Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Chronic Intracortical Recording and Electrochemical Stability of Thiol-ene/Acrylate Shape Memory Polymer Electrode Arrays

Current intracortical probe technology is limited in clinical implementation due to the short functional lifetime of implanted devices. Devices often fail several months to years post-implantation, likely due to the chronic immune response characterized by glial scarring and neuronal dieback. It has been demonstrated that this neuroinflammatory response is influenced by the mechanical mismatch between stiff devices and the soft brain tissue, spurring interest in the use of softer polymer materials for probe encapsulation. Here, we demonstrate stable recordings and electrochemical properties obtained from fully encapsulated shape memory polymer (SMP) intracortical electrodes implanted in the rat motor cortex for 13 weeks. SMPs are a class of material that exhibit modulus changes when exposed to specific conditions. The formulation used in these devices softens by an order of magnitude after implantation compared to its dry, room-temperature modulus of ~2 GPa.
Physiological, biochemical and histopathological changes associated with heatstroke in the galah (Eolophus roseicapilla) and rock dove (Columba livia)

ABSTRACT The pathophysiology of heat illnesses in birds has not been well characterized. In this study, we describe the changes in heart rate, respiratory rate, blood biochemistry and histopathological findings in galahs and rock doves after heat exposure under standardized conditions designed to induce heatstroke. Birds in the heat-exposed group were exposed to environmental heat stress and compared to control birds. Both groups of birds were under general anaesthesia throughout the experiment and serial blood collections were performed for biochemical analyses, while organs were collected at the end of the experiment for histopathology. No electromyography traces consistent with the onset of heat cramps were observed in any of the birds. Biochemical changes suggestive of skeletal muscle and hepatocellular injury, including hyperkalaemia and increased serum muscle and hepatic enzyme activities, were often observed in heat-exposed galahs and rock doves at the onset of heatstroke. Microscopic analyses did not reveal any significant cardiac changes, although some lungs had signs of acute congestion. Some heat-exposed rock doves had microscopic changes indicative of necrosis in the pectoral muscle. There were significant hepatic changes in some heat-exposed galahs, but not in rock doves. This suggests that there may be species differences amongst birds in the organs most affected by heatstroke. The observed species differences in the physiological, biochemical and histopathological changes indicate that bird species should be studied separately for clinical syndromes such as heatstroke. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS Biochemical changes suggestive of skeletal muscle and hepatocellular injury in heat-exposed galahs and rock doves at the onset of heatstroke No electromyography traces consistent with the onset of heat cramps were observed Some heat-exposed rock doves had indications of necrosis in the pectoral muscle There were significant hepatic changes in some heat-exposed galahs
Predicting Alcohol Misuse Among Australian 19-Year-Olds from Adolescent Drinking Trajectories

Abstract Background: Alcohol use in adolescence predicts future alcohol misuse. However, the extent to which different patterns of adolescent use present risk remains unclear. Objectives: This study investigated how adolescent trajectories of alcohol consumption during the school years predict alcohol misuse at age 19 years. Methods: Data were drawn from 707 students from Victoria, Australia, longitudinally followed for 7 years. Five alcohol use trajectories were identified based on the frequency of alcohol use from Grade 6 (age 12 years) to Grade 11 (age 17 years). At age 19 years, participants completed measures indicating Heavy Episodic Drinking (HED), dependency – Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) and social harms. Results: At 19 years of age, 64% of participants reported HED, 42% high AUDIT scores (8+), and 23% social harms. Participants belonging to a steep escalator trajectory during adolescence had twice the odds at 19 years of age of high AUDIT scores and social harms, and three times greater odds of HED than participants whose alcohol use slowly increased. Stable moderate consumption was also associated with an increased risk of HED compared to slowly increasing use. Abstinence predicted a reduced likelihood of all forms of misuse at 19 years of age compared to slowly increased alcohol use. Conclusions: Trajectories of drinking frequency during adolescence predict alcohol misuse at age 19 years. Although rapid increasing use presents the greatest risk, even slowly increasing drinking predicts increased risk compared to abstinence. The findings indicate that alcohol policies should recommend nonuse and reduced frequency of use during adolescence.
Learning spinal manipulation: Gender and expertise differences in biomechanical parameters, accuracy, and variability.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to investigate gender differences and expertise effects on biomechanical parameters as well as force accuracy and variability for students learning spinal manipulation. METHODS: A total of 137 fourth- and fifth-year students were recruited for the study. Biomechanical parameters (preload, time to peak force, peak force, rate of force), as well as accuracy and variability of thoracic spine manipulation performance, were evaluated during 5 consecutive trials using a force-sensing table and a target force of 450 N. Gender, expertise differences on biomechanical parameters, as well as constant, variable, and absolute error were assessed using 2-way analysis of variance. RESULTS: Analyses showed significant gender differences for several biomechanical parameters, as well as significant gender differences in accuracy and variability. Although women showed lower time to peak force and rate of force values, they were more precise and showed less variability than men when performing thoracic spine manipulations. Students with clinical expertise (fifth-year students) used less force and were more precise. CONCLUSION: Our results showed that gender differences in spinal manipulation performance exist and that these differences seem to be mainly explained by alternative motor strategies. To develop gender-specific teaching methods, future studies should explore why men and women approach spinal manipulation tasks differently.
Development and validation of an optimized prediction of mortality for candidates awaiting liver transplantation

Since 2002, the Model for End‐Stage Liver Disease (MELD) has been used to rank liver transplant candidates. However, despite numerous revisions, MELD allocation still does not allow for equitable access to all waitlisted candidates. An optimized prediction of mortality (OPOM) was developed (http://www.opom.online) utilizing machine‐learning optimal classification tree models trained to predict a candidate's 3‐month waitlist mortality or removal utilizing the Standard Transplant Analysis and Research (STAR) dataset. The Liver Simulated Allocation Model (LSAM) was then used to compare OPOM to MELD‐based allocation. Out‐of‐sample area under the curve (AUC) was also calculated for candidate groups of increasing disease severity. OPOM allocation, when compared to MELD, reduced mortality on average by 417.96 (406.8‐428.4) deaths every year in LSAM analysis. Improved survival was noted across all candidate demographics, diagnoses, and geographic regions. OPOM delivered a substantially higher AUC across all disease severity groups. OPOM more accurately and objectively prioritizes candidates for liver transplantation based on disease severity, allowing for more equitable allocation of livers with a resultant significant number of additional lives saved every year. These data demonstrate the potential of machine learning technology to help guide clinical practice, and potentially guide national policy.
End-to-end Monaural Multi-speaker ASR System without Pretraining

Recently, end-to-end models have become a popular approach as an alternative to traditional hybrid models in automatic speech recognition (ASR). The multi-speaker speech separation and recognition task is a central task in cocktail party problem. In this paper, we present a state-of-the-art monaural multi-speaker end-to-end automatic speech recognition model. In contrast to previous studies on the monaural multi-speaker speech recognition, this end-to-end framework is trained to recognize multiple label sequences completely from scratch. The system only requires the speech mixture and corresponding label sequences, without needing any indeterminate supervisions obtained from non-mixture speech or corresponding labels/alignments. Moreover, we exploited using the individual attention module for each separated speaker and the scheduled sampling to further improve the performance. Finally, we evaluate the proposed model on the 2-speaker mixed speech generated from the WSJ corpus and the wsj0-2mix dataset, which is a speech separation and recognition benchmark. The experiments demonstrate that the proposed methods can improve the performance of the end-to-end model in separating the overlapping speech and recognizing the separated streams. From the results, the proposed model leads to ∼ 10.0% relative performance gains in terms of CER and WER respectively.
Moral distress in paediatric oncology: Contributing factors and group differences

Background: Providing oncological care to children is demanding and ethical issues concerning what is best for the child can contribute to moral distress. Objectives: To explore healthcare professionals’ experiences of situations that generate moral distress in Swedish paediatric oncology. Research design: In this national study, data collection was conducted using the Swedish Moral Distress Scale-Revised. The data analysis included descriptive statistics and non-parametric analysis of differences between groups. Participants and research context: Healthcare professionals at all paediatric oncology centres in Sweden were invited to participate. A total of 278 healthcare professionals participated. The response rate was 89%. Ethical considerations: In its advisory statement, the Regional Ethical Review Board decided that the study was of such a nature that the legislation concerning ethical reviews was not applicable. All participants received written information about the aim of the study and confidentiality. Participants demonstrated their consent by returning the survey. Findings: The two situations with the highest moral distress scores concerned lack of competence and continuity of personnel. All professional groups reported high levels of disturbance. Nurses rated significantly higher frequencies and higher total Moral Distress Scale scores compared to medical doctors and nursing assistants. Discussion: Lack of competence and continuity, as the two most morally distressing situations, confirms the findings of studies from other countries, where inadequate staffing was reported as being among the top five morally distressing situations. The levels of total Moral Distress Scale scores were more similar to those reported in intensive care units than in other paediatric care settings. Conclusion: The two most morally distressing situations, lack of competence and continuity, are both organisational in nature. Thus, clinical ethics support services need to be combined with organisational improvements in order to reduce moral distress, thereby maintaining job satisfaction, preventing a high turnover of staff and ensuring the quality of care.
Congo Basin forest loss dominated by increasing smallholder clearing

Congo Basin forest loss is dominated by smallholder agriculture with accelerating primary forest loss mirroring population growth. A regional assessment of forest disturbance dynamics from 2000 to 2014 was performed for the Congo Basin countries using time-series satellite data. Area of forest loss was estimated and disaggregated by predisturbance forest type and direct disturbance driver. An estimated 84% of forest disturbance area in the region is due to small-scale, nonmechanized forest clearing for agriculture. Annual rates of small-scale clearing for agriculture in primary forests and woodlands doubled between 2000 and 2014, mirroring increasing population growth. Smallholder clearing in the Democratic Republic of the Congo alone accounted for nearly two-thirds of total forest loss in the basin. Selective logging is the second most significant disturbance driver, contributing roughly 10% of regional gross forest disturbance area and more than 60% of disturbance area in Gabon. Forest loss due to agro-industrial clearing along the Gulf of Guinea coast more than doubled in the last half of the study period. Maintaining natural forest cover in the Congo Basin into the future will be challenged by an expected fivefold population growth by 2100 and allocation of industrial timber harvesting and large-scale agricultural development inside remaining old-growth forests.
Wheat particle size, insoluble fibre sources and whole wheat feeding influence gizzard musculature and nutrient utilisation to different extents in broiler chickens

A 21-day experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of wheat particle size, insoluble fibre source and whole wheat (WW) inclusion on the gizzard musculature, intestinal architecture and nutrient utilisation of broiler chickens. The following seven treatments, all in mash form, were tested: control diet using finely ground wheat (Fine); control diet using medium-ground wheat (Medium); control diet using coarsely ground wheat (Coarse); fine diet diluted with 10 g/kg lignocellulose (LC); fine diet diluted with 30 g/kg oat hulls (OH); fine diet diluted with 30 g/kg wood shavings (WS); and ground wheat in the fine diet replaced with 50 and 100 g/kg WW during the second (day 8-14) and third (day 15-21) weeks of the study respectively. Except for the LC diet, all treatments increased (p < 0.05) the thickness of the caudodorsal thick muscle of gizzard compared to the fine diet. The highest (p < 0.05) caudoventral thin and cranioventral thick muscle diameters in the gizzard walls were achieved with the OH and WS diets. Feeding OH, WS and WW diets improved (p < 0.05) starch digestibility compared with the fine diet, while medium, coarse and LC diets had no effect (p > 0.05). All diets containing fibre sources (LC, OH and WS) reduced (p < 0.05) the energy digestibility compared to the fine diet. Birds fed OH and WS diets gained the lowest (p < 0.05) weights. Feeding LC, OH, WS and WW diets increased (p < 0.05) the feed per gain compared with the fine diet. The current results suggest that there is a potential for coarse particles, insoluble fibre sources and WW feeding to improve the gizzard musculature and digestibility of some nutrients, with the effect being more pronounced with the inclusion of structural fibre sources.
Professional Medical Advice at your Fingertips

Timely access to professional medical advice is crucial for patient health outcomes. Traditional offline, one-on-one patient-provider interactions are time consuming and costly. As a result, online "Ask the doctor" (AtD) services have become increasingly popular, where patients and caregivers can obtain advice from medical professionals at a lower information and transaction cost. In this paper, we present an empirical study of Fenda, an innovative AtD platform recently introduced in China where patients and caregivers can consult a wide variety of healthcare professionals for a small fee. Using qualitative research methods, we analyzed how patients and caregivers interact with medical professionals on this platform, focusing on the nature of the questions asked and user strategies to optimize the usage of the platform. We further derived implications for designing better online AtD services connecting patients and caregivers to medical professionals.
Intentions to Use Emergency Contraception: The Role of Accurate Knowledge and Information Source Credibility

ABSTRACT Background: Emergency contraception (EC) is a highly effective form of birth control that may lower rates of unintended pregnancy among young women. But efforts to disseminate EC to women are hampered by misinformation and inadequate information. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the sources from which young women learn about EC (including health care providers, friends/interpersonal sources, media sources, or no information sources) and to examine associations between source credibility with the accuracy of EC knowledge and intentions to use EC. Method: Using a computer-based survey, 339 college women (M age = 18.4) reported their EC information sources, knowledge about EC, and behavioral intentions to use EC. Results: In total, 97% of participants had heard of EC from at least one source and 49% indicated that they were highly likely to use EC in the future if needed. Results demonstrated that EC knowledge mediated the relationship between EC information source credibility and intentions to use EC. Discussion: This study contributes important insights to a scarce literature on EC information sources and the factors that predict intentions to use EC. Translation to Health Education Practice: Future EC promotion efforts should target Health Education sources instead of media or interpersonal sources to promote EC knowledge and use among young sexually at-risk populations.
Analysis and Injection Control of Circulating Current for Modular Multilevel Converters

The circulating current of modular multilevel converter (MMC) has a great impact on the power losses, the submodule (SM) capacitor voltage ripples, and the rating of power devices. Existing analysis of circulating current has considered the capacitor voltage and the modulation signal. In this paper, the effect of semiconductor devices on the circulating current is further presented. In order to realize the different circulating current injection targets under different conditions, a unified online calculation scheme by using the instantaneous information of MMC is proposed in this paper to generate the circulating current injection references. It avoids detecting the amplitude and phase of the output current or using an extensive lookup table. Besides, a mathematical analysis model is built and it reveals the impact on the capacitor voltage ripple and the rms value of arm current with different injection references, thus guide the determination of the injection ratio. Experimental results based on a three-phase MMC prototype with six SMs per arm are presented to demonstrate the analysis of circulating current and the proposed circulating current injection references generating method is verified by different circulating current control targets with different loads.
Different agonists induce distinct single-channel conductance states in TRPV1 channels

&NA; The TRPV1 ion channel is a membrane protein that is expressed in primary afferent nociceptors, where it is activated by a diverse array of stimuli. Our prior work has shown that this channel is activated by lysophosphatidic acid (LPA), an unsaturated lysophospholipid that is produced endogenously and released under certain pathophysiological conditions, resulting in the sensation of pain. Macroscopic currents activated by saturating concentrations of LPA applied to excised membrane patches are larger in magnitude than those activated by saturating concentrations of capsaicin, which causes near‐maximal TRPV1 open probability. Here we show that activation of TRPV1 by LPA is associated with a higher single‐channel conductance than activation by capsaicin. We also observe that the effects of LPA on TRPV1 are not caused by an increase in the surface charge nor are they mimicked by a structurally similar lipid, ruling out the contribution of change in membrane properties. Finally, we demonstrate that the effects of LPA on the unitary conductance of TRPV1 depend upon the presence of a positively charged residue in the C terminus of the channel, suggesting that LPA induces a distinct conformational change. &NA; TRPV1 is a polymodal ion channel that can be activated by lysophosphatidic acid (LPA), resulting in pain. Here we show that TRPV1 activation by LPA promotes a distinct open state with a different single‐channel conductance from that induced by capsaicin.
Incidence, Diagnosis, and Management of Injury in Sport Climbing and Bouldering: A Critical Review

Competition climbing will debut as an Olympic sport at the 2020 summer games in Tokyo. The aim of this article is to critically review research on the incidence of injury in sport climbing and bouldering. The pathophysiology and clinical presentation of finger and shoulder injuries is discussed. A semisystematic approach in reviewing literature on incidence was applied. Articles were identified after searches of the following electronic databases: Discover, Academic Search Complete (EBSCO), PubMed, Embase, SPORTDiscus, and ScienceDirect. Despite methodological shortcomings of the included studies, we estimated the mean ± SD of the incidence rate of injury in sport climbing and bouldering from the eight studies to be 2.71 ± 4.49/1000 h. Differential diagnosis and the clinical management of finger and shoulder injuries in climbers are challenging. An updated diagnostic and therapeutic algorithm for the clinical management of finger injuries in climbers is presented.
Helminth parasites and immune regulation

Helminth parasites are complex metazoans that belong to different taxonomic families but that collectively share the capacity to downregulate the host immune response directed toward themselves (parasite-specific immunoregulation). During long-standing chronic infection, these helminths appear able to suppress immune responses to bystander pathogens/antigens and atopic, autoimmune, and metabolic disorders. Helminth-induced immunoregulation occurs through the induction of regulatory T cells or Th2-type cells (or both). However, secreted or excreted parasite metabolites, proteins, or extracellular vesicles (or a combination of these) may also directly induce signaling pathways in host cells. Therefore, the focus of this review will be to highlight recent advances in understanding the immune responses to helminth infection, emphasizing the strategies/molecules and some of the mechanisms used by helminth parasites to modulate the immune response of their hosts.