bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Continuous positive airway pressure improves blood pressure and serum cardiovascular biomarkers in obstructive sleep apnoea and hypertension
Authors: Lui Macy Mei-Sze , Tse Hung-Fat , Lam David Chi-Leung , Lau Kui-Kai , Chan Carmen Wing-Sze , Ip Mary Sau-Man 
Published: April 2021

BackgroundThe impact of treatment for obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) on reduction of cardiovascular risk is unclear. This study aimed to examine the effect of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) on ambulatory blood pressure (BP) and subclinical myocardial injury in subjects with OSA and hypertension.MethodsThis was a parallel-group randomised controlled trial. Subjects with hypertension requiring at least three antihypertensive medications and moderate-to-severe OSA were enrolled. Eligible subjects were randomised (1:1) to receive either CPAP treatment or control (no CPAP) for 8 weeks. Changes in ambulatory BP and serum biomarkers were compared. Stratified analysis according to circadian BP pattern was performed.Results92 subjects (75% male; mean±sdage 51±8 years and apnoea–hypopnoea index 40±8 events·h−1, taking an average of 3.4 (range 3–6) antihypertensive drugs) were randomised. The group on CPAP treatment, compared with the control group, demonstrated a significant reduction in 24-h systolic BP (−4.4 (95% CI −8.7– −0.1) mmHg; p=0.046), 24-h diastolic BP (−2.9 (95% CI −5.5– −0.2) mmHg; p=0.032), daytime systolic BP (−5.4 (95% CI −9.7– −1.0) mmHg; p=0.016) and daytime diastolic BP (−3.4 (95% CI −6.1– −0.8) mmHg; p=0.012). CPAP treatment was associated with significant BP lowering only in nondippers, but not in dippers. Serum troponin I (mean difference −1.74 (95% CI −2.97– −0.50) pg·mL−1; p=0.006) and brain natriuretic peptide (−9.1 (95% CI −17.6– −0.6) pg·mL−1; p=0.036) were significantly reduced in CPAP compared with the control group.ConclusionsIn a cohort with OSA and multiple cardiovascular risk factors including difficult-to-control hypertension, short-term CPAP treatment improved ambulatory BP, and alleviated subclinical myocardial injury and strain.
Prevalence, incidence and characteristics of chronic cough among adults from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging
Authors: Satia Imran , Mayhew Alexandra J. , Sohel Nazmul , Kurmi Om , Killian Kieran J. , O'Byrne Paul M. , Raina Parminder 
Published: April 2021

The global prevalence of chronic cough is highly variable, ranging from 2% to 18%. There is a lack of data on the prevalence and incidence of chronic cough in the general population.The objective of this study was to investigate the prevalence and incidence of chronic cough in a sample of Canadian adults, and how these are influenced by age, sex, smoking, respiratory symptoms, medical comorbidities and lung function.Participants with chronic cough were identified from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) based on self-reported daily cough in the past 12 months. This is a prospective, nationally generalisable, stratified random sample of adults aged 45–85 years at baseline recruited between 2011 and 2015, and followed-up 3 years later. The prevalence and incidence per 100 person-years are described, with adjustments for age, sex and smoking.Of the 30 097 participants, 29 972 completed the chronic cough question at baseline and 26 701 did so at follow-up. The prevalence of chronic cough was 15.8% at baseline and 17.6% at follow-up with 10.4–17.1% variation across seven provinces included in the CLSA comprehensive sample. Prevalence increased with age and current smoking, and was higher in males (15.2%), Caucasians (14%) and those born in North America, Europe or Oceania (14%). The incidence of chronic cough adjusted for age, sex and smoking was higher in males and in underweight and obese subjects. Subjects with respiratory symptoms, airway diseases, lower forced expiratory volume in 1 s (% predicted), cardiovascular diseases, psychological disorders, diabetes and chronic pain had a higher incidence of chronic cough.The prevalence and incidence of chronic cough is high in the CLSA sample with geographic, ethnic and gender differences, influenced by a number of medical comorbidities.
Lung volume reduction in emphysema: a pragmatic prospective cohort study
Authors: Dooms Christophe , Blondeel Astrid , Ceulemans Laurens J. , Coolen Johan , Everaerts Stephanie , Demeyer Heleen , Troosters Thierry , Verleden Geert , Van Raemdonck Dirk , Janssens Wim 
Published: April 2021

Limited guidance exists for the implementation of lung volume reduction interventions in routine clinical care. We designed a pragmatic study to evaluate a strategy including endoscopic lung volume reduction (ELVR) and lung volume reduction surgery (LVRS) in heterogeneous emphysema.This prospective monocentre cohort study evaluated ELVRversusno-ELVR, followed by a cohort study evaluating LVRS. Primary outcome was the proportion of subjects with a forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1) improvement of ⩾100 mL at 3-month follow-up. Changes in FEV1, residual volume (RV), 6-min walk distance (6MWD) and quality of life (St George's Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ)) were evaluated at 6-month follow-up. Hospital stay and treatment-related serious adverse events were monitored.From 106 subjects screened, 38 subjects were enrolled comparing ELVR (n=20) with no-ELVR (n=18). After 6 months’ follow-up, eligible patients were referred for LVRS (n=16) with another 6-month follow-up. At 3-month follow-up, 70% of ELVR compared to 11% of no-ELVR (p<0.001) and 69% of LVRS had an FEV1improvement of ⩾100 mL. Between-group differences (mean±sem) for ELVRversusno-ELVR at 6-month follow-up were FEV1+0.21±0.05 L; RV −0.95±0.21 L; 6MWD 58±17 m and SGRQ −18±5 points. At 6-month follow-up, within-group differences (mean±sem) for LVRS showed FEV1+0.27±0.06 L; RV −1.49±0.22 L and 6MWD +75±18 m. Serious adverse events in 81%versus45% of subjects (p=0.04) and a median hospital stay of 15versus5 days (p<0.001) were observed for LVRSversusELVR, respectively.This pragmatic prospective cohort study supports a clinical approach with ELVR as a less invasive first option and LVRS as powerful alternative in severe heterogeneous emphysema.
Circulating Tfh cell and subsets distribution are associated with low‐responsiveness to hepatitis B vaccination
Authors: Yin Mingjuan , Xiong Yongzhen , Liang Dongmei , Tang Hao , Hong Qian , Liu Gang , Zeng Jinmei , Lian Tingyu , Huang Jingxiao , Ni Jindong 
Published: April 2021

Abstract
Background
An estimated 5–10 % of healthy vaccinees lack adequate antibody response following receipt of a standard three-dose hepatitis B vaccination regimen. The cellular mechanisms responsible for poor immunological responses to hepatitis B vaccine have not been fully elucidated to date.

Methods
There were 61 low responders and 56 hyper responders involved in our study. Peripheral blood samples were mainly collected at D7, D14 and D28 after revaccinated with a further dose of 20 µg of recombinant hepatitis B vaccine.

Results
We found low responders to the hepatitis B vaccine presented lower frequencies of circulating follicular helper T (cTfh) cells, plasmablasts and a profound skewing away from cTfh2 and cTfh17 cells both toward cTfh1 cells. Importantly, the skewing of Tfh cell subsets correlated with IL-21 and protective antibody titers. Based on the key role of microRNAs involved in Tfh cell differentiation, we revealed miR-19b-1 and miR-92a-1 correlated with the cTfh cell subsets distribution and antibody production.

Conclusions
Our findings highlighted a decrease in cTfh cells and specific subset skewing contribute to reduced antibody responses in low responders.
The emerging role of exosomal miRNAs as a diagnostic and therapeutic biomarker in Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection
Authors: Mirzaei Rasoul , Babakhani Sajad , Ajorloo Parisa , Ahmadi Razieh Heidari , Hosseini-Fard Seyed Reza , Keyvani Hossein , Ahmadyousefi Yaghoub , Teimoori Ali , Zamani Farhad , Karampoor Sajad , Yousefimashouf Rasoul 
Published: April 2021

AbstractTuberculosis (TB), caused byMycobacterium tuberculosis(Mtb), has been the world’s driving fatal bacterial contagious disease globally. It continues a public health emergency, and around one-third of the global community has been affected by latent TB infection (LTBI). This is mostly due to the difficulty in diagnosing and treating patients with TB and LTBI. Exosomes are nanovesicles (40–100 nm) released from different cell types, containing proteins, lipids, mRNA, and miRNA, and they allow the transfer of one’s cargo to other cells. The functional and diagnostic potential of exosomal miRNAs has been demonstrated in bacterial infections, including TB. Besides, it has been recognized that cells infected by intracellular pathogens such as Mtb can be secreting an exosome, which is implicated in the infection’s fate. Exosomes, therefore, open a unique viewpoint on the investigative process of TB pathogenicity. This study explores the possible function of exosomal miRNAs as a diagnostic biomarker. Moreover, we include the latest data on the pathogenic and therapeutic role of exosomal miRNAs in TB.
Effects of microwave irradiation on the moisture content of various wood chip fractions obtained from different tree species
Authors: Aniszewska Monika , Słowiński Krzysztof , Tulska Ewa , Zychowicz Witold 
Published: April 2021

AbstractThe paper proposes the use of microwave irradiation to lower the initial moisture content of wood chips. The study involved willow and fir chips fractionated by means of a sieve separator and unfractionated ash chips. The wood chips were exposed to a constant microwave power of 800 W for 30 s, 60 s, 120 s and 180 s. The chips were weighed before and after irradiation to measure loss of moisture. It was found that the decline in moisture content increased with wood chip size for a given irradiation time and microwave power. The initial moisture content of wood chips was not found to significantly affect loss of moisture as the drying rates of wood chips with higher and lower moisture content exposed to microwaves were not statistically different. The results showed that irradiation intensity increased with the time of exposure to microwaves and unit radiant energy per unit of evaporated moisture decreased with increasing wood chip size in the 3.15–31.50 mm range.
Harvestman: a framework for hierarchical feature learning and selection from whole genome sequencing data
Authors: Frisby Trevor S. , Baker Shawn J. , Marçais Guillaume , Hoang Quang Minh , Kingsford Carl , Langmead Christopher J. 
Published: April 2021

AbstractBackgroundSupervised learning from high-throughput sequencing data presents many challenges. For one, the curse of dimensionality often leads to overfitting as well as issues with scalability. This can bring about inaccurate models or those that require extensive compute time and resources. Additionally, variant calls may not be the optimal encoding for a given learning task, which also contributes to poor predictive capabilities. To address these issues, we presentHarvestman, a method that takes advantage of hierarchical relationships among the possible biological interpretations and representations of genomic variants to perform automatic feature learning, feature selection, and model building.ResultsWe demonstrate thatHarvestmanscales to thousands of genomes comprising more than 84 million variants by processing phase 3 data from the 1000 Genomes Project, one of the largest publicly available collection of whole genome sequences. Using breast cancer data from The Cancer Genome Atlas, we show thatHarvestmanselects a rich combination of representations that are adapted to the learning task, and performs better than a binary representation of SNPs alone. We compareHarvestmanto existing feature selection methods and demonstrate that our method is moreparsimonious—it selects smaller and less redundant feature subsets while maintaining accuracy of the resulting classifier.ConclusionHarvestmanis a hierarchical feature selection approach for supervised model building from variant call data. By building a knowledge graph over genomic variants and solving an integer linear program ,Harvestmanautomatically and optimally finds the right encoding for genomic variants. Compared to other hierarchical feature selection methods,Harvestmanis faster and selects features more parsimoniously.
A tail of two pandas— whole genome k-mer signature analysis of the red panda (Ailurus fulgens) and the Giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca)
Authors: Cserhati Matyas 
Published: April 2021

Abstract
Background
The red panda (Ailurus fulgens) is a riddle of morphology, making it hard to tell whether it is an ursid, a procyonid, a mustelid, or a member of its own family. Previous genetic studies have given quite contradictory results as to its phylogenetic placement.

Results
A recently developed whole genome-based algorithm, the Whole Genome K-mer Signature algorithm was used to analyze the genomes of 28 species of Carnivora, including A. fulgens and several felid, ursid, mustelid, one mephitid species. This algorithm has the advantage of holistically using all the information in the genomes of these species. Being a genomics-based algorithm, it also reduces stochastic error to a minimum. Besides the whole genome, the mitochondrial DNA from 52 mustelids, mephitids, ursids, procyonids and A. fulgens were aligned to draw further phylogenetic inferences.
The results from the whole genome study suggested that A. fulgens is a member of the mustelid clade (p = 9·10− 97). A. fulgens also separates from the mephitid Spilogala gracilis. The giant panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca also clusters away from A. fulgens, together with other ursids (p = 1.2·10− 62). This could be due to the geographic isolation of A. fulgens from other mustelid species. However, results from the mitochondrial study as well as neighbor-joining methods based on the sequence identity matrix suggests that A. fulgens forms a monophyletic group. A Maximum Likelihood tree suggests that A. fulgens and Ursidae form a monophyletic group, although the bootstrap value is weak.

Conclusions
The main conclusion that we can draw from this study is that on a whole genome level A. fulgens possibly belongs to the mustelid clade, and not an ursid or a mephitid. This despite the fact that previously some researchers classified A. fulgens and A. melanoleuca as relatives. Since the genotype determines the phenotype, molecular-based classification takes precedence over morphological classifications. This affirms the results of some previous studies, which studied smaller portions of the genome. However, mitochondrial analyses based on neighbor-joining and maximum likelihood methods suggest otherwise.
Verticillium wilt resistant and susceptible olive cultivars express a very different basal set of genes in roots
Authors: Ramírez-Tejero Jorge A. , Jiménez-Ruiz Jaime , Serrano Alicia , Belaj Angjelina , León Lorenzo , de la Rosa Raúl , Mercado-Blanco Jesús , Luque Francisco 
Published: April 2021

Abstract
Background
Olive orchards are threatened by a wide range of pathogens. Of these, Verticillium dahliae has been in the spotlight for its high incidence, the difficulty to control it and the few cultivars that has increased tolerance to the pathogen. Disease resistance not only depends on detection of pathogen invasion and induction of responses by the plant, but also on barriers to avoid the invasion and active resistance mechanisms constitutively expressed in the absence of the pathogen. In a previous work we found that two healthy non-infected plants from cultivars that differ in V. dahliae resistance such as ‘Frantoio’ (resistant) and ‘Picual’ (susceptible) had a different root morphology and gene expression pattern. In this work, we have addressed the issue of basal differences in the roots between Resistant and Susceptible cultivars.

Results
The gene expression pattern of roots from 29 olive cultivars with different degree of resistance/susceptibility to V. dahliae was analyzed by RNA-Seq. However, only the Highly Resistant and Extremely Susceptible cultivars showed significant differences in gene expression among various groups of cultivars. A set of 421 genes showing an inverse differential expression level between the Highly Resistant to Extremely Susceptible cultivars was found and analyzed. The main differences involved higher expression of a series of transcription factors and genes involved in processes of molecules importation to nucleus, plant defense genes and lower expression of root growth and development genes in Highly Resistant cultivars, while a reverse pattern in Moderately Susceptible and more pronounced in Extremely Susceptible cultivars were observed.

Conclusion
According to the different gene expression patterns, it seems that the roots of the Extremely Susceptible cultivars focus more on growth and development, while some other functions, such as defense against pathogens, have a higher expression level in roots of Highly Resistant cultivars. Therefore, it seems that there are constitutive differences in the roots between Resistant and Susceptible cultivars, and that susceptible roots seem to provide a more suitable environment for the pathogen than the resistant ones.
Genetic control of flowering in greater yam (Dioscorea alata L.)
Authors: Cormier Fabien , Martin Guillaume , Vignes Hélène , Lachman Laurie , Cornet Denis , Faure Yoana , Maledon Erick , Mournet Pierre , Arnau Gemma , Chaïr Hâna 
Published: April 2021

AbstractBackgroundGreater yam (Dioscorea alataL.) is a major tropical and subtropical staple crop cultivated for its starchy tubers. Breeding of this dioecious species is hampered by its erratic flowering, yet little is currently known on the genetic determinism of its sexual reproduction.ResultHere we used a genome-wide association approach and identified a major genetic barrier to reproduction in yam on chromosome 1, as represented by two candidate genes. A deleterious effect on male fitness could be hypothesized considering the involvement of these two genes in male reproduction and the low frequency of this non-flowering dominant allele within the male genepool. We also extended the hypothesis of a XX/XY sex-determination system located on chromosome 6 inD. alatato encompass most of the species diversity. Moreover, a kompetitive allele-specific PCR (KASPar) marker was designed and validated that enables accurate cultivar sex estimation. The reconstruction of chromosome 6 associated with the detection of highly putative structural variations confirmed the possible involvement of a major part of the chromosome.ConclusionThe findings of this study, combined with proper estimation of accession ploidy levels to avoid endosperm incompatibility issues, could facilitate the design of future promising parental combinations inD. alatabreeding programs. Moreover, the discovery of this genetic barrier to reproduction opens new avenues for gaining insight into yam reproductive biology and diversification.
Diagnostic and treatment barriers to persistent somatic symptoms in primary care – representative survey with physicians
Authors: Lehmann Marco , Pohontsch Nadine Janis , Zimmermann Thomas , Scherer Martin , Löwe Bernd 
Published: April 2021

Abstract
Background
Many patients consult their primary care physician with persistent somatic symptoms such as pain or sickness. Quite often these consultations and further diagnostic measures yield no medical explanation for the symptoms – patients and physicians are left in uncertainty. In fact, diagnostic and treatment barriers in primary care hinder timely health-care provision for patients suffering from persistent somatic symptoms (PSS). The significance of individual barriers is still unknown. We compare and quantify these barriers from the perspective of primary care physicians and identify subpopulations of primary care physicians who experience particular barriers as most severe.

Methods
We mailed a questionnaire to primary care physicians (PCP) in Germany and asked them which barriers they consider most important. We invited a random sample of 12,004 primary care physicians in eight federal states in Germany. Physicians provided anonymous mailed or online responses. We also mailed a postcard to announce the survey and a mail reminder. Main measures were Likert rating scales of items relating to barriers in the diagnosis and treatment of PSS in primary care. Information on demography and medical practice were also collected.

Results
We analyzed 1719 data sets from 1829 respondents. PCPs showed strongest agreement with statements regarding (1.) their lack of knowledge about treatment guidelines, (2.) their perceptions that patients with PSS would expect symptom relief, (3.) their concern to overlook physical disease in these patients, and (4.) their usage of psychotropic drugs with these patients. More experienced PCPs were better able to cope with the possibility of overlooking physical disease than those less experienced.

Conclusions
The PCPs in our survey answered that the obligation to rule out severe physical disease and the demand to relieve patients from symptoms belong to the most severe barriers for adequate treatment and diagnosis. Moreover, many physicians admitted to not knowing the appropriate treatment guidelines for these patients. Based on our results, raising awareness of guidelines and improving knowledge about the management of persistent somatic symptoms appear to be promising approaches for overcoming the barriers to diagnosis and treatment of persistent somatic symptoms in primary care.

Trial registration
German Clinical Trials Register (Deutschen Register Klinischer Studien, DRKS)
https://www.drks.de/drks_web/setLocale_EN.do
The date the study was registered: October 2nd 2017
The date the first participant was enrolled: February 9th 2018
DRKS-ID: DRKS00012942