bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Catholics, Evangelicals, and US Policy in Central America
Authors: Cangemi Michael
Published: April 2018

During the Cold War’s earliest years, right-wing governments and oligarchic elites in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua fostered closer relationships with the Catholic Church. Dictatorial leaders like Guatemala’s Carlos Castillo Armas and dynastic regimes like Nicaragua’s Somoza family regarded the Church as an ally against supposed Marxist influence in the region. Those ties began to fray in the late 1960s, as the Second Vatican Council’s foundational reforms moved Catholicism farther to the political and social left around the globe. This shift was especially prominent in Central America, where Catholics like El Salvador’s Archbishop Óscar Arnulfo Romero and Guatemala’s Father Stanley Rother were among Central America’s most visible critics and reformers as political violence increased across the region during the 1970s. Relatedly, evangelical Protestants, particularly Pentecostal groups based in the United States, flooded Central America throughout that decade. Their staunch anticommunism and established ties to influential policymakers and political lobbyists in the United States, among other factors, gave evangelical Protestants greater influence in US-Central American relations. Their influence was strongest during the early 1980s, when José Efraín Ríos Montt, an ordained Pentecostal minister with Eureka, California’s Verbo Ministries, seized Guatemala’s presidency via a coup in March 1982. Notable US evangelical leaders like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson praised Ríos Montt’s regime for its rabid anticommunist ideology, while President Ronald Reagan claimed that the dictator had received a “bum rap” in the global press. Concurrently, some US evangelical missioners and pastors also foregrounded the Sandinista government’s anti-Protestant activities as additional justification for US support for Nicaragua’s Contra forces. Religious actors were also instrumental to Central America’s peace processes after the Cold War, as Catholic and Protestant leaders alike worked closely with regional governments and the United States to end decades of political violence and enact meaningful socioeconomic reforms for the region’s citizens.
metalepsis
Authors: v. Möllendorff Peter
Published: April 2018

From a functional point of view, metalepsis can be defined as the shift of a figure within a text (usually a character or a narrator) from one narrative level to another, marking a trangression of ontological borders. This procedure makes the reader or addressee aware of the fictional status of a text and ensures the maintenance of a specifically aesthetic distance, thereby counteracting any experience of immersion in the literary work. At the same time, it can be used as an effective instrument for producing enargeia (vividness), and through its sudden and surprising character it can also create strong effects of pathos as well as comedic effects. Thanks to the specific demands of a culture poised between orality and literacy, ancient literature knows primarily “smooth” metaleptic transitions, that is, ones that do not involve a strong sense of “jolt.” As procedure for transgressing borders between narrative levels, it has many manifestations in antiquity; as a literary motif, however, it appears rather seldom. The study of metalepsis in classical literature started with de Jong’s fundamental article of 2009.
Iconicity
Authors: Meir Irit , Tkachman Oksana
Published: April 2018

Iconicity is a relationship of resemblance or similarity between the two aspects of a sign: its form and its meaning. An iconic sign is one whose form resembles its meaning in some way. The opposite of iconicity is arbitrariness. In an arbitrary sign, the association between form and meaning is based solely on convention; there is nothing in the form of the sign that resembles aspects of its meaning. The Hindu-Arabic numerals 1, 2, 3 are arbitrary, because their current form does not correlate to any aspect of their meaning. In contrast, the Roman numerals I, II, III are iconic, because the number of occurrences of the sign I correlates with the quantity that the numerals represent. Because iconicity has to do with the properties of signs in general and not only those of linguistic signs, it plays an important role in the field of semiotics—the study of signs and signaling. However, language is the most pervasive symbolic communicative system used by humans, and the notion of iconicity plays an important role in characterizing the linguistic sign and linguistic systems. Iconicity is also central to the study of literary uses of language, such as prose and poetry.

There are various types of iconicity: the form of a sign may resemble aspects of its meaning in several ways: it may create a mental image of the concept (imagic iconicity), or its structure and the arrangement of its elements may resemble the structural relationship between components of the concept represented (diagrammatic iconicity). An example of the first type is the word cuckoo, whose sounds resemble the call of the bird, or a sign such as RABBIT in Israeli Sign Language, whose form—the hands representing the rabbit's long ears—resembles a visual property of that animal. An example of diagrammatic iconicity is vēnī, vīdī, vīcī, where the order of clauses in a discourse is understood as reflecting the sequence of events in the world.

Iconicity is found on all linguistic levels: phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and discourse. It is found both in spoken languages and in sign languages. However, sign languages, because of the visual-gestural modality through which they are transmitted, are much richer in iconic devices, and therefore offer a rich array of topics and perspectives for investigating iconicity, and the interaction between iconicity and language structure.
Models of Human Sentence Comprehension in Computational Psycholinguistics
Authors: Hale John
Published: April 2018

Computational models of human sentence comprehension help researchers reason about how grammar might actually be used in the understanding process. Taking a cognitivist approach, this article relates computational psycholinguistics to neighboring fields (such as linguistics), surveys important precedents, and catalogs open problems.
Vowel Harmony
Authors: van der Hulst Harry
Published: April 2018

The subject of this article is vowel harmony. In its prototypical form, this phenomenon involves agreement between all vowels in a word for some phonological property (such as palatality, labiality, height or tongue root position). This agreement is then evidenced by agreement patterns within morphemes and by alternations in vowels when morphemes are combined into complex words, thus creating allomorphic alternations. Agreement involves one or more harmonic features for which vowels form harmonic pairs, such that each vowel has a harmonic counterpart in the other set. I will focus on vowels that fail to alternate, that are thus neutral (either inherently or in a specific context), and that will be either opaque or transparent to the process. We will compare approaches that use underspecification of binary features and approaches that use unary features. For vowel harmony, vowels are either triggers or targets, and for each, specific conditions may apply. Vowel harmony can be bidirectional or unidirectional and can display either a root control pattern or a dominant/recessive pattern.
Missionary Grammars
Authors: Zwartjes Otto
Published: April 2018

Missionary grammars are printed books or manuscripts compiled by missionaries in which a particular language is described. These grammars were mainly written as pedagogical tools for language teaching and learning in a missionary-colonial setting, although quite a few grammars have also a more normative character. Missionary grammars contain usually an opening section, a prologue, in which the author exhibits the objectives of his work. The first part is usually a short introduction into phonology and orthography, followed by the largest section, which is devoted to morphology, arranged according to the traditional division of the parts of speech. The final section is sometimes devoted to syntax, but the topics included can vary considerably. Sometimes word lists are appended, containing body parts, measures, counting, manners of speaking, or rhetorical figures. The data presented in the grammar are mainly based on an oral corpus, whereas in other cases high registers from prestigious texts are used in which the eloquence or elegance of the language under study is illustrated. These grammars are modeled according to the traditional Greco-Latin framework and often contain invaluable information regarding language typologies, semantics, and pragmatics. In the New World, Asia, and elsewhere, missionaries had to find an adequate methodology in order to describe typological features they had never seen before. They adapted European models to new linguistic realities and created original works which deserve our attention within the discipline of the history of linguistics alongside contemporary pedagogical works written in Europe. This article concentrates on sources written in Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin during the colonial period, since these sources outnumber the production of missionary grammars in other languages.
Missionary Dictionaries
Authors: Zwartjes Otto
Published: April 2018

Missionary dictionaries are printed books or manuscripts compiled by missionaries in which words are listed systematically followed by words which have the same meaning in another language. These dictionaries were mainly written as tools for language teaching and learning in a missionary-colonial setting, although quite a few dictionaries have also a more encyclopedic character, containing invaluable information on non-Western cultures from all continents. In this article, several types of dictionaries are analyzed: bilingual-monodirectional, bilingual and bidirectional, and multilingual. Most examples are taken from an illustrative selected corpus of missionary dictionaries describing non-Western and languages during the colonial period, with particular focus on the function of these dictionaries in a missionary context, the users, macrostructure, organizational principles, and the typology of the microstructure and markedness in lemmatization.
Gender
Authors: Audring Jenny
Published: April 2018

Gender is a grammatical feature, in a family with person, number, and case. In the languages that have grammatical gender—according to a representative typological sample, almost half of the languages in the world—it is a property that separates nouns into classes. These classes are often meaningful and often linked to biological sex, which is why many languages are said to have a “masculine” and a “feminine” gender. A typical example is Italian, which has masculine words for male persons (il bambino “the.m little boy”) and feminine words for female persons (la bambina “the.f little girl”). However, gender systems may be based on other semantic distinctions or may reflect formal properties of the noun. In all cases, the defining property is agreement: the behavior of associated words. In Italian, the masculine gender of the noun bambino matches its meaning as well as its form—the noun ends in –o and inflects like a regular –o class noun—but the true indicator of gender is the form of the article. This can be seen in words like la mano “the.f hand,” which is feminine despite its final -o, and il soprano “the.m soprano,” which is masculine, although it usually refers to a woman. For the same reasons, we speak of grammatical gender only if the distinction is reflected in syntax; a language that has words for male and female persons or animals does not necessarily have a gender system.

Across the languages of the world, gender systems vary widely. They differ in the number of classes, in the underlying assignment rules, and in how and where gender is marked. Since agreement is a definitional property, gender is generally absent in isolating languages as well as in young languages with little bound morphology, including sign languages. Therefore, gender is considered a mature phenomenon in language.

Gender interacts in various ways with other grammatical features. For example, it may be limited to the singular number or the third person, and it may be crosscut by case distinctions. These and other interrelations can complicate the task of figuring out a gender system in first or second language acquisition. Yet, children master gender early, making use of a broad variety of cues. By contrast, gender is famously difficult for second-language learners. This is especially true for adults and for learners whose first language does not have a gender system. Nevertheless, tests show that even for this group, native-like competence is possible to attain.
Morphological and Syntactic Variation and Change in Catalan
Authors: Rigau Gemma , Pérez Saldanya Manuel
Published: April 2018

Catalan is a Romance language closely related to Gallo-Romance languages. However, contact with Spanish since the 15th century has led it to adopt various linguistic features that are closer to those seen in Ibero-Romance languages. Catalan exhibits five broad dialects: Central, Northern, and Balearic, which pertain to the Eastern dialect block, and Northwestern and Valencian, which make up the Western.

This article deals with the most salient morphosyntactic properties of Catalan and covers diachronic and diatopic variations. It also offers information about diastratic or sociolinguistic variations, namely standard and non-standard variations. Among the most characteristic morphosyntactic features are the following:

1. Catalan is the only Romance language that exhibits a periphrastic past tense expressed by means of the verb anar ‘go’ + infinitive (Ahir vas cantar ‘Yesterday you sang’). This periphrastic past coexists with a simple past (Ahir cantares ‘Yesterday you sang’). However, Catalan does not have a periphrastic future built with the movement verb go.

2. Demonstratives show a two-term system in most Catalan dialects: aquí ‘here’ (proximal) and allà or allí ‘there’ (distal); but in Valencian and some Northwestern dialects, there is a three-term system. In contrast with other languages that have a two-term system, Catalan uses the proximal demonstrative to express proximity either to the speaker or to the addressee (Aquí on jo soc ‘Here where I am’, Aquí on tu ets ‘There where you are’).

3. Catalan has a complex system of clitic pronouns (or weak object pronouns) which may vary in form according to the point of contact with the verb, proclitically or enclitically; e.g., the singular masculine accusative clitic can have two syllabic forms (el and lo) and an asyllabic one (l’ or ‘l): El saludo ‘I am greeting him’, Puc saludar-lo ‘I can greet him’, L’havies saludat ‘You had greeted him’, Saluda’l ‘Greet him’.

4. Existential constructions may contain the predicate haver-hi ‘there be’, consisting of the locative clitic hi and the verb haver ‘have’ (Hi ha tres estudiants ‘There are three students’) and the copulative verb ser ‘be’ (Tres estudiants ja són aquí ‘Three students are already here’) or other verbs whose behavior can be close to an unaccusative verb when preceded by the clitic hi (Aquí hi treballen forners ‘There are some bakers working here’).

5. The negative polarity adverb no ‘not’ may be reinforced by the adverbs pas or cap in some dialects and can co-occur with negative polarity items (ningú ‘anybody/nobody’, res ‘anything/nothing’, mai ‘never’, etc.). Negative polarity items exhibit negative agreement (No hi ha mai ningú ‘Nobody is ever here’), but they may express positive meaning in some non-declarative syntactic contexts (Si mai vens, truca’m ‘If you ever come, call me’).

6. Other distinguishing items are the interrogative and confirmative particles, the pronominal forms of address, and the personal articles.
Natural Morphology
Authors: Dressler Wolfgang U.
Published: April 2018

Natural Morphology (NM) is a functionalist theory that aims to account for morphological preferences on the basis of extralinguistic motivations. It is hierarchically structured in three (partially conflicting) subtheories. The first subtheory of universal naturalness (markedness) focuses on cognitive and semiotic principles such as transparency, iconicity, and bi-uniqueness, which are modeled in terms of parametric relations. Within the second subtheory of typological naturalness (or adequacy), choices on the universal preference parameters are coordinated among themselves. The third subtheory of language-specific naturalness (also called language adequacy) elaborates on what is normal in the potential system of a specific language. NM also puts special emphasis on the interface of morphology with other linguistic and nonlinguistic components, opening thereby the new fields of morphopragmatics, morphonotactics (as a special part of morphonology), and extragrammatical morphology. A range of gradual clines are designed to assess not only transitions between adjacent components of grammar, but also within morphology between compounding, derivation, and inflection and for notions such as regularity–subregularity–irregularity/suppletion, degrees of productivity or number of headedness criteria. Theoretical constructs are supported by ample external evidence, especially from diachrony and psycholinguistics.
Scalar Politics in Flood Risk Management and Community Engagement
Authors: Thaler Thomas
Published: April 2018

Recent extreme hydrological events (e.g., in the United States in 2005 or 2012, Pakistan in 2010, and Thailand in 2011) revealed increasing flood risks due to climate and societal change. Consequently, the roles of multiple stakeholders in flood risk management have transformed significantly. A central aspect here is the question of sharing responsibilities among global, national, regional, and local stakeholders in organizing flood risk management of all kinds. This new policy agenda of sharing responsibilities strives to delegate responsibilities and costs from the central government to local authorities, and from public administration to private citizens. The main reasons for this decentralization are that local authorities can deal more efficiently with public administration tasks concerned with risks and emergency management. Resulting locally based strategies for risk reduction are expected to tighten the feedback loops between complex environmental dynamics and human decision-making processes. However, there are a series of consequences to this rescaling process in flood risk management, regarding the development of new governance structures and institutions, like resilience teams or flood action groups in the United Kingdom. Additionally, downscaling to local-level tasks without additional resources is particularly challenging. This development has tightened further with fiscal and administrative cuts around the world resulting from the global economic crisis of 2007–2008, which tightening eventually causes budget restrictions for flood risk management. Managing local risks easily exceeds the technical and budgetary capacities of municipal institutions, and individual citizens struggle to carry the full responsibility of flood protection. To manage community engagement in flood risk management, emphasis should be given to the development of multi-level governance structures, so that multiple stakeholders share fairly the power, resources, and responsibility in disaster planning. If we fail to do so, some consequences would be: (1), “hollowing out” the government, including the downscaling of the responsibility towards local stakeholders; and (2), inability of the government to deal with the new tasks due to lack of resources transferred to local authorities.
The Group for the Advancement of Doctoral Education in Social Work
Authors: Lightfoot Elizabeth , Beltran Raiza
Published: April 2018

The Group for the Advancement of Doctoral Education in Social Work (GADE) is the social work organization committed to promoting rigor in North American social work and social welfare doctoral program. GADE plays a vital role in supporting social work doctoral programs in training future social work researchers, scholars, and educators. GADE develops and updates the aspirational guidelines for quality in PhD programs, provides support to doctoral programs and doctoral program directors in program administration, collaborates with other national and international social work organizations, and serves as the leading voice for doctoral education in the field. This article traces the history of GADE from the early beginnings of social work doctoral education in the early 20th century, through the establishment of GADE in the 1977 to promote the research doctorate, and ending with GADE’s activities today.
Draft genome of the Peruvian scallop Argopecten purpuratus
Authors: Li Chao , Liu Xiao , Liu Bo , Ma Bin , Liu Fengqiao , Liu Guilong , Shi Qiong , Wang Chunde
Published: April 2018

Background

The Peruvian scallop, Argopecten purpuratus, is mainly cultured in southern Chile and Peru was introduced into China in the last century. Unlike other Argopecten scallops, the Peruvian scallop normally has a long life span of up to 7 to 10 years. Therefore, researchers have been using it to develop hybrid vigor. Here, we performed whole genome sequencing, assembly, and gene annotation of the Peruvian scallop, with an important aim to develop genomic resources for genetic breeding in scallops.

Findings

A total of 463.19-Gb raw DNA reads were sequenced. A draft genome assembly of 724.78 Mb was generated (accounting for 81.87% of the estimated genome size of 885.29 Mb), with a contig N50 size of 80.11 kb and a scaffold N50 size of 1.02 Mb. Repeat sequences were calculated to reach 33.74% of the whole genome, and 26,256 protein-coding genes and 3,057 noncoding RNAs were predicted from the assembly.

Conclusions

We generated a high-quality draft genome assembly of the Peruvian scallop, which will provide a solid resource for further genetic breeding and for the analysis of the evolutionary history of this economically important scallop.
A practical tool for maximal information coefficient analysis
Authors: Albanese Davide , Riccadonna Samantha , Donati Claudio , Franceschi Pietro
Published: April 2018

Background

The ability of finding complex associations in large omics datasets, assessing their significance, and prioritizing them according to their strength can be of great help in the data exploration phase. Mutual information-based measures of association are particularly promising, in particular after the recent introduction of the TICe and MICe estimators, which combine computational efficiency with superior bias/variance properties. An open-source software implementation of these two measures providing a complete procedure to test their significance would be extremely useful.

Findings

Here, we present MICtools, a comprehensive and effective pipeline that combines TICe and MICe into a multistep procedure that allows the identification of relationships of various degrees of complexity. MICtools calculates their strength assessing statistical significance using a permutation-based strategy. The performances of the proposed approach are assessed by an extensive investigation in synthetic datasets and an example of a potential application on a metagenomic dataset is also illustrated.

Conclusions

We show that MICtools, combining TICe and MICe, is able to highlight associations that would not be captured by conventional strategies.
Real-time DNA barcoding in a rainforest using nanopore sequencing: opportunities for rapid biodiversity assessments and local capacity building
Authors: Pomerantz Aaron , Peñafiel Nicolás , Arteaga Alejandro , Bustamante Lucas , Pichardo Frank , Coloma Luis A , Barrio-Amorós César L , Salazar-Valenzuela David , Prost Stefan
Published: April 2018

Background

Advancements in portable scientific instruments provide promising avenues to expedite field work in order to understand the diverse array of organisms that inhabit our planet. Here, we tested the feasibility for in situ molecular analyses of endemic fauna using a portable laboratory fitting within a single backpack in one of the world's most imperiled biodiversity hotspots, the Ecuadorian Chocó rainforest. We used portable equipment, including the MinION nanopore sequencer (Oxford Nanopore Technologies) and the miniPCR (miniPCR), to perform DNA extraction, polymerase chain reaction amplification, and real-time DNA barcoding of reptile specimens in the field.

Findings

We demonstrate that nanopore sequencing can be implemented in a remote tropical forest to quickly and accurately identify species using DNA barcoding, as we generated consensus sequences for species resolution with an accuracy of >99% in less than 24 hours after collecting specimens. The flexibility of our mobile laboratory further allowed us to generate sequence information at the Universidad Tecnológica Indoamérica in Quito for rare, endangered, and undescribed species. This includes the recently rediscovered Jambato toad, which was thought to be extinct for 28 years. Sequences generated on the MinION required as few as 30 reads to achieve high accuracy relative to Sanger sequencing, and with further multiplexing of samples, nanopore sequencing can become a cost-effective approach for rapid and portable DNA barcoding.

Conclusions

Overall, we establish how mobile laboratories and nanopore sequencing can help to accelerate species identification in remote areas to aid in conservation efforts and be applied to research facilities in developing countries. This opens up possibilities for biodiversity studies by promoting local research capacity building, teaching nonspecialists and students about the environment, tackling wildlife crime, and promoting conservation via research-focused ecotourism.
Does Day of Surgery Affect Hospital Length of Stay and Charges Following Minimally Invasive Transforaminal Lumbar Interbody Fusion?
Authors: Hijji Fady Y. , Narain Ankur S. , Haws Brittany E. , Khechen Benjamin , Kudaravalli Krishna T. , Yom Kelly H. , Singh Kern
Published: April 2018

Study Design:

Retrospective Cohort.

Objective:

To determine if an association exists between surgery day and length of stay or hospital costs after minimally invasive transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion (MIS TLIF).

Summaryof Background Data:

Length of inpatient stay after orthopedic procedures has been identified as a primary cost driver, and previous research has focused on determining risk factors for prolonged length of stay. In the arthroplasty literature, surgery performed later in the week has been identified as a predictor of increased length of stay. However, no such investigation has been performed for MIS TLIF.

Materials and Methods:

A surgical registry of patients undergoing MIS TLIF between 2008 and 2016 was retrospectively reviewed. Patients were grouped based on day of surgery, with groups including early surgery and late surgery. Day of surgery group was tested for an association with demographics and perioperative variables using the student t test or χ2 analysis. Day of surgery group was then tested for an association with direct hospital costs using multivariate linear regression.

Results:

In total, 438 patients were analyzed. In total, 51.8% were in the early surgery group, and 48.2% were in the late surgery group. There were no differences in demographics between groups. There were no differences between groups with regard to operative time, intraoperative blood loss, length of stay, or discharge day. Finally, there were no differences in total hospital charges between early and late surgery groups (P=0.247).

Conclusions:

The specific day on which a MIS TLIF procedure occurs is not associated with differences in length of inpatient stay or total hospital costs. This suggests that the postoperative course after MIS TLIF procedures is not affected by the differences in hospital staffing that occurs on the weekend compared with weekdays.
Conservative Treatment of Hangman Variant Fractures
Authors: Niemeier Thomas E. , Manoharan Sakthevil R. , Mukherjee Amrita , Theiss Steven M.
Published: April 2018

Study Design:

This is retrospective cohort study.

Objective:

Investigate the stability of patients with hangman variant fractures and outcomes of treatment with external immobilization.

Summary of Background Data:

Traumatic spondylolisthesis of the axis (C2) with the fracture extending into the vertebral body has been incompletely characterized. Small case series have showed high rates of neurological injury and cite difficulty treating closed due to greater instability secondary to extensive ligamentous injury.

Materials and Methods:

Retrospectively, all patients admitted to a level 1 trauma center from 2004 to 2015 with acute C2 fractures were identified and classified based on computed tomographic imaging. Study cohort included patients with anterior translation <5 mm and C2–3 angulation <15 degrees that were followed to conclusion of treatment.

Results:

In total, 107 hangman’s variant fractures (14.5%) were identified from a database of 735 acute C2 fractures. In total, 106 of the 107 patients displayed no neurological injury related to the cervical spine at the time of presentation. A total of 63 patients met the inclusion criteria and were followed as outpatients until collar or halo vest removal. All fractures progressed to union without progressive displacement or late neurological injury. No difference was observed in radiographic outcome between patients treated in a hard collar versus halo orthosis.

Conclusions:

Although widely considered a difficult fracture to treat with closed means, hangman variants are relatively neurologically benign injuries with low incidence of ligamentous injury. Fractures with <5 mm of horizontal translation and 15 degrees of angulation can be treated with external immobilization. Our results suggest no advantage of halo immobilization versus hard collar orthosis.
Through the Decades: β-Blocker Use and Outcomes in Acute Coronary Syndromes
Authors: Kukin Alina , Noel Zachary R. , Watson Kristin
Published: April 2018

Beta-adrenergic receptor antagonists, or β-blockers, have been a cornerstone of treatment in patients with acute coronary syndromes (ACS) for more than 4 decades. First studied in the 1960s, β-blockers in ACS have been shown to decrease the risk of death, recurrent ischemic events, and arrhythmias by reducing catecholamine-mediated effects and reducing myocardial oxygen demand. Through the decades, the β-blocker of choice, timing of initiation, duration of therapy, and dosing have evolved considerably. Despite having clear benefits in certain patient populations (eg, patients with systolic dysfunction who are hemodynamically stable), the benefit of β-blockers in other populations (ie, in patients at low risk for complications receiving modern revascularization therapies and optimal medical management) remains unclear. This article provides a review of the landmark clinical trials of β-blockers in ACS and highlights the chronology and evolution of guideline recommendations through the decades.
Enhanced Osteogenic Differentiation of Mesenchymal Stem Cells on Electrospun Polyethersulfone/Poly(Vinyl) Alcohol/Platelet Rich Plasma Nanofibrous Scaffolds
Authors: Kashef-Saberi Mahshid Sadat , Hayati Roodbari Nasim , Parivar Kazem , Vakilian Saeid , Hanaee-Ahvaz Hana
Published: April 2018

Over the last few decades, great advancements have been achieved in the field of bone tissue engineering (BTE). Containing a great number of growth factors needed in the process of osteogenesis, platelet rich plasma (PRP) has gained a great deal of attention. However, due to the contradictory results achieved in different studies, its effectiveness remains a mystery. Therefore, in this study, we investigated in vitro performance of co-electrospun PRP/poly ether sulfone/poly(vinyl) alcohol (PRP/PES/PVA) composite scaffolds for the osteogenic differentiation of human adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells. The activated PRP was mixed with PVA solution to be used alongside PES solution for the electrospinning process. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy and tensile tests were performed to evaluate the scaffolds. After confirmation of sustained release of protein, osteogenic potential of the co-electrospun PRP/polymer scaffolds was evaluated by measuring relative gene expression, calcium content, and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity. Alizarin red and Hematoxylin and Eosin staining were performed as well. The results of ALP activity and calcium content demonstrated the effectiveness of PRP when combined with PRP-incorporated scaffold in comparison with the other tested groups. In addition, the results of tensile mechanical testing indicated that addition of PRP improves the mechanical properties. Taking these results into account, it appears PES/PVA/PRP scaffold treated with PRP 5% enhances osteogenic differentiation most. In conclusion, incorporation of PRP into electrospun PES/PVA scaffold in this study had a positive influence on osteogenic differentiation of AdMSCs, and thus it may have great potential for BTE applications.
Latexin and hematopoiesis
Authors: Zhang Cuiping , Liang Ying
Published: April 2018

Purpose of review

Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) produce mature blood cells throughout lifetime. Natural genetic diversity offers an important yet largely untapped reservoir for deciphering regulatory mechanisms of HSCs and hematopoiesis. In this review, we explore the role of latexin, identified by natural variation, in regulating homeostatic and stress hematopoiesis, unravel the underlying signaling pathways, and propose its therapeutic implication.

Recent findings

Latexin acts endogenously in HSCs to negatively regulate their population size by enhancing apoptosis and by decreasing self-renewal. Deletion of latexin in vivo increases HSC repopulation capacity and survival, expands the entire hematopoietic system, and mitigates myelosuppression. Latexin inactivation downregulates thrombospondin 1 (Thbs1). It inhibits nuclear translocation of ribosomal protein subunit 3 (Rps3), a novel latexin-binding protein, and sensitizes hematopoietic cells to radiation-induced cell death. However, how latexin-Rps3 pathway regulates Thbs1 transcription is unclear. Latexin is downregulated in cancer cells because of promoter hypermethylation, but latexin-depleted mice do not inherently develop hematologic malignancies even with aging. The mechanism of action of latexin in tumorigenesis remains largely unknown.

Understanding how latexin regulates HSC survival, self-renewal, and stress response will advance our knowledge of HSC biology. It will facilitate the development of a novel therapeutic strategy for hematopoietic regeneration and cancer treatment.
HIV Testing With and Without a Clinical Consultation Among Men Who Have Sex With Men: A Randomized Controlled Trial
Authors: Read Tim R. H. , Walker Sandra , Chow Eric P. F. , Ong Jason J. , Bradshaw Catriona S. , Medland Nick A. , Wigan Rebecca , Chen Marcus Y. , Fairley Christoper K.
Published: April 2018

Background:

Increasing the frequency of HIV testing among men who have sex with men (MSM) maximizes the preventive effect of antiretroviral therapy, by reducing time to diagnosis and treatment.

Setting:

Melbourne Sexual Health Centre, Australia.

Methods:

This randomized controlled trial evaluated whether access to testing, without seeing a clinician would increase testing frequency. MSM attending for HIV testing between July 2014 and April 2015 were randomized in 1:1 ratio to the intervention arm (access to HIV and syphilis testing at 300 pathology centers, without requiring consultations) or the control arm (consultation at every test), without blinding. The primary outcome was the incidence of HIV testing over 12 months.

Results:

Of 443 men referred, 422 were randomized, 3 HIV positives at baseline were excluded, and 419 were analyzed. Of 208 control, 202 (97.1%) and 200 (94.8%) of 211 intervention group members were followed to 12 months. The intervention group had 453 tests in 205.6 person-years, incidence rate was 2.2 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 2.0 to 2.4) tests per year. The control group had 432 tests during 204.0 person-years, incidence rate was 2.1 (95% CI: 1.9 to 2.3) tests per year, and incidence rate ratio was 1.04 (95% CI: 0.89 to 1.2; P = 0.63). The annual rate of consultations was as follows: intervention, 1.61 (95% CI: 1.44 to 1.79); controls, 2.12 (95% CI: 1.92 to 2.33); rate ratio, 0.76 (95% CI: 0.65 to 0.88; P = 0.0001). There was no difference in quality of life scores (P = 0.61).

Conclusions:

MSM permitted HIV and syphilis testing outside of clinical consultations did not test more frequently than controls but had 24% fewer consultations, reducing service demand. Trial registration: ACTRN12614000760673.
Impact of Nasal Septal Surgery on Sleep Quality and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
Authors: Deveci Ildem , Onder Serap , Surmeli Mehmet , Sahin Samil , Kipoglu Betul Aktas , Karabulut Burak , Eser Basak Caypinar
Published: April 2018

Objective:

To evaluate the effect of nasal septal surgery on quality of life.

Methods:

A total of 49 patients who underwent septoplasty and/or inferior turbinate radiofrequency operations for nasal septal deviation and inferior turbinate hypertrophy were prospectively enrolled in the study. All patients completed the adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder scale (ADHD scale) and Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI) before and after septoplasty. Acoustic rhinometric measurements were also recorded.

Results:

Acoustic rhinometric measurements and PSQI showed statistically significant improvement after nasal surgery (P < 0.05), but no statistically significant difference was present between pre- and postoperative ADHD scores (P > 0.05).

Conclusion:

Besides the functional improvement of septoplasty, a long-lasting improvement in the quality of life is observed in patients with that undergo this surgery.
Outcomes After Open Reduction With Internal Fixation of Mandible Fractures
Authors: Barry Rahman G. , Wolbert Thao T. , Gress Todd W. , Ray Peter D. , Mozaffari Farid B.
Published: April 2018

Introduction/Hypothesis:

Mandible fractures contribute substantially to morbidity after blunt trauma. Controversy exists surrounding the appropriate timing of surgical intervention and benefit from routine postreduction imaging.

Methods:

The authors retrospectively reviewed 146 patients who sustained traumatic mandible fractures at a level 2 trauma center over a 5-year period, between January 2012 and December 2016. The authors excluded all patients who did not undergo surgery, underwent operative closed reduction only, sustained other significant maxillofacial injuries, penetrating mechanisms, and other major injuries based on injury severity scores (ISS) over 15. There were 51 patients meeting inclusion criteria. The authors reviewed admission face computed tomography (CT) scans and Panorex x-rays. Patients were divided into early (<72 hours) and late (>72 hours) open reduction with internal fixation (ORIF) groups. The authors reviewed demographics, mechanism of injury, postreduction imaging, and ISS. All statistical analyses were performed using Stata 15.

Results:

There were 39 males (76%) and 12 females (24%) in the authors’ study, with a mean age of 32 years. Twenty-eight patients (55%) underwent early ORIF and 23 patients (45%) underwent late ORIF, with no mortalities. There was no statistically significant difference in ISS between the 2 groups (P = 0.081). Preoperative face CT scans were performed in 49 patients (96%) and Panorex in 2 patients (4%). Eight patients (16%) had both modalities, with CT face identifying fractures in 5 patients not seen on Panorex, resulting in a change in operative approach. Postreduction imaging was obtained in 33 patients (65%), of whom 26 were Panorex X-rays. These demonstrated adequate reduction in 31 patients (94%) and did not change management in any instance. Complications occurred in 19 patients (37%), of whom there were 11 with uncontrolled pain after 1 week, 6 abscesses, 5 nonunions/malunions, 2 hardware extrusions, and 1 incisional dehiscence. A positive urine drug screen predicted uncontrolled pain (P < 0.05). There was no statistically significant difference in complications between the 2 groups.

Conclusion:

The authors’ data suggest that CT scans of the face are superior to panoramic radiographs in traumatic mandible fracture evaluation, with no apparent benefit from routine postreduction imaging in detecting complications. Open reduction with internal fixation remains an effective treatment with favorable outcomes, and operative delays > 72 hours do not appear to increase complication rates.
Bilateral Post-Traumatic Facial Paralysis That Contains Longitudinal and Transverse Temporal Fracture
Authors: Şahin Caner , Özen Özkan
Published: April 2018

Acute bilateral post-traumatic facial paralysis is rare in the literature. Post-traumatic facial paralysis is frequently accompanied transverse fractures of temporal more. The incidence of acute bilateral post-traumatic facial paralysis has been reported as 1 to 5 per million in the literature. Trauma and concurrent facial paralysis are usually in the same subsite (right temporal bone fracture and right facial paralysis). There is one pathophysiological pattern for a single temporal bone fracture in a subsite. The authors present a bilateral isolated different pathophysiological pattern sudden onset facial paralysis in a patient herein.
Posterior Fossa Re-Exploration for Recurrent Trigeminal Neuralgia: Operative Findings and Surgical Techniques
Authors: Feng Bao-Hui , Wang Xu-Hui , Li Shi-Ting
Published: April 2018

Objective:

Microvascular decompression (MVD) is considered the first choice for the surgical treatment of trigeminal neuralgia (TN). However, recurrence after MVD is still a problem and a challenge for neurosurgeons. In this study, we share our experience in the posterior fossa re-exploration of the recurrent cases.

Methods:

From January 2014 to January 2015, 15 recurrent TN patients who received fossa re-exploration were retrospectively studied. Surgeries were performed by retrosigmoid suboccipital approach. Brainstem auditory evoked potentials (BAEP) were monitored throughout the operation. Intraoperative findings and surgical techniques were recorded. Postoperative outcomes and complications were analyzed.

Results:

Among the 15 patients, Teflon adhesion was found in 14. Teflon felt displacement was found in 4 patients, and additional Teflon felt was used to interpose. New offending vessels were found in 5 patients. Three of them were small arteries and the other 2 were petrosal veins. After dissected, small pieces of wet gelatin sponge and Teflon felt were implanted respectively to ensure complete decompression. The remaining 6 patients had no vascular compression except severe adhesion, and nerve combing was performed. After surgery, 12 achieved complete pain relief, 2 gained partial pain relief, and 1 failed. Six patients experienced facial numbness postoperatively. There was no hearing impairment or other complications. During the mean 26-month follow-up, no recurrence occurred and all of 6 cases with facial numbness after surgery improved.

Conclusions:

Teflon adhesion is a significant cause of recurrent TN. Wet gelatin-assisted method is good for Teflon interposition. If no vascular compression is found during re-exploration, trigeminal nerve combing can be used. Intraoperative BAEP monitoring is helpful to reduce the incidence of hearing loss.
Rare Cause of Tinnitus: Spontaneous Temporomandibular Joint Herniation Into the External Auditory Canal
Authors: Ertugrul Suha
Published: April 2018

The herniation of temporomandibular joint (TMJ) into external auditory canal (EAC) may occur due to trauma, neoplastic, infectious, and inflammatory processes. On the other hand, spontaneous herniation of TMJ into EAC is an extremely rare conduction and occurs as a consequence of patent retention of foramen of Huschke (FH). Patent FH is usually an asymptomatic situation. In this article, a patient having otologic symptoms as a result of spontaneous herniation of TMJ into EAC was presented in the light of current literature.
Amitriptyline Treatment Mitigates Sepsis-Induced Tumor Necrosis Factor Expression and Coagulopathy
Authors: Xia Brent T. , Beckmann Nadine , Winer Leah K. , Kim Young , Goetzman Holly S. , Veile Rosalie E. , Gulbins Erich , Goodman Michael D. , Nomellini Vanessa , Caldwell Charles C.
Published: April 2018

During sepsis, the early innate response and inflammatory cytokine cascade are associated with activation of the coagulation cascade. Acute hypercoagulability can contribute to lethal sequela of vascular thrombosis, tissue ischemia, and organ failure. We investigated if amitriptyline (AMIT), an antidepressant drug with a number of anti-inflammatory effects, could ameliorate sepsis in a murine model of sepsis—cecal ligation and puncture (CLP). We hypothesized that AMIT treatment would reduce inflammation and mitigate sepsis-induced coagulopathy. Coagulation was measured using thromboelastometry and ferric chloride-induced carotid artery thrombosis. Our findings demonstrate a dynamic early hypercoagulability, followed by delayed hypocoagulability in septic mice. However, septic mice treated with AMIT were unaffected by these coagulation changes and exhibited a coagulation profile similar to sham mice. TNFα was markedly elevated in septic mice, but decreased in AMIT-treated mice. Exogenous administration of recombinant TNFα in naive mice recapitulated the acute sepsis-induced hypercoagulability profile. After sepsis and endotoxemia, peritoneal macrophages were the predominant source of TNFα expression. AMIT treatment significantly decreased macrophage TNFα expression and blunted M1 polarization. Altogether, during polymicrobial sepsis, AMIT treatment suppressed macrophage TNFα expression and the M1 phenotype, mitigating an initial hypercoagulable state, and protecting septic mice from delayed hypocoagulability. We propose that AMIT treatment is a promising therapeutic approach in the treatment of sepsis-associated coagulopathy and prevention of acute thromboembolic events or delayed bleeding complications.
Budding Uninhibited by Benzimidazole-1 Insufficiency Prevents Acute Renal Failure in Severe Sepsis by Maintaining Anticoagulant Functions of Vascular Endothelial Cells
Authors: Matsubara Yutaka , Matsumoto Takuya , Yoshiya Keiji , Yoshida Ayae , Ikeda Seiichi , Furuyama Tadashi , Nakatsu Yoshimichi , Tsuzuki Teruhisa , Nomura Masatoshi , Maehara Yoshihiko
Published: April 2018

Severe sepsis is critical to health and can result in acute renal failure (ARF). Tissue factor (TF) and thrombomodulin (TM) play key roles in vascular endothelial functions by helping maintain microcirculation in the kidney. Budding uninhibited by benzimidazole-1 (Bub1) plays a role in Akt and JNK signaling, which control TF and TM, respectively. We hypothesized that Bub1 could control vascular endothelial function in sepsis. The aim of this study was to determine the role of Bub1 in septic ARF. We used Mouse cecum ligation and puncture (CLP) using low Bub1 expressing (Bub1

L/L
) and wild-type (Bub1

+/+
) mice in vivo and lipopolysaccharide (LPS) stimulation of human aortic endothelial cell (HAEC) in vitro. Bub1

L/L
mice had a higher survival rate after CLP than Bub1

+/+
. Bub1

+/+
mice had more severe ARF after CLP than Bub1

L/L
with blood biochemical and pathological analyses. TF expression in Bub1

+/+
mice and control HAEC (control) significantly increased in the septic model compared with Bub1

L/L
and Bub1 silenced HAEC (siBub1). TM expression in the control significantly decreased after LPS stimulation compared with siBub1. Akt and JNK phosphorylation of siBub1 were attenuated after LPS stimulation. Associations of Bub1 with Akt or JNK after LPS stimulation of HAEC were detected using immunoprecipitation, suggesting that Bub1 is involved in the phosphorylation of Akt and JNK after LPS stimulation. Bub1 insufficiency attenuates TF expression and reduces TM suppression by blocking Akt and JNK phosphorylation, respectively, thus leading to the prevention of ARF and death caused by sepsis.