Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Psychopathological symptoms in Spanish subjects with gender dysphoria. A cross-sectional study

Abstract Background Most people with gender dysphoria have to face various stressful conditions, which make them more vulnerable to the development of psychopathological symptoms. Aims The main goal was to compare psychopathological symptoms between individuals with gender dysphoria and those from the general population. Other secondary aims were to determine if there were differences between gender [male to females (MtFs) and female to males (FtMs)] and also according to cross-sex hormone therapy. Method Symptom Checklist 90 Revised (SCL-90-R) questionnaire was administered to a sample of 205 subjects with gender dysphoria (MtFs = 129 and FtMs = 76). The control group included 530 individuals from the general population who took part in the Spanish validation of the SCL-90-R questionnaire. Results Overall, individuals with gender dysphoria had higher scores on all SCL-90-R dimensions than the general population, except in the dimension of somatization, in which MtF and FtM subjects scored statistically higher than control males but not than control females. The mean scores of all dimensions except Depression (mean score of 1.17) were below 1, that is, between 0 (not at all) and 1 (occasionally). All dimensions did not differ when comparing MtFs and FtMs nor when comparing gender dysphoric subjects with or without cross-sex hormonal therapy. Conclusions The results suggested that most subjects with gender dysphoria attending a gender unit reported higher levels of psychopathology than the general population. However, the scores were indicative of the lack of any clinically relevant psychopathological symptoms.
N-terminal selective conjugation method widens the therapeutic window of antibody–drug conjugates by improving tolerability and stability

ABSTRACT Antibody–drug conjugates (ADCs) are targeted therapeutic agents that treat cancers by selective delivery of highly potent cytotoxic drugs to tumor cells via cancer-specific antibodies. However, their clinical benefit is limited by off-target toxicity and narrow therapeutic windows. To overcome these limitations, we have applied reductive alkylation to develop a new type of ADC that has cytotoxic drugs conjugated to the N-terminal of an antibody through amine bonds introduced via reductive alkylation reactions (NTERM). To test whether the NTERM-conjugated ADCs can widen therapeutic windows, we synthesized three different ADCs by conjugating trastuzumab and monomethyl auristatin-F using three different methods, and compared their stability, efficacy, and toxicity. The NTERM-conjugated ADC was more stable in vitro and in vivo than the thiol-conjugated and the lysine-conjugated ADCs. The NTERM-conjugated ADC showed lower toxicity compared to other ADCs, whereas its efficacy was comparable to that of the thiol-conjugated ADC and better than that of the lysine-conjugated ADC. These results suggest that the NTERM conjugation method could widen the therapeutic window of ADCs by enhancing its stability and reducing toxicity.
Implications of ADAM17 activation for hyperglycaemia, obesity and type 2 diabetes

Abstract In this review, we focus specifically on the role that the metalloproteinase, A Disintegrin and Metalloproteinase 17 [ADAM17] plays in the development and progression of the metabolic syndrome. There is a well-recognised link between the ADAM17 substrate tumour necrosis factor α (TNF-α) and obesity, inflammation and diabetes. In addition, knocking out ADAM17 in mice leads to an extremely lean phenotype. Importantly, ADAM17-deficient mice exhibit one of the most pronounced examples of hypermetabolism in rodents to date. It is vital to further understand the mechanistic role that ADAM17 plays in the metabolic syndrome. Such studies will demonstrate that ADAM17 is a valuable therapeutic target to treat obesity and diabetes.
COVID-19: exploring out-of-hospital solutions to increased service demand

In 2020, COVID-19 caused widespread disruption to all aspects of medical care, including cancer screening procedures, elective surgeries and outpatient face-to-face appointments. As we emerge from this pandemic, we must plan for the inevitable increased service demand of non-COVID-19 conditions that have been neglected. One potential solution is to select appropriate services for delivery by qualified primary care physicians and increase their involvement in telemedicine services. Disruption to surgical procedures has caused a reduction in the detection rates of colorectal cancers (1,2), pri-marily screened through elective gastroscopies. Delayed screening procedures combined with the neoplastic nature of tumours results in diagnosis at more advanced stages, with a less favourable prog-nosis and the potential to cause severe problems for health care systems. An increase in emergency presentations of cancer at advanced stages requiring surgical intervention (e.g. colostomy), the long-term additional management this creates, and the strain on screening services are just some of the consequences (1). Moving appropriate elective procedures (e.g. gastroscopy, minor skin surgery) to primary care and equipping GPs with necessary training is a potential solution to help reduce the demands on the health care system. Guidelines for the requirements of primary care centres to perform minor surgeries have been published, indicating adequate infrastructure (3).
MICROBIAL COMMUNITY ANALYSIS IN ANAEROBIC PALM OIL MILL EFFLUENT (POME) WASTEWATER BY DENATURING GRADIENT GEL ELECTROPHORESIS (DGGE)

Microorganisms play a key role in wastewater bio-treatment processes and understanding the microbial community structure is of great importance to improve treatment performance. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) was used to monitor succession of the microbial community and thus predominant bands were sequenced to reveal the microbial community composition inside palm oil mill effluent (POME) wastewater.DNA bands from DGGE gels were excised with a sterile blade and placed in 1.5 ml eppendorf tube containing 50 μl deionized water (ddH2O). Tubes were incubated overnight at 4C to elute the DNA. Eluted DNA was purified using QIAquick gel extraction kits (QIAGEN, Inc., Valencia, CA) and was frozen and thawed three times.Microbial DNA successfully excised and purified from DGGE was amplified using polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Five micro liters of the supernatant were used as a template to re-amplify the DNA using 16s rDNA primers,341f (with no GC-clamp) (5'- cct-acg-gga-ggc-agc-ag-3') and reverse(r) primers 907r (5'-ccc-cgt-caa-ttc-att-tga-gtt-t-3'). Amplification was repeated referring to the steps in ‘PCR amplification of 16s rDNA’. PCR products from agarose gels were cut and purified using QIAquick Gel Extraction Kit (QIAGEN, Inc., Valencia, CA), which were similar to the purification steps after recovery of DNA from DGGE, and sequenced in both directions with the same primers (with no GC-clamp) as used in PCR. Moreover, start-up is an important step in establishing proper community structure in all kinds of biological treatment processes. In anaerobic POME wastewater, 6 sequences of Firmicutes, 5 sequence of Proteobacterium and 2 sequences of Bacteroidetes were found through denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) results. Sequence closely related to Rummeliibacillus suwonensis strain G20 was detected grows at band BE10, BE11, BE12, BE15, BE16, BE17 and BE18. Meanwhile BE25 and BE26 were found at ban d after treatment process done.Rummeliibacillus suwonensis is an aerobic, Gram-positive, rod shaped, round-spore-forming bacteria which were isolated from aerobic condition.
Climate data and flowering times for 450 species from 1844 deepen the record of phenological change in southern Germany.

PREMISE State-sponsored weather stations became ubiquitous by the 1880s, yet many old climate data and phenological observations still need to be digitized and made accessible. METHODS We here make available flowering times for 450 species of herbs and shrubs gathered in 1844 by Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius (1794-1868), director of the Munich Botanical Garden. The data formed part of the world's third-oldest phenological monitoring network as we explain in a brief overview of the history of such networks. Using data from one of the world's oldest continuously functioning weather stations, Hohenpeißenberg, we relate temperature to flowering in three species with short flowering times and herbarium collections made since 1844 within the city's perimeter, namely, Anemone patens, A. pulsatilla, and Arum maculatum. RESULTS Mean advances in flowering dates were 1.3-2.1 days/decade or 3.2-4.2 days/1°C warming. These advances are in keeping with similar advances in other European herbs during more recent periods. CONCLUSIONS Future studies might use the 1844 flowering data made available here as a source of information on the availability of particular flowers for specialized pollinators including insects looking for oviposition sites, such as the Psychoda flies that become trapped in Arum inflorescences. Another use of Martius's 1844 data would be their incorporation into larger-scale analyses of flowering in southern-central Europe.
CD3Z polymorphisms and promoter hypermethylation in dermatomyositis - the role of cytosine-phosphate-guanine-related single nucleotide polymorphisms

ABSTRACT Background Decreased expression of the T cell receptor (TCR) ζ-chain has been reported in autoimmune diseases. Recent evidence suggests that this deficiency may be due to polymorphisms in the CD3Z (CD247) gene and/or due to promoter hypermethylation. Methods Altogether 131 subjects – 36 with dermatomyositis (DM) and 95 healthy controls were genotyped for rs1052230 G > C and rs1052231 T > A polymorphisms using TaqMan assay. The rs840015 G > A polymorphism was analyzed by direct sequencing. The promoter methylation status was analyzed by Sanger sequencing of bisulfite converted DNA. Results The rs1052230GC genotype and C allele and the rs1052231TA genotype and T allele were found to correlate with photosensitivity as well as the rs1052230C/rs1052231T haplotype. The rs1052231TA genotype was found to be associated with cutaneous disease. The rs840015GG genotype was found increased among patients with DM, leading to increased OR 2.4. On the contrary, the rs840015GA genotype appeared to be protective for the development of DM. From the 11 cytosine-phosphate-guanine (CpG) islands analyzed, only the 8th island showed a difference in its methylation due to the polymorphism rs840015 G > A within this island, as our results suggest. In this way the presence of AA genotype led to no methylation and the presence of the GG genotype was associated with hemimethylation. Conclusion The CD247 rs1052230 G > C and rs1052231 T > A polymorphisms appeared to have a disease-modifying role. The rs840015GA genotype being associated with reduced methylation has a protective role for the development of dermatomyositis and our results suggest that CpG related single nucleotide polymorphisms may play an important role in autoimmunity.
Management equity incentives and stock price crash risk: “Golden handcuffs” or “gold watch”

This paper expands the previous research on management equity incentives (MEIs) and stock price crash risk by distinguishing between the "gold watch" region and the "golden handcuff" regions in MEIs. By using an estimation of the gold watch region and the golden handcuff regions based on 6,675 annual observations of China’s A-share listed companies, the stock price crash risk is found to be negatively correlated with MEIs in the golden handcuff regions (0–10%, 30%-100%) and is positively correlated with MEIs in the gold watch region (10%-30%). A further investigation of the mediating effects of peer effects on MEIs and the stock price crash risk reveals that peer effects have a partial mediation effect at the level of peer managers’ shareholding and mediate the relationship between MEIs and the stock price crash risk.
Disgust-Related Memory Bias in Children and Adults

Studies with adults found a memory bias for disgust, such that memory for disgusting stimuli was enhanced compared to neutral and frightening stimuli. We investigated whether this bias is more pronounced in females and whether it is already present in children. Moreover, we analyzed whether the visual exploration of disgust stimuli during encoding is associated with memory retrieval. In a first recognition experiment with intentional learning, 50 adults (mean age; M = 23 years) and 52 children (M = 11 years) were presented with disgusting, frightening, and neutral pictures. Both children and adults showed a better recognition performance for disgusting images compared to the other image categories. Males and females did not differ in their memory performance. In a second free recall experiment with eye-tracking, 50 adults (M = 22 years) viewed images from the categories disgust, fear, and neutral. Disgusting and neutral images were matched for color, complexity, brightness, and contrast. The participants, who were not instructed to remember the stimuli, showed a disgust memory bias as well as shorter fixation durations and longer scan paths for disgusting images compared to neutral images. This “hyperscanning pattern” correlated with the number of correctly recalled disgust images. In conclusion, we found a disgust-related memory bias in both children and adults regardless of sex and independently of the memorization method used (recognition/free recall; intentional/incidental).
SARS-CoV-2 Infection Detection by PCR and Serologic Testing in Clinical Practice

Patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) can be diagnosed by PCR during acute infection or later in their clinical course by detection of virus-specific antibodies. While in theory complementary, both PCR and serologic tests have practical shortcomings. ABSTRACT Patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) can be diagnosed by PCR during acute infection or later in their clinical course by detection of virus-specific antibodies. While in theory complementary, both PCR and serologic tests have practical shortcomings. A retrospective study was performed in order to further define these limitations in a clinical context and to determine how to best utilize these tests in a coherent fashion. A total of 3,075 patients underwent both PCR and serology tests at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), in the study period. Among these, 2,731 (89%) had no positive tests at all, 73 (2%) had a positive PCR test and only negative serology tests, 144 (5%) had a positive serology test and only negative PCR tests, and 127 (4%) had positive PCR and serology tests. Approximately half of the patients with discordant results (i.e., PCR positive and serology negative or vice versa) had mistimed tests in reference to the course of their disease. PCR-positive patients who were asymptomatic or pregnant were less likely to generate a detectable humoral immune response to SARS-CoV-2. On a quantitative level, the log number of days between symptom onset and PCR test was positively correlated with cycle threshold (CT) values. However, there was no apparent relationship between PCR CT and serologic (arbitrary units per milliliter) results.
Antibiotic use for acute respiratory infections among under-5 children in Bangladesh: a population-based survey

Introduction Despite acute respiratory infections (ARIs) being the single largest reason for antibiotic use in under-5 children in Bangladesh, the prevalence of antibiotic use in the community for an ARI episode and factors associated with antibiotic use in this age group are unknown. Methods We analysed nationally representative, population-based, household survey data from the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey 2014 to determine the prevalence of antibiotic use in the community for ARI in under-5 children. Using a causal graph and multivariable logistical regression, we then identified and determined the sociodemographic and antibiotic source factors significantly associated with the use of antibiotics for an episode of ARI. Results We analysed data for 2 144 children aged <5 years with symptoms of ARI from 17 300 households. In our sample, 829 children (39%) received antibiotics for their ARI episode (95% CI 35.4% to 42.0%). Under-5 children from rural households were 60% (adjusted OR (aOR): 1.6; 95% CI 1.2 to 2.1) more likely to receive antibiotics compared with those from urban households, largely driven by prescriptions from unqualified or traditional practitioners. Private health facilities were 50% (aOR: 0.5; 95% CI 0.3 to 0.7) less likely to be sources of antibiotics compared with public health facilities and non-governmental organisations. Age of children, sex of children or household wealth had no impact on use of antibiotics. Conclusion In this first nationally representative analysis of antibiotic use in under-5 children in Bangladesh, we found almost 40% of children received antibiotics for an ARI episode. The significant prevalence of antibiotic exposure in under-5 children supports the need for coordinated policy interventions and implementation of clinical practice guidelines at point of care to minimise the adverse effects attributed to antibiotic overuse.
Quantifying Online News Media Coverage of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Text Mining Study and Resource

Background Before the advent of an effective vaccine, nonpharmaceutical interventions, such as mask-wearing, social distancing, and lockdowns, have been the primary measures to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Such measures are highly effective when there is high population-wide adherence, which requires information on current risks posed by the pandemic alongside a clear exposition of the rules and guidelines in place. Objective Here we analyzed online news media coverage of COVID-19. We quantified the total volume of COVID-19 articles, their sentiment polarization, and leading subtopics to act as a reference to inform future communication strategies. Methods We collected 26 million news articles from the front pages of 172 major online news sources in 11 countries (available online at SciRide). Using topic detection, we identified COVID-19–related content to quantify the proportion of total coverage the pandemic received in 2020. The sentiment analysis tool Vader was employed to stratify the emotional polarity of COVID-19 reporting. Further topic detection and sentiment analysis was performed on COVID-19 coverage to reveal the leading themes in pandemic reporting and their respective emotional polarizations. Results We found that COVID-19 coverage accounted for approximately 25.3% of all front-page online news articles between January and October 2020. Sentiment analysis of English-language sources revealed that overall COVID-19 coverage was not exclusively negatively polarized, suggesting wide heterogeneous reporting of the pandemic. Within this heterogenous coverage, 16% of COVID-19 news articles (or 4% of all English-language articles) can be classified as highly negatively polarized, citing issues such as death, fear, or crisis. Conclusions The goal of COVID-19 public health communication is to increase understanding of distancing rules and to maximize the impact of governmental policy. The extent to which the quantity and quality of information from different communication channels (eg, social media, government pages, and news) influence public understanding of public health measures remains to be established. Here we conclude that a quarter of all reporting in 2020 covered COVID-19, which is indicative of information overload. In this capacity, our data and analysis form a quantitative basis for informing health communication strategies along traditional news media channels to minimize the risks of COVID-19 while vaccination is rolled out.
Life satisfaction and the mediating role of character strengths and gains in informal caregivers.

INTRODUCTION Being an informal caregiver can have both negative and positive consequences for well-being. Within the framework of the stress process model, few studies have examined values and perceived gains of caregiving as mediating variables of life satisfaction. AIM To explore the role of character strengths and perceived gains as mediators in the association between life satisfaction and primary and secondary stressors in informal caregivers of persons with dementia. METHOD Participants were 112 informal caregivers. Hierarchical regression, correlation and mediation analyses were performed. RESULTS Lower life satisfaction was associated with being female, unmarried, caring for someone with greater cognitive impairment, a higher level of stress, having restricted leisure time and perceiving financial difficulties. Hope mediated the associations between perceived stress and both life satisfaction and perceived gains of caregiving. DISCUSSION Hope is a key strength and its lack is one pathway through which stress may cause low satisfaction and low perceived gains from caregiving. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE Without hope, it is difficult for caregivers to generate goals and be motivated to achieve them. Nursing and care staff should aim to promote a sense of purpose and achievement among informal caregivers so as to foster a more positive caring experience.