bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
An In-Vitro Experimental Investigation of Oscillatory Flow in the Cerebral Aqueduct
Authors: Sincomb Stephanie , Moral-Pulido Francisco , Campos Obed , Martinez-Bazan Carlos , Haughton Victor , Sanchez Antonio 
Published: April 2023

Abstract
Background: The cerebrospinal fluid filling the ventricles of the brain moves with a cyclic velocity driven by the transmantle pressure, or instantaneous pressure difference between the lateral ventricles and the cerebral subarachnoid space. This dynamic phenomenon is of particular interest for understanding ventriculomegaly in cases of normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH). The magnitude of the transmantle pressure is small, on the order of a few Pascals, thereby hindering direct in vivo measurements. To complement previous computational efforts, we perform here, for the first time, in vitro experiments involving an MRI-informed experimental model of the cerebral aqueduct flow.
Methods: Dimensional analysis is used in designing a scaled-up model of the aqueduct flow, with physical similarity maintained by adjusting the flow frequency and the properties of the working fluid. High-resolution MRI images are used to generate a 3D-printed anatomically correct aqueduct model. A programmable pump is used to generate a pulsatile flow rate signal measured from phase-contrast MRI. Extensive experiments are performed to investigate the relation between the cyclic fluctuations of the aqueduct flow rate and the transmantle pressure fluctuation over the range of flow conditions commonly encountered in healthy subjects. The time-dependent pressure measurements are validated through comparisons with predictions obtained with a previously derived computational model.
Results: Parametric dependences of the pressure-fluctuation amplitude and its phase lag relative to the flow rate are delineated. The results indicate, for example, that the phase lag is nearly independent on the stroke volume. A simple expression relating the mean amplitude of the interventricular pressure difference (between third and fourth ventricle) with the stroke volume of the oscillatory flow is established.
Conclusions: MRI-informed in-vitro experiments using an anatomically correct model of the cerebral aqueduct and a realistic flow rate have been used to characterize transmantle pressure. The quantitative results can be useful in enabling quick clinical assessments of transmantle pressure to be made from noninvasive phase contrast MRI measurements of aqueduct flow rates. The scaled-up experimental facility provides the ability to conduct future experiments specifically aimed at investigating altered CSF flow and associated transmantle pressure, as needed in connection with NPH studies.
Humoral immunity improves with a booster dose of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine in patients with inflammatory bowel disease on immunosuppressants
Authors: Pereira Magno Luis Costa , Moreira Jessica Pronestino Lima , Pôrto Luís Cristóvão M S , Souza Vania Maria Almeida , Gonçalves Beatriz Cunta , Sampaio Amanda Barros , Moutela Matheus Figueiredo , Farha Larissa dos R , Esberard Bárbara Cathalá , Amorim Renata Fernandes , de Souza Heitor Siffert Pereira , Carvalho Ana Teresa Pugas 
Published: April 2023

Abstract
Purpose
Patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are often treated with immunosuppressants and immunobiologicals. We evaluated the humoral response after vaccination against SARS-Cov-2 in patients with IBD compared to a healthy population
Methods
Patients with IBD, enrolled in a tertiary outpatient unit, were followed-up with serial blood collections between September 2021 and September 2022. IgG antibody titers against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) were measured before and one month after the administration of the two doses of the different vaccination regimens. The results were compared with those of a healthy control group obtained during the same period.
Results
Mean pre-vaccination antibody titers were 430.3 AU/mL and 90.5 AU/mL in the IBD (46 participants) and control (92 participants) groups, respectively. After two doses of vaccine, the titers significantly increased in both groups (IBD, 8038.4 AU/mL; control, 7697.5 AU/mL; p < 0.001). One month after the second dose, no significant difference was observed between the two groups (p = 0.731). In the IBD group, there was a difference between vaccination schemes, with higher titers in those who received Pfizer, younger patients (p < 0.005), and those with a previous COVID-19 infection (p < 0.012).
Conclusion
The use of immunosuppressants and immunobiologicals did not affect the overall humoral response to the COVID-19 vaccine in patients with IBD. However, specific vaccine regimens, age, and previous coronavirus infection significantly affected the response. This study reinforces the positive impact of booster doses and safety of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination.
Examining the Long-Run Relationship between Savings, Investment, and Economic Growth in Ethiopia: Evidence from ARDL Bounds Testing Approach
Authors: Hordofa Dereje Fedasa 
Published: April 2023

Abstract
In this study, the relationship between savings, investment, and economic growth in Ethiopia between 1976 and 2018 was investigated. Stationary tests were conducted and it was found that all series became stationary after the first differences. When investment was considered the dependent variable, ARDL bounds testing results suggested that there was a long-term relationship. The coefficient of the error correction term revealed that 54.1% of any short-term disequilibrium would be adjusted annually. Causality results showed a short-term causal flow from economic growth to savings, a short-term and long-term causal flow from economic growth to investment, and short-run causality from investment to economic growth. The study discovered that savings had a significant effect on investment in the long run, while economic growth had a positive but insignificant effect. Therefore, this study concluded that savings and investments have an association with real GDP, and administrative support is needed to promote them to accelerate much-needed economic growth.
A Comprehensive Study on Surveillance Outcomes of a Male Population Carrying Pathogenic/Likely pathogenic Variants associated with Hereditary Breast Cancer Syndromes at a Portuguese Tertiary Hospital
Authors: Oliveira Maria João , Costa Susy , Magalhães André , Garrido Luzia , Peleteiro Bárbara , Fougo José Luís , Castedo Sérgio 
Published: April 2023

Abstract
Men born with pathogenic/likely pathogenic variants in genes associated with the Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer Syndrome have a higher risk to develop breast cancer and other cancers (such as prostate cancer) and should undergo adequate surveillance protocols in highly specialized Centers. A retrospective study was conducted to assess these genetic variants’ epidemiological and phenotypical manifestations in male carriers, as well as the efficacy of the surveillance protocol and compliance towards it through a survey. During follow-up, a genetic panel for testing was implemented, the starting age for surveillance was delayed, and the six-month screening interval was extended to annual. A total of 104 men from a tertiary hospital’s High-Risk Consultation were included in our study population, with positive genetic testing for BRCA1 (n = 31), BRCA2 (n = 55), both BRCA2 and another gene (n = 5), CDH1 (n = 2), CHEK2 (n = 4), NF1 (n = 1), RAD51C (n = 4) or no actionable genetic variant identified (n = 2). The follow-up period ranged from one to 13 years, and only one man developed cancer. Survey responses from 48 men in active surveillance showed that more than half of them recognizes their carrier status and consequent surveillance impact on their life, including the risk of transmission to offspring, fear of future cancer, meaningful distress, and feeling of injustice. Biannual surveillance was not actively detecting more cancer disease cases, confirming the adequacy of the currently implemented protocol. With support of Genetics to fulfill the current gaps in high-risk management, the proposed redefinition of surveillance protocol would adapt it to the population needs and concerns.
Effect of the Phase Encoding Direction on the Image Quality of Breast Diffusion-Weighted Magnetic Resonance Images
Authors: Zhao Yuanyuan , Li Yuan , Jiang Lingdong , Fu Kun , Xie Huan , Ran Qisheng 
Published: April 2023

Abstract

Purpose
The study aimed to evaluate the effect of reversing the phase encoding direction on the image quality of breast diffusion-weighted (DWI) magnetic resonance images (MRI).
Methods
A total of 100 patients attending our hospital for MRI breast examinations between February 2022 to July 2022 were enrolled in the study. The patients were randomly divided into the study group and the control group. The patients in the study group were scanned using the posterior-anterior (P-A) phase encoding direction, while those in the control group were scanned using the anterior-posterior (A-P) phase encoding direction. The geometric distortion rate on the axial DWI in relation to the T1-weighted images, the incidence of phase displacement artifacts, and the image signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the two groups were analyzed and statistically compared using either the 2 sample t-test or the Chi-square test.
Results
In the study group, the average breast stretch rate for the craniocaudal diameter was 6.75% for the right breast and 6.92% for the left breast, while the average breast stretch rate for the transverse diameter was 4.14% for the right breast and 3.79% for the left breast. In the control group, the average breast stretch rate in the craniocaudal direction was 13.82% for the right breast and 16.12% for the left breast, while the average stretch rate of the transverse breast diameter was 8.26% for the right breast and 9.56% for the left breast. The deformation rate of the study group was lower than that of the control group (PLength of right breast, PTransverse of right breast, PLength of left breast, PTransverse of left breast< 0.05). The incidence of phase displacement artifacts in the study group was lower than that of the control group (14.0% versus 62.0% p = 0.000 ). Similarly, the incidence of phase displacement artifacts in the study group was significantly lower than that of the control group (P < 0.05). The average SNR in the study group was slightly lower than that of the control group (2.30 versus 2.53, p = 0.278).
Conclusion
The P-A phase encoding direction provided a better image quality than the A-P phase coding direction, and it could facilitate the detection of breast lesions.
PSNet: Position-Shift alignment Network for image caption
Authors: Xue Lixia , Zhang Awen , Wang Ronggui , Yang Juan 
Published: April 2023

Abstract
Recently, Transformer-based models have gained increasing popularity in the field of image captioning. The global attention mechanism of the Transformer facilitates the integration of region and grid features, leading to a significant improvement in accuracy. However, combining two features through direct fusion may lead to inevitable semantic noise, which is caused by non-synergistic issue of the region and grid features, meanwhile, the additional detector to extract region features also decrease the efficiency of the model. In this paper, we introduce a novel Position-Shift alignment Network (PSNet) to exploit the advantages of the two features. Concretely, we embed a simple detector DETR into the model and extracted region features based on grid features to improve model efficiency. Moreover, we propose a P Shift Alignment module to address semantic noise caused by non-synergistic issue of the region and grid features. To validate our model, we conduct extensive experiments and visualization on the MS-COCO dataset, and results show that PSNet is qualitatively competitive with existing models under comparable experimental conditions.
Endothelial Dysfunction in Breast Cancer Survivors on Aromatase Inhibitors: Changes over Time
Authors: Shaaban Adnan , Petersen Ashley , Beckwith Heather , Florea Natalia , Potter David A. , Yee Douglas , Vogel Rachel I. , Duprez Daniel , Blaes Anne H. 
Published: April 2023

Abstract

Background
Aromatase inhibitors (AIs) are recommended as adjuvant treatment for estrogen-receptor positive breast carcinoma in postmenopausal women. Studies demonstrate mixed results as to the impact of AIs on cardiovascular (CV) events and overall survival. With the increasing number of pre- and postmenopausal women on AIs for five to ten years, understanding the long-term impact of AIs on blood vessels and CV risk in cancer survivors is vital.
Methods
A single arm longitudinal study of 14 postmenopausal women with ER+ breast cancer prescribed adjuvant AIs at the University of Minnesota. Subjects with a history of tobacco use, hypertension, or hyperlipidemia were excluded. Participants underwent routine labs, blood pressure assessments, and vascular testing at baseline (prior to starting AIs) and at six months. Vascular assessment was performed using the EndoPAT 2000 and HDI/PulseWave CR-2000 Cardiovascular Profiling System and pulse contour analysis on two occasions as previously described. Vascular measurements were conducted by one trained vascular technician. Assessments were performed in triplicate, and the mean indices were used for analyses. All subjects were on an AI at the follow-up visit. The protocol was approved by the UMN Institutional Review Board and all participants were provided written informed consent. Baseline and follow-up characteristics were compared using Wilcoxon signed-rank tests. Analyses were performed using R version 3.6.1 (R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria).
Results
After six months of AI treatment, EndoPAT® ratio declined to a median 1.12 (Q1: 0.85, Q3: 1.86; p=0.045) and median estradiol levels decreased to 2 pg/mL (Q1: 2, Q3: 3; p=0.052). There was no evidence of association between change in EndoPAT® and change in estradiol level (p=0.91). There were no statistically significant changes in small or large arterial elasticity.
Conclusion
Endovascular dysfunction is an early sign for atherosclerosis and vascular impairment. This study suggests that postmenopausal breast cancer survivors on aromatase inhibitor therapy develop endothelial dysfunction as early as six months which is a predictor of adverse CV disease. We hypothesize that long-term use of AIs can lead to persistent endothelial dysfunction. It is unclear if these changes are reversible once AI use is discontinued and further investigation is necessary.
Analyzing Prediction of Depression and Anxiety on Reddit: a Multi-task Learning Approach through GMMTL
Authors: Sarkar Sarkar , Alhamadani Abdulaziz , Behal Sristhi , Alkulaib Lulwah , Lu Chang-Tien 
Published: April 2023

Abstract

One of the strongest indicators of a mental health crisis is how people interact with each other or express themselves. Hence, social media is an ideal source to extract user-level information about the language used to express personal feelings. In the wake of the ever-increasing mental health crisis in the United States, it is imperative to analyze the general well-being of a population and investigate how their public social media posts can be used to detect different underlying mental health conditions. For that purpose, we propose a study that collects posts from "reddits" related to different mental health topics to detect the type of the post and the nature of the mental health issues that correlate to the post. The task of detecting mental health related issues indicates the mental health conditions connected to the posts.However, it is also important to be able to detect unnecessary post that are directly talking about the topic of interest. To achieve this, we expand our multi-task learning model that leverages, for each post, both the latent embedding space of words and topics for prediction with a message passing mechanism enabling the sharing of information for related tasks. We train the model through an active learning approach in order to tackle the lack of standardized fine-grained label data for this specific task. We further add control group in the dataset to detect non-mentalhealth related post. Finally, we conduct a case study to show what are the important features in different mental health condition predictions.
WITHDRAWN: A* Path Finding Algorithms Based Designing the Best Possible Eco-Friendly Structure Spatial Landscape and Natural Setting
Authors: Imran Izazul Hoq , Das Tropa , Galib Asadullah Hel , Reza Ahmed Wasif 
Published: April 2023

Abstract

The design of conventional architectural landscapes often has issues with inadequate direct visual effects and inadequate levels of resident satisfaction, but the design of green architectural landscapes typically does not have these issues. Creating room for landscaping is likewise an impractical endeavor. Because of this, the authors of this study suggest a number of different Path-finding algorithms for green building landscape space and environmental optimization design. A variety of path-finding algorithms may be used to maximize the multi-objective scale of the architectural landscape. The expense of the construction as well as public utilities such as the space environment are included among the optimization's goals and objectives. The findings indicate that the many pathfinding solutions that were presented are able to optimize the architectural landscape setting, and the occupants' level of happiness has increased as a consequence.
Changes in CSR Ecological Strategies of Plants and Communities Following the Introduction and Restoration of Woody Plants in Semi-arid Damaged Steppe Grasslands
Authors: Kim Eui-Joo , Lee Seung-Hyuk , Park Jae-Hoon , Park Ji-Won , Lee Jung-Min , Kim Yoon-Seo , Kim Se-Hee , Joo Sung-Bae , Cho Kyung-Mi , You Young-Han 
Published: April 2023

Abstract

Hulunbuir steppe, one of the four largest grasslands in the world, is suffering progressing desertification due to climate change and anthropogenic disturbance. In this study, the plant species and communities were analyzed with CSR ecological strategies for the succession process that occurred following the introduction of woody plants in the restored site in the damaged steppe, and compared with those in the reference site in an attempt to find the lifeform characteristics of plants in grasslands and implications for success in ecological restoration. According to the results, the introduction of woody plants into the damaged land greatly increased the diversity of plant species and CSR eco-functional diversity as the succession progressed. The types of ecological strategies of the temperate typical steppe (TTS) and woodland steppe (WS) in this region are CSR and S/SR, respectively, which means that plants in the temperate Asian steppe are species basically adapted to natural disturbances such as drying and soil movement. As the restoration time elapsed in the damaged lands (R/CR), the ecological strategies were predicted to change in two ways: R/CR→R/CSR→CSR (TSS) in places where only shrubs were introduced, and S/SR→S/SR (WS) in places where trees and shrubs were introduced simultaneously. The results as such mean that the driving force that causes succession in the restoration of temperate grasslands is determined by the lifeform (trees/shrubs) of the introduced woody plants, and therefore, it is judged that trees or shrubs should be selected and introduced bearing the final target vegetation in mind when planning restoration.
Leaf litter in fruit orchards in winter is a hot spot for invertebrate predators and biodiversity
Authors: Niedobová Jana , Ouředníčková Jana , Kudláček Tomáš , Skalský Michal 
Published: April 2023

Abstract
Overwintering of invertebrates in Central Europe drives the population dynamics in the subsequent seasons and have the direct impact on ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation. The objective of this study was to investigate the small- and middle-scale spatial and temporal distribution of overwintering invertebrates in the fallen leaves in three fruit orchards. The early and late winter distributions of several arthropod taxa were studied in fallen leaves in apple, pear, and cherry orchards in relation to several environmental variables. In the predefined areas (1 x 1 m) samples of fallen leaves were collected in the winter 2018/2019 and 2019/2020. Data from an area of 168 m2 was used for evaluation. A total of 1281 invertebrate individuals were collected. The most abundant were spiders with 787 specimens. Samples also comprised 17 other invertebrate species or higher taxonomic categories, 10 of which were considered as beneficial, four as pests, and three were unclassified. Spiders were analysed more precisely due to their dominance and their possible importance in plant protection. We demonstrate for the first time that fallen leaves in fruit orchards offer a suitable overwintering microhabitat for predatory arthropods and comprehensively evaluate the overwintering arthropod assemblage in relation to several ecological and environmental variables.
The Mental Health Toll of the Great Migration: A Comparison of Mental Health Outcomes among Descendants of African American Migrators
Authors: Vu Cecilia , Arcaya Mariana , Kawachi Ichiro , Williams David 
Published: April 2023

Abstract
Introduction: Research is beginning to examine the health outcomes of migrators of the Great Migration, a movement of up to eight million African Americans from the South to the North and West during the 20th century. However, sparse evidence exists studying the health outcomes of the children of Great Migration movers. The aims for this study were to compare the lifetime prevalence of mental health disorders by migration status and to examine the role of discrimination in this relationship.
Methods: We used a sample of 3,183 African American adults from the National Survey of American Life (2001-2003). Using birthplaces of participants and their mothers, we classified adults as (1) Southern stayers, (2) migrators to the South, (3) migrators to the North or (4) Northern stayers. The outcomes were lifetime prevalence of any mental health, mood, anxiety, and substance use disorders. We used weighted log-Poisson regression models and adjusted for demographic characteristics, socioeconomic status, and experiences of everyday and major lifetime discrimination.
Results: Migrators to the North and Northern stayers had higher risks of any lifetime mental health, mood, anxiety, and substance use disorders compared to Southern stayers in the adjusted models. Migrators to the North and Northern stayers were more likely to report perceived discrimination. Discrimination partially attenuated the relationship between migration status and mental health disorder outcomes.
Conclusion: This study suggests the potential mental health adversities that migrating families to the North may have experienced.