bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Persistent use of a shorebird staging site in the Yellow Sea despite severe declines in food resources implies a lack of alternatives
Authors: ZHANG SHOU-DONG , MA ZHIJUN , CHOI CHI-YEUNG , PENG HE-BO , BAI QING-QUAN , LIU WEN-LIANG , TAN KUN , MELVILLE DAVID S. , HE PENG , CHAN YING-CHI , VAN GILS JAN A. , PIERSMA THEUNIS 
Published: April 2018

SummaryMany shorebird populations are in decline along the East Asian-Australasian Flyway. The rapid loss of coastal wetlands in the Yellow Sea, which provide critical stop-over sites during migration, is believed to be the cause of the alarming trends. The Yalu Jiang coastal wetland, a protected area in the north Yellow Sea, supports the largest known migratory staging populations of Bar-tailed GodwitsLimosa lapponica(menzbieriandbauerisubspecies) and Great KnotsCalidris tenuirostris. Monitoring of the macrozoobenthos food for these shorebirds from 2011 to 2016 showed declines of over 99% in the densities of the bivalvePotamocorbula laevis, the major food here for both Bar-tailed Godwits and Great Knots. The loss of the bivalve might be caused by any combination of, but not limited to: (1) change in hydrological conditions and sediment composition due to nearby port construction, (2) run-off of agrochemicals from the extensive shoreline sea cucumber farms, and (3) parasitic infection. Surprisingly, the numbers of birds using the Yalu Jiang coastal wetland remained stable during the study period, except for the subspecies of Bar-tailed GodwitL. l. menzbieri, which exhibited a 91% decline in peak numbers. The lack of an overall decline in the number of bird days in Great Knots and in the peak numbers ofL. l. baueri, also given the published simultaneous decreases in their annual survival, implies a lack of alternative habitats that birds could relocate to. This study highlights that food declines at staging sites could be an overlooked but important factor causing population declines of shorebirds along the Flyway. Maintaining the quality of protected staging sites is as important in shorebird conservation as is the safeguarding of staging sites from land claim. Meanwhile, it calls for immediate action to restore the food base for these beleaguered migrant shorebirds at Yalu Jiang coastal wetland.
Primary Distrust: Political Distrust and Support for the Insurgent Candidacies of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Primary
Authors: Dyck Joshua J. , Pearson-Merkowitz Shanna , Coates Michael 
Published: April 2018

ABSTRACTDonald Trump dominated the 2016 Republican primary despite the fact that he was not, in any meaningful sense, a Republican. Bernie Sanders came just shy of winning the Democratic nomination despite the fact that he switched his party affiliation from Independent to Democrat only three months before the election. Why did two candidates with no formal ties to the political parties fare so well? One possibility is that primary voters are more ideologically extreme and that ideology drives support for these candidates. However, another possibility is that concerns about government process drives support for insurgent candidates. We test the proposition that distrust was the primary motivator of primary voting for these two insurgent candidates using two datasets: a poll of New Hampshire voters fielded a week before their primary and a national poll taken in June 2016. Results confirm the hypothesis that distrust drove intraparty vote choice in the 2016 presidential primaries.
Faculty Constitutions in the Ivory Tower: Exploring the Balance of Power between the Professoriate and the Administration
Authors: Woessner Matthew , Kehler Jessica 
Published: April 2018

ABSTRACTThe presumption that rules and institutional structures profoundly influence an organization’s behavior is deeply rooted in the study of governance. Whereas social scientists have explored the link between institutional structure and political power at the national, state, and local level, there is virtually no quantitative research on how competing constitutional frameworks influence power in an academic setting. The researchers theorize that, given academics’ relatively limited input into institutional decision making, faculty respondents will perceive they have greater influence when they exercise direct control over faculty representatives. Merging a database of academic constitutions with faculty survey responses from the North American Academic Survey (NAAS), the authors find that, even when controlling for institutional size, budget, and academic mission, some features of academic constitutions are strongly correlated with perceptions of faculty power. In general, more representative constitutions are strongly associated with faculty influence. However, contrary to the underlying theory, faculty employed at schools where an administrator is designated as the chair or president of the academic senate feel they are more influential than those that elect their own leader. The results suggest a new and potentially important line of inquiry for political researchers.
Phoning It In: Overcoming Implementation Challenges in Field-Experiment Partnerships
Authors: Calfano Brian Robert 
Published: April 2018

ABSTRACTThe use of field experiments in political science has become extensive, but the promise of conducting a randomized intervention in a “real world” setting also raises perils for researchers. Partnering with organizations to deliver a randomized intervention may be a cost effective route to data collection, but a long-distance partnership presents certain challenges. In particular, the researcher needs to be especially vigilant about treatment application given the potential for noncompliance with the random assignment schedule. I provide an evaluation of a field intervention’s effectiveness where the long-distance partner organization inadvertently violated the random assignment of voter precincts in a canvassing effort prior to a citizen vote to repeal a non-discrimination housing ordinance protecting LGBT residents of a Midwestern city. I then provide recommendations for researchers to help mitigate treatment noncompliance when they cannot be present during treatment delivery.
Analytic Transparency, Radical Honesty, and Strategic Incentives
Authors: Yom Sean 
Published: April 2018

ABSTRACTAs a pillar of Data Access and Research Transparency (DA-RT), analytic transparency calls for radical honesty about how political scientists infer conclusions from their data. However, honesty about one’s research practices often means discarding the linguistic template of deductive proceduralism that structures most writing, which in turn diminishes the prospects for successful publication. This dissonance reflects a unique dilemma: transparency initiatives reflect a vision of research drawn from the biomedical and natural sciences, and struggle with the messier, iterative, and open-ended nature of political science scholarship. Analytic transparency requires not only better individual practices, such as active citations, but also institutional strategies that reward radical honesty. Journals can provide authors with protected space to reveal research practices, further blind the review process, and experiment with special issues. More broadly, analytic openness can be mandated through procedural monitoring, such as real-time recording of research activities and keystroke logging for statistical programs.
Meteorological and Management Factors Influencing Weed Abundance during 18 Years of Organic Crop Rotations
Authors: Teasdale John R. , Mirsky Steven B. , Cavigelli Michel A. 
Published: April 2018

AbstractOrganic crop production is often limited by the inability to control weeds. An 18-yr data set of weed cover in organic crop rotations at the long-term Farming Systems Project at Beltsville, MD, was analyzed to identify meteorological and management factors influencing weed abundance. A path analysis using structural equation models was employed to distinguish between the direct effect of factors on weed cover and the indirect effect on weed cover through effects on crop competitiveness. Grain yield of corn (Zea maysL.) and soybean [Glycine max(L.) Merr.] served as a surrogate for crop competitiveness and was found to be the most important factor influencing weed cover. Precipitation during late vegetative and early reproductive crop growth had a strong positive effect on crop yield, and thereby a negative indirect effect on weed cover, but this effect was partially offset by a positive direct effect on weed cover. Delayed crop planting date and crop rotational diversification including crops other than summer row crops had a moderate negative effect on weed cover, while having minimal effect on crop performance. Rotary hoeing also had a direct negative effect on weed cover, but a corresponding negative effect on crop performance resulted in a diminished total effect on weeds. Results demonstrate the complex interactions that define the relative abundance of weeds faced by organic growers, but, generally, factors that enhanced crop competitiveness provided the most effective weed management.
Effects of sildenafil treatment on thermogenesis and glucose homeostasis in diet-induced obese mice
Authors: Johann Kornelia , Reis Marlen Colleen , Harder Lisbeth , Herrmann Beate , Gachkar Sogol , Mittag Jens , Oelkrug Rebecca 
Published: April 2018

Abstract
Stimulation of thermogenic pathways appears to be a promising approach to find new ways of tackling metabolic diseases like obesity and diabetes mellitus type 2. Thermogenic, weight reducing and insulin sensitizing effects of phosphodiesterase 5 (PDE 5) inhibitors have recently been postulated, suggesting that modulators of endogenous cGMP signaling have the therapeutic potential to treat metabolic disorders. However, most studies have been performed in vitro or in animals that were not glucose intolerant. We, thus, aimed to test the metabolic effects of the PDE 5 inhibitor sildenafil by treating diet-induced obese (DIO) mice orally for 8 days. Surprisingly, our results revealed no changes in body temperature, brown adipose tissue (BAT) thermogenesis and gene expression in BAT and inguinal white adipose tissue (iWAT), thus excluding a thermogenic or 'browning' effect of sildenafil in preexisting obesity. In contrast, sildenafil-treated DIO mice displayed changes in liver metabolism and glucose homeostasis resulting in impaired glucose tolerance (P < 0.05), demonstrating for the first time an unfavorable metabolic effect of increased hepatic cGMP signaling in obesity. As sildenafil is commonly prescribed to treat pulmonary arterial hypertension and erectile dysfunction in diabetic and/or obese patients, follow up studies are urgently required to re-evaluate the drug safety.
Impact of spatial organization on a novel auxotrophic interaction among soil microbes
Authors: Jiang Xue , Zerfaß Christian , Feng Song , Eichmann Ruth , Asally Munehiro , Schäfer Patrick , Soyer Orkun S 
Published: April 2018

Abstract
A key prerequisite to achieve a deeper understanding of microbial communities and to engineer synthetic ones is to identify the individual metabolic interactions among key species and how these interactions are affected by different environmental factors. Deciphering the physiological basis of species–species and species–environment interactions in spatially organized environments requires reductionist approaches using ecologically and functionally relevant species. To this end, we focus here on a defined system to study the metabolic interactions in a spatial context among the plant-beneficial endophytic fungus Serendipita indica, and the soil-dwelling model bacterium Bacillus subtilis. Focusing on the growth dynamics of S. indica under defined conditions, we identified an auxotrophy in this organism for thiamine, which is a key co-factor for essential reactions in the central carbon metabolism. We found that S. indica growth is restored in thiamine-free media, when co-cultured with B. subtilis. The success of this auxotrophic interaction, however, was dependent on the spatial and temporal organization of the system; the beneficial impact of B. subtilis was only visible when its inoculation was separated from that of S. indica either in time or space. These findings describe a key auxotrophic interaction in the soil among organisms that are shown to be important for plant ecosystem functioning, and point to the potential importance of spatial and temporal organization for the success of auxotrophic interactions. These points can be particularly important for engineering of minimal functional synthetic communities as plant seed treatments and for vertical farming under defined conditions.
Genomic expansion of magnetotactic bacteria reveals an early common origin of magnetotaxis with lineage-specific evolution
Authors: Lin Wei , Zhang Wensi , Zhao Xiang , Roberts Andrew P , Paterson Greig A , Bazylinski Dennis A , Pan Yongxin 
Published: April 2018

Abstract
The origin and evolution of magnetoreception, which in diverse prokaryotes and protozoa is known as magnetotaxis and enables these microorganisms to detect Earth’s magnetic field for orientation and navigation, is not well understood in evolutionary biology. The only known prokaryotes capable of sensing the geomagnetic field are magnetotactic bacteria (MTB), motile microorganisms that biomineralize intracellular, membrane-bounded magnetic single-domain crystals of either magnetite (Fe3O4) or greigite (Fe3S4) called magnetosomes. Magnetosomes are responsible for magnetotaxis in MTB. Here we report the first large-scale metagenomic survey of MTB from both northern and southern hemispheres combined with 28 genomes from uncultivated MTB. These genomes expand greatly the coverage of MTB in the Proteobacteria, Nitrospirae, and Omnitrophica phyla, and provide the first genomic evidence of MTB belonging to the Zetaproteobacteria and “Candidatus Lambdaproteobacteria” classes. The gene content and organization of magnetosome gene clusters, which are physically grouped genes that encode proteins for magnetosome biosynthesis and organization, are more conserved within phylogenetically similar groups than between different taxonomic lineages. Moreover, the phylogenies of core magnetosome proteins form monophyletic clades. Together, these results suggest a common ancient origin of iron-based (Fe3O4 and Fe3S4) magnetotaxis in the domain Bacteria that underwent lineage-specific evolution, shedding new light on the origin and evolution of biomineralization and magnetotaxis, and expanding significantly the phylogenomic representation of MTB.
Drinking water microbiome assembly induced by water stagnation
Authors: Ling Fangqiong , Whitaker Rachel , LeChevallier Mark W , Liu Wen-Tso 
Published: April 2018

Abstract
What happens to tap water when you are away from home? Day-to-day water stagnation in building plumbing can potentially result in water quality deterioration (e.g., lead release or pathogen proliferation), which is a major public health concern. However, little is known about the microbial ecosystem processes in plumbing systems, hindering the development of biological monitoring strategies. Here, we track tap water microbiome assembly in situ, showing that bacterial community composition changes rapidly from the city supply following ~6-day stagnation, along with an increase in cell count from 103 cells/mL to upwards of 7.8 × 105 cells/mL. Remarkably, bacterial community assembly was highly reproducible in this built environment system (median Spearman correlation between temporal replicates = 0.78). Using an island biogeography model, we show that neutral processes arising from the microbial communities in the city water supply (i.e., migration and demographic stochasticity) explained the island community composition in proximal pipes (Goodness-of-fit = 0.48), yet declined as water approached the faucet (Goodness-of-fit = 0.21). We developed a size-effect model to simulate this process, which indicated that pipe diameter drove these changes by mediating the kinetics of hypochlorite decay and cell detachment, affecting selection, migration, and demographic stochasticity. Our study challenges current water quality monitoring practice worldwide which ignore biological growth in plumbing, and suggests the island biogeography model as a useful framework to evaluate building water system quality.
Aberrant salience network functional connectivity in auditory verbal hallucinations: a first episode psychosis sample
Authors: Mallikarjun Pavan Kumar , Lalousis Paris Alexandros , Dunne Thomas Frederick , Heinze Kareen , Reniers Renate LEP , Broome Matthew R. , Farmah Baldeep , Oyebode Femi , Wood Stephen J , Upthegrove Rachel 
Published: April 2018

AbstractAuditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) often lead to distress and functional disability, and are frequently associated with psychotic illness. Previously both state and trait magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies of AVH have identified activity in brain regions involving auditory processing, language, memory and areas of default mode network (DMN) and salience network (SN). Current evidence is clouded by research mainly in participants on long-term medication, with chronic illness and by choice of seed regions made ‘a priori’. Thus, the aim of this study was to elucidate the intrinsic functional connectivity in patients presenting with first episode psychosis (FEP). Resting state functional MRI data were available from 18 FEP patients, 9 of whom also experienced AVH of sufficient duration in the scanner and had symptom capture functional MRI (sc fMRI), together with 18 healthy controls. Symptom capture results were used to accurately identify specific brain regions active during AVH; including the superior temporal cortex, insula, precuneus, posterior cingulate and parahippocampal complex. Using these as seed regions, patients with FEP and AVH showed increased resting sb-FC between parts of the SN and the DMN and between the SN and the cerebellum, but reduced sb-FC between the claustrum and the insula, compared to healthy controls.It is possible that aberrant activity within the DMN and SN complex may be directly linked to impaired salience appraisal of internal activity and AVH generation. Furthermore, decreased intrinsic functional connectivity between the claustrum and the insula may lead to compensatory over activity in parts of the auditory network including areas involved in DMN, auditory processing, language and memory, potentially related to the complex and individual content of AVH when they occur.
Effects on gene expression and behavior of untagged short tandem repeats: the case of arginine vasopressin receptor 1a (AVPR1a) and externalizing behaviors
Authors: Landefeld Clare C , Hodgkinson Colin A , Spagnolo Primavera A , Marietta Cheryl A , Shen Pei-Hong , Sun Hui , Zhou Zhifeng , Lipska Barbara K , Goldman David 
Published: April 2018

AbstractGenome-wide association studies (GWAS) of complex, heritable, behavioral phenotypes have yielded an incomplete accounting of the genetic influences. The identified loci explain only a portion of the observed heritability, and few of the loci have been shown to be functional. It is clear that current GWAS techniques overlook key components of phenotypically relevant genetic variation, either because of sample size, as is frequently asserted, or because of methodology. Here we use arginine vasopressin receptor 1a (AVPR1a) as an in-depth model of a methodologic limitation of GWAS: the functional genetic variation (in the form of short tandem repeats) of this key gene involved in affiliative behavior cannot be captured by current GWAS methodologies. Importantly, we find evidence of differential allele expression, twofold or more, in at least a third of human brain samples heterozygous for a reporter SNP in the AVPR1a transcript. We also show that this functional effect and a downstream phenotype, externalizing behavior, are predicted by AVPR1a STRs but not SNPs.
Enhanced cortical bone expansion in Lgals3-deficient mice during aging
Authors: Maupin Kevin A. , Weaver Kevin , Bergsma Alexis , Christie Cheryl , Zhong Zhendong A. , Yang Tao , Williams Bart O. 
Published: April 2018

AbstractImbalances between bone formation and bone resorption, which can occur due to aging or sex hormone deprivation, result in decreased bone mass and an increased risk of fracture. Previous studies have suggested that the β-galactoside binding lectin, galectin-3, is involved in bone remodeling. We compared bone parameters of mice having null alleles of the galectin-3 gene (Lgals3-KO) with those of their wild-type littermates.Lgals3deficiency increased cortical bone expansion at 36 weeks (wk) and preserved or enhanced bone mass in both male and female mutant mice. In addition, femaleLgals3-KO mice were protected from age-related loss of trabecular bone. Histomorphometry and ex vivo primary cell differentiation assays showed increased osteoblastogenesis with little-to-no effect on osteoclastogenesis, suggesting the increased bone mass phenotype is primarily due to increased anabolism. Our study identifies galectin-3 as a negative regulator of bone formation and suggests that disruption of galectin-3 may be useful in preventing bone loss during aging.
PFKFB3 blockade inhibits hepatocellular carcinoma growth by impairing DNA repair through AKT
Authors: Shi Wen-Kai , Zhu Xiao-Dong , Wang Cheng-Hao , Zhang Yuan-Yuan , Cai Hao , Li Xiao-Long , Cao Man-Qing , Zhang Shi-Zhe , Li Kang-Shuai , Sun Hui-Chuan 
Published: April 2018

AbstractOverexpression of 6-phosphofructo-2-kinase/fructose-2,6-biphosphatase 3 (PFKFB3), a key molecule of glucose metabolism in cytoplasm, has been found in various tumors. Emerging evidence has suggested that PFKFB3 is also located in the nucleus and apparent in regulatory functions other than glycolysis. In this study, we found that PFKFB3 expression is associated with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) growth and located mainly in the nucleus of tumor cells. PFKFB3 overexpression was associated with large tumor size (p = 0.04) and poor survival of patients with HCC (p = 0.027). Knockdown of PFKFB3 inhibited HCC growth, not only by reducing glucose consumption but also by damaging the DNA repair function, leading to G2/M phase arrest and apoptosis. In animal studies, overexpression of PFKFB3 is associated with increased tumor growth. Mechanistically, PFKFB3 silencing decreased AKT phosphorylation and reduced the expression of ERCC1, which is an important DNA repair protein. Moreover, PFK15, a selective PFKFB3 inhibitor, significantly inhibited tumor growth in a xenograft model of human HCC. PFKFB3 is a potential novel target in the treatment of HCC.