Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Micronutrient Deficiencies in Children With Inflammatory Bowel Diseases.

BACKGROUND Children with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs) are at risk of developing nutrition deficiencies, particularly because of reduced intake, restrictive diets, malabsorption, and excessive nutrient loss. In this study, we aimed to assess the status of trace elements, minerals, and vitamins in a large cohort of children with IBDs. METHODS Medical records of children diagnosed with IBDs during 2000-2016 were reviewed retrospectively. Retrieved data included demographics, disease characteristics, disease activity indices, anthropometric measures, and specific trace elements, minerals, and vitamins at diagnosis and during follow-up. RESULTS Out of 359 children with IBD (158 [44%] females, median age at diagnosis 14.1 years, interquartile range [IQR] 12.0-16.0), 240 (67%) were diagnosed with Crohn's disease (CD) and 119 (33%) with ulcerative colitis (UC). Median follow-up time was 7 years (IQR 5-10). The prevalence of deficiencies in patients with CD at diagnosis and last follow-up, respectively, were iron (88% and 39.5%), zinc (53% and 11.5%), vitamin D (39% and 36%), and folic acid (10% and 13%). In patients with UC, frequencies were: iron (77% and 40%), vitamin D (49% and 33%), zinc (31% and 10%), and folic acid (3.8% and 9.7%). Magnesium and vitamin B12 deficiencies were rare. For both diseases, iron deficiency was associated with hypoalbuminemia. Deficiencies in iron and zinc were more common in patients with CD than those with UC. CONCLUSIONS Deficiencies in iron, zinc, and vitamin D are common at pediatric IBD diagnosis with limited improvement during follow-up, whereas deficiencies in magnesium and vitamin B12 are rare.
Fostering the physician–scientist workforce: a prospective cohort study to investigate the effect of undergraduate medical students’ motivation for research on actual research involvement

Objectives The medical field is facing a physician–scientist shortage. Medical schools could contribute to developing physician–scientists by stimulating student involvement in research. Studies have examined motivation for research as a key parameter of success. However, previous studies did not investigate if students act on their self-reported motivation. The aim of this study is to examine if motivation for research of medical students is related to actual research involvement. Furthermore, this study distinguishes intrinsic (IM) and extrinsic motivation (EM) for research and aims to investigate if a type of motivation matters in the relation between research motivation and involvement. Design and setting Prospective cohort study in which students were surveyed at the start of medical school and reported IM and EM for research, self-efficacy, perceptions of research and curiosity on a 7-point Likert scale. One year later, students involved in research were identified. Logistic regression was used to examine influences of IM and EM on research involvement. Participants All undergraduate medical students starting at one medical school in the Netherlands in 2016. In total, 315 out of 316 students participated (99.7%), of whom 55 became involved in research (17.5%). Main outcome measure Research involvement, which was operationalised as the enrolment of students in the research-based honours programme or the involvement of students in voluntary research activities outside of the regular curriculum. Results Students with higher levels of IM were more often involved in research (OR 3.4; 95% CI 2.08 to 5.61), also after adjusting for gender, age, extracurricular high school activities, self-efficacy, perceptions and curiosity (OR 2.5; 95% CI 1.35 to 4.78). Higher levels of EM increased the odds of research involvement (OR 1.4; 95% CI 0.96 to 2.11). However, the effect of EM disappeared after adjusting for the above-mentioned factors (OR 1.05; 95% CI 0.67 to 1.63). Furthermore, the effect of IM remained after adjusting for EM, whereas the effect of EM disappeared after adjusting for IM. Conclusions Our findings suggest that the type of motivation matters and IM influences research involvement. Therefore, IM could be targeted to stimulate research involvement and could be seen as the first step towards success in fostering the physician–scientist workforce.
KCC2 ANTAGONISM INCREASES NEURONAL NETWORK EXCITABILITY BUT DISRUPTS ICTOGENESIS IN VITRO.

The potassium-chloride cotransporter 2 (KCC2) plays a role in epileptiform synchronization, but it remains unclear how it does influence such process. Here, we employed tetrode recordings in the in vitro rat entorhinal cortex (EC), to analyze the effects of the KCC2 antagonist VU0463271 on 4-amino-pyridine (4AP)-induced ictal and interictal activity. During 4AP application, ictal events were associated with significant increases in interneurons and principal cells activities. VU0463271 application transformed ictal discharges to shorter ictal-like events that were not accompanied by significant increases in interneuron or principal cell firing. Interictal events persisted during VU0463271 application at an accelerated frequency of occurrence with significant increases in interneuron and principal cell activity. Further analysis revealed that interneuron and principal cell firing rate during 4AP-induced interictal events were increased after VU0463271 application without changes in synchronicity. Overall, our results demonstrate that in the EC, KCC2 antagonism enhances both interneuron and principal cell excitability while paradoxically decreasing the ability of neuronal networks to generate structured ictal events.
Low Complexity Automatic Modulation Classification Based on Order-Statistics

In this paper, we propose three automatic modulation classification classifiers based on order-statistics and reduced order-statistics, where the order-statistics are the random variables sorted by ascending order and the reduced order-statistics represent a subset of the original order-statistics. Specifically, the linear support vector machine classifier applies the linear combination of the order-statistics of the received signals, while the approximate maximum likelihood and the backpropagation neural networks (BPNNs) classifier resort to the reduced order-statistics to decrease the computational complexity. Moreover, BPNN is applicable for modulation classification both in known and unknown channel scenarios. It is shown that in the known channel scenario, the proposed classifiers provide a good tradeoff between performance and computational complexity, while in the unknown channel scenario, the proposed BPNN classifier outperforms the expectation maximization classifier in terms of both classification performance and computational complexity. Simulations results are provided to evaluate the proposed classifiers.
Detecting amplicons of loop‐mediated isothermal amplification

Loop‐mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) assays are used to detect diverse pathogens. Initially, LAMP amplicons were detected using electrophoresis; later, real‐time monitoring based on turbidity was developed to overcome the problem of contamination with environmental DNA. Recently, real‐time monitoring of fluorescence signals using a quenching primer and probe has improved the reliability of amplification signals. Here, methods of detecting LAMP amplicons are reviewed.
Acanthopanax senticosus Induces Vasorelaxation via Endothelial Nitric Oxide-Dependent and -Independent Pathways

Abstract Although Acanthopanax senticosus root extract (ASRE), a functional food used in Japan, improves peripheral blood circulation and exerts vasorelaxant effects in rats under healthy conditions, the underlying mechanisms currently remain unclear. Therefore, we investigated the mechanisms responsible for ASRE-induced relaxation in isolated thoracic aortas using organ bath techniques and examined whether ASRE affects systemic and peripheral circulation using a photoplethysmographic tail-cuff system and noncontact laser tissue blood flow meter in Wistar rats. Similar to acetylcholine (ACh), ASRE induced dose-dependent relaxation in aortas pre-contracted with phenylephrine; however, in contrast to ACh, ASRE-induced relaxation was partially inhibited by treatments with antagonists of nitric oxide (NO) synthase and soluble guanylyl cyclase as well as by endothelium removal. Contractile responses to phenylephrine or potassium chloride were observed in the presence of ASRE. The oral administration of ASRE (900 mg/kg/d for 1 wk) decreased systolic blood pressure in rats 3 h after the treatment and did not affect heart rate, tail blood flow, mass, or velocity; this decreasing effect was not observed on day 2. A 1-wk treatment with ASRE did not affect vasorelaxation in response to ASRE. These results demonstrate that ASRE induces vasorelaxation via endothelial NO production and an NO-independent pathway in rats. Based on these findings, positive impacts of ASRE on blood pressure and peripheral blood circulation cannot be expected under healthy conditions as the systemic effects of ASRE are temporary. Instead, caution is needed to prevent the occurrence of side effects (i.e., orthostatic dizziness) at the beginning of ASRE dosing.
Treatment with EPs 7630, a Pelargonium Sidoides Root Extract, Is Effective and Safe in Patients with the Common Cold: Results From a Randomized, Double Blind, Placebo-Controlled Clinical Trial.

Background EPs 7630 was shown to be effective and safe in the treatment of acute respiratory tract infections such as acute bronchitis, acute rhinosinusitis, and acute tonsillopharyngitis. A clinical trial was conducted to investigate its efficacy and safety in the common cold. Methods In this multicenter, randomized, double-blind phase 3 clinical trial, 105 adults suffering from common cold symptoms were randomized to a thrice-daily administration of either 1 film-coated tablet containing 40 mg EPs 7630 or matched placebo for a treatment period of 10 days. The primary outcome measure was the sum of differences in the cold intensity score (CIS) from day 1 to day 5, defined as the Sum of the Symptom Intensity Differences (SSID), indicating the degree of symptom improvement in the course of 5 days of treatment. Among the secondary outcomes were clinical cure defined as (a) complete resolution of all cold symptoms (CIS = 0 points) or (b) complete resolution of all or all but one cold symptom, treatment outcome, satisfaction with treatment, and safety parameters. Results On day 5, the mean (±SD) SSID was significantly higher in the EPs 7630 group compared with the placebo group (12.5 ± 4.4 points versus 8.8 ± 6.8 points). Moreover, 55% of patients in the EPs 7630 group rated the treatment outcome as at least "major improvement" compared with 15% of patients in the placebo group. On day 10, 45% of patients of the EPs 7630 group and 12% of patients of the placebo group had reached 0 points on the CIS (=clinical cure, definition a), whereas all or all but one symptom (clinical cure, definition b) had completely resolved in 74% (EPs 7630) and 25% of patients (placebo), respectively. Satisfaction with treatment was higher in the EPs 7630 than in the placebo group (75% vs 37%) (P values ≤ .0002). During the clinical trial, adverse events occurred in 5 patients (9.4%) in the EPs 7630 and in 7 (13.5%) in the placebo group. All adverse events were of mild intensity, with the exception of 3 events in the placebo group, which were classified as moderate. Conclusions Treatment with EPs 7630 was shown to be superior to placebo in patients with the common cold indicating faster reduction of symptom intensity and distinctly more pronounced effects achieved by administration of the investigational drug in patients suffering from the common cold. Results extend previous findings on efficacy, safety, and tolerability of this active substance.
Characteristics of prosthetic vision in rats with subretinal flat and pillar electrode arrays

Objective. Retinal prostheses aim to restore sight by electrically stimulating the surviving retinal neurons. In clinical trials of the current retinal implants, prosthetic visual acuity does not exceed 20/550. However, to provide meaningful restoration of central vision in patients blinded by age-related macular degeneration (AMD), prosthetic acuity should be at least 20/200, necessitating a pixel pitch of about 50 µm or lower. With such small pixels, stimulation thresholds are high due to limited penetration of electric field into tissue. Here, we address this challenge with our latest photovoltaic arrays and evaluate their performance in vivo. Approach. We fabricated photovoltaic arrays with 55 and 40 µm pixels (a) in flat geometry, and (b) with active electrodes on 10 µm tall pillars. The arrays were implanted subretinally into rats with degenerate retina. Stimulation thresholds and grating acuity were evaluated using measurements of the visually evoked potentials (VEP). Main results. With 55 µm pixels, we measured grating acuity of 48 ± 11 µm, which matches the linear pixel pitch of the hexagonal array. This geometrically corresponds to a visual acuity of 20/192 in a human eye, matching the threshold of legal blindness in the US (20/200). With pillar electrodes, the irradiance threshold was nearly halved, and duration threshold reduced by more than three-fold, compared to flat pixels. With 40 µm pixels, VEP was too low for reliable measurements of the grating acuity, even with pillar electrodes. Significance. While being helpful for treating a complete loss of sight, current prosthetic technologies are insufficient for addressing the leading cause of untreatable visual impairment—AMD. Subretinal photovoltaic arrays may provide sufficient visual acuity for restoration of central vision in patients blinded by AMD.
Local administration with silymarin could increase osseointegration of hydroxyapatite-coated titanium implants in ovariectomized rats

As hydroxyapatite has good osteoconductive properties, it is used as coating material for the implants in cementless arthroplasty. However, its effect is not sufficient for osteoporotic bone. Silymarin promotes osteoblast proliferation and inhibits osteoclast proliferation, and positively affects bone regeneration. System administration of silymarin increases bone strength and both cancellous and cortical bone mass. The aim of this study was to confirm the effect of the local incorporation silymarin into hydroxyapatite-coated titanium implants in the osteoporotic and normal condition. Twelve-week-old female Sprague-Dawley rats were used for this study. Twelve weeks after bilateral ovariectomy, all animals were randomly divided into three groups: group sham, group ovariectomized and group silymarin, and the rats from ovariectomized and sham received hydroxyapatite implants and animals belong to group silymarin received silymarin-hydroxyapatite implants until death at 12 weeks, respectively. The bilateral femurs of rats were harvested for evaluation. All treatments increased new bone formation around the surface of titanium rods and push-out force other than group ovariectomized. Compared with group ovariectomized, group silymarin showed the strongest effects on new bone formation, biomechanical strength and regulation of osteogenesis and bone resorption-related gene expression, respectively. Additionally, these are significant difference in bone formation, gene expression and push-out force was observed among treatment groups. This finding suggests that local incorporation of silymarin is useful to improve the fixation of hydroxyapatite-coated implants in ovariectomized rats.
Adverse Childhood Experiences of Urban and Rural Preschool Children in Poverty

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have long-term health consequences. Young children in the southern part of the United States (US) are at greater risk than children in other parts of the US. This study assessed preschool children ACEs using a family-friendly tool, the Family Map (FMI), and compared children living in rural/urban areas while examining the potential moderation of race. The FMI–ACE score was examined as a total and two sub-scores. We found that race did not moderate the FMI–ACE score but that Black children (Cohen’s d = 0.52) and children in urban and large rural areas were at highest risk (Cohen’s d = 0.38). However, the subscale FMI–ACEs parenting risk was moderated by race such as that Black children were less at risk in rural areas than urban (Cohen’s d = 0.62). For FMI–ACEs environmental risk, race moderated risk such that Black children were most at risk in large rural areas but less so in small rural areas (Cohen’s d = 0.21). Hispanic children were most at risk in small rural areas and least in large rural environments. Findings from this study suggest that targeting the most at-risk children for interventions should consider the context including race and location.
First-in-Human Randomized Study to Assess the Safety and Immunogenicity of an Investigational Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) Vaccine Based on Chimpanzee-Adenovirus-155 Viral Vector–Expressing RSV Fusion, Nucleocapsid, and Antitermination Viral Proteins in Healthy Adults

Abstract Background Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) disease is a major cause of infant morbidity and mortality. This Phase I, randomized, observer-blind, placebo- and active-controlled study evaluated an investigational vaccine against RSV (ChAd155-RSV) using the viral vector chimpanzee-adenovirus-155, encoding RSV fusion (F), nucleocapsid, and transcription antitermination proteins. Methods Healthy 18–45-year-old adults received ChAd155-RSV, a placebo, or an active control (Bexsero) at Days (D) 0 and 30. An escalation from a low dose (5 × 109 viral particles) to a high dose (5 × 1010 viral particles) occurred after the first 16 participants. Endpoints were solicited/unsolicited and serious adverse events (SAEs), biochemical/hematological parameters, cell-mediated immunogenicity by enzyme-linked immunospot, functional neutralizing antibodies, anti RSV-F immunoglobin (Ig) G, and ChAd155 neutralizing antibodies. Results There were 7 participants who received the ChAd155-RSV low dose, 31 who received the ChAd155-RSV high dose, 19 who received the placebo, and 15 who received the active control. No dose-related toxicity or attributable SAEs at the 1-year follow-up were observed. The RSV-A neutralizing antibodies geometric mean titer ratios (post/pre-immunization) following a high dose were 2.6 (D30) and 2.3 (D60). The ratio of the fold-rise (D0 to D30) in anti-F IgG over the fold-rise in RSV-A–neutralizing antibodies was 1.01. At D7 after the high dose of the study vaccine, the median frequencies of circulating B-cells secreting anti-F antibodies were 133.3/106 (IgG) and 16.7/106 (IgA) in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). The median frequency of RSV-F–specific interferon γ–secreting T-cells after a ChAd155-RSV high dose was 108.3/106 PBMCs at D30, with no increase after the second dose. Conclusions In adults previously naturally exposed to RSV, ChAd155-RSV generated increases in specific humoral and cellular immune responses without raising significant safety concerns. Clinical Trials Registration NCT02491463.
Research on personalized recommendation algorithm for user's multiple interests

Personalized recommendation for E-commerce has become increasingly important for customer relationship management, and the collaborative filtering algorithm is the most widely used method in personalized recommendation. But typical collaborative filtering algorithm is not suitable for user's multiple interest recommendation. A new algorithm which applied user-based collaborative filtering method based on similar item-set of target item by combing user-based collaborative filtering and project-based collaborative filtering was presented. The experiment conducted by applying EachMovie dataset indicated that new algorithm was more accurate, especially in the situation when users had many completely different interests.
A Proposed Grayscale Face Image Colorization System using Particle Swarm Optimization

The proposed work is a novel grayscale face image colorization approach using a reference color face image. It takes a reference color image which presumably contains semantically similar color information for the query grayscale image and colorizes the grayscale face image with the help of the reference image. In this novel patch based colorization, the system searches a suitable patch on reference color image for each patch of grayscale image to colorize. Exhaustive patch search in reference color image takes much time resulting slow colorization process applicable for real time applications. So PSO is used to reduce the patch searching time for faster colorization process applicable in real time applications. The proposed method is successfully applied on 150 male and female face images of FRAV2D database. "Colorization Turing test" was conducted asking human subject to choose the imageclose to the original color image between colorized image using proposed algorithm and recent methods and in most of the cases colorized images using the proposed method got selected.
The associations among sociocultural factors and neuropsychological functioning in older American Indians: The Strong Heart Study.

OBJECTIVE Valid neuropsychological assessment is critical to the accurate diagnosis and effective treatment of diverse populations. American Indians and Alaska Natives experience substantial health disparities relative to the general U.S. POPULATION Given the dearth of studies on neuropsychological health in this population, we aimed to characterize neuropsychological performance among older American Indians with respect to age, sex, education, income, and language use. METHOD From 2010 to 2014, we recruited 818 American Indians aged 60 and older from the Cerebrovascular Disease and Its Consequences in American Indians Study, who comprised all of the surviving members of a cardiovascular study (Strong Heart Study). This cohort from 11 tribes resided on or near their home reservations in three geographic regions (Northern Plains, Southern Plains, and Southwest). Using a cross-sectional design investigating potential vascular brain injury, we administered a brief, targeted neuropsychological and motor function assessments. RESULTS Higher scores on neuropsychological tests were associated with younger age, female sex, more education, higher income, and less Native American language use. Similar associations were found for the motor tests, although men had higher scores on both motor function tests. After accounting for other sociocultural and health factors, age, sex, education, income, and Native American language use all had significant associations to the test scores. CONCLUSIONS Our findings may be used to guide research and inform clinical practice. The development of future normative studies for older American Indians will be more culturally appropriate when sociocultural factors are included. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).