bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Plasma biomarkers are associated with agitation and regional brain atrophy in Alzheimer’s disease
Authors: Hsu Jung-Lung , Lee Wei-Ju , Liao Yi-Chu , Lirng Jiing-Feng , Wang Shuu-Jiun , Fuh Jong-Ling 
Published: July 2017

AbstractThis study investigated the relationships among plasma biomarkers, regional brain atrophy, and clinical symptoms in patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD; n = 177), mild cognitive impairment (MCI; N = 60) and controls (n = 108). The Mini-Mental Status Examination (MMSE), Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR), and Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI) subscales were administered to subjects. Magnetic resonance imaging was performed and medial temporal atrophy (MTA) and posterior atrophy (PA) were assessed visually. We examined associations among cognition, NPI score, plasma β-amyloid (Aβ) and clusterin levels, and regional brain atrophy in patients with AD by regression analysis. The mean MTA score was associated with the plasma Aβ1-42/Aβ1-40 ratio (r = 0.38, p = 0.01) and with MMSE scores (r = 0.43, p < 0.01). The plasma clusterin level was correlated with CDR sum of box and right-side PA scores (r = 0.28, p = 0.01 and r = 0.30, p = 0.03, respectively). Right-side PA scores were correlated significantly with NPI agitation/aggression (r = 0.30, p = 0.03) subscale scores. In conclusion, the plasma ratio of Aβ1-42/Aβ1-40 and clusterin level may be associated with different patterns of regional brain atrophy, which in turn may account for the clinical symptoms in patients with AD.
High throughput sequencing of RNA transcriptomes in Ruditapes philippinarum identifies genes involved in osmotic stress response
Authors: Nie Hongtao , Jiang Liwen , Chen Peng , Huo Zhongming , Yang Feng , Yan Xiwu 
Published: July 2017

AbstractRuditapes philippinarum, is an economically important marine bivalve species. The ability to cope with low salinity stress is quite important for the survival of aquatic species under natural conditions. In this study, the transcriptional response of the Manila clam to low salinity stress was characterized using RNA sequencing. The transcriptomes of a low salinity-treatment group (FRp1, FRp2), which survived under low salinity stress, and control group (SRp1, SRp2), which was not subjected to low salinity stress, were sequenced with the Illumina HiSeq platform. A total of 196,578 unigenes were generated. GO and KEGG analyses revealed that signal transduction, immune response, cellular component organization or biogenesis, and energy production processes were the most highly enriched pathways among the genes that were differentially expressed under low salinity stress. All these pathways could be assigned to the following biological functions in the low salinity tolerant Manila clam: signal response to low salinity stress, antioxidant response, intracellular free amino acid transport and metabolism, energy production and conversion, cell signaling pathways, and regulation of ionic content and cell volume. In summary, this is the first study using high-throughput sequencing to identify gene targets that could explain osmotic regulation mechanisms under salinity stress in R. philippinarum.
First detection of a THz water maser in NGC 7538-IRS1 with SOFIA and new 22 GHz e-MERLIN maps
Authors: Herpin F. , Baudry A. , Richards A. M. S. , Gray M. D. , Schneider N. , Menten K. M. , Wyrowski F. , Bontemps S. , Simon R. , Wiesemeyer H. 
Published: July 2017

Context. The formation of massive stars (M> 10M⊙, L > 103L⊙) is still not well understood. Accumulating a large amount of mass infalling within a single entity in spite of radiation pressure is possible if, in addition to several other conditions, enough thermal energy is released. Despite numerous water line observations over a broad range of energies obtained with the Herschel Space Observatory, observations were not able to trace the emission from the hot core around the newly forming protostellar object in most of the sources.
Aims. We wish to probe the physical conditions and water abundance in the inner layers of the host protostellar object NGC 7538-IRS1 using a highly excited H2O line. Water maser models predict that several THz water masers should be detectable in these objects. We therefore aim to detect the o-H2O 82,7−73,4 line in a star forming region for the first time. Model calculations have predicted this line to show maser action.
Methods. We present SOFIA observations of the o-H2O 82,7−73,4 line at 1296.41106 GHz and a 616−523 22 GHz e-MERLIN map of the region (the very first 22 GHz images made after the e-MERLIN upgrade). In order to be able to constrain the nature of the emission – thermal or maser – we used near-simultaneous observations of the 22 GHz water maser performed with the Effelsberg radiotelescope and e-MERLIN. A thermal water model using the RATRAN radiative transfer code is presented based on HIFI pointed observations. Molecular water abundances are derived for the hot core.
Results. The o-H2O 82,7−73,4 line is detected toward NGC 7538-IRS1 with one feature at the source velocity (–57.7 kms-1) and another one at –48.4 kms-1. We propose that the emission at the source velocity is consistent with thermal excitation and is excited in the innermost part of the IRS1a, in the closest circumstellar environment of the massive protostellar object. The other emission is very likely the first detection of a water THz maser line, pumped by shocks due to the IRS1b outflow, in a star-forming region. Assuming thermal excitation of the THz line, the water abundance in the hot core of NGC 7538-IRS1 is estimated to be 5.2 × 10-5 with respect to H2.
Primary Pyomyositis as Unusual Cause of Limp: Three Cases in Immunocompetent Children and Literature Review
Authors: Trapani Sandra , Richichi Simona , Lasagni Donatella , Resti Massimo , Drovandi Livia 
Published: July 2017

AbstractPyomyositis (PM) is an uncommon primary skeletal muscle infection caused mainly by Staphylococcus aureus that is characterized by single or multiple intramuscular abscess formation. In our ward, between 2013 and 2015, three children (two females and one male) aged from 2 to 12 years were diagnosed and treated for PM. Patients' medical records and imaging studies were examined retrospectively. All patients, otherwise healthy, complained of limp, fever, and severe lower limb pain. Skin scratch lesions were detected in two cases; one of them showed an edematous appearance of the affected area. Multifocal bilateral abscesses of gemini and gastrocnemius were detected in the youngest patient; right obturator and iliac muscles were affected in the second patient; and right gluteus and pyriform muscles were involved in the third patient. All patients showed elevated acute phase reactants and had normal serum creatinine kinase levels. Blood cultures and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) investigations were negative in all cases. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings included muscle enlargement, deep fascia, high signal in subcutaneous tissues, and postgadolinium abscess formation. No patient required surgical or percutaneous drainage. All three were treated conservatively with intravenous oxacillin, associated with ceftriaxone in the first patient and ceftazidime in the other two, followed by oral antibiotic therapy for a period ranging from 5 to 6 weeks. Pyomyositis must be considered as an unusual cause of limp in children of all ages. When promptly diagnosed and adequately treated, it has a favorable outcome without relapses or sequelae as occurred in all our patients.
Influence of Long-Term Benzodiazepine use on Neurocognitive Skills Related to Driving Performance in Patient Populations: A Review
Authors: van der Sluiszen Nick , Vermeeren Annemiek , Jongen Stefan , Vinckenbosch Frederick , Ramaekers Johannes 
Published: July 2017

AbstractAcute benzodiazepine intoxication produces severe impairment of neurocognitive skills related to driving. It is less clear whether such impairments also occur in patients who use benzodiazepines chronically. The current review evaluated neurocognitive skills of long-term benzodiazepine users and addressed 2 major questions: do long-term users develop tolerance for the impairing effects of benzodiazepines on neurocognitive performance, and if so, does tolerance warrant a change in driver fitness classification systems that currently deem users of benzodiazepines unfit to drive? Neurocognitive impairments were reported in patients who on average used benzodiazepines for 5–15 years. In addition, sensitivity to acute benzodiazepine impairment decreased in long-term users, suggesting (partial) tolerance. Definitions of clinical relevance of neurocognitive impairments in long-term users and how these were affected by duration of benzodiazepine use were generally lacking. Also, sensitivity of neurocognitive tasks to drug effects and their validity to predict fitness to drive were generally unknown. Because of these limitations, no firm conclusion can be drawn regarding a re-classification of long-term benzodiazepine effects on driver fitness.
The impairment test for football players: the missing link between sports and financial performance?
Authors: Maglio Roberto , Rey Andrea 
Published: July 2017

AbstractThe academic literature on financial reporting and accounting is limited in the football industry compared with other sectors of the economy. The purpose of this paper is to critically analyze the financial communications of football clubs with reference to the impairment test for football players. According to the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), an impairment test measures whether a balance sheet item is actually worth the amount stated on the balance sheet. The balance sheet amount should be reduced if the impairment test indicates a lower value. At the end of each reporting period, a football club is required to assess whether there is any indication that a footballer may be impaired. The paper aims to show that the financial communications and reporting disclosed by football clubs about the impairment test procedure is poor and inadequate. It is argued that the UEFA regulations have gaps that ought to be filled and that IFRS are not perfectly suitable for companies operating in specific business sectors such as the football industry. The study is based on an extensive literature review and an analysis of previous academic studies. In addition, this study investigates the best practices reported in the footnotes of the financial statements of several football clubs in Italy, England and Scotland. These clubs operate and play in different jurisdictions and so also adopt different accounting standards. The research study reveals that only a few of the clubs studied give information about the impairment test in the footnotes to financial statements. This confirms that the financial communications of football clubs are limited. Secondly, only one club studied (Rangers F.C.) acknowledges that a possible external indication for performing an impairment test might be the failure to achieve the sporting goals fixed at the beginning of the sporting season. Our findings suggest that UEFA, FIFA and local football associations should promote new regulations aimed to improve the accuracy of the financial disclosure of football clubs. They should also introduce as an important external indicator to perform the impairment. This kind of failure has a negative impact on football clubs’ revenues. These findings may also have interesting implications for other sporting organisations. This article is published as part of a collection on corporate governance, the sports industry and intellectual capital.
The interiorscape: amalgams and composites
Authors: Brooker Graeme 
Published: July 2017

AbstractThis essay will explore the implications of the reuse of existing buildings with which to make new interior space. It will advance the idea of the interiorscape: a fluid and dynamic landscape created by a series of particular activities, produced by agents in the field. I suggest that the interiorscape can be considered to be a spatial amalgam: a composite construct of historical, cultural and spatial formations. Interiorscapes are environments that are often devised for the realization of particular spatial identities for various forms of inhabitation, and are the result of a composite compound of both new and old material. In order to fully comprehend the interiorscape, this essay designates methods of reuse as progressions of integrative activities. These are processes that select, edit, reform, transform, and recontextualise existing objects, spaces and buildings. For clarity, Hegewald’s and Mitra’s description of reuse is employed. Based on their understanding of integrative processes, advancing the Interiorscape through the lens of reuse, leads to the origination and construction of what will be described as spaces that can be considered to be amalgams and composites. These are environments that, because they are constructed from many different elements, originated from numerous diverse timescales, they are what we term compounds: combinations of several distinctive physical and immaterial entities. All of which are amalgamated together, to forge new spatial meanings. This is the fundamental principle of the interiorscape. To conclude this essay, a critical underpinning of the interiorscape with the processes of reuse is drawn together, using various spatial exemplars with which to typify how scapes and amalgamated matter, produce unique compositely constructed interior environments. Entities, it is concluded, contain the fundamental principles of the conditions of interior space. This article is published as part of a collection on interiority.
European integration, social democratic Europeanism and the competitiveness discourse: a neo-Poulantzian approach to discursive policy analysis
Authors: Miró Joan 
Published: July 2017

AbstractThis article addresses the so-called institutional deficit in poststructuralist discourse theory by articulating a recent development of such a theory, the so-called discursive policy analysis as mainly elaborated by David Howarth and Jason Glynos, with neo-Poulantzian state theory, especially as re-worked by Bob Jessop. It then employs the resulting framework for analysing the internal socio-political logic of the European integration process, and asks why this process has not been challenged by any robust counter-hegemonic alternative despite the regressive consequences that its neo-liberal design has triggered. The argument developed in the article is that the increasing support of European social democracy, once Euro-critical, to the European project played a crucial role in this development. Nevertheless, such a thesis raises the following research question: how the forces leading the European integration process were able to gain and maintain the active support of European social democracy to that process despite the lack of opportunities for social democratic policies at the EU level? To address this question, the article engages with the main policy proposals developed by the European social democratic parties between the mid-1980s and early 2000s, paying special attention to the impacts of these proposals on EU’s institutional architecture. The textual analysis of both the social democratic and EU policy discourses reveals that the widespread appeal of a narrative structured around the “empty signifier” of “competitiveness” served to integrate the social democratic identity within the neo-liberal integration project, organizing a range of discursive logics that successfully marginalized critical worries about European integration. Nevertheless, the article ends by hypothesizing that the technocratic mode of European integration that this historical development has instituted, constitutes the main condition of possibility for the current emergence of Eurosceptic populist forces throughout the EU, so that in the medium term the neo-liberal-oriented European construction might lead to the destablization of the very foundations of the European order.
Cinema and the embodied mind: metaphor and simulation in understanding meaning in films
Authors: Coëgnarts Maarten 
Published: July 2017

AbstractOnly recently, the broad research program of embodied cognition has fuelled a substantial and ongoing body of research at the crossroads of cognitive science and film studies. Two influential theories of embodiment that have received considerable attention among film scholars are: Conceptual Metaphor Theory (originated in the field of cognitive linguistics) and Embodied Simulation Theory (originated in the field of neuroscience). Despite their intimate relationship, both theories have been rarely addressed together in the context of film studies. This article takes on the challenge of combining both perspectives into a unified embodied model for understanding conceptual meaning in cinema. The study is driven by two key assumptions, namely: (1) that meaning in film is metaphorically mapped within our sensory-motor system and (2) that embodied simulation processes in the brain allow for the viewer to infer this meaning from the evidence provided by the film. To clarify both assumptions, the article will present a discussion of the theme of embodiment at three levels of analysis: the conceptual level (how is meaning embodied in the human mind?), the formal level (how is this meaning structured in the visual mode of expression?) and the receptive level (how is the viewer able to infer this meaning on the basis of the evidence provided by the form?). The grounding problem of fictional subjectivity in cinema (that is, how are viewers able to attribute mental states to fictional characters in films?) will be used to test the validity of both claims.
How words for sensory experiences become terms
Authors: Dubois Danièle 
Published: July 2017

Given the double nature ofexperiencing foodas individual as well as shared experience and knowledge, the question is how to connect the observed variability of expressing such a sensory experience with a normalized requirement for developing (food) terminology. On the basis of descriptions of food experiences in actual practices involving the way food is consumed, evaluated and expressed by individuals – experts or not – in all their diversity, we propose to contribute cognitive (psychological and linguistic) expertise to terminology research. We analyze terms as cognitive units, defined within a psychological theory of natural categories as acts of meaning. In tracking the processes of terminological meaning construction in discourse we find intersubjective experience within the complex process of terminologization.
Hydrogen permeation through deformed and heat-treated Armco pure iron
Authors: Van den Eeckhout E. , Laureys A. , Van Ingelgem Y. , Verbeken K. 
Published: July 2017

The goal of this study is to obtain a deeper insight in the relation between hydrogen diffusion and hydrogen traps present in Armco pure iron. Cold deformation was applied to this material, which initially contained a limited amount of traps. The cold deformation was applied to increase the dislocation density and modify grain boundary characteristics. In this way, the hydrogen diffusivity decreased as the hydrogen trapping ability of the microstructure increased. A subsequent heat treatment allowed changing the density of microstructural defects again and consequently increased the hydrogen diffusion coefficient. In addition, studying blister formation showed that a higher degree of deformation caused more surface blisters, while recovery lowered the number of blisters. Electron backscatter diffraction characterisation provided the necessary input on the microstructural features and their evolution. Analysis of these samples allowed evaluating the correlation between hydrogen diffusion, blister formation and microstructural defects. This paper is part of a thematic issue on Hydrogen in Metallic Alloys
Abscisic acid modulates salicylic acid biosynthesis for systemic acquired resistance in tomato
Authors: Kusajima Miyuki , Okumura Yasuko , Fujita Moeka , Nakashita Hideo 
Published: July 2017

Abstract
Among the regulatory mechanisms of systemic acquired resistance (SAR) in tomato, antagonistic interaction between salicylic acid (SA) and abscisic acid (ABA) signaling pathways was investigated. Treatment with 1,2-benzisothiazol-3(2H)-one1,1-dioxide (BIT) induced SAR in tomato thorough SA biosynthesis. Pretreatment of ABA suppressed BIT-induced SAR including SA accumulation, suggesting that ABA suppressed SAR by inhibiting SA biosynthesis.
The role of teaching experience in language teachers’ perceptions of a top‐down curriculum change
Authors: Rahimi Mehrak , Alavi Jalil 
Published: July 2017

ABSTRACTThe current study aimed to investigate the role of teaching experience in language teachers’ perceptions of a top‐down curriculum change. One hundred twenty‐seven language teachers who have been experiencing the change for three years participated in the study. Their perceptions of change were quantitatively assessed by perceptions of change survey with three main components: new curriculum, teacher practices, and administrative support of change. Analysis of the quantitative data analysis indicates that experience is associated with more cautious perceptions of change and explains 9% of the variance in the results. To triangulate the findings of the quantitative data analysis, 10 experienced and 8 novice teachers took part in a structured interview and answered 10 questions regarding the old curriculum and the change, their role in the reform, and the administrator's support of the change. The result showed that both experienced and novice teachers are optimistic about the new syllabus. However, experienced teachers are more concerned about the practical issues of change such as time and lack of audiovisual aids. Further, they think that their agency and experiential professionalism are neglected in this change and the problems of implementing change have not been appropriately addressed by the administrators during the last three years.
A novel data structure to support ultra-fast taxonomic classification of metagenomic sequences with k-mer signatures
Authors: Liu Xinan , Yu Ye , Liu Jinpeng , Elliott Corrine F , Qian Chen , Liu Jinze 
Published: July 2017

Abstract

Motivation
Metagenomic read classification is a critical step in the identification and quantification of microbial species sampled by high-throughput sequencing. Although many algorithms have been developed to date, they suffer significant memory and/or computational costs. Due to the growing popularity of metagenomic data in both basic science and clinical applications, as well as the increasing volume of data being generated, efficient and accurate algorithms are in high demand.

Results
We introduce MetaOthello, a probabilistic hashing classifier for metagenomic sequencing reads. The algorithm employs a novel data structure, called l-Othello, to support efficient querying of a taxon using its k-mer signatures. MetaOthello is an order-of-magnitude faster than the current state-of-the-art algorithms Kraken and Clark, and requires only one-third of the RAM. In comparison to Kaiju, a metagenomic classification tool using protein sequences instead of genomic sequences, MetaOthello is three times faster and exhibits 20–30% higher classification sensitivity. We report comparative analyses of both scalability and accuracy using a number of simulated and empirical datasets.

Availability and implementation
MetaOthello is a stand-alone program implemented in C ++. The current version (1.0) is accessible via https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.808941.

Supplementary information
Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.