Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Maternal Dietary Patterns and Fetal Growth: A Large Prospective Cohort Study in China

There was limited evidence revealing the association of Chinese maternal dietary patterns with fetal growth. We aimed to examine the relationship of maternal dietary patterns during pregnancy to neonatal birth weight and birth weight for gestational age in a Chinese population. A total of 6954 mother-child pairs were included from the Born in Guangzhou Cohort Study. Maternal diet during pregnancy was assessed using a self-administered food frequency questionnaire. Cluster analysis was used to identify dietary patterns. The following six dietary patterns were identified: “Cereals, eggs, and Cantonese soups” (n 1026, 14.8%), “Dairy” (n 1020, 14.7%), “Fruits, nuts, and Cantonese desserts” (n 799, 11.5%), “Meats” (n 1066, 15.3%), “Vegetables” (n 1383, 19.9%), and “Varied” (n 1224, 17.6%). The mean neonatal birth weight Z scores of women in the above patterns were 0.02, 0.07, 0.20, 0.01, 0.06, and 0.14, respectively. Women in the “Fruits, nuts, and Cantonese desserts” and “Varied” groups had significantly heavier infants compared with those in the “Cereals, eggs, and Cantonese soups” group. Compared with women in the “Cereals, eggs, and Cantonese soups” group, those in the “Varied” group had marginally significantly lower odds of having a small-for-gestational age (SGA) infant after adjustment for other confounders (OR 0.77, 95% CI 0.57, 1.04, p = 0.08). These findings suggest that compared to a traditional Cantonese diet high in cereals, eggs, and Cantonese soups, a diet high in fruits, nuts, and Cantonese desserts might be associated with a higher birth weight, while a varied diet might be associated with a greater birth weight and also a decreased risk of having a SGA baby.
Perceptions of weight and associated factors of adolescents in Jiangsu Province, China

Abstract Objective To describe perceptions of weight of adolescents and associated factors. Design Cross-sectional survey in 2002. Setting Eight public middle schools in two distinct socio-economic areas of Jiangsu Province, China. Subjects Eight hundred and twenty-four adolescents (aged 12–14 years) and 628 of their parents. Methods Self-administered questionnaires for students and their parents were used to collect the data. Height and weight of the students were measured. Results One-third of the girls perceived themselves as overweight, while only 8.9% were actually overweight or obese according to the World Health Organization definition. On the other hand, 15.0% of the girls considered themselves underweight, while 5.6% were underweight according to the definition. Among the boys, one-fifth of those defined as overweight perceived their weight as normal. Furthermore, 23.9% perceived themselves as underweight when in fact only 4.9% were classified as underweight according to the definition. About one-quarter of the students dieted in the past year. Adolescents who perceived themselves to be overweight dieted and skipped breakfast more often. They also had lower intake frequencies of animal foods, Western foods and milk/yoghurt. No disparity was observed in the intake frequency of fruits and vegetables between the groups of different weight perception. Parents' weight norms seemed to favour overweight in both genders, but especially among boys. Conclusions Both overweight and underweight concerns were common among girls, while a higher body weight was favoured by normal-weight boys and their parents. Distorted weight perceptions in adolescents, as well as dieting, are problems that need appropriate intervention.
21st century runoff sensitivities of major global river basins

River runoff is a key index of renewable water resources which affect almost all human and natural systems. Any substantial change in runoff will therefore have serious social, environmental, and ecological consequences. We estimate the runoff response to global mean temperature change implied by the climate change experiments generated for the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC AR4). In contrast to previous studies, we estimate the runoff sensitivity using global mean temperature change as an index of anthropogenic climate changes in temperature and precipitation, with the rationale that this removes the dependence on emissions scenarios. Our results show that the runoff sensitivity implied by the IPCC experiments is relatively stable across emissions scenarios and global mean temperature increments, but varies substantially across models with the exception of the high‐latitudes and currently arid or semi‐arid areas. The runoff sensitivities are slightly higher at 0.5°C warming than for larger amounts of warming. The estimated ratio of runoff change to (local) precipitation change (runoff elasticity) ranges from about one to three, and the runoff temperature sensitivity (change in runoff per degree C of local temperature increase) ranges from decreases of about 2 to 6% over most basins in North America and the middle and high latitudes of Eurasia.
Bayesian inference, predictive coding and delusions

This paper considers psychotic symptoms in terms of false inferences or beliefs. It is based on the notion that the brain is an organ of inference that actively constructs hypotheses to explain or predict its sensations. This perspective provides a normative (Bayes optimal) account of action and perception that emphasises probabilistic representations; in particular, the confidence or precision of beliefs about the world. We consider sensory attenuation deficits, catatonia and delusions as various expressions of the same core pathology: namely, an aberrant encoding of precision in a predictive coding hierarchy. In predictive coding, precision is thought to be encoded by the postsynaptic gain of neurons reporting prediction error. This suggests that both pervasive trait abnormalities and florid failures of inference in the psychotic state can be linked to factors controlling postsynaptic gain—such as NMDA receptor function and (dopaminergic) neuromodulation. We illustrate these points using a biologically plausible simulation of attribution of agency—showing how a reduction in the precision of prior beliefs, relative to sensory evidence, can lead to false inference.
Photosynthetic activity of bryophytes under the conditions of salinity on the territory of tailing of Stebnyk State Mining and Chemical Enterprise «Polimineral»

and Brachythecium campestre (Müll. Hal.) Schimp. on the territory of tailing waste mining potassium salt, where bryophytes are important components of the primary plant communi-ties on the substrates with high salinity. The effect of salinity on the bryophytes photosynthetic apparatus was manifested in change of the pigments composition and degree of its aggregation with the lipid-protein complexes of the thylakoid membranes and depended on the level of species sensitivity. In species Barbula unquiculata and Didymodon tophaceus , which grow in conditions of high salinity, an increase of the content of carotenoids and chlorophyll b (which is a compensa-tory reaction in response to the suppression of the chlorophyll a synthesis), and an increase of the bond strength of chlorophylls in chlorophyll-protein complexes of thylakoid membranes were observed. The peculiarities of the structural organization of Barbula unquiculata photosynthesis apparatus under conditions of salt stress (localization of chloroplasts in cells, changes in their quantity, sizes and forms) have been experimentally investigated, which testify to the negative effect of salinity on plants. It has been shown that salinity induced an increase of chlorophyllase hydrolytic activity in chloroplasts, which can be a diagnostic characteristic for assessing the degree of plant salt tolerance. It was established that under salinity the photosynthesis intensity determined by the bryophytes species-specificity and depends on the salts concentration in the soil solution.
Tristetraprolin binding site atlas in the macrophage transcriptome reveals a switch for inflammation resolution

Precise regulation of mRNA decay is fundamental for robust yet not exaggerated inflammatory responses to pathogens. However, a global model integrating regulation and functional consequences of inflammation‐associated mRNA decay remains to be established. Using time‐resolved high‐resolution RNA binding analysis of the mRNA‐destabilizing protein tristetraprolin (TTP), an inflammation‐limiting factor, we qualitatively and quantitatively characterize TTP binding positions in the transcriptome of immunostimulated macrophages. We identify pervasive destabilizing and non‐destabilizing TTP binding, including a robust intronic binding, showing that TTP binding is not sufficient for mRNA destabilization. A low degree of flanking RNA structuredness distinguishes occupied from silent binding motifs. By functionally relating TTP binding sites to mRNA stability and levels, we identify a TTP‐controlled switch for the transition from inflammatory into the resolution phase of the macrophage immune response. Mapping of binding positions of the mRNA‐stabilizing protein HuR reveals little target and functional overlap with TTP, implying a limited co‐regulation of inflammatory mRNA decay by these proteins. Our study establishes a functionally annotated and navigable transcriptome‐wide atlas (http://ttp-atlas.univie.ac.at) of cis‐acting elements controlling mRNA decay in inflammation.
FoxO3a involved in neutrophil and T cell survival is overexpressed in rheumatoid blood and synovial tissue

Objective FoxO3a is a transcriptional factor implicated in cell cycle regulation and apoptosis. Since rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is associated with apoptosis defects, the expression level, regulation and phosphorylation status of FoxO3a was investigated in blood and synovium from patients with RA. Methods In microarray experiments, an overexpression of FoxO3a mRNA was observed in blood from patients with RA compared with healthy controls. FoxO3a mRNA expression was quantified in polymorphonuclear cells (PMNs) and peripheral blood mononuclear cells from patients with RA by qRT-PCR. Total FoxO3a and phosphorylated FoxO3a (pFoxO3a) protein expression was analysed in blood leucocytes from patients with RA versus controls and in synovium from patients with RA versus patients with osteoarthritis (OA) by immunostaining. Results FoxO3a mRNA and protein expression levels were increased in blood from patients with RA compared with controls. FoxO3a overexpression was primarily observed in PMNs. In synovium from patients with RA, both total and inactive phosphorylated FoxO3a proteins were detected. FoxO3a was detected primarily in the sublining T lymphocytes of synovium from patients with RA compared with the lining layer tissue from patients with RA and OA, underlying a role for FoxO3a proteins in inflammation in RA. Conclusion The overexpression of FoxO3a in blood from patients with RA, particularly in PMNs, suggests a potential role for this gene in the pathogenesis of RA through increased survival of blood PMNs. In synovium from patients with RA, FoxO3a mainly detected in inflammatory aggregates may also regulate the chronic survival of T lymphocytes.
Outer doublet heterogeneity reveals structural polarity related to beat direction in Chlamydomonas flagella

Analysis of serial cross-sections of the Chlamydomonas flagellum reveals several structural asymmetries in the axoneme. One doublet lacks the outer dynein arm, has a beak-like projection in its B-tubule, and bears a two-part bridge that extends from the A-tubule of this doublet to the B-tubule of the adjacent doublet. The two doublets directly opposite the doublet lacking the arm have beak-like projections in their B-tubules. These asymmetries always occur in the same doublets from section to section, indicating that certain doublets have consistent morphological specializations. These unique doublets give the axoneme an inherent structural polarity. All three specializations are present in the proximal portion of the axoneme; based on their frequency in random cross-sections of isolated axonemes, the two-part bridge and the beak-like projections are present in the proximal one quarter and one half of the axoneme, respectively, and the outer arm is absent from the one doublet greater than 90% of the axoneme's length. The outer arm-less doublet of each flagellum faces the other flagellum, indicating that each axoneme has the same rotational orientation relative to the direction of its effective stroke. This strongly suggests that the direction of the effective stroke is controlled by a structural component within the axoneme. The striated fibers are associated with specific triplets in a manner suggesting that they play a role in setting up or maintaining the 180 degrees rotational symmetry of the two flagella.
Improving body transmitted unvoiced speech with statistical voice conversion

The conversion method from Non-Audible Murmur (NAM) to ordinary speech based on the statistical voice conversion (NAM-toSpeech) has been proposed towards realization of “silent speech telephone. ” Although NAM-to-Speech converts NAM to intelligible voices with similar quality to speech, there is still a large problem, i.e., difficulties of the F0 estimation from unvoiced speech. In order to avoid this problem, we propose a conversion method from NAM to whisper that is a familiar and intelligible unvoiced speech (NAM-to-Whisper). Moreover, we enhance NAM-to-Whisper so that multiple types of body-transmitted unvoiced speech such as NAM and Body Transmitted Whisper (BTW) are accepted as input voices. We evaluate the performance of the proposed conversion method. Experimental results demonstrate that 1) intelligibility and naturalness of NAM are significantly improved by NAM-toWhisper, 2) NAM-to-Whisper outperforms NAM-to-Speech, and 3) we can train a single conversion model successfully converting both NAM and BTW to the target voice. Index Terms: silent speech telephone, body transmitted unvoiced speech, voice conversion, F0 estimation, whisper
Binding of the RING Polycomb Proteins to Specific Target Genes in Complex with the grainyhead-Like Family of Developmental Transcription Factors

ABSTRACT The Polycomb group (PcG) of proteins represses homeotic gene expression through the assembly of multiprotein complexes on key regulatory elements. The mechanisms mediating complex assembly have remained enigmatic since most PcG proteins fail to bind DNA. We now demonstrate that the human PcG protein dinG interacts with CP2, a mammalian member of the grainyhead-like family of transcription factors, in vitro and in vivo. The functional consequence of this interaction is repression of CP2-dependent transcription. The CP2-dinG interaction is conserved in evolution with the Drosophila factor grainyhead binding to dring, the fly homologue of dinG. Electrophoretic mobility shift assays demonstrate that the grh-dring complex forms on regulatory elements of genes whose expression is repressed by grh but not on elements where grh plays an activator role. These observations reveal a novel mechanism by which PcG proteins may be anchored to specific regulatory elements in developmental genes.
A Novel Combination of Wheat Peptides and Fucoidan Attenuates Ethanol-Induced Gastric Mucosal Damage through Anti-Oxidant, Anti-Inflammatory, and Pro-Survival Mechanisms

Gastritis or peptic ulcer is believed to affect about half of people worldwide. Traditional medications can lead to adverse effects, therefore, alternative nutritional strategies are needed to prevent the development of gastric mucosal damage. A novel combination of two food-grade ingredients, wheat peptides and fucoidan (WPF), was prepared to treat male Sprague Dawley rats for 30 days before gastric mucosal damage was induced by oral administration of ethanol. The serum levels of biomarkers were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Biomarkers in stomach tissue were analyzed using immunohistochemistry. In addition, human gastric epithelial cell line (GES-1) was used to investigate protein expression by Western blot. WPF could attenuate ethanol-induced gastric mucosal damage in an inverse dose-dependent manner, with both ulcer index and pathological index improved. WPF increased superoxide dismutase level and decreased malondialdehyde level. WPF also decreased the levels of interleukin-8, platelet-activating factor, and Caspase 3, while increasing the levels of prostaglandin E-2, epidermal growth factor (EGF), and EGF receptor (EGFR). Furthermore, phosphorylation of EGFR and extracellular signal–regulated kinases was induced by WPF in GES-1 cells. In conclusion, the novel combination of wheat peptides and fucoidan attenuated ethanol-induced gastric mucosal damage in rats through anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory, and pro-survival mechanisms.
Endovenous Laser Ablation–Induced Complications: Review of the Literature and New Cases

BACKGROUND In the last decade, minimally invasive techniques have been introduced in the treatment of lower extremity varicosities. Of these therapies, endovenous laser ablation is the most widely accepted and used treatment option for insufficient great and short saphenous veins. OBJECTIVE To present a review of reported common and rare and minor and major complications associated with endovenous laser ablation. METHODS A systematic review of studies and case reports on endovenous laser ablation–induced complications. The complications were classified as minor or major according to the Society of Interventional Radiology Standards of Practice Committee guidelines on reporting complications. A case‐series of complications after endovenous laser ablation is presented. RESULTS Ecchymoses and pain are frequently reported side effects of endovenous laser ablation. Nerve injury, skin burns, deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism seldom occur. An exceptional complication is a material or device that by accident remains inside the body after the procedure. Ecchymosis, pain, induration, skin burns, dysesthesia, superficial thrombophlebitis, and hematoma were classified as minor complications. Deep vein thrombosis and nerve injury were classified as major complications. CONCLUSION Endovenous laser ablation may be considered a safe treatment of lower extremity varicosities. The incidence of common side effects may decrease with better laser parameters. The authors have indicated no significant interest with commercial supporters.
Real-Time Empathy : Facial Mimicry on a Robot

Expressing empathy is a key component of human social communication. One common way people convey empathy is via facial expression mirroring. It may be helpful for machines intended to interact with people to also convey empathy in this manner. We have thus created Virgil, an expression-mimicking robot. We hypothesize that if people feel like a machine is empathizing with them they will be more likely to rate the interaction positively. We conducted a pilot study to test our hypothesis, and through quantitative and qualitative analysis of our results found some support for it.
Acetylcholine, Bradykinin, Opioids, and Phenylephrine, but not Adenosine, Trigger Preconditioning by Generating Free Radicals and Opening Mitochondrial KATP Channels

Abstract— It has been assumed that all Gi-coupled receptors trigger the protective action of preconditioning by means of an identical intracellular signaling pathway. To test this assumption, rabbit hearts were isolated and perfused with Krebs buffer. All hearts were subjected to a 30-minute coronary artery occlusion followed by 120 minutes of reperfusion. Risk area was measured with fluorescent particles and infarct size with triphenyltetrazolium chloride staining. Control hearts showed 29.1±2.8% infarction of the risk zone. A 5-minute infusion of acetylcholine (0.55 mmol/L) beginning 15 minutes before the 30-minute occlusion resulted in significant protection (9.2±2.7% infarction). This protection could be blocked by administration of 300 &mgr;mol/L N-2-mercaptopropionyl glycine (MPG), a free radical scavenger, or by 200 &mgr;mol/L 5-hydroxydecanoate (5-HD), a mitochondrial KATP antagonist, for 15 minutes beginning 5 minutes before the acetylcholine infusion (35.2±3.9% and 27.8±2.4% infarction, respectively). Similar protection was observed with other known triggers, ie, bradykinin (0.4 &mgr;mol/L), morphine (0.3 &mgr;mol/L), and phenylephrine (0.1 &mgr;mol/L), and in each case protection was completely abrogated by either MPG or 5-HD. In contrast, protection by adenosine or its analog N6-(2-phenylisopropyl) adenosine could not be blocked by either MPG or 5-HD. Therefore, whereas most of the tested agonists trigger protection by a pathway that requires opening of mitochondrial KATP channels and production of free radicals, the protective action of adenosine is not dependent on either of these steps. Hence, it cannot be assumed that all Gi-coupled receptors use the same signal transduction pathways to trigger preconditioning.
Spanish NER with Word Representations and Conditional Random Fields

Word Representations such as word embeddings have been shown to significantly improve (semi-)supervised NER for the English language. In this work we investigate whether word representations can also boost (semi-)supervised NER in Spanish. To do so, we use word representations as additional features in a linear chain Conditional Random Field (CRF) classifier. Experimental results (82.44 Fscore on the CoNLL-2002 corpus) show that our approach is comparable to some state-of-the-art Deep Learning approaches for Spanish, in particular when using
The theory of multistage integration in the visual brain

The theory of multistage integration is based on evidence that the visual brain consists of several parallel multistage processing systems, each specialized for a given attribute such as colour or motion. Each stage of a given system processes information at a distinct level of complexity. Our theory supposes that activity at any stage of a given multistage processing system is perceptually explicit: that is to say, it requires no further processing to generate a conscious experience. This activity can be integrated, or bound, with the perceptually explicit activity at any given stage of another or the same multistage processing system. Such binding is therefore not a process that generates a conscious experience, but rather one that brings different conscious experiences together. Many perceptual advantages result from such a flexible and dynamic integrative system. Conversely, there would be disadvantages to limiting perception and binding to hypothetical ‘terminal’ stages of such processing systems or to hypothetical ‘integrator’ areas. Although we formulate our hypothesis in terms of the visual brain, we believe it might form a general principle of brain functioning.