Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Underconfidence in peripheral vision

Our visual experience appears uniform across the visual field, despite the poor resolution of peripheral vision. This may be because we do not notice that we are missing details in the periphery of our visual field and believe that peripheral vision is just as rich as central vision. In other words, the uniformity of the visual scene could be explained by a metacognitive bias. We deployed a confidence forced-choice method to measure metacognitive performance in peripheral as compared to central vision. Participants judged the orientation of gratings presented in central and peripheral vision, and reported whether they thought they were more likely to be correct in the perceptual decision for the central or for the peripheral stimulus. Observers were underconfident in the periphery: higher sensory evidence in the periphery was needed to equate confidence choices between central and peripheral perceptual decisions. When performance on the central and peripheral tasks was matched, observers were still more confident in their ability to report the orientation of the central gratings over the one of the peripheral gratings. In a second experiment, we measured metacognitive sensitivity, as the difference in perceptual sensitivity between perceptual decisions that are chosen with high confidence and decisions that are chosen with low confidence. Results showed that metacognitive sensitivity is lower when participants compare central to peripheral perceptual decisions compared to when they compare peripheral to peripheral or central to central perceptual decisions. In a third experiment, we showed that peripheral underconfidence does not arise because observers based confidence judgments on stimulus size or contrast range rather than on perceptual performance. Taken together, results indicate that humans are impaired in comparing central with peripheral perceptual performance, but metacognitive biases cannot explain our impression of uniformity, as this would require peripheral overconfidence.
Real-World Medication Treatment Patterns for Long-Term Care Residents with Dementia-Related Psychosis

Objectives: This study evaluated treatment patterns and factors associated with medication treatment changes in residents with dementia-related psychosis in a long-term care (LTC) setting. Methods: A retrospective database cohort study was conducted using the national PharMerica® database and included dementia residents with or without incident psychosis. Treatment patterns were assessed and a multivariate logistic regression model was used to identify factors associated with any treatment change (discontinuation, switch, or sporadic use) in dementia-related psychosis therapy. Results: Among 11,921 residents with incident dementia-related psychosis, 11,246 (94.3%) were prescribed ≥1 index medication to treat psychosis, including 77.3% who received ≥1 typical or atypical antipsychotic. Treatment change was evaluated during the post-index period: 38.7% of residents with dementia-related psychosis discontinued treatment, 13.9% switched treatments, and 7.9% had sporadic use. Factors associated with treatment change were age ≥65 years, Medicare insurance, and comorbid conditions (anemia, coronary heart disease, diabetes, falls, depression, hypertension, or hyperlipidemia) during the pre-index period. Discussion: Approximately 60% of dementia-related psychosis LTC residents experienced a medication treatment change. This treatment change was associated with higher age and higher comorbidities. Medications that treat symptoms of dementia-related psychosis without adding to safety concerns are needed to facilitate long-term, consistent treatment.
System Analysis of Wildfire‐Water Supply Risk in Colorado, USA with Monte Carlo Wildfire and Rainfall Simulation

Water supply impairment from increased contaminant mobilization and transport after wildfire is a major concern for communities that rely on surface water from fire‐prone watersheds. In this article we present a Monte Carlo simulation method to quantify the likelihood of wildfire impairing water supplies by combining stochastic representations of annual wildfire and rainfall activity. Water quality impairment was evaluated in terms of turbidity limits for treatment by modeling wildfire burn severity, postfire erosion, sediment transport, and suspended sediment dilution in receiving waterbodies. Water supply disruption was analyzed at the system level based on the impairment status of water supply components and their contributions to system performance. We used this approach to assess wildfire‐water supply impairment and disruption risks for a system of water supply reservoirs and diversions in the Front Range Mountains of Colorado, USA. Our results indicate that wildfire may impair water quality in a concerning 15.7–19.4% of years for diversions from large watersheds. Reservoir impairment should be rare for off‐network reservoirs—ranging from at most 0.01% of years for large reservoirs to nearly 2% of years for small reservoirs. System redundancy meaningfully reduced disruption risk for alternative conveyance routes (4.3–25.0% reduction) and almost eliminated disruption risk for a pair of substitutable terminal sources (99.9% reduction). In contrast, dependency among reservoirs on a conveyance route nearly doubled risk of disruption. Our results highlight the importance of considering water system characteristics when evaluating wildfire‐water supply risks.
Protective role of PERK-eIF2α-ATF4 pathway in chronic renal failure induced injury of rat hippocampal neurons

Abstract Purpose Chronic renal failure (CRF) is associated with impairment of hippocampal neurons. This study investigated the effect of PERK-eIF2α-ATF4 pathway in CRF. Methods Rat CRF model was established and rat hippocampal neurons were separated. Xanthine Oxidase method, fluorescence spectrophotometry and flow cytometry were applied to detect superoxide dismutase (SOD) content, reactive oxygen species (ROS) level and apoptosis in hippocampal neurons, respectively. The levels of phosphorylated (p)-PERK, phosphorylated (p)-eIF2α, CHOP, Bax, C-Caspase-3 and Bcl-2 in rats were measured using Western blot. Then, the neurotoxicity of serum from CRF rats was assessed in rat hippocampal neurons after treatment with rat CRF serum and transfection with or without PERK overexpression or knockdown plasmid. Results SOD activity was reduced, while ROS level and apoptosis rate were increased in hippocampal tissues of CRF rats. PERK-eIF2α-ATF4 and apoptosis pathways were activated in CRF rats. Cells treated with serum from CRF rats showed increases in apoptosis rate and LDH and ROS levels, and decreases in cell viability and SOD activity. However, overexpressed PERK could reverse the cytotoxic effect of serum from CRF rats. PERK overexpression could enhance the activation of PERK-eIF2α-ATF4 pathway in hippocampal neurons induced by serum from CRF rats. Furthermore, PERK overexpression could alleviate the increases in CHOP, Bax, C-Caspase-3 expressions and the reduction of Bcl-2 expression in hippocampal neurons induced by serum from CRF rats. Conclusion PERK-eIF2α-ATF4 pathway induced by increased endoplasmic reticulum stress may alleviate CRF-induced hippocampal neuronal damage.
Particle-laden fluid/fluid interfaces: physico-chemical foundations

Particle-laden fluid/fluid interfaces are ubiquitous in academia and industry, which has fostered extensive research efforts trying to disentangle the physico-chemical bases underlying the trapping of particles to fluid/fluid interfaces as well as the properties of the obtained layers. The understanding of such aspects is essential for exploiting the ability of particles on the stabilization of fluid/fluid interface for the fabrication of novel interface-dominated devices, ranging from traditional Pickering emulsions to more advanced reconfigurable devices. This review tries to provide a general perspective of the physico-chemical aspects associated with the stabilization of interfaces by colloidal particles, mainly chemical isotropic spherical colloids. Furthermore, some aspects related to the exploitation of particle-laden fluid/fluid interfaces on the stabilization of emulsions and foams will be also highlighted. It is expected that this review can be used for researchers and technologist as an initial approach to the study of particle-laden fluid layers.
A combined EMR and DFT study of radiation-induced defects in sucrose and glucose 1-phosphate

Ionizing radiation induces radicals in organic matter, i.e. molecules with one or more unpaired electrons. This dissertation deals with a detailed study of radicals induced by X-ray radiation in solid sucrose (also known as common household sugar) and in the dipotassium salt of glucose 1-phosphate (K2G1P). The radiation chemistry of these materials is relevant in the context of radiation damage to DNA and (emergency) dosimetry. Next to the actual research results, which will be discussed below, the dissertation contains several, quite extensive chapters of a more general nature. The research strategy employed mainly comprises electron-magnetic-resonance (EMR) measurements (EPR, ENDOR, HYSCORE, …) and theoretical ab-initio calculations based on density functional theory (DFT). Essentially, radical structures are identified and scrutinized by comparing DFT-calculated and experimentally determined EMR parameters. These are the main results with respect to radiation-induced radicals in sucrose: (i) all major stable radiation-induced radicals are characterized and identified. Each of them requires formation of a carbonyl group and scission of the glycosidic bond. (ii) The transformation of the EPR spectrum during the first four hours after RT irradiation is shown to be due to the decay of several semistable species to diamagnetic products. (iii) Six (more) primary radicals (studied by in-situ irradiation at 10 K and subsequent EMR measurements at 10 K) were characterized and three of the four dominant radicals were identified as H-abstracted species. In K2G1P, the radicals present at 77 K after in-situ X-ray irradiation at 77 K were studied. Four radical species were characterized and identified. The dominant radical is chemically identical to one of the major radicals in sucrose and has a broken sugar-phosphate junction. Finally, it was shown, via first-order perturbation theory, that an ambiguity can arise in the determination of hyperfine tensors for low-symmetry paramagnetic centers with S=1/2 and I=1/2 – which can lead to erroneous radical identification. A firm theoretical basis is thus provided for a problem that was since long known to exist, but not always recognized or adequately dealt with in the literature.
Anticancer activities of parthenolide in primary effusion lymphoma preclinical models

The sesquiterpene lactone parthenolide is a major component of the feverfew medicinal plant, Tanacetum parthenium. Parthenolide has been extensively studied for its anti‐inflammatory and anticancer properties in several tumor models. Parthenolide's antitumor activities depend on several mechanisms but it is mainly known as an inhibitor of the nuclear factor‐κB (NF‐κB) pathway. This pathway is constitutively activated and induces cell survival in primary effusion lymphoma (PEL), a rare aggressive AIDS‐related lymphoproliferative disorder that is commonly caused by the human herpesvirus 8 (HHV‐8) infection. The aim of this study is to evaluate the targeted effect of Parthenolide both in vitro and in vivo. Herein, parthenolide significantly inhibited cell growth, induced G0/G1 cell cycle arrest, and induced massive apoptosis in PEL cells and ascites. In addition, parthenolide inhibited the NF‐ĸB pathway suppressing IĸB phosphorylation and p65 nuclear translocation. It also reduced the expression of the DNA methylase inhibitor (DNMT1). Parthenolide induced HHV‐8 lytic gene expression without inhibiting latent viral gene expression. Importantly, DMAPT, the more soluble parthenolide prodrug, promoted delay in ascites development and prolonged the survival of PEL xenograft mice. This study supports the therapeutic use of parthenolide in PEL and encourages its further clinical development.
Barriers to Psychosocial Care in Nursing Homes as Reported by Social Services Directors

ABSTRACT This study identifies social services directors’ perceptions of major barriers to psychosocial care and examines the structural factors associated with these barriers. Data were merged from the 2019 National Nursing Home Social Services Directors Survey and CMS’s Nursing Home Compare. A hierarchical linear regression predicts overall barriers. Nine binary logistic regressions predict specific barriers. Common major barriers include “insufficient number of nurse aide staff” (31%), and “having to do things other people could do” (30%). Overall barriers to psychosocial care decreased as directors’ years of experience increased, the number of staff members in social services increased, and less time was spent on short-stay residents. Departments with one staff member (compared to 3+) have a 300% greater likelihood of perceiving a major barrier in social services staffing, pressured discharge of short-stay residents, and residents’ socioemotional needs are treated as less important than medical/nursing needs. Directors had a 59%-239% greater likelihood of perceiving a major barrier across six of the nine barriers when 50% or more of social services staffing is devoted to short-stay residents. To improve psychosocial care, federal guidelines should ensure adequate staffing levels differentiated by resident needs across short- and long-term care.
A Privacy-Preserving Semisupervised Algorithm Under Maximum Correntropy Criterion

Existing semisupervised learning approaches generally focus on the single-agent (centralized) setting, and hence, there is the risk of privacy leakage during joint data processing. At the same time, using the mean square error criterion in such approaches does not allow one to efficiently deal with problems involving non-Gaussian distribution. Thus, in this article, we present a novel privacy-preserving semisupervised algorithm under the maximum correntropy criterion (MCC). The proposed algorithm allows us to share data among different entities while effectively mitigating the risk of privacy leaks. In addition, under MCC, our proposed approach works well for data with non-Gaussian distribution noise. Our experiments on three different learning tasks demonstrate that our method distinctively outperforms the related algorithms in common regression learning scenarios.
Do medical schools teach medical humanities? Review of curricula in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES Medical humanities are becoming increasingly recognized as positively impacting medical education and medical practice. However, the extent of medical humanities teaching in medical schools is largely unknown. We reviewed medical school curricula in Canada, the UK and the US. We also explored the relationship between medical school ranking and the inclusion of medical humanities in the curricula. METHODS We searched the curriculum websites of all accredited medical schools in Canada, the UK and the US to check which medical humanities topics were taught, and whether they were mandatory or optional. We then noted rankings both by Times Higher Education and U.S. News and World Report and calculated the average rank. We formally explored whether there was an association between average medical school ranking and medical humanities offerings using Spearman's correlation and inverse variance weighting meta-analysis. RESULTS We identified 18 accredited medical school programmes in Canada, 41 in the UK, and 154 in the US. Of these, nine (56%) in Canada, 34 (73%) in the UK and 124 (80%) in the US offered at least one medical humanity that was not ethics. The most common medical humanities were medical humanities (unspecified), history, and literature (Canada); sociology and social medicine, medical humanities (unspecified), and art (UK); and medical humanities (unspecified), literature and history (US). Higher ranked medical schools appeared less likely to offer medical humanities. CONCLUSIONS The extent and content of medical humanities offerings at accredited medical schools in Canada, the UK and the US varies, and there appears to be an inverse relationship between medical school quality and medical humanities offerings. Our analysis was limited by the data provided on the Universities' websites. Given the potential for medical humanities to improve medical education and medical practice, opportunities to reduce this variation should be exploited.
Morphogenesis of iridescent feathers in Anna's hummingbird Calypte anna.

Color is a phenotypic trait of utmost importance, particularly in birds, which are known for their diverse color signals and color-producing mechanisms including pigment-based colors, light scattering from nanostructured feather tissues and combinations thereof. Bright iridescent plumage colors of hummingbirds are caused by light scattering by an organized array of flattened, pigment organelles, containing air-filled vesicles, called melanosomes. These hollow platelets are organized in multilayer arrays that contain numerous sharp air/melanin refractive index interfaces, producing brilliant iridescent colors. Despite their ecological significance and potential for inspiration of new optical materials, how platelets form and spatially arrange in nanostructures in growing feathers remains unknown. Here, we tested the hypothesis that melanosome formation and organization occurs mostly through passive self-assembly processes by assembling a developmental time series of growing hummingbird feathers using optical and electron microscopy. We show that hummingbird platelets contain air bubbles or vesicles upon their formation in pigment-producing cells, melanocytes. When melanosomes are transferred to neighboring keratinocytes (the cells shaping barbule structure) they drastically expand in size; and variation in this enlargement appears to be driven by physical constraints caused by the placement of the melanosomes within the barbule plate and their proximity to other melanosomes. As the barbule elongates and narrows, polymerizing feather corneous beta protein (CβP) orients melanosomes unilaterally, forcing them into a stacked configuration. These results reveal potentially novel forces driving the self-assembly of the nanostructures producing some of the brightest colors in nature. <.
Anabolic actions of PTH in murine models: two decades of insights

Parathyroid hormone (PTH) is produced by the parathyroid glands in response to low serum calcium concentrations where it targets bones, kidneys, and indirectly, intestines. The N‐terminus of PTH has been investigated for decades for its ability to stimulate bone formation when administered intermittently (iPTH) and is used clinically as an effective anabolic agent for the treatment of osteoporosis. Despite great interest in iPTH and its clinical use, the mechanisms of PTH action remain complicated and not fully defined. More than 70 gene targets in more than 90 murine models have been utilized to better understand PTH anabolic actions. Because murine studies utilized wild‐type mice as positive controls, a variety of variables were analyzed to better understand the optimal conditions under which iPTH functions. The greatest responses to iPTH were in male mice, with treatment starting later than 12 weeks of age, a treatment duration lasting 5–6 weeks, and a PTH dose of 30–60 μg/kg/day. This comprehensive study also evaluated these genetic models relative to the bone formative actions with a primary focus on the trabecular compartment revealing trends in critical genes and gene families relevant for PTH anabolic actions. The summation of these data revealed the gene deletions with the greatest increase in trabecular bone volume in response to iPTH. These included PTH and 1‐α‐hydroxylase (Pth;1α(OH)ase, 62‐fold), amphiregulin (Areg, 15.8‐fold), and PTH related protein (Pthrp, 10.2‐fold). The deletions with the greatest inhibition of the anabolic response include deletions of: proteoglycan 4 (Prg4, −9.7‐fold), low‐density lipoprotein receptor‐related protein 6 (Lrp6, 1.3‐fold), and low‐density lipoprotein receptor‐related protein 5 (Lrp5, −1.0‐fold). Anabolic actions of iPTH were broadly affected via multiple and diverse genes. This data provides critical insight for future research and development, as well as application to human therapeutics. © 2021 The Authors. Journal of Bone and Mineral Research published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR).
Longitudinal associations between emotion malleability beliefs and avoidance in college students

ABSTRACT Emotion malleability beliefs, or beliefs that emotions are changeable versus fixed, may be an important and modifiable determinant of emotion regulation strategy employment and psychological distress. The present study evaluated the prospective relationship between college students’ emotion malleability beliefs, depression and anxiety symptom severity, cognitive and behavioural avoidance, social engagement, and cognitive reappraisal. Participants were college students (N = 177) who completed a battery of questionnaires at the beginning of the academic year and again at a 6-month follow-up. Linear regression analyses indicated that emotion malleability beliefs predicted anxiety and depression, although this effect was not found when controlling for baseline symptom severity. Increases in emotion malleability beliefs were associated with more cognitive reappraisal and less cognitive and behavioural avoidance at follow-up when controlling for baseline levels of each variable. To the extent that emotion malleability beliefs predicted less avoidance at follow-up, anxiety and depression symptom severity was lower. Results suggest that emotion malleability beliefs predict avoidance and related psychological outcomes across the academic year.
Risk of Breast Cancer Among Carriers of Pathogenic Variants in Breast Cancer Predisposition Genes Varies by Polygenic Risk Score

PURPOSE This study assessed the joint association of pathogenic variants (PVs) in breast cancer (BC) predisposition genes and polygenic risk scores (PRS) with BC in the general population. METHODS A total of 26,798 non-Hispanic white BC cases and 26,127 controls from predominately population-based studies in the Cancer Risk Estimates Related to Susceptibility consortium were evaluated for PVs in BRCA1, BRCA2, ATM, CHEK2, PALB2, BARD1, BRIP1, CDH1, and NF1. PRS based on 105 common variants were created using effect estimates from BC genome-wide association studies; the performance of an overall BC PRS and estrogen receptor–specific PRS were evaluated. The odds of BC based on the PVs and PRS were estimated using penalized logistic regression. The results were combined with age-specific incidence rates to estimate 5-year and lifetime absolute risks of BC across percentiles of PRS by PV status and first-degree family history of BC. RESULTS The estimated lifetime risks of BC among general-population noncarriers, based on 10th and 90th percentiles of PRS, were 9.1%-23.9% and 6.7%-18.2% for women with or without first-degree relatives with BC, respectively. Taking PRS into account, more than 95% of BRCA1, BRCA2, and PALB2 carriers had > 20% lifetime risks of BC, whereas, respectively, 52.5% and 69.7% of ATM and CHEK2 carriers without first-degree relatives with BC, and 78.8% and 89.9% of those with a first-degree relative with BC had > 20% risk. CONCLUSION PRS facilitates personalization of BC risk among carriers of PVs in predisposition genes. Incorporating PRS into BC risk estimation may help identify > 30% of CHEK2 and nearly half of ATM carriers below the 20% lifetime risk threshold, suggesting the addition of PRS may prevent overscreening and enable more personalized risk management approaches.