bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer: Advances in Treatment and Symptom Management
Authors: Kulasegaran Tivya , Oliveira Niara 
Published: June 2024

Opinion statementThe management of metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) has evolved in the past decade due to substantial advances in understanding the genomic landscape and biology underpinning this form of prostate cancer. The implementation of various therapeutic agents has improved overall survival but despite the promising advances in therapeutic options, mCRPC remains incurable. The focus of treatment should be not only to improve survival but also to preserve the patient’s quality of life (QoL) and ameliorate cancer-related symptoms such as pain. The choice and sequence of therapy for mCRPC patients are complex and influenced by various factors, such as side effects, disease burden, treatment history, comorbidities, patient preference and, more recently, the presence of actionable genomic alterations or biomarkers. Docetaxel is the first-line treatment for chemo-naïve patients with good performance status and those who have yet to progress on docetaxel in the castration-sensitive setting. Novel androgen agents (NHAs), such as abiraterone and enzalutamide, are effective treatment options that are utilized as second-line options. These medications can be considered upfront in frail patients or patients who are NHA naïve. Current guidelines recommend genetic testing in mCRPC for mutations in DNA repair deficiency genes to inform treatment decisions, as for example in breast cancer gene mutation testing. Other potential biomarkers being investigated include phosphatase and tensin homologues and homologous recombination repair genes. Despite a growing number of studies incorporating biomarkers in their trial designs, to date, only olaparib in the PROFOUND study and lutetium-177 in the VISION trial have improved survival. This is an unmet need, and future trials should focus on biomarker-guided treatment strategies. The advent of novel noncytotoxic agents has enhanced targeted drug delivery and improved treatment responses with favourable toxicity profiling. Trials should continue to incorporate and report health-related QoL scores and functional assessments into their trial designs.
A Note on Alexandrov Immersed Mean Curvature Flow
Authors: Lambert Ben , Mäder-Baumdicker Elena 
Published: June 2024

AbstractWe demonstrate that the property of being Alexandrov immersed is preserved along mean curvature flow. Furthermore, we demonstrate that mean curvature flow techniques for mean convex embedded flows such as noncollapsing and gradient estimates also hold in this setting. We also indicate the necessary modifications to the work of Brendle–Huisken to allow for mean curvature flow with surgery in the Alexandrov immersed, 2-dimensional setting.
Agent based modeling for intraday electricity markets
Authors: Alberizzi Andrea , Di Barba Paolo , Ziel Florian 
Published: June 2024

AbstractIn recent years, the strong growth of renewable energy sources has led to considerable instability in the electricity markets. As a consequence, this has increased trading activities in the continuous intraday market, especially close to delivery. This work presents an agent-based model that is able to reproduce the continuous market evolution, distinguishing players in dispatchable and non-dispatchable power plants and analyzing the behavior and interactions between them. All players behave rationally, trying to maximize their revenues and minimize imbalances. The results show that the model is able to reproduce the main characteristics of the continuous intraday electricity market, such as the price path strongly dependent on internal and external information, such as the wind production forecast, possible outages, an increase in order arrival towards the end of the trading session and weak market efficiency. The strategies assigned to each agent have been formulated taking into account statistical analyses of historical orders placed during continuous trading in different European bidding zones. The analyses have been carried out in a scenario composed of thermal plants with different marginal costs and wind agents, but the flexibility of the model gives the possibility to study many different scenarios.
A Systematic Review of Personal Information Sharing in Smart Cities: Risks, Impacts, and Controls
Authors: Alabsi Maha Ibrahim , Gill Asif Qumar 
Published: June 2024

AbstractSmart cities aim to deliver smart services that rely on emerging technologies to their users. In order for users to get the provided services, they need to share their personal information with different parties. However, sharing personal information in smart cities may impact the privacy of that information. Thus, there is a need to address privacy risks relevant to sharing personal information in smart cities. This study aims to address this issue by conducting a systematic literature review (SLR) to identify and extract privacy risks, impacts, and existing controls associated with sharing personal information, considering elements involved and interacting during the sharing activity in smart cities. A set of 83 selected studies in both academic and industry fields were reviewed, and the results were categorised into three main groups: privacy risks, impacts, and controls. Moreover, the implications and future research directions were also reported. The proposed privacy risk taxonomy will provide a much-needed foundation for the industry and research community, intending to research and evaluate privacy risk frameworks and design solutions for sharing personal information in smart cities.
Early stage thymoma and the surgical extent paradigm
Authors: Kocaman Gökhan , Kayi Cangir Ayten 
Published: June 2024

AbstractThe recommended treatment for early stage thymoma without myasthenia gravis is complete thymectomy (CT). Limited thymectomy (LT) (simply resecting the thymoma with safe surgical margins) is gaining popularity. In this study, we compared the surgical and oncological results of complete and limited thymectomy in non-myasthenic patients with early stage thymoma. Non-myasthenic, Masaoka stage I–II, 86 patients who underwent surgical resection for thymoma were included in the study. Complete thymectomy (n:44) included patients who had resection of the thymoma together with the entire thymus and limited thymectomy (n:42) included patients who had resection of the thymoma without remaining thymus. The surgical approach, tumor size, histological type, pathological stage, adjuvant therapy, complications, postop myasthenia gravis, recurrence and death were recorded and compared between groups. Complete thymectomy group had more WHO type B1-3 tumors, more complications and more deaths than patients in the limited thymectomy group (p = 0.03, 0.018 and 0.023 respectively). Although statistically not significant CT group had more recurrences than LT group (11.4%/4.8%, p = 0.43). The 10-year freedom from recurrence (FFR) rate in the CT group was 84.8% and in the LT group ıt was 97.6%, the difference was not statistically significant (p = 0.15). None of the factors including surgical extent analysed with univariate and multivariate analysis had a significant effect on FFR. Limited thymectomy may be a good treatment option for non-myasthenic early stage thymoma patients but randomized controlled trials with long follow-up periods, ideally comparing patients operated with minimally invasive surgery are necessary.
SARS-CoV-2 Resistance to Small Molecule Inhibitors
Authors: Lopez Uxua Modrego , Hasan Md. Mehedi , Havranek Brandon , Islam Shahidul M. 
Published: June 2024

Abstract
Purpose of the Review
SARS-CoV-2 undergoes genetic mutations like many other viruses. Some mutations lead to the emergence of new Variants of Concern (VOCs), affecting transmissibility, illness severity, and the effectiveness of antiviral drugs. Continuous monitoring and research are crucial to comprehend variant behavior and develop effective response strategies, including identifying mutations that may affect current drug therapies.

Recent Findings
Antiviral therapies such as Nirmatrelvir and Ensitrelvir focus on inhibiting 3CLpro, whereas Remdesivir, Favipiravir, and Molnupiravir target nsp12, thereby reducing the viral load. However, the emergence of resistant mutations in 3CLpro and nsp12 could impact the efficiency of these small molecule drug therapeutics.

Summary
This manuscript summarizes mutations in 3CLpro and nsp12, which could potentially reduce the efficacy of drugs. Additionally, it encapsulates recent advancements in small molecule antivirals targeting SARS-CoV-2 viral proteins, including their potential for developing resistance against emerging variants.
Screening of hypercortisolism among patients with hypertension: an Italian nationwide survey
Authors: Di Dalmazi G. , Goi J. , Burrello J. , Tucci L. , Cicero A. F. G. , Mancusi C. , Coletti Moia E. , Iaccarino G. , Borghi C. , Muiesan M. L. , Ferri C. , Mulatero P. 
Published: June 2024

Abstract
Purpose
Screening of Cushing Syndrome (CS) and Mild Autonomous Cortisol Secretion (MACS) in hypertensive patients is crucial for proper treatment. The aim of the study was to investigate screening and management of hypercortisolism among patients with hypertension in Italy.

Methods
A 10 item-questionnaire was delivered to referral centres of European and Italian Society of Hypertension (ESH and SIIA) in a nationwide survey. Data were analyzed according to type of centre (excellence vs non-excellence), geographical area, and medical specialty.

Results
Within 14 Italian regions, 82 centres (30% excellence, 78.790 patients during the last year, average 600 patients/year) participated to the survey. Internal medicine (44%) and cardiology (31%) were the most prevalent medical specialty. CS and MACS were diagnosed in 313 and 490 patients during the previous 5 years. The highest number of diagnoses was reported by internal medicine and excellence centres. Screening for hypercortisolism was reported by 77% in the presence of specific features of CS, 61% in resistant hypertension, and 38% in patients with adrenal mass. Among screening tests, the 24 h urinary free cortisol was the most used (66%), followed by morning cortisol and ACTH (54%), 1 mg-dexamethasone suppression test (49%), adrenal CT or MRI scans (12%), and late night salivary cortisol (11%). Awareness of referral centres with expertise in management of CS was reported by 67% of the participants, which reduced to 44% among non-excellence centres.

Conclusions
Current screening of hypercortisolism among hypertensive patients is unsatisfactory. Strategies tailored to different medical specialties and type of centres should be conceived.
Serum alkaline phosphatase is a strong predictor of mortality in ESKD patients: analysis of the RISCAVID cohort
Authors: Panichi Vincenzo , Rosati Alberto , Mangione Emanuela Antonella , Incognito Federica , Mattei Silvia , Cupisti Adamasco 
Published: June 2024

Abstract
Background
Mortality in hemodialysis (HD) patients remains unacceptably high compared with that of the general population and despite the continuous improvement of dialysis techniques. This study aimed to assess the role of alkaline phosphatase serum levels on cardiovascular and overall mortality in the RISCAVID study cohort through a long follow-up period, looking for associations with known risk factors for poor outcome.

Methods
In June 2004, a prospective observational study was started focusing on the cardiovascular risk in hemodialysis patients who lived in the north-west area of Tuscany (RISCAVID, “RISchio CArdiovascolare nei pazienti afferenti all’Area Vasta In Dialisi”). The RISCAVID cohort included 572 prevalent patients on maintenance HD for at least three months. Morbid or fatal events were prospectively recorded at 6-month intervals for a follow up time of 216 months.

Results
In univariable Cox regression analysis, dialysis technique, Geriatric Nutritional Risk Index, peripheral vascular disease, and intact parathyroid hormone and total calcium serum levels were significantly associated with baseline alkaline phosphatase serum levels. Cox multivariable analysis showed that elevated serum alkaline phosphatase levels (the highest quartile), advanced age, dialysis vintage, type of vascular access, Geriatric Nutritional Risk Index, C-reactive protein and calcium serum levels, history of cardiovascular disease and peripheral vascular disease were independent predictors of overall mortality in maintenance HD patients. The fourth quartile of alkaline phosphatase was associated with all-cause 10-year mortality (HR: 1.47; 95% CI: 1.177–1.834) with a 47% increase with respect to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd quartiles. This was also observed for 18-year all-cause mortality.

Conclusions
Adjusted proportional analysis showed the alkaline phosphatase value to be an independent and powerful predictor of overall mortality in the hemodialysis population.

Graphical Abstract
Situating Cognitive Science after 1945
Authors: Ash Mitchell G. 
Published: June 2024

AbstractThe paper attempts to place the emergence of cognitive science (CS) as an interdisciplinary research program in historical context. A broad overview of the institutional and intellectual situations during the early postwar period is presented, focusing primarily on psychology and artificial intelligence (AI). From an institutional perspective, the paper shows that although computers and computer science were closely linked with weapons research during World War II, the postwar creation of cognitive science had no military connection, but was largely enabled by small grants from private foundations, though the RAND Corporation was involved to a limited extent. From an epistemic perspective, the paper shows: (1) that neobehaviourist learning theory was not replaced by, but flourished parallel to cognition-oriented psychology in the 1950s, because they were located in different sub-disciplines; (2) that the key theoretical inputs into CS were developed separately at first, and each group remained affiliated with the discipline or complex of disciplines from which it came. A certain tension remained at the core of the project between the machine dreams of the emerging AI community and the idea of autonomous mental processes central to cognitive psychology.
New belief divergence measure based on cosine function in evidence theory and application to multisource information fusion
Authors: Liu Xiaoyang , Xie Cheng , Liu Zhe , Zhu Sijia 
Published: June 2024

AbstractMultisource information fusion technology significantly benefits from using information across various sources for decision-making, particularly by leveraging evidence theory to manage uncertain information efficiently. Nonetheless, dealing with highly conflicting evidence presents a considerable challenge. To tackle this issue, this paper introduces a new belief divergence measure within the framework of evidence theory. The proposed measure, which incorporates the cosine function and pignistic probability transformation, is adept at quantifying the disparity between the evidences while maintaining key properties, such as boundedness, non-degeneracy and symmetry. Moreover, building upon the concepts of proposed belief divergence and belief entropy, this paper further proposes a new fusion method that employs a weighted evidence average prior to the application of Dempster’s rule. The performance of the proposed method is validated on several applications, and the results demonstrate its superior ability to absorb highly conflicting evidence compared with existing methods.
The Effects of Sterilisation on Abiotic Soil Properties and the Challenge this Poses to Untangling the Influence of Abiotic and Biotic Soil Variables on Plant Growth
Authors: Manea Anthony , Leishman Michelle R. , Geraghty Dylan M. , Perera Sashini D. , O’Hare Jessica A. , Gil-Fernández Margarita , Tabassum Samiya , Le Roux Johannes J. 
Published: June 2024

AbstractTo separate the effects of the abiotic and biotic soil components on plant growth, researchers can compare plants grown in sterilised and unsterilised soil (unsterilised soil approach). However, using this approach can be problematic if the abiotic component of the soil is affected by the sterilisation treatment, which is often the case. We aimed to determine how often this approach is used by plant-soil interaction studies and demonstrate how it can impact plant growth. We reviewed the relevant literature to determine how often the unsterilised soil approach is used and whether the studies that use it acknowledge the ‘soil sterilisation’ caveat. We then conducted a glasshouse experiment to demonstrate the effect that soil sterilisation has on selected soil nutrients and consequently on plant growth. Our literature review revealed that of the studies that used the unsterilised soil approach, only 23% measured and reported soil nitrogen or phosphorus before and after sterilisation, with 50% of these reporting a change in one or both nutrients. We then showed that the growth of our study species, Eucalyptus saligna, was greater when grown in sterilised soils compared to unsterilised soils. Interestingly, there was a strong positive relationship between the change in ammonium nitrogen and E. saligna growth between the sterilised and unsterilised soils. Given our findings, we advocate that studies that use the unsterilised soil approach should measure the abiotic soil properties before and after sterilisation and if differences are found, these studies should use the inoculation approach instead.
Multi-agent Gradient-Based Off-Policy Actor-Critic Algorithm for Distributed Reinforcement Learning
Authors: Ren Jineng 
Published: June 2024

AbstractThis paper proposes a gradient-based multi-agent actor-critic algorithm for off-policy reinforcement learning using importance sampling. Our algorithm is incremental with full gradients, and its complexity per iteration scales linearly with the size of approximation features. Previous multi-agent actor-critic algorithms are limited to the on-policy setting or off-policy emphatic temporal difference (TD) learning and they do not take advantage of the advances in off-policy gradient temporal difference learning (GTD). As a theoretical contribution, we establish that the critic step of the proposed algorithm converges to the TD solution of the projected Bellman equation and the actor step converges to the set of asymptotically stable fixed points. Numerical experiments on the multi-agent generalization of the Boyan’s chain problem show that the proposed approach provides improved performances in terms of stability and convergence rate as compared with the state-of-the-art baseline algorithm.
Proton Pump Inhibitor for Gastrointestinal Bleeding in Patients with Myocardial Infarction on Dual-Antiplatelet Therapy: A Nationwide Cohort Study
Authors: Baik Minyoul , Jeon Jimin , Kim Jinkwon , Yoo Joonsang 
Published: June 2024

Abstract
Background
Guidelines provide various recommendations for the use of proton pump inhibitors (PPI) to prevent upper gastrointestinal (UGI) bleeding in acute myocardial infarction (MI) treatment with dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT). We evaluated the effects of PPIs in reducing the risk of severe UGI bleeding in patients with MI receiving DAPT.

Methods
This retrospective cohort study included patients admitted for acute MI between 2014 and 2018, based on a nationwide health claims database in Korea. Primary outcome was admission for severe UGI bleeding requiring transfusion within 1 year of MI diagnosis. A multivariable Cox regression model was used to calculate the association between PPI use and severe UGI bleeding risk.

Results
Of 100,556 patients with MI on DAPT (mean age, 63.7 years; 75.4% men), 37% were prescribed PPIs. Based on risk assessment for UGI bleeding, among 6,392 (6.4%) high-risk and 94,164 (93.6%) low-risk patients, 50.5% and 35.8% received PPIs, respectively. Overall, 0.5% of the patients experienced severe UGI bleeding within 1 year after MI. The use of PPI was associated with a reduced risk of severe UGI bleeding (hazard ratio [HR], 0.57; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.47–0.70; P < 0.001). The benefits of PPIs were consistent in high-risk (HR, 0.71; 95% CI, 0.45–1.13; P = 0.147) and low-risk (HR, 0.54; 95% CI, 0.43–0.68; P < 0.001) patients (P for interaction = 0.481).

Conclusions
Among Korean patients with MI receiving DAPT, PPIs were underutilized, even among those at high risk of severe UGI bleeding. Nonetheless, PPI use reduced severe UGI bleeding in low- and high-risk groups.
Application of system dynamics to evaluate reduction targets for the entry of solid waste into a landfill site
Authors: Ibargüen Rodríguez Sandra Lorena , Flores Cuautle Jose de Jesus Agustin 
Published: June 2024

AbstractThe waste produced around the world increases daily due to population increase and the fact that life expectancy is longer. Waste production is higher in urban environments; therefore, managing Urban Solid Waste must be more rigorous to avoid environmental problems and health effects. For this reason, standards are created to properly manage landfills so that each life cycle stage is managed responsibly. However, a solid commitment from the community and more management regulations from the government are needed to be focused on reducing, reusing, and recycling materials as much as possible. This commitment needs to be reinforced to the extent that regulatory policies are created at the household level as much as education and awareness programs are implemented. This study presents a method to evaluate how imposing waste management goals before they reach landfills can increase the lifetime of landfills and, consequently the suitableness of a treatment plant implementation.
Siting Considerations for Satellite Observation of River Discharge
Authors: Eggleston Jack , Mason Chris , Bjerklie Dave , Durand Mike , Dudley Rob , Harlan Merritt 
Published: June 2024

AbstractWith growing global capability for satellite measurement of river discharge (flow) comes a need to understand and reduce error in satellite‐based discharge measurements. Satellite‐based discharge estimates are based on measurements of water surface width, elevation, slope, and potentially velocity. Site selection is important for reducing error and uncertainty in both conventional and satellite‐based discharge measurements because geomorphic river characteristics have strong control over the relationships between discharge and width, water surface elevation (or depth), slope, and velocity. A large ground‐truth data set of 8,445 conventional hydraulic measurements, collected by acoustic Doppler current profilers at 503 stations in the United States, was developed and quality assured to examine correlation between river discharge and water surface width, depth, velocity, and cross‐sectional area. A separate database of river surface slope and discharge time‐series was developed from paired continuous monitoring stations to examine slope‐discharge correlations. Results show that discharge correlates most strongly with velocity, cross‐sectional area, depth, width, and slope, in that order. Uncertainty of satellite discharge estimates is affected by observed hydraulic variable and reach‐specific variability in observed variable(s) characteristics including range of variability, georegistration accuracy, and stability over time of relationships between discharge and observed hydraulic variable.