bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
First report of canine ocular thelaziosis in the Republic of Moldova
Authors: Dumitrache Mirabela Oana , Ionică Angela Monica , Voinițchi Eugeniu , Chavdar Nicolai , D’Amico Gianluca 
Published: October 2019

Abstract

Background
Countries of eastern Europe are considered, due to several risk factors, more vulnerable to infections with newly (re)emerging pathogens. During the last decade, in several European countries, reports of autochthonous cases of ocular thelaziosis due to Thelazia callipaeda have been published, posing a great concern from both veterinary and public health perspective. However, in the Republic of Moldova only limited epidemiological data are available regarding zoonotic vector-borne pathogens and, until now, no data exist on the zoonotic nematode T. callipaeda.

Methods
In September 2018, an 11-year-old dog, mixed-breed, intact male was referred to a private veterinary clinic from Chișinău, Republic of Moldova, with a history of 2 weeks of an ocular condition affecting the right eye. The ophthalmological exam revealed the presence of nematode parasites in the conjunctival sac and under the third eyelid. The collected parasites were identified by morphological techniques and molecular analysis.

Results
A total of 7 nematodes were collected, and 5 females and 2 males of T. callipaeda were identified morphologically. The BLAST analysis confirmed the low genetic variability of this parasite in Europe. The travel history of the patient allowed us to confirm the autochthonous character of the case.

Conclusions
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of thelaziosis in dogs from the Republic of Moldova, which confirms the spreading trend of T. callipaeda and the existence of an autochthonous transmission cycle of this zoonotic parasite in the country.
Trypanosoma cruzi infection associated with atypical clinical manifestation during the acute phase of the Chagas disease
Authors: Rangel-Gamboa Lucia , López-García Lirio , Moreno-Sánchez Francisco , Hoyo-Ulloa Irma , Vega-Mémije María Elisa , Mendoza-Bazán Nancy , Romero-Valdovinos Mirza , Olivo-Díaz Angélica , Villalobos Guiehdani , Martínez-Hernández Fernando 
Published: October 2019

Abstract

Background
Chagas disease (CD) is caused by the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi and is transmitted by triatomine insects. Clinical manifestations vary according to the phase of the disease. Cutaneous manifestations are usually observed in the acute phase (chagoma and Romaña’s sign) or after reactivation of the chronic phase by immunosuppression; however, a disseminated infection in the acute phase without immunosuppression has not been reported for CD. Here, we report an unusual case of disseminated cutaneous infection during the acute phase of CD in a Mexican woman.

Methods
Evaluation of the patient included a complete clinical history, a physical exam, and an exhaustive evaluation by laboratory tests, including ELISA, Western blot and PCR.

Results
Skin biopsies of a 50-year-old female revealed intracellular parasites affecting the lower extremities with lymphangitic spread in both legs. The PCR tests evaluated biopsy samples obtained from the lesions and blood samples, which showed a positive diagnosis for T. cruzi. Partial sequencing of the small subunit ribosomal DNA correlated with the genetic variant DTU II; however, serological tests were negative.

Conclusions
We present a case of CD with disseminated skin lesions that was detected by PCR and showed negative serological results. In Mexico, an endemic CD area, there are no records of this type of manifestation, which demonstrates the ability of the parasite to initiate and maintain infections in atypical tissues.
Identification of linear epitopes in SjSP-13 of Schistosoma japonicum using a GST-peptide fusion protein microplate array
Authors: Ma Li , Zhao Wenrong , Hou Xunya , Liu Mengmeng , Li Yanna , Shen Li , Xu Xindong 
Published: October 2019

Abstract

Background
The identification and characterization of epitopes facilitate the discovery and development of new therapeutics, vaccines and diagnostics for infectious diseases. In this study, we developed a glutathione S-transferase (GST)-peptide fusion protein microplate array for the identification of linear B-cell epitopes and applied this novel method to the identification of linear B-cell epitopes of SjSP-13, an immunodiagnostic biomarker of schistosomiasis japonica.

Methods
SjSP-13 was divided into 17 overlapped peptides (p1-17), and the coding sequence of each peptide was obtained by annealing two complementary oligonucleotides. SjSP-13 peptides were expressed by fusion with an N-terminal GST tag and a C-terminal 6xHis tag. The GST-peptide-His fusion protein was specifically bound to the Immobilizer Glutathione MicroWell 96-well plates without purification. SjSP-13 peptides and core epitopes that could be recognized by sera from schistosomiasis patients were identified by ELISA and confirmed by Western blot analysis. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was performed to determine the diagnostic validity of the identified peptide.

Results
Full-length GST-peptide-His fusion proteins were successfully expressed and specifically bound to the Immobilizer Glutathione MicroWell 96-well plates. Two adjacent peptides (p7 and p8) were found to be highly immunogenic in humans. The core epitope of p7 and p8 is an 11-aa peptide (80KCLDVTDNLPE90) and an 8-aa peptide (90EKIIQFAE97), respectively. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) value of the peptide which contains the two identified epitopes is 0.947 ± 0.019. The diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of the peptide is 76.7% (95% CI: 68.8–84.5%) and 100%, respectively.

Conclusions
90EKIIQFAE97 and 80KCLDVTDNLPE90 are the two linear epitopes of SjSP-13 recognized by patient sera, and could be potential serological markers for schistosomiasis japonica.
In silico selection of functionally important proteins from the mialome of Ornithodoros erraticus ticks and assessment of their protective efficacy as vaccine targets
Authors: Pérez-Sánchez Ricardo , Manzano-Román Raúl , Obolo-Mvoulouga Prosper , Oleaga Ana 
Published: October 2019

AbstractBackgroundNew candidate protective antigens for tick vaccine development may be identified by selecting and testing antigen candidates that play key biological functions. After blood-feeding, tick midgut overexpresses proteins that play essential functions in tick survival and disease transmission. Herein,Ornithodoros erraticusmidgut transcriptomic and proteomic data were examined in order to select functionally significant antigens upregulated after feeding to be tested as vaccine candidate antigens.MethodsTranscripts annotated as chitinases, tetraspanins, ribosomal protein P0 and secreted proteins/peptides were mined from the recently publishedO. erraticusmidgut transcriptome and filtered in a second selection step using criteria based on upregulation after feeding, predicted antigenicity and expression in the midgut proteome. Five theoretical candidate antigens were selected, obtained as recombinant proteins and used to immunise rabbits: one chitinase (CHI), two tetraspanins (TSPs), the ribosomal protein P0 (RPP0) and one secreted protein PK-4 (PK4).ResultsRabbit vaccination with individual recombinant candidates induced strong humoral responses that mainly reduced nymph moulting and female reproduction, providing 30.2% (CHI), 56% (TSPs), 57.5% (RPP0) and 57.8% (PK4) protection toO. erraticusinfestations and 19.6% (CHI), 11.1% (TSPs), 0% (RPP0) and 8.1% (PK4) cross-protection to infestations by the African tickOrnithodoros moubata.The joint vaccine efficacy of the candidates was assessed in a second vaccine trial reaching 66.3% protection toO. erraticusand 25.6% cross-protection toO. moubata.ConclusionsThese results (i) indicate that argasid chitinases and RPP0 are promising protective antigens, as has already been demonstrated for ixodid chitinases and RPP0, and could be included in vaccines targeting multiple tick species; (ii) reveal novel protective antigens tetraspanins and secreted protein PK-4, never tested before as protective antigens in ticks; and (iii) demonstrate that multi-antigenic vaccines increased vaccine efficacy compared with individual antigens. Lastly, our data emphasize the value of the tick midgut as a source of protective candidate antigens in argasids for tick control.
DNA methylation in repeat negative prostate biopsies as a marker of missed prostate cancer
Authors: Fiano Valentina , Zugna Daniela , Grasso Chiara , Trevisan Morena , Delsedime Luisa , Molinaro Luca , Cassoni Paola , Papotti Mauro , Merletti Franco , Akre Olof , Pettersson Andreas , De Marco Laura , Richiardi Lorenzo 
Published: October 2019

Abstract

Background
Men often undergo repeat prostate biopsies because of suspicion of missed cancer. We assessed if (i) methylation of selected genes in prostate tissue vary with aging and (ii) methylation alterations in repeat biopsies predict missed prostate cancer.

Methods
We conducted a case-control study among men who underwent at least two negative prostate biopsies followed by a sampling either positive (cases n = 111) or negative (controls n = 129) for prostate cancer between 1995 and 2014 at the University Hospital (Turin, Italy). Two pathology wards were included for replication purposes. We analyzed methylation of GSTP1, APC, PITX2, C1orf114, GABRE, and LINE-1 in the first two negative biopsies. Conditional logistic regression was used to estimate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of the association between genes methylation and prostate cancer.

Results
Age at biopsy and time interval between the two negative biopsies were not associated with methylation levels of the selected genes in neither cases nor controls. GSTP1 methylation in the first and in the second negative biopsy was associated with prostate cancer detection [OR per 1% increase: 1.14 (95% CI 1.01–1.29) for the second biopsy and 1.21 (95% CI 1.07–1.37) for the highest methylation level (first or second biopsy)]. A threshold > 10% for GSTP1 methylation corresponded to a specificity of 0.98 (positive likelihood ratio 7.87). No clear association was found for the other genes. Results were consistent between wards.

Conclusions
Our results suggest that GSTP1 methylation in negative prostate biopsies is stable over time and can predict missed cancer with high specificity.
Using weaker consistency models with monitoring and recovery for improving performance of key-value stores
Authors: Nguyen Duong , Charapko Aleksey , Kulkarni Sandeep S. , Demirbas Murat 
Published: October 2019

Abstract
Consistency properties provided by most key-value stores can be classified into sequential consistency and eventual consistency. The former is easier to program with but suffers from lower performance whereas the latter suffers from potential anomalies while providing higher performance. We focus on the problem of what a designer should do if he/she has an algorithm that works correctly with sequential consistency but is faced with an underlying key-value store that provides a weaker (e.g., eventual or causal) consistency. We propose a detect-rollback based approach: The designer identifies a correctness predicate, say P, and continues to run the protocol, as our system monitors P. If P is violated (because the underlying key-value store provides a weaker consistency), the system rolls back and resumes the computation at a state where P holds.We evaluate this approach with graph-based applications running on the Voldemort key-value store. Our experiments with deployment on Amazon AWS EC2 instances show that using eventual consistency with monitoring can provide a 50–80% increase in throughput when compared with sequential consistency. We also observe that the overhead of the monitoring itself was low (typically less than 4%) and the latency of detecting violations was small. In particular, in a scenario designed to intentionally cause a large number of violations, more than 99.9% of violations were detected in less than 50 ms in regional networks (all clients and servers in the same Amazon AWS region) and in less than 3 s in global networks.We find that for some applications, frequent rollback can cause the program using eventual consistency to effectively stall. We propose alternate mechanisms for dealing with re-occurring rollbacks. Overall, for applications considered in this paper, we find that even with rollback, eventual consistency provides better performance than using sequential consistency.
Updating PET/CT performance standards and PET/CT interpretation criteria should go hand in hand
Authors: Boellaard Ronald , Sera Terez , Kaalep Andres , Hoekstra Otto S. , Barrington Sally F. , Zijlstra Josée M. 
Published: October 2019

Abstract
This letter aims at explaining that adjusting the performance of PET/CT systems to a new standard also requires updating of interpretation criteria. Simply changing one aspect of the imaging procedure, i.e., PET/CT performance and image quality, and not adapting interpretation criteria will result in an increase of false positive (or negative) reads.
Camel milk production and marketing: Pastoral areas of Afar, Ethiopia
Authors: Gebremichael Belets , Girmay Shishay , Gebru Mu’uz 
Published: October 2019

Abstract
Dromedary camels produce more milk for a longer period of time than any other milk animal held under the same harsh conditions. Produced milk is a primary source of some pastoralists’ food, nutrition and income security all year round. However, there are limited research efforts on exploiting camel milk potential and its promotion for consumption and marketing. Thus, a cross-sectional survey was conducted on 100 camel herders; nine traders and three cooperatives during March to April 2017 in Afar region of Ethiopia. Besides, discussions were held with district leaders, end consumers and local elders. Collected data were analysed using descriptive statistical tools, figures and diagrams. The survey result revealed that 56.6% camel herds were lactating. Milking was done by men twice (67%) and three times (33%) per day with an average of 4.2 L per camel. A total of 82% of the camel herders were marketers, and women were dominant. Camel herders sold an average of 14.3 L milk per day at an average price of USD 0.95 per litre, whereas middlemen sold an average of 35.8 L at USD 1.22 per litre. The milk trade was done at herders’ farm gate (18.3%), main road-sides (58.5%) and nearest towns (23.2%) using small plastic pots (68.3%) and plastic jerrycans (31.7%). Amongst the three marketing channels, 69.9% of the milk was directly sold to end consumers and fetched a higher price than other marketing channels, but the routes are limited to local markets. The camel herders perceived that they satisfied with milk for its nutritional, medicinal, social and economic values. Therefore, interventions need to focus on exploiting opportunities, addressing challenges/constraints in camel milk production and its marketing chain efficiency and effectiveness.
Modeling the relationship between network operators and venue owners in public Wi-Fi deployment using non-cooperative game theory
Authors: Spruytte Jonathan , Benhamiche Amal , Chardy Matthieu , Verbrugge Sofie , Colle Didier 
Published: October 2019

AbstractWireless data demands keep rising at a fast rate. In 2016, Cisco measured a global mobile data traffic volume of 7.2 Exabytes per month and projected a growth to 49 Exabytes per month in 2021. Wi-Fi plays an important role in this as well. Up to 60% of the total mobile traffic was off-loaded via Wi-Fi (and femtocells) in 2016. This is further expected to increase to 63% in 2021. In this publication, we look into the roll-out ofpublicWi-Fi networks, public meaning in a public or semi-public place (pubs, restaurants, sport stadiums, etc.). More concretely we look into the collaboration between two parties, a technical party and a venue owner, for the roll-out of a new Wi-Fi network. The technical party is interested in reducing load on its mobile network and generating additional direct revenues, while the venue owner wants to improve the attractiveness of the venue and consequentially generate additional indirect revenues. Three Wi-Fi pricing models are considered: entirely free, slow access with ads or fast access via paid access (freemium), and paid access only (premium). The technical party prefers a premium model with high direct revenues, the venue owner a free/freemium model which is attractive to its customers, meaning both parties have conflicting interests. This conflict has been modeled using non-cooperative game theory incorporating detailed cost and revenue models for all three Wi-Fi pricing models. The initial outcome of the game is a premium Wi-Fi network, which is not the optimal solution from an outsider’s perspective as a freemium network yields highest total payoffs. By introducing an additional compensation scheme which corresponds with negotiation in real life, the outcome of the game is steered toward a freemium solution.
An efficient storage and service method for multi-source merging meteorological big data in cloud environment
Authors: Yang Ming , He Wenchun , Zhang Zhiqiang , Xu Yongjun , Yang Heping , Chen Yufeng , Xu Xiaolong 
Published: October 2019

Abstract
With the development of the meteorological IoT (Internet of Things) and meteorological sensing network, the collected multi-source meteorological data have the characteristics of large amount of information, multidimensional and high accuracy. Cloud computing technology has been applied to the storage and service of meteorological big data. Although the constant evolution of big data storage technology is improving the storage and access of meteorological data, storage and service efficiency is still far from meeting multi-source big data requirements. Traditional methods have been used for the storage and service of meteorological data, and a number of problems still persist, such as a lack of unified storage structure, poor scalability, and poor service performance. In this study, an efficient storage and service method for multidimensional meteorological data is designed based on NoSQL big data storage technology and the multidimensional characteristics of meteorological data. In the process of data storage, multidimensional block compression technology and data structures are applied to store and transmit meteorological data. In service, heterogeneous NoSQL common components are designed to improve the heterogeneity of the NoSQL database. The results show that the proposed method has good storage transmission efficiency and versatility, and can effectively improve the efficiency of meteorological data storage and service in meteorological applications.
Image steganography based on color palette transformation in color space
Authors: Margalikas Eugenijus , Ramanauskaitė Simona 
Published: October 2019

Abstract
In this paper, we present a novel image steganography method which is based on color palette transformation in color space. Most of the existing image steganography methods modify separate image pixels, and random noise appears in the image. By proposing a method, which changes the color palette of the image (all pixels of the same color will be changed to the same color), we achieve a higher user perception. Presented comparison of stegoimage quality metrics with other image steganography methods proved the new method is one of the best according to Structural Similarity Index (SSIM) and Peak Signal Noise Ratio (PSNR) values. The capability is average among other methods, but our method has a bigger capacity among methods with better SSIM and PSNR values. The color and pixel capability can be increased by using standard or adaptive color palette images with smoothing, but it will increase the embedding identification possibility.
Interpersonal psychotherapy for perinatal women: a systematic review and meta-analysis protocol
Authors: Bright Katherine S. , Charrois Elyse M. , Mughal Muhammad Kashif , Wajid Abdul , McNeil Deborah , Stuart Scott , Hayden K. Alix , Kingston Dawn 
Published: October 2019

AbstractBackgroundInterpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) is an intervention that has established efficacy in the prevention and treatment of depressive disorders. Previous systematic reviews have not evaluated the effectiveness of IPT on symptoms of stress, anxiety, depression, quality of life, relationship satisfaction/quality, social supports, and an improved psychological sense of well-being. There is limited data regarding factors that moderate and mediate the effectiveness of IPT including the timing of the intervention or the mode of delivery of IPT intervention. The objective of this systematic review and meta-analysis is to evaluate the effectiveness, feasibility, and acceptability of IPT interventions to treat perinatal psychological distress and to summarize the evidence on predictors, mediators, and moderators of IPT.MethodsWe will include peer-reviewed studies that recruited perinatal women. The search strategy will involve the following databases: MEDLINE (Ovid), EMBASE (Ovid), PsycINFO (Ovid), Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (Ovid), CINAHL with Full Text (EBSCO), Social Work Abstracts (EBSCO), SocINDEX with Full Text (EBSCO), Academic Search Complete (EBSCO), Family & Society Studies Worldwide (EBSCO), Family Studies Abstracts (EBSCO), and Scopus. Study inclusion criteria include (1) randomized controlled trials, quasi-experimental studies, and pre-post studies that evaluated the effectiveness of IPT; (2) qualitative studies that evaluated feasibility and acceptability of IPT; (3) study sample included and analyzed perinatal women; and (4) publication language was English. Using pilot-tested screening and data extraction forms, two reviewers will independently review studies in three steps: (1) abstract/title screening, (2) full-text screening of potentially accepted studies, and (3) data extraction of accepted studies. Disagreements will be resolved by a third reviewer. Studies will be aggregated for meta-synthesis and meta-analysis should the data allow for this. Two independent reviewers will grade methodological quality.DiscussionFindings from this review will inform future development and implementation of IPT intervention research for perinatal women. Identifying key factors of successful IPT interventions will inform intervention design and adaptation of IPT interventions to increase the likelihood that perinatal women will engage in and benefit from IPT interventions. This review will also identify key considerations for increasing the effectiveness of IPT interventions during the perinatal period.Systematic review registrationPROSPEROCRD42019114292