bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Effectiveness of the AF-EduCare and AF-EduApp approach to improve atrial fibrillation knowledge and risk factor awareness in patients with atrial fibrillation: a randomized controlled trial
Authors: Knaepen Lieselotte , Desteghe Lien , Delesie Michiel , Önder Rana , Vijgen Johan , Dendale Paul , Ector Joris , Heidbuchel Hein 
Published: November 2024

Abstract

Aims
Developing an integrated care pathway for atrial fibrillation (AF) patients is of pivotal importance, given the different treatment strategies. Moreover, knowledge about the condition is an important factor in engaging patients in their care. Patient education formed the core of the integrated AF-EduCare/AF-EduApp approach. The main aim of this manuscript is to report the impact of this approach on AF and risk factor (RF)–related knowledge and self-care awareness.

Methods and results
Atrial fibrillation patients (n = 1232) were randomized to standard care (SC) or three educational interventions: in-person, online, or app-based education. Patients in the intervention groups received targeted education based on their responses to the Jessa Atrial fibrillation Knowledge Questionnaire (JAKQ) and a Self-Care Questionnaire (SCQ) presented at different time points. Patients who received educational follow-up reached a significantly higher knowledge score (in-person: 86.5 ± 13.2%; online: 82.5 ± 19.3%; app: 80.1 ± 15.0%) than the SC group (65.3 ± 16.6%) after 12/18 months (P &lt; 0.001). The knowledge rapidly improved with the first sessions (i.e. 3 months) and remained sustained in all education groups. Patients with RF at baseline showed a slight but significant increase in awareness about their RF through education [e.g. no knowledge of last measured systolic blood pressure compared between education vs. SC: odds ratio of 0.45 (P = 0.012)], a change that was not seen in SC patients. Nevertheless, patients keep under-estimating the presence of their own RFs compared with objective documentation in their medical record (e.g. hypertension).

Conclusion
The JAKQ and SCQ are good instruments to provide targeted education to AF patients in daily clinical care. Knowledge level increases clinically significantly, but the impact on awareness about personal risk factors remains unsatisfactory.

Registration
ClinicalTrials/gov: NCT03707873NCT03788044.
Lessons learned from Taiwan’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic: successes, challenges, and implications for future pandemics
Authors: Hsieh Vivian Chia-Rong , Tsai Min-Hua , Chiang Hua-Chueh , Weng Ming-Yi 
Published: November 2024

Abstract
This study aims to provide an investigation of the containment and mitigation strategies encompassing the entirety of the pandemic in Taiwan. This descriptive, observational study used COVID-19 data from Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea, and analysed news releases from the Taiwanese health authority. Statistics provided evidence of outbreak severity through infection and mortality rates, while qualitative results from the document review offered insights on the actions taken by the government chronologically from 2 February 2020 to 31 December 2022. All three countries experienced significant infection peaks in 2022. Taiwan had two distinct peaks, one in late May and another in October. South Korea had a single, high peak in late March, while Japan experienced multiple smaller waves, the biggest wave in August. Similarly, weekly mortality rates peaked in 2022 for all three countries after a surge in their infected cases, with Taiwan (5.15/100 000) and South Korea (4.69/100 000) having higher rates than Japan (1.65/100 000). Results from qualitative analysis showed that Taiwan’s early containment measures might have delayed the epidemic curve, allowing time for better preparation and proactive responses. However, the lack of a clear transition plan and the vulnerability of the elderly population contributed to higher mortality and infection rates. Despite ongoing challenges, Taiwan avoided nationwide lockdowns and relied on targeted restrictions to control transmission of the virus. Results of this article offer the narratives, reflections, and experiences from the case of Taiwan which may potentially present promising opportunities for impact in other settings and for future pandemics.
Phylogenomics resolves key relationships in Rumex and uncovers a dynamic history of independently evolving sex chromosomes
Authors: Hibbins Mark S , Rifkin Joanna L , Choudhury Baharul I , Voznesenska Olena , Sacchi Bianca , Yuan Meng , Gong Yunchen , Barrett Spencer C H , Wright Stephen I 
Published: November 2024

Abstract
Sex chromosomes have evolved independently many times across eukaryotes. Despite a considerable body of literature on sex chromosome evolution, the causes and consequences of variation in their formation, degeneration, and turnover remain poorly understood. Chromosomal rearrangements are thought to play an important role in these processes by promoting or extending the suppression of recombination on sex chromosomes. Sex chromosome variation may also contribute to barriers to gene flow, limiting introgression among species. Comparative approaches in groups with sexual system variation can be valuable for understanding these questions. Rumex is a diverse genus of flowering plants harboring significant sexual system and karyotypic variation, including hermaphroditic and dioecious clades with XY (and XYY) sex chromosomes. Previous disagreement in the phylogenetic relationships among key species has rendered the history of sex chromosome evolution uncertain. Resolving this history is important for investigating the interplay of chromosomal rearrangements, introgression, and sex chromosome evolution in the genus. Here, we use new transcriptome assemblies from 11 species representing major clades in the genus, along with a whole-genome assembly generated for a key hermaphroditic species. Using phylogenomic approaches, we find evidence for the independent evolution of sex chromosomes across two major clades, and introgression from unsampled lineages likely predating the formation of sex chromosomes in the genus. Comparative genomic approaches revealed high rates of chromosomal rearrangement, especially in dioecious species, with evidence for a complex origin of the sex chromosomes through multiple chromosomal fusions. However, we found no evidence of elevated rates of fusion on the sex chromosomes in comparison with autosomes, providing no support for an adaptive hypothesis of sex chromosome expansion due to sexually antagonistic selection. Overall, our results highlight a complex history of karyotypic evolution in Rumex, raising questions about the role that chromosomal rearrangements might play in the evolution of large heteromorphic sex chromosomes.
Testing the coordination hypothesis: incompatibilities in aggregative development of an experimentally evolved social amoeba
Authors: Jahan Israt , Scott Trey J , Strassmann Joan E , Queller David C 
Published: November 2024

Abstract
Multicellular organisms that form by aggregation of cells arguably do not achieve high levels of complexity. Conflict among the cells is a widely accepted explanation for this, but an alternative hypothesis is that mixing cells of different genotypes leads to failures of coordination, which we call the “coordination hypothesis.” We empirically tested the coordination hypothesis in the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum. We mixed D. discoideum clones that had evolved in isolation for generations and acquired mutations that have not been tested against each other by selection. To quantify the effect of incompatibilities, we measured performance in terms of the developmental traits of slug migration and spore production. Importantly, we mixed lines evolved from the same ancestor under conditions that would not select for the evolution of de novo kin recognition. Our results show no evidence of incompatibilities in four traits related to the coordinated movement of slugs toward light in the social amoeba. Spore production was higher than expected in mixtures, in apparent contradiction to the coordination hypothesis. However, we found support for coordination incompatibilities in an interaction between migration and spore production: in mixtures, fewer cells succeeded at both migrating and becoming spores.
Detection of snow disturbances in boreal forests using unitemporal airborne lidar data and aerial images
Authors: Räty Janne , Kukkonen Mikko , Melin Markus , Maltamo Matti , Packalen Petteri 
Published: November 2024

Abstract
Snow is among the most significant natural disturbance agents in Finland. In silviculture, maps of snow disturbance are needed to recognize severely disturbed forests where the risk of subsequential disturbances, such as insect outbreaks, is high. We investigated the potential of unitemporal airborne lidar (light detection and ranging) data and aerial images to detect snow disturbance at the tree level. We used 81 healthy and 128 snow-disturbed field plots established in a 63 800 ha study area in Eastern Finland. A subset of trees (n = 675) was accurately positioned in the field plots. We carried out individual tree detection (ITD) using airborne lidar data (5 p/m2), and a random forest classifier was used to classify healthy and broken trees. Tree features were extracted from a terrain elevation model, lidar data, and aerial imagery. We compared canopy height model–based (ITDCHM) and point cloud–based (ITDPC) ITD approaches. We explored random forest variable importance scores and evaluated the classification performance by an F1-score and its components (precision and recall). Performance was also evaluated at the plot level to investigate errors associated with the predicted number of broken trees. We achieved F1-scores of 0.66 and 0.85 for the tree- and plot-level classifications, respectively. The variable importance scores showed that elevation above sea level was the most important predictor variable followed by ITD-based features characterizing the neighborhood of trees. The ITDCHM slightly outperformed the ITDPC at the tree level, while they both underestimated the number of broken trees at the plot level. The proposed approach can be carried out alongside lidar-assisted operational forest management inventories provided that a set of positioned broken and healthy trees are available for model training. Since airborne lidar data often have a temporal resolution of several years for the same areas, future research should consider the utilization of other remotely sensed data sources to improve the temporal resolution.
Testis- and ovary-expressed polo-like kinase transcripts and gene duplications affect male fertility when expressed in the Drosophila melanogaster germline
Authors: Najera Paola , Dratler Olivia A , Mai Alexander B , Elizarraras Miguel , Vanchinathan Rahul , Gonzales Christopher A , Meisel Richard P 
Published: November 2024

Abstract
Polo-like kinases (Plks) are essential for spindle attachment to the kinetochore during prophase and the subsequent dissociation after anaphase in both mitosis and meiosis. There are structural differences in the spindle apparatus among mitosis, male meiosis, and female meiosis. It is therefore possible that alleles of Plk genes could improve kinetochore attachment or dissociation in spermatogenesis or oogenesis, but not both. These opposing effects could result in sexually antagonistic selection at Plk loci. In addition, Plk genes have been independently duplicated in many different evolutionary lineages within animals. This raises the possibility that Plk gene duplication may resolve sexual conflicts over mitotic and meiotic functions. We investigated this hypothesis by comparing the evolution, gene expression, and functional effects of the single Plk gene in Drosophila melanogaster (polo) and the duplicated Plks in D. pseudoobscura (Dpse-polo and Dpse-polo-dup1). Dpse-polo-dup1 is expressed primarily in testis, while other Drosophila Plk genes have broader expression profiles. We found that the protein-coding sequence of Dpse-polo-dup1 is evolving significantly faster than a canonical polo gene across all functional domains, yet the essential structure of the encoded protein has been retained. We present additional evidence that the faster evolution of Dpse-polo-dup1 is driven by the adaptive fixation of amino acid substitutions. We also found that over or ectopic expression of polo or Dpse-polo in the D. melanogaster male germline resulted in greater male infertility than expression of Dpse-polo-dup1. Last, expression of Dpse-polo or an ovary-derived transcript of polo in the male germline caused males to sire female-biased broods, suggesting that some Plk transcripts can affect the meiotic transmission of the sex chromosomes in the male germline. However, there was no sex bias in the progeny when Dpse-polo-dup1 was ectopically expressed, or a testis-derived transcript of polo was overexpressed in the D. melanogaster male germline. Our results therefore suggest that Dpse-polo-dup1 may have experienced positive selection to improve its regulation of the male meiotic spindle, resolving sexual conflict over meiotic Plk functions. Alternatively, Dpse-polo-dup1 may encode a hypomorphic Plk that has reduced deleterious effects when overexpressed in the male germline. Similarly, testis transcripts of D. melanogaster polo may be optimized for regulating the male meiotic spindle, and we provide evidence that the untranslated regions of the polo transcript may be involved in sex-specific germline functions.
Sex Differences in the Association Between 24-hour Rest-Activity Rhythms and Frailty Among U.S. Older Adults: Findings From NHANES 2011–2014
Authors: Kim Jisu , Kenyon Jonathan , Sargent Lana , Kirkman Danielle L , Kim Youngdeok 
Published: November 2024

Abstract

Background
Little is known as to how rest-activity rhythms are associated with frailty and how this relationship differs by sex. This study examined the relationship between rest-activity rhythms and frailty in a nationally representative sample of U.S. older adults, focusing on the moderating role of sex.

Methods
2 531 participants aged ≥60 years (females: 55.2%; frail: 5.15% [4.02–6.29]; pre-frail: 33.49% [31.29–35.68]) were included using the 2011–2014 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Nonparametric rest-activity rhythms parameters, including inter-daily stability, intra-daily variability, relative amplitude, most active 10-hour, and least active 5-hour, were estimated from wrist-worn actigraphy data. Frailty status was assessed using a modified version of frailty phenotype (range: 0–5): frail (≥3), pre-frail (1,2), and non-frail (0). Multinomial logistic regression models were used to examine the interest of associations, adjusting for potential confounders.

Results
Frail and pre-frail older adults exhibited significantly lower relative amplitude, inter-daily stability, higher intra-daily variability, and phase delay when compared with non-frail older adults (p’s &lt; .05). Particularly, older adults with low relative amplitude had significantly greater odds of being frail and pre-frail (aOR [95% confidence intervals]; frailty: 5.60 [2.61–12.04]; pre-frailty: 1.58 [1.13–2.20]). Significant sex-interaction was observed (p &lt; .01), with this association being greater in females than in males (aOR [95% confidence intervals]; females: 7.78 [2.98–20.30] for frailty, 2.31 [1.60–3.32] for pre-frailty; males: 4.48 [1.38–14.54] for frailty, 1.12 [0.61–2.07] for pre-frailty).

Conclusion
Weakened rest-activity rhythms strength is unfavorably associated with frailty, particularly in females. Rest-activity rhythms may be a useful indicator associated with frailty in older adults, but sex-specific differences should be considered. Further longitudinal research is necessary to investigate the bidirectionality of their association.
Optimized stratified random surveys best estimate multispecies abundance in a rapidly changing ecosystem
Authors: Vilas Daniel , Barnett Lewis A K , Punt André E , Oyafuso Zack S , DeFilippo Lukas B , Siple Margaret C , Zacher Leah S , Kotwicki Stan 
Published: November 2024

Abstract
Data from fishery-independent surveys are critical inputs to stock assessments, ecosystem-based fishery management, and applied ecological research. However, environmental change may affect species distributions and their availability to surveys, with consequences for the consistency and precision of abundance estimates over time. We investigated whether defining survey stratum boundaries by environmental conditions improves the precision and accuracy of abundance estimates in a multispecies survey. We fitted univariate spatiotemporal species distribution models to 16 stocks (14 species) using historical observations of fishery-independent bottom trawl survey catch-per-unit-effort and sea bottom temperature in the eastern and northern Bering Sea from 1982 to 2022. These spatiotemporal models were used to simulate species distributions and survey observations under a variety of environmental conditions and survey designs. The predicted density of each species at each location and time was passed to a multivariate optimization routine to determine whether this could increase the accuracy of estimates of abundance per unit of survey effort across species relative to traditional survey designs. Historical and projected future abundances for 10 of the 16 stocks were estimated more precisely under optimized designs–up to 4× as precise as the existing design. The accuracy of the estimate of abundance precision was always lowest for systematic sample allocation and highest for random or balanced random sampling within strata, suggesting that designs optimized with historical biological and environmental data lead to a better ability to quantify survey precision. The approach developed here can be applied in other ecosystems experiencing change to support the design of flexible survey designs that could increase the efficiency of sampling marine resources under current and future climates.
A unified framework for the error analysis of physics-informed neural networks
Authors: Zeinhofer Marius , Masri Rami , Mardal Kent–André 
Published: November 2024

Abstract
We prove a priori and a posteriori error estimates for physics-informed neural networks (PINNs) for linear PDEs. We analyze elliptic equations in primal and mixed form, elasticity, parabolic, hyperbolic and Stokes equations, and a PDE constrained optimization problem. For the analysis, we propose an abstract framework in the common language of bilinear forms, and we show that coercivity and continuity lead to error estimates. The obtained estimates are sharp and reveal that the $L^{2}$ penalty approach for initial and boundary conditions in the PINN formulation weakens the norm of the error decay. Finally, utilizing recent advances in PINN optimization, we present numerical examples that illustrate the ability of the method to achieve accurate solutions.
Deadly Matters: Disciplinary Dilemmas in Aesthetic IR
Authors: Ciută Felix 
Published: November 2024

Abstract
International Relations (IR) has long been imagined as the discipline of somber, serious, “deadly” matters. This imagination constitutes a regime of visibility, intelligibility, and exigency—or, in the terms of Jacques Rancière, a disciplinary distribution of the sensible—that has profoundly shaped the manner in which popular culture has been constructed as an object of inquiry for aesthetic IR. The primary consequence of this distribution of the sensible is the tendency to reduce popular culture to its harmful effects. The benefit of this strategy is to establish aesthetic IR as a distinctive approach to world politics, in terms of its substantive focus on popular culture artifacts, as well as to popular culture, in terms of revealing the normative and ideological work popular culture does at the intersection of the everyday-local with the global-systemic. However, this successful incorporation of aesthetic IR into IR has reproduced the onto-epistemic distinctions that have consecrated IR as the discipline of “deadly matters,” chiefly that between the knowing IR scholar and the “knowledge-poor” that are the objects of her analysis. This creates an epistemic, methodological, and deontological dilemma, in that the necessary focus on “deadly matters” renders invisible the many subjects of popular culture, which contradicts the stated mission of aesthetic IR to make visible the multiplicity of knowledges and subjectivities constitutive of international politics.
Nursing home nurses’ opinion profiles on the potential evolution of their role in antimicrobial stewardship and associated factors: a national cross-sectional study in France
Authors: Ishara-Nshombo Elie , Bridey Céline , Pulcini Céline , Thilly Nathalie , Bocquier Aurélie 
Published: November 2024

Abstract

Background
Antibiotic resistance is a major public health threat, especially in nursing homes (NHs). Nursing home nurses (NHNs) can play a crucial role in antimicrobial stewardship (AMS), but research on their opinions regarding potential expanded AMS roles is limited.

Objectives
To identify different profiles of NHNs according to their opinions on the potential evolution of their AMS roles and to study facilitators/barriers to implementing new AMS roles and the demographic and professional characteristics associated with these profiles.

Methods
Data were collected from a national cross-sectional online survey conducted from May to July 2022 among French NHNs. Profiles were identified via hierarchical clustering. Factors associated with the identified profiles were studied via Fisher’s exact tests.

Results
Among the 922 participants included in the analysis, three distinct profiles were identified. NHNs ‘more favourable to the evolution of the AMS role’ (40% of the sample) expressed strong support for the potential evolution of their AMS role. NHNs ‘moderately favourable to the evolution of the AMS role’ (46%) were less prone to reinforce discussion with general practitioners about antibiotic prescription. NHNs ‘less favourable to the evolution of the AMS role’ (14%) showed little or no agreement regarding several potential new AMS roles. Being a head nurse was associated with more favourable opinions on the evolution of the AMS role as opposed to practicing in NHs connected to a hospital.

Conclusions
These findings could help healthcare managers and policy-makers tailor the implementation of these new roles among NHNs, if they prove effective and safe.