bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
KTU: K‐mer Taxonomic Units improve the biological relevance of amplicon sequence variant microbiota data
Authors: Liu Po‐Yu , Yang Shan‐Hua , Yang Sung‐Yin 
Published: November 2021

AbstractAmplicon sequencing is widely implemented in microbiome‐associated studies. In recent years, microbial ecologists have switched to new algorithms for taxonomic identification and quantification. The amplicon sequence variant (ASV) denoising algorithm of unbiased sequence picking has replaced the OTU clustering methods. ASV can be used to detect and distinguish biological variations to the species OTU level (≥97% similarity). However, the ASV quantification among samples is sparse and less prevalent within the same batch.Here, we present a k‐mer based, alignment‐free algorithm—‘KTU’ (K‐mer Taxonomic Unit)—to iteratively re‐cluster ASVs into optimal biological taxonomic units.The ‘KTU’ algorithm comprises four parts: (a) The k‐mer frequency calling is sliding window counted by tetranucleotide frequencies from both ends of the DNA sequence. (b) The similarities in k‐mer frequencies among the sequences are measured by cosine dissimilarity. (c) The KTUs are detected from the cosine dissimilarity matrix using the partition around medoids (PAM) clustering algorithm. The iterative PAM‐KTU detecting process searches for the numbers of KTU convergent clusters according to the maximum silhouette coefficient. (d) Finally, the ASVs are aggregated into the corresponding KTUs.KTU re‐clustered every 1.38–4.53 ASVs into a feature with >99% sequence similarity on average and 1% cosine divergence for each KTU. Additionally, the re‐clustering procedure improved biological explanations for correlations and significances of clinical and environmental factors.
A study on the effect of joint supervision between auditors and sponsors: evidence from China
Authors: Wang Juewei , Wang Jenny Jing , Tulig Steve , Zhang Weidong , Li Zeyu 
Published: November 2021

AbstractThis study examines the joint supervision of auditors and sponsors in a sample of private placements on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets from 2006 to 2019. We observe variation in the inhibitory effect of earnings management and inefficient investment based on the combination of intermediaries with different reputations. We find that auditors exert a strong inhibitory effect on earnings management while sponsors are best positioned to suppress inefficient investment. Furthermore, this study enriches the existing supervisory literature and provides insights to further improve the relationship between auditors and sponsors in the context of China’s unique registration system.
Capitalist Transformation and Settler Colonialism: Theorizing the Interface
Authors: Ramones Ikaika , Merry Sally Engle 
Published: November 2021

ABSTRACTAnthropological theory has approached Indigenous experiences of colonialism through frameworks of capitalist expansion or, more recently, through those of settler colonialism. Given their different attentions, these frameworks in conjunction provide a more nuanced account of the colonizing and displacement process than either does alone. The history of Hawaiʻi from 1778 to 1860 provides a valuable illustration of the entanglements of economic transformation and settler colonialism over time, showing the need to combine analyses of settler colonialism with those of political economy to understand the emergence of new systems of governance, law, and exchange. The establishment of settler colonialism was neither quick nor uncontested, entailing Indigenous strategic appropriation along with political, legal, and social changes that created the space for settler dominance. Settler colonialism was fostered by the prospect of a profitable plantation economy. In Hawai‘i, chiefs managed to avoid a Euro‐American capitalist takeover during the first eighty years of contact but began to lose control as the settler population grew and the capitalist economy expanded. [settler colonialism, capitalist transformation, land alienation, Hawaiian history]
Adopting a Root: Documenting Ecological and Cultural Signatures of Plant Translocations in Northwestern North America
Authors: Turner Nancy J. , Geralda Armstrong Chelsey , Lepofsky Dana 
Published: November 2021

ABSTRACTIn recent years, there has been an increasing recognition of the role humans play in the structure, composition, and function of ecosystems. Ethnoecological documentation of traditional management systems of Indigenous Peoples in northwestern North America has contributed significantly to this rethinking. A less well‐recognized but foundational part of traditional management of this region is the practice of transplanting plants and plant propagules to expand the range and accessibility of culturally valued plants. In part, the lack of recognition of such translocations has to do with difficulties in identifying evidence of such actions from the past. Here, we summarize various lines of evidence, including that from ethnographic and ethnohistoric records, languages, oral traditions, phytogeography, and archaeology, to document the widespread and long‐standing extent of plant translocation practices among Indigenous Peoples of northwestern North America. Furthermore, we demonstrate how such practices have helped shape contemporary native plant communities throughout the region. Recognizing these past contributions to current ecological contexts honors Indigenous heritage and Indigenous Peoples’ long‐term relationships with their biological worlds. [translocation, transplanting, ethnobotany, traditional resource management, northwestern North America]
On shame
Authors: McBRIEN JULIE 
Published: November 2021

ABSTRACTUiat is a word ubiquitously spoken in Kyrgyzstan. It is hurled at children to stop improper behavior and thrown by adults to evaluate conduct. It is a relational practice that textures everyday life, cultivating discomfort in the body when spoken, gendering and aging those involved in its practice, and setting the boundaries of propriety. Uiat is most often translated as “shame.” The earliest work on honor and shame in anthropology established the prevalence of shame and outlined its basic work as a social mechanism of control, but the discussion, especially when considering Muslim societies, largely died out. Yet shame remains a prominent practice ripe for investigation. Looking at uiat as a dense, knotty practice carried out over time shows how shaming practices, in Kyrgyzstan at least, work to exert control and why they are so very efficacious. [shame, material semiotics, gender, age, embodiment, performativity, Muslim societies, postsocialist, Kyrgyzstan]
Contamination in theory and protest
Authors: BOND DAVID 
Published: November 2021

ABSTRACTContamination offers a new observatory for anthropological theory. But does it bring us closer to the world at hand? I have spent the past five years working with residents in Bennington, Vermont, and Hoosick Falls, New York, in pursuit of justice after the toxin PFOA was discovered in their drinking water. Turning from advocacy to writing, I've been struck by how prominent toxicity is becoming in certain currents of anthropological theory and how little those theories illuminate about the protests against contamination I participated in. As the theoretical dazzle of contamination surges forward toward experimental futures, planetary futures, and queer futures, toxicity can become an oracle whose ethnographic significance lies more in its prophetic intimation than in its present inhabitation. Staying close to the experience of a New England community protesting industrial pollution, I show how the ethnographic realities of contamination can orient theory for a better world without first resigning us to the loss of the present. [toxics,materiality,futures,environmental justice,PFAS,plastic pollution,United States]
The right to public security
Authors: SAVELL STEPHANIE 
Published: November 2021

ABSTRACTIn 2013 activists in a Rio de Janeiro favela—an epicenter of the city's notorious police violence—called on the Brazilian state to fulfill their “right to public security.” They were anticipating a new policing program, known as “pacification,” in which the state would expand its efforts to “clean up” poor, racially stigmatized neighborhoods dominated by drug‐trafficking groups. The activists’ claim was at once a cry and a demand: a cry against discriminatory policing, state terror, and an unjustly divided city, and a demand for equality, peace, and the state provision of safety in their streets. This case shows that a critical anthropology of security can maintain a tension between security‐as‐violence and security‐as‐rights. In doing so, scholars can broaden the understanding of state security beyond repression and attend to how it instantiates various modes of sovereign power. [security, policing, rights, activism, pacification, UPP, traffickers, favela, Brazil]
Long‐term testosterone undecanoate treatment in the elderly testosterone deficient male: An observational cohort study
Authors: Abildgaard Julie , Petersen Jørgen Holm , Bang Anne Kirstine , Aksglaede Lise , Christiansen Peter , Juul Anders , Jørgensen Niels 
Published: November 2021

AbstractBackgroundQuarterly intramuscular injections with long‐acting testosterone undecanoate (TU) provide stable serum testosterone concentrations over time and are therefore preferred by many testosterone‐deficient patients. However, the use of long‐acting TU in elderly patients is limited due to lack of safety and feasibility studies.ObjectiveTo investigate long‐acting TU pharmacokinetics and assess differences in treatment regimens and risk of adverse outcomes in younger versus elderly testosterone‐deficient patients.Materials and methodsSingle‐center longitudinal observational study. Patients who initiated long‐acting TU treatment between 2005 and 2010 were included. Elderly patients were born before 1956 and younger patients between 1965 and 1985. TU dose was adjusted yearly through shortening or prolongation of time between injections. Treatment targets were as follows: (1) free testosterone between 0 and −1 SD from the age‐adjusted mean, (2) no symptoms of testosterone deficiency, and (3) hematocrit within the normal range.ResultsThe study population consisted of 63 elderly and 63 younger patients. Median follow‐up time during testosterone replacement was 12.1 years. Increasing intervals between TU injections were performed 44% more often in the elderly compared to younger patients and time between TU injections were prolonged 4% more in the elderly patients. The hematocrit, as well as the hematocrit for a given serum testosterone (hematocrit: testosterone ratio), increased with treatment time but did not differ between age groups. During follow‐up, 40% of patients—both elderly and younger—experienced polycythemia. Risk of polycythemia did not differ with age.Discussion and conclusionAn increased number of adjustments of TU dose are necessary in elderly patients in order to reach treatment targets. TU treatment in elderly testosterone‐deficient patients is not associated with an increased risk of polycythemia compared to younger patients if age‐adjusted treatment targets are reached.
Effect of childhood obesity on admissions for respiratory disease
Authors: Ogino Jayme , Basravi Sunniya , Salazar Adler , Chan Randall Y. 
Published: November 2021

AbstractAimThe purpose of this study was to assess for an association between higher body mass index and disease severity, morbidity and mortality in children admitted for an acute respiratory distress and failure.MethodsA single‐institution retrospective cross‐sectional study performed in the United States evaluating paediatric patients, 2–20 years of age, admitted for diagnoses related to acute respiratory distress and acute respiratory failure. Main outcomes include disease severity as assessed using the respiratory component of the Paediatric Early Warning Score (PEWS) with adjustment for altered mental status (Resp‐PEWS + AMS), hospital or intensive care length of stay (LOS) and death.ResultsChildren with obesity made up 42/334 (13%) of the cohort. There was no significant difference in Resp‐PEWS + AMS between obese and non‐obese cohorts (mean of 0.93, {standard deviation 1.11} vs. 1.13 {1.35}, range 0–6, rank sum p = 0.46). There was no significant difference in overall hospital LOS or intensive care LOS. Multivariate analysis including diagnosis as a control variable did not change the results.ConclusionWe found that body habitus was not an independent factor for illness severity or clinical outcomes.
The epistemic politics of “northern‐led” humanitarianism: Case of Lebanon
Authors: Carpi Estella 
Published: November 2021

AbstractThis paper examines the epistemic politics of hegemonic humanitarianism by building on agnotology theories. I unpack the idea of “professional authority” with the purpose of showing how the Global North's humanitarian agencies thrive on both a technocratic and an unpredictability approach. This epistemic politics is used to absolve humanitarianism of its failures and to blame “Southern” politics and technical deficiencies in the Global South.
Practising comparative urbanism: Methods and consequences
Authors: Brill Frances 
Published: November 2021

AbstractThis paper addresses methodological approaches to comparative urban geography and the consequences of such approaches. It demonstrates three ways by which an imaginative comparison can be constructed and employed: letting the sites speak to one another, repeated instance analysis, and tracing. Successfully employing these methods requires adopting comparison as both an implicit ethos and explicit approach during data collection and analysis, answering “why is it different here?” Reflecting on the impact of utilising comparative approaches, I argue that comparative urbanism helps balance the unique and ubiquitous conclusions from research, and forces researchers to question the norms or assumptions they hold from doing singular case study research, which in turn foregrounds the situational nature of urban governance in analysis. In the specifics of this paper, it also helps uncover assumptions around the power of state and reveals (some) global elite urban networks.
Arrested versus active silica diagenesis reaction boundaries—A review of seismic diagnostic criteria
Authors: Varkouhi Shahab , Cartwright Joseph A. , Tosca Nicholas J. , Papineau Dominic 
Published: November 2021

AbstractThis paper evaluates previously proposed diagnostic criteria that can be used to determine whether or not there is active migration of the opal‐A to opal‐CT transition zone (TZA/CT). The criteria are based on the interpretation of 2D and 3D seismic surveys and are therefore geometrical. They involve an assessment of the relationship of the TZA/CT with polygonal fault systems, differential compaction structures and tectonic folds. The most robust evidence for an inactive ‘reaction front’ between opal‐A and opal‐CT bearing sediments is the discordance of the TZA/CT relative to present‐day isotherms. Any of these may be persuasive as diagnostic criteria for the upward arrest of the diagenetic transformation at a regional scale, but actual truncation of the TZA/CT at the modern seabed is definitive for arrested diagenesis. This study argues that diagenetic assessment based solely on a single criterion independently is not reliable as an indicator for the current state of a silica transition. As a conclusion, the analysed seismic/structural criteria should be synthesised to provide a more credible interpretation for silica diagenesis. The use of modern 2D and 3D seismic data for the reconstruction of the diagenetic history of opaline silica bearing sediments offers a new approach to the study of silica diagenesis at a regional scale.
Moving and resisting Lean: Saskatchewan’s contested implementation of Lean healthcare
Authors: Leifso Justin 
Published: November 2021

AbstractThis article considers the complexities of how policy moves across jurisdictional and sectoral boundaries by examining how Lean Management was introduced into Saskatchewan’s healthcare system. In 2012, the government of Saskatchewan retained a management consulting firm to “transform” the province’s healthcare system using Lean Management. Over subsequent months and years, the consulting firm and provincial government worked to reconstitute the province’s healthcare system, which became the focal point of public debate in the province. This article explores the complexities of how Lean Management arrived in Saskatchewan, how it was translated to address “waste” in the province, and how resistance to its deployment shaped its mobilization in future settings.
Medullary thyroid cancer with ectopic Cushing's syndrome: A multicentre case series
Authors: Koehler Viktoria F. , Fuss Carmina T. , Berr Christina M. , Frank‐Raue Karin , Raue Friedhelm , Hoster Eva , Hepprich Matthias , Christ Emanuel , Pusl Thomas , Reincke Martin , Spitzweg Christine , Kroiss Matthias ,   The German Study Group for Rare Malignant Tumours of the Thyroid and Parathyroid Glands
Published: November 2021

AbstractObjectiveEctopic Cushing′s syndrome (ECS) induced by medullary thyroid cancer (MTC) is rare, and data on clinical characteristics, treatment and outcome are limited.DesignRetrospective cohort study in three German and one Swiss referral centres.PatientsEleven patients with MTC and occurrence of ECS and 22 matched MTC patients without ECS were included.MeasurementsThe primary endpoint of this study was the overall survival (OS) in MTC patients with ECS versus 1:2 matched MTC patients without ECS.ResultsThe median age at diagnosis of ECS was 59 years (range: 35–81) and the median time between initial diagnosis of MTC and diagnosis of ECS was 29 months (range: 0–193). Median serum morning cortisol was 49 µg/dl (range: 17–141, normal range: 6.2–18). Eight (73%) patients received treatment for ECS. Treatment of ECS consisted of bilateral adrenalectomy (BADX) in four (36%) patients and adrenostatic treatment in eight (73%) patients. One patient received treatment with multityrosine kinase inhibitor (MKI) to control hypercortisolism. All patients experienced complete resolution of symptoms of Cushing's syndrome and biochemical control of hypercortisolism. Patients with ECS showed a shorter median OS of 87 months (95% confidence interval [95% CI]: 64–111) than matched controls (190 months, 95% CI: 95–285). Of the nine deaths, four were related to progressive disease (PD). Four patients showed PD as well as complications and comorbidities of hypercortisolism before death.ConclusionThis study shows that ECS occurs in advanced stage MTC and is associated with a poor prognosis. Adrenostatic treatment and BADX were effective systemic treatment options in patients with MTC and ECS to control their hypercortisolism. MKI treatment achieved complete remission of hypercortisolism and sustained tumour control in one treated case.
Raised mortality in old adults with a history of hyperthyroidism following iodine fortification
Authors: Riis Johannes , Andersen Stine L. , Gade Gustav V. , Danielsen Mathias B. , Jorgensen Martin G. , Carlé Allan , Torp‐Pedersen Christian , Andersen Stig 
Published: November 2021

AbstractObjectiveA transient rise in the occurrence of hyperthyroidism ensued the introduction of iodine fortification (IF) of salt in Denmark. Older adults are at risk of complications to hyperthyroidism that could prove fatal to vulnerable individuals. We evaluated the association between thyroid function and mortality in older adults before and after nationwide implementation of IF.DesignRetrospective cohort study.PatientsAll 68‐year‐olds from the general population in the city of Randers were invited to participate in a clinical study in 1988 and followed until death, emigration or end of study (31 December 2017) using Danish registries.MeasurementsBaseline measures comprised of a questionnaire, physical examination and blood and urine samples. Kaplan–Meier survival curves and Cox regression were used to determine the association between thyroid function and death before and after IF. Time‐stratification of results before and after IF was employed due to violation of proportional hazards assumptions in Cox regression.ResultsMedian urinary iodine concentration was 42 µg/L at baseline consistent with moderate iodine deficiency. Hyperthyroidism (thyrotropin < 0.4 mIU/L) occurred in 37 (9.1%) participants. Kaplan–Meier survival curves showed an increase in mortality among participants with hyperthyroidism after IF. There was no significant association between hyperthyroidism and mortality before IF compared to euthyroid participants, but after IF hyperthyroid subjects had an increased mortality (adjusted hazard ratio: 2.22, 95% confidence interval: 1.44–3.44).ConclusionsIF was associated with raised mortality among older adults with a history of hyperthyroidism and moderate iodine deficiency. Our results highlight the need for cautious iodine supplementation and for monitoring of IF.
A randomised clinical trial of single or extended dosing ciprofloxacin versus no intervention for prevention of ventilation tube otorrhoea and obstruction (PreVenTO2)
Authors: Wang Luke Chenkan , Phyland Debra Jean , Giddings Charles Edward 
Published: November 2021

AbstractObjectivesTo determine the effectiveness of ciprofloxacin .3% antibiotic eardrops in preventing clinically significant postoperative otorrhoea and tube obstruction following grommet insertion in children.DesignThree‐arm parallel assessor‐blinded randomised controlled trial. Randomisation in 1: 1: 1 ratio to single intraoperative application of ciprofloxacin drops, extended 5 day postoperative application and no drops. Patients were assessed by blinded assessors at 6 weeks postoperatively.SettingThe study was conducted in a large tertiary health network in Melbourne, Australia.ParticipantsAll children, 17 years and under, undergoing bilateral middle ear ventilation tube surgery with or without concurrent upper airway surgery for recurrent acute otitis media and chronic otitis media with effusion were approached.Main outcome measuresPresence of postoperative otorrhoea and ventilation tube obstruction at 6 weeks postoperatively.ResultsTwo‐hundred and fifty‐six paediatric patients completed the study with a median age of 4.02 years. One‐hundred and fifty‐three participants were male. Ear analysis (n = 512) showed intraoperative antibiotics were more effective than no drops in preventing otorrhoea (RR = .341, 95% CI .158–.738, NNT =11.25, p = .006). Postoperative antibiotics were more effective than no drops in preventing ventilation tube obstruction (RR = .424, 95% CI .193 to .930, NNT =14.7, p = .032).ConclusionIntraoperative topical ciprofloxacin was effective at preventing early postoperative otorrhoea, and a prolonged course was effective at preventing ventilation tube obstruction. Future studies on this topic should seek to clarify whether particular subgroups of patients benefit more from prophylactic topical antibiotics and model for cost‐effectiveness.