bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Implications of Stoma Formation as Part of Cytoreductive Surgery and Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy
Authors: Jacoby H. , Berger Y. , Barda L. , Sharif N. , Zager Y. , Lebedyev A. , Gutman M. , Hoffman A. 
Published: January 2018

AbstractBackgroundFormation of protective stoma as part of cytoreductive surgery and hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (CRS–HIPEC) may be an effective tool in reducing anastomotic leak incidence. Our aim was to evaluate the incidence and implications of stoma formation during CRS–HIPEC and to examine whether a creation of protective stoma reduces the postoperative morbidity.MethodsA cohort retrospective analysis of all CRS–HIPEC procedures performed between 2004 and 2016 was conducted. Predicting factors for stoma formation were assessed by comparing all patients who underwent stoma formation to those who did not; both groups were then restricted to cases with ≥2 bowel anastomoses and compared in terms of perioperative outcomes in order to determine whether protective stoma confers a morbidity benefit.ResultsOne hundred and ninety‐nine CRS–HIPEC procedures were performed on 186 patients. Thirty‐four patients (17%) underwent stoma formation, 24 of them as protective stoma. Formation of a stoma was correlated with higher peritoneal carcinomatosis index score (13.6 ± 8 vs. 9.5 ± 7.7, p = 0.007), larger number of organs resected (p < 0.001), greater number of anastomoses (p < 0.001), prolonged operative time (8.1 ± 2.7 vs. 6.6 ± 2.2 h, p = 0.002), and prolonged hospital stay (12 vs. 8.5 days, p = 0.001). In procedures requiring ≥2 anastomoses, formation of protective stoma reduced the anastomotic leak rate (6 vs. 37%, p = 0.025), the morbidity rate (6 vs. 41%, p = 0.017), and reoperation rate (0 vs. 28%, p = 0.03). Overall, 15 patients (44%) underwent stoma reversal, 3 of whom had a complication treated non‐operatively.ConclusionsProtective stoma should be considered in extensive CRS–HIPEC procedures requiring two or more bowel anastomoses in order to reduce the postoperative morbidity rate.
Laws of Large Numbers for Non-Homogeneous Markov Systems
Authors: Vassiliou P.-C. G. 
Published: January 2018

AbstractIn the present we establish Laws of Large Numbers for Non-Homogeneous Markov Systems and Cyclic Non-homogeneous Markov systems. We start with a theorem, where we establish, that for a NHMS under certain conditions, the fraction of time that a membership is in a certain state, asymptotically converges in mean square to the limit of the relative population structure of memberships in that state. We continue by proving a theorem which provides the conditions under which the mode of covergence is almost surely. We continue by proving under which conditions a Cyclic NHMS is Cesaro strongly ergodic. We then proceed to prove, that for a Cyclic NHMS under certain conditions the fraction of time that a membership is in a certain state, asymptotically converges in mean square to the limit of the relative population structure in the strongly Cesaro sense of memberships in that state. We then proceed to establish a founding Theorem, which provides the conditions under which, the relative population structure asymptotically converges in the strongly Cesaro sense with geometrical rate. This theorem is the basic instrument missing to prove, under what conditions the Law of Large Numbers for a Cycl-NHMS is with almost surely mode of convergence. Finally, we present two applications firstly for geriatric and stroke patients in a hospital and secondly for the population of students in a University system.
Fungal succession and decomposition of Pinus densiflora snags
Authors: Fukasawa Yu 
Published: January 2018

AbstractFungal decomposition of coarse woody debris has an essential role in the biodiversity and carbon and nutrient dynamics in forest ecosystems. However, our knowledge of the effects of fungal species and within‐stem diversity on wood decay is limited. In this paper, I described the process of wood decay and fungal succession of pine (Pinus densiflora) snags using chronosequence method. The results showed that the decay process differed between sapwood and heartwood. Sapwood decayed faster than heartwood, despite their initial densities being the same. Sapwood decay occurred in two phases. The first phase involved a typical white‐rot process wherein acid‐unhydrolysable residue (lignin) and holocellulose decayed simultaneously. White‐rot species, such as Trichaptum abietinum and Phanerochaete sordida, were the dominant fungi and were likely the functional decomposers in this phase. The second phase involved selective decomposition of holocellulose. The dominant fungi in this phase included soft‐rot species, such as Trichoderma spp., that can decompose holocellulose in wood that was previously delignified by white‐rot species. In contrast to sapwood, heartwood experienced less loss of wood density and no clear change in lignocellulose composition, even in later stages of decay. Dominant fungi in heartwood included the latent inhabitants of living pine trees, such as Ascocoryne cylichnium, which is known to reduce colonization and wood decay by strong decomposers. These results suggest that, in addition to decay‐resistant chemicals present in heartwood, the differences in the fungal communities present in heartwood and sapwood were responsible for the differences in their decay rates.
A prognostic model of Alzheimer's disease relying on multiple longitudinal measures and time‐to‐event data
Authors: Li Kan , O'Brien Richard , Lutz Michael , Luo Sheng ,   The Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative
Published: January 2018

AbstractIntroductionCharacterizing progression in Alzheimer's disease is critically important for early detection and targeted treatment. The objective was to develop a prognostic model, based on multivariate longitudinal markers, for predicting progression‐free survival in patients with mild cognitive impairment.MethodsThe information contained in multiple longitudinal markers was extracted using multivariate functional principal components analysis and used as predictors in the Cox regression models. Cross‐validation was used for selecting the best model based on Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative–1. External validation was conducted on Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative–2.ResultsModel comparison yielded a prognostic index computed as the weighted combination of historical information of five neurocognitive longitudinal markers that are routinely collected in observational studies. The comprehensive validity analysis provided solid evidence of the usefulness of the model for predicting Alzheimer's disease progression.DiscussionThe prognostic model was improved by incorporating multiple longitudinal markers. It is useful for monitoring disease and identifying patients for clinical trial recruitment.
Data re-use for preliminary thermal-mechanical design of gas turbine engines
Authors: Lu Gan , Wang Feng , di Mare Luca , Moss Mike , May Gordon 
Published: January 2018

ABSTRACTThermal-mechanical design is a time-consuming process even at its preliminary design stage. This is due to the large number of components and boundary condition data, the complexity of the geometry, and the iterative nature of the design process. The conventional design process separates the geometric and physical models and results in considerable human interventions during the design process. By assigning the breakpoints to engine assembly features as internal parameters, this article reports a novel feature-based design approach where the associated boundary conditions are represented parametrically along the feature geometric contours. They are updated automatically as per the geometrical changes, including topological changes, and hence bridging the gap between the geometric and physical models. The current approach enables data re-use of both the geometries and physical information from previous engine designs to generate new designs, dispensing with the excessive human interventions. Although the methodology is generic and applicable to other design scenarios, its capability is demonstrated in this article by some representative challenging industrial applications, sitting in the 2D preliminary gas-turbine design domain. The test cases show that the method can significantly reduce the time-cost of the iterative thermal-mechanical design flow.
Generations of Memory: Elements of a Conceptual Framework
Authors: Wydra Harald 
Published: January 2018

AbstractThis paper links memory to generations of meaning and argues that generational belonging mediates access to memory. Generations of meaning create memories because they connect experiences, beyond the lifetime of individuals, with the wider cultural existence of social communities. Such connections can be understood as a hermeneutic and relational process. Meaning is not a factor of causation, but is cumulative, as meanings are recollected across generational thresholds of experience. This paper conceptualizes such thresholds of experience through three lines of enquiry. First, generativity produces new carriers of culture and memory, which sustain perceptions of historical beginnings. Second, generational change is a condition of liminality and in-betweenness, which people work to transcend by mediating fractures and thus connecting past problem spaces to frameworks of anticipation. Third, narrative commitments emerge as memories are recollected across different temporalities, incommensurability, and forgetting. Memory is not the product of one determining generation, but relational, cumulative, and stretched out in time.
“Essential Collaborators”: Locating Middle Eastern Geneticists in the Global Scientific Infrastructure, 1950s–1970s
Authors: Burton Elise K. 
Published: January 2018

AbstractIn the aftermath of World War II, a new international infrastructure based on United Nations agencies took charge of coordinating global biomedical research. Through this infrastructure, European and American geneticists hoped to collect and test blood samples from human populations across the world to understand processes of human heredity and evolution and trace the historical migrations of different groups. They relied heavily on local scientific workers to help them identify and access populations of interest, although they did not always acknowledge the critical role non-Western collaborators played in their studies. Using scientific publications, personal correspondence, and oral histories, I investigate the collaborative relationships between Western scientists, their counterparts in the Middle East, and the human subjects of genetic research. I comparatively examine the experiences of Israeli and Iranian scientists and physicians engaged in genetic anthropology and medical genetics between the mid-1950s and the late 1970s, noting how they both applied nationalist historical narratives to their genetic data and struggled to establish the value of their local knowledge and scientific labor. I argue that the Israeli and Iranian experience of transnational scientific collaboration is representative of how Western scientists relegated their collaborators from “developing” regions to a subordinate positionality as collection agents or native informants. Meanwhile, within their own countries, the elite professional identity of Israeli and Iranian scientists granted them the authority to manipulate their research subjects, who often belonged to marginalized minority communities, and to interpret their biology and history within contexts of Jewish and Persian nationalism.
Which Roads (if any) to Social Investment? The Recalibration of EU Welfare States at the Crisis Crossroads (2000–2014)
Authors: RONCHI STEFANO 
Published: January 2018

AbstractThe social investment approach has been advocated as a blueprint for recasting European welfare states since the years of the Lisbon Strategy. After the Euro crisis squeezed the fiscal space available for welfare recalibration, the question has been raised as to whether social investment could withstand the economic turmoil. Relying on a new welfare expenditure dataset constructed from various Eurostat sources, this article looks at the budgetary recalibration of 27 EU welfare states from the launch of the Lisbon Strategy to the aftermath of the Euro crisis (2000 to 2014). It compares the financial efforts that governments have put into social investment- and social protection-oriented policies, highlighting the different trajectories taken by EU welfare states at the crisis crossroads. Four scenarios for welfare recalibration are put forward, based on the social investment perspective and its critiques. The results show that the overall progress made by social investment in welfare budgets since 2000 came to a halt with the outbreak of the crisis. Bleaker scenarios materialised, whereas EU welfare states pursued retrenchment rather than investment, or had to face harsher budgetary trade-offs, expanding social investment to the detriment of social protection.
Membrane shape-mediated wave propagation of cortical protein dynamics
Authors: Wu Zhanghan , Su Maohan , Tong Cheesan , Wu Min , Liu Jian 
Published: January 2018

AbstractImmune cells exhibit stimulation-dependent traveling waves in the cortex, much faster than typical cortical actin waves. These waves reflect rhythmic assembly of both actin machinery and peripheral membrane proteins such as F-BAR domain-containing proteins. Combining theory and experiments, we develop a mechanochemical feedback model involving membrane shape changes and F-BAR proteins that render the cortex an interesting dynamical system. We show that such cortical dynamics manifests itself as ultrafast traveling waves of cortical proteins, in which the curvature sensitivity-driven feedback always constrains protein lateral diffusion in wave propagation. The resulting protein wave propagation mainly reflects the spatial gradient in the timing of local protein recruitment from cytoplasm. We provide evidence that membrane undulations accompany these protein waves and potentiate their propagation. Therefore, membrane shape change and protein curvature sensitivity may have underappreciated roles in setting high-speed cortical signal transduction rhythms.
Green synthesis of graphene oxide by seconds timescale water electrolytic oxidation
Authors: Pei Songfeng , Wei Qinwei , Huang Kun , Cheng Hui-Ming , Ren Wencai 
Published: January 2018

AbstractGraphene oxide is highly desired for printing electronics, catalysis, energy storage, separation membranes, biomedicine, and composites. However, the present synthesis methods depend on the reactions of graphite with mixed strong oxidants, which suffer from explosion risk, serious environmental pollution, and long-reaction time up to hundreds of hours. Here, we report a scalable, safe and green method to synthesize graphene oxide with a high yield based on water electrolytic oxidation of graphite. The graphite lattice is fully oxidized within a few seconds in our electrochemical oxidation reaction, and the graphene oxide obtained is similar to those achieved by the present methods. We also discuss the synthesis mechanism and demonstrate continuous and controlled synthesis of graphene oxide and its use for transparent conductive films, strong papers, and ultra-light elastic aerogels.
Large-scale ocean connectivity and planktonic body size
Authors: Villarino Ernesto , Watson James R. , Jönsson Bror , Gasol Josep M. , Salazar Guillem , Acinas Silvia G. , Estrada Marta , Massana Ramón , Logares Ramiro , Giner Caterina R. , Pernice Massimo C. , Olivar M. Pilar , Citores Leire , Corell Jon , Rodríguez-Ezpeleta Naiara , Acuña José Luis , Molina-Ramírez Axayacatl , González-Gordillo J. Ignacio , Cózar Andrés , Martí Elisa , Cuesta José A. , Agustí Susana , Fraile-Nuez Eugenio , Duarte Carlos M. , Irigoien Xabier , Chust Guillem 
Published: January 2018

AbstractGlobal patterns of planktonic diversity are mainly determined by the dispersal of propagules with ocean currents. However, the role that abundance and body size play in determining spatial patterns of diversity remains unclear. Here we analyse spatial community structure - β-diversity - for several planktonic and nektonic organisms from prokaryotes to small mesopelagic fishes collected during the Malaspina 2010 Expedition. β-diversity was compared to surface ocean transit times derived from a global circulation model, revealing a significant negative relationship that is stronger than environmental differences. Estimated dispersal scales for different groups show a negative correlation with body size, where less abundant large-bodied communities have significantly shorter dispersal scales and larger species spatial turnover rates than more abundant small-bodied plankton. Our results confirm that the dispersal scale of planktonic and micro-nektonic organisms is determined by local abundance, which scales with body size, ultimately setting global spatial patterns of diversity.
Author Correction: Induced unconventional superconductivity on the surface states of Bi2Te3 topological insulator
Authors: Charpentier Sophie , Galletti Luca , Kunakova Gunta , Arpaia Riccardo , Song Yuxin , Baghdadi Reza , Wang Shu Min , Kalaboukhov Alexei , Olsson Eva , Tafuri Francesco , Golubev Dmitry , Linder Jacob , Bauch Thilo , Lombardi Floriana 
Published: January 2018

The original version of this Article omitted the following from the Acknowledgements:“This work was partly supported by the Research Council of Norway through its Centres of Excellence funding scheme, project number 262633, QuSpin.”This has now been corrected in both the PDF and HTML versions of the article.
Multilayer networks reveal the spatial structure of seed-dispersal interactions across the Great Rift landscapes
Authors: Timóteo Sérgio , Correia Marta , Rodríguez-Echeverría Susana , Freitas Helena , Heleno Ruben 
Published: January 2018

AbstractSpecies interaction networks are traditionally explored as discrete entities with well-defined spatial borders, an oversimplification likely impairing their applicability. Using a multilayer network approach, explicitly accounting for inter-habitat connectivity, we investigate the spatial structure of seed–dispersal networks across the Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique. We show that the overall seed–dispersal network is composed by spatially explicit communities of dispersers spanning across habitats, functionally linking the landscape mosaic. Inter-habitat connectivity determines spatial structure, which cannot be accurately described with standard monolayer approaches either splitting or merging habitats. Multilayer modularity cannot be predicted by null models randomizing either interactions within each habitat or those linking habitats; however, as habitat connectivity increases, random processes become more important for overall structure. The importance of dispersers for the overall network structure is captured by multilayer versatility but not by standard metrics. Highly versatile species disperse many plant species across multiple habitats, being critical to landscape functional cohesion.
Utilization of chemical stability diagrams for improved understanding of electrochemical systems: evolution of solution chemistry towards equilibrium
Authors: Santucci R. J. , McMahon M. E. , Scully J. R. 
Published: January 2018

AbstractPredicting the stability of chemical compounds as a function of solution chemistry is crucial towards understanding the electrochemical characteristics of materials in real-world applications. There are several commonly considered factors that affect the stability of a chemical compound, such as metal ion concentration, mixtures of ion concentrations, pH, buffering agents, complexation agents, and temperature. Chemical stability diagrams graphically describe the relative stabilities of chemical compounds, ions, and complexes of a single element as a function of bulk solution chemistry (pH and metal ion concentration) and also describe how solution chemistry changes upon the thermodynamically driven dissolution of a species into solution as the system progresses towards equilibrium. Herein, we set forth a framework for constructing chemical stability diagrams, as well as their application to Mg-based and Mg–Zn-based protective coatings and lightweight Mg–Li alloys. These systems are analyzed to demonstrate the effects of solution chemistry, alloy composition, and environmental conditions on the stability of chemical compounds pertinent to chemical protection. New expressions and procedures are developed for predicting the final thermodynamic equilibrium between dissolved metal ions, protons, hydroxyl ions and their oxides/hydroxides for metal-based aqueous systems, including those involving more than one element. The effect of initial solution chemistry, buffering agents, complexation agents, and binary alloy composition on the final equilibrium state of a dissolving system are described by mathematical expressions developed here. This work establishes a foundation for developing and using chemical stability diagrams for experimental design, data interpretation, and material development in corroding systems.
Adequacy of Si:P chains as Fermi–Hubbard simulators
Authors: Dusko Amintor , Delgado Alain , Saraiva André , Koiller Belita 
Published: January 2018

AbstractThe challenge of simulating many-body models with analogue physical systems requires both experimental precision and very low operational temperatures. Atomically precise placement of dopants in Si permits the construction of nanowires by design. We investigate the suitability of these interacting electron systems as simulators of a fermionic extended Hubbard model on demand. We describe the single-particle wavefunctions as a linear combination of dopant orbitals (LCDO). The electronic states are calculated within configuration interaction (CI). Due to the peculiar oscillatory behavior of each basis orbital, properties of these chains are strongly affected by the interdonor distance R0, in a non-monotonic way. Ground state (T = 0 K) properties such as charge and spin correlations are shown to remain robust under temperatures up to 4 K for specific values of R0. The robustness of the model against disorder is also tested, allowing some fluctuation of the placement site around the target position. We suggest that finite donor chains in Si may serve as an analog simulator for strongly correlated model Hamiltonians. This simulator is, in many ways, complementary to those based on cold atoms in optical lattices—the trade-off between the tunability achievable in the latter and the survival of correlation at higher operation temperatures for the former suggests that both technologies are applicable for different regimes.
On-Chip Fluorescence Switching System for Constructing a Rewritable Random Access Data Storage Device
Authors: Nguyen Hoang Hiep , Park Jeho , Hwang Seungwoo , Kwon Oh Seok , Lee Chang-Soo , Shin Yong-Beom , Ha Tai Hwan , Kim Moonil 
Published: January 2018

AbstractWe report the development of on-chip fluorescence switching system based on DNA strand displacement and DNA hybridization for the construction of a rewritable and randomly accessible data storage device. In this study, the feasibility and potential effectiveness of our proposed system was evaluated with a series of wet experiments involving 40 bits (5 bytes) of data encoding a 5-charactered text (KRIBB). Also, a flexible data rewriting function was achieved by converting fluorescence signals between “ON” and “OFF” through DNA strand displacement and hybridization events. In addition, the proposed system was successfully validated on a microfluidic chip which could further facilitate the encoding and decoding process of data. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on the use of DNA hybridization and DNA strand displacement in the field of data storage devices. Taken together, our results demonstrated that DNA-based fluorescence switching could be applicable to construct a rewritable and randomly accessible data storage device through controllable DNA manipulations.