bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Human severe sepsis cytokine mixture increases β2-integrin-dependent polymorphonuclear leukocyte adhesion to cerebral microvascular endothelial cells in vitro
Authors: Blom Chris , Deller Brittany L , Fraser Douglas D , Patterson Eric K , Martin Claudio M , Young Bryan , Liaw Patricia C , Yazdan-Ashoori Payam , Ortiz Angelica , Webb Brian , Kilmer Greg , Carter David E , Cepinskas Gediminas 
Published: March 2015

Abstract
Introduction
Sepsis-associated encephalopathy (SAE) is a state of acute brain dysfunction in response to a systemic infection. We propose that systemic inflammation during sepsis causes increased adhesion of leukocytes to the brain microvasculature, resulting in blood-brain barrier dysfunction. Thus, our objectives were to measure inflammatory analytes in plasma of severe sepsis patients to create an experimental cytokine mixture (CM), and to use this CM to investigate the activation and interactions of polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMN) and human cerebrovascular endothelial cells (hCMEC/D3) in vitro.

Methods
The concentrations of 41 inflammatory analytes were quantified in plasma obtained from 20 severe sepsis patients and 20 age- and sex-matched healthy controls employing an antibody microarray. Two CMs were prepared to mimic severe sepsis (SSCM) and control (CCM), and these CMs were then used for PMN and hCMEC/D3 stimulation in vitro. PMN adhesion to hCMEC/D3 was assessed under conditions of flow (shear stress 0.7 dyn/cm2).

Results
Eight inflammatory analytes elevated in plasma obtained from severe sepsis patients were used to prepare SSCM and CCM. Stimulation of PMN with SSCM led to a marked increase in PMN adhesion to hCMEC/D3, as compared to CCM. PMN adhesion was abolished with neutralizing antibodies to either β2 (CD18), αL/β2 (CD11α/CD18; LFA-1) or αM/β2 (CD11β/CD18; Mac-1) integrins. In addition, immune-neutralization of the endothelial (hCMEC/D3) cell adhesion molecule, ICAM-1 (CD54) also suppressed PMN adhesion.

Conclusions
Human SSCM up-regulates PMN pro-adhesive phenotype and promotes PMN adhesion to cerebrovascular endothelial cells through a β2-integrin-ICAM-1-dependent mechanism. PMN adhesion to the brain microvasculature may contribute to SAE.
Renal tubular acidosis is highly prevalent in critically ill patients
Authors: Brunner Richard , Drolz Andreas , Scherzer Thomas-Matthias , Staufer Katharina , Fuhrmann Valentin , Zauner Christian , Holzinger Ulrike , Schneeweiß Bruno 
Published: March 2015

Abstract
Introduction
Hyperchloremic acidosis is frequent in critically ill patients. Renal tubular acidosis (RTA) may contribute to acidemia in the state of hyperchloremic acidosis, but the prevalence of RTA has never been studied in critically ill patients. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the prevalence, type, and possible risk factors of RTA in critically ill patients using a physical-chemical approach.

Methods
This prospective, observational trial was conducted in a medical ICU of a university hospital. One hundred consecutive critically ill patients at the age ≥18, expected to stay in the ICU for ≥24 h, with the clinical necessity for a urinary catheter and the absence of anuria were included.
Base excess (BE) subset calculation based on a physical-chemical approach on the first 7 days after ICU admission was used to compare the effects of free water, chloride, albumin, and unmeasured anions on the standard base excess. Calculation of the urine osmolal gap (UOG) - as an approximate measure of the unmeasured urine cation NH4+ - served as determinate between renal and extrarenal bicarbonate loss in the state of hyperchloremic acidosis.

Results
During the first week of ICU stay 43 of the patients presented with hyperchloremic acidosis on one or more days represented as pronounced negative BEChloride. In 31 patients hyperchloremic acidosis was associated with RTA characterized by a UOG ≤150 mosmol/kg in combination with preserved renal function. However, in 26 of the 31 patients with RTA metabolic acidosis was neutralized by other acid-base disturbances leading to a normal arterial pH.

Conclusions
RTA is highly prevalent in critically ill patients with hyperchloremic acidosis, whereas it is often neutralized by the simultaneous occurrence of other acid-base disturbances.

Trial registration
Clinicaltrials.gov NCT02392091. Registered 17 March 2015
Denoising perturbation signatures reveal an actionable AKT-signaling gene module underlying a poor clinical outcome in endocrine-treated ER+ breast cancer
Authors: Teschendorff Andrew E , Li Linlin , Yang Zhen 
Published: March 2015

Abstract
Background
Databases of perturbation gene expression signatures and drug sensitivity provide a powerful framework to develop personalized medicine approaches, by helping to identify actionable genomic markers and subgroups of patients who may benefit from targeted treatments.

Results
Here we use a perturbation expression signature database encompassing perturbations of over 90 cancer genes, in combination with a large breast cancer expression dataset and a novel statistical denoising algorithm, to help discern cancer perturbations driving most of the variation in breast cancer gene expression. Clustering estrogen receptor positive cancers over the perturbation activity scores recapitulates known luminal subtypes. Analysis of individual activity scores enables identification of a novel cancer subtype, defined by a 31-gene AKT-signaling module. Specifically, we show that activation of this module correlates with a poor prognosis in over 900 endocrine-treated breast cancers, a result we validate in two independent cohorts. Importantly, breast cancer cell lines with high activity of the module respond preferentially to PI3K/AKT/mTOR inhibitors, a result we also validate in two independent datasets. We find that at least 34 % of the downregulated AKT module genes are either mediators of apoptosis or have tumor suppressor functions.

Conclusions
The statistical framework advocated here could be used to identify gene modules that correlate with prognosis and sensitivity to alternative treatments. We propose a randomized clinical trial to test whether the 31-gene AKT module could be used to identify estrogen receptor positive breast cancer patients who may benefit from therapy targeting the PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling axis.
Body mass index and the risk of rheumatoid arthritis: a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis
Authors: Qin Baodong , Yang Min , Fu Haitao , Ma Ning , Wei Tingting , Tang Qingqin , Hu Zhide , Liang Yan , Yang Zaixing , Zhong Renqian 
Published: March 2015

Abstract
Introduction
The evidence from published studies on the association between obesity and rheumatoid arthritis has been contradictory. To clarify the association between obesity and rheumatoid arthritis, we conducted a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis to assess the relationship between body mass index and rheumatoid arthritis risk.

Methods
A systematic literature search of PubMed and Embase (up to 12 July 2014) was performed to identify all eligible published reports. The pooled relative risk results with corresponding 95% confidence intervals of rheumatoid arthritis development were estimated using a random-effects model.

Results
Eleven eligible related citations fulfilled the inclusion criteria and were included in the study. Compared with individuals with a body mass index under 30, obese individuals showed an association with a significantly increased risk of rheumatoid arthritis (relative risk = 1.25, 95% confidence interval: 1.07 to 1.45, Pheterogeneity <0.01, I2 = 63%). Compared to normal weight subjects, the pooled relative risks for rheumatoid arthritis were 1.31 (1.12 to 1.53) and 1.15 (1.03 to 1.29) for the categories of obese and overweight, respectively. In the dose-response analysis, there was evidence of a nonlinear association (Pnonlinear = 0.005) and the estimated summary relative risk for a 5-unit increment was 1.03 (95% confidence interval: 1.01 to 1.05, Pheterogeneity = 0.001, I2 = 70.0%).

Conclusions
An increase in body mass index can contribute to a higher risk for rheumatoid arthritis development. However, the finding also highlights the need for research on the association between body mass index and rheumatoid arthritis risk with adjustment for more confounding factors.
Systematic review and meta-analysis of efficacy of mesenchymal stem cells on locomotor recovery in animal models of traumatic brain injury
Authors: Peng Weijun , Sun Jing , Sheng Chenxia , Wang Zhe , Wang Yang , Zhang Chunhu , Fan Rong 
Published: March 2015

Abstract
Introduction
The therapeutic potential of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) for traumatic brain injury (TBI) is attractive. Conducting systematic review and meta-analyses based on data from animal studies can be used to inform clinical trial design. To conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis to (i) systematically review the literatures describing the effect of MSCs therapy in animal models of TBI, (ii) determine the estimated effect size of functional locomotor recovery after experimental TBI, and (iii) to provide empirical evidence of biological factors associated with greater efficacy.

Methods
We conducted a systematic search of PubMed, EMBASE, and Web of Science and hand searched related references. Studies were selected if they reported the efficacy of MSCs in animal models of TBI. Two investigators independently assessed the identified studies. We extracted the details of individual study characteristics from each publication, assessed study quality, evaluated the effect sizes of MSCs treatment, and performed stratified meta-analysis and meta-regression, to assess the influence of study design on the estimated effect size. The presence of small effect sizes was investigated using funnel plots and Egger’s tests.

Results
Twenty-eight eligible controlled studies were identified. The study quality was modest. Between-study heterogeneity was large. Meta-analysis showed that MSCs exert statistically significant positive effects on sensorimotor and neurological motor function. For sensorimotor function, maximum effect size in studies with a quality score of 5 was found in the weight-drop impact injury TBI model established in male SD rats, to which syngeneic umbilical cord-derived MSCs intracerebrally at cell dose of (1–5) × 106 was administered r 6 hours following TBI, using ketamine as anesthetic agent. For neurological motor function, effect size was maximum for studies with a quality score of 5, in which the weight-drop impact injury TBI models of the female Wistar rats were adopted, with administration syngeneic bone marrow-derived MSCs intravenously at cell dose of 5 × 106 at 2 months after TBI, using sevofluorane as anesthetic agent.

Conclusions
We conclude that MSCs therapy may improve locomotor recovery after TBI. However, additional well-designed and well-reported animal studies are needed to guide further clinical studies.
Human umbilical cord blood-derived mononuclear cells improve murine ventricular function upon intramyocardial delivery in right ventricular chronic pressure overload
Authors: Oommen Saji , Yamada Satsuki , Cantero Peral Susana , Campbell Katherine A , Bruinsma Elizabeth S , Terzic Andre , Nelson Timothy J 
Published: March 2015

Abstract
Introduction
Stem cell therapy has emerged as potential therapeutic strategy for damaged heart muscles. Umbilical cord blood (UCB) cells are the most prevalent stem cell source available, yet have not been fully tested in cardiac regeneration. Herein, studies were performed to evaluate the cardiovascular safety and beneficial effect of mononuclear cells (MNCs) isolated from human umbilical cord blood upon intramyocardial delivery in a murine model of right ventricle (RV) heart failure due to pressure overload.

Methods
UCB-derived MNCs were delivered into the myocardium of a diseased RV cardiac model. Pulmonary artery banding (PAB) was used to produce pressure overload in athymic nude mice that were then injected intramyocardially with UCB-MNCs (0.4 × 10^6 cells/heart). Cardiac functions were then monitored by telemetry, echocardiography, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and pathologic analysis of heart samples to determine the ability for cell-based repair.

Results
The cardio-toxicity studies provided evidence that UCB cell transplantation has a safe therapeutic window between 0.4 to 0.8 million cells/heart without altering QT or ST-segments or the morphology of electrocardiograph waves. The PAB cohort demonstrated significant changes in RV chamber dilation and functional defects consistent with severe pressure overload. Using cardiac MRI analysis, UCB-MNC transplantation in the setting of PAB demonstrated an improvement in RV structure and function in this surgical mouse model. The RV volume load in PAB-only mice was 24.09 ± 3.9 compared to 11.05 ± 2.09 in the cell group (mm3, P-value <0.005). The analysis of pathogenic gene expression (BNP, ANP, Acta1, Myh7) in the cell-transplanted group showed a significant reversal with respect to the diseased PAB mice with a robust increase in cardiac progenitor gene expression such as GATA4, Kdr, Mef2c and Nkx2.5. Histological analysis indicated significant fibrosis in the RV in response to PAB that was reduced following UCB-MNC’s transplantation along with concomitant increased Ki-67 expression and CD31 positive vessels as a marker of angiogenesis within the myocardium.

Conclusions
These findings indicate that human UCB-derived MNCs promote an adaptive regenerative response in the right ventricle upon intramyocardial transplantation in the setting of chronic pressure overload heart failure.
Pollen Allergies in Humans and their Dogs, Cats and Horses: Differences and Similarities
Authors: Jensen‐Jarolim Erika , Einhorn Lukas , Herrmann Ina , Thalhammer Johann G , Panakova Lucia 
Published: March 2015

AbstractBoth humans and their most important domestic animals harbor IgE and a similar IgE receptor repertoire and expression pattern. The same cell types are also involved in the triggering or regulation of allergies, such as mast cells, eosinophils or T‐regulatory cells. Translational clinical studies in domestic animals could therefore help cure animal allergies and at the same time gather knowledge relevant to human patients. Dogs, cats and horses may spontaneously and to different extents develop immediate type symptoms to pollen allergens. The skin, nasal and bronchial reactions, as well as chronic skin lesions due to pollen are in principle comparable to human patients. Pollen of various species most often causes allergic rhinitis in human patients, whereas in dogs it elicits predominantly eczematous lesions (canine atopic dermatitis), in horses recurrent airway obstruction or hives as well as pruritic dermatitis, and in cats bronchial asthma and so‐called cutaneous reactive patterns (eosinophilic granuloma complex, head and neck pruritus, symmetric self‐induced alopecia). In human allergy‐specific IgE detection, skin tests or other allergen provocation tests should be completed. In contrast, in animals IgE and dermal tests are regarded as equally important and may even replace each other. However, for practical and economic reasons intradermal tests are most commonly performed in a specialized practice. As in humans, in dogs, cats and horses allergen immunotherapy leads to significant improvement of the clinical symptoms. The collected evidence suggests that canines, felines and equines, with their spontaneous allergies, are attractive model patients for translational studies.
The impact of the recession on the wealth of older immigrant and native households in the United States
Authors: Amuedo-Dorantes Catalina , Pozo Susan 
Published: March 2015

Abstract
Using the 2006 and 2010 Health and Retirement Study, we explore how the recent recession impacted the wealth holding and retirement plans of older households in the United States. Of particular interest to us is whether the impact on household asset ownership, asset wealth and household retirement behavior varied with the nativity of the household and its standing in the wealth distribution prior to the onset of the recession. We find that the so-called Great Recession made a significant dent on the portfolios of older American households by eroding the value of specific assets to the point of delaying their planned retirement. Furthermore, its impacts were unevenly distributed across demographic and economic groups, with mixed and immigrant households in the middle and top wealth quartiles prior to the recession enduring significantly larger wealth losses than natives due, primarily, to their greater losses in primary housing ownership and primary housing values.

JEL codes: D31; J26
Polymer-binding Peptides as Dispersants for the Preparation of Polymer Nanoparticles: Application of Peptides to Structurally Similar Non-target Polymers
Authors: Sawada Toshiki , Matsumiya Kisei , Serizawa Takeshi 
Published: March 2015

Abstract
The Mps01 peptide (sequence: HNAYWHWPPSMT) that recognizes the main chain structure of poly(2-methoxy-5-(2-ethylhexyloxy)-1,4-phenylenevinylene) was utilized as a dispersant to prepare polymer nanoparticles with spherical morphologies and narrow size distributions.
Training Primary School Teachers in the Applied Baccalaureate in Terms of the �Pedagogue� Professional Standard: Reflections on Professional Functions and Ways of Networking
Authors: �����������  , Smolyaninova O. , ���������  , Korshunova Vera , �����  , Yudina Yuliya 
Published: March 2015

The article discusses the changes in the content of training programs for primary school teachers in the context of the modernization of pedagogical
education related to the requirements of the professional standard of a teacher. In order to strengthen the practical orientation of training of future
elementary school teachers authors propose a model of basic networking systems included in the training process: system of vocational training and
system of higher professional education. In the analysis of professional standard &#34;Teacher&#34; were marked out labor actions for each of the labor functions
(training, development) and determined the delta at the levels of higher education (bachelor degree and magistracy).
To ensure the formation of labor actions of students according to the professional standards of the teacher the authors of the article in relation to them
formulated and theoretically substantiated the hypothesis about the content of the activities of students and educational outcomes of students, which
are formed in the course of training in higher school and in practice at the school.
Moving from potentiality to diversity: A typology of Belgian civil society’s online media practices to enhance social engagement
Authors: Carpentier Nico 
Published: March 2015

Abstract
The article presents a recently developed typology of the diversity of online media practices in and by Belgian civil society organizations (CSOs) to enhance social engagement. Framed by the ambition to move away from utopian (and dystopian) discourses of certainty and potentiality, the article’s objective is to access the enormous diversity of ways the online is put to use, without imposing normative expectations about, for instance, participatory intensities. To generate this overview, the structuring logic of the typology is used, despite the loss of detail and nuance caused by the use of this bird’s-eye view-generating method. The construction of this particular typology took place in different iterative phases, each with its own methodological approach. These were a theoretical phase, a case study phase and a CSO survey phase. Through these iterations, a two-dimensional typology was constructed, grounded in the distinctions between internal, internalexternal and external use, and between access, interaction and participation. Showing the vast diversity of civil society’s online media practices not only increases our understanding of their online use, but also facilitates a more nuanced discussion of the use and importance of participatory online practices that will move away from exclusively utopian approaches or discourses of potentiality.
New media, democracy, participation and the political
Authors: Vatikiotis Pantelis 
Published: March 2015

Abstract
The advent of social media has revived the discussion on media engagement/participation and the role of citizen-user in the democratic innovation, in terms of both building divergent cultures of communality and experimenting, individually and collectively, with new ways of ‘claiming’ and ‘doing’. In this context, the article probes into the interplay between social and technological, public and private, collective and individual, civic and commercial practices at networked platforms, reviewing relevant challenges and questions set for the enhancement of the democratic activity. It draws on the deliberative and the radical democratic approaches, evaluating discursively the dynamics of civic engagement/participation in the realm of mediated and networked communication, in regard to the interactional dimension of the public sphere (and the connections with the private sphere), as well as on the lines of the development of a new sociality (a mixture of both the personal and the political). From this perspective, the article critically reflects on the normative principles of rational deliberation and goal-directed action as exclusive arenas of the constitution of the democratic process, proposing instead a broader and dynamic framework that takes into account the intersection of differing and conflicting forms of engagement, both deliberative/active and monitorial/reactive ones.
Resistance on the walls, reclaiming public space: Street art in times of political turmoil in Turkey
Authors: Taş Tuĝba , Taş Oĝuzhan 
Published: March 2015

Abstract
This article is based on our research, in which we examine the interplay between political protest and street art practices in Turkey with specific reference to the recent ‘Occupy Gezi’ movement and its aftermath. We propose to conceive street art as a participatory political practice with a full range of different forms and styles (graffiti, stencils, posters, installations, performances, etc.), which employs three interconnected strategies: (1) utilizing urban public space as a privileged site of political visibility; (2) renegotiating the boundaries between art, political activism, and communication; (3) inviting its audience to engage in political agency. Our research necessarily takes into account methods of reapproprating and disseminating works of street art – particularly via digital media, which, in this era of networked social movements, serve to expand the scope of public space from the streets to online communities. After tracing the blossoming of street art in Turkey within the creation of an oppositional political aesthetics from the 1970s to the present day – in the historical context of a changing political milieu – we analyse the specific case of the Gezi Park protests, where street art became visible for a wider public and significantly contributed to the rebellious character of the movement in distinct ways.