Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Immigrant–Native Differences in Sugar-Sweetened Beverage and Snack Consumption and Preventive Behaviors Associated with Severe Early Childhood Caries: A Large-Scale Survey in Taiwan

This study assessed the differences between immigrants and natives in terms of combined effects of sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) or snack consumption and preventive behaviors for severe early childhood caries (SECC) through a large-scale survey of 31,565 native and 1046 immigrant child–parent pairs in Taiwan. Children aged 3–5 years underwent dental examinations, and parents completed structured questionnaires. Immigrants had a significantly higher SECC prevalence than native children (32.3% vs. 19.4%). A combined effect of SECC was observed in native children who did not receive assistance when brushing teeth at night before sleep and those who consumed SSBs more than four times weekly (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 4.8). Moreover, native children who did not use dental floss and who consumed snacks more than four times weekly had an aOR of 4.1 for SECC. The combined effects of children with immigrant parents who did not receive assistance when brushing their teeth at night before sleep and those who consumed snacks more than four times weekly had an aOR of 8.2 for SECC. The results suggest the necessity of cross-cultural caries prevention programs for immigrants. Parents must limit children’s SSB and snack intake, and implement preventive measures to reduce SECC development.
Cribsheet: A Data‐Driven Guide to Better, More Relaxed Parenting, from Birth to Preschool by EmilyOster (Penguin Press, New York, 2019), pp. 352

To help the new parent navigate the overwhelming amount of often conflicting advice on sleep techniques, Oster undertakes a literature review of the various techniques. An important topic that Oster takes some time to delve into is sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). (p. 115) From that starting point, Oster carefully walks the reader through the evolution of evidence that underpins current recommendations for avoiding SIDS. Oster tackles spurious correlations head on, as economists often do. [Extracted from the article]
Duration of Symptom Relief and Early Trajectory of Adverse Events for Oral Nonsteroidal Antiinflammatory Drugs in Knee Osteoarthritis: A Systematic Review and Meta‐Analysis

Despite an extensive body of research on nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) in osteoarthritis, the duration of their efficacy and timeline of adverse event (AE) onset have been understudied. We conducted a systematic review and meta‐analyses from 2 to 26 weeks to characterize the efficacy and AE trajectories of oral NSAIDs in knee osteoarthritis.
Legal Exclusion, Civic Exclusion: How Legal Status Stratifies Latino Immigrants’ Civic Engagement

Unlike many other sociopolitical activities in the United States, civic engagement is not restricted by legal status and is often the initial and primary form of political action available to immigrants. Few studies, however, have disaggregated the impact of legal status on immigrants’ civic participation, despite civic engagement’s significance for immigrant incorporation and despite growing evidence of the stratifying effects of legal categories. Using Wave 1 of the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey, I nuance theories of legal status stratification by showing where legal status matters for Latino immigrants’ civic engagement and where it does not. Undocumented immigrants, I show, are significantly less likely to participate in general civic organizations, such as community and ethnic organizations, relative to documented immigrants. Likewise, undocumented mothers with undocumented children are less likely to volunteer in schools or participate in parent-teacher associations, compared to both documented mothers and undocumented mothers with documented children. By contrast, legal status does not stratify membership in religious institutions. Moreover, I theorize that undocumented immigrants’ lower levels of general civic engagement are partially mediated by access to US education, a significant site for immigrants’ civic development. This article informs understandings of legal status stratification and immigrant social incorporation.
Anticipated HIV stigma and delays in HIV testing among Brazilian heterosexual male soldiers

ABSTRACT Anticipated HIV stigma refers to expectations held by individuals regarding social rejection, prejudice, and discrimination if they were ever to be infected by HIV. Much of the prior work on the impact of this anticipated stigma on HIV testing focus on men who have sex with men and transgender women populations, suggesting that higher levels of anticipated stigma contributes to delays in HIV testing. The same association is insufficiently explored in heterosexual men. Thus, the objective of this cross-sectional study is to investigate the association between anticipated HIV stigma and HIV testing in a mainly self-identified as heterosexual (n = 97.4%) sample of 434 Brazilian male soldiers. In this sample, 84.3% of the study participants had never been tested for HIV. Those with higher anticipated HIV stigma were more likely to delay HIV testing. These data suggest that campaigns and actions should target heterosexual men young population, not only sexual and gender minorities. Future research and interventions are warranted to guarantee environments with less stigma and to develop HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention among heterosexual men.
Deep Learning-Based Approach to Fast Power Allocation in SISO SWIPT Systems with a Power-Splitting Scheme

Recently, simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) systems, which can supply efficiently throughput and energy, have emerged as a potential research area in fifth-generation (5G) system. In this paper, we study SWIPT with multi-user, single-input single-output (SISO) system. First, we solve the transmit power optimization problem, which provides the optimal strategy for getting minimum power while satisfying sufficient signal-to-noise ratio (SINR) and harvested energy requirements to ensure receiver circuits work in SWIPT systems where receivers are equipped with a power-splitting structure. Although optimization algorithms are able to achieve relatively high performance, they often entail a significant number of iterations, which raises many issues in computation costs and time for real-time applications. Therefore, we aim at providing a deep learning-based approach, which is a promising solution to address this challenging issue. Deep learning architectures used in this paper include a type of Deep Neural Network (DNN): the Feed-Forward Neural Network (FFNN) and three types of Recurrent Neural Network (RNN): the Layer Recurrent Network (LRN), the Nonlinear AutoRegressive network with eXogenous inputs (NARX), and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM). Through simulations, we show that the deep learning approaches can approximate a complex optimization algorithm that optimizes transmit power in SWIPT systems with much less computation time.
Leveraging Coupled Interaction for Multimodal Alzheimer’s Disease Diagnosis

As the population becomes older worldwide, accurate computer-aided diagnosis for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in the early stage has been regarded as a crucial step for neurodegeneration care in recent years. Since it extracts the low-level features from the neuroimaging data, previous methods regarded this computer-aided diagnosis as a classification problem that ignored latent featurewise relation. However, it is known that multiple brain regions in the human brain are anatomically and functionally interlinked according to the current neuroscience perspective. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that the extracted features from different brain regions are related to each other to some extent. Also, the complementary information between different neuroimaging modalities could benefit multimodal fusion. To this end, we consider leveraging the coupled interactions in the feature level and modality level for diagnosis in this paper. First, we propose capturing the feature-level coupled interaction using a coupled feature representation. Then, to model the modality-level coupled interaction, we present two novel methods: 1) the coupled boosting (CB) that models the correlation of pairwise coupled-diversity on both inconsistently and incorrectly classified samples between different modalities and 2) the coupled metric ensemble (CME) that learns an informative feature projection from different modalities by integrating the intrarelation and interrelation of training samples. We systematically evaluated our methods with the AD neuroimaging initiative data set. By comparison with the baseline learning-based methods and the state-of-the-art methods that are specially developed for AD/MCI (mild cognitive impairment) diagnosis, our methods achieved the best performance with accuracy of 95.0% and 80.7% (CB), 94.9% and 79.9% (CME) for AD/NC (normal control), and MCI/NC identification, respectively.
Optimizing the Use of Zebrafish Feeding Trials for the Safety Evaluation of Genetically Modified Crops

In Europe, the toxicological safety of genetically modified (GM) crops is routinely evaluated using rodent feeding trials, originally designed for testing oral toxicity of chemical compounds. We aimed to develop and optimize methods for advancing the use of zebrafish feeding trials for the safety evaluation of GM crops, using maize as a case study. In a first step, we evaluated the effect of different maize substitution levels. Our results demonstrate the need for preliminary testing to assess potential feed component-related effects on the overall nutritional balance. Next, since a potential effect of a GM crop should ideally be interpreted relative to the natural response variation (i.e., the range of biological values that is considered normal for a particular endpoint) in order to assess the toxicological relevance, we established natural response variation datasets for various zebrafish endpoints. We applied equivalence testing to calculate threshold equivalence limits (ELs) based on the natural response variation as a method for quantifying the range within which a GM crop and its control are considered equivalent. Finally, our results illustrate that the use of commercial control diets (CCDs) and null segregant (NS) controls (helpful for assessing potential effects of the transformation process) would be valuable additions to GM safety assessment strategies.
CCL22 controls immunity by promoting regulatory T cell communication with dendritic cells in lymph nodes

Chemokines have crucial roles in organ development and orchestration of leukocyte migration. The chemokine CCL22 is expressed constitutively at high levels in the lymph node, but the functional significance of this expression is so far unknown. Studying a newly established CCL22-deficient mouse, we demonstrate that CCL22 expression by dendritic cells (DCs) promotes the formation of cell–cell contacts and interaction with regulatory T cells (T reg) through their CCR4 receptor. Vaccination of CCL22-deficient mice led to excessive T cell responses that were also observed when wild-type mice were vaccinated using CCL22-deficient DCs. Tumor-bearing mice with CCL22 deficiency showed prolonged survival upon vaccination, and further, CCL22-deficient mice had increased susceptibility to inflammatory disease. In conclusion, we identify the CCL22–CCR4 axis as an immune checkpoint that is crucial for the control of T cell immunity.
Survival outcomes associated with different sunitinib dosing regimens in metastatic renal cell carcinoma

Background Standard dosing regimen of sunitinib for metastatic renal cell carcinoma consists of four weeks treatment followed by two weeks rest (intermittent dosing). Alternative regimens have been suggested, including continuous daily dosing (continuous dosing) and non-conventional dosing (non-conventional dosing: e.g. two weeks on/one week off, non-conventional dosing), to provide more individualized therapy with less toxicities. It is unclear whether non-standard sunitinib dosing affects survival outcomes. Patients Metastatic renal cell carcinoma patients treated with sunitinib between 1 July 2007 and 1 July 2011 at our institution. Methods Medical records and dispensing data were reviewed retrospectively to categorize sunitinib dosing as intermittent dosing, continuous dosing, or non-conventional dosing. Primary outcome was to compare overall survival associated with varying regimens, with secondary outcomes of progression-free survival and incidence of treatment discontinuation due to adverse effects. Results A total of 180 patients were identified. Most patients received intermittent dosing (n = 120, 67%), followed by continuous dosing (n = 32, 18%) and non-conventional dosing (n = 28, 16%). Compared to intermittent dosing, continuous dosing was associated with similar overall survival (median 9 vs. 13 months, HR 0.67, 95% CI: 0.43–1.06, p = 0.088) while non-conventional dosing was associated with significantly longer overall survival (median 9 vs. 23 months, HR 0.55, 95% CI: 0.34–0.90, p = 0.016). Progression-free survival was significantly better for continuous dosing (median 4 vs. 9 months, HR 0.61, 95% CI: 0.40–0.94, p = 0.025) and non-conventional dosing (median 4 vs. 10 months, HR 0.61, 95% CI: 0.39–0.95, p = 0.03) when compared to intermittent dosing. Similar to prior sunitinib trials, a significant proportion of patients (20%) discontinued sunitinib therapy due to adverse effects. Conclusions Based on retrospective, real-world data, alternative sunitinib dosing regimens appear to be viable options for patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma.
A One-Pot Ultrasound-Assisted Almond Skin Separation/Polyphenols Extraction and its Effects on Structure, Polyphenols, Lipids, and Proteins Quality

Almond skin is an important by-product in the almond processing industry, rich in potentially health-promoting phenolic compounds. The objective of this present study is to separate the skin from the almond and extract its polyphenol contents using Ultrasound-Assisted Extraction (UAE) at room temperature. Optimization was performed according to a two-variable central composite design (CCD), and the optimum combination of ultrasonic intensity and extraction temperature was obtained through multi-response optimization: ultrasonic intensity (UI), 9.47 W.cm−2; and temperature, 20 °C for an extraction time of 20 min. Under the above-mentioned conditions, total phenolic content was 258% higher with UAE than silent experiment. Mathematic modelling and microscopic investigations were achieved to enable understanding physical and structural effects of ultrasound on almond skins and comprehension of the mechanism behind the enhancement of mass transfer phenomena. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) showed different acoustic cavitation impacts including fragmentation, sonoporation, and erosion. Extracts were analyzed by ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS), identifying a combination of flavanols, flavanones and non-flavonoids. UAE shows no negative effect on almond proteins and lipids when compared to natural almonds (NS).
CH4 Adsorption Probability on GaN(0001) and (000−1) during Metalorganic Vapor Phase Epitaxy and Its Relationship to Carbon Contamination in the Films

Suppression of carbon contamination in GaN films grown using metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE) is a crucial issue in its application to high power and high frequency electronic devices. To know how to reduce the C concentration in the films, a sequential analysis based on first principles calculations is performed. Thus, surface reconstruction and the adsorption of the CH4 produced by the decomposition of the Ga source, Ga(CH3)3, and its incorporation into the GaN sub-surface layers are investigated. In this sequential analysis, the dataset of the adsorption probability of CH4 on reconstructed surfaces is indispensable, as is the energy of the C impurity in the GaN sub-surface layers. The C adsorption probability is obtained based on steepest-entropy-ascent quantum thermodynamics (SEAQT). SEAQT is a thermodynamic ensemble-based, non-phenomenological framework that can predict the behavior of non-equilibrium processes, even those far from equilibrium. This framework is suitable especially when one studies the adsorption behavior of an impurity molecule because the conventional approach, the chemical potential control method, cannot be applied to a quantitative analysis for such a system. The proposed sequential model successfully explains the influence of the growth orientation, GaN(0001) and (000−1), on the incorporation of C into the film. This model can contribute to the suppression of the C contamination in GaN MOVPE.
The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on consumption and indirect tax in Ireland

Using micro data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) Household Budget Survey (HBS), we assess the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on consumption and its implications for indirect tax receipts in 2020. We show that over one-third of household expenditure is on items that are currently restricted due to public health measures such as transport, selected retail expenditure and entertainment items. We parameterise three scenarios which attempt to take into account: 1) a return to a ‘new normal’ with ongoing physical and social distancing; 2) a ‘second wave’ lockdown; and 3) rapid vaccine development that allows a return to normal economic and social life by the end of 2020. Under these scenarios, household consumption this year is estimated to be between 12 and 20 per cent lower than what it would have been in the absence of the pandemic. Indirect tax paid by households is estimated to be between 19 and 32 per cent lower than it otherwise would have been.
Antifungal Drugs Influence Neutrophil Effector Functions

There is a growing body of evidence for immunomodulatory side effects of antifungal agents on different immune cells, e.g., T cells. Therefore, the aim of our study was to clarify these interactions with regard to the effector functions of polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMN). ABSTRACT There is a growing body of evidence for immunomodulatory side effects of antifungal agents on different immune cells, e.g., T cells. Therefore, the aim of our study was to clarify these interactions with regard to the effector functions of polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMN). Human PMN were preincubated with fluconazole (FLC), voriconazole (VRC), posaconazole (POS), isavuconazole (ISA), caspofungin (CAS), micafungin (MFG), conventional amphotericin B (AMB), and liposomal amphotericin B (LAMB). PMN then were analyzed by flow cytometry for activation, degranulation, and phagocytosis and by dichlorofluorescein assay to detect reactive oxygen species (ROS). Additionally, interleukin-8 (IL-8) release was measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. POS led to enhanced activation, degranulation, and generation of ROS, whereas IL-8 release was reduced. In contrast, ISA-pretreated PMN showed decreased activation signaling, impaired degranulation, and lower generation of ROS. MFG caused enhanced expression of activation markers but impaired degranulation, phagocytosis, generation of ROS, and IL-8 release. CAS showed increased phagocytosis, whereas degranulation and generation of ROS were reduced. AMB led to activation of almost all effector functions besides impaired phagocytosis, whereas LAMB did not alter any effector functions. Independent from class, antifungal agents show variable influence on neutrophil effector functions in vitro. Whether this is clinically relevant needs to be clarified.
Epithelial–mesenchymal transition induced cancer‐stem‐cell‐like characteristics in hepatocellular carcinoma

Hepatocellular carcinoma in China accounts for half of the world's incidence. Both epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) and cancer stem cells (CSCs) are thought to be involved in tumor malignant progression. However, the relationship between EMT and CSCs is still unclear. Bioinformatics analysis was performed to evaluate the relationship between EMT and CSCs. The EMT and CSC regulatory mechanism was investigated through Transwell, wound‐healing, sphere formation, colony‐forming, and western blotting assays. Immunofluorescence and immunoprecipitation were used to study the interaction of hypoxia inducible factor 1α (HIF‐1α) /Notch1. Immunohistochemical study was applied to investigate the expression pattern in the process of hepatocellular carcinogenesis and development. In our present study, bioinformatics results indicate that the expression of EMT‐related molecules is correlated with CSCs. In vitro studies indicated that EMT activation could induce CSC characteristics. Notch1 was confirmed to mediate the process of EMT‐induced CSCs through the interaction with HIF‐1α directly. Our findings indicate that EMT could induce CSC‐like characteristics, which is mediated by HIF‐1α‐upregulated Notch intracellular domain expression.
Childhood neurodevelopmental difficulties and risk of adolescent depression: the role of irritability

Background Children with neurodevelopmental disorders are at increased risk of developing depression. Irritability predicts depression in the general population and is common in children with neurodevelopmental disorders. Thus, it is possible that irritability in children with neurodevelopmental disorders contributes to the link with later depression. This study aimed to (a) examine the association between childhood neurodevelopmental difficulties and adolescent depression and (b) test whether irritability explains this association. Methods Children with any neurodevelopmental difficulty at the age of 7–9 (n = 1,697) and a selected, comparison group without any neurodevelopmental difficulty (n = 3,177) were identified from a prospective, UK population‐based cohort, the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. Neurodevelopmental difficulties were defined as a score in the bottom 5% of the sample on at least one measure of cognitive ability, communication, autism spectrum symptoms, attention‐deficit/hyperactivity symptoms, reading or motor coordination. The Development and Well‐Being Assessment measured parent‐reported child irritability at the age of 7, parent‐reported adolescent depression at the age of 10 and 13, and self‐reported depression at the age of 15. Depression measures were combined, deriving an outcome of major depressive disorder (MDD) in adolescence. Logistic regression examined the association between childhood neurodevelopmental difficulties and adolescent MDD, controlling for gender. Path analysis estimated the proportion of this association explained by irritability. Analyses were repeated for individual neurodevelopmental problems. Results Childhood neurodevelopmental difficulties were associated with adolescent MDD (OR = 2.11, 95% CI = 1.24, 3.60, p = .006). Childhood irritability statistically accounted for 42% of this association. On examining each neurodevelopmental difficulty separately, autistic, communication and ADHD problems were each associated with depression, with irritability explaining 29%–51% of these links. Conclusions Childhood irritability appears to be a key contributor to the link between childhood neurodevelopmental difficulties and adolescent MDD. High rates of irritability in children with autistic and ADHD difficulties may explain elevated rates of depression in the neurodevelopmental group.