bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The complete mitochondrial genome of Amphinemura claviloba (Wu, 1973) (Plecoptera: Nemouridae)
Authors: CHEN JIAJIA , CAO JINJUN , CHEN MENGDAN , CHEN SIJIN , LI WEIHAI , WANG YING
Published: February 2020

We sequenced the complete mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) of a stonefly, Amphinemura claviloba (Wu, 1973), of the family Nemouridae (Insecta: Plecoptera). The mitogenome was 15,707 bp long and contained typical 37 genes with an A+T content of 68.5%. All protein-coding genes (PCGs) use standard initiation codons (methionine and isoleucine), except ND1 and ND5 which starts with TTG and GTG, respectively. Two of the 13 PCGs harbor the incomplete termination codon. All tRNA genes have typical clover secondary structures, except the dihydrouridine (DHU) arm of tRNASer(AGN) forms a simple loop. Secondary structure models of the ribosomal RNA genes of A. claviloba are similar to those proposed for other insects. We also found some structural elements in the control region, such as tandem repeats, poly-C stretch and microsatellite-like elements, etc. Phylogenetic analyses showed the clades for the Nemoura, Amphinemura, and (Mesonemoura + Sphaeronemoura + Indonemoura + Protonemura) are well supported in a polytomy.
Climate 1970-2020
Authors: Schneider Tapio
Published: February 2020

This chapter’s title reflects both the profound climactic disruptions and the exponential increase in scientific understanding that have occurred since the first Earth Day in 1970. Schneider begins with a personal anecdote, recalling a childhood spent skiing in the Harz mountains of Germany, now no longer possible, due to the dramatic shortening of winter and the loss of snow cover. In contrast, his present home of Los Angeles now experiences an extra two weeks of above average hot days compared to 1970. This change is paralleled by the development of climate science, pioneered by Swedish chemist and Nobel Laureate Svante Arrhenius, whose often inaccurate measurements first connected rising and falling CO2 levels to global warming and cooling. Today, a combination of fossil fuels and deforestation have resulted in CO2 levels of 415 ppm (parts per million) compared to 320 ppm in 1970 – 20% above pre-industrial levels. Industrialized nations have therefore added twice as much carbon dioxide to the atmosphere since 1970 as in all of previous human history before. The chapter emphasizes the continuing need for more accurate data and modeling to predict the effects on incredibly complex global systems. By dividing the earth into manageable grids, scientists are more accurately able to predict atmospheric variations, using supercomputers to break down the impossibly large variables. The chapter ends on a stark note: even if all greenhouse emissions were to be halted today (virtually impossible given the nature of our global energy economy), temperatures would still rise by 0.4–1.7°C, as a new baseline would take centuries, if not millennia, to establish. The conclusion is simple: every facet of human activity will be impacted, and we will have to adapt.
Carbon
Authors: Archer David
Published: February 2020

This chapter elucidates the importance of carbon to the Earth system and outlines the global debate on its use and impact. The element manifests itself through a number of reservoirs: the crust and mantle (the overwhelming majority), dissolved forms of inorganic carbon, living organic material and atmospheric trace gases (including the infamous 'greenhouse' variety), representing just 0.00064%, but responsible for the absorption of out-going infra-red radiation from Earth's surface. The chapter then outlines how variations in Earth’s atmospheric levels of CO2 and methane are related to the exchange of carbon between these reservoirs, which combine to act as a global thermostat over geological timescales. These processes have not always been human-induced: the Earth’s history is peppered with periods of volcanic activity, resulting in wild extremes in global temperature. However, the crucial difference in such phenomena and human-induced carbon is the abrupt ‘gorging’ and ‘dumping’ we are engaged in over a relatively minute timeframe, hindering ocean acidity levels in seas from rebalancing. As the first agent sentient of the effect it is having on the Earth’s metabolism, humanity must make unprecedented changes in its relationship to carbon. As the chapter points out, dramatic changes have been enacted before, when urbanized communities have been faced with the consequences of poor sanitation and pollution. However, decisions dictated by market economics or arbitrary, politically-derived thresholds risk making the rate of change simply too slow. The fundamental realization is that our relationship to energy, and where this energy is sourced, must change, fast.
Ice
Authors: Dowdeswell Julian
Published: February 2020

This chapter introduces the concept of the ‘cryosphere’ to help us understand the crucial role of water, locked up as ice, on the entire planet’s ecology. Glaciers, ice sheets, sea ice and permafrost combine to regulate our global temperature and sea level, and distribute fresh water to Earth’s habitats. Glaciers and ice sheets hold 70% of the planet’s fresh water, and are dynamic entities acutely sensitive and malleable to temperature and gravity. Sea ice is yet more delicate, with a maximum thickness of just a few centimeters – a product of its intimate relationship to the seasons that govern growth and melting. Permafrost occupies vast areas of the arctic northern hemisphere, and has a soft ‘active layer’, melting and refreezing as the seasons change, making it less ‘permanent’ than the name implies. Placing Earth’s climate history in a geological context, the chapter highlights that we are currently experiencing a relatively warm interglacial period, which ramped up roughly 10,000 years ago. Nevertheless, the last century has seen a marked spike in temperatures, the effects of which the icy world is particularly vulnerable to. Enhanced satellite observation has shown the rapid retreat of vast bodies of locked up water, e.g., the Greenland Ice Sheet, impacting ocean-circulation and methane release, and posing huge threats to world-wide, low-lying communities. The cryosphere is an impermanent, delicate system that must be protected by urgently addressing emissions, or risk being lost forever.
Controlled Quantized Study of Electroacupuncture in Treating Patients with Alzheimer’s Disease Based on Deep Learning Models
Authors: Xie Dejuan , Li Xiaohong , Chen Dawei
Published: February 2020

The incidence of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) in the world’s elderly over 65 is about 4% to 6%. Recent statistics show that there are nearly 40 million AD patients worldwide. According to the knowledge of neuroscience, there are two main biological indicators for the diagnosis
of dementia in the medical community: one is the size of the hippocampus (equivalent to the brain memory chip), and the other is the size of the ventricle. Because the volume of the ventricles increases as the brain tissue degenerates. Because the cause of AD is unknown, it is generally found
that it is late, even if the treatment will not have much effect. Therefore, early diagnosis of AD is a better way to inhibit the rapid development of the disease or even avoid the disease. At present, the pathogenesis and etiology of AD have not been fully elucidated, and there is a lack
of a specific anti-AD drug. Electroacupuncture treatment of AD has been proven to have a certain effect, and has the advantages of diversified stimulation parameters, easy operation and no toxic side effects. In this paper, we study the role of electroacupuncture based on deep learning in
patients with Alzheimer’s disease. The experimental results can prove the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.
Moxibustion Intervention Effect to Vertical Jump Performance
Authors: Liu Yuwei , Chen Feifei , Liu Gongju , Liang Zhiqiang , Popik Sergey , Lian Wenlan
Published: February 2020

More and more people have known moxibustion as a traditional Chinese treatment technique. Moxibustion not only activate the immune system but also lessen sport tired effectively. The main goal of this study to investigate whether moxibustion alleviates the fatigue after the movement
of the human body through biomechanics testing. The experiment recruited 6 young males as subjects, using moxibustion intervention after exercise-fatigue. The joint angle was obtained from Vicon motion analysis system, Kistler was used to measuring the GRF, jump height. In the sagittal plane,
the peak angle of the hip, knee, ankle show significant differences between the intervention of moxibustion and no treatment during the take-off state. In the coronal plane, the main difference is represented in the landing state. In the transverse plane, both the take-off and landing state
show the difference between the three conditions. The height of moxibustion intervention is significantly higher than baseline and no treatment; it may be indicated that the participants made a recovery well after the intervention of moxibustion. Nevertheless, the ground reaction force didn’t
show significance. Overall, it can be concluded that moxibustion can have a direct effect on vertical jump performance during a fatigued state. Evidence from these results could perhaps suggest that moxibustion could be used as a preventative measure to reduce fatigue and enhance athlete performance.
Analysis of Micro Array Gene Expression Data Using Multi-Objective Binary Particle Swarm Optimization with Fuzzy Weighted Clustering (MOBPSO-FWC) Technique
Authors: Kalaiarasu M. , Anitha J.
Published: February 2020

In the rapidly advancing field of genomics, microarray technologies have turned into a ground-breaking system on simultaneous monitoring the expression patterns of multiple genes under various arrangements of constraints. A fundamental errand is to propose diagnostic techniques to distinguish
cluster of genes comparative expression designs and are initiated by comparative conditions. And furthermore, the relating investigation has issue is to cluster multi-condition gene expression data. To overcome these issues, the vast measure of data obtained by this technology, resort to clustering
methods that distinguish clusters of genes of share similar expression profiles. The motivation of this work is to introduce a clustering method in microarray gene expression data analysis. Multi-Objective Binary Particle Swarm Optimization with Fuzzy Weighted Clustering (MOBPSOFWC) algorithm
is proposed to analyze gene expression data. In high dimensionality, a quick heuristic based pre-processing technique is employed to diminish some of the basic domain features from the initial feature set. Since these pre-processed and reduced features are still high dimensional, the proposed
MOBPSO algorithm is implemented in MATLAB tool used for finding further feature subsets. The investigative are directed to distinguish the execution of the proposed work with existing clustering approaches.
Development of Ethanol Gas Sensor Using α-Fe2O3 Nanocubes Synthesized by Hydrothermal Process
Authors: Umar Ahmad , Alduraibi M. , Al-Dossary Omar
Published: February 2020

Herein, α-Fe2O3 nanocubes were synthesized, characterized and employed as functional and promising material for the development of ethanol gas sensor. Facile hydrothermal process was used to synthesized the nanocubes and characterized by several techniques
which confirmed the large-quantity synthesis, wellcrystallinity with rhombohedral structure of α-Fe2O3. The Raman-scattering spectrum of the synthesized nanocubes exhibited several Raman-active modes which further confirmed the formation of pure α-Fe2O3.
As a functional material, the synthesized α-Fe2O3 nanocubes were used as electrode material to fabricate ethanol gas sensor which was tested at various working temperatures, i.e., 300 °C, 400 °C and 450 °C which revealed that the 400 °C was
the optimal working temperature. Thus, at 400 °C working temperature, in presence of 100 ppm ethanol gas, the fabricated sensor exhibited highest gas response of 1.69 with response time < 1 s and recovery time of 1485 s.
Axisymmetric Hadley Cell Theory with a Fixed Tropopause Temperature Rather than Height
Authors: Hill Spencer A. , Bordoni Simona , Mitchell Jonathan L.
Published: February 2020

Axisymmetric Hadley cell theory has traditionally assumed that the tropopause height (Ht) is uniform and unchanged from its radiative–convective equilibrium (RCE) value by the cells’ emergence. Recent studies suggest that the tropopause temperature (Tt), not height, is nearly invariant in RCE, which would require appreciable meridional variations in Ht. Here, we derive modified expressions of axisymmetric theory by assuming a fixed Tt and compare the results to their fixed-Ht counterparts. If Tt and the depth-averaged lapse rate are meridionally uniform, then at each latitude Ht varies linearly with the local surface temperature, altering the diagnosed gradient-balanced zonal wind at the tropopause appreciably (up to tens of meters per second) but the minimal Hadley cell extent predicted by Hide’s theorem only weakly (≲1°) under standard annual-mean and solsticial forcings. A uniform Tt alters the thermal field required to generate an angular-momentum-conserving Hadley circulation, but these changes and the resulting changes to the equal-area model solutions for the cell edges again are modest (<10%). In numerical simulations of latitude-by-latitude RCE under annual-mean forcing using a single-column model, assuming a uniform Tt is reasonably accurate up to the midlatitudes, and the Hide’s theorem metrics are again qualitatively insensitive to the tropopause definition. However imperfectly axisymmetric theory portrays the Hadley cells in Earth’s macroturbulent atmosphere, evidently its treatment of the tropopause is not an important error source.
Reply to “Comments on ‘What Is the Predictability Limit of Midlatitude Weather?’”
Authors: Sun Y. Qiang , Zhang Fuqing , Magnusson Linus , Buizza Roberto , Chen Jan-Huey , Emanuel Kerry
Published: February 2020

In their comment, Žagar and Szunyogh raised concerns about a recent study by Zhang et al. that examined the predictability limit of midlatitude weather using two up-to-date global models. Zhang et al. showed that deterministic weather forecast may, at best, be extended by 5 days, assuming we could achieve minimal initial-condition uncertainty (e.g., 10% of current operational value) with a nearly perfect model. Žagar and Szunyogh questioned the methodology and the experiments of Zhang et al. Specifically, Žagar and Szunyogh raised issues regarding the effects of model error on the growth of the forecast uncertainty. They also suggested that estimates of the predictability limit could be obtained using a simple parametric model. This reply clarifies the misunderstandings in Žagar and Szunyogh and demonstrates that experiments conducted by Zhang et al. are reasonable. In our view, the model error concern in Žagar and Szunyogh does not apply to the intrinsic predictability limit, which is the key focus of Zhang et al. and the simple parametric model described in Žagar and Szunyogh does not serve the purpose of Zhang et al.
Restratification at a California Current Upwelling Front. Part I: Observations
Authors: Johnson Leah , Lee Craig M. , D’Asaro Eric A. , Thomas Leif , Shcherbina Andrey
Published: February 2020

A coordinated survey between a subsurface Lagrangian float and a ship-towed Triaxus profiler obtained detailed measurements of a restratifying surface intensified front (above 30 m) within the California Current System. The survey began as downfront winds incited mixing in the boundary layer. As winds relaxed and mixing subsided, the system entered a different dynamical regime as the front developed an overturning circulation with large vertical velocities that tilted isopycnals and stratified the upper ocean within a day. The horizontal buoyancy gradient was 1.5 × 10−6 s−2 and associated with vorticity, divergence, and strain that approached the Coriolis frequency. Estimates of vertical velocity from the Lagrangian float reached 1.2 × 10−3 m s−1. These horizontal gradients and vertical velocities were consistent with submesoscale dynamics that are distinct from the classic quasigeostrophic framework used to describe larger-scale flows. Vertical and horizontal gradients of velocity and buoyancy in the vicinity of the float revealed that sheared currents differentially advected the horizontal buoyancy gradient to increase vertical stratification. This was supported by analyses of temperature and salinity gradients that composed the horizontal and vertical stratification. Potential vorticity was conserved during restratification at 16 m, consistent with adiabatic processes. Conversely, potential vorticity near the surface (8 m) increased, highlighting the role of friction in modulating near-surface stratification. The observed increase in stratification due to these submesoscale processes was equivalent to a heat flux of 2000 W m−2, which is an order-of-magnitude larger than the average observed surface heat flux of 100 W m−2.
Wave Glider–Enhanced Vertical Seafloor Geodesy
Authors: Foster J. H. , Ericksen T. L. , Bingham B.
Published: February 2020

We have developed a low-cost approach for accurately measuring short-term vertical motions of the seafloor and maintaining a continuous long-term record of seafloor pressure without the requirement for costly ship time. We equipped the University of Hawai‘i Liquid Robotics Wave Glider with an integrated acoustic telemetry package, a dual-frequency geodetic-grade global positioning system (GPS) receiver, meteorological pressure sensor, processing unit, and cellular communications. The Wave Glider interrogates high accuracy pressure sensors on the seafloor to retrieve their pressure and temperature data. We correct the seafloor pressure measurements using sea surface kinematic GPS location and atmospheric pressure data collected by the Wave Glider payload. By combining the concurrent seafloor and sea surface observations, we demonstrate the capability to provide timely, continuous, and high-accuracy estimation and monitoring of centimeter-scale vertical seafloor motions.
GOES-16 Observations of Blowing Snow in Horizontal Convective Rolls on 24 February 2019
Authors: Kennedy Aaron , Jones Carl
Published: February 2020

On 24 February 2019, strong winds behind an Arctic cold front led to widespread blowing snow across the northern Great Plains including areas in eastern North/South Dakota and western Minnesota. Impacts of the event ranged from blizzard conditions in northwest Minnesota to sporadic, minor reductions in visibility across the region. This study documents the event using remotely sensed observations from platforms including geostationary and polar-orbiting satellites, an S-band radar, and time-lapse images from a camera located at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Blowing snow is observed as plumes that resemble horizontal convective rolls (HCRs). Variations in near-infrared imagery are documented, and supporting observations suggest this is due to the occurrence or absence of clouds on top of the blowing snow layer. While lack of in situ observations preclude further investigation of physical differences between plumes, the utility of the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-16 (GOES-16) satellite to operational forecasters is discussed. Improvements to spatial, radiometric, and temporal resolution courtesy of the Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) on board GOES-16 allows for daytime detection of blowing snow events that previously, was only possible with instruments on board polar-orbiting satellites. This has improved Impact-Based Decision Support Services (IDSS) at National Weather Service offices that deal with the hazard of blowing snow.
Development and Climate Aid to Africa: Comparing Aid Allocation Models for Different Aid Flows
Authors: Weiler Florian , Sanubi Franklins A.
Published: February 2020

This article examines the role different aid allocation models play not only for conventional development aid but also for two new financial flows, adaptation and mitigation aid. We first test the three models proposed in the literature – recipient need, recipient merit, and donor interests – using the latest available aid data and compare our results with findings of older studies on Africa, and with studies on aid allocation on a global scale. We find that the recipient merit model in more recent years no longer plays a role for development aid allocation in Africa, in line with findings reported globally. In contrast to such global studies, the logic of the donor interest model does not seem to dominate over the recipient need model in the African context, as both are of equal importance for aid allocation decisions. Finally, additionality seems to play a lesser role in Africa than globally.
Social Interaction Training to Reduce Police Use of Force
Authors: Wolfe Scott , Rojek Jeff , McLean Kyle , Alpert Geoffrey
Published: February 2020

Controversial incidents involving uses of force by police in recent years have led to calls for improving officers’ de-escalation skills. A more fruitful approach to police training reform may be a broader focus on improving officers’ social interaction skills. By viewing all police-citizen encounters as social interactions that can either escalate toward or de-escalate away from the use of force, police training can develop what other fields call a “deliberate, repetitive practice” framework. This article describes the implementation of a randomized trial that brought such training to two U.S. police agencies and yielded encouraging results. We conclude that the conceptual framework was generally well received but that results depended heavily on the selection and performance of each agency’s own trainers.
Police Killings as a Problem of Governance
Authors: Zimring Franklin E.
Published: February 2020

Police kill more than a thousand civilians each year in the United States, a much higher death rate than occurs in any other developed nation. One important cause of the epidemic of civilian deaths is the larger risk that the police who patrol American communities face from civilian assaults with firearms, widely owned and often not visible. Yet many hundreds of killings each year of civilians in the United States are not necessary to protect either police or others from life-threatening attacks. Governments in the United States have failed to collect reliable data, investigate the causes of high death rates, or develop administrative standards to reduce unnecessary killings. The power and expertise vacuums that govern the current ignorance and overkill in the police use of deadly force are the direct, if unintended, consequences of state and federal government failures to assert authority over the many thousands of local police forces that are progeny of the American federal system.
Firearm Availability and Fatal Police Shootings
Authors: Nagin Daniel S.
Published: February 2020

Do states with more guns have higher rates of fatal police shootings? This article uses a validated measure of firearm availability (the percentage of suicides committed with a firearm) to examine the relationship between gun proliferation and fatal police shootings. It expands on existing research to include (1) measures of access to Level I and II trauma centers, (2) interpretation of the findings from the lenses of “statistical prediction,” and (3) tests for structural differences between models for black decedents versus nonblack decedents. Findings confirm the correlation between statewide prevalence of gun ownership and fatal police shootings for both all decedents and unarmed decedents. It provides partial support for “statistical prediction” by police and finds that greater access to trauma centers is associated with lower rates of citizen deaths. The analysis suggests a far broader range of policy options for saving lives, such as better enforcement of legal restrictions on firearm possession, than focusing solely on policing systems.
Predicting Bad Policing: Theorizing Burdensome and Racially Disparate Policing through the Lenses of Social Psychology and Routine Activities
Authors: Goff Phillip Atiba , Rau Hilary
Published: February 2020

Despite an increase in research relating to racial disparities in policing—particularly in the area of deadly force—there have been comparatively few attempts to theorize which factors predict disparate policing. We fill this gap by combining routine activity theory from criminology with situationist approaches to discrimination from social psychology. We propose that disparate policing is most likely to occur when officers who are vulnerable to situational risk factors for bias encounter citizens who are members of vulnerable out-groups. We argue that situational risk factors for bias and aggression among police provoke feelings of threat and motivate self-protection and/or feelings of disgust and out-group derogation. We present social psychological laboratory research and, where available, field research specific to policing as a way of exploring and bolstering the proposed framework. This work supports an agenda for future scientific research that may assist practitioners in identifying likely opportunities for reform even as we await further field research that tests these hypothesized parameters.
Efficacy of Alveolar Ridge Preservation: A Randomized Controlled Trial
Authors: Avila-Ortiz G. , Gubler M. , Romero-Bustillos M. , Nicholas C.L. , Zimmerman M.B. , Barwacz C.A.
Published: February 2020

Alveolar ridge preservation (ARP) therapy is indicated to attenuate the physiologic resorptive events that occur as a consequence of tooth extraction with the purpose of facilitating tooth replacement therapy. This randomized controlled trial was primarily aimed at testing the efficacy of ARP as compared with unassisted socket healing. A secondary objective was to evaluate the effect that local phenotypic factors play in the volumetric reduction of the alveolar bone. A total of 53 subjects completed the study. Subjects were randomized into either the control group, which involved only tooth extraction (EXT n = 27), or the experimental group, which received ARP using a combination of socket grafting with a particulate bone allograft and socket sealing with a nonabsorbable membrane (dPTFE) following tooth extraction (ARP n = 26). A set of clinical, linear, volumetric, implant-related, and patient-reported outcomes were assessed during a 14-wk healing period. All linear bone assessments (horizontal, midbuccal, and midlingual reduction) revealed that ARP is superior to EXT. Likewise, volumetric bone resorption was significantly higher in the control group (mean ± SD: EXT = −15.83% ± 4.48%, ARP = −8.36% ± 3.81%, P < 0.0001). Linear regression analyses revealed that baseline buccal bone thickness is a strong predictor of alveolar bone resorption in both groups. Interestingly, no significant differences in terms of soft tissue contour change were observed between groups. Additional bone augmentation to facilitate implant placement in a prosthetically acceptable position was deemed necessary in 48.1% of the EXT sites and only 11.5% of the ARP sites ( P < 0.004). Assessment of perceived postoperative discomfort at each follow-up visit revealed a progressive decrease over time, which was comparable between groups. Although some extent of alveolar ridge remodeling occurred in both groups, ARP therapy was superior to EXT as it was more efficacious in the maintenance of alveolar bone and reduced the estimated need for additional bone augmentation at the time of implant placement (ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01794806).
The social politics of dispossession: Informal institutions and land expropriation in China
Authors: Kan Karita
Published: February 2020

Extant studies on land dispossession often focus on its economic and extra-economic aspects, with respective emphasis on the operation of market mechanisms and the deployment of state-led coercion in bringing about the separation of households from their land. This article draws attention to the under-examined role of informal institutions in the politics of dispossession. Social organisations such as lineages and clans pervade grassroots societies and are central to land control and configurations of property rights. In China, the reconsolidation of lineages as shareholding corporations that develop real estate and operate land transfers has rendered them prominent actors in the politics of land and urbanisation. Drawing on an empirical case study, this article argues that informal institutions play a crucial role in mediating both the economic and extra-economic processes of dispossession. It further shows how, by providing the networks necessary for collective mobilisation and supplying the normative framework through which rightful shares in land are claimed, social organisations are at the same time instrumental in the organisation of anti-dispossession struggles. By unravelling the social dynamics that underlie land expropriation, this article offers a nuanced perspective to the politics of dispossession that goes beyond narratives of state-led coercion and market compulsion.
Urban house prices and investments in small and medium-sized industrial firms: Evidence from provinces of Iran
Authors: Gholipour Hassan F.
Published: February 2020

Using data from provinces of Iran from 2005 to 2016 and applying panel cointegrating regressions, I find that increases in real house prices have a negative and statistically significant effect on investments in small and medium-sized industrial firms. There are at least three possible mechanisms through which increases in house prices adversely affect industrial entrepreneurship. They (1) generate housing construction investment opportunities with high returns, (2) attract many urban adults with tertiary education to the real estate brokerage industry, and (3) encourage people to save more to buy houses (which is one of the prerequisites for marriage in Iran).
Effects of green space on walking: Does size, shape and density matter?
Authors: Zhang Xiaohu , Melbourne Scott , Sarkar Chinmoy , Chiaradia Alain , Webster Chris
Published: February 2020

The role of the built environment in improving public health through fostering physical activity has come under increased scrutiny in recent years. This study investigates relationships between walking activity and the configuration of green spaces in Greater London. Pedestrian activity for N = 54,910 walking trip stages is gathered through the London Travel Demand Survey (LTDS), with routes between origin and destination mapped onto the street network from the Integrated Transport Network of Ordnance Survey. Green spaces were extracted from UKMap and agglomerated to form London’s hundreds of parks. Regressions of pedestrian activity on park configuration, controlling for built environment metrics, revealed that catchments around smaller parks have more walking trips. Irregularity of park shape has the opposite effect. Park density, measured as number of parks inside a catchment, is insignificant in regression. Parks adjacent to retail areas were associated with pronounced increases in walking. The study contributes to landscape, urban management, environmental policy and urban planning and design literature. The evidence provides implications for performance-oriented policy and design decisions that configure a city’s green spaces to improve citizens’ public health through enhancing walkability.
Association Between Nasal Obstruction Symptoms and Anxiety
Authors: Akkoca Özlem , Oğuz Haldun , Ünlü Ceren Ersöz , Aydın Emine , Ozdel Kadir , Kavuzlu Ali
Published: February 2020

Aim:

The aim of this study was to determine the correlation between nasal function assessment and anxiety scales.

Methods:

A total of 120 patients with the complaint of nasal obstruction were classified as nasal septum deviation group (DNS) and no nasal pathology group (NON). A control group was formed of 57 healthy participants. Nasal obstruction severity was assessed using the Nasal Obstruction Symptom Evaluation (NOSE) scale, nasal resistance level with rhinomanometry and anxiety levels with the Agoraphobic Cognitions Questionnaire (ACQ), and the Body Sensations Questionnaire (BSQ).

Results:

There was a statistically significant difference between both the DNS and the NON groups and control group in terms of NOSE scale, ACQ, and BSQ ( P < .001). The total nasal resistance values were higher in the DNS group compared to both the NON and control groups ( P < .001), although the difference between the NON group and control group was not statistically significant.

Conclusion:

The results of this study showed that patients with nasal breathing complaints, but no organic pathology, had the same level of nasal obstruction symptoms as patients with nasal septal deviations. Anxiety levels are elevated in patients with symptoms of nasal obstruction, even when there is lack of organic nasal pathology.
Repurposing a Smartwatch to Support Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorder: Sensory and Operational Considerations
Authors: O’Brien Amanda M. , Schlosser Ralf W. , Yu Christina , Allen Anna A. , Shane Howard C.
Published: February 2020

Smartwatches may provide a natural, portable, and unobtrusive strategy by which to support directive-following for individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). A mentor can send visual supports (e.g., photographs, videos, text) “just-in-time” (JIT) to a learner’s smartwatch. This may reduce the need for extraneous face-to-face intervention within social and educational settings and thereby preserve the naturalness of interactions for individuals with ASD. In this article, the following questions are explored: (1) Will some children with ASD with limited functional speech tolerate wearing a smartwatch after receiving only spoken instructions? (2) Can children with ASD who did not initially tolerate wearing a smartwatch increase their tolerance for wearing a smartwatch after they view video models within a visual schedule? and (3) Will children with ASD who tolerate wearing a smartwatch attend to, and follow, scene cue text messages received on the watch? Results provide preliminary evidence for the feasibility of using a smartwatch with children with ASD. Limitations of this study are addressed and implications for future research are posited.
The conduct of thoracic organ procurement
Authors: Sharma Akshay , Peltz Matthias , Wait Michael A , Ring Steves W , Mathur Alok , Jessen Michael E , Murala John S
Published: February 2020

Transplantation has become the gold-standard treatment for endstage heart and lung failure. A well-executed procurement process is the cornerstone of a successful transplant program and patient outcome after transplantation. The aim of this review was to describe a standardized protocol and guidelines for optimal thoracic organ procurement. Here, we describe all aspects of optimal thoracic organ procurement including the intraoperative conduct of the teams, operative steps, graft preservation, transportation, and pitfalls. We believe that a standardized protocol helps in streamlining and minimizing errors, provides optimal training for junior members of the team, and predetermines graft function postimplantation.
Multi-factor controls on initial gas production pressure of coalbed methane wells in Changzhi-Anze block, Central-Southern of Qinshui Basin, China
Authors: Zhao Yang , Zhang Xiaodong , Zhang Shuo , Yang Jiaosheng , Li Xianzhong , Heng Shuai
Published: February 2020

Adsorption and desorption of coalbed methane are generally at a dynamic equilibrium state under the undisturbed coal reservoir. However, as the reservoir pressure drops to a certain value during the extraction of coalbed methane, the equilibrium state is destroyed and thus more coalbed methane desorbs and escapes from coal to wellbore. Here the corresponding bottom-hole fluid pressure is called initial gas production pressure (IGPP) in the development practice of coalbed methane wells. This paper, which has taken Changzhi-Anze block in the central-southern part of Qinshui basin as the study object, addresses the distribution characteristic and control factors of IGPP of coalbed methane wells and then explores the key factors affecting IGPP using grey correlation analysis theory. The results indicate that IGPP varies from 1.09 MPa to 6.57 MPa, showing a distribution law with high in the middle and low in the west and east of the study area, which presents a similar distribution characteristic with burial depth, thickness, coal rank, gas content, original reservoir pressure, and in-situ stress. Further, through grey correlation analysis, it concludes that the correlation degrees of control factors affecting IGPP of coalbed methane wells in the descending order are decline rate of working fluid level, water yield before gas production, reservoir pressure, coal thickness, coal rank, minimum horizontal principal stress, burial depth, and gas content. Among these factors, engineering factors, including decline rate of working fluid level and water yield before gas production, present a key controlling effect, because they can determine the smooth migration pathway directly during initial water production. And another key factor, original reservoir pressure also builds strong and positive correlation with IGPP under the interaction of other geology and reservoir factors, revealing the capability of gas desorption and the transmission of pressure drops.
Fluoroscopically guided lumbar spine interlaminar and transforaminal epidural injections: inadvertent intravascular injection
Authors: Husseini Jad S , Simeone F Joseph , Staffa Steven J , Palmer William E , Chang Connie Y
Published: February 2020

Background

Inadvertent intravascular injection is a rare but catastrophic complication of lumbar epidural injections.

Purpose

To determine risk factors for inadvertent intravascular injection in fluoroscopically guided lumbar spine epidural injections.

Material and Methods

A total of 212 patients who presented for lumbar interlaminar or transforaminal injection were prospectively enrolled. Patient demographics, history of surgery, injection side, site and approach, and volume of contrast injected were recorded.

Results

There were 89 (42%) interlaminar and 123 (58%) transforaminal injections. For 36 (17%) patients, there had been surgery at the injected or adjacent lumbar level. There were 25 (12%) inadvertent intravascular injections, with an incidence of 2/93 (2%) for interlaminar and 23/119 (19%) for transforaminal injections. The patients with inadvertent intravascular injection were older ( P = 0.017) and had prior surgery at or adjacent to the level of injection ( P < 0.0001). Transforaminal approach had a higher intravasation rate than interlaminar injections, both when comparing the entire cohort ( P = 0.0001) and only patients without prior surgery ( P = 0.01). In multivariable logistic regression analysis, transforaminal injections (odds ratio [OR] 9.77, 95% confidence interval [CI] 2.14–44.6, P = 0.003) and prior surgery at or adjacent to the level of injection (OR 5.71, 95% CI 2.15–15.15, P < 0.001) were independently associated with increased risk of inadvertent intravascular injections.

Conclusion

Inadvertent intravascular injection occurred in 12% of our lumbar injection cohort and is more common with transforaminal injections, in older patients, and with prior lumbar surgery at or adjacent to the level of injection.
Evidence Head Tilt Has Dissociable Effects on Dominance and Trustworthiness Judgments, But Does Not Have Category-Contingent Effects on Hypothetical Leadership Judgments
Authors: Torrance Jaimie S. , Holzleitner Iris J. , Lee Anthony J. , DeBruine Lisa M. , Jones Benedict C.
Published: February 2020

Previous research has found that physical characteristics in faces that influence perceptions of trustworthiness and dominance have context-contingent effects on leadership perceptions. People whose faces are perceived to be trustworthy are judged to be better leaders in peacetime contexts than wartime contexts. By contrast, people whose faces are perceived to be dominant are judged to be better leaders in wartime contexts than peacetime contexts. Here, we tested for judgment-contingent (dominance vs. trustworthiness) effects of head tilt (i.e., head pitch rotation) on person perception and context-contingent (peacetime vs. wartime) effects of head tilt on leadership judgments. Although we found that head tilt influenced judgments of trustworthiness and dominance (Study 1), head tilt did not influence leadership judgments (Study 2). Together, these results suggest that the context-contingent effects of physical characteristics on leadership judgments reported in previous work do not necessarily extend to head tilt, even though head tilt influences perceptions of trustworthiness and dominance.
Caring for data: Value creation in a data-intensive research laboratory
Authors: Pinel Clémence , Prainsack Barbara , McKevitt Christopher
Published: February 2020

Drawing upon ethnographic observations of staff working within a research laboratory built around research and clinical data from twins, this article analyzes practices underlying the production and maintenance of a research database. While critical data studies have discussed different forms of ‘data work’ through which data are produced and turned into effective research resources, in this paper we foreground a specific form of data work, namely the affective and attentive relationships that humans build with data. Building on STS and feminist scholarship that highlights the importance of care in scientific work, we capture this specific form of data work as care. Treating data as relational entities, we discuss a set of caring practices that staff employ to produce and maintain their data, as well as the hierarchical and institutional arrangements within which these caring practices take place. We show that through acts of caring, that is, through affective and attentive engagements, researchers build long-term relationships with the data they help produce, and feel responsible for its flourishing and growth. At the same time, these practices of care – which we found to be gendered and valued differently from other practices within formal and informal reward systems – help to make data valuable for the institution. In this manner, care for data is an important practice of valuation and valorisation within data-intensive research that has so far received little explicit attention in scholarship and professional research practice.
Transnational moral panic: neoliberalism and the spectre of MS-13
Authors: Osuna Steven
Published: February 2020

Since the election of Donald Trump, MS-13, the Salvadoran street gang, has become a national security and foreign policy concern for his administration. Due to the violence of street gangs like MS-13, El Salvador has become a country with the highest rates of homicides, alongside forced migration. Like much of the mainstream media and personal accounts of asylum seekers, the arguments about violence emerging from street gangs in El Salvador from the Trump administration are based on actual material conditions, but what is often missing are the root causes. This article argues that the production of a moral panic over MS-13 has been transnationalised between the United States and El Salvador to displace the contradictions of global capitalism in El Salvador to a local and deported relative surplus population. It argues that the spectre of MS-13 in El Salvador and throughout US cities must be placed within the limits of a Salvadoran revolution, the insertion of the Salvadoran political economy into the global capitalist system in the 1980s, the development of a neoliberal Salvadoran state, and the US sponsoring of law-and-order polices in the country as a response to regulate a relative surplus population.
Control, camaraderie and resistance: Precarious work and organisation in hospitality
Authors: Kearsey Joe
Published: February 2020

With industrial action recently taking place at TGI Fridays, McDonald’s and Wetherspoons, the organisation of precarious workers within the hospitality industry has received renewed attention in popular and academic circles. The subject of this article is the result of a year’s worth of work, research and activism alongside co-workers within the sector. It takes the form of an insiders’ ethnography, positioning itself as an example of workers’ inquiry into precarious workplaces and collective resistance. The research addresses the subject of affective labour in customer-facing hospitality work, with particular attention paid to the sociability of the labour process. It also addresses the issues of the composition of labour and the material conditions that act as the driving force of precarity, while assessing the contours of flexibility, control and resistance. The wider social character of the work and the workers themselves, as well as the community and camaraderie of the workplace, is also studied. Using the 2018 TGI Fridays strike as a key example, the article outlines how, in harnessing the camaraderie of such social and communal work, workers have sought to realise their autonomy and resist precarity through collective struggle.
Effect of Initial Graft Tension During Anterior Talofibular Ligament Reconstruction on Ankle Kinematics, Laxity, and In Situ Forces of the Reconstructed Graft
Authors: Sakakibara Yuzuru , Teramoto Atsushi , Takagi Tetsuya , Yamakawa Satoshi , Shoji Hiroaki , Okada Yohei , Kobayashi Takuma , Kamiya Tomoaki , Fujimiya Mineko , Fujie Hiromichi , Watanabe Kota , Yamashita Toshihiko
Published: February 2020

Background:

Although a variety of surgical procedures for anterior talofibular ligament (ATFL) reconstruction have been reported, the effect of initial graft tension during ATFL reconstruction remains unclear.

Purpose/Hypothesis:

This study investigated the effects of initial graft tension on ATFL reconstruction. We hypothesized that a high degree of initial graft tension would cause abnormal kinematics and laxity.

Study Design:

Controlled laboratory study.

Methods:

Twelve cadaveric ankles were tested with a robotic system with 6 degrees of freedom to apply passive plantarflexion and dorsiflexion motions and a multidirectional load. A repeated measures experiment was designed with the intact ATFL, transected ATFL, and reconstructed ATFL at initial tension conditions of 10, 30, 50, and 70 N. The 3-dimensional path and reconstructed graft tension were simultaneously recorded, and the in situ forces of the ATFL and reconstructed graft were calculated with the principle of superposition.

Results:

Initial tension of 10 N was sufficient to imitate normal ankle kinematics and laxity, which were not significantly different when compared with those of the intact ankles. The in situ force on the reconstructed graft tended to increase as the initial tension increased. In situ force on the reconstructed graft >30 N was significantly greater than that of intact ankles. The in situ force on the ATFL was 19 N at 30° of plantarflexion. In situ forces of 21.9, 30.4, 38.2, and 46.8 N were observed at initial tensions of 10, 30, 50, and 70 N, respectively, at 30° of plantarflexion.

Conclusion:

Approximate ankle kinematic patterns and sufficient laxity, even with an initial tension of 10 N, could be obtained immediately after ATFL reconstruction. Moreover, excessive initial graft tension during ATFL reconstruction caused excessive in situ force on the reconstructed graft.

Clinical Relevance:

This study revealed the effects of initial graft tension during ATFL reconstruction. These data suggest that excessive tension during ATFL reconstruction should be avoided to ensure restoration of normal ankle motion.