bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A History of Ecojustice and Sustainability: The Place Where Two Rivers Meet
Authors: Rivera Maulucci María S.
Published: June 2023

This chapter begins with a land acknowledgment to frame the ways in which the ecojustice and sustainability movements are increasingly coalescing around climate justice. The second section (1664–1961) explores the history of sustainability with its roots in forest management for economic and utilitarian purposes. The third section (1962–1973) reviews the history of environmental justice and ecojustice as civil and human rights issues, including the farm workers movement, the Memphis Sanitation strike, and the Young Lords of Harlem. The National Environmental Protection Act in 1970 serves as a watershed moment that ushers in a flood of legislation designed to protect the environment. This period also marks the beginnings of scientific evidence that drew a link between greenhouse gases and climate change. The fourth section (1979–1988) raises concerns about toxic wastes and the disproportionate health impacts in Black, Latinx, and Indigenous communities. Sustainable development and climate change science emerge as worldwide concerns during this time. The fifth section (1990–2021) juxtaposes national and international efforts to ensure environmental and Indigenous environmental justice by greening sustainable development and addressing climate change alongside ongoing failures of these efforts, pointing to signs of hope amid ongoing challenges.
Building a Circular Campus: Consumption, Net Zero Emissions, and Environmental Justice at Barnard College
Authors: Goldmark Sandra , Raucher Leslie , Cardenas Ana
Published: June 2023

Higher education has an opportunity to accelerate the transition to a just and circular economy, a vital part of any global response to climate change. As diverse but contained communities, campuses are in many ways microcosms of the larger world – with systems, both centralized and decentralized, for dining, purchasing, transportation, home and work life, and decision making. At the same time, colleges and universities have significant capacity to influence behaviors through teaching, research, management, and purchasing power. These characteristics create a unique opportunity to develop and test circular economy strategies, especially in the context of environmental justice. When put into practice in a campus environment, numerous intersections and synergies between social justice and circularity become apparent, along with powerful pathways for emissions reduction and changing behavior patterns. This chapter describes the pursuit of an equitable and circular campus at Barnard College: a circular campus is a holistic, systems-based framework designed to reduce emissions and waste, reduce costs, transform consumption patterns on campus, increase access and affordability for students, and support the transition to a just, sustainable economy.
Sustaining Curricula: Multidisciplinary Faculty Dialogues for Ecological and Pedagogical Renewal
Authors: Rosales Jennifer
Published: June 2023

Sustaining Curricula 2021 was a series of four interdisciplinary faculty panels at Barnard College that took place virtually in the Spring 2021 semester. Barnard’s Center for Engaged Pedagogy (CEP) planned this series with the Office of Sustainability and Climate Action and faculty to encourage professors to integrate climate action, sustainability, and the environment into their courses in authentic, inclusive, and justice-oriented ways and to cultivate a culture of interdisciplinary pedagogical exchange and collaboration. This chapter introduces the major themes of each panel and highlights the contributions of the faculty members to ongoing dialogues and discourses on ecological and pedagogical renewal in sustainability education across the curriculum.
Panel One: Theorizing the Environment, March 10, 2021
Authors: Betancor Orlando , Callahan Hilary S. , Wennerlind Carl , Dinoor Yuval , Elkis Rachel
Published: June 2023

In this panel discussion, Orlando Bentancor (Spanish), Carl Wennerlind (History) and Hilary Callahan (Biology) explore how the environment is theorized in their respective fields, including their views of whether and how theories differ between science and humanities disciplines. The discussion includes their approaches to selecting readings and structuring their courses to include theories about the environment, and how these have evolved over time to address issues of sustainability.
Panel Two: Climate Change and Anthropocene, March 19, 2021
Authors: Caglioti Angelo , Snow Jonathan , Crowther Andrew , Rivera Maulucci María S. , Dinoor Yuval , Jain Aastha
Published: June 2023

In this panel discussion, Angelo Caglioti (History), Jonathan Snow (Biology), Andrew Crowther (Chemistry), and María S. Rivera Maulucci (Education) discuss the Anthropocene, climate change, and sustainability, and how they teach about these ideas in courses in their respective disciplines.
Finding the Most Important Places on Earth for Birds
Authors: Maenza-Gmelch Terryanne
Published: June 2023

Birds are reliable participants in the mutualism between birds and humans, but humans many times do not reciprocate. In a mutualistic ecological relationship, the interacting species both benefit, each providing a helpful service for the other. What could birds possibly do for us? You can thank a bird for your pure drinking water, coffee bean quality, and seed dispersal. What do we do for birds? Birds need a healthy habitat. While we are in control of that, we are not managing it well and this is an ecological injustice. One of the UN Sustainable Development Goals is called Life on Land and includes biodiversity protection which can be achieved, in part, through habitat conservation. Habitat conservation starts with identifying a place and then implementing a way to protect it. Students and I have identified some of these important places and our work has successfully informed land conservation policy for the Audubon New York Important Bird Area program. Protecting ecologically important places for birds is what I strive for with my fieldwork, in my classroom activities, and eventually back in the field with students to help.
Viewbrics: A Technology-Enhanced Formative Assessment Method to Mirror and Master Complex Skills with Video-Enhanced Rubrics and Peer Feedback in Secondary Education
Authors: Rusman Ellen , Nadolski Rob , Ackermans Kevin
Published: June 2023

To master complex skills, it is important to practice regularly and to form a mental model of the strived-for skills. If you know for which mastery level you are striving and can mirror performances against this benchmark with help of others, then you can focus on practicing deficient sub-skills to become a ‘master’. Although regular and structured practice is indispensable, secondary schools do often not facilitate this in daily educational practice. We expected that a technology-enhanced formative assessment method with analytic rubrics could support both mental model formation as well as regular practice of students’ skills. However, we further hypothesized that text-based analytic rubrics offer limited capacity to convey contextualized, procedural, time-related and observable behavioral aspects of a complex skill, thus restricting the construction of a rich mental model. We expected that using video-enhanced rubrics, an integration of analytic rubrics with video modeling examples, within a technology-enhanced formative assessment method would lead to a ‘richer’ mental model, improved feedback quality and positive growth in skills performance. Therefore, various stakeholders jointly developed and tested the Viewbrics technology-enhanced formative assessment method with (video-enhanced) rubrics for three generic complex skills, namely presenting, collaborating and information literacy. The Viewbrics method was then piloted by means of a quasi-experimental design (video-enhanced or textual rubric condition and a control group) in 6 classes in two secondary schools. Results show that the structured technology-enhanced formative assessment method had a positive effect on both mental model growth as well as on skills’ mastery levels of students. This effect was independent of the used rubric format (textual or video-enhanced).
PeerTeach: Teaching Learners to Do Learner-Centered Teaching
Authors: Rosier Soren
Published: June 2023

One-on-one tutoring is the most effective teaching arrangement. Most schools and families, however, cannot afford to provide each child with a tutor. Peer tutoring in classrooms, a more feasible and scalable learning arrangement, increases learning for both tutors and tutees, but peer tutors’ efficacy is often limited by their didactic and disempowering approaches. Two interventions with distinctly different designs were developed to test the viability of online, scalable training to foster students’ adoption of learner-centered teaching methods. To compare the efficacy of these intervention approaches, two randomized control experiments were conducted with 198 middle school math students. Both trainings increased the frequency that tutors employed learner-centered strategies, evident in clickstream data from virtual scenarios and in tutee reflections following real-life tutoring. Shifts in tutoring behaviors significantly boosted tutee learning at every level of tutor content mastery. This suggests that training students to use learner-centered tutoring strategies can greatly improve the efficacy for peer tutoring in classrooms, and that technological solutions can scale this type of training.
A Thematic Analysis of Factors Influencing Student’s Peer-Feedback Orientation
Authors: Kasch Julia , van Rosmalen Peter , Kalz Marco
Published: June 2023

Providing and receiving feedback requires a certain openness in individuals which is referred to as feedback orientation. Although this openness is also required in peer-feedback processes personal factors that influence student’s openness (i.e. peer-feedback orientation) are less researched. Inspired by feedback orientation studies in a workplace setting we investigated personal factors that influence students’ peer-feedback orientation. As part of an exploratory sequential mixed methods research design, qualitative data on personal factors influencing student’s peer-feedback orientation was collected. Semi-structured interviews with students, teachers and researchers (N = 13) revealed a broad range of personal factors influencing their peer-feedback orientation. Thematic analyses of the data showed that the most prominent factors were related to the perceived usefulness of receiving and providing peer-feedback, the social bond between students, fairness and skills. The importance of existing feedback orientation dimensions (utility, accountability, social awareness and self-efficacy) by (Linderbaum and Levy, Journal of Management 36:1372–1405, 2010) was confirmed in a higher education setting. Interestingly, different interpretations of the dimensions were found which should lead to the development of a peer-feedback orientation scale for higher education.
Giving Feedback to Peers in an Online Inquiry-Learning Environment
Authors: Dmoshinskaia Natasha , Gijlers Hannie
Published: June 2023

Giving feedback to peers is more often viewed as a learning tool rather than as an assessment tool or a replacement for teacher feedback. Such learning can be attributed to the fact that while giving feedback, students should be actively cognitively involved with the material in order to evaluate a peer’s product and suggest ways to improve it. Peer feedback is usually given on bigger scale products, such as essays, reports or group projects, and constitutes a separate task requiring substantial time. There has been very little research done on the possibility of including a feedback-giving activity in a regular school lesson. This chapter contributes to that area of research by giving an overview of the results of four (quasi-)experimental studies in which secondary school children gave feedback on relatively small-scale products (concept maps) while working in an online inquiry-learning environment. Concept maps were chosen for peer reviewing because they are compact products that stimulate higher order thinking and can fit into an inquiry-learning process very naturally. In addition, research indicates that when reviewing concept maps, students may get deeper understanding than when reviewing other products. Our goal was to investigate what factors of the feedback-giving process influence the learning of feedback providers and how that process should be organised to benefit this type of learning the most. Based on the findings, practical recommendations for using peer feedback in a real-life classroom are formulated. The chapter concludes with the directions for further research in the area of giving feedback to peers.
Peer Interaction Types for Social and Academic Integration and Institutional Attachment in First Year Undergraduates
Authors: Byl Emmeline , Topping Keith J. , Struyven Katrien , Engels Nadine
Published: June 2023

Higher education institutions are increasingly implementing peer tutoring and peer mentoring strategies to support newly enrolled students’ transition into university, aiming to reduce drop-out and improve persistence. However, it is rare that these are directly compared, and even rarer for effects on social and academic integration and institutional attachment to be explored, as in this study. In this quantitative and qualitative study, a total of 446 first-year university students of Psychology and Education Sciences in one university, recruited via a snowball technique which relied heavily on email and text messages, followed-up with invitations to a Facebook group, completed an online questionnaire. The questionnaire incorporated three instruments of known reliability: the Social Adjustment, Academic Adjustment and Institutional Attachment subscales of the Adaptation to College Questionnaire; the Commitment subscale of the Revised Academic Hardiness Scale; and the Commitment Attitude Scale. Results were analysed by independent t-tests. For the qualitative semi-structured interviews participants were 39 self-selected but stratified volunteers. Interviews focused on the three stages of Appreciative Inquiry: Discovery, Dream and Design. All interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed. A combined inductive-deductive content-analysis technique and a thematic analysis technique was then used via MAXQDA 11. Peer mentoring was the most effective means to enhance social integration. However, peer tutoring showed a significant effect on academic integration. Neither had much impact on institutional attachment. Participants particularly mentioned that activities such as speed dating and mentoring days were important, since they developed self-esteem, which encouraged them to further participate. The availability of peer support over the longer term was seen as important. Evidence-based action implications for educational practice, policy-making and future researchers were outlined, and the importance of listening to students when developing institutional policy is emphasized.
How to Make Students Feel Safe and Confident? Designing an Online Training Targeting the Social Nature of Peer Feedback
Authors: Senden Morgane , De Jaeger Dominique , Rotsaert Tijs , Leroy Fréderic , Coertjens Liesje
Published: June 2023

Peer feedback has proven to be very beneficial for student learning; however, by its social nature, peer feedback raises concerns for many students. To diminish these, and maximize the benefits of a peer feedback activity, we created an online training targeting psychological safety and trust. The objective of this chapter is to describe the design process and to detail the composition of the training. The training was delivered to higher education students and included five stages: discovery of students’ representation, lecture on how to provide effective feedback, peer feedback practice, role-play and discussion in small groups and summary of key learning points. A questionnaire one month after the training and interviews with five students revealed that students’ engagement in and perceptions of the training were highly variable. Implications for research and practice are discussed.
How Do Lower-Secondary Students Exercise Agency During Formative Peer Assessment?
Authors: Ketonen Laura , Nieminen Pasi , Hähkiöniemi Markus
Published: June 2023

Exercising agency is an inherent component of peer assessment. However, the research on agency in peer assessment is scarce. This case study explored how seventh grade science students exercised agency during formative peer assessment. The data comprises audio recordings of students’ classroom discussions, written peer feedback, written work, student interviews, and the researcher’s field notes. With thematic analysis, we identified nine forms of agency as associated with three positions: group member, assessor, and assessee. An examination of student interactions revealed that peer assessment challenges students unequally. While some students exercised certain forms of agency without difficulty—judging their peers’ work, for example—others needed help. One reason participants fell short in advancing their and one another’s learning during peer assessment was their difficulty exercising agency. Hence, equipping students with knowledge, skills, and a sense of responsibility is not enough; rather, their agency needs to be supported to enable the productive implementation of peer assessment.
Learning Analytics for Peer Assessment: A Scoping Review
Authors: Misiejuk Kamila , Wasson Barbara
Published: June 2023

Learning analytics is a maturing field that analyses educational data to gain new insights and improve learning. Peer assessment is an assessment technique in which students provide feedback to one another. To date, there have been no reviews examining how learning analytics is used to facilitate peer assessment. This scoping review addresses this gap and provides an overview of the role of learning analytics in understanding peer assessment, the peer assessment challenges addressed by learning analytics, and insights into peer assessment. The 27 papers in the review highlight a diverse landscape of research integrating automated assessment and visualizations into peer assessment activities, applying novel data analysis methods to peer assessment data, evaluating different types of peer assessment, or examining new research questions, such as those regarding student interaction or self-regulation during peer assessment activities.
Peer Assessment Using Criteria or Comparative Judgement? A Replication Study on the Learning Effect of Two Peer Assessment Methods
Authors: van Daal Tine , Snajder Mike , Nijs Kris , Van Dyck Hanna
Published: June 2023

Various ways exist in which students can assess the work of their peers as for instance by using a criteria list or by making comparative judgements. Up to now, only two studies examined the effect of both peer assessment methods on the quality of feedback and students’ performance. The study of Bouwer and colleagues (2018) provides evidence in favor of comparative judgement in the context of writing in English in higher education. Results of Stuulen and colleagues (2022) point to the opposite. However, their study focused on writing in Dutch in secondary education. Hence, it is questionable to what extent the results of Bouwer and colleagues regarding the learning effect of both peer assessment methods can be generalized to other contexts and subjects. Therefore, this study conceptually replicated the Bouwer et al.-study in the context of secondary education (problem-solving in physics, writing in French) and university education (scientific reporting of statistical information). Students’ feedback and performance after the peer assessment intervention were measured. Results showed that peer assessment method did not impact students’ performance in any of the samples. Some differences between peer assessment conditions were found regarding the quantity and the content of the peer feedback but these replicated the findings of the original study only to a limited extent. Explanations and implications of these findings for peer assessment and for the role of conceptual replications are discussed.
Using Stochastic Actor-Oriented Models to Explain Collaboration Intentionality as a Prerequisite for Peer Feedback and Learning in Networks
Authors: Brouwer Jasperina , de Matos Fernandes Carlos A.
Published: June 2023

Peer feedback and collaboration intentionality (CI) are key prerequisites to advance in higher education. For learning, it is crucial that peers do not merely interact, but that students are willing to function as scaffolds by sharing their knowledge from different perspectives and asking each other for academic support. Peer feedback can only take place within a collaborative learning approach and when students are willing to initiate feedback relationships with their peers. Therefore, we analyze peer feedback networks (in terms of academic help and advice-seeking) and CI as an individual characteristic using an advanced statistical tool, namely stochastic actor-oriented models (SAOMs). In SAOMs, we control for selection and influence mechanisms. Selection comprises instances when feedback relations can be initiated based on CI, while influence builds upon existing feedback relations in affecting CI. One important selection mechanism is homophily, which means that individuals prefer to initiate a connection with someone else based on similarity in characteristics, attitudes, or behavior. In this chapter, we introduce this statistical technique within the higher education context and the added value for feedback research in education. We illustrate the SAOM methodology using two-wave peer feedback networks and CI data while controlling for gender and the Five-Factor Model personality traits. In this empirical example, we address the research question: To what extent does homophily of CI plays a role in selecting peers when seeking feedback and to what extent do feedback relationships influence CI? The SAOM shows an homophily effect, which implies that students preferentially seek feedback from others who are similar in CI. We also find an influence effect in which students who seek feedback from one another become more similar in terms of CI over time. Similarity in CI is driven by selection and influence mechanisms in peer feedback networks.
Web-Based Peer Assessment Platforms: What Educational Features Influence Learning, Feedback and Social Interaction?
Authors: Ocampo José Carlos G. , Panadero Ernesto
Published: June 2023

The potential of web-based peer assessment platforms to aid in instruction and learning has been well documented in literature. Evidence proposed that the use of web-based peer assessment is beneficial for both teachers and students in several aspects, but some findings also suggest that it might present a number of challenges. The aim of this chapter is to examine web-based peer assessment platforms in terms of their features  that can potentially affect student learning, feedback exchange, and social interaction. A total of 17 eligible web-based peer assessment platforms were systematically reviewed against nine peer assessment design elements. Our results suggest that these platforms offer features to facilitate peer assessment in varied disciplines and in multiple ways, which has the potential to affect learning, feedback, and social interaction. However, as much as it offers technologically sound tools to aid instruction, we recommend extensive training for both teachers and students to maximise the features embedded in these platforms.
Holographic thermodynamics of rotating black holes
Authors: Gong Ting-Feng , Jiang Jie , Zhang Ming
Published: June 2023

Abstract

We provide mass/energy formulas for the extended thermodynamics, mixed thermodynamics, and holographic conformal field theory (CFT) thermodynamics for the charged and rotating Kerr-Newman Anti-de Sitter black holes. Then for the CFT thermal states dual to the black hole, we find the first-order phase transitions and criticality phenomena in the canonical ensemble with fixed angular momentum, volume, and central charge. We observe that the CFT states cannot be analogous to the Van der Waals fluids, despite the critical exponents falling into the universality class predicted by the mean field theory. Additionally, we examine the (de)confinement phase transitions within the grand canonical ensemble with fixed angular velocity, volume, and central charge of the CFT. Our findings suggest that the near zero temperature (de)confinement phase transitions can occur with the angular velocity of the CFT that solely depends on the CFT volume.
Macrophage Dectin-1 mediates Ang II renal injury through neutrophil migration and TGF-β1 secretion
Authors: Ye Shiju , Huang He , Xiao Yun , Han Xue , Shi Fengjie , Luo Wu , Chen Jiawen , Ye Yang , Zhao Xia , Huang Weijian , Wang Yi , Lai Dongwu , Liang Guang , Fu Guosheng
Published: June 2023

Macrophage activation has been shown to play an essential role in renal fibrosis and dysfunction in hypertensive chronic kidney disease. Dectin-1 is a pattern recognition receptor that is also involved in chronic noninfectious diseases through immune activation. However, the role of Dectin-1 in Ang II-induced renal failure is still unknown. In this study, we found that Dectin-1 expression on CD68 + macrophages was significantly elevated in the kidney after Ang II infusion. We assessed the effect of Dectin-1 on hypertensive renal injury using Dectin-1-deficient mice infused by Angiotensin II (Ang II) at 1000 ng/kg/min for 4 weeks. Ang II-induced renal dysfunction, interstitial fibrosis, and immune activation were significantly attenuated in Dectin-1-deficient mice. A Dectin-1 neutralizing antibody and Syk inhibitor (R406) were used to examine the effect and mechanism of Dectin-1/Syk signaling axle on cytokine secretion and renal fibrosis in culturing cells. Blocking Dectin-1 or inhibiting Syk significantly reduced the expression and secretion of chemokines in RAW264.7 macrophages. The in vitro data showed that the increase in TGF-β1 in macrophages enhanced the binding of P65 and its target promotor via the Ang II-induced Dectin-1/Syk pathway. Secreted TGF-β1 caused renal fibrosis in kidney cells through Smad3 activation. Thus, macrophage Dectin-1 may be involved in the activation of neutrophil migration and TGF-β1 secretion, thereby promoting kidney fibrosis and dysfunction.

Graphical Abstract
Morawetz Estimates Without Relative Degeneration and Exponential Decay on Schwarzschild–de Sitter Spacetimes
Authors: Mavrogiannis Georgios
Published: June 2023

We use a novel physical space method to prove relatively non-degenerate integrated energy estimates for the wave equation on subextremal Schwarzschild–de Sitter spacetimes with parameters $$(M,\Lambda )$$

(
M
,
Λ
)

. These are integrated decay statements whose bulk energy density, though degenerate at highest order, is everywhere comparable to the energy density of the boundary fluxes. As a corollary, we prove that solutions of the wave equation decay exponentially on the exterior region. The main ingredients are a previous Morawetz estimate of Dafermos–Rodnianski and an additional argument based on commutation with a vector field which can be expressed in the form $$\begin{aligned} r\sqrt{1-\frac{2M}{r}-\frac{\Lambda }{3}r^2}\frac{\partial }{\partial r}, \end{aligned}$$

r

1
-

2
M

r

-

Λ
3

r
2

∂

∂
r

,

where $$\partial _r$$

∂
r

here denotes the coordinate vector field corresponding to a well-chosen system of hyperboloidal coordinates. Our argument gives exponential decay also for small first-order perturbations of the wave operator. In the limit $$\Lambda =0$$

Λ
=
0

, our commutation corresponds to the one introduced by Holzegel–Kauffman (A note on the wave equation on black hole spacetimes with small non-decaying first-order terms, 2020. arXiv:2005.13644).
How amenable is type 2 diabetes treatment for precision diabetology? A meta-regression of glycaemic control data from 174 randomised trials
Authors: Kuss Oliver , Opitz Marie Elisabeth , Brandstetter Lea Verena , Schlesinger Sabrina , Roden Michael , Hoyer Annika
Published: June 2023

Aims/hypothesis

There are two prerequisites for the precision medicine approach to be beneficial for treated individuals. First, there must be treatment heterogeneity; second, in the case of treatment heterogeneity, we need to detect clinical predictors to identify people who would benefit from one treatment more than from others. There is an established meta-regression approach to assess these two prerequisites that relies on measuring the variability of a clinical outcome after treatment in placebo-controlled randomised trials. Our aim was to apply this approach to the treatment of type 2 diabetes.

Methods

We performed a meta-regression analysis using information from 174 placebo-controlled randomised trials with 178 placebo and 272 verum (i.e. active treatment) arms including 86,940 participants with respect to the variability of glycaemic control as assessed by HbA1c after treatment and its potential predictors.

Results

The adjusted difference in log(SD) values between the verum and placebo arms was 0.037 (95% CI: 0.004, 0.069). That is, we found a small increase in the variability of HbA1c values after treatment in the verum arms. In addition, one potentially relevant predictor for explaining this increase, drug class, was observed, and GLP-1 receptor agonists yielded the largest differences in log(SD) values.

Conclusions/interpretation

The potential of the precision medicine approach in the treatment of type 2 diabetes is modest at best, at least with regard to an improvement in glycaemic control. Our finding of a larger variability after treatment with GLP-1 receptor agonists in individuals with poor glycaemic control should be replicated and/or validated with other clinical outcomes and with different study designs.

Funding

The research reported here received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Data availability

Two datasets (one for the log[SD] and one for the baseline-corrected log[SD]) to reproduce the analyses from this paper are available on https://zenodo.org/record/7956635.

Graphical Abstract
Derotational distal femur osteotomy combined with medial patellofemoral ligament reconstruction yields satisfactory results in recurrent patellar dislocation with excessive femoral anteversion angle and trochlear dysplasia
Authors: Zhou Kezhen , Sun Zhiwen , Feng Ao , Guo Hailong , Sun Ran , Niu Yingzhen , Liu Lei , Wang Xiaofeng
Published: June 2023

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the clinical outcomes of medial patellofemoral ligament (MPFL) reconstruction combined with derotational distal femur osteotomy in patients with recurrent patellar dislocation who had excessive femoral anteversion angle and trochlear dysplasia.

Methods

Between 2015 and 2020, 64 patients (64 knees) with recurrent patellar dislocation, who had excessive femoral anteversion angle (≥ 25°) and trochlear dysplasia and were surgically treated using derotational distal femur osteotomy and MPFL reconstruction, were eligible for this retrospective study. These patients were assigned to two groups according to the grade of trochlear dysplasia. Group A (type A trochlear dysplasia, n = 33) and Group B (type B, C, D trochlear dysplasia, n = 31). Preoperative and postoperative patellar tilt angle (PTA), Caton–Deschamps index (CD‐I), tibial tubercle–trochlear groove (TT–TG) distance and femoral anteversion angle were evaluated. Patient outcomes were assessed using the preoperative and postoperative International Knee Documentation Committee (IKDC) score, Kujala score, Lysholm score, Tegner score, and visual analog scale (VAS) score.

Results

A total of 64 patients (64 knees) were evaluated in this study, with a mean follow‐up period of 28.4 ± 3.6 months. There were no cases of wound infection, osteotomy site fractures, deep venous thrombosis of the lower extremities, or re‐dislocation in the two groups during the postoperative follow‐up period. All patients returned to full extension and flexion. The postoperative Tegner score, Lysholm score, Kujala score, IKDC score, VAS score, PTA, CD‐I, TT–TG distance, and femoral anteversion angle were significantly improved compared with the preoperative status (P < 0.05). There was no significant difference between the two groups (n.s.).

Conclusion

MPFL reconstruction combined with derotational distal femur osteotomy showed satisfactory clinical outcomes during follow‐up in patients with recurrent patellar dislocation who had excessive femoral anteversion angle and trochlear dysplasia. Even patients with high‐grade trochlear dysplasia showed satisfactory results. For those patients, additional surgery is not necessary.

Level of evidence

Level III.
Rosmarinic acid, the active component of Rubi Fructus, induces apoptosis of SGC-7901 and HepG2 cells through mitochondrial pathway and exerts anti-tumor effect
Authors: Chen Changlun , Liu Yilin , Shen Yi , Zhu Lili , Yao Lumeng , Wang Xingxing , Zhang Anna , Li Jiao , Wu Jianjun , Qin Luping
Published: June 2023

Rosmarinic acid (RA) is a well-known phenolic acid widely present in over 160 species of herbal plants and known to exhibit anti-tumor effects on breast, prostate, and colon cancers in vitro. However, its effect and mechanism in gastric cancer and liver cancer are unclear. Moreover, there is no RA report yet in the chemical constituents of Rubi Fructus (RF). In this study, RA was isolated from RF for the first time, and the effect and mechanism of RA on gastric and liver cancers were evaluated using SGC-7901 and HepG2 cells models. The cells were treated with different concentrations of RA (50, 75, and 100 μg/mL) for 48 h, and the effect of RA on cell proliferation was evaluated by the CCK-8 assay. The effect of RA on cell morphology and mobility was observed by inverted fluorescence microscopy, cell apoptosis and cell cycle were determined by flow cytometry, and the expression of apoptosis-related proteins cytochrome C, cleaved caspase-3, Bax, and Bcl-2 was detected by western blotting. The results revealed that, with an increase in the RA concentration, the cell viability, mobility, and Bcl-2 expression decreased, while the apoptosis rate, Bax, cytochrome C, and cleaved caspase-3 expression increased, and SGC-7901 and HepG2 cells could be induced to arrest their cell cycle in the G0/G1 and S phases, respectively. These results together indicate that RA can induce apoptosis of SGC-7901 and HepG2 cells through the mitochondrial pathway. Thus, this study supplements the material basis of the anti-tumor activity of RF and provides an insight into the potential mechanism of RA-inducing apoptosis of gastric cancer SGC-7901 cells and liver cancer HepG2 cells, thereby facilitating further developmental studies on and the utilization of the anti-tumor activity of RF.
“The accuracy of the EOS imaging system to assess hip abnormalities in adolescents and adults:” a systematic review and meta-analysis
Authors: Alghamdi Ahmed , Madan Sanjeev , Shuweihdi Farag , Offiah Amaka C.
Published: June 2023

Objectives

To determine the accuracy of the EOS imaging system compared to the gold standard computed tomography (CT) scan, for the measurement of native and postoperative/prosthetic hip parameters in adolescents and adults.

Methods

Medline, Cochrane Systematic Review, and Web of Science databases were searched to obtain relevant articles published between January 1964 and February 2021. All articles published in English. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were developed according to the Population, Intervention, Comparator, Outcome (PICO) framework. Three reviewers independently assessed the quality of included studies using the Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies (QUADAS-2) checklist. A narrative synthesis of the articles and a meta-analysis were conducted. The heterogeneity exhibited by the effect sizes was obtained using a forest plot, the Q statistic and the I2 index. Reliability coefficients were transformed into Fisher’s Z to normalise their distribution and stabilise the variances. For each meta-analysis, an effect size (average reliability coefficient) and a 95% confidence interval were calculated and presented in a forest plot. The amount of radiation dose between modalities was compared.

Results

The search retrieved 75 articles, six of which met inclusion and exclusion criteria. The meta-analysis included five of these six studies (sample size from 20 to 90). Comparing EOS and CT, the estimated average correlation (effect size) for combined studies was significantly high (r = 0.84, 95% CI = 0.78 to 0.88, p-value < 0.001). With respect to Pearson’s correlation between EOS and CT, the estimated average correlation for combined studies was significantly high (r = 0.86, 95% CI = 0.80 to 0.90, p-value < 0.001). Average radiation dose for EOS was 0.18 ± 0.05 mGy for the anteroposterior view (AP) and 0.45 ± 0.08 mGy for the lateral view; and for CT was 8.4 to 15.6 mGy.

Conclusion

The EOS imaging system has a high correlation with CT for preoperative and postoperative/prosthetic hip measurements, with considerably lower irradiation of patients.
Femoral head avascular necrosis in COVID-19 survivors: a systematic review
Authors: Hassan Ahmed Abdelazim A. , Khalifa Ahmed A.
Published: June 2023

The current systematic review aimed to document published cases of femoral head avascular necrosis (FHAVN) post-COVID-19, to report the COVID-19 disease characteristics and management patients received, and to evaluate how the FHAVN were diagnosed and treated among various reports. A systematic literature review was performed per the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines through a comprehensive English literature search on January 2023 through four databases (Embase, PubMed, Cochrane Library, and Scopus), including studies reporting on FHAVN post-COVID-19. Fourteen articles were included, ten (71.4%) were case reports, and four (28.6%) case series reported on 104 patients having a mean age of 42.2 ± 11.7 (14:74) years, in which 182 hip joints were affected. In 13 reports, corticosteroids were used during the COVID-19 management plan for a mean of 24.8 ± 11 (7:42) days, with a mean prednisolone equivalent dose of 1238.5 ± 492.8 (100:3520) mg. A mean of 142.1 ± 107.6 (7:459) days passed between COVID-19 diagnosis and FHAVN detection, and most of the hips were stage II (70.1%), and concomitant septic arthritis was present in eight (4.4%) hips. Most hips (147, 80.8%) were treated non-surgically, of which 143 (78.6%) hips received medical treatment, while 35 (19.2%) hips were surgically managed, 16 (8.8%) core decompression, 13 (7.1%) primary THA, five (2.7%) staged THA and three (1.6%) had first stage THA (debridement and application of antibiotic-loaded cement spacer). The outcomes were acceptable as regards hip function and pain relief. Femoral head avascular necrosis post-COVID-19 infection is a real concern, primarily attributed to corticosteroid usage, besides other factors. Early suspicion and detection are mandatory, as conservative management lines are effective during early stages with acceptable outcomes. However, surgical intervention was required for progressive collapse or patients presented in the late stage.
Trends in the incidence of pulmonary nodules in chest computed tomography: 10-year results from two Dutch hospitals
Authors: Hendrix Ward , Rutten Matthieu , Hendrix Nils , van Ginneken Bram , Schaefer-Prokop Cornelia , Scholten Ernst T. , Prokop Mathias , Jacobs Colin
Published: June 2023

Objective

To study trends in the incidence of reported pulmonary nodules and stage I lung cancer in chest CT.

Methods

We analyzed the trends in the incidence of detected pulmonary nodules and stage I lung cancer in chest CT scans in the period between 2008 and 2019. Imaging metadata and radiology reports from all chest CT studies were collected from two large Dutch hospitals. A natural language processing algorithm was developed to identify studies with any reported pulmonary nodule.

Results

Between 2008 and 2019, a total of 74,803 patients underwent 166,688 chest CT examinations at both hospitals combined. During this period, the annual number of chest CT scans increased from 9955 scans in 6845 patients in 2008 to 20,476 scans in 13,286 patients in 2019. The proportion of patients in whom nodules (old or new) were reported increased from 38% (2595/6845) in 2008 to 50% (6654/13,286) in 2019. The proportion of patients in whom significant new nodules (≥ 5 mm) were reported increased from 9% (608/6954) in 2010 to 17% (1660/9883) in 2017. The number of patients with new nodules and corresponding stage I lung cancer diagnosis tripled and their proportion doubled, from 0.4% (26/6954) in 2010 to 0.8% (78/9883) in 2017.

Conclusion

The identification of incidental pulmonary nodules in chest CT has steadily increased over the past decade and has been accompanied by more stage I lung cancer diagnoses.

Clinical relevance statement

These findings stress the importance of identifying and efficiently managing incidental pulmonary nodules in routine clinical practice.

Key Points

• The number of patients who underwent chest CT examinations substantially increased over the past decade, as did the number of patients in whom pulmonary nodules were identified.

• The increased use of chest CT and more frequently identified pulmonary nodules were associated with more stage I lung cancer diagnoses.
Fully automated segmentation and radiomics feature extraction of hypopharyngeal cancer on MRI using deep learning
Authors: Lin Yu-Chun , Lin Gigin , Pandey Sumit , Yeh Chih-Hua , Wang Jiun-Jie , Lin Chien-Yu , Ho Tsung-Ying , Ko Sheung-Fat , Ng Shu-Hang
Published: June 2023

Objectives

To use convolutional neural network for fully automated segmentation and radiomics features extraction of hypopharyngeal cancer (HPC) tumor in MRI.

Methods

MR images were collected from 222 HPC patients, among them 178 patients were used for training, and another 44 patients were recruited for testing. U-Net and DeepLab V3 + architectures were used for training the models. The model performance was evaluated using the dice similarity coefficient (DSC), Jaccard index, and average surface distance. The reliability of radiomics parameters of the tumor extracted by the models was assessed using intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC).

Results

The predicted tumor volumes by DeepLab V3 + model and U-Net model were highly correlated with those delineated manually (p < 0.001). The DSC of DeepLab V3 + model was significantly higher than that of U-Net model (0.77 vs 0.75, p < 0.05), particularly in those small tumor volumes of < 10 cm3 (0.74 vs 0.70, p < 0.001). For radiomics extraction of the first-order features, both models exhibited high agreement (ICC: 0.71–0.91) with manual delineation. The radiomics extracted by DeepLab V3 + model had significantly higher ICCs than those extracted by U-Net model for 7 of 19 first-order features and for 8 of 17 shape-based features (p < 0.05).

Conclusion

Both DeepLab V3 + and U-Net models produced reasonable results in automated segmentation and radiomic features extraction of HPC on MR images, whereas DeepLab V3 + had a better performance than U-Net.

Clinical relevance statement

The deep learning model, DeepLab V3 + , exhibited promising performance in automated tumor segmentation and radiomics extraction for hypopharyngeal cancer on MRI. This approach holds great potential for enhancing the radiotherapy workflow and facilitating prediction of treatment outcomes.

Key Points

• DeepLab V3 + and U-Net models produced reasonable results in automated segmentation and radiomic features extraction of HPC on MR images.

• DeepLab V3 + model was more accurate than U-Net in automated segmentation, especially on small tumors.

• DeepLab V3 + exhibited higher agreement for about half of the first-order and shape-based radiomics features than U-Net.
Influence of device-assisted suction against resistance (Mueller maneuver) on image quality in CTPA for suspected lung embolism
Authors: von Münchhausen Niklas , Janssen Sonja , Overhoff Daniel , Rink Johann S. , Geurts Bram , Gutzeit Andreas , Prokop Mathias , Schoenberg Stefan O. , Froelich Matthias F.
Published: June 2023

Objectives

To investigate the effect of a device-assisted suction against resistance Mueller maneuver (MM) on transient interruption of contrast (TIC) in the aorta and pulmonary trunk (PT) on computed tomography pulmonary angiogram (CTPA).

Methods

In this prospective single-center study, 150 patients with suspected pulmonary artery embolism were assigned randomly with two different breathing maneuvers (Mueller maneuver (MM) or standard end-inspiratory breath-hold command (SBC)) during routine CTPA. The MM was performed using a patented prototype (Contrast Booster™) which allows both the patient by means of visual feedback and the medical staff in the CT scanning room to monitor whether the patient is sucking sufficiently or not. Mean Hounsfield attenuation in descending aorta and PT was measured and compared.

Results

Overall, patients with MM showed an attenuation of 338.24 HU in the pulmonary trunk, compared to 313.71 HU in SBC (p = 0.157). In the aorta, the values for MM were lower compared to SBC (134.42 HU vs. 177.83 HU, p = 0.001). The TP-aortic ratio was significantly higher in the MM group at 3.86 compared to the SBC group at 2.26, p = 0.001. TIC phenomenon was absent in the MM group, whereas it was present in 9 patients (12.3%) in the SBC group (p = 0.005). Overall contrast was better on all levels for MM (p < 0.001). The presence of breathing artifacts was higher in the MM group (48.1% vs. 30.1%, p = 0.038), without clinical consequence.

Conclusions

Performing the MM with the application of the prototype is an effective way of preventing the TIC phenomenon during i.v. contrast-enhanced CTPA scanning compared to the standard end-inspiratory breathing command.

Clinical relevance

Compared to standard end-inspiratory breathing command, the device-assisted Mueller maneuver (MM) improves contrast enhancement and prevents the transient interruption of contrast (TIC) phenomenon in CTPA. Therefore, it may offer optimized diagnostic workup and timely treatment for patients with pulmonary embolism.

Key Points

• Transient interruption of contrast (TIC) may impair image quality in CTPA.

• Mueller Maneuver using a device prototype could lower the rate of TIC.

• Device application in clinical routine may increase diagnostic accuracy.