bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Dental professionals' experience with and handling of suspicion of child maltreatment in a small‐scale society, the Faroe Islands
Authors: Jakobsen Unn , Fjallheim Anna Sofia , Gislason Hannes , Gudmundsen Eina , Poulsen Sven , Haubek Dorte 
Published: February 2019

AbstractThe aims of the present study were to describe how frequently dental professionals in a small‐scale society like the Faroese Islands, experience suspicion on child maltreatment, and how they handle their suspicion. Furthermore, we wanted to investigate the hypothesis that the special interpersonal characteristics of small‐scale societies like the Faroese, influence how dental professionals handle suspicion of child maltreatment compared to how their colleagues in larger societies handled such suspicion.The design of our study was cross‐sectional using a non‐probability purposive sampling method. A translated and slightly modified version of the Danish questionnaire regarding suspicion on child maltreatment was sent to all 71 dental professionals (44 dentists and 27 dental hygienists) in the Faroe Islands. 51 (72%) returned a valid questionnaire. Of these, 61% experienced suspicion of child maltreatment at some point in their career, 33% within the last 6 months, and 10% percent were certain of child maltreatment during the last six months. Of those respondents who had experienced suspicion at some point of their career, 39% had reported their suspicion. The main reasons for withholding a suspicion were: uncertainty as to whether the suspicion was reliable, fear of the consequences for the child, and lack of procedural knowledge. Faroese dental professionals suspected child maltreatment much more frequently (61%) than their Danish (38%), Scottish (29%), and Croatian colleagues (26%) did. Child maltreatment raises concern among the Faroese dental professionals more frequently than among their colleagues in larger societies. They also seem to report their concern more frequently than their Scottish colleagues do. Thus, the present study indicates that the social structure in small‐scale societies may affect dental professionals' suspicions, and handling of child maltreatment.
Fast adaptive comparator offset calibration in pipeline ADC with self‐repairing thermometer to binary encoder
Authors: Ginés Antonio José , Peralías Eduardo José , Aledo Cristina , Rueda Adoración 
Published: February 2019

SummaryThis paper presents a fast background calibration method for comparator offsets in pipeline ADCs and analyzes the practical considerations in a 1.8 V 0.18 μm 100Msps pipeline ADC with 15‐bit resolution (74 dB‐Signal‐to‐noise plus Distortion Ratio [SNDR]). A self‐repairing (SR) thermometer‐to‐binary encoder is developed to deal with malfunctioning in presence of high comparator offsets greater than one‐half least‐significant bit (LSB). In this situation, the effective thresholds between two adjacent comparators could be inverted leading to a faulty behavior with conventional architectures. The proposed solution allows a dynamic assignment of the calibration code associated to each comparator improving convergence speed. As demonstrator, its application to a 15‐bit pipeline ADC using a novel calibrated dynamic‐latch comparator (DLC) with internal threshold reference generation and no preamplifier is presented, showing a reduction on the total power consumption of 22% with respect to a design without calibration targeting the same specifications.
Risk factors and predictive biomarkers of early cardiovascular disease in obese youth
Authors: Ho Howard Chong Huat , Maddaloni Ernesto , Buzzetti Raffaella 
Published: February 2019

SummaryObesity in childhood and adolescence continues to be a major health issue due to significant health implications and to the economic burden that arise from treating this disease and its complications. Current data show that childhood obesity is no longer just a concern for developed countries, but more significantly affecting developing countries. In adult population, cardiovascular disease is the main cause of mortality and morbidity among obese patients. It is therefore believed that risk factors found in adult patients could also be observed in obese youth. These risk factors will then persist and become progressively worse if obese youth remain obese as they reach adulthood. However, risk reduction is achievable through various prevention and management strategies of obesity and obese children who become nonobese in adulthood have a significant reduction in their risk of developing cardiovascular disease. New biomarkers to improve risk assessment in obese youth are an open research field, which will eventually lead to a more targeted approach in prevention and treatment. Nevertheless, there is still a need for continuous research in understanding the roles of these biomarkers and their potential in risk prediction. Cardiovascular risk modification of childhood obesity depends on a more concerted effort among the various parties involved and particularly a global collaboration to stop the rising prevalence of the epidemic in developing countries.
Alliance, technique, both, or more? Clinicians' views on what works in cognitive‐behavioral therapy for eating disorders
Authors: D'Souza Walsh Katrina , Davies Laura , Pluckwell Hayley , Huffinley Holly , Waller Glenn 
Published: February 2019

AbstractObjectiveThis study examined clinicians' views of the roles of two elements of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) in explaining treatment outcomes—CBT techniques and the therapeutic alliance.MethodNinety‐eight clinicians who reported delivering CBT for eating disorders completed measures addressing their beliefs about what is effective in CBT, their use of specific techniques, and their own anxiety levels.ResultsClinicians substantially overestimated the role of both therapeutic techniques and the alliance in explaining treatment outcomes in CBT. Weak but significant correlations were found between therapist anxiety levels and their beliefs about the value of therapeutic techniques or the alliance. However, these associations were in different directions, with higher levels of clinician anxiety associated with more belief in the effects of the alliance but with less belief in the role of CBT techniques. Belief in the role of the therapeutic alliance was associated with a lower likelihood of encouraging the patient to change their eating pattern, while belief in the role of techniques was linked to greater use of case formulation, cognitive restructuring, behavioral experiments and body image work.DiscussionClinicians overestimate the value of both the alliance and therapy techniques in explaining treatment outcomes in CBT for eating disorders. Their beliefs about the strength of these factors are related to their own anxiety, and to their choice of techniques. Clinicians and supervisors should attend to the evidence regarding the impact of a range of elements of therapy, and work with all of those factors to enhance outcomes.
Living on the edge: Exploring the role of coastal refugia in the Alexander Archipelago of Alaska
Authors: Sawyer Yadéeh E. , MacDonald Stephen O. , Lessa Enrique P. , Cook Joseph A. 
Published: February 2019

AbstractAlthough islands are of long‐standing interest to biologists, only a handful of studies have investigated the role of climatic history in shaping evolutionary diversification in high‐latitude archipelagos. In this study of the Alexander Archipelago (AA) of Southeast Alaska, we address the impact of glacial cycles on geographic genetic structure for three mammals co‐distributed along the North Pacific Coast. We examined variation in mitochondrial and nuclear loci for long‐tailed voles (Microtus longicaudus), northwestern deermice (Peromyscus keeni), and dusky shrews (Sorex monticola), and then tested hypotheses derived from Species Distribution Models, reconstructions of paleoshorelines, and island area and isolation. In all three species, we identified paleoendemic clades that likely originated in coastal refugia, a finding consistent with other paleoendemic lineages identified in the region such as ermine. Although there is spatial concordance at the regional level for endemism, finer scale spatial and temporal patterns are less clearly defined. Demographic expansion across the region for these distinctive clades is also evident and highlights the dynamic history of Late Quaternary contraction and expansion that characterizes high‐latitude species.
Size, weapons, and armor as predictors of competitive outcomes in fossil and contemporary marine communities
Authors: Liow L. H. , Reitan T. , Voje K. L. , Taylor P. D. , Di Martino E. 
Published: February 2019

AbstractInter‐ and intraspecific competition are usually observed over a few generations but their patterns and consequences are seldom tractable in natural systems over longer timescales relevant to macroevolutionary change. Here, we use win‐draw‐lose competitive overgrowths for a marine benthic community of encrusting bryozoans that have evolved together in New Zealand for at least 2.3 million years to investigate battles for substrate space, a resource that is limiting for these colonial organisms. Using more than 6,000 fossilized and contemporary battles, we explored what combination of traits—including relative zooid (module) size, weapons, armor, and relative abundance—best predict battle outcomes, and if these are time varying. In simpler models, where we disregard trait–trait interactions, we find that the effects of larger zooid sizes and three‐dimensional growth on battle outcomes are both positive, while that of relative abundance is negative, such that more common species are more often overgrown by less common species. When we include trait–trait and trait–time interactions in our models, we confirm that a larger zooid size is advantageous for successful overgrowth but infer that it is time varying. In these complex models, we also detect interactions between combinations of traits, where more armored and weaponized bryozoans seem to be at a disadvantage in overgrowth battles. Our best models do perform statistically better than the null model, but we find that there is low predictability for overgrowth outcomes for our New Zealand data set of fossil and contemporary battles, suggesting unmeasured variables and/or high stochasticity in a system that is otherwise well characterized. A best model, developed using our New Zealand data, is applied to three ecologically similar systems described in previous studies to investigate its general predictive power, with the expectation that it would perform better than null models. Surprisingly, we find that the best model developed within the New Zealand system cannot be extrapolated to other encrusting cheilostome bryozoan communities and that these three communities often even have opposite signs for trait coefficients. We conclude that there is much to learn about multi‐species marine communities where biotic interactions such as competition may have long‐lasting consequences for ecological and evolutionary dynamics.
Constraints on shrub cover and shrub–shrub competition in a U.S. southwest desert
Authors: Ji Wenjie , Hanan Niall P. , Browning Dawn M. , Monger H. Curtis , Peters Debra P. C. , Bestelmeyer Brandon T. , Archer Steve R. , Ross C. Wade , Lind Brianna M. , Anchang Julius , Kumar Sanath S. , Prihodko Lara 
Published: February 2019

AbstractThe cover of woody perennial plants (trees and shrubs) in arid ecosystems is at least partially constrained by water availability. However, the extent to which maximum canopy cover is limited by rainfall and the degree to which soil water holding capacity and topography impacts maximum shrub cover are not well understood. Similar to other deserts in the U.S. southwest, plant communities at the Jornada Basin Long‐Term Ecological Research site in the northern Chihuahuan Desert have experienced a long‐term state change from perennial grassland to shrubland dominated by woody plants. To better understand this transformation, and the environmental controls and constraints on shrub cover, we created a shrub cover map using high spatial resolution images and explored how maximum shrub cover varies with landform, water availability, and soil characteristics. Our results indicate that when clay content is below ~18%, the upper limit of shrub cover is positively correlated with plant available water as mediated by surface soil clay influence on water retention. At surface soil clay contents >18%, maximum shrub cover decreases, presumably because the amount of water percolating to depths preferentially used by deep‐rooted shrubs is diminished. In addition, the relationship between shrub cover and density suggests that self‐thinning occurs in denser stands in most landforms of the Jornada Basin, indicating that shrub–shrub competition interacts with soil properties to constrain maximum shrub cover in the northern Chihuahuan Desert.
Increased fire risk in Mojave and Sonoran shrublands due to exotic species and extreme rainfall events
Authors: Moloney Kirk A. , Mudrak Erika L. , Fuentes‐Ramirez Andres , Parag Hadas , Schat Marjolein , Holzapfel Claus 
Published: February 2019

AbstractHistorically, desert ecosystems in the southwestern United States have been characterized by low incidence of fire. However, widespread wildfires in these systems have been recently observed. Large areas of creosote bush (Larrea tridentata) scrub scattered in the Mojave and Sonoran deserts were impacted by wildfires in 2005, after a series of years with above‐average precipitation. It has been hypothesized that exotic invasive grasses, for example, Schismus arabicus, are responsible as they are able to grow in the open and may produce sufficient biomass to carry fires during high‐rainfall years. However, there has been little experimental evidence to support this hypothesis. We conducted a field experiment exploring the response of the annual plant community to increased rainfall in two creosote‐dominated sites in the Sonoran and Mojave deserts by manipulating precipitation levels, fire history, soil disturbance, and exotic‐annual‐plant seed availability. We examined how these treatments impacted fuel loads (biomass) and species distributions as a function of distance from shrubs. We found that enhanced rainfall produces a general increase in biomass and density of annual plants. At the Sonoran site, rainfall tends to increase the density of exotic annuals. At the Mojave site, it is the opposite, where native annuals benefit more from higher rainfall. However, it is important to note that in the Mojave site, native annuals produce higher biomass under shrubs and exotic annuals produce higher biomass in the open in response to increased rainfall. The introduction of fire at both sites slightly increased biomass production as well. Soil disturbance and seed addition had only subtle effects. From our results, it is clear that increased rainfall in southwestern U.S. deserts is conducive to increasing biomass of annual plants, especially in the inter‐shrub areas, which in turn can lead to enhanced fire risk. The potential to shift toward higher dominance by exotic annuals with fire at the Sonoran site could further enhance this risk. With several consecutive years of high rainfall, increased seed production by exotics would potentially amplify this effect.
Reducing allochthonous resources in a subarctic grassland alters arthropod food webs via predator diet and density
Authors: Hoekman David , McCary Matthew A. , Dreyer Jamin , Gratton Claudio 
Published: February 2019

AbstractEmergent aquatic insects can be major conduits of resources moving from freshwater to adjacent terrestrial ecosystems. These allochthonous resources can influence the structure and function of adjacent ecosystems, yet their effect on arthropod consumer populations remains largely unknown. In this study, we investigated how flying adult midges influence terrestrial arthropod food webs in subarctic grasslands by blocking midge inputs over four years in 2 × 2‐m plots near the shore of Lake Mývatn, Iceland, where midge abundances are naturally high. We examined responses of terrestrial arthropods by measuring their densities, community composition, and stable isotopes (δ13C) in midge‐exclusion and open (control) plots. Cage treatments significantly reduced midge deposition into exclusion plots (99% reduction) relative to control plots but were designed to allow ground‐active arthropods to move freely among plots. Predator densities (e.g., spiders and harvestmen) were on average 30% lower in exclusion plots relative to control plots, while no other trophic guild (detritivores, omnivores, or herbivores) showed a response to midge exclusion. As a result, blocking midges shifted arthropod communities toward a composition dominated by springtails, mites, and aphids relative to large predators such as wolf spiders and harvestmen. All trophic guilds (detritivores, omnivores, and predators), except for herbivores, were more depleted in δ13C in midge‐exclusion plots, indicating an increased reliance on terrestrial (i.e., plant‐based) resources when midge inputs were blocked. Arthropod predators were the only guild that had both a depleted δ13C and a negative density response to midge exclusion. Apart from predators, these results indicate a weak association between resource type (aquatic vs. terrestrial) and density responses across most arthropod guilds in this grassland system. Overall, our findings suggest that aquatic insect subsidies have significant effects on terrestrial arthropod communities, but predators appear most responsive to insect allochthony in subarctic grasslands.
CXCR4, but not CXCR3, drives CD8+ T‐cell entry into and migration through the murine bone marrow
Authors: Goedhart Marieke , Gessel Stephanie , van der Voort Robbert , Slot Edith , Lucas Beth , Gielen Ellis , Hoogenboezem Mark , Rademakers Timo , Geerman Sulima , van Buul Jaap D. , Huveneers Stephan , Dolstra Harry , Anderson Graham , Voermans Carlijn , Nolte Martijn A. 
Published: February 2019

AbstractThe BM serves as a blood‐forming organ, but also supports the maintenance and immune surveillance function of many T cells. Yet, in contrast to other organs, little is known about the molecular mechanisms that drive T‐cell migration to and localization inside the BM. As BM accumulates many CXCR3‐expressing memory CD8+ T cells, we tested the involvement of this chemokine receptor, but found that CXCR3 is not required for BM entry. In contrast, we could demonstrate that CXCR4, which is highly expressed on both naive and memory CD8+ T cells in BM, is critically important for homing of all CD8+ T‐cell subsets to the BM in mice. Upon entry into the BM parenchyma, both naïve and memory CD8+ T cells locate close to sinusoidal vessels. Intravital imaging experiments revealed that CD8 T cells are surprisingly immobile and we found that they interact with ICAM‐1+VCAM‐1+BP‐1+ perivascular stromal cells. These cells are the major source of CXCL12, but also express key survival factors and maintenance cytokines IL‐7 and IL‐15. We therefore conclude that CXCR4 is not only crucial for entry of CD8+ T cells into the BM, but also controls their subsequent localization toward BM niches that support their survival.
Carbon nanotube/polyurethane modified hollow fiber‐pencil graphite electrode for in situ concentration and electrochemical quantification of anticancer drugs Capecitabine and Erlotinib
Authors: Es'haghi Zarrin , Moeinpour Fatemeh 
Published: February 2019

AbstractA sensitive electrochemical sensor has been designed for in situ preconcentration and determination of anticancer drugs Capecitabine (CPT) and Erlotinib hydrochloride (ETHC) based on a pencil graphite electrode modified with multivalued carbon nanotube—polyurethane (MWCNT‐PUFIX) nanocomposite that was supported with a piece of polypropylene hollow fiber (HF‐PGE). The electrochemical behavior of CPT and ETHC on the MWCNT‐PUFIX/HF‐PGE modified electrode was investigated by differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) techniques and the obtained results confirmed its efficiency for sensing of CPT and ETHC. The synthesized nanocomposite was characterized by infrared spectroscopy and scanning electron microscope. After optimization of some effective parameters on the method efficiency including pH, nanocomposite amount, the type of organic solvent, scan rate and the effect of some additives, the mentioned sensor presented suitable results for determination of CPT and ETHC with the linear ranges from 7.70 to 142.00 μM and 0.11 to 23.50 μM and detection limits of 0.11 and 0.02 μM, respectively. Also, the fabricated sensor has shown good performance in analysis of CPT and ETHC in biological samples.
Structure dependent weather normalization
Authors: Beheshti Soosan , Sahebalam Asad , Nidoy Edward 
Published: February 2019

AbstractIn this paper, we introduce a new analytical method to normalize and forecast the energy usage/loss of residential and commercial buildings. Weather conditions have large effects on energy and economic activity. Weather Normalization is an important step in building energy rating and retrofit measurements. It has also become increasingly important because of changes in the worlds weather patterns due to global warming. Accounting for the impacts of weather on energy use in buildings is an extremely exhaustive challenge because of the complexity and diversity in the operation of the mechanical and electrical systems. In traditional weather normalization methods some building parameters, such as building size, window size, construction joints, and the effect of flues, are missing. We present a Structure Dependent Energy Usage/Loss (SDE U/L) linear and nonlinear models by using Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to capture and forecast the behavior of energy consumption/loss. This model considers different building and weather parameters. Using the (SDE U/L) model, we present an innovative approach for linear and nonlinear weather normalization. Our simulation results demonstrate the flexibility and advantages of our structure dependent weather normalization method. Unlike most existing methods, the (SDE U/L) method does not impose any constraints on a property on its property type, use details, and energy data to be able to perform weather normalization for any building over time.