bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Investigating the Impact of Website Quality on User Satisfaction in IDN Times News Website
Authors: Pratiwi S. , Irawan M. Isa
Published: March 2021

idntimes.com is an online media that focuses on providing the latest information on news articles and article writing activities in the IDN Times community. The problem from idntimes.com has had a significant difference the number of community website users at each level (member, community writer and verified writer). Furthermore, there are problems about the quality of the website, is that the bounce rate on the website is still relatively high, around 60 %, there are still more than 32 links are broken with a status of 404 code and the page load time is still quite long. So this research was conducted to determine the level of user satisfaction through the Webqual 4.0 method. As Huang said, if a company wants to build loyalty from its customers, it must pay attention to one aspect is the service quality of the website. This study used a sample of 350 respondents. The data obtained were analyzed using PLS analysis. The results of the research based on the hypothesis show that the t-value is smaller than the t-table value, so the variables used, namely usability, information quality, and service interaction quality were highly significant factors that directly affected user satisfaction according to the testing model. The amount of influence obtained based on the R-Square value is 88.2%
Identification of Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) for Prospective Chemistry Teachers: Efforts to Build Teachers’ Professional Knowledge
Authors: Sri Y , Mardhiyah A A , Mohammad M , Endang S
Published: March 2021

Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) is the basic knowledge that teachers must have to transform subject matter for students. PCK is very influential in research for teacher education, especially in science. Identification of PCK abilities needed as an effort to build teacher professional knowledge through the PCK construct. This study aims to identify the PCK ability of prospective chemistry teachers in each component. This study was descriptive with qualitative and quantitative approaches (mix-method). The instruments used in this study were the lesson plan’s review sheet based on the Magnusson’s framework and the interview sheets validated by two science education experts. The sampling technique was purposive sampling. The subjects of this study were 61 Chemistry Education students in the fourth semester. The identification results show that the PCK ability of prospective chemistry teachers in the components of the knowledge of curriculum, knowledge of students’ understanding of science, and knowledge of assessment is still in the “fair” category with the percentage of mastery of the components respectively 70.96%; 62.70%; 74.67%. Based on the research results, it is necessary to have a professional development program to enhance the PCK ability of prospective chemistry teachers.
Pre-Service Teachers’ Perspectives: STEM as a Solution to Promote Education for Sustainable Development
Authors: Fakhrudin I A , Wicaksana E J , Nastiti A R , Saljadziba E , Indriyanti N Y
Published: March 2021

Education plays an important role to build a sustainable development framework. To support the sustainable development framework, many researchers have constructed various methods, learning approaches, and learning models. STEM is one of the most popular learning approaches in the 21st century, although it has some issues such as the curriculum and structure, skills development, career exposure, evaluation, and the interrelationship between humans and nature. This research was aimed to measure pre-service teachers’ perspectives on the relationship between the implementation of STEM in education to support Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Nine pre-service teachers from biology education and science education have been interviewed to comprehend the role of STEM in ESD. The result showed that there were different ideas from participants about STEM, ESD, and the advantage of STEM implementation to promote ESD. Further research should be conducted to develop and socialize STEM, specifically based on students’ characteristic, behavior, and culture in each country.
Real-time Home Bell Notification Using Node-MCU Through E-mail (Base on the Internet of Things)
Authors: Setiawan A , Suprapto Y , Fachrurrozi M I , Manab K R N , Sasmita N R , Diyasa G S M
Published: March 2021

In the conventional use of the house bell, the first impression that arises is that it can only give a message ringing people who are in the house so that the person knows that guests are coming to the house, what will be the problem is what if there is no one in the house or the owner. Home away from home for a long time, so that any guests who come will not be detected. For this reason, a system is needed to make it easier for homeowners to provide message information that there are visitors to the house at some time which can be recorded on the device (notification bell) based on Internet of Things (IoT) and send the information via e-mail. This research was designed using internet-based Node-MCU as the hardware. It used a flowchart which contains procedures for how the doorbell notification device works and realtime time measurement using phpmailer as the software. The results of this study, in the form of a doorbell notification tool that can provide realtime messages to homeowners when there are known or unknown visitors.
Development of Concise Convolutional Neural Network for Tomato Plant Disease Classification Based on Leaf Images
Authors: Sembiring Arnes , Away Yuwaldi , Arnia Fitri , Muharar Rusdha
Published: March 2021

Early detection of plant diseases is one of the main keys to handling diseases quickly and successfully. The purpose of this study is to find out a simpler CNN architecture and meet an acceptable compromise between accuracy and simplification to detect diseases in tomato plants based on leaf images. This simpler architecture will allow the development of standalone and independent system model in the field to classify and identify the tomato plants diseases in low price and limited resources. This proposed architecture was developed from the CNN architecture baseline and is intended to classify 10 classes of tomato leaves consist of one healthy class and 9 classes of leaves diseases taken from the Plant Village dataset. In this study, the performance of the proposed architecture and comparative architectures are examined in the same dataset. Comparative architectures used are some existing CNN architectures that are commonly used namely VGG Net, Shuffle Net and Squeeze Net. The results indicated that the proposed architecture can achieve competitive accuracy compared with the existing architecture while the proposed architecture is much shorter than the existing architecture and better in terms of performance time.
Evaluation of Supplier Performance in Plastic Manufacturing Industry: A Case Study
Authors: Utama D M , Baroto T , Ibrahim M F , Widodo D S
Published: March 2021

The supplier is an essential element in the production process because it supplies raw materials. In the supply chain, supplier performance evaluation is an essential factor. This evaluation is used to assess supplier performance in improving company performance. This study aims to evaluate supplier performance using the integration of the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Standardized Unitless Rating (SUR) methods. AHP is proposed for the determination of criteria weights, and SUR is used to evaluate supplier performance. Criteria weights on AHP are used in the SUR method to evaluate supplier performance. A case study was carried out in the plastic manufacturing industry in Indonesia. The criteria used include Quality (Q), Cost (C), Delivery (D), Flexibility (F), Responsiveness (R), Warranty and claim policies (W), and Environmental management system (E). The results showed that cost is the most critical criterion in evaluating supplier performance. The results also showed that AHP and SUR were effectively used to evaluate supplier performance.
Minimizing Number of Tardy Jobs in Flow Shop Scheduling Using A Hybrid Whale Optimization Algorithm
Authors: Utama D M
Published: March 2021

The number of Tardy Jobs is a critical performance in scheduling because it can increase customer trust in the company. If the number of tardy jobs is large, trust in the company decreases. This article aims to minimize the number of tardy jobs in Permutation Flow Shop Scheduling Problems (PFSSP) using Hybrid Whale Optimization Algorithm (HWOA). We propose the HWOA method for minimizing the number of tardy jobs in PFSSP. There are 5 phases of the proposed HWOA algorithm. Phase 1 is replacing 1 of the initial search agent population replaced by the NEH-EDD heuristic procedure. The Random Search Agent position’s initialization and the Large Rank Value (LRV) is the second phase. Phase 3 is the whale exploration phase. Phase 4 is the whale exploitation phase. The last phase (5) is the local search exchange procedure. Numerical experiments were conducted to test the performance of HWOA, and it was compared with the previous research algorithm. Algorithm experiment results show that the HWOA algorithm has better performance than Particle Swarm Optimization and Genetic Algorithms.
Decision Support System for Staff Assignment Using VIKOR Algorithm
Authors: Darmanto Eko , Siregar M. Tirtana , Hayadi B. Herawan , Renwarin Joseph M J , Asfar Dedy Ari , Sulissusiawan Ahadi , Anam Saeful , Fatmawati Irma
Published: March 2021

Call center staff is a staff who work in providing repair or servicing services by telephone. This staff is in charge of explaining the solutions to be carried out by the company in obtaining answers. Call center staff must have a good temperament and smart. In getting good staff, companies can use a decision support system with the VIKOR method to select and select these staff. Five criteria will be tested in determining the staff. The results of the VIKOR method can help companies find call center staff that match company expectations. The ranking results can determine the level of results of the VIKOR method test on call center staff who are used as candidates or alternatives. By implementing this method, the search for call center staff will be better.
Forecasting Using Back Propagation with 2-Layers Hidden
Authors: Syaharuddin  , Pramita Dewi , Nusantara Toto , Subanji
Published: March 2021

A critical indicator of government policy in economics is based on high inflation because it implicates the welfare of the society in a region. Therefore, it is necessary to have a computing system to see the inflation trend or pattern by looking at monthly data each year. This research aims to predict the rate of inflation using the ANN Back Propagation method based on GUI MATLAB with two hidden layers. Input data is the inflation data of NTB province by using monthly data for the last 11 years, the activation function is LOGSIG, and the training function is TRAINRP. The results of training and testing were obtained an average prediction of 0.213 with MSE of 0.0053. These results proved that inflation rate of 0.5% decreased, therefore catagorized on medium inflation, with the highest inflation in April and the lowest one in July. The results showed that the Back Propagation method can be used as an alternative in predicting the rate of inflation in order to support sustainable economic growth so as to improve people’s welfare in the future.
Design of Smart Device for Induction Motor Condition Monitoring
Authors: Artono B , Susanto A , Hidayatullah N A
Published: March 2021

In industrial field, induction motors are used as a driving tools that requires a relatively constant speed. Power consumption in an induction motor with constant speed can cause a waste of electrical energy. A good performance of an induction motor will determine the quality of production in the industry. Every induction motor must be monitored regularly. This study aims to design a device for detecting the vibrations that occur in an induction motor. Besides, it would be an indicator of the maximum load limit on an induction motor which can later be used as protection on an induction motor. The result showed that the design could be used for providing a diagnosis of the vibration conditions that occur in an induction motor. On the other hand, the design was useful for monitoring and controlling through a simple control circuit designed based on the Internet of Things.
Power System Design Analysis for 150 WP Power Capacity
Authors: Kusuma Y I , Pribadi W , Salim A T A , Basuki I , Sa Wardana D W
Published: March 2021

The main energy source is still predominantly using energy sources derived from oil, coal and natural gas. As it is known that this type of energy source is limited in number because it is a non-renewable energy source. The main result of this limited quantity is the increase in the price of petroleum in the market. The price of fuel in Indonesia, which continues to rise in line with world oil prices, is one of the causes of electricity tariffs in Indonesia to become increasingly expensive. Several studies have been conducted to overcome these problems, one of which is finding alternative energy sources as a substitute for non-renewable energy sources. One of the efforts made is by utilizing solar energy using solar cells. These solar cells can convert sunlight directly into electrical energy using the principle of “Photovoltaic Effect” without causing air pollution or water pollution. It cannot be denied that solar energy is one of the environmentally friendly energy sources and is very promising in the future, because no pollution is generated during the energy conversion process, and this energy source is widely available in nature. This paper is going to calculate the characteristics solar power plants using solar panels 150WP and calculate the maximum power generated by a solar power plant resulting from. So that it can be analyzed the performance of the system design the solar power plant for a power capacity of 150WP.
Flow Pattern Investigation and Thermohydraulic Performance Enhancement in Three-Dimensional Circular Pipe under Varying Corrugation Configurations
Authors: Alhamid Jassim , Al-Obaidi Ramadhan Ahmed
Published: March 2021

Varying methods were tested on the improvement of heat transfer in order to upgrade the concerning equipment, mostly in thermal performance devices. These methods revealed important impacts when employed in heat exchanger pipes. One of the significant methods utilized was the passive performance technique. Corrugations characterize the passive method. Moreover, it offers efficient enhancement of heat transfer due to its joint turbulators and extended surface features. So, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method is applied for water flowing with a range of Reynolds number (Re) from 1500 to 23000 in different corrugated pipes configurations. This research target to investigate the flow pattern, pressure drop, and thermal performance for smooth and corrugated pipes. The criteria of thermal performance evaluation are analysed for corrugated pipes, and the computational outcomes of pressure drop, heat transfer coefficient (h), friction factor Nusselt number (Nu), ratios of (f/fo) and (Nu/Nuo) are investigated with those of smooth plain. Outcomes revealed the best range of thermal performance is between 1.3 to 1.1 for the pipe, which has the corrugated ring diameter 0.5 mm for Re of 1500.
Performance Evaluation of Digital Transmission with Matlab on Eye Pattern Parameter
Authors: Hidayat Rahmad , Adinda Nurcaweda Riztria , Suhendi Hendi , Afiyah Salamatul , Sudarmanto  , Jamroni
Published: March 2021

The effect of digital transmission impairments is seen from a diagram called an eye pattern. Measurements of the device can be represented in a simulation. Our motivation in conducting this simulation aims to dig deeper into the variation of parameter changes that exist in improving the eye pattern opening angle. The raised cosine pulse with roll-off (a) of 0.3 was used as the basis for this study, using the Matlab simulation. Important parameter values have been explored to show the best data. Finally, we suggest that we continue to explore optimization techniques for the best results for this eye pattern visualization.
Combination of Ozone-Zeolite Filter to Reduce COD and Ammonia content in household waste
Authors: Kurniawan S , Novarini  , Yuliwati E , Ariyanto E
Published: March 2021

Domestic waste standard parameters according to PermenLH No. 68 Years. 2016 determined one of them based on the pH, COD and Ammonia values. Most household wastewater has these values, so a purification process is required before the wastewater returns to groundwater. One of the treatments carried out is in the form of ozone technology which can decompose organic and inorganic pollutants and kill microorganisms in the waste. The purpose of this study was to determine the quality of household wastewater resulting from ozone bubble treatment combined with zeolite filters. To support the research, we used the pH, COD and Ammonia measurement methods from the treated samples. The method used is in the form of ozone treatment and zeolite filters in wastewater with a variable length of treatment time. From the research results, it can be seen that the combination of ozone and zeolite filter has an effect on decreasing the concentration of COD and ammonia in wastewater.
Design and Analysis of Session Initial Protocol Communication System Using Kamailio Server Based on Open Source at the Airport
Authors: Suprapto Yuyun , Prabowo Achmad Setiyo , Rifai Mochammad , Setiawan Ariyono , Harianto B.B.
Published: March 2021

The need for telecommunication in this era is very important and increasing. Including communication that uses digital data such as VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol). One of the SIP servers (Session Initials Protocol) that worked well is the Kamailio server. It’s operating on an open-source and operating on the Linux system. The SIP communication system at the airport designed on this research uses Kamailio as SIP server. The goal is to make communication easier at the airport by using existing network facilities such as wi-fi. The quality of service parameters (QoS) of this study is a delay, throughput, and packet loss on the transmission of text messages, voices, and videos. Results obtained indicate the good value of that communication standard. 114 with 86.62 ms delay parameters for text, 110.10 ms for votes, and 127.52 ms for the video. The throughput shows the average varies with 330 kbps, 45.71 kbps, and 72.3 kbps according to the type of communication. The zero-percent value of packet loss shows all communication on this system is sent to the user in real-time. In this study, it can be concluded that the Kamailio server can be used as a SIP-based communication system at the airport. Testing shows good results on QoS text messages, voice calls, and video calls.
Loeb extension and Loeb equivalence
Authors: Anderson Robert , Duanmu Haosui , Schrittesser David , Weiss William
Published: March 2021

In [J. London Math. Soc. 69 (2004), pp. 258–272] Keisler and Sun leave open several questions regarding Loeb equivalence between internal probability spaces; specifically, whether under certain conditions, the Loeb measure construction applied to two such spaces gives rise to the same measure. We present answers to two of these questions, by giving two examples of probability spaces. Moreover, we reduce their third question to the following: Is the internal algebra generated by the union of two Loeb equivalent internal algebras a subset of their common Loeb extension? We also present a sufficient condition for a positive answer to this question.
Refugees And Patronage: A Political History Of Uganda’s ‘Progressive’ Refugee Policies
Authors: Betts Alexander
Published: March 2021

Uganda’s self-reliance policy for refugees has been recognized as among the most progressive refugee policies in the world. In contrast to many refugee-hosting countries, it allows refugees the right to work and freedom of movement. It has been widely praised as a model for other countries to emulate. However, there has been little research on the politics that underlie Uganda’s approach. Why has Uganda maintained these policies despite hosting more refugees than any country in Africa? Based on archival research and elite interviews, this article provides a political history of Uganda’s self-reliance policies from independence to the present. It unveils significant continuity in both the policies and the underlying politics. Refugee policy has been used by Ugandan leaders to strengthen patronage and assert political authority within strategically important refugee-hosting hinterlands. International donors have abetted domestic illiberalism in order to sustain a liberal internationalist success story. The politics of patronage and refugee policy have worked hand-in-hand. Patronage has, in the Ugandan case, been integral to the functioning of the international refugee system. Rather than being an inevitably ‘African’ phenomenon or the unavoidable legacy of colonialism, patronage politics has been enabled by, and essential to, liberal internationalism.
Invited Commentary: Reckoning With Our Biases in Epidemiology
Authors: Galea Sandro
Published: March 2021

Biases and in-group preferences limit opportunities for persons of all identities to flourish in science. Decisions made by those in charge of leading professional meetings about which presentations to feature prominently and by academic journal staff about which articles to publish reinforce these biases. The paper by Nobles et al. (Am J Epidemiol. 2021;190(9):1710–1720) showed that women are less likely to be selected to be symposium presenters in the field’s pre-eminent scientific meeting than men. The scientific and moral arguments for promoting diversity of engagement by persons of all identities in the field are abundantly clear, calling for efforts to mitigate the effect of these in-group biases. I offer 3 suggestions for how we can achieve better diversity in our field: 1) increase our discussions of the importance of diversity and raise consciousness about the issue consistently; 2) ensure that only blinded, peer-reviewed presentations are advanced at professional meeting; and 3) publish only blinded, peer-reviewed papers in leading journals in the field. These steps—together with broader system-wide efforts to maximize diversity among trainees and faculty—can pave the way for any field to become welcoming to all, irrespective of any axes of identity.
HiG2Vec: hierarchical representations of Gene Ontology and genes in the Poincaré ball
Authors: Kim Jaesik , Kim Dokyoon , Sohn Kyung-Ah
Published: March 2021

Motivation

Knowledge manipulation of Gene Ontology (GO) and Gene Ontology Annotation (GOA) can be done primarily by using vector representation of GO terms and genes. Previous studies have represented GO terms and genes or gene products in Euclidean space to measure their semantic similarity using an embedding method such as the Word2Vec-based method to represent entities as numeric vectors. However, this method has the limitation that embedding large graph-structured data in the Euclidean space cannot prevent a loss of information of latent hierarchies, thus precluding the semantics of GO and GOA from being captured optimally. On the other hand, hyperbolic spaces such as the Poincaré balls are more suitable for modeling hierarchies, as they have a geometric property in which the distance increases exponentially as it nears the boundary because of negative curvature.

Results

In this article, we propose hierarchical representations of GO and genes (HiG2Vec) by applying Poincaré embedding specialized in the representation of hierarchy through a two-step procedure: GO embedding and gene embedding. Through experiments, we show that our model represents the hierarchical structure better than other approaches and predicts the interaction of genes or gene products similar to or better than previous studies. The results indicate that HiG2Vec is superior to other methods in capturing the GO and gene semantics and in data utilization as well. It can be robustly applied to manipulate various biological knowledge.

Availabilityand implementation

https://github.com/JaesikKim/HiG2Vec.

Supplementary information

Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
PecanPy: a fast, efficient and parallelized Python implementation of node2vec
Authors: Liu Renming , Krishnan Arjun
Published: March 2021

Learning low-dimensional representations (embeddings) of nodes in large graphs is key to applying machine learning on massive biological networks. Node2vec is the most widely used method for node embedding. However, its original Python and C++ implementations scale poorly with network density, failing for dense biological networks with hundreds of millions of edges. We have developed PecanPy, a new Python implementation of node2vec that uses cache-optimized compact graph data structures and precomputing/parallelization to result in fast, high-quality node embeddings for biological networks of all sizes and densities.

Availabilityand implementation

PecanPy software is freely available at https://github.com/krishnanlab/PecanPy.

Supplementary information

Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Obstructed defaecation syndrome: European consensus guidelines on the surgical management
Authors: Picciariello A , O'Connell P R , Hahnloser D , Gallo G , Munoz-Duyos A , Schwandner O , Sileri P , Milito G , Riss S , Boccasanta P A , Naldini G , Arroyo A , de laPortilla F , Tsarkov P , Roche B , Isbert C , Trompetto M , d’Hoore A , Matzel K , Xynos E , Lundby L , Ratto C , Consten E , Infantino A , Panis Y , Terrosu G , Espin E , Faucheron J -L , Guttadauro A , Adamina M , Lehur P A , Altomare D F
Published: March 2021

Lay Summary

Clinical decision-making in the treatment of patients with obstructed defaecation remains controversial and no international guidelines have been provided so far. This study reports a consensus among European opinion leaders on the management of obstructed defaecation in different possible clinical scenarios.
#socialwork: An International Study Examining Social Workers’ Use of Information and Communication Technology
Authors: Mishna Faye , Sanders Jane E , Daciuk Joanne , Milne Elizabeth , Fantus Sophia , Bogo Marion , Fang Lin , Greenblatt Andrea , Rosen Penny , Khoury-Kassabri Mona , Lefevre Michelle
Published: March 2021

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) permeated social work practice before coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). In addition to ICT-based formal services (e.g. e-counselling), social workers used ICTs informally as an adjunct to face-to-face practice. Building on our previous research, our cross-sectional online survey examined social workers’ informal use of ICTs in four countries: Canada, the USA, Israel and the UK. The survey was administered through Qualtrics software among social workers across Canada (n = 2,609), the USA (n = 1,225), Israel (n = 386) and the UK (n = 134), and analysed using IBM SPSS Statistics version 26. The findings substantiate the ubiquitous use of informal ICTs in social work practice, as an adjunct to face-to-face treatment, across the four countries. Given the current, unprecedented context of COVID-19, we discuss the meaning of our findings related to access, ethical considerations (e.g. professional boundaries) and supervision in the context of restricted face-to-face practice. We discuss the implications for social work practice, education and research, and conclude that in the COVID-19 context, there is an even greater need for research, clinical discussion, supervision and policy on informal ICT use in social work practice.
An Indomalesian origin in the Miocene for the diphyletic New World jewel orchids (Goodyerinae, Orchidoideae): molecular dating and biogeographic analyses document non-monophyly of the Neotropical genera
Authors: Smidt Eric C , Salazar Gerardo A , Mauad Anna Victoria Silvério Righetto , Engels Mathias Erich , Viruel Juan , Clements Mark , Pérez Iván Jiménez , Chase Mark W
Published: March 2021

The jewel orchids (Goodyerinae), named after their often colourful leaves, have a pantropical distribution with a clear Asian centre of diversity. However, the Nearctic and Neotropical America together form a second centre of diversity, with one-third of known species of Goodyerinae. Previously, only a few American samples have been included in phylogenetic studies, and their putatively Asian origins and American divergence times were poorly known. To elucidate these topics, we inferred phylogenetic trees, performed molecular dating and reconstructed biogeographic history using nuclear ribosomal ITS and plastid matK sequences for 34 species of Goodyerinae from the New World and 76 previously published accessions of Cranichideae. Our well-supported phylogenetic topology suggests two independent dispersal events to the New World from the Indomalesian region during the Miocene. The first inferred dispersal of a Neotropical clade diverged c. 11 Mya from their most recent common ancestor (MRCA), comprising three highly supported subclades that do not match the limits of Aspidogyne, Kreodanthus and Microchilus as previously circumscribed. The second dispersal involved a largely Nearctic clade of Goodyera s.l. diverging c. 8.4 Mya from the MRCA and exhibiting a complex biogeographic history with subsequent dispersals between the Nearctic and Indomalesia. The occurrence of these species in gallery forests putatively prevented vicariance events imposed by the expansion of the Chacoan region as previously detected for epiphytic Orchidaceae. Eighty-nine nomenclatural combinations and three new names in Microchilus are proposed.
microRNA-320b suppresses HNF4G and IGF2BP2 expression to inhibit angiogenesis and tumor growth of lung cancer
Authors: Ma Yu-Shui , Shi Bo-Wen , Guo Jun-Hong , Liu Ji-Bin , Yang Xiao-Li , Xin Rui , Shi Yi , Zhang Dan-Dan , Lu Gai-Xia , Jia Cheng-You , Wang Hui-Min , Wang Pei-Yao , Yang Hui-Qiong , Zhang Jia-Jia , Wu Wei , Cao Ping-Sheng , Yin Yu-Zhen , Gu Li-Peng , Tian Lin-Lin , Lv Zhong-Wei , Wu Chun-Yan , Wang Gao-Ren , Yu Fei , Hou Li-Kun , Jiang Geng-Xi , Fu Da
Published: March 2021

We examined the effect of microRNA-320b (miR-320b) on tumor growth and angiogenesis in lung cancer and also determined its downstream molecular mechanisms. Lung cancer tissues and adjacent non-cancerous tissues were collected from 66 patients with lung cancer. miR-320b expression was experimentally determined to be expressed at low level in cancer tissues. The results of gain-of-function experiments suggested that miR-320b overexpression suppressed cancer cell invasion, tube formation, tumor volume and angiogenesis in xenografted nude mice. Hepatocyte nuclear factor 4 gamma (HNF4G) was identified as a target of miR-320b based on in silico analysis. Dual-luciferase reporter gene assays further identified the binding relationship between HNF4G and miR-320b. Lung cancer tissues exhibited increased expression of HNF4G and insulin-like growth factor 2 mRNA-binding protein 2 (IGF2BP2). Meanwhile, HNF4G knockdown suppressed IGF2BP2 expression, thereby repressing cancer cell invasion and tube formation. Furthermore, IGF2BP2 modified m6A to increase the expression of thymidine kinase 1 (TK1), thus promoting angiogenesis. In nude mice, restoration of TK1 reversed the suppressive effect of miR-320b overexpression on tumor growth rate and CD31 expression. In conclusion, miR-320b suppresses lung cancer growth and angiogenesis by inhibiting HNF4G, IGF2BP2 and TK1.
Drug repurposing in autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease: back to the future with pioglitazone
Authors: Mao Zhiguo , Valluru Manoj K , Ong Albert C M
Published: March 2021

Autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD) is the most common inherited cause of end-stage kidney failure. At present, only one drug, tolvaptan, has been approved for use to slow disease progression, but its use is limited by reduced tolerability and idiosyncratic liver toxicity. Thiazolidinediones were first developed as insulin-sensitizers but also regulate gene transcription in multiple tissues, leading to systemic effects on metabolism, inflammation and vascular reactivity. In this issue, Blazer-Yost et al. report the results of a single-centre Phase 1b double-blind placebo-controlled crossover study of the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPAR-γ) agonist pioglitazone in 18 ADPKD patients. Encouragingly, there were no major safety signals, although evidence of efficacy could not be demonstrated due to the small sample size. We review the preclinical evidence for the use of PPAR-γ agonists in ADPKD and speculate on the likely beneficial and adverse clinical effects of this interesting class of compounds in a future trial.
Visual Sequence Repetition Learning is Not Impaired in Signing DHH Children
Authors: Terhune-Cotter Brennan P , Conway Christopher M , Dye Matthew W G
Published: March 2021

The auditory scaffolding hypothesis states that early experience with sound underpins the development of domain-general sequence processing abilities, supported by studies observing impaired sequence processing in deaf or hard-of-hearing (DHH) children. To test this hypothesis, we administered a sequence processing task to 77 DHH children who use American Sign Language (ASL) and 23 hearing monolingual children aged 7–12 years and found no performance difference between them after controlling for age and nonverbal intelligence. Additionally, neither spoken language comprehension scores nor hearing loss levels predicted sequence processing scores in the DHH group, whereas ASL comprehension scores did. Our results do not indicate sequence processing deficits in DHH children and do not support the auditory scaffolding hypothesis; instead, these findings suggest that factors related to experience with and/or proficiency in an accessible language during development may be more important determinants of sequence processing abilities.
‘From the Wells of Disappointment’: The Curious Case of the International Law of Democracy and the Politics of International Legal Scholarship
Authors: Rasulov Akbar
Published: March 2021

It is a common impression shared by many international lawyers today that the brief ‘turn to democracy’ that occurred in some segments of international legal scholarship in the early to mid-1990s was, on the whole, little more than a detour of overly excitable imagination – not exactly a complete error of judgement or an outright frivolity, but certainly a lapse of conceptual clarity and professional rigour. Whatever changes may have occurred within the broader international legal system, the argument goes, they certainly did not amount to a ‘democratic revolution’, and any claims to the contrary were and are simply baseless. The kind of fundamental reorganization of the international legal system that was forecasted by scholars like Thomas Franck and Anne-Marie Slaughter never took place, and the main lesson one should learn from this whole episode is that international legal scholars should not give in to their utopian reflexes as quickly and as readily as the ‘pro-democracy enthusiasts’ did, but should rather exercise analytical restraint and professional judgement and attend much more carefully to matters of legal logic and technical legal reasoning. This, in a nutshell, is the received wisdom about the history behind international law’s ‘turn to democracy’, and the aim of this article is essentially to challenge it – in part by uncovering the latent theoretical fudging behind it, in part by exploring the general narrative structure that supports this received wisdom and the latter’s relationship to the broader ideology of international legal anti-utopianism.
eHealth for service delivery in conflict: a narrative review of the application of eHealth technologies in contemporary conflict settings
Authors: Bowsher Gemma , El Achi Nassim , Augustin Katrin , Meagher Kristen , Ekzayez Abdulkarim , Roberts Bayard , Patel Preeti
Published: March 2021

The role of eHealth in conflict settings is increasingly important to address geographic, epidemiologic and clinical disparities. This study categorizes various forms of eHealth usage in conflict and aims to identify gaps in evidence to make recommendations for further research and practice. The analysis was carried out via a narrative hermeneutic review methodology. Articles that fulfilled the following screening criteria were reviewed: (1) describing an eHealth intervention in active conflict or ongoing insurgency, (2) an eHealth intervention targeting a conflict-affected population, (3) an e-learning platform for delivery in conflict settings and (4) non-interventional descriptive reviews relating to eHealth in conflict. Of the 489 papers eligible for screening, 46 merited final inclusion. Conflict settings described include Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Chechnya, Gaza and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Thirty-six studies described specific eHealth initiatives, while the remainder were more generic review papers exploring general principles. Analysis resulted in the elucidation of three final categories of current eHealth activity in conflict-affected settings: (1) eHealth for clinical management, (2) e-learning for healthcare in conflict and (3) eHealth for information management in conflict. Obvious disparities in the distribution of technological dividends from eHealth in conflict are demonstrated by this review. Conflict-affected populations are predominantly subject to ad hoc and voluntary initiatives delivered by diaspora and civil society organizations. While the deployment of eHealth technologies in conflict settings is increasingly normalized, there is a need for further clarification of global norms relating to practice in this context.
Framing China's rise in the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom
Authors: McCourt David M
Published: March 2021

Optimism about China's rise has in recent years given way to deep concern in the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. Drawing on an original set of interviews with China experts from each country, and an array of primary and secondary sources, I show that shifting framings of China's rise reflect the dynamics of the US, Australian and UK national security fields. The article highlights three features specifically: first, the US field features a belief that China's rise can be arrested or prevented, absent in Australia and the UK. I root this dynamic in the system of professional appointments and the intense US ‘marketplace of ideas’, which gives rise to intense framing contestation and occasional sharp frame change. I then identify the key positions produced by each field, from which key actors have shaped the differing interpretations of China and its meaning. The election of Donald Trump, a strong China-critic, to the US presidency empowered key individuals across government who shifted the predominant framing of China from potential challenger to current threat. The smaller and more centralized fields in Australia and Britain feature fewer and less intense China-sceptical voices; responses have thereby remained largely pragmatic, despite worsening diplomatic relations in each case.
Identifying partners at sea from joint movement metrics of pelagic pair trawlers
Authors: Joo Rocío , Bez Nicolas , Etienne Marie-Pierre , Marin Pablo , Goascoz Nicolas , Roux Jérôme , Mahévas Stéphanie
Published: March 2021

Here, we present an approach to identify partners at sea based on fishing track analysis, and describe this behaviour in several fleets: pelagic pair trawlers, large and small bottom otter trawlers, mid-water otter trawlers, all in the North-East Atlantic Ocean, anchovy purse-seiners in the South-East Pacific Ocean, and tuna purse-seiners in the western Indian Ocean. This type of behaviour is known to exist within pair trawlers, since these vessels are in pairs at least during their fishing operations. To identify partners at sea, we used a heuristic approach based on joint-movement metrics computed from vessel monitoring system data and Gaussian mixture models. The models were fitted to joint-movement metrics of the pelagic pair trawlers, and subsequently used to identify partners at sea in other fleets. We found partners at sea in all of the fleets except for the tuna purse-seiners. We then analysed the connections between vessels and identified exclusive partners. Exclusiveness was more common in pelagic pair trawlers and small bottom otter trawlers, with 82% and 74% of the vessels involved in partnerships having exclusive partners. This work shows that there are collective tactics at least at a pairwise level in diverse fisheries in the world.
Does gender bias affect outcomes in mitral valve surgery for degenerative mitral regurgitation?
Authors: Kandula Viswajit , Kislitsina Olga N , Rigolin Vera H , Thomas James D , Malaisrie S Chris , Andrei Adin-Cristian , Ramesh Ashvita , Kruse Jane , Cox James L , McCarthy Patrick M
Published: March 2021

OBJECTIVES

This study was conducted to determine if gender bias explains the worse outcomes in women than in men who undergo mitral valve surgery for degenerative mitral regurgitation.

METHODS

Patients who underwent mitral valve surgery for degenerative mitral regurgitation with or without concomitant ablation surgery for atrial fibrillation were identified from the Cardiovascular Research Database of the Clinical Trial Unit of the Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and were defined according to the Society of Thoracic Surgery National Adult Cardiac Surgery Database. Of the 1004 patients (33% female, mean age 62.1 ± 12.4 years; 67% male, mean age 60.1 ± 12.4 years) who met this criteria, propensity score matching was utilized to compare sex-related differences.

RESULTS

Propensity score matching of 540 patients (270 females, mean age 61.0 ± 12.2; 270 males, mean age 60.9 ± 12.3) demonstrated that 98% of mitral valve surgery performed in both groups was mitral valve repair and 2% was mitral valve replacement. Preoperative CHA2DS2-VASc scores were higher in women and fewer women were discharged directly to their homes. Before surgery, women had smaller left heart chambers, lower cardiac outputs, higher diastolic filling pressures and higher volume responsiveness than men. However, preoperative left ventricular and right ventricular strain values, which are normally higher in women, were similar in the 2 groups, indicating worse global strain in women prior to surgery.

CONCLUSIONS

The worse outcomes reported in women compared to men undergoing surgery for degenerative mitral regurgitation are misleading and not based on gender bias except in terms of referral patterns. Men and women who present with the same type and degree of mitral valve disease and similar comorbidities receive the same types of surgical procedures and experience similar postoperative outcomes. Speckle-tracking echocardiography to assess global longitudinal strain of the left and right ventricles should be utilized to monitor for myocardial dysfunction related to chronic mitral regurgitation.
The Deficit in the Gaussian Log-Sobolev Inequality and Inverse Santaló Inequalities
Authors: Gozlan Nathael
Published: March 2021

We establish dual equivalent forms involving relative entropy, Fisher information, and optimal transport costs of inverse Santaló inequalities. We show in particular that the Mahler conjecture is equivalent to some dimensional lower bound on the deficit in the Gaussian logarithmic Sobolev inequality. We also derive from existing results on inverse Santaló inequalities some sharp lower bounds on the deficit in the Gaussian logarithmic Sobolev inequality. Our proofs rely on duality relations between convex functionals (introduced in [ 16] and [ 62]) related to the notion of moment measure.
Dry Reagent Tests in the 1880s—Dr Pavy’s Pellets and Dr Oliver’s Papers
Authors: Kricka Larry J , Park Jason Y
Published: March 2021

Background

In the 1880s, concern over the inconvenience of hazardous chemical solutions used for bedside urinalysis sparked an interest in the development of dry reagents for a range of common urine tests.

Content

This article examines the history of Dr Pavy’s Pellets and Dr Oliver’s Papers, 2 different dry reagent systems developed in the 1880s for bedside urine testing. It sets these developments in the context of the earlier dry chemistry work (e.g., indicator papers) and the subsequent work that led to modern day reagent tablets and dipstick devices.

Tests based on dry reagents can be traced back to the 1st century, but active development, in the form of indicator papers, dates from the 1600s. In the 1880s, spurred by dissatisfaction with liquid-based bedside urine testing among clinicians, Dr Frederick William Pavy and Dr George Oliver developed dry reagent tests, based on pellets (Dr Pavy’s Pellets) and chemically impregnated papers (Dr Oliver’s Papers) for urine sugar and urine albumin. These reagents were commercialized by a number of companies and provided in convenient cases (Physician’s Pocket Reagent Case). Eventually, these tests lost popularity and were replaced by the type of tablets and dipsticks developed by both Eli Lilly, and the Ames Division of Miles Laboratories (subsequently Bayer, and currently Siemens Healthineers) during the 1940s and 1950s.
Lower socioeconomic status neighborhoods in Puerto Rico have more diverse mosquito communities and higher Aedes aegypti abundance
Authors: Scavo Nicole A , Barrera Roberto , Reyes-Torres Limarie J , Yee Donald A
Published: March 2021

Mosquito community dynamics in urban areas are influenced by an array of both social and ecological factors. Human socioeconomic factors (SEF) can be related to mosquito abundance and diversity as urban mosquito development sites are modified by varying human activity, e.g., level of abandoned structures or amount of accumulated trash. The goal of this study was to investigate the relationships among mosquito diversity, populations of Aedes aegypti, and SEF in a tropical urban setting. Mosquitoes were collected using BG Sentinel 2 traps and CDC light traps during three periods between late 2018 and early 2019 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and were identified to species. SEFs (i.e. median household income, population density, college-level educational attainment, unemployment, health insurance coverage, percentage of households below the poverty line, amount of trash and level of abandoned homes) were measured using foot surveys and U.S. Census data. We found 19 species with the two most abundant species being Culex quinquefasciatus (n = 10 641, 87.6%) and Ae. aegypti (n = 1558, 12.8%). We found a positive association between Ae. aegypti abundance and mosquito diversity, which were both negatively related to SES and ecological factors. Specifically, lower socioeconomic status neighborhoods had both more Ae. aegypti and more diverse communities, due to more favorable development habitat, indicating that control efforts should be focused in these areas.