Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prevalence and Risk Factors Associated with Hemoparasites in Cattle and Goats at the Edge of Kibale National Park, Western Uganda

Abstract Livestock production is a major sector of the Ugandan economy. Ugandan ruminant livestock (principally cattle and goats) are susceptible to hemoparasites that can cause serious clinical disease and production losses. Kibale National Park, in western Uganda, is a protected forest ecosystem surrounded by small-scale farms where cattle and goats are raised. We conducted a cross-sectional study of cattle and goats in this area and diagnosed hemoparasite infections by microscopy. We collected data on animal characteristics and management practices to assess risk factors associated with infection. We studied 186 cattle and 317 goats from 20 villages, including 16 villages directly adjacent to Kibale and 4 villages ≥3 km from the park boundary. Hemoparasites detected in cattle and goats were of the genera Theileria, Anaplasma, and Trypanosoma with a prevalence of 15.1%, 1.6%, and 4.3% respectively in cattle, and 10%, 6.0%, and 0.0%, respectively in goats. Trypanosomes infected approximately 8% of cattle in villages bordering Kibale but were never detected in cattle in “control” villages ≥3 km from the park. Trypanosomes were approximately 7 times more likely to infect animals in households that did not provide veterinary care to their animals than in households that provided routine veterinary care. Within cattle, Theileria infections were approximately 7 times more likely to occur in cross-bred cattle than in indigenous pure breeds. Anaplasma infections were approximately 3.5 times more likely to occur in cattle than in goats (no goats were diagnosed with Trypanosoma infection). These data suggest that proximity to the park, provision of veterinary care, and breed are significant risk factors for hemoparasites in this population of ruminants, and that, in general, cattle are more susceptible than goats.
The Human Phenotype Ontology in 2017

Deep phenotyping has been defined as the precise and comprehensive analysis of phenotypic abnormalities in which the individual components of the phenotype are observed and described. The three components of the Human Phenotype Ontology (HPO; www.human-phenotype-ontology.org) project are the phenotype vocabulary, disease-phenotype annotations and the algorithms that operate on these. These components are being used for computational deep phenotyping and precision medicine as well as integration of clinical data into translational research. The HPO is being increasingly adopted as a standard for phenotypic abnormalities by diverse groups such as international rare disease organizations, registries, clinical labs, biomedical resources, and clinical software tools and will thereby contribute toward nascent efforts at global data exchange for identifying disease etiologies. This update article reviews the progress of the HPO project since the debut Nucleic Acids Research database article in 2014, including specific areas of expansion such as common (complex) disease, new algorithms for phenotype driven genomic discovery and diagnostics, integration of cross-species mapping efforts with the Mammalian Phenotype Ontology, an improved quality control pipeline, and the addition of patient-friendly terminology.
Different BALF protein composition in normal children and adults.

UNLABELLED Quantification of proteins in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) is being performed increasingly, because of their potency in elucidating pathophysiological processes and their possible clinical relevance. STUDY POPULATION 37 normal children (12 female, 25 male, mean age +/- SD 7.9 +/- 3.5 years, range 3-16 years) undergoing elective surgery for nonpulmonary illnesses and 16 healthy adults (all male, mean age +/- SD 24.7 +/- 2.6 years, range 20-28 years, 8 smokers, 8 nonsmokers) have been studied after approval by the ethics committees of both institutions. METHODS BAL was performed with normal saline in the right middle lobe or one of its segments. Lavage volume was 15 x 20 ml in adults and 3 x 1 ml/kg in children. In adults the first aliquot was processed separately, 2 aliquots of the following were pooled (resulting in 8 different fractions) so that different lavage protocols could be calculated. The concentrations of the plasma-proteins alpha 1-proteinase inhibitor (alpha-1PI), alpha 2-macroglobulin (alpha 2PI), albumin (Alb) and of the locally released proteins myeloperoxidase (MPO), lactoferrin (Lf), elastase (Ela) and fibronectin (Fib) were determined in BALF using chemiluminescence immunoassays. RESULTS The BALF concentrations of the plasma proteins were higher in children compared to adults. In contrast, concentrations of the locally released proteins were similar in both groups. Protein concentrations in the first recovered aliquot were different from the following in healthy adults with higher values of MPO, Lf and Ela and lower concentrations of alpha 1PI, alpha 2PI and Alb. Subsequent aliquots did not show a progressive dilution of these proteins with increasing lavage volumes. In smokers, BALF concentrations of albumin, alpha 1PI and MPO were higher compared to nonsmokers. CONCLUSION BALF protein concentrations are different in normal children and adults. These results underscore the necessity to establish independent reference values for children, as could be demonstrated earlier with regard to BAL cell composition.
Intraabdominal Follicular Dendritic Cell Sarcoma

BACKGROUND Follicular dendritic cell sarcoma is a rare tumor derived from dendritic cells of lymphoid follicles. Although it shows characteristic cytologic, histologic and immunohistochemical features, it may be misdiagnosed because of the lack of experience with this entity. There are few reports in the cytologic literature describing this entity. CASE A left hypochondrial mass was found in an 80-year-old man who had a past history of colonic carcinoma. A computed tomography-guided fine needle aspiration biopsy was performed, and the findings were initially thought to be compatible with metastatic carcinoma. The mass was excised, and a diagnosis of follicular dendritic cell sarcoma was made. CONCLUSION Follicular dendritic cell sarcoma is characterized by loosely cohesive or syncytial groups of dendritic cells that show oval, vesicular nuclei and ill-defined cytoplasm intimately admixed with small, mature lymphocytes. The diagnosis can be confirmed by positive immunostaining for CD21 and CD35 antigens and negative staining for cytokeratin. Unusual features in our case were the presence of prominent plasma cells and intracytoplasmic, periodic acid-Schiff stain, diastase-positive deposits, with the last not described before.
A Profile of Self-Care Behaviors in Emerging Adults With Type 1 Diabetes

Purpose The purpose of this study is to characterize daily diabetes self-care behaviors and to evaluate associations among self-care behaviors, psychosocial adjustment, and glycemic control in an understudied sample of emerging adults with type 1 diabetes. Methods Forty-nine emerging adults (65% women; ages 18-26 years) completed 2 diabetes interviews to assess self-care behaviors and self-report measures of psychosocial adjustment. Glycemic control was assessed via hemoglobin A1C. Results Diabetes self-care behaviors varied widely and were largely suboptimal; only a small percentage of participants demonstrated self-care behaviors consistent with national and international recommendations. Psychosocial adjustment was within normal limits and was unrelated to frequency of self-care behaviors in this sample. Mean glycemic control (8.3%) was higher than the recommended A1C level (< 7.0%) for this age group. Use of intensive (eg, multiple daily injections or pump) insulin regimens was related to better glycemic control. Conclusions The majority of emerging adults in this sample did not engage in optimal daily diabetes self-care. Intensive insulin therapy was associated with better glycemic control without corresponding psychosocial distress. Diabetes care behaviors could be improved in this age group, and emerging adults may benefit from targeted education and behavioral support to enhance diabetes self-management and optimize health outcomes.
Development of Impact Indices for Performing Charging of a Large EV Population

Nodal voltages and feeder currents are acquired by running load flows for electric vehicle (EV) charging purposes. The impact of the charging is analyzed by either visually inspecting the voltages and currents or calculating appropriate impact indices. Optimal charging, on the other hand, is performed by incorporating the voltages and currents in charging strategies. Though the impact indices are frequently used for assessing the impact, their usage for optimizing charging has been minimal. Therefore, this paper develops probabilistic impact indices for nodal voltage violations and feeder overloading, which can be applied not only for investigating the impact but also for optimizing charging. Also, aggregated EV load demand of a large EV population is modeled by using a new combined state of charge (SOC)-based charging strategy in time series, for assessing the applicability of the developed impact indices for practical purposes. The combined SOC dynamically integrates arrival and departure of EV and delivered energy. The numerical results show that the proposed impact indices in conjunction with the SOC-based charging have numerous advantages over the conventional charging strategies aided by the load flows.
Prevalence of celiac disease in patients with Down syndrome: a meta-analysis

Background The association between Down syndrome and celiac disease has been reported by many studies. However, the prevalence of celiac disease (CD) in Down syndrome (DS) varies considerably across studies (from 0 % to 19 %). The aim of this study was to use meta-analysis to exam the prevalence of CD in patients with DS. Methods A systematic search of English articles from Pubmed, Web of Science and CNKI without year limitation. Data were extracted by two independent observers and pooled using a random effects model by the Comprehensive Meta-Analysis Version 2 software. Results A pooled analysis, based on 31 studies included 4383 individuals, revealed prevalence of biopsy-confirmed CD of 5.8 % (95 % CI = 4.7-7.2 %) in patients with DS. Sub-group analysis showed a slightly higher prevalence of CD in children with DS (6.6 %; 17 studies), than in age mixed samples with both children and adults (5.1 %; 13 studies). In addition, most of the studies included in this meta-analysis were from Europe and America, with the prevalence of celiac disease of 6 % (21 studies) and 5.7 % (6 studies) in DS patients, respectively. Furthermore, meta-regression analysis suggested that proportion of antibody-positive individuals that underwent small intestine biopsy had moderating effect on the outcome of the meta-analysis. Conclusions These results demonstrated that patients (children) with Down syndrome had high prevalence of CD (more than one in twenty). The prevalence is high enough to motivate screening CD in DS children.
Responses to moving small-field stimuli by the praying mantis, Sphodromantis lineola (Burmeister)

Adult, female praying mantises, Sphodromantis lineola (Burmeister), were presented with mechanically driven or computer generated stimuli in a series of seven experiments in order to test several hypotheses regarding visual prey recognition. When presented with a series of square black and white computer generated stimuli against a white background, mantises performed the highest rates of predatory behavior in response to those stimuli with a greater proportion of black versus white pixels (i.e., those that produced larger luminance decrements). Higher response rates to computer generated stimuli that produced larger luminance decrements were also seen when the stimuli were irregularly shaped or consisted of two small synchronized stimuli. Mantises responded characteristically to mechanically driven stimuli that were camouflaged to match the background against which they moved, preferring small (vs. large) squares and rectangles that were elongated parallel (vs. perpendicular) to their direction of movement. Finally, response rate to a small, preferred mechanically presented or computer generated stimulus was suppressed by a concurrent large-field stimulus in inverse proportion to the distance between the two stimuli. This phenomenon is characteristic of systems that include phasic lateral inhibitory circuits. All of these results are consistent with the existence of a movement detector visual sub-system, as found in other orthopteromorph insects such as acridid grasshoppers and cockroaches.
Application of Computational Intelligence to Improve Education in Smart Cities

According to UNESCO, education is a fundamental human right and every nation’s citizens should be granted universal access with equal quality to it. Because this goal is yet to be achieved in most countries, in particular in the developing and underdeveloped countries, it is extremely important to find more effective ways to improve education. This paper presents a model based on the application of computational intelligence (data mining and data science) that leads to the development of the student’s knowledge profile and that can help educators in their decision making for best orienting their students. This model also tries to establish key performance indicators to monitor objectives’ achievement within individual strategic planning assembled for each student. The model uses random forest for classification and prediction, graph description for data structure visualization and recommendation systems to present relevant information to stakeholders. The results presented were built based on the real dataset obtained from a Brazilian private k-9 (elementary school). The obtained results include correlations among key data, a model to predict student performance and recommendations that were generated for the stakeholders.
Terminal-decline effects for select cognitive tasks after controlling for preclinical dementia.

OBJECTIVE In a previous study, the authors found no accelerated decline in close proximity to death for a measure of global cognitive functioning, after excluding persons in a preclinical phase of dementia. However, specific cognitive tasks might be more sensitive to terminal-decline effects. The purpose of this study was to explore possible terminal-decline effects for a range of cognitive tasks after controlling for preclinical dementia. DESIGN Community-based cohort study. SETTING The Kungsholmen district of Stockholm. PARTICIPANTS A total of 585 persons (75+ years) were repeatedly assessed over an 11-year period. Level and change in cognitive performance were compared for three groups: persons in close proximity to death, persons in a preclinical phase of dementia, and persons who remained alive and nondemented throughout the study. MEASUREMENTS Tasks assessing primary and episodic memory, verbal ability, and visuospatial skill. RESULTS Compared with an analysis where all dead subjects were included in the impending-death group, removing the preclinical dementia cases resulted in markedly attenuated mortality-related effects. However, the impending-death group still declined at a faster rate relative to the comparison group on Digit Span-forward, word recognition, and category fluency. Notably, these were tasks for which the comparison group showed no significant decline. CONCLUSIONS A considerable proportion of the terminal-decline effect is accounted for by the impact of preclinical dementia. However, for tasks that are relatively resistant to age-related change, such effects might be detected independently of preclinical dementia.
Impact of the Rear Surface Roughness on Industrial-Type PERC Solar Cells

Screen-Printed PERC solar cells are a promising candidate for next-generation industrial-type solar cells. Industrial PERC cell process flows typically involve wet chemical polishing of the rear side in order to reduce the surface roughness and to improve the conversion efficiency. In this paper, we show that Al2O3/SiNx passivation stacks achieve an excellent surface recombination velocity below 10 cm/s even for small polishing removal of 5 µm corresponding to rough surfaces. In contrast, SiOx/SiNy passivation stacks exhibit a strong increase of the surface recombination velocity up to 30 cm/s for rough surfaces. Accordingly, we find that the efficiency of PERC solar cells with Al2O3/SiNx rear passivation is almost independent of the polishing etch depth with best efficiencies up to 19.7% for 7.5 µm polishing removal whereas the efficiency of SiOx/SiNy rear passivated PERC cells strongly decreases for rougher surfaces.
Conditioning of three-dimensional generative adversarial networks for pore and reservoir-scale models

Geostatistical modeling of petrophysical properties is a key step in modern integrated oil and gas reservoir studies. Recently, generative adversarial networks (GAN) have been shown to be a successful method for generating unconditional simulations of pore- and reservoir-scale models. This contribution leverages the differentiable nature of neural networks to extend GANs to the conditional simulation of three-dimensional pore- and reservoir-scale models. Based on the previous work of Yeh et al. (2016), we use a content loss to constrain to the conditioning data and a perceptual loss obtained from the evaluation of the GAN discriminator network. The technique is tested on the generation of three-dimensional micro-CT images of a Ketton limestone constrained by two-dimensional cross-sections, and on the simulation of the Maules Creek alluvial aquifer constrained by one-dimensional sections. Our results show that GANs represent a powerful method for sampling conditioned pore and reservoir samples for stochastic reservoir evaluation workflows.
Increase in Pancreatic Proinsulin and Preservation of β-Cell Mass in Autoantibody-Positive Donors Prior to Type 1 Diabetes Onset

Type 1 diabetes is characterized by the loss of insulin production caused by β-cell dysfunction and/or destruction. The hypothesis that β-cell loss occurs early during the prediabetic phase has recently been challenged. Here we show, for the first time in situ, that in pancreas sections from autoantibody-positive (Ab+) donors, insulin area and β-cell mass are maintained before disease onset and that production of proinsulin increases. This suggests that β-cell destruction occurs more precipitously than previously assumed. Indeed, the pancreatic proinsulin-to-insulin area ratio was also increased in these donors with prediabetes. Using high-resolution confocal microscopy, we found a high accumulation of vesicles containing proinsulin in β-cells from Ab+ donors, suggesting a defect in proinsulin conversion or an accumulation of immature vesicles caused by an increase in insulin demand and/or a dysfunction in vesicular trafficking. In addition, islets from Ab+ donors were larger and contained a higher number of β-cells per islet. Our data indicate that β-cell mass (and function) is maintained until shortly before diagnosis and declines rapidly at the time of clinical onset of disease. This suggests that secondary prevention before onset, when β-cell mass is still intact, could be a successful therapeutic strategy.
Aryl hydrocarbon receptor‐based bioassays for dioxin detection: Thinking outside the box

Despite intensive media coverage and international regulations, man‐made persistent organic pollutants such as dioxins represent a serious environmental and health threat. Their detection by sophisticated chromatography technologies is highly complex, impeding the constant monitoring of food or environmental samples. This limitation has fostered the development of generations of bioassays exploiting the molecular function of the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR), which binds toxic compounds and directly activates the transcription of target genes. Here, we review the rich panel of available AhR‐dependent bioassays and propose a novel classification based on the source of AhR, which can either be endogenously produced by cell types or tissues naturally responsive to dioxins, or exogenously introduced into a wide range of cellular contexts. In both cases, in vitro and in vivo strategies have been engineered to monitor the formation of molecular complexes, and the activation of direct downstream targets or reporter genes. We evaluate and compare bioassays based on exogenous and endogenous AhR proteins and discuss their specific challenges, strengths and opportunities for futures applications. Undoubtedly, the dynamic field of AhR‐dependent bioassays will keep providing new and original strategies to help protect human health and ecosystems from persistent organic pollutants.
Recent Developments for EPDM‐Based Thermoplastic Vulcanisates

An overview will be given on thermoplastic vulcanisates (TPVs). Like other thermoplastic elastomers, TPVs combine the elastic and mechanical properties of thermoset cross-linked rubbers with the melt processability of thermoplastics. Emphasis will be on general-purpose TPVs, based on resol-cross-linked EPDM/PP/ oil blends. The following recent scientific developments will be discussed in detail: resol cross-linking chemistry, extruder dynamic vulcanisation, TPV morphology, oil distribution, TPV elasticity model and TPV rheology. A series of scientific questions and technological problems, which are challenging future TPV developments, will be put forward at the end.
Parvovirus B19: What Is the Relevance in Transfusion Medicine?

Parvovirus B19 (B19V) has been discovered in 1975. The association with a disease was unclear in the first time after the discovery of B19V, but meanwhile, the usually droplet transmitted B19V is known as the infectious agent of the “fifth disease,” a rather harmless children’s illness. But B19V infects erythrocyte progenitor cells and thus, acute B19V infection in patients with a high erythrocyte turnover may lead to a life-threatening aplastic crisis, and acutely infected pregnant women can transmit B19V to their unborn child, resulting in a hydrops fetalis and fetal death. However, in many adults, B19V infection goes unnoticed and thus many blood donors donate blood despite the infection. The B19V infection does not impair the blood cell counts in healthy blood donors, but after the acute infection with extremely high DNA concentrations exceeding 1010 IU B19V DNA/ml plasma is resolved, B19V DNA persists in the plasma of blood donors at low levels for several years. That way, many consecutive donations that contain B19V DNA can be taken from a single donor, but the majority of blood products from donors with detectable B19V DNA seem not to be infectious for the recipients from several reasons: first, many recipients had undergone a B19V infection in the past and have formed protective antibodies. Second, B19V DNA concentration in the blood product is often too low to infect the recipient. Third, after the acute infection, the presence of B19V DNA in the donor is accompanied by presumably neutralizing antibodies which are protective also for the recipient of his blood products. Thus, transfusion-transmitted (TT-) B19V infections are very rarely reported. Moreover, in most blood donors, B19V DNA concentration is below 1,000 IU/ml plasma, and no TT-B19V infections have been found by such low-viremic donations. Cutoff for an assay for B19V DNA blood donor screening should, therefore, be approximately 1,000 IU/ml plasma, if a general screening of blood donors for single donation blood components is considered at all: for the overwhelming majority of transfusion recipients, B19V infection is not relevant as well as for the blood donors. B19V DNA screening of vulnerable patients after transfusion seems to be a more reasonable approach than general blood donor screening.