Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Molecular and Physiological Study of Candida albicans by Quantitative Proteome Analysis

Candida albicans is one of the major pathogens that cause the serious infectious condition known as candidiasis. C. albicans was investigated by proteome analysis to systematically examine its virulence factors and to promote the development of novel pharmaceuticals against candidiasis. Here, we review quantitative time-course proteomics data related to C. albicans adaptation to fetal bovine serum, which were obtained using a nano-liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry system equipped with a long monolithic silica capillary column. It was revealed that C. albicans induced proteins involved in iron acquisition, detoxification of oxidative species, energy production, and pleiotropic stress tolerance. Native interactions of C. albicans with macrophages were also investigated with the same proteome-analysis system. Simultaneous analysis of C. albicans and macrophages without isolating individual living cells revealed an attractive strategy for studying the survival of C. albicans. Although those data were obtained by performing proteome analyses, the molecular physiology of C. albicans is discussed and trials related to pharmaceutical applications are also examined.
A case scenario study for the assessment of physician’s behavior in the management of COPD: the WHY study

Purpose COPD diagnosis is mainly based on clinical judgment of physicians. Physicians do not also refer to COPD guidelines in their daily practice. This study aimed to assess attitudes of physicians regarding COPD diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up and to identify the factors influencing physicians’ decisions in clinical practice. Patients and methods Fifty physicians were selected from 12 EuroStat NUTS 2 regions and asked to assess seven fictitious case scenarios. The following five scenarios described patients with COPD: Case Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) A-smoker and Case GOLD A-nonsmoker were previously undiagnosed patients presenting with dyspnea, Case GOLD D-smoker and GOLD B-exsmoker were COPD patients presenting with exacerbation, Case GOLD B-smoker was a previously diagnosed COPD patient with dyspnea in stable phase, Case asthma–COPD overlap syndrome, and Case obesity hypoventilation syndrome. Patients’ history, physical examination findings, pulmonary function tests, and X-ray images were prepared before the study by an experts’ committee and provided to the physicians upon their request, until they reached a final decision. The physicians completed a questionnaire including information about their clinical practices and institutions. Results According to the GOLD 2015 recommendations, of the physicians, 44% performed guideline-concordant diagnosis in the first five scenarios, who were all COPD patients, and 6% performed guideline-concordant diagnosis in all cases. There was a negative correlation between high workload and making a guideline-concordant diagnosis (P=0.038, rho =−0.417). Even when the physicians made a guideline-concordant diagnosis of COPD, only a minority (10%–22%) used the GOLD classification. Logistic regression analysis revealed that working in a tertiary health care center was a significant factor in favor of establishing a guideline-concordant diagnosis of COPD (P=0.029, OR =6.139 [95% CI: 1.20–31.32]). Conclusion Management of COPD patients in Turkey does not generally follow the GOLD criteria but is rather based on physicians’ clinical experience. Heavy workload appears to adversely affect the correctness of clinical decisions.
Program Analysis of Commodity IoT Applications for Security and Privacy

Recent advances in Internet of Things (IoT) have enabled myriad domains such as smart homes, personal monitoring devices, and enhanced manufacturing. IoT is now pervasive—new applications are being used in nearly every conceivable environment, which leads to the adoption of device-based interaction and automation. However, IoT has also raised issues about the security and privacy of these digitally augmented spaces. Program analysis is crucial in identifying those issues, yet the application and scope of program analysis in IoT remains largely unexplored by the technical community. In this article, we study privacy and security issues in IoT that require program-analysis techniques with an emphasis on identified attacks against these systems and defenses implemented so far. Based on a study of five IoT programming platforms, we identify the key insights that result from research efforts in both the program analysis and security communities and relate the efficacy of program-analysis techniques to security and privacy issues. We conclude by studying recent IoT analysis systems and exploring their implementations. Through these explorations, we highlight key challenges and opportunities in calibrating for the environments in which IoT systems will be used.
Control of DSTATCOM Using S-Transform

Stockwell-transform (S-transform) based operation and control for a distribution static compensator (DSTATCOM) is presented in this paper for power quality (PQ) improvement at point of common coupling (PCC). S-transform which is a timefrequency analysis technique is applied here to decompose the nonlinear load current to extract the harmonic components. The main active power element of load current has been estimated from the extracted fundamental component. The deviation of the reference active component from the actual load current is used to control the insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) of the voltage source converter (VSC). The VSC currents are added with load current for PQ improvement on grid side. A model of a DSTATCOM based on it is simulated using Simulink and Simpower tool boxes of MATLAB with linear and nonlinear loads configurations. Satisfactorily performance obtained on a developed laboratory prototype of DSTATCOM validates the projected control algorithm. The performance is compared and found to be better than the Dual-tree complex transform based algorithm under varying load conditions.
ARG1 single nucleotide polymorphisms rs2781666 and rs2781665 confer risk of Type 2 diabetes mellitus

Genetic polymorphisms mapped in the ARG1 locus (chr6:131894344-131905472) and their functional effects on type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) have not been thoroughly elucidated to date. The present study aimed to investigate an association between variant alleles at ARG1 locus and T2DM in patients. Two ARG1 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were characterized in a representative sample of 500 patients with T2DM and 500 healthy volunteers. Serum lipid profile was studied by spectrophotometric analysis, while serum arginase-1 concentrations were determined by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The regions, encompassing target SNPs (rs2781665 and rs2781666), were amplified by polymerase chain reaction and genotypes were assigned by restriction digestions. A statistically significant increase was observed in the serum hs-CRP and arginase-1 levels in the subjects with T2DM than in controls (P <0.0001; for each). The variant genotypes of rs2781666 and rs2781665 were significantly associated with T2DM when compared with controls (P< 0.0001). Moreover, type 2 diabetic patients showed higher frequencies of T allele at rs2781666 and rs2781665 compared to the controls (OR = 1.7; 95 % CI=1.31-2.13; P <0.0001, and OR = 1.9; 95 % CI=1.45-2.38; P <0.0001, respectively). Haplotype T-T (chr6: 131893247-131893559) mapped at rs2781665-A/T and rs2781666-G/T displays higher frequency in the subjects when compared to the healthy ethnically-matched control samples (P <0.0001). We wish to propose, the first ever observation to our knowledge that concluding high levels of arginase-1 and the ARG1 polymorphisms are possible causes to confer/augment the risk of T2DM in subjects originates in Pakistan.
Subjective well-being, religiosity and anxiety: a cross-sectional study applied to a sample of Brazilian medical students.

OBJECTIVE To assess associations between subjective well-being (SWB), religiosity, anxiety and other factors in a sample of Brazilian medical students from a public university in northeastern Brazil. METHODS The present study followed a cross-sectional, observational, analytical approach. Data were collected by administering a self-applicable questionnaire composed of questions focused on sociodemographic data and based on the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWL), Positive Affect and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS), Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ), and the Duke Religiosity Index (DUREL). RESULTS The sample comprised 417 medical school students (73.54% of all the enrolled students). The medical students assessed presented a medium level of satisfaction with life, low mean positive emotion levels and high anxiety/uneasiness levels. Surprisingly, lower anxiety and intrinsic religiosity (IR) scores were associated with higher scores in the two SWB parameters (positive emotions and satisfaction with life). Furthermore, the factors leisure activities, good sleep quality, financial support, age, and gender were associated with the highest SWB scores (with emotional and cognitive components, or with only one of these two components). CONCLUSIONS Data in the current study corroborated the negative association between SWB and anxiety; however, in opposition to the literature, they also evidenced a negative association between SWB and IR. In addition, the present research signaled the need for creating preventive intervention programs to increase SWB through positive psychological techniques and/or to decrease anxiety by applying, for instance, cognitive-behavioral therapy paradigms and/or mindfulness techniques to medical students.
Developmental Exposure to 2,2′,4,4′-Tetrabromodiphenyl Ether Permanently Alters Blood-Liver Balance of Lipids in Male Mice

Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) were used as flame-retardant additives starting 1965 and were recently withdrawn from commerce in North America and Europe. Approximately 1/5 of the total U.S. population were born when environmental concentrations of PBDE plateaued at their maximum. Accumulating evidence suggests that developmental exposures to PBDE may result in long-lasting programming of liver metabolism. In this study, CD-1 mice were exposed prenatally or neonatally to 1 mg/kg body weight of 2,2′,4,4′-tetrabromodiphenyl ether (BDE-47), and changes in liver histology, transcriptome, and liver-blood balance of triglycerides were analyzed in 10 months old male offspring. In both exposure groups, long-term reprogramming of lipid metabolism was observed, including increased liver triglycerides and decreased blood triglycerides, and altered expression of metabolic genes in the liver. Significant upregulation of lipid influx transporter Cd36 2.3- and 5.7-fold in pre- and neonatal exposure groups, respectively was identified as a potential mechanism of blood/liver imbalance of triglycerides. Analysis of our and previously published all-genome gene expression data identified changes in expression of ribosomal protein genes as a transcriptomic signature of PBDE exposure. Further comparison of our new data and published data demonstrate that low doses (0.2 mg/kg body weight) of PBDE induce long-lasting up-regulation of ribosomal genes, suppression of Cd36 in liver and increase circulating triglycerides in blood, while moderated doses (≥1 mg/kg body weight) produce opposite long-lasting effects. To conclude, this study shows that an environmentally relevant developmental exposures to BDE-47 permanently alter lipid uptake and accumulation in the liver, with low and moderate doses having opposite effect on liver transcriptomics and triglyceride balance. Similar effects of pre- and neonatal exposures point at hepatocyte maturation as a sensitive window of the liver metabolism programming. These results suggest that PBDE exposure may be an important factor increasing risks of cardio-vascular disease and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease via modulation of liver/blood balance of lipids. The translational relevance of these findings for human remain to be studied.
A Computational Model of Deep-Brain Stimulation for Acquired Dystonia in Children

The mechanism by which deep brain stimulation (DBS) improves dystonia is not understood, partly heterogeneity of the underlying disorders leads to differing effects of stimulation in different locations. Similarity between the effects of DBS and the effects of lesions has led to biophysical models of blockade or reduced transmission of involuntary activity in individual cells in the pathways responsible for dystonia. Here, we expand these theories by modeling the effect of DBS on populations of neurons. We emphasize the important observation that the DBS signal itself causes surprisingly few side effects and does not normally appear in the electromyographic signal. We hypothesize that, at the population level, massively synchronous rhythmic firing caused by DBS is only poorly transmitted through downstream populations. However, the high frequency of stimulation overwhelms incoming dystonic activity, thereby substituting an ineffectively transmitted exogenous signal for the endogenous abnormal signal. Changes in sensitivity can occur not only at the site of stimulation, but also at downstream sites due to synaptic and homeostatic plasticity mechanisms. The mechanism is predicted to depend strongly on the stimulation frequency. We provide preliminary data from simultaneous multichannel recordings in basal ganglia and thalamus in children with secondary dystonia. We also provide illustrative simulations of the effect of stimulation frequency on the transmission of the DBS pulses through sequential populations of neurons in the dystonia pathway. Our experimental results and model provide a new hypothesis and computational framework consistent with the clinical features of DBS in childhood acquired dystonia.
Diversity of miniaturized frogs of the genus Adelophryne (Anura: Eleutherodactylidae): A new species from the Atlantic Forest of northeast Brazil

The number of species of frogs in the South American genus Adelophryne has increased in recent years, and it has become apparent that this group contains a substantial amount of undescribed diversity. Currently the genus contains nine described species and five candidate species. Here we describe the tenth species of the genus Adelophryne from the municipality of Igrapiúna, southern Bahia state, Brazil. The new species is characterized by its small body size, indistinct tympanum, and two phalanges in the finger IV. The species of the genus are distributed in three groups, Northern Amazonia Clade, Northern Atlantic Forest Clade and Southern Atlantic Forest Clade. The new species is phylogenetically related to species of the Northern Atlantic Forest Clade of Adelophryne and restricted to forested habitat, as typical for other Adelophryne. The species is restricted to the pristine forests in the type locality, and we consider its conservation status as Near Threatened. New morphological and molecular data of other Adelophryne species are presented, extending the distribution of Adelophryne sp. 2, Adelophryne sp. 4, Adelophryne mucronata and Adelophryne glandulata. However, a more comprehensive revision of the diversity and phylogenetic position of most Adelophryne species is needed, and the evolutionary relationships of A. meridionalis and A. pachydactyla remain unknown.
Propagation Models and Performance Evaluation for 5G Millimeter-Wave Bands

Fifth-generation (5G) wireless networks are expected to operate at both microwave and millimeter-wave (mmWave) frequency bands, including frequencies in the range of 24 to 86 GHz. Radio propagation models are used to help engineers design, deploy, and compare candidate wireless technologies, and have a profound impact on the decisions of almost every aspect of wireless communications. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the channel models that will likely be used in the design of 5G radio systems. We start with a discussion on the framework of channel models, which consists of classical models of path loss versus distance, large-scale, and small-scale fading models, and multiple-input multiple-output channel models. Then, key differences between mmWave and microwave channel models are presented, and two popular mmWave channel models are discussed: the 3rd Generation Partnership Project model, which is adopted by the International Telecommunication Union, and the NYUSIM model, which was developed from several years of field measurements in New York City. Examples on how to apply the channel models are then given for several diverse applications demonstrating the wide impact of the models and their parameter values, where the performance comparisons of the channel models are done with promising hybrid beamforming approaches, including leveraging coordinated multipoint transmission. These results show that the answers to channel performance metrics, such as spectrum efficiency, coverage, hardware/signal processing requirements, etc., are extremely sensitive to the choice of channel models.
Joint Transceiver Optimization for Wireless Information and Energy Transfer in Nonregenerative MIMO Relay Systems

In this paper, a two-hop nonregenerative multiple-input multiple-output relay system is investigated, where the relay node relies on harvesting the radio frequency energy transferred from the source node to forward information from source to destination. We consider the time switching (TS) protocol between wireless information and energy transfer. In particular, we propose a more general energy consumption constraint at the source node during the information and energy transfer, which includes the constant power constraints used in existing works as special cases. We study the joint optimization of the source precoding matrices, the relay amplifying matrix, and the TS factor to maximize the source–destination mutual information (MI). The optimal structure of the source and relay matrices is derived, which reduces the original transceiver optimization problem to a simpler power allocation problem. We propose a primal decomposition based algorithm and an upper bound based approach to efficiently solve the power allocation problem. The first algorithm achieves the global optimum, whereas the latter one has a lower computational complexity. Numerical simulations show that both proposed algorithms yield much higher system MI and better rate-energy tradeoff than existing approaches.
Parent-child attachment and children's experience and regulation of emotion: A meta-analytic review.

Attachment relationships serve as contexts within which children develop emotional capacities. This meta-analytic review assessed the strength of associations of parent-child attachment patterns with the experience and regulation of emotion in children under age 18 years. In a series of meta-analyses (k = 72 studies, N's ranged from 87 to 9,167), we examined children's positive and negative affective experiences (assessed either globally or elicited in specific contexts), emotion regulation ability, and coping strategies. More securely attached children experienced more global positive affect and less global negative affect, expressed less elicited negative affect, were better able to regulate emotions, and more often used cognitive and social support coping strategies. More avoidantly attached children experienced less global positive affect, were less able to regulate emotions, and were less likely to use cognitive or social support coping strategies. By contrast, more ambivalently attached children experienced more global and more elicited negative affect, and were less able to regulate emotions. More disorganized children experienced less global positive affect and more global negative affect. These robust findings provide evidence that attachments to parents have implications for children's emotional development, although more research is needed on whether insecure attachment patterns are associated with distinct emotion profiles. (PsycINFO Database Record
Music Mood Detection Based on Audio and Lyrics with Deep Neural Net

We consider the task of multimodal music mood prediction based on the audio signal and the lyrics of a track. We reproduce the implementation of traditional feature engineering based approaches and propose a new model based on deep learning. We compare the performance of both approaches on a database containing 18,000 tracks with associated valence and arousal values and show that our approach outperforms classical models on the arousal detection task, and that both approaches perform equally on the valence prediction task. We also compare the a posteriori fusion with fusion of modalities optimized simultaneously with each unimodal model, and observe a significant improvement of valence prediction. We release part of our database for comparison purposes.
Editor in Chief’s Comment: External Validity in Systematic Reviews

The systematic review movement—for example, the What Works Clearinghouse, the Teen Pregnancy Prevention (TPP) Evidence Review—attempts to synthesize the available evaluation evidence in order to aid sites (e.g., school districts) in choosing a program model (e.g., a curriculum) to address social issues (Klerman, 2017). That goal is laudable. Appropriate methods to achieve that goal are still evolving. Suppose the decision problem is as follows. A site wants to implement a program to address a social problem in its local area. More specifically, the site wants to implement the program that will be most effective in this local area. This is an important and vividly policyrelevant question. To aid its choice, the site refers to the results of a systematic review. That review has identified multiple program models that are—according to its review criteria—“effective. ” The decision problem can be thought of as the relative weight to give to:
High Step-Up Quasi-Z Source DC–DC Converter

In this paper, a high step-up quasi-Z Source (QZS) dc–dc converter is proposed. This converter uses a hybrid switched-capacitors switched-inductor method in order to achieve high voltage gains. The proposed converter have resolved the voltage gain limitation of the basic QZS dc–dc converter while keeping its main advantages, such as continuous input current and low voltage stress on capacitors. Compared to the basic converter, the duty cycle is not limited, and the voltage stress on the diodes and switch is not increased. In addition to these features, the proposed converter has a flexible structure, and extra stages could be added to it in order to achieve even higher voltage gains without increasing the voltage stress on devices or limiting the duty cycle. The operation principle of the converter and related relationships and waveforms are presented in the paper. Also, a comprehensive comparison between the proposed and other QZS based dc–dc converters is provided which confirms the superiority of the proposed converter. Simulations are done in power systems computer aided design (PSCAD) in order to investigate the maximum power point tracking (MPPT) capability of the converter. In addition, the valid performance and practicality of the converter are studied through the results obtained from the laboratory built prototype.