bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Robot‐assisted Percutaneous Cannulated Screw Fixation of Femoral Neck Fractures: Preliminary Clinical Results
Authors: Duan Sheng‐jun , Liu Hua‐shui , Wu Wen‐cheng , Yang Kun , Zhang Zhen , Liu Shi‐dong 
Published: March 2019

ObjectiveTo assess the clinical efficacy of TiRobot‐assisted percutaneous cannulated screw fixation in the treatment of femoral neck fractures.MethodsFrom September 2015 to July 2017, 26 patients with unilateral femoral neck fractures were treated with TiRobot‐assisted percutaneous cannulated screw fixation. The femoral necks were fixed using three cannulated screws with robot assistance applying the following procedure: image acquisition, path planning, and needle and screw placement. The results of the treatment, including operation duration, frequency of fluoroscopy use, implant placement accuracy, intraoperative bleeding, total drilling, surgical complications, fracture healing time, fracture healing rate, and Harris scores at the last follow‐up, were recorded and compared with 23 similar patients who underwent conventional manual positioning surgery.ResultsA total of 147 cannulated screws were placed in all patients. The TiRobot group had shorter operation duration (62.6 ± 8.7 min vs 72.4 ± 10.3 min) and fracture healing time (5.1 ± 2.4 months vs 5.9 ± 2.8 months) than the conventional group (P > 0.05). The robot group had significantly less use of fluoroscopy (26.5 ± 7.4 times vs 51.3 ± 9.4 times), intraoperative bleeding (8.2 ± 5.3 mL vs 36.4 ± 12.5 mL), and total drilling (9.4 ± 4.2 times vs 18.3 ± 9.1 times) than the conventional group (all P < 0.05). The screw parallelism was significantly improved (24.0 ± 0.6 points vs 21.5 ± 1.2 points) and the neck‐width coverage (72.0 ± 6.7 mm2 vs 53.8 ± 10.4 mm2) was significantly enlarged compared to the conventional group (P < 0.05). Only three guiding needles were used to penetrate the femoral head during manual insertion in the TiRobot group, which was significantly lower than that in the conventional group (3/78, 3.8% vs 9/69, 13.0%; P < 0.05). Other complications such as wound infection, vascular or nerve injury, screw loosening, and secondary screw displacement, did not occur in the two groups. There was no significant difference between the two groups in fracture healing rate (88.4% vs 82.6%) and Harris scores at the last follow up (88.2 ± 3.6 points vs 87.3 ± 4.7 points; P > 0.05).ConclusionTiRobot‐assisted percutaneous cannulated screw fixation of femoral neck fractures is advantageous over conventional surgery with manual positioning due to easier manipulation, more accurate screw insertion, less invasion, and less radiation exposure, suggesting that it is a better method to stabilize femoral neck fractures.
Development of a core set of KASP markers for assaying genetic diversity in Brassica rapa subsp. chinensis Makino
Authors: Li Peirong , Su Tongbing , Wang Huiping , Zhao Xiuyun , Wang Weihong , Yu Yangjun , Zhang Deshuang , Wen Changlong , Yu Shuancang , Zhang Fenglan 
Published: March 2019

AbstractSingle‐nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are rapid, economical and reliable genotyping tools. Non‐heading Chinese cabbage (Brassica rapa L. subsp. chinensis Makino) is now an economically important vegetable crop worldwide. In this study, 1,167 SNPs were evaluated for 7polymorphism among 70 representative non‐heading Chinese cabbage inbred lines using a Kompetitive Allele Specific PCR (KASP) genotyping assay. On the basis of identified polymorphisms and the results of a principal component analysis, we selected 50 core SNPs that were balanced sufficiently to provide adequate information for genetic identification. The core SNPs were used for construction of a neighbour‐joining dendrogram that separated the 70 inbred lines into four main groups and several subgroups corresponding to Caixin, Heiyebaicai, Huangxinwu, Naibaicai, Taitsai, Pak‐choi, and Wutatsai. This categorization was superior to that achieved using a dataset of 479 polymorphic SNPs. To confirm the utility of the core SNP markers in genetic identification, we tested their stability and resolution using 162 commercial hybrid cultivars. The SNPs, which represent a cost‐effective, accurate marker set for germplasm analysis and cultivar identification, are suitable for molecular marker‐assisted breeding in non‐heading Chinese cabbage.
Effects of active and observational experience on EEG activity during early childhood
Authors: Bryant Lauren J. , Cuevas Kimberly 
Published: March 2019

AbstractWhile it is accepted that action experience facilitates action understanding, it is debated whether first‐hand motor and visual experience differentially influence this ability. Action understanding relies on relatively broad cortical activity, including that of the neural mirroring and visual attention systems. Infant and adult research has demonstrated that prior motor and visual experience have distinct effects on cortical activity during action perception, though this has yet to be investigated in young children. We used a within‐subject design and an at‐home training paradigm to manipulate 3‐ to 6‐year‐olds’ experience with two relatively novel actions. On Days 1–4, children received brief active training with one tool (i.e., motor experience) and observational training with the other tool (i.e., visual experience: video of a demonstrator modeling the action). On Day 5, we measured children’s EEG mu/alpha (8–10 Hz) and beta rhythm (16–20 Hz) activity during observation and execution of these actions in the laboratory. Although central‐parietal mu and beta rhythm activity did not differ as a function of training condition, desynchronization of the occipital alpha rhythm was greater during perception of the active training task than of the observational training task. Our findings suggest that, during early childhood, action experience may modulate visual attention during subsequent action perception. Further, children exhibited neural mirroring—central‐parietal desynchronization during both tool‐use action observation and execution—within the mu rhythm, but not the beta rhythm. These findings have significant implications for our understanding of the broad cortical activity that supports action perception during this period.
An Instrumental Variable Procedure for Estimating Cox Models with Non-Proportional Hazards in the Presence Of Unmeasured Confounding
Authors: Martínez-Camblor Pablo , MacKenzie Todd A. , Staiger Douglas O. , Goodney Phillip P. , James O’Malley A. 
Published: March 2019

SummaryTwo-stage instrumental variable methods are commonly used for estimating average causal effects in the presence of an unmeasured confounder. In the context of the proportional hazard Cox regression models, this problem has recently received attention with several methods being proposed. Previously, we developed an improved estimator under the incumbent two-stage residual inclusion procedure called ‘2SRI’ by adding a Gaussian frailty in the second stage. We now consider the more complex situation in which the treatment and the unmeasured confounders can have time varying effects, illustrating the method with the case of a step function with one prespecified change point. We prove that, in situations where the effects of the unmeasured confounder or the treatment change during the follow-up, the first stage of the 2SRI algorithm induces a frailty with time varying coefficients in the second stage, which enables incumbent methods and our previously developed procedure to be improved on. A Monte Carlo simulation study demonstrates the superior performance of the proposed extension of 2SRI that we develop. We apply the new procedure to estimate the effect of endarterectomy versus carotid artery stenting on the time to death of patients suffering from carotid artery disease by using linked vascular quality initiative registry–Medicare data.
(In)stability of Capability for Suicide in Psychiatric Inpatients: Longitudinal Assessment Using Ecological Momentary Assessments
Authors: Spangenberg Lena , Glaesmer Heide , Hallensleben Nina , Rath Dajana , Forkmann Thomas 
Published: March 2019

ObjectiveThe study examines the temporal stability of capability for suicide (i.e., its state‐like component), because it has been recently discussed that capability for suicide may be subject to shift over time.MethodSeventy‐four psychiatric inpatients with an unipolar depressive disorder were included in the study (mean age 37.9 years, 71.6% female, 32.4% with a history of suicide attempt). After a baseline assessment with several self‐report questionnaires, ecological momentary assessments were applied over six consecutive days using smartphones. Capability for suicide was rated with three items once a day. For daily capability for suicide, descriptive and variability statistics and associations with baseline clinical characteristics (depression, suicidal ideation, childhood maltreatment, and history of suicide attempt) were analyzed. The prospective association of daily level of active suicidal ideation and daily capability was investigated by multilevel analysis.ResultsIndicators of within‐person variability and temporal instability supported considerable fluctuation in daily capability for suicide. Yet the degree of temporal instability showed individual differences. Baseline and daily suicidal ideation were positively associated with daily fearlessness about death and perceived capability.ConclusionThe results provide first evidence that capability for suicide includes a dynamic short‐term component that is linked to clinical variables such as suicidal ideation.
Children and Adults as Language Learners: Rules, Variation, and Maturational Change
Authors: Newport Elissa L. 
Published: March 2019

AbstractHere we overview our recent research investigating children and adults’ learning of rules and variation. In all these studies, our findings are that children and adults differ in how they acquire linguistic patterns that are productive, variable, inconsistently used, or lexically restricted. Some of our studies examine children's learning of natural languages; other studies expose learners to miniature languages and then ask them to produce novel sentences or judge their grammaticality. In every case there are important differences between learners as a function of their ages. Young children learn categorical rules and categorically follow patterns that are widespread in natural languages, even when their linguistic input exemplifies these patterns only probabilistically. In contrast, adult learners reproduce the probabilistic patterns of the input. Older children are in between, producing regular patterns somewhat more often than they appear in the input but also acquiring some probabilistic variation. These results suggest that the outcome of learning is quite different at different ages and that many of the properties of natural languages may be shaped by the behavior of children as they learn their native languages.
Roles of RAD51 and RTEL1 in telomere and rDNA stability in Physcomitrella patens
Authors: Goffová Ivana , Vágnerová Radka , Peška Vratislav , Franek Michal , Havlová Kateřina , Holá Marcela , Zachová Dagmar , Fojtová Miloslava , Cuming Andrew , Kamisugi Yasuko , Angelis Karel J. , Fajkus Jiří 
Published: March 2019

SummaryTelomeres and ribosomal RNA genes (rDNA) are essential for cell survival and particularly sensitive to factors affecting genome stability. Here, we examine the role of RAD51 and its antagonist, RTEL1, in the moss Physcomitrella patens. In corresponding mutants, we analyse their sensitivity to DNA damage, the maintenance of telomeres and rDNA, and repair of double‐stranded breaks (DSBs) induced by genotoxins with various modes of action. While the loss of RTEL1 results in rapid telomere shortening, concurrent loss of both RAD51 genes has no effect on telomere lengths. We further demonstrate here the linked arrangement of 5S and 45S rRNA genes in P. patens. The spacer between 5S and 18S rRNA genes, especially the region downstream from the transcription start site, shows conspicuous clustering of sites with a high propensity to form quadruplex (G4) structures. Copy numbers of 5S and 18S rDNA are reduced moderately in the pprtel1 mutant, and significantly in the double pprad51‐1‐2 mutant, with no progression during subsequent cultivation. While reductions in 45S rDNA copy numbers observed in pprtel1 and pprad51‐1‐2 plants apply also to 5S rDNA, changes in transcript levels are different for 45S and 5S rRNA, indicating their independent transcription by RNA polymerase I and III, respectively. The loss of SOL (Sog One‐Like), a transcription factor regulating numerous genes involved in DSB repair, increases the rate of DSB repair in dividing as well as differentiated tissue, and through deactivation of G2/M cell‐cycle checkpoint allows the cell‐cycle progression manifested as a phenotype resistant to bleomycin.
Organic rankine cycle and steam turbine for intermediate temperature waste heat recovery in total site integration
Authors: Kamarudin Norhafiza , Peng Yen Liew , Che Jusoh Nurfatehah Wahyuny , Shin Ho Wai , Shiun Lim Jeng 
Published: March 2019

The utilization of waste heat for heat recovery technologies in process sites has been widely known in improving the site energy saving and energy efficiency. The Total Site Heat Integration (TSHI) methodologies have been established over time to assist the integration of heat recovery technologies in process sites with a centralized utility system, which is also known as Total Site (TS). One the earliest application of TSHI concept in waste heat recovery is through steam turbine using the popular Willan’s line approach. The TSHI methodologies later were extended to integrate with wide range of heat recovery technologies in many literature, whereby Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) has been reported to be the one of the beneficial options for heat recovery. In general, the medium to high temperature waste heat is recovered via condensing/backpressure steam turbine, whereas ORC is targeted for recovering the low temperature waste heat. However, it is known that condensing turbine is also able to generate power by condensing low grade steam to sub-ambient pressure, which is comparable with ORC integration. In this work, the integration of ORC and condensing turbine are considered for a multiple-process system to recover intermediate temperature waste heat through utility system. This study presents a numerical methodology to investigate the performance analysis of integration of ORC and condensing turbine in process sites for recovering waste heat from a centralized utility system. A modified retrofit case study is used to demonstrate the effectiveness application of the proposed methodology. The performance of ORC and condensing steam turbine are evaluated with the plant total utility costing as the objective function.
Pre-drilling and self-drilling pins screw-bone fixation stress interaction analysis induced by uniaxial compression loading
Authors: Chee Lim Pei , Daud Ruslizam , Mohamad Khan Shah Fenner Khan , Md Zain Nurul Alia , Bajuri Yazid 
Published: March 2019

A newly designed Uniaxial external fixator which functions as a universal fixator in the application of all types of bone fractures is recently introduced by both Hospital Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (HUKM) and Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP). The Investigation is focused on identifying and measuring the performance in terms of strength or weakness of the fixator that is needed before the application to the human body. Hence, this research was conducted to determine the performance of Uniaxial external fixator which was based on geometry using different screw drilling techniques applied during an angled uniaxial compression load. A three-dimensional fixator-bone was constructed using different screw inserting techniques which was then converted into ANSYS v14.5 for the purposes of conducting a finite element analysis (FEA). Axial compressive loading with various degrees from 60 to 6300 N were applied to bone models to stimulate patient’s daily activities while 10 to 100 N were applied to fixator models for the purposes of reviewing environmental loading to fixator-bone models. Findings revealed that maximum magnitude which caused deformation for predrilling and self-drilling models were located at the highest pin-bone interaction. Conversely, the maximum magnitude of the von Mises strain and stress was located at the lowest pin-bone interaction by omitting the existence of fixator for both Case 1 and 2. There was no obvious difference in the comparison of both models in terms of deformation. However, predrilling models have higher strain and stress than self-drilling models. In sum, findings indicated that self-drilling models have better performance compared to the predrilling models.
Development of water quality index of ex-mining ponds in Malaysia
Authors: Koki Isa Baba , Md Zain Sharifuddin , Hin Low Kah , Azid Azman , Juahir Hafizan , Abdul Zali Munirah 
Published: March 2019

In this paper, a study on the development of water quality index of ex-mining ponds was carried out for proper assessment and utilization of the abundant ex-mining ponds in Malaysia. Heavy metals were analyzed using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrophotometer (ICPMS), and physico chemical parameters were analyzed in-situ. Chemometric analysis was successfully applied for the parameter selection process. The water quality index of existing Malaysian river did not accommodate the toxic metal pollutants that dominanted in ex-mining water. The acceptable index should therefore incorporate the metal pollutants in order to evaluate the quality status of ex-mining water for human consumption which is the major point of consideration. Two water quality indices were developed to assess the water quality status of ex-mining ponds with reference to Malaysia’s water quality standard (INWQS). The heavy metal index was comprised of contribution from Pb, As, and Cd as the selected metals, while the physico-chemical parameter index has BOD, pH, DO, and AN. Chemometric analysis revealed the dominance of the selected heavy metals in ex-mining water, and physico-chemical parameters were important in water quality monitoring. Heavy metal water quality index revealed that most ex-mining ponds in Klang Valley were classified to be very poor hence could not be used for human consumption. Due to domestic input in some of the lakes in Klang Valley, the physico-chemical water quality index was in very poor status as well. In Melaka and Negeri Sembilan, ex-mining ponds and lakes were classified as excellent in both indices.
Improved quasi-newton method via SR1 update for solving symmetric systems of nonlinear equations
Authors: Dauda Muhammad Kabir , Mamat Mustafa , Mohamed Mohamad Afendee , Waziri Mahammad Yusuf 
Published: March 2019

The systems of nonlinear equations emerges from many areas of computing, scientific and engineering research applications. A variety of an iterative methods for solving such systems have been developed, this include the famous Newton method. Unfortunately, the Newton method suffers setback, which includes storing matrix at each iteration and computing Jacobian matrix, which may be difficult or even impossible to compute. To overcome the drawbacks that bedeviling Newton method, a modification to SR1 update was proposed in this study. With the aid of inexact line search procedure by Li and Fukushima, the modification was achieved by simply approximating the inverse Hessian matrix with an identity matrix without computing the Jacobian. Unlike the classical SR1 method, the modification neither require storing matrix at each iteration nor needed to compute the Jacobian matrix. In finding the solution to non-linear problems of the form 40 benchmark test problems were solved. A comparison was made with other two methods based on CPU time and number of iterations. In this study, the proposed method solved 37 problems effectively in terms of number of iterations. In terms of CPU time, the proposed method also outperformed the existing methods. The contribution from the methodology yielded a method that is suitable for solving symmetric systems of nonlinear equations. The derivative-free feature of the proposed method gave its advantage to solve relatively large-scale problems (10,000 variables) compared to the existing methods. From the preliminary numerical results, the proposed method turned out to be significantly faster, effective and suitable for solving large scale symmetric nonlinear equations.
Evaluation of the effects of a generic substitution policy implemented in Chile
Authors: Mansilla Cristián , Cárdenas Jorge , Kaplan Warren A. , Wirtz Veronika J. , Kuhn-Barrientos Lucy , Ortíz de Zárate Matías , Tobar Tatiana , Herrera Cristian A. 
Published: March 2019

IntroductionChile implemented a generic substitution policy in 2014 to improve access to medicines. This study aims to measure if the generic substitution policy had an effect on the sales volume and prices of referent and the branded generic products with demonstrated bioequivalence (BEQ) in the private pharmaceutical market.MethodsThe volume and total private sales of medicines sold at private sector retail outlets between November 2011 and October 2016 were considered in the analysis. We calculated the total number of daily defined doses (DDD) by adding up the number of DDDs of different presentations with the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API). We determined the ratio of the median prices of all BEQ per DDD presentations compared with the median price of the corresponding referent presentations per DDD in 2011 and 2016. Sixteen APIs representing 231 different conventional-release presentations were included in the analysis.ResultsOverall, the volume of sales of the referent products decreased over time after the intervention. However, this reduction was not mirrored by an increase in the corresponding branded generic BEQ volumes overall. In all cases, the median price per DDD of the referent was higher than its BEQ counterpart in 2011 and 2016.ConclusionSince referent products are more costly than branded BEQ generic products, reducing their consumption—and increasing the BEQ availability—should improve access to medicines in Chile. However, this must be accompanied by promotion of BEQ products to ensure savings for consumers in the long term. Future research should focus on identifying facilitating and inhibiting factors of generic substitution.