bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Efficacy and Safety of Therapeutic ERCP in the Elderly: A Single Center Experience
Authors: Yang Jia-hua , Li Wei , Si Xian-ke , Zhang Ji-xun , Cao Yi-jun 
Published: December 2017

Background:
Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) has been an important therapeutic measure for the treatment of pancreatobiliary diseases in the elderly, but limited data on the use of ERCP in the super-aged elderly are available. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of ERCP in patients 80 years of age or older.

Methods:
All therapeutic ERCPs performed from January 2012 to December 2015 at our endoscopy unit were retrospectively reviewed to evaluate the clinical outcomes and ERCP-related complications in patients 80 years of age or older (group A) and in patients younger than 65 years of age (group B).

Results:
A total of 141 patients (182 procedures) were 80 years of age or older (group A), and 513 patients (610 procedures) were 65 years old or younger (group B). Chronic concomitant diseases (73.05% vs. 31.19%, P<0.01) and the use of antithrombotic drugs (25.53% vs. 15.01%, P<0.01) were more frequent in group A than in group B. Common bile duct (CBD) stones were the most common indication for ERCP in both groups. The rate of a difficult cannulation was higher in group A than in group B (23.63% vs. 16.56%, P<0.01). The mean procedure time was longer, and second ERCPs were performed more frequently in group A than in group B. In addition, periampullary diverticulum was observed significantly more frequently in group A (30.22% vs. 20%, P<0.01) than in group B. The overall success rate (92.31% vs. 93.93%, P>0.05) and the complication rate (6.59% vs. 5.25%, P>0.05) were not significantly different between the 2 groups.

Conclusions:
ERCP is a safe and effective intervention in patients 80 years of age or older, although elderly patients had a high rate of concomitant chronic diseases and used antithrombotic drugs more frequently.
Comparative Qualitative Phosphoproteomics Analysis Identifies Shared Phosphorylation Motifs and Associated Biological Processes in Flowering Plants
Authors: Al-Momani Shireen , Qi Da , Ren Zhe , Jones Andrew R 
Published: December 2017

SummaryPhosphorylation is regarded as one of the most prevalent post-translational modifications and plays a key role in regulating cellular processes. In this work we carried out a comparative bioinformatics analysis of phosphoproteomics data, to profile two model species representing the largest subclasses in flowering plants the dicotArabidopsis thalianaand the monocotOryza sativa, to understand the extent to which phosphorylation signaling and function is conserved across evolutionary divergent plants. Using pre-existing mass spectrometry phosphoproteomics datasets and bioinformatic tools and resources, we identified 6,537 phosphopeptides from 3,189 phosphoproteins inArabidopsisand 2,307 phosphopeptides from 1,613 phosphoproteins in rice. The relative abundance ratio of serine, threonine, and tyrosine phosphorylation sites in rice andArabidopsiswere highly similar: 88.3: 11.4: 0.4 and 86.7: 12.8: 0.5, respectively. Tyrosine phosphorylation shows features different from serine and threonine phosphorylation and was found to be more frequent in doubly-phosphorylated peptides inArabidopsis. We identified phosphorylation sequence motifs in the two species to explore the similarities, finding nineteen pS motifs and two pT motifs that are shared in rice andArabidopsis; among them are five novel motifs that have not previously been described in both species. The majority of shared motif-containing proteins were mapped to the same biological processes with similar patterns of fold enrichment, indicating high functional conservation. We also identified shared patterns of crosstalk between phosphoserines with motifs pSXpS, pSXXpS and pSXXXpS, where X is any amino acid, in both species indicating this is an evolutionary conserved signaling mechanism in flowering plants. However, our results are suggestive that there is greater co-occurrence of crosstalk between phosphorylation sites inArabidopsis, and we were able to identify several pairs of motifs that are statistically significantly enriched to co-occur inArabidopsisproteins, but not in rice.
An antisense RNA capable of modulating the expression of the tumor suppressor microRNA-34a
Authors: Serviss Jason T. , Richter Felix Clemens , Van den Eynden Jimmy , Andrews Nathanael , Houtman Miranda , Vesterlund Mattias , Schwarzmueller Laura , Johnsson Per , Larsson Erik , Grandér Dan , Pokrovskaja Tamm Katja 
Published: December 2017

AbstractThe microRNA-34a is a well-studied tumor suppressor microRNA (miRNA) and a direct downstream target of TP53 with roles in several pathways associated with oncogenesis, such as proliferation, cellular growth, and differentiation. Due to its broad tumor suppressive activity, it is not surprising that miR34a expression is altered in a wide variety of solid tumors and hematological malignancies. However, the mechanisms by which miR34a is regulated in these cancers is largely unknown. In this study, we find that a long non-coding RNA transcribed antisense to the miR34a host gene, is critical for miR34a expression and mediation of its cellular functions in multiple types of human cancer. We name this long non-coding RNA lncTAM34a, and characterize its ability to facilitate miR34a expression under different types of cellular stress in both TP53 deficient and wild type settings.
Brain and psychological determinants of placebo pill response in chronic pain patients
Authors: Vachon-Presseau Etienne , Berger Sara E. , Abdullah Taha B. , Huang Lejian , Cecchi Guillermo , Griffith James W. , Schnitzer Thomas J. , Apkarian A. Vania 
Published: December 2017

AbstractPlacebo response is universally observed in randomized controlled trials (RCTs), yet these effects are commonly dismissed as consequences of uncontrollable confounds. In this prospective neuroimaging-based RCT performed in chronic back pain patients, we demonstrate that the intensity, but not quality, of pain is diminished with placebo pill ingestion. The response to placebo pills depended on brain: subcortical limbic volume asymmetry, sensorimotor cortical thickness, and functional coupling of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) with the periaqueductal grey (PAG), the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC), and the precentral gyrus (PreCG); and psychological factors. All features were present before exposure to the pill; most remained stable across treatment and washout periods, although specific functional coupling between DLPFC and PAG dissipated with repeated exposure. These brain properties and specific psychological factors, such as interoceptive awareness and openness, were also predictive of the magnitude of response (continuous variable). We used machine learning in a fully cross-validated procedure and demonstrated that psychological factors were sufficient for classifying and predicting response magnitude; and response magnitude could also be predicted from a functional network (nodes mainly located in the limbic community, the DLPFC, the orbitofrontal cortex, and the temporo-parietal junction); the combined model explained 36% of the variance. Together, our results demonstrate that placebo pill analgesia observed in clinical trials depends on a combination of brain properties and specific psychological factors.
Central Role of Cognitive Control Networks in Weight Loss During Voluntary Calorie Restriction
Authors: Neseliler Selin , Hu Wen , Larcher Kevin , Zacchia Maria , Dadar Mahsa , Scala Stephanie G. , Lamarche Marie , Zeighami Yashar , Stotland Stephen C. , Larocque Maurice , Marliss Errol B. , Dagher Alain 
Published: December 2017

SummaryInsufficient responses to hypocaloric diets have been attributed to hormonal adaptations that override self-control of food intake. We tested this hypothesis by measuring brain fMRI reactivity to food cues and circulating energy-balance hormones in 24 overweight/obese participants before, and 1 and 3 months after starting a calorie restriction diet. Increased activity in prefrontal regions at month 1 correlated with weight loss at months 1 and 3. Weight loss was also correlated with increased plasma ghrelin and decreased leptin at month 1, and these changes were associated with greater food cue reactivity in reward-related brain regions. However, the reduction in leptin did not counteract weight loss; indeed, it was correlated with further weight loss at month 3. Activation in a network of prefrontal regions associated with self-control could contribute to individual differences in weight loss and maintenance, whereas we failed to find that the hormonal adaptations play a major role.
Multi-attribute Decision-making is Best Characterized by an Attribute-Wise Reinforcement Learning Model
Authors: Wang Shaoming , Rehder Bob 
Published: December 2017

AbstractChoice alternatives often consist of multiple attributes that vary in how successfully they predict reward. Some standard theoretical models assert that decision makers evaluate choices either by weighting those attribute optimally in light of previous experience (so-called rational models), or adopting heuristics that use attributes suboptimally but in a manner that yields reasonable performance at minimal cost (e.g., the take-the-best heuristic). However, these models ignore both the possibility that decision makers might learn to associate reward with whole stimuli (a particular combination of attributes) rather than individual attributes and the common finding that decisions can be overly influenced by recent experiences and exhibit cue competition effects. Participants completed a two-alternative choice task where each stimulus consisted of three binary attributes that were predictive of reward, albeit with different degrees of reliability. Their choices revealed that, rather than using only the “best” attribute, they made use of all attributes but in manner that reflected the classic cue competition effect known as overshadowing. The time needed to make decisions increased as the number of relevant attributes increased, suggesting that reward was associated with attributes rather than whole stimuli. Fitting a family of computational models formed by crossing attribute use (optimal vs. only the best), representation (attribute vs. whole stimuli), and recency (biased or not), revealed that models that performed better when they made use of all information, represented attributes, and incorporated recency effects and cue competition. We also discuss the need to incorporate selective attention and hypothesis-testing like processes to account for results with multiple-attribute stimuli.
The accuracy of LD Score regression as an estimator of confounding and genetic correlations in genome-wide association studies
Authors: Lee James J. , McGue Matt , Iacono William G. , Chow Carson C. 
Published: December 2017

AbstractIn order to infer that a single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) either affects a phenotype or is linkage disequilibrium with a causal site, we must have some assurance that any SNP-phenotype correlation is not the result of confounding with environmental variables that also affect the trait. In this work we study the properties of LD Score regression, a recently developed method for using summary statistics from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) to ensure that confounding does not inflate the number of false positives. We do not treat the effects of genetic variation as a random variable and thus are able to obtain results about the unbiasedness of this method. We demonstrate that LD Score regression can produce estimates of confounding at null SNPs that are unbiased or conservative under fairly general conditions. This robustness holds in the case of the parent genotype affecting the offspring phenotype through some environmental mechanism, despite the resulting correlation over SNPs between LD Scores and the degree of confounding. Additionally, we demonstrate that LD Score regression can produce reasonably robust estimates of the genetic correlation, even when its estimates of the genetic covariance and the two univariate heritabilities are substantially biased.
Real-time search of all bacterial and viral genomic data
Authors: Bradley Phelim , Den Bakker Henk C , Rocha Eduardo P. C. , McVean Gil , Iqbal Zamin 
Published: December 2017

AbstractGenome sequencing of pathogens is now ubiquitous in microbiology, and the sequence archives are effectively no longer searchable for arbitrary sequences. Furthermore, the exponential increase of these archives is likely to be further spurred by automated diagnostics. To unlock their use for scientific research and real-time surveillance we have combined knowledge about bacterial genetic variation with ideas used in web-search, to build a DNA search engine for microbial data that can grow incrementally. We indexed the complete global corpus of bacterial and viral whole genome sequence data (447,833 genomes), using four orders of magnitude less storage than previous methods. The method allows future scaling to millions of genomes. This renders the global archive accessible to sequence search, which we demonstrate with three applications: ultra-fast search for resistance genes MCR1-3, analysis of host-range for 2827 plasmids, and quantification of the rise of antibiotic resistance prevalence in the sequence archives.
The Variability Puzzle in Human Memory
Authors: Kahana M.J. , Aggarwal E.V. , Phan T.D. 
Published: December 2017

AbstractMemory performance exhibits a high level of variability from moment to moment. Much of this variability may reflect inadequately controlled experimental variables, such as word memorability, past practice and subject fatigue. Alternatively, stochastic variability in performance may largely reflect the efficiency of endogenous neural processes that govern memory function. To help adjudicate between these competing views, we conducted a multisession study in which subjects completed 552 trials of a delayed free-recall task. Applying a statistical model to predict variability in each subject’s recall performance uncovered modest effects of word memorability, proactive interference, and other variables. In contrast to the limited explanatory power of these experimental variables, performance on the prior list strongly predicted current list recall. These findings suggest that endogenous factors underlying successful encoding and retrieval drive variability in performance.
Annotated methodological review of Lean Six Sigma
Authors: Muraliraj J. , Zailani Suhaiza , Kuppusamy S. , Santha C. 
Published: December 2017

PurposeLiterature reviews are a pervasive aspect in research. An ever mounting field such as Lean Six Sigma requires a perpetual touch on the subject to accentuate insights that can be researched about. The purpose of this paper is to address the published literatures in the field of Lean Six Sigma through multiple criterion for an enhanced understanding of the subject matter through summarizing its current trends, uncovering existing literature gaps and revealing opportunities for future research in the field.Design/methodology/approachThe literature review on Lean Six Sigma field spans around 17 years that includes peer-reviewed journals from management, business, engineering, healthcare, manufacturing, military among the many disciplines. The study uses a content analysis approach in which several dimensions of the literature were analysed: purpose or focus of study, years of publication, journal name or publications, methodologies, theories used, country of study, industry sub-sectors, active authors in the field, critical success factors, barriers and challenges and the most contribution of Lean Six Sigma papers by universities.FindingsEleven important findings from the analysis were summarized among them; the field of Lean Six Sigma had begun to grow significantly since the new millennium particularly after the 2004-2007 or 2008 period; standalone concepts of Lean and Six Sigma are highly researched compared to the integrated concepts; large proportion of perspective, conceptual and descriptive based studies; lack of empirical validity on the fusion between Lean and Six Sigma; lack of theoretical based studies, etc.Research limitations/implicationsThe study is limited to 102 journals in commonly searched databases in the subject matter which produced 261 journal papers. This study seeks to broaden the summary of studies done under the keyword “Lean Six Sigma”.Originality/valueThe review analysis uses a content analysis approach in search of valuable gaps in existing research. The study found 261 papers from 102 journals that were published over the past seventeen years (2000-2016). This paper provides scholars, practitioners and managers with insights on the present trends and focus of Lean Six Sigma in addition to what else are lacking in the subject matter, which could pave the way for future research and practical endeavours.
The European rating fund
Authors: Fischer Dirk-Hinnerk 
Published: December 2017

Purpose
The complexity of the financial markets and their controlling entities make structural reforms highly problematic and controversial. This paper aims to address the deficiencies of the credit rating agency (CRA) market. The contribution of this paper to this long and ongoing discussion is a reform concept that is based on the introduction of a new public entity.

Design/methodology/approach
The design is based on the market deficiencies and structural issues defined by numerous other researchers.

Findings
The proposed market reform is based on the introduction of an entity that mainly acts as a communication layer which takes over the contract distribution and payment organization between the issuers and the agencies. The distribution of products for ratings gets anonymized and randomized, which eliminates most conflicts of interest that prevent the market players from performing as they should. This process changes the market fundamentally, but it does not impact either side’s capacity to make profit.

Research limitations/implications
The concept can hence solve most issues of the market, but not all.

Practical implications
The concept is a first step toward necessary reform, and this paper fuels a new discussion about a valid CRA market reform. The reform proposal mentioned in this paper focuses on the European Union, but the structure is easily adaptable to other markets.

Originality/value
The structure introduced in this paper is a new concept that has not been proposed before.
Corporate branding and rebranding: an institutional logics perspective
Authors: Stuart Helen 
Published: December 2017

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how the institutional logics framework adds a fresh perspective on corporate branding, particularly in times of organisational change and subsequent corporate rebranding.Design/methodology/approachThe paper examines previous comprehensive approaches to corporate branding in the face of organisational transformation, applying institutional theory which adds to intelligence already developed regarding corporate branding and rebranding in this situation.FindingsAn understanding of the institutional logics framework provides insights into how corporate branding and rebranding in organisations is affected in an environment where the organisation simultaneously holds values and beliefs inherent to two or more competing institutional forms (Townley, 2002).Research limitations/implicationsFurther research is required to develop a model which integrates institutional logics into previous approaches to corporate rebranding.Practical implicationsConsideration of the underlying institutional logics of an organisation and how organisational transformation results in competing institutional logics and institutional pluralism leads to profound thinking about branding and rebranding an organisation.Originality/valueAlthough there are a number of studies which look at how to evolve the corporate brand in times of organisational transformation, the institutional logics approach has not yet been applied to this issue, except by the author.
Maternal oxidative stress and reproduction: Testing the constraint, cost and shielding hypotheses in a wild mammal
Authors: Viblanc Vincent A. , Schull Quentin , Roth Jeffrey D. , Rabdeau Juliette , Saraux Claire , Uhlrich Pierre , Criscuolo François , Dobson F. Stephen 
Published: December 2017

Abstract

Oxidative stress has been proposed as a central causal mechanism underlying the life‐history trade‐off between current and future reproduction and survival in wild animals.

While mixed evidence suggests that maternal oxidative stress may act both as a constraint and a cost to reproduction, some studies have reported a lack of association between reproduction and maternal oxidative stress.

The oxidative shielding hypothesis offers an alternative explanation, suggesting that mothers may pre‐emptively mitigate the oxidative costs of reproduction by increasing antioxidant defences prior to reproduction.

We tested the oxidative constraint, cost and shielding hypotheses using a longitudinal field study of oxidative stress levels in a species that breeds using daily energy income, the Columbian ground squirrel (Urocitellus columbianus).

Elevated maternal oxidative damage prior to reproduction was associated with higher maternal investment in litter mass at birth, but not at weaning.

Breeding females increased their antioxidant capacity and decreased their oxidative damage from birth to lactation, compared to non‐breeding females measured at the same time periods. However, lower maternal oxidative stress during lactation was not associated with higher offspring survival or mass growth over this period.

Our results provide little evidence for maternal oxidative stress acting as a constraint on, or cost to, reproduction in Columbian ground squirrels, but partially support the idea that oxidative shielding occurred to buffer potential oxidative costs of reproduction.

A plain language summary is available for this article.
Beyond the everyday: sustaining kinship in western Kenya
Authors: Cooper Elizabeth 
Published: December 2017

AbstractThis article considers the efforts people in western Kenya have been making to uphold an ideology and practice of the natal home and kin group as morally authoritative, in a context where the very survival of many homes and families has been compromised by the devastating effects of AIDS‐related deaths and impoverishment. It traces how orphaned adults, who have little experience or memory of living among natal kin at natal homes, make concerted efforts to reconnect – often in necessarily improvised ways – with what survives of their natal kin and home. For women, in particular, such efforts seem less motivated by immediate material interests and more focused on demonstrating lineal solidarity as a means to affirming their moral personhood and value. The analysis addresses how people lacking shared everyday experiences of kinship and homes sustain the possibility of their kinship futures through a combination of imagination and ideological commitment.