bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Effect of moderately increased thyroid‐stimulating hormone levels and presence of thyroid antibodies on pregnancy among infertile women
Authors: So Shuhei , Yamaguchi Wakasa , Murabayashi Nao , Miyano Naomi , Tawara Fumiko 
Published: November 2019

AbstractPurposeTo study the effects of mildly elevated thyroid‐stimulating hormone (TSH) levels and thyroid antibodies on pregnancy rates among infertile women and their potential contribution to prolonged infertility treatment.MethodsThis case‐control study included 1479 women who underwent infertility treatment between March 2015 and August 2017. Cumulative pregnancy and miscarriage rates after assisted reproductive technology (ART) or non‐ART treatments were compared between women with TSH <2.5 mIU/L and those with TSH 2.5‐3.5 mIU/L and between women with and without thyroid antibody positivity.ResultsThe cumulative pregnancy rate of women with TSH 2.5‐3.5 mIU/L was similar to that of women with TSH <2.5 mIU/L in the non‐ART (hazard ratio [HR], 0.85; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.56‐1.23) and ART (HR, 1.17; 95% CI, 0.93‐1.47) groups. Thyroglobulin antibody (TgAb) and thyroid peroxidase antibody (TPOAb) had no correlation with cumulative pregnancy rates. In the non‐ART and ART groups, HRs for TgAb were 0.87 (95% CI, 0.55‐1.32) and 1.09 (95% CI, 0.84‐1.39) and HRs for TPOAb were 0.88 (95% CI, 0.52‐1.39) and 1.29 (95% CI, 0.97‐1.68), respectively.ConclusionsCumulative pregnancy rates and miscarriage rates were similar between women with TSH <2.5 mIU/L and those with TSH 2.5‐3.5 mIU/L and were independent of thyroid antibody positivity.
The mangle of school science practice: Teachers’ negotiations of two nature of science activities at different levels of contextualization
Authors: Leden Lotta , Hansson Lena , Ideland Malin 
Published: November 2019

AbstractNature of science (NOS) has increasingly been emphasized as an important element in science education. This paper engages in the question of how teachers negotiate different approaches to and contexts for NOS teaching. This exploratory study is part of a three‐year longitudinal project where six in‐service teachers developed and negotiated their NOS‐teaching practices. Pickering's (1995) theory of the mangle of practice is used for the analysis of teachers’ focus‐group discussions. In a mangled practice, school science traditions, policy documents, and students’ and teachers’ expectations and identities are rubbed against each other. As part of the project teachers planned, implemented, and reflected on two NOS activities at different levels of contextualization. The concepts alignment, resistance, and accommodation are used as an analytical tool to understand the processes of the mangle in relation to teachers’ negotiations concerning the two activities during the focus groups. The results of the mangle are presented in relation to a backdrop of three teaching traditions (facts, lab‐work, and discussions) that the teachers’ claim to depart from. The results show how the alignment and resistance of different components of the mangle lead to various accommodations as regards both the activities and the three traditions. The article concludes by discussing how the teachers’ negotiations highlight what becomes possible and what becomes challenging when NOS meets existing traditions, and what this means in respect of possibilities for NOS learning.
Validation of the French version of the Forms of Self‐Criticizing/Attacking and Self‐Reassuring Scale
Authors: Leboeuf Isabelle , Mahanga Julianna , Rusinek Stéphane , Delamillieure Pascal , Gheysen Francis , Andreotti Eva , Antoine Pascal 
Published: November 2019

AbstractBackgroundSelf‐criticism and self‐reassurance are internal processes of self‐to‐self relating that have received increasing attention in psychology. The Forms of Self‐Criticizing/Attacking and Self‐Reassuring Scale (FSCRS), which was first studied by Gilbert, Clarke, Hempel, Miles, and Irons, is a self‐report instrument that has been used in various populations and has shown satisfactory reliability. The goal of this work is to explore the psychometric properties of a French version of the scale in a large nonclinical sample.MethodData from 285 nonclinical participants were analysed.ResultsConfirmatory factor analysis indicated an acceptable to good fit of the FSCRS items to a three‐factor model. Good internal consistency and convergent validity were found.ConclusionsThe French validation results corroborate previous findings in a nonclinical population and confirm that the French version of the FSCRS is a robust and reliable instrument.
Profile of bile acid subspecies is similar in blood and follicular fluid of cattle
Authors: Blaschka Carina , Sánchez‐Guijo Alberto , Wudy Stefan A. , Wrenzycki Christine 
Published: November 2019

AbstractThe composition of follicular fluid (FF) has an impact on the developmental capacity of the oocyte and the resulting embryo. FF is composed of blood plasma constituents which cross the blood follicular barrier and the secretory components of granulosa and theca cells. Moreover, it has been shown recently that follicular cells have the ability to synthesize bile acids (BAs). BAs are present in several fluids of mammals especially in bile, blood and urine. FF is an essential impacting factor on the oocyte quality and therefore resulting embryos. To achieve a better understanding of this subject, the presence and concentration of BAs were measured in fluid collected from bovine follicles, categorized according to their size, throughout two entire oestrus cycles and compared to those in blood and urine. The body fluids were collected during the same examination procedure and in total samples from four heifers were obtained. A broad spectrum of 11 BA derivatives was measured applying liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC‐MS/MS). The simultaneous and direct quantification of BAs in different body fluids of cattle are reported. Within the follicular fluid, blood and urine, cholic acid and glycocholic acid are the dominant BA subspecies irrespective of the oestrus cycle stage. Moreover, BA concentrations in blood compared to those in the FF were similar. For the first time these results clearly highlight the presence of different BA subspecies in FF, blood and urine during the oestrus cycle in cattle.
Determining the availability of earthworms for visually hunting predators
Authors: Onrust Jeroen , Hobma Sjoerd , Piersma Theunis 
Published: November 2019

ABSTRACTStudies of interactions among earthworms as prey for visually foraging predators required a field method that measures earthworm availability (i.e., the density of surfacing earthworms). We present such a method by counting surfacing earthworms at night by an observer lying prone on a cart propelled by an observer across measured distances at constant low speed. The method was applied in dairy farmland grasslands in The Netherlands during October and November 2011. We quantified the numbers of surfacing earthworms as well as those measured during standard hand‐sorting sampling (i.e., total abundance based on soil counts), distinguishing clay or peat soils and grasslands with either monocultures or species‐rich vegetation. Managed grasslands with different soil types showed opposing correlations between surface availability and total abundance of earthworms. This emphasizes the importance of direct measurements of earthworm availability if the goal of the study is to explain the behavior of either visual earthworm predators or earthworms themselves. © 2019 The Wildlife Society.
Agrarian Metabolism: The Metabolic Approach Applied to Agriculture
Authors: González de Molina Manuel , Soto Fernández David , Guzmán Casado Gloria , Infante-Amate Juan , Aguilera Fernández Eduardo , Vila Traver Jaime , García Ruiz Roberto 
Published: November 2019

AbstractThe main aim of this chapter is to describe the theoretical and methodological bases that support the research contained in this book and developed through the following chapters. The rationale of the need for a new perspective on the evolution of Spain’s agricultural sector over the last century, focused on sustainability, from a social and ecological perspectives, rather than its growth capacity is explained in detail. To tackle this question, a biophysical perspective is adopted, using the Social Metabolism approach. A new theoretical–methodological proposal that arises from the fusion of metabolic approaches and Agroecology is presented, including also social and economic variables, and that we have calledSocial Agrarian MetabolismThe chapter follows with a deep discussion on the organization and dynamics of the agrarian metabolisms by using the concepts of flows and funds. The concepts of flows, which include energy and materials that are consumed or dissipated during the agrarian metabolic process, and funds elements, which are dissipative structures that use inputs to transform them into goods, services, and waste are portrayed. Sustainability consists of meeting the needs of society by producing biomass flows without deteriorating the fund elements that originate them. We have distinguished four fund elements that function in an articulated manner whose detailed analysis is carried out in the following chapters. The chapter ends with a deep description of some methodological specifies, such scale and boundaries and sources of information, regarding to the agrarian metabolism.
Agricultural Inputs and Their Energy Costs 1900–2010
Authors: González de Molina Manuel , Soto Fernández David , Guzmán Casado Gloria , Infante-Amate Juan , Aguilera Fernández Eduardo , Vila Traver Jaime , García Ruiz Roberto 
Published: November 2019

AbstractDuring the socio-metabolic transition to the current industrial society, agriculture has been relegated, in favor of fossil fuels and minerals, as main source of energy and material, and this has provoked a big quantitative and qualitative changes in its technical means of agricultural and livestock productions. In this chapter, the changes of the social fund element, such as the technical means of production, which include machinery, fuels, irrigation regime and types, agricultural electricity use, fertilizers and plant protection products, during the industrialization process were assessed. All of these became widespread from the middle of the sixties and never stopped growing, except for fertilizers and plant protection products which remain relatively unchanged from the economic-financial crisis. In addition, coinciding with the marked livestock production described in previous chapter, livestock feed grew spectacularly and by 2008, it accounted for 38% of the energy value of all inputs used in the agricultural sector. This phenomenal growth of inputs generally explains Spanish agriculture’s loss of efficiency, as it will be described in Chap. 5. An enormous amount of energy originating from outside the Spanish agricultural sector need to be injected into agroecosystems to maintain the continuous growth of agricultural production, resulting in a very low efficiency; while domestic extraction grew by 38%, the use of external energy multiplied by a hundred.
Decreasing Income and Reproductive Problems of the Agricultural Population
Authors: González de Molina Manuel , Soto Fernández David , Guzmán Casado Gloria , Infante-Amate Juan , Aguilera Fernández Eduardo , Vila Traver Jaime , García Ruiz Roberto 
Published: November 2019

AbstractThe main social fund element (agricultural population) emits a work flow that is measurable in terms of energy. It also originates an integrated information flow that supports the structure and functioning of the agroecosystem. This flow is generated by households, whose “reproduction” is not only of a biological nature: it also relies on economic costs that have varied over time. To what extent Spanish agriculture was able to sustain its agricultural population during the twentieth century and what impact it had on other fund elements? The answer to these questions is the main argument of this chapter. The chapter examines the evolution of the agricultural population, changes of their living standards, household economy, and farms structure, all of them edges of the social fund. Farmers got insufficient income to sustain and reproduce their household and, as consequences, they were driven to search for higher incomes by specializing in crops with the most profitable market outlets or by intensifying production. This chapter revealed that: i) there was an unequal distribution of income among farmers, mainly due to farm size and the sustained decline in the price of agricultural products, and ii) the productive intensification and specialization became a common strategy for all farmers, regardless of their size. In this chapter, we conclude that the processes of industrialization and subsequent globalization have significantly decreased the weight of the agricultural population fund element at the expense of increasing the size of the technical means of production, resulting in a threatens not only the environmental health of agroecosystems but also the viability of agricultural activity as we know it today.
Equity fund flows and stock market returns in the USA before and after the global financial crisis: a VAR-GARCH-in-mean analysis
Authors: Babalos Vassilios , Caporale Guglielmo Maria , Spagnolo Nicola 
Published: November 2019

AbstractThe 2008–2009 global financial crisis has raised new questions about the relationship between equity fund flows and stock market returns. This paper provides new insights by using US monthly data over the period 2000:1–2015:8 and estimating a VAR-GARCH(1, 1)-in-mean model with a BEKK representation, which also includes a switch dummy for the global financial crisis. We find causality-in-mean from stock market returns to equity fund flows (consistently with the feedback-trading hypothesis) only in the post-September 2008 period. There are also volatility spillovers from stock market returns to equity fund flows both before and after the crisis; however, this relationship is not stable, becoming weaker in the crisis period. As a robustness check, we augment the model with a set of macroeconomic control variables. Their inclusion does not affect the main results.
A Besov algebra calculus for generators of operator semigroups and related norm-estimates
Authors: Batty Charles , Gomilko Alexander , Tomilov Yuri 
Published: November 2019

AbstractWe construct a new bounded functional calculus for the generators of bounded semigroups on Hilbert spaces and generators of bounded holomorphic semigroups on Banach spaces. The calculus is a natural (and strict) extension of the classical Hille–Phillips functional calculus, and it is compatible with the other well-known functional calculi. It satisfies the standard properties of functional calculi, provides a unified and direct approach to a number of norm-estimates in the literature, and allows improvements of some of them.
Does Repeated Measurement of a 6-Min Walk Test Contribute to Risk Prediction in Children with Dilated Cardiomyopathy?
Authors: van der Meulen Marijke H. , Boer Susanna den , du Marchie Sarvaas Gideon J. , Blom Nico A. , ten Harkel Arend D. J. , Breur Hans M. P. J. , Rammeloo Lukas A. J. , Tanke Ronald , Helbing Willem A. , Boersma Eric , Dalinghaus Michiel 
Published: November 2019

Abstract
A single 6-min walk test (6MWT) can be used to identify children with dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) with a high risk of death or heart transplantation. To determine if repeated 6MWT has added value in addition to a single 6MWT in predicting death or heart transplantation in children with DCM. Prospective multicenter cohort study including ambulatory DCM patients ≥ 6 years. A 6MWT was performed 1 to 4 times per year. The distance walked was expressed as percentage of predicted (6MWD%). We compared the temporal evolution of 6MWD% in patients with and without the study endpoint (SE: all-cause death or heart transplantation), using a linear mixed effects model. In 57 patients, we obtained a median of 4 (IQR 2–6) 6MWTs per patient during a median of 3.0 years of observation (IQR 1.5–5.1). Fourteen patients reached a SE (3 deaths, 11 heart transplantations). At any time during follow-up, the average estimate of 6MWD% was significantly lower in patients with a SE compared to patients without a SE. In both patients groups, 6MWD% remained constant over time. An absolute 1% lower 6MWD% was associated with an 11% higher risk (hazard) of the SE (HR 0.90, 95% CI 0.86–0.95 p < 0.001). Children with DCM who died or underwent heart transplantation had systematically reduced 6MWD%. The performance of all patients was stable over time, so repeated measurement of 6MWT within this time frame had little added value over a single test.
“Reversed polarization” of Na/K-ATPase—a sign of inverted transport in the human endolymphatic sac: a super-resolution structured illumination microscopy (SR-SIM) study
Authors: Nordström Charlotta Kämpfe , Danckwardt-Lillieström Niklas , Liu Wei , Rask-Andersen Helge 
Published: November 2019

AbstractThe human endolymphatic sac (ES) is believed to regulate inner ear fluid homeostasis and to be associated with Meniere’s disease (MD). We analyzed the ion transport protein sodium/potassium-ATPase (Na/K-ATPase) and its isoforms in the human ES using super-resolution structured illumination microscopy (SR-SIM). Human vestibular aqueducts were collected during trans-labyrinthine vestibular schwannoma surgery after obtaining ethical permission. Antibodies against various isoforms of Na/K-ATPase and additional solute-transporting proteins, believed to be essential for ion and fluid transport, were used for immunohistochemistry. A population of epithelial cells of the human ES strongly expressed Na/K-ATPase α1, β1, and β3 subunit isoforms in either the lateral/basolateral or apical plasma membrane domains. The β1 isoform was expressed in the lateral/basolateral plasma membranes in mostly large cylindrical cells, while β3 and α1 both were expressed with “reversed polarity” in the apical cell membrane in lower epithelial cells. The heterogeneous expression of Na/K-ATPase subunits substantiates earlier notions that the ES is a dynamic structure where epithelial cells show inverted epithelial transport. Dual absorption and secretion processes may regulate and maintain inner ear fluid homeostasis. These findings may shed new light on the etiology of endolymphatic hydrops and MD.
Formalising the Hybrid ERTMS Level 3 specification in iUML-B and Event-B
Authors: Dghaym Dana , Dalvandi Mohammadsadegh , Poppleton Michael , Snook Colin 
Published: November 2019

Abstract
We demonstrate refinement-based formal development of the hybrid, ‘fixed virtual block’ approach to train movement control for the emerging European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) level 3. Our approach uses iUML-B diagrams as a front end to the Event-B modelling language. We use abstraction to verify the principle of movement authority before gradually developing the details of the Virtual Block Detector component in subsequent refinements, thus verifying that it preserves the safety properties. We animate the refined models to demonstrate their validity using the scenarios from the Hybrid ERTMS Level 3 (HLIII) specification. We reflect on our team-based approach to finding useful modelling abstractions and demonstrate a systematic modelling method based on the state and class diagrams of iUML-B. The component and control flow architectures of the application, its environment and interacting systems emerge through the layered refinement process. The runtime semantics of the specification’s state-machine behaviour are modelled in the final refinements. We discuss how the model could be used to generate an implementation using code generation tools and techniques.
Genome-wide association analysis in tetraploid potato reveals four QTLs for protein content
Authors: Klaassen Michiel T. , Willemsen Johan H. , Vos Peter G. , Visser Richard G. F. , van Eck Herman J. , Maliepaard Chris , Trindade Luisa M. 
Published: November 2019

AbstractValorisation of tuber protein is relevant for the potato starch industry to create added-value and reduce impact on the environment. Hence, protein content has emerged as a key quality trait for innovative potato breeders. In this study, we estimated trait heritability, explored the relationship between protein content and tuber under-water weight (UWW), inferred haplotypes underlying quantitative trait loci (QTLs) and pinpointed candidate genes. We used a panel of varieties (N = 277) that was genotyped using the SolSTW 20 K Infinium single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) marker array. Protein content data were collected from multiple environments and years. Our genome-wide association study (GWAS) identified QTLs on chromosomes3,5,7and12.Alleles ofStCDF1(maturity) were associated with QTLs found on chromosome5.The QTLs on chromosomes7and12are presented here for the first time, whereas those on chromosomes3and5co-localized with loci reported in earlier studies. The candidate genes underlying the QTLs proposed here are relevant for functional studies. This study provides resources for genomics-enabled breeding for protein content in potato.
Chance as an existential reality: on one of the most fundamental categories in Alexander Herzen’s thought
Authors: Uglik Jacek 
Published: November 2019

Abstract
The article emphasises that the importance of Herzen’s philosophical input is related to his human-centered approach. There are three areas of investigation that are of particular importance in this context: responsibility, freedom and chance. I argue that according to Herzen, chance, by tearing apart the net of supposedly necessary causes and effects in the physico-social world, proves that the existence of man is best understood as a manifestation of man's free agency. Whereas the lack of freedom would mean that an individual is as determined as the objects that surround him, and consequently, that he cannot be held accountable for his deeds.
ASCO 2019: highlights in HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer
Authors: Bartsch Rupert , Bergen Elisabeth 
Published: November 2019

Summary
At the 2019 ASCO (American Society of Clinical Oncology) Annual Meeting, several interesting trial results were presented in the field of HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer. The end-of-study analysis of the pivotal CLEOPATRA trial indicated an overall survival of 57.1 months in patients receiving pertuzumab in addition to trastuzumab and docetaxel in the first-line setting. SOPHIA was the first phase III trial comparing the Fc-engineered antibody margetuximab plus chemotherapy by physician’s choice with trastuzumab plus chemotherapy in heavily pretreated patients; the novel antibody yielded a statistically significant albeit short prolongation of progression-free survival (PFS) over standard treatment. The phase III NALA trial compared the second-generation tyrosine-kinase inhibitors neratinib with lapatinib; both drugs were combined with capecitabine. In this study a clinically meaningful prolongation of PFS by 2.2 months was observed. In addition, the time to intervention for brain metastases was prolonged in the neratinib group and the cumulative incidence of brain metastases was lower as well. On the downside a high rate of grade 2 and 3 diarrhoea was observed.