bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Urban vacant lands impart hydrological benefits across city landscapes
Authors: Kelleher Christa , Golden Heather E. , Burkholder Sean , Shuster William 
Published: March 2020

AbstractCities evolve through phases of construction, demolition, vacancy, and redevelopment, each impacting water movement at the land surface by altering soil hydrologic properties, land cover, and topography. Currently unknown is whether the variable physical and vegetative characteristics associated with vacant parcels and introduced by demolition may absorb rainfall and thereby diminish stormwater runoff. To investigate this, we evaluate how vacant lots modulate citywide hydrologic partitioning by synthesizing a novel field dataset across 500+ parcels in Buffalo, New York, USA. Vacant lot infiltration rates vary widely (0.001 to 5.39 cm h−1), though parcels are generally well-vegetated and gently sloped. Extending field estimates to 2400 vacant parcels, we estimate that vacant lands citywide may cumulatively infiltrate 51–54% additional annual rainfall volume as compared to pre-demolition state, in part by reducing and disconnecting impervious areas. Our findings differentiate vacant lots as purposeful landscapes that can alleviate large water fluxes into aging wastewater infrastructure.
Electroosmotically generated disinfectant from urine as a by-product of electricity in microbial fuel cell for the inactivation of pathogenic species
Authors: Gajda Iwona , Obata Oluwatosin , Greenman John , Ieropoulos Ioannis A. 
Published: March 2020

AbstractThis work presents a small scale and low cost ceramic based microbial fuel cell, utilising human urine into electricity, while producing clean catholyte into an initially empty cathode chamber through the process of electro-osmostic drag. It is the first time that the catholyte obtained as a by-product of electricity generation from urine was transparent in colour and reached pH>13 with high ionic conductivity values. The catholyte was collected and used ex situ as a killing agent for the inactivation of a pathogenic species such as Salmonella typhimurium, using a luminometer assay. Results showed that the catholyte solutions were efficacious in the inactivation of the pathogen organism even when diluted up to 1:10, resulting in more than 5 log-fold reduction in 4 min. Long-term impact of the catholyte on the pathogen killing was evaluated by plating Salmonella typhimurium on agar plates and showed that the catholyte possesses a long-term killing efficacy and continued to inhibit pathogen growth for 10 days.
New Dromaeosaurid Dinosaur (Theropoda, Dromaeosauridae) from New Mexico and Biodiversity of Dromaeosaurids at the end of the Cretaceous
Authors: Jasinski Steven E. , Sullivan Robert M. , Dodson Peter 
Published: March 2020

AbstractDromaeosaurids (Theropoda: Dromaeosauridae), a group of dynamic, swift predators, have a sparse fossil record, particularly at the time of their extinction near the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary. Here we report on a new dromaeosaurid, Dineobellator notohesperus, gen. and sp. nov., consisting of a partial skeleton from the Upper Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) of New Mexico, the first diagnostic dromaeosaurid to be recovered from the latest Cretaceous of the southern United States (southern Laramidia). The holotype includes elements of the skull, axial, and appendicular skeleton. The specimen reveals a host of morphologies that shed light on new behavioral attributes for these feathered dinosaurs. Unique features on its forelimbs suggest greater strength capabilities in flexion than the normal dromaeosaurid condition, in conjunction with a relatively tighter grip strength in the manual claws. Aspects of the caudal vertebrae suggest greater movement near the tail base, aiding in agility and predation. Phylogenetic analysis places Dineobellator within Velociraptorinae. Its phylogenetic position, along with that of other Maastrichtian taxa (Acheroraptor and Dakotaraptor), suggests dromaeosaurids were still diversifying at the end of the Cretaceous. Furthermore, its recovery as a second North American Maastrichtian velociraptorine suggests vicariance of North American velociraptorines after a dispersal event during the Campanian-Maastrichtian from Asia. Features of Dineobellator also imply that dromaeosaurids were active predators that occupied discrete ecological niches while living in the shadow of Tyrannosaurus rex, until the end of the dinosaurs’ reign.
Effect of Thomas Rotation on the Lorentz Transformation of Electromagnetic fields
Authors: Malhotra Lakshya , Golub Robert , Kraegeloh Eva , Nouri Nima , Plaster Bradley 
Published: March 2020

AbstractA relativistic particle undergoing successive boosts which are non collinear will experience a rotation of its coordinate axes with respect to the boosted frame. This rotation of coordinate axes is caused by a relativistic phenomenon called Thomas Rotation. We assess the importance of Thomas rotation in the calculation of physical quantities like electromagnetic fields in the relativistic regime. We calculate the electromagnetic field tensor for general three dimensional successive boosts in the particle’s rest frame as well as the laboratory frame. We then compare the electromagnetic field tensors obtained by a direct boost $$\overrightarrow{\beta }+\delta \overrightarrow{\beta }$$β→+δβ→ and successive boosts $$\overrightarrow{\beta }$$β→ and $$\Delta \overrightarrow{\beta }$$Δβ→ and check their consistency with Thomas rotation. This framework might be important to situations such as the calculation of frequency shifts for relativistic spin-1/2 particles undergoing Larmor precession in electromagnetic fields with small field non-uniformities.
Bipyrazone: a new HPPD-inhibiting herbicide in wheat
Authors: Wang Hengzhi , Liu Weitang , Jin Tao , Peng Xuegang , Zhang Lele , Wang Jinxin 
Published: March 2020

AbstractBipyrazone, 1,3-dimethyl-4-(2-(methylsulfonyl)-4-(trifluoromethyl) benzoyl)-1H-pyrazol-5-yl 1,3-dimethyl-1H-pyrazole- 4-carboxylate, is a 4-hydroxyphenylpyaunate dioxygenase (HPPD)-inhibiting herbicide. Greenhouse and field experiments were conducted to explore the potential of post-emergence (POST) application of bipyrazone in wheat fields in China. In the greenhouse study, bipyrazone at 10 and 20 g active ingredient (a.i.) ha−1 effectively controlled Descurainia sophia L., Capsella bursa-pastoris (L.) Medic., Lithospermum arvense L. and Myosoton aquaticum L. Whereas, all tested 16 wheat cultivars showed high degree of tolerance to bipyrazone at 375 and 750 g a.i. ha−1. In a dose-response experiment carried on the Shannong 6 wheat cultivar and five weed biotypes, bipyrazone was safe to the wheat cultivar, and C. bursa-pastoris, M. aquaticum and D. sophia were sensitive to this herbicide. The selectivity index (SI) between the Shannong 6 and weeds ranged from 34 to 39. The field experiments confirmed that a mixture of bipyrazone and fluroxypyr-mepthyl is practical for controlling broadleaf weeds, and bipyrazone applied alone at 30 to 40 g a.i. ha−1 can also provide satisfactory control of sensitive broadleaf weeds. These findings suggest that bipyrazone POST application has good potential for broadleaf weed management in wheat fields.
Obestatin and growth hormone reveal the interaction of central obesity and other cardiometabolic risk factors of metabolic syndrome
Authors: Yu Angus P. , Ugwu Felix N. , Tam Bjorn T. , Lee Paul H. , Ma Vicki , Pang Simon , Chow Angel S. , Cheng Kenneth K. , Lai Christopher W. , Wong Cesar S. , Siu Parco M. 
Published: March 2020

AbstractMetabolic syndrome (MetS) is a multi-factorial disorder including central obesity (CO), insulin resistance, hyperglycemia, dyslipidemia and hypertension which increases the risk of diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular diseases. CO is considered as an essential component of MetS according to International Diabetes Federation (IDF), which may further modulate distinct signalling pathways compared with the other four MetS risk factors. Given that ghrelin signalling and the growth hormone/insulin-like growth factor-1 (GH/IGF-1) axis regulates energy balance and metabolic homeostasis, this study examined the changes in various ghrelin products and circulating hormones in response to the interaction between CO and other MetS components including blood pressure, fasting blood glucose, triglycerides, and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol in 133 Hong Kong Chinese adults. Circulating obestatin and GH were increased and reduced, respectively, by either CO or the other 4-risk factor cluster. These changes were further augmented by the presence of all MetS risk factors. However, changes of ghrelin levels were not mediated by CO but the other MetS risk factors. Our findings suggest that CO does not predict all the dysregulation of signalling pathways in individuals with MetS. Although CO and other MetS may share common signalling targets (i.e., obestatin and GH), CO does not contribute to the perturbation of ghrelin signalling.
Shear Induced Interactions Cause Polymer Compression
Authors: Dunstan Dave E. , Harvie Dalton J. E. 
Published: March 2020

AbstractShear induced particle pressure occurs in concentrated suspensions of particles. Importantly, the significance of the shear induced particle pressure has not been recognized in polymer rheology. The shear induced particle pressure results in an inward pressure on the polymer chains resulting in a shear dependent compressive force. The analytical form of the force balance equations that incorporate the effect of shear induced particle pressure predict a reduced polymer blob size and reducing viscosity with increasing shear rate as has been observed experimentally. Power law behavior is found for the viscosity in accord with the general observations for concentrated polymer rheology.
Evaluating the potential of hyperpolarised [1-13C] L-lactate as a neuroprotectant metabolic biosensor for stroke
Authors: Hyacinthe Jean-Noël , Buscemi Lara , Lê Thanh Phong , Lepore Mario , Hirt Lorenz , Mishkovsky Mor 
Published: March 2020

AbstractCerebral metabolism, which can be monitored by magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), changes rapidly after brain ischaemic injury. Hyperpolarisation techniques boost 13C MRS sensitivity by several orders of magnitude, thereby enabling in vivo monitoring of biochemical transformations of hyperpolarised (HP) 13C-labelled precursors with a time resolution of seconds. The exogenous administration of the metabolite L-lactate was shown to decrease lesion size and ameliorate neurological outcome in preclinical studies in rodent stroke models, as well as influencing brain metabolism in clinical pilot studies of acute brain injury patients. The aim of this study was to demonstrate the feasibility of measuring HP [1-13C] L-lactate metabolism in real-time in the mouse brain after ischaemic stroke when administered after reperfusion at a therapeutic dose. We showed a rapid, time-after-reperfusion-dependent conversion of [1-13C] L-lactate to [1-13C] pyruvate and [13C] bicarbonate that brings new insights into the neuroprotection mechanism of L-lactate. Moreover, this study paves the way for the use of HP [1-13C] L-lactate as a sensitive molecular-imaging biosensor in ischaemic stroke patients after endovascular clot removal.
Relative posture between head and finger determines perceived tactile direction of motion
Authors: Chen Yueh-Peng , Yeh Chun-I , Lee Tsung-Chi , Huang Jian-Jia , Pei Yu-Cheng 
Published: March 2020

AbstractThe hand explores the environment for obtaining tactile information that can be fruitfully integrated with other functions, such as vision, audition, and movement. In theory, somatosensory signals gathered by the hand are accurately mapped in the world-centered (allocentric) reference frame such that the multi-modal information signals, whether visual-tactile or motor-tactile, are perfectly aligned. However, an accumulating body of evidence indicates that the perceived tactile orientation or direction is inaccurate; yielding a surprisingly large perceptual bias. To investigate such perceptual bias, this study presented tactile motion stimuli to healthy adult participants in a variety of finger and head postures, and requested the participants to report the perceived direction of motion mapped on a video screen placed on the frontoparallel plane in front of the eyes. Experimental results showed that the perceptual bias could be divided into systematic and nonsystematic biases. Systematic bias, defined as the mean difference between the perceived and veridical directions, correlated linearly with the relative posture between the finger and the head. By contrast, nonsystematic bias, defined as minor difference in bias for different stimulus directions, was highly individualized, phase-locked to stimulus orientation presented on the skin. Overall, the present findings on systematic bias indicate that the transformation bias among the reference frames is dominated by the finger-to-head posture. Moreover, the highly individualized nature of nonsystematic bias reflects how information is obtained by the orientation-selective units in the S1 cortex.
The effect of phylogeographic history on species boundaries: a comparative framework in Hyla tree frogs
Authors: Dufresnes Christophe , Berroneau Matthieu , Dubey Sylvain , Litvinchuk Spartak N. , Perrin Nicolas 
Published: March 2020

AbstractBecause it is indicative of reproductive isolation, the amount of genetic introgression across secondary contact zones is increasingly considered in species delimitation. However, patterns of admixture at range margins can be skewed by the regional dynamics of hybrid zones. In this context, we posit an important role for phylogeographic history: hybrid zones located within glacial refugia (putatively formed during the Late-Pleistocene) should be better defined than those located in post-glacial or introduced ranges (putatively formed during the Holocene and the Anthropocene). We test this hypothesis in a speciation continuum of tree frogs from the Western Palearctic (Hyla), featuring ten identified contacts between species spanning Plio-Pleistocene to Miocene divergences. We review the rich phylogeographic literature of this group and examine the overlooked transition betweenH. arboreaandH. molleriin Western France using a multilocus dataset. Our comparative analysis supports a trend that contacts zones resulting from post-glacial expansions and human translocations feature more extensive introgression than those established within refugial areas. Integrating the biogeographic history of incipient species, i.e. their age since first contact together with their genetic divergence, thus appears timely to draw sound evolutionary and taxonomic inferences from patterns of introgression across hybrid zones.
The Lake Chad hydrology under current climate change
Authors: Pham-Duc Binh , Sylvestre Florence , Papa Fabrice , Frappart Frédéric , Bouchez Camille , Crétaux Jean-Francois 
Published: March 2020

AbstractLake Chad, in the Sahelian zone of west-central Africa, provides food and water to ~50 million people and supports unique ecosystems and biodiversity. In the past decades, it became a symbol of current climate change, held up by its dramatic shrinkage in the 1980s. Despites a partial recovery in response to increased Sahelian precipitation in the 1990s, Lake Chad is still facing major threats and its contemporary variability under climate change remains highly uncertain. Here, using a new multi-satellite approach, we show that Lake Chad extent has remained stable during the last two decades, despite a slight decrease of its northern pool. Moreover, since the 2000s, groundwater, which contributes to ~70% of Lake Chad’s annual water storage change, is increasing due to water supply provided by its two main tributaries. Our results indicate that in tandem with groundwater and tropical origin of water supply, over the last two decades, Lake Chad is not shrinking and recovers seasonally its surface water extent and volume. This study provides a robust regional understanding of current hydrology and changes in the Lake Chad region, giving a basis for developing future climate adaptation strategies.
Systematic sequence analysis of the FUT3 gene identifies 11 novel alleles in the Sindhi and Punjabi populations from Pakistan
Authors: Zhao Maomao , Adnan Atif , Rakha Allah , Nazir Shahid , Tian Meihui , Zhang Siyi , Pang Hao 
Published: March 2020

AbstractThe FUT3 (Lewis) gene is responsible for the expression of Lewis fucosyltransferase, which is required for the synthesis of the structural determinants of both Lewisa and Lewisb specificity. These factors play an important role not only in clinical but also in medico-legal investigations. The gene sequence is highly polymorphic and ethnically specific. In the current study, we performed systematic sequence analysis of the coding region of FUT3 by DNA sequencing to investigate the genetic variations of FUT3 and the molecular basis of the Lewis phenotype in the Sindhi and Punjabi populations of Pakistan. Twenty-three point mutations were observed, including 7 unreported mutations, among which two missense mutations (490 G > A and 959 T > C) were predicted to be deleterious to enzyme activity by software assessment. In total, we observed 24 Lewis alleles, including 11 novel ones. However, all unreported missense mutations were present in Lewis-negative alleles confirmed previously. According to genotypic data, the Lewis-negative phenotypic frequencies were 11.5% and 22.93% in the Sindhi and Punjabi ethnic groups, respectively. Moreover, we found that le202,314 and le59,1067 were predominant among Lewis-negative alleles, while the frequency of le59,1067 in the Punjabi population was significantly higher than that in the Sindhi population. In summary, our study revealed that there is a relatively high degree of sequence variation of the Lewis gene in Pakistani populations and provided the first genetic data on FUT3 in these two ethnic groups from Pakistan. The allele types and their frequencies showed that these ethnic groups exhibit more Caucasian components.
Stochastic Resonance in Insulator-Metal-Transition Systems
Authors: Bhar Bitan , Khanna Abhishek , Parihar Abhinav , Datta Suman , Raychowdhury Arijit 
Published: March 2020

AbstractStochastic resonance (SR) is an ingenious phenomenon observed in nature and in biological systems but has seen very few practical applications in engineering. It has been observed and analyzed in widely different natural phenomenon including in bio-organisms (e.g. Mechanoreceptor of crayfish) and in environmental sciences (e.g. the periodic occurrence of ice ages). The main idea behind SR seems quite unorthodox – it proposes that noise, that is intrinsically present in a system or is extrinsically added, can help enhance the signal power at the output, in a desired frequency range. Despite its promise and ubiquitous presence in nature, SR has not been successively harnessed in engineering applications. In this work, we demonstrate both experimentally as well as theoretically how the intrinsic threshold noise of an insulator-metal-transition (IMT) material can enable SR. We borrow inspiration from natural systems which use SR to detect and amplify low-amplitude signals, to demonstrate how a simple electrical circuit which uses an IMT device can exploit SR in engineering applications. We explore two such applications: one of them utilizes noise to correctly transmit signals corresponding to different vowel sounds akin to auditory nerves, without amplifying the amplitude of the input audio sound. This finds applications in cochlear implants where ultra-low power consumption is a primary requirement. The second application leverages the frequency response of SR, where the loss of resonance at out-of-band frequencies is used. We demonstrate how to provide frequency selectivity by tuning an extrinsically added noise to the system.
Salivary cortisol concentrations in police officers – a cross-sectional study in Beijing, China
Authors: Zhang Yanxia , Liu Jie , Liu Yanqing , Lu Wei , Hou Ailian 
Published: March 2020

Abstract
Objective: We investigated the relationship between salivary cortisol level and the prevalence of depression 585 police officers working at the Police Departments of Beijing.
Method: Cross-sectional data were obtained from 585 Chinese police officers recruited from Beijing, China. Salivary cortisol was assayed using the chemiluminescence immunoassay. A multiple logistic regression analysis adjusted for potential confounders was used to assess independent associations between salivary cortisol level and depression.
Results: The median age of the included was 38 years (IQR, 29–45), 20.9% were female (n = 122). Finally, 15.6% (91/585; 95% CI: 12.6–18.5%) were considered to have depression. The median salivary cortisol level was significantly higher in police with depression than those police without depression [14.5(IQR, 11.9–15.9) nmol/l vs. 11.8(IQR, 9.4–14.2) nmol/l; P &lt; 0.001]. The depression distribution across the salivary cortisol quartiles ranged between 5.4% (first quartile) and 26.9% (fourth quartile), P for trend &lt;0.001. In multivariate models comparing the second (Q2), third and fourth quartiles against the first quartile of the salivary cortisol, cortisol in Q3 and Q4 were associated with depression, and increased prevalence of depression by 148% (OR: 2.48; 95% CI: 1.55–3.86) and 277% (3.77; 2.12–5.36). Based on ROC curves, the optimal cutoff value of salivary cortisol level to diagnose the depression was 13.8 nmol/l, which yielded the highest sensitivity and specificity [63.8% and 71.7%, respectively; area under the curve (AUC) = 0.695, 95% CI: 0.639–0.751; P &lt; 0.0001].
Conclusions: The data showed that elevated levels of salivary cortisol were associated with increased prevalence of depression.
Serial Recall Predicts Vocoded Sentence Recognition Across Spectral Resolutions
Authors: Bosen Adam K. , Barry Michael F. 
Published: March 2020

Purpose
The goal of this study was to determine how various aspects of cognition predict speech recognition ability across different levels of speech vocoding within a single group of listeners.

Method

We tested the ability of young adults (
N
= 32) with normal hearing to recognize Perceptually Robust English Sentence Test Open-set (PRESTO) sentences that were degraded with a vocoder to produce different levels of spectral resolution (16, eight, and four carrier channels). Participants also completed tests of cognition (fluid intelligence, short-term memory, and attention), which were used as predictors of sentence recognition. Sentence recognition was compared across vocoder conditions, predictors were correlated with individual differences in sentence recognition, and the relationships between predictors were characterized.

Results
PRESTO sentence recognition performance declined with a decreasing number of vocoder channels, with no evident floor or ceiling performance in any condition. Individual ability to recognize PRESTO sentences was consistent relative to the group across vocoder conditions. Short-term memory, as measured with serial recall, was a moderate predictor of sentence recognition (ρ = 0.65). Serial recall performance was constant across vocoder conditions when measured with a digit span task. Fluid intelligence was marginally correlated with serial recall, but not sentence recognition. Attentional measures had no discernible relationship to sentence recognition and a marginal relationship with serial recall.

Conclusions
Verbal serial recall is a substantial predictor of vocoded sentence recognition, and this predictive relationship is independent of spectral resolution. In populations that show variable speech recognition outcomes, such as listeners with cochlear implants, it should be possible to account for the independent effects of spectral resolution and verbal serial recall in their speech recognition ability.

Supplemental Material

https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12021051