Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cerium oxide nanoparticle elicits oxidative stress, endocrine imbalance and lowers sperm characteristics in testes of balb/c mice

The toxicity of metallic nanoparticles is a growing concern due to its application in industries and homes. We investigated the toxicity of cerium oxide nanoparticles (CeO2NPs) on reproductive system in male balb/c mice. Twenty mice were divided into four groups of five animals each and treated thus: normal saline (control), 100, 200 and 300 μg/kg CeO2NPs (i.p.,) thrice in a week for five consecutive weeks. Results showed that CeO2NPs significantly reduced the levels of haemoglobin, PCV and RBC count relative to controls. In addition, luteinising and follicle‐stimulating hormones (FSH and LH) and prolactin were significantly reduced in the mice. Specifically, CeO2NPs at 100 μg/kg decreased testosterone by 23%, while CeO2NPs at 200 μg/kg decreased FSH, LH and prolactin by 25%, 26% and 13%, respectively. Testicular malondialdehyde was increased by 103%, 106% and 135% in mice treated with 100, 200 and 300 μg/kg CeO2NPs, respectively. CeO2NPs caused a significant reduction in activities of antioxidant enzymes and levels of reduced glutathione and total nitric oxide. Moreso, CeO2NPs decreased sperm motility and count and increased total sperm abnormality in mice. Histology revealed congestion and degeneration of seminiferous tubules. Overall, CeO2NPs induces testicular dysfunction via disruption of antioxidant/oxidant balance and endocrine suppression.
Onset of mania after CPAP in a man with obstructive sleep apnea.

BACKGROUND This short report presents the case of a man with chronic anergy and mild depressive symptoms probably due to obstructive sleep apnea (OAS). METHOD The patient was treated with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP). RESULT He developed a first manic episode at an atypical age simultaneously with the beginning of treatment. DISCUSSION Several possible connections between affective syndromes, OAS, and CPAP treatment are proposed and discussed relating to current literature.
Religiosity among patients with schizophrenia: An exploratory study

Aim: This study aimed to compare the religiosity and religious coping of patients with schizophrenia with a healthy control group and to assess the correlation between the level of religiosity and religious coping with residual psychopathology, level of functioning, and quality of life (QOL). Methodology: Patients of schizophrenia were assessed on religiousness measure scale, duke religion index (DUREL), brief religious coping scale (RCOPE), positive and negative symptom scale, and World Health Organization QOL-BREF version. Results: Of the 100 patients of schizophrenia, 99% reported that they believed in God. About 60% of patients attended religious places either once a week or more and 56% of patients indulged in private religious activity at least once a day. Two-third of the participants had high intrinsic religiosity score. The mean score of positive religious coping (PRC) subscale was 14.56 and that for negative religious coping (NRC) subscale was 8.31. No significant difference was noted in the various domains of religious measure scale, DUREL, and PRC between patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls. However, compared to healthy controls, patients more often used NRC. Various aspects of religiosity (except for negative RCOPE score) correlated negatively with residual psychopathology and positively with functioning and QOL. Conclusion: Findings of this study suggest that high proportions of patients with schizophrenia are religious and this is similar to healthy controls in the community. Higher level of religiosity and more frequent use of religious coping are associated with lower level of psychopathology and better QOL.
NUMERICAL MODELS OF TRAVEL-TIME INHOMOGENEITIES IN SUNSPOTS

We investigate the direct contribution of strong, sunspot-like magnetic fields to helioseismic wave travel-time shifts via two numerical forward models, a three-dimensional ideal MHD solver and MHD ray theory. The simulated data cubes are analyzed using the traditional time–distance center-to-annulus measurement technique. We also isolate and analyze the direct contribution from purely thermal perturbations to the observed travel-time shifts, confirming some existing ideas and bringing forth new ones: (i) that the observed travel-time shifts in the vicinity of sunspots are largely governed by MHD physics, (ii) the travel-time shifts are sensitively dependent on frequency and phase-speed filter parameters and the background power below the p1 ridge, and finally, (iii) despite its seeming limitations, ray theory succeeds in capturing the essence of the travel-time variations as derived from the MHD simulations.
Sex Drives Dimorphic Immune Responses to Viral Infections

New attention to sexual dimorphism in normal mammalian physiology and disease has uncovered a previously unappreciated breadth of mechanisms by which females and males differentially exhibit quantitative phenotypes. Thus, in addition to the established modifying effects of hormones, which prenatally and postpubertally pattern cells and tissues in a sexually dimorphic fashion, sex differences are caused by extragonadal and dosage effects of genes encoded on sex chromosomes. Sex differences in immune responses, especially during autoimmunity, have been studied predominantly within the context of sex hormone effects. More recently, immune response genes have been localized to sex chromosomes themselves or found to be regulated by sex chromosome genes. Thus, understanding how sex impacts immunity requires the elucidation of complex interactions among sex hormones, sex chromosomes, and immune response genes. In this Brief Review, we discuss current knowledge and new insights into these intricate relationships in the context of viral infections.
Elucidating Conceptual Properties from Word Embeddings

In this paper, we introduce a method of identifying the components (i.e. dimensions) of word embeddings that strongly signifies properties of a word. By elucidating such properties hidden in word embeddings, we could make word embeddings more interpretable, and also could perform property-based meaning comparison. With the capability, we can answer questions like “To what degree a given word has the property cuteness? ” or “In what perspective two words are similar? ”. We verify our method by examining how the strength of property-signifying components correlates with the degree of prototypicality of a target word.
Work and common psychiatric disorders

Psychiatric disorders are now the most common reason for long-term sickness absence. The associated loss in productivity and the payment of disability benefits places a substantial burden on the economies of many developed countries. The occupational dysfunction associated with psychiatric disorders can also lead to poverty and social isolation. As a result the area of work and psychiatric disorders is a high priority for policymakers. There are two main agendas: for many researchers and clinicians the focus is on the need to overcome stigma and ensure people with severe psychiatric disorders have meaningful work; however the public health agenda predominantly relates to the more common disorders such as depression and anxiety, which contribute a greater burden of disability benefits and pensions. In this review we attempt to address this second agenda. The relatively sparse evidence available reveals a complex field with significant interplay between medical, psychological social and cultural factors. Sick leave can be a ‘process’ as well as an ‘event’. In this review we propose a staged model where different risk and protective factors contribute to the onset of psychiatric disorders in the working population, the onset of short-term sickness absence, and the transition from short- to long-term absence. We also examine strategies to manage psychiatric disorder in the workforce with a view towards returning the employee to work. Our aim in this review is to highlight the complexity of the area, to stimulate debate and to identify important gaps in knowledge where further research might benefit both patients and wider society.
Women and alcohol

While alcohol misuse by anyone presents serious public health concerns, women who drink have a higher risk of certain alcohol-related problems compared to men. 3 To make informed decisions about alcohol use, it is important that women be aware of these health risks and of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2020–2025 for adult women of legal drinking age— they can choose not to drink or to drink in moderation by limiting intake to 1 drink or less in a day, when alcohol is consumed. 4 Drinking less is better for health than drinking more. Some individuals should avoid alcohol completely, such as those who are pregnant or might be pregnant. 4
Petri Nets

Over the last decade, the Petr i net has gamed increased usage and acceptance as a basic model of systems of asynchronous concurrent computation. This paper surveys the basic concepts and uses of Petm nets. The structure of Petr i nets, thei r markings and execution, several examples of Petm net models of computer hardware and software, and research into the analysis of Petm nets are presented, as are the use of the reachabil i ty tree and the decidability and complexity of some Petr i net problems. Petr i net languages, models of computation related to Petm nets, and some extensions and subclasses of the Petri net model are also bmefly discussed
The pathway of exocytosis in human platelets.

To the Editor: In a report titled “Regulated Secretion in Platelets: Identification of Elements of the Platelet Exocytosis Machinery,” recently published by Lemons et al[1][1] in Blood, the authors have investigated the molecular events involved in membrane fusion in platelets. Therein, the
Self-transmission control in IoT over heterogeneous wireless networks

With the increasing development of the IoT applications, heterogeneous wireless networks may coexist. IEEE 802.11ah and IEEE 802.15. 4g are two wireless technologies designed for IoT applications. 802.11ah is primarily developed for outdoor applications such as smart city and 802.15. 4g is principally developed for large scale outdoor process control applications such as smart utility network. Both technologies have communication range up to 1000 meters. Therefore, 802.11ah network and 802.15. 4g network are likely to coexist. Our simulation results show that 802.11ah network can severely interfere with 802.15. 4g network since 802.11ah devices are more aggressive than 802.15. 4g devices in wireless medium access contention. This capability heterogeneity can lead to significant packet loss in 802.15. 4g network. Due to asymmetrical features such as modulation scheme and packet structure, devices in different networks can not understand each other. Thus, the self-transmission control mechanism is needed for more aggressive 802.11ah devices. This paper proposes a learning based self-transmission control method for 802.11ah devices to improve their coexistence with 802.15. 4g devices. Using the proposed self-transmission control technique, 802.11ah devices predict the packet transmission of 802.15. 4g devices and postpone their transmissions to avoid interference.
CASPaxos: Replicated State Machines without logs

CASPaxos is a replicated state machine (RSM) protocol, an extension of Synod. Unlike Raft and Multi-Paxos, it doesn't use leader election and log replication, thus avoiding associated complexity. Its symmetric peer-to-peer approach achieves optimal commit latency in wide-area networks and doesn't cause transient unavailability when any $\lfloor \frac{N-1}2 \rfloor$ of $N$ nodes crash. The lightweight nature of CASPaxos allows new combinations of RSMs in the designs of distributed systems. For example, a representation of a key-value storage as a hashtable with independent RSM per key increases fault tolerance and improves performance on multi-core systems compared with a hashtable behind a single RSM. This paper describes CASPaxos protocol, formally proves its safety properties, covers cluster membership change and evaluates the benefits of a CASPaxos-based key-value storage.
Short implants placed with or without grafting into atrophic sinuses: the 5‐year results of a prospective randomized controlled study

OBJECTIVES Over 5 years, (i) to evaluate the clinical efficiency of 8-mm implants placed with osteotome sinus floor elevation (OSFE) in extremely atrophic maxillae and (ii) to compare bone levels around implants placed with and without grafting. MATERIAL AND METHODS TE® SLActive® implants (Institut Straumann AG, Basel, Switzerland) were placed in sites with a residual bone height (RBH) of ≤4 mm. Before surgery, sinuses were randomized to receive anorganic bovine bone (control) or no graft (test). After 10 weeks of healing, implants were functionally loaded with single crowns. Bone levels were measured from standardized peri-apical radiographs. RESULTS Thirty-seven (17 test, 20 control) implants were placed in 12 patients (RBH: 2.4 ± 0.9 mm). Two early and one late failures occurred. The success rate was 91.9% (94.1% test, 90.0% control). All implants gained endo-sinus bone (3.8 ± 1.0 mm test, 4.8 ± 1.2 mm control; P = 0.004). Mean crestal bone loss (CBL) was 0.6 ± 1.1 mm, without a significant difference between the groups (P = 0.527). Mean bone gain and CBL did not change significantly between 1 and 5 years (P = 0.249 and P = 0.293, respectively). CONCLUSIONS Atrophic posterior maxillae can be predictably rehabilitated using OSFE with a simultaneous implant placement. The new bone formed around implants after 1 year was stable after 5 years, irrespective of the presence or the absence of graft. Grafting was unnecessary to achieve an average bone augmentation of 3.8 mm, but more bone was gained with grafting.
Noise-assisted auditory brain computer interface

Recently, brain computer interface (BCI) has been extensively studied as a support tool for severe physical disabilities. In particular, BCIs using visual stimuli (Visual-BCIs) have been successfully developed in the speed and accuracy. However, there exists a crucial problem that visual impaired people cannot use the Visual-BCIs. It is thus useful to develop eye-independent BCIs which use other modalities rather than visual stimuli. We focus on an auditory BCI using modulated sound stimuli which elicit auditory steady-state response (ASSR) as one of the eye-independent BCIs. Conventional auditory BCIs based on ASSR (ASSR-BCI) have had low performance due to small amplitude of ASSR. The present study thus aimed at improvement of amplitude and performance of ASSR-BCI using stochastic resonance. As a result, classification accuracy of the proposed BCI was 77.2% under an additive noise condition with a support vector machine, which was improved by 10.5% compared to conventional ASSR-BCI under noiseless condition.
The promise and challenges of blood spot methylomics

Epigenome-wide association studies (EWAS) are being extensively performed to identify epigenetic variants associated to complex diseases. However, EWAS may identify variants that are disease-induced rather than disease-causal. Recent studies have highlighted the use of Guthrie cards to profile the methylome at birth, permitting researchers to find epigenetic variants present in patients before they are diagnosed with clinical disease, with the implicit suggestion that these variants are more likely to be disease causal. The use of Guthrie cards for research purposes throws up a number of ethical issues. We review here the promises and pitfalls of Guthrie cards for disease research.
The amino acid and energy requirements of broiler breeder hens.

Three trials, involving 1000 broiler breeder hens each, were conducted under rather uniform conditions in order to test the applicability of two models for calculating the amino acid requirements of broiler breeders, and to evaluate their energy requirements. The birds fed diets based on Model A (which assumes that all of the egg white and shell membrane proteins are synthesized during albumen formation and secretion at the expense of tissue proteins) produced at a rate greater than the planned target, whereas Model B (which assumes that only ovoglycoproteins and shell membranes are thus produced) supported a production close to the anticipated performance. This indicates the validity of Model B, developed for egg layers, to predict the requirements of the most limiting amino also for broiler breeder hens. The resulting practical diets contained considerably lower protein levels than customary. According to Model B, minimal amino acid requirements for broiler breeder hens producing a daily egg mass of 52.7 g. having a body weight of 3.5 kg and gaining weight at a rate of 4 g/day, calculated to be as follows (g/hen/day): methionine, . 57; sulfur amino acids, . 83; lysine, . 76; arginine, 1.11; threonine, . 72; valine, . 92; isoleucine, . 85; leucine, 1.25; tryptophane, . 19; histidine,
Black hole greybody factors and D -brane spectroscopy

Black holes do not Hawking radiate strictly blackbody radiation due to well-known frequency-dependent greybody factors. These factors arise from frequency-dependent potential barriers outside the horizon which filter the initially blackbody spectrum emanating from the horizon. D-brane bound states, in a thermally excited state corresponding to near-extremal black holes, also do not emit blackbody radiation: The bound state radiation spectrum encodes the energy spectrum of its excitations. We study a near-extremal five-dimensional black hole. We show that, in a wide variety of circumstances including both neutral and charged emission, the effect of the greybody filter is to transform the blackbody radiation spectrum precisely into the bound state radiation spectrum. Implications of this result for the information puzzle in the context of near-extremal black hole dynamics are discussed.
Biochemical and immunological changes in chickens experiencing pulmonary hypertension syndrome caused by Enterococcus faecalis.

Recent studies have proven that Enterococcus faecalis (1.5 x 10(7) live bacteria from a tryptic broth culture given s.c. or intra-abdominally (IA) to 5-wk-old broilers) caused pulmonary hypertension syndrome (PHS) in 97% of the birds within 48 h. Definitive diagnosis of PHS was made at necropsy by observing a cavity on the surface of the right ventricular wall and by increased ratio of left ventricular weight to total ventricular weight. A nonlethal method of diagnosing PHS would enhance the study of PHS and alert production poultrymen to the onset of ascites (waterbelly), which is the cuLminating event of PHS. In the present study, serum hemoglobin, glucose, protein, cholesterol, aspartate amino transferase (AST) and creatine kinase-MB (myocardial in origin) enzymes, differential leukocyte numbers, and specific antibody levels against Ent. faecalis were evaluated as nonlethal diagnostic indicators of PHS. Decreases in serum protein and cholesterol of 3 and 10%, respectively, plus increases in percentages of basophils and monocytes of 18 and 40%, respectively, appear to indicate that PHS has been initiated. An agglutinating antibody, specific against Ent. faecalis, but not against other closely related bacteria, has been developed. Presence of this antibody in a bird means that the bird has previously encountered Ent. faecalis. Thus, this antibody may become a diagnostic for PHS in fast-growing chickens.
Low maternal adherence to a Mediterranean diet is associated with increase in methylation at the MEG3-IG differentially methylated region in female infants

Abstract Diet is dictated by the surrounding environment, as food access and availability may change depending on where one lives. Maternal diet during pregnancy is an important part of the in utero environment, and may affect the epigenome. Studies looking at overall diet pattern in relation to DNA methylation have been lacking. The Mediterranean diet is known for its health benefits, including decreased inflammation, weight loss, and management of chronic diseases. This study assesses the association between maternal adherence to a Mediterranean diet pattern during pregnancy and infant DNA methylation at birth. Mediterranean diet adherence in early pregnancy was measured in 390 women enrolled in the Newborn Epigenetic Study, and DNA methylation was assessed in their infants at birth. Multinomial logistic regression was used to assess the association between adherence to a Mediterranean diet and infant methylation at the MEG3, MEG3-IG, pleiomorphic adenoma gene-like 1, insulin-like growth factor 2 gene, H19, mesoderm-specific transcript, neuronatin, paternally expressed gene 3, sarcoglycan and paternally expressed gene 10 regions, measured by pyrosequencing. Infants of mothers with a low adherence to a Mediterranean diet had a greater odds of hypo-methylation at the MEG3-IG differentially methylated region (DMR). Sex-stratified models showed that this association was present in girls only. This study provides early evidence on the association between overall diet pattern and methylation at the 9 DMRs included in this study, and suggests that maternal diet can have a sex-specific impact on infant DNA methylation at specific imprinted DMRs.
PD‐L1 promotes OCT4 and Nanog expression in breast cancer stem cells by sustaining PI3K/AKT pathway activation

The expression of PD‐L1 in breast cancer is associated with estrogen receptor negativity, chemoresistance and epithelial‐to‐mesenchymal transition (EMT), all of which are common features of a highly tumorigenic subpopulation of cancer cells termed cancer stem cells (CSCs). Hitherto, the expression and intrinsic role of PD‐L1 in the dynamics of breast CSCs has not been investigated. To address this issue, we used transcriptomic datasets, proteomics and several in vitro and in vivo assays. Expression profiling of a large breast cancer dataset (530 patients) showed statistically significant correlation (p < 0.0001, r = 0.36) between PD‐L1 expression and stemness score of breast cancer. Specific knockdown of PD‐L1 using ShRNA revealed its critical role in the expression of the embryonic stem cell transcriptional factors: OCT‐4A, Nanog and the stemness factor, BMI1. Conversely, these factors could be induced upon PD‐L1 ectopic expression in cells that are normally PD‐L1 negative. Global proteomic analysis hinted for the central role of AKT in the biology of PD‐L1 expressing cells. Indeed, PD‐L1 positive effect on OCT‐4A and Nanog was dependent on AKT activation. Most importantly, downregulation of PD‐L1 compromised the self‐renewal capability of breast CSCs in vitro and in vivo as shown by tumorsphere formation assay and extreme limiting dilution assay, respectively. This study demonstrates a novel role for PD‐L1 in sustaining stemness of breast cancer cells and identifies the subpopulation and its associated molecular pathways that would be targeted upon anti‐PD‐L1 therapy.