Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sustained drug use changes after hepatitis C screening and counseling among recently infected persons who inject drugs: a longitudinal study.

BACKGROUND Notification of hepatitis C virus (HCV) positive status is known to have short-term impacts on subsequent alcohol, drug use and injection behaviors among persons who inject drugs (PWID). It remains to be established whether postscreening behavioral changes extend over time for PWID and whether screening test notification has behavioral impacts among HCV-negative PWID. This study sought to longitudinally assess substance use and injection behaviors after HCV status notification among HCV seroconverters and HCV-negative PWID. METHODS Initially HCV-seronegative PWID (n = 208) were followed prospectively between 2004 and 2011 in Montreal, Canada. Semiannual screening visits included blood sampling and an interview-administered questionnaire assessing substance use and injection behaviors. Multivariable generalized estimating equation analyses were conducted to assess substance use and behavior changes over time and compare changes between HCV seroconverters and HCV-seronegative participants while adjusting for baseline characteristics. RESULTS Of the 208 participants (83% male; mean age, 34.7 years, mean follow-up time, 39 months), 69 (33.2%) seroconverted to HCV. A linear decrease in syringe sharing behavior was observed over time after HCV and status notification, whereas a 10% decrease for each additional 3 months of follow-up was observed for injection cocaine and heroin use among HCV seroconverters but not among HCV-seronegative PWID (P < .05). No significant changes were observed in alcohol use. CONCLUSIONS Our results indicate that notification of HCV-positive status is associated with reduced injection drug use among seroconverters. Among PWID deemed seronegative after screening, there is no sustained trend for change in risk behavior.
Intergranular fracture during power-law creep under multiaxial stresses

AbstractApproximate methods are used to calculate the growth of grain-boundary cavities by power-law creep, under multi axial stress states. The time to fracture at constant stress is given by t f =t n+ɑ/n+1)ess1n(1/(n+1)f i )where t n is the nucleation time (the time at which the voids first appear), ess is the steady-state creep rate, n is the creep exponent and f i is the original area fraction of cavities. The quantity α is defined by:ɑ=1/sinh-{2(n-½)/(n½)P/σe}where p is the hydrostatic pressure and σe the von Mises equivalent stress. Differential equations are given which allow the times and the strains to failure under variable loading histories to be calculated.
Cervical Cord Atrophy and Long-Term Disease Progression in Patients with Primary-Progressive Multiple Sclerosis

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Cervical cord atrophy has been associated with clinical disability in multiple sclerosis and is proposed as an outcome measure of neurodegeneration. The aim of this study was to quantify the development of cervical cord atrophy and to evaluate its association with disability progression in patients with primary-progressive multiple sclerosis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Thirty-one patients with primary-progressive multiple sclerosis underwent 1.5T brain and spinal cord MR imaging at baseline and 6–7 years later. The cervical spinal cord from C1 to C5 was segmented to evaluate the normalized overall cross-sectional area and the cross-sectional area of C2–C3, C3–C4, and C4–C5. The annualized rates of normalized cross-sectional area loss were also evaluated. To estimate clinical progression, we determined the Expanded Disability Status Scale score at baseline and at 2 and 14 years after baseline to compute the normalized area under the curve of the Expanded Disability Status Scale and the Expanded Disability Status Scale changes from baseline to the follow-up time points. Associations between the cord cross-sectional area and brain MR imaging and clinical measures were also investigated. Finally, the value of all these measures for predicting long-term disability was evaluated. RESULTS: Some normalized cross-sectional area measurements showed moderate correlations with the normalized area under the curve of the Expanded Disability Status Scale, ranging from −0.439 to −0.359 (P < .05). Moreover, the annualized rate of the normalized mean cross-sectional area loss and the baseline Expanded Disability Status Scale were independent predictors of long-term disability progression. CONCLUSIONS: These data indicate that development of cervical cord atrophy is associated with progression of disability and is predictive of this event in patients with primary-progressive MS.
Risk of Renal Cell Carcinoma Among Kidney Transplant Recipients in the United States

Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is a common malignancy following kidney transplantation. We describe RCC risk and examine RCC risk factors among US kidney recipients (1987–2010). The Transplant Cancer Match Study links the US transplant registry with 15 cancer registries. Standardized incidence ratios (SIRs) were used to compare RCC risk (overall and for clear cell [ccRCC] and papillary subtypes) to the general population. Associations with risk factors were assessed using Cox models. We identified 683 RCCs among 116 208 kidney recipients. RCC risk was substantially elevated compared with the general population (SIR 5.68, 95% confidence interval 5.27–6.13), especially for papillary RCC (SIR 13.3 versus 3.98 for ccRCC). Among kidney recipients, RCC risk was significantly elevated for blacks compared to whites (hazard ratio [HR] 1.50) and lower in females than males (HR 0.56). RCC risk increased with prolonged dialysis preceding transplantation (p‐trend < 0.0001). Risk was variably associated for RCC subtypes with some medical conditions that were indications for transplantation: ccRCC risk was reduced with polycystic kidney disease (HR 0.54), and papillary RCC was increased with hypertensive nephrosclerosis (HR 2.02) and vascular diseases (HR 1.86). In conclusion, kidney recipients experience substantially elevated risk of RCC, especially for papillary RCC, and multiple factors contribute to these cancers.
Deep recurrent resnet for video super-resolution

In recent years, the performance of video super-resolution has improved significantly with the help of convolutional neural networks (CNN). Most recent works based on CNN use optical flow to handle video frames. They first compensate the motion and perform multi-frame super-resolution based on aligned frames. However, this 2-step approach has the drawback that the first step can be a bottleneck in overall performance. In this paper, we present a different approach to solving video super-resolution problem without any use of optical flow or motion compensation. We adopt recent advances in a recurrent neural network called long-short-term memory (LSTM) and residual network to deal with consecutive video frames effectively. Compared to the single-frame method, our recurrent model gives superior performance and shows more temporally coherent results.
Regenerative potential of chitosan-coated poly-3-hydroxybutyrate conduits seeded with mesenchymal stem cells in a rat sciatic nerve injury model

ABSTRACT Objectives: A number of chemical and biological factors, including mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), have been developed to enhance nerve regeneration by introduction through a variety of nerve conduits. This study was designed to assess the efficacy of using chitosan-coated poly-3-hydroxybutyrate (PHB) nerve conduits seeded with human bone marrow-derived MSCs (hMSC-bm) to augment repair in an experimental rat model of sciatic nerve injury. Methods: A total of 30 rats were randomly assigned to one of three groups (n = 10). In each rat, a 10 mm segment of the sciatic nerve was removed and was replaced by a chitosan-coated PHB conduit seeded with hMSC-bm (PHB/chitosan–hMSC-bm group), a chitosan-coated PHB conduit (PHB/chitosan group), or an autograft (autograft group) as the control. The results were evaluated 8 weeks postoperatively by observation, electromyography and histologic examination with light microscopy and immunostaining. Results: Histologic examination showed that both PHB/chitosan–hMSC-bm conduits and PHB/chitosan conduits led the damaged axons through the injured area. When the effects were compared, the results with the PHB/chitosan–hMSC-bm conduits were superior to those with the PHB/chitosan conduits (p < 0.05) but not as successful as with the autologous nerve grafts (p < 0.05). Conclusion: PHB/chitosan–hMSC-bm nerve conduits may be a useful artificial guide for nerve regeneration.
Podocalyxin on the glomerular epithelial cells is preserved well in various glomerular diseases.

Podocalyxin on the Glomerular Epithelial Cells Is Preserved Well in Various Glomerular Diseases M. Masanori Hara T. Toshio Yanagihara T. Tsuneo Takada M. Michio Itoh Y. Yuichi Adachi A. Akira Yoshizumi K. Katsutoshi Kawasaki T. Tadashi Yamamoto I. Itaru Kihara Department of Pediatrics, Yoshida Hospital, andDepartment of Pathology, Institute of Nephrology, School of Medicine, Niigata University, Niigata, Japan
Bacterial Outer Membrane Vesicles from Dextran Sulfate Sodium–Induced Colitis Differentially Regulate Intestinal UDP-Glucuronosyltransferase 1A1 Partially Through Toll-Like Receptor 4/Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinase/Phosphatidylinositol 3-Kinase Pathway

UDP-glucuronosyltransferase 1A1 (UGT1A1) constitutes an important part of intestinal epithelial barrier and catalyzes glucuronidation of many endogenous compounds and drugs. Downregulation of UGT1A1 in inflammation has been reported, whereas the association with gut dysbiosis is poorly defined. This study verified the involvement of gut microbiota in intestinal UGT1A1 regulation using dextran sulfate sodium (DSS)–induced rat colitis model plus fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT). Generally, both DSS induction and colitis-to-normal FMT suppressed mRNA and protein expressions of UGT1A1 and nuclear xenobiotic receptors (NRs) in colon, but enhanced mRNA and decreased protein of rat UGT1A1/rat NRs in small intestine. Normal-to-colitis FMT alleviated DSS-induced changes. Bacterial outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) from colitis rats and rats receiving colitis feces reduced both mRNA and protein of human UGT1A1 (hUGT1A1)/human NRs (hNRs) in Caco-2 cells. Interestingly, using deoxycholate to reduce lipopolysaccharide, normal OMVs upregulated hUGT1A1/hNRs, whereas colitis OMVs decreased, indicating the involvement of other OMVs components in UGT1A1 regulation. The 10- to 50-kDa fractions from both normal and colitis OMVs downregulated hUGT1A1, human PXR, and human PPAR-γ, whereas >50-kDa fractions from normal rats upregulated hUGT1A1 and human CAR. Additionally, the conditioned medium from OMVs-stimulated rat primary macrophages also reduced hUGT1A1/hNRs expression. Both Toll-like receptor (TLR)2 and TLR4 were activated by DSS, colitis-to-normal FMT, and the opposite, whereas only TLR4 was increased in OMVs-treated cells. TLR4 small interfering RNA blocked hUGT1A1/hNRs downregulation and phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase/Akt, extracellular signal-regulated kinase, and nuclear factor κB phosphorylation evoked by bacterial OMVs. Taken together, this study demonstrated that gut microbiota regulate intestinal UGT1A1 partially through secreting OMVs, which interact with intestinal epithelial cells directly or via activating macrophage.
Effect of hydration on the structures and properties of poly(p-phenylene benzobisoxazole)/poly(pyridobisimidazole) block copolymer fibers

A rigid-rod copolymer, poly(p-phenylene benzobisoxazole)-block-poly(pyridobisimidazole) (PBO-b-PIPD), was synthesized, and the effect of hydration on the structures and performance of the block copolymer fibers was evaluated. PBO and PBO-b-PIPD as-spun fibers (AS-fibers) were prepared by dry-jet wet spinning, and subsequent thermal treatment in a nitrogen atmosphere was performed. Fourier transform infrared and wide-angle X-ray diffraction were used to characterize the structures of the thermally treated fibers. Mechanical properties of both the AS-fibers and thermally treated fibers were tested, and scanning electronic microscopy was used to observe the fracture surfaces of the fibers from tensile testing. It has been revealed that heat treatment is an effective method to remove the absorbed water to improve the orderly arrangement of chains along the fiber direction, which resulted in enhancement of the tensile modulus of the block copolymer fibers.
Active Travel to and From School Among School-Age Children During 1997-2011 and Associated Factors in China.

BACKGROUND Active travel to school (ATS) is positively associated with various health indicators. The rapid social, economic, and environmental changes in China provide a unique setting to study changes and predictors of ATS over time. METHODS Using logistic regression modeling, we analyzed data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey during 1997 to 2011 (N = 9487, ages 6 to 17 years) to estimate the change over time in ATS and to identify associated factors. RESULTS The prevalence of reported ATS among children dropped from 95.8% in 1997 to 69.3% in 2011. ATS was common in children living closer to school, in middle school, from low-income households, with low parental education status, and those without a private vehicle. Children who were living in a metropolitan area and who had more than 40 minutes of total PA per day were less likely to report ATS. CONCLUSIONS The decrease of ATS had been concurrent with the increase of the children living at a longer distance from school and the increase of household owning private vehicles which were associated with the rapid urbanization and economic growth in China. Factors associated with the decreased ATS in China are similar to other countries but the underlying reasons may be different.
Amiodarone hepatotoxicity.

A 69-year-old man presented with abdominal pain and marked hepatomegaly. The patient had a history of ischemic cardiomyopa-thy and refractory ventricular tachycardia treated with amiodarone 400 mg q.d. for 18 months. A liver biopsy was performed. a Light microscopy revealed marked distortion of the liver architecture consistent with toxic he-patocellular injury. Diffuse hepato-cellular necrosis with inflammatory cell infiltrates (asterisk) and per-ilobular fibrosis (star) is shown. ×20. b Transmission electron micrograph shows three secondary lyso-somes in various stages of degeneration (arrows). Concentric lamellar inclusions are seen within one secondary lysosome (arrowhead). Amiodarone inhibits lysosomal phos-pholipase Al resulting in phospho-lipid accumulation and this diagnostic structural change. × 31,500. Amiodarone was discontinued and the patient observed on telemetry during which time progressive synthetic dysfunction ensued. The patient was unable to tolerate alternative
Effect of Fish Oil vs. Resolvin D1, E1, Methyl Esters of Resolvins D1 or D2 on Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy

Objective Fish oil is enriched in omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids primarily eicosapentaenoic and docosahexaenoic fatty acids. Metabolites of these two polyunsaturated fatty acids include the E and D series resolvins. Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids and resolvins have been reported to have anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective properties. The objective of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of menhaden oil, a fish oil derived from the menhaden, resolvins D1 and E1 and the methyl esters of resolvins D1 and D2 on diabetic peripheral neuropathy. Hypothesis being examined was that the methyl esters of resolvins D1 and D2 would be move efficacious than resolvins D1 or E1 due to an extended half-life. Methods A model of type 2 diabetes in C57BL/6J mice was created through a combination of a high fat diet followed 8 weeks later with treatment of low dosage of streptozotocin. After 8 weeks of untreated hyperglycemia type 2 diabetic mice were treated for 8 weeks with menhaden oil in the diet or daily injections of 1 ng/g body weight resolvins D1, E1 or methyl esters of resolvins D1 or D2. Afterwards, multiple neurological endpoints were examined. Results Menhaden oil or resolvins did not improve hyperglycemia. Untreated diabetic mice were thermal hypoalgesic, had mechanical allodynia, reduced motor and sensory nerve conduction velocities and decreased innervation of the cornea and skin. These endpoints were significantly improved with menhaden oil or resolvin treatment. However, the methyl esters of resolvins D1 or D2, contrary to our hypothesis, were generally less potent than menhaden oil or resolvins D1 or E1. Conclusion These studies further support omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids derived from fish oil via in part due to their metabolites could be an effective treatment for diabetic neuropathy.
Multiple Object Detection by a Deformable Part-Based Model and an R-CNN

Multiple object detection is a key challenge in object detection. Feature extraction and occlusion handling are two key elements in multiple object detection. However, existing methods do not perform well in these aspects during detecting multiple objects. A region-based convolutional network (R-CNN) has achieved a great success in region-based feature extraction, and the part filters in a deformable part-based model (DPM) are very suitable for detecting occluded objects. In this letter, we present a framework that integrates the R-CNN and the DPM for detecting multiple objects. In addition, we propose a new filter based on the dense subgraph discovery algorithm for refining the candidate proposals generated by the DPM. Through combining these two models, we can detect each single object with high accuracy among all objects in an image, especially in the situation that objects are stayed close together. Different from the traditional methods, our framework has the capability to detect multiple objects belonging to various classes rather than only one typical class such as a person or a car. Experimental results on the PASCAL VOC dataset show that our framework achieves better performance compared to using only the R-CNN or the DPM alone in multiple object detection.
Quantifying Mental Health from Social Media with Neural User Embeddings

Mental illnesses adversely affect a significant proportion of the population worldwide. However, the methods traditionally used for estimating and characterizing the prevalence of mental health conditions are time-consuming and expensive. Consequently, best-available estimates concerning the prevalence of mental health conditions are often years out of date. Automated approaches to supplement these survey methods with broad, aggregated information derived from social media content provides a potential means for near real-time estimates at scale. These may, in turn, provide grist for supporting, evaluating and iteratively improving upon public health programs and interventions. We propose a novel model for automated mental health status quantification that incorporates user embeddings. This builds upon recent work exploring representation learning methods that induce embeddings by leveraging social media post histories. Such embeddings capture latent characteristics of individuals (e.g., political leanings) and encode a soft notion of homophily. In this paper, we investigate whether user embeddings learned from twitter post histories encode information that correlates with mental health statuses. To this end, we estimated user embeddings for a set of users known to be affected by depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and for a set of demographically matched `control' users. We then evaluated these embeddings with respect to: (i) their ability to capture homophilic relations with respect to mental health status; and (ii) the performance of downstream mental health prediction models based on these features. Our experimental results demonstrate that the user embeddings capture similarities between users with respect to mental conditions, and are predictive of mental health.
Factors associated with smoking relapse in the postpartum period: an analysis of the child health surveillance system data in Southeast England.

INTRODUCTION There is increasing evidence that a high proportion (47%-63%) of women who quit smoking during pregnancy relapse during the postpartum period. The purpose of this population-based study was to examine the association between selected sociodemographic factors and smoking relapse in the early postpartum period (within the first 6 weeks) in women who had successfully quit smoking during the pregnancy. METHODS The study included 512 women resident in East Sussex, United Kingdom, who had quit smoking during the pregnancy. Information on the prevalence of smoking and selected sociodemographic factors and breast feeding at the 6-weeks postpartum review by health visitor was obtained from the Child Health Surveillance System, which records and monitors the health and development of children from birth until school entry. RESULTS Of the 512 women who had quit smoking during the pregnancy, 238 (46.5%) relapsed in the early postpartum period. In the bivariate analysis, there was an association between deprivation and smoking relapse in the early postpartum period (OR = 5.3, 95% CI: 2.5-11.4), with a significant trend in increasing risk of relapse with increasing level of deprivation (p < .01). Stepwise logistic regression analysis showed that women who lived in deprived urban areas (OR = 2.3, 95% CI: 1.2-4.2), had ≥3 children (OR = 3.8, 95% CI: 2.2-6.4), and had other smokers in the household (OR = 5.6, 95% CI: 3.6-8.8) were significantly more likely to relapse in the early postpartum period. On the other hand, women who were breast feeding were significantly less likely to relapse (OR = 0.6, 95% CI: 0.4-0.9). CONCLUSIONS Factors associated with early postpartum smoking relapse identified in this study, particularly breast feeding, high parity, and concurrent smoking by partner/other household member(s), may contribute to the development of effective and targeted interventions to maintain smoking cessation in women and their household.
Biobehavioral responses to stress in females: tend-and-befriend, not fight-or-flight.

The human stress response has been characterized, both physiologically and behaviorally, as "fight-or-flight. " Although fight-or-flight may characterize the primary physiological responses to stress for both males and females, we propose that, behaviorally, females' responses are more marked by a pattern of "tend-and-befriend. " Tending involves nurturant activities designed to protect the self and offspring that promote safety and reduce distress; befriending is the creation and maintenance of social networks that may aid in this process. The biobehavioral mechanism that underlies the tend-and-befriend pattern appears to draw on the attachment-caregiving system, and neuroendocrine evidence from animal and human studies suggests that oxytocin, in conjunction with female reproductive hormones and endogenous opioid peptide mechanisms, may be at its core. This previously unexplored stress regulatory system has manifold implications for the study of stress.