Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Down Syndrome Disintegrative Disorder: A Clinical Regression Syndrome of Increasing Importance

DSDD is an increasingly reported entity affecting children with DS; we review the clinical, diagnostic, and therapeutic features of this entity. Down syndrome disintegrative disorder (DSDD), a developmental regression in children with Down syndrome (DS), is a clinical entity that is characterized by a loss of previously acquired adaptive, cognitive, and social functioning in persons with DS usually in adolescence to early adulthood. Initially reported in 1946 as “catatonic psychosis,” there has been an increasing interest among the DS community, primary care, and subspecialty providers in this clinical area over the past decade. This condition has a subacute onset and can include symptoms of mood lability, decreased participation in activities of daily living, new-onset insomnia, social withdrawal, autistic-like regression, mutism, and catatonia. The acute phase is followed by a chronic phase in which baseline functioning may not return. No strict criteria or definitive testing is currently available to diagnose DSDD, although a comprehensive psychosocial and medical evaluation is warranted for individuals presenting with such symptoms. The etiology of DSDD is unknown, but in several hypotheses for regression in this population, psychological stress, primary psychiatric disease, and autoimmunity are proposed as potential causes of DSDD. Both psychiatric therapy and immunotherapies have been described as DSDD treatments, with both revealing potential benefit in limited cohorts. In this article, we review the current data regarding clinical phenotypes, differential diagnosis, neurodiagnostic workup, and potential therapeutic options for this unique, most disturbing, and infrequently reported disorder.
Nitrogen Use Efficiency and Apparent Nitrogen Recovery of Kentucky Bluegrass, Smooth Bromegrass, and Orchardgrass

Nitrogen rate, grass species, and soil type may affect the efficiency of N fertilizer use by cool-season perennial grasses of the North-Central USA. Knowing how these factors affect apparent N recovery (ANR) and N use efficiency (NUE) could help producers reduce N losses into water resources and improve economic returns. Estimated ANR and NUE were determined for monoculture Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis L.), smooth bromegrass (Bromus inermis Leyss.), and orchardgrass (Dactylis glomerata L.) in three separate experiments conducted from 1994 to 1996 on Plano silt loam (Typic Argiudoll) and Rozetta silt loam (Typic Hapludalf) near Arlington and Lancaster WI, respectively. Swards were managed in a three-harvest system and given N fertilizer split-applied at annual rates of 0, 56, 112, 168, 224, and 336 kg N ha -1 . As expected, total forage dry matter (DM) yield increased for all species with increased N rate. Mean ANR at either location ranged from 0.28 to 0.47 kg N (kg N applied) -1 for Kentucky bluegrass, 0.17 to 0.44 for smooth bromegrass, and 0.32 to 0.50 for orchardgrass. Similarly, mean NUE ranged from 12 to 18 kg forage DM (kg N) -1 for Kentucky bluegrass, 9 to 16 for smooth bromegrass, and from 11 to 28 for orchardgrass. Relatively stable ANR values during drought, greater annual DM yields, and a more seasonally uniform growth habit suggest that orchardgrass may be the most prodigious N user among the species studied and would provide the least risk for N losses to the environment.
Different wheat cultivars exhibit variable responses to inoculation with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi from organic and conventional farms

The present study aimed to investigate the effects of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal communities originating from organic and conventional agriculture on wheat growth and yield. Six different spring wheat cultivars released in different years in north and central European countries were considered. We hypothesised that AM fungal inoculum collected from organic agricultural fields would elicit a greater positive growth response than inoculum collected from conventional agricultural fields; and that older cultivars, which were developed under conditions of low fertilizer input, would exhibit overall greater growth responses to the presence of AM fungi, compared with more recent cultivars, and that AM fungal inoculum from conventional fields might have the most beneficial effect on the growth and yield of recent cultivars. The results showed that the overall effects on the growth and yield of spring wheat grown with organic and conventional AM fungal inocula did not differ greatly. However, the inoculation growth response, showing the difference of the effects of organic and conventional inocula, varied between particular wheat cultivars. Inoculation growth response of the cultivar Pikker (released in 1959) was the most positive, while that of the cultivar Arabella (released in 2012) was the most negative. The use of AM fungal inoculum from organic fields resulted in slightly taller plant individuals. Pikker showed relatively higher yield and stronger growth when the organic AM fungal inoculum was used. Arabella exhibited relatively lower yield and weaker growth when the organic inoculum was used. Whether the positive response of Pikker to Estonian organic inoculation reflects adaptation to the locally occurring AM fungal community needs to be established by further studies of the communities of AM fungi colonizing wheat roots.
Quantifying ecological change through discriminant analysis: a paleoecological example from the Peruvian Amazon

Question: Can discriminant analysis be used to quantify ecological change? Can fossil pollen data be used as a proxy to quantify moisture availability change through discriminant analysis? Location: Lake Sauce, Amazonian piedmont of Peru. Methods: A linear discriminant function was used to classify taxa found through pollen analysis into wet and dry indicators. The data set was filtered to exclude rare taxa from the analysis. Given that after application of the filter there were more variables (samples) than observations (taxa), the model was “de-saturated” through simulation of samples based on the existing data set. Results: The inclusion of taxa that have a relative abundance of 1% or more in at least 5% of the samples reduces noise in the data set. Application of discriminant analysis to pollen data gave an error of 18% when classifying taxa by affinity with dry or wet conditions. The inferred moisture availability curve shows consistency with independent proxies from the same core and with identified local and sub-continental moisture patterns. Conclusions: The method provides a reliable means to reduce a complex paleoecological data set to proportional change in a single pre-defined variable. The output is a relative scale of change of a defined environmental gradient through time, without reliance on an extensive array of modern analogues. The results appear to provide a comparable quality of information to that of isotopic analysis derived from speleothem or sedimentary records.
Two Alternative Juvenile Life History Types for Fall Chinook Salmon in the Snake River Basin

Abstract Fall Chinook salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha in the Snake River basin were listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1992. At the time of listing, it was assumed that fall Chinook salmon juveniles in the Snake River basin adhered strictly to an ocean-type life history characterized by saltwater entry at age 0 and first-year wintering in the ocean. Research showed, however, that some fall Chinook salmon juveniles in the Snake River basin spent their first winter in a reservoir and resumed seaward movement the following spring at age 1 (hereafter, reservoir-type juveniles). We collected wild and hatchery ocean-type fall Chinook salmon juveniles in 1997 and wild and hatchery reservoir-type juveniles in 1998 to assess the condition of the reservoir-type juveniles at the onset of seaward movement. The ocean-type juveniles averaged 112–139 mm fork length, and the reservoir-type juveniles averaged 222–224 mm fork length. The large size of the reservoir-type juveniles suggested a high potential for surv.
Effects of Cesarean Section and Vaginal Delivery on Abdominal Muscles and Fasciae

Background and objectives: Possible disorders after delivery may interfere with the quality of life. The aim of this study was to ascertain whether abdominal muscles and fasciae differ in women depending on whether they experienced transverse cesarean section (CS) or vaginal delivery (VA) in comparison with healthy nulliparous (NU). Materials and methods: The thicknesses of abdominal muscles and fasciae were evaluated by ultrasound in 13 CS, 10 VA, and 13 NU women (we examined rectus abdominis (RA); external oblique (EO); internal oblique (IO); transversus abdominis (TrA); total abdominal muscles (TAM = EO + IO + TrA); inter-rectus distance (IRD); thickness of linea alba (TLA); rectus sheath (RS), which includes anterior fascia of RS and posterior fascia of RS (P-RS); loose connective tissue between sublayers of P-RS (LCT); abdominal perimuscular fasciae (APF), which includes anterior fascia of EO, fasciae between EO, IO, and TrA, and posterior fascia of TrA). Data on pain intensity, duration, and location were collected. Results: Compared with NU women, CS women had wider IRD (p = 0.004), thinner left RA (p = 0.020), thicker right RS (p = 0.035) and APF (left: p = 0.001; right: p = 0.001), and IO dissymmetry (p = 0.009). VA women had thinner RA (left: p = 0.008, right: p = 0.043) and left TAM (p = 0.024), mainly due to left IO (p = 0.027) and RA dissymmetry (p = 0.035). However, CS women had thicker LCT (left: p = 0.036, right: p < 0.001), APF (left: p = 0.014; right: p = 0.007), and right IO (p = 0.028) than VA women. There were significant correlations between pain duration and the affected fasciae/muscles in CS women. Conclusions: CS women showed significant alterations in both abdominal fasciae and muscle thicknesses, whereas VA women showed alterations mainly in muscles. Thinner RA and/or dissymmetric IO, wider IRD, and thicker LCT and APF after CS may cause muscle deficits and alteration of fascial gliding, which may induce scar, abdominal, low back, and/or pelvic pain.
Co-transcriptional folding of a bio-orthogonal fluorescent scaffolded RNA origami

The scaffolded origami technique has provided an attractive tool for engineering nucleic acid nanostructures. This paper demonstrates scaffolded RNA origami folding in vitro in which all components are transcribed simultaneously in a single-pot reaction. Double-stranded DNA sequences are transcribed by T7 RNA polymerase into scaffold and staple strands able to correctly fold in high yield into the nanoribbon. Synthesis is successfully confirmed by atomic force microscopy and the unpurified transcription reaction mixture is analyzed by an in gel-imaging assay where the transcribed RNA nanoribbons are able to capture the specific dye through the reconstituted split Broccoli aptamer showing a clear green fluorescent band. Finally, we simulate the RNA origami in silico using the nucleotide-level coarse-grained model oxRNA to investigate the thermodynamic stability of the assembled nanostructure in isothermal conditions over a period of time. Our work suggests that the scaffolded origami technique is a valid, and potentially more powerful, assembly alternative to the single-stranded origami technique for future in vivo applications.
RNA secondary structures in Dscam1 mutually exclusive splicing: unique evolutionary signature from the midge

The Drosophila melanogaster gene Dscam1 potentially generates 38,016 distinct isoforms via mutually exclusive splicing, which are required for both nervous and immune functions. However, the mechanism underlying splicing regulation remains obscure. Here we show apparent evolutionary signatures characteristic of competing RNA secondary structures in exon clusters 6 and 9 of Dscam1 in the two midge species (Belgica antarctica and Clunio marinus). Surprisingly, midge Dscam1 encodes only ∼6000 different isoforms through mutually exclusive splicing. Strikingly, the docking site of the exon 6 cluster is conserved in almost all insects and crustaceans but is specific in the midge; however, the docking site-selector base-pairings are conserved. Moreover, the docking site is complementary to all predicted selector sequences downstream from every variable exon 9 of the midge Dscam1, which is in accordance with the broad spectrum of their isoform expression. This suggests that these cis-elements mainly function through the formation of long-range base-pairings. This study provides a vital insight into the evolution and mechanism of Dscam1 alternative splicing.
Acute Alcohol Intake Produces Widespread Decreases in Cortical Resting Signal Variability in Healthy Social Drinkers.

BACKGROUND Acute alcohol intoxication has wide-ranging neurobehavioral effects on psychomotor, attentional, inhibitory, and memory-related cognitive processes. These effects are mirrored in disruption of neural metabolism, functional activation, and functional network coherence. Metrics of intraregional neural dynamics such as regional signal variability (RSV) and brain entropy (BEN) may capture unique aspects of neural functional capacity in healthy and clinical populations; however, alcohol's influence on these metrics is unclear. The present study aimed to elucidate the influence of acute alcohol intoxication on RSV and to clarify these effects with subsequent BEN analyses. METHODS 26 healthy adults between 25 and 45 years of age (65.4% women) participated in two counterbalanced sessions. In one, participants consumed a beverage containing alcohol sufficient to produce a breath alcohol concentration of 0.08 g/dL. In the other, they consumed a placebo beverage. Approximately 35 minutes after beverage consumption, participants completed a 9-minute resting state fMRI scan. Whole brain, voxel-wise standard deviation was used to assess RSV, which was compared between sessions. Within clusters displaying alterations in RSV, sample entropy was calculated to assess BEN. RESULTS Compared to the placebo, alcohol intake resulted in widespread reductions in RSV in the bilateral middle frontal, right inferior frontal, right superior frontal, bilateral posterior cingulate, bilateral middle temporal, right supramarginal gyri, and bilateral inferior parietal lobule. Within these clusters, significant reductions in BEN were found in the bilateral middle frontal and right superior frontal gyri. No effects were noted in subcortical or cerebellar areas. CONCLUSIONS Findings indicate that alcohol intake produces diffuse reductions in RSV among structures associated with attentional processes. Within these structures, signal complexity was also reduced in a subset of frontal regions. Neurobehavioral effects of acute alcohol consumption may be partially driven by disruption of intraregional neural dynamics among regions involved in higher order cognitive and attentional processes.
Near Data Acceleration with Concurrent Host Access

Near-data accelerators (NDAs) that are integrated with the main memory have the potential for significant power and performance benefits. Fully realizing these benefits requires the large available memory capacity to be shared between the host and NDAs in a way that permits both regular memory access by some applications and accelerating others with an NDA, avoids copying data, enables collaborative processing, and simultaneously offers high performance for both host and NDA. We identify and solve new challenges in this context: mitigating row-locality interference from host to NDAs, reducing read/write-turnaround overhead caused by fine-grain interleaving of host and NDA requests, architecting a memory layout that supports the locality required for NDAs and sophisticated address interleaving for host performance, and supporting both packetized and traditional memory interfaces. We demonstrate our approach in a simulated system that consists of a multi-core CPU and NDA-enabled DDR4 memory modules. We show that our mechanisms enable effective and efficient concurrent access using a set of microbenchmarks, then demonstrate the potential of the system for the important stochastic variance-reduced gradient (SVRG) algorithm.
The establishment and survival of Oesophagostomum columbianum in male and female sheep given high and low protein diets.

Young sheep fed on a low protein (6%) diet were more susceptible to infection with O. columbianum than those on a high protein (18%) diet. Both the number of adult nematodes recovered 56 days after infection, and the fecundity of the female worms prior to autopsy, were greater in the former group. Examinations at the 10th and 56th days after infection revealed a marked reduction with time in the numbers and extent of distribution of macroscopic nodules, associated with the parasite, throughout the intestines; no differences associated with the diet were recorded. Differences in the susceptibility of the host were also associated with the host’s sex. Thus the male sheep generally harboured more adult nematodes than the female sheep at autopsy. This effect was most pronounced with the sheep on the low protein diet. The female nematodes which parasitized the female sheep were more fecund than those in the male sheep.
Identification and Characterization of α-Glucosidase Inhibition Flavonol Glycosides from Jack Bean (Canavalia ensiformis (L.) DC

Although the intake of jack bean (Canavalia ensiformis (L.) DC. ), an underutilized tropical legume, can potentially decrease the risk of several chronic diseases, not much effort has been directed at profiling the polyphenolics contained therein. Hence, this work aimed to identify and quantify the dominant jack bean polyphenolics, which are believed to have antioxidant and other bioactivities. Four major compounds were detected and identified as kaempferol glycosides with three or four glycoside units. Their structures were established based on UV-visible, 1D, 2D NMR, and HR-ESI-MS analyses. Specifically, kaempferol 3-O-α-l-rhamnopyranosyl (1→6)- β-d-glucopyranosyl (1→2)-β-d-galactopyranosyl-7-O-[3-O-o-anisoyl]-α-l-rhamnopyranoside was detected for the first time, while the other three compounds have already been described in plants other than jack bean. This new compound was found to have a higher α-glucosidase inhibition activity compared to acarbose.
Primary care providers' use of and attitudes towards placebos: An exploratory focus group study with US physicians.

OBJECTIVE To examine how primary care physicians define placebo concepts, use placebos in clinical practice, and view open-label placebos (OLPs). DESIGN Semi-structured focus groups that were audio-recorded and content-coded. METHODS Two focus groups with a total of 15 primary care physicians occurred at medical centres in the New England region of the United States. Prior experience using placebo treatments and attitudes towards open-label placebos were explored. Themes were analysed using an inductive data-driven approach. RESULTS Physicians displayed a nuanced understanding of placebos and placebo effects in clinical contexts which sometimes focused on relational factors. Some respondents reported that they prescribed treatments with no known pharmacological effect for certain conditions and symptoms ('impure placebos') and that such prescriptions were more common for pain disorders, functional disorders, and medically unexplained symptoms. Opinions about OLP were mixed: Some viewed OLPs favourably or considered them 'harmless'; however, others strongly rejected OLPs as disrespectful to patients. Other issues in relation to OLPs included the following: lack of guidelines, legal and reputational concerns, and the notion that such treatments would run counter to customary medical practice. CONCLUSIONS A number of physicians reported prescribing impure placebos in clinical care. Although some primary care physicians were resistant to the possibility of recommending OLPs, others regarded OLPs more favourably, viewing them as potential treatments, albeit with restricted potential. Statement of contribution What is already known? Many physicians report prescribing drugs for the purposes of eliciting a placebo effect. Initial evidence for the efficacy of open-label placebos is promising. What does this study add? A more nuanced description of the circumstances under which primary care physicians report placebo prescribing. A qualitative account of physician attitudes about using open-label placebos in clinical practice.
Influence of an arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus on Pseudomonas fluorescens DF57 in rhizosphere and hyphosphere soil

SUMMARY The influence of Glomus intraradices (BEG87) on Pseudomonasfluorescens DF57 in hyphosphere and rhizosphere soil was examined. Cucumis sativus (Aminex, F1 hybrid) was grown in symbiosis with the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus G. intraradices in PVC tubes, consisting of a central root compartment and two lateral root-free compartments. Two Tn5-luxAB-marked strains of P. fluorescens DF57 were used. Strain DF57-P2, which has an insertion of Tn5:: luxAB in a phosphate starvation-inducible locus, was used as a phosphate starvation reporter. Another lux-tagged strain DF57-40E7, which carries a constitutively expressed luxAB fusion, was used as control for strain DF57-P2 and for measuring the metabolic activity of P. fluorescens DF57. A strain of P. fluorescens DF57, which carries a constitutively expressed gfp gene, was used in studies of attachment between the bacteria and the hyphae. G. intraradices decreased the culturability of P.fluorescens DF57 significantly, both in rhizosphere and hyphosphere soil, whereas the total number of P. fluorescens DF57 measured by immunofluorescence microscopy was decreased in hyphosphere soil only. G. intraradices did not induce a phosphorus starvation response in P. fluorescens DF57, and the metabolic activity of the bacteria was not affected by the fungus after 48 h. P. fluorescens DF57 did not attach to G. intraradices hyphae and was not able to use the hyphae as carbon substrate. The negative effect of G. intraradices on culturability and on number of P. fluorescens DF57 in hyphosphere soil is discussed.
Virologic response to efavirenz-based first-line antiretroviral therapy in children with previous exposure to antiretrovirals to prevent mother-to-child transmission

Efavirenz-based first-line regimens have been widely used for children ≥3 years of age starting antiretroviral therapy, despite possible resistance with prior exposure to non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors for prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT). We used logistic regression to examine the association between PMTCT exposure and viral failure (VF) defined as two consecutive viral loads (VL)>1000 copies/ml between 6–18 months on ART. Children with previous nevirapine exposure for PMTCT were not at higher risk of VF compared to unexposed children (adjusted Odds Ratio (aOR): 0.79; 95% CI:0.56, 1.11).