bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Strategic Hybridity in Early Chinese and Japanese American Literature
Authors: Cheung Floyd
Published: May 2019

Early Chinese and Japanese American male writers between 1887 and 1938 such as Yan Phou Lee, Yung Wing, Sadakichi Hartmann, Yone Noguchi, and H. T. Tsiang accessed dominant US publishing markets and readerships by presenting themselves and their works as cultural hybrids that strategically blended enticing Eastern content and forms with familiar Western language and structures. Yan Phou Lee perpetrated cross-cultural comparisons that showed that Chinese were not unlike Europeans and Americans. Yung Wing appropriated and then transformed dominant American autobiographical narratives to recuperate Chinese character. Sadakichi Hartmann and Yone Noguchi combined poetic traditions from Japan, Europe, and America in order to define a modernism that included cosmopolitans such as themselves. And H. T. Tsiang promoted Marxist world revolution by experimenting with fusions of Eastern and Western elements with leftist ideology. Although these writers have been discounted by some critics as overly compromising in their attempts to reach Western readers, they accomplished laudable cultural work in their particular historical circumstances and provide insights into the varied and complicated negotiations of Asian American identity during the exclusion era.
Strategic Groups in Business
Authors: Mascarenhas Briance , Mascarenhas Megan
Published: May 2019

A strategic group is defined as a set of firms within an industry pursuing a similar strategy. The strategic group concept emerged with much promise over 40 years ago. Research on strategic groups over time in a broad variety of settings has sought to clarify their theoretical and empirical properties. These research findings are gradually being translated into practical managerial guidance, so that the strategic group concept can be understood, operationalized, and used productively by managers.

Two main approaches exist for identifying strategic groups—a ground-up approach, using disaggregated data, and a top-down, using cognition. Once identified, managerial insights can be derived from clarifying a strategic group’s profile. Firm membership in a group helps to uncover immediate and more distant types of competitors. Group profitability differences reveal the more rewarding and less attractive areas within an industry, as well as identify the lower-return groups from where firm exits are likely to occur. Group dynamics reflect competitive and cooperative behavior within and between groups. Several promising areas for future research on strategic groups to improve understanding and practice of strategy.
Neural Control of Lower Urinary Tract Function
Authors: Beckel Jonathan M. , de Groat William C.
Published: May 2019

Functions of the lower urinary tract to store and periodically eliminate urine are regulated by a complex neural control system in the brain and lumbosacral spinal cord that coordinates the activity of smooth and striated muscles of the bladder and urethral outlet via a combination of voluntary and reflex mechanisms. Many neural circuits controlling the lower urinary tract exhibit switch-like patterns of activity that turn on and off in an all-or-none manner. During urine storage, spinal sympathetic and somatic reflexes are active to maintain a quiescent bladder and a closed outlet. During micturition, these spinal storage reflexes are suppressed by input from the brain, while parasympathetic pathways in the brain are activated to produce a bladder contraction and relaxation of the urethra. The major component of the micturition switching circuit is a spinobulbospinal parasympathetic pathway that consists of essential relay circuitry in the periaqueductal gray and pontine micturition center. These circuits in the rostral brain stem are, in turn, regulated by inputs from the forebrain that mediate voluntary control of micturition. Thus neural control of micturition is organized as a hierarchical system in which spinal storage reflexes and supraspinal voiding reflexes are regulated voluntarily by higher centers in the brain. In young children the voluntary mechanisms are undeveloped and voiding is purely reflex. Voluntary control emerges during maturation of the nervous system and depends on learned behavior. Diseases or injuries of the nervous system in adults cause re-emergence of involuntary micturition, leading to urinary incontinence.
Regulation of Gonadotropins
Authors: Bernard Daniel J. , Li Yining , Toufaily Chirine , Schang Gauthier
Published: May 2019

The gonadotropins, follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormone (LH), are glycoproteins produced by gonadotrope cells of the anterior pituitary gland. The two hormones act on somatic cells of the gonads in both males and females to regulate fundamental aspects of reproductive physiology, including gametogenesis and steroidogenesis. In males, LH stimulates testosterone production and sperm maturation. FSH also regulates spermatogenesis, though the importance of the hormone in this process differs across species. In females, FSH stimulates ovarian follicle maturation. Follicles are structures composed of oocytes surrounded by two types of somatic cells, granulosa and theca cells. FSH stimulates granulosa cells to proliferate and to increase their production of the aromatase enzyme. LH stimulates theca cells to make androgens, which are converted into estrogens by aromatase in granulosa cells. A surge of LH also stimulates ovulation of mature follicles.

Gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) from the brain is the principal stimulator of gonadotropin synthesis and secretion from the pituitary. The sex steroids (androgens and estrogens) that are produced by the gonads in response to the gonadotropins feedback to the brain and pituitary gland. In the brain, these hormones usually slow the release of GnRH through a process called negative feedback, which in turn leads to decreases in FSH and LH. The steroids also modulate the sensitivity of the pituitary to GnRH in addition to directly regulating expression of the genes that encode the gonadotropin subunits. These effects are gene- and species-specific. In females, estrogens also have positive feedback actions in the brain and pituitary in a reproductive cycle stage-dependent manner. This positive feedback promotes GnRH and LH release, leading to the surge of LH that triggers ovulation.

The gonadotropins are dimeric proteins. FSH and LH share a common α-subunit but have hormone-specific subunits, FSHβ and LHβ. The β subunits provide a means for differential regulation and action of the two hormones. In the case of FSH, there is a second gonadal feedback system that specifically regulates the FSHβ subunit. The gonads produce proteins in the transforming growth factor β (TGFβ) family called inhibins, which come in two forms (inhibin A and inhibin B). The ovary produces both inhibins whereas the testes make inhibin B alone. Inhibins selectively suppress FSH synthesis and secretion, without affecting LH. The pituitary produces additional TGFβ proteins called activins, which are structurally related to inhibins. Activins, however, stimulate FSH synthesis by promoting transcription of the FSHβ subunit gene. Inhibins act as competitive receptor antagonists, binding to activin receptors and blocking activin action, and thereby leading to decreases in FSH.

Together, GnRH, sex steroids, activins, and inhibins modulate and coordinate gonadotropin production and action to promote proper gonadal function and fertility.
Genetics and Evolution of Color Vision in Primates
Authors: Jacobs Gerald H.
Published: May 2019

Color is a central feature of human perceptual experience where it functions as a critical component in the detection, identification, evaluation, placement, and appreciation of objects in the visual world. Its role is significantly enhanced by the fact that humans evolved a dimension of color vision beyond that available to most other mammals. Many fellow primates followed a similar path and in recent years the basic mechanisms that support color vision—the opsin genes, photopigments, cone signals, and central processing—have been the subjects of hundreds of investigations. Because of the tight linkage between opsin gene structure and the spectral sensitivity of cone photopigments, it is possible to trace pathways along which color vision may have evolved in primates. In turn, such information allows the development of hypotheses about the nature of color vision and its utility in nonhuman primates. These hypotheses are being critically evaluated in field studies where primates solve visual problems in the presence of the full panoply of photic cues. The intent of this research is to determine which aspects of these cues are critically linked to color vision and how their presence facilitates, impedes, or fails to influence the solutions. These investigations are challenging undertakings and the emerging literature is replete with contradictory conclusions. But steady progress is being made and it appears that (a) some of the original ideas about there being a restricted number of tasks for which color vision might be optimally utilized by nonhuman primates (e. g., fruit harvest) were too simplistic and (b) depending on circumstances that can include both features of proximate visual stimuli (spectral cues, luminance cues, size cues, motion cues, overall light levels) and situational variables (social cues, developmental status, species-specific traits) the utilization of color vision by nonhuman primates is apt to be complex and varied.
Foucauldian Discourse Analysis and Early Childhood Education
Authors: Gunn Alexandra C.
Published: May 2019

Formal early childhood education is a relatively modern institution to which increasing numbers of children are routinely exposed. Since the modern invention of childhood, the early childhood years have been increasingly established as a site for public and private investment in the name of individual and community development, the achievement of educational success, increased human productivity, and ultimately labor market productivity and excellence. As various forms of early childhood education have developed around the world, each has been imbued with values, perspectives, norms, and standards of its pioneers. They have also drawn upon and reinforced certain truths, knowledges, practices, and expectations about children, childhood, education, and society. As microcosms of society whose inhabitants are largely novice members of the communities of which they are part, teachers in early childhood education are routinely addressing issues of exclusion, injustice, and inequity with children and families. French historian and poststructural philosopher Michel Foucault’s (1926–1984) interests in the nexus of power-knowledge-truth and its consequences for life offer avenues for comprehending how modern institutions, such as systems of early childhood education, invest in and bring about certain forms of knowledge and practice. His methods of genealogical inquiry and discourse analysis make visible the workings of power as it moves on, in, and through human bodies. The perspectives made visible by Foucauldian analyses show how techniques, developed and applied within institutions, form humans in particular ways. Thus, it is possible to see the interplay between power-truth-knowledge, how things come to be, and how they may change.
Academic Optimism
Authors: Horner Martinette V. , Jordan Derrick D. , Brown Kathleen M.
Published: May 2019

Academic optimism was developed in 2006 as a latent concept that provides insight into the improvement of student outcomes especially for those who, because of socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and other demographics, have historically been labeled as underperforming. The three main components of academic optimism (academic emphasis, collective emphasis, and faculty trust) underscore the reality that the teachers, parents, and students all play a critical role in the education arena when it comes to ensuring that students fully grow and stretch to the fullest extent possible. High academic optimism in a school suggests that academic achievement is valued and supported; the faculty has the capacity to help students achieve; and students and parents can be trusted as partners of the school for student achievement. Each of these can be controlled by the actions and decisions of school leaders and faculty so that schools can overcome the effects of poverty on student achievement.
Taiwan and Modern China
Authors: Teng Emma J.
Published: May 2019

The China–Taiwan relationship continues to be one of the most highly fraught international political issues in the post-Cold War era, and a potential flashpoint in US–China affairs. Lying 180 kilometers off the southeastern coast of China, Taiwan’s relation to the mainland has undergone numerous permutations since the 17th century, when it was a Dutch colony. In 1662, Taiwan was conquered by Ming loyalist forces who retreated to the island from China and took it from the Dutch. This loyalist regime then held the island until 1683, when Qing imperial forces crossed the Taiwan Strait to quell the insurgents. The Qing in turn ruled Taiwan until 1895, when it was ceded to Japan as an outcome of the Sino-Japanese War. Taiwan was returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1945, following Japan’s defeat in World War II, but has been divided from mainland China since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. Taiwan’s evolving relationship to modern China has been profoundly shaped by three crucial factors: the island’s location along China’s strategic maritime perimeter; its role in global trade networks; and fears of its being used as an enemy base against the mainland. Taiwan has also played an important role in Chinese migration history. The island was one of the earliest destinations for overseas migration from China, and it has seen successive waves of Han Chinese migrants over the centuries, making it home to the largest ethnic Chinese population outside the PRC in the early 21st century. In addition to ancestral and cultural ties, a staggering volume of trade and investment links the two sides together economically, despite ongoing political friction, and the contemporary cross-Strait relationship is thus characterized by collaboration as well as conflict.

Important historiography of the subject has been produced in China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, the United States, and Europe within the frameworks of Chinese history, East Asian regional and maritime history, comparative colonial history, and the history of international relations. It is worth noting that beyond the China–Taiwan relationship, a different strand of historiography, that of Pacific history, treats Taiwan as part of the history of the Pacific Islands, focusing on its indigenous people rather than the Han Chinese majority, and on their links to other Austronesian-speaking peoples across Oceania.
Contemporary Perspectives on Labor History in India
Authors: Joshi Chitra
Published: May 2019

A resurgence of writings on labor in India in the 1990s occurred in a context when many scholars in the Anglo-American world were predicting the end of labor history. Over the last three decades, historical writing on labor in India has pushed old boundaries, opened up new lines of inquiry, unsettling earlier assumptions and frameworks. Teleological frames that saw industrialization leading to modernization were critiqued starting in the 1980s. Since then, historians writing on labor have moved beyond simple binaries between notions of the pre-modern/modern workforce to critically examine the conflictual processes through which histories of labor were shaped.

With the opening up of the field, a whole range of new questions are being posed and old ones reframed. How do cultural formations shape the specificity of the labor force? How important are kinship, community, and caste ties in the making of working class lives and work culture? What defines the peculiarities of different forms of work at different sites: plantations and mines, factories and domestic industries, the “formal” and the “informal” sectors? What were the diverse ways in which work was regulated and workers disciplined? What were the ritual and cultural forms in which workers negotiated the conditions of their work? How does the history of law deepen an understanding of the history of labor? Studies on mobility and migration, on law and informality, on culture and community, on everyday actions and protest have unraveled the complex interconnections—global and local—through which the lives of labor are made and transformed.
Anthropology and International Relations
Authors: Wehrer Margaret
Published: May 2019

Sharing an intellectual tradition and yet separated by rigid disciplinary boundaries, scholars of anthropology and international relations (IR) have in the late 20th and early 21st centuries found points of convergence in both research methods and research subjects. IR scholars have begun adopting anthropology’s signature ethnographic research methods and micro-level focus, while anthropologists have broadened their fieldwork sites to the multi-state and even global levels. International relations scholars have begun to study “culture,” ethnicity, and other micro-level subjects, while anthropologists have broadened their scope from kinship, language, and religion to topics like migration, human security, globalization, nonstate actors, human rights, and ethnic conflict. Both fields have begun to address their Eurocentric and male biases by seeking out the voices and experiences of women, people of color, and postcolonial subjects. All indications point to increased collaboration among scholars in these two disciplines.
Arab Labor Migration in the Americas, 1880–1930
Authors: Fahrenthold Stacy D.
Published: May 2019

Between 1880 and 1924, an estimated half million Arab migrants left the Ottoman Empire to live and work in the Americas. Responding to new economic forces linking the Mediterranean and Atlantic capitalist economies to one another, Arab migrants entered the manufacturing industries of the settler societies they inhabited, including industrial textiles, small-scale commerce (peddling), heavy machining, and migrant services associated with continued immigration from the Middle East. The Ottoman Empire enacted few policies to halt emigration from Syria, Mount Lebanon, and Palestine, instead facilitating a remittance economy that enhanced the emerging cash economies of the Arab world. After 1920, the French Mandate in Syria and Lebanon moved to limit new migration to the Americas, working together with increasingly restrictive immigration regimes in the United States, Argentina, and Brazil to halt Arab labor immigration. Using informal archives, the Arab American press, and the records of diasporic mutual aid and philanthropic societies, new research in Arab American migration illustrates how migrants managed a transnational labor economy and confronted challenges presented by American nativism, travel restriction, and interwar deportations.
The History of Credit in America
Authors: Olegario Rowena
Published: May 2019

The United States is a nation built on credit, both public and private. This article focuses on private credit: that is, credit extended to businesses and consumers by private entities such as banks, other businesses, and retail stores. Business credit involves short-term lending for items such as inventories, payroll, and the like; and long-term lending for the building of factories, offices, and other physical plant. Trade credit, bank loans, bonds, and commercial paper are all forms of business credit. Consumer credit is extended to individuals or households to fund purchases ranging from basic necessities to homes. Informal store credits, installment sales, personal loans from banks and other institutions, credit cards, home mortgages, and student loans are forms of consumer credit.

Until the 20th century, the federal government remained mostly uninvolved in the private credit markets. Then, after World War I and especially during the Great Depression, the government deliberately expanded the credit available for certain targeted groups, such as farmers and home buyers. After World War II the government helped to expand lending even further, this time to small businesses and students. Mostly the government accomplished its goal not through lending directly but by insuring the loans made by private entities, thereby encouraging them to make more loans. In the case of home mortgages and student loans, the government took the lead in creating a national market for securitized debt—debt that is turned into securities, such as bonds, and offered to investors—through the establishment of government-sponsored enterprises, nicknamed Fannie Mae (1938), Ginnie Mae (1968), Freddie Mac (1970), and Sallie Mae (1972). Innovations such as these by businesses and government made credit increasingly available to ordinary people, whose attitudes toward borrowing changed accordingly.
Ecology and Spirituality
Authors: Sponsel Leslie E.
Published: May 2019

Interest in the degradation of the “natural” environment, and the scientific, academic, and activist responses including ecology have developed in Western societies largely since the 1950s. Western ecology is a subfield of the biological sciences, and more broadly it is related to the environmental sciences, environmental studies, and environmentalism. These have all generated accumulating evidence about the ongoing ecocrises at the local, regional, and global levels, and this in turn requires remedial actions. Ecocrises are increasingly becoming an existential threat to the human species and the planet, especially the reality of global climate change.

Secular approaches are absolutely indispensable and have made progress but have also proven insufficient to turn things around for the better. Spirituality pursued as an integral part of religion and also independently from it may help. Spirituality refers to mystical phenomena that include profoundly moving emotional experiences that can generate vision, meaning, purpose, and direction for an individual’s life in pursuit of the sacred. Spirituality appears to predate any religion, in the sense of formalized social institutions with a system of prescribed sacred texts, specialists, beliefs, values, and practices. Furthermore, while in recent decades affiliation with religion declined, in contrast interest in spirituality increased. Surveys indicate that individuals range from religious and spiritual, religious but not spiritual, spiritual but not religious, to neither religious nor spiritual. Ecology and spirituality are interrelated in various ways and degrees: spiritual ecology has grown exponentially since the 1990s, although it has deep roots. It is a vast, complex, diverse, and dynamic arena of intellectual and practical activities at the interfaces of religions and spiritualities with ecologies, environments, and environmentalisms. Spiritual ecology may help contribute to the reduction or resolution of many ecocrises.
Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment in the perioperative setting; where next?
Authors: Dhesi Jugdeep , Moonesinghe S Ramani , Partridge Judith
Published: May 2019

Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA) is being employed in the perioperative setting to improve outcomes for older surgical patients. Traditionally CGA is delivered by a geriatrician led multidisciplinary team but with the acknowledged workforce challenges in geriatric medicine, it has been suggested that non-geriatricians may be able to deliver CGA. HOW-CGA developed a toolkit to facilitate the delivery of CGA by non-geriatricians in the perioperative setting. Across two hospital sites uptake and implementation of this toolkit was limited by a potential lack of face validity, behavioural and cultural barriers and an acknowledgement that geriatric medicine expertise is key to CGA and optimisation. In-keeping with this finding there has been an observed expansion in geriatrician led CGA services for older surgical patients in the UK. In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of perioperative CGA services, implementation science should be combined with health services research methodology and the use of big data through linked national audit.
Device-Specific Findings of Imprinted-Texture Breast Implants: Characteristics, Risks, and Benefits
Authors: Wixtrom Roger N , Garadi Vikram , Leopold John , Canady John W
Published: May 2019

Background

The relative risks and benefits of various textured breast implants are the focus of considerable discussion. Studies have suggested different risk-benefit profiles for different implant surface topographies.

Objectives

The study aim was to provide device-specific, quantitative information on Mentor’s imprinted Siltex Textured breast implants with respect to textured surface characteristics and ISO 14607 classification, risk of breast implant–associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma (BIA-ALCL), and risk-reduction benefits relative to smooth implants.

Methods

Surface metrology was performed. Data for smooth and Siltex implants from the prospective MemoryGel Core Study were evaluated by Kaplan-Meier analysis for the most frequently occurring postoperative complications in augmentation and reconstruction leading to subsequent reoperation.

Results

The overall average surface roughness for Siltex MemoryGel and MemoryShape implants was 29.5 and 36.1 µm, respectively. A statistically significantly lower rate of reoperation in patients with Siltex compared with smooth devices over 10 years was observed for both capsular contracture in subglandular primary augmentation patients (2.02% vs 19.84%) and for asymmetry in primary reconstruction patients (3.88% vs 11.1%).

Conclusions

Surface analysis demonstrated that Siltex implants fall within the ISO 14607 category of “microtexture” breast implants. These devices exhibited a rare risk of BIA-ALCL (0.0012%) based on the most extensive data available. Relative to smooth implants, these Siltex devices provided risk-reduction benefits for the most common reason of reoperation in patients who underwent primary augmentation (capsular contracture) or primary reconstruction (asymmetry) in the Core Study. These findings provide valuable risk-benefit information for surgeons and their patients.

Level of Evidence: 2
The evolution of two types of play
Authors: Smaldino Paul E , Palagi Elisabetta , Burghardt Gordon M , Pellis Sergio M
Published: May 2019

Play is an important and understudied class of phenomena that likely serves a critical role in the ontogeny and maintenance of fitness-enhancing behaviors. Many species exhibit little or no play. Among those animals that do play, some exhibit only very simple forms, while others engage in complex play both solitarily and socially. Likewise, some animals play only as juveniles, while others continue to play as adults. We propose a general framework to explain interspecies variation in the evolution and emergence of simple vs. complex forms of play, supported by both a review of the empirical evidence and a novel mathematical model. The emergence of play requires that initial investment returns benefits that sufficiently compensate the opportunity costs associated with simple play. The subsequent evolution of complex play depends upon the interplay of several life-history factors related to the benefits, costs, and time course of play investment. We conclude with implications for understanding the evolution of play across the animal kingdom.
ACME: pan-specific peptide–MHC class I binding prediction through attention-based deep neural networks
Authors: Hu Yan , Wang Ziqiang , Hu Hailin , Wan Fangping , Chen Lin , Xiong Yuanpeng , Wang Xiaoxia , Zhao Dan , Huang Weiren , Zeng Jianyang
Published: May 2019

Motivation

Prediction of peptide binding to the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) plays a vital role in the development of therapeutic vaccines for the treatment of cancer. Algorithms with improved correlations between predicted and actual binding affinities are needed to increase precision and reduce the number of false positive predictions.

Results

We present ACME (Attention-based Convolutional neural networks for MHC Epitope binding prediction), a new pan-specific algorithm to accurately predict the binding affinities between peptides and MHC class I molecules, even for those new alleles that are not seen in the training data. Extensive tests have demonstrated that ACME can significantly outperform other state-of-the-art prediction methods with an increase of the Pearson correlation coefficient between predicted and measured binding affinities by up to 23 percentage points. In addition, its ability to identify strong-binding peptides has been experimentally validated. Moreover, by integrating the convolutional neural network with attention mechanism, ACME is able to extract interpretable patterns that can provide useful and detailed insights into the binding preferences between peptides and their MHC partners. All these results have demonstrated that ACME can provide a powerful and practically useful tool for the studies of peptide–MHC class I interactions.

Availability and implementation

ACME is available as an open source software at https://github.com/HYsxe/ACME.

Supplementary information

Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Towards a new classification of tribe Stachydeae (Lamiaceae): naming clades using molecular evidence
Authors: Salmaki Yasaman , Heubl Günther , Weigend Maximilian
Published: May 2019

Stachydeae, comprising c. 470 species, are one of the most diverse and taxonomically puzzling groups in Lamioideae. In the present study, the phylogenetic relationships in the Eurystachys clade (a phylogenetic name for all genera attributed to Stachydeae except Melittis) were reconstructed utilizing nuclear ribosomal DNA sequences (nrETS, 5S-NTS) from 148 accessions in 12 genera. Our phylogenetic results recovered Stachys as paraphyletic with numerous traditionally recognized genera nested in it. A broadly defined Eurystachys clade, however, was monophyletic. Unlike previous studies, the present study was able to resolve the group into 12 well-supported clades, named here as (1) Eriostomum, (2) Stachys, (3) Prasium, (4) Setifolia, (5) Distantes, (6) Burgsdorfia, (7) Hesiodia, (8) Empedoclia, (9) Sideritis, (10) Marrubiastrum, (11) Swainsoniana and (12) Olisia. These 12 clades were formally named in a phylogenetic nomenclature for the Eurystachys clade. Several infrageneric units were retrieved as monophyletic, namely Sideritis sections Burgsdorfia, Empedoclia and Hesiodia, Sideritis subgenus Marrubiastrum and Stachys sections Eriostomum (including Stachys section Mucronata) and Setifolia. The findings of this study also provide the basis for a future formal classification, with two options: (1) splitting of the Eurystachys clade into 12 monophyletic genera, all of them based on pre-existing genus names and redefined to encompass additional taxa, but without clear morphological apomorphies; or (2) lumping of all segregates into a broadly defined Stachys, including widely recognized and well-defined segregates such as Prasium and Sideritis.
Longitudinal trajectories of hospital performance across targeted cardiovascular conditions in the USA
Authors: Vaduganathan Muthiah , McCarthy Cian P , Ayers Colby , Bhatt Deepak L , Kumbhani Dharam J , de Lemos James A , Fonarow Gregg C , Pandey Ambarish
Published: May 2019

Aims

Thirty-day risk standardized readmission and mortality rates (RSRR, RSMR) are key determinants for hospital performance for cardiovascular conditions such as acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and heart failure (HF). We evaluated whether individual hospitals in the USA perform similarly for HF and AMI over time based on readmission and mortality metrics.

Methods and results

A total of 1950 hospitals in the USA with continuous participation in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) public reporting programme between 2010 and 2016 were identified. Latent mixture modelling was used to define performance trajectory groups. Overall, there were consistent declines in the RSMR (16.1–14.0%) and RSRR (20.3–16.6%) for AMI from 2010 to 2016. For HF, RSRR declined over time (25.1–21.7%), while there was a modest increase in RSMR (11.3–12.0%); parallel findings were observed across performance trajectory groups. The proportion of best performing centres for HF care that were also best performers for AMI care based on the 30-day RSMR and 30-day RSRR metric was 54% and 35%, respectively. Furthermore, the discordance rate between the best and worst performers for both conditions was low (<2% for both 30-day outcomes).

Conclusion

In the USA, despite variation in baseline hospital-level outcomes, hospitals had consistent longitudinal trajectories (worsening or improvement) across conditions and metrics. Hospitals identified as high performing were frequently similar across target conditions and over time, suggesting that performance may be driven by systems of care influencing different disease states in a comparable manner.
A Renewed Focus on GDF11 Level Fluctuation in Human Serum in Relation to Physical Examination Indicators
Authors: Liang Xiaolin , Dou Xiaowei , Tian Long , Li Quanyang
Published: May 2019

Growth and differentiation factor 11 (GDF11) is a member of the transforming growth factor β superfamily. Previous studies have shown that GDF11 decreases with age and has antiaging effects; however, such reports are controversial. We choose 152 subjects covering a large age range (2 hours to 75 years) to measure serum GDF11. Twenty-two hematological variables and 13 biochemical values were measured. Pearson’s analysis found a significant correlation between GDF11 and age (p = .0000, r = .4898), as well as serum creatinine, uric acid, triglycerides, red blood cell count, hemoglobin, hematocrit, and platelet volume distribution width. GDF11 negatively correlated with aspartate transaminase, white blood cell count, platelet count, lymphocyte count, monocyte count, mean platelet volume, and plateletcrit. Interestingly, we found GDF11 increases in people aged 20–30 years, holds steady in people aged 30–50 years, and increases in people older than 50 years. The results suggest that GDF11 serves different roles along the life span. The current actual evidence supports that GDF11 is helpful to promote aging.
Are Self-perceptions of Aging Associated With Health Trajectories Among Middle-Aged and Older Adults?
Authors: Luo Meng Sha , Li Lydia W
Published: May 2019

Background and Objectives

Older adults’ health trajectory is often pictured as loss and decline. Recent literature has questioned this assumption. Conceptualizing health as a multidimensional construct, encompassing physical disabilities, functional limitations, chronic diseases, depressive symptoms, memory problems, and self-rated health, we investigated patterns of health trajectories among middle-aged and older adults in the United States. Moreover, we investigated the relationship between self-perceptions of aging (SPAs) and health trajectory patterns.

Research Design and Methods

We used latent class growth modeling to examine health trajectory patterns, based on longitudinal data with 4 measurement points over a 7-year period from a national sample of 10,212 middle-aged and older adults (aged 51 and older). Multinomial logit models were used to examine how health trajectory patterns were associated with baseline SPA.

Results

We identified 4 health trajectory patterns: accelerated aging, usual aging, depressed aging, and healthy aging. The full model shows that with each one-unit increase in negative SPA, the odds of belonging to an accelerated aging group, depressed aging group, and usual aging group (vs healthy aging group) increased by 26%, 17%, and 9%, respectively.

Discussion and Implications

The combination of health changes across different domains results in health trajectories that cannot be understood as simply a declining process. SPAs are associated with individuals’ trajectories of health.
Reproductive Ontogeny and the Evolution of Morphological Diversity in Conifers and Other Plants
Authors: Leslie A B , Losada J M
Published: May 2019

Biologists often study morphological evolution through form and function relationships. But biological structures can perform multiple functional roles, complicating efforts to understand the evolutionary significance of any one relationship. Plant reproductive organs perform multiple roles in a sequence, however, which provides a unique opportunity to understand how structures evolve to meet multiple functional demands. Using conifers as a study group, we discuss how a shared developmental trajectory links the performance of sequential functional roles. Variation in development among lineages can underlie morphological diversity; pollination-stage seed cones in Pinaceae conifers function similarly but show diverse forms reflecting differences in developmental rate. As cones develop further, the morphologies that they use to perform later functional roles are influenced by the specific developmental patterns used to meet earlier demands, which may ultimately limit morphological diversity. However, we also show how selective pressures relating to the final functional stage (seed dispersal) may influence cone anatomy and morphology over all previous stages, highlighting the complex linkages among form, function, and development. We end by discussing the potential relationships between functional ontogeny and morphological disparity in plant reproductive structures more broadly, suggesting that the complex functional roles associated with seed plant reproduction probably underlie the high disparity in this group.
Defined contribution pension planning with a stochastic interest rate and mean-reverting returns under the hyperbolic absolute risk aversion preference
Authors: Chang Hao , Wang Chunfeng , Fang Zhenming , Ma Dan
Published: May 2019

The interest rate and the market price of risk may be stochastic in a real-world financial market. In this paper, the interest rate is assumed to be driven by a stochastic affine interest rate model and the market price of risk from the stock market is a mean-reverting process. In addition, the dynamics of the stock are simultaneously driven by random sources of interest rate and the stock market itself. In pension fund management, different fund managers may have different risk preferences. We suppose risk preference is described by the hyperbolic absolute risk aversion utility, which is a general utility function describing different risk preferences. Legendre transform-dual theory is presented to successfully obtain explicit expressions for optimal strategies. A numerical example illustrates the sensitivity of optimal strategies to market parameters. Theoretical results imply that the risks from stochastic interest rate and stochastic return may be completely hedged by adopting specific portfolios.
A new species of parasitic copepod (Siphonostomatoida: Lernaeopodidae: Neoalbionella Özdikmen, 2008) infecting the skin of a gulper shark, Centrophorus sp. (Squaliformes: Centrophoridae), in the Gulf of Mexico, with a key to species of Neoalbionella
Authors: Ruiz Carlos F , Bullard Stephen A
Published: May 2019

We describe male and female specimens of a species of NeoalbionellaÖzdikmen, 2008 (Siphonostomatoida, Lernaeopodidae), Neoalbionella dannytangisp. nov., infecting the skin of a gulper shark Centrophorus sp. (Centrophoridae) in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Females of the new species most closely resemble those of Neoalbionella globosa (Leigh-Sharpe, 1918) but are unique among congeners by having the combination of 1) terminal endopodal segment of antenna with a reduced distal tubercle having a minute protuberance, 2) maxillule with a spinulose lateral palp and praecoxal endite, 3) maxilla with a swollen tip nearly parallel with the distal surface of the bulla, and 4) maxilliped with a sub-circular spinulose pad along the proximal myxal margin of the corpus maxillipedis. The male copepod was attached to the tip of a female’s posterior process and was assigned to Neoalbionella by having a cephalosome nearly equal in length to the trunk and tapered caudal rami directed posteroventrally (swollen and directed anterodorsally in males of Lernaeopoda von Nordmann, 1832). It was distinct from those of all other congeners by having 1) an antenna terminal endopodal segment and maxillule similar to that of the female, 2) a maxilla syncoxa with an anteromedial process having seven large, conical denticles, 4) a bifid mediative process approximately as wide as the length of the shortest lobe, and 5) a caudal ramus with a unique configuration and number of setae. This is the second report of a species of Neoalbionella from the Gulf of Mexico and the third nominal species of Neoalbionella reported from gulper sharks (Centrophorus spp.). We also provide keys to females and males of Neoalbionella.
Establishment and Early Impact of Spathius galinae (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) on Emerald Ash Borer (Coleoptera: Buprestidae) in the Northeastern United States
Authors: Duan Jian J , Van Driesche Roy G , Crandall Ryan S , Schmude Jonathan M , Rutledge Claire E , Slager Benjamin H , Gould Juli R , Elkinton Joseph S
Published: May 2019

The emerald ash borer (EAB), Agrilus planipennis Fairmaire, a buprestid beetle native to Asia, has become a serious pest of ash trees (Fraxinus spp.) in North America since the early 2000s. Due to the impracticality of applying insecticides in natural forests, biocontrol is the most viable method to manage EAB in natural ecosystems. Here, we report the first evidence for the establishment and impact of Spathius galinae Belokobylskij & Strazenac, a larval parasitoid first released in North America in 2016 and 2017 at six mixed-hardwood forest sites, in Connecticut, New York, and Massachusetts. We also report current levels of abundance and parasitism of another introduced larval EAB parasitoid, Tetrastichus planipennisi Yang (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae), released in 2015 and 2016 in these same sites. Spathius galinae was recovered at all release sites in 2018, and its density in sampled trees had increased 1.5- to 20-fold (relative to the first postrelease sample year), reaching a final density of 2.3–14.3 broods/m2 of phloem area and causing 13.1–49.2% marginal rate of parasitism at four of the six sites. In contrast, T. planipennisi was only recovered in 2018 at four of the six release sites, and both its density (0.1–2.3 broods/m2 of phloem area) and parasitism (0.1–5.6%) were lower than that of S. galinae throughout the study at the four sites where recoveries were made. Our data fill a critical gap in the development of a biocontrol-based EAB management plan to protect surviving ash trees capable of reaching maturity and producing replacement trees.
Deep Learning Algorithms Improve Automated Identification of Chagas Disease Vectors
Authors: Khalighifar Ali , Komp Ed , Ramsey Janine M , Gurgel-Gonçalves Rodrigo , Peterson A Townsend
Published: May 2019

Vector-borne Chagas disease is endemic to the Americas and imposes significant economic and social burdens on public health. In a previous contribution, we presented an automated identification system that was able to discriminate among 12 Mexican and 39 Brazilian triatomine (Hemiptera: Reduviidae) species from digital images. To explore the same data more deeply using machine-learning approaches, hoping for improvements in classification, we employed TensorFlow, an open-source software platform for a deep learning algorithm. We trained the algorithm based on 405 images for Mexican triatomine species and 1,584 images for Brazilian triatomine species. Our system achieved 83.0 and 86.7% correct identification rates across all Mexican and Brazilian species, respectively, an improvement over comparable rates from statistical classifiers (80.3 and 83.9%, respectively). Incorporating distributional information to reduce numbers of species in analyses improved identification rates to 95.8% for Mexican species and 98.9% for Brazilian species. Given the ‘taxonomic impediment’ and difficulties in providing entomological expertise necessary to control such diseases, automating the identification process offers a potential partial solution to crucial challenges.
Obligatory Irrelevance and the Computation of Ignorance Inferences
Authors: Buccola Brian , Haida Andreas
Published: May 2019

In recent work, Fox (2016) has argued, on the basis of both empirical and conceptual considerations, that relevance (the set of propositions relevant in an utterance context) is closed under speaker belief: if $\phi $ is relevant, then it’s also relevant whether the speaker believes $\phi $. We provide a formally explicit implementation of this idea and explore its theoretical consequences and empirical predictions. As Fox (2016) already observes, one consequence is that ignorance inferences (and scalar implicatures) can only be derived in grammar, via a covert belief operator of the sort proposed by Meyer (2013). We show, further, that the maxim of quantity no longer enriches the meaning of an utterance, per se, but rather acts as a filter on what can be relevant in an utterance context. In particular, certain alternatives (of certain utterances) are shown to be incapable of being relevant in any context where the maxim of quantity is active — a property we dub obligatory irrelevance. We show that the resulting system predicts a quite restricted range of interpretations for sentences with the scalar item some, as compared to both neo-Gricean (Geurts, 2010; Horn, 1972; Sauerland, 2004) and grammatical (Chierchia et al., 2012; Fox, 2007; Meyer, 2013) theories of scalar implicature, and we argue that these predictions seem largely on the right track.
Stopping of porous projectiles in granular targets
Authors: Planes María Belén , Millán Emmanuel N , Urbassek Herbert M , Bringa Eduardo M
Published: May 2019

Using granular mechanics, we determine the stopping force acting on spherical granular projectiles impinging on a flat granular bed. We find that the stopping force is proportional to the impact energy, as in Poncelet’s law. For fixed velocity, it is proportional to the projectile cross-sectional area rather than to its volume. These dependences only hold in the early stages of stopping, before the projectile has been strongly fragmented. Analogies to the stopping of atomic clusters in compact matter are pointed out.
Urinary biomarkers of dietary intake: a review
Authors: Clarke Erin D , Rollo Megan E , Pezdirc Kristine , Collins Clare E , Haslam Rebecca L
Published: May 2019

Dietary intakes are commonly assessed by established methods including food frequency questionnaires, food records, or recalls. These self-report methods have limitations impacting validity and reliability. Dietary biomarkers provide objective verification of self-reported food intakes, and represent a rapidly evolving area. This review aims to summarize the urinary biomarkers of individual foods, food groups, dietary patterns, or nutritional supplements that have been evaluated to date. Six electronic databases were searched. Included studies involved healthy populations, were published from 2000, and compared measured dietary intake with urinary markers. The initial search identified 9985 studies; of these, 616 full texts were retrieved and 109 full texts were included. Of the included studies, 67 foods and food components were studied, and 347 unique urinary biomarkers were identified. The most reliable biomarkers identified were whole grains (alkylresorcinols), soy (isoflavones), and sugar (sucrose and fructose). While numerous novel urinary biomarkers have been identified, further validation studies are warranted to verify the accuracy of self-reported intakes and utility within practice.