bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
An exploration of the influence of diagonal dissociation and moderate changes in speed on locomotor parameters in trotting horses
Authors: Hobbs Sarah Jane , Bertram John E A , Clayton Hilary M 
Published: January 2018

Background. Although the trot is described as a diagonal gait, contacts of the diagonal pairs of hooves are not usually perfectly synchronized. Although subtle, the timing dissociation between contacts of each diagonal pair could have consequences on gait dynamics and provide insight into the functional strategies employed. This study explores the mechanical effects of different diagonal dissociation patterns when speed was matched between individuals and how these effects link to moderate, natural changes in trotting speed. We anticipate that hind-first diagonal dissociation at contact increases with speed, diagonal dissociation at contact can reduce collision-based energy losses and predominant dissociation patterns will be evident within individuals.
Methods. The study was performed in two parts: in the first 17 horses performed speed-matched trotting trials and in the second, 5 horses each performed 10 trotting trials that represented a range of individually preferred speeds. Standard motion capture provided kinematic data that were synchronized with ground reaction force (GRF) data from a series of force plates. The data were analyzed further to determine temporal, speed, GRF, postural, mass distribution, moment, and collision dynamics parameters.
Results. Fore-first, synchronous, and hind-first dissociations were found in horses trotting at (3.3 m/s ± 10%). In these speed-matched trials, mean centre of pressure (COP) cranio-caudal location differed significantly between the three dissociation categories. The COP moved systematically and significantly (P=.001) from being more caudally located in hind-first dissociation (mean location = 0.41±0.04) through synchronous (0.36±0.02) to a more cranial location in fore-first dissociation (0.32±0.02). Dissociation patterns were found to influence function, posture, and balance parameters. Over a moderate speed range, peak vertical forelimb GRF had a strong relationship with dissociation time (R=.594; P<.01) and speed (R=.789; P<.01), but peak vertical hindlimb GRF did not have a significant relationship with dissociation time (R=.085; P>.05) or speed (R=.223; P=.023).
Discussion. The results indicate that at moderate speeds individual horses use dissociation patterns that allow them to maintain trunk pitch stability through management of the cranio-caudal location of the COP. During the hoof-ground collisions, reduced mechanical energy losses were found in hind-first dissociations compared to fully synchronous contacts. As speed increased, only forelimb vertical peak force increased so dissociations tended towards hind-first, which shifted the net COP caudally and balanced trunk pitching moments.
Can head louse repellents really work? Field studies of piperonal 2% spray
Authors: Burgess Ian F , Brown Christine M , Burgess Nazma A , Kaufman Judith 
Published: January 2018

Background: Many families find regular checking of children’s heads for head louse infestation too onerous and would prefer to be able to prevent infestation by use of a topical application that deters lice from infesting the head. Identification in the laboratory of a repellent activity for piperonal provided the basis for developing a spray product to repel lice.
Methods: A proof of principle field study in Dhaka, Bangladesh, compared the effect of using 2% piperonal spray with that of a placebo in 105 children and adults from three communities with infestation levels close to 100%. All participants were treated for infestation and subsequent incidence of reinfestation monitored daily by investigators. A second randomised, controlled, double blind, study in North London, UK, evaluated the effect of the product in normal use. One hundred and sixty-three children from schools with a high level (20-25%) of infestation were treated and confirmed louse free and randomly divided between 2% piperonal, a placebo spray, and a control group for up to 22 weeks. Parents applied the spray and monitored for infestation. Regular investigator visits confirmed the parental monitoring and replenished supplies of spray.
Results: In Dhaka, over 18 days there were only 4 infestations in the piperonal group and 8 in the placebo group. This difference was not significant (p = 0.312). In North London, there were 41 cases of infestation over the course of the study. Analysis of time to first infestation showed a non-significant (p = 0.4368) trend in favour of piperonal.
Conclusion: Routine use of 2% piperonal spray in communities with a high prevalence of head louse infestation may provide some protection from infestation. However, the difference between use of the product and no active intervention was sufficiently small that regular checking for presence of lice is likely to be a more practical and cost effective approach to prevention of infestation.
Mining transcriptomic data to study the origins and evolution of a plant allopolyploid complex
Authors: Bombarely Aureliano , Coate Jeremy E , Doyle Jeff J 
Published: January 2018

Allopolyploidy combines two progenitor genomes in the same nucleus, and is a common mechanism for producing new species, especially in plants. Deciphering the origins of polyploid species is a complex problem, due to, among other things, extinct progenitors, multiple origins, gene flow between different polyploid populations, and loss of parental contributions through gene or chromosome loss. In this work,
we studied three allopolyploid species in the genus Glycine, which includes the cultivated soybean (G. max). Previous work based on two nuclear sequences showed that these allopolyploids combine the genomes of extant diploid species in the G. tomentella complex. We use several phylogenetic and population genomics approaches to clarify the origin of these species using single nucleotide polymorphism data and a guided transcriptome assembly. The results support the hypothesis that each of the three polyploid species are fixed hybrids combining the homoeologous genomes of its two putative parents. Based on mapping to the soybean reference genome, there appear to be no large regions for which one homoeologous contribution is missing. Phylogenetic analyses of 27 selected transcripts using a coalescent approach also indicates multiple origins for G. tomentella polyploid species, and suggest that origins occurred within the last several hundred thousands years.
Swedish high-school pupils’ attitudes towards drugs in relation to drug usage, impulsiveness and other risk factors
Authors: Mousavi Fariba , Garcia Danilo , Jimmefors Alexander , Archer Trevor , Ewalds-Kvist Béatrice M 
Published: January 2018

Background: Illicit drug use influences people’s lives and elicits unwanted here is an increase in young people’s drug use in Sweden. This study aimed to investigate Swedish high-school pupils’ attitudes, impulsiveness and gender differences linked to drug use. Also risk and protective factors relative to drug use were a focus of interest.
Method: High school pupils (n = 146) aged 17- 21 years, responded to the Adolescent Health and Development Inventory, Barratt Impulsiveness Scale and Knowledge, and the Attitudes and Beliefs. Direct logistic, multiple regression analyses, and Multivariate Analysis of Variance were used to analyse the data.
Results: Positive Attitudes towards drugs was predicted by risk factors (odds ratio = 37.31) and gender (odds ratio = .32). Risk factors (odds ratio = 46.89), positive attitudes towards drugs (odds ratio = 4.63), and impulsiveness (odds ratio = 1.11) predicted drug usage. Risk factors dimensions Family, Friends and Individual Characteristic were positively related to impulsiveness among drug users. Moreover, although males reported using drugs to a greater extent, but female expressed more positive attitude towards drugs and even reported more impulsiveness than male students.
Conclusion: This study reinforces the idea that research must focus on gender differences relative to pro-drug attitudes along with testing for differences in the predictors of girls’ and boys’ delinquency and impulsiveness. Positive attitudes towards drugs among adolescents seem to be part of a vicious circle including risk factors, such as friendly drug environments (e.g., friends who use drugs) and unsupportive family environments, individual characteristics, and impulsiveness.
Beyond birth-weight: Improved ascertainment of early growth predicts blood pressure in Peruvian adolescents
Authors: Sterling Robie , Checkley William , Gilman Robert H , Cabrera Lilia , Sterling Charles R , Bern Caryn , Miranda J. Jaime 
Published: January 2018

Background: Longitudinal investigations into the origins of adult essential hypertension have found elevated blood pressure in children to accurately track into adulthood, however the direct causes of essential hypertension in adolescence and adulthood remains unclear.
Methods: Cohort study, we revisited 152 Peruvian adolescents from a birth cohort evaluated with monthly anthropometric measurements between 1995 and 1998, and obtained anthropometric and blood pressure measurements 11 to 14 years later. We used multivariable regression models to study the effects of infantile and childhood growth trends on blood pressure and central obesity in early adolescence.
Results: In regression models adjusted for childhood growth, each 0.1 SD increase in weight for length from 0 to 5 months of age, and 1 SD increase from 6 to 30 months of age, predicted decreased adolescent systolic blood pressure by 1.3 mm Hg (95% CI -2.4 to -0.1) and 2.5 mm Hg (95% CI -4.9 to 0.0), and decreased waist circumference by 0.6 (95% CI -1.1 to 0.0) and 1.2 cm (95% CI -2.3 to -0.1) respectively. Growth in infancy and early childhood was not a significant predictor of adolescent waist-to-hip ratio.
Conclusions: Rapid compensatory growth in early life has been posited to increase the risk of long-term cardiovascular morbidities such that nutritional interventions may do more harm than good. However, we found increased weight growth during infancy and early childhood to predict decreases in adolescent systolic blood pressure and central adiposity.
Child, parent, and healthcare professionals’ perspectives on HIV infection status disclosure to children
Authors: Gachanja Grace , Burkholder Gary J , Ferraro Aimee 
Published: January 2018

Background. HIV disclosure is a challenging process for parents and healthcare professionals. The majority of HIV-infected persons live in Sub-Saharan Africa where HIV disclosure guidelines for a parent's and a child's illness are nonexistent. While there are two theoretical models of HIV disclosure, their utility in explaining disclosure in African cultures is largely unknown.
Methods. This qualitative phenomenological study was conducted in Kenya to describe the lived experiences of HIV-positive parents and their children during the disclosure process. Thirty four participants consisting of 16 HIV-positive parents, 7 HIV-positive children, 5 HIV-negative children, and 6 healthcare professionals were engaged in in-depth, semistructured interviews. Interview data were analyzed using the modified Van Kaam method.
Results. HIV disclosure is a complex process involving factors such as a parent's and child's state of health, ART consumption, stigma/discrimination, and sexuality concerns. Parents take years to prepare for and perform disclosure of theirs and/or their children's illnesses to their infected and noninfected children. They perform disclosure when they feel ready in stages, based on the birth order of their children, the perception of “the right time,” the child's understanding and maturity level, and whose illness(es) they intend to disclose at the time of disclosure.
Conclusion. HIV disclosure is challenging and each disclosure session performed is planned and geared to the particular child receiving disclosure. Parents and healthcare professionals are challenged by disclosure and can benefit from creation of HIV disclosure guidelines accompanied by culturally sensitive manuals and training programs aimed at parents and healthcare professionals to ease the process of disclosure.
Patient beliefs and attitudes towards the acceptability of receiving alcohol use enquiry from general practitioners: a literature review
Authors: Leong Louis , Tam Chun Wah Michael 
Published: January 2018

Background: Routine use of alcohol screening questionnaires is recommended in primary care, but patient beliefs and attitudes towards the acceptability of receiving alcohol enquiry from general practitioners (GPs) are unclear.
Methods: We searched medical databases to identify published empirical research on patient beliefs, attitudes and experiences towards receiving alcohol discussions from GPs. Coherent themes were synthesised from the results of the included studies using a realist perspective. Seventeen studies were included in the review – the majority were quantitative surveys from the UK, Nordic countries, North America and Australia.
Results and Discussion: GPs are seen to be legitimate providers of lifestyle advice, but patients may not find alcohol enquiry acceptable in a specific consultation. Alcohol discussions are less acceptable than those on other health promotion topics. The context of the consultation, such as the reason for presenting and the patient-doctor relationship, has an important influence on the situational acceptability of alcohol enquiry.
Conclusion: Although GP involvement in health promotion is perceived as legitimate, alcohol enquiry in consultations can be fraught and unwelcome. Contextual factors pertaining to the consultation appear to be important but these have not been well explored in the literature. Conclusions from this review should be restricted to societies with “Temperance” drinking cultures.
Visual Analytics in healthcare education: Exploring novel ways to analyze and represent big data in undergraduate medical education
Authors: Vaitsis Christos , Nilsson Gunnar , Zary Nabil 
Published: January 2018

Big data in undergraduate medical education that consist the medical curriculum are beyond human abilities to be perceived and analyzed. The medical curriculum is the main tool used by teachers and directors to plan, design and deliver teaching activities, assessment methods and student evaluation in medical education in a continuous effort to improve it. It remains unexploited mainly for medical education improvement purposes. The emerging research field of Visual Analytics has the advantage to combine data analysis and manipulation techniques, information and knowledge representation, and human cognitive strength to perceive and recognize visual patterns. Nevertheless, there is lack of findings reporting use and benefits of Visual Analytics in medical education.
We analyzed data from the medical curriculum of an undergraduate medical program concerning teaching activities, assessment methods and results and learning outcomes in order to explore Visual Analytics as a tool for finding ways of representing big data from undergraduate medical education for improvement purposes. We used Cytoscape to build networks of the identified aspects and visualize them.
The analysis and visualization of the identified aspects resulted in building an abstract model of the examined data from the curriculum presented in three different variants; (i) learning outcomes and teaching methods, (ii) examination and learning outcomes and (iii) teaching methods, learning outcomes, examination results and gap analysis
This study identified aspects of medical curriculum. The implementation of VA revealed three novel ways of representing big data from undergraduate medical education. It seems to be a useful tool to explore such data and may have future implications on healthcare education. It also opens a new direction in medical informatics research.
An algorithm to detect and communicate the differences in computational models describing biological systems
Authors: Scharm Martin , Wolkenhauer Olaf , Waltemath Dagmar 
Published: January 2018

Repositories, such as the BioModels Database and the Physiome Model Repository support the reuse of models and ensure transparency about results in publications linked to those models. With thousands of models available, a framework to track the differences between models and their versions is essential to compare and combine models. Difference detection allows users to study the history of models but also helps in the detection of errors and inconsistencies. However, current repositories lack suitable methods to track a model’s development over time. Consequently, researchers have problems to grasp the differences between models and their versions.
Focusing on SBML and CellML, we developed an algorithm to accurately detect and describe differences between versions of a model with respect to (i) the models’ encoding, (ii) the structure of biological networks, and (iii) mathematical expressions. Our method is implemented in a comprehensive and open library called BiVeS. Our work facilitates the reuse and extension of existing models. It also supports collaborative modelling. Finally, it contributes to better reproducibility of modelling results and to the challenge of model provenance.
Our algorithm is the first tailor-made detector of differences between versions of computational models in standard formats.
Whale Shark Provisioning: What do we know and where do we stand; The case study of Oslob, Philippines
Authors: Ponzo Alessandro , Araujo Gonzalo , Labaja Jessica , So Catherine L. , Snow Sally J. , Geary Daniel , Craven Samantha , Lucey Anna R. 
Published: January 2018

Background. Provisioning is a growing practice used to facilitate wildlife-tourist interaction, especially with elusive marine species, but still little is known about its effect on the host species. This work discusses the practice, effect and proposed measures to manage the whale shark provisioning activities and related tourism industry in the waters of Oslob, Philippines.
Methods. Since March 2012, the research team has been studying daily the whale shark population, the tourism industry and its compliances with the local and national laws. During 443 days of survey, 135 individual whale sharks where identified within the interaction area, 197h of shark behavioral observations and tourist compliance surveys have been collected along with 45 biopsy samples, 1000h of dive profiles from TDR tags and 500 tourist satisfaction questionnaires.
Results. Since its official opening in January 2012 more than 140,000 interaction tickets have been sold bringing over 1M USD to the local community and making it one of the largest marine wildlife tourist attractions in South East Asia. The benefits for the community and regional economy are undeniable, however behavioral modification, extended residency time, poor nutritional value of provided food and thermal stress related to the extended permanence in shallow water together with habitat destruction caused by poor diving practices and unregulated coastal developments are some of the quantified side effects of this industry.
Conclusion. A series of meeting with the stakeholders and an education campaign have been initiated as bottom up approach and an adaptive management model based on the identification of the limits of acceptable change is being developed in collaboration with the Authorities to address current limitations in the long-term sustainable management of the whale shark watching industry in Oslob.
Photothermal‐Responsive Conjugated Polymer Nanoparticles for Remote Control of Gene Expression in Living Cells
Authors: Wang Yunxia , Li Shengliang , Zhang Pengbo , Bai Haotian , Feng Liheng , Lv Fengting , Liu Libing , Wang Shu 
Published: January 2018

AbstractRemote control and noninvasive manipulation of cellular bioprocess has received intensive attention as a powerful technology to control cell functions. Here, a strategy is developed to remotely control intracellular gene expression with high spatial and temporal resolutions by using photothermal‐responsive conjugated polymer nanoparticles (CPNs) as the transducer under near‐infrared light irradiation. After being modified with positive charged peptide, the CPNs with superior photothermal conversion capacity could effectively coat on the surface of living cells and generate localized heat to trigger target gene expression. The heat‐inducible heat shock protein‐70 promoter starts transcription of downstream EGFP gene in response to heat shock, thus producing green fluorescent protein in the living cells. The combination of heat‐inducible gene promoter and photothermal‐responsive CPNs provides a method for the development of thermogenetics.
Self‐Healing of a Confined Phase Change Memory Device with a Metallic Surfactant Layer
Authors: Xie Yujun , Kim Wanki , Kim Yerin , Kim Sangbum , Gonsalves Jemima , BrightSky Matthew , Lam Chung , Zhu Yu , Cha Judy J. 
Published: January 2018

AbstractUnderstanding and possibly recovering from the failure mechanisms of phase change memories (PCMs) are critical to improving their cycle life. Extensive electrical testing and postfailure electron microscopy analysis have shown that stuck–set failure can be recovered. Here, self‐healing of novel confined PCM devices is directly shown by controlling the electromigration of the phase change material at the nanoscale. In contrast to the current mushroom PCM, the confined PCM has a metallic surfactant layer, which enables effective Joule heating to control the phase change material even in the presence of a large void. In situ transmission electron microscope movies show that the voltage polarity controls the direction of electromigration of the phase change material, which can be used to fill nanoscale voids that form during programing. Surprisingly, a single voltage pulse can induce dramatic migration of antimony (Sb) due to high current density in the PCM device. Based on the finding, self‐healing of a large void inside a confined PCM device with a metallic liner is demonstrated for the first time.
Large‐Scale Noniridescent Structural Color Printing Enabled by Infiltration‐Driven Nonequilibrium Colloidal Assembly
Authors: Bai Ling , Mai Van Cuong , Lim Yun , Hou Shuai , Möhwald Helmuth , Duan Hongwei 
Published: January 2018

AbstractStructural colors originating from interaction of light with intricately arranged micro‐/nanostructures have stimulated considerable interest because of their inherent photostability and energy efficiency. In particular, noniridescent structural color with wide viewing angle has been receiving increasing attention recently. However, no method is yet available for rapid and large‐scale fabrication of full‐spectrum structural color patterns with wide viewing angles. Here, infiltration‐driven nonequilibrium assembly of colloidal particles on liquid‐permeable and particle‐excluding substrates is demonstrated to direct the particles to form amorphous colloidal arrays (ACAs) within milliseconds. The infiltration‐assisted (IFAST) colloidal assembly opens new possibilities for rapid manufacture of noniridescent structural colors of ACAs and straightforward structural color mixing. Full‐spectrum noniridescent structural colors are successfully produced by mixing primary structural colors of red, blue, and yellow using a commercial office inkjet printer. Rapid fabrication of large‐scale structural color patterns with sophisticated color combination/layout by IFAST printing is realized. The IFAST technology is versatile for developing structural color patterns with wide viewing angles, as colloidal particles, inks, and substrates are flexibly designable for diverse applications.