bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Evaluation of “being healthy, being away from chronic diseases” public service advertisement in Chongqing, China: A cross-sectional study
Authors: Hu Ping , Wu Ting ting , Wu Cheng bin , Huang Hao , Fu Zhirong , Du Lei , Xu Xiang long , Shi Zumin , Zhao Yong 
Published: January 2018

Background: Chronic diseases have become a global public health issue, and mass media campaigns are often used to encourage and sustain positive behavior change. Our aim was to evaluate the effect of public service advertising on the awareness of Chongqing citizens.
Methods: The theme of the public service advertisement launched in Chongqing was “being healthy, being away from chronic diseases.” A self-designed questionnaire was used in an outdoor intercept survey to collect information about the perception of citizens toward the effect of the advertisement on cognitive situations.
Results: A total of 985 valid questionnaires were received. Respondents had good understanding of chronic disease (23.6±4.1, total score: 30), but only 58.4% of participants thought cancer is one type of chronic disease. The awareness of cancer as a chronic disease among the group who had seen this advertisement (63.6%) was higher than that of the group who had not seen the advertisement (56.5%) (p=0.046). After watching the advertisement, approximately 77.4% of participants attempted to remind their family and friends to prevent chronic diseases, roughly 78.2% tried to persuade their family and friends to change their unhealthy lifestyle habits, and 73.2% of participants reported that it increased the possibility of their own lifestyle change. Logistic regression analysis indicates that occupation, educational level, watching the advertising through TV, watching the advertising through indoor LED screen, and watching the advertising through mobile TV affected the three post-viewing behavior changes
Conclusion : The public service advertisement achieved a certain knowledge propaganda effect. It may help change awareness and improve health behavior of the public.
Key words: Public service advertisement , Chronic diseases, Health; Awareness, Behavior
Sylvatic host associations of Triatominae and implications for Chagas disease reservoirs: a comprehensive review and new host records based on archival specimens
Authors: Georgieva Anna Y , Gordon Eric R L , Weirauch Christiane 
Published: January 2018

Background: The 148 species of kissing bug include important vectors of the debilitating, chronic, and often fatal Chagas disease, which affects several million people in Central and South America. An understanding of the natural hosts of this speciose group of blood-feeding insects has and will continue to aid ongoing efforts to impede the spread of Chagas disease. However, information on kissing bug biology is piecemeal and scattered, developed using methods with varying levels of accuracy over more than 100 years. Existing host records are heavily biased towards well-studied primary vector species and are derived from primarily three different types of observations, associational, immunological or DNA-based, with varying reliability.
Methods: We here gather a comprehensive and unparalleled number of sources reporting host associations via rigorous targeted searches of publication databases to review all known natural, or sylvatic, host records including information on how that record was collected. We integrate this information with novel host records obtained via attempted amplification and sequencing of a ~160 base pair (bp) region of the vertebrate 12S mitochondrial gene from the gastrointestinal tract of 64 archival specimens of Triatominae representing 19 species collected primarily in sylvatic habitats throughout the southern U.S. and Central and South America during the past 10 years. We show the utility of this method for uncovering novel and under-studied groups of Triatominae hosts, as well as detecting the presence of the Chagas disease pathogen via Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) of a ~400 bp sequence of the trypanosome 18S gene.
Results: New host associations for several groups of arboreal mammals were determined including sloths, New World monkeys, coatis, arboreal porcupines and, for the first time as a host of any Triatominae, tayras. A thorough review of previously documented sylvatic hosts, organized by triatomine species and the type of observation (associational, antibody-based, or DNA-based), is presented in a phylogenetic context and highlights large gaps in our knowledge of Triatominae biology.
Conclusion: The application of DNA-based methods of host identification towards additional species of Triatominae, including rarely collected species that may require use of archival specimens, is the most efficient and promising way to resolve recognized shortfalls.
Evaluation of the maxillary anterior teeth color distribution according to age and gender with Spectrophotometer
Authors: Karaman Tahir , Altintas Eyyüp , Eser Bekir , Talo Yildirim Tuba , Oztekin Faruk , Bozoglan Alihan 
Published: January 2018

Background: This study intended to determine the colour distribution of the maxillary, central, lateral and canine teeth and to investigate the effect of age and gender on this colour distribution.
Materials and methods : The colour measurements of the maxillary right central, lateral and canine teeth were carried out by the Vita Easyshade V (Vita Zahnfabrik, Bad Sackingen, Germany) spectrophotometer on a total of 202 voluntarily patients including 89 (men) and 113 (women). The age distribution in the study was between 15 and 70 (the average was 31). Grey background colour was used in order to prevent the reflection of the background while performing the colour measurement with the Vita EasyShade V (Vita Zahnfabrik, Bad Sackingen, Germay).
Results: When comparing the L*, a* and b* values of the teeth with the gender; statistically significant difference was not fount between the gender and the L* and b* values (P>0,05) while statistically significant difference was observed between the gender and the a* value (P<0,05).
Conclusions: The tooth colour distribution according to the Vitapan Classical; in the central and lateral teeth it was maximum A2, while it was found to be B3 in the canine teeth. The tooth colour distribution according to the VITA Toothguide 3D-MASTER colour scale; in the central teeth the 2M2 colour was measured most often, in the lateral teeth the 3M2 colour was detected the most often while in the canine teeth the 2M3 colour was measured the most often.
MiR-92b-3p is induced by advanced glycation end products and involved in the pathogenesis of diabetic nephropathy
Authors: Liping Wang , Nan Geng Jia , Bo Sun , Chengbo Sun , Siyuan Wang , Yan Shi , Xiayan Yu 
Published: January 2018

Background. The current study aims to explore the effects of advanced glycation end products (AGEs) on the microRNA (miRNA) expression profile in kidney tissues in a murine diabetic nephropathy (DN) model, and to investigate the possible underlying mechanisms.
Methods. Wister rats were randomly divided into three equal experiment groups, the AGE group, the RSA group and the control group. The rats in the AGE group and the RSA group were administered with AGEs and rat serum albumin (RSA) via the tail vein, respectively, whereas those in the control group received no injection. Following the extraction of total RNA from the murine kidney tissues, miRNA profiling was performed using a miRNA microarray to determine the global differences in miRNA expression between the three experiment groups. The identified panel of aberrantly expressed miRNA candidates were subsequently validated by quantitative real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). Bioinformatics analysis was performed to identify the target genes and enriched signaling pathway for the validated miRNAs.
Results. Compared with RSA group, miR-7d-3p, miR-92b-3p, miR-181b-5p and miR-196c-5p were found to be significantly up-regulated in the AGE group, whereas miR-7a-1-3p, miR-186-5p, miR-192-5P, miR-196b-5p and miR-345-5p were shown to be down-regulated (p<0.05). Among the nine miRNA candidates, miR-92b-3p was validated by qRT-PCR analysis. Subsequent bioinformatic study indicated that SMAD7 could be a potential downstream gene target of miR-92b-3p. Both immunohistochemical staining and western blotting showed that SMAD7 expression was significantly suppressed in the kidney tissues harvested from the AGE group compared to those from the control and the RSA group.
Discussion. The results of the current study revealed a correlation between increased renal level of miR-92b-3p and elevated serum level of AGEs in a murine model of DN.
The urban heat island effect is closely related to cicada density in metropolitan Seoul
Authors: Nguyen Hoa Q. , Kim Yuseob , Jang Yikweon 
Published: January 2018

Background. Cryptotympana atrata and Hyalessa fuscata are the most abundant cicada species in the Korean Peninsula, where their population densities are higher in urban areas than in rural ones. The urban heat island (UHI) effect, wherein human activities cause urban areas to be significantly warmer than surrounding rural areas, may underlie this difference. We predicted a positive relationship between the degrees of UHI in urban areas and population densities of C. atrata and H. fuscata.
Methods. To test this prediction, we examined cicada population densities in three groups: those of high and low UHI areas within metropolitan Seoul, and suburban areas. Enumeration surveys of cicada exuviae were conducted from July to August, 2015.
Results. C. atrata and H. fuscata constituted almost 30% and 70% of the cicada populations, respectively, collected across all sampling localities. No significant difference in species composition was observed, regardless of groups, but the densities of the two species were significantly higher in urban areas with high UHI than in other groups. Specifically, densities of C. atrata in high UHI areas were approximately seven and four times higher compared to those in low UHI and in suburban groups, respectively. The order of magnitude was greater in H. fuscata, where densities in high UHI group were respectively 22 and six times higher than those in low UHI and in suburban groups.
Discussion. These results suggest that the UHI effect may be closely linked to high cicada densities in metropolitan Seoul, although the underlying mechanism for this remains unclear.
Different definitions of species presence to refine estimates of local species richness
Authors: Ruete Alejandro , Pärt Tomas , Berg Åke , Knape Jonas , Arlt Debora 
Published: January 2018

Abstract

Aim To improve predictions of spatial and temporal patterns of species richness it is important to consider how species presence at a site is defined. This is because this definition affects our estimate of species richness, which should be aligned with the aims of the study, e.g. estimating richness of the breeding community. Here we explore the sensitivity of species richness estimates to criteria for defining presence of species (e.g. in relation to number of days present during the breeding season) at 107 wetlands.
Innovation We use opportunistic citizen science data of high density (a total of 151,817 observations of 77 wetland bird species; i.e. about 16 observations per day) to build site-occupancy models calculating occupancy probabilities at a high temporal resolution (e.g. daily occupancies) to derive probabilistic estimates of seasonal site use of each species. We introduce a new way for defining species presence by using different criteria related to the number of days the species are required to be present at local sites. We compared patterns of species richness when using these different criteria of species inclusions.
Main conclusion While estimates of local species richness derived from high temporal resolution occupancy models are robust to observational bias, these estimates are sensitive to restrictions concerning the number of days of presence required during the breeding season. Unlike complete local species lists, summaries of seasonal site use and different presence criteria allow identifying differences between sites and amplifying the variability in species richness among sites. Thus, this approach allows filtering out species according to their phenology and migration behaviour (e.g. passer-by species) and could improve the explanatory power of environmental variables on predictive models.
Are extinction opinions extinct?
Authors: Lee Tamsin E , Bowman Clive , Roberts David L 
Published: January 2018

Extinction models vary in the information they require, the simplest considering the rate of certain sightings only. More complicated methods include uncertain sightings and allow for variation in the reliability of uncertain sightings. Generally extinction models require expert opinion, either as a prior belief that a species is extinct, or to establish the quality of a sighting record, or both. Is this subjectivity necessary?
We present two models to explore whether the individual quality of sightings, judged by experts, is strongly informative of the probability of extinction: the `quality breakpoint method' and the `quality as variance method'. For the first method we use the Barbary lion as an exemplar. For the second method we use the Barbary lion, Alaotra grebe, Jamaican petrel and Pohnpei starling as exemplars.
The `quality breakpoint method' uses certain and uncertain sighting records, and the quality of uncertain records, to establish whether a change point in the rate of sightings can be established using a simultaneous Bayesian optimisation with a non-informative prior. For the Barbary lion, there is a change in subjective quality of sightings around 1930. Unexpectedly sighting quality increases after this date. This suggests that including quality scores from experts can lead to irregular effects and may not offer reliable results. As an alternative, we use quality as a measure of variance around the sightings, not a change in quality. This leads to predictions with larger standard deviations, however the results remain consistent across any prior belief of extinction. Nonetheless, replacing actual quality scores with random quality scores showed little difference, inferring that the quality scores from experts are superfluous.
Therefore, we deem the expensive process of obtaining pooled expert estimates as unnecessary and even when used we recommend that sighting data should have minimal input from experts in terms of assessing the sighting quality at a fine scale. Rather, sightings should be classed as certain or uncertain, using a framework that is as independent of human bias as possible.
The State of OA: A large-scale analysis of the prevalence and impact of Open Access articles
Authors: Piwowar Heather , Priem Jason , Larivière Vincent , Alperin Juan Pablo , Matthias Lisa , Norlander Bree , Farley Ashley , West Jevin , Haustein Stefanie 
Published: January 2018

Despite growing interest in Open Access (OA) to scholarly literature, there is an unmet need for large-scale, up-to-date, and reproducible studies assessing the prevalence and characteristics of OA. We address this need using oaDOI, an open online service that determines OA status for 67 million articles.
We use three samples, each of 100,000 articles, to investigate OA in three populations: 1) all journal articles assigned a Crossref DOI, 2) recent journal articles indexed in Web of Science, and 3) articles viewed by users of Unpaywall, an open-source browser extension that lets users find OA articles using oaDOI.
We estimate that at least 28% of the scholarly literature is OA (19M in total) and that this proportion is growing, driven particularly by growth in Gold and Hybrid. The most recent year analyzed (2015) also has the highest percentage of OA (45%). Because of this growth, and the fact that readers disproportionately access newer articles, we find that Unpaywall users encounter OA quite frequently: 47% of articles they view are OA. Notably, the most common mechanism for OA is not Gold, Green, or Hybrid OA, but rather an under-discussed category we dub Bronze: articles made free-to-read on the publisher website, without an explicit Open license.
We also examine the citation impact of OA articles, corroborating the so-called open-access citation advantage: accounting for age and discipline, OA articles receive 18% more citations than average, an effect driven primarily by Green and Hybrid OA. We encourage further research using the free oaDOI service, as a way to inform OA policy and practice.
De novo species delimitation in metabarcoding datasets using ecology and phylogeny
Authors: Potter Caitlin , Tang Cuong Q , Fonseca Vera , Lallias Delphine , Gaspar John M , Thomas Kelley , Creer Simon 
Published: January 2018

Background: Metabarcoding studies allow a wide variety of taxa to be analysed simultaneously in a fraction of the time taken by morphological identification, but currently metabarcoding studies must rely on sequence similarity-based methodologies to delimit operational taxonomic units (OTUs). Similarity-based OTU clustering methodologies can lead to inaccurate estimates of diversity, species’ distributions or responses to change, meaning that there is a critical need for methods to delimit species in metabarcoding datasets.
Methods: We introduce SNAPhy (Species delimitation using Niche And PHYlogeny), a novel approach which utilises ecological and phylogenetic information to delimit de novo OTUs in metabarcoding datasets and avoids the problems associated with current OTU clustering methods. Sequencing reads are first divided into ecological groups based on co-occurrence, thereby reducing data complexity and facilitating the use of evolutionary and phylogenetic models (e.g. BEAST and GMYC) to delimit species-level groupings within discrete ecologically informed phylogenies. The utility of SNAPhy is demonstrated using an 18S rDNA nuclear small subunit (nSSU) dataset representing replicated samples taken along the entire length of an estuarine salinity gradient, and SNAPhy is then compared to existing OTU clustering methods.
Results: All of the OTU clustering methods compared yielded different numbers of OTUs and a different taxonomic distribution of OTUs, which we suggest is due to the taxon differences that are known to exist in the degree of intraspecific divergence. SNAPhy and UCLUST (with a 98% similarity threshold) gave the most plausible numbers of OTUs, especially within the Nematoda. Additionally, the degree of variation within nematode OTUs delimited by SNAPhy lies within the range of variation in deeply metabarcoded individuals.
Discussion: SNAPhy avoids the static clustering threshold problems associated with current OTU clustering methods and instead focuses on genuine biological diversity delimited according to a general lineage species concept. We suggest that the SNAPhy approach should play a crucial role in future sequencing-based biodiversity assessment by providing more accurate estimates of species diversity and distributions than current methods, thereby enabling more accurate impact assessments and better informing managerial decisions.
Project Airless: addressing the problem of pyrite oxidation in a large fossil collection
Authors: Miles Kieran 
Published: January 2018

The Natural History Museum in London holds around 7 million fossils, a diverse collection of huge scientific and historical importance. The Conservation Centre is responsible for a wide range of specimen care issues, including those affecting the palaeontology collections. One of the most serious of these problems is pyrite oxidation. Pyrite, a form of iron sulphide, can often be found in fossils or their surrounding matrix. Oxidation occurs when unstable pyrite, often in its microcrystalline form, reacts with atmospheric oxygen and water. This reaction is accelerated at relative humidity above 60%, and produces a variety of harmful by-products, usually comprising ferrous sulphate, hydrogen sulphide and sulphuric acid.
Airless, a three-year project that started in August 2015, aims to address this problem. The goal is to identify, treat and prevent pyrite oxidation in the Earth Science collections. A small team of conservation technicians are surveying the collections looking for signs of pyrite decay. Affected specimens are taken to a dedicated lab space where remedial treatments, such as dry brushing or ammonia vapour treatment, are carried out, before re-storage of specimens in anoxic microenvironments. These are individually hand-made using barrier film, with oxygen scavenging sachets added to remove oxygen from the sealed bag. In addition, the project has a digitisation aspect, with the use of web-based applications, improving the museum’s database with high-quality photographs that partly compensate for the reduced physical access to the specimens. To date, the team has completed work on nearly 3000 specimens, including ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs and pterosaurs.
The remedial conservation and support jacketing of the neotype specimen of the dinosaur Massospondylus carinatus
Authors: Graham Mark R 
Published: January 2018

In March 2017 the neotype specimen of the Early Jurassic South African prosauropod dinosaur Massospondylus carinatus was appraised and condition reported at the Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand (WITS), Johannesburg, in readiness for remedial conservation and re-storage. The work was necessitated by deterioration of the specimen, which was caused by handling over a number of years and an inadequate and failing support mount.
Formally numbered BP/1/4934, but more affectionately known to staff as ‘Big Momma’, the specimen was contained within several individual blocks on flimsy support bases and presented various conservation challenges.These included treatment of fractures and cracking across several surfaces of the fossil and the production of clam shell supports to allow for articulated display within the constraints of an existing display cabinet. Part of the brief was to facilitate safer handling and access for researchers.
This project was led by the author who also trained the curatorial and preparation staff at WITS in the methods and techniques employed. The visit was funded by the Palaeontological Scientific Trust (PAST), the DST/NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences and The University of the Witwatersrand (WITS).