bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Precision medicine: why surgeons deviate from “appropriateness criteria” in the management of chronic rhinosinusitis and effects on outcomes
Authors: Thamboo Andrew , Rathor Aakanksha , Borchard Nicole A. , Nayak Jayakar V. , Hwang Peter H. , Patel Zara M. 
Published: July 2018

BackgroundIn uncomplicated chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS), a consensus regarding appropriate medical therapy (AMT) before surgical intervention has been published in the form of “appropriateness criteria” for endoscopic sinus surgery (ESS). We sought to determine why tertiary surgeons may deviate from the suggested criteria and evaluated whether those deviations result in change in outcomes.MethodsPatients with uncomplicated CRS were prospectively enrolled over the course of 1 year. The 22‐item Sino‐Nasal Outcomes Test (SNOT‐22), a general health outcome out of 100, and a physician form, indicating management pathway and decision making, was completed at each visit over a 6‐month follow‐up period. A descriptive analysis was used to quantify reasons for veering from the “appropriateness criteria,” and repeated linear regression modeling was used to measure whether compliance impacted SNOT‐22, general health, and Lund‐Kennedy (LK) scores over the period of study.ResultsOne hundred fifty‐five patients were enrolled. Sixty‐eight percent followed the appropriate management pathway based on their presentation and the suggested criteria. Disparate reasons were documented for deviation in the other 32%, and, despite establishing several predictive categories, “other” was the most common reason, with various explanations well documented. SNOT‐22, general health, and LK scores were not statistically impacted by compliancy status (p > 0.05).ConclusionThe suggested “appropriateness criteria” predict a management pathway for the majority of CRS patients. However, in a tertiary sinus center, surgeons may deviate from that model with a significant minority of their patients, for multiple reasons, without causing a change in outcomes.
Robust Stabilization and H∞ Control of Cooperative Driving System with Time Delay in Variable Speed‐Limited Area from Cyber‐Physical Perspective
Authors: Chen Dong , Sun Di Hua , Li Yang , Zhao Min , Zheng Lin Jiang 
Published: July 2018

AbstractIn order to suppress traffic congestion and reduce traffic accidents, a cooperative driving systems with time‐varying delay and nonlinearity under uncertain external disturbances in a variable speed‐limited area is proposed from a cyber‐physical perspective. Robust stabilization of the cooperative driving system is investigated by using Lyapunov‐Krasovskii functional stability theory. Robust H∞ control is designed to guarantee that the proposed system is robustly stable. Meanwhile, sufficient conditions for the state feedback controller are proposed to attenuate the external disturbances on the basis of linear matrix inequality. Finally, some useful results are obtained from the comparisons between without control scheme, existing ACC (adaptive cruise control) scheme, and the proposed control scheme, which could suppress traffic congestion and reduce traffic accidents.
Outcomes of patients receiving a massive transfusion for major trauma
Authors: Endo A , Shiraishi A , Fushimi K , Murata K , Otomo Y 
Published: July 2018

Abstract

Background
The benefits of high transfusion ratios (plasma to red blood cells and platelets to red blood cells) on survival in injured patients who receive massive transfusions remain uncertain. This study aimed to assess the association between transfusion ratios and adverse events and survival in patients undergoing massive transfusion for major trauma.

Methods
A retrospective observational study was conducted on patients who had major trauma using a Japanese national administrative database. The associations between transfusion ratios and outcomes (in-hospital mortality and incidence of adverse events) were analysed using a non-linear logistic generalized additive model (GAM). In a logistic generalized estimating equation model, adjusted for patient and hospital-level confounders, transfusion ratios were included as continuous or categorical variables (low, transfusion ratio 0·75 or less; intermediate, over 0·75 to 1·25; high, over 1·25).

Results
Some 1777 patients were included in the analysis, of whom 602 died in hospital. GAM plots of the transfusion ratios for in-hospital mortality demonstrated a downward convex unimodal curve. In-hospital mortality was similar with increasing transfusion ratios for plasma (adjusted odds ratio (OR) 1·13, 95 per cent c.i. 0·82 to 1·55; P = 0·446) and platelets (adjusted OR 0·84, 0·66 to 1·08; P = 0·171). Both plasma to red blood cell ratio (adjusted OR 1·77, 1·32 to 2·37; P &lt; 0·001) and platelet to red blood cell ratio (adjusted OR 1·71, 1·35 to 2·15; P &lt; 0·001) were significantly associated with a higher incidence of adverse events. No significant differences in in-hospital mortality were observed between the three transfusion categories (low, medium and high).

Conclusion
In this study, transfusion strategies with high plasma to red blood cell and platelet to red blood cell ratios did not have survival benefits, but were associated with an increase in adverse events.
Meta-analysis of the prognostic role of perioperative platelet count in posthepatectomy liver failure and mortality
Authors: Mehrabi A , Golriz M , Khajeh E , Ghamarnejad O , Probst P , Fonouni H , Mohammadi S , Weiss K H , Büchler M W 
Published: July 2018

Abstract

Background
Emerging evidence suggests that the perioperative platelet count (PLT) can predict posthepatectomy liver failure (PHLF). In this systematic review and meta-analysis, the impact of perioperative PLT on PHLF and mortality was evaluated.

Methods
MEDLINE and Web of Science databases were searched systematically for relevant literature up to January 2018. All studies comparing PHLF or mortality in patients with a low versus high perioperative PLT were included. Study quality was assessed using methodological index for non-randomized studies (MINORS) criteria. Meta-analyses were performed using Mantel–Haenszel tests with a random-effects model, and presented as odds ratios (ORs) with 95 per cent confidence intervals.

Results
Thirteen studies containing 5260 patients were included in the meta-analysis. Two different cut-off values for PLT were used: 150 and 100/nl. Patients with a perioperative PLT below 150/nl had higher PHLF (4 studies, 817 patients; OR 4·79, 95 per cent c.i. 2·89 to 7·94) and mortality (4 studies, 3307 patients; OR 3·78, 1·48 to 9·62) rates than patients with a perioperative PLT of 150/nl or more. Similarly, patients with a PLT below 100/nl had a significantly higher risk of PHLF (4 studies, 949 patients; OR 4·65, 2·60 to 8·31) and higher mortality rates (7 studies, 3487 patients; OR 6·35, 2·99 to 13·47) than patients with a PLT of 100/nl or greater.

Conclusion
A low perioperative PLT correlates with higher PHLF and mortality rates after hepatectomy.
Organization of projection from brainstem auditory nuclei to the inferior colliculus of Japanese house bat (Pipistrellus abramus)
Authors: Ito Tetsufumi , Furuyama Takafumi , Hase Kazuma , Kobayasi Kohta I. , Hiryu Shizuko 
Published: July 2018

AbstractObjectivesEcholocating bats show remarkable specialization which is related to analysis of echoes of biosonars in subcortical auditory brainstem pathways. The inferior colliculus (IC) receives inputs from all lower brainstem auditory nuclei, i.e., cochlear nuclei, nuclei of the lateral lemniscus, and superior olivary complex, and create de novo responses to sound, which is considered crucial for echolocation. Inside the central nucleus of the IC (ICC), small domains which receive specific combination of extrinsic inputs are the basis of integration of sound information. In addition to extrinsic inputs, each domain is interconnected by local IC neurons but the cell types related to the interconnection are not well‐understood. The primary objective of the current study is to examine whether the ascending inputs are reorganized and terminate in microdomains inside the ICC.MethodsWe made injection of a retrograde tracer into different parts of the ICC, and analyzed distribution of retrogradely labeled cells in the auditory brainstem of Japanese house bat (Pipistrellus abramus).ResultsPattern of ascending projections from brainstem nuclei was similar to other bat species. Percentages of labeled cells in several nuclei were correlated each other. Furthermore, within the IC, we identified that large GABAergic (LG) and glutamatergic neurons made long‐range connection.ConclusionsSynaptic organization of IC of Japanese house bat shows specialization which is likely to relate for echolocation. Input nuclei to the IC make clusters which terminate in specific part of the ICC, implying the presence of microdomains. LG neurons have roles for binding IC microdomains.
A graphical tool for modeling correlated video traffic
Authors: Sousa‐Vieira María E. 
Published: July 2018

AbstractImprovements in network infrastructures, storage capacity and computing power, along with advances in video coding technology, are enabling an increasing popularity of multimedia applications. Traffic modeling plays an important role in the performance evaluation of network architectures and protocols. In this paper, we describe a tool to deal with the process of modeling video traffic with persistent correlations in an easy and intuitive way: analysis of empirical traces, selection of models for the correlation and the marginal distribution, generation of synthetic traces and validation. A graphical user interface is presented to facilitate the process. The correlation models supported by the tool are based on the M/G/ process and the selection of parameters is carried out with the Whittle estimator. This tool can be used for modeling and simulation practices in engineering education.
Aerobic Activation of C‐H Bond in Amines Over a Nanorod Manganese Oxide Catalyst
Authors: Wang Hai , Wang Liang , Wang Sai , Dong Xue , Zhang Jian , Xiao Feng‐Shou 
Published: July 2018

AbstractThe development of heterogeneous catalysts for the synthesis of pharmaceutically relevant compounds is always important for chemistry research. Here, we report a selective aerobic oxidation of aromatic and aliphatic amines to corresponding amides over a nanorod manganese oxide (NR‐MnOx) catalyst. The kinetic studies reveal that the NR‐MnOx catalyzed amine‐to‐amide reaction proceeds the oxidative dehydrogenation of the amines into nitriles, followed by hydrolysis of nitrile into amides. The NR−MnOx exhibits fast kinetics and high selectivities in these steps, as well as hinders the by‐product formation. More importantly, the NR‐MnOx catalyst is stable and reusable in the continuous recycle tests with water as a sole by‐product, exhibiting superior sustainability and significant advancement to outperform the traditional amide production route in acidic or basic media with toxic by‐products.
A mid‐century ecological forecast with partitioned uncertainty predicts increases in loblolly pine forest productivity
Authors: Thomas R. Quinn , Jersild Annika L. , Brooks Evan B. , Thomas Valerie A. , Wynne Randolph H. 
Published: July 2018

AbstractEcological forecasting of forest productivity involves integrating observations into a process‐based model and propagating the dominant components of uncertainty to generate probability distributions for future states and fluxes. Here, we develop a forecast for the biomass change in loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) forests of the southeastern United States and evaluate the relative contribution of different forms of uncertainty to the total forecast uncertainty. Specifically, we assimilated observations of carbon and flux stocks and fluxes from sites across the region, including global change experiments, into a forest ecosystem model to calibrate the parameter distributions and estimate the process uncertainty (i.e., model structure uncertainty revealed in the residuals of the calibration). Using this calibration, we forecasted the change in biomass within each 12‐digit Hydrologic (H12) unit across the native range of loblolly pine between 2010 and 2055 under the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 scenario. Averaged across the region, productivity is predicted to increase by a mean of 31% between 2010 and 2055 with an average forecast 95% quantile interval of ±15 percentage units. The largest increases were predicted in cooler locations, corresponding to the largest projected changes in temperature. The forecasted mean change varied considerably among the H12 units (3–80% productivity increase), but only units in the warmest and driest extents of the loblolly pine range had forecast distributions with probabilities of a decline in productivity that exceeded 5%. By isolating the individual components of the forecast uncertainty, we found that ecosystem model process uncertainty made the largest individual contribution. Ecosystem model parameter and climate model uncertainty had similar contributions to the overall forecast uncertainty, but with differing spatial patterns across the study region. The probabilistic framework developed here could be modified to include additional sources of uncertainty, including changes due to fire, insects, and pests: processes that would result in lower productivity changes than forecasted here. Overall, this study presents an ecological forecast at the ecosystem management scale so that land managers can explicitly account for uncertainty in decision analysis. Furthermore, it highlights that future work should focus on quantifying, propagating, and reducing ecosystem model process uncertainty.
Advances in assessing Sabellaria spinulosa reefs for ongoing monitoring
Authors: Jenkins Christopher , Eggleton Jacqueline , Barry Jon , O'Connor Joey 
Published: July 2018

AbstractStandardized and repeatable data acquisition and analyses are required to enable the mapping and condition monitoring of reefs within Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). Changes in habitat condition must be reliably identified and reported to best support evidence‐based management. Biogenic reefs in temperate waters, that is, hard matter created by living organisms and raised above the seabed, provide food and shelter for many plant and animal species. This article explores the feasibility of habitat mapping, using remote sensing datasets, as well as metrics for repeatable and suitable assessment of areas of Sabellaria spinulosa for their status as biogenic reef. Data were gathered within the North Norfolk Sandbanks and Saturn Reef candidate Special Area of Conservation/Site of Community Importance in the southern North Sea. Six study areas were identified as potential locations of biogenic reef using previously acquired data, and these were targeted for further investigation using a combination of high resolution multibeam echosounder and sidescan sonar. Where potential S. spinulosa was identified from the acoustic data, a drop‐down camera system was employed for visual verification. Areas of known and potential S. spinulosa reef were mapped successfully at two of the six study areas, although future approaches should take careful consideration of the seabed morphology and predominant habitat backdrop to successfully interpret such data. Camera tows from S. spinulosa reef areas were broken up into 5‐s segments, with each segment scored for (a) average tube elevation; (b) average percentage cover; and (c) for the presence or absence of S. spinulosa. These metrics were utilized to create summary statistics, including a value of patchiness derived from presence/absence data, that is recommended for application as part of future monitoring programs. The application of this methodology could benefit wider assessments of similar threated or declining habitats such as intertidal Mytilus edulis beds on mixed and sandy sediments, Maerl beds, Modioulus modiolus beds, Ostrea edulis beds, and Zostera beds where patchiness may also be considered of environmental importance.
Response to joint selection on germination and flowering phenology depends on the direction of selection
Authors: Galloway Laura F. , Watson Ray H. B. , Prendeville Holly R. 
Published: July 2018

AbstractFlowering and germination time are components of phenology, a complex phenotype that incorporates a number of traits. In natural populations, selection is likely to occur on multiple components of phenology at once. However, we have little knowledge of how joint selection on several phenological traits influences evolutionary response. We conducted one generation of artificial selection for all combinations of early and late germination and flowering on replicated lines within two independent base populations in the herb Campanula americana. We then measured response to selection and realized heritability for each trait. Response to selection and heritability were greater for flowering time than germination time, indicating greater evolutionary potential of this trait. Selection for earlier phenology, both flowering and germination, did not depend on the direction of selection on the other trait, whereas response to selection to delay germination and flowering was greater when selection on the other trait was in the opposite direction (e.g., early germination and late flowering), indicating a negative genetic correlation between the traits. Therefore, the extent to which correlations shaped response to selection depended on the direction of selection. Furthermore, the genetic correlation between timing of germination and flowering varies across the trait distributions. The negative correlation between germination and flowering time found when selecting for delayed phenology follows theoretical predictions of constraint for traits that jointly determine life history schedule. In contrast, the lack of constraint found when selecting for an accelerated phenology suggests a reduction of the covariance due to strong selection favoring earlier flowering and a shorter life cycle. This genetic architecture, in turn, will facilitate further evolution of the early phenology often favored in warm climates.
Zwitterionic codeine‐derived methacrylate monoliths for enantioselective capillary electrochromatography of chiral acids and chiral bases
Authors: Carrasco‐Correa Enrique Javier , Ferri Martina , Woiwode Ulrich , Ma Yubo , Herrero‐Martínez José Manuel , Ramis‐Ramos Guillermo , Lindner Wolfgang , Lämmerhofer Michael 
Published: July 2018

AbstractThiol‐ene click reaction of N‐acetyl‐L‐cysteine methyl ester to codeine, followed by reaction with allyl isocyanate and hydrolysis to the corresponding zwitterionic chiral selector and its subsequent bonding to the surface of a methacrylate monolith provided a new chiral capillary column for enantiomer separation of chiral acids and chiral bases. First, the epoxy groups of a poly(glycidyl methacrylate‐co‐ethylene dimethacrylate) monolith were converted into amine residues, followed by reaction with allylglycidyl ether. In this way, a spacer arm was bonded to the surface before coating and cross‐linking poly(3‐mercaptopropyl methylsiloxane) (PMPMS) via radical addition (thiol‐ene click reaction) to the surface. In order to improve the performance of the monolithic chiral stationary phase, thio ether and residual thiol groups were oxidized to sulfonyl and sulphonate groups, respectively. This novel chiral stationary phase (CSP) was evaluated by capillary electrochromatography (CEC) using two chiral model compounds, namely N‐3,5‐dinitrobenzoyl‐R,S‐leucine (retained by anion‐exchange mechanism) and mefloquine (by cation‐exchange process). The ion‐exchange retention mechanism on the CSP was characterized for these two counterionic model solutes by varying the mobile phase composition, including the nature of solvents, the concentration of counter‐ions and co‐ions, and the acid‐to‐base ratio. A series of chiral β‐blockers and amino acid derivatives was used to further check the performance of the modified monolith under the optimal conditions. Several enantiomers were baseline resolved with reasonable peak efficiencies (up to 60,000 theoretical plates per meter for the second eluted enantiomer).
A scalable multilabel‐based access control as a service for the cloud (SMBACaaS)
Authors: Chinnasamy P. , Deepalakshmi P. 
Published: July 2018

AbstractCloud computing is a shared pool area of computing resources, which might be accessed from anywhere and simply by just about anyone. The cloud's invaluable features, such as data availability and reduced hardware costs, have corporations moving their records into it en masse. Still, concerns about data security remain unaddressed because all data are managed and stored by third‐party service providers in a pay‐as‐you‐go model. The fundamental problem faced by enterprizes is trustworthy access control, which is normally used to protect resources from unauthorized user accessibility. In this paper, we introduce a new solution to overcome access control problems by implementing a multilabel‐based scalable access control as a service for the cloud. The proposed access control can be offered as a cloud service such as Software as a Service, Infrastructure as a Service, and Platform as a Service. These access services are provided by the trusted third party, named the access control provider. From our results and comparative studies with Google Drive, Amazon S3, and OpenStack Swift, our model using the multilabel feature has demonstrated that it is able to enhance consumer privacy, improve access policy protection, and reinforce data security.
Error performance of power line communications in the presence of Nakagami‐m background noise
Authors: Papanikolaou Vasilis K. , Ntouni Georgia D. , Boulogeorgos Alexandros‐Apostolos A. , Karagiannidis George K. 
Published: July 2018

AbstractThis paper studies the error performance of power line communication (PLC) systems, in the presence of background noise with Nakagami‐m distributed envelope and uniformly distributed phase. In this sense, we present closed‐form expressions for the symbol error rate (SER) of PLC systems using binary pulse amplitude modulation and generalize the analysis to accommodate the M‐ary pulse amplitude modulation. In addition, novel closed‐form expressions for the SER upper bound of rectangular quadrature amplitude modulation PLC systems are derived. Interestingly, these expressions can be considered as tight SER approximations in the high–signal‐to‐noise ratio region and, thus, can efficiently evaluate the operational bound of a PLC system.
Spirituality Matters: The Role of Religion in Development Project Evaluation in the Tibetan Communities in China
Authors: Luo Laura Pan , Liu Yonggong , Liu Yanli 
Published: July 2018

AbstractThe Chinese Indigenous/ethnic minority people have rich cultural traditions. Spirituality, including religion, is central to their worldviews and is manifested in their daily lives. Many development projects in China are conducted in ethnic minority areas. This paper discusses the authors’ experiences and reflections on evaluations of development interventions in the Tibetan communities. The authors propose: (1) project participants’ values, including religion and spirituality, be fully integrated into project design, implementation, and evaluation and (2) evaluators be humble to gain insight and wisdom from ethnic cultures, and conduct evaluations in a culturally responsive way.