bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Safavid Commercial History
Authors: Matthee Rudi
Published: February 2021

Safavid, Iran, was a modest economic player in West and South Asia in terms of population numbers, productivity, and resources. Yet its strategic location at the crossroads of Asia’s commercial arteries allowed it to punch well above its weight in terms of trade—especially trade in transit. The reign of Shah ‘Abbas I (r. 1587–1629) represents the high-water mark in this development. His forward-looking policies, beginning with his choice of Isfahan as Iran’s new capital and the subsequent resettlement of a large number of Armenians, expanded the ambit of the country’s commerce. Most importantly, he established a viable maritime alternative to the overland trade route by facilitating the maritime connection via the Persian Gulf, with the aim of depriving the Ottomans of revenue. In the process, Iran became more firmly connected to the wider Eurasian market, with commodities like silk and porcelain moving into the center of a hemispheric commercial network. In this, South Asia was clearly the regional “world economy,” manufacturing goods that were coveted by people all over West Asia and beyond, while the inhabitants of Europe, and to a lesser extent of the Ottoman Empire, Central Asia, and Russia, functioned as consumers who were generally forced to pay for their tastes and desires with hard cash.
Commercial Networks and Economic Structures of Theravada Buddhist Southeast Asia (Thailand and Myanmar)
Authors: Goh Geok Yian
Published: February 2021

Theravada Buddhist polities in ancient Southeast Asia comprised kingdoms located in present-day Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand. Theravada Buddhism became influential in mainland Southeast Asia in the 11th century. Little information exists on the economy of daily life during that period; existing records from 1100 until 1600 mainly deal with administrative and religious affairs, from which some information about the economy can be extracted. These mainland Buddhist polities are typically described as practicing “redistributive economic systems,” a term that Karl Polanyi used to refer to geopolitical entities in which the primary source of subsistence is agriculture, and an administrative center, usually located in the capital, collects revenue from taxes on agricultural production, trade, and other specialized activities that are owned or controlled by the central government or other designated authorities, such as religious orders. The redistributive model is contrasted with the market economies of maritime port polities such as those in insular Southeast Asia. This binary opposition is, however, overstated, as demonstrated by diversity found in mainland Southeast Asia, where some polities relied both on agriculture and maritime trade. Polanyi’s model does not satisfactorily account for the diversity of the Theravada Buddhist polities of Myanmar and Thailand. Some scholars from Redfield and Singer to Miksic have constructed more elaborate models including the orthogenetic versus heterogenetic spectrum, on the basis of Polanyi’s thought but which attempt to utilize polythetic rather than monothetic concepts and scalar rather than stadial classifications.
Trade, Ethnicity, and Identity in Island Southeast Asia
Authors: Andaya Leonard Y.
Published: February 2021

Island Southeast Asia (ISEA) consists of Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Indonesia, East Timor, and the Philippines and was the midway point in the vibrant East–West international maritime trade route that stretched from Europe, Middle East, East Africa, and South Asia to its west; and China, Ryukyu, Japan, and Korea to its east. The favored stop was along the Straits of Melaka, a calm haven protected from the force of the northeast and southwest monsoon winds. The stream of traders in the Straits enabled local ports to develop into international port cities, whose inhabitants created mixed communities and cultures: commodities were re-fashioned or re-packaged into hybrid forms to accommodate the distinctive tastes of different groups, while frequent and lengthy sojourns by traders resulted in liaisons that produced mixed offspring and cultures. Enhanced economic opportunities encouraged mobility and establishment of diaspora communities in the littoral. More sinister were the forced mobility through wars and slavery that produced reconstituted ethnic communities and new ethnicities and identities in the early modern period (c. 1400– c. 1830s).
Problem Structuring in Economic Evaluation
Authors: Faria Rita
Published: February 2021

Economic evaluation provides a framework to help inform decisions on which technologies represent the best use of healthcare resources (i.e., are cost-effective) by bringing together the available evidence about the benefits and costs of the alternative options. Critical to the economic evaluation framework is the need to accurately characterize the decision problem—this is the problem-structuring stage. Problem structuring encompasses the characterization of the target population; identification of the decision options to compare in the model (e.g., use of the technology in different ways, standard of care, etc.); and the development of the conceptual model, which maps out how the decision options relate to the costs and benefits in the target population. Problem structuring is central to the application of the economic evaluation framework and to development of the analysis, as it determines the specific questions that can be addressed and affects the relevance and credibility of the results. The methodological guidelines discuss problem structuring to some extent, although the practical implications warrant further consideration. With respect to the target population, questions emerge about how to define it, whether and which sources of heterogeneity to consider, and when and in whom to consider spillovers. Relating to the specification of decision options are questions about how to identify and select them, including restricting the comparison to standard of care, sequences of tests and/or treatments, and “do-nothing” approaches. There are also issues relating to the role and the process of development of the conceptual model. Based on a review of methodological guidelines and reflections on their implications, various recommendations for practice emerge. The process of developing the conceptual model and how to use it to inform choices and assumptions in the economic evaluation are two areas where further research is warranted.
Commodity Market Integration
Authors: Federico Giovanni
Published: February 2021

The literature on market integration explores the development of the commodity market with data on prices, which is a useful complement to analysis of trade and the only feasible approach when data on trade are not available. Data on prices and quantity can help in understanding when markets developed, why, and the degree to which their development increased welfare and economic growth. Integration progressed slowly throughout the early modern period, with significant acceleration in the first half of the 19th century. Causes of integration include development of transportation infrastructure, changes in barriers to trade, and short-term shocks, such as wars. Literature on the effects of market integration is limited and strategies for estimating the effects of market integration are must be developed.
Educational Anthropology and Engaged Approaches to Teaching and Learning
Authors: Rodríguez-Mejía Fredy
Published: February 2021

Since the field’s early years, anthropology has been concerned with processes of teaching and learning. While early anthropological works were comparative in nature—examining schooling systems around the world in relation to those in US society—scholars gradually began to focus more on educational issues in the US. Efforts to bring together the works of scholars of pedagogy and anthropologists slowly morphed into what we now call “educational anthropology” or “anthropology and education.” In tracing the history of the relationship of anthropology and education, scholars have examined how different historical moments have shaped anthropology’s development as a profession, discipline, and specialization. Different publications have focused on exploring anthropology’s transformation following World War II. Funding from organizations such as the Rockefeller Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation contributed to the growth of anthropology as a discipline and profession and helped bolster its role as an academic specialization. The growth of social mobilization in the 1960s, which highlighted issues of inequality, racial discrimination, and political crises, also contributed to a growth in students majoring in anthropology to study these issues. The rise in undergraduate and graduate students in anthropology further helped to increase the establishment of anthropology departments across the United States and the allocation of public funding to improve pedagogical approaches. In the same vein, educational anthropology contributed to the examination of teaching/learning processes but also looking at education in relationship to broader social issues (e.g., inequality, culture, gender, identity). Since the 1980s, the development of educational anthropology has occurred in parallel with other academic efforts to improve instructional approaches. The scholarship of teaching and learning for instance, has focused on exploring different pedagogical approaches in higher education with the purpose of improving teaching methodologies to enhance student learning. Some of these approaches include active learning, engaged learning, and service learning. In the realm of innovative educational approaches, community service learning has focused on establishing long-term partnerships between universities and communities. Such collaborative settings exhibit an overlap with undergraduate anthropological approaches to education, helping to introduce students to the intricacies of social issues as they are experienced in actual communities.
Language and Culture in Workplace Ethnography
Authors: Hayes Lauren A.
Published: February 2021

Scholars studying the anthropology of work have traditionally been interested in questions of power, class, inequality, moral economy, and the transformations brought about by global capitalism. To address these larger questions, workplace ethnography gives attention to both interactional and systemic level analysis, making linguistic methods a powerful tool for studying both talk at work and institutional discourse. Language has many social functions within the workplace, from the organization of tasks and goals to the ways people navigate relationships and perform identity. Linguistic theoretical and methodological perspectives are applied to the study of power and gatekeeping practices in institutional settings, performance of identity and gender at work, and inequalities related to race, ethnicity, and perceptions of accent. Linguistic practices in the neoliberal global economy are also an economic resource to be managed, regulated, scripted, and marketed, as part of the reflexive project of worker self-improvement. Language is also a form of labor itself in global customer service interactions, accent-reduction training, and contexts of tourism. Thus, workplace ethnography and language study complement each other, and linguistic methods and theory may be applied to major questions in the field of anthropology of work.
Business Social Responsibility
Authors: Benke Gavin
Published: February 2021

“Corporate social responsibility” is a term that first began to circulate widely in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Though it may seem to be a straightforward concept, the phrase can imply a range of activities, from minority hiring initiatives and environmentally sound operations, to funding local nonprofits and cultural institutions. The idea appeared to have developed amid increasing demands made of corporations by a number of different groups, such as the consumer movement. However, American business managers engaged in many of these practices well before that phrase was coined. As far back as the early 19th century, merchants and business owners envisioned a larger societal role. However, broader political, social, and economic developments, from the rise of Gilded Age corporations to the onset of the Cold War, significantly influenced understandings of business social responsibility. Likewise, different managers and corporations have had different motives for embracing social responsibility initiatives. Some embraced social responsibility rhetoric as a public relations tool. Others saw the concept as a way to prevent government regulation. Still others undertook social responsibility efforts because they fit well with their own socially progressive ethos. Though the terms and understandings of a business’s social responsibilities have shifted over time, the basic idea has been a perennial feature of commercial life in the United States.
Buddhism and Biography
Authors: Van Overmeire Ben
Published: February 2021

The Buddhist religion has a long and rich tradition of biographical literature. This literature has functioned to unify distinct and often contradictory elements of Buddhist ritual, practice, and doctrine, adjusting these elements to specific historical situations. Scholarship on the function of literary characters in making narrative worlds coherent supports this argument: when readers engage characters, they draw together textual and non-textual data to construct beings that are similar to themselves. This connection of a specific situation with a larger whole, a connection that is at the same time an organization, can be observed in how Buddhist biographies are built. Biographies of Shakyamuni, for example, contain many traces of changes motivated by local conditions. The body of Shakyamuni is used to authorize these changes: the local is situated at the heart of Buddhism. Biographies of Chinese Buddhist saints attest to the same process, as can be seen in the shifting representation of Indian saints in China or the literary transformations of the Patriarchs of the Chan school. While these changing representations reflect changes in historical Buddhist communities, they can also produce attitudes and regulate behaviors. The debate on the portrayal and effects of women and animals in Indian Buddhist texts provides an illustration of this, as does scholarship on how saintly ideals regulate behavior. The case of Buddhist autobiography, a genre at times so closely connected to biography that it is nearly indistinguishable from it, provides a final example of how identity is structured in Buddhist biography.
Religion, New Media, and Digital Culture
Authors: Evolvi Giulia
Published: February 2021

The study of religion and new media explores how the contemporary proliferation of technological devices and digital culture impacts religious traditions. The progressive mediation of religion through websites, social networks, apps, and digital devices has created new conditions for religious experiences, practices, and beliefs. From the diffusion of internet technologies in the mid-1990s, scholars have individuated four waves to describe the evolution of religion and new media: (a) The first wave (mid-1990s–beginning 2000s) is characterized by enthusiasm for the potential of the Internet and the establishment of the first websites dedicated to religion, such as the Vatican official webpage and chatrooms where Neo-Pagans celebrated online rituals. These may be considered examples of “cyber-religion,” a term that indicates religious activities in the virtual space of the Internet, usually called in this period “cyberspace.” (b) The second wave (the mid-late 2000s) involves the growth of religious online presences, and is characterized by more realistic attitudes on the potentials and consequences of internet use. For example, Muslim, Buddhist, and Jewish virtual sacred buildings have been created on the platform Second Life. At the same time, the virtual congregation Church of Fools attracted both positive reactions and criticism. In this period, scholars often talk about “religion online,” which is the online transposition of activities and narratives of religious groups, and “online religion,” a type of religion that exists mainly because of the increased interconnectivity and visual enhancements of the Internet. (c) The third wave (late 2000–mid-2010s) saw the creation of social network platforms and the proliferation of smartphones. Religious leaders such as the Dalai Lama and the Pope established social network accounts, and smartphone developed apps for reading sacred texts, praying, and performing confessions. This type of religion is usually called “digital religion,” a concept that indicates the progressive blurring of the line between online and offline religiosity. (d) The fourth wave (the late 2010s) includes online religious groups circulating narratives beyond religious institutions, and greater academic attention to elements such as gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, politics. This is the case of veiled Muslim influencers who talk about religion in fashion tutorials, and Russian Orthodox women (Matushki) who use blogs to diffuse patriarchal values. The notion of “digital religion” is employed in this period to explore how religious identities, communities, and authorities change in the internet age. Scholars have approached these four waves through the lens of existing media theoretical frameworks, especially mediation, mediatization, and social shaping of technology, and adapted them to the field of religion and new media. While existing scholarship has often focused on Europe and North America, the study of religion and new media is expected to become increasingly global in scope.
Digital Resources: Tulane University’s Collection of Cuban American Radionovelas, 1963–1970
Authors: Hernández Christine
Published: February 2021

The Latin American Library (LAL) at Tulane University is the repository for the Louis J. Boeri and Minín Bujones Boeri Collection of Cuban American Radionovelas (hereafter, Radionovelas Collection). The physical collection contains 8,934 individual reel-to-reel tapes containing audio recordings produced by Boeri’s Miami-based America’s Production Inc. (API). Boeri founded API in 1961 to create and license radio programming to serve an expanding commercial market of Spanish-language audiences across Latin America, Europe, and the United States. Boeri employed some of the best writing, acting, musical, and technical talent in the business, most of whom were recent emigres from Cuba, the wider Caribbean, and Mexico. API’s radio soap operas went silent after the company closed in 1970 and as the listening public and commercial sponsors increasingly turned to television for serialized entertainment.

The LAL began a multiphase initiative in 2015 to digitize its aged audio tapes. With generous support from the Latin American Research Resources Project (LARRP) of the Center for Research Libraries (CRL) and the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), the LAL converted one third of the collection’s audio recordings to digital. Beginning in 2020, forty-one of API’s “soaps,” most in their entirety, are accessible via a digital collection in the Tulane University Digital Library (TUDL). Available in the digital collection are programs that span multiple genres with titles like Agente Secreto 009 [Secret Agent 009]; La Hora de Misterio [Mystery Hour]; and Amarga Espera [Bitter Awaiting]. API print materials including advertising, program catalogs, and company photographs will also appear in digital. The Radionovelas Collection offers new perspectives and insights into the use of media for Cold War political and cultural propaganda by Cuba and the United States. It also provides a public resource to engage with and research the history of popular culture, sonic literature, and mass media among Spanish-speaking audiences all over the world.
Passive Periphrases in the Romance Languages
Authors: Ledgeway Adam
Published: February 2021

Romance periphrastic passives are valency-reducing constructions, involving detransitivization of the clause which is variously manifested in: (a) the defocusing of the Agent through its suppression or demotion to an oblique adjunct; (b) the topicalization and subjectization of an affected non-Agent; and (c) the stativization of the predicate through the use of dedicated verb forms consisting of an auxiliary and nonfinite verb form (viz., participle) which mark the perfective-resultative aspect of the denoted event. Standard and nonstandard Romance varieties present a wealth of periphrastic passive constructions which exhibit a great deal of microvariation, both within individual varieties and across larger areal groupings, in the various formal dimensions of use, meaning, formation, and distribution of the periphrastic passive. These parameters of varation include, among other things, some quite remarkable degrees of diachronic, diatopic, diamesic, and diastratic variation in the distribution and frequency of individual passive periphrases; the choice of passive auxiliary which, in accordance with various syntactic, semantic, and lexical factors, can variously surface as be, become, stay, have, come, go, see, make, remain/stay, want; the distribution of the defocused Agent, especially in relation to a general preference for the so-called short passive, and variation, both diachronic and synchronic, in the formal marking of the defocused Agent both within and across individual Romance varieties; the range and availability of different arguments to undergo subjectization (Theme/Patient > Recipient/Benefactive); the availability and formal properties of the impersonal-passive which, to varying degrees, may enter into competition with a number of the available passive periphrases; the formal licensing conditions operative on participle agreement, in a number of cases linked to the choice of passive auxiliary and the semantic role of the subjectized argument; and the distribution and availability of formal distinctions in the participle to mark the active–passive opposition.
Persistent Homology for Land Cover Change Detection
Authors: Bouchaffra Djamel , Ykhlef Faycal
Published: February 2021

The need for environmental protection, monitoring, and security is increasing, and land cover change detection (LCCD) can aid in the valuation of burned areas, the study of shifting cultivation, the monitoring of pollution, the assessment of deforestation, and the analysis of desertification, urban growth, and climate change. Because of the imminent need and the availability of data repositories, numerous mathematical models have been devised for change detection. Given a sample of remotely sensed images from the same region acquired at different dates, the models investigate if a region has undergone change. Even if there is no substantial advantage to using pixel-based classification over object-based classification, a pixel-based change detection approach is often adopted. A pixel can encompass a large region, and it is imperative to determine whether this pixel (input) has changed or not. A changed image is compared to the available ground truth image for pixel-based performance evaluation. Some existing change detection systems do not take into account reversible changes due to seasonal weather effects. In other words, when snow falls in a region, the land cover is not considered as a change because it is seasonal (reversible).

Some approaches exploit time series of Landsat images, which are based on the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index technique. Others evaluate built-up expansion to assess urban morphology changes using an unsupervised approach that relies on labels clustering. Change detection methods have also been applied to the field of disaster management using object-oriented image classification. Some methodologies are based on spectral mixture analysis. Other techniques invoke a similarity measure based on the evolution of the local statistics of the image between two dates for vegetation LCCD. Probabilistic approaches based on maximum entropy have been applied to vegetation and forest areas, such as Hustai National Park in Mongolia. Researchers in this field have proposed an LCCD scheme based on a feed-forward neural network using backpropagation for training. This paper invokes the new concept of homology theory, a subfield of algebraic topology. Homology theory is incorporated within a Structural Hidden Markov Model.
Social Work in Moldova
Authors: Moldovan Vadim , Rotari Eugeniu , Tarna Vadim , Zagorodniuc Alina
Published: February 2021

The Republic of Moldova is a small post-Soviet country that has been “transitioning” from a socialist to capitalist economy since the 1990s. Once a prosperous region of the Soviet Union, it is now among the poorest countries in Europe, facing many social problems that call for a strong social work profession. However, social work is new to the country and the profession is challenged by low societal status, meager resources, and lack of cohesion. Social work in Moldova is struggling to meet these challenges with the help from the West and the emergence of an indigenous model of professionalization. Child welfare, elder care, mental health, as well as the history of social work in Moldova, current state of social work education with its obstacles to and opportunities for progress will be discussed.
Turner, John Brister
Authors: Logan Sadye L. M.
Published: February 2021

John Brister Turner (1922–2009), a distinguished professor and dean emeritus at the University of North Carolina (UNC) Chapel Hill School of Social Work, great leader, visionary, writer, scholar, and teacher. He devoted his life to community organization, social activism, and social work education. He was respected and admired for his pioneering work and leadership, and was viewed as a “bridge builder” between government leaders and service providers.
Bierdeman-Fike, Jane Elizabeth
Authors: Logan Sadye L. M.
Published: February 2021

Jane Elizabeth Bierdeman-Fike (1922–2012) was a state and national leader in developing forensic social work practice and was committed to providing best practices to an oppressed population of patients with mental illness who were residents in psychiatric institutions.
Three Novel Genetic Variants in the FAM110D, CACNA1A, and NLRP12 Genes Are Associated With Susceptibility to Hypertension Among Dai People
Authors: Zhang Lin , Sun Yun , Zhang Xiaochao , Shan Xiyun , Li Jianmei , Yao Yao , Shu Yun , Lin Keqin , Huang Xiaoqin , Yang Zhaoqing , Chu Jiayou , Huang Lifan , Sun Hao
Published: February 2021

BACKGROUND

Although the genetic factors associated with hypertension remain unknown, genetic variations in genes related to ion channels, inflammation, and the cell cycle may affect susceptibility to hypertension. In the present study, the association between hypertension and 10 candidate single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) was evaluated among Chinese Dai people, who have a smaller gene pool than Han individuals.

METHODS

A total of 1,193 samples from Dai people were collected, including 488 with hypertension and 705 with normal blood pressure. Based on the preliminary results of whole-genome sequencing among pools of individuals (Pool-seq), 10 candidate SNPs in 6 genes (FAM110D, ADD1, RAG1, CACNA1C, CACNA1A, and NLRP12) were genotyped in the case and control groups by multiplex PCR for SNP genotyping with next-generation sequencing (MultiPCR-NGS). The relationship between hypertension and each candidate SNP was evaluated using the χ 2 test and multiple logistic regression analysis.

RESULTS

The χ 2 test showed that the allele frequencies of rs3748856 in FAM110D, rs139118504 in CACNA1A, and rs34436714 in NLRP12 were significantly different between the case and control groups (P < 0.005). After adjusting for age, body mass index, total cholesterol, triglyceride, and low-density lipoprotein, logistic regression analyses revealed that the association between the 3 SNPs and hypertension among Dai people remained significant (P = 0.012, 2.71 × 10−4, and 0.017, respectively).

CONCLUSIONS

These findings indicate that there may be different molecular pathogeneses of hypertension among Dai people, which should be noted in future studies.
Acute and severe ribavirin-associated hyperuricemia and acute kidney injury: An underrecognized adverse effect
Authors: Sakran Razan , Frisch Avraham , Elias Adi , Sliman Hend , Ammuri Hanna , Kurnik Daniel
Published: February 2021

Purpose

To report a case of ribavirin-associated severe hyperuricemia in an immunocompromised patient treated for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection.

A 21-year-old male with a past medical history of B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia was in full remission after allogenic bone marrow transplantation complicated with chronic graft-versus-host disease. He was hospitalized due to fever, malaise, and respiratory symptoms. A diagnosis of RSV upper respiratory tract infection complicated by secondary pneumonia was made, and oral ribavirin (600 mg in 3 divided doses daily) and intravenous levofloxacin (750 mg once daily) were initiated. On day 2 of the hospital admission, the patient’s uric acid levels had increased from a baseline of 4 to 6 mg/dL to 19.3 and 22.2 mg/dL after the fourth and fifth doses of ribavirin, respectively, and his serum creatinine steadily had increased from a baseline of 0.7 to 0.8 mg/dL to 1.6 mg/dL. Ribavirin was discontinued after the sixth dose, and a single dose of intravenous rasburicase (7.5 mg) was administered. On day 3, the patient’s serum uric and creatinine concentrations had decreased to 4.7 mg/dL and 1.1 mg/dL, respectively. He continued to recover on antibiotics and was discharged with normal uric acid and serum creatinine levels.

Conclusion

We report a case of severe hyperuricemia and acute kidney injury that developed early after initiation of ribavirin for RSV infection and suspected bacterial pneumonia in an immunocompromised patient without hepatitis C, requiring ribavirin discontinuation and rasburicase administration. To our knowledge, this is the first reported case of severe hyperuricemia in a patient treated with ribavirin for RSV infection rather than chronic hepatitis C. Clinicians should be aware of the possibility of acute and severe hyperuricemia following ribavirin administration.
Mitigating the risk of COVID-19 exposure by transitioning from clinic-based to home-based immune globulin infusion
Authors: Perreault Sarah , Schiffer Molly , Clinchy-Jarmoszko Virginia , Bocchetta Nicole , Barbarotta Lisa , Abdelghany Osama , Foss Francine , Huntington Scott , Seropian Stuart , Isufi Iris
Published: February 2021

Purpose

Intravenous immune globulin (IVIG) therapy is used in patients with hypogammaglobulinemia to lower the risk of infections. IVIG and subcutaneous IVIG (SCIG) therapy have been to shown to be safe and effective when administered as clinic-based infusions. Concern from both patients and providers for increased transmission of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) virus to immunosuppressed patients with scheduled medical visits and procedures made it necessary for us to reassess our process of how we manage patient care in general and chronic clinic infusions in particular. Here we describe our experience of transitioning patients from clinic-based to home based IVIG and/or SCIG infusions to decrease the risk of COVID-19 exposure.

Methods

Criteria were developed to identify high-risk immunosuppressed patients who would be appropriate candidates for potential conversion to home based IVIG infusions. Data were collected via chart review, and cost analysis was performed using Medicare Part B reimbursement data. A patient outcome questionnaire was developed for administration through follow-up phone calls.

Results

From March to May 2020, 45 patients met criteria for home-based infusion, with 27 patients (60%) agreeing to home-based infusion. Posttransition patient outcomes assessment, conducted in 26 patients (96%), demonstrated good patient understanding of the home-based infusion process. No infusion-related complications were reported, and 24 patients (92%) had no concerns about receiving future IVIG and/or SCIG doses at home. No patient tested positive for COVID-19 during the study period. Clinic infusion visits decreased by 26.6 visits per month, resulting in a total of 106 hours of additional available infusion chair time per month and associated cost savings of $12,877.

Conclusion

Transition of clinic based to home based IVIG/SCIG infusion can be successfully done to decrease potential exposure during a pandemic in a high-risk immunosuppressed population, with no impact on patient satisfaction, adherence, or efficacy. The home-based infusion initiative was associated with a reduction in costs to patients and an increase in available chair time in the infusion clinic.
The Contribution of Occupation-Specific Factors to the Deaths of Despair, Massachusetts, 2005–2015
Authors: Hawkins Devan , Punnett Laura , Davis Letitia , Kriebel David
Published: February 2021

Objectives

In the USA, deaths from poisonings (especially opioids), suicides, and alcoholic liver disease, collectively referred to as ‘deaths of despair’, have been increasing rapidly over the past two decades. The risk of deaths from these causes is known to be higher among certain occupations. It may be that specific exposures and experiences of workers in these occupations explain these differences in risk. This study sought to determine whether differences in the risk of deaths of despair were associated with rate of occupational injuries and illnesses, job insecurity, and temporal changes in employment in non-standard work arrangements.

Methods

Usual occupation information was collected from death certificates of Massachusetts residents aged 16–64 with relevant causes of death between 2005 and 2015. These data were combined with occupation-level data about occupational injuries and illnesses, job insecurity, and non-standard work arrangements. We calculated occupation-specific mortality rates for deaths of despair, categorized by occupational injury and illnesses rates and job insecurity. We calculated trends in mortality according to changes in non-standard work arrangements.

Results

Workers in occupations with higher injury and illnesses rates and more job insecurity had higher rates of deaths of despair, especially opioid-related deaths. Rates of deaths of despair increased most rapidly for occupations with increasing prevalence of workers employed in non-standard work arrangements.

Conclusions

The findings suggest occupational factors that may contribute to the risk of deaths of despair. Future studies should examine these factors with individual-level data. In the meantime, efforts should be made to address these factors, which also represent known or suspected hazards for other adverse health outcomes.
Resonance as an Applied Predictor of Cross-Cultural Interaction: Constructional Priming in Mandarin and American English Interaction
Authors: Tantucci Vittorio , Wang Aiqing
Published: February 2021

In Dialogic syntax (cf. Du Bois 2014; Tantucci et al. 2018), naturalistic interaction is inherently grounded in resonance, viz. the catalytic activation of affinities across turns (Du Bois and Giora 2014). Resonance occurs dynamically when interlocutors creatively coconstruct utterances that are formally and phonetically similar to the utterance of a prior speaker. In this study, we argue that such similarity can inform the machine learning prediction of linguistic and cross-cultural diversity. We compared two sets of 1,000 exchanges involving (dis)-agreement from the two balanced Callhome corpora of naturalistic interaction in Mandarin Chinese and American English. We found a correlation of overt use of pragmatic markers with resonance, indicating that priming does not occur as an exclusively implicit mechanism (as it is commonly held in the experimental literature e.g. Bock 1986; Bock et al. 2007), but naturalistically underpins dialogic engagement and cooperation among interactants. We fitted a mixed effects linear regression and a hierarchical clustering model to show that resonance occurs formally and functionally in different ways from one language to another. The applied results of this study can lead to a novel turn in AI research of conversational interfaces (McTear et al. 2016; Klopfenstein et al. 2017), as they reveal the fundamental role played cross-linguistically by resonance as a form of engagement of human-to-human interaction and the importance to address this mechanism in machine-to-human communication.
Tandem repeat interval pattern identifies animal taxa
Authors: Bhattacharyya Balaram , Mitra Uddalak , Bhattacharyya Ramkishore
Published: February 2021

Motivation

We discover that maximality of information content among intervals of Tandem Repeats (TRs) in animal genome segregates over taxa such that taxa identification becomes swift and accurate. Successive TRs of a motif occur at intervals over the sequence, forming a trail of TRs of the motif across the genome. We present a method, Tandem Repeat Information Mining (TRIM), that mines 4k number of TR trails of all k length motifs from a whole genome sequence and extracts the information content within intervals of the trails. TRIM vector formed from the ordered set of interval entropies becomes instrumental for genome segregation.

Results

Reconstruction of correct phylogeny for animals from whole genome sequences proves precision of TRIM. Identification of animal taxa by TRIM vector upon feature selection is the most significant achievement. These suggest Tandem Repeat Interval Pattern (TRIP) is a taxa-specific constitutional characteristic in animal genome.

Availabilityand implementation

Source and executable code of TRIM along with usage manual are made available at https://github.com/BB-BiG/TRIM.

Supplementary information

Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Association Between Inflammatory Bowel Disease and Psychiatric Morbidity and Suicide: A Swedish Nationwide Population-Based Cohort Study With Sibling Comparisons
Authors: Ludvigsson Jonas F , Olén Ola , Larsson Henrik , Halfvarson Jonas , Almqvist Catarina , Lichtenstein Paul , Butwicka Agnieszka
Published: February 2021

Background and Aims

Inflammatory bowel disease [IBD] is linked to psychiatric morbidity, but few studies have assessed general population comparators. We aimed to investigate the risk of psychiatric morbidity and suicide in adult-onset IBD patients.

Methods

We used a nationwide population-based cohort study in Sweden [1973–2013]. We studied the risk of psychiatric disorders and suicide in 69,865 adult-onset IBD patients [ulcerative colitis, UC: n = 43,557; Crohn’s disease, CD: n = 21,245; and IBD-unclassified: n = 5063] compared to 3,472,913 general population references and 66 292 siblings.

Results

During a median follow-up of 11 years, we found 7465 [10.7%] first psychiatric disorders in IBD [incidence rate, IR/1000 person-years 8.4] and 306 911 [9.9%] in the general population [IR 6.6], resulting in 1.8 extra psychiatric morbidity per 100 patients followed-up for 10 years and a hazard ratio [HR] of 1.3 [95% confidence interval, 95%CI = 1.2–1.3]. The highest risk of overall psychiatric morbidity was seen in the first year after IBD diagnosis [HR = 1.4, 95%CI = 1.2–1.6] and in patients with extraintestinal manifestations [HR = 1.6, 95%CI = 1.5–1.7]. Psychiatric morbidity was more common in all IBD subtypes [HR 1.3–1.5]. An increased risk of suicide attempts was observed among all IBD types [HR = 1.2–1.4], whereas completed suicide was explicitly associated with CD [HR = 1.5] and elderly-onset [diagnosed at the age of > 60 years] IBD [HR = 1.7].

Conclusion

Adult-onset IBD was associated with an increased risk of psychiatric disorders and suicide attempts. Psychological follow-up should be provided to patients with IBD, especially those with extraintestinal manifestations and elderly-onset IBD. This follow-up should be within the first year after IBD diagnosis.
Composition and Structure of Reproduction in Group Selection Openings after 20 Years in a Southern Appalachian Mixed-Hardwood Forest
Authors: McNab W Henry , Oprean Theodore M
Published: February 2021

Following harvests by even-aged methods in mixed-hardwood forests, desirable oak (Quercus spp. L.) reproduction can be quickly overtopped by shade-intolerant pioneer species. In a long-term, operational-scale study of uneven-aged management by group selection, we inventoried 10- and 20-year-old reproduction following two harvest entries in a mature, dry-mesic southern Appalachian upland hardwood stand. Our study objectives included evaluating the species composition and structure of reproduction in relation to opening size (0.05 ha to 0.41 ha), position in openings (center or edge), uneven-aged diameter structure, and evidence supporting the delayed oak dominance hypothesis. Opening size had no effect on reproduction from either entry. After 10 years (but not 20) yellow-poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera L.) stem density and basal area were greater in opening centers; oaks were greater at edges. Position did not affect red maple (Acer rubrum L.) or other tolerant species. Diversity significantly increased between 10 and 20 years, suggesting evidence supporting the delayed oak dominance hypothesis. Early results from this study suggest that small openings can be used to regenerate desirable midtolerant and intolerant species in Appalachian mixed-hardwood stands on intermediate quality sites where uneven-aged stand structure is important for timber management and other goals such as visual appearance and early successional habitat.
Homeostatic p62 levels and inclusion body formation in CHCHD2 knockout mice
Authors: Sato Shigeto , Noda Sachiko , Torii Satoru , Amo Taku , Ikeda Aya , Funayama Manabu , Yamaguchi Junji , Fukuda Takahiro , Kondo Hiromi , Tada Norihiro , Arakawa Satoko , Watanabe Masahiko , Uchiyama Yasuo , Shimizu Shigeomi , Hattori Nobutaka
Published: February 2021

Inactivation of constitutive autophagy results in the formation of cytoplasmic inclusions in neurones, but the relationship between impaired autophagy and Lewy bodies (LBs) remains unknown. α-Synuclein and p62, components of LBs, are the defining characteristic of Parkinson’s disease (PD). Until now, we have analyzed mice models and demonstrated p62 aggregates derived from an autophagic defect might serve as ‘seeds’ and can potentially be a cause of LB formation. P62 may be the key molecule for aggregate formation. To understand the mechanisms of LBs, we analyzed p62 homeostasis and inclusion formation using PD model mice. In PARK22-linked PD, intrinsically disordered mutant CHCHD2 initiates Lewy pathology. To determine the function of CHCHD2 for inclusions formation, we generated Chchd2-knockout (KO) mice and characterized the age-related pathological and motor phenotypes. Chchd2 KO mice exhibited p62 inclusion formation and dopaminergic neuronal loss in an age-dependent manner. These changes were associated with a reduction in mitochondria complex activity and abrogation of inner mitochondria structure. In particular, the OPA1 proteins, which regulate fusion of mitochondrial inner membranes, were immature in the mitochondria of CHCHD2-deficient mice. CHCHD2 regulates mitochondrial morphology and p62 homeostasis by controlling the level of OPA1. Our findings highlight the unexpected role of the homeostatic level of p62, which is regulated by a non-autophagic system, in controlling intracellular inclusion body formation, and indicate that the pathologic processes associated with the mitochondrial proteolytic system are crucial for loss of DA neurones.
Relocation of an infected tracheostoma: anterior mediastinal tracheostomy as Mission:Impossible
Authors: Hartert Marc , Mann Wolf Jürgen , Senbaklavaci Ömer
Published: February 2021

Infected tracheostomas are frequently associated with high morbidity and mortality rates—especially in patients after neck-oncological surgery with subsequent radiochemotherapy. A 59-year-old male patient with a history of hypopharynx carcinoma, successive laryngectomy and adjuvant radiochemotherapy developed an oesophagotracheal fistula with massive inflammation and periodical bleedings, uncontrollable by regular stent alternations. In a multidisciplinary setting, the decision was made to treat the patient with an anterior mediastinal tracheostomy. Extending usual anterior mediastinal tracheostomy indications, we present an ultimate treatment option for infected tracheostomas and highly advocate this interdisciplinary venture, as it significantly improves quality of life.
Post COVID-19 large pneumatocele: clinical and pathological perspectives
Authors: Hamad Abdel-Mohsen Mahmoud , El-Saka Hala Ahmed
Published: February 2021

A middle aged COVID-19 male patient presented 2 weeks after discharge with new onset of dyspnoea and desaturation. Radiological studies revealed right side pneumothorax and lower lobe cystic air space. Chest drain was inserted and on a later date the patient underwent thoracoscopic surgery where a large pneumatocele was identified. Deroofing and closure of sources of air leak were done. Histopathological examination demonstrated extensive fibrosis, intra-alveolar Haemorrhage and pneumocytes hyperplasia.
Equidistribution Results for Self-Similar Measures
Authors: Baker Simon
Published: February 2021

A well-known theorem due to Koksma states that for Lebesgue almost every $x>1$ the sequence $(x^n)_{n=1}^{\infty }$ is uniformly distributed modulo one. In this paper, we give sufficient conditions for an analogue of this theorem to hold for a self-similar measure. Our approach applies more generally to sequences of the form $(f_{n}(x))_{n=1}^{\infty }$ where $(f_n)_{n=1}^{\infty }$ is a sequence of sufficiently smooth real-valued functions satisfying some nonlinearity conditions. As a corollary of our main result, we show that if $C$ is equal to the middle 3rd Cantor set and $t\geq 1$, then with respect to the natural measure on $C+t,$ for almost every $x$, the sequence $(x^n)_{n=1}^{\infty }$ is uniformly distributed modulo one.
Vascular Lesions, APOE ε4, and Tau Pathology in Alzheimer Disease
Authors: Nichols Jodie B , Malek-Ahmadi Michael , Tariot Pierre N , Serrano Geidy E , Sue Lucia I , Beach Thomas G
Published: February 2021

We sought to determine the associations among cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA), white matter rarefaction (WMR), circle of Willis atherosclerosis (CWA), and total microinfarct number with Braak neurofibrillary stage in postmortem individuals with and without Alzheimer disease (AD). Data from 355 cases of autopsied individuals with Braak stage I–VI who had antemortem consensus diagnoses of cognitively unimpaired (n = 183), amnestic mild cognitive impairment (n = 31), and AD dementia (n = 141) were used. The association between Braak stage and vascular lesions were individually assessed using multivariable linear regression that adjusted for age at death, APOE ε4 carrier status, sex, education, and neuritic plaque density. CAA (p = 0.007) and WMR (p < 0.001) were associated with Braak stage, independent of amyloid load; microinfarct number and CWA showed no association. Analyses of the interactions between APOE ε4 carrier status and vascular lesions found that greater WMR and positive ε4 carrier status were associated with higher Braak stages. These results suggest that CAA and WMR are statistically linked to the severity of AD-related NFT pathology. The statistical link between WMR and NFT load may be strengthened by the presence of APOE ε4 carrier status. An additional finding was that Lewy body pathology was most prevalent in higher Braak stages.