bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
CT-based radiomics models may predict the early efficacy of microwave ablation in malignant lung tumors
Authors: Zhu Fandong , Yang Chen , Xia Yang , Wang Jianping , Zou Jiajun , Zhao Li , Zhao Zhenhua 
Published: June 2023

Abstract
Purpose
To establish and validate radiomics models for predicting the early efficacy (less than 3 months) of microwave ablation (MWA) in malignant lung tumors.

Methods
The study enrolled 130 malignant lung tumor patients (72 in the training cohort, 32 in the testing cohort, and 26 in the validation cohort) treated with MWA. Post-operation CT images were analyzed. To evaluate the therapeutic effect of ablation, three models were constructed by least absolute shrinkage and selection operator and logistic regression: the tumoral radiomics (T-RO), peritumoral radiomics (P-RO), and tumoral-peritumoral radiomics (TP-RO) models. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to identify clinical variables and radiomics features associated with early efficacy, which were incorporated into the combined radiomics (C-RO) model. The performance of the C-RO model was evaluated by the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC), calibration curve, and decision curve analysis (DCA). The C-RO model was used to derive the best cutoff value of ROC and to distinguish the high-risk group (Nomo-score of C-RO model below than cutoff value) from the low-risk group (Nomo-score of C-RO model higher than cutoff value) for survival analysis of patients.

Results
Four radiomics features were selected from the region of interest of tumoral and peritumoral CT images, which showed good performance for evaluating prognosis and early efficacy in three cohorts. The C-RO model had the highest AUC value in all models, and the C-RO model was better than the P-RO model (AUC in training, 0.896 vs. 0.740; p = 0.036). The DCA confirmed the clinical benefit of the C-RO model. Survival analysis revealed that in the C-RO model, the low-risk group defined by best cutoff value had significantly better progression-free survival than the high-risk group (p<0.05).

Conclusions
CT-based radiomics models in malignant lung tumor patients after MWA could be useful for individualized risk classification and treatment.
Medicinal plants used for treatment of malaria by indigenous communities of Tororo District, Eastern Uganda
Authors: Tabuti John R. S. , Obakiro Samuel Baker , Nabatanzi Alice , Anywar Godwin , Nambejja Cissy , Mutyaba Michael R. , Omara Timothy , Waako Paul 
Published: June 2023

Abstract
Background
Malaria remains the leading cause of death in sub-Saharan Africa. Although recent developments such as malaria vaccine trials inspire optimism, the search for novel antimalarial drugs is urgently needed to control the mounting resistance of Plasmodium species to the available therapies. The present study was conducted to document ethnobotanical knowledge on the plants used to treat symptoms of malaria in Tororo district, a malaria-endemic region of Eastern Uganda.

Methods
An ethnobotanical study was carried out between February 2020 and September 2020 in 12 randomly selected villages of Tororo district. In total, 151 respondents (21 herbalists and 130 non-herbalists) were selected using multistage random sampling method. Their awareness of malaria, treatment-seeking behaviour and herbal treatment practices were obtained using semi-structured questionnaires and focus group discussions. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, paired comparison, preference ranking and informant consensus factor.

Results
A total of 45 plant species belonging to 26 families and 44 genera were used in the preparation of herbal medicines for management of malaria and its symptoms. The most frequently mentioned plant species were Vernonia amygdalina, Chamaecrista nigricans, Aloe nobilis, Warburgia ugandensis, Abrus precatorius, Kedrostis foetidissima, Senna occidentalis, Azadirachta indica and Mangifera indica. Leaves (67.3%) were the most used plant part while maceration (56%) was the major method of herbal remedy preparation. Oral route was the predominant mode of administration with inconsistencies in the posology prescribed.

Conclusion
This study showed that the identified medicinal plants in Tororo district, Uganda, are potential sources of new antimalarial drugs. This provides a basis for investigating the antimalarial efficacy, phytochemistry and toxicity of the unstudied species with high percentage use values to validate their use in the management of malaria.
Understanding polycystic ovary syndrome in light of associated key genes
Authors: Bhimwal Tanisha , Puneet  , Priyadarshani Anjali 
Published: June 2023

AbstractBackgroundPolycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is an endocrinopathy affecting women of reproductive age group at a global level. According to many community-based studies, the prevalence of PCOS in India ranges from 3.7 to 22.5% due to the country's enormous population. Upon ultrasound, it shows multiple cysts arranged in a bead of necklace-like appearance causing irregular menstrual cycles and infertility in most cases. It is manifested with abnormally raised testosterone and insulin levels and increased luteinizing hormone (LH)-to-follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) ratio. Phenotypically, it is presented as obesity, hirsutism, acne and male pattern baldness, which impacts the self-esteem of young girls leading to depression and compromised quality of life.AimNumerous potential genes have been shown to contribute to PCOS, and the genetic linkage of PCOS has been investigated in many studies. In this study we are looking into the candidate genes, the variants, and other responsible factors behind the genesis of PCOS. This will help in better understanding of its pathogenesis and, as a result, deciphering the mechanism by proper medication.Method of the studyWe comprehensively searched for publications including PCOS-relevant keywords in different areas in five different electronic databases: PubMed, Google Scholars, Elsevier, Springer Link and Science Direct up to March 2023 focusing on the new ones. We excluded non-English articles, conference papers and studies that were overlapping. Chosen articles were carefully read and further articles that were retrieved from their references were also reviewed so as to make the search complete with the inclusion criterion.ResultThis review summarizes PCOS as an polygenic and a multifactorial complex disease in which a vast array of genetic and environmental factors are involved. Genes that affect steroidogenesis (ovarian and adrenal), gonadotropin action and regulation, insulin action and secretion, body mass index and chronic inflammation are directly or indirectly associated with PCOS.ConclusionIn this study, research of the genetic propensity to PCOS was made, though not in-depth. With the acquired knowledge of array of genes involved, targeted efforts can be made for the potential therapeutic management of the PCOS patients via the novel discovered routes. Moreover, understanding more about PCOS would be beneficial in prevention of the associated metabolic disorders, life-threatening morbidities, restoring fertility and raising the self-esteem of the young women.
Clinical features, laboratory characteristics, and outcome of ETP and TCRA/D aberrations in pediatric patients with T-acute lymphoblastic leukemia
Authors: Ashry Mona S. El , Radwan Enas , Abdellateif Mona S. , Arafah Omar , Hassan Naglaa M. 
Published: June 2023

Abstract
Background
T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) is an aggressive malignancy with few accepted prognostic factors that limit the efficiency of therapy. The aim of the current study was to assess the clinical and laboratory features of T-cell receptor (TCR) aberrations and early T-cell precursor (ETP) subtype as well as their outcome to therapy.

Methods
Sixty-three newly diagnosed pediatric T-ALL patients were assessed for the ETP status using immunophenotyping. Screening of TCRA/D aberrations was done by fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH). The data were correlated to the patients’ clinical features, response to treatment, and survival rates.

Results
Seven patients (11%) had ETP-ALL. The ETP-ALL patients were older (P = 0.013), presented with lower white blood cell (WBC) count (P = 0.001) and lower percentage of peripheral blood (PB) blast cells (P = 0.037), more likely to have hyperdiploid karyotype (P = 0.009), and had been associated with TCRA/D gene amplification (P = 0.014) compared to other T-ALL patients. Of note, the same associations had been significantly observed in patients with TCRA/D gene amplification. Patients with TCRA/D amplification frequently coincided with TCRβ aberrations (P = 0.025). TCR-β aberrations were significantly associated with negative MRD at the end of induction compared to TCR-β-negative patients. There was a nonsignificant trend of ETP-positive cases to have lower overall survival (OS) (P = 0.06). Patients with TCR aberrations had no significant differences regarding disease-free survival (DFS) or OS rates compared to those with normal TCR.

Conclusion
ETP-ALL patients tend to have increased mortalities. There was no significant impact of TCR aberrations on the survival rates of the patients.
Determinants of targeted cancer therapy use in community oncology practice: a qualitative study using the Theoretical Domains Framework and Rummler-Brache process mapping
Authors: Ellis Shellie D. , Brooks Joanna Veazey , Birken Sarah A. , Morrow Emily , Hilbig Zachary S. , Wulff-Burchfield Elizabeth , Kinney Anita Y. , Ellerbeck Edward F. 
Published: June 2023

Abstract
Background
Precision medicine holds enormous potential to improve outcomes for cancer patients, offering improved rates of cancer control and quality of life. Not all patients who could benefit from targeted cancer therapy receive it, and some who may not benefit do receive targeted therapy. We sought to comprehensively identify determinants of targeted therapy use among community oncology programs, where most cancer patients receive their care.

Methods
Guided by the Theoretical Domains Framework, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 24 community cancer care providers and mapped targeted therapy delivery across 11 cancer care delivery teams using a Rummler-Brache diagram. Transcripts were coded to the framework using template analysis, and inductive coding was used to identify key behaviors. Coding was revised until a consensus was reached.

Results
Intention to deliver precision medicine was high across all participants interviewed, who also reported untenable knowledge demands. We identified distinctly different teams, processes, and determinants for (1) genomic test ordering and (2) delivery of targeted therapies. A key determinant of molecular testing was role alignment. The dominant expectation for oncologists to order and interpret genomic tests is at odds with their role as treatment decision-makers’ and pathologists’ typical role to stage tumors. Programs in which pathologists considered genomic test ordering as part of their staging responsibilities reported high and timely testing rates. Determinants of treatment delivery were contingent on resources and ability to offset delivery costs, which low- volume programs could not do. Rural programs faced additional treatment delivery challenges.

Conclusions
We identified novel determinants of targeted therapy delivery that potentially could be addressed through role re-alignment. Standardized, pathology-initiated genomic testing may prove fruitful in ensuring patients eligible for targeted therapy are identified, even if the care they need cannot be delivered at small and rural sites which may have distinct challenges in treatment delivery. Incorporating behavior specification and Rummler-Brache process mapping with determinant analysis may extend its usefulness beyond the identification of the need for contextual adaptation.
Kinetic modeling of wealth distribution with saving propensity, earnings growth and Matthew effect
Authors: Cui Lijie , Lin Chuandong , Huang Xinfei 
Published: June 2023

Abstract
A kinetic model is presented for a closed economic market with random transactions involving the saving interest, earnings growth, and Matthew principle. Furthermore, the deviation (overlap) degree is defined to quantify the dissimilarity (similarity) between two arbitrary wealth distributions. It is interesting to find that the tendency of the entropy is similar to that of the particular overlap degree which measures the coincidence between the monetary distribution and the Boltzmann-Gibbs exponential function. In addition, both the Gini coefficient and Kolkata index decrease with increasing saving propensity, which helps to enhance wealth equality by raising the middle-class population and reducing the proportion of the rich and the poor. However, the economic profit and Matthew effect contribute to dispersion in the wealth distribution and exacerbate wealth inequality.
Containing the Unnamable
Authors: Amoretti Valerio 
Published: June 2023

Abstract
This essay uses W. R. Bion’s object-relations theory to argue that the formal experiments in Samuel Beckett’s The Unnamable demand a distinctive kind of psychic work from readers. It describes this work in terms of containment, an unconscious mechanism that supports the psyche’s capacity to think. The concept of containment reveals the continuities between the psychological breakdowns that occur in psychosis, trauma, and ordinary development, as well as the relationship between these breakdowns and the emergence of the ability to represent and narrate experience. Analyzing the affective configuration generated by The Unnamable through the prism of containment deepens our understanding of the challenges posed by the text and of the text’s historical situatedness.
The Pot Still Boils
Authors: Anderman Nicholas , Hicks Zachary 
Published: June 2023

AbstractThis special-issue introduction historicizes and seeks to move beyond the antinomy between totality and culture that is today a mainstay of much contemporary critical theory. The introduction proceeds in three parts. The first examines a midcentury crisis of Marxism that, concomitant with major shifts in global capitalism, set the scene for subsequent scholarly accounts of culture that have privileged the fragment, the supplement, the remainder, the site, the margins, and the like over against the totality. The second part consists of an analysis of two works of art—by the American visual artists Allan Sekula and Ellen Gallagher, respectively—which we take to be exemplary of the affordances of art, literature, and other forms of cultural expression for accessing totality anew. The third part briefly surveys recent theoretical work that aims to put a revitalized concept of totality at the center of cultural critique. The introduction concludes with summaries of the seven articles included herein. The special issue covers a lot of ground in terms of subject matter, theoretical milieu, disciplinary framework, and style. What binds the articles together is, in effect, a shared working method, which involves thinking through the relationship between a specific cultural object (or set of objects) and the social whole in and through which it emerged.
Inverted Propositions
Authors: Chan Roy 
Published: June 2023

Abstract
Nikolai Chernyshevsky (1828–89) is best known for his utopian realist novel What Is to Be Done? (1863). However, he was perhaps most celebrated as a literary thinker in China as a result of the Soviet canonization of the nineteenth-century “democratic critics.” This essay discusses two Chinese critics’ engagement with Chernyshevsky’s treatise The Aesthetic Relation of Art to Reality (1853). Here Chernyshevsky advanced the proposition “Beauty is life.” In the 1930s and 1940s the literary theorist Zhou Yang read Chernyshevsky and produced a Chinese translation in 1942. In 1963 the philosopher Zhu Guangqian published the History of Western Aesthetics, in which he devoted a chapter to Chernyshevsky. This article explores how both Zhou and Zhu responded to Chernyshevsky’s proposition on beauty and life, with particular attention to all three thinkers’ engagement with Ludwig Feuerbach’s “transformative method” in his critique of Christianity, which sought to invert the relation between subject and predicate. Both Zhou and Zhu alighted on how Chernyshevsky’s reliance on Feuerbach led to a one-sided interpretation that needed further articulation; they marshaled the insights of Marx and Hegel to reinterpret Chernyshevsky. Finally, the essay considers the issue of transnational Bildung between Russia and China and the teacher-student relation as expressions of totality along the lines of both Feuerbachian transformative critique and Hegelian speculative retrieval.
Aggregation-prone Tau impairs mitochondrial import, which affects organelle morphology and neuronal complexity
Authors: Needs Hope I. , Wilkinson Kevin A. , Henley Jeremy M. , Collinson Ian 
Published: June 2023

ABSTRACT
Mitochondrial protein import is essential for organellar biogenesis, and thereby for the sufficient supply of cytosolic ATP – which is particularly important for cells with high energy demands like neurons. This study explores the prospect of import machinery perturbation as a cause of neurodegeneration instigated by the accumulation of aggregating proteins linked to disease. We found that the aggregation-prone Tau variant (TauP301L) reduces the levels of components of the import machinery of the outer (TOM20, encoded by TOMM20) and inner membrane (TIM23, encoded by TIMM23) while associating with TOM40 (TOMM40). Intriguingly, this interaction affects mitochondrial morphology, but not protein import or respiratory function; raising the prospect of an intrinsic rescue mechanism. Indeed, TauP301L induced the formation of tunnelling nanotubes (TNTs), potentially for the recruitment of healthy mitochondria from neighbouring cells and/or the disposal of mitochondria incapacitated by aggregated Tau. Consistent with this, inhibition of TNT formation (and rescue) reveals Tau-induced import impairment. In primary neuronal cultures, TauP301L induced morphological changes characteristic of neurodegeneration. Interestingly, these effects were mirrored in cells where the import sites were blocked artificially. Our results reveal a link between aggregation-prone Tau and defective mitochondrial import relevant to disease.
A fundamental propulsive mechanism employed by swimmers and flyers throughout the animal kingdom
Authors: Costello John H. , Colin Sean P. , Gemmell Brad J. , Dabiri John O. , Kanso Eva A. 
Published: June 2023

ABSTRACT
Even casual observations of a crow in flight or a shark swimming demonstrate that animal propulsive structures bend in patterned sequences during movement. Detailed engineering studies using controlled models in combination with analysis of flows left in the wakes of moving animals or objects have largely confirmed that flexibility can confer speed and efficiency advantages. These studies have generally focused on the material properties of propulsive structures (propulsors). However, recent developments provide a different perspective on the operation of nature's flexible propulsors, which we consider in this Commentary. First, we discuss how comparative animal mechanics have demonstrated that natural propulsors constructed with very different material properties bend with remarkably similar kinematic patterns. This suggests that ordering principles beyond basic material properties govern natural propulsor bending. Second, we consider advances in hydrodynamic measurements demonstrating suction forces that dramatically enhance overall thrust produced by natural bending patterns. This is a previously unrecognized source of thrust production at bending surfaces that may dominate total thrust production. Together, these advances provide a new mechanistic perspective on bending by animal propulsors operating in fluids – either water or air. This shift in perspective offers new opportunities for understanding animal motion as well as new avenues for investigation into engineered designs of vehicles operating in fluids.
The use of Cause and Effect Diagram (Fishbone) and its impact on Personal Quality Management: Case Study in a classroom during the pandemic of COVID – 19
Authors: Deliou Cleopatra , Malagkoniari Maria 
Published: June 2023

Personal quality and total quality management (TQM) are key success factors for organizational performance. The combination of individual and team quality management actions leads to motivated people in the workplace and can create high quality processes, relationships and outputs. The Cause and Effect Diagram (Fishbone) is one of the seven most known quality tools and it provides a systematic way of looking at effects and the causes that create or contribute to those effects. It helps an organization to identify, analyze and improve quality issues.
This study examines the use of the Cause and Effect Diagram (Fishbone) quality tool in a classroom during the pandemic of COVID – 19. After the use of the tool by the class participants on personal and team level, students were also asked to assess its impact and provide feedback over the connection of this tool application to personal quality development.
The researchers concluded that on a team basis, the Cause and Effect Diagram helped the team members visually diagram the problems and allowed them to truly diagnose the problem, to separate a problem's content from its history, and facilitated team consensus around its causes. Finally, it is well – known that by team action are cultivated skills such as cooperation, team – thinking, determination, persuasion, creativity, inspiration, fast problem solving, synergy, immediate decision making and direct communication.
EL Classification: Μ19
Keywords: Total Quality Management, Personal Quality, Cause and Effect Diagram, Personal and Team Projects
The impact of Non-Performing Loans on the Banks’ Profitability
Authors: Diakomihalis Mihail , Economakou Sofia 
Published: June 2023

The global financial system after and during the financial crisis had to face the major issue which has extremely influence their profitability: The Non-Performing Loans portfolio (NPLs).
The present study aims to reveal the interrelation and the possible impact of the NPLs to the profitability indicators of the Greek banks and specifically how they affect the profitability of the banks.
The empirical investigation of included a comparative study of Financial ratios of certain Greek banks were calculated in order to reveal the impact of Non-Performing loans to their profitability for the year 2017.
Interest income on loans is positive for all Banks but with a wide variation, while Interest-Expenses show an asymmetric distribution. Overdue loans for more than 90 days show uniformity with the exception of Piraeus Bank which shows an extreme price. The correlation between ROA and ROE with loans is not statistically significant.
The effect on the Equity of loans in all forms except regulated is considered statistically significant. The negative effect of NPLs for more than 90 days on Net Profit before Tax is considered statistically significant.

JEL Classifications: G210, D140, G300, O160
Key words: Non- Performing loans, Greek Banks, Profitability, Credit risk, Legal frame of NPLs