bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Plaque Ruptures Are Related to High Plaque Stress and Strain Conditions: Direct Verification by Using In Vivo OCT Rupture Data and FSI Models
Authors: Zhao Chen , Lv Rui , Maehara Akiko , Wang Liang , Gao Zhanqun , Xu Yishuo , Guo Xiaoya , Zhu Yanwen , Huang Mengde , Zhang Xiaoguo , Zhu Jian , Yu Bo , Jia Haibo , Mintz Gary S. , Tang Dalin 
Published: May 2024

BACKGROUND:
While it has been hypothesized that high plaque stress and strain may be related to plaque rupture, its direct verification using in vivo coronary plaque rupture data and full 3-dimensional fluid-structure interaction models is lacking in the current literature due to difficulty in obtaining in vivo plaque rupture imaging data from patients with acute coronary syndrome. This case-control study aims to use high-resolution optical coherence tomography–verified in vivo plaque rupture data and 3-dimensional fluid-structure interaction models to seek direct evidence for the high plaque stress/strain hypothesis.

METHODS:
In vivo coronary plaque optical coherence tomography data (5 ruptured plaques, 5 no-rupture plaques) were acquired from patients using a protocol approved by the local institutional review board with informed consent obtained. The ruptured caps were reconstructed to their prerupture morphology using neighboring plaque cap and vessel geometries. Optical coherence tomography–based 3-dimensional fluid-structure interaction models were constructed to obtain plaque stress, strain, and flow shear stress data for comparative analysis. The rank-sum test in the nonparametric test was used for statistical analysis.

RESULTS:

Our results showed that the average maximum cap stress and strain values of ruptured plaques were 142% (457.70 versus 189.22 kPa;
P
=0.0278) and 48% (0.2267 versus 0.1527 kPa;
P
=0.0476) higher than that for no-rupture plaques, respectively. The mean values of maximum flow shear stresses for ruptured and no-rupture plaques were 145.02 dyn/cm
2
and 81.92 dyn/cm
2
(
P
=0.1111), respectively. However, the flow shear stress difference was not statistically significant.

CONCLUSIONS:
This preliminary case-control study showed that the ruptured plaque group had higher mean maximum stress and strain values. Due to our small study size, larger scale studies are needed to further validate our findings.
Influence of Blood Pressure Reduction on Pulse Wave Velocity in Primary Hypertension: A Meta-Analysis and Comparison With an Acute Modulation of Transmural Pressure
Authors: McNally Ryan J. , Boguslavskyi Andrii , Malek Rayka , Floyd Christopher N. , Cecelja Marina , Douiri Abdel , Bruno Rosa-Maria , Farukh Bushra , Chowienczyk Phil , Faconti Luca 
Published: May 2024

BACKGROUND:
Increased arterial stiffness and pulse wave velocity (PWV) of the aorta and large arteries impose adverse hemodynamic effects on the heart and other organs. Antihypertensive treatment reduces PWV, but it is unknown whether this results from an unloading of stiffer elements in the arterial wall or is due to an alternate functional or structural change that might differ according to class of antihypertensive drug.

METHODS:
We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of the effects of different antihypertensive drug classes and duration of treatment on PWV with and without adjustment for change in mean arterial blood pressure (BP; study 1) and compared this to the change in PWV after an acute change in transmural pressure, simulating an acute change in BP (study 2).

RESULTS:
A total of 83 studies involving 6200 subjects were identified. For all drug classes combined, the reduction of PWV was 0.65 (95% CI, 0.46–0.83) m/s per 10 mm Hg reduction in mean arterial BP, a change similar to that induced by an acute change in transmural pressure in a group of hypertensive subjects. When adjusted for change in mean arterial BP, the reduction in PWV after treatment with beta-blockers or diuretics was less than that after treatment with angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors/angiotensin receptor antagonists or calcium channel antagonists.

CONCLUSIONS:
Reduction in PWV after antihypertensive treatment is largely explained by the reduction in BP, but there are some BP-independent effects. These might increase over time and contribute to better outcomes over the long term, but this remains to be demonstrated in long-term clinical trials.
Analyzing asymmetry in brain hierarchies with a linear state-space model of resting-state fMRI data
Authors: Benozzo Danilo , Baggio Giacomo , Baron Giorgia , Chiuso Alessandro , Zampieri Sandro , Bertoldo Alessandra 
Published: May 2024

Abstract
This study challenges the traditional focus on zero-lag statistics in resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) research. Instead, it advocates for considering time-lag interactions to unveil the directionality and asymmetries of the brain hierarchy. Effective connectivity (EC), the state matrix in dynamical causal modeling (DCM), is a commonly used metric for studying dynamical properties and causal interactions within a linear state-space system description. Here, we focused on how time-lag statistics are incorporated within the framework of DCM resulting in an asymmetric EC matrix. Our approach involves decomposing the EC matrix, revealing a steady-state differential cross-covariance matrix that is responsible for modeling information flow and introducing time-irreversibility. Specifically, the system’s dynamics, influenced by the off-diagonal part of the differential covariance, exhibit a curl steady-state flow component that breaks detailed balance and diverges the dynamics from equilibrium. Our empirical findings indicate that the EC matrix’s outgoing strengths correlate with the flow described by the differential cross covariance, while incoming strengths are primarily driven by zero-lag covariance, emphasizing conditional independence over directionality.
Religion, Morality, and Democracy in Ghana
Authors: Haynes Jeffrey 
Published: May 2024

Abstract
Many Ghanaians express concern about what they regard as a serious decline in morality and integrity, at both elite and popular levels. The decline is believed to fuel corruption, undermine national development, and diminish faith in democracy as the best available system of government. The paper argues that a close relationship between Ghana’s largest church, the Church of Pentecost (CoP), and the country’s two main political parties, the New Patriotic Party and the National Democratic Congress, threatens Ghana’s secular constitution and the country’s three decades of democracy in two ways. First, the CoP wants undemocratically to impose a framework to control Ghanaians’ moral behaviour according to the church’s values and beliefs. Second, the CoP’s influence on Ghana’s two main political parties seeks to prioritise power and control over all Ghanaians regardless of their religious affiliation and of the country’s commitment to democratic norms and institutions.
Revisiting the Deviation Effects of Irrelevant Sound on Serial and Nonserial Tasks
Authors: Nakajima Yu , Ashida Hiroshi 
Published: May 2024

Abstract
Two types of disruptive effects of irrelevant sound on visual tasks have been reported: the changing-state effect and the deviation effect. The idea that the deviation effect, which arises from attentional capture, is independent of task requirements, whereas the changing-state effect is specific to tasks that require serial processing, has been examined by comparing tasks that do or do not require serial-order processing. While many previous studies used the missing-item task as the nonserial task, it is unclear whether other cognitive tasks lead to similar results regarding the different task specificity of both effects. Kattner et al. (Memory and Cognition, 2023) used the mental-arithmetic task as the nonserial task, and failed to demonstrate the deviation effect. However, there were several procedural factors that could account for the lack of deviation effect, such as differences in design and procedures (e.g., conducted online, intermixed conditions). In the present study, we aimed to investigate whether the deviation effect could be observed in both the serial-recall and mental-arithmetic tasks when these procedural factors were modified. We found strong evidence of the deviation effect in both the serial-recall and the mental-arithmetic tasks when stimulus presentation and experimental design were aligned with previous studies that demonstrated the deviation effect (e.g., conducted in-person, blockwise presentation of sound, etc.). The results support the idea that the deviation effect is not task-specific.
Runoff Variability in the Truckee–Carson River Basin from Tree Rings and a Water Balance Model
Authors: Meko David M. , Biondi Franco , Taylor Alan H. , Panyushkina Irina P. , Thaxton Richard D. , Prusevich Alexander A. , Shiklomanov Alexander I. , Lammers Richard B. , Glidden Stanley 
Published: May 2024

Abstract
Regional warming and associated changes in hydrologic systems pose challenges to water supply management in river basins of the western United States and call for improved understanding of the spatial and temporal variability of runoff. We apply a network of total width, subannual width, and delta blue intensity tree-ring chronologies in combination with a monthly water balance model to identify droughts and their associated precipitation P and temperature T footprints in the Truckee–Carson River basin (TCRB). Stepwise regression gave reasonably accurate reconstructions, from 1688 to 1999, of seasonal P and T (e.g., R2 = 0.50 for May–September T). These were disaggregated to monthly values, which were then routed through a water balance model to generate “indirectly” reconstructed runoff. Reconstructed and observed annual runoff correlate highly (r = 0.80) from 1906 to 1999. The extended runoff record shows that twentieth-century droughts are unmatched in severity in a 300-yr context. Our water balance modeling reconstruction advances the conventional regression-based dendrochronological methods as it allows for multiple hydrologic components (evapotranspiration, snowmelt, etc.) to be evaluated. We found that imposed warming (3° and 6°C) generally exacerbated the runoff deficits in past droughts but that impact could be lessened and sometimes even reversed in some years by compensating factors, including changes in snow regime. Our results underscore the value of combining multiproxy tree-ring data with water balance modeling to place past hydrologic droughts in the context of climate change.

Significance Statement
We show how water balance modeling in combination with tree-ring data helps place modern droughts in the context of the past few centuries and a warming climate. Seasonal precipitation and temperature were reconstructed from multiproxy tree-ring data for a mountainous location near Lake Tahoe, and these reconstructions were routed through a water balance model to get a record of monthly runoff, snowmelt, and other water balance variables from 1688 to 1999. The resulting extended annual runoff record highlights the unmatched severity of twentieth-century droughts. A warming of 3°C imposed on reconstructed temperature generally exacerbates the runoff anomalies in past droughts, but this effect is sometimes offset by warming-related changes in the snow regime.
Influence of Natural External Forcings on Interdecadal Variation of Global Land Monsoon over the Last Millennium in CESM-LME
Authors: Wang Zhiyuan , Li Laurent Z. X. , Shi Xiaoyi , Wang Jianglin , Jia Jia 
Published: May 2024

Abstract
Interdecadal variations of the global land monsoon have been previously attributed to internal fluctuations of the climate system, but the role of natural external forcings was underexplored. Here, we investigate this issue by using the Community Earth System Model ensemble simulations over the last millennium (LM) (AD 950–1850). Our analysis reveals that the surface temperature, with two dominant structures (global cooling/warming and longitudinal sea surface temperature gradient in the tropical Pacific, which affects the Walker circulation), predominantly shapes the leading forced mode of the global land monsoon. This mode, representing 19% of the total variance, manifests as consistent features across South Asia, the southern part of East Asia, North Australia, South America, and western South Africa, contrasting with other monsoon regions. Under global cooling conditions, the monsoon intensity is enhanced in the northern parts of the East Asian and eastern parts of the North and South African monsoons, but it decreases in the other monsoon regions. Under weak Walker circulation conditions, changes in atmospheric circulation in response to the sea surface temperature gradient in the tropical Pacific are associated with a substantial attenuation of almost all land monsoon regions. It was further shown that the global mean surface temperature and the tropical Pacific temperature gradient jointly account for 75% of the total variance in the leading mode of the global land monsoon, with 29% and 46% as their respective contributions. Furthermore, our results suggest that volcanic eruptions are the dominant external forcing for these variations. These findings provide valuable insights for future research on global monsoon dynamics.

Significance Statement
Our study using the Community Earth System Model reveals that surface temperature significantly impacts decadal global land monsoon (GLM) variations during the last millennium. Two key factors in relation to global-scale cooling/warming and changes in the tropical Pacific sea surface temperature gradient affect the GLM’s leading forced mode. The leading forced GLM features remain consistent across regions like South Asia, southern East Asia, North Australia, South America, and western South Africa. Under global cooling, monsoon intensities in most land monsoon regions are enhanced, while they are reduced in northern East Asian land monsoon regions. In contrast, weak tropical Pacific temperature gradient conditions cause a decrease in intensities in almost all land monsoon regions. Additionally, the global mean surface temperature and the tropical Pacific temperature gradient account for 75% of the total variance in the leading forced GLM variations, contributing 29% and 46%, respectively. Notably, volcanic eruptions emerge as the key external factor influencing these variations.
Improved gastric residence time of famotidine by raft-forming drug delivery system using DOE
Authors: Munusamy Rajalakshmi , Shanmugasundharam Sangeetha 
Published: May 2024

Objective This study investigated the raft-forming suspension of famotidine as an anti-reflux formulation to improve the oral bioavailability of narrow absorption window drugs by enhancing gastric residence time (GRT) and preventing gastro-esophageal reflux disease (GERD). Method Various combinations of raft-forming agents, such as Tragacanth gum (TG), guar gum (GG), and xanthan gum (XG), were evaluated alongside sodium alginate (SA) to develop an effective raft. Preformulation studies and preliminary screening were conducted to identify the most suitable raft-forming agent, and GG was chosen due to its mucilaginous properties. The formulation was optimized using a 32 full factorial design, with the quantities of GG and SA as independent factors and apparent viscosity and in-vitro drug release (%) as dependent factors. The in vivo floating behavior study was performed for optimized and stabilized formulation. Results Among the tested batches, F6 was selected as the optimized formulation. It exhibited desirable characteristics such as adequate raft weight for extended floating in gastric fluid, improved apparent viscosity, and a significant percentage of drug release at 12 h. A mathematical model was applied to the in-vitro data to gain insights into the drug release mechanism of the formulation. The stability of the suspension was assessed under accelerated conditions, and it demonstrated satisfactory stability. The formulation remains floating in the Rabbit stomach for more than 12 h. Conclusion It concludes that the developed formulation has enhanced bioavailability in the combination of GG and SA. The floating layer of the raft prevents acid reflux, and the famotidine is retained for an extended period of time in the gastric region, preventing excess acid secretion. The developed formulations are effective for stomach ulcers and GERD, with the effect of reducing acid secretion by H2 receptor antagonists.
Controlling performance of semiactive suspension with two methods of fuzzy-control and machine-learning
Authors: Zhou Zhihong , Liu Yang , Xu Huichuan , Zha Jili , Chen Hanxin 
Published: May 2024

Two different methods of Fuzzy-control and Machine-learning are proposed to control the vehicle’s semiactive suspensions. To control performance of semiactive suspensions using machine learning (SS-ML) and semiactive suspensions using fuzzy control (SS-FC), a half-vehicle model has been established to calculate and simulate vibration equations under random road surfaces from ISO A-class to F-class. Via map of control rule data in SS-FC established at roads ISO A-class, B-class, …, and F-class, SS-ML’s Neuro-Adaptive-Learning has been trained for learning these control rules. The results obtained indicate that under the same road surface excitation of ISO C-class, the control performance of SS-FC and SS-ML is equivalent., and the vehicle’s comfort level using both SS-FC and SS-ML is very well improved in comparison with passive suspensions without control (PS-WC) of the vehicle. Under a mixed road surface from ISO A-class to F-class and a change range of the vehicle’s moving velocity from 2.5 m s−1 to 35m s−1 used for simulation, the vehicle’s comfort level using SS-ML is better than vehicle’s comfort level using SS-FC. Especially, the root mean square values of displacements and accelerations in vertical and pitch directions of the vehicle body with SS-ML are smaller than that of SS-FC by 13.4%, 23.2%, 20.7%, and 14.3%, respectively. Therefore, the control performance of SS-ML is better than SS-FC, and it should be used to control the vehicle’s semiactive suspensions for enhancing the comfort level.
Acacetin inhibits activation of microglia to improve neuroinflammation after subarachnoid hemorrhage through the PERK signaling pathway mediated autophagy
Authors: Liu Ying , Tang Jianhua , Hou Yiwei , Li Lu , Li Wenna , Yu Ling , Wang Xue , Sui Changbai 
Published: May 2024

Purpose To explore the effect of acacetin on subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) and its possible mechanism. Methods SAH model of rat was established, and intraperitoneally injected with three doses of acacetin. To verify the role of PERK pathway, we used the CCT020312 (PERK inhibitor) and Tunicamycin (activators of endoplasmic reticulum stress). The SAH score, neurological function score, brain edema content, and Evans blue (EB) exudate were evaluated. Western blot was used to determine the expression of inflammation-associated proteins and PERK pathway. The activation of microglia was also determined through Iba-1 detection. TEM and immunofluorescence staining of LC3B were performed to observe the autophagy degree of SAH rats after acacetin. Tunel/NeuN staining, HE and Nissl’ staining were performed for neuronal damage. Results Acacetin increased the neurological function score, reduce brain water content, Evans blue exudation and SAH scores. The microglia in cerebral cortex were activated after SAH, while acacetin could inhibit its activation, and decreased the expression of TNF-α and IL-6 proteins. The pathological staining showed the severe neuronal damage and increased neuronal apoptosis after SAH, while acacetin could improve these pathological changes. We also visualized the alleviated autophagy after acacetin. The expression of Beclin1 and ATF4 proteins were increased, but acacetin could inhibit them. Acacetin also inactivated PERK pathway, which could improve the neuronal injury and neuroinflammation after SAH, inhibit the microglia activation and the overactivated autophagy through PERK pathway. Conclusion Acacetin may alleviate neuroinflammation and neuronal damage through PERK pathway, thus having the protective effect on EBI after SAH.
Acupuncture knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and health service needs after traumatic brain injury: a cross-sectional survey
Authors: Sodders Mark D , Deshpande Shyam J , Dusek Jeffery A , Bradley Ryan , Vavilala Monica S 
Published: May 2024

Background: Acupuncture is a promising treatment for common symptoms after traumatic brain injury (TBI). Our objectives were to explore knowledge, attitudes and beliefs about acupuncture, identify health service needs and assess the perceived feasibility of weekly acupuncture visits among individuals with TBI. Methods: We surveyed adults 18 years of age and older with TBI who received care at the University of Washington. Respondents were asked to complete 143 questions regarding acupuncture knowledge, attitudes and beliefs, injury-related symptoms and comorbidities, and to describe their interest in weekly acupuncture. Results: Respondents (n = 136) reported a high degree of knowledge about acupuncture as a component of Traditional Chinese Medicine, needle use and safety, but were less knowledgeable regarding that the fact that most conditions require multiple acupuncture treatments to achieve optimal therapeutic benefit. Respondents were comfortable talking with healthcare providers about acupuncture (63.4%), open to acupuncture concurrent with conventional treatments (80.6%) and identified lack of insurance coverage as a barrier (50.8%). Beliefs varied, but respondents were generally receptive to using acupuncture as therapy. Unsurprisingly, respondents with a history of acupuncture (n = 60) had more acupuncture knowledge than those without such a history (n = 66) and were more likely to pursue acupuncture without insurance (60%), for serious health conditions (63.3%) or alongside conventional medical therapy (85.0%). Half of all respondents expressed interest in participating in weekly acupuncture for up to 12 months and would expect almost a 50% improvement in symptoms by participating. Conclusion: Adults with TBI were receptive and interested in participating in weekly acupuncture to address health concerns. These results provide support for exploring the integration of acupuncture into the care of individuals with TBI.