Imbalance in Unc80 RNA Editing Disrupts Dynamic Neuronal Activity and Olfactory Perception.

A-to-I RNA editing, catalyzed by the ADAR protein family, significantly contributes to the diversity and adaptability of mammalian RNA signatures, aligning with developmental and physiological needs. Yet, the functions of many editing sites are still to be defined. The Unc80 gene stands out in this context due to its brain-specific expression and the evolutionary conservation of its codon-altering editing event. The precise biological functions of Unc80 and its editing, however, are still largely undefined. In this study, we first demonstrated that Unc80 editing occurs in an ADAR2-dependent manner and is exclusive to the brain. By employing the CRISPR/Cas9 system to generate Unc80 knock-in mouse models that replicate the natural editing variations, our findings revealed that mice with the "gain-of-editing" variant (Unc80G/G) exhibit heightened basal neuronal activity in critical olfactory regions, compared to the "loss-of-editing" (Unc80S/S) counterparts. Moreover, an increase in glutamate levels was observed in the olfactory bulbs of Unc80G/G mice, indicating altered neurotransmitter dynamics. Behavioral analysis of odor detection revealed distinctive responses to novel odors-both Unc80 deficient (Unc80+/-) and Unc80S/S mice demonstrated prolonged exploration times and heightened dishabituation responses. Further elucidating the olfactory connection of Unc80 editing, transcriptomic analysis of the olfactory bulb identified significant alterations in gene expression that corroborate the behavioral and physiological findings. Collectively, our research advances the understanding of Unc80's neurophysiological functions and the impact of its editing on the olfactory sensory system, shedding light on the intricate molecular underpinnings of olfactory perception and neuronal activity.

Pathogenicity and Genomic Characterization of a Novel Genospecies, Bacillus shihchuchen, of the Bacillus cereus Group Isolated from Chinese Softshell Turtle (Pelodiscus sinensis).

The Chinese softshell turtle (CST; Pelodiscus sinensis) is a freshwater aquaculture species of substantial economic importance that is commercially farmed across Asia, particularly in Taiwan. Although diseases caused by the Bacillus cereus group (Bcg) pose a major threat to commercial CST farming systems, information regarding its pathogenicity and genome remains limited. Here, we investigated the pathogenicity of Bcg strains isolated in a previous study and performed whole-genome sequencing. Pathogenicity analysis indicated that QF108-045 isolated from CSTs caused the highest mortality rate, and whole-genome sequencing revealed that it was an independent group distinct from other known Bcg genospecies. The average nucleotide identity compared to other known Bcg genospecies was below 95%, suggesting that QF108-045 belongs to a new genospecies, which we named Bacillus shihchuchen. Furthermore, genes annotation revealed the presence of anthrax toxins, such as edema factor and protective antigen, in QF108-045. Therefore, the biovar anthracis was assigned, and the full name of QF108-045 was Bacillus shihchuchen biovar anthracis. In addition to possessing multiple drug-resistant genes, QF108-045 demonstrated resistance to various types of antibiotics, including penicillins (amoxicillin and ampicillin), cephalosporins (ceftifour, cephalexin, and cephazolin), and polypeptides, such as vancomycin.

A Software-Defined Directional Q-Learning Grid-Based Routing Platform and Its Two-Hop Trajectory-Based Routing Algorithm for Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks.

Dealing with the packet-routing problem is challenging in the V2X (Vehicle-to-Everything) network environment, where it suffers from the high mobility of vehicles and varied vehicle density at different times. Many related studies have been proposed to apply artificial intelligence models, such as Q-learning, which is a well-known reinforcement learning model, to analyze the historical trajectory data of vehicles and to further design an efficient packet-routing algorithm for V2X. In order to reduce the number of Q-tables generated by Q-learning, grid-based routing algorithms such as the QGrid have been proposed accordingly to divide the entire network environment into equal grids. This paper focuses on improving the defects of these grid-based routing algorithms, which only consider the vehicle density of each grid in Q-learning. Hence, we propose a Software-Defined Directional QGrid (SD-QGrid) routing platform in this paper. By deploying an SDN Control Node (CN) to perform centralized control for V2X, the SD-QGrid considers the directionality from the source to the destination, real-time positions and historical trajectory records between the adjacent grids of all vehicles. The SD-QGrid further proposes the flows of the offline Q-learning training process and the online routing decision process. The two-hop trajectory-based routing (THTR) algorithm, which depends on the source-destination directionality and the movement direction of the vehicle for the next two grids, is proposed as a vehicle node to forward its packets to the best next-hop neighbor node in real time. Finally, we use the real vehicle trajectory data of Taipei City to conduct extensive simulation experiments with respect to four transmission parameters. The simulation results prove that the SD-QGrid achieved an over 10% improvement in the average packet delivery ratio and an over 25% reduction in the average end-to-end delay at the cost of less than 2% in average overhead, compared with two well-known Q-learning grid-based routing algorithms.

Food and nutrient provision in preschools: Comparison of public and private preschools.

BACKGROUND: A balanced diet is important for ensuring health and development in childhood. As preschool is the main place of childcare, the meals that they provide have a critical influence on children's dietary intake. AIM: The objectives of this study were to evaluate the nutrition status of preschool meals and to compare the food and nutrient content in public and private preschool meals. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study of 12 randomly sampled, public and private preschools in Taichung City, Taiwan. The background questionnaires, which included the meal budget and provision status of preschool meals, were completed either by the principals or supervisors of the preschools. The food and nutrition levels of preschool meals were assessed by weighing the actual food provided to the preschool children. In addition, preschool menus were collected to evaluate the meals and food served. RESULTS: Overall, the mean calcium provision of preschools was lower than half the daily dietary reference intake (DRI), and the mean sodium was higher than half the DRI. The mean energy, carbohydrate, protein, fat, iron and vitamins B1, B2 and C supplied by the public preschools were significantly higher than those in the private preschools. In addition, the whole grains, meat, vegetables, fruits, oil and nuts supplied in public preschools were significantly higher than those found in private preschools. CONCLUSIONS: The mean energy and macronutrient provision of public preschools were significantly higher than those found in private preschools. Meal quality and nutrient levels offered in public preschools were generally higher than those found in private preschools.

Home-Use and Real-Time Sleep-Staging System Based on Eye Masks and Mobile Devices with a Deep Learning Model.

PURPOSE: Sleep is an important human activity. Comfortable sensing and accurate analysis in sleep monitoring is beneficial to many healthcare and medical applications. From 2020, owing to the COVID­19 pandemic that spreads between people when they come into close physical contact with one another, the willingness to go to hospital for receiving care has reduced; care-at-home is the trend in modern healthcare. Therefore, a home-use and real-time sleep-staging system is developed in this paper. METHODS: We developed and implemented a real-time sleep staging system that integrates a wearable eye mask for high-quality electroencephalogram/electrooculogram measurement and a mobile device with MobileNETV2 deep learning model for sleep-stage identification. In the experiments, 25 all-night recordings were acquired, 17 of which were used for training, and the remaining eight were used for testing. RESULTS: The averaged scoring agreements for the wake, light sleep, deep sleep, and rapid eye movement stages were 85.20%, 87.17%, 82.87%, and 89.30%, respectively, for our system compared with the manual scoring of PSG recordings. In addition, the mean absolute errors of four objective sleep measurements, including sleep efficiency, total sleep time, sleep onset time, and wake after sleep onset time were 1.68%, 7.56 min, 5.50 min, and 3.94 min, respectively. No significant differences were observed between the proposed system and manual PSG scoring in terms of the percentage of each stage and the objective sleep measurements. CONCLUSION: These experimental results demonstrate that our system provides high scoring agreements in sleep staging and unbiased sleep measurements owing to the use of EEG and EOG signals and powerful mobile computing based on deep learning networks. These results also suggest that our system is applicable for home-use real-time sleep monitoring.

Development of a rule-based automatic five-sleep-stage scoring method for rats.

BACKGROUND: Sleep problem or disturbance often exists in pain or neurological/psychiatric diseases. However, sleep scoring is a time-consuming tedious labor. Very few studies discuss the 5-stage (wake/NREM1/NREM2/transition sleep/REM) automatic fine analysis of wake-sleep stages in rodent models. The present study aimed to develop and validate an automatic rule-based classification of 5-stage wake-sleep pattern in acid-induced widespread hyperalgesia model of the rat. RESULTS: The overall agreement between two experts' consensus and automatic scoring in the 5-stage and 3-stage analyses were 92.32% (κ = 0.88) and 94.97% (κ = 0.91), respectively. Standard deviation of the accuracy among all rats was only 2.93%. Both frontal-occipital EEG and parietal EEG data showed comparable accuracies. The results demonstrated the performance of the proposed method with high accuracy and reliability. Subtle changes exhibited in the 5-stage wake-sleep analysis but not in the 3-stage analysis during hyperalgesia development of the acid-induced pain model. Compared with existing methods, our method can automatically classify vigilance states into 5-stage or 3-stage wake-sleep pattern with a promising high agreement with sleep experts. CONCLUSIONS: In this study, we have performed and validated a reliable automated sleep scoring system in rats. The classification algorithm is less computation power, a high robustness, and consistency of results. The algorithm can be implanted into a versatile wireless portable monitoring system for real-time analysis in the future.

Evaluation of neurological behaviour in late-preterm newborn infants using the Hammersmith Neonatal Neurological Examination.

AIM: We hypothesise that clinically well late-preterm infants (LPI) (34+0 -36+6 weeks) are neurologically more immature than their term counterparts, and this immaturity persists even when these infants reach term-corrected age (TCA). The primary aim of our study was to characterise and contrast the neurodevelopmental profile of well LPI with full-term infants (FTI) (39+0 -41+6 weeks) using the Hammersmith Neonatal Neurological Examination (HNNE). Our secondary aim was to obtain local reference ranges for the 34 items in the HNNE in an Asian-dominant population. METHODS: LPI were assessed at two time points: 12-72 h of life and at TCA of 39+0 -41+6 weeks, while FTI were assessed at 12-72 h of life using the HNNE. Each of the 34 items on the HNNE was assigned an optimality score (OS) of 0, 0.5 or 1, totalling up to 34. A quantitative comparison of the neurobehavioral patterns was made using two-sample t-tests. RESULTS: A total of 212 infants (79 LPI and 133 FTI) were recruited. Mean OSs for LPI and FTI at birth were (25.11 ± 3.36)/34 and (31.19 ± 1.50)/34, respectively, with a mean difference of 6.08 (P value <0.0001). The mean OS for LPI on reaching TCA was (28.91 ± 2.30)/34, with a mean difference of 2.28 (P value <0.0001). Reference OSs for the 34 items on the HNNE were also obtained. CONCLUSION: LPI are more immature than their term counterparts even on reaching TCA, with discrepancies most apparent in 'tone' and 'movement'. We provide reference OSs of 34 items in the HNNE for infants in an Asian-dominant population.

Association of Dental Fluorosis and Urinary Fluoride with Intelligence among Schoolchildren.

Fluoride is present naturally in water and has been used worldwide for the prevention of caries. Several studies conducted in high water fluoride or endemic fluorosis areas reported that fluoride adversely affected children's cognitive function, but some studies had negative findings. This study aimed to assess the relationship between urinary fluoride, dental fluorosis, and intelligence among schoolchildren living in communities with non-fluoridated drinking water. This cross-sectional study was conducted on 562 children aged 6-12 years in Taichung, Taiwan. Each child's urinary fluoride level was determined by a fluoride-ion-selective electrode, and the dental fluorosis condition was evaluated according to the criteria of Dean's Index. The Raven's Colored Progressive Matrices-Parallel and Standard Progressive Matrices-Parallel were used to assess children's intelligence. The results showed that the mean (±standard deviation) urinary fluoride concentrations were 0.40 ± 0.27 mg/L (0.43 ± 0.23 mg/g creatinine) among participants. The prevalence of dental fluorosis was 23.67%. After extensive evaluation of potential confounders, dental fluorosis and urinary fluoride were not associated with intelligence quotient (IQ) scores or grades in the regression models. In conclusion, dental fluorosis and urinary fluoride levels were not significantly related to the IQ of schoolchildren living in areas with low drinking water fluoride.

The Effects of a Computer Game (Healthy Rat King) on Preschool Children's Nutritional Knowledge and Junk Food Intake Behavior: Nonrandomized Controlled Trial.

BACKGROUND: Playing computer-aided games could enhance children's interest in learning about nutritional knowledge and eventually promote healthy dietary intake behavior. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of a computer game (Healthy Rat King) in improving the knowledge on nutrition and junk food intake among preschool children in Taiwan. METHODS: This was a quasi-experimental study that utilized the computer game Healthy Rat King as the nutrition education tool. We recruited 104 preschool children (aged 5-6 years) from preschools in central Taiwan, who were assigned to either the experimental group (n=56) or the control group (n=48). In the experimental group, a 1-hour computer-based educational game intervention was included in the course for 4 consecutive weeks. The control group did not receive this intervention. RESULTS: The level of nutritional knowledge for children in the experimental group was significantly higher than those in the control group after 4 weeks (P=.002). Furthermore, the frequency of consumption of chocolate, candies, and ice cream (high-calorie junk food) was reduced in the experimental group. There was also no significant difference in the consumption of candy and chocolate (P=.54), ice cream and ice pops (P=.21), cake (P=.92), biscuit (P=.98), soft drinks (P=.52), and fruit juice and sugary drinks (P=.31) between the 2 groups in the posttest. CONCLUSIONS: Teaching using a computer game could improve children's nutritional knowledge. However, the intake frequency of junk food among children in the experimental group showed no significant difference from those in the control group.

Comprehensive functional genomic analyses link APC somatic mutation and mRNA-miRNA networks to the clinical outcome of stage-III colorectal cancer patients.

BACKGROUND: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a major health concern globally, but exhibits regional and/or environmental distinctions in terms of outcome especially for patients with stage III CRC. METHODS: From 2014 to 2016, matched pairs of tumor and adjacent normal tissue samples from 60 patients with stage I-IV CRC from Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Taiwan were analyzed using next-generation sequencing. The DNA, mRNA, and miRNA sequences of paired tumor tissues were profiled. An observational study with survival analysis was done. Online datasets of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and The International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) were also integrated and compared. RESULTS: The gene that exhibited the highest mutation rate was adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) (75.0%), followed by TP53 (70.0%), KRAS (56.6%), and TTN (48.3%). APC was also the most frequently mutated gene in TCGA and ICGC datasets. Surprisingly, for non-metastatic cases (stages I-III), CRC patients with mutated APC had better outcome in terms of overall survival (p = 0.041) and recurrence free survival (p = 0.0048). Particularly for stage III CRC, the overall survival rate was 94.4% and 67.7%, respectively (p = 0.018), and the recurrence free survival rate was 94.4% and 16.7%, respectively (p = 0.00044). Further clinical and gene expression analyses revealed that the APC wt specimens to a greater extent exhibit poor differentiation state as well as EGFR upregulation, providing molecular basis for the poor prognosis of these patients. Finally, based on integrated transcriptome analysis, we constructed the mRNA-miRNA networks underlying disease recurrence of the stage III CRC and uncovered potential therapeutic targets for this clinical condition. CONCLUSION: For stage III CRC, patients with mutated APC had better overall and recurrence free survival.

FASTR3D: a fast and accurate search tool for similar RNA 3D structures.

FASTR3D is a web-based search tool that allows the user to fast and accurately search the PDB database for structurally similar RNAs. Currently, it allows the user to input three types of queries: (i) a PDB code of an RNA tertiary structure (default), optionally with specified residue range, (ii) an RNA secondary structure, optionally with primary sequence, in the dot-bracket notation and (iii) an RNA primary sequence in the FASTA format. In addition, the user can run FASTR3D with specifying additional filtering options: (i) the released date of RNA structures in the PDB database, and (ii) the experimental methods used to determine RNA structures and their least resolutions. In the output page, FASTR3D will show the user-queried RNA molecule, as well as user-specified options, followed by a detailed list of identified structurally similar RNAs. Particularly, when queried with RNA tertiary structures, FASTR3D provides a graphical display to show the structural superposition of the query structure and each of identified structures. FASTR3D is now available online at http://bioalgorithm.life.nctu.edu.tw/FASTR3D/.

Dissociation of polyethylene insert from the tibial baseplate following revision total knee arthroplasty.

Dissociation of a modular tibial insert from the metal baseplate is a rare complication after revision total knee arthroplasty. We herein report an unusual presentation of a polyethylene insert failure that occurred in a posterior-stabilized constrained total knee arthroplasty. The polyethylene insert was posteriorly displaced, which has never been reported in the literature. The assumed mechanism is disengagement of the locking screw after repetitive motion. During knee full extension while standing from a chair, a sudden downward force on the anterior half of the insert caused posterior lift-off of the insert from the tibial baseplate and promoted a sliding force to push the insert posterior when the locking mechanism failed. This unique complication in a fully constrained posterior-stabilized implant should be considered as a cause for implant failure.

Anthropometric Status, Diet, and Dental Caries among Schoolchildren.

Childhood dental caries and obesity are prevalent health problems. Results from previous studies of the caries-obesity relationship are conflicting. This study aimed to assess the association between anthropometric status and dental caries among schoolchildren, taking into account dietary habits, oral hygiene, and sociodemographic factors. This cross-sectional study recruited 569 children aged 6-12 years from five elementary schools in central Taiwan. Each child underwent an oral health examination and anthropometric measurements. The DMFT (decayed, missing due to caries, and filled permanent teeth) and deft (decayed, extracted, and filled primary teeth) indexes were calculated to record caries experience. A structured questionnaire was used to collect information on food intake frequency and other related factors. The World Health Organization's reference data was applied to define weight status: obese, overweight, and normal/underweight. The results showed that the mean (±standard deviation) deft and DMFT scores were 2.3 ± 2.6 and 0.7 ± 1.2, respectively, among participating children. The prevalence of obesity and overweight was 18.1% and 18.5%, respectively. After comprehensive evaluation of potential confounders, weight status was not an independent predictor of DMFT or deft scores in the negative binomial regression models. In conclusion, weight status was not associated with caries scores in primary or permanent teeth among 6-12 year-old schoolchildren.

Vitamin B-12 status is not associated with plasma homocysteine in parents and their preschool children: lacto-ovo, lacto, and ovo vegetarians and omnivores.

OBJECTIVE: Vegetarians may be at risk of certain nutrient deficiencies, particularly vitamin B-12. Vitamin B-12 deficiency may increase plasma homocysteine concentration and thus may potentially increase the risk of cardiovascular disease in vegetarians. The purpose of this study was to assess and compare plasma homocysteine and vitamin B-12 status in vegetarian and omnivorous preschool children and their parents. In addition, the association between parents' and children's homocysteine and vitamin B-12 concentration was also examined. METHODS: Fifty-six omnivores (28 preschool children and one of their parents), 34 lacto-ovo vegetarians (16 parents and 18 children), 5 ovo vegetarians (2 parents and 3 children), 1 lacto vegetarian parent, and 2 vegan parents were enrolled in this study. The mean age of preschool children was 5.1 +/- 1.3 years and that of their parent was 35.4 +/- 4.2 years. Nutrient intakes were recorded using 3-day dietary records. Fasting venous blood samples were obtained to measure serum creatinine, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, hematological parameters, plasma homocysteine, serum folate, and vitamin B-12 concentrations. RESULTS: There was no significant difference in dietary folate intake between vegetarian and omnivores within parent and child groups. The mean plasma homocysteine level of vegetarian parents and their children was in the physiological range, and they had slightly but not significantly higher plasma homocysteine levels than omnivores. Omnivorous parents and their children had significantly higher vitamin B-12 intake than vegetarian participants but similar serum vitamin B-12 concentrations. Plasma homocysteine concentration was significantly and negatively associated with only serum folate levels (beta = -0.15) and dietary vitamin B-12 intake (beta = -0.05) in the omnivorous parents after adjusting for age, gender, body mass index, and serum creatinine. CONCLUSION: Vegetarian parents and their preschool children had a lower vitamin B-12 intake than omnivorous parents and their preschool children but similar plasma vitamin B-12 and homocysteine concentrations. Plasma homocysteine was not associated with serum vitamin B-12 levels in the parent, child, or pooled group.

Relationship between dietary intake and dental caries in preschool children.

This study assessed the relationship between intake of nutrients and dental caries in preschool children. One hundred and eighty-two children aged three to six years were recruited from nine day care centers in central Taiwan. These children had an oral health examination, and their parents or guardians answered a questionnaire. Each child's intake of nutrients was estimated using the 24-hour dietary recall and food frequency questionnaire data. Logistic regression analysis was applied to assess the associations between dental caries and intake of each nutrient or food group, with adjustment for potential confounders. The prevalence of dental caries was 73 % and increased with age. Not being a first-born and having more between-meal snacks were associated with increased caries risk. After controlling for other important factors, vitamin A intake was significantly associated with fewer dental caries (deft, decayed, indicated for extraction, and filled primary teeth: ≥ 4 vs. < 4), with an odds ratio of 0.97 (95 % confidence interval: 0.94 - 0.99) for an 100-µg increase in vitamin A intake. There was no significant association between dental caries and energy, macronutrient intake, and Ca/P ratio, respectively. Vegetable intake was also significantly associated with lower dental caries score.

Anterior-inferior plating of middle-third fractures of the clavicle.

INTRODUCTION: Various techniques have been reported for the treatment of middle-third clavicle (collar bone) fractures. This prospective study was conducted to evaluate the results of anterior-inferior plating using a 3.5-mm reconstruction plate for the treatment of middle-third clavicle fractures. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Twenty-six patients with middle-third clavicle fractures were treated with anterior-inferior plating. The indications for surgery included complete displacement, severe comminution, and marked shortening of the clavicle (>2 cm). RESULTS: The mean time to union was 14 weeks (range 8-20 weeks). At the time of latest follow-up, all of the patients had returned to their pre-injury activity level. The plates were removed in ten patients after the fractures healed. No patients required plate removal due to implant-related problems. CONCLUSION: Anterior-inferior plating is an effective treatment modality for middle-third clavicle fractures, with few complications and early return of shoulder function. The procedure provides stable fixation, avoids risk to vital structures below the clavicle, and is associated with a low rate of implant-prominence problems.

Treatment of diabetic foot infection with hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

BACKGROUND: This study was performed to evaluate the effectiveness of hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) in the treatment of the infected diabetic foot. METHODS: Forty-two patients with 44 infected diabetic feet receiving HBOT were divided into two groups. One group of 21 patients with 21 feet received <10 sessions of HBOT. The other 21 patients with 23 feet received >10 sessions of HBOT. RESULTS: In patients who received <10 sessions of HBOT, seven patients achieved satisfactory wound healing. Feet were preserved in 33.3%. In patients with >10 sessions of HBOT, 16 patients with 18 feet achieved good wound healing. Of these patients, 78.3% preserved their feet. This group of patients received an average of 22.8 HBOT treatments. CONCLUSIONS: Adjunctive HBOT has a positive effect on wound healing in diabetic foot with infection. The effect of HBOT seems dose dependent because the amputation rate is decreased in patients who receive adequate HBOT.

Disease burden and seasonal impact of improving rotavirus vaccine coverage in the United States: A modeling study.

BACKGROUND: Prior to vaccine introduction in 2006, rotavirus was the leading cause of severe diarrhea in children under five years of age in the U.S. Vaccination of infants has led to major reductions in disease burden, a shift in the seasonal peak and the emergence of a biennial pattern of disease. However, rotavirus vaccine coverage has remained relatively low (70-75%) compared to other infant immunizations in the U.S. Part of the reason for this lower coverage is that children whose care is provided by family practitioners (FP) have considerably lower probability of being vaccinated compared to those seen be pediatricians (PE). We used a dynamic transmission model to assess the impact of improving rotavirus vaccine coverage by FP and/or PE on rotavirus gastroenteritis (RVGE) incidence and seasonal patterns. METHODS: A deterministic age-structured dynamic model with susceptible, infectious, and recovered compartments (SIRS model) was used to simulate rotavirus transmission and vaccination. We estimated the reduction of RVGE cases by 2 doses of rotavirus vaccine with three vaccination scenarios: (Status Quo: 85% coverage by pediatricians and 45% coverage by family practitioners; Improved FP: 85% coverage by pediatricians and family practitioners; Improved FP+PE: 95% coverage by pediatricians and family practitioners). In addition, we tested the sensitivity of the model to the assumption of random mixing patterns between children visiting pediatricians and children visiting family practitioners. RESULTS: In this model, higher vaccine coverage provided by family practitioners and pediatricians leads to lower incidence of severe RVGE cases (23% averted in Improved FP and 57% averted in Improved FP+PE compared to Status Quo) including indirect effects. One critical impact of higher total vaccine coverage is the effect on rotavirus epidemic patterns in the U.S.; the biennial rotavirus epidemic patterns shifted to reduced annual epidemic patterns. Additionally, assortative mixing patterns in children visiting pediatricians and family practitioners amplify the impact of increasing vaccine coverage. CONCLUSION: Other high-income countries that introduced vaccine have not experienced biennial patterns, like the U.S. Our results suggest that increasing overall vaccine coverage to 85% among infants would lead to an overall reduction in incidence with annual epidemic patterns.

Partitioning interatomic force constants for first-principles phonon calculations: applications to NaCl, PbTiO3, monolayer CrI3, and twisted bilayer graphene.

First-principles phonon calculations have been widely performed for studying vibrational properties of condensed matter, where the dynamical matrix is commonly constructed via supercell force-constant calculations or the linear response approach. With different manners, a supercell can be introduced in both methods. Unless the supercell is large enough, the interpolated phonon property highly depends on the shape and size of the supercell and the imposed periodicity could give unphysical results that can be easily overlooked. Along this line, we discuss how a traditional method can be used to partition the force constants at the supercell boundary and then propose a more flexible method based on the translational symmetry and interatomic distances. The partition method is also compatible with the mixed-space approach for describing LO-TO splitting. We have applied the proposed partition method to NaCl, PbTiO3, monolayer CrI3, and twisted bilayer graphene, where we show how the method can deliver reasonable results. The proper partition is especially important for studying moderate-size systems with low symmetry, such as two-dimensional materials on substrates, and useful for the implementation of phonon calculations in first-principles packages using atomic basis functions, where symmetry operations are usually not applied owing to the suitability for large-scale calculations.

Blood and seminal plasma mercury levels and predatory fish intake in relation to low semen quality.

Declining human sperm quality has been demonstrated in several recent studies. Age, environmental factors, and nutritional factors can affect semen quality. Mercury (Hg) is considered a male reproductive toxicant. Animal studies indicated that exposure to Hg can cause DNA damage, sperm dysfunction, and decreased sperm motility. Some previous studies also revealed that blood Hg levels in infertile or subfertile males were higher than those in normal males. In this study, we recruited 84 male participants from a reproductive medical center and investigated the Hg, lead, and selenium levels in blood and seminal plasma. Participants were divided into two groups, low- and high-quality semen groups, according to the World Health Organization reference values for human semen characteristics. The distribution of blood reproductive hormones and information on participants' lifestyle and medical history were collected from structured questionnaires. Average Hg levels in blood were 9.3±5.9 versus 8.9±5.9 and in seminal plasma were 1.26±0.61 versus 1.05±0.52 µg/L in the low- and high-quality semen groups, respectively. There was a dose-dependent relationship between blood Hg levels and normal sperm morphology (p=0.02). Participants with predatory fish intake and high blood Hg level had lower sperm with a normal morphology. Therefore, predatory fish intake may be a critical risk factor for elevated Hg levels in males and cause low semen quality.