bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Factors affecting rabbit sperm cryopreservation: a mini-review
Authors: Kubovicova Elena , Makarevich Alexander V. , Balazi Andrej , Vasicek Jaromir , Chrenek Peter 
Published: June 2021

SummaryRabbits are an important animal species for meeting the nutritional requirements of the world’s growing population due to the high conversion rate of feed. In most countries, the rabbit industry currently relies on artificial insemination with fresh or chilled and frozen–thawed spermatozoa. Various factors during the freezing process, including diluents, sperm preparation and freezing techniques, antioxidants, sudden temperature changes, ice formation and osmotic stress, have been proposed as reasons for the poor sperm quality post thaw. Despite the extensive progress reached in the field of rabbit sperm cryopreservation, new methodological approaches that could overcome problems in sperm cryopreservation are necessary. The aim of this review was to describe the factors that affect the cryopreservation of rabbit sperm.
The Short Version of the Metacognitive Anger Processing Scale (MAP-SV) – initial psychometric testing
Authors: Moeller Stine Bjerrum , Juul Sophie , Arendt Ida-Marie T. P. 
Published: June 2021

AbstractBackground:The 26-item version of the Metacognitive Anger Processing Scale (MAP) has shown good psychometric properties in previous studies. However, there is a need for a shorter version of the scale.Aims:The aim of the present study is to psychometrically evaluate the 9-item Metacognitive Anger Processing Scale – Short Version (MAP-SV) in comparison with the original, 26-item version.Method:The 26-item MAP includes three subscales: rumination, positive beliefs and negative beliefs. Three items from each subscale were selected based on clinical validity to constitute the 9-item MAP-SV. A previous sample used for validation of the 26-item MAP was used for clinimetric testing. The sample included psychiatric patients (n = 88) and male forensic inpatients (n = 54). The MAP-SV was assessed according to scalability, convergent validity with general metacognition, and concurrent validity with anger measures.Results:The scalability of the 9-item MAP-SV was comparable to that of the original 26-item MAP in most psychometric tests. The Loevinger’s coefficient of homogeneity for the total score of the MAP-SV items was 0.29 for the combined sample compared with 0.36 in the original MAP, indicating close to acceptable scalability. The alpha coefficient for the MAP-SV total score was 0.79. For the combined sample, Pearson inter-correlations between the subscales of the MAP-SV were highly correlated with the MAP-SV total score (ranging from .66 to .84).Conclusions:The 9-item MAP-SV showed good psychometric properties and can be used as a reliable tool for assessing self-reported metacognitive anger processing.
Impaired Behavioral Pattern Separation in Refractory Temporal Lobe Epilepsy and Mild Cognitive Impairment
Authors: Lalani Sanam J. , Reyes Anny , Kaestner Erik , Stark Shauna M. , Stark Craig E.L. , Lee David , Kansal Leena , Shih Jerry J. , Smith Christine N. , Paul Brianna M. , McDonald Carrie R. 
Published: June 2021

ABSTRACTObjective:Episodic memory impairment and hippocampal pathology are hallmark features of both temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) and amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI). Pattern separation (PS), which enables the distinction between similar but unique experiences, is thought to contribute to successful encoding and retrieval of episodic memories. Impaired PS has been proposed as a potential mechanism underling episodic memory impairment in aMCI, but this association is less established in TLE. In this study, we examined behavioral PS in patients with TLE and explored whether profiles of performance in TLE are similar to aMCI.Method:Patients with TLE, aMCI, and age-matched, healthy controls (HCs) completed a modified recognition task that relies on PS for the discrimination of highly similar lure items, the Mnemonic Similarity Task (MST). Group differences were evaluated and relationships between clinical characteristics, California Verbal Learning Test—Second Edition scores, and MST performance were tested in the TLE group.Results:Patients with TLE and aMCI demonstrated poorer PS performance relative to the HCs, but performance did not differ between the two patient groups. Neither the side of seizure focus nor having hippocampal sclerosis affected performance in TLE. However, TLE patients with clinically defined memory impairment showed the poorest performance.Conclusion:Memory performance on a task that relies on PS was disrupted to a similar extent in TLE and aMCI. The MST could provide a clinically useful tool for measuring hippocampus-dependent memory impairments in TLE and other neurological disorders associated with hippocampal damage.
A focus group study of older Chinese people with CVD patients in the North West of the UK
Authors: Speed Shaun , Sun Zeyuan , Liu Zhenmi 
Published: June 2021

AbstractBackground:Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death for Chinese migrants around the world. Chinese CVD patients rely heavily on their native Chinese language, cultural values and beliefs, which adds challenges for the healthcare providers to offer primary healthcare services with standard protocol. The inappropriate treatment could lead to life loss, mistrust in doctor-patient relationship and heavy burden for healthcare funding.Methods:28 participants were included for focus group study with the grounded theory methodology.Results:There is considerable misunderstanding among the Chinese community about the role of primary care doctors in the treatment of cardiovascular disease resulting in the variable use of primary care services.Conclusion:Chinese CVD patients or identified risk factors for CVD arguably need closer management, culturally sensitive advice, support and robust follow-up compared to the general population. Doctors and nurses should enhance their practice and give them confidence in their interaction with Chinese patients on the basis of how they think and behave in relation to help seeking.
A Multi‐Dimensional Decomposition Method of the Meteorology‐Driven and Emission‐Driven Effects on Year‐to‐Year Air Quality Variations
Authors: Song Yushan , Li Ying , Xu Haoxiang , Lin Changqing , Lau Alexis K. H. 
Published: June 2021

AbstractThe annual assessment of emission control effects on air quality is essential for policy adjustments. However, this assessment is difficult as the inter‐annual changes in pollution are impacted by complex meteorological conditions. In this study, based on our wind‐pollution decomposition (WPD) method, which decomposes wind effects (wind‐driven) and nonwind effects, we established the meteorology‐pollution decomposition (MPD) method, which separates meteorological effects (met‐driven) and nonmeteorological effects by importing other meteorological parameters, to approximate the emission change effects (emission‐driven) by the nonmeteorological effects. The performance of the MPD method was assessed by comparing the results of the WPD and MPD methods at multiple representative stations in Hong Kong with the longest continuous data available in China from 2000 to 2018. The decomposed emission‐driven impact is also validated by using the gross domestic product growth rates data. The emission‐driven contributions determined by the WPD and MPD methods generally show agreement in trend, while the met‐driven effects are generally larger than the wind‐driven effects with the same or opposite trend. The results showed that the met‐driven effect from the MPD method is more reasonable than the wind‐driven effect from the WPD method in representing complex meteorological influences, which indicates a better representation of emission‐driven impacts by the nonmeteorological effects during the unusual meteorological years, such as El Niño‐Southern Oscillation events. The MPD method represents an independent approach, which is based only on regular observations, to quantify the long‐term trend in emission‐driven impacts as well as the integrated meteorological impacts on the atmospheric environment under the background of climate change.
Monitoring and Modeling Drainage Network Contraction and Dry Down in Mediterranean Headwater Catchments
Authors: Senatore Alfonso , Micieli Massimo , Liotti Alessio , Durighetto Nicola , Mendicino Giuseppe , Botter Gianluca 
Published: June 2021

AbstractUnderstanding the expansion and contraction dynamics of flowing drainage networks is important for many research fields like ecology, hydrology, and biogeochemistry. This study analyzes for the first time the network shrinking and dry down in two seasonally dry hot‐summer Mediterranean catchments (overall area 1.15 km2) using a comprehensive approach based on monitoring and modeling of the flowing network. A field campaign consisting of 19 subweekly visual surveys was carried out in the early summer of 2019. These observations were used to calibrate and validate an integrated model aimed to estimate the time evolution of the total flowing drainage network length based on meteorological drivers and define the position of the stretches with flowing water based on topographic and geological information. We used a statistical model to describe the observed variations in the total flowing length based on the accumulated difference between antecedent precipitation and evapotranspiration. The study emphasizes the relevant role of evapotranspiration in the seasonal network contraction. Then, we modeled spatial patterns of the flowing channels using an empirical approach based on topographic data, achieving satisfactory performances. Nevertheless, the performance further increased when site‐specific geological information was integrated into the model, leading to accuracies up to 92% for cell‐by‐cell comparisons. The proposed methodology, which combines meteorological, topographic, and geological information in a sequential manner, was able to accurately represent the space‐time dynamics of the flowing drainage network in the study area, proving to be an effective and flexible tool for investigating network dynamics in temporary streams.
Adjoint Tomography of Ambient Noise Data and Teleseismic P Waves: Methodology and Applications to Central California
Authors: Wang Kai , Yang Yingjie , Jiang Chengxin , Wang Yi , Tong Ping , Liu Tianshi , Liu Qinya 
Published: June 2021

AbstractAdjoint tomography has been recently applied to ambient seismic noise and teleseismic P waves separately to unveil fine‐scale lithospheric structures beyond the resolving ability of traditional ray‐based traveltime tomography. In this study, we propose an inversion scheme that alternates between frequency‐dependent traveltime inversions of ambient noise surface waves and waveform inversions of teleseismic P waves to take advantage of their complementary sensitivities to the Earth's structure. We apply our method to ambient noise empirical Green's functions from 60 virtual sources, direct P and scattered waves from 11 teleseismic events recorded by a dense linear array (∼7 km station spacing) and other regional stations (∼40 km average station spacing) in central California. To evaluate the performance of the method, we compare tomographic results from ambient noise adjoint tomography, full‐waveform inversion of teleseismic P waves, and the alternating inversion of the two data sets. Both applications to practical field data sets and synthetic checkerboard tests demonstrate the advantage of the alternating inversion over individual inversions as it combines the complementary sensitivities of the two independent data sets toward a more unified model. The three dimensional model from our alternating inversion not only shows major features of velocity anomalies and discontinuities in agreement with previous studies, but also reveals small‐scale heterogeneities which provide new constraints on the geometry of the Isabella Anomaly and mantle dynamic processes in central California. The proposed alternating inversion scheme can be applied to other regions with similar array deployments for high‐resolution lithospheric imaging.
Detecting Climate Signals Using Explainable AI With Single‐Forcing Large Ensembles
Authors: Labe Zachary M. , Barnes Elizabeth A. 
Published: June 2021

AbstractIt remains difficult to disentangle the relative influences of aerosols and greenhouse gases on regional surface temperature trends in the context of global climate change. To address this issue, we use a new collection of initial‐condition large ensembles from the Community Earth System Model version 1 that are prescribed with different combinations of industrial aerosol and greenhouse gas forcing. To compare the climate response to these external forcings, we adopt an artificial neural network (ANN) architecture from previous work that predicts the year by training on maps of near‐surface temperature. We then utilize layer‐wise relevance propagation (LRP) to visualize the regional temperature signals that are important for the ANN's prediction in each climate model experiment. To mask noise when extracting only the most robust climate patterns from LRP, we introduce a simple uncertainty metric that can be adopted to other explainable artificial intelligence (AI) problems. We find that the North Atlantic, Southern Ocean, and Southeast Asia are key regions of importance for the neural network to make its prediction, especially prior to the early‐21st century. Notably, we also find that the ANN predictions based on maps of observations correlate higher to the actual year after training on the large ensemble experiment with industrial aerosols held fixed to 1920 levels. This work illustrates the sensitivity of regional temperature signals to changes in aerosol forcing in historical simulations. By using explainable AI methods, we have the opportunity to improve our understanding of (non)linear combinations of anthropogenic forcings in state‐of‐the‐art global climate models.
Cyclic cooling of quantum systems at the saturation limit
Authors: Zaiser Sebastian , Cheung Chun Tung , Yang Sen , Dasari Durga Bhaktavatsala Rao , Raeisi Sadegh , Wrachtrup Jörg 
Published: June 2021

AbstractThe achievable bounds of cooling quantum systems, and the possibility to violate them is not well-explored experimentally. For example, among the common methods to enhance spin polarization (cooling), one utilizes the low temperature and high-magnetic field condition or employs a resonant exchange with highly polarized spins. The achievable polarization, in such cases, is bounded either by Boltzmann distribution or by energy conservation. Heat-bath algorithmic cooling schemes (HBAC), on the other hand, have shown the possibility to surpass the physical limit set by the energy conservation and achieve a higher saturation limit in spin cooling. Despite, the huge theoretical progress, and few principle demonstrations, neither the existence of the limit nor its application in cooling quantum systems towards the maximum achievable limit have been experimentally verified. Here, we show the experimental saturation of the HBAC limit for single nuclear spins, beyond any available polarization in solid-state spin system, the Nitrogen-Vacancy centers in diamond. We benchmark the performance of our experiment over a range of variable reset polarizations (bath temperatures), and discuss the role of quantum coherence in HBAC.
A brief review of the science behind the design of healthy and sustainable plant-based foods
Authors: McClements David Julian , Grossmann Lutz 
Published: June 2021

AbstractPeople are being encouraged to consume more plant-based foods to reduce the negative impacts of the modern food supply on human and global health. The food industry is therefore creating a new generation of plant-based products to meet this demand, including meat, fish, egg, milk, cheese, and yogurt analogs. The main challenge in this area is to simulate the desirable appearance, texture, flavor, mouthfeel, nutrition, and functionality of these products using healthy, affordable, and sustainable plant-derived ingredients, such as lipids, proteins, and carbohydrates. The molecular and physicochemical properties of plant-derived ingredients are very different from those of animal-derived ones. It is therefore critical to understand the fundamental attributes of plant-derived ingredients and how they can be assembled into structures resembling those found in animal products. This short review provides an overview of the current status of the scientific understanding of plant-based foods and highlights areas where further research is required. In particular, it focuses on the chemical, physical, and functional properties of plant ingredients; the processing operations that can be used to convert these ingredients into food products; and the science behind the creation of some common plant-based foods, namely meat, egg, and milk analogs.
In-vivo expressed Mycobacterium tuberculosis antigens recognised in three mouse strains after infection and BCG vaccination
Authors: Coppola Mariateresa , Jurion Fabienne , van den Eeden Susan J. F. , Tima Hermann Giresse , Franken Kees L. M. C. , Geluk Annemieke , Romano Marta , Ottenhoff Tom H. M. 
Published: June 2021

AbstractNovel tuberculosis (TB)-vaccines preferably should (i) boost host immune responses induced by previous BCG vaccination and (ii) be directed against Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) proteins expressed throughout the Mtb infection-cycle. Human Mtb antigen-discovery screens identified antigens encoded by Mtb-genes highly expressed during in vivo murine infection (IVE-TB antigens). To translate these findings towards animal models, we determined which IVE-TB-antigens are recognised by T-cells following Mtb challenge or BCG vaccination in three different mouse strains. Eleven Mtb-antigens were recognised across TB-resistant and susceptible mice. Confirming previous human data, several Mtb-antigens induced cytokines other than IFN-γ. Pulmonary cells from susceptible C3HeB/FeJ mice produced less TNF-α, agreeing with the TB-susceptibility phenotype. In addition, responses to several antigens were induced by BCG in C3HeB/FeJ mice, offering potential for boosting. Thus, recognition of promising Mtb-antigens identified in humans validates across multiple mouse TB-infection models with widely differing TB-susceptibilities. This offers translational tools to evaluate IVE-TB-antigens as diagnostic and vaccine antigens.
Corneal hysteresis as a risk factor for optic nerve head surface depression and retinal nerve fiber layer thinning in glaucoma patients
Authors: Xu Guihua , Chen Zilin 
Published: June 2021

AbstractTo evaluate the role of corneal hysteresis (CH) as a risk factor for progressive ONH surface depression and RNFL thinning measured by confocal scanning laser ophthalmoscopy (CSLO) and spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT), respectively in glaucoma patients. Prospective study. A total of 146 eyes of 90 patients with glaucoma were recruited consecutively. The CH measurements were acquired at baseline and 4-months interval using the Ocular Response Analyzer (Reichert Instruments, Depew, NY). Eyes were imaged by CSLO (Heidelberg Retinal Tomograph [HRT]; Heidelberg Engineering, GmbH, Dossenheim, Germany) and SD-OCT (Cirrus HD-OCT; Carl Zeiss Meditec AG, Dublin, CA) at approximately 4-month intervals for measurement of ONH surface topography and RNFL thickness, respectively. Significant ONH surface depression and RNFL thinning were defined with reference to Topographic Change Analysis (TCA) with HRT and Guided Progression Analysis (GPA) with Cirrus HD-OCT, respectively. Multivariate cox proportional hazards models were used to investigate whether CH is a risk factor for ONH surface depression and RNFL progression after adjusting potential confounding factors. All patients with glaucoma were followed for an average of 6.76 years (range, 4.56–7.61 years). Sixty-five glaucomatous eyes (44.5%) of 49 patients showed ONH surface depression, 55 eyes (37.7%) of 43 patients had progressive RNFL thinning and 20 eyes (13.7%) of 17 patients had visual field progression. In the cox proportional hazards model, after adjusting baseline diastolic IOP, CCT, age, baseline disc area and baseline MD, baseline CH was significantly associated with ONH surface depression and visual field progression (HR = 0.71, P = 0.014 and HR = 0.54, P = 0.018, respectively), but not with RNFL thinning (HR = 1.03, P = 0.836). For each 1-mmHg decrease in baseline CH, the hazards for ONH surface depression increase by 29%, and the hazards for visual field progression increase by 46%. The CH measurements were significantly associated with risk of glaucoma progression. Eyes with a lower CH were significantly associated with an increased risk of ONH surface depression and visual field progression in glaucoma patients.
Real world analysis on the efficacy and safety of anti-tumor necrosis factor therapy in patients with stricturing Crohn’s disease
Authors: Vuyyuru Sudheer K. , Kante Bhaskar , Kumar Peeyush , Sahu Pabitra , Kedia Saurabh , Ranjan Mukesh Kumar , Sharma Raju , Panwar Rajesh , Makharia Govind , Ahuja Vineet 
Published: June 2021

AbstractCrohn’s disease (CD) is often complicated by strictures and associated with increased risk for surgery. Inflammatory strictures respond to medical therapy, and anti-tumor necrosis factor (TNF) therapy is often used after the failure of steroids. However, data on efficacy of anti-TNF therapy in stricturing CD is limited. We retrospectively analysed the records of patients with stricturing CD who were treated with anti-TNF therapy and were prospectively followed from January 2005 to July 2020. Treatment success was defined as continuation of anti-TNF without the requirement for steroids or parenteral nutrition, switch to other anti-TNF, endoscopic dilation, surgery and severe adverse events leading to the withdrawal of anti-TNF. Fifty-nine patients were included [50-infliximab, 9-adalimumab; mean age-30.1 ± 15 years; males-69.5%; median disease duration-124 (range 30–396) months; median follow-up duration-42 (range 8–180) months]. Ileum was the most common site of stricture (69.5%), 20.3% of patients had colonic strictures, and 64.4% had multiple strictures. 55.9% of patients were steroid dependent and 37.3% were steroid refractory. The median duration of anti-TNF therapy was 14 (range 2–96) months, and 54.2% (n = 32) patients received concomitant immunomodulators. 88% improved with induction (11.8% primary non-response), secondary loss of response was seen in 52.2%, and the cumulative probability of treatment success at 1, 2 and 5 years was 69%, 51%, and 28% respectively. Anaemia at presentation predicted poor response. Only 30% of patients retained biologics on long-term (lack of response, cost, adverse events). 16.9% had adverse events, the commonest being reactivation of tuberculosis (5.1%). Anti-TNF therapy is associated with good short-term treatment success with modest long-term response in stricturing CD.