bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Carotid Intima-Media Thickness and the Risk of First Stroke in Patients With Hypertension
Authors: Sun Pengfei , Liu Lishun , Liu Chengzhang , Zhang Yan , Yang Ying , Qin Xianhui , Li Jianping , Cao Jingjing , Zhang Yuanyuan , Zhou Ziyi , Xu Xiping , Huo Yong
Published: January 2020

Background and Purpose—

This study aimed to investigate the association between mean carotid intima-media thickness (cIMT) and the risk of first stroke and examine any possible effect modifiers in patients with hypertension.

Methods—

A total of 11 547 hypertensive participants without history of stroke from the CSPPT (China Stroke Primary Prevention Trial) were included in this analysis. The primary outcome was first stroke.

Results—

Over a median follow-up of 4.4 years, 726 first strokes were identified, of which 631 were ischemic, and 90 were hemorrhagic. A per SD increase in mean cIMT was positively associated with the risk of first stroke (hazard ratio [HR], 1.11 [95% CI, 1.03–1.20]), and first ischemic stroke (HR, 1.10 [95% CI, 1.01–1.20]). Moreover, when cIMT was categorized in quartiles, the higher risks of first stroke (HR, 1.31 [95% CI, 1.06–1.61]) and first hemorrhagic stroke (HR, 2.25 [95% CI, 1.11–4.58]) were found in participants in quartile 2 to 4 (≥0.66 mm), compared with those in quartile 1 (<0.66 mm). More importantly, the cIMT-first stroke association was significantly stronger in participants with higher mean arterial pressure (≥109.3 [quintile 5] versus <109.3 mm Hg,
P
-interaction=0.024) or diastolic blood pressure levels (≥90.7 [quintile 5] versus <90.7 mm Hg,
P
-interaction=0.009).

Conclusions—

There was a significant positive association between baseline cIMT and the risk of first stroke in patients with hypertension. This association was even stronger among those with higher mean arterial pressure or diastolic blood pressure levels.
Characteristics and Outcomes of Retinal Artery Occlusion
Authors: Schorr Emily M. , Rossi Kyle C. , Stein Laura K. , Park Brian L. , Tuhrim Stanley , Dhamoon Mandip S.
Published: January 2020

Background and Purpose—

There are few large studies examining comorbidities, outcomes, and acute interventions for patients with retinal artery occlusion (RAO). RAO shares pathophysiology with acute ischemic stroke (AIS); direct comparison may inform emergent treatment, evaluation, and secondary prevention.

Methods—

The National Readmissions Database contains data on ≈50% of US hospitalizations from 2013 to 2015. We used
International Classification of Diseases
,
Ninth Revision
, codes to identify and compare index RAO and AIS admissions, comorbidities, and interventions and Clinical Comorbidity Software codes to identify readmissions causes, using survey-weighted methods when possible. Cumulative risk of all-cause readmission after RAO ≤1 year was estimated by Kaplan-Meier analysis.

Results—

Among 4871 RAO and 1 239 963 AIS admissions, patients with RAO were less likely (
P
<0.0001) than patients with AIS to have diabetes mellitus (RAO, 24.3% versus AIS, 36.8%), congestive heart failure (9.1% versus 14.8%), atrial fibrillation (15.5% versus 25.2%), or hypertension (62.2% versus 67.6%) but more likely to have valvular disease (13.3% versus 10.5%) and tobacco usage (38.6% versus 32.9%). In RAO admissions, thrombolysis was administered in 2.9% (5.8% in central RAO subgroup, versus 8.0% of AIS), therapeutic anterior chamber paracentesis in 1.0%, thrombectomy in none; 1.4% received carotid endarterectomy during index admission, 1.6% within 30 days. Nearly 1 in 10 patients with RAO were readmitted within 30 days and were more than twice as likely as patients with AIS to be readmitted for dysrhythmia or endocarditis. Readmission for stroke after RAO was the highest within the first 150 days after index admission, and risk was higher in central RAO than in branch RAO.

Conclusions—

Patients with RAO had high prevalence of many stroke risk factors, particularly valvular disease and smoking, which can be addressed to minimize subsequent risk. Despite less baseline atrial fibrillation, RAO patients were more likely to be readmitted for atrial fibrillation/dysrhythmias. A variety of interventions was administered. AIS risk is the highest shortly after RAO, emphasizing the importance of urgent, thorough neurovascular evaluation.
The Neurocognitive Correlates of Human Reasoning: A Meta-analysis of Conditional and Syllogistic Inferences
Authors: Wertheim Julia , Ragni Marco
Published: January 2020

Inferring knowledge is a core aspect of human cognition. We can form complex sentences connecting different pieces of information, such as in conditional statements like “if someone drinks alcohol, then they must be older than 18.” These are relevant for causal reasoning about our environment and allow us to think about hypothetical scenarios. Another central aspect to forming complex statements is to quantify about sets, such as in “some apples are green.” Reasoning in terms of the ability to form these statements is not yet fully understood, despite being an active field of interdisciplinary research. On a theoretical level, several conceptual frameworks have been proposed, predicting diverging brain activation patterns during the reasoning process. We present a meta-analysis comprising the results of 32 neuroimaging experiments about reasoning, which we subdivided by their structure, content, and requirement for world knowledge. In conditional tasks, we identified activation in the left middle and rostrolateral pFC and parietal regions, whereas syllogistic tasks elicit activation in Broca's complex, including the BG. Concerning the content differentiation, abstract tasks exhibit activation in the left inferior and rostrolateral pFC and inferior parietal regions, whereas content tasks are in the left superior pFC and parieto-occipital regions. The findings clarify the neurocognitive mechanisms of reasoning and exhibit clear distinctions between the task's type and content. Overall, we found that the activation differences clarify inconsistent results from accumulated data and serve as useful scaffolding differentiations for theory-driven interpretations of the neuroscientific correlates of human reasoning.
Model-Free Robust Optimal Feedback Mechanisms of Biological Motor Control
Authors: Bian Tao , Wolpert Daniel M. , Jiang Zhong-Ping
Published: January 2020

Sensorimotor tasks that humans perform are often affected by different sources of uncertainty. Nevertheless, the central nervous system (CNS) can gracefully coordinate our movements. Most learning frameworks rely on the internal model principle, which requires a precise internal representation in the CNS to predict the outcomes of our motor commands. However, learning a perfect internal model in a complex environment over a short period of time is a nontrivial problem. Indeed, achieving proficient motor skills may require years of training for some difficult tasks. Internal models alone may not be adequate to explain the motor adaptation behavior during the early phase of learning. Recent studies investigating the active regulation of motor variability, the presence of suboptimal inference, and model-free learning have challenged some of the traditional viewpoints on the sensorimotor learning mechanism. As a result, it may be necessary to develop a computational framework that can account for these new phenomena. Here, we develop a novel theory of motor learning, based on model-free adaptive optimal control, which can bypass some of the difficulties in existing theories. This new theory is based on our recently developed adaptive dynamic programming (ADP) and robust ADP (RADP) methods and is especially useful for accounting for motor learning behavior when an internal model is inaccurate or unavailable. Our preliminary computational results are in line with experimental observations reported in the literature and can account for some phenomena that are inexplicable using existing models.
Switching in Cerebellar Stellate Cell Excitability in Response to a Pair of Inhibitory/Excitatory Presynaptic Inputs: A Dynamical System Perspective
Authors: Farjami Saeed , Alexander Ryan P. D. , Bowie Derek , Khadra Anmar
Published: January 2020

Cerebellar stellate cells form inhibitory synapses with Purkinje cells, the sole output of the cerebellum. Upon stimulation by a pair of varying inhibitory and fixed excitatory presynaptic inputs, these cells do not respond to excitation (i.e., do not generate an action potential) when the magnitude of the inhibition is within a given range, but they do respond outside this range. We previously used a revised Hodgkin–Huxley type of model to study the nonmonotonic first-spike latency of these cells and their temporal increase in excitability in whole cell configuration (termed run-up). Here, we recompute these latency profiles using the same model by adapting an efficient computational technique, the two-point boundary value problem, that is combined with the continuation method. We then extend the study to investigate how switching in responsiveness, upon stimulation with presynaptic inputs, manifests itself in the context of run-up. A three-dimensional reduced model is initially derived from the original six-dimensional model and then analyzed to demonstrate that both models exhibit type 1 excitability possessing a saddle-node on an invariant cycle (SNIC) bifurcation when varying the amplitude of [Formula: see text]. Using slow-fast analysis, we show that the original model possesses three equilibria lying at the intersection of the critical manifold of the fast subsystem and the nullcline of the slow variable [Formula: see text] (the inactivation of the A-type K[Formula: see text] channel), the middle equilibrium is of saddle type with two-dimensional stable manifold (computed from the reduced model) acting as a boundary between the responsive and non-responsive regimes, and the (ghost of) SNIC is formed when the [Formula: see text]-nullcline is (nearly) tangential to the critical manifold. We also show that the slow dynamics associated with (the ghost of) the SNIC and the lower stable branch of the critical manifold are responsible for generating the nonmonotonic first-spike latency. These results thus provide important insight into the complex dynamics of stellate cells.
Classification from Triplet Comparison Data
Authors: Cui Zhenghang , Charoenphakdee Nontawat , Sato Issei , Sugiyama Masashi
Published: January 2020

Learning from triplet comparison data has been extensively studied in the context of metric learning, where we want to learn a distance metric between two instances, and ordinal embedding, where we want to learn an embedding in a Euclidean space of the given instances that preserve the comparison order as much as possible. Unlike fully labeled data, triplet comparison data can be collected in a more accurate and human-friendly way. Although learning from triplet comparison data has been considered in many applications, an important fundamental question of whether we can learn a classifier only from triplet comparison data without all the labels has remained unanswered. In this letter, we give a positive answer to this important question by proposing an unbiased estimator for the classification risk under the empirical risk minimization framework. Since the proposed method is based on the empirical risk minimization framework, it inherently has the advantage that any surrogate loss function and any model, including neural networks, can be easily applied. Furthermore, we theoretically establish an estimation error bound for the proposed empirical risk minimizer. Finally, we provide experimental results to show that our method empirically works well and outperforms various baseline methods.
The Case Study Method in Philosophy of Science: An Empirical Study
Authors: Mizrahi Moti
Published: January 2020

There is an ongoing methodological debate in philosophy of science concerning the use of case studies as evidence for and/or against theories about science. In this paper, I aim to make a contribution to this debate by taking an empirical approach. I present the results of a systematic survey of the PhilSci-Archive, which suggest that a sizeable proportion of papers in philosophy of science contain appeals to case studies, as indicated by the occurrence of the indicator words “case study” and/or “case studies.” These results are confirmed by data mined from the JSTOR database on research articles published in leading journals in the field: Philosophy of Science, the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science ( BJPS), and the Journal for General Philosophy of Science ( JGPS), as well as the Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association ( PSA). The data also show upward trends in appeals to case studies in articles published in Philosophy of Science, the BJPS, and the JGPS. The empirical work I have done for this paper provides philosophers of science who are wary of the use of case studies as evidence for and/or against theories about science with a way to do philosophy of science that is informed by data rather than case studies.
Value-Free yet Policy-Relevant? The Normative Views of Climate Scientists and Their Bearing on Philosophy
Authors: Gundersen Torbjørn
Published: January 2020

This article contributes to the philosophical debate on values in science by exploring how scientists themselves understand the proper role of moral, political, and social values in expert practice. I present findings from interviews with climate scientists who have participated as authors in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The climate scientists subscribe to the value-free ideal as a regulative ideal that applies both to the provision of knowledge to policymakers and how they engage with political issues in the public sphere. Yet their views on the moral responsibility of scientists and the aim of providing policy-relevant output challenge the value-free ideal. The article suggests ways in which their views can be relevant to the philosophical discussion.
A new species of the hermit crab genus Diogenes Dana, 1851 (Decapoda: Anomura: Diogenidae) from shallow coastal waters in Japan
Authors: KOMAI TOMOYUKI , YOSHIDA RYUTA
Published: January 2020

A new species of diogenid hermit crab, Diogenes minimus, is described and illustrated on the basis of material from shallow subtidal waters (5–19 m) in central Japan. It appears close to D. holthuisi Asakura & Tachikawa, 2010, but easily distinguished from the latter by the shape of the antennal acicle, non-elongate male left cheliped and the armature of the right cheliped merus. Including the new species, 14 identified species of Diogenes are now known from Japanese waters. A brief overview on species of Diogenes recorded from Japanese waters is given.
Impact of Model Resolution on Tropical Cyclone Simulation Using the HighResMIP–PRIMAVERA Multimodel Ensemble
Authors: Roberts Malcolm John , Camp Joanne , Seddon Jon , Vidale Pier Luigi , Hodges Kevin , Vanniere Benoit , Mecking Jenny , Haarsma Rein , Bellucci Alessio , Scoccimarro Enrico , Caron Louis-Philippe , Chauvin Fabrice , Terray Laurent , Valcke Sophie , Moine Marie-Pierre , Putrasahan Dian , Roberts Christopher , Senan Retish , Zarzycki Colin , Ullrich Paul
Published: January 2020

A multimodel, multiresolution set of simulations over the period 1950–2014 using a common forcing protocol from CMIP6 HighResMIP have been completed by six modeling groups. Analysis of tropical cyclone performance using two different tracking algorithms suggests that enhanced resolution toward 25 km typically leads to more frequent and stronger tropical cyclones, together with improvements in spatial distribution and storm structure. Both of these factors reduce typical GCM biases seen at lower resolution. Using single ensemble members of each model, there is little evidence of systematic improvement in interannual variability in either storm frequency or accumulated cyclone energy as compared with observations when resolution is increased. Changes in the relationships between large-scale drivers of climate variability and tropical cyclone variability in the Atlantic Ocean are also not robust to model resolution. However, using a larger ensemble of simulations (of up to 14 members) with one model at different resolutions does show evidence of increased skill at higher resolution. The ensemble mean correlation of Atlantic interannual tropical cyclone variability increases from ~0.5 to ~0.65 when resolution increases from 250 to 100 km. In the northwestern Pacific Ocean the skill keeps increasing with 50-km resolution to 0.7. These calculations also suggest that more than six members are required to adequately distinguish the impact of resolution within the forced signal from the weather noise.
Argovis: A Web Application for Fast Delivery, Visualization, and Analysis of Argo Data
Authors: Tucker Tyler , Giglio Donata , Scanderbeg Megan , Shen Samuel S. P.
Published: January 2020

Since the mid-2000s, the Argo oceanographic observational network has provided near-real-time four-dimensional data for the global ocean for the first time in history. Internet (i.e., the “web”) applications that handle the more than two million Argo profiles of ocean temperature, salinity, and pressure are an active area of development. This paper introduces a new and efficient interactive Argo data visualization and delivery web application named Argovis that is built on a classic three-tier design consisting of a front end, back end, and database. Together these components allow users to navigate 4D data on a world map of Argo floats, with the option to select a custom region, depth range, and time period. Argovis’s back end sends data to users in a simple format, and the front end quickly renders web-quality figures. More advanced applications query Argovis from other programming environments, such as Python, R, and MATLAB. Our Argovis architecture allows expert data users to build their own functionality for specific applications, such as the creation of spatially gridded data for a given time and advanced time–frequency analysis for a space–time selection. Argovis is aimed to both scientists and the public, with tutorials and examples available on the website, describing how to use the Argovis data delivery system—for example, how to plot profiles in a region over time or to monitor profile metadata.
Doing politics by other means: Abdelmalek Sayad and the political sociology of a collective intellectual
Authors: Pérez Amín
Published: January 2020

This article proposes a new understanding of the constraints and opportunities that lead intellectuals engaged in different political and social fields to create alternative modes of resistance to domination. The study of the Algerian sociologist Abdelmalek Sayad offers insights into the social conditions of this mode of committed scholarship. On the one hand, this article applies Sayad’s theory of immigration to his transnational intellectual engagements. It establishes how immigrants’ intellectual work are conditioned by their trajectories, both before and after leaving their country, and by the stages of emigration (from playing a role in the society of origin to becoming caught up in the reality of the host society). On the other hand, the article illuminates the constraints and the spaces of possible action intellectuals face while moving across national universes and disparate political and academic fields. Sayad’s marginal position within the academy constrained him to work for the French and Algerian governments and international organizations while he was simultaneously engaged with political dissidents, unionists, writers, and social movements. In tracking Sayad’s roles as an academic, expert and public sociologist, the article uncovers the conditions that grounded improbable alliances between those fields and produced new forms of critique and political action. The article concludes by drawing out some reflections that ‘collective intellectual’ engagements elicit to the sociology of intellectuals.
Strong, Weak and Invisible Ties: A Relational Perspective on Urban Coexistence
Authors: Felder Maxime
Published: January 2020

The dichotomy between ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ ties is a common theme in sociological scholarship dealing with urban space, yet urban ethnographers have long been describing the prevalence of impersonal relations. Such relations can be described as fleeting encounters between complete strangers, while others – as in the case of ‘nodding’ relationships – are durable and have yet to be conceptualised. The notion of ‘invisible ties’ is proposed as a conceptual handle for studying typical urban relations that complement the established notions of strong and weak ties. Through an empirical study of four residential buildings in Geneva (Switzerland), these ‘invisible ties’ are revealed by means of a systemic approach to social urban life, from which two key actors emerge: ‘socialisers’ and ‘figures’. This research addresses gaps in the literature on interpersonal relations in urban contexts by focusing on the interplay between different types of social ties, encompassing the whole continuum from anonymity to intimacy.
A review of economic and environmental consequences from waste-based power generation: Evidence from Taiwan
Authors: Zhang Liguo , Hu Yunling , Cai Liang , Kung Chih-Chun
Published: January 2020

Energy sustainability is keyed to social development, and thus finding renewable and clean energy sources is crucial to modern society. Waste to energy technology is of particular interest in recent years because the feedstock supply is relatively stable and the technology is less influenced by climate and geographic conditions. This study first reviews this technology, and then provides a case study to explore the potential investment, economic benefits, and environmental consequences associated with such an application. The results indicate that the energy conversion efficiency and net social benefits are highly dependent on the composition of the wastes, the transportation costs, and the distribution of regional population. The results imply that for the application of waste to energy technology to be efficient and effective, the locations of refuse plants play an important role, as well as the recycled rates of municipal solid wastes. Policy implications regarding these points are also discussed in detail.
The development of academic coping across late elementary and early middle school: Do patterns differ for students with differing motivational resources?
Authors: Skinner Ellen A. , Saxton Emily A.
Published: January 2020

The way that students cope with the difficulties and setbacks they encounter daily in their academic work can make a material difference to their learning, school success, and capacity to re-engage with challenging educational activities. Because of their potential importance to students’ everyday academic resilience, educators and researchers are interested in the development of adaptive and maladaptive ways of coping—both how they improve or deteriorate over students’ educational careers and the factors that underlie their differential development. Using information on self-reports of 5 adaptive and 6 maladaptive ways of coping, collected from 1,018 American third through sixth graders in fall and spring of the same school year, this study examined (1) the normative progression of these 11 ways of coping across fall of third to spring of sixth grade, and (2) whether developmental patterns differed for students with differing motivational resources. A generally stable profile of constructive coping was evident during Grades 3 and 4 (in which adaptive strategies were high and maladaptive responses low), followed by modest improvements across fourth to fifth grades. Marked shifts were apparent across the transition to middle school. Compared to spring of fifth grade, students in fall of sixth grade reported lower levels of all adaptive and higher levels of all maladaptive ways of coping, and this trend persisted across the first year of middle school. Although motivational resources did not produce differing developmental trends, they did seem to organize coping. Highest levels of adaptive coping were found for students high in both personal and interpersonal assets, just as the highest levels of maladaptive coping were found for students high in both personal and interpersonal liabilities. Findings suggest that both motivational and developmental approaches are needed to fully account for patterns of age-graded trends in academic coping across late elementary and early middle school.
The short-term impact of dietary fat and sugar intake on breast milk composition: A clinical trial protocol
Authors: Leghi Gabriela E , Netting Merryn , Muhlhausler Beverly S
Published: January 2020

Background:

Breast milk is uniquely designed for the infant and contains the key nutrients and bioactive factors required to support optimal infant health and development. While previous studies have reported that maternal obesity can influence milk composition, whether this relationship is driven by maternal or dietary factors remains unclear.

Aim:

The aim of this study is to assess the impact of test meals varying in fat and sugar content on post-prandial concentrations of macronutrients and metabolic hormones in the breast milk.

Methods:

This open label crossover study will include 25 lactating women. On the three days of the intervention, women will be randomized to receive a breakfast meal with a fat and sugar content consistent with the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating (9 g fat, 25 g of sugar) or a breakfast meal containing higher levels of fat (28 g fat, 18 g of sugar) or sugar (5 g fat, 56 g of sugar). All breakfast meals will be similar in composition (cereal, milk, yogurt, toast and spread) and matched for total energy content. This study will measure breast milk concentrations of metabolic hormones (leptin, insulin, adiponectin, ghrelin and glucagon-like peptide-1) and macronutrients in the following 12 hours.

Results and Conclusion:

The results of this study will provide novel direct evidence of the impact of variations in dietary fat and sugar content to alter the macronutrient and/or metabolic hormone concentrations in breast milk. Data on the effect of maternal diet on milk composition is critical given the established importance of nutritional exposures in early infancy for an individual’s life-long health outcomes.
Exploring the effect of eye gaze cues on novel L2 morphosyntactic pattern learning
Authors: Abashidze Dato , McDonough Kim , Gao Yang
Published: January 2020

Recent research that explored how input exposure and learner characteristics influence novel L2 morphosyntactic pattern learning has exposed participants to either text or static images rather than dynamic visual events. Furthermore, it is not known whether incorporating eye gaze cues into dynamic visual events enhances dual pattern learning. Therefore, this exploratory eye-tracking study examined whether eye gaze cues during dynamic visual events facilitate novel L2 pattern learning. University students ( n = 72) were exposed to 36 training videos with two dual novel morphosyntactic patterns in pseudo-Georgian: completed events ( bich-ma kocn-ul gogoit, ‘boy kissed girl’) and ongoing actions ( bich-su kocn-ar gogoit, ‘boy is kissing girl’). They then carried out an immediate test with 24 items using the same vocabulary words, followed by a generalization test with 24 items created from new vocabulary words. Results indicated that learners who received the eye gaze cues scored significantly higher on the immediate test and relied on the verb cues more than on the noun cues. A post-hoc analysis of eye-movement data indicated that the gaze cues elicited longer looks to the correct images. Findings are discussed in relation to visual cues and novel morphosyntactic pattern learning.
Safety of Custodiol cardioplegia: a cohort study in patients undergoing cardiac surgery with elongated aortic cross-clamp time
Authors: de Haan Maarten , van Straten Albert , Overdevest Ed , de Jong Michel , Soliman-Hamad Mohamed
Published: January 2020

Background/Objectives:

The increasing complexity of patients undergoing cardiac surgery requires extended myocardial ischaemic periods. Cardiac surgeons demand a cardioplegic solution with prolonged myocardial protection. Therefore, we introduced Custodiol in our centre in 2011. The aim of this study was to investigate the safety and efficacy of Custodiol compared with the standard method of cardioplegia.

Methods:

Between 2011 and 2016, 188 adult patients who underwent mitral valve surgery combined with coronary artery bypass grafting were included in this retrospective study. In 113 patients, Custodiol cardioplegia was used to achieve cardiac arrest, while St. Thomas Hospital solution was used in 75 patients. The primary endpoint of the study was the degree myocardial damage which was estimated by the measurement of creatine kinase-myocardial band on the first postoperative day. A linear regression analysis was performed to compare the aortic cross-clamp time with the postoperative myocardial damage in both groups.

Results:

The extracorporeal circulation time and aortic cross-clamp were significantly longer in the Custodiol group than in the St. Thomas group: 125.6 ± 32.5 minutes versus 93.1 ± 27.7 minutes (p < 0.001), respectively. However, there was no significant difference between the two groups regarding the postoperative levels of creatine kinase-myocardial band (96 (70-140) U/L vs. 86 (69-120) U/L, respectively; p = 0.321). There was no significant differences between the two groups regarding the 30-day mortality (6.1% vs. 5.5%, respectively; p = 1.000) or 120-day mortality (9.6% vs. 11.0%, respectively; p = 0.806).

Conclusion:

Our findings demonstrate that Custodiol is a safe method of myocardial protection for patients who underwent mitral valve surgery with coronary artery bypass grafting in our hospital. Further investigations extended to more cardiac surgery populations are needed to confirm clinical benefits of Custodiol cardioplegia.
Correlation between PAI-1 rs1799889 polymorphism and venous thromboembolism: A meta-analysis of 48 case–control studies
Authors: Geng Baoyu , Li Shenghui , Zhou Jungao , Feng Guangzhi
Published: January 2020

Background

We performed this meta-analysis to better assess the relationship between plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 ( PAI-1) rs1799889 polymorphism and the risk of venous thromboembolism.

Method

Eligible studies were searched in PubMed, Medline, Embase, Web of Science and CNKI. Odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals were calculated.

Result

A total of 48 studies with 14,806 participants were analyzed. No positive results were detected in overall analyses. Further subgroup analyses revealed that the PAI-1 rs1799889 polymorphism was significantly associated with the risk of venous thromboembolism in Caucasians and East Asians. When we stratified available data according to type of disease, we found that the PAI-1 rs1799889 polymorphism was significantly correlated with the risk of DVT. No any other positive results were observed in overall and subgroup analyses.

Conclusion

Our findings indicate that the PAI-1 rs1799889 polymorphism may serve as a potential biological marker for venous thromboembolism in Caucasians and East Asians.
Imaging mitochondrial complex I activation during a vibrotactile stimulation: A PET study using [18F]BCPP-EF in the conscious monkey brain
Authors: Fang Jingwan , Ohba Hiroyuki , Hashimoto Fumio , Tsukada Hideo , Chen Feiyan , Liu Huafeng
Published: January 2020

In order to evaluate the capability of 2- tert-butyl-4-chloro-5-{6-[2-(2-[18F]fluoroethoxy)-ethoxy]-pyridin-3-ylmethoxy}-2H-pyridazin-3-one ([18F]BCPP-EF), a novel positron emission tomography (PET) probe for mitochondrial complex I (MC-I) activity, to assess neuronal activation, an activation PET study was conducted in the conscious monkey brain with a continuous unilateral vibrotactile stimulation. PET scans with [15O]H2O, [18F]BCPP-EF, or 2-deoxy-2-[18F]fluoroglucose ([18F]FDG) were conducted under: (1) resting conditions; (2) a continuous vibration stimulation; (3) a continuous vibration stimulation after 15-min pre-vibration; and (4) a continuous vibration stimulation after 30-min pre-vibration. The contralateral/ipsilateral ratio (CIR) in the somatosensory cortex showed significant increases in the uptake of [15O]H2O, [18F]BCPP-EF, and [18F]FDG with the vibration stimulation. The longer pre-vibration duration induced significantly lower CIR in regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) measured using [15O]H2O, whereas it did not affect the CIR in [18F]BCPP-EF or the regional cerebral metabolic rate of glucose (rCMRglc) measured using [18F]FDG 30–60 min after the injection. These results suggest that the [18F]BCPP-EF response in the later phase of scans was not influenced by the increase in rCBF, indicating the capability of [18F]BCPP-EF to detect acute changes in MC-I activity induced by neuronal activation. However, the metabolic shift from glycolysis to oxidation was not observed under the stimulation used here.
Understanding the Dark Sides of Alternative Economies to Maximize Societal Benefit
Authors: Watson Forrest , Ekici Ahmet
Published: January 2020

Alternative economies can significantly contribute to societal flourishing, but the potential dark sides should also be considered. As shared commitments are the foundation of alternative economies, we draw on related literature to conceptualize various types of dark sides of an alternative economy. While less prominent than the well-being outcomes, we present qualitative data of when the participants of one alternative food network experienced disappointment, burnout, guilt, or division. Comparing with the dark sides gleaned from other studies on alternative economies, we present a framework for evaluating the dark sides in alternative economies. Dark sides can be on a continuum from the micro level to the macro level, as well as more likely to threaten the continuance of alternative economies or societal well-being. We offer recommendations to guard against the vulnerabilities of alternative economies for their continued growth and impact, as well as discuss the implications for research on marketing systems failure.
Clinical efficacy and safety of nimotuzumab plus chemotherapy in patients with advanced colorectal cancer: a retrospective analysis
Authors: Bai Sai-xi , Zhang Ruo-rong , Chen Wang-hua , Dong Hong-min , Wang Gang , Li Xiao-kai , Wang Wenling
Published: January 2020

Objective

To compare the clinical efficacy and safety of nimotuzumab combined with chemotherapy versus chemotherapy alone as first-line treatment for advanced colorectal cancer (ACRC).

Method

We retrospectively enrolled patients with ACRC treated with nimotuzumab plus chemotherapy (n = 40) or chemotherapy alone (n = 44). Responses were evaluated according to the Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors and adverse events according to the Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events 3.0.

Results

The objective overall response rate and disease control rate were higher in the combined-treatment group (55.0% vs 36.4% and 85.0% vs 75.0%, respectively), but the differences were not significant. There was no significant difference in median progression-free survival or median survival time between the combined-treatment and chemotherapy-alone groups (9.89 vs 7.86 months and 22.32 vs 18.10 months, respectively). There was no significant difference in adverse events between the two groups.

Conclusion

Nimotuzumab combined with chemotherapy had similar efficacy and safety to chemotherapy alone in patients with ACRC. The efficacy and safety of the combined treatment should be further studied in a randomized multicenter trial with a larger number of patients with ACRC.
Nesiritide in patients with acute myocardial infarction and heart failure: a meta-analysis
Authors: Zhao Xuecheng , Zhang Da-Qi , Song Rongjing , Zhang Guoqiang
Published: January 2020

Objective

This meta-analysis evaluated the efficacy and safety of nesiritide in patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and heart failure.

Methods

PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials were searched from inception through December 2018. Studies including patients with AMI and heart failure who received nesiritide were identified.

Results

Ten trials involving 870 participants were included in this meta-analysis. Nesiritide treatment significantly increased left ventricular ejection fraction, cardiac index, and 24- and 72-hour urine volumes. Additionally, pulmonary capillary wedge pressure, right atrial pressure, and brain natriuretic peptide and N-terminal brain natriuretic peptide levels were significantly decreased in patients treated with nesiritide compared with those treated with control drugs. However, patients treated with nesiritide did not have an increased risk of mortality compared with those treated with control drugs. There were no differences between the two groups with respect to heart rate or the risk of readmission, hypotension, or renal dysfunction.

Conclusions

Nesiritide appears to be safe for patients with AMI and heart failure, and it improves global cardiac and systemic function.
Lymphocutaneous nocardiosis caused by Nocardia brasiliensis in an immunocompetent patient: a case report
Authors: Li Siying , Xu Xiangfei , Wu Min , Zhu Jing , Cen Panpan , Ding Jiexia , Wu Shenghai , Jin Jie
Published: January 2020

Nocardia usually manifests as opportunistic infections in immunocompromised hosts. Here, we report a rare case of an immunocompetent patient with lymphocutaneous nocardiosis. The patient was a 34-year-old man presenting with fever, multiple scattered pustules on both upper limbs and several subcutaneous nodules on the left elbow and forearm. Skin biopsy of the subcutaneous nodule revealed suppurative inflammation of the lymph nodes. Pus cultures were finally identified as Nocardia brasiliensis. The patient fully recovered without relapse after receiving optimized antimicrobial therapy consisting of linezolid combined with sulfonamides. Nocardiosis is a rare opportunistic disease which may be fatal and usually affects immunocompromised hosts, resulting in suppurative and granulomatous inflammation. Nocardia has a long culture cycle, is difficult to diagnose, and is more likely to be neglected in healthy young people. The present case suggests that physicians should be aware that nocardiosis is a differential diagnosis to consider in patients with suppurative infection, especially when anti-infective treatment is ineffective.
Effect of physical activity on depression symptoms in patients with IgA nephropathy
Authors: Zhao Yu , Chen Ya-ping , Wu Yue-qing , Bao Bei-yan , Fan Heng
Published: January 2020

Objective

We aimed to assess the effects of physical activity (PA) on depression symptoms in patients with IgA nephropathy (IgAN).

Methods

We developed a 6-month personalized PA training program for patients with IgAN. At the beginning and after completion of the training intervention, patients’ cardiopulmonary function was assessed via a spiroergometric study. Prior to the start of and after the intervention, we administered the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II), Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ), Quality of Life Index (QLI), Life Satisfaction Index, and Short Form-36 (SF-36) to all participants. Scores of the QLI were used as the dependent variable.

Results

A total of 216 patients were included in our analysis. After completing the PA training program, cardiopulmonary function and depressive symptoms were significantly improved in patients with IgAN, as compared with baseline values. Multiple logistic regression analysis showed that regular PA; extended hemodialysis interval; decreased scores of the BDI-II, EPQ, and SF-36 Mental Component Scale; and increased SF-36 Physical Component Scale scores were independently associated with improved QLI.

Conclusions

Regular PA may improve cardiopulmonary function, depression symptoms, and health-related quality of life in patients with IgAN.
Reforming heat and power technology course using student feedback to enhance learning experience
Authors: Aslanidou Ioanna , Zimmerman Nathan , Pontika Evangelia , Kalfas Anestis I , Kyprianidis Konstantinos G
Published: January 2020

The main outcomes of an engineering course should be for the students to achieve the educational goals, enhance their problem solving capabilities and develop essential skills for their future career. In that context, it is important to understand what motivates the students and what helps them develop an engineering mind-set. This paper discusses the improvement of a course with the use of student feedback to motivate students and help them develop essential skills. The purpose of the paper is to provide insight into how different aspects of the course are linked to the students’ growth. Different activities have been integrated in the course over the past years. The effect these have on the student motivation to follow the course and develop skills, knowledge and interest in the subject is discussed through the analysis of student performance, student feedback and the experience of the lecturers. The improvements in the course based on the student feedback were received positively by the students, whose learning experience improved, even though the workload of the course was high. Their motivation to successfully complete the course has also increased through the changes in the delivery of the course and the support by the teachers. The combination of student feedback and teacher experience is key for the improvement of a course, while ensuring that the students develop their engineering knowledge. Therefore, the teachers should strike a balance between helping the students find the solution and encouraging them to think on their own in order to develop essential skills.
Transient assemblages, ephemeral encounters, and the “beautiful story” of a Japanese social enterprise in rural Bangladesh
Authors: Huang Julia Q
Published: January 2020

Eleven Japanese corporate executives and 10 Bangladeshi village-based entrepreneurs stand around an array of gleaming solar panels perched precariously on piles of bricks and hay. Despite being labeled a “social enterprise,” this solar-energy initiative emerged neither from development planning nor from a company’s market strategy. Instead, the project emerged from a chaotic series of events and the Japanese state’s decentralized patronage politics that drew together a cluster of non-state actors in a haphazard initiative in Bangladesh. This article offers an ethnographic case of ephemeral encounters (building on Faier and Rofel) and contributes to a theory of transient assemblages in development (drawing on Tsing and DeLanda). It teases apart the diverse factors that produced and were produced by a solar social-enterprise pilot project, which neither arose from a plan for a social enterprise nor generated one. I argue for a diffuse understanding of project agency, the productivity of noncommunicative interaction, and the unequal material politics that characterize these encounters across difference. This alternative view on development decenters the project and instead focuses on the emergent properties of the act of assembling, even when the assemblage fails to cohere.
Formation processes of eolian loess in the northern subtropics of China: Evidence from multiple micromorphological metrics
Authors: Bian Hongyan , Pang Jiangli , Gao Jie , Huang Chunchang , Ren Wei
Published: January 2020

Loess-like sediments are widely distributed in the northern subtropics of China, stretching beyond the traditional boundary of typical loess. Compared with well-researched typical loess, loess-like sediments are much less studied and their origin (eolian or fluvial) and movement pathways under evolving environments remain unclear. Micromorphology offers novel insights into explaining sediment-forming mechanisms through reconstructing the sedimentary history. To examine the debates comprehensively, multiple micromorphological metrics were systematically analyzed, and three main results were derived from the analysis: (a) Hanjiang loess-like sediment can be directly diagnosed as eolian loess based on its differences from fluvial sediment with regard to particle composition and quartz roundness; (b) combined analyses of quartz configurations with the distribution patterns of modern winter winds/dust storms indicated that a portion of the small particles were transported by upper flow in the East Asian winter monsoon from the northwestern Gobi Desert, whereas coarse grains were mainly derived from the adjacent floodplain by creep and saltation; and (c) vertical heterogeneity of configurations and compositions among layers was mainly caused by different degrees of chemical/biological/physical weathering since the latest glaciation. All measurements showed the weathering intensity of sediments decreased in the order of S0/Ts, Lt, L0, L1, meaning that the East Asian summer monsoon weakened in this order during different formation periods. In summary, these metrics reconstructed the formation process and evolutionary history of monsoons in subtropical China excellently and would rival traditional indexes, but are easier to observe.
Forecasting the Quality of Service of Bogota’s Sidewalks from Pedestrian Perceptions: An Ordered Probit MIMIC Approach
Authors: Vallejo-Borda Jose Agustin , Ortiz-Ramirez Hernan Alberto , Rodriguez-Valencia Alvaro , Hurtubia Ricardo , de D. Ortúzar J.
Published: January 2020

A variety of different pedestrian performance or service indicators (PPSI), such as the pedestrian level of service (PLOS), or quality of service (QoS), have been developed to evaluate pedestrian infrastructure. Although modeling approaches vary (e.g., ordinal least squares, scoring system), the great majority use on-site measurable attributes, such as sidewalk width or adjacent traffic, to estimate the PPSI. However, most of these models have been developed without jointly considering objective and subjective variables and their interactions. This study had two objectives: (i) to develop a model that simultaneously uses objective and subjective variables to estimate the pedestrian perception of sidewalks’ QoS in Bogota, Colombia, and (ii) to identify the interactions between objective variables and pedestrian perceptions of sidewalk attributes. To do so, data was gathered from 1056 users of 30 sidewalks in the city and an Ordered Probit Multiple Indicator and Multiple Cause model was estimated and validated using match score, error distribution, and chi squared test. Using the model, it was possible to correctly forecast the perceived QoS in 26 of the 30 sidewalks, considering the interaction between users’ characteristics and on-site sidewalk measured attributes with four latent variables ( sidewalk characteristics, surrounding, discomfort, and externalities) based on pedestrian perceptions. We also proposed guidelines that provide decision makers with the tools to identify which sidewalk attributes actually influence pedestrian perception of QoS.
Accelerating Traffic Assignment with Customizable Contraction Hierarchies
Authors: Schneck Arne , Nökel Klaus
Published: January 2020

In many algorithms for traffic assignment, the most time-consuming step is shortest path search between all O–D pairs. Almost unnoticed by the transport modeling community, there has been an enormous amount of research on acceleration techniques for the shortest path problem in road networks in the past decade. These techniques usually divide the problem into a relatively expensive preprocessing phase and a significantly accelerated search phase. In this paper, the recently developed customizable contraction hierarchies are used for both shortest path search and network loading in the bi-conjugate Frank–Wolfe algorithm. For the largest test network, this approach achieves a speedup by a factor of 42 compared with a straightforward implementation of Dijkstra’s algorithm.