bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
An investigation on cauda storage of sperm in hamster epididymis
Authors: Sudarshani K.A.M. , Wegiriya H.C.E. 
Published: October 2022

Abstract
Immature testicular sperm of mammals acquire the potential to move in a forward direction during their journey through excurrent ducts, efferent ductules and the epididymis. The present study aimed to determine the sperm storage time using the hamster cauda epididymis. Ligation of the left epididymal tubule at the junction between the distal corpus and the proximal cauda was carried out to determine the storage time. The right epididymis was left unaltered as the control. On days 3, 12, 15, 24, 28, 32, and 40 after ligation of the cauda, experiments were carried out and repeated five times. Sperm total count and mortality were determined using the haemocytometer counting method and sperm viability was assessed with the live/dead viability kit. The morphology of cauda sperm was observed by preparing sperm smears from each animal. Data were analyzed using SPSS and all values were expressed as mean ± SEM. On day 40, the total number of cauda sperms was reduced remarkably. In the experimental groups and in the control, 3–6% of sperm motility was maintained until day 40. By day 3, the percentage of live sperm was 50% and by the 40th day, it was decreased up to 10%. In the control group, the live sperm percentage was 24% by the 40th day (). By day 32, 76% of the cauda spermatozoa appeared abnormal with head defects, mid piece and neck defects and multiple defects. Findings of the present study indicate that cauda sperm storage time is more than 40 days. Motility, viability and morphology of these spermatozoa were decreased remarkably during this storage time.
Beyond Scalar Timing Theory: Integrating Neural Oscillators with Computational Accessibility in Memory
Authors: Shi Zhuanghua , Gu Bon-Mi , Glasauer Stefan , Meck Warren H. 
Published: October 2022

Abstract
One of the major challenges for computational models of timing and time perception is to identify a neurobiological plausible implementation that predicts various behavioral properties, including the scalar property and retrospective timing. The available timing models primarily focus on the scalar property and prospective timing, while virtually ignoring the computational accessibility. Here, we first selectively review timing models based on ramping activity, oscillatory pattern, and time cells, and discuss potential challenges for the existing models. We then propose a multifrequency oscillatory model that offers computational accessibility, which could account for a much broader range of timing features, including both retrospective and prospective timing.
The Qarāmiṭa Scare: Public Sentiment and Political Reactions
Authors: Hurvitz Nimrod 
Published: October 2022

Abstract
The horrific attacks of a group of militant Ismāʿīlīs called the Qarāmiṭa in 311/924–319/931 underscored the Abbasid regime’s weakness and inability to govern. However, it is precisely because the regime was so weak that the populace was forced to react — be it by fighting, escaping or demonstrating against the ruling elite. This essay examines the emotions and actions of the inhabitants of Baghdad and southern Iraq during the Qarāmiṭa attacks. It asks whether the threats and fear that the populace experienced fragmented society or united it. Although the answer is complex, it is possible to discern that in the long run the Qarāmiṭa scare caused the deterioration of Sunni and Shi’i relations.
Language-Based Syllogistic Reasoning Using Deep Neural Networks
Authors: Aghahadi Zeinab , Talebpour Alireza 
Published: October 2022

Abstract
Syllogism is a common form of deductive reasoning that requires precisely two premises and one conclusion. It is considered as a logical method to arrive at new information. However, there has been limited research on language-based syllogistic reasoning that is not typically used in logic textbooks. In support of this new field of study, the authors created a dataset comprised of common-sense English pair sentences and named it Avicenna. The results of the binary classification task indicate that humans recognize the syllogism with 98.16% and the Avicenna-trained model with 89.19% accuracy. The present study demonstrates that aided with special datasets, deep neural networks can understand human inference to an acceptable degree. Further, these networks can be used in designing comprehensive systems for automatic decision-making based on textual resources with near human-level accuracy.
Sensory Schema: From Sensory Contrasts to Antonyms
Authors: Raykowski Wes 
Published: October 2022

Abstract
The article explores sensations’ role in cognition through analyzing expressions in natural language in search of a sensory schema. I argue that if it exists, the schema originates from the universal need to differentiate between patterns by increasing contrasts, which is linguistically manifested in the practice of grading adjectives and adverbs in the context of antonyms.
Design Parameters for Planning the Sample Size of Individual-Level Randomized Controlled Trials in Community Colleges
Authors: Somers Marie-Andrée , Weiss Michael J. , Hill Colin 
Published: October 2022

The last two decades have seen a dramatic increase in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) conducted in community colleges. Yet, there is limited empirical information on the design parameters necessary to plan the sample size for RCTs in this context. For a blocked student-level random assignment research design, key design parameters for the minimum detectable true effect (MDTE) are the within-block outcome standard deviation [Formula: see text] and the within-block outcome variance explained by baseline covariates like student characteristics [Formula: see text]. We provide empirical estimates of these key design parameters, discussing the pattern of estimates across outcomes (enrollment, credits earned, credential attainment, and grade point average), semesters, and studies. The main analyses use student-level data from 8 to 14 RCTs including 5,649–7,099 students (depending on the outcome) with follow-up data for 3 years. The following patterns are observed: the within-block standard deviation [Formula: see text] and therefore the MDTE can be much larger in later semesters for enrollment outcomes and cumulative credits earned; there is substantial variation across studies in [Formula: see text] for degree attainment; and baseline covariates explain less than 10% of the variation in student outcomes. These findings indicate that when planning the sample size for a study, researchers should be mindful of the follow-up period, use a range of values to calculate the MDTE for outcomes that vary across studies, and assume a value of [Formula: see text] between 0 and 0.05. A public database created for this paper includes parameter estimates for additional RCTs and students.
Annual Foot Exams are Associated with Reduced Incident Amputation among Older Veterans with Diabetes
Authors: Allen Latricia L. , Khakharia Anjali , Phillips Lawrence S. , Johnson Theodore M. , Uphold Constance R. , Perkins Molly M. , Vaughan Elizabeth 
Published: October 2022

We conducted a secondary data analysis to evaluate the association between annual foot exams and incident lower extremity amputations (LEA) among older veterans with diabetes during FY2007–FY2014. Older Veterans with at least one primary care provider visit each year (N = 664,162) and at least one foot exam each year (N = 72,892) and the overlap were identified from the 5 years prior to the study period of interest (FY2002–FY2006 (N = 71,122)). After excluding incident LEA related to cancer and trauma, 71,018 veterans (mean age +/− SD, % male) were included in the final cohort, which was followed from FY2007–FY2014 to evaluate the influence of subsequent annual foot exams and incident LEA. Consistent annual foot exams were protective for incident LEA in older veterans with diabetes, adjusted OR was 0.85 (97% CI: 0.74–0.96). Results indicate that adherence to annual foot exam guidelines can reduce incident LEA in older veterans with diabetes.
Developing and Implementing Entrustable Professional Activities to Prepare Global Nurses
Authors: Spies Lori A. , Feutz Kristi 
Published: October 2022

Introduction: Nurses work in global settings and must be prepared to enter practice and provide culturally appropriate care to diverse populations. As faculty we want to ensure the achievement of programmatic, national, and global competencies for our student’s successful future practice. Methods: Aligning current programs with American Association of Colleges of Nursing’s (AACN) New Essentials provides an opportunity to consider new approaches and address challenges. By merging the New Essentials with the Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH) competencies, we facilitate the achievement of programmatic outcomes, mission, and values in nursing education. Results: Using an entrustable professional activities framework provides a clear measure of achieving priority competencies. We created an approach other faculty might find helpful. Discussion: Entrustable professional activities, well established in medical education, are emerging as a valuable tool to measure the achievement of competencies in the preparation of nurses.
Medicaid Patients Face Limited Access to Care for Ankle Sprains in Unexpanded States
Authors: Hoch Caroline P. , Scott Daniel J. , Gross Christopher E. 
Published: October 2022

Purpose Our goal was to determine whether state Medicaid expansion and patient insurance statuses affected access to care for ankle sprain patients. Methods Four pairs of Medicaid expanded (Kentucky, Louisiana, Iowa, and Arizona) and unexpanded (North Carolina, Alabama, Wisconsin, and Texas) states were chosen. Twelve practices from each state (N = 96) were randomly selected from the American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society (AOFAS) directory and called twice to request an appointment for a fictitious 16-year-old with a first-time ankle sprain using either Medicaid insurance or Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) private insurance. Results An appointment was obtained at 65.6% clinics when calling with BCBS and at 45.8% with Medicaid (P =.006). There was a significant difference in successful scheduling based on insurance status in Medicaid unexpanded states (P = .007). In all states except Iowa, there were more appointments scheduled using BCBS than with Medicaid. The 3 main reasons for appointment denial were inability to provide an insurance identification number (47.1%), insurance status (23.5%), and whether the patient was referred (17.6%). The waiting period for an appointment did not differ by Medicaid expansion or insurance statuses. Conclusion For patients with first-time ankle sprains, access to care is more difficult using Medicaid insurance rather than private insurance, especially in Medicaid unexpanded states. Level of Evidence: Level II prospective cohort study
Universal COVID-19 pre-procedural swabs in children in a developing country: A comparison of findings over two transmission waves
Authors: Tan Chee Yang , Theseira Amelia Marie , Ahmad Zubaidi Syukri , Atiya Nadia , Sanmugam Anand , Singaravel Srihari , Nah Shireen Anne 
Published: October 2022

Aim The Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has strained healthcare systems worldwide. Some institutions have implemented additional precautionary measures such as pre-procedural swabbing (PPS) to reduce transmission in patients and healthcare workers. We evaluate our experience with universal pre-procedural screening for COVID-19 in low-risk pediatric patients. Methods We performed a retrospective review of patients aged 18 years and below who underwent severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR) assay swabs in our center over two waves (1st May 2020 to 31st July 2020 and 1st April 2021 to 30th June 2021). We included patients who underwent rRT-PCR for SARS-CoV-2 prior to any procedures requiring general anesthesia and were deemed low risk for COVID-19 according to our institutional screening criteria. All study patients were followed up for 14 days post-procedure. Results Of 2065 swabs done for patients aged 18 years and below during the study period, 645 (31.2%) were pre-procedural swabs. Patients were aged 4.2 years (median, interquartile range: 1.6 years–9.8 years). Two patients (0.3%) tested positive for COVID-19 by PPS, detected during Period 2 – both had risk criteria which were overlooked by healthcare workers. Within 14 days post-procedure, 10 patients had unscheduled readmissions and 15 required repeat rRT-PCR, all of which were negative. Conclusions In patients deemed low risk for COVID-19 infection according to our screening criteria, routine pre-procedural swabbing returns a low positive rate. Our findings can guide screening protocols at institutions that provide surgical services during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Heavy-load exercise in older adults activates vasculogenesis and has a stronger impact on muscle gene expression than in young adults
Authors: Gautvik Kaare M. , Olstad Ole K. , Raue Ulrika , Gautvik Vigdis T. , Kvernevik Karl J. , Utheim Tor P. , Ravnum Solveig , Kirkegaard Camilla , Wiig Håvard , Jones Garan , Pilling Luke C. , Trappe Scott , Raastad Truls , Reppe Sjur 
Published: October 2022

Abstract
Background
A striking effect of old age is the involuntary loss of muscle mass and strength leading to sarcopenia and reduced physiological functions. However, effects of heavy-load exercise in older adults on diseases and functions as predicted by changes in muscle gene expression have been inadequately studied.

Methods
Thigh muscle global transcriptional activity (transcriptome) was analyzed in cohorts of older and younger adults before and after 12–13 weeks heavy-load strength exercise using Affymetrix microarrays. Three age groups, similarly trained, were compared: younger adults (age 24 ± 4 years), older adults of average age 70 years (Oslo cohort) and above 80 years (old BSU cohort). To increase statistical strength, one of the older cohorts was used for validation. Ingenuity Pathway analysis (IPA) was used to identify predicted biological effects of a gene set that changed expression after exercise, and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was used to visualize differences in muscle gene expressen between cohorts and individual participants as well as overall changes upon exercise.

Results
Younger adults, showed few transcriptome changes, but a marked, significant impact was observed in persons of average age 70 years and even more so in persons above 80 years. The 249 transcripts positively or negatively altered in both cohorts of older adults (q-value < 0.1) were submitted to gene set enrichment analysis using IPA. The transcripts predicted increase in several aspects of “vascularization and muscle contractions”, whereas functions associated with negative health effects were reduced, e.g., “Glucose metabolism disorder” and “Disorder of blood pressure”. Several genes that changed expression after intervention were confirmed at the genome level by containing single nucleotide variants associated with handgrip strength and muscle expression levels, e.g., CYP4B1 (p = 9.2E-20), NOTCH4 (p = 9.7E-8), and FZD4 (p = 5.3E-7). PCA of the 249 genes indicated a differential pattern of muscle gene expression in young and elderly. However, after exercise the expression patterns in both young and old BSU cohorts were changed in the same direction for the vast majority of participants.

Conclusions
The positive impact of heavy-load strength training on the transcriptome increased markedly with age. The identified molecular changes translate to improved vascularization and muscular strength, suggesting highly beneficial health effects for older adults.
Determination of the phosphorus content in sewage sludge: comparison of different aqua regia digestion methods and ICP-OES, ICP-MS, and photometric determination
Authors: Sichler Theresa Constanze , Becker Roland , Sauer Andreas , Barjenbruch Matthias , Ostermann Markus , Adam Christian 
Published: October 2022

AbstractPhosphorus recycling from sewage sludge will be obligatory in Germany from 2029. Phosphorus content determination in sewage sludge is crucial to assess the prescribed recycling rates. Currently, German law regards sample preparation using aqua regia digestion in a microwave or under reflux conditions as well as instrumental phosphorus determination by ICP-OES, ICP-MS, or photometric determination with ammonium molybdate as equivalent. However, it is questionable whether these methods are indeed equivalent regarding phosphorus quantification in sludges near the limit of 20 g/kg for mandatory recycling. To answer this question, 15 sewage sludges of 11 different wastewater treatment plants were investigated with all permitted method (digestion and measurement) combinations. Moreover, one sewage sludge was also examined in an interlaboratory comparison (ILC) with 28 participants. This study shows that the above-mentioned methods differ in some cases significantly but across all method combinations and sludges, phosphorus recovery was between 80 and 121% after normalization to the grand mean (average of 15 sludges between 85 and 111%). The ILC and the examination of 15 sludges produced largely similar results. There is a tendency to higher phosphorus recovery after microwave digestion compared to reflux digestion and ICP-OES measurements determine higher phosphorus contents than ICP-MS and photometric phosphorus determination. As a result, the authors recommend ICP-OES determination of phosphorus in sewage sludge after microwave digestion.
Graphical Abstract
SVAT: Secure outsourcing of variant annotation and genotype aggregation
Authors: Kim Miran , Wang Su , Jiang Xiaoqian , Harmanci Arif 
Published: October 2022

Abstract
Background
Sequencing of thousands of samples provides genetic variants with allele frequencies spanning a very large spectrum and gives invaluable insight into genetic determinants of diseases. Protecting the genetic privacy of participants is challenging as only a few rare variants can easily re-identify an individual among millions. In certain cases, there are policy barriers against sharing genetic data from indigenous populations and stigmatizing conditions.

Results
We present SVAT, a method for secure outsourcing of variant annotation and aggregation, which are two basic steps in variant interpretation and detection of causal variants. SVAT uses homomorphic encryption to encrypt the data at the client-side. The data always stays encrypted while it is stored, in-transit, and most importantly while it is analyzed. SVAT makes use of a vectorized data representation to convert annotation and aggregation into efficient vectorized operations in a single framework. Also, SVAT utilizes a secure re-encryption approach so that multiple disparate genotype datasets can be combined for federated aggregation and secure computation of allele frequencies on the aggregated dataset.

Conclusions
Overall, SVAT provides a secure, flexible, and practical framework for privacy-aware outsourcing of annotation, filtering, and aggregation of genetic variants. SVAT is publicly available for download from https://github.com/harmancilab/SVAT.
Psychometric validation of a chinese version of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy scale: a cross-sectional study
Authors: Huang Yiman , Wu Yijin , Dai Zhenwei , Xiao Weijun , Wang Hao , Si Mingyu , Wang Wenjun , Gu Xiaofen , Ma Li , Li Li , Zhang Shaokai , Yang Chunxia , Yu Yanqin , Qiao Youlin , Su Xiaoyou 
Published: October 2022

Abstract
Background
COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in many countries; however, a sufficient vaccine coverage rate is not guaranteed due to vaccine hesitancy. To improve the uptake rate of COVID-19 vaccine, it is essential to evaluate the rate of vaccine hesitancy and explore relevant factors in different populations. An urgent need is to measure COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among different population groups, hence a validated scale for measuring COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy is necessary. The present study aims to validate the COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy scale among different populations in China and to provide a scale measuring COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy with satisfactory reliability and validity.

Methods
Self-reported survey data were collected from different populations in China from January to March 2021. Based on the Parent Attitudes about Childhood Vaccines scale, 15 items were adapted to evaluate the COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis were utilized to identify internal constructs of the COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy scale among two randomly split subsets of the overall sample. Reliability was analyzed with the internal consistency, composite reliability, and the test–retest reliability, and validity was analyzed with the criterion validity, convergent validity, and discriminant validity.

Results
A total of 4227 participants completed the survey, with 62.8% being medical workers, 17.8% being students, 10.3% being general population, and 9.1% being public health professionals. The exploratory factor analysis revealed a three-factor structure that explain 50.371% of the total variance. The confirmatory factor analysis showed that models consisting of three dimensions constructed in different populations had good or acceptable fit (CFI ranged from 0.902 to 0.929, RMSEA ranged from 0.061 to 0.069, and TLI ranged from 0.874 to 0.912). The Cronbach’s α for the total scale and the three subscales was 0.756, 0.813, 0.774 and 0.705, respectively. Moreover, the COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy scale had adequate test–retest reliability, criterion validity, convergent validity, and discriminant validity.

Conclusions
The COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy scale is a valid and reliable scale for identifying COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among different population groups in China. Given the serious consequences of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, future studies should validate it across regions and time to better understand the application of the COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy scale.