bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Pastures and fodder for feeding equids 3000 years ago: The Can Roqueta site (Barcelona, Spain) as a model of equine herd management
Authors: Albizuri Silvia , Grandal‐d'Anglade Aurora , López‐Cachero Francisco Javier 
Published: November 2021

AbstractCan Roqueta has provided a large number of equid and dog assemblages from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age. An analysis of the stable isotopes δ13C and δ15N in 42 bone samples has made it possible to reconstruct the diet of domestic equids. The results and carpological remains show that the territory was managed for agricultural and pasture use. They indicate the cultivation of two types of highly nutritious and digestible millet, used in combination with other cereals to prepare fodder, as well as the use of natural pastures.
Preparation of chitosan nanospheres and optimization of process parameters by response surface method
Authors: Yang Yaqi , Yang Na , Zheng Chaolun , Shao Ziqiang 
Published: November 2021

AbstractIn this study, chitosan (CS) was used as raw material to prepare CS nanospheres by emulsion cross‐linking method, and the influence of process parameters on the microscopic morphology and particle size distribution of nanospheres was investigated. In addition, through the establishment of a response surface model, the influence of various process parameters on the preparation process of CS microspheres was explored, which provides basic data and theoretical basis for preparing uniform CS nanospheres and putting them into actual production to realize intelligent processing. Through scanning electron microscopy and particle size distribution test, the optimal preparation process conditions of CS nanospheres are obtained: CS concentration is 2.0%, cross‐linking agent ratio is 6:100, stirring speed is 400 r/min, and the minimum particle size is 99.65 nm. The response surface model has good fitting degree, and the experimental error is small. The influence order of technological parameters is CS concentration > cross‐linking agent ratio > stirring speed, and the optimal parameters are CS concentration is 1.97%, the cross‐linking agent ratio is 6:100, the stirring speed is 450.29 r/min, and the predicted minimum particle size is 95.10 nm.
Real clinical impact of drug–drug interactions of immunosuppressants in transplant patients
Authors: Gago‐Sánchez Ana Isabel , Font Pilar , Cárdenas Manuel , Aumente María Dolores , Del Prado José Ramón , Calleja Miguel Ángel 
Published: November 2021

AbstractThe main objective was to determine the prevalence of real drug–drug interactions (DDIs) of immunosuppressants in transplant patients. We conducted a prospective, observational 1‐year study at a tertiary hospital, including all transplanted patients. We evaluated data from monitoring blood concentrations of immunosuppressive drugs and adverse drug events (ADEs) caused by DDIs. The DDIs were classified as C, D, or X according to their Lexi‐Interact rating (C = monitor therapy, D = consider therapy modification, X = avoid combination). The clinical importance of real DDIs was expressed in terms of patient outcomes. The causality of DDIs was determined using Drug Interaction Probability Scale. The data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences v. 25.0. A total of 309 transplant patients were included. Their mean age was 52.0 ± 14.7 years (18–79) and 69.9% were male. The prevalence of real DDIs was 21.7%. Immunosuppressive drugs administered with antifungal azoles and tacrolimus (TAC) with nifedipine have a great clinical impact. Real DDIs caused ADEs in 22 patients. The most common clinical outcome was nephrotoxicity (1.6%; n = 5), followed by hypertension (1.3%; n = 4). Suggestions for avoiding category D and X DDIs included: changing the immunosuppressant dosage, using paracetamol instead of non‐steroidal anti‐inflammatory drugs, and interrupting atorvastatin. The number of drugs prescribed and having been prescribed TAC was associated with an increased risk of real DDIs. There are many potential DDIs described in the literature but only a small percentage proved to be real DDIs, based on the patients´ outcomes.
Silica Supported Synthesis and Quorum Quenching Ability of Isoxazolones Against Both Gram Positive and Gram Negative Bacterial Pathogens
Authors: Kadam Hari K. , Salkar Komal , Naik Akshata P. , Naik Milind M. , Salgaonkar Lalitprabha N. , Charya Lakshangy , Pinto Kathleen C. , Mandrekar Vinod K. , Vaz Teotone 
Published: November 2021

AbstractIsoxazolones are synthesised using easily available, economical and reusable silica (TLC grade) catalyst. High yields are obtained in aqueous reaction system with substrate tolerance without affecting the yield. This multigram scale, purification free method exhibits prospects for a large scale use in future. These compounds were screened for their potential application as quorum quenchers in pathogenic bacteria. The prepared compounds were analysed for quorum quenching (QQ) activity on Gram negative bioreporter strain Chromobacterium violaceum by inhibiting its pigment production i. e. violacein production in a concentration dependent manner. Some Isoxazolone derivatives showed very good quorum quenching activity. Moreover these derivatives also showed very good antibiofilm activity against both Gram negative (Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC 27853) and Gram positive (Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 6538) bacterial human pathogens through Quorum Quenching mechanism. Isoxazolones thus have enormous potential to be exploited in the medical field against bacterial infections caused by both Gram negative and Gram positive bacterial human pathogens.
A Pacman‐Like Titanium‐Doped Cobalt Sulfide Hollow Superstructure for Electrocatalytic Oxygen Evolution
Authors: Bao Tong , Xia Yi , Lu Jingyi , Zhang Chaoqi , Wang Jing , Yuan Ling , Zhang Yunxia , Liu Chao , Yu Chengzhong 
Published: November 2021

AbstractTransition‐metal sulfides (TMSs) are attractive oxygen evolution reaction (OER) electrocatalysts. Developing new strategies to improve their electrochemical performance of TMSs is of great significance. Herein, a unique pacman‐like titanium‐doped cobalt sulfide hollow superstructure (Ti‐CoSx HSS) is fabricated as an OER electrocatalyst. Using a prearranged metal–organic framework (MOF)‐on‐MOF heterostructure as a precursor treated by one‐pot sulfidation, a sequential structural conversion process leads to the formation of Ti‐CoSx HSS, which is assembled by interconnected Ti‐doped CoSx nanocages around a cake‐like cavity. Benefiting from the architecture and compositional advantages, Ti‐CoSx HSS exhibits excellent OER performance with an overpotential of 249 mV at 10 mA cm−2 and Tafel slope of 45.5 mV dec−1 due to increased active site exposure, enhanced electron and mass transfer. This strategy enabled by MOF‐on‐MOF paves the way toward innovative MOF derivatives for various applications.
Emerging Roles of Bromodomain Protein 4 in Regulation of Stem Cell Identity
Authors: Dey Anusree , Uppal Sheetal , Giri Jayeeta , Misra Hari Sharan 
Published: November 2021

AbstractUnderstanding the mechanism of fate decision and lineage commitment is the key step for developing novel stem cell applications in therapeutics. This process is coordinately regulated through systematic epigenetic reprogramming and concomitant changes in the transcriptional landscape of the stem cells. One of the bromo- and extra-terminal domain (BET) family member proteins, bromodomain protein 4 (BRD4), performs the role of epigenetic reader and modulates gene expression by recruiting other transcription factors and directly regulating RNA polymerase II elongation. Controlled gene regulation is the critical step in maintenance of stem cell potency and dysregulation may lead to tumor formation. As a key transcriptional factor and epigenetic regulator, BRD4 contributes to stem cell maintenance in several ways. Being a druggable target, BRD4 is an attractive candidate for exploiting its potential in stem cell therapeutics. Therefore, it is crucial to elucidate how BRD4, through its interplay with pluripotency transcriptional regulators, control lineage commitment in stem cells. Here, we systemically review the role of BRD4 in complex gene regulatory network during three specific states of stem cell transitions: cell differentiation, cell reprogramming and transdifferentiation. A thorough understanding of BRD4 mediated epigenetic regulation in the maintenance of stem cell potency will be helpful to strategically control stem cell fates in regenerative medicine.
Polystyrene nanoplastics potentiate the development of hepatic fibrosis in high fat diet fed mice
Authors: Li Ling , Xu Minjie , He Chao , Wang Hui , Hu Qinglian 
Published: November 2021

AbstractPolystyrene nanoparticles (PS‐NPs) as an issue of global environmental concern, have been shown to induce hepatic toxicity via triggering oxidative injury and inflammation. Non‐alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is initiated when excessive lipid is accumulated in the liver and will proceed to liver fibrosis with repeatedly chronic liver injury. In this study, we examined whether intravenous injection of PS‐NPs could enhance the hepatic toxicity and potentiate the development of liver fibrosis in experimental high fat diet (HFD)‐induced mice. The results demonstrated that PS‐NPs could aggravate chronic hepatitis by interfere with liver lipid metabolism in HFD induced mice. Further, hepatic tissue in PS‐NPs treated HFD mice displayed substantially lowered superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity, which confirming the oxidative stress induced by PS‐NPs. PS‐NPs exposure also resulted in the up‐regulation of inflammation response in liver, as evidenced by the enhanced infiltration of Kupffer cells (KCs) and elevated expression of pro‐inflammatory related indicators. Meanwhile, Masson trichrome staining revealed that PS‐NPs could aggravate steatohepatitis with higher collagen fiber in HFD fed mice. Our data suggests that PS‐NPs can induce oxidative stress and inflammation in HDF‐induced experimental mice and further aggravate liver fibrosis, which highlight the potential health risks of PS‐NPs.
The repetitive local sampling and the local distribution theory
Authors: Tian Pu 
Published: November 2021

AbstractMolecular simulation is a mature and versatile tool set widely utilized in many subjects. However, its methodology development has been struggling with a tradeoff between accuracy and speed, significant improvement of both is necessary to reliably substitute many expensive and laborious experiments in molecular biology and nanotechnology. Previously, the ubiquitous severe wasting of computational resources in molecular simulations due to repetitive local sampling was raised, and the local free energy landscape approach was proposed to address it. The core idea is to first learn local distributions, and followed by dynamic assembly of which to infer global joint distribution of a target molecular system. When compared with conventional explicit solvent molecular dynamics simulations, a simple and approximate implementation of this theory in protein structural refinement harvested acceleration of about six orders of magnitude without loss of accuracy. While this initial test revealed tremendous benefits for addressing repetitive local sampling, there are some implicit assumptions need to be articulated. Here, I present a more thorough discussion of repetitive local sampling; potential options for learning local distributions; a more general formulation with potential extension to simulation of near equilibrium molecular systems; the prospect of developing computation driven molecular science; the connection to mainstream residue pair distance distribution based protein structure studies; and the fundamental difference of the averaging strategy from potential of mean force. This more general development is termed the local distribution theory to release the limitation of strict thermodynamic equilibrium in its potential wide application in general soft condensed molecular systems.This article is categorized under:
Molecular and Statistical Mechanics > Free Energy Methods
Data Science > Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning
Modeling of wastewater treatment processes with hydrosludge
Authors: Iserte Sergio , Carratalà Pablo , Arnau Rosario , Martínez‐Cuenca Raúl , Barreda Paloma , Basiero Luís , Climent Javier , Chiva Sergio 
Published: November 2021

AbstractThe pressure for Water Resource Recovery Facilities (WRRF) operators to efficiently treat wastewater is greater than ever because of the water crisis, produced by the climate change effects and more restrictive regulations. Technicians and researchers need to evaluate WRRF performance to ensure maximum efficiency. For this purpose, numerical techniques, such as CFD, have been widely applied to the wastewater sector to model biological reactors and secondary settling tanks with high spatial and temporal accuracy. However, limitations such as complexity and learning curve prevent extending CFD usage among wastewater modeling experts. This paper presents HydroSludge, a framework that provides a series of tools that simplify the implementation of the processes and workflows in a WRRF. This work leverages HydroSludge to preprocess existing data, aid the meshing process, and perform CFD simulations. Its intuitive interface proves itself as an effective tool to increase the efficiency of wastewater treatment.Practitioner points

This paper introduces a software platform specifically oriented to WRRF, named HydroSludge, which provides easy access to the most widespread and leading CFD simulation software, OpenFOAM.
Hydrosludge is intended to be used by WRRF operators, bringing a more wizard‐like, automatic, and intuitive usage.
Meshing assistance, submersible mixers, biological models, and distributed parallel computing are the most remarkable features included in HydroSludge.
With the provided study cases, HydroSludge has proven to be a crucial tool for operators, managers, and researchers in WRRF.
Chapter 2: Russia’s Development as a Top Player in World Grain Trade
Authors: Liefert William M. , Liefert Olga 
Published: November 2021

AbstractDuring the late Soviet period, Russia (along with the Soviet Union as a whole) was a major importer of grain, as well as soybeans and soybean meal, which were used to help feed the country’s growing livestock sector. The substantial reform-driven contraction in the livestock sector during the 1990s largely eliminated the need for grain imports. Beginning around 2000, Russia began to export grain, and into the 2010s it became major supplier on the world market. During 2016–2019, Russia exported on average 44 million metric tonnes a year, 10–14 percent of total world grain exports. The country’s dominant grain export is wheat, with Russia providing in the late 2010s around 20 percent of world market sales, thereby supplanting the United States as the world’s top wheat supplier. This chapter examines how Russia has developed into a major grain exporter, with the focus on how growing grain production since 2000 has generated surpluses for foreign sale.
Zwanziger’s pairwise little group on the celestial sphere
Authors: Lippstreu Luke 
Published: November 2021

Abstract
We generalize Zwanziger’s pairwise little group to include a boost subgroup. We do so by working in the celestial sphere representation of scattering amplitudes. We propose that due to late time soft photon and graviton exchanges, matter particles in the asymptotic states in massless QED and gravity transform under the Poincaré group with an additional pair of pairwise celestial representations for each pair of matter particles. We demonstrate that the massless abelian and gravitational exponentiation theorems are consistent with the proposed pairwise Poincaré transformation properties. For massless QED we demonstrate that our results are consistent with the effects of the Faddeev-Kulish dressing and the abelian exponentiation theorem for celestial amplitudes found in arXiv:2012.04208. We discuss electric and magnetic charges simultaneously as it is especially natural to do so in this formalism.
Complement in ischaemia–reperfusion injury and transplantation
Authors: Howard Mark C. , Nauser Christopher L. , Farrar Conrad A. , Sacks Steven H. 
Published: November 2021

AbstractUntil recently, the only known condition in which complement could mediate transplant injury was the rare occurrence of antibody-mediated rejection, in which the original concept of antibody immunity against the transplant was supported by complementary proteins present in the serum. This has changed within the last two decades because of evidence that the processes of ischaemia–reperfusion injury followed by T cell–mediated rejection are also critically dependent on components generated by the complement system. We now have a clearer understanding of the complement triggers and effectors that mediate injury, and a detailed map of their local sites of production and activation in the kidney. This is providing helpful guidelines as to how these harmful processes that restrict transplant outcomes can be targeted for therapeutic benefit. Here we review some of the recent advances highlighting relevant therapeutic targets.
Cost-effectiveness and budget impact of venetoclax in combination with rituximab in relapsed/refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia in Switzerland
Authors: Barbier Michaela , Durno Nicholas , Bennison Craig , Örtli Mathias , Knapp Christian , Schwenkglenks Matthias 
Published: November 2021

Abstract
Introduction
Venetoclax in combination with rituximab (VEN + R) demonstrated prolonged overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) for patients with relapsed/refractory (R/R) chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) in comparison to standard chemoimmunotherapy [bendamustine + rituximab (BR)]. We conducted a cost-effectiveness and budget impact analysis comparing VEN + R versus six comparators from the Swiss healthcare payer perspective.

Methods
A three-state partitioned survival model, developed in accordance with NICE and ISPOR decision modelling guidelines, was adapted to Switzerland. Model inputs were informed by the MURANO trial (survival data, patient characteristics), publicly available Swiss sources (drug prices, inpatient and outpatient costs), Swiss National Institute of Cancer Epidemiology and Registration data (incidence and prevalence values), and Swiss medical expert feedback. We used published (dis-)utility values and adverse event probabilities.

Results
Over a lifetime, VEN + R resulted in an expected gain of 2.60 quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) per patient and incremental costs of Swiss Francs (CHF) 147,851 compared to BR, leading to an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of CHF 56,881/QALY gained. Other treatment strategies (for example ibrutinib versus VEN + R) resulted in higher costs and lower QALYs. Results were not different for subgroups of patients with/without deletion of chromosome 17p/tumour protein 53 mutation. In scenario analysis, changes in post-progression treatment costs demonstrated a high impact on results. We estimated an expected value of perfect information of CHF 3,318/patient. A moderate VEN + R uptake was estimated to save CHF 12.3 million during 5 years.

Conclusions
Using a threshold of CHF 100,000 per QALY, VEN + R was projected to be cost-effective vs BR.
Clover in agriculture: combined benefits for bees, environment, and farmer
Authors: Harris Ciaran , Ratnieks Francis L. W. 
Published: November 2021

AbstractConcerns over the increasing cost and environmental impact of high inorganic nitrogen (N) inputs have led to a reappraisal of the role of legumes, particularly clover, in maintaining soil fertility in improved grasslands. Clover and other legumes host the symbiotic root bacteria Rhizobium that fix N, reducing the need for N fertiliser application. Grass plus clover swards are comparable to grass monocultures given medium to high inorganic N inputs in terms of companion grass growth, livestock performance and, yield of subsequently planted crops. Reduced N fertiliser input also reduces associated N leaching into water and greenhouse gas emissions during manufacture, transport, and application. In addition, increased use of clover in grasslands also benefit flower-visiting insects by providing an abundant source of nectar and pollen in summer. This is a critical period due to high levels of competition for these in summer. Because temporary and improved grassland covers almost half (47%) of UK land area this habitat type has great potential in wildlife conservation. Further research is needed on the agronomic and conservation benefits of more diverse swards, as incorporation of additional forb species may complement clovers and legumes to benefit a wider range of flower-visiting insect species. In addition, more information on the attitudes of farmers for or against using clover and legumes in grasslands is needed, as they make the management decisions for most agricultural land in the UK. Implications for insect conservation: increased use of clover is a low-cost way to improve the food supply for flower-visiting insects, while to sustaining agricultural productivity and reducing environmental impact.
The Impact of Clients’ and Therapists’ Characteristics on Therapeutic Alliance and Outcome
Authors: Tschuschke Volker , Koemeda-Lutz Margit , von Wyl Agnes , Crameri Aureliano , Schulthess Peter 
Published: November 2021

AbstractThis article investigates distances between therapists and their clients in their experience of the therapeutic alliance across the duration of the psychotherapeutic treatments in a naturalistic study. We looked at the working alliances from different vantage points—rupture, repair of ruptures, distances in the alliance impressions of both clients and therapists—and their correlation with treatment outcome. The only predictive variable of alliance ruptures was the inability of therapists to bond sufficiently with their clients regarding a sustainable working atmosphere, which could be identified through a continuous distant alliance rating by the therapists. Alliance ruptures in turn significantly predicted premature termination of treatments, whereas alliance ruptures per se did not necessarily predict treatment outcome. The paper discusses the possible role of the quality of therapists’ attachment styles as a potentially crucial variable in an effective working alliance in psychotherapy.