bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Pilot Paramedic Survey of Benefits, Risks, and Strategies for Pediatric Prehospital Telemedicine
Authors: Boyle Tehnaz P. , Liu James , Dyer K. Sophia , Nadkarni Vinay M. , Camargo Carlos A. , Feldman James A. 
Published: July 2020

Objective
A national survey found prehospital telemedicine had potential clinical applications but lacked provider opinion on its use for pediatric emergency care. We aimed to (1) estimate prehospital telemedicine use, (2) describe perceived benefits and risks of pediatric applications, and (3) identify preferred utilization strategies by paramedics.

Methods
We administered a 14-question survey to a convenience sample of 25 Massachusetts paramedics attending a regional course in 2018. Volunteer participants were offered a gift card. We compared respondents to a state database for sample representativeness. We present descriptive statistics and summarize qualitative responses.

Results
Twenty-five paramedics completed the survey (100% response); 23 (96%) were male, 21 (84%) 40 years or older, and 23 (92%) in urban practice. Respondents were older and more experienced than the average Massachusetts paramedic. Few had used prehospital telemedicine for patients younger than 12 years (8%; 95% confidence interval, 10–26%). Potential benefits included paramedic training (80%), real-time critical care support (68%), risk mitigation (68%), patient documentation (72%), decision support for hospital team activation (68%), and scene visualization (76%). Time delays from telemedicine equipment use (76%) and physician consultation (64%), broadband reliability (52%), and cost (56%) were potential risks. Respondents preferred video strategies for scene visualization, physician-assisted assessment and care. More respondents felt pediatric telemedicine applications would benefit rural/suburban settings than urban ones.

Conclusions
Paramedics reported prehospital telemedicine is underutilized for children but identified potential benefits including provider telesupport, training, situational awareness, and documentation. Concerns included transportation delays, cost, and broadband availability. Video was preferred for limited pediatric exposure settings. These results inform which telemedicine applications and strategies paramedics favor for children.
Brief Report: Toll-like Receptor 9-1635A/G Polymorphism Is Associated With HIV-1 Rebound After Four Weeks of Interruption of Antiretroviral Therapy
Authors: Vallejo Alejandro , Molina-Pinelo Sonia , de Felipe Beatriz , Abad-Fernández María , González-Escribano María Francisca , Leal Manuel , Soriano-Sarabia Natalia 
Published: July 2020

Objectives:
This study aims to analyze the association of the presence of common polymorphisms [single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs)] on Toll-like receptors (TLRs), such as TLR9-1635A/G, TLR2-1892A/C, TLR2-2258G/A, TLR4-899A/G, and TLR4-1196C/T, with the viral rebound after stopping antiretroviral treatment (ART). CCR5-Δ32 deletion and HLA-A/HLA-B alleles were also analyzed.

Design:
Interruption of ART may be required to investigate the outcome of strategies aimed to achieve drug-free HIV remission or cure. However, interruption of ART is currently not indicated. This was a retrospective longitudinal study that included 57 long-term suppressed HIV-1-infected individuals.

Methods:
TLR SNPs were detected by real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR). CCR5-Δ32 was analyzed by conventional PCR and HLA-A and HLA-B alleles by PCR-SSOP Luminex.

Results:
HIV-1 RNA rebound at week 4 after treatment interruption positively correlated with pre-ART HIV-1 load (P = 0.025). The TLR9-1635AA genotype was independently associated with a higher HIV-1 rebound compared with those with AG + GG genotype (multivariate stepwise regression analysis, P = 0.004). Women had lower HIV-1 RNA load both at rebound and during the 72 weeks of follow-up compared with men (P < 0.05 at all time-points), whereas CD4 nadir and CD4 count set-point were similar according to sex. The pre-ART viral load was independently associated with the viral set-point (P = 0.001), whereas the presence of the HLA-A01 allele (P = 0.027) and the CD4 nadir (P = 0.001) were associated with the CD4 count set-point.

Conclusions:
The association of the TLR9-1635AA genotype with a higher HIV-1 rebound suggests that this SNP may affect the results from strategies requiring interruption of ART aimed to cure HIV-1 infection.
Anthropometric Parameters for Nose Evaluation and Nasal Surgery Planning
Authors: Piombino Pasquale , Zace Pamela , Grassia Maria Gabriella , Cataldo Rosanna , Marino Marina , De Riu Giacomo , Testa Domenico , Bonavolontà Paola , Califano Luigi 
Published: July 2020

Background:
The esthetic characteristics of face and nose are commonly evaluated before rhinoplasty using a completely subjective method, due to the lack of validated and reliable methods for quantifying facial esthetics and for accurate nose treatment planning. The aim of the study was to review the literature to determine and evaluate the points, distances, and angles commonly used in the treatment planning for rhinoplasty.

Methods:
Research based on anthropometric studies of the face and nose, published from 1987 to 2018 was included. Finally, 138 papers were selected after a statistical analysis through a simple random and non-random sample selection, and all papers were evaluated in their entirety.

Results:
According to the frequency of citation, 198 points, 336 distances, and 199 angles were listed. The first quartile of each distribution was eliminated, and frequency of more than 25% was selected. A group of 49 points, 77 distances, and 11 angles, were classified according to their anatomical region, that is, bone and soft tissues, was obtained.

Conclusions:
An enormous inhomogeneity and lack of standardized anthropometric measurement system, specifically of the nose, was evident, as the studies were conducted by authors of different origins. According to universally accepted parameters, the importance of a reliable method for nose surgery planning is highlighted.
Cancer Surgery Scheduling During and After the COVID-19 First Wave
Authors: Tzeng Ching-Wei D. , Teshome Mediget , Katz Matthew H. G. , Weinberg Jeffrey S. , Lai Stephen Y. , Antonoff Mara B. , Bird Justin E. , Shafer Aaron , Davis John W. , Adelman David M. , Moon Bryan , Reece Gregory , Prabhu Sujit S. , DeSnyder Sarah M. , Skibber John M. , Mehran Reza , Schmeler Kathleen , Roland Christina L. , Tran Cao Hop S. , Aloia Thomas A. , Caudle Abigail S. , Swisher Stephen G. , Vauthey Jean-Nicolas 
Published: July 2020

Objective:
To summarize the multi-specialty strategy and initial guidelines of a Case Review Committee in triaging oncologic surgery procedures in a large Comprehensive Cancer Center and to outline current steps moving forward after the initial wave.

Summary of Background Data:
The impetus for strategic rescheduling of operations is multifactorial and includes our societal responsibility to minimize COVID-19 exposure risk and propagation among patients, the healthcare workforce, and our community at large. Strategic rescheduling is also driven by the need to preserve limited resources. As many states have already or are considering to re-open and relax stay-at-home orders, there remains a continued need for careful surgical scheduling because we must face the reality that we will need to co-exist with COVID-19 for months, if not years.

Methods:
The quality officers, chairs, and leadership of the 9 surgical departments in our Division of Surgery provide specialty-specific approaches to appropriately triage patients.

Results:
We present the strategic approach for surgical rescheduling during and immediately after the COVID-19 first wave for the 9 departments in the Division of Surgery at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.

Conclusions:
Cancer surgeons should continue to use their oncologic knowledge to determine the window of opportunity for each surgical procedure, based on tumor biology, preoperative treatment sequencing, and response to systemic therapy, to safely guide patients through this cautious recovery phase.
Unsuspected prevalent tree occurrences in high elevation sky-islands of the western Alps
Authors: André Gilles , Lavergne Sébastien , Carcaillet Christopher 
Published: July 2020

AbstractThe present note intends to challenge, based on field observations, the definition of treeline and argues for considering the upper occurrences of tree-species as an integrative result of historical and contemporary processes acting on high-altitude socio-ecosystems. A field survey ofPinus cembragrowing above 2800 m asl was conducted, in an ecoregion of southwestern Alps, straddling France and Italy (Queyras-Mt Viso area). Pines were described (height, density) and their habitats were contextualized (altitude, slope degree and exposure, bedrock). Individuals ofPinus cembraare commonly growing between 2800 and 3200 m asl, generally on east-facing, steep and rocky slopes, with a pine density decreasing with altitude. Pines are generally dwarf-shaped, sometimes erected or prostrated. Their needles are half the size compared to those of pines growing in subalpine forests. Pine morphology indicates harsh growing conditions, notably strong wind, aridity and frost. These habitats constitute visually emerging objects attractive for the nutcracker caching behaviour. This setting acts as a positive passive driver for pine at high altitudes, which is further favoured by intense atmospheric moisture supplied by the east from the Po valley. Steep and rocky slopes exclude livestock, likely explaining why these pines are located in grass-less habitats. These tree clusters constitute remarkable “sky-island” populations.Larix deciduaandPinus uncinatawere also recorded at exceptional altitudes butP. cembrais the most frequent species in high alpine conditions. These observations altogether highlight a complex pattern of tree-species line in the western Alps, and probably beyond.
Improved analyses of GWAS summary statistics by reducing data heterogeneity and errors
Authors: Chen Wenhan , Wu Yang , Zheng Zhili , Qi Ting , Visscher Peter M , Zhu Zhihong , Yang Jian 
Published: July 2020

AbstractSummary statistics from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have facilitated the development of various summary data-based methods, which typically require a reference sample for linkage disequilibrium (LD) estimation. Analyses using these methods may be biased by errors in GWAS summary data and heterogeneity between GWAS and LD reference. Here we propose a quality control method, DENTIST, that leverages LD among genetic variants to detect and eliminate errors in GWAS or LD reference and heterogeneity between the two. Through simulations, we demonstrate that DENTIST substantially reduces false-positive rate (FPR) in detecting secondary signals in the summary-data-based conditional and joint (COJO) association analysis, especially for imputed rare variants (FPR reduced from >28% to <2% in the presence of heterogeneity between GWAS and LD reference). We further show that DENTIST can improve other summary-data-based analyses such as fine-mapping analysis, and integrative analysis of GWAS and expression quantitative trait locus data.
Worth the effort? A practical examination of random effects in hidden Markov models for animal telemetry data
Authors: McClintock Brett T. 
Published: July 2020

AbstractHidden Markov models (HMMs) that include individual-level random effects have recently been promoted for inferring animal movement behaviour from biotelemetry data. These “mixed HMMs” come at significant cost in terms of implementation and computation, and discrete random effects have been advocated as a practical alternative to more computationally-intensive continuous random effects. However, the performance of mixed HMMs has not yet been sufficiently explored to justify their widespread adoption, and there is currently little guidance for practitioners weighing the costs and benefits of mixed HMMs for a particular research objective.I performed an extensive simulation study comparing the performance of a suite of fixed and random effect models for individual heterogeneity in the hidden state process of a 2-state HMM. I focused on sampling scenarios more typical of telemetry studies, which often consist of relatively long time series (30 – 250 observations per animal) for relatively few individuals (5 – 100 animals).I generally found mixed HMMs did not improve state assignment relative to standard HMMs. Reliable estimation of random effects required larger sample sizes than are often feasible in telemetry studies. Continuous random effect models performed reasonably well with data generated under discrete random effects, but not vice versa. Random effects accounting for unexplained individual variation can improve estimation of state transition probabilities and measurable covariate effects, but discrete random effects can be a relatively poor (and potentially misleading) approximation for continuous variation.When weighing the costs and benefits of mixed HMMs, three important considerations are study objectives, sample size, and model complexity. HMM applications often focus on state assignment with little emphasis on heterogeneity in state transition probabilities, in which case random effects in the hidden state process simply may not be worth the additional effort. However, if explaining variation in state transition probabilities is a primary objective and sufficient explanatory covariates are not available, then random effects are worth pursuing as a more parsimonious alternative to individual fixed effects.To help put my findings in context and illustrate some potential challenges that practitioners may encounter when applying mixed HMMs, I revisit a previous analysis of long-finned pilot whale biotelemetry data.
GAN-based anomaly detection in multi-modal MRI images
Authors: Benson Sean , Beets-Tan Regina 
Published: July 2020

AbstractGenerative adversarial networks (GANs) are known to be a powerful tool in order to correct image aberrations, and even predict entirely synthetic images. We describe and demonstrate a method to use GANs trained from multi-modal magnetic resonance images as a 3-channel input. The training of the generative network was performed using only healthy images together with pseudo-random irregular masks. The dataset consisted of just 20 people. The resulting model was then used to detect anomalies real patient images in which the anomaly was a tumour. The search was performed using no prior knowledge of the tumour location, if indeed a tumour was present. Resulting accuracies are observed to vary significantly on the size of the anomaly. The area under the receiver operator characteristic curve is observed to be greater than 0.75 for anomaly sizes greater than 4 cm2.
Nursery habitat use by juvenile blue crabs in created and natural marshes
Authors: Bilkovic D.M. , Isdell R.E. , Stanhope D. , Angstadt K.T. , Havens K.J. , Chambers R.M. 
Published: July 2020

ABSTRACTClimate change and coastal development pressures have intensified the need for shoreline protection. Nature-first approaches that use natural habitats, particularly marshes, are being promoted globally as ecologically-beneficial alternatives to grey infrastructure. The ability of these novel shorelines to provide nursery habitat to blue crab, an ecologically and economically important species along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States, has not been quantified.We quantified the abundance and size distribution of juvenile blue crabs from a chronosequence of living shorelines (created fringing marshes) spanning 2 to 16 years in age (since construction) and compared with paired natural fringing marshes in the southern Chesapeake Bay.Both created and natural fringing marshes are being used by blue crabs as primary nursery habitats. While there were interannual differences in abundance, young blue crabs (≤ 2.5 cm carapace width) were observed in similar densities and sizes at living shoreline and natural marshes. There was no relationship between the age of the living shoreline and blue crab density, indicating that even the youngest living shorelines (2 years) were providing primary nursery habitat. Young blue crabs were more abundant in more isolated marshes and those that were inundated for longer periods of time each tidal cycle, which may be evidence for habitat-limitation.Synthesis and applications:We provide evidence that juvenile blue crabs are comparably using natural and created fringing salt marshes as primary nursery habitat. Although the relative importance of salt marshes as young crab nursery habitat is not fully understood and likely varies by system, the value of marshes within a suite of available structural nursery habitats may increase under a changing climate. The potential for living shorelines to serve as nursery habitat for an economically important species may provide additional incentives to implement these climate adaptation strategies.
Is the “end-of-study guess” a valid measure of sham blinding during transcranial direct current stimulation?
Authors: Turner Christopher , Jackson Catherine , Learmonth Gemma 
Published: July 2020

AbstractStudies using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) typically incorporate afade-in, short-stimulation, fade-outsham (placebo) protocol, which is assumed to be indistinct from a 10-30min active protocol on the scalp. However, many studies report that participants can dissociate active stimulation from sham, even during low-intensity 1mA currents. We recently identified differences in the perception of an active (10min of 1mA) and a sham (20s of 1mA) protocol that lasted for 5 mins after the cessation of sham. In the present study we assessed whether delivery of a higher-intensity 2mA current would exacerbate these differences. Two protocols were delivered to 32 adults in a double-blinded, within-subjects design (active:10min of 2mA, andsham:20s of 2mA), with the anode over the left primary motor cortex and the cathode on the right forehead. Participants were asked “Is the stimulation on?” and“How sure are you?”at 30s intervals during and after stimulation. The differences between active and sham were more consistent and sustained during 2mA than during 1mA. We then quantified how well participants were able to track the presence and absence of stimulation (i.e. their sensitivity) during the experiment using cross-correlations. Current strength was a good classifier of sensitivity during active tDCS, but exhibited only moderate specificity during sham. The accuracy of theend-of-study guesswas no better than chance at predicting sensitivity. Our results indicate that the traditional end-of-study guess poorly reflects the sensitivity of participants to stimulation, and may not be a valid method of assessing sham blinding.
Whole-proteome Tree of Insects: Grouping and phylogeny without sequence alignment
Authors: Choi JaeJin , Kim Byung-Ju , Kim Sung-Hou 
Published: July 2020

AbstractAn “organism tree” of insects, the largest and most species-diverse group of all living animals, can be considered as a conceptual tree to capture a simplified narrative of the complex evolutionary courses of the extant insects. Currently, the most common approach has been to construct a “protein tree”, as a surrogate for the organism tree, by Multiple Sequence Alignment (MSA) of highly homologous regions of a set of select proteins to represent each organism. However, such selected regions account for a very small fraction of the whole-proteome of each organism.Information Theory provides a method of comparing two sets of all proteins, two whole-proteomes, without MSA: By treating each whole-proteome sequence as a “book” of amino acid alphabets, the information contents of two whole-proteomes can be quantitatively compared using the text comparison method of the theory, without sequence alignment, providing an opportunity to construct a “whole-proteome tree” of insects as a surrogate for an organism tree of insects.A whole-proteome tree of the insects in this study shows that: (a) all the founders of the major groups of the insects have emerged in an explosive “burst” near the root of the tree, (b) the most basal group of all the insects is a subgroup of Hemiptera consisting of aphids and psyllids, and (c) there are other notable differences in the phylogeny of the groups compared to those of the recent protein trees of insects.
Lateral phase differences in a population model of the visual cortex are sufficient for the development of rhythmic spatial sampling
Authors: Yi Justin D. , Arisaka Katsushi 
Published: July 2020

AbstractWhen attending to many spatially distributed visual stimuli, attention is reweighted rhythmically at 4-8 Hz. The probability of detection depends on the phase at which a stimulus is deployed relative to this intrinsic rhythm. The reweighting oscillations can be observed both electrophysiologically and behaviorally, and appear to be regulated by the pulvinar. Based on these findings, we considered the computational consequences of allowing feedback to shape the distribution of inhibitory oscillations from the thalamus, as measured by a local field potential (LFP) phases in the 8 Hz low alpha-band, across laterally-connected regions of the visual cortex. We constructed a population activity model with lateral and feedforward connections. In agreement with prior models, we found that the sign of the lateral phase difference in the inhibitory low-frequency oscillations regulated the direction of communication between the laterally-connected regions. Furthermore, the phase difference induced periodicity in the dynamics of a downstream winner-takes-all attractor network such that periodic switching between states was observed. We finally simulated a simple spatial attention task. We found rhythmic 8 Hz sampling between two regions when a lateral phase difference was present—an effect that disappeared when the lateral phase difference was zero. These findings are in agreement with spatial attention literature and suggest that lateral phase differences are essential for manifesting communicational asymmetries in laterally-connected visual cortices. Our model predicts that population-specific phase differences are critical for sampling the spatial extent of stimuli.Author summaryWe conducted a computational study of the effects of lateral phase differences in a simulated model of the visual cortex. Lateral phase differences are defined to be when the phase of an intrinsic low-frequency inhibitory oscillation varies consistently across populations in the same cortical area. For example, our model was intended to capture the dynamics of a retinotopic cortex where feedback from the frotoparietal areas via the pulvinar nucleus assigned laterally-connected regions of the visual cortex different phases. We found that the sign of the phase differences influenced the direction of lateral communication. Furthermore, the phase differences introduced rhythmicity in the downstream areas, thus allowing us to simulate rhythmic spatial selection of stimuli. Prior to the current study, the influence of inter-areal phase differences in feedforward models had been well characterized. Our model provides new insights into the dynamics of population-specific lateral phase differences and predicts that the development of phase differences across the visual cortex are critical for the allocation of attention in space.