Browse Articles

Parental experience of change following VIPP-SD in families with preschool children with externalizing behavior: A qualitative interview study

Background Insensitive parenting and ineffective disciplinary strategies are known risk factors for child externalizing behavior. The Video-feedback Intervention to promote Positive Parenting and Sensitive Discipline (VIPP-SD) has documented effect in promoting sensitive parenting, but little is known on how VIPP-SD is experienced by parents. This study explores how parents of preschool children with externalizing behaviors experience change following VIPP-SD delivered by trained childcare providers. Methods Individual qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with 9 mothers and 2 fathers to explore the parents’ experiences of change following the intervention. Data were analyzed using Braun and Clarke’s reflexive thematic analysis. Results Four themes were generated: 1) “All of her behavior is actually just a result of how she feels, right?”—Enhanced parental understanding, 2) Meeting the child’s needs in comfort and in play, 3) Learning to prevent and manage conflicts is essential–diverse experiences of gains and progress, 4) “I’m actually not a bad parent”–new positive perspectives. Conclusion Parents experienced an enhanced capacity to understand their child and positive development in their parenting behavior, skills and confidence as well as improvements in the parent-child relationship after receiving VIPP-SD. Findings also suggest potential areas for adaptation of VIPP-SD when intervening in families with a child exhibiting externalizing behaviors, as parental experiences of gains related to conflict management varied. Further research on this matter is recommended.

Time-resolved spectroscopy uncovers deprotonation-induced reconstruction in oxygen-evolution NiFe-based (oxy)hydroxides

Non-linear dose-response relationship between uterine artery pulsatility index and risk of preeclampsia in early pregnancy: A secondary analysis based on a nested cohort study

Background Previous studies have shown that higher uterine artery pulsatility index (UtA-PI) values in early pregnancy have predictive value for the risk of preeclampsia (PE). However, the sensitivity and specificity of this marker remain controversial. This study aims to explore further the association between UtA-PI in early pregnancy and the incidence of preeclampsia. Methods A total of 5000 pregnant women who underwent prenatal examination and delivery at the same hospital were included in this nested cohort study. And the PI values of left and right uterine arteries of the subjects were obtained by transabdominal ultrasound using GE color doppler diagnostic device in early pregnancy (11–13 + 6 weeks), and finally the mean value of both was calculated and recorded as UtA-PI. Among them, 60 pregnant women developed preeclampsia and were randomly divided into a screening group (n = 12) and control group (n = 48) and matched with pregnant women who did not develop preeclampsia during the same period to form a subset for subsequent statistical analysis. A weighted multivariate logistic regression model was used to analyze the association between UtA-PI and PE. Additionally, the non-linear relationship between UtA-PI and the incidence of PE was examined using smooth curve fitting and a generalized additive model. Results After adjusting for other variables, UtA-PI values were positively correlated with the incidence of PE, and the relationship showed a non-linear U-shaped relationship (inflection point 1.83). Conclusion Our study showed a significantly increased risk of PE when UtA-PI exceeded 1.83. This provides a basis for clinicians to identify high-risk pregnant women early and implement timely intervention, which helps to reduce maternal and fetal complications and improve health outcomes.

An unusual chiral-at-metal mechanism for BINOL-metal asymmetric catalysis

Difference-Cum-Exponential-type estimators for estimation of finite population mean in survey sampling

Extensive research work has been done for the estimation of population mean using bivariate auxiliary information based on conventional measures. Conventional measures of the auxiliary variables provide suspicious results in the presence of outliers/extreme values. However, non-conventional measures of the auxiliary variables include quartile deviation, mid-range, inter-quartile range, quartile average, tri-mean, Hodge-Lehmann estimator etc. give efficient results in case of extreme values. Unfortunately, non-conventional measures are not used by survey practitioners to enhance the estimation of unknown population parameters using bivariate auxiliary information. In this article, difference-cum-exponential-type estimators for population mean utilizing bivariate auxiliary information based on non-conventional measures under simple and stratified random sampling schemes have been suggested. Mathematical properties such as bias and mean squared error are derived. To support theoretical findings, various real-life applications are used to confirm the superiority of the suggested estimators as compared to the competing estimators under study.

What Trump 2.0 means for science: the likely winners and losers

PHARAOH: A collaborative crowdsourcing platform for phenotyping and regional analysis of histology

Ontology-based construction of embroidery intangible cultural heritage knowledge graph: A case study of Qingyang sachets

The fine-grained mining and construction of semantic associations within multimodal intangible cultural heritage (ICH) resources are crucial for deepening our understanding of their knowledge content and ensuring their systematic protection and transmission in the digital and intelligent era. This paper addresses the urgent need for the digital preservation and transmission of ICH resources. Following a review of current research on Qingyang sachets and ICH, the study introduces an ontology-based approach to constructing a semantic description model for the multimodal digital resources related to Qingyang sachets. By acquiring and processing multimodal resources concerning the craftsmanship and associated customs of Qingyang sachets, the study reorganizes the corresponding textual and visual knowledge. Utilizing knowledge graphs, the research explores multidimensional pathways for delivering knowledge services related to the multimodal digital resources of Qingyang sachets. Empirical research confirms the applicability and feasibility of the proposed semantic association scheme for multimodal ICH digital resources. The findings provide valuable insights for multidimensional organization and integration across scenarios, time periods, and resources within the ICH domain, offering a reference for digital solutions aimed at the systematic protection of ICH.

Uncovering the whole genome silencers of human cells via Ss-STARR-seq

Coupling SAR and optical remote sensing data for soil moisture retrieval over dense vegetation covered areas

Soil moisture is a key parameter for the exchange of substance and energy at the land-air interface, timely and accurate acquisition of soil moisture is of great significance for drought monitoring, water resource management, and crop yield estimation. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is sensitive to soil moisture, but the effects of vegetation on SAR signals poses challenges for soil moisture retrieval in areas covered with vegetation. In this study, based on Sentinel-1 SAR and Sentinel-2 optical remote sensing data, a coupling approach was employed to retrieval surface soil moisture over dense vegetated areas. Different vegetation indices were extracted from Sentinel-2 data to establish the vegetation water content (VWC) estimation model, which was integrated with the Water Cloud Model (WCM) to distinguish the contribution of vegetation layer and soil layer to SAR backscattering signals. Subsequently, the Oh model and the Look-Up Table (LUT) algorithm were used for soil moisture retrieval, and the accuracy of the result was compared with the traditional direct retrieval method. The results indicate that, for densely vegetated surfaces, VWC can be better reflected by multiple vegetation indices including NDVI, NDWI2, NDGI and FVI, the R2 and RMSE of VWC estimation result is 0.709 and 0.30 kg·m-2. After vegetation correction, the correlation coefficient increased from 0.659 to 0.802 for the VV polarization, and from 0.398 to 0.509 for the VH polarization. Satisfactory accuracy of soil moisture retrieval result was obtained with the Oh model and the LUT algorithm, VV polarization is found to be more suitable for soil moisture retrieval compared to VH polarization, with an R2 of 0.672 and an RMSE of 0.048m3·m-3, the accuracy is higher than that of the direct retrieval method. The results of the study preliminarily verified the feasibility of the coupling method in soil moisture retrieval over densely veg etated surfaces.

Mitotic chromatin marking governs the segregation of DNA damage

Advancing semantic segmentation: Enhanced UNet algorithm with attention mechanism and deformable convolution

This paper presents a novel method for improving semantic segmentation performance in computer vision tasks. Our approach utilizes an enhanced UNet architecture that leverages an improved ResNet50 backbone. We replace the last layer of ResNet50 with deformable convolution to enhance feature representation. Additionally, we incorporate an attention mechanism, specifically ECA-ASPP (Attention Spatial Pyramid Pooling), in the encoding path of UNet to capture multi-scale contextual information effectively. In the decoding path of UNet, we explore the use of attention mechanisms after concatenating low-level features with high-level features. Specifically, we investigate two types of attention mechanisms: ECA (Efficient Channel Attention) and LKA (Large Kernel Attention). Our experiments demonstrate that incorporating attention after concatenation improves segmentation accuracy. Furthermore, we compare the performance of ECA and LKA modules in the decoder path. The results indicate that the LKA module outperforms the ECA module. This finding highlights the importance of exploring different attention mechanisms and their impact on segmentation performance. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method, we conduct experiments on benchmark datasets, including Stanford and Cityscapes, as well as the newly introduced WildPASS and DensPASS datasets. Based on our experiments, the proposed method achieved state-of-the-art results including mIoU 85.79 and 82.25 for the Stanford dataset, and the Cityscapes dataset, respectively. The results demonstrate that our proposed method performs well on these datasets, achieving state-of-the-art results with high segmentation accuracy.

Nanopore sequencing reveals that DNA replication compartmentalisation dictates genome stability and instability in Trypanosoma brucei

Abstract The Trypanosoma brucei genome is structurally complex. Eleven megabase-sized chromosomes each comprise a transcribed core flanked by silent subtelomeres, housing thousands of Variant Surface Glycoprotein (VSG) genes. Additionally, hundreds of sub-megabase chromosomes contain 177 bp repeats of unknown function, and VSG transcription sites localise to many telomeres. DNA replication dynamics have only been described in the megabase chromosome cores, and in the single active VSG transcription site. Using a Nanopore genome assembly, we show that megabase chromosome subtelomeres display a paucity of replication initiation events relative to the core, correlating with increased instability. In addition, replication of the active VSG transcription site is shown to originate from the telomere, likely causing targeted VSG recombination. Lastly, we provide evidence that the 177 bp repeats act as conserved DNA replication origins, explaining submegabase chromosome stability. Compartmentalized DNA replication therefore explains how T. brucei balances stable genome transmission with localised instability driving immune evasion.

Looking back into the Hepatitis C Virus epidemic dynamics from Unnao, India through phylogenetic approach

Viral hepatitis is a major public health challenge. Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) infection causes the progressive liver damage. A surprisingly high number of individuals tested positive for HCV infection during the Unnao Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) outbreak investigation in 2017–2018 (more than 90% of the people living with HIV were from the Premganj township and Chakmeerapur village of the district in the northern State of Uttar Pradesh). This particular outbreak was attributed to the unsafe use of syringe & needles while seeking treatment, rendering it as an iatrogenic transmission. Earlier investigation towards, phylogenetic characterization revealed the shared ancestry for HCV sequences from the reported outbreak. In this investigation using the HCV sequences reported earlier (n = 67) we have analyzed the transmission linkages and evolutionary dynamics of this HCV outbreak using phylogenetic methods. In current analysis, time-scaled phylogenies indicated that most clusters initiated during 2015–2016. Transmission dynamics highlighted that the outbreak was experiencing an exponential phase during 2016–2017, where reproductive number was observed to be beyond documented values for HCV. Phylogeography revealed that source of the virus was Chakmeerapur and the effective population of Premganj was double the size of that in Chakmeerapur. In summary, we provide the snapshot of epidemic dynamics for HCV outbreak attributed to iatrogenic transmission.

Impact of rare non-coding variants on human diseases through alternative polyadenylation outliers

Outcome comparison of rotational ankle fractures: Supination external rotation versus pronation external rotation

Background Ankle fractures are among the most common types of fractures in the orthopaedic field, and the Lauge-Hansen classification is commonly used to categorize rotational ankle fractures. This study evaluated and compared the clinical and radiological outcomes of surgically treated supination external rotation (SER) and pronation external rotation (PER) injuries of grades III or IV. Methods We retrospectively reviewed and enrolled 104 patients who underwent open reduction and internal fixation for SER or PER injuries classified as Grades III or IV between January 2016 and December 2021, all performed at a single center. Of these, 72 belonged to the SER group and 32 to the PER group. The average postoperative follow-up durations were 31.3 months (range, 24 to 74) for the SER group and 32.1 months (range, 24 to 71) for the PER group. Clinical and radiological outcomes were assessed 24 months after surgery and compared between the two groups. Details of concomitant surgical procedures performed and postoperative complications were also evaluated. Results All clinical outcome variables, including the Foot and Ankle Outcome Score, Visual Analog Scale for pain, and ankle range of motion, were comparable between the two groups. Similarly, no statistically significant differences were observed in the development of post-traumatic arthritis or in the frequency of syndesmotic widening 24 months postoperatively. However, the time required for fibular union was significantly longer in the PER group, taking 5.6 ± 2.2 months compared to 3.4 ± 1.3 months in the SER group on average (p < 0.001). Conclusions Our study demonstrated that both types of rotational ankle fractures can achieve equivalent clinical and radiological outcomes with surgical treatment. Given the prolonged time to fibular union in the PER group, careful monitoring during postoperative follow-up is required.

Polar mesospheric ozone loss initiates downward coupling of solar signal in the Northern Hemisphere

Abstract Solar driven energetic particle precipitation (EPP) is an important factor in polar atmospheric ozone balance and has been linked to ground-level regional climate variability. However, the linking mechanism has remained ambiguous. The observed and simulated ground-level changes start well before the processes from the main candidate, the so-called EPP-indirect effect, would start. Here we show that initial reduction of polar mesospheric ozone and the resulting change in atmospheric heating rapidly couples to dynamics, transferring the signal downwards, shifting the tropospheric jet polewards. This pathway is not constrained to the polar vortex. Rather, a subtropical route initiated by a changing wind shear plays a key role. Our results show that the signal propagates downwards in timescales consistent with observed tropospheric level climatic changes linked to EPP. This pathway, from mesospheric ozone to regional climate, is independent of the EPP-indirect effect, and solves the long-standing mechanism problem for EPP effects on climate.

CooccurrenceAffinity: An R package for computing a novel metric of affinity in co-occurrence data that corrects for pervasive errors in traditional indices

1. Analysis of co-occurrence data with traditional indices has led to many problems such as sensitivity of the indices to prevalence and the same value representing either a strong positive or strong negative association across different datasets. In our recent study (Mainali et al 2022), we revealed the source of the problems that make the traditional indices fundamentally flawed and unreliable–namely that the indices in common use have no target of estimation quantifying degree of association in the non-null case–and we further developed a novel parameter of association, alpha, with complete formulation of the null distribution for estimating the mechanism of affinity. We also developed the maximum likelihood estimate (MLE) of alpha in our previous study. 2. Here, we introduce the CooccurrenceAffinity R package that computes the MLE for alpha. We provide functions to perform the analysis based on a 2×2 contingency table of occurrence/co-occurrence counts as well as a m×n presence-absence matrix (e.g., species by site matrix). The flexibility of the function allows a user to compute the alpha MLE for entity pairs on matrix columns based on presence-absence states recorded in the matrix rows, or for entity pairs on matrix rows based on presence-absence recorded in columns. We also provide functions for plotting the computed indices. 3. As novel components of this software paper not reported in the original study, we present theoretical discussion of a median interval and of four types of confidence intervals. We further develop functions (a) to compute those intervals, (b) to evaluate their true coverage probability of enclosing the population parameter, and (c) to generate figures. 4. CooccurrenceAffinity is a practical and efficient R package with user-friendly functions for end-to-end analysis and plotting of co-occurrence data in various formats, making it possible to compute the recently developed metric of alpha MLE as well as its median and confidence intervals introduced in this paper. The package supplements its main output of the novel metric of association with the three most common traditional indices of association in co-occurrence data: Jaccard, Sørensen–Dice, and Simpson.

Mitochondrial segmentation and function prediction in live-cell images with deep learning

Trends in the prevalence of obesity and estimation of the direct health costs attributable to child and adolescent obesity in Brazil from 2013 to 2022

Introduction Childhood obesity is a major global public health issue globally and in Brazil. The impacts of childhood obesity include higher risk of disease during childhood and of obesity and non-communicable diseases in adulthood and represent an important epidemiological and economic burden to countries. This study aims to analyze the trends and to estimate the direct healthcare costs of childhood and adolescent obesity to the National Health System from 2013 to 2022. Methods We used Prais-Winsten regressions for determining the trends in the prevalence of obesity and modeled the attributable to childhood and adolescent obesity in the Brazilian National Health System using previous meta-analysis of studies. Results The hospitalizations of children and adolescents with obesity as a primary cause totaled Int$2.6 million to the Brazilian National Health System from 2013 to 2022, demonstrating that obesity is rarely considered as a cause of hospitalization especially among children and adolescents. The additional costs of hospitalizations attributable to childhood obesity totaled Int$101.5 million during the same period. The additional non-hospital, outpatient and medication cost attributable to childhood obesity in Brazil were estimated at Int$6.0 million, so the total estimated healthcare costs were of approximately Int$107.5 million in the last decade. Conclusion This study highlights that childhood and adolescent obesity are increasing for most age-groups and that its costs are not limited to the economic impacts on adult health and represent a relevant economic burden to the Brazilian National Health System and to families because of additional costs during childhood and adolescence. Therefore, the prevention and control of childhood and adolescent obesity must be public health priorities.