bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Determining psychometric properties of the Persian version of demoralization scale-II in patients with cancer
Authors: Taghilou Elaheh , Heidarzadeh Mehdi , Molaei Behnam , Khameslou Mehdi Ajri 
Published: January 2024

Abstract
Background
One of the emotional problems in patients experiencing cancer is demoralization syndrome. Concerning the importance of demoralization in patients with cancer, having a valid and reliable scale for assessing this problem is crucial. A revised version of Demoralization Scale (DS-II) was designed in 2016. It was necessary to determine its validity and reliability in populations with different cultures. This study aimed to determine the psychometric properties of the Persian version of DS-II (PDS-II) in Iranian patients with cancer.

Methods
The study population comprised 170 Iranian patients with cancer in Ardabil, Iran. The inclusion criteria were: age 18 or more, ability to understand and speak Persian, willingness to consent to participate in the study, having healthy cognitive function, and having an awareness of cancer. To determine the psychometric properties of PDS-II, the content, convergent, construct, and discriminant validity, besides internal consistency, were evaluated.

Results
Regarding the high correlation of PDS-II with General Anxiety Disorder, Patient Health Questionnaire, Beck Hopelessness Scale, and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, the convergent validity of the PDS-II was confirmed. Confirmatory factor analyses confirmed both the original 2-factor and one-factor models of PDS-II. Internal discriminant validity of the PDS-II was not confirmed because the Average Variance Extracted from two dimensions of PDS-II (AVE = 0.31 and 0.37) was less than the square correlation between these two dimensions (r2 = 0.79). Cronbach α and coefficient was 0.88 for the PDS-II.

Conclusions
PDS-II is a valid and reliable scale for measuring demoralization among Iranian people with cancer. However, the discriminant validity of the PDS-II was not supported.
The effect of gratitude on death anxiety is fully mediated by optimism in Lebanese adults following the 2023 earthquake
Authors: Al Boukhary Reem , Hallit Rabih , Postigo Alvaro , Malaeb Diana , Dabbous Mariam , Sakr Fouad , El Khatib Sami , Fekih-Romdhane Feten , Hallit Souheil , Obeid Sahar 
Published: January 2024

Abstract
Background
Exploring the levels of death anxiety and factors that can undermine its impact are crucial for the Lebanese nationals. Even though studies have shown various relationships between death anxiety and several factors, very few to no research has been done to show the relationship of death anxiety, gratitude and optimism. Therefore, the objectives of our study were to assess the mediating role of optimism in the association between gratitude and death anxiety, along with investigating the validity and reliability of the Arabic version of the Death Anxiety Scale.

Methods
A one-time-point online survey was conducted among Arabic-speaking community adults from the general population of Lebanon (N = 601; mean age 29.91 ± 12.61; 62.7% females). The following scales were used: Scale of Death Anxiety, Optimism–Pessimism Short Scale–2, and Gratitude Questionnaire-Six-Item Form.

Results
The results of the mediation analysis showed that optimism fully mediated the association between gratitude and death anxiety. Higher gratitude was significantly associated with more optimism; higher optimism was significantly associated with less death anxiety. Finally, higher gratitude was not directly associated with death anxiety.

Conclusion
Our study reveals the relationship between gratitude and death anxiety and the mediating role of optimism. Our results need to be confirmed in a longitudinal study, but point to the importance of assessing optimism in prevention and management of persons with death anxiety.
Prediction of drug–drug interactions between roflumilast and CYP3A4/1A2 perpetrators using a physiologically-based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) approach
Authors: Jia Guangwei , Ren Congcong , Wang Hongyan , Fan Caixia 
Published: January 2024

AbstractThis study aimed to develop a physiologically-based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) model to predict changes in the pharmacokinetics (PK) and pharmacodynamics (PD, PDE4 inhibition) of roflumilast (ROF) and ROF N-oxide when co-administered with eight CYP3A4/1A2 perpetrators. The population PBPK model of ROF and ROF N-oxide has been successfully developed and validated based on the four clinical PK studies and five clinical drug-drug interactions (DDIs) studies. In PK simulations, every ratio of prediction to observation for PK parameters fell within the range 0.7 to 1.5. In DDI simulations, except for tow peak concentration ratios (Cmax) of ROF with rifampicin (prediction: 0.63 vs. observation: 0.19) and with cimetidine (prediction: 1.07 vs. observation: 1.85), the remaining predicted ratios closely matched the observed ratios. Additionally, the PBPK model suggested that co-administration with the three perpetrators (cimetidine, enoxacin, and fluconazole) may use with caution, with CYP3A4 strong inhibitor (ketoconazole and itraconazole) or with dual CYP3A41A2 inhibitor (fluvoxamine) may reduce to half-dosage or use with caution, while co-administration with CYP3A4 strong or moderate inducer (rifampicin, efavirenz) should avoid. Overall, the present PBPK model can provide recommendations for adjusting dosing regimens in the presence of DDIs.
Sex-biased gene expression and gene-regulatory networks of sex-biased adverse event drug targets and drug metabolism genes
Authors: Fisher Jennifer L. , Clark Amanda D. , Jones Emma F. , Lasseigne Brittany N. 
Published: January 2024

Abstract
Background
Previous pharmacovigilance studies and a retroactive review of cancer clinical trial studies identified that women were more likely to experience drug adverse events (i.e., any unintended effects of medication), and men were more likely to experience adverse events that resulted in hospitalization or death. These sex-biased adverse events (SBAEs) are due to many factors not entirely understood, including differences in body mass, hormones, pharmacokinetics, and liver drug metabolism enzymes and transporters.

Methods
We first identified drugs associated with SBAEs from the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) database. Next, we evaluated sex-specific gene expression of the known drug targets and metabolism enzymes for those SBAE-associated drugs. We also constructed sex-specific tissue gene-regulatory networks to determine if these known drug targets and metabolism enzymes from the SBAE-associated drugs had sex-specific gene-regulatory network properties and predicted regulatory relationships.

Results
We identified liver-specific gene-regulatory differences for drug metabolism genes between males and females, which could explain observed sex differences in pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics. In addition, we found that ~ 85% of SBAE-associated drug targets had sex-biased gene expression or were core genes of sex- and tissue-specific network communities, significantly higher than randomly selected drug targets. Lastly, we provide the sex-biased drug-adverse event pairs, drug targets, and drug metabolism enzymes as a resource for the research community.

Conclusions
Overall, we provide evidence that many SBAEs are associated with drug targets and drug metabolism genes that are differentially expressed and regulated between males and females. These SBAE-associated drug metabolism enzymes and drug targets may be useful for future studies seeking to explain or predict SBAEs.
Improvements and methodological innovations in the application of the Historic Landscape Characterisation methodology to industrial heritage landscapes
Authors: Alba Dorado María Isabel , Cano Sanchiz Juan Manuel 
Published: January 2024

AbstractIndustrial heritage landscapes today are phenomena of extraordinary complexity, the study of which has been addressed belatedly by the scientific community in general, and to date no methodological trend has given priority to its study and management. There do exist, however, recent methodological approaches, such as Historic Landscape Characterisation, which, in recent years, have addressed the problems and opportunities presented by a wide diversity of landscapes, as is the case of the industrial landscape of Blaenavon. The aim of this article is to critically evaluate the validity of this methodology in terms of responding to the needs that these landscapes present with regard to their study, enhancement and intervention from a heritage and cultural perspective. This study concludes that, while this methodology is a valuable contribution to knowledge of the historical character of these landscapes, the importance of addressing their specific nature makes necessary the development of more solid, methodologically sophisticated approaches that respond to some of the theoretical and methodological weaknesses of this methodology. In this regard, this article advances in the definition of improvements and methodological innovations that attempt to address, among other issues, the complexity of these landscapes in terms of their establishment in the territory, the diversity of spatial and temporal scales in which they participate, their dynamic, highly anthropised character, and their uniqueness as landscapes that have been radically transformed by past industrial activity and which possess enormous cultural and heritage value.
Histone acetylation in an Alzheimer’s disease cell model promotes homeostatic amyloid-reducing pathways
Authors: Xu Daniel C. , Sas-Nowosielska Hanna , Donahue Greg , Huang Hua , Pourshafie Naemeh , Good Charly R. , Berger Shelley L. 
Published: January 2024

AbstractAlzheimer’s Disease (AD) is a disorder characterized by cognitive decline, neurodegeneration, and accumulation of amyloid plaques and tau neurofibrillary tangles in the brain. Dysregulation of epigenetic histone modifications may lead to expression of transcriptional programs that play a role either in protecting against disease genesis or in worsening of disease pathology. One such histone modification, acetylation of histone H3 lysine residue 27 (H3K27ac), is primarily localized to genomic enhancer regions and promotes active gene transcription. We previously discovered H3K27ac to be more abundant in AD patient brain tissue compared to the brains of age-matched non-demented controls. In this study, we use iPSC-neurons derived from familial AD patients with an amyloid precursor protein (APP) duplication (APPDupneurons) as a model to study the functional effect of lowering CBP/P300 enzymes that catalyze H3K27ac. We found that homeostatic amyloid-reducing genes were upregulated in the APPDupneurons compared to non-demented controls. We lowered CBP/P300 to reduce H3K27ac, which led to decreased expression of numerous of these homeostatic amyloid-reducing genes, along with increased extracellular secretion of a toxic amyloid-β species, Aβ(1–42). Our findings suggest that epigenomic histone acetylation, including H3K27ac, drives expression of compensatory genetic programs in response to AD-associated insults, specifically those resulting from APP duplication, and thus may play a role in mitigating AD pathology in neurons.
Scratch detection of archival films: modeling and trajectory calculation
Authors: Liu Quanyang , Liu Yunqing , Yan Fei 
Published: January 2024

Abstract
Scratches are a common continuous structural type of damage in archival films. Scratch pixel level segmentation algorithms still use general image segmentation, and with poor the detection. Based on the characteristics of scratches, a scratch model based on a Gaussian probability density function is proposed, a local adaptive one-dimensional Gaussian weighted segmentation algorithm is designed, and an invalid region filtering mechanism is described. Based on experimental results, the local one-dimensional Gaussian weighted segmentation algorithm proposed in this paper can preserve the integrity and continuity of scratches, and effectively suppresses edge defects; the invalid region filtering mechanism can effectively reduce the false detection of scratches. Adding a scratch trajectory can effectively reduce the chances of missing the detection of scratches, and the stability of the traditional algorithm using Kalman filters to predict the scratch trajectory is poor. According to the similarity of multiple scratch trajectories, a calculation method of trajectories based on U-net is described. Experimental results show that this method can calculate the scratch trajectory stably and effectively.
Hybrid beluga whale optimization algorithm with multi-strategy for functions and engineering optimization problems
Authors: Huang Jiaxu , Hu Haiqing 
Published: January 2024

AbstractBeluga Whale Optimization (BWO) is a new metaheuristic algorithm that simulates the social behaviors of beluga whales swimming, foraging, and whale falling. Compared with other optimization algorithms, BWO shows certain advantages in solving unimodal and multimodal optimization problems. However, the convergence speed and optimization performance of BWO still have some performance deficiencies when solving complex multidimensional problems. Therefore, this paper proposes a hybrid BWO method called HBWO combining Quasi-oppositional based learning (QOBL), adaptive and spiral predation strategy, and Nelder-Mead simplex search method (NM). Firstly, in the initialization phase, the QOBL strategy is introduced. This strategy reconstructs the initial spatial position of the population by pairwise comparisons to obtain a more prosperous and higher quality initial population. Subsequently, an adaptive and spiral predation strategy is designed in the exploration and exploitation phases. The strategy first learns the optimal individual positions in some dimensions through adaptive learning to avoid the loss of local optimality. At the same time, a spiral movement method motivated by a cosine factor is introduced to maintain some balance between exploration and exploitation. Finally, the NM simplex search method is added. It corrects individual positions through multiple scaling methods to improve the optimal search speed more accurately and efficiently. The performance of HBWO is verified utilizing the CEC2017 and CEC2019 test functions. Meanwhile, the superiority of HBWO is verified by utilizing six engineering design examples. The experimental results show that HBWO has higher feasibility and effectiveness in solving practical problems than BWO and other optimization methods.
The mechanisms of condensed tannins inhibit Pediococcus pentosaceus
Authors: Huang Rongzheng , Zhang Fanfan , Wang Xuzhe , Ma Chunhui , Ma Mingxin 
Published: January 2024

Abstract
Background
The antibacterial mechanisms of action of condensed tannins (CTs) obtained from tea are well known. However, the antibacterial mechanism of CTs from legumes, such as sainfoin, against to Pediococcus pentosaceus was still unclear. Using Pediococcus pentosaceus SF11 as a model organism, this study investigated the antibacterial mechanism of CTs (extract from sainfoin by 70% acetone aqueous solution).

Methods
The mechanism of CTs against Pediococcus pentosaceus was investigated though determined the minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) of CTs, effects of CTs on cell membrane, scanning and transmission electron microscopy analysis and global transcriptome analysis, et al.

Results
The results showed that CTs decreased the activities of enzymes such as lactic dehydrogenase, and inhibited the pentose phosphate (PP)/glycolytic pathway. The content of hydrogen peroxide produced by CTs was increased in P. pentosaceus SF11, and antibacterial activity partly occurred due to this hydrogen peroxide. The global transcriptome analysis showed that CTs upregulated the expression of 187 genes, most of which were involved in hypothetical protein, followed by the PTS (phosphotransferase system) system, while three genes were involved in oxidative stress. The expression of 161 genes was downregulated, most of which were involved in the phosphate ABC transporter system.

Conclusion
These findings suggest that the mechanism of antibacterial action of sainfoin CTs mainly operates through the inhibition of protease activity, and is partly associated with oxidative stress induced by hydrogen peroxide.

Graphical Abstract
A systematic scheme to develop dynamic earthquake rupture scenarios: a case study on the Wenchuan–Maoxian Fault in the Longmen Shan, China, thrust belt
Authors: Tang Rongjiang , Ando Ryosuke 
Published: January 2024

AbstractThe 2008 Wenchuan Mw 7.9 mainshock caused catastrophic destruction to cities along the northwestern margin of the Sichuan Basin. This earthquake did not activate the Wenchuan–Maoxian Fault (WMF) on the hinterland side and the conjugate buried Lixian Fault (LXF), but they could experience large earthquakes in the future. We propose a systematic scheme to develop scenario earthquakes for active fault systems with insufficient constrain of 3D fault geometries. We first performed stress tensor inversion to constrain the regional stress field. Then, we developed a new method to constrain fault geometries by inverting long-term slip rates under the given regional stress and applied it to the WMF. We conducted a set of 3D dynamic earthquake rupture simulations on the WMF and LXF to assess the scenarios of earthquake rupture processes. Several fault nucleation points, friction coefficients, and initial stress states are assessed, the general rupture patterns for these earthquake scenarios are evaluated, and finally, we find the scenarios that could fall into three groups. Depending on initial conditions, the dynamic rupture may start in the LXF, leading to magnitude-7.0 earthquakes, or start in the WMF, then cascade through the LXF, leading to magnitude-7.5 earthquakes, or both start and arrest in the WMF, leading to around magnitude-6.5 or -7.0 earthquakes. We find that the rupture starting on the reverse oblique-slip jumps to the strike-slip fault, but the reverse process is impeded.Graphical Abstract
The role of dynamic, static, and delayed total-body PET imaging in the detection and differential diagnosis of oncological lesions
Authors: Wu Yaping , Fu Fangfang , Meng Nan , Wang Zhenguo , Li Xiaochen , Bai Yan , Zhou Yun , Liang Dong , Zheng Hairong , Yang Yongfeng , Wang Meiyun , Sun Tao 
Published: January 2024

Abstract
Objectives
Commercialized total-body PET scanners can provide high-quality images due to its ultra-high sensitivity. We compared the dynamic, regular static, and delayed 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) scans to detect lesions in oncologic patients on a total-body PET/CT scanner.

Materials & methods
In all, 45 patients were scanned continuously for the first 60 min, followed by a delayed acquisition. FDG metabolic rate was calculated from dynamic data using full compartmental modeling, whereas regular static and delayed SUV images were obtained approximately 60- and 145-min post-injection, respectively. The retention index was computed from static and delayed measures for all lesions. Pearson’s correlation and Kruskal–Wallis tests were used to compare parameters.

Results
The number of lesions was largely identical between the three protocols, except MRFDG and delayed images on total-body PET only detected 4 and 2 more lesions, respectively (85 total). FDG metabolic rate (MRFDG) image-derived contrast-to-noise ratio and target-to-background ratio were significantly higher than those from static standardized uptake value (SUV) images (P < 0.01), but this is not the case for the delayed images (P > 0.05). Dynamic protocol did not significantly differentiate between benign and malignant lesions just like regular SUV, delayed SUV, and retention index.

Conclusion
The potential quantitative advantages of dynamic imaging may not improve lesion detection and differential diagnosis significantly on a total-body PET/CT scanner. The same conclusion applied to delayed imaging. This suggested the added benefits of complex imaging protocols must be weighed against the complex implementation in the future.

Clinical relevance
Total-body PET/CT was known to significantly improve the PET image quality due to its ultra-high sensitivity. However, whether the dynamic and delay imaging on total-body scanner could show additional clinical benefits is largely unknown. Head-to-head comparison between two protocols is relevant to oncological management.
Reducing pediatric total-body PET/CT imaging scan time with multimodal artificial intelligence technology
Authors: Zhang Qiyang , Hu Yingying , Zhou Chao , Zhao Yumo , Zhang Na , Zhou Yun , Yang Yongfeng , Zheng Hairong , Fan Wei , Liang Dong , Hu Zhanli 
Published: January 2024

AbstractObjectivesThis study aims to decrease the scan time and enhance image quality in pediatric total-body PET imaging by utilizing multimodal artificial intelligence techniques.MethodsA total of 270 pediatric patients who underwent total-body PET/CT scans with a uEXPLORER at the Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center were retrospectively enrolled.18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) was administered at a dose of 3.7 MBq/kg with an acquisition time of 600 s. Short-term scan PET images (acquired within 6, 15, 30, 60 and 150 s) were obtained by truncating the list-mode data. A three-dimensional (3D) neural network was developed with a residual network as the basic structure, fusing low-dose CT images as prior information, which were fed to the network at different scales. The short-term PET images and low-dose CT images were processed by the multimodal 3D network to generate full-length, high-dose PET images. The nonlocal means method and the same 3D network without the fused CT information were used as reference methods. The performance of the network model was evaluated by quantitative and qualitative analyses.ResultsMultimodal artificial intelligence techniques can significantly improve PET image quality. When fused with prior CT information, the anatomical information of the images was enhanced, and 60 s of scan data produced images of quality comparable to that of the full-time data.ConclusionMultimodal artificial intelligence techniques can effectively improve the quality of pediatric total-body PET/CT images acquired using ultrashort scan times. This has the potential to decrease the use of sedation, enhance guardian confidence, and reduce the probability of motion artifacts.