Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
EAP 2.0: reimagining the role of the employee assistance program in the new workplace

Abstract Mental illness is a highly prevalent problem that affects millions of individuals. Like many other previous natural disasters and terrorist attacks, the recent Covid-19 pandemic has placed an enormous stress on the world and its workforce. In many ways the pandemic revealed gaps in the quality and availability of mental health resources, and, by magnifying the intense demand, it also spurred innovation. Telemedicine and virtual trauma-related services became examples of ways in which evaluation, treatment and counselling services could be delivered directly and efficiently to people who were confined to their dwellings and hospital beds. For many, the workplace has been a source of stress but also a vital component of one’s self-worth, day-to-day purpose, and a resource for wellness programs and brief counselling services, not to mention, at least in many countries like the United States, a source for health insurance. The employee assistance program (EAP) is an example of a workplace-counselling and triage service that has enormous potential to meet the growing needs of individuals both in ‘normal’ times and during disasters. By better understanding the EAP’s current structure alongside the advent of new technologies, it may be possible to develop a new and improved EAP model to meet a changing global landscape. For EAP to succeed and ultimately be scalable in an increasingly competitive and value-conscious marketplace, its processes of care will first require a bottom-up review with meaningful outcomes data. This will be necessary to drive continuous quality improvement and to demonstrate EAP 2.0’s value to both employer and employee alike.
Epidemiology of invasive fungal diseases in adults with newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia

Abstract Invasive fungal diseases (IFDs) are common in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), but no recent data on incidence without antifungal prophylaxis are available. We evaluated the incidence of IFDs in patients with AML undergoing induction chemotherapy at Stanford University Hospital from 2012 to 2017, for up to 12 weeks after induction. We also analyzed factors associated with IFD development. Thirty-six of 240 patients (13%) developed at least one proven or probable IFD. Seventy-eight percent of the proven or probable IFDs were due to Candida or Aspergillus species. Infection due to Fusarium and Mucorales was uncommon. Absolute neutrophil count (ANC) of <500 µL/L at the start of induction was associated with an increased risk of IFD. One hundred and eighty-seven patients (78%) were started on systemic antifungal drugs, even without microbiologic evidence of an IFD. IFDs remain frequent in AML patients undergoing induction chemotherapy without antifungal prophylaxis.
The Association between Type of Dissociation and Psychotic Experiences in a Non-Psychotic Inpatient Sample

ABSTRACT Robust evidence exists for the link between dissociation and psychotic positive symptoms. The extent to which various dissociative phenomena may contribute to this relationship is still unknown. This study aimed to investigate the association between different dissociative phenomena and psychotic experiences. For this purpose, we analyzed data from 118 consecutively admitted patients of an acute care unit for trauma-related disorders who completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, the German version of the Dissociative Experiences Scale and the Symptom Check-List-90-Revised. Stepwise regression analyses revealed that derealization/depersonalization in combination with amnesia accounted for 44.5% of the variance of the psychoticism subscale of the Symptom Check-List-90-Revised. Absorption in combination with emotional abuse accounted for 24.9% of the variance of the paranoid ideation subscale of the Symptom Check-List-90-Revised. The results reveal that pathological and non-pathological types of dissociation that alter the perception of reality or memory procession may contribute to the development of psychotic experiences.
Hippocampal-subfield microstructures and their relation to plasma biomarkers in Alzheimer's disease.

Hippocampal subfields exhibit differential vulnerabilities to Alzheimer's disease (AD)-associated pathology including abnormal accumulation of beta-amyloid deposition and neurofibrillary tangles. These pathological processes extensively impact on the structural and functional interconnectivities of the subfields and may explain the association between hippocampal dysfunction and cognitive deficits. In the present study, we investigated the degree of alterations in the microstructure of hippocampal subfields across the clinical continuum of AD. We applied a gray matter (GM) specific multi-compartment diffusion model (Cortical-NODDI) to understand the differential effects of AD pathology on the hippocampal subfield microstructure. A total of 119 participants were included in this cross-sectional study. Participants were stratified into three categories, cognitively normal (CN; N = 47), mild cognitive impairment (MCI; N = 52), and AD (N = 19). Diffusion MRI, plasma biomarkers, and neuropsychological test scores were used to determine the association between the microstructural integrity and AD associated molecular indicators and cognition. For AD-related plasma biomarkers, we studied amyloid beta (Aβ), total tau (T-tau), and neurofilament light (NfL); for AD-related neuropsychological tests, we included the Trail Making Test (TMT), Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT), Digit Span, and Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA). Comparisons between CN and MCI showed significant microstructural alterations in the hippocampal cornu ammonis (CA) 4 and dentate gyrus (DG) region, whereas CA1-3 was the most sensitive region for the later stages in the AD clinical continuum. Among imaging metrics for microstructures, the volume fraction of isotropic diffusion for interstitial free water demonstrated the largest effect size in between-group comparisons. Regarding the plasma biomarkers, NfL appeared to be the most sensitive biomarker for associations with microstructural imaging findings in CA4-DG. CA1-3 was the subfield which had stronger correlations between cognitive performance and microstructural metrics. Particularly, poor performance in RAVLT and MoCA was associated with decreased intracellular volume fraction. Overall, our findings support the value of tissue-specific microstructural imaging for providing pathologically relevant information manifesting in the plasma biomarkers and neuropsychological outcomes across various stages of AD.
Effect of hepatic steatosis and associated metabolic comorbidities on health‐related quality of life in people living with HIV

Hepatic steatosis (HS) related to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is increasing globally. In people living with human immunodeficiency virus (PLWH) risk factors of HS are increased. The impact of HS on outcomes and in particular health‐related quality of life (HRQL) in PLWH remains unknown. The aim of this cross‐sectional cohort study (FLASH, Prevalence of Advanced Fibrosis in Patients Living With HIV) was to determine the contribution of HS on HRQL in PLWH and to identify confounders on HRQL. A total of 245 PLWH were prospectively enrolled. HS was assessed using vibration‐controlled transient elastography and defined as a controlled attenuation parameter (CAP) of ≥ 275 dB/m. The analysis was performed between CAP < 275 and ≥ 275 dB/m. The generic European Quality‐of‐Life 5‐Dimension 5‐Level questionnaire was used to determine differences in the HRQL. Univariable and multivariable linear regression models were applied to identify predictors with impaired HRQL in both groups. In this cohort, 65% (n = 160) presented without and 35% (n = 85) with HS, of whom most had NAFLD (n = 65, 76.5%). The HRQL (UI‐value) was significantly lower in PLWH and steatosis (0.86 ± 0.18) in comparison with no steatosis (0.92 ± 0.13). Unemployment (p = 0.025) and waist circumference (p = 0.017) remained independent predictors of a poor HRQL in the steatosis subgroup. In turn, age (p = 0.045), female sex (p = 0.030), body mass index (p = 0.010), and arterial hypertension (p = 0.025) were independent predictors of a low HRQL in the subgroup without steatosis. Conclusion: HS and metabolic comorbidities negatively affect the HRQL. Addressing these factors may improve patient‐reported and liver‐related outcomes in PLWH.
An esthetic evaluation of different abutment materials in the anterior Maxilla: A randomized controlled clinical trial using a crossover design.

PURPOSE To assess the effect of implant abutment material and soft tissue thickness on the peri-implant soft tissue color using spectrophotometry and to evaluate gingival esthetics and patient satisfaction with three different abutments. MATERIALS AND METHODS Twenty-five patients with a missing maxillary tooth in the esthetic area received an endosseous implant using a two-stage protocol. Grey titanium, pink anodized titanium, and hybrid zirconia custom abutments were fabricated for each participant and inserted for one week with a cross-over design in a randomized manner. Color measurements were made using a spectrophotometer comparing midfacial peri-implant soft tissue and marginal gingiva of the contralateral tooth. CIE Lab color scale was employed following the formula: ΔE = [(∆L)2 +(∆a)2 +(∆b)2 ] ½ . PES scores were recorded, and patient satisfaction questionnaires were completed at each abutment change visit and at 1-year follow-up. Statistical analysis was performed using Friedman's test and the Wilcoxon signed-rank test with Bonferroni correction as well as the Mann-Whitney U test (α = 0.05). RESULTS Abutment material type significantly affected the ΔΕ values of the peri-implant mucosa when compared to the contralateral teeth. At baseline, the highest ΔΕ means ± standard deviation (SD) values were obtained with grey titanium (11.25 ±2.98), followed by pink anodized titanium (9.90 ±2.51), and zirconia abutments (6.46 ±1.43). Differences were statistically significant irrespective of soft tissue thickness. The highest PES values were obtained with zirconia abutments (10.88 ±0.88), followed by pink anodized titanium (10.12 ±1.13) and the lowest with grey titanium (9.68 ±1.41). PES differences were significant only for the thin soft tissue group. Regarding patient satisfaction, VAS scores for the pink anodized and zirconia hybrid abutment groups were higher than the grey titanium group for each question. CONCLUSION The color difference between soft tissues around teeth and implants was significant in all groups regardless of tissue thickness. The hybrid zirconia abutments resulted in the least color difference, followed by pink anodized and grey titanium. Significantly different PES values were recorded only for the thin tissue group. There was no significant difference in patient satisfaction between zirconia and pink anodized abutments at the 1-year follow up. Pink anodized abutments represent a good esthetic alternative to zirconia hybrid abutments especially in mechanically challenging situations. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Balanitoside as a Natural Adjuvant to Gemcitabine in Lung Cancer Experimental Model

Abstract Gemcitabine is a chemotherapeutic drug used to treat cancer; however, it has severe side effects. Therefore, we evaluated the anticancer potency of balanitoside, a folk medicine isolated from the edible fruits of Balanites aegyptiaca, using a mouse model of lung cancer induced by Urethane/butylated hydroxytoluene, either alone or in combination with gemcitabine. The results indicated that balanitoside, when administered alone or in combination with gemcitabine, exhibited antitumor activity against lung cancer by reducing tumor incidence, multiplicity, and average tumor size. It also decreased the proliferation of tumor cells, induced apoptosis, triggered cell cycle arrest at the G0/G1 phase, and caused a marked reduction in cancer stem cell markers, aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH-1) levels, and the CD133 (+ve) cell population. Balanitoside also modulated the levels of oxidative stress markers in lung tissues. The results indicate that balanitoside enhances the antitumor activity of gemcitabine and may represent a natural adjuvant medication for lung cancer.
Humoral antibody response to the first dose of the ChAdOx1 nCoV‐19 vaccine in Asian patients undergoing hemodialysis

The immunogenicity of vaccines is known to be attenuated in patients with end‐stage kidney disease due to uremia. Patients on dialysis were excluded from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) vaccine trials; thus, the effectiveness of vaccines for this population is unclear. The aim of this study was to explore whether Asian dialysis patients can effectively produce an immune response after being vaccinated with the first dose of the ChAdOx1 nCoV‐19 vaccine.
Medicinal Chrysanthemum Detection under Complex Environments Using the MC-LCNN Model

Medicinal chrysanthemum detection is one of the desirable tasks of selective chrysanthemum harvesting robots. However, it is challenging to achieve accurate detection in real time under complex unstructured field environments. In this context, we propose a novel lightweight convolutional neural network for medicinal chrysanthemum detection (MC-LCNN). First, in the backbone and neck components, we employed the proposed residual structures MC-ResNetv1 and MC-ResNetv2 as the main network and embedded the custom feature extraction module and feature fusion module to guide the gradient flow. Moreover, across the network, we used a custom loss function to improve the precision of the proposed model. The results showed that under the NVIDIA Tesla V100 GPU environment, the inference speed could reach 109.28 FPS per image (416 × 416), and the detection precision (AP50) could reach 93.06%. Not only that, we embedded the MC-LCNN model into the edge computing device NVIDIA Jetson TX2 for real-time object detection, adopting a CPU–GPU multithreaded pipeline design to improve the inference speed by 2FPS. This model could be further developed into a perception system for selective harvesting chrysanthemum robots in the future.
Synergistic effect of combined transcranial direct current stimulation and Matrix ‎Model on the reduction of methamphetamine craving and improvement of cognitive ‎functioning: a randomized sham-controlled study

ABSTRACT Background: Addiction is associated with decreased activity of the prefrontal networks, especially dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). Objective: This study examined the effectiveness of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over DLPFC in combination with Matrix Model psychotherapy in the alleviation of craving and cognitive improvement of participants with methamphetamine use disorder. Methods: In a randomized and sham-controlled trial, 60 male participants were assigned to Matrix psychotherapy only, sham tDCS plus Matrix, or active tDCS plus Matrix. Sixteen sessions of 20-min anodal (2 mA over F3 for targeting the left DLPFC) or sham tDCS along were administered in the outpatient setting. Pre- and post-intervention craving, executive functioning, and working memory were assessed using the Obsessive-Compulsive Drug Use Scale, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, and Wechsler Memory Scale, respectively. One month following the interventions relapse was investigated by urine drug screen or interview. Results: In comparison with sham tDCS (n = 12) and Matrix psychotherapy only group (n = 13), the active tDCS group (n = 15) showed more reduction in craving (p<.05, η2 = .21). Auditory and visual memory (Wechsler) and true answers and false answers (WCST) significantly improved in the active tDCS group (η2 = .18, η2 = 12, η2 = 03, η2 = .02, respectively) but not in the other groups. Relapse rates did not significantly differ between groups (p = .17). A significant correlation was found between craving reduction and cognitive functioning in the active tDCS group. Conclusion: The combination of Matrix Model psychotherapy and tDCS may an effective therapy for cognitive improvement and craving in participants with methamphetamine use disorder. Clinical Trials Registry: This study was registered at the Iranian Registry of Clinical Trials (IRCT20161026030510N3).
The experience of stereoblindness does not improve use of texture for slant perception

Stereopsis is an important depth cue for normal people, but a subset of people suffer from stereoblindness and cannot use binocular disparity as a cue to depth. Does this experience of stereoblindness modulate use of other depth cues? We investigated this question by comparing perception of 3D slant from texture for stereoblind people and stereo-normal people. Subjects performed slant discrimination and slant estimation tasks using both monocular and binocular stimuli. We found that two groups had comparable ability to discriminate slant from texture information and showed similar mappings between texture information and slant perception (biased perception toward frontal surface with texture information indicating low slants). The results suggest that the experience of stereoblindness did not change the use of texture information for slant perception. In addition, we found that stereoblind people benefitted from binocular viewing in the slant estimation task, despite their inability to use binocular disparity information. These findings are generally consistent with the optimal cue combination model of slant perception.
Pre–kidney Donation Pregnancy Complications and Long-term Outcomes

Background. Hypertension and diabetes are contraindications for living kidney donation in young candidates. However, little is known about the long-term outcomes of women who had these pregnancy-related complications and subsequently became donors. In the general population, gestational hypertension (GHtn), preeclampsia/eclampsia, and gestational diabetes (GDM) are associated with long-term risks. Methods. Donors with the specified predonation complication were matched to contemporary control donors with pregnancies without the complication using nearest neighbor propensity score matching. Propensity scores were estimated using logistic regression with covariates for gravidity, blood pressure, glucose, body mass index, age, and creatinine at donation, donation year, race, relationship with recipient, and family history of disease. Long-term incidence of hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and reduced renal function (estimated glomerular filtration rate [eGFR] <30, eGFR <45 mL/min/1.73 m2) were compared between groups using proportional hazards models. Results. Of 1862 donors with predonation pregnancies, 48 had preeclampsia/eclampsia, 49 had GHtn without preeclampsia, and 43 had GDM. Donors had a long interval between first pregnancy and donation (median, 18.5 y; interquartile range, 10.6–27.5) and a long postdonation follow-up time (median, 18.0; interquartile range, 9.2–27.7 y). GHtn was associated with the development of hypertension (hazard ratio, 1.89; 95% confidence interval, 1.26-2.83); GDM was associated with diabetes (hazard ratio, 3.04; 95% confidence interval, 1.33-6.99). Pregnancy complications were not associated with eGFR <30 or eGFR <45 mL/min/1.73 m2. Conclusions. Our data suggest that women with predonation pregnancy-related complications have long-term risks even with a normal donor evaluation. Donor candidates with a history of pregnancy-related complications should be counseled about these risks.
TYMS-TM4SF4 axis promotes the progression of colorectal cancer by EMT and upregulating stem cell marker.

BACKGROUND The expression of thymidylate synthase (TYMS) is significantly up-regulated in various cancers and associated with the poor prognosis of patients. However, the role of TYMS in the progression of colorectal cancer (CRC) is unclear. METHODS Cell function assay, biology information analysis, and RNA sequencing were used to investigate the role of TYMS in the progression of CRC and underlining molecular mechanism. SPSS22.0 statistical software and GraphPad Prism 5 (Graphpad software) were used for statistical analysis. RESULTS Our results showed that TYMS expression was higher in CRC tissues than that in non-tumor colorectal mucosa tissues. TYMS knockdown inhibited the proliferation, migration and invasion of HCT116 and HT29 cells, and the spheroid formation of HCT116 cells. The underling mechanism demonstrated that TYMS promoted the progression of CRC by regulating EMT-related proteins including E-cadherin, Vimentin, MMP-9 and stem cell biomarkers including CD133 and CD44. Furthermore, DEG sequencing showed that TYMS knockdown enriched the pathways of metastasis and metabolism by GO and KEGG analysis. We identified TM4SF4 was the downstream target of TYMS in CRC cells. TM4SF4 overexpression increased migration and invasion of CRC cells by regulating EMT and CD133 expression. CONCLUSIONS Our findings suggest that TYMS-TM4SF4 axis may promote the progression of CRC by EMT and upregulating stem cell markers.
Capsaicin as an amphipathic modulator of NaV1.5 mechanosensitivity

ABSTRACT SCN5A-encoded NaV1.5 is a voltage-gated Na+ channel that drives the electrical excitability of cardiac myocytes and contributes to slow waves of the human gastrointestinal smooth muscle cells. NaV1.5 is mechanosensitive: mechanical force modulates several facets of NaV1.5’s voltage-gated function, and some NaV1.5 channelopathies are associated with abnormal NaV1.5 mechanosensitivity (MS). A class of membrane-active drugs, known as amphiphiles, therapeutically target NaV1.5’s voltage-gated function and produce off-target effects including alteration of MS. Amphiphiles may provide a novel option for therapeutic modulation of NaV1.5’s mechanosensitive operation. To more selectively target NaV1.5 MS, we searched for a membrane-partitioning amphipathic agent that would inhibit MS with minimal closed-state inhibition of voltage-gated currents. Among the amphiphiles tested, we selected capsaicin for further study. We used two methods to assess the effects of capsaicin on NaV1.5 MS: (1) membrane suction in cell-attached macroscopic patches and (2) fluid shear stress on whole cells. We tested the effect of capsaicin on NaV1.5 MS by examining macro-patch and whole-cell Na+ current parameters with and without force. Capsaicin abolished the pressure- and shear-mediated peak current increase and acceleration; and the mechanosensitive shifts in the voltage-dependence of activation (shear) and inactivation (pressure and shear). Exploring the recovery from inactivation and use-dependent entry into inactivation, we found divergent stimulus-dependent effects that could potentiate or mitigate the effect of capsaicin, suggesting that mechanical stimuli may differentially modulate NaV1.5 MS. We conclude that selective modulation of NaV1.5 MS makes capsaicin a promising candidate for therapeutic interventions targeting MS.