bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Dose‐dependent effect of ghrelin on gastric emptying in rats and the related mechanism of action
Authors: Cao Shu‐Guang , Wu Hao , Cai Zhen‐Zhai 
Published: March 2016

AbstractThe aim of this study was to investigate the dose‐dependent effect of ghrelin on gastric emptying in rats and the related mechanism of action. Sixty Wistar rats were randomized into control and test groups, which respectively received intraperitoneal injection of normal saline and ghrelin at different doses (0.5 nmol/kg, 1.0 nmol/kg, 1.5 nmol/kg, 2.0 nmol/kg, and 2.5 nmol/kg). After 45 minutes, all rats were gavaged with semisolid paste. The gastric emptying rate was determined 30 minutes later, and the plasma cholecystokinin level was tested by radioimmunoassay. The mean gastric emptying rate in the test groups was significantly higher than in the control group (38.24 ± 7.15% and 27.18 ± 2.37%, respectively, p < 0.05). Medium and high doses of ghrelin (1.0 nmol/kg, 1.5 nmol/kg, 2.0 nmol/kg, and 2.5 nmol/kg), but not low dose (0.5 nmol/kg), accelerated the gastric emptying. In addition, the plasma cholecystokinin level in the test groups was significantly higher than in the control group (p < 0.01). The gastric emptying rate was positively correlated with the plasma cholecystokinin level (p < 0.01). Intraperitoneal injection of ghrelin at medium and high doses significantly accelerated gastric emptying in rats.
Classifying sanctions and designing a conceptual sanctioning process model for socio-technical systems
Authors: Nardin Luis G. , Balke-Visser Tina , Ajmeri Nirav , Kalia Anup K. , Sichman Jaime S. , Singh Munindar P. 
Published: March 2016

AbstractWe understand a socio-technical system (STS) as a cyber-physical system in which two or more autonomous parties interact via or about technical elements, including the parties’ resources and actions. As information technology begins to pervade every corner of human life, STSs are becoming ever more common, and the challenge ofgoverningSTSs is becoming increasingly important. We advocate a normative basis for governance, whereinnormsrepresent the standards of correct behaviour that each party in an STS expects from others. A major benefit of focussing on norms is that they provide a socially realistic view of interaction among autonomous parties that abstracts low-level implementation details. Overlaid on norms is the notion of asanctionas a negative or positive reaction to potentially any violation of or compliance with an expectation. Although norms have been well studied as regards governance for STSs, sanctions have not. Our understanding and usage of norms is inadequate for the purposes of governance unless we incorporate a comprehensive representation of sanctions.We address the aforementioned gap by proposing (i) a sanction typology that reflects the relevant features of sanctions, and (ii) a conceptual sanctioning process model providing a functional structure for sanctioning in STS. We demonstrate our contributions via a motivating scenario from the domain of renewable energy trading.
Completeness ofNeisseria meningitidisreporting in New York City, 1989–2010
Authors: ARAKAKI L. , NGAI S. , WEISS D. 
Published: March 2016

SUMMARYInvasive meningococcal disease (IMD) completeness of reporting has never been assessed in New York City (NYC). We conducted a capture–recapture study to assess completeness of reporting, comparing IMD reports made to the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) and records identified in the New York State hospital discharge database [Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System (SPARCS)] by ICD-9 codes from 1989 to 2010. Reporting completeness estimates were calculated for the entire study period, and stratified by year, age group, clinical syndrome, and reporting system. A chart review of hospital medical records from 2008 to 2010 was conducted to validate hospital coding and to adjust completeness estimates. Overall, 2194 unique patients were identified from DOHMH (n= 1300) and SPARCS (n= 1525); 631 (29%) were present in both. Completeness of IMD reporting was 41% [95% confidence interval (CI) 40–43]. Differences in completeness were found by age, clinical syndrome, and reporting system. The chart review found 33% of hospital records from 2008 to 2010 had no documentation of IMD. Removal of those records improved completeness of reporting to 51% (95% CI 49–53). Our data showed a low concordance between what is reported to DOHMH and what is coded by hospitals as IMD. Additional guidance to clinicians on IMD reporting criteria may improve completeness of IMD reporting.
Transparent fault tolerance for scalable functional computation
Authors: STEWART ROBERT , MAIER PATRICK , TRINDER PHIL 
Published: March 2016

AbstractReliability is set to become a major concern on emergent large-scale architectures. While there are many parallel languages, and indeed many parallel functional languages, very few address reliability. The notable exception is the widely emulated Erlang distributed actor model that provides explicit supervision and recovery of actors with isolated state. We investigate scalabletransparentfault tolerant functional computation withautomaticsupervision and recovery of tasks. We do so by developingHdpH-RS, a variant of the Haskell distributed parallel Haskell (HdpH) DSL with Reliable Scheduling. Extending the distributed work stealing protocol of HdpH for task supervision and recovery is challenging. To eliminate elusive concurrency bugs, we validate the HdpH-RS work stealing protocol using the SPIN model checker. HdpH-RS differs from the actor model in that its principal entities are tasks, i.e. independent stateless computations, rather than isolated stateful actors. Thanks to statelessness, fault recovery can be performed automatically and entirely hidden in the HdpH-RS runtime system. Statelessness is also key for proving a crucial property of the semantics of HdpH-RS: fault recovery does not change the result of the program, akin to deterministic parallelism. HdpH-RS provides a simple distributed fork/join-style programming model, with minimal exposure of fault tolerance at the language level, and a library of higher level abstractions such as algorithmic skeletons. In fact, the HdpH-RS DSL is exactly the same as the HdpH DSL, hence users can opt in or out of fault tolerant execution without any refactoring. Computations in HdpH-RS are always as reliable as the root node, no matter how many nodes and cores are actually used. We benchmark HdpH-RS on conventional clusters and an High Performance Computing platform: all benchmarks survive Chaos Monkey random fault injection; the system scales well e.g. up to 1,400 cores on the High Performance Computing; reliability and recovery overheads are consistently low even at scale.
Love at second sight: Sequential dependence of facial attractiveness in an on-line dating paradigm
Authors: Taubert Jessica , Van der Burg Erik , Alais David 
Published: March 2016

AbstractMillions of people use online dating sites each day, scanning through streams of face images in search of an attractive mate. Face images, like most visual stimuli, undergo processes whereby the current percept is altered by exposure to previous visual input. Recent studies using rapid sequences of faces have found that perception of face identity is biased towards recently seen faces, promoting identity-invariance over time and this has been extended to perceived face attractiveness. In this paper we adapt the rapid sequence task to ask a question about mate selection pertinent in the digital age. We designed a binary task mimicking the selection interface currently popular in online dating websites in which observers typically make binary decisions (attractive or unattractive) about each face in a sequence of unfamiliar faces. Our findings show that binary attractiveness decisions are not independent: we are more likely to rate a face as attractive when the preceding face was attractive than when it was unattractive.
RepA-WH1, the agent of an amyloid proteinopathy in bacteria, builds oligomeric pores through lipid vesicles
Authors: Fernández Cristina , Núñez-Ramírez Rafael , Jiménez Mercedes , Rivas Germán , Giraldo Rafael 
Published: March 2016

AbstractRepA-WH1 is a disease-unrelated protein that recapitulates in bacteria key aspects of human amyloid proteinopathies: i) It undergoes ligand-promoted amyloidogenesis in vitro; ii) its aggregates are able to seed/template amyloidosis on soluble protein molecules; iii) its conformation is modulated by Hsp70 chaperones in vivo, generating transmissible amyloid strains; and iv) causes proliferative senescence. Membrane disruption by amyloidogenic oligomers has been found for most proteins causing human neurodegenerative diseases. Here we report that, as for PrP prion and α-synuclein, acidic phospholipids also promote RepA-WH1 amyloidogenesis in vitro. RepA-WH1 molecules bind to liposomes, where the protein assembles oligomeric membrane pores. Fluorescent tracer molecules entrapped in the lumen of the vesicles leak through these pores and RepA-WH1 can then form large aggregates on the surface of the vesicles without inducing their lysis. These findings prove that it is feasible to generate in vitro a synthetic proteinopathy with a minimal set of cytomimetic components and support the view that cell membranes are primary targets in protein amyloidoses.
MTDH genetic variants in colorectal cancer patients
Authors: Gnosa Sebastian , Ticha Ivana , Haapaniemi Staffan , Sun Xiao-Feng 
Published: March 2016

AbstractThe colorectal carcinogenesis is a complex process encompassing genetic alterations. The oncoprotein AEG-1, encoded by the MTDH gene, was shown previously to be involved in colorectal cancer (CRC). The aim of this study was to determine the frequency and the spectrum of MTDH variants in tumor tissue, and their relationship to clinicopathological variables in CRC patients. The study included tumors from 356 unselected CRC patients. Mutation analysis of the MTDH gene, including coding region and adjacent intronic sequences, was performed by direct DNA sequencing. The corresponding normal colorectal tissue was analyzed in the carriers of exonic variant to confirm germline or somatic origin. We detected 42 intronic variants, where 25 were novel. Furthermore, we found 8 exonic variants of which four, one missense (c.977C > G-germline) and three frameshift mutations (c.533delA-somatic, c.1340dupA-unknown origin, c.1731delA-unknown origin), were novel. In silico prediction analyses suggested four deleterious variants (c.232G > T, c.533delA, c.1340dupA, and c.1731delA). There were no correlations between the MTDH variants and tumor stage, differentiation or patient survival. We described several novel exonic and intronic variants of the MTDH gene. The detection of likely pathogenic truncating mutations and alterations in functional protein domains indicate their clinical significance, although none of the variants had prognostic potential.
Contrasting responses of water use efficiency to drought across global terrestrial ecosystems
Authors: Yang Yuting , Guan Huade , Batelaan Okke , McVicar Tim R. , Long Di , Piao Shilong , Liang Wei , Liu Bing , Jin Zhao , Simmons Craig T. 
Published: March 2016

AbstractDrought is an intermittent disturbance of the water cycle that profoundly affects the terrestrial carbon cycle. However, the response of the coupled water and carbon cycles to drought and the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Here we provide the first global synthesis of the drought effect on ecosystem water use efficiency (WUE = gross primary production (GPP)/evapotranspiration (ET)). Using two observational WUE datasets (i.e., eddy-covariance measurements at 95 sites (526 site-years) and global gridded diagnostic modelling based on existing observation and a data-adaptive machine learning approach), we find a contrasting response of WUE to drought between arid (WUE increases with drought) and semi-arid/sub-humid ecosystems (WUE decreases with drought), which is attributed to different sensitivities of ecosystem processes to changes in hydro-climatic conditions. WUE variability in arid ecosystems is primarily controlled by physical processes (i.e., evaporation), whereas WUE variability in semi-arid/sub-humid regions is mostly regulated by biological processes (i.e., assimilation). We also find that shifts in hydro-climatic conditions over years would intensify the drought effect on WUE. Our findings suggest that future drought events, when coupled with an increase in climate variability, will bring further threats to semi-arid/sub-humid ecosystems and potentially result in biome reorganization, starting with low-productivity and high water-sensitivity grassland.
The Effect of Excess Electron and hole on CO2 Adsorption and Activation on Rutile (110) surface
Authors: Yin Wen-Jin , Wen Bo , Bandaru Sateesh , Krack Matthias , Lau MW , Liu Li-Min 
Published: March 2016

AbstractCO2 capture and conversion into useful chemical fuel attracts great attention from many different fields. In the reduction process, excess electron is of key importance as it participates in the reaction, thus it is essential to know whether the excess electrons or holes affect the CO2 conversion. Here, the first-principles calculations were carried out to explore the role of excess electron on adsorption and activation of CO2 on rutile (110) surface. The calculated results demonstrate that CO2 can be activated as CO2 anions or CO2 cation when the system contains excess electrons and holes. The electronic structure of the activated CO2 is greatly changed, and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital of CO2 can be even lower than the conduction band minimum of TiO2, which greatly facilities the CO2 reduction. Meanwhile, the dissociation process of CO2 undergoes an activated CO2− anion in bend configuration rather than the linear, while the long crossing distance of proton transfer greatly hinders the photocatalytic reduction of CO2 on the rutile (110) surface. These results show the importance of the excess electrons on the CO2 reduction process.
SIK2 regulates fasting-induced PPARα activity and ketogenesis through p300
Authors: Zhang Zhen-Ning , Gong Lulu , Lv Sihan , Li Jian , Tai Xiaolu , Cao Wenqi , Peng Bing , Qu Shen , Li Weida , Zhang Chao , Luan Bing 
Published: March 2016

AbstractFatty acid oxidation and subsequent ketogenesis is one of the major mechanisms to maintain hepatic lipid homeostasis under fasting conditions. Fasting hormone glucagon has been shown to stimulate ketone body production through activation of PPARα; however, the signal pathway linking glucagon to PPARα is largely undiscovered. Here we report that a SIK2-p300-PPARα cascade mediates glucagon’s effect on ketogenesis. p300 interacts with PPARα through a conserved LXXLL motif and enhances its transcriptional activity. SIK2 disrupts p300-PPARα interaction by direct phosphorylation of p300 at Ser89, which in turn decreases PPARα-mediated ketogenic gene expression. Moreover, SIK2 phosphorylation defective p300 (p300 S89A) shows increased interaction with PPARα and abolishes suppression of SIK2 on PPARα-mediated ketogenic gene expression in liver. Taken together, our results unveil the signal pathway that mediates fasting induced ketogenesis to maintain hepatic lipid homeostasis.
Looking at the carcinogenicity of human insulin analogues via the intrinsic disorder prism
Authors: Redwan Elrashdy M. , Linjawi Moustafa H. , Uversky Vladimir N. 
Published: March 2016

AbstractTherapeutic insulin, in its native and biosynthetic forms as well as several currently available insulin analogues, continues to be the protein of most interest to researchers. From the time of its discovery to the development of modern insulin analogues, this important therapeutic protein has passed through several stages and product generations. Beside the well-known link between diabetes and cancer risk, the currently used therapeutic insulin analogues raised serious concerns due to their potential roles in cancer initiation and/or progression. It is possible that structural variations in some of the insulin analogues are responsible for the appearance of new oncogenic species with high binding affinity to the insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1) receptor. The question we are trying to answer in this work is: are there any specific features of the distribution of intrinsic disorder propensity within the amino acid sequences of insulin analogues that may provide an explanation for the carcinogenicity of the altered insulin protein?
Comparative Proteomics Analysis Reveals L-Arginine Activates Ethanol Degradation Pathways in HepG2 Cells
Authors: Yan Guokai , Lestari Retno , Long Baisheng , Fan Qiwen , Wang Zhichang , Guo Xiaozhen , Yu Jie , Hu Jun , Yang Xingya , Chen Changqing , Liu Lu , Li Xiuzhi , Purnomoadi Agung , Achmadi Joelal , Yan Xianghua 
Published: March 2016

AbstractL-Arginine (Arg) is a versatile amino acid that plays crucial roles in a wide range of physiological and pathological processes. In this study, to investigate the alteration induced by Arg supplementation in proteome scale, isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantification (iTRAQ) based proteomic approach was employed to comparatively characterize the differentially expressed proteins between Arg deprivation (Ctrl) and Arg supplementation (+Arg) treated human liver hepatocellular carcinoma (HepG2) cells. A total of 21 proteins were identified as differentially expressed proteins and these 21 proteins were all up-regulated by Arg supplementation. Six amino acid metabolism-related proteins, mostly metabolic enzymes, showed differential expressions. Intriguingly, Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) based pathway analysis suggested that the three ethanol degradation pathways were significantly altered between Ctrl and +Arg. Western blotting and enzymatic activity assays validated that the key enzymes ADH1C, ALDH1A1 and ALDH2, which are mainly involved in ethanol degradation pathways, were highly differentially expressed and activated between Ctrl and +Arg in HepG2 cells. Furthermore, 10 mM Arg significantly attenuated the cytotoxicity induced by 100 mM ethanol treatment (P < 0.0001). This study is the first time to reveal that Arg activates ethanol degradation pathways in HepG2 cells.
Relations Among Detection of Syllable Stress, Speech Abnormalities, and Communicative Ability in Adults With Autism Spectrum Disorders
Authors: Kargas Niko , López Beatriz , Morris Paul , Reddy Vasudevi 
Published: March 2016

PurposeTo date, the literature on perception of affective, pragmatic, and grammatical prosody abilities in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) has been sparse and contradictory. It is interesting to note that the primary perception of syllable stress within the word structure, which is crucial for all prosody functions, remains relatively unexplored in ASD. Thus, in the current study, we explored syllable stress perception sensitivity and its relationship to speech production abnormalities and communicative ability in adults with ASD.MethodA same–different syllable stress perception task using pairs of identical 4-syllable words was delivered to 42 adults with/without high-functioning ASD, matched for age, to investigate primary speech perception ability in ASD. Speech production and communicative ability in ASD was measured using the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (Lord et al., 2000).ResultsAs predicted, the results showed that adults with ASD were less sensitive in making judgments about syllable stress relative to controls. Also, partial correlations revealed a key association of speech production abnormalities with stress perception sensitivity, rather than communicative ability.ConclusionsOur findings provide empirical evidence for deficits on primary syllable stress perception in ASD and its role on sociocommunicative difficulties. This information could facilitate the development of effective interventions for speech and language therapy and social communication.
The Development of a Universally Accepted Sacral Fracture Classification: A Survey of AOSpine and AOTrauma Members
Authors: Schroeder Gregory D. , Kurd Mark F. , Kepler Christopher K. , Krieg James C. , Wilson Jefferson R. , Kleweno Conor P. , Firoozabadi Reza , Bellabarba Carlo , Kandizoria Frank , Schnake Klause J. , Rajesekaran S. , Dvorak Marcel F. , Chapman Jens R. , Vialle Luiz R. , Oner F. C. , Vaccaro Alexander R. 
Published: March 2016

Study Design Survey study. Objective To determine the global perspective on controversial aspects of sacral fracture classifications. Methods While developing the AOSpine Sacral Injury Classification System, a survey was sent to all members of AOSpine and AOTrauma. The survey asked four yes-or-no questions to help determine the best way to handle controversial aspects of sacral fractures in future classifications. Chi-square tests were initially used to compare surgeons’ answers to the four key questions of the survey, and then the data was modeled through multivariable logistic regression analysis. Results A total of 474 surgeons answered all questions in the survey. Overall 86.9% of respondents felt that the proposed hierarchical nature of injuries was appropriate, and 77.8% of respondents agreed that that the risk of neurologic injury is highest in a vertical fracture through the foramen. Almost 80% of respondents felt that the separation of injuries based on the integrity of L5–S1 facet was appropriate, and 83.8% of surgeons agreed that a nondisplaced sacral U fracture is a clinically relevant entity. Conclusion This study determines the global perspective on controversial areas in the injury patterns of sacral fractures and demonstrates that the development of a comprehensive and universally accepted sacral classification is possible.
Effects of Family, Feeding Frequency, and Alternate Food Type on Body Size and Survival of Hatchery-Produced and Wild-Caught Lake Sturgeon Larvae
Authors: Bauman John M , Woodward Brittany M , Baker Edward A , Marsh Terence L , Scribner Kim T 
Published: March 2016

Abstract
Studies that evaluate the effects of different feeding strategies (e.g., feeding frequency and food type) on larval fish growth and survival are important for aquaculture productivity. We quantified the effects of common feeding strategies on the growth and survival of larval Lake Sturgeon Acipenser fulvescens. At 30 d after initiation of exogenous feeding, the TL and body weight of larvae reared under a treatment regime of three feedings per day (TL [mean ± SE] = 46.83 ± 0.43 mm; body weight = 0.41 ± 0.01 g) were significantly greater than those of fish reared under a regime of 12 feedings per day (TL = 45.73 ± 0.54 mm; body weight = 0.39 ± 0.02 g). Alternate food type and family were documented to have significant effects on the body weight of hatchery-produced larvae at 14 d postexogenous feeding: body weight was significantly greater for larvae that were fed brine shrimp Artemia spp. (family 1 [mean ± SE]: 0.31 ± 0.004 g; family 2: 0.35 ± 0.006 g) than for larvae that received formulated food (family 1: 0.06 ± 0.006 g; family 2: 0.08 ± 0.014 g). Furthermore, alternate food type had a significant effect on the survival of hatchery-produced larvae at 14 d postexogenous feeding, as survival was greater for larvae that were fed Artemia (97.0 ± 3.0%) than for those that were given formulated food (34.0 ± 7.0%). In addition, alternate food type had significant effects on the body weight and survival of wild-caught Lake Sturgeon larvae, with both variables being greater for fish that received Artemia (body weight [mean ± SE] = 0.41 ± 0.02 g; survival = 94.0 ± 2.0%) than for fish that were given formulated food (body weight = 0.03 ± 0.01 g; survival = 17.0 ± 6.0%). Our results provide guidance to direct feeding strategies that can be used to develop standard operating procedures for the culture of Lake Sturgeon, a species of conservation concern.