bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Analysis of choriocapillaris perfusion and choroidal layer changes in patients
with chronic central serous chorioretinopathy randomised to micropulse laser or
photodynamic therapy
Authors: Ho Mary , Lai Frank Hiu Ping , Ng Danny Siu Chun , Iu Lawrence Pui Leung , Chen Li Jia , Mak Andrew Chun Yue , Yip Yolanda , Cheung Carol , Young Alvin Lerrmann , Brelen Marten
Published: June 2020

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to investigate the signal changes in
choriocapillaris flow deficits and choroidal thickness changes using
swept-source optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) following
different treatments.

Design

A double-blind, randomised controlled trial.

Methods

Patients with unilateral chronic central serous chorioretinopathy (CSC)
were randomised to receive subthreshold micropulse laser therapy (MLT) or
half-dose photodynamic therapy (PDT). Choroidal thickness and choriocapillaris
flow deficit signals were investigated.

Results

Eighteen patients were randomised into the MLT group and 15 patients into
the PDT group. Areas with flow deficit signals were identified in all baseline
OCTA images of the choriocapillaris, with mean areas of 0.420 and
0.465 mm2 in the MLT and PDT groups, respectively.
These flow deficit signal areas were significantly reduced at 6 months
(p=0.011) in the MLT group and at 3 months (p=0.008) in the PDT group. Patients
from the PDT group were shown to have smaller flow deficit areas than patients
from the MLT group at all time points after treatment (p=0.001, analyses of
variance). The mean choroidal volume of the fovea showed a significant
reduction at 1 month (p=0.003), 3 months (p=0.199) and 6 months (p=0.006) in
the PDT group.

Conclusion

The flow deficit areas identified in the choriocapillaris layer may
suggest possible relative choroidal ischaemia. With measurement of choroidal
volume reduction and faster rates of flow deficit area change, PDT has a
stronger effect than MLT in promoting choriocapillaris recovery.
Clinical outcomes in adult athletes with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy: a 7-year follow-up study
Authors: Pelliccia Antonio , Caselli Stefano , Pelliccia Matteo , Musumeci Maria Beatrice , Lemme Erika , Di Paolo Fernando M , Maestrini Viviana , Russo Domitilla , Limite Luca , Borrazzo Cristian , Autore Camillo
Published: June 2020

Objective

Current guidelines recommend precautionary disqualification from competitive sports in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). We assessed the incidence of cardiovascular events in a cohort of patients with HCM engaged in long-term exercise programmes and competitive sport.

Methods

We reviewed data on 88 consecutive athletes diagnosed with HCM, from 1997 to 2017; 92% male, 98% Caucasian, median age 31 (IQR: 19–44) years. All participated in regular exercise programmes and competitive sport at study entry.

We performed follow-up evaluation after 7±5 (1–21) years. 61 (69%) of the athletes had substantially reduced or stopped exercise and sport (ie, HCM-detrained), and 27 had continued with regular training and sport competitions (HCM-trained). At baseline evaluation, both groups were similar for age, gender balance, symptoms, ECG abnormalities, extent of left ventricular hypertrophy, arrhythmias and risk profile for sudden cardiac death/arrest.

Results

During the follow-up period, two participants suffered sudden cardiac arrest or death (0.3% per year) both outside of sport participation. In addition, 19 (22%) reported symptoms (syncope in 3, palpitations in 10, chest pain in 4 and dyspnoea in 2). The Kaplan-Meier analyses of freedom from combined sudden cardiac arrest/death and symptoms (log-rank test p=0.264) showed no differences between HCM-trained and detrained patients.

Conclusion

In this adult cohort of low-risk HCM athletes, voluntary decision to pursue in participation in competitive sport events was not associated with increased risk for major cardiac events or clinical worsening compared with decision to reduce or withdraw from exercise programmes and sport. Similar results may not be seen in younger or racially diverse athlete populations, or in patients with more severe HCM phenotypes.
Elicitation of Norwegian EQ-5D-5L values for hypothetical and experience-based health states based on the EuroQol Valuation Technology (EQ-VT) protocol
Authors: Hansen Tonya Moen , Helland Ylva , Augestad Liv Ariane , Rand Kim , Stavem Knut , Garratt Andrew
Published: June 2020

Introduction

Norway is one of several European countries that lacks a national value set and scoring algorithm for the EuroQol five dimensions (EQ-5D). Recent studies have found differences between countries in terms of health values or preferences for health states described by instruments such as the EQ-5D. The project aims to model a national value set for the five level version of the EQ-5D based on values elicited from a representative sample of the Norwegian adult general population in terms of region, age, sex and level of education. Using a sampling strategy supporting the collection of values for both hypothetical and experienced health states, the study will have the additional aim of assessing the feasibility of collecting experience-based values in accordance with the latest EQ-5D valuation study protocol, and comparing values with those given for hypothetical health states.

Methods and analysis

Multistage random sampling and quota-sampling will contribute to representativeness. To increase the number of valuations of experienced health states, those with less than perfect health will be oversampled, increasing the total number of interviews from 1000 to 1300–1500. The most recent EQ-5D valuation protocol will be followed which includes computer assisted face-to-face, one-to-one interviews and use of composite time trade-off and discrete choice experiments.

Ethics and dissemination

The study has been reviewed and found to be outside of the scope of the ethics committee and thus not in need of ethical approval. The study findings will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publications, conference presentations and summaries for key stakeholders and partners in the field. The scoring algorithms will be available for widely used statistical software.
Does meeting physical activity recommendations ameliorate association between television viewing with cardiovascular disease risk? A cross-sectional, population-based analysis
Authors: Patterson Freda , Mitchell Jonathan A , Dominick Gregory , Lozano Alicia J , Huang Liming , Hanlon Alexandra L
Published: June 2020

Objectives

As a common form of sedentary behaviour, television viewing is associated with an increase in body mass index (BMI) as well as overall cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. This study examined the extent to which meeting the recommended volume of weekly physical activity (PA) reduced the association between television viewing with the outcomes of BMI and CVD risk. A second aim was to determine the number of hours (ie, cut-point) of daily television viewing that conferred a higher BMI and CVD risk for a large population-based sample of adults.

Design

Population-based, cross-sectional study.

Setting

UK Biobank recruited across 35 centres in the UK between 2006 and 2010.

Primary outcome

CVD risk, as measured by the 30-year Framingham risk score.

Results

Linear regression models indicated that every additional hour of television viewing per day was associated with a 3% increase in CVD risk (aCoeff=0.03, d=0.16, p<0.0001); the interaction between television viewing with meeting PA guidelines was marginally associated with CVD risk (aCoeff=0.0010, d=0.01, p=0.014). Each additional hour of television viewing per day was associated with a 0.54 increase in BMI (aCoeff=0.54, d=0.13, p<0.0001); the interaction between television viewing with meeting PA guidelines was not significantly associated with BMI. Regression tree models of the study outcomes revealed that 2.5 hours of television viewing was associated with pronounced increases in BMI and CVD risk.

Conclusions

These data underscore the independent association between television viewing with cardiovascular risk and suggest that reducing television viewing to less than 2.5 hours per day, even in physically active adults, is a clinical and public health priority.
Why managing sciatica is difficult: patients’ experiences of an NHS sciatica pathway. A qualitative, interpretative study
Authors: Ryan Clare , Pope Catherine J , Roberts Lisa
Published: June 2020

Objectives

Amid a political agenda for integrated, high-value care, the UK is implementing its Low Back and Radicular Pain Pathway. To align care with need, it is imperative to understand the patients’ perspective. The purpose of this study was, therefore, to explore how people experience being managed for sciatica within an National Health Service (NHS) pathway.

Design

Qualitative interpretative study.

Setting

Musculoskeletal Service in an NHS, Primary Care Trust, UK.

Participants

The sample comprised 14 people aged ≥18 years with a clinical presentation of sciatica, who were currently under the care of a specialist physiotherapist (the specialist spinal triage practitioner), had undergone investigations (MRI) and received the results within the past 6 weeks. People were excluded if they had previously undergone spinal surgery or if the suspected cause of symptoms was cauda equina syndrome or sinister pathology. Participants were sampled purposively for variation in age and gender. Data were collected using individual semi-structured interviews (duration: 38–117 min; median: 82.6 min), which were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data were analysed thematically.

Results

A series of problems with the local pathway (insufficient transparency and information; clinician-led decisions; standardised management; restricted access to specialist care; and a lack of collaboration between services) made it difficult for patients to access the management they perceived necessary. Patients were therefore required to be independent and proactive or have agency. This was, however, difficult to achieve (due to the impact of sciatica and because patients lacked the necessary skills, funds and support) and together with the pathway issues, this negated patients’ capability to manage sciatica.

Conclusions

This novel paper explores how patients experience the process of being managed within a sciatica pathway. While highlighting the need to align with recommended best practice, it shows the need to be more person-centred and to support and empower patient agency.

Trial registration number

ClinicalTrials.gov reference (UOS-2307-CR); Pre-results.
What narrative devices do people with systemic sclerosis use to describe the experience of pain from digital ulcers: a multicentre focus group study at UK scleroderma centres
Authors: Jones Jennifer , Hughes Michael , Pauling John , Gooberman-Hill Rachael , Moore Andrew J
Published: June 2020

Objectives

Digital ulcers (DUs) are a common complication in systemic sclerosis (SSc). No existing studies have specifically reported on the qualitative patient experience of DU pain, and our current patient-reported outcome measure (PROM) does not capture the multifaceted painful experience of SSc-DU. Our aim was to examine the patient experience of SSc-DU pain.

Design

Focus groups with people diagnosed with SSc who had experienced DUs were conducted using a topic guide developed by people with SSc, experts in SSc and experienced qualitative researchers. Focus groups were continued until data saturation had been reached. The focus groups were audio recorded, transcribed verbatim, anonymised and analysed using inductive thematic analysis. Our current study is an integration of the data from these focus groups to specifically examine the patient experience of DU pain.

Setting

Three specialist scleroderma units across the UK (Bath, Manchester and London).

Participants

Four focus groups were undertaken; 29 adults (20 women, 9 men) with SSc and a spectrum of historical DUs participated. We included participants with a diverse demographic (including ethnic) background and disease-related characteristics.

Results

Five narrative devices were identified, which encompass how people describe the pain from SSc-DUs: ‘Words to express DU-associated pain’, ‘Descriptions of physical and psychological reactions to pain’, ‘Comparisons with other painful events’, ‘Descriptions of factors that exacerbate pain’ and ‘Descriptions of strategies for coping with the pain’.

Conclusion

The experience of SSc-DU pain leads to the use of graphic language and rich description by participants in the focus group setting. Existing SSc-DU outcomes do not adequately capture the patient experiences of SSc-DU pain. Our findings further highlight the multifaceted nature of SSc-DUs and will hopefully support the development of a novel PROM to assess the severity and impact of SSc-DUs.
IL-15 superagonist RLI has potent immunostimulatory properties on NK cells: implications for antimetastatic treatment
Authors: Desbois Mélanie , Béal Coralie , Charrier Mélinda , Besse Benjamin , Meurice Guillaume , Cagnard Nicolas , Jacques Yannick , Béchard David , Cassard Lydie , Chaput Nathalie
Published: June 2020

Background

As the immune system is compromised in patients with cancer, therapeutic strategies to stimulate immunity appear promising, to avoid relapse and increase long-term overall survival. Interleukin-15 (IL-15) has similar properties to IL-2, but does not cause activation-induced cell death nor activation and proliferation of regulatory T cells (Treg), which makes it a serious candidate for anticancer immunotherapy. However, IL-15 has a short half-life and high doses are needed to achieve responses. Designed to enhance its activity, receptor-linker-IL-15 (RLI) (SO-C101) is a fusion molecule of human IL-15 covalently linked to the human IL-15Rα sushi+ domain currently assessed in a phase I/Ib clinical trial on patients with advanced/metastatic solid cancer.

Methods

We investigated the antimetastatic activity of RLI in a 4T1 mouse mammary carcinoma that spontaneously metastasizes and evaluated its immunomodulatory role in the metastatic lung microenvironment. We further characterized the proliferation, maturation and cytotoxic functions of natural killer (NK) cells in tumor-free mice treated with RLI. Finally, we explored the effect of RLI on human NK cells from healthy donors and patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Results

RLI treatment displayed antimetastatic properties in the 4T1 mouse model. By characterizing the lung microenvironment, we observed that RLI restored the balance between NK cells and neutrophils (CD11b+Ly6GhighLy6Clow) that massively infiltrate lungs of 4T1-tumor bearing mice. In addition, the ratio between NK cells and Treg was strongly increased by RLI treatment. Further pharmacodynamic studies in tumor-free mice revealed superior proliferative and cytotoxic functions on NK cells after RLI treatment compared with IL-15 alone. Characterization of the maturation stage of NK cells demonstrated that RLI favored accumulation of CD11b+CD27highKLRG1+mature NK cells. Finally, RLI demonstrated potent immunostimulatory properties on human NK cells by inducing proliferation and activation of NK cells from healthy donors and enhancing cytotoxic responses to NKp30 crosslinking in NK cells from patients with NSCLC.

Conclusions

Collectively, our work demonstrates superior activity of RLI compared with rhIL-15 in modulating and activating NK cells and provides additional evidences for a therapeutic strategy using RLI as antimetastatic molecule.
Surgery during COVID-19 crisis conditions: can we protect our ethical integrity against the odds?
Authors: Macleod Jack , Mezher Sermed , Hasan Ragheb
Published: June 2020

COVID-19 is reducing the ability to perform surgical procedures worldwide, giving rise to a multitude of ethical, practical and medical dilemmas. Adapting to crisis conditions requires a rethink of traditional best practices in surgical management, delving into an area of unknown risk profiles. Key challenging areas include cancelling elective operations, modifying procedures to adapt local services and updating the consenting process. We aim to provide an ethical rationale to support change in practice and guide future decision-making. Using the four principles approach as a structure, Medline was searched for existing ethical frameworks aimed at resolving conflicting moral duties. Where insufficient data were available, best guidance was sought from educational institutions: National Health Service England and The Royal College of Surgeons. Multiple papers presenting high-quality, reasoned, ethical theory and practice guidance were collected. Using this as a basis to assess current practice, multiple requirements were generated to ensure preservation of ethical integrity when making management decisions. Careful consideration of ethical principles must guide production of local guidance ensuring consistent patient selection thus preserving equality as well as quality of clinical services. A critical issue is balancing the benefit of surgery against the unknown risk of developing COVID-19 and its associated complications. As such, the need for surgery must be sufficiently pressing to proceed with conventional or non-conventional operative management; otherwise, delaying intervention is justified. For delayed operations, it is our duty to quantify the long-term impact on patients’ outcome within the constraints of pandemic management and its long-term outlook.
Multivalue ethical framework for fair global allocation of a COVID-19 vaccine
Authors: Liu Yangzi , Salwi Sanjana , Drolet Brian C
Published: June 2020

The urgent drive for vaccine development in the midst of the current COVID-19 pandemic has prompted public and private organisations to invest heavily in research and development of a COVID-19 vaccine. Organisations globally have affirmed the commitment of fair global access, but the means by which a successful vaccine can be mass produced and equitably distributed remains notably unanswered. Barriers for low-income countries include the inability to afford vaccines as well as inadequate resources to vaccinate, barriers that are exacerbated during a pandemic. Fair distribution of a pandemic vaccine is unlikely without a solid ethical framework for allocation. This piece analyses four allocation paradigms: ability to develop or purchase; reciprocity; ability to implement; and distributive justice, and synthesises their ethical considerations to develop an allocation model to fit the COVID-19 pandemic.
Risk perception, safer sex practices and PrEP enthusiasm: barriers and facilitators to oral HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis in Black African and Black Caribbean women in the UK
Authors: Nakasone Sarah E , Young Ingrid , Estcourt Claudia S , Calliste Josina , Flowers Paul , Ridgway Jessica , Shahmanesh Maryam
Published: June 2020

Objectives

UK Black African/Black Caribbean women remain disproportionately affected by HIV. Although oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) could offer them an effective HIV prevention method, uptake remains limited. This study examined barriers and facilitators to PrEP awareness and candidacy perceptions for Black African/Black Caribbean women to help inform PrEP programmes and service development.

Methods

Using purposive sampling through community organisations, 32 in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with Black African/Black Caribbean women living in London and Glasgow between June and August 2018. Participants (aged 19–63) included women of varied HIV statuses to explore perceptions of sexual risk and safer sex, sexual health knowledge and PrEP attitudes. A thematic analysis guided by the Social Ecological Model was used to explore how PrEP perceptions intersected with wider safer sex understandings and practices.

Results

Four key levels of influence shaping safer sex notions and PrEP candidacy perceptions emerged: personal, interpersonal, perceived environment and policy. PrEP-specific knowledge was low and some expressed distrust in PrEP. Many women were enthusiastic about PrEP for others but did not situate PrEP within their own safer sex understandings, sometimes due to difficulty assessing their own HIV risk. Many felt that PrEP could undermine intimacy in their relationships by disrupting the shared responsibility implicit within other HIV prevention methods. Women described extensive interpersonal networks that supported their sexual health knowledge and shaped their interactions with health services, though these networks were influenced by prevailing community stigmas.

Conclusions

Difficulty situating PrEP within existing safer sex beliefs contributes to limited perceptions of personal PrEP candidacy. To increase PrEP uptake in UK Black African/Black Caribbean women, interventions will need to enable women to advance their knowledge of PrEP within the broader context of their sexual health and relationships. PrEP service models will need to include trusted ‘non-sexual health-specific’ community services such as general practice.
Association between COPD exacerbations and lung function decline during maintenance therapy
Authors: Kerkhof Marjan , Voorham Jaco , Dorinsky Paul , Cabrera Claudia , Darken Patrick , Kocks Janwillem WH , Sadatsafavi Mohsen , Sin Don D , Carter Victoria , Price David B
Published: June 2020

Background

Little is known about the impact of exacerbations on COPD progression or whether inhaled corticosteroid (ICS) use and blood eosinophil count (BEC) affect progression. We aimed to assess this in a prospective observational study.

Methods

The study population included patients with mild to moderate COPD, aged ≥35 years, with a smoking history, who were followed up for ≥3 years from first to last spirometry recording using two large UK electronic medical record databases: Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) and Optimum Patient Care Research Database (OPCRD). Multilevel mixed-effects linear regression models were used to determine the relationship between annual exacerbation rate following initiation of therapy (ICS vs non-ICS) and FEV1decline. Effect modification by blood eosinophils was studied through interaction terms.

Results

Of 12178 patients included (mean age 66 years; 48% female), 8981 (74%) received ICS. In patients with BEC ≥350 cells/µL not on ICS, each exacerbation was associated with subsequent acceleration of FEV1decline of 19.4 mL/year (95% CI 12.0 to 26.7, p<0.0001). This excess decline was reduced by 15.1 mL/year (6.6 to 23.6) to 4.3 mL/year (1.9 to 6.7, p<0.0001) in those with BEC ≥350 cells/µL treated with ICS.

Conclusion

Exacerbations are associated with a more rapid loss of lung function among COPD patients with elevated blood eosinophils, defined as ≥350 cells/µL, not treated with ICS. More aggressive prevention of exacerbations using ICS in such patients may prevent excess loss of lung function.
Clinical and MRI findings in two unrelated cats with globoid cell leucodystrophy
Authors: Colverde Alessia Silvia , Gagliardo Teresa , Falzone Cristian , Gandini Gualtiero
Published: June 2020

Two unrelated male cats, both five months old, were referred for progressive neurological signs characterised by intentional tremors, paraplegia with absence of nociception in the pelvic limbs, weakness, dysmetria with reduced flexor reflex in the thoracic limbs, and bilaterally reduced menace response. MRI, performed by a 0.25 T Esaote Vet Grande, showed diffuse and irregular intramedullary T2 weighted hyperintensity between T3 and L3; these lesions were isointense on T1 weighted images without contrast uptake. In one patient MRI of the brain was obtained and mild cerebellar volume reduction was found. Histological examination of the brain and spinal cord demonstrated myelin loss and perivascular accumulation of periodic acid‐Schiff‐positive big macrophages. These findings were consistent with globoid cell leucodystrophy, as previously described in cats. Although not specific, in young cats with progressive spinal neurological signs, especially when associated with cerebellar signs, and irregular but diffuse T2 intramedullary hyperintensity and T1 isointensity without contrast uptake, globoid cell leucodystrophy should be suspected.
The shadow of dark matter as a shadow of string theory: string origin of the dipole term
Authors: Dick Rainer
Published: June 2020

We point out that the Kalb–Ramond field can couple to the Ramond and Neveu–Schwarz fields of superstring theory in a way that can generate a coupling of the Kalb–Ramond field to dark matter dipole moments. Electroweak dipole dark matter could then arise from the Ramond sector of superstrings with low string scale $$M_s\lesssim 120$$Ms≲120 TeV.
Anomalous electron quasiparticle excitation spectrum in electron-doped cuprate superconductors
Authors: Tan Shuning , Mou Yingping , Liu Yiqun , Feng Shiping
Published: June 2020

Within the framework of the kinetic energy-driven superconductivity, the complicated line shape in the electron quasiparticle excitation spectrum of the electron-doped cuprate superconductors is studied. It is shown that as in the hole-doped counterparts, the momentum and energy dependence of the quasiparticle scattering rate in the electron-doped cuprate superconductors has a well-pronounced peak structure at around the antinodal and nodal regions. However, this peak structure is absent from the hot spots. This special momentum and energy dependence of the quasiparticle scattering rate therefore generates a remarkable peak-dip-hump structure in the electron quasiparticle excitation spectrum of the electron-doped cuprate superconductors at around the antinodal and nodal regions except for at around the hot spots, where the peak-dip-hump structure is absent. The theory also indicates that there is a common physical origin for the peak-dip-hump structure both in the hole- and electron-doped cuprate superconductors.
On weak solutions to a dissipative Baer–Nunziato-type system for a mixture of two compressible heat conducting gases
Authors: Kwon Young-Sam , Novotny Antonin , Arthur Cheng C. H.
Published: June 2020

In this paper, we consider a compressible dissipative Baer–Nunziato-type system for a mixture of two compressible heat conducting gases. We prove that the set of weak solutions is stable, meaning that any sequence of weak solutions contains a (weakly) convergent subsequence whose limit is again a weak solution to the original system. Such type of results is usually considered as the most essential step to the proof of the existence of weak solutions. This is the first result of this type in the mathematical literature. Nevertheless, the construction of weak solutions to this system however remains still an (difficult) open problem.
Projective and injective Krasner hypermodules
Authors: Ameri R. , Shojaei H.
Published: June 2020

In this paper, we introduce and study injective and projective (Krasner) hypermodules. In this regards, we introduce and study various kinds of projective and injective hypermodules based on different kinds of epic morphisms in the category of hypermodules. As main results, we introduce the notions of normal Baerian injectivity and Baerian injectivity as the versions of Baer’s criterion in the category of hypermodules. Finally, we investigate some basic properties of these hypermodules.
Decision Support Research in Warehousing and Distribution: A Systematic Literature Review
Authors: Binos Tania , Adamopoulos Arthur , Bruno Vince
Published: June 2020

The increase in e-commerce and omnichannel commerce is having a significant impact on the supply chain sector and its warehouses. Fluctuations in demand and priorities, the requirement for value-added service, government regulations and other factors put pressure on the operational decision makers on the warehouse floor and the systems that support them. The increasing complexity of daily warehouse operations means that decision support systems will need to become more sophisticated and intelligent to assist decision makers in real-time. The aim of this literature review is to investigate how decision support in warehousing and distribution operations is examined in the research literature. The objective of this review is to understand how this decision support research can assist operational decision makers to manage and complete the daily volume of work through the warehouse. Fifty-one articles were obtained by the literature search. Articles were categorized by type of warehouse, decision support target, operational task and problem type, research article methodology, architecture and technology. Decision support is examined in almost all areas of warehousing operations with the use of a variety of methods and technologies within the research literature. Most “daily warehouse operational” decision support deals with expertise transfer and reacting to real-time events. This paper highlights the lack of research into human–machine collaboration in adaptive decision support systems to assist warehouse operational decision makers.
A Lightweight Approach to Extract Interschema Properties from Structured, Semi-Structured and Unstructured Sources in a Big Data Scenario
Authors: Cauteruccio Francesco , Giudice Paolo Lo , Musarella Lorenzo , Terracina Giorgio , Ursino Domenico , Virgili Luca
Published: June 2020

The knowledge of interschema properties (e.g., synonymies, homonymies, hyponymies and subschema similarities) plays a key role for allowing decision-making in sources characterized by disparate formats. In the past, wide amount and variety of approaches to derive interschema properties from structured and semi-structured data have been proposed. However, currently, it is esteemed that more than 80% of data sources are unstructured. Furthermore, the number of sources generally involved in an interaction is much higher than in the past. As a consequence, the necessity arises of new approaches to address the interschema property derivation issue in this new scenario. In this paper, we aim at providing a contribution in this setting by proposing an approach capable of uniformly extracting interschema properties from a huge number of structured, semi-structured and unstructured sources.
PESM: A novel approach of tumor purity estimation based on sample specific methylation sites
Authors: Pang Shanchen , Wang Lihua , Wang Shudong , Zhang Yuanyuan , Wang Xinzeng
Published: June 2020

Background: Tumor purity is of great significance for the study of tumor genotyping and the prediction of recurrence, which is significantly affected by tumor heterogeneity. Tumor heterogeneity is the basis of drug resistance in various cancer treatments, and DNA methylation plays a core role in the generation of tumor heterogeneity. Almost all types of cancer cells are associated with abnormal DNA methylation in certain regions of the genome. The selection of tumor-related differential methylation sites, which can be used as an indicator of tumor purity, has important implications for purity assessment. At present, the selection of information sites mostly focuses on inter-tumor heterogeneity and ignores the heterogeneity of tumor growth space that is sample specificity.

Results: Considering the specificity of tumor samples and the information gain of individual tumor sample relative to the normal samples, we present an approach, PESM, to evaluate the tumor purity through the specificity difference methylation sites of tumor samples. Applied to more than 200 tumor samples of Prostate adenocarcinoma (PRAD) and Kidney renal clear cell carcinoma (KIRC), it shows that the tumor purity estimated by PESM is highly consistent with other existing methods. In addition, PESM performs better than the method that uses the integrated signal of methylation sites to estimate purity. Therefore, different information sites selection methods have an important impact on the estimation of tumor purity, and the selection of sample specific information sites has a certain significance for accurate identification of tumor purity of samples.
A combinatorial construction for two formulas in Slater’s list
Authors: Kurşungöz Kağan
Published: June 2020

We set up a combinatorial framework for inclusion-exclusion on the partitions into distinct parts to obtain an alternative generating function of partitions into distinct and non-consecutive parts. In connection with Rogers–Ramanujan identities, the generating function yields two formulas in Slater’s list. The same formulas were constructed by Hirschhorn. Similar formulas were obtained by Bringmann, Mahlburg and Nataraj. We also use staircases to give alternative triple series for partitions into [Formula: see text]-distinct parts for any [Formula: see text].
ASEAN and China Commercial Disputes Settlement:Reflections on Regional Commerce, Belt & Road Initiative and Beyond
Authors: Ngo Steve
Published: June 2020

ASEAN, comprising of 10 Southeast Asian countries, is experiencing economic prosperity and rise as an important global commerce bloc in recent years. With its historical links with and proximity to China, it has been deepening economic activities in contemporary times, enjoying substantial mutual benefits. The foundation of international commerce and trade is a solid transnational dispute resolution system that can promote further economic development. This paper discusses the past and present perspectives of ASEAN–China equation as well as reflects on the trend to come.
Outlier Detection
Authors: Boukerche Azzedine , Zheng Lining , Alfandi Omar
Published: June 2020

Over the past decade, we have witnessed an enormous amount of research effort dedicated to the design of efficient outlier detection techniques while taking into consideration efficiency, accuracy, high-dimensional data, and distributed environments, among other factors. In this article, we present and examine these characteristics, current solutions, as well as open challenges and future research directions in identifying new outlier detection strategies. We propose a taxonomy of the recently designed outlier detection strategies while underlying their fundamental characteristics and properties. We also introduce several newly trending outlier detection methods designed for high-dimensional data, data streams, big data, and minimally labeled data. Last, we review their advantages and limitations and then discuss future and new challenging issues.
Approximating Spanners and Directed Steiner Forest
Authors: Chlamtáč Eden , Dinitz Michael , Kortsarz Guy , Laekhanukit Bundit
Published: June 2020

It was recently found that there are very close connections between the existence of
additive spanners
(subgraphs where all distances are preserved up to an additive stretch),
distance preservers
(subgraphs in which demand pairs have their distance preserved exactly), and
pairwise spanners
(subgraphs in which demand pairs have their distance preserved up to a multiplicative or additive stretch) [Abboud-Bodwin SODA’16 8 J.ACM’17, Bodwin-Williams SODA’16]. We study these problems from an optimization point of view, where rather than studying the existence of extremal instances, we are given an instance and are asked to find the sparsest possible spanner/preserver. We give an
O
(
n
3/5 + ε
)-approximation for distance preservers and pairwise spanners (for arbitrary constant ε > 0). This is the first nontrivial upper bound for either problem, both of which are known to be as hard to approximate as Label Cover. We also prove Label Cover hardness for approximating additive spanners, even for the cases of additive 1 stretch (where one might expect a polylogarithmic approximation, since the related multiplicative 2-spanner problem admits an
O
(log
n
)-approximation) and additive polylogarithmic stretch (where the related multiplicative spanner problem has an
O
(1)-approximation).

Interestingly, the techniques we use in our approximation algorithm extend beyond distance-based problem to pure connectivity network design problems. In particular, our techniques allow us to give an
O
(
n
3/5 + ε
)-approximation for the Directed Steiner Forest problem (for arbitrary constant ε > 0) when all edges have uniform costs, improving the previous best
O
(
n
2/3 + ε
)-approximation due to Berman et al. [ICALP’11] (which holds for general edge costs).
SLA Management for Big Data Analytical Applications in Clouds
Authors: Zeng Xuezhi , Garg Saurabh , Barika Mutaz , Zomaya Albert Y. , Wang Lizhe , Villari Massimo , Chen Dan , Ranjan Rajiv
Published: June 2020

Recent years have witnessed the booming of big data analytical applications (BDAAs). This trend provides unrivaled opportunities to reveal the latent patterns and correlations embedded in the data, and thus productive decisions may be made. This was previously a grand challenge due to the notoriously high dimensionality and scale of big data, whereas the quality of service offered by providers is the first priority. As BDAAs are routinely deployed on Clouds with great complexities and uncertainties, it is a critical task to manage the service level agreements (SLAs) so that a high quality of service can then be guaranteed. This study performs a systematic literature review of the state of the art of SLA-specific management for Cloud-hosted BDAAs. The review surveys the challenges and contemporary approaches along this direction centering on SLA. A research taxonomy is proposed to formulate the results of the systematic literature review. A new conceptual SLA model is defined and a multi-dimensional categorization scheme is proposed on its basis to apply the SLA metrics for an in-depth understanding of managing SLAs and the motivation of trends for future research.
PolicyFlow
Authors: Ahn Yongsu , Lin Yu-Ru
Published: June 2020

Stability in social, technical, and financial systems, as well as the capacity of organizations to work across borders, requires consistency in public policy across jurisdictions. The diffusion of laws and regulations across political boundaries can reduce the tension that arises between innovation and consistency. Policy diffusion has been a topic of focus across the social sciences for several decades, but due to limitations of data and computational capacity, researchers have not taken a comprehensive and data-intensive look at the aggregate, cross-policy patterns of diffusion. This work combines visual analytics and text and network analyses to help understand how policies, as represented in digitized text, spread across states. As a result, our approach can quickly guide analysts to progressively gain insights into policy adoption data. We evaluate the effectiveness of our system via case studies with a real-world policy dataset and qualitative interviews with domain experts.
Evolution of Emacs Lisp
Authors: Monnier Stefan , Sperber Michael
Published: June 2020

While Emacs proponents largely agree that it is the world’s greatest text editor, it is almost as much a Lisp machine disguised as an editor. Indeed, one of its chief appeals is that it is
programmable
via its own programming language. Emacs Lisp is a Lisp in the classic tradition. In this article, we present the history of this language over its more than 30 years of evolution. Its core has remained remarkably stable since its inception in 1985, in large part to preserve compatibility with the many third-party packages providing a multitude of extensions. Still, Emacs Lisp has evolved and continues to do so.

Important aspects of Emacs Lisp have been shaped by concrete requirements of the editor it supports as well as implementation constraints. These requirements led to the choice of a Lisp dialect as Emacs’s language in the first place, specifically its simplicity and dynamic nature: Loading additional Emacs packages or changing the ones in place occurs frequently, and having to restart the editor in order to re-compile or re-link the code would be unacceptable. Fulfilling this requirement in a more static language would have been difficult at best.

One of Lisp’s chief characteristics is its malleability through its uniform syntax and the use of macros. This has allowed the language to evolve much more rapidly and substantively than the evolution of its core would suggest, by letting Emacs packages provide new surface syntax alongside new functions. In particular, Emacs Lisp can be customized to look much like Common Lisp, and additional packages provide multiple-dispatch object systems, legible regular expressions, programmable pattern-matching constructs, generalized variables, and more. Still, the core has also evolved, albeit slowly. Most notably, it acquired support for lexical scoping.

The timeline of Emacs Lisp development is closely tied to the projects and people who have shaped it over the years: We document Emacs Lisp history through its predecessors, Mocklisp and MacLisp, its early development up to the “Emacs schism” and the fork of Lucid Emacs, the development of XEmacs, and the subsequent rennaissance of Emacs development.
Computing Server Power Modeling in a Data Center
Authors: Ismail Leila , Materwala Huned
Published: June 2020

Data centers are large-scale, energy-hungry infrastructure serving the increasing computational demands as the world is becoming more connected in smart cities. The emergence of advanced technologies such as cloud-based services, internet of things (IoT), and big data analytics has augmented the growth of global data centers, leading to high energy consumption. This upsurge in energy consumption of the data centers not only incurs the issue of surging high cost (operational and maintenance) but also has an adverse effect on the environment. Dynamic power management in a data center environment requires the cognizance of the correlation between the system and hardware-level performance counters and the power consumption. Power consumption modeling exhibits this correlation and is crucial in designing energy-efficient optimization strategies based on resource utilization. Several works in power modeling are proposed and used in the literature. However, these power models have been evaluated using different benchmarking applications, power-measurement techniques, and error-calculation formulas on different machines. In this work, we present a taxonomy and evaluation of 24 software-based power models using a unified environment, benchmarking applications, power-measurement techniques, and error formulas, with the aim of achieving an objective comparison. We use different server architectures to assess the impact of heterogeneity on the models’ comparison. The performance analysis of these models is elaborated in the article.
An Overview of Service Placement Problem in Fog and Edge Computing
Authors: Salaht Farah Aït , Desprez Frédéric , Lebre Adrien
Published: June 2020

To support the large and various applications generated by the Internet of Things (IoT), Fog Computing was introduced to complement the Cloud Computing and offer Cloud-like services at the edge of the network with low latency and real-time responses. Large-scale, geographical distribution, and heterogeneity of edge computational nodes make service placement in such infrastructure a challenging issue. Diversity of user expectations and IoT devices characteristics also complicate the deployment problem. This article presents a survey of current research conducted on Service Placement Problem (SPP) in the Fog/Edge Computing. Based on a new classification scheme, a categorization of current proposals is given and identified issues and challenges are discussed.
Understanding Electrolyte Infilling of Lithium Ion Batteries
Authors: Sauter Christina , Zahn Raphael , Wood Vanessa
Published: June 2020

Filling of the electrode and the separator with an electrolyte is a crucial step in the lithium ion battery manufacturing process. Incomplete filling negatively impacts electrochemical performance, cycle life, and safety of cells. Here, we apply concepts from the theory of partial wetting to explain the amount of gas entrapment that occurs during electrolyte infilling and show that this can explain the lower than expected effective transport coefficients that are measured experimentally. We consider a polyethylene separator as a model system. Quasi-static infilling simulations on 3D reconstructions of the separator structure indicate that there can be up to 30% gas entrapment upon infilling due to the geometry of the separator, which results in a reduction of effective transport by >40%. Considering the dynamics of the electrolyte (e.g., viscosity) and the infilling process explains why the residual gas phase is typically less (15%–20%) and why, for electrolytes that wet well, increasing viscosity leads to higher values of gas entrapment, which is observed experimentally as decreased effective electrolyte conductivity. This work highlights the importance of optimizing not only the physiochemical properties of the electrolyte and pore surfaces, but also the 3D structure of the pore space, providing insights how to do so.
Ionic Liquid-Based Electrolytes for Calcium-Based Energy Storage Systems
Authors: Stettner T. , Dugas R. , Ponrouch A. , Balducci A.
Published: June 2020

In this work, aprotic and protic ionic liquid (IL)-based electrolytes designed for calcium-based energy storage systems are investigated. We have shown that these electrolytes display good transport properties and electrochemical stabilities comparable with those of IL-based electrolytes proposed for lithium and sodium-based systems. The use of these electrolytes in electrochemical double layer capacitors (EDLCs) leads to the realization of devices displaying good capacitances paired with a high reversibility and stability. Their use in combination with TiS2cathode appears more problematic as the cation of the ILs is inserting in the layered structure of this material during the charge process. In this latter case a careful design of the cation appears necessary to guarantee selective insertion of Ca2+and reversible charge-discharge process.
Qiliqiangxin Improves Cardiac Function through Regulating Energy Metabolism via HIF‐1α‐Dependent and Independent Mechanisms in Heart Failure Rats after Acute Myocardial Infarction
Authors: Wang Yanyan , Fu Mingqiang , Wang Jingfeng , Zhang Jingjing , Han Xueting , Song Yu , Fan Yuyuan , Hu Kai , Zhou Jingmin , Ge Junbo
Published: June 2020

The present study is aimed at investigating whether Qiliqiangxin (QL) could regulate myocardial energy metabolism in heart failure rats after acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and further exploring the underlying mechanisms. AMI was established by ligating the left anterior descending coronary artery in adult male SD rats. AMI rats with ejection fraction (EF) < 50% at two weeks after the operation were chosen as heart failure rats for the main study. Rats were randomized into the sham, MI, MI+QL, and MI+QL+2‐MeOE2 groups. The results showed that compared with the MI group, QL significantly improved cardiac function, reduced serum NT‐proBNP level, and alleviated myocardial fibrosis. QL also increased myocardial capillary density by upregulated protein expressions of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and CD31 by regulating the HIF‐1α/VEGF pathway. Moreover, QL promoted ATP production, glucose uptake, and glycolysis by upregulating HIF‐1α and a series of glycolysis‐relevant enzymes in a HIF‐1α‐dependent manner. QL also improved myocardial glucose oxidation enzyme expression and free fatty acid uptake by a HIF‐1α‐independent pathway. Our results indicate that QL treatment improves cardiac function through regulating glucose uptake, FFA uptake, and key enzymes of energy metabolism via HIF‐1α‐dependent and independent mechanisms.