Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
“I put diabetes on the shelf”: African-American Women’s Perceptions of Risk for Diabetes Complications

The purpose of this study was to describe the perceptions of African American (AA) women with Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) about developing diabetes mellitus (DM) complications and explore how their perceived risk influenced DM self-management. Ten (N = 10) AA women participated in the qualitative description study through semi-structured interviews. Thematic analysis informed by the Health Belief Model and Risk Perception Conceptual Model revealed the perceived probability of DM complications by AA women with T2DM and how they made judgments regarding the seriousness, extent, or severity of complications. Those with high levels of DM knowledge perceived themselves at high risk of developing DM complications and those with low DM knowledge perceived themselves at low risk of DM complications. Risk perceptions and health literacy also influenced DM self-management behaviors.
Prevalence, O-genotype and Shiga toxin (Stx) 2 subtype of Stx-producing Escherichia coli strains isolated from Argentinean beef cattle

The aims of this study were to investigate prevalence, O-genotype, and virulence gene profile including Shiga toxin (Stx) 2 gene-subtype of Stx-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) in beef cattle from the Bahía Blanca in Argentina. Rectal swabs were collected from 283 beef cattle in 2012. stx genes were detected in 90 (32%) out of the 283 rectal swabs by stx gene-specific PCR assay. The positive cases were 13 with stx1, 58 with stx2, and 19 with both stx1 and stx2. Among 90 stx gene-positive samples, 45 STEC strains were isolated, which included 3 stx1, 34 stx2, and eight stx1 and stx2 genes positive isolates. O-genotyping grouped 45 STEC strains into 19 different O-genotypes such as Og8, Og145, Og171, Og185 (4 from each), Og22, Og153, Og157 (3 from each) and others. Various stx2 gene-subtypes were identified in 42 STEC strains: 13 positive cases for stx2a, 11 for stx2c, 3 for stx2g, 10 for stx2a and stx2d, 4 for stx2a and stx2c, and 1 for stx2b, stx2c and stx2g. efaI gene, generally prevalent in clinical strains, was detected in relatively high in the STEC strains. These data suggest that stx2a and stx2c were distributed not only in O145 and O157 but also in minor O-genotypes of STEC in Argentina.
Superconductivity in Layered Organic Metals

In this short review, I will give an overview on the current understanding of the superconductivity in quasi-two-dimensional organic metals. Thereby, I will focus on charge-transfer salts based on bis(ethylenedithio)tetrathiafulvalene (BEDT-TTF or ET for short). In these materials, strong electronic correlations are clearly evident, resulting in unique phase diagrams. The layered crystallographic structure leads to highly anisotropic electronic as well as superconducting properties. The corresponding very high orbital critical field for in-plane magnetic-field alignment allows for the occurrence of the Fulde–Ferrell– Larkin–Ovchinnikov state as evidenced by thermodynamic measurements. The experimental picture on the nature of the superconducting state is still controversial with evidence both for unconventional as well as for BCS-like superconductivity.
Safety, effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness of Argus II in patients with retinitis pigmentosa: a systematic review.

AIM To assess the effectiveness, safety, and cost-effectiveness of the Argus II in treatment of the retinitis pigmentosa (RP) patients. METHODS The ProQuest, Web of Science, EMBASE, MEDLINE (via PubMed) were searched using combinations of the keywords of Argus, safety, effectiveness, bionic eye, retinal prosthesis, and RP through March 2018. The retrieved records were screened and then assessed for eligibility. RESULTS Totally 926 records were retrieved from the searched databases and finally 12 studies included. The RP patients showed improvements in visual function after receiving the prosthesis, compared to the time before the prosthesis or the time it was off. This was measured by square localization, direction of motion, and grating visual acuity tests. No major adverse effect was reported for the Argus II prosthesis itself and/or the surgery to implement it, but the most frequently reported items were hypotony, and conjunctival dehiscence. The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) was calculated to be €14603 per quality-adjusted life year (QALY) in UK and $207 616 per QALY in Canada. CONCLUSION The available evidence shows that the Argus II prosthesis in RP patients is effective in improvement of their visual function. Some minor adverse effects are reported for the prosthesis. The cost-effectiveness studies show that the technology is cost-effective only at high levels of willingness-to-pay.
Description of the chondrocranium of the silky shark Carcharhinus falciformis with comments on the cranial terminology and phylogenetic implications in carcharhinids (Chondrichthyes, Carcharhiniformes, Carcharhinidae)

The definition and scope of the genus Carcharhinus has undergone several changes over the years and recent molecular studies have questioned its monophyly by the inclusion of other carcharhinid genera. Although many descriptions of chondrocranium are available for Carcharhinus species, some inconsistences and divergences are found in the literature, mainly regarding the foramina of the orbital region. In this study, the chondrocranium of the silky shark, Carcharhinus falciformis, from specimens caught at the Brazilian coast and the terminology of its components is revised has been described. Chondrocrania of other Carcharhinus species and carcharhinid genera are also examined in order to investigate the phylogenetic significance of chondrocranial morphology. Three new anatomical terms and nine chondrocrania characters are proposed and described in detail. The chondrocranial morphology varies widely among Carcharhinus species mainly regarding the rostrum and nasal capsules. The chondrocrania of Prionace, Nasolamia, and Negaprion are similar to Carcharhinus species and reveal the need to further explore the relationships among these genera. Characters potentially informative for systematics are the shape of rostral node, the preorbital process, and the subethmoidal fossa, and the occurrence of an epiphyseal notch and foramen, and must be included in phylogenetic studies encompassing other carcharhiniforms.
Dietary patterns associated with obesity outcomes in adults: an umbrella review of systematic reviews

Abstract Objective: The aim of this umbrella review was to summarise the evidence from existing systematic reviews on the association between different dietary patterns (DP) and overweight or obesity outcomes in adults. Design: We followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines and searched the MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, Cochrane, Scopus, and Web of Science for systematic reviews reporting on DP and weight gain or overweight/obesity outcomes. Result: We identified 16 systematic reviews with 143 unique studies published between 2001 and 2019. Overall quality scores ranged from 4 to 10. Six reviews in 2/11 cohort and 6/19 cross-sectional studies reported (statistically significant) decreased OR for obesity (range: 0·53 to 0·73 and 0·35 to 0·88, respectively) associated with the Mediterranean diet. Five reviews in 5/15 cohort and 10/45 cross-sectional studies reported an inverse association between diet quality and weight gain or BMI (β range: –1·3 to –0·09). Two reviews in 1/3 cohort and 1/2 cross-sectional studies reported a decreased risk of obesity (OR = 0·76) and weight gain (OR = 0·26), respectively, with fruit and vegetable intake. Five reviews of mixed DP in 3/40 cross-sectional studies reported an increased prevalence of obesity (OR = 1·19) or abdominal obesity (OR range: 1·07 to 1·27) with the Korean diet pattern. Conclusions: Our umbrella review confirms the hypothesis that Mediterranean-type DP reduce the risk of obesity in adults. Although population-specific evidence of effective interventions is needed, characteristics of Mediterranean-type DP are important considerations for national obesity prevention strategies.
Defining Clinically Relevant Target Populations Using Real‐World Data to Guide the Design of Representative Antidiabetic Drug Trials

The US Food and Drug Administration is considering replacing cardiovascular outcome trials of antidiabetic drugs with trials that better represent patients with type 2 diabetes. However, designing such representative trials requires understanding the underlying target populations (i.e., populations intended to receive the drug in the real‐world setting). Thus, we used the Liraglutide Effect and Action in Diabetes: Evaluation of Cardiovascular Outcome Results (LEADER) trial as a motivating example to illustrate how different target populations impact trial representativeness. Using the United Kingdom Clinical Practice Research Datalink, we identified three target populations: (i) all patients with type 2 diabetes; (ii) patients prescribed liraglutide; and (iii) patients who would have been eligible to receive liraglutide based on treatment stage (i.e., patients with poorly controlled diabetes eligible to receive a second‐to‐fifth line antidiabetic drug). We then examined the representativeness of the LEADER trial by applying its eligibility criteria to each target population. The target populations of patients with type 2 diabetes (n = 279,763), those prescribed liraglutide (n = 14,421), and those eligible to receive liraglutide based on the treatment stage (n = 85,610) differed substantially in terms of hemoglobin A1c, body mass index, prevalence of heart failure, and chronic kidney disease. Applying the LEADER trial eligibility criteria to these target populations resulted in the inclusion of 19.1%, 20.7%, and 34.8% patients, respectively. This study highlights how real‐world data can be used to define different target populations. Explicitly defining these target populations can help in the design of future trials of antidiabetic drugs.
Political Ideology and Moral Dilemma Judgments: An Analysis Using the CNI Model

Many real-world dilemmas involve disagreement about whether decisions should follow moral norms in an unconditional manner (deontology) or be based on the consequences for the greater good (utilitarianism). To examine how political ideology may account for some of these disagreements, the current research used a formal modeling approach to investigate the associations between political ideology and (a) sensitivity to consequences, (b) sensitivity to moral norms, and (c) general preference for inaction versus action in responses to moral dilemmas. Across three studies (N = 996) with samples from the United States (Studies 1 and 3) and the United Kingdom (Study 2), conservatives were less influenced by overall consequences for the greater good in comparison with liberals. Political ideology was not significantly associated with sensitivity to moral norms and general action tendencies. The findings provide more nuanced insights into how political ideology may contribute to disagreements on real-world moral dilemmas.
FcγRIIB is a T cell checkpoint in antitumor immunity

In the setting of cancer, T cells upregulate coinhibitory molecules that attenuate TCR signaling and lead to the loss of proliferative capacity and effector function. Checkpoint inhibitors currently in clinical use have dramatically improved mortality from melanoma yet are not effective in all patients, suggesting that additional pathways may contribute to suppression of tumor-specific CD8+ T cell responses in melanoma. Here, we show that FcγRIIB, an inhibitory Fc receptor previously thought to be exclusively expressed on B cells and innate immune cells, is upregulated on tumor-infiltrating effector CD8+ T cells in an experimental melanoma model and expressed on CD8+ T cells in patients with melanoma. Genetic deficiency of Fcgr2b resulted in enhanced tumor-infiltrating CD8+ T cell responses and significantly reduced tumor burden. Adoptive transfer experiments of Fcgr2b–/– tumor antigen-specific T cells into FcγRIIB-sufficient hosts resulted in an increased frequency of tumor-infiltrating CD8+ T cells with greater effector function. Finally, FcγRIIB was expressed on CD8+ memory T cells isolated from patients with melanoma. These data illuminate a cell-intrinsic role for the FcγRIIB checkpoint in suppressing tumor-infiltrating CD8+ T cells.
Spectroscopic Investigation of Increased Fluorescent Intensity of Fluorescent Dyes When Adsorbed onto Polystyrene Microparticles

Microplastics as environmental pollutants are increasingly a source of alarm. The characterization of microplastics will be necessary to discriminate microplastics from other types of particles. To discriminate specific microplastics, plastic-adsorbable fluorescent dyes are used, the stained microplastics are separated from the dye-microplastic mixture by filtration, and the type of fluorescent staining of the microplastics is analyzed by fluorescent microscopy. In this study, to realize the in situ analysis of fluorescent staining, i.e. , to discriminate microplastics without any separation or filtration processes, we studied the change in the fluorescent properties after adsorption of the fluorescent dyes to the microplastic particle surfaces using a 3D excitation emission matrix fluorescence spectroscopy (the excitation wavelength-dependent emission spectrum). We used three fluorescent dyes: Fluorescein, Rhodamine 6G, and Methylene Blue, and polystyrene microparticles as our model microplastic. Fluorescein and Methylene Blue showed increases in the fluorescent intensity, while Rhodamine 6G showed negligible intensity changes. This is likely due to the degree of affinity of the dyes to the polystyrene particle surface, the structural stability of the dyes on the surface, and the changes in the environment around the dyes after the adsorption of each dye to the surface. We conclude that we have demonstrated the potential to look for appropriate fluorescent dyes using the method studied here to identify and estimate individual plastic materials.
Evaluation of machine learning approaches for cell-type identification from single-cell transcriptomics data.

Single-cell transcriptomics is rapidly advancing our understanding of the cellular composition of complex tissues and organisms. A major limitation in most analysis pipelines is the reliance on manual annotations to determine cell identities, which is time-consuming, irreproducible and sometimes lack canonical markers for certain cell types. There is a growing realization of the potential of machine learning models as a supervised classification approach that can significantly aid decision-making processes for cell-type identification. In this work, we performed a comprehensive and impartial evaluation of 10 machine learning models that automatically assign cell phenotypes. The performance of classification methods is estimated by using 20 publicly accessible single-cell RNA sequencing datasets with different sizes, technologies, species and levels of complexity. The performance of each model for within dataset (intra-dataset) and across datasets (inter-dataset) experiments based on the classification accuracy and computation time are both evaluated. Besides, the sensitivity to the number of input features, different annotation levels and dataset complexity was also been estimated. Results showed that most classifiers perform well on a variety of datasets with decreased accuracy for complex datasets, while the Linear Support Vector Machine (linear-SVM) and Logistic Regression classifier models have the best overall performance with remarkably fast computation time. Our work provides a guideline for researchers to select and apply suitable machine learning-based classification models in their analysis workflows and sheds some light on the potential direction of future improvement on automated cell phenotype classification tools based on the single-cell sequencing data.
Mode of bond failure between 3D-printed denture teeth and printed resin base material; effect of fabrication technique and dynamic loading. An in-vitro study.

PURPOSE To evaluate the failure load of 3D-printed denture resin material and teeth before and after dynamic loading. MATERIALS AND METHODS A total of 40 specimens were fabricated following ISO/TS 19736 and were divided into two equal groups. In the test group, the cylindrical base and denture teeth were 3D printed separately and then luted together. In the control group, the specimens were fabricated from conventional heat-cured polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) and commercially available denture teeth using the compression-molding technique. Ten specimens from each group were subjected to dynamic load of 50 N for 250,000 cycles in a chewing simulator. All specimens were subjected to static load of 50 N using Instron machine with a crosshead speed of 1 mm/minute until fracture. The fractured surfaces were analyzed using field emission scanning electron microscopy. The failure loads were calculated and compared using analysis of variance (P < .05). RESULTS All specimens survived the loading, undergoing 250,000 cycles without fracture. The mean failure load was influenced by fabrication technique and was significantly higher for the 3D-printed test group (P = .028). 3D-printed teeth showed a mixed mode of fracture, whereas in the control group, the specimens showed cohesive fracture within the teeth. CONCLUSION The fabrication technique has an influence on the mode of failure between acrylic teeth and resin base material. Cohesive failure in teeth was predominant in the conventional group, suggesting possibly higher bond strength between the teeth and resin base in this group. The observed failure modes reveal that both fabrication techniques exhibited satisfactory bond strength. Chewing simulation did not significantly influence the bond strength of any of the tested groups.
Forced convection boundary layer slip flow over a permeable plate in a Darcy-Forchheimer porous medium

The problem of steady forced convection boundary layer flow and heat transfer of an incompressible fluid past a permeable plate embedded in a Darcy-Forchheimer porous medium is studied. Velocity and thermal slips are considered instead of no-slip conditions at the boundary. The governing partial differential equations are converted into ordinary differential equations by similarity transformation, which are then solved numerically using the shooting method. The important features of the flow and heat transfer characteristics for different values of porous permeability, suction or injection and slip parameters are analyzed and discussed. The results for the skin friction coefficient, the local Nusselt number, the velocity profile as well as the temperature profile are presented for different values of the governing parameters.
A Theory-Based mHealth Intervention (Getting Off) for Methamphetamine-Using Men Who Have Sex With Men: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial

Background Methamphetamine (meth) use among men who have sex with men (MSM) is associated with increased HIV prevalence and transmission and substandard advancement along the HIV prevention and care continuum. Given the growth of mobile health (mHealth) technologies, it is no longer necessary to limit meth treatment options to physical, brick-and-mortar sites, and administration using generic, nontailored content. Objective In a 2-arm randomized controlled trial (RCT; N=300), we aim to evaluate the use of an mHealth intervention (Getting Off) to assess the impact and noninferiority of a cross-platform app (developed from a manualized meth treatment intervention) to help MSM reduce meth use and HIV sexual risk behaviors and improve their advancement along the HIV prevention and care continuum (HIV testing, pre-exposure prophylaxis uptake and persistence, and antiretroviral therapy uptake and adherence). Methods Participants will be randomized into 2 arms: arm A, with immediate access to the app (immediate delivery: n=150), or arm B, with delayed access to the app after a 30-day period (delayed delivery: n=150). Participants in both arms will use the same Getting Off app and will have 30 days to complete the 24 sessions. Participants will be assessed at the 1-, 2- (delayed delivery arm only), 3-, 6-, and 9-month timepoints to determine observed treatment effects and will be compared with a historical matched sample of participants (n=~600) who received the brick-and-mortar group-based Getting Off intervention. Results Recruitment began in January 2019 for phase 1, the formative phase. In January and February 2019, 4 focus groups (N=36) were formed to provide input on the adaptation of the group-based manual intervention to a mobile app. Data collection for phase 2, the RCT, is expected to be completed in January 2023. The final results are anticipated in April 2023. Conclusions By creating a culturally responsive mobile app, Getting Off aims to reduce meth use and improve sexual health outcomes among meth-using MSM. The Getting Off app could have significant public health impact by greatly expanding access to effective, affordable, private, culturally competent, and highly scalable meth treatment for MSM. Trial Registration Clinicaltrials.gov NCT03884946; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03884946 International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID) DERR1-10.2196/22572
Adhesion of Resin Cement to Zirconia Using Argon Plasma and Primer.

PURPOSE To evaluate the effectiveness of nonthermal atmospheric plasma (NTAP) and priming on the shear bond strength (SBS) of a resin cement to two zirconia ceramics after 24 hours and 1 year of water storage. MATERIALS AND METHODS A total of 120 plates (9 x 7 x 2 mm) were obtained from two types of zirconia (Katana, Kuraray Noritake; and ZirCAD, Ivoclar Vivadent) plates randomly divided into 12 groups (n = 10 each). Zirconia ceramic plates were submitted to the following treatments: (1) untreated (control); (2) treated with ZPrime Plus (Bisco Dental) primer; (3) NTAP (Surface Plasma Tool Model SAP, Surface Engineering and Plasma Solution) application for 10 seconds; (4) NTAP for 30 seconds; (5) NTAP for 10 seconds followed by priming; and (6) NTAP for 30 seconds followed by priming. Two silicone molds (2.37-mm diameter x 2-mm height) were positioned on the treated surface of each zirconia plate, and the resin cement (Panavia F 2.0, Kuraray Noritake) was manipulated and inserted into the molds. After light activation, two resin cement cylinders (specimens) were obtained from each plate. One specimen was tested after 24 hours, and the other after 1 year. The shear load was applied to the base of the resin cement cylinders until failure. Data were analyzed using three-way ANOVA and post hoc Tukey test (α = .05). RESULTS NTAP application alone (groups 3 and 4) increased SBS compared to the control group only at 24 hours. After 1 year, the NTAP/primer combination showed higher SBS than the other groups. Water storage for 1 year reduced the bond strength for all groups. CONCLUSION NTAP, combined or not combined with primer, had a beneficial effect on adhesion after 24 hours and after 1 year. Water storage negatively influenced the adhesion in all groups.