bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Advances in encapsulin nanocompartment biology and engineering
Authors: Jones Jesse A. , Giessen Tobias W. 
Published: September 2020

AbstractCompartmentalization is an essential feature of all cells. It allows cells to segregate and coordinate physiological functions in a controlled and ordered manner. Different mechanisms of compartmentalization exist, with the most relevant to prokaryotes being encapsulation via self‐assembling protein‐based compartments. One widespread example of such is that of encapsulins—cage‐like protein nanocompartments able to compartmentalize specific reactions, pathways, and processes in bacteria and archaea. While still relatively nascent bioengineering tools, encapsulins exhibit many promising characteristics, including a number of defined compartment sizes ranging from 24 to 42 nm, straightforward expression, the ability to self‐assemble via the Hong Kong 97‐like fold, marked physical robustness, and internal and external handles primed for rational genetic and molecular manipulation. Moreover, encapsulins allow for facile and specific encapsulation of native or heterologous cargo proteins via naturally or rationally fused targeting peptide sequences. Taken together, the attributes of encapsulins promise substantial customizability and broad usability. This review discusses recent advances in employing engineered encapsulins across various fields, from their use as bionanoreactors to targeted delivery systems and beyond. A special focus will be provided on the rational engineering of encapsulin systems and their potential promise as biomolecular research tools.
Minimally invasive techniques for transthoracic oesophagectomy for oesophageal cancer: systematic review and network meta-analysis
Authors: Siaw-Acheampong K , Kamarajah S K , Gujjuri R , Bundred J R , Singh P , Griffiths E A 
Published: September 2020

AbstractBackgroundOesophagectomy is a demanding operation that can be performed by different approaches including open surgery or a combination of minimal access techniques. This systematic review and network meta-analysis aimed to evaluate the clinical outcomes of open, minimally invasive and robotic oesophagectomy techniques for oesophageal cancer.MethodsA systematic literature search was conducted for studies reporting open oesophagectomy, laparoscopically assisted oesophagectomy (LAO), thoracoscopically assisted oesophagectomy (TAO), totally minimally invasive oesophagectomy (MIO) or robotic MIO (RAMIO) for oesophagectomy. A network meta-analysis of intraoperative (operating time, blood loss), postoperative (overall complications, anastomotic leaks, chyle leak, duration of hospital stay) and oncological (R0 resection, lymphadenectomy) outcomes, and survival was performed.ResultsNinety-eight studies involving 32 315 patients were included in the network meta-analysis (open 17 824, 55·2 per cent; LAO 1576, 4·9 per cent; TAO 2421 7·5 per cent; MIO 9558, 29·6 per cent; RAMIO 917, 2·8 per cent). Compared with open oesophagectomy, both MIO and RAMIO were associated with less blood loss, significantly lower rates of pulmonary complications, shorter duration of stay and higher lymph node yield. There were no significant differences between surgical techniques in surgical-site infections, chyle leak, and 30- and 90-day mortality. MIO and RAMIO had better 1- and 5-year survival rates respectively compared with open surgery.ConclusionMinimally invasive and robotic techniques for oesophagectomy are associated with reduced perioperative morbidity and duration of hospital stay, with no compromise of oncological outcomes but no improvement in perioperative mortality.
An adaptable dry lab for SYBR based RT‐qPCR primer design to reinforce concepts in molecular biology and nucleic acids
Authors: Covey Scott D. 
Published: September 2020

AbstractThe real time PCR (qPCR) method provides a powerful method to assess levels of particular species of DNA. When combined with reverse transcription (RT‐qPCR) it is the predominate technique to measure expression of gene transcripts. While this approach is very powerful, particular care must be taken in the design of the primers to facilitate specific and sensitive detection. Herein describes the framework for an undergraduate assignment which aims to teach primer design for SYBR based RT‐qPCR. Beyond gaining direct experience with primer design, students will gain familiarity with important bioinformatic resources as well as a deeper theoretical understanding of the RT‐qPCR approach and potential limitations. Moreover, as students' progress through the assignment they re‐encounter many important concepts in molecular biology, gene expression, and nucleic acids, creating an opportunity for spiral learning. As this exercise only requires access to free web‐based resources and does not require a laboratory it can be used in most science education settings. Despite not being a wet lab, this is a highly authentic research experience as this design process is commonplace in a molecular biology laboratory. Furthermore, the assignment is highly adaptable for different learning outcomes, time frames, and student background and ability. This article seeks to highlight connections and expanded learning outcomes for those already teaching such material, as well as a step‐by‐step guide for those new to teaching such content.
High neutrophil‐to‐lymphocyte ratio is a predictor of poor short‐term outcome in patients with mild acute ischemic stroke receiving intravenous thrombolysis
Authors: Liu Yong‐Lin , Wu Zhi‐Qiang , Qu Jian‐Feng , Qiu Dong‐Hai , Luo Gen‐Pei , Yin Han‐Peng , Fang Xue‐Wen , Wang Fang , Chen Yang‐Kun 
Published: September 2020

AbstractIntroductionVery few studies have investigated the specific relationship between neutrophil‐to‐lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and the short‐term outcomes of patients suffering from mild acute ischemic stroke (AIS) and receiving intravenous thrombolysis (IVT). This study aimed to investigate whether a high NLR is associated with a poor short‐term outcome in patients with mild AIS after IVT.MethodsWe retrospectively analyzed data that were prospectively acquired from patients with AIS treated with IVT. Mild AIS was defined as a National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) score ≤ 7 on admission. The NLR was based on a blood test performed prior to IVT and was classified as ‘high’ when exceeding the 75th percentile. Follow‐ups were performed at discharge and 3 months after onset. A poor outcome was defined as a modified Rankin scale (mRS) ≥3.ResultsA total of 192 patients were included in this study. The median NLR was 3.0 (interquartile range [IQR]: 2.0–3.9). Fifty‐one patients (26.6%) had a high NLR (≥3.9) on admission. Forty‐one patients (21.4%) had a poor outcome at discharge, while 34 patients (17.7%) had a poor outcome at 3 months. Patients with a poor outcome at discharge, and at 3 months after onset, were more likely to have a high NLR at discharge (42.9% vs. 21.9%; p = .005) and at 3 months (44.1% vs. 22.8%; p = .011), compared with those with a better outcome. After adjustment for NIHSS score on admission, ipsilateral severe intracranial large artery occlusion, and atrial fibrillation, logistic regression analyses revealed that a high NLR was a significant predictor of poor outcome at discharge and at 3 months after onset.ConclusionsA high NLR on admission could be a useful marker for predicting poor short‐term outcome in patients with mild AIS following IVT.
Does foreign direct investment promote environmental efficiency in developing economies? Evidence from Economic Community of West African States
Authors: Awodumi Olabanji B. 
Published: September 2020

AbstractForeign direct investment (FDI) continues to play a vital role in developing economies following its ability to fill a number of gaps, chief among which is technology gap. However, the contribution of such FDI inflow to environmental quality, hence sustainable development, has been questioned severally in the literature. This study investigates the role of inward FDI in environmental efficiency among the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) countries during 1980–2016. It utilizes the pollution haven (halo) hypothesis and estimated the specified model using the autoregressive distributed lag techniques for the individual countries, and random and fixed effect, as well as seemingly unrelated regression methods for the panel analysis. Findings show evidence that FDI inflow hampers environmental efficiency in all ECOWAS countries, except Sierra Leone where increased inflow of FDI promotes environmental efficiency only in the short run. Results also show that energy intensity has significant negative effect on environmental efficiency in Benin (short run), Burkina Faso, The Gambia, Mali (short run), Togo and panel of countries, suggesting that energy‐efficient technology enhances this efficiency. ECOWAS policy formulation must therefore harness the potential benefits that inward FDI brings to the community by harmonizing environmental regulations among its members in order to make the region safe and environmentally attractive to clean foreign investment. Other policy implications are derived for sustainable development of the community.
Short‐term clinical risk assessment and management: Comparing the Brockville Risk Checklist and Hamilton Anatomy of Risk Management
Authors: Healey Lindsay V. , Mullally Katelyn , Mamak Mini , Chaimowitz Gary A. , Ahmed Adekunle G. , Seto Michael C. 
Published: September 2020

AbstractThe current article aims to examine the performance of two brief, dynamic risk measures – the Brockville Risk Checklist (BRC4) and one of two versions of the Hamilton Anatomy of Risk Management [HARM‐FV and electronic HARM‐FV (eHARM‐FV)] – scored at regular clinical case conferences for forensic psychiatric patients in two different settings. The eHARM represents a first‐in‐class dynamic risk assessment tool using data analytics.Two studies are presented from two forensic psychiatric hospitals in Ontario, Canada. The first study compared the HARM‐FV, scored by trained research staff, with the BRC4, scored concurrently by clinical teams, on 36 forensic inpatients. In the second study, trained research staff scored both the BRC4 and the eHARM‐FV on 55 forensic inpatients.Both studies demonstrated that the BRC4 and both HARM‐FV tools were moderately and positively correlated with each other, with higher agreement for similar domains and items. In both samples, the risk measures performed better at identifying individuals who engaged in repeated or more serious problematic behavior. The HARM‐FV and eHARM‐FV produced higher area under the curve values for subsequent behavior compared with the BRC4. All three tools were effective at detecting future aggression and adverse incidents. We did not directly compare the HARM‐FV and eHARM‐FV.
Visual analytics of video‐clickstream data and prediction of learners' performance using deep learning models in MOOCs' courses
Authors: Mubarak Ahmed A. , Cao Han , Zhang Weizhen , Zhang Wenli 
Published: September 2020

AbstractThe big data stored in massive open online course (MOOC) platforms have become a posed challenge in the Learning Analytics field to analyze the learning behavior of learners, and predict their respective performance, related especially to video lecture data, since most learners view the same online lecture videos. This helps to conduct a comprehensive analysis of such behaviors and explore various learning patterns in MOOC video interactions. This paper aims at presenting a visual analysis, which enables course instructors and education experts to analyze clickstream data that were generated by learner interaction with course videos. It also aims at predicting learner performance, which is a vital decision‐making problem, by addressing their issues and improving the educational process. This paper uses a long short‐term memory network (LSTM) on implicit features extracted from video‐clickstreams data to predict learners' performance and enable instructors to make measures for timely intervention. Results show that the accuracy rate of the proposed model is 89%–95% throughout course weeks. The proposed LSTM model outperforms baseline Deep learning (GRU) and simple recurrent neural network by accuracy of 90.30% in the “Mining of Massive Datasets” course, and the “Automata Theory” accuracy is 89%.
Virtual reality learning environment for enhancing electronics engineering laboratory experience
Authors: Singh Gurjinder , Mantri Archana , Sharma Ojaswa , Kaur Rashpinder 
Published: September 2020

AbstractEngineering laboratory courses have a significant role in building practical knowledge and enhancing the skills of the students. While working in electronics laboratories, students often operate complicated laboratory equipment and juggle through a set of multiple knobs and buttons to configure the equipment(s). It takes a lot of practice to master the skill of operating the laboratory equipment and it becomes difficult for students to operate the equipment without any prior experience. Virtual reality (VR) is the emerging technology and has the potential to provide a better learning experience to the students. In this paper, a VR‐based learning environment (VLE) is developed, which aims to give prior training to the engineering students about the electronics laboratory hardware. An experimental study was conducted to measure the effectiveness of VR on student knowledge development, learning motivation, and cognition. The study was conducted among the 65 engineering students and they were randomly divided into two groups: treatment group (N = 33) and control group (N = 32). The students of the treatment group were taught with the VR approach and students of the control group were taught with a conventional teaching approach. The outcomes of the experiment indicate that VR has a significant positive impact on student knowledge, learning motivation, and cognition. By interacting with the three‐dimensional virtual models of the laboratory instruments, students were able to demonstrate an improved understanding of the laboratory hardware. Also, the treatment group students mentioned that they were not worried about the equipment malfunction that has further enhanced their confidence and reduced the cognitive load.
Using web‐based gamified software to learn Boolean algebra simplification in a blended learning setting
Authors: Jiménez‐Hernández Eréndira M. , Oktaba Hanna , Díaz‐Barriga Frida , Piattini Mario 
Published: September 2020

AbstractOne of the fundamental topics in the education of students enrolled in computer‐related degrees is that of Boolean algebra. This is because it allows the expression of several problems related to digital design, artificial intelligence, databases, compilers, and formal languages, among others, as a sequence of Boolean operations and variables, which can be dealt with by using Boolean algebra methods to optimize algorithms, minimize digital components, and so forth. This study presents a piece of web‐based software, denominated as MiniBool, which has been developed with the objective of supporting the learning of Boolean algebra in a blended learning setting. This educational proposal gives students the opportunity to reinforce learning at any time and in any place. It additionally increases the learners’ motivation by including gamification, through the use of a ranking that shows the students’ level of participation. MiniBool was evaluated by means of a formal experiment, which was carried out with Discrete Mathematics students at a higher education institution in Mexico, where two groups were formed randomly: A control group, whose members attended classes and reinforced their knowledge in a traditional manner with a pencil and paper, and an experimental group, which learned in a blended learning context, receiving the same classes as the control group, but reinforcing what they had learned using MiniBool. The statistical results obtained indicate that the use of MiniBool has a positive and motivating effect on learning and that a greater academic performance is achieved than when the traditional teaching‐learning method is applied.
Brushwork master: Chinese ink painting synthesis for animating brushwork process
Authors: Yang Lijie , Xu Tianchen , Du Jixiang , Zhang Hongbo , Wu Enhua 
Published: September 2020

AbstractGenerally, it is regarded as challenge work to grasp the drawing style of an ancient masterpiece in Chinese painting learning. This paper presents a novel approach to the generation of a Chinese ink painting in a certain style and animating its brushwork process with expert skills. In order to demonstrate the techniques of brush and ink inside a stroke, a serials of geometric properties of a brush stroke, are first extracted, then through rational deformation calculation, the best stroke source is mapped onto the stroking path, which is sketched by the user, and finally a new Chinese painting can be synthesized by style migration and natural stroke composition. So with the generated strokes, the lifelike brushwork process of the new painting can be represented dramatically. Actually, by showing the authentic painting process, the tool we implemented helps the learners, who have no profound skills and knowledge in domain of Chinese painting, master the essence of a great painting style, and also provides an easy way to art creation and the comprehension of mysterious Chinese traditional art.
Deep supervised multimodal semantic autoencoder for cross‐modal retrieval
Authors: Tian Yu , Yang Wenjing , Liu Qingsong , Yang Qiong 
Published: September 2020

AbstractCross‐modal retrieval aims to do flexible retrieval among different modals, whose main issue is how to measure the semantic similarities among multimodal data. Though many existing methods have been proposed to enable cross‐modal retrieval, they rarely consider the preservation of content information among multimodal data. In this paper, we present a three‐stage cross‐modal retrieval method, named MMCA‐CMR. To reduce the discrepancy among multimodal data, we first attempt to embed multimodal data into a common representation space. We then combine the feature vectors with the content information into the semantic‐aware feature vectors. We finally obtain the feature‐aware and content‐aware projections via multimodal semantic autoencoders. With semantic deep autoencoders, MMCA‐CMR promotes a more reliable cross‐modal retrieval by learning feature vectors from different modalities and content information simultaneously. Extensive experiments demonstrate that the proposed method is valid in cross‐modal retrieval, which significantly outperforms state‐of‐the‐art on four widely‐used benchmark datasets.
Combining Inorganic Chemistry and Biology: The Underestimated Potential of Metal Complexes in Medicine
Authors: Karges Johannes 
Published: September 2020

AbstractThe vast majority of investigated compounds in modern medicine are based on organic molecules. Within the last decades, the field of medicinial chemistry is shifting towards the application of metal complexes. These compounds offer different mechanisms of action in comparison to organic molecules due to their unique properties, making them novel drug candidates. Herein, the successful combination of metal containing compounds and medicine is highlighted by their application for photodynamic therapy.
Are Liaison and Diversion interventions in policing delivering the planned impact: A longitudinal evaluation in two constabularies?
Authors: Kane Eddie , Evans Emily , Mitsch Jurgen , Jilani Tahseen 
Published: September 2020

AbstractLiaison and Diversion (L&D) has twin objectives: improving mental health outcomes and reducing re‐offending. Early diversion from police custody seems promising, but evidence of benefit is required to sustain such programmes. To test the hypothesis that contact with L&D services while in police custody would lead to improved mental health outcomes and a reduction in type and level of offending, we used a pre–post service use design. National Health Service (NHS) records in two counties were searched for evidence that patients had been involved with L&D services while in police custody during the period July 2009–December 2017. We defined January 2009–July 2014 as the pre‐intervention period and any time after contact as the post‐intervention period. Data from the Police National Computer were gathered for each period for these individuals, to assess their pre‐post L&D contact offending histories. NHS Trust data were similarly gathered to assess their pre‐post use of mental health legislation. 4,462 individuals were identified who had used L&D services in police custody. There were statistically significant reductions in the amount of offending following contact with the L&D service (whether one or two contacts), regardless of offence type. Statistically significant reductions were also observed in use of the four most commonly used legislative powers for detaining patients in hospital on mental disorder grounds, regardless of offending status (prolific/non‐prolific). Our results indicate positive associations between the L&D interventions and change in offending and use of compulsory hospital detention. Whilst our research does not allow a direct causal relationship to be established in either area, the findings go beyond other impact assessments of L&D which have either been with small samples or relied only on qualitative data or expert opinion.
Hormone spiral in treatment of progesterone‐induced stomatitis
Authors: Sandbakk Frank‐Jakob , Løes Sigbjørn , Pedersen Torbjørn Ø. 
Published: September 2020

AbstractHormonal changes in the menstrual cycle may cause autoimmune progesterone‐induced stomatitis. This case illustrates that insertion of a hormone spiral can be a treatment option to reduce mucosal lesions and symptoms.
Thorax necrotizing fasciitis following Bezold’s abscess
Authors: Silva Vagner Antonio Rodrigues , Almeida Amanda Sampaio , Lavinsky Joel , Pauna Henrique Furlan , Castilho Arthur Menino , Chone Carlos Takahiro , Crespo Agrício Nubiato 
Published: September 2020

AbstractBezold's abscess is a rare complication of acute otitis media, but it should be recognized and aggressively treated. Otolaryngologists must be aware of this diagnosis, and multidisciplinary care should be provided as soon as possible.
Anetoderma in a patient with a history of primary syphilis
Authors: Hamidi Sepehr , Yashar Sharona 
Published: September 2020

AbstractAnetoderma is a rare cutaneous disorder presenting with atrophic skin lesions. It can be associated with several autoimmune and infectious diseases. With the current resurgence of syphilis, clinicians must be aware of its association with anetoderma.
Stable improvement in classical B‐cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia with dietary interventions: A personal experience
Authors: Plooij Frans X. , Raemaekers John 
Published: September 2020

AbstractIf the lymphocyte count is still low enough, the first part of the wait‐and‐see approach for asymptomatic Rai stage 0 classical B‐CLL can be used to find out if the lymphocyte counts follow an exponential growth curve. If they do, the whole food, plant‐based (WFPB) diet intervention can be started.