Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prevalence and Sources of Stress among Universiti Sains Malaysia Medical Students.

BACKGROUND Being in medical school has always been regarded as highly stressful. Excessive stress causes physical and mental health problems. Persistent stress can impair students' academic achievement and personal or professional development. The aim of this study is to explore the nature of stress among medical students by determining the prevalence, sources and pattern of stress and the factors affecting it. METHODS We chose a cross-sectional study design utilizing validated questionnaires, the 12 items General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) and Medical Student Stressor Questionnaire (MSSQ), to evaluate stress levels and stressors. School and ethical committee clearance were obtained prior to the study. Data were analysed using SPSS version 12. RESULTS Of the medical students who were administered the questionnaire, 761 (72%) respondents participated in this study. The prevalence of stress among the medical students was 29.6%. The top 10 stressors were academic-related. Prevalence of stress for the first, second, third, fourth and fifth year students was 26.3%, 36.5 %, 31.4%, 35.3% and 21.9%, respectively. Year of study was the only significant factor affecting stress among medical students (P-value < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS The prevalence of stress among medical students in USM is high. Academic-related problems were the major stressor among medical students. Year of study was the factor most significantly associated with medical students' stress. There was a bimodal pattern of the stress level throughout the year of study.
Durability and Reliability of Electric Vehicle Batteries under Electric Utility Grid Operations. Part 1: Cell-to-Cell Variations and Preliminary Testing

Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) and grid-to-vehicle (G2V) strategies are considered to help stabilize the electric grid but their true impact on battery degradation is still unknown. The intention of this study is to test the impact of such strategies on the degradation of commercial Li-ion batteries. This first part looks into the preliminary testing performed prior to the start of degradation studies to ensure that the selected cells are compatible. Both the thermodynamic and kinetic cell-to-cell variation within the selected batch and the diagnostic-ability of the cells were investigated. The cells were found to have low cell-to-cell variations and are thus consistent. Moreover, the emulation of the full cell from the half-cell data prepared from harvested electrodes was successful and the degradation forecast showed that the main degradation modes can be differentiated.
KIFF: un algorithme de construction de graphe KNN générique, rapide et évolutif

Les algorithmes de construction du graphe des plus proches voisins (K-Nearest-Neighbor,KNN) sont apparus comme des elements fondamentaux de nombreux services en ligne tels que la recommandation, la recherche de similarite et de classification. La construction d’un tel graphe de maniere precise reste cependant une tâche tres couteuse. Avec l’augmentation des volumes de donnees, le temps necessaire a la construction d’un graphe KNN et son evolution sont devenus des facteurs critiques. Dans cette contribution, nous proposons un algorithme de construction de graphe KNN generique, rapide et evolutif. Cet algorithme exploite la nature bipartite de la plupart des ensembles de donnees auxquels les algorithmes KNN sont appliques. Plus precisement, un pre-traitement est effectue permettant d’identifier les candidats les plus pertinents auxquels chaque noeud peut se comparer. Cette strategie permet ainsi de limiter de maniere drastique le cout de calcul necessaire a la convergence vers un graphe KNN precis, en particulier pour les ensembles de donnees de faible densite. Base sur plusieurs jeux de donnees, nous montrons de maniere experimentale que notre solution calcule rapidement une approximation proche du KNN ideal tout en reduisant le cout de calcul par rapport aux approches de l’etat de l’art (en moyenne 14 fois plus rapide tout en ameliorant la qualite du KNN de 18%). Cet article reprend en grande partie des resultats publies a la conference ICDE en 2016 [BKMT16].
Native α-synuclein induces clustering of synaptic-vesicle mimics via binding to phospholipids and synaptobrevin-2/VAMP2

α-Synuclein is a presynaptic protein that is implicated in Parkinson's and other neurodegenerative diseases. Physiologically, native α-synuclein promotes presynaptic SNARE-complex assembly, but its molecular mechanism of action remains unknown. Here, we found that native α-synuclein promotes clustering of synaptic-vesicle mimics, using a single-vesicle optical microscopy system. This vesicle-clustering activity was observed for both recombinant and native α-synuclein purified from mouse brain. Clustering was dependent on specific interactions of native α-synuclein with both synaptobrevin-2/VAMP2 and anionic lipids. Out of the three familial Parkinson's disease-related point mutants of α-synuclein, only the lipid-binding deficient mutation A30P disrupted clustering, hinting at a possible loss of function phenotype for this mutant. α-Synuclein had little effect on Ca2+-triggered fusion in our reconstituted single-vesicle system, consistent with in vivo data. α-Synuclein may therefore lead to accumulation of synaptic vesicles at the active zone, providing a ‘buffer’ of synaptic vesicles, without affecting neurotransmitter release itself. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.00592. 001
Original Contribution STUDY OF RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN PERSONALITY TRAITS AND EDUCATION

Purpose: The aim of the present study was to explore the relationship between personality traits, educational stress, and educational performance in college students. Methods: On a random sample of 419 students (166 male and 253 female), the short form of the Big Five Inventory and Student-Life Stress Inventory were applied. The relations between personality traits, educational stress, and educational performance were studied using correlation and hierarchical regression analysis. Results: The results showed that there was a significant positive correlation between conscientiousness, extroversion, and openness to experience, agreeableness and educational performance and there was a significant negative correlation between neuroticism factor and educational performance. A significant negative correlation was found between educational stress and educational performance. Also, the significant negative correlation was found between extroversion and conscientiousness and educational stress and a significant positive correlation was found between neuroticism and educational stress. Hierarchical regression indicated that personality traits accounted for variance in educational stress: 5% by extroversion and 3% by neuroticism. Also, hierarchical regression analysis predicting educational performance indicated that personality traits and educational stress accounted for variance in educational performance: 12% by conscientiousness, 10% neuroticism and 6% educational stress. Conclusions: The finding emphasize the need recognized the role of personality traits in educational stress and the role of personality traits and educational stress in educational performance. Implications of these findings for improving educational performance are discussed.
Fast Diploidization in Close Mesopolyploid Relatives of Arabidopsis[W][OA]

The genome evolution of land plants is characterized by multiple waves of whole-genome duplications (WGDs). This cytogenetic and molecular phylogenetic analysis revealed an unexpected WGD event in the ancestry of Australian crucifer species with diploid-like chromosome complements. Mesopolyploid whole-genome duplication (WGD) was revealed in the ancestry of Australian Brassicaceae species with diploid-like chromosome numbers (n = 4 to 6). Multicolor comparative chromosome painting was used to reconstruct complete cytogenetic maps of the cryptic ancient polyploids. Cytogenetic analysis showed that the karyotype of the Australian Camelineae species descended from the eight ancestral chromosomes (n = 8) through allopolyploid WGD followed by the extensive reduction of chromosome number. Nuclear and maternal gene phylogenies corroborated the hybrid origin of the mesotetraploid ancestor and suggest that the hybridization event occurred ~6 to 9 million years ago. The four, five, and six fusion chromosome pairs of the analyzed close relatives of Arabidopsis thaliana represent complex mosaics of duplicated ancestral genomic blocks reshuffled by numerous chromosome rearrangements. Unequal reciprocal translocations with or without preceeding pericentric inversions and purported end-to-end chromosome fusions accompanied by inactivation and/or loss of centromeres are hypothesized to be the main pathways for the observed chromosome number reduction. Our results underline the significance of multiple rounds of WGD in the angiosperm genome evolution and demonstrate that chromosome number per se is not a reliable indicator of ploidy level.
High-speed polarization sensitive optical coherence tomography scan engine based on Fourier domain mode locked laser

We report on a new swept source polarization sensitive optical coherence tomography scan engine that is based on polarization maintaining (PM) fiber technology. The light source is a Fourier domain mode locked laser with a PM cavity that operates in the 1300 nm wavelength regime. It is equipped with a PM buffer stage that doubles the fundamental sweep frequency of 54.5 kHz. The fiberization allows coupling of the scan engine to different delivery probes. In a first demonstration, we use the system for imaging human skin at an A-scan rate of 109 kHz. The system illuminates the sample with circularly polarized light and measures reflectivity, retardation, optic axis orientation, and Stokes vectors simultaneously. Furthermore, depolarization can be quantified by calculating the degree of polarization uniformity (DOPU). The high scanning speed of the system enables dense sampling in both, the x- and y-direction, which provides the opportunity to use 3D evaluation windows for DOPU calculation. This improves the spatial resolution of DOPU images considerably.
TECHNICALREPORTS:METHODS A calcite reference material for LA-ICP-MS U-Pb geochronology Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems

U-Pb dating of calcite is an emerging but rapidly growing ﬁeld of application in geochronology with great potential to inform problems in landscape, basin, and mountain belt evolution, through age determination of diagenetic cements, vein mineralization, and geological formations difﬁcult to date other-wise. In this brief, we present isotope dilution U-Pb isotope measurements on a sample of calcite (WC-1) that has been and will continue to be used as a reference material for in situ U-Pb Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) dating, and which is suitable to be distributed to the geochronological community. We present in situ measurements using LA-ICP-MS to demonstrate the suitability of WC-1 for use as a U-Pb dating reference material, in spite of it not being isotopically homogeneous. The WC-1 calcite sample is 254.4 6 6.4 Ma old and comprised 85–98% radiogenic lead. It presents a suitable reference material that can facilitate dating of calcite ranging in age from Precambrian to late Neogene age.
The Transcriptional Cofactor MCAF1/ATF7IP Is Involved in Histone Gene Expression and Cellular Senescence

Cellular senescence is post-mitotic or oncogene-induced events combined with nuclear remodeling. MCAF1 (also known as hAM or ATF7IP), a transcriptional cofactor that is overexpressed in various cancers, functions in gene activation or repression, depending on interacting partners. In this study, we found that MCAF1 localizes to PML nuclear bodies in human fibroblasts and non-cancerous cells. Interestingly, depletion of MCAF1 in fibroblasts induced premature senescence that was characterized by cell cycle arrest, SA-β-gal activity, and senescence-associated heterochromatic foci (SAHF) formation. Under this condition, core histones and the linker histone H1 significantly decreased at both mRNA and protein levels, resulting in reduced nucleosome formation. Consistently, in activated Ras-induced senescent fibroblasts, the accumulation of MCAF1 in PML bodies was enhanced via the binding of this protein to SUMO molecules, suggesting that sequestration of MCAF1 to PML bodies promotes cellular senescence. Collectively, these results reveal that MCAF1 is an essential regulator of cellular senescence.
Behavioural mapping of a pelagic seabird: combining multiple sensors and a hidden Markov model reveals the distribution of at-sea behaviour

The use of miniature data loggers is rapidly increasing our understanding of the movements and habitat preferences of pelagic seabirds. However, objectively interpreting behavioural information from the large volumes of highly detailed data collected by such devices can be challenging. We combined three biologging technologies—global positioning system (GPS), saltwater immersion and time–depth recorders—to build a detailed picture of the at-sea behaviour of the Manx shearwater (Puffinus puffinus) during the breeding season. We used a hidden Markov model to explore discrete states within the combined GPS and immersion data, and found that behaviour could be organized into three principal activities representing (i) sustained direct flight, (ii) sitting on the sea surface, and (iii) foraging, comprising tortuous flight interspersed with periods of immersion. The additional logger data verified that the foraging activity corresponded well to the occurrence of diving. Applying this approach to a large tracking dataset revealed that birds from two different colonies foraged in local waters that were exclusive, but overlapped in one key area: the Irish Sea Front (ISF). We show that the allocation of time to each activity differed between colonies, with birds breeding furthest from the ISF spending the greatest proportion of time engaged in direct flight and the smallest proportion of time engaged in foraging activity. This type of analysis has considerable potential for application in future biologging studies and in other taxa.
Effectiveness of Disinfectants Against Candida auris and Other Candida Species

Contaminated surfaces are a suspected source for dissemination of the globally emerging pathogen Candida auris. In laboratory testing, sporicidal and improved hydrogen peroxide disinfectants were highly effective against C. auris, C. glabrata, and C. albicans. The widely used quaternary ammonium disinfectants exhibited relatively poor activity against all of the Candida species. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2017;38:1240–1243
Nasal high flow clears anatomical dead space in upper airway models

Recent studies showed that nasal high flow (NHF) with or without supplemental oxygen can assist ventilation of patients with chronic respiratory and sleep disorders. The hypothesis of this study was to test whether NHF can clear dead space in two different models of the upper nasal airways. The first was a simple tube model consisting of a nozzle to simulate the nasal valve area, connected to a cylindrical tube to simulate the nasal cavity. The second was a more complex anatomically representative upper airway model, constructed from segmented CT-scan images of a healthy volunteer. After filling the models with tracer gases, NHF was delivered at rates of 15, 30, and 45 l/min. The tracer gas clearance was determined using dynamic infrared CO2 spectroscopy and 81mKr-gas radioactive gamma camera imaging. There was a similar tracer-gas clearance characteristic in the tube model and the upper airway model: clearance half-times were below 1.0 s and decreased with increasing NHF rates. For both models, the anterior compartments demonstrated faster clearance levels (half-times < 0.5 s) and the posterior sections showed slower clearance (half-times < 1.0 s). Both imaging methods showed similar flow-dependent tracer-gas clearance in the models. For the anatomically based model, there was complete tracer-gas removal from the nasal cavities within 1.0 s. The level of clearance in the nasal cavities increased by 1.8 ml/s for every 1.0 l/min increase in the rate of NHF. The study has demonstrated the fast-occurring clearance of nasal cavities by NHF therapy, which is capable of reducing of dead space rebreathing.
Surgical, medical and developmental outcomes in patients with Down syndrome and cataracts

Background: Individuals with Down syndrome have an increased risk for congenital cataracts, but descriptions of surgical, medical and developmental outcomes are sparse. Materials and Methods: Retrospective review of medical charts of patients with Down syndrome with visits to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital from 1988 to 2013 was performed. A case series of five patients with Down syndrome and cataracts is presented. A total of 47 patients with Down syndrome without cataracts were used as a developmental control. Developmental quotients were compared using an independent-sample, unequal variance t-test. Results: Post-operative cataract complication rates ranged from 20% to 60%. Visual outcomes were varied; significant associations between complication rate and visual outcome were not found. Developmental quotients did not show an association with number of complications, but were lower for children with Down syndrome with cataracts requiring surgery compared to children with Down syndrome without cataracts. Conclusion: In children with Down syndrome and congenital cataract, surgical intervention has risk for post-operative complications. Further investigation is needed to determine if there is an association between surgical complications and visual or developmental outcomes.
USP 9 X stabilizes XIAP to regulate mitotic cell death and chemoresistance in aggressive B-cell lymphoma

The mitotic spindle assembly checkpoint (SAC) maintains genome stability and marks an important target for antineoplastic therapies. However, it has remained unclear how cells execute cell fate decisions under conditions of SAC-induced mitotic arrest. Here, we identify USP9X as the mitotic deubiquitinase of the X-linked inhibitor of apoptosis protein (XIAP) and demonstrate that deubiquitylation and stabilization of XIAP by USP9X lead to increased resistance toward mitotic spindle poisons. We find that primary human aggressive B-cell lymphoma samples exhibit high USP9X expression that correlate with XIAP overexpression. We show that high USP9X/XIAP expression is associated with shorter event-free survival in patients treated with spindle poison-containing chemotherapy. Accordingly, aggressive B-cell lymphoma lines with USP9X and associated XIAP overexpression exhibit increased chemoresistance, reversed by specific inhibition of either USP9X or XIAP. Moreover, knockdown of USP9X or XIAP significantly delays lymphoma development and increases sensitivity to spindle poisons in a murine El-Myc lymphoma model. Together, we specify the USP9X–XIAP axis as a regulator of the mitotic cell fate decision and propose that USP9X and XIAP are potential prognostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets in aggressive B-cell lymphoma.
Key Role of Internal Ocean Dynamics in Atlantic Multidecadal Variability During the Last Half Century

This study presents multiple lines of evidence from observations and model simulations that support a key role for ocean dynamics, rather than external forcings, in Atlantic multidecadal variability (AMV) during the last half century. Observed AMV fingerprints considered here include the low‐frequency spatiotemporal evolution of sea surface temperature, surface heat fluxes, and deep ocean hydrography. While largely absent in the forced response of a large ensemble historical simulations (LENSs), these fingerprints are clearly discernible in a long control simulation where the variability is purely internal. Further evidence derives from initialized decadal prediction simulations, which exhibit much higher skill at predicting the observed AMV of the past 50 years than LENS. The high correlation between the observed AMV and the externally forced version derived from LENS, which has been invoked as evidence for externally driven AMV, is shown to be largely an artifact of concurrent warming since the 1990s.
Radio Wave Diffusion Indoors and Throughput Scaling with Cell Density

Diffusion theory is found to provide a simple yet accurate expression for the average received radio power loss indoors in non-line-of-sight propagation. Effective specific absorption is the sole parameter. Agreement with extensive indoor power measurements is found at all ranges. Use of the standard power-law to describe the data is found to lead to power exponents that vary from near 2 at short ranges to around 11 at 100 m. Extending the diffusion model to account for variation in scatterer density provides a stochastic mechanism explaining the log-normal nature of observed average power variations, usually termed "shadow fading". The standard deviation of power variation is found to increase with range (as r1/2 at short ranges), in agreement with measurements and unlike accepted models. Exponential absorption in diffusion is determined to have a large impact on the signal-to-interference-and noise behavior, materially affecting conclusions on the value of increasing cell density as a method of increasing wireless network capacity.
A Machine Learning Approach for Hot-Spot Detection at Protein-Protein Interfaces

Understanding protein-protein interactions is a key challenge in biochemistry. In this work, we describe a more accurate methodology to predict Hot-Spots (HS) in protein-protein interfaces from their native complex structure compared to previous published Machine Learning (ML) techniques. Our model is trained on a large number of complexes and on a significantly larger number of different structural- and evolutionary sequence-based features. In particular, we added interface size, type of interaction between residues at the interface of the complex, number of different types of residues at the interface and the Position-Specific Scoring Matrix (PSSM), for a total of 79 features. We used twenty-seven algorithms from a simple linear-based function to support-vector machine models with different cost functions. The best model was achieved by the use of the conditional inference random forest (c-forest) algorithm with a dataset pre-processed by the normalization of features and with up-sampling of the minor class. The method has an overall accuracy of 0.80, an F1-score of 0.73, a sensitivity of 0.76 and a specificity of 0.82 for the independent test set.