bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Diabetes control in public assistance recipients and free/low-cost medical care program beneficiaries in Japan: a retrospective cross-sectional study
Authors: Funakoshi Mitsuhiko , Nishioka Daisuke , Haruguchi Seiji , Yonemura Sakae , Takebe Takashi , Nonaka Misato , Iwashita Sanae 
Published: May 2024

IntroductionPrevious research has highlighted the association between socioeconomic factors and diabetes management. This study aimed to elucidate the blood glucose control status among individuals with low income (ie, recipients of public assistance (PARs) and free/low-cost medical care (FLCMC) programme beneficiaries) and to investigate the effects of public subsidies for medical expenses on treatment adherence among low-income patients with diabetes.MethodsWe conducted a secondary analysis of medical records from 910 outpatients with diabetes who underwent pharmacological treatment for >90 days. Data on predictive variables, such as glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) level and control variables, including sex, age and insurance type, were obtained retrospectively. The HbA1c levels among public health insurance (PHI)-only beneficiaries, FLCMC programme beneficiaries and PARs were compared using logistic regression analysis.ResultsThe analysis included 874 individuals, among whom the majority were men (61.7%) and aged≥65 years (58.4%). Logistic regression analysis revealed that among individuals aged ˂65 years, the adjusted ORs for HbA1c levels above 9% were significantly higher in FLCMC programme beneficiaries (OR=5.37, 95% CI: 2.23 to 12.82) and PARs (OR=5.97, 95% CI: 2.91 to 12.74) than in PHI-only beneficiaries. Among patients aged ˂65 years with HbA1c levels above 7%, the adjusted OR was significantly higher in FLCMC programme beneficiaries (OR=3.82, 95% CI: 1.65 to 10.43) than in PHI-only beneficiaries. Additionally, the adjusted OR was significantly higher in FLCMC programme beneficiaries aged ˂65 years (OR=2.57, 95% CI: 1.02 to 7.44) than in PARs.ConclusionsThis study highlights the predictive value of public assistance or the FLCMC programme for poor blood glucose control and suggests the inadequacy of current medical expense subsidies to eliminate health disparities in diabetes control.
Knowledge and perceptions about clinical research and its ethical conduct among college students from non-science background: a representative nation-wide survey from India
Authors: Raj Jeffrey Pradeep , Tomy Suraj Kallarakal , Jose Amrutha , Kashyap Aadrika , Kureethara Joseph Varghese , Kallarakal Tomy K 
Published: May 2024

IntroductionPrior studies on public attitudes and awareness of clinical research (CR) in India before the pandemic identified significant knowledge gaps. Thus, we aim to investigate if the pandemic has influenced awareness and attitudes towards CR given the wide mass and social media coverage on drug/vaccine development process.MethodsThis was an online survey conducted among young adults enrolled as students in a university in south India between 15 September 2022 and 31 October 2022. Until recently, these students attended online classes from various locations across India, likely reflecting a diverse regional and traditional background. Information regarding their sociodemographic status, awareness and perception about CR was collected and analysed applying the principle of descriptive and inferential statistics.ResultsA total of N=4796 eligible survey responses were analysed. Approximately, 50% were unfamiliar with CR but 42.4% expressed willingness to participate in a future CR. The significant predictors for a higher favourable perception score were having heard about CR (p<0.001), known exactly what a CR means (p<0.001) and having known anyone who participated in a CR (p<0.001). The significant predictors for willingness to participate in a CR were those living in villages as against those living in cities (p=0.002), belongs to Brahm Govind (BG) Prasad’s socioeconomic status class 1 (p=0.023) or class 4 (p=0.011) as against those in class 5, those who have heard about CR (p=0.023), participated in CR (p<0.001), have known someone participated in a CR (p<0.001) or higher total score of favourable perceptions (p<0.001).ConclusionsWhile there was extensive media coverage on drug/vaccine development processes during the COVID-19 pandemic, significant knowledge gaps and concerns regarding various aspects of CR persisted. Although some individuals showed a positive view of CR and its societal benefits, the overall public awareness remains insufficient.
Attitudes of UK pathologists and judicial officers towards medicolegal view and grant examinations: a cross-sectional mixed-methods study
Authors: Foster Jacob , Sadler David , Taylor Sam 
Published: May 2024

AimsDespite the 1988 ‘Dundee Initiative’, which maximised the use of view and grant examinations to reduce the invasive forensic autopsy rate in Tayside, the view and grant itself remains controversial. This is the first study to measure attitudes towards view and grants, applying the Theory of Planned Behaviour to investigate what attitudes are held, the reasons behind them and their association with deciding the scope of postmortem examinations.MethodsA mixed-methods cross-sectional study examined 62 UK pathologists, coroners and procurators fiscal using an online questionnaire. Participants were asked their demographics and attitudes towards view and grants before allocating five fictitious reportable deaths to either view and grant or invasive forensic autopsy (both in ideal and real world conditions), explaining their decisions using free-text.ResultsParticipants held both positive and negative attitudes towards view and grants, and most were relatively strong and ambivalent. Attitudes predicted respondents’ decisions to favour view and grant or invasive forensic autopsy in all ideal world scenarios, but no real world scenarios. There were significant differences in attitudes and decisions when comparing pathologists and judicial officers, and respondents working in Coroner and Fiscal systems. Thematic analysis was conducted on free-text responses.ConclusionsDiscrepancies between attitudes, and ideal and real world choices suggest that what respondentswantedto do did not necessarily translate to what theywould actuallydo in the scenarios tested. Applying concepts of attitudes, norms and perceived control can help to understand decision-making by death investigators, and why some jurisdictions favour more invasive procedures.
PERFECTRA: a pragmatic, multicentre, real-life study comparing treat-to-target strategies with baricitinib versus TNF inhibitors in patients with active rheumatoid arthritis after failure on csDMARDs
Authors: van de Laar Celine J , Oude Voshaar Martijn A H , ten Klooster Peter , Tedjo Danyta I , Bos Reinhard , Jansen Tim , Willemze A , Versteeg Grada A , Goekoop-Ruiterman Y P M , Kroot Eric-Jan , van de Laar Mart 
Published: May 2024

ObjectiveTo compare the effectiveness of a strategy administering baricitinib versus one using TNF-inhibitors (TNFi) in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) after conventional synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (csDMARDs) failure in a real-life treat-to-target (T2T) setting.MethodsPatients with biological and targeted synthetic DMARD (b/tsDMARD) naïve RA with disease duration ≤5 years without contraindications to b/tsDMARD were randomised to either TNFi or baricitinib when csDMARD failed to achieve disease control in a T2T setting. Changes in clinical and patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) were assessed at 12-week intervals for 48 weeks. The primary endpoint was non-inferiority, with testing for superiority if non-inferiority is demonstrated, of baricitinib strategy in the number of patients achieving American College of Rheumatology 50 (ACR50) response at 12 weeks. Secondary endpoints included 28-joint count Disease Activity Score with C reactive protein (DAS28-CRP) <2.6, changes in PROMs and radiographic progression.ResultsA total of 199 patients (TNFi, n=102; baricitinib, n=97) were studied. Both study groups were similar. Baricitinib was both non-inferior and superior in achieving ACR50 response at week 12 (42% vs 20%). Moreover, 75% of baricitinib patients achieved DAS28-CRP <2.6 at week 12 compared with 46% of TNFi patients. On secondary outcomes throughout the duration of the study, the baricitinib strategy demonstrated comparable or better outcomes than TNFi strategy. Although not powered for safety, no unexpected safety signals were seen in this relatively small group of patients.ConclusionUp to present, in a T2T setting, patients with RA failing csDMARDs have two main strategies to consider, Janus Kinases inhibitor versus bDMARDs (in clinical practice, predominantly TNFi). The PERFECTRA study suggested that starting with baricitinib was superior over TNFi in achieving response at 12 weeks and resulted in improved outcomes across all studied clinical measures and PROMs throughout the study duration in these patients.
Service user experiences of using internet-based testing for sexually transmitted infections (STIs): a qualitative study
Authors: Spence Tommer , Griffiths Frances , Ross Jonathan 
Published: May 2024

ObjectivesInternet-based testing for sexually transmitted infections allows individuals to order a self-sampling kit online, send samples to a central laboratory and receive their results electronically, reducing the need to attend a clinic unless for treatment. Its usage has grown rapidly in many high-income countries, such as England, where it now accounts for 44% of tests within the National Chlamydia Screening Programme. However, there is limited data on the experiences of service users, which may offer insights into low uptake and poor return rates among some high-incidence populations.MethodsParticipants were recruited via sexual health clinics and the website of an internet-based testing service. Purposive sampling was used to ensure a diversity of genders, sexualities and ethnic backgrounds were included. Semistructured interviews were conducted by phone, email and messenger services and explored participants’ perceptions and experiences of both internet-based and clinic-based testing. Data underwent thematic analysis.ResultsWe interviewed 17 participants. Internet-based testing appealed to many due to the privacy and convenience it offered over clinic-based testing. Although most were positive about their experience of internet-based testing, many found the process of finger-prick blood sampling extremely challenging and this contributed to concerns from some participants that test results may be inaccurate. A minority of participants missed the opportunity that clinic-based testing offered to discuss symptoms or concerns with staff. Participants overwhelmingly found the process of receiving test results by short message service (SMS) acceptable and preferable to alternatives.ConclusionsInternet-based testing is viewed positively by most users but uptake may be improved if providers emphasise the privacy and convenience it offers, as well as the accuracy of self-sampling. Providers should also consider measures to address user concerns around blood sampling and access to specialist advice.
Density and coefficients of Jones–Dole equation for viscosity measurement of l-isoleucine, l-proline, and l-glutamine in aqueous KCl solution at 298.15–323.15 K
Authors: Basharat Riffat , Tantray Aafaq , Khan Imran 
Published: May 2024

The present studies reported the experimental data on thermophysical properties such as density and viscosity of aqueous solutions of different amino acids namely l-isoleucine, l-proline, and l-glutamine in 1.5 mol/L KCl solution at different temperatures ranging from 298.15 to 323.15 K. Hence, the aim of this study is to investigate interactions between amino acids and KCl solution at dilute concentrations. For understanding amino acid and KCl solution interactions, we will investigate ion–ion and ion–solvent interactions. It has been observed that the density and viscosity rise with amino acid concentration and decrease with temperature. Using the Jones–Dole equation, the viscosity A and B coefficients have been determined. The viscosity B-coefficient values for all the three amino acids in aqueous electrolyte system are depicted as positive. The positive values of B-coefficient indicate a strong alignment of the solvent molecules with solute molecules. The amino acid l-glutamine acts as a structure breaker solute. This structure breaking effect of l-glutamine on solvent may be attributed to the domination of hydrophilic nature of amide group. l-isoleucine and l-proline act as structure maker in electrolyte system.
Electrically anisotropic structure of the Rocky Mountain Trench near Valemount, British Columbia inferred from magnetotellurics: implications for geothermal exploration
Authors: Lee Benjamin , Unsworth Martyn , Finley Theron , Kong Wenxin , Cordell Darcy 
Published: May 2024

Canoe Reach is a region of high geothermal potential on a segment of the Southern Rocky Mountain Trench fault (SRMTF) with highly metamorphosed and structurally complex wall rocks, near Valemount, British Columbia. This study contains analyses of magnetotelluric data collected at Canoe Reach accounting for electrical anisotropy, which is not often considered during geothermal exploration. Isotropic and anisotropic 3D inversions are used due to signs of electrical anisotropy in the Canoe Reach magnetotelluric data and the presence of visibly anisotropic geological structure. At Canoe Reach North, the anisotropic model is preferred for its simpler structure and consistency with the mapped geology. An anisotropic feature in the footwall of the steeply southwest-dipping SRMTF has a low resistivity in the fault-perpendicular direction and a high resistivity in the vertical direction, which is more easily explained by conductive minerals than by fluids in the highly metamorphosed gneiss. An exploration well in the SRMTF footwall encountered two graphite seams with thicknesses ≥1 m, supporting the interpretation of anisotropic resistivity due to conductive minerals. A strong resistivity contrast across the SRMTF suggests juxtaposition of different lithologies, challenging existing interpretations of SRMTF displacement at Canoe Reach. At Canoe Reach South, anisotropic features near the Canoe River thermal spring with a high resistivity in the fault-perpendicular direction and low resistivity in the vertical direction are consistent with fault core and damage zone models. Magnetotelluric data may be sensitive to permeability anisotropy of fault zones, and the use of electrically anisotropic inversions should be considered for these settings.
CAVE: Concurrency-Aware Graph Processing on SSDs
Authors: Papon Tarikul Islam , Chen Taishan , Zhang Shuo , Athanassoulis Manos 
Published: May 2024

Large-scale graph analytics has become increasingly common in areas like social networks, physical sciences, transportation networks, and recommendation systems. Since many such practical graphs do not fit in main memory, graph analytics performance depends on efficiently utilizing underlying storage devices. These out-of-core graph processing systems employ sharding and sub-graph partitioning to optimize for storage while relying on efficient sequential access of traditional hard disks. However, today's storage is increasingly based on solid-state drives (SSDs) that exhibit high internal parallelism and efficient random accesses. Yet, state-of-the-art graph processing systems do not explicitly exploit those properties, resulting in subpar performance.
In this paper, we develop CAVE, the first graph processing engine that optimally exploits underlying SSD-based storage by harnessing the available storage device parallelism via carefully selecting which I/Os to graph data can be issued concurrently. Thus, CAVE traverses multiple paths and processes multiple nodes and edges concurrently, achieving parallelization at a granular level. We identify two key ways to parallelize graph traversal algorithms based on the graph structure and algorithm: intra-subgraph and inter-subgraph parallelization. The first identifies subgraphs that contain vertices that can be accessed in parallel, while the latter identifies subgraphs that can be processed in their entirety in parallel. To showcase the benefit of our approach, we build within CAVE parallelized versions of five popular graph algorithms (Breadth-First Search, Depth-First Search, Weakly Connected Components, PageRank, Random Walk) that exploit the full bandwidth of the underlying device. CAVE uses a blocked file format based on adjacency lists and employs a concurrent cache pool that is essential to the parallelization of graph algorithms. By experimenting with different types of graphs on three SSD devices, we demonstrate that CAVE utilizes the available parallelism, and scales to diverse real-world graph datasets. CAVE achieves up to one order of magnitude speedup compared to the popular out-of-core systems Mosaic and GridGraph, and up to three orders of magnitude speedup in runtime compared to GraphChi.
Structural Designs Meet Optimality: Exploring Optimized LSM-tree Structures in a Colossal Configuration Space
Authors: Liu Junfeng , Wang Fan , Mo Dingheng , Luo Siqiang 
Published: May 2024

Mainstream LSM-tree-based key-value stores face challenges in optimizing performance for point lookup, range lookup, and update operations concurrently due to their constrained configurations. They typically follow fixed patterns to specify the level capacity and the number of sorted runs per-level. This confines their designs to a restricted space, limiting opportunities for broader optimizations.
To address this challenge, we consider a more flexible configuration that enables independent adjustments of the number of runs per-level, size ratio, and Bloom filter settings at each LSM-tree level. By carefully analyzing the cost of each operation based on the new design space, we unveil two critical insights for optimizing the tradeoff among the three operations. Firstly, achieving efficient point lookup requires a large last level. Secondly, there is a specific correlation between the number of runs per level and size ratio that is advantageous for overall update and range lookup performance.
Based on these insights, we introduce Moose, a structure delivering an impressive overall performance for point lookup, range lookup, and update concurrently. Furthermore, we also introduce a new framework, Smoose, to navigate the design space for adapting specific workloads. We implemented Moose and Smoose on top of RocksDB and experimental results demonstrate that our proposed approach outperforms state-of-the-art LSM-tree structures across diverse workloads.
Understanding the Performance Implications of the Design Principles in Storage-Disaggregated Databases
Authors: Pang Xi , Wang Jianguo 
Published: May 2024

Storage-compute disaggregation has recently emerged as a novel architecture in modern data centers, particularly in the cloud. By decoupling compute from storage, this new architecture enables independent and elastic scaling of compute and storage resources, potentially increasing resource utilization and reducing overall costs. To best leverage the disaggregated architecture, a new breed of database systems termed storage-disaggregated databases has recently been developed, such as Amazon Aurora, Microsoft Socrates, Google AlloyDB, Alibaba PolarDB, and Huawei Taurus. However, little is known about the effectiveness of the design principles in these databases since they are typically developed by industry giants, and only the overall performance results are presented without detailing the impact of individual design principles. As a result, many critical research questions remain unclear, such as the performance impact of storage-disaggregation, the log-as-the-database design, shared-storage, and various log-replay methods.
In this paper, we investigate the performance implications of the design principles that are widely adopted in storage-disaggregated databases for the first time. As these databases were usually not open-sourced, we have made a significant effort to implement a storage-disaggregated database prototype based on PostgreSQL v13.0. By fully controlling and instrumenting the codebase, we are able to selectively enable and disable individual optimizations and techniques to evaluate their impact on performance in various scenarios. Furthermore, we open-source our storage-disaggregated database prototype for use by the broader database research community, fostering collaboration and innovation in this field.
Associations Between Genetically Predicted Iron Status and Cardiovascular Disease Risk: A Mendelian Randomization Study
Authors: Barad Alexa , Clark Andrew G. , Pressman Eva K. , O'Brien Kimberly O. 
Published: May 2024

Background
Mendelian randomization (MR) studies suggest a causal effect of iron status on cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk, but it is unknown if these associations are confounded by pleiotropic effects of the instrumental variables on CVD risk factors. We aimed to investigate the effect of iron status on CVD risk controlling for CVD risk factors.

Methods and Results

Iron biomarker instrumental variables (total iron‐binding capacity [n=208 422], transferrin saturation [n=198 516], serum iron [n=236 612], ferritin [n=257 953]) were selected from a European genome‐wide association study meta‐analysis. We performed 2‐sample univariate MR of each iron trait on CVD outcomes (all‐cause ischemic stroke, cardioembolic ischemic stroke, large‐artery ischemic stroke, small‐vessel ischemic stroke, and coronary heart disease) from MEGASTROKE (n=440 328) and CARDIoGRAMplusC4D (Coronary Artery Disease Genome Wide Replication and Meta‐Analysis Plus the Coronary Artery Disease Genetics) (n=183 305). We then implemented multivariate MR conditioning on 7 CVD risk factors from independent European samples to evaluate their potential confounding or mediating effects on the observed iron–CVD associations. With univariate MR analyses, we found higher genetically predicted iron status to be associated with a greater risk of cardioembolic ischemic stroke (transferrin saturation: odds ratio, 1.17 [95% CI, 1.03–1.33]; serum iron: odds ratio, 1.21 [95% CI, 1.02–1.44]; total iron‐binding capacity: odds ratio, 0.81 [95% CI, 0.69–0.94]). The detrimental effects of iron status on cardioembolic ischemic stroke risk remained unaffected when adjusting for CVD risk factors (all
P
<0.05). Additionally, we found diastolic blood pressure to mediate between 7.1 and 8.8% of the total effect of iron status on cardioembolic ischemic stroke incidence. Univariate MR initially suggested a protective effect of iron status on large‐artery stroke and coronary heart disease, but controlling for CVD factors using multivariate MR substantially diminished these associations (all
P
>0.05).

Conclusions
Higher iron status was associated with a greater risk of cardioembolic ischemic stroke independent of CVD risk factors, and this effect was partly mediated by diastolic blood pressure. These findings support a role of iron status as a modifiable risk factor for cardioembolic ischemic stroke.