bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Usage trends and performance characteristics of a “gene expression classifier” in the management of thyroid nodules: An institutional experience
Authors: Samulski T. Danielle , LiVolsi Virginia A. , Wong Lawrence Q. , Baloch Zubair 
Published: August 2016

BackgroundThe gene expression classifier (GEC; Afirma–Veracyte) has proven to be an effective triage modality in the management of thyroid nodules. We evaluate our institutional experience with GEC, specifically examining performance as a first line testing strategy versus in conjunction with repeat fine needle aspiration (FNA), usage trends based on clinical setting, and performance related to diagnostic categories of The Bethesda System for Reporting Thyroid Cytology (TBSRTC).MethodsAll nodules undergoing GEC analysis from 1/2011 to 12/2015 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania were identified using electronic database search methods. Corresponding cytologic diagnoses, GEC results, origin of the sample (in‐house vs. satellite site), number and diagnosis of prior FNA's, and clinical and histologic follow‐up were collected.ResultsThe cohort included 294 nodules. Of these, 145 (49%) were classified as benign, 136 (46%) as suspicious, and 13 (5%) as quantity insufficient by GEC. Surgical resection was performed in 130 (130/294‐44%) cases (107, 82% “suspicious” by GEC); final histopathologic diagnosis was benign in 85 (65%) and malignant in 45 (35%) cases. Three false negative diagnoses were identified in the setting of GEC analysis as a first line testing strategy. Most cases with GEC as a first line testing strategy came from satellite clinical sites (112, 66%).ConclusionsThe GEC showed improved performance characteristics when coupled with a repeat FNA. It continues to be of low specificity and positive predictive value in oncocytic follicular lesions. Diagn. Cytopathol. 2016;44:867–873. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Glycated albumin and ratio of glycated albumin to glycated hemoglobin are good indicators of diabetic nephropathy in type 2 diabetes mellitus
Authors: Wang Nana , Xu Zhen , Han Ping , Li Tiegang 
Published: August 2016

AbstractBackgroundWe investigated the association between serum levels of glycated albumin (GA), glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), and GA:HbA1c ratio and the presence of diabetic nephropathy (DN) in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).MethodsTwo hundred six consecutive patients with T2DM were enrolled from the endocrinology ward at Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University and classified into 2 groups: DN group (n = 71) and non–diabetic nephropathy (non‐DN) group (n = 135).ResultsThe DN group showed significantly higher GA and GA:HbA1c values compared with the non‐DN group. After univariate logistic regression, GA, GA:HbA1c, HbA1c, age, T2DM duration, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, triglycerides, mean blood glucose (from 7 blood glucose checks), and presence of retinopathy were selected for advanced analysis. A multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to examine the association between the presence of DN and these variables. Glycated albumin, GA:HbA1c, duration, systolic blood pressure, mean blood glucose, and retinopathy (but not HbA1c) were identified as independent variables that predicted the presence of DN. We then fitted the areas under the curve of GA:HbA1c and GA (0.811 and 0.754, respectively) separately using a receiver operating characteristic curve analysis. Both were better than HbA1c (0.580). We defined the cutoff value of GA:HbA1c as 2.71 (sensitivity 0.676, specificity 0.778) and that of GA as 17.5% (sensitivity 0.761, specificity 0.644) for the prediction of DN in patients with T2DM.ConclusionsThe GA:HbA1c ratio and GA may be superior to HbA1c associated with the presence of DN.
Stress‐induced peak (but not resting) metabolism correlates with mating display intensity in male guppies
Authors: Biro Peter A. , Fanson Kerry V. , Santostefano Francesca 
Published: August 2016

AbstractRecent empirical and conceptual papers have highlighted the potential for metabolism to act as a proximate mechanism for behavior that could explain animal personality (consistency over time). Under this hypothesis, individuals with consistently high levels of behavioral activity should also have high resting metabolic rate (RMR) as it can reflect capacity to process food and generate energy. We tested for the predicted positive covariance between RMR and three behaviors that differ in energy demands in 30 male guppies, using multivariate mixed models; we repeatedly measured their activity (10 times each), courtship displays (nine times), voracity (10 times), and metabolism (four‐times). Resting metabolic rate (measured overnight in respirometry trials) did not consistently differ among males, whereas initial peak metabolism measured during those same trials (R = 0.42), and all behaviors were repeatable (R = 0.33–0.51). RMR declined over time suggesting habituation to the protocol, whereas peak metabolism did not. Initial peak metabolism was negatively correlated with courtship display intensity, and voracity was positively correlated with activity, but all other among‐individual correlations were not significant. We conclude that RMR does not provide a proximate explanation for consistent individual differences in behavior in male guppies, and therefore the potential for independent evolution of these physiological and behavioral traits seems possible. Finally, we identify peak metabolism as a potential measure of the stress response to confinement, which highlights the value of considering various aspects of metabolic rates recording during respirometry trials.
Long‐term dynamics in local host–parasite interactions linked to regional population trends
Authors: Ladin Zachary S. , D'Amico Vincent , Baetens Jan M. , Roth Roland R. , Shriver W. Gregory 
Published: August 2016

AbstractTemporal changes in the relative abundances of host–parasite populations can influence the magnitude of the effects of corresponding interspecific interactions. When parasite populations are at relatively low abundance, the negative effects on host populations may be insignificant, but when parasite abundance increases beyond critical thresholds, they can have population limiting effects on the host. Here, we used data from a 40‐yr demographic study on breeding Wood Thrushes (Hylocichla mustelina) and avian brood parasitic Brown‐headed Cowbirds (Molothrus ater) in the mid‐Atlantic United States to disentangle host–parasite interactions. The relative abundance for these two species has changed both locally and regionally over this time period with a reduction in host abundance coincident with an increase in the parasite population. We detected a fivefold increase in Brown‐headed Cowbird parasitism rates of Wood Thrushes over the 40‐yr time period leading to a reduction in Wood Thrush fitness (i.e., adult survival, fecundity, and recruitment). After accounting for the effects of Wood Thrush age, individual, and annual and within‐season variation in reproduction, we found that Wood Thrushes exhibited increased reproductive effort (produced more nests per year) as nest parasitism rates increased. Additionally, we found that as parasitism rates increased, both Wood Thrush clutch size and fecundity declined. In conjunction with widespread habitat loss and land use change on both wintering and breeding ranges, increasing rates of Brown‐headed Cowbird parasitism are reducing Wood Thrush fitness, and are likely contributing to observed regional Wood Thrush population declines. Coordinated local and regional efforts to reduce Brown‐headed Cowbird populations, particularly in fragmented landscapes, may help reduce the decline for Wood Thrushes, and likely other parasitized Neotropical migratory species.
Patch‐burn grazing increases habitat heterogeneity and biodiversity of small mammals in managed rangelands
Authors: Ricketts Andrew M. , Sandercock Brett K. 
Published: August 2016

AbstractHabitat heterogeneity is a key driver of biodiversity in many ecosystems. Wildlife inhabiting the native prairies of North America evolved in a heterogeneous mosaic of habitat conditions created by fire and grazing by native ungulates. Current rangeland management practices in the tallgrass prairie ecosystem evenly distribute fire and grazing across management units and promote homogeneous habitat conditions. Patch‐burn grazing is a rangeland management strategy that seeks to restore heterogeneity to rangelands via fire‐grazing interactions. Our 3.5‐year study tested the effects of patch‐burn grazing on habitat heterogeneity and small mammal community dynamics in the Flint Hills ecoregion of eastern Kansas. To study the ecological effects of patch‐burn grazing, we sampled habitat conditions and the small mammal community. We assessed habitat conditions once each growing season in a negative control that was annually burned and grazed, a positive control that was burned every four years and ungrazed, and within each of three units of a patch‐burn grazing experiment (PBG) managed with rotational fire. Habitat conditions were significantly different among treatments, and a principal components analysis showed that the patch‐burn grazing treatment had higher canopy cover of forbs and habitat heterogeneity than our two control units. To sample the small mammal community, we conducted monthly live trapping of small mammals on two randomly located trap grids in each of our two controls and three units of our PBG treatment. Small mammal diversity was significantly higher in the patch‐burn grazing treatment and in the positive control, vs. the negative control. Moreover, a canonical correspondence analysis showed that a fire‐grazing interaction was the major driver structuring small mammal communities. Patch‐burn grazing is an effective strategy for restoring heterogeneity to vegetative structure and composition, and can increase biodiversity of small mammals in managed rangelands in the tallgrass prairie ecosystem.
Water Management Across Borders, Scales and Sectors: Recent developments and future challenges in water policy analysis
Authors: Ingold Karin , Fischer Manuel , de Boer Cheryl , Mollinga Peter P. 
Published: August 2016

AbstractIntegrated water resource management (IWRM) is widely accepted and has been implemented though international, national and regional water management guidelines. Nonetheless, concrete implementation of IWRM gives rise to new questions for policy analysis. Scholars interested in water regulation, the design of effective and efficient policy instruments, and structures of participative and multi‐level policy processes face challenges regarding research design, concepts and empirical approaches. This special issue integrates research about regional, national and transboundary policy perspectives on water management in seven countries, four continents and two transnational water bodies. From the six articles presented in this special issue, we learn more about how to define integration, to think about borders and scales and to theoretically and empirically study collaborative management in water policy analysis. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment
Transboundary Cooperation in European Water Governance – A set‐theoretic analysis of International River Basins
Authors: Jager Nicolas W. 
Published: August 2016

AbstractThe pursuit of more integrated water resource management based on hydrological boundaries (i.e. river basins) poses significant challenges for domestic environmental governance, let alone in situations where rivers transcend national borders. This paper examines which conditions of governance (and beyond) favour cooperative transboundary river basin management practices under the European Water Framework Directive. This directive, with its detailed procedural provisions for (international) river basin management planning, offers an excellent test bed to investigate and assess the factors and mechanisms of transboundary river basin management. Postulates of neo‐liberal theory of international cooperation, drawn from international relations, help to identify relevant conditions for analysis, covering the two dimensions of state interests and transaction costs. Results of a qualitative comparative analysis show that transaction costs have a strong mitigating influence on the occurrence of cooperative river basin planning. However, reduced transaction costs alone do not suffice for states to enter into cooperation, but the latter have to be activated by a favourable incentive structure, i.e. high problem pressure or legal or domestic incentives. While these insights hold for most cooperative river basin districts, a few basins that follow a contradictory pattern without reduced transaction costs deserve further attention. The findings shed further light on the influence of contextual factors in shaping water governance. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment
Scale Implications of Integrated Water Resource Management Politics: Lessons from New Zealand
Authors: McNeill Jeffrey 
Published: August 2016

AbstractSuccessful integrated water resource management (IWRM) is predicated on increased stakeholder participation and achieving environmental outcomes by locating decision‐making at the catchment scale of management. However, geographic scale impacts opportunities for participation and privileges some actors within the functional and spatial scope of decision‐making. Accordingly, rescaling may merely reconfigure rather than redistribute power. With its dual national and regional management of freshwater based on river catchments, New Zealand's experience of integrated environmental management provides insights for wider theory and practice. In response to recent significant freshwater quality decline from agricultural non‐point discharges over the last two decades and related public concern, the national government and regional councils have redefined participation constellations at national and regional government levels. This paper compares stakeholder diversity and policy effectiveness of regulatory agencies and collaborative initiatives at both national and regional levels, using the Manawatu River catchment as a case study. It detects low participator diversity within regulatory agencies, but relatively high policy salience. In contrast, the collaborative forums' low policy salience, despite their high participator diversity, raises questions about the substantive value of non‐regulatory collaborative initiatives. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment
An Electrochemical Sensor Based on Ni(II) Complex and Multi Wall Carbon Nano Tubes Platform for Determination of Glucose in Real Samples
Authors: Rezaeinasab Masoud , Benvidi Ali , Tezerjani Marzieh Dehghan , Jahanbani Shahriar , Kianfar Ali Hossein , Sedighipoor Maryam 
Published: August 2016

AbstractIn the present paper, a stable and selective non‐enzymatic sensor is reported for determination of glucose (Glc) by using a carbon paste electrode modified with multiwall carbon nanotubes and Ni(II)‐SHP complex as modifier in an alkaline solution. This modified electrode showed impressive activity for oxidation of glucose in NaOH solution. Herein, Ni(II)‐SHP acts as a suitable platform for oxidation of glucose to glucolactone on the surface of the modified electrode by decreasing the overpotential and increasing in the current of analyte. Under the optimum conditions, the rate constant and electron transfer coefficient between electrode and modifier, were calculated to be 1.04 s−1 and 0.64, respectively. The anodic peak currents indicated a linear dependency with the square root of scan rate and this behavior is the characteristic of a diffusion controlled process. So, the diffusion coefficient of glucose was found to be 3.12×10−6 cm2 s−1 due to the used number of transferred electron of 1. The obtained results revealed two linear ranges (5 to 190.0 μM (R2=0.997), 210.0 to 700.0 μM (R2=0.999)) and the detection limit of 1.3 μM for glucose was calculated by using differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) method. Also, the designed sensor was used for determination of glucose in the blood serum and urine samples. Some other advantages of Ni(II)‐SHP/CNT/CPE sensor are remarkable reproducibility, stability and selectivity which can be related to using nanomaterial of carbon nanotubes due to enhancement of electrode surface area.
Anodic Oxidative Disulfide Bond Formation in Egg Protein
Authors: Takahashi Masahito , Handa Akihiro , Kodama Risa , Chiba Kazuhiro 
Published: August 2016

AbstractOxidation of thiol groups and formation of disulfide bonds in food protein were achieved via an electrochemical reaction. Iodide acted as a redox mediator and effectively oxidized the thiol groups of the protein. The reaction mechanism was determined through cyclic voltammetry and indicated that indirect oxidation of the thiol group occurred. This anodic oxidation reaction was processed in a mediated fashion and allowed the oxidation of protein, a major macromolecule, without electron transfer involving direct interaction with the surface of the electrode. This reaction can be applied to concentrated ovalbumin or hen egg whites, indicating its usefulness for the food modification industry.
The Synthesis of Functional Cobalt Oxide Nanostructures, and their Sensitive Glucose Sensing Application
Authors: Ibupoto Zafar Hussain , Tahira Aneela , Mallah Arfana Begum , Shahzad Sohail Anjum , Willander Magnus , Wang Bin , Yu Cong 
Published: August 2016

AbstractIn this study, a novel approach is adapted for the synthesis of new nanostructures of cobalt oxide (Co3O4) by low temperature aqueous chemical growth method in the presence of water soluble amino acids such as L‐arginine, L‐aspartic acid, L‐isoleucine, L‐leucine, L‐serine and L‐threonine. The synthesized nanostructures were characterized by X‐ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM). The nanostructures exhibit well defined morphology and are of high purity. To explore the potential application of the prepared nanostructures of cobalt oxide, the non‐enzymatic glucose sensor is developed by modifying the glassy carbon electrode. Serine assisted cobalt oxide nanostructures showed excellent sensitivity of 4169.00 μA/mM cm2, wide linear range of 0.01 mM to 20 mM and detection limit was estimated as 0.001 mM (S/N=3). The analytical parameters for the serine assisted cobalt oxide nanostructures based glucose sensor were evaluated and it was found that the sensor is highly selective, reproducible, repeatable, reversible, and stable. Finally, the practical application of the serine assisted cobalt oxide nanostructures based glucose sensor was examined by measuring the glucose concentrations from real human blood samples.
Determination of Cu2+ in Drinking Water Based on Electrochemiluminescence of Ru(phen)32+ and Cyclam
Authors: Gao Yulong , Wang Tao , Liu Fengyu 
Published: August 2016

AbstractA convenient and simple electrochemiluminescence (ECL) method was employed to detect trace amounts of Cu2+ in drinking water. This method is based on the inhibitory effect of Cu2+ on the ECL of Ru(phen)32+ and 1,4,8,11‐tetraazacyclotetradecane (cyclam) system. ECL intensity of Ru(phen)32+ was considerably enhanced by the addition of cyclam because of the ECL reaction between them. The ECL intensity of Ru(phen)32+/cyclam system rapidy decreased with the addition Cu2+ because of the formation of chelate complex [Cu(cyclam)]2+. Good linear response (R2=0.9948) was obtained at Cu2+ concentration of 1.0×10−9−1.0×10−5 mol ⋅ L−1 at glassy carbon electrode in 0.1 mol ⋅ L−1 phosphate buffer (pH 9.0). Observed detection limit of 4.8×10−10 mol ⋅ L−1 satisfied the maximum contaminant level goal (MCLG) for Cu2+ set by the US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA). Applicability of the proposed method was verified by the good reproducibility and stability of the method when applied to determine Cu2+ in tap water and simulated wastewater. Thus, a novel ECL detection method was developed for Cu2+ detection.
Evaluating the Advisory Flags and Machine Scoring Difficulty in the e‐rater® Automated Scoring Engine
Authors: Zhang Mo , Chen Jing , Ruan Chunyi 
Published: August 2016

AbstractSuccessful detection of unusual responses is critical for using machine scoring in the assessment context. This study evaluated the utility of approaches to detecting unusual responses in automated essay scoring. Two research questions were pursued. One question concerned the performance of various prescreening advisory flags, and the other related to the degree of machine scoring difficulty and whether the size of the human–machine discrepancy could be predicted. The results suggested that some advisory flags operated more consistently across measures and tasks in detecting responses that the machine was likely to score differently from human raters than did other flags, and relatively little scoring difficulty was found for three of the four tasks examined in this study, with the relationship between machine and human scores being reasonably strong. Limitations and future studies are also discussed.
Sulfur‐Aromatic Interactions: Modeling Cysteine and Methionine Binding to Tyrosinate and Histidinium Ions to Assess Their Influence on Protein Electron Transfer
Authors: Orabi Esam A. , English Ann M. 
Published: August 2016

AbstractCys and Met interactions with aromatic residues stabilize proteins and also may alter their redox properties. We establish here how ionization of the aromatic groups may influence such interactions. Specifically, ab initio quantum mechanical calculations at the MP2(full)/6‐311++G(d,p) level of theory are performed on the gas‐phase complexes of hydrogen sulfide, methanethiol (MeSH), and dimethyl sulfide (Me2S), with the imidazolium and phenolate ions and their 4‐methylated forms. The S‐ligands bind the aromatic ions more tightly than the neutral species, preferentially edge‐on to imidazolium and en‐face to phenolate. Charge transfer occurs within the complexes, which will impact the redox properties of the interacting moieties. The CHARMM36 force field, calibrated using potential energy curves generated at the same level of theory, yields affinities (kcal mol−1) in water of −4.3 and −3.1 for MeSH‐ and Me2S‐imidazolium, and −2.9 and −2.1 for the phenolate complexes. En‐face binding is preferred in water, with an equilibrium S‐ring‐centroid separation of ∼4 Å, which increases to > 5 Å in Me2S‐phenolate. Their high gas‐phase and aqueous stability suggests that S‐aromatic‐ion complexes are an important determinant of protein behavior. Since the uncalibrated CHARMM36 force field predicts very weak S‐aromatic‐ion binding in water (−0.3 to −0.6 kcal mol−1) and in the gas phase, the optimized parameters should be used to obtain a reliable description of these interactions in proteins.