bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Optimisation of lupus anticoagulant tests: should test samples always be mixed with normal plasma?
Authors: Pennings Maarten , de Groot Philip , Meijers Joost , Huisman Albert , Derksen Ronald , Urbanus Rolf 
Published: July 2014

SummaryCoagulation factor deficiencies are thought to interfere with the detection of the phospholipid-dependent coagulation inhibitor known as lupus anticoagulant (LA). Treatment with vitamin K antagonists (VKA) in particular, is thought to preclude accurate LA assessment. For this reason, the procedure to detect LA includes a mixing test, in which coagulation factor deficiencies are corrected by mixing samples with an equal volume of normal plasma. Despite these mixing tests, interpretation of LA test results is considered difficult in patients receiving high intensity VKA treatment. As a result, VKA treatment is often temporarily discontinued to allow LA assessment. However, whether coagulation factor deficiencies influence LA test results is unclear. We found that neither deficiency of a single coagulation factor, nor a functional coagulation factor deficiency due to high intensity VKA treatment, resulted in false positive dRVVT- or APTT-based (silica clotting time; SCT) LA test results. LA was readily detected in unmixed samples from VKA-treated LA-positive patients with both dRVVT and SCT reagents. VKA treatment caused an underestimation of the strength of the LA with SCT reagents, but did not lead to misclassification of LA status. Although mixing with normal plasma during both screen and confirm tests allowed more accurate assessment of the strength of the LA with SCT reagents in samples with an international normalised >2.5, the mixing procedure itself lead to misclassification of LA in weakly positive samples from patients not treated with VKA. Based on these findings, we conclude that mixing studies are not necessary during LA-assessment.
Treatment strategies and pregnancy outcomes in antiphospholipid syndrome patients with thrombosis and triple antiphospholipid positivity
Authors: Salvan Elisa , Ross Teresa Del , Gerosa Maria , Andreoli Laura , Maina Aldo , Alijotas-Reig Jaume , Carolis Sara De , Mekinian Arsene , Bertero Maria Tiziana , Canti Valentina , Brucato Antonio , Bremme Katarina , Ramoni Véronique , Mosca Marta , Poi Emma Di , Caramaschi Paola , Galeazzi Mauro , Tincani Angela , Meroni Pier Luigi , Ruffatti Amelia 
Published: July 2014

SummaryPrevious thrombosis, diagnosis of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and triple antiphospholipid (aPL) antibody positivity have recently been found to be independent factors associated to pregnancy failure during conventional therapy in women with antiphospholipid syndrome (APS). This study aimed to assess the effect of various treatment strategies on pregnancy outcomes in women with APS and the risk factors for pregnancy failure. One hundred ninety-six pregnancies of 156 patients diagnosed with APS were analysed: 118 (60.2%) of these had previous thrombosis, 81 (41.3%) were diagnosed with SLE, and 107 (54.6%) had triple aPL positivity. One hundred seventy-five (89.3%) were treated with conventional therapies (low-dose aspirin [LDA] or prophylactic doses of heparin + LDA or therapeutic doses of heparin + LDA), while 21 (10.7%) were prescribed other treatments in addition to conventional therapy. The pregnancies were classified into seven risk profiles depending on the patients’ risk factors – thrombosis, SLE, and triple aPL positivity – and their single, double or triple combinations. It was possible to find significant difference in outcomes correlated to treatments only in the thrombosis plus triple aPL positivity subset, and logistic regression analysis showed that additional treatments were the only independent factor associated to a favourable pregnancy outcome (odds ratio=9.7, 95% confidence interval= 1.1–88.9, p-value<0.05). On the basis of this retrospective study, we found that APS pregnant patients with thrombosis and triple aPL positivity treated with additional therapy had a significant higher livebirth rate with respect to those receiving conventional therapy alone.
Age-equivalent Top–Down Modulation during Cross-modal Selective Attention
Authors: Guerreiro Maria J. S. , Anguera Joaquin A. , Mishra Jyoti , Van Gerven Pascal W. M. , Gazzaley Adam 
Published: July 2014

AbstractSelective attention involves top–down modulation of sensory cortical areas, such that responses to relevant information are enhanced whereas responses to irrelevant information are suppressed. Suppression of irrelevant information, unlike enhancement of relevant information, has been shown to be deficient in aging. Although these attentional mechanisms have been well characterized within the visual modality, little is known about these mechanisms when attention is selectively allocated across sensory modalities. The present EEG study addressed this issue by testing younger and older participants in three different tasks: Participants attended to the visual modality and ignored the auditory modality, attended to the auditory modality and ignored the visual modality, or passively perceived information presented through either modality. We found overall modulation of visual and auditory processing during cross-modal selective attention in both age groups. Top–down modulation of visual processing was observed as a trend toward enhancement of visual information in the setting of auditory distraction, but no significant suppression of visual distraction when auditory information was relevant. Top–down modulation of auditory processing, on the other hand, was observed as suppression of auditory distraction when visual stimuli were relevant, but no significant enhancement of auditory information in the setting of visual distraction. In addition, greater visual enhancement was associated with better recognition of relevant visual information, and greater auditory distractor suppression was associated with a better ability to ignore auditory distraction. There were no age differences in these effects, suggesting that when relevant and irrelevant information are presented through different sensory modalities, selective attention remains intact in older age.
Enhancing Climate Resilience at NASA Centers: A Collaboration between Science and Stewardship
Authors: Rosenzweig Cynthia , Horton Radley M. , Bader Daniel A. , Brown Molly E. , DeYoung Russell , Dominguez Olga , Fellows Merrilee , Friedl Lawrence , Graham William , Hall Carlton , Higuchi Sam , Iraci Laura , Jedlovec Gary , Kaye Jack , Loewenstein Max , Mace Thomas , Milesi Cristina , Patzert William , Stackhouse Paul W. , Toufectis Kim 
Published: July 2014

A partnership between Earth scientists and institutional stewards is helping the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) prepare for a changing climate and growing climate-related vulnerabilities. An important part of this partnership is an agency-wide Climate Adaptation Science Investigator (CASI) Workgroup. CASI has thus far initiated 1) local workshops to introduce and improve planning for climate risks, 2) analysis of climate data and projections for each NASA Center, 3) climate impact and adaptation toolsets, and 4) Center-specific research and engagement.Partnering scientists with managers aligns climate expertise with operations, leveraging research capabilities to improve decision-making and to tailor risk assessment at the local level. NASA has begun to institutionalize this ongoing process for climate risk management across the entire agency, and specific adaptation strategies are already being implemented.A case study from Kennedy Space Center illustrates the CASI and workshop process, highlighting the need to protect launch infrastructure of strategic importance to the United States, as well as critical natural habitat. Unique research capabilities and a culture of risk management at NASA may offer a pathway for other organizations facing climate risks, promoting their resilience as part of community, regional, and national strategies.
Neuropsychological and Behavioral Disturbance Correlates of Unawareness of Memory Impairment in Dementia
Authors: Mograbi Daniel C. , Ferri Cleusa P. , Stewart Robert , Sosa Ana L. , Brown Richard G. , Laks Jerson , Morris Robin G. 
Published: July 2014

Introduction: This study investigated in a community sample associations of 2 different measures of unawareness of memory impairment in dementia with cognitive variables and behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia. Method: Design—cross-sectional, population-based survey. Settings—community samples (n = 15 022) from 3 world regions (Latin America, China, and India). Participants—829 people with dementia identified from standardized interviews and diagnostic algorithms. Measurements—unawareness of memory deficits was measured in 2 ways: comparison of participant subjective report with either objective performance on memory tests or informant report (IR). Associations were investigated using prevalence ratios and Poisson regressions. Differences in frequency of unawareness were explored with McNemar tests for each region and agreement between variables calculated with Cohen κ. Results: The unawareness variable based on comparison with performance was associated with cognitive variables, such as fluency (in China) and visuospatial impairments (Latin America and India), and behavioral symptoms, such as mania (Latin America) and hallucinations (China). The unawareness variable based on IR was associated only with behavioral symptoms, such as anxiety (in China and India) and hallucinations and mania (Latin America). Frequency of unawareness was significantly higher in the unawareness variable based on performance in India. Agreement between the 2 unawareness variables was moderate in Latin America and China but only slight in India. Conclusion: Different ways of measuring unawareness are differentially associated with influencing factors. Informant-based unawareness measures may be more subjective and less sensitive than variables taking into account actual performance on cognitive tests.
The Preference of Place of Death and its Predictors Among Terminally Ill Patients With Cancer and Their Caregivers in China
Authors: Gu Xiaoli , Cheng Wenwu , Cheng Menglei , Liu Minghui , zhang Zhe 
Published: July 2014

Purpose: To describe the preference of place of death among Chinese patients with cancer and their caregivers and to identify factors associated with the preference. Methods: A prospective questionnaire research was conducted in terminally ill patients with cancer and their caregivers. Questions included sociodemographic characteristics and information about patients’ diseases and patients’ preference of place of death. Results: Home (53.64%) was the first choice for 522 patients, 51.34% of participated caregivers chose home as the preferred place of death, and patient–caregiver dyads achieved 84.10% agreement. Patients who lived in rural area, with lower education level and lived with relatives, expressed more preference to die at home. Conclusion: This study described information about the preference of place of death and its potential predictive factors in terminally ill patients with cancer in mainland of China.
Developing a scale to measure family dynamics related to long-term care, and testing that scale in a multicenter cross-sectional study
Authors: Kusaba Tesshu , Sato Kotaro , Matsui Yoshinori , Matsuda Satoshi , Ando Takashi , Sakushima Ken , Wakita Takafumi , Fukuma Shingo , Fukuhara Shunichi 
Published: July 2014

Abstract

Background
As Japan’s population ages, more frail elderly people are cared for by members of their family. The dynamics within such families are difficult to study, in part because they are difficult to quantify. We developed a scale for assessing family dynamics related to long-term care. Here we report on the development of that scale, and we present the results of reliability testing and validation testing.

Methods
Two primary-care specialists drafted questions about family dynamics, and discussed them with other primary-care physicians and clinical researchers. The final questionnaire asked about four problems or undesirable situations: disengagement (emotional distance), scapegoating (inappropriate blame), transfer of problems across generations (transfer of unnecessary burden from older to younger generations, trans-generationally displaced revenge), and undesirable behavior (co-dependence). Next, at six general-medicine clinics, doctors evaluated families that had a caregiver and a patient requiring long-term care. The results were analyzed by factor analysis. Cronbach’s α was computed, and criterion-related validation tests were done with three types of criteria: relationship before caregiving, ability to do activities of daily living (ADL), and the duration of care.

Results
Results were obtained from 199 families. Among the caregivers, 79% were women and their mean age was 63 years. Among the patients, 71% were women and their mean age was 84 years. The results of factor analysis indicated that the scale was unidimensional. Cronbach’s α was 0.73. Not having a good relationship before caregiving was associated with significantly worse family dynamics scores, as was greater dependence regarding ADL.

Conclusions
We developed a scale that enables physicians to assess the dynamics of families with a patient and a family caregiver. The scale’s scores are reliable and the results of validation testing were generally good. This scale holds promise as a tool both for research and for primary-care practice.
Canine epidermal lipid sampling by skin scrub revealed variations between different body sites and normal and atopic dogs
Authors: Angelbeck-Schulze Mandy , Mischke Reinhard , Rohn Karl , Hewicker-Trautwein Marion , Naim Hassan Y , Bäumer Wolfgang 
Published: July 2014

Abstract

Background
Previously, we evaluated a minimally invasive epidermal lipid sampling method called skin scrub, which achieved reproducible and comparable results to skin scraping. The present study aimed at investigating regional variations in canine epidermal lipid composition using the skin scrub technique and its suitability for collecting skin lipids in dogs suffering from certain skin diseases. Eight different body sites (5 highly and 3 lowly predisposed for atopic lesions) were sampled by skin scrub in 8 control dogs with normal skin. Additionally, lesional and non-lesional skin was sampled from 12 atopic dogs and 4 dogs with other skin diseases by skin scrub. Lipid fractions were separated by high performance thin layer chromatography and analysed densitometrically.

Results
No significant differences in total lipid content were found among the body sites tested in the control dogs. However, the pinna, lip and caudal back contained significantly lower concentrations of ceramides, whereas the palmar metacarpus and the axillary region contained significantly higher amounts of ceramides and cholesterol than most other body sites. The amount of total lipids and ceramides including all ceramide classes were significantly lower in both lesional and non-lesional skin of atopic dogs compared to normal skin, with the reduction being more pronounced in lesional skin. The sampling by skin scrub was relatively painless and caused only slight erythema at the sampled areas but no oedema. Histological examinations of skin biopsies at 2 skin scrubbed areas revealed a potential lipid extraction from the transition zone between stratum corneum and granulosum.

Conclusions
The present study revealed regional variations in the epidermal lipid and ceramide composition in dogs without skin abnormalities but no connection between lipid composition and predilection sites for canine atopic dermatitis lesions. The skin scrub technique proved to be a practicable sampling method for canine epidermal lipids, revealed satisfying results regarding alterations of skin lipid composition in canine atopic dermatitis and might be suitable for epidermal lipid investigations of further canine skin diseases. Although the ceramide composition should be unaffected by the deeper lipid sampling of skin scrub compared to other sampling methods, further studies are required to determine methodological differences.
BioBenchmark Toyama 2012: an evaluation of the performance of triple stores on biological data
Authors: Wu Hongyan , Fujiwara Toyofumi , Yamamoto Yasunori , Bolleman Jerven , Yamaguchi Atsuko 
Published: July 2014

Abstract

Background
Biological databases vary enormously in size and data complexity, from small databases that contain a few million Resource Description Framework (RDF) triples to large databases that contain billions of triples. In this paper, we evaluate whether RDF native stores can be used to meet the needs of a biological database provider. Prior evaluations have used synthetic data with a limited database size. For example, the largest BSBM benchmark uses 1 billion synthetic e-commerce knowledge RDF triples on a single node. However, real world biological data differs from the simple synthetic data much. It is difficult to determine whether the synthetic e-commerce data is efficient enough to represent biological databases. Therefore, for this evaluation, we used five real data sets from biological databases.

Results
We evaluated five triple stores, 4store, Bigdata, Mulgara, Virtuoso, and OWLIM-SE, with five biological data sets, Cell Cycle Ontology, Allie, PDBj, UniProt, and DDBJ, ranging in size from approximately 10 million to 8 billion triples.
For each database, we loaded all the data into our single node and prepared the database for use in a classical data warehouse scenario. Then, we ran a series of SPARQL queries against each endpoint and recorded the execution time and the accuracy of the query response.

Conclusions
Our paper shows that with appropriate configuration Virtuoso and OWLIM-SE can satisfy the basic requirements to load and query biological data less than 8 billion or so on a single node, for the simultaneous access of 64 clients.
OWLIM-SE performs best for databases with approximately 11 million triples; For data sets that contain 94 million and 590 million triples, OWLIM-SE and Virtuoso perform best. They do not show overwhelming advantage over each other; For data over 4 billion Virtuoso works best.
4store performs well on small data sets with limited features when the number of triples is less than 100 million, and our test shows its scalability is poor; Bigdata demonstrates average performance and is a good open source triple store for middle-sized (500 million or so) data set; Mulgara shows a little of fragility.
The Effects of Interactions of Dicarboxylic Acids on the Stability of the Caffeine Molecule: A Theoretical Study
Authors: Azizi Abolfazl , Ebrahimi Ali , Habibi-Khorassani Mostafa , Rezazadeh Shiva , Behazin Roya 
Published: July 2014

Abstract
The cocrystal formation leads to the improvement of the physicochemical properties of drug substances. Caffeine, as a pharmaceutical compound, forms cocrystals with dicarboxylic acids through OH(acid)···N(caffeine) and CH(caffeine)···O(acid) hydrogen bonds. In the present work, four 2:1 ternary complexes of the caffeine molecule with oxalic, malonic, maleic, and glutaric acids (as cocrystal units) were studied by computational quantum chemistry methods. Also, all ternary complexes were considered in the presence of water molecules. The energy data indicate that the caffeine–oxalic acid complex is the most stable ternary complex with respect to humidity. The results of population analysis, on the basis of the atoms-in-molecules (AIM) and the natural bond orbital (NBO) methods, are in good agreement with the energy data and experimental observations for the caffeine cocrystals.
Codoping Effect of Sr and Ti for α-Fe2O3 Photocatalyst on Water Oxidation Utilizing IO3− as a Reversible Redox Ion under Visible Light
Authors: Miseki Yugo , Majima Yu , Gunji Takahiro , Sayama Kazuhiro 
Published: July 2014

Abstract
Codoping effect for α-Fe2O3 powder on photocatalytic water oxidation was investigated. Fe2O3 showed activity for water oxidation in aqueous NaIO3 solution by the introduction of a Pt cocatalyst via microwave heating. The activity was much improved by Sr and Ti codoping. We developed for the first time a photocatalyst mainly consisting of d5 metal ions for water oxidation by utilizing a reversible redox ion.
Improving sexual healthcare in general practice
Authors: Ann Dadich , Hassan Hosseinzadeh , Penny Abbott , Wendy Hu , Timothy Usherwood , Melissa Kang , Chris Bourne , Carolyn Murray , Jennifer Reath 
Published: July 2014

Objective: Describe how different types of resources are received and perceived by primary care clinicians to improve sexual healthcare. Study design: Cross-sectional online survey of primary care clinicians in New South Wales, Australia, to evaluate the perceived impact of nine resources to promote sexual healthcare—seven were tailored to general practitioners (GPs) and two to practice nurses (PNs). Participants: 431 primary care clinicians (GPs=214; PNs=217). Main outcome measures: Awareness, use and perceived impact of the resources. Principal findings: Most GPs were aware of and used the Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI) Testing Tool; the Online STI Testing Tool GP training was perceived to improve GPs' ability to raise the topic of STIs with patients and order appropriate tests. Although the highest proportion of PNs were aware of the online STI PN training, most used the PN Postcard. The former helped to improve PNs' ability to identify at-risk patients and document sexual history. Conclusions: This study supports the need for a multimodal approach to improve the delivery of sexual healthcare in general practice. This would involve the communication of similar messages in different modes, via different channels, at different times.
Close to home: Privatization and personalization of militarized death in Israeli home videos
Authors: Melamed Laliv 
Published: July 2014

Abstract
Since the mid-1990s, Israeli television has broadcast soldiers’ memorial videos made by families commemorating their lost loved one. The videos are broadcast only one day a year during the National Memorial Day as part of an orchestrated, nationwide commemoration and mourning. In Israeli society these video productions are deemed private and personal, therefore existing outside political, economic, institutional and aesthetic discourses. This article argues that the positioning of family-made video productions outside the social sphere obscures the politics and economies of Israeli cultural memory. To evaluate the social impetus of family-made memorial videos, the article traces the history of their emergence in the public view and highlights two parallel processes of privatization: the privatization of commemoration and memorialization in Israel, and the privatization of the Israeli public broadcast system. It also explores the appropriation of such home movies by state institutions (the archives in particular) and official historiography, and proposes three concepts for the discussion: intimacy, fetish and cliché. It concludes by interpreting the videos’ intimate storytelling within the public, digital and broadcast sphere as a cultural and ritualistic speech-convention that projects political viewpoints and understandings.