Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Variations in FVC and FEV1 Biologic Quality Control Measures in a Global Multi-Center Clinical Trial

BACKGROUND: Although quality control standards are recommended to ensure accurate test results, the coefficient of variation for the FVC and FEV1 biologic quality control (BioQC) is not specified. The primary aim of this study was to evaluate variations in spirometry BioQCs in a large and diverse cohort of individuals to determine an acceptable standard for the coefficient of variation. METHODS: The FVC and FEV1 biologic control data were secondary analyses from an inhaled medication trial that was conducted over 3 y ending in 2018 that included 114 laboratories. Results were sent to a central repository for expert review. The FVC and FEV1 coefficients of variation were based upon a minimum of 10 spirometry values annually separated by at least 5 d. A second method of computing the coefficient of variation used 10 values within 28 d. Descriptive statistics were computed. Wilcoxon signed-rank tests were conducted to compare whether the median coefficient of variation values between the 2 methods differed, tested at α = 0.05 using SPSS. RESULTS: Of 249 biologic control participants, 170 met the first year’s inclusion criteria. The coefficient of variation for the 5-d separated method was < 5% for 94.1% of FVC and 93.5% of FEV1 values in the first year. By year 3, 90% of FVC and FEV1 coefficient of variation values were < 4%. The medians for the 5-d separated and the 28-d measure showed no difference for either FVC coefficient of variation or FEV1 coefficient of variation, Z = −1.764, P = . 78, and Z = −0.980, P = . 33, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Interlab biologic control variation values of < 4% for FVC and FEV1 are achievable; however, individual labs should strive to attain lower values. Acceptable coefficients of variation can be achieved within 28 d.
Factors influencing initiation and discontinuation of vitamin D supplementation among children 1-24-months-old

Abstract Objectives To determine vitamin D supplementation frequency among children aged 1–24 months, factors that influence adherence, and reasons for discontinuation of initiated vitamin D. Methods This cross-sectional study was conducted using a questionnaire administered to the mothers via face-to-face interview of 560 children aged from 1 to 24 months admitted to outpatient clinics from June to December 2017. Results A total of 351 children were administered vitamin D, and the rate of supplementation in the first year of life was 83%, while it was only 28% between 13 and 24 months. The rate of vitamin D supplementation was higher among exclusively formula-fed children (p < .05). When the data were analyzed using logistic regression analysis, only visit family physicians were statistically significant independent variable in increasing supplementation (p < .05). Compared with family refusal, the rate of discontinuation of vitamin D by the healthcare providers was higher after the first year of life (p < .05). The rate of vitamin D discontinuation by healthcare providers, especially by nurses who considered the duration of supplementation adequate, was statistically significantly higher when compared with the fontanel closure and other independent variables (p < .05). Conclusion The rate of vitamin D supplementation was higher among families who visited family physicians, which suggests the importance of well-baby visits. Since vitamin D supplementation was less common among exclusively breastfed children, mothers should be educated. Healthcare professionals need further education about the importance of vitamin D supplementation and indications for discontinuation.
Altered cardiac autonomic function after recovery from COVID‐19

Autonomic dysfunction may occur during the acute phase of COVID‐19. Heart rate variability (HRV) is a useful tool for the assessment of cardiac sympathetic and parasympathetic balance. We aimed to evaluate cardiac autonomic function by using HRV in subjects after recovery from COVID‐19 who had previously symptomatic and were followed outpatiently.
B cell receptor isotypes differentially associate with cell signaling, kinetics, and outcome in chronic lymphocytic leukemia

In chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), the B cell receptor (BCR) plays a critical role in disease development and progression, as indicated by the therapeutic efficacy of drugs blocking BCR signaling. However, the mechanism(s) underlying BCR responsiveness are not completely defined. Selective engagement of membrane IgM or IgD on CLL cells, each coexpressed by more than 90% of cases, leads to distinct signaling events. Since both IgM and IgD carry the same antigen-binding domains, the divergent actions of the receptors are attributed to differences in immunoglobulin (Ig) structure or the outcome of signal transduction. We showed that IgM, not IgD, level and organization associated with CLL-cell birth rate and the type and consequences of BCR signaling in humans and mice. The latter IgM-driven effects were abrogated when BCR signaling was inhibited. Collectively, these studies demonstrated a critical, selective role for IgM in BCR signaling and B cell fate decisions, possibly opening new avenues for CLL therapy.
Localization performance of arrays subject to phase errors

The passive localisation of radiating sources using an array subject to random perturbations in sensor phases is presented. All source signals as well as additive noises observed at the sensors are assumed to be independent identically distributed zero-mean Gaussian random processes. Cramer-Rao bounds are derived for source bearings and ranges for the phase errors at each sensor. It is shown that accurate phase calibration can be achieved when the number of sources exceeds a certain minimum. The locations of the calibrating sources need not be known a priori and need only satisfy mild regularity conditions. A calibration procedure is proposed which uses maximum-likelihood techniques. >
Astaxanthin: A super antioxidant from microalgae and its therapeutic potential

Astaxanthin is a ketocarotenoid, super antioxidant molecule. It has higher antioxidant activity than a range of carotenoids, thus has applications in cosmetics, aquaculture, nutraceuticals, therapeutics, and pharmaceuticals. Naturally, it is derived from Haematococcus pluvialis via a one‐stage process or two‐stage process. Natural astaxanthin significantly reduces oxidative and free‐radical stress as compared to synthetic astaxanthin. The present review summarizes all the aspects of astaxanthin, including its structure, chemistry, bioavailability, and current production technology. Also, this paper gives a detailed mechanism for the potential role of astaxanthin as nutraceuticals for cardiovascular disease prevention, skin protection, antidiabetic and anticancer, cosmetic ingredient, natural food colorant, and feed supplement in poultry and aquaculture. Astaxanthin is one of the high‐valued microalgae products of the future. However, due to some risks involved or not having adequate research in terms of long‐term consumption, it is still yet to be explored by food industries. Although the cost of naturally derived astaxanthin is high, it accounts for only a 1% share in total astaxanthin available in the global market. Therefore, scientists are looking for ways to cut down the cost of natural astaxanthin to be made available to consumers.
Behavioural and neurochemical effects after repeated administration of N‐ethylpentylone (ephylone) in mice

N‐ethyl‐pentylone (NEP), also known as ‘ephylone’ and N‐ethylnorpentylone, has been identified as one of the most recent novel psychostimulants to emerge into the illicit drug market and it has been associated with some intoxications and even fatalities. However, little is known about the consequences of its repeated consumption as well as the role of the monoaminergic system in such consequences. Thus, the aim of our study was to investigate the neurochemical profile and the behavioural effects after both acute and repeated NEP exposure. Male OF1 mice were acutely (1, 3, 10 mg/kg, i.p.) or repeatedly (1, 3, 10 mg/kg, i.p., 5 days, twice/day) exposed to NEP, and anxiety‐like behaviour, aggressiveness, social interaction, depressive‐like symptoms, body temperature, changes in monoaminergic enzymes and neurotransmitters levels as well as ΔFosB in striatum and prefrontal cortex (PFC) from post‐mortem tissue were analysed short after drug‐exposure or during drug‐withdrawal. Acute administration of NEP induced anxiolytic effects but also an aggressive behaviour and social exploration deficits in mice, which persist during NEP‐withdrawal. Moreover, NEP induced hyperthermia as well as depressive‐like symptoms after repeated administrations that may be related to the decrease in serotonin and noradrenaline levels observed in striatum and PFC. Finally, the long‐term increase in ΔFosB levels in striatum after NEP chronic exposure points to a high risk of dependence. Altogether indicates that NEP consumption induces different neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders accompanied by changes in the monoaminergic system, posing a threat to public health.
Validation of a Finite Element Approach to Modeling of Structural Collapse of Steel Structures

The prediction of collapse of structures has gained growing attention recently, as it is important to be able to predict and model structural collapse due to extreme loads. A lack of accurate and validated structural collapse models significantly limits the structural engineering community to predict possible extreme loads that precipitate collapse. This paper proposes an integrated platform for validated prediction of collapse of steel structures that accounts for material softening followed by elimination of finite elements to enable simulation of fracture. The proposed approach employs a void growth model (VGM) to simulate the initiation of softening and the Hillerborg model for modeling the softening itself, followed by an element deletion strategy that is developed in this framework. The parameters of these models were calibrated to a comprehensive set of experimental test results of circumferentially notched tensile (CNT) coupon specimens. These calibrated models were then validated through comparison with a broad array of experimental test results of steel structures, ranging in complexity from tensile coupons to moment-resisting beam-to-column connections. The proposed approach is shown to be accurate. Through element deletion, the formulation can account for complete structural component separation, thus precipitating modeling of the collapse of structures. This approach thus enables high-fidelity parametric simulation capabilities of interest to researchers, practitioners, and code developers who address collapse of structures.
Bacillary layer detachment on optical coherence tomography in exudative age-related macular degeneration

Purpose To report the bacillary layer detachment on optical coherence tomography in exudative age-related macular degeneration. Methods Retrospective, observational cases Case descriptions Two cases of exudative age-related macular degeneration, one diagnosed as polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy following exudative age-related macular degeneration and other as wet age-related macular degeneration with choroidal neovascular membrane showed separation of myoid and ellipsoid zones of photoreceptor layer on optical coherence tomography. This is termed as BALAD. Other associated features noted were the presence of subretinal hyperreflective material, submacular hemorrhage and subretinal fluid. Both cases were treated with monthly intravitreal injections of Inj. Ranibizumab (0.5 mg/0.05 ml). Following 3 intravitreal injections at monthly intervals, reattachment of the bacillary layer detachment were noted in case 1 while the bacillary layer detachment persisted in case 2. Conclusion Multimodal imaging using optical coherence tomography in these cases revealed the separation of the bacillary layer following exudative age-related macular degeneration; a finding which is not routinely described in literature.
Victimization and perpetration of intimate partner violence among elderly people: a cross-sectional study, Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Brazil, 2013/2014*

Objective: VTo verify prevalence of intimate partner violence among elderly people and to identify associated factors. Methods: This was a cross-sectional population-based study using data from the EpiFloripa Idoso Study, with elderly people living in Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Brazil, between 2013 and 2014. Prevalence rates were described and factors associated using Poisson regression were analyzed, for violence suffered and perpetrated, stratified by sex. Results: Among 651 elderly people, 48.3% of males and 46.4% of females suffered intimate partner violence. Psychological violence suffered (48.3% and 44.8%) and perpetrated (49.8% and 44.5%) predominated in males and females, respectively. Perpetrated violence was associated with poor/very poor self-perceived health (PR=1.74) among males, and with regular self-perceived health (PR=1.53) and separated/divorced marital status (PR=1.86) among females. Conclusion: Symmetry was found between the sexes for prevalence of intimate partner violence, for all directionalities of violence analyzed.
Clinicopathological heterogeneity of Alzheimer's disease with pure Alzheimer's disease pathology: Cases associated with dementia with Lewy bodies, very early‐onset dementia, and primary progressive aphasia

We report four cases depicting the heterogeneity of Alzheimer's disease (AD) associated with pure AD pathology. Case 1 was a 77‐year‐old man with a false positive diagnosis of dementia with Lewy bodies with reduced dopamine transporter uptake activity of the striatum but no Lewy body pathology. There were tau deposits in the large neurons in the putamen, which may be related to the development of parkinsonism. Case 2 was an AD patient in his early 30s who presented with a psychotic episode and a cognitive decline, and later developed myoclonus and seizures. He demonstrated considerable amyloid‐beta deposits in the cerebral cortex, including cotton wool plaques, basal ganglia, and cerebellum. Tau deposits were also abundant in the cerebral neocortex, hippocampus, basal ganglia, and brain stem. Case 3 was a 60‐year‐old woman who exhibited typical symptoms characteristic of the logopenic variant of primary progressive aphasia (lvPPA). Case 4 was a 68‐year‐old man who exhibited the semantic variant of primary progressive aphasia (svPPA) plus repetition impairment, a rare case associated with AD pathology. In addition to tau pathology, astrocytic pathology was prominent in the white matter and cortical layers of the left temporoparietal cortices. While the main AD lesion in case 4 was evaluated by tau accumulation and astrogliosis in the left temporal lobe, that in case 3 in was evaluated by the same points in the left parietal lobe. Within the spectrum of lvPPA, case 4 may be regarded as a temporal variant of lvPPA presenting svPPA. The pathology of PPA associated with AD may have broader clinical manifestations than that in previously described cases. Case 4 also showed pathological features characteristic of cerebral amyloid angiopathy throughout the cerebral cortex. The distribution of tau and astrocytic pathologies in the cerebral cortex, basal ganglia, brain stem, and cerebellum may explain the various symptoms of atypical pure AD patients.
Predictive pre-activation of orthographic and lexical-semantic representations facilitates visual word recognition

To a crucial extent, the efficiency of reading results from the fact that visual word recognition is faster in predictive contexts. Predictive coding models suggest that this facilitation results from pre-activation of predictable stimulus features across multiple representational levels before stimulus onset. Still, it is not sufficiently understood which aspects of the rich set of linguistic representations that are activated during reading – visual, orthographic, phonological, and/or lexical-semantic – contribute to context-dependent facilitation. To investigate in detail which linguistic representations are pre-activated in a predictive context and how they affect subsequent stimulus processing, we combined a well-controlled repetition priming paradigm, including words and pseudowords (i.e., pronounceable nonwords), with behavioral and magnetoencephalography measurements. For statistical analysis, we used linear mixed modeling, which we found had a higher statistical power compared to conventional multivariate pattern decoding analysis. Behavioral data from 49 participants indicate that word predictability (i.e., context present vs. absent) facilitated orthographic and lexical-semantic, but not visual or phonological processes. Magnetoencephalography data from 38 participants show sustained activation of orthographic and lexical-semantic representations in the interval before processing the predicted stimulus, suggesting selective pre-activation at multiple levels of linguistic representation as proposed by predictive coding. However, we found more robust lexical-semantic representations when processing predictable in contrast to unpredictable letter strings, and pre-activation effects mainly resembled brain responses elicited when processing the expected letter string. This finding suggests that pre-activation did not result in ‘explaining away’ predictable stimulus features, but rather in a ‘sharpening’ of brain responses involved in word processing.
Effectiveness and Safety of NOAC Versus Warfarin in Patients With Atrial Fibrillation and Aortic Stenosis

Background Guideline recommendations on the use of non–vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulants (NOACs) in atrial fibrillation (AF) patients with aortic stenosis are based on studies including a low number of patients with aortic stenosis. The aim of this study was to estimate the effects of NOAC versus warfarin on thromboembolism and major bleeding among AF patients with aortic stenosis. Methods and Results We emulated a target trial using observational data from Danish nationwide registries between 2013 and 2018. Thromboembolism was defined as a hospital diagnosis of ischemic stroke and/or systemic embolism, and major bleeding was defined as a hospital diagnosis of intracranial bleeding, gastrointestinal bleeding, or major or clinically relevant bleeding in other anatomic sites. Treatment effect estimates were based on an intention‐to‐treat and per‐protocol approach. A total of 3726 patients with AF and aortic stenosis claimed a prescription for either a NOAC (2357 patients) or warfarin (1369 patients) and met the eligibility criteria for the trial. During 3 years of follow‐up, the adjusted hazard ratios for thromboembolism and major bleeding were 1.62 (95% CI, 1.08–2.45) and 0.73 (0.59–0.91) for NOAC compared with warfarin in the intention‐to‐treat analyses. Similar results were observed in the per‐protocol analyses. Conclusions In this observational study, we observed a higher risk of thromboembolism but a lower risk of major bleeding for treatment with NOACs compared with warfarin in patients with AF and aortic stenosis. This observation needs confirmation in large randomized trials in these commonly encountered patients.
Gender-Based Differences and Associated Factors Surrounding Excessive Smartphone Use Among Adolescents: Cross-sectional Study

Background Excessive smartphone use is a new and debated phenomenon frequently mentioned in the context of behavioral addiction, showing both shared and distinct traits when compared to pathological gaming and gambling. Objective The aim of this study is to describe excessive smartphone use and associated factors among adolescents, focusing on comparisons between boys and girls. Methods This study was based on data collected through a large-scale public health survey distributed in 2016 to pupils in the 9th grade of primary school and those in the 2nd grade of secondary school. Bayesian binomial regression models, with weakly informative priors, were used to examine whether the frequency of associated factors differed between those who reported excessive smartphone use and those who did not. Results The overall response rate was 77% (9143/11,868) among 9th grade pupils and 73.4% (7949/10,832) among 2nd grade pupils, resulting in a total of 17,092 responses. Based on the estimated median absolute percentage differences, along with associated odds ratios, we found that excessive smartphone use was associated with the use of cigarettes, alcohol, and other substances. The reporting of anxiety and worry along with feeling low more than once a week consistently increased the odds of excessive smartphone use among girls, whereas anxiety and worry elevated the odds of excessive smartphone use among boys. The reporting of less than 7 hours of sleep per night was associated with excessive smartphone use in all 4 study groups. Conclusions The results varied across gender and grade in terms of robustness and the size of estimated difference. However, excessive smartphone use was associated with a higher frequency of multiple suspected associated factors, including ever having tried smoking, alcohol, or other substances; poor sleep; and often feeling low and feeling anxious. This study sheds light on some features and distinctions of a potentially problematic behavior among adolescents.
States, Scarcity, and Civil Strife in the Developing World

flicts over power and ownership (Cameroon) or social and political control (Senegal). The contributors are anthropologists and geographers, and chapters focus on small-scale conflicts, not necessarily between rebels and the state. For peace researchers, the focus can be rather too narrow, but for those more sympathetic to the Boserupian approach than the neo-Malthusian, the case studies provide interesting and convincing examples of Africans’ ability to deal with resource challenges in a flexible and creative way. Helga Malmin Binningsbø
Effective End-to-End Deep Learning Process in Medical Imaging Using Independent Task Learning: Application for Diagnosis of Maxillary Sinusitis

Purpose This study aimed to propose an effective end-to-end process in medical imaging using an independent task learning (ITL) algorithm and to evaluate its performance in maxillary sinusitis applications. Materials and Methods For the internal dataset, 2122 Waters’ view X-ray images, which included 1376 normal and 746 sinusitis images, were divided into training (n=1824) and test (n=298) datasets. For external validation, 700 images, including 379 normal and 321 sinusitis images, from three different institutions were evaluated. To develop the automatic diagnosis system algorithm, four processing steps were performed: 1) preprocessing for ITL, 2) facial patch detection, 3) maxillary sinusitis detection, and 4) a localization report with the sinusitis detector. Results The accuracy of facial patch detection, which was the first step in the end-to-end algorithm, was 100%, 100%, 99.5%, and 97.5% for the internal set and external validation sets #1, #2, and #3, respectively. The accuracy and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of maxillary sinusitis detection were 88.93% (0.89), 91.67% (0.90), 90.45% (0.86), and 85.13% (0.85) for the internal set and external validation sets #1, #2, and #3, respectively. The accuracy and AUC of the fully automatic sinusitis diagnosis system, including site localization, were 79.87% (0.80), 84.67% (0.82), 83.92% (0.82), and 73.85% (0.74) for the internal set and external validation sets #1, #2, and #3, respectively. Conclusion ITL application for maxillary sinusitis showed reasonable performance in internal and external validation tests, compared with applications used in previous studies.