Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Targeted knockdown of Kv1.3 channels in T lymphocytes corrects the disease manifestations associated with systemic lupus erythematosus

Nanoparticle-targeted down-regulation of Kv1.3 in memory T cells corrects lupus nephritis pathology in vitro and in vivo. Lupus nephritis (LN) is an autoimmune disease with substantial morbidity/mortality and limited efficacy of available therapies. Memory T (Tm) lymphocytes infiltrate LN kidneys, contributing to organ damage. Analysis of LN, diabetic nephropathy, and healthy donor kidney biopsies revealed high infiltration of active CD8+ Tm cells expressing high voltage-dependent Kv1.3 potassium channels—key T cell function regulators—in LN. Nanoparticles that selectively down-regulate Kv1.3 in Tm cells (Kv1.3-NPs) reduced CD40L and interferon-γ (IFNγ) in Tm cells from LN patients in vitro. Kv1.3-NPs were tested in humanized LN mice obtained by engrafting peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from LN patients into immune-deficient mice. LN mice exhibited features of the disease: increased IFNγ and CD3+CD8+ T cell renal infiltration, and reduced survival versus healthy donor PBMC engrafted mice. Kv1.3-NP treatment of patient PBMCs before engraftment decreased CD40L/IFNγ and prolonged survival of LN mice. These data show the potential benefits of targeting Kv1.3 in LN.
An Evolution of Shoulder Periprosthetic Infections Management: MicroDTTect, Bioactive Glass and Tantalum Cones Employment

Periprosthetic joint infections of the shoulder (PJIS) are the major cause for revision within the first two post-operative years, and are challenging both to diagnose and treat. Success depends on early identification of microorganisms, appropriate surgical procedures and efficient antibiotic administration. The peculiar microbiology of the shoulder may render the criteria for hip/knee PJI management inappropriate. In addition, later cases with clinically subtle signs often present diagnostic challenges. In recent years, specific issues of PJIS have been managed through the use of new instruments, such as MicroDTTect in pathogen detection and Bioactive Glass and tantalum cones in humeral bone loss. In the literature to date, no reports have been found that discuss the application in shoulder revisions and infections. The early identification of the microorganisms that cause infection may help improve both treatment strategies and the efficacy of therapy. MicroDTTect proved to be more efficient than swab collection for bacterial identification in orthopedic surgery, thus reducing analysis costs. The increasing number of shoulder arthroplasties is associated with an increase in the number of revisions. In cases of massive metaphyseal humeral bone loss, several techniques have been described; no reports have been reported regarding tantalum in humeral bone loss management. In some cases the tantalum cones required adaptation for femoral diaphysis in the augmentation of the humerus metaphysis and bone loss management improvement. Obtaining stable osseointegration of prosthetic implants is one of the greatest issues in orthopedic surgery, and even more crucial in revisions. Bioactive glasses demonstrated good regenerative and osseointegration properties, and an excellent candidate as a bone graft, scaffold and antibiotics deliverer. The Bioactive glasses were used to increase prosthesis-bone interface stability and fill bone defects in PJIS revision surgeries, contributing to the prevention of re-infection. Longer-term follow-up will be necessary to determine if construction durability is improved in the long term.
Machine Learning–Guided Adjuvant Treatment of Head and Neck Cancer

Key Points Question Can machine learning survival models predict which patients with intermediate-risk head and neck squamous cell carcinoma would benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy? Findings In this cohort study of 33 526 patients, treatment according to 3 machine learning models, trained and validated using the National Cancer Database, was associated with a survival benefit. These models recommended chemoradiation in 44% to 52% of the population. Meaning These findings suggest that machine learning models have the potential to better select intermediate-risk patients in need of trimodality therapy, and further study is warranted.
Pregnancy Outcomes Among Women With and Without Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Infection

Key Points Question In a large county health care system with access to inpatient and outpatient testing, is severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection associated with pregnancy outcomes, maternal illness severity, placental pathology, and neonatal infections? Findings In this cohort study of 252 SARS-CoV-2–positive and 3122 negative pregnant women tested in outpatient and inpatient settings at a large county medical center, adverse pregnancy outcomes were similar, and neonatal infection occurred in 3% of infants, predominantly among infants born to asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic women. Placental abnormalities were not associated with disease severity, and the rate of hospitalization was similar to rates among nonpregnant women. Meaning These findings suggest that SARS-CoV-2 infection in pregnancy is not associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes.
Deep Multi-Instance Learning Using Multi-Modal Data for Diagnosis of Lymphocytosis

We investigate the use of recent advances in deep learning and propose an end-to-end trainable multi-instance convolutional neural network within a mixture-of-experts formulation that combines information from two types of data—images and clinical attributes—for the diagnosis of lymphocytosis. The convolutional network learns to extract meaningful features from images of blood cells using an embedding level approach and aggregates them. Moreover, the mixture-of-experts model combines information from these images as well as clinical attributes to form an end-to-end trainable pipeline for diagnosis of lymphocytosis. Our results demonstrate that even the convolutional network by itself is able to discover meaningful associations between the images and the diagnosis, indicating the presence of important unexploited information in the images. The mixture-of-experts formulation is shown to be more robust while maintaining performance via. a repeatability study to assess the effect of variability in data acquisition on the predictions. The proposed methods are compared with different methods from literature based both on conventional handcrafted features and machine learning, and on recent deep learning models based on attention mechanisms. Our method reports a balanced accuracy of <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\text{85.41}\%$</tex-math></inline-formula> and outperfroms the handcrafted feature-based and attention-based approaches as well that of biologists which scored <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\text{79.44}\%$</tex-math></inline-formula>, <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\text{82.89}\%$</tex-math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\text{77.07}\%$</tex-math></inline-formula> respectively. These results give insights on the potentials of the applicability of the proposed method in clinical practice. Our code and datasets can be found at <uri>https://github.com/msahasrabudhe/lymphoMIL</uri>.
Characteristics of the Non-Isothermal and Isothermal Crystallization for the β Polymorph in PVDF by Fast Scanning Calorimetry

Structuring at very high rates has become one of the current and important topics of interest in polymer science, because this is a common protocol in the processing of films or fibers with industrial applicability. This work presents the study by fast scanning calorimetry, FSC, of poly(vinylidene fluoride), paying special attention to the conditions for obtaining the β phase of this polymer, because it is the one technologically more interesting. The results indicate that this β phase of poly(vinylidene fluoride) is obtained when the sample is isothermally crystallized at temperatures below 60 °C. Under non-isothermal conditions, the β polymorph begins to be observed at rates above 400 °C/s, although a coexistence with the α modification is observed, so that exclusively the β phase is obtained only at rates higher than 3000 °C/s.
Sirt1 improves heart failure through modulating the NF-κB p65/microRNA-155/BNDF signaling cascade

Heart failure (HF) affects over 26 million people worldwide, yet the pathologies of this complex syndrome have not been completely understood. Here, we investigated the involvement of deacetylase Sirtuin 1 (Sirt1) in HF and its downstream signaling pathways. A HF model was induced by the ligation of the left coronary artery in rats, where factors associated with left ventricular echocardiography, heart hemodynamics and ventricular mass indexes were recorded. Collagen volume fraction in heart tissues was determined by Masson’s trichrome staining. Cell models of HF were also established (H2O2, 30 min) in cardiomyocytes harvested from suckling rats. HF rats presented with downregulated expressions of Sirt1, brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and exhibited upregulated expressions of NF-κB p65 and miR-155. Repressed Sirt1 expression increased acetylation of NF-κB p65, resulting in the elevation of NF-κB p65 expression. NF-κB p65 silencing improved heart functions, decreased ventricular mass and reduced apoptosis in cardiomyocytes. MiR-155 inhibition upregulated its target gene BDNF, thereby reducing cardiomyocyte apoptosis. Sirt1 overexpression upregulated BDNF, improved heart function, and reduced apoptosis in cardiomyocytes. In conclusion, Sirt1 alleviates HF in rats through the NF-κB p65/miR-155/BDNF signaling cascade.
Western Emergency Medicine: Integrating Emergency Care with Population Health Predictors of Mortality in Elderly and Very Elderly Emergency Patients with Sepsis: A Retrospective Study

sepsis older patients, early (ED) arrival. We aimed to study and compare the characteristics of elderly and very elderly ED patients with sepsis and determine baseline factors associated with in-hospital mortality. We also compared prognostic accuracy of the criteria for systemic inflammatory response syndrome, quick sequential organ failure assessment (qSOFA), and the National Early Warning Score in predicting mortality. Methods: We conducted a retrospective study at the ED of Siriraj Hospital Mahidol University in Bangkok, Thailand. Patients over 18 years old who were diagnosed and treated for sepsis in the ED between August 2018–July 2019 were included. We categorized patients into non-elderly (aged <65 years), elderly (aged 65-79 years), and the very elderly (aged >80 years) groups. The primary outcome was in-hospital mortality. Baseline demographics, comorbidities, source and etiology of sepsis, including physiologic variables, were compared and analyzed to identify predictors of mortality. We calculated and compared the area under the receiver operator characteristics curves (AUROC) of early warning scores. Results: Of 1616 ED patients with sepsis, 668 (41.3%) were very elderly, 512 (31.7%) were elderly, and 436 (27.0%) were non-elderly. The mortality
Factors associated with gross motor development from birth to independent walking: A systematic review of longitudinal research

Abstract Aim The aim of this study is to gain more insight into child and environmental factors that influence gross motor development (GMD) of healthy infants from birth until reaching the milestone of independent walking, based on longitudinal research. Background A systematic search was conducted using Scopus, PsycINFO, MEDLINE and CINAHL to identify studies from inception to February 2020. Studies that investigated the association between child or environmental factors and infant GMD using longitudinal measurements of infant GMD were eligible. Two independent reviewers extracted key information and assessed risk of bias of the selected studies, using the Quality in Prognostic Studies tool (QUIPS). Strength of evidence (strong, moderate, limited, conflicting and no evidence) for the factors identified was described according to a previously established classification. Results In 36 studies, six children and 11 environmental factors were identified. Five studies were categorized as having low risk of bias. Strong evidence was found for the association between birthweight and GMD in healthy full‐term and preterm infants. Moderate evidence was found for associations between gestational age and GMD, and sleeping position and GMD. There was conflicting evidence for associations between twinning and GMD, and breastfeeding and GMD. No evidence was found for an association between maternal postpartum depression and GMD. Evidence for the association of other factors with GMD was classified as ‘limited’ because each of these factors was examined in only one longitudinal study. Conclusion Infant GMD appears associated with two child factors (birthweight and gestational age) and one environmental factor (sleeping position). For the other factors identified in this review, insufficient evidence for an association with GMD was found. For those factors that were examined in only one longitudinal study, and are therefore classified as having limited evidence, more research would be needed to reach a conclusion.
Glucocorticoid effects on bone strength in children with renal diseases

Glucocorticoids (GC) are essential medicines for idiopathic steroid‐sensitive nephrotic syndrome (ISSNS) and IgA nephropathy (IgAN), with good clinical results. However, they cause bone fragility. The aim of this study was to elucidate GC effects on bone strength assessed as bone mineral density (BMD) and bone quality, using bone turnover markers (BTM), in children with ISSNS or IgAN.
Characteristics of spicy food consumption and its relation to lifestyle behaviours: results from 0.5 million adults

Abstract This study aimed to describe the characteristics and lifestyle differences of spicy food consumption in 0.5 million adults. Participants were recruited from 2004 to 2008 in the baseline research of the CKB study. Higher frequency and stronger pungency degree in spicy food positively correlated with preference for salty taste, eating snacks/deep-fried foods, tea/alcohol drinking and tobacco smoking. Among weekly tea/alcohol drinkers and current regular smokers, participants with a higher frequency of spicy food consumption or preference for stronger pungency degree were more likely to prefer strong tea, drink alcohol exceed the healthy amount, drink alcohol in the morning every day, smoke ≥ 40 cigarettes per day, consume a larger amount of tea leaves, alcohol and cigarettes each day, and start habitual tea/alcohol drinking or smoking at an earlier age. Differences existed in lifestyle factors related to major chronic diseases according to spicy food consumption frequency and pungency degree among the Chinese population.
Procalcitonin Correlates With but Is Not Superior to Other Diagnostic Markers of Bacterial Pneumonia.

OBJECTIVES Despite extensive research on procalcitonin (PCT)-guided therapy in lower respiratory tract infections, the association between PCT and bacterial pneumonia remains unclear. METHODS We evaluated retrospectively the performance of PCT in patients presenting with lower respiratory tract infection symptoms and grouped by seven diagnoses. All patients had microbial testing, chest imaging, and CBC counts within 1 day of PCT testing. RESULTS Median PCT level in patients diagnosed with bacterial pneumonia was significantly higher than in patients diagnosed with other sources of infections or those not diagnosed with infections. Median PCT levels were not different among patients grouped by type or quantity of pathogen detected. They were significantly higher in patients with higher pathogenicity scores for isolated bacteria, those with abnormal WBC count, and those with chest imaging consistent with bacterial pneumonia. A diagnostic workup that included imaging, WBC count, and Gram stain had an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.748, and the addition of PCT increased it to 0.778. CONCLUSIONS PCT was higher in patients diagnosed with bacterial pneumonia. Less clear is its diagnostic ability to detect bacterial pneumonia over and above imaging and laboratory data routinely available to clinicians.
Strength training to improve walking after stroke: how physiotherapist, patient and workplace factors influence exercise prescription

ABSTRACT Background:Muscle weakness is well established as the primary impairment that affects walking after stroke and strength training is an effective intervention to improve this muscle weakness. Observation of clinical practice however has highlighted an evidence-practice gap in the implementation of evidence-based strength training guidelines. Objective: To explore perceived barriers and facilitators that influence Australian physiotherapy practices when prescribing strength training with stroke survivors undergoing gait rehabilitation. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a convenience sample of physiotherapists currently providing rehabilitation services to patients following stroke in Australia. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and line-by-line thematic analysis was undertaken to create themes and sub-themes. Results: Participants were 16 physiotherapists (12 females) with 3 months – 42 years experience working with people after stroke. Major themes identified were1) patient factors influence the approach to strength training; 2) interpretation and implementation of strength training principles is diverse; and 3) workplace context affects the treatment delivered. Physiotherapists displayed wide variation in their knowledge, interpretation and implementation of strength training principles and strength training exercise prescription was seldom evidence or guideline based. Workplace factors included the clinical preference of colleagues, and the need to modify practice to align with workforce resources. Conclusions: Implementation of strength training to improve walking after stroke was diverse. Therapist-related barriers to the implementation of effective strength training programs highlight the need for improved knowledge, training and research engagement. Limited resourcing demonstrates the need for organizational prioritization of stroke education and skill development. Narrowing the evidence-practice gap remains a challenge.
A Spectroscopic Study of Bacterial Polymers Mediating Cell Adhesion and Mineral Transformations

12 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 14 Explanation of Dissertation Format 14 Explanation of Problem 15 CHAPTER 2: PRESENT STUDY 22 Summary 22 Objective #1 22 Objective #2 24 Objective #3 26 Objective #4 27 Objective #5 29 Objective #6 30 CHAPTER 3: CONCLUSIONS 32 REFERENCES 36 APPENDIX A: FTIR SPECTROSCOPIC STUDY OF BIOGENIC MnOXIDE FORMATION BY PSEUDOMONAS AERUGINOSA GB-1 42 Abstract 43 Introduction 44 Experimental Methods 47 Bacterial strain, media and growth conditions 47 Electron microscopy 48 Methods of sample introduction for FTIR spectroscopy 49
Quantitative Methods for Analyzing Intimate Partner Violence in Microblogs: Observational Study

Background Social media is a rich, virtually untapped source of data on the dynamics of intimate partner violence, one that is both global in scale and intimate in detail. Objective The aim of this study is to use machine learning and other computational methods to analyze social media data for the reasons victims give for staying in or leaving abusive relationships. Methods Human annotation, part-of-speech tagging, and machine learning predictive models, including support vector machines, were used on a Twitter data set of 8767 #WhyIStayed and #WhyILeft tweets each. Results Our methods explored whether we can analyze micronarratives that include details about victims, abusers, and other stakeholders, the actions that constitute abuse, and how the stakeholders respond. Conclusions Our findings are consistent across various machine learning methods, which correspond to observations in the clinical literature, and affirm the relevance of natural language processing and machine learning for exploring issues of societal importance in social media.
Development of the Communication and Acceptance Scale (CAS) for group aural rehabilitation

Abstract Objective The aim of the current study was to develop a reliable instrument for the Active Communication Education (ACE) programme evaluating changes in communication strategies and the emotional consequences, knowledge and acceptance of hearing loss and to examine its reliability and face, content and construct validity. Design Semistructured interviews and questionnaires were conducted with participants and clinicians engaged in the ACE intervention. Study sample The psychometric properties were evaluated in two phases for two samples of adults with hearing loss who participated in the ACE programme, including 61 and 41 participants, respectively. Results The final Communication and Acceptance Scale (CAS) contained 18 items, and the reliability of the overall scale (Cronbach’s alpha 0.86) and the test–retest reliability (r = 0.89, p < 0.001) were good. The construct validity, evaluated with principal component analysis, suggested a five-factor solution explaining 72% of the variance. The questionnaire revealed statistically significant short- and long-term effects of the ACE programme. Both participants and clinicians found the questionnaire relevant, useful and easy to administer. Conclusion The CAS questionnaire was found to be valid and reliable, but because of the low sample size, further analysis with a larger population is needed.
Exploring the Impact of COVID-19 on Mental Health Outcomes in Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review

The psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been widely discussed during the past few months, with scholars expressing concern about its potential debilitating consequences on youth mental health. Hence, this research aimed to provide a systematic review of the evidence on the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on youth mental health. We conducted a mixed methods integrated review to identify any empirical study that focused on young people ≤ 18 years old. Eight databases were systematically searched to identify studies of any type of research design. The selection procedure followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. The protocol of this systematic review was registered with PROSPERO (protocol ID: CRD4202019375). Twelve studies deemed eligible for data extraction (n = 12,262). The findings show that COVID-19 has an impact on youth mental health and is particularly associated with depression and anxiety in adolescent cohorts. The quality appraisal indicated that all studies were of low or moderate methodological quality. The COVID-19 pandemic is affecting young people’s lives, and thus generating robust research evidence to inform policy decisions is essential. Hence, the methodological quality of future research should be drastically improved.