Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Functional Limitations and Physical Health in Community-Dwelling Medicare Advantage Beneficiaries: Variation by Race and Hispanic Subgroup

Objectives: The objective is to examine racial and ethnic heterogeneity in older adults’ functional limitations and physical health. Methods: Data were from 2011 to 2015 Health Outcomes Survey of Medicare Advantage beneficiaries 65 and older (N = 828,946). Outcomes were Physical Component Summary (PCS) scores and need for assistance with activities of daily living (ADLs). Six non-Hispanic racial groups and five Hispanic subgroups were analyzed. Regression models adjusted for sociodemographic and health characteristics. Results: White and Asian respondents had the lowest unadjusted ADL difficulty rates and highest PCS scores. In adjusted analyses, Cuban respondents had the highest PCS scores and lowest rates of any ADL difficulty; White respondents had the lowest rates of specific ADL difficulties. Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander and multiple Hispanic respondents had the highest ADL difficulty rates. Discussion: Both the healthiest and highest need subgroups of Medicare Advantage beneficiaries were Hispanic. Understanding racial and ethnic subgroup differences may help target interventions to prevent or aid with functional limitations.
Non-radial oscillations of the magnetized rotating stars with purely toroidal magnetic fields

We calculate non-axisymmetric oscillations of uniformly rotating polytropes magnetized with a purely toroidal magnetic field, taking account of the effects of the deformation due to the magnetic field. As for rotation, we consider only the effects of Coriolis force on the oscillation modes, ignoring those of the centrifugal force, that is, of the rotational deformation of the star. Since separation of variables is not possible for the oscillation of rotating magnetized stars, we employ finite series expansions for the perturbations using spherical harmonic functions. We calculate magnetically modified normal modes such as $g$-, $f$-, $p$-, $r$-, and inertial modes. In the lowest order, the frequency shifts produced by the magnetic field scale with the square of the characteristic Alfv\'en frequency. As a measure of the effects of the magnetic field, we calculate the proportionality constant for the frequency shifts for various oscillation modes. We find that the effects of the deformation are significant for high frequency modes such as $f$- and $p$-modes but unimportant for low frequency modes such as $g$-, $r$-, and inertial modes.
Comparing spatial conservation prioritization methods with site‐ versus spatial dependency‐based connectivity

Larval dispersal is an important component of marine reserve networks. Two conceptually different approaches to incorporate dispersal connectivity into spatial planning of these networks exist, and it is an open question as to when either is most appropriate. Candidate reserve sites can be selected individually based on local properties of connectivity or on a spatial dependency‐based approach of selecting clusters of strongly connected habitat patches. The first acts on individual sites, whereas the second acts on linked pairs of sites. We used a combination of larval dispersal simulations representing different seascapes and case studies of biophysical larval dispersal models in the Coral Triangle region and the province of Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia, to compare the performance of these 2 methods in the spatial planning software Marxan. We explored the reserve design performance implications of different dispersal distances and patterns based on the equilibrium settlement of larvae in protected and unprotected areas. We further assessed different assumptions about metapopulation contributions from unprotected areas, including the case of 100% depletion and more moderate scenarios. The spatial dependency method was suitable when dispersal was limited, a high proportion of the area of interest was substantially degraded, or the target amount of habitat protected was low. Conversely, when subpopulations were well connected, the 100% depletion was relaxed, or more habitat was protected, protecting individual sites with high scores in metrics of connectivity was a better strategy. Spatial dependency methods generally produced more spatially clustered solutions with more benefits inside than outside reserves compared with site‐based methods. Therefore, spatial dependency methods potentially provide better results for ecological persistence objectives over enhancing fisheries objectives, and vice versa. Different spatial prioritization methods of using connectivity are appropriate for different contexts, depending on dispersal characteristics, unprotected area contributions, habitat protection targets, and specific management objectives.
Prevalence of drug resistant HIV‐1 forms in patients without any history of antiretroviral therapy in the Republic of Guinea

To study the structure of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)‐1 drug resistance (DR) in patients with newly diagnosed infection. Residents of the Republic of Guinea (N = 2168) were tested for HIV using enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Individuals with a positive result were further examined for the presence of viral load in blood plasma. HIV was analyzed using Sanger sequencing. The obtained sequences were genotyped using REGA (version 3.0) and analyzed in MEGA 7. Analysis for the presence of DR mutations was performed using the Stanford University HIV DR Database. Serological markers of HIV were detected in 239 people, which represents 11.02% of the entire sample. HIV RNA was detected in 58 people. The following subtypes were seen: HIV CRF02_AG (41.9%); A1 (29.1%); A3 (12.9%); URF A1_G (12.9%); and G (3.2%). In 25% of patients, at least one significant mutation was encountered leading directly to HIV DR. The mutations encountered cause resistance to NRTI and NNRTI; one case of multiple resistance was identified. Major resistance to protease inhibitor was not seen. The detection of HIV‐1 mutations associated with DR, in individuals who have never received antiretroviral therapy, is a cause for concern. It suggests that: new infections are occurring with strains that already have resistance; and the expansion of resistance is not always directly associated with selective drug pressure. Among the likely reasons for the high prevalence of primary HIV DR in the Republic of Guinea, drug availability is probably the key. The consequence of this is the lack of adherence of patients to treatment, the formation and transmission of resistant variants of the virus in the population. These findings suggest the need to test patients for resistant virus variants before initiating treatment.
Diabetes and Obesity in Down Syndrome Across the Lifespan: A Retrospective Cohort Study Using U.K. Electronic Health Records

OBJECTIVE Down syndrome (DS) is the most common form of chromosomal trisomy. Genetic factors in DS may increase the risk for diabetes. This study aimed to determine whether DS is associated with an increased incidence of diabetes and the relationship with obesity across the life span compared with control patients. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS This matched population–based cohort study analyzed UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink data from 1990 to 2020. RESULTS A total of 9,917 patients with DS and 38,266 control patients were analyzed. Diabetes rates were higher in patients with DS (incidence rate ratio 3.67; 95% CI 2.43–5.55; P < 0.0001) and peaked at a younger age (median age at diagnosis 38 [interquartile range 28–49] years vs. 53 [43–61] years in control patients). Incidence rates (per 1,000 person-years) for type 1 diabetes mellitus were 0.44 (95% CI 0.31–0.61) in patients with DS vs. 0.13 (0.09–0.17) in control patients. Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) rates were higher in patients with DS versus control patients in age-groups from 5 years up to 34 years. In patients with DS, peak mean BMI was higher and at a younger age (males 31.2 kg/m2 at age 31 years; females 32.1 kg/m2 at 43 years) versus control patients (males 29.5 kg/m2 at 54 years; females 29.2 kg/m2 at 51 years). Obesity was associated with an increased incidence of T2DM. CONCLUSIONS At younger ages, the incidence of diabetes in patients with DS is up to four times that of control patients. Peak mean BMI is higher and established earlier in DS, contributing to T2DM risk. Further investigation into the relationship between obesity and diabetes in DS is required to inform treatment and prevention measures.
Evaluation of physiological stress in free‐ranging bears: current knowledge and future directions

Stress responses, which are mediated by the neurogenic system (NS) and hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis help vertebrates maintain physiological homeostasis. Fight‐or‐flight responses are activated by the NS, which releases norepinephrine/noradrenaline and epinephrine/adrenaline in response to immediate stressors, whilst the HPA axis releases glucocorticoid hormones (e.g. cortisol and corticosterone) to help mitigate allostatic load. There have been many studies on stress responses of captive animals, but they are not truly reflective of typical ranges or the types of stressors encountered by free‐ranging wildlife, such as responses and adaptation to environmental change, which are particularly important from a conservation perspective. As stress can influence the composition of age and sex classes of free‐ranging populations both directly and indirectly, ecological research must be prioritised towards more vulnerable taxa. Generally, large predators tend to be particularly at risk of anthropogenically driven population declines because they exhibit reduced behavioural plasticity required to adapt to changing landscapes and exist in reduced geographic ranges, have small population sizes, low fecundity rates, large spatial requirements and occupy high trophic positions. As a keystone species with a long history of coexistence with humans in highly anthropogenic landscapes, there has been growing concern about how humans influence bear behaviour and physiology, via numerous short‐ and long‐term stressors. In this review, we synthesise research on the stress response in free‐ranging bear populations and evaluate the effectiveness and limitations of current methodology in measuring stress in bears to identify the most effective metrics for future research. Particularly, we integrate research that utilised haematological variables, cardiac monitors and Global Positioning System (GPS) collars, serum/plasma and faecal glucocorticoid concentrations, hair cortisol levels, and morphological metrics (primarily skulls) to investigate the stress response in ursids in both short‐ and long‐term contexts. We found that in free‐ranging bears, food availability and consumption have the greatest influence on individual stress, with mixed responses to anthropogenic influences. Effects of sex and age on stress are also mixed, likely attributable to inconsistent methods. We recommend that methodology across all stress indicators used in free‐ranging bears should be standardised to improve interpretation of results and that a wider range of species should be incorporated in future studies.
Holographic interaction effects on transport in Dirac semimetals

Strongly interacting Dirac semimetals are investigated using a holographic model especially geared to compute the single-particle correlation function for this case, including both interaction effects and non-zero temperature. We calculate the (homogeneous) optical conductivity at zero chemical potential, and show that it scales as a power law either in frequency or in temperature for low frequency. The precise power is related to a critical exponent of the dual holographic theory, which is a parameter in the model. The behavior for Coulomb interactions is obtained as a special limiting case.
Energy balance‐related factors in childhood and adolescence and risk of colorectal cancer based on KRAS, PIK3CA, and BRAF mutations and MMR status

KRAS mutations (KRASmut), PIK3CAmut, BRAFmut, and deficient DNA mismatch repair (dMMR) have been associated with the Warburg effect. We previously reported differential associations between early‐life energy balance‐related factors (height, energy restriction, body mass index [BMI]) and colorectal cancer (CRC) subtypes based on the Warburg effect. We now investigated associations of early‐life energy balance‐related factors and the risk of CRC subgroups based on mutation and MMR status. Data from the Netherlands Cohort Study was used. KRASmut, PIK3CAmut, BRAFmut, and MMR status were available for 2349 CRC cases, and complete covariate data for 1934 cases and 3911 subcohort members. Multivariable‐adjusted Cox regression was used to estimate associations of height, energy restriction proxies (exposure to Dutch Hunger Winter, Second World War, Economic Depression), and early adult BMI (age 20 years) with risk of CRC based on individual molecular features and combinations thereof (all‐wild‐type+MMR‐proficient [pMMR]; any‐mutation/dMMR). Height was positively associated with any‐mutation/dMMR CRC but not all‐wild‐type+pMMR CRC, with the exception of rectal cancer in men, and with heterogeneity in associations observed for colon cancer in men (p‐heterogeneity = 0.049) and rectal cancer in women (p‐heterogeneity = 0.014). Results on early‐life energy restriction proxies in relation to the risk of CRC subgroups did not show clear patterns. Early adult BMI was positively, but not significantly, associated with KRASmut colon cancer in men and with BRAFmut and dMMR colon cancer in women. Our results suggest a role of KRASmut, PIK3CAmut, BRAFmut, and dMMR in the etiological pathway between height and CRC risk. KRASmut might potentially play a role in associations of early adult BMI with colon cancer risk in men, and BRAFmut and dMMR in women.
Children's gist-based false memory in working memory tasks.

False memories are well established episodic memory phenomena. Recent research in young adults has shown that semantically related associates can be falsely remembered as studied items in working memory (WM) tasks for lists of only a few items when a short 4-second interval was given between study and test. The present study reported two experiments yielding similar effects in 4- (n = 32 and 33, 18 and 14 females, respectively) and 8-year-old children (n = 33 and 34, respectively, 19 females in both). Short lists of semantically related items specifically tailored for young children were retained over a brief interval. Whether or not the interval was filled with a concurrent task that impeded or not WM maintenance, younger children were as prone to falsely recognize related distractors as their older counterparts in an immediate recognition test, and also in a delayed test. In addition, using the conjoint recognition model of the fuzzy-trace theory, we demonstrated that the retrieval of gist traces of the list themes was responsible for the occurrence of short-term false memories in 4- and 8-year-old children. Gist memory also underpinned the occurrence of false recognition in the delayed test. These findings suggest that young children are as likely to make gist-based false memories as older children in working memory tasks. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
Modulated preheating and isocurvature perturbations

We consider a model of preheating where the coupling of the inflaton to the preheat field is modulated by an additional scalar field which is light during inflation. We establish that such a model produces the observed curvature perturbation analogously to the modulated reheating scenario. The contribution of modulated preheating to the power spectrum and to non-Gaussianity can however be significantly larger compared to modulated perturbative reheating. We also consider the implications of the current constraints on isocurvature perturbations in case where the modulating field is responsible for cold dark matter. We find that existing bounds on CDM isocurvature perturbations imply that modulated preheating is unlikely to give a dominant contribution to the curvature perturbation and that the same bounds suggest important constraints on non-Gaussianity and the amount of primordial gravitational waves.
Low frequency gray-body factors and infrared divergences: Rigorous results

Formal solutions to the mode equations for both spherically symmetric black holes and Bose-Einstein condensate acoustic black holes are obtained by writing the spatial part of the mode equation as a linear Volterra integral equation of the second kind. The solutions work for a massless minimally coupled scalar field in the s-wave or zero angular momentum sector for a spherically symmetric black hole and in the longitudinal sector of a 1D Bose-Einstein condensate acoustic black hole. These solutions are used to obtain in a rigorous way analytic expressions for the scattering coefficients and gray-body factors in the zero frequency limit. They are also used to study the infrared behaviors of the symmetric two-point function and two functions derived from it: the point-split stress-energy tensor for the massless minimally coupled scalar field in Schwarzschild-de Sitter spacetime and the density-density correlation function for a Bose-Einstein condensate acoustic black hole.
Neighborhood disadvantage, race/ethnicity and neural sensitivity to social threat and reward among adolescents

Abstract Experiences within one’s social environment shape neural sensitivity to threatening and rewarding social cues. However, in racialized societies like the USA, youth from minoritized racial/ethnic backgrounds can have different experiences and perceptions within neighborhoods that share similar characteristics. The current study examined how neighborhood disadvantage intersects with racial/ethnic background in relation to neural sensitivity to social cues. A racially diverse (59 Hispanic/Latine, 48 White, 37 Black/African American, 15 multi-racial and 6 other) and primarily low to middle socioeconomic status sample of 165 adolescents (88 female; Mage = 12.89) completed a social incentive delay task while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanning. We tested for differences in the association between neighborhood disadvantage and neural responses to social threat and reward cues across racial/ethnic groups. For threat processing, compared to White youth, neighborhood disadvantage was related to greater neural activation in regions involved in salience detection (e.g. anterior cingulate cortex) for Black youth and regions involved in mentalizing (e.g. temporoparietal junction) for Latine youth. For reward processing, neighborhood disadvantage was related to greater brain activation in reward, salience and mentalizing regions for Black youth only. This study offers a novel exploration of diversity within adolescent neural development and important insights into our understanding of how social environments may ‘get under the skull’ differentially across racial/ethnic groups.
Gap junctions mediate discrete regulatory steps during fly spermatogenesis

Gametogenesis requires coordinated signaling between germ cells and somatic cells. We previously showed that Gap junction (GJ)-mediated soma-germline communication is essential for fly spermatogenesis. Specifically, the GJ protein Innexin4/Zero population growth (Zpg) is necessary for somatic and germline stem cell maintenance and differentiation. It remains unknown how GJ-mediated signals regulate spermatogenesis or whether the function of these signals is restricted to the earliest stages of spermatogenesis. Here we carried out comprehensive structure/function analysis of Zpg using insights obtained from the protein structure of innexins to design mutations aimed at selectively perturbing different regulatory regions as well as the channel pore of Zpg. We identify the roles of various regulatory sites in Zpg in the assembly and maintenance of GJs at the plasma membrane. Moreover, mutations designed to selectively disrupt, based on size and charge, the passage of cargos through the Zpg channel pore, blocked different stages of spermatogenesis. Mutations were identified that progressed through early germline and soma development, but exhibited defects in entry to meiosis or sperm individualisation, resulting in reduced fertility or sterility. Our work shows that specific signals that pass through GJs regulate the transition between different stages of gametogenesis.
Comparison of the Accuracy and Safety of TiRobot‐Assisted and Fluoroscopy‐Assisted Percutaneous Pedicle Screw Placement for the Treatment of Thoracolumbar Fractures

Studies have compared the safety and accuracy of robot‐assisted techniques for inserting conventional open pedicle screws for spinal surgery. However, no relevant studies have confirmed that robot‐assisted percutaneous screw placement is better than fluoroscopic percutaneous screw placement for the treatment of thoracolumbar fractures. This study compared the accuracy and safety of TiRobot‐assisted percutaneous pedicle screw placement with those of the fluoroscopy‐assisted percutaneous technique for the treatment of thoracolumbar fractures.
COVID‐19‐related discrimination, PTSD symptoms, and psychological distress in healthcare workers

ABSTRACT To date, little effort has been made to examine if frontline workers who deal with COVID‐19 patients are more likely to experience discrimination than second‐line workers. Also, little information has appeared on how COVID‐19‐related discrimination affects PTSD symptoms in healthcare workers. We aimed to examine the association between COVID‐19‐related discrimination and frontline worker status. We further aimed to examine how COVID‐19‐related discrimination was associated with PTSD symptoms and psychological distress. We studied 647 healthcare workers. For the association between COVID‐19‐related discrimination and frontline worker status, we conducted multivariable logistic regression adjusting for age, sex and living alone. For the association of COVID‐19‐related discrimination with PTSD symptoms and psychological distress, we performed multivariable regression using hierarchical adjustments for age, sex, living alone, alcohol consumption, exercise and frontline worker status. Bias‐corrected and accelerated bootstrap confidence intervals (CIs) were used. A total of 136 individuals worked on the frontline and the largest group were nurses (n = 81, 59.6%). Frontline workers had increased odds of COVID‐19‐related discrimination compared with second‐line workers (odds ratio = 2.60, 95% CI = 1.37–4.96). COVID‐19‐related discrimination was associated with PTSD symptoms and psychological distress even at the highest level of adjustment (β = 0.67, 95% CI = 0.10–1.23; β = 2.43, 95% CI = 0.91–3.95, respectively). Frontline workers are more likely to experience COVID‐19‐related discrimination than second‐line workers. Such discrimination may result in PTSD symptoms and psychological distress. Interventions to prevent COVID‐19‐related discrimination against healthcare workers, for example anti‐discrimination campaigns, are important.