bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Scanning electron microscopic and histological features of the oral cavity of the Egyptian tortoise (Testudo kleinmanni)
Authors: Abumandour Mohamed M. A. , Morsy Kareem , Abumandour Ramzy , El‐Bakary Neveen , Rashwan Ahmed , Elghoul Mahmoud 
Published: October 2022

AbstractThis investigation was led to depict the structural and functional adaptations of the oral cavity of herbivorous Egyptian tortoises using scanning electron and light microscopes. The SEM showed that the triangular papillary tongue possessed three conical papillary subtypes: the rectangular conical on the tip, the round conical on the rest of the dorsal lingual surface and the elongated conical on the caudal portion of the lingual wing. The presence of the serrated lips with their valves compensated for the absence of the teeth. The rostral part had a vomeronasal opening while the middle part had the choana, but the caudal part had numerous openings of the salivary glands. There are three palatine folds: a single median palatine fold, two peripheral palatine folds and the choanal fold. The current histological results show the keratinized dorsal lingual surface, in which the keratinized layer extended to cover the papillae. Two types of lingual glands, according to their position, are papillary superficial and deep lingual glands. Papillary or superficial glands open in the interpapillary spaces via narrow openings, while the deep glands are surrounded by well‐developed muscles and open via wide openings on the dorsal lingual surface. An entoglossal cartilaginous structure of hyaline cartilage was found in the mid‐ and hindtongue, with numerous chondrocytes lodged within the lacunae. Our results conclude that the oral cavity of the herbivorous Egyptian tortoise was adapted to the dietary and vigorous demands of the Egyptian fauna.
Learning from complaints to the Health and Disability Commission Office: A case study into indicators of deterioration in aged residential care organisations in New Zealand
Authors: Mowat Rebecca , Dewar Jan , Ram Felix 
Published: October 2022

AbstractObjectiveTo identify trends in complaints received by the Health and Disability Commissioner (HDC) about aged residential care (ARC) facilities in order to learn from and implement positive changes in care.MethodsA case study of 24 deidentified publicly available HDC cases across three large New Zealand ARC organisations was completed. Cross‐case analysis first involved analysis of each case individually and then compared all cases using inductive thematic analysis with the intention of drawing a single set of conclusions.ResultsThe speed at which the events occurred was contributory to the complaint, with 58% of the cases being rapid in nature and with sepsis being the predominant contributing factor to rapid decline and death. Six main diagnoses were indicators of deterioration: nutrition/hydration was indicated in 22% of the cases, followed by sepsis 17%, wounds 17%, UTI/renal issues 15%, falls 15% and respiratory issues 15%.ConclusionsTrends in Health and Disability complaints across multiple organisations can become a powerful tool for widespread quality improvement. This review highlights that the speed of deterioration triggered many complaints, especially in cases of sepsis which is possibly overlooked as a contributing problem. Also, that nutrition/hydration was indicated in many complaints and is an important condition‐indicator. Trends in complaints are not generalisable to all large organisations; however, they can be applied to individual facilities.
Causes and costs of delayed closure of ileostomies in rectal cancer patients in Australasian units
Authors: Barnard Jon , Milne Tony , Teo Keith , Weston Maree , Israel Lincoln , Peng Sze‐Lin 
Published: October 2022

AbstractBackgroundDefunctioning loop ileostomies (DLIs) are a frequent adjunct to rectal cancer surgery. Delayed closure of DLIs is common and associated with increased morbidity. The reasons for delayed DLI closure are often unknown. The economic burden of delayed DLI closure is not quantified. The present study aimed to determine the reasons for, and economic burden of, delayed DLI closure.MethodsClinical and economic data were audited from a prospective database of patients in two Australasian colorectal cancer centres. Patients treated at each unit with low/ultra‐low anterior resection for rectal cancer with formation of DLI between January 2014 and December 2019 were included. Post‐operative complication rate, stoma‐related complication rate and costs of hospital admissions and stoma care were recorded and analysed. Multivariate linear regression analysis was used to investigate risk factors for delay to closure.Results146 patients underwent low/ultra‐low anterior resection with DLI; 135 patients (92.5%) underwent reversal. The median duration to reversal was 7 months (IQR 4.5–9.5). Sixty‐six percent of patients underwent reversal >6 months after their index surgery. Neoadjuvant and adjuvant chemotherapy were associated with delayed reversal (P < 0.001). Non‐English speakers waited longer for DLI closure (P = 0.028). The costs of outpatient stoma care (P < 0.001), post‐operative care (P = 0.004), and total cost of treatment (P = 0.014) were significantly higher in the delayed closure group, with a total cost of treatment difference of $3854 NZD per patient.ConclusionsCauses of delay include systemic factors and demographic factors that can be addressed directly, addressing such causes may alleviate a significant economic burden.
Evaluation of complications, conversion rate, malignancy rate, and, surgeon's experience in laparoscopic assisted supracervical hysterectomy (LASH) of 1274 large uteri: A retrospective study
Authors: Tchartchian Garri , Bojahr Bernd , Krentel Harald , De Wilde Rudy L. 
Published: October 2022

AbstractIntroductionHysterectomy now belongs to standard gynecological procedures. Moreover, a shift towards laparoscopic techniques is ever more apparent as they provide many advantages such as less traumatization and shorter convalescence. Large uteri are still mentioned as contraindications for laparoscopic hysterectomy even though those patients might benefit from the lower morbidity associated with minimal invasive techniques. In this study, the largest reported so far, we analyzed intraoperative and postoperative complications as well as the surgeon's experience of laparoscopic assisted supracervical hysterectomy (LASH) in patients with a uterus weight over 500 g.Material and MethodsThe present retrospective study, between June 27, 1998 and August 31, 2019, evaluates 1274 patients with a uterus weight over 500 g who were treated with LASH for benign uterine diseases at the Clinic for Minimal Invasive Surgery (Berlin, Germany). All surgeries were performed by one of four in‐house surgeons with experience in LASH: they had performed at least 500 LASH procedures before the study. Patients receiving surgical treatment for malignant tumors were not included in the study. Major and minor intraoperative and postoperative complications were recorded and evaluated. Additionally, medical files were evaluated for demographic data, American Society of Anesthesiologists score (I–IV), name of the surgeon, duration and indication for surgery, history of previous gynecological procedures and concomitant surgical interventions, weight of removed uterine tissue, duration of postoperative hospitalization in patients with complications, intraoperative conversion from laparoscopy to laparotomy, and malignancy rate.ResultsThe mean age was 47.0 ± 7.3 years and mean body mass index was 25.6 ± 7.1 kg/m2. Average parity was 1.04 ± 1.57. Average uterus weight was 761.8 ± 317.9 g (500–4065 g). The mean duration of surgery was 96.9 ± 49.5 min; 54% of all patients were treated without concomitant intervention, conversion rate was 2.12%. The malignancy rate was 0.4% and the complication rate was 6.81% with 1.36% intraoperative complications and 5.45% postoperative complications.ConclusionsThe overall low complication and malignancy rates observed in this study allow us to present LASH as a safe and efficient alternative laparoscopic approach to remove uteri of any size in the hands of experienced surgeons.
Longitudinal reflections on the slow and fast crisis of domestic violence during COVID‐19
Authors: Cuomo Dana 
Published: October 2022

AbstractThis paper draws on a four‐year qualitative study that examines changes to legal processes related to the response to domestic violence in Seattle that began before and continued through the COVID‐19 pandemic, to examine a series of crisis temporalities that were exacerbated by the pandemic and associated lockdowns. In reflecting on the crisis temporalities that mark this research project, I underscore how such crises can also create conditions that lead to long overdue social change. In this case, the modernisation of a court system that for too‐long served as an obstacle to survivors' legal protection and facilitated abusers' ability to engage in slow violence during Domestic Violence Protection Order (DVPO) hearings. This paper thus highlights the ‘temporal affordances’ of longitudinal research that enable analysis to better understand the factors that motivate transition over time, particularly those in traditional institutions like the legal system.
Trajectories of self‐management and independence in youth with spina bifida: Demographic predictors of growth
Authors: Ridosh Monique M. , Adams William , Magaña Fabiola , Sawin Kathleen J. , Holmbeck Grayson N. 
Published: October 2022

AbstractAimThe purpose of this study was to examine the trajectories of condition and independent living self‐management in youth with spina bifida (SB).MethodsA diverse sample of adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with SB completed the Adolescent/Young Adult Self‐Management and Independence Scale (AMIS‐II) across four time points. Parents reported on demographic characteristics including age, sex, race/ethnicity, and family income. Growth in self‐management and its subscales (condition and independent living) were estimated using linear mixed‐effect models as a function of respondents' demographics.ResultsThis study included 99 respondents age 18 to 27 years old. About half were female (52.5%) and White (52.5%); 15.2% were Black, and about a third were Hispanic/Latino (32.3%). Eighty‐seven AYAs (87.9%) had myelomeningocele. The lesion level was 31.3% sacral, 48.5% lumbar and 18.2% thoracic. A third of the families earned less than 50K. Overall, self‐management growth was dependent on age, sex, and race/ethnicity, but not income. Growth in condition self‐management depended on sex; only males demonstrated increasing growth (
= 0.11, p < 0.001). Black participants endorsed higher increasing total and condition self‐management when compared with White (
diff = 0.17 and 0.17, respectively, both p < 0.05) and Hispanic/Latino (
diff = 0.18 and 0.21, respectively, both p = 0.02) respondents.ConclusionThis study provides evidence of differences in growth of self‐management by demographic/social determinants of health. Possible reasons for differences are discussed. Predictors of changes in self‐management behaviours over time in young adults with SB can identify subgroups in need of further study.
Harmonic Shape Interpolation on Multiply‐connected Planar Domains
Authors: Dongbo Shi , Renjie Chen 
Published: October 2022

AbstractShape interpolation is a fundamental problem in computer graphics. Recently, there have been some interpolation methods developed which guarantee that the results are of bounded amount of geometric distortion, hence ensure high quality interpolation. However, none of these methods is applicable to shapes within the multiply‐connected domains. In this work, we develop an interpolation scheme for harmonic mappings, that specifically addresses this limitation. We opt to interpolate the pullback metric of the input harmonic maps as proposed by Chen et al. [CWKBC13]. However, the interpolated metric does not correspond to any planar mapping, which is the main challenge in the interpolation problem for multiply‐connected domains. We propose to solve this by projecting the interpolated metric into the planar harmonic mapping space. Specifically, we develop a Newton iteration to minimize the isometric distortion of the intermediate mapping, with respect to the interpolated metric. For more efficient Newton iteration, we further derived a simple analytic formula for the positive semidefinite (PSD) projection of the Hessian matrix of our distortion energy. Through extensive experiments and comparisons with the state‐of‐the‐art, we demonstrate the efficacy and robustness of our method for various inputs.
Localized Shape Modelling with Global Coherence: An Inverse Spectral Approach
Authors: Pegoraro M. , Melzi S. , Castellani U. , Marin R. , Rodolà E. 
Published: October 2022

AbstractMany natural shapes have most of their characterizing features concentrated over a few regions in space. For example, humans and animals have distinctive head shapes, while inorganic objects like chairs and airplanes are made of well‐localized functional parts with specific geometric features. Often, these features are strongly correlated – a modification of facial traits in a quadruped should induce changes to the body structure. However, in shape modelling applications, these types of edits are among the hardest ones; they require high precision, but also a global awareness of the entire shape. Even in the deep learning era, obtaining manipulable representations that satisfy such requirements is an open problem posing significant constraints. In this work, we address this problem by defining a data‐driven model upon a family of linear operators (variants of the mesh Laplacian), whose spectra capture global and local geometric properties of the shape at hand. Modifications to these spectra are translated to semantically valid deformations of the corresponding surface. By explicitly decoupling the global from the local surface features, our pipeline allows to perform local edits while simultaneously maintaining a global stylistic coherence. We empirically demonstrate how our learning‐based model generalizes to shape representations not seen at training time, and we systematically analyze different choices of local operators over diverse shape categories.
Smooth Interpolating Curves with Local Control and Monotone Alternating Curvature
Authors: Binninger Alexandre , Sorkine‐Hornung Olga 
Published: October 2022

AbstractWe propose a method for the construction of a planar curve based on piecewise clothoids and straight lines that intuitively interpolates a given sequence of control points. Our method has several desirable properties that are not simultaneously fulfilled by previous approaches: Our interpolating curves are C2 continuous, their computation does not rely on global optimization and has local support, enabling fast evaluation for interactive modeling. Further, the sign of the curvature at control points is consistent with the control polygon; the curvature attains its extrema at control points and is monotone between consecutive control points of opposite curvature signs. In addition, we can ensure that the curve has self‐intersections only when the control polygon also self‐intersects between the same control points. For more fine‐grained control, the user can specify the desired curvature and tangent values at certain control points, though it is not required by our method. Our local optimization can lead to discontinuity w.r.t. the locations of control points, although the problem is limited by its locality. We demonstrate the utility of our approach in generating various curves and provide a comparison with the state of the art.
Topological Simplification of Nested Shapes
Authors: Zeng D. , Chambers E. , Letscher D. , Ju T. 
Published: October 2022

AbstractWe present a method for removing unwanted topological features (e.g., islands, handles, cavities) from a sequence of shapes where each shape is nested in the next. Such sequences can be found in nature, such as a multi‐layered material or a growing plant root. Existing topology simplification methods are designed for single shapes, and applying them independently to shapes in a sequence may lose the nesting property. We formulate the nesting‐constrained simplification task as an optimal labelling problem on a set of candidate shape deletions (“cuts”) and additions (“fills”). We explored several optimization strategies, including a greedy heuristic that sequentially propagates labels, a state‐space search algorithm that is provably optimal, and a beam‐search variant with controllable complexity. Evaluation on synthetic and real‐world data shows that our method is as effective as single‐shape simplification methods in reducing topological complexity and minimizing geometric changes, and it additionally ensures nesting. Also, the beam‐search strategy is found to strike the best balance between optimality and efficiency.
Pioglitazone reduces epicardial fat and improves diastolic function in patients with type 2 diabetes
Authors: Moody Alexander J. , Molina‐Wilkins Marjorie , Clarke Geoffrey D. , Merovci Aurora , Solis‐Herrera Carolina , Cersosimo Eugenio , Chilton Robert J. , Iozzo Patricia , Gastaldelli Amalia , Abdul‐Ghani Muhammad , DeFronzo Ralph A. 
Published: October 2022

AbstractAimsTo examine the effect of pioglitazone on epicardial (EAT) and paracardial adipose tissue (PAT) and measures of diastolic function and insulin sensitivity in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).MethodsTwelve patients with T2DM without clinically manifest cardiovascular disease and 12 subjects with normal glucose tolerance (NGT) underwent cardiac magnetic resonance imaging to quantitate EAT and PAT and diastolic function before and after pioglitazone treatment for 24 weeks. Whole‐body insulin sensitivity was measured with a euglycaemic insulin clamp and the Matsuda Index (oral glucose tolerance test).ResultsPioglitazone reduced glycated haemoglobin by 0.9% (P < 0.05), increased HDL cholesterol by 7% (P < 0.05), reduced triacylglycerol by 42% (P < 0.01) and increased whole‐body insulin‐stimulated glucose uptake by 71% (P < 0.01) and Matsuda Index by 100% (P < 0.01). In patients with T2DM, EAT (P < 0.01) and PAT (P < 0.01) areas were greater compared with subjects with NGT, and decreased by 9% (P = 0.03) and 9% (P = 0.09), respectively, after pioglitazone treatment. Transmitral E/A flow rate and peak left ventricular flow rate (PLVFR) were reduced in T2DM versus NGT (P < 0.01) and increased following pioglitazone treatment (P < 0.01‐0.05). At baseline normalized PLVFR inversely correlated with EAT (r = −0.45, P = 0.03) but not PAT (r = −0.29, P = 0.16). E/A was significantly and inversely correlated with EAT (r = −0.55, P = 0.006) and PAT (r = −0.40, P = 0.05). EAT and PAT were inversely correlated with whole‐body insulin‐stimulated glucose uptake (r = −0.68, P < 0.001) and with Matsuda Index (r = 0.99, P < 0.002).ConclusionPioglitazone reduced EAT and PAT areas and improved left ventricular (LV) diastolic function in T2DM. EAT and PAT are inversely correlated (PAT less strongly) with LV diastolic function and both EAT and PAT are inversely correlated with measures of insulin sensitivity.
Age‐specific associations between the number of co‐morbidities, all‐cause mortality and public direct medical costs in patients with type 2 diabetes: A retrospective cohort study
Authors: Hong Sabrina Nan , Mak Ivy Lynn , Chin Weng Yee , Yu Esther Yee Tak , Tse Emily Tsui Yee , Chen Julie Yun , Wong Carlos King Ho , Chao David Vai Kiong , Tsui Wendy Wing Sze , Lam Cindy Lo Kuen , Wan Eric Yuk Fai 
Published: October 2022

AbstractAimTo evaluate the association between the number of co‐morbidities, all‐cause mortality and public health system expenditure in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D) across different age groups.Materials and MethodsA retrospective observational study of T2D patients using electronic health records in Hong Kong was conducted. Patients were stratified by age (< 50, 50‐64, 65‐79, ≥ 80 years) and the number of co‐morbidities (0, 1, 2, 3, ≥ 4), defined using the Charlson Comorbidity Index and prevalent chronic diseases identified in local surveys. The association between the number of co‐morbidities, all‐cause mortality and direct medical costs was examined using Cox proportional hazard regression and the gamma generalized linear model with log link function.ResultsA total of 262 212 T2D patients with a median follow‐up of 10 years were included. Hypertension and dyslipidaemia were the most common co‐morbidities in all age groups. After age stratification, cardiovascular diseases dominated the top pair of co‐morbidities in the older age groups (65‐79 and ≥ 80 years), while inflammatory and liver disease were predominant among younger individuals. Compared with co‐morbidity–free T2D patients, the hazard ratios (95% CI) of death for patients aged younger than 50 and 80 years or older with two co‐morbidities were 1.31 (1.08‐1.59) and 1.25 (1.15‐1.36), respectively, and increased to 3.08 (2.25‐4.21) and 1.98 (1.82‐2.16), respectively, as the number of co‐morbidities increased to four or more. Similar trends were observed for medical costs.ConclusionsAge‐specific co‐morbidity patterns were observed for patients with T2D. A greater number of co‐morbidities was associated with increased mortality and healthcare costs, with stronger relationships observed among younger patients.
An Evaluation of Automatic Item Generation: A Case Study of Weak Theory Approach
Authors: Fu Yanyan , Choe Edison M. , Lim Hwanggyu , Choi Jaehwa 
Published: October 2022

AbstractThis case study applied the weak theory of Automatic Item Generation (AIG) to generate isomorphic item instances (i.e., unique but psychometrically equivalent items) for a large‐scale assessment. Three representative instances were selected from each item template (i.e., model) and pilot‐tested. In addition, a new analytical framework, differential child item functioning (DCIF) analysis, based on the existing differential item functioning statistics, was applied to evaluate the psychometric equivalency of item instances within each template. The results showed that, out of 23 templates, nine successfully generated isomorphic instances, five required minor revisions to make them isomorphic, and the remaining templates required major modifications. The results and insights obtained from the AIG template development procedure may help item writers and psychometricians effectively develop and manage the templates that generate isomorphic instances.