Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The role of cardiac mitochondria in myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) exerts economic and humanitarian costs that are unparalleled by any other disease. Of the many etiologies of CVD myocardial infarction accounts for over 50% of the associated mortality and anything that can decrease the extent of infarction could drastically impact the burden of CVD. The purpose of this work was to further our understanding of the role of cardiac mitochondria in ischemia/reperfusion injury. Herein I found that physiologic (exercise) and pharmacologic (Bendavia) interventions that lessen the oxidative burden during ischemia/reperfusion have the potential to limit myocardial infarction. Under conditions of oxidative stress animals who received short term exercise (Ex) were better able to maintain the glutathione couple in a reduced state likely through an increase in glutathione reductase (GR) activity. This phenotypic change was associated with decreased reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation and a lower incidence of fatal ventricular arrhythmias. Furthermore I found that ROS generated within the cytosol and not the mitochondria during bouts of Ex are important signaling molecules that increase GR activity and this increased activity may be responsible for the cardioprotective effects observed with Ex. Finally I found that treatment with the mitochondrially-targeted peptide Bendavia was successful at lowering infarct size in isolated guinea pig hearts due to an ability to decrease ROS accumulation and maintain mitochondrial energetics. Taken together these studies suggest that therapies aimed at decreasing mitochondrial ROS and/or maintaining mitochondrial energetics during ischemia/reperfusion may have significant clinical impact.
The effect of obesity on venous impedance and outflow measured by ultrasound

Obesity has been identified epidemiologically as a risk factor for development of chronic venous disease. To examine whether abdominal adiposity obstructs venous outflow from the legs, 26 females aged 34-49 years with no clinical venous disease and body mass index (BMI) between 20.9 – 46.7 kg/m\(^2\) were studied. A novel measurement of the extent of abdominal fat along the legs when seated correlated well with BMI and other measures of central fat (sagittal-abdominal diameter, ultrasound fat thickness, % truncal fat by DEXA scan). On sitting, inguinal tissue pressure recorded by needle manometry increased more in obese (BMI > 30) than normal weight (BMI 20-25) subjects (8.2 vs 1.5 mmHg, p<0.01) as did the femoral vein cross-sectional area (129 vs 60%, p<0.05). Both measures correlated with increasing abdominal fat but were not associated with each other. In the lower leg, saphenous vein distensibility and compliance correlated positively with abdominal fat and BMI, but there was no such association for the popliteal vein. Female sex hormones, physical activity levels and insulin status did not affect venous haemodynamics. Thus, increased abdominal fat can potentially hinder venous return when sitting, leading to distension and changes in vein biomechanics, which could over time contribute to venous disease.
E. coli adhérentes et invasives et pathogénèse de la maladie de Crohn : rôle du facteur hypoxique HIF-1

La maladie de Crohn (MC) est une maladie inflammatoire chronique intestinale (MICI). Son incidence et sa prevalence ont augmente en Europe au cours des dix dernieres annees (150 pour 100000 habitants) constituant ainsi un probleme de sante majeur. L’inflammation chronique dans la MC favorise la mise en place d’une angiogenese pathophysiologique. Inflammation et angiogenese sont deux reponses cellulaires suspectees dans la survenue des cancers coliques associes au MICI. Meme si les facteurs favorisant la mise en place de la MC restent non elucides, la contribution des bacteries exogenes est fortement suspectee. Parmi ces bacteries, les E.coli adherentes et invasives (AIEC), isolees a partir de la muqueuse ileale de patients porteurs de la MC, sont un bon candidat. Les objectifs de mon projet de these etaient de caracteriser les mecanismes moleculaires induits par les AIEC et impliques dans la mise en place des reponses pro inflammatoire et pro angiogenique des cellules intestinales epitheliales. Le facteur de transcription hypoxique (HIF-1) est au cœur de l’immunite innee et de l’angiogenese. J’ai emis l’hypothese que les AIEC pouvaient moduler le niveau d’expression de HIF-1α et ainsi controler les reponses pro inflammatoire et pro angiogenique. Dans mon premier article, j’ai montre que HIF-1α est maximalement exprime au niveau de l’epithelium ileal des patients porteurs de la MC. Ensuite, j’ai montre sur un modele murin competent pour l’infection par les AIEC, les souris CEABAC10, que les bacteries induisent l’augmentation du niveau proteique de HIF-1 α ainsi que l’activation de la voie de signalisation du VEGF, le facteur angiogenique le plus puissant.
The mechanical complications of platform switching connection on implant supported restorations: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Aim Platform implant abutment connection proved success in preserving crestal bone around implants, but the increased stress concentration on the prosthetic components is still a question.The primary aim of this systematic review was to evaluate the available evidence on the mechanical effect of implant platform switching concept on implant prosthetic components. Methods A protocol of electronic and hand research was performed for English based researches comparing one or more PS groups with one or more PM groups to develop an answer for the following question: “Will the platform switching technique affect the amount of stresses generated within implant prosthetic components causing mechanical complications? A meta-analysis was performed to evaluate the impact of implant-abutment platform mismatch on implant prosthetic components. Results Eleven publications from twenty research studies were included. Results from the meta-analysis demonstrated the odds of survival in the Platform matching connection arm are 2.13 times more compared to the Platform switching arm. (P-value= 0.0316) For the random effects model, the odds of survival in the PS arm is not statistically significantly different compared to the PM arm (p-value= 0.2224) due to substantial heterogeneity of the included studies results in regards to implant prosthetic components mechanical complications. Conclusion This systematic review showed higher stress concentration in the implant prosthetic components regarding using platform switched implants, more randomized controlled clinical trials with bigger samples are needed to confirm our findings, but the current evidence demonstrates that non-significant differences between platform switching concept and platform matching. It is recommended to further investigate the mechanical complications that might arise when platform switching concept is used.
Effect of hinokitiol impregnated sheets on shelf life and quality of “KEK‐1” tomatoes during storage

Hinokitiol (β‐thujaplicin, volatile oil extracted from the wood of Hiba arborvitae [Thujopsis dolabrata var. hondae], cypress family) is a natural preservative, antimicrobial, and chelating agent, used to prevent decay and extend the shelf life of fruits and vegetables. In the present study, we used nonwoven rayon sheets impregnated with hinokitiol to conduct packaging studies. Mature green tomatoes var. “KEK‐1” were packaged under three packaging conditions, ie, modified atmosphere packaging (MAP), MAP + hinokitiol (MH), and perforated film package (as control), and their quality attributes were compared during storage. The packaging materials used were low‐density polyethylene (LDPE) film (40 μm) and fresh sheets of nonwoven rayon impregnated with hinokitiol. O2 in the MAP packaged tomatoes were retained throughout the storage period (3% to 5% O2). Results showed that MH had slightly improved quality attributes throughout the storage period when compared with MAP alone. Expression levels of LeACS, LeADH, and LeTBG4 genes were higher in 5 and 9 days of control when compared with MAP and MH. “KEK‐1” tomatoes had longer shelf life under MAP and MH packaging and maintained the quality at 15°C. Hence, the effect of the MAP with bioactive packaging treatments could be effective in the future application for the extension of shelf life and quality of fruits and vegetables.
Tumor ablation using novel photothermal NaxWO3 nanoparticles against breast cancer osteolytic bone metastasis

Backgrounds Profiting from the development of nanomaterials, photothermal therapy (PTT) has been discovered as efficient tumor ablation strategy for breast cancer. Materials and methods Novel oxygen vacancy-rich tungsten bronze nanoparticles (NaxWO3) were synthesized through a simple pyrogenic decomposition process. TEM, XRD, UV-vis-NIR, photothermal conversion ability, and photothermal stability were performed. The viabilities of 293T and 4T1 cells after treating with 200 μg/mL NaxWO3 nanoparticles for 24 or 48 hrs were both above 80%, which proved the good biosafety and cytotoxicity of NaxWO3 in vitro. Two in vivo breast cancer models, namely percutaneous and intratibial 4T1 models were established and NaxWO3 (20 mg/kg) with power intensity of 1.5 W/cm2 980 nm laser photothermal treatment was used in vivo. Results We successfully synthesized ~150 nm NaxWO3 nanoparticles with desirable PTT effects, as evidenced by the temperature increase from 25.8°C to 41.8°C in 5 mins under the irradiation of 980 nm laser (1 mg/mL). Also, cellular compatibility of NaxWO3 nanoparticles was found upon physiologic 293T cells, in contrast with significant cytotoxicity against breast cancer 4T1 cell in vitro dose-dependently. Besides, two in vivo breast cancer models showed the decent tumor ablation ability of NaxWO3 nanoparticles, demonstrating percutaneous 4T1 tumor elimination without recurrence during 2 weeks observation as well as intratibial breast cancer inhibition with decreased bone destruction and tumor volume after NaxWO3+PTT in vivo. Conclusion For the first time, we developed a novel oxygen vacancy-rich tungsten bronze nanoparticles (NaxWO3) through a simple pyrogenic decomposition process for PTT. Both in vitro and in vivo experiments showed the good PTT ability and tumor ablation effects of synthesized NaxWO3 nanoparticles against breast cancer osteolytic bone metastasis. Additionally, our oxygen-deficient NaxWO3 nanoparticles will expand the research horizons of PTT nanomaterials.
Role of Enteral and Parenteral Nutrition

As previously demonstrated, acute pancreatitis can be regarded as a hyper catabolism state and nutrition plays a key role in the treatment of this disease. When patient’s food intake is limited because of pancreatic pain, organ failure or other, an adapted nutrition support should be initiated early in the management of acute pancreatitis in order to decrease mortality and morbidity. Numerous meta-analyses addressing this issue have been published and the most appropriate modalities for artificial nutrition are now wellestablished. Compared to parenteral nutrition, enteral nutrition has been shown to have a greater clinical benefit in patients with acute pancreatitis reducing the risk of developing both, pancreatic infections and multiple organ failure. Enteral nutrition may attenuate the mucosal barrier breakdown and subsequent bacterial translocation. It also may increase the intestinal motility and decrease bacterial overgrowth. The international guidelines recommend that enteral nutrition in acute pancreatitis should be administered via either the nasojejunal or nasogastric route but the choice of the location should not delay the nutritional support. Either elemental or polymeric enteral nutrition formulations can be used in acute pancreatitis.
Effect of lysozyme subphase and insertion on several lipid films

The influence of proteins on lipid monolayers is a subject of biological interest. In this work the influence of lysozyme on lipid films of stearic acid, oleic acid, cholesterol, DPPC and POPC has been studied. The Langmuir monolayer technique, using surface pressure-area isotherms and elastic modulus plots, as well as protein insertion experiments in lipid monolayers, have been used. Results indicate that lysozyme affects the lipid monolayer formation, the elastic modulus and, sometimes, the physical state of the monolayer. This influence is more important till moderate surface pressures. At high surface pressures and near the physiological value of lateral pressure of 33 mN/m, there is expulsion of lysozyme out of the monolayer. This expulsion is more important for stearic acid, DPPC and POPC. The lower value of maximum insertion pressure is for stearic acid and the higher one is for oleic acid. The relation between the initial and the increased surface pressure in insertion experiments has been analysed
Investigation of buffer charging effects in GaN-based transistors

GaN based transistors are investigated in this work. GaN devices have already been introduced for commercial applications for RF and power markets. Due to excellent performance achieved with GaN devices, predictions for even greater commercial success have been made. Some major reliability issues though still exist which prevent the devices from showing their full potential. One such issue is the current collapse phenomena which can be related to buffer charging effects. Those buffer charging effects are investigated in this work. The impact of carbon doping in the buffer on current collapse is tested for devices grown on Si substrate. The results are interpreted with the help of simulations. A clear relation between doping and current collapse is seen. Different current collapse behaviour is observed on otherwise similar samples. To get better insight characterisation techniques involving illumination are developed and effects otherwise not accessible are detected. The observations have implications for devices operating under light. Devices grown on SiC substrates are also tested. Strong impact of ohmic contacts on leakage is observed. Different doping profiles including carbon and iron are tested. Based on the findings new structures are proposed and simulated which have the potential to prevent detrimental effects.
Kinship and Diasporas in International Affairs

This is a major study of the vast - but until now unappreciated - influence of kinship and diaspora on international politics. This essential new work by the author of "The Frontiers of Loyalty" examines the importance of diasporas, kinship networks, and communities of exiles to the international political landscape. Yossi Shain's unexpected insights require a full reckoning with the limitations of territorially-based models of international relations. In their place, "Kinship and Diasporas" offers a new vision of international politics, in which national boundaries are permeable, and formal institutions mingle with informal networks of blood and belief. Shain's "politics of belonging" will require the reassessment of standard social scientific ideas about the nature of the international political order.
Robust two-gap strong coupling superconductivity associated with low-lying phonon modes in pressurized Nb5Ir3O superconductors

We report robust superconducting state and gap symmetry of Nb5Ir3O via electrical transport and specific heat measurements. The analysis of specific heat manifests that Nb5Ir3O is a strongly coupled superconductor with Δ C / γ n T c ∼ 1.91 and double s-wave superconducting gaps of 2 Δ L ( 0 ) / k B T c ∼ 6.56 and 2 Δ S ( 0 ) / k B T c ∼ 2.36 accounting for 90% and 10%, respectively. The ( C p − γ n T ) / T 3 vs. T plot shows a broad peak at ∼23 K, indicating phonon softening and the appearance of low-lying phonon mode associated with the interstitial oxygen. This behavior explains the monotonic increase of Tc in Nb 5 Ir 3 O ( 1 − δ ) by strengthening the electron–phonon coupling and enlarging the density of states at Fermi level. The Hall coefficient is temperature independent below 200 K, and changes its sign from positive to negative above 250 K, suggesting that carrier is across the hole- to electron-dominant regions and the multi-band electronic structures. On warming, the resistivity shows a gradual crossover from T 2 - to T 3 -dependence at a critical temperature T * , and a broad peak at a temperature Tp. The reduced Tc under pressure is linearly correlated with lattice parameters c/a ratio and Tp, suggesting the important phonon contributions in Nb5Ir3O as a phonon-medicated superconductor. Possible physical mechanisms are proposed.
Do soup preloads reduce total calorific intake in overweight and obese subjects outside the laboratory? A pilot study

Others have reported that soup preloads can reduce total energy intake. This pilot study investigates this phenomenon outside the laboratory within an overweight/ obese population. Subjects were used as their own control and divided into three groups: under-/normal weight (n=7), overweight (n=8) and obese (n=8). The subjects consumed three different preloads (no preload, 300 ml of water or 300 g of soup) prior to consuming an identical meal on three separate occasions. Visual analogue scales (VAS) were used to assess hunger ratings before the test, then hunger and satiety ratings were assessed both immediately after and one hour after eating. Any extra energy consumed before their next meal was also documented. The soup preload did not reduce total calorific intake. Satiety one hour after eating was significantly increased following the soup preload compared to no preload particularly in the obese. This could aid adherence to an energy restricted diet.
Prediction of People’s Emotional Response towards Multi-modal News

We aim to develop methods for understanding how multimedia news exposure can affect people’s emotional responses, and we especially focus on news content related to gun violence, a very important yet polarizing issue in the U.S. We created the dataset NEmo+ by significantly extending the U.S. gun violence news-to-emotions dataset, BU-NEmo, from 320 to 1,297 news headline and lead image pairings and collecting 38,910 annotations in a large crowdsourcing experiment. In curating the NEmo+ dataset, we developed methods to identify news items that will trigger similar versus divergent emotional responses. For news items that trigger similar emotional responses, we compiled them into the NEmo+-Consensus dataset. We benchmark models on this dataset that predict a person’s dominant emotional response toward the target news item (single-label prediction). On the full NEmo+ dataset, containing news items that would lead to both differing and similar emotional responses, we also benchmark models for the novel task of predicting the distribution of evoked emotional responses in humans when presented with multi-modal news content. Our single-label and multi-label prediction models outperform baselines by large margins across several metrics.
Pulsed short wave therapy : its clinical use and physiological effects in healthy subjects and osteoarthritic patients

Pulsed Short Wave Therapy (PSWT): its clinical use and physiological effects in healthy subjects and osteoarthritic (OA) patients PSWT is a commonly used electrotherapy modality and surveys have shown it to be one of the most widely used modalities among physiotherapists in the UK. Nevertheless, the literature supporting its therapeutic effects and explaining its mechanism of actions remain scant, of poor methodological quality and of minimal clinical value. This research program was set to examine both the nature of use and the efficacy of PSWT. The nature of PSWT use was examined in outpatient clinics using an audit and a nationwide survey. The efficacy of PSWT was examined in two randomised placebo controlled trials; one conducted in a laboratory setting on healthy subjects and the other was a clinical trial on patients with osteoarthritis. Following the same methodology and protocol, the effects of low and high dose of PSWT on skin temperature (SkT), blood volume (BVo1), and nerve conduction velocity (NCV) were evaluated against a placebo and a control condition. The findings have revealed the poor documentary skills of physiotherapists, and a state of confusion in the clinical decision-making with regard to PSWT dosage. Based on experimentation, it was established that patients react differently from healthy subjects when similar levels of energies are applied. Whilst low dose resulted in non-significant changes in SkT and NCV in healthy subjects, the same dose significantly altered BVol, SkT, and NCV in patients. Placebo effects were found to account for 39% of the patients' response to PSWT treatments. The findings have revealed a discrepancy between evidence and practice that necessitates a reconsideration of the treatment approaches adopted by physiotherapists when using PSWT. The study has also demonstrated the physiological and therapeutic efficacy of PSWT on patients with osteoarthritis, and showed that treatment outcomes are dependent on the amount of exogenous energy applied and the type of tissue treated. The thesis also highlights areas for future research based on the literature reviewed and the experimentation conducted.
Listeriosis research: Present situation and perspective

In what case do you like reading so much? What about the type of the listeriosis research present situation and perspective book? The needs to read? Well, everybody has their own reason why should read some books. Mostly, it will relate to their necessity to get knowledge from the book and want to read just to get entertainment. Novels, story book, and other entertaining books become so popular this day. Besides, the scientific books will also be the best reason to choose, especially for the students, teachers, doctors, businessman, and other professions who are fond of reading.
Plug and Play Knowledge Distillation for kNN-LM with External Logits

Despite the promising evaluation results by knowledge distillation (KD) in natural language understanding (NLU) and sequence-to-sequence (seq2seq) tasks, KD for causal language modeling (LM) remains a challenge. In this paper, we present a novel perspective of knowledge distillation by proposing plug and play knowledge distillation (PP-KD) to improve a (student) kNN-LM that is the state-of-the-art in causal language modeling by leveraging external logits from either a powerful or a heterogeneous (teacher) LM. Unlike conventional logit-based KD where the teacher’s knowledge is built-in during training, PP-KD is plug and play: it stores the teacher’s knowledge (i.e., logits) externally and uses the teacher’s logits of the retrieved k-nearest neighbors during kNN-LM inference at test time. In contrast to marginal perplexity improvement by logit-based KD in conventional neural (causal) LM, PP-KD achieves a significant improvement, enhancing the kNN-LMs in multiple language modeling datasets, showing a novel and promising perspective for causal LM distillation.
Non-Parametric Word Sense Disambiguation for Historical Languages

Recent approaches to Word Sense Disambiguation (WSD) have profited from the enhanced contextualized word representations coming from contemporary Large Language Models (LLMs). This advancement is accompanied by a renewed interest in WSD applications in Humanities research, where the lack of suitable, specific WSD-annotated resources is a hurdle in developing ad-hoc WSD systems. Because they can exploit sentential context, LLMs are particularly suited for disambiguation tasks. Still, the application of LLMs is often limited to linear classifiers trained on top of the LLM architecture. In this paper, we follow recent developments in non-parametric learning and show how LLMs can be efficiently fine-tuned to achieve strong few-shot performance on WSD for historical languages (English and Dutch, date range: 1450-1950). We test our hypothesis using (i) a large, general evaluation set taken from large lexical databases, and (ii) a small real-world scenario involving an ad-hoc WSD task. Moreover, this paper marks the release of GysBERT, a LLM for historical Dutch.