bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Robust Co‐Embedded Nitrogen Doped Carbon Catalyst for Oxygen Reduction Reaction in Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell
Authors: Bharti Abha , Natarajan Rajalakshmi 
Published: March 2021

AbstractThis work reports non‐noble, cobalt embedded nitrogen doped carbon (CoNC) catalysts for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in Nafion‐based acidic proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). CoNC catalysts are synthesized through direct pyrolysis of two different zeolitic imidazolate framework (ZIF) precursors, Zn‐ZIF and Co‐ZIF. Profiting from two different precursor approach, appropriate assimilation of metal, nitrogen and carbon components is achieved which boosts oxygen reduction. Electrochemical results exemplified CoNC 3–1 catalyst derived from Zn‐ZIF:Co‐ZIF precursor in the weight ratio of 3 : 1 as the better ORR catalyst. CoNC 3–1 catalyst exhibited the highest electrochemical surface area (ECSA) (570 cm2), highest limiting current density (‐5.14 mA cm−2) and followed near 4e− reduction of oxygen revealing superior ORR activity. The catalyst also demonstrated remarkable durability with loss of only 6 % of ECSA after 30,000 cycles of accelerated durability test. The enhanced ORR activity and durability is attributed to optimal balance of Co−Nx active sites along with appropriate N contents and graphitic carbon framework.
Stable Flexible Piezoresistive Sensors with Viscoelastic Ni Nanowires‐PDMS Composites and Ni Foam Electrodes
Authors: Luan Ruifei , An Hang , Chen Chen , Xue Yu , Guo Ailin , Chu Liang , Ahmad Waqar , Li Xing'ao 
Published: March 2021

AbstractFlexible piezoresistive sensors with viscoelastic conductive free‐standing films have attracted tremendous interest for the great practical applications of human motion and health monitoring, and intelligent electronic skins. However, it is still a challenge to achieve stable and strong adhesion between the viscoelastic conductive films and two electrodes due to mismatched Young's modulus. Herein, the as‐prepared Ni nanowires were mixed with PDMS to form viscoelastic conductive composites, which were strongly contacted on and partly permeated into Ni foam electrodes for flexible strain sensors. Importantly, the binding between the viscoelastic conductive composites and Ni foams is strong and stable, which can be remained after a thousand forward and backward bent. The fabricated flexible piezoresistive sensors were utilized to monitor human motion including clicking mouse, finger bending, elbow bending, eye blinking and wrist bending. The typical respond and recovery times are fast to about 0.1 s. Thus, this sensor will have great potential for future real applications in smart wearable devices.
What is meant by “frailty” in undergraduate medical education? A national survey of UK medical schools
Authors: Winter Rebecca , Al-Jawad Muna , Wright Juliet , Shrewsbury Duncan , Van Marwijk Harm , Johnson Helen , Levett Tom 
Published: March 2021

Abstract
Purpose
All UK medical schools are required to include frailty in their curriculum. The term is open to interpretation and associated with negative perceptions. Understanding and recognising frailty is a prerequisite for consideration of frailty in the treatment decision-making process across clinical specialities. The aim of this survey was to describe how frailty has been interpreted and approached in UK undergraduate medical education and provide examples of educational strategies employed.

Methods
All UK medical schools were invited to complete an electronic survey. Schools described educational strategies used to teach and assess frailty and provided frailty-related learning outcomes. Learning Outcomes were grouped into categories and mapped to the domains of Outcomes for Graduates (knowledge, skills and values).

Results
25/34 Medical schools (74%) participated. The interpretation of what frailty is vary widely and the diversity of teaching strategies reflect this. The most common Learning outcomes included as “Frailty” are about the concept of frailty, Comprehensive Geriatric Assessments and Roles of the MDT. Frailty teaching is predominantly opportunistic and occurred within geriatric medicine rotations in all medical schools. Assessments focus on frailty syndromes such as falls and delirium.

Conclusion
There is variation regarding how frailty has been interpreted and approached by medical schools. Frailty is represented in an array of teaching and assessment methods, with a lack of constructive alignment to related learning outcomes. Consensus should be agreed as to what frailty means in medical education. Further research is required to explore which frailty-specific educational strategies in undergraduate medical education enhance learning.
An efficient low bit rate image watermarking and tamper detection for image authentication
Authors: Kabir Md. Ahasan 
Published: March 2021

AbstractThis study presents the vulnerability of digital documents and its effective way to protect the ownership and detection of unauthorized modification of multimedia data. Watermarking is an effective way to protect vulnerable data in a digital environment. In this paper, a watermarking algorithm has been proposed based on a lossy compression algorithm to ensure authentication and detection of forgery. In this proposed method, the CDF9/7 biorthogonal wavelet is used to transform the watermark image and encoded the wavelet coefficients using Set Partition in Hierarchical Tree algorithm. Then, the encoded bits are encrypted by shuffling and encrypting using symmetric keys. After that the encrypted bits are inserted into the Least Significant Bit position of the cover image. In addition, two tamper detection bits are generated based on texture information and pixel location and inserted in the watermarked image. The proposed algorithm reconstructs the watermark and the tampering region more efficiently and achieved 56.5463 dB PSNR for STARE database. Experimental result shows that the proposed algorithm is effectively prevented different attacks and ensure the integrity of watermark bits within the watermarked image. Also finds the tampered region more efficiently compared with the existing state of art algorithms.
Comparative assessment of validity of gradient wind models for a translating tropical cyclone
Authors: Eguchi Yuzuru , Hattori Yasuo , Nomura Mitsuharu 
Published: March 2021

AbstractAccurate and conservative evaluations of the gradient wind in the free atmosphere are needed to account for high-wind hazards when designing wind resistance for critical infrastructure. This paper compared the validity of three existing gradient wind models to select an appropriate evaluation model, which enables us to accurately compute the asymmetric gradient wind field of a translating tropical cyclone under the condition of a symmetric pressure distribution and a constant translation velocity. The validity of the three models was assessed by evaluating the residuals in momentum conservation equations for the gradient wind under a specific tropical cyclone condition. The magnitude of the residuals was considered to be the measure of error in the gradient wind derived from each model. The results showed that the most frequently used model yielded the largest magnitude of residuals with the lowest maximum wind speed among the three models. The wind characteristics of the three models were validated using archived observation data of hurricanes. The physical reason for the difference in maximum wind speed among the three models was explained by the difference in the streamline feature of the gradient wind field. It was also revealed that the differences in maximum wind speed and magnitude of residuals became more pronounced as the translation speed and the intensity of a tropical cyclone increased. The comparative assessment of the three gradient wind models allowed us to identify the best model for use in conservative wind-resistant design and high-wind risk estimates.
Iranian Qara Qat fruit (redcurrant) in Arasbaran forests as the resource of anthocyanin pigments in formation of [ACN-Mg2+/Al3+/Ga3+/ Sn2+/Cr3+/Fe3+] chelation clusters
Authors: Mollaamin Fatemeh , Mohammadian Nayer T. , Najaflou Narges , Monajjemi Majid 
Published: March 2021

AbstractClusters of metallic cations (Mg2+, Al3+, Ga3+, Sn2+, Cr3+ and Fe3+) jointed to anthocyanins in water media were studied for unraveling the color shifting of different complexes of these structures in the low ranges of pH. Anthocyanin jointed to metallic cation progresses the color expression range of anthocyanin in more different range of pH. In this verdict, it has been studied the metallic cations diffusing of deprotonating for the anthocyanin (B)-ring of cyanidin (Cy), delphinidin (Dp) and petunidin (Pt) in two media of gas and water, transforming flavylium cations to the blue quinonoidal bases at lower range of pH applying the infrared method by approaching Beer Lambert law for getting the physico-chemical parameters of frequency, intensity, and absorbance of the compounds, respectively. In previous investigation, it has been indicated that the important factor for enhancing the absorbance in a positive non-linear fashion due to deviating from the Beer Lambert law is the self-association of anthocyanins of cyanidin, delphinidin and petunidin of anthocyanin structures. The difference of heat of formation (∆HR) among clusters of metallic cations jointed to anthocyanins has been illustrated toward the double bonds and carbonyl groups by the chelation of (B)-ring for cyanidin, delphinidin and petunidin anthocyanins in two media of gas and water that explains the stability and color of [anthocyanin-metallic cations] cluster chelation of cyanidin (Cy), delphinidin (Dp) and petunidin (Pt) colorful pigments in a weak acidic medium. By this work we exhibited that the color of the anthocyanin chelates is an important factor for estimating the efficiency of these types of food colorants.
Differential Splicing of Skipped Exons Predicts Drug Response in Cancer Cell Lines
Authors: Simpson Edward , Chen Steven , Reiter Jill L. , Liu Yunlong 
Published: March 2021

Abstract
Alternative splicing of pre-mRNA transcripts is an important regulatory mechanism that increases the diversity of gene products in eukaryotes. Various studies have linked specific transcript isoforms to altered drug response in cancer; however, few algorithms have incorporated splicing information into drug response prediction. In this study, we evaluated whether basal-level splicing information could be used to predict drug sensitivity by constructing doxorubicin-sensitivity classification models with splicing and expression data. We detailed splicing differences between sensitive and resistant cell lines by implementing quasi-binomial generalized linear modeling (QBGLM) and found altered inclusion of 277 skipped exons. We additionally conducted RNA-binding protein (RBP) binding motif enrichment and differential expression analysis to characterize cis- and trans-acting elements that potentially influence doxorubicin response-mediating splicing alterations. Our results showed that a classification model built with skipped exon data exhibited strong predictive power. We discovered an association between differentially spliced events and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and observed motif enrichment, as well as differential expression of RBFOX and ELAVL RBP family members. Our work demonstrates the potential of incorporating splicing data into drug response algorithms and the utility of a QBGLM approach for fast, scalable identification of relevant splicing differences between large groups of samples.
Direct Comparative Analyses of 10X Genomics Chromium and Smart-Seq2
Authors: Wang Xiliang , He Yao , Zhang Qiming , Ren Xianwen , Zhang Zemin 
Published: March 2021

Abstract
Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) is generally used for profiling transcriptome of individual cells. The droplet-based 10X Genomics Chromium (10X) approach and the plate-based Smart-seq2 full-length method are two frequently used scRNA-seq platforms, yet there are only a few thorough and systematic comparisons of their advantages and limitations. Here, by directly comparing the scRNA-seq data generated by these two platforms from the same samples of CD45− cells, we systematically evaluated their features using a wide spectrum of analyses. Smart-seq2 detected more genes in a cell, especially low abundance transcripts as well as alternatively spliced transcripts, but captured higher proportion of mitochondrial genes. The composite of Smart-seq2 data also resembled bulk RNA-seq data more. For 10X-based data, we observed higher noise for mRNAs with low expression levels. Approximately 10%−30% of all detected transcripts by both platforms were from non-coding genes, with long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) accounting for a higher proportion in 10X. 10X-based data displayed more severe dropout problem, especially for genes with lower expression levels. However, 10X-data can detect rare cell types given its ability to cover a large number of cells. In addition, each platform detected distinct groups of differentially expressed genes between cell clusters, indicating the different characteristics of these technologies. Our study promotes better understanding of these two platforms and offers the basis for an informed choice of these widely used technologies.
Quantitative Secretome Analysis Reveals Clinical Values of Carbonic Anhydrase II in Hepatocellular Carcinoma
Authors: Xing Xiaohua , Yuan Hui , Liu Hongzhi , Tan Xionghong , Zhao Bixing , Wang Yingchao , Ouyang Jiahe , Lin Minjie , Liu Xiaolong , Huang Aimin 
Published: March 2021

Abstract
Early detection and intervention are key strategies to reduce mortality, increase long-term survival, and improve the therapeutic effects of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients. Herein, the isobaric tag for relative and absolute quantitation (iTRAQ)-based quantitative proteomic strategy was used to study the secretomes in conditioned media from HCC cancerous tissues, surrounding noncancerous tissues, and distal noncancerous tissues to identify diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for HCC. In total, 22 and 49 dysregulated secretory proteins were identified in the cancerous and surrounding noncancerous tissues, respectively, compared with the distal noncancerous tissues. Among these proteins, carbonic anhydrase II (CA2) was identified to be significantly upregulated in the secretome of cancerous tissues; correspondingly, the serum concentrations of CA2 were remarkably increased in HCC patients compared with that in normal populations. Interestingly, a significant increase of serum CA2 in recurrent HCC patients after radical resection was also confirmed compared with HCC patients without recurrence, and the serum level of CA2 could act as an independent prognostic factor for time to recurrence and overall survival. Regarding the mechanism, the secreted CA2 enhances the migration and invasion of HCC cells by activating the epithelial mesenchymal transition pathway. Taken together, this study identified a novel biomarker for HCC diagnosis and prognosis, and provided a valuable resource of HCC secretome for investigating serological biomarkers.
Epidemiology and transmission characteristics of early COVID-19 cases, 20 January–19 March 2020, in Bavaria, Germany
Authors: Böhm S. , Woudenberg T. , Chen D. , Marosevic D. V. , Böhmer M. M. , Hansen L. , Wallinga J. , Sing A. , Katz K. 
Published: March 2021

Abstract
Severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) led to a significant disease burden and disruptions in health systems. We describe the epidemiology and transmission characteristics of early coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases in Bavaria, Germany. Cases were reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR)-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infections, reported from 20 January−19 March 2020. The incubation period was estimated using travel history and date of symptom onset. To estimate the serial interval, we identified pairs of index and secondary cases. By 19 March, 3546 cases were reported. A large proportion was exposed abroad (38%), causing further local transmission. Median incubation period of 256 cases with exposure abroad was 3.8 days (95%CI: 3.5–4.2). For 95% of infected individuals, symptom onset occurred within 10.3 days (95%CI: 9.1–11.8) after exposure. The median serial interval, using 53 pairs, was 3.5 days (95%CI: 3.0–4.2; mean: 3.9, s.d.: 2.2). Travellers returning to Germany had an important influence on the spread of SARS-CoV-2 infections in Bavaria in early 2020. Especially in times of low incidence, public health agencies should identify holiday destinations, and areas with ongoing local transmission, to monitor potential importation of SARS-CoV-2 infections. Travellers returning from areas with ongoing community transmission should be advised to quarantine to prevent re-introductions of COVID-19.
Evaluation of fireground exposures using urinary PAH metabolites
Authors: Hoppe-Jones Christiane , Griffin Stephanie C. , Gulotta John J. , Wallentine Darin D. , Moore Paul K. , Beitel Shawn C. , Flahr Leanne M. , Zhai Jing , Zhou Jin J. , Littau Sally R. , Dearmon-Moore Devi , Jung Alesia M. , Garavito Fernanda , Snyder Shane A. , Burgess Jefferey L. 
Published: March 2021

Abstract
Background
Firefighters have increased cancer incidence and mortality rates compared to the general population, and are exposed to multiple products of combustion including known and suspected carcinogens.

Objective
The study objective was to quantify fire response exposures by role and self-reported exposure risks.

Methods
Urinary hydroxylated metabolites of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH-OHs) were measured at baseline and 2–4 h after structural fires and post-fire surveys were collected.

Results
Baseline urine samples were collected from 242 firefighters. Of these, 141 responded to at least one of 15 structural fires and provided a post-fire urine. Compared with baseline measurements, the mean fold change of post-fire urinary PAH-OHs increased similarly across roles, including captains (2.05 (95% CI 1.59–2.65)), engineers (2.10 (95% CI 1.47–3.05)), firefighters (2.83 (95% CI 2.14–3.71)), and paramedics (1.84 (95% CI 1.33–2.60)). Interior responses, smoke odor on skin, and lack of recent laundering or changing of hoods were significantly associated with increased post-fire urinary PAH-OHs.

Significance
Ambient smoke from the fire represents an exposure hazard for all individuals on the fireground; engineers and paramedics in particular may not be aware of the extent of their exposure. Post-fire surveys identified specific risks associated with increased exposure.
Exposure to maternal high-fat diet induces extensive changes in the brain of adult offspring
Authors: Fernandes Darren J. , Spring Shoshana , Roy Anna R. , Qiu Lily R. , Yee Yohan , Nieman Brian J. , Lerch Jason P. , Palmert Mark R. 
Published: March 2021

AbstractMaternal environmental exposures, such as high-fat diets, diabetes and obesity, can induce long-term effects in offspring. These effects include increased risk of neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) including autism spectrum disorder (ASD), depression and anxiety. The mechanisms underlying these late-life neurologic effects are unknown. In this article, we measured changes in the offspring brain and determined which brain regions are sensitive to maternal metabolic milieu and therefore may mediate NDD risk. We showed that mice exposed to a maternal high-fat diet display extensive brain changes in adulthood despite being switched to a low-fat diet at weaning. Brain regions impacted by early-life diet include the extended amygdalar system, which plays an important role in reward-seeking behaviour. Genes preferentially expressed in these regions have functions related to feeding behaviour, while also being implicated in human NDDs, such as autism. Our data demonstrated that exposure to maternal high-fat diet in early-life leads to brain alterations that persist into adulthood, even after dietary modifications.
Rapid multi-directed cholinergic transmission in the central nervous system
Authors: Sethuramanujam Santhosh , Matsumoto Akihiro , deRosenroll Geoff , Murphy-Baum Benjamin , Grosman Claudio , McIntosh J Michael , Jing Miao , Li Yulong , Berson David , Yonehara Keisuke , Awatramani Gautam B. 
Published: March 2021

AbstractIn many parts of the central nervous system, including the retina, it is unclear whether cholinergic transmission is mediated by rapid, point-to-point synaptic mechanisms, or slower, broad-scale ‘non-synaptic’ mechanisms. Here, we characterized the ultrastructural features of cholinergic connections between direction-selective starburst amacrine cells and downstream ganglion cells in an existing serial electron microscopy data set, as well as their functional properties using electrophysiology and two-photon acetylcholine (ACh) imaging. Correlative results demonstrate that a ‘tripartite’ structure facilitates a ‘multi-directed’ form of transmission, in which ACh released from a single vesicle rapidly (~1 ms) co-activates receptors expressed in multiple neurons located within ~1 µm of the release site. Cholinergic signals are direction-selective at a local, but not global scale, and facilitate the transfer of information from starburst to ganglion cell dendrites. These results suggest a distinct operational framework for cholinergic signaling that bears the hallmarks of synaptic and non-synaptic forms of transmission.
Analysis of segmentation ontology reveals the similarities and differences in connectivity onto L2/3 neurons in mouse V1
Authors: Brown Alexander P. Y. , Cossell Lee , Strom Molly , Tyson Adam L. , Vélez-Fort Mateo , Margrie Troy W. 
Published: March 2021

AbstractQuantitatively comparing brain-wide connectivity of different types of neuron is of vital importance in understanding the function of the mammalian cortex. Here we have designed an analytical approach to examine and compare datasets from hierarchical segmentation ontologies, and applied it to long-range presynaptic connectivity onto excitatory and inhibitory neurons, mainly located in layer 2/3 (L2/3), of mouse primary visual cortex (V1). We find that the origins of long-range connections onto these two general cell classes—as well as their proportions—are quite similar, in contrast to the inputs on to a cell type in L6. These anatomical data suggest that distal inputs received by the general excitatory and inhibitory classes of neuron in L2/3 overlap considerably.