Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Animal Toxins as Therapeutic Tools to Treat Neurodegenerative Diseases

Neurodegenerative diseases affect millions of individuals worldwide. So far, no disease-modifying drug is available to treat patients, making the search for effective drugs an urgent need. Neurodegeneration is triggered by the activation of several cellular processes, including oxidative stress, mitochondrial impairment, neuroinflammation, aging, aggregate formation, glutamatergic excitotoxicity, and apoptosis. Therefore, many research groups aim to identify drugs that may inhibit one or more of these events leading to neuronal cell death. Venoms are fruitful natural sources of new molecules, which have been relentlessly enhanced by evolution through natural selection. Several studies indicate that venom components can exhibit selectivity and affinity for a wide variety of targets in mammalian systems. For instance, an expressive number of natural peptides identified in venoms from animals, such as snakes, scorpions, bees, and spiders, were shown to lessen inflammation, regulate glutamate release, modify neurotransmitter levels, block ion channel activation, decrease the number of protein aggregates, and increase the levels of neuroprotective factors. Thus, these venom components hold potential as therapeutic tools to slow or even halt neurodegeneration. However, there are many technological issues to overcome, as venom peptides are hard to obtain and characterize and the amount obtained from natural sources is insufficient to perform all the necessary experiments and tests. Fortunately, technological improvements regarding heterologous protein expression, as well as peptide chemical synthesis will help to provide enough quantities and allow chemical and pharmacological enhancements of these natural occurring compounds. Thus, the main focus of this review is to highlight the most promising studies evaluating animal toxins as therapeutic tools to treat a wide variety of neurodegenerative conditions, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, brain ischemia, glaucoma, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and multiple sclerosis.
Cross-age face recognition using reference coding with kernel direct discriminant analysis

While face recognition methods have received wide application for decades, the aging process on human face could disable the original method. In this paper, we present a modification on a cross-age face recognition model which utilizes a reference set arranged in time order to eliminate the age difference of input images. In the proposed method, we utilize the identity information of the gallery set to perform discriminative analysis, which can further discriminate between persons in a subspace after the reference coding. Compared with classical cross-age reference coding method, our experiments on Cross-age Celebrity Dataset (CACD) acquire a 35% improvement in recognition rate.
RNA polymerase II is released from the DNA template during transcription-coupled repair in mammalian cells

In mammalian cells, bulky DNA adducts located in the template but not the coding strand of genes block elongation by RNA polymerase II (RNAPII). The blocked RNAPII targets these transcription-blocking adducts to undergo more rapid excision repair than adducts located elsewhere in the genome. In excision repair, coupled incisions are made in the damaged DNA strand on both sides of the adduct. The fate of RNAPII in the course of this transcription-coupled repair (TCR) pathway is unclear. To address the fate of RNAPII, we used methods that control transcription to initiate a discrete “wave” of elongation complexes. Analyzing genome-wide transcription and repair by next-generation sequencing, we identified locations of elongation complexes and transcription-repair coupling events in genes throughout the genome. Using UV-exposed human skin fibroblasts, we found that, at the dose used, a single wave of elongation complexes was blocked within the first 25 kb of genes. TCR occurred where the elongation complexes were blocked, and repair was associated with the dissociation of these complexes. These results indicate that individual elongation complexes do not engage in multiple rounds of TCR with successive lesions. Our results are consistent with a model in which RNAPII is dissociated after the dual incision of the transcription-blocking lesion, perhaps by Cockayne syndrome group B translocase, or during the synthesis of a repair patch.
Inflammation and Fibrosis in Perirenal Adipose Tissue of Patients With Aldosterone-Producing Adenoma

The prevalence of primary aldosteronism is much higher than previously thought. Recent studies have shown that primary aldosteronism is related to a higher risk of cardiovascular events. However, the underlying mechanism is not yet clear. Here we investigate the characteristics, including inflammation, fibrosis, and adipokine expression, of adipose tissues from different deposits in patients with aldosterone-producing adenoma (APA). Inflammation and fibrosis changes were evaluated in perirenal and subcutaneous adipose tissues obtained from patients with APA (n = 16), normotension (NT; n = 10), and essential hypertension (EH; n = 5) undergoing laparoscopic surgery. We also evaluated the effect of aldosterone in isolated human perirenal adipose tissue stromal vascular fraction (SVF) cells and investigated the effect of aldosterone in mouse 3T3-L1 and brown preadipocytes. Compared with the EH group, significantly higher levels of interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor-α messenger RNA (mRNA) and protein were observed in perirenal adipose tissue of patients with APA. Expression of genes related to fibrosis and adipogenesis in perirenal adipose tissue was notably higher in patients with APA than in patients with NT and EH. Aldosterone significantly induced IL-6 and fibrosis gene mRNA expression in differentiated SVF cells. Aldosterone treatment enhanced mRNA expression of genes associated with inflammation and fibrosis and stimulated differentiation of 3T3-L1 and brown preadipocytes. In conclusion, these data indicate that high aldosterone in patients with APA may induce perirenal adipose tissue dysfunction and lead to inflammation and fibrosis, which may be involved in the high risk of cardiovascular events observed in patients with primary aldosteronism.
A snapshot of remarkable potential of mg–based materials as implants

Submit Manuscript | http://medcraveonline.com permanent implants in human body for more than a century [1,2]. This stems from their ability to exhibit good strength, ductility and fracture toughness which holistically remain beyond the capabilities of polymers and ceramics. For permanent implant applications such as knee and hip replacements, we need the materials to be inert means targeting the ones with minimum or extremely low corrosion rates and high wear resistance. Moreover, the corrosion products have to be non-toxic and the metal ions/ debris that is generated should also lead to appropriate host response. Titanium and steels are commonly used as implant materials for such purposes. Titanium is more stable in body but is expensive while steels are cheaper but remains comparatively more reactive when compared to titanium. Co-Cr alloys were also attempted but led to adverse host response and acute toxicity and are being currently avoided by research community [3-5]. A list of commonly used metallic materials as implants is shown in Table 1 [6]. Volume 2 Issue 1 2018
Lichen planopilaris and frontal fibrosing alopecia cannot be differentiated by histopathology

Lichen planopilaris (LPP) and frontal fibrosing alopecia (FFA) represent 2 entities that cause primary cicatricial alopecia. These entities are clinically different; nevertheless, the literature suggests that FFA represents a form of LPP. The main argument in support of this hypothesis is that previous studies comparing the histologic findings have not found obvious differences between these diseases.
Short-Term Treatment With Rapamycin and Dietary Restriction Have Overlapping and Distinctive Effects in Young Mice

Because rapamycin, an inhibitor of the nutrient sensor mammalian target of rapamycin, and dietary restriction both increase life span of mice, it has been hypothesized that they act through similar mechanisms. To test this hypothesis, we compared various biological parameters in dietary restriction mice (40% food restriction) and mice fed rapamycin (14 ppm). Both treatments led to a significant reduction in mammalian target of rapamycin signaling and a corresponding increase in autophagy. However, we observed striking differences in fat mass, insulin sensitivity, and expression of cell cycle and sirtuin genes in mice fed rapamycin compared with dietary restriction. Thus, although both treatments lead to significant downregulation of mammalian target of rapamycin signaling, these two manipulations have quite different effects on other physiological functions suggesting that they might increase life span through a common pathway as well as pathways that are altered differently by dietary restriction and rapamycin.
Relapse-free cure from multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in Germany

Multidrug-resistant (MDR) tuberculosis (TB), defined by bacillary resistance against rifampicin and isoniazid, has been identified as a global threat to mankind [1]. According to the latest report by the European Centres for Disease Prevention and Control, and World Health Organization (WHO) regional office for Europe, only approximately 50% of MDR-TB patients in Europe reach favourable treatment outcomes [2]. Successful treatment outcomes are achieved for less than 25% of patients with extensively drug-resistant (XDR)-TB (MDR plus resistance against a least one fluoroquinolone and one second-line injectable drug) in the European Union/European Economic Area Countries [2]. Under optimal conditions we observed similar rates of relapse-free cure in patients with M/XDR-TB and non-M/XDR-TB http://ow.ly/SRvd30hPu73
Analysis of the Transistor Tetrode-Based Determination of the Base Resistance Components of Bipolar Transistors—A Review

The base series resistance is a very important parameter for bipolar transistors. In this paper, methods for its determination from tetrode structures are analyzed and quantitatively evaluated in terms of their accuracy and suitability for advanced SiGe HBTs. The accuracy of the methods is evaluated based on 2-D device simulation, thus allowing to clearly detect and explain the causes for observed inaccuracies or failures of a method. The methods are then applied to experimental data. It is shown that one of the methods yields reliable and accurate results over a wide bias range, while the other two are limited either in accuracy or to ${V}_{\text {CE}} = {0}\,\,\text {V}$ .
Influence of a mixing solvent with tetrahydrofuran and N,N‐dimethylformamide on electrospun poly(vinyl chloride) nonwoven mats

We evaluated the effects of the solvent composition with respect to the solution concentration, applied electric field, and tip-to-collector distance on the morphology of electrospun poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) fibers. The solvent volume ratio was strongly correlated with the diameter of the electrospun fibers with respect to the other processing parameters. Electrospun PVC fibers dissolved in tetrahydrofuran (THF) had diameters ranging from 500 nm to 6 μm; those dissolved in N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF) had an average diameter of 200 nm. The diameters of the electrospun fibers were obtained from narrow to broad distributions with the solvent composition. Also, the diameters of fibers electrospun from a mixed solvent of THF and DMF were less than 1 μm. The mechanical properties of electrospun PVC nonwoven mats depended on the fiber orientation and linear velocity of the drum surface. With increasing linear velocity of the drum surface, electrospun PVC fibers were arranged toward the machine direction, and the dimensions of the spiral path were shorter. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 40: 2259–2268, 2002
Effects of REM sleep restriction during pregnancy on rodent maternal behavior.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effects of sleep restriction during pregnancy on maternal care and maternal aggression in a rodent model. METHODS Twenty-three female Wistar rats were assigned to one of two groups: control (n=12) or sleep restriction (n=11) during the entire pregnancy. At the fifth postpartum day, the animals were subjected to the resident-intruder paradigm and to the pup retrieval test. RESULTS Sleep restriction during pregnancy had no direct effects on maternal care. Regarding aggressive behavior, defensive aggression was increased by sleep loss, with a lower responsiveness threshold to hostile environmental stimuli. Sleep deprivation during gestation also reduced self-grooming behavior. CONCLUSION Taking increased self-grooming as a behavioral correlate of anxiety in rodents, this study provides evidence that lactating dams were in a condition of reduced anxiety. From an adaptive perspective, this pattern of stress response may function to ensure proper maternal behavior, thereby guaranteeing the survival and viability of the litter. Under a translational perspective, the present article confronts the importance of biological and adaptive features to rodent maternal behavior with the relevance of sociocultural factors to the human mother-infant relationship and to the onset of postpartum depression.
Effects of lattice defects on indentation-induced plasticity initiation behavior in metals

Plasticity initiation behavior that appears as a pop-in phenomenon on a loading process during indentation-induced deformation was investigated to reveal the effects of lattice defects such as grain boundary and solute element for various metallic materials including Fe alloys through instrumented nanoindentation techniques. The critical load P _c of pop-in on a loading process is lower in the vicinity of the grain boundary than in the grain interior, but the relative hardness of the boundary is equal to or greater than that in grain interior. In-solution Si produces a larger increase in the P _c for both the grain boundary and the grain interior in the Fe–Si alloy than in the interstitial-free steel. The maximum shear stress corresponding to the P _c underneath the indenter is directly proportional to the shear modulus in single crystals with various crystallographic structures. Microstructural effects on the P _ c are considered based on some dislocation models.
Ultrasonic Characterization of Thermal Distribution in Vicinity for a Cylindrical Thermal Lesion in a Biological Tissue

The study considers an ultrasonic characterization on the thermal distribution in vicinity for a cylindrical thermal lesion formed in a biological tissue. The cylindrical heat source is made of a standard nichrome wire with the diameter of 1 mm. The wire was inserted inside a pork muscle housed in a cuboidal container made of perspex. The heat is conducted radially outwards from the wire to the surrounding tissue. Thermal distribution near the heated wire was predicted by numerically solving a bioheat transfer function using FemLab (Comsol, Inc.). As the wire temperature was raised from the environmental temperature 20 °C to more than 80 °C in steps of 5 °C, ultrasonic B-scan images were acquired at each temperature. We assessed the feasibility of detecting the lesion boundary using changes in echogenicity, changes in centroid frequency due to attenuation, tissue moving characteristics resulting from changes in the speed of sound, and elastograms. These observations will be of use in improving ultrasonic monitoring and guiding in HIFU surgery and thermo-therapeutic process in general.
Comparing Asian American Women's Knowledge, Self-Efficacy, and Perceived Risk of Heart Attack to Other Racial and Ethnic Groups: The mPED Trial.

OBJECTIVE The aim of the study was to compare knowledge and awareness of heart attacks/heart disease and perceived risk for future heart attack in Asian/Pacific Islander women, compared to other racial and ethnic groups. MATERIALS AND METHODS In this cross-sectional study, 318 women enrolled in a mobile phone-based physical activity education trial were analyzed. Heart attack knowledge, self-efficacy for recognizing and responding to heart attack symptoms, and perceived risk for a future heart attack were measured. Analyses were conducted using logistic, proportional odds, and linear regression models, depending on the outcome and adjusting for age. Pairwise differences between Asian/Pacific Islanders and the other four groups were assessed using a Bonferroni correction (p < 0.0125). RESULTS Asian/Pacific Islander women had significantly lower total scores for knowledge of heart attack and self-efficacy for heart attack recognition and care seeking behavior compared to the Caucasian women (p = 0.001 and p = 0.002, respectively). However, perceived risk did not differ among the groups. Forty-six percent of the Asian American women, compared to 25% of Caucasian women, falsely believed "breast cancer is the number one cause of death for women (p = 0.002). " In addition, Asian/Pacific Islander women were less likely to report "arm pain, numbness, tingling, or radiating" as one of the heart attack symptoms compared to the Caucasian and the multiracial group (34%, 63% [p < 0.001], and 66% [p = 0.004], respectively). CONCLUSIONS These findings highlight the urgent need to develop effective, tailored campaigns to close the knowledge gap between Asian/Pacific Islander women and Caucasian women.
The reaction between a TiNi shape memory thin film and silicon

The reaction between shape-memory TiNi thin films and silicon has been characterized by conventional, analytical, and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. A reaction layer is formed during the 525 °C post-deposition crystallization anneal of the sputter-deposited TiNi, and consists of several phases: Ti_2Ni, a nickel silicide, and a ternary titanium nickel silicide. The mechanism for the interlayer formation is discussed.
Direct costs of severe cutaneous adverse reactions in a tertiary hospital in Korea

Background/Aims There are only a few reports on the direct costs of severe cutaneous adverse reactions (SCARs), including drug reaction with eosinophilia and systemic symptoms (DRESS), Stevens-Johnson syndrome (SJS), and toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN), despite the tremendous negative impact these reactions can have on patients. We estimated the direct costs of treating SCARs. Methods Patients admitted to a tertiary teaching hospital for the treatment of SCARs from January 1, 2005 to December 31, 2010 were included. Patients who had experienced SCARs during their admission for other medical conditions were excluded. The direct costs of hospitalization and outpatient department visits were collected. Inpatient and outpatient care costs were calculated, and factors affecting inpatient care costs were analyzed. Results The total healthcare cost for the management of 73 SCAR patients (36 with DRESS, 21 with SJS, and 16 with TEN) was 752,067 US dollars (USD). Most of the costs were spent on inpatient care (703,832 USD). The median inpatient care cost per person was 3,720 (range, 1,133 to 107,490) USD for DRESS, 4,457 (range, 1,224 to 21,428) USD for SJS, and 8,061 (range, 1,127 to 52,220) USD for TEN. Longer hospitalization significantly increased the inpatient care costs of the patients with DRESS (by 428 USD [range, 395 to 461] per day). Longer hospitalization and death significantly increased the inpatient care costs of the patients with SJS/TEN (179 USD [range, 148 to 210] per day and an additional 14,425 USD [range, 9,513 to 19,337] for the deceased). Conclusions The management of SCARs required considerable direct medical costs. SCARs are not only a health problem but also a significant financial burden for the affected individuals.
Age group classification in the wild with deep RoR architecture

Automatically predicting age group from face images acquired in unconstrained conditions is an important and challenging task in many real-world applications. Nevertheless, the conventional methods with manually-designed features on in-the-wild benchmarks are unsatisfactory because of incompetency to tackle large variations in unconstrained images. In this paper, we propose a new CNN based method for age group classification leveraging Residual Networks of Residual Networks (RoR), which exhibits better optimization ability for age group classification than other CNN architectures. Moreover, two modest mechanisms based on observation of the characteristics of age group are presented to further improve the performance of age estimation. Our experiments illustrate the effectiveness of RoR method for age estimation in the wild, where it achieves better performance than other CNN methods. Finally, the Pre-RoR-58+SD with two mechanisms achieves new state-of-the-art results on Adience benchmark.
Structural and temperature variations during rolling of aluminium slabs

AbstractA finite-difference technique has been developed to predict the temperature profile during the rolling of aluminium slabs and experimental results are presented which show substantial agreement with the theory. It is shown that such variations affect the mechanisms determining the development of structure and that structural variations exist throughout the slabs on exit from the roll gap. Qualitatively, these variations agree with predicted variations in temperature-compensated strain rate. The effect of Mg as an alloying element is to reduce the possibility of formation of equiaxed subgrains resulting in an elongated substructure.
Health Impact of PM10, PM2.5 and Black Carbon Exposure Due to Different Source Sectors in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Umea, Sweden

The most important anthropogenic sources of primary particulate matter (PM) in ambient air in Europe are exhaust and non-exhaust emissions from road traffic and combustion of solid biomass. There is convincing evidence that PM, almost regardless of source, has detrimental health effects. An important issue in health impact assessments is what metric, indicator and exposure-response function to use for different types of PM. The aim of this study is to describe sectorial contributions to PM exposure and related premature mortality for three Swedish cities: Gothenburg, Stockholm and Umea. Exposure is calculated with high spatial resolution using atmospheric dispersion models. Attributed premature mortality is calculated separately for the main local sources and the contribution from long-range transport (LRT), applying different relative risks. In general, the main part of the exposure is due to LRT, while for black carbon, the local sources are equally or more important. The major part of the premature deaths is in our assessment related to local emissions, with road traffic and residential wood combustion having the largest impact. This emphasizes the importance to resolve within-city concentration gradients when assessing exposure. It also implies that control actions on local PM emissions have a strong potential in abatement strategies.
Spartan deficiency causes accumulation of Topoisomerase 1 cleavage complexes and tumorigenesis

Abstract Germline mutations in SPRTN cause Ruijs–Aalfs syndrome (RJALS), a disorder characterized by genome instability, progeria and early onset hepatocellular carcinoma. Spartan, the protein encoded by SPRTN, is a nuclear metalloprotease that is involved in the repair of DNA–protein crosslinks (DPCs). Although Sprtn hypomorphic mice recapitulate key progeroid phenotypes of RJALS, whether this model expressing low amounts of Spartan is prone to DPC repair defects and spontaneous tumors is unknown. Here, we showed that the livers of Sprtn hypomorphic mice accumulate DPCs containing Topoisomerase 1 covalently linked to DNA. Furthermore, these mice exhibited DNA damage, aneuploidy and spontaneous tumorigenesis in the liver. Collectively, these findings provide evidence that partial loss of Spartan impairs DPC repair and tumor suppression.