bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Burden of Psychosocial and Cognitive Impairment in Patients With Atrial Fibrillation
Authors: Bostrom John A. , Saczynski Jane S. , Hajduk Alexandra , Donahue Kevin , Rosenthal Lawrence S. , Browning Clifford , Ennis Cynthia , Floyd Kevin C. , Richardson Heather , Esa Nada , Ogarek Jessica , McManus David D. 
Published: May 2017

Background:
Impairments in psychosocial status and cognition relate to poor clinical outcomes in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF). However, how often these conditions co-occur and associations between burden of psychosocial and cognitive impairment and quality of life (QoL) have not been systematically examined in patients with AF.

Methods:
A total of 218 patients with symptomatic AF were enrolled in a prospective study of AF and psychosocial factors between May 2013 and October 2014 at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. Cognitive function, depression, and anxiety were assessed at baseline and AF-specific QoL was assessed 6 months after enrollment using validated instruments. Demographic and clinical information were obtained from a structured interview and medical record review.

Results:
The mean age of the study participants was 63.5 ± 10.2 years, 35% were male, and 81% had paroxysmal AF. Prevalences of impairment in 1, 2, and 3 psychosocial/cognitive domains (eg, depression, anxiety, or cognition) were 75 (34.4%), 51 (23.4%), and 16 (7.3%), respectively. Patients with co-occurring psychosocial/cognitive impairments (eg, >1 domain) were older, more likely to smoke, had less education, and were more likely to have heart failure (all P < 0.05). Compared with participants with no psychosocial/cognitive impairments, AF-specific QoL at 6 months was significantly poorer among participants with baseline impairment in 2 (B = −13.6, 95% CI: −21.7 to −5.4) or 3 (B = −15.1, 95% CI: −28.0 to −2.2) psychosocial/cognitive domains.

Conclusion:
Depression, anxiety, and impaired cognition were common in our cohort of patients with symptomatic AF and often co-occurred. Higher burden of psychosocial/cognitive impairment was associated with poorer AF-specific QoL.
Death by Suicide Within 1 Week of Hospital Discharge
Authors: Riblet Natalie , Shiner Brian , Watts Bradley V. , Mills Peter , Rusch Brett , Hemphill Robin R. 
Published: May 2017

AbstractThere is a high risk for death by suicide after discharge from an inpatient mental health unit. To better understand system and organizational factors associated with postdischarge suicide, we reviewed root cause analysis reports of suicide within 7 days of discharge from across all Veterans Health Administration inpatient mental health units between 2002 and 2015. There were 141 reports of suicide within 7 days of discharge, and a large proportion (43.3%,n= 61) followed an unplanned discharge. Root causes fell into three major themes including challenges for clinicians and patients after the established process of care, awareness and communication of suicide risk, and flaws in the established process of care. Flaws in the design and execution of processes of care as well as deficits in communication may contribute to postdischarge suicide. Inpatient teams should be aware of the potentially heightened risk for suicide among patients with unplanned discharges.
Accuracy of Point-of-Care Ultrasonography for Pediatric Ankle Sprain Injuries
Authors: Jones Sarah , Colaco Keith , Fischer Jason , Stimec Jennifer , Kwan Charisse , Boutis Kathy 
Published: May 2017

Objectives
In children with radiograph fracture-negative lateral ankle injuries, the main objective of this pilot study was to explore the accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity of point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) performed by a pediatric emergency physician in diagnosing anterior talofibular ligament injuries, radiographically occult distal fibular fractures, and effusions compared with reference standard magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Methods
This was a prospective cohort pilot study. Children aged 5 to 17 years with an isolated, acute lateral ankle injury and fracture-negative ankle radiographs were eligible for enrolment. Within 1 week of the injury, enrolled children returned for MRI and POCUS of both ankles.

Results
Seven children were enrolled, with a mean age 12.1 (SD, 3.0) years. Overall, POCUS agreed with MRI with respect to anterior talofibular ligament injury in 4 (57%) of 7 cases. Of the 2 cases with MRI-confirmed ligament damage, POCUS accurately identified and graded the extent of ligament damage in 1 case. Point-of-care ultrasound falsely identified ligament injuries in 2 cases. Both imaging modalities confirmed the absence of cortical fractures in all 7 cases. For all findings, POCUS sensitivity and specificity were 57% and 86%, respectively.

Conclusions
In this pilot study, we established that POCUS diagnosed the specific pathology of radiograph-negative lateral ankle injuries with poor sensitivity but good specificity. Thus, POCUS could act as a tool to exclude significant ligamentous and radiographically occult bony injury in these cases. A larger study is needed to validate the utility of POCUS for this common injury.
Doppler Ultrasound Evaluation of Circulatory Support Devices
Authors: Nuffer Zachary , Rupasov Andrey , Bhatt Shweta 
Published: May 2017

Abstract
In the setting of mechanical circulatory support devices, including ventricular assist devices, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, intraaortic balloon pumps, and the total artificial heart, the spectral Doppler waveform is significantly altered, reflecting systemic hemodynamic changes. As the prevalence of these devices increases, a better understanding of both the devices themselves and their associated Doppler ultrasound findings is necessary for accurate image interpretation. This article reviews the clinical indications, pathophysiology, and sonographic findings of these devices, with emphasis on the variation in arterial Doppler waveforms that can be seen with normal function, as well as the major complications.
Differential Diagnostic Value of Obstructive and Nonobstructive Azoospermia by Scrotal Ultrasound
Authors: Liu Jun , Wang Zhiqian , Li Min , Zhou Mingyang , Zhan Weiwei 
Published: May 2017

Abstract
Our objective was to assess the differential diagnostic value of classification of obstructive versus nonobstructive azoospermia by scrotal ultrasound. Forty patients with azoospermia were selected for our study (ages, 23–35; average, 29 ± 5.34 years). Patients were divided into the obstructive (17) or nonobstructive (23) azoospermia category. Twenty “healthy” volunteers were selected for the control group. We observed the testis, epididymis, and vas deferens in all subjects. Testicular volumes were calculated and compared with the control group for both obstructive and nonobstructive groups. Cystic or tubular dilation of the epididymis was found in all patients with obstructive azoospermia. The patients with nonobstructive azoospermia had no significant abnormalities of the epididymis. There was no difference in the testicular volumes between the patients with obstructive azoospermia and healthy controls (P > 0.05). However, the testicular volumes of patients with nonobstructive azoospermia were smaller than those of healthy volunteers (P < 0.05). It is helpful to identify obstructive and nonobstructive azoospermia by scrotal ultrasound, because it is a less invasive method that can be used to isolate probable treatment options.
Modeling Acute Traumatic Hemorrhagic Shock Injury: Challenges and Guidelines for Preclinical Studies
Authors: Tremoleda Jordi L. , Watts Sarah A. , Reynolds Penny S. , Thiemermann Christoph , Brohi Karim 
Published: May 2017

ABSTRACT
Trauma is responsible for a large proportion of the world's burden of disease, and is by far the biggest killer of young adults. Hemorrhage is the leading cause of preventable death and its effects are directly correlated with the incidence multi-organ failure in survivors. Trauma research is challenging due to patient heterogeneity, limited randomized controlled trials, and in vitro studies that fail to mimic the systemic injury response. Preclinical research remains essential for mechanistic and therapeutic discovery. Yet modeling the multifaceted nature of traumatic injury poses important experimental and welfare challenges associated with the onset of injury and prehospital and intra-operative care, the limited inter-species validation of coagulation profiles, the use of anesthesia/analgesia, and its impact on the systemic response to trauma; and the challenge of sustaining intensive care in recovery models. Proper model selection depends on the purpose of a given model and the criteria by which the experimental readouts will be clinically relevant. Such complexity warrants further refinement of experimental methodology and outcome measures to improve its clinical efficacy, while ensuring animal well-being. We review the experimental methodologies currently used for modeling traumatic hemorrhagic shock and addressing their impact on clinical translation. The aim of the review is to improve transparency and form a consensus when reporting methodology in trauma modeling.
Pupil size asymmetries are modulated by an interaction between attentional load and task experience
Authors: Wahn Basil , Ferris Daniel P. , Hairston W. David , König Peter 
Published: May 2017

AbstractIn a recently published study [1], we investigated how human pupil sizes are modulated by task experience as well as attentional load in a visuospatial task. In particular, participants performed a multiple object tracking (MOT) task while pupil sizes were recorded using binocular eyetracking measurements. To vary the attentional load, participants performed the MOT task either tracking zero or up to five targets. To manipulate the task experience, participants performed the MOT task on three consecutive days. We found that pupil sizes systematically increased with attentional load and decreased with additional task experience. For all these analyses, we averaged across the pupil sizes for the left and right eye. However, findings of a recent study [2] have suggested that also asymmetries in pupil sizes could be related to attentional processing. Given these findings, we further analyzed our data to investigate to what extent pupil size asymmetries are modulated by attentional load and task experience. We found a significant interaction effect between these two factors. That is, on the first day of the measurements, pupil size asymmetries were not modulated by attentional load while this was the case for the second and third day of the measurements. In particular, for the second and third day, pupil size asymmetries systematically increased with attentional load, indicating that attentional processing also modulates pupil size asymmetries. Given these results, we suggest that an increase in task experience (and associated reductions in arousal) uncover modulations in pupil size asymmetries related to attentional processing that are not observable for typical arousal levels. We suggest that these modulations could be a result of right-lateralized attentional processing in the brain that in turn influences structures involved in the control of pupil sizes such as the locus coeruleus. We can exclude a number of possible alternative explanations for this effect related to our experimental setup. Yet, given the novelty of this finding and the arguably speculative explanation of the underlying mechanisms, we suggest that future studies are needed to replicate the present effect and further investigate the underlying mechanisms.
Rainbowfish: A Succinct Colored de Bruijn Graph Representation
Authors: Almodaresi Fatemeh , Pandey Prashant , Patro Rob 
Published: May 2017

AbstractThe colored de Bruijn graph— a variant of the de Bruijn graph which associates each edge (i.e., k-mer) with some set of colors — is an increasingly important combinatorial structure in computational biology. Iqbal et al. demonstrated the utility of this structure for representing and assembling a collection (pop-ulation) of genomes, and showed how it can be used to accurately detect genetic variants. Muggli et al. introduced VARI, a representation of the colored de Bruijn graph that adopts the BOSS representation for the de Bruijn graph topology and achieves considerable savings in space overCortex, albeit with some sacrifice in speed. The memory-efficient representation of VARI allows the colored de Bruijn graph to be constructed and analyzed for large datasets, beyond what is possible withCortex.In this paper, we introduce Rainbowfish, a succinct representation of the color information of the colored de Bruijn graph that reduces the space usage even further. Our representation also uses BOSS to represent the de Bruijn graph, but decomposes the color sets based on an equivalence relation and exploits the inherent skewness in the distribution of these color sets. The Rainbowfish representation is compressed based on the 0th-order entropy of the color sets, which can lead to a significant reduction in the space required to store the relevant information for each edge. In practice, Rainbowfish achieves up to a 20 × improvement in space over VARI. Rainbowfish is written in C++11 and is available athttps://github.com/COMBINE-lab/rainbowfish.
Yeasts dominate soil fungal communities in three lowland Neotropical rainforests
Authors: Dunthorn Micah , Kauserud Håvard , Bass David , Mayor Jordan , Mahé Frédéric 
Published: May 2017

ABSTRACTForest soils typically harbour a vast diversity of fungi, but are usually dominated by filamentous (hyphae-forming) taxa. Compared to temperate and boreal forests, though, we have limited knowledge about the fungal diversity in tropical rainforest soils. Here we show, by environmental metabarcoding of soil samples collected in three Neotropical rainforests, that Yeasts dominate the fungal communities in terms of the number of sequencing reads and OTUs. These unicellular forms are commonly found in aquatic environments, and their hyperdiversity may be the result of frequent inundation combined with numerous aquatic microenvironments in these rainforests. Other fungi that are frequent in aquatic environments, such as the abundant Chytridiomycotina, were also detected. While there was low similarity in OTU composition within and between the three rainforests, the fungal communities in Central America were more similar to each other than the communities in South America, reflecting a general biogeographic pattern also seen in animals, plants, and protists.Contactdunthorn@rhrk.uni-kl.de
Bifunctionality of a biofilm matrix protein controlled by redox state
Authors: Arnaouteli Sofia , Ferreira Ana Sofia , Schor Marieke , Morris Ryan J. , Bromley Keith M. , Jo Jeanyoung K. , Cortez Krista L. , Sukhodub Tetyana , Prescott Alan R. , Dietrich Lars E.P. , MacPhee Cait E. , Stanley-Wall Nicola R. 
Published: May 2017

AbstractBiofilms are communities of microbial cells that are encapsulated within a self-produced polymeric matrix. The matrix is critical to the success of biofilms in diverse habitats, but despite this many details of the composition, structure, and function remain enigmatic. Biofilms formed by the Gram-positive bacteriumBacillus subtilisdepend on the production of the secreted film-forming protein BslA. Here we show that a gradient of electron acceptor availability through the depth of the biofilm gives rise to two distinct functional roles for BslA and that these can be genetically separated through targeted amino acid substitutions. We establish that monomeric BslA is necessary and sufficient to give rise to complex biofilm architecture, while dimerization of BslA is required to render the community hydrophobic. Dimerization of BslA, mediated by disulfide bond formation, depends on two conserved cysteine residues located in the C-terminal region. Our findings demonstrate that bacteria have evolved multiple uses for limited elements in the matrix, allowing for alternative responses in a complex, changing environment.SignificanceThe biofilm matrix is a critical target in the hunt for novel strategies to destabilise or stabilise biofilms. Knowledge of the processes controlling matrix assembly is therefore an essential prerequisite to exploitation. Here we highlight that the complexity of the biofilm matrix is even higher than anticipated with one matrix component making two independent functional contributions to the community. The influence the protein exerts is dependent on the local environmental properties, providing another dimension to consider during analysis. These findings add to the evidence that bacteria can evolve multifunctional uses for the extracellular matrix components.
Gravitational and dynamic components of muscle torque underlie tonic and phasic muscle activity during goal-directed reaching
Authors: Olesh Erienne , Pollard Bradley , Gritsenko Valeriya 
Published: May 2017

AbstractHuman reaching movements require complex muscle activations to produce the forces necessary to move the limb in a controlled manner. How gravity and the complex kinetic properties of the limb contribute to the generation of the muscle activation pattern by the central nervous system (CNS) is a long-standing question in neuroscience. To address this question, muscle activity is often subdivided into static and phasic components. The former is thought to be related to posture maintenance and transitions between postures. The latter represents the remainder of muscle activity and is thought to be related to active movement production and the compensation for the kinetic properties of the limb. In the present study, we directly addressed how this subdivision of muscle activity into static and phasic components is related to the corresponding components of active muscle torques. Eight healthy subjects pointed in virtual reality to visual targets arranged to create a standard center-out reaching task in three dimensions. Muscle activity and motion capture data were synchronously collected during the movements. The motion capture data were used to calculate gravitational and dynamic components of active muscle torques using a dynamic model of the arm with 5 degrees of freedom. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was then applied to muscle activity and the torque components, separately, to reduce the dimensionality of the data. Muscle activity was also reconstructed from gravitational and dynamic torque components. Results show that the gravitational and dynamic components of muscle torque represent a significant amount of variance in muscle activity. This method could be used to identify static and phasic components of muscle activity using muscle torques. The contribution of both components to the overall muscle activity was largely equal, unlike their relative contribution to active muscle torques, which may reflect a neural control strategy.
Theme factors that drive the tourist customer experience
Authors: Åstrøm Jonas Karlsen 
Published: May 2017

Purpose
This study aims to investigate the factors that drive the tourist customer experience around theming. Theming is considered vital to creating a memorable customer impression.

Design/methodology/approach
The cruise industry was chosen as the empirical setting. A total of 328 cruise travelers returned valid questionnaires during a cruise in March 2010. The questionnaire was developed based on a conceptual model of components (name, employee interaction, lighting, design and music) hypothesized to contribute to a themed cruise environment.

Findings
Name, employee interaction and lighting were found to be the most important drivers for the customer experience. Theming was less reliant on design and music.

Research limitations/implications
This research was limited to one narrow context. Further research on other ships, itineraries and cruise lines should clarify whether factors affecting theme perception are the same across the cruise industry.

Practical implications
Cruise industry decision makers should consider the naming of spaces, lighting and employee interaction when designing themed experiences.

Originality/value
Theming has received little attention in the research literature. This study is a unique contribution to our understanding of this particular field.
Capital buffers in Middle East and North Africa (MENA) banks: is market discipline important?
Authors: Ghosh Saibal 
Published: May 2017

PurposeThe role of market discipline in influencing capital buffers has been debated in literature. Limited evidence on this score is available for Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries. In this context, using data for 2001-2012, the paper aims to examine the role and relevance of market discipline in affecting capital buffer for MENA banks.Design/methodology/approachGiven the longitudinal nature of the data, the paper employs dynamic panel data techniques that take on board the potential endogeneity between the dependent and independent variables.FindingsThe analysis indicates that the disciplining effect of depositors in MENA banks on capital buffer occurs primarily through the quantity channel, although this behaviour differs for banks with high versus those with low buffers. In particular, bigger banks which typically have thin capital cushion are much less subject to market discipline, presumably owing to their too-big-to-fail status.Originality/valueThe analysis differs from the extant literature in three distinct ways. First, the paper examines the differential response of Islamic banks on capital buffers via market discipline. Second, several of these countries are primarily commodity exporters. Accordingly, the paper examines the behaviour of these countries with regard to market discipline. Third, how far did the global financial crisis impact bank capital buffer had not been explored in prior empirical research, an aspect that is addressed in this study.