Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Correlation between estimated glucose disposal rate and in-stent restenosis following percutaneous coronary intervention in individuals with non-ST-segment elevation acute coronary syndrome

Background Insulin resistance (IR) is closely associated with in-stent restenosis (ISR) following percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Nevertheless, the predictive power of the newly developed simple assessment method for IR, estimated glucose disposal rate (eGDR), for ISR after PCI in individuals with non-ST-segment elevation acute coronary syndrome (NSTE-ACS) remains unclear. Methods NSTE-ACS cases administered PCI in Beijing Anzhen Hospital between January and December 2015 were enrolled. The included individuals were submitted to at least one coronary angiography within 48 months after discharge. Patients were assigned to 2 groups according to ISR occurrence or absence. eGDR was derived as 21.16 - (0.09 * waist circumference [cm]) - (3.41 * hypertension) - (0.55 * glycated hemoglobin [%]). Multivariate logistic regression analysis and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis were performed for evaluating eGDR’s association with ISR. Results Based on eligibility criteria, 1218 patients were included. In multivariate logistic analysis, the odds ratios (ORs) of eGDR as a nominal variate and a continuous variate were 3.393 (confidence interval [CI] 2.099 - 5.488, P < 0.001) and 1.210 (CI 1.063 - 1.378, P = 0.004), respectively. The incremental effect of eGDR on ISR prediction based on traditional cardiovascular risk factors was reflected by ROC curve analysis (AUC: baseline model + eGDR 0.644 vs. baseline model 0.609, P for comparison=0.013), continuous net reclassification improvement (continuous-NRI) of -0.264 (p < 0.001) and integrated discrimination improvement (IDI) of 0.071 (p = 0.065). Conclusion In NSTE-ACS cases administered PCI, eGDR levels show an independent negative association with increased ISR risk.
Cocultivation of Chinese prescription and intestine microbiota: SJZD alleviated the major symptoms of IBS-D subjects by tuning neurotransmitter metabolism

Objective Diarrhea-predominant irritable bowel syndrome (IBS-D) is a recurrent and common disease featuring dysbiotic intestinal microbiota, with limited treatments. Si-Jun-Zi Decoction (SJZD), a classic Chinese prescription, has been extensively used for IBS-D. This work aimed to explore the ex vivo interactions of SJZD and IBS-D’s intestinal microbiota. Methods Five samples of intestinal microbiota collected from IBS-D volunteers and five age-matched healthy controls were recruited from the Affiliated Hospital, Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). A representative mixture of intestinal microbiota was composed of an equal proportion of these fecal samples. To simulate the clinical interaction, this microbiota was cocultivated with SJZD at clinical dosage in an anaerobic incubator at 37°C for 35 h. Microbiota and metabolic alterations were assessed by 16S rRNA gene sequencing in the V3/V4 regions and a nontargeted metabolome platform, respectively. Results After being cocultivated with SJZD, the dysbiotic intestine microbiota from IBS-D subjects was largely restored to those of the healthy controls. A total of 624 differentially expressed metabolites were detected by nontargeted metabolomics, of which 16 biomarkers were identified. These metabolites were then enriched into 11 pathways by KEGG, particularly those involved in neurotransmitter metabolism responses for the major symptom of IBS-D. Correlation analysis of bacterial metabolites demonstrated a synergistic pattern of neurotransmitter metabolism between Streptococcus and E. Shigella. Conclusion SJZD rescued the dysbiotic intestinal microbiota and ameliorated the dysfunctional neurotransmitter metabolism involved in IBS-D’s major symptoms.
Global health-based virtual exchange to improve intercultural competency in students: Long-lasting impacts and areas for improvement

Introduction As public health expands its role in global settings, the need to develop intercultural competency for public health students also grows. One initiative being applied to promote global awareness is the use of virtual exchange (VE) programs. VE programs promote collaborative online international learning (COIL) and allow students from different countries to connect and work together on projects related to their field of study; however, there is little research around the long-term impacts of these programs. Methods Undergraduate pre-health students from the United States who participated in a VE program a year prior were interviewed about their experiences engaging with undergraduate medical students in Egypt. They were asked if the experience impacted their current behaviors, skills, or knowledge, and what improvements could be made to the program. Mezirow's Transformative Learning Theory (TLT) served as the theoretical framework, grounding interview instrument development and directed content analysis procedures. Researchers also engaged in inductive analysis to capture other salient themes. Results Ten students were interviewed with a majority engaging in either of the two final stages of Mezirow's TLT: “building of self-confidence and self-competence” (60%) and “reintegration” (50%). Other salient themes found were intercultural interactions, VE appreciation, and VE improvements. When describing their experience in one word, students overwhelmingly provided words with positive connotations (80%), with the negative responses being explained by the structure and presentation of the VE. Discussion Students were able to apply lessons they learned during the VE within a 1-year follow-up period. This is beneficial, as health professionals require intercultural competency to promote and provide improved health outcomes. Results from this study indicate the need for structure when conducting a VE, addressing the need to increase the number of direct interactions and thereby promoting more intercultural exchanges. Likewise, the interviews demonstrated that changes in course instruction need to be implemented gradually to allow for students to adjust to unfamiliar teaching methods.
Exploring classroom-based assessment for young EFL learners in the Chinese context: Teachers’ beliefs and practices

Classroom-based assessment (CBA) is an approach for learning improvement that has been advocated as having strong potential in enhancing learner autonomy of young language learners (YLLs). This study investigated Chinese primary school English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ beliefs about CBA, their assessment practices, and the relationship between their CBA beliefs and practices. Drawing on data from a survey of 195 Chinese primary school EFL teachers, results showed that the teachers positively believed in the value of various CBA processes, including planning assessment, collecting learning evidence, making professional judgments and providing appropriate feedback, and they also attempted to enact these assessment practices; belief-practice alignment was also identified, showing that teachers’ beliefs about CBA were significant predictors of their assessment practices. Implications are provided for promoting the implementation of CBA for YLLs in similar contexts.
Research on skeletal muscle impact injury using a new rat model from a bioimpact machine

Introduction: Skeletal muscle impact injury occurs frequently during sports, falls, and road traffic accidents. From the reported studies on skeletal muscle injury, it is difficult to determine the injury parameters. Therefore, we developed a new model of gastrocnemius impact injury in rats with a bioimpact machine, with which the experimental operation could be conducted in feasibility from the recorded parameters. Through this novel model, we study the skeletal muscle impact injury mechanisms by combining temporal and spatial variation. Methods: The gastrocnemius of anesthetized rats was injured by a small pneumatic-driven bioimpact machine; the moving speed and impact force were determined, and the whole impact process was captured by a high-speed camera. We observed the general condition of rats and measured the changes in injured calf circumference, evaluating calf injuries using MRI, gait analysis system, and pathology at different times after the injury. Results: The gastrocnemius was injured at an impact speed of 6.63 m/s ± 0.25 m/s and a peak force of 1,556.80 N ± 110.79 N. The gait analysis system showed that the footprint area of the RH limb decreased significantly on the first day and then increased. The calf circumference of the injured limb increased rapidly on the first day post-injury and then decreased in the next few days. MRI showed edema of subcutaneous and gastrocnemius on the first day, and the area of edema decreased over the following days. HE staining showed edema of cells, extensive hyperemia of blood vessels, and infiltration of inflammatory cells on the first day. Cell edema was alleviated day by day, but inflammatory cell infiltration was the most on the third day. TEM showed that the sarcoplasmic reticulum was dilated on the first day, the mitochondrial vacuolation was obvious on the second day, and the glycogen deposition was prominent on the fifth day. Conclusion: In our experiment, we developed a new and effective experimental animal model that was feasible to operate; the injured area of the gastrocnemius began to show “map-like” changes in the light microscope on the third day. Meanwhile, the gastrocnemius showed a trend of “edema-mitochondrial vacuolation-inflammatory cell aggregation” after impact injury.
Computational approaches for network-based integrative multi-omics analysis

Advances in omics technologies allow for holistic studies into biological systems. These studies rely on integrative data analysis techniques to obtain a comprehensive view of the dynamics of cellular processes, and molecular mechanisms. Network-based integrative approaches have revolutionized multi-omics analysis by providing the framework to represent interactions between multiple different omics-layers in a graph, which may faithfully reflect the molecular wiring in a cell. Here we review network-based multi-omics/multi-modal integrative analytical approaches. We classify these approaches according to the type of omics data supported, the methods and/or algorithms implemented, their node and/or edge weighting components, and their ability to identify key nodes and subnetworks. We show how these approaches can be used to identify biomarkers, disease subtypes, crosstalk, causality, and molecular drivers of physiological and pathological mechanisms. We provide insight into the most appropriate methods and tools for research questions as showcased around the aetiology and treatment of COVID-19 that can be informed by multi-omics data integration. We conclude with an overview of challenges associated with multi-omics network-based analysis, such as reproducibility, heterogeneity, (biological) interpretability of the results, and we highlight some future directions for network-based integration.
Evaluation of a natural language processing tool for extracting gender, weight, ethnicity, and race in the US food and drug administration adverse event reporting system

The US Food and Drug Administration Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) contains over 24 million individual case safety reports (ICSRs). In this research project, we evaluated a natural language processing (NLP) tool’s ability to extract four demographic variables (gender, weight, ethnicity, race) from ICSR narratives. Specificity of the NLP algorithm was over 94% for all demographics, while sensitivity varied between the demographics: 98.6% (gender), 45.5% (weight), 100% (ethnicity), and 85.3% (race). Among ICSRs missing weight, ethnicity, and race in the structured field, few cases had this information in the narrative (>95% missing); consequently, the positive predictive value (PPV) for these three demographics had wide 95% confidence intervals. After NLP implementation, the total number of ICSRs missing gender was reduced by 33% (i.e., NLP identified 472 thousand reports having a gender value in the narrative that was not in the structured field), while the total number of ICSRs missing weight, ethnicity, or race was reduced by less than 4%. This study demonstrated that the implementation of an NLP tool can provide meaningful improvements in the availability of gender information for pharmacovigilance activities conducted with FAERS data. In contrast, NLP tools targeting the extraction of weight, ethnicity, or race from free-text fields have minimal impact largely because the information was infrequently provided by the reporter. Further gains in completeness of these fields must originate from increases in provision of demographic information from the reporter rather than informatic solutions.
The relationship between living arrangements and depression among older adults in Shandong, China: The mediating role of social support

Background Living arrangements and social support have an impact on depression among older adults. However, the underlying mechanism between those variables remains unknown. This study aims to investigate the mediating role of social support in the relationship between living arrangements and depression among older adults. Materials and methods Multi-stage stratified sampling method was used to select 3,859 older adults from Taian City, Shandong Province, China, for cross-sectional investigation. Living arrangements were measured by a question. Social support and depression were measured using the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support and Patient Health Questionnaire-9. Multiple linear regression models were used to assess the relationship between living arrangements and depression and the possible influence of social support on the relationship between living arrangements and depression. Results Statistics showed that 15.08% of older adults lived alone. After controlling for covariates, living arrangements (ß = 0.45, t = 2.87, P < 0.01) and social support (ß =−0.08, t =−16.93, P < 0.001) were significantly associated with depression. The linear regression model showed that social support mediated the relationship between living arrangements and depression, and the mediating effect accounted for 18.20% of the total effect. Conclusion This study revealed that living arrangements played an essential role in indirectly predicting depression in older adults through social support. This provided evidence for how to reduce depression in older adults.
Search for long-lived charged particles in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 13 TeV

Results are presented of a search for heavy stable charged particles produced in proton-proton collisions at √ s = 13 TeV using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 2.5 fb − 1 collected in 2015 with the CMS detector at the CERN LHC. The search is conducted using signatures of anomalously high energy deposits in the silicon tracker and long time of ﬂight measurements by the muon system. The data are consistent with the expected background, and upper limits are set on the cross sections for production of long-lived gluinos, top squarks, tau sleptons, and leptonlike long-lived fermions. These upper limits are equivalently expressed as lower limits on the masses of new states; the limits for gluinos, ranging up to 1610 GeV, are the most stringent to date. Limits on the cross sections for direct pair production of long-lived tau sleptons are also determined.
GALAXY MERGERS AS A SOURCE OF COSMIC RAYS, NEUTRINOS, AND GAMMA RAYS

We investigate the shock acceleration of particles in massive galaxy mergers or collisions, and show that cosmic rays (CRs) can be accelerated up to the second knee energy ∼0.1–1 EeV and possibly beyond, with a hard spectral index of Γ ≈ 2. Such CRs lose their energy via hadronuclear interactions within a dynamical timescale of the merger shock, producing gamma rays and neutrinos as a by-product. If ∼10% of the shock dissipated energy goes into CR acceleration, some local merging galaxies will produce gamma-ray counterparts detectable by the Cherenkov Telescope Array. Also, based on the concordance cosmology, where a good fraction of the massive galaxies experience a major merger in a cosmological timescale, the neutrino counterparts can constitute ∼20%–60% of the isotropic background detected by IceCube.
Non-Fourier description of heat flux evolution in 3D MHD simulations of the solar corona

ABSTRACT The hot loop structures in the solar corona can be well modelled by three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulations, where the corona is heated by field line braiding driven at the photosphere. To be able to reproduce the emission comparable to observations, one has to use realistic values for the Spitzer heat conductivity, which puts a large constraint on the time step of these simulations and make them therefore computationally expensive. Here, we present a non-Fourier description of the heat flux evolution, which allows us to speed up the simulations significantly. Together with the semi-relativistic Boris correction, we are able to limit the time step constraint of the Alfvén speed and speed up the simulations even further. We discuss the implementation of these two methods to the Pencil Code and present their implications on the time step, and the temperature structures, the ohmic heating rate and the emission in simulations of the solar corona. Using a non-Fourier description of the heat flux evolution together with the Boris correction, we can increase the time step of the simulation significantly without moving far away from the reference solution. However, for values of the Alfvén speed limit of 3000 and below, the simulation moves away from the reference solution and produces much higher temperatures and much structures with stronger emission.
Sub- and supercritical defect scattering in Schr\"odinger chains with higher-order hopping

We theoretically analyze a discrete Schr\"odinger chain with hopping to the first and second neighbors, as can be realized with zigzag arrangements of optical waveguides or lattice sites for cold atoms. Already at moderate values, the second-neighbor hopping has a strong impact on the band structure, leading to the emergence of a new extremum located inside the band, accompanied by a van Hove singularity in the density of states. The energy band is then divided into a subcritical regime with the usual unique correspondence between wave number and energy of the travelling waves, and a supercritical regime, in which waves of different wave number are degenerate in energy. We study the consequences of these features in a scattering setup, introducing a defect that locally breaks the translational invariance. The notion of a local probability current is generalized beyond the nearest-neighbor approximation and bound states with energies outside the band are discussed. At subcritical energies inside the band, an evanescent mode coexists with the travelling plane wave, giving rise to resonance phenomena in scattering. At weak coupling to the defect, we identify a prototypical Fano-Feshbach resonance of tunable shape and provide analytical expressions for its profile parameters. At supercritical energies, we observe coupling of the degenerate travelling waves, leading to an intricate wave packet fragmentation dynamics. The corresponding branching ratios are analyzed.
A study of the sensitivity of shape measurements to the input parameters of weak-lensing image simulations

Improvements in the accuracy of shape measurements are essential to exploit the statistical power of planned imaging surveys that aim to constrain cosmological parameters using weak lensing by large-scale structure. Although a range of tests can be performed using the measurements, the performance of the algorithm can only be quantified using simulated images. This yields, however, only meaningful results if the simulated images resemble the real observations sufficiently well. In this paper we explore the sensitivity of the multiplicative bias to the input parameters of Euclid-like image simulations.We find that algorithms will need to account for the local density of sources. In particular the impact of galaxies below the detection limit warrants further study, because magnification changes their number density, resulting in correlations between the lensing signal and multiplicative bias. Although achieving sub-percent accuracy will require further study, we estimate that sufficient archival Hubble Space Telescope data are available to create realistic populations of galaxies.
Resonance Production and $\pi\pi$ S-wave in $\pi^- + p \rightarrow \pi^- \pi^- \pi^+ + p_{recoil}$ at 190 GeV$/c$

The COMPASS collaboration has collected the currently largest data set on diffractively produced π-π-π+ final states using a negative pion beam of 190 GeV/c momentum impinging on a stationary proton target. This data set allows for a systematic partial-wave analysis in 100 bins of three-pion mass, 0.5<m3π<2.5 GeV/c2, and in 11 bins of the reduced four-momentum transfer squared, 0.1<t′<1.0 (GeV/c)2. This two-dimensional analysis offers sensitivity to genuine one-step resonance production, i.e. the production of a state followed by its decay, as well as to more complex dynamical effects in nonresonant 3π production. In this paper, we present detailed studies on selected 3π partial waves with JPC=0-+, 1++, 2-+, 2++, and 4++. In these waves, we observe the well-known ground-state mesons as well as a new narrow axial-vector meson a1(1420) decaying into f0(980)π. In addition, we present the results of a novel method to extract the amplitude of the π-π+ subsystem with IGJPC=0+0++ in various partial waves from the π-π-π+ data. Evidence is found for correlation of the f0(980) and f0(1500) appearing as intermediate π-π+ isobars in the decay of the known π(1800) and π2(1880).
Computing the Drift of Random Walks in Dependent Random Environments

Although the theoretical behavior of one-dimensional random walks in random environments is well understood, the numerical evaluation of various characteristics of such processes has received relatively little attention. This paper develops new theory and methodology for the computation of the drift of the random walk for various dependent random environments, including $k$-dependent and moving average environments.
LBT observations of compact star-forming galaxies with extremely high [O III]/[O II] flux ratios: He I emission-line ratios as diagnostics of Lyman continuum leakage

We present Large Binocular Telescope spectrophotometric observations of five low-redshift (z<0.070) compact star-forming galaxies (CSFGs) with extremely high emission-line ratios O32 = [OIII]5007/[OII]3727, ranging from 23 to 43. Galaxies with such high O32 are thought to be promising candidates for leaking large amounts of Lyman continuum (LyC) radiation and, at high redshifts, for contributing to the reionization of the Universe. The equivalent widths EW(Hbeta) of the Hbeta emission line in the studied galaxies are very high, ~350-520A, indicating very young ages for the star formation bursts, <3 Myr. All galaxies are characterized by low oxygen abundances 12+logO/H = 7.46 - 7.79 and low masses Mstar~10^6-10^7 Msun, much lower than the Mstar for known low-redshift LyC leaking galaxies, but probably more typical of the hypothetical population of low-luminosity dwarf LyC leakers at high redshifts. A broad Halpha emission line is detected in the spectra of all CSFGs, possibly related to expansion motions of supernova remnants. Such rapid ionized gas motions would facilitate the escape of the resonant Ly$\alpha$ emission from the galaxy. We show that high O32 may not be a sufficient condition for LyC leakage and propose new diagnostics based on the HeI 3889/6678 and 7065/6678 emission-line flux ratios. Using these diagnostics we find that three CSFGs in our sample are likely to have density-bounded HII regions and are thus leaking large amounts of LyC radiation. The amount of leaking LyC radiation is probably much lower in the other two CSFGs.