Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Secular Trends in Height, Body Mass and Mean Menarche Age in Romanian Children and Adolescents, 1936–2016

Secular trends in anthropometric parameters have been documented in most European countries, but no data is available regarding Romanian. The aim of the study was to calculate secular trend in height, body mass and mean menarche age for Romanian children and adolescents. Methods: A secondary data analysis was performed using ten data sets for urban and eight data sets for rural boys and girls, age 5–15 years, covering 80 years (1936 to 2016). Secular trend in height (cm/decade), body mass(kg/decade) and mean menarche age (years) were calculated. Results: Overall, there was a positive secular trend for height in both genders, which parallels the gross domestic product (GDP)/capita difference, more pronounced in boys, across all age-groups, with a maximum for 15 years-old boys (~3 cm/decade) and 13 years-old girls (~2 cm/decade). Body mass trend was also positive, more accentuated in the rural population. Mean age at menarche was higher in rural compared to urban girls, had a negative trend with the disappearance of the difference in the latest available data set (2013). Conclusion: In summary, an overall positive and ongoing secular trend in height and body mass was documented in Romanian children and adolescents, especially for the pubertal age-range, in concordance to other western countries, but out of phase by approximately 20 years.
Rhizosphere phosphorus depletion by three crops differing in their phosphorus critical levels

It has been reported for many soils that maize (Zea mays L.) has a higher soil-P critical level than soybean (Glycine max L.) and sunflower (Helianthus annuus L). The objective of this work was to compare the rhizosphere P depletion in these three species in order to investigate if they differ in their capacity to acquire soil P. Sequential P fractionation and pH were determined in rhizosphere and nonrhizosphere soil samples from field and greenhouse experiments. Neither sunflower (the species with highest rhizosphere acidification) nor soybean or maize showed a significant relationship between P depletion and rhizosphere pH. The labile P fraction and the NaOH-Pi fraction had lower values in the rhizosphere than in the bulk soil in 38% and 77% of the studied cases, respectively. Sunflower and especially maize presented a more intense Pi depletion than soybean. The comparison between sunflower and maize revealed that neither of them took a clear advantage over the other in terms of P depletion. Rhizosphere Pi depletion was associated with the amount of P acquired by the plants. We conclude that the accessibility to different P pools does not explain the differences in soil-P critical levels among the three species.
Baseline, retest, and post-injury profiles of auditory neural function in collegiate football players

Abstract Objectives Recent retrospective studies report differences in auditory neurophysiology between concussed athletes and uninjured controls using the frequency-following response (FFR). Adopting a prospective design in college football players, we compared FFRs before and after a concussion and evaluated test-retest reliability in non-concussed teammates. Design Testing took place in a locker room. We analysed the FFR to the fundamental frequency (F0) (FFR-F0) of a speech stimulus, previously identified as a potential concussion biomarker. Baseline FFRs were obtained during the football pre-season. In athletes diagnosed with concussions during the season, FFRs were measured days after injury and compared to pre-season baseline. In uninjured controls, comparisons were made between pre- and post-season. Study Sample Participants were Tulane University football athletes (n = 65). Results In concussed athletes, there was a significant group-level decrease in FFR-F0 from baseline (26% decrease on average). By contrast, the control group’s change from baseline was not statistically significant, and comparisons of pre- and post-season had good repeatability (intraclass correlation coefficient = 0.75). Conclusions Results converge with previous work to evince suppressed neural function to the FFR-F0 following concussion. This preliminary study paves the way for larger-scale clinical evaluation of the specificity and reliability of the FFR as a concussion diagnostic. Highlights This prospective study reveals suppressed neural responses to sound in concussed athletes compared to baseline. Neural responses to sound show good repeatability in uninjured athletes tested in a locker-room setting. Results support the feasibility of recording frequency-following responses in non-laboratory conditions.
Atomistic Insights into Aluminum Doping Effect on Surface Roughness of Deposited Ultra-Thin Silver Films

Ultra-thin and continuous metallic silver films are attracting growing interest due to the applications in flexible transparent conducting electrodes. The surface morphology and structure of silver film are very important for its electrical resistivity and optical loss. Therefore, roughness control is essential for the production of ultra-thin metallic electrode film. We have investigated the effect of aluminum doping on the improvement of surface morphology of ultra-thin silver films using molecular dynamics simulations. Al-doped silver films showed smaller surface roughness than pure silver films at various substrate temperatures. When the temperature of the substrate was 600 K, the roughness of Al-doped silver film first decreased, and then increased with the increase of the incident velocity of silver atoms. Silver atoms were more likely to agglomerate on the surface of the substrate after adding aluminum atoms, as aluminum dopants promoted the immobilization of silver atoms on SiO2 substrate due to the anchoring effect. The smoother surface could be attributable to the reduced mean free path of silver due to the cage effect by the aluminum dopant.
Molecular Epidemiology of the Main Druggable Genetic Alterations in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Lung cancer is the leading cause of death for malignancy worldwide. Its molecular profiling has enriched our understanding of cancer initiation and progression and has become fundamental to provide guidance on treatment with targeted therapies. Testing the presence of driver mutations in specific genes in lung tumors has thus radically changed the clinical management and outcomes of the disease. Numerous studies performed with traditional sequencing methods have investigated the occurrence of such mutations in lung cancer, and new insights regarding their frequency and clinical significance are continuously provided with the use of last generation sequencing technologies. In this review, we discuss the molecular epidemiology of the main druggable genetic alterations in non-small cell lung cancer, namely EGFR, KRAS, BRAF, MET, and HER2 mutations or amplification, as well as ALK and ROS1 fusions. Furthermore, we investigated the predictive impact of these alterations on the outcomes of modern targeted therapies, their global prognostic significance, and their mutual interaction in cases of co-occurrence.
Adaptation and validation of QuEChERS method for the analysis of trifluralin in wind-eroded soil

This study was carried out to develop and validate a reliable analytical procedure for trifluralin analysis in wind-eroded sediments. Soil sediments trapped in BEST sediment traps were subjected to QuEChERS extraction method, incorporating a simple simultaneous cleanup step, followed by trifluralin analysis with GC-ECD. Results revealed that QuEChERS method offered a potential alternative technique for pesticide extraction from soil samples. The validity of analytical method was performed by the method-performance criteria such as, recovery, LOD, LOQ repeatability, precision, and all found to be within the required limits. It was also observed in this study that herbicide concentrations in the wind-eroded sediment did not vary with the time and trap height. Trifluralin concentrations of surface soil after four erosion events were higher (626.05 μg/kg) than wind-eroded soil (450.08 μg/kg).
Locally heterogeneous dynamics in miscible blends of poly(methyl methacrylate) and poly(vinylidene fluoride)

Comparative measurements of specific heat capacities (temperature interval between 2 and 500 K), and of low frequency mechanical spectroscopy (temperature interval between 120 and 400 K) in poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) and poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) amorphous blends show the existence of single calorimetric and mechanical glass transition temperatures, as a clear indication of the existence of homogeneous single-state structures. Below T g , the experimental data reveal distinct local relaxation processes within the backbone of the individual components, while the heat capacities below 15 K can be explained in terms of a two-phase model (i.e., a simple linear overlap of the contributions from wholly amorphous PMMA and PVDF, weighted by their proportions). These findings are associated with locally heterogeneous relaxation and vibrational motions, and are regarded as experimental evidence for the existence of a nanoscopic length scale where the dynamics of a blend exhibits a heterogeneous regime.
Real World Analysis of Small Cell Lung Cancer Patients: Prognostic Factors and Treatment Outcomes

In this observational study, we assessed treatment patterns and prognostic factors in patients with small cell lung cancer (SCLC) in a large state-mandated healthcare organization in Israel. Methods: All incident cases with histologically confirmed SCLC who initiated systemic anti-cancer treatment between 2011 and 2017 were identified. Treatment patterns and overall survival (OS) were evaluated for each line of therapy. Results: A total of 235 patients were identified (61% male, median age 64 years, 95% ever smokers, 64% had extensive stage). The first-line treatment was platinum–etoposide regimen for 98.7% of the cohort. The second and third-line regimen were given to 43% and 12% of patients, respectively. Mean OS for extensive and limited stage patients was 9.1 and 23.5 months respectively. In a multivariable model, increased risk for mortality was observed among patients with an ECOG performance status (PS) of 2 compared to a PS of 0–1 for the extensive stage patients (Hazard ratio (HR) = 1.63, 95% confidence ratios (CI): 1.00–2.65); and for males compared to females for the limited stage patients (HR = 2.17; 95% CI: 1.12–4.20). Regarding all 2nd line patients in a multivariable model incorporating relevant confounding factors, demonstrated a significantly better outcome with platinum–based regimens compared to topotecan. Median survival after initiation of 2nd line in platinum-sensitive patients was longer (p = 0.056) for those re-challenged with platinum–based regimen (n = 7): 6.8mo (6.1-not reported (NR)), compared with those switched to a different treatment (n = 27): 4.5 mo (2.6–6.6) for extensive stage patients, and a non-significant difference was also observed for limited stage patients. Conclusion: To our knowledge, this is one of the largest real-world studies of SCLC patients. OS for SCLC patients was similar to that reported in clinical trials. PS for extensive stage patients and sex for limited stage patients were significant correlates of prognosis. Re-challenge of the platinum–based doublet was associated with longer OS compared to switching treatment in extensive stage patients.
Formulation of a Semisolid Emulsion Containing Leptospermum scoparium Essential Oil and Evaluation of In Vitro Antimicrobial and Antibiofilm Efficacy

Abstract Manuka oil, an essential oil derived from the Leptospermum scoparium, has been traditionally used for wound care and as a topical antibacterial, antifungal, and anti-inflammatory. However, the essential oil is not well retained at mucosal sites, such as the oral cavity, where the benefits of the aforementioned properties could be utilized toward the treatment of persistent biofilms. Within this study, L. scoparium essential oil was incorporated into a semisolid emulsion for improved delivery. The safety profile of L. scoparium essential oil on human gingival fibroblasts was determined via cell viability, cytotoxicity, and caspase activation. The minimal bactericidal concentration of L. scoparium essential oil was determined, and the emulsionʼs antibiofilm effects visualized using confocal laser scanning microscopy. L. scoparium essential oil demonstrated a lower IC50 (0.02% at 48 h) when compared to the clinical control chlorhexidine (0.002% at 48 h) and displayed lower cumulative cytotoxicity. Higher concentrations of L. scoparium essential oil (≥ 0.1%) at 6 h resulted in higher caspase 3/7 activation, suggesting an apoptotic pathway of cell death. A minimal bactericidal concentration of 0.1% w/w was observed for 6 oral bacteria and 0.01% w/v for Porphyromonas gingivalis. Textural and rheometric analysis indicated increased stability of emulsion with a 1 : 3 ratio of L. scoparium essential oil: Oryza sativa carrier oil. The optimized 5% w/w L. scoparium essential oil emulsion showed increased bactericidal penetrative effects on Streptococci gordonii biofilms compared to oil alone and to chlorhexidine controls. This study has demonstrated the safety, formulation, and antimicrobial activity of L. scoparium essential oil emulsion for potential antibacterial applications at mucosal sites.
Psychometric Properties of the Climate Change Worry Scale

Climate change worry involves primarily verbal-linguistic thoughts about the changes that may occur in the climate system and the possible effects of these changes. Such worry is one of several possible psychological responses (e.g., fear, anxiety, depression, and trauma) to climate change. Within this article, the psychometric development of the ten-item Climate Change Worry Scale (CCWS) is detailed in three studies. The scale was developed to assess proximal worry about climate change rather than social or global impacts. Study 1 provided evidence that the CCWS items were internally consistent, constituted a single factor, and that the facture structure of the items was invariant for men and women. The results from Study 1 also indicated a good fit with a Rasch model of the items. Study 2 affirmed the internal consistency of the CCWS items and indicated that peoples’ responses to the measure were temporally stable over a two-week test–retest interval (r = 0.91). Study 3 provided support for the convergent and divergent validity of the CCWS through its pattern of correlations with several established clinical and weather-related measures. The limitations of the studies and the possible uses of the CCWS were discussed. The current work represents a starting point.
Cell-Free DNA to Detect Heart Allograft Acute Rejection.

Background: After heart transplantation, Endomyocardial biopsy (EMBx) is used to monitor for acute rejection (AR). Unfortunately, EMBx is invasive and its conventional histologic interpretation has limitations. This is a validation study to assesses the performance of a sensitive blood biomarker- percent donor-derived cell-free DNA (%ddcfDNA) - for detection of AR in cardiac transplant recipients. Methods: This multicenter, prospective cohort study recruited heart transplant subjects and collected plasma samples contemporaneously with EMBx for %ddcfDNA measurement by shotgun sequencing. Histopathology data was collected to define AR, its two phenotypes (acute cellular rejection, ACR, and antibody-mediated rejection, AMR) and controls without rejection. The primary analysis was to compare %ddcfDNA levels (median and interquartile range - IQR) for AR, AMR and ACR to controls and to determine %ddcfDNA test characteristics using receiver-operator characteristics analysis. Results: The study included 171 subjects with median post-transplant follow-up of 17.7 months (IQR: 12.1-23.6), with 1,392 EMBx, and 1,834 ddcfDNA measures available for analysis. Median %ddcfDNA levels decayed after surgery to 0.13% (0.03-0.21) by 28 days. %ddcfDNA increased again with AR compared to controls values (0.38, IQR=0.31-0.83, vs. 0.03, IQR=0.01-0.14 p<0.001). The rise was detected 0.5 and 3.2 months before histopathological diagnosis of ACR and AMR. The area-under-the- receiver-operator characteristics curve (AUROC) for AR was 0.92. A 0.25 %ddcfDNA threshold had a negative predictive value (NPV) for AR of 99% and would have safely eliminated 81% of EMBx. %ddcfDNA showed distinctive characteristics comparing AMR to ACR, included 5-fold higher levels (pAMR ≥2 1.68, IQR=0.49-2.79 vs. ACR grade ≥2R 0.34, IQR=0.28-0.72), higher AUROC (0.95 vs. 0.85), higher guanosine-cytosine content, and higher percentage of short ddcfDNA fragments. Conclusions: %ddcfDNA detected AR with a high AUROC and NPV. Monitoring with ddcfDNA, demonstrated excellent performance characteristics for both ACR and AMR and led to earlier detection than the EMBx-based monitoring. This study supports the use of %ddcfDNA to monitor for AR in heart transplant patients and paves the way for a clinical utility study. Clinical Trial Registration: URL: http://clinicaltrials.gov Unique Identifier: NCT02423070.
Unilateral Cleft Lip Repair Using the Chang Gung Technique: An Outcome Analysis.

OBJECTIVE This retrospective study analyzed the outcomes of patients undergoing complete or incomplete unilateral cleft lip repair using the Chang Gung technique. The goal was to compare the symmetry and change of the technique through the measurement of anthropometric points on digital photographs. METHODS From 2010 to 2016, a total of 274 complete and incomplete cleft lip patients without other craniofacial deformities were included in the study. All included patients had a minimum 1-year follow-up with frontal view photographs taken. The vermilion area, lip width, vermilion height, lateral lip length, lip height, and Cupid's bow width of both cleft and noncleft sides were measured for all patients. The Cleft Lip Component Symmetry Index was used to determine the symmetry of the cleft and noncleft sides in both incomplete and complete cleft groups. RESULTS A total of 152 complete and 122 incomplete cleft lip patients were included in the study. The mean Cleft Lip Component Symmetry Index values showed that the vermilion area, lip height, and Cupid's bow width were symmetric on both cleft and noncleft sides. Lip width and lateral lip length were noted to be shorter, whereas the vermilion height was thicker on the cleft side than on the noncleft side. Significant differences between the complete and incomplete cleft group measurements were found for lateral lip length and lip height, and complete cleft measurements were shorter than those for incomplete clefts. There were no significant differences in vermilion area, lip width, vermilion height, and Cupid's bow width. CONCLUSIONS The outcome analysis showed that vermilion height reduction and modifications could be made for both complete and incomplete groups. The complete cleft lip has been found to have a significantly shorter lateral lip length and lip height, reflecting a more severe anatomical soft tissue deficiency in this group. A long-term outcome anthropometric point study may further verify the results of this surgical technique.
Choosing important health outcomes for comparative effectiveness research: 6th annual update to a systematic review of core outcome sets for research.

BACKGROUND An annual update to a systematic review of core outcome sets (COS) for research ensures that the COMET database is up-to-date. The aims of this study were to: (i) identify COS that were published or indexed in 2019 and to describe the methodological approaches used in these studies; (ii) investigate whether children have been included as participants in published COS development studies, and which methods have been used to facilitate their participation; iii) update a previous exercise to identify COS relevant to the most burdensome global diseases and injuries. METHODS MEDLINE and SCOPUS were searched to identify studies published or indexed between (and inclusive of) January 2019 and December 2019. Automated screening methods were used to rank the citations in order of relevance; the top 25% in ranked priority order were screened for eligibility. COS were assessed against each of the Core Outcome Set-STAndards for Development (COS-STAD). A search of the COMET database was undertaken to identify COS relevant to the 25 leading causes of disease burden. RESULTS Thirty-three studies, describing the development of 37 COS, were included in this update. These studies have been added to the COMET database, which now contains 370 published (1981-2019) COS studies for clinical research. Six (18%) of the 33 studies in this update were deemed to have met all of the minimum standards for COS development (range = 4 to 12 criteria, median = 9 criteria). Of the 370 COS studies published to date, 82 COS have been developed for paediatric health conditions and children would have been eligible to participate in 68/82 of these studies. Eleven of these 68 (16%) COS studies have included children as participants within the development process, most commonly through participation in Delphi surveys. Relevant COS were identified for 22/25 leading causes of global disease burden. CONCLUSION There has been a demonstrated increase in COS developed for both research and routine practice, and consistently high inclusion of patient participants. COS developed for paediatric conditions need to further incorporate the perspectives of children, alongside parents and other adults, and adopt research methods fit for this purpose. COS developers should consider the gaps identified in this update as priorities for COS development.
Anisotropic Photoluminescence of Poly(3-hexyl thiophene) and Their Composites with Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes Highly Separated in Metallic and Semiconducting Tubes

In this work, the effect of the single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) as the mixtures of metallic and semiconducting tubes (M + S-SWNTs) as well as highly separated semiconducting (S-SWNTs) and metallic (M-SWNTs) tubes on the photoluminescence (PL) of poly(3-hexyl thiophene) (P3HT) was reported. Two methods were used to prepare such composites, that is, the chemical interaction of the two constituents and the electrochemical polymerization of the 3-hexyl thiophene onto the rough Au supports modified with carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The measurements of the anisotropic PL of these composites have highlighted a significant diminution of the angle of the binding of the P3HT films electrochemical synthetized onto Au electrodes covered with M + S-SWNTs. This change was attributed to metallic tubes, as was demonstrated using the anisotropic PL measurements carried out on the P3HT/M-SWNTs and P3HT/S-SWNTs composites. Small variations in the angle of the binding were reported in the case of the composites prepared by chemical interaction of the two constituents. The proposed mechanism to explain this behavior took into account the functionalization process of CNTs with P3HT. The experimental arguments of the functionalization process of CNTs with P3HT were shown by the UV-VIS-NIR and FTIR spectroscopy as well as surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). A PL quenching process of P3HT induced both in the presence of S-SWNTs and M-SWNTs was reported, too. This process origins in the various de-excitation pathways which can be developed considering the energy levels diagram of the two constituents of each studied composite.