bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Efficacy of Sodium-Glucose Cotransporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors for the treatment of chronic diabetic macular oedema in vitrectomised eyes: a retrospective study
Authors: Mieno Hiroki , Yoneda Kazuhito , Yamazaki Masahiro , Sakai Ryosuke , Sotozono Chie , Fukui Michiaki
Published: July 2018

Objective

To investigate the change of chronic diabetic macular oedema (DMO) in vitrectomised eyes when the administration of sodium–glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors is initiated as a systemic medical treatment.

Methods and analysis

This study involved 10 eyes of five patients with chronic DMO lasting more than 6 months who had previously undergone vitrectomy and whose systemic medical treatments were newly changed to SGLT2 inhibitors. In this study, chronic DMO was defined as persistent diffuse macular oedema despite ophthalmic treatment in patients with diabetes. Patients who received antivascular endothelial growth factor therapy or steroids administration, or change of eye-drop medication from at 3 months before and after the initiation of SGLT2 inhibitors, were excluded. In this study, visual acuity (VA) and central retinal thickness (CRT, μm) prior to and at 3, 6 and 12 months after the initiation of SGLT2 inhibitors were retrospectively compared. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used for statistical analysis.

Results

In the 10 treated eyes, from at baseline to at 3, 6 and 12 months after the initiation of SGLT2 inhibitor, median VA (logMAR) improved from 0.35 to 0.15 (p=0.038), 0.2 (p=0.157) and 0.2 (p=0.096), respectively, and median CRT significantly reduced from 500.5 µm to 410 µm (p<0.01), 378 µm (p<0.01) and 339 µm (p<0.01), respectively.

Conclusion

Although this study involved only five patients, our findings indicate that SGLT2 inhibitors might have structural efficacy for chronic DMO in vitrectomised eyes.
Focused educational intervention improves but may not sustain knowledge regarding falls management
Authors: Kempegowda Punith , Chandan Joht Singh , Hutton Richard , Brown Lauren , Madden Wendy , Webb June , Doyle Alison , Treml Jonathan
Published: July 2018

Background

The number of falls in hospital ranges from 3.8 to 8.6 falls per 1000 bed days.1Around 30% of falls as inpatients are injurious, and 4%–6% can result in serious and life-threatening injury.2 3This results in significant health burdens and economic burdens due to increased hospital stays following a fall. Junior doctors are usually the first point of contact for managing patients who fall in hospital. It is therefore important they understand the preventative measures and postfalls management.

Aim

To assess the retention of knowledge regarding falls management in foundation year 1 (FY1) doctors before and after a short educational intervention.

Methods

A 3-stage quality improvement project was conducted at a West Midlands teaching hospital to highlight issues regarding falls management. A questionnaire assessing areas of knowledge regarding assessment and management of falls was delivered to 31 F1s. This was followed by a short presentation regarding falls management. The change in knowledge was assessed at 6 and 16 weeks postintervention. The questionnaire results were analysed using unpaired t-tests on STATA (V.14.2).

Results

The mean score for knowledge regarding falls management in the preintervention, early postintervention and late postintervention were 73.7%, 85.2% and 76.4%, respectively. Although there was an improvement in the knowledge at 6 weeks’ postintervention, this returned to almost baseline at 16 weeks. The improvement in knowledge did not translate to clinical practice of falls management during this period.

Conclusion

Although educational interventions improve knowledge, the intervention failed to sustain over period of time or translate in clinical practice. Further work is needed to identify alternative methods to improve sustainability of the knowledge of falls and bring in the change in clinical practice.
The Athletic Shoulder (ASH) test: reliability of a novel upper body isometric strength test in elite rugby players
Authors: Ashworth Ben , Hogben Patrick , Singh Navraj , Tulloch Laura , Cohen Daniel D
Published: July 2018

Objectives

Lower limb isometric tests are used to assess strength and strength asymmetries and monitor reductions in muscle force that may contribute to loss of performance and increase injury risk. Isometric tests in the upper body may be appropriate to monitor neuromuscular performance of the shoulder joint in sports involving contact and overhead actions. The aim of this study was to determine the reliability of a novel upper body isometric strength test.

Methods

Eighteen elite rugby players (age 22.4±4.6 years; body mass 95.5±13.4 kg) were tested on consecutive days. Maximal isometric contractions using both limbs against a force platform were assessed at three angles of abduction (180°, ‘I’; 135°, ‘Y’ and 90°, ‘T’), in a prone lying position. To evaluate interday reliability, intraclass coefficients (ICC) were calculated for mean net peak force (NPF) and highest NPF achieved in any trial (peak NPF). Intratrial variability was assessed using coefficient of variation (CV), and the standard error of measurement (SEM) was used to calculate minimal detectable change (MDC).

Results

Interday reliability for NPF was excellent in all test positions (ICC 0.94–0.98). The test demonstrated high absolute reliability values (SEM 4.8–10.8) and interday measurement error was below 10% in all test positions (CV 5.0–9.9%) except for the non-dominant arm I-position (CV 11.3%). Minimum detectable change was between 13.2 and 25.9 N.

Conclusion

The Athletic Shoulder test demonstrated excellent reliability for each test position supporting its use as a reliable tool to quantify the ability to produce and transfer force across the shoulder girdle.
Inflammatory changes in the aneurysm wall: a review
Authors: Tulamo Riikka , Frösen Juhana , Hernesniemi Juha , Niemelä Mika
Published: July 2018

Rupture of a saccular intracranial artery aneurysm (IA) causes subarachnoid hemorrhage, a significant cause of stroke and death. The current treatment options, endovascular coiling and clipping, are invasive and somewhat risky. Since only some IAs rupture, those IAs at risk for rupture should be identified. However, to improve the imaging of rupture-prone IAs and improve IA treatment, IA wall pathobiology requires more thorough knowledge. Chronic inflammation has become understood as an important phenomenon in IA wall pathobiology, featuring inflammatory cell infiltration as well as proliferative and fibrotic remodulatory responses. We review the literature on what is known about inflammation in the IA wall and also review the probable mechanisms of how inflammation would result in the degenerative changes that ultimately lead to IA wall rupture. We also discuss current options in imaging inflammation and how knowledge of inflammation in IA walls may improve IA treatment.
Right ventricular mechanics and contractility after aortic valve replacement surgery: a randomised study comparing minimally invasive versus conventional approach
Authors: Hashemi Nashmil , Johnson Jonas , Brodin Lars-Åke , Gomes-Bernardes Andreia , Sartipy Ulrik , Svenarud Peter , Dalén Magnus , Bäck Magnus , Alam Mahbubul , Winter Reidar
Published: July 2018

Objective

Minimally invasive aortic valve replacementsurgery (MIAVR) is an alternative surgical technique to conventional aortic valve replacement surgery (AVR) in selected patients. The randomised study Cardiac Function after Minimally Invasive Aortic Valve Implantation (CMILE) showed that right ventricular (RV) longitudinal function was reduced after both MIAVR and AVR, but the reduction was more pronounced following AVR. However, postoperative global RV function was equally impaired in both groups. The purpose of this study was to explore alterations in RV mechanics and contractility following MIAVR as compared with AVR.

Methods

A predefined post hoc analysis of CMILE consisting of 40 patients with severe aortic valve stenosis who were eligible for isolated surgical aortic valve replacement were randomised to MIAVR or AVR. RV function was assessed by echocardiography prior to surgery and 40 days post-surgery.

Results

Comparing preoperative to postoperative values, RV longitudinal strain rate was preserved following MIAVR (−1.5±0.5 vs −1.5±0.4 1/s, p=0.84) but declined following AVR (−1.7±0.3 vs −1.4±0.3 1/s, p<0.01). RV longitudinal strain reduced following AVR (−27.4±2.9% vs −18.8%±4.7%, p<0.001) and MIAVR (−26.5±5.3% vs −20.7%±4.5%, p<0.01). Peak systolic velocity of the lateral tricuspid annulus reduced by 36.6% in the AVR group (9.3±2.1 vs 5.9±1.5 cm/s, p<0.01) and 18.8% in the MIAVR group (10.1±2.9 vs 8.2±1.4 cm/s, p<0.01) when comparing preoperative values with postoperative values.

Conclusions

RV contractility was preserved following MIAVR but was deteriorated following AVR. RV longitudinal function reduced substantially following AVR. A decline in RV longitudinal function was also observed following MIAVR, however, to a much lesser extent.
Norm convergence of partial sums of H1 functions
Authors: McNeal J. D. , Xiong J.
Published: July 2018

A classical observation of Riesz says that truncations of a general [Formula: see text] in the Hardy space [Formula: see text] do not converge in [Formula: see text]. A substitute positive result is proved: these partial sums always converge in the Bergman norm [Formula: see text]. The result is extended to complete Reinhardt domains in [Formula: see text]. A new proof of the failure of [Formula: see text] convergence is also given.
Low- and High-Frequency C–V Characteristics of Au/n-GaN/n-GaAs
Authors: Ziane Abderrezzaq , Amrani Mohamed , Rabehi Abdelaziz , Benamara Zineb
Published: July 2018

Au/GaN/GaAs Schottky diode created by the nitridation of n-GaAs substrate which was exposed to a flow of active nitrogen created by a discharge source with high voltage in ultra-high vacuum with two different thicknesses of GaN layers (0.7[Formula: see text]nm and 2.2[Formula: see text]nm), the I–V and capacitance–voltage (C–V) characteristics of the Au/n-GaN/n-GaAs structures were studied for low- and high-frequency at room temperature. The measurements of I–V of the Au/n-GaN/n-GaAs Schottky diode were found to be strongly dependent on bias voltage and nitridation process. The electrical parameters are bound by the thickness of the GaN layer. The capacitance curves depict a behavior indicating the presence of interface state density, especially in the low frequency. The interface states density was calculated using the high- and low-frequency capacitance curves and it has been shown that the interface states density decreases with increasing of nitridation of the GaAs.
Mortgage Loans and Bank Risk Taking: Finding the Risk “Sweet Spot”
Authors: Mugerman Yevgeny , Tzur Joseph , Jacobi Arie
Published: July 2018

A vast body of academic literature deals with banks’ optimal loan allocations. The general approach to solving this problem is to assume borrowers’ portfolios as given. Although this assumption is reasonable in the corporate sector, the situation differs radically in the mortgage markets, where borrowers are unobservable and banks’ screening capacity is tightly limited. We propose a novel dynamic model that assumes potential mortgage takers arrive randomly and sequentially at a bank. In a simulation, we show that the effect of a more stringent level of perceived risk on a bank’s expected net income can be positive or negative. Remarkably, if both level of wealth inequality and screening capacity are low, a more severe level of perceived risk can decrease a bank’s expected net income. In this situation, regulators should be particularly careful about increasing regulation in the form of a lower loan-to-value ratio.
Enzymes by Evolution: Bringing New Chemistry to Life
Authors: Arnold Frances H.
Published: July 2018

Not satisfied with nature’s vast enzyme repertoire, we want to create new ones and expand the space of genetically encoded enzyme functions. We use the most powerful biological design process, evolution, to optimize existing enzymes and invent new ones, thereby circumventing our profound ignorance of how sequence encodes function. Mimicking nature’s evolutionary tricks and using a little chemical intuition, we can generate whole new enzyme families that catalyze important reactions, including ones not known in biology. These new capabilities increase the scope of molecules and materials we can build using biology.
Towards the Emulation of the Cardiac Conduction System for Pacemaker Validation
Authors: Yip Eugene , Andalam Sidharta , Roop Partha S. , Malik Avinash , Trew Mark L. , Ai Weiwei , Patel Nitish
Published: July 2018

The heart is a vital organ that relies on the orchestrated propagation of electrical stimuli to coordinate each heartbeat. Abnormalities in the heart’s electrical behaviour can be managed with a cardiac pacemaker. Recently, the closed-loop testing of pacemakers with an emulation (real-time simulation) of the heart has been proposed. This enables developers to interrogate their pacemaker design without having to engage in costly or lengthy clinical trials. Many high-fidelity heart models have been developed, but are too computationally intensive to be simulated in real-time. Heart models, designed specifically for the closed-loop testing of pacemaker logic, are too abstract to be useful for the testing of pacemaker implementations.

In the context of pacemaker testing, compared to high-fidelity heart models, this article presents a more computationally efficient heart model that generates realistic piecewise continuous electrical signals. The heart model is composed of cardiac cells that are connected by paths. Our heart model is based on the Stony Brook cardiac cell model and the UPenn path model, and improves them by stabilising the activation behaviour of the cells and by capturing the piecewise continuous behaviour of electrical propagation. We provide simulation results that show our ability to faithfully model a range of arrhythmias, such as VA conduction, heart blocks, and long Q-T syndrome. Moreover, re-entrant circuits (that cause arrhythmia) can be faithfully modelled, which only the discrete-event UPenn heart model is also able to achieve.
A Cyber-Physical System to Improve the Management of a Large Suite of Operating Rooms
Authors: Joerger Guillaume , Rambourg Juliette , Gaspard-Boulinc Helene , Conversy Stephane , Bass Barbara L. , Dunkin Brian J. , Garbey Marc
Published: July 2018

Cyber-physical systems have been deployed with considerable success in many industries. However, the implementation of cyber-physical systems in hospitals has been limited. By nature, in clinical operations, patient safety and consideration for health outcomes are of the utmost importance, thus possibly slowing the implementation of innovative solutions with limited history. Revenues from operating room (OR) time and surgery account for about 50% of the income of major hospitals (Erdogan et al. 2011; Cuschieri 2006), but the efficiency of OR utilization is often reported to be relatively low. Therefore, improving OR management with a cyber-physical system should be a priority. In this article, we will report on our experience implementing a cyber-physical system at Houston Methodist Hospital and discuss some of the difficulties and potential drivers for success. Our pilot study was done in the context of the management of a large suite of ORs. It uses the agile codevelopment of a cyber-physical system through an intense collaboration of clinicians and computational scientists. While technology remains the foundation of a cyber-physical system, this experience reinforced that the human factor is an important driving force behind the design that promotes user acceptance.
Weakly Supervised POS Tagging without Disambiguation
Authors: Zhou Deyu , Zhang Zhikai , Zhang Min-Ling , He Yulan
Published: July 2018

Weakly supervised part-of-speech (POS) tagging is to learn to predict the POS tag for a given word in context by making use of partial annotated data instead of the fully tagged corpora. Weakly supervised POS tagging would benefit various natural language processing applications in such languages where tagged corpora are mostly unavailable.

In this article, we propose a novel framework for weakly supervised POS tagging based on a dictionary of words with their possible POS tags. In the constrained error-correcting output codes (ECOC)-based approach, a unique
L
-bit vector is assigned to each POS tag. The set of bitvectors is referred to as a coding matrix with value { 1, -1}. Each column of the coding matrix specifies a dichotomy over the tag space to learn a binary classifier. For each binary classifier, its training data is generated in the following way: each pair of words and its possible POS tags are considered as a positive training example only if the whole set of its possible tags falls into the positive dichotomy specified by the column coding and similarly for negative training examples. Given a word in context, its POS tag is predicted by concatenating the predictive outputs of the
L
binary classifiers and choosing the tag with the closest distance according to some measure. By incorporating the ECOC strategy, the set of all possible tags for each word is treated as an entirety without the need of performing disambiguation. Moreover, instead of manual feature engineering employed in most previous POS tagging approaches, features for training and testing in the proposed framework are automatically generated using neural language modeling. The proposed framework has been evaluated on three corpora for English, Italian, and Malagasy POS tagging, achieving accuracies of 93.21%, 90.9%, and 84.5% individually, which shows a significant improvement compared to the state-of-the-art approaches.
Cardinal Contests
Authors: Ghosh Arpita , Hummel Patrick
Published: July 2018

We model and analyze cardinal contests, where a principal running a rank-order tournament has access to an absolute measure of the quality of agents’ submissions in addition to their relative rankings. We show that a mechanism that compares each agent’s output quality against a threshold to decide whether to award her the prize corresponding to her rank is optimal amongst the set of all mixed cardinal-ordinal mechanisms where the
j
th-ranked submission receives a fraction of the
j
th prize that is a non-decreasing function of the submission’s quality. Furthermore, the optimal threshold mechanism uses exactly the same threshold for each rank.
Block-free concurrent GC: stack scanning and copying
Authors: Österlund Erik , Löwe Welf
Published: July 2018

On-the-fly Garbage Collectors (GCs) are the state-of-the-art concurrent GC algorithms today. Everything is done concurrently, but phases are separated by blocking handshakes. Hence, progress relies on the scheduler to let application threads (mutators) run into GC checkpoints to reply to the handshakes. For a non-blocking GC, these blocking handshakes need to be addressed. Therefore, we propose a new non-blocking handshake to replace previous blocking handshakes. It guarantees scheduling-independent operation level progress without blocking. It is scheduling independent but requires some other OS support. It allows bounded waiting for threads that are currently running on a processor, regardless of threads that are not running on a processor. We discuss this non-blocking handshake in two GC algorithms for stack scanning and copying objects. They pave way for a future completely non-blocking GC by solving hard open theory problems when OS support is permitted. The GC algorithms were integrated to the G1 GC of OpenJDK for Java. GC pause times were reduced to 12.5% compared to the original G1 on average in DaCapo. For a memory intense benchmark, latencies were reduced from 174 ms to 0.67 ms for the 99.99% percentile. The improved latency comes at a cost of 15% lower throughput.
Characterizing emerging heterogeneous memory
Authors: Shen Du , Liu Xu , Lin Felix Xiaozhu
Published: July 2018

Heterogeneous memory (HM, also known as hybrid memory) has become popular in emerging parallel architectures due to its programming flexibility and energy efficiency. Unlike the traditional memory subsystem, HM consists of fast and slow components. Usually, the fast memory lacks hardware support, which puts extra burdens on programmers and compilers for explicit data placement. Thus, HM provides both opportunities and challenges with programming parallel codes. It is important to understand how to utilize HM and set expectations on the benefits of HM. Prior work principally uses simulators to study HM, which lacks the analysis on a real hardware. To address this issue, this paper experiments with a real system—the TI KeyStone II—to study HM. We make three contributions. First, we develop a set of parallel benchmarks to characterize the performance and power efficiency of HM. It is the first benchmark suite with OpenMP 4.0 features that is functional on real HM architectures. Second, we build a profiling tool to provide guidance for placing data in HM. Our tool analyzes memory access patterns and provides high-level feedback at the source-code level for optimization. Third, we apply the data placement optimization to our benchmarks and evaluate the effectiveness of HM in boosting performance and saving energy.
The Key monad: type-safe unconstrained dynamic typing
Authors: Ploeg Atze van der , Claessen Koen , Buiras Pablo
Published: July 2018

We present a small extension to Haskell called the Key monad. With the Key monad, unique keys of different types can be created and can be tested for equality. When two keys are equal, we also obtain a concrete proof that their types are equal. This gives us a form of dynamic typing, without the need for Typeable constraints. We show that our extension allows us to safely do things we could not otherwise do: it allows us to implement the ST monad (inefficiently), to implement an embedded form of arrow notation, and to translate parametric HOAS to typed de Bruijn indices, among others. Although strongly related to the ST monad, the Key monad is simpler and might be easier to prove safe. We do not provide such a proof of the safety of the Key monad, but we note that, surprisingly, a full proof of the safety of the ST monad also remains elusive to this day. Hence, another reason for studying the Key monad is that a safety proof for it might be a stepping stone towards a safety proof of the ST monad.
Supermonads: one notion to bind them all
Authors: Bracker Jan , Nilsson Henrik
Published: July 2018

Several popular generalizations of monads have been implemented in Haskell. Unfortunately, because the shape of the associated type constructors do not match the standard Haskell monad interface, each such implementation provides its own type class and versions of associated library functions. Furthermore, simultaneous use of different monadic notions can be cumbersome as it in general is necessary to be explicit about which notion is used where. In this paper we introduce
supermonads
: an encoding of monadic notions that captures several different generalizations along with a version of the standard library of monadic functions that work uniformly with all of them. As standard Haskell type inference does not work for supermonads due to their generality, our supermonad implementation is accompanied with a language extension, in the form of a plugin for the Glasgow Haskell Compiler (GHC), that allows type inference for supermonads, obviating the need for manual annotations.
Experience report: types for a relational algebra library
Authors: Augustsson Lennart , Ågren Mårten
Published: July 2018

As part of our software toolkit at a major financial institution we have a library for relational algebra. This library is written in C++ and the type checking of the operations on the relations is very dynamic; all relations have the same static type. Of course, relational algebra operations have stringent type constraints, and since we believe in static typing, we would prefer these to be checked at compile time.

We have managed to get full static type checking of the relational code, using some modern extensions to the Haskell type system, such as closed type families, type level strings, user-defined kinds, and custom type errors. The static type checking incurs no runtime overhead compared to the dynamically checked library.

Some effort has gone into making the use of the typed library similar to the dynamically typed version. We have also tried to produce good error messages when something is wrong.
Revisiting software transactional memory in Haskell
Authors: Le Matthew , Yates Ryan , Fluet Matthew
Published: July 2018

Software Transactional Memory (STM) has become very popular in Haskell. Currently, there are nearly 500 packages on Haskell’s package archive that directly use STM. Despite the widespread use in real world applications, Haskell’s STM implementation has seen very few updates since its introduction in 2005.

In this work, we describe our efforts to redesign the STM implementation in the Glasgow Haskell Compiler (GHC), based on a TL2-like implementation that is able to support both orElse and retry without the use of traditional nested transactions. We argue that our implementation is simpler than the current GHC implementation while supporting opacity. We also demonstrate that our implementation performs better than the current GHC implementation on a number of benchmarks by multiple orders of magnitude for long-running transactions.

In an effort to measure the performance of orElse and retry, we present an STM-based work stealing scheduler. With orElse and retry, we are able to elegantly implement the scheduler in just a few lines of code. We have modified the Par Monad, a real-world Haskell package that provides deterministic parallelism, to use our STM-based work stealing scheduler and show that it is not only simpler but is able to perform as well as the current scheduler.
Assessment for learning: a needs analysis study using formative assessment to evaluate the need for curriculum reform in basic sciences
Authors: Abraham Reem Rachel , Alele Faith , Kamath Ullas , Kurien Annamma , Rai Kiranmai S. , Bairy Indira , Rao Mohandas K. G. , Rao Guruprasad , Devi Vasudha , Rao Yeshwant K. , Sen Gupta Tarun , Malau-Aduli Bunmi S.
Published: July 2018

A needs analysis study for curriculum reform in basic sciences was conducted at Melaka Manipal Medical College, India, by means of a formative assessment method, namely Basic Science Retention Examination (BSRE). Students participated in a BSRE, which comprised recall and clinical multiple-choice questions in six discipline areas. They also rated the clinical relevance of each question and provided responses to three open-text questions about the exam. Pass rates were determined; clinical relevance ratings and performance scores were compared between recall type and clinical questions to test students’ level of clinical application of basic science knowledge. Text comments were thematically analyzed to identify recurring themes. Only one-third of students passed the BSRE (32.2%). Students performed better in recall questions compared with clinical questions in anatomy (51.0 vs. 40.2%), pathology (45.1 vs. 38.1%), pharmacology (41.8 vs. 31.7%), and biochemistry (43.5 vs. 26.9%). In physiology, students performed better in clinical questions compared with the recall type (56.2 vs. 45.8%). Students’ response to BSRE was positive. The findings imply that transfer of basic science knowledge was poor, and that assessment methods should emphasize clinical application of basic science knowledge.
Interfacing virtual and face-to-face teaching methods in an undergraduate human physiology course for health professions students
Authors: Mahaffey Angela L.
Published: July 2018

Human physiology is a core physical sciences course for health professions students, such as nurses and exercise science majors. The concepts of human physiology lay the foundation for health professions courses, such as pathophysiology. The National Council Licensing Exam for registered nurses (a timed nursing licensure exam) and the American College of Sports Medicine timed licensure exams for exercise sciences students have a framework consisting of human physiology concepts and are computer adaptive testing (CAT) assessments. This provides a case for electronic testing (in the undergraduate class setting) as a preparatory measure for CAT licensing exams. Case studies have illustrated a high information retention rate, with students completing online homework vs. paper, as well. Additionally, in recent years, virtual laboratories for non-physical science majors have been described as safer and effective for the purposes of educating students in laboratory techniques and experimental measures. Lastly, a successful learning approach utilized by museums has been found to be effective in younger students as well: “touch learning” (tactile learning). It also is important to note that student discussions and the face-to-face teaching dynamic play a critical role in the undergraduate education process. As such, the teaching methodology discussed here combines e-learning, virtual laboratories, tactile learning, and face-to-face didactic instruction of human physiology in developing a course to engage undergraduate health professions students, increase retention of human physiology course materials, and simultaneously prepare students for the CAT assessments that are licensing exams.
Predictive Factors of Eribulin Activity in Metastatic Breast Cancer Patients
Authors: De Sanctis Rita , Agostinetto Elisa , Masci Giovanna , Ferraro Emanuela , Losurdo Agnese , Viganò Alessandro , Antunovic Lidija , Zuradelli Monica , Torrisi Rosalba Maria Concetta , Santoro Armando
Published: July 2018

Objectives: Predictive factors of response to eribulin are lacking. We aimed to investigate the activity and safety of eribulin in a real-world population of metastatic breast cancer (MBC) patients and to identify possible predictive factors of progression-free survival (PFS) and objective response. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed 71 eribulin-treated MBC patients. Best response rate, PFS, and adverse events (AEs) were evaluated. The impact of different clinical-pathological factors on PFS was evaluated using the Cox proportional hazards model. Predictive factors of response were identified by discriminant function analysis (DFA). Results: Median PFS was 3.75 months (95% CI, 2.39–4.48); 12 patients (16.90%) achieved partial response (PR), 27 (38.03%) stable disease. The most common AEs were fatigue (25.83%), neutropenia (16.56%), and peripheral neuropathy (13.91%). A worse performance status (p = 0.025) and a higher number of metastatic organ sites (p = 0.011) were associated with a worse PFS under eribulin. Overall, in the DFA-predictive model, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio at baseline, estrogen receptor, Ki67, histology, and age were predictive of PR with 100% accuracy. Conclusions: Activity and safety profiles of eribulin were consistent with literature data. Performance status and number of metastatic sites were predictive factors of PFS. DFA could be a promising tool to discriminate responses to eribulin among MBC patients.
The LncRNA NEAT1 Accelerates Lung Adenocarcinoma Deterioration and Binds to Mir-193a-3p as a Competitive Endogenous RNA
Authors: Xiong Dan-dan , Li Zu-yun , Liang Lu , He Rong-quan , Ma Fu-chao , Luo Dian-zhong , Hu Xiao-hua  , Chen Gang
Published: July 2018

Background/Aims: Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) contribute to the development of multiple malignant tumors. Here, we focused on the biological function and underlying molecular mechanism of an lncRNA, nuclear-enriched abundant transcript 1 (NEAT1), in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD). Methods: In vitro experiments were conducted to determine the biological effects of NEAT1 in LUAD cells. A luciferase activity reporter assay was performed to corroborate the interaction between NEAT1 and miR-193a-3p. Data from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO), Oncomine, The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), and our in-house reverse transcription quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) were combined to examine the expression of NEAT1 and miR-193a-3p in LUAD. To further explore the regulatory mechanism of NEAT1, we searched for putative target genes of miR-193a-3p from 12 online prediction databases and determined genes positively correlated with NEAT1 as candidate targets. Furthermore, we analyzed the expression of these selected genes using data from TCGA. Results: In vitro experiments showed that knockdown of NEAT1 in LUAD cells markedly restrained cell proliferation, invasion, and migration and stimulated cell apoptosis. The dual-luciferase reporter assay demonstrated that miR-193a-3p directly targeted NEAT1 at its 3’-UTR. We then detected NEAT1 and miR-193a-3p in LUAD cells and normal lung epithelial cells and discovered high expression of NEAT1 and low expression of miR-193a-3p in LUAD cell lines. Simultaneously, the pooled results from the GEO, Oncomine, TCGA, and in-house RT-qPCR showed that the NEAT1 expression increased while the miR-193a-3p expression decreased in LUAD tissues versus normal lung tissues. Furthermore, the USF1 gene was not only upregulated in LUAD, but also positively correlated with NEAT1, suggesting that NEAT1 may function as a ceRNA to sponge miR-193a-3p and abrogate the inhibitory effect of miR-193a-3p on USF1. Conclusions: Our findings indicate that NEAT1 plays important roles in the occurrence and progression of LUAD. It may exert its role by acting as a ceRNA to regulate miR-193a-3p.
Effects of Dietary Serine Supplementation on Intestinal Integrity, Inflammation and Oxidative Status in Early-Weaned Piglets
Authors: Zhou Xihong , Zhang Yumei , Wu Xin , Wan Dan , Yin Yulong
Published: July 2018

Background/Aims: Early weaning often causes gut dysfunction. Since serine alleviates oxidative stress and inflammatory response which are accompany with early weaning, we conducted the study to explore whether serine improves intestinal function in early-weaned piglets. Methods: Twenty-eight weaned piglets (aged 21 d) were fed either a basal diet or a basal diet plus 0.2% serine. We determined the effects of dietary serine supplementation on intestinal morphology by hematoxylin and eosin staining, expression of tight junction proteins (TJPs) by immunoblotting and immunofluorescence, expression of inflammatory cytokines and apoptosis markers by RT-qPCR and the level of antioxidant enzymes with ELISA kits in early-weaned piglets. Results: Serine supplementation increased daily body weight gain while decreasing diarrhea incidence. Both the jejunum and ileum of serine-supplemented piglets showed regularly arranged villi and microvilli. Moreover, dietary serine increased TJP expression, and alleviated apoptosis, inflammation, and oxidative stress in the intestine of early-weaned piglets. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that serine has the potential for use as a feed additive to prevent gut dysfunction caused by weaning.
Isoetes ×gopalkrishnae (Isoetaceae), a new interspecific sterile hybrid from central India
Authors: SINGH SARVESH KUMAR , SHUKLA SANTOSH KUMAR , DUBEY NAWAL KISHORE , SHUKLA PRADEEP KUMAR
Published: July 2018

Isoetes ×gopalkrishnae hybr. nov., is described, illustrated and compared with possible parent species. Based on morphological characteristics and habitat conditions, this taxon is considered to represent a sterile hybrid between I. coromandelina and I. panchananii. The new hybrid is amphibious and grows on the exposed shore of an artificial pond. It is known only from a single locality on the Vindhya plateau in Uttar Pradesh, India. It can be distinguished from other taxa by a combination of characters including the lack of a scale, the leaf which is terete in transverse section, velum absent to rudimentary, a sporangial wall with internal pigmentation, rugulate megaspores with a smooth equatorial girdle and microspores with densely echinate to short-cristate ornamentation. It is the first Isoetes hybrid reported from the Indian subcontinent.
Why do adolescent boys dominate advanced mathematics subjects in the final year of secondary school in Australia?
Authors: Law Helen
Published: July 2018

In Australia, many students, especially girls, choose not to study advanced mathematics in Year 12 even though their schools offer relevant subjects. Previous studies have rarely examined, using nationally representative samples of Australian students, the extent to which teenage educational experiences and occupational expectations influence gender differences in later pursuits of advanced mathematics subjects. To fill this gap, I use multilevel logistic regression models to analyse the data from the 2003 cohort of the Longitudinal Survey of Australian Youth. My results show that students’ mathematics achievement, occupational expectations and self-assessed mathematical competence are crucial in explaining why boys are considerably more likely than girls to enrol in advanced mathematics subjects. The gender gap would decrease greatly if girls were as likely as boys to perform well in mathematics, to aspire to mathematically intensive careers and to have more confidence in their mathematical abilities when they were 15 years old.
Affective Dilemmas: The Impact of Trait Affect and State Emotion on Sustainable Consumption Decisions in a Social Dilemma Task
Authors: Tarditi Céline , Hahnel Ulf J. J. , Jeanmonod Noémie , Sander David , Brosch Tobias
Published: July 2018

Developing a more sustainable lifestyle is becoming an important challenge of our times; it is thus crucial to understand the factors that drive resource consumption decisions. We investigated the impact of trait affect and state emotion on individual consumption decisions in social dilemma tasks. Affective factors interacted strongly with the specific structural features of the choice situation. In Experiment 1, participants with high trait affect were especially likely to reduce their consumption when resource scarcity increased, but only when the choice was presented in a gain frame. In Experiment 2, induced guilt led to reduced consumption in the gain frame in participants with high trait affect, whereas induced pride led to increased investments in the loss frame in these participants. Our research highlights the adaptive function of affective factors in decision making in social dilemma tasks and illustrates how emotions may be leveraged to promote more sustainable resource consumption.
Mobile phone messaging to promote uptake of HIV testing among migrant African communities in the UK
Authors: Evans Catrin , Suggs L Suzanne , Turner Katie , Occa Aurora , Juma Amdani , Blake Holly
Published: July 2018

Background:

In the UK, African communities are a focus of public health efforts to increase uptake of HIV testing. Mobile phone interventions may be an innovative way of reaching migrant groups who are known to face multiple obstacles in accessing mainstream health services. This paper presents findings from a feasibility study that used participatory approaches to investigate the use of a text messaging intervention to encourage HIV testing among migrant African communities.

Methods:

Participants were recruited in the city of Nottingham by a team of community researchers. They were sent two text messages per week (one on HIV and one on general health) for 12 weeks. Baseline and follow-up questionnaires were completed to measure HIV testing behaviour, HIV-related knowledge and attitudes and general health. Participants’ views on the intervention were solicited.

Results:

One hundred and sixty-nine participants were enrolled in the study. Follow-up data on HIV testing were obtained for 76 participants (45%) and complete follow-up measures were available from 60 participants (36%). Eight reported seeking an HIV test during the study period. There were statistically significant positive changes in attitudes about HIV and a trend towards increased knowledge about HIV. One-third of participants reported improvements in physical activity levels, diet and stress management following the intervention. The intervention messages and structure were positively evaluated.

Conclusion:

Well-designed mobile phone messaging proved to be a feasible and acceptable intervention to promote both HIV testing and lifestyle behaviours among African migrant communities in the UK. When co-constructed with communities, they hold considerable promise for overcoming some of the health-related barriers faced by migrant populations in new countries. Future research and service development should focus on exploiting and evaluating this potential in relation to other key health priorities.
Increasing the interest in antennas and microwave courses
Authors: Perotoni Marcelo Bender , Vieira Marcos Stefanelli
Published: July 2018

Subjects related to electromagnetics in undergraduate electrical engineering courses are normally seen as problematic by students, due to the inherent complexity and abstract concepts. The effect is that students are drawn away from related research areas. Some approaches were developed to enhance the motivation and physical insight of the concepts seen in class. Electromagnetic compatibility is used as a source of real world examples where students see that applied electromagnetics is not a field unrelated with their experiences. In addition to that, final projects with handmade antennas help guide students through a complete design cycle, from analytical formulation to the actual measurement, so that the connections concerning the theory, simulation, prototyping, and measurements are closed. These techniques were applied and provided good results, increasing the understanding and motivation among students toward radio-frequency and antenna-related areas.
The Accuracy of Self-Reported Smoking Among Blacks
Authors: Zimmer David M.
Published: July 2018

Government agencies rely on surveys in which individuals self-report their smoking activities, which raises questions about biases in responses. To validate self-reported smoking numbers, medical researchers often rely on urinary concentrations of cotinine, the main metabolite of nicotine. But virtually all existing studies investigate whether self-reported nonsmokers misreport their smoking status. Such investigations leave unanswered whether individuals who admit smoking nonetheless smoke more than they claim. This article produces two findings of interest, both pertaining to self-reported smoking among Blacks. First, among self-reported nonsmokers, a Black person is approximately 47% more likely to smoke compared with a non-Black person. Second, among individuals who admit to smoking, the average Black smoker underreports his smoking activity by a larger amount than 70% of all self-reported smokers. Slower metabolism of cotinine among Blacks explains some, but not all, of those numbers.
Rhinosporidiosis in Colombia: case series and literature review
Authors: Vélez Alejandro , Jiménez Guillermo , Hidrón Alicia , Talero Sandra , Agudelo Carlos Andrés
Published: July 2018

Rhinosporidiosis is a chronic granulomatous disease that affects mucosal surfaces. Its epidemiology and clinical presentation in Colombia are not well-known. We therefore reviewed all 58 reported cases between 1964 and 2015 to raise awareness among clinicians in a non-endemic area. Of the patients, 64% were male (median age = 15 years) and 57% had ocular and 43% nasal manifestations; there were no disseminated cases of the disease. All lesions were surgically removed.
Decentralized iterative learning control for switched large-scale systems
Authors: Gu Panpan , Tian Senping , Liu Qian
Published: July 2018

This paper is concerned with the iterative learning control problem for switched large-scale systems. According to the characteristics of the systems, a decentralized D-type iterative learning control law is proposed for such switched large-scale systems. The proposed controller of each subsystem relies only on local output variables, without any information exchanges with other subsystems. By using the contraction mapping method, it is shown that the algorithm can guarantee that the output of each subsystem converges to the desired trajectory over the whole time interval along the iteration axis. Finally, three numerical examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.
The least-time optimization for abnormity control of a complex industrial process
Authors: Li Hui , Wang Fuli , Li Hongru , Wang Xu
Published: July 2018

Modern complex industrial processes are prone to errors because of interactions between humans, the external environment and the equipment. When the abnormity degree of a system increases, the system can generate failures or even accidents, which result in serious economic loss or even personal casualties. Therefore, it is necessary to take effective measures to remove the abnormity as soon as possible. This problem can be described as the least-time optimization problem. This paper analyses an abnormity by summarizing and comparing related concepts in the researched results. Based on these concepts, a control strategy for the abnormity in a complex industrial process is proposed by analysing the experience of operators on site. Taking the abnormity in the thickening process of gold hydrometallurgy as an example, this paper explores how the abnormity control problem can be transformed into the least-time optimization problem. Technical and mechanical constraints are described. Simulation results indicate that the proposed strategy can assist the operators to regulate the control variables and recover the abnormity as soon as possible. This produces better performance than the existing regulations on site.
Do Group and Organizational Identification Help or Hurt Intergroup Strategic Consensus?
Authors: Porck Jeanine Pieternel , van Knippenberg Daan , Tarakci Murat , Ateş Nüfer Yasin , Groenen Patrick J. F. , de Haas Marco
Published: July 2018

Implementing strategy demands an organizationwide effort, where teams should not operate in isolation. A challenge many organizations face in implementing their strategy is eradicating silo thinking and creating shared understanding of strategy between interdependent teams—that is, intergroup strategic consensus. However, strategy process research is silent on how such intergroup strategic consensus can emerge. Drawing on social identity theory, we offer a lens to understand what influences the degree of intergroup strategic consensus. We unveil a tension between organizational and group identification such that organizational identification enhances intergroup strategic consensus, whereas group identification reduces it. Moreover, we hypothesize that high group identification crowds out positive effects of organizational identification on intergroup strategic consensus. Data from 451 intergroup relationships between 92 teams within a service organization support these hypotheses. We replicate our results using 191 intergroup relationships between 37 teams from another organization. These results allow us to develop an understanding of intergroup strategic consensus, expand the conversation in strategy process research to between-team interdependencies, and challenge the assumption in management literature and practice that higher identification is always desirable.