Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of oxidized leachate on degradation of lignin by sulfate-reducing bacteria

Municipal solid waste materials (MSWs) in landfills need a long period of stabilization because lignin compounds in MSWs and leachate are not readily biodegraded, but inhibit methanogenic metabolism. Recirculation of leachate into the landfill offers the potential advantage of increasing the rate of decomposition of organic matter. However, the degradation of lignin by leachate recirculation alone is quite difficult. Several recent studies have demonstrated that sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) were able to degrade lignin compounds. In this study, batch tests were conducted to investigate the impacts of SRB enrichment on lignin decomposition rates as well as the decomposition of other biodegradable organics. Further, the effects of nitrite and nitrate on lignin degradation rates were also studied. A 16S rRNA assay showed that the SRB used herein, which were obtained by enriching solid waste collected from a closed MSW landfill, were Thaurea sp. and Desulfovibrio sp. Lignin was found to be biodegraded by the SRB and the rate of lignin removal per unit of waste volatile suspended solid was 2.9 mg lignin g—1 VSS day— 1. It was found that the initial degradation rate increased under higher initial lignin concentrations. However, the degradation rate during days 6—19 became slower than that during the initial 9 days because lignin consisted of complexly bonded aromatic compounds that were not readily biodegradable. Adding other organics such as lactate seemed to improve the rate and amount of lignin degradation, probably due to the increase in SRB associated with consumption of the additional organics. The lignin removal percentage decreased with increases in oxidized nitrogen (nitrite or nitrate) concentrations, indicating that oxidized nitrogen could inhibit SRB activity. Conclusively, the study verified the existence of SRB in the landfill and showed that the SRB could be activated for the degradation of lignin by the recirculation of the leachate, which is consistent with other studies showing that leachate recirculation could shorten the stabilization period of the landfill.
The Neurokinin-1 Receptor Contributes to the Early Phase of Lipopolysaccharide-Induced Fever via Stimulation of Peripheral Cyclooxygenase-2 Protein Expression in Mice

Neurokinin (NK) signaling is involved in various inflammatory processes. A common manifestation of systemic inflammation is fever, which is usually induced in animal models with the administration of bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS). A role for the NK1 receptor was shown in LPS-induced fever, but the underlying mechanisms of how the NK1 receptor contributes to febrile response, especially in the early phase, have remained unknown. We administered LPS (120 µg/kg, intraperitoneally) to mice with the Tacr1 gene, i.e., the gene encoding the NK1 receptor, either present (Tacr1+/+) or absent (Tacr1−/−) and measured their thermoregulatory responses, serum cytokine levels, tissue cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) expression, and prostaglandin (PG) E2 concentration. We found that the LPS-induced febrile response was attenuated in Tacr1−/− compared to their Tacr1+/+ littermates starting from 40 min postinfusion. The febrigenic effect of intracerebroventricularly administered PGE2 was not suppressed in the Tacr1−/− mice. Serum concentration of pyrogenic cytokines did not differ between Tacr1−/− and Tacr1+/+ at 40 min post-LPS infusion. Administration of LPS resulted in amplification of COX-2 mRNA expression in the lungs, liver, and brain of the mice, which was statistically indistinguishable between the genotypes. In contrast, the LPS-induced augmentation of COX-2 protein expression was attenuated in the lungs and tended to be suppressed in the liver of Tacr1−/− mice compared with Tacr1+/+ mice. The Tacr1+/+ mice responded to LPS with a significant surge of PGE2 production in the lungs, whereas Tacr1−/− mice did not. In conclusion, the NK1 receptor is necessary for normal fever genesis. Our results suggest that the NK1 receptor contributes to the early phase of LPS-induced fever by enhancing COX-2 protein expression in the periphery. These findings advance the understanding of the crosstalk between NK signaling and the “cytokine-COX-2-prostaglandin E2” axis in systemic inflammation, thereby open up the possibilities for new therapeutic approaches.
Information Dissemination via Random Walks in d-Dimensional Space

We study a natural information dissemination problem for multiple mobile agents in a bounded Euclidean space. Agents are placed uniformly at random in the d-dimensional space {-n,. ,n}d at time zero, and one of the agents holds a piece of information to be disseminated. All the agents then perform independent random walks over the space, and the information is transmitted from one agent to another if the two agents are sufficiently close. We wish to bound the total time before all agents receive the information (with high probability). Our work extends Pettarin et al's work [10], which solved the problem for d ≤ 2. We present tight bounds up to polylogarithmic factors for the case d = 3. (While our results extend to higher dimensions, for space and readability considerations we provide only the case d = 3 here.) Our results show the behavior when d ≥ 3 is qualitatively different from the case d ≤ 2. In particular, as the ratio between the volume of the space and the number of agents varies, we show an interesting phase transition for three dimensions that does not occur in one or two dimensions.
The role of cardiovascular magnetic resonance in patients presenting with chest pain, raised troponin, and unobstructed coronary arteries.

AIMS Troponin measurement is used in the assessment and risk stratification of patients presenting acutely with chest pain when the main cause of elevation is coronary artery disease. However, some patients have no coronary obstruction on angiography, leading to diagnostic uncertainty. We evaluated the incremental diagnostic value of cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) in these patients. METHODS AND RESULTS Sixty consecutive patients (mean age 44 years, 72% male) with a troponin-positive episode of chest pain and unobstructed coronary arteries were recruited within 3 months of initial presentation. All patients underwent CMR with cine imaging, T2-weighted imaging for detection of inflammation, and late gadolinium enhancement imaging for detection of infarction/fibrosis. An identifiable basis for troponin elevation was established in 65% of patients. The commonest underlying cause was myocarditis (50%), followed by myocardial infarction (11.6%) and cardiomyopathy (3.4%). In the 35% of patients where no clear diagnosis was identified by CMR, significant myocardial infarction/fibrosis was excluded. CONCLUSION CMR is a valuable adjunct to conventional investigations in a diagnostically challenging and important group of patients with troponin-positive chest pain and unobstructed coronary arteries.
The effects of ethnicity, musicianship, and tone language experience on pitch perception

Language and music are intertwined: music training can facilitate language abilities, and language experiences can also help with some music tasks. Possible language–music transfer effects are explored in two experiments in this study. In Experiment 1, we tested native Mandarin, Korean, and English speakers on a pitch discrimination task with two types of sounds: speech sounds and fundamental frequency (F0) patterns derived from speech sounds. To control for factors that might influence participants’ performance, we included cognitive ability tasks testing memory and intelligence. In addition, two music skill tasks were used to examine general transfer effects from language to music. Prior studies showing that tone language speakers have an advantage on pitch tasks have been taken as support for three alternative hypotheses: specific transfer effects, general transfer effects, and an ethnicity effect. In Experiment 1, musicians outperformed non-musicians on both speech and F0 sounds, suggesting a music-to-language transfer effect. Korean and Mandarin speakers performed similarly, and they both outperformed English speakers, providing some evidence for an ethnicity effect. Alternatively, this could be due to population selection bias. In Experiment 2, we recruited Chinese Americans approximating the native English speakers’ language background to further test the ethnicity effect. Chinese Americans, regardless of their tone language experiences, performed similarly to their non–Asian American counterparts in all tasks. Therefore, although this study provides additional evidence of transfer effects across music and language, it casts doubt on the contribution of ethnicity to differences observed in pitch perception and general music abilities.
Does long-term cultivation of saplings under elevated CO2 concentration influence their photosynthetic response to temperature?

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Plants growing under elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations often have reduced stomatal conductance and subsequently increased leaf temperature. This study therefore tested the hypothesis that under long-term elevated CO2 the temperature optima of photosynthetic processes will shift towards higher temperatures and the thermostability of the photosynthetic apparatus will increase. METHODS The hypothesis was tested for saplings of broadleaved Fagus sylvatica and coniferous Picea abies exposed for 4-5 years to either ambient (AC; 385 µmol mol(-1)) or elevated (EC; 700 µmol mol(-1)) CO2 concentrations. Temperature response curves of photosynthetic processes were determined by gas-exchange and chlorophyll fluorescence techniques. KEY RESULTS Initial assumptions of reduced light-saturated stomatal conductance and increased leaf temperatures for EC plants were confirmed. Temperature response curves revealed stimulation of light-saturated rates of CO2 assimilation (Amax) and a decline in photorespiration (RL) as a result of EC within a wide temperature range. However, these effects were negligible or reduced at low and high temperatures. Higher temperature optima (Topt) of Amax, Rubisco carboxylation rates (VCmax) and RL were found for EC saplings compared with AC saplings. However, the shifts in Topt of Amax were instantaneous, and disappeared when measured at identical CO2 concentrations. Higher values of Topt at elevated CO2 were attributed particularly to reduced photorespiration and prevailing limitation of photosynthesis by ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate (RuBP) regeneration. Temperature response curves of fluorescence parameters suggested a negligible effect of EC on enhancement of thermostability of photosystem II photochemistry. CONCLUSIONS Elevated CO2 instantaneously increases temperature optima of Amax due to reduced photorespiration and limitation of photosynthesis by RuBP regeneration. However, this increase disappears when plants are exposed to identical CO2 concentrations. In addition, increased heat-stress tolerance of primary photochemistry in plants grown at elevated CO2 is unlikely. The hypothesis that long-term cultivation at elevated CO2 leads to acclimation of photosynthesis to higher temperatures is therefore rejected. Nevertheless, incorporating acclimation mechanisms into models simulating carbon flux between the atmosphere and vegetation is necessary.
Widely Used Commercial ELISA Does Not Detect Precursor of Haptoglobin2, but Recognizes Properdin as a Potential Second Member of the Zonulin Family

Background There is increasing evidence for the role of impaired intestinal permeability in obesity and associated metabolic diseases. Zonulin is an established serum marker for intestinal permeability and identical to pre-haptoglobin2. Here, we aimed to investigate the relationship between circulating zonulin and metabolic traits related to obesity. Methods Serum zonulin was measured by using a widely used commercial ELISA kit in 376 subjects from the metabolically well-characterized cohort of Sorbs from Germany. In addition, haptoglobin genotype was determined in DNA samples from all study subjects. Results As zonulin concentrations did not correlate to the haptoglobin genotypes, we investigated the specificity of the zonulin ELISA assay using antibody capture experiments, mass spectrometry, and Western blot analysis. Using serum samples that gave the highest or lowest ELISA signals, we detected several proteins that are likely to be captured by the antibody in the present kit. However, none of these proteins corresponds to pre-haptoglobin2. We used increasing concentrations of recombinant pre-haptoglobin2 and complement C3 as one of the representative captured proteins and the ELISA kit did not detect either. Western blot analysis using both the polyclonal antibodies used in this kit and monoclonal antibodies rose against zonulin showed a similar protein recognition pattern but with different intensity of detection. The protein(s) measured using the ELISA kit was (were) significantly increased in patients with diabetes and obesity and correlated strongly with markers of the lipid and glucose metabolism. Combining mass spectrometry and Western blot analysis using the polyclonal antibodies used in the ELISA kit, we identified properdin as another member of the zonulin family. Conclusion Our study suggests that the zonulin ELISA does not recognize pre-haptoglobin2, rather structural (and possibly functional) analog proteins belonging to the mannose-associated serine protease family, with properdin being the most likely possible candidate.
Living Arrangements of Mothers and Their Adult Children Over the Life Course

Early in the last century, it was commonplace for elderly women to live with their adult children. Over time, the prevalence of this type of living arrangement declined, as incomes increased. In more recent decades, coresidence between adult children and their retirement-age parents has become more common, as children rely on parental support later into adulthood. We use panel data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to examine the living arrangements of older mothers and their adult children over the life course. We pay particular attention to the relationship between coresidence and indicators of parental and child needs. Our results suggest that for much of the life course, coresidence serves to benefit primarily the adult children rather than their older mother. We also highlight a little known phenomenon, that of children who never leave the parental home and remain coresident well into their later adult years.
On ranking the effectiveness of searches

There is a growing interest in estimating the effectiveness of search. Two approaches are typically considered: examining the search queries and examining the retrieved document sets. In this paper, we take the latter approach. We use four measures to characterize the retrieved document sets and estimate the quality of search. These measures are (i) the clustering tendency as measured by the Cox-Lewis statistic, (ii) the sensitivity to document perturbation, (iii) the sensitivity to query perturbation and (iv) the local intrinsic dimensionality. We present experimental results for the task of ranking 200 queries according to the search effectiveness over the TREC (discs 4 and 5) dataset. Our ranking of queries is compared with the ranking based on the average precision using the Kendall t statistic. The best individual estimator is the sensitivity to document perturbation and yields Kendall t of 0.521. When combined with the clustering tendency based on the Cox-Lewis statistic and the query perturbation measure, it results in Kendall t of 0.562 which to our knowledge is the highest correlation with the average precision reported to date.
Male erectile dysfunction and cardiovascular disease: is there an intimate nexus?

INTRODUCTION Various studies report increased risk of erectile dysfunction (ED) in men with cardiovascular (CV) disease and postulate an intimate nexus between the two conditions. AIM To examine the association of ED with CV risk factors and disease in a population-based cross-sectional observational study conducted in Western Australia (WA). Method. Postal questionnaires were sent to randomly selected age-stratified male population samples obtained from the WA Electoral Roll. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES In addition to items covering sociodemographic and self-reported clinical information, the 5-item International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF-5) was used. RESULTS Of the 1,580 participants, the ages of 1,514 were known and ranged from 20 to 99 years (mean 57.9, median 59.1, standard deviation 18.5). CV risk factors and disease were more prevalent with increasing age and among participants with ED and severe ED. The age-adjusted odds of ED were significantly higher among participants with hypertension (odds ratio [OR] 1.47; 95% confidence intervals [CI] 1.05, 2.07), ischemic heart disease (OR 1.80; 95% CI 1.10, 2.94), and stroke (OR 3.30; 95% CI 1.22, 8.88), and with these conditions and peripheral arterial disease grouped together as CV disease (OR 1.85; 95% CI 1.34, 2.56). Many participants with hyperlipidemia were receiving treatment, and the age-adjusted odds for ED were not significantly higher. The age-adjusted odds of ED among participants with diabetes mellitus were 2.76 (95% CI 1.52, 5.00), and were 3.21 (95% CI 1.03, 10.05) when hypertension and hyperlipidemia were also present. CONCLUSIONS The findings support the postulated intimate nexus between ED and CV disease. The adverse effects of age and CV risk factors and disease on erectile function compound each other. The socioeconomic, epidemiologic, and clinical implications are immense.
High prevalence of mutant KRAS in circulating exosome-derived DNA from early-stage pancreatic cancer patients

Background Exosomes arise from viable cancer cells and may reflect a different biology than circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA) shed from dying tissues. We compare exosome-derived DNA (exoDNA) to cfDNA in liquid biopsies of patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). Patients and methods Patient samples were obtained between 2003 and 2010, with clinically annotated follow up to 2015. Droplet digital PCR was performed on exoDNA and cfDNA for sensitive detection of KRAS mutants at codons 12/13. A cumulative series of 263 individuals were studied, including a discovery cohort of 142 individuals: 68 PDAC patients of all stages; 20 PDAC patients initially staged with localized disease, with blood drawn after resection for curative intent; and 54 age-matched healthy controls. A validation cohort of 121 individuals (39 cancer patients and 82 healthy controls) was studied to validate KRAS detection rates in early-stage PDAC patients. Primary outcome was circulating KRAS status as detected by droplet digital PCR. Secondary outcomes were disease-free and overall survival. Results KRAS mutations in exoDNA, were identified in 7.4%, 66.7%, 80%, and 85% of age-matched controls, localized, locally advanced, and metastatic PDAC patients, respectively. Comparatively, mutant KRAS cfDNA was detected in 14.8%, 45.5%, 30.8%, and 57.9% of these individuals. Higher exoKRAS MAFs were associated with decreased disease-free survival in patients with localized disease. In the validation cohort, mutant KRAS exoDNA was detected in 43.6% of early-stage PDAC patients and 20% of healthy controls. Conclusions Exosomes are a distinct source of tumor DNA that may be complementary to other liquid biopsy DNA sources. A higher percentage of patients with localized PDAC exhibited detectable KRAS mutations in exoDNA than previously reported for cfDNA. A substantial minority of healthy samples demonstrated mutant KRAS in circulation, dictating careful consideration and application of liquid biopsy findings, which may limit its utility as a broad cancer-screening method.
Immunological Stability of Clostridium difficile Toxins in Clinical Specimens

OBJECTIVE The impact of storage on stability and detection of Clostridium difficile toxins in feces is poorly understood. The objective of this study was to investigate the immunological stability of C. difficile toxins in clinical stool specimens under different storage conditions by evaluating this stability using toxin detection by enzyme immunoassay (EIA). METHODS Stool specimens positive for C. difficile infection (CDI) by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) were used for EIA testing with the C. difficile Tox A/B II kit. The EIA-positive specimens were stored aerobically under refrigerated (4–10°C) and frozen (−30°C and −80°C) conditions. Measurement of toxin quantity was conducting using optical density (OD) on days 0, 14, 30, 60, 90, and 120 of storage. RESULTS Clostridium difficile toxins demonstrated good detection in undiluted stool specimens by EIA up to 120 days of storage. Good detection of the toxins was observed in diluted samples at refrigerated and −80°C temperatures. Dilution detrimentally affected toxin detection at −30°C. CONCLUSION Storage of undiluted clinical stool specimens at refrigerated, −30°C, and −80°C temperatures for up to 120 days has no discernible effect on the immunological stability of C. difficile cytotoxins. However, storage at −30°C has a detrimental effect on C. difficile toxin stability in diluted specimens. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2018;39:434–438
Mechanisms of cardioembolic stroke revisited. Atrial cardiopathy.

There has been only moderate progress in our understanding of potential relation between atrial arrhythmia and stroke over years. Current approach is still based on a hypothesis that atrial contractile dysfunction due to fibrillation causes blood stasis, which accompanied by other factors acting together as Virchow’s triad produces thrombus and embolism to the brain. In this review we would like to discuss a relatively new concept of atrial cardiopathy. It assumes that risk of thromboembolism is increased regardless of atrial rhythm, being largely driven by atrial tissue abnormalities, such as fibrosis, endothelial and myocytes dysfunction and atrial dilatation. In this perspective AF may be a potential warning sign but not always a cause of thromboembolism. Atrial cardiopathy may cause thromboembolism even in the absence of AF and this approach is more neurologically-oriented. Another emerging issue is atrial cardiomyopathy defined as “any complex of structural, architectural, contractile or electrophysiological changes affecting the atria with the potential to produce clinically relevant manifestation”.
Virtual Immersive Reality for Stated Preference Travel Behavior Experiments: A Case Study of Autonomous Vehicles on Urban Roads

Stated preference experiments have been criticized for lack of realism. This issue is particularly visible when the scenario does not have a well understood prior reference, as in the case of research into demand for autonomous vehicles. The paper presents Virtual Immersive Reality Environment (VIRE), which is capable of developing highly realistic, immersive, and interactive choice scenarios. We demonstrate the use of VIRE in researching pedestrian preferences related to autonomous vehicles and associated infrastructure changes on urban streets in Montréal, Canada. The results are compared with predominantly used approaches: text-only and visual aid. We show that VIRE results in respondents having better understanding of the scenario and it yields more consistent results.