An explanatory machine learning framework for studying pandemics: The case of COVID-19 emergency department readmissions.

One of the major challenges that confront medical experts during a pandemic is the time required to identify and validate the risk factors of the novel disease and to develop an effective treatment protocol. Traditionally, this process involves numerous clinical trials that may take up to several years, during which strict preventive measures must be in place to control the outbreak and reduce the deaths. Advanced data analytics techniques, however, can be leveraged to guide and speed up this process.

Perspectives of university health care students on mental health stigma in Nigeria: Qualitative analysis.

Mental illness is a significant public health burden in low- and middle-income countries. A wide treatment gap in mental health care exists within the Nigerian health care system and this gap is worsened by the presence of stigma associated with mental illness, which leads to delay in treatment or acts as a barrier to any care. In this study, our aim was to understand the factors that underlie mental illness stigma in order to inform the design of effective stigma-reducing interventions among health care students in Nigeria.

Lemnaceae and Orontiaceae Are Phylogenetically and Morphologically Distinct from Araceae.

Duckweeds comprise a distinctive clade of pleustophytic monocots that traditionally has been classified as the family Lemnaceae. However, molecular evidence has called into question their phylogenetic independence, with some authors asserting instead that duckweeds should be reclassified as subfamily Lemnoideae of an expanded family Araceae. Although a close phylogenetic relationship of duckweeds with traditional Araceae has been supported by multiple studies, the taxonomic disposition of duckweeds must be evaluated more critically to promote nomenclatural stability and utility.

Analysis of Falls from Height Variables in Occupational Accidents.

Fall-from-height accidents are linked to severe and fatal consequences for impacted workers. A better understanding of the related variables is necessary to improve worker safety. This study analyzed all fall-from-height occupational accidents recorded in Spain from 2009 to 2019, selected significant variables, and evaluated the influence concerning the seriousness of the falls from height.

Differential return on investment: Academic growth in mathematics and reading based on initial performance.

Background: Students vary in their initial achievement when they enter school and their rate of academic growth as they move through school. These differences have implications for classroom instruction and educational policy. Although previous research has examined initial achievement and growth differences, a gap remains in understanding how initial level of achievement interacts with subsequent growth as children move through school.

Acute Paraxanthine Ingestion Improves Cognition and Short-Term Memory and Helps Sustain Attention in a Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled, Crossover Trial.

This study examined the effects of acute paraxanthine (PXN) ingestion on markers of cognition, executive function, and psychomotor vigilance. In a randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled, crossover, and counterbalanced manner, 13 healthy male and female participants were randomly assigned to consume a placebo (PLA) or 200 mg of PXN (ENFINITY™, Ingenious Ingredients, L.P.

Effects of Inositol-Enhanced Bonded Arginine Silicate Ingestion on Cognitive and Executive Function in Gamers.

Inositol stabilized arginine silicate (ASI) ingestion has been reported to increase nitric oxide levels while inositol (I) has been reported to enhance neurotransmission. The current study examined whether acute ASI + I (Inositol-enhanced bonded arginine silicate) ingestion affects cognitive function in e-sport gamers. In a double blind, randomized, placebo controlled, and crossover trial, 26 healthy male (n = 18) and female (n = 8) experienced gamers (23 ± 5 years, 171 ± 11 cm, 71.

Selection of medicinal plants for traditional medicines in Nepal.

Background: There are handful hypothesis-driven ethnobotanical studies in Nepal. In this study, we tested the non-random medicinal plant selection hypothesis using national- and community-level datasets through three different types of regression: linear model with raw data, linear model with log-transformed data and negative binomial model.

Methods: For each of these model, we identified over-utilized families as those with highest positive Studentized residuals and underutilized families with highest negative Studentized residuals.

Reexamining the Motivational Transfer Hypothesis of the Trans-Contextual Model Using Motivational Profiles.

: The purpose of the study was to reexamine the motivational transfer hypothesis of the trans-contextual model from the perspective of individuals' motivational profiles. : A total of 348 eighth-grade students participated in this study. Participants' motivation for physical education (PE) and physical activity (PA) and their out-of-school PA were measured.

Associations of school night sleep duration and circadian preference with middle school-aged student attendance, tardiness, and suspension.

Objectives: Research has associated both school night sleep duration (SNSD) and circadian preference (CP) with middle school-aged students' attendance and tardiness, but the interaction between these characteristics remains unexplored within this context, along with the impact of SNSD and CP on school suspension likelihood. Thus, this study investigated associations between SNSD, CP, and their interaction with middle school-aged student attendance, tardiness, and suspension, while accounting for sociodemographic characteristics.

Participants: About 4175 students from 12 middle schools in the Madison, Wisconsin, Metropolitan School District.

The C-terminal peptide of CCL21 drastically augments CCL21 activity through the dendritic cell lymph node homing receptor CCR7 by interaction with the receptor N-terminus.

The endogenous chemokines CCL19 and CCL21 signal via their common receptor CCR7. CCL21 is the main lymph node homing chemokine, but a weak chemo-attractant compared to CCL19. Here we show that the 41-amino acid positively charged peptide, released through C-terminal cleavage of CCL21, C21TP, boosts the immune cell recruiting activity of CCL21 by up to 25-fold and the signaling activity via CCR7 by ~ 100-fold.

The Effects of Social Location and Situational Factors on Young Women's Disclosure of Intimate Partner Violence Across Relationships.

The goal of the study was to examine disclosure of physical and sexual intimate partner violence (IPV) victimization across abusive relationships within a sociodemographically diverse sample of young women. We recruited 283 participants, ages 18 to 24, from a university, a 2-year college, and community sites serving low-income young women, and assessed physical and sexual IPV victimization, and related disclosure, across each of their abusive relationships (415 total). We used multilevel modeling to examine the effects of social location and situational factors on the odds of any disclosure of abuse during first relationships and across relationships.

What the odor is not: Estimation by elimination.

Olfactory systems use a small number of broadly sensitive receptors to combinatorially encode a vast number of odors. We propose a method of decoding such distributed representations by exploiting a statistical fact: Receptors that do not respond to an odor carry more information than receptors that do because they signal the absence of all odorants that bind to them. Thus, it is easier to identify what the odor is not rather than what the odor is.

Analytical Estimation of Data-Motivated Time-Dependent Disease Transmission Rate: An Application to Ebola and Selected Public Health Problems.

Obtaining reasonable estimates for transmission rates from observed data is a challenge when using mathematical models to study the dynamics of ?infectious? diseases, like Ebola. Most models assume the transmission rate of a contagion either does not vary over time or change in a fixed pre-determined adhoc ways. However, these rates do vary during an outbreak due to multitude of factors such as environmental conditions, social behaviors, and public-health interventions deployed to control the disease, which are in-part guided by changing size of an outbreak.

Effects of Patient Portal Use on Patient Satisfaction: Survey and Partial Least Squares Analysis.

Background: With digital delivery of health care services gaining prominence, patient portals have become a mainstay of many health care organizations. Despite the importance of patient portals, inconclusive data exist regarding the effect of patient portal use on patient satisfaction.

Objective: The aim of this study is to understand the relationship between the postadoptive use of patient portals and patient satisfaction outcomes.

The dimeric form of CXCL12 binds to atypical chemokine receptor 1.

The pleiotropic chemokine CXCL12 is involved in diverse physiological and pathophysiological processes, including embryogenesis, hematopoiesis, leukocyte migration, and tumor metastasis. It is known to engage the classical receptor CXCR4 and the atypical receptor ACKR3. Differential receptor engagement can transduce distinct cellular signals and effects as well as alter the amount of free, extracellular chemokine.

Does driver seatbelt use increase usage among front seat passengers? An exploratory analysis.

Introduction And Method: Observational data collected during the Wisconsin 2017, 2018, and 2019 National Occupant Protection Use Survey (NOPUS) were analyzed for this study to explore the influence of drivers' seatbelt use on front seat passengers' usage in the same vehicle. The analyses include comparing seatbelt usage rates for drivers and front passenger(s) based on their gender and based on geographical area as well as analyses of the aggregated data.

Results: The descriptive analyses strongly suggest that seatbelt usage rates of passengers differ considerably depending on whether the driver uses the seatbelt.

Increased Susceptibility and Intrinsic Apoptotic Signaling in Neurons by Induced HDAC3 Expression.

Purpose: Inhibition or targeted deletion of histone deacetylase 3 (HDAC3) is neuroprotective in a variety neurodegenerative conditions, including retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) after acute optic nerve damage. Consistent with this, induced HDAC3 expression in cultured cells shows selective toxicity to neurons. Despite an established role for HDAC3 in neuronal pathology, little is known regarding the mechanism of this pathology.

Effect of national cultural dimensions and consumption rates on stigma toward alcohol and substance use disorders.

Background: Despite the notion of stigma as a socio-cultural process with the concept rooted in social space rather than in individual space, global studies examining impact of cultural differences on stigma toward substance use disorders are lacking.

Aim: In this study, we aim to study the influence of national culture differences on stigma toward alcohol and substance use disorders.

Methods: We analyzed individual-level data from 68,041 respondents from 49 countries on stigma toward alcohol and substance use disorders.

Joint regression-classification deep learning framework for analyzing fluorescence lifetime images using NADH and FAD.

In this paper, we develop a deep neural network based joint classification-regression approach to identify microglia, a resident central nervous system macrophage, in the brain using fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM) data. Microglia are responsible for several key aspects of brain development and neurodegenerative diseases. Accurate detection of microglia is key to understanding their role and function in the CNS, and has been studied extensively in recent years.

Improving Estimates of Neighborhood Change with Constant Tract Boundaries.

Social scientists routinely rely on methods of interpolation to adjust available data to their research needs. Spatial data from different sources often are based on different geographies that need to be reconciled, and some boundaries (e.g.

Dynamics of prion proliferation under combined treatment of pharmacological chaperones and interferons.

Prions are proteins that cause fatal neurodegenerative diseases. The misfolded conformation adopted by prions can be transmitted to other normally folded proteins. Therapeutics to stop prion proliferation have been studied experimentally; however, it is not clear how the combination of different types of treatments can decrease the growth rate of prions in the brain.

Miscommunication in the age of communication: A crowdsourcing framework for symptom surveillance at the time of pandemics.

Objective: There was a significant delay in compiling a complete list of the symptoms of COVID-19 during the 2020 outbreak of the disease. When there is little information about the symptoms of a novel disease, interventions to contain the spread of the disease would be suboptimal because people experiencing symptoms that are not yet known to be related to the disease may not limit their social activities. Our goal was to understand whether users' social media postings about the symptoms of novel diseases could be used to develop a complete list of the disease symptoms in a shorter time.

Policy for science by ballot or by roll call? .

This study compares stem cell research policymaking by legislators and citizens in the United States. First, using exit poll results from a 2006 stem cell research initiative in Missouri, the study finds that deeply held personal values such as religious beliefs and views of abortion predominate in an individual's voting decision on this issue; second, an analysis of voting behavior by senators on the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005 finds that senators make their voting decisions based on their personal policy preferences rather than their constituents' preferences; and third, the complexity of the Missouri citizen initiative is compared with that of the legislation in the U.S.