Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of Nori- and Wakame-enriched meats with or without supplementary cholesterol on arylesterase activity, lipaemia and lipoproteinaemia in growing Wistar rats

Some seaweeds exert antioxidant and hypocholesterolaemic properties. The effects of diets including restructured meats (RM) containing Wakame (W) or Nori (N) algae on arylesterase (AE) activity and lipoprotein concentration and composition were tested. In the present study, six groups of ten male growing Wistar rats each were fed a mix of 85 % AIN-93M diet and 15 % freeze-dried RM for 35 d. The control group (C) consumed control RM, the W and N groups consumed RM with 5 % W and 5 % N, respectively. The cholesterol-enriched C (CC), W (CW) and N (CN) groups consumed their corresponding basal diets with supplementary cholesterol (2·43 %) and cholic acid (0·49 %). Cholesterol in the diet induced lower (P < 0·001) growth ratios. Both W and N diets significantly increased AE activity. VLDL-cholesterol values were lower in N rats than in W rats. AE activity increased (P < 0·001) in CC and CW rats but not in CN rats compared with their corresponding counterparts. AE was lower (P < 0·05) in the CN group than in the CC and CW groups. The CN diet partially blocked (P < 0·001) the hypercholesterolaemic induction observed in CC and CW diets and reduced TAG levels (at least P < 0·05) with respect to those of CC rats. Although dietary cholesterol supplementation increased total cholesterol, VLDL-cholesterol and (intermediate-density lipoprotein+LDL)-cholesterol (all P < 0·001) in all rats, the CN diet moderately improved the lipoprotein profile of hypercholesterolaemic rats. Changes in AE activity and plasma cholesterol in CN rats but not in CW rats suggest a possible relationship between the two parameters. It is concluded that inclusion of RM enriched with N may be used in hypercholesterolaemic diets to improve lipoprotein metabolism.
Improvement of sulphur mustard-induced chronic pruritus, quality of life and antioxidant status by curcumin: results of a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial

Skin is among the first and most heavily damaged organs upon sulphur mustard (SM) exposure. Pruritus is the most common chronic skin complication of SM, which adversely affects the quality of life (QoL). However, current therapies for the management of SM-induced pruritus are very limited and associated with side effects. The present trial investigated the efficacy of curcumin in the alleviation of SM-induced chronic pruritic symptoms. A total of ninety-six male Iranian veterans (age 37–59 years) were randomised to receive either curcumin (1 g/d, n 46) or placebo (n 50) for 4 weeks. Serum concentrations of substance P and activities of antioxidant enzymes were measured at baseline and at the end of the trial. Assessment of pruritus severity was performed using the pruritus score, visual analogue scale (VAS) and scoring atopic dermatitis (SCORAD) index. QoL was evaluated using the Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI) questionnaire. Serum concentrations of substance P (P < 0·001) as well as activities of superoxide dismutase (P = 0·02), glutathione peroxidase (P = 0·006) and catalase (P < 0·001) were significantly reduced in the curcumin group, while no significant change was observed in the placebo group. Curcumin supplementation was also associated with significant reductions in measures of pruritus severity including the pruritus score (P < 0·001), VAS score (P < 0·001), overall (P < 0·001) and objective SCORAD (P = 0·009), and DLQI's first question (P < 0·001). None of these measures was significantly changed in the placebo group. As for the QoL, although DLQI scores decreased in both groups (P < 0·001 and P = 0·003 in the curcumin and placebo groups, respectively), the magnitude of reduction was significantly greater in the curcumin group (P < 0·001). In conclusion, curcumin may be regarded as a natural, safe, widely available and inexpensive treatment for the management of SM-induced chronic pruritus.
Acetylome in Human Fibroblasts From Parkinson's Disease Patients

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a multifactorial neurodegenerative disorder. The pathogenesis of this disease is associated with gene and environmental factors. Mutations in leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2) are the most frequent genetic cause of familial and sporadic PD. Moreover, posttranslational modifications, including protein acetylation, are involved in the molecular mechanism of PD. Acetylation of lysine proteins is a dynamic process that is modulated in PD. In this descriptive study, we characterized the acetylated proteins and peptides in primary fibroblasts from idiopathic PD (IPD) and genetic PD harboring G2019S or R1441G LRRK2 mutations. Identified acetylated peptides are modulated between individuals' groups. Although acetylated nuclear proteins are the most represented in cells, they are hypoacetylated in IPD. Results display that the level of hyperacetylated and hypoacetylated peptides are, respectively, enhanced in genetic PD and in IPD cells.
Alterations of serum brain-derived neurotrophic factor levels in early alcohol withdrawal.

AIMS Alcohol withdrawal-enhanced neurotoxicity contributes to the addictive process. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) plays an important role in neuronal plasticity and learning. In this study, we explored the changes of serum BDNF levels in alcoholic patients at baseline and after one-week alcohol withdrawal. METHODS Twenty-five alcoholic patients were admitted for alcohol detoxification treatment, and 22 healthy control subjects were also enrolled. We collected blood samples of the patient group on the first and seventh day of alcohol withdrawal, and measured serum BDNF level with sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The severity of withdrawal symptoms was evaluated by the Clinical Institute Withdrawal Assessment-Alcohol, Revised every eight hours. RESULTS Serum BDNF levels did not differ significantly between alcoholic patients and control subjects. But BDNF levels were found to be significantly increased one week after alcohol withdrawal (from 13.9 +/- 3.8 ng/ml to 15.4 +/- 3.8 ng/ml, P = 0.03). A significant positive correlation was found between baseline BDNF level and baseline withdrawal severity (r = 0.45, P = 0.03). CONCLUSIONS The present study suggests that elevated serum BDNF levels were found in early alcohol withdrawal, implying that BDNF may involve in neuroadaptation during the period.
Reliable Digit Span: Does it Adequately Measure Suboptimal Effort in an Adult Epilepsy Population?

Objective Assessment of performance validity is a necessary component of any neuropsychological evaluation. Prior research has shown that cutoff scores of ≤6 or ≤7 on Reliable Digit Span (RDS) can detect suboptimal effort across numerous adult clinical populations; however, these scores have not been validated for that purpose in an adult epilepsy population. This investigation aims to determine whether these previously established RDS cutoff scores could detect suboptimal effort in adults with epilepsy. Method Sixty-three clinically referred adults with a diagnosis of epilepsy or suspected seizures were administered the Digit Span subtest of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-III or WAIS-IV). Most participants (98%) passed Trial 2 of the Test of Memory Malingering (TOMM), achieving a score of ≥45. Results Previously established cutoff scores of ≤6 and ≤7 on RDS yielded a specificity rate of 85% and 77% respectively. Findings also revealed that RDS scores were positively related to attention and intellectual functioning. Given the less than ideal specificity rate associated with each of these cutoff scores, together with their strong association to cognitive factors, secondary analyses were conducted to identify more optimal cutoff scores. Preliminary results suggest that an RDS cutoff score of ≤4 may be more appropriate in a clinically referred adult epilepsy population with a low average IQ or lower. Conclusions Preliminary findings indicate that cutoff scores of ≤6 and ≤7 on RDS are not appropriate in adults with epilepsy, especially in individuals with low average IQ or below.
Feasibility, acceptability and efficacy of a school-based prevention programme for eating disorders: Cluster randomised controlled trial

Background Body image dissatisfaction during adolescence is common but not benign. School-based interventions have the potential for wide reach, but scalability of previous programmes is limited by a reliance on external facilitators. Aims To assess the acceptability, feasibility and efficacy of a teacher-delivered body image intervention. Method A pilot clustered randomised controlled trial in which 16 classes of adolescent girls were allocated to a 6-session body image programme (n = 261), or usual curriculum control (n = 187) (registration: ISRCTN42594993). Results Students in the intervention group had significantly improved body esteem and self-esteem and reduced thin-ideal internalisation. Effects for body esteem and thin-ideal internalisation were maintained for 3 months. There were no group differences for eating pathology, peer factors or depression. Acceptability, feasibility and efficacy varied between schools. Conclusions Teacher-delivered body image lessons have promise but further work is needed to increase efficacy and make interventions suitable across a range of schools.
Intermetallic-strengthened nanocrystalline bainitic steel

ABSTRACT A new thermally stable, nanocrystalline bainitic steel has been developed, rich in nickel and aluminium. During tempering, it is expected that a significant quantity of intermetallic precipitates will form. This was confirmed by X-ray diffractometry, scanning transmission electron microscopy, Fourier transform analysis of atomic column images, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and selected area electron diffraction. These are the first intermetallics to be produced in a nanocrystalline bainitic steel.
1 3 M ar 2 01 8 Information-thermodynamic characterization of stochastic Boolean networks

Recent progress in experimental techniques has enabled us to quantitatively study stochastic and flexible behavior of biological systems. For example, gene regulatory networks perform stochastic information processing and their functionalities have been extensively studied. In gene regulatory networks, there are specific subgraphs called network motifs that occur at frequencies much higher than those found in randomized networks. Further understanding of the designing principle of such networks is highly desirable. In a different context, information thermodynamics has been developed as a theoretical framework that generalizes non-equilibrium thermodynamics to stochastically fluctuating systems with information. Here we systematically characterize gene regulatory networks on the basis of information thermodynamics. We model three-node gene regulatory patterns by a stochastic Boolean model, which receive one or two input signals that carry external information. For the case of a single input, we found that all the three-node patterns are classified into four types by using information-thermodynamic quantities such as dissipation and mutual information, and reveal to which type each network motif belongs. Next, we consider the case where there are two inputs, and evaluate the capacity of logical operation of the three-node patterns by using tripartite mutual information, and argue the reason why patterns with fewer edges are preferred in natural selection. This result may also explain the difference of the occurrence frequencies among different types of feedforward-loop network motifs, and therefore suggests a guiding principle of the network formation.
Iodine deficiency: Clinical implications

Iodine is crucial for thyroid hormone synthesis and fetal neurodevelopment. Major dietary sources of iodine in the United States are dairy products and iodized salt. Potential consequences of iodine deficiency are goiter, hypo thyroidism, cretinism, and impaired cognitive development. Although iodine status in the United States is considered sufficient at the population level, intake varies widely across the population, and the percentage of women of childbearing age with iodine deficiency is increasing. Physicians should be aware of the risks of iodine deficiency and the indications for iodine supplementation, especially in women who are pregnant or lactating. Requirements are higher in pregnant and lactating women. Risk is higher in vegans and those who are lactose-intolerant.
Local Spectral Clustering for Overlapping Community Detection

Large graphs arise in a number of contexts and understanding their structure and extracting information from them is an important research area. Early algorithms for mining communities have focused on global graph structure, and often run in time proportional to the size of the entire graph. As we explore networks with millions of vertices and find communities of size in the hundreds, it becomes important to shift our attention from macroscopic structure to microscopic structure in large networks. A growing body of work has been adopting local expansion methods in order to identify communities from a few exemplary seed members. In this article, we propose a novel approach for finding overlapping communities called Lemon (Local Expansion via Minimum One Norm). Provided with a few known seeds, the algorithm finds the community by performing a local spectral diffusion. The core idea of Lemon is to use short random walks to approximate an invariant subspace near a seed set, which we refer to as local spectra. Local spectra can be viewed as the low-dimensional embedding that captures the nodes’ closeness in the local network structure. We show that Lemon’s performance in detecting communities is competitive with state-of-the-art methods. Moreover, the running time scales with the size of the community rather than that of the entire graph. The algorithm is easy to implement and is highly parallelizable. We further provide theoretical analysis of the local spectral properties, bounding the measure of tightness of extracted community using the eigenvalues of graph Laplacian. We thoroughly evaluate our approach using both synthetic and real-world datasets across different domains, and analyze the empirical variations when applying our method to inherently different networks in practice. In addition, the heuristics on how the seed set quality and quantity would affect the performance are provided.
Association between Elevated Resting Heart Rate and Metabolic Syndrome in a Community-Based Population

Jidong cohort was located in Tangshan. The cohort members completed a standardized questionnaire and underwent physical examinations and laboratory assessments at recruitment from 2013 to 2014. Among them, 7041 participants with complete data of MetS and RHR were available, and 188 participants with the history of heart failure, myocardial infarction, atrial fibrillation or atrial flutter or the medication history of β‐receptor blocker were excluded from the study. Finally, a total of 6853 participants were included in the study. RHR was measured for participants sitting in a controlled environment for at least 5 min at a room temperature between 22°C and 25°C in the morning between 8:00 AM and 11:00 AM. Participants had banned smoking and drinking coffee, tea or wine for at least 3 h and had not exercised in the last 30 min before measuring RHR. All medical examinations were conducted by specially trained doctors and nurses. RHR was examined using electrocardiogram and was classified into <60, 60–69, 70–79, 80–89, and ≥90 beats/min. The diagnosis of the MetS was based on the new definition of the International Diabetes Federation for China. [2] A multivariable logistic analysis was used to evaluate the association between RHR and MetS.
Variability in Cobb Angle Measurements Using Reformatted Computerized Tomography Scans

Study Design. Survey of intraobserver and interobserver measurement variability. Objective. To assess the use of reformatted computerized tomography (CT) images for manual measurement of coronal Cobb angles in idiopathic scoliosis. Summary of Background Data. Cobb angle measurements in idiopathic scoliosis are traditionally made from standing radiographs, whereas CT is often used for assessment of vertebral rotation. Correlating Cobb angles from standing radiographs with vertebral rotations from supine CT is problematic because the geometry of the spine changes significantly from standing to supine positions, and 2 different imaging methods are involved. Methods. We assessed the use of reformatted thoracolumbar CT images for Cobb angle measurement. Preoperative CT of 12 patients with idiopathic scoliosis were used to generate reformatted coronal images. Five observers measured coronal Cobb angles on 3 occasions from each of the images. Intraobserver and interobserver variability associated with Cobb measurement from reformatted CT scans was assessed and compared with previous studies of measurement variability using plain radiographs. Results. For major curves, 95% confidence intervals for intraobserver and interobserver variability were ±6.6° and ±7.7°, respectively. For minor curves, the intervals were ±7.5° and ±8.2°, respectively. Intraobserver and interobserver technical error of measurement was 2.4° and 2.7°, with reliability coefficients of 88% and 84%, respectively. There was no correlation between measurement variability and curve severity. Conclusions. Reformatted CT images may be used for manual measurement of coronal Cobb angles in idiopathic scoliosis with similar variability to manual measurement of plain radiographs.
Do Syrian refugees have increased risk for worser pregnancy outcomes? Results of a tertiary center in İstanbul

Objective: To compare obstetric and perinatal outcomes of Syrian refugee pregnants and Turkish counterparts who gave birth at a tertiary center in İstanbul. Materials and Methods: A retrospective study including the birth records of 704 Syrian refugees and 744 Turkish pregnant women between January 2016 and May 2017 were analyzed. Demographic data, obstetric and neonatal outcomes were compared. The primary aims of this study were to evaluate the pregnancy outcomes and cesarean rates between the groups. The secondary outcomes were the use of antenatal vitamin supplementation, hemoglobin-hematocrit values, and maternal complications. Results: Our results showed that the use of folic acid and iron supplementation rates during pregnancy were similar between the groups (folic acid supplementation 8.1% vs 6.5%, p=0.264; iron supplementation 20.7% vs 19.6%, p=0.125; respectively for Turkish women and Syrian refugees). Cesarean rates were significantly higher for Turkish patients than in Syrian refugees (42.7% vs 32.7%; p<0.05). Gestational age at delivery was significantly higher among Turkish women when compared with Syrian refugees (37.7±2.3 vs 36.4±2.3 weeks, p<0.05), but there was no significant difference regarding the birtweights’ of the newborns (3134 g vs 3066 g for Turkish women and Syrian refugees, respectively, p=0.105). Although obstetric complications were seen more often in Syrian refugees, it did not reach statistical difference (9.7% vs 8.1%, respectively, p=0.285). Conclusion: Syrian refugees use antenatal vitamin supplementations at similar rates to Turkish citizens and obstetric and perinatal outcomes are similar between the groups.
Enhancing the Urea-N Use Efficiency in Maize (Zea mays) Cultivation on Acid Soils Amended with Zeolite and TSP

Ammonia loss significantly reduces the urea-N use efficiency in crop production. Efforts to reduce this problem are mostly laboratory oriented. This paper reports the effects of urea amended with triple superphosphate (TSP) and zeolite (Clinoptilolite) on soil pH, nitrate, exchangeable ammonium, dry matter production, N uptake, fresh cob production, and urea-N uptake efficiency in maize (Zea mays) cultivation on an acid soil in actual field conditions. Urea-amended TSP and zeolite treatments and urea only (urea without additives) did not have long-term effect on soil pH and accumulation of soil exchangeable ammonium and nitrate. Treatments with higher amounts of TSP and zeolite significantly increased the dry matter (stem and leaf) production of Swan (test crop). All the treatments had no significant effect on urea-N concentration in the leaf and stem of the test crop. In terms of urea-N uptake in the leaf and stem tissues of Swan, only the treatment with the highest amount of TSP and zeolite significantly increased urea-N uptake in the leaf of the test crop. Irrespective of treatment, fresh cob production was statistically not different. However, all the treatments with additives improved urea-N uptake efficiency compared to urea without additives or amendment. This suggests that urea amended with TSP and zeolite has a potential of reducing ammonia loss from surface-applied urea.
The Continuum of Aging and Age-Related Diseases: Common Mechanisms but Different Rates

Geroscience, the new interdisciplinary field that aims to understand the relationship between aging and chronic age-related diseases (ARDs) and geriatric syndromes (GSs), is based on epidemiological evidence and experimental data that aging is the major risk factor for such pathologies and assumes that aging and ARDs/GSs share a common set of basic biological mechanisms. A consequence is that the primary target of medicine is to combat aging instead of any single ARD/GSs one by one, as favored by the fragmentation into hundreds of specialties and sub-specialties. If the same molecular and cellular mechanisms underpin both aging and ARDs/GSs, a major question emerges: which is the difference, if any, between aging and ARDs/GSs? The hypothesis that ARDs and GSs such as frailty can be conceptualized as accelerated aging will be discussed by analyzing in particular frailty, sarcopenia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cancer, neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer and Parkinson as well as Down syndrome as an example of progeroid syndrome. According to this integrated view, aging and ARDs/GSs become part of a continuum where precise boundaries do not exist and the two extremes are represented by centenarians, who largely avoided or postponed most ARDs/GSs and are characterized by decelerated aging, and patients who suffered one or more severe ARDs in their 60s, 70s, and 80s and show signs of accelerated aging, respectively. In between these two extremes, there is a continuum of intermediate trajectories representing a sort of gray area. Thus, clinically different, classical ARDs/GSs are, indeed, the result of peculiar combinations of alterations regarding the same, limited set of basic mechanisms shared with the aging process. Whether an individual will follow a trajectory of accelerated or decelerated aging will depend on his/her genetic background interacting lifelong with environmental and lifestyle factors. If ARDs and GSs are manifestations of accelerated aging, it is urgent to identify markers capable of distinguishing between biological and chronological age to identify subjects at higher risk of developing ARDs and GSs. To this aim, we propose the use of DNA methylation, N-glycans profiling, and gut microbiota composition to complement the available disease-specific markers.