bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The first description of dermal armour in snakes
Authors: Frýdlová Petra , Janovská Veronika , Mrzílková Jana , Halašková Milada , Riegerová Markéta , Dudák Jan , Tymlová Veronika , Žemlička Jan , Zach Petr , Frynta Daniel 
Published: April 2023

AbstractOsteoderms, also called dermal armour, often play a role in predator defence. The presence of osteoderms is highly irregularly distributed across the squamate phylogeny and they have not been found in snakes. In this study, we searched for candidate snake species that would benefit from such armour to protect their body, focusing primarily on fossorial species with defensive tail displays. We examined the tail morphology of 27 snake species from different families using micro-computed tomography (µCT) and micro- radiography. We discovered dermal armour in four species of sand boas (Erycidae) that also feature enlarged and highly modified caudal vertebrae. This is the first description of dermal armour in snakes. Ancestral state reconstructions revealed that osteoderms likely evolved once or multiple times in Erycidae. We have not found osteoderms in any other examined snake species. Nevertheless, similar structures are known from unrelated squamate clades, such as gerrhosaurids and geckos. This supports the idea of underlying deep developmental homology. We propose the hypothesis that osteoderms protect sand boas like the “brigandine armour” of medieval warriors. We interpret it as another component of the sand boas' rich defence strategy.
Prediction of respiratory complications by quantifying lung contusion volume using chest computed tomography in patients with chest trauma
Authors: Lee Na Hyeon , Kim Seon Hee , Seo Sang-hyup , Kim Byeong-Jun , Lee Chi-Seung , Kim Gil Hwan , Park Sung Jin , Kim Seon Hyun , Ryu Dong Yeon , Kim Ho Hyun , Lee Sang Bong , Park Chan Ik , Kim Jae Hun 
Published: April 2023

AbstractPulmonary contusion is an important risk factor for respiratory complications in trauma patients. Hence, we aimed to determine the relationship between the ratio of pulmonary contusion volume to the total lung volume and patient outcomes and the predictability of respiratory complications. We retrospectively included 73 patients with a pulmonary contusion on chest computed tomography (CT) from 800 patients with chest trauma admitted to our facility between January 2019 and January 2020. Chest injury severity was expressed as the ratio of pulmonary contusion volume to total lung volume by quantifying pulmonary contusion volume on chest CT. The cut-off value was 80%. Among the 73 patients with pulmonary contusion (77% males, mean age: 45.3 years), 28 patients had pneumonia, and five had acute respiratory distress syndrome. The number of patients in the severe risk group with > 20% of pulmonary contusion volume was 38, among whom 23 had pneumonia. For predicting pneumonia, the area under the receiver operating characteristic curves for the ratio of pulmonary contusion volume was 0.85 (95% confidence interval 0.76–0.95, p = 0.008); the optimal threshold was 70.4%. Quantifying pulmonary contusion volume using initial CT enables identifying patients with chest trauma at high risk of delayed respiratory complications.
Low-cost biosorption of Fe(II) and Fe(III) from single and binary solutions using Ulva lactuca-derived cellulose nanocrystals-graphene oxide composite film
Authors: Al-Badaani Arwa A. , Hifney Awatief F. , Adam Mahmoud S. , Gomaa Mohamed 
Published: April 2023

AbstractThe marine algal biomass of Ulva lactuca was utilized for the extraction of cellulose and the development of cellulose nanocrystals/graphene oxide film. Cellulose nanocrystals with 50–150 nm were produced by H2SO4 hydrolysis of the algal cellulose. The adsorption efficiency of the nanocomposite film for Fe(II) and Fe(III) ions was successfully evaluated using Box-Behnken design. The maximum removal for Fe(II) (64.15%) could be attained at pH 5.13, adsorbent dosage 7.93 g L−1 and Fe(II) concentration 15.39 mg L−1, while the biosorption of Fe(III) was 69.92% at pH 5.0, adsorbent dosage 2 g L−1, and Fe(III) concentration 15.0 mg L−1. However, in the binary system, the removal efficiency of Fe(II) was enhanced to 95.48% at Fe(II):Fe(III) ratio of 1:1, while the Fe(III) removal was increased to 79.17% at ratio 1:2. The pseudo-second-order kinetics exhibited better fitting to the experimental results of Fe(II) and Fe(III) adsorption in both single and binary systems. The intra-particle diffusion was prominent during the biosorption, but the effect of the external mass transfer was significant. The Langmuir, Freundlich, Langmuir–Freundlich, Temkin, and Dubinin-Radushkevich isotherms showed satisfactory fitting to the experimental data, but they differ in priority based on iron state and pH. The adsorption of Fe(II) in the presence of Fe(III) in a mixture was best represented by the extended Langmuir model, while the extended Langmuir–Freundlich model best fitted the adsorption of Fe(III). The FT-IR analysis indicated that physisorption through electrostatic interaction/complexation is the predominant mechanism for the adsorption of iron using the nanocomposite film.
Dual-branch hybrid network for lesion segmentation in gastric cancer images
Authors: He Dongzhi , Zhang Yuanyu , Huang Hui , Si Yuhang , Wang Zhiqiang , Li Yunqi 
Published: April 2023

AbstractThe effective segmentation of the lesion region in gastric cancer images can assist physicians in diagnosing and reducing the probability of misdiagnosis. The U-Net has been proven to provide segmentation results comparable to specialists in medical image segmentation because of its ability to extract high-level semantic information. However, it has limitations in obtaining global contextual information. On the other hand, the Transformer excels at modeling explicit long-range relations but cannot capture low-level detail information. Hence, this paper proposes a Dual-Branch Hybrid Network based on the fusion Transformer and U-Net to overcome both limitations. We propose the Deep Feature Aggregation Decoder (DFA) by aggregating only the in-depth features to obtain salient lesion features for both branches and reduce the complexity of the model. Besides, we design a Feature Fusion (FF) module utilizing the multi-modal fusion mechanisms to interact with independent features of various modalities and the linear Hadamard product to fuse the feature information extracted from both branches. Finally, the Transformer loss, the U-Net loss, and the fused loss are compared to the ground truth label for joint training. Experimental results show that our proposed method has an IOU of 81.3%, a Dice coefficient of 89.5%, and an Accuracy of 94.0%. These metrics demonstrate that our model outperforms the existing models in obtaining high-quality segmentation results, which has excellent potential for clinical analysis and diagnosis. The code and implementation details are available at Github, https://github.com/ZYY01/DBH-Net/.
Economic and racial disparities of the weather impact on air quality in Brazil
Authors: Requia Weeberb J. , Castelhano Francisco Jablinski 
Published: April 2023

AbstractSeveral studies have quantified the air pollution exposure disparities across racial and income groups. However, there is still a lack of investigations assessing disparities related to the impacts of weather on air pollution, which could indicate target air pollution reduction strategies under different climate scenarios. Our study aims to address this gap by estimating the economic and racial disparities of the weather impact on air quality in Brazil between 2003 and 2018. First, we used a generalized additive approach to estimate the weather-related changes in PM2.5. This framework derived “weather penalty”, which a positive penalty suggests that an increase in PM2.5 was associated with long-term weather changes in the study period. Then, we estimated the population-weighted weather penalty for racial and income groups. Average penalty for the White population (the most-exposed group) was 31% higher than that of the Pardo population (the least-exposed group, mainly people of light brown skin color) in Brazil. In the stratification analysis by region, the Midwest and South were the regions where the black population was the most-exposed group. For the income group, our results indicate that the high-income population group was the most-exposed group in all analyses, including the national and the regional analyses. These findings are somewhat surprising, as previous studies have shown that minority and low-income populations tend to be more exposed to air pollution, than white and higher-income populations. However, our study suggests that disparities in exposure to air pollution may be more complex and nuanced than previously thought. Further research is needed to better understand the underlying drivers of these environmental disparities, and to develop targeted interventions to reduce exposures.
The neuropsychology of healthy aging: the positive context of the University of the Third Age during the COVID-19 pandemic
Authors: Amanzio Martina , Cipriani Giuseppina Elena , Bartoli Massimo , Canessa Nicola , Borghesi Francesca , Chirico Alice , Cipresso Pietro 
Published: April 2023

AbstractOlder adults have been reported to have increased susceptibility to the adverse effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection, such as fatal outcomes, cognitive decline, and changes in physical and/or mental health. However, few studies have examined neuropsychological changes by comparing measurements before and during the pandemic in healthy older people. In addition, no longitudinal studies have examined whether older adults may have responded positively to the pandemic. We examined these issues through a 2-year neuropsychological study before and during the pandemic period. Results showed that scores before and during the pandemic were the same in memory and attention, whereas global cognitive, executive, and language functions improved. Participants also showed no longitudinal changes in depression, hypomania, and disinhibition, while apathy and, to a lesser extent, anxiety increased significantly. To examine possible signs of pandemic-related emotional (dys)regulation, subjects were shown images at follow-up that recalled the most dramatic lockdown phase while heart rate variability was recorded. Higher apathy was predicted by poorer global cognitive performance, increased anxiety, and emotional dysregulation as measured by a higher ratio of low-to-high frequency heart rate variability. Thus, preserved global cognition appears to play a protective role against the effects of pandemic-related anxiety and emotional dysregulation on apathy.
Vibrio cholerae in rural and urban Bangladesh, findings from hospital-based surveillance, 2000–2021
Authors: Das Rina , Nasrin Sabiha , Palit Parag , Sobi Rukaeya Amin , Sultana Al-Afroza , Khan Soroar Hossain , Haque Md. Ahshanul , Nuzhat Sharika , Ahmed Tahmeed , Faruque A. S. G. , Chisti Mohammod Jobayer 
Published: April 2023

AbstractWith more than 100,000 cases estimated each year, Bangladesh is one of the countries with the highest number of people at risk for cholera. Moreover, Bangladesh is formulating a countrywide cholera-control plan to satisfy the GTFCC (The Global Task Force on Cholera Control) Roadmap's goals. With a particular focus on cholera trends, variance in baseline and clinical characteristics of cholera cases, and trends in antibiotic susceptibility among clinical isolates of Vibrio cholerae, we used data from facility-based surveillance systems from icddr,b’s Dhaka, and Matlab Hospitals from years 2000 to 2021. Female patients comprised 3,553 (43%) in urban and 1,099 (51.6%) in rural sites. Of the cases and most patients 5,236 (63.7%) in urban and 1,208 (56.7%) in the rural site were aged 15 years and more. More than 50% of the families belonged to the poor and lower-middle-class; in 2009 (24.4%) were in urban and in 1,791 (84.2%) were in rural sites. In the urban site, 2,446 (30%) of households used untreated drinking water, and 702 (9%) of families disposed of waste in their courtyard. In the multiple logistic regression analysis, the risk of cholera has significantly increased due to waste disposal in the courtyard and the boiling of water has a protective effect against cholera. Rotavirus (9.7%) was the most prevalent co-pathogen among the under-5 children in both sites. In urban sites, the percentage of V. cholerae along with co-existing ETEC and Campylobacter is changing in the last 20 years; Campylobacter (8.36%) and Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) (7.15%) were the second and third most prevalent co-pathogens. Shigella (1.64%) was the second most common co-pathogen in the rural site. Azithromycin susceptibility increased slowly from 265 (8%) in 2006–2010 to 1485 (47.8%) in 2016–2021, and erythromycin susceptibility dropped substantially over 20 years period from 2,155 (98.4%) to 21 (0.9%). Tetracycline susceptibility decreased in the urban site from 2051 (45.9%) to 186 (4.2%) and ciprofloxacin susceptibility decreased from 2,581 (31.6%) to 1,360 (16.6%) until 2015, then increased 1,009 (22.6%) and 1,490 (18.2%) in 2016–2021, respectively. Since 2016, doxycycline showed 902 (100%) susceptibility. Clinicians need access to up-to-date information on antimicrobial susceptibility for treating hospitalized patients. To achieve the WHO-backed objective of eliminating cholera by 2030, the health systems need to be put under a proper surveillance system that may help to improve water and sanitation practices and deploy oral cholera vaccines strategically.
Unusual late-fall wildfire in a pre-Alpine Fagus sylvatica forest reduced fine roots in the shallower soil layer and shifted very fine-root growth to deeper soil depth
Authors: Montagnoli Antonio , Terzaghi Mattia , Miali Alessio , Chiatante Donato , Dumroese R. Kasten 
Published: April 2023

AbstractAfter an unusual, late-fall wildfire in a European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) forest in the pre-Alps of northern Italy, the finest roots (0‒0.3 mm diameter) were generally the most responsive to fire, with the effect more pronounced at the shallowest soil depth. While roots 0.3‒1 mm in diameter had their length and biomass at the shallowest soil depth reduced by fire, fire stimulated more length and biomass at the deepest soil depth compared to the control. Fire elevated the total length of dead roots and their biomass immediately and this result persisted through the first spring, after which control and fire-impacted trees had similar fine root turnover. Our results unveiled the fine-root response to fire when subdivided by diameter size and soil depth, adding to the paucity of data concerning fire impacts on beech roots in a natural condition and providing the basis for understanding unusual fire occurrence on root traits. This study suggests that F. sylvatica trees can adapt to wildfire by plastically changing the distribution of fine-root growth, indicating a resilience mechanism to disturbance.
Parallel Multi-Deque Partition Dual-Deque Merge sorting algorithm using OpenMP
Authors: Ketchaya Sirilak , Rattanatranurak Apisit 
Published: April 2023

AbstractQuicksort is an important algorithm that uses the divide and conquer concept, and it can be run to solve any problem. The performance of the algorithm can be improved by implementing this algorithm in parallel. In this paper, the parallel sorting algorithm named the Multi-Deque Partition Dual-Deque Merge Sorting algorithm (MPDMSort) is proposed and run on a shared memory system. This algorithm contains the Multi-Deque Partitioning phase, which is a block-based parallel partitioning algorithm, and the Dual-Deque Merging phase, which is a merging algorithm without compare-and-swap operations and sorts the small data with the sorting function of the standard template library. The OpenMP library, which is an application programming interface used to develop the parallel implementation of this algorithm, is implemented in MPDMSort. Two computers (one with an Intel Xeon Gold 6142 CPU and the other with an Intel Core i7-11700 CPU) running Ubuntu Linux are used in this experiment. The results show that MPDMSort is faster than parallel balanced quicksort and multiway merge sort on the large random distribution data. A speedup of 13.81$$\times$$
×
and speedup per thread of 0.86 can be obtained. Thus, developers can use these parallel partitioning and merging algorithms to improve the performance of related algorithms.
Outdoor THz fading modeling by means of gaussian and gamma mixture distributions
Authors: Papasotiriou Evangelos N. , Boulogeorgos Alexandros-Apostolos A. , Alexiou Angeliki 
Published: April 2023

AbstractTerahertz (THz) band offers a vast amount of bandwidth and is envisioned to become a key enabler for a number of next generation wireless applications. In this direction, appropriate channel models, encapsulating the large and small-scale fading phenomena, need to be developed for both indoor and outdoor communications environments. The THz large-scale fading characteristics have been extensively investigated for both indoor and outdoor scenarios. The study of indoor THz small-scale fading has recently gained the momentum, while the small-scale fading of outdoor THz wireless channels has not yet been investigated. Motivated by this, this contribution introduces Gaussian mixture (GM) distribution as a suitable small-scale fading model for outdoor THz wireless links. In more detail, multiple outdoor THz wireless measurements recorded at different transceiver separation distance are fed to an expectation-maximization fitting algorithm, which returns the parameters of the GM probability density function. The fitting accuracy of the analytical GMs is evaluated in terms of the Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Kullback-Leibler (KL) and root-mean-square-error (RMSE) tests. The results reveal that as the number of mixtures increases the resulting analytical GMs perform a better fit to the empirical distributions. In addition, the KL and RMSE metrics indicate that the increase of mixtures beyond a particular number result to no significant improvement of the fitting accuracy. Finally, following the same approach as in the case of GM, we examine the suitability of mixture Gamma to capture the small-scale fading characteristics of the outdoor THz channels.
Minimizing the makespan and carbon emissions in the green flexible job shop scheduling problem with learning effects
Authors: Li Zhi , Chen Yingjian 
Published: April 2023

AbstractOne of the most difficult challenges for modern manufacturing is reducing carbon emissions. This paper focuses on the green scheduling problem in a flexible job shop system, taking into account energy consumption and worker learning effects. With the objective of simultaneously minimizing the makespan and total carbon emissions, the green flexible job shop scheduling problem (GFJSP) is formulated as a mixed integer linear multiobjective optimization model. Then, the improved multiobjective sparrow search algorithm (IMOSSA) is developed to find the optimal solution. Finally, we conduct computational experiments, including a comparison between IMOSSA and the nondominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II), Jaya and the mixed integer linear programming (MILP) solver of CPLEX. The results demonstrate that IMOSSA has high precision, good convergence and excellent performance in solving the GFJSP in low-carbon manufacturing systems.
Identification of disease propagation paths in two-layer networks
Authors: Li Guangjun , Liu Gang , Wu Xiaoqun , Pan Lei 
Published: April 2023

AbstractTo determine the path of disease in different types of networks, a new method based on compressive sensing is proposed for identifying the disease propagation paths in two-layer networks. If a limited amount of data from network nodes is collected, according to the principle of compressive sensing, it is feasible to accurately identify the path of disease propagation in a multilayer network. Experimental results show that the method can be applied to various networks, such as scale-free networks, small-world networks, and random networks. The impact of network density on identification accuracy is explored. The method could be used to aid in the prevention of disease spread.
Deciphering the mechanisms of Yinlan Tiaozhi capsule in treating hyperlipidemia by combining network pharmacology, molecular docking and experimental verification
Authors: Xiao Guanlin , Hu Zixuan , Jia Canchao , Yang Minjuan , Li Dongmei , Xu Aili , Jiang Jieyi , Chen Zhao , Li Yangxue , Li Sumei , Chen Weitao , Zhang Jingnian , Bi Xiaoli 
Published: April 2023

AbstractYinlan Tiaozhi capsule (YLTZC) has been widely used to treat hyperlipidemia (HLP). However, its material basis and underlying pharmacological effects remain unclean. The current study aimed to explore the mechanisms involved in the treatment of YLTZC on HLP based on network pharmacology, molecular docking, and experimental verification. Firstly, UPLC-Q-TOF–MS/MS was used to comprehensively analyze and identify the chemical constituents in YLTZC. A total of 66 compounds, mainly including flavonoids, saponins, coumarins, lactones, organic acids, and limonin were characterized and classified. Simultaneously, the mass fragmentation pattern of different types of representative compounds was further explored. By network pharmacology analysis, naringenin and ferulic acid may be the core constituents. The 52 potential targets of YLTZC, including ALB, IL-6, TNF, and VEGFA, were considered potential therapeutic targets. Molecular docking results showed that the core active constituents of YLTZC (naringenin and ferulic acid) have a strong affinity with the core targets of HLP. Lastly, animal experiments confirmed that naringenin and ferulic acid significantly upregulated the mRNA expression of ALB and downregulated the mRNA expression of IL-6, TNF, and VEGFA. In sum, the constituents of YLTZC, such as naringenin and ferulic acid, might treat HLP by regulating the mechanism of angiogenesis and inhibiting inflammatory responses. Furthermore, our data fills the gap in the material basis of YLTZC.
Loss of Dead end1 induces testicular teratomas from primordial germ cells that failed to undergo sexual differentiation in embryonic testes
Authors: Imai Atsuki , Matsuda Kazuya , Niimi Yuki , Suzuki Atsushi 
Published: April 2023

AbstractSpontaneous testicular teratomas (STTs) are tumours comprising a diverse array of cell and tissue types, which are derived from pluripotent stem-like cells called embryonal carcinoma cells (ECCs). Although mouse ECCs originate from primordial germ cells (PGCs) in embryonic testes, the molecular basis underlying ECC development remains unclear. This study shows that the conditional deletion of mouse Dead end1 (Dnd1) from migrating PGCs leads to STT development. In Dnd1-conditional knockout (Dnd1-cKO) embryos, PGCs colonise the embryonic testes but fail to undergo sexual differentiation; subsequently, ECCs develop from a portion of the PGCs. Transcriptomic analyses reveal that PGCs not only fail to undergo sexual differentiation but are also prone to transformation into ECCs by upregulating the expression of marker genes for primed pluripotency in the testes of Dnd1-cKO embryos. Thus, our results clarify the role of Dnd1 in developing STTs and developmental process of ECC from PGC, providing novel insights into pathogenic mechanisms of STTs.