Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prevention of Alzheimer's Disease: Lessons Learned and Applied

Alzheimer's disease (AD) affects more than 5 million Americans, with substantial consequences for individuals with AD, families, and society in terms of morbidity, mortality, and healthcare costs. With disease‐modifying treatment trials unsuccessful at the present time and only medications to treat symptoms available, an emerging approach is prevention. Advances in diagnostic criteria, biomarker development, and greater understanding of the biophysiological basis of AD make these initiatives feasible. Ongoing pharmacological trials using anti‐amyloid therapies are underway in sporadic and genetic forms of AD, although a large number of modifiable risk factors for AD have been identified in observational studies, many of which do not appear to exert effects through amyloid or tau. This suggests that prevention studies focusing on risk reduction and lifestyle modification may offer additional benefits. Rather than relying solely on large‐sample, long‐duration, randomized clinical trial designs, a precision medicine approach using N‐of‐1 trials may provide more‐rapid information on whether personalized prevention plans can improve person‐centered outcomes. Because there appear to be multiple pathways to developing AD, there may also be multiple ways to prevent or delay the onset of AD. Even if these precision approaches alone are not successful in preventing AD, they may greatly improve the likelihood of amyloid‐ or tau‐specific therapies to reach their endpoints by reducing comorbidities. Keeping this in mind, dementia may be a disorder that develops over a lifetime, with individualized ways to build a better brain as we age.
Injuries in Cricket

Context: Cricket is a popular global sport that requires a combination of physical fitness, skill, and strategy. Although a noncontact sport, overuse and impact injuries are common since players engage in a wide range of physical activities, including running, throwing, batting, bowling, catching, and diving. Significant or match time-loss injuries are defined as those that either prevent a player from being fully available for selection in a major match, or during a major match, cause a player to be unable to bat, bowl, or keep wicket when required by either the rules or the team’s captain. This review describes the various region-wise injuries sustained in cricket along with their epidemiology, biomechanics, treatment, and prevention. Evidence Acquisition: Data were collected from peer-reviewed articles (obtained via PubMed search) published through November 2016 that involved the medical, biomechanical, and epidemiological aspects of cricket injuries. Study Design: Clinical review. Level of Evidence: Level 4. Results: Cricket was one of the first sports to publish recommended methods for injury surveillance in 2005 from England, South Africa, Australia, the West Indies, and India. While the incidence of injuries is about the same, the prevalence of injuries has increased due to game format changes, increasing number of matches played, and decreased rest between matches. Bowling (41.3%), fielding, and wicket keeping (28.6%) account for most injuries. Acute injuries are most common (64%-76%), followed by acute-on-chronic (16%-22.8%) and chronic ones (8%-22%). The most common modern-day cricket injury is hamstring strain, and the most severe is lumbar stress fracture in young fast bowlers. Conclusion: With improved understanding of the scientific and medical aspects of cricket, along with advances in surgical and nonsurgical treatment techniques, the time to return to play has shortened considerably. While the prevalence of cricket injuries has increased, their severity has decreased over the past decades.
Genome-wide CRISPR screen identifies HNRNPL as a prostate cancer dependency regulating RNA splicing

Significance Alternative RNA splicing and the spliceosome machinery have been implicated in cancer progression. A genome-wide CRISPR screen identified the RNA processing factor heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein L (HNRNPL) as required for prostate cancer growth by regulating alternative RNA splicing and circular RNA formation. HNRNPL and its RNA clients are overexpressed during prostate cancer progression, supporting their potential role as therapeutic targets. Alternative RNA splicing plays an important role in cancer. To determine which factors involved in RNA processing are essential in prostate cancer, we performed a genome-wide CRISPR/Cas9 knockout screen to identify the genes that are required for prostate cancer growth. Functional annotation defined a set of essential spliceosome and RNA binding protein (RBP) genes, including most notably heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein L (HNRNPL). We defined the HNRNPL-bound RNA landscape by RNA immunoprecipitation coupled with next-generation sequencing and linked these RBP–RNA interactions to changes in RNA processing. HNRNPL directly regulates the alternative splicing of a set of RNAs, including those encoding the androgen receptor, the key lineage-specific prostate cancer oncogene. HNRNPL also regulates circular RNA formation via back splicing. Importantly, both HNRNPL and its RNA targets are aberrantly expressed in human prostate tumors, supporting their clinical relevance. Collectively, our data reveal HNRNPL and its RNA clients as players in prostate cancer growth and potential therapeutic targets.
A customised cold-water immersion protocol favours one-size-fits-all protocols in improving acute performance recovery

Abstract The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether a customised cold-water immersion (CWIc) protocol was more effective in enhancing acute performance recovery than a one-size-fits-all CWI (CWIs) or active recovery (AR) protocol. On three separate testing days, 10 healthy, physically active, non-smoking males completed the same fatiguing protocol (60 squat jumps and a 2′30″ all-out cycling time-trial) followed by CWIc (12°C, 10–17 min), CWIs (15°C, 10 min) or AR (60 W, 10 min). Outcome measures to assess acute recovery were heart rate variability (HRV) as HRVrecovery, muscle power (MP) as absolute and relative decline, and muscle soreness (MS) at 0 and 24 h. HRVrecovery for CWIc was significantly higher compared to CWIs (p = .026, r = 0.74) and AR (p = .000, r = 0.95). The relative decline in MP after CWIc was significantly lower than after CWIs (p = .017, r = 0.73). MS 0 h and MS 24 h post-intervention were not different after CWIc compared to CWIs and AR (p > .05). The findings of the present study demonstrated that CWIc outperforms CWIs and AR in the acute recovery of cardiovascular (HRV) and CWIs in neuromuscular (MP) performance with no differences in MS. To optimise the effects of CWI, contributions of the protocol duration and water temperature should be considered to guarantee an optimal customised dose.
Toward better measurement: The role of survey marginalia in critical sexuality research

Comments left by participants in the margins of a survey are commonly ignored during data analysis. Rather than overlook these marginalia, we describe a qualitative analysis of the notes, underlines, and cross-outs left by participants in the margins of the Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI; Rosen et al., 2000). Participants who were diagnosed with late stage breast cancer had taken the FSFI as part of a larger multimethod quality of life study. In our analysis, we identify 3 categories to analyze the 136 instances of marginalia left next to FSFI items: clarifications, corrections, and noting items as “not applicable. ” Using these marginalia as guidance, we developed a modified scoring procedure for the FSFI that accounted for those participants who marked items as “not applicable” in their marginalia but would have been dropped from analysis due to missing data. We offer guidelines for researchers interested in analyzing marginalia as a means to incorporate and amplify participant feedback in survey research design. This is especially important when even well-validated instruments are used to make, for example, clinical diagnoses and treatment decisions, but do not adequately account for participants’ lives. Studies of marginalia enable qualitatively derived insights to be effectively incorporated into survey methodology, enabling us to better attend to the ways participants communicate and share their lives with us over the course of any study.
Cognate effects and cognitive control in patients with parallel and differential bilingual aphasia.

BACKGROUND Until today, there is no satisfying explanation for why one language may recover worse than another in differential bilingual aphasia. One potential explanation that has been largely unexplored is that differential aphasia is the consequence of a loss of language control rather than a loss of linguistic representations. Language control is part of a general control mechanism that also manages non-linguistic cognitive control. If this system is impaired, patients with differential aphasia could still show bilingual language activation, but they may be unable to manage activation in non-target languages, so that performance in another language is hindered. AIMS To investigate whether a loss of cognitive control, rather than the loss of word representations in a particular language, might underlie differential aphasia symptoms. METHODS & PROCEDURES We compared the performance of seven bilinguals with differential and eight bilinguals with parallel aphasia with 19 control bilinguals in a lexical decision and a flanker task to assess bilingual language co-activation and non-linguistic control respectively. OUTCOMES & RESULTS We found similar cognate effects in the three groups, indicating similar lexical processing across groups. Additionally, we found a larger non-linguistic control congruency effect only for the patients with differential aphasia. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS The present data indicate preserved language co-activation for patients with parallel as well as differential aphasia. Furthermore, the results suggest a general cognitive control dysfunction, specifically for differential aphasia. Taken together, the results of the current study provide further support for the hypothesis of impaired cognitive control abilities in patients with differential aphasia, which has both theoretical and practical implications.
Bariatric Surgery in Adolescents: Is Routine Nutrient Supplementation Sufficient to Avoid Anemia Following Bariatric Surgery?

Background: Anemia following bariatric surgery is a known complication. To prevent nutrient deficiencies, adolescents require multivitamin/mineral supplementation following bariatric surgery. The purpose of this study was to investigate if routine multivitamin/mineral supplementation is sufficient to prevent anemia in adolescents undergoing bariatric surgery, particularly sleeve gastrectomy (SG), a procedure that may induce nutrient malabsorption. Methods: We conducted a retrospective review of pediatric patients who underwent SG (34 patients) and laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding (LAGB) (141 patients) (January 2006 through December 2013). We examined anemia marker levels (iron, ferritin, folate, B12, hemoglobin, and hematocrit) at first visit and 3, 6, and 12 months postsurgery by repeated-measures analysis adjusting for weight loss. Results: Following SG, folate levels decreased 3 and 6 months postsurgery but returned to baseline levels at 12 months. Furthermore, the SG group demonstrated lower folate levels compared with LAGB at 3 and 6 months. B12 levels decreased 6 months post-SG but returned to baseline at 12 months. Following LAGB, B12 levels decreased 12 months postsurgery compared with baseline. Ferritin levels decreased 3 months post-LAGB but returned to baseline levels at 6 months. There were no changes within groups or differences between groups in iron, hemoglobin, or hematocrit. Conclusions: While anemia did not occur in any patients while on recommended routine supplementation, folate levels were significantly reduced following SG and were lower in SG compared with LAGB patients. Additional folate supplementation seemed to improve folate levels, which highlights the importance of ongoing surveillance by primary care providers and the need for additional folate supplementation following SG.
Long‐term anesthetic protocol in rats: feasibility in electrophysiology studies in visual prosthesis

Electrical stimulation of excitable cells provides therapeutic benefits for a variety of medical conditions, including restoration of partial vision to those blinded via some types of retinal degeneration. To improve visual percepts elicited by the current technology, researchers are conducting acute electrophysiology experiments, mainly in cats. However, the rat can provide a model of a range of retinal diseases and possesses a sufficiently large eye to be used in this field. This article presents a long-term anesthetic protocol to enable electrophysiology experiments to further the development of visual prostheses. Six Long-Evans rats (aged between 14 and 16 weeks) were included in this study. Surgical anesthesia was maintained for more than 15 h by combining constant intravenous infusion of ketamine (24.0-34.5 mg/kg/h), xylazine (0.9-1.2 mg/kg/h), and inhaled isoflurane in oxygen (<0.5%). Overall heart rate, respiratory rate, and body temperature remained between 187-233 beats/min, 45-58 breaths/min, and 36-38 °C, respectively. Neural responses to 200-ms light pulses were recorded from the superior colliculus using a 32-channel neural probe at the beginning and before termination of the experiment. Robust responses were recorded from distinct functional types of retinal pathways. In addition, a platinum electrode was implanted in the retrobulbar space. The retina was electrically stimulated, and the activation threshold was determined to be 5.24 ± 0.24 μC/cm2 . This protocol may be used not only in the field of visual prosthesis research, but in other research areas requiring longer term acute experiments.
Impacts of a Severe Drought on Grassland Birds in Western North Dakota.

We studied the effect of a severe drought on the population dynamics and community structure of grassland birds in western North Dakota. During the spring and summer of 1988 the northern Great Plains suffered one of the warmest, driest periods in its recorded history. We compared the changes in bird populations and nesting productivity over a 3-yr period before, during, and after the drought. Total grassland bird density declined 61% (P < .05) between June 1987 and June 1988. Densities of six of eight common species declined significantly during the drought. Populations of all but two species recovered in 1989 and total bird density in June 1989 did not differ significantly from June 1987. Species richness and species diversity both declined significantly during the drought and recovered to predrought levels in 1989. Species richness declined more on fair condition than on good condition range during the drought. Vesper Sparrow (Pooecetes gramineus) hatching success, number of young fledged per successful nest, and nesting success were significantly lower in 1988 than either 1987 or 1989. Clutch size did not differ among the three years. The decline in nesting success in 1988 was primarily due to nest abandonment during incubation. Nesting of Vesper Sparrows, Horned Larks (Eremophila alpestris), and Western Meadowlarks (Sturnella neglecta) ended abruptly in mid-June 1988 during a period of extremely hot weather. In 1987 and 1989, nesting continued into July. Despite substantial reductions in bird density and productivity during the drought, many species recovered to predrought levels 1 yr following the drought. This suggests that year-to-year fluctuations in densities of some of these species may not be tightly linked to short-term changes in local productivity. However, sequential years of low productivity may have more substantial effects on these short-lived species. Thus, if drought conditions in North American grasslands become more frequent, as some climate models predict, there could be related changes in the avifauna of the region.
Comparison of models for analyzing two-group, cross-sectional data with a Gaussian outcome subject to a detection limit

A potential difficulty in the analysis of biomarker data occurs when data are subject to a detection limit. This detection limit is often defined as the point at which the true values cannot be measured reliably. Multiple, regression-type models designed to analyze such data exist. Studies have compared the bias among such models, but few have compared their statistical power. This simulation study provides a comparison of approaches for analyzing two-group, cross-sectional data with a Gaussian-distributed outcome by exploring statistical power and effect size confidence interval coverage of four models able to be implemented in standard software. We found using a Tobit model fit by maximum likelihood provides the best power and coverage. An example using human immunodeficiency virus type 1 ribonucleic acid data is used to illustrate the inferential differences in these models.
Cheatgrass is favored by warming but not CO2 enrichment in a semi‐arid grassland

Elevated CO2 and warming may alter terrestrial ecosystems by promoting invasive plants with strong community and ecosystem impacts. Invasive plant responses to elevated CO2 and warming are difficult to predict, however, because of the many mechanisms involved, including modification of phenology, physiology, and cycling of nitrogen and water. Understanding the relative and interactive importance of these processes requires multifactor experiments under realistic field conditions. Here, we test how free‐air CO2 enrichment (to 600 ppmv) and infrared warming (+1.5 °C day/3 °C night) influence a functionally and phenologically distinct invasive plant in semi‐arid mixed‐grass prairie. Bromus tectorum (cheatgrass), a fast‐growing Eurasian winter annual grass, increases fire frequency and reduces biological diversity across millions of hectares in western North America. Across 2 years, we found that warming more than tripled B. tectorum biomass and seed production, due to a combination of increased recruitment and increased growth. These results were observed with and without competition from native species, under wet and dry conditions (corresponding with tenfold differences in B. tectorum biomass), and despite the fact that warming reduced soil water. In contrast, elevated CO2 had little effect on B. tectorum invasion or soil water, while reducing soil and plant nitrogen (N). We conclude that (1) warming may expand B. tectorum's phenological niche, allowing it to more successfully colonize the extensive, invasion‐resistant northern mixed‐grass prairie, and (2) in ecosystems where elevated CO2 decreases N availability, CO2 may have limited effects on B. tectorum and other nitrophilic invasive species.
Enhanced glycolysis, regulated by HIF-1&agr; via MCT-4, promotes inflammation in arsenite-induced carcinogenesis

Arsenite is well established as a human carcinogen, but the molecular mechanisms leading to arsenite-induced carcinogenesis are complex and elusive. Accelerated glycolysis, a common process in tumor cells called the Warburg effect, is associated with various biological phenomena. However, the role of glycolysis induced by arsenite is unknown. We have found that, with chronic exposure to arsenite, L-02 cells undergo a metabolic shift to glycolysis. In liver cells exposed to arsenite, hypoxia inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) and monocarboxylate transporter-4 (MCT-4) are over-expressed. MCT-4, directly mediated by HIF-1α, maintains a high level of glycolysis, and the enhanced glycolysis promotes pro-inflammatory properties, which are involved in arsenite carcinogenesis. In addition, serum lactate and cytokines are higher in arsenite-exposed human populations, and there is a positive correlation between them. Moreover, there is a positive relationship between lactate and cytokines with arsenic in hair. In sum, these findings indicate that MCT-4, mediated by HIF-1α, enhances the glycolysis induced by arsenite. Lactate, the end product of glycolysis, is released into the extracellular environment. The acidic microenvironment promotes production of pro-inflammatory cytokines, which contribute to arsenite-induced liver carcinogenesis. These results provide a link between the induction of glycolysis and inflammation in liver cells exposed to arsenite, and thus establish a previously unknown mechanism for arsenite-induced hepatotoxicity.
Foraging Ecology of Bison and Cattle on a Mixed Prairie: Implications for Natural Area Management.

There exists considerable uncertainty whether differences between bison () and cattle (Bos taurus) should be exploited in natural area stewardship. Because foraging ecology may prescribe the fundamental relevance of either herbivore, we describe the foraging of bison and cattle on a northern mixed prairie natural area and discuss management implications. As generalist foragers, bison and cattle exhibited seasonal differences in selection for or against C"3 graminoids, C"4 grasses, forbs, and browse. Forty-eight hour in vitro dry matter digestibilities of C"3 graminoids and C"4 grasses were greater by bison than cattle, but equal digestive efficiencies were exhibited for forbs and browse. Dietary in vitro dry matter digestibility and crude protein differed little between herbivores. Cattle allocated more time to grazing than bison did during summer. Our study suggests that the relationship between feeding-time investment and forage patchiness is important in determining differences in diet choice between bison and cattle. In contrast to cattle, it appears that bison balance nutrient and time demands during the rut by consuming almost exclusively graminoids. Apparently, bison and cattle may achieve similar dietary quality through different foraging behavior. We suggest that specific scale-dependent programmatic conditions exist where either herbivore may be the most appropriate for natural area management.