bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Preparation of large, ultra-flexible and free-standing nanomembranes of metal oxide–polymer composite and their gas permeation properties
Authors: Mersha Anteneh , Selyanchyn Roman , Fujikawa Shigenori 
Published: December 2017

Abstract
In this work, fabrication of free-standing nanomembranes of metal oxide (MOx) and polymers by simple spin-coating method is discussed. First, double-layer nanomembranes containing MOx and epoxy resin of polyethyleneimine and poly[(o-cresyl glycidyl ether)-co-formaldehyde] were prepared. Free-standing nanomembranes were successfully prepared, but defects formed in the metal oxide nanolayer during sharp bending of the nanomembrane. To overcome fragility of MOx nanolayer, poly(vinyl alcohol) nanolayers were introduced between MOx nanolayers by layer-by-layer (LbL) assembly process. The LbL nanomembrane was also free-standing and was highly flexible during macroscopic membrane manipulations. Even after transfer of the LbL nanomembrane onto a porous support, it did not have apparent cracks, confirmed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The LbL nanomembrane sustained low gas permeance, confirming the absence of significant defects, although it shows excellent flexibility. We believe that the presented LbL nanomembrane could be a platform useful for the design of molecular nanochannels, which is the next challenge for efficient gas separation.
Other People’s Money: Money’s Perceived Purchasing Power Is Smaller for Others Than for the Self
Authors: Polman Evan , Effron Daniel A , Thomas Meredith R 
Published: December 2017

AbstractNine studies find that people believe their money has greater purchasing power than the same quantity of others’ money. Using a variety of products from socks to clocks to chocolates, we found that participants thought the same amount of money could buy more when it belonged to themselves versus others—a pattern that extended to undesirable products. Participants also believed their money—in the form of donations, taxes, fines, and fees—would help charities and governments more than others’ money. We tested six mechanisms based on psychological distance, the endowment effect, wishful thinking, better-than-average biases, pain of payment, and beliefs about product preferences. Only a psychological distance mechanism received support. Specifically, we found that the perceived purchasing power of other people’s money decreased logarithmically as others’ psychological distance from the self increased, consistent with psychological distance’s subadditive property. Further supporting a psychological distance mechanism, we found that framing one’s own money as distant (vs. near) reduced the self-other difference in perceived purchasing power. Our results suggest that beliefs about the value of money depend on who owns it, and we discuss implications for marketing, management, psychology, and economics.
Epidemiology of systemic lupus erythematosus: an update
Authors: Stojan George , Petri Michelle 
Published: December 2017

Purpose of review
Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is the prototypical systemic autoimmune disease with a significant disease burden across the world among different ethnic, racial, and age groups. The pathophysiological understanding of SLE is constantly evolving and with it, the need for a better definition of the disease itself, for understanding the risk among the different affected populations, and for identifying the factors responsible for the damage accrual through the years.

Recent findings
More accurate estimates of incidence and prevalence of SLE among different ethnicities and minority groups not only in the USA, but also in Europe, Middle East, and Asia have provided new insights into the disease burden around the world. Despite advances in treatment, mortality among SLE patients remains high with significant ethnic and geographic variations.

Summary
Sex, race, and ethnicity significantly affect SLE incidence, prevalence, and mortality.
Molecular pathology of lung cancer: current status and perspectives
Authors: Oberndorfer Felicitas , Müllauer Leonhard 
Published: December 2017

Purpose of review
In this article, we summarize the current knowledge on molecular alterations in lung cancer that are targets for therapy, and provide an outlook on the future development of molecular pathology in precision oncology.

Recent findings
Lung cancer has become a paradigm for the success of molecular targeted therapies in solid tumors. Tyrosine kinase inhibitors are effective treatment options in adenocarcinoma patients with an EGFR, ALK, ROS1 or B-Raf Proto-Oncogene, Serine/Threonine kinase mutation. Additional molecular targets that are addressed in clinical trials include ERBB2, MET, RET, NTRK1 and FGFR. Therapies with antibodies that block the interaction of PD-L1 with PD-1 and thereby liberate an antitumor immune response have introduced a new era in cancer therapy with impressive therapeutic benefits. The high financial burden, treatment failures and therapeutic side effects of immunotherapies have prompted a search for biomarkers beyond PD-L1 expression, for example, tumor mutation load or immune cell profiling, that might more reliably identify patients that are likely to respond.

Summary
The discoveries of cancer research have been translated into the clinical management of lung cancer patients. So far, the approach of targeted therapy that is directed towards certain molecular alterations in a given tumor has been successful for adenocarcinomas, but not yet for squamous or small cell carcinomas. Further clinical progress will require a better understanding of the molecular interactions within cancer cells that will subsequently enable innovative drug designs. Diagnostic molecular pathology will be a provider of information on a tumor's features and thus, navigate precision cancer therapy.
Severity of button batteries ingestions: data from French Poison Control Centres between 1999 and 2015
Authors: Labadie Magali , O’Mahony Elisabeth , Capaldo Lise , Courtois Arnaud , Lamireau Thierry , Nisse Patrick , Blanc-Brisset Ingrid , Puskarczyk Emmanuel 
Published: December 2017

Background
Although the ingestion of button batteries is an infrequent situation, it leads to a significant risk of causing serious damage.

Objective
This study was carried out to describe all the cases of button battery ingestion recorded by the French Poison Control Centers over 16 years.

Patients and methods
All the cases of button battery ingestion were recorded from 1 January 1999 to the end of June 2015, analysed (age, sex, number of ingested button batteries, clinical signs and treatments) and graded for severity according to the poisoning severity score.

Results
The incidence of button batteries ingestions was constant over the 16-year period, with an average of 266±98.5 cases per year and a total of 4030 cases. Nevertheless, 21 cases were severe and two deaths occurred. Interestingly, for the two patients who died, the battery was stuck in the oesophagus and they presented anorexia and/or dysphagia, abdominal pain and fever and in one case, a melena 3 weeks after ingestion. Importantly, these symptoms were observed even if the battery was expelled in one fatal case.

Conclusion
Ingestions of button batteries still occur and may cause serious damage, especially in children, and if the button battery is stuck in the oesophagus as it might cause severe symptoms. Patients who have ingested a button battery must be directed to the emergency department for medical evaluation, even if the button battery has been expelled from the body and even more if gastrointestinal symptoms are present.
Genetic and Environmental Contributions to Sleep Quality and Low Back Pain: A Population-Based Twin Study
Authors: Pinheiro Marina B. , Morosoli Jose J. , Ferreira Manuela L. , Madrid-Valero Juan J. , Refshauge Kathryn , Ferreira Paulo H. , Ordoñana Juan R. 
Published: December 2017

ABSTRACT

Objective
The aim of the study was to estimate the extent to which the co-occurrence of poor sleep quality and low back pain is due to the same genetic and/or environmental risk factors or due to a causal association.

Methods
Cross-sectional data on sleep quality (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality index) and low back pain were collected in a population-based sample of adult twins (N = 2134) registered with the Murcia Twin Registry. Bivariate analysis and structural equation modeling were used.

Results
The phenotypic correlation between sleep quality and low back pain was 0.23 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.17–0.28). The best-fitting bivariate model included additive genetic and unique environmental factors. Genetic factors accounted for 26% (95% CI = 10–40) and 34% (95% CI = 25–43) of the variability of low back pain and sleep quality, respectively. The correlation between the genetic factors underlying each trait was r
G of 0.33 (95% CI = 0.03–0.66), and this overlap of genetic factors explained 42.5% of the phenotypic correlation. On the other hand, nonshared environmental factors of each variable were only fairly correlated r
E of 0.19 (95% CI = 0.06–0.31), although this overlap explained 57.5% of the phenotypic correlation. In addition, twins in monozygotic pairs with poorer sleep quality presented more often with low back pain than their co-twins (ρˆ = 0.25, p < .0001).

Conclusions
The data are compatible with a causal effect of sleep quality on low back pain (or the reverse effect), because the correlations between the genetic and unique environmental factors for each trait were significant and there was a significant correlation between the monozygotic twins' difference scores. Apart from environmental factors that affect both characteristics, there are many individual-specific events that influence low back pain but differ from those influencing sleep quality.
Monocyte Function and Clinical Outcomes in Febrile and Afebrile Patients With Severe Sepsis
Authors: Drewry Anne M. , Ablordeppey Enyo A. , Murray Ellen T. , Dalton Catherine M. , Fuller Brian M. , Kollef Marin H. , Hotchkiss Richard S. 
Published: December 2017

ABSTRACT

Introduction:
Absence of fever is associated with higher mortality in septic patients, but the reason for this is unknown. Immune dysfunction may be a potential link between failure to mount a fever and poor outcomes. The purpose of this study was to evaluate monocyte function and clinical surrogates of immunity (i.e., mortality and acquisition of secondary infections) in febrile and afebrile septic patients.

Methods:
Single-center, prospective cohort study of 92 critically ill septic patients. Patients were categorized into febrile (≥38.0°C) and afebrile (<38.0°C) groups based on temperature measurements within 24 hours of sepsis diagnosis. HLA-DR expression and LPS-induced TNF-α production were quantified on days 1–2, days 3–4, and days 6–8 after sepsis diagnosis. A repeated measures mixed models analysis was used to compare these markers between the two groups.

Results:
Forty-four patients (47.8%) developed a fever within 24 h of sepsis diagnosis. There were no significant differences in HLA-DR expression or LPS-induced TNF-α production between febrile and afebrile patients at any individual time point. However, HLA-DR expression significantly increased between days 1–2 and days 6–8 (median difference 8118 [IQR 1,662, 9,878] antibodies/cell, P = 0.002) in febrile patients, but not in afebrile patients (median difference 403 [−3,382, 3,507] antibodies/cell, P = 0.25). Afebrile patients demonstrated higher 28-day mortality (37.5% vs 18.2%) and increased acquisition of secondary infections (35.4% vs. 15.9%).

Conclusions:
Absence of fever is associated with suppressed HLA-DR expression over time, a finding suggestive of monocyte dysfunction in sepsis, as well as worse clinical outcomes.
Body Mass's Impact on Response to Fixed-Dose Vasopressin in Patients With Septic Shock
Authors: Torbic Heather , Sacha Gretchen L. , Bauer Seth R. , Lam Simon W. 
Published: December 2017

ABSTRACT

Introduction:
The effect of patient weight and body mass index (BMI) on hemodynamic response to vasoactive medications is not fully understood. In titratable vasopressors, this effect is less likely a concern due to the ability to titrate dose to response; however, with the use of fixed-dose vasopressin, patient weight and BMI may impact response.

Methods:
This was a single-center, retrospective cohort of patients who received fixed-dose vasopressin for septic shock for at least 6 h with concomitant catecholamines in the medical, surgical, or neurosciences intensive care unit (ICU) at a tertiary care center. The association of weight- and BMI-adjusted vasopressin dose with change in catecholamine dose and change in mean arterial pressure (MAP) were evaluated using Spearman's correlation. Patients were further stratified by World Health Organization BMI categories to evaluate secondary outcomes.

Results:
There were 938 patients included with a median weight of 86.3 (70.6–106.6) kg and BMI of 29.5 (24.9–36.2) kg/m2. There was no correlation between weight-adjusted vasopressin dose and change in catecholamine dose (r = −0.05, P = 0.13) or change in MAP (r = 0.04, P = 0.31) 2 h after initiation of vasopressin. Similarly, no correlation was found when evaluating change in catecholamine dose or MAP at 6 and 12 h after vasopressin initiation (all P values >0.05). Comparable findings were observed when evaluating correlations between BMI-adjusted vasopressin dose with change in MAP and catecholamine dose at all time points (all P values >0.05). BMI groupings were balanced with 238 patients (25.4%) having a BMI less than 25, 254 patients (27.1%) having BMI 25 to 30, 182 patients (19.4%) having BMI 30 to 35, and 264 patients (28.1%) having BMI more than 35. The median duration of mechanical ventilation and ICU free days were 3.99 (1.50–5.07) and 0 (0–1.6) days, respectively, with no differences observed when stratified by BMI (P = 0.59 and P = 0.83, respectively). In-hospital mortality was 64.8% and there was no difference among BMI groups (P = 0.35).

Conclusions:
In this large cohort of septic shock patients, adjusting vasopressin dose for weight and BMI did not impact changes in catecholamine doses or MAP. Duration of mechanical ventilation, ICU free days, and mortality after vasopressin initiation were not affected by BMI.
Trait paranoia shapes inter-subject synchrony in brain activity during an ambiguous social narrative
Authors: Finn Emily S. , Corlett Philip R. , Chen Gang , Bandettini Peter A. , Constable R. Todd 
Published: December 2017

ABSTRACTIndividuals often interpret the same event in different ways. How do personality traits modulate brain activity evoked by a complex stimulus? Here we report results from a naturalistic paradigm designed to draw out both neural and behavioral variation along a specific dimension of interest, namely paranoia. Participants listen to a narrative during functional MRI describing an ambiguous social scenario, written such that some individuals would find it highly suspicious, while others less so. Using inter-subject correlation analysis, we identify several brain areas that are differentially synchronized during listening between participants with high- and low trait-level paranoia, including theory-of-mind regions. Follow-up analyses indicate that these regions are more active to mentalizing events in high-paranoia individuals. Analyzing participants’ speech as they freely recall the narrative reveals semantic and syntactic features that also scale with paranoia. Results indicate that a personality trait can act as an intrinsic ‘prime’, yielding different neural and behavioral responses to the same stimulus across individuals.
Tracking the Canonical Computations of Perceptual Processing in a Quasi-Continuous Sensory Flow
Authors: King Jean-Rémi , Wyart Valentin 
Published: December 2017

AbstractThe canonical computations involved in sensory processing, such as neural adaptation and prediction-error signals, have mainly derived from studies investigating the neural responses elicited by a single stimulus. Here, we test whether these computations can be tracked in a quasi-continuous flow of visual stimulation, by correlating scalp electroencephalography (EEG) recordings to simulations of neuronal populations. Fifteen subjects were presented with ~5,000 visual gratings presented in rapid sequences. Our results show that we can simultaneously decode, from the EEG sensors, up to 4 visual stimuli presented sequentially. Temporal generalization and source analyses reveal that the information contained in each stimulus is processed by a “visual pipeline”: a long cascade of transient processing stages, which can overall encode multiple stimuli at once. Importantly, our data suggest that the early feedforward activity but not the late feedback responses are marked by an adaptation phenomenon. Overall, our approach demonstrates how theoretically-derived computations, as isolated in single-stimulus paradigms, can be generalized to conditions of a continuous flow of sensory information.
How biological attention mechanisms improve task performance in a large-scale visual system model
Authors: Lindsay Grace W. , Miller Kenneth D. 
Published: December 2017

AbstractHow does attentional modulation of neural activity enhance performance? Here we use a deep convolutional neural network as a large-scale model of the visual system to address this question. We model the feature similarity gain model of attention, in which attentional modulation is applied according to neural stimulus tuning. Using a variety of visual tasks, we show that neural modulations of the kind and magnitude observed experimentally lead to performance changes of the kind and magnitude observed experimentally. We find that, at earlier layers, attention applied according to tuning does not successfully propagate through the network, and has a weaker impact on performance than attention applied according to values computed for optimally modulating higher areas. This raises the question of whether biological attention might be applied at least in part to optimize function rather than strictly according to tuning. We suggest a simple experiment to distinguish these alternatives.
MAGpy: a reproducible pipeline for the downstream analysis of metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs)
Authors: Stewart Robert , Auffret Marc , Snelling Tim , Roehe Rainer , Watson Mick 
Published: December 2017

AbstractRecent advances in bioinformatics have enabled the rapid assembly of genomes from metagenomes (MAGs), and there is a need for reproducible pipelines that can annotate and characterise thousands of genomes simultaneously. Here we present MAGpy, a Snakemake pipeline that takes FASTA input and compares MAGs to several public databases, checks quality, assigns a taxonomy and draws a phylogenetic tree.
A frailty index for UK Biobank participants
Authors: Williams Dylan M. , Jylhävä Juulia , Pedersen Nancy L. , Hägg Sara 
Published: December 2017

AbstractBackgroundFrailty indices (FIs) measure variation in health between aging individuals. Researching FIs in resources with large-scale genetic and phenotypic data will provide insights into the causes and consequences of frailty. Thus, we aimed to develop an FI using UK Biobank data, a cohort study of 500,000 middle-aged and older adults.MethodsAn FI was calculated using 49 self-reported questionnaire items on traits covering health, presence of diseases and disabilities, and mental wellbeing, according to standard protocol. We used multiple imputation to derive FI values for the entire eligible sample in the presence of missing item data (N =500,336). To validate the measure, we assessed associations of the FI with age, sex, and risk of all-cause mortality (follow-up ≤ 9.7 years) using linear and Cox proportional hazards regression models.ResultsMean FI in the cohort was 0.125 (standard deviation = 0.075), and there was a curvilinear trend towards higher values in older participants. FI values were also marginally higher on average in women than men. In survival models, 10% higher baseline frailty (i.e. a 0.1 FI increment) was associated with higher risk of death (hazard ratio (HR) = 1.65; 95% confidence interval: 1.62, 1.68). Associations were stronger in younger participants than in old, and in men compared to women (HRs: 1.72 vs. 1.56, respectively).ConclusionsThe FI is a valid measure of frailty in UK Biobank. The cohort’s data are open-access for researchers to use, and we provide script for deriving this tool to facilitate future studies on frailty.
An eye-targeted double-RNAi screen reveals negative roles for the Archipelago ubiquitin ligase and CtBP inDrosophilaDpp-BMP2/4 signaling
Authors: Eusebio Nadia , Pereira Paulo S. 
Published: December 2017

AbstractTo regulate animal development, complex networks of signaling pathways maintain the correct balance between positive and negative growth signals, ensuring that tissues achieve proper sizes and differentiation patterns. InDrosophila, Dpp, a member of the TGFβ family, plays two main roles during larval eye development. In the early eye primordium, Dpp promotes growth and cell survival, but later on, it switches its function to induce a developmentally-regulated cell cycle arrest in the G1 phase and neuronal photoreceptor differentiation. To advance in the identification and characterization of regulators and targets of Dpp signaling required for retinal development, we carried out anin vivoeye-targeted double-RNAi screen to identifypunt(Type II TGFβ receptor) interactors. Using a set of 251 genes associated with eye development, we identified Ago, Brk, CtBP and Dad as negative regulators of the Dpp pathway. Interestingly, both Brk and Ago are negative regulators of tissue growth and Myc activity, and we show that increased tissue growth ability, by overexpression of Myc or CyclinD-Cdk4 is sufficient to partially rescuepunt-dependent growth and photoreceptor differentiation. Furthermore, we identify a novel role of CtBP in inhibiting Dpp-dependent Mad activation by phosphorylation, downstream or in parallel to Dad, the inhibitory Smad.
Geometry of the sample frequency spectrum and the perils of demographic inference
Authors: Rosen Zvi , Bhaskar Anand , Roch Sebastien , Song Yun S. 
Published: December 2017

AbstractThe sample frequency spectrum (SFS), which describes the distribution of mutant alleles in a sample of DNA sequences, is a widely used summary statistic in population genetics. The expected SFS has a strong dependence on the historical population demography and this property is exploited by popular statistical methods to infer complex demographic histories from DNA sequence data. Most, if not all, of these inference methods exhibit pathological behavior, however. Specifically, they often display runaway behavior in optimization, where the inferred population sizes and epoch durations can degenerate to 0 or diverge to infinity, and show undesirable sensitivity of the inferred demography to perturbations in the data. The goal of this paper is to provide theoretical insights into why such problems arise. To this end, we characterize the geometry of the expected SFS for piecewise-constant demographic histories and use our results to show that the aforementioned pathological behavior of popular inference methods is intrinsic to the geometry of the expected SFS. We provide explicit descriptions and visualizations for a toy model with sample size 4, and generalize our intuition to arbitrary sample sizesnusing tools from convex and algebraic geometry. We also develop a universal characterization result which shows that the expected SFS of a sample of size n under anarbitrarypopulation history can be recapitulated by a piecewise-constant demography with onlyκnepochs, whereκnis betweenn/2 and 2n– 1. The set of expected SFS for piecewise-constant demographies with fewer thanκnepochs is open and non-convex, which causes the above phenomena for inference from data.