bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Pubertal onset with adulthood lung function mediated by height growth in adolescence
Authors: Li Liang , Zhang Hongmei , Holloway John W. , Henderson A. John , Ewart Susan , Relton Caroline L. , Arshad S. Hasan , Karmaus Wilfried
Published: September 2020

Background

Age of pubertal onset is associated with height and lung function in adulthood. It is unknown whether height growth in adolescence mediates the association of age at puberty with early adult lung function.

Methods

Data from the Isle of Wight (IOW) birth cohort (n=1261) were examined in the study. Ages of pubertal events, height at ages 10 and 18 years and lung function parameters (forced vital capacity (FVC) and forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1)) at 26 years were included in a path analysis to assess the mediation effects of height growth. Findings were tested in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) birth cohort.

Results

In females in the IOW cohort, age at menarche and body hair growth showed a positive indirect association with FVC (menarche: indirect effect coefficient (IEC)=0.13, 95% CI 0.05–0.20, p=1.28×10−3; body hair growth: IEC=0.08, 95% CI 0.01–0.15, p=0.017) and FEV1(menarche: IEC=0.09, 95% CI 0.01–0.17, p=0.028; body hair growth: IEC=0.07, 95% CI 0.01–0.14, p=0.043) at 26 years through height growth and lung function at 18 years. In males, age at body hair growth (IEC=0.08; 95% CI 0.01–0.15, p=0.047), growth spurt (IEC=0.09; 95% CI 0.01–0.17, p=0.034) and facial hair growth (IEC=0.09; 95% CI 0.02–0.16, p=0.014) had positive indirect effects on FVC at 26 years, but voice deepening did not show statistically significant indirect effects (p>0.05). For pubertal events available in the ALSPAC cohort, results consistent with the IOW cohort were found for both females and males.

Conclusion

Effects of age of puberty on FVC in early adulthood are likely mediated by height growth during adolescence.
Environmental contamination related to SARS-CoV-2 in ICU patients
Authors: Lomont Alexandra , Boubaya Marouane , Khamis Warda , Deslandes Antoine , Cordel Hugues , Seytre Delphine , Alloui Chakib , Malaure Célie , Bonnet Nicolas , Carbonnelle Etienne , Cohen Yves , Nunes Hilario , Bouchaud Olivier , Zahar Jean-Ralph , Tandjaoui-Lambiotte Yacine
Published: September 2020

Background

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak is a primary global concern, and data are lacking concerning risk of novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) environmental contamination.

Objective

To identify risk factors for SARS-CoV-2 environmental contamination in COVID-19 patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU).

Methods

A prospective single centre 1-day study was carried out in an ICU. Four surfaces (the ventilator control screen, the control buttons of the syringe pump, the bed rails and the computer table located >1 m away from the patient) were systematically swabbed at least 8 h after any cleaning process. We analysed clinical, microbiological and radiological data to identify risk factors for SARS-CoV-2 environmental contamination.

Results

40% of ICU patients were found to contaminate their environment. No particular trend emerged regarding the type of surface contaminated. Modality of oxygen support (high-flow nasal cannula oxygenation, invasive mechanical ventilation, standard oxygen mask) was not associated with the risk of environmental contamination. Univariate analysis showed that lymphopenia <0.7×109·L−1was associated with environmental contamination.

Conclusion

Despite small sample size, our study generated surprising results. Modality of oxygen support is not associated with risk of environmental contamination. Further studies are needed.
Effects of vibration therapy on muscle mass, muscle strength and physical function in older adults with sarcopenia: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Authors: Wu Shuang , Ning Hong-Ting , Xiao Su-Mei , Hu Ming-Yue , Wu Xin-Yin , Deng Hong-Wen , Feng Hui
Published: September 2020

Background

Sarcopenia, a progressive loss of muscle mass and function with advancing age, is a prevalent condition among older adults. As most older people are too frail to do intensive exercise and vibration therapy has low risk and ease of participation, it may be more readily accepted by elderly individuals. However, it remains unclear whether vibration therapy would be effective among older adults with sarcopenia. This systematic review and meta-analysis examined the effect of vibration therapy including local vibration therapy and whole-body vibration therapy, for enhancing muscle mass, muscle strength and physical function in older people with sarcopenia.

Methods

A systematic literature search was conducted in March 2019 in the following 5 electronic databases: PubMed, CINAHL, Embase, PEDro, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, with no restriction of language or the year of publication. Randomized controlled trials and quasi-experimental studies examining effects of vibration therapy on muscle mass, muscle strength or physical function in older adults with sarcopenia were included in this systematic review. Two reviewers independently assessed the methodological quality of the selected studies.

Results

Of the 1972 identified studies, seven publications from six studies involving 223 participants were included in this systematic review. Five of them conducted whole-body vibration therapy, while two conducted local vibration therapy. A meta-analysis of randomized controlled studies indicated that muscle strength significantly increased after whole-body vibration therapy (SMD 0.69, 95% CI 0.28 to 1.11, I2 = 0%, P = 0.001) and local vibration therapy (SMD 3.78, 95% CI 2.29 to 5.28, P < 0.001). Physical performance measured by the sit-to-stand test and the timed-up-and-go test were significantly improved after the intervention (SMD -0.79, 95% CI − 1.21 to − 0.37, I2 = 0%, P < 0.001) and SMD -0.83, 95% CI − 1.56 to − 0.11, I2 = 64%, P = 0.02, respectively).

Conclusion

Vibration therapy could be a prospective strategy for improving muscle strength and physical performance in older adults with sarcopenia. However, due to the limited number of the included studies, caution is needed when interpreting these results. More well-designed, large sample size studies should be conducted to further explore and validate the benefits of vibration therapy for this population.
Model-based clustering for flow and mass cytometry data with clinical information
Authors: Abe Ko , Minoura Kodai , Maeda Yuka , Nishikawa Hiroyoshi , Shimamura Teppei
Published: September 2020

Background

High-dimensional flow cytometry and mass cytometry allow systemic-level characterization of more than 10 protein profiles at single-cell resolution and provide a much broader landscape in many biological applications, such as disease diagnosis and prediction of clinical outcome. When associating clinical information with cytometry data, traditional approaches require two distinct steps for identification of cell populations and statistical test to determine whether the difference between two population proportions is significant. These two-step approaches can lead to information loss and analysis bias.

Results

We propose a novel statistical framework, called LAMBDA (Latent Allocation Model with Bayesian Data Analysis), for simultaneous identification of unknown cell populations and discovery of associations between these populations and clinical information. LAMBDA uses specified probabilistic models designed for modeling the different distribution information for flow or mass cytometry data, respectively. We use a zero-inflated distribution for the mass cytometry data based the characteristics of the data. A simulation study confirms the usefulness of this model by evaluating the accuracy of the estimated parameters. We also demonstrate that LAMBDA can identify associations between cell populations and their clinical outcomes by analyzing real data. LAMBDA is implemented in R and is available from GitHub (https://github.com/abikoushi/lambda).
Biomedical document triage using a hierarchical attention-based capsule network
Authors: Wang Jian , Li Mengying , Diao Qishuai , Lin Hongfei , Yang Zhihao , Zhang YiJia
Published: September 2020

Background

Biomedical document triage is the foundation of biomedical information extraction, which is important to precision medicine. Recently, some neural networks-based methods have been proposed to classify biomedical documents automatically. In the biomedical domain, documents are often very long and often contain very complicated sentences. However, the current methods still find it difficult to capture important features across sentences.

Results

In this paper, we propose a hierarchical attention-based capsule model for biomedical document triage. The proposed model effectively employs hierarchical attention mechanism and capsule networks to capture valuable features across sentences and construct a final latent feature representation for a document. We evaluated our model on three public corpora.

Conclusions

Experimental results showed that both hierarchical attention mechanism and capsule networks are helpful in biomedical document triage task. Our method proved itself highly competitive or superior compared with other state-of-the-art methods.
A consensus multi-view multi-objective gene selection approach for improved sample classification
Authors: Acharya Sudipta , Cui Laizhong , Pan Yi
Published: September 2020

Background

In the field of computational biology, analyzing complex data helps to extract relevant biological information. Sample classification of gene expression data is one such popular bio-data analysis technique. However, the presence of a large number of irrelevant/redundant genes in expression data makes a sample classification algorithm working inefficiently. Feature selection is one such high-dimensionality reduction technique that helps to maximize the effectiveness of any sample classification algorithm. Recent advances in biotechnology have improved the biological data to include multi-modal or multiple views. Different‘omics’resources capture various equally important biological properties of entities. However, most of the existing feature selection methodologies are biased towards considering only one out of multiple biological resources. Consequently, some crucial aspects of available biological knowledge may get ignored, which could further improve feature selection efficiency.

Results

In this present work, we have proposed a Consensus Multi-View Multi-objective Clustering-based feature selection algorithm calledCMVMC. Three controlled genomic and proteomic resources like gene expression, Gene Ontology (GO), and protein-protein interaction network (PPIN) are utilized to build two independent views. The concept of multi-objective consensus clustering has been applied within our proposed gene selection method to satisfy both incorporated views. Gene expression data sets ofMultiple tissuesandYeastfrom two different organisms (Homo SapiensandSaccharomyces cerevisiae, respectively) are chosen for experimental purposes. As the end-product of CMVMC, a reduced set of relevant and non-redundant genes are found for each chosen data set. These genes finally participate in an effective sample classification.

Conclusions

The experimental study on chosen data sets shows that our proposed feature-selection method improves the sample classification accuracy and reduces the gene-space up to a significant level. In the case ofMultiple Tissuesdata set, CMVMC reduces the number of genes (features) from 5565 to 41, with 92.73% of sample classification accuracy. ForYeastdata set, the number of genes got reduced to 10 from 2884, with 95.84% sample classification accuracy. Two internal cluster validity indices - Silhouette and Davies-Bouldin (DB) and one external validity index Classification Accuracy (CA) are chosen for comparative study. Reported results are further validated through well-known biological significance test and visualization tool.
Liver imaging features by convolutional neural network to predict the metachronous liver metastasis in stage I-III colorectal cancer patients based on preoperative abdominal CT scan
Authors: Lee Sangwoo , Choe Eun Kyung , Kim So Yeon , Kim Hua Sun , Park Kyu Joo , Kim Dokyoon
Published: September 2020

Background

Introducing deep learning approach to medical images has rendered a large amount of un-decoded information into usage in clinical research. But mostly, it has been focusing on the performance of the prediction modeling for disease-related entity, but not on the clinical implication of the feature itself. Here we analyzed liver imaging features of abdominal CT images collected from 2019 patients with stage I – III colorectal cancer (CRC) using convolutional neural network (CNN) to elucidate its clinical implication in oncological perspectives.

Results

CNN generated imaging features from the liver parenchyma. Dimension reduction was done for the features by principal component analysis. We designed multiple prediction models for 5-year metachronous liver metastasis (5YLM) using combinations of clinical variables (age, sex, T stage, N stage) and top principal components (PCs), with logistic regression classification. The model using “1st PC (PC1) + clinical information” had the highest performance (mean AUC = 0.747) to predict 5YLM, compared to the model with clinical features alone (mean AUC = 0.709). The PC1 was independently associated with 5YLM in multivariate analysis (beta = − 3.831, P < 0.001). For the 5-year mortality rate, PC1 did not contribute to an improvement to the model with clinical features alone. For the PC1, Kaplan-Meier plots showed a significant difference between PC1 low vs. high group. The 5YLM-free survival of low PC1 was 89.6% and the high PC1 was 95.9%. In addition, PC1 had a significant correlation with sex, body mass index, alcohol consumption, and fatty liver status.

Conclusion

The imaging features combined with clinical information improved the performance compared to the standardized prediction model using only clinical information. The liver imaging features generated by CNN may have the potential to predict liver metastasis. These results suggest that even though there were no liver metastasis during the primary colectomy, the features of liver imaging can impose characteristics that could be predictive for metachronous liver metastasis.
PAWER: protein array web exploreR
Authors: Fishman Dmytro , Kuzmin Ivan , Adler Priit , Vilo Jaak , Peterson Hedi
Published: September 2020

Background

Protein microarray is a well-established approach for characterizing activity levels of thousands of proteins in a parallel manner. Analysis of protein microarray data is complex and time-consuming, while existing solutions are either outdated or challenging to use without programming skills. The typical data analysis pipeline consists of a data preprocessing step, followed by differential expression analysis, which is then put into context via functional enrichment. Normally, biologists would need to assemble their own workflow by combining a set of unrelated tools to analyze experimental data. Provided that most of these tools are developed independently by various bioinformatics groups, making them work together could be a real challenge.

Results

Here we present PAWER, the online web tool dedicated solely to protein microarray analysis. PAWER enables biologists to carry out all the necessary analysis steps in one go. PAWER provides access to state-of-the-art computational methods through the user-friendly interface, resulting in publication-ready illustrations. We also provide an R package for more advanced use cases, such as bespoke analysis workflows.

Conclusions

PAWER is freely available at https://biit.cs.ut.ee/pawer.
Five gene signatures were identified in the prediction of overall survival in resectable pancreatic cancer
Authors: Wu Chao , Wu Zuowei , Tian Bole
Published: September 2020

Background

Although genes have been previously detected in pancreatic cancer (PC), aberrant genes that play roles in resectable pancreatic cancer should be further assessed.

Methods

Messenger RNA samples and clinicopathological data corrected with PC were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). Resectable PC patients were randomly divided into a primary set and a validation set. Univariable Cox regression analysis, lasso-penalized Cox regression analysis, and multivariable Cox analysis were implemented to distinguish survival-related genes (SRGs). A risk score based on the SRGs was calculated by univariable Cox regression analysis. A genomic-clinical nomogram was established by integrating the risk score and clinicopathological data to predict overall survival (OS) in resectable PC.

Results

Five survival-related genes (AADAC, DEF8, HIST1H1C, MET, and CHFR) were significantly correlated with OS in resectable PC. The resectable PC patients, based on risk score, were sorted into a high-risk group that showed considerably unfavorable OS (p < 0.001) than the low-risk group, in both the primary set and the validation set. The concordance index (C-index) was calculated to evaluate the predictive performance of the nomogram were respectively in the primary set [0.696 (0.608–0.784)] and the validation set [0.682 (0.606–0.758)]. Additionally, gene set enrichment Analysis discovered several meaningful enriched pathways.

Conclusion

Our study identified five prognostic gene biomarkers for OS prediction and which facilitate postoperative molecular target therapy for the resectable PC, especially the nomic-clinical nomogram which may be used as an effective model for the postoperative OS evaluation and also an optimal therapeutic tool for the resectable PC.
Microglial-associated responses to comorbid amyloid pathology and hyperhomocysteinemia in an aged knock-in mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease
Authors: Braun David J. , Dimayuga Edgardo , Morganti Josh M. , Van Eldik Linda J.
Published: September 2020

Background

Elevated blood homocysteine levels, termed hyperhomocysteinemia (HHcy), is a prevalent risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in elderly populations. While dietary supplementation of B-vitamins is a generally effective method to lower homocysteine levels, there is little if any benefit to cognition. In the context of amyloid pathology, dietary-induced HHcy is known to enhance amyloid deposition and certain inflammatory responses. Little is known, however, about whether there is a more specific effect on microglia resulting from combined amyloid and HHcy pathologies.

Methods

The present study used a knock-in mouse model of amyloidosis, aged to 12 months, given 8 weeks of B-vitamin deficiency-induced HHcy to better understand how microglia are affected in this comorbidity context.

Results

We found that HHcy-inducing diet increased amyloid plaque burden, altered the neuroinflammatory milieu, and upregulated the expression of multiple damage-associated and “homeostatic” microglial genes.

Conclusions

Taken together, these data indicate complex effects of comorbid pathologies on microglial function that are not driven solely by increased amyloid burden. Given the highly dynamic nature of microglia, their central role in AD pathology, and the frequent occurrence of various comorbidities in AD patients, it is increasingly important to understand how microglia respond to mixed pathological processes.
The relationship between dietary patterns and rheumatoid arthritis: a case–control study
Authors: Nezamoleslami Shokufeh , Ghiasvand Reza , Feizi Awat , Salesi Mansour , Pourmasoumi Makan
Published: September 2020

Background and aim

A number of studies have investigated the effects of individual foods and/or nutrients on rheumatoid arthritis (RA), but research focusing on whole dietary patterns remains limited. The association of dietary patterns and rheumatoid arthritis is therefore not well elucidated. This study aims to determine existing relationships between major identified dietary patterns and RA.

Methods

This matched case–control study was conducted on 297 individuals in Isfahan, Iran. The presence of RA was determined by an expert rheumatologist, based on the American College of Rheumatology definitions, 2010. A 168-item questionnaire was used to collect dietary data. Major dietary patterns were identified using the factor analysis method.

Results

Two major dietary patterns, namely, healthy and western dietary patterns, were identified. Lower adherence to the healthy dietary pattern was associated with increased risk of RA (OR = 2.80; 95% CI 1.74–4.67; P < 0.001). The association remained significant even after taking other confounders into account (OR = 2.85; 95% CI 1.12–7.45; P = 0.03). A positively significant association was also observed between adherence to western dietary pattern and RA in the fully-adjusted final model (OR = 2.22; 95% CI 1.04–4.72; P = 0.03).

Conclusions

The study suggests that there is an inverse association between adherence to a healthy dietary pattern and the odds of RA, and a positive significant relationship was found between western dietary pattern and RA. Further studies are required to confirm these findings.
Comparative study on mid- and long-term clinical effects of medial pivot prosthesis and posterior-stabilized prosthesis after total knee arthroplasty
Authors: Shi Weipeng , Jiang Yaping , Wang Changyao , Zhang Haining , Wang Yingzhen , Li Tao
Published: September 2020

Objective

The purpose of this study was to explore the mid-and long-term clinical effects of Chinese patients with medial pivot (MP) prosthesis and posterior-stabilized (PS) prosthesis after total knee arthroplasty (TKA), to provide a reference for the recommendation of clinical prostheses.

Methods

A retrospective analysis of 802 patients who received TKA was performed from June 2010 to December 2013. A total of 432 patients received a MP prosthesis (MP group) and 375 patients received a PS prosthesis (PS group). Postoperative range of motion (ROM), clinical scores including the knee scoring system (KSS), the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities osteoarthritis index (WOMAC), the forgotten joint score (FJS), and postoperative complications were compared between the two groups.

Results

A total of 527 patients were followed up, including 290 in the MP group and 237 in the PS group. Both groups achieved satisfactory results in terms of KSS score, WOMAC score, and postoperative ROM, which were significantly improved compared with those before surgery, but the difference between the groups was not statistically significant (P> 0.05). The FJS scores of the MP group and the PS group were satisfactory and no significant difference was observed (P= 0.426). Postoperative complications occurred in 5 and 11 patients in the MP group and PS group, respectively.

Conclusion

The clinical results of TKA with MP or PS in Chinese patients at mid- and long-term are encouraging, and no significant differences were observed between the two types of prostheses. Studies have also shown that both prostheses are safe for Chinese patients.
Comparison of suprapatellar versus infrapatellar approaches of intramedullary nailing for distal tibia fractures
Authors: Lu Yao , Wang Gen , Hu Bin , Ren Cheng , Sun Liang , Wang Zhimeng , He Changjun , Xue Hanzhong , Li Zhong , Zhang Kun , Ma Teng , Wang Qian
Published: September 2020

Background

This study aimed to analyze and compare the clinical and functional outcomes of distal tibia fractures treated with intramedullary nailing (IMN) using the suprapatellar (SP) and infrapatellar (IP) surgical approaches.

Methods

A retrospective analysis was performed in 63 patients with distal fractures that were treated with IMN between August 2014 and August 2018. A total of 27 and 36 patients underwent IMN using the SP and IP techniques, respectively. The surgical time, blood loss, closed reduction rate, rate of adjuvant reduction technique, fracture healing time, and complications were reviewed in this study. Anterior knee pain was assessed using the visual analog scale. The Lysholm Knee Scoring Scale and American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society (AOFAS) scale were used as clinical measurements.

Results

A total of 63 patients, with a minimum follow-up of 12 months, were evaluated. The average surgical time, blood loss, rate of adjuvant reduction technique, closed reduction rate, fracture healing time, and Lysholm Knee Scoring Scale score were insignificantly different (P > 0.05) between the two groups. However, the SP approach was superior to the IP approach in terms of pain score, AOFAS score, and fracture deformity rate (P < 0.05).

Conclusions

In the treatment of distal tibia fractures, the SP IMN technique is associated with a significantly higher functional outcome, lower knee pain, and lower rate of fracture deformity than the IP IMN technique.
Bifrost: highly parallel construction and indexing of colored and compacted de Bruijn graphs
Authors: Holley Guillaume , Melsted Páll
Published: September 2020

Memory consumption of de Bruijn graphs is often prohibitive. Most de Bruijn graph-based assemblers reduce the complexity by compacting paths into single vertices, but this is challenging as it requires the uncompacted de Bruijn graph to be available in memory. We present a parallel and memory-efficient algorithm enabling the direct construction of the compacted de Bruijn graph without producing the intermediate uncompacted graph. Bifrost features a broad range of functions, such as indexing, editing, and querying the graph, and includes a graph coloring method that maps eachk-mer of the graph to the genomes it occurs in.

Availability

https://github.com/pmelsted/bifrost
Overlap between adverse events (AEs) and serious adverse events (SAEs): a case study of a phase III cancer clinical trial
Authors: James Elizabeth C. , Dunn David , Cook Adrian D. , Clamp Andrew R. , Sydes Matthew R.
Published: September 2020

Background

Safety data is required to be collected in all clinical trials and can be separated into two types of data, adverse events and serious adverse events. Often, these types of safety data are collected as two discrete data sets, where adverse events that also meet the criteria for seriousness should be reported in both datasets. Safety analyses are often conducted using only the adverse event dataset, which should feature all safety events reported. We investigated whether the reporting of safety in both datasets was systematically followed and explored the impact of this on safety analyses in ICON8, an ovarian cancer clinical trial.

Methods

Text searches of serious adverse event data identified events that could potentially match the data reported in the adverse event dataset (looking at pre-specified AE terms only). These serious adverse events were then mapped to adverse event data according to predefined criteria: (a) event term matches, (b) date of onset and date of assessment within 30 days of each other, (c) date of assessment lies between date of onset and date of resolution and (d) events confirmed to occur in the same chemotherapy cycle. A combined dataset of all unique safety events (whether originally reported in the adverse event or serious adverse event dataset) was created and safety analyses re-performed.

Results

51,019 adverse events were reported in ICON8, of which 42,410 were included in the mapping exercise. One thousand five hundred six serious adverse event elements were reported, of which 668 were included in the mapping exercise. Sixty-one percent of serious adverse event elements was matched to an already-reported adverse event. Supplementing these additional safety events and re-performing safety analyses increased the proportion of patients with at least one grade 3 or worse safety events in all arms from 42 to 47% in the control arm and 61 to 65% and 52 to 59% in the research arms. The difference in proportions of grade 3 or worse event in the research arms compared to the control arm changed by 18% (95% confidence interval [CI] 12 to 24%) and 12% (95% CI 6 to 18%), respectively.

Conclusions

There was low agreement in mapping serious adverse events to already reported adverse events, with nearly 40% of serious adverse events included in the mapping exercise not mapped to an already reported adverse event. Any analyses of safety data that use only adverse event datasets or do not clearly account for serious adverse event data will likely be missing important safety information. Reporting standards should make clear which datasets were used for analyses.
Measuring cortical mean diffusivity to assess early microstructural cortical change in presymptomatic familial Alzheimer’s disease
Authors: Weston Philip S. J. , Poole Teresa , Nicholas Jennifer M. , Toussaint Nicolas , Simpson Ivor J. A. , Modat Marc , Ryan Natalie S. , Liang Yuying , Rossor Martin N. , Schott Jonathan M. , Ourselin Sebastien , Zhang Hui , Fox Nick C.
Published: September 2020

Background

There is increasing interest in improving understanding of the timing and nature of early neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and developing methods to measure this in vivo. Autosomal dominant familial Alzheimer’s disease (FAD) provides the opportunity for investigation of presymptomatic change. We assessed early microstructural breakdown of cortical grey matter in FAD with diffusion-weighted MRI.

Methods

Diffusion-weighted and T1-weighed MRI were acquired in 38 FAD mutation carriers (17 symptomatic, 21 presymptomatic) and 39 controls. Mean diffusivity (MD) was calculated for six cortical regions previously identified as being particularly vulnerable to FAD-related neurodegeneration. Linear regression compared MD between symptomatic and presymptomatic carriers and controls, adjusting for age and sex. Spearman coefficients assessed associations between cortical MD and cortical thickness. Spearman coefficients also assessed associations between cortical MD and estimated years to/from onset (EYO). Across mutation carriers, linear regression assessed associations between MD and EYO, adjusting for cortical thickness.

Results

Compared with controls, cortical MD was higher in symptomatic mutation carriers (mean ± SD CDR = 0.88 ± 0.39) for all six regions (p < 0.001). In late presymptomatic carriers (within 8.1 years of predicted symptom onset), MD was higher in the precuneus (p = 0.04) and inferior parietal cortex (p = 0.003) compared with controls. Across all presymptomatic carriers, MD in the precuneus correlated with EYO (p = 0.04). Across all mutation carriers, there was strong evidence (p < 0.001) of association between MD and cortical thickness in all regions except entorhinal cortex. After adjusting for cortical thickness, there remained an association (p < 0.05) in mutation carriers between MD and EYO in all regions except entorhinal cortex.

Conclusions

Cortical MD measurement detects microstructural breakdown in presymptomatic FAD and correlates with proximity to symptom onset independently of cortical thickness. Cortical MD may thus be a feasible biomarker of early AD-related neurodegeneration, offering additional/complementary information to conventional MRI measures.
Role of protein repair enzymes in oxidative stress survival and virulence of Salmonella
Authors: Shome Arijit , Sarkhel Ratanti , Apoorva Shekhar , Nair Sonu Sukumaran , Chauhan Tapan Kumar Singh , Bhure Sanjeev Kumar , Mahawar Manish
Published: September 2020

Purpose

Proteins are the principal biomolecules in bacteria that are affected by the oxidants produced by the phagocytic cells. Most of the protein damage is irreparable though few unfolded proteins and covalently modified amino acids can be repaired by chaperones and repair enzymes respectively. This study reviews the three protein repair enzymes, protein l-isoaspartyl O-methyl transferase (PIMT), peptidyl proline cis-trans isomerase (PPIase), and methionine sulfoxide reductase (MSR).

Methods

Published articles regarding protein repair enzymes were collected from Google Scholar and PubMed. The information obtained from the research articles was analyzed and categorized into general information about the enzyme, mechanism of action, and role played by the enzymes in bacteria. Special emphasis was given to the importance of these enzymes in Salmonella Typhimurium.

Results

Protein repair is the direct and energetically preferred way of replenishing the cellular protein pool without translational synthesis. Under the oxidative stress mounted by the host during the infection, protein repair becomes very crucial for the survival of the bacterial pathogens. Only a few covalent modifications of amino acids are reversible by the protein repair enzymes, and they are highly specific in activity. Deletion mutants of these enzymes in different bacteria revealed their importance in the virulence and oxidative stress survival.

Conclusion

PIMT repairs isoaspartate residues, PPiase catalyzes the conversion of cis-trans forms of proline residues, while MSR repairs oxidized methionine (Met) residues in the proteins. These repair enzymes maintain the activities of the target protein(s), thus aid in bacterial survival and virulence. The interventions which can interfere with this mechanism could be used for the development of novel therapeutics.
Tendon stem cell-derived exosomes regulate inflammation and promote the high-quality healing of injured tendon
Authors: Zhang Mingzhao , Liu Hengchen , Cui Qingbo , Han Peilin , Yang Shulong , Shi Manyu , Zhang Tingting , Zhang Zenan , Li Zhaozhu
Published: September 2020

Background

Tendon stem cells (TSCs) have been reported to hold promises for tendon repair and regeneration. However, less is known about the effects of exosomes derived from TSCs. Therefore, we aimed to clarify the healing effects of TSC-derived exosomes (TSC-Exos) on tendon injury.

Methods

The Achilles tendons of Sprague-Dawley male rats were used for primary culture of TSCs and tenocytes, and exosomes were isolated from TSCs. The proliferation of tenocytes induced by TSC-Exos was analyzed using an EdU assay; cell migration was measured by cell scratch and transwell assays. We used western blot to analyze the role of the PI3K/AKT and MAPK/ERK1/2 signaling pathways. In vivo, Achilles tendon injury models were created in Sprague-Dawley rats. Rats (n = 54) were then randomly assigned to three groups: the TSC-Exos group, the GelMA group, and the control group. We used immunofluorescence to detect changes in the expression of inflammatory and apoptotic markers at 1 week after surgery. Histology and changes in expression of extracellular matrix (ECM)-related indices were assessed by hematoxylin-eosin (H&E) staining and immunohistochemistry at 2 and 8 weeks. The collagen fiber diameter of the healing tendon was analyzed at 8 weeks by transmission electron microscopy (TEM).

Results

TSC-Exos were taken up by tenocytes, which promoted the proliferation and migration of cells in a dose-dependent manner; this process may depend on the activation of the PI3K/AKT and MAPK/ERK1/2 signaling pathways. At 1 week after surgery, we found that inflammation and apoptosis were significantly suppressed by TSC-Exos. At 2 and 8 weeks, tendons treated with TSC-Exos showed more continuous and regular arrangement in contrast to disorganized tendons in the GelMA and control groups, and TSC-Exos may help regulate ECM balance and inhibited scar formation. Further, at 8 weeks, the TSC-Exos group had a larger diameter of collagen compared to the control group.

Conclusions

Our data suggest that TSC-Exos could promote high-quality healing of injured tendon, which may be a promising therapeutic approach for tendon injury.
Simulation as a pedagogical learning method for critical paediatric nursing in Bachelor of Nursing programmes: a qualitative study
Authors: Akselbo Iben , Killingberg Heidi , Aune Ingvild
Published: September 2020

Background

In the national education plan for Bachelor of Nursing in Norway, it is emphasized that focus areas for practical studies must include experience related to paediatric nursing. However, given the paucity of children’s wards in Norwegian hospitals, few students are offered this. The purpose of this study is to explore undergraduate nursing student’s perception of using simulation as a learning method to obtain knowledge and skills in delivering quality healthcare to children and their parents in emergencies.

Method

A total of 36 students participated in focus groups. The students were asked to reflect on their learning outcomes regarding the educational method during the simulation. In addition, the students were encouraged to discuss whether this pedagogical method was useful in preparing them to deal with critical medical situations in relation to children and their parents. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed using qualitative content analysis.

Results

Three subjects emerged from the analysis. The first, simulation as an educational method, showed that the students thought that simulation gave a greater degree of realism and seriousness than other learning activities. The second subject, preparedness for later practice, showed that the students perceived simulation as one of the ways in which they were best prepared for the profession as a nurse. The students emphasized the benefit of having concentrated on children and their parents. The third subject, stress and leadership, showed that simulation as a method was stressful to most students, and lack of knowledge and anxiety about conducting other students kept them from taking the lead. However, the students experienced that they learned a lot about themselves and how they appear as nurses.

Conclusion

The bachelor-level student nurses experienced simulation as a realistic and effective educational method for gaining knowledge in the critical healthcare of children and their parents. Simulation made them reflect on a nurse’s area of responsibility in emergencies. When offered practical experience in children’s wards, the use of simulation as a didactic method may help students develop sufficient competence to act appropriately and expediently in critical paediatric nursing settings.

Trial registration

The study (number 52776) was approved by the Norwegian Centre for Research Data.
Influence of energy removal rate on the quality of minced meat from undersized crawfish during frozen storage
Authors: Bonilla Franklin , Reyes Vondel , Chouljenko Alexander , Dzandu Bennett , Sathivel Subramaniam
Published: September 2020

Undersized crawfish have little economic value and are often discarded. Producing crawfish minced meat (CMM) from undersized crawfish and using an appropriate freezing technique may enable an economically viable market. The objective of this research was to evaluate the effect of the energy removal rate using two techniques, cryogenic freezing (CF) and air blast freezing (BF), on CMM’s quality during frozen storage. CMM was separated into two batches; one batch was cryogenically frozen with liquid nitrogen and the other batch was frozen with an air blast freezer. CMM batches were frozen and stored at − 18 °C. They were analyzed for moisture content, color, pH, and lipid oxidation during 180 days of storage. The CMM yield was 64.67% of the total crawfish weight. Cryogenic freezing achieved the highest freezing rate. Cryogenically frozen CMM showed 22% less lipid oxidation than CMM frozen by air blast freezing at 180 days of storage. This study showed that CMM could be mechanically produced from undersized crawfish and freezing techniques with high energy removal rate could better maintain quality attributes for CMM during frozen storage.

Graphical abstract
Advancing the pragmatic measurement of sustainment: a narrative review of measures
Authors: Moullin Joanna C. , Sklar Marisa , Green Amy , Dickson Kelsey S. , Stadnick Nicole A. , Reeder Kendal , Aarons Gregory A.
Published: September 2020

Background

Sustainment, an outcome indicating an intervention continues to be implemented over time, has been comparatively less studied than other phases of the implementation process. This may be because of methodological difficulties, funding cycles, and minimal attention to theories and measurement of sustainment. This review synthesizes the literature on sustainment measures, evaluates the qualities of each measure, and highlights the strengths and gaps in existing sustainment measures. Results of the review will inform recommendations for the development of a pragmatic, valid, and reliable measure of sustainment.

Methods

A narrative review of published sustainment outcome and sustainability measures (i.e., factors that influence sustainment) was conducted, including appraising measures in the Society of Implementation Research Collaboration (SIRC) instrument review project (IRP) and the Dissemination and Implementation Grid-Enabled Measures database initiative (GEM-D&I). The narrative review used a snowballing strategy by searching the reference sections of literature reviews and definitions of sustainability and sustainment. Measures used frequently and judged to be comprehensive and/or validated by a team of implementation scientists were extracted for analysis.

Results

Eleven measures were evaluated. Three of the included measures were found in the SIRC-IRP, three in the GEM-D&I database, (one measure was in both databases) and six were identified in our additional searches. Thirteen constructs relating to sustainment were coded from selected measures. Measures covered a range of determinants for sustainment (i.e., construct of sustainability) as well as constructs of sustainment as an outcome. Strengths of the measures included, development by expert panels knowledgeable about particular interventions, fields or contexts, and utility in specific scenarios. A number of limitations were found in the measures analyzed including inadequate assessment of psychometric characteristics, being overly intervention or context specific, being lengthy and/or complex, and focusing on outer context factors.

Conclusion

There is a lack of pragmatic and psychometrically sound measures of sustainment that can be completed by implementation stakeholders within inner context settings (e.g., frontline providers, supervisors).
Rank-and-File Antiracism
Authors: Schrader Stuart
Published: September 2020

This review essay on recent scholarship on Rock Against Racism argues that the original scholarship on the topic misunderstood the relationship of punk rock and Rock Against Racism to the Left and to transformations in capitalism in Great Britain and beyond in the 1970s. This review offers a reinterpretation of punk rock as a rank-and-file mobilization in the realm of culture at a moment when more traditional venues for rank-and-file mobilization became unavailable.
Artificial intelligence in paediatric radiology: Future opportunities
Authors: Davendralingam Natasha , Sebire Neil J , Arthurs Owen J , Shelmerdine Susan C
Published: September 2020

Artificial intelligence (AI) has received widespread and growing interest in healthcare, as a method to save time, cost and improve efficiencies. The high-performance statistics and diagnostic accuracies reported by using AI algorithms (with respect to predefined reference standards), particularly from image pattern recognition studies, have resulted in extensive applications proposed for clinical radiology, especially for enhanced image interpretation. Whilst certain sub-speciality areas in radiology, such as those relating to cancer screening, have received wide-spread attention in the media and scientific community, children’s imaging has been hitherto neglected.

In this article, we discuss a variety of possible ‘use cases’ in paediatric radiology from a patient pathway perspective where AI has either been implemented or shown early-stage feasibility, while also taking inspiration from the adult literature to propose potential areas for future development. We aim to demonstrate how a ‘future, enhanced paediatric radiology service’ could operate and to stimulate further discussion with avenues for research.
Distance Labor Trends in Digitalization
Authors: Kashtanova YEkatyerina , Svistunov Vasiliy , Abdullina V. , Gubina A.
Published: September 2020

Rapidly spreading around the world, the coronavirus instantly changed the usual way of life of mankind. Employers are forced to massively transfer their employees to remote work mode. Humanity has entered one of its most global experiments: will employees who have experienced a new work model return to the office version? Which of the long-standing myths about remote work have already lost their relevance? How do modern digital tools transform the attitude of employers and employees to remote work? What does remote work change in the company's HR management practice? We have tried to answer at least some of these questions in this article, based on personal experience of remote work and studying the practices of remote labor relations in Russia and abroad.
Tools to Build an External and Internal HR Brand
Authors: Erygina Anna
Published: September 2020

This article addresses a corporate HR brand concept. It presents the interrelation between HR branding components and determines the importance of external and internal branding. Key aspects of these types of HR branding are highlighted. They include goal, tools and result. Their elements are described. It is stated that successful development of a company brand requires an equal focus on external and internal tools. Therefore, we need a strong focus on the factors that can be used to build a positive image of a company. The article reviews the case studies of companies with a well-developed HR brand that have completed all challenging stages of planning, arrangement and implementation of the employer's brand. Necessary actions and tools have been identified to promote the HR brand along with the ways to assess the efficiency of their implementation.
Ethnic Extremism in the Student Environment: Experience of Empirical Research
Authors: Vekshin S.
Published: September 2020

The article is devoted to the actual problem of prevention of extremist moods of students in modern conditions of functioning of educational organizations of higher education. The development of prevention programs that ensure the effectiveness of the corresponding preventive activities of higher education institutions should be based on empirically confirmed and scientifically based information about the patterns and factors of occurrence and development of extremist moods of ethnic and religious orientation among students.

The article presents the results of an empirical study that reveals the current state of the problem of the spread of extremist moods among modern students and the level of their propensity to extremist activities. Based on the results of the conducted empirical research, the author constructs a predictive model of possible manifestations of extremism among students studying in modern Russian universities, thereby determining the need and feasibility of developing effective measures to prevent the development of extremism in the youth environment.

The empirical study involved 563 students of 2-3 courses of a number of Russian universities that carry out educational activities and implement educational programs in various areas of training (law, Economics, psychological, psychological-pedagogical and pedagogical education, etc.). Based on the identification of indicators of a person's propensity to ethnic extremism and the development of appropriate diagnostic tools, the author conducts a study, which concludes that it is necessary to search for effective measures to prevent extremist manifestations in the student environment in the process of organizing the educational process of the University. The revealed level of students ' propensity to extremism and its manifestation in their life activity is the main indicator of the relevance of the problem of preventing ethnic extremism among students in the process of their education at the University.