Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effectiveness of Plaque Control with Novel Pediatric Oral Hygiene Need Station (Modified Oral Irrigation Device) as Compared with Manual Brushing and Flossing: Randomized Controlled Pilot Trial

Background: Establishing good hygiene habits are valuable for present and future oral health. Below 6 years, tooth brushing should be performed by parents, as increasing dexterity and cognition may permit supervised brushing until the child is capable of independent brushing. Aim and Objectives: The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effectiveness of modified oral irrigation device in children in terms of plaque control and to compare the effectiveness of plaque control with manual brushing with the modified oral irrigation device in children. Materials and Methods: A randomized clinical trial was performed on 12 subjects who were allocated to the two study groups. After obtaining the consent, the control group was instructed tooth brushing with regular pediatric commercially available toothbrush and the intervention group with modified oral irrigation device. Plaque scores in both groups were assessed pre- and post-brushing using modified navy plaque index. Results: The data were subjected to Descriptive statistics and Paired t-test using SPSS version 22. Intragroup comparison of mean difference of plaque score in control group and intervention group pre- and post-brushing was statistically significant. Intergroup comparison of manual brushing group with modified oral irrigation group shows P < 0.05 was statistically significant. Conclusion: Within the limitation of the present study, it has been found novel pediatric oral hygiene need Station is more effective than manual brushing since it combined the effect of brushing, flossing (water floss), and rinsing in children simultaneously and at the same time did not demand any special motor skill.
Effect of anticoagulants and NSAIDs on accuracy of faecal immunochemical tests (FITs) in colorectal cancer screening: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Objective Most colorectal cancer (CRC) screening programmes are nowadays based on faecal immunochemical testing (FIT). Eligible subjects often use oral anticoagulants (OACs) or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), which could possibly stimulate bleeding from both benign and premalignant lesions in the colon. The aim of this meta-analysis was to study the effect of OACs and NSAIDs use on FIT performance. Design A systematic search was conducted until June 2017 to retrieve studies from PubMed, Embase, MEDLINE, Web of science, Cochrane Central and Google Scholar. Studies were included when reporting on FIT results in users versus non-users of OACs and/or NSAIDs in average risk CRC screening populations. Primary outcome was positive predictive value for advanced neoplasia (PPVAN) of FIT in relation to OACs/NSAIDs use. Values were obtained by conducting random-effect forest plots. Results Our literature search identified 2022 records, of which 8 studies were included. A total of 3563 participants with a positive FIT were included. Use of OACs was associated with a PPVAN of 37.6% (95% CI 33.9 to 41.4) compared with 40.3% (95% CI 38.5 to 42.1) for non-users (p=0.75). Pooled PPVAN in aspirin/NSAID users was 38.2% (95% CI 33.8 to 42.9) compared with 39.4% (95% CI 37.5 to 41.3) for non-users (p=0.59). Conclusion FIT accuracy is not affected by OACs and aspirin/NSAIDs use. Based on the current literature, withdrawal of OACs or NSAIDs before FIT screening is not recommended. Future studies should focus on duration of use, dosage and classes of drugs in association with accuracy of FIT to conduct more specific guideline recommendations.
Therapeutic Assessment in Personality Disorders: Toward the Restoration of Epistemic Trust

Abstract Research evidence suggests Therapeutic Assessment positively affects clients with problems in living, including clients with personality disorders, who are typically quite resistant to change. Importantly, this change takes place quickly, in relatively few sessions. This article draws on a relatively new evolutionary-based theory of epistemic trust (ET) and epistemic hypervigilance (EH) as a lens to plausibly explain the efficacy of TA, and especially its influence on PD clients' alliance and motivation for subsequent psychotherapy (Fonagy, Luyten, & Alison, 2015). ET is the willingness to take in relevant interpersonally transmited information and it is essential to the immediate success of psychotherapy and its long-term impact. The collaborative, intersubjective framework of TA and many of its specific techniques might be understood as highly relevant to restoring ET in clients, especially those with PD. We close by discussing implications for psychological assessment, psychotherapy, and research.
Bacterial communities associated with honeybee food stores are correlated with land use

Abstract Microbial communities, associated with almost all metazoans, can be inherited from the environment. Although the honeybee (Apis mellifera L.) gut microbiome is well documented, studies of the gut focus on just a small component of the bee microbiome. Other key areas such as the comb, propolis, honey, and stored pollen (bee bread) are poorly understood. Furthermore, little is known about the relationship between the pollinator microbiome and its environment. Here we present a study of the bee bread microbiome and its relationship with land use. We estimated bacterial community composition using both Illumina MiSeq DNA sequencing and denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE). Illumina was used to gain a deeper understanding of precise species diversity across samples. DGGE was used on a larger number of samples where the costs of MiSeq had become prohibitive and therefore allowed us to study a greater number of bee breads across broader geographical axes. The former demonstrates bee bread comprises, on average, 13 distinct bacterial phyla; Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes, Alpha‐proteobacteria, Beta‐proteobacteria, and Gamma‐proteobacteria were the five most abundant. The most common genera were Pseudomonas, Arsenophonus, Lactobacillus, Erwinia, and Acinetobacter. DGGE data show bacterial community composition and diversity varied spatially and temporally both within and between hives. Land use data were obtained from the 2007 Countryside Survey. Certain habitats, such as improved grasslands, are associated with low diversity bee breads, meaning that these environments may be poor sources of bee‐associated bacteria. Decreased bee bread bacterial diversity may result in reduced function within hives. Although the dispersal of microbes is ubiquitous, this study has demonstrated landscape‐level effects on microbial community composition.
Association Between Osteoprotegerin Gene Polymorphisms and Risk of Coronary Artery Disease: a Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Abstract Osteoprotegerin (OPG) has been demonstrated to be a novel biomarker for predicting prevalence and severity of coronary artery disease (CAD). Furthermore, recent studies have shown that OPG gene polymorphisms are associated with a susceptibility to CAD. However, published studies showed inconsistent results. Therefore, a meta-analysis of eligible studies reporting the association between OPG gene polymorphisms and CAD was carried out. A systematic search was conducted using PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and Chinese Wan Fang databases. Odds ratio (OR) with corresponding 95% confidence interval (95% CI) were calculated. Overall, six eligible studies were included and four OPG gene polymorphisms (G209A, T245G, T950C and G1181C) were further evaluated for the association with susceptibility to CAD in this meta-analysis. Meta-analysis showed that G1181C and T950C polymorphisms were strongly associated with the risk of CAD, but no association existed between G209A and T245G polymorphisms and the risk of CAD. In conclusion, our meta-analysis is the first report to estimate the association between OPG gene polymorphisms and susceptibility to CAD. Further large scale case-control studies with rigorous design should be conducted to confirm the above conclusions in the future.
Expanding the horizons of microRNA bioinformatics

MicroRNA regulation of key biological and developmental pathways is a rapidly expanding area of research, accompanied by vast amounts of experimental data. This data, however, is not widely available in bioinformatic resources, making it difficult for researchers to find and analyze microRNA-related experimental data and define further research projects. We are addressing this problem by providing two new bioinformatics data sets that contain experimentally verified functional information for mammalian microRNAs involved in cardiovascular-relevant, and other, processes. To date, our resource provides over 4400 Gene Ontology annotations associated with over 500 microRNAs from human, mouse, and rat and over 2400 experimentally validated microRNA:target interactions. We illustrate how this resource can be used to create microRNA-focused interaction networks with a biological context using the known biological role of microRNAs and the mRNAs they regulate, enabling discovery of associations between gene products, biological pathways and, ultimately, diseases. This data will be crucial in advancing the field of microRNA bioinformatics and will establish consistent data sets for reproducible functional analysis of microRNAs across all biological research areas.
miR‐200/375 control epithelial plasticity‐associated alternative splicing by repressing the RNA‐binding protein Quaking

Members of the miR‐200 family are critical gatekeepers of the epithelial state, restraining expression of pro‐mesenchymal genes that drive epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) and contribute to metastatic cancer progression. Here, we show that miR‐200c and another epithelial‐enriched miRNA, miR‐375, exert widespread control of alternative splicing in cancer cells by suppressing the RNA‐binding protein Quaking (QKI). During EMT, QKI‐5 directly binds to and regulates hundreds of alternative splicing targets and exerts pleiotropic effects, such as increasing cell migration and invasion and restraining tumour growth, without appreciably affecting mRNA levels. QKI‐5 is both necessary and sufficient to direct EMT‐associated alternative splicing changes, and this splicing signature is broadly conserved across many epithelial‐derived cancer types. Importantly, several actin cytoskeleton‐associated genes are directly targeted by both QKI and miR‐200c, revealing coordinated control of alternative splicing and mRNA abundance during EMT. These findings demonstrate the existence of a miR‐200/miR‐375/QKI axis that impacts cancer‐associated epithelial cell plasticity through widespread control of alternative splicing.
Application of Design Thinking for Service Innovation: Current Practices, Expectations and Adoption Barriers

There is an increasing interest from both academics and practitioners on the application of Design Thinking (DT) for innovation efforts. This study explores the current real-life application of DT within five large Dutch multinationals for service innovation projects. It aims to develop an understanding of how and why DT is applied, and what the benefits and challenges are of the adoption. Based on existing literature, five propositions are developed that guide the data collection and analysis for eight case studies on service innovation projects where DT was applied. The results show that DT is applied as a mindset or ‘way-of-thinking’, supported by methods, processes and tools. Expected benefits that drive its application are increased customer value delivered by service innovations, as well as an improved ability to deal with complexity. Adoption of DT is hampered by the individual’s understanding of DT as well as uncertainty avoidance. Based on the discussion of these findings within the extant literature, we propose a model comprising four interconnected factors driving DT adoption.
Reproductive suppression, birth defects, and periviable birth

We argue that reproductive suppression has clinical implications beyond its contribution to the burden of spontaneous abortion. We theorize that the incidence of births before the 28th week of gestation, which contribute disproportionately to infant morbidity and mortality, varies over time in part due to reproductive suppression in the form of selection in utero. We further theorize that the prevalence of structural birth defects among survivors to birth from conception cohorts gauges selection in utero. We based these theories on literature positing that natural selection conserved mechanisms that spontaneously abort “risky” pregnancies including those otherwise likely to yield infants with structural birth defects or small‐for‐gestational age males. We test our theory using high‐quality birth defect surveillance data. We identify 479,885 male infants exposed to strong selection defined as membership in conception cohorts ranked in the lowest quartile of odds of a birth defect among live‐born females. We estimate the risk of periviable birth among these infants as a function of selective pressure as well as of mother's race/ethnicity and age. We find that male infants from exposed conception cohorts exhibited 10% lower odds of periviable birth than males from other conception cohorts. Our findings support the argument that selection in utero has implications beyond its contribution to the burden of spontaneous abortion.
Your Smartphone, my Smartphone - How Smartphone Ownership determines Social Group Affiliation

Smart mobile devices have arrived in the center of our society and provide multiple support in users’ daily life. With the mass adoption of smart mobile devices social life changed dramatically. In which way the used smartphone has impact on the perceived group affiliation is not investigated yet. This paper provides a first step in observing the membership of users to their smartphone group. The decision regarding the purchase of a smartphone has extensive consequences of the technological future of users. They lock-in to a system which determines multiple future decisions. The chosen system describes an important technological path dependency. This paper presents a study investigating the rivalry between different smartphone groups. The results show differences between the levels of identification of users with their smartphone manufacturers. Moreover, the results show that for smartphone users it depends on their smartphone manufacturer, which factors are important for a rivalry.
Do Online Travel Communities Matter? A Literature Review

The emergence of social media has migrated consumers from peripheral stakeholders to strategic partners whose inputs are critical for successful product and service innovation. Online communities provide a platform for aggregation of consumers from diverse backgrounds; online travel communities (OTCs) have recently attracted growing interest in the information systems and tourism literature because their unofficial boundary spanning role influences consumer interest in destinations. Importantly, this literature remains largely fragmented because of conflicting findings. The present study seeks to integrate prior OTC research in order to understand the motivations and consequences (negative and positive) of OTCs, as well as interaction platforms. Among the 63 reviewed studies, psychological, social, and utilitarian motivations were identified, with both positive and negative consequences for firms and individuals. Additionally, the studies were found to employ different methodological approaches, based on distinct and heterogeneous theories. The paper concludes with some implications and directions for further research.
Interleukin-like EMT inducer (ILEI) promotes melanoma invasiveness and is transcriptionally up-regulated by upstream stimulatory factor-1 (USF-1)

Interleukin-like EMT inducer (ILEI, FAM3C) is a secreted factor that contributes to the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT), a cell-biological process that confers metastatic properties to a tumor cell. However, very little is known about how ILEI is regulated. Here we demonstrate that ILEI is an in vivo regulator of melanoma invasiveness and is transcriptionally up-regulated by the upstream stimulatory factor-1 (USF-1), an E-box–binding, basic-helix-loop-helix family transcription factor. shRNA-mediated knockdown of ILEI in melanoma cell lines attenuated lung colonization but not primary tumor formation. We also identified the mechanism underlying ILEI transcriptional regulation, which was through a direct interaction of USF-1 with the ILEI promoter. Of note, stimulation of endogenous USF-1 by UV-mediated activation increased ILEI expression, whereas shRNA-mediated USF-1 knockdown decreased ILEI gene transcription. Finally, we report that knocking down USF-1 decreases tumor cell migration. In summary, our work reveals that ILEI contributes to melanoma cell invasiveness in vivo without affecting primary tumor growth and is transcriptionally up-regulated by USF-1.
Assessment of the current D-dimer cutoff point in pulmonary embolism workup at a single institution: Retrospective study

Background: The currently used D-dimer (DD) cutoff point is associated with a large number of negative CT-pulmonary angiographies (CTPA). We hypothesized presence of deficiency in the current cutoff and a need to look for a better DD threshold. Materials and Methods: We conducted a retrospective medical records analysis of all patients who had a CTPA as part of pulmonary embolism (PE) workup over a 1-year period. All emergency room (ER) patients who had DD assay checked prior to CTPA were included in the analysis. We assessed our institutional cutoff point and tried to test other presumptive DD thresholds retrospectively. Results: At our institution 1591 CTPA were performed in 2014, with 1220 scans (77%) performed in the ER. DD test was ordered prior to CTPA imaging in 238 ER patients (19.5%) as part of the PE workup. PE was diagnosed in 14 cases (6%). The sensitivity and specificity of the currently used DD cutoff (0.5 mcg/mL) were found to be 100% and 13%, respectively. Shifting the cutoff value from 0.5 to 0.85 mcg/mL would result in a significant increase in the specificity from 13% to 51% while maintaining the same sensitivity of 100%. This would make theoretically 84 CTPA scans, corresponding to 35% of CTPA imaging, unnecessary because DD would be considered negative based on this presumptive threshold. Conclusions: Our results suggest a significant deficiency in the institutional DD cutoff point with the need to find a better threshold through a large multicenter prospective trial to minimize unnecessary CTPA scans and to improve patient safety.
Myofascial Loads Can Occur without Fascicle Length Changes.

Many studies have shown that connective tissue linkages can transmit force between synergistic muscles and that such force transmission depends on the position of these muscles relative to each other and on properties of their intermuscular connective tissues. Moving neighboring muscles has been reported to cause longitudinal deformations within passive muscles held at a constant muscle-tendon unit (MTU) length (e.g., soleus [SO]), but muscle forces were not directly measured. Deformations do not provide a direct measure of the force transmitted between muscles. We combined two different muscle preparations to assess whether myofascial loads exerted by neighboring muscles result in length changes of SO fascicles. We investigated the effects of proximal MTU length changes of two-joint gastrocnemius (GA) and plantaris (PL) muscles on the fascicle length of the one-joint SO muscle within (1) an intact muscle compartment and (2) a disrupted compartment that allowed measurements of fascicle length and distal tendon force of SO simultaneously. SO muscle bellies of Wistar rats (n = 5) were implanted with sonomicrometry crystals. In three animals, connectivity between SO and GA+PL was enhanced. Measurements were performed before and during maximal excitation of all plantar flexor muscles. In both setups, MTU length of GA+PL did not affect the length of SO fascicles, neither during passive nor active conditions. However, lengthening the MTU of GA+PL increased distal tendon force of SO by 43.3-97.8% (P < 0.001) and 27.5-182.6% (P < 0.001), respectively. This indicates that substantial myofascial force transmission between SO and synergistic muscle can occur via a connective tissue network running parallel to the series of SO sarcomeres without substantial length changes of SO fascicles.
Laboratory confirmation of Buruli ulcer cases in Ghana, 2008-2016

Background Buruli ulcer (BU), a necrotizing skin infection caused by Mycobacterium ulcerans is the third most important mycobacterial disease globally after tuberculosis and leprosy in immune competent individuals. This study reports on the retrospective analyses of microbiologically confirmed Buruli ulcer (BU) cases in seventy-five health facilities in Ghana. Method/Principal findings Pathological samples were collected from BU lesions and transported either through courier services or by car directly to the laboratory. Samples were processed and analysed by IS2404 PCR, culture and Ziehl-Neelsen staining for detection of acid-fast bacilli. From 2008 to 2016, we analysed by PCR, 2,287 samples of 2,203 cases from seventy-five health facilities in seven regions of Ghana (Ashanti, Brong Ahafo, Central, Eastern, Greater Accra, Northern and Volta). The mean annual positivity rate was 46.2% and ranged between 14.6% and 76.2%. The yearly positivity rates from 2008 to 2016 were 52.3%, 76.2%, 56.7%, 53.8%, 41.2%, 41.5%, 22.9%, 28.5% and 14.6% respectively. Of the 1,020 confirmed cases, the ratio of female to male was 518 and 502 respectively. Patients who were 15 years of age and below accounted for 39.8% of all cases. The median age was 20 years (IQR = 10–43). Ulcerative lesions were 69.2%, nodule (9.6%), plaque (2.9%), oedema (2.5%), osteomyelitis (1.1%), ulcer/oedema (9.5%) and ulcer/plaque (5.2%). Lesions frequently occurred on the lower limbs (57%) followed by the upper limbs (38%), the neck and head (3%) and the least found on the abdomen (2%). Conclusions/Significance Our findings show a decline in microbiological confirmed rates over the years and therefore call for intensive education on case recognition to prevent over-diagnosis as BU cases decline.
Phenotypic selection on growth rhythm in whitebark pine under climatic conditions warmer than seed origins

Growth rhythm that is well synchronized with seasonal changes in local climatic conditions is understood to enhance fitness; however, rapid ongoing climate change threatens to disrupt this synchrony. To evaluate phenotypic selection on growth rhythm under expected warmer and drier future climate, seedlings from 49 populations of whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis Engelm.) were grown and measured over more than 10 years in two common garden field experiments on sites that approximate the projected future climate of the seed origins. Selection on growth rhythm was assessed by relating individual plant fitness to timing and rate of shoot elongation. Differential survival clearly evidenced selection on growth rhythm. We detected directional and stabilizing selection that varied in magnitude between experimental sites and among years. The observed phenotypic selection supports the interpretation of clinal variation among populations within tree species as reflecting adaptive variation in response to past natural selection mediated by climate. To the extent that growth rhythm is heritable, results of the present study suggest evolution of whitebark pine toward a more distinct timing of shoot elongation and generally more rapid elongation in the immediate next generation under ongoing climate change in environments similar to the study sites.