julilili42/papers huggingface dataset:
Inventory of current practices regarding hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in metachromatic leukodystrophy in Europe and neighboring countries
2024-02-07

Abstract Background For decades, early allogeneic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) has been used to slow neurological decline in metachromatic leukodystrophy (MLD). There is lack of consensus regarding who may benefit, and guidelines are lacking. Clinical practice relies on limited literature and expert opinions. The European Reference Network for Rare Neurological Diseases (ERN-RND) and the MLD initiative facilitate expert panels for treatment advice, but some countries are underrepresented. This study explores organizational and clinical HSCT practices for MLD in Europe and neighboring countries to enhance optimization and harmonization of cross-border MLD care. Methods A web-based EUSurvey was distributed through the ERN-RND and the European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation Inborn Errors Working Party. Personal invitations were sent to 89 physicians (43 countries) with neurological/metabolic/hematological expertise. The results were analyzed and visualized using Microsoft Excel and IBM SPSS statistics. Results Of the 30 countries represented by 42 respondents, 23 countries offer HSCT for MLD. The treatment is usually available in 1–3 centers per country (18/23, 78%). Most countries have no or very few MLD patients transplanted during the past 1–5 years. The eligibility criteria regarding MLD subtype, motor function, IQ, and MRI largely differ across countries. Conclusion HSCT for MLD is available in most European countries, but uncertainties exist in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. Applied eligibility criteria and management vary and may not align with the latest scientific insights, indicating physicians’ struggle in providing evidence-based care. Interaction between local physicians and international experts is crucial for adequate treatment decision-making and cross-border care in the rapidly changing MLD field.
Root traits vary as much as leaf traits and have consistent phenotypic plasticity among 14 populations of a globally widespread herb
2024-02-07

Abstract Our understanding of plant functional trait variation among populations and how this relates to local adaptation to environmental conditions is largely shaped by above‐ground traits. However, we might expect below‐ground traits linked to resource acquisition and conservation to vary among populations that experience different environmental conditions. Alternatively, below‐ground traits might be highly plastic in response to growing conditions, such as availability of soil resources and association with symbiont arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF). We assessed (i) the strength of among‐population variation in above‐ and below‐ground traits, (ii) the effects of growing conditions on among‐population variation and (iii) whether variation among populations is linked to source environment conditions, in a globally distributed perennial Plantago lanceolata . Using seeds from 14 populations across three continents, we grew plants in a common garden experiment and measured leaf and root traits linked to resource acquisition and water conservation. We included two sets of experimental treatments (high or low water availability; with and without AMF inoculation), which enabled us to assess trait responses to growing conditions. Across treatments, the percentage of root trait variation explained by populations and continents was 9%–26%, compared to 7%–20% for leaf trait variation. From principal component analysis (PCA), the first PC axis for both root and leaf traits largely reflected plant size, while the second PC broadly captured mass allocation. Root mass allocation (PC 2) was related to mean annual temperature and mean moisture index, indicating that populations from cooler, wetter environments had longer, thinner roots. However, we found little support for a relationship between source environment and leaf trait PCs, root system size (PC1) or individual traits. Water availability and AMF inoculation effects on size were consistent among populations, with larger plants under AMF inoculation, and less mass allocation to leaves under lower water availability. Plantago lanceolata shows substantial population‐level variation in a suite of root traits, but that variation is only partially linked to the source environmental variables studied. Despite considerable differences in source abiotic environments, geographically separated populations have retained a strong and similar capacity for phenotypic plasticity both above and below‐ground. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.
Peripheral memory B cells in multiple sclerosis vs. double negative B cells in neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder: disease driving B cell subsets during CNS inflammation
2024-02-07

B cells are fundamental players in the pathophysiology of autoimmune diseases of the central nervous system, such as multiple sclerosis (MS) and neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD). A deeper understanding of disease-specific B cell functions has led to the differentiation of both diseases and the development of different treatment strategies. While NMOSD is strongly associated with pathogenic anti-AQP4 IgG antibodies and proinflammatory cytokine pathways, no valid autoantibodies have been identified in MS yet, apart from certain antigen targets that require further evaluation. Although both diseases can be effectively treated with B cell depleting therapies, there are distinct differences in the peripheral B cell subsets that influence CNS inflammation. An increased peripheral blood double negative B cells (DN B cells) and plasmablast populations has been demonstrated in NMOSD, but not consistently in MS patients. Furthermore, DN B cells are also elevated in rheumatic diseases and other autoimmune entities such as myasthenia gravis and Guillain-Barré syndrome, providing indirect evidence for a possible involvement of DN B cells in other autoantibody-mediated diseases. In MS, the peripheral memory B cell pool is affected by many treatments, providing indirect evidence for the involvement of memory B cells in MS pathophysiology. Moreover, it must be considered that an important effector function of B cells in MS may be the presentation of antigens to peripheral immune cells, including T cells, since B cells have been shown to be able to recirculate in the periphery after encountering CNS antigens. In conclusion, there are clear differences in the composition of B cell populations in MS and NMOSD and treatment strategies differ, with the exception of broad B cell depletion. This review provides a detailed overview of the role of different B cell subsets in MS and NMOSD and their implications for treatment options. Specifically targeting DN B cells and plasmablasts in NMOSD as opposed to memory B cells in MS may result in more precise B cell therapies for both diseases.
Organic matter influence on ooid formation: New insights into classic examples (Great Salt Lake, USA; Triassic Germanic Basin, Germany)
2024-02-07

ABSTRACT Ooids are coated grains composed of a tangential or radial cortex growing around a nucleus. They are common in carbonate deposits of almost any geological age and provide insights into environmental conditions. However, abiotic or biotic factors influencing their formation remain unclear. This study aims to advance current understanding of ooid formation with a multi‐analytical approach (for example, field emission scanning electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy and micro X‐ray fluorescence) to classic examples from Great Salt Lake, USA, and the Lower Triassic Germanic Buntsandstein Basin, Germany. Both of these deposits represent hypersaline shallow‐water environments where ooids are closely associated with microbial mats. Great Salt Lake ooids are dominantly 0.2 to 1.0 mm in size, ellipsoidal to subspherical in shape, composed of aragonite and contain organic matter. Germanic Buntsandstein Basin ooids are mainly ≤4 mm in size, spherical to subspherical in shape, composed of calcite and currently contain little organic matter. Despite the differences, both ooids have the same cortex structures, likely reflecting similar formation processes. Some Great Salt Lake ooids formed around detrital grains while others exhibit micritic particles in their nuclei. In Germanic Basin ooids, detrital nuclei are rare, despite the abundance of siliciclastic particles of various sizes in the host rocks. Germanic Basin deposits also include ‘compound ooids’, i.e. adjacent ooids that coalesced with one another during growth, suggesting static in situ development, which is supported by the lack of detrital grains as nuclei. Germanic Basin ooids also grew into laminated microbial crusts with identical microstructures, further indicating a static formation. Such microbial crusts typically form through mineral precipitation associated with organic matter (for example, extracellular polymeric substances), suggesting a similar formation pathway for ooids. The inferred key‐role of organic matter is further supported by features in radial ooids from the Great Salt Lake, which commonly exhibit, from their nuclei towards their surface, increasing organic matter contents and decreasing calcification.
Outpatient care for facial palsy—a survey on patient satisfaction in uni- and interdisciplinary approaches
2024-02-07

Objective The various causes of facial palsy, diagnostic methods and treatment approaches frequently involve different medical specialities. Nevertheless, there exist only few specialized consultation and therapy services for patients with facial palsy (FP) in Germany. The aim of the present study was to evaluate factors affecting quality of life (QoL) and treatment satisfaction of patients presenting to an interdisciplinary facial nerve outpatient clinic. Methods The study analyzed patients presenting to the interdisciplinary facial palsy outpatient clinic in Tuebingen between February 2019 and December 2022. General satisfaction and QoL was estimated by numerous self-rating questionnaires: ZUF-8, SF-36, FDI, FaCE, PHQ-9. An ANOVA was performed to analyze determinants affecting the ZUF-8. Correlation analyses between cause and regeneration of FP as well as questionnaire scores were performed. Results were compared with a group of patients who were managed in an unidisciplinary setting. Results In total, 66 patients with FP were enrolled. FP patients showed increased levels of depression (PHQ-9: 14.52 ± 3.8) correlating with recovery of the palsy ( p = 0.008), FaCE ( p &amp;lt; 0.001) and FDI ratings ( p &amp;lt; 0.001). There was a high level of satisfaction with the services provided during the uni-and interdisciplinary consultation (ZUF-8: 24.59 ± 6.2), especially among the 12/66 patients who received reconstructive, surgical treatment. However, some patients requested more psychological and ophthalmological support. Conclusion High levels of treatment satisfaction can be achieved in both an uni-and interdisciplinary setting. However, multimodal therapy approaches should be applied, considering physical and psychological aspects. In the absence of recovery, surgical interventions must be considered as treatment options. Further studies should continue to investigate potential differences between uni-and interdisciplinary treatment.
Reentry of endodontic access cavities: composite residue and loss of tooth substance
2024-02-07

The purpose of this study was to investigate the ability of dentists to remove composite fillings from endodontic access cavities using illumination from a conventional light source (CLS) versus the fluorescence-aided identification technique (FIT) in terms of completeness, selectivity and treatment duration. Therefore, two independent operators removed composite resin from six sets of root-filled incisors in a maxillary model under simulated clinical conditions using the CLS or FIT method (twelve teeth per operator and technique). The duration of treatment was recorded and before-after micro-CT scans were superimposed for volumetric assessment of treatment completeness and selectivity. Statistical significance was determined by t-testing and two-way ANOVA for operator comparison.Overall, there was no significant difference be- tween FIT and CLS in terms of volume, height and area of composite residues (p = 0.98/p = 0.75/p = 0.64) and regarding hard tissue loss in terms of volume, depth and area (p = 0.93/p = 0.70/p = 0.14). However, there was a significant difference between the two groups regarding treatmenttime (FIT=428s, CLS=523s; p=0.023). Significant differences between operators regardless of method were found for volume, height and area of composite residues (p &lt; 0.05) and also for defect area (p = 0.01) and time (p &lt; 0.001). A significant difference between operators including the method was only found for height of composites (p = 0.037). It can be concluded, that composite remnants and tooth structure losses may occur after reentry of root-filled teeth regardless of the illumination method (conventional vs. fluorescence-aided) and operator, but preparation was less time-consuming with FIT.
Epidemiological trends and susceptibility patterns of bloodstream infections caused by Enterococcus spp. in six German university hospitals – a prospectively evaluated multicentre cohort study from 2016-2020 of the R-Net study group
2024-02-07

<title>Abstract</title> Objectives To analyse recent epidemiological trends of bloodstream infections (BSI) caused by <italic>Enterococcus</italic> spp. In adult patients admitted to tertiary care centres in Germany. Methods Epidemiological data from the multicentre R-NET study was analysed. Patients presenting with <italic>E. faecium</italic> or <italic>E. faecalis</italic> in blood cultures in six German tertiary care university hospitals between October 2016 and June 2020 were prospectively evaluated. In vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE), the presence of <italic>vanA</italic>/<italic>vanB</italic> was confirmed via molecular methods. Results In the 4-year study period, 3001 patients with BSI due to <italic>Enterococcus</italic> spp. were identified. <italic>E. faecium</italic> was detected in 1830 patients (61%) and <italic>E. faecalis</italic> in 1229 patients (41%). Most BSI occurred in (sub-) specialties of internal medicine. The pooled incidence density of enterococcal BSI increased significantly (4.0 to 4.5 cases per 10,000 patient days), which was primarily driven by VRE BSI (0.5 to 1.0 cases per 10,000 patient days). In 2020, the proportion of VRE BSI was &gt; 12% in all study sites (range, 12.8–32.2%). Molecular detection of resistance in 363 VRE isolates showed a predominance of the <italic>vanB</italic> gene (77.1%). Conclusion This large multicentre study highlights an increase of BSI due to <italic>E. faecium</italic>, which was primarily driven by VRE. The high rates of hospital- and ICU-acquired VRE BSI point towards an important role of prior antibiotic exposure and invasive procedures as risk factors. Due to limited treatment options and high mortality rates of VRE BSI, the increasing incidence of VRE BSI is of major concern.
Osteochondroprogenitor cells and neutrophils expressing p21 and senescence markers modulate fracture repair
2024-02-07

ABSTRACT Cells expressing features of senescence, including upregulation of p21 and p16, appear transiently following tissue injury, yet the properties of these cells or how they contrast with age-induced senescent cells remains unclear. Here, we used skeletal injury as a model and identified the rapid appearance following fracture of p21+ cells expressing senescence markers, mainly as osteochondroprogenitors (OCHs) and neutrophils. Targeted genetic clearance of p21+ cells suppressed senescence-associated signatures within the fracture callus and accelerated fracture healing. By contrast, p21+ cell clearance did not alter bone loss due to aging; conversely, p16+ cell clearance, known to alleviate skeletal aging, did not affect fracture healing. Following fracture, p21+ neutrophils were enriched in signaling pathways known to induce paracrine stromal senescence, while p21+ OCHs were highly enriched in senescence-associated secretory phenotype factors known to impair bone formation. Further analysis revealed an injury-specific stem cell-like OCH subset that was p21+ and highly inflammatory, with a similar inflammatory mesenchymal population (fibro-adipogenic progenitors) evident following muscle injury. Thus, intercommunicating senescent-like neutrophils and mesenchymal progenitor cells are key regulators of tissue repair in bone and potentially across tissues. Moreover, our findings establish contextual roles of p21+ vs p16+ senescent/senescent-like cells that may be leveraged for therapeutic opportunities.
(Mal)adaptive Mentalising in the Cognitive Hierarchy, and its link to paranoia
2024-02-07

Humans need to be on their toes when interacting with competitive others to avoid being duped. Too much caution out of context can, however, be detrimental and produce false beliefs of intended harm. Here, we offer a formal account of this phenomenon through the lens of Theory of Mind. We simulate agents of different depths of mentalization within a simple game theoretic paradigm and show how, if aligned well, deep recursive mentalization gives rise to both successful deception as well as reasonable skepticism. However, we also show that if a self is mentalising too deeply -hyper-mentalising - false beliefs arise that a partner is trying to trick them maliciously, resulting ina material loss to the self. This theory offers a potential cognitive mechanism for suspiciousness, paranoia, and conspiratorial ideation. Rather than a deficit in Theory of Mind, paranoia may arise from the application of overly strategic thinking to ingenuous behaviour.
The Role of Perceived Eye Contact in Helping Robots
2024-02-07

As Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) becomes increasingly prevalent in various domains, understanding the role of non-verbal cues, such as eye contact, in these interactions is of paramount importance. This paper presents the results of a lab study that explores the effect of eye contact and perceived eye contact on response times related to helping behavior. We further investigate the impact of eye contact on attitudes and anthropomorphism. We observed no effect of eye contact on willingness to help. However, participants helped the robot significantly faster when they reported perceived eye contact. Results also point to the relevance of perceived eye contact in positive attitudes towards robots. Despite this, we found no effect of perceived eye contact on anthropomorphism perception. Our results further highlight implications of robot design, specifically the influence of proportionally exaggerated robot eyes and its effect on prosociality toward robots. Overall, this research contributes to the growing body of knowledge in the field of HRI and emphasizes the significance of perceived eye contact in the context of helping behavior.
Deuteron VVCS and nuclear structure effects in muonic deuterium at N3LO in pionless EFT
2024-02-07

We present our studies of the forward unpolarised doubly-virtual Compton scattering (VVCS) off the deuteron and the closely related two-photon-exchange (2γ-exchange) corrections to the Lamb shift of muonic deuterium. The deuteron VVCS amplitude is calculated in the framework of pionless effective field theory, up to next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order (N3LO) for the longitudinal and next-to-leading order (NLO) for the transverse amplitude. The charge elastic form factor of the deuteron, obtained from the residue of the longitudinal VVCS amplitude, is used to extract the value of the single unknown two-nucleon one-photon contact coupling that enters the longitudinal amplitude at N3LO. The obtained deuteron VVCS amplitude serves as a high-precision model-independent input to examine the 2γ-exchange corrections. Substantial differences with the recent dispersive evaluations are identified, namely, the elastic contribution appears to be larger by several standard deviations, thus ameliorating the current discrepancy between theory and experiment on the size of 2γ-exchange effects. A correlation between the values of the deuteron charge and Friar radii is found that can be used to judge on the quality of a parametrisation of the deuteron charge elastic form factor. The discrepancy between the theory and the empirical result for the 2γ-exchange correction in muonic deuterium appears to be completely eliminated. To further confirm this, we revisit the hydrogen-deuterium isotope shift in the same framework. Our work provides an alternative self-consistent and high-precision evaluation of the 2γ-exchange correction in (muonic) deuterium.
Performance rather than Reputation Affects Humans’ Trust towards an Artificial Agent
2024-02-07

To succeed in teamwork with artificial agents, humans have to calibrate their trust to-wards agents based on information they receive about an agent before interaction (reputation information) as well as on experiences they have during interaction (agent performance). This study (N = 253) focuses on the influence of a virtual agent’s reputation (high/low) and actual observed performance (high/low) on a human user’s behavioral trust (delegation behavior) and self-reported trust (questionnaires) in a cooperative Tetris game. The main findings suggest that agent reputation influences self-reported trust prior to interaction. However, the effect of reputation immediately gets overridden by performance of the agent during the interaction. The agent’s performance during the interactive task influenced delegation behavior as well as self-reported trust measured post-interaction. Pre- to post-change in self-reported trust is significantly larger when reputation and performance are incongruent. We conclude that reputation might have a smaller than expected influence on behavior in the presence of a novel tool that affords exploration. Our research contributes to understanding trust and delegation dynamics, which is crucial for the design and adequate use of artificial agent team partners in a world of digital transformation.
Step by Step: Promoting Understanding of Scientific Texts through Gradually Built-Up Concept Maps in Informal Collaboration (Pre-Print)
2024-02-07

Reading and understanding scientific texts is useful and necessary in many informal collaboration settings, including research or innovation collaborations, or when discussing public science in lay peer groups. In this work, we investigate whether an interactive predefined concept map that builds up gradually while reading a scientific research article helps teams of readers in their collaborative knowledge construction. The underlying assumption is that predefined concept maps as a visual knowledge representation complement the knowledge that is textually encoded in scientific articles. We present a randomized controlled trial that compares two conditions: In the intervention (n=50) and control (n=44) group, randomly matched pairs of university students read a scientific text, took notes, discussed the scientific text in real-time in a chat, and summarized the content of the scientific text. The intervention group additionally received the gradually built-up concept map while reading. We analyzed chat messages and the collab- oratively written summary on the basis of knowledge construction theory, as well as time of task completion, thus studying the socio-cognitive processes stimulated by our intervention. We also compared study participants’ knowledge pre/post- task. While the intervention and control groups did not differ significantly in their collaborative knowledge construction or individual knowledge gain, the intervention group was significantly faster at reading the text (F (1,92)=4.70, p=.033) and required fewer notes (F (1,92)=6.66, p=.011). The integration of predefined concept maps alongside scientific texts is technically simple. It could therefore be incorporated into different digital platforms, supporting collaborative reading of texts and improving the overall learning efficiency of readers.