bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Preface: Site testing campaign for the Large Optical/infrared Telescope of China
Authors: Feng Lu , Hao Jin-Xin 
Published: June 2020

Abstract
The Large Optical/infrared Telescope of China is a 12 meter diameter ground-based optical/infrared telescope which is proposed to be constructed in the western part of China in favor of its arid climate, and clear, dark nights. A site testing campaign was initiated between November 2016 and March 2019 in order to investigate long term astronomical weather conditions in the western part of China, specifically, at three sites: Ali in Tibet, Daocheng in Sichuan and Muztagh-ata in Xinjiang. This is the first attempt to evaluate long term performances of three candidate sites with uniformly calibrated instruments and data collecting/processing methods for a two-year span in China. In this special issue, we present nine papers that describe the whole site testing campaign, including preparation, data collecting/processing methods, instrument set up at three candidate sites as well as detailed statistics for the measurement results from March 2017 to March 2019.
Site-testing at Muztagh-ata site III: temperature inversion in surface-layer atmosphere
Authors: Xu Jing , Esamdin Ali , Feng Guo-Jie , Pu Guang-Xin , Hu Yi , Hu Ke-Liang , Yang Xu , Hao Jin-Xin , Xue Yan-Jie , Zhou Xu , Ma Shu-Guo , Yisikandee Abudusaimaitijiang , Wang Le-Tian , Zhang Xuan , Bai Chun-Hai , Wei Peng , Ming Liang , Ma Lu , Liu Jin-Zhong , Jiang Yun-Ying 
Published: June 2020

Abstract
In this article, we present detailed seasonal, monthly and daily statistics of temperature difference in the surface layer at the Muztagh-ata site based on the temperature measurements at two heights of 2m and 6m. We find that temperature inversion occurs frequently at our site during nighttime, especially during the cold season. Strong temperature inversion always represents stable atmospheric turbulence, which is crucial for an optical observatory. By analyzing the behavior of temperature inversion and its correlation with wind and cloud amount, one conclusion can be made that radiation inversion is the main reason for the existence of temperature inversion in the surface-layer at the Muztagh-ata site.
A PRESTO-based parallel pulsar search pipeline used for FAST drift scan data
Authors: Yu Qiu-Yu , Pan Zhi-Chen , Qian Lei , Wang Shen , Yue You-Ling , Huang Meng-Lin , Hao Qiao-Li , You Shan-Ping , Peng Bo , Zhu Yan , Zhang Lei , Liu Zhi-Jie 
Published: June 2020

Abstract
We developed a pulsar search pipeline based on PulsaR Exploration and Search TOolkit (PRESTO). This pipeline simply runs dedispersion, Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) and acceleration search in process-level parallel to shorten the processing time.With two parallel strategies, the pipeline can highly shorten the processing time in both normal searches and acceleration searches. This pipeline was first tested with Parkes Multibeam Pulsar Survery (PMPS) data and discovered two new faint pulsars. Then, it was successfully applied in processing the Five-hundred-meterAperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) drift scan data with tens of new pulsar discoveries up to now. The pipeline is only CPU-based and can be easily and quickly deployed in computing nodes for testing purposes or data processing.
ASAS J174406+2446.8 is identified as a marginal-contact binary with a possible cool third body
Authors: Shi Xiang-Dong , Qian Sheng-Bang , Li Lin-Jia , Na Wei-Wei , Zhou Xiao 
Published: June 2020

AbstractASAS J174406+2446.8 was originally found as aδScuti-type pulsating star with the periodP= 0.189068 d by ASAS survey. However, the LAMOST stellar parameters reveal that it is far beyond the red edge of pulsational instability strip on the logg−Tdiagram ofδScuti pulsating stars. To understand the physical properties of the variable star, we observed it by the 1.0-m Cassegrain reflecting telescope at Yunnan Observatories. Multi-color light curves inB,V,RcandIcbands were obtained and are analyzed by using the W-D program. It is found that this variable star is a shallow-contact binary with an EB-type light curve and an orbital period of 0.3781 d rather than aδScuti star. It is a W-subtype contact binary with a mass ratio of 1.135(± 0.019) and a fill-out factor of 10.4%(± 5.6)%. The situation of ASAS J174406+2446.8 resembles those of other EB-type marginal-contact binaries such as UU Lyn, II Per and GW Tau. All of them are at a key evolutionary phase from a semi-detached configuration to a contact system predicted by the thermal relaxation oscillation theory. The linear ephemeris was corrected by using 303 new determined times of light minimum. It is detected that the O – C curve shows a sinusoidal variation that could be explained by the light-travel-time effect via the presence of a cool red dwarf. The present investigation reveals that some of theδScuti-type stars beyond the red edge of pulsating instability strip on the logg–Tdiagram are misclassified eclipsing binaries. To understand their structures and evolutionary states, more studies are required in the future.
Item Response Theory Analysis of the Texas Functional Living Scale
Authors: Lowe Deborah A , Linck John F 
Published: June 2020

Abstract

Objective
The Texas Functional Living Scale (TFLS) is a performance-based measure of functional abilities assessing the domains of time, money and calculation, communication, and memory. It is likely that certain items are more sensitive at different levels of functional impairment, with some signaling milder degrees of functional difficulty. This study analyzed psychometric characteristics of individual TFLS items using item response theory (IRT) in an outpatient clinical sample.

Method
In total, 270 adult outpatients completed the TFLS during clinical neuropsychological evaluation. IRT analysis using 2PL and graded response model was applied to the TFLS.

Results
Item parameters, item characteristic curves, and information curves were produced. Item difficulty (a) parameters ranged from 1.05 to 2.23, and item discrimination (b) parameters ranged from −4.11 to 0.51.

Conclusions
TFLS items were differentially sensitive along the continuum of functional impairment. Items that were most sensitive to milder degrees of functional impairment involved clock drawing, microwave programming, financial calculation, and prospective memory. Other items that were optimally precise in more severe degrees of functional impairment involved interacting with a calendar and a relatively simple financial calculation task. These findings suggest that the ability to pass at least some of the items on the TFLS may not necessarily reflect fully intact functional abilities. Certain TFLS items may be able to detect the presence of subtle functional difficulties.
Reanalysis of genome sequences of tomato accessions and its wild relatives: development of Tomato Genomic Variation (TGV) database integrating SNPs and INDELs polymorphisms
Authors: Gupta Prateek , Dholaniya Pankaj Singh , Devulapalli Sameera , Tawari Nilesh Ramesh , Sreelakshmi Yellamaraju , Sharma Rameshwar 
Published: June 2020

Abstract

Motivation
Facilitated by technological advances and expeditious decrease in the sequencing costs, whole-genome sequencing is increasingly implemented to uncover variations in cultivars/accessions of many crop plants. In tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), the availability of the genome sequence, followed by the resequencing of tomato cultivars and its wild relatives, has provided a prodigious resource for the improvement of traits. A high-quality genome resequencing of 84 tomato accessions and wild relatives generated a dataset that can be used as a resource to identify agronomically important alleles across the genome. Converting this dataset into a searchable database, including information about the influence of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on protein function, provides valuable information about the genetic variations. The database will assist in searching for functional variants of a gene for introgression into tomato cultivars.

Results
A recent release of better-quality tomato genome reference assembly SL3.0, and new annotation ITAG3.2 of SL3.0, dropped 3857 genes, added 4900 novel genes and updated 20 766 genes. Using the above version, we remapped the data from the tomato lines resequenced under the ‘100 tomato genome resequencing project’ on new tomato genome assembly SL3.0 and made an online searchable Tomato Genomic Variations (TGVs) database. The TGV contains information about SNPs and insertion/deletion events and expands it by functional annotation of variants with new ITAG3.2 using SIFT4G software. This database with search function assists in inferring the influence of SNPs on the function of a target gene. This database can be used for selecting SNPs, which can be potentially deployed for improving tomato traits.

Availability and implementation
TGV is freely available at http://psd.uohyd.ac.in/tgv.
The Resilience of the Russian mafia: An Empirical Study
Authors: Varese Federico , Lonsky Jakub , Podvysotskiy Yuriy 
Published: June 2020

Abstract
Criminal organizations constantly face challenges that threaten their existence. This paper discusses the effects that state repression and state transformation have on criminal organizations and how such organizations respond. We focus on the case of the Russian mafia, known as the vory-v-zakone. We identify the key challenges faced by the vory throughout Soviet and Russian history and examine how the Russian mafia adapted to such threats. We conclude that the biggest threat came not from state repression during Stalin’s Great Terror but rather from state transformation in the 1990s. We also show that Putin’s era repression of the vory has not been more intense than that of the late Yeltsin’s years. The paper is based on a new and unique data set we constructed, which contains biographical information of more than 5,000 members of the vory fraternity.
Disentangling shock diffusion on complex networks: identification through graph planarity
Authors: Kumar Sudarshan , Di Matteo Tiziana , Chakrabarti Anindya S 
Published: June 2020

AbstractLarge scale networks delineating collective dynamics often exhibit cascading failures across nodes leading to a system-wide collapse. Prominent examples of such phenomena would include collapse on financial and economic networks. Intertwined nature of the dynamics of nodes in such network makes it difficult to disentangle the source and destination of a shock that percolates through the network, a property known as reflexivity. In this article, we propose a novel methodology by combining vector autoregression with an unique identification restrictions obtained from the topological structure of the network to uniquely characterize cascades. In particular, we show that planarity of the network allows us to statistically estimate a dynamical process consistent with the observed network and thereby uniquely identify a path for shock propagation from any chosen epicentre to all other nodes in the network. We analyse the distress propagation mechanism in closed loops giving rise to a detailed picture of the effect of feedback loops in transmitting shocks. We show usefulness and applications of the algorithm in two networks with dynamics at different time-scales: worldwide GDP growth network and stock network. In both cases, we observe that the model predicts the impact of the shocks emanating from the USA would be concentrated within the cluster of developed countries and the developing countries show very muted response, which is consistent with empirical observations over the past decade.
Effects of mental practice strategies associated to physiotherapy on gait and risk of falls in Parkinson’s disease: a pilot study of a randomized clinical trial
Authors: Silva T , Silva L , Silva K , Silva S , Silva D , Lins C , Coriolano M 
Published: June 2020

Abstract
Introduction Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is a degenerative disorder that interferes with the voluntary movements due to dysfunction of the basal ganglia and presenting with motor signals, such as the reduction of gait speed. This contributes to an increased risk of falls. In rehabilitation, mental practice (MP) has been shown to promote plastic modulation of neural circuits and improve motor learning, but the results of research with MP in PD are still ambiguous due to the diversity of intervention strategies.
Objectives To compare the effects of MP strategies associated to physiotherapy in gait and risk of falls in PD patients.
Methodology We performed a pilot study of a clinical randomized, single blind, trial, conducted in accordance with the consort checklist. Patients with idiopathic PD were included and allocated to four groups: Control group (CG); Group with mental practice guided by images (MPI); Group with mental practice guided by audio (MPA); group with mental practice without a guide (MPWG). The subjects of the experimental groups were submitted to 15 sessions of physiotherapy and mental practice, while the CG received only physiotherapy. The sessions were held 2 times per week, 40 minutes for physiotherapy and approximately 5-10 minutes for the corresponding mental practice protocol. Spatial-temporal parameters of gait were assessed with the 10 meters Walking Test (TC10m), and the risk of falls was evaluated with the Timed Up and Go (TUG) test.
Results The MPI group showed significant results for the parameters time (p = 0.027) and speed (p = 0.025) when compared with the results of the CG. No main effects for the group were observed concerning cadence and risk of falls had. Groups MPWG and MPA showed no significant results for the TC10m and TUG when compared with the CG.
Conclusion The results of this pilot study suggest that MP guided by images associated to physical therapy was more effective to increase the gait speed than the alternative strategies.
MRSA/MSSA causing infections: prevalence of mecA gene
Authors: Vieira G , Leal N , Rodrigues A , Chaves C , Rodrigues F , Osório N 
Published: June 2020

Abstract
Introduction Staphylococcus aureus is part of the human flora, present in the skin and mucous membranes but can become pathogenic, causing a wide spectrum of infections that were initially treated with penicillin. However, were observed some strains with resistance to this antibiotic and, therefore was developed a new antibiotic, the methicillin. After its introduction, arose the first S. aureus with resistance to methicillin (MRSA) due to the presence of a gene known as mecA that encodes an altered penicillin binding protein (PBP2a). In Europe, it is estimated that MRSA are associated to 44% of hospital acquired infections and its mortality rate is around 20%.
Objectives Prevalence of MRSA strains in different types of infection in Coimbra district.
Methodology Were analysed a total of 539 isolates of S. aureus previously characterized to the antibiotic susceptibility profile in the Hospital and University Center of Coimbra. Through the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of oxacillin we classified our strains into MRSA and S. aureus methicillin-sensitive (MSSA); simultaneously, the mecA gene was detected by Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR).
Results Of the 539 isolates, 49% were considered MRSA and 51% MSSA. All MRSA isolates express the mecA gene, but from the total of 276 MSSA, 191 show this gene but do not express it. MRSA isolates were mostly from respiratory tract samples (48%) and blood cultures (21%) while MSSA were isolated in skin and soft tissue samples (35%).
Conclusion MRSA are considered one of the primary pathogens for the development of pneumonia and septicaemia due to its highly virulent potential and the increasing expression of genetic determinants of antimicrobial resistance. Therefore, infections caused by MRSA continue with highly representability in the clinical context and their dissemination is a public health problem.
Experimental approaches to tracking mobile genetic elements in microbial communities
Authors: Saak Christina C , Dinh Cong B , Dutton Rachel J 
Published: June 2020

ABSTRACTHorizontal gene transfer is an important mechanism of microbial evolution and is often driven by the movement of mobile genetic elements between cells. Due to the fact that microbes live within communities, various mechanisms of horizontal gene transfer and types of mobile elements can co-occur. However, the ways in which horizontal gene transfer impacts and is impacted by communities containing diverse mobile elements has been challenging to address. Thus, the field would benefit from incorporating community-level information and novel approaches alongside existing methods. Emerging technologies for tracking mobile elements and assigning them to host organisms provide promise for understanding the web of potential DNA transfers in diverse microbial communities more comprehensively. Compared to existing experimental approaches, chromosome conformation capture and methylome analyses have the potential to simultaneously study various types of mobile elements and their associated hosts. We also briefly discuss how fermented food microbiomes, given their experimental tractability and moderate species complexity, make ideal models to which to apply the techniques discussed herein and how they can be used to address outstanding questions in the field of horizontal gene transfer in microbial communities.
Tumor Necrosis Factor Superfamily: Ancestral Functions and Remodeling in Early Vertebrate Evolution
Authors: Marín Ignacio 
Published: June 2020

Abstract
The evolution of the tumor necrosis factor superfamily (TNFSF) in early vertebrates is inferred by comparing the TNFSF genes found in humans and nine fishes: three agnathans, two chondrichthyans, three actinopterygians, and the sarcopterygian Latimeria chalumnae. By combining phylogenetic and synteny analyses, the TNFSF sequences detected are classified into five clusters of genes and 24 orthology groups. A model for their evolution since the origin of vertebrates is proposed. Fifteen TNFSF genes emerged from just three progenitors due to the whole-genome duplications (WGDs) that occurred before the agnathan/gnathostome split. Later, gnathostomes not only kept most of the genes emerged in the WGDs but soon added several tandem duplicates. More recently, complex, lineage-specific patterns of duplications and losses occurred in different gnathostome lineages. In agnathan species only seven to eight TNFSF genes are detected, because this lineage soon lost six of the genes emerged in the ancestral WGDs and additional losses in both hagfishes and lampreys later occurred. The orthologs of many of these lost genes are, in mammals, ligands of death-domain-containing TNFSF receptors, indicating that the extrinsic apoptotic pathway became simplified in the agnathan lineage. From the patterns of emergence of these genes, it is deduced that both the regulation of apoptosis and the control of the NF-κB pathway that depends in modern mammals on TNFSF members emerged before the ancestral vertebrate WGDs.
Does meaning protect against loneliness? Exploring empirical studies and theory
Authors: Folker Anna Paldam , Lauridsen Sigurd Mørk , Hegelund Emilie Rune , Wimmelmann Cathrine Lawaetz , Flensborg-Madsen Trine 
Published: June 2020

Abstract
Research indicates that meaning in life is a protective factor for physical and mental health. Although loneliness is increasingly recognized as an important public health concern, no studies have investigated the potential of meaning in life to protect against loneliness. Based on an explorative interdisciplinary research strategy that comprises data from a cohort study, a strategic review of empirical literature and a conceptual analysis of the concept of meaning in life we explore the support for potential links between meaning in life and the protection against loneliness. We propose three different explanatory mechanisms; (i) that meaning in life promotes a positive orientation toward others, (ii) that meaning in life enhances interpersonal appeal and (iii) that meaning in life promotes a better ability to cope with loneliness. Theoretically, we explore the idea that the value of meaning in life ultimately concerns a social need to contribute to the realization of value that, at least in principle, can be shared and recognized by others. When people realize the value of meaning in life, they partake in a community of shared values, which links them to a social world in a way that may protect against the feeling of loneliness. Jointly the analyses point to the need for prospective studies on the role of meaning in life as a protective factor against loneliness and a potential novel focus for loneliness interventions.
Why Scholars of Religion Must Investigate the Corporate Form
Authors: McLaughlin Levi , Rots Aike P , Thomas Jolyon Baraka , Watanabe Chika 
Published: June 2020

AbstractA growing body of research describes connections between religion and economic activity through the language of commodification and marketization. Although this scholarship rightly challenges the assumption that religion is or should be divorced from worldly concerns, it still relies on distinctions between religion and the economy as isolable, reified entities. Rejecting this binary approach as untenable, we argue that studying the corporate form enriches the academic study of religion by providing concrete examples of how people create institutions and how organizations turn human bodies into resources while also fostering individuals’ devotion to collective agendas. Attention to the corporate form enables us to keep money and power in view as we trace historical formations and current manifestations of religious organizations. We investigate Japanese genealogies of the corporate form to elucidate some generalizable principles for how nonprofit religions and for-profit companies alike generate missions, families, individuals, and publics.
An Efficient Duplex PCR Method for Sex Identification of the European Grapevine Moth Lobesia botrana (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae) at Any Developmental Stage
Authors: Aguirre Carlos , Olivares Natalia , Hinrichsen Patricio 
Published: June 2020

AbstractMany genetic studies in insects require sex identification of individuals in all developmental stages. The most common sex chromosome system in lepidopterans is WZ/ZZ; the W chromosome is present only in females. Based on two W chromosome-specific short sequences (CpW2 and CpW5) described in Cydia pomonella (L.) (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae), we identified homologous female-specific sequences in Lobesia botrana Den. & Schiff, a polyphagous and very harmful species present in Chile since 2008. From this starting point, we extended the sequence information using the inverse PCR method, identifying the first W-specific sequences described up to now for the moth. Finally, we developed a duplex PCR method for rapid and sensitive determination of sex in L. botrana from larva to adult. The method showed a detection limit of 1 pg of genomic DNA; a blind panel of samples exhibited exact correspondence with the morphological identification. These results will be very useful for studies requiring sex-specific analyses at any developmental stage, contributing also to the understanding of gene expression in the insect, as well as to the eventual development of control protocols against the moth, such as the development of genetic sexing strains for the implementation of the sterile insect technique.