bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Surface functionalization of cyclic olefin copolymer by plasma‐enhanced chemical vapor deposition using atmospheric pressure plasma jet for microfluidic applications
Authors: Bourg Samantha , Griveau Sophie , d'Orlyé Fanny , Tatoulian Michael , Bedioui Fethi , Guyon Cédric , Varenne Anne 
Published: March 2019

AbstractLab‐On‐A‐Chips promise solutions for high throughput and specific analysis for environmental and health applications, with the challenge to develop materials allowing fast, easy, and cheap microfabrication and efficient surface treatment. Cyclic olefin copolymer (COC) is a promising thermoplastic, easily microfabricated for both rapid prototyping and low‐cost mass production of microfluidic devices but still needing efficient surface modification strategies. This study reports for the first time the optimization of an easy COC silica coating process by plasma‐enhanced chemical vapor deposition at atmospheric pressure with plasma jet and tetraethylorthosilicate as precursor, leading to a 158 ± 7 nm thickness and a 14‐day‐stability of hydrophilic properties for a COC‐embedded microchannel (100 µm), paving the way for a simplified and controlled COC surface modification.
Postnatal gene expression of airway epithelial sodium transporters associated with birth stress in humans
Authors: Süvari Liina , Janér Cecilia , Helve Otto , Kaskinen Anu , Turpeinen Ursula , Pitkänen‐Argillander Olli , Andersson Sture 
Published: March 2019

AbstractIntroductionLung fluid clearance is essential for successful postnatal pulmonary adaptation. The epithelial sodium channel (ENaC) and Na‐K‐ATPase, induced by serum‐ and glucocorticoid‐inducible kinase 1 (SGK1) as well as aquaporins (AQP), represent key players in the switch from fetal lung fluid secretion to absorption and in early postnatal lung fluid balance. Birth stress, including a surge in catecholamines, promotes pulmonary adaptation, likely through the augmentation of epithelial sodium reabsorption.ObjectivesWe sought to determine the changes in the airway gene expression of molecules vital to epithelial sodium transport during early pulmonary adaptation, and the association with birth stress reflected in the norepinephrine concentration in the cord blood in humans.MethodsWe included 70 term newborns: 28 born via vaginal delivery and 42 via elective cesarean section. We determined the norepinephrine concentrations in the cord blood using tandem mass spectrometry and collected nasal epithelial cell samples at 2 min, 1 h, and 24 h postnatally to quantify ENaC, Na‐K‐ATPase, AQP5, and SGK1 mRNAs using RT‐PCR.ResultsThe molecular gene expression involved in airway epithelium sodium transport changed markedly within the first hour postnatally. Newborns born via elective cesarean section exhibited a lower expression of ENaC, Na‐K‐ATPase, and SGK1. Significant correlations existed between the expressions of ENaC, Na‐K‐ATPase, and SGK1, and the concentration of norepinephrine in the cord blood.ConclusionsThe association of ENaC, Na‐K‐ATPase, and SGK1 expression with the cord blood norepinephrine concentration points to the importance of birth stress in promoting lung fluid clearance during early postnatal pulmonary adaptation.
Glutathione transferase plays a major role in flufenacet resistance of ryegrass (Lolium spp.) field populations
Authors: Dücker Rebecka , Zöllner Peter , Lümmen Peter , Ries Susanne , Collavo Alberto , Beffa Roland 
Published: March 2019

AbstractBACKGROUNDHerbicides inhibiting the synthesis of very long‐chain fatty acids (HRAC group K3, WSSA group 15), such as flufenacet, play an important role in weed management strategies, particularly when herbicide resistance to inhibitors with other modes of action, such as acetolactate synthase or acetyl coenzyme A carboxylase (ACCase), has already evolved. So far, only a few cases of resistance towards inhibitors of the synthesis of very long‐chain fatty acids have been described. In this study, we characterized the level of flufenacet resistance in several Lolium spp. field populations and investigated the resistance mechanism.RESULTSThe screening for flufenacet resistance revealed the ability of Lolium spp. populations from several continents to survive flufenacet treatments at and above the field rate. This study demonstrates the way in which flufenacet is detoxified in resistant weed populations. Glutathione was found to be conjugated to flufenacet in Lolium spp. seedlings, and there was evidence that glutathione transferase activity was enhanced in protein extracts from flufenacet‐resistant seedlings. A significant correlation was found between the resistance factor obtained by biotests and the degradation half‐time of flufenacet in ryegrass plants obtained by high‐performance liquid chromatography (HPLC).CONCLUSIONAt present, flufenacet resistance is not widespread; however, in certain Lolium spp. populations resistance levels could reach agronomic relevance due to detoxification by glutathione transferases. In Europe especially, only a few herbicide modes of action are registered for the control of Lolium spp. and therefore it is becoming increasingly important to apply best management practices to prevent the spread of flufenacet resistance. © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry
On the properties of ensemble forecast sensitivity to observations
Authors: Kotsuki Shunji , Kurosawa Kenta , Miyoshi Takemasa 
Published: March 2019

Evaluating impacts of observations on the skill of numerical weather prediction (NWP) is important. The Ensemble Forecast Sensitivity to Observation (EFSO) provides an efficient approach to diagnosing observation impacts, quantifying how much each observation improves or degrades a subsequent forecast with a given verification reference. This study investigates the sensitivity of EFSO impact estimates to the choice of the verification reference, using a global NWP system consisting of the Non‐hydrostatic Icosahedral Atmospheric Model (NICAM) and the Local Ensemble Transform Kalman Filter (LETKF). The EFSO evaluates observation impacts with the moist total energy norm and with recently proposed observation‐based verification metrics. The results show that each type of observation mainly contributes to the improvement of forecast departures of the observed variable maybe due to the limitation of localization in the EFSO. The EFSO overestimates the fraction of beneficial observations when verified with subsequent analyses, especially for shorter lead times such as 6 h. We may avoid this overestimation to some extent by verifying with observations, analyses from other data assimilation (DA) systems, or analyses of an independent run with the same DA system. In addition, this study demonstrates two important issues possibly leading to overestimating observation impacts. First, observation impacts would be overestimated if we apply relaxation‐to‐prior methods to the initial conditions of the ensemble forecasts in the EFSO; therefore, the ensemble forecasts in the EFSO should be independent of the ensemble forecasts in the DA cycle. Second, deterministic baseline forecasts of the EFSO, which represent the forecast without DA, should be initialized by the ensemble mean of the first guess at the analysis time, not by the previous analysis.
Relativistic corrections to the electric field gradient given by linear response elimination of the small component formalism
Authors: Melo Juan I. , Maldonado Alejandro F. 
Published: March 2019

AbstractThis article is concerned with the analysis of relativistic corrections to the electric field gradients (EFGs) via the linear response elimination of the small component scheme (LRESC). Originally developed for magnetic shielding constant, LRESC has been applied in many molecular properties and presented in this work describing EFG for the first time. Within LRESC we obtain relativistic corrections to EFG in terms of 1/c (the speed of light) formally showing that, up to first order (1/c2), there are no virtual pair contributions; recovering the so‐called “no‐pair” approximation. Virtual pair contributions and triplet corrections arise at second order (1/c4). To assess the LRESC description of EFGs at Hartree‐Fock and DFT levels, we applied it to a simple heavy atom containing set of benchmark molecular systems, HX (X = F, Cl, Br, I, and At), and to linear HgX2 (X = Cl, Br, and I) molecules. Fully relativistic four‐component calculations were also done and taken as reference. The most important relativistic correction given by LRESC is a Mass‐velocity related contribution (ΔMv) which represents close to 80% of the nonrelativistic result for At in HAt molecule. For Hg in HgX2 molecular systems, ΔMv is also the most important correction representing close to 60% of the nonrelativistic part. We also describe the overall behavior of LRESC corrections in HgX2 molecules showing low varying results when the weight of the halogen, X, increases. In this kind of molecular system, correlation effects appear in combination to relativity, making them a challenging group to be studied. LRESC results are in very good agreement with previous results for halogen halides, but it shows a need of inclusion of higher order contributions, beyond 1/c2, when applied to Hg in HgX2 set, although LRESC describes accurately At atom, heavier than Hg.
Interest rate level and stock return predictability
Authors: Yi Yongsheng , Ma Feng , Huang Dengshi , Zhang Yaojie 
Published: March 2019

AbstractWe employ a novel interest rate‐determined model‐switching strategy to forecast stock returns and find persistent predictive ability among a number of economic fundamentals. This strategy switches predictive models based on whether a real‐time interest rate is higher than the mean level interest rate of a look‐back period. The robustly better predictive ability of the new strategy relative to the original OLS regressions suggests that stock returns react more rationally to the variation in economic fundamentals if the contemporaneous interest rates are high. This pattern is consistent with prior literature demonstrating that a high interest rate attenuates speculative demand (Keynes, The general theory of employment, interest, and money, Harcourt Brace, London, 1936), while speculative trading drives stock prices away from their valuation founded on economic fundamentals (Scheinkman & Xiong, Journal of Political Economy, 111, 1183, 2003).
Full Gamut Wall Tunability from Persistent Micelle Templates via Ex Situ Hydrolysis
Authors: Lantz Kayla A. , Clamp Nicholas Blake , van den Bergh Wessel , Sarkar Amrita , Stefik Morgan 
Published: March 2019

AbstractThe predictive self‐assembly of tunable nanostructures is of great utility for broad nanomaterial investigations and applications. The use of equilibrium‐based approaches however prevents independent feature size control. Kinetic‐controlled methods such as persistent micelle templates (PMTs) overcome this limitation and maintain constant pore size by imposing a large thermodynamic barrier to chain exchange. Thus, the wall thickness is independently adjusted via addition of material precursors to PMTs. Prior PMT demonstrations added water‐reactive material precursors directly to aqueous micelle solutions. That approach depletes the thermodynamic barrier to chain exchange and thus limits the amount of material added under PMT‐control. Here, an ex situ hydrolysis method is developed for TiO2that mitigates this depletion of water and nearly decouples materials chemistry from micelle control. This enables the widest reported PMT range (M:T = 1.6–4.0), spanning the gamut from sparse walls to nearly isolated pores with ≈2 Å precision adjustment. This high‐resolution nanomaterial series exhibits monotonic trends where PMT confinement within increasing wall‐thickness leads to larger crystallites and an increasing extent of lithiation, reaching Li0.66TiO2. The increasing extent of lithiation with increasing anatase crystallite dimensions is attributed to the size‐dependent strain mismatch of anatase and bronze polymorph mixtures.
Monitoring the software bug‐fixing process through the process mining approach
Authors: Özdağoğlu Güzin , Kavuncubaşı Ece 
Published: March 2019

AbstractIn the era of information technology, businesses have changed the way they work. Operations, which have become digitalized and managed via software systems, have increased in competitiveness. Software developers have been forced to design and implement their quality standards products by focusing on process‐oriented management. Software quality aims to gain a high‐performance level in the both development and managerial processes to maintain continuous improvements. Continuous improvements require more efficient process monitoring methods. Process mining, which provides recent techniques related to process monitoring, can be utilized with event log files to track the process performance. This research will extract the process mapping and performance statistics of the bug‐fixing process from event logs to develop an efficient process monitoring system. This process will uncover bottlenecks causing inefficiencies and risks. The benefits of process mining techniques will also be discussed to highlight the implications. In this context, this article will present a case study on monitoring the bug‐fixing process of a software product via process mining. It will reveal significant knowledge about subsequent steps and roles.
Persistent elevation of blood pressure by ambient coarse particulate matter after recovery from pulmonary inflammation in mice
Authors: Ho Chia‐Chi , Tsai Ming‐Hsien , Chen Yu‐Cheng , Kuo Cheng‐Chin , Lin Pinpin 
Published: March 2019

AbstractExposure to ambient particulate matter (PM) is associated with hypertension and cardiovascular diseases. Recently, we reported that exposure to fine and coarse PM caused pulmonary inflammation and pulmonary small arterial remodeling in mice, and osteopontin (OPN) level was elevated following PM exposure. However, in the present study, cotreatment with 5‐methoxytryptophan for 4 weeks partially reduced coarse PM‐induced pulmonary inflammation without reducing pulmonary OPN secretion or recovery from pulmonary arterial remodeling in mice. Persistent vascular dysfunction may lead to vascular remodeling. Therefore, we further compared the relationship between coarse PM‐induced inflammation and vascular dysfunction by exposing mice to PM before and after cessation of PM exposure. Oropharyngeal aspiration of PM for 8 weeks induced pulmonary inflammation and pulmonary small artery remodeling in mice, as well as increased serum C‐reactive protein and OPN concentrations and systolic blood pressure (SBP). After the cessation of PM exposure for another 8 weeks, lung inflammation had recovered and vascular remodeling had partially recovered. Elevation of OPN, metalloproteinases (MMPs), and cytokines in bronchioalveolar lavage were significantly reduced. However, PM‐induced systemic responses did not recover after the cessation of PM exposure. Notably, not only serum OPN and SBP remained significantly elevated; also, serum endothelin‐1, MMP‐9, and keratinocyte‐derived chemokine concentrations were significantly increased after cessation of PM exposure for another 8 weeks. These data suggested that systemic inflammation and systemic vascular dysfunction might be important in PM‐induced elevation of SBP. Furthermore, SBP elevation was persistent after cessation of PM exposure for 8 weeks.
Changes in glacier volume on Mt. Gongga, southeastern Tibetan Plateau, based on the analysis of multi-temporal DEMs from 1966 to 2015
Authors: CAO BO , PAN BAOTIAN , GUAN WEIJIN , WEN ZHENLING , WANG JIE 
Published: March 2019

ABSTRACTThe accelerated retreat of glaciers and the reduction of glacier ice reserves caused by climate change can significantly affect regional water resources and hydrological cycles. Changes in glacier thickness are among the key indicators that reflect this process. We analyzed changes observed in the elevation of glacier surfaces in the Gongga Mountains (GGM) using multi-temporal Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) derived from topographic maps, SRTM, ICESat and ZY-3 data. The results showed that the mean rate of change in glacier surface altitude in the GGM was ~−26.7 ± 2.03 m (0.54 ± 0.04 m a−1) between 1966 and 2015. The mean melt rates differed over different time periods, latterly showing an accelerating trend. As a general rule, glaciers appear to be losing more volume at lower than at higher elevations. Further analysis of these results suggests that supraglacial debris coverage in the GGM promotes higher rates of mass loss.
Concentrate levels associated with a new genotype of cactus (Opuntia stricta [Haw]. Haw.) cladodes in the diet of lactating dairy cows in a semi-arid region
Authors: Paula T. A. , Véras A. S. C. , Guido S. I. , Chagas J. C. C. , Conceição M. G. , Gomes R. N. , Nascimento H. F. A. , Ferreira M. A. 
Published: March 2019

AbstractThe use of cactus cladodes in animal feed is well-established in semi-arid areas. The cactus Nopalea cochenillifera (L.) Salm-Dyck cladodes (Nopalea) have high acceptability amongst dairy cows and are resistant to carmine cochineal insects (Dactylopius opuntiae Cockerell), a problem in semi-arid regions, but in regions of prolonged drought, it has lower productivity compared with the cactus Opuntia stricta (Haw.) Haw cladodes (Opuntia), which is also resistant to the insect. The objective of the current study was to evaluate the intake and content of digestible material of dry matter (DM) and its components, feeding behaviour, microbial protein synthesis, nitrogen balance, blood parameters, performance and milk composition of Holstein cows fed a control diet, containing either Nopalea or Opuntia associated with different concentrate levels (225, 275, 325 and 375 g/kg). Ten cows with an initial average milk production of 20 ± 2.1 kg/day were distributed into a double 5 × 5 Latin square design. Diets containing 775 g roughage/kg and 225 g concentrate/kg promoted similar responses to the analysed variables regardless of the cactus cladode used, except for digestibility of neutral detergent fibre. Diets containing higher proportions of concentrate (325 and 375 g/kg) promoted greater DM intake and 3.5% fat-corrected milk yield. The diet containing Opuntia at 775:225 g/kg roughage:concentrate proportion is as effective as the control diet for Holstein cows producing 20 kg of milk/day. To promote greater milk production, higher proportions of concentrate should be added to diets using Opuntia.
Trophic niche separation in sympatric rocky shore crabs
Authors: Al-Wazzan Zainab , Giménez Luis , Behbehani Manaf , Le Vay Lewis 
Published: March 2019

AbstractWhere two species occupy the same habitat and similar niches, competition is likely to drive small-scale spatial niche separation or resource partitioning that may not be immediately apparent. A stable isotope approach was used to investigate potential trophic niche separation between co-existing rocky shore crabs in the North-West (NW) Arabian Gulf. Leptodius exaratus and Pilumnopeus convexus which occupy similar shore height on the same rocky intertidal habitats. We also investigated conspecific differences between males vs females and adults vs juveniles. δ15N results indicated that adults of both species occupy a high trophic level in the rocky shore community, suggesting similar functional roles and potential for competition for food resources, while significant differences in δ13C values indicated differences in dietary sources between the two species, and also changes in diet between juveniles and adults in both species. MixSIAR analysis of δ15N and δ13C data confirmed field observations that both species are generalist omnivores, with potential for direct competition including adult predation on juveniles, including conspecifics. Differentiation in isotopic niches (SIBER analysis) was mainly driven by the significant differences in δ13C values, suggesting that co-existence of the two crab species is at least in part mediated by trophic niche separation or dietary resource partitioning, with some (unquantified) potential for spatial resource partitioning at the microhabitat level.
Spatiotemporal dynamics of the molluscan community associated with seagrass on the western equatorial Atlantic
Authors: Cavalcante Lorraine Lopes , Barroso Cristiane Xerez , Carneiro Pedro Bastos de Macêdo , Matthews-Cascon Helena 
Published: March 2019

AbstractThis study aimed to qualitatively and quantitatively analyse the molluscan assemblages associated with a Halodule wrightii seagrass bed in a rarely studied area within a conservation unit in north-eastern Brazil. Seasonal and spatial changes in several seagrass meadow characteristics, including sediment, were evaluated to explain temporal and spatial variations in the molluscs found there. The molluscan community differed in its structure among periods and meadows, as well as in the composition of its infaunal and epifaunal assemblages. The results of this study indicated that molluscs are affected by the particular characteristics of a seagrass meadow, especially by its location in the intertidal zone, more than by the area of the meadow. Molluscs were also affected by other characteristics of the seagrass meadow, such as above-ground biomass and shoot density. Changes in all molluscan assemblages were also mediated by differences among months and seasons in this region of the western equatorial Atlantic, but not by seasonal changes of the meadow. The studied meadow was found to be one of the densest in Brazil, which has considerable importance to its associated fauna.
Volatile Conviviality: Joking relations in Moscow's marginal marketplace
Authors: NIKOLOTOV ANTON 
Published: March 2019

AbstractThis article explores the joking relations that constitute conviviality in one of the largest marginal bazaars in Moscow. The marketplace is known as a hub for migrant workers and traders, and is often stigmatized in the media. It remains one of the largest commercial nodes in the bazaar network that stretches across and beyond much of ex-Soviet Eurasia. Scholars of conviviality have often claimed that convivial living represents more than hilarity and laughter; exactly how laughter actually happens and what sets of relations and interactions make it possible have been largely left out of the discussion. I will explore how a certain joking repertoire both connects Russian customers with migrant sellers and traders from Central Asia, Vietnam, Ukraine, and elsewhere, and animates relations between sellers themselves. I argue that these relations are characterized byvolatility, which incorporates play and improvisation within different registers of uncertainty, conflict, enjoyment, proximity, and—ultimately—virtuality.