Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Factors associated with HIV testing among pregnant women in Rwanda: A nationwide cross-sectional survey

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) testing during pregnancy is crucial for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, through aiding prompt treatment, care, and support. However, few studies have explored HIV testing among pregnant women in Rwanda. This study, therefore, aimed to determine the prevalence and associated factors of HIV testing among pregnant women in Rwanda. We used secondary data from the 2020 Rwanda Demographic and Health Survey (RDHS), comprising 870 pregnant women. Multistage stratified sampling was used by the RDHS team to select participants. We conducted bivariable and multivariable logistic regression to explore factors associated with HIV testing using SPSS (version 25). Of the 870 pregnant women, 94.0% had tested for HIV during their current pregnancy. Younger age (24–34 years), not working, large household size, multiple sex partners, as well as secondary, primary, and no education were associated with higher odds of HIV testing compared to their respective counterparts. However, being unmarried, belonging to the western region, having not visited a health facility, and not having comprehensive HIV knowledge were associated with lower odds of HIV testing. A high proportion of pregnant women had tested for HIV. The study revealed that individual-level factors had the greatest influence on HIV testing in pregnancy, with a few household-level factors showing significance. There is a need for maternal health stakeholders to design and develop HIV testing programs that are region-sensitive. These programs should target older, more educated, working, and unmarried women with limited HIV knowledge.
Application of the New Irrigation Protocol to Reduce Recurrence Rate in the Management Of Periprosthetic Joint Infection

Objective Irrigation is a conventional treatment for acute and chronic periprosthetic joint infections (PJI). However, there has been no unified standard for irrigation during surgery for PJI in the past, and the efficacy is uncertain. The purpose of this study is to create a new irrigation protocol to enhance the infection control rate and reduce the postoperative recurrence rate of PJI patients. Methods We conducted a single‐institution retrospective review with a total of 56 patients who underwent revision total hip or knee arthroplasties due to PJI from January 2011 to January 2022. Conventional irrigation (CI) was used in 32 cases, and standard operating procedure of irrigation (SOPI) was used in 24. The CI protocol carries out an empirical irrigation after debridement, which is quite random. Our SOPI protocol clearly stipulates the soaking concentration and time of hydrogen peroxide and povidone‐iodine. The irrigation is carried out three times, and tissue samples are taken from multiple parts before and after irrigation, which are sent for microbial culture. The important statistical indicators were the rate of positive microbiological culture and postoperative recurrence rate with an average follow‐up of 24 average months. Results The drainage volume was lower in the SOPI group than in the CI group on postoperative day 3 (p < 0.01) and 7 (p = 0.016). In addition, the percentage of positive microbiological cultures after the third irrigation was less than that before (p < 0.01) and after (p < 0.01) the first irrigation. The most common causative organism was Staphylococcus aureus, which was detected in 25.0% and 12.5% of the SOPI and CI groups, respectively. The failure rate at the final follow‐up was 8.3% and 31.3% (p = 0.039) for the SOPI and CI groups, respectively. Conclusion Compared with the traditional CI method, SOPI standardized the soaking time of hydrogen peroxide and povidone‐iodine, increased the frequency of and irrigation, and proved that microorganisms were almost completely removed through the microbial culture of multiple tissues. SOPI has the potential to become a standardized irrigation process worthy of promotion, effectively reducing the postoperative recurrence rate of PJI patients.
Embedded EEG Feature Selection for Multi-Dimension Emotion Recognition via Local and Global Label Relevance

Due to the problem of a small amount of EEG samples and relatively high dimensionality of electroencephalogram (EEG) features, feature selection plays an essential role in EEG-based emotion recognition. However, current EEG-based emotion recognition studies utilize a problem transformation approach to transform multi-dimension emotional labels into single-dimension labels, and then implement commonly used single-label feature selection methods to search feature subsets, which ignores the relations between different emotional dimensions. To tackle the problem, we propose an efficient EEG feature selection method for multi-dimension emotion recognition (EFSMDER) via local and global label relevance. First, to capture the local label correlations, EFSMDER implements orthogonal regression to map the original EEG feature space into a low-dimension space. Then, it employs the global label correlations in the original multi-dimension emotional label space to effectively construct the label information in the low-dimension space. With the aid of local and global relevance information, EFSMDER can conduct representational EEG feature subset selection. Three EEG emotional databases with multi-dimension emotional labels were used for performance comparison between EFSMDER and fourteen state-of-the-art methods, and the EFSMDER method achieves the best multi-dimension classification accuracies of 86.43, 84.80, and 97.86 percent on the DREAMER, DEAP, and HDED datasets, respectively.
The relationship between disability and depression, anxiety, and sleep quality in patients with coccydynia.

OBJECTIVES In this study, our aim was to investigate the relationship between sleep quality, anxiety, depression, and disability in patients with coccydynia. METHODS This prospective cross-sectional study evaluated 60 patients diagnosed with coccydynia. Clinical and demographic characteristics of the patients were recorded. Outcome measures included the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), Oswestry Disability Index (ODI), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), which were analyzed. RESULTS Depressive symptoms and anxiety were detected in 47 (78.3%) and 49 (81.6%) of the 60 patients, respectively. Additionally, 46 (76.7%) patients were identified as poor sleepers. Our results demonstrated a statistically significant positive correlation between the quality of sleep and anxiety and depressive symptoms scores (p<0.001); there was also a statistically weak positive correlation with disability index values. CONCLUSION Depressive symptoms, anxiety, and poor sleep quality are exacerbated by disability in coccydynia. While coccydynia has been previously associated with neurotic disorders, the mechanisms underlying poor sleep quality remain unclear.
L-Serine enables reducing the virulence of Acinetobacter baumannii and modulating the SIRT1 pathway to eliminate the pathogen

ABSTRACT The emergence of high-virulent Acinetobacter baumannii strains increases the mortality of patients and seriously affects their prognosis, which motivates us to explore novel ways to control such infections. In this study, gas chromatography–mass spectrometry was adopted to explore the metabolic difference between high- and low-virulent A. baumannii strains, and the decreased L-serine levels were identified as the most crucial biomarker in low-virulent A. baumannii strains. In vitro, L-serine reduced the virulence of A. baumannii to Beas 2B cells and inhibited the activation of NLRP3 inflammasome via decreasing the generation of ROS and mtROS and the release of inflammatory cytokines (IL-18 and IL-1β) through upregulating SIRT1. In vivo, the Galleria mellonella model was adopted. L-serine downregulated the levels of virulence genes (ompA, carO, and omp33-36), reduced the mortality of A. baumannii to G. mellonella, and decreased the blacking speed as well as the degree of G. mellonella after infection. Taken together, we found that L-serine can reduce the virulence of A. baumannii and enhance the host’s defense against the pathogen, providing a novel strategy for the treatment of infections caused by A. baumannii. IMPORTANCE Acinetobacter baumannii has become one of the most common and severe opportunistic pathogens in hospitals. The high-virulent A. baumannii strains pose a great threat to patients and increase the risk of nosocomial infection. However, the mechanism of virulence in A. baumannii is still not well understood. In the present study, we identified potential biomarkers in low-virulent A. baumannii strains. Our analysis revealed the effect of L-serine on reducing the virulence of A.baumannii. This discovery suggests that targeting L-serine could be a promising strategy for the treatment or adjunctive treatment of A. baumannii infections. The development of treatments targeting virulence may provide a substitute for the increasingly failed traditional antibacterial treatment.
Assessing Public Awareness and Perception of Teledermatology Via Survey

Introduction Teledermatology represents an alternative medical approach allowing for the remote assessment of a patient’s clinical information without the need for face-to-face consultations. Objectives This study aims to gauge the public’s awareness and perception of teledermatology. Methods This research employed a cross-sectional observational design. Data collection was executed using an online survey. Sociodemographic attributes of all participants, such as age, gender, and occupation, were recorded. The survey, designed using Google Forms, comprised two sections: demographic information (5 questions) and queries related to teledermatology (10 questions). Questions and options in the survey were reviewed and revised by two dermatologists to eliminate potential misunderstandings, grammar, and other errors. Power analysis indicated a requirement of a minimum of 527 participants, given a 0.05 margin of error, 98% confidence level, and 0.50 response distribution. Results A total of 873 individuals completed the survey— 47.7% were male and 52.3% were female. Students made up 48.1% of the participants, while 22.6% were civil servants. The Marmara Region had the highest participation rate at 47.7%. Remarkably, 41.9% of participants were unfamiliar with the term “teledermatology”. However, 57.2% expressed a preference for consultations via teledermatology. Furthermore, 63.7% mentioned facing challenges when attempting to communicate with dermatologists for skin-related concerns. A notable 71.6% supported the formal implementation of teledermatology in our country. Conclusions Our survey highlighted a limited awareness of teledermatology among participants, yet a majority showed a preference for teledermatology consultations. For a comprehensive understanding of public knowledge and perception towards teledermatology, more extensive, multicentric studies are necessary.
Topological Nodal-Point Superconductivity in Two-Dimensional Ferroelectric Hybrid Perovskites.

Two-dimensional (2D) hybrid organic-inorganic perovskites (HOIPs) with enhanced stability, high tunability, and strong spin-orbit coupling have shown great potential in vast applications. Here, we extend the already rich functionality of 2D HOIPs to a new territory, realizing topological superconductivity and Majorana modes for fault-tolerant quantum computation. Especially, we predict that room-temperature ferroelectric BA2PbCl4 (BA for benzylammonium) exhibits topological nodal-point superconductivity (NSC) and gapless Majorana modes on selected edges and ferroelectric domain walls when proximity-coupled to an s-wave superconductor and an in-plane Zeeman field, attractive for experimental verification and application. Since NSC is protected by spatial symmetry of 2D HOIPs, we envision more exotic topological superconducting states to be found in this class of materials due to their diverse noncentrosymmetric space groups, which may open a new avenue in the fields of HOIPs and topological superconductivity.
Evolution-based Shape and Behavior Co-design of Virtual Agents.

We introduce a novel co-design method for autonomous moving agents' shape attributes and locomotion by combining deep reinforcement learning and evolution with user control. Our main inspiration comes from evolution, which has led to wide variability and adaptation in Nature and has significantly improved design and behavior simultaneously. Our method takes an input agent with optional user-defined constraints, such as leg parts that should not evolve or are only within the allowed ranges of changes. It uses physics-based simulation to determine its locomotion and finds a behavior policy for the input design that is used as a baseline for comparison. The agent is randomly modified within the allowed ranges, creating a new generation of several hundred agents. The generation is trained by transferring the previous policy, which significantly speeds up the training. The best-performing agents are selected, and a new generation is formed using their crossover and mutations. The next generations are then trained until satisfactory results are reached. We show a wide variety of evolved agents, and our results show that even with only 10 the overall performance of the evolved agents improves by 50 experiments' performance will improve even more to 150 structures, and it does not require considerable computation resources as it works on a single GPU and provides results by training thousands of agents within 30 minutes.
The cerebellum is involved in processing of predictions and prediction errors in a fear conditioning paradigm

Prediction errors are thought to drive associative fear learning. Surprisingly little is known about the possible contribution of the cerebellum. To address this question, healthy participants underwent a differential fear conditioning paradigm during 7T magnetic resonance imaging. An event-related design allowed us to separate cerebellar fMRI signals related to the visual conditioned stimulus (CS) from signals related to the subsequent unconditioned stimulus (US; an aversive electric shock). We found significant activation of cerebellar lobules Crus I and VI bilaterally related to the CS+ compared to the CS-. Most importantly, significant activation of lobules Crus I and VI was also present during the unexpected omission of the US in unreinforced CS+ acquisition trials. This activation disappeared during extinction when US omission became expected. These findings provide evidence that the cerebellum has to be added to the neural network processing predictions and prediction errors in the emotional domain.
Using TerraPOS for efficient and accurate marine positioning

Precise Point Positioning (PPP) is a tech- nique where observations from a single Global Navi- gation Satellite System (GNSS) receiver are used. PPP does not use data from dedicated reference receivers, in- stead precise ephemerides and satellite clock corrections must be provided. PPP is thus logistically a very com- petitive alternative to differential GNSS methods. For post-processing applications, precise ephemerides and satellite clock corrections can be freely downloaded from the Internet. No expensive real-time correction ser- vices are required. This paper describes the fundamentals of PPP process- ing, and briefly discusses the TerraPOS implementation. PPP performance in a marine environment is assessed through an extensive test, covering almost 40 days of 1 Hz GNSS data. This test demonstrates PPP accuracy in the range of 5 cm horizontal and 6 cm vertical at the 95% level. Precise ellipsoidal heights in combination with Mean Sea Surface models may in some applications replace the tedious process of local tide measurements.
Single-molecule imaging of stochastic interactions that drive dynein activation and cargo movement in cells

Using live-cell single-molecule imaging, Tirumala and Redpath et al. show that the motor protein cytoplasmic dynein is activated in a stochastic manner when it encounters preformed dynactin–cargo complexes on microtubules. The resulting cargo movement in short bursts cumulatively results in long-range transport into late endosomal compartments.
The Professional Nurse Self-Assessment Scale II - Translation and cultural adaptation for Nordic countries.

BACKGROUND It is important to map the clinical competence of newly graduated nurses in Nordic countries. The use of a common Nordic instrument could provide insights into nurses' levels of self-assessed clinical competence and perceptions of their need for professional development. AIM To translate and culturally adapt the original Norwegian version of the Professional Nurse Self-Assessment Scale II (PROFFNurse SAS II) into (1) Danish, (2) Finnish and (3) Icelandic versions. METHOD The PROFFNurse SAS II was translated and cross-culturally adapted. This translation was inspired by the process used in the Guidelines for Cross-Cultural Adaptation. RESULT The translation and cultural adaptation processes employed the required steps and provided specific details. In addition, practical issues encountered during the translation process while translating and adapting instruments that may influence future translations were revealed. This study found that having a professional bilingual/bicultural agency translator was partly problematic in the process of translation and found that it is important to adjust the translations to each country's specific words used in nursing. CONCLUSION Translating the PROFFNurse SAS II instrument into all Nordic languages enables us to use the instrument from a Nordic perspective and across various countries. This is important when comparing self-awareness and reflecting on nurses' clinical competencies. Professional development is central to valuing and developing clinical competence and allowing for the discovery of gaps in clinical competence.
Role of the exercise professional in metabolic and bariatric surgery

Background: Physical activity (PA) is important for the long-term health and weight management of patients who undergo metabolic and bariatric surgery (MBS). However, the roles of exercise professionals in clinical MBS settings have not been systematically determined. Objectives: To investigate: (1) who are the professionals implementing PA programming in MBS clinical settings; and (2) what patient-centric tasks do they perform? Setting: Clinical and academic exercise settings worldwide. Methods: This is a multimethod study. A systematic literature review of all bariatric PA programs was conducted. Data about job tasks were extracted, reduced and provided to a panel of 10 experts to sort into categories. Cluster analysis was utilized to find the hierarchical structure of tasks. A Delphi process was used to agree on a final model, and then the literature was recoded for higher order job task categories. Results: The majority of PA professionals were exercise physiologists in the USA and physiotherapists or other types of exercise professionals elsewhere. Forty-three tasks were identified, the most reported being: supervision of exercise, fitness testing, and exercise prescription. Higher-order categories were: (1) Exercise-related health assessment, (2) Body composition and physical fitness assessment, (3) Lifestyle physical activity and sedentary behavior assessment, (4) Education, instruction, and prescription, (5) Exercise monitoring, (6) Behavioral counseling and psychosocial support, and (7) Dietary support. The most common skills reported in the literature were: supervision of exercise, fitness testing, exercise prescription, heart rate monitoring, and physical activity counseling. The following statements were rated an average of 9.0, indicating "imperative" was indicated by all respondents: 1) "Pre- and post-operative PA/exercise guidelines for bariatric surgery patients are needed", 2) "Bariatric surgery programs need to include PA/exercise as part of multidisciplinary care". Conclusions: Our expert group of bariatric exercise professionals, allied clinicians, and scientists reached a consensus on 7 major classifications of job tasks for the exercise professional. It is important for governing medical associations across the world to formally recognize experienced exercise professionals as playing pivotal roles in continuing, multidisciplinary care for bariatric surgery patients. These findings provide evidence-based guidance on how to solidify these positions within the greater context of healthcare.
Association of metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease with gastrointestinal infections: insights from National Inpatient Sample Database

Objectives The study aimed to compare the risk of gastrointestinal infections among patients with and without metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD). Methods This was a population-based, retrospective, observational study using data from the National Inpatient Sample (NIS), the largest all-payer US inpatient care database. Setting Hospitalisation of adults aged ≥18 years old admitted in 2020 was identified using the NIS. Patients were stratified by the presence and absence of MAFLD. Participants 26.4 million adults aged ≥18 years old were included in the study. Patients younger than 18 and those with missing demographic or mortality data were excluded. Primary and secondary outcomes Primary outcome was to assess the overall risk of gastrointestinal infections in patients with and without MAFLD. Secondary outcomes were demographics and comorbidities stratified by the presence or absence of gastrointestinal infection, and the risk of specific gastrointestinal pathogens. Results Of 26.4 million patients admitted in 2020, 755 910 (2.85%) had the presence of MAFLD. There was a higher prevalence of bacterial gastrointestinal infections in patients with MAFLD than those without (1.6% vs 0.9%, p<0.001). The incidence of Clostridioides difficile (1.3% vs 0.8%, p<0.001), Escherichia coli (0.3% vs 0.01%, p<0.001), and Salmonella (0.07% vs 0.03%, p<0.001) was higher in patients with MAFLD. The presence of MAFLD was associated with higher odds of developing gastrointestinal infections (adjusted OR (aOR) −1.75, 95% CI −1.68 to 1.83, p<0.001). After adjusting for confounders, results remained statistically significant (aOR −1.36, 95% CI - 1.30-1.42, p<0.001). Conclusion Even after adjusting for confounding factors, our study demonstrates an increased risk of gastrointestinal infections in patients with MAFLD, specifically of C. difficile, E. coli, and Salmonella. The immune and microbiota changes seen within MAFLD potentially contribute to the increased risk of gastrointestinal infections.