Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Association of adverse childhood experiences with subsequent kidney disease among middle-aged and older adults in China: A national analysis

Objective: Few studies have been performed to address the impacts of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on kidney function in later life. We aimed to investigate the association between ACEs with subsequent kidney disease among middle-aged and older adults. Methods: This national population-based study used data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) 2015 and the life history survey in 2014. A total of 10102 participants aged [≥] 45 years from China were included. A wide range of 11 ACE indicators including childhood hunger, childhood poor health, physical abuse, emotional neglect, loneliness, peer bullying, domestic violence, household mental illness, household substance abuse, parental death, and incarcerated household member were measured by validated questionnaires. The cumulative number of ACEs was summed and and classified into four subgroups: [≤] 1, 2, 3 and [≥] 4. Glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) was estimated by serum Cystatin C concentration and chronic kidney disease (CKD) was defined as eGFR < 60 ml/min/1.73m2. Multiple regression models were used to explore the relationship between accumulated ACEs and individual ACE indicator with subsequent kidney function. Findings: Of the 10102 participants, 46.8% were men, and 16.0% reported exposure to four or more ACEs. Compared those with [≤] 1 ACE, participants who experienced four or more ACEs have a higher risk of decreased eGFR ({beta}= -1.169, 95%CI: -2.113 to -0.225) and CKD (adjusted odds ratio, aOR=1.35, 1.04-1.75), after controlling for confounders.Exposure to specific ACE indicators of childhood poor health, physical abuse and household mental illness presented significant associations with reduced eGFR. The effects were more evident in men aged [≥] 60 years, with lower education or worse financial status. Conclusions: Higher ACEs exposure increased the risk of subsequent kidney disease among Chinese adults. Our findings provide implications for mitigating early-life stress and promoting kidney health by reducing ACEs.
Association of adverse childhood experiences and cortical neurite density alterations with posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms in autism spectrum disorder

Background Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can be a source of significant social and daily distress in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Compared to typically developed (TD) individuals, people with ASD are at an increased risk of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), which can result in abnormal neuronal development. However, whether or how ACEs influence abnormal neural development and PTSD symptoms in ASD has not been fully elucidated. Methods Thirty-nine TD individuals and 41 individuals with ASD underwent T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging and neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging (NODDI), with axonal and dendritic densities assessed in terms of the orientation dispersion index and neurite density index (NDI), respectively. Voxel-based analyses were performed to explore the brain regions associated with PTSD symptoms, and the relationships between the severity of ACEs and PTSD symptoms and NODDI parameters in the extracted brain regions were examined. Results There was a significant positive association between PTSD symptom severity and NDI in the bilateral supplementary motor area; right superior frontal, left supramarginal, and right superior temporal gyrus; and right precuneus in the ASD group, but not in the TD group. ACE severity was significantly associated with NDI in the right superior frontal and left supramarginal gyrus and right precuneus in the ASD group. Moreover, NDI in the right precuneus mainly predicted the severity of PTSD symptoms in the ASD group, but not the TD group. Conclusion These results suggest that ACE-associated higher neurite density is of clinical importance in the pathophysiology of PTSD symptoms in ASD.
Novel MHC BLB2 gene polymorphism and its association with IgY concentration and Newcastle disease antibody titer in IPB-D2 chickens

Abstract This study aimed to identify the polymorphism of the B Locus Beta 2 (BLB2) gene and its association with immunoglobulin Y (IgY) concentration and Newcastle disease (ND) antibody titer; we analyzed BLB2 gene expression in different categories of ND antibody titers in IPB-D2 chickens. The total sample used was 100 IPB-D2 chickens. Blood samples were collected at 21 weeks old for an ELISA (enzyme-linked immunoassay) test, an HI (hemagglutination inhibition) test, and genotyping. The method for BLB2 polymorphism was Sanger sequencing. Analysis of BLB2 gene expression was performed using the cecal tonsil tissue of IPB-D2 chickens. Polymorphism data were analyzed using SNPstats and DNAsp (DNA Sequence Polymorphism) software. The association of the single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with IgY concentration and ND antibody titer was analyzed using SAS software (version 9.2). The genotype mean values were compared by means of a T test. The relative mRNA expression analysis was performed using a quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). The results showed that 13 SNPs were found in exon 2 and exon 3 in the BLB2 gene. As many as 4 out of the 13 SNPs were associated with IgY concentration. As many as 9 out the 13 SNPs may have changed amino acids. The Δ Ct value showed that the expression of the BLB2 gene in IPB-D2 chickens with high ND antibody titers is higher than IPB-D2 chickens with low ND antibody titers. In conclusion, the AA genotype of g.458 T > A was associated with high IgY concentrations, and the BLB2 gene presented with a high expression in IPB-D2 chickens with high ND antibody titers.
Identification of a Super-Spreading Chain of Transmission Associated with COVID-19 at the Early Stage of the Disease Outbreak in Wuhan

Background: The super-spreading events were associated with the outbreaks of SARS and MERS, but their association with the outbreak of COVID-19 was unknown before we first published a report in medRxiv preprint in March 2020. Here, we reported a super-spreading transmission chain of SARS-CoV-2 involving an index patient, seven cancer patients, 40 health care workers and four family members. Methods: We conducted a retrospective study to identify the index patient and the exposed individuals linked to a chain of transmission associated with COVID-19. We collected and analyzed the data on demographic features, exposure history, clinical presentation, laboratory investigation, radiological examination, and disease outcome of these patients. Results: We identified the index patient and another presumptive “super-spreader”, who initiated and amplified a super-spreading transmission chain associated with COVID-19, respectively. There were 31 female and 21 male patients in this cohort, and the median age was 37 years (range: 22-79 years). Each of them had an exposure history with the index patient or his close contacts. Approximately 87% (45/52) of the patients had fever or other symptoms, 96% (50/52) had abnormal chest CT-scan findings, 86% of the tested patients (39/45) were positive for SARS-CoV-2 in the nasopharyngeal or throat swab specimen, 85% of the tested patients (29/34) were positive for SARS-CoV-2-specific IgM and/or IgG, 15% of the RT-PCR positive patients were tested negative for the specific IgM and/or IgG at the convalescent phase, and 15% of the RT-PCR negative patients were tested positive for the specific IgM and/or IgG. The severe patients experienced a significant decrease in oximetry saturation, lymphocyte, and platelet counts, along with a significant increase in C-reactive protein, D-dimer, and lactate dehydrogenase. All six fatal cases had comorbidities and five of the seven cancer patients (71%) died within 2-20 days of the disease onset. Conclusions: Our findings suggested that the super-spreading events associated with COVID-19 took place at the early stage of the disease outbreak in Wuhan. The cancer patients appeared to be highly vulnerable to SASR-CoV-2 infection.
Task alters body category and emotion representation in high-level 1 visual, prefrontal and inferior parietal cortex.

| Abstract 17 Recent studies provided an increasingly detailed understanding of how visual objects categories 18 like faces or bodies are represented in the brain. What is less clear is how a given task impacts the 19 representation of the object category and of its attributes. Using (fMRI) we measured BOLD 20 responses while participants viewed whole body expressions and alternatively performed an 21 explicit (emotion) or an implicit (shape) recognition task. Our results based on multivariate 22 methods, show that the type of task is the strongest determinant of brain activity and can be 23 decoded in EBA, VLPFC and IPL. Brain activity was higher for the explicit task condition in the 24 first two areas without evidence of emotion specificity. This pattern indicates that during explicit 25 recognition of the body expression, body category representation may be strengthened, and 26 emotion and action related activity suppressed. Taken together these results indicate that there is 27 important task dependent activity in prefrontal, inferior parietal but also ventral visual areas and 28 point to the importance of the task both when investigating category selectivity and brain correlates 29 of affective processes. 30
Meta-analysis of variation in sport and exercise science: Examples of application within resistance training research

ABSTRACT Meta-analysis has become commonplace within sport and exercise science for synthesising and summarising empirical studies. However, most research in the field focuses upon mean effects, particularly the effects of interventions to improve outcomes such as fitness or performance. It is thought that individual responses to interventions vary considerably. Hence, interest has increased in exploring precision or personalised exercise approaches. Not only is the mean often affected by interventions, but variation may also be impacted. Exploration of variation in studies such as randomised controlled trials (RCTs) can yield insight into interindividual heterogeneity in response to interventions and help determine generalisability of effects. Yet, larger samples sizes than those used for typical mean effects are required when probing variation. Thus, in a field with small samples such as sport and exercise science, exploration of variation through a meta-analytic framework is appealing. Despite the value of embracing and exploring variation alongside mean effects in sport and exercise science, it is rarely applied to research synthesis through meta-analysis. We introduce and evaluate different effect size calculations along with models for meta-analysis of variation using relatable examples from resistance training RCTs.
Advances in Hygiene and Experimental Medicine

Hypertension is still the cause of many cardiovascular complications and the premature death of a large number of patients despite the use of increasingly effective pharmacological drugs. Most patients with therapy-resistant hypertension show excessive activity of the sympathetic system. In the last two decades, there have been successful attempts at nonpharmacological reduction of this activity. The earliest method for this purpose is the denervation of the renal arteries by using devices specially designed for this purpose. Other methods of lowering blood pressure are the electrical activation of baroreceptors, which increases the tone of the parasympathetic system, and special pacemaker software to lower blood pressure. The paper discusses the studies assessing the effectiveness and safety of these methods, and on the basis of the current research results, predictions are made concerning which patients with arterial hypertension would be the most appropriate for these treatment methods.
Voting wiser The effect of Voting Advice Applications on political understanding

By offering relevant political information in an attractive and easy-to-digest way, and reaching millions of voters, Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) are expected to contribute to political knowledge and internal political efficacy. While previous studies provide correlational evidence or single-group experiments at best, the current study puts the alleged contribution of VAAs to a critical test. To study the causal effect of VAAs, we rely on a quasi-experiment during Dutch municipality elections and use matching techniques to exclude selection bias. We find evidence for an increase in internal efficacy after using VAAs, especially among lower educated voters. We do not find support for the expected gain in factual political knowledge. Our findings confirm the important role of VAAs in the political media landscape of contemporary elections, but do not suggest that VAAs bridge the digital divide.
Secondary organic aerosol formed by Euro 5 gasoline vehicle emissions: chemical composition and gas-to-particle phase partitioning

Abstract. In this study we investigated the photo-oxidation of Euro 5 gasoline vehicle emissions during cold urban, hot urban and motorway Artemis cycles. The experiments were conducted in an environmental chamber with average OH concentrations ranging between 6.6 × 105–2.3 × 106 molec. cm−3, relative humidity (RH) between 40 %–55 % and temperatures between 22–26 °C. A proton-transfer-reaction time-of-flight mass spectrometer (PTR-ToF-MS) and the CHemical Analysis of aeRosol ON-line (CHARON) inlet coupled with a PTR-ToF-MS were used for the gas- and particle-phase measurements respectively. This is the first time that the CHARON inlet has been used for the identification of the secondary organic aerosol (SOA) produced from vehicle emissions. The secondary organic gas-phase products ranged between C1 and C9 with one to four atoms of oxygen and were mainly composed of small oxygenated C1–C3 species. The SOA formed contained compounds from C1 to C14, having one to six atoms of oxygen, and the products' distribution was centered at C5. Organonitrites and organonitrates contributed 6 %–7 % of the SOA concentration. Relatively high concentrations of ammonium nitrate (35–160 µg m−3) were formed. The nitrate fraction related to organic nitrate compounds was 0.12–0.20, while ammonium linked to organic ammonium compounds was estimated only during one experiment, reaching a fraction of 0.19. The SOA produced exhibited log C∗ values between 2 and 5. Comparing our results to theoretical estimations for saturation concentrations, we observed differences of 1–3 orders of magnitude, indicating that additional parameters such as RH, particulate water content, aerosol hygroscopicity, and possible reactions in the particulate phase may affect the gas-to-particle partitioning.
C-reactive protein and angiographic characteristics of stable and unstable coronary artery disease – Data from the prospective PREVEND cohort

Background High sensitive-C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) is associated with coronary risk, which may be explained by an association with (unstable) coronary artery disease (CAD). Until now, histopathological and angiographic studies have failed to consistently demonstrate a strong relationship. However, most of these studies were limited by a cross-sectional design. Our aim was to prospectively evaluate the association between hs-CRP and plaque instability. Therefore, firstly, we investigated the relation between hs-CRP measured long before coronary angiography (CAG) and angiographic characteristics of stable and unstable CAD. In addition, we investigated the association with coronary events during follow up in the total PREVEND population. Methods and results Of the population based Prevention of REnal and Vascular ENdstage Disease (PREVEND) study, 8,139 subjects without previous documented CAD were followed for the incidence of CAG and coronary events from 1997-2003. For the qualitative angiographic analysis, 216 CAGs were available. Mean time to CAG was 37±19 months. The 864 coronary vessels were graded as follows: 436 coronary vessels as normal, 175 as non-obstructive CAD, 179 as stable obstructive CAD and 74 as unstable obstructive CAD. Multilevel ordinal regression analysis was performed to study associations between baseline clinical variables and angiographic findings. HsCRP contributed significantly to the multivariate model after adjustment for age, gender, smoking, lipids and blood pressure. In 8,139 subjects, two-hundred-andone (2.5%) first coronary events occurred during follow up. Cox survival analysis showed ageand sexadjusted hazard ratios for hs-CRP 1-3 mg/L and >3 mg/L of, respectively, 1.26 (95% CI 0.67-2.40) and 3.16 (95% CI 1.26-3.16), relative to hsCRP <1 mg/L. Conclusions In the prospective PREVEND study of subjects without previous documented CAD, hsCRP levels at baseline were associated with angiographic characteristics and clinical consequences of plaque instability during follow up. This observation supports the concept that hs-CRP significantly contributes to coronary atherogenesis.
Contribution a l'etude du message magnetique porte par la lithosphere oceanique : l'altération des mineaux magnétiques - les anomalies magnétiques de haute résolution

Cette these concerne l’etude du message magnetique de la lithosphere oceanique. Nous nous sommes, dans un premier temps, interesses a l’evolution du signal magnetique a travers une section de croute oceanique complete et continue des basaltes jusqu’aux gabbros. Le but etait de comprendre comment les proprietes magnetiques des roches peuvent nous renseigner sur les conditions d’alteration dans la croute oceanique. Nous avons donc etabli un jeu de donnees magnetiques (temperature de Curie, parametres d’hysteresis, mesures magnetiques basse temperature) sur l’ensemble de la section de croute oceanique foree au site IODP 1256D, dans l’ocean Pacifique. Ces donnees sont confrontees aux temperatures d’alteration, etablies par thermo barometrie et mettent en evidence une etroite relation entre l’alteration des phases magnetiques et les temperatures d’alteration. De plus, des analyses semi-quantitatives et des observations microscopiques (optique, MEB et MET) mettent en evidence un changement de structure cristalline, associee a une perte de titane, permettant la formation d’une phase secondaire, l’hydroschorlomite, dans un intervalle de forte alteration des phases magnetiques (entre 670 et 1028 mbsf (meters below sea floor)). Dans un second temps, l’acquisition de profils d’anomalies magnetiques marines de surface et d’un profil d’anomalies de fond « deep tow » a travers le superchron du Cretace (entre 83 et 120 Ma) nous a permis de tester la stabilite de polarite du champ geomagnetique durant cette periode. Nous mettons en evidence la presence d’anomalies magnetiques : des anomalies de courtes longueurs d’onde ou « tiny-wiggles » a travers l’ensemble du superchron et des anomalies magnetiques de plus grande longueur d’onde, assimilables a de courts intervalles de polarite inverse. Nos mesures montrent que le comportement du champ magnetique durant le superchron n’est pas different des periodes qui le precedent (chrons M0-M1-M2) et le suivent (chrons 33n et 33r). La definition de superchron doit etre remise en question.
Analysis of the global atmospheric background sulfur budget in a multi-model framework

Sulfate aerosol in the stratosphere is an important climate driver, causing solar dimming in the years after major volcanic eruptions. Hence, a growing number of general circulation models are adapting interactive sulfur and aerosol schemes to improve the representation of relevant chemical processes and associated feedbacks. However, uncertainties of these schemes are not well constrained. Stratospheric sulfate is modulated by natural emissions of sulfur-containing species, including volcanic eruptive, and anthropogenic emissions. Model intercomparisons have examined the effects of volcanic eruptions, whereas 5 the background conditions of the sulfur cycle have not been addressed in a global model intercomparison project. Assessing background conditions in global models allows us to identify model discrepancies as they are masked by large perturbations such as volcanic eruptions, yet may still matter in the aftermath of such a disturbance. Here, we analyze the atmospheric burden, seasonal cycle, and vertical and meridional distribution of the main sulfur species among nine global atmospheric aerosol models that are widely used in the stratospheric aerosol research community. We use 10 observational and reanalysis data to evaluate model results. Overall, models agree that the three dominant sulfur species in
Impacts of ice-nucleating particles on cirrus clouds and radiation derived from global model simulations with MADE3 in EMAC

Abstract. Atmospheric aerosols can act as ice-nucleating particles (INPs) and influence the formation and the microphysical properties of cirrus clouds, resulting in distinct climate effects. We employ a global aerosol–climate model, including a two-moment cloud microphysical scheme and a parameterization for aerosol-induced ice formation in cirrus clouds, to quantify the climate impact of INPs on cirrus clouds (simulated period 2001–2010). The model considers mineral dust, soot, crystalline ammonium sulfate, and glassy organics as INPs in the cirrus regime. Several sensitivity experiments are performed to analyse various aspects of the simulated INP–cirrus effect regarding (i) the ice-nucleating potential of the INPs, (ii) the inclusion of ammonium sulfate and organic particles as INPs in the model, and (iii) the model representations of vertical updraughts. The resulting global radiative forcing of the total INP–cirrus effect, considering all different INP types, assuming a smaller and a larger ice-nucleating potential of INPs, to explore the range of possible forcings due to uncertainties in the freezing properties of INPs, is simulated as −28 and −55 mW m−2, respectively. While the simulated impact of glassy organic INPs is mostly small and not statistically significant, ammonium sulfate INPs contribute a considerable radiative forcing, which is nearly as large as the combined effect of mineral dust and soot INPs. Additionally, the anthropogenic INP–cirrus effect is analysed considering the difference between present-day (2014) and pre-industrial conditions (1750) and amounts to −29 mW m−2, assuming a larger ice-nucleating potential of INPs. In a further sensitivity experiment we analyse the effect of highly efficient INPs proposed for cirrus cloud seeding as a means to reduce global warming by climate engineering. However, the results indicate that this approach risks an overseeding of cirrus clouds and often results in positive radiative forcings of up to 86 mW m−2 depending on number concentration of seeded INPs. Idealized experiments with prescribed vertical velocities highlight the crucial role of the model dynamics for the simulated INP–cirrus effects. For example, resulting forcings increase about 1 order of magnitude (−42 to −340 mW m−2) when increasing the prescribed vertical velocity (from 1 to 50 cm s−1). The large discrepancy in the magnitude of the simulated INP–cirrus effect between different model studies emphasizes the need for future detailed analyses and efforts to reduce this uncertainty and constrain the resulting climate impact of INPs.