bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Effectiveness of spiritual care using spiritual pain assessment sheet for advanced cancer patients: A pilot non-randomized controlled trial
Authors: Ichihara Kaori , Ouchi Sayako , Okayama Sachiko , Kinoshita Fukiko , Miyashita Mitsunori , Morita Tatsuya , Tamura Keiko 
Published: January 2019

AbstractObjectiveTo obtain preliminary knowledge to design a randomized controlled trial to clarify the effects of spiritual care using the Spiritual Pain Assessment Sheet (SpiPas).MethodThe study was designed as a nonrandomized controlled trial. The study took place between January 2015 and July 2015 in a hematology and oncology ward and two palliative care units in Japan. Among 54 eligible patients with advanced cancer, 46 were recruited (24 in the control group vs. 22 in the intervention group). The intervention group received spiritual care using SpiPas and usual care; the control group received usual care. The primary outcome was the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Spiritual (FACIT-Sp). The secondary outcomes were the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and Comprehensive Quality of Life Outcome (CoQoLo).ResultA total of 33 (72%) and 23 (50%) patients completed 2- and 3-week follow-up evaluations, respectively. The differences in the changes during 2 weeks in total scores of FACIT-Sp and HADS were significant (95% confidence intervals, 3.65, 14.4, p < 0.01; –11.2 to –1.09, p = .02, respectively). No significant changes were observed in the total score of CoQoLo.Significance of resultsSpiritual care using the SpiPas might be useful for improving patient spiritual well-being. This controlled clinical trial could be performed and a future clinical trial is promising if outcomes are obtained within 2 weeks.
Building multifunctionality into agricultural conservation programs: lessons learned from designing agroforestry systems with central Illinois landowners
Authors: Stanek Erik Christian , Lovell Sarah Taylor 
Published: January 2019

AbstractSince 1985, land retirement has been the primary approach used by the federal government for environmental protection of agricultural landscapes, but increasingly it is being supplemented by conservation initiatives on working lands. This shift logically supports agroforestry and other multifunctional approaches as a means to combine production and conservation. However, such approaches can be complex and difficult to design, contributing to the limited adoption in the USA. To understand and improve the integration of multifunctional landscapes into conservation programs, we worked with 15 landowners in a collaborative design process to build unique conservation plans utilizing agroforestry. We interviewed participants before and after the design process to examine the utility of a personalized design process, applicability of agroforestry to conservation programs and pathways to improve conservation policy. We found that landowners strongly preferred working in person for the design process, and being presented a comparison of alternative designs, rather than a single option, especially for novel systems. Agroforestry was seen as a viable method of generating conservation benefits while providing value to the landowners, each of whom stated they were more inclined to adopt such practices irrespective of financial assistance to do so. For conservation programs, landowners suggested reducing their complexity, inflexibility and impersonal nature to improve the integration of multifunctional practices that appeal directly to the practitioner's needs and preferences. These findings are valuable for conservation policy because they complement previous research theory suggesting the value of working collaboratively with landowners in the design of multifunctional landscapes. Personalized solutions that are developed based on the unique characteristics of the local landscape and the preferences of the individual landowner may be retained beyond a specified payment period, rather than being converted back into annual crop production.
Cessation of anticoagulation therapy following endovascular thrombus	removal and stent placement for acute iliofemoral deep vein	thrombosis
Authors: Sebastian Tim , Engelberger Rolf P. , Spirk David , Hakki Lawrence O. , Baumann Frederic A. , Spescha Rebecca S. , Kucher Nils 
Published: January 2019

Summary. Background: The optimal duration of anticoagulation therapy (AT) following catheter-based therapy of acute iliofemoral deep vein thrombosis (IFDVT) with stent placement is unknown. Theoretically, resolving the underlying obstructive iliac vein lesion by a stent may eliminate the main trigger for recurrence, the post-thrombotic syndrome (PTS), and the need for extended-duration AT. Patients and methods: From 113 patients with acute IFDVT who underwent endovascular thrombus removal and stent placement, we compared patency rates and clinical outcomes between 58 patients on limited-duration AT (3–12 month) and 55 patients on extended-duration AT (> 12 months). Results: Mean follow-up duration was 26 ± 18 (range 3–77) months; it was 24 ± 18 (range 3–69) months after cessation of AT in the limited-duration AT group. In comparison to patients with extended-duration AT, patients with limited-duration AT were younger (38 versus 54 years; p < 0.001), more often female (74 % versus 49 %; p = 0.01), and had less often prior venous thromboembolism (VTE) (9 % versus 35 %; p = 0.001). May-Thurner syndrome was more frequent in the limited-duration AT group (66 % versus 38 %; p = 0.004). Overall, primary and secondary patency rates at 24 months were 80 % (95 % CI, 70–87 %) and 95 % (95 % CI, 88–98 %), respectively, with no difference between the groups. Overall, 17 (15 %) patients developed recurrent VTE, of which 14 (82 %) events were thrombotic stent occlusions, and 13 (76 %) events occurred during AT. In the limited-duration AT group, 98 % patients were free from the PTS at two years with a VTE recurrence rate of 3.5 per 100 patient years after cessation of AT. Conclusions: In selected patients with acute IFDVT and patent venous stent, particularly in younger and otherwise healthy patients with May-Thurner syndrome, it appears to be safe to discontinue AT 3–12 months after endovascular treatment. Clinical Trial Registration: The study is registered on the National Institutes of Health website (ClinicalTrials.gov; identifier NCT02433054).
Spatial Patterns of Crop Yield Change by Emitted Pollutant
Authors: Shindell Drew , Faluvegi Greg , Kasibhatla Prasad , Van Dingenen Rita 
Published: January 2019

AbstractField measurements and modeling have examined how temperature, precipitation, and exposure to carbon dioxide (CO2) and ozone affect major staple crops around the world. Most prior studies, however, have incorporated only a subset of these influences. Here we examine how emissions of each individual pollutant driving changes in these four factors affect present‐day yields of wheat, maize (corn), and rice worldwide. Our statistical modeling indicates that for the global mean, climate and composition changes have decreased wheat and maize yields substantially whereas rice yields have increased. Well‐mixed greenhouse gasses drive most of the impacts, though aerosol‐induced cooling can be important, particularly for more polluted area including India and China. Maize yield losses are most strongly attributable to methane emissions (via both temperature and ozone). In tropical areas, wheat yield losses are primarily driven by CO2 (via temperature), whereas in temperate zones other well‐mixed greenhouse gases dominate. Rice yields increase in tropical countries due to a larger impact from CO2 fertilization plus aerosol‐induced cooling than losses due to CO2‐induced warming and impacts of non‐CO2 gasses, whereas there are net losses in temperate zones driven largely by methane and other non‐CO2 gasses. Though further work is needed, particularly on the effects of aerosol changes and on nutritional impacts, these results suggest that crop yields over coming decades will be strongly influenced by changes in non‐CO2 greenhouse gasses, ozone precursors, and aerosols and that these should be taking into account in plant‐level models and when examining linkages between climate change mitigation and sustainable development.
The Role of Anthropogenic Aerosol Forcing in Interdecadal Variations of Summertime Upper‐Tropospheric Temperature Over East Asia
Authors: Wang Zhili , Lin Lei , Yang Meilin , Guo Zhun 
Published: January 2019

AbstractObservations show a significant interdecadal decline of July and August (JA) mean upper‐tropospheric temperature (UTT) over East Asia during the second half of the twentieth century, which is likely responsible for the weakening of the East Asian summer monsoon and the “southern flood and northern drought” phenomenon observed in eastern China. This study investigates the role of anthropogenic aerosol forcing in the interdecadal cooling for the period 1951–2001 and the physical mechanisms involved using a coupled Earth system model, combined with reanalysis data. Our results show that the aerosol forcing leads to a drop of 0.14 °C per decade in JA mean UTT averaged over East Asia (30–45°N, 90–130°E), which significantly contributes to the observed cooling of 0.2 °C per decade. The interdecadal cooling may be attributed to the weakening of interhemispheric differences in JA mean sea surface temperature in response to aerosols. The asymmetric hemispheric change in sea surface temperature alters the local eddy flux, thereby weakening upper‐tropospheric westerlies and the transport of warm air from over the Tibetan plateau into downstream regions between 30°N and 40°N. We further find that changes in the geographic distribution of SO2 emissions are the dominant cause of differences in JA mean UTT trends over East Asia between decades. The projected decrease in anthropogenic aerosols will lead to a rise of 0.05 °C per decade in JA mean UTT over East Asia during 2010–2050 under the Representative Concentration Pathways 8.5 scenario. This will likely have large impacts on the distribution of summer precipitation in East Asia in the future.
Constraining Evaporation Rates Based on Large‐Scale Sea Surface Transects of Salinity or Isotopic Compositions
Authors: Berman Hadar , Paldor Nathan , Churchill James , Lazar Boaz 
Published: January 2019

AbstractA Lagrangian model is constructed for a surface column of initial height h(0) that propagates at an average speed u and is subject to excess (i.e., net) evaporation of q m/year. It is shown that these parameters combine to form an evaporation length, L = uh(0)/q, which provides an estimate for the distance the column must travel before evaporating completely. While these changes in the surface water level due to evaporation are compensated by entrainment of water into the overall column, the changes in either near‐surface salinity or isotopic compositions are retained and can be measured. Observations of surface salinity and isotopic compositions of δ18O and δD along 1,000‐ to 3,500‐km long transects are used to estimate values of L in the Red Sea, Mediterranean Sea, Indian Ocean, and Gulf Stream. The variations of salinity, δ18O and δD in all four basins are linear. As anticipated, the estimated value of L is smallest in the slowly moving and arid Red Sea and is greatest in the fast‐moving Gulf Stream.
Electric Field Variation in Clear and Convective Conditions at a Tropical Urban Location
Authors: Jana Soumyajyoti , Maitra Animesh 
Published: January 2019

AbstractThe behavior of atmospheric electric field in terms of potential gradient (PG) has been studied during the period of 2013 and 2014 at a tropical and urban location Kolkata (22°34′N, 88°22′E), India. The clear‐weather PG is influenced by varying concentration of black carbon, which is a major pollutant in urban atmosphere. The diurnal variation of the clear‐day PG follows that of the black carbon concentration in all the seasons. It is found that cloud base height and liquid water path correlate well with the PG change in convective events. It is shown that during a convective event the PG change measured over 10‐min interval about 30 min before the onset of rain can approximate impending rain accumulation.
Consistency and Discrepancy of Global Surface Soil Moisture Changes From Multiple Model‐Based Data Sets Against Satellite Observations
Authors: Gu Xihui , Li Jianfeng , Chen Yongqin David , Kong Dongdong , Liu Jianyu 
Published: January 2019

AbstractA large population of global soil moisture data sets generated by a variety of models is compared with the latest satellite‐based Essential Climate Variable (ECV) soil moisture product in a common framework. The model‐based surface soil moisture data sets include Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS), reanalysis products, Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 Global Climate Models (GCMs), and Inter‐Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (including observation‐driven outputs ISI‐MIP_OBS and GCM‐driven outputs ISI‐MIP_GCM). We evaluate the model‐based surface soil moisture against ECV with focuses on spatial patterns, temporal correlations, long‐term trends, and relationships with precipitation and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index. The results indicate that all data sets reach a good agreement on the spatial patterns of surface soil moisture, which are also consistent with that of precipitation. However, data sets produced by different techniques have considerable discrepancies in the absolute values of surface soil moisture. Specifically, GCMs tend to underestimate the absolute values of surface soil moisture relative to ECV. In comparisons that remove the influence of absolute values (e.g., unbiased root‐mean‐square error), all model‐based data sets show comparable performances against ECV. GLDAS, reanalysis, and ISI‐MIP_OBS data sets show significant positive temporal correlations with ECV. Model‐based data sets and ECV consistently indicate widespread drying trends during 1980–2005, but the regional trends vary in different data sets. Compared to ECV, GLDAS and reanalysis data sets exhibit more intensive drying trends, while Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 and ISI‐MIP_GCM tend to underestimate the drying. In most of the regions, the wetting/drying trends are consistent with the increases/decreases in precipitation and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index.
Intertidal Creeks and Overmarsh Circulation in a Small Salt Marsh Basin
Authors: Sullivan Jessica Chassereau , Torres Raymond , Garrett Alfred 
Published: January 2019

AbstractThe role of intertidal creek networks in overmarsh circulation is not well constrained. In this study, we systematically remove intertidal creeks from a high‐resolution salt marsh digital elevation model and conduct new flow simulations with each iteration. Overall, removal of first‐ and second‐order creeks reduced drainage density by 65%, and this had a negligible effect on overmarsh circulation and tracer distribution. However, upon removal of third‐ and fourth‐order creeks, drainage density was reduced by 80% of the original value, and changes in peak velocity magnitude across various spatial and temporal scales reveal a system‐wide switch from ebb to flood dominance. This response coincides with the interruption of topographically connected creeks that facilitate the direct exchange of water and tracer between the marsh interior and the larger subtidal system. Further, this reduction in hydraulic connectivity gives rise to less expansive tracer dispersal and a systematic decline in tracer residence time. Together, these results reveal that for the Groves Creek marsh, lower‐order intertidal creeks have a minor role in overmarsh circulation, while higher‐order creeks increase the potential for short circuiting of flow; they greatly influence overall flood and ebb dominance, and net tracer dispersal and associated retention time. Results reported here provide new insight on, for example, salt marsh restoration and the requisite digital elevation model bathymetry for robust simulations of overmarsh circulation.
The Awakening of the Dormant Mount Vettore Fault (2016 Central Italy Earthquake, Mw 6.6): Paleoseismic Clues on Its Millennial Silences
Authors: Galli P. , Galderisi A. , Peronace E. , Giaccio B. , Hajdas I. , Messina P. , Pileggi D. , Polpetta F. 
Published: January 2019

AbstractThe Mount Vettore normal fault ruptured between August and October 2016, sourcing three earthquakes of Mw 6.2, 6.1, and 6.6. The first one caused the death of 299 people, while the entire sequence reached the highest macroseismic intensity levels in Italy since the catastrophic 1915 Fucino event (Mw 7.1). This fault was known to be one of the historically dormant faults of the Italian Apennines, and its sudden activation, not preceded by any foreshocks, has caught people and scientists off guards. We describe here the results from three new paleoseismic trenches opened across splays of the main antithetic fault that ruptured at surface on 30 October together with the 30‐km‐long Mount Vettore master fault. Data account for six surface faulting events since 9 ka, with a return time of 1.8 ± 0.3 kyr. The penultimate, probably stronger earthquake occurred in Late Roman times, perhaps in 443 AD, when also Rome suffered damage to its monumental buildings. Once again, paleoseismology turns out to be a powerful tool in seismic hazard assessment, especially for earthquakes that recur hundreds or thousands of years apart.
Meta-analysis of expression and methylation signatures indicates a stress-related epigenetic mechanism in multiple neuropsychiatric disorders
Authors: Zhu Kaiyi , Ou Yang Tai-Hsien , Dorie Vincent , Zheng Tian , Anastassiou Dimitris 
Published: January 2019

AbstractSimilar environmental risk factors have been implicated in different neuropsychiatric disorders (including major psychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases), indicating the existence of common epigenetic mechanisms underlying the pathogenesis shared by different illnesses. To investigate such commonality, we applied an unsupervised computational approach identifying several consensus co-expression and co-methylation signatures from a data cohort of postmortem prefrontal cortex (PFC) samples from individuals with six different neuropsychiatric disorders—schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression, alcoholism, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s—as well as healthy controls. Among our results, we identified a pair of strongly interrelated co-expression and co-methylation (E–M) signatures showing consistent and significant disease association in multiple types of disorders. This E–M signature was enriched for interneuron markers, and we further demonstrated that it is unlikely for this enrichment to be due to varying subpopulation abundance of normal interneurons across samples. Moreover, gene set enrichment analysis revealed overrepresentation of stress-related biological processes in this E–M signature. Our integrative analysis of expression and methylation profiles, therefore, suggests a stress-related epigenetic mechanism in the brain, which could be associated with the pathogenesis of multiple neuropsychiatric diseases.
A neuraminidase potency assay for quantitative assessment of neuraminidase in influenza vaccines
Authors: Byrne-Nash Rose T. , Gillis Jacob H. , Miller David F. , Bueter Katie M. , Kuck Laura R. , Rowlen Kathy L. 
Published: January 2019

AbstractNeuraminidase (NA) immunity leads to decreased viral shedding and reduced severity of influenza disease; however, NA content in influenza vaccines is currently not regulated, resulting in inconsistent quality and quantity of NA that can vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, from year to year, and from lot to lot. To address this problem, we have developed an assay for NA quantification that could be used by the industry to move toward developing influenza vaccines that induce a predictable immune response to NA. The VaxArray Influenza Seasonal NA Potency Assay (VXI-sNA) is a multiplexed sandwich immunoassay that relies on six subtype-specific monoclonal antibodies printed in microarray format and a suite of fluor-conjugated “label” antibodies. The performance of the assay as applied to a wide range of influenza vaccines is described herein. The assay demonstrated high NA subtype specificity and high sensitivity, with quantification limits ranging from 1 to 60 ng/mL and linear dynamic ranges of 24–500-fold. When compared to an enzymatic activity assay for samples exposed to thermal degradation conditions, the assay was able to track changes in protein stability over time and exhibited good correlation with enzyme activity. The assay also demonstrated excellent analytical precision with relative error ranging from 6 to 12% over day-to-day, user-to-user, and lot-to-lot variation. The high sensitivity and reproducibility of the assay enabled robust detection and quantification of NA in crude in-process samples and low-dose, adjuvanted vaccines with an accuracy of 100 ± 10%.
The aesthetic nature of the birthing room environment may alter the need for obstetrical interventions – an observational retrospective cohort study
Authors: Wrønding Tine , Argyraki Aikaterini , Petersen Jesper Friis , Topsøe Märta Fink , Petersen Paul Michael , Løkkegaard Ellen C. L. 
Published: January 2019

AbstractThe concept of sensory delivery rooms was introduced in 2013. These rooms offer programmable calming lights, restful blurred pictures displayed on a wall-sized big screen, and sound effects. The primary aim of this observational study was to analyse the risk of obstetrical interventions among women giving birth for the first-time in a sensory delivery room vs. a standard delivery room. We included nulliparous, term pregnant women having a single baby with a cephalic presentation who were in spontaneous labour and gave birth between March 1st 2014 and July 1st 2015 in North Zealand Hospital, Hillerød. A total of 789 women were included in the study, 313 gave birth in a sensory room and 476 in a standard delivery room. The risk of a caesarean delivery was significantly decreased when giving birth in a sensory room compared with a standard delivery room (OR, multiple adjusted: 0.44; 95% CI 0.22–0.87); furthermore, the use of oxytocin infusion was also reduced (OR, multiple adjusted: 0.71; 95% CI 0.50–1.03). This observational cohort study suggests that giving birth in a sensory delivery room could lower the risk of caesarean delivery, potentially reducing the number of such deliveries by one for every 23 patients.