bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Balancing Efficiency and Fairness in Liver Transplant Access: Tradeoff Curves for the Assessment of Organ Distribution Policies
Authors: Bertsimas Dimitris , Papalexopoulos Theodore , Trichakis Nikolaos , Wang Yuchen , Hirose Ryutaro , Vagefi Parsia A. 
Published: October 2019

Background.
Current distribution policies have resulted in persistent geographic disparity in access to donated livers across the country for waitlisted candidates.

Methods.
Using mathematical optimization, and subsequently the Liver Simulation Allocation Model, the following organ distribution concepts were assessed: (1) current policy, (2) proposed alternative models, and (3) a novel continuous distribution model. A number of different scenarios for each policy distribution concept were generated and analyzed through efficiency-fairness tradeoff curves.

Results.
The continuous distribution concept allowed both for the greatest reduction in patient deaths and for the most equitable geographic distribution across comparable organ transportation burden. When applied with an Optimized Prediction of Mortality allocation scheme, continuous distribution allowed for a significant reduction in number of deaths—on the order of 500 lives saved annually (https://livervis.github.io/).

Conclusions.
Tradeoff curves allow for a visualized understanding on the efficiency/fairness balance, and have demonstrated that liver candidates awaiting transplant would benefit from a model employing continuous distribution as this holds the greatest advantage for mortality reduction. Development and implementation of continuous distribution models for all solid organ transplants may allow for minimization of the geographic disparity in organ distribution, and allow for efficient and fair access to a limited national resource for all candidates.
Use of De Novo mTOR Inhibitors in Hypersensitized Kidney Transplant Recipients: Experience From Clinical Practice
Authors: Cucchiari David , Molina-Andujar Alicia , Montagud-Marrahi Enrique , Revuelta Ignacio , Rovira Jordi , Ventura-Aguiar Pedro , Piñeiro Gastón J. , De Sousa-Amorim Erika , Esforzado Nuria , Cofán Frederic , Torregrosa Jose-Vicente , Ugalde-Altamirano Jessica , Ricart M. José , Centellas-Pérez Francisco J. , Solè Manel , Martorell Jaume , Ríos José , Campistol Josep M. , Diekmann Fritz , Oppenheimer Frederic 
Published: October 2019

Background.It is commonly believed that mTOR inhibitors (mTORi) should not be used in high-immunological risk kidney transplant recipients due to a perceived increased risk of rejection. However, almost all trials that examined the association of optimal-dose mTORi with calcineurin inhibitor (CNI) have excluded hypersensitized recipients from enrollment.Methods.To shed light on this issue, we examined 71 consecutive patients with a baseline calculated panel reactive antibody (cPRA) ≥50% that underwent kidney transplantation from June 2013 to December 2016 in our unit. Immunosuppression was based on CNI (tacrolimus), steroids and alternatively mycophenolic acid (MPA; n = 38), or mTORi (either everolimus or sirolimus, n = 33, target trough levels 3–8 ng/mL).Results.Demographic and immunological risk profiles were similar, and almost 90% of patients in both groups received induction with lymphocyte-depleting agents. Cox-regression analysis of rejection-free survival revealed better results for mTORi versus MPA in terms of biopsy-proven acute rejection (hazard ratio [confidence interval], 0.32 [0.11-0.90],P= 0.031 at univariable analysis and 0.34 [0.11-0.95],P= 0.040 at multivariable analysis). There were no differences in 1-year renal function, Banff chronicity score at 3- and 12-month protocol biopsy and development of de novo donor-specific antibodies. Tacrolimus trough levels along the first year were not different between groups (12-mo levels were 8.72 ± 2.93 and 7.85 ± 3.07 ng/mL for MPA and mTORi group respectively,P= 0.277).Conclusions.This single-center retrospective cohort analysis suggests that in hypersensitized kidney transplant recipients receiving tacrolimus-based immunosuppressive therapy similar clinical outcomes may be obtained using mTOR inhibitors compared to mycophenolate.
Interactions between emotion and action in the brain
Authors: Portugal Liana C L , Alves Rita C S , Fernandes-Junior Orlando , Sanchez Tiago A , Mocaiber Izabela , Volchan Eliane , Erthal Fátima , David Isabel A , Kim Jongwan , Oliveira Leticia , Padmala Srikanth , Chen Gang , Pessoa Luiz , Pereira Mirtes G 
Published: October 2019

AbstractA growing literature supports the existence of interactions between emotion and action in the brain, and the central participation of the anterior midcingulate cortex (aMCC) in this regard. In the present functional magnetic resonance imaging study, we sought to investigate the role of self-relevance during such interactions by varying the context in which threating pictures were presented (with guns pointed towards or away from the observer). Participants performed a simple visual detection task following exposure to such stimuli. Except for voxelwise tests, we adopted a Bayesian analysis framework which evaluated evidence for the hypotheses of interest, given the data, in a continuous fashion. Behaviorally, our results demonstrated a valence by context interaction such that there was a tendency of speeding up responses to targets after viewing threat pictures directed towards the participant. In the brain, interaction patterns that paralleled those observed behaviorally were observed most notably in the middle temporal gyrus, supplementary motor area, precentral gyrus, and anterior insula. In these regions, activity was overall greater during threat conditions relative to neutral ones, and this effect was enhanced in the directed towards context. A valence by context interaction was observed in the aMCC too, where we also observed a correlation (across participants) of evoked responses and reaction time data. Taken together, our study revealed the context-sensitive engagement of motor-related areas during emotional perception, thus supporting the idea that emotion and action interact in important ways in the brain.
Synergistic population encoding and precise coordinated variability across interlaminar ensembles in the early visual system
Authors: Denman Daniel J , Reid R Clay 
Published: October 2019

ABSTRACTSensory stimuli are represented by the joint activity of large populations of neurons across the mammalian cortex. Information in such responses is limited by trial-to-trial variability. Because that variability is not independent between neurons, it has the potential to improve or degrade the amount of sensory information in the population response. How visual information scales with population size remains an open empirical question. Here, we use Neuropixels to simultaneously record tens to hundreds of single neurons in primary visual cortex (V1) and lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) of mice and estimate population information. We found a mix of synergistic and redundant coding: synergy predominated in small populations (2-12 cells) before giving way to redundancy. The shared variability of this coding regime included global shared spike count variability at longer timescales, layer specific shared spike count variability at finer timescales, and shared variability in spike timing (jitter) that linked ensembles that span layers. Such ensembles defined by their shared variability carry more information. Our results suggest fine time scale stimulus encoding may be distributed across physically overlapping but distinct ensembles in V1.
A Bayesian approach to inferring dispersal kernels with incomplete mark-recapture data
Authors: Terui Akira 
Published: October 2019

AbstractDispersal is a fundamental ecological process that links populations, communities and food webs in space. However, dispersal is tremendously difficult to study in the wild because we must track individuals dispersing in a landscape. One conventional method to measure animal dispersal is a mark-recapture technique. Despite its usefulness, this approach has been recurrently criticized because it is virtually impossible to survey all possible ranges of dispersal in nature. Here, I propose a novel Bayesian model to better estimate dispersal parameters from incomplete mark-recapture data. The dispersal-observation coupled model, DOCM, can extract information from both recaptured and unrecaptured individuals, providing less biased estimates of dispersal parameters. Simulations demonstrated the usefulness of DOCM under various sampling designs. I also suggest extensions of the DOCM to accommodate more realistic scenarios. Application of the DOCM may, therefore, provide valuable insights into how individuals disperse in the wild.
Developing a transcriptomic framework for testing testosterone-mediated handicap hypotheses
Authors: Newhouse Daniel J. , Vernasco Ben J. 
Published: October 2019

ABSTRACTSexually selected traits are hypothesized to be honest signals of individual quality due to the costs associated with their maintenance, development, and/or production. Testosterone, a sex steroid associated with the development and/or production of sexually selected traits, has been proposed to enforce the honesty of sexually selected traits via its immunosuppressive effects (i.e., the Immunocompetence Handicap Hypothesis) and/or by influencing an individual’s exposure/susceptibility to oxidative stress (i.e., the Oxidation Handicap Hypothesis). Previous work testing these hypotheses has primarily focused on physiological measurements of immunity or oxidative stress, but little is known about the molecular pathways by which testosterone could influence immunity and/or oxidative stress pathways. To further understand the transcriptomic consequences of experimentally elevated testosterone in the context of handicap hypotheses, we used previously published RNA-seq data from studies that measured the transcriptome of individuals treated with either a testosterone-filled or an empty (i.e., control) implant. Two studies encompassing three species of bird and three tissue types fit our selection criteria and we reanalyzed the data using weighted gene co-expression network analysis. Our results show that testosterone-treated individuals exhibited signatures of immunosuppression and we provide some evidence to suggest that the transcriptomic signature of immunosuppression is evolutionarily conserved between the three species. While our results provide no evidence to suggest testosterone mediates handicaps via pathways associated with oxidative stress, they do support the hypothesis that testosterone enforces the honesty of sexually-selected traits by influencing an individual’s immunocompetence. Overall, this study develops a framework for testing testosterone-mediated handicap hypotheses and provides guidelines for future integrative and comparative studies focused on the proximate mechanisms mediating sexually selected traits.
Lesion of striatal patches disrupts habitual behaviors and increases behavioral variability
Authors: Nadel Jacob A. , Neidhart Maya , Pawelko Sean S. , Copes-Finke Della , Howard Christopher D. 
Published: October 2019

AbstractHabits are automated behaviors that are insensitive to changes in behavioral outcomes. Habitual responding is thought to be mediated by striatum, with medial striatum guiding goal-directed action and lateral striatum promoting habits. However, interspersed throughout the striatum are neurochemically differing subcompartments known as patches, which are characterized by distinct molecular profiles relative to the surrounding matrix tissue. These structures have been thoroughly characterized neurochemically and anatomically, but little is known regarding their function. Patches have been shown to be selectively activated during inflexible motor stereotypies elicited by stimulants, suggesting that patches may subserve habitual behaviors. To explore this possibility, we utilized transgenic mice (Sepw1 NP67) expressing Cre recombinase in striatal patches to target these neurons for selective ablation with a virus driving Cre-dependent expression of caspase 3. Mice were then trained to press a lever for sucrose rewards on a variable interval schedule to elicit habitual responding. Mice were not impaired on the acquisition of this task, but lesioning striatal patches disrupted behavioral stability across training and lesioned mice utilized a more goal-directed behavioral strategy during training. Similarly, when mice were forced to omit responses to receive sucrose rewards, habitual responding was impaired in lesioned mice. To rule out effects of lesion on motor behaviors, mice were then tested for impairments in motor learning on a rotarod and locomotion in an open field. We found that patch lesions specifically impaired initial performance on the rotarod without modifying locomotor behaviors in open field. This work indicates that patches promote behavioral stability and habitual responding, adding to a growing literature implicating striatal patches in stimulus-response behaviors.
An Evaluation of the In Vitro Roles and Mechanisms of Silibinin in Reducing Pyrazinamide- and Isoniazid-Induced Hepatocellular Damage
Authors: Goh Zhang-He , Tee Jie Kai , Ho Han Kiat 
Published: October 2019

AbstractTuberculosis remains a significant infectious lung disease that affects millions of patients worldwide. Despite numerous existing drug regimens for tuberculosis, Drug-Induced Liver Injury is a major challenge that limits the effectiveness of these therapeutics. Two drugs that form the backbone of the commonly administered quadruple antitubercular regimen, i.e. pyrazinamide (PZA) and isoniazid (INH), are associated with such hepatotoxicity. The problem is compounded by the lack of safe and effective alternatives to the antitubercular regimen. Consequently, current research largely focuses on exploiting the hepatoprotective effect of nutraceutical compounds as complementary therapy. Silibinin, a herbal product widely believed to protect against various liver diseases, potentially provides a useful solution given its hepatoprotective mechanisms. In our study, we identified silibinin’s role in mitigating PZA- and INH-induced hepatotoxicity and elucidated a deeper mechanistic understanding of silibinin’s hepatoprotective ability. 25 μM silibinin preserved the viability of human foetal hepatocyte line LO2 when co-administered with 80 mM INH and decreased apoptosis induced by a combination of 40 mM INH and 10 mM PZA by reducing oxidative damage to mitochondria, proteins, and lipids. Taken together, this proof-of-concept forms the rational basis for the further investigation of silibinin’s hepatoprotective effect in subsequent preclinical studies and clinical trials.Graphical Abstract
Rapid fabrication of collagen bundles mimicking tumor-associated collagen signatures
Authors: Gong Xiangyu , Kulwatno Jonathan , Mills K. L. 
Published: October 2019

AbstractStromal collagen surrounding a solid tumor tends to present as dense, thick bundles. The collagen bundles are remodeled during tumor progression: first tangential to the tumor boundary (indicating growth) and later perpendicular to the tumor boundary (indicating likely metastasis). Current reconstituted-collagenin vitrotumor models are unable to recapitulate thein vivostructural features of collagen bundling and alignment. Here, we present a rapid yet simple procedure to fabricate collagen bundles with an average thickness of 9 μm, compared to the reticular dense collagen nanofiber (∼900 nm-diameter, on average) prepared using common protocols. The versatility of the collagen bundles was demonstrated with their incorporation into twoin vitromodels where the thickness and alignment of the collagen bundles resembled the variousin vivoarrangements. First, collagen bundles aligned by a microfluidic device elicited cancer cell contact guidance and enhanced their directional migration. Second, the presence of the collagen bundles in a bio-inert agarose hydrogel was shown to provide a highway for cancer cell invasion. The unique structural features of the collagen bundles advance the physiological relevance ofin vitrocollagen-based tumor models for accurately capturing cancer cell-stroma interactions.
Corporate reputation and retail bank selection: the moderating role of brand image
Authors: Narteh Bedman , Braimah Mahama 
Published: October 2019

PurposeEven though scholars have proposed multiple dimensions to measure corporate reputation, the relationship between these dimensions and service provider selection has received a dearth of research. Moreover, the moderating role of brand image on this relationship has hardly been considered. The purpose of this paper is to fill these gaps in the literature.Design/methodology/approachThe study employed a quantitative approach, collecting data from 540 retail bank customers using surveys. Results were analyzed using structural equation modelling in AMOS.FindingsThe study found out that emotional engagement, corporate performance, customer centricism and service quality directly predicted customer selection of retail banks in Ghana. The results further indicated that brand image moderates the relationship between social and ethical engagement, which was not directly significant and bank selection.Practical implicationsThe findings of the study indicate that some of the dimensions of corporate reputation have a direct impact on bank selection by customers, and that brand image could also be used to improve social and ethical dimension of corporate reputation to ensure bank selection by retail customers. The study thus provides practical guidelines for managing corporate reputation to achieve retail bank selection in Ghana.Originality/valueThe paper provides support to some of the prior studies on corporate reputation in the retail banking sector. Thus, the study provides useful insights into how corporate reputation can be managed to ensure service provider selection by retail bank customers.
Habitat loss and fragmentation increase realized predator–prey body size ratios
Authors: Hillaert Jasmijn , Vandegehuchte Martijn L. , Hovestadt Thomas , Bonte Dries 
Published: October 2019

Abstract

In the absence of predators, habitat fragmentation favours large body sizes to facilitate gap crossing. The size of primary consumers is, however, also shaped by top‐down effects as predators select prey of a certain size. Therefore, higher trophic levels should be taken into consideration when studying the effect of habitat loss and fragmentation on size distributions of herbivores.

We built a model to study the effect of habitat loss and fragmentation within a tri‐trophic food chain. Body size is directly linked to movement capacity and metabolic processes and considered as a master trait under selection.

We show that basal resources accumulate locally if a predator causes top‐down control of the herbivore. Due to this increasing spatiotemporal variability in resource availability, larger herbivores are selected than in scenarios without predator as they are able to move further.

As predators cause herbivores to be intrinsically much larger than the optimal sizes selected by habitat fragmentation in the absence of predators, habitat fragmentation is no longer a significant driver of herbivore size. However, there is selection for increased predator size with habitat fragmentation as herbivores become less abundant, hence favouring gap‐crossing ability of the predator.

Since herbivore and predator body size respond differently to habitat loss and fragmentation, realized predator–herbivore body size ratios increase along this fragmentation gradient. Our model demonstrates how feedbacks between the abundance, body size and mobility of predators and prey ultimately determine body size distributions in food webs. These new insights shed light on the impact of habitat destruction and fragmentation on overall food web structure.

A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.
Street Performance, Public Space, and the Boundaries of Urban Desirability: The Case of Living Statues in Barcelona
Authors: Astor Avi 
Published: October 2019

AbstractHow do cities determine who has the right to station themselves in iconic public spaces? This article explores this question by analyzing the evolution of Barcelona's approach to regulating street performance, with a particular focus on regulations pertaining to ‘living statues’. Although most buskers have been expelled from the Ramblas, one of the city's most emblematic walkways, living statues remain permitted on the promenade. This, I argue, is due to the general embrace of statues as part of local tradition and their integration within city‐branding campaigns, as well as their own organizing and boundary work. As the image Barcelona seeks to cultivate has changed, however, the right of statues to station themselves in public space has become ever more tenuous. My findings speak to broader questions regarding how cities determine the boundaries of ‘urban desirability’, as well as why and how such boundaries change over time. They also elucidate the strategies that groups located at the margins employ in attempting to position themselves favorably in relation to such boundaries. More generally, they highlight how current approaches to analyzing urban inclusion and exclusion may benefit from a more sustained engagement with the burgeoning social scientific literature on symbolic boundaries.
The role of government intervention in financial development: micro‐evidence from China
Authors: Feng Lingbing , Fu Tong , Apergis Nicholas , Tao Hu , Yan Wu 
Published: October 2019

AbstractThis paper distinguishes between different forms of government intervention upon a firm, including the firm’s tax burden, sales to the government and state shares. We investigate how these types of government intervention affect micro‐financial development. With evidence from China, we confirm that the micro‐financial development is promoted by the firm’s tax burden and sales to the government but constrained by the firm’s state shares. The findings remain robust to the endogeneity issue. The findings offer applications for government policies or a firm’s financing strategies.
Survey shows marked variations in approaches to redirection of care for critically ill very preterm infants in 11 countries
Authors: Helenius Kjell , Morisaki Naho , Kusuda Satoshi , Shah Prakesh S. , Norman Mikael , Lehtonen Liisa , Reichman Brian , Darlow Brian A. , Noguchi Akihiko , Adams Mark , Bassler Dirk , Håkansson Stellan , Isayama Tetsuya , Berti Elettra , Lee Shoo K. , Vento Maximo , Lui Kei ,   the International Network for Evaluation of Outcomes of neonates (iNeo)
Published: October 2019

AbstractAimWe surveyed care practices for critically ill very preterm infants admitted to neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) in the International Network for Evaluating Outcomes in Neonates (iNeo) to identify differences relevant to outcome comparisons.MethodsWe conducted an online survey on care practices for critically ill very preterm infants and infants with severe intracranial haemorrhage (ICH). The survey was distributed in 2015 to representatives of 390 NICUs in 11 countries. Survey replies were compared with network incidence of death and severe ICH for infants born between 230/7 and 286/7 weeks of gestation from January 1, 2015, to December 31, 2015.ResultsMost units in Israel, Japan and Tuscany, Italy, favoured withholding care when care was considered futile, whereas most units in other networks favoured redirection of care. For infants with bilateral grade 4 ICH, redirection of care was very frequently (≥90% of cases) offered in the majority of units in Australia and New Zealand and Switzerland, but rarely in other networks. Networks where redirection of care was frequently offered for severe ICH had lower rates of survivors with severe ICH.ConclusionWe identified marked inter‐network differences in care approaches that need to be considered when comparing outcomes.