Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prevalence of an unusual hypoplastic defect of the permanent maxillary lateral incisor in great apes

In this article, I describe a previously unreported maxillary lateral incisor defect (MLID) of the enamel in great apes and evaluate potential general causes (genetic, systemic stress, or localized disturbance), as well as examine differences in prevalence among the represented taxa. This defect occurred only on the labial surface of the maxillary lateral incisor and extended from the cervical‐mesial quarter of the crown to the mesial edge of the cementoenamel junction (CEJ). The study sample consisted of 136 great ape specimens, including 41 gorillas, 25 chimpanzees, and 70 orangutans from the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History great ape collection. I used logistic regression to assess the prevalence of this defect in the sample and a binomial probability test for bilaterality. This defect of the maxillary lateral incisor is the second most common defect I observed in the study sample (30.1% of individuals affected), and was more likely to occur in individuals with linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH) and pit defects than those without these defects. Among specimens with both maxillary lateral incisors present, the defect was mostly bilateral. Pan and Pongo were significantly more likely to exhibit the defect than Gorilla. Between Pongo species, Pongo pygmaeus was significantly more likely to exhibit the defect than Pongo abelii. Between subspecies of Gorilla, although Gorilla gorilla gorilla exhibited the defect and Gorilla gorilla beringei did not, the difference was not significant. No sex differences were evident in this sample. The prevalence of this defect indicates it is not hereditary. The bilateral trend indicates a systemic cause, although the high inter‐tooth specificity suggests a local disturbance and a combination of both is possible.
Using an agent-based model to evaluate the effect of producer specialization on the epidemiological resilience of livestock production networks

An agent-based computer model that builds representative regional U.S. hog production networks was developed and employed to assess the potential impact of the ongoing trend towards increased producer specialization upon network-level resilience to catastrophic disease outbreaks. Empirical analyses suggest that the spatial distribution and connectivity patterns of contact networks often predict epidemic spreading dynamics. Our model heuristically generates realistic systems composed of hog producer, feed mill, and slaughter plant agents. Network edges are added during each run as agents exchange livestock and feed. The heuristics governing agents’ contact patterns account for factors including their industry roles, physical proximities, and the age of their livestock. In each run, an infection is introduced, and may spread according to probabilities associated with the various modes of contact. For each of three treatments—defined by one-phase, two-phase, and three-phase production systems—a parameter variation experiment examines the impact of the spatial density of producer agents in the system upon the length and size of disease outbreaks. Resulting data show phase transitions whereby, above some density threshold, systemic outbreaks become possible, echoing findings from percolation theory. Data analysis reveals that multi-phase production systems are vulnerable to catastrophic outbreaks at lower spatial densities, have more abrupt percolation transitions, and are characterized by less-predictable outbreak scales and durations. Key differences in network-level metrics shed light on these results, suggesting that the absence of potentially-bridging producer–producer edges may be largely responsible for the superior disease resilience of single-phase “farrow to finish” production systems.
Healthcare Claims Data: An Underutilized Tool for Pediatric Outpatient Antimicrobial Stewardship

Background. Healthcare claims are underutilized to identify factors associated with high outpatient antibiotic use. Methods. We evaluated ambulatory encounter claims of Medicaid-insured children in 34 Ohio counties in 2014. Rates of total antibiotic and azithromycin prescriptions dispensed were determined by county of patient residence. Standardized treatment rates by county were estimated for uncomplicated upper respiratory tract encounters (acute otitis media, pharyngitis, sinusitis, presumed viral infection) after adjusting for patient age and encounter provider type. Uncomplicated encounters included healthy children at initial presentation of illness. Adjusted odds of treatment were calculated for patient age, provider type, and county characteristics (rural vs metropolitan; poverty rate). Results. Retail pharmacies dispensed 255291 antibiotics to this cohort in 2014. More than 25% were to children <3 years. County rates of total antibiotic and azithromycin prescriptions dispensed were 530.4-1548.3 and 57.3-378.7 per 1000 person-years, respectively. Of 246866 uncomplicated upper respiratory tract encounters, antibiotics were dispensed (within 3 days) in 46.1%. Presumed viral infection accounted for 18.5% of antibiotics. Standardized treatment rates by county ranged widely from 35.9% (95% confidence interval [CI], 33.3%-38.5%) to 63.2% (95% CI, 61.5%-64.9%). Compared to encounters with pediatricians, adjusted odds ratio of treatment was 2.02 (95% CI, 1.96-2.07) for family physicians and 1.74 (95% CI, 1.68-1.79) for nurse practitioners. Residence in rural or high-poverty counties increased odds of treatment. Conclusions. Healthcare claims were useful to identify populations and providers with high antibiotic use. Claims data could be considered to track and report antibiotic prescribing frequency, especially where electronic medical records are not available.
New Estimates of the Sandwich Generation in the 2013 Panel Study of Income Dynamics

Purpose of the Study We use the Roster and Transfers Module in the 2013 Panel Study of Income Dynamics to obtain the first estimates of the prevalence of transfers to adult children and parents for United States men and women aged 35-75. Design and Methods This article extends the current understanding of the sandwich generation by comparing recent transfers of time and money to parents and adult children for men and women and across ages between 35 and 75 years of age. Results Over 30% of individuals with living parents and adult children provide transfers to two generations. The prevalence of transfers does not differ by age and the differences between men and women are small, though statistically significant. Conditional on providing time transfers, women provide more hours of help than men, particularly to their adult children. The number of hours given to children exceeds the number given to parents. Implications These findings are the first to show that both men and women are likely to provide transfers to two generations and that transfers to two generations are common across adult ages. Our findings suggest a need to rethink the notion of the sandwich generation, which has focused on women in late middle age, to include men and women across younger and older ages.
A 54.4–90 GHz Low-Noise Amplifier in 65-nm CMOS

This paper proposes a transformer-based broadband low-noise amplifier (LNA) for millimeter-wave application. The proposed LNA has four common-source stages. Three transformers are used to connect the drains of the former transistors and the sources of the following transistors to boost the transconductances of the following transistors. Thus, the gain of the circuit is effectively increased. In addition, the noise figure (NF) is decreased because the noise contributions of the following stages are further suppressed by the application of the transformers. To enhance the gain bandwidth, the gate inductor in each inter-stage matching network is independently adjusted to separate the main poles of the four stages. The LNA is demonstrated using a commercial 65-nm CMOS process. According to the measurement results, a maximum gain of 17.7 GHz at 67 GHz and a 3-dB gain bandwidth of 35.6 GHz are achieved. The measured NF is 5.4–7.4 dB at 54–67 GHz. The tested input 1-dB gain compression point (IP $_{1\,\text {dB}}$ ) ranges from −15.4 to −11.7 dBm in the entire 3-dB gain bandwidth. With 1-V power supply, the LNA consumes 19-mA dc current. The chip size is only 0.37 mm2 with all pads.
TECHNICAL ASPECTS OF LAPAROSCOPIC SLEEVE GASTRECTOMY

Background : The vertical gastrectomy indications for surgical treatment of morbid obesity have increased worldwide. Despite this increase, many aspects of surgical technique still remains in controversy. Aim : To contribute presenting surgical details in order to better realize the vertical gastrectomy technique in bariatric surgery. Methods : Technical systematization, patient preparation, positioning of the trocars, operative technique and postoperative care are presented in details. Results : During 12 months were enrolled 120 patients undergoing GV according to the technique described herein. The results are published in another ABCD article (ABCD 2015;28(Supl.1):61-64) in this same volume and number. Conclusion : The surgical technique proposed here presented itself viable and facilitating the surgeon's work on difficult points of the vertical gastrectomy.
Arousal Intensity is a Distinct Pathophysiological Trait in Obstructive Sleep Apnea.

STUDY OBJECTIVES Arousals from sleep vary in duration and intensity. Accordingly, the physiological consequences of different types of arousals may also vary. Factors that influence arousal intensity are only partly understood. This study aimed to determine if arousal intensity is mediated by the strength of the preceding respiratory stimulus, and investigate other factors mediating arousal intensity and its role on post-arousal ventilatory and pharyngeal muscle responses. METHODS Data were acquired in 71 adults (17 controls, 54 obstructive sleep apnea patients) instrumented with polysomnography equipment plus genioglossus and tensor palatini electromyography (EMG), a nasal mask and pneumotachograph, and an epiglottic pressure sensor. Transient reductions in CPAP were delivered during sleep to induce respiratory-related arousals. Arousal intensity was measured using a validated 10-point scale. RESULTS Average arousal intensity was not related to the magnitude of the preceding respiratory stimuli but was positively associated with arousal duration, time to arousal, rate of change in epiglottic pressure and negatively with BMI (R2 > 0.10, P ≤ 0.006). High (> 5) intensity arousals caused greater ventilatory responses than low (≤ 5) intensity arousals (10.9 [6.8-14.5] vs. 7.8 [4.7-12.9] L/min; P = 0.036) and greater increases in tensor palatini EMG (10 [3-17] vs. 6 [2-11]%max; P = 0.031), with less pronounced increases in genioglossus EMG. CONCLUSIONS Average arousal intensity is independent of the preceding respiratory stimulus. This is consistent with arousal intensity being a distinct trait. Respiratory and pharyngeal muscle responses increase with arousal intensity. Thus, patients with higher arousal intensities may be more prone to respiratory control instability. These findings are important for sleep apnea pathogenesis.
Towards Knowledge Discovery from the Vatican Secret Archives. In Codice Ratio - Episode 1: Machine Transcription of the Manuscripts.

In Codice Ratio is a research project to study tools and techniques for analyzing the contents of historical documents conserved in the Vatican Secret Archives (VSA). In this paper, we present our efforts to develop a system to support the transcription of medieval manuscripts. The goal is to provide paleographers with a tool to reduce their efforts in transcribing large volumes, as those stored in the VSA, producing good transcriptions for significant portions of the manuscripts. We propose an original approach based on character segmentation. Our solution is able to deal with the dirty segmentation that inevitably occurs in handwritten documents. We use a convolutional neural network to recognize characters, and statistical language models to compose word transcriptions. Our approach requires minimal training effort, making the transcription process more scalable, as the production of training sets requires a few pages and can be easily crowdsourced. We have conducted experiments on manuscripts from the Vatican Registers, an unreleased corpus containing the correspondence of the popes. With training data produced by 120 high school students, our system has been able to produce good transcriptions that can be used by paleographers as a solid basis to speedup the transcription process at a large scale.
Cognitive Structure, Flexibility, and Plasticity in Human Multitasking—An Integrative Review of Dual-Task and Task-Switching Research

Numerous studies showed decreased performance in situations that require multiple tasks or actions relative to appropriate control conditions. Because humans often engage in such multitasking activities, it is important to understand how multitasking affects performance. In the present article, we argue that research on dual-task interference and sequential task switching has proceeded largely separately using different experimental paradigms and methodology. In our article we aim at organizing this complex set of research in terms of three complementary research perspectives on human multitasking. One perspective refers to structural accounts in terms of cognitive bottlenecks (i.e., critical processing stages). A second perspective refers to cognitive flexibility in terms of the underlying cognitive control processes. A third perspective emphasizes cognitive plasticity in terms of the influence of practice on human multitasking abilities. With our review article we aimed at highlighting the value of an integrative position that goes beyond isolated consideration of a single theoretical research perspective and that broadens the focus from single experimental paradigms (dual task and task switching) to favor instead a view that emphasizes the fundamental similarity of the underlying cognitive mechanisms across multitasking paradigms.
SLC11A1 (Formerly NRAMP1) gene polymorphisms associated with pediatric tuberculosis in China.

BACKGROUND Tuberculosis is an urgent public health problem caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection. Many factors, including host genetic factors, are involved in tuberculosis pathogenesis. The SLC11A1 gene (formerly NRAMP1) is a primary candidate for association with tuberculosis susceptibility. METHODS We examined the association between SLC11A1 polymorphisms and susceptibility to tuberculosis in Han Chinese children. The study included 136 pediatric patients with tuberculosis and 435 pediatric control subjects. Polymerase chain reaction restriction fragment-length polymorphism analysis was performed with blood samples to distinguish allele genotypes of INT4 (a G-->C single nucleotide change in intron 4, 469 + 14G/C) and the 3'UTR (TGTG deletion in the 3' untranslated region, 1729 + 55del) in the SLC11A1 gene. Differences in genotype frequency were analyzed for patients with tuberculosis and control subjects. RESULTS We did not identify any statistically significant differences between the tuberculosis and control groups with regard to the frequency of genotype variants G/C and C/C at the INT4 locus. The frequency of genotype variants (TGTG +/delete and TGTG delete/delete) was significantly higher in the tuberculosis group than in the control group at the 3'UTR locus. Differences in genotype distribution at the 3'UTR locus were only identified in female subjects, with a greater number of variant genotypes in the tuberculosis group. CONCLUSIONS Variant genotypes at the 3'UTR locus in the SLC11A1 gene were associated with pediatric tuberculosis in Chinese patients. Patient sex may affect the outcome of M. tuberculosis infection in children.
Evaluation of the impact of anthropogenic activities on arsenic, cadmium, chromium, mercury, lead, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon levels in seafood from the Gulf of Naples, Italy

ABSTRACT The principal aim of this study was to monitor the occurrence of some metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in fish and mussels from the Gulf of Naples. A comparison with previous researches of the same area was carried out, and the intakes of these compounds through the diet and their effect on the tolerable intake values (when available) were assessed. Cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), and lead (Pb) were detected by flameless atomic absorption spectroscopy (Cd, Cr, and Pb); arsenic (As) and mercury (Hg) were detected by applying the hydride method. PAHs were detected by high-performance liquid chromatography. Widespread contamination was found. Among the metals, Hg showed the highest maximum levels of 284.94 ng/g wet weight (ww) in fish and 480.00 ng/g ww in mussels. Chrysene, phenanthrene, fluoranthene, anthracene, and benzo[k]fluoranthene were the most common PAHs in fish, whereas benzo[a]anthracene, pyrene, phenanthrene, acenaphthylene, and acenaphthene were the most frequently occurring compounds in mussels. The concentrations of As, Cr, Hg, Pb, and PAHs in fish were found to decrease over a period of 30 years, whereas the Cd levels remained constant. The Hg, Pb, and PAH levels in mussels increased over the period 2010 to 2016. Finally, the average consumption of mussels led to the highest effect on the Tolerable Daily Intake of Hg, which was exceeded by 19%.
Dopamine D2 Receptors in Dopaminergic Neurons Modulate Performance in a Reversal Learning Task in Mice

Abstract Neuroimaging studies in animal models and human subjects have each revealed that relatively low striatal dopamine D2-like receptor binding potential is associated with poor impulse control and with vulnerability for addiction-related behaviors. These studies cannot, however, disambiguate the roles for various pools of D2 receptors found in the striatum (e.g., those expressed on medium spiny striato-pallidal neurons vs on dopamine-releasing nerve terminals) in these behavioral outcomes. To clarify the role of the latter pool, namely, D2 autoreceptors, we studied mice carrying a conditional DRD2 gene, with or without Cre-recombinase expressed under the transcriptional control of the dopamine transporter gene locus (autoDrd2-KO, n = 19 and controls, n = 21). These mice were tested for locomotor response to cocaine, and spatial reversal learning was assessed in operant conditioning chambers. As predicted, compared to control mice, autoDrd2-KO animals demonstrated heightened sensitivity to the locomotor stimulating effect of cocaine (10 mg/kg, i.p.), confirming previous research using a similar genetic model. In the spatial reversal learning task, autoDrd2-KO mice were slower to reach a learning criterion and had difficulty sustaining a prolonged nose poke response, measurements conceptually related to impaired response inhibition. Rate of learning of the initial discrimination and latencies to collect rewards, to initiate trials and to produce a response were unaffected by genetic deletion of D2 autoreceptors, discarding possible motor and motivational factors. Together, these findings confirm the role of D2 autoreceptors in reversal learning and suggest a broader involvement in behavioral inhibition mechanisms.
Dietary Patterns Are Associated with Cardiovascular and Cancer Mortality among Swiss Adults in a Census-Linked Cohort

Defining dietary guidelines requires a quantitative assessment of the influence of diet on the development of diseases. The aim of the study was to investigate how dietary patterns were associated with mortality in a general population sample of Switzerland. We included 15,936 participants from two population-based studies (National Research Program 1A (NRP1A) and Monitoring of Trends and Determinants in Cardiovascular Disease (MONICA)—1977 to 1993) who fully answered a simplified 24-h dietary recall. Mortality data were available through anonymous record linkage with the Swiss National Cohort (follow-up of up to 37.9 years). Multiple correspondence analysis and hierarchical clustering were used to define data-driven qualitative dietary patterns. Mortality hazard ratios were calculated for all-cause, cancer and cardiovascular mortality using Cox regression. Two patterns were characterized by a low dietary variety (“Sausage and Vegetables”, “Meat and Salad”), two by a higher variety (“Traditional”, “High-fiber foods”) and one by a high fish intake (“Fish”). Males with unhealthy lifestyle (smokers, low physical activity and high alcohol intake) were overrepresented in the low-variety patterns and underrepresented in the high-variety and “Fish” patterns. In multivariable-adjusted models, the “Fish” (hazard ratio = 0.82, 95% CI (0.68–0.99)) and “High-fiber foods” (0.85 (0.72–1.00)) patterns were associated with lower cancer mortality. In men, the “Fish” (0.73 (0.55–0.97)) and “Traditional” (0.76 (0.59–0.98)) patterns were associated with lower cardiovascular mortality. In summary, our results support the notion that dietary patterns affect mortality and that these patterns strongly cluster with other health determinants.
Nocturnal activation of melatonin receptor type 1 signaling modulates diurnal insulin sensitivity via regulation of PI3K activity

Recent genetic studies have highlighted the potential involvement of melatonin receptor 1 (MT1) and melatonin receptor 2 (MT2) in the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes. Here, we report that mice lacking MT1 (MT1 KO) tend to accumulate more fat mass than WT mice and exhibit marked systemic insulin resistance. Additional experiments revealed that the main insulin signaling pathway affected by the loss of MT1 was the activation of phosphatidylinositol‐3‐kinase (PI3K). Transcripts of both catalytic and regulatory subunits of PI3K were strongly downregulated within MT1 KO mice. Moreover, the suppression of nocturnal melatonin levels within WT mice, by exposing mice to constant light, resulted in impaired PI3K activity and insulin resistance during the day, similar to what was observed in MT1 KO mice. Inversely, administration of melatonin to WT mice exposed to constant light was sufficient and necessary to restore insulin‐mediated PI3K activity and insulin sensitivity. Hence, our data demonstrate that the activation of MT1 signaling at night modulates insulin sensitivity during the day via the regulation of the PI3K transcription and activity. Lastly, we provide evidence that decreased expression of MTNR1A (MT1) in the liver of diabetic individuals is associated with poorly controlled diabetes.