bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Comparison of Power of Trend Tests for Toxicological Application Based on Dose–Response Profiles Enumerated Using a Nonparametric Algorithm
Authors: Farrar David 
Published: February 2022

Abstract
Tests for dose–response trend may be used to support conclusions on the toxicity of a substance in a range of doses evaluated in a comparative experiment. Criteria are proposed for evaluating and comparing alternative tests, and are applied in a comparison of certain tests applicable with continuous responses, namely, a multiplicity-adjusted pairwise comparison procedure, a trend test based on a single contrast, and four multiple-contrast trend tests. Methods considered treat dose as ordinal information. A particular focus was comparison of the simple test of a single contrast, with coefficients proportional to dose rank, with the multiple-contrast methods available with modern computing. To explore the role of the dose–response curve shape, regular dose–response shapes (or profiles), defined by the mean response for each dose level, using a simple grid-based algorithm were generated. Power for individual profiles may be used to illustrate the effect of curve shape on the power of alternative tests. To facilitate selection of tests, we report average power over profiles, averaging at different levels of granularity, first separately for each of several curve shape categories, and then over all profiles, weighting shape categories equally. Power results for the six tests evaluated at least provide clear distinctions between some procedures that are more-preferred, versus less-preferred. Our analyses expand the comparisons of tests available and contribute a methodology for choice of statistical methods for toxicological data analysis. Environ Toxicol Chem 2022;41:1754–1764. Published 2022. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.
Abstract
An approach is described for systematic exploration of a dose-response function space, and used to compare some statistical tests for application to toxicological data. Multiple contrast trend tests are compared to a single contrast trend test, and to a method of treated-versus-control pairwise statistical comparisons.
Handoff optimization for joint base station association and power control in uplink non‐orthogonal multiple access small cell networks
Authors: Pirnia Sina , Bakhshi Hamidreza , Dosaranian‐Moghadam Mohamad , Khosravi Ramin 
Published: February 2022

AbstractThis article investigates the handoff optimization in an uplink non‐orthogonal multiple access‐based small cell network (SCN) with successive interference cancellation that takes both the base station (BS) association and power control into consideration. Due to user mobility and varying communication environment, it is important to associate a user with the proper BS and control its transmit power by considering the user mobility for the SCNs. To overcome overly frequent re‐association and handoffs between BSs, a novel joint optimization of handoff, BS association, and total transmit power is presented that maximizes the system‐wide and handoff utilities and minimizes power consumption simultaneously. We define the handoff utility function by considering the BS association in each time frame with the previous time frame. Then, we formulate two inter‐related optimization problems under the minimum average‐rate and maximum allowable transmit power of mobile users (MUs) constraints. The designed optimization problems are combined through the weighted sum method into a single‐stage optimization problem. The transformed problem is solved by adopting the coalition formation game and primal decomposition theories. We design the coalition value function by collectively considering the handoff number of each BS in every time frame, transmit power of all MUs, and the number of associated MUs to every BS. The simulation results show the efficiency of the proposed handoff algorithm in comparison to another BS association algorithm in terms of the number of handoffs.
Cut finite element methods and ghost stabilization techniques for space‐time discretizations of the Navier–Stokes equations
Authors: Anselmann Mathias , Bause Markus 
Published: February 2022

AbstractWe propose and analyze computationally a new fictitious domain method, based on higher order space‐time finite element discretizations, for the simulation of the nonstationary, incompressible Navier–Stokes equations on evolving domains. The physical domain is embedded into a fixed computational mesh such that arbitrary intersections of the moving domain's boundaries with the background mesh occur. The potential of such cut finite element techniques for higher order space‐time finite element methods has rarely been studied in the literature so far and deserves further elucidation. The key ingredients of the approach are the weak formulation of Dirichlet boundary conditions by Nitsche's method, the flexible and efficient integration over all types of intersections of cells by moving boundaries and the spatial extension of the discrete physical quantities to the entire computational background mesh including fictitious (ghost) subdomains of fluid flow. Thereby, an expensive remeshing and adaptation of the sparse matrix data structure are avoided and the computations are accelerated. To prevent spurious oscillations caused by irregular intersections of mesh cells, a penalization, defining also implicitly the extension to ghost domains, is added. These techniques are embedded in an arbitrary order, discontinuous Galerkin discretization of the time variable and an inf‐sup stable discretization of the spatial variables. The parallel implementation of the matrix assembly is described. The optimal order convergence properties of the algorithm are illustrated in a numerical experiment for an evolving domain. The well‐known 2d benchmark of flow around a cylinder as well as flow around moving obstacles with arising cut cells and fictitious domains are considered further.
Subduction and carbonate platform interactions
Authors: Zahirovic Sabin , Eleish Ahmed , Doss Sebastiano , Pall Jodie , Cannon John , Pistone Mattia , Tetley Michael G. , Young Alex , Fox Peter 
Published: February 2022

AbstractPlate tectonics, as the unifying theory in Earth sciences, controls the functioning of important planetary processes on geological timescales. Here, we present an open‐source workflow that interrogates community digital plate tectonic reconstructions, primarily in the context of the planetary deep carbon cycle. We present an updated plate tectonic reconstruction covering the last 400 million years of Earth evolution and explore components of the plate–mantle system that is involved in the exchange and storage of carbon. First, the workflow enables us to estimate subduction zone lengths through time, which represent the “tap” of carbon that is released at convergent tectonic margins. Second, we explore the role of Andean‐style versus intra‐oceanic subduction regimes during Pangea assembly and breakup. Third, we provide an improved model for carbonate platform evolution since the Devonian and evaluate the interaction of subduction zones and buried carbonate platforms. Last, we present a new model for estimating oceanic age, carbon content in the upper oceanic crust, and estimated (carbon‐containing) sediment thicknesses through time and present methods to track the subduction of this material through time. These components of the deep carbon cycle are key mechanisms controlling, or at least modulating, atmospheric CO2 on geological timescales and hence strongly influencing long‐term climate. We find that the mid to Late Cretaceous greenhouse climates were likely driven by increased subduction fluxes of volatiles and increased subduction zone interactions with carbonate platforms in the Tethyan tectonic domain. Our work highlights the importance of community digital plate tectonic reconstructions as a framework for studying key systems, such as the deep carbon cycle, that influence the life‐support mechanisms on our planet.
Updatable dataset revealing decade changes in land cover types in Mongolia
Authors: Wang Juanle , Wei Haishuo , Cheng Kai , Ochir Altansukh , Shao Yating , Yao Jinyi , Wu Yuxin , Han Xuehua , Davaasuren Davaadorj , Chonokhuu Sonomdagva , Zhou Yezhi , Zhang Min , Cao Xiaoming , Gao Mengxu , Zhu Junxiang , Li Yifan , Li Qiong , Liang Xiya , Li Kai 
Published: February 2022

AbstractThe Mongolian Plateau (MP) is in the interior of Northeast Asia, far from the sea, and is extremely vulnerable to climate change and the deleterious effects of human activity. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) explicitly set land degradation neutrality (LDN) as one of the sub‐goals of the seventeen main tasks. However, achieving this goal in Mongolia, a country with a fragile and sensitive ecological environment and a lack of high‐precision land cover and land degradation monitoring data, is challenging. In this study, we established rules for remote sensing‐based land cover classification and reference threshold ranges based on an object‐oriented remote sensing interpretation method. Then, we obtained the refined land cover data of Mongolia from 1990, 2000, 2010 and 2020 with 30‐m resolution. The land cover classification of Mongolia comprises 11 categories: forest, meadow steppe, real steppe, desert steppe, barren, sand, desert, ice, water, cropland and built area. The overall classification accuracies, corresponding to the aforementioned data year, were 82.26%, 82.77%, 92.34% and 81.84%, respectively. We found that the land cover showed an apparent law of zonal gradual change. Among them, barren land, real steppe, desert steppe and forest were consistently the four major land cover types. Since the last 30 years, barren land areas present an overall decreasing trend, showing a trend of shrinking to the south. Overall, real steppe presents a wavelike decreasing trend, and desert steppe shows a fluctuating increasing trend. The forest area is relatively stable with no notable changes in spatial distribution. The dataset of this study fills the gaps in high‐resolution land cover data for Mongolia, and it can provide fundamental scientific data to support sustainable development in the MP.
LRRC8Ais dispensable for a variety of microglial functions and response to acute stroke
Authors: Cook James R. , Gray Anna L. , Lemarchand Eloise , Schiessl Ingo , Green Jack P. , Newland Mary C. , Dyer Douglas P. , Brough David , Lawrence Catherine B. 
Published: February 2022

AbstractMicroglia, resident brain immune cells, are critical in orchestrating responses to central nervous system (CNS) injury. Many microglial functions, such as phagocytosis, motility and chemotaxis, are suggested to rely on chloride channels, including the volume‐regulated anion channel (VRAC), but studies to date have relied on the use of pharmacological tools with limited specificity. VRAC has also been proposed as a drug target for acute CNS injury, and its role in microglial function is of considerable interest for developing CNS therapeutics. This study aimed to definitively confirm the contribution of VRAC in microglia function by using conditional LRRC8A‐knockout mice, which lacked the essential VRAC subunit LRRC8A in microglia. We demonstrated that while VRAC contributed to cell volume regulation, it had no effect on phagocytic activity, cell migration or P2YR12‐dependent chemotaxis. Moreover, loss of microglial VRAC did not affect microglial morphology or the extent of ischemic damage following stroke. We conclude that VRAC does not critically regulate microglial responses to brain injury and could be targetable in other CNS cell types (e.g., astrocytes) without impeding microglial function. Our results also demonstrate a role for VRAC in cell volume regulation but show that VRAC is not involved in several major cellular functions that it was previously thought to regulate, and point to other, alternative mechanisms of chloride transport in innate immunity.
Immunotherapy for the treatment of perineural spread in cutaneous head and neck squamous cell carcinoma: Time to rethink treatment paradigms
Authors: Nightingale James , Gandhi Mitesh , Helena Jonathan , Bowman James , McGrath Margaret , Coward Jermaine , Porceddu Sandro , Ladwa Rahul , Panizza Benedict 
Published: February 2022

AbstractBackgroundImmune checkpoint inhibitors have shown promising antitumour activity. Application in head and neck cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC) large nerve perineural spread (PNS) is limited.MethodsRetrospective review of 13 patients with PNS receiving anti‐PD‐1 therapy from September 2017 to May 2021 is presented. Primary endpoints were objective response (complete or partial response) and median time to progression, determined by Head and Neck Multi‐Disciplinary Team (MDT) and independent radiology review of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and/or computed tomography/positron emission tomography (CT/PET).ResultsObjective response was observed in 9/13 patients (69%), with complete response in 6 (46%) and partial response in 3 patients (23%). Median time to response was 2.1 months (IQR 1.8–2.7 months). There were 3 (23%) patients with progressive disease, with median time to progression of 3.5 months. There were no grade 3–4 treatment related adverse events.ConclusionsThis case series supports developing evidence for anti‐PD‐1 checkpoint inhibitor therapy for perineural spread, supporting future prospective clinical trials in this patient population.
Factors associated with catastrophic health care expenditure in South Wollo province, Ethiopia: A cross‐sectional study
Authors: Bogale Getahun Gebre , Kassa Ayesheshim Muluneh 
Published: February 2022

AbstractEthiopia is an underfinanced country when compared to the Sub‐Saharan average. Direct payment has a high account in Ethiopia and inhibits access to health services for the poor. We aimed to identify the factors associated with catastrophic health expenditure (CHE) in the South Wollo Zone, Ethiopia. A community‐based cross‐sectional study was conducted. A two‐stage sampling technique was used to get a total of 494 households. The data were entered using Epi data version 4.6 and analysed using STATA version 14.1 software for binary logistic regression analysis. A multivariable logistic regression analysis was done to identify the factors associated with CHE. The total magnitude of CHE was found to be 33.97% at the 10% threshold of total household expenditure and 14.98% at the 40% threshold of non‐food expenditure. Insured households (adjusted odds ratio = 0.02, 95% CI: 0.01–0.10) were statistically associated with CHE with total household and non‐food measures. Catastrophic health expenditure was found to be decreased among insured households and increased among households had children less than 5 years of age, members with chronic illness, and poor health status. Therefore, encouraging insurance and health promotion activities to improve the health status of the community are important.
Review of factors affecting canal water losses based on a meta‐analysis of worldwide data
Authors: Mutema Macdex , Dhavu Khumbulani 
Published: February 2022

AbstractIrrigation water conveyance relies heavily on canal networks because they transport the water cheaply. However, water losses are high, which is a major concern in the face of soaring demand and dwindling new water sources. While researchers have investigated canal water losses and water loss types at irrigation scheme level, their variability and the main factors of influence at a global scale are still not clear. Thus, this study aims to elucidate the effects of canal water flow and soil characteristics on water losses globally. Data for 1388 canal reaches from 45 published articles are used. The results confirm that evaporation is so negligibly smaller than seepage and other water loss types that it can safely be ignored when analysing major water losses from canals. The study results also confirm that canal water losses decrease with soil clay content, due to decreasing permeability. The methods used for assessing water losses show significant influence on water losses; for example, the inflow–outflow method exhibits significantly higher water losses than the ponding technique. The current study results also show that canal shape, wetted perimeter and wetted area have a significant influence on water losses. It can be concluded from the study results that consideration of the physical mechanisms of water losses and different water loss types involved is important in future studies. It is recommended that future canal water loss studies, especially those focusing on losses via evaporation, also assess the effects of factors such as canal embankment height and depth of freeboard on the losses. These results are important for water scientists, engineers and practitioners.
Clinical significance and influencing factors of carotid pulse wave velocity in patients with diabetic microangiopathy
Authors: An Xin , Li Yihan , Shi Shanshan , Ge Lili , Li Yuhong 
Published: February 2022

AbstractPurposeTo evaluate the utility of carotid ultrafast pulse wave velocity (PWV) and explore its influencing factors in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) microangiopathy.MethodsSeventy‐seven patients with T2DM were divided into two groups according to the absence (Group A, n = 45) or presence (Group B, n = 32) of microangiopathy. The control group comprised 1544 healthy volunteers. Two‐dimensional ultrasonography was used to measure intima‐media thickness (IMT) of the carotid arteries, and ultrafast ultrasound imaging was used to measure PWV of the carotid arteries at the beginning of systole (PWV‐BS) and the end of systole (PWV‐ES).ResultsThe IMT, PWV‐BS, and PWV‐ES were higher in the T2DM group than in the control group, and the values in T2DM Group B were higher than those in Group A. IMT was positively correlated with PWV‐BS and PWV‐ES. Age and uric acid were influencing factors of PWV‐ES, while age, uric acid, body mass index, glycated hemoglobin, and urine albumin/creatinine ratio were influencing factors of PWV‐BS. PWV‐ES was a more sensitive predictor than PWV‐BS, and a PWV‐ES critical value predicted carotid elasticity in patients with T2DM microangiopathy.ConclusionUltrafast PWV can reflect early atherosclerosis and provide a noninvasive assessment of microangiopathy in patients with T2DM.
The ADHD deficit in school performance across sex and parental education: A prospective sibling‐comparison register study of 344,152 Norwegian adolescents
Authors: Sunde Hans Fredrik , Kleppestø Thomas H. , Gustavson Kristin , Nordmo Magnus , Reme Bjørn‐Atle , Torvik Fartein Ask 
Published: February 2022

AbstractBackgroundAttention‐Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is associated with impaired school performance, but the impact of ADHD may vary across sex, family background, and school subjects. By using prospective population‐wide register data, we describe impairment in academic performance related to ADHD across different school subjects and investigate how this impairment differ across sex and parental education.MethodsWe examined grades and Grade Point Averages (GPA) at age ∼16 among 344,152 Norwegian children born between 1997 and 2002. We linked grades with diagnoses from publicly funded general practitioners and with demographic information. Associations between ADHD diagnosed between age 10 and 16 and school performance were estimated with linear models, including sibling‐models which control for unobserved variables shared within families.ResultsChildren with ADHD (4.0%) had −1.11 standard deviations lower GPAs compared to children without ADHD. This difference remained substantial after adjusting for demographic factors (−0.87), comorbid mental disorders (−0.82), early school performance (−0.54), and when comparing full siblings (−0.60). The relative ADHD deficit was 22% larger for girls than for boys and 39% larger for children with highly educated parents than for children of parents without completed high school, but the absolute deficit was smaller.ConclusionThe ADHD deficit in school performance was large and not easily attributable to other factors. Because the ADHD deficit was large in all school subjects, interventions should ideally address factors that affect school performance broadly, although targeting theoretical subjects specifically may be most effective given limited resources.
Modified photoactivated methylene blue‐incorporated quartz particles for dentin disinfection: A scanning electron microscope and spectroscopic analysis
Authors: Al‐Saleh Samar , Al Rifaiy Mohammed Q , Binhasan Mashael , Alhamdan Mai M , Vohra Fahim , Abduljabbar Tariq 
Published: February 2022

AbstractThe aim of this study was to synthesize methylene blue‐incorporated quartz particles (MB@QP) and to investigate its anti‐bactericidal properties. Methylene blue was incorporated inside QP and characterized for morphology and chemical structure using scanning electron microscope (SEM) and Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Specimens were randomly divided into experimental and control groups (n = 9/groups). The dentin specimen infected with Enterococcus faecalis was treated using different treatment modalities: Control groups: treatment with 5.25% of sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl) for 60 s; MB: treatment with 1 ml MB solution and incubated for 60 s; MB–PDT (photodynamic therapy): treatment with 1 ml MB solution followed by irradiation using diode laser for 60 s; MB‐QP‐PDT: specimens treated with MB@QP and irradiated by the diode laser for 60s, and Er,Cr:YSGG laser alone. MB@PDT therapy showed the highest efficacy in reducing the survival rate of E. faecalis (0.49%) in comparison to control NaOCl (0.78%) and Er,Cr:YSGG laser treatment (2.17%). Encapsulating MB into QP followed by the PDT significantly improved the bactericidal capacity and significantly reduced the bacterial survival rate to 0.11% (p < .05) compared to other groups. The combination of MB incorporated into QP and PDT could be an alternative treatment modality to conventional disinfection method for eliminating bacteria from the tooth dentin.Research highlights
Quartz particles are potent in delivering the photosensitizer.
Photoactivated MB@QP has a higher efficacy in eliminating bacteria from tooth dentin.