Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prevalence of symptomatic cervical spondylosis in a Nigerian tertiary health institution

Background: Cervical spondylosis (CS) is the most common disorder of the cervical spine with its associated neck pain reported as a very common problem in clinical practice. There seemed to be a dearth of research on the prevalence of symptomatic CS in a physiotherapy clinic in Nigeria. Objective: To determine a 5-year prevalence of CS in a tertiary physiotherapy outpatient clinic in southeastern Nigeria. Materials and Methods: This was a 5-year retrospective survey, from 1 st January 2006 to 31 st December 2010. Information was got from the participants′ case notes, and only those who were diagnosed as having symptomatic CS without any associated disorders were recruited for the study. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics of frequency counts, percentages, and range. Result: Fifty (5.4%) participants presented to the clinic with symptomatic CS during the 5-year period. Their age ranged from 30 to 70 years. Twenty-seven (54%) of the participants were males; 30 (60%) were urban dwellers as well as civil servants; 20 (40%) were rural dwellers; 11 (22%) of the rural dwellers were farmers; whereas, the rest (9 (18%)) were traders. Conclusion: The prevalence of CS in the physiotherapy outpatient clinic was fairly low. Civil servants had 100% affectation. There was relatively poor turnout of the rural dwellers to the hospital. Thus, there seems to be a need to educate civil servants on ergonomically good working techniques. There may also be a need to enlighten the entire population (especially the rural dwellers) on health matters in order to help them make preinformed decision on health issues.
Daily energy expenditure of singing great reed warblers Acrocephalus arundinaceus

According to honest signalling theory, signals must be costly to produce to retain information about the signaller's quality. The song produced by male birds during breeding is a vocal "ornament" used for intra- and inter-sexual purposes. The energetic cost of this vocal signal remains a contentious issue. We used the doubly labelled water method to measure field metabolic rate by estimating CO2 production and then convert this to daily energy expenditure (DEE) in great reed warbler males singing under natural conditions (10 at low to moderate intensity and 7 at very high intensity from dawn to dusk). There was a significant positive relationship between singing intensity and DEE. From this relationship we extrapolated the average DEE for intensely singing males (i.e., males producing song sounds 50% of the time and hence sitting at their elevated song post in the top of a reed stem more or less continuously throughout the similar to 20 h of daylight) to 3.3xBMR (basal metabolic rate) and for non-singing males to 2.2xBMR. The mean DEE measured for the seven males singing with very high intensity was 3.1xBMR. The maximum measured DEE for a single male was 3.9xBMR, i.e. close to the maximum sustainable DEE (4xBMR), and the minimum DEE was 2.1xBMR for a male singing at very low intensity. These results imply that producing intensive advertising song in birds may incur a substantial cost in terms of increased energy expenditure. (Less)
Infection control by nurses in selected hospitals in Anambra State, Nigeria

Background: Client safety in the health-care environment requires the reduction of microorganism transmission. Infection control practices are directed at controlling or eliminating source of infection in the health-care agency, home, or communities to reduce the occurrence and transmission of infectious diseases. Among health workers, nurses spend the greatest time in caregiving setting. Nurses′ involvement in infection control measures will yield positive results in infection prevention and control in hospitals. Aim: To evaluate the knowledge, attitude, and practice of nurses in the state on infection control and barriers to practice to generate information that would guide future interventions to scale up practices. Methods: It is a cross-sectional study of descriptive design. Multistage sampling technique was adopted. The hospitals in the state were stratified according to ownership - federal, state, mission, and private. Using balloting, three categories of hospitals were randomly selected out of the four. One hospital each was selected from the three main cities in the state based on federal, state, and mission ownership, respectively. Instrument for data collection was a self-structured questionnaire, which was validated and with a reliability value of 0.82 computed on ten nurses in a pilot study. The population of nurses in the three hospitals was small (310). Using convenient sampling method, nurses on morning duty were selected. A sample of 202 nurses based on shift duty, out of the 310 nurses from the three selected hospitals constituted the study population even though only 197 out of the 202 nurse participants returned their questionnaire. Descriptive and inferential statistics using Spearman′s rho correlation were applied. Results: Out of the 197 respondents, 84 (42.6%) responded that their hospital has infection control unit and 66 (34.1%) stated that they have infection control committee in their hospitals. Respondents with a knowledge score above 60% were only 20 (10.2%), but 170 (86.3%) and 120 (60.9%) had attitude and practice score above 60%, receptively. Only 5 respondents (2.5%) strongly agreed that hand washing is the key to infection control. Conclusion: There is a need to explore the discrepancy between knowledge, attitude, and practice. Facility monitoring is vital to effective infection control practices and should be the focus of intervention.
Perioperative Thromboprophylaxis in Digital Replantation: A Systematic Review

Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text. Background: There is no international consensus on the use of perioperative thromboprophylaxis in digital replantation. Suboptimal perioperative management may lead to replant failure, which compromises extremity function, worsens psychosocial outcomes for patients, and incurs significant cost. This systematic review evaluates and compares the efficacy and safety of perioperative antithrombotic protocols used in digital replantation. Methods: A Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA)--compliant prospectively registered (PROSPERO, CRD42018108695) systematic review was conducted. Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Medline, EMBASE, and Scopus were searched up until December 2019. Articles were assessed for eligibility in duplicate by 2 independent reviewers. All comparative studies that examined the use of perioperative thromboprophylaxis in digital replantation were eligible for inclusion. Results: Collectively, 1,025 studies were identified of which 7 met full inclusion criteria reporting data from 635 patients (908 digital replants, 86% men, average age 37.3 years). Laceration was the most commonly reported mechanism of injury (68%), with 33% of replantation occurring in Tamai zone III. Fourteen distinct perioperative protocols were identified. One study reported significantly higher digital survival with continuous heparin infusion versus bolus heparin. Five studies demonstrated a significantly higher incidence of complications among patients treated with systemic heparin. Conclusions: The clinical efficacy and safety of perioperative antithrombotic therapy following digital replantation remains equivocal. The perceived benefits of improved digital survival must be tempered against the adverse systemic side effects of antithrombotic and anticoagulant therapies until further prospectively collected data sets become available.
Tuberculosis and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: An Inflammatory Danger Signal in the Time of Coronavirus Disease 2019

© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press for the Infectious Diseases Society of America. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Tuberculosis and type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: an inflammatory danger signal in the time of COVID-19
Control of Fusarium solani rot of potato tubers with fungicides

SUMMARY Tecnazene (up to 33 ppm) and dichloran (up to 500 ppm) had little effect on germination of spores or growth of Fusarium solani isolated from and causing a rot of potato tubers; they also did not decrease rotting when applied to wounds later inoculated with the pathogen. Benomyl and thiabendazole (up to 500 ppm) also had little effect on spore germination but did greatly decrease growth at 5 ppm. A pronounced pink coloration developed in cultures growing slowly in the presence of benomyl; a similar though less striking effect appeared in agar cultures containing thiabendazole. Benomyl suspended in water or diluted with Fuller's earth gave good control of rotting when applied to wounds inoculated later with F. solani. Still better control was obtained with thiabendazole; dusts containing 1% a.i. substantially decreased rots and those containing 10 % a.i. gave almost complete control when applied to wounds shortly before inoculation. Thiabendazole was also very effective when used 24 h after inoculation and a fair measure of control was obtained when it was applied 24 h later. Benomyl and thiabendazole placed on apparently intact surfaces of tubers caused tissue 5 mm deep to become toxic to F. solani 10 days later, and, unexpectedly, this tissue prevented spore germination. Fuller's earth alone substantially decreased rotting. The results obtained suggest that dusts containing thiabendazole have some promise for the control of Fusarium rots of potato tubers, especially of early crops.
Apparent mutualism between Verticordia nitens and V. aurea (Myrtaceae) and their oil-ingesting bee pollinators (Hymenoptera: Colletidae)

The prominently-displayed flowers of Verticordia nitens and V. aurea are unattractive to most insect pollinators and yet apparently serve as the sole source of pollen and nectar for two species of solitary bee. Euryglossa (Euhesma) morrisoni forages exclusively on V. nitens and E. (E.) aureophila forages exclusively on V. aurea. These bees carry much pollen on their bodies and appear solely responsible for seed set of 9-31% of ovules, with negligible seed set by V. nitens in the absence of E. morrisoni. Each anther of both Verticordia species releases pollen in copious amounts of oil (pollenkitt) beneath a hood-like appendage which terminates in a spout. Female bees ingest the pollen-oil mixture by touching the appendages with their glossae, and nectar by lapping the floor of the hypanthium. Most of the oils are isopentyl esters of the fatty acids, palmitic, stearic, arachidic (the major component of V. nitens) and behenic (the major component of V. aurea). These oils, as well as significant amounts of glucose, fructose and proline, are also present in the crop of E. morrisoni. The ability ofE. morrisoni and E. aureophila to remove and utilise pollen, oil and nectar from the flowers, their effectiveness as sole pollinators, and flower colour mimicry by E. morrisoni, together suggest an obligate mutualism between these bees and their Verticordia hosts.
Comparação de métodos de agrupamento para o estudo da divergência genética em cultivares de feijão

The aim of this research was to compare cluster methods, on the basis of the dissimilarity (standardized average euclidian and Mahalanobis generalized) and obtain information on genetic diversity in common bean cultivars (Phaseolus vulgaris). Fourteen common beans cultivars were evaluated in nine experiments conducted in Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul State, Brazil (latitude 29°42 S, longitude 53°49 W, altitude 95m), in agricultural years from 2000/2001 to 2004/2005. Randomized blocks design with three repetitions was installed to evaluated the following characters: grain yield, number of pods per plant, number of seeds per pod, weight of 100 grains, final population of plants, number of days of the emergency to flowering, number of days of the emergency to harvest, height of first pod insertion and height of the final pod insertion. Clusters based on the standardized average euclidian distance are distinct from those formed on the basis of Mahalanobis generalized distance. The Tocher's method and hierarchical methods of the single linkage, Ward, complete linkage, median, the average linkage within the group and average linkage between groups, based on the Mahalanobis generalized distance form agreement cluster. The cultivar 'Irai' presents distinct behavior from other cultivars.
Bacterial and fungal microbiome characterization in patients with rosacea and healthy controls

Rosacea is a common inflammatory skin disease, but its pathophysiology is still unclear. Several microorganisms, including Cutibacterium acnes, Demodex spp. and Staphylococcus epidermidis, have been suggested to play roles in its pathogenesis. However, it is suspected that the community of microorganisms in and on the skin, rather than a single species, plays a more causative role in the disease. Our study aims to characterize and compare the skin bacterial and fungal microbiome in rosacea patients and healthy controls.
SeedGerm: a cost-effective phenotyping platform for automated seed imaging and machine-learning based phenotypic analysis of crop seed germination.

Efficient seed germination and establishment are important traits for field and glasshouse crops. Large-scale germination experiments are laborious and prone to observer errors, leading to the necessity for automated methods. We experimented with five crop species, including tomato, pepper, Brassica, barley, and maize, and concluded an approach for large-scale germination scoring. Here, we present the SeedGerm system, which combines cost-effective hardware and open-source software for (1) seed germination experiments, (2) automated seed imaging, and (3) machine-learning based phenotypic analysis. The software can process multiple image series simultaneously and produce reliable analysis of germination- and establishment-related traits, in both comma-separated values (CSV) and processed images (PNG) formats. In this article, we describe the hardware and software design in detail. We also demonstrate that SeedGerm could match specialists' scoring of radicle emergence. Germination curves were produced based on seed-level germination timing and rates rather than a fitted curve. In particular, by scoring germination across a diverse panel of Brassica napus varieties, SeedGerm implicates a gene important in abscisic acid (ABA) signalling in seeds. We compared SeedGerm with existing methods and concluded that it could have wide utilities in large-scale seed phenotyping and testing, for both research and routine seed technology applications.
GROWTH AND SEXUAL DIMORPHISM OF ATLANTIC WALRUSES (ODOBENUS ROSMARUS ROSMARUS) IN FOXE BASIN, NORTHWEST TERRITORIES, CANADA

Growth of Atlantic walruses (Odobenus rosmarus rosmarus) was investigated using morphological data collected in association with Inuit subsistence walrus hunts. Four growth models were examined. The growth parameters of a constrained Richards model were used to quantify growth and to test for sexual dimorphism. The asymptotic length of male walruses (315.2 cm ± 3.8 (SE), n= 103) was significantly larger (t= 7.21, df = 191, P < 0.05) than the asymptotic length of females (276.6 cm ± 3.4, n= 90). Sexual size dimorphism in adults was due to a longer growth period and a faster growth rate in males. The predictive equation relating mass (M, kg) to standard length (SL, cm) was: Log10M= -3.74 + 2.68(Log10SL), n= 25, r2= 0.98. There were no significant differences in the size of male walruses from Foxe Basin collected in the 1950s and this study. There were too few data to compare females. There were no significant differences in size between walruses sampled in Greenland and Foxe Basin in the 1980s and 1990s. Foxe Basin walruses were significantly larger than walruses sampled in northern Hudson Bay in the 1950s. Female Atlantic walruses sampled in Foxe Basin were larger than female Pacific walruses (Odobenus rosmarus divergens) sampled in Alaska.
Reproductive behavior in the annual fish Austrolebias reicherti Loureiro & García 2004 (Cyprinodontiformes: Rivulidae)

Os peixes anuais habitam charcos temporarios que secam sazonalmente, e as adaptacoes para sobreviver a estas condicoes extremas incluem altas taxas metabolicas e um elaborado comportamento de cortejo, que culmina com a deposicao de ovos resistentes a dessecacao dentro do substrato, os quais sao capazes de atravessar estadios de diapausa. O pronunciado dimorfismo sexual apresentado por estes peixes indica que a selecao sexual poderia estar exercendo um papel chave na diferenciacao, especiacao e evolucao deste grupo diverso de peixes. Entretanto, informacoes acerca dos mecanismos de isolamento reprodutivo, incluindo uma analise detalhada dos sinais de cortejo, sao escassas. Neste artigo e analisado o comportamento reprodutivo de Austrolebias reicherti de maneira qualitativa e quantitativa. As unidades comportamentais utilizadas neste estudo correspondem aquelas incluidas em analises anteriores de outras especies de peixes anuais. A unidade comportamental mais frequentemente observada em machos foi a "exibicao lateral", onde caracteristicas especie-especificas da morfologia e colorido sao exibidas para a femea. A alta proporcao de ocorrencia (em frequencia e tempo) do comportamento de "quietude" nas femeas indica que o mesmo poderia desempenhar um papel avaliativo durante o cortejo. Outros sinais alem dos visuais estao envolvidos no cortejo dos peixes anuais; os machos vibram as nadadeiras dorsal e anal e ondulam o corpo, o que indica que os sinais mecânicos poderiam ter influencia na atracao das femeas. Estes resultados conferem suporte a hipotese de sinais multimodais, recentemente proposta. Os movimentos de cortejo altamente conservados dentro de Austrolebias indicam que o reconhecimento especifico e a barreira a hibridizacao poderiam nao ocorrer nesta etapa, a menos que se encontrem diferencas quantitativas nestes sinais comportamentais.
Comparative meta-analysis of Kabuki syndrome with and without hyperinsulinemic hypoglycemia.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE Kabuki syndrome (KS), caused by pathogenic variants in KMT2D or KDM6A, is associated with hyperinsulinemic hypoglycemia (HH) in 0.3-4% of patients. We characterized the clinical, biochemical and molecular data of children with KS and HH compared to children with KS without HH in a multicenter meta-analysis. METHODS Data of seven new and 17 already published children with KS and HH were compared to 373 recently published KS patients without HH regarding molecular and clinical characteristics. RESULTS Seven new patients were identified with seven different pathogenic variants in KDM6A (n=4) or KMT2D (n=3). All presented with HH on the first day of life and were responsive to diazoxide. KS was diagnosed between 9 months and 14 years of age. In the meta-analysis 24 KS patients with HH had a significantly higher frequency of variants in KDM6A compared to 373 KS patients without HH (50% vs. 11.5%, p<0.001), and KDM6A-KS was more likely to be associated with HH than KMT2D-KS (21.8% vs. 3.5%, p<0.001). Sex distribution and other phenotypic features did not differ between KS with and without HH. CONCLUSION The higher incidence of HH in KDM6A-KS compared to KMT2D-KS indicates that KDM6A loss of function variants predispose more specifically to beta cell dysfunction compared to KMT2D variants. As difficulties to assign syndromic characteristics to KS in early infancy often lead to delayed diagnosis, genetic testing for KS should be considered in children with HH, especially in the presence of other extrapancreatic/syndromic features.
Factors Affecting Macroinvertebrate Communities in Astatic Ponds in Central Italy

ABSTRACT Twenty astatic ponds near Rome were studied in order to define the relationships between physicochemical variables and macroinvertebrate communities. The main abiotic factor differentiating the ponds was the annual hydrologic cycle. Depth, surface area, and sand percentages in the sediment were higher in permanent ponds, whereas silt+clay content was higher in temporary ones. No difference was recorded in pH, conductivity and oxygen content in the water or organic matter in the sediments between the two pond types. Three main ecological assemblages were distinguished: a) generalist taxa common to both pond types; b) taxa associated with and adapted to temporary ponds; and c) taxa which seemed to prefer permanent ponds. Overall, there was no relationship between number of taxa and surface area, except for Odonata and aquatic macrophytes. A positive correlation was observed between number of macrophyte species and macroinvertebrate taxa richness, and particularly of odonates and chironomids, suggesting that an increase in aquatic vegetation species leads to an increase in microhabitats and suitable food, substrate, and/or refuge from predators. Odonata seemed also to prefer more stable and sunny ponds.
Ecological and morphological variation of Canary Island blue tits, Parus caeruleus (Aves: Paridae)

Canary Island blue tits have differentiated within the last million years. Compared with mainland populations they have short wings, large beaks and tarsi, and tend to be less variable in these parameters. Within the archipelago the eastern populations have the shortest wings and tarsi but the widest and deepest beaks. The eastern populations may have been derived from central island ones, following extinction of the original eastern populations during a warm period in the last Ice Age. New measurements have been used to test contrasting predictions of hypotheses that explain inter-island morphological variation in terms of either climatic or ecological influences. Neither hypothesis is sufficient to explain the variation. A model which combines mem is proposed as follows. Mild winter temperatures have selected for small body size and wing length, especially on the hot, dry, eastern islands. On the other pine-forested, islands, selection has favoured relatively long tarsi and long, slender, beaks for efficient foraging among pine foliage. The absence of die pine-dwelling coal tit from the islands has facilitated mis evolutionary shift. It is shown that blue tits in pines forage more in the needles and cones on the Canary Islands than they do on die North African mainland.
TAXONOMY OF THE FLATTENED SOLIERIACEAE (RHODOPHYTA) IN BRAZIL: AGARDHIELLA AND MERISTIELLA 1

Taxonomic studies of an extensive collection of flattened members of the Solieriaceae considered by many authors to be species of Agardhiella, Eucheuma, Meristotheca, and Meristiella lead us to conclude that they represent only two genera in Brazil: Agardhiella, including A. ramosissima (Harvey) Kylin and A. floridana (Kylin) Gabrielson ex Guimarães et Oliveira, and Meristiella, with only one species, M. gelidium (J. Agardh) Cheney et Gabrielson. Accordingly, we propose that 1) Meristotheca gigartinoides Joly et Ugadim be synonymized with Agardhiella floridana, and 2) Meristiella echinocarpa (Areschoug) Cheney et Gabrielson and M. schrammii (P. et H. Crouan) Cheney et Gabrielson be synonymized with Meristiella gelidium.