bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
A systematic review of the use of subcortical intraoperative electrical stimulation mapping for monitoring of executive deficits and neglect: what is the evidence so far?
Authors: Landers Maud J. F. , Sitskoorn Margriet M. , Rutten Geert-Jan M. , Mandonnet Emmanuel , De Baene Wouter 
Published: October 2021

Abstract

Background
Over the past decade, the functional importance of white matter pathways has been increasingly acknowledged in neurosurgical planning. A method to directly study anatomo-functional correlations is direct electrical stimulation (DES). DES has been widely accepted by neurosurgeons as a reliable tool to minimize the occurrence of permanent postoperative motor, vision, and language deficits. In recent years, DES has also been used for stimulation mapping of other cognitive functions, such as executive functions and visuospatial awareness.

Methods
The aim of this review is to summarize the evidence so far from DES studies on subcortical pathways that are involved in visuospatial awareness and in the following three executive functions: (1) inhibitory control, (2) working memory, and (3) cognitive flexibility.

Results
Eleven articles reported on intraoperative electrical stimulation of white matter pathways to map the cognitive functions and explicitly clarified which subcortical tract was stimulated. The results indicate that the right SLF-II is involved in visuospatial awareness, the left SLF-III and possibly the right SLF-I are involved in working memory, and the cingulum is involved in cognitive flexibility.

Conclusions
We were unable to draw any more specific conclusions, nor unequivocally establish the critical involvement of pathways in executive functions or visuospatial awareness due to the heterogeneity of the study types and methods, and the limited number of studies that assessed these relationships. Possible approaches for future research to obtain converging and more definite evidence for the involvement of pathways in specific cognitive functions are discussed.
Microvascular decompression in trigeminal neuralgia: predictors of pain relief, complication avoidance, and lessons learned
Authors: Herta Johannes , Schmied Tobias , Loidl Theresa Bettina , Wang Wei-te , Marik Wolfgang , Winter Fabian , Tomschik Matthias , Ferraz-Leite Heber , Rössler Karl , Dorfer Christian 
Published: October 2021

Abstract
Objective
To analyze characteristics associated with long-term pain relief after microvascular decompression (MVD) for trigeminal neuralgia (TGN). Description of associated morbidity and complication avoidance.

Methods
One hundred sixty-five patients with TGN underwent 171 MVD surgeries at the authors’ institution. Patient characteristics and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) datasets were obtained through the hospital’s archiving system. Patients provided information about pre- and post-operative pain characteristics and neurologic outcome. Favorable outcome was defined as a Barrow Neurological Institute (BNI) pain intensity score of I to III with post-operative improvement of I grade.

Results
Type of TGN pain with purely paroxysmal pain (p = 0.0202*) and TGN classification with classical TGN (p = 0.0372*) were the only significant predictors for long-term pain relief. Immediate pain relief occurred in 90.6% of patients with a recurrence rate of 39.4% after 3.5 ± 4.6 years. MRI reporting of a neurovascular conflict had a low negative predictive value of 39.6%. Mortality was 0% with major complications observed in 8.2% of patients. Older age was associated with lower complication rates (p = 0.0009***). Re-MVD surgeries showed improved long-term pain relief in four out of five cases.

Conclusions
MVD is a safe and effective procedure even in the elderly. It has the unique potential to cure TGN if performed on a regular basis, and if key surgical steps are respected. Early MVD should be offered in case of medical treatment failure and paroxysmal pain symptoms. The presence of a neurovascular conflict on MRI is not mandatory. In case of recurrence, re-MVD is a good treatment option that should be discussed with patients.

Highlights
• Long-term analysis of pain relief after MVD.
• Positive predictors for outcome: classical TGN and purely paroxysmal pain.
• Presence of neurovascular conflict in MRI is not mandatory for MVD surgery.
• Analysis of complications and surgical nuances for avoidance.
• MVD is a safe procedure also in the elderly.
Insulin stimulates β-alanine uptake in skeletal muscle cells in vitro
Authors: Santos Lívia , Gonçalves L. S. , Bagheri-Hanei Shirin , Möller Gabriella Berwig , Sale Craig , James Ruth M. , Artioli Guilherme Giannini 
Published: October 2021

AbstractWe evaluated whether insulin could stimulate β-alanine uptake by skeletal muscle cells in vitro. Mouse myoblasts (C2C12) (n = 3 wells per condition) were cultured with β-alanine (350 or 700 µmol·L−1), with insulin (100 µU·mL−1) either added to the media or not. Insulin stimulated the β-alanine uptake at the lower (350 µmol·L−1) but not higher (700 µmol·L−1) β-alanine concentration in culture medium, indicating that transporter saturation might blunt the stimulatory effects of insulin.
Improving data quality in large-scale repositories through conflict resolution
Authors: Kulmukhametov Artur , Rauber Andreas , Becker Christoph 
Published: October 2021

AbstractDigital repositories rely on technical metadata to manage their objects. The output of characterization tools is aggregated and analyzed through content profiling. The accuracy and correctness of characterization tools vary; they frequently produce contradicting outputs, resulting in metadata conflicts. The resulting metadata conflicts limit scalable preservation risk assessment and repository management. This article presents and evaluates a rule-based approach to improving data quality in this scenario through expert-conducted conflict resolution. We characterize the data quality challenges and present a method for developing conflict resolution rules to improve data quality. We evaluate the method and the resulting data quality improvements in an experiment on a publicly available document collection. The results demonstrate that our approach enables the effective resolution of conflicts by producing rules that reduce the number of conflicts in the data set from 17 to 3%. This replicable method for presents a significant improvement in content profiling technology for digital repositories, since the enhanced data quality can improve risk assessment and preservation management in digital repository systems.
Stress calculation on bevel gears with FEM influence vectors
Authors: Mieth Frederik , Ulrich Carsten , Schlecht Berthold 
Published: October 2021

AbstractIn order to be able to carry out an optimal gear design with the aim of cost reduction and the careful handling of resources, load capacity is an important criterion for the evaluation of a gear. For the calculation of the flank and root load capacity, a precise loaded tooth contact analysis (LTCA) is necessary. With LTCA software like BECAL, influence numbers are used to calculate the deformation of the gear. These influence numbers are calculated with a BEM-module and considered for calculating the local root stress. This method simplifies the coupling stiffness in tooth width direction with a decay function and neglects the influence of local differences in tooth stiffness. In this publication, this simplification shall be questioned and evaluated.Therefore, a new method for calculating stress with FEM influence vectors is presented. This method enables the calculation of full stress tensors at any desired location in the gear with the efficiency of the influence number method. Additionally, the influence of local stiffness variations in the gear is taken into account. Various gear examples show the influence of material connections at the pinion root and the influence of the rim thickness of a wheel on the root stress. To validate the accuracy and the time efficiency of the new calculation method and to compare the results to current state-of-the-art simulations, a well-documented series of tests from the literature is recalculated and evaluated.
Intra- and interspecific variation in self-control capacities of parrots in a delay of gratification task
Authors: Brucks Désirée , Petelle Matthew , Baldoni Cecilia , Krasheninnikova Anastasia , Rovegno Eleonora , von Bayern Auguste M. P. 
Published: October 2021

AbstractForgoing immediate satisfaction for higher pay-offs in the future (delayed gratification) could be adaptive in situations that wild animals may encounter. To explain species-differences in self-control, hypotheses based on social complexity, feeding ecology, brain size and metabolic rate have been proposed. To explore these hypotheses in a comparative setting, we tested three macaw species (neotropical parrots)—great green macaws (N = 8), blue-throated macaws (N = 6), blue-headed macaws (N = 6)—and the distantly related African grey parrots (afrotropical parrots;N = 8) in a modified rotating tray task, in which subjects are required to inhibit consuming a constantly available low-quality reward in favour of a high-quality reward that becomes available only after an increasing delay (min. 5 s, max. 60 s). All four species successfully waited for a minimum of 8.3 s ± 11.7 s (group level mean ± SD) with African greys reaching a delay of 29.4 ± 15.2 s, and great green macaws—as best performing macaw species—tolerating delays of 20 s ± 8 s. The best performing African grey individual reached a maximum delay of 50 s, whereas, a great green and a blue-throated macaw tolerated a delay of 30 s max. Females tolerated higher maximum delays than males. Engaging in distraction behaviours enhanced waiting performance across species and all birds were able to anticipate the waiting duration. Our results suggest that both feeding and socio-ecological complexity may be a factor in self-control, but further systematically collected comparative data on self-control of different (parrot) species are required to test the evolutionary hypotheses rigorously.
On the order of convergence of Broyden’s method
Authors: Mannel Florian 
Published: October 2021

AbstractWe present two theoretical results and two surprising conjectures concerning convergence properties of Broyden’s method for smooth nonlinear systems of equations. First, we show that when Broyden’s method is applied to a nonlinear mapping $$F:\mathbb {R}^n\rightarrow \mathbb {R}^n$$

F
:

R

n

→

R

n

with $$n-d$$

n
-
d

affine component functions and the initial matrix $$B_0$$

B
0

is chosen suitably, then the generated sequence $$(u^k,F(u^k),B_k)_{k\ge 1}$$

(

u
k

,
F

(

u
k

)

,

B
k

)

k
≥
1

can be identified with a lower-dimensional sequence that is also generated by Broyden’s method. This property enables us to prove, second, that for such mixed linear–nonlinear systems of equations a proper choice of $$B_0$$

B
0

ensures 2d-step q-quadratic convergence, which improves upon the previously known 2n steps. Numerical experiments of high precision confirm the faster convergence and show that it is not available if $$B_0$$

B
0

deviates from the correct choice. In addition, the experiments suggest two surprising possibilities: It seems that Broyden’s method is $$(2d-1)$$

(
2
d
-
1
)

-step q-quadratically convergent for $$d>1$$

d
>
1

and that it admits a q-order of convergence of $$2^{1/(2d)}$$

2

1
/
(
2
d
)

. These conjectures are new even for $$d=n$$

d
=
n

.
Maternal–Fetal Surgery: Does Recognising Fetal Patienthood Pose a Threat to Pregnant Women’s Autonomy?
Authors: Begović Dunja 
Published: October 2021

AbstractMaternal–fetal surgery (MFS) encompasses a range of innovative procedures aiming to treat fetal illnesses and anomalies during pregnancy. Their development and gradual introduction into healthcare raise important ethical issues concerning respect for pregnant women’s bodily integrity and autonomy. This paper asks what kind of ethical framework should be employed to best regulate the practice of MFS without eroding the hard-won rights of pregnant women. I examine some existing models conceptualising the relationship between a pregnant woman and the fetus to determine what kind of framework is the most adequate for MFS, and conclude that an ecosystem or maternal–fetal dyad model is best suited for upholding women’s autonomy. However, I suggest that an appropriate framework needs to incorporate some notion of fetal patienthood, albeit a very limited one, in order to be consistent with the views of healthcare providers and their pregnant patients. I argue that such an ethical framework is both theoretically sound and fundamentally respectful of women’s autonomy, and is thus best suited to protect women from coercion or undue paternalism when deciding whether to undergo MFS.
Understanding the Academic Success of Academically Talented College Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders
Authors: Reis Sally M. , Gelbar Nicholas W. , Madaus Joseph W. 
Published: October 2021

AbstractLittle is known about the academic and extra-curricular experiences of academically talented students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). This study focused on how these capable students with ASD successfully navigated and completed high school, and specifically, the experiences that enabled them to attend competitive colleges. Using comparative case studies and directed content analysis, data were derived from semi-structured interviews with 40 students who had been identified as academically talented with ASD, and were enrolled in, or recently graduated from, highly competitive colleges in the United States. The majority were identified as having academic talents, participated in challenging honors classes, enrichment opportunities, interest-based extra-curricular activities, residential summer programs, and pursued other advanced educational experiences. Implications for educational and talent development services are included.
An informationally complete Wigner function for the Tavis–Cummings model
Authors: Rundle Russell P. , Everitt Mark J. 
Published: October 2021

AbstractHere we consider an informationally complete Wigner function approach to look at multiple atoms (qubits) coupled to a field mode. We consider the Tavis–Cummings interaction between a single field mode with two qubits and then with five.
Sustainable urban mobility: evidence from three developed European countries
Authors: Punzo Gennaro , Panarello Demetrio , Castellano Rosalia 
Published: October 2021

AbstractThe importance acquired by private cars as the leading travel mode in most advanced countries has drawn attention to concerns related to pro-environmental travel behaviour. Indeed, the car has brought great benefits to society, albeit causing a whole lot of environmental and socio-economic consequences. In this perspective, we exploit Eurobarometer data on the attitudes of Europeans towards urban mobility to investigate the main motivations of citizens’ public transport use frequency. Ordered logistic regressions are estimated by country (Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands) and by gender. Our results suggest the key role played by a comprehensive set of socio-demographic, economic, and environmental aspects in determining urban travel behaviour. Moreover, our investigation brings to light some relevant cross-country and cross-gender commonalities and differences. The provided evidence may give policymakers a better knowledge of travel behaviour, useful for designing new interventions for environmentally-sustainable travelling.
Association between metabolic syndrome components and chronic kidney disease among 37,533 old Chinese individuals
Authors: Xu Lingling , Liu Jin , Li Dongling , Yang Hua , Zhou Yang , Yang Junwei 
Published: October 2021

Abstract
Background
Chronic kidney disease (CKD) has become a worldwide health problem among aging populations. However, epidemiological information on Chinese elderly people with CKD is still lacking. This study aimed to investigate the epidemiological features and associated risk factors of CKD in aging population in China.

Methods
In this cross-sectional study, a total of 37,533 individuals aged ≥ 65 years were enrolled in Binhai from January to December 2018. The crude and standardized prevalence of CKD were calculated. Associations of metabolism-related indicators with CKD were examined using univariate and multivariate analyses.

Results
The overall prevalence of CKD was 17.7% (95% confidence interval 17.3–18.1%) in this Chinese elderly population. The prevalence was 17.5% among men (95% CI 17.0–18.1%) and 17.8% among women (95% CI 17.3–18.4%). The mean eGFR was 84.22 (SD ± 12.87) mL/min/1.73 m2, with the median value higher for women than for men.

Conclusion
Our study shows a high prevalence of CKD among Chinese elderly population. Aging, pre-HTN, HTN, elevated triglyceride, and FBG were associated with the risk of CKD. More attention should be paid to metabolic diseases to prevent CKD in the elderly.
A comparative mapping of plant species diversity using ensemble learning algorithms combined with high accuracy surface modeling
Authors: Zhao Yapeng , Yin Xiaozhe , Fu Yan , Yue Tianxiang 
Published: October 2021

AbstractPlant species diversity (PSD) has always been an essential component of biodiversity and plays an important role in ecosystem functions and services. However, it is still a huge challenge to simulate the spatial distribution of PSD due to the difficulties of data acquisition and unsatisfactory performance of predicting algorithms over large areas. A surge in the number of remote sensing imagery, along with the great success of machine learning, opens new opportunities for the mapping of PSD. Therefore, different machine learning algorithms combined with high-accuracy surface modeling (HASM) were firstly proposed to predict the PSD in the Xinghai, northeastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, China. Spectral reflectance and vegetation indices, generated from Landsat 8 images, and environmental variables were taken as the potential explanatory factors of machine learning models including least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (Lasso), ridge regression (Ridge), eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), and Random Forest (RF). The prediction generated from these machine learning methods and in situ observation data were integrated by using HASM for the high-accuracy mapping of PSD including three species diversity indices. The results showed that PSD was closely associated with vegetation indices, followed by spectral reflectance and environmental factors. XGBoost combined with HASM (HASM-XGBoost) showed the best performance with the lowest MAE and RMSE. Our results suggested that the fusion of heterogeneous data and the ensemble of heterogeneous models may revolutionize our ability to predict the PSD over large areas, especially in some places limited by sparse field samples.
Leukocyte-derived ratios are associated with late-life any type dementia: a cross-sectional analysis of the Mugello study
Authors: Lombardi Gemma , Paganelli Roberto , Abate Michele , Ireland Alex , Molino-Lova Raffaele , Sorbi Sandro , Macchi Claudio , Pellegrino Raffaello , Di Iorio Angelo , Cecchi Francesca 
Published: October 2021

Abstract
Immunosenescence, vascular aging, and brain aging, all characterized by elevated levels of inflammatory markers, are thought to share a common pathogenetic pathway: inflamm-aging. Retrospective cross-sectional analysis was conducted using data from the Mugello study (Tuscany, Italy), a representative Italian cohort of free-living nonagenarians. to assess the association between specific peripheral inflammation markers derived from white blood cell counts, and the diagnosis of dementia. All the variables of interest were reported for 411 subjects (110 males and 301 females) out of 475 enrolled in the study. Anamnestic dementia diagnosis was obtained from clinical certificate and confirmed by a General Practitioner, whereas leukocyte ratios were directly calculated from white blood cell counts. Body mass index and comorbidities were considered potential confounders. Diagnosis of any type dementia was certified in 73 cases (17.8%). Subjects affected by dementia were older, more frequently reported a previous stroke, had lower body mass index, and lower Mini-Mental-State-Examination score. Moreover, they had a higher lymphocyte count and lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio compared to the non-demented nonagenarians. We found that higher levels of lymphocyte counts are cross-sectionally associated with a clinical diagnosis of dementia. Furthermore, lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio is directly associated with any type of dementia, independently of age, sex, lymphocyte count, and comorbidities. Lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio may be considered a marker of immunological changes in the brain of dementia patients; moreover, it is low-cost, and easily available, thus enabling comparisons among different studies and populations, although the timeline and the extent of lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio role in dementia development must be further investigated.
Assessment of Toxic Metals (Al, Cd, Pb) and Trace Elements (B, Ba, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, Mo, Li, Zn, Ni, Sr, V) in the Common Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus) from the Canary Islands (Spain)
Authors: Rodríguez-Álvarez María , Paz Soraya , Hardisson Arturo , González-Weller Dailos , Rubio Carmen , Gutiérrez Ángel J. 
Published: October 2021

AbstractThe monitoring of trace elements and toxic metals in apical predators of the trophic chain provides data on the degree of contamination in ecosystems. The common kestrel is one of the most interesting raptors in this respect in the Canary Islands; therefore, the study of the levels of trace elements and toxic metals in this species is of much scientific value. The content of trace elements and toxic metals (B, Ba, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, Mo, Li, Zn, Ni, Sr, V, Al, Cd, Pb) was determined in the liver, muscle, and feathers of 200 specimens of common kestrel carcasses (Falco tinnunculus canariensis) from Tenerife. Cr (0.82 ± 2.62 mg/kg), Cu (11.82 ± 7.77 mg/kg), and Zn (198.47 ± 520.80 mg/kg) are the trace elements that stand out in the feather samples; this may be due to their affinity for the pigments that give them their coloring. Li was noteworthy in the liver samples (8.470 ± 5.702 mg/kg). Pb stood out in the feathers (4.353 ± 20.645 mg/kg) > muscle (0.148 ± 0.095 mg/kg) > liver (0.187 ± 0.133 mg/kg). The presence of metals in feathers correlates with recent exposure and reflects environmental contamination. When using raptor feathers as indicators of metal contamination, it is important to know what the levels of each metal signify. The analysis of the different tissues and organs of raptors, such as the common kestrel, provides valuable information on the degree of environmental contamination of the ecosystem in which it lives. Gender was not an influencing factor in this study.