bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Parental occupational exposure pre- and post-conception and development of asthma in offspring
Authors: Pape Kathrine , Svanes Cecile , Sejbæk Camilla S , Malinovschi Andrei , Benediktsdottir Byndis , Forsberg Bertil , Janson Christer , Benke Geza , Tjalvin Gro , Sánchez-Ramos José Luis , Zock Jan-Paul , Toren Kjell , Bråbäck Lennart , Holm Mathias , Jõgi Rain , Bertelsen Randi J , Gíslason Thorarin , Sigsgaard Torben , Liu Xiaoqin , Hougaard Karin S , Johannessen Ane , Lodge Caroline , Dharmage Shyamali C , Schlünssen Vivi 
Published: April 2020

Abstract

Background
While direct effects of occupational exposures on an individual’s respiratory health are evident, a new paradigm is emerging on the possible effects of pre-conception occupational exposure on respiratory health in offspring. We aimed to study the association between parental occupational exposure starting before conception and asthma in their offspring (at 0–15 years of age).

Methods
We studied 3985 offspring participating in the Respiratory Health in Northern Europe, Spain and Australia (RHINESSA) generation study. Their mothers or fathers (n = 2931) previously participated in the European Community Respiratory Health Survey (ECRHS). Information was obtained from questionnaires on parental job history pre- and post-conception which was linked to an asthma-specific job-exposure matrix (JEM). We assessed the association between parental occupational exposure and offspring asthma, applying logistic regression models, clustered by family and adjusted for study centre, offspring sex, parental characteristics (age, asthma onset, place of upbringing, smoking) and grandparents’ level of education.

Results
Parental occupational exposure to microorganisms, pesticides, allergens or reactive chemicals pre-conception or both pre- and post-conception was not related to offspring asthma; in general, subgroup analyses confirmed this result. However, maternal exposure both pre- and post-conception to allergens and reactive chemicals was associated with increased odds for early-onset asthma in offspring (0–3 years of age); odds ratio 1.70 (95% CI: 1.02–2.84) and 1.65 (95% CI: 0.98–2.77), respectively.

Conclusions
This study did not find evidence that parental occupational exposure, defined by an asthma JEM before conception only or during pre- and post-conception vs non-exposed, was associated with offspring asthma.
Prevalence of and characteristics associated with operative vaginal birth at Mizan-Tepi University Teaching Hospital
Authors: Harrison Margo S , Teshome Biruk , Liyew Tewodros , Kirub Ephrem , Jimenez-Zambrano Andrea , Muldrow Margaret , Yarinbab Teklemariam 
Published: April 2020

Abstract

Background
To observe prevalence, characteristics and outcomes associated with operative vaginal birth (OVB).

Methods
We compared spontaneous vaginal birth with OVB.

Results
Of 993 women, 759 (76.4%) experienced vaginal birth; 716 were spontaneous (94.3%), 14 (1.8%) underwent forceps-assisted birth and 29 (3.8%) had vacuum assistance. In a multivariable model of OVB (forceps and vacuum), compared with a midwife, general practitioners (OR 5.6, p = 0.04) and integrated emergency surgical officers (OR 42.8, p = 0.001) were more likely to attend. Women experiencing OVB were more likely to receive local anesthesia (OR 3.0, p = 0.009).

Conclusion
OVB is used sparingly but safely at Mizan-Tepi University Teaching Hospital.
Let's Justify! How Regime Complexes Enhance the Normative Legitimacy of Global Governance
Authors: Faude Benjamin , Groβe-Kreul Felix 
Published: April 2020

AbstractThis theory note develops a theoretical approach which integrates the negative spillovers that international institutions often impose on each other into our thinking about their normative legitimacy. Our approach draws on the political philosophy of Rainer Forst which revolves around the right to justification. It suggests that regime complexes facilitate the breakup of institution-specific orders of justification by prompting invested actors to justify negative spillovers vis-à-vis each other. Thus, regime complexes enable more encompassing justifications of negative spillovers than stand-alone international institutions. Against this backdrop, we submit that the proliferation of regime complexes represents normative progress in global governance.
Characterization of the poll allele in Brahman cattle using long-read Oxford Nanopore sequencing
Authors: Lamb Harrison J , Ross Elizabeth M , Nguyen Loan T , Lyons Russell E , Moore Stephen S , Hayes Ben J 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
Brahman cattle (Bos indicus) are well adapted to thrive in tropical environments. Since their introduction to Australia in 1933, Brahman’s ability to grow and reproduce on marginal lands has proven their value in the tropical beef industry. The poll phenotype, which describes the absence of horns, has become desirable in the cattle industry for animal welfare and handler safety concerns. The poll locus has been mapped to chromosome one. Four alleles, each a copy number variant, have been reported across this locus in B. indicus and Bos taurus. However, the causative mutation in Brahman cattle has not been fully characterized. Oxford Nanopore Technologies’ minION sequencer was used to sequence four homozygous poll (PcPc), four homozygous horned (pp), and three heterozygous (Pcp) Brahmans to characterize the poll allele in Brahman cattle. A total of 98 Gb were sequenced and an average coverage of 3.33X was achieved. Read N50 scores ranged from 9.9 to 19 kb. Examination of the mapped reads across the poll locus revealed insertions approximately 200 bp in length in the poll animals that were absent in the horned animals. These results are consistent with the Celtic poll allele, a 212-bp duplication that replaces 10 bp. This provides direct evidence that the Celtic poll allele is segregating in the Australian Brahman population.
Do Non-State Armed Groups Have a Legal Right to Consent to Offers of International Humanitarian Relief?
Authors: Vanhullebusch Matthias 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
During non-international armed conflicts, fighting parties have repeatedly denied international humanitarian relief to the civilian population under their territorial control leaving them at the brink of starvation. Debates on criminal accountability for violating the prohibition of the use of starvation against the civilian population as a method of warfare have yet to address the question of ownership of the right to consent to offers of international humanitarian relief before criminalising their denial. In respect of such right to consent at the strategic level, there are divergent interpretations on the application of the principle of symmetrical rights and obligations of fighting parties in the realm of international humanitarian relief. Humanitarian and state-centric perspectives, respectively, grant or deny non-state armed groups an independent right to consent to offers of international humanitarian relief. The humanitarian perspective argues that the asymmetry of such right in favour of the government party to the conflict and at the expense of the non-state armed groups is no longer justified, especially when the right of control at the operational level (after an offer has been accepted) is equally bestowed upon all parties to the conflict. The state-centric perspective defends the exclusive right of the government party to the conflict and fears that an equal right to strategic consent for non-state armed groups would increase their legitimacy. This study argues that neutrality upheld by international humanitarian relief actors, including impartial humanitarian bodies, such as the ICRC, and the Security Council gives rise to an interdependent exercise of the right to strategic consent by all fighting parties instead.
Using the Extremal Index for Value-at-Risk Backtesting*
Authors: Bücher Axel , Posch Peter N , Schmidtke Philipp 
Published: April 2020

AbstractWe introduce a set of new Value-at-Risk independence backtests by establishing a connection between the independence property of Value-at-Risk forecasts and the extremal index, a general measure of extremal clustering of stationary sequences. For this purpose, we introduce a sequence of relative excess returns whose extremal index is to be estimated. We compare our backtest to both popular and recent competitors using Monte Carlo simulations and find considerable power in many scenarios. In an applied section, we perform realistic out-of-sample forecasts with common forecasting models and discuss advantages and pitfalls of our approach.
Representative Bureaucracy and Attitudes Toward Automated Decision Making
Authors: Miller Susan M , Keiser Lael R 
Published: April 2020

AbstractThe theory of representative bureaucracy posits that citizens will view policy and service delivery more favorably if public servants share their background characteristics. However, automation is changing public service delivery, limiting human involvement in the process. We examine attitudes toward automated decision making through the lens of representative bureaucracy, generating expectations about how a lack of passive representation will affect views toward automated versus human decision making in government. Using a survey experiment, we find evidence that black citizens are more likely to rate automated decision making higher, compared with police officers, on fairness and preference when exposed to a lack of passive representation in a police agency. We do not find evidence of this relationship for white citizens. Our findings provide insight into the way in which passive representation conditions minority citizens’ views toward automation, highlighting the importance of considering representation, or lack thereof, as governments contemplate the adoption of automated services.
Baryonic clues to the puzzling diversity of dwarf galaxy rotation curves
Authors: Santos-Santos Isabel M E , Navarro Julio F , Robertson Andrew , Benítez-Llambay Alejandro , Oman Kyle A , Lovell Mark R , Frenk Carlos S , Ludlow Aaron D , Fattahi Azadeh , Ritz Adam 
Published: April 2020

ABSTRACT
We use a compilation of disc galaxy rotation curves to assess the role of the luminous component (‘baryons’) in the rotation curve diversity problem. As in earlier work, we find that rotation curve shape correlates with baryonic surface density: high surface density galaxies have rapidly rising rotation curves consistent with cuspy cold dark matter haloes; slowly rising rotation curves (characteristic of galaxies with inner mass deficits or ‘cores’) occur only in low surface density galaxies. The correlation, however, seems too weak to be the main driver of the diversity. In addition, dwarf galaxies exhibit a clear trend, from ‘cuspy’ systems where baryons are unimportant in the inner mass budget to ‘cored’ galaxies where baryons actually dominate. This trend constrains the various scenarios proposed to explain the diversity, such as (i) baryonic inflows and outflows during galaxy formation; (ii) dark matter self-interactions; (iii) variations in the baryonic mass structure coupled to rotation velocities through the ‘mass discrepancy–acceleration relation’ (MDAR); or (iv) non-circular motions in gaseous discs. Together with analytical modelling and cosmological hydrodynamical simulations, our analysis shows that each of these scenarios has promising features, but none seems to fully account for the observed diversity. The MDAR, in particular, is inconsistent with the observed trend between rotation curve shape and baryonic importance; either the trend is caused by systematic errors in the data or the MDAR does not apply. The origin of the dwarf galaxy rotation curve diversity and its relation to the structure of cold dark matter haloes remains an open issue.
The orbital phase space of contracted dark matter haloes
Authors: Callingham Thomas M , Cautun Marius , Deason Alis J , Frenk Carlos S , Grand Robert J J , Marinacci Federico , Pakmor Ruediger 
Published: April 2020

ABSTRACT
We study the orbital phase space of dark matter (DM) haloes in the auriga suite of cosmological hydrodynamics simulations of Milky Way (MW) analogues. We characterize haloes by their spherical action distribution, $F\left(J_{{r}},L\right)$, a function of the specific angular momentum, L, and the radial action, Jr, of the DM particles. By comparing DM-only and hydrodynamical simulations of the same haloes, we investigate the contraction of DM haloes caused by the accumulation of baryons at the centre. We find a small systematic suppression of the radial action in the DM haloes of the hydrodynamical simulations, suggesting that the commonly used adiabatic contraction approximation can result in an underestimate of the density by $\sim 8{{ \rm {per\ cent}}}$. We apply an iterative algorithm to contract the auriga DM haloes given a baryon density profile and halo mass, recovering the true contracted DM profiles with an accuracy of $\sim 15{{ \rm {per\ cent}}}$, that reflects halo-to-halo variation. Using this algorithm, we infer the total mass profile of the MW’s contracted DM halo. We derive updated values for the key astrophysical inputs to DM direct detection experiments: the DM density and velocity distribution in the Solar neighbourhood.
Mapping local interstellar medium with diffuse interstellar bands
Authors: Piecka Martin , Paunzen Ernst 
Published: April 2020

ABSTRACT
With the use of the data from archives, we studied the correlations between the equivalent widths of four diffuse interstellar bands (4430, 5780, 5797, 6284 $\mathring{\rm A}$) and properties of the target stars (colour excess values, distances, and Galactic coordinates). Many different plots of the diffuse interstellar bands and their maps were produced and further analysed. There appears to be a structure in the plot of equivalent widths of 5780  $\mathring{\rm A}$ DIB (and 6284 $\mathring{\rm A}$ DIB) against the Galactic x-coordinate. The structure is well defined below ∼ 150 m$\mathring{\rm A}$ and within |x| &lt; 250 pc, peaking around x = 170 pc. We argue that the origin of this structure is not a statistical fluctuation. Splitting the data in the Galactic longitude into several subregions improve or lower the well-known linear relation between the equivalent widths and the colour excess, which was expected. However, some of the lines of sight display drastically different behaviour. The region within 150° &lt; l &lt; 200° shows scatter in the correlation plots with the colour excess for all of the four bands with correlation coefficients R &lt; 0.58. We suspect that the variation of physical conditions in the nearby molecular clouds could be responsible. Finally, the area 250° &lt; l &lt; 300° displays (from the statistical point of view) significantly lower values of equivalent widths than the other regions – this tells us that there is either a significant underabundance of carriers (when compared with the other regions) or that this has to be a result of an observational bias.
Ribosome profiling in archaea reveals leaderless translation, novel translational initiation sites, and ribosome pausing at single codon resolution
Authors: Gelsinger Diego Rivera , Dallon Emma , Reddy Rahul , Mohammad Fuad , Buskirk Allen R , DiRuggiero Jocelyne 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
High-throughput methods, such as ribosome profiling, have revealed the complexity of translation regulation in Bacteria and Eukarya with large-scale effects on cellular functions. In contrast, the translational landscape in Archaea remains mostly unexplored. Here, we developed ribosome profiling in a model archaeon, Haloferax volcanii, elucidating, for the first time, the translational landscape of a representative of the third domain of life. We determined the ribosome footprint of H. volcanii to be comparable in size to that of the Eukarya. We linked footprint lengths to initiating and elongating states of the ribosome on leadered transcripts, operons, and on leaderless transcripts, the latter representing 70% of H. volcanii transcriptome. We manipulated ribosome activity with translation inhibitors to reveal ribosome pausing at specific codons. Lastly, we found that the drug harringtonine arrested ribosomes at initiation sites in this archaeon. This drug treatment allowed us to confirm known translation initiation sites and also reveal putative novel initiation sites in intergenic regions and within genes. Ribosome profiling revealed an uncharacterized complexity of translation in this archaeon with bacteria-like, eukarya-like, and potentially novel translation mechanisms. These mechanisms are likely to be functionally essential and to contribute to an expanded proteome with regulatory roles in gene expression.
MutaRNA: analysis and visualization of mutation-induced changes in RNA structure
Authors: Miladi Milad , Raden Martin , Diederichs Sven , Backofen Rolf 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
RNA molecules fold into complex structures as a result of intramolecular interactions between their nucleotides. The function of many non-coding RNAs and some cis-regulatory elements of messenger RNAs highly depends on their fold. Single-nucleotide variants (SNVs) and other types of mutations can disrupt the native function of an RNA element by altering its base pairing pattern. Identifying the effect of a mutation on an RNA’s structure is, therefore, a crucial step in evaluating the impact of mutations on the post-transcriptional regulation and function of RNAs within the cell. Even though a single nucleotide variation can have striking impacts on the structure formation, interpreting and comparing the impact usually needs expertise and meticulous efforts. Here, we present MutaRNA, a web server for visualization and interpretation of mutation-induced changes on the RNA structure in an intuitive and integrative fashion. To this end, probabilities of base pairing and position-wise unpaired probabilities of wildtype and mutated RNA sequences are computed and compared. Differential heatmap-like dot plot representations in combination with circular plots and arc diagrams help to identify local structure abberations, which are otherwise hidden in standard outputs. Eventually, MutaRNA provides a comprehensive and comparative overview of the mutation-induced changes in base pairing potentials and accessibility. The MutaRNA web server is freely available at http://rna.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/MutaRNA.
Presurgical Identification of Patients With Glioblastoma at Risk for Cognitive Impairment at 3-Month Follow-up
Authors: Rijnen Sophie J M , Butterbrod Elke , Rutten Geert-Jan M , Sitskoorn Margriet M , Gehring Karin 
Published: April 2020

AbstractBACKGROUNDPre- and postoperative cognitive deficits have repeatedly been demonstrated in patients with glioblastoma (GBM).OBJECTIVETo identify presurgical risk factors that facilitate the identification of GBM patients at risk for postoperative cognitive impairment.METHODSPatients underwent neuropsychological assessment using Central Nervous System Vital Signs 1 d before (T0) and 3 mo after surgery (T3). Patients’ standardized scores on 7 cognitive domains were compared to a normative sample using one-sampleztests. Reliable change indices with correction for practice effects were calculated to assess cognitive changes in individual patients over time. Logistic regression models were performed to assess presurgical sociodemographic, clinical, psychological, and cognitive risk factors for postoperative cognitive impairments.RESULTSAt T0, 208 patients were assessed, and 136 patients were retested at T3. Patients showed significantly lower performance both prior to and 3 mo after surgery on all cognitive domains compared to healthy controls. Improvements and declines over time occurred respectively in 11% to 32% and 6% to 26% of the GBM patients over the domains. The regression models showed that low preoperative cognitive performance posits a significant risk factor for postoperative cognitive impairment on all domains, and female sex was a risk factor for postoperative impairments in Visual Memory.CONCLUSIONWe demonstrated preoperative cognitive risk factors that enable the identification of GBM patients who are at risk for cognitive impairment 3 mo after surgery. This information can help to inform patients and clinicians at an early stage, and emphasizes the importance of recognizing, assessing, and actively dealing with cognitive functioning in the clinical management of GBM patients.
Timing- and Dose-Specific Associations of Prenatal Smoke Exposure With Newborn DNA Methylation
Authors: Monasso Giulietta S , Jaddoe Vincent W V , de Jongste Johan C , Duijts Liesbeth , Felix Janine F 
Published: April 2020

AbstractIntroductionFetal changes in DNA methylation may underlie associations of maternal smoking during pregnancy with adverse outcomes in children. We examined critical periods and doses of maternal smoking during pregnancy in relation to newborn DNA methylation, and associations of paternal smoking with newborn DNA methylation.Aims and MethodsThis study was embedded in the Generation R Study, a population-based prospective cohort study from early pregnancy onwards. We assessed parental smoking during pregnancy using questionnaires. We analyzed associations of prenatal smoke exposure with newborn DNA methylation at 5915 known maternal smoking-related cytosine-phosphate-guanine sites (CpGs) in 1261 newborns using linear regression. Associations with false discovery rate-corrected p-values &lt; .05 were taken forward.ResultsSustained maternal smoking was associated with newborn DNA methylation at 1391 CpGs, compared with never smoking. Neither quitting smoking early in pregnancy nor former smoking was associated with DNA methylation, compared with never smoking. Among sustained smokers, smoking ≥5, compared with &lt;5, cigarettes/d was associated with DNA methylation at seven CpGs. Paternal smoking was not associated with DNA methylation, independent of maternal smoking status.ConclusionsOur results suggest that CpGs associated with sustained maternal smoking are not associated with maternal smoking earlier in pregnancy or with paternal smoking. Some of these CpGs show dose–response relationships with sustained maternal smoking. The third trimester may comprise a critical period for associations of smoking with newborn DNA methylation, or sustained smoking may reflect higher cumulative doses. Alternatively, maternal smoking limited to early pregnancy and paternal smoking may be associated with DNA methylation at specific other CpGs not studied here.ImplicationsOur results suggest that quitting maternal smoking before the third trimester of pregnancy, and possibly lowering smoking dose, may prevent differential DNA methylation in the newborns at CpGs associated with sustained smoking. If the relevance of DNA methylation for clinical outcomes is established, these results may help in counseling parents-to-be about quitting smoking.