bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Couple Religiosity, Male Headship, Intimate Partner Violence, and Infidelity
Authors: DeRose Laurie F. , Johnson Byron R. , Wang Wendy , Salazar-Arango Andrés
Published: June 2021

Background

The research literature finds a positive relationship between couple religiosity and relationship quality, but because public discourse highlights religious victims of domestic violence, we questioned whether couple religiosity prevents negative relationship outcomes as well as it promotes positive ones.

Purpose

This article compares rates of intimate partner violence (IPV) and infidelity among couples with different levels of religious commitment. We further interrogated whether the belief that the man is the head of the household increased couples’ risk of IPV or infidelity.

Methods

We used Global Family and Gender Survey data from eleven countries. This was an online survey of adults ages 18 to 50 that used a representative panel for the United States, but used opt-in panels in Australia, France, Ireland, United Kingdom, Canada, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. We limited our analytic sample to the 9920 men and women in heterosexual relationships (6791 married and 3128 cohabiting). We also analyzed the United States probability sample separately from our pooled sample.

Results

Couples with nominal or unequal religiosity ( less/mixed religious couples) had higher rates of infidelity than either highly religious couples or couples in which neither partner exhibited much religiosity ( shared secular couples). Infidelity was generally similar between highly religious couples and shared secular couples, but in the US women in highly religious couples did cheat less. We found no differences in IPV—measured by both women's reports of victimization and men's reports of perpetration—according to couple religiosity. Further, the belief that the man is the head of the household did not influence couples’ risk of either IPV or infidelity across the entire sample. In Latin America, however, patriarchal men in shared secular couples perpetrated IPV significantly more often than their egalitarian or more religious counterparts.

Conclusions and Implications

Our Latin American evidence hints that patriarchy may be a more dangerous ideology for secular couples than for religious couples. Our more general conclusion is that even though negative relationship outcomes are not more common among religious couples, the resources religious traditions have at their disposal to discourage violence within intimate partnerships seem tragically underutilized.
Gibt es einen fachspezifischen Medieneinsatz im naturwissenschaftlichen Fachunterricht? Ergebnisse einer Fragebogenerhebung
Authors: Härtig Hendrik , Ostermann Anje , Ropohl Mathias , Schwanewedel Julia , Kampschulte Lorenz , Lindmeier Anke
Published: June 2021

Mediennutzung wird bislang selten fachspezifisch beschrieben. Der Fokus liegt meist entweder auf der Ausstattung und Nutzung im Allgemeinen – und damit weniger auf der Situation in einzelnen Fächern – oder auf der fachspezifischen Beschreibung für nur einzelne Medien. Aus naturwissenschaftsdidaktischer Perspektive ist aber gerade die fachspezifische Funktion des Medieneinsatzes im Lehr-Lern-Prozess bedeutsam. Dies legt eine theoretisch begründete Heuristik der Mediennutzung nahe, die unter anderem die fachdidaktische Tiefenstruktur der Mediennutzung in den Blick nimmt. In diesem Beitrag werden erste Indizien für fachdidaktische Potenziale von Medien mit Blick auf Lernprozesse in den naturwissenschaftlichen Fächern vorgestellt. Im Vergleich verschiedener exemplarischer Medien zwischen den drei Fächern Biologie, Chemie und Physik werden damit frühere Untersuchungen, z. B. zu einzelnen Medien wie dem Computer erweitert. Untersucht werden die Verfügbarkeit und Nutzung insbesondere gegenständlicher Modelle sowie digitaler Medien. Es ergeben sich in bestimmten Unterrichtssituationen Fachspezifika, die als Beleg für die vorgeschlagene Heuristik interpretiert werden können.
Immunologically relevant aspects of the new COVID-19 vaccines—an ÖGAI (Austrian Society for Allergology and Immunology) and AeDA (German Society for Applied Allergology) position paper
Authors: Untersmayr Eva , Förster-Waldl Elisabeth , Bonelli Michael , Boztug Kaan , Brunner Patrick M. , Eiwegger Thomas , Eller Kathrin , Göschl Lisa , Grabmeier-Pfistershammer Katharina , Hötzenecker Wolfram , Jordakieva Galateja , Moschen Alexander R. , Pfaller Birgit , Pickl Winfried , Reinisch Walter , Wiedermann Ursula , Klimek Ludger , Bergmann Karl-Christian , Brehler Randolf , Pfützner Wolfgang , Novak Natalija , Merk Hans , Rabe Uta , Schlenter Wolfgang , Ring Johannes , Wehrmann Wolfgang , Mülleneisen Norbert , Wrede Holger , Fuchs Thomas , Jensen-Jarolim Erika
Published: June 2021

Background

The vaccines against the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) approved in the European Union represent a decisive step in the fight against the pandemic. The application of these available vaccines to patients with pre-existing immunological conditions leads to a multitude of questions regarding efficacy, side effects and the necessary patient information.

Results

This review article provides insight into mechanisms of action of the currently available severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) vaccines and summarises the current state of science as well as expert recommendations regarding tolerability of the vaccines. In addition, the potential to develop protective immune responses is determined. A special focus is given on patients under immunosuppression or in treatment with immunomodulatory drugs. Special groups of the population such as children, pregnant women and the elderly are also considered.

Conclusion

Despite the need for a patient-specific risk–benefit assessment, the consensus among experts is that patients with immunological diseases in particular benefit from the induced immune protection after COVID-19 vaccination and do not have an increased risk of side effects.
An efficient sentiment analysis methodology based on long short-term memory networks
Authors: Shobana J. , Murali M.
Published: June 2021

Sentiment analysis is the process of determining the sentiment polarity (positivity, neutrality or negativity) of the text. As online markets have become more popular over the past decades, online retailers and merchants are asking their buyers to share their opinions about the products they have purchased. As a result, millions of reviews are generated daily, making it difficult to make a good decision about whether a consumer should buy a product. Analyzing these enormous concepts is difficult and time-consuming for product manufacturers. Deep learning is the current research interest in Natural language processing. In the proposed model, Skip-gram architecture is used for better feature extraction of semantic and contextual information of words. LSTM (long short-term memory) is used in the proposed model for understanding complex patterns in textual data. To improve the performance of the LSTM, weight parameters are optimized by the adaptive particle Swarm Optimization algorithm. Extensive experiments were conducted on four datasets proved that our proposed APSO-LSTM model secured higher accuracy over the classical methods such as traditional LSTM, ANN, and SVM. According to simulation results, the proposed model is outperforming other existing models in different metrics.
The world wants to reopen: will vaccine passes be the key?
Authors: Davidson Stephen
Published: June 2021

Covid-19 has halted many things we once thought of as normal. At the beginning of the pandemic, countries quickly closed down their borders in an attempt to staunch the free flow of infections. Given the limited information about the virus at the time, these restrictions were a natural response; after all, health authorities could often trace initial infections in a country back to a handful of international travellers.
Biometrics light the way for secure financial services
Authors: Bakken Sam
Published: June 2021

Financial institutions need to pay special attention to the pro-biometrics sentiment now established among consumers. When a recent Credit Union Times study asked 9,000 consumers worldwide how they perceived a range of authentication methods in terms of security, for the first time in years passwords were not even ranked as among the top three 1 . Instead, a majority of consumers said they preferred biometrics such as fingerprint or face recognition or more passive behavioural biometrics that track how users type and swipe on their mobile device.
Revolution in Syria
Authors: Mazur Kevin
Published: June 2021

How does protest advancing diverse claims turn into violent conflict occurring primarily along ethnic lines? This book examines that question in the context of Syria, drawing insight from the evolution of conflict at the local level. Kevin Mazur shows that the challenge to the Syrian regime did not erupt neatly along ethnic boundaries, and that lines of access to state-controlled resources played a critical structuring role; the ethnicization of conflict resulted from failed incumbent efforts to shore up network ties and the violence that the Asad regime used to crush dissent by challengers excluded from those networks. Mazur uses variation in the political and demographic characteristics of locales to explain regime strategies, the roles played by local intermediaries, the choice between non-violent and violent resistance, and the salience of ethnicity. By drawing attention to cross-ethnic ties, the book suggests new strategies for understanding ostensibly ethnic conflicts beyond Syria.
Freedom's Captives
Authors: Barragan Yesenia
Published: June 2021

Freedom's Captives is a compelling exploration of the gradual abolition of slavery in the majority-black Pacific coast of Colombia, the largest area in the Americas inhabited primarily by people of African descent. From the autonomous rainforests and gold mines of the Colombian Black Pacific, Yesenia Barragan rethinks the nineteenth-century project of emancipation by arguing that the liberal freedom generated through gradual emancipation constituted a modern mode of racial governance that birthed new forms of social domination, while temporarily instituting de facto slavery. Although gradual emancipation was ostensibly designed to destroy slavery, she argues that slaveholders in Colombia came to have an even greater stake in it. Using narrative and storytelling to map the worlds of Free Womb children, enslaved women miners, free black boatmen, and white abolitionists in the Andean highlands, Freedom's Captives insightfully reveals how the Atlantic World processes of gradual emancipation and post-slavery rule unfolded in Colombia.
Poverty and Welfare in Guernsey, 1560-2015
Authors: Crossan Rose-Marie
Published: June 2021

This book, based on extensive original research, provides an account of parochial poor relief in Guernsey from the Reformation to the twenty-first century, incorporating a detailed case-study of the parochial workhouse in the town of St Peter Port, and an outline of the development of Guernsey's modern social security system from its beginnings in the 1920s to the present day. Guernsey has had throughout much of its history a disproportionately large population for its size: in the early eighteenth century St Peter Port was on a par with English county towns such as Warwick and Lincoln. Moreover, since Guernsey was outside the jurisdiction of the Westminster Parliament and retained cultural affinities with France, the island developed its own social welfare regime which was closer, in somerespects, to continental regimes than it was to the English Poor Law model. The differing nature of welfare regimes, how they arose and and how they differ is a major focus of interest amongst historians of social welfare; besides being a fascinating local study, the book has much to contribute to the wider history of social welfare in Britain and Europe. Rose-Marie Crossan completed her doctorate at the University of Leicester and is the author of Guernsey, 1814-1914: Migration and Modernisation (The Boydell Press, 2007). .
Volunteer Economies
Authors: Brown Hannah
Published: June 2021

Across Africa today, as development activities animate novel forms of governance, new social actors are emerging, among them the volunteer. Yet, where work and resources are limited, volunteer practices have repercussions that raise contentious ethical issues. What has been the real impact of volunteers economically, politically and in society? The interdisciplinary experts in this collection examine the practices of volunteers - both international and local - and ideologies of volunteerism. They show the significance of volunteerism to processes of social and economic transformation, and political projects of national development and citizenship, as well as to individual aspirations in African societies. These case studies - from South Africa, Lesotho, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Sierra Leone and Malawi - examine everyday experiences of volunteerism and trajectories of voluntary work, trace its broader historical, political and economic implications, and situate African experiencesof voluntary labour within global exchanges and networks of resources, ideas and political technologies. Offering insights into changing configurations of work, citizenship, development and social mobility, the authors offer new perspectives on the relations between labour, identity and social value in Africa. Ruth Prince is Associate Professor in Medical Anthropology at the Universityof Oslo; with her co-author Wenzel Geissler, she won the 2010 Amaury Talbot Prize for their book The Land is Dying: Contingency, Creativity and Conflict in Western Kenya. Hannah Brown is a lecturer in Anthropology at Durham University.
The Communist Judicial System in China, 1927–1976
Authors: Fang Qiang
Published: June 2021

Drawing on hundreds of newly released judicial archives and court cases, this book analyzes the communist judicial system in China from its founding period to the death of Mao Zedong. It argues that the communist judicial system was built when the CCP was engaged in a life-or-death struggle with the GMD, meaning that the overriding aim of the judicial system was, from the outset, to safeguard the Party against both internal and external adversaries. This fundamental insecurity and perennial fear of loss of power obsessed the Party throughout the era of Mao and beyond, prompting it to launch numerous political campaigns, which forced communist judicial cadres to choose between upholding basic legal norms and maintaining Party order. In doing all of this, The Communist Judicial System in China, 1927–1976: Building on Fear fills a major lacuna in our understanding of communist-era China.
The Bishop’s Church: Berkeley’s Master Argument and the Paradox of Knowability
Authors: Kearns Stephen
Published: June 2021

We can find in the passages that set out the Master Argument a precursor to the paradox of knowability. That paradox shows that if all truths are knowable, all truths are known. Similarly, Berkeley might be read as proposing that if all sensible objects are (distinctly) conceivable, then all sensible objects are conceived.
Health System Preparedness for COVID-19 and Its Impacts on Frontline Health-Care Workers in Nepal: A Qualitative Study Among Frontline Health-Care Workers and Policy-Makers
Authors: Shrestha Nipun , Mishra Shiva Raj , Ghimire Saruna , Gyawali Bishal , Marahatta Sujan Babu , Maskey Smriti , Baral Sushila , Shrestha Nilima , Yadav Rakesh , Pokharel Sunil , Adhikari Bipin
Published: June 2021

Background:

Rapidly growing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has brought unprecedented challenges to the health system in Nepal. The main objective of this study was to explore the health system preparedness for COVID-19 and its impacts on frontline health-care workers in Nepal.

Methods:

Semi-structured interviews were conducted among 32 health-care workers who were involved in clinical care of COVID-19 patients and four policy-makers who were responsible for COVID-19 control and management at central and provincial level. Interviews were conducted through telephone or Internet-based tools such as Zoom and Skype. All interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed into English, and coded using inductive and deductive approaches.

Results:

Both health-care workers and policy-makers reported failure to initiate pre-emptive control measures at the early stages of the outbreak as the pivot in pandemic control. Although several measures were rolled out when cases started to appear, the overall health system preparedness was low. The poor governance, and coordination between three tiers of government was compounded by the inadequate personal protective equipment for health-care workers, insufficient isolation beds for patients, and poor engagement of the private sector. Frontline health-care workers experienced various degrees of stigma because of their profession and yet were able to maintain their motivation to continue serving patients.

Conclusion:

Preparedness for COVID-19 was affected by the poor coordination between three tiers of governance. Specifically, the lack of human resources, inadequate logistic chain management and laboratory facilities for testing COVID-19 appeared to have jeopardized the health system preparedness and escalated the pandemic in Nepal. Despite the poor preparedness, and health and safety concerns, health-care workers maintained their motivation. There is an urgent need for an effective coordination mechanism between various tiers of health structure (including private sector) in addition to incentivizing the health-care workers for the current and future pandemics.
Early Warning Scores at Time of ICU Admission to Predict Mortality in Critically Ill COVID-19 Patients
Authors: Tyagi Asha , Tyagi Surbhi , Agrawal Ananya , Mohan Aparna , Garg Devansh , Salhotra Rashmi , Saxena Ashok Kumar , Goel Ashish
Published: June 2021

Objective:

To assess ability of National Early Warning Score 2 (NEWS2), systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS), quick Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (qSOFA), and CRB-65 calculated at the time of intensive care unit (ICU) admission for predicting ICU mortality in patients of laboratory confirmed coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection.

Methods:

This prospective data analysis was based on chart reviews for laboratory confirmed COVID-19 patients admitted to ICUs over a 1-mo period. The NEWS2, CRB-65, qSOFA, and SIRS were calculated from the first recorded vital signs upon admission to ICU and assessed for predicting mortality.

Results:

Total of 140 patients aged between 18 and 95 y were included in the analysis of whom majority were >60 y (47.8%), with evidence of pre-existing comorbidities (67.1%). The most common symptom at presentation was dyspnea (86.4%). Based upon the receiver operating characteristics area under the curve (AUC), the best discriminatory power to predict ICU mortality was for the CRB-65 (AUC: 0.720 [95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.630-0.811]) followed closely by NEWS2 (AUC: 0.712 [95% CI: 0.622-0.803]). Additionally, a multivariate Cox regression model showed Glasgow Coma Scale score at time of admission (P < 0.001; adjusted hazard ratio = 0.808 [95% CI: 0.715-0.911]) to be the only significant predictor of ICU mortality.

Conclusions:

CRB-65 and NEWS2 scores assessed at the time of ICU admission offer only a fair discriminatory value for predicting mortality. Further evaluation after adding laboratory markers such as C-reactive protein and D-dimer may yield a more useful prediction model. Much of the earlier data is from developed countries and uses scoring at time of hospital admission. This study was from a developing country, with the scores assessed at time of ICU admission, rather than the emergency department as with existing data from developed countries, for patients with moderate/severe COVID-19 disease. Because the scores showed some utility for predicting ICU mortality even when measured at time of ICU admission, their use in allocation of limited ICU resources in a developing country merits further research.
Understanding the ecology of host plant–insect herbivore interactions in the fossil record through bipartite networks
Authors: Swain Anshuman , Maccracken S. Augusta , Fagan William F. , Labandeira Conrad C.
Published: June 2021

Plant–insect associations have been a significant component of terrestrial ecology for more than 400 Myr. Exploring these interactions in the fossil record through novel perspectives provides a window into understanding evolutionary and ecological forces that shaped these interactions. For the past several decades, researchers have documented, described, and categorized fossil evidence of these interactions. Drawing on powerful tools from network science, we propose here a bipartite network representation of fossilized plants and their herbivore-induced leaf damage to understand late Paleozoic plant–insect interactions at the local community level. We focus on four assemblages from north-central Texas, but the methods used in this work are general and can be applied to any well-preserved fossil flora. Network analysis can address key questions in the evolution of insect herbivory that often would be difficult to summarize using standard herbivory metrics.
The 1940s as the Decade of the Anti-Antisemitism Novel
Authors: Gordan Rachel
Published: June 2021

This article examines the anti-antisemitism novels of the 1940s as an indication of the decade's changing attitudes toward Jews, antisemitism, and religious pluralism, and so contributes to scholarly research on both social protest literature and mid-twentieth-century American religious culture. Recent scholarship has shown that American Jews responded to the Holocaust earlier than had previously been assumed. The anti-antisemitism novels of the 1940s were one of the popular culture arenas in which this response to the horrors of Nazi Germany occurred, as fiction proved an ideal genre for imagining and presenting possible solutions to the problem of antisemitism. These solutions often involved a change from a racial to a religious conception of Jews. Laura Z. Hobson'sGentleman's Agreement(1947) was the most culturally significant of this 1940s genre of anti-antisemitism novels (a subgenre of social protest literature), in part because of its foregrounding of non-Jewish responses to antisemitism. Archival research into the roots of Hobson's novel reveals that news of other female authors writing popular anti-antisemitism fiction encouraged Hobson, allowing Hobson to feel part of a movement of anti-antisemitism writers that would eventually extend to her readers, as demonstrated by readers’ letters. Although Will Herberg's Protestant, Catholic, Jew (1955) is frequently cited as the midcentury book that heralded a postwar shift toward religious pluralism, the anti-antisemitism novels of the 1940s reveal signs of this shift a decade earlier.
Liability Structure and Risk Taking: Evidence from the Money Market Fund Industry
Authors: Baghai Ramin P. , Giannetti Mariassunta , Jäger Ivika
Published: June 2021

How does the structure of financial intermediaries’ liabilities affect their asset holdings? We investigate the consequences of the 2014 money market fund (MMF) reform, which imposed redemption gates and liquidity fees on prime MMFs and forced prime funds marketed to institutional investors to switch from constant to floating net asset value. These changes made prime MMFs’ liabilities less money-like. As a consequence, the affected MMFs experienced an increase in flow–performance sensitivity and started taking more risks. In addition, the total funding provided by MMFs to the corporate sector, and especially to safer issuers, has decreased.
Neurophysiological correlates of disorder-related autobiographical memory in anorexia nervosa
Authors: Terhoeven Valentin , Nikendei Christoph , Faschingbauer Sandra , Huber Julia , Young Kymberly D. , Bendszus Martin , Herzog Wolfgang , Friederich Hans-Christoph , Simon Joe J.
Published: June 2021

Background

Anorexia nervosa (AN) is characterized by an overgeneralization of food/body-related autobiographical memories (AM). This is regarded as an emotion regulation strategy with adverse long-term effects implicated in disorder maintenance and treatment resistance. Therefore, we aimed to examine neural correlates of food/body-related AM-recall in AN.

Methods

Twenty-nine female patients with AN and 30 medication-free age-sex-matched normal-weight healthy controls (HC) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while recalling AMs in response to food/body-related and neutral cue words. To control for general knowledge retrieval, participants engaged in a semantic generation and riser detection task.

Results

In comparison to HC, patients with AN generated fewer and less specific AMs in response to food/body-related words, but not for neutral cue words. Group comparisons revealed reduced activation in regions associated with self-referential processing and memory retrieval (precuneus and angular gyrus) during the retrieval of specific food/body-related AM in patients with AN. Brain connectivity in regions associated with memory functioning and executive control was reduced in patients with AN during the retrieval of specific food/body-related AM. Finally, resting-state functional connectivity analysis revealed no differences between groups, arguing against a general underlying disconnection of brain networks implicated in memory and emotional processing in AN.

Conclusions

These results indicate impaired neural processing of food/body-related AM in AN, with a reduced involvement of regions involved in self-referential processing. Our findings are discussed as possible neuronal correlates of emotional avoidance in AN and provide new insights of AN-pathophysiology underscoring the importance of targeting dysfunctional emotion regulation strategies during treatment.
Does cognitive improvement translate into functional changes? Exploring the transfer mechanisms of cognitive remediation therapy for euthymic people with bipolar disorder
Authors: Tsapekos Dimosthenis , Strawbridge Rebecca , Cella Matteo , Young Allan H. , Wykes Til
Published: June 2021

Background

Bipolar disorder (BD) is associated with cognitive and functional difficulties, persistent beyond mood episodes. Cognitive remediation (CR) is a psychological therapy targeting cognitive and functioning difficulties. Recent evidence suggests that CR may enhance long-term functioning but transfer mechanisms on functional outcomes have not been explored. We aim to investigate whether and how cognitive gains after CR transfer to functional improvement.

Methods

We considered data from a randomized controlled trial comparing CR (n = 40) to treatment-as-usual (TAU; n = 40) in euthymic people with BD. Treatment outcomes included individual cognitive domains and global cognition, psychosocial functioning, and goal attainment. Regression-based mediation and moderation modelling were used to assess whether and how post-treatment cognitive changes translate into functional improvement at follow-up, three months after treatment end.

Results

Cognitive gains after CR transferred to functional changes three months later: improvement in post-treatment global cognition partially mediated the effect of CR on psychosocial functioning (standardized indirect effect: −0.23, 95% CI −0.51 to −0.04). Goal attainment was not significantly mediated by changes in cognition, but post-treatment cognitive performance moderated the effect of CR on the GAS at follow-up (interaction effect: 0.78, 95% CI 0.08–1.55).

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that cognitive improvements contribute to functional improvement but transfer mechanisms differ between psychosocial functioning and idiosyncratic recovery goals. Cognition accounted for only a proportion of the total CR effect on functional outcomes. Future studies should consider other variables, such as metacognition, that may drive the transfer of CR effects to functional outcomes.
Pompeii's Safaitic Graffiti
Authors: Helms Kyle
Published: June 2021

In 1987, nine groups of graffiti written in Safaitic were published from Pompeii's theatre corridor (VIII.7.20). Safaitic, a south Semitic script used to record a dialect of Old Arabic, had never previously been documented in the West, and the appearance of these inscriptions at Pompeii since their publication has largely remained a mystery. I argue that Pompeii's Safaitic graffiti were inscribed by nomads from the Ḥarrah who had been incorporated into the Roman army, and who marched into Italy withLegio III Gallicaduring its campaign to install Vespasian as emperor.
The 32-Item Multilingual Naming Test: Cultural and Linguistic Biases in Monolingual Chinese-Speaking Older Adults
Authors: Li Clara , Zeng Xiaoyi , Neugroschl Judith , Aloysi Amy , Zhu Carolyn W. , Xu Mengfei , Teresi Jeanne A. , Ocepek-Welikson Katja , Ramirez Mildred , Joseph Andrew , Cai Dongming , Grossman Hillel , Martin Jane , Sewell Margaret , Loizos Maria , Sano Mary
Published: June 2021

Objectives:

This study describes the performance of the Multilingual Naming Test (MINT) by Chinese American older adults who are monolingual Chinese speakers. An attempt was also made to identify items that could introduce bias and warrant attention in future investigation.

Methods:

The MINT was administered to 67 monolingual Chinese older adults as part of the standard dementia evaluation at the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC) at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS), New York, USA. A diagnosis of normal cognition (n = 38), mild cognitive impairment (n = 12), and dementia (n = 17) was assigned to all participants at clinical consensus conferences using criterion sheets developed at the ADRC at ISMMS.

Results:

MINT scores were negatively correlated with age and positively correlated with education, showing sensitivity to demographic factors. One item, butterfly, showed no variations in responses across diagnostic groups. Inclusion of responses from different regions of China changed the answers from “incorrect” to “correct” on 20 items. The last five items, porthole, anvil, mortar, pestle, and axle, yielded a high nonresponse rate, with more than 70% of participants responding with “I don’t know.” Four items, funnel, witch, seesaw, and wig, were not ordered with respect to item difficulty in the Chinese language. Two items, gauge and witch, were identified as culturally biased for the monolingual group.

Conclusions:

Our study highlights the cultural and linguistic differences that might influence the test performance. Future studies are needed to revise the MINT using more universally recognized items of similar word frequency across different cultural and linguistic groups.
Adapting the serious illness conversation guide for use in the emergency department by social workers
Authors: Aaronson Emily Loving , Greenwald Jeffrey L. , Krenzel Lindsey R. , Rogers Angelina M. , LaPointe Lauren , Jacobsen Juliet C.
Published: June 2021

Objective

Although important treatment decisions are made in the Emergency Department (ED), conversations about patients’ goals and values and priorities often do not occur. There is a critical need to improve the frequency of these conversations, so that ED providers can align treatment plans with these goals, values, and priorities. The Serious Illness Conversation Guide has been used in other care settings and has been demonstrated to improve the frequency, quality, and timing of conversations, but it has not been used in the ED setting. Additionally, ED social workers, although integrated into hospital and home-based palliative care, have not been engaged in programs to advance serious illness conversations in the ED. We set out to adapt the Serious Illness Conversation Guide for use in the ED by social workers.

Methods

We undertook a four-phase process for the adaptation of the Serious Illness Conversation Guide for use in the ED by social workers. This included simulated testing exercises, pilot testing, and deployment with patients in the ED.

Results

During each phase of the Guide's adaptation, changes were made to reflect both the environment of care (ED) and the clinicians (social workers) that would be using the Guide. A final guide is presented.

Significance of results

This report presents an adapted Serious Illness Conversation Guide for use in the ED by social workers. This Guide may provide a tool that can be used to increase the frequency and quality of serious illness conversations in the ED.
Physically Based Summer Temperature Reconstruction From Melt Layers in Ice Cores
Authors: Fujita Koji , Matoba Sumito , Iizuka Yoshinori , Takeuchi Nozomu , Tsushima Akane , Kurosaki Yutaka , Aoki Teruo
Published: June 2021

Previous reconstructions of summer temperatures from ice cores have relied on a statistical relationship between a melt layer and temperature observed at nearby stations. This study presents a novel method for reconstructing summer temperatures from melt layers in ice cores using an energy balance model that incorporates heat conduction and meltwater refreezing in the firn. We use the seasonal patterns in the ERA‐Interim reanalysis data set for an ice core site to calculate the amounts of refreezing water within the firn under various summer mean temperature (SMT) and annual precipitation conditions, and prepared calibration tables containing these three variables. We then estimate the SMTs from the refreezing amount and annual accumulation, both of which can be obtained from an ice core. We apply this method to four ice cores that were recovered from sites with different climates: two sites on the Greenland Ice Sheet, one in Alaska, and one in Russian Altai. The reconstructed SMTs show comparable variations with those of observed temperatures at nearby stations. The nonlinear relationship between SMT and melt layer thickness differs between sites, indicating that a single linear approximation cannot be employed to estimate SMT. Sensitivity analyses suggest that the annual temperature range, amount of annual precipitation, and firn albedo (which is a time‐invariant value in the model) significantly affect the relationship between SMT and melt layer thickness. This new method provides an alternative to existing approaches and yields an independent estimate of SMT from ice cores that have been affected by melting.
Evening Side EMIC Waves and Related Proton Precipitation Induced by a Substorm
Authors: Yahnin A. G. , Popova T. A. , Demekhov A. G. , Lubchich A. A. , Matsuoka A. , Asamura K. , Miyoshi Y. , Yokota S. , Kasahara S. , Keika K. , Hori T. , Tsuchiya F. , Kumamoto A. , Kasahara Y. , Shoji M. , Kasaba Y. , Nakamura S. , Shinohara I. , Kim H. , Noh S. , Raita T.
Published: June 2021

We present the results of a multi‐point and multi‐instrument study of electromagnetic ion cyclotron (EMIC) waves and related energetic proton precipitation during a substorm. We analyze the data from Arase (ERG) and Van Allen Probes (VAPs) A and B spacecraft for an event of 16 and 17 UT on December 1, 2018. VAP‐A detected an almost dispersionless injection of energetic protons related to the substorm onset in the night sector. Then the proton injection was detected by VAP‐B and further by Arase, as a dispersive enhancement of energetic proton flux. The proton flux enhancement at every spacecraft coincided with the EMIC wave enhancement or appearance. This data show the excitation of EMIC waves first inside an expanding substorm wedge and then by a drifting cloud of injected protons. Low‐orbiting NOAA/POES and MetOp satellites observed precipitation of energetic protons nearly conjugate with the EMIC wave observations in the magnetosphere. The proton pitch‐angle diffusion coefficient and the strong diffusion regime index were calculated based on the observed wave, plasma, and magnetic field parameters. The diffusion coefficient reaches a maximum at energies corresponding well to the energy range of the observed proton precipitation. The diffusion coefficient values indicated the strong diffusion regime, in agreement with the equality of the trapped and precipitating proton flux at the low‐Earth orbit. The growth rate calculations based on the plasma and magnetic field data from both VAP and Arase spacecraft indicated that the detected EMIC waves could be generated in the region of their observation or in its close vicinity.
Validation of GPM IMERG Extreme Precipitation in the Maritime Continent by Station and Radar Data
Authors: Da Silva Nicolas A. , Webber Benjamin G. M. , Matthews Adrian J. , Feist Matthew M. , Stein Thorwald H. M. , Holloway Christopher E. , Abdullah Muhammad F. A. B.
Published: June 2021

The Maritime Continent (MC) is a region subject to high impact weather (HIW) events, which are still poorly predicted by numerical weather prediction (NWP) models. To improve predictability of such events, NWP needs to be evaluated against accurate measures of extreme precipitation across the whole MC. With its global spatial coverage at high spatio‐temporal resolution, the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) data set is a suitable candidate. Here we evaluate extreme precipitation in the Integrated Multi‐Satellite Retrieval for GPM (IMERG) V06B product against station data from the Global Historical Climatology Network in Malaysia and the Philippines. We find that the high intragrid spatial variability of precipitation extremes results in large spatial sampling errors when each IMERG grid box is compared with individual co‐located precipitation measurements, a result that may explain discrepancies found in earlier studies in the MC. Overall, IMERG daily precipitation is similar to station precipitation between the 85th and 95th percentile, but tends to overestimate above the 95th. IMERG data were also compared with radar data in western Peninsular Malaysia for sub‐daily timescales. Allowing for uncertainties in radar data, the analysis suggests that the 95th percentile is still suitable for NWP evaluation of extreme sub‐daily precipitation, but that the rainfall rates diverge at higher percentiles. Hence, our overall recommendation is that the 95th percentile be used to evaluate NWP forecasts of HIW on daily and sub‐daily time scales against IMERG data, but that higher percentiles (i.e., more extreme precipitation) be treated with caution.
Methanogenic archaea use a bacteria-like methyltransferase system to demethoxylate aromatic compounds
Authors: Kurth Julia M , Nobu Masaru K , Tamaki Hideyuki , de Jonge Nadieh , Berger Stefanie , Jetten Mike S M , Yamamoto Kyosuke , Mayumi Daisuke , Sakata Susumu , Bai Liping , Cheng Lei , Nielsen Jeppe Lund , Kamagata Yoichi , Wagner Tristan , Welte Cornelia U
Published: June 2021

Methane-generating archaea drive the final step in anaerobic organic compound mineralization and dictate the carbon flow of Earth’s diverse anoxic ecosystems in the absence of inorganic electron acceptors. Although such Archaea were presumed to be restricted to life on simple compounds like hydrogen (H2), acetate or methanol, an archaeon, Methermicoccus shengliensis, was recently found to convert methoxylated aromatic compounds to methane. Methoxylated aromatic compounds are important components of lignin and coal, and are present in most subsurface sediments. Despite the novelty of such a methoxydotrophic archaeon its metabolism has not yet been explored. In this study, transcriptomics and proteomics reveal that under methoxydotrophic growth M. shengliensis expresses an O-demethylation/methyltransferase system related to the one used by acetogenic bacteria. Enzymatic assays provide evidence for a two step-mechanisms in which the methyl-group from the methoxy compound is (1) transferred on cobalamin and (2) further transferred on the C1-carrier tetrahydromethanopterin, a mechanism distinct from conventional methanogenic methyl-transfer systems which use coenzyme M as final acceptor. We further hypothesize that this likely leads to an atypical use of the methanogenesis pathway that derives cellular energy from methyl transfer (Mtr) rather than electron transfer (F420H2 re-oxidation) as found for methylotrophic methanogenesis.
Mapping pleiotropic loci using a fast-sequential testing algorithm
Authors: Aguate Fernando M. , Vazquez Ana I. , Merriman Tony R. , de los Campos Gustavo
Published: June 2021

Pleiotropy (i.e., genes with effects on multiple traits) leads to genetic correlations between traits and contributes to the development of many syndromes. Identifying variants with pleiotropic effects on multiple health-related traits can improve the biological understanding of gene action and disease etiology, and can help to advance disease-risk prediction. Sequential testing is a powerful approach for mapping genes with pleiotropic effects. However, the existing methods and the available software do not scale to analyses involving millions of SNPs and large datasets. This has limited the adoption of sequential testing for pleiotropy mapping at large scale. In this study, we present a sequential test and software that can be used to test pleiotropy in large systems of traits with biobank-sized data. Using simulations, we show that the methods implemented in the software are powerful and have adequate type-I error rate control. To demonstrate the use of the methods and software, we present a whole-genome scan in search of loci with pleiotropic effects on seven traits related to metabolic syndrome (MetS) using UK-Biobank data (n~300 K distantly related white European participants). We found abundant pleiotropy and report 170, 44, and 18 genomic regions harboring SNPs with pleiotropic effects in at least two, three, and four of the seven traits, respectively. We validate our results using previous studies documented in the GWAS-catalog and using data from GTEx. Our results confirm previously reported loci and lead to several novel discoveries that link MetS-related traits through plausible biological pathways.
Next generation proteomics with drug sensitivity screening identifies sub-clones informing therapeutic and drug development strategies for multiple myeloma patients
Authors: Tierney Ciara , Bazou Despina , Majumder Muntasir M. , Anttila Pekka , Silvennoinen Raija , Heckman Caroline A. , Dowling Paul , O’Gorman Peter
Published: June 2021

With the introduction of novel therapeutic agents, survival in Multiple Myeloma (MM) has increased in recent years. However, drug-resistant clones inevitably arise and lead to disease progression and death. The current International Myeloma Working Group response criteria are broad and make it difficult to clearly designate resistant and responsive patients thereby hampering proteo-genomic analysis for informative biomarkers for sensitivity. In this proof-of-concept study we addressed these challenges by combining an ex-vivo drug sensitivity testing platform with state-of-the-art proteomics analysis. 35 CD138-purified MM samples were taken from patients with newly diagnosed or relapsed MM and exposed to therapeutic agents from five therapeutic drug classes including Bortezomib, Quizinostat, Lenalidomide, Navitoclax and PF-04691502. Comparative proteomic analysis using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry objectively determined the most and least sensitive patient groups. Using this approach several proteins of biological significance were identified in each drug class. In three of the five classes focal adhesion-related proteins predicted low sensitivity, suggesting that targeting this pathway could modulate cell adhesion mediated drug resistance. Using Receiver Operating Characteristic curve analysis, strong predictive power for the specificity and sensitivity of these potential biomarkers was identified. This approach has the potential to yield predictive theranostic protein panels that can inform therapeutic decision making.
Modeling the metabolic profile of Mytilus edulis reveals molecular signatures linked to gonadal development, sex and environmental site
Authors: Kronberg Jaanika , Byrne Jonathan J. , Jansen Jeroen , Antczak Philipp , Hines Adam , Bignell John , Katsiadaki Ioanna , Viant Mark R. , Falciani Francesco
Published: June 2021

The monitoring of anthropogenic chemicals in the aquatic environment including their potential effects on aquatic organisms, is important for protecting life under water, a key sustainable development goal. In parallel with monitoring the concentrations of chemicals of concern, sentinel species are often used to investigate the biological effects of contaminants. Among these, bivalve molluscs such as mussels are filter-feeding and sessile, hence an excellent model system for measuring localized pollution. This study investigates the relationship between the metabolic state of the blue mussel (Mytilus edulis) and its physiology in different environments. We developed a computational model based on a reference site (relatively unpolluted) and integrated seasonal dynamics of metabolite relative concentrations with key physiological indicators and environmental parameters. The analysis of the model revealed that changes in metabolite levels during an annual cycle are influenced by water temperature and are linked to gonadal development. This work supports the importance of data-driven biology and its potential in environmental monitoring.
hsp-90 and unc-45 depletion induce characteristic transcriptional signatures in coexpression cliques of C. elegans
Authors: Schmauder Lukas , Richter Klaus
Published: June 2021

Nematode development is characterized by progression through several larval stages. Thousands of genes were found in large scale RNAi-experiments to block this development at certain steps, two of which target the molecular chaperone HSP-90 and its cofactor UNC-45. Aiming to define the cause of arrest, we here investigate the status of nematodes after treatment with RNAi against hsp-90 and unc-45 by employing an in-depth transcriptional analysis of the arrested larvae. To identify misregulated transcriptional units, we calculate and validate genome-wide coexpression cliques covering the entire nematode genome. We define 307 coexpression cliques and more than half of these can be related to organismal functions by GO-term enrichment, phenotype enrichment or tissue enrichment analysis. Importantly, hsp-90 and unc-45 RNAi induce or repress many of these cliques in a coordinated manner, and then several specifically regulated cliques are observed. To map the developmental state of the arrested nematodes we define the expression behaviour of each of the cliques during development from embryo to adult nematode. hsp-90 RNAi can be seen to arrest development close to the L4 larval stage with further deviations in daf-16 regulated genes. unc-45 RNAi instead leads to arrested development at young adult stage prior to the programmatic downregulation of sperm-cell specific genes. In both cases processes can be defined to be misregulated upon depletion of the respective chaperone. With most of the defined gene cliques showing concerted behaviour at some stage of development from embryo to late adult, the “clique map” together with the clique-specific GO-terms, tissue and phenotype assignments will be a valuable tool in understanding concerted responses on the genome-wide level in Caenorhabditis elegans.