Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Determinants of low birth weight among live birth newborns delivered at public hospitals in Gamo Gofa Zone, South Ethiopia: Unmatched case control study

Background: Birth weight is one of the major determinants of perinatal survival, infant morbidity, and mortality. There are only few published reports on assessment of low birth weight in Ethiopia and the determinants of low birth weight have not been well characterized. Objective: The aim of this study was to assess determinants of low birth weight among live birth newborns delivered at public hospitals in Gamo Gofa Zone, South Ethiopia. Methods: Institution-based case control study was conducted from February 25 to April 25, 2018 and consecutively selected 60 cases and 240 controls were enrolled in this study. The data were collected using face-to-face interview and review of medical records. Moreover, we have measured the newborns’ birth weight using a standard weight scale and mother’s mid-upper arm circumference using a standard World Health Organization mid-upper arm circumference measuring tape. Statistical analysis of the data was done using SPSS version 21. Results: A total of 300 newborns were included in the study. Late antenatal care booking (adjusted odds ratio = 1.87, confidence interval = [1.32–2.6]), birth interval <2 years (adjusted odds ratio = 0.385, confidence interval = [0.176–0.83]), anemia (adjusted odds ratio = 4.4, confidence interval = [1.84–10.5]), mid-upper arm circumference <23 cm (adjusted odds ratio = 7.99, confidence interval = [3.5–20.3]), nutritional counseling (adjusted odds ratio = 5.85, confidence interval = [2.14–14.8]), and husband smoking (adjusted odds ratio = 4.73; confidence interval = [1.42–15.7]) were found to be determinant factors of low birth weight. Conclusion: Most of the determining factors of low birth weight were preventable. Therefore, clinical and public health interventions should target on those determinant factors to prevent its adverse effects.
β1 and β3 integrin upregulation in rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis

The expression and distribution pattern of β 1 (α 1 -α 6 ) and α V β 3 integrins and ICAM-1 and VCAM-1 counter receptors were evaluated by an immunohistochemical technique on eight renal samples from patients affected by rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis (RPGN) of different aetiologies. In all cases integrins and counterreceptors displayed similar patterns. On tubular cells of renal cortex, a marked upregulation of α 2 β 1 , α 3 β 1 , α 5 β 1 , α v β 3 integrins and VCAM-1 was observed with as many as 60-90% of tubular cross-sections labelled, while a strong ICAM-1 reactivity was limited to the luminal surface. The same adhesion molecules were also uniformly expressed on crescentic cells. In glomeruli, integrin upregulation occurred only on apparently preserved capillary tufts, i.e. in an early stage of lesion, while collapsed and sclerotic tufts showed a reduced integrin expression. In addition a morphometric study of extracellular matrix (EM) proteins cellular fibronectin and tenascin showed a 9.56±1.9-fold and 3.35±0.6-fold increase respectively in these proteins, as compared to normal kidney (P <0.001). The upregulation of α v β 3 on podocytes might play a role in the adhesion of crescentic cells. An increased production of cytokines, in particular transforming growth factor-β, might induce augmented deposition of EM proteins and upregulation of β 1 and β 3 integrins in RPGN.
Response of exercise‐onset vasodilator kinetics to L‐citrulline supplementation during different phases of the menstrual cycle

The purpose of this study was to determine whether L‐citrulline (CIT) supplementation during the follicular and luteal phases of the menstrual cycle would present differential effects on vasodilator kinetics in dynamically contracting muscle. Twenty‐four women were studied during the follicular (day 15 after onset of menses, n = 13) or the luteal phase (day 25 after onset of menses, n = 11). Supplementation with CIT (6g/day) or placebo occurred 7‐days prior to testing in a crossover design across two menstrual cycles. Forearm vascular conductance (FVC) was calculated from blood flow and mean arterial pressure measured continuously during handgrip exercise performed at 10% maximal grip strength. FVC was calculated for each duty cycle (contract:relax, 1:2s) and expressed as a change from baseline (ΔFVC) before being fit with a monoexponential model. Amplitude of the ΔFVC response and the number of duty cycles for ΔFVC to reach 63% of steady‐state amplitude (τΔFVC) were derived from the model. Analysis of variance showed no difference in the amplitude of ΔFVC between CIT and placebo (p = .45) or between menstrual cycle phases (p = .11). Additionally, τΔFVC was not different (p = .35) between CIT and placebo in women tested during the follicular (6 ± 3 versus 5 ± 3 duty cycles) or luteal phase (9 ± 1 versus 8 ± 1 duty cycles) although τΔFVC was found to be slower for women tested during the luteal as compared to the follicular phase (8 ± 4 versus 5 ± 3 duty cycles, p = .02). These results indicate that exercise‐onset vasodilator kinetics is unaltered with CIT supplementation in young healthy women irrespective of menstrual cycle phase.
Apple pomace and rosemary extract ameliorates hepatic steatosis in fructose-fed rats: Association with enhancing fatty acid oxidation and suppressing inflammation

Apple pomace and rosemary (AR) have been reported to contain rich bioactive molecules, which have numerous metabolic effects. Our preliminary work revealed that AR ameliorated fructose-induced insulin resistance in rats by modulating sarcolemmal CD36 and glucose transporter-4. The present study aimed to further examine how AR improves metabolic disorders by investigating the effect of AR on hepatic steatosis induced by fructose overconsumption. The results demonstrated that AR (100 mg/kg daily by gavage for 5 weeks) attenuated chronic liquid fructose consumption-induced increases in liver triglyceride content in rats. Mechanistically, reverse transcription-quantitative PCR and western blot analysis results indicated that AR reversed fructose-induced suppression of hepatic peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor α, carnitine palmitoyl-transferase 1α, sirtuin 1 and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ coactivator 1α, which were associated with the fatty acid oxidative (FAO) pathway. In addition, AR treatment decreased the expression levels of the pro-inflammatory proteins NF-κB and tumor necrosis factor-α. However, AR had no effect on the genes related to lipogenesis and the very low-density lipoprotein-export pathway in rat liver. Thus, the present results suggested that AR treatment diminished long-term fructose overconsumption-induced fatty liver, which was associated with enhanced FAO and suppressed inflammation.
Public Intent to Comply with COVID-19 Public Health Recommendations

Stay-at-home orders have been an essential component of coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) management in the United States. As states start lifting these mandates to reopen the economy, voluntary public compliance with public health recommendations may significantly influence the extent of resurgence in COVID-19 infection rates. Population-level risk from reopening may therefore be predicted from public intent to comply with public health recommendations. We are conducting a global, convergent design mixed-methods survey on public knowledge, perceptions, preferred health information sources, and understanding of and intent to comply with public health recommendations. With over 9,000 completed surveys from every US state and over 70 countries worldwide, to our knowledge this is the largest pandemic messaging study to date. Although the study is still ongoing, we have conducted an analysis of 5,005 US surveys completed from April 9-15, 2020 on public intent to comply with public health recommendations and offer insights on the COVID-19 pandemic-related risk of reopening. We found marked regional differences in intent to follow key public health recommendations. Regional efforts are urgently needed to influence public behavior changes to decrease the risk of reopening, particularly in higher-risk areas with low public intent to comply with preventive health recommendations. [HLRP: Health Literacy Research and Practice. 2020;4(3):e160–e165. ]
Effect of Spinosad Towards Insect Pests of Stored Products, Lasioderma serricorne F. and Tribolium confusum DuVal.

Lasioderma serricorne, is mainly a pest of tobacco, but could damage other stored products as well, and the flour beetle; Tribolium confusum, occurs generally in processed food grains between other commodities. Nine concentrations of spinosad, 50,100, 250, 400,550,700,850,1000 and 1200 ppm were used for bioassay. Concerning L.serricorne, LC50, was 609.34 mg(ai/L) after 24h and diminished to 272.5 mg(ai/L) after 72h of exposure and for T. confusum, LC50, was 343.05mg(ai/L) after 24 h and decreased to 182.92 mg(ai/L), after 72 h, of exposure.
Early Surgical Fixation for Hip Fractures in Patients Taking Direct Oral Anticoagulation: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Introduction: Currently, evidence-based guidelines regarding delay to theatre for urgent surgical intervention in patients taking direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) are lacking. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the effect of DOACs on patient outcomes receiving early (<48 hours) versus delayed (>48 hours) surgery for neck of femur fractures. Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted at a tertiary teaching hospital. Treatment groups were hip fracture patients taking DOACs on admission and receiving surgery in <48 hours (n = 17) and >48 hours (n = 11). A control cohort of hip fracture patients not taking DOACs (n = 56) was matched to the <48 hours treatment group for comparison. Patient demographics were recorded and key outcome measures included perioperative hemoglobin levels, transfusion rates, time to surgery, 90-day mortality, hematoma rates, and length of stay in hospital. Results: There was no significant difference in perioperative hemoglobin levels, transfusion rates, or hematoma between groups. Patients taking DOACs and receiving early surgery had significantly longer time to surgery compared to the non-DOAC control (32.21 ± 7.83 vs 25.98 ± 11.4, P = .01). No deaths were recorded in the early DOAC group at 90 days, compared to 4 (36%) in the late DOAC group (P = .04). Discussion and Conclusions: Our study suggests hip fracture patients taking DOACs on admission is not a reason to delay surgery. However, given the lack of literature in this area, further prospective research with larger patient numbers is required to definitively guide clinical practice.
Genomic data imputation with variational auto-encoders

Abstract Background As missing values are frequently present in genomic data, practical methods to handle missing data are necessary for downstream analyses that require complete data sets. State-of-the-art imputation techniques, including methods based on singular value decomposition and K-nearest neighbors, can be computationally expensive for large data sets and it is difficult to modify these algorithms to handle certain cases not missing at random. Results In this work, we use a deep-learning framework based on the variational auto-encoder (VAE) for genomic missing value imputation and demonstrate its effectiveness in transcriptome and methylome data analysis. We show that in the vast majority of our testing scenarios, VAE achieves similar or better performances than the most widely used imputation standards, while having a computational advantage at evaluation time. When dealing with data missing not at random (e.g., few values are missing), we develop simple yet effective methodologies to leverage the prior knowledge about missing data. Furthermore, we investigate the effect of varying latent space regularization strength in VAE on the imputation performances and, in this context, show why VAE has a better imputation capacity compared to a regular deterministic auto-encoder. Conclusions We describe a deep learning imputation framework for transcriptome and methylome data using a VAE and show that it can be a preferable alternative to traditional methods for data imputation, especially in the setting of large-scale data and certain missing-not-at-random scenarios.
Effect of CEACAM6 silencing on the biological behavior of human gallbladder cancer cells

Carcinoembryonic antigen-related cell adhesion molecule 6 (CEACAM6) is abnormally expressed in various malignant tumors and thus represents a potential biomarker, although information regarding its role in gallbladder cancer (GBC) is limited. This study aimed to evaluate the expression of CEACAM6 in GBC and the effect of CEACAM6 gene silencing on the proliferation, migration, invasion and apoptosis of human GBC cells. Immunochemistry was used to evaluate CEACAM6 expression in 95 GBC specimens and 40 peritumoral tissue specimens. GBC-SD and SGC-996 cell lines were used for in vitro experiments. CEACAM6 was knocked down by transfection of targeted small interfering RNA (siRNA), and reverse-transcription quantitative PCR and western blot analysis were used to detect knockdown efficiency. Cell Counting Kit-8 and colony formation assays were undertaken to evaluate cell proliferation. Variations in cell migration and invasion were detected by wound-healing and Transwell assays, respectively. Flow cytometry was applied to measure cell apoptosis and cell cycle distribution. CEACAM6 gene expression was significantly greater in GBC tissues than in peritumoral tissues, and its positive expression was associated with poor prognosis. CEACAM6 mRNA and protein expression in the CEACAM6 siRNA treatment group was significantly lower than that in the negative control group and the blank group. CEACAM6 knockdown inhibited GBC cell proliferation, migration and invasion but promoted cell apoptosis. Western blot analysis of invasion- and apoptosis-related proteins matrix metalloproteinase-2, Vimentin, BCL-2 and BAX further confirmed CEACAM6 mRNA depletion promoted cell apoptosis and inhibited invasion. Additionally, CEACAM6 mRNA depletion affected the progression of the GBC cell cycle to increase cell distribution in G0/G1 phase, and to reduce it in G2/M phase and S phase. These findings indicated that CEACAM6 overexpression may be related to the tumorigenesis and development of GBC. In summary, depletion of CEACAM6 mRNA suppressed the malignant biological behaviors of human gallbladder cancer cells.
Effect of repeated bouts versus a single bout of moderate‐intensity exercise on postexercise inhibitory control

We previously demonstrated that duration of aerobic exercise plays an important role in improving cognitive inhibitory control (IC). Repeated bouts of aerobic exercise (R‐EX), which are performed with a rest interval, is a useful strategy in improving physical health parameters in similar manners to a single bout of aerobic exercise (S‐EX). However, whether R‐EX would be effective in improving IC remains unknown. This study compared the effect of R‐EX versus S‐EX of moderate‐intensity exercise on postexercise IC. Twenty healthy, young males performed both R‐EX and S‐EX in a crossover design. R‐EX consisted of two 20‐min moderate‐intensity bouts (60% of peak oxygen consumption) for 20 min, which were separated by a 20‐min rest interval. S‐EX consisted of a once‐off 40‐min moderate‐intensity bout without rest interval. To evaluate IC, the color‐word Stroop task was administered before exercise, immediately after exercise, and every 10 min during the 30‐min postexercise recovery period. The reverse‐Stroop interference score, which is a parameter of IC, significantly decreased immediately after both R‐EX and S‐EX compared with that before each exercise (both Ps < 0.05). The degree of changes in IC following exercise did not differ between the two protocols. By contrast, the results of the present study showed that R‐EX may have more beneficial effects on cardiac and perceptual responses than S‐EX. Therefore, the present study determined that R‐EX changes postexercise IC similar to S‐EX. We suggest that R‐EX can be used as safe and effective exercise protocol to improve cognitive function in various populations.
Disparities in Adherence to COVID-19 Public Health Recommendations

As the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic continues, there has been much discussion about the need for, and the public’s adherence to, public health recommendations for minimizing spread of the infection. Although infectious disease experts recommend social distancing and wearing masks in public, many people do not wear masks and some politicians even want to ban mask requirements (Bogel-Burroughs & Robertson, 2020). Thus, it is timely that HLRP: Health Literacy Research and Practice contains reports of two national surveys about the public’s awareness of and intent to comply with those public health recommendations. The surveys used different methods, studied different populations, and have specific methodological limitations. Nonetheless, they have important findings—notably marked differences among respondents to the two surveys in their awareness of and intent to comply with those public health recommendations. One survey, by Lennon et al. (2020), collected data from more than 5,000 largely White respondents in communities across the United States and found that 86% to 90% of respondents most certainly intended to comply with recommendations about hand washing and social distancing. The other survey, by Block et al. (2020), was focused exclusively on African Americans and found that only 67% to 72% of respondents reported always following those recommendations. Readers could easily make the mistake of concluding that the differences in reported compliance with public health recommendations between the two studies are due to the racial/ethnic differences in the two surveyed populations, one largely White and the other exclusively African American. In reality, however, the different levels of compliance with public health recommendations are far more likely due to differences in education and income levels between the respondents in the two surveys. In the Lennon et al. (2020) study of largely White people, 81% of respondents had attained a college or graduate/professional degree. In the Block et al. (2020) study of African Americans, only 27% had attained a college or graduate/professional degree. A recent report from the Pew Research Center (2020) confirms that higher levels of education are associated with higher rates of compliance with public health recommendations among people of all racial/ethnic groups. In addition, their data show that overall, African American adults are more likely to wear masks than White respondents (Igielnik, 2020). Higher education levels are also strongly associated with higher income levels (Wolla & Sullivan, 2017), and income is another major factor in whether people comply
Predation in time and space: drilling in the gastropod Turritella

The intensity of drilling predation was studied on samples of fossil and Recent species of Turritella, a soft-bottom mesogastropod mollusc. Our data and records in the literature show that the frequency of drilling has remained about the same from the Eocene to the present. There may have been less predation by drilling during the Late Cretaceous. Among living Turritella, there is a sharp increase in intensity of drilling predation from the temperate zones to the tropics. This latitudinal trend is paralleled by an equatorward increase in number of species of drilling gastropods. Strong spiral ribs of some Eocene, Miocene, and Recent species of Turritella confer protection against drilling, but the mechanism of this immunity remains unclear.
Clinical observation of apatinib-related hypothyroidism in patients with advanced malignancies

Thyroid dysfunction has been previously reported during treatment with certain small-molecule multi-tyrosine kinase inhibitors, including sunitinib and sorafenib. Apatinib, which has a similar mechanism of action to these inhibitors, has reportedly induced hypothyroidism during treatment. Fully elucidating drug-associated adverse events could aid in patient monitoring and recommendations of suitable management strategies. The current 2-year observational study monitored patients with solid tumors who were prescribed apatinib. A total of 149 patients treated with apatinib from February 2015 to January 2016 were included. Their thyroid function and thyroid ultrastructure was evaluated for at least 24 months or until death. The primary objective of the current study was evaluating accepted thyroid replacement treatment. Secondary objective was ultrastructural changes in the thyroid gland. The current study was approved by the Medical Ethics Committee of Qianfoshan Hospital, affiliated with Shandong University and written informed consent was obtained from all patients prior to commencing the clinical trial. A total of 53 (35.57%) patients developed hypothyroidism, which varied from subclinical (12 cases; 8.05%) to clinical (41 cases; 27.52%). Thyroid nodules were noted in 15 cases (10.07%). Furthermore, 3 cases (2.01%) had thyroid imaging reporting and data system scores of 4a/4b/4c and 12 cases (8.05%) had scores of 1, 2 and 3. A total of 25 patients (16.78%) experienced 1-2 grade fatigue and 2 patients (1.34%) reported 3-4 grade fatigue. There was no reported association between disease control rate and hypothyroidism. Apatinib significantly increased the risk of clinically relevant hypothyroidism and altered thyroid gland structure.
The More-or-Less Morphing Face Illusion Revisited: Perceiving Natural Transient Changes in Faces Despite Fast Saccades

van Lier and Koning introduced the more-or-less morphing face illusion: The detection of changes in a constantly morphing face-sequence is strongly suppressed by fast eye saccades triggered by a moving fixation dot. Modulators of this intriguing effect were investigated with systematically varied facial stimuli (e.g., human faces from varying morphological groups, emotional states) and fixation location. Results replicated the overall pattern of moving fixations substantially reducing the sensitivity to detect transitions. Importantly, a deviation from real to perceived changes could only be detected when faces were altered in a way not happening in real world—by changing identity. When emotional states of faces were changed, people were capable of perceiving these changes: A situation very similar to everyday life where we might quickly inspect a face by executing fast eye saccades but where we are still aware of transient changes of the emotional state of the very same person.