bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The effects of kisspeptin on β‐cell function, serum metabolites and appetite in humans
Authors: Izzi‐Engbeaya Chioma , Comninos Alexander N. , Clarke Sophie A. , Jomard Anne , Yang Lisa , Jones Sophie , Abbara Ali , Narayanaswamy Shakunthala , Eng Pei Chia , Papadopoulou Deborah , Prague Julia K. , Bech Paul , Godsland Ian F. , Bassett Paul , Sands Caroline , Camuzeaux Stephane , Gomez‐Romero Maria , Pearce Jake T. M. , Lewis Matthew R. , Holmes Elaine , Nicholson Jeremy K. , Tan Tricia , Ratnasabapathy Risheka , Hu Ming , Carrat Gaelle , Piemonti Lorenzo , Bugliani Marco , Marchetti Piero , Johnson Paul R. , Hughes Stephen J. , James Shapiro A. M. , Rutter Guy A. , Dhillo Waljit S.
Published: July 2018

Aims

To investigate the effect of kisspeptin on glucose‐stimulated insulin secretion and appetite in humans.

Materials and methods

In 15 healthy men (age: 25.2 ± 1.1 years; BMI: 22.3 ± 0.5 kg m−2), we compared the effects of 1 nmol kg−1 h−1 kisspeptin versus vehicle administration on glucose‐stimulated insulin secretion, metabolites, gut hormones, appetite and food intake. In addition, we assessed the effect of kisspeptin on glucose‐stimulated insulin secretion in vitro in human pancreatic islets and a human β‐cell line (EndoC‐βH1 cells).

Results

Kisspeptin administration to healthy men enhanced insulin secretion following an intravenous glucose load, and modulated serum metabolites. In keeping with this, kisspeptin increased glucose‐stimulated insulin secretion from human islets and a human pancreatic cell line in vitro. In addition, kisspeptin administration did not alter gut hormones, appetite or food intake in healthy men.

Conclusions

Collectively, these data demonstrate for the first time a beneficial role for kisspeptin in insulin secretion in humans in vivo. This has important implications for our understanding of the links between reproduction and metabolism in humans, as well as for the ongoing translational development of kisspeptin‐based therapies for reproductive and potentially metabolic conditions.
Assessing gastrointestinal motility in healthy horses comparing auscultation, ultrasonography and an acoustic gastrointestinal surveillance biosensor: a randomised, blinded, controlled crossover proof of principle study
Authors: VanderBroek A. R. , Reef V. B. , Aitken M. R. , Stefanovski D. , Southwood L. L.
Published: July 2018

Background

Auscultation and ultrasonography are noninvasive techniques used to assess gastrointestinal motility in horses. Recently, noninvasive acoustic gastrointestinal surveillance (AGIS) biosensors evaluating intestinal motility have been validated in humans.

Objectives

To compareAGISto auscultation and ultrasonography for detecting decreased motility after xylazine administration.

Study design

Randomised, blinded, controlled cross‐over proof of principle study.

Methods

Six healthy horses were evaluated under fasted and nonfasted conditions and randomly assigned to receive treatment with 0.4 mg/kg xylazine or an equivalent volume of 0.9% NaCl intravenously. After a 48‐h washout period, the process was repeated with the alternate treatment. Motility was assessed pre and posttreatment. Borborygmi were assessed in each abdominal quadrant and graded on a scale of 0–3, with 3 being continuous borborygmi. Duodenal, jejunal and caecal contractions were assessed ultrasonographically in consistent locations. FourAGISbiosensors were applied in standardised locations (duodenum, caecum, ventral midline, right dorsal colon). The biosensors measure acoustic signals and data were recorded in transport metric. Data were analysed using cross‐classified multilevel random effects logistic regression including area under the receiver operator characteristic curve (AUC ROC). Sensitivity, specificity and accuracy were calculated for each modality.

Results

All three modalities detected a reduction in gastrointestinal motility following xylazine administration withAUC ROCbeing 0.85, 0.84 and 0.86 for auscultation, ultrasonography andAGISrespectively. The sensitivity, specificity and accuracy for auscultation was 88, 71 and 75%; for ultrasonography was 67, 63 and 64%; and forAGISwas 69, 70 and 70%, respectively.

Main limitations

The study was performed in normal healthy horses and application of this device to clinical patients warrants further investigation.

Conclusions

In this proof of principle study,AGISwas able to discriminate between horses given xylazine from those given 0.9% NaCl with comparable accuracy as auscultation and ultrasonography.

The Summary is available in Spanish ‐ see Supporting Information
Mining of high‐utility itemsets with negative utility
Authors: Singh Kuldeep , Shakya Harish Kumar , Singh Abhimanyu , Biswas Bhaskar
Published: July 2018

High‐utility itemset (HUI) mining is an important tasks during data mining. Recently, many algorithms have been proposed to discover HUIs. Most of the algorithms work only for itemsets with positive utility values. However, in the real world, items are found with both positive and negative utility values. To address this issue, we propose an algorithm named Efficient High‐utility Itemsets mining with Negative utility (EHIN) to find all HUIs with negative utility. EHIN utilises 2 new upper bounds for pruning, named revised subtree and revised local utility. To reduce dataset scans, the proposed algorithm uses transaction merging and dataset projection techniques. An array‐based utility‐counting technique is also utilised to calculate upper‐bound efficiently. EHIN utilises various properties and pruning strategies to mine HUIs with negative utility. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is 28 times faster, and it consumes up to 10 times less memory than the state‐of‐the‐art algorithm FHN. Moreover, a key advantage is that EHIN always performs better for dense datasets.
An anisotropic damage model for tensile fatigue
Authors: Vijay Akhil , Sadeghi Farshid
Published: July 2018

Fatigue damage in materials is considered to be the effect of material degradation, and the dispersion in fatigue life is attributed to variability in microstructure. This paper presents a numerical model to simulate fatigue damage evolution using continuum damage mechanics to characterize material degradation. An explicit microstructure topology representation is achieved using Voronoi tessellations. Unlike conventional models which use a scalar approximation for damage, this model treats the damage variable as an anisotropic tensor. The model is used to simulate tensile fatigue failure in thin steel specimen. The fatigue life estimations from the model compares well with published experimental results. The results predict a high variability in fatigue life that is characteristic of metals and alloys, as compared with the existing isotropic damage models available in the literature. The model was also used to study the influence of material inhomogeneity on fatigue life dispersion.
Relationships between substance abuse/dependence and psychiatric disorders based on polygenic scores
Authors: Gurriarán Xaquín , Rodríguez‐López Julio , Flórez Gerardo , Pereiro César , Fernández José M. , Fariñas Emilio , Estévez Valentín , Arrojo Manuel , Costas Javier ,   the GenPol Study Group
Published: July 2018

Genetic susceptibility to substance use disorders (SUDs) is partially shared between substances. Heritability of any substance dependence, estimated as 54%, is partly explained by additive effects of common variants. Comorbidity between SUDs and other psychiatric disorders is frequent. The present study aims to analyze the additive role of common variants in this comorbidity using polygenic scores (PGSs) based on genome‐wide association study discovery samples of schizophrenia (SCZ), bipolar disorder, attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorder, major depressive disorder and anxiety disorders, available from large consortia. PGSs were calculated for 534 patients meeting DSM‐IV criteria for dependence of a substance and abuse/dependence of another substance between alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, cocaine, opiates, hypnotics, stimulants, hallucinogens and solvents; and 587 blood donors from the same population, Iberians from Galicia, as controls. Significance of the PGS and percentage of variance explained were calculated by logistic regression. Using discovery samples of similar size, significant associations with SUDs were detected for SCZ PGS. SCZ PGS explained more variance in SUDs than in most psychiatric disorders. Cross‐disorder PGS based on five psychiatric disorders was significant after adjustment for the effect of SCZ PGS. SCZ PGS was significantly higher in women than in men abusing alcohol. Our findings indicate that SUDs share genetic susceptibility with SCZ to a greater extent than with other psychiatric disorders, including externalizing disorders such as attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Women have lower probability to develop substance abuse/dependence than men at similar PGS probably because of a higher social pressure against excessive drug use in women.
Who's a good boy then? Anthropocentric masculinities in veterinary practice
Authors: Clarke Caroline , Knights David
Published: July 2018

Veterinary surgeons (vets) provide us with a fascinating platform to study anthropocentric and zoocentric beliefs, which we argue are gendered in both their genesis and practice. Gendered in the sense of the double meaning of our title ‘who's a good boy then?’, which reflects both a default male gender and a patronizing masculine claim to mastery over the animal. In addition, veterinary practices are organized in specifically masculine ways that, despite the demographic feminization of the profession, are oblivious to distinctively gendered practices and concerns and thus to the reproduction of gendered inequalities. The research also focuses on how there is a tendency for vets to neglect their own bodies for the sake of the animal's welfare (zoocentrism) but, at the same time, this reflects and reproduces masculine anthropocentric demands for human supremacy involving linear rational and effective control over the animal as a necessary part of their commercial and career success. In the empirical presentation, we show how organizational gendering within the gendered organization of veterinary surgery occurs at all levels, sometimes openly and explicitly, but also covertly and implicitly. In seeking to interrogate the covert and implicit in gender asymmetry, we draw on post‐humanist feminist philosophical perspectives that facilitate our challenging of the gendered anthropocentric organization of veterinary work.
Patients’ experiences of isolation in psychiatric inpatient care: Insights from a meta‐ethnographic study
Authors: Lindgren Britt‐Marie , Ringnér Anders , Molin Jenny , Graneheim Ulla H.
Published: July 2018

Historically, people with mental ill‐health have been isolated from society. Although mental health care has moved from closed to more open forms of care, in many societies care is still provided in locked wards, and people with mental ill‐health are sometimes secluded from their fellow patients, families, friends, and visitors. The aim of this study was to illuminate patients’ experiences of isolation in psychiatric inpatient care. A systematic review of qualitative research was conducted, and the key findings were subjected to meta‐ethnographic synthesis. The findings were twofold: ‘being admitted to prison’ and ‘having access to shelter’. The experience of isolated care as prison‐like symbolizes patients’ longing for freedom and feeling restricted and limited by rules, stripped of rights, abandoned, controlled, powerless, and unsupported. In contrast, the experience of isolation as shelter symbolizes safety and the opportunity to regain control over one's own situation. A stigmatizing public view holds that people with mental ill‐health are dangerous and unpredictable and, therefore, unsafe to themselves and others. Being placed in isolation because these fears contribute to self‐stigma among patients. Promoting a sheltered experience in which isolation is used with respect for patients and the reasons are made explicit may encourage recovery. A shift in emphasis in ward culture from observation to engagement is needed to reduce blame, shift patient experiences from prison to shelter, and to support autonomy as a therapeutic intervention.
Increased Dkk‐1 plasma levels may discriminate disease subtypes in myeloproliferative neoplasms
Authors: Mambet Cristina , Necula Laura , Mihai Simona , Matei Lilia , Bleotu Coralia , Chivu‐Economescu Mihaela , Stanca Oana , Tatic Aurelia , Berbec Nicoleta , Tanase Cristiana , Diaconu Carmen C.
Published: July 2018

Alterations in the bone marrow niche induced by abnormal production of cytokines and other soluble factors have been associated with disease progression in classical BCR‐ABL1 negative myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN). Variations in circulating proteins might reflect local disease processes and plasma proteome profiling could serve to identify possible diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers. We employed a human cytokine array to screen for 105 distinct analytes in pooled plasma samples obtained from untreated young MPN patients (<35 years) with different clinical phenotypes and driver mutations, as well as from healthy individuals. Among molecules that exhibited significantly increased levels in MPN patients versus controls, the top of the list was represented by Dickkopf‐related protein 1 (Dkk‐1), which also showed the highest potential for discrimination between MPN subtypes. In the next step, a quantitative ELISA was used to measure plasma Dkk‐1 levels in 30 young‐onset MPN—10 essential thrombocythemia (ET), 10 polycythemia vera (PV), 10 pre‐fibrotic primary myelofibrosis (pre‐PMF)—and 10 controls. The results suggested that plasma Dkk‐1 levels could differentiate ET from pre‐PMF, in JAK2 V617F‐positive as well as in CALR‐positive patients, and also ET from PV in JAK2 V617F‐positive patients.
Community perceptions of flood resilience as represented in cognitive maps
Authors: Chowdhooree Imon , Sloan Mellini , Dawes Les
Published: July 2018

Community perceptions of flood resilience hinge upon translation of impressions of events and built environment, which thereby influence a community's ability to resist, cope with and recover from adverse impacts of flooding. Particularly in developing countries, NGOs, often in collaboration with communities, design and fund non‐traditional structural measures to enhance community resilience. This study examines community perceptions of flood resilience in the Haor region of Bangladesh, where communities live on constructed islands, reinforced by structural flood mitigation measures. Wave activity due to riverine flooding places communities at significant risk, especially as NGO‐funded non‐traditional structural measures intended to increase resilience may fail to do so. Small group meetings with community members were facilitated in graphically depicting and discussing areas of risk and relative safety during flood events. Maps constructed by community groups indicate that perceptions of community vulnerability are shared between generations, and that measures intended to enhance resilience may actually increase community perceptions of vulnerability, highlighting a need for a more nuanced understanding of community adaptation to ongoing risk. Findings identified the use of non‐language‐dependent tools such as cognitive mapping as quick and effective data collection mechanisms. Incorporating this local knowledge allows for more effective targeted measures, increasing community resilience and better informing NGO practices.
Intermittent aortic balloon occlusion combined with cesarean section for the treatment of patients with placenta previa complicated by placenta accreta: A retrospective study
Authors: Duan Xuhua , Chen Pengfei , Han Xinwei , Wang Yanli , Chen Zhimin , Zhang Xiaoli , Chu Qinjun , Liang Haomin
Published: July 2018

Aim

To compare the efficacy of cesarean section (CS) combined with intermittent aortic balloon occlusion with that of CS alone for treating patients with placenta previa complicated by placenta accreta.

Methods

Forty‐five patients with placenta previa complicated by placenta accreta who underwent CS were retrospectively studied. Twenty‐two patients had undergone CS combined with intermittent aortic balloon occlusion (combination group) and 23 patients received conventional hemostatic support only (control group). The postpartum hemorrhage, transfusion requirements, operation time and recovery time, and the ability to preserve the uterus and fertility were analyzed.

Results

Intermittent aortic balloon occlusion significantly decreased the volume of blood loss in the combination group relative to the control group (597 ± 359 mL vs 2687 ± 575 mL; P < 0.001), and transfusion requirements were also reduced (498 ±195 mL vs 2390 ±789 mL; P <0.001). We observed shorter operation time in the combination group relative to the control group (63.8 ± 12.3 min vs 118.8 ± 22.4 min; P < 0.001), and fewer patients required uterine cavity stuffing followed by uterine artery embolization (n = 2 vs n = 10; P <0.05), uterine artery ligation (n = 1 vs n = 9; P < 0.05), and hysterectomy (n = 0 vs n =7; P < 0.05).

Conclusion

Intermittent aortic balloon occlusion may control postpartum hemorrhage in pregnancies complicated by placenta accreta, and improve the postoperative conditions.
Meta‐analysis of the impact of successful chronic total occlusion percutaneous coronary intervention on left ventricular systolic function and reverse remodeling
Authors: Megaly Michael , Saad Marwan , Tajti Peter , Burke M. Nicholas , Chavez Ivan , Gössl Mario , Lips Daniel , Mooney Michael , Poulose Anil , Sorajja Paul , Traverse Jay , Wang Yale , Kohl Louis P. , Bradley Steven M. , Brilakis Emmanouil S.
Published: July 2018

Background

We sought to examine the impact of coronary chronic total occlusion (CTO) percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) on left ventricular (LV) function.

Methods

We performed a systematic review and meta‐analysis of studies published between January 1980 and November 2017 on the impact of successful CTO PCI on LV function.

Results

A total of 34 observational studies including 2735 patients were included in the meta‐analysis. Over a weighted mean follow‐up of 7.9 months, successful CTO PCI was associated with an increase in LV ejection fraction by 3.8% (95%CI 3.0‐4.7, P < 0.0001, I2 = 45%). In secondary analysis of 15 studies (1248 patients) that defined CTOs as occlusions of at least 3‐month duration and reported follow‐up of at least 3‐months after the procedure, successful CTO PCI was associated with improvement in LV ejection fraction by 4.3% (95%CI [3.1, 5.6], P < 0.0001). In the 10 studies (502 patients) that reported LV end‐systolic volume, successful CTO PCI was associated with a decrease in LV end‐systolic volume by 4 mL, (95%CI −6.0 to −2.1, P < 0.0001, I2 = 0%). LV end‐diastolic volume was reported in 9 studies with 403 patients and did not significantly change after successful CTO PCI (−2.3 mL, 95%CI −5.7 to 1.2 mL, P = 0.19, I2 = 0%).

Conclusions

Successful CTO PCI is associated with a statistically significant improvement in LV ejection fraction and decrease in LV end‐systolic volume, that may reflect a beneficial effect of CTO recanalization on LV remodeling. The clinical implications of these findings warrant further investigation.
The Neolithic Plant Invasion Hypothesis: the role of preadaptation and disturbance in grassland invasion
Authors: MacDougall Andrew S. , McCune Jenny L. , Eriksson Ove , Cousins Sara A. O. , Pärtel Meelis , Firn Jennifer , Hierro Jose L.
Published: July 2018

A long‐standing hypothesis is that many European plants invade temperate grasslands globally because they are introduced simultaneously with pastoralism and cultivation, to which they are ‘preadapted’ after millennia of exposure dating to the Neolithic era (‘Neolithic Plant Invasion Hypothesis’ (NPIH)). These ‘preadaptations’ are predicted to maximize their performance relative to native species lacking this adaptive history. Here, we discuss the explanatory relevance of the NPIH, clarifying the importance of evolutionary context vs other mechanisms driving invasion. The NPIH makes intuitive sense given established connections between invasion and agricultural‐based perturbation. However, tests are often incomplete given the need for performance contrasts between home and away ranges, while controlling for other mechanisms. We emphasize six NPIH‐based predictions, centring on trait similarity of invaders between home vs away populations, and differing perturbation responses by invading and native plants. Although no research has integrated all six predictions, we highlight studies suggesting preadaptation influences on invasion. Given that many European grasslands are creations of human activity from the past, current invasions by these flora may represent the continuation of processes dating to the Neolithic. Ironically, European Neolithic‐derived grasslands are becoming rarer, reflecting changes in management and illustrating the importance of human influences on these species.
The prehistoric peopling of Southeast Asia
Authors: McColl Hugh , Racimo Fernando , Vinner Lasse , Demeter Fabrice , Gakuhari Takashi , Moreno-Mayar J. Víctor , van Driem George , Gram Wilken Uffe , Seguin-Orlando Andaine , de la Fuente Castro Constanza , Wasef Sally , Shoocongdej Rasmi , Souksavatdy Viengkeo , Sayavongkhamdy Thongsa , Saidin Mohd Mokhtar , Allentoft Morten E. , Sato Takehiro , Malaspinas Anna-Sapfo , Aghakhanian Farhang A. , Korneliussen Thorfinn , Prohaska Ana , Margaryan Ashot , de Barros Damgaard Peter , Kaewsutthi Supannee , Lertrit Patcharee , Nguyen Thi Mai Huong , Hung Hsiao-chun , Minh Tran Thi , Nghia Truong Huu , Nguyen Giang Hai , Shahidan Shaiful , Wiradnyana Ketut , Matsumae Hiromi , Shigehara Nobuo , Yoneda Minoru , Ishida Hajime , Masuyama Tadayuki , Yamada Yasuhiro , Tajima Atsushi , Shibata Hiroki , Toyoda Atsushi , Hanihara Tsunehiko , Nakagome Shigeki , Deviese Thibaut , Bacon Anne-Marie , Duringer Philippe , Ponche Jean-Luc , Shackelford Laura , Patole-Edoumba Elise , Nguyen Anh Tuan , Bellina-Pryce Bérénice , Galipaud Jean-Christophe , Kinaston Rebecca , Buckley Hallie , Pottier Christophe , Rasmussen Simon , Higham Tom , Foley Robert A. , Lahr Marta Mirazón , Orlando Ludovic , Sikora Martin , Phipps Maude E. , Oota Hiroki , Higham Charles , Lambert David M. , Willerslev Eske
Published: July 2018

Ancient migrations in Southeast Asia

The past movements and peopling of Southeast Asia have been poorly represented in ancient DNA studies (see the Perspective by Bellwood). Lipson
et al.
generated sequences from people inhabiting Southeast Asia from about 1700 to 4100 years ago. Screening of more than a hundred individuals from five sites yielded ancient DNA from 18 individuals. Comparisons with present-day populations suggest two waves of mixing between resident populations. The first mix was between local hunter-gatherers and incoming farmers associated with the Neolithic spreading from South China. A second event resulted in an additional pulse of genetic material from China to Southeast Asia associated with a Bronze Age migration. McColl
et al.
sequenced 26 ancient genomes from Southeast Asia and Japan spanning from the late Neolithic to the Iron Age. They found that present-day populations are the result of mixing among four ancient populations, including multiple waves of genetic material from more northern East Asian populations.

Science
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92
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31
STEMM education should get “HACD”
Authors: Root-Bernstein Robert
Published: July 2018

On 7 May 2018, the Board on Higher Education and Workforce of the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) released a report recommending that humanities, arts, crafts, and design (HACD) practices be integrated with science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) in college and post-graduate curricula. Because the ecology of education is so complex, the report concludes that there is no one, or best, way to integrate arts and humanities with STEMM learning, nor any single type of pedagogical experiment or set of data that proves incontrovertibly that integration is the definitive answer to improved job preparedness. Nonetheless, a preponderance of evidence converges on the conclusion that incorporating HACD into STEMM pedagogies can improve STEMM performance.
Lost productivity among military personnel with cardiovascular disease
Authors: Gharasi-Manshadi Mahdi , Meskarpour-Amiri M , Mehdizadeh P
Published: July 2018

Objective

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is associated with significant productivity loss among all occupational groups. However, the increased occupational requirements of military personnel pose physical and psychological demands that could lead to greater lost productivity of CVD. The aim of this study was to determine the economic cost of lost productivity of military patients with CVD.

Methods

A prospective cross-sectional study was undertaken on all military patients attending a specialist CVD clinic in Tehran, Iran. All participants were interviewed using face-to-face questioning using a Valuation of Lost Productivity questionnaire. Data captured included paid and unpaid time lost due to CVD, military job characteristics and their work environment. Ordered logistic regression was used to examine the determinants of lost productivity.

Results

The mean time of lost productivity was 118 hours over a 3-month period, of which 70 and 48 hours were paid and unpaid work, respectively. The average cost per patient of total lost productivity was estimated to be US$303 over a 3-month period.

Conclusions

CVDs are associated with significant lost productivity among military personnel. There is a statistically significant relation between some military occupation characteristics and lost productivity from CVD. Level of income, teamwork and physical activity have the greatest effects on lost productivity. Military workers who were suffering from other chronic conditions (in addition to CVD) were four times more likely to lose productivity. A supportive work environment should be created for military personnel with emphasis on developing teamwork, improving worker’s attitudes towards disease and giving priority to workers with comorbidities.
OAC Bruton soybean
Authors: Torabi S. , Stirling B.T. , Kobler J. , Eskandari M.
Published: July 2018

OAC Bruton is an indeterminate large-seeded food-grade soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] cultivar with high yield potential, high seed protein concentration, and resistance to soybean cyst nematode (SCN). OAC Bruton is developed and recommended for soybean growing areas in southwestern Ontario with 2950 or greater crop heat units. OAC Bruton is classified as a maturity group 1 (MG1) cultivar with a relative maturity of 1.8.
A comparison of infectious agents between hatchery-enhanced and wild out-migrating juvenile chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) from Cowichan River, British Columbia
Authors: Thakur Krishna K. , Vanderstichel Raphaël , Li Shaorong , Laurin Emilie , Tucker Strahan , Neville Chrys , Tabata Amy , Miller Kristina M.
Published: July 2018

Infectious diseases are likely contributing to large-scale declines in chinook salmon stocks in the Pacific Northwest, but the specific agents and diseases involved, and the prevalences in migratory salmon, are mostly unknown. We applied a high-throughput microfluidics platform to screen for 45 infectious agents in 556 out-migrating juvenile chinook salmon, collected from freshwater (FW) and saltwater (SW) locations in the Cowichan River system on Vancouver Island, Canada, during 2014. Nineteen agents (5 bacterial, 2 viral, and 12 parasitic) were detected, with prevalences ranging from 0.2% to 57.6%. Co-infections between Candidatus Branchiomonas cysticola Toenshoff, Kvellestad, Mitchell, Steinum, Falk, Colquhoun & Horn, 2012, Paranucleospora theridion Nylund, Nylund, Watanabe, Arnesen & Kalrsbakk, 2010, and gill chlamydia, all associated with gill disease, were observed in SW samples. We detected agents known to cause large-scale mortalities in Pacific salmon ( Ceratonova shasta (Noble, 1950), Parvicapsula minibicornis Kent, Whitaker & Dawe, 1977), and agents only recently reported in Pacific salmon in BC ( Ca. B. cysticola, P. theridion, Facilispora margolisi Jones, Prosperi-Porta & Kim, 2012 and Parvicapsula pseudobranchicola Karlsbakk, Saether, Hostlund, Fjellsoy & Nylund, 2002). Wild and hatchery fish were most divergent in agent profiles in FW, with higher agent diversity in wild fish. Differences in prevalence largely dissipated once they converged in the marine environment, although hatchery fish may be infected by a greater diversity of agents sooner after ocean entry by virtue of their more rapid migration from nearshore to offshore environments.
Kaempferol’s Protective Effect on Ethanol-Induced Mouse Primary Hepatocytes Injury Involved in the Synchronous Inhibition of SP1, Hsp70 and CYP2E1
Authors: Zhou Bo , Jiang Zhihui , Li Xinping , Zhang Xiaoying
Published: July 2018

The mechanism of ethanol-induced hepatotoxicity was complicated, accompanied by the over-expressions of the cytochrome P450 2E1 (CYP2E1), heat shock protein 70 (Hsp70) and the nuclear factor specificity protein 1 (SP1). Kaempferol (Kaem) could protect the ethanol-induced hepatotoxicity likely by inhibiting the CYP2E1 expression and activity. This study investigated the protective mechanism(s) of kaempferol on ethanol-induced toxicity by dynamic alteration of SP1, Hsp70 and CYP2E1 among the nucleus and different organelles in hepatocytes. After ethanol treatment alone and co-incubation hepatocytes with kaempferol, protein levels of CYP2E1, Hsp70, and SP1 were determined in vitro (western blotting and immunofluorescence). Hepatocytes’ viability was assessed by terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) methods. Glutathione (GSH) levels were evaluated for ethanol-induced oxidative stress. In the ethanol-treated hepatocytes, kaempferol decreased protein levels of CYP2E1 in both microsome and mitochondria, cytosolic Hsp70 and SP1 in nuclear and cytosol, and the oxidative stress and increased the cell viability compared to those of ethanol group. Collectively, our findings propose that the protective mechanism of kaempferol is involved in the synchronous, early and persistent inhibitions of mitochondrial and microsomal CYP2E1, cytosolic Hsp70 and nuclear and cytosolic SP1 in mouse primary hepatocytes’ injury induced by ethanol.
A Fast-Iterative Data Association Technique for Multiple Object Tracking
Authors: Singh Gurinderbeer , Rajan Sreeraman , Majumdar Shikharesh
Published: July 2018

A massive amount of video data is recorded daily for forensic post analysis and computer vision applications. The analyses of this data often require multiple object tracking (MOT). Advancements in image analysis algorithms and global optimization techniques have improved the accuracy of MOT, often at the cost of slow processing speed which limits its applications only to small video datasets. With the focus on speed, a fast-iterative data association technique (FIDA) for MOT that uses a tracking-by-detection paradigm and finds a locally optimal solution with a low computational overhead is introduced. The performance analyses conducted on a set of benchmark video datasets show that the proposed technique is significantly faster (50–600 times) than the existing state-of-the-art techniques that produce a comparable tracking accuracy.
A Semantic Approach to Data Reduction for Weighted Graphs and Complex Queries
Authors: Wang Shaoting , Zhang Guigang , Sheu Phillip , Hayakawa Masahiro , Shigematsu Hiroyuki , Kitazawa Atsushi
Published: July 2018

Graphs are widely used to store complex data nowadays: social networks, recommendation engines, computer networks and bioinformatics, to name a few. With a rapidly growing amount of data on the Internet in recent years, designing scalable systems to process the huge graph data efficiently has become a critical issue. In order to store and process the graph data efficiently in memory/disk, as well as to save time for transferring the data, graph compression techniques are often used. However, most of the existing graph data compression approaches are syntactic, which means they focus on graph structure and reduce it by serialization or redundancy removal. In this paper we focus on a semantic approach, namely query-based graph data reduction, which reduces a graph by preserving only the information relevant to the queries needed by an application. We study several classical graph problems and their applications, and design a suite of graph reduction algorithms to generate reduced graphs in which an application can still compute the same solutions. In addition, we design a synthesis method that can combine existing graph reduction algorithms to generate a reduced graph for a complex graph problem that includes more than one constraint. We also discuss incremental maintenance in order to update a reduced graph without reprocessing the whole graph again when the original graph is modified. We conduct experiments to compare the reduction rate of our algorithms with different sizes and types of data.
Time Series Classification with HIVE-COTE
Authors: Lines Jason , Taylor Sarah , Bagnall Anthony
Published: July 2018

A recent experimental evaluation assessed 19 time series classification (TSC) algorithms and found that one was significantly more accurate than all others: the Flat Collective of Transformation-based Ensembles (Flat-COTE). Flat-COTE is an ensemble that combines 35 classifiers over four data representations. However, while comprehensive, the evaluation did not consider deep learning approaches. Convolutional neural networks (CNN) have seen a surge in popularity and are now state of the art in many fields and raises the question of whether CNNs could be equally transformative for TSC.

We implement a benchmark CNN for TSC using a common structure and use results from a TSC-specific CNN from the literature. We compare both to Flat-COTE and find that the collective is significantly more accurate than both CNNs. These results are impressive, but Flat-COTE is not without deficiencies. We significantly improve the collective by proposing a new hierarchical structure with probabilistic voting, defining and including two novel ensemble classifiers built in existing feature spaces, and adding further modules to represent two additional transformation domains. The resulting classifier, the Hierarchical Vote Collective of Transformation-based Ensembles (HIVE-COTE), encapsulates classifiers built on five data representations. We demonstrate that HIVE-COTE is significantly more accurate than Flat-COTE (and all other TSC algorithms that we are aware of) over 100 resamples of 85 TSC problems and is the new state of the art for TSC. Further analysis is included through the introduction and evaluation of 3 new case studies and extensive experimentation on 1,000 simulated datasets of 5 different types.
Design and Analysis of Battery-Aware Automotive Climate Control for Electric Vehicles
Authors: Vatanparvar Korosh , Faruque Mohammad Abdullah Al
Published: July 2018

Electric Vehicles (EV) as a zero-emission means of transportation encounter challenges in battery design that cause a range anxieties for the drivers. Besides the electric motor, the Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) system is another major contributor to the power consumption that may influence the EV battery lifetime and driving range. In the state-of-the-art methodologies for battery management systems, the battery performance is monitored and improved. While in the automotive climate control, the passenger’s thermal comfort is the main objective. Hence, the influence of the HVAC power on the battery behavior for the purpose of jointly optimized battery management and climate control has not been considered. In this article, we propose an automotive climate control methodology that is aware of the battery behavior and performance, while maintaining the passenger’s thermal comfort. In our methodology, battery parameters and cabin temperature are modeled and estimated, and the HVAC utilization is optimized and adjusted with respect to the electric motor and HVAC power requests. Therefore, the battery stress reduces, while the cabin temperature is maintained by predicting and optimizing the system states in the near-future. We have implemented our methodology and compared its performance to the state-of-the-art in terms of battery lifetime improvement and energy consumption reduction. We have also conducted experiments and analyses to explore multiple control window sizes, drive profiles, ambient temperatures, and modeling error rates in the methodology. It is shown that our battery-aware climate control can extend the battery lifetime by up to 13.2% and reduce the energy consumption by up to 14.4%.
AROMA
Authors: Peng Liangying , Chen Ling , Ye Zhenan , Zhang Yi
Published: July 2018

Human activity recognition (HAR) is a promising research issue in ubiquitous and wearable computing. However, there are some problems existing in traditional methods: 1) They treat HAR as a single label classification task, and ignore the information from other related tasks, which is helpful for the original task. 2) They need to predesign features artificially, which are heuristic and not tightly related to HAR task. To address these problems, we propose AROMA (human activity recognition using deep multi-task learning). Human activities can be divided into simple and complex activities. They are closely linked. Simple and complex activity recognitions are two related tasks in AROMA. For simple activity recognition task, AROMA utilizes a convolutional neural network (CNN) to extract deep features, which are task dependent and non-handcrafted. For complex activity recognition task, AROMA applies a long short-term memory (LSTM) network to learn the temporal context of activity data. In addition, there is a shared structure between the two tasks, and the object functions of these two tasks are optimized jointly. We evaluate AROMA on two public datasets, and the experimental results show that AROMA is able to yield a competitive performance in both simple and complex activity recognitions.
RF Bandaid
Authors: Ranganathan Vaishnavi , Gupta Sidhant , Lester Jonathan , Smith Joshua R. , Tan Desney
Published: July 2018

This paper presents a passive wireless RF sensor platform (RFSP), with only analog components, that harvests energy from an RF source and reflects data as a direct subcarrier modulation, thus making it battery free. A fully-analog architecture results in an ultra-low power device (under 200 μW) with a low component count, reducing the physical footprint. We envision such a platform to enable medical sensing systems that fit on a small bandaid like flexible structure, require no-battery, or charging and are able to provide continuous physiological monitoring. To realize this vision, we have developed and optimized a novel RF architecture that 1) directly maps sensor output to frequency modulation and transmits it to a remote receiver processing unit (RPU). This direct frequency mapping allows all further digitization and computation to be moved to the RPU -- reducing power and size requirements on the RFSP; 2) harvests energy from the carrier signal transmitted by a simple continuous wave transmitter, thereby requiring no batteries or supercap; and 3) uses backscatter to communicate with the RPU enabling ultra-low power requirements. The total power consumption of our prototype device leveraging this architecture was measured to be between 35 μW and 160 μW. We demonstrate that the RFSP can harvest sufficient power, sense, and communicate continuously without necessity for energy storage at a distance of 4 m from a transmitter emitting a 915 MHz continuous wave at 26 dBm (0.39 W). Prior backscatter systems typically have power budgets of 1 mW and require energy storage (battery or supercap), RFSP's sub 200 μW power consumption provides a significant improvement and longer range for a given TX power. To demonstrate applicability to real-world health sensing and the flexibility to adapt to different sensors, this paper presents results from breathing, heart rate, temperature, and sound sensing applications.
IDrone
Authors: Ruiz Carlos , Pan Shijia , Bannis Adeola , Chen Xinlei , Joe-Wong Carlee , Noh Hae Young , Zhang Pei
Published: July 2018

Swarms of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (drones) could provide great benefit when used for disaster response and indoor search and rescue scenarios. In these harsh environments where GPS availability cannot be ensured, prior work often relies on cameras for control and localization. This creates the challenge of identifying each drone, i.e., finding the association between each physical ID (such as their radio address) and their visual ID (such as an object tracker output). To address this problem, prior work relies on visual cues such as LEDs or colored markers to provide unique information for identification. However, these methods often increase deployment difficulty, are sensitive to environmental changes, not robust to distance and might require hardware changes.

In this paper, we present IDrone, a robust physical drone identification system through motion matching and actuation feedback. The intuition is to (1) identify each drone by matching the motion detected through their inertial sensors and from an external camera, and (2) control the drones so they move in unique patterns that allow for fast identification, while minimizing the risk of collision involved in controlling drones with uncertain identification. To validate our approach, we conduct both simulation and real experimentation with autonomous drones for the simplified case of a stationary Spotter (powerful drone equipped with the camera). Overall, our initial results show that our approach offers a great tradeoff between fast identification and small collision probability. In particular, IDrone achieves faster identification time than safety-based baseline actuation (one-at-a-time), and significantly higher survival rate compared to fast, non-safety-based baseline actuation (random motion).
Extracting Multi-Person Respiration from Entangled RF Signals
Authors: Yue Shichao , He Hao , Wang Hao , Rahul Hariharan , Katabi Dina
Published: July 2018

Recent advances in wireless systems have demonstrated the possibility of tracking a person's respiration using the RF signals that bounce off her body. The resulting breathing signal can be used to infer the person's sleep quality and stages; it also allows for monitoring sleep apnea and other sleep disordered breathing (SDB); all without any body contact. Unfortunately however past work fails when people are close to each other, e.g., a couple sharing the same bed. In this case, the breathing signals of nearby individuals interfere with each other and super-impose in the received signal.

This paper presents DeepBreath, the first RF-based respiration monitoring system that can recover the breathing signals of multiple individuals even when they are separated by zero distance. To design DeepBreath, we model interference due to multiple reflected RF signals and demonstrate that the original breathing can be recovered via independent component analysis (ICA). We design a full system that eliminates interference and recovers the original breathing signals. We empirically evaluate DeepBreath using 21 nights of sleep and over 150 hours of data from 13 couples who share the bed. Our results show that DeepBreath is very accurate. Specifically, the differences between the breathing signals it recovers and the ground truth are on par with the difference between the same breathing signal measured at the person's chest and belly.
Chemodynamical History of the Galactic Bulge
Authors: Barbuy Beatriz , Chiappini Cristina , Gerhard Ortwin
Published: July 2018

The Galactic Bulge can uniquely be studied from large samples of individual stars and is therefore of prime importance for understanding the stellar population structure of bulges in general. Here the observational evidence on the kinematics, chemical composition, and ages of Bulge stellar populations based on photometric and spectroscopic data is reviewed. The bulk of Bulge stars are old and span a metallicity range of −1.5≲[Fe/H]≲+0.5. Stellar populations and chemical properties suggest a star-formation timescale below ∼2 Gyr. The overall Bulge is barred and follows cylindrical rotation, and the more metal-rich stars trace a box/peanut (B/P) structure. Dyna-mical models demonstrate the different spatial and orbital distributions of metal-rich and metal-poor stars. We discuss current Bulge-formation scenarios based on dynamical, chemical, chemodynamical, and cosmological models. Despite impressive progress, we do not yet have a successful fully self-consistent chemodynamical Bulge model in the cosmological framework, and we will also need a more extensive chrono-chemical-kinematic 3D map of stars to better constrain such models.
Regulation of Sexual Commitment and Gametocytogenesis in Malaria Parasites
Authors: Josling Gabrielle A. , Williamson Kim C. , Llinás Manuel
Published: July 2018

Sexual differentiation of malaria parasites from the asexual blood stage into gametocytes is an essential part of the life cycle, as gametocytes are the form that is taken up by the mosquito host. Because of the essentiality of this process for transmission to the mosquito, gametocytogenesis is an extremely attractive target for therapeutic interventions. The subject of this review is the considerable progress that has been made in recent years in elucidating the molecular mechanisms governing this important differentiation process. In particular, a number of critical transcription factors and epigenetic regulators have emerged as crucial elements in the regulation of commitment. The identification of these factors has allowed us to understand better than ever before the events occurring prior to and during commitment to sexual development and offers potential for new therapeutic interventions.
Linking V1 Activity to Behavior
Authors: Seidemann Eyal , Geisler Wilson S.
Published: July 2018

A long-term goal of visual neuroscience is to develop and test quantitative models that account for the moment-by-moment relationship between neural responses in early visual cortex and human performance in natural visual tasks. This review focuses on efforts to address this goal by measuring and perturbing the activity of primary visual cortex (V1) neurons while nonhuman primates perform demanding, well-controlled visual tasks. We start by describing a conceptual approach—the decoder linking model (DLM) framework—in which candidate decoding models take neural responses as input and generate predicted behavior as output. The ultimate goal in this framework is to find the actual decoder—the model that best predicts behavior from neural responses. We discuss key relevant properties of primate V1 and review current literature from the DLM perspective. We conclude by discussing major technological and theoretical advances that are likely to accelerate our understanding of the link between V1 activity and behavior.