bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Severe, Symptomatic, Self-limited Unilateral DBS Lead Edema Following Bilateral Subthalamic Nucleus Implantation
Authors: Gerard Carter S. , Metman Leo Verhagen , Pal Gian , Karl Jessica , Sani Sepehr
Published: June 2016

Introduction:

Symptomatic edema around a deep-brain stimulation (DBS) lead is a rare complication of DBS surgery. Although this phenomenon is not fully understood, clinical presentation of DBS lead edema can be severe enough to prompt treatment. There is a paucity of literature on the clinical course and treatment of DBS lead edema.

Case Report:

We present a 65-year-old man with Parkinson disease who developed unilateral DBS lead edema after bilateral subthalamic nucleus lead placement. Infectious, inflammatory, and ischemic causes were thoroughly investigated and ruled out. Clinical symptoms and radiographic changes all returned to normal with supportive care alone.

Conclusions:

Lead edema is a rare complication after DBS surgery. It is important to recognize the benign clinical course of DBS lead edema to counsel patients and avoid unnecessary treatment such as hardware removal.
Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP)
Authors: Marin Collazo I. Vanessa , Tatum William O.
Published: June 2016

Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) is a devastating direct epilepsy-related cause of death. Although its occurrence has some risk factors, it is unanticipated and very traumatic to the families of affected patients. Effective preventive measures for SUDEP are lacking; therefore, efforts are directed at modifiable risk factors. The majority of caregivers of patients with epilepsy and SUDEP wish they would have known more about the topic before the terminal event. SUDEP is a difficult topic for physicians and clearly even more challenging to discuss with patients and caregivers. The pathophysiology of SUDEP is controversial, but awareness should be raised despite individual opinions. During the last decade SUDEP has received substantial attention, and efforts are being made to increase worldwide awareness. The American Epilepsy Society and Epilepsy Foundation Joint Task force, National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, and the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network recommend educating patients about SUDEP. Education will potentially help meet treatment goals, promote better patient-physician rapport, decrease anxiety and fear, serve as a filter for inaccurate information, and lessen grief and blame in the families of patients affected by SUDEP. This article will cover a literature review on SUDEP, epidemiology, risk factors, proposed mechanism, potential interventions, physician practices and suggested measurements, and public websites designed to increase SUDEP awareness.
Next-generation sequencing identifies novel gene variants and pathways involved in specific language impairment
Authors: Chen Xiaowei Sylvia , Reader Rose H. , Hoischen Alexander , Veltman Joris A. , Simpson Nuala H. ,   SLI Consortium, Francks Clyde , Newbury Dianne F. , Fisher Simon E.
Published: June 2016

A significant proportion of children suffer from unexplained problems acquiring proficient linguistic skills despite adequate intelligence and opportunity. These developmental speech and language disorders are highly heritable and have a substantial impact on society. Molecular studies have begun to identify candidate loci, but much of the underlying genetic architecture remains undetermined. Here, we performed whole exome sequencing of 43 unrelated probands affected by severe forms of specific language impairment, followed by independent validations with Sanger sequencing, and analyses of segregation patterns in parents and siblings, to try to shed new light on the aetiology of the disorder. By first focusing on a pre-defined set of known candidates from the literature, we identified potentially pathogenic variants in genes already implicated in diverse language-related syndromes, includingERC1, GRIN2A, andSRPX2. Complementary analyses suggested novel putative candidate genes carrying validated variants which were predicted to have functional effects, such asOXR1, SCN9AandKMT2D. We also searched for potential “multiple-hit” cases; one proband carried a rareAUTS2variant in combination with a rare inherited haplotype affectingSTARD9, while another carried a novel nonsynonymous variant inSEMA6Dtogether with a rare stop-gain inSYNPR. When we broadened our scope to all rare and novel variants throughout the exomes, we identified several biological themes that were enriched for such variants, most notably microtubule transport and cytoskeletal regulation.
Breaking Lander-Waterman’s Coverage Bound
Authors: Nashtaali D. , Motahari S.A. , Khalaj B.H.
Published: June 2016

Lander-Waterman’s coverage bound establishes the total number of reads required to cover the whole genome of sizeGbases. In fact, their bound is a direct consequence of the well-known solution to the coupon collector’s problem which proves that for such genome, the total number of bases to be sequenced should beO(GlnG). Although the result leads to a tight bound, it is based on a tacit assumption that the set of reads are first collected through a sequencing process and then are processed through a computation process, i.e., there are two different machines: one for sequencing and one for processing. In this paper, we present a significant improvement compared to Lander-Waterman’s result and prove that by combining the sequencing and computing processes, one can re-sequence the whole genome with as low asO(G) sequenced bases in total. Our approach also dramatically reduces the required computational power for the combined process. Simulation results are performed on real genomes with different sequencing error rates. The results support our theory predicting the logGimprovement on coverage bound and corresponding reduction in the total number of bases required to be sequenced.
Optimal inventorying and monitoring of taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional diversity
Authors: Cardoso Pedro , Arnedo Miquel A. , Macías-Hernández Nuria , Carvalho William D. , Carvalho José C. , Hilário Renato
Published: June 2016

Comparable data is essential to understand biodiversity patterns. While inventorying requires comprehensive sampling, monitoring focuses on as few components as possible to detect changes. Quantifying species, their evolutionary history, and the way they interact claims for studying changes in taxonomic (TD), phylogenetic (PD) and functional diversity (FD). Here we propose a method for the optimization of sampling protocols for inventorying and monitoring diversity across these three diversity dimensions taking sampling costs into account.

We used Iberian spiders, Amazonian bats and Atlantic Forest mammals as three case-studies. The optimal combination of methods for inventorying and monitoring required optimizing the accumulation curve of α-diversity and minimizing the difference between sampled and estimated β-diversity (bias), respectively.

For Iberian spiders, the optimal combination for TD, PD and FD allowed sampling at least 50% of estimated diversity with 24 person-hours of fieldwork. The optimal combination of six person-hours allowed reaching a bias below 8% for all dimensions. For Amazonian bats, surveying all the 12 sites with mist-nets and 0 or 1 acoustic recorders was the optimal combination for almost all diversity types, resulting in >89% of the diversity and <10% bias with roughly a third of the cost. Only for phylogenetic α-diversity, the best solution was less clear and involved surveying both with mist nets and acoustic recorders. For Atlantic Forest mammals the optimal combination to assess all types of α- and β-diversity was to walk all the 10 transects and no camera traps, which returned >95% of the diversity and <5% bias with a third of the costs.

The widespread use of optimized and standardized sampling protocols and regular repetition in time will radically improve global inventory and monitoring of biodiversity. We strongly advocate for the global adoption of sampling protocols for both inventory and monitoring of taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional diversity.
Evaluating the Evaluation of Cancer Driver Genes
Authors: Tokheim Collin J. , Papadopoulis Nickolas , Kinzler Kenneth W. , Vogelstein Bert , Karchin Rachel
Published: June 2016

Sequencing has identified millions of somatic mutations in human cancers, but distinguishing cancer driver genes remains a major challenge. Numerous methods have been developed to identify driver genes, but evaluation of the performance of these methods is hindered by the lack of a gold standard, i.e., bona fide driver gene mutations. Here, we establish an evaluation framework that can be applied when a gold standard is not available. We used this framework to compare the performance of eight driver gene prediction methods. One of these methods, newly described here, incorporated a machine learning-based ratiometric approach. We show that the driver genes predicted by each of these eight methods vary widely. Moreover, the p-values reported by several of the methods were inconsistent with the uniform values expected, thus calling into question the assumptions that were used to generate them. Finally, we evaluated the potential effects of unexplained variability in mutation rates on false positive driver gene predictions. Our analysis points to the strengths and weaknesses of each of the currently available methods and offers guidance for improving them in the future.

Significance

Modern large-scale sequencing of human cancers seeks to comprehensively discover mutated genes that confer a selective advantage to cancer cells. Key to this effort has been development of computational algorithms to find genes that drive cancer, based on their patterns of mutation in large patient cohorts. However, since there is no generally accepted gold standard of driver genes, it has been difficult to quantitatively compare these methods. We present a new machine learning method for driver gene prediction and a rigorous protocol to evaluate and compare prediction methods. Our results suggest that most current methods do not adequately account for heterogeneity in the number of mutations expected by chance and consequently have many false positive calls. The problem is most acute for cancers with high mutation rates and comprehensive discovery of drivers in these cancers may be more difficult than currently anticipated.
The ATP synthase subunit β (ATP5B) is an entry factor for the hepatitis E virus
Authors: Ahmed Zulfazal , Holla Prasida , Ahmad Imran , Jameel Shahid
Published: June 2016

Hepatitis E occurs sporadically and as outbreaks due to contamination of drinking water. The causative agent, hepatitis E virus (HEV) is a hepatotropic non-enveloped RNA virus, which grows poorlyin vitro.Consequently, many aspects of HEV biology are poorly characterized, including its cellular receptor and entry mechanism(s). Previous studies from our laboratory have shown that heparan sulfate proteoglycans (HSPGs) act as attachment factors for the virus. In the absence of purified high titer infectious virus, we have used hepatitis E virus-like particles (HEV-LPs) expressed and purified fromE. colito identify HEV entry factor(s) on liver cells in culture. Using a pull down and mass spectrometric approach, we identified the ATP synthase subunit β (ATP5B) to bind the HEV capsid protein. Its role in the entry of HEV was then validated using antibody and siRNA mediated approaches, and infectious HEV from the stools of a hepatitis E patient. Though ATP synthase is largely a mitochondrial protein, the cell surface expressed form of ATP5B is implicated in other viral infections.
Crystal structure of non-centrosymmetric bis(4-methoxybenzylammonium) tetrachloridozincate
Authors: Mahbouli Rhouma Najla , Rayes Ali , Mezzadri Francesco , Calestani Gianluca , Loukil Mohamed
Published: June 2016

The structure of the title non-centrosymmetric organic–inorganic hybrid salt, (C8H12NO)2[ZnCl4], consists of two 4-methoxybenzylammonium cations sandwiched between anionic layers, formed by isolated tetrachloridozincate tetrahedra. The double layers extend parallel to theacplane. The crystal packing is assured by Coulombic interactions and by a complex N—H...Cl and C—H...Cl hydrogen-bonding system mostly involving the positively charged ammonium groups and the chloride ligands of the isolated tetrahedral [ZnCl4]2−units. One of the methyleneammonium groups is disordered over two sets of sites in a 0.48 (2):0.52 (2) ratio. The crystal investigated was twinned by non-merohedry with a twin component ratio of 0.738 (2):0.262 (2).
Crystal structure of 4-amino-5-chloro-2,6-dimethylpyrimidinium thiophene-2,5-dicarboxylate
Authors: Rajam Ammaiyappan , Thomas Muthiah Packianathan , Butcher Ray J. , Zeller Matthias
Published: June 2016

In the title salt, C6H9ClN3+·C6H3O4S−, the cations and anions are linkedviaO—H...O and N—H...O hydrogen bonds, formingR66(37) ring motifs that are interconnected with each other, producing sheets. Separate parallel inversion-related sheets are linked through N—H...N and π–π stacking interactions [centroid–centroid distance = 3.5414 (13) Å], forming double layers parallel to (101). Weak C—H...O and C—H...S hydrogen bonds, as well as C—H...π interactions, connect the double layers into a three-dimensional network.
Crystal structure of bis(N,N,N′,N′-tetramethylguanidinium) tetrachloridocuprate(II)
Authors: Ndiaye Mamadou , Samb Abdoulaye , Diop Libasse , Maris Thierry
Published: June 2016

In the structure of the title salt, (C5H14N3)2[CuCl4], the CuIIatom in the anion lies on a twofold rotation axis. The tetrachloridocuprate(II) anion adopts a flattened tetrahedral coordination environment and interacts electrostatically with the tetramethylguanidinium cation. The crystal packing is additionally consolidated through N—H...Cl and C—H...Cl hydrogen bonds, resulting in a three-dimensional network structure.
4,4′-([4,4′-Bipyridine]-1,1′-diium-1,1′-diyl)dibenzoate dihydrate
Authors: Rodriguez Mark A. , Sava Gallis Dorina F. , Chavez James S. , Klivansky Liana M. , Liu Yi
Published: June 2016

We report here the synthesis of a neutral viologen derivative, C24H16N2O4·2H2O. The non-solvent portion of the structure (Z-Lig) is a zwitterion, consisting of two positively charged pyridinium cations and two negatively charged carboxylate anions. The carboxylate group is almost coplanar [dihedral angle = 2.04 (11)°] with the benzene ring, whereas the dihedral angle between pyridine and benzene rings is 46.28 (5)°. TheZ-Lig molecule is positioned on a center of inversion (Fig. 1). The presence of the twofold axis perpendicular to thec-glide plane in space groupC2/c generates a screw-axis parallel to thebaxis that is shifted from the origin by 1/4 in theaandcdirections. This screw-axis replicates the molecule (and solvent water molecules) through space. TheZ-Lig molecule links to adjacent moleculesviaO—H...O hydrogen bonds involving solvent water molecules as well as intermolecular C—H...O interactions. There are also π–π interactions between benzene rings on adjacent molecules.
A second monoclinic polymorph of caesium salicylate monohydrate
Authors: Smith Graham
Published: June 2016

The structure of the title caesium salt with salicylic acid, poly[μ2-aqua-μ4-(salicylato-κ4O1:O1:O1′:O2)caesium], [Cs(C7H5O3)(H2O)]n, represents a second monoclinic polymorph of this compound. The two-dimensional coordination polymeric structure is based on a centrosymmetric dinuclear bridged repeat unit with each irregular CsO6coordination polyhedron comprising a μ2-bridging water molecule and μ4-bridging O-atom donors, three from the carboxyl group and one from the phenolic group of the salicylate ligand. The Cs—O bond range is 3.023 (3)–3.368 (4) Å and the Cs...Cs separation within the dinuclear unit is 4.9265 (6) Å. The polymeric sheet structure lies parallel to (010) with the water molecule and the phenol group involved in intra-polymer O—H...Ocarboxylhydrogen-bonding interactions.
4-[(3-Phenyl-4,5-dihydroisoxazol-5-yl)methyl]-2H-benzo[b][1,4]thiazin-3(4H)-one
Authors: Sebbar Nada Kheira , Ellouz Mohamed , Essassi El Mokhtar , Saadi Mohamed , El Ammari Lahcen
Published: June 2016

In the title compound, C18H16N2O2S, the 5-dihydroisoxazol-5-yl ring and its phenyl substituent are nearly coplanar, with the largest deviation from the mean plane being 0.0184 (16) Å. The thiomorpholin-3-one ring adopts a screw-boat conformation and the attached benzene ring makes a dihedral angle of 42.26 (7)° with the mean plane through the 3-phenyl-4,5-dihydroisoxazol-5-yl ring system. In the crystal, molecules are linked by pairs of C—H...N hydrogen bonds, forming inversion dimers. These dimers are linkedviaC—H...O hydrogen bonds, generating a three-dimensional network.
Ethyl 2-[(Z)-2-(2-nitrophenyl)hydrazinylidene]propanoate
Authors: Errossafi Amal , El Kihel Abdellatif , Guesmi Salaheddine , Saadi Mohamed , El Ammari Lahcen
Published: June 2016

In the molecule of the title compound, C11H13N3O4, all non-H atoms are nearly coplanar with the largest deviation from the mean plane being 0.152 (2) Å. A strong intramolecular N—H...O hydrogen bond closes a six-membered ring. In the crystal, molecules are linked by π–π interactions [intercentroid distance = 3.724 (2) Å], forming stacks parallel to thecaxis.
Intellectual capital-based innovation planning: empirical studies using wiNK model
Authors: Fan Irene Y.H. , Lee Rongbin W.B.
Published: June 2016

Purpose

– Innovation is essential for business growth that cannot be created by financial investment alone but with intellectual capital (IC). IC management is critical for the organization, yet many firms do not have proper strategies. The purpose of this paper is to present an effective planning model that enables organizations to raise their innovation capability through strategic IC management.

Design/methodology/approach

– Two R & D groups in an information and communication technology organization are examined with an IC-based complex system model (wiNK model). The model includes a descriptive part that determines the current IC state of the group and a prescriptive part that identifies the IC strategies for optimal innovation performance.

Findings

– This paper demonstrated that the wiNK model is an easy-to-use prescriptive tool using IC to optimize innovation performance.

Research limitations/implications

– The IC state of an organization is dynamic and changing. Regular IC examinations are necessary to track its changes.

Practical implications

– This IC-based model can be applied individually without benchmarking with other organizations. The IC location map can be documented as an organization DNA profile for the organization. The tracking of the continuous and dynamic changes is beneficial to the organization and its stakeholders. It can be served as both planning and evaluation tools.

Originality/value

– This study offers a systemic approach to the interdisciplinary study of organizational behavior and innovation with a pioneering use of an IC framework. It contributes to the field of innovation management with a new attempt of its kind to integrate management research and mathematical simulation model.
Assessing emphasis gaps among MBA alumni: a model framework
Authors: Van Auken Stuart , Chrysler Earl , Wells Ludmilla Gricenko
Published: June 2016

Purpose

This paper aims to focus on Master of Business Administration (MBA) alumni and their ability to provide institution-specific insights into MBA program delivery. Given desired MBA positioning dimensions, a case exemplar is used to reveal gaps between “should have” program emphases and “actual” emphases. Departures from expectations are used to reveal either under- or over-emphases which require repair.

Design/methodology/approach

The study develops a gap assessment procedure and the theory of gaps, and it presents insights into the prioritization of gaps for closing through the revelation of gap themes of varying magnitude. It also reveals the benefits and the limitations of emphasis-based gap assessments. Additionally, the study addresses the complexity of creating the dimensional structure for MBA program gap revelation.

Findings

This paper reports on the issues of framing dimensions, including the possibility of dimensional omissions, with a particular emphasis on the utilization of an emphasis-based gap model within an a priori identified structure.

Practical implications

The methodological approach provides a blueprint for additional program review, and it produces a strong structural base for MBA program positioning. It is also is particularly important in evaluating newly created one-year MBA programs.

Originality/value

The work reveals the potential for the revelation of both under- and over-emphases in MBA program delivery and the possible issue of sub-optimization in gap closing (i.e. the closing of one gap while opening another).
Couples’ depression and relationship satisfaction: examining the moderating effects of demand/withdraw communication patterns
Authors: Li Pei‐Fen , Johnson Lee N.
Published: June 2016

This study used systemic perspectives and actor and partner interdependence model to examine actor and partner effects of depression on couples’ relationship satisfaction in sixty‐three clinical couples. We also examined if a demand/withdraw communication pattern served a unique communication context that modified the impacts of depression on relationship satisfaction. Couples participated in a treatment‐as‐usual situation. The results showed that male depression had a negative impact on female relationship satisfaction. Males and females had different perceptions of male demand/female withdraw behaviours and it created different influences on each partner's depression in relation to relationship satisfaction.

Practitioner points

Depression is an interpersonal event that therapists must always assess while providing intervention in relational issues

Females’ relationship satisfaction is influenced by males’ depression and couple‐based therapy can be beneficial for treating men's depression and women's relational well‐being

Couples therapists need to intervene in demand/withdraw behaviours at different levels corresponding to which gender is executing demand/withdraw behaviours
China's Place in Regional and Global Governance: A New World Comes Into View
Authors: Beeson Mark , Li Fujian
Published: June 2016

The ‘rise of China’ means that – once again – China plays a pivotal role in international affairs. China's economic weight and growing political influence means that its foreign policies and the ideas that shape them have major consequences for established ideas about ‘global governance’. Rather than accepting the institutional and ideational status quo, however, Chinese policy makers are actively trying to develop a new international order through the creation of new institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and the ‘One Belt, One Road’ blueprint for international trade and investment centered on China. The paper explains how this process is developing and assesses its implications for the extant international order.
Sovereign Patent Funds: Sovereign Wealth Funds 2.0?
Authors: Clarke Warren
Published: June 2016

Significant academic and policy attention has focused on identifying the causes and consequences of the growth of traditional sovereign wealth funds (SWFs). This paper, in contrast, highlights a new type of sovereign investment vehicle – sovereign patents funds (SPFs) – that have emerged primarily in advanced industrialized economies, including France, South Korea and Japan. As defined here, SPFs are investment funds that seek to acquire intellectual property resources deemed strategically valuable in the pursuit of national economic objectives. This brief survey article considers the implications of SPFs in comparison to more traditional sovereign wealth funds. In doing so, it asks what emerging discourses on sovereign patent funds can learn from the sovereign wealth fund debate, and points to both similarities and important differences between these entities. While highlighting similarities between SPFs and traditional SWFs, the paper notes that patent funds are more explicitly political than their SWF counterparts. Following an overview of both SPFs and SWFs, the paper compares elements of the structure, behaviour, and response to these funds. Finally, while a full assessment of the activities and merits of SPFs lies beyond the scope of this article, the conclusion offers key lessons drawn from the SWF comparison.
The Association Between Physician Empathy and Variation in Imaging Use
Authors: Melnick Edward R. , O'Brien Elizabeth G. J. , Kovalerchik Olga , Fleischman William , Venkatesh Arjun K. , Taylor R. Andrew
Published: June 2016

Background

Variation in emergency physician computed tomography (CT) imaging utilization is well described, but little is known about what drives it. Physician empathy has been proposed as a potential characteristic affecting CT utilization.

Objectives

The objective was to describe empathy in a cohort of emergency physicians and evaluate its association with CT utilization. We also sought to compare emergency physician performance on an empathy psychometric test with performance on other psychometric tests previously proposed as predictors of CT utilization.

Methods

This cross‐sectional study included two parts: 1) a secondary analysis of emergency department (ED) CT imaging utilization data in a large health system from July 2013 to June 2014 and 2) a survey study of the cohort of physicians responsible for this imaging using four psychometric scales: the Jefferson Scale of Empathy (JSE), a risk‐taking subset of the Jackson Personality Index (RTS), the Stress from Uncertainty Scale (SUS), and the Malpractice Fear Scale (MFS). The study included data and physicians from four EDs: one urban, academic ED, two community, and one free‐standing. A hierarchical, mixed‐effects regression model was used to evaluate the association between emergency physician performance on the four scales and risk‐adjusted CT imaging utilization. The model incorporated physician‐specific CT utilization rates adjusted for propensity scores that were calculated using over 500 patient‐level variables via random forest methods, physician demographics, and a random provider effect to account for the clustering of observations.

Results

CT variation analysis included 113,517 patients seen during the study period by the 74 eligible emergency physician survey respondents; 20,972 (18.5%) of these patients had at least one CT. The survey response rate was 74 of 82 (90.2%). Correlation coefficients between JSE and the other scales were not statistically significant. In subset analysis, there was a trend toward a physician's number of years in practice and RTS score contributing to CT utilization for traumatic head CT. There were no significant associations between performance on any of the psychometric scales and CT utilization.

Conclusions

Performance on the JSE, RTS, SUS, or MFS was not predictive of risk‐adjusted CT utilization in the ED. The underlying physician‐based factors that mediate interphysician variation remain to be clearly identified.
Kawasaki disease: a matter of innate immunity
Authors: Hara T , Nakashima Y , Sakai Y , Nishio H , Motomura Y , Yamasaki S
Published: June 2016

Kawasaki disease (KD) is an acute systemic vasculitis of childhood that does not have a known cause or aetiology. The epidemiological features (existence of epidemics, community outbreaks and seasonality), unique age distribution and clinical symptoms and signs of KD suggest that the disease is caused by one or more infectious environmental triggers. However, KD is not transmitted person-to-person and does not occur in clusters within households, schools or nurseries. KD is a self-limited illness that is not associated with the production of autoantibodies or the deposition of immune complexes, and it rarely recurs. Regarding the underlying pathophysiology of KD, innate immune activity (the inflammasome) is believed to play a role in the development of KD vasculitis, based on the results of studies with animal models and the clinical and laboratory findings of KD patients. Animal studies have demonstrated that innate immune pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) can cause vasculitis independently of acquired immunity and have provided valuable insights regarding the underlying mechanisms of this phenomenon. To validate this concept, we recently searched for KD-specific PAMPs and identified such molecules with high specificity and sensitivity. These molecules have structures similar to those of microbe-associated molecular patterns (MAMPs), as shown by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. We propose herein that KD is an innate immune disorder resulting from the exposure of a genetically predisposed individual to microbe-derived innate immune stimulants and that it is not a typical infectious disease.
Current differences in dental education between Chinese and Western models
Authors: Wang Y. H. , Zhao Q. , Tan Z.
Published: June 2016

Dental education is the foundation of a country's development of dental science. Economic conditions and cultural backgrounds vary across countries; hence, there are some differences in dental education between Chinese and Western models, including the education programmes, licensures, curricula, teaching methods, facilities. These differences may become obstacles for mutual communication and the development of dental education. In the last 5 years, China has introduced several policies and published some standards, such as the residency programmes and Accreditation Standards for Undergraduate Dental Education Programs. These actions aim to improve the current situation of dental education and reduce the gap between Chinese and Western education models. Indeed, some changes have been made. This article provides a brief introduction of the existing differences and changes and can, thus, serve as a reference for educators.
Eco‐evolutionary partitioning metrics: assessing the importance of ecological and evolutionary contributions to population and community change
Authors: Govaert Lynn , Pantel Jelena H. , De Meester Luc
Published: June 2016

Interest in eco‐evolutionary dynamics is rapidly increasing thanks to ground‐breaking research indicating that evolution can occur rapidly and can alter the outcome of ecological processes. A key challenge in this sub‐discipline is establishing how important the contribution of evolutionary and ecological processes and their interactions are to observed shifts in population and community characteristics. Although a variety of metrics to separate and quantify the effects of evolutionary and ecological contributions to observed trait changes have been used, they often allocate fractions of observed changes to ecology and evolution in different ways. We used a mathematical and numerical comparison of two commonly used frameworks – the Price equation and reaction norms – to reveal that the Price equation cannot partition genetic from non‐genetic trait change within lineages, whereas the reaction norm approach cannot partition among‐ from within‐lineage trait change. We developed a new metric that combines the strengths of both Price‐based and reaction norm metrics, extended all metrics to analyse community change and also incorporated extinction and colonisation of species in these metrics. Depending on whether our new metric is applied to populations or communities, it can correctly separate intraspecific, interspecific, evolutionary, non‐evolutionary and interacting eco‐evolutionary contributions to trait change.
A role for brain size and cognition in food webs
Authors: Edmunds Nicholas B. , Laberge Frédéric , McCann Kevin S.
Published: June 2016

Predators tend to be large and mobile, enabling them to forage in spatially distinct food web compartments (e.g. littoral and pelagic aquatic macrohabitats). This feature can stabilise ecosystems when predators are capable of rapid behavioural response to changing resource conditions in distinct habitat compartments. However, what provides this ability to respond behaviourally has not been quantified. We hypothesised that predators require increased cognitive abilities to occupy their position in a food web, which puts pressure to increase brain size. Consistent with food web theory, we found that fish relative brain size increased with increased ability to forage across macrohabitats and increased relative trophic positions in a lacustrine food web, indicating that larger brains may afford the cognitive capacity to exploit various habitats flexibly, thus contributing to the stability of whole food webs.
Infection risk decreases with increasing mismatch in host and pathogen environmental tolerances
Authors: Nowakowski A. Justin , Whitfield Steven M. , Eskew Evan A. , Thompson Michelle E. , Rose Jonathan P. , Caraballo Benjamin L. , Kerby Jacob L. , Donnelly Maureen A. , Todd Brian D.
Published: June 2016

The fungal pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) has caused the greatest known wildlife pandemic, infecting over 500 amphibian species. It remains unclear why some host species decline from disease‐related mortality whereas others persist. We introduce a conceptual model that predicts that infection risk in ectotherms will decrease as the difference between host and pathogen environmental tolerances (i.e. tolerance mismatch) increases. We test this prediction using both local‐scale data from Costa Rica and global analyses of over 11 000 Bd infection assays. We find that infection prevalence decreases with increasing thermal tolerance mismatch and with increasing host tolerance of habitat modification. The relationship between environmental tolerance mismatches and Bd infection prevalence is generalisable across multiple amphibian families and spatial scales, and the magnitude of the tolerance mismatch effect depends on environmental context. These findings may help explain patterns of amphibian declines driven by a global wildlife pandemic.
Laboratory comparison of cyclic fatigue resistance of WaveOne Gold, Reciproc and WaveOne files in canals with a double curvature
Authors: Topçuoğlu H. S. , Düzgün S. , Aktı A. , Topçuoğlu G.
Published: June 2016

Aim

To compare the resistance to cyclic fatigue of WaveOne Gold (WOG), Reciproc and WaveOne (WO) nickel–titanium files in an artificial root canal with a double (S‐shaped) curvature.

Methodology

A total of 120 new WOG primary, Reciproc R25 and WO primary files were tested in an artificial, stainless steel canal with an S‐shape (diameter, 1.4 mm and length, 18 mm). Forty files from each system were rotated until fracture to calculate the number of cycles to failure (NCF). The length of each fractured fragment was recorded. Data were analysed using one‐way analysis of variance and Tukey's post hoc tests.

Results

The WOG primary (apical curvature: 928.87 ± 293.69; coronal curvature 1102.32 ±397.39 NCF) had higher cyclic fatigue resistance than Reciproc R25 and WO primary in the apical and coronal curvatures (P < 0.05). The Reciproc R25 file (745.63 ± 253.49 NCF) had significantly greater cyclic fatigue resistance than the WO primary (583.89 ± 183.38 NCF) in the apical curvature (P < 0.05). There was no significant difference in the cyclic fatigue resistance of the Reciproc R25 and WO files in the coronal curvature (883.63 ± 282.56 and 916.53 ± 268.21 NCF, respectively) (P > 0.05). There was no difference in fractured fragment lengths of the WOG primary, Reciproc R25, and WO primary files in either the apical or coronal curvature (P > 0.05).

Conclusions

WaveOne Gold primary files exhibited greater cyclic fatigue resistance than Reciproc R25 and WO primary in an artificial canal with an S‐shape.
Cerebrospinal fluid total tau concentration predicts clinical phenotype in Huntington's disease
Authors: Rodrigues Filipe Brogueira , Byrne Lauren , McColgan Peter , Robertson Nicola , Tabrizi Sarah J. , Leavitt Blair R. , Zetterberg Henrik , Wild Edward J.
Published: June 2016

Huntington's disease (HD) is a hereditary neurodegenerative condition with no therapeutic intervention known to alter disease progression, but several trials are ongoing and biomarkers of disease progression are needed. Tau is an axonal protein, often altered in neurodegeneration, and recent studies pointed out its role on HD neuropathology. Our goal was to study whether cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) tau is a biomarker of disease progression in HD. After informed consent, healthy controls, pre‐symptomatic and symptomatic gene expansion carriers were recruited from two HD clinics. All participants underwent assessment with the Unified HD Rating Scale ’99 (UHDRS). CSF was obtained according to a standardized lumbar puncture protocol. CSF tau was quantified using enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay. Comparisons between two groups were tested using ancova. Pearson's correlation coefficients were calculated for disease progression. Significance level was defined as p < 0.05. Seventy‐six participants were included in this cross‐sectional multicenter international pilot study. Age‐adjusted CSF tau was significantly elevated in gene expansion carriers compared with healthy controls (p = 0.002). UHDRS total functional capacity was significantly correlated with CSF tau (r = −0.29, p = 0.004) after adjustment for age, and UHDRS total motor score was significantly correlated with CSF tau after adjustment for age (r = 0.32, p = 0.002). Several UHDRS cognitive tasks were also significantly correlated with CST total tau after age‐adjustment. This study confirms that CSF tau concentrations in HD gene mutation carriers are increased compared with healthy controls and reports for the first time that CSF tau concentration is associated with phenotypic variability in HD. These conclusions strengthen the case for CSF tau as a biomarker in HD.

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In the era of novel targeted approaches to Huntington's disease, reliable biomarkers are needed. We quantified Tau protein, a marker of neuronal death, in cerebrospinal fluid and found it was increased in patients with Huntington's disease and predicted motor, cognitive, and functional disability in patients. It is therefore likely to be a biomarker of disease progression, and possibly of therapeutic response.

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Stress Physiology in Infancy and Early Childhood: Cortisol Flexibility, Attunement and Coordination
Authors: Atkinson L. , Jamieson B. , Khoury J. , Ludmer J. , Gonzalez A.
Published: June 2016

Research on stress physiology in infancy has assumed increasing importance due to its lifelong implications. In this review, we focus on measurement of hypothalamic‐pituitary‐adrenal (HPA) function, in particular, and on complementary autonomic processes. We suggest that the measure of HPA function has been overly exclusive, focusing on individual reactivity to single, pragmatically selected laboratory challenges. We advocate use of multiple, strategically chosen challenges and within‐subject designs. By administering one challenge that typically does not provoke reactivity and another that does, it is possible to represent allostatic load in terms of “flexibility,” the capacity to titrate response to challenge. We also recommend assessing infant reactivity in the context of the primary caregiver's physiological function. Infant‐mother “attunement” is central to developmental psychology, permeating diverse developmental domains with varied consequences. A review of adrenocortical attunement suggests that attunement is a reliable process, manifest across varied populations. However, attunement appears stronger in the context of more highly stressful circumstances, such that administration of multiple, selected challenges may help evaluate the degree to which individuals titrate attunement to challenge and determine the correlates of this differential attunement. Finally, we advocate studying the “coordination” of HPA function with other aspects of stress physiology and variation in the degree of this coordination. The use of multiple stressors is important here because each stress system is differentially sensitive to different types of challenge. Therefore, use of single stressors in between‐subject designs impedes full recognition of the role played by each system. Overall, we recommend measure of flexibility, attunement, and coordination in the context of multiple challenges to capture allostasis in environmental and physiological context. The simultaneous use of such inclusive and integrative metrics may yield more reliable findings than has hitherto been the case. The interrelation of these metrics can be understood in the context of the adaptive calibration model..
Deficits in remembering the past and imagining the future in patients with prefrontal lesions
Authors: Rasmussen Katrine W. , Berntsen Dorthe
Published: June 2016

Objective

Neuroimaging studies suggest that remembering the past and imagining the future engage a common brain network including several areas of the prefrontal cortex. Although patients with prefrontal damage often are described as blind to the future consequences of their decisions, and inclined to ‘live in the here and now’, little is known as to how the prefrontal cortex mediates past and future mental time travel.

Method

Nine patients with prefrontal lesions and nine healthy controls generated past and future events in response to different time periods. Event transcriptions were scored using the Autobiographical Interview protocol (Levine, Svoboda, Hay, Winocur, & Moscovitch, 2002), which provides a reliable system for categorizing internal (episodic) and external (semantic) information. For each event, participants answered a series of questions to assess self‐reported phenomenal characteristics.

Results

Patients with prefrontal lesions exhibited deficits in both remembering past events and imagining future events by generating fewer internal details than controls. This effect of group was larger in the past condition than in the future condition. In contrast, no group differences were seen in the number of external details, which were at the same level for patients and controls for both temporal conditions. There were no group differences in ratings of phenomenal characteristics.

Conclusion

Our findings suggest that damage to prefrontal structures adversely affects the retrieval of past and the construction of future events. In particular, prefrontal structures are critical for the production of episodic event‐specific details when engaging in past and future mental time travel.
Long‐Term Contrast Echocardiography and Clinical Follow‐Up after Percutaneous Closure of Patent Foramen Ovale Using Two Different Atrial Septal Occluder Devices
Authors: Scalise Filippo , Auguadro Carla , Sorropago Giovanni , Sorropago Antonio , Novelli Eugenio , Finizio Marica , Specchia Giuseppe
Published: June 2016

Introduction

Percutaneous patent foramen ovale (PFO) closure by means of a septal occluder device (SOD) is a well‐known therapeutic strategy for the secondary prevention of paradoxical embolic neurological events. The aim of this study was to provide long‐term echocardiographic and clinical follow‐up data on patients who had undergone percutaneous PFO closure with 2 different SOD.

Methods

We selected 2 groups of patients treated with 2 different SOD: Group A: 52 patients with an Amplatzer® PFO Occluder and Group B: 49 patients with a Figulla Flex® device. All patients underwent follow‐up Bubble Test Transthoracic Echocardiography (BTTE) and clinical examination. The results were compared with those recently reported in a group of patients with similar characteristics, but that had been treated conservatively, which acted as a control group.

Results

The mean follow‐up after PFO closure was 53 months. The Amplatzer® PFO Occluder and the Figulla Flex were used in 52 (51.5%) and 49 (48.5%) of patients, respectively. We found no significant difference in the rate of effective PFO closure between the devices: Amplatzer 91.4%, Figulla 93.9% (P = 0.71). One patient (1.0%) suffered a recurrent neurologic event. BTTE was positive (BTTE+) in 8 patients (8%), 5 with an Amplatzer, and 3 with a Figulla device (P = 0.516). Only 1 patient with BTTE+ had a recurrent TIA (12.5%). No significant relationship was found between device dimensions and BTTE+ (P = 0.062). In the control group (163 patients), the recurrence of neurologic events was 9.2% (15 events), that was significantly higher in respect to the patients who had undergone percutaneous closure of the PFO.

Conclusions

Percutaneous PFO closure was associated with a remarkably low risk of recurrent embolic neurological events, and no long‐term device‐related major complications. No statistically significant difference emerged between the 2 different SODs regarding BTTE positivity. Long‐term follow‐up showed that the recurrence of neurological events has been significantly higher in the group treated in a conservative way.
Elevational diversity patterns as an example for evolutionary and ecological dynamics in ferns and lycophytes
Authors: Kessler Michael , Karger Dirk Nikolaus , Kluge Jürgen
Published: June 2016

Evolutionary processes such as adaptation, ecological filtering, and niche conservatism involve the interaction of organisms with their environment and are thus commonly studied along environmental gradients. Elevational gradients have become among the most studied environmental gradients to understand large‐scale patterns of species richness and composition because they are highly replicated with different combinations of geographical, environmental and historical factors. We here review the literature on using elevational gradients to understand evolutionary processes in ferns. Some phylogenetic studies of individual fern clades have considered elevation in the analysis or interpretation and postulated that fern diversification is linked to the colonization of mountain habitats. Other studies that have linked elevational community composition and hence ecological filtering with phylogenetic community composition and morphological traits, usually only found limited phylogenetic signal. However, these studies are ultimately only correlational, and there are few actual tests of the evolutionary mechanisms leading to these patterns. We identify a number of challenges for improving our understanding of how evolutionary and ecological processes are linked to elevational richness patterns in ferns: i) limited information on traits and their ecological relevance, ii) uncertainties on the dispersal kernels of ferns and hence the delimitation of regional species pools from which local assemblages are recruited, iii) limited genomic data to identify candidate genes under selection and hence actually document adaptation and selection, and iv) conceptual challenges in developing clear and testable hypotheses to how specific evolutionary processes can be linked to patterns in community composition and species richness.