Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Caregiving for a Spouse with Cognitive Impairment: Effects on Nutrition and Other Lifestyle Factors.

BACKGROUND Being a spousal caregiver (SCG) for a patient with cognitive impairment is well known to be associated with increased risk for dementia and cognitive decline. OBJECTIVE This study examined the impact of the care recipient's cognitive status on lifestyle factors influencing cognitive decline in SCGs, focusing on nutritional status and blood biomarkers. METHODS Fifty-one SCGs participated (mean age 73.5±7.0 years) in this study. All participants underwent clinical assessment including the Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA), Geriatric Depression Scale, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, and International Physical Activity Questionnaire to evaluate lifestyle factors, and the Mini-Mental State Examination to assess global cognition. Also, nutritional blood biomarkers were measured. RESULTS SCGs caring for a demented spouse showed significantly higher depression scores (t = -3.608, p = 0.001) and malnutrition risk (t = 2.894, p = 0.006). Decreased care recipients' cognition was significantly correlated with higher GDS (β= -0.593, t = -4.471, p < 0.001) and higher MNA scores (β= 0.315, t = 2.225, p = 0.031) and lower level of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (β= 0.383, t = 2.613, p = 0.012) in their SCGs. Gender had moderating effects on association of care recipients' cognition with sleep quality (B[SE] = 0.400[0.189], p = 0.041) and HDL cholesterol (B[SE] = -1.137[0.500], p = 0.028) among SCGs. Poorer care-recipient cognition was associated with worse sleep quality and low HDL cholesterol among wives but not husband caregivers. CONCLUSION This study provides substantial evidence that SCGs are at risk for depression and malnutrition, which can further affect cognitive decline. As such, these factors should be well assessed and monitored among SCGs for patient with cognitive impairment.
CTRP3 protects against uric acid-induced endothelial injury by inhibiting inflammation and oxidase stress in rats

Hyperuricemia, which contributes to vascular endothelial damage, plays a key role in multiple cardiovascular diseases. This study was designed to investigate whether C1q/tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-related protein 3 (CTRP3) has a protective effect on endothelial damage induced by uric acid and its underlying mechanisms. Animal models of hyperuricemia were established in Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats through the consumption of 10% fructose water for 12 weeks. Then, the rats were given a single injection of Ad-CTRP3 or Ad-GFP. The animal experiments were ended two weeks later. In vitro, human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) were first infected with Ad-CTRP3 or Ad-GFP. Then, the cells were stimulated with 10 mg/dL uric acid for 48 h after pretreatment with or without a Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4)-specific inhibitor. Hyperuricemic rats showed disorganized intimal structures, increased endothelial apoptosis rates, increased inflammatory responses and oxidative stress, which were accompanied by reduced CTRP3 and elevated TLR4 protein levels in the thoracic aorta. In contrast, CTRP3 overexpression decreased TLR4 protein levels and ameliorated inflammatory responses and oxidative stress, thereby improving the morphology and apoptosis of the aortic endothelium in rats with hyperuricemia. Similarly, CTRP3 overexpression decreased TLR4-mediated inflammation, reduced oxidative stress, and rescued endothelial damage induced by uric acid in HUVECs. In conclusion, CTRP3 ameliorates uric acid-induced inflammation and oxidative stress, which in turn protects against endothelial injury, possibly by inhibiting TLR4-mediated inflammation and downregulating oxidative stress.
Sleep Characteristics and Cognitive Function in Older Adults Without Dementia: The CABLE Study.

BACKGROUND The associations between sleep characteristics and cognition are complicated. Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathologies have been proven to be associated with sleep characteristics. OBJECTIVE We aimed to investigate the associations between sleep characteristics and cognitive function and examine the roles of AD pathologies in modulating the association of sleep duration with cognition. METHODS A total of 974 participants who had measurements of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) amyloid-β (Aβ), phosphorylated tau (P-tau), total tau proteins (T-tau), cognitive function, and sleep characteristics were included from the Chinese Alzheimer's Biomarker and Lifestyle (CABLE) study. Linear regression analyses were utilized to explore the associations of sleep characteristics with cognition. Non-linear regression analyses were utilized to explore the associations of sleep habits with cognition. Causal mediation analyses were conducted to explore the mediation effects of AD pathologies on cognition. RESULTS The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) total score was significantly negatively correlated with Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) score (p = 0.0176). Long latency (p = 0.0054) and low efficiency (p = 0.0273) were associated with cognitive impairment. Habitual nap behavior was associated with lower MoCA scores (p = 0.0045). U-shaped associations were observed between sleep habits (bedtime and nocturnal sleep duration) and cognition. A causal mediation analysis indicated that P-tau/Aβ 42 mediated the association of sleep duration with cognition. CONCLUSION These findings showed sleep characteristics were associated with cognitive functions. Sleep habits (duration, bedtime) had U-shaped associations with cognition. AD core pathologies might partially mediate the influence of sleep duration on cognitive impairments.
Toripalimab in an advanced non-small cell lung cancer patient with poor general condition after multiline treatment: a case report

Several clinical trials have proven that immunotherapy can improve survival and benefit non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. In patients who progress after chemotherapy, immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) monotherapy can prolong overall survival compared with patients receiving single-agent chemotherapy. A 61-year-old man diagnosed with advanced NSCLC and without driver variants received first-line chemotherapy but experienced recurrence. During subsequent treatment, the disease progressed rapidly, and his general condition deteriorated; therefore, toripalimab monotherapy was initiated. Surprisingly, he responded well, and symptoms were relieved after several treatment cycles despite pseudoprogression, shown in chest images. For driver gene-negative NSCLC patients who progress after chemotherapy and who develop poor performance status (PS), ICIs are an option to alleviate symptoms and improve survival. Furthermore, immunotherapy in patients with pseudoprogression may also provide a survival benefit.
Clinical Application of MPRAGE Wave Controlled Aliasing in Parallel Imaging (Wave-CAIPI): A Comparative Study with MPRAGE GRAPPA

Purpose: To compare reliability and elucidate clinical application of magnetization-prepared rapid gradient-echo (MPRAGE) with 9-fold acceleration by using wave-controlled aliasing in parallel imaging (Wave-CAIPI 3 × 3) in comparison to conventional MPRAGE accelerated by using generalized autocalibrating partially parallel acquisition (GRAPPA) 2 × 1. Methods: A total of 26 healthy volunteers and 33 patients were included in this study. Subjects were scanned with two MPRAGEs, GRAPPA 2 × 1 and Wave-CAIPI 3 × 3 acquired in 5 min 21 s and 1 min 42 s, respectively, on a 3T MR scanner. Healthy volunteers underwent additional two MPRAGEs (CAIPI 3 × 3 and GRAPPA 3 × 3). The image quality of the four MPRAGEs was visually evaluated with a 5-point scale in healthy volunteers, and the SNR of four MPRAGEs was also calculated by measuring the phantom 10 times with each MPRAGE. Based on the results of the visual evaluation, voxel-based morphometry (VBM) analyses, including subfield analysis, were performed only for GRAPPA 2 × 1 and Wave-CAIPI 3 × 3. Correlation of segmentation results between GRAPPA 2 × 1 and Wave-CAIPI 3 × 3 was assessed. Results: In visual evaluations, scores for MPRAGE GRAPPA 2 × 1 (mean rank: 4.00) were significantly better than those for Wave-CAIPI 3 × 3 (mean rank: 3.00), CAIPI 3 × 3 (mean rank: 1.83), and GRAPPA 3 × 3 (mean rank: 1.17), and scores for Wave-CAIPI 3×3 were significantly better than those for CAIPI 3 × 3 and GRAPPA 3 × 3. Image noise was evident at the center for additional MPRAGE CAIPI 3 × 3 and GRAPPA 3 × 3. The correlation of segmentation results between GRAPPA 2 × 1 and Wave-CAIPI 3 × 3 was higher than 0.85 in all VOIs except globus pallidus. Subfield analysis of hippocampus also showed a high correlation between GRAPPA 2 × 1 and Wave-CAIPI 3 × 3. Conclusion: MPRAGE Wave-CAIPI 3 × 3 shows relatively better contrast, despite of its short scan time of 1 min 42 s. The volumes derived from automated segmentation of MPRAGE Wave-CAIPI are considered to be reliable measures.
The impact of collagen protein ingestion on musculoskeletal connective tissue remodeling: a narrative review

Abstract Collagen is the central structural component of extracellular connective tissue, which provides elastic qualities to tissues. For skeletal muscle, extracellular connective tissue transmits contractile force to the tendons and bones. Connective tissue proteins are in a constant state of remodeling and have been shown to express a high level of plasticity. Dietary-protein ingestion increases muscle protein synthesis rates. High-quality, rapidly digestible proteins are generally considered the preferred protein source to maximally stimulate myofibrillar (contractile) protein synthesis rates. In contrast, recent evidence demonstrates that protein ingestion does not increase muscle connective tissue protein synthesis. The absence of an increase in muscle connective tissue protein synthesis after protein ingestion may be explained by insufficient provision of glycine and/or proline. Dietary collagen contains large amounts of glycine and proline and, therefore, has been proposed to provide the precursors required to facilitate connective tissue protein synthesis. This literature review provides a comprehensive evaluation of the current knowledge on the proposed benefits of dietary collagen consumption to stimulate connective tissue remodeling to improve health and functional performance.
Muscle‐specific Cand2 is translationally upregulated by mTORC1 and promotes adverse cardiac remodeling

The mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) promotes pathological remodeling in the heart by activating ribosomal biogenesis and mRNA translation. Inhibition of mTOR in cardiomyocytes is protective; however, a detailed role of mTOR in translational regulation of specific mRNA networks in the diseased heart is unknown. We performed cardiomyocyte genome‐wide sequencing to define mTOR‐dependent gene expression control at the level of mRNA translation. We identify the muscle‐specific protein Cullin‐associated NEDD8‐dissociated protein 2 (Cand2) as a translationally upregulated gene, dependent on the activity of mTOR. Deletion of Cand2 protects the myocardium against pathological remodeling. Mechanistically, we show that Cand2 links mTOR signaling to pathological cell growth by increasing Grk5 protein expression. Our data suggest that cell‐type‐specific targeting of mTOR might have therapeutic value against pathological cardiac remodeling.
Characterization, Modelling and State Estimation of Lithium-Sulfur Batteries

Lithium-Sulfur (Li-S) batteries represent an appealing battery technology, which might become an alternative for the currently wide spread Lithium-ion batteries. However, the current limitations concerning the cell performance and lifetime are the major factors, which slow down their commercialization. Vast research efforts are carried out to improve the cell design and composition; nevertheless, only a minimum of work has been focused on characterizing their behavior and developing tools for a prospective use in practical applications. Thus, this thesis has tried to fill in the aforementioned gap and it studied several aspects for understanding the Li-S batteries behavior for prospective practical applications. Therefore, the equivalent electrical circuit model for discharging of the Li-S batteries has been developed. The proposed model is able to simulate the dynamic voltage response of the studied Li-S battery cell during the discharge and is also suitable to be used for extended Kalman filter based state-of-charge (SOC) estimation. Moreover, an equivalent electrical circuit approach was also used for the analysis of the electrochemical impedance spectroscopy performed at the Li-S cell under various temperature and state-of-charge levels. An extensive experimental laboratory testing procedure was used to characterize the Li-S cell and to develop its models. The short-term self-discharge was experimentally investigated in detail and a simple, but effective model was proposed for it. Based on this self-discharge model, the self-balancing feature of the Li-S batteries was identified, which enhances their balancing and might even lead to avoid an additional electronic circuitry usually implemented for this purpose. Furthermore, the charge recovery effect and thermal attributes were investigated. Because of the specific behavior of Li-S batteries, a specially tailored testing methodology to evaluate the battery’s performance parameters change during the ageing was proposed. The testing methodology covers the characteristic behavior such as the cumulative history, rapid self-discharge and it also includes the measurements of the unique polysulfide shuttle current. The work was also focused on state estimation, which is an important
Vitamin B12 and Folate Markers Are Associated with Insulin Resistance During the Third Trimester of Pregnancy in South Asian Women, Living in the United Kingdom, with Gestational Diabetes and Normal Glucose Tolerance

ABSTRACT Background Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) can adversely affect the health of the developing fetus. Women of South Asian origin are particularly at risk of developing GDM. Insulin resistance (IR) contributes to the etiology of GDM, and although studies have shown associations of vitamin B12 (B12) and folate status with GDM and IR, only a limited number of B12 and folate markers have been used. Objective We used a comprehensive panel of B12 and folate markers to examine their association with IR in pregnant women with diet-controlled GDM and normal glucose tolerance (NGT). Methods In this cross-sectional study, 59 British-Bangladeshi women (24 GDM and 35 NGT) with a mean age of 29 y, BMI (in kg/m2) 26.7 and gestational age 33 wk were recruited. Serum total B12, holotranscobalamin, folate, methylmalonic acid, plasma homocysteine, 5-methyltetrahydrofolate, and red cell folate (RCF) were measured along with other parameters. The independent sample t-test and chi-squared test were used to assess differences in markers between GDM and NGT women. Spearman's test was used to look for correlations. A simple multiple regression analysis was used to investigate if markers of B12 and folate status predicted IR, using the HOMA-IR and adjusting for age, GDM status, and BMI. Results There were no differences in concentrations of B12 and folate markers between GDM and NGT women. In Spearman's analysis HOMA-IR correlated negatively with total serum B12 (P < 0.001) and holotranscobalamin (P < 0.05), and positively with BMI (P < 0.001), blood pressure (P < 0.05) and triglycerides (P < 0.05) in all women. MMA did not correlate with any of the B12 markers. In regression analysis, total B12 (β = −0.622, P = 0.004), RCF (β = 0.387, P = 0.018), and BMI (β = 0.024, P < 0.001) were the significant predictors of HOMA-IR variance. Conclusions Significant associations between markers of B12 and folate status with HOMA-IR were found during the third trimester in British-Bangladeshi women. B12 markers correlated poorly with each other.
Low Self-Control and Perceptions of Procedural Justice Among Urban-Born Youth: The Moderating Role of Officer Intrusiveness

The current study examines whether the link between low self-control and perceptions of procedural justice among urban-born youth is contingent on acts of officer intrusiveness. Data come from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study and are restricted to youth reporting lifetime police stops at Year 15 (N = 918). Findings reveal that the association between low self-control and diminished perceptions of procedural justice is significantly moderated by officer intrusiveness. To be precise, low self-control became more relevant in diminished perceptions of procedural justice as officer intrusiveness decreased. The findings carry implications for police-citizen interactions, including the training of police officers in developmental science and how low self-control may shape youth perceptions of police encounters.
Five New Hot Jupiter Transits Investigated with Swift-UVOT

Short-wavelength exoplanet transit measurements have been used to probe mass loss in exoplanet atmospheres. We present the Swift-UVOT transit light curves for five hot Jupiters orbiting UV-bright F-type stars: XO-3, KELT-3, WASP-3, WASP-62, and HAT-P-6. We report one positive transit detection of XO-3b and one marginal detection of KELT-3b. We place upper limits on the remaining three transit depths. The planetary radii derived from the NUV transit depths of both potential detections are 50%–100% larger than their optical radius measurements. We examine the ratio R NUV/R opt for trends as a function of estimated mass-loss rate, which we derive from X-ray luminosity obtained from the Swift-XRT or, in the case of WASP-62, XMM-Newton. We find no correlation between the energy-limited photoevaporative mass-loss rate and the R NUV/R opt ratio. We also search for trends based on the equilibrium temperature of the hot Jupiters. We find a possible indication of a transition in the R NUV/R opt ratio around T eq = 1700 K, analogous to the trends found for NIR water features in transmission spectra. This might be explained by the formation of extended cloud decks with silicate particles ≤1 μm. We demonstrate that the Swift-UVOT filters could be sensitive to absorption from aerosols in exoplanet atmospheres.
Learn to Grasp with Less Supervision: A Data-Efficient Maximum Likelihood Grasp Sampling Loss

Robotic grasping for a diverse set of objects is essential in many robot manipulation tasks. One promising approach is to learn deep grasping models from large training datasets of object images and grasp labels. However, empirical grasping datasets are typically sparsely labeled (i.e., a small number of successful grasp labels**Labels refer to marking the image to indicate a successful robotic grasp. in each image). The data sparsity issue can lead to insufficient supervision and false-negative labels, and thus results in poor learning results. This paper proposes a Maximum Likelihood Grasp Sampling Loss (MLGSL) to tackle the data sparsity issue. The proposed method supposes that successful grasps are stochastically sampled from the predicted grasp distribution and maximizes the observing likelihood. MLGSL is utilized for training a fully convolutional network that generates thousands of grasps simultaneously. Training results suggest that models based on MLGSL can learn to grasp with datasets composing of 2 labels per image. Compared to previous works, which require training datasets of 16 labels per image, MLGSL is 8× more data-efficient. Meanwhile, physical robot experiments demonstrate an equivalent performance at a 90.7% grasp success rate on household objects. Codes and videos are available at [1].
Encoder Adaptation of Dense Passage Retrieval for Open-Domain Question Answering

One key feature of dense passage retrievers (DPR) is the use of separate question and passage encoder in a bi-encoder design. Previous work on generalization of DPR mainly focus on testing both encoders in tandem on out-of-distribution (OOD) question-answering (QA) tasks, which is also known as domain adaptation. However, it is still unknown how DPR's individual question/passage encoder affects generalization. Specifically, in this paper, we want to know how an in-distribution (IND) question/passage encoder would generalize if paired with an OOD passage/question encoder from another domain. We refer to this challenge as \textit{encoder adaptation}. To answer this question, we inspect different combinations of DPR's question and passage encoder learned from five benchmark QA datasets on both in-domain and out-of-domain questions. We find that the passage encoder has more influence on the lower bound of generalization while the question encoder seems to affect the upper bound in general. For example, applying an OOD passage encoder usually hurts the retrieval accuracy while an OOD question encoder sometimes even improves the accuracy.
Effect or Treatment Heterogeneity? Policy Evaluation with Aggregated and Disaggregated Treatments

Binary treatments are often ex-post aggregates of multiple treatments or can be disaggregated into multiple treatment versions. Thus, effects can be heterogeneous due to either effect or treatment heterogeneity. We propose a decomposition method that uncovers masked heterogeneity, avoids spurious discoveries, and evaluates treatment assignment quality. The estimation and inference procedure based on double/debiased machine learning allows for high-dimensional confounding, many treatments and extreme propensity scores. Our applications suggest that heterogeneous effects of smoking on birthweight are partially due to different smoking intensities and that gender gaps in Job Corps effectiveness are largely explained by differential selection into vocational training.
Organizational Distance Also Matters: A Case Study of Distributed Research Teams and their Paper Productivity

Geographically dispersed teams often face challenges in coordination and collaboration, lowering their productivity. Understanding the relationship between team dispersion and productivity is critical for supporting such teams. Extensive prior research has studied these relations in lab settings or using qualitative measures. This paper extends prior work by contributing an empirical case study in a real-world organization, using quantitative measures. We studied 117 new research project teams within a company for 6 months. During this time, all teams shared one goal: submitting a research paper to a conference. We analyzed these teams’ dispersion-related characteristics as well as team productivity. Interestingly, we found little statistical evidence that geographic and time differences relate to team productivity. However, organizational and functional distances are highly predictive of the productivity of the dispersed teams we studied. We discuss the open research questions these findings revealed and their implications for future research.
Effective Bounds for the Decay of Schr\"odinger Eigenfunctions and Agmon bubbles

We study solutions of −∆u + V u = λu on Rn. Such solutions localize in the ‘allowed’ region {x ∈ Rn : V (x) ≤ λ} and decay exponentially in the ‘forbidden’ region {x ∈ Rn : V (x) > λ}. One way of making this precise is Agmon’s inequality implying decay estimates in terms of the Agmon metric. We prove a complementary decay estimate in terms of harmonic measure which can improve on Agmon’s estimate, connect the Agmon metric to decay of harmonic measure and prove a sharp pointwise Agmon estimate.