bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
US state cigarette tax increases and smoke‐free legislation in relation to cigarette expenditure across household socio‐economic circumstances: a quasi‐experimental study
Authors: Hawkins Summer Sherburne , Kull Melissa , Baum Christopher F. 
Published: November 2018

AbstractBackground and AimsWhile research has focused on outcomes of tobacco control policies, less is known about the mechanisms by which policies may affect tobacco use. We estimated the associations of changes in cigarette taxes and smoke‐free legislation with (1) any household cigarette expenditure and (2) the level of household expenditure on cigarettes, as well as (3) tested interactions with socio‐economic circumstances.DesignDifference‐in‐differences regression models to estimate the associations between changes in US state cigarette taxes and smoke‐free legislation with changes in household expenditure on cigarettes.SettingForty US states and District of Columbia.ParticipantsFrom annual, cross‐sectional surveys (with a longitudinal component) between 2000 and 2014, 128 138 households interviewed quarterly in the Consumer Expenditure Survey.MeasurementsDependent measures included any household cigarette expenditure, expenditure in real dollars and budget share of cigarette expenditure. Policy measures included state cigarette taxes and 100% smoke‐free legislation. Covariates included respondent age, race/ethnicity, sex; household education; poverty level; family structure; and number of children and adults.FindingsEvery $1.00 cigarette tax increase was associated with a 1.5 percentage point (−0.028, −0.002) reduction in any cigarette expenditure and an increase of 0.1% (0.1%, 0.1%) budget share and $10.11 ($8.38, $11.84) absolute expenditure. The association with absolute expenditure was stronger among smoking households above poverty level ($10.73; $8.94, $12.51) than below ($4.72; $2.37, $7.07). The enactment of smoke‐free legislation was associated with $2.33 (−$4.56, −$0.10) less expenditure, but not with any expenditure (0.1%; −1.6%, 1.8%) or budget share (−0.1%; −0.1%, 0.1%). The association with absolute expenditure was stronger among households above poverty level (−$2.62; −$4.95, −$0.29) than below (−$0.34; −$4.27, $3.58)ConclusionCigarette tax increases in the United States between 2000 and 2014 may have reduced smoking prevalence due to an absolute and relative increase in household tobacco expenditure while smoke‐free policies appear to have led to a reduction in expenditure. Although tax increases had a stronger impact on absolute expenditure among households above the poverty level, impact on relative expenditure was similar, and consequences for socio‐economic inequalities in smoking will vary based on the broader financial situation of households.
Current considerations in AYA Hodgkin lymphoma
Authors: Crombie Jennifer L. , LaCasce Ann S. 
Published: November 2018

SummaryHodgkin lymphoma (HL) commonly occurs in adolescents and young adults (AYA), defined by the National Cancer Institute as people diagnosed with cancer between the ages of 15 and 39 years. Despite therapeutic advances, the AYA population has derived less incremental benefit compared to both paediatric and adult counterparts. Although the exact aetiology is unclear, contributing factors probably include differences in disease biology, delayed diagnosis, decreased participation in clinical trials and treatment adherence secondary to complex social factors. As such, while HL remains highly curable, there is not a clear consensus regarding the management of patients within this age range, specifically whether paediatric or adult regimens are preferred or how best to incorporate emerging therapeutic advancements. Ongoing clinical trials, as well as continued collaborative efforts are required to address the needs of this population, investigate the potential for unique biological factors and allow for optimization of treatment. Here we review current prognostic and treatment strategies for paediatric and adult patients with HL and highlight complexities around the management of this patient population.
Effect of renin‐angiotensin‐aldosterone system blocking agents on progression of glomerulopathy in sickle cell disease
Authors: Thrower Ashley , Ciccone Emily J. , Maitra Poulami , Derebail Vimal K. , Cai Jianwen , Ataga Kenneth I. 
Published: November 2018

SummaryAlthough renin‐angiotensin‐aldosterone system (RAAS) blocking agents decrease albuminuria in short‐term studies, there is no evidence confirming their long‐term efficacy in sickle cell disease (SCD). In a single‐centre, retrospective study, we evaluated the long‐term effect of RAAS blocking agents on proteinuria and declining estimated glomerular filtration rates (eGFR). Eighty‐six patients on RAAS blocking agents for proteinuria, followed for a median of 2·28 years, were compared with 68 patients with proteinuria followed for 2·24 years who were not receiving such treatment. The log odds of proteinuria decreased over time in patients on RAAS blocking agents (β: −0·23, P = 0·03) and in the non‐treatment group (β: −0·54, P < 0·0001), but was not statistically different between both groups (β: 0·31, P = 0·063). The eGFR declined over time in patients on RAAS blocking agents (β: −2·78, P < 0·0001) and in those not on such treatment (β: −4·7, P < 0·0001), and was statistically different between both groups (β: 1·9, P = 0·0002). Baseline eGFR was associated with mortality (Hazard rato: 0·97, P < 0·0001), but RAAS blocking agents had no significant effect on mortality. These data suggest that RAAS blockade may slow the loss of kidney function in SCD.
Phase 2 study of all‐oral ixazomib, cyclophosphamide and low‐dose dexamethasone for relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma
Authors: Kumar Shaji K. , Grzasko Norbert , Delimpasi Sosana , Jedrzejczak Wieslaw W. , Grosicki Sebastian , Kyrtsonis Marie‐Christine , Spencer Andrew , Gupta Neeraj , Teng Zhaoyang , Byrne Catriona , Labotka Richard , Dimopoulos Meletios A. 
Published: November 2018

SummaryThere is a need for efficacious, convenient treatments with long‐term tolerability for patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM). This phase 2 study evaluated the all‐oral combination of ixazomib, cyclophosphamide and dexamethasone (ICd). Patients with RRMM received ixazomib 4 mg and cyclophosphamide 300 mg/m2 on days 1, 8 and 15, and dexamethasone 40 mg on days 1, 8, 15 and 22 in 28‐day cycles. The primary endpoint was overall response rate (ORR). Seventy‐eight patients were enrolled (median age 63·5 years). At data cut‐off, patients had received a median of 12 treatment cycles; 31% remained on treatment. ORR was 48% [16% very good partial response or better (≥VGPR)]. ORR was 64% and 32% in patients aged ≥65 and <65 years (25% and 16% ≥VGPR), respectively. At a median follow‐up of 15·2 months, median progression‐free survival (PFS) was 14·2 months, with a trend towards better PFS in patients aged ≥65 years vs. <65 years (median 18·7 months vs. 12·0 months; hazard ratio 0·62, P = 0·14). ICd was well tolerated. The most common treatment‐emergent adverse events were diarrhoea (33%), nausea (24%), upper respiratory tract infection (24%), and thrombocytopenia (22%); 10 patients (13%) had peripheral neuropathy (one grade 3). This study is registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT02046070).
Impact of parental asthma, prenatal maternal asthma control, and vitamin D status on risk of asthma and recurrent wheeze in 3‐year‐old children
Authors: Mirzakhani Hooman , Carey Vincent J. , Zeiger Robert , Bacharier Leonard B. , O'Connor George T. , Schatz Michael X. , Laranjo Nancy , Weiss Scott T. , Litonjua Augusto A. 
Published: November 2018

AbstractBackgroundWhile familial clustering of asthma is known, few studies have reported on the relative roles of paternal and maternal asthma and the role of maternal asthma control in pregnancy on the risk for asthma in the child.ObjectiveWe aimed to investigate the relative roles of paternal asthma, maternal asthma, and maternal asthma control during pregnancy on the risk of asthma or recurrent wheeze in 3‐year‐old children and how prenatal and cord blood vitamin D status might affect this risk.MethodsData from 806 women, their partners (biologic fathers of the infants), and their children participated in the Vitamin D Antenatal Asthma Reduction Trail (VDAART, clinicaltrials.gov identification number NCT00920621) were used for this cohort analysis. The parental report of physician‐diagnosed asthma or recurrent wheeze in offspring was the main outcome. Weibull regression models for interval‐censored event times were used to estimate the main variables of interests and additional covariates on the outcome.ResultsThe highest risk was observed among children with both parents being asthmatic relative to non‐asthmatic parents (aHR = 2.30, 95% CI: 1.35‐3.84), and less so if only the mother was asthmatic (aHR = 1.70, 95% CI: 1.17‐2.40). In the subset of children born to asthmatic mothers, the risk for asthma was higher in those who were born to mothers whose asthma was uncontrolled (aHR = 1.60, 95% CI: 1.02‐2.54). Children whose mothers had sufficient vitamin D status (25Hydroxyvitamin D ≥ 30 ng/mL) at early and late pregnancy and had cord blood vitamin D sufficiency demonstrated a lower risk of asthma/recurrent wheeze than children who had insufficient cord blood vitamin D status at birth (aHR = 0.47, 95% CI: 0.27‐0.83).Conclusion and Clinical RelevanceCareful attention to maternal asthma control, monitoring vitamin D status, and correcting insufficiency at early pregnancy and maintaining the sufficiency status throughout pregnancy have potential preventive roles in offspring asthma or recurrent wheeze.
Forecast skill for predicting distribution shifts: A retrospective experiment for marine fishes in the Eastern Bering Sea
Authors: Thorson James T. 
Published: November 2018

AbstractForecasting distribution shifts under novel environmental conditions is a major task for ecologists and conservationists. Researchers forecast distribution shifts using several tools including: predicting from an empirical relationship between a summary of distribution (population centroid) and annual time series (“annual regression,” AR); or fitting a habitat‐envelope model to historical distribution and forecasting given predictions of future environmental conditions (“habitat envelope,” HE). However, surprisingly little research has estimated forecast skill by fitting to historical data, forecasting distribution shifts and comparing forecasts with subsequent observations of distribution shifts. I demonstrate the important role of retrospective skill testing by forecasting poleward movement over 1‐, 2‐ or 3‐year periods for 20 fish and crab species in the Eastern Bering Sea and comparing forecasts with observed shifts. I specifically introduce an alternative vector‐autoregressive spatio‐temporal (VAST) forecasting model, which can include species temperature responses, and compare skill for AR, HE and VAST forecasts. Results show that the HE forecast has 30%–43% greater variance than predicting that future distribution is identical to the estimated distribution in the final year (a “persistence” forecast). Meanwhile, the AR explains 2%–6% and VAST explains 8%–25% of variance in poleward movement, and both have better performance than a persistence forecast. HE and AR both generate forecast intervals that are too narrow, while VAST models with or without temperature have appropriate width for forecast intervals. Retrospective skill testing for more regions and taxa should be used as a test bed to guide future improvements in methods for forecasting distribution shifts.
A unifying framework for improving health care
Authors: Djulbegovic Benjamin , Bennett Charles L. , Guyatt Gordon 
Published: November 2018

AbstractThe quality health care around world is suboptimal. To improve the quality of contemporary health care delivery, advocates have proposed a number of scientific and technical initiatives. All these initiatives, however, have arisen and continue to operate in siloes, resulting in confusion and incommensurability among those concerned with health care improvement. Participants in the quality improvement (QI) space typically stress their own, often narrow, perspective, failing to place QI in context or to acknowledge other approaches. In order to improve delivery of health care, the following is required:

Provide a unifying framework for improving health care. We argue this is best done under a Health System Science (HSS) framework but with full understanding that the fundamental principles of HSS are rooted in evidence‐based medicine (EBM) and decision sciences.
Understand that QI initiatives are fundamentally local activities. Hence, incentivizing bottom‐up, local QI initiatives would improve health care delivery to a far greater extent than the current top‐down initiatives undertaken in a response to various regulatory mandates.
Akin to the “Choosing Wisely” initiative, which challenged professional societies, each institution should identify (a) the extent to which its practices are evidence‐based and (b) the top 5 health care practices or interventions that, at a given institution, represent overuse, underuse, or misuse/error or undermine clinicians' efforts to deliver kind and empathic care.
Providing a framework that can unify the current patchwork of the initiatives would help create a common basis to help align all the existing QI efforts. In addition, thinking small (at local level) may lead to health care quality improvements that national initiatives (thinking big), focused on regulation, competition, or legal requirements, have failed to achieve.
Development of a multiplex real‐time PCR for simultaneous detection of Bacillus cereus, Listeria monocytogenes, and Staphylococcus aureus in food samples
Authors: Wei Shuai , Daliri Eric Banan‐Mwine , Chelliah Ramachandran , Park Byung‐Jae , Lim Ji‐Su , Baek Myo‐Ah , Nam Yong‐Suk , Seo Kun‐Ho , Jin Yong‐Guo , Oh Deog‐Hwan 
Published: November 2018

Abstract
Bacillus cereus, Listeria monocytogenes, and Staphylococcus aureus caused problems in public health and food safety. A multiplex real‐time PCR (qPCR) for simultaneous detection of these three pathogens in different kinds of food was developed. A high specificity (100%) was obtained using 21 target strains and 19 nontarget strains. Standard curves for pure cultures covered seven orders of magnitude (from 108 to 102 cfu/ml) with high amplification efficiencies ranging from 94.2 to 105.4% with R‐squares over 0.999. When multiplex qPCR was applied for artificially contaminated cherry tomato, milk, and spam samples, a detection limit of 103 cfu/g or ml was obtained for these three bacteria. When low levels (0.4–5.5 cfu/25 g or ml) of bacteria were inoculated in three kinds of food samples and cultured in tryptic soy broth for 24 hr, results obtained from multiplex real‐time and conventional culture methods were not significantly different for all three food matrices based on Mantel–Haenszel chi‐square test. Only for B. cereus in milk, positive portions detected by qPCR were significantly higher than those detected by culture method. Hence, the multiplex qPCR developed in this study is highly specific and effective for simultaneous detection B. cereus, L. monocytogenes, and S. aureus in food samples.Practical applications
Bacillus cereus, Listeria monocytogenes, and Staphylococcus aureus are three major foodborne pathogens and have been found in a wide range of foods. We developed a multiplex qPCR specific targeting groEL, iap, and nuc genes with a high amplification efficiency. Different food samples (cherry tomato, milk, and spam) were tested for evaluating the performance of the multiplex qPCR. The detection results by qPCR were compared with the conventional culture methods and no significant differences were found using Mantel–Haenszel chi‐square test. This study provides the information of the developed multiplex qPCR for detecting three specific foodborne pathogens and applications in food samples, which will be helpful for further studies about simultaneous detection of several targets in food samples using multiplex PCR.
Local Employment Conditions and Unintended Pregnancy
Authors: Su Jessica Houston 
Published: November 2018

ObjectiveThis study examined the relationship between local employment conditions and unintended pregnancy.BackgroundEconomic conditions shape the decisions that Americans make about their families, such as whether and when to have children. Women have fewer children during economic downturns, but it is unclear how the economy is related to another dimension of fertility: unintended pregnancy. This is an important avenue of research because unintended pregnancy is related to population health and social inequality.MethodThis study analyzed a unique restricted data set that combined data from a nationally representative sample of women aged 20 to 44 years from the National Survey of Family Growth (2002, 2006–2010, and 2011–2013), with employment data from the U.S. Census and the American Community Survey (n = 13,702). It employed multinomial logistic regressions to estimate the odds that respondents had an unintended pregnancy as a function of local employment conditions in their Core Based Statistical Area.ResultsHigher unemployment rates were associated with lower odds of unintended pregnancy overall (including both mistimed and unwanted) relative to no pregnancy, adjusting for observable and unobservable characteristics. Women were less likely to have unwanted pregnancies in particular. This relationship was evident among women with both high and low levels of education, although those with the lowest education had the steepest declines.ConclusionLocal employment conditions are an important context for fertility and are related to women's pregnancy intentions.
Methadone maintenance treatment as social control: Analyzing patient experiences
Authors: O'Byrne Patrick , Jeske Pearson Courtney 
Published: November 2018

AbstractMethadone maintenance treatment (MMT) is a harm reduction approach for persons who wish to stop using opioids and is rather effective if used for a minimum of 12 months. Notably, research demonstrates that many persons enrolled in MMT programs discontinue care before this time, limiting its effects. To better understand this process, we undertook an exploratory descriptive qualitative study and interviewed 12 men and women who were using MMT. Using the theoretical work of Foucault and Hardt and Negri, the interview data highlighted that MMT continues to be strongly stigmatized, and that it is a system of care that involves rewards and penalties, based on if patients behave according to prescribed norms. These results suggest that MMT is a disciplinary mechanism, albeit one that impedes its own access. We consequently recommend that healthcare providers work to facilitate access to MMT, which means altering care delivery.
Visible light accelerates the ultraviolet A‐induced degradation of eumelanin and pheomelanin
Authors: Ito Shosuke , Kolbe Ludger , Weets Gudrun , Wakamatsu Kazumasa 
Published: November 2018

AbstractExposure to excess ultraviolet (UV) A radiation induces the degradation/modification of both eumelanin and pheomelanin that may be deleterious to pigmented tissues. Although the spectral distribution of solar energy comprises nearly half of visible light (VL), few studies have been conducted to examine the role of VL in the photodegradation of both types of melanin, either VL alone or in combination with UVA. In this study, we examined the effects of physiological doses of VL (150 to 300 J cm−2) alone or in combination with a physiological dose of UVA (20 J cm−2) in normal human epidermal melanocytes. The degradation/modification of melanin structures was evaluated by our chemical degradation—high performance liquid chromatography methods. The results show that VL accelerates UVA‐induced changes in the structural features of both eumelanin and pheomelanin, although VL or UVA alone induced only minor changes in melanin structure. The differential spectral method provides support for the additive effects of VL.
Interdisciplinary Research as an Iterative Process to Build Disaster Systems Knowledge
Authors: Subedi Jishnu , Houston J. Brian , Sherman‐Morris Kathleen 
Published: November 2018

AbstractDisasters occur at the intersections of social, natural, and built environments, and robust understanding of these interactions can only occur through insight generated from different disciplines. Yet, there are cultural, epistemological, and methodological differences across the many disciplines concerned with hazards and disasters that can make conducting interdisciplinary research difficult. Approaches are needed to overcome these challenges. This article argues that interdisciplinary disaster research can be successful when it entails an iterative process in which researchers from different disciplines work collaboratively and exert reciprocal influence to generate disaster systems knowledge. Disaster systems knowledge is interdisciplinary and is defined as a comprehensive understanding of the intersections of built, natural, and human environmental factors and their interplay in hazards and disasters. The iterative process can reduce disciplinary biases and privileges by encouraging collaboration among researchers to help ensure disciplinary knowledge complements other disciplinary knowledge, to ultimately generate interdisciplinary disaster systems knowledge. The article concludes by illustrating the process by analyzing a research case study of an interdisciplinary approach to volcanic risk reduction.
Current Changes in the Location of Industry in the Suburban Zone of A Post‐Socialist City. Case Study of Wrocław (Poland)
Authors: Brezdeń Paweł , Szmytkie Robert 
Published: November 2018

AbstractIn the time of post‐industrialism, the increasing costs of life, scientific and technical development, an increase in the level of education and ecological barriers resulted in the decentralization of economic activity. One of the consequences of this is an increase in the locational attractiveness of the suburban zone. The aim of the paper is to evaluate the contemporary processes concerning location and concentration of industry in a post‐socialist city illustrated with an example of the city of Wrocław. The conducted research enabled us to determine the functional specialisation of gminas (municipalities), which served as the basis for the construction of a simplified model of the suburban zone in the post‐industrial period. In order to diagnose the extent of development and the level of spatial differentiation of the process of industrial activity concentration, the authors applied a location quotient (LQ) as well as a taxonomic method of linear ordering of distances from so‐called development pattern.