Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Socioeconomic Differences in Occupational Health Service Utilization and Sickness Absence Due to Mental Disorders: A Register-Based Retrospective Cohort Study

Occupational health service (OHS) is the main provider of primary care services for the working population in Finland. We investigated whether socioeconomic differences in the utilization of OHS predict sickness absence (SA) due to mental disorders. We used register linkage data covering the employees of the City of Helsinki aged 18–34 years (N = 6545) and 35–54 years (N = 15,296) from 2009 to 2014. The outcome was medically certified long-term (over 11 days) SA due to mental disorders. Cox regression analyses were performed to obtain hazard ratios (HR) and their 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Employees with low socioeconomic position (SEP) used OHS more frequently. The number of OHS visits independently predicted SA due to mental disorders. HRs were 1.59 (95% CI 1.35, 1.86) for those with frequent visits and 1.73 (95% CI 1.30, 2.29) for those with a clustered visit pattern among 18–34 year old employees; and 1.46 (95% CI 1.18, 1.81) and 1.41 (95% CI 1.14, 1.74) among 35–54 year old employees, respectively. In both age groups, lower education and routine non-manual worker position indicated the highest probability of SA. Low SEP predicts both high OHS utilization and subsequent SA due to mental disorders. Medical records may be used to accurately predict future SA, and the results indicate that preventive measures should be targeted particularly to younger employees with lower SEP.
Use of Clinical Preventive Service and Related Factors in Middle-Aged Postmenopausal Women in Korea

Postmenopausal women experiencing health transitions can improve health-related quality of life through clinical health service use. The aim of this study was to investigate the factors affecting clinical preventive service use, focusing on a multi-dimensional approach among middle-aged postmenopausal women. This descriptive study is a secondary analysis of the seventh Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANESVII-1) in 2016. Among the 8150 participants, our analysis included 771 naturally menopausal women aged 40–65. National health insurance (OR = 1.659, 95% CI = 1.080–2.550), private health insurance (OR = 2.877, 95% CI = 1.665–4.971), needs for health service (OR = 2.363, 95% CI = 1.332–4.195), cardiovascular disease (OR = 1.570, 95% CI = 1.009–2.445), hospital admission (OR = 3.054, 95% CI = 1.298–7.184), smoking (OR = 0.262, 95% CI = 0.144–0.477), drinking (OR = 0.573, 95% CI = 0.335–0.979), and depression (OR = 0.535, 95% CI = 0.340–0.841) were associated with clinical preventive service use among middle-aged postmenopausal women. To promote clinical preventive service use among postmenopausal women, policies promoting health behavior expansion should be introduced and should consider the predictive variables revealed by this study.
Innate signalling molecules as genetic adjuvants do not alter the efficacy of a DNA-based influenza A vaccine

In respect to the heterogeneity among influenza A virus strains and the shortcomings of current vaccination programs, there is a huge interest in the development of alternative vaccines that provide a broader and more long-lasting protection. Gene-based approaches are considered as promising candidates for such flu vaccines. In our study, innate signalling molecules from the RIG-I and the NALP3 pathways were evaluated as genetic adjuvants in intramuscular DNA immunizations. Plasmids encoding a constitutive active form of RIG-I (cRIG-I), IPS-1, IL-1β, or IL-18 were co-administered with plasmids encoding the hemagglutinin and nucleoprotein derived from H1N1/Puerto Rico/8/1934 via electroporation in BALB/c mice. Immunogenicity was analysed in detail and efficacy was demonstrated in homologous and heterologous influenza challenge experiments. Although the biological activities of the adjuvants have been confirmed by in vitro reporter assays, their single or combined inclusion in the vaccine did not result in superior vaccine efficacy. With the exception of significantly increased levels of antigen-specific IgG1 after the co-administration of IL-1β, there were only minor alterations concerning the immunogenicity. Since DNA electroporation alone induced substantial inflammation at the injection site, as demonstrated in this study using Mx2-Luc reporter mice, it might override the adjuvants´ contribution to the inflammatory microenvironment and thereby minimizes the influence on the immunogenicity. Taken together, the DNA immunization was protective against subsequent challenge infections but could not be further improved by the genetic adjuvants analysed in this study.
Bacteriological and mycological profile of chronic suppurative otitis media

Background: Chronic suppurative otitis media (CSOM) is the chronic inflammation of the middle ear cleft. It can cause permanent perforation and is famous for its recurrence and persistent infection. Haphazard use of antibiotics and increasing use of newer ones has led to persistent change in microbial flora. The aim of this study was to isolate and identify the bacteria and fungi causing chronic suppurative otitis media and to determine the antibiotic sensitivity pattern of the bacterial isolates. Methods: This is a prospective cross sectional study was done in 70 patients of chronic suppurative otitis media presenting with active ear discharge. Sterile swabs were used to collect pus from discharging ear and sent for culture sensitivity. All organisms isolated were identified according to standard microbiological methods.Antimicrobial susceptibility test was performed using Kirby- Bauer disc diffusion method according to Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute guidelines. Results: Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa were the most common organisms isolated in this study. Fungi isolated most commonly was Aspergillus species. Pseudomonas aeruginosa was most sensitive to Piperacillin-Tazobactam, and Gentamycin. Staphylococcus aureus was most sensitive to Linezolid and vancomycin and least sensitive to Erythromycin. Conclusions: Staphylococcus aureus was the most common bacteria isolated and Aspergillus spp was the most common fungi isolated from patients with CSOM. Judicial use of antibiotics is necessary for the prevention of development of antibiotic resistance.
On the TRAIL of Better Therapies: Understanding TNFRSF Structure-Function

Tumor necrosis factor (TNF) superfamily ligands show diverse biological functions, such as the induction of apoptotic cell death or cell survival and proliferation, making them excellent therapeutic targets for cancer and autoimmunity. We review the latest literature on TNF receptor superfamily signaling with a focus on structure-function. Using combinatorics, we argue that receptors that cluster on the cell surface and are activated by membrane-bound ligands need to arrange in a highly ordered manner, as the probability of random ligand and receptor arrangements matching up for receptor activation is very low. A growing body of evidence indicates that antiparallel receptor dimers that sequester the ligand binding site cluster on the cell surface, forming a hexagonal lattice. Upon ligand binding, this arrangement puts the activated receptors at the right distance to accommodate the downstream signaling partners. The data also suggest that the same geometry is utilized regardless of receptor type. The unified model provides important clues about TNF receptor signaling and should aid the design of better therapies for cancer and various immune mediated diseases.
Influence of Maternal Milk on the Neonatal Intestinal Microbiome

The intestinal microbiome plays an important role in maintaining health throughout life. The microbiota develops progressively after birth and is influenced by many factors, including the mode of delivery, antibiotics, and diet. Maternal milk is critically important to the development of the neonatal intestinal microbiota. Different bioactive components of milk, such as human milk oligosaccharides, lactoferrin, and secretory immunoglobulins, modify the composition of the neonatal microbiota. In this article, we review the role of each of these maternal milk-derived bioactive factors on the microbiota and how this modulation of intestinal bacteria shapes health, and disease.
Synergistic Effect of Maleated Natural Rubber and Modified Palm Stearin as Dual Compatibilizers in Composites based on Natural Rubber and Halloysite Nanotubes

The performance of rubber composite relies on the compatibility between rubber and filler. This is specifically of concern when preparing composites with very different polarities of the rubber matrix and the filler. However, a suitable compatibilizer can mediate the interactions. In this study, composites of natural rubber (NR) with halloysite nanotubes (HNT) were prepared with maleated natural rubber (MNR) and modified palm stearin (MPS) as dual compatibilizers. The MPS dose ranged within 0.5–1.5 phr, while the MNR dose was fixed at 10 phr in all formulations. It was found that the mixed MNR/MPS significantly enhanced modulus, tensile strength, and tear strength of the composites. The improvements were mainly due to improved rubber-HNT interactions arising from hydrogen bonds formed in the presence of these two compatibilizers. This was clearly verified by observing the Payne effect. Apart from that, the MPS also acted as a plasticizer to provide improved dispersion of HNT. It was clearly demonstrated that MNR and MPS as dual compatibilizers improved rubber-HNT interactions and reduced filler-filler interactions, which then improved tensile and tear strengths, as well as dynamical properties. Therefore, the mix of MNR and MPS had a great potential to compatibilize non-polar rubber with HNT filler.
Water Level Decline in a Reservoir: Implications for Water Quality Variation and Pollution Source Identification

Continuous water-level decline makes the changes of water quality in reservoirs more complicated. This paper uses trend analyses, wavelet analysis and principal component analysis-multiple linear regression to explore the changes and pollution sources affecting water quality during a period of continuous reservoir water level decline (from 65.37 m to 54.15 m), taking the Biliuhe reservoir as an example. The results showed that the change of water level of Biliuhe reservoir has a significant 13-year periodicity. The unusual water quality changes during the low water level period were as follows: total nitrogen continued to decrease. And iron was lower than its historical level. pH, total phosphorus, and ammonia nitrogen were higher than historical levels and fluctuated seasonally. Permanganate index increased as water level decreased after initial fluctuations. Dissolved oxygen was characterized by high content in winter and relatively low content in summer. The pollutant sources of non-point source pollution (PC1), sediment and groundwater pollution (PC2), atmospheric and production & domestic sewage (PC3), other sources of pollution (PC4) were identified. The main source of DO, pH, TP, TN, NH4-N, Fe and CODMn were respectively PC3 (42.13%), PC1 (47.67%), PC3 (47.62%), PC1 (29.75%), PC2 (47.01%), PC1 (56.97%) and PC2 (50%). It is concluded that the continuous decline of water level has a significant impact on the changes and pollution sources affecting water quality. Detailed experiments focusing on sediment pollution release flux, and biological action will be explored next.
Sampling Methods for Metocean Data Aiming at Hydrodynamic Modeling of Estuarine and Coastal Areas

Field observations require adequate metocean data gathering to promote the link between environmental diagnostic and prognostic obtained from modeling techniques. In general, model confidence can be improved by using data which present better quality and by improved parametrizations. This paper discusses and suggests timing routines for data gathering which are enough to describe the hydrodynamic behavior of estuarine and coastal areas. From the environmental diagnostics viewpoint, a sampling procedure is defined to the temporal scales providing data with adequate resolution to describe the natural process without signal aliasing. The proposed sampling procedure was based on the analysis of a data set of tides, currents, waves, water temperature, and meteorological variables observed at several stations along the Brazilian coast. The instrument setup was based mainly on the results of the harmonic analysis of tides. It is shown that the setup of instruments for simultaneous measurements of currents and waves requires special attention particularly in sites that present low currents and the action of waves. A subset of data gathered in shallow bays was used to estimate the surface turbulent stress by using a classical and a slightly modified parametrization for the wind drag coefficient. Under near neutral atmospheric stability conditions and high tide excursion, the surface turbulent stress obtained with the classical and the modified parametrization differed but the current profiles are expected to be only partially affected by wind-induced drift currents.
Potential PGPR Properties of Cellulolytic, Nitrogen-Fixing, Phosphate-Solubilizing Bacteria in Rehabilitated Tropical Forest Soil

In the midst of the major soil degradation and erosion faced by tropical ecosystems, rehabilitated forests are being established to avoid the further deterioration of forest lands. In this context, cellulolytic, nitrogen-fixing (N-fixing), phosphate-solubilizing bacteria are very important functional groups in regulating the elemental cycle and plant nutrition, hence replenishing the nutrient content in forest soils. As is the case for other potential plant growth-promoting (PGP) rhizobacteria, these functional bacteria could have cross-functional abilities or beneficial traits that are essential for plants and can improve their growth. This study was conducted to isolate, identify, and characterize selected PGP properties of these three functional groups of bacteria from tropical rehabilitated forest soils at Universiti Putra Malaysia Bintulu Sarawak Campus, Malaysia. The bacteria were isolated based on their colonial growth on respective functional media, identified using both molecular and selected biochemical properties, and were assessed for their functional quantitative activities as well as PGP properties based on seed germination tests and indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) production. Out of the 15 identified bacterial isolates that exhibited beneficial phenotypic traits, a third belong to the genus Burkholderia and a fifth to Stenotrophomonas sp. , with both genera consisting of members from two different functional groups. The results of the experiments confirm the multiple PGP traits of some selected bacterial isolates based on their respective high functional activities, root and shoot lengths, and seedling vigor improvements when bacterized on mung bean seeds, as well as significant IAA production. The results of this study suggest that these functional bacterial strains could potentially be included in bio-fertilizer formulations for crop growth on acid soils.
Characteristics and Early Prognosis of COVID-19 Infection in Fracture Patients.

BACKGROUND Studies of the novel coronavirus-induced disease COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, have elucidated the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of this disease in the general population. The present investigation summarizes the clinical characteristics and early prognosis of COVID-19 infection in a cohort of patients with fractures. METHODS Data on 10 patients with a fracture and COVID-19 were collected from 8 different hospitals located in the Hubei province from January 1, 2020, to February 27, 2020. Analyses of early prognosis were based on clinical outcomes and trends in laboratory results during treatment. RESULTS All 10 patients presented with limited activity related to the fracture. The most common signs were fever, cough, and fatigue at the time of presentation (7 patients each). Other, less common signs included sore throat (4 patients), dyspnea (5 patients), chest pain (1 patient), nasal congestion (1 patient), headache (1 patient), dizziness (3 patients), abdominal pain (1 patient), and vomiting (1 patient). Lymphopenia (<1.0 × 10 cells/L) was identified in 6 of 10 patients, 9 of 9 patients had a high serum level of D-dimer, and 9 of 9 patients had a high level of C-reactive protein. Three patients underwent surgery, whereas the others were managed nonoperatively because of their compromised status. Four patients died on day 8 (3 patients) or day 14 (1 patient) after admission. The clinical outcomes for the surviving patients are not yet determined. CONCLUSIONS The clinical characteristics and early prognosis of COVID-19 in patients with fracture tended to be more severe than those reported for adult patients with COVID-19 without fracture. This finding may be related to the duration between the development of symptoms and presentation. Surgical treatment should be carried out cautiously or nonoperative care should be chosen for patients with fracture in COVID-19-affected areas, especially older individuals with intertrochanteric fractures. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE Prognostic Level IV. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.
Neurophysiological evidence for crossmodal (face-name) person-identity representation in the human left ventral temporal cortex

Putting a name to a face is a highly common activity in our daily life that greatly enriches social interactions. Although this specific person–identity association becomes automatic with learning, it remains difficult and can easily be disrupted in normal circumstances or neurological conditions. To shed light on the neural basis of this important and yet poorly understood association between different input modalities in the human brain, we designed a crossmodal frequency-tagging paradigm coupled to brain activity recording via scalp and intracerebral electroencephalography. In Experiment 1, 12 participants were presented with variable pictures of faces and written names of a single famous identity at a 4-Hz frequency rate while performing an orthogonal task. Every 7 items, another famous identity appeared, either as a face or a name. Robust electrophysiological responses were found exactly at the frequency of identity change (i.e., 4 Hz / 7 = 0.571 Hz), suggesting a crossmodal neural response to person identity. In Experiment 2 with twenty participants, two control conditions with periodic changes of identity for faces or names only were added to estimate the contribution of unimodal neural activity to the putative crossmodal face-name responses. About 30% of the response occurring at the frequency of crossmodal identity change over the left occipito-temporal cortex could not be accounted for by the linear sum of unimodal responses. Finally, intracerebral recordings in the left ventral anterior temporal lobe (ATL) in 7 epileptic patients tested with this paradigm revealed a small number of “pure” crossmodal responses, i.e., with no response to changes of identity for faces or names only. Altogether, these observations provide evidence for integration of verbal and nonverbal person identity-specific information in the human brain, highlighting the contribution of the left ventral ATL in the automatic retrieval of face-name identity associations.
Number of MRI T1-hypointensity corrected by T2/FLAIR lesion volume indicates clinical severity in patients with multiple sclerosis

Introduction Progressive brain atrophy, development of T1-hypointense areas, and T2-fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR)-hyperintense lesion formation in multiple sclerosis (MS) are popular volumetric data that are often utilized as clinical outcomes. However, the exact clinical interpretation of these volumetric data has not yet been fully established. Methods We enrolled 42 consecutive patients with MS who fulfilled the revised McDonald criteria of 2010. They were followed-up for more than 3 years from onset, and cross-sectional brain volumetry was performed. Patients with no brain lesions were excluded in advance from this study. For the brain volumetric data, we evaluated several parameters including age-adjusted gray-matter volume atrophy, age-adjusted white-matter volume atrophy, and T2-FLAIR lesion volume. The numbers of T1-hypointense and T2-FLAIR-hyperintense areas were also measured along the same timeline. The clinical data pertaining to disease duration, expanded disability status scale (EDSS), and MS severity score (MSSS) at the timing of volumetry were collected. Results Among the 42 patients with MS and brain lesions, the number of T1-hypointensity (rho = 0.51, p<0.001), gray-matter atrophy (rho = 0.40, p<0.01) and white-matter atrophy (rho = 0.49, p<0.001) correlated with the EDSS. T1-hypointensity count divided by FLAIR lesion volume correlated with the MSSS (rho = 0.60, p<0.001). Meanwhile, counts or volumes of FLAIR-hyperintense lesions were associated only with the times of past relapses, and did not correlate with present neurological disability level or ongoing disease activity. These findings were consistent regardless of the presence of spinal cord lesions. Conclusion Numbers of T1-hypointensities and brain atrophy equally indicated the current neurological disability in MS. The number of T1-hypointensities divided by FLAIR lesion volume represented the clinical severity. The size or number of FLAIR lesions reflected earlier relapses but was not a good indicator of neurological disability or clinical severity.
Investigating the Impact of Washing Cycles on Silver-Plated Textile Electrodes: A Complete Study

Although market prediction for smart textiles in the coming years is high, their washability will be among the main criteria for their mass adoption. Hence, the need to understand precisely how the washing process can damage them. Therefore, the best care instructions can be determined and serve as guidelines for smart textile manufacturers to control the quality of their smart garments as well as their customers to wash them cautiously. In this study, only the sensing part, silver-plated-nylon electrode sensors, is taken into account. To determine the chemical and the mechanical impacts of the machine-washing process separately and simultaneously, textile electrodes were put in different washing conditions: with and without bleaching agents, with and without mechanical constraints, etc. Then spectrophotometry, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA) were used to characterize these electrodes. Results show that liquid detergents should be preferred to powder ones. Indeed, the latter contain bleaching agents that tend to oxidize the silver layer, making it more vulnerable to the mechanical rubbings that tear off the silver layer progressively washes after washes. As a consequence, the silver-plated-nylon loses rapidly its conductivity so that the electrode is no longer able to sense biopotentials.