bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Gearing to success with national breastfeeding programmes: The Becoming Breastfeeding Friendly (BBF) initiative experience
Authors: Pérez‐Escamilla Rafael , Dykes Fiona C. , Kendall Sally 
Published: March 2022

AbstractEvidence‐based policy toolboxes are essential for decision makers to effectively invest in and scale up maternal‐child health and nutrition programs, and breastfeeding is no exception. This special issue focuses on the experiences implementing the Becoming Breastfeeding Friendly (BBF) toolbox in England, Scotland, and Wales. BBF is an initiative that includes a toolbox for decision making based on the Complex Adaptive System‐based Breastfeeding Gear Model. The BBF initiative experience in Great Britain presented in this special issue illustrates how versatile BBF is as it can be readily adapted to the specific application context. In this instance one country, England was trained by the Yale School of Public Health team that developed BBF. England, in turn, trained and assisted Scotland and Wales with the implementation and oversight of BBF in those countries. The positive experience implementing BBF in Great Britain is fully consistent with findings related to this initiative in other countries with contrasting economic, social, political and health care systems; including Germany, Ghana, Mexico, Myanmar, and Samoa. In all instances BBF has led to breastfeeding policy improvements with strong implications for enabling breastfeeding environments including maternity benefits, workforce development, the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative and behavior change communication campaigns. In conclusion, BBF is a powerful tool to help guide the effective scaling up of evidence‐based programmes to advance breastfeeding protection, promotion and support globally.
Ecological adaptation shaped the genetic structure of homoploid ferns against strong dispersal capacity
Authors: Liang Si‐Qi , Zhang Xian‐Chun , Wei Ran 
Published: March 2022

AbstractThe formation of spatial genetic structure with the presence of extensive gene flow, an evolutionary force which is generally expected to eliminate population‐specific variation and maintain genetic homogeneity, remains poorly understood. Homosporous ferns, which spread by spores through wind and possess long distance dispersal capacity, provide an ideal system to investigate such a process. Here, using a homoploid fern lineage, the Athyrium sinense complex, we used reduced‐representation genomic data to examine spatial genetic structure and explored potential driving forces including geographical distance, environment, climatic history and external dispersal constraints. Our findings showed a clear north‐south divergence at the genetic, morphological and ecological levels between both sides of 35°N in East Asia. Fluctuant and heterogeneous climatic condition was demonstrated to play a crucial role during the formation of the divergence. Our results suggested that this lineage was able to migrate southward and colonize new habitat as a result of the Quaternary climatic fluctuation. Furthermore, the present genetic structure is attributed to adaptation to heterogeneous environments, especially temperature difference. In addition to ecological adaptation, we found clues showing that canopy density, wind direction as well as habitat continuity were all likely to constrain the effect of gene flow. These results demonstrated a diversification process without ploidy changes in ferns providing new insights for our present knowledge on ferns’ spatio‐temporal evolutionary pattern. In particular, our study highlights the influence of environmental heterogeneity in driving genetic divergence against strong dispersal capacity.
Health educators' professional agency in negotiating their problem‐based learning (PBL) facilitator roles: Q study
Authors: Du Xiangyun , Nomikos Michail , Ali Kamran , Lundberg Adrian , Abu‐Hijleh Marwan 
Published: March 2022

AbstractBackgroundUniversity educators are expected to cope with emerging situations and complex issues in teaching and learning, and this requires them to be agentic and proactive. While professional agency of health educators has not been investigated adequately, this study explores health educators' perception of their enactment of professional agency in the PBL facilitation process in a postpandemic context.MethodsForty PBL facilitators from medical and dental programs in Qatar University participated in the study during the fall semester of 2021, after resuming in‐person PBL sessions. To collect and analyse data both qualitatively and quantitatively, Q methodology was employed. A 33‐statement Q‐set was established based on a proposed theoretical framework of professional agency in PBL facilitation, which included three dimensions—intrapersonal, action, and environment.ResultsQ factor analysis identified five significantly different viewpoints regarding how PBL facilitators perceive their professional agency sources, namely, (1) institutional resources, (2) policy guideline, (3) making efforts to improve support for students, (4) beliefs on PBL effectiveness, and (5) agentic actions. While four of the viewpoints were positive, participants with the second viewpoint reported negative perceptions and described lack of interest in facilitation work. All three dimensions of the framework were addressed and indicated complexity and interrelatedness of agency enactment. Consensus was observed regarding the need for more professional learning activities for faculty involved in PBL facilitation as source of professional agency.DiscussionThe results revealed a high variation of participants' perceptions of professional agency enactment throughout the three dimensions, indicating the need for establishing a common understanding of PBL facilitation work in a given context. For practical implications, further institutional efforts are required to support professional learning for PBL facilitation in a postpandemic context. Alternate approaches highlighting enforcement of agentic actions in all dimensions of intrapersonal values, stance and action taking, and active interactions with students, colleagues, and institutional environments are crucial. Q methodology provides new conceptual and empirical insights to explore the subjectivity of actors in health education.
Rouhani's Africa Policy: Disengagement, 2013–21
Authors: Bagheri Reza , Lob Eric 
Published: March 2022

AbstractThe Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI)’s relations with Africa declined to a considerable extent during Hassan Rouhani's presidency. Rouhani pursued a foreign policy that showed little interest in the continent and did not consider it a strategic partner. Some scholars argue this policy exclusively resulted from the IRI's regional involvement in Syria and Yemen, as well as its economic difficulties due to US sanctions. Using Rosenau's pre‐theory model of foreign‐policy analysis, this article holistically asserts that a combination of individual, societal, and systemic factors caused Rouhani and his administration to neglect Africa. At an individual level, these factors included Rouhani's preference to implement a westward‐leaning foreign policy, differentiate himself from his predecessor, and repair Iran's regional and international image. Societally, Rouhani downgraded relations with Africa due to the popularity of his westward‐leaning policy among his base of voters and supporters, alongside political factions and parties inside the government. Systemically, Rouhani disengaged from the continent in response to unfavorable, exogenous conditions, including the IRI's increased diplomatic and economic isolation by the United States, its intensified conflict with and pressure from regional rivals, and its rising challenges and setbacks in Africa.
Cyclic di‐GMP modulates sessile‐motile phenotypes and virulence in Dickeya oryzae via two PilZ domain receptors
Authors: Chen Yufan , Lv Mingfa , Liang Zhibin , Liu Zhiqing , Zhou Jianuan , Zhang Lian‐Hui 
Published: March 2022

AbstractDickeya oryzae is a bacterial pathogen causing the severe rice stem rot disease in China and other rice‐growing countries. We showed recently that the universal bacterial second messenger c‐di‐GMP plays an important role in modulation of bacterial motility and pathogenicity, but the mechanism of regulation remains unknown. In this study, bioinformatics analysis of the D. oryzae EC1 genome led to the identification of two proteins, YcgR and BcsA, both of which contain a conserved c‐di‐GMP receptor domain, known as the PilZ‐domain. By deleting all the genes encoding c‐di‐GMP‐degrading enzymes in D. oryzae EC1, the resultant mutant 7ΔPDE with high c‐di‐GMP levels became nonmotile, formed hyperbiofilm, and lost the ability to colonize and invade rice seeds. These phenotypes were partially reversed by deletion of ycgR in the mutant 7ΔPDE, whereas deletion of bcsA only reversed the hyperbiofilm phenotype of mutant 7ΔPDE. Significantly, double deletion of ycgR and bcsA in mutant 7ΔPDE rescued its motility, biofilm formation, and virulence to levels of wild‐type EC1. In vitro biochemical experiments and in vivo phenotypic assays further validated that YcgR and BcsA proteins are the receptors for c‐di‐GMP, which together play a critical role in regulating the c‐di‐GMP‐associated functionality. The findings from this study fill a gap in our understanding of how c‐di‐GMP modulates bacterial motility and biofilm formation, and provide useful clues for further elucidation of sophisticated virulence regulatory mechanisms in this important plant pathogen.
Implementing federalism: The case of Nepal
Authors: Bahl Roy W. , Timofeev Andrey , Yilmaz Serdar 
Published: March 2022

AbstractThe new Constitution of Nepal established a federal system of governance in 2015. Implementation began in 2018 following the 2017 subnational elections. The new system is comprised of seven provinces and 753 local governments. The constitution assigns important functional responsibilities to provincial and local governments and mandates that they have significant autonomy in deciding how services will be delivered. Subnational governments accounted for over one‐third of total government expenditures planned for FY2021, financed primarily by intergovernmental transfers. This paper describes the new federal system, discusses the early implementation successes and challenges, and draws some lessons from Nepal's experience.
Evaluation of the effect of conventional and natural antifungals on motility and kinetics of cooled stallion semen
Authors: Usuga Alexandra , Gutiérrez Víctor , López María Elisa , Pérez Luisa Fernanda , Jaramillo Lorena , Rojano Benjamín , Restrepo Giovanni 
Published: March 2022

AbstractMicrobial growth in semen may cause a decline of sperm quality and fertility; however, the addition of antifungals to semen extender has been shown to impair the overall fertility of the sperm. The aim of this study was to evaluate the antifungal activity of conventional and natural compounds, and their effect on the motility and kinetics of cooled stallion semen. A total of 15 ejaculates from five stallions were collected using the artificial vagina. Each ejaculate was supplemented with: fluconazole at 12.5 (F1), 25 (F2) and 50 (F3) mg/ml; amphotericin‐B at 6.5 (A1), 12.5 (A2) and 25 (A3) mg/ml (A3); clotrimazole at 12.5 (C1), 25 (C2) and 50 (C3) mg/ml; isoespintanol at 50 (I1), 100 (I2) and 150 (I3) µM; thymol at 50 (T1), 100 (T2) and 150 (T3) µM; and a control without supplementation. Motility and kinetics of semen at 0, 24 and 48 hr of cooling at 15°C were assessed using computer‐assisted sperm analysis (CASA). At hour 48 of cooling, the antifungal effect of the treatments was evaluated. At hour 0 of cooling, amphotericin‐B and I3 showed a reduction in most of the motility and kinetic parameters evaluated (p < .05). These treatments, and also C2 and C3, showed similar results at 24 and 48 hr of cooling. Thymol maintained motility and kinetics of the spermatozoa at all evaluated refrigeration times. Besides, I2 showed a decrease (p < .05) in the colony‐forming unit compared to that in the control. It is concluded that thymol and isospintanol could be added as natural antifungals in extenders for stallion semen refrigeration.
Longitudinal relationships between muscle dysmorphia symptoms and suicidal ideation
Authors: Grunewald William , Ortiz Shelby N. , Kinkel‐Ram Shruti S. , Smith April R. 
Published: March 2022

AbstractIntroductionMuscle Dysmorphia (MD) is a severe subtype of body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) that shares symptomatic overlap with eating disorders. Although associations between eating disorders/BDD and suicidality are well documented, research has rarely examined associations between MD symptoms and suicidality, which is concerning given MD is associated with additional suicide risk factors compared with these disorders. Further, existing associations between MD symptoms and suicidality have yet to establish temporal ordering for these relationships. Therefore, the current study investigated longitudinal relationships between MD symptoms and suicidal ideation to establish the direction of the MD‐suicidality relationship.MethodsParticipants were 272 US men displaying sub‐clinical MD symptoms who completed self‐report measurement at three time points over 6 weeks. Longitudinal relationships between MD symptoms and suicidal ideation were examined using a three‐wave autoregressive cross‐lagged model.ResultsCertain MD symptoms were longitudinally predicted by suicidal ideation. Specifically, suicidal ideation longitudinally predicted increased drive for size and appearance intolerance.ConclusionsResults may suggest that individuals engage in MD symptoms potentially to cope with distressing thoughts of suicide. Clinicians should provide clients with comorbid MD and suicidality with appropriate coping tools to manage distress from suicidal thoughts outside of engaging in compulsive exercise characteristic of MD symptoms.
Comparing estimates of physical activity in children across different cut‐points and the associations with weight status
Authors: Leppänen Marja H. , Migueles Jairo H. , Abdollahi Anna M. , Engberg Elina , Ortega Francisco B. , Roos Eva 
Published: March 2022

This study aimed to compare sedentary time (SED) and intensity‐specific physical activity (PA) estimates and the associations of SED and PA with body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC) using three different sets of cut‐points in preschool‐aged children. A total of 751 children (4.7 ± 0.9 years, boys 52.7%) wore an ActiGraph GT3X+BT accelerometer on their hip for 7 days (24 h). Euclidean norm −1 G with negative values rounded to zero (ENMO) and activity counts from vertical axis (VACounts) and vector magnitude (VMCounts) were derived. Estimates of SED and light, moderate, vigorous, and moderate‐to‐vigorous PA (MVPA) were calculated for commonly used cut‐points by Hildebrand et al., Butte et al., and Evenson et al. Furthermore, the prevalence of meeting the PA recommendation, 180 min/day of which at least 60 min/day being MVPA, were assessed for the cut‐points. Multilevel mixed analysis was used to examine associations of SED and PA with BMI and WC. In accordance with the results, SED and PA intensity estimates differed largely across cut‐points (i.e., SED = 22–341 min/day; light PA = 52–257 min/day; moderate PA = 5–18 min/day; vigorous PA = 7–17 min/day; MVPA = 13–35 min/day), and the prevalence of children meeting the PA recommendation varied from 4% to 70%. Associations of SED and PA with BMI or WC varied between the cut‐points. Our results indicate that SED and PA estimates in preschool‐aged children between studies using these cut‐points are poorly comparable. Methods facilitating accelerometer‐derived PA estimate comparison between studies are highly warranted.
Application of a three‐dimensional scanner to the quantitative assessment of the nail plate condition after a hybrid manicure procedure—Preliminary study
Authors: Zdrada Julita , Odrzywołek Wiktoria , Deda Anna , Machoy Monika , Koprowski Robert , Błońska‐Fajfrowska Barbara , Plesińska Katarzyna , Wilczyński Sławomir 
Published: March 2022

AbstractBackgroundAbout 90% of women worldwide use nail care products, including manicure ones. A manicure procedure results in nail damage, therefore it is necessary to search for new, objective methods of assessing the impact of the procedures and products applied within the nail plate. In this study, an attempt was made to quantify the impact of manicure procedures on the nail plate condition.Materials and methodsTwenty thumb nail plates were examined. Before the manicure procedures, alginate casts were prepared for each of the subjects. The analysis of the three‐dimensional (3D) nail surface structure included the assessment of the nail sections and the assessment of differences in the nail structure after superposition of 3D images of the nail plates before and after the manicure procedures.ResultsThe obtained results show that the nail plate structure changed to a similar extent in each measured section after the manicure procedure. A change in the height of the nails is not a desirable phenomenon as it suggests damage to the nail caused by the substances included in the preparations applied to the nails, acetone, or filing the nail plate. This proves the great influence of the technique of removing artificial nails on the structure of the natural plate.ConclusionThe use of a 3D scanner allows for precise, biometric, quantitative, and repeatable measurements of changes in the nail structure after a manicure procedure. The use of the hybrid and gel manicure procedure causes significant damage to the nail plate, especially in its distal portion.
Hair removal in dermoscopy images using variational autoencoders
Authors: Bardou Dalal , Bouaziz Hamida , Lv Laishui , Zhang Ting 
Published: March 2022

AbstractBackgroundIn recent years, melanoma is rising at a faster rate compared to other cancers. Although it is the most serious type of skin cancer, the diagnosis at early stages makes it curable. Dermoscopy is a reliable medical technique used to detect melanoma by using a dermoscope to examine the skin. In the last few decades, digital imaging devices have made great progress which allowed capturing and storing high‐quality images from these examinations. The stored images are now being standardized and used for the automatic detection of melanoma. However, when the hair covers the skin, this makes the task challenging. Therefore, it is important to eliminate the hair to get accurate results.MethodsIn this paper, we propose a simple yet efficient method for hair removal using a variational autoencoder without the need for paired samples. The encoder takes as input a dermoscopy image and builds a latent distribution that ignores hair as it is considered noise, while the decoder reconstructs a hair‐free image. Both encoder and decoder use a decent convolutional neural networks architecture that provides high performance. The construction of our model comprises two stages of training. In the first stage, the model has trained on hair‐occluded images to output hair‐free images, and in the second stage, it is optimized using hair‐free images to preserve the image textures. Although the variational autoencoder produces hair‐free images, it does not maintain the quality of the generated images. Thus, we explored the use of three‐loss functions including the structural similarity index (SSIM), L1‐norm, and L2‐norm to improve the visual quality of the generated images.ResultsThe evaluation of the hair‐free reconstructed images is carried out using t‐distributed stochastic neighbor embedding (SNE) feature mapping by visualizing the distribution of the real hair‐free images and the synthesized hair‐free images. The conducted experiments on the publicly available dataset HAM10000 show that our method is very efficient.
Dematiaceous fungal infections in solid organ transplantation: Systematic review and Bayesian meta‐analysis
Authors: Radcliffe Christopher , Radcliffe Andrew J. , Azar Marwan M. , Grant Matthew 
Published: March 2022

AbstractBackgroundDematiaceous fungi cause a number of infectious syndromes referred to as phaeohyphomycosis among both immunocompetent and immunocompromised hosts. We performed a systematic review to characterize these infections in solid organ transplant recipients (SOTR).MethodsWe searched PubMed database (last searched 1/6/2022) for English‐language reports on dematiaceous fungal infections in SOTR. Included reports needed individualized demographic, treatment, and outcome data; pediatric reports were excluded. A universally applicable bias assessment was performed on reports. Models for infection type and outcome were created using the Bayesian paradigm.ResultsWe included 149 reports on 201 cases of dematiaceous fungal infections in SOTR. The mean age was 54 years, 72% were men, and kidney recipients accounted for 61% of cases. Skin and soft tissue infection (SSTI) was the most common infectious syndrome (73%). Death from infection occurred in 7% of cases (14/201), with disseminated (32%) cases having the highest mortality. Our model for infection type predicted the relative probability of central nervous system infection to be highest in liver recipients. Across all transplant types, higher relative probabilities of disseminated and pulmonary infections occur in the early post‐transplant period, and the predicted probabilities for these infection types decreased after 100 months post‐transplantation.DiscussionWe identified SSTI as the most common dematiaceous fungal infections in SOTR. Disseminated infections carried the worst prognosis. The evidence in this review is limited by the heterogeneity of included cases. No funding source was used, and this review's protocol was not registered.
Mycoplasma hominis infections in solid organ transplant recipients: Clinical characteristics, treatment outcomes, and comparison of phenotypic and genotypic susceptibility profiles
Authors: Chang Sandy Y. , Price Travis K. , Beaird Omer E. , Gaynor Pryce T. , Schaenman Joanna M. , Carlson Margrit E. , Kubak Bernard M. , Yang Shangxin , Multani Ashrit 
Published: March 2022

AbstractBackgroundMycoplasma hominis can cause significant infections after solid organ transplantation (SOT). Treatment should be guided by susceptibility testing, but conventional lab methods are laborious with prolonged turnaround time (TAT). This case series compares the phenotypic and genotypic susceptibility profiles of M. hominis isolates identified from SOT patients.MethodsThis is a single‐center retrospective study evaluating SOT recipients with confirmed M. hominis infections. Patients’ demographic, clinical, microbiological, and radiographic data were collected. Culture of M. hominis isolates was performed according to current Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute guidelines. Phenotypic susceptibility testing was performed by University of Alabama Diagnostic Mycoplasma Laboratory. Whole genome sequencing (WGS) was performed followed by bioinformatic analysis of known genetic determinants of resistance.ResultsSeven SOT recipients with M. hominis infections were identified. Two out of seven (28.5%) patients had resistance detected by phenotypic susceptibility testing (Case 5 to levofloxacin and Case 7 to tetracycline). Genomic analyses confirmed the presence of mutations in the parC and parE topoisomerase genes at positions conferring to fluoroquinolone resistance in the isolate from Case 5, while the tetracycline‐resistant isolate from Case 7 harbored the tetM gene. The median TAT from the date of specimen collection was 24 days for phenotypic susceptibility testing and 14 days for genotypic susceptibility testing. All seven patients received antimicrobials directed toward M. hominis and recovered with complete resolution of infection.ConclusionsWGS may offer a novel and more rapid methodology for M. hominis susceptibility testing to help optimize antimicrobial usage, but more data are needed.