bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
COVID-19 and Immigrant Essential Workers: Bhutanese and Burmese Refugees in the United States
Authors: Zhang Mengxi , Gurung Ashok , Anglewicz Philip , Yun Katherine 
Published: November 2020

Objectives Immigrants are believed to be at high risk of infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). A leading suspected risk factor is their role in the essential workforce. We aimed to describe COVID-19–related risk factors among Bhutanese and Burmese refugees in the United States. Methods We administered an anonymous online survey in May 2020 among community leaders of Bhutanese and Burmese refugees. Using a snowball sampling strategy, we invited community leaders to complete the survey and share the link with others who met inclusion criteria (English proficient, aged ≥18, currently living in the United States). We compared respondents with and without recent COVID-19 and identified risk factors for infection. Results Of 218 refugees in 23 states who completed the survey from May 15 through June 1, 2020, fifteen (6.9%) reported infection with COVID-19. Being an essential worker during the pandemic (odds ratio [OR] = 5.25; 95% CI, 1.21-22.78), having an infected family member (OR = 26.92; 95% CI, 5.19-139.75), and being female (OR = 5.63; 95% CI, 1.14-27.82) were risk factors for infection. Among 33 infected family members, 23 (69.7%) were essential workers. Conclusion Although we had a small snowball sample, we found that working in essential industries was associated with an increased risk of COVID-19 infection among Bhutanese and Burmese refugees. We call for larger studies that include Asian immigrant subgroups, as well as immediate attention to protecting immigrant essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
DelNido cardioplegia versus St Thomas cardioplegia solution in double valve replacement: a single centre experience
Authors: Sharma Anil , Dixit Sunil , Mittal Sourabh , Sharma Mohit , Sharma Dhruva , Mawar K K 
Published: November 2020

Introduction: The role of cardioplegia cannot be underrated in cardiac surgery. St Thomas solution is the most widely used cardioplegic, but needs repeated dosing. Del Nido solution provides long duration of asystole with adequate protection; but has been used mainly in paediatric patients. This study was aimed to compare Del Nido cardioplegia with St Thomas cardioplegia in adult cardiac surgeries, requiring double valve replacement and compare the outcomes. Methodology: This retrospective, observational, descriptive study was conducted over a time period spanning from January 2016 to December 2019. A total of 209 patients were included and were separated in two groups DC group (n = 114) and BC group (n = 95) on the basis of cardioplegic solution used. Del Nido solution was administered as single dose. Parameters noted were CPB time, cross clamp time, wean off bypass time, DC shocks given, inotropic support required, ventilation duration, duration of ICU and hospital stay. Results: There was significantly shorter aortic cross clamp time (72.6 ± 10.2 vs. 98.2 ± 9.2), CPB time (92.1 ± 12.3 vs.129.5 ± 11) and wean off bypass time (19.4 ± 5.9 vs. 31.3 ± 7.6) and less requirement of DC shocks (21.2% vs. 65.9%) in DC group. Inotropic requirement in immediate post-operative period was significantly less in DC group both on day of surgery (5.35 ± 1.44 vs. 7.52 ± 3.8) and 24 hours later (3.4 ± 2.12 vs. 2.18 ± 0.72). There was no significant difference in duration of ventilation, ICU and hospital stay. Conclusion: Del Nido can be used safely in long duration adult cardiac surgeries and in a single dose with better intra operative and immediate post-operative outcomes as compared to St Thomas solution.
Anterior and Posterior Arthroscopic Treatment of Primary Synovial Chondromatosis of the Ankle
Authors: Bojanić Ivan , Plečko Mihovil , Mataić Ana , Dimnjaković Damjan 
Published: November 2020

Background: Primary synovial chondromatosis (PSC) is a progressive disorder of unknown etiology resulting in formation of multiple loose bodies. If left untreated, it may lead to degenerative changes or malignant transformation to chondrosarcoma. Methods: Seventeen patients who underwent combined posterior and anterior ankle arthroscopy within the same operative session and had histologically confirmed PSC were included in this retrospective study. American Orthopaedic Foot & Ankle Society (AOFAS) Ankle-Hindfoot score was used to evaluate ankle function preoperatively and at a final follow-up. A 3-question survey was used to evaluate patient’s satisfaction at the final follow-up. Results: In 14 patients, loose bodies were found in both compartments of the ankle, in 2 only in the anterior compartment, and in 1 only in the posterior compartment. All patients had evident signs of synovial inflammation in both compartments. The AOFAS Ankle-Hindfoot score increased from the preoperative median score of 65 (range, 29-90) to 95 (range, 65-100) at the final follow-up. Fourteen patients reported they were extremely satisfied with the outcome, 1 was moderately satisfied, and 2 were dissatisfied. No cases of recurrence of synovitis or loose body formation were noted, nor any signs of malignant transformation during the follow-up period. Conclusion: We believe the risk of recurrence of PSC, which is in close relation to malignant transformation, can be minimized by performing a complete synovectomy of the ankle. Our experience and review of literature makes us believe that ankle PSC should be regarded as a whole joint disorder. Performing a combined posterior and anterior arthroscopic procedure within the same operative session should always be considered in patients with ankle PSC. Level of Evidence: Level IV, retrospective case series.
Outcomes of Degenerative Cervical Myelopathy From The Perspective of Persons Living With the Condition: Findings of a Semistructured Interview Process With Partnered Internet Survey
Authors: Davies Benjamin M. , Munro Colin , Khan Danyal Z. , Fitzpatrick Siobhan M. , Hilton Bryn , Mowforth Oliver D. , McNair Angus G. K. , Sadler Iwan , Kotter Mark R. N. 
Published: November 2020

Study Design: Mixed-methods cross-sectional study. Objectives: Degenerative cervical myelopathy (DCM) is a common and disabling condition. While classically, assessment and diagnosis has focused on neuromuscular symptoms, many other disabilities have been linked. The aim of this study was to explore the consequences of DCM for those with lived experience, producing a long list to inform the development of a core outcome set for DCM research. Methods: A 2-stage process was used: a focus group session of people with DCM (PwCM) and their supporters (n = 8) discussed the impact of DCM. This was used to develop a preliminary list of consequences, which were then placed into a survey of an online community of DCM sufferers (n = 224). Survey participants were asked to tick the consequences that they had experienced and given the opportunity to submit additional. Additional consequences were reviewed by a group of healthcare professionals and PwCM and included if not already represented. Demographic information including disease severity, age, and sex were captured for sampling comparison. Results: A total of 52 outcomes were identified from the focus group and nominally divided into 2 categories; symptoms (36 outcomes) and handicaps (18 outcomes), and further evaluated using a survey. All outcomes were recognized by at least 5% of respondents. A further 16 outcomes were added following the survey. Conclusions: A list of DCM consequences has been defined from the perspective of PwCM. This will now be evaluated as part of AO Spine RECODE-DCM, an international multistakeholder collaboration to establish a core outcome set for research.
Clinical Effects of Anterior Cervical Spondylolisthesis on Cervical Spondylotic Myelopathy After Posterior Decompression Surgery: A Retrospective Multicenter Study of 732 Cases
Authors: Ninomiya Ken , Yamane Junichi , Aoyama Ryoma , Suzuki Satoshi , Shiono Yuta , Takahashi Yuichiro , Fujita Nobuyuki , Okada Eijirou , Tsuji Osahiko , Yagi Mitsuru , Watanabe Kota , Iga Takahito , Nakamura Masaya , Matsumoto Morio , Ishii Ken , Nagoshi Narihito 
Published: November 2020

Study Design: Multicenter retrospective study. Objectives: We aim to investigate features of cervical spondylotic myelopathy (CSM) associated with anterior cervical spondylolisthesis (ACS) during posterior decompression surgery. Methods: A total of 732 patients with CSM were enrolled, who underwent posterior decompression surgery between July 2011 and November 2015 at 17 institutions. The patients with ACS (group A), defined as an anterior slippage of ≥2 mm on plain radiographs, were compared with those without ACS (group non-A). Also, the characteristics of patients with ACS progression (group P), defined as postoperative worsening of ACS ≥2 mm or newly developed ACS, were investigated. Moreover, kyphosis was defined as C2-C7 angle in neutral position ≤−5°. The Japanese Orthopedic Association (JOA) scoring system was used for clinical evaluation. Results: Group A consisting of 62 patients (8.5%) had worse preoperative clinical status but comparable surgical outcomes to group non-A. Furthermore, ACS was associated with greater age, and the degree of slippage did not affect myelopathy grades. Seventeen patients (2.3%) were observed in group P, and preoperative ACS was a significant predisposing factor for the progression without clinical impact. Among the patients in group A, preoperative cervical kyphosis was a risk factor for lower JOA recovery rate. Conclusions: Although the presence of ACS increases the risk of postoperative progression, it is not a contraindication for posterior decompression. However, surgeons need to consider the indication of fusion surgery for the patients who have ACS accompanied by kyphosis because of the poor surgical outcomes.
Use of Autologous Stem Cells in Lumbar Spinal Fusion: A Systematic Review of Current Clinical Evidence
Authors: Buser Zorica , Hsieh Patrick , Meisel Hans-Joerg , Skelly Andrea C. , Brodt Erika D. , Brodke Darrel S. , Park Jong-Beom , Yoon S. Tim , Wang Jeffrey ,   AO KF Degenerative
Published: November 2020

Study design: Systematic review. Objectives: To systematically review, critically appraise and synthesize evidence on use of autologous stem cells sources for fusion in the lumbar spine. Methods: A systematic search of PubMed/MEDLINE, EMBASE and ClinicalTrials.gov through February 20, 2020 was conducted comparing autologous cell grafts to other biologics for lumbar spine fusion. The focus was on studies comparing distinct patient groups. Results: From 343 potentially relevant citations, 15 studies met the inclusion criteria set a priori. Seven studies compared distinct patient groups, with BMA being used in combination with allograft or autograft not as a standalone material. No economic evaluations were identified. Most observational studies were at moderately high risk of bias. When used for primary lumbar fusion, no statistical differences in outcomes or complications were seen between BMA+autograft/or +allograft compared to autograft/allograft alone. Compared with allograft, data from a RCT suggested statistically better fusion and lower complication rates with concentrated BMA+allograft. When used in revisions, no differences in outcomes were seen between BMA+allograft and either autograft or rh-BMP-2 but fusion rates were lower with BMA+allograft, leading to additional revision surgery. Conclusions: There was substantial heterogeneity across studies in patient populations, sample size, biologic combinations, and surgical characteristics making direct comparisons difficult. The overall quality of evidence for fusion rates and the safety of BMA in lumbar fusion procedures was considered very low, with studies being at moderately high or high risk of bias.
A multi-label classification model for full slice brain computerised tomography image
Authors: Li Jianqiang , Fu Guanghui , Chen Yueda , Li Pengzhi , Liu Bo , Pei Yan , Feng Hui 
Published: November 2020

Abstract
Background
Screening of the brain computerised tomography (CT) images is a primary method currently used for initial detection of patients with brain trauma or other conditions. In recent years, deep learning technique has shown remarkable advantages in the clinical practice. Researchers have attempted to use deep learning methods to detect brain diseases from CT images. Methods often used to detect diseases choose images with visible lesions from full-slice brain CT scans, which need to be labelled by doctors. This is an inaccurate method because doctors detect brain disease from a full sequence scan of CT images and one patient may have multiple concurrent conditions in practice. The method cannot take into account the dependencies between the slices and the causal relationships among various brain diseases. Moreover, labelling images slice by slice spends much time and expense. Detecting multiple diseases from full slice brain CT images is, therefore, an important research subject with practical implications.

Results
In this paper, we propose a model called the slice dependencies learning model (SDLM). It learns image features from a series of variable length brain CT images and slice dependencies between different slices in a set of images to predict abnormalities. The model is necessary to only label the disease reflected in the full-slice brain scan. We use the CQ500 dataset to evaluate our proposed model, which contains 1194 full sets of CT scans from a total of 491 subjects. Each set of data from one subject contains scans with one to eight different slice thicknesses and various diseases that are captured in a range of 30 to 396 slices in a set. The evaluation results present that the precision is 67.57%, the recall is 61.04%, the F1 score is 0.6412, and the areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUCs) is 0.8934.

Conclusion
The proposed model is a new architecture that uses a full-slice brain CT scan for multi-label classification, unlike the traditional methods which only classify the brain images at the slice level. It has great potential for application to multi-label detection problems, especially with regard to the brain CT images.
ClusterM: a scalable algorithm for computational prediction of conserved protein complexes across multiple protein interaction networks
Authors: Wang Yijie , Jeong Hyundoo , Yoon Byung-Jun , Qian Xiaoning 
Published: November 2020

Abstract
Background
The current computational methods on identifying conserved protein complexes across multiple Protein-Protein Interaction (PPI) networks suffer from the lack of explicit modeling of the desired topological properties within conserved protein complexes as well as their scalability.

Results
To overcome those issues, we propose a scalable algorithm—ClusterM—for identifying conserved protein complexes across multiple PPI networks through the integration of network topology and protein sequence similarity information. ClusterM overcomes the computational barrier that existed in previous methods, where the complexity escalates exponentially when handling an increasing number of PPI networks; and it is able to detect conserved protein complexes with both topological separability and cohesive protein sequence conservation. On two independent compendiums of PPI networks from Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Sce, yeast), Drosophila melanogaster (Dme, fruit fly), Caenorhabditis elegans (Cel, worm), and Homo sapiens (Hsa, human), we demonstrate that ClusterM outperforms other state-of-the-art algorithms by a significant margin and is able to identify de novo conserved protein complexes across four species that are missed by existing algorithms.

Conclusions
ClusterM can better capture the desired topological property of a typical conserved protein complex, which is densely connected within the complex while being well-separated from the rest of the networks. Furthermore, our experiments have shown that ClusterM is highly scalable and efficient when analyzing multiple PPI networks.
Anatomically induced changes in rice leaf mesophyll conductance explain the variation in photosynthetic nitrogen use efficiency under contrasting nitrogen supply
Authors: Gao Limin , Lu Zhifeng , Ding Lei , Xie Kailiu , Wang Min , Ling Ning , Guo Shiwei 
Published: November 2020

Abstract
Background
The ratio of CO2 mesophyll conductance (gm) to Ribulose-1, 5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (Rubisco) content has been suggested to positively affect photosynthetic nitrogen use efficiency (PNUE). The anatomical basis of gm has been quantified, but information on the relationship between cell-level anatomies and PNUE is less advanced. Here, hydroponic experiments were conducted in rice plants supplied with ammonium (NH4+) and nitrate (NO3−) under three N levels (low, 0.71 mM; intermediate, 2.86 mM; high, 7.14 mM) to investigate the gas exchange parameters, leaf anatomical structure and PNUE.

Results
The results showed a lower PNUE in plants supplied with high nitrogen and NH4+, which was positively correlated with the gm/Rubisco ratio. A one-dimensional within-leaf model revealed that the resistance to CO2 diffusion in the liquid phase (rliq) dominated the overall mesophyll resistance (rm), in which CO2 transfer resistance in the cell wall, cytoplasm and stroma were significantly affected by nitrogen supply. The chloroplast surface area exposed to intercellular space (Sc) per Rubisco rather than the gm/Sc ratio was positively correlated with PNUE and was thus considered a key component influencing PNUE.

Conclusion
In conclusion, our study emphasized that Sc was the most important anatomical trait in coordinating gm and PNUE with contrasting N supply.
Preoperative sedentary behavior is neither a risk factor for perioperative neurocognitive disorders nor associated with an increase in peripheral inflammation, a prospective observational cohort study
Authors: Saxena Sarah , Rodts Christopher , Nuyens Vincent , Lazaron Juliette , Sosnowski Victoria , Verdonk Franck , Seidel Laurence , Albert Adelin , Boogaerts Jean , Kruys Veronique , Maze Mervyn , Vamecq Joseph 
Published: November 2020

Abstract
Background
Surgical interventions result in a postoperative rise in circulating inflammatory cytokines and high molecular group box protein 1 (HMGB1). Herein, the impact of a sedentary lifestyle and other age-related factors on the development of perioperative neurocognitive disorders (PND) following non-cardiac surgical procedures was assessed in an older (55–75 years-old) surgical population.

Methods
Prior to surgery, patients were asked questions regarding their sedentary behavior and daily habits. They also passed the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) and their blood circulating interleukin 6 (IL-6) and HMGB1 levels were assayed by ELISA. IL-6 and HMGB1 measurements were repeated respectively 6 and 24 h after surgery. MMSE was re-evaluated 6 weeks and whenever possible 3 months after surgery.

Results
Thirty-eight patients were enrolled in the study from January until July 2019. The study identified self-sufficiency, multilinguism, and overall health score on the geriatric depression scale, as protectors against PND. No other demographic (age, sex), environmental (solitary/non-solitary housing, professional and physical activities, smoking, alcohol drinking), comorbidity (antipsychotic drug uptake, diabetic state) and type of surgery (orthopedic, general, genitourinary) influenced the development of PND. Although some factors (surgery type and age) influenced the surgery-induced rise in the circulating IL-6 levels, they did not impact HMGB1.

Conclusion
Inflammaging, reflected by the greater increment of surgery-induced IL-6 in patients with advanced age, was present. As trauma-induced release of HMGB1 was not similarly affected by age, we surmise that HMGB1, rather than circulating cytokines, is the key driver of the trauma-induced inflammatory cascade leading to PND.

Trial registration
Clinicaltrials.gov identifier: NCT03805685.
PreAnaesThesia computerized health (PATCH) assessment: development and validation
Authors: Osman Tarig , Lew Eileen , Lum Elaine Pooi-Ming , van Galen Louise , Dabas Rajive , Sng Ban Leong , Car Josip 
Published: November 2020

Abstract
Background
Technological advances in healthcare have enabled patients to participate in digital self-assessment, with reported benefits of enhanced healthcare efficiency and self-efficacy. This report describes the design and validation of a patient-administered preanaesthesia health assessment digital application for gathering medical history relevant to preanaesthesia assessment. Effective preoperative evaluation allows for timely optimization of medical conditions and reduces case cancellations on day of surgery.

Methods
Using an iterative mixed-methods approach of literature review, surveys and panel consensus, the study sought to develop and validate a digitized preanaesthesia health assessment questionnaire in terms of face and criterion validity. A total of 228 patients were enrolled at the preoperative evaluation clinic of a tertiary women’s hospital. Inclusion criteria include: age  ≥ 21 years, scheduled for same-day-admission surgery, literacy in English and willingness to use a digital device. Patient perception of the digitized application was also evaluated using the QQ10 questionnaire. Reliability of health assessment questionnaire was evaluated by comparing the percentage agreement of patient responses with nurse assessment.

Results
Moderate to good criterion validity was obtained in 81.1 and 83.8% of questions for the paper and digital questionnaires respectively. Of total 3626 response-pairs obtained, there were 3405 (93.4%) concordant and 221 (6.1%) discrepant response-pairs for the digital questionnaire. Discrepant response-pairs, such as ““no/yes” and “unsure/yes”, constitute only 3.7% of total response-pairs. Patient acceptability of the digitized assessment was high, with QQ10 value and burden scores of 76 and 30%, respectively.

Conclusions
Self-administration of digitized preanaesthesia health assessment is acceptable to patients and reliable in eliciting medical history. Further iteration should focus on improving reliability of the digital tool, adapting it for use in other languages and incorporating clinical decision tools.