Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Case study assessing the feasibility of using a wearable haptic device or humanoid robot to facilitate transitions in occupational therapy sessions for children with autism spectrum disorder

Introduction Some children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have difficulties with transitions that may lead to problem behaviours. Although the use of technologies with children with ASD is receiving increasing attention, no study has looked at their effect on transitions in activities of daily living. This study aimed to document the feasibility of (1) using two intervention technologies (NAO humanoid robot or wearable haptic device) separately to facilitate transitions in occupational therapy sessions for children with ASD and (2) the method used to document changes. Methods Using a single case reversal (ABA) design, two children with ASD were randomly assigned to one of the intervention technologies (humanoid robot or haptic bracelet). Each technology was used as an antecedent to stimulate the start of transitions in eight intervention sessions at a private occupational therapy clinic. Data concerning the time required for transitions, child’s behaviours during transitions at the clinic and mother’s perception of the child’s performance in transitions at home were analysed graphically. Results When using technology, both children’s behaviours were appropriate, quick and relatively stable. Also, both mothers reported improved perceptions of their child’s performance in transitions. Conclusions This exploratory study suggests no detrimental effect of using these technologies.
Prediction of carpal tunnel syndrome using the thenar muscle cross-sectional area by magnetic resonance imaging

Abstract Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is a common neuropathy. Although CTS progression is known to be associated with thenar muscle (TM) atrophy, the diagnostic value of TM atrophy for CTS has not been established. In this research, the thenar muscle cross-sectional area (TMCSA) was evaluated to analyze the relationship between the TMCSA and CTS. We assumed that TMCSA is a major diagnostic parameter in the CTS. Both TMCSA and thenar muscle thickness (TMT) samples were acquired from 18 CTS patients, and from 18 control subjects who underwent wrist magnetic resonance imaging with no evidence of CTS. T2-weighted transverse magnetic resonance imaging images were obtained. We measured the TMCSA and TMT at the level of first carpometacarpal joint. The average TMCSA was 296.98 ± 49.39 mm2 in the normal group and 203.36 ± 72.13 mm2 in the CTS group. The average TMT was 8.54 ± 1.45 mm in the normal group and 7.38 ± 1.14 mm in the CTS group. CTS group had significantly lower TMCSA and TMT. Receiver operator characteristics curve analysis showed that the best cutoff point for the TMCSA was 260.18 mm2, with 77.8% sensitivity, 77.8% specificity. The best cutoff point of the TMT was 7.70 mm, with 61.1% sensitivity, 66.7% specificity. Although the TMCSA and TMT were both significantly associated with CTS, the TMCSA was a much more sensitive measurement parameter. Thus, to evaluate CTS patients, the physician should more carefully inspect the TMCSA than TMT.
A study comparing depression, anxiety, and coping styles between high school students attending and not attending coaching class for medical entrance examination

BACKGROUND: Various kinds of stressors and psychological problems have been reported in the adolescent student population. This study assessed and compared depression, anxiety, and various coping styles among high school students attending coaching classes for medical entrance examination (MEE) and those not. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Systemic random sampling technique was used to recruit 400 high school students with equal number of those attending (Group 1) and those not attending any coaching class for MEE (Group 2). They underwent screening for depression and anxiety through Patient Health Questionnaire-9 and Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item. Coping styles were assessed through brief COPE inventory. Screening positive subjects were assessed in detail by a psychiatrist using ICD-10 (International Classification of Diseases 10th Revision), Diagnostic Criteria for Research (DCR). The severity of depression and anxiety was measured through HAM-D and HAM-A, respectively. RESULTS: Depression and anxiety were reported by higher proportion of Group 1 (36%) than Group 2 (22%), χ2(1) = 9.52; P = 0.002. In both the groups, depressive disorder was the most common, followed by generalised anxiety–disorder and mixed anxiety–depression. The severity of depression (HAM-D score) and anxiety (HAM-A Score) was significantly more Group 1. “Active coping” (χ2= 4.79 P = 0.02) and “Humor” (χ2= 30.90, P ≤ 0.01) were more commonly used by healthy students, while “Religious coping” (χ2= 37.92 P ≤ 0.01) were the most common among those diagnosed with depression/anxiety disorder. CONCLUSION: Higher prevalence of the psychological problems in adolescent school students preparing for MEE highlights the importance of aptitude assessment, career counseling, and school mental health program before their exposure to the competitive academic atmosphere.
Pain and physical activity changes during the COVID-19 state of emergency among Japanese adults aged 40 years or older

Abstract Understanding the relationship between pain and physical activity (PA) levels is beneficial for maintaining good health status. However, the impact of pain on changes in PA during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is unknown. The purpose of this study was to examine whether PA levels pre-, during, and post-COVID-19 state of emergency differ between Japanese adults who had pain after the COVID-19 state of emergency and those who did not. Data were collected from a cross-sectional online survey conducted between October 19 and 28, 2020. The analytic sample consisted of 1967 Japanese adults aged ≥40 years who completed the online survey. Participants completed questionnaires on the presence of pain and duration of PA, defined as the total PA time per week based on activity frequency and time. Participants were asked to report their PA at 3 time points: October 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic), April 2020 (during the COVID-19 state of emergency), and October 2020 (after the COVID-19 state of emergency). Among participants aged ≥60 years who reported pain in October 2020, the total PA time was significantly lower than participants who did not report having pain. Furthermore, the total PA time in April 2020 was significantly lower than that in October 2019; however, no significant difference in total PA time was observed between April and October 2020. Among participants aged 40 to 59 years, no significant differences were observed in total PA times at the 3 time points between those with and without pain. In addition, the total PA time in October 2020 significantly increased compared to that in April 2020, although it significantly decreased in April 2020 compared to October 2019. This study suggests that older adults with pain have lower PA levels after the COVID-19 state of emergency.
Is lifelong endurance training associated with maintaining levels of testosterone, interleukin-10, and body fat in middle-aged males?

Background: Aging is associated with a gradual physiological decline, including an imbalance in hormone profile, increased adiposity, and reduced anti-inflammatory cytokines. However, lifelong physical exercise mitigates aging, as observed in endurance-trained middle-aged athletes (EMA). Aim: We compared and associated testosterone, interleukin 10 (IL-10), and body fat in EMA and untrained age-matched individuals (UAM). Methods: Participants were EMA (n=25; 51.48±9.49 years) and UAM (n=23; 46.0±9.37 years). Both groups underwent body composition measurements (evaluated by a skinfold protocol) and blood sampling for IL-10 (assessed through ELISA® kit) and testosterone (assessed with Roche Diagnostics® kit, Mannheim, Germany, by chemiluminescence technique in a third-party laboratory). Results: EMA had lower body fat (14.15±3.82% vs. 23.42±4.95%; P<0.05), higher testosterone (751.68±191.45 ng/dL vs. 493.04±175.15 ng/dL; P<0.05), and higher IL-10 (8.00±1.21 pg/mL vs. 5.89±1.16 pg/mL; P<0.05) compared to UAM. A significant linear correlation was found between testosterone and IL-10 (r=0.56; P=0.001), whereas significant inverse correlations were observed between body fat and testosterone (r=–0.52; P=0.001) and body fat and IL-10 (r=–0.69; P=0.001). Conclusions: EMA had higher levels of IL-10 and testosterone and lower body fat in comparison with UAM. In addition, higher IL-10 was associated with increased levels of circulating testosterone and lower body fat. Relevance for Patients: The adoption of endurance training as part of a healthy lifestyle may contribute to decreasing age-related testosterone reduction, besides reducing markers of inflammaging, preventing the occurrence of chronic age-related diseases, and thus contributing to healthy aging. For people who already have chronic diseases, physical exercise can shift the immune system toward a more anti-inflammatory profile and, thus, improve their pathological condition. In both cases, physical exercise can help attenuate the decline in testosterone, decrease body fat, and increase anti-inflammatory levels.
Detection and characterization of COVID-19 findings in chest CT

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged institutions’ diagnostic processes worldwide. The aim of this study was to assess the feasibility of an artificial intelligence (AI)-based software tool that automatically evaluates chest computed tomography for findings of suspected COVID-19. Two groups were retrospectively evaluated for COVID-19-associated ground glass opacities of the lungs (group A: real-time polymerase chain reaction positive COVID patients, n = 108; group B: asymptomatic pre-operative group, n = 88). The performance of an AI-based software assessment tool for detection of COVID-associated abnormalities was compared with human evaluation based on COVID-19 reporting and data system (CO-RADS) scores performed by 3 readers. All evaluated variables of the AI-based assessment showed significant differences between the 2 groups (P < .01). The inter-reader reliability of CO-RADS scoring was 0.87. The CO-RADS scores were substantially higher in group A (mean 4.28) than group B (mean 1.50). The difference between CO-RADS scoring and AI assessment was statistically significant for all variables but showed good correlation with the clinical context of the CO-RADS score. AI allowed to predict COVID positive cases with an accuracy of 0.94. The evaluated AI-based algorithm detects COVID-19-associated findings with high sensitivity and may support radiologic workflows during the pandemic.
A multistage retrieval account of associative recognition ROC curves

Despite its name, associative recognition is a paradigm thought to rely on memory recall. However, it remains unclear how associative information may be represented and retrieved from memory and what its relationship to other information, such as item memory, is. Here, we propose a computational model of associative recognition, where relational information is accessed in a generic, multistage retrieval process. The model explains the relative difficulty of associative recognition compared with item recognition, the difference in experimental outcomes when different types of lures are used, as well as the conditions leading to the emergence of associative ROC curves with different shapes.
Accurate inference of gene regulatory interactions from spatial gene expression with deep contrastive learning

MOTIVATION Reverse engineering of gene regulatory networks (GRNs) has long been an attractive research topic in system biology. Computational prediction of gene regulatory interactions has remained a challenging problem due to the complexity of gene expression and scarce information resources. The high-throughput spatial gene expression data, like in situ hybridization images that exhibit temporal and spatial expression patterns, has provided abundant and reliable information for the inference of GRNs. However, computational tools for analyzing the spatial gene expression data are highly underdeveloped. RESULTS In this study, we develop a new method for identifying gene regulatory interactions from gene expression images, called ConGRI. The method is featured by a contrastive learning scheme and deep Siamese CNN architecture, which automatically learns high-level feature embeddings for the expression images and then feeds the embeddings to an artificial neural network to determine whether or not the interaction exists. We apply the method to a Drosophila embryogenesis dataset and identify GRNs of eye development and mesoderm development. Experimental results show that ConGRI outperforms previous traditional and deep learning methods by a large margin, which achieves accuracies of 76.7% and 68.7% for the GRNs of early eye development and mesoderm development, respectively. It also reveals some master regulators for Drosophila eye development. AVAILABILITY https://github.com/lugimzheng/ConGRI. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Demographic Risk Factors for Malnutrition in Patients With Cleft Lip and Palate

Patients with cleft lip and/or palate (CLP) are at increased risk of malnutrition. Acute and chronic malnutrition have been associated with elevated risk of postsurgical wound complications, adding morbidity and cost to patients and their families. To study the association between demographic factors, including insurance type, race, and median neighborhood income (MNI), and malnutrition in patients with CLP.
Protein Data Bank Japan: Celebrating our 20th anniversary during a global pandemic as the Asian hub of three dimensional macromolecular structural data

Protein Data Bank Japan (PDBj), a founding member of the worldwide Protein Data Bank (wwPDB) has accepted, processed and distributed experimentally determined biological macromolecular structures for 20 years. During that time, we have continuously made major improvements to our query search interface of PDBj Mine 2, the BMRBj web interface, and EM Navigator for PDB/BMRB/EMDB entries. PDBj also serves PDB‐related secondary database data, original web‐based modeling services such as Homology modeling of complex structure (HOMCOS), visualization services and utility tools, which we have continuously enhanced and expanded throughout the years. In addition, we have recently developed several unique archives, BSM‐Arc for computational structure models, and XRDa for raw X‐ray diffraction images, both of which promote open science in the structural biology community. During the COVID‐19 pandemic, PDBj has also started to provide feature pages for COVID‐19 related entries across all available archives at PDBj from raw experimental data and PDB structural data to computationally predicted models, while also providing COVID‐19 outreach content for high school students and teachers.
Nitric oxide (NO) synthase but not NO, HNO or H2O2 mediates endothelium‐dependent relaxation of resistance arteries from patients with cardiovascular disease

Superoxide anions can reduce the bioavailability and actions of endothelium‐derived NO. In human resistance‐sized arteries, endothelium‐dependent vasodilatation can be mediated by H2O2 instead of NO. Here, we tested the hypothesis that in resistance arteries from patients with cardiovascular disease, endothelium‐dependent vasodilatation is mediated by a reactive oxygen species and not impaired by oxidative stress.
Pyridoxal and α-Ketoglutarate Independently Improve Function of Saccharomyces cerevisiae Thi5 in the Metabolic Network of Salmonella enterica

Thiamine biosynthesis is a model metabolic node that has been used to extend our understanding of metabolic network structure and individual enzyme function. The requirements for in vivo function of the Thi5-dependent pathway found in Legionella and yeast are poorly characterized. ABSTRACT Microbial metabolism is often considered modular, but metabolic engineering studies have shown that transferring pathways, or modules, between organisms is not always straightforward. The Thi5-dependent pathway(s) for synthesis of the pyrimidine moiety of thiamine from Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Legionella pneumophila functioned differently when incorporated into the metabolic network of Salmonella enterica. Function of Thi5 from Saccharomyces cerevisiae (ScThi5) required modification of the underlying metabolic network, while LpThi5 functioned with the native network. Here we probe the metabolic requirements for heterologous function of ScThi5 and report strong genetic and physiological evidence for a connection between alpha-ketoglutarate (αKG) levels and ScThi5 function. The connection was built with two classes of genetic suppressors linked to metabolic flux or metabolite pool changes. Further, direct modulation of nitrogen assimilation through nutritional or genetic modification implicated αKG levels in Thi5 function. Exogenous pyridoxal similarly improved ScThi5 function in S. enterica. Finally, directly increasing αKG and PLP with supplementation improved function of both ScThi5 and relevant variants of Thi5 from Legionella pneumophila (LpThi5). The data herein suggest structural differences between ScThi5 and LpThi5 impact their level of function in vivo and implicate αKG in supporting function of the Thi5 pathway when placed in the heterologous metabolic network of S. enterica. IMPORTANCE Thiamine biosynthesis is a model metabolic node that has been used to extend our understanding of metabolic network structure and individual enzyme function. The requirements for in vivo function of the Thi5-dependent pathway found in Legionella and yeast are poorly characterized. Here we suggest that αKG modulates function of the Thi5 pathway in S. enterica and provide evidence that structural variation between ScThi5 and LpThi5 contributes to their functional differences in a Salmonella enterica host.
Infant study of hemispheric asymmetry after long‐gap esophageal atresia repair

Previous studies have demonstrated that infants are typically born with a left‐greater‐than‐right forebrain asymmetry that reverses throughout the first year of life. We hypothesized that critically ill term‐born and premature patients following surgical and critical care for long‐gap esophageal atresia (LGEA) would exhibit alteration in expected forebrain asymmetry.
Visualizing transfer of microbial biomolecules by outer membrane vesicles in microbe‐host‐communication in vivo

Abstract The intestinal microbiota influences mammalian host physiology in health and disease locally in the gut but also in organs devoid of direct contact with bacteria such as the liver and brain. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) or outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) released by microbes are increasingly recognized for their potential role as biological shuttle systems for inter‐kingdom communication. However, physiologically relevant evidence for the transfer of functional biomolecules from the intestinal microbiota to individual host cells by OMVs in vivo is scarce. By introducing Escherichia coli engineered to express Cre‐recombinase (E. coli Cre) into mice with a Rosa26.tdTomato‐reporter background, we leveraged the Cre‐LoxP system to report the transfer of bacterial OMVs to recipient cells in vivo. Colonizing the intestine of these mice with E. coli Cre, resulted in Cre‐recombinase induced fluorescent reporter gene‐expression in cells along the intestinal epithelium, including intestinal stem cells as well as mucosal immune cells such as macrophages. Furthermore, even far beyond the gut, bacterial‐derived Cre induced extended marker gene expression in a wide range of host tissues, including the heart, liver, kidney, spleen, and brain. Together, our findings provide a method and proof of principle that OMVs can serve as a biological shuttle system for the horizontal transfer of functional biomolecules between bacteria and mammalian host cells.
Analysis in silico of chemical reactivity employing the local hyper‐softness in some classic aromatic compounds, boron aromatic clusters and all‐metal aromatic clusters

In the current work, the authors analyzed and compared the chemical behavior of some (anti)aromatic compounds. The species selected are benzene and cyclobutadiene as the aromatic and antiaromatic classical examples, respectively. Next, the anion Al42− , which is the first all‐metal molecule catalogued as aromatic and its non‐metallic isoelectronic analog, B42− were also analyzed. The antiaromatic clusters Al44− and B44− were studied in form of lithium salts. And the end, the non‐planar B12 boron cluster and its isoelectronic analogs ( B11Be− and B11C+ ) were considered for being analyzed under the same criterium. The analysis was realized employing the following descriptors: molecular electrostatic potential and local hyper‐softness to get insights concerning local reactivity when facing reagents leading to ionic or covalent interactions. The results show that all the molecules analyzed presented some specific variations in their respective local reactivity despite being labeled as aromatic compounds. This analysis provides a notion that the local reactivity is more based on the nature of the atoms and the molecular geometry than the aromatic character by itself.
Driving through a pandemic: A study of speeding and phone use while driving during COVID-19 restrictions

Abstract Objective In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, restrictions were implemented, however, data indicates road crash rates have not decreased proportionately to the decline in traffic density. This study explored how speeding and phone use while driving (road behaviors associated with a high crash risk) changed as a result of COVID-19 restrictions in Queensland. Methods Two cross-sectional studies were conducted in Queensland, Australia to examine self-reported changes in speeding and phone use while driving before, during and after the easing of restrictions (while also considering exposure to the road and driving location). Study 1 (n = 351) was conducted between 12 May and 12 June 2020, when the majority of COVID-19 restrictions were enforced. Study 2 (n = 427) was conducted between 24 June and 12 August 2020, when restrictions were easing. Results The findings indicated, overall, self-reported speeding and phone use significantly decreased during restrictions (likely due to reduced travel), but not for those who continued to drive regularly. There was an additional, significant self-reported decrease in phone use while driving after restrictions were eased when compared to engagement during restrictions, which may (in part) be due to the simultaneous introduction of roadside mobile phone detection cameras. Conclusion These findings highlight the importance of visible deterrence and provide a glimpse of possible consequences if there is a more sustained reduction in policing presence on roads.