Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Rural parent and elementary school student resilience to COVID-19: Disability status and parental predictors of change

Little is known about how the COVID-19 pandemic relates to child and parent functioning in a rural population. The present study investigated how disability status and parent factors related to resilience in a rural population before and after the shift to remote instruction. Parents of elementary-aged children in a rural area of the U.S. completed an online questionnaire, rating their own functioning and their child's academic, cognitive, and socioemotional functioning (1) retrospectively thinking back to a month before the pandemic, and (2) at the time of the survey, approximately four months after the onset of pandemic changes. Parents of children with disabilities perceived stronger child resilience through the pandemic transition than parents of children without disabilities. Additionally, parents who better maintained their work-life balance and support through the pandemic transition reported stronger resilience in their children. These results highlight the importance of supporting all children and parents during difficult transitions (e.g., providing additional resources so that parents can maintain similar levels of balance and support through the transition), including those students who have experienced less adversity pre-transition.
Identification of circulating metabolites associated with wooden breast and white striping

Current diagnostic methods for wooden breast and white striping, common breast muscle myopathies of modern commercial broiler chickens, rely on subjective examinations of the pectoralis major muscle, time-consuming microscopy, or expensive imaging technologies. Further research on these disorders would benefit from more quantitative and objective measures of disease severity that can be used in live birds. To this end, we utilized untargeted metabolomics alongside two statistical approaches to evaluate plasma metabolites associated with wooden breast and white striping in 250 male commercial broiler chickens. First, mixed linear modeling was employed to identify metabolites with a significant association with these muscle disorders and found 98 metabolites associated with wooden breast and 44 metabolites associated with white striping (q-value < 0.05). Second, a support vector machine was constructed using stepwise feature selection to determine the smallest subset of metabolites with the highest categorization accuracy for wooden breast. The final support vector machine achieved 94% accuracy using only 6 metabolites. The metabolite 3-methylhistidine, which is often used as an index of myofibrillar breakdown in skeletal muscle, was the top metabolite for both wooden breast and white striping in our mixed linear model and was also the metabolite with highest marginal prediction accuracy (82%) for wooden breast in our support vector machine. Overall, this study identified a candidate set of metabolites for an objective measure of wooden breast or white striping severity in live birds and expanded our understanding of these muscle disorders.
braneworld cosmology and holography

This thesis is devoted to studying two important aspects of braneworld physics: their cosmology and their holography. We examine the Einstein equations induced on a general (n - 2)-brane of arbitrary tension, embedded in some n-dimensional bulk. The brane energy-momentum tensor enters these equations both linearly and quadratically. From the point of view of a homogeneous and isotropic brane we see quadratic deviations from the FRW equations of the standard cosmology. There is also a contribution from a bulk Weyl tensor. We study this in detail when the bulk is AdS-Schwarzschild or Reissner-Nordstrom AdS. This contribution can be understood holographically. For the AdS-Schwarzschild case, we show that the geometry on a brane near the AdS boundary is just that of a radiation dominated FRW universe. The radiation comes from a field theory that is dual to the AdS bulk. We also develop a new approach which allows us to consider branes that are not near the AdS boundary. This time the dual field theory contributes quadratic energy density/pressure terms to the FRW equations. Remarkably, these take exactly the same form as for additional matter placed on the brane by hand, with no bulk Weyl tensor. We also derive the general equations of motion for a braneworld containing a domain wall. For the critical brane, the induced geometry is identical to that of a vacuum domain wall in (n-l)-dimensional Einstein gravity. We develop the tools to construct a nested Randall-Sundrum scenario whereby we have a "critical" domain wall living on an anti-de Sitter brane. We also show how to construct instantons on the brane, and calculate the probability of false vacuum decay.
Flavonoids as promising anticancer agents: an in silico investigation of ADMET, binding affinity by molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulations

Abstract Cancer is one of the most concerning diseases to humankind. Various treatment strategies are being employed for its treatment, out of which use of natural products is an essential one. Flavonoids have proven to be promising anticancer targets since decades. Also, tubulin is a significant biological target for the development of anticancer agents due to its crucial role in mitosis and abundance throughout the body. In the current study, in silico ADMET parameters of 104 flavonoids were examined, followed by molecular docking with the colchicine binding site of Tubulin protein (PDB; Id 4O2B). The best conformation from each flavonoid subcategory with the best docking score (MolDock score) was further subjected to 100 ns of molecular dynamics to investigate the protein-ligand complex’s stability. Different parameters such as RMSD, RMSF, rGy and SASA were calculated for the six flavonoids using molecular dynamic studies. The top most compound from all the six subcategories of flavonoids elicited best behavior in the colchicine binding site of Tubulin protein. This in silico study employing molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulation provides strong evidence for flavonoids to be excellent anti-tubulin agents for the treatment of cancer. Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma
Fitness Trade-Offs in Phage Cocktail-Resistant Salmonella enterica Serovar Enteritidis Results in Increased Antibiotic Susceptibility and Reduced Virulence

The selection pressure of phage promotes bacterial mutation, which results in a fitness cost. Such fitness trade-offs are related to the host receptor of the phage; therefore, we can utilize knowledge of bacterial receptors used by phages as a criterion for designing phage cocktails. ABSTRACT The rapid emergence of phage-resistant bacterial mutants is a major challenge for phage therapy. Phage cocktails have been considered one approach to mitigate this issue. However, the synergistic effect of randomly selected phages in the cocktails is ambiguous. Here, we rationally designed a phage cocktail consisting of four phages that utilize the lipopolysaccharide (LPS) O antigen, the LPS outer core, the LPS inner core, and the outer membrane proteins BtuB and TolC on the Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis cell surface as receptors. We demonstrated that the four-phage cocktail could significantly delay the emergence of phage-resistant bacterial mutants compared to the single phage. To investigate the fitness costs associated with phage resistance, we characterized a total of 80 bacterial mutants resistant to a single phage or the four-phage cocktail. We observed that mutants resistant to the four-phage cocktail were more sensitive to several antibiotics than the single-phage-resistant mutants. In addition, all mutants resistant to the four-phage cocktail had significantly reduced virulence compared to wild-type strains. Our mouse model of Salmonella Enteritidis infection also indicated that the four-phage cocktail exhibited an enhanced therapeutic effect. Together, our work demonstrates an efficient strategy to design phage cocktails by combining phages with different bacterial receptors, which can steer the evolution of phage-resistant strains toward clinically exploitable phenotypes. IMPORTANCE The selection pressure of phage promotes bacterial mutation, which results in a fitness cost. Such fitness trade-offs are related to the host receptor of the phage; therefore, we can utilize knowledge of bacterial receptors used by phages as a criterion for designing phage cocktails. Here, we evaluated the efficacy of a phage cocktail made up of phages that target four different receptors on Salmonella Enteritidis through in vivo and in vitro experiments. Importantly, we found that pressure from phage cocktails with different receptors can drive phage-resistant bacterial mutants to evolve in a direction that entails more severe fitness costs, resulting in reduced virulence and increased susceptibility to antibiotics. These findings suggest that phage cocktail therapy using combinations of phages targeting different important receptors (e.g., LPS or the efflux pump AcrAB-TolC) on the host surface can steer the host bacteria toward more detrimental surface mutations than single-phage therapy, resulting in more favorable therapeutic outcomes.
GABAA receptors as targets for anaesthetics and analgesics and promising candidates to help treat coronavirus infections: A mini‐review

GABA is a major inhibitory neurotransmitter that regulates the balance between excitatory and inhibitory circuits in the human nervous system. The GABA receptors are divided into three main subtypes, GABAA, GABAB, and GABAC (also termed GABAA rho) receptors. GABAA receptors are pentameric ligand‐gated ion channels widely expressed throughout the central and peripheral nervous system. The activation of GABAA receptors results in opening of an anion‐selective channel that mainly gates chloride ions and allows them to flow into the neuron, causing hyperpolarization of the cell membrane that dampens neural excitability. This makes GABAA receptors critical anaesthetic and analgesic targets for existing as well as for the development of novel drugs. In this review, we first summarize the biochemical properties of GABAA receptors and the clinical anaesthetics and analgesics targeting the receptors. In a forward‐looking section, we summarize the emerging role of GABAergic signalling in treatment of COVID‐19 related infections. Finally, we discuss the opportunities arising from targeting specific and unique subunit interfaces for the development of novel anaesthetics and analgesics leading to more efficient therapies.
Residual flexion deformity after scaphoid nonunion surgery: 7-year follow-up study

The clinical implication of a residual flexion deformity following surgery for scaphoid nonunion is unclear. Sixty-three patients who underwent scaphoid nonunion surgery were assessed after a mean of 7 years (range 5–10) to analyse the outcomes based on the presence of residual scaphoid deformity. Primary outcome was Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand score. Secondary outcomes were Patient-Rated Wrist Evaluation score, wrist range of motion and strength. Patients were dichotomized to residual deformity or no deformity. Scaphoid deformity was calculated from CT scans based on the median difference between the height–length ratio of the operated versus the uninjured scaphoid. There were no differences between residual deformity (n = 33) and no deformity (n = 30) in any outcome variables, except for wrist extension which was slightly worse in the deformity group. The deformity group had a greater number of radiographic osteoarthritis, but all cases were mild, and osteoarthritis did not correlate to a worse outcome. We conclude that residual scaphoid deformity has no relevant negative impact on mid-term wrist function. Level of evidence: IV
Validation of an SH‐SY5Y Cell–Based Acetylcholinesterase Inhibition Assay for Water Quality Assessment

The acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibition assay has been frequently applied for environmental monitoring to capture insecticides such as organothiophosphates (OTPs) and carbamates. However, natural organic matter such as dissolved organic carbon (DOC) co‐extracted with solid‐phase extraction from environmental samples can produce false‐negative AChE inhibition in free enzyme‐based AChE assays. We evaluated whether disturbance by DOC can be alleviated in a cell‐based AChE assay using differentiated human neuroblastoma SH‐SY5Y cells. The exposure duration was set at an optimum of 3 h considering the effects of OTPs and carbamates. Because loss to the airspace was expected for the more volatile OTPs (chlorpyrifos, diazinon, and parathion), the chemical loss in this bioassay setup was investigated using solid‐phase microextraction followed by chemical analysis. The three OTPs were relatively well retained (loss <34%) during 3 h of exposure in the 384‐well plate, but higher losses occurred on prolonged exposure, accompanied by slight cross‐contamination of adjacent wells. Inhibition of AChE by paraoxon‐ethyl was not altered in the presence of up to 68 mgc/L Aldrich humic acid used as surrogate for DOC. Binary mixtures of paraoxon‐ethyl and water extracts showed concentration‐additive effects. These experiments confirmed that the matrix in water extracts does not disturb the assay, unlike purified enzyme‐based AChE assays. The cell‐based AChE assay proved to be suitable for testing water samples with effect concentrations causing 50% inhibition of AChE at relative enrichments of 0.5–10 in river water samples, which were distinctly lower than corresponding cytotoxicity, confirming the high sensitivity of the cell‐based AChE inhibition assay and its relevance for water quality monitoring. Environ Toxicol Chem 2022;41:3046–3057. © 2022 The Authors. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of SETAC.
Development of prediction models to select older RA patients with comorbidities for treatment with chronic low-dose glucocorticoids

Abstract Objective To develop prediction models for individual patient harm and benefit outcomes in elderly patients with RA and comorbidities treated with chronic low-dose glucocorticoid therapy or placebo. Methods In the Glucocorticoid Low-dose Outcome in Rheumatoid Arthritis (GLORIA) study, 451 RA patients ≥65 years of age were randomized to 2 years 5 mg/day prednisolone or placebo. Eight prediction models were developed from the dataset in a stepwise procedure based on prior knowledge. The first set of four models disregarded study treatment and examined general predictive factors. The second set of four models was similar but examined the additional role of low-dose prednisolone. In each set, two models focused on harm [the occurrence of one or more adverse events of special interest (AESIs) and the number of AESIs per year) and two on benefit (early clinical response/disease activity and a lack of joint damage progression). Linear and logistic multivariable regression methods with backward selection were used to develop the models. The final models were assessed and internally validated with bootstrapping techniques. Results A few variables were slightly predictive for one of the outcomes in the models, but none were of immediate clinical value. The quality of the prediction models was sufficient and the performance was low to moderate (explained variance 12–15%, area under the curve 0.67–0.69). Conclusion Baseline factors are not helpful in selecting elderly RA patients for treatment with low-dose prednisolone given their low power to predict the chance of benefit or harm. Trial registration https://clinicaltrials.gov; NCT02585258.
Decoupling heavy sparticles in hierarchical SUSY scenarios: Two-loop Renormalization Group equations

Two loop renormalization group equations for dimensionless as well as dimensionful parameters are obtained for the low energy theories that result from decoupling heavy scalar particles in Split SUSY and Effective SUSY scenarios, assuming that only a single Higgs field survives at low energy. For the Effective SUSY case two scenarios are considered: first, when the only light third generation scalars are the partners of the left-handed quark doublet and the right-handed top quark --which yields the minimal matter content compatible with naturalness-- and second, when all the scalars of the third generation are light. These beta functions implementing decoupling will be useful to avoid the problems of perturbation theory in the MSSM in a mass-independent scheme such as DR-bar when large hierarchies in the spectrum are present.
The lectin Discoidin I acts in the cytoplasm to help assemble the contractile machinery

Ly T.S. Nguyen and Douglas N. Robinson found that the lectin Discoidin I plays roles intracellularly within the contractile machinery. Specifically, Discoidin functions as a component of the mechanoresponsive contractility kits and regulates the localization and activity of Cortexillin I, an important mechanoresponsive protein of this system.
Importance of type specimen study for understanding genus boundaries—taxonomic clarifications in Lepidoderma based on integrative taxonomy approach leading to resurrection of the old genus Polyschismium

ABSTRACT Type specimens of four species of Lepidoderma (Myxomycetes, Amoebozoa)—L. crassipes, L. neoperforatum, L. perforatum, and L. stipitatum—have been studied using an integrative approach including application of traditional taxonomy methods, i.e., morphological study under stereoscopic and compound microscopes, detailed analysis of micromorphological characters using scanning electron microscopy, and molecular analysis by way of Sanger sequencing of molecular markers (nuc 18S rDNA and elongation factor 1-alpha gene, EF1A). Results of the study revealed that L. crassipes is conspecific with L. tigrinum, L. stipitatum is a malformed specimen of Diderma floriforme, whereas L. perforatum and L. neoperforatum represent two well-defined morphologically and genetically separate species. Phylogeny of Physarales shows the polyphyletic character of the genus Lepidoderma. The type species of Lepidoderma clusters together with Diderma, whereas other representatives of this genus form a monophyletic, well-supported clade. The species from this clade are proposed to belong to the genus Polyschismium described by A. Corda in 1842 that is resurrected and emended here. Nine species of Lepidoderma are transferred to Polyschismium. A new key to Didymiaceae including Polyschismium is provided.
Effects of betaine supplementation on reproductive performance of breeding geese

ABSTRACT 1. An experiment feeding three concentrations of betaine was conducted using breeding geese to analyse the reproductive performance, serum biochemical indexes, egg quality and intestinal immunity. 2. A total of 450 female and 90 male Jiangnan White breeding geese were divided into three treatments, with five pen replicates each containing 30 female geese and 6 male geese. 3. The results showed that there was no significant effect on the reproductive performance, serum biochemical indexes or jejunal villi goblet cells of geese with different levels of betaine in the diet (P > 0.05). Compared with the control group, the addition of 2.5 g/kg betaine to the diet showed a tendency to increase egg mass (P > 0.05) the betaine content in the yolk (P < 0.05). Feeding betaine significantly increased the height of jejunal villi and egg yolk total cholesterol content in female geese (P < 0.05). 4. In conclusion, adding betaine to the goose diet was effective in its ability to improve intestinal structures. Adding 2.5 g/kg betaine to feed significantly increased the content of TCHOL and betaine in goose eggs.
Systematic review of digital interventions to support refusal self-efficacy in child and adolescent health promotion

Summary Refusal self-efficacy protects against risky health behavior. Digital interventions have the potential to support self-efficacy due to the enactive experience provided by digital technologies. The aim of this systematic literature review was to evaluate the evidence of digital interventions to support refusal self-efficacy in child and adolescent health promotion. Following the Cochrane Collaboration guidelines, five electronic databases were searched from 2009 to 2020. The studies were assessed by two independent reviewers according to the eligibility criteria. Eligible studies were included in the review, assessed for risk of bias, synthesized narratively and assessed for evidence quality with the GRADE approach. Twenty-three studies, that examined 18 different interventions, were included in the review. The interventions included various digital elements as means to support the child and adolescent refusal self-efficacy (e.g. games, videos, feedback and activities for regulating feelings). The interventions improving refusal self-efficacy were more often used at home setting and addressed the four sources of self-efficacy with different digital elements regardless of intervention duration and intensity. Although the results on intervention effects varied and the evidence quality remained low, the overall evidence concerning these interventions was encouraging. Based on the subgroup analysis, the results were mainly encouraging among girls. When these interventions are implemented in health promotion, their benefits and weaknesses need to be considered comprehensively. The results provide information for designing and developing digital interventions to support child and adolescent refusal self-efficacy. Further research with larger sample sizes and more rigorous study designs is needed to strengthen the evidence of these interventions.
Hardy inequalities with boundary singularities

In this work we prove some Hardy-Poincar\'{e} inequalities with quadratic singular potentials localized on the boundary of a smooth domain. Then, we consider conical domains with vertex on the singularity and we show upper and lower bounds for the corresponding optimal constants in the Hardy inequality. In particular, we prove the asymptotic behavior of the optimal constant when the slot of the cone tends to zero.
Effectiveness of systemic acupuncture in the control of urinary incontinence following radical prostatectomy: a randomized clinical trial

ABSTRACT Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of acupuncture associated with pelvic floor muscle training for the control of urinary incontinence following radical prostatectomy. Method: Open-label, parallel randomized clinical trial. The intervention group (n = 33) underwent eight sessions of systemic acupuncture associated with pelvic floor muscle training and the control group (n = 31) performed only pelvic floor muscle training. The outcome variable was urinary incontinence assessed by the Pad Test and Daily Pad Used, before treatment (T0), after four weeks (T1) and after eight weeks of treatment (T2). Data analysis was performed using a longitudinal model of Generalized Estimating Equations, significance level of 0.05. Results: The control group showed greater urinary loss compared to the intervention group at T1 (p = 0.006) and at T2 (p < 0.001). Both groups showed improvement in the level of urinary incontinence over time, but the improvement was greater in the intervention group (p < 0.001). Conclusion: Acupuncture associated with pelvic floor muscle training was effective in reducing urinary incontinence in prostatectomized men. Brazilian Registry of Clinical Trials:RBR-3jm5y2