Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The bi-factor structure of the 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale in persistent major depression; dimensional measurement of outcome

Background The 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS17) is used world-wide as an observer-rated measure of depression in randomised controlled trials (RCTs) despite continued uncertainty regarding its factor structure. This study investigated the dimensionality of HDRS17 for patients undergoing treatment in UK mental health settings with moderate to severe persistent major depressive disorder (PMDD). Methods Exploratory Structural Equational Modelling (ESEM) was performed to examine the HDRS17 factor structure for adult PMDD patients with HDRS17 score ≥16. Participants (n = 187) were drawn from a multicentre RCT conducted in UK community mental health settings evaluating the outcomes of a depression service comprising CBT and psychopharmacology within a collaborative care model, against treatment as usual (TAU). The construct stability across a 12-month follow-up was examined through a measurement equivalence/invariance (ME/I) procedure via ESEM. Results ESEM showed HDRS17 had a bi-factor structure for PMDD patients (baseline mean (sd) HDRS17 22.6 (5.2); 87% PMDD >1 year) with an overall depression factor and two group factors: vegetative-worry and retardation-agitation, further complicated by negative item loading. This bi-factor structure was stable over 12 months follow up. Analysis of the HDRS6 showed it had a unidimensional structure, with positive item loading also stable over 12 months. Conclusions In this cohort of moderate-severe PMDD the HDRS17 had a bi-factor structure stable across 12 months with negative item loading on domain specific factors, indicating that it may be more appropriate to multidimensional assessment of settled clinical states, with shorter unidimensional subscales such as the HDRS6 used as measures of change.
Leptin Downregulates Angulin-1 in Active Crohn’s Disease via STAT3

Crohn’s disease (CD) has an altered intestinal barrier function, yet the underlying mechanisms remain to be disclosed. The tricellular tight junction protein tricellulin is involved in the maintenance of the paracellular macromolecule barrier and features an unchanged expression level in CD but a shifted localization. As angulins are known to regulate the localization of tricellulin, we hypothesized the involvement of angulins in CD. Using human biopsies, we found angulin-1 was downregulated in active CD compared with both controls and CD in remission. In T84 and Caco-2 monolayers, leptin, a cytokine secreted by fat tissue and affected in CD, decreased angulin-1 expression. This effect was completely blocked by STAT3 inhibitors, Stattic and WP1066, but only partially by JAK2 inhibitor AG490. The effect of leptin was also seen at a functional level as we observed in Caco-2 cells an increased permeability for FITC-dextran 4 kDa indicating an impaired barrier against macromolecule uptake. In conclusion, we were able to show that in active CD angulin-1 expression is downregulated, which leads to increased macromolecule permeability and is inducible by leptin via STAT3. This suggests that angulin-1 and leptin secretion are potential targets for intervention in CD to restore the impaired intestinal barrier.
EMG-Free Monitorization of the Acoustic Startle Reflex with a Mobile Phone: Implications of Sound Parameters with Posture Related Responses

(1) Background: Acute acoustic (sound) stimulus prompts a state of defensive motivation in which unconscious muscle responses are markedly enhanced in humans. The orbicularis oculi (OO) of the eye is an easily accessed muscle common for acoustic startle reaction/response/reflex (ASR) investigations and is the muscle of interest in this study. Although the ASR can provide insights about numerous clinical conditions, existing methodologies (Electromyogram, EMG) limit the usability of the method in real clinical conditions. (2) Objective: With EMG-free muscle recording in mind, our primary aim was to identify and investigate potential correlations in the responses of individual and cooperative OO muscles to various acoustic stimuli using a mobile and wire-free system. Our secondary aim was to investigate potential altered responses to high and also relatively low intensity acoustics at different frequencies in both sitting and standing positions through the use of biaural sound induction and video diagnostic techniques and software. (3) Methods: This study used a mobile-phone acoustic startle response monitoring system application to collect blink amplitude and velocity data on healthy males, aged 18–28 community cohorts during (n = 30) in both sitting and standing postures. The iPhone X application delivers specific sound parameters and detects blinking responses to acoustic stimulus (in millisecond resolution) to study the responses of the blinking reflex to acoustic sounds in standing and sitting positions by using multiple acoustic test sets of different frequencies and amplitudes introduced as acute sound stimuli (<0.5 s). The single acoustic battery of 15 pure-square wave sounds consisted of frequencies and amplitudes between 500, 1000, 2000, 3000, and 4000 Hz scales using 65, 90, and 105 dB (e.g., 3000 Hz_90 dB). (4) Results: Results show that there was a synchronization of amplitude and velocity between both eyes to all acoustic startles. Significant differences (p = 0.01) in blinking reaction time between sitting vs. standing at the high intensity (105 dB) 500 Hz acoustic test set was discovered. Interestingly, a highly significant difference (p < 0.001) in response times between test sets 500 Hz_105 dB and 4000 Hz_105 dB was identified. (5) Conclusions: To our knowledge, this is the first mobile phone-based acoustic battery used to detect and report significant ASR responses to specific frequencies and amplitudes of sound stimulus with corresponding sitting and standing conditions. The results from this experiment indicate the potential significance of using the specific frequency, amplitude, and postural conditions (as never before identified) which can open new horizons for ASR to be used for diagnosis and monitoring in numerous clinical and remote or isolated conditions.
Visual Status in a Portuguese Population with Intellectual Disability

Background: Neurosensory deprivation associated with vision is a well-known fact in people with intellectual disability (ID). This work aims to report the visual status of a population with ID in Portugal. Methods: A vision screening protocol was conducted during two Special Olympics events. The vision protocol included personal medical history, ocular health evaluation, and clinical measures, such as visual acuity (VA), binocular vision, colour vision, refractive error, and intraocular pressure. This protocol was administered to 134 subjects. Results: Half of the subjects reported that they had never attended or they did not remember having attended a previous eye exam. Additionally, 10% of them had not attended an eye exam in the immediate past three years. Half the subjects failed the VA test and 13% presented moderate Visual Impairment (VI) (VA worse than 0.5 logMAR in the best eye). Manifest ocular deviation was found in 25% of the subjects and the most common ocular health dysfunction conditions were conjunctiva hyperaemia, meibomian gland dysfunction, and lens anomalies. Refractive error correction allowed a reduction in the level of moderate VI to 3.7%. Conclusions: The population analysed showed a poor eye care attendance rate and vision-related conditions are in agreement with previous reports. The development of national strategies to promote the awareness for routine eye care in people with ID and improving accessibility to eye care services may mitigate many of the most prevalent conditions encountered.
Clinical and genetic characteristics of Dutch children with central congenital hypothyroidism, early detected by neonatal screening.

Objective To evaluate clinical characteristics of patients with central congenital hypothyroidism (CH), detected in the Dutch neonatal screening program. This included patients with isolated central CH but the majority have multiple pituitary hormone deficiencies (MPHD). Design Nationwide, cross-sectional study. Methods Data was collected on clinical characteristics, endocrine tests and neuroimaging of central CH patients, detected by the Dutch neonatal screening and born between 1 January 1995 and 1 January 2015. Height and pubertal status were assessed during a study visit. Isolated central CH patients without a confirmed genetic diagnosis were offered genetic (re-)testing. Results During the 20-year period 154 central CH patients were detected (incidence of permanent central CH 1:25 642). After excluding deceased (15), severe syndromic (7) and transient patients (6), 92 of 126 eligible patients were included (57 MPHD; 79% male). Sixty-one patients (50 MPHD) had been hospitalized before screening results were reported, but central CH was diagnosed on clinical grounds in only three of them (5%). MRI abnormalities consistent with pituitary stalk interruption syndrome were seen in 50 (93%) MPHD patients. Among isolated central CH patients, 27 (84%) had an IGSF1, TBL1X or IRS4 gene variant (53, 16 and 16%, respectively). Conclusion Many patients with central CH have neonatal health problems, especially MPHD patients. Despite hospital admission of two-thirds of patients, almost none were diagnosed clinically, but only after the notification of an abnormal screening result was received. This indicates that central CH, especially if isolated, is an easily missed clinical diagnosis.
“It Got Likes, But I Don’t Think People Understood”: A Qualitative Study of Adolescent Experiences Discussing Type 1 Diabetes on Social Media

Background: The majority of adolescents with type 1 diabetes (T1D) integrate social media engagement into their daily lives. The aim of this study was to explore adolescents’ experiences and perspectives discussing their T1D on social media. Methods: Semi-structured interviews with adolescents with T1D were conducted in person and via telephone. Questions focused on the participant’s experiences utilizing social media to discuss T1D and factors that informed the nature of T1D-related social media engagement. Open coding and thematic content analysis were used to identify emergent themes that aligned with accepted domains of social media affordances. Results: Participants included 35 adolescents with T1D. Adolescents’ experiences related to discussing T1D on social media aligned with four affordances of social media: identity, cognitive, emotional, and social. The identity affordances of social media platforms allowed adolescents to curate online personas that selectively included their diagnosis of T1D, while managing the potential negative emotional and social implications linked to the stigma of T1D. Adolescents who decided to discuss T1D on social media leveraged cognitive affordances by providing and receiving diabetes management advice, emotional affordances by obtaining affirmation from peers, and social affordances by extending their network to include other individuals with T1D. Conclusions: Adolescents with T1D flexibly leverage the affordances offered by social media to access emotional support, information, and identity affirmation resources while navigating stigma-based social consequences. Our findings highlight the value of developing tools to support adolescents with T1D in comfortably discussing and receiving appropriate support about T1D on social media.
Disparities in the Diagnosis and Treatment of Gastric Cancer in Relation to Disabilities

INTRODUCTION: We investigated potential disparities in the diagnosis, treatment, and survival of gastric cancer (GC) patients with and without disabilities. METHODS: We linked Korean National Disability Registry data with the Korean National Health Insurance database and Korean Central Cancer Registry data. This study included a total of 16,849 people with disabilities and 58,872 age- and sex-matched control subjects in whom GC had been diagnosed. RESULTS: When compared to GC patients without disabilities, patients with disabilities tended to be diagnosed at a later stage (localized stage 53.7% vs 59.0% or stage unknown 10.7% vs 6.9%), especially those with severe disabilities (P < 0.001). This was more evident in patients with mental impairment (localized stage 41.7% and stage unknown 15.2%). In addition, not receiving treatment was more common in patients with disabilities than those without disabilities (29.3% vs 27.2%, P < 0.001), and this disparity was more evident in those with severe disabilities (35.4%) and in those with communication (36.9%) and mental (32.3%) impairment. Patients with disabilities were at slightly higher risk of overall mortality as well as GC-specific mortality compared to people without disabilities (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR] = 1.18, 95% confidence interval: 1.14–1.21 and aHR = 1.12, 95% confidence interval: 1.09–1.16, respectively), and these disparities were more pronounced in those with severe disabilities (aHR = 1.62 and 1.51, respectively). DISCUSSION: Patients with disabilities, especially severe disabilities, were diagnosed with GC at a later stage, received less staging evaluation and treatment, and their overall survival rate was slightly worse compared to those without disabilities.
Microplastic Addition Alters the Microbial Community Structure and Stimulates Soil Carbon Dioxide Emissions in Vegetable‐Growing Soil

Microplastic pollution has become an increasingly pervasive issue worldwide, but little is known about its effects on the soil environment. A soil microcosm experiment was conducted using low‐density polyethylene microplastics to estimate the effect of microplastic pollution on soil nutrient cycling and the soil microbial community structure. The results showed that microplastic addition significantly promoted soil carbon dioxide emissions but not soil nitrous oxide emissions. Soil pH, dissolved organic carbon, ammonia nitrogen, the contents of total phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA), and the ratios of gram‐positive bacteria to gram‐negative bacteria and saturated to monounsaturated PLFAs significantly increased. In addition, nitrate nitrogen and the ratios of fungi to bacteria, total iso‐branched fatty acids to total anteiso‐branched fatty acids, and cyclopropyl to precursor significantly decreased with increasing microplastic addition. The addition of microplastics decreased the abundance of ammonia oxidizing bacteria and nitrite reductase (nirS) but had little effect on the functional genes of ammonia oxidizing archaea, nitrite reductase (nirK), and nitrous oxide reductase. A principal coordinate analysis of the bacterial 16S ribosomal RNA gene and fungal internal transcribed spacer in the microplastic addition treatments revealed that the bacterial and fungal communities formed an obvious cluster. The average abundance of some microbial species with tolerance and degradability to microplastics, such as Nocardioidaceae, Amycolatopsis, Aeromicrobium, Cytophagaceae, Betaproteobacteria, Rhodoplanes, and Mortierella, in the microplastic addition treatments was significantly higher than that of the control treatment. The results suggested that microplastics have obvious influences on microbial communities and may affect global carbon and nitrogen cycles. Environ Toxicol Chem 2021;40:352–365. © 2020 SETAC
Measuring resilience in children: a review of recent literature and recommendations for future research

Purpose of review Understanding variability in developmental outcomes following exposure to early life adversity (ELA) has been an area of increasing interest in psychiatry, as resilient outcomes are just as prevalent as negative ones. However, resilient individuals are understudied in most cohorts and even when studied, resilience is typically defined as an absence of psychopathology. This review examines current approaches to resilience and proposes more comprehensive and objective ways of defining resilience. Recent findings Of the 36 studies reviewed, the most commonly used measure was the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (n = 6), followed by the Child Behavior Checklist (n = 5), the Resilience Scale for Chinese Adolescents (n = 5), the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (n = 4), and the Child and Youth Resilience Scale (n = 3). Summary This review reveals that studies tend to rely on self-report methods to capture resilience which poses some challenges. We propose a complementary measure of child resilience that relies on more proactive behavioral and observational indicators; some of our preliminary findings are presented. Additionally, concerns about the way ELA is characterized as well as the influence of genetics on resilient outcomes prompts further considerations about how to proceed with resiliency research.
Effects of biological and mineral compounds in aflatoxin-contaminated diets on blood parameters and immune response of broiler chickens

ABSTRACT Four hundred broiler chicks were allocated to eight treatments and five replicates in a completely randomized design for 7–42 days. Treatments included basal diet (NC), NC + 1 mg/kg aflatoxin (PC), PC + 1 kg/ton Toxeat® (a toxin binder), PC + Lactobacillus strains (L), PC + Bacillus subtilis JQ618 strain (B), PC + Saccharomyces cerevisiae's cell wall (Y), PC + B + L + Y (BLY) and PC + hydrated sodium calcium aluminosilicate (HA). At 28 days of age, glucose and total protein serum concentrations in PC group were lower than other treatments (p > .05), but in toxin binder receiving treatments were in the middle of NC and PC groups. At 35 days of age, 48 h after dinitrochlorobenzene injection Y showed more skin swelling (p > .05) and 24 h after injection, the aluminosilicate showed a poor performance with for phytohemagglutinin response. At 35 days, IgG titre and serum cholesterol concentration had a similar process to sheep red blood cell (SRBC) and no significant differences were recorded between aflatoxin inhibitor receiving treatments (p > .05). SRBC, IgG, IgM titres and serum cholesterol concentration at 28 days and IgM titres at 35 days were not affected by treatments (p > .05). It can be concluded that a prebiotics and probiotics mixture such as BLY is suitable for improving immune function and serum biochemical parameters as an effect of feeding aflatoxin-contaminated diet.
The effects of idealism and relativism on the moral judgement of social vs. environmental issues, and their relation to self-reported pro-environmental behaviours

Many studies have demonstrated that moral philosophies, such as idealism and relativism, could be used as robust predictors of judgements and behaviours related to common moral issues, such as business ethics, unethical beliefs, workplace deviance, marketing practices, gambling, etc. However, little consideration has been given to using moral philosophies to predict environmentally (un)friendly attitudes and behaviours, which could also be classified as moral. In this study, we have assessed the impact of idealism and relativism using the Ethics Position Theory. We have tested its capacity to predict moral identity, moral judgement of social vs. environmental issues, and self-reported pro-environmental behaviours. The results from an online MTurk study of 432 US participants revealed that idealism had a significant impact on all the tested variables, but the case was different with relativism. Consistently with the findings of previous studies, we found relativism to be a strong predictor of moral identity and moral judgement of social issues. In contrast, relativism only weakly interacted with making moral judgements of environmental issues, and had no effects in predicting pro-environmental behaviours. These findings suggest that Ethics Position Theory could have a strong potential for defining moral differences between environmental attitudes and behaviours, capturing the moral drivers of an attitude-behaviour gap, which continuously stands as a barrier in motivating people to become more pro-environmental.
Hydrothermally Assisted Fabrication of TiO2-Fe3O4 Composite Materials and Their Antibacterial Activity

The TiO2-Fe3O4 composite materials were fabricated via the hydrothermal-assisted technique. It was determined how the molar ratio of TiO2 to Fe3O4 influences the crystalline structure and morphology of the synthesized composite materials. The effect of the molar ratio of components on the antibacterial activity was also analyzed. On the basis of XRD patterns for the obtained titanium(IV) oxide-iron(II, III) oxide composites, the two separate crystalline forms—anatase and magnetite —were observed. Transmission electron microscopy revealed particles of cubic and tetragonal shape for TiO2 and spherical for Fe3O4. The results of low-temperature nitrogen sorption analysis indicated that an increase in the iron(II, III) oxide content leads to a decrease in the BET surface area. Moreover, the superparamagnetic properties of titanium(IV) oxide-iron(II, III) oxide composites should be noted. An important aim of the work was to determine the antibacterial activity of selected TiO2-Fe3O4 materials. For this purpose, two representative strains of bacteria, the Gram-negative Escherichia coli and Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus, were used. The titanium(IV) oxide-iron(II, III) oxide composites demonstrated a large zone of growth inhibition for both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. Moreover, it was found that the analyzed materials can be reused as antibacterial agents in three consecutive cycles with good results.
Associations of Early Parental Concerns and Feeding Behaviors with Child’s Diet Quality through Mid-Childhood

Parental feeding practices have been associated with children’s dietary intakes, yet the directionality of these associations remains unclear. Among 1172 mother-child pairs from Project Viva, we aimed to examine associations of parental concerns and feeding behaviors at 2 years (behaviors dichotomized as yes vs. no), with diet quality (Youth Healthy Eating Index; YHEI) in early (mean 3.2, SD 0.3 years; n = 1076) and mid-childhood (mean 7.8, SD 0.7 years; n = 993). We used multivariable linear regression models adjusted for sociodemographic characteristics, parental body mass index (BMI), maternal diet quality in pregnancy, and child’s BMI z-score and diet quality at 2 years. Early parental concerns about their child becoming overweight (15%) was associated with lower YHEI (β −1.54 points; 95%CI −2.75, −0.33; fully adjusted model) in early childhood. Early parental concerns about their child becoming underweight (7%) was associated with lower YHEI (−2.19 points; −4.31, −0.07) in early childhood, but the association was attenuated after adjustment for child’s BMI z-score and diet quality at 2 years. We did not find associations of parental restrictive feeding (8%) and parental pressure to eat (47%) with child’s YHEI through mid-childhood. In conclusion, we found no evidence that early parental concerns and feeding behaviors independently contribute to child’s diet quality through childhood.