Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity as a risk factor for high body fat mediated by blood pressure

ABSTRACT Background Brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (baPWV) is an important clinical indicator of aortic stiffness and a risk predictor of cardiovascular disease and associated with obesity. However, whether body mass index (BMI) is associated with baPWV remains controversial. In our study, body fat-related indicators, including BMI, body fat rate (BFR), body fat volume (BFV), waist circumference (WC) were examined from healthy volunteers. We investigated the correlation of baPWV with these indicators and also assessed whether baPWV has the potential to predict these indicators. Methods A total of 429 healthy participants were enrolled in this study. Body fat indices, blood pressures, baPWV and blood metabolic indices were measured and recorded. The association of baPWV and indices reflecting body fat and blood pressure, as well as mediation effect were analyzed. Results Three different types of baPWV values were significantly correlated. Mean level of baPWV was an independent risk factor for WC, BMI, BFR, and BFV (exp(β) = 1.011, 1.004, 1.010 and 1.009, respectively, P < . 001 for all) but not BMR. As for mediation effects, baPWV positively influenced WC (Total effect = 0.011, P < .001), BMI (Total effect = 0.004, P < .001) and BFV (Total effect = 0.009, P < .001) in indirect way mediated by SBP and DBP, while baPWV influenced BFR in both direct (Effect = 0.004, P = .018) and indirect way. Conclusions Levels of baPWV correlated with obesity and is an independent risk factor for WC, BMI, BFR and BFV. Besides, baPWV positively associated with WC, BMI and BFV mainly in indirect way mediated by SBP and DBP, and baPWV associated with BFR in both direct and indirect way.
Projective structures on an annulus and Hankel forms

A general theory of Hankel forms over domains in one or several variables has been set forth in [6]. In [7] the study of Hankel forms over an annulus in the complex plane ℂ was begun. (An extension of the results of [7] to multiply connected domains was given in [4].) The present paper amplifies the results of [7] in various respects. First of all we define and study more general Hankel forms associated with a one parameter family of projective structures on the annulus. This displays several new features. For instance, we are now dealing with quadratic integral metrics which do not correspond to integration of the square of the function with respect to a weight. Furthermore, whereas in [7] essentially only the issue of the boundedness of Hankel forms was studied, we obtain here rather satisfactory Sp-results, even for 0 < p < 1. The question which remains is, of course, to which extent all this extends to multiply connected domains (or more general (open) Riemann surfaces).
The impacts of menopausal hormone therapy on longer-term health consequences of ovarian hormone deficiency

Abstract This study on the longer-term health consequences of ovarian hormone deficiency (OHD) received the Henry Burger Prize in 2022. Osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease and dementia are major degenerative diseases that are also causally associated with OHD. Two randomized controlled trials (RCTs) revealed no significant difference in bone mineral density by adding alendronate to ongoing menopausal hormone therapy (MHT) or combining alendronate at MHT initiation. Another RCT pursuing the effects on fracture recurrence and total mortality in women with hip fracture disclosed that MHT with percutaneous estradiol gel (PEG) and micronized progesterone (MP4) was comparable to risedronate. Basic studies reported that 17β-estradiol exerted direct beneficial actions on vascular smooth muscle in cell proliferation, fibrinolysis and apoptosis. A fourth RCT showed that MP4 had a neutral impact on the PEG response of blood pressure and arterial stiffness. A fifth RCT suggested that the combination therapy of conjugated equine estrogen and MP4 was superior to tacrine in preserving activities in daily living in women with Alzheimer’s disease. In addition, PEG plus MP4 attenuated cognitive decline in women with mild cognitive impairment in a sixth RCT. Finally, the all-cause mortality in recently menopausal women receiving MHT was updated using an adaptive meta-analysis of four RCTs.
A Laboratory Test of Alcohol-Related Intimate Partner Aggression: Expectancies Are Not to Blame

Abstract Background: The role of alcohol expectancies and evaluations (i.e., perceived outcomes of drinking and whether these outcomes are desirable) in alcohol-related intimate partner aggression (IPA) has been debated, with some researchers arguing that expectancies fully account for the alcohol-IPA relationship and others suggesting they play a minimal if any role in alcohol-related IPA. In the current study, we examine the impact of expectancies and evaluations on alcohol-related IPA observed in the lab, in order to clarify what impact, if any, alcohol expectancies have on alcohol-related IPA. Consistent with findings from laboratory studies examining general aggression, we expected that individuals who were intoxicated would display greater IPA than individuals who were sober, but that alcohol expectancies and evaluations would be unrelated to in vivo IPA. Method: Participants were 69 dating couples (total N = 138), randomly assigned to consume either an alcohol or placebo beverage. IPA was measured with an in vivo aggression task based on the Taylor Aggression Paradigm. Results: As expected, alcohol intoxication predicted in vivo IPA following provocation (p < .03), whereas alcohol expectancies and evaluations were not related to IPA. Conclusions: These findings provide further support that alcohol expectancies and evaluations play little if any role in alcohol-related IPA. Rather, intoxication likely increases risk for IPA through its physiological effects on perception and thought. Further, treatments targeting alcohol use, rather than beliefs about outcomes of drinking, may have a greater impact on alcohol-related IPA.
Interrater reliability of chart-based assessment of functional impairment after pediatric injury using the functional status scale

This study was a retrospective review of pediatric trauma patients to assess inter-rater reliability of functional status score at the time of discharge. We found good inter-rater reliability of functional status score across all raters. BACKGROUND Functional impairment has been proposed as an alternative outcome for quality improvement in pediatric trauma. The functional status scale (FSS) has been used in studies of injured children, but has only been validated with resource-intensive in-person assessment. Implementation with retrospective chart-based FSS assessment would offer a simplified and scalable alternative. The purpose of this study was to evaluate interrater reliability of retrospective FSS assessment and to identify factors associated with unreliable assessment. METHODS A retrospective cohort of admissions to a Level I pediatric trauma center between July 2020 and June 2021 was analyzed. Two physicians and two nurse registrars reviewed charts to obtain measures of six FSS domains (mental status, sensory functioning, communication, motor functioning, feeding, and respiratory status) at discharge. Functional impairment was categorized by total FSS scores as good (6,7), mild impairment (8,9), moderate impairment (10–15), severe impairment (16–21), or very severe impairment (>21). Interrater reliability was assessed using intraclass correlation (ICC). Predictors of rater disagreement were evaluated using multivariable logistic regression. RESULTS The cohort included 443 children with a mean age of 7.4 years (standard deviation, 5.4 years) and median Injury Severity Score of 9 (interquartile range, 5–12). The median time per chart to assess FSS was 2 minutes (interquartile range, 1–2). Thirty-seven patients (8%) had functional impairment at discharge. Interrater reliability was excellent for total FSS score (ICC = 0.87) and good for FSS impairment categorization (ICC = 0.80). Rater disagreement of functional impairment categorization occurred in 14% of cases overall. Higher level of functional impairment and use of therapies (occupational and speech language therapy) were independently associated with more frequent rater disagreement. CONCLUSION Chart-based FSS assessment is feasible and reliable, but may require more detailed review for patients with higher level of impairment that require allied health therapy. Validation of chart-based assessment is needed before widespread implementation. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE Prognostic/Epidemiological, Level III.
Learning to live with large predators

Large predators around the world have long been hunted and persecuted by humans. Recently, however, many large predators are making a comeback. Mountain lions, grizzly bears, wolves, and alligators are all examples of big fierce North American predators whose populations have rebounded, thanks to conservation efforts. However, as oncerare animals become more abundant, old attitudes about the merits of killing large predators often resurface. Efforts to restore wild nature can be undermined if overreaction to the growing presence of predators leads to excessive fearbased lethal control of predators. However, as Benson et al. (1) describe in PNAS, there exists enormous variability in how human communities respond to the growing presence of predators, and the patterns can be surprising. Benson et al. tracked nearly 600 radio-collared mountain lions (Puma concolor) in populations spanning the species’ distribution across all of California. Over more than four decades of monitoring, 263 mountain lion deaths were documented, and the cause of death was determined in nearly 200 cases. Despite a statewide ban on mountain lion hunting enacted in 1990, humans caused more than half of all mountain lion deaths in California, and lethal management ranked as the leading source of known-cause deaths. Benson et al. leveraged the extensive geographic coverage of their dataset to explore how human-caused mountain lion mortality varied across regions characterized by disparate densities of people, roads, and livestock, as well as substantial differences in public sentiment about environmental issues. For mountain lions, one might expect human-caused mortality to increase with human population density—after all, more people means more chances for a mountain lion encounter, as well as more roads and traffic, resulting in more vehicular collisions. However, Benson et al. find that mountain lions near California’s major urban centers were relatively safe from people. It was mountain lions living in areas of intermediate human density that had the greatest risk of a humancaused death. Perhaps this pattern of risk could be due to a greater concentration of livestock in areas of intermediate human density—more interactions between predators and livestock might result in more management killings. But Benson et al. reject this hypothesis. After controlling for other factors, the density of goat and sheep farms (California mountain lions primarily target smaller livestock) was not significantly related to the risk of mountain lion mortality. A far better predictor of human-caused mortality risk to mountain
Active Chilled Beam Wall Jet Prediction by the Free Convection Model

Abstract In this study, the measured and predicted air distribution of an active chilled beam in a typical office room is described. A free convection model was applied for the vertical downward air jet along the wall by superposing a free convection velocity and an isothermal jet velocity. The velocity and temperature of the wall jet were measured at six different heights and six distances from the wall in the near wall zone and in the wall-floor corner zone. The experiment implemented two airflow rates of 20 and 28 L/s with three cooling loads of 0, 40 and 100 W/m2. The results of the measurements show that the maximum velocities were close to the wall surface, between 0.025 to 0.05 m from the wall. Below the height of 1.7 m, air velocities decreased quasi-linearly when approaching the floor level. The calculated non-isothermal wall jet velocities superposed with the free convection velocity show that the introduced model can be used for the prediction of the maximum velocity of the wall jet. The model is free of a problem of the conventional non-isothermal jet equation, which predicts velocities slightly increasing downwards, while the measured ones significantly decreased along the wall.
Dietary lycopene is negatively associated with abdominal aortic calcification in US adults: a cross-sectional study

Abstract Background Vascular calcification (VC) is one of the complications of chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients. Previous studies have confirmed that oxidative stress (OS) plays an important role in developing VC and that antioxidants have anti-VC effects. Objectives Our study aimed to determine the relationship between the intake of antioxidants from dietary sources and the prevalence of VC, especially in the CKD population. Methods This cross-sectional study analyzed population-based data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES; 2013–2014). Participants were noninstitutionalized adults >40 years of age. Diet-derived antioxidants were obtained from the first 24-h dietary recall interviews. The abdominal aortic calcification (AAC) score was measured by a DXA scan. We divided the AAC scores into three groups: no calcification (AAC =0), mild to moderate calcification (0< AAC ≤6), and severe calcification (AAC >6). Results A total of 2897 participants were included in the main analysis. Our results showed that vitamin B6, α-tocopherol, and lycopene were associated with severe AAC in unadjusted models (odds ratio (OR): 0.81, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.72–0.91, p = 0.001; OR: 0.97, 95% CI: 0.95–0.99, p = 0.008; OR: 0.98, 95% CI: 0.96–0.99, p = 0.01, respectively). However, only dietary lycopene was associated with severe AAC after adjusting covariates based on clinical and statistical significance. Per 1 mg higher intake of diet-derived lycopene per day, the odds of having severe AAC were 2% lower in the fully adjusted model (OR: 0.98, 95% CI: 0.95–0.999, p = 0.04). Moreover, in subgroup analysis, diet-derived antioxidant was not associated with AAC in patients with CKD. Conclusion: Our findings indicate that a higher intake of diet-derived lycopene was independently associated with lower odds of having severe AAC in humans. Therefore, a high intake of diet-derived lycopene may help prevent severe AAC. KEY MESSAGES Dietary lycopene was inversely associated with vascular calcification (VC) in adults. Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) have a higher chance of having severe VC. Dietary antioxidants were not significantly associated with VC in patients with CKD.
Systematic comparison of unilamellar vesicles reveals that archaeal core lipid membranes are more permeable than bacterial membranes

One of the deepest branches in the tree of life separates the Archaea from the Bacteria. These prokaryotic groups have distinct cellular systems including fundamentally different phospholipid membrane bilayers. This dichotomy has been termed the lipid divide and possibly bestows different biophysical and biochemical characteristics on each cell type. Classic experiments suggest that bacterial membranes (formed from lipids extracted from Escherichia coli, for example) show permeability to key metabolites comparable to archaeal membranes (formed from lipids extracted from Halobacterium salinarum), yet systematic analyses based on direct measurements of membrane permeability are absent. Here, we develop a new approach for assessing the membrane permeability of approximately 10 μm unilamellar vesicles, consisting of an aqueous medium enclosed by a single lipid bilayer. Comparing the permeability of 18 metabolites demonstrates that diether glycerol-1-phosphate lipids with methyl branches, often the most abundant membrane lipids of sampled archaea, are permeable to a wide range of compounds useful for core metabolic networks, including amino acids, sugars, and nucleobases. Permeability is significantly lower in diester glycerol-3-phosphate lipids without methyl branches, the common building block of bacterial membranes. To identify the membrane characteristics that determine permeability, we use this experimental platform to test a variety of lipid forms bearing a diversity of intermediate characteristics. We found that increased membrane permeability is dependent on both the methyl branches on the lipid tails and the ether bond between the tails and the head group, both of which are present on the archaeal phospholipids. These permeability differences must have had profound effects on the cell physiology and proteome evolution of early prokaryotic forms. To explore this further, we compare the abundance and distribution of transmembrane transporter-encoding protein families present on genomes sampled from across the prokaryotic tree of life. These data demonstrate that archaea tend to have a reduced repertoire of transporter gene families, consistent with increased membrane permeation. These results demonstrate that the lipid divide demarcates a clear difference in permeability function with implications for understanding some of the earliest transitions in cell origins and evolution.
Responses and energy transmissibility of a viscoelastic isolation system with a power-form restoring force under delayed feedback control

In this paper, combination of cubic nonlinearity and time delay is designed to improve the performance of a viscoelastic isolation system with a power-form restoring force. By the method of multiple scales, the amplitude-frequency response, stability, backbone curve and energy transmissibility are considered. More specifically, three nonlinear cubic delayed feedback control methodologies are examined: position, velocity and acceleration delayed feedback. It is found that the viscoelastic damping coefficient can induce multi-valued response, especially frequency island phenomenon. In this regard, the isolation system indicates the softening behavior for under-linear restoring force and hardening behavior for over-linear restoring force. And equivalent damping and jump avoidance condition are first proposed to interpret the effect of feedback control loop on dynamical behaviors. Furthermore, with the purpose of improving the stability and reducing the vibration, suitable feedback parameter pairs are determined by the frequency response together with stability conditions. Finally, the vibration isolation property is predicted based on energy transmissibility in different cases. Results show that the strategy proposed in this paper is practicable and feedback control parameters are significant factors to alter dynamical behaviors, and more importantly, to improve the isolation effectiveness for the viscoelastic isolation system.
Smoking-related epigenetic modifications are associated with the prognosis and chemotherapeutics of patients with bladder cancer

Objective Epidemiologic studies have linked smoking to various malignancies, including bladder cancer, but its underlying biological functions remain elusive. Currently, we aimed to identify the smoking-related epigenetic modifications and disclose their impacts on prognosis and therapies in bladder cancer. Methods DNA methylation, transcriptome, and clinical profiles were acquired from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) using “TCGAbiolinks” Differential expression analyses were performed with “limma” and visualized by the “pheatmap” package. Smoking-related interactions were displayed using Cytoscape. Least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) algorithm was for generation of a smoking-related prognostic model. Kaplan–Meier analysis with log-rank test was for survival analysis, followed by a prognostic nomogram. The Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) was used for functional analysis. The “oncoPredict” package was applied for drug sensitivity analysis. Results We recruited all types of bladder cancers and found that smoking was involved in poor prognosis, with the hazard ratio (HR) of 1.600 (95%CI: 1.028–2.491). A total of 1078 smoking-related DNA methylations (526 hypermethylation and 552 hypomethylation) were identified and 9 methylation-driven genes differentially expressed in bladder cancer. Also, 506lncRNAs (448 upregulated and 58 downregulated lncRNAs) and 102 miRNAs (74 upregulated and 28 downregulated miRNAs) were determined as smoking-related ncRNAs. We then calculated the smoking-related risk score and observed that cases of high risk were predicted with poor prognosis. We constructed a prognostic nomogram to predict the 1-, 3-, and 5-year overall survival rates. Several cancer-related pathways were enriched in the high-risk group, and patients with high-risk were more sensitive to Gemcitabine, Wnt-C59, JAK1_8709, KRAS (G12C) Inhibitor-12, and LY2109761. Whereas, those with low-risk were more sensitive to Cisplatin, AZ960, and Buparlisib. Conclusions Totally, we initially identified the smoking-related epigenetic modifications in bladder cancer and constructed a corresponding prognostic model, which was also linked to disparate sensitivities to chemotherapeutics. Our findings would provide novel insights into the carcinogenesis, prognosis, and therapies in bladder cancer.
Disaggregating the effects of daytime and nighttime light exposures on obesity, overweight, prostate and breast cancer morbidity worldwide

ABSTRACT Hormone-dependent cancers and overweight/obesity are not necessarily linked but might have similar underlying causes, such as circadian disruption, lack of physical activity, and unhealthy nutrition. Several empirical studies also attribute the rise in these types of morbidity to vitamin D deficiency, linked in turn to insufficient sunlight exposure. Other studies place an emphasis on melatonin (MLT) hormone suppression, associated with artificial light at night (ALAN) exposure. Yet no studies, carried out to date, have attempted to determine which of these environmental risk factors is associated stronger with the morbidity types in question. In this study, we aim to narrow this knowledge gap by analyzing data available for 100+ countries worldwide, while controlling ALAN and solar radiation exposure estimates by several potential confounders, such as GDPpc, GINI inequality index and unhealthy food consumption. As the study reveals, all the morbidity types under analysis are significantly and positively associated with ALAN exposure estimates (p < 0.05), while solar radiation appears to be significantly associated with prostate cancer rates only (p < 0.05), but not with breast cancer or overweight/obesity rates (p > 0.1). To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first that separates the effects of ALAN and daylight exposures on the abovementioned types of morbidity.
Quercetin downregulates the expression of IL15 in cancer cells through DNA methylation.

OBJECTIVE This study aimed to investigate the effect of quercetin on cellular immunity (via IL15 expression) against cancer and to elucidate its regulatory mechanism. MATERIALS AND METHODS HeLa cells and A549 cells were cultured in vitro and were divided into control (DMSO treated) and experimental groups (treated with different concentrations of quercetin). Transcript levels of IL15 and DNA methyltransferase (DNMTS) were measured using quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). Genomic DNA was extracted, treated with bisulfite, and the promoter region of IL15 was cloned. Finally, Sanger sequencing was used to detect the degree of promoter methylation. RESULTS Following quercetin treatment, the expression of IL15 was significantly downregulated in HeLa and A549 cells. The methylation level of IL15 promoter in HeLa cells was about twice that of the control group, and the methylation level of IL15 promoter in A549 cells was about three times that of the control group. CONCLUSIONS Quercetin inhibits cancer cell proliferation while downregulating IL15 expression, and this regulation is achieved by increasing the methylation of the IL15 promoter.