bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Live Streaming as Co-Performance
Authors: Li Jie , Gui Xinning , Kou Yubo , Li Yukun
Published: November 2019

Live streaming is a highly participatory form of performance, involving various types of audience participation such as liking, commenting, and gifting. But how do streamers and audiences collaborate to deliver live streaming performances? We approach this question through an interview study with 30 spectators and eight streamers in China. Drawing from theatrical engagement research, we use the cogitative spatial concept of center-peripheral attention of the audience to analyze the complex interplay between streamers and spectators, where the former occupy the center and the latter the periphery. We then discuss the orchestration of the center and the periphery, where streamers and spectators coordinate their respective performances, as well as the interaction between the center and the periphery, where the center-periphery distinction blurs. Based on these findings, we discuss co-performance as a theatrical metaphor for understanding live streaming and audience engagement.
Love in Lyrics
Authors: Kim Taewook , Lee Jung Soo , Peng Zhenhui , Ma Xiaojuan
Published: November 2019

Affectionate communication, the conveyance of closeness, care, and fondness for another, plays a key role in romantic relationships. While the pervasive use of digital technology for communication limits affectionate interaction through nonverbal cues -- a major channel of expression in face-to-face settings, there have been few approaches which scaffold couples' romantic text conversations. To bridge this gap, we propose a novel interactive system Lily which gives users inspirations to enrich their romantic expressions in text messaging. It first listens to users' original input and then recommends romantic lyrics holding the closest meaning in real-time during chats with partners. After a three-day empirical study, participants who are real-life couples reported that they not only received useful cues from Lily in terms of how to polish their affectionate expressions, but also learnt to enrich the conversation with topics enlightened by its recommendations. Based on our findings, we finally provide several design considerations for actual deployment of such an application.
"I Love the Feeling of Being on Stage, but I Become Greedy"
Authors: Wang Dennis , Lee Yi-Chieh , Fu Wai-Tat
Published: November 2019

Live streaming is an emergent social medium that allows remote interaction between the streamer and an audience of any size. Major live-streaming platforms in some Asian countries have a digital gift-giving feature that allows viewers to directly reward streamers during live sessions. Streamers can later exchange the digital gifts they have received for money, and this monetary incentive appears likely to influence how they interact with their viewers and generate live-streaming content. However, the precise nature and mechanisms of such impact have not previously been explored. Therefore, this qualitative study with 13 streamer participants examines how digital gifting influences streamers' motivations and the nature of both the content that they generate and their social interactions with their audiences. It reports that the digital-gifting function serves as a major incentive for active streaming, but may also disincentivize some streamers from continuing to contribute, for reasons that will be explored. Moreover, the participants devised strategies for both content generation and social interaction with the specific objective of earning gifts from viewers: practices that, in some cases, appeared to limit the quality of their live-streaming content. It was also noted that the streamers tended to have constrained social relationships with their viewers, in part because such relationships were seen as unequal or one-sided due to gift-giving behavior. The paper concludes with a discussion of design considerations for the incorporation of gift-giving features into live-streaming platforms, and additional recommendations for future research and the design of such platforms.
Trust and Technology Repair Infrastructures in the Remote Rural Philippines
Authors: Jang Esther Han Beol , Garrison Philip , Vistal Ronel Vincent , Cunanan Maria Theresa D. , Perez Maria Theresa , Martinez Philip , Johnson Matthew William , Evangelista John Andrew , Ahmed Syed Ishtiaque , Dionisio Josephine , Barela Mary Claire Aguilar , Heimerl Kurtis
Published: November 2019

This paper analyzes the processes and challenges of technology repair in remote, low-income areas far from standard ICT repair infrastructure. Our sites of study are the fishing and farming villages of Dibut, Diotorin, and Dikapinisan in Aurora Province, Philippines, located in coastal coves against a mountain range. Residents are geographically isolated from urban areas, with the nearest peri-urban center of Baler a boat trip of several hours away, infeasible in some sea conditions. Unlike prior work in more connected rural areas, there are no local repair shops and device repair is uncommon, despite frequent breakage due to harsh conditions for electronics. The scarcity of local electronics repair limits technology access and leads to accumulation of e-waste. While prior work demonstrates that local electronics repair capability does arise in many rural areas around the world, we must also acknowledge that the successful emergence of this infrastructure depends on the intersection of many structural conditions and cannot be taken for granted. We present the material hardships of achieving local repair in terms of seams between heterogeneous urban and rural infrastructures, which illustrate the cove communities' marginality with respect to many forms of public infrastructure. However, intermittent and informal repair infrastructures based on trust relationships emerge to patch these seams in remote settings. We show how trust affects the way people dynamically construct repair infrastructure and why, based on their remoteness and the resulting value propositions of repair. Networks of trust between repairers, their clients, suppliers, fellow repairers, and certifying or training institutions crucially facilitate the movement of resources and expertise across the Philippines, but also reinforce the marginality of residents and repairers in the coves. Despite these structural challenges, local people are able to maintain a robust ecosystem for rural electrical line repair, from which we generalize the model of training grounds as a strategy for sustaining local communities of repair experts.
Harassment in Social Virtual Reality
Authors: Blackwell Lindsay , Ellison Nicole , Elliott-Deflo Natasha , Schwartz Raz
Published: November 2019

In immersive virtual reality (VR) environments, experiences of harassment can be exacerbated by features such as synchronous voice chat, heightened feelings of presence and embodiment, and avatar movements that can feel like violations of personal space (such as simulated touching or grabbing). Simultaneously, efforts to govern these developing spaces are made more complex by the distributed landscape of virtual reality applications and the dynamic nature of local community norms. To better understand this nascent social and psychological environment, we interviewed VR users (n=25) about their experiences with harassment, abuse, and discomfort in social VR. We find that users' definitions of what constitutes online harassment are subjective and highly personal, which poses significant challenges for the enforcement of platform- or application-level policies. We also find that embodiment and presence in VR spaces make harassment feel more intense, while ephemerality and non-standardized application controls make it difficult to escape or report unwanted behavior. Finally, we find that shared norms for appropriate behavior in social VR are still emergent, and that users distinguish between newcomers who unknowingly violate expectations for appropriate behavior and those users who aim to cause intentional harm. We draw from social norms theory to help explain why norm formation is particularly challenging in virtual reality environments, and we discuss the implications of our findings for the top-down governance of online communities by platforms. We conclude by recommending alternative strategies for community governance.
Accountability and Empathy by Design
Authors: Taylor Samuel Hardman , DiFranzo Dominic , Choi Yoon Hyung , Sannon Shruti , Bazarova Natalya N.
Published: November 2019

Bystander intervention can reduce the amount of cyberbullying victimization on social media, but bystanders often fail to act. Limited accountability for their behavior and a lack of empathy for the victim are frequently cited as reasons for why bystanders do not act against cyberbullying. We developed design interventions that aimed to increase accountability and empathy among bystanders. In Study 1, participants were experimentally exposed to three social media posts with different types of empathy nudges. Empathy nudges embedded into social media posts displayed the potential to motivate empathy. In Study 2, participants took part in a 3-day experiment that simulated a social media experience. Results suggested that increased social transparency on social media promoted accountability through heightened self-presentation concerns, but empathy nudges did not encourage greater bystander empathy. Both accountability and empathy predicted bystander intervention, but the types of bystander actions promoted by each mechanism differed. We consider how these results contribute to theories of bystander behavior and designing social media to promote prosocial behaviors.
Search Media and Elections
Authors: Metaxa Danaë , Park Joon Sung , Landay James A. , Hancock Jeff
Published: November 2019

Concern about algorithmically-curated content and its impact on democracy is reaching a fever pitch worldwide. But relative to the role of social media in electoral processes, the role of search results has received less public attention. We develop a theoretical conceptualization of search results as a form of media-search media-and analyze search media in the context of political partisanship in the six months leading up to the 2018 U.S. midterm elections. Our empirical analyses use a total of over 4 million URLs, scraped daily from Google search queries for all candidates running for federal office in the United States in 2018. In our first set of analyses we characterize the nature of search media from the data collected in terms of the types of URLs present and the stability of search results over time. In our second, we annotate URLs' top-level domains with existing measures of political partisanship, examining trends by incumbency, election outcome, and other election characteristics. Among other findings, we note that partisanship trends in search media are largely similar for content about candidates from the two major political parties, whereas there are substantial differences in search media for incumbent versus challenger candidates. This work suggests that longitudinal, systematic audits of search media can reflect real-world political trends. We conclude with implications for web search designers and consumers of political content online.
Understanding the Skill Provision in Gig Economy from A Network Perspective
Authors: Huang Keman , Yao Jinhui , Yin Ming
Published: November 2019

The recent emergence of gig economy facilitates the exchange of skilled labor by allowing workers to showcase and sell their skills to a global market. Despite the recent effort on thoroughly examining who workers in the gig economy are and what their experience in the gig economy are like, our knowledge on how exactly do workers provide their skills in gig economy, and how worker's strategies on skill provision and expansion relate to their success in gig economy is still lacking. In this paper, we conduct a case study on a prominent gig economy platform, Fiverr.com, to better understand the provision of skills on it through large-scale, data-driven analysis. In particular, we propose the concept of "skill space" from a network perspective to characterize the relationship between different skills by measuring how frequently workers provide different skills together. Through our analysis, we reveal interesting patterns in worker's provision of skills on Fiverr. We then show how these patterns change over time and differ across subgroups of workers with different characteristics. In addition, we find that providing a set of skills that are highly related with each other correlates with a better overall performance in gig economy, and when workers expand their skillsets, expanding to a new skill that is highly-related to the existing skills takes less time and is associated with better performance on the new skill. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for gig economy workers and platform in general.
Evaluating the Promise of Human-Algorithm Collaborations in Everyday Work Practices
Authors: Wolf Christine , Blomberg Jeanette
Published: November 2019

Human-algorithm interaction is a growing phenomenon of interest as the use of machine learning (ML) capabilities in everyday technologies becomes more commonplace. In the workplace, such developments raise questions about how people not only make sense of algorithmic actions, but also figure out ways to collaborate with tools and systems that integrate algorithmic outputs. We draw on a field study of IT infrastructure design and report on the experiences of highly-skilled IT architects with the natural language processing (NLP) capabilities in an intelligent system under development to support their solution design work. While architects were supportive of the potential of NLP to enhance their solutioning work, they faced challenges in integrating such capabilities into their existing collaborative work practices. We discuss how these findings add nuance and complexity to discourse around the future of work.
Design in the Public Square
Authors: Baldwin Mark S. , Hirano Sen H. , Mankoff Jennifer , Hayes Gillian R.
Published: November 2019

From the white cane to the smartphone, technology has been an effective tool for broadening blind and low vision participation in a sighted world. In the face of this increased participation, individuals with visual impairments remain on the periphery of most sight-first activities. In this paper, we describe a multi-month public-facing co-design engagement with an organization that supports blind and low vision outrigger paddling. Using a mixed-ability design team, we developed an inexpensive cooperative outrigger paddling system, called CoOP, that shares control between sighted and visually impaired paddlers. The results suggest that public design, a DIY (do-it-yourself) stance, and attentiveness to shared physical experiences, represent key strategies for creating assistive technologies that support shared experiences.
Summarizing User-generated Textual Content: Motivation and Methods for Fairness in Algorithmic Summaries
Authors: Dash Abhisek , Shandilya Anurag , Biswas Arindam , Ghosh Kripabandhu , Ghosh Saptarshi , Chakraborty Abhijnan
Published: November 2019

As the amount of user-generated textual content grows rapidly, text summarization algorithms are increasingly being used to provide users a quick overview of the information content. Traditionally, summarization algorithms have been evaluated only based on how well they match human-written summaries (e.g. as measured by ROUGE scores). In this work, we propose to evaluate summarization algorithms from a completely new perspective that is important when the user-generated data to be summarized comes from different socially salient user groups, e.g. men or women, Caucasians or African-Americans, or different political groups (Republicans or Democrats). In such cases, we check whether the generated summaries fairly represent these different social groups. Specifically, considering that an extractive summarization algorithm selects a subset of the textual units (e.g. microblogs) in the original data for inclusion in the summary, we investigate whether this selection is fair or not. Our experiments over real-world microblog datasets show that existing summarization algorithms often represent the socially salient user-groups very differently compared to their distributions in the original data. More importantly, some groups are frequently under-represented in the generated summaries, and hence get far less exposure than what they would have obtained in the original data. To reduce such adverse impacts, we propose novel fairness-preserving summarization algorithms which produce high-quality summaries while ensuring fairness among various groups. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to produce fair text summarization, and is likely to open up an interesting research direction.
Engaging Identity, Assets, and Constraints in Designing for Resilience
Authors: Karusala Naveena , Holeman Isaac , Anderson Richard
Published: November 2019

We contribute to the growing conversation on assets-based approaches to design in Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) with a qualitative study of resilience. Our study is situated within a community health infrastructure in a rural county in southwest Kenya, where health organizations pay community health workers' salaries via digital payments, backdropped by ongoing issues with missing and delayed payments. Through the lens of intersectionality, we examine how community health workers of diverse backgrounds and contracted status respond to the mandated use of digital payment methods and long payment delays. We highlight how resilience in this context is situated in workers' intersecting socioeconomic and professional identities, which shape the assets and constraints that workers engage with in efforts to be resilient. We leverage our findings to discuss how assets-based approaches to design can be further operationalized and used to sustainably support resilience.
One Voice Fits All?
Authors: Cambre Julia , Kulkarni Chinmay
Published: November 2019

When a smart device talks, what should its voice sound like? Voice-enabled devices are becoming a ubiquitous presence in our everyday lives. Simultaneously, speech synthesis technology is rapidly improving, making it possible to generate increasingly varied and realistic computerized voices. Despite the flexibility and richness of expression that technology now affords, today's most common voice assistants often have female-sounding, polite, and playful voices by default. In this paper, we examine the social consequences of voice design, and introduce a simple research framework for understanding how voice affects how we perceive and interact with smart devices. Based on the foundational paradigm of computers as social actors, and informed by research in human-robot interaction, this framework demonstrates how voice design depends on a complex interplay between characteristics of the user, device, and context. Through this framework, we propose a set of guiding questions to inform future research in the space of voice design for smart devices.
Lessons from "on the self-similar nature of ethernet traffic"
Authors: Willinger Walter , Taqqu Murad S. , Wilson Daniel V.
Published: November 2019

This editorial is an outgrowth of our research efforts that resulted in the SIGCOMM'93 paper [1] entitled
On the self-similar nature of Ethernet traffic.
We discuss some lessons we have learned as we have watched the published findings being absorbed by the scientific community in general and the networking community in particular. We focus on aspects that have remained relevant today, especially at a time when, with the proliferation of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, networking research has become increasingly data-dependent and data-driven.
Sizing router buffers (redux)
Authors: McKeown Nick , Appenzeller Guido , Keslassy Isaac
Published: November 2019

The queueing delay faced by a packet is arguably the largest source of uncertainty during its journey. It therefore seems crucial that we understand how big the buffers should be in Internet routers. Our 2004 Sigcomm paper revisited the existing rule of thumb that a buffer should hold one bandwidth-delay product of packets. We claimed that for long-lived TCP flows, it could be reduced by √
N
, where
N
is the number of active flows, potentially reducing the required buffers by well over 90% in Internet backbone routers. One might reasonably expect that such a result, which supports cheaper routers with smaller buffers, would be embraced by the ISP community. In this paper we revisit the result 15 years later, and explain where it has succeeded and failed to affect how buffers are sized.
A digital fountain retrospective
Authors: Byers John W. , Luby Michael , Mitzenmacher Michael
Published: November 2019

We introduced the concept of a digital fountain as a scalable approach to reliable multicast, realized with fast and practical erasure codes, in a paper published in ACM SIGCOMM '98. This invited editorial, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the SIG, reflects on the trajectory of work leading up to our approach, and the numerous developments in the field in the subsequent 21 years. We discuss advances in rateless codes, efficient implementations, applications of digital fountains in distributed storage systems, and connections to invertible Bloom lookup tables.
Bimodal right ventricular dysfunction after postnatal hyperoxia exposure: implications for the preterm heart
Authors: Kumari Santosh , Braun Rudolf K. , Tetri Laura H. , Barton Gregory P. , Hacker Timothy A. , Goss Kara N.
Published: November 2019

Rats exposed to postnatal hyperoxia develop right ventricular (RV) dysfunction, mild pulmonary hypertension, and dysregulated cardiac mitochondrial biogenesis when aged to one year, with the degree of cardiac dysfunction and pulmonary hypertension similar to that previously described in young adults born preterm. Here, we sought to understand the impact of postnatal hyperoxia exposure on RV hemodynamic and mitochondrial function across the life span. In Methods, pups from timed-pregnant Sprague-Dawley rats were randomized to normoxia or hyperoxia [fraction of inspired oxygen ([Formula: see text]), 0.85] exposure for the first 14 days of life, a commonly used model of chronic lung disease of prematurity. RV hemodynamic and mitochondrial function were assessed by invasive measurement of RV pressure-volume loops and by high-resolution respirometry at postnatal day 21 (P21), P90, and P365. In Results, at P21, hyperoxia-exposed rats demonstrated severe pulmonary hypertension and RV dysfunction, accompanied by depressed mitochondrial oxidative capacity. However, significant upregulation of mitochondrial biogenesis at P21 as well as improved afterload led to complete RV hemodynamic and mitochondrial recovery at P90. Mitochondrial DNA mutations were significantly higher by P90 and associated with significant late RV mitochondrial and hemodynamic dysfunction at P365. In conclusion, there appears to be a “honeymoon period” where cardiac hemodynamic and mitochondrial function normalizes following postnatal hyperoxia exposure, only to decline again with ongoing aging. This finding may have significant implications if a long-term pulmonary vascular screening program were to be developed for children or adults with a history of severe prematurity. Further investigation into the mechanisms of recovery are warranted.

NEW & NOTEWORTHY Premature birth is associated with increased risk for cardiac dysfunction and failure throughout life. Here, we identify bimodal right ventricular dysfunction after postnatal hyperoxia exposure. Mitochondrial biogenesis serves as an early adaptive feature promoting recovery of cardiac hemodynamic and mitochondrial function. However, the accumulation of mitochondrial DNA mutations results in late mitochondrial and right ventricular dysfunction. This bimodal right ventricular dysfunction may have important implications for the development of screening programs in the preterm population.
Microdecompression versus Open Laminectomy and Posterior Stabilization for Multilevel Lumbar Spine Stenosis: A Randomized Controlled Trial
Authors: Hamawandi Sherwan A. , Sulaiman Injam Ibrahim , Al-Humairi Ameer Kadhim
Published: November 2019

Background. Lumbar spinal stenosis most often results from a gradual, degenerative ageing process. Open or wide decompressive laminectomy was formerly the standard treatment. However, in recent years, a growing tendency towards less invasive decompressive procedures has emerged. The purpose of this study was to compare the results of microdecompression with those of open wide laminectomy and posterior stabilization for patients with symptomatic multilevel lumbar spinal stenosis who failed to respond to conservative treatment. Methods. This randomized controlled study was conducted between January 2016 and October 2018. One hundred patients were involved in this study. All these patients suffered from radicular leg pain with MRI features of multilevel lumbar spinal stenosis and were treated by conservative treatment of medical treatment and physiotherapy without benefit for 6 months. Those patients were divided into two groups: Group A, 50 microdecompression, and Group B, 50 patients who were treated by open wide laminectomy and posterior stabilization. Both groups of patients were followed up with ODI (Oswestry disability index) and VAS (visual analogue score) for the back and leg pain for one year. Results. The results showed that both groups got significant improvement regarding the Oswestry disability index. Regarding back pain, there was a significant improvement in both groups with better results in group A due to minimal tissue injury as the advantage of the minimal invasive technique. In both groups, there was marked improvement of radicular leg pain postoperatively. Conclusions. Both microdecompression and wide open laminectomy with posterior stabilization were effective in treatment of multilevel lumbar spinal stenosis with superior results of microdecompression regarding less back pain postoperatively with less blood loss and soft tissue dissection. Clinical trial number: NCT04087694.
AZD4573 Is a Highly Selective CDK9 Inhibitor That Suppresses MCL-1 and Induces Apoptosis in Hematologic Cancer Cells
Authors: Cidado Justin , Boiko Scott , Proia Theresa , Ferguson Douglas , Criscione Steven W. , San Martin Maryann , Pop-Damkov Petar , Su Nancy , Roamio Franklin Valar Nila , Sekhar Reddy Chilamakuri Chandra , D'Santos Clive S. , Shao Wenlin , Saeh Jamal C. , Koch Raphael , Weinstock David M. , Zinda Michael , Fawell Stephen E. , Drew Lisa
Published: November 2019

Purpose:

Cyclin-dependent kinase 9 (CDK9) is a transcriptional regulator and potential therapeutic target for many cancers. Multiple nonselective CDK9 inhibitors have progressed clinically but were limited by a narrow therapeutic window. This work describes a novel, potent, and highly selective CDK9 inhibitor, AZD4573.

Experimental Design:

The antitumor activity of AZD4573 was determined across broad cancer cell line panels in vitro as well as cell line- and patient-derived xenograft models in vivo. Multiple approaches, including integrated transcriptomic and proteomic analyses, loss-of-function pathway interrogation, and pharmacologic comparisons, were employed to further understand the major mechanism driving AZD4573 activity and to establish an exposure/effect relationship.

Results:

AZD4573 is a highly selective and potent CDK9 inhibitor. It demonstrated rapid induction of apoptosis and subsequent cell death broadly across hematologic cancer models in vitro, and MCL-1 depletion in a dose- and time-dependent manner was identified as a major mechanism through which AZD4573 induces cell death in tumor cells. This pharmacodynamic (PD) response was also observed in vivo, which led to regressions in both subcutaneous tumor xenografts and disseminated models at tolerated doses both as monotherapy or in combination with venetoclax. This understanding of the mechanism, exposure, and antitumor activity of AZD4573 facilitated development of a robust pharmacokinetic/PD/efficacy model used to inform the clinical trial design.

Conclusions:

Selective targeting of CDK9 enables the indirect inhibition of MCL-1, providing a therapeutic option for MCL-1–dependent diseases. Accordingly, AZD4573 is currently being evaluated in a phase I clinical trial for patients with hematologic malignancies (clinicaltrials.gov identifier: NCT03263637).

See related commentary by Alcon et al., p. 761
Genomic Determinants of Clinical Outcomes in Rhabdomyosarcoma
Authors: Casey Dana L. , Wexler Leonard H. , Pitter Kenneth L. , Samstein Robert M. , Slotkin Emily K. , Wolden Suzanne L.
Published: November 2019

Purpose:

Increased availability of next-generation sequencing has allowed for the genomic characterization of a variety of pediatric tumors, although genomic determinants of response to treatment remain largely unknown. We sought to evaluate the genomic landscape and genomic determinants of clinical outcomes in rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS).

Experimental Design:

Of 29,067 patients who underwent genomic profiling at our institution using a 468-gene oncopanel with complete records, 87 had RMS, of whom 22 were fusion positive. The 10 most common genetic alterations were associated with locoregional control (LC), disease-free survival (DFS), and overall survival (OS). Tumor mutational burden (TMB), defined as the total number of somatic nonsynonymous mutations normalized to the number of sequenced megabases, was also associated with clinical outcomes.

Results:

Median age at diagnosis was 16.4 years and median follow-up, 2.1 years. Patients with fusion-negative RMS had more genomic alterations and a higher TMB than those with fusion-positive RMS (mean number of genomic alterations, 6.0 vs. 2.9; P = 0.007 and mean TMB, 2.6 vs. 1.0; P = 0.01). Genetic alterations in TP53 were associated with worse OS (P = 0.03). High TMB (defined as the top quartile ≥ 2.8) was associated with worse LC (P = 0.05), DFS (P = 0.04), and OS (P = 0.01), with significance retained on multivariable analysis after controlling for risk group, fusion status, and receipt of chemotherapy as per pediatric protocols.

Conclusions:

High TMB was associated with worse clinical outcomes in patients with RMS. With further validation, TMB and other genomic classifiers may be combined with traditional clinicopathologic risk factors to guide risk stratification and ultimately treatment decisions.
Child-Turcotte-Pugh Score, MELD Score and MELD-Na Score as Predictors of Short-Term Mortality among Patients with End-Stage Liver Disease in Northern India
Authors: Acharya Gagandeep , Kaushik Rajeev Mohan , Gupta Rohit , Kaushik Reshma
Published: November 2019

Background and Objectives: Child-Turcotte-Pugh (CTP), Model for End-Stage Liver Disease (MELD) and MELD-sodium (MELD-Na) scores are used for predicting disease severity and mortality among patients with end-stage liver disease. However, data regarding their usefulness in predicting the short-term outcome of end-stage liver disease are not available in India. This prospective study compared the CTP score, MELD score and MELD-Na score as predictors of short-term outcome among patients with end-stage liver disease. Methods: CTP, MELD and MELD-Na scores were determined in 171 patients with end-stage liver disease at a tertiary healthcare centre in India at the time of admission, and the concordance (C-) statistics of the three scores for 3-month mortality were assessed and compared. The aetiology of end-stage liver disease and the clinical presentation were determined. Results: The CTP score, MELD score and MELD-Na score on day 1 were significantly higher among non-survivors than among survivors (p < 0.0001 each). The C-statistic for 3-month mortality for the CTP score was 0.93 (p < 0.0001), that for the MELD score was 0.86 (p < 0.0001) and that for the MELD-Na score was 0.83 (p < 0.0001). The C-statistics of these scores differed significantly for 3-month mortality, and the CTP score was better than the MELD (p < 0.0001) and MELD-Na (p < 0.0001) scores in predicting 3-month mortality. Conclusions: The CTP, MELD and MELD-Na scores were very good predictors of mortality at 3 months among patients with end-stage liver disease. The CTP score was superior to the MELD and MELD-Na scores in predicting 3-month mortality.
Couch, Dicas e Companhia
Authors: Silva Thaís Costa da
Published: November 2019

Os modos de consumo em viagens têm se complexificado e dinamizado na contemporaneidade, muito influenciados pelos usos das tecnologias de informação e de comunicação. Alguns deles são associados a questões políticas e a movimentos de resistência de grupos minoritários. Diante das problemáticas que dificultam suas mobilidades, como a segurança precária ou a discriminação, alguns desses grupos criam alternativas de consumo colaborativo para superar adversidades. Nesse contexto, o artigo busca investigar de que forma as materialidades digitais e narrativas construídas no grupo de viagens colaborativas Couch das mina e trans #ELENÃO, vinculado ao Facebook, estimulam e otimizam múltiplos modos de consumo em viagens e de mobilidades das mulheres. Como método de análise adotou-se a observação participante, a aplicação de entrevistas e uma revisão bibliográfica. Intenta-se, com essa investigação, contribuir para as reflexões acerca da pluralidade dos modos de consumo em viagens, das limitações encontradas na mobilidade das mulheres que buscam viajar e dos processos metodológicos adotados para melhor compreendê-los.
Glucose 6-Phosphate Accumulates via Phosphoglucose Isomerase Inhibition in Heart Muscle
Authors: Karlstaedt Anja , Khanna Radhika , Thangam Manoj , Taegtmeyer Heinrich
Published: November 2019

Rationale:

Metabolic and structural remodeling is a hallmark of heart failure. This remodeling involves activation of the mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin) signaling pathway, but little is known on how intermediary metabolites are integrated as metabolic signals.

Objective:

We investigated the metabolic control of cardiac glycolysis and explored the potential of glucose 6-phosphate (G6P) to regulate glycolytic flux and mTOR activation.

Methods and Results:

We developed a kinetic model of cardiomyocyte carbohydrate metabolism,
CardioGlyco
, to study the metabolic control of myocardial glycolysis and G6P levels. Metabolic control analysis revealed that G6P concentration is dependent on phosphoglucose isomerase (PGI) activity. Next, we integrated ex vivo tracer studies with mathematical simulations to test how changes in glucose supply and glycolytic flux affect mTOR activation. Nutrient deprivation promoted a tight coupling between glucose uptake and oxidation, G6P reduction, and increased protein-protein interaction between hexokinase II and mTOR. We validated the in silico modeling in cultured adult mouse ventricular cardiomyocytes by modulating PGI activity using erythrose 4-phosphate. Inhibition of glycolytic flux at the level of PGI caused G6P accumulation, which correlated with increased mTOR activation. Using click chemistry, we labeled newly synthesized proteins and confirmed that inhibition of PGI increases protein synthesis.

Conclusions:

The reduction of PGI activity directly affects myocyte growth by regulating mTOR activation.
Newly Identified Peptide, Peptide Lv, Promotes Pathological Angiogenesis
Authors: Shi Liheng , Zhao Min , Abbey Colette A. , Tsai Shu‐Huai , Xie Wankun , Pham Dylan , Chapman Samantha , Bayless Kayla J. , Hein Travis W. , Rosa Robert H. , Ko Michael L. , Kuo Lih , Ko Gladys Y.‐P.
Published: November 2019

Background

We recently discovered a small endogenous peptide, peptide Lv, with the ability to activate vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2 and its downstream signaling. As vascular endothelial growth factor through vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2 contributes to normal development, vasodilation, angiogenesis, and pathogenesis of various diseases, we investigated the role of peptide Lv in vasodilation and developmental and pathological angiogenesis in this study.

Methods and Results

The endothelial cell proliferation, migration, and 3‐dimensional sprouting assays were used to test the abilities of peptide Lv in angiogenesis in vitro. The chick chorioallantoic membranes and early postnatal mice were used to examine its impact on developmental angiogenesis. The oxygen‐induced retinopathy and laser‐induced choroidal neovascularization mouse models were used for in vivo pathological angiogenesis. The isolated porcine retinal and coronary arterioles were used for vasodilation assays. Peptide Lv elicited angiogenesis in vitro and in vivo. Peptide Lv and vascular endothelial growth factor acted synergistically in promoting endothelial cell proliferation. Peptide Lv–elicited vasodilation was not completely dependent on nitric oxide, indicating that peptide Lv had vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2/nitric oxide–independent targets. An antibody against peptide Lv, anti‐Lv, dampened vascular endothelial growth factor–elicited endothelial proliferation and laser‐induced vascular leakage and choroidal neovascularization. While the pathological angiogenesis in mouse eyes with oxygen‐induced retinopathy was enhanced by exogenous peptide Lv, anti‐Lv dampened this process. Furthermore, deletion of peptide Lv in mice significantly decreased pathological neovascularization compared with their wild‐type littermates.

Conclusions

These results demonstrate that peptide Lv plays a significant role in pathological angiogenesis but may be less critical during development. Peptide Lv is involved in pathological angiogenesis through vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2–dependent and –independent pathways. As anti‐Lv dampened the pathological angiogenesis in the eye, anti‐Lv may have a therapeutic potential to treat pathological angiogenesis.
Thresholds of the Visible. Activist Video, Militancy, and Prefigurative Politics
Authors: Schiwy Freya
Published: November 2019

The formation of a Peoples' Assembly and occupation of the city of Oaxaca (Mexico) in 2006 has been widely considered a rebirth of the Commune and was also one of the first widely video-recorded uprisings of the 21st century. As media practice, activist videos approximate an identity of creative art/work and socio-political change but also warrant consideration of their formal aspects. How do stylistic choices help or hinder reflecting on the not-quite-here-yet of prefigurative politics? In contrast with video art, graffiti, and performance protest, activist videos overwhelmingly adhere to evidentiary forms. Carefully edited, they invite viewers to view crowdsourced footage as indexical traces of what “really” occurred in front of the lens but draw little attention to contingency or to the artifice of cinema. Activist videos' politics of truth and reliance on interviews underscore lingering, more hierarchical visions of revolution and risk inscribing what is there to the detriment of equality and potentiality. Even so, some activist videos playfully invoke a future already arrived.
How Does Motivation Modulate the Operation of the Mentalizing Network in Person Evaluation?
Authors: Nugiel Tehila , Beer Jennifer S.
Published: November 2019

The mentalizing network is theorized to play a central role in making sense of people (compared with nonsocial targets), but is its involvement affected when we make sense of people in a nondispassionate manner (e.g., favoritism toward others on the basis of group membership)? First, mixed findings and small samples have prevented strong conclusions about whether intergroup evaluation increases or decreases activation regions associated with the mentalizing network. Second, little is known about the psychological mechanism underlying mentalizing network activation shaped by ingroup versus outgroup evaluations. Psychological models suggest two hypotheses that can be challenging to disentangle with self-report: Ingroup trait evaluations may benefit from a priori expectations and/or preferential evidence accumulation. Therefore, the current study (n = 50) drew on a combination of drift diffusion modeling and fMRI to examine how group membership affects the engagement of the mentalizing network for trait evaluation and whether group-differentiated activation is associated with a priori expectations and/or preferential evidence accumulation. Outgroup trait evaluations engaged dorsomedial pFC activation, whereas ingroup trait evaluations engaged ventromedial pFC activation as well as other regions associated with mentalizing such as precuneus, posterior cingulate cortex, and right TPJ. Furthermore, the ventromedial pFC and posterior cingulate cortex activation was associated with differential expectations applied to ingroup trait evaluation. The current findings demonstrate the importance of combining motivational factors, computational modeling, and fMRI to deepen our understanding of the neural basis of person evaluation.
Characteristic-Sorted Portfolios: Estimation and Inference
Authors: Cattaneo Matias D. , Crump Richard K. , Farrell Max H. , Schaumburg Ernst
Published: November 2019

Portfolio sorting is ubiquitous in the empirical finance literature, where it has been widely used to identify pricing anomalies. Despite its popularity, little attention has been paid to the statistical properties of the procedure. We develop a general framework for portfolio sorting by casting it as a nonparametric estimator. We present valid asymptotic inference methods and a valid mean square error expansion of the estimator leading to an optimal choice for the number of portfolios. In practical settings, the optimal choice may be much larger than the standard choices of five or ten. To illustrate the relevance of our results, we revisit the size and momentum anomalies.
Effects of the invasive common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) on nematode communities in natural grasslands
Authors: Jurová Jana , Renčo Marek , Gömöryová Erika , Čerevková Andrea
Published: November 2019

Thousands of plant species have been introduced, both deliberately and accidentally, to native ecosystems across the globe. The common milkweed, Asclepias syriaca, is an invasive fast-growing plant species that has invaded natural and managed areas in Europe in recent years. However, only a few studies have investigated its impacts on above-ground and below-ground native biota. Soil nematodes are considered to be the most abundant metazoans, comprising different trophic groups. We examined soil nematode populations on several independent sites invaded and non-invaded by A. syriaca in southern Slovak Republic. We hypothesised that alteration of above-ground nutrient sources caused by invasion would alter nematode abundance, species diversity and trophic structure. Our study revealed that the nematode communities were not negatively affected by A. syriaca invasion over a period of two vegetation seasons. The most surprising results were that common milkweed did not decrease the abundance of plant parasites, bacterivores or fungivores and did not affect species diversity. Moreover, basic physicochemical soil parameters were similar in both invaded and non-invaded sites, although there is evidence that invasive milkweed considerably decreases native plant species cover. It is thus reasonable to conclude that A. syriaca does not pose a threat to soil nematode communities but has a negative impact on native plants. As there is an absence of nematological studies from A. syriaca-invaded ecosystems and considering it has invaded a wide range of habitats, it is impossible to generalise our findings and further studies are required.
Cosmology and Cosmic Order in Islamic Astronomy
Authors: Morrison Robert G.
Published: November 2019

This article analyzes how the astronomy of Islamic societies in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries can be understood as cosmological. By studying the Arabic translations of the relevant Greek terms and then the definitions of the medieval Arabic dictionaries, the article finds that Arabic terms did not communicate order in the way implied by the Greek ho kósmos (ὁ κόσμος; the cosmos). Yet, astronomers of the period sometimes discussed cosmic order in addition to describing the cosmos. This article finds, too, that a new technical term, nafs al-amr (the fact of the matter) became part of later discussions of cosmic order.
Couleurs des urines et plantes tinctoriales dans le De Urinis Theophili: À propos du terme χυμένη
Authors: Vagenheim Ginette
Published: November 2019

The aim of this article is to draw the attention of scholars of ancient medicine to the need to consider the works of humanists in interpreting and editing medical treatises. Because humanists, especially those who had studied medicine and botany in the Italian universities, had acquired both a theoretical knowledge of ancient writings on medicine and a practical expertise in botany that allowed them to identify the plants mentioned in the major ancient sources such as Dioscorides, Theophrastus, Pliny and to understand their lexical uses in the Byzantine treatises on uroscopy. Such is the case for the word chyménè, which is nowadays completely misunderstood, as our examination of Theophilus Protospatharius’ De urinis (ca. seventh-ninth century) will show. That word, while obscure to the first translators of this treatise, such as Ambrogio Leone (1519), was correctly interpreted by the humanists Onorio Belli (1593), Claude Saumaise (1629) and Bodaeus de Stapel (1644), who were also the first to show us that the Latin version of Theophilus’ treatise on Urines had become corrupted in the course of the centuries.
Effect of Omeprazole on Intestinal Mucosal Barrier After Hemorrhagic Shock in Rats
Authors: Shen Liangyun , Jiang Wei
Published: November 2019

Objective: The aim of this study was to explain the effect of omeprazole on intestinal mucosal barrier after hemorrhagic shock in rats. Materials and methods: 81 rats were allocated to control, hemorrhagic shock model group and omeprazole group according to random number
table, and each group was divided into three subgroups according to the time point of 0, 6, 12 h after HS and resuscitation. The rat model of hemorrhagic shock was induced by using the improved Wiggers method. Model group and omeprazole group were given physiological saline or omeprazole 30
mg/kg retention enema after the post-resuscitation. At three time points, the level of intestinal fatty acid binding protein (IFABP) in the serum was test by ELISA method, and the levels of serum endotoxin (LPS) was detected by dynamic turbidimetric method. The morphological changes of small
intestinal mucosa in rats was observed under light microscope, VASP and ZO-1 mRNA expression was measured by RT-qPCR, while p-VASP and ZO-1 protein expression was measured by immunohistochemical method. Results: Compared with model group, serum endotoxin (LPS), fatty acid binding protein
(IFABP) content gradually increased (P < 0.05, respectively), and intestinal mucosa damage was aggravate, VASP and ZO-1 gene expression were significantly down-regulation (P < 0.05, respectively) and p-VASP and ZO-1 protein expression were significantly depressed (P
< 0.05, respectively). Conclusion: Omeprazole can significantly aggravate the intestinal mucosal barrier function by regulating VAASP and ZO-1 expression after hemorrhagic shock and resuscitation.