Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Clinical impact of respiratory virus in pulmonary exacerbations of children with Cystic Fibrosis

Backgrounds Cystic Fibrosis (CF) is a genetic, multisystemic, progressive illness that causes chronic suppurative lung disease. A major cause of morbimortality in this condition are pulmonary exacerbations. Although classically attributed to bacterial infections, respiratory virus have been increasingly recognized in its ethiopathogeny. Methods Nasopharyngeal swab samples were collected from children < 18 years old with CF in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with pulmonary exacerbation criteria. Samples were submitted to RT-PCR for Adenovirus, Influenza A and B, Parainfluenza Virus, Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), Metapneumovirus and Rhinovirus. Virus positive and virus negative groups were compared in regards to clinical presentation, severity of exacerbation and bacterial colonization. Results Out of 70 samples collected from 48 patients, 35.7% were positive for respiratory viruses. Rhinovirus were the most common (28% of all positive samples), followed by RSV. The virus positive group was associated with change in sinus discharge (p = 0.03). Considering only patients younger than five years old, positive virus detection was also associated with fever (p = 0.01). There was no significant difference in clinical severity or in bacterial colonization between virus positive and negative groups. Conclusions Prospective studies are still needed to assess the long term impact of viral infections in patients with CF, and their interaction with the bacterial microbiome in these patients.
A process theory of responsible leadership

Modern capitalism is a success for some, but not for all. The examples of the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska, Nike’s sweatshops and the demise of Enron and Arthur Anderson show how irresponsible leaders prioritise corporate needs and profit ahead of society’s wider interests. As a result, there is an increasing interest in higher purpose forms of leadership such as Responsible Leadership (RL) with its concern for the wider stakeholder community and ethically informed governance and management decision making. This thesis presents new empirical findings from an inductive thematic analysis of Responsible Leadership as practiced within seven organisations. The findings and subsequent conclusions were developed from a cross case analysis of twenty one interviews with the responsible leaders and their organisations’ stakeholders. A process theory of responsible leadership was developed from the findings. This process details the journey of the RL participants from their early life to establishing and then growing their organisation whose primary aim was social betterment. The participant RLs studied came to responsible leadership as a result of experiences in their formative years where they had become sensitive to the plight of others less fortunate than themselves. This ultimately led to their activation in creating an organisation with the explicit aim of improving the lives of these individuals/communities. The interpretations of the constituent themes of what it is to be a responsible leader indicate that the personal moral values (e.g. universalism and benevolence) of each of the RLs studied were the cornerstone of why they had become a RL and that these values prioritised social concerns above profit. These personal values also underpinned the aims and mission of their organisation and their leadership approach. It is this personal value set that the RLs recruited employees against and where they were not present actively excluded applicants, presenting as a dichotomy with the RL espoused values of inclusivity. Other findings that emerged from the study include an emergent theory of responsible leadership that differentiates it from responsible management and further insights into the boundary of RL stakeholder inclusion. This study also expands our understanding of responsible leadership, provides insights for practice and suggests productive avenues for further investigation.
A mixed methods study on the influence of a seasonal cash transfer and male labour migration on child nutrition in Tahoua, Niger

Unconditional cash transfers (UCTs) are used to prevent acute malnutrition in emergencies but evidence on their effectiveness is lacking. In Niger, NGOs implemented annual UCTs with supplementary feeding during the June–September lean season, despite feeding programme admissions sometimes rising earlier. I hypothesised that starting the UCT earlier would reduce acute malnutrition prevalence in children 6-59 months old, but also, that this would promote early return of seasonal male labour migrants (exodants), limiting the effectiveness of the modified UCT. A cluster-randomised trial involved the poorest households receiving either the standard monthly UCT (June-September) or a modified UCT (April-September); both providing a total of 130,000 FCFA/£144. Pregnant and lactating women and children 6–<24 months old in beneficiary households also received supplementary food (June-September). We collected quantitative data from a cohort of households and children in March/April and October/November 2015 and conducted a process evaluation. The modified UCT did not reduce acute malnutrition prevalence compared with the standard UCT. Among beneficiaries in both arms the prevalence of GAM remained elevated at endline (14.7, 95%CI 12.9, 16.9), despite improved food security, possibly due to increased fever/reported malaria. Exode was highly prevalent (baseline population prevalence of short-term exode: 28.0, 95%CI 24.0, 32.4) and multi-annual, mostly to Libya. Probably because of distance and travel cost, the modified UCT did not affect exodant returns. Short-term exode was associated with greater odds of stunting (1.93, 95%CI (1.24, 3.00), P=0.003) and underweight (1.95, 95%CI (1.10, 3.45), P=0.021) among left-behind children. The greater odds of underweight persisted in exodant households recently receiving remittances (2.40, 95%CI (1.17, 4.92), P=0.017), suggesting remittances were inadequate. Non-food related drivers of malnutrition, including disease, may limit the effectiveness of UCTs to reduce acute malnutrition prevalence in Niger. Efforts to tackle undernutrition should consider the greater vulnerability of children in exodant households.
Incorporation of Hydride Nuclear Fuels in Commercial Light Water Reactors

This dissertation intends to examine basic materials properties, identify optimized fabrication techniques, model behavior under relevant environments, and experimentally quantify kinetic phenomena associated with hydride nuclear fuels. Hydride fuels have been examined extensively for application in light water reactors (LWR) from the neutronics and thermal hydraulic standpoints, the benefits of this fuel have been underscored through such studies. This manuscript provides the background for understanding materials aspects of hydride fuel incorporation in LWR environments. The proposed LWR hydride fuel concept consists of uranium-zirconium hydride pellets clad in Zircaloy and bonded with a lead-bismuth alloy. The fuel material consists of metallic uranium particles dispersed in a zirconium hydride matrix, although thorium and/or other minor actinide hydride matrices could be utilized. The eutectic lead-bismuth alloy is liquid during reactor operating temperatures and replaces the conventionally-used helium gas in the fuel-cladding gap, thereby providing a thermal conductivity increase of two orders of magnitude. Initially uranium-thorium-zirconium hydrides were fabricated and extensively characterized. This provided detailed insight into fuel properties and the influence of fabrication methodology. A modeling approach was undertaken to examine hydride fuel behavior under steady-state and transient-power conditions in a typical LWR. This study outlined the operating parameters and fuel-response characteristics under various reactor operating conditions that support the feasibility of hydride fuel incorporation into LWRs. The kinetics of hydrogen release from the fuel, associated with one of the most severe accident scenarios, was investigated in detail. Mechanisms were identified for hydrogen desorption from and adsorption on zirconium hydride and the rates associated with each process were quantified. Hydrogen diffusivity in the thorium-zirconium hydride matrix, which is one of the critical parameters affecting fabrication and in-reactor fuel behavior, was experimentally determined by the means of incoherent quasielastic neutron scattering. Finally experiments were conducted to examine compatibility of hydride fuel with Zircaloy cladding when bonded by liquid-metal. A thin oxide grown on the surface of the cladding coupled with liquid metal was tentatively identified as adequate to limit hydrogen transport form the fuel to the cladding. Recognizing the necessity of a shift from laboratory scale experiments to more relevant fuel-operating environments, an irradiation experiment was conceived to examine the liquid-metal-bonded LWR hydride fuel concept.
Effects of Human Settlements and Spatial Distribution of Wing Vein Length, Wing Fray Categories and Hunger Stages in Glossina morsitans morsitans (Diptera: Glossinidae) and Glossina pallidipes (Diptera: Glossinidae) in Areas Devoid of Cattle in North-Eastern Zambia

Abstract The effect of human-associated habitat degradation on tsetse populations is well established. However, more insights are needed into how gradual human encroachment into tsetse fly belts affect tsetse populations. This study investigated how wing vein length, wing fray categories, and hunger stages, taken as indicators of body size, age, and levels of access to hosts, respectively, in Glossina morsitans morsitans Westwood (Diptera: Glossinidae) and Glossina pallidipes Austen (Diptera: Glossinidae), varied along a transect from the edge into inner parts of the tsetse belt, in sites that had human settlement either concentrated at the edge of belt or evenly distributed along transect line, in north-eastern Zambia. Black-screen fly round and Epsilon traps were used in a cross-sectional survey on tsetse flies at three sites, following a transect line marked by a road running from the edge into the inner parts of the tsetse belt, per site. Two sites had human settlement concentrated at or close to the edge of the tsetse belt, whereas the third had human settlement evenly distributed along the transect line. Where settlements were concentrated at the edge of tsetse belt, increase in distance from the settlements was associated with increase in wing vein length and a reduction in the proportion of older, and hungry, tsetse flies. Increase in distance from human settlements was associated with improved tsetse well-being, likely due to increase in habitat quality due to decrease in effects of human activities.
Utility and use of accuracy cues in social learning of crowd preferences

Despite limited information and knowledge, we personally form beliefs about certain properties of objects encountered in our daily life—popularity of a newly released movie, for example. Since such beliefs are prone to error, we often revise our initial beliefs according to the beliefs of others to improve accuracy. Optimal revision requires modulating the degree of accepting others’ beliefs based on various cues for accuracy—number of opinions, for example—such that the more accurate others’ beliefs are, the more we accept them. Although previous studies have shown that such accuracy cues can influence the degree of acceptance during social revision, they primarily investigated problems with ‘factually correct’ answers, and rarely problems with ‘socially correct’ answers. Here we examined which accuracy cues are objectively useful (utility of cues), and how those cues are used (use of cues), in the social revision of people’s beliefs about problems with ‘socially correct’ answers. We asked people to estimate the ‘shared preferences (SPs)’ for sociocultural items, the answers to which are determined by socially aggregated beliefs—how popular an abstract painting will be among a large crowd, for example—and then to revise their initial estimates after being exposed to other people’s estimates about the same items. We considered ‘confidence’, ‘agreement among estimates’, and ‘number of estimates’ as accuracy cues. We found that, while all three cues validly signaled the accuracy of SP estimates, only the ‘number’ cue has a significant utility, but the other cues are much less useful for optimal revision. Nevertheless, people used the cues of ‘agreement’ and their own 'confidence’ to the extent comparable to that of the 'number' cue. Our findings suggest that the utility and use of accuracy cues for problems with ‘socially correct’ answers differ from those with ‘factually correct’ answers, as follows: (i) confidence does not have a significant utility and (ii) but people use their own confidence while ignoring others’ confidence.
Demographic determinants of suicide rates in Japan from 1979 to 2016

Background: Suicide is a major public health concern in Japan. This study aimed to characterize the trends in suicide mortality in Japan by method since 1979. Methods: Using data from the Japan vital registration system, I calculated agestandardised rates of suicide mortality separately by sex and method. I conducted a log-linear regression of suicide mortality rates separately by sex, and linear regression analysis of the proportion of deaths due to hanging, including a test for change in level and trend in 1998. Results: While crude suicide rates were static over the time period, age-adjusted rates declined. The significant increase in suicide mortality in 1998 was primarily driven by large changes in the rate of hanging, with suicide deaths after 1998 having 36.7% higher odds of being due to hanging for men (95% CI: 16.3–60.8%), and 21.9% higher odds of being due to hanging for women (95% CI: 9.2–35.9%). Ageing made a major contribution to the increase in overall crude suicide rates and also among men from 1980 to 2015. Suicide by hanging among men and women followed a similar pattern. About 51.6% of the increase in baseline crude suicide rate by hanging among men was due to ageing. Conclusion: Hanging has become an increasingly important method for committing suicide over the past 40 years, and although suicide rates have been declining continuously over this time, more effort is needed to prevent hanging and address the potential cultural drivers of suicide if the rate is to continue to decline in the future.
A Renewed Outbreak of the COVID−19 Pandemic: A Longitudinal Study of Distress, Resilience, and Subjective Well-Being

Considering the potential impact of COVID-19 on the civil society, a longitudinal study was conducted to identify levels of distress, resilience, and the subjective well-being of the population. The study is based on two repeated measurements conducted at the end of the pandemic’s “first wave” and the beginning of the “second wave” on a sample (n = 906) of Jewish Israeli respondents, who completed an online questionnaire distributed by an Internet panel company. Three groups of indicators were assessed: signs of distress (sense of danger, distress symptoms, and perceived threats), resilience (individual, community, and national), and subjective well-being (well-being, hope, and morale). Results indicated the following: (a) a significant increase in distress indicators, with effect sizes of sense of danger, distress symptoms, and perceived threats (Cohen’s d 0.614, 0.120, and 0.248, respectively); (b) a significant decrease in resilience indicators, with effect sizes of individual, community, and national resilience (Cohen’s d 0.153, 0.428, and 0.793, respectively); and (c) a significant decrease in subjective well-being indicators with effect sizes of well-being, hope, and morale (Cohen’s d 0.116, 0.336, and 0.199, respectively). To conclude, COVID-19 had a severe, large-scale impact on the civil society, leading to multidimensional damage and a marked decrease in the individual, community, and national resilience of the population.
Exploratory Study of Fatty Acid Profile in Two Filmy Ferns with Contrasting Desiccation Tolerance Reveal the Production of Very Long Chain Polyunsaturated Omega-3 Fatty Acids

Lipids are fundamental components of cell membranes and play a significant role in their integrity and fluidity. Alteration in lipid composition of membranes has been reported to be a major response to abiotic environmental stresses. This work was focused on the characterization of frond lipid composition and membrane integrity during a desiccation–rehydration cycle of two filmy fern species with contrasting desiccation tolerance: Hymenophyllum caudiculatum (less tolerant) and Hymenophyllum plicatum (more tolerant). The relative water content decreased without differences between species when both filmy ferns were subjected to desiccation. However, H. plicatum reached a higher relative water content than H. caudiculatum after rehydration. Fatty acids profiles showed the presence of a very long chain polyunsaturated fatty acid during the desiccation–rehydration cycle, with eicosatrienoic acid being the most abundant. Additionally, propidium iodide permeation staining and confocal microscopy demonstrated that, following the desiccation–rehydration cycle, H. plicatum exhibited a greater membrane integrity than H. caudiculatum. The lack of some very long chain fatty acids such as C22:1n9 and C24:1n9 in this species contrasting with H. plicatum may be associated with its lower membrane stability during the desiccation–rehydration cycle. This report provides the first insight into the fatty acid composition and dynamics of the membrane integrity of filmy ferns during a desiccation–rehydration cycle. This could potentially play a role in determining the different levels of desiccation tolerance and microhabitat preferences exhibited by Hymenophyllaceae species.
Toxic Effects of Polychlorinated Biphenyl Congeners and Aroclors on Embryonic Growth and Development

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) cause significant health and reproductive problems in many vertebrates. Exposure during embryogenesis likely leads to defects in organ development, compromising survival and growth through adulthood. The present study identifies the impact of PCBs on the embryonic development of key organs and resulting consequences on survival and growth. Zebrafish embryos were treated with individual PCB congeners (126 or 104) or one of 4 Aroclor mixtures (1016, 1242, 1254, or 1260) and analyzed for changes in gross embryonic morphology. Specific organs were assessed for defects during embryonic development, using a variety of transgenic zebrafish to improve organ visualization. Resulting larvae were grown to adulthood while survival and growth were assayed. Embryonic gross development on PCB treatment was abnormal, with defects presenting in a concentration‐dependent manner in the liver, pancreas, heart, and blood vessel organization. Polychlorinated biphenyl 126 treatment resulted in the most consistently severe and fatal phenotypes, whereas treatments with PCB 104 and Aroclors resulted in a range of more subtle organ defects. Survival of fish was highly variable although the growth rates of surviving fish were relatively normal, suggesting that maturing PCB‐treated fish that survive develop compensatory strategies needed to reach adulthood. Life span analyses of fish from embryogenesis through adulthood, as in the present study, are scarce but important for the field because they help identify foci for further studies. Environ Toxicol Chem 2021;40:187–201. © 2020 SETAC
Prevalence of Acute Rehabilitation for Kids in the PICU: A Canadian Multicenter Point Prevalence Study.

OBJECTIVES To evaluate mobilization practices, barriers, and mobility-related adverse events in Canadian PICUs. DESIGN National 2-day point prevalence study. SETTING Thirteen PICUs across Canada. PATIENTS Children with a minimum 72-hour PICU length of stay on the allocated study day. INTERVENTIONS None. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS Outcomes of interest were the prevalence and nature of mobilization activities, rehabilitation resources, adverse events, and factors associated with out-of-bed mobility and therapist-provided mobility. Two PICUs (15%) had early mobilization practice guidelines, and one PICU (8%) reported a formal process for engaging families in the mobilization of patients. The prevalence of mobilization was 110 of 137 patient-days (80%). The commonest activity was out-of-bed mobility (87/137; 64% patient-days); there was no active mobilization on 46 patient-days (34%). Therapists provided mobility on 33% of patient-days. Mobility was most commonly facilitated by nurses (74% events) and family (49% events). Family participation was strongly associated with out-of-bed mobility (odds ratio 6.4; p = 0.001). Intubated, mechanically ventilated patients were mobilized out-of-bed on 18 of 50 patient-days (36%). However, the presence of an endotracheal tube, vasoactive infusions, and age greater than or equal to 3 years were independently associated with not being mobilized out-of-bed. Barriers were reported on 58 of 137 patient-days (42%), and adverse events occurred in 22 of 387 mobility events (6%). CONCLUSIONS Mobilization is common and safe, and the majority of children in Canadian PICUs are being mobilized out-of-bed, even when mechanically ventilated. Family engagement in PICU-based rehabilitation is increasing. This study provides encouraging evidence that common barriers can be overcome in order to safely mobilize children in PICUs.
Life after cancer treatment – existential experiences of longing

ABSTRACT Purpose: The study aimed to gain insight into existential longing as experienced by people treated for cancer. Method: An exploratory phenomenological–hermeneutical design was used, and data were collected through in-depth interviews with 21 people recruited from a cancer organization. Results: Three themes emerged: longing to be oneself, longing for relief from suffering, and longing for rootedness. The theoretical understanding of well-being developed by Todres and Galvin was used to illuminate how the life-fulfilling power of longing is inherent in dwelling–mobility. Conclusions: During the theoretical interpretation and discussion of these findings, a new analytic step revealed a state of uncertainty that can influence longing. The findings of this study may help fill the gap in the current health-care approach to cancer survivors by highlighting the importance of a new professional perspective of listening to patients describe their existential burden. Such an approach may create greater clarity and thereby allow longing to flow more freely towards future possibilities and well-being.