Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Catechin intake might explain the inverse relation between tea consumption and ischemic heart disease: the Zutphen Elderly Study.

BACKGROUND Epidemiologic studies suggest that tea consumption may reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases, but results are inconsistent. Catechins, which belong to the flavonoid family, are the main components of tea and may be responsible for the alleged protective effect. Taking catechin sources other than tea into account might clarify the reported associations. OBJECTIVE The objective was to evaluate the association between catechin intake and the incidence of and mortality from ischemic heart disease and stroke. DESIGN We evaluated the effect of a high catechin intake by using data from the Zutphen Elderly Study, a prospective cohort study of 806 men aged 65-84 y at baseline in 1985. RESULTS The mean (+/-SD) catechin intake at baseline was 72 +/- 47.8 mg, mainly from black tea, apples, and chocolate. A total of 90 deaths from ischemic heart disease were documented. Catechin intake was inversely associated with ischemic heart disease mortality; the multivariate-adjusted risk ratio in the highest tertile of intake was 0.49 (95% CI: 0.27, 0.88; P for trend: 0.017). After multivariate adjustment, catechin intake was not associated with the incidence of myocardial infarction (risk ratio in the highest tertile of intake: 0.70; 95% CI: 0.39, 1.26; P for trend: 0.232). After adjustment for tea consumption and flavonol intake, a 7.5-mg increase in catechin intake from sources other than tea was associated with a tendency for a 20% reduction in ischemic heart disease mortality risk (P = 0.114). There was no association between catechin intake and stroke incidence or mortality. CONCLUSION Catechins, whether from tea or other sources, may reduce the risk of ischemic heart disease mortality but not of stroke.
Clarification of the Innervation of the Bladder, External Urethral Sphincter and Clitoris: A Neuronal Tracing Study in Female Mongrel Hound Dogs

Many studies examining the innervation of genitourinary structures focus on either afferent or efferent inputs, or on only one structure of the system. We aimed to clarify innervation of the bladder, external urethral sphincter (EUS) and clitoris. Retrograde dyes were injected into each end organ in female dogs. Spinal cord, mid‐bladder, and spinal, caudal mesenteric, sympathetic trunk and pelvic plexus ganglia were examined for retrograde dye‐labeled neurons. Neurons retrogradely labeled from the bladder were found primarily in L7‐S2 spinal ganglia, spinal cord lateral zona intermedia at S1‐S3 levels, caudal mesenteric ganglia, T11‐L2 and L6‐S2 sympathetic trunk ganglia, and pelvic plexus ganglia. The mid‐bladder wall contained many intramural ganglia neurons labeled anterogradely from the pelvic nerve, and intramural ganglia retrogradely labeled from dye labeling sites surrounding ureteral orifices. Neurons retrogradely labeled from the clitoris were found only in L7 and S1 spinal ganglia, L7‐S3 spinal cord lateral zona intermedia, and S1 sympathetic trunk ganglia, and caudal mesenteric ganglia. Neurons retrogradely labeled from the EUS were found in primarily at S1 and S2 spinal ganglia, spinal cord lamina IX at S1‐S3, caudal mesenteric ganglia, and S1‐S2 sympathetic trunk ganglia. Thus, direct inputs from the spinal cord to each end organ were identified, as well as multisynaptic circuits involving several ganglia, including intramural ganglia in the bladder wall. Knowledge of this complex circuitry of afferent and efferent inputs to genitourinary structures is necessary to understand and treat genitourinary dysfunction. Anat Rec, 2018. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Genetic Variants in the Promoter Region of miR-10b and the Risk of Breast Cancer

Variants in microRNA genes may affect their expression by interfering with the microRNA maturation process and may substantially contribute to the risk of breast cancer. Recent studies have identified miR-10b as an interesting candidate because of its close association with the metastatic behavior of breast cancer. However, the roles of miR-10b-related single nucleotide polymorphisms in breast cancer susceptibility remain unclear. This case-control study evaluated the associations between variants in the upstream transcription regulation region of miR-10b and the risk of breast cancer among Chinese women. Seven potentially functional SNPs were investigated using genotyping assays. The potential biological functions of the identified positive SNPs were further evaluated using in silico databases. We found that rs4078756, which was located at the promoter region of miR-10b, was significantly associated with breast cancer risk (rs4078756 AG/GG versus AA, adjusted odds ratio: 1.17, 95% confidence interval: 1.02–1.35). The other six single nucleotide polymorphisms exhibited negative associations. Based on the in silico prediction, rs4078756 potentially regulated miR-10b expression through promoter activation or repression. These findings indicate that a potentially functional SNP (rs4078756) in the promoter region of miR-10b may contribute to breast cancer susceptibility among Chinese women.
Dietary glycemic load and risk of age-related cataract.

BACKGROUND Metabolism of many of the most commonly consumed carbohydrates in the United States results in a high plasma glucose response, which can be quantified by the glycemic load. Although hyperglycemia is a risk factor for cataract, there is no information on the potential effect of a high dietary glycemic load on the incidence of age-related cataract. OBJECTIVE Our objective was to prospectively examine the association between dietary glycemic load and incident age-related cataract. DESIGN We studied 2 cohorts-71 919 women and 39 926 men-aged > or =45 y who had no previous diagnosis of cataract, diabetes mellitus, or cancer and who were followed for 14 and 12 y, respectively, for the occurrence of cataract extraction. We calculated dietary glycemic load from data reported on multiple validated food-frequency questionnaires and used pooled logistic regression models to estimate the association with incident cataract extraction. We performed analyses separately for each cohort and then calculated pooled estimates across cohorts. RESULTS During 980 683 person-years of follow-up, we confirmed 4865 incident age-related cataract extractions. After adjustment for age, cigarette smoking, body mass index, total caloric intake, dietary intake of lutein and zeaxanthin, and alcohol consumption, there was no significant relation of dietary glycemic load to risk of cataract extraction (P for trend = 0.10). The pooled relative risk between the highest and lowest quintiles of dietary glycemic load was 0.95 (95% CI: 0.81, 1.11; P for heterogeneity by cohort = 0.1). CONCLUSION These prospective epidemiologic data do not support the hypothesis that a high dietary glycemic load, primarily a result of consumption of refined carbohydrates, increases the risk of cataract extraction.
Parallel fabrication of macroporous scaffolds

Scaffolds generated from naturally occurring and synthetic polymers have been investigated in several applications because of their biocompatibility and tunable chemo‐mechanical properties. Existing methods for generation of 3D polymeric scaffolds typically cannot be parallelized, suffer from low throughputs, and do not allow for quick and easy removal of the fragile structures that are formed. Current molds used in hydrogel and scaffold fabrication using solvent casting and porogen leaching are often single‐use and do not facilitate 3D scaffold formation in parallel. Here, we describe a simple device and related approaches for the parallel fabrication of macroporous scaffolds. This approach was employed for the generation of macroporous and non‐macroporous materials in parallel, in higher throughput and allowed for easy retrieval of these 3D scaffolds once formed. In addition, macroporous scaffolds with interconnected as well as non‐interconnected pores were generated, and the versatility of this approach was employed for the generation of 3D scaffolds from diverse materials including an aminoglycoside‐derived cationic hydrogel (“Amikagel”), poly(lactic‐co‐glycolic acid) or PLGA, and collagen. Macroporous scaffolds generated using the device were investigated for plasmid DNA binding and cell loading, indicating the use of this approach for developing materials for different applications in biotechnology. Our results demonstrate that the device‐based approach is a simple technology for generating scaffolds in parallel, which can enhance the toolbox of current fabrication techniques.
Navigating Interprofessional Spaces: Experiences of Clients Living with Parkinson’s Disease, Students and Clinical Educators

ABSTRACT When students in interprofessional education and practice programmes partner with clients living with a long-term condition, the potential for a better client and educational experience is enhanced when the focus is on client self-management and empowerment. This paper reports the findings from a phenomenological study into the experiences of five clients, six speech language therapy students, eight physiotherapy students, and two clinical educators participating in a university clinic-based interprofessional programme for clients living in the community with Parkinson’s Disease. Collaborative hermeneutic analysis was conducted to interpret the texts from client interviews and student and clinical educator focus groups held immediately after the programme. The overarching narratives emerging from the texts were: “client-centredness”; “who am I/why am I here? ”; “understanding interprofessional collaboration and development”; “personal and professional development, awareness of self and others”; “the environment - safety and support”. These narratives and the meanings within them were drawn together to develop a tentative metaphor-based framework of “navigating interprofessional spaces” showing how the narratives and meanings are connected. The framework identifies a temporal journey toward interprofessional collaboration impacted by diverse identities and understandings of self and others, varying expectations and interpretations of the programme, intra- and interpersonal, cultural and contextual spaces, and uncertainty. Shifts in being and doing and uncertainty appear to characterise client-driven, self-management focused interprofessional teamwork for all participants. These findings indicate that students need ongoing opportunities to share explicit understandings of interprofessional teamwork and dispel assumptions, since isolated interprofessional experiences may only begin to address these temporal processes.
Origin and characterization of alpha smooth muscle actin‐positive cells during murine lung development

ACTA2 expression identifies pulmonary airway and vascular smooth muscle cells (SMCs) as well as alveolar myofibroblasts (MYF). Mesenchymal progenitors expressing fibroblast growth factor 10 (Fgf10), Wilms tumor 1 (Wt1), or glioma‐associated oncogene 1 (Gli1) contribute to SMC formation from early stages of lung development. However, their respective contribution and specificity to the SMC and/or alveolar MYF lineages remain controversial. In addition, the contribution of mesenchymal cells undergoing active WNT signaling remains unknown. Using Fgf10CreERT2, Wt1CreERT2, Gli1CreERT2, and Axin2CreERT2 inducible driver lines in combination with a tdTomatoflox reporter line, the respective differentiation of each pool of labeled progenitor cells along the SMC and alveolar MYF lineages was quantified. The results revealed that while FGF10+ and WT1+ cells show a minor contribution to the SMC lineage, GLI1+ and AXIN2+ cells significantly contribute to both the SMC and alveolar MYF lineages, but with limited specificity. Lineage tracing using the Acta2‐CreERT2 transgenic line showed that ACTA2+ cells labeled at embryonic day (E)11.5 do not expand significantly to give rise to new SMCs at E18.5. However, ACTA2+ cells labeled at E15.5 give rise to the majority (85%–97%) of the SMCs in the lung at E18.5 as well as alveolar MYF progenitors in the lung parenchyma. Fluorescence‐activated cell sorting‐based isolation of different subpopulations of ACTA2+ lineage‐traced cells followed by gene arrays, identified transcriptomic signatures for alveolar MYF progenitors versus airway and vascular SMCs at E18.5. Our results establish a new transcriptional landscape for further experiments addressing the function of signaling pathways in the formation of different subpopulations of ACTA2+ cells. Stem Cells 2017;35:1566–1578
NANOG Reverses the Myogenic Differentiation Potential of Senescent Stem Cells by Restoring ACTIN Filamentous Organization and SRF‐Dependent Gene Expression

Cellular senescence as a result of organismal aging or progeroid diseases leads to stem cell pool exhaustion hindering tissue regeneration and contributing to the progression of age related disorders. Here we discovered that ectopic expression of the pluripotent factor NANOG in senescent or progeroid myogenic progenitors reversed cellular aging and restored completely the ability to generate contractile force. To elicit its effects, NANOG enabled reactivation of the ROCK and Transforming Growth Factor (TGF)‐β pathways—both of which were impaired in senescent cells—leading to ACTIN polymerization, MRTF‐A translocation into the nucleus and serum response factor (SRF)‐dependent myogenic gene expression. Collectively our data reveal that cellular senescence can be reversed and provide a novel strategy to regain the lost function of aged stem cells without reprogramming to the pluripotent state. Stem Cells 2017;35:207–221
Approaches to teach evidence-based practice among health professionals: an overview of the existing evidence

Health care professionals’ adoption of evidence-based practice (EBP) remains limited, although most health care professionals are familiar with EBP and believe in its value. This systematic review aimed to bring together the best methods used to teach EBP to health professionals. The authors conducted a systematic search for the period 2005–2015 (an update of the search took place in October 2016) using PubMed interface (Medline). MeSH terms as well as free-text keywords were used. Studies were analyzed and evaluated by title and abstract. Those studies which fulfilled the inclusion criteria were assessed by full text. References of articles were also taken into consideration for identifying relevant studies not found through algorithm search. Twenty articles were found to be relevant. The majority of the studies were conducted among nurses (n=7) and physicians (n=6), and only a few among professionals from mixed disciplines (n=5). Two studies were conducted among chiropractors (n=1) and faculty members from a naturopathic and classical Chinese medicine institution (n=1). Researchers used a variety of different approaches, which varied with respect to duration and organization. We divided interventions into two categories. Single interventions included either a workshop, or a journal club, or a conference, or a lecture, or online learning tools, whereas multiple interventions included a combination of these approaches. An increase in EBP competencies and attitudes was reported in nine studies. Teaching methods for optimizing EBP among health professionals could become a robust standardized procedure of the medical educational curricula and lifelong learning of health care professionals.
Testing the effects of pre-processing on voxel based morphometry analysis

Voxel based morphometry (VBM) is an automated analysis technique which allows voxel-wise comparison of mainly grey-matter volumes between two magnetic resonance images (MRI). Two main analysis processes in VBM are possible. One is cross-sectional data analysis, where one group is compared with another to depict see the regions in the brain, which show changes in their grey-matter volume. Second is longitudinal data analysis, where MRIs, taken at different time points, are compared to see the regions in the brain that show changes in their grey matter volume for one time point with respect to another time point. Both types of analyses require pre-processing steps before performing the statistical analysis. In this study, we examined grey matter differences for patients with blepharospasmus (BFS) before and after treatment, at two different time points. The main evidence base therapy for this condition is the “botulinum toxin” injection in the respective muscles. The main aim of this study was to look at the effects of different pre-processing steps, namely, normalization and smoothing on the results of the longitudinal data analysis. A second aim was to analyze structural grey-matter differences before and after the treatment. Our results showed that the DARTEL normalization and the lower width for smoothing as preprocessing steps delivered pathophysiological plausible results. The longitudinal analysis revealed significant temporal differences after the injection of the botulinum toxin injection mainly in patients with BFS.
Analyzing Environmental Continuous Improvement for Sustainable Supply Chain Management: Focusing on Its Performance and Information Disclosure

This study analyzes the relationship between the implementation and information disclosure of environmental continuous improvement (e-CI) in sustainable supply chain management. The analyzed data relates to e-CI delivered from 19 manufacturing industry types in Japan. A degenerated Charnes-Cooper-Rhodes model, a proposed model for data envelopment analysis, is also used for the analysis. The obtained result is a classification of types of manufacturing industries from the perspective of their capabilities in both e-CI implementation and information disclosure to systematically discover emphatic indicators of these two activities in each manufacturing industry type.
Design and fabrication a simple and fast mass production line of light extraction film

OLEDs(Organic Light Emitting Diodes) has been applied to lighting and display fields. OLEDs has many advantages such as no viewing angle and fast reaction rate and so on. However, OLEDs still has low brightening issue in lighting field. This research fabricates a simple and fast production line, to produce light extraction film of the OLED. Microparticles in light extraction film were provided to enhance light luminance efficiency of the OLED up to 90%. A simple and fast production line was designed and fabricated by mechanical processing mode. It can produce 20 pieces light extraction films within 1hour.
Experimental validation of anti-optimization approach for detecting delamination damage

Delaminations are known to cause changes in the response of laminated composites to vibratory excitations. The effect of the delamination on the response of the beam generally depends on the size and location of damage. The present study proposes a detection technique for delaminations in a laminated beam. The proposed technique optimizes the spatial distribution of harmonic excitation so as to magnify the difference in response between the delaminated and intact beams. This process is known as anti-optimization or contrast magnification. A finite element model for a delaminated composite, based on a layer-wise laminated plate theory, is used in conjunction with a step function of layer-wise displacements to simulate delaminations.The results of applying the anti-optimization method with this finite element model are used to analytically train a neural network for locating damage in a two-layer delaminated aluminum beam. The vibratory response of several beams was determined experimentally, and the neural network was applied to identify the location of the actual delaminations.
Ammonia emissions in the United States, European Union, and China derived by high‐resolution inversion of ammonium wet deposition data: Interpretation with a new agricultural emissions inventory (MASAGE_NH3)

We use the adjoint of a global 3‐D chemical transport model (GEOS‐Chem) to optimize ammonia (NH3) emissions in the U.S., European Union, and China by inversion of 2005–2008 network data for NH4+ wet deposition fluxes. Optimized emissions are derived on a 2° × 2.5° grid for individual months and years. Error characterization in the optimization includes model errors in precipitation. Annual optimized emissions are 2.8 Tg NH3−N a−1 for the contiguous U.S., 3.1 Tg NH3−N a−1 for the European Union, and 8.4 Tg NH3−N a−1 for China. Comparisons to previous inventories for the U.S. and European Union show consistency (∼±15%) in annual totals but some large spatial and seasonal differences. We develop a new global bottom‐up inventory of NH3 emissions (Magnitude And Seasonality of Agricultural Emissions model for NH3 (MASAGE_NH3)) to interpret the results of the adjoint optimization. MASAGE_NH3 provides information on the magnitude and seasonality of NH3 emissions from individual crop and livestock sources on a 0.5° × 0.5° grid. We find that U.S. emissions peak in the spring in the Midwest due to corn fertilization and in the summer elsewhere due to manure. The seasonality of European emissions is more homogeneous with a well‐defined maximum in spring associated with manure and mineral fertilizer application. There is some evidence for the effect of European regulations of NH3 emissions, notably a large fall decrease in northern Europe. Emissions in China peak in summer because of the summertime application of fertilizer for double cropping.
Psychometrics of the PTSD and Depression Screener for Bereaved Youth

ABSTRACT Interventions for bereaved children and families range from supportive counseling, designed to promote social connectedness and expression of feelings and thoughts about the deceased, to intensive trauma/grief-specific therapy, designed to ameliorate symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. That said, professionals have few brief assessment instruments to match response and functioning to appropriate interventions. To expedite the screening and referral process for bereaved families, Brown, Goodman, and Swiecicki (2008) developed the PTSD and Depression Screener for Bereaved Youth, a 19-item measure of bereavement-related history and symptoms of PTSD and depression. The current study is a psychometric evaluation of the Screener for Bereaved Youth. Data were collected from 284 bereaved children, 6–17 years of age (M = 12.4; SD = 2.9). A factor analysis revealed distinct subscales for PTSD (eight items) and depression (four items). The PTSD and depression subscales showed both concurrent and discriminant validity. Endorsement of four items on either subscale was associated with meeting full criteria on more extensive measures of PTSD and depression. These findings are discussed with specific consideration to the multiple systems in which the measure could be used and applications to clinical services.
Hierarchical Variational Autoencoders for Music

In this work we develop recurrent variational autoencoders (VAEs) trained to reproduce short musical sequences and demonstrate their use as a creative device both via random sampling and data interpolation. Furthermore, by using a novel hierarchical decoder, we show that we are able to model long sequences with musical structure for both individual instruments and a three-piece band (lead, bass, and drums). Finally, we demonstrate the effectiveness of scheduled sampling in significantly improving our reconstruction accuracy.