Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of Aging Time and Thickness on Low‐Temperature Degradation of Dental Zirconia

PURPOSE To evaluate the influence of specimen thickness and low-temperature degradation (LTD) on yttrium-stabilized tetragonal zirconia polycrystals (Y-TZP). MATERIALS AND METHODS Thin discs of Y-TZP from four manufacturers were sintered according to each manufacturer's recommendations, cut into 23 mm (length) × 4 mm (width) × 0.8 mm/1.5 mm (thickness) specimens, artificially aged under standard autoclave sterilization conditions (34°C at 0.2 MPa for 10 and 20 hours), and finally ground and polished. Tetragonal to monoclinic transformation was confirmed by X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. Flexural strength was measured by 3-point bending tests and Vickers hardness measurements. Fracture surfaces were examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). RESULTS SEM investigation revealed that with increasing aging time, the surface defects and grain size increased, particularly in the 20-hour group. Compared with the 1.5 mm group, the 0.8 mm group showed more significant defects, irrespective of aging time. The flexural strengths of Y-TZP materials decreased with a decrease in the thickness. Moreover, LTD of Y-TZP can cause significant tetragonal to monoclinic transformation, which also results in a statistically significant decrease in the flexural strength. CONCLUSION A thinner Y-TZP specimen was likely to present surface defects and microcracks after aging. In addition, the flexural strengths decreased with a decrease in the thickness, a notable fact for further studies.
Ultrasonography Findings in Severe Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Background: Increasing severity of carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS), as graded by nerve conduction studies (NCS), has been demonstrated to predict the speed and completeness of recovery after carpal tunnel release (CTR). The purpose of this study is to compare the cross-sectional area (CSA) of the median nerve in patients with severe and nonsevere CTS as defined by NCS. Methods: Ultrasound CSA measurements were taken at the carpal tunnel inlet at the level of the pisiform bone by a hand fellowship–trained orthopedic surgeon. Severe CTS on NCS was defined as no response for the distal motor latency (DML) and/or distal sensory latency (DSL). Results: A total of 274 wrists were enrolled in the study. The median age was 51 years (range: 18-90 years), and 72.6% of wrists were from female patients. CSA of median nerve and age were comparatively the best predictors of severity using a linear regression model and receiver operator curves. Using cutoff of 12 mm2 for severe CTS, the sensitivity and specificity are 37.5% and 81.9%, respectively. Conclusions: Ultrasound can be used to grade severity in younger patients (<65 years) with a CTS-6 score of >12.
The circadian gene Nr1d1 in the mouse nucleus accumbens modulates sociability and anxiety‐related behaviour

Nuclear receptor subfamily 1, group D, member 1 (Nr1d1) (also known as Rev‐erb alpha) has been linked to circadian rhythm regulation, mood‐related behaviour and disorders associated with social deficits. Recent work from our laboratory found striking decreases in Nr1d1 in the nucleus accumbens (NAc) in the maternal condition and indirect evidence that Nr1d1 was interacting with numerous addiction and reward‐related genes to modulate social reward. In this study, we applied our insights from the maternal state to nonparental adult mice to determine whether decreases in Nr1d1 expression in the NAc via adeno‐associated viral (AAV) vectors and short hairpin RNA (shRNA)‐mediated gene knockdown were sufficient to modulate social behaviours and mood‐related behaviours. Knockdown of Nr1d1 in the NAc enhanced sociability and reduced anxiety, but did not affect depressive‐like traits in female mice. In male mice, Nr1d1 knockdown had no significant behavioural effects. Microarray analysis of Nr1d1 knockdown in females identified changes in circadian rhythm and histone deacetylase genes and suggested possible drugs, including histone deacetylase inhibitors, that could mimic actions of Nr1d1 knockdown. Quantitative real‐time PCR (qPCR) analysis confirmed expression upregulation of gene period circadian clock 1 (Per1) and period circadian clock 2 (Per2) with Nr1d1 knockdown. The evidence for roles for opioid‐related genes opioid receptor, delta 1 (Oprd1) and preproenkephalin (Penk) was also found. Together, these results suggest that Nr1d1 in the NAc modulates sociability and anxiety‐related behaviour in a sex‐specific manner, and circadian, histone deacetylase and opioid‐related genes may be involved in the expression of these behavioural phenotypes.
Occam's Razor: From Ockham's via Moderna to Modern Data Science

The principle of parsimony, also known as ‘Occam's razor’, is a heuristic dictum that is thoroughly familiar to virtually all practitioners of science: Aristotle, Newton, and many others have enunciated it in some form or other. Even though the principle is not difficult to comprehend as a general heuristic guideline, it has proved surprisingly resistant to being put on a rigorous footing – a difficulty that has become more pressing and topical with the ‘big data’ explosion. We review the significance of Occam's razor in the philosophical and theological writings of William of Ockham, and survey modern developments of parsimony in data science.
Employers’ views of the “Healthy Hub Roadshow”: a workplace HIV testing intervention in England*

ABSTRACT We explored employer uptake and perceptions of workplace human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) testing delivered to employees as part of Healthy Hub Roadshow, a multi-component general health check. Intervention included health checks with tailored advice delivered to 776 employees at 20 events hosted by 11 different workplaces (29 approached, 38% employer uptake). Delivery partners were third sector organisations with significant expertise in HIV testing and support. Health checks included optional HIV test (using 4th generation Insti finger prick rapid tests), Body Mass Index (BMI), blood glucose, blood pressure, and cholesterol. Mixed-methods evaluation included post-event online survey and qualitative interviews with participating employers. Declining employers were invited to complete an online feedback survey. Workplace HIV testing was positively received by all participating organisations, although 78% (14/18) of declining organisations did not provide their reasons for non-participation. Factors of importance to employers included the perceived trustworthiness of delivery partners, being able to provide engaging opportunities for employee health, offering HIV testing as part of a wider health check, and having visible top-level managerial support. Concerns about hosting the events were rare and related to having limited budgets for future events, and the potential loss of productivity related to attendance during work time. Employers indicated that they would not actively seek out workplace HIV testing as part of health promotion efforts, but they were highly receptive to its inclusion in workplace health and wellbeing provision by credible external delivery partners. In conclusion, workplaces are an untapped arena for HIV awareness raising and testing in the UK. Employers should be encouraged and supported to offer opt-in HIV testing as part of a wider workplace health and wellbeing provision for employees.
Amyloid β and free heme: bloody new insights into the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease

The cerebral formation of Amyloid β (Aβ) is a critical pathological feature of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). An accumulation of this peptide as senile plaques (SP) was already reported by Alois Alzheimer, the discoverer of the disease. Yet the exact contribution of Aβ to AD development remains elusive. Moreover, while extensive cerebral Aβ formation leads to fibril formation in many species, AD-like symptoms apparently depend on the highly conserved N-terminal residues R5, Y10 and H13. The amino acids were also shown to lead to the formation of Aβ-heme complexes, which exhibit peroxidase activity in the presence of H2O2. Taking together these observations we propose that the formation and enzymatic activity of the named complexes may represent an essential aspect of AD pathology. Furthermore, Aβ is also known to lead to cerebral micro-vessel destruction (CAA) as well as to hemolytic events. Thus we suggest that the Aβ-derived cerebral accumulation of blood-derived free heme represents a likely precondition for the subsequent formation of Aβ-heme complexes.
The First Decade of Web-Based Sports Injury Surveillance (2004-2005 Through 2013-2014): Methods of the National Collegiate Athletic Association Injury Surveillance Program and High School Reporting Information Online.

OBJECTIVE: To describe the methods of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Injury Surveillance Program (ISP) and High School Reporting Information Online (HS RIO) system as a complement to the sport-specific manuscripts that will follow. BACKGROUND: The NCAA-ISP and HS RIO collect injury and exposure data from samples of collegiate and high school sports programs, respectively. The NCAA-ISP, which the NCAA has maintained since 1982, was relaunched as a Web-based platform at the beginning of the 2004-2005 academic year. In 2005, the HS RIO was introduced to capture data on high school athletes and modeled after the NCAA-ISP. Relevant data are shared with the NCAA and high school sport and policy committees to develop evidence-based rules and programs that help protect the health and safety of student-athletes. DESCRIPTION: The NCAA-ISP and HS RIO monitor participation in school-sanctioned competitions and practices that occur from the first preseason practice to the final postseason contest for more than 25 sports. For this series of publications in the Journal of Athletic Training, injury information on 13 sports at the collegiate level during the 2004-2005 through 2013-2014 academic years and the high school level during the 2005-2006 through 2013-2014 academic years was evaluated. CONCLUSIONS: Athletic trainers have been a vital source of data collection over the past decade to help produce the largest datasets of collegiate and high school sports injuries. Such data have helped various sport and policy committees advance protocols that aim to increase sports safety. This series of publications will aid by continuing to provide data to stakeholders in the sports community.
AggLr, a novel aggregation factor in Lactococcus raffinolactis BGTRK10-1: its role in surface adhesion

Abstract The ability of lactic acid bacteria to form multi-cellular aggregates via self-aggregation is regarded as an important mechanism for stress tolerance, adhesion, colonization and genetic material exchange. The novel aggLr gene encoding for the auto-aggregation promoting protein (AggLr) of Lactococcus raffinolactis BGTRK10-1 was cloned. Heterologous expression of AggLr enabled auto-aggregation, higher hydrophobicity and collagen and fibronectin binding of the carrier strains. Domain analysis and the type of aggregates formed by cells expressing AggLr confirmed that this aggregation factor belongs to the family of high molecular weight proteins that the authors propose to be called Snow-flake Forming Collagen Binding Aggregation Factors (SFCBAF). An additional feature of SFCBAF is that they are rich in threonine and lysine and are free of cysteine in all of the aggregation factors described so far. In contrast to previously discovered SFCBAF, the gene encoding for AggLr is located on the chromosome in the strain BGTRK10-1.
Patterns and predictors of off-label prescription of psychiatric drugs

Off-label prescribing of psychiatric drugs is common, despite lacking strong scientific evidence of efficacy and potentially increasing risk for adverse events. The goal of this study was to characterize prevalence of off-label prescriptions of psychiatric drugs and examine patient and clinician predictors of off-label use. This manuscript presents a retrospective, cross-sectional study using data from the 2012 and 2013 National Ambulatory Medical Care Surveys (NAMCS). The study examined all adult outpatient visits to psychiatric practices for chronic care management with a single listed visit diagnosis in which at least one psychiatric drug was prescribed. The main outcome measure was off-label prescribing of at least one psychiatric drug, defined as prescription for a condition for which it has not been approved for use by the FDA. Among our sample representative of 1.85 billion outpatient visits, 18.5 million (1.3%) visits were to psychiatrists for chronic care management in which at least one psychiatric drug was prescribed. Overall, the rate of off-label use was 12.9% (95% CI: 12.2–15.7). The most common off-label uses were for manic-depressive psychosis treated with citalopram and primary insomnia treated with trazodone. Several patient and clinician characteristics were positively associated with off-label prescribing, including seeing a psychiatrist (OR: 1.06, 95% CI, 1.01–1.12; p = 0.03) instead of another type of clinician, the office visit taking place in the Western region of the country (OR: 1.09, 95% CI, 1.01–1.17; p = 0.02), and the patient having 3 or more chronic conditions (OR: 1.12, 95% CI, 1.02–1.14; p = 0.003). In contrast, having Medicare coverage (OR: 0.93, 95% CI, 0.84–0.97; p = 0.04) and receiving payment assistance from a medical charity (OR: 0.91, 95% CI, 0.88–0.96; p = 0.03) instead of private insurance were negatively associated with off-label prescribing. These results suggest that certain classes of psychiatric medications are being commonly prescribed to treat conditions for which they have not been determined by the FDA to be clinically efficacious and/or safe.
Influenza forecast optimization when using different surveillance data types and geographic scale

Advance warning of influenza incidence levels from skillful forecasts could help public health officials and healthcare providers implement more timely preparedness and intervention measures to combat outbreaks. Compared to influenza predictions generated at regional and national levels, those generated at finer scales could offer greater value in determining locally appropriate measures; however, to date, the various influenza surveillance data that are collected by state and county departments of health have not been well utilized in influenza prediction.
Clinical Features of Multiple Acyl-CoA Dehydrogenase Deficiency With ETFDH Variants in the First Korean Cases

Yoo Jinie Kim, M.D., Jung Min Ko , M.D., Ph.D., Junghan Song, M.D., Ph.D., and Kyung-A Lee, M.D., Ph.D. Department of Pediatrics, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul National University Children’s Hospital, Seoul, Korea; Department of Laboratory Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea; Department of Laboratory Medicine, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea
Electrostatic lock in the transport cycle of the multidrug resistance transporter EmrE

Significance EmrE is a small membrane transporter found in Escherichia coli that exports drug-like molecules from the cell, contributing to antibiotic resistance. In EmrE, as well as in the wider small-multidrug resistance transporter family, a specific anionic amino acid (E14) has been implicated in governing the conformational changes that export drugs. However, due to sparse structural information, the exact interactions remain unidentified. Through interactive molecular dynamics to incorporate existing cryo-electron microscopy data, we create a fully refined atomic model of EmrE. We then embed this model in a lipid bilayer and evaluate the interactions within EmrE under different loading states. We find that E14 makes specific hydrogen bonds to neighboring residues, coupling observed experimental phenomena to interactions at the atomic scale. EmrE is a small, homodimeric membrane transporter that exploits the established electrochemical proton gradient across the Escherichia coli inner membrane to export toxic polyaromatic cations, prototypical of the wider small-multidrug resistance transporter family. While prior studies have established many fundamental aspects of the specificity and rate of substrate transport in EmrE, low resolution of available structures has hampered identification of the transport coupling mechanism. Here we present a complete, refined atomic structure of EmrE optimized against available cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) data to delineate the critical interactions by which EmrE regulates its conformation during the transport process. With the model, we conduct molecular dynamics simulations of the transporter in explicit membranes to probe EmrE dynamics under different substrate loading and conformational states, representing different intermediates in the transport cycle. The refined model is stable under extended simulation. The water dynamics in simulation indicate that the hydrogen-bonding networks around a pair of solvent-exposed glutamate residues (E14) depend on the loading state of EmrE. One specific hydrogen bond from a tyrosine (Y60) on one monomer to a glutamate (E14) on the opposite monomer is especially critical, as it locks the protein conformation when the glutamate is deprotonated. The hydrogen bond provided by Y60 lowers the pKa of one glutamate relative to the other, suggesting both glutamates should be protonated for the hydrogen bond to break and a substrate-free transition to take place. These findings establish the molecular mechanism for the coupling between proton transfer reactions and protein conformation in this proton-coupled secondary transporter.
Lifestyle activities in mid-life contribute to cognitive reserve in late-life, independent of education, occupation, and late-life activities

Introduction This study tested the hypothesis that mid-life intellectual, physical and social activities contribute to cognitive reserve (CR). Methods 205 individuals (196 with MRI) aged 66-88 from the Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience (www.cam-can.com) were studied, with cognitive ability and structural brain health measured as fluid IQ and total grey matter volume, respectively. Mid-life activities were measured using the Lifetime of Experiences Questionnaire. Results Multivariable linear regression found that mid-life activities (MA) made a unique contribution to late-life cognitive ability independent of education, occupation and late-life activities. Crucially, MA moderated the relationship between late-life cognitive ability and brain structure, with the cognitive ability of people with higher MA less dependent on their brain structure, consistent with the concept of CR. Conclusions. Mid-life intellectual, physical and social activities contribute uniquely to CR. The modifiability of these activities has implications for public health initiatives aimed at dementia prevention.
Incidence of intracranial bleeding in anticoagulated patients with minor head injury: a systematic review and meta‐analysis of prospective studies

Guidelines advise performing a computed tomography head scan for all anticoagulated head injured patients, but the risk of intracranial haemorrhage (ICH) after a minor head injury is unclear. We conducted a systematic review and meta‐analysis to determine the incidence of ICH in anticoagulated patients presenting with a minor head injury and a Glasgow Coma Score (GCS) of 15. We followed Meta‐Analyses and Systematic Reviews of Observational Studies guidelines. We included all prospective studies recruiting consecutive anticoagulated emergency patients presenting with a head injury. Anticoagulation included vitamin‐K antagonists (warfarin, fluindione), direct oral anticoagulants (apixaban, rivaroxaban, dabigatran and edoxaban) and low molecular weight heparin. A total of five studies (including 4080 anticoagulated patients with a GCS of 15) were included in the analysis. The majority of patients took vitamin K antagonists (98·3%). There was significant heterogeneity between studies with regards to mechanism of injury and methods. The random effects pooled incidence of ICH was 8·9% (95% confidence interval 5·0–13·8%). In conclusion, around 9% of patients on vitamin K antagonists with a minor head injury develop ICH. There is little data on the risk of traumatic intracranial bleeding in patients who have a GSC 15 post‐head injury and are prescribed a direct oral anticoagulant.
Herbicides and herbivory interact to drive plant community and crop-tree establishment.

Land management practices often directly alter vegetation structure and composition, but the degree to which ecological processes such as herbivory interact with management to influence biodiversity is less well understood. We hypothesized that large herbivores compound the effects of intensive forest management on early seral plant communities and plantation establishment (i.e., tree survival and growth), and the degree of such effects is dependent on the intensity of management practices. We established 225-m2 wild-ungulate (deer and elk) exclosures, nested within a manipulated gradient of management intensity (no-herbicide control, light herbicide, moderate herbicide, and intensive herbicide treatments), replicated at the scale of whole harvest units (10-19 ha). Vegetation structure, composition, and crop-tree responses to herbivory varied across the gradient of herbicide application during the first two years of stand establishment, with herbivory effects most evident at light and moderate herbicide treatments. In the moderate herbicide treatment, which approximates management applied to >2.5 million hectares in the Pacific Northwest, United States, foraging by deer and elk resulted in simplified, low-cover plant communities more closely resembling the intensive herbicide treatment. Herbivory further suppressed the growth of competing vegetation in the light herbicide treatment, improving crop-tree survival, and providing early evidence of an ecosystem service. By changing community composition and vegetation structure, intensive forest management alters foraging selectivity and subsequent plant-herbivore interactions; initial shifts in early seral communities are likely to influence understory plant communities and tree growth in later stages of forest development.
Fungal bioprospecting and antifungal treatment on a deteriorated Brazilian contemporary painting

This study aims at identifying the populations of filamentous fungi present on a Brazilian contemporary painting, whose conservation status was compromised and showed evident signs of deterioration by microbial action. In addition, to correlate the biodeterioration potential of the isolated fungal strains, cellulolytic activity testing was performed and, finally, the biocide treatment against microbial growth was carried out. A total of nine isolates of filamentous fungi were detected and three distinct taxa were identified: Aspergillus flavus, Aspergillus niger and Penicillium citrinum. The detection of the enzymatic activity of the isolates by cellulolytic plate assay revealed the potential of filamentous fungal species in causing the deterioration of paintings. Our results showed that the presence of each strain of filamentous fungi correlated with the distribution of the paint colour, suggesting a tropism of certain species for specific dyes used. In addition, strains of A. niger showed a lower enzymatic activity index, despite the aesthetic damage that this fungal specie caused on the artwork. In conclusion, this study demonstrated that the identification of the microbiota obtained from the painting may help contrasting its biodeterioration and it described a successful antifungal treatment on a contemporary art piece.