bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Five‐year follow‐up observation of interventional therapy for lower extremity vascular disease in type 2 diabetes and analysis of risk factors for restenosis
Authors: Ding Hai‐Xia , Ma Hong‐Fang , Xing Na , Hou Lin , Zhou Chao‐Xi , Du Ya‐Ping , Wang Fu‐Jun 
Published: July 2020

AbstractBackgroundThe high incidence of type 2 diabetes, the low rate of compliance, and the complex mechanism of vascular disease caused by diabetes make its complications increase year by year. Our study aimed to investigate the clinical characteristics of lower extremity vascular diseases in type 2 diabetes and evaluate the long‐term efficacy of vascular intervention for these diseases.MethodsFrom 2007 to 2014, 362 patients who underwent vascular intervention in our hospital due to lower extremity vascular diseases in type 2 diabetes were followed up for 5 years and their clinical characteristics were analyzed in this retrospective study.ResultsCompared with those before treatment, the values of blood pressure, fasting blood glucose, glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride Ester (TG), and low density lipoprotein‐cholesterol (LDL‐C) of patients were significantly lower 5 years after intervention (P < 0.01). We found that the levels of fibrinogen, blood glucose, HbA1c, TC, TG, LDL‐C, and small dense low‐density lipoprotein (sdLDL) in the vascular restenosis group were significantly higher than those in the vascular patency group (P < 0.001), whereas the level of HDL‐C in the vascular restenosis group was significantly lower compared with the vascular patency group.ConclusionsVascular intervention can significantly improve a series of biochemical indicators in patients with lower extremity vascular diseases caused by type 2 diabetes. Postoperative restenosis may be related to hypertension, duration of diabetes, rate of inferior knee disease, fibrinogen, and sdLDL. Good survival and limb salvage were achieved in the patients in this series with interventions and medical treatment provided by endocrinologists.
Fos‐expressing neuronal ensemble in rat ventromedial prefrontal cortex encodes cocaine seeking but not food seeking in rats
Authors: Kane Louisa , Venniro Marco , Quintana‐Feliciano Richard , Madangopal Rajtarun , Rubio F. Javier , Bossert Jennifer M. , Caprioli Daniele , Shaham Yavin , Hope Bruce T. , Warren Brandon L. 
Published: July 2020

AbstractNeuronal ensembles in ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) play a role in both cocaine and palatable food seeking. However, it is unknown whether similar or different vmPFC neuronal ensembles mediate food and cocaine seeking. Here, we used the Daun02 inactivation procedure to assess whether the neuronal ensembles mediating food and cocaine seeking can be functionally distinguished. We trained male and female Fos‐LacZ rats to self‐administer palatable food pellets and cocaine on alternating days for 18 days. We then exposed the rats to a brief nonreinforced food‐ or cocaine‐seeking test to induce Fos and β‐gal in neuronal ensembles associated with food or cocaine seeking, respectively and infused Daun02 into vmPFC to ablate the β‐gal‐expressing ensembles. Two days later, we tested the rats for food or cocaine seeking under extinction conditions. Although inactivation of the food‐seeking ensemble did not influence food or cocaine seeking, inactivation of the cocaine‐seeking ensemble reduced cocaine seeking but not food seeking. Results indicate that the neuronal ensemble activated by cocaine seeking in vmPFC is functionally separate from the ensemble activated by food seeking.
Suburban Practices of Energy Descent
Authors: Alexander Samuel , Gleeson Brendan 
Published: July 2020

AbstractThis article proceeds on the basis that the cost of energy will rise in coming years and decades as the age of fossil energy abundance comes to an end. Given the close connection between energy and economic activity, we also assume that declining energy availability and affordability will lead to economic contraction and reduced material affluence. In overconsuming and overdeveloped nations, such resource and energy “degrowth” is desirable and necessary from a sustainability perspective, provided it is planned for and managed in ways consistent with basic principles of distributive equity. Working within that degrowth paradigm, we examine how scarcer and more expensive energy may impact the suburban way of life and how households might prepare for this very plausible, but challenging, energy descent future. The article examines energy demand management in suburbia and how the limited energy needed to provide for essential household services can best be secured in an era of expensive energy and climate instability. After reviewing various energy practices, we also highlight a need for an ethos of sufficiency, moderation, and radical frugality, which we argue is essential for building resilience in the face of forthcoming energy challenges and a harsher climate.
Investigation of the outcome of pregnancies complicated by increased fetal movements and their relation to underlying causes – A prospective cohort study
Authors: Sharp Imogen , Adeyeye Temidayo , Peacock Linda , Mahdi Amy , Farrant Kimberley , Sharp Andrew N. , Greenwood Susan L. , Heazell Alexander E. P. 
Published: July 2020

AbstractIntroductionRetrospective studies have reported an association between a single episode of significantly increased fetal movements (IFMs) and stillbirth after 28 weeks’ gestation. This prospective study aimed to report the outcome of pregnancies associated with maternal perception of IFMs and determine whether this symptom is associated with adverse pregnancy outcome, a pathological intrauterine environment or placental dysfunction.Material and methodsWomen reporting IFMs after 28 weeks’ gestation were recruited from St Mary’s Hospital, Manchester and Liverpool Women’s Hospital, UK, between 1 November 2017 and 1 May 2019. Demographic and clinical information were obtained and an ultrasound scan was performed to assess fetal biometry, liquor volume and umbilical artery Doppler. Maternal serum samples were collected for analysis of placentally derived biomarkers using ELISA. After delivery, maternal and fetal outcome data were collected and placentas and umbilical cord blood were obtained for analysis using immunohistochemistry and ELISA, respectively. Placental and serum samples were matched by gestation and maternal characteristics to participants with normal fetal activity.ResultsSeventy‐seven women presented with IFM, representing 0.45% of the maternity population; 64 women consented to participate in the study, of which 7 (10.9%) experienced adverse pregnancy outcome: birthweight <3rd centile, 2 (3.1%); pH ≤7.10, 1 (1.6%); neonatal intensive care unit admission, 4 (6.3%). Women had IFM for varying lengths of time before presenting: 17.2% had IFM for less than 1 hour and 29.7% reported IFM lasting longer than 24 hours. Four women (6.3%) had abnormalities of the fetal heart rate trace on assessment. Women with IFM had similar modes of birth to women giving birth in participating maternity units. There was no evidence of macroscopic placental or umbilical cord abnormalities, alterations in microscopic placental structure, placental endocrine dysfunction or intrauterine hypoxia or infection in women with IFM compared with controls.ConclusionsThis prospective study did not find evidence of an association between IFM and adverse pregnancy outcome. It also did not find evidence of underlying placental dysfunction, cord anomalies, intrauterine hypoxia or infection in pregnancies with IFM. Further work is required to determine the strength of association between IFM and adverse pregnancy outcome and its origins. At present, IFM cannot be used to identify fetuses at increased risk of adverse outcome.
Leucocyte ratios are biomarkers of mortality in patients with acute decompensation of cirrhosis and acute‐on‐chronic liver failure
Authors: Bernsmeier Christine , Cavazza Anna , Fatourou Evangelia M. , Theocharidou Eleni , Akintimehin Abisoye , Baumgartner Benjamin , Dhar Ameet , Auzinger Georg , Thursz Mark , Bernal William , Wendon Julia A. , Karvellas Constantine J. , Antoniades Charalambos G. , McPhail Mark J. W. 
Published: July 2020

SummaryBackgroundIn patients with cirrhosis, progression to acute decompensation (AD) and acute‐on‐chronic liver failure (ACLF) has been associated with poor prognosis. Differential leucocyte ratios might predict mortality in systemic inflammatory conditions.AimTo evaluate differential leucocyte ratios as prognostic biomarkers in patients with cirrhosis.MethodsPatients with AD and ACLF were recruited from four centres in three countries. Peripheral blood differential leucocytes were measured (three centres using flow cytometry) on hospital admission and at 48 hours. Ratios were correlated to model for end‐stage liver disease (MELD), chronic liver failure‐sequential organ failure (CLIF‐SOFA), suspected/culture‐positive bacterial infection and survival.ResultsNine hundred twenty‐six patients (562 (61%) male, median age 55 (25‐94) years) were studied. Overall, 350 (37%) did not survive to hospital discharge. Neutrophil‐lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and monocyte‐lymphocyte ratio (MLR) were elevated in patients with AD and ACLF who died during their hospital stay. On multivariate analysis NLR retained statistical significance independently of CLIF‐SOFA or MELD. NLR >30 was associated with an 80% 90‐day mortality in patients with ACLF but not AD. On sensitivity analysis for subgroups (alcohol‐related liver disease and suspected sepsis), NLR and MLR retained statistically robust accuracy for the prediction of mortality. Significant predictive accuracy was only observed in centres using flow cytometry.ConclusionLeucocyte ratios are simple and robust biomarkers of outcome in ACLF, which are comparable to CLIF‐SOFA score but dependent on leucocyte quantification method. NLR and MLR may be used as screening tools for mortality prediction in patients with acutely deteriorating cirrhosis.
Seasonal variations in the concentration of antimicrobial components in milk of dairy cows
Authors: Suzuki Naoki , Yuliza Purba Fika , Hayashi Yoshiaki , Nii Takahiro , Yoshimura Yukinori , Isobe Naoki 
Published: July 2020

AbstractThe incidence of bovine mastitis and the bulk milk somatic cell count (BMSCC) are influenced by season, which may be associated with innate immune functions, including antimicrobial components in mammary glands. Therefore, the present study was conducted to examine the effect of season on antimicrobial components in milk. Rectal temperature and plasma cortisol, thyroxine, and derivatives of reactive oxygen metabolites (d‐ROMs) were measured as stress parameters. Concentrations of lactoferrin (LF), lingual antimicrobial peptide (LAP), psoriasin (S100A7), and Immunoglobulin A (IgA) in milk were measured as indicators of innate immune function. LF and LAP concentrations were significantly lower in summer than in winter and spring, respectively, whereas the concentration of S100A7 was significantly lower in winter than in spring and autumn. The rectal temperature was significantly higher in summer than in other seasons, whereas plasma cortisol, thyroxine, and d‐ROMs did not exhibit any seasonal variation. In conclusion, even though stress parameters were not changed, the concentration of antimicrobial components, such as LF and LAP, decreased in summer, which may explain the frequent occurrence of mastitis during this season.
Compositional knockoff filter for high‐dimensional regression analysis of microbiome data
Authors: Srinivasan Arun , Xue Lingzhou , Zhan Xiang 
Published: July 2020

AbstractA critical task in microbiome data analysis is to explore the association between a scalar response of interest and a large number of microbial taxa that are summarized as compositional data at different taxonomic levels. Motivated by fine‐mapping of the microbiome, we propose a two‐step compositional knockoff filter to provide the effective finite‐sample false discovery rate (FDR) control in high‐dimensional linear log‐contrast regression analysis of microbiome compositional data. In the first step, we propose a new compositional screening procedure to remove insignificant microbial taxa while retaining the essential sum‐to‐zero constraint. In the second step, we extend the knockoff filter to identify the significant microbial taxa in the sparse regression model for compositional data. Thereby, a subset of the microbes is selected from the high‐dimensional microbial taxa as related to the response under a prespecified FDR threshold. We study the theoretical properties of the proposed two‐step procedure, including both sure screening and effective false discovery control. We demonstrate these properties in numerical simulation studies to compare our methods to some existing ones and show power gain of the new method while controlling the nominal FDR. The potential usefulness of the proposed method is also illustrated with application to an inflammatory bowel disease data set to identify microbial taxa that influence host gene expressions.
Joint penalized spline modeling of multivariate longitudinal data, with application to HIV‐1 RNA load levels and CD4 cell counts
Authors: Zhao Lihui , Chen Tom , Novitsky Vladimir , Wang Rui 
Published: July 2020

AbstractMotivated by the need to jointly model the longitudinal trajectories of HIV viral load levels and CD4 counts during the primary infection stage, we propose a joint penalized spline modeling approach that can be used to model the repeated measurements from multiple biomarkers of various types (eg, continuous, binary) simultaneously. This approach allows for flexible trajectories for each marker, accounts for potentially time‐varying correlation between markers, and is robust to misspecification of knots. Despite its advantages, the application of multivariate penalized spline models, especially when biomarkers may be of different data types, has been limited in part due to its seemingly complexity in implementation. To overcome this, we describe a procedure that transforms the multivariate setting to the univariate one, and then makes use of the generalized linear mixed effect model representation of a penalized spline model to facilitate its implementation with standard statistical software. We performed simulation studies to evaluate the validity and efficiency through joint modeling of correlated biomarkers measured longitudinally compared to the univariate modeling approach. We applied this modeling approach to longitudinal HIV‐1 RNA load and CD4 count data from Southern African cohorts to estimate features of the joint distributions such as the correlation and the proportion of subjects with high viral load levels and high CD4 cell counts over time.
Facilitating knowledge construction in mobile learning contexts: A bi‐directional peer‐assessment approach
Authors: Hwang Gwo‐Jen , Chang Shao‐Chen 
Published: July 2020

AbstractWith the advancements in technology networks, mobile learning has been extensively applied in teaching contexts, enabling closer interaction between students and authentic environments. Previous studies have indicated that, when learning in real‐world contexts, students need to interact with real learning targets and peers as well as the digital learning content; thus, effective learning strategies or tools are generally required for helping them organize knowledge and for promoting peer interactions. As a result, the present study developed a bi‐directional peer‐assessment‐based concept mapping system, which not only engages students in assessing peers’ concept maps, but also encourages them to evaluate or respond to peers’ ratings and comments. To explore the effectiveness of this learning system, the study conducted an experiment in elementary science classes. A total of 101 fifth graders from four classes were recruited to participate in the study. Two classes were assigned to the experimental group and two to the control group. The experimental group adopted the bi‐directional peer‐assessment approach, while the control group adopted the conventional peer assessment approach for concept mapping. The results reveal that the bi‐directional peer‐assessment‐based concept mapping system can not only increase students’ learning achievement and the completeness of their concept mapping, but can also enhance their critical thinking tendency and the feedback quality of their peer assessment.
Automatic assessment of cognitive and emotional states in virtual reality‐based flexibility training for four adolescents with autism
Authors: Moon Jewoong , Ke Fengfeng , Sokolikj Zlatko 
Published: July 2020

AbstractTracking students’ learning states to provide tailored learner support is a critical element of an adaptive learning system. This study explores how an automatic assessment is capable of tracking learners’ cognitive and emotional states during virtual reality (VR)‐based representational‐flexibility training. This VR‐based training program aims to promote the flexibility of adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in interpreting, selecting and creating multimodal representations during STEM‐related design problem solving. For the automatic assessment, we used both natural language processing (NLP) and machine‐learning techniques to develop a multi‐label classification model. We then trained the model with the data from a total of audio‐ and video‐recorded 66 training sessions of four adolescents with ASD. To validate the model, we implemented both k‐fold cross‐validations and the manual evaluations by expert reviewers. The study finding suggests the feasibility of implementing the NLP and machine‐learning driven automatic assessment to track and assess the cognitive and emotional states of individuals with ASD during VR‐based flexibility training. The study finding also denotes the importance and viability of providing adaptive supports to maintain learners’ cognitive and affective engagement in a highly interactive digital learning environment.
Conversion of Andean montane forests into plantations: Effects on soil characteristics, microorganisms, and microarthropods
Authors: Marian Franca , Ramírez Castillo Pablo , Iñiguez Armijos Carlos , Günter Sven , Maraun Mark , Scheu Stefan 
Published: July 2020

AbstractTropical montane forests in the Andes are subjected to deforestation and subsequent transformation into pastures. Abandoned pastures are frequently reforested by planting monoculture timber plantations, resulting in reduced aboveground diversity and changes in soil characteristics compared to primary forests. In this study, we evaluated differences in soil properties (litter layer thickness, pH, water content, and C‐to‐N ratio) between degraded primary montane forest and monoculture pine (Pinus patula)and alder (Alnus acuminata)plantations and their effects on density, diversity, and community structure of litter and soil‐living mesofauna, with focus on oribatid mites (Acariformes). The study was performed in a montane region in the southern Ecuadorian Andes (2,000–2,600 m a.s.l.). C‐to‐N ratios in the litter and upper 5 cm soil layer were higher in pine plantations, while other soil characteristics were similar between vegetation types. Surprisingly, microbial biomass and density of soil mesofauna in the litter layer did not differ between vegetation types, while density and species richness of oribatid mites were higher in pine plantations. Community structure of oribatid mites differed between vegetation types with only a few species overlapping. The results indicate that quality and diversity of litter were not the major factors regulating the mesofauna community. Instead, soil animals benefited from increased habitat structure in thicker litter layers and potentially increased availability of root‐derived resources. Overall, the results suggest that from a soil animal perspective, monoculture plantations are less detrimental than commonly assumed and enrichment of abandoned plantations with native tree species may help to restore tropical montane forests.Abstract in Spanish is available with online material.
Dental anxiety and caries experience from late childhood through adolescence to early adulthood
Authors: Wong Hai Ming , Peng Si‐Min , Perfecto Antonio , McGrath Colman P. J. 
Published: July 2020

AbstractObjectiveTo assess the association between dental anxiety and caries experience from late childhood through adolescence and into early adulthood (12, 15 and 18 years old, respectively).MethodsA prospective cohort study was conducted among a population‐representative sample of Chinese in Hong Kong. A baseline survey was conducted at age 12 and follow‐up assessments were completed at ages 15 and 18. Caries experience was assessed as the number of decayed, missing and filled teeth (DMFT). Dental anxiety was assessed using the Modified Dental Anxiety Scale (MDAS). Participants’ socio‐economic status and oral health‐related behaviours were ascertained using a self‐complete questionnaire. Negative binomial regression was used to explore the association between dental anxiety and subsequent caries status, controlling for other factors.ResultsAt baseline, 668 children participated; 279 (41.8%, comprising 57.0% females) completed all three phases of data collection. MDAS scores at age 18 were lower than at age 12. Caries experience increased as participants aged. At age 15 and 18, females had higher MDAS and DMFT scores than males. Reported frequency of snacking between meals was associated with MDAS scores at age 18. In regression analyses, dental anxiety at age 12 was not significantly associated with dental caries experience at age 15, controlling for socio‐demographic and oral‐health behaviour factors at age 12. Likewise, dental anxiety at age 15 was not significantly associated with dental caries experience at age 18, controlling for the same factors at age 15.ConclusionDental anxiety assessed by MDAS in late childhood and adolescence appears not to predict dental caries experience later in life in this population.
COVID‐19 and diabetes: Insulin requirements parallel illness severity in critically unwell patients
Authors: Wu Linda , Girgis Christian M. , Cheung Ngai Wah 
Published: July 2020

AbstractObjectiveIn the light of increased adverse outcomes for people with diabetes affected by COVID‐19, we have described the clinical course of a cohort of critically ill patients with COVID‐19 and diabetes.MethodsWe retrospectively analysed characteristics, glucometrics and inflammatory markers of patients with diabetes mellitus admitted to intensive care unit (ICU) with COVID‐19.ResultsEight patients with diabetes were admitted to ICU with COVID‐19. All had type 2 diabetes, with three being newly diagnosed that admission. Mean HbA1c was 9.2%. Glucometric analysis indicated that extremely high insulin doses were required during peak inflammatory response to maintain glycaemic control with a mean peak insulin requirement of 201 units per day (2.2 units/kg/day).ConclusionsCritically unwell patients with diabetes mellitus and COVID‐19 had high insulin requirements and poorer time in target range at the time of peak inflammatory response, and this improved as their illness resolved.