Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Getting to the Sandbar: Understanding the Emotional Phases of COVID-19 Among College and University Students

This paper provides a framework for understanding the emotional and behavioral responses of college and university students during the COVID-19 pandemic. It builds on the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Phases of Disaster Model and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Additionally, we conceptualize a new phase in the Phases of Disaster Model, which we refer to as the “Sandbar Phase,” to address the unique factors of COVID-19 for college and university students. For each phase, we discuss the expected timeline and the associated emotional reactions, behaviors, and applications of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs during COVID-19 for college and university students. Our proposed model aims to reveal short- and long-term effects of COVID-19 on the mental health of college and university students and be a resource in the development of effective mitigation efforts to diminish any psychological deficits as the result of future disasters and/or traumatic events.
The role of radiotherapy in Kimura's disease: a multicenter systematic review of literature.

OBJECTIVE From a clinical point of view, Kimura's disease is typically characterized by a subcutaneous mass occurring predominantly in the head and neck region. It occurs predominantly in young men of Asian descent, with a peak incidence in the second and third decades of life. However, KD has been also reported in other ethnic groups and in children. The most frequently used local treatments are surgical excision, radiotherapy, and surgical excision followed by radiotherapy. The aim of this multicenter systematic review is to highlight the available literature evidence about the outcome of RT in this setting. MATERIALS AND METHODS A systematic review of any relevant literature in the principal medical databases, such as PubMed, Scopus and Cochrane library, was conducted. The inclusion criteria were original articles specifically reporting about KD and RT, including both prospective and retrospective studies. RESULTS We were able to identify 11 studies, published from 1989 to 2021, eligible for inclusion in this review. Overall, data on 124 patients were recorded and are presented in this systematic review. The median recurrence rate, considering all patients, was 11% (ranging from 0% to 41.2%). In seven out of 11 studies, the relapse rate was less than 20%. Moreover, the relapse rate was 0% in four studies. CONCLUSIONS The results of this multicenter systematic literature review show that evidence on RT of KD is limited and derives only from retrospective studies. In this setting RT seems to be well-tolerated and able to produce very high response rates in unresected lesions and reasonable results in terms of local control both as an exclusive and adjuvant treatment.
Recent Advances in Pen‐Based Writing Electronics and their Emerging Applications

The emerging demand for cost‐effective, easily accessible, and rapid prototyping electronics fabrication calls for novel techniques to design and manufacture electronic components and devices for wearable functional sensing, on‐skin medical monitoring, and body‐worn energy conversion. Inspired by daily hand‐writing, innovative and ubiquitously available pens can be employed to write conductive patterns on multiple substrates; such a low‐cost, fast, and user‐friendly direct writing paradigm has recently aroused remarkable research interest as a promising electronics prototyping strategy. In this review, state‐of‐art advances in techniques for direct writing of electronics are presented, and pros and cons of each fabrication route are discussed. Emerging applications of pen‐based writing electronics are also summarized. Based on these, final conclusions, limitations and challenges, as well as ongoing perspectives are illustrated.
Prayer as a pain intervention: protocol of a systematic review of randomised controlled trials

Background Pain is a universal experience and the most common reason for seeking healthcare. Inadequate pain management negatively impacts numerous aspects of patient health. Multidisciplinary treatment programmes, including psychosocial interventions, are more useful for pain management than purely biomedical treatment alone. Recently, researchers showed increasing interest in understanding the role of spirituality/religiosity and spiritual/religious practices on pain experience, with engagement in religious practices, such as prayer, showing to positively impact pain experience in religious individuals. This systematic review will seek to summarise and integrate the existing findings from randomised controlled trials assessing the effects of prayer and prayer-based interventions on pain experience. Methods The systematic review procedures and its report will follow the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses statement. Electronic searches in nine databases (Web of Science Core Collection, MEDLINE, SCIELO Citation Index, PubMed, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Clinical Trial, PsycINFO, Scopus, LILACS and Open-SIGLE) will be performed to identify randomised controlled trials of prayer-based interventions. Two independent researchers will assess studies for inclusion and extract data from each paper. Risk of bias assessment will be assessed independently by two reviewers based on the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials statement. Qualitative synthesis of the body of research will be conducted using a narrative summary synthesis method. Meta-analysis will be limited to studies reporting on the same primary outcome. Formal searches are planned to start in June 2021. The final report is anticipated to be completed by September 2021. Discussion Findings will be useful to (1) understand the condition of our knowledge in this field and (2) provide evidence for prayer effectiveness in reducing pain intensity and pain-related stress and increasing pain tolerance in adults experiencing acute or chronic pain. PROSPERO registration number CRD42020221733.
Testing the inhibitory cascade model in a recent human sample

The Inhibitory Cascade Model was proposed by Kavanagh and colleagues (Nature, 449, 427–433 [2007]) after their experimental studies on the dental development of murine rodent species. These authors described an activator–inhibitor mechanism that has been employed to predict evolutionary size patterns of mammalian teeth, including hominins. In the present study, we measured the crown area of the three lower permanent molars (M1, M2, and M3) of a large recent modern human sample of male and female individuals from a collection preserved at the Institute of Anthropology of the University of Coimbra (Portugal). The main aim of the present study is to test if the size molar patterns observed in this human sample fits the Inhibitory Cascade Model. For this purpose, we first measured the crown area in those individuals preserving the complete molar series. Measurements were taken in photographs, using a planimeter and following well‐tested techniques used in previous works. We then plot the M3/M1 and M2/M1 size ratios. Our results show that the premise of the Inhibitory Cascade Model, according to which the average of the crown area of M2 is approximately one‐third of the sum of the crown area of the three molars, is fulfilled. However, our results also show that the individual values of a significant number of males and females are out of the 95% confidence interval predicted by the Inhibitory Cascade Model in rodents. As a result, the present analyses suggest that neither the sample of males, nor that of females, nor the pooled sample fits the Inhibitory Cascade Model. It is important to notice that, although this model has been successfully tested in a large number of current human populations, to the best of our knowledge this is the first study in which individual data have been obtained in a recent human population rather than using the average of the sample. Our results evince that, at the individual level, some factors not yet known could interfere with this model masking the modulation of the size on the molar series in modern humans. We suggest that the considerable delay in the onset of M3 formation in modern humans could be related to a weakening of the possible activation/inhibition process for this tooth. Finally, and in support of our conclusions, we have checked that the absolute and relative size of M1 and M2 is not related to the M3 agenesis in our sample. In line with other studies in primates, our results do not support the Inhibitory Cascade Model in a recent human sample. Further research is needed to better understand the genetic basis of this mechanism and its relationship to the phenotype. In this way, we may be able to find out which evolutionary changes may be responsible for the deviations observed in many species, including Homo sapiens.
The Ratio of Toxic-to-Nontoxic miRNAs Predicts Platinum Sensitivity in Ovarian Cancer

These findings demonstrate that the balance of miRNAs that carry toxic and nontoxic 6mer seeds contributes to platinum resistance in ovarian cancer. Ovarian cancer remains one of the deadliest gynecologic malignancies affecting women, and development of resistance to platinum remains a major barrier to achieving a cure. Multiple mechanisms have been identified to confer platinum resistance. Numerous miRNAs have been linked to platinum sensitivity and resistance in ovarian cancer. miRNA activity occurs mainly when the guide strand of the miRNA, with its seed sequence at position 2–7/8, is loaded into the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC) and targets complementary short seed matches in the 3′ untranslated region of mRNAs. Toxic 6mer seeds, which target genes critical for cancer cell survival, have been found in tumor-suppressive miRNAs. Many siRNAs and short hairpin RNAs (shRNA) can also kill cancer cells via toxic seeds, the most toxic of which carry G-rich 6mer seed sequences. We showed here that treatment of ovarian cancer cells with platinum led to increased RISC-bound miRNAs carrying toxic 6mer seeds and decreased miRNAs with nontoxic seeds. Platinum-tolerant cells did not exhibit this toxicity shift but retained sensitivity to cell death mediated by siRNAs carrying toxic 6mer seeds. Analysis of RISC-bound miRNAs in tumors from patients with ovarian cancer revealed that the ratio between miRNAs with toxic versus nontoxic seeds was predictive of treatment outcome. Application of the 6mer seed toxicity concept to cancer relevant miRNAs provides a new framework for understanding and predicting cancer therapy responses. Significance: These findings demonstrate that the balance of miRNAs that carry toxic and nontoxic 6mer seeds contributes to platinum resistance in ovarian cancer.
A deep learning-based dual-omics prediction model for radiation pneumonitis.

PURPOSE Radiation pneumonitis (RP) is the main source of toxicity in thoracic radiotherapy. This study proposed a deep learning-based dual-omics model, which aims to improve the RP prediction performance by integrating more data points and exploring the data in greater depth. MATERIALS AND METHODS The bimodality data were the original dose (OD) distribution and the ventilation image (VI) derived from 4-dimensional computed tomography (4DCT). The functional dose (FD) distribution was obtained by weighting OD with VI. A pre-trained 3-dimensional convolution (C3D) network was used to extract features from FD, VI and OD. The extracted features were then filtered and selected using entropy-based methods. The prediction models were constructed with 4 most commonly used binary classifiers. Cross validation, bootstrap and nested sampling and methods were adopted in the process of training and hyper-tuning. RESULTS Data from 217 thoracic cancer patients treated with radiotherapy were used to train and validate the prediction model. The 4DCT-based VI showed the inhomogeneous pulmonary function of the lungs. More than half of the extracted features were singular (of none-zero value for few patients), which were eliminated to improve the stability of the model. The area under curve (AUC) of the dual-omics model was 0.874 (95% confidence interval: 0.871-0.877), and the AUC of the single-omics model was 0.780 (0.775-0.785, VI) and 0.810 (0.804-0.811, OD), respectively. CONCLUSIONS The dual-omics outperformed single-omics for RP prediction, which can be contributed to: 1. using more data points; 2. exploring the data in greater depth; and 3. incorporating of the bimodality data.
New means, new measures: Assessing prescription drug seeking indicators over ten years of the opioid epidemic.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Prescription drug seeking (PDS) from multiple prescribers is a primary means of obtaining prescription opioids; however, PDS behavior has likely evolved in response to policy shifts, and there is little agreement about how to operationalize it. We systematically compared the performance of traditional and novel PDS indicators. DESIGN Longitudinal study using a de-identified commercial claims database. SETTING U.S., 2009-2018. PARTICIPANTS 318 million provider visits from 21.5 million opioid-prescribed patients. MEASUREMENTS We applied binary classification and generalized linear models to compare predictive accuracy and average marginal effect size predicting future opioid use disorder (OUD), overdose, and high morphine milligram equivalents (MME). We compared traditional indicators of PDS to a network centrality measure, PageRank, that reflects the prominence of patients in a co-prescribing network. Analyses used the same data, and adjusted for patient demographics, region, SES, diagnoses, and health services. FINDINGS The predictive accuracy of a widely-used traditional measure (N+ unique doctors and N+ unique pharmacies in 90 days) on OUD, overdose, and MME decreased between 2009-2018, and performed no better than chance (50% accuracy) after 2015. Binarized PageRank measures exhibited higher predictive accuracy (63%-75%) and identified over 100 times as many at-risk patients. Continuous indicators of PDS performed better than binary thresholds, with days of Rx performing best overall with 77-92% predictive accuracy. For example, days of Rx had the highest average marginal effects on overdose and OUD: a one standard deviation increase in days of Rx was associated with a 6 to 8% (confidence intervals (Cis) 0.058-0.061 and 0.078-0.082) increase in the probability of overdose, and a 4 to 5% (CIs 0.038-0.043 and 0.047-0.053) increase in the probability of OUD. PageRank performed nearly as well or better than traditional indicators of PDS, with predictive performance increasing after 2016. CONCLUSIONS In the United States, network-based measures appear to have increasing promise for identifying prescription opioid drug seeking behavior, while indicators based on quantity of providers or pharmacies appear to have decreasing utility.
Gene Erosion Can Lead to Gain-of-Function Alleles That Contribute to Bacterial Fitness

Despite our extensive knowledge of the genetic regulation of heat shock proteins (HSPs), the evolutionary routes that allow bacteria to adaptively tune their HSP levels and corresponding proteostatic robustness have been explored less. In this report, directed evolution experiments using the Escherichia coli model system unexpectedly revealed that seemingly random single mutations in its tnaA gene can confer significant heat resistance. ABSTRACT Despite our extensive knowledge of the genetic regulation of heat shock proteins (HSPs), the evolutionary routes that allow bacteria to adaptively tune their HSP levels and corresponding proteostatic robustness have been explored less. In this report, directed evolution experiments using the Escherichia coli model system unexpectedly revealed that seemingly random single mutations in its tnaA gene can confer significant heat resistance. Closer examination, however, indicated that these mutations create folding-deficient and aggregation-prone TnaA variants that in turn can endogenously and preemptively trigger HSP expression to cause heat resistance. These findings, importantly, demonstrate that even erosive mutations with disruptive effects on protein structure and functionality can still yield true gain-of-function alleles with a selective advantage in adaptive evolution.
Abdominal aortic calcification and cognitive function among older adults: Cross‐sectional analysis of National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2013‐2014

Subclinical atherosclerotic disease is an emerging risk factor for cognitive function among older adults, though less is known about the association between abdominal aortic calcification (AAC) and cognitive function. This study aimed to examine the cross‐sectional association of AAC with cognitive function in a nationally representative sample of population in the U.S.
Porpoise: a new approach for accurate prediction of RNA pseudouridine sites

Pseudouridine is a ubiquitous RNA modification type present in eukaryotes and prokaryotes, which plays a vital role in various biological processes. Almost all kinds of RNAs are subject to this modification. However, it remains a great challenge to identify pseudouridine sites via experimental approaches, requiring expensive and time-consuming experimental research. Therefore, computational approaches that can be used to perform accurate in silico identification of pseudouridine sites from the large amount of RNA sequence data are highly desirable and can aid in the functional elucidation of this critical modification. Here, we propose a new computational approach, termed Porpoise, to accurately identify pseudouridine sites from RNA sequence data. Porpoise builds upon a comprehensive evaluation of 18 frequently used feature encoding schemes based on the selection of four types of features, including binary features, pseudo k-tuple composition, nucleotide chemical property and position-specific trinucleotide propensity based on single-strand (PSTNPss). The selected features are fed into the stacked ensemble learning framework to enable the construction of an effective stacked model. Both cross-validation tests on the benchmark dataset and independent tests show that Porpoise achieves superior predictive performance than several state-of-the-art approaches. The application of model interpretation tools demonstrates the importance of PSTNPs for the performance of the trained models. This new method is anticipated to facilitate community-wide efforts to identify putative pseudouridine sites and formulate novel testable biological hypothesis.
Rhinovirus spread in children during the COVID‐19 pandemic despite social restrictions—A nationwide register study in Finland

Social restrictions during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic strongly affected the epidemiology of influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). As rhinovirus seemed to spread despite the restrictions, we aimed to analyze rhinovirus epidemiology in children during the pandemic. This register‐based study used data from the Finnish Infectious Disease Register. Nationwide rhinovirus findings from July 2015 to March 2021 were included and stratified by age (0–4, 5–9, and 10–14). Cumulative 14‐day incidence per 100000 children was calculated. Four thousand five hundred and seventy six positive rhinovirus findings were included, of which 3788 (82.8%) were among children aged 0–4. The highest recorded incidence was 36.2 among children aged 0–4 in October 2017. The highest recorded incidence during the pandemic period was 13.6 in November 2020. The impact of the restrictions was mostly seen among children aged 0–4 years of age in weeks 14–22 in 2020. The incidence has since remained near reference levels in all age groups. Strict restrictions temporarily interrupted the circulation of rhinovirus in spring 2020. Rhinovirus incidence returned to normal levels soon after the harsh restrictions were lifted. These looser social restrictions prevented RSV and influenza seasons but failed to prevent the spread of rhinovirus.
Dynamics of primitive streak regression controls the fate of neuromesodermal progenitors in the chicken embryo

In classical descriptions of vertebrate development, the segregation of the three embryonic germ layers completes by the end of gastrulation. Body formation then proceeds in a head to tail fashion by progressive deposition of lineage-committed progenitors during regression of the primitive streak (PS) and tail bud (TB). The identification by retrospective clonal analysis of a population of neuromesodermal progenitors (NMPs) contributing to both musculoskeletal precursors (paraxial mesoderm) and spinal cord during axis formation challenged these notions. However, classical fate mapping studies of the PS region in amniotes have so far failed to provide direct evidence for such bipotential cells at the single-cell level. Here, using lineage tracing and single-cell RNA sequencing in the chicken embryo, we identify a resident cell population of the anterior PS epiblast, which contributes to neural and mesodermal lineages in trunk and tail. These cells initially behave as monopotent progenitors as classically described and only acquire a bipotential fate later, in more posterior regions. We show that NMPs exhibit a conserved transcriptomic signature during axis elongation but lose their epithelial characteristicsin the TB. Posterior to anterior gradients of convergence speed and ingression along the PS lead to asymmetric exhaustion of PS mesodermal precursor territories. Through limited ingression and increased proliferation, NMPs are maintained and amplified as a cell population which constitute the main progenitors in the TB. Together, our studies provide a novel understanding of the PS and TB contribution through the NMPs to the formation of the body of amniote embryos.
An antihypertensive agent benidipine is an effective neuroprotective and antiepileptic agent: an experimental rat study

ABSTRACT Background Benidipine is an L, N and T type calcium channel blocker drug that is widely used as an antihypertensive drug. Objective For the first time in the literature, it was aimed to investigate the effectiveness of benidipine in controlling epileptic seizure and preventing the development of neurodegeneration in epilepsy. Methods An experimentally epilepsy model was produced with pentylenetetrazole, and rats were divided into seven groups, in different benidipine treatment doses or with valproic acid combinations. The epileptic activities of all rats were recorded according to the Fisher&Kittner classification. Biochemical parameters, histopathological Caspase-3 activity, Wyler hippocampal sclerosis, gliosis and neuronal degenerations were investigated. Results It was found that in the post-hoc analysis of epileptic activities, there was a similar antiepileptic scores among the treatment groups. IL-1 level was found to be significantly lower in the benidipine 4 mg/kg group, and TNF-alpha was lower in the group given valproic acid+benidipine 2 mg/kg (p<0.05). The other biochemical parameters were not found to be significant. Neural degeneration levels in the brain tissues were statistically significant (p<0.001). Compared with the healthy group, the most neural degeneration was in the control group, the least neural degeneration was in the valproic acid+benidipine 4 mg/kg group. Conclusions For the first time in the literature, benidipine, alone or combined with valproic acid, were found to have a statistically significant antiepileptic efficacy, and provided neuroprotection when combined with valproic acid. Benidipine will be a promising agent in the treatment of epilepsy with its antiepileptic and neuroprotective effects.