Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Identification and Validation of a New Source of Low Grain Cadmium Accumulation in Durum Wheat

Cadmium (Cd) is a heavy metal that has no known biological function and is toxic for many living organisms. The maximum level of Cd concentration allowed in the international market for wheat grain is 0.2 mg kg−1. Because phenotyping for Cd uptake is expensive and time consuming, molecular markers associated with genes conferring low Cd uptake would expedite selection and lead to the development of durum cultivars with reduced Cd concentrations. Here, we identified single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with a novel low Cd uptake locus in the durum experimental line D041735, which has hexaploid common wheat in its pedigree. Genetic analysis revealed a single major QTL for Cd uptake on chromosome arm 5BL within a 0.3 cM interval flanked by SNP markers. Analysis of the intervening sequence revealed a gene with homology to an aluminum-induced protein as a candidate gene. Validation and allelism tests revealed that the low Cd uptake gene identified in this study is different from the closely linked Cdu1-B gene, which also resides on 5BL. This study therefore showed that the durum experimental line D041735 contains a novel low Cd uptake gene that was likely acquired from hexaploid wheat.
Low-dose aspirin use and the risk of ovarian cancer in Denmark.

BACKGROUND A comprehensive body of evidence has shown that aspirin has cancer-preventive effects, particularly against gastrointestinal cancer, but its effects on the risk of ovarian cancer are less well established. This nationwide case-control study examined the association between low-dose aspirin and the risk of ovarian cancer. PATIENTS AND METHODS We identified all patients in the Danish Cancer Registry aged 30-84 years old with a histologically verified first diagnosis of epithelial ovarian cancer during 2000-2011. Each patient was sex- and age-matched to 15 population controls using risk-set sampling. Prescription use, comorbidity, reproductive history, and demographic characteristics data were obtained from nationwide registries. The use of low-dose (75-150 mg) aspirin was defined according to the dose as well as the duration and consistency of use. Conditional logistic regression was used to calculate odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for the association between low-dose aspirin use and the risk of epithelial ovarian cancer, both overall and for specific histological types. RESULTS For 4103 ovarian cancer cases and 58 706 population controls, the adjusted OR for epithelial ovarian cancer associated with ever use (≥2 prescriptions) of low-dose aspirin was 0.94 (95% CI 0.85-1.05). ORs for epithelial ovarian cancer were lower with the use of 150 mg aspirin tablets (OR = 0.82; 95% CI 0.68-0.99) and with long-term use (≥5 years) of low-dose aspirin (OR = 0.77; 95% CI 0.55-1.08). Continuous long-term use of low-dose aspirin, defined as close consecutive prescriptions, was associated with a further reduction in OR (0.56; 95% CI 0.32-0.97). For histological types of epithelial ovarian cancer, the strongest inverse associations with low-dose aspirin use were seen for mucinous and endometrioid tumours. CONCLUSION This nationwide case-control study indicates that low-dose aspirin use may be associated with a reduced risk of epithelial ovarian cancer.
Soil Moisture Retrieval From SMAP: A Validation and Error Analysis Study Using Ground-Based Observations Over the Little Washita Watershed

The newest soil moisture-dedicated satellite, the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission, provides global maps of soil moisture using concurrent L-band radar and radiometer acquisitions. To support the ongoing validation activities of SMAP soil moisture products, in this paper, we examined the retrieval accuracy of four SMAP soil moisture products by using well-calibrated and dense <italic>in situ</italic> measurements from the Little Washita Watershed network, one of the SMAP core validation sites with intensive ground sampling. The four SMAP products include the active (3 km), passive (36 km), active-passive (9 km), and the enhanced passive product which is a newly released soil moisture data set with a grid resolution of 9 km. Efforts on identifying the possible error sources of these products were also made for the purpose of improving the SMAP soil moisture algorithms. The results show that the passive and active-passive products can well capture the temporal dynamic of ground soil moisture with overall unbiased root-mean-square error (ubRMSE) values of 0.032 and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$0.041~\text {m}^{3}\cdot ~\text {m}^{-3}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>, respectively, which generally meet their mission requirement of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$0.04~\text {m}^{3}\cdot ~\text {m}^{-3}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>. In contrast, some irregular fluctuations exist in the active product, leading to an overall wet bias, which makes its accuracy a little poorer than its expected retrieval accuracy of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$0.06~\text {m}^{3}\cdot ~\text {m}^{-3}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>. The new enhanced passive product shows the lowest ubRMSE value of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$0.026 ~\text {m}^{3}\cdot ~\text {m}^{-3}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> though it underestimates <italic>in situ</italic> measurements with a bias of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$0.059 ~\text {m}^{3}\cdot ~\text {m}^{-3}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>, revealing its great potential to substitute the active-passive product to provide global soil moisture measurements at a medium resolution of 9 km. The underestimation of SMAP surface temperature data may be one of the reasons that contribute to the dry bias of SMAP passive, active-passive, and enhanced passive products. The microwave polarization difference index and HV-polarized backscatter show good response to <italic>in situ</italic> soil moisture and may be considered in SMAP algorithms to further improve the accuracy of soil moisture retrievals. We expect that our findings can be fed back to improve the SMAP soil moisture algorithms and thus promote the application of SMAP soil moisture products in terrestrial water, energy, and carbon cycles.
Co‐causation of reduced newborn size by maternal undernutrition, infections, and inflammation

Abstract More than 20 million babies are born with low birthweight annually. Small newborns have an increased risk for mortality, growth failure, and other adverse outcomes. Numerous antenatal risk factors for small newborn size have been identified, but individual interventions addressing them have not markedly improved the health outcomes of interest. We tested a hypothesis that in low‐income settings, newborn size is influenced jointly by multiple maternal exposures and characterized pathways associating these exposures with newborn size. This was a prospective cohort study of pregnant women and their offspring nested in an intervention trial in rural Malawi. We collected information on maternal and placental characteristics and used regression analyses, structural equation modelling, and random forest models to build pathway maps for direct and indirect associations between these characteristics and newborn weight‐for‐age Z‐score and length‐for‐age Z‐score. We used multiple imputation to infer values for any missing data. Among 1,179 pregnant women and their babies, newborn weight‐for‐age Z‐score was directly predicted by maternal primiparity, body mass index, and plasma alpha‐1‐acid glycoprotein concentration before 20 weeks of gestation, gestational weight gain, duration of pregnancy, placental weight, and newborn length‐for‐age Z‐score (p < .05). The latter 5 variables were interconnected and were predicted by several more distal determinants. In low‐income conditions like rural Malawi, maternal infections, inflammation, nutrition, and certain constitutional factors jointly influence newborn size. Because of this complex network, comprehensive interventions that concurrently address multiple adverse exposures are more likely to increase mean newborn size than focused interventions targeting only maternal nutrition or specific infections.
The GABAA receptor agonist muscimol induces an age- and region-dependent form of long-term depression in the mouse striatum

Several forms of long-term depression (LTD) of glutamatergic synaptic transmission have been identified in the dorsal striatum and in the nucleus accumbens (NAc). Such experience-dependent synaptic plasticity might play important roles in reward-related learning. The GABAA receptor agonist muscimol was recently found to trigger a long-lasting depression of glutamatergic synaptic transmission in the NAc of adolescent mice, but the mechanisms that underlie this novel form of LTD were not studied. Here we examined the effect of muscimol applied in the perfusion solution on the amplitude of field excitatory postsynaptic potentials/population spikes (fEPSP/PSs) in mouse brain slices. We found that muscimol depressed the fEPSP/PS in the NAc of adolescent mice but not adult mice, through both postsynaptic and presynaptic mechanisms. Indeed, muscimol altered the fEPSP/PS paired-pulse ratio, depolarized the membrane of projection neurons, and decreased the frequency, but not amplitude, of spontaneous excitatory postsynaptic currents in the NAc of adolescent mice. The LTD induced by muscimol likely involved endocannabinoids, metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs), but not TRPV1 receptors. Muscimol-LTD was occluded by prior induction of LTD through low-frequency stimulation (LFS) of the slice, demonstrating a common pathway in the induction of LFS-LTD and muscimol-LTD. We also found that muscimol induced a form of LTD in the dorsolateral striatum of adult but not adolescent mice. This LTD was mediated by endocannabinoids but did not involve mGluRs or TRPV1 receptors. These results identify a novel form of synaptic plasticity, and its mechanisms of induction, which is age and region dependent. These findings may contribute to a better understanding of the increased susceptibility of the adolescent brain to long-term synaptic changes in regions associated with reward mechanisms.
Measuring Multi-Channel Advertising Effectiveness Using Consumer-Level Advertising Response Data

Advances in data collection have made it increasingly easy to collect data on consumer-level purchases that are linked to those same customers’ advertising exposures. However, advances in advertising response modeling (i.e., marketing mix modeling) have lagged behind the availability of this granular data. Extending extant models to multi-channel consumer-level data, we develop a Bayesian Tobit model that can be used to measure the effectiveness of advertising exposures, while accommodating the typical sparsity of consumer-level response data. Building on the traditional ad-stock framework, we are able to differentially determine separate decay rates for each advertising medium. This allows us to estimate channel-specific shortand long-term effects of advertising. We demonstrate the applicability of our model on six data sets covering a variety of marketing platforms including television, online display, social media, e-mail and catalog. In each case, we show how the results provide insights into the interplay between different marketing channels in driving consumer response. We also illustrate how the model can be used to score and target individual customers on the basis of their advertising responsiveness, finding, in one case, that targeting the most responsive customers nearly doubles returns versus targeting the heavy purchasers.
Predicting Domain-Specific Health-Related Quality of Life Using Acute Infarct Volume

Background and Purpose— Limited data exist on the relationship between acute infarct volume and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) measures after ischemic stroke. We evaluated whether acute infarct volume predicts domain-specific Neuro-Quality of Life scores at 3 months after stroke. Methods— Between 2012 and 2014, we prospectively enrolled consecutive patients with ischemic stroke and calculated infarct volume. Outcome scores at 3 months included modified Rankin Scale and Neuro-Quality of Life T scores. We evaluated whether volume organized by quartiles predicted modified Rankin Scale and HRQOL scores at 3 months using logistic and linear regression as appropriate, adjusting for relevant covariates. We calculated variance accounted for (R2) overall and by volume for each domain of HRQOL. Results— Among 490 patients (mean age 64.2±15.86 years; 51.2% male; 63.3% White) included for analysis, 58 (11.8%) were disabled (modified Rankin Scale score of >2) at 3 months. In unadjusted analysis, the highest volume quartile remained a significant predictor of 1 HRQOL domain, applied cognition–general concerns (R2=0.06; P<0.001). Our fully adjusted prediction model explained 32% to 51% of the variance in HRQOL: upper extremity (R2=0.32), lower extremity (R2=0.51), executive function (R2=0.45), and general concerns (R2=0.34). Conclusions— Acute infarct volume is a poor predictor of HRQOL domains after ischemic stroke, with the exception of the cognitive domain. Overall, clinical and imaging variables explained <50% of the variance in HRQOL outcomes at 3 months. Our data imply that a broad range of factors, some known and others undiscovered, may better predict poststroke HRQOL than what is currently available.
More, less or both?

A 67-year-old Caucasian woman with no prior medical history was admitted to our hospital with complaints of generalised weakness, nausea, diarrhoea and weight loss. The patient suffered from tachycardia and hypotension. Blood tests revealed Graves’ thyrotoxicosis and the patient was treated accordingly. However, patient’s health continued to decline rapidly and further tests revealed a concomitant Addisonian crisis. Additional treatment with corticosteroids led to a full recovery. It is well known that autoimmune endocrine disorders tend to cluster. However, the presentation is usually sequential in time. This case reports the highly rare simultaneous presentation of Addison’s disease and Graves’ thyrotoxicosis. It also provides several suggestions to help establish the diagnoses.
Exploring the link between clinical managers involvement in budgeting and performance: Insights from the Italian public health care sector.

BACKGROUND The public health care sector has had an increase in initiatives, mostly inspired by New Public Management principles, aimed at assigning financial accountability to clinical managers. However, clinical managers might experience a scarce alignment between professional values and organizational requirements, which is a potentially important phenomena that may result in negative consequences on clinical managers' job performance. PURPOSES Building on Psychological Ownership Theory and adopting a psychology-based management accounting research approach, we focus on the managerial (nonmedical) role the clinical manager fulfills and explore the budgetary participation-performance link via the indirect effects of job-based psychological ownership, role clarity, and clinical managers' affective commitment toward managerial roles. METHODOLOGY/APPROACH The data were collected by a survey conducted in an Italian hospital. The research hypotheses were tested employing a path model. FINDINGS Our study revealed new insights that shed some light on underexplored processes through which mental states mediate the participation-performance link. Among these latter, the findings demonstrate that (a) budgetary participation has a direct effect on job-based psychological ownership; (b) role clarity mediates participation- and job-based psychological ownership link; (c) role clarity and job-based psychological ownership partially mediate the participation-commitment link; and (d) job-based psychological ownership, role clarity, and commitment fully mediate the participation-performance link. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS From a managerial viewpoint, an understanding of how clinical managers' feelings of ownership toward managerial roles could be enhanced is imperative in health care because ownership accounts for important attitudinal and organizational consequences. Results suggest that health care organizations that invest in budgetary participation will directly and indirectly affect clinical managers' psychological ownership, and this, along with role clarity, motivates clinical managers' managerial work attitudes and performance.
Forensically informative nucleotide sequencing (FINS) for the first time authentication of Indian Varanus species: implication in wildlife forensics and conservation

Abstract Monitor lizards are Varanus species widely distributed, endangered reptile in the IUCN red data list. In India, based on the morphological and ecological characteristic, it is divided into four species viz. Bengal monitor lizard, Yellow monitor lizard, Desert monitor lizard and Water monitor lizard. These four species listed as Schedule I species in Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972. This paper first attempt to present Forensically Informative Nucleotide Sequencing (FINS) for the Indian Varanus based on three mitochondrial genes. The molecular framework will be useful for the identification of Indian Varanus species and trade products derived from monitors and as such, have important applications for wildlife management and conservation. Here, we used known 14 individual skin pieces of four species of monitor lizards; the partial fragment of three mitochondrial genes (Cyt b, 12S rRNA, and 16S rRNA) were amplified for genetic study. In Cyt b, 12S rRNA and 16s rRNA, we observed, 5, 5 and 4 Haplotypes; 71, 69, and 43 Variables sites; 90, 89, and 50 Parsimony Informative sites within four species of Indian monitor lizards, respectively. Despite it, the nucleotide composition was T 26.4, C 32.8, A 29.2 and G11.6; T 18.8, C 29.7, A 34.0 and G 17.5; T 21.7, C 27.3, A 32.5 and G 18.5 in Cyt b, 12S rRNA and 16S rRNA, respectively. The neighbor joining phylogenetic tree and maximum parsimony tree of three mitochondrial genes, showed similar results and reveal that, there are two major clades are present in Indian monitor lizards.
Atrial Heterogeneity Generates Re-entrant Substrate during Atrial Fibrillation and Anti-arrhythmic Drug Action: Mechanistic Insights from Canine Atrial Models

Anti-arrhythmic drug therapy is a frontline treatment for atrial fibrillation (AF), but its success rates are highly variable. This is due to incomplete understanding of the mechanisms of action of specific drugs on the atrial substrate at different stages of AF progression. We aimed to elucidate the role of cellular, tissue and organ level atrial heterogeneities in the generation of a re-entrant substrate during AF progression, and their modulation by the acute action of selected anti-arrhythmic drugs. To explore the complex cell-to-organ mechanisms, a detailed biophysical models of the entire 3D canine atria was developed. The model incorporated atrial geometry and fibre orientation from high-resolution micro-computed tomography, region-specific atrial cell electrophysiology and the effects of progressive AF-induced remodelling. The actions of multi-channel class III anti-arrhythmic agents vernakalant and amiodarone were introduced in the model by inhibiting appropriate ionic channel currents according to experimentally reported concentration-response relationships. AF was initiated by applied ectopic pacing in the pulmonary veins, which led to the generation of localized sustained re-entrant waves (rotors), followed by progressive wave breakdown and rotor multiplication in both atria. The simulated AF scenarios were in agreement with observations in canine models and patients. The 3D atrial simulations revealed that a re-entrant substrate was typically provided by tissue regions of high heterogeneity of action potential duration (APD). Amiodarone increased atrial APD and reduced APD heterogeneity and was more effective in terminating AF than vernakalant, which increased both APD and APD dispersion. In summary, the initiation and sustenance of rotors in AF is linked to atrial APD heterogeneity and APD reduction due to progressive remodelling. Our results suggest that anti-arrhythmic strategies that increase atrial APD without increasing its dispersion are effective in terminating AF.
Childhood Exposure to Violence and Chronic Physical Conditions in a National Sample of US Adolescents

Objectives Exposure to violence is associated with chronic physical conditions in adults. Although violence exposure is common among youths, it is unknown whether violence is associated with chronic physical conditions in childhood and adolescence. We examined the associations of violence exposure with chronic physical conditions in a population-representative sample of US adolescents and determined whether associations were explained by co-occurring mental disorders. Methods Data were drawn from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication–Adolescent Supplement (NCS-A), a national cross-sectional survey of 6,483 adolescents (ages 13–17). Lifetime exposure to violence; Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition mood, anxiety, and substance disorders; and self-reported arthritis, frequent headaches, back or neck problems, other chronic pain, asthma, and allergies were assessed. Results One in 4 (24.99%) adolescents reported exposure to violence. Violence exposure was associated with elevated odds of back/neck pain, headaches, chronic pain, allergies, and asthma (odds ratio [OR], 1.5–2.1; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.1–3.5) after adjustment for sociodemographics, socioeconomic status, and lifetime mental disorders. Regarding new onsets, violence exposure was associated with greater hazard for subsequent first-onset only of back/neck pain (hazard ratio, 1.9; 95% CI, 1.2–3.0) and headaches (hazard ratio, 1.4; 95% CI, 1.1–1.8), and these associations were explained by early-onset mental disorders. Conclusions Childhood violence exposure is associated with chronic physical conditions that emerge early in the life course, although associations are stronger for prevalent than incident conditions. Violence exposure predicts incident pain conditions only, and these associations are explained by mental disorders that begin after violence exposure. Interventions and policies aimed at preventing violence and detecting and treating early-onset mental disorders have the potential to reduce morbidity, mortality, and health disparities beginning early in development.