Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Is hemoglobin A1c valuable for predicting concurrent endometrial cancer in diabetic women with endometrial intraepithelial neoplasia?

Abstract Aim The purpose of this study was to determine the predictive value of preoperative hemoglobin A1c (HgA1c) level for endometrial cancer in diabetic women with endometrial intraepithelial neoplasia (EIN). Materials and Methods Six hundred patients with EIN were retrospectively studied in a tertiary referral center in Turkey between January 2014 and December 2021. One hundred and thirteen diabetic patients with EIN who met the inclusion criteria were enrolled in the study and divided into three groups according to the final pathological results: Group 1 with benign findings (n = 29), Group 2 with EIN (n = 34) and Group 3 with endometrial cancer (n = 50). Demographic, clinical and biochemical characteristics were compared among the three groups. Receiver operating characteristic analysis (ROC) was used to evaluate the predictive value of HgA1c for concurrent endometrial cancer in EIN. Results Mean preoperative HgA1c levels were different among three groups (5.41 ± 0.64, 6.01 ± 0.72, 6.65 ± 1.15, p < 0.001, respectively). The highest value of HgA1c level was found in cancer group and difference within pairs was statistically significant (p < 0.001). Age and duration of menopause were also different among groups (p < 0.005). After adjustment of HgA1c level for age and duration of menopause differences were maintained (p < 0.001), the cutoff value was detected as ≥6.05% for HgA1c and sensitivity, specificity was 60%, 70%, respectively (p < 0.001). Conclusions HgA1c could be used in prediction of endometrial cancer. The optimal cutoff value determined in our study could be considered in predicting endometrial cancer in diabetic women with EIN.
Neuropsychological functioning predicts psychosocial adjustment after postacute rehabilitation for traumatic brain injury

Abstract Objectives: To examine neuropsychological functioning as a predictor of psychosocial adjustment difficulties at discharge from a postacute residential rehabilitation facility for traumatic brain injury (TBI) and depression as a potential mediator. Methods: A retrospective record review was conducted of 172 adults who received rehabilitation services for TBI. Individuals completed a full battery of neuropsychological tests, depression assessment, and functional assessments at admission. Functional assessments were also obtained at discharge. Results: A two-phase structural equation model analysis was performed. The first phase specified a good fitting model of a cognitive functioning (CF) latent construct with four indicators of cognitive domains measuring verbal fluency, cognitive flexibility, verbal learning, and working memory. Worse CF was associated with greater psychosocial adjustment impairment at discharge, but not related to depression. Psychosocial adjustment impairment at admission was positively associated with depression when controlling for CF, however depression did not predict psychosocial adjustment at discharge. Thus, depression was not found to be a significant mediator of psychosocial adjustment impairment at discharge. Conclusions: Results provide support for neuropsychological functioning at the start of postacute rehabilitation for TBI as an important predictor of psychosocial functioning difficulties that remain upon discharge and highlights the need to examine mechanisms beyond depression.
Inner-shell Annihilation of Positrons in Argon, Iron and Copper Atoms

The annihilation parameters of positrons with electrons in different shells of Argon, Iron and Copper atoms are calculated below the positronium (Ps) formation thresholds. Quite accurate ab initio calculations of the bound state wavefunctions of Argon, Iron and Copper orbitals are obtained from Cowan computer code. A least-squares variational method (LSVM) is used for determining the wavefunction of the positrons. The program is employed for calculating the s-wave partial cross sections of positrons scattered by Iron and Copper atoms. Our results of the effective charge are compared with available experimental and theoretical ones. --
Carotid hemodynamic response to external pressure and comparison with induced-stenosis progression: a fluid-structure interaction study

Abstract Non-invasive stenosis detection has always been difficult. A new concept of applying external pressure over the artery was compared with stenosis growth in this computational study. When stenosis develops, the artery constricts, obstructing blood flow in that area. Under external pressure, the constricted artery behaves similarly. The current fluid-structure interaction study compares the hemodynamic parameters of a stenosed artery and an artery subjected to external pressure. Significant similarities were discovered when the velocity profile and arterial displacement for both scenarios were compared. This study can be used to characterise stenosis experimentally while remaining non-invasive.
Selection of percutaneous mechanical circulatory support in cardiogenic shock: patient-specific considerations and insights from contemporary clinical data

Purpose of review Cardiogenic shock remains a complex and variable disease process requiring early recognition and prompt, multidisciplinary treatment. Available data link usage of high-dose and/or multiple vasopressors in cardiogenic shock to increased mortality. This review proposes a structured approach to escalation of percutaneous mechanical circulatory support (pMCS) in cardiogenic shock, based on the hemodynamic and metabolic parameters highlighted in the revised SCAI Shock Classification, and supported by the available clinical data. Recent findings Intra-aortic balloon pumps (IABP) may improve hemodynamics in early cardiogenic shock (stage B) but offer little benefit in stage C–E shock where percutaneous ventricular assist devices (pVAD) improve cardiac power/index and may improve survival in certain subsets. In stage D–E shock, escalation from standalone pVADs to devices in combination is often appropriate. Left ventricular venting, with IABP or Impella, in conjunction with VA ECMO, appears to be beneficial. Summary Graded escalation of pMCS support should be considered in SCAI stage B shock patients onwards, with the choice of support allowable by local expertise, matched to the degree and anticipated trajectory of hemodynamic and metabolic compromise. Additional clinical data are required before timing, and escalation of pMCS initiation may be integrated into a single treatment algorithm.
Visuospatial Cognitive Dysfunction in Patients with Vestibular Loss

Objective To characterize visuospatial and nonvisuospatial cognitive domains affected by vestibular loss and determine whether patient-reported outcomes measures (PROMs) correlate with performance on neuropsychological tests. Study Design Cross-sectional study. Setting University-based tertiary medical center. Patients Sixty-nine age-matched subjects: 25 patients with bilateral vestibular loss (BVL), 14 patients with unilateral vestibular loss (UVL), and 30 normal controls (NC). Interventions Neuropsychological tests used to assess visuospatial and auditory short-term and working memory, number magnitude representation, executive function, and attention. Validated PROMs used to evaluate quality of life and subjective cognitive impairment. Main Outcome Measures Performance on neuropsychological tests and scores on PROM surveys. Results BVL and UVL patients performed significantly worse than NC subjects on tasks requiring visuospatial representation compared with NC subjects (p < 0.01). BVL patients demonstrated decreased performance on spatial representation tasks compared with UVL and NC subjects (p < 0.05 and p < 0.05, respectively). All subject groups performed similarly on tasks assessing nonvisuospatial cognitive domains, such as auditory short-term and working memory, executive function, and attention. PROMs did not seem to correlate with performance on neuropsychological tasks. Conclusion Patients with vestibular loss exhibit impairments in tasks requiring visuospatial representation but perform similarly to NC subjects in tasks of auditory working memory, executive function, or attention. Currently available questionnaires may be insufficient to screen patients for cognitive deficits.
Close proximity to blast: No long-term or lasting effect on cognitive performance in service members with and without TBI during blast exposure

Abstract Objective: Blast related characteristics may contribute to the diversity of findings on whether mild traumatic brain injury sustained during war zone deployment has lasting cognitive effects. This study aims to evaluate whether a history of blast exposure at close proximity, defined as exposure within 30 feet, has long-term or lasting influences on cognitive outcomes among current and former military personnel. Method: One hundred participants were assigned to one of three groups based on a self-report history of blast exposure during combat deployments: 47 close blast, 14 non-close blast, and 39 comparison participants without blast exposure. Working memory, processing speed, verbal learning/memory, and cognitive flexibility were evaluated using standard neuropsychological tests. In addition, assessment of combat exposure and current post-concussive, posttraumatic stress, and depressive symptoms, and headache was performed via self-report measures. Variables that differed between groups were controlled as covariates. Results: No group differences survived Bonferroni correction for family-wise error rate; the close blast group did not differ from non-close blast and comparison groups on measures of working memory, processing speed, verbal learning/memory, or cognitive flexibility. Controlling for covariates did not alter these results. Conclusion: No evidence emerged to suggest that a history of close blast exposure was associated with decreased cognitive performance when comparisons were made with the other groups. Limited characterization of blast contexts experienced, self-report of blast distance, and heterogeneity of injury severity within the groups are the main limitations of this study.
Superfluid density in continuous and discrete spaces: Avoiding misconceptions

We review the concept of superfluidity and, based on real and thought experiments, we use the formalism of second quantization to derive expressions that allow the calculation of the superfluid density for general Hamiltonians with path-integral methods. It is well known that the superfluid density can be related to the response of the free energy to a boundary phase-twist, or to the fluctuations of the winding number. However, we show that this is true only for a particular class of Hamiltonians. In order to treat other classes, we derive general expressions of the superfluid density that are valid for various Hamiltonians. While the winding number is undefined when the number of particles is not conserved, our general expressions allow us to calculate the superfluid density in all cases. We also provide expressions of the superfluid densities associated to the individual components of multi-species Hamiltonians, which remain valid when inter-species conversions occur. The cases of continuous and discrete spaces are discussed, and we emphasize common mistakes that occur when considering lattices with non-orthonormal primitive vectors.
Potential application of chitosan stabilized silver nanoparticles for simultaneous control of dengue virus and mosquito vectors

Dengue fever pandemic caused by dengue virus has been claimed for many lives, however, no specific treatment is available. Prevention based on vector control posed to be the most effective measure so far. The application of chitosan stabilized silver nanoparticle (AgNPs) to control larvae and adult mosquitoes has recently discovered, but their ability to inhibit Dengue virus has scarcely discussed. In this study, chitosan stabilized AgNPs have been prepared and tested against dengue virus type 1. The results showed that chitosan stabilized AgNPs can inhibit 96.66% and 98.33% dengue virus type 1 at 12.50 ppm and 25.00 ppm, respectively, without any toxicity to BHKFcɣ cells. This study confirms that chitosan stabilized AgNPs have a highly antiviral ability against dengue virus in addition to its mosquitocidal properties. This allows one to control both virus and vector simultaneously. The study suggested that chitosan stabilized AgNPs could be an effective tool to prevent the dengue epidemic.
Adaptability of Two Soybean Aphid Species to High Diurnal Temperatures

Abstract The local temperature in the Harbin region of northeast China has been rising, with temperatures above 27°C often being recorded. The soybean aphid, Aphis glycines (Matsumura) (Hemiptera: Aphididae), and foxglove aphid, Aulacorthum solani (Kaltenbach) (Hemiptera: Aphididae), are important pests in soybeans in the region, which face great survival pressure due to rising temperatures. In this study, A. glycines and A. solani were reared at thermoperiods with diurnal temperatures of 25, 27, 29, 31, 33, 35, and 37°C, nocturnal temperature of 20 °C, 70% ± 5% relative humidity, and a photoperiod of 14:10 (L: D) hr. Diurnal thermoperiod 25°C was used as control. Some life characteristics of the aphids were assessed. The adaptation of A. solani to high diurnal temperatures was found to be worse than that of A. glycines. Aphis glycines could develop and reproduce successfully at diurnal temperatures of 27–35°C, whereas A. solani could only develop and reproduce at 27–29°C. At diurnal thermoperiods at 25°C, adult lifespan of A. solani was as long as that of A. glycines. When diurnal temperatures increased from 27 to 31°C, adult lifespan of A. solani were shorter than those of A. glycines. At diurnal thermoperiods at 25 and 27°C, the body sizes of A. solani adults were larger than those of A. glycines. At diurnal thermoperiods at 29 and 31°C, the body size of A. solani adults were as large as those of A. glycines. Our results provide important information on the survival, development, and reproduction of A. glycines and A. solani exposed to temperatures above 27°C, which is important for evaluating the adaptability of aphids to high temperatures and predicting their dynamics in soybeans in northeast China, where the local environmental temperature continues to rise.
A Novel Neighborhood Rough Set-Based Feature Selection Method and Its Application to Biomarker Identification of Schizophrenia

Feature selection can disclose biomarkers of mental disorders that have unclear biological mechanisms. Although neighborhood rough set (NRS) has been applied to discover important sparse features, it has hardly ever been utilized in neuroimaging-based biomarker identification, probably due to the inadequate feature evaluation metric and incomplete information provided under a single-granularity. Here, we propose a new NRS-based feature selection method and successfully identify brain functional connectivity biomarkers of schizophrenia (SZ) using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. Specifically, we develop a new weighted metric based on NRS combined with information entropy to evaluate the capacity of features in distinguishing different groups. Inspired by multi-granularity information maximization theory, we further take advantage of the complementary information from different neighborhood sizes via a multi-granularity fusion to obtain the most discriminative and stable features. For validation, we compare our method with six popular feature selection methods using three public omics datasets as well as resting-state fMRI data of 393 SZ patients and 429 healthy controls. Results show that our method obtained higher classification accuracies on both omics data (100.0%, 88.6%, and 72.2% for three omics datasets, respectively) and fMRI data (93.9% for main dataset, and 76.3% and 83.8% for two independent datasets, respectively). Moreover, our findings reveal biologically meaningful substrates of SZ, notably involving the connectivity between the thalamus and superior temporal gyrus as well as between the postcentral gyrus and calcarine gyrus. Taken together, we propose a new NRS-based feature selection method that shows the potential of exploring effective and sparse neuroimaging-based biomarkers of mental disorders.
Factors influencing caring behaviour among registered nurses during the COVID‐19 pandemic in China: A qualitative study using the COM‐B framework

Abstract Aim The aim of this work is to explore the influencing factors of nurses' caring behaviour during the COVID‐19 pandemic based on the Capability, Opportunity, Motivation as determinants of Behaviour (COM‐B) theoretical framework. Background Nurse caring behaviour is vital to reduce and speed up the healing process of COVID‐19 patients. It is important to understand the factors that influence caring behaviour among nurses during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Research suggests that when it comes to understanding behaviour, using a theoretical framework is likely to be most effective, and the COM‐B framework is a recommended approach. Methods Semistructured interviews with 42 nurses working in 11 Chinese cities were conducted, and their verbatim statements were transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis. The results were mapped to COM‐B framework. Results Ten key themes emerged: Capability (professional knowledge and skills, emotional intelligence, cross‐cultural care competence); opportunity (resources, organizational culture, social culture); motivation (past experience, character, role, beliefs). Conclusions Ten factors were found to influence nurses' caring behaviour. This study added two new influencing factors, social culture and past experiences, that further contributed to the understanding of nurses' care behaviours. Implications for Nursing Management Nurses' caring behaviour is influenced not only by themselves but also by institutions and society, so interventions aiming to improve their caring behaviour should consider these elements. The negative impact of the pandemic on capability factors that influence nurses' caring behaviour should be counteracted as soon as possible.
New approach to the treatment of separatrix chaos and its application to the global chaos onset between adjacent separatrices

SUMMARY We have developed the {\it general method} for the description of {\it separatrix chaos}, basing on the analysis of the separatrix map dynamics. Matching it with the resonant Hamiltonian analysis, we show that, for a given amplitude of perturbation, the maximum width of the chaotic layer in energy may be much larger than it was assumed before. We apply the above theory to explain the drastic facilitation of global chaos onset in time-periodically perturbed Hamiltonian systems possessing two or more separatrices, previously discovered (PRL 90, 174101 (2003)). The theory well agrees with simulations. We also discuss generalizations and applications. Examples of applications of the facilitation include: the increase of the DC conductivity in spatially periodic structures, the reduction of activation barriers for noise-induced transitions and the related acceleration of spatial diffusion, the facilitation of the stochastic web formation in a wave-driven or kicked oscillator.
Unravelling the reservoirs for colonisation of infants with Campylobacter spp. in rural Ethiopia: protocol for a longitudinal study during a global pandemic and political tensions

Introduction Undernutrition is an underlying cause of mortality in children under five (CU5) years of age. Animal-source foods have been shown to decrease malnutrition in CU5. Livestock are important reservoirs for Campylobacter bacteria, which are recognised as risk factors for child malnutrition. Increasing livestock production may be beneficial for improving nutrition of children but these benefits may be negated by increased exposure to Campylobacter and research is needed to evaluate the complex pathways of Campylobacter exposure and infection applicable to low-income and middle-income countries. We aim to identify reservoirs of infection with Campylobacter spp. of infants in rural Eastern Ethiopia and evaluate interactions with child health (environmental enteric dysfunction and stunting) in the context of their sociodemographic environment. Methods and analysis This longitudinal study involves 115 infants who are followed from birth to 12 months of age and are selected randomly from 10 kebeles of Haramaya woreda, East Hararghe zone, Oromia region, Ethiopia. Questionnaire-based information is obtained on demographics, livelihoods, wealth, health, nutrition and women empowerment; animal ownership/management and diseases; and water, sanitation and hygiene. Faecal samples are collected from infants, mothers, siblings and livestock, drinking water and soil. These samples are analysed by a range of phenotypic and genotypic microbiological methods to characterise the genetic structure of the Campylobacter population in each of these reservoirs, which will support inference about the main sources of exposure for infants. Ethics and dissemination Ethical approval was obtained from the University of Florida Internal Review Board (IRB201903141), the Haramaya University Institutional Health Research Ethics Committee (COHMS/1010/3796/20) and the Ethiopia National Research Ethics Review Committee (SM/14.1/1059/20). Written informed consent is obtained from all participating households. Research findings will be disseminated to stakeholders through conferences and peer-reviewed journals and through the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems.
Assessment of cerebrovascular function in patients with sickle cell disease using transfer function analysis

In patients with sickle cell disease (SCD), the delivery of oxygen to the brain is compromised by anemia, abnormal rheology, and steno‐occlusive vascular disease. Successful compensation depends on an increase in oxygen supply such as that provided by an increase in cerebral blood flow (CBF). We used magnetic resonance imaging to provide a high‐resolution assessment of the ability of SCD patients to respond to a vasoactive stimulus in middle, anterior, and posterior cerebral artery territories for both white and gray matter. Cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR) was measured as the blood oxygen level dependent signal (a surrogate for CBF) response to an increase in the end tidal partial pressure of CO2 (PETCO2). The dynamic aspect of the response was measured as the time constant of the first order response kinetics (tau). To confirm and support these findings we used an alternative examination of the response, transfer function analysis (TFA), to measure the responsiveness (gain), the speed of response (phase), and the consistency of the response over time (coherence). We tested 34 patients with SCD and compared the results to those of 24 healthy controls participants. The results from a three‐way ANOVA showed that patients with SCD have reduced CVR (p < 0.001) and lower coherence (p < 0.001) in gray matter and white matter and reduced gain in gray matter only (p < 0.001). In terms of the speed of the response to CO2, tau (p < 0.001) and TFA phase (p < 0.001) were increased in SCD patients compared to healthy control subjects. These findings show that the cerebrovascular responsiveness to CO2 in patients with SCD is both decreased and slowed compared to healthy controls.
Mental health, risk and protective factors at micro‐ and macro‐levels across early at‐risk stages for psychosis: The Mirorr study

The clinical staging model states that psychosis develops through subsequent stages of illness severity. To better understand what drives illness progression, more extensive comparison across clinical stages is needed. The current paper presents an in‐depth characterization of individuals with different levels of risk for psychosis (i.e., different early clinical stages), using a multimethod approach of cross‐sectional assessments and daily diary reports.