Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Macrophage Colony Stimulating Factor-Induced Macrophage Differentiation Influences Myotube Elongation

Background: Unaccustomed exercise, high-intensity dynamic sports activities, or the resumption of normal weight-bearing after a period of disuse can induce skeletal muscle injury, which activates an inflammatory response followed by muscle regeneration. Specific subsets of macrophages are involved in muscle regeneration. But the exact role of macrophage differentiation during muscle regeneration remains to be elucidated. Objective: The objective of the study was to examine the effect of macrophage colony stimulating factor (M-CSF)-differentiated, lipopolysaccharides (LPS)-stimulated-macrophage-conditioned medium on muscle-cell proliferation, fusion, and elongation, which are key events during muscle regeneration and myogenesis. Method: Murine C2C12 myoblasts were cultured in conditioned medium obtained from PU5-1R macrophages that were (a) undifferentiated, unstimulated; (b) M-CSF-differentiated, unstimulated; (c) undifferentiated, LPS-stimulated; or (d) M-CSF-differentiated, LPS-stimulated. Myoblast proliferation ratio, nuclei number, and length were measured. Results: C2C12 cells cultured in conditioned medium from M-CSF-differentiated, LPS-stimulated macrophages had significantly more nuclei and greater length than cells cultured in conditioned medium from undifferentiated, LPS-stimulated macrophages. Dilution and denaturization of the M-CSF-differentiated, LPS-stimulated-macrophage medium prevented a marked increase in C2C12 nuclei number and length. However, the C2C12 myoblast proliferation ratio was significantly greater in conditioned medium from undifferentiated, LPS-stimulated macrophages than in conditioned medium from M-CSF-differentiated, LPS-stimulated macrophages. Conclusions: M-CSF-differentiated, LPS-stimulated macrophages may influence myogenesis and the early and terminal stages of muscle regeneration. This knowledge may aid in developing therapies that will directly expedite muscle repair and lead to faster rehabilitation and reduced rehabilitation costs.
Behavioural Finance Or Efficient Market: Which Is Right ?

Our main is to show that Behavioural Fi- nance and Efficient Market arguments may coincide by using a simple anomaly model. Namely, we con- sider two identical assets A and B which have not the same price at any time. The asset price A reflects always its fundamental value while asset price B may be mispriced. We show that the mispricing for asset price B can be interpreted as a chance or as a limit of arbitrage explaining why it is difficult to distinguish between the two arguments. So this result gives a reason to find methods which try to reconcile the two theories by using dynamic models.
Role for Streptococcal Collagen-Like Protein 1 in M1T1 Group A Streptococcus Resistance to Neutrophil Extracellular Traps

ABSTRACT Streptococcal collagen-like protein 1 (Scl-1) is one of the most highly expressed proteins in the invasive M1T1 serotype group A Streptococcus (GAS), a globally disseminated clone associated with higher risk of severe invasive infections. Previous studies using recombinant Scl-1 protein suggested a role in cell attachment and binding and inhibition of serum proteins. Here, we studied the contribution of Scl-1 to the virulence of the M1T1 clone in the physiological context of the live bacterium by generating an isogenic strain lacking the scl-1 gene. Upon subcutaneous infection in mice, wild-type bacteria induced larger lesions than the Δscl mutant. However, loss of Scl-1 did not alter bacterial adherence to or invasion of skin keratinocytes. We found instead that Scl-1 plays a critical role in GAS resistance to human and murine phagocytic cells, allowing the bacteria to persist at the site of infection. Phenotypic analyses demonstrated that Scl-1 mediates bacterial survival in neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) and protects GAS from antimicrobial peptides found within the NETs. Additionally, Scl-1 interferes with myeloperoxidase (MPO) release, a prerequisite for NET production, thereby suppressing NET formation. We conclude that Scl-1 is a virulence determinant in the M1T1 GAS clone, allowing GAS to subvert innate immune functions that are critical in clearing bacterial infections.
Novel Methods in Quantum Error Correction

Quantum error correction is the backbone of fault-tolerant quantum computation, a necessary requirement for any large scale quantum computer. The fault-tolerance threshold theorem has long been a target for experimental precision, allowing for the possibility of reducing logical error rates to arbitrarily low levels without excessive overhead. While there are many promising fault-tolerant architectures, the path towards the most practical fault-tolerant scheme is far from decided and may vary for differing physical models. This thesis proposes new schemes for universal fault-tolerant quantum computation in both the concatenated and topological code settings. Through the concatenation of two different error correcting codes, a set of universal fault-tolerant gates can be obtained without requiring the need for magic state distillation. A lower bound of 1.28× 10−3 for the fault-tolerance threshold under circuit level depolarizing noise is obtained. Additionally, stacked codes are proposed as a means to simulate the action of a 3D topological code in 2D, allowing for the application of a universal set of transversal operations. While fault-tolerant, unfortunately the scheme does not exhibit a threshold due to the decreasing pseudo-threshold with growing code distance, yet points to potential interesting avenues for fault-tolerant computation in 2D without distillation. One of the primary avenues to constructing fault-tolerant logical operations is through transversal operations. In this thesis, the set of single qubit logical gates that can be implemented transversally are characterized and determined to all belong to the Clifford hierarchy. Moreover, any diagonal two-qubit operation that can be applied transversally must belong to the same level of the Clifford hierarchy as the set of gates that can be implemented in the single-qubit case. The opposite to quantum error correction is privacy, where the output of a channel is disguised from its input. The two are fundamentally related through the complementary channel construction. This thesis presents a new class of private quantum channels, expanding the existing class beyond a seemingly fundamental restriction. This yields interesting insights into the structure of quantum information and the leaking of information to external environments. Additionally, the duality is only recovered when extending the complementary channel to sufficiently high environmental dimension. Finally, the error properties of bucket brigade quantum Random Access Memory (qRAM) are assessed. It is determined that using the bucket brigade qRAM architecture for the running of Grover’s algorithm necessitates reducing the error rate of the individual components to exponentially small levels for an exponential sized memory. As such, fault-tolerant architectures will likely play an essential role in the construction of such computing primitives.
Dynamics of Defect Motion in Nematic Liquid Crystal Flow: Modeling and Numerical Simulation

The annihilation of a hedgehog-antihedgehog pair in hydrodynamics of (elastically isotropic) nematic liquid crystal materials is modeled using the Ericksen-Leslie theory which results in a nonlinear system for the flow velocity field and liquid crystal director field coupled through the transport of the directional order parameter and the induced elastic stress. An ecient and accurate numerical scheme is presented and implemented for this coupled nonlinear system in an axi-symmetric domain. Numerical simulations of annihilation of a hedgehog-antihedgehog pair with dierent types of transport are presented. In particular, it is shown that the stretching parameter in the transport equation contributes to the symmetry breaking of the pair’s moving speed during the dynamics of annihilation.
Climatic and cultural changes in the west Congo Basin forests over the past 5000 years

Central Africa includes the world's second largest rainforest block. The ecology of the region remains poorly understood, as does its vegetation and archaeological history. However, over the past 20 years, multidisciplinary scientific programmes have enhanced knowledge of old human presence and palaeoenvironments in the forestry block of Central Africa. This first regional synthesis documents significant cultural changes over the past five millennia and describes how they are linked to climate. It is now well documented that climatic conditions in the African tropics underwent significant changes throughout this period and here we demonstrate that corresponding shifts in human demography have had a strong influence on the forests. The most influential event was the decline of the strong African monsoon in the Late Holocene, resulting in serious disturbance of the forest block around 3500 BP. During the same period, populations from the north settled in the forest zone; they mastered new technologies such as pottery and fabrication of polished stone tools, and seem to have practised agriculture. The opening up of forests from 2500 BP favoured the arrival of metallurgist populations that impacted the forest. During this long period (2500–1400 BP), a remarkable increase of archaeological sites is an indication of a demographic explosion of metallurgist populations. Paradoxically, we have found evidence of pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) cultivation in the forest around 2200 BP, implying a more arid context. While Early Iron Age sites (prior to 1400 BP) and recent pre-colonial sites (two to eight centuries BP) are abundant, the period between 1600 and 1000 BP is characterized by a sharp decrease in human settlements, with a population crash between 1300 and 1000 BP over a large part of Central Africa. It is only in the eleventh century that new populations of metallurgists settled into the forest block. In this paper, we analyse the spatial and temporal distribution of 328 archaeological sites that have been reliably radiocarbon dated. The results allow us to piece together changes in the relationships between human populations and the environments in which they lived. On this basis, we discuss interactions between humans, climate and vegetation during the past five millennia and the implications of the absence of people from the landscape over three centuries. We go on to discuss modern vegetation patterns and African forest conservation in the light of these events.
High-Resolution Imaging of Parafoveal Cones in Different Stages of Diabetic Retinopathy Using Adaptive Optics Fundus Camera

Purpose To assess cone density as a marker of early signs of retinopathy in patients with type II diabetes mellitus. Methods An adaptive optics (AO) retinal camera (rtx1™; Imagine Eyes, Orsay, France) was used to acquire images of parafoveal cones from patients with type II diabetes mellitus with or without retinopathy and from healthy controls with no known systemic or ocular disease. Cone mosaic was captured at 0° and 2°eccentricities along the horizontal and vertical meridians. The density of the parafoveal cones was calculated within 100×100-μm squares located at 500-μm from the foveal center along the orthogonal meridians. Manual corrections of the automated counting were then performed by 2 masked graders. Cone density measurements were evaluated with ANOVA that consisted of one between-subjects factor, stage of retinopathy and the within-subject factors. The ANOVA model included a complex covariance structure to account for correlations between the levels of the within-subject factors. Results Ten healthy participants (20 eyes) and 25 patients (29 eyes) with type II diabetes mellitus were recruited in the study. The mean (± standard deviation [SD]) age of the healthy participants (Control group), patients with diabetes without retinopathy (No DR group), and patients with diabetic retinopathy (DR group) was 55 ± 8, 53 ± 8, and 52 ± 9 years, respectively. The cone density was significantly lower in the moderate nonproliferative diabetic retinopathy (NPDR) and severe NPDR/proliferative DR groups compared to the Control, No DR, and mild NPDR groups (P < 0.05). No correlation was found between cone density and the level of hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) or the duration of diabetes. Conclusions The extent of photoreceptor loss on AO imaging may correlate positively with severity of DR in patients with type II diabetes mellitus. Photoreceptor loss may be more pronounced among patients with advanced stages of DR due to higher risk of macular edema and its sequelae.
Deriving the Nonlinear Cosmological Power Spectrum and Bispectrum from Analytic Dark Matter Halo Profiles and Mass Functions

We present an analytic model for the fully nonlinear two- and three-point correlation functions of the cosmological mass density field, and their Fourier transforms, the mass power spectrum and bispectrum. The model is based on physical properties of dark matter halos, with the three main model inputs being analytic halo density profiles, halo mass functions, and halo-halo spatial correlations, each of which has been well studied in the literature. We demonstrate that this new model can reproduce the power spectrum and bispectrum computed from cosmological simulations of both an n = -2 scale-free model and a low-density cold dark matter model. To enhance the dynamic range of these large simulations, we use the synthetic-halo replacement technique of Ma & Fry, in which the original halos with numerically softened cores are replaced by synthetic halos of realistic density profiles. At high wavenumbers, our model predicts a slope for the nonlinear power spectrum different from the often-used fitting formulas in the literature based on the stable-clustering assumption. Our model also predicts a three-point amplitude, Q, that is scale dependent, in contrast to the popular hierarchical clustering assumption. This model provides a rapid way to compute the mass power spectrum and bispectrum over all length scales where the input halo properties are valid. It also provides a physical interpretation of the clustering properties of matter in the universe.
Expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and assessment of microvascular density with CD34 as prognostic markers for endometrial carcinoma.

INTRODUCTION Angiogenesis plays an important role in the uncontrolled proliferation, invasion and metastasis of cancers. Increased microvessel density (MVD) is known to be associated with evolution and aggressiveness of the endometrial carcinoma (EC). The formation of new vessels depends on interactions between various hormones and growth factors. VEGF is one of the most known promoters of angiogenesis. MATERIAL AND METHODS In this study, we intend to evaluate the relation between MVD, the VEGF expression, and the clinicopathologic factors in patients with endometrial carcinoma. Formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue from 54 patients with EC were included. MVD was assessed with anti-CD34 in most intense areas of neovascularization. A semiquantitative scoring system was used to asses the intensity and degree of staining of VEGF. RESULTS MVD counts of patients with G1 EC was lower than patients with G2 and G3 EC. MVD counts of patients with stage I EC was lower as compared with stage II + III patients. There was no statistically significant difference between MVD counts in lymph node-negative and positive EC patients. The positive immunoreactions for VEGF were significantly more frequent in G1 EC in comparison to the patients with G2 + G3 EC. CONCLUSIONS MVD and VEGF are important indicators of a poor prognosis in patients with endometrial carcinoma.
Estimating Asymptomatic and Symptomatic Transmission of the COVID‐19 First Few Cases in Selenge Province, Mongolia

ABSTRACT Background Following the first locally transmitted case in Sukhbaatar soum, Selenge Province, we aimed to investigate the ultimate scale of the epidemic in the scenario of uninterrupted transmission. Methods This was a prospective case study following the locally modified WHO FFX cases generic protocol. A rapid response team collected data from November 14 to 29, 2020. We created a stochastic process to draw many transmission chains from this greater distribution to better understand and make inferences regarding the outbreak under investigation. Results The majority of the cases involved household transmissions (35, 52.2%), work transmissions (20, 29.9%), index (5, 7.5%), same apartment transmissions (2, 3.0%), school transmissions (2, 3.0%), and random contacts between individuals transmissions (1, 1.5%). The posterior means of the basic reproduction number of both the asymptomatic cases R0Asy and the presymptomatic cases R0Pre (1.35 [95% CrI 0.88–1.86] and 1.29 [95% CrI 0.67–2.10], respectively) were lower than that of the symptomatic cases (2.00 [95% Crl 1.38–2.76]). Conclusion Our study highlights the heterogeneity of COVID‐19 transmission across different symptom statuses and underscores the importance of early identification and isolation of symptomatic cases in disease control. Our approach, which combines detailed contact tracing data with advanced statistical methods, can be applied to other infectious diseases, facilitating a more nuanced understanding of disease transmission dynamics.
Spanish version of the Children's Ecological Behavior (CEB) scale.

BACKGROUND Children's pro-ecological behaviors are usually registered using scales based on the idea of a simple connection between attitudes and behaviors. However, this relationship seems to be more complicated. The Children's Ecological Behavior (CEB) Scale has been proposed as an alternative. Based on the Rasch model, it considers the different efforts needed to conduct a series of behaviors. This paper presents an improved adaptation of the CEB to Spanish population. METHOD We back-translated the CEB into Spanish, increased the number of behaviors and collected data from 6- to 12-year-olds, using a game format procedure. RESULTS The scale can detect differences in the effort needed to perform various behaviors. Children's pro-ecological attitudes and behaviors are positively related. No relationship was found between parents' and children's pro-ecological attitudes and behaviors. CONCLUSIONS The Spanish version of the CEB scale emerges as a reliable tool to measure children's pro-ecological behaviors.
Understanding the Interplay of Dietary Intake and Eating Behavior in Type 2 Diabetes

Diet and eating behavior both play a crucial role in the prevention and management of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). The main objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between dietary intake and eating behavior in a population of patients with T2DM. A cross-sectional study was performed using 416 patients with T2DM and their dietary intake and eating behavior were assessed with validated questionnaires. Women scored significantly higher than men for emotional and restrained eating (p < 0.001). Correlation analyses showed that emotional eaters consumed significantly more calories (r = 0.120, p = 0.014) and fat (r = 0.101, p = 0.039), as well as non-alcoholic beverages for women (r = 0.193, p = 0.003) and alcohol for men (r = 0.154, p = 0.038). Also, individuals who ate based on external cues consumed significantly more calories (r = 0.188, p < 0.001) and fat (r = 0.139, p = 0.005). These results demonstrate that eating behavior influences dietary intake. Understanding this relationship could optimize diabetes management and allow for more individualized nutritional guidance.
Reservoir quality and burial model evaluation by kinetic quartz and illite cementation modeling : Case study of Rotliegendes, north Germany

Silicate reaction kinetics provide a complimentary means to other established paleothermal indicators such as organic maturation for evaluating thermal reconstructions. In this study we combine the use of an organic maturation model with kinetic models for quartz and illite cementation to evaluate burial history scenarios for five sub-salt wells in lithologically and structurally complex Rotliegendes reservoirs. Models for organic maturation are most sensitive to maximum temperature and provide no direct evidence for the time of peak temperature or the overall duration of high temperatures. By contrast, the kinetics of quartz cementation are much more strongly influenced by the duration of exposure to high temperatures compared to organic indicators. Kinetic models for fibrous illite formation similarly are sensitive to time and temperature and provide predictions for the time of illite formation that can be compared with radiometric dates. Used collectively these organic and inorganic paleothermal indicators provide improved constraints on thermal evolution compared to conventional approaches. In this study we use these indicators to evaluate two alternative burial history scenarios. Scenario one incorporates a hypothesized Jurassic heatflow peak together with significant Late Jurassic deposition and subsequent erosion. Scenario two omits the Jurassic heat flow peak and omits the deposition and erosion of the Upper Jurassic. Although both of these scenarios are consistent with organic maturation data, scenario two leads to a far better match with quartz cement volumes and fibrous illite K/Ar dates.
Geo-Questionnaire: A Spatially Explicit Method for Eliciting Public Preferences, Behavioural Patterns, and Local Knowledge – An Overview

Abstract Geo-questionnaires have been used in a variety of domains to collect public preferences, behavioural patterns, and spatially-explicit local knowledge, for academic research and environmental and urban planning. This paper provides an overview of the method focusing on the methodical characteristics of geo-questionnaires including software functions, types of collected data, and techniques of data analysis. The paper also discusses broader methodical issues related to the practice of deploying geo-questionnaires such as respondent selection and recruitment, representativeness, and data quality. The discussion of methodical issues is followed by an overview of the recent examples of geo-questionnaire applications in Poland, and the discussion of socio-technical aspects of geo-questionnaire use in spatial planning.