices. The simulation also reveals the variation of the strength and the inclination angles of the vortices with the wave phase. The variation is found to be caused by the periodic stretching and tilting of the wave orbital straining motions. The cumulative effect of the wave on the wave-phase-averaged vorticity is analysed using the Lagrangian average. It is discovered that, in addition to the tilting effect induced by the Lagrangian mean shear gradient of the wave, the phase correlation between the vorticity fluctuations and the wave orbital straining is also important to the cumulative vorticity evolution. Both the fluctuation correlation effect and the mean tilting effect are found to amplify the streamwise vorticity. On the other hand, for the vertical vorticity, the fluctuation correlation effect cancels the mean tilting effect, and the net change of the vertical vorticity by the wave straining is negligible. As a result, the wave straining enhances only the streamwise vorticity and cumulatively tilts vertical vortices towards the streamwise direction. The above processes are further quantified analytically. The role of the fluctuation correlation effect in the wave-phase-averaged vorticity dynamics provides a deeper understanding of the physical processes underlying the wave–turbulence interaction in Langmuir turbulence.
Dilute suspension of neutrally buoyant particles in viscoelastic turbulent channel flow
Authors: Esteghamatian Amir , Zaki Tamer A.
Published: July 2019

Direct numerical simulations of viscoelastic turbulent channel flow laden with neutrally buoyant spherical particles are performed. Two FENE-P viscoelastic and one Newtonian fluid are examined, and for each the particle-laden configuration is contrasted to a reference condition without seeding. The size of the particles is larger than the dissipation length scale, and their presence enhances drag in a manner that is intrinsically different in the viscoelastic and Newtonian flows. While the particles effectively suppress the turbulence activity, they significantly enhance the polymer stresses. The polymer chains are markedly stretched in the vicinity of the particles, altering the correlation between the turbulence and polymer work that is commonly observed in single-phase viscoelastic turbulence. At the lower elasticity, the particles enhance the cycle of hibernating and active turbulence and, in turn, their migration and volume-fraction profiles are qualitatively altered by the intermittency of the turbulence. Particle–fluid momentum transfer is investigated by estimating the local fluid field on a trimmed spherical shell around the individual particles. And by comparing the particle microstructures, a lower probability of particle alignment in the streamwise direction is observed in the viscoelastic configuration. This effect is attributed to a qualitative difference in the conditionally averaged velocity fields in the vicinity of the particles in the Newtonian and viscoelastic flows.
Online in situ prediction of 3-D flame evolution from its history 2-D projections via deep learning
Authors: Huang Jianqing , Liu Hecong , Cai Weiwei
Published: July 2019

Online in situ prediction of 3-D flame evolution has been long desired and is considered to be the Holy Grail for the combustion community. Recent advances in computational power have facilitated the development of computational fluid dynamics (CFD), which can be used to predict flame behaviours. However, the most advanced CFD techniques are still incapable of realizing online in situ prediction of practical flames due to the enormous computational costs involved. In this work, we aim to combine the state-of-the-art experimental technique (that is, time-resolved volumetric tomography) with deep learning algorithms for rapid prediction of 3-D flame evolution. Proof-of-concept experiments conducted suggest that the evolution of both a laminar diffusion flame and a typical non-premixed turbulent swirl-stabilized flame can be predicted faithfully in a time scale on the order of milliseconds, which can be further reduced by simply using a few more GPUs. We believe this is the first time that online in situ prediction of 3-D flame evolution has become feasible, and we expect this method to be extremely useful, as for most application scenarios the online in situ prediction of even the large-scale flame features are already useful for an effective flame control.
Interrogating the Penal Pendulum: An Introduction to the Review Symposium on Breaking the Pendulum: The Long Struggle Over Criminal Justice
Authors: Rubin Ashley T.
Published: July 2019

This Essay introduces a Review Symposium for Philip Goodman, Joshua Page, and Michelle Phelps’sBreaking the Pendulum, a book that challenges the centrality of the pendulum metaphor that scholars, journalists, and politicians have used to describe significant shifts in the overall orientation of punishment nationwide. Drawing on recent research, Goodman, Page, and Phelps lay out the case for abandoning this metaphor as well as its associated theory of penal change, offering in its place an “agonistic perspective.” Using this agonistic perspective as well as research on the topic, I suggest some reasons why the pendulum metaphor may still be a fruitful site of interrogation. Specifically, I argue that, while recognizing the caveats illustrated by Goodman, Page, and Phelps, we should take seriously the pendular pattern of US penal history told at the national level and we should not dismiss the mechanical causes of penal change in our efforts to populate theories and accounts of penal change with individual and group actors.
NEW GLOBAL LOGARITHMIC STABILITY RESULTS ON THE CAUCHY PROBLEM FOR ELLIPTIC EQUATIONS
Authors: CHOULLI MOURAD
Published: July 2019

We prove the global logarithmic stability of the Cauchy problem for $H^{2}$-solutions of an anisotropic elliptic equation in a Lipschitz domain. The result is based on existing techniques used to establish stability estimates for the Cauchy problem combined with related tools used to study an inverse medium problem.
Nutrient intake is a predictor of lung function in obese asthmatic adolescents undergoing interdisciplinary therapy
Authors: Rodrigues Lydiane C. , Mota João F. , Corgosinho Flávia C. , Masquio Deborah C. L. , Dâmaso Ana R. , Tufik Sérgio , de Mello Marco T. , Cheik Nádia C. , da Silva Agostinho Patrícia L.
Published: July 2019

Asthma-obesity is a multifactorial disease with specific asthma phenotypes that aggravate due to overweight and an unbalanced diet. Furthermore, obese asthmatic patients are corticotherapy-resistant. Therefore, the aims of the present study were to evaluate the effects of an interdisciplinary intervention on food consumption, body composition, lung function and adipokines in asthmatic and non-asthmatic obese adolescents and to investigate the influence of nutrients on lung function. Obese non-asthmatic (n 42) and obese asthmatic (n 21) adolescents of both sexes were enrolled in the present study. Food intake, adipokine levels, body composition, asthma symptoms and lung function were assessed across the study. After the intervention of 1 year, there was a reduction (P ≤ 0·01) in BMI, body fat percentage, visceral and subcutaneous fat and an increase (P ≤ 0·01) in lean mass and all lung function variables in both groups, except the relation between forced expiratory volume in 1 s and forced vital capacity (FEV1:FVC) in non-asthmatic patients. Moreover, both groups decreased lipid and cholesterol consumption (P ≤ 0·01). The highest energy consumption (β = −0·021) was associated with lower values of FVC. Similarly, carbohydrate consumption (β = −0·06) and cholesterol were negative predictors (β = −0·05) in FEV1:FVC. However, the consumption of Ca (β = 0·01), fibres (β = 1·34) and vitamin A (β = 0·01) were positive predictors of FEV1:FVC. Asthma-obesity interdisciplinary treatment promoted an improvement on food consumption and lung function in adolescents and demonstrated that the consumption of nutrients influenced an increase in lung function.
What Motivates an Oligarchic Elite to Democratize? Evidence from the Roll Call Vote on the Great Reform Act of 1832
Authors: Aidt Toke S. , Franck Raphaël
Published: July 2019

The Great Reform Act of 1832 was a watershed for democracy in Great Britain. We study the vote on 22 March 1831 in the House of Commons to test three competing theories of democratization: public opinion, political expedience, and threat of revolution. Peaceful agitation and mass-support for reform played an important role. Political expedience also motivated some members of Parliament to support the reform, especially if they were elected in constituencies located in counties that would gain seats. Violent unrest in urban but not in rural areas had some influence on the members of Parliament. Counterfactual scenarios suggest that the reform bill would not have obtained a majority in the House of Commons in the absence of these factors.
Work-related musculoskeletal symptoms in otorhinolaryngology and their relationship with physical activity. A nationwide survey
Authors: Lobo D , Gandarillas M A , Sánchez-Gómez S , Megía R
Published: July 2019

Objective

The main objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of work-related musculoskeletal symptoms in otolaryngology and head and neck surgery specialists and trainees in Spain, and to measure the effect that physical exercise could have on muscular discomfort.

Method

A cross-sectional survey was administered between September and December 2017 to practising otolaryngologists.

Results

Four hundred and three ENT surgeons responded, with a median age of 44.9 years, and 89.8 per cent reported discomfort or physical symptoms that they attributed to surgical practice. More female surgeons reported musculoskeletal symptoms (92.8 per centvs87.1 per cent;p= 0.04). When the level of physical activity was compared with the frequency of physical discomfort, no significant difference was found.

Conclusion

This study has shown a high prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders among ENT surgeons in Spain but has failed to demonstrate an important role of physical exercise in the prevention of musculoskeletal disorders.
Listening to People: Using Social Psychology to Spotlight an Overlooked Virtue
Authors: Notess Susan E
Published: July 2019

I offer a novel interdisciplinary approach to understanding the communicative task of listening, which is under-theorised compared to its more conspicuous counterpart, speech. By correlating a Rylean view of mental actions with a virtue ethical framework, I show listeners’ internal activity as a morally relevant feature of how they treat people. The listener employs a policy of responsiveness in managing the extent to which they allow a speaker's voice to be centred within their more effortful, engaged attention. A just listener's policy of responsiveness avoids unwarrantedly dismissing speakers’ messages on the basis of peripheral attention alone.
Above and beyond the concrete: The diverse representational substrates of the predictive brain
Authors: Gilead Michael , Trope Yaacov , Liberman Nira
Published: July 2019

In recent years, scientists have increasingly taken to investigate the predictive nature of cognition. We argue that prediction relies on abstraction, and thus theories of predictive cognition need an explicit theory of abstract representation. We propose such a theory of the abstract representational capacities that allow humans to transcend the “here-and-now.” Consistent with the predictive cognition literature, we suggest that the representational substrates of the mind are built as ahierarchy, ranging from the concrete to the abstract; however, we argue that there are qualitative differences between elements along this hierarchy, generating meaningful, often unacknowledged,diversity.Echoing views from philosophy, we suggest that the representational hierarchy can be parsed into:modality-specificrepresentations, instantiated on perceptual similarity;multimodalrepresentations, instantiated primarily on the discovery of spatiotemporal contiguity; andcategoricalrepresentations, instantiated primarily on social interaction. These elements serve as the building blocks ofcomplex structures discussed in cognitive psychology (e.g., episodes, scripts) and are the inputs for mental representations that behave like functions, typically discussed in linguistics (i.e.,predicators). We support our argument for representational diversity by explaining how the elements in our ontology are all required to account for humans’ predictive cognition (e.g., in subserving logic-based prediction; in optimizing the trade-off between accurate and detailed predictions) and by examining how the neuroscientific evidence coheres with our account. In doing so, we provide a testable model of the neural bases of conceptual cognition and highlight several important implications to research on self-projection, reinforcement learning, and predictive-processing models of psychopathology.
Cognitive decline and distinction: a new line of fracture in later life?
Authors: Libert Sébastien , Charlesworth Georgina , Higgs Paul
Published: July 2019

Cognitive decline and dementia have become major concerns for many individuals reaching later life within contemporary Western societies. This fear of decline is central to the social divide between the third age embodying ideals of maintained health, activity and lifestyle choices, and the fourth age, a social imaginary encompassing the irreversible decline associated with ageing. In this article, we explore how brain-training technologies have become successful by relying on tensions between the third and fourth ages. We review current debates on the concepts contained in brain training and examine the emphasis on the moral virtue of ‘training the brain’ in later life as an extension of fitness and health management. We underline the limited consideration given to social positioning within old age itself in the literature. We further argue that using brain-training devices can support a distancing from intimations of dementia; a condition associated with an ‘ageing without agency’. Drawing on Bourdieu, we use the concept of distinction to describe this process of social positioning. We discuss the impact that such ‘technologies of distinction’ can have on people with dementia by ‘othering’ them. We conclude that the issue of distinction within later life, particularly within the field of cognitive decline, is an important aspect of the current culture of active cognitive ageing.
Ageing in extra-care housing: preparation, persistence and self-management at the boundary between the third and fourth age
Authors: Johnson Eleanor K. , Cameron Ailsa , Lloyd Liz , Evans Simon , Darton Robin , Smith Randall , Atkinson Teresa , Porteus Jeremy
Published: July 2019

Extra-care housing (ECH) has been hailed as a potential solution to some of the problems associated with traditional forms of social care, since it allows older people to live independently, while also having access to care and support if required. However, little longitudinal research has focused on the experiences of residents living in ECH, particularly in recent years. This paper reports on a longitudinal study of four ECH schemes in the United Kingdom. Older residents living in ECH were interviewed four times over a two-year period to examine how changes in their care needs were encountered and negotiated by care workers, managers and residents themselves. This paper focuses on how residents managed their own changing care needs within the context of ECH. Drawing upon theories of the third and fourth age, the paper makes two arguments. First, that transitions across the boundary between the third and fourth age are not always straightforward or irreversible and, moreover, can sometimes be resisted, planned-for and managed by older people. Second, that operational practices within ECH schemes can function to facilitate or impede residents’ attempts to manage this boundary.
Attitudes, knowledge and beliefs about dementia: focus group discussions with Pakistani adults in Karachi and Lahore
Authors: Farina Nicolas , Zaidi Asghar , Willis Rosalind , Balouch Sara
Published: July 2019

Pakistan is a lower middle-income country, which to date has had very little research and policy making to address the challenge of dementia. This study aims to explore the perceptions of dementia in a group of Pakistani adults. A series of focus group discussions were completed during 2017 with men and women in two metropolitan centres in Pakistan (Lahore and Karachi) (N = 40). Two vignettes, depicting someone with mild dementia and someone with severe dementia, were used to facilitate discussions. An induction-led thematic analysis was completed. Five themes were identified, reflecting (a) dementia awareness, (b) responsibility, (c) barriers to health care, (d) identified support needs, and (e) religion. Most participants had little awareness and knowledge about dementia, commonly understood to be a disease of forgetting or just normal ageing. Thus, there is an urgent need of a nation-wide campaign to raise dementia awareness in Pakistan, though this needs to be accompanied by improved, accessible health and social care services.
Path Planning Aware of Robot’s Center of Mass for Steep Slope Vineyards
Authors: Santos Luís , Santos Filipe , Mendes Jorge , Costa Pedro , Lima José , Reis Ricardo , Shinde Pranjali
Published: July 2019

Steep slope vineyards are a complex scenario for the development of ground robots. Planning a safe robot trajectory is one of the biggest challenges in this scenario, characterized by irregular surfaces and strong slopes (more than 35°). Moving the robot through a pile of stones, spots with high slope or/and with wrong robot yaw may result in an abrupt fall of the robot, damaging the equipment and centenary vines, and sometimes imposing injuries to humans. This paper presents a novel approach for path planning aware of center of mass of the robot for application in sloppy terrains. Agricultural robotic path planning (AgRobPP) is a framework that considers the A* algorithm by expanding inner functions to deal with three main inputs: multi-layer occupation grid map, altitude map and robot’s center of mass. This multi-layer grid map is updated by obstacles taking into account the terrain slope and maximum robot posture. AgRobPP is also extended with algorithms for local trajectory replanning during the execution of a trajectory that is blocked by the presence of an obstacle, always assuring the safety of the re-planned path. AgRobPP has a novel PointCloud translator algorithm called PointCloud to grid map and digital elevation model (PC2GD), which extracts the occupation grid map and digital elevation model from a PointCloud. This can be used in AgRobPP core algorithms and farm management intelligent systems as well. AgRobPP algorithms demonstrate a great performance with the real data acquired from AgRob V16, a robotic platform developed for autonomous navigation in steep slope vineyards.
Pastoral production is associated with increasedpeste des petits ruminantsseroprevalence in northern Tanzania across sheep, goats and cattle
Authors: Herzog C. M. , de Glanville W. A. , Willett B. J. , Kibona T. J. , Cattadori I. M. , Kapur V. , Hudson P. J. , Buza J. , Cleaveland S. , Bjørnstad O. N.
Published: July 2019

Peste des petits ruminantsvirus (PPRV) causes a contagious disease of high morbidity and mortality in small ruminant populations globally. Using cross-sectional serosurvey data collected in 2016, our study investigated PPRV seroprevalence and risk factors among sheep, goats and cattle in 20 agropastoral (AP) and pastoral (P) villages in northern Tanzania. Overall observed seroprevalence was 21.1% (95% exact confidence interval (CI) 20.1–22.0) with 5.8% seroprevalence among agropastoral (95% CI 5.0–6.7) and 30.7% among pastoral villages (95% CI 29.3–32.0). Seropositivity varied significantly by management (production) system. Our study applied the catalytic framework to estimate the force of infection. The associated reproductive numbers (R0) were estimated at 1.36 (95% CI 1.32–1.39), 1.40 (95% CI 1.37–1.44) and 1.13 (95% CI 1.11–1.14) for sheep, goats and cattle, respectively. For sheep and goats, these R0values are likely underestimates due to infection-associated mortality. Spatial heterogeneity in risk among pairs of species across 20 villages was significantly positively correlated (R2: 0.59–0.69), suggesting either cross-species transmission or common, external risk factors affecting all species. The non-negligible seroconversion in cattle may represent spillover or cattle-to-cattle transmission and must be investigated further to understand the role of cattle in PPRV transmission ahead of upcoming eradication efforts.
High potassium seawater inhibits ascidian sperm chemotaxis, but does not affect the male gamete chemotaxis of a brown alga
Authors: Kinoshita-Terauchi Nana , Shiba Kogiku , Terauchi Makoto , Romero Francisco , Ramírez-Gómez Héctor Vincente , Yoshida Manabu , Motomura Taizo , Kawai Hiroshi , Nishigaki Takuya
Published: July 2019

Male gamete chemotaxis towards the female gamete is a general strategy to facilitate the sexual reproduction in many marine eukaryotes. Biochemical studies of chemoattractants for male gametes of brown algae have advanced in the 1970s and 1980s, but the molecular mechanism of male gamete responses to the attractants remains elusive. In sea urchin, a K+channel called the tetraKCNG channel plays a fundamental role in sperm chemotaxis and inhibition of K+efflux through this channel by high K+seawater blocks almost all cell responses to the chemoattractant. This signalling mechanism could be conserved in marine invertebrates as tetraKCNG channels are conserved in the marine invertebrates that exhibit sperm chemotaxis. We confirmed that high K+seawater also inhibited sperm chemotaxis in ascidian,Ciona intestinalis(robusta), in this study. Conversely, the male gamete chemotaxis towards the female gamete of a brown alga,Mutimo cylindricus, was preserved even in high K+seawater. This result indicates that none of the K+channels is essential for male gamete chemotaxis in the brown alga, suggesting that the signalling mechanism for chemotaxis in this brown alga is quite different from that of marine invertebrates. Correlated to this result, we revealed that the channels previously proposed as homologues of tetraKCNG in brown algae have a distinct domain composition from that of the tetraKCNG. Namely, one of them possesses two repeats of the six transmembrane segments (diKCNG) instead of four. The structural analysis suggests that diKCNG is a cyclic nucleotide-modulated and/or voltage-gated K+channel.
Combining n-grams and deep convolutional features for language variety classification
Authors: Martinc Matej , Pollak Senja
Published: July 2019

This paper presents a novel neural architecture capable of outperforming state-of-the-art systems on the task of language variety classification. The architecture is a hybrid that combines character-based convolutional neural network (CNN) features with weighted bag-of-n-grams (BON) features and is therefore capable of leveraging both character-level and document/corpus-level information. We tested the system on the Discriminating between Similar Languages (DSL) language variety benchmark data set from the VarDial 2017 DSL shared task, which contains data from six different language groups, as well as on two smaller data sets (the Arabic Dialect Identification (ADI) Corpus and the German Dialect Identification (GDI) Corpus, from the VarDial 2016 ADI and VarDial 2018 GDI shared tasks, respectively). We managed to outperform the winning system in the DSL shared task by a margin of about 0.4 percentage points and the winning system in the ADI shared task by a margin of about 0.2 percentage points in terms of weighted F1 score without conducting any language group-specific parameter tweaking. An ablation study suggests that weighted BON features contribute more to the overall performance of the system than the CNN-based features, which partially explains the uncompetitiveness of deep learning approaches in the past VarDial DSL shared tasks. Finally, we have implemented our system in a workflow, available in the ClowdFlows platform, in order to make it easily available also to the non-programming members of the research community.
Caffeinated energy drinks: adverse event reports to the US Food and Drug Administration and the National Poison Data System, 2008 to 2015
Authors: Markon André O , Jones Olivia E , Punzalan Cecile M , Lurie Peter , Wolpert Beverly
Published: July 2019

Objective:

To describe and compare caffeinated energy drink adverse event (AE) report/exposure call data from the US Food and Drug Administration Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition’s Adverse Event Reporting System (CAERS) and the American Association of Poison Control Centers’ National Poison Data System (NPDS).

Design:

Cross-sectional.

Setting:

Data were evaluated from US-based CAERS reports and NPDS exposure calls, including report/exposure call year, age, sex, location, single v. multiple product consumption, outcome, symptom, intentionality (NPDS only), report type, product name (CAERS only).

Participants:

The analysis defined participants (cases) by the number of caffeinated energy drink products indicated in each AE report or exposure call. Single product cases included 357 from CAERS and 12 822 from NPDS; multiple product cases included 153 from CAERS and 931 from NPDS.

Results:

CAERS v. NPDS single product cases were older and more frequently indicated serious symptoms. Multiple v. single product consumers were older in both. In CAERS, unlike NPDS, most multiple product consumers were female. CAERS single v. multiple product reports cited higher proportions of life-threatening events, but less often indicated hospitalization and serious events. NPDS multiple v. single product cases involved fewer ≤5-year-olds and were more often intentional.

Conclusions:

Despite limitations, both data sources contribute to post-market surveillance and improve understanding of public health concerns.
Does characterising patterns of multimorbidity in stroke matter for developing collaborative care approaches in primary care?
Authors: Aquino Maria Raisa Jessica (Ryc) V , Turner Grace M , Mant Jonathan
Published: July 2019

Stroke and transient ischaemic attack (TIA) remain leading causes of mortality and morbidity globally. Although mortality rates have been in decline, the number of people affected by stroke has risen. These patients have a range of long-term needs and often present to primary care. Furthermore, many of these patients have multimorbidities which increase the complexity of their healthcare. Long-term impacts from stroke/TIA along with care needs for other morbidities can be challenging to address because care can involve different healthcare professionals, both specialist and generalist. In the ideal model of care, such professionals would work collaboratively to provide care. Despite the commonality of multimorbidity in stroke/TIA, gaps in the literature remain, particularly limited knowledge of pairings or clusters of comorbid conditions and the extent to which these are interrelated. Moreover, integrated care practices are less well understood and remain variable in practice. This article argues that it is important to understand (through research) patterns of multimorbidity, including number, common clusters and types of comorbidities, and current interprofessional practice to inform future directions to improve long-term care.
Predator-prey behaviour in self-replicating interstellar probes
Authors: Forgan Duncan H.
Published: July 2019

The concept of a rapid spread of self-replicating interstellar probes (SRPs) throughout the Milky Way adds considerable strength to Fermi's Paradox. A single civilization creating a single SRP is sufficient for a fleet of SRPs to grow and explore the entire Galaxy on timescales much shorter than the age of the Earth – so why do we see no signs of such probes? One solution to this Paradox suggests that self-replicating probes eventually undergo replication errors and evolve into predator-prey populations, reducing the total number of probes and removing them from our view.

I apply Lotka-Volterra models of predator-prey competition to interstellar probes navigating a network of stars in the Galactic Habitable Zone to investigate this scenario. I find that depending on the local growth mode of both populations and the flow of predators/prey between stars, there are many stable solutions with relatively large numbers of prey probes inhabiting the Milky Way. The solutions can exhibit the classic oscillatory pattern of Lotka-Volterra systems, but this depends sensitively on the input parameters. Typically, local and global equilibria are established with prey sometimes outnumbering the predators. Accordingly, we find this solution to Fermi's Paradox does not reduce the probe population sufficiently to be viable.