Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multilevel Latent Class Profile Analysis: An Application to Stage-Sequential Patterns of Alcohol Use in a Sample of Canadian Youth

Recently, latent class analysis (LCA) and its variants have been proposed to identify subgroups of individuals who follow similar sequential patterns of latent class membership for longitudinal study. A primary assumption underlying the family of LCA is that individual observations are independent. In many applications, however, particularly in research on adolescent substance use, individuals are often dependent because of multilevel data structure, where the unit of observation (e.g., students) is nested in higher level units (e.g., schools). In this study, we propose multilevel latent class profile analysis (MLCPA), which will allow us to analyze the longitudinal data with a multilevel structure under the framework of LCA. We apply an MLCPA using data from the COMPASS study, a 9-year study funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Health Canada, in order to identify representative sequential drinking patterns of Canadian youth and investigate whether these sequential patterns vary across schools. The MLCPA identified three common student-level drinking behaviors: non-drinker, ever lifetime, and binge drinker. The sequence of drinking behaviors can be classified into one of three longitudinal sequential patterns: non-drinking stayer, light drinking advancer, and heavy drinking advancer. In addition, MLCPA uncovered two latent clusters (low-use school and high-use school) out of 64 schools in Ontario and Alberta based on the prevalences of sequential drinking patterns.
Coupling of the Plasmon Resonances of Chemically Functionalized Gold Nanoparticles to Local Order in Thermotropic Liquid Crystals

We report that surface-induced ordering of liquid crystals in the vicinity of chemically functionalized gold nanoparticles leads to changes in the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) of the gold nanoparticles. Gold nanoparticles with sizes between 10 and 40 nm were prepared on surfaces and chemically functionalized with organic monolayers that are known to lead to planar and homeotropic orientations of micrometer-thick films of nematic 4-pentyl-4‘cyanobiphenyl (5CB) supported on continuous gold films. By measuring the absorption of light caused by the LSPR of the nanoparticles as a function of surface chemistry of the nanoparticles and temperature, we observed changes in the LSPR caused by surface-induced, localized ordering of the 5CB in the vicinity of the nanoparticles. Comparison of the far-field orientation of the liquid crystal and the LSPR behavior of the nanoparticles provides insights into the nanoscopic origins of the bulk anchoring behaviors of the liquid crystal. These results and other.
Anaphylactic Death: A New Forensic Workflow for Diagnosis

Anaphylaxis is a life-threatening or fatal clinical emergency characterized by rapid onset, and death may be sudden. The margin of certainty about the diagnosis of anaphylactic death is not well established. The application of immunohistochemical techniques combined with the evaluation of blood tryptase concentrations opened up a new field of investigation into anaphylactic death. The present study investigated eleven autopsy cases of anaphylactic death, carried out between 2005 and 2017, by the Departments of Forensic Pathology of the Universities of Foggia and Catania (Italy). An analysis of the medical records was carried out in all autopsies. Seven autopsies were carried out on males and four on females. Of the eleven cases, one showed a history of asthma, one of food ingestion, two of oral administration of medications, six did not refer any allergy history, and one subject was unknown. All cases (100%) showed pulmonary congestion and edema; 7/11 (64%) of the cases had pharyngeal/laryngeal edema and mucus plugging in the airway; only one case (9%) had a skin reaction that was found during external examination. Serum tryptase concentration was measured in ten cases, and the mean value was 133.5 µg/L ± 177.9. The immunohistochemical examination using an anti-tryptase antibody on samples from the lungs, pharynx/larynx, and skin site of medication injection showed that all cases (100%) were strongly immunopositive for anti-tryptase antibody staining on lung samples; three cases (30%) were strongly immunopositive for anti-tryptase antibody staining on pharyngeal/laryngeal samples; and eight cases (80%) were strongly immunopositive for anti-tryptase antibody staining on skin samples. We conclude that a typical clinical history, blood tryptase level >40 µg/L, and strongly positive anti-tryptase antibody staining in the immunohistochemical investigation may represent reliable parameters in the determination of anaphylactic death with the accuracy needed for forensic purposes.
Changes in the epidemiology and management of bacterial infections in cirrhosis

Patients with cirrhosis are susceptible to develop infections because of immune dysfunction, changes in microbiome and increase in bacterial translocation from the gut to systemic circulation. Bacterial infections can worse the clinical course of the disease, triggering the development of complications such as acute kidney injury, hepatic encephalopathy, organ failures and acute on chronic liver failure. In recent years, the spread of multi drug resistant bacteria made more challenging the management of infections in patients with cirrhosis. Hence, the mortality rate associated to sepsis is increasing in these patients. Therefore, the optimization of the management of infections has a high priority in cirrhosis. Herein we reviewed the recent changes in the epidemiology and the management of bacterial infections in patients with liver cirrhosis.
Cerebral oximetry and preventing neurological complication post-cardiac surgery: a systematic review.

OBJECTIVES This systematic review aims to provide an up-to-date summary of the current literature examining the relationship between intraoperative regional cerebral oxygen saturation and neurological complications after cardiac surgery. METHODS Observational and interventional studies investigating the link between regional cerebral oxygen saturation and postoperative delirium, cognitive dysfunction and stroke were included. After database searching and study screening, study characteristics and major findings were extracted. RESULTS Twenty-seven studies were identified. Of the observational studies (n = 17), 8 reported that regional cerebral oxygen desaturations were significantly associated with neurological complications after cardiac surgery. Of the interventional studies (n = 10), 3 provided evidence for monitoring cerebral oximetry during cardiac surgery as a means of reducing incidence of postoperative cognitive dysfunction or stroke. There was significant heterogeneity in the tools and rigor used to diagnose neurological complications. CONCLUSIONS Studies to date show an inconsistent relationship between regional cerebral oxygen saturation and neurological outcomes after cardiac surgery, and lack of clear benefit of targeting cerebral oximetry to minimize neurological complications. Standardized assessments, definitions of impairment and desaturation thresholds will help determine the benefits of cerebral oximetry monitoring during cardiac surgery.
Seaweed-Based Compounds and Products for Sustainable Protection against Plant Pathogens

Sustainable agricultural practices increasingly demand novel, environmentally friendly compounds which induce plant immunity against pathogens. Stimulating plant immunity using seaweed extracts is a highly viable strategy, as these formulations contain many bio-elicitors (phyco-elicitors) which can significantly boost natural plant immunity. Certain bioactive elicitors present in a multitude of extracts of seaweeds (both commercially available and bench-scale laboratory formulations) activate pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) due to their structural similarity (i.e., analogous structure) with pathogen-derived molecules. This is achieved via the priming and/or elicitation of the defense responses of the induced systemic resistance (ISR) and systemic acquired resistance (SAR) pathways. Knowledge accumulated over the past few decades is reviewed here, aiming to explain why certain seaweed-derived bioactives have such tremendous potential to elicit plant defense responses with considerable economic significance, particularly with increasing biotic stress impacts due to climate change and the concomitant move to sustainable agriculture and away from synthetic chemistry and environmental damage. Various extracts of seaweeds display remarkably different modes of action(s) which can manipulate the plant defense responses when applied. This review focuses on both the similarities and differences amongst the modes of actions of several different seaweed extracts, as well as their individual components. Novel biotechnological approaches for the development of new commercial products for crop protection, in a sustainable manner, are also suggested.
Second-to-Fourth Digit Ratio (2D:4D) in Psychiatric Disorders: A Systematic Review of Case-control Studies

The second-to-fourth digit ratio (2D:4D) is an indirect, retrospective, non-invasive measure that correlates negatively with intrauterine exposure to testosterone. The present meta-analysis aimed to evaluate if 2D:4D differs between patients with psychiatric disorders and controls. In September 2019, we searched in Web of Knowledge, PsycINFO, Embase, and CINHAL, and retrieved 619 papers. We finally included 43 case-control studies which compared the 2D:4D ratio of patients with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) (n = 16), schizophrenia (n = 8), gender non-conformity (n = 7), addictions (n = 5), attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (n = 4), mood disorders (n = 2), and intellectual disability (n = 1) to non-clinical controls. Meta-analyses showed that, overall, psychiatric patients had lower 2D:4D than healthy controls (n = 43, overall sample = 9,484, mean difference = −0.0056, 95% confidence interval from −0.0093 to −0.002, I2 = 74%), with more pronounced differences in the right hand, males, and children. Considering psychiatric disorders individually, significant differences were found in the ASD, ADHD, and addictions groups, in which 2D:4D was significantly lower than healthy controls. Conversely, the right hand of males with schizophrenia showed higher 2D:4D than healthy controls. No other significant differences were detected. Although our results need to be cautiously interpreted and find limited applications in clinical practice, they may suggest that 2D:4D is altered in some psychopathological conditions, underlining the role of prenatal exposure to sex steroids in the etiology of psychiatric disorders.
A Practical Experience on the Amazon Alexa Integration in Smart Offices

Smart offices are dynamically evolving spaces meant to enhance employees’ efficiency, but also to create a healthy and proactive working environment. In a competitive business world, the challenge of providing a balance between the efficiency and wellbeing of employees may be supported with new technologies. This paper presents the work undertaken to build the architecture needed to integrate voice assistants into smart offices in order to support employees in their daily activities, like ambient control, attendance system and reporting, but also interacting with project management services used for planning, issue tracking, and reporting. Our research tries to understand what are the most accepted tasks to be performed with the help of voice assistants in a smart office environment, by analyzing the system based on task completion and sentiment analysis. For the experimental setup, different test cases were developed in order to interact with the office environment formed by specific devices, as well as with the project management tool tasks. The obtained results demonstrated that the interaction with the voice assistant is reasonable, especially for easy and moderate utterances.
Dietary Fiber and Human Papillomavirus Infection among US Women: The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2003–2016

Abstract The impact of dietary fiber on human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is still underway. The aim of our study was to investigate the association between intake of dietary fiber and HPV infection. Overall, 14,151 eligible women, aged 18–59 years old, who submitted an adequate sample for HPV test, were collected from an ongoing, large scale population-based survey for seven cycles. The association of dietary fiber intake and HPV infection was assessed in multivariate logistic models. For sensitivity analysis, generalized additive model (GAM) and smooth curve fitting were employed to verify the robustness of the results. Among 14,151 eligible participants, intake of dietary fiber was negatively associated with HPV infection. Each additional increase in log10 dietary fiber consumption was associated with a 57% lower risk of HPV infection (OR, 0.43; 95% CI 0.38–0.48). The result is stable in minimally and fully adjusted model. The possibility of nonlinear association of dietary fiber and HPV infection has been excluded by GAM and smooth curve fitting. There was an inverse linear correlation between intake of dietary fiber and HPV infection. Our findings obtained from NHANES dataset suggested that increasing dietary fiber consumption may be associated with the prevalence of HPV infection.
Severe SARS-CoV-2 placenta infection can impact neonatal outcome in the absence of vertical transmission.

The effect of SARS-CoV-2 infection on the pathophysiology of the placenta and its impact on pregnancy outcome has not yet been fully elucidated. Here, we present a comprehensive clinical, morphological, and molecular analysis of placental tissues from pregnant women with and without SARS-CoV-2 infection. SARS-CoV-2 could be detected in half of placental tissues from SARS-CoV-2-positive women. The presence of the virus was not associated with any distinctive pathological, maternal or neonatal outcome features. SARS-CoV-2 tissue load was low in all but one patient which exhibited severe placental damage leading to neonatal neurological manifestations. The placental transcriptional response induced by high viral load of SARS-CoV-2 showed an immunopathology phenotype similar to autopsy lung tissues from patients with severe COVID-19. This finding contrasted with the lack of inflammatory response in placental tissues from SARS-CoV-2-positive women with low viral tissue load and from SARS-CoV-2-negative women. Importantly, no evidence of vertical transmission of SARS-CoV-2 was found in any newborns, suggesting that the placenta may be an effective maternal-neonatal barrier against the virus even in the presence of severe infection. Our observations suggest that severe placental damage induced by the virus may be detrimental for the neonate independently of vertical transmission.
Speaking Haptically: From Phonemes to Phrases With a Mobile Haptic Communication System

In this article, we present three studies involving WhatsHap, a mobile system designed to deliver speech as vibrations on the forearm with minimal hardware demands and practice time. After only 4.2 h of training on a 24-haptic phoneme vocabulary and on how to combine these to form words, participants were able to generalize their phoneme identification skills to the understanding of untrained English words, correctly identifying 65% of words in phrases rendered with a user-controlled interval between words, and up to 59% with a fixed interval. Ultimately, participants were able to complete 88% of simple communicative tasks that elicited spontaneous speech and semi-structured bidirectional conversation using the apparatus. We conclude by providing insights as to how such a system may ultimately be used for communication under more natural conditions.
Incidence and Risk Factors of 30-Day Surgical Site Infection after Primary Total Joint Arthroplasty in a Middle-Income Country: A Single-Center Experience

The data about the incidence and risk factors for surgical site infections (SSIs) following total joint arthroplasty (TJA) in middle-income countries are still scant. The aim of this study was to assess the incidence and risk factors associated with 30-day SSIs following total hip arthroplasty (THA) and total knee arthroplasty (TKA). The study was conducted at the Clinic for Orthopedic Surgery and Traumatology, Clinical Center of Serbia (CCS) in Belgrade, from May 2016 to April 2018. All patients undergoing THA or TKA were followed throughout hospitalization until day 30 after discharge. Of the 1073 admitted patients, 459 had THA and 230 had TKA. The incidence rate of surgical site infections (SSIs) among the patients who underwent THA was 5.4%, which is 3.8 per 1000 postoperative patient-days, while the rate among those who had TKA was 4.8%, i.e., 3.4 per 1000 postoperative patient-days. Out of the 36 SSIs, 15 were deep and 21 were superficial incisional ones. Among the variables examined, the independent risk factors for SSIs after THA were the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) score > 2 (RR = 3.17; 95% CI—1.26–8.02), smoking (RR = 3.14; 95% CI—1.26–7.82) and peripheral vascular disease (PVD) (RR = 6.09; 95% CI—2.35–15.77), and after TKA, only PVD (RR = 3.87; 95% CI—1.09–13.76) was the risk factor. Incidence rates of SSIs after arthroplasty are higher compared to reports from developed countries. Therefore, it is necessary to enhance infection prevention and control measures with strict control of modifiable risk factors.
Optimizing Nutritional Strategies to Prevent Necrotizing Enterocolitis and Growth Failure after Bowel Resection

Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), the first cause of short bowel syndrome (SBS) in the neonate, is a serious neonatal gastrointestinal disease with an incidence of up to 11% in preterm newborns less than 1500 g of birth weight. The rate of severe NEC requiring surgery remains high, and it is estimated between 20–50%. Newborns who develop SBS need prolonged parenteral nutrition (PN), experience nutrient deficiency, failure to thrive and are at risk of neurodevelopmental impairment. Prevention of NEC is therefore mandatory to avoid SBS and its associated morbidities. In this regard, nutritional practices seem to play a key role in early life. Individualized medical and surgical therapies, as well as intestinal rehabilitation programs, are fundamental in the achievement of enteral autonomy in infants with acquired SBS. In this descriptive review, we describe the most recent evidence on nutritional practices to prevent NEC, the available tools to early detect it, the surgical management to limit bowel resection and the best nutrition to sustain growth and intestinal function.
Early estradiol exposure masculinizes disease‐relevant behaviors in female mice

Most psychiatric disorders show a sex bias in incidence, symptomatology, and/or response to treatment. Males are more susceptible to neurodevelopmental disorders including autism spectrum disorder and attention‐deficit activity disorder, while women are more prone to major depressive disorder and anxiety disorders after puberty. A striking difference between males and females in humans and other mammals is that males undergo a process of brain masculinization due to the early exposure to gonadal hormones. In rodents, this developmental organization of the brain is essential for adult males to express the appropriate sexual behaviors in the presence of a receptive female. Our goal was to determine whether this process of brain masculinization influences behaviors relevant to psychiatric disorders. To this aim, we studied sex differences and the effect of neonatal 17β‐estradiol benzoate treatment of female mice on different disease‐relevant behaviors. Our analysis includes postnatal behavior, juvenile play, and adult tests for sociability, repetitive behaviors, anxiety, and depression. Our results show that the sex differences observed in exploration, repetitive behaviors, and depression‐related behaviors are largely reduced when females are neonatally treated with 17β‐estradiol benzoate. These results suggest a role of neonatal sex steroids in the development of disease‐relevant behaviors and provide evidence supporting a role for perinatal exposure to estrogens and androgens on the development and manifestation of psychiatric disorders.
“Designer” scaffolds for tissue engineering and regeneration

Abstract. Tissue engineering entails the in vitro or in vivo generation of replace-ment tissues from cells with the aid of supporting scaffolds and stimulatingbiomolecules, in order to provide biological substitutes for restoration and mainte-nance of human tissue functions. In this review, we summarize the main classesof degradable polymeric scaffolds, natural and synthetic ones, and the evolutionmade in this field from adaptation of materials in clinical use to the fabrication of“designer” scaffolds. TISSUE ENGINEERING—BASIC PRINCIPLES Tissue engineering is an interdisciplinary field thatapplies the principles of engineering, materials, and lifesciences to the development of biological substitutes forrestoration and maintenance of human tissue functions. 1 This new and emerging technology entails the in vitro orin vivo generation of biological tissue from individualcells with the aid of supporting scaffolds and stimulat-ing biomolecules. The supporting scaffold temporarilyreplaces the function of the natural extracellular matrix(ECM), thus enabling the seeded individual cells toregenerate cell–cell and cell–matrix interactions, lead-ing to the formation of a functioning tissue. As potentialreplacements of ECM, implanted scaffolds can alsofunction as in vivo guided-regenerative matrices by in-ducing remaining healthy patient’s cells to populatethem.A large portion of the research in this field has beendevoted to designing the ideal scaffold that would bestmimic the native extracellular matrix. In this review, wedescribe the main classes of degradable polymeric scaf-folds that have been developed since the “birth” oftissue engineering until today. Our goal is to describethe evolution of this field, from adaptation of materialsin clinical use to the fabrication of “designer” scaffolds.
Internet Survey of Awareness and Behavior Related to HPV Vaccination in Japan

Recommendations for HPV vaccines were suspended in 2013 due to unfounded safety fears in Japan. We aimed to clarify the differences between vaccinated and unvaccinated females in their awareness, knowledge, and behaviors toward cervical cancer, HPV vaccination and sex. Questionnaires were administered online to women aged 16 to 20. We conducted investigations for the following: awareness, knowledge, and actions for cervical cancer, HPV vaccination, and sexual activity, as well as items related to participants’ social background. The survey in 828 girls revealed three points. The first is that more than half of the surveyed Japanese girls had poor knowledge about cervical cancer screening, HPV, or HPV vaccines. The second is that those in the unvaccinated group had a particularly poor knowledge of the subject and tended to have higher sexual activity. The final is that only 0.5% of the girls experienced changes in awareness about sexual activity after vaccination. In conclusion, this is the first large-scale survey analyzing the association between HPV vaccination and sexual activity in Japanese girls. Not only do unvaccinated girls not benefit from vaccines, but they also tend to engage in high-risk sexual behavior, and thus it is even more important to provide information on the effectiveness of vaccines and the usefulness of cancer screening.