bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Choroidal Thickness and Systemic Examination in Diabetic Patients without Diabetic Retinopathy
Authors: Cardigos J. , Vicente A. , Costa L. , Crisóstomo S. , Marques N. , Cunha J.P. , Pinto L.A. , Ferreira J. 
Published: September 2015

PurposeThe choroidal circulation receives nearly 95% of ocular blood flow and it is essential for a normal retinal structure and function. Recently, several clinical studies showed a variation in choroidal thickness (CT) even before the presence of diabetic retinopathy (DR), which the meaning remains uncertain and questionable. Our objective was to analyze and correlate the CT with the disease duration, systemic blood pressure (SBP) and analytic evaluation.MethodsProspective, observational case–control study. A complete ophthalmological examination was performed, including dynamic contour tonometry and axial length. CT was assessed by a non‐invasive procedure using an OCT (Spectralis Heidelberg Engineering) with an enhanced depth mode (EDI) at 13 different locations (subfoveal and 3 measurements 500 μm apart in all 4 directions – nasal, temporal, superior and inferior). The SBP was measured and an analytical evaluation was performed, including glycemia, glycosylated hemoglobin – HbA1c, lipid parameters, renal function, ionogram and microalbuminuria. Correlation between variables was explored using Spearman correlations.ResultsThe study included 65 diabetic patients without DR (36 females; mean age 67.23 ± 9.08 years), with an average disease duration of 90.42 ± 81.82 months. The CT didn't showed a correlation with disease duration, SBP, glycemia, HbA1c, renal function, lipid parameters, homocysteinemia, natremia or microalbuminuria. However, the CT was positively correlated with potassium and chlorine serum levels in 5 points, with statistic significance (r between 0.26 and 0.31, p < 0.05).ConclusionsCT may be positively influenced by serum levels of potassium‐chlorine in diabetic patients but not in healthy controls. These abnormal CT relationships can be detected even with no visible DR. Further studies are needed to explore these differences.
Analysis of molecular mechanisms that predispose patients to develop post‐PRK haze
Authors: Rajiv Kumar N. , Ghosh A. , Shetty R. , Pahuja N. 
Published: September 2015

PurposeFactors that predispose certain patients to develop post‐surgical haze remain unknown. We analyzed gene expression in corneal epithelium collected from patients prior to haze development following PRK. We further developed an in‐vitro model to study haze using TGFβ that mimics pre‐disposed and post haze conditions.MethodsCorneal epithelium was collected intraoperatively from patients undergoing PRK. 4 eyes that developed haze postoperatively and 10 eyes of age matched controls without haze were analysed. Microarray analysis was followed by bioinformatics and validation. In vitro studies were performed on HCE cells on differential doses of TGFβ with or without wound for inflammatory markers, structural & pro‐fibrotic genes and regulators of signaling cascades.ResultsMicroarray analysis revealed 1100 up regulated and 1700 down regulated genes in haze patients. ECM‐ Receptor interactions were elevated in patients prior to haze induction while Wnt signaling genes and CXC motif chemokines were reduced. Structural genes (Col I, Col IV, MMP2 and 14, TIMP1) were reduced in haze patients which correlated with in‐vitro model. Inflammatory factors TNFα, IL‐11 were elevated, but IL6 and IL1 did not show appreciable changes. Regulators of signaling cascades EGFR and Wnt3a were reduced in haze patients and in vitro. We propose a signal transduction network including few novel genes like PREX1, PXDN, SOX17, WNT3A, CXCL10 etc which can be factors that predispose patients to hazeConclusionsOur study shows that molecular factors poise the cornea in some patients to developing corneal haze after surgery.
Assessment of the performances of a handheld in vivo confocal microscope for the analysis of human corneal innervation
Authors: Brehon A. , Perrot J.L. , Cinotti E. , Labeille B. , Grivet D. , Crouzet E. , Gain P. , Thuret G. 
Published: September 2015

PurposeWe previously reported, for the first time, the use of a dermatological handheld in vivo confocal microscope (IVCM), VivaScope 3000 (Lucid, NY), for the imaging of the ocular surface and ocular adnexa (Am J Ophthalmol 2015;159:324).AimTo further assess its performances for qualitative and quantitative analysis of corneal innervation.MethodsClinical interventional prospective single‐center study comparing the first version of the handy handheld VivaScope 3000 with the Heidelberg Retina Tomograph (HRTIII‐RCM) as a reference. The right central subbasal plexus (SBP) of healthy corneas of non‐diabetic patients, diabetic patients without peripheral neuropathy and diabetic patients with peripheral neuropathy was analyzed the same day with both IVCMs by the same observer. The three best images were selected for each device and the nerve density, the number of nerves by frame, the number of branch per frame, and tortuosity of the nerves of the central SBP were calculated using NeuronJ. Analyzes were done on similar areas, blind to the IVCM type, then on full fields.ResultsThe VivaScope provided 920 × 920 μm images versus 400 × 400 μm for the HRTIII‐RCM. Images of the SBP were easily obtained but the 4 parameters were significantly lower in the 3 populations with the VivaScope despite a larger field of view. Comparisons between populations are ongoing.ConclusionsThis handheld dermatological IVCM is able to image the SBP but is less informative than the static HRTIII‐RCM. For SBP, the larger field is not an advantage because most of the field is out of focus. Improvements of the IVCM objective are proposed. GRANT: project INNOVEYE GIRCI RAA.
Ghrelin inhibits choroid‐retinal cell migration, proliferation and in vitro angiogenesis, under a high glucose environment
Authors: Rocha De Sousa A. , Silva‐Gomes R. , Conceição G. , Moleiro A. , Santos C. , Leite‐Moreira A. 
Published: September 2015

PurposeGhrelin is a peptide expressed in many organs and tissues. Recently, ghrelin has been implicated in the pathophysiology of proliferative retinopathy, although its true involvement remains unclear. The aim of this study is to test the effect of ghrelin in the migration, proliferation, apoptosis and in vitro angiogenesis of primate choroid retinal endothelial cells (RF/6A), cultured under high glucose conditions.MethodsRF/6A cells were incubated for 24 hours with different glucose concentrations (0‐300 mM). Cell migration was assessed using wound‐healing assay. Colorimetric immunoassay was used for the quantification of cell proliferation, based on the measurement of BrdU incorporation. Cell apoptosis was assessed by TUNEL technique. For each glucose concentration, the effect of ghrelin (10‐10 to 10‐5 nM) was determined after 24 hours of incubation. The in vitro angiogenesis was assessed by tube formation assay after exposure to the same glucose concentrations and ghrelin (10‐7 nM) for 4 hours.ResultsGhrelin significantly inhibited RF/6A cell migration at every glucose concentrations, although this effect is more consistent under low glucose environment. Ghrelin, at the concentration of 10‐7 nM, significantly reduces cell proliferation at every glucose concentration. In vitro angiogenesis is decreased by ghrelin under a high glucose environment. No differences on the apoptosis assay were seen.ConclusionsIn conclusion, ghrelin significantly inhibits RF/6A cells migration, proliferation and in vitro angiogenesis, under high glucose environment.
A pilot study of survey on patient satisfaction and its meaning in an Glaucoma outpatient
Authors: Pourjavan S. , Vanhaecht K. 
Published: September 2015

PurposeTo assess the degree of patient satisfaction and its correlation with the subjective satisfactory score of the ophthalmologist.

Outcomes:

The % of satisfied patients.
The correlation between doctor‐patient perception of care.
The impact of the interpersonal chemistry and the mood of care provider.

MethodsA prospective, blind study. A simple and short questionnaire is given to the patients. Patients were asked to fill in the questionnaire including 4 questions with a 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest satisfaction) scores.

The score the “care”?

The ophthalmologist?

Recommend of the outpatient?

Recommend of the specialist?

The ophthalmologist gives her subjective score in three fields:

The quality of consultation (QoC).
The interpersonal “click” with the patient.
Her “mood”.
The consented patients will be called for more spontaneous explanation. ResultsPatient's score: 98% gave high scores >3.Ophthalmologists score: neg. click with 15%, natural: 48% and good click: 36%, her mood was 33% each in 3 scores (bad, natural and hyper), Her objective QoC was 95% high scores.The click was significantly related with her mood and her mood was significantly related with QoC. The only correlation was between click & the high score on Q3.On telephonic enquete were good outcome of the surgery, optimal care, location and their “like” for the specialist, important.ConclusionsAll patients had a high satisfaction score & not influenced “Mood” or “QoC”. Upon spontaneously explaining of the patients, the most important factors for their satisfaction were; good operation outcome, optimal care, correct diagnosis but the geographical location (nearby, parking space) and their affection for the specialist were also very important reason for their satisfaction.
Vertical stratification of moths across elevation and latitude
Authors: Ashton Louise A. , Nakamura Akihiro , Basset Yves , Burwell Chris J. , Cao Min , Eastwood Rodney , Odell Erica , de Oliveira Evandro Gama , Hurley Karen , Katabuchi Masatoshi , Maunsell Sarah , McBroom James , Schmidl Jürgen , Sun Zhenhua , Tang Yong , Whitaker Terry , Laidlaw Melinda J. , McDonald William J. F. , Kitching Roger L. 
Published: September 2015

AbstractAimThere is little consensus as to whether stratification of arthropods between canopy and understorey in tropical and subtropical forests is commonplace and if the magnitude of stratification changes across different elevations and latitudes. We investigated broad‐scale patterns of vertical stratification of moths collected from extensive cross‐continental fieldwork in a variety of forest types, climates, elevations, latitudes and areas with differing biogeographical history.LocationTropical and subtropical rain forest in eastern Australia; tropical, subtropical and subalpine forest in Yunnan Province, China; and tropical rain forest in Panama, Vietnam, Brunei and Papua New Guinea.MethodsNight‐flying moths were trapped from the upper canopy and understorey. We generated a total of 64 data sets to quantify vertical stratification of moths in terms of their species richness, using coverage‐based rarefaction, and assemblage composition, using standardized hierarchical beta diversity. Based on the average temperature lapse rate, we incorporated latitudinal differences into elevation and generated ‘corrected’ elevation for each location, and analysed its relationships with the magnitude of stratification.ResultsWe found consistent differences between canopy and understorey assemblages at almost all rain forest locations across corrected elevational gradients. The magnitude of vertical stratification in species richness did not change with increasing corrected elevation. In contrast, the difference in assemblage composition increased with increasing corrected elevation in the Northern Hemisphere, while the opposite, albeit weak, trend was found in the Southern Hemisphere.Main conclusionsClear vertical stratification was evident in moth assemblages regardless of elevation and latitude. However, the degree to which assemblages are stratified between canopy and understorey is not uniformly related to elevation and latitude. Inconsistencies in the magnitude of vertical stratification between the Northern and Southern Hemisphere, may reflect, on one hand, deep‐time biogeographical differences between the land masses studied and, on the other, place‐to‐place differences in resource availability underpinning the observed moth assemblages.
Metabolomics as a diagnostic tool for idiopathic non‐cirrhotic portal hypertension
Authors: Seijo Susana , Lozano Juan Jose , Alonso Cristina , Miquel Rosa , Berzigotti Annalisa , Reverter Enric , Turon Fanny , Martínez‐Chantar Mari Luz , Castro Azucena , Mato Jose M. , Hernández‐Gea Virginia , Bosch Jaume , García‐Pagán Juan Carlos 
Published: September 2015

AbstractBackgroundIdiopathic non‐cirrhotic portal hypertension (INCPH) is a rare life‐threatening liver disease that lacks a specific diagnostic test being frequently misdiagnosed as cryptogenic cirrhosis. Preliminary data from our group identified a plasma metabolomic profile able to differentiate INCPH from patients with cirrhosis (CH) and healthy volunteers (HV). However, the untargeted methodology applied was unable to identify all the specific metabolites, hampering the possibility of building‐up diagnostic models. This study applies a wide‐coverage of previously identified metabolites through a high‐throughput metabolomics technology, evaluating if there is a metabolomic profile that allows a non‐invasive diagnosis of INCPH.MethodsWe included 34 patients with INCPH, 34 with CH and 34 HV. We performed a targeted metabolomic analysis of serum samples using UPLC‐MS. The best combination of a set of specific metabolites was obtained using stepwise logistic regression (LR) and recursive partitioning analysis (RPA).ResultsAfter internal cross‐validation, LR analysis identified a subset of 5‐metabolites that clearly differentiate INCPH patients from CH and HV (average corrected optimism AUROC = 0.8871 [0.838–0.924]). Using high and low cut‐off values the model has an excellent capacity to respectively diagnose or exclude INCPH. The RPA analysis strategy used the 3‐metabolites signature differentiating INCPH from CH and the 2‐metabolites signature differentiating INCPH from HV. A decision tree applying sequentially these metabolic profiles diagnosed 88% of INCPH patients.ConclusionsDifferent metabolomic profiles allow the diagnosis of INCPH with high specificity and sensibility and may represent excellent clinical tools for its diagnosis avoiding multiple and invasive tests.
The Aspergillus nidulans syntaxin PepAPep12 is regulated by two Sec1/Munc‐18 proteins to mediate fusion events at early endosomes, late endosomes and vacuoles
Authors: López‐Berges Manuel S. , Pinar Mario , Abenza Juan F. , Arst Herbert N. , Peñalva Miguel A. 
Published: September 2015

SummarySyntaxins are target‐SNAREs that crucially contribute to determine membrane compartment identity. Three syntaxins, Tlg2p, Pep12p and Vam3p, organize the yeast endovacuolar system. Remarkably, filamentous fungi lack the equivalent of the yeast vacuolar syntaxin Vam3p, making unclear how these organisms regulate vacuole fusion. We show that the nearly essential Aspergillus nidulans syntaxin PepAPep12, present in all endocytic compartments between early endosomes and vacuoles, shares features of Vam3p and Pep12p, and is capable of forming compositional equivalents of all known yeast endovacuolar SNARE bundles including that formed by yeast Vam3p for vacuolar fusion. Our data further indicate that regulation by two Sec1/Munc‐18 proteins, Vps45 in early endosomes and Vps33 in early and late endosomes/vacuoles contributes to the wide domain of PepAPep12 action. The syntaxin TlgBTlg2 localizing to the TGN appears to mediate retrograde traffic connecting post‐Golgi (sorting) endosomes with the TGN. TlgBTlg2 is dispensable for growth but becomes essential if the early Golgi syntaxin SedVSed5 is compromised, showing that the Golgi can function with a single syntaxin, SedVSed5. Remarkably, its pattern of associations with endosomal SNAREs is consistent with SedVSed5 playing roles in retrograde pathway(s) connecting endocytic compartments downstream of the post‐Golgi endosome with the Golgi, besides more conventional intra‐Golgi roles.
Law‐Abiding Citizen: Recent Fatwas on Muslim Minorities' Loyalty to Western Nations1
Authors: Hassan Said 
Published: September 2015

AbstractModernity constructed a different meaning of loyalty that seems to contradict Muslims' traditional position towards their affiliations that were mainly religious or religio‐tribal‐based. In modern nation‐states, loyalty requires certain convictions and practices that reveal the nature of one's relationship to the land, the state and the people of the locality where people live. This modern understanding of loyalty challenged Muslims' perception of their identities, especially in the context of Muslim minorities. For them, the question of loyalty became critical as they were portrayed, in certain circles, as disloyal subjects and a threat to the national unity of the non‐Muslim society. To respond to that claim, Muslim jurists attempted to provide an Islamic justification or rationale, not only to respond to the Islamophobic arguments on the threat of Muslims living “among us”, but also to empower the inner self of Muslims by showing that living and interacting with non‐Muslims is permitted, required and heavenly‐rewarded. How this rationale was articulated is the main focus of this paper.Reviewing jurists' fatwas to the question of loyalty of a Muslim subject to a non‐Muslim polity reveals that there are at least three distinctive legal positions: the alienation position, the conciliatory position and the engaging position. The three positions constitute a spectrum from rejection to recognition to positive engagement and loyalty with the wider non‐Muslim society. The paper attempts to critically review these positions, to examine the legal precepts that led to these positions and to demonstrate how these positions reflect both the status quo of the questioner, i.e. context, and the Islamic legal tradition as it stands today.
Islamist Texts in Practice: Commemorating Qutb in Turkey before and after the Arab Spring1
Authors: Cakir Dunya D. 
Published: September 2015

AbstractIn the past two decades, scholars have shown increasing interest in unpacking the ideational content of Islamic revivalism. Amidst modern Islamist ideologues, Sayyid Qutb received special attention from regional experts, historians and most recently political theorists who have produced critical exegeses of his political thought. Most notably, some read Qutb's writings through a comparative theoretic lens, juxtaposing his work to Western and Islamic traditions of political thought. By contrast, in this paper I outline the lived hermeneutics of Qutb's thought among contemporary Islamist activist‐intellectuals affiliated with Özgür‐Der, an Islamist civil society organization that has been a principal agent of Islamic revivalism in Turkey since its establishment in 1999. To that end, I examine three instances of commemorating Qutb at public events organized by Özgür‐Der in 2001, 2009 and 2013 in Istanbul. Through these events, one can trace the continuities and novelties in how Islamist activists read Qutb in light of changing historical circumstances.The paper argues that the Arab Spring uprising provides a rough turning point in occasioning different interpretations of Qutb's primary relevance to Islamist struggle in Turkey. What has been constant in Islamist readings of Qutb has been the emphasis upon the merging of faith and deed, working toward the rebuilding of a Qur'anic generation, the first followers of the Prophet. What changed in light of the Arab Spring have been the specific forms in which the integration of piety and praxis took shape. This analysis seeks to further our understanding of Qutb and Islamist politics in two ways: reading Qutb through the discursive practices of Qutbians helps recuperate the living and dynamic imprint of Qutb's political thought and flesh out the ways in which his intellectual legacy implicates Islamic activism in specific localities. Secondly, a micro‐analysis of the specific politics that are inspired by influential Islamist texts helps us refine the more formulaic descriptions of the political project of Islamism—such as rejecting secularism or submitting to sharī‘a. Attending to that lived and living hermeneutics is necessary for a more nuanced, contextualized understanding of contemporary Islamist thought and practice.
Celebrating Swahili New Year: A Performative Critique of Textual Islam in Coastal Kenya1
Authors: Ray Daren E. 
Published: September 2015

AbstractCoastal East Africans began practicing Islam as early as the eighth century CE, yet debates over bid‘a (innovation) during the twentieth century recast several of their local practices as shirk (blasphemy). This article situates the celebration of Swahili New Year, now regarded by many East African Muslims as shirk, within the context of debates about maulidi, a celebration of the Prophet Muhammad's birth introduced by Arab immigrants. Drawing on personal observations, a locally‐produced DVD of Swahili New Year, and interviews in Kenya, it compares celebrations of maulidi and Swahili New Year in 2010. This comparison demonstrates that the Swahili “Wamiji” community of Mombasa has adapted their variant of Swahili New Year to emphasize a repertoire of practices that it shares with maulidi and which many East African Muslims regard as intuitively Islamic. While Sufi tariqas, Salafi reformers, and Shi'a minorities focus on interpreting the texts of the Qur'an and ̣adith in their critiques of one another, the Swahili “Wamiji” community in Mombasa aims to rehabilitate Swahili New Year from charges of shirk through selective changes in practice. This adaptation seems to confirm the trend of deprecating African practices in favor of Arab ones. Yet, the practices of Swahili New Year also obscure the boundaries between religion and culture that are foundational to modern textual approaches to Islam in the region. Celebrating Swahili New Year thus offers a performative critique of textual Islam by arguing through practice, more so than discourse, against the assumption that African practices cannot be authentically Islamic. The article concludes by suggesting that research on performative critiques could illuminate histories of the majority of Muslims in Africa who did not engage in textual critique but have shaped Islamic celebrations and devotions through their innovations in practice.