Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bone Marrow Mesenchymal Stem Cells and Electroacupuncture Downregulate the Inhibitor Molecules and Promote the Axonal Regeneration in the Transected Spinal Cord of Rats

Our previous study has reported that electroacupuncture (EA) promotes survival, differentiation of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), and functional improvement in spinal cord-transected rats. In this study, we further investigated the structural bases of this functional improvement and the potential mechanisms of axonal regeneration in injured spinal cord after MSCs and EA treatment. Five experimental groups, 1) sham control (Sham-control); 2) operated control (Op-control); 3) electroacupuncture treatment (EA); 4) MSCs transplantation (MSCs), and 5) MSCs transplantation combined with electroacupuncture (MSCs + EA), were designed for this study. Western blots and immunohistochemical staining were used to assess the fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans (CSPGs) proteins expression. Basso, Beattie, Bresnahan (BBB) locomotion test, cortical motor evoked potentials (MEPs), and anterograde and retrograde tracing were utilized to assess cortical-spinal neuronal projection regeneration and functional recovery. In the MSCs + EA group, increased labeling descending corticospinal tract (CST) projections into the lesion site showed significantly improved BBB scales and enhanced motor evoked potentials after 10 weeks of MSCs transplant and EA treatment. The structural and functional recovery after MSCs + EA treatment may be due to downregulated GFAP and CSPGs protein expression, which prevented axonal degeneration as well as improved axonal regeneration.
High‐Sensitivity Troponin T and C‐Reactive Protein Have Different Prognostic Values in Hemo‐ and Peritoneal Dialysis Populations: A Cohort Study

Background Dialysis patients have an exceedingly high mortality rate. Biomarkers may be useful tools in risk stratification of this population. We evaluated the prognostic value of high‐sensitivity cardiac troponin T (hs‐cTnT) and CRP (C‐reactive protein) in predicting adverse outcomes in stable hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients. Variability in hs‐cTnT was also examined. Methods and Results A retrospective cohort study included 574 dialysis patients (hemodialysis 347, PD 227). Outcomes examined included mortality and major adverse cardiovascular events, with median follow‐up of 3.5 years. hs‐cTnT was an independent predictor of both outcomes in hemodialysis and PD patients. Increased risk only became significant when hs‐cTnT reached quintile 3 (>49 ng/L). Area under the receiver operating curve analysis showed that the addition of hs‐cTnT to clinical parameters significantly improved its prognostic performance for mortality in PD patients (P=0.002). CRP was an independent predictor of both outcomes in PD patients only. Only CRP in the highest quintile (>16.8 mg/L) was associated with increased risk. hs‐cTnT remained relatively stable for the whole follow‐up period for hemodialysis patients, whereas for PD patients, hs‐cTnT increased by 23.63% in year 2 and 29.13% in year 3 compared with baseline (P<0.001). Conclusions hs‐cTnT and CRP are useful tools in predicting mortality and major adverse cardiovascular events in hemodialysis and PD patients. Given that hs‐cTnT levels increase over time in PD patients, interval monitoring may be valuable for risk assessment. In contrast, hs‐cTnT in hemodialysis patients has little interval change and progress monitoring is not indicated.
Post adoption behaviour of e-service users: an empirical study on chinese online travel service users

Post adoption behaviours of e-service users are important for e-service providers to increase both their revenues and profits. This paper develops a model to investigate the factors influencing users’ post adoption behaviours, including continuance intention to use e-services and recommendation behaviour. The model is developed based on Expectation Confirmation Theory and includes two additional variables in it, namely perceived ease of use and recommendations. Based on 543 useful questionnaires, the model is empirically tested together with a number of hypotheses. The results show that both satisfaction and perceived usefulness positively impact users’ continuance intention. Continuance intention, together with perceived usefulness, has positive influences on users’ recommendations of e-service. Both theoretical and practical implications are discussed as well.
Postoperative Neurocognitive Dysfunction in Patients Undergoing Cardiac Surgery after Remote Ischemic Preconditioning: A Double-Blind Randomized Controlled Pilot Study

Background Remote ischemic preconditioning (RIPC) has been shown to enhance the tolerance of remote organs to cope with a subsequent ischemic event. We hypothesized that RIPC reduces postoperative neurocognitive dysfunction (POCD) in patients undergoing complex cardiac surgery. Methods We conducted a prospective, randomized, double-blind, controlled trial including 180 adult patients undergoing elective cardiac surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass. Patients were randomized either to RIPC or to control group. Primary endpoint was postoperative neurocognitive dysfunction 5–7 days after surgery assessed by a comprehensive test battery. Cognitive change was assumed if the preoperative to postoperative difference in 2 or more tasks assessing different cognitive domains exceeded more than one SD (1 SD criterion) or if the combined Z score was 1.96 or greater (Z score criterion). Results According to 1 SD criterion, 52% of control and 46% of RIPC patients had cognitive deterioration 5–7 days after surgery (p = 0.753). The summarized Z score showed a trend to more cognitive decline in the control group (2.16±5.30) compared to the RIPC group (1.14±4.02; p = 0.228). Three months after surgery, incidence and severity of neurocognitive dysfunction did not differ between control and RIPC. RIPC tended to decrease postoperative troponin T release at both 12 hours [0.60 (0.19–1.94) µg/L vs. 0.48 (0.07–1.84) µg/L] and 24 hours after surgery [0.36 (0.14–1.89) µg/L vs. 0.26 (0.07–0.90) µg/L]. Conclusions We failed to demonstrate efficacy of a RIPC protocol with respect to incidence and severity of POCD and secondary outcome variables in patients undergoing a wide range of cardiac surgery. Therefore, definitive large-scale multicenter trials are needed. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00877305
An Integrative Study of the Genetic, Social and Environmental Determinants of Chronic Kidney Disease Characterized by Tubulointerstitial Damages in the North Central Region of Sri Lanka

An Integrative Study of the Genetic, Social and Environmental Determinants of Chronic Kidney Disease Characterized by Tubulointerstitial Damages in the North Central Region of Sri Lanka: Shanika NANAYAKKARA, et al. Department of Health and Environmental Sciences, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University—
The effects of school‐based lifestyle interventions on body mass index and blood pressure: a multivariate multilevel meta‐analysis of randomized controlled trials

Primary prevention of childhood obesity and related hypertension is warrant given that both risk factors are intertwined and track into adulthood. This systematic review and meta‐analysis assess the impact of school‐based lifestyle interventions on children's body mass index (BMI) and blood pressure. We searched databases and prior reviews. Eligibility criteria were the following: randomized controlled trial design, evaluation of a school‐based intervention, targeting children aged 4–12 years, reporting on BMI and/or related cardiovascular risk factors, reporting data on at least one follow‐up moment. The effects on BMI, systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) were evaluated by means of univariate and multivariate three‐level random effects models. A total of 85 RCTs (91 papers) were included in the meta‐analyses. In univariate models, the pooled effects were −0.072 (95%CI: −0.106; −0.038) for BMI, −0.183 (95%CI: −0.288; −0.078) for SBP and −0.071 (95%CI: −0.185; 0.044) for DBP. In multivariate analyses, the pooled effects of interventions were −0.054 (95%CI: −0.131; 0.022) for BMI, −0.182 (95%CI: −0.266; −0.098) for SBP and −0.144 (95%CI: −0.230; −0.057) for DBP. Parental involvement accentuated the beneficial effects of interventions. School‐based lifestyle prevention interventions result in beneficial changes in children's BMI and blood pressure, and the effects on the latter may be stronger than and accrue independently from those in the former.
ESM1 mediates NGFR-induced invasion and metastasis in murine oral squamous cell carcinoma

Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is a highly invasive and metastatic malignancy. The nerve growth factor receptor (NGFR) has been observed to be expressed on a subset of cells in OSCC, and NGFR+ cells have greater tumor-initiating capacity in vivo. Further, inhibition of NGFR reduces tumor growth, indicating a functional role of this receptor; however, the mechanisms by which NGFR confers enhanced tumor formation are not known. Here, we used an established murine model of OSCC and gene expression array analysis to identify ESM1 as a downstream target gene of NGFR, critical for tumor invasion and metastasis. ESM1 encodes a protein called endocan, which has the property of regulating proliferation, differentiation, migration, and adhesion of different cell types. Incubation of NGFR+ murine OSCC cells with nerve growth factor resulted in increased expression of ESM1. Importantly, ESM1 overexpression conferred an enhanced migratory, invasive, and metastatic phenotype, similar to what has been correlated with NGFR expression. Conversely, shRNA knockdown of ESM1 in NGFR overexpressing OSCC cells abrogated the tumor growth kinetics and the invasive and metastatic properties associated with NGFR. Together, our data indicate that NGFR plays an important role in the pathogenesis and progression of OSCC via regulation of ESM1.
The Incidence of Parkinson's Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background: Parkinson's disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disorder. Epidemiological studies on the incidence of PD are important to better understand the risk factors for PD and determine the condition's natural history. Objective: This systematic review and meta-analysis examine the incidence of PD and its variation by age and gender. Methods: We searched MEDLINE and EMBASE for epidemiologic studies of PD from 2001 to 2014, as a previously published systematic review included studies published until 2001. Data were analyzed separately for age group and gender, and meta-regression was used to determine whether a significant difference was present between groups. Results: Twenty-seven studies were included in the analysis. Meta-analysis of international studies showed rising incidence with age in both men and women. Significant heterogeneity was observed in the 80+ group, which may be explained by methodological differences between studies. While males had a higher incidence of PD in all age groups, this difference was only statistically significant for those in the age range 60-69 and 70-79 (p < 0.05). Conclusion: PD incidence generally increases with age, although it may stabilize in those who are 80+.
Outcome measurement in chronic mental illness

This review begins with an outline of outcome measurement in the country where it has been most thoroughly implemented, namely Australia. There follows a consideration of what constitutes an outcome in mental illness generally, and chronic mental illness in particular. Some instruments, such as the Health of the Nation Outcome Scales (HoNOS), focus primarily on illness severity, and examples of their use in the area of chronic mental illness are presented. Other instruments, such as the Life Skills Profile (LSP), assess personal functioning or disability, and that literature is reviewed. One major area of attention in the chronically mentally ill is quality of life. Another fruitful approach to assessing outcome is to look at needs, especially unmet needs, for which the leading instrument is the Camberwell Assessment of Need; relevant findings are reviewed. The most recent area of interest is recovery. While several scales have been developed, there are as yet relatively few reports of their application with patients with chronic mental illness. The concluding section considers the benefits and weaknesses of using the same standard instruments with all consumers within a service, and shows the utility of outcome results in groups and individuals with generally small overall changes.
Discriminative space-time voting for joint recognition and localization of actions.

In this paper we address the problem of activity detection in unsegmented image sequences. Our main contribution is the use of an implicit representation of the spatiotemporal shape of the activity which relies on the spatiotemporal localization of characteristic ensembles of feature descriptors. Evidence for the spatiotemporal localization of the activity is accumulated in a probabilistic spatiotemporal voting scheme. We use boosting in order to select characteristic ensembles per class. This leads to a set of class specific codebooks where each codeword is an ensemble of features. During training, we store the spatial positions of the codeword ensembles with respect to a set of reference points, and their temporal positions with respect to the start and end of the action instance. During testing, each activated codeword casts votes concerning the spatiotemporal position and extend of the action, using the information stored during training. Mean Shift mode estimation in the voting space provides the most probable hypotheses concerning the localization of the subjects at each frame, as well as the extend of the activities depicted in the image sequences. We present experimental results for a number of publicly available datasets, that demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed method in localizing and classifying human activities.
Optimization-Based AMP for Phase Retrieval: The Impact of Initialization and $\ell_{2}$ Regularization

We consider an <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\ell _{2}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-regularized non-convex optimization problem for recovering signals from their noisy phaseless observations. We design and study the performance of a message passing algorithm that aims to solve this optimization problem. We consider the asymptotic setting <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$m,n \rightarrow \infty $ </tex-math></inline-formula>, <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$m/n \rightarrow \delta $ </tex-math></inline-formula> and obtain sharp performance bounds, where <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$m$ </tex-math></inline-formula> is the number of measurements and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$n$ </tex-math></inline-formula> is the signal dimension. We show that for complex signals, the algorithm can perform accurate recovery with only <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$m = (({64}/{\pi ^{2}})-4)n \approx 2.5n$ </tex-math></inline-formula> measurements. Also, we provide a sharp analysis on the sensitivity of the algorithm to noise. We highlight the following facts about our message passing algorithm: 1) adding <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\ell _{2}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> regularization to the non-convex loss function can be beneficial and 2) spectral initialization has a marginal impact on the performance of the algorithm. The sharp analyses, in this paper, not only enable us to compare the performance of our method with other phase recovery schemes but also shed light on designing better iterative algorithms for other non-convex optimization problems.
Using Photovoice as a Tool for Community Engagement to Explore Environmental Health Disparities

Photovoice was used as a participatory research method to document perceived local environmental hazards, pollution sources, and potential impact on health among community members to address environmental health disparities. A convenience sample of 16 adults in Orangeburg, South Carolina participated in Photovoice. Photos depicted positive and negative implications of the environment across seven themes: recreation and leisure; food access; hazards and pollution; health, human, and social services; economic issues; beautification; and accommodation and accessibility. Positive and negative photos demonstrated a high level of interest among community members in considering how the environment influences health and health disparities.
The optical and electrical characteristics of PMMA film prepared by spin coating method

Thin films of poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) were prepared on n-Si substrate and indium tin oxide (ITO) glass was prepared by spin coating. High frequency capacitance- voltage (C-V) and current-voltage (I-V) characterization were carried out on the Al/PMMA/n- Si and Al/PMMA/ITO glass structures, with the films as the insulator layer to evaluate the electrical properties. For the PMMA, the dielectric constant value obtained was about 3.9 at 1 MHz. The breakdown field strength of PMMA can be influenced by the impurities and surface charges or the interface states in the Si substrate. The average transmittance value of the PMMA/ITO glass layer was above 80% in the visible range.
Structural Analysis of Railways Bolster-Beam under Commercial Operation Conditions: Over-traction and Over-braking

The conditions for the operation of railway systems are closely related to the increase of the commercial demand; as a consequence, the performance of the structural elements of railways changes. The present paper focuses on a study of the structural behaviour of bolster-beams under commercial operation conditions of railway systems, specifically in the dynamic conditions generated in events of over-traction and over-braking on the vehicle running. The proposed work is constructed based on the following phases: (i) analysis of the kinematics of the vehicle; (ii) development of numerical models, a model based on the multibody theory, and a Finite Elements model; (iii) development of experimental field tests; and (iv) development of simulations for a detailed analysis of the structural behaviour for a study of the strain distribution in the main bolster-beam. This study is applied to a particular case of a railway system that provides commercial service to passengers.
Brain responses in humans reveal ideal observer-like sensitivity to complex acoustic patterns

Significance We reveal the temporal dynamics and underlying neural sources of the process by which the brain discovers complex temporal patterns in rapidly unfolding sound sequences. We demonstrate that the auditory system, supported by a network of auditory cortical, hippocampal, and frontal sources, continually scans the environment, efficiently represents complex stimulus statistics, and rapidly (close to the bounds implied by an ideal observer model) responds to emergence of regular patterns, even when these are not behaviorally relevant. Neuronal activity correlated with the predictability of ongoing auditory input, both in terms of deterministic structure and the entropy of random sequences, providing clear neurophysiological evidence of the brain's capacity to automatically encode high-order statistics in sensory input. We use behavioral methods, magnetoencephalography, and functional MRI to investigate how human listeners discover temporal patterns and statistical regularities in complex sound sequences. Sensitivity to patterns is fundamental to sensory processing, in particular in the auditory system, because most auditory signals only have meaning as successions over time. Previous evidence suggests that the brain is tuned to the statistics of sensory stimulation. However, the process through which this arises has been elusive. We demonstrate that listeners are remarkably sensitive to the emergence of complex patterns within rapidly evolving sound sequences, performing on par with an ideal observer model. Brain responses reveal online processes of evidence accumulation—dynamic changes in tonic activity precisely correlate with the expected precision or predictability of ongoing auditory input—both in terms of deterministic (first-order) structure and the entropy of random sequences. Source analysis demonstrates an interaction between primary auditory cortex, hippocampus, and inferior frontal gyrus in the process of discovering the regularity within the ongoing sound sequence. The results are consistent with precision based predictive coding accounts of perceptual inference and provide compelling neurophysiological evidence of the brain's capacity to encode high-order temporal structure in sensory signals.
Mapping quantitative trait loci affecting chicken body size traits via genome scanning.

Body size traits reflect the condition of body development, are always mentioned when a breed is described, and are also targets in breeding programmes. In chicken, there are several reports focused on body size traits, such as shank length, tibia length or bone traits. However, no study was carried out on chest width (CW), chest depth (CD), body slope length (BL) and head width (HW) traits. In this study, genome scans were conducted on an F(2) resource population (238 F(2) individuals from 15 full-sib families derived from an intercross of the White Plymouth Rock with the Silkies Fowl) to identify quantitative trait loci (QTL) associated with CW, CD, BL and HW from 7 to 12 weeks of age. In total, 21 significant or suggestive QTL were found that affected four body size traits. Four QTL reached 1% genome-wide significance level: at 297 cM on GGA3 (associated with CW at 9 weeks of age), between 155 and 184 cM on GGA1 (affecting BL traits at 9 and 10 weeks of age), at 22 cM on GGA2 (related with BL traits at 12 weeks of age) and at 36 cM on GGA1 (for HW trait at 8 weeks of age).
2‐arachidonoylglycerol levels are increased in leukocytospermia and correlate with seminal macrophages

Evidence has been produced that macrophages can actively generate endocannabinoids (eCBs) in response to inflammatory stimuli. As eCBs are involved in the control of several physiological processes, including reproduction, here, we explored whether seminal levels of the eCBs, N‐arachidonoylethanolamine (AEA), and 2‐arachidonoylglycerol (2‐AG), were higher in the presence of leukocytospermia, and were correlated with semen concentration of macrophages. The content of AEA and 2‐AG was measured by high‐performance liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry in seminal plasma of ejaculates from 18 leukocytospermic patients (>1 × 106 leukocytes/mL) and 21 normozoospermic controls. In the same ejaculates, round cells were phenotyped by flow‐cytometry as leukocytes (CD45+), macrophages (CD14+), and activated macrophages (CD14+, HLA‐DR+). The levels of 2‐AG, but not of AEA, were significantly higher in ejaculates from leukocytospermic patients than in controls and exhibited a significant correlation with semen concentration of macrophages and activated macrophages. Significant associations of 2‐AG with macrophages and activated macrophages persisted after adjustment for semen volume and sperm concentration. In conclusion, here we provide evidence that seminal plasma levels of 2‐AG are higher in the presence of leukocytospermia, as a marker of macrophages activation. Further studies are warranted to elucidate possible clinical implications.