bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Genetic testing for inherited arrhythmia syndromes and cardiomyopathies: results of the European Heart Rhythm Association survey
Authors: Zeljkovic Ivan , Gauthey Anaïs , Manninger Martin , Malaczynska-Rajpold Katarzyna , Tfelt-Hansen Jacob , Crotti Lia , Behr Elijah R , Migliore Federico , Wilde Arthur , Chun Julian , Conte Giulio 
Published: August 2024

Abstract

Aims
Indications and clinical impact of genetic testing for cardiac diseases have increased significantly over the past years. The aim of this physician-based European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA) survey was to assess current clinical practice and access to genetic testing for cardiac diseases across European Society of Cardiology countries and to evaluate adherence to the 2022 EHRA/HRS/APHRS/LAHRS Expert Consensus Statement on genetic testing.

Methods and results
An online questionnaire composed of 28 questions was submitted to the EHRA Research Network and European Reference Network GUARD-Heart healthcare partners and promoted via dedicated social media channels. There were 357 respondents from 69 countries, 40% working in a hospital setting with a cardiac genetic service and/or a dedicated clinic focusing on inherited cardiac diseases and 27% with an onsite genetic laboratory. No genetic testing or low annual rate (&lt;10/year) was declared by 39% of respondents. The majority of respondents (78%) declared issues or limitations to genetic testing access in their clinical practice. The main reasons for not providing or limited access to genetic testing were no availability of dedicated unit or genetic laboratory (35%) or reimbursement issues (25%). The most frequently reported indication for genetic testing was diagnostic purpose (55%). Most respondents (92%) declared offering genetic testing preceded by genetic counselling and 42% regular multidisciplinary evaluations for patients with cardiac genetic diseases. The perceived value of genetic testing in the diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic assessment was variable (67, 39, and 29%, respectively) and primarily based on the specific inherited disease. The majority of respondents recommended cascade genetic testing for the first-degree family members in case of pathogenic/likely pathogenic variant in the proband.

Conclusion
This survey highlights a significant heterogeneity of genetic testing access and provision and issues attributable to the availability of dedicated unit/genetic laboratory and reimbursement. However, adequate adherence to indications in the current recommendations for genetic testing in patients with cardiac diseases was observed.
Characterization of Effects of mTOR Inhibitors on Aging in Caenorhabditis elegans
Authors: Zhang Aihan , Meecham-Garcia Gadea , Nguyen Hong Chiminh , Xie Peiyun , Kern Carina C , Zhang Bruce , Chapman Hannah , Gems David 
Published: August 2024

Abstract
Pharmacological inhibition of the mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling pathway with rapamycin can extend lifespan in several organisms. Although this includes the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, effects in this species are relatively weak and sometimes difficult to reproduce. Here we test effects of drug dosage and timing of delivery to establish the upper limits of its capacity to extend life, and investigate drug effects on age-related pathology and causes of mortality. Liposome-mediated rapamycin treatment throughout adulthood showed a dose-dependent effect, causing a maximal 21.9% increase in mean lifespan, but shortening of lifespan at the highest dose, suggesting drug toxicity. Rapamycin treatment of larvae delayed development, weakly reduced fertility and modestly extended lifespan. By contrast, treatment initiated later in life robustly increased lifespan, even from Day 16 (or ~70 years in human terms). The rapalog temsirolimus extended lifespan similarly to rapamycin, but effects of everolimus were weaker. As in mouse, rapamycin had mixed effects on age-related pathologies, inhibiting one (uterine tumor growth) but not several others, suggesting a segmental antigeroid effect. These findings should usefully inform future experimental studies with rapamycin and rapalogs in C. elegans.
How Does Successful Aging Apply to Black Women? A Latent Class Analysis
Authors: Lewis Joshua C J , Drentea Patricia , Warner David F 
Published: August 2024

Abstract

Background and Objectives
Although prior research has identified racial/ethnic and gender differences in successful aging (SA), heterogeneity within groups has been little examined. We consequently explore the variety of aging experiences among older Black women.

Research Design and Methods
We used the 2010/2012 U.S. Health and Retirement Study, limiting analyses to Black women who completed the Psychosocial Leave-Behind Questionnaire (N = 1,186). We conducted latent class analysis using indicators of physical health, psychological well-being, social support/strain, and social engagement.

Results
Six SA latent classes were identified and labeled according to their distinctive characteristics: infirm, isolated, taxed, independent, vivacious, and robust. The infirm class had uniformly poor health, whereas the isolated class was in poor physical health but also lacked social relations. Although both had average physical health and psychological well-being, the taxed class experienced high levels of social support and social strain compared to the high support (and unpartnered) independent class. The vivacious and robust classes exhibited high physical health and psychological well-being, high social support/low social strain, and high social engagement, but vivacious women (23% of respondents) were unpartnered and robust women (16% of respondents) were partnered. The robust class had the highest physical and psychological well-being, and best social relations across all classes.

Discussion and Implications
Using nationally representative data, we reveal significant heterogeneity in Black women’s aging experiences. Although many face difficult aging experiences, 39% of older Black women fit the SA framework well. Future work should recognize that Black women’s aging experiences are not homogenous.
Perceptions of multi-cancer early detection tests among communities facing barriers to health care
Authors: Roybal Kristi L , Husa Robyn A , Connolly Maria , Dinh Catherine , Bensley Kara M K , Wendt Staci J 
Published: August 2024

Abstract
Marginalized racial and ethnic groups and rural and lower income communities experience significant cancer inequities. Blood-based multi-cancer early detection tests (MCEDs) provide a simple and less invasive method to screen for multiple cancers at a single access point and may be an important strategy to reduce cancer inequities. In this qualitative study, we explored barriers and facilitators to MCED adoption among communities facing health care access barriers in Alaska, California, and Oregon. We used reflexive thematic analysis to analyze general barriers to cancer screening, MCED-specific barriers, facilitators of MCED adoption, and MCED communication strategies. We found barriers and facilitators to MCED adoption across 4 levels of the social-ecological model: (1) individual, (2) interpersonal, (3) health care system, and (4) societal. These included adverse psychological impacts, positive perceptions of MCEDs, information and knowledge about cancer screening, the quality of the patient–provider relationship, a lack of health care system trustworthiness, logistical accessibility, patient supports, and financial accessibility. Optimal MCED communication strategies included information spread through the medical environment and the community. These findings underscore the importance of understanding and addressing the multilevel factors that may influence MCED adoption among communities facing health care access barriers to advance health equity.
Explaining Support for Border Closures During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Exposure, Political Attitudes, or Pandemic Policy Feedback?
Authors: Michel Elie , Manatschal Anita , Green Eva G T 
Published: August 2024

Abstract
The closing of national borders was one of the most far-reaching policy measures adopted to limit the spread of the virus during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Despite its unprecedented nature and far-reaching impact on individual lives, blocking almost all human movements not only into but also out of states, popular support for this measure was surprisingly high. How can this support be explained? Using an original 4-wave panel dataset across 11 countries together with cross-national policy data, we explore individual and contextual drivers of border closure support throughout 2020. We find that higher support can partly be explained by political attitudes related to cross-border mobility, such as distrust in foreigners or right-wing ideology. Primarily, however, support for closing borders is shaped by respondents’ evaluation of governments’ handling of the pandemic, as well as the intensity and timing of the constraining measures. We also find that support wanes over time, which may indicate a policy fatigue effect. Interestingly, health concerns (exposure to the virus) have almost no influence on support. Even in this exceptional situation, and when confronted with a new policy issue, citizens’ preferences are thus primarily a politically driven response to government measures.
Mnemonic Encounters: The Construction and Persistence of International “History Wars” and the Case of Japan–South Korea Relations
Authors: Deacon Chris 
Published: August 2024

Abstract
Why does contentious history play such an outsized role in some international relationships? Why do these “history wars” endure, overriding incentives to reconcile? Despite their demonstrable importance, history wars have generally been neglected by conventional conflict and security literature; and, while scholarship concerning the international politics of memory has expanded significantly, overarching frameworks addressing these questions remain underdeveloped. In this article, drawing on theories of memory politics, relational identity and ontological security, I analyze history wars as mnemonic encounters: sites at which national identities are constructed in relation to one another through remembering and forgetting shared history. Within such encounters, history wars may arise and persist where each side's mnemonic practices involve conflicting, negative representations of the other, and such representations constitute an important element of their national identities. This occurs because the rearticulation of conflictual representations constitutes both a means by which the national community is reproduced and a defense mechanism against the ontological threat posed by the other side's counter-constructions. Illustrating this framework, I explicate the construction and persistence of Japan and South Korea's “history problem,” drawing on extensive fieldwork and a discourse analysis of over one thousand original-language texts from both countries across politics, media and culture.
Resilience and Domination: Resonances of Racial Slavery in Refugee Exclusion
Authors: Glanville Luke 
Published: August 2024

Abstract
We are encouraged to think of refugees as resilient people with agency and capacity for flourishing, rather than passive victims needing help. This framing purports to uphold and celebrate refugees’ humanity. But some scholars worry that it problematically serves to demand resilience from refugees, normalize their displacement, and legitimate state bordering practices. This article builds on this critique by examining how powerful actors have long attributed resilience to vulnerable others to legitimate domination and control. I focus on the deployment of resilience-talk by white enslavers and their supporters to justify Black enslavement in the American South. Their philosophical, climatological, and epidemiological arguments about the resilient Black slave were supplemented with a claim that Black people could not survive liberation in the American North. I probe the resonances of this resilience-talk with contemporary invocations of the resilience of refugees in the Global South, and their supposed non-resilience in the Global North.
Current status of the systematics of large branchiopod crustaceans (Branchiopoda: Anostraca, Notostraca, Laevicaudata, Spinicaudata, Cyclestherida)
Authors: Rogers D Christopher 
Published: August 2024

Abstract
The current systematics of the large branchiopod crustaceans are reviewed in relation to other crustacean groups and from class to genus level. Calmanostraca and Diplostraca are raised to superorder, and †Kazacharthra and Notostraca are both treated as orders. Problems and needs regarding the systematics of large branchiopods are presented and discussed, with suggestions for moving forward, stressing the need for modern methods and defensible taxonomic definitions. Subdividing taxonomic categories may or may not be warranted, but should never be based on only one gene, or on limited taxon sampling. Furthermore, splitting species out as new genera, when the original genus is poorly defined can only lead to future problems.
To Whom Much is Given: The Russian Orthodox Church’s Role in the Russo-Ukrainian War
Authors: Negron Zacarias 
Published: August 2024

Abstract
The essence of a war is in its justification. In Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the state has turned to Patriarch Kirill and the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) to assemble a tranche of religio-legal justifications for the war in Ukraine. Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor was instantaneously colored by theological proclamations from the Kremlin and the Patriarchate. While powerful as mere propaganda, much more is at stake. In March 2024, the ROC officially declared Russia’s “special military operation” to be a “holy war,” the first time the ROC has made such a statement since the Russo-Japanese War under Tsar Nicholas II. This article argues that the decree is the logical reverberation of a broader urge to revivify Russian imperial mores, particularly in the legitimation of warfare against Ukraine. Vladimir Putin and Patriarch Kirill have instrumentalized one another. Patriarch Kirill gives religious substance to the Russian president’s claims of geopolitical slight, while the latter buttresses the ROC’s relevance amidst modernization. It is a partnership as nostalgic as it is pragmatic, rooted in the symphonic heyday of tsars and primates. An examination of the historical relationship between the Russian state and its church (as the ROC has come to be known) offers a multitude of lessons in the maintenance of the Kremlin’s power, the stateward trend of ROC theology, and the lengths to which states go to legitimate revanchist acts.
Modeling gastric intestinal metaplasia in 3D organoids using nitrosoguanidine
Authors: Li Yuan , Chen Jiena , Li Tao , Lin Jie , Zheng Haocheng , Johnson Nadia , Yao Xuebiao , Ding Xia 
Published: August 2024

Abstract
Gastric intestinal metaplasia (GIM) represents a precancerous stage characterized by morphological and pathophysiological changes in the gastric mucosa, where gastric epithelial cells transform into a phenotype resembling that of intestinal cells. Previous studies have demonstrated that the intragastric administration of N-methyl-N′-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine (MNNG) induces both gastric carcinoma and intestinal metaplasia in mice. Here, we show that MNNG induces GIM in three-dimensional (3D) mouse organoids. Our histological analyses reveal that MNNG-induced gastric organoids undergo classical morphological alterations, exhibiting a distinct up-regulation of CDX2 and MUC2, along with a down-regulation of ATP4B and MUC6. Importantly, metaplastic cells observed in MNNG-treated organoids originate from MIST1+ cells, indicating their gastric chief cell lineage. Functional analyses show that activation of the RAS signaling pathway drives MNNG-induced metaplasia in 3D organoids, mirroring the characteristics observed in human GIM. Consequently, modeling intestinal metaplasia using 3D organoids offers valuable insights into the molecular mechanisms and spatiotemporal dynamics of the gastric epithelial lineage during the development of intestinal metaplasia within the gastric mucosa. We conclude that the MNNG-induced metaplasia model utilizing 3D organoids provides a robust platform for developing preventive and therapeutic strategies to mitigate the risk of gastric cancer before precancerous lesions occur.
Receiver operating characteristic analysis for paired comparison data
Authors: Huo Ran , Glickman Mark E 
Published: August 2024

Abstract
Paired comparison models are used for analysing data that involves pairwise comparisons among a set of objects. When the outcomes of the pairwise comparisons have no ties, the paired comparison models can be generalized as a class of binary response models. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and their corresponding areas under the curves are commonly used as performance metrics to evaluate the discriminating ability of binary response models. Despite their individual wide range of usage and their close connection to binary response models, ROC analysis to our knowledge has never been extended to paired comparison models since the problem of using different objects as the reference in paired comparison models prevents traditional ROC approach from generating unambiguous and interpretable curves. We focus on addressing this problem by proposing two novel methods to construct ROC curves for paired comparison data which provide interpretable statistics and maintain desired asymptotic properties. The methods are then applied and analysed on head-to-head professional sports competition data.
A state-space perspective on modelling and inference for online skill rating
Authors: Duffield Samuel , Power Samuel , Rimella Lorenzo 
Published: August 2024

Abstract
We summarize popular methods used for skill rating in competitive sports, along with their inferential paradigms and introduce new approaches based on sequential Monte Carlo and discrete hidden Markov models. We advocate for a state-space model perspective, wherein players’ skills are represented as time-varying, and match results serve as observed quantities. We explore the steps to construct the model and the three stages of inference: filtering, smoothing, and parameter estimation. We examine the challenges of scaling up to numerous players and matches, highlighting the main approximations and reductions which facilitate statistical and computational efficiency. We additionally compare approaches in a realistic experimental pipeline that can be easily reproduced and extended with our open-source Python package, abile.
Damping wing absorption associated with a giant Ly α trough at z &lt; 6: direct evidence for late-ending reionization
Authors: Becker George D , Bolton James S , Zhu Yongda , Hashemi Seyedazim 
Published: August 2024

ABSTRACT
Multiple observations now suggest that the hydrogen reionization may have ended well below redshift six. While there has previously been no conclusive proof of extended neutral islands in the $z \lt 6$ intergalactic medium, it is possible that such islands give rise to the giant Ly $\alpha$ absorption troughs seen in the spectra of high-redshift quasars. Here, we present evidence that the deepest and longest known Ly $\alpha$ trough at $z \,\lt\, 6$, towards ULAS J0148 + 0600 (J0148), is associated with damping wing absorption. The evidence comes from a window of strong Ly $\alpha$ transmission at the edge of the J0148 proximity zone. We show that the relatively smooth profile of this transmission window is highly unlikely to arise from resonant absorption alone, but is consistent with the presence of a damping wing. We further argue that the damping wing is unlikely to arise from a compact source due to the lack of associated metal lines, and is more likely to arise from an extended neutral island associated with the giant Ly $\alpha$ trough. We investigate the physical conditions that may give rise to the strong transmission window, and speculate that it may signal an usually deep void, nearby ionizing sources, and/or the recent passage of an ionization front.
MADDD-seq, a novel massively parallel sequencing tool for simultaneous detection of DNA damage and mutations
Authors: Vermulst Marc , Paskvan Samantha L , Chung Claire S , Franke Kathryn , Clegg Nigel , Minot Sam , Madeoy Jennifer , Long Annalyssa S , Gout Jean-Francois , Bielas Jason H 
Published: August 2024

Abstract
Our genome is exposed to a wide variety of DNA-damaging agents. If left unrepaired, this damage can be converted into mutations that promote carcinogenesis or the development of genetically inherited diseases. As a result, researchers and clinicians require tools that can detect DNA damage and mutations with exceptional sensitivity. In this study, we describe a massively parallel sequencing tool termed Mutation And DNA Damage Detection-seq (MADDD-seq) that is capable of detecting O6-methyl guanine lesions and mutations simultaneously, with a single assay. To illustrate the dual capabilities of MADDD-seq, we treated WT and DNA repair deficient yeast cells with the DNA-damaging agent MNNG and tracked DNA lesions and mutations over a 24-h time period. This approach allowed us to identify thousands of DNA adducts and mutations in a single sequencing run and gain deep insight into the kinetics of DNA repair and mutagenesis.
A phage satellite manipulates the viral DNA packaging motor to inhibit phage and promote satellite spread
Authors: Boyd Caroline M , Seed Kimberley D 
Published: August 2024

Abstract
ICP1, a lytic bacteriophage of Vibrio cholerae, is parasitized by phage satellites, PLEs, which hijack ICP1 proteins for their own horizontal spread. PLEs' dependence on ICP1’s DNA replication machinery and virion components results in inhibition of ICP1’s lifecycle. PLEs are expected to depend on ICP1 factors for genome packaging, but the mechanism(s) PLEs use to inhibit ICP1 genome packaging is currently unknown. Here, we identify and characterize Gpi, PLE’s indiscriminate genome packaging inhibitor. Gpi binds to ICP1’s large terminase (TerL), the packaging motor, and blocks genome packaging. To overcome Gpi's negative effect on TerL, a component PLE also requires, PLE uses two genome packaging specifiers, GpsA and GpsB, that specifically allow packaging of PLE genomes. Surprisingly, PLE also uses mimicry of ICP1’s pac site as a backup strategy to ensure genome packaging. PLE’s pac site mimicry, however, is only sufficient if PLE can inhibit ICP1 at other stages of its lifecycle, suggesting an advantage to maintaining Gpi, GpsA and GpsB. Collectively, these results provide mechanistic insights into another stage of ICP1’s lifecycle that is inhibited by PLE, which is currently the most inhibitory of the documented phage satellites. More broadly, Gpi represents the first satellite-encoded inhibitor of a phage TerL.