bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Prevalence of Self-Reported Swallowing Difficulties and Swallowing-Related Quality of Life Among Community-Dwelling Older Adults in India
Authors: Dodderi Thejaswi , Sreenath Drishti , Shetty Mahima Jayaram , Chilwan Uzair , Rai Santosh P. V. , Moolambally Sheetal Raj , Balasubramanium Radish Kumar , Kothari Mohit
Published: April 2024

Self-reported swallowing difficulties are highly prevalent but underreported among older adults. The aging population in India is increasing, yet there is a lack of empirical data on self-reported swallowing difficulties in older adults. In the present study, we aimed to estimate the prevalence of self-reported swallowing difficulties and assess the swallowing-related quality of life (QOL) among community-dwelling older adults in India. We recruited 361 older adults (60–91 years) from the community. Participants completed the Eating Assessment Tool-10 (EAT-10) to assess self-reported swallowing difficulties and the Dysphagia Handicap Index (DHI) to assess swallowing-related QOL. Participants rated the EAT-10 from 0 for ‘no problem’ to 4 for ‘severe problem’. The DHI rating included 0 for ‘never’, 2 for ‘sometimes’, and 4 for ‘always’. The total scores of EAT-10 and DHI were summarised using descriptive statistics. Statistically significant differences between pass–fail groups of EAT-10 and DHI were evaluated using an independent t-test and multivariate analysis of variance test, respectively. The overall mean score for EAT-10 was 3.34, and 7.56 for DHI, with higher scores observed among females. 36.6% of older adults self-reported experiencing swallowing difficulties, while 47.4% self-reported having poor swallowing-related QOL at p < 0.05. A strong positive correlation (r = 0.86) was found between EAT-10 and total DHI scores at p < 0.001. The present study sheds light on the widespread yet underreported issue of self-reported swallowing difficulties and the impact on swallowing-related QOL among older adults in India. These findings emphasize the urgent need for early swallowing screening programs among older adults.
Comparison of iCT-based navigation and fluoroscopic-guidance for atlantoaxial screw placement in 78 patients with traumatic cervical spine injuries
Authors: Gierse Jula , Mandelka Eric , Medrow Antonia , Bullert Benno , Gruetzner Paul A. , Franke Jochen , Vetter Sven Y.
Published: April 2024

Background context

Studies have shown biomechanical superiority of cervical pedicle screw placement over other techniques. However, accurate placement is challenging due to the inherent risk of neurovascular complications. Navigation technology based on intraoperative 3D imaging allows highly accurate screw placement, yet studies specifically investigating screw placement in patients with traumatic atlantoaxial injuries are scarce. The aim of this study was to compare atlantoaxial screw placement as treatment of traumatic instabilities using iCT-based navigation or fluoroscopic-guidance with intraoperative 3D control scans.

Methods

This was a retrospective review of patients with traumatic atlantoaxial injuries treated operatively with dorsal stabilization of C1 and C2. Patients were either assigned to the intraoperative navigation or fluoroscopic-guidance group. Screw accuracy, procedure time, and revisions were compared.

Results

Seventy-eight patients were included in this study with 51 patients in the navigation group and 27 patients in the fluoroscopic-guidance group. In total, 312 screws were placed in C1 and C2. Screw accuracy was high in both groups; however, pedicle perforations > 1 mm occurred significantly more often in the fluoroscopic-guidance group (P = 0.02). Procedure time was on average 23 min shorter in the navigation group (P = 0.02).

Conclusions

This study contributes to the available data showing that navigated atlantoaxial screw placement proves to be feasible as well as highly accurate compared to the fluoroscopic-guidance technique without prolonging the time needed for surgery. When comparing these data with other studies, the application of different classification systems for assessment of screw accuracy should be considered.
Effective division of the intersegmental plane using a robotic stapler in robotic pulmonary segmentectomy
Authors: Okazaki Mikio , Suzawa Ken , Shien Kazuhiko , Hashimoto Kohei , Tanaka Shin , Miyoshi Kentaroh , Yamamoto Hiromasa , Sugimoto Seiichiro , Toyooka Shinichi
Published: April 2024

Purposes

Robot-assisted thoracoscopic (RATS) segmentectomy is becoming increasingly common because of the expanded indications for segmentectomy and the widespread adoption of robotic surgery. The precise division of the intersegmental plane is necessary to ensure oncologic margins from the tumor and to preserve the lung function. In this study, we present a strategy for accurately dividing the intersegmental plane using a robotic stapler and review the surgical outcomes.

Methods

RATS portal segmentectomy was performed using the Da Vinci Xi system and the intersegmental plane was dissected using a robotic stapler. We evaluated the perioperative outcomes in 92 patients who underwent RATS portal segmentectomy between May 2020 and January 2023. These results were compared with those of 82 patients who underwent complete video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (CVATS) during the same period.

Results

The operative and console times were 162 and 97 min, respectively. No intraoperative complications occurred, and postoperative complications were observed in four cases (4.3%). The operative time, blood loss, postoperative complications, and maximum incision size were significantly lower in the RATS group than in the CVATS group. However, RATS requires a significantly higher number of staplers than CVATS.

Conclusions

The division of the intersegmental plane using a robotic stapler in RATS portal segmentectomy was, therefore, found to be safe and effective.
Improvement of diabetes-induced spinal cord axon injury with taurine via nerve growth factor-dependent Akt/mTOR pathway
Authors: Wang Yachen , Gao Bihu , Chen Xiaochi , Shi Xiaoxia , Li Shuangyue , Zhang Qing , Zhang Cong , Piao Fengyuan
Published: April 2024

Diabetic neuropathy (DN) is a common neurological complication caused by diabetes mellitus (DM). Axonal degeneration is generally accepted to be the major pathological change in peripheral DN. Taurine has been evidenced to be neuroprotective in various aspects, but its effect on spinal cord axon injury (SCAI) in DN remains barely reported. This study showed that taurine significantly ameliorated axonal damage of spinal cord (SC), based on morphological and functional analyses, in a rat model of DN induced by streptozotocin (STZ). Taurine was also found to induce neurite outgrowth in cultured cerebral cortex neurons with high glucose exposure. Moreover, taurine up-regulated the expression of nerve growth factor (NGF) and neurite outgrowth relative protein GAP-43 in rat DN model and cultured cortical neurons/VSC4.1 cells. Besides, taurine increased the activating phosphorylation signals of TrkA, Akt, and mTOR. Mechanistically, the neuroprotection by taurine was related to the NGF–pAKT–mTOR axis, because either NGF-neutralizing antibody or Akt or mTOR inhibitors was found to attenuate its beneficial effects. Together, our results demonstrated that taurine promotes spinal cord axon repair in a model of SCAI in STZ-induced diabetic rats, mechanistically associating with the NGF-dependent activation of Akt/mTOR pathway.
Revisiting clustering for efficient unsupervised dialogue structure induction
Authors: Raedt Maarten De , Godin Fréderic , Develder Chris , Demeester Thomas
Published: April 2024

In the development of a task-oriented dialogue system, defining the dialogue structure is a time-consuming task. Hence, several works have looked into automatically inferring it from data, e.g., actual conversations between a customer and a support agent. To recover such dialogue structure, recent methods based on discrete variational models learn to jointly encode and cluster utterances in dialogue states, but (i) represent utterances by only considering preceding dialogue context, and (ii) are slow to train since they are optimized with a compute-expensive decoding objective. We revisit and improve upon an existing efficient pipeline approach, commonly adopted as a baseline, that first encodes utterances and then clusters them with k-means to induce the dialogue structure. However, the existing approach represents utterances as bag-of-words or skip-thought vectors, which have been shown to perform poorly in semantic similarity tasks, and without considering dialogue context. We therefore first investigate the use of more powerful transformer-based encoders for encoding utterances. Next, we propose ellodar, a method for learning representations that capture both preceding and subsequent dialogue context, inspired by word-to-vec training strategies. ellodar is efficient since representations are learned directly in the encoding space by finetuning just a single linear layer on top of a frozen sentence encoder with a vector-to-vector regression training objective. Extensive experiments on representative datasets for dialogue structure induction (SimDial, Schema Guided Dialogues, DSTC2, and CamRest676) demonstrate that in terms of effectiveness to induce the correct dialogue structure, (i) clustering utterances represented by transformed-based encoders improves recent joint models by 13%–32% on standard cluster metrics, and (ii) clustering ellodar’s representations yields additional improvements ranging from +20% to +26%, with speedups of $$\times $$
×
 $$\textbf{10}$$
10
–$$\textbf{10}^{\textbf{4}}$$

10
4

compared to the recent joint models.
Neutrophil Extracellular Traps Regulate Surgical Brain Injury by Activating the cGAS-STING Pathway
Authors: Li Bingbing , Xu Lixia , Wang Zhengang , Shi Qi , Cui Yang , Fan Weijia , Wu Qiaoli , Tong Xiaoguang , Yan Hua
Published: April 2024

Surgical brain injury (SBI), induced by neurosurgical procedures or instruments, has not attracted adequate attention. The pathophysiological process of SBI remains sparse compared to that of other central nervous system diseases thus far. Therefore, novel and effective therapies for SBI are urgently needed. In this study, we found that neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) were present in the circulation and brain tissues of rats after SBI, which promoted neuroinflammation, cerebral edema, neuronal cell death, and aggravated neurological dysfunction. Inhibition of NETs formation by peptidylarginine deiminase (PAD) inhibitor or disruption of NETs with deoxyribonuclease I (DNase I) attenuated SBI-induced damages and improved the recovery of neurological function. We show that SBI triggered the activation of cyclic guanosine monophosphate–adenosine monophosphate synthase stimulator of interferon genes (cGAS-STING), and that inhibition of the cGAS-STING pathway could be beneficial. It is worth noting that DNase I markedly suppressed the activation of cGAS-STING, which was reversed by the cGAS product cyclic guanosine monophosphate–adenosine monophosphate (cGMP-AMP, cGAMP). Furthermore, the neuroprotective effect of DNase I in SBI was also abolished by cGAMP. NETs may participate in the pathophysiological regulation of SBI by acting through the cGAS-STING pathway. We also found that high-dose vitamin C administration could effectively inhibit the formation of NETs post-SBI. Thus, targeting NETs may provide a novel therapeutic strategy for SBI treatment, and high-dose vitamin C intervention may be a promising translational therapy with an excellent safety profile and low cost.

Graphical Abstract

The schematic diagram shows the formation of NETs activated cGAS-STING pathway after SBI, leading to increased microglia activation, accompanied with elevation of inflammatory factors, which in turn aggravated brain injury.
Atypical Time to Contact Estimation in Young Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder
Authors: Vagnetti Roberto , Vicovaro Michele , Spoto Andrea , Battaglini Luca , Attanasio Margherita , Valenti Marco , Mazza Monica
Published: April 2024

Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) present atypical sensory processing in the perception of moving stimuli and biological motion. The present study aims to explore the performance of young adults with ASD in a time to contact (TTC) estimation task involving social and non-social stimuli. TTC estimation involves extrapolating the trajectory of a moving target concealed by an occluder, based on the visible portion of its path, to predict the target’s arrival time at a specific position. Sixteen participants with a diagnosis of level-1 ASD (M = 19.2 years, SE = 0.54 years; 3 F, 13 M) and sixteen participants with TD (M = 22.3 years, SE = 0.44 years; 3 F, 13 M) took part in the study and underwent a TTC estimation task. The task presented two object types (a car and a point-light walker), different object speeds, occluder lengths, motion directions and motion congruency. For the car object, a larger overestimation of TTC emerged for ASDs than for TDs, whereas no difference between ASDs and TDs emerged for the point-light walker. ASDs exhibited a larger TTC overestimation for the car object than for the point-light walker, whereas no difference between object types emerged for TDs. Our results indicated an atypical TTC estimation process in young adults with ASD. Given its importance in daily life, future studies should further explore this skill. Significant effects that emerged from the analysis are discussed.
Automated assembly quality inspection by deep learning with 2D and 3D synthetic CAD data
Authors: Zhu Xiaomeng , Mårtensson Pär , Hanson Lars , Björkman Mårten , Maki Atsuto
Published: April 2024

In the manufacturing industry, automatic quality inspections can lead to improved product quality and productivity. Deep learning-based computer vision technologies, with their superior performance in many applications, can be a possible solution for automatic quality inspections. However, collecting a large amount of annotated training data for deep learning is expensive and time-consuming, especially for processes involving various products and human activities such as assembly. To address this challenge, we propose a method for automated assembly quality inspection using synthetic data generated from computer-aided design (CAD) models. The method involves two steps: automatic data generation and model implementation. In the first step, we generate synthetic data in two formats: two-dimensional (2D) images and three-dimensional (3D) point clouds. In the second step, we apply different state-of-the-art deep learning approaches to the data for quality inspection, including unsupervised domain adaptation, i.e., a method of adapting models across different data distributions, and transfer learning, which transfers knowledge between related tasks. We evaluate the methods in a case study of pedal car front-wheel assembly quality inspection to identify the possible optimal approach for assembly quality inspection. Our results show that the method using Transfer Learning on 2D synthetic images achieves superior performance compared with others. Specifically, it attained 95% accuracy through fine-tuning with only five annotated real images per class. With promising results, our method may be suggested for other similar quality inspection use cases. By utilizing synthetic CAD data, our method reduces the need for manual data collection and annotation. Furthermore, our method performs well on test data with different backgrounds, making it suitable for different manufacturing environments.
Validation of a novel western blot assay to monitor patterns and levels of alpha dystroglycan in skeletal muscle of patients with limb girdle muscular dystrophies
Authors: Rajasingham Thulashitha , Rodriguez Hector M. , Betz Andreas , Sproule Douglas M. , Sinha Uma
Published: April 2024

The cell membrane protein, dystroglycan, plays a crucial role in connecting the cytoskeleton of a variety of mammalian cells to the extracellular matrix. The α-subunit of dystroglycan (αDG) is characterized by a high level of glycosylation, including a unique O-mannosyl matriglycan. This specific glycosylation is essential for binding of αDG to extracellular matrix ligands effectively. A subset of muscular dystrophies, called dystroglycanopathies, are associated with aberrant, dysfunctional glycosylation of αDG. This defect prevents myocytes from attaching to the basal membrane, leading to contraction-induced injury. Here, we describe a novel Western blot (WB) assay for determining levels of αDG glycosylation in skeletal muscle tissue. The assay described involves extracting proteins from fine needle tibialis anterior (TA) biopsies and separation using SDS-PAGE followed by WB. Glycosylated and core αDG are then detected in a multiplexed format using fluorescent antibodies. A practical application of this assay is demonstrated with samples from normal donors and patients diagnosed with LGMD2I/R9. Quantitative analysis of the WB, which employed the use of a normal TA derived calibration curve, revealed significantly reduced levels of αDG in patient biopsies relative to unaffected TA. Importantly, the assay was able to distinguish between the L276I homozygous patients and a more severe form of clinical disease observed with other FKRP variants. Data demonstrating the accuracy and reliability of the assay are also presented, which further supports the potential utility of this novel assay to monitor changes in ⍺DG of TA muscle biopsies in the evaluation of potential therapeutics.
Trade-off independent image watermarking using enhanced structured matrix decomposition
Authors: Khan Ahmed , Wong KokSheik , Baskaran Vishnu Monn
Published: April 2024

Image watermarking plays a vital role in providing protection from copyright violation. However, conventional watermarking techniques typically exhibit trade-offs in terms of image quality, robustness and capacity constrains. More often than not, these techniques optimize on one constrain while settling with the two other constraints. Therefore, in this paper, an enhanced saliency detection based watermarking method is proposed to simultaneously improve quality, capacity, and robustness. First, the enhanced structured matrix decomposition (E-SMD) is proposed to extract salient regions in the host image for producing a saliency mask. This mask is then applied to partition the foreground and background of the host and watermark images. Subsequently, the watermark (with the same dimension of host image) is shuffled using multiple Arnold and Logistic chaotic maps, and the resulting shuffled-watermark is embedded into the wavelet domain of the host image. Furthermore, a filtering operation is put forward to estimate the original host image so that the proposed watermarking method can also operate in blind mode. In the best case scenario, we could embed a 24-bit image as the watermark into another 24-bit image while maintaining an average SSIM of 0.9999 and achieving high robustness against commonly applied watermark attacks. Furthermore, as per our best knowledge, with high payload embedding, the significant improvement in these features (in terms of saliency, PSNR, SSIM, and NC) has not been achieved by the state-of-the-art methods. Thus, the outcomes of this research realizes a trade-off independent image watermarking method, which is a first of its kind in this domain.
Simulating block-scale flood inundation and streamflow using the WRF-Hydro model in the New York City metropolitan area
Authors: Kilicarslan Berina Mina , Temimi Marouane
Published: April 2024

This study assesses the performance of the Weather Research and Forecasting-Hydrological modeling system (WRF-Hydro) in the simulation of street-scale flood inundation. The case study is the Hackensack River Watershed in New Jersey, US, which is part of the operational Stevens Flood Advisory System (SFAS), a one-way coupled hydrodynamic-hydrologic system that currently uses the Hydrologic Engineering Center's Hydrologic Modeling System (HEC-HMS) to simulate streamflow. The performance of the 50-m gridded WRF-Hydro model was assessed for potential integration into the operational SFAS system. The model was calibrated with the dynamically dimensioned search algorithm using streamflow observations. The model performance was assessed using (i) streamflow observations, (ii) USGS HWMs, and (iii) crowdsourced data on street inundation. Results show that WRF-Hydro outperformed the HEC-HMS model. WRF-Hydro over and underestimated flood inundation extent due to the inaccuracy of the synthetic rating curves and the modeling structure errors. An agreement was noticed between WRF-Hydro and crowdsourced data on flood extent.
Overdamped Ising machine with stochastic resonance phenomena in large noise condition
Authors: Liao Zhiqiang , Ma Kaijie , Sarker Md Shamim , Yamahara Hiroyasu , Seki Munetoshi , Tabata Hitoshi
Published: April 2024

Gain-dissipative Ising machines (GIMs) are dedicated devices that can rapidly solve combinatorial optimization problems. The noise intensity in traditional GIMs should be significantly smaller than its saturated fixed-point amplitude, indicating a lower noise margin. To overcome the existing limit, this work proposes an overdamped bistability-based GIM (OBGIM). Numerical test on uncoupled spin network show that the OBGIM has a different bifurcation dynamics from that of the traditional GIM. Moreover, the domain clustering dynamics on non-frustrated network proves that the overdamped bistability enables the GIM to suppress noise-induced random spin-state switching effectively; thus, it can function normally in an environment with a relatively large noise level. Besides, some prevalent frustrated graphs from the SuiteSparse Matrix Collection were adopted as MAXCUT benchmarks. The results show that the OBGIM can induce stochastic resonance phenomenon when solving difficult benchmarks. Compared with the traditional GIM, this characteristic makes the OBGIM achieve comparable solution accuracy in larger noise environment, thus achieving strong noise robustness.
Assessing feasibility of conducting medication review with follow-up among older adults at community pharmacy: a pilot randomised controlled trial
Authors: Christopher Christina Malini , Blebil Ali Qais , Bhuvan KC , Alex Deepa , Ibrahim Mohamed Izham Mohamed , Ismail Norhasimah , Cheong Mark Wing Loong
Published: April 2024

Background

Medication review with follow-up is essential for optimising medication utilisation among the older adult population in primary healthcare.

Aim

This study aimed to evaluate the feasibility of implementing medication reviews with follow-up for older adults in community pharmacies and examined potential outcomes on medication use.

Method

A pilot randomised controlled trial was conducted with 4 cluster-randomised community pharmacies to assess the feasibility of the intervention. Two community pharmacies served as intervention and control groups. Both groups recruited older adults over 60 who were followed over 6 months. The translated Medication use Questionnaire (MedUseQ) was administered at baseline and 6 months for both groups. The outcomes were to assess the feasibility of conducting medication review with follow-up and the probable medication use outcomes from the intervention.

Results

The intervention and control groups comprised 14 and 13 older adults. A total of 35 recommendations were made by pharmacists in the intervention group and 8 in the control group. MedUseQ was easily administered, providing some evidence the feasibility of the intervention. However, there were feasibility challenges such as a lack of pharmacists, collaborative practice, difficulties with the tool language, time constraints, and limited funds. Questionnaire results provided a signal of improvement in medication administration, adherence, and polypharmacy among intervention participants. The incidence of drug related problems was significantly higher in the control group (median = 1) after 6 months, U = 15, z = − 2.98, p = 0.01.

Conclusion

Medication review with follow-up is potentialy practical in community pharmacies, but there are feasibility issues. While these challenges can be addressed, it is essential to study larger sample sizes to establish more robust evidence regarding outcomes.

Clinical trial registry: ClinicalTrials.Gov NCT05297461.
The Practical Epistemologies of Design and Artificial Intelligence
Authors: Billingsley William
Published: April 2024

This article explores the epistemological trade-offs that practical and technology design fields make by exploring past philosophical discussions of design, practitioner research, and pragmatism. It argues that as technologists apply Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to more domains, the technology brings this same set of epistemological trade-offs with it. The basis of the technology becomes the basis of what it finds. There are correlations between questions that designers face in sampling and gathering data that is rich with context, and those that large-scale machine learning faces in how it approaches the rich context and subjectivity within its training data. AI, however, processes enormous amounts of data and produces models that can be explored. This makes its form of pragmatic inquiry that is amenable to optimisation. Finally, the paper explores implications for education that stem from how we apply AI to pedagogy and explanation, suggesting that the availability of AI-generated explanations and materials may also push pedagogy in directions of pragmatism: the evidence that explanations are effective may precede explorations of why they should be.
How to Do “Ought” with “Is”? A Cognitive Linguistics Approach to the Normativity of Legal Language
Authors: Zeifert Mateusz
Published: April 2024

The paper addresses the question how descriptive language is used to express legal norms. Sentences we find in legislative acts, i.e. statutes, constitutions and regulations, express legal norms. Linguistically speaking, there are various grammatical and lexical ways of expressing norms, such as imperative mood, modal verbs, deontic verbs, etc. However, norms may also be expressed by descriptive sentences, namely sentences in present or future tense and indicative (declarative) mood (i.e. The minister determines the tax rate). In many civil law countries (including Poland), this is a very common, if not the default, form of expressing norms in legislative texts. Often presented as a legal peculiarity, this phenomenon has yet to draw much academic attention. The normative meaning of descriptive sentences is usually attributed to purely pragmatic factors stemming from our shared assumptions about the legal system. However, a closer look reveals that similar grammatical constructions are ubiquitous in everyday communication and in different languages. We tend to utter various sorts of directives using descriptive sentences (Now we add a spoon of salt to the sauce; credit cards are not accepted). This suggests the possibility for a linguistic (as opposed to exclusively legal) explanation. This paper aims to offer such an explanation. Rather than resorting to formal semantics, so prevalent in legal theory, it borrows from Cognitive Linguistics to reveal the cognitive underpinnings of our surprising tendency to express normativity in descriptive terms. This involves four different, yet complementary, theories. Firstly, the theory of conceptual metaphor by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson which explains the phenomenon in question in terms of the metaphor “ought is is”; with “ought” as the more abstract target domain and “is” as the more concrete, cognitively simpler source domain. Secondly, the theory of speech act metonymy by Panther and Thornburg which presents descriptive legal sentences as referring to various components of the underlying cognitive scenario of obligation. Thirdly, Ronald Langacker’s notion of the virtuality of language as the explanation for non-present, including future, perpetual and directive, uses of the present tense. Fourtly, the notion of normative generics which points to the nominal, as opposed to verbal, structure of descriptive legal sentences as the source of their normativity.
Spatial model for daily air quality high resolution estimation
Authors: Jacquinot Morgan , Derain Romain , Armengaud Alexandre , Oppo Sonia
Published: April 2024

In air quality modeling, fine-scale daily mapping is generally calculated from dispersion models involving multiple parameters linked in particular to emissions, which require regular updating and a long computation time. The aim of this work is to provide a simpler model, easily adaptable to other regions and capable of estimating nitrogen dioxide concentrations to a good approximation. To this end, we examine the relationship between daily and annual nitrogen dioxide values. We find that this relationship depends on the range of daily values. Then we provide a statistical model capable of estimating daily concentrations over large areas on a fine spatial scale. The model’s performance is compared with standard geostatistical method such as external drift kriging with cross-validation over one year. The reduced computation time means that daily maps can be produced for use by French air quality observatories.
Murine and Human-Purified very Small Embryonic-like Stem Cells (VSELs) Express Purinergic Receptors and Migrate to Extracellular ATP Gradient
Authors: Bujko Kamila , Brzezniakiewicz-Janus Katarzyna , Jarczak Justyna , Kucia Magdalena , Ratajczak Mariusz Z.
Published: April 2024

Purinergic signaling is an ancient primordial signaling system regulating tissue development and specification of various types of stem cells. Thus, functional purinergic receptors are present in several types of cells in the body, including multiple populations of stem cells. However, one stem cell type that has not been evaluated for expression of purinergic receptors is very small embryonic stem cells (VSELs) isolated from postnatal tissues. Herein, we report that human umbilical cord blood (UCB) and murine bone marrow (BM) purified VSELs express mRNA for P1 and P2 purinergic receptors and CD39 and CD73 ectonucleotidases converting extracellular ATP (eATP) into its signaling metabolite extracellular adenosine (eAdo), that antagonizes eATP effects. More importantly, we demonstrate that human and murine VSELs respond by chemotaxis to eATP, and eAdo inhibits this migration. These responses to eATP are mediated by activation of Nlrp3 inflammasome, and exposure of VSELs to its specific inhibitor MCC950 abolished the chemotactic response to ATP. We conclude that purinergic signaling plays an essential, underappreciated role in the biology of these cells and their potential role in response to tissue/organ injuries.

Graphical Abstract
Accuracy of patient-specific CT organ doses from Monte Carlo simulations: influence of CT-based voxel models
Authors: Verfaillie Gwenny , Rutten Jeff , D’Asseler Yves , Bacher Klaus
Published: April 2024

Monte Carlo simulations using patient CT images as input are the gold standard to perform patient-specific dosimetry. However, in standard clinical practice patient’s CT images are limited to the reconstructed CT scan range. In this study, organ dose calculations were performed with ImpactMC for chest and cardiac CT using whole-body and anatomy-specific voxel models to estimate the accuracy of CT organ doses based on the latter model. When the 3D patient model is limited to the CT scan range, CT organ doses from Monte Carlo simulations are the most accurate for organs entirely in the field of view. For these organs only the radiation dose related to scatter from the rest of the body is not incorporated. For organs lying partially outside the field of view organ doses are overestimated by not accounting for the non-irradiated tissue mass. This overestimation depends strongly on the amount of the organ volume located outside the field of view. To get a more accurate estimation of the radiation dose to these organs, the ICRP reference organ masses and densities could form a solution. Except for the breast, good agreement in dose was found for most organs. Voxel models generated from clinical CT examinations do not include the overscan in the z-direction. The availability of whole-body voxel models allowed to study this influence as well. As expected, overscan induces slightly higher organ doses.
Programming the Minimal Model Program: a proposal
Authors: Lazić Vladimir
Published: April 2024

The aim of this paper is to propose a strategy to implement the Minimal Model Program in modern computer algebra systems.
Assessing the Influences of Noise Suppression Filters on Ultrasonic Concrete Images Generated by an Innovative CMU-SAFT Algorithm
Authors: Tayfur Sena
Published: April 2024

Ultrasonic imaging is a useful nondestructive testing technology for visualizing internal structural defects in structures. Despite its utility, since synthetic aperture focusing technique (SAFT) algorithm demands using advanced equipment to superimpose the measurements, this paper introduces a novel approach named CMU-SAFT to broaden applicability of SAFT on conventional ultrasonic data obviating the necessity for matrix antenna array-equipped devices and preventing hyperbolic patterns. To validate the feasibility of the proposed algorithm, experimental tests were conducted on a laboratory-produced concrete specimen including delamination defects at varying depths. Since other reflectives causing distortion in the ultrasonic image can interfere with the signal, the study also evaluated the influences of different noise suppression filters along with their combinations (band pass, wavelet transform, Wiener, and Savitzky–Golay). CMU-SAFT images were constructed using eleven filter combinations, and their performances were quantitatively assessed using signal-to-noise ratio, signal-to-noise and distortion ratio, total harmonic distortion, root mean square, mean squared ratio, mean absolute error and cross-correlation. The most effective filters and performance indices aligning with CMU-SAFT images considering defect depth and scanning width were suggested. The findings of the study revealed the leading potential of CMU-SAFT algorithm to overcome the need for specialized equipment by utilizing recommended filters and indicators under specific conditions.
Aggressive variant prostate cancer with multiple subcutaneous metastases: a case report
Authors: Hoshino Yusuke , Kanao Kent , Miyama Yu , Kosaka Takeo , Kaneko Go , Shirotake Suguru , Yasuda Masanori , Oyama Masafumi
Published: April 2024

A 71-year-old man with bone metastasis of hormone-sensitive prostate cancer was treated with androgen deprivation therapy and apalutamide. Radium-223 and radiation therapy were administered after it become castration resistant. Although prostate-specific antigen levels remained low, multiple subcutaneous metastases of neuroendocrine prostate cancer were observed. A review of the pre-treatment prostate needle biopsy revealed a small component with features suggestive of neuroendocrine differentiation. Phosphatase and tensine homolog loss and tumor protein p53 overexpression were observed, confirming the diagnosis of aggressive variant prostate cancer. Platinum-based chemotherapy was administered; however, the patient died 28 months after diagnosis. In this case, if the diagnosis of aggressive variant prostate cancer had been made at an earlier time by biopsy specimens, there might have been a possibility to improve the prognosis by the earlier introduction of the platinum-based regimen.
Significance of colonization by antibiotic-resistant organisms prior to congenital heart disease surgery in children from low- to middle-income countries sent by non-governmental organizations to Switzerland
Authors: Cousin Vladimir L. , Mwizerwa Leonce , Joye Raphael , Wagner Noémie , Nalecz Tomasz , Bouhabib Maya , Sologashvili Tornike , Wacker Julie , Schrenzel Jacques , Beghetti Maurice , Polito Angelo
Published: April 2024

Purpose

Children with congenital heart disease (CHD) from low- to middle-income countries (LMIC) are suspected to have a high prevalence of antibiotic-resistant microorganisms (ARMOs) carriage, but data are currently lacking. Carriage of ARMOs could impact the post-operative course in pediatric intensive care unit (PICU). The aim of the study was to assess the prevalence of ARMOs carriage in children with CHD from LMIC and its impact on post-operative outcomes.

Methods

This was a retrospective monocentric study from 01/2019 to 12/2022. Included patients were children (0–18 years) from a LMIC admitted after CHD surgery and with AMRO screening performed the week before. Infections and post-operative evolution were compared based on ARMOs carriage status.

Findings

Among 224 surgeries (median age 38.5 months (IQR 22–85.5)), ARMOs carriage was evidenced in 95 cases (42.4%). Main organisms isolated were Extended Spectrum Beta-Lactamase (ESBL) producing E. coli (75/224) 33.5%)) and ESBL-K. pneumoniae (30/224) 13.4%)). Median mechanical ventilation duration was 1 day (IQR 0–1), PICU stay 3 days (IQR 2–4) and hospital stay 6.5 days (IQR 5–10). A total of 17 infectious episodes occurred in 15 patients, mostly consisting in hospital-acquired pneumonia (HAP) (12/17). Only two infections were caused by a colonizing ARMO. Occurrence of infections and patients’ outcome were similar between ARMO carriers and non-carriers. Higher use of carbapenems (6 (6.3%) vs 1 (0.8%), p = 0.04) and a trend to a higher use of vancomycin (14 (13.7%) vs 9 (6.9%), p = 0.04) in case of ARMOs carriage. Applying current guidelines, negative swab screening could have led to sparing most of empirical vancomycin therapy (11/12) for HAP based on current guidelines.

Conclusion

Prevalence of AMROs carriage is high in children from LMIC and has a limited impact on patients’ outcome. However, ARMOs carriage leads to higher consumption of antibiotics. Screening may help saving use of broad-spectrum antibiotic in non-carrier patients.
Modest governance as a condition for separating benevolent from malevolent recycling practices in the Netherlands
Authors: Bok Jordi , Colombijn Freek
Published: April 2024

The municipal government of Hengelo (Netherlands) has introduced reversed collection and differentiated tariffs for waste collection as two policies to stimulate the separation of household waste at source and reduce residual waste. It has also launched other innovative ways of reducing residual solid waste. While most people comply with the new policies, the citizenry has also reacted with fierce protests and in an astounding diversity of ways to the disposal of their waste, unforeseen by the municipality. Two negative effects of the citizens’ creative reactions have been haphazard separation and the littering of the street. The municipality has reacted with condescension by imposing a mixture of control and pedagogic strategies. The aim of this article is first to demonstrate the amazing width of municipal policies, second, to understand the negative reactions of citizens, and, third, the reasons why municipal responses to these reactions have partly remained without success. We argue that ‘modest governance’, which is more sensitive to the citizens’ life worlds, is necessary if the service co-production of waste management is to be a success.
A critical review on direct catalytic hydrogasification of coal into CH4: catalysis process configurations, evaluations, and prospects
Authors: Yan Shuai , Feng Jun , Yuan Shenfu , Xia Zihong , Han Fengshuang , Qu Xuan , Bi Jicheng
Published: April 2024

Coal catalytic hydrogasification (CCHG) is a straightforward approach for producing CH4, which shows advantages over the mature coal-to-CH4 technologies from the perspectives of CH4 yield, thermal efficiency, and CO2 emission. The core of CCHG is to make carbon in coal convert into CH4 efficiently with a catalyst. In the past decades, intensive research has been devoted to catalytic hydrogasification of model carbon (pitch coke, activated carbon, coal char). However, the chemical process of CCHG is still not well understood because the coal structure is more complicated, and CCHG is a combination of coal catalytic hydropyrolysis and coal char catalytic hydrogasification. This review seeks to shed light on the catalytic process of raw coal during CCHG. The configuration of suitable catalysts, operating conditions, and feedstocks for tailoring CH4 formation were identified, and the underlying mechanisms were elucidated. Based on these results, the CCHG process was evaluated, emphasizing pollutant emissions, energy efficiency, and reactor design. Furthermore, the opportunities and strategic approaches for CCHG under the restraint of carbon neutrality were highlighted by considering the penetration of “green” H2, biomass, and CO2 into CCHG. Preliminary investigations from our laboratories demonstrated that the integrated CCHG and biomass/CO2 hydrogenation process could perform as an emerging pathway for boosting CH4 production by consuming fewer fossil fuels, fulfilling the context of green manufacturing. This work not only provides systematic knowledge of CCHG but also helps to guide the efficient hydrogenation of other carbonaceous resources such as biomass, CO2, and coal-derived wastes.
The Local Regression Approach as a Tool to Improve Place-Based Policies: The Case of Molise (Southern Italy)
Authors: Benassi Federico , Tomassini Cecilia , Lallo Carlo
Published: April 2024

The implementation of place-based policies entails the construction of intervention areas (spatially contiguous areas in which the policies are adopted). Many approaches can be adopted for the definition of such areas. This paper reflects on the use of geographically weighted regression (GWR) models as a tool capable of supporting the definition process. The case study concerns Molise, a region in Southern Italy particularly affected by persistent and deep-rooted processes of depopulation. The dependent variable is the average annual rate of population change of municipalities of Molise across the 2011–2019. The independent variables are related to socio-economic profiles of each municipality. The results, contextualised using a broad overview of the Italian case, show that a key variable in the demographic dynamics of the municipalities of Molise is the labour market activity rate of women and that this variable drives a spatial instability that cannot be detected using global approaches and models. This proves the urgent need to expand the use of local thinking for the benefit of both applied demography and society.
Algorithmic reconstruction of the fiber of persistent homology on cell complexes
Authors: Leygonie Jacob , Henselman-Petrusek Gregory
Published: April 2024

Let K be a finite simplicial, cubical, delta or CW complex. The persistence map $$\textrm{PH}$$
PH
takes a filter $$f:K\rightarrow \mathbb {R}$$

f
:
K
→
R

as input and returns the barcodes of the sublevel set persistent homology of f in each dimension. We address the inverse problem: given target barcodes D, computing the fiber $$\textrm{PH}^{-1}(D)$$

PH

-
1

(
D
)

. For this, we use the fact that $$\textrm{PH}^{-1}(D)$$

PH

-
1

(
D
)

decomposes as a polyhedral complex when K is a simplicial complex, and we generalise this result to arbitrary based chain complexes. We then design and implement a depth-first search that recovers the polytopes forming the fiber $$\textrm{PH}^{-1}(D)$$

PH

-
1

(
D
)

. As an application, we solve a corpus of 120 sample problems, providing a first insight into the statistical structure of these fibers, for general CW complexes.
A multicentre survey investigating the knowledge, behaviour, and attitudes of surgical healthcare professionals to frailty assessment in emergency surgery: DEFINE(surgery)
Authors: Braude P. , Parry F. , Warren K. , Mitchell E. , McCarthy K. , Khadaroo R. G. , Carter B. ,   CLARITY (collaborative ageing research) group, Humphry Nia , Long Sara , Nassa Heeam , Vilches-Moraga Arturo , Bashir Nahida , Thomas Ashly , Rickard Frances , Sellick Mike , Buscemi Paolo , Ng Hwei Jene , Quinn Terry , Knight Katrina , Bruce Eilidh , Myint Phyo Kyaw
Published: April 2024

Purpose

Screening for frailty in people admitted with emergency surgical pathology can initiate timely referrals to enhanced perioperative services such as intensive care and geriatric medicine. However, there has been little research exploring surgical healthcare professionals' opinions to frailty assessment, or accuracy in identification. This study aimed to assess the knowledge, behaviour, and attitudes of healthcare professionals to frailty assessment in emergency surgical admissions.

Methods

We designed a cross-sectional multicentre study developed by a multiprofessional team of surgeons, geriatricians, and supported by patients. A semi-structured survey examined attitudes and behaviours. Knowledge was assessed by comparing respondents’ accuracy in scoring twenty-two surgical case vignettes using the Clinical Frailty Scale.

Results

Eleven hospitals across England, Wales, and Scotland participated. Two hundred and eleven clinicians responded—20.4% junior doctors, 43.6% middle grade doctors, 24.2% senior doctors, 11.4% nurses and physician associates. Respondents strongly supported perioperative frailty assessment. Most were already assessing for frailty, although frequently not using a standardised tool. There was a strong call for more frailty education. Participants scored 2175 vignettes with 55.4% accurately meeting the gold standard; accuracy improved to 87.3% when categorised into “not frail/mildly frail/severely frail” and 94% when dichotomised to “not frail/frail”.

Conclusion

Frailty assessment is well supported by healthcare professionals working in surgery. However, standardised tools are not routinely being used, and only half of respondents could accurately identify frailty. Better education around frailty assessment is needed for healthcare professionals working in surgery to improve perioperative pathway for people living with frailty.