bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Indicators of active disease and steroid dependency in patients with inflammatory bowel diseases not treated with biologics in a German real-world-setting
Authors: Bokemeyer B. , Ghiani M. , Fuchs A. , Deiters B. , Hardtstock F. , Brandes A. , Knop J. , Orzechowski H. D. , Wilke T. 
Published: May 2020

Abstract
Background and aims
While a minority of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients receives biologics in Germany, little is known about therapeutic needs of patients receiving non-biologic therapies. This study aimed to identify indicators of active disease/steroid dependency in patients with moderate to severe Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) treated with conventional therapies and to describe health care resource use (HCRU)/cost.

Methods
CD/UC patients treated with immunosuppressants (IS) and/or systemic or locally acting oral corticosteroids (CS) were identified in German claims data (2013–2017) and followed for 12 months post-therapy start. Indicators of active disease/steroid dependency during follow-up period were (i) ≥ 2 prescriptions of CS (sensitivity ≥ 4) or (ii) ≥ 1 IBD-related surgery or (iii) > 7 days IBD-related hospitalization(s).

Results
Of 9871 included IBD patients (5170 CD, 4701 UC), 25.7%/19.9% (CD/UC) received ≥ 2 prescriptions of CS (sensitivity, 17.4%/15.7%) (i), 3.2% experienced IBD-related surgeries (ii), and 2.5% > 7 days of hospitalizations (iii). Altogether, 44.4% had indicators of active disease/steroid dependency (sensitivity, 23.9%). Among patients with active disease/steroid dependency, 78.0% received CS monotherapy at baseline. Of these, 89.6% received a CS monotherapy in the follow-up period, too. Proportionally, fewer patients with CS monotherapy (57.4%) than IS therapy (91.0%) visited a specialist. HCRU/cost per patient year was significantly higher in patients with than without active disease/steroid dependency.

Conclusions
A substantial percentage of biologic-naïve IBD patients suffers from active disease/steroid dependency. The majority receives a monotherapy with systemic CS. Referral to gastroenterologists for treatment optimization is recommended, also because active disease/steroid dependency is associated with increased HCRU/cost.
RHEEMix in the data jungle: a cost-based optimizer for cross-platform systems
Authors: Kruse Sebastian , Kaoudi Zoi , Contreras-Rojas Bertty , Chawla Sanjay , Naumann Felix , Quiané-Ruiz Jorge-Arnulfo 
Published: May 2020

AbstractData analytics are moving beyond the limits of a single platform. In this paper, we present the cost-based optimizer of Rheem, an open-source cross-platform system that copes with these new requirements. The optimizer allocates the subtasks of data analytic tasks to the most suitable platforms. Our main contributions are: (i) a mechanism based on graph transformations to explore alternative execution strategies; (ii) a novel graph-based approach to determine efficient data movement plans among subtasks and platforms; and (iii) an efficient plan enumeration algorithm, based on a novel enumeration algebra. We extensively evaluate our optimizer under diverse real tasks. We show that our optimizer can perform tasks more than one order of magnitude faster when using multiple platforms than when using a single platform.
Multiple Ecosystem Effects of Extreme Weather Events in the Arctic
Authors: Christensen T. R. , Lund M. , Skov K. , Abermann J. , López-Blanco E. , Scheller J. , Scheel M. , Jackowicz-Korczynski M. , Langley K. , Murphy M. J. , Mastepanov M. 
Published: May 2020

AbstractThe Arctic is getting warmer and wetter. Here, we document two independent examples of how associated extreme precipitation patterns have severe implications for high Arctic ecosystems. The events stand out in a 23-year record of continuous observations of a wide range of ecosystem parameters and act as an early indication of conditions projected to increase in the future. In NE Greenland, August 2015, one-quarter of the average annual precipitation fell during a 9-day intensive rain event. This ranked number one for daily sums during the 1996–2018 period and caused a strong and prolonged reduction in solar radiation decreasing CO2uptake in the order of 18–23 g C m−2, a reduction comparable to typical annual C budgets in Arctic tundra. In a different type of event, but also due to changed weather patterns, an extreme snow melt season in 2018 triggered a dramatic gully thermokarst causing rapid transformation in ecosystem functioning from consistent annual ecosystem CO2uptake and low methane exchange to highly elevated methane release, net source of CO2, and substantial export of organic carbon downstream as riverine and coastal input. In addition to climate warming alone, more frequent occurrence of extreme weather patterns will have large implications for otherwise undisturbed tundra ecosystems including their element transport and carbon interactions with the atmosphere and ocean.
Moral Identity and the Quaker tradition: Moral Dissonance Negotiation in the WorkPlace
Authors: Burton Nicholas , Vu Mai Chi 
Published: May 2020

AbstractMoral identity and moral dissonance in business ethics have explored tensions relating to moral self-identity and the pressures for identity compartmentalization in the workplace. Yet, the connection between these streams of scholarship, spirituality at work, and business ethics is under-theorized. In this paper, we examine the Quaker tradition to explore how Quakers’ interpret moral identity and negotiate the moral dissonance associated with a divided self in work organizations. Specifically, our study illuminates that while Quakers’ share a tradition-specific conception of “Quaker morality” grounded in Quaker theology and the Quaker testimonies to truth, integrity, peace, equality, and simplicity, they often foreground the pursuit of an undivided self through seeking work that enables an expression of Quaker moral identity, or by resigning from work organizations that do not. In most cases, however, Quakers’ face moral dissonance at work and engage in either identity compartmentalization and draw upon the metaphor of a ‘spiritual journey’ as a form of self-justification, or reframe, compartmentalize and engage in work tasks that are both subjectively moral and meaningful. We present a model that elaborates these negotiation processes and invite further research that examines how the spiritual traditions influence moral identity construction at work.
Seasonal patterns in the developmental rate of glochidia in the endangered thick-shelled river mussel, Unio crassus Philipsson, 1788
Authors: Zając Katarzyna , Zając Tadeusz A. 
Published: May 2020

AbstractFemales of freshwater mussels spawn eggs which, after fertilization, are brooded until the developing larvae reach a stadium ready to infest a fish host in order to complete the obligate parasitic phase of their life. We investigated the duration of the brooding period in the endangered thick-shelled river mussel Unio crassus in two rivers in southern Poland and identified the stadia of glochidia development which could be used to assess current larval developmental stages. The eggs were fertilized in marsupia. The duration of the brooding period shortened significantly during the season, from 35 days in early spring to 9 days in summer. The break between consecutive broods was usually short but very variable: from almost no break to 17 days. 20% of brooding events inspected every other day were miscarried at different stadia of larval development. The recorded differences in brooding time may significantly influence the reproductive output of individuals and populations, depending on the thermal conditions, which may be affected by both anthropogenic impact and global climate change. The study offers a practical scheme for assessing female gravidity advancement in Unio crassus, which may be very informative for the future application of conservation measures in this endangered European species.
Data-driven child behavior prediction system based on posture database for fall accident prevention in a daily living space
Authors: Nose Tsubasa , Kitamura Koji , Oono Mikiko , Nishida Yoshifumi , Ohkura Michiko 
Published: May 2020

AbstractTen thousand children are admitted to emergency rooms due to accidents every year in Tokyo. The most frequent accident is a fall accident. Fall accidents may occur when climbing to a high place in a daily living space. Since injury prevention by human supervision does not work well, the World Health Organization recommends an environmental modification approach as an effective preventive countermeasure to this problem. Predicting children’s behavior is necessary in order to improve the environment. However, even for advanced human modeling technology, predicting where children can climb in everyday life situations remains difficult. In the present study, the authors developed a new method for predicting places that children can climb in a data-driven manner by integrating cameras, a behavior recognition system (OpenPose), and a climbing motion planning algorithm based on a rapidly exploring random tree. Thirty five children participated in an experiment to collect climbing posture data. A simulation is performed based on the posture database and allows us to visually understand how children climb up in daily living space. This makes it possible to improve to achieve a safe environment for children without the need for specialized knowledge, which is useful for parents, nursery teachers, nurses, etc. The present paper describes fundamental functions of the developed system and presents an evaluation of the feasibility of the prediction function.
Sparse Principal Component Analysis for Natural Language Processing
Authors: Drikvandi Reza , Lawal Olamide 
Published: May 2020

AbstractHigh dimensional data are rapidly growing in many different disciplines, particularly in natural language processing. The analysis of natural language processing requires working with high dimensional matrices of word embeddings obtained from text data. Those matrices are often sparse in the sense that they contain many zero elements. Sparse principal component analysis is an advanced mathematical tool for the analysis of high dimensional data. In this paper, we study and apply the sparse principal component analysis for natural language processing, which can effectively handle large sparse matrices. We study several formulations for sparse principal component analysis, together with algorithms for implementing those formulations. Our work is motivated and illustrated by a real text dataset. We find that the sparse principal component analysis performs as good as the ordinary principal component analysis in terms of accuracy and precision, while it shows two major advantages: faster calculations and easier interpretation of the principal components. These advantages are very helpful especially in big data situations.
An effective co-evolutionary algorithm based on artificial bee colony and differential evolution for time series predicting optimization
Authors: Yang Yun , Duan Zongtao 
Published: May 2020

AbstractNon-linear model optimization for predicting time series is a challenge problem. In Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) application, the indispensable short-term traffic flow prediction with big data makes the problem worst. To improve the prediction accuracy and ensure real-time performance in the big data environment, we propose a novel co-evolutionary artificial bee colony (ABC) improved by differential evolution (DE) optimization algorithm combined with a traffic flow predicting model trained by extreme learning machine (ELM) neural network. The proposed model can inherit the better generalization performance and the less training time consumption of the standard ELM, and can achieve a more balanced search strategy with the optimized weights and biases to overcome the random initialization deficiency of the typical ELM, and successfully obtain higher prediction accuracy compared with state-of-the-art methods. To verify the efficiency of the proposed model, we apply it to Lozi and Tent chaotic time series simulations and measured traffic flow time series experiments. Simulation and experimental results demonstrate that the proposed model has superior performance and competitive computational efficiency.
Evidence-based thoracic epidural nerve block: A systematic review
Authors: Chekol Wubie Birlie , Melesse Debas Yaregal , Denu Zewuditu Abdissa , Tawuye Hailu Yimer 
Published: May 2020

ABSTRACT

Background:
Thoracic epidural nerve block (TENB) is a technique in which analgesia is produced by injecting local anesthetic agent by itself or combined with additives or alone into the epidural space. This systematic review was designed to improve the quality of pain management and to form a common consensus for TENB based on the current evidences.

Methods:
PubMed through HINARI was used to get access for current and updated evidences on TENB for cardio-thoracic and major abdominal surgeries. The flow diagram was used to show the filtration methods of suitable literature.

Discussion:
TENB should be started after checking baseline vital signs and after preparation of emergent phenomenon. The prominent part of C7, T3 scapular spine and the inferior border of T7 are used to localize the intended segment during performing the procedures. Skin infiltration with aseptic technique of 2–3 ml of 2% lidocaine, test dose of 3 ml of lidocaine with 1:200,000 epinephrine, and loading dose of 3–5 ml of 0.25–0.5% bupivacaine are recommended for TENB. The maintenance dose is 3–5 ml of 0.1–0.25% of bupivacaine. The thoracic epidural catheter will not stay for more than 4 days. Post-procedural care and monitoring should be performed for patients on thoracic epidural catheter.

Conclusion:
Generally, appropriate preoperative patient evaluation, pre-procedural preparation of the necessary materials, and consideration of the possible options should be mandatory. Anesthetists should be familiar with the landmark techniques, troubleshooting, administration of safe doses of the drug, and post-epidural catheter insertion care.

Highlights:
A GENERALISED PROPERTY EXPOSURE RATING FRAMEWORK THAT INCORPORATES SCALE-INDEPENDENT LOSSES AND MAXIMUM POSSIBLE LOSS UNCERTAINTY
Authors: Parodi Pietro 
Published: May 2020

AbstractA generalised property exposure rating framework is presented here to address two issues arising in the standard approach to exposure rating, especially in the context of direct insurance and facultative reinsurance (D&F) property pricing:
(a)What to do when the main assumption of exposure rating, scalability – that is, that the probability of a given damage ratio does not depend on the maximum possible loss (MPL) but only on the type of property – breaks down.(b)How to take account of the uncertainty around the MPL, that is, the fact that the MPL (unlike the insured value, IV) is an informed estimate rather than a contractual feature.The first difficulty is addressed by making the exposure rating framework more flexible by introducing exposure curves that are a mixture of scale-dependent and scale-independent losses, and where the weight given to the two components is a function of the MPL. This allows to model the impact on the expected losses of changes in the underlying deductibles, a classic problem in D&F pricing normally solved with the help of deductible impact tables. The second difficulty is addressed by working out the mathematical implications of having a finite probability of exceeding the MPL and extending the exposure curve up to the maximum of MPL and IV. A practical application of this framework – in which the scale-independent and scale-dependent losses are identified with attritional and large losses respectively – is described. A discussion of how this generalised framework can be calibrated based on actual data is included, and implementation code for the framework is made available.
Developing a Business and Human Rights Treaty: Lessons from the Deep Seabed Mining Regime Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
Authors: BERNAZ Nadia , PIETROPAOLI Irene 
Published: May 2020

AbstractThis article delves into the deep seabed mining regime under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) with a view to inform the negotiating process of the proposed business and human rights (BHR) treaty. It highlights points of convergence and divergence between the two regulatory regimes and explores how the BHR treaty negotiations could draw from the deep seabed mining regime with regard to the responsibility and liability of states and corporations. In particular, it suggests that a BHR treaty could incorporate some of the arrangements of UNCLOS to address state obligations and direct corporate human rights obligations, both of a general and specific nature, including the obligation to carry out human rights due diligence. The article also proposes a mechanism of responsibility and liability of states and corporations under the future BHR treaty going beyond UNCLOS and embracing residual liability for home and/or host states.
Business and Armed Non-State Groups: Challenging the Landscape of Corporate (Un)accountability in Armed Conflicts
Authors: APARAC Jelena 
Published: May 2020

AbstractEconomic and armed non-state actors increasingly operate through their transnational activities. International public law excludes them from any international regulation or accountability process. International humanitarian law (IHL, the law of war) as a branch of international public law is an exception to this because it also regulates the behavior of non-state actors. Recent developments pertaining to the potential liability of business entities for involvement in international crimes, particularly when related to the activities of ANSGs challenge the traditional doctrine of international law and demonstrate the need for its norms to adapt to an evolving reality.
Responding to the accumulation of adverse childhood experiences in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic: implications for practice
Authors: Bryce India 
Published: May 2020

AbstractIn early 2020, the world as we knew it began to change dramatically and rapidly with the COVID-19 outbreak. Social distancing restrictions and lockdown measures have been the most effective course of action and an inarguably imperative approach at this time. However, in trying to keep the global population safe, social distancing measures unwittingly placed children already experiencing maltreatment and disadvantage in harm’s way. This paper will consider the evidence base which attests to the importance of considering theaccumulationof adversity when seeking to understand risk and impact of child maltreatment and disadvantage. Given the unique and unprecedented circumstances which have accompanied the COVID-19 outbreak, and the dearth of research pertaining to the impact of pandemics on child welfare, the paper draws on an emerging body of literature about the effect of natural disasters, conflict and significant global events on child maltreatment. The paper synthesises the research to date in order to call attention to the cumulative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children already experiencing abuse and neglect. The paper concludes with an outline of the implications for practice in the helping professions.
Play-by-Play Justice: Tweeting Criminal Trials in the Digital Age
Authors: Small Tamara A. , Puddister Kate 
Published: May 2020

AbstractJournalists routinely live-tweet high-profile criminal trials, a practice that raises questions about access to justice and the principle of open court. Does social media open up the justice system? There is a normative debate in the literature about the use of Twitter and social media in the courtroom. This paper takes on this debate by exploring the relationship between digital technologies and criminal justice. Through a systematic examination of journalists’ tweets during two key trials (Ghomeshi and Saretzky), we ask to what extent can the live-tweeting of court proceedings achieve greater access to justice in Canada? We argue that while the live-tweeting does provide more access to court, potentially furthering the principle of open court, the nature of this access provides little in the way of increased engagement with the public and its understanding of the legal system. This paper makes contributions to both the legal studies and digital politics literatures.
Development and implementation of a community-based research network
Authors: Minor Brittany C. , Dashner Jessica , Espín Tello Sandra M. , Bollinger Rebecca , Keglovits Marian , Stowe James , Campbell Margaret , Stark Susan L. 
Published: May 2020

AbstractIntroduction:People aging with long-term physical disabilities (PAwLTPD), meaning individuals with onset of disability from birth through midlife, often require long-term support services (LTSS) to remain independence. The LTSS system is fragmented into aging and disability organizations with little communication between them. In addition, there are currently no evidence-based LTSS-type programs listed on the Administration for Community Living website that have been demonstrated to be effective for PAwLTPD. Because of these gaps, we have developed a community-based research network (CBRN), drawing on the practice-based research network model (PBRN), to bring together aging and disability organizations to address the lack of evidence-based programs for PAwLTPD.Materials and Methods:Community-based organizations serving PAwLTPD across the state of Missouri were recruited to join the CBRN. A formative process evaluation of the network was conducted after a year to evaluate the effectiveness of the network.Results:Nine community-based organizations across the state of Missouri joined the CBRN. CBRN members include three centers for independent living (CILs), three area agencies on aging (AAAs), one CIL/AAA hybrid, one non-CIL disability organization, and one non-AAA aging organization. To date, we have held seven meetings, provided educational opportunities for CBRN members, and launched an inaugural research study within the CBRN. Formative evaluation data indicate that CBRN members feel that participation in the CBRN is beneficial.Conclusion:The PBRN model appears to be a feasible framework for use with community-based organizations to facilitate communication between agencies and to support research aimed at addressing the needs of PAwLTPD.
Oxidized silver cups can skew oxygen isotope results of small samples
Authors: Tsang Man-Yin , Yao Weiqi , Tse Kevin 
Published: May 2020

AbstractOne of the commonly used analytical approaches for measuring oxygen isotope ratios δ18O of solids (organic and inorganic) is to pyrolyze the samples to gaseous phases and then send the gas into an isotope ratio mass spectrometer system. Solid samples for δ18O measurements are usually stored in silver cups because of its low reactivity towards oxygen and other oxidants. Samples in silver cups can be dropped directly into the carbon column of the pyrolysis furnace. However, the silver cups can tarnish and then be oxidized over a prolonged storage period. We find that while a small amount of silver oxides does not affect measurements with appreciable sample sizes, it can skew isotope results of small samples. We thus recommend careful storage of samples in silver cups to minimize oxidation, such as under an air-isolated condition, and avoiding prolonged storage for accurate δ18O measurements.