Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Health determinants of nutritional status in community-dwelling older population: the VERISAÚDE study

Abstract Objective Malnutrition is a common and relevant syndrome in elderly people due to its influence on quality of life. The main aim of the present study was to identify health determinants of malnutrition or risk of malnutrition. Design Cross-sectional study collecting information on sociodemographic and health factors (co-morbidity, cognitive or affective problems, prescription medication use, frailty status, self-rated health) as determinants of nutritional status, assessed by the short form of the Mini Nutritional Assessment. Setting Forty-three senior centres from Galicia (north-western Spain) participated to recruit participants. Subjects A representative community-dwelling sample of 749 elderly people aged ≥65 years. Results Of the total participants, 14·3 % were malnourished/at risk of malnutrition. Presence of overweight or obesity, depressive symptoms, polypharmacy (use of five or more prescription medications), presence of pre-frailty or frailty status and poor self-rated health showed the strongest relationship to malnutrition/risk of malnutrition. This model predicted 86·0 % of the cases correctly. The best determinants for women were polypharmacy and poor self-rated health, reaching 82·8 % of cases of malnourishment/risk of malnutrition predicted correctly. In men, the main determinants were overweight or obesity, depressive symptomatology and polypharmacy, with 89·8 % of cases of malnourishmen/risk of malnutrition predicted correctly. Conclusions Screening for nutritional status and its determinant factors should be included as part of comprehensive assessments to ensure an early screening of malnutrition and to propose possible intervention strategies that would be important for both elderly people and the health-care system.
Synthesis and Structural Modification of Marine Natural Products

In the last decades, marine natural products (MNPs), have attracted extensive interest from both chemists and pharmacologists due to their chemical and bioactive diversities. This special issue, collecting total synthesis and structural modification of six different type of bioactive MNPs, is expected to inspire and attract more research effects invested into MNP research.
Cytogenetic and molecular profile of endometrial stromal sarcoma

Recent cytogenetic and molecular investigations have improved our understanding of endometrial stromal tumors, including sarcomas (ESS), and helped redefine their classification into more pathogenetically meaningful categories. Because much more can be gained through such studies, we add information on another 22 ESS examined by karyotyping, PCR analysis, expression array analysis, and transcriptome sequencing. In spite of the known preference for certain pathogenetic pathways, we found considerable genetic heterogeneity in high‐grade (HG) as well as in low‐grade (LG) ESS. Not all HG tumors showed a YWHAE‐NUTM chimeric transcript and as many as six LGESS showed no hitherto known ESS‐related fusions. Among the transcripts identified by transcriptome sequencing and verified by Sanger sequencing, new variants of ZC3H7‐BCOR and its reciprocal BCOR‐ZC3H7 were identified as was involvement of the CREBBP and MLLT4 genes (both well known leukemia‐related genes) in two new fusions. FISH analysis identified a known EPC1‐PHF1 fusion which led to the identification of a new variant at the molecular level. The fact that around 70 genes were found differentially expressed, by microarray analysis, when comparing LGESS showing ESS‐related fusions with LGESS without such transcripts, underscores the biochemical importance of the observed genetic heterogeneity and hints that new subgroups/entities in LGESS still remain undiscovered. © 2016 The Authors. Genes, Chromosomes & Cancer Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
The Influence of Foot-Strike Technique on the Neuromechanical Function of the Foot

Purpose The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of foot-strike technique on longitudinal arch mechanics and intrinsic foot muscle function during running. Methods Thirteen healthy participants ran barefoot on a force-instrumented treadmill at 2.8 ms−1 with a forefoot (FFS) and rearfoot (RFS; habitual) running technique, whereas kinetic, kinematic, and electromyographic data from the intrinsic foot muscles were collected simultaneously. The longitudinal arch was modeled as a single “midfoot” joint representing motion of the rearfoot (calcaneus) relative to the forefoot (metatarsals). An inverse dynamic analysis was performed to estimate joint moments generated about the midfoot, as well as mechanical work and power. Results The midfoot was more plantar flexed (higher arch) at foot contact when running with a forefoot running technique (RFS 0.2o ± 1.8o vs FFS 6.9o ± 3.0°, effect size (ES) = 2.7); however, there was no difference in peak midfoot dorsiflexion in stance (RFS −11.6o ± 3.0o vs FFS −11.4o ± 3.4°, ES = 0.63). When running with a forefoot technique, participants generated greater moments about the midfoot (27% increase, ES = 1.1) and performed more negative work (240% increase, ES = 2.2) and positive work (42% increase, ES = 1.1) about the midfoot. Average stance-phase muscle activation was greater for flexor digitorum brevis (20% increase, ES = 0.56) and abductor hallucis (17% increase, ES = 0.63) when running with a forefoot technique. Conclusions Forefoot running increases loading about the longitudinal arch and also increases the mechanical work performed by the intrinsic foot muscles. These findings have substantial implications in terms of injury prevention and management for runners who transition from a rearfoot to a forefoot running technique.
Intensity dependences of the nonlinear optical excitation of plasmons in graphene

Recently, we demonstrated an all-optical coupling scheme for plasmons, which takes advantage of the intrinsic nonlinear optical response of graphene. Frequency mixing using free-space, visible light pulses generates surface plasmons in a planar graphene sample, where the phase matching condition can define both the wavevector and energy of surface waves and intraband transitions. Here, we also show that the plasmon generation process is strongly intensity-dependent, with resonance features washed out for absorbed pulse fluences greater than 0.1 J m−2. This implies a subtle interplay between the nonlinear generation process and sample heating. We discuss these effects in terms of a non-equilibrium charge distribution using a two-temperature model. This article is part of the themed issue ‘New horizons for nanophotonics’.
Machining performance of cryogenically treated Ti–5Al–2.5Sn titanium alloy in electric discharge machining: A comparative study

In the present study, the effect of cryogenic treatment on the machining performance of Ti–5Al–2.5Sn alpha titanium alloy was investigated during electric discharge machining. Untreated, shallow cryogenically treated (−110 ℃), and deep cryogenically treated (−184 ℃) titanium alloys were machined by varying current and pulse-on-time. The machining performance was measured in terms of higher material removal rate and microhardness and low tool wear rate and surface roughness. The results showed a significant improvement in the machining performance with deep cryogenically treated alloy when compared with shallow and untreated alloy. Current and pulse-on-time also affected the machinability of titanium alloy. Higher material removal rate and microhardness were observed when titanium alloy was machined at high current and pulse-on-time. During machining, carbon was deposited on the machined surface due to the breakdown of hydrocarbon dielectric at high temperature thereby, affecting its properties.
Effects of Connexin43 Overexpression on U251 Cell Growth, Migration, and Apoptosis

Background Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is a highly aggressive malignant brain tumor with a high incidence in adults. Connexin43 (Cx43) has general roles in tumorigenesis and is expressed in U251 glioma cells. Accordingly, the effects of Cx43 on the growth, migration, and apoptosis and the underlying mechanisms mediating Cx43-dependent migration and apoptosis were examined in U251 cells. Material/Methods A Cx43-overexpressing U251 cell line was generated to analyze the effects of Cx43 overexpression on cell growth, wound healing, and apoptosis-related protein expression after treatment with temozolomide. Results The growth rate of U251 cells overexpressing Cx43 was significantly lower than that of parental wild-type cells, and cell morphology was considerably altered. The expression level of Bcl-2 was higher and the expression levels of Bax and caspase-3 were lower in cells overexpressing Cx43 than in wild-type cells. Additionally, the Bax/Bcl-2 ratio decreased. Conclusions Cx43 inhibited the growth of U251 cells, promoted morphological changes and migration, and inhibited apoptosis via a mitochondria-associated pathway.
Learning Transformation Invariant Representations with Weak Supervision

Abstract: Deep convolutional neural networks are the current state-of-the-art solution to many computer vision tasks. However, their ability to handle large global and local image transformations is limited. Consequently, extensive data augmentation is often utilized to incorporate prior knowledge about desired invariances to geometric transformations such as rotations or scale changes. In this work, we combine data augmentation with an unsupervised loss which enforces similarity between the predictions of augmented copies of an input sample. Our loss acts as an effective regularizer which facilitates the learning of transformation invariant representations. We investigate the effectiveness of the proposed similarity loss on rotated MNIST and the German Traffic Sign Recognition Benchmark (GTSRB) in the context of different classification models including ladder networks. Our experiments demonstrate improvements with respect to the standard data augmentation approach for supervised and semi-supervised learning tasks, in particular in the presence of little annotated data. In addition, we analyze the performance of the proposed approach with respect to its hyperparameters, including the strength of the regularization as well as the layer where representation similarity is enforced.
Time course of endothelial-neutrophil interaction in splanchnic artery ischemia-reperfusion.

Splanchnic artery occlusion and reperfusion (SAO/R) results in a severe form of circulatory shock that has a high mortality rate. To examine the time course of the early events involved in SAO/R, occlusion of the superior mesenteric artery (SMA) and the celiac artery (120 min) were followed by reperfusion periods of 0, 2.5, 5, 20, 30, 60, or 120 min. Relaxation of isolated SMA vascular rings to the endothelium-dependent vasodilator ACh was unimpaired following 120 min of ischemia (86 ± 5%); however, significant ( P < 0.01) reductions in endothelium-dependent vasorelaxation were observed following 2.5 min (53 ± 6%) of reperfusion with severe dysfunction ( P < 0.001) observed at 20 min (29 ± 4%). Neutrophil adherence to the endothelium increased as a function of reperfusion time with a 2.3-fold increase observed at 20 min ( P < 0.01) and a 3.4-fold increase observed at 120 min ( P < 0.001). Intestinal myeloperoxidase activity was significantly increased 30 min after reperfusion ( P < 0.05), whereas surface expression of P-selectin progressively increased at 5 ( P < 0.05) and 30 min ( P < 0.001) postreperfusion. These findings demonstrate that endothelial dysfunction is a very early event in the pathophysiology of SAO/R, subsequently resulting in increased surface expression of P-selectin and the adherence of neutrophils to the endothelium that leads to neutrophil accumulation in the splanchnic viscera.
Some important properties of strandboard manufactured from bamboo

Bamboo has received increasing attention as an alternative raw material for use in the manufacture of composite boards. Random strandboards were made using a moso bamboo (Pyllostachys pubescent Mezel) strand to evaluate the effects of manufacturing parameters. Bamboo random strandboards were fabricated using phenol-formaldehyde resin with four dosage levels ranging from 4 to 10 percent, and five density levels ranging from 0.49 g/cm 3 to 0.81 g/cm . The mechanical properties and dimensional stability of bamboo strandboard were evaluated, and the results were summarized as follows. The bending properties and internal bond (IB) strength of the board increased with increasing density, showing a bilinear relation with an elbow at a density of 0.57 g/cm 3 , where the compaction ratio was approximately unity. Similar results were obtained in wet conditions. IB strength retention after the boil treatment remained almost constant, regardless of board density. The bending properties were slightly affected by resin content (RC). Although the IB strength increased with RC, IB strength seemed insufficient in comparison with that required for practical performance, which suggests that the glue blending technology needs to be improved. Thickness swelling (TS) decreased with increasing RC at each step of the wet-dry cyclic treatment. The TS of a board with 8 percent RC was approximately 7 percent after the treatment. Linear expansion per unit moisture content change (LE/MC) increased with increasing density from 0.016 %/% at 0.49 g/cm 3 to 0.023 %/% at 0.81 g/cm 3 , while the effect of RC on LE/MC was not remarkable in this range of RC.
Implication of the Slow-5 Oscillations in the Disruption of the Default-Mode Network in Healthy Aging and Stroke

The processes of normal aging and aging-related pathologies subject the brain to an active re-organization of its brain networks. Among these, the default-mode network (DMN) is consistently implicated with a demonstrated reduction in functional connectivity within the network. However, no clear stipulation on the underlying mechanisms of the de-synchronization has yet been provided. In this study, we examined the spectral distribution of the intrinsic low-frequency oscillations (LFOs) of the DMN sub-networks in populations of young normals, older subjects, and acute and subacute ischemic stroke patients. The DMN sub-networks were derived using a mid-order group independent component analysis with 117 eyes-closed resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) sessions from volunteers in those population groups, isolating three robust components of the DMN among other resting-state networks. The posterior component of the DMN presented noticeable differences. Measures of amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) and fractional ALFF (fALFF) of the network component demonstrated a decrease in resting-state cortical oscillation power in the elderly (normal and patient), specifically in the slow-5 (0.01-0.027 Hz) range of oscillations. Furthermore, the contribution of the slow-5 oscillations during the resting state was diminished for a greater influence of the slow-4 (0.027-0.073 Hz) oscillations in the subacute stroke group, not only suggesting a vulnerability of the slow-5 oscillations to disruption but also indicating a change in the distribution of the oscillations within the resting-state frequencies. The reduction of network slow-5 fALFF in the posterior DMN component was found to present a potential association with behavioral measures, suggesting a brain-behavior relationship to those oscillations, with this change in behavior potentially resulting from an altered network integrity induced by a weakening of the slow-5 oscillations during the resting state. The repeated identification of those frequencies in the disruption of DMN stresses a critical role of the slow-5 oscillations in network disruption, and it accentuates the importance of managing those oscillations in the health of the DMN.
Ca2+ dependence and pharmacology of large-conductance K+ channels in nonlabor and labor human uterine myocytes.

Two populations, Ca2+-dependent (BKCa) and Ca2+-independent K+ (BK) channels of large conductance were identified in inside-out patches of nonlabor and labor freshly dispersed human pregnant myometrial cells, respectively. Cell-attached recordings from nonlabor myometrial cells frequently displayed BKCa channel openings characterized by a relatively low open-state probability, whereas similar recordings from labor tissue displayed either no channel openings or consistently high levels of channel activity that often exhibited clear, oscillatory activity. In inside-out patch recordings, Ba2+ (2-10 mM), 4-aminopyridine (0.1-1 mM), and Shaker B inactivating peptide ("ball peptide") blocked the BKCa channel but were much less effective on BK channels. Application of tetraethylammonium to inside-out membrane patches reduced unitary current amplitude of BKCa and BK channels, with dissociation constants of 46 mM and 53 μM, respectively. Tetraethylammonium applied to outside-out patches decreased the unitary conductance of BKCa and BK channels, with dissociation constants of 423 and 395 μM, respectively. These results demonstrate that the properties of human myometrial large-conductance K+channels in myocytes isolated from laboring patients are significantly different from those isolated from nonlaboring patients.
Mechanical properties of thin films from the load deflection of long clamped plates

A plane-strain load-deflection model for long plates clamped to a rigid support is developed. The analytical model describes the nonlinear deflection of plates with compressive or tensile residual stress and finite flexural rigidity under uniform load. It allows for the extraction of the residual stress and plane-strain modulus of single-layered thin films. Properties of compressively and weakly prestressed materials are extracted with an accuracy achieved previously only with tensile samples. Two approximations of the exact model are derived. The first reduces the plates to membranes by neglecting their flexural rigidity. Considerable errors result from this simplification. The second approximation provides an exact expression for the linear plate response. Using the model, mechanical properties were extracted from two plasma-enhanced chemical-vapor deposition (PECVD) silicon nitride films with weakly tensile and compressive prestress, respectively. Measured residual stresses are 1.3/spl plusmn/3.8 and -63/spl plusmn/12.4 MPa, respectively. Corresponding plane-strain moduli are 134.4/spl plusmn/3.9 and 142/spl plusmn/2.6 GPa, respectively.
miR-194 Suppresses Proliferation and Migration and Promotes Apoptosis of Osteosarcoma Cells by Targeting CDH2

Background/Aims: Studies have shown that miR-194 functions as a tumour suppressor and is associated with tumour growth and metastasis. This study intends to uncover the mechanism of tumour suppression by miR-194. The expression of miR-194 in osteosarcoma cell lines and tissues were monitored by real-time PCR. Methods: The proliferation ability was examined by MTT assay. Migration and apoptosis of cells were monitored by migration assay and flow cytometry, respectively. The regulation of miR-194 on CDH2 was determined by luciferase assays and western blot assays. Results: The results showed that miR-194 was significantly reduced in osteosarcoma compared with that in normal bone tissue. Overexpression of miR-194 significantly attenuated the proliferation and migration and induced the apoptosis of osteosarcoma cells. Furthermore, we demonstrated that miR-194 has inhibited the malignant behaviour of osteosarcoma by downregulating CDH2 expression. Conclusions: These findings suggested that miR-194 may act as a tumour suppressor in osteosarcoma. miR-194/CDH2 may be a novel therapeutic target in the treatment of osteosarcoma.
Insulin-Like Growth Factor-Binding Proteins of Teleost Fishes

The insulin-like growth factor (Igf) binding protein (Igfbp) family has a broad range of physiological functions and a fascinating evolutionary history. This review focuses on the Igfbps of teleost fishes, where genome duplication events have diversified gene repertoire, function, and physiological regulation—with six core Igfbps expanded into a family of over twenty genes in some lineages. In addition to briefly summarizing the current state of knowledge on teleost Igfbp evolution, function, and expression-level regulation, we highlight gaps in our understanding and promising areas for future work.
Idiopathic intracranial hypertension associated with anaemia, secondary to antiretroviral drug in a human immunodeficiency virus positive patient

Papilledema in a patient with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/acquired immune deficiency syndrome is an alarming finding. Any condition giving rise to raised intracranial tension (ICT) can cause papilledema, and in these patients, it could be secondary to opportunistic infections like meningitis to neoplasm. We report a case of a 28-year old female with HIV on antiretroviral therapy, who presented to us, with papilledema. Her fundus examination revealed superficial hemorrhages and Roth's spots along with papilledema. Patient was diagnosed with idiopathic intracranial hypertension (IIH), and all other possible systemic associations were ruled out. Her blood tests showed severe anemia. The papilledema and retinal changes resolved with treatment of anemia. This is a rare presentation of IIH in HIV positive patient due to anemia, secondary to zidovudine adverse effect.
Does Mind Wandering Mediate the Association Between Mindfulness and Negative Mood? A Preliminary Study

The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between trait mindfulness and mood and to examine whether the relationship is mediated by mind wandering. Eighty-two individuals (M age = 24.27 years, SD = 5.64, 18 men, 22%) completed a series of measures including the Five-Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire, the Profile of Mood States Questionnaire, and Meditation Breath Attention Exercise. Results showed that the level of mindfulness was significantly correlated with positive and negative mood, and the association between mindfulness and negative mood was mediated by mind wandering. This study indicated the important role of mind wandering in the relation between mindfulness and negative mood. Limitations and future research directions are discussed.
Impaired memory for material related to a problem solved prior to encoding: suppression at learning or interference at recall?

ABSTRACT Earlier research by the author revealed that material encoded incidentally in a speeded affective classification task and related to the demands of a divergent problem tends to be recalled worse in participants who solved the problem prior to encoding than in participants in the control, no-problem condition. The aim of the present experiment was to replicate this effect with a new, size-comparison orienting task, and to test for possible mechanisms of impaired recall. Participants either solved a problem before the orienting task or not, and classified each item in this task either once or three times. There was a reliable effect of impaired recall of problem-related items in the repetition condition, but not in the no-repetition condition. Solving the problem did not influence repetition priming for these items. These results support an account that attributes the impaired recall to inhibitory processes at learning and speak against a proactive interference explanation. However, they can be also accommodated by an account that refers to inefficient context cues and competitor interference at retrieval.