Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Myocardial Dysfunction Is Independently Associated With Mortality in Pediatric Septic Shock

Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text. Objectives: Circulatory dysfunction has been associated with mortality in children with septic shock. However, the mortality risk attributable to myocardial dysfunction per se has not been established, and the association between myocardial dysfunction and mortality is confounded by illness severity. The objective was to determine if sepsis-associated myocardial dysfunction defined by low left ventricular ejection fraction or global longitudinal strain is associated with mortality in pediatric septic shock after adjusting for baseline mortality probability. Design: Retrospective, observational study. Setting: Single-center, quaternary-care PICU. Patients: Children less than 18 years old admitted to the PICU from 2003 to 2018 who had an echocardiogram performed within 48 hours of septic shock identification and Pediatric Sepsis Biomarker Risk Model II data available. Interventions: None. Measurements and Main Results: All echocardiograms were reread by a cardiologist blinded to patient data for left ventricular ejection fraction and global longitudinal strain. Low left ventricular ejection fraction was defined as less than 45%, and low global longitudinal strain was defined as greater than z score of –2 for body surface area. Multivariable logistic regression separately analyzed the associations of low left ventricular ejection fraction and low global longitudinal strain with mortality, adjusting for Pediatric Sepsis Biomarker Risk Model II mortality risk. A post hoc logistic regression analyzed the association of left ventricular ejection fraction as a continuous variable with mortality, where linearity was maintained for left ventricular ejection fraction less than 65%. Eighteen percent of 181 children had low left ventricular ejection fraction. After adjusting for baseline mortality risk, low left ventricular ejection fraction remained independently associated with mortality (odds ratio, 4.4 [1.0–19.8]; p = 0.0497). Likewise, left ventricular ejection fraction was associated with mortality (odds ratio, 0.96 [0.93–0.99]; p = 0.037) on multivariable analysis for left ventricular ejection fraction less than 65%. Thirty-six percent of 169 children had low global longitudinal strain, and low global longitudinal strain was also independently associated with mortality (odds ratio, 4.6 [1.2–18.0]; p = 0.027). Conclusions: Sepsis-associated myocardial dysfunction, whether defined by low left ventricular ejection fraction or low global longitudinal strain, is an independent risk factor for mortality in pediatric septic shock after accounting for the confounding effects of septic shock severity.
Potential natural vegetation and NPP responses to future climates in the U.S. Great Plains

Asymmetric climate projections throughout the U.S. Great Plains may intensify the existing latitudinal temperature gradient and magnify the longitudinal precipitation gradient. These potential changes present a unique challenge to understanding the ecological consequences of future climates in the region. Here we investigate how climate change may affect the spatio-temporal patterns of potential natural vegetation types (PVT) and net primary production (NPP) throughout the 21st century with the global dynamic vegetation model MC2. Simulations were driven by projected climate variables from ﬁ ve global climate models under representative concentration pathway (RCP) 8.5. MC2 simulated C3 and C4 grassland, shrubland, forest, and woodland (shrubland + forest) PVTs, and total NPP for each PVT. The largest increases in woodland and grassland NPP occurred in the Northern Plains (17.5% and 4.7%), followed by the Central Plains (10.6% and 0.0%), while NPP in the Southern Plains remained unchanged compared to historic means (1981 – 2010). A shift from grassland to woodland in the Northern and Central Plains further affected regional NPP; regional woodland NPP increased 72% and 26% in the Northern and Central Plains, respectively, while regional grassland NPP decreased 18% and 12%, respectively. The most pronounced shift in PVT was associated with increasing, rather than decreasing, mean annual precipitation in the Northern Plains where grassland contracted in response to westward expansion of woodland. C3 grassland was gradually replaced by C4 grassland in the Northern Plains by 2080, and only a trace remained at centuries end. C3 grassland decreased to a trace amount ca. 2060 in the Central Plains, while C4 grassland increased slightly. The relative stability of PVTs in the Southern Plains suggests that species and functional trait diversity may buffer grassland responses to future climates by providing the capacity for species reordering. The asymmetric response of simulated vegetation and NPP to 21st century climate change suggests that the provision of ecosystem services — beef cattle production, carbon sequestration, and grassland bird habitat — will be modi ﬁ ed in distinct ways along a latitudinal gradient throughout the Great Plains.
The impact of lemongrass, oregano, and thyme essential oils on Candida albicans’ virulence factors

Increased systemic infections and growing resistance of Candida species in immunosuppressed people have prompted research for additional treatment options. The purpose of this study was to investigate the potential of lemongrass, oregano, and thyme essential oils tested individually, combined, and combined with the antifungal agents fluconazole and caspofungin to kill Candida albicans isolates in a controlled laboratory setting. A quantitative design was used to analyze the experimental data collected and investigate risk factors related to age, gender, race, and co-morbidities. Kill rates of lemongrass, oregano, and thyme essential oils individually and combined, kill rates of fluconazole, caspofungin, and the kill rates when the antifungals were each combined with the three essential oils were compared using 117 isolates recovered from bloodstream infections between January 2009 through August 1, 2017. There were statistically significant increases in kill rates when the isolates were exposed to any of the combinations of essential oils tested. Data on the covariates age, gender, race, and co-morbidities were assessed for risk factors related to Candida albicans bloodstream infections. The age group 25-34, kidney failure, and solid organ tumor cancer, were all statistically significantly associated with an increased risk for Candida albicans bloodstream infections and multiple organ failure was negatively associated with the risk. Through the use of essential oils, the ability to reduce the number of patients becoming infected with life-threatening yeast infections could not only reduce mortality but also reduce the costs associated with serious infections.
Special Classes of Terrestrial Gamma Ray Flashes From RHESSI

We report on three classes of terrestrial gamma ray flashes (TGFs) from the (RHESSI) satellite. The first class drives the detectors into paralysis, being observed usually through a few counts on the rising edge and the later tail of Comptonized photons. These events—and any bright TGF—reveal their true luminosity more clearly via their Compton tail than via the main peak, since the former is unaffected by the unknown beaming pattern of the unscattered radiation, and Comptonization mostly isotropizes the flux. This technique could be applied to TGFs from any mission. The second class is more than usually bright and long in duration. When the magnetic field at the conjugate point is stronger than at the nearby footpoint, we find that 4 out of 11 such events show a significant signal at the time expected for a relativistic electron beam to make a round trip to the opposite footpoint and back. We conclude that a large fraction of TGFs lasting more than a few hundred microseconds may include counts due to the upward moving secondary particle beam ejected from the atmosphere. Finally, using a new search algorithm to find short TGFs in RHESSI, we see that these tend to occur more often over the oceans than land, relative to longer‐duration events. In the feedback model of TGF production, this suggests a higher thunderstorm potential, since more feedback per avalanche implies fewer “generations” of avalanches needed to complete the TGF discharge.
Pulpotomy in the Adult Patient: Does It Work? A Case Report

Pulp exposure due to caries is exceedingly common. Generally, a tooth diagnosed with irreversible pulpitis can be treated and maintained successfully with conventional root canal treatment. However, emerging scientific evidence has shown that such teeth treated with pulpotomy as a first line of treatment provides increasingly predictable results. In this case report, the author describes a step-by step treatment procedure for pulpotomy in an adult tooth. Proper case selection and adhering to a rigid clinical protocol contributes to a successful outcome of pulpotomy treatment. In this case, Mineral Trioxide Aggregate (MTA) was placed as a capping material; haemostasis was achieved within 4 minutes and the tooth was restored with an excellent margin.
For you and for me: harvesting the benefits of prosocial spending in romantic relationships

ABSTRACT This dyadic diary study explored how romantic partners benefit from prosocial spending within their relationships. For each of 21 days, couple members indicated whether they spent money on their partner and, if yes, reported the amount of money spent and the type(s) of purchase involved. Participants also completed daily measures of perceived partner responsiveness, and personal and relational well-being. Actor-partner interdependence model analyses showed that (a) the actor’s daily personal and relational well-being were associated with both the actor’s and the partner’s prosocial spending; (b) the actor’s perception of partner’s responsiveness mediated the effect of the partner’s prosocial spending on the actor’s well-being; and (c) experiential purchase (viz., food and other experiences) was associated with both parties’ relational well-being, but material purchase (viz., necessities) was not. Additional analyses suggested that (d) individual differences in prosocial concerns (viz., socioeconomic status and communal motivation) were associated with prosocial spending on one’s partner. (150 words)
Formative Assessment as an Online Instruction Intervention: Student Engagement, Outcomes, and Perceptions

Online education has long been suffering from high dropout rate and low achievement. However, both asynchronous and synchronous online instructions have to become effective to serve as a quick response to maintain undisrupted learning during the COVID-19 outbreak. The purpose of the present study was to examine student engagement, learning outcome, and students' perceptions of an online course featured with frequent tasks, quizzes, and tests as formative assessment. Data were collected from the first five weeks of a course that was temporarily converted from blended learning to be fully online in time of school closure. Analysis of students' learning records and scores indicated that students engaged themselves actively in all of the online learning activities and had gained high scores in all tasks, quizzes, and tests. In addition, students held positive perceptions towards the formative assessment.
The Western Spring Beauties, Claytonia lanceolata (Montiaceae): A Review and Revised Taxonomy For California

Abstract The taxonomic history of Claytonia lanceolata is fraught with confusion. Poor preservation of diagnostic characteristics on museum specimens and incomplete original descriptionsmade from limited reference material have resulted in inadequate characterization of morphological features and geographic distributions, particularly for plants in more xeric areas of California. In this paper, we investigate populations previously thought to belong to C. lanceolata and provide an updated taxonomy for Californian taxa based largely on morphological observations and geographic records. These data are corroborated by evidence of genetic polymorphisms and ecological divergence. Claytonia obovata was synonymized with C. lanceolata in 1966 and remained unrecognized until now because previous treatments misinterpreted morphological variation in C. lanceolata s. s. Claytonia peirsonii is a new combination for a species comprising four subspecies endemic to the Desert Southwest, three of which are new to science. Two new species are described here: Claytonia panamintensis, known in California only from the Panamint Mountains but ranging morewidely across southern Nevada, and Claytonia serpenticola. The latter species shares a similar geographic rangewith C. obovata in the Klamath-Siskiyou region of northern California and southwestern Oregon, and these two occur in close sympatry through much of their respective distributions. We also provide molecular evidence to support retention of the name C. lanceolata for populations in California that do not fall into any of the aforementioned new species or combinations. Taxa accepted in this paper are best distinguished from each other by their habitat (many are apparently edaphic endemics), betalain pigmentation, inflorescence architecture, and morphology of cauline leaves, subterranean stems, and flowers.
Potential-Vorticity Dynamics of Troughs and Ridges within Rossby Wave Packets during a 40-year reanalysis period

<p>Rossby wave packets (RWPs) are fundamental to midlatitude dynamics and govern weather systems from their individual life cycles to their climatological distributions. Renewed interest in RWPs as precursors to high-impact weather events and in the context of atmospheric predictability motivates this study to revisit the dynamics of RWPs. A quantitative potential vorticity (PV) framework is employed. Based on the well established PV-thinking of midlatitude dynamics, the processes governing RWP amplitude evolution comprise group propagation of Rossby waves, baroclinic interaction, the impact of upper-tropospheric divergent flow, and direct diabatic PV modification by nonconservative processes. An advantage of the PV framework is that the impact of moist processes is more directly diagnosed than in alternative, established frameworks for RWP dynamics. The mean dynamics of more than 6000 RWPs from 1979-2017 are presented using ERA5 data, complemented with nonconservative tendencies from the &#8218;Year of tropical convection&#8216; data (available 2008-2010). </p><p>&#160;</p><p>Confirming a pre-existing model of RWP dynamics, group propagation within RWPs is consistent with linear barotropic theory, and baroclinic and divergent amplification occur most prominently during the mature stage and rather towards the trailing edge of RWPs. Refining the pre-existing model, the maximum of divergent amplification occurs in advance of maximum baroclinic growth and baroclinic interaction tends to weaken RWP amplitude towards the leading edge. ,Downstream baroclinic development' is confirmed to provide a valid description of RWP dynamics in both, summer and winter, although baroclinic growth is substantially smaller (about 50%) in summer. Longwave radiative cooling makes a first-order contribution to ridge and trough amplitude. This large impact, however, is only weakly coupled to other governing processes and is thus interpreted as a climatological background process. The direct impact of other nonconservative tendencies, including latent heat release, is an order of magnitude smaller than longwave radiative cooling. Arguably, latent heat release still has a substantial impact on RWPs by invigorating upper-troposhperic divergence. The divergent flow amplifies ridges and weakens troughs. This impact is of leading order and larger than that of baroclinic growth. To the extent that divergence is associated with latent heat release below, we argue that moist processes contribute to the well-known asymmetry in the spatial scale of troughs and ridges. For ridges, divergent amplification is strongly coupled to baroclinic growth and enhanced latent heat release. We thus propose that the life cycle of ridges is best described in terms of ,downstream <em>moist</em>-baroclinic development&#8217;. Finally, our results demonstrate that divergent ridge amplification does not only depend on the magnitude of latent heat release but also on its relative location to the jet (,phasing&#8217;). </p>
The Structure–Property Correlations in Dry Gelatin Adhesive Films

Gelatins are proteinaceous natural materials that are widely used in areas such as conservation and restoration of artifacts as adhesives and consolidants, in pharmaceutics as drug delivery carriers, and in the food industry as structurants. Herein, type A porcine gelatin adhesive films are prepared via solution casting method and their physical and mechanical properties are investigated using X‐ray diffraction (XRD), differential scanning calorimetry, contact angle measurement, dynamic mechanical analysis, and uniaxial tensile tests. The results demonstrate a linear correlation between microstructure of gelatin films in terms of their triple‐helix content and their macroscopic mechanical properties such as tensile strength and gel (Bloom) strength. Moreover, the findings of this study can help the scientists, in, e.g., art conservation and restoration, to predict the mechanical performance of these adhesives by performing a less material demanding and nondestructive physical measurement such as XRD.
Climatic and trophic processes drive long‐term changes in functional diversity of freshwater invertebrate communities

When investigating the fields of biogeography and macroecology, climate- and productivity-related variables are frequently identified as the strongest correlates of species-diversity patterns. These variables have been usually merged under the climate/productivity hypothesis and describe the direct and indirect actions of climate on species. Being among the most vulnerable ecosystems to climate change, streams and rivers are expected to be influenced both by climatic and trophic (i.e. productivity-related) factors. We propose here to distinguish the relative influence of the two processes on large-scale, long-term changes in the functional diversity of freshwater invertebrate communities over two decades in France. To this end, we designed two functional indices using invertebrate traits to surrogate the respective mechanisms: climate vulnerability and feeding specialisation. Using Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) models, we showed that trends in both indices, along with the initial regional species-pools, have significantly contributed to the overall long-term increase in functional diversity of invertebrate communities. In addition, we highlighted a strong geographical differentiation in the contribution patterns with the climate vulnerability effect decreasing with latitude and the feeding specialisation effect being higher in headwaters than in large rivers. Finally, taking into account this non-stationarity in the ecological processes and responses using GWR models allowed explaining about 75% of the long-term changes in the community diversity. Consequently, this study offers sound perspectives in predicting the future patterns of trends in functional diversity of communities under different scenarios of environmental changes, like climate and/or land-use. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
INFERENCE FROM LARGE SETS OF RADIOCARBON DATES: SOFTWARE AND METHODS

ABSTRACT The last decade has seen the development of a range of new statistical and computational techniques for analysing large collections of radiocarbon (14C) dates, often but not exclusively to make inferences about human population change in the past. Here we introduce rcarbon, an open-source software package for the R statistical computing language which implements many of these techniques and looks to foster transparent future study of their strengths and weaknesses. In this paper, we review the key assumptions, limitations and potentials behind statistical analyses of summed probability distribution of 14C dates, including Monte-Carlo simulation-based tests, permutation tests, and spatial analyses. Supplementary material provides a fully reproducible analysis with further details not covered in the main paper.
SNP Selection and Concordance in Consumer Genetics Testing

The use of Direct To Consumer (DTC) genetic testing for predicting health risks and a variety of other phenotypes has been extensively discussed. Additionally, there have been wide ranging discourses on privacy and ethical concerns. Much less attention has been paid to what most people actually use DTC testing for: ancestry determination. Furthermore, comparison of the platforms used by different companies and how they have chosen SNPs to address the questions of health and ancestry have not been broadly reported. When SNPs across three genotyping platforms are compared, only 16-18% of SNPs with reported genotypes are shared across all platforms. Only 110,051 of the more than 600,000 SNPs are called on all three panels examined (Ancestry, 23andMe and MyHeritage). SNPs genotyped on all platforms are highly concordant with only two SNPs having discordant calls. When the SNPs unique to a single panel are examined, it is apparent that each company has its own strategy for choosing SNPs. When each platform is examined, the unique SNPs have different frequencies, ethnic selectivities, and chromosomal locations. Because each company separates the world into different, overlapping geographical regions, it is impossible to do an exact comparison of ancestry results. Factoring in the ways the regions overlap, congruent results are generated for the major contributors to ancestry.
The Structure of Riparian Vegetation in Agricultural Landscapes Influences Spider Communities and Aquatic-Terrestrial Linkages

Riparian habitats are important ecotones connecting aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, but are often highly degraded by human activities. Riparian buffers might help support impacted riparian communities, and improve trophic connectivity. We sampled spider communities from riparian habitats in an agricultural catchment, and analyzed their polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) content to quantify trophic connectivity. Specific PUFAs are exclusively produced by stream algae, and thus are used to track uptake of aquatic resources by terrestrial consumers. Riparian spiders were collected from 10 site pairs situated along agricultural streams, and from five forest sites (25 sites total). Each agricultural site pair comprised an unshaded site with predominantly herbaceous vegetation cover, and a second with a woody riparian buffer. Spider communities differed between site types, with web-building spiders dominating woody buffered sites and free-living spiders associated with more open habitats. PUFA concentrations were greatest overall in free-living spiders, but there was also evidence for increased PUFA uptake by some spider groups when a woody riparian buffer was present. Our results reveal the different roles of open and wooded riparian habitats in supporting terrestrial consumers and aquatic-terrestrial connectivity, and highlight the value of incorporating patches of woody vegetation within riparian networks in highly modified landscapes.