Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The management of deep carious lesions and the exposed pulp among members of two European endodontic societies: a questionnaire-based Study.

AIMS To investigate and compare views on management of deep caries and the exposed pulp by Endodontic Society members in Ireland (Irish Endodontic Society [IES]) and Italy, (Accademia Italiana di Endodonzia [AIE]). Further aims were to investigate the influence of patient-related factors (age, symptoms) and operator-related factors (material choice, antibiotics) on management. METHODOLOGY A structured online questionnaire containing two cases (an 18 and 45-year-old) and two scenarios (+/- mild symptoms), including history and radiograph, was sent to IES and AIE members. The answers were analysed using Chi-square and Fisher's exact test (p<0.05). RESULTS In total, 120 dentists participated, representing 49% of the AIE and 48% of the IES membership. Age-distribution was similar between the societies; however, most AIE members had no further qualifications (63%), while IES respondents generally had a postgraduate endodontic qualification (71%). AIE respondents carried out a higher volume of vital pulp treatment (VPT) per month, with 69% carrying out over five cases, compared with 22% of IES respondents. The presence of patient symptoms significantly altered treatment planning decisions (p<0.001) with root canal treatment (RCT) more frequently selected in both societies. Patient-age significantly influenced treatment choice in the absence (p=0.043) or presence (p=0.012) of symptoms with less VPT advocated in older patients. There were no significant differences in the treatment of a young patient in the presence (p=0.302) or absence of symptoms (p=0.297), however, older patient management differed between the Societies for symptomatic (p=0.041) and asymptomatic scenarios (p=0.044) with significantly more RCTs carried out in the AIE than the IES. Hydraulic-calcium-silicate materials (HCSMs) were commonly selected, accounting for 81% of IES and 69% of AIE VPT materials, although younger members of the AIE preferred calcium hydroxide materials. Younger dentists in both societies prescribed less RCT than older age groups. CONCLUSIONS Although vital pulp treatment is carried out by members of both societies there was no consistency regarding the most appropriate management for the exposed pulp or the VPT material of choice. Patient symptoms and age significantly influence the decision-making process and invasiveness of treatment. Hydraulic-calcium-silicate materials were the most commonly advocated material in all groups except young AIE members who preferred calcium hydroxide.
Antibody-Mediated Immune Subset Depletion Modulates the Immune Response in a Rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) Model of Epstein-Barr Virus Infection.

Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) is a γ-herpesvirus which infects over 90% of the adult human population. Most notably, this viruscauses infectious mononucleosis but it is also associated with cancers such as Hodgkin and Burkitt lymphoma. EBV is a species-specific virus and has been studied in many animal models, including nonhuman primates, guinea pigs, humanized mice, and tree shrews. However, none of these animal models are considered the "gold standard" for EBV research. Recently, rabbits have emerged as a viable alternative model, as they are susceptible to EBV infection. In addition, the EBV infection progresses after immune suppression with cyclosporine A (CsA), modeling the reactivation of EBV after latency. We sought to refine this model for acute or active EBV infections by performing antibody-mediated depletion of certain immune subsets in rabbits. Fourteen 16 to 20-wk old, NZW rabbits were intravenously inoculated with EBV and concurrently treated with either anti-CD4 T-cell antibody, anti-pan-T-cell antibody (anti CD45), CSA, or, as a control, anti-HPV antibody. Rabbits that received the depleting antibodies were treated with CsA 3 times at a dose of 15 mg/kg SC once per day for 4 d starting at the time of EBV inoculation then the dose was increased to 20 mg/kg SC twice weekly for 2 wk. Weights, temperatures, and clinical signs were monitored, and rabbits were anesthetized once weekly for blood collection. When compared with the control group, anti-CD4- treated rabbits had fewer clinical signs and displayed higher levels of viral DNA via qPCR in splenocytes; however, flow cytometry results showed only a partial depletion of CD4 T-cells. Treatment with anti-pan-T-cell antibody did not result in noticeable T-cell depletion. These data suggest the EBV-infected rabbit is a promising model for testing antiviral medications and prophylactic vaccines for EBV.
Positron Emission Tomography for Response Evaluation in Microenvironment-Targeted Anti-Cancer Therapy

Therapeutic response is evaluated using the diameter of tumors and quantitative parameters of 2-[18F] fluoro-2-deoxy-d-glucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET). Tumor response to molecular-targeted drugs and immune checkpoint inhibitors is different from conventional chemotherapy in terms of temporal metabolic alteration and morphological change after the therapy. Cancer stem cells, immunologically competent cells, and metabolism of cancer are considered targets of novel therapy. Accumulation of FDG reflects the glucose metabolism of cancer cells as well as immune cells in the tumor microenvironment, which differs among patients according to the individual immune function; however, FDG-PET could evaluate the viability of the tumor as a whole. On the other hand, specific imaging and cell tracking of cancer cell or immunological cell subsets does not elucidate tumor response in a complexed interaction in the tumor microenvironment. Considering tumor heterogeneity and individual variation in therapeutic response, a radiomics approach with quantitative features of multimodal images and deep learning algorithm with reference to pathologic and genetic data has the potential to improve response assessment for emerging cancer therapy.
The life-cycle and seasonal abundance of Echinoparyphium montgomeriana n. sp. (Trematoda: Echinostomatidae) in Natal, South Africa

A new species of Echinoparyphium, E. montgomeriana, is described from Durban, South Africa. Certain unusual aspects of its morphology are discussed. The adult fluke is a parasite of the alimentary tract of birds. Its larval stages are common parasites of freshwater snails belonging to the family Planor-bidae including Buiinus africanus,the intermediate host ofSchistosoma haematobium and S. mattheei in the area. These intra-molluscan stages are shown to have a seasonal transmission cycle.
Sapling survival and growth of coniferous and broad-leaved trees in successional highland habitats in Mexico

Abstract We assessed survival and growth of transplanted saplings of understory broad-leaved trees (Oreopanax xalapensis, Rapanea juergensenii, Rhamnus sharpii and Ternstroemia lineata) and canopy conifers (Abies guatemalensis, Pinus ayacahuite and P. pseudostrobus) into Grassland (GR), Mid-Successional Oak Forest (MS), and Old-Growth Oak Forest (OF) stands in the central highlands of Chiapas, Mexico. A total of 727 plants were monitored over eight years. The results suggest habitat preferences of the studied species that should be considered for their conservation oriented management. Conifers had highest survival and growth in GR, while broad-leaved trees survived better under sparse canopy in MS, but grew tallest in full light. Saplings of all species in dense canopy sites in OF were smaller, and the survival of conifers was lower. An integrated response index (IRI) calculated for each species with survival and relative growth rates showed similar trends. Re-introduction of the endangered A. guatemalensis is possible in open habitats if fire, trampling and grazing are suppressed. Open habitats in current man-made landscapes in the highlands of Chiapas may limit the establishment of understory trees requiring partial shade. Inclusion of such species in restoration programs has not been usual so far; yet, local and global interest in native species for such programs is increasing. Information on the response of these kind of species in contrasting habitats may help to incorporate them in the management of high-diversity forests that may follow pine plantations. Abbreviations: EBH = Estación Biológica Huitepec; GR = Grassland; IRI = Integrated Response Index; MS = Mid-Successional Oak Forest; OF = Old-Growth Oak Forest; PPF = photosynthetic photon flux; RGR = relative growth rate. Nomenclature: Breedlove (1986) and Farjon & Styles (1997).
Dual Adversarial Networks for Land-Cover Classification

River basin scene classification as an important application in the field of land-cover recognition has been arousing extensive concern. Traditional land-cover classification methods with multi-feature extractions on specific scene perform well on a single river basin, however, poorly address inter-basin classification owing to the varied texture shown in satellite images cross river basins (e.g., topography and climates). Current transfer learning approaches with domain adaptation, which can shorten the discrepancies between two river basins, pay less attention to diversity of multi-feature extractions given by remote sensing images, which may lead to negative transfer. To better address the above challenges, this paper proposes a model known as Dual Adversarial Networks for Land-cover Classification (DANLC). Our DANLC architecture consists of two domain adversarial networks in a paralleled structure, namely RGB and texture networks, for multi-feature extractions, which are able to capture the underlying representation of satellite images from different perspectives and get invariable transfer component. Results demonstrate the outstanding performance of our model in both the classification effect and robustness compared with traditional methods and state-of-the-art transfer learning approaches.
A Cu-Sn/BCB Hybrid Bonding with Embedded Bump Structure

Metal-dielectric hybrid bonding is a critical technique of inter-chip connections for 3D integration. In this work, a chip-level embedded hybrid bonding structure using Cu-Sn/BCB Bonding is proposed and realized. This embedded microbump structure with photosensitive BCB coated on the single side could be successfully developed without chemical mechanical polishing (CMP), while the cure temperature (250°C) of BCB is the same as that of Cu-Sn thermal compression bonding or solid-liquid interdiffusion (SLID). The deviation of misalignment could be reduced effectively due to the embedded bonding structure. Consecutive and void-free interface could be got at BCB-metal and BCB-Si boundary with optimized scale design of BCB patterns while the diameter/pitch of microbumps is 50μm/100μm, the thickness of bonding layer is approximately 10μm. Also, key factors of process for realizing good quality of bonding is discussed. The electrical test shows that interface of metal microbumps could be improved further. Besides, the die shear test shows good mechanical strength of this hybrid bonding structure as the shear strength of hybrid bonding area and pure BCB bonding area are over 13MPa and 19MPa, respectively.
An Enhanced Stacked LSTM Method With No Random Initialization for Malware Threat Hunting in Safety and Time-Critical Systems

Malware detection is an increasingly important operational focus in cyber security, particularly, given the fast pace of such threats (e.g., new malware variants introduced every day). In recent years, there has been increased interest in exploring the use of machine learning techniques in automating and enhancing the effectiveness of malware detection and analysis. In this paper, we present a deep recurrent neural network solution as a stacked long short-term memory (LSTM) with a pre-training as a regularization method to avoid random network initialization. In our proposed approach, we use global and short dependencies of the inputs. With pre-training, we avoid random initialization and are able to improve the accuracy and robustness of malware threat hunting. The proposed method speeds up the convergence, in comparison to the stacked LSTM, by reducing the length of malware OpCode or bytecode sequences. Hence, the complexity of our final method is reduced. This leads to better accuracy, higher Mattews Correlation Coefficients (MCC), and Area Under the Curve (AUC) in comparison to a standard LSTM with similar detection time. Our proposed method can be applied in real-time malware threat hunting, particularly, for safety critical systems, such as electronic health or Internet of Battlefield / Military of Things, where poor convergence of the model could lead to catastrophic consequences. We evaluate the effectiveness of our proposed method on Windows, Ransomware, Internet of Things (IoT), and Android malware datasets using both static and dynamic analysis. For the IoT malware detection, we also present a comparative summary of the performance on an IoT-specific dataset of our proposed method and the standard stacked LSTM method. More specifically, our proposed method achieves an accuracy of 99.1% in detecting IoT malware samples, with AUC of 0.985 and MCC of 0.95; thus, outperforming standard LSTM-based methods in these key metrics.
A Robust Consistency Model of Crowd Workers in Text Labeling Tasks

Crowdsourcing is a popular human-based model to acquire labeled data. Despite its ability to generate huge amounts of labelled data at moderate costs, it is susceptible to low quality labels. This can happen through unintentional or intentional errors by the crowd workers. Consistency is an important attribute of reliability. It is a practical metric that evaluates a crowd workers’ reliability based on their ability to conform to themselves by yielding the same output when repeatedly given a particular input. Consistency has not yet been sufficiently explored in the literature. In this work, we propose a novel consistency model based on the pairwise comparisons method. We apply this model on unpaid workers. We measure the workers’ consistency on tasks of labeling political text-based claims and study the effects of different duplicate task characteristics on their consistency. Our results show that the proposed model outperforms the current state-of-the-art models in terms of accuracy.
Watt-Level Continuous-Wave Mode-Locked Nd:YVO4 Laser With ReSe2 Saturable Absorber

We report a ReSe2 passively mode-locked composite YVO4/Nd:YVO4 laser at 1.06 μm, which can stably generate pure continuous-wave mode-locking (CWML) operation at watt-level output. ReSe2, as a new type of 2-D transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), has the features of weak-layered dependence, broadband saturable absorption, low modulation depth and saturation intensity, which is beneficial to initiate robust CWML mechanism via nonlinear saturable absorption. By employing few-layered ReSe2 as saturable absorber, the nanosecond mode-locked pulses at fundamental repetition rate of 90.37 MHz was obtained experimentally in a composite YVO4/Nd:YVO4 laser. The maximum output power in pure CWML operation was as high as 1.1 W. The high-power CWML laser source shows potential applications in time-resolved spectroscopy, telecommunication and detection.
Long non‐coding RNAs in motor neuron development and disease

Long non‐coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are RNAs that exceed 200 nucleotides in length and that are not translated into proteins. Thousands of lncRNAs have been identified with functions in processes such as transcription and translation regulation, RNA processing, and RNA and protein sponging. LncRNAs show prominent expression in the nervous system and have been implicated in neural development, function and disease. Recent work has begun to report on the expression and roles of lncRNAs in motor neurons (MNs). The cell bodies of MNs are located in cortex, brainstem or spinal cord and their axons project into the brainstem, spinal cord or towards peripheral muscles, thereby controlling important functions such as movement, breathing and swallowing. Degeneration of MNs is a pathological hallmark of diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and spinal muscular atrophy. LncRNAs influence several aspects of MN development and disruptions in these lncRNA‐mediated effects are proposed to contribute to the pathogenic mechanisms underlying MN diseases (MNDs). Accumulating evidence suggests that lncRNAs may comprise valuable therapeutic targets for different MNDs. In this review, we discuss the role of lncRNAs (including circular RNAs [circRNAs]) in the development of MNs, discuss how lncRNAs may contribute to MNDs and provide directions for future research.
In Vivo Screening and Antidiabetic Potential of Polyphenol Extracts from Guava Pulp, Seeds and Leaves

Simple Summary The incidence of diabetes has risen from 151 million people in 2000 to 463 million in 2019, with 4.2 million estimated deaths in 2019, and over 700 million people will be affected with diabetes worldwide by 2045. Thus, the screening of anti-diabetic plants is inevitable in order to overcome diabetes. This study has investigated the anti-diabetic potential of polyphenol extracts from guava leaves, seeds and pulp using an albino rat model. The in vivo study has reported that polyphenols from leaves and pulp have an ability to improve diabetic parameters, such as insulin, blood glucose and triglycerides levels. The improvement in blood parameters is also an indication of these extracts that are valuable for diabetes management. The findings of this study reveal that polyphenols from guava leaves, pulp and seeds can be used for drug development. Abstract The present study investigates the antidiabetic potential of polyphenol extracts purified from guava pulp, seeds and leaves using an in vivo experiment on albino rats. The polyphenols from guava pulp, seeds and leaves were extracted using methanol solvent and the sonication method while being evaluated by total phenolic contents and radical scavenging activity assay. The proximate composition of powders revealed that ash, protein and total sugars were significantly (p < 0.05) higher in leaves and seeds, while vitamin C was highest in pulp. Total phenolic and antioxidant activities were highest in pulp followed by leaves and seeds. The findings of feed intake and body gain revealed that the supplementation of polyphenols, especially from pulp, significantly (p < 0.05) increased the feed intake, which resulted in increased body weight. Moreover, total cholesterol (TC) and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) levels were significantly (p < 0.05) decreased, while the level of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) was increased in groups fed with polyphenols from guava pulp compared to both (+ive and –ive) control groups. Furthermore, blood glucose and triglycerides were significantly (p < 0.05) decreased in supplemented groups compared to the control group of diabetes mice, which resulted in the inhibition of α-amylase and glucose transport. Besides this, packed cell volume (PCV), mean corpuscular volume (MCV), hemoglobin, red blood cells (RBCs), white blood cells (WBCs) and platelet levels were increased significantly (p < 0.05) in pulp’s extract followed by leaves and seeds compared to both control groups. Overall, the antidiabetic potential of different extracts was in the following order: pulp > leaves > seeds. The findings suggest the feasibility of adding 200–250 mg/kg.bw of polyphenol extracts of pulp as an alternative to diabetic drugs.
Personal Music Players Use and Other Noise Hazards among Children 11 to 12 Years Old

Exposure to loud music—due to widespread personal music players (PMPs) and noisy leisure activities—are major risk factors for noise induced hearing loss (NIHL) in adolescents. However, there is little evidence of the impact of noise on the hearing of younger children. This study aimed to explore an association between PMP use and hearing, and to identify other sources of noise among children. The study sample consisted of 1032 children aged 11–12 years old. Hearing thresholds were determined from 0.5 to 8 kHz. PMP use and other noise exposures were evaluated using a survey. We found that 82% of the children had a PMP, and 78% were exposed to noise when playing computer games. An audiometric notch was documented in 1.3% of the children. Only 11.5% of the children ever used hearing protection while engaged in noisy activities. We found no convincing evidence of an association between PMP use and hearing thresholds, although our results suggest that tinnitus may be an early sign of NIHL in young children. The study shows a need to provide children, their parents, and educators with knowledge of how to take care of hearing, including how to avoid and minimize noise exposure.
Choosing the Right Essential Oil for a Mouthwash: Chemical, Antimicrobial and Cytotoxic Studies

Thirteen commercial essential oils were assessed for their possible inclusion in a mouthwash formulation based on their inhibitory effect against potentially pathogenic anaerobic oral bacterial isolates from subgingival plaque, and their cytotoxicity towards gingival cells. The essential oils, originating from species belonging to seven major aromatic plant families, were chosen to provide the necessary diversity in chemical composition that was analyzed in detail by GC and GC/MS. Multivariate statistical analysis, performed using the in vitro microbiological/toxicological assays and compositional data, revealed that the major components of the essential oils were probably not the main carriers of the activities observed. A formulation of ‘designer’ mouthwashes is proposed based on the selective action of certain essential oils towards specific bacterial isolates (e. g., Citrus bergamia vs. Parvimonas micra), and non‐toxicity to gingival cells at antimicrobially active concentrations.
Association between Primary Healthcare and Medical Expenditures in a Context of Hospital-Oriented Healthcare System in China: A National Panel Dataset, 2012–2016

Total health expenditure in China has grown considerably since a new round of health system reform was enacted in 2009. Researchers have shown that strengthening primary healthcare may be an option for countries to solve the rapid expansion of their medical expenditures. This study was designed to explore the association between the strength of primary healthcare and medical expenditures, in the context of the hospital-oriented healthcare system in China. A longitudinal ecological study was conducted using a 5-year panel dataset of 27 provinces in mainland China. The linear mixed effects regression model was used to assess the effects of primary healthcare-related metrics on medical expenditures, controlling for the provincial level specialty care physician supply and socio-economic parameters. All of the three primary healthcare-related metrics showed negative associations with the two medical expenditure parameters. Primary care physicians per 10,000 population was significantly associated with the per capita hospital medical expenditures (p < 0.05), and the percentage of public health expenditure in total health expenditure was significantly associated with both per capita total medical expenditure and per capita hospital medical expenditures (p < 0.01 for both). Our study found negative associations between the primary healthcare capacity and medical expenditure in the context of hospital-oriented healthcare systems in China, adding to the previous evidence that primary healthcare may play a positive role in reducing medical expenditure. Policies on increasing the primary care physician supply and the public share of total health expenditure should be conducted to strengthen the primary healthcare system. With the gradual advance of medical reform and the policy inclination to primary healthcare, this will play a more important role in controlling the rapid growth of medical expenditure.