Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Epigenetic Modifications of the α-Synuclein Gene and Relative Protein Content Are Affected by Ageing and Physical Exercise in Blood from Healthy Subjects

Epigenetic regulation may contribute to the beneficial effects of physical activity against age-related neurodegeneration. For example, epigenetic alterations of the gene encoding for α-synuclein (SNCA) have been widely explored in both brain and peripheral tissues of Parkinson's disease samples. However, no data are currently available about the effects of physical exercise on SNCA epigenetic regulation in ageing healthy subjects. The present paper explored whether, in healthy individuals, age and physical activity are related to blood intron1-SNCA (SNCAI1) methylation, as well as further parameters linked to such epigenetic modification (total, oligomeric α-synuclein and DNA methyltransferase concentrations in the blood). Here, the SNCAI1 methylation status increased with ageing, and consistent with this result, low α-synuclein levels were found in the blood. The direct relationship between SNCAI1 methylation and α-synuclein levels was observed in samples characterized by blood α-synuclein concentrations of 76.3 ng/mg protein or lower (confidence interval (CI) = 95%). In this selected population, higher physical activity reduced the total and oligomeric α-synuclein levels. Taken together, our data shed light on ageing- and physical exercise-induced changes on the SNCA methylation status and protein levels of α-synuclein.
Stromal Caveolin-1 and Caveolin-2 Expression in Primary Tumors and Lymph Node Metastases

The expression of caveolin-1 (CAV1) in both tumor cell and cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) has been found to correlate with tumor aggressiveness in different epithelial tumor entities, whereas less is known for caveolin-2 (CAV2). The aim of this study was to investigate the clinicopathological significance and prognostic value of stromal CAV1 and CAV2 expression in lung cancer. The expression of these two genes was investigated at protein level on a tissue microarray (TMA) consisting of 161 primary tumor samples. 50.7% of squamous cell lung cancer (SCC) tumors showed strong expression of CAV1 in the tumor-associated stromal cells, whereas only 15.1% of adenocarcinomas (AC) showed a strong CAV1 expression (p < 0.01). A strong CAV2 stromal expression was found in 46.0% of the lung tumor specimens, with no significant difference between the subtypes. Neither CAV1 nor CAV2 stromal expression was associated with any other clinicopathological factor including survival. When the stromal expression in matched primary tumors and lymph node metastases was compared, both CAV1 and CAV2 expressions were frequently found lost in the corresponding stroma of the lymph node metastasis (40.6%, p = 0.003 and 38.4%, p = 0.001, resp.). Loss of stromal CAV2 in the lymph node metastases was also significantly associated with earlier death (p = 0.011). In conclusion, in contrast to the expression patterns in the tumor tissue of lung cancer, stromal expression of CAV1 in primary tumors was not associated with clinical outcome whereas the stromal expression of especially CAV2 in the metastatic lymph nodes could be associated with lung cancer pathogenesis.
Validation of ACE-FTS v2.2 measurements of HCl, HF, CCl 3 F and CCl 2 F 2 using space-, balloon- and ground-based instrument observations

Hydrogen chloride (HCl) and hydrogen fluoride (HF) are respectively the main chlorine and fluorine reservoirs in the Earth's stratosphere. Their buildup resulted from the intensive use of man-made halogenated source gases, in particular CFC-11 (CCl3F) and CFC-12 (CCl2F2), during the second half of the 20th century. It is important to continue monitoring the evolution of these source gases and reservoirs, in support of the Montreal Protocol and also indirectly of the Kyoto Protocol. The Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment Fourier Transform Spectrometer (ACE-FTS) is a space-based instrument that has been performing regular solar occultation measurements of over 30 atmospheric gases since early 2004. In this validation paper, the HCl, HF, CFC-11 and CFC-12 version 2.2 profile data products retrieved from ACE-FTS measurements are evaluated. Volume mixing ratio profiles have been compared to observations made from space by MLS and HALOE, and from stratospheric balloons by SPIRALE, FIRS-2 and Mark-IV. Partial columns derived from the ACE-FTS data were also compared to column measurements from ground-based Fourier transform instruments operated at 12 sites. ACE-FTS data recorded from March 2004 to August 2007 have been used for the comparisons. These data are representative of a variety of atmospheric and chemical situations, with sounded air masses extending from the winter vortex to summer sub-tropical conditions. Typically, the ACE-FTS products are available in the 10–50 km altitude range for HCl and HF, and in the 7–20 and 7–25 km ranges for CFC-11 and CFC-12, respectively. For both reservoirs, comparison results indicate an agreement generally better than 5–10%, when accounting for the known offset affecting HALOE measurements of HCl and HF. Larger positive differences are however found for comparisons with single profiles from FIRS-2 and SPIRALE. For CFCs, the few coincident measurements available suggest that the differences probably remain within ±20%.
Neural Network Acceptability Judgments

Abstract This paper investigates the ability of artificial neural networks to judge the grammatical acceptability of a sentence, with the goal of testing their linguistic competence. We introduce the Corpus of Linguistic Acceptability (CoLA), a set of 10,657 English sentences labeled as grammatical or ungrammatical from published linguistics literature. As baselines, we train several recurrent neural network models on acceptability classification, and find that our models outperform unsupervised models by Lau et al. (2016) on CoLA. Error-analysis on specific grammatical phenomena reveals that both Lau et al.’s models and ours learn systematic generalizations like subject-verb-object order. However, all models we test perform far below human level on a wide range of grammatical constructions.
Hydroxytyrosol Ameliorates Endothelial Function under Inflammatory Conditions by Preventing Mitochondrial Dysfunction

Mitochondria are fundamental organelles producing energy and reactive oxygen species (ROS); their impaired functions play a key role in endothelial dysfunction. Hydroxytyrosol (HT), a well-known olive oil antioxidant, exerts health benefits against vascular diseases by improving endothelial function. However, the HT role in mitochondrial oxidative stress in endothelial dysfunction is not clear yet. To investigate the HT effects on mitochondrial ROS production in the inflamed endothelium, we used an in vitro model of endothelial dysfunction represented by cultured endothelial cells, challenged with phorbol myristate acetate (PMA), an inflammatory, prooxidant, and proangiogenic agent. We found that the pretreatment of endothelial cells with HT (1–30 μmol/L) suppressed inflammatory angiogenesis, a crucial aspect of endothelial dysfunction. The HT inhibitory effect is related to reduced mitochondrial superoxide production and lipid peroxidation and to increased superoxide dismutase activity. HT, in a concentration-dependent manner, improved endothelial mitochondrial function by reverting the PMA-induced reduction of mitochondrial membrane potential, ATP synthesis, and ATP5β expression. In PMA-challenged endothelial cells, HT also promoted mitochondrial biogenesis through increased mitochondrial DNA content and expression of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma coactivator 1-alpha, nuclear respiratory factor-1, and mitochondrial transcription factor A. These results highlight that HT blunts endothelial dysfunction and pathological angiogenesis by ameliorating mitochondrial function, thus suggesting HT as a potential mitochondria-targeting antioxidant in the inflamed endothelium.
Triclosan treatment decreased the antitumor effect of sorafenib on hepatocellular carcinoma cells

Background Triclosan is a widely applied antimicrobial agent which affects the endocrine system and homeostasis; it may also promote the cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) growth in a mice model. The exact roles of triclosan in regulating human hepatocellular carcinoma development and treatment remain unknown. Methods MHCC97-H, a highly aggressive HCC cell line, was treated with indicated concentration of triclosan or sorafenib. The expression of drug-resistance genes was examined by qPCR. The clearance or metabolism of sorafenib was determined by liquid chromatograph-mass spectrometer/mass spectrometer (LC-MS/MS). MTT assay was used to examine the MHCC97-H cell proliferation. Nude mice were used to exam the anti-tumor effect of sorafenib on subcutaneous and intrahepatic growth of MHCC97-H cells. Results In the present study, triclosan could induce the expression of drug-resistance genes in MHCC97-H cells (a highly aggressive HCC cell line), accelerate the clearance of sorafenib, and attenuate the anti-proliferation effect of this molecular targeted agent in MHCC97-H cells. Triclosan decreased the antitumor effect of sorafenib on subcutaneous and intrahepatic growth of MHCC97-H in nude mice. Conclusion By discovering the fact that triclosan treatment enhances sorafenib resistance in HCC cells, this work suggests exposure of triclosan is detrimental to HCC patients during chemotherapy.
Enforcing View Consistency with Latent Configurations for 3 D Vision Tasks by Arjun Madhav Karpur akarpur

Common computer vision tasks, such as image classification, object detection, and pose estimation, benefit from large publicly available datasets containing well-annotated exemplars. These datasets make using a Convolutional Neural Network straightforward and often lead to great results. More obscure vision tasks suffer from limited annotated data for the corresponding information, especially in the 3D computer vision domain where annotation is often more difficult to recover. As such, many of these tasks require either intense data pre-processing and labeling per data instance or, more reasonably, use of unsupervised or semi-supervised learning techniques. For general 3D vision tasks, we argue that images from different viewpoints of the same object will yield near-identical results. Enforcing a view consistency constraint provides effective regularization that allows for utilization of unlabeled instances while transferring knowledge from a source domain to a target domain. View consistency can be optimized using a latent variable that persists across all images of the same object instance, increasing efficiency and allowing for output distribution alignment. To show the effectiveness of this constraint, we demonstrate learning 3D keypoint estimation and shape reconstruction in various unlabeled image datasets using a view-consistency approach to domain adaptation.
Multi-Label Transfer Learning for Semantic Similarity

The semantic relations between two short texts can be defined in multiple ways. Yet, all the systems to date designed to capture such relations target one relation at a time. We propose a novel multi-label transfer learning approach to jointly learn the information provided by the multiple annotations, rather than treating them as separate tasks. Not only does this approach outperform the traditional multi-task learning approach, it also achieves state-of-the-art performance on the SICK Entailment task and all but one dimensions of the Human Activity Phrase dataset.
Different Types of Heater-Cooler Units and Their Risk of Transmission of Mycobacterium chimaera During Open-Heart Surgery: Clues From Device Design

OBJECTIVE Worldwide, Mycobacterium chimaera infections have been linked to contaminated aerosols from heater-cooler units (HCUs) during open-heart surgery. These infections have mainly been associated with the 3T HCU (LivaNova, formerly Sorin). The reasons for this and the risk of transmission from other HCUs have not been systematically assessed. DESIGN Prospective observational study. SETTING University Hospital Basel, Switzerland. METHODS Continuous microbiological surveillance of 3 types of HCUs in use (3T from LivaNova/Sorin and HCU30 and HCU40 from Maquet) was initiated in June 2014, coupled with an epidemiologic workup. Monthly water and air samples were taken. Construction design was analyzed, and exhausted airflow was measured. RESULTS Mycobacterium chimaera grew in 8 of 12 water samples (66%) and 22 of 24 air samples (91%) of initial 3T HCUs in use, and in 2 of 83 water samples (2%) and 0 of 41 (0%) air samples of new replacement 3T HCUs. Moreover, 7 of 12 water samples (58%) and 0 of 4 (0%) air samples from the HCU30 were positive, and 0 of 64 (0%) water samples and 0 of 50 (0%) air samples from the HCU40 were positive. We identified 4 relevant differences in HCU design compared to the 3T: air flow direction, location of cooling ventilators, continuous cooling of the water tank at 4°C, and an electronic alarm in the HCU40 reminding the user of the next disinfection cycle. CONCLUSIONS All infected patients were associated with a 3T HCU. The individual HCU design may explain the different risk of disseminating M. chimaera into the air of the operating room. These observations can help the construction of improved devices to ensure patient safety during cardiac surgery. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2018;834–840
Reference Intervals of Central Aortic Blood Pressure and Augmentation Index Assessed with an Oscillometric Device in Healthy Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults from Argentina

Age-related reference intervals (RIs) of central (aortic) systolic blood pressure (cSBP) and augmentation index (cAIx) obtained from large healthy population are lacking in Argentina (South America). Aims. To analyze the existence of associations among cSBP and cAIx with demographic, anthropometric, and hemodynamic parameters and to generate percentile curves and RIs adjusted to each level of age and gender and/or body height. cSBP and cAIx were measured in 1038 healthy children, adolescents, and young adults. First, we evaluated if RIs for males and females were necessary using correlation and covariate analysis. Second, mean (M) and standard deviation (SD) age-related equations were obtained for cSBP and cAIx, using parametric regression methods based on fractional polynomials. Third, age specific percentiles curves were generated. Fourth, body height specific percentiles curves were generated using a similar procedure. The obtained equations (considering age as independent variable) for all subjects (cSBP0.26 and (cAIx + 12.001)0.5) were as follows: cSBP Mean = 3.0581 + 0.2189 log(Age) − 0.001044Age; cSBP SD = −0.03919 + 0.1535 log(Age) − 0.004564Age; cAIx mean = 9.5226 − 6.1599 log(Age) + 0.1450Age; cAIx SD = 1.3880 − 0.8468 log(Age) + 0.03212Age. This study, performed in Argentinean healthy children, adolescents, and young adults with ages of 5 to 22 years, provides the first RIs and percentile curves of cSBP and cAIx. Additionally, specific body height-related cAIx percentiles are reported for the analyzed population. The RIs and percentiles contribute to the knowledge of arterial dynamic evolution along the normal aging process and the interpretation of data obtained in clinical research and daily clinical practice.
Interobserver Agreement in the Diagnosis of Inflammatory Bowel Disease-Associated Neoplasia in China in Comparison to Subspecialized American Gastrointestinal Pathologists

Background The aim of this study was to evaluate the interobserver variability in diagnosing inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)-associated neoplasia among practicing pathologists from China using telepathology, a practice of remote diagnostic consultation increasingly used nationally and internationally, and its comparison with the interpretation of subspecialized gastrointestinal (GI) pathologists from the United States (US). Methods Eight GI pathologists from the US and 4 pathologists from China with an interest in GI pathology participated in this study. A total of 50 colonic biopsies from patients with a clinical history of IBD from 8 medical centers in China were included. All microscopic slides in each case were digitized using an Aperio system. One pathologist (XL) reviewed the digitized full-slide images, and selected areas of interest were captured at low, medium, and high magnifications at a resolution of 1712 × 1072 pixels and saved as tagged image file format (TIFF) files on read-only DVD. Each pathologist evaluated the images and selected the most appropriate diagnostic category for each case (negative, indefinite, low-grade dysplasia [LGD], high-grade dysplasia [HGD], and carcinoma). A Fleiss' kappa coefficient (K) analysis was performed to determine interobserver agreement and the agreement of each pathologist from China with the consensus diagnosis (defined as diagnostic agreement by at least 4 participating US GI pathologists). Results There was substantial interobserver agreement among 4 pathologists from China on the interpretation of IBD-associated neoplasia (kappa value 0.68, 95% confidence interval: 0.56–0.78). A consensus diagnosis included negative (n = 22), LGD (n = 22), HGD (n = 3), carcinoma (n = 2), and indefinite for dysplasia (n = 1). Using consensus diagnoses as references, the agreement between each pathologist from China and the consensus diagnosis was substantial with kappa values ranging from 0.75 to 0.80. Conclusions This study reveals substantial interobserver agreement for the interpretation of colonic neoplasia in IBD using digitized images among Chinese pathologists as well as between each Chinese pathologist and a consensus diagnosis generated by US GI pathologists.
Evolution of morphological integration in the skull of Carnivora (Mammalia): Changes in Canidae lead to increased evolutionary potential of facial traits

Morphological integration refers to the fact that different phenotypic traits of organisms are not fully independent from each other, and tend to covary to different degrees. The covariation among traits is thought to reflect properties of the species' genetic architecture and thus can have an impact on evolutionary responses. Furthermore, if morphological integration changes along the history of a group, inferences of past selection regimes might be problematic. Here, we evaluated the stability and evolution of the morphological integration of skull traits in Carnivora by using evolutionary simulations and phylogenetic comparative methods. Our results show that carnivoran species are able to respond to natural selection in a very similar way. Our comparative analyses show that the phylogenetic signal for pattern of integration is lower than that observed for morphology (trait averages), and that integration was stable throughout the evolution of the group. That notwithstanding, Canidae differed from other families by having higher integration, evolvability, flexibility, and allometric coefficients on the facial region. These changes might have allowed canids to rapidly adapt to different food sources, helping to explain not only the phenotypic diversification of the family, but also why humans were able to generate such a great diversity of dog breeds through artificial selection.
A Cross-Sectional Multicenter Study of Workplace Violence against Prehospital Emergency Medical Technicians

Background and Purpose Workplace violence is a global phenomenon and violation of human rights affects the people's self-esteem and quality of work and causes inequality, discrimination, disorder, and conflict at work. The present study was carried out aiming at determining the workplace violence against the prehospital emergency medical technicians (PEMTs) in three provinces of Fars, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad, and Bushehr, Iran. Materials and Methods This was a cross-sectional multicenter study in which 206 PEMTs from Fars, Bushehr, and Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad provinces participated. Simple random sampling was used in this study. In order to collect data, a researcher-made tool was used. Descriptive statistics and SPSS® software version 22 were used to analyze the data. Results Among various types of workplace violence, the most frequent ones were verbal violence (78.1%), physical violence (60.3%), and cultural violence (31.7%), respectively. The most important factor in the occurrence of workplace violence was the lack of the awareness of people about the duties of the PEMTs. With regard to the handling of the violent situations, the results indicated that 61.6% of the personnel asked the attacker to calm down. 48.5% of PEMTs believed that violence was normal in their work. Conclusion Due to the high rate of workplace violence against PEMTs, it is suggested that methods such as formal training and retraining programs for the employees, general education with regard to the duties of the PEMTs, and socially supporting them should be used to reduce and control violence.
Estrus synchronization and Fixed Time Artificial Insemination (FTAI) in dairy buffaloes during seasonal anestrus

The aim of this work was to study estrus synchronization and fixed time artificial insemination (FTAI) in dairy buffaloes during season anestrus. One hundred thirty-nine dairy buffaloes in seasonal anestrus were divided in two groups as G1(n=66) and G2(n=73). The protocols for both the groups were the same until day (D)14:D0 administration of 2.0 mg estradiol benzoate and implantation of progesterone device (P4) for 14 days; D14 removal of P4 plus 150 mg of cloprostenol and 400 IU of equine chorionic gonadotropin. On D16, G1 received 10 mg of buserelin and G2 100 mg deslorelin acetate. On D17, both the groups were submitted to FTAI. Ultrasonographic examinations of ovaries were performed on D0, D14, D16 and D17. Results showed that pregnancy rates in G1 and G2 were 20 and 41% (p 0.05). Thirty-five percent of the animals in G1 and 54.1% in G2 showed a diameter DF greater than 8.0 mm on D16 (p>0.05). Thus, it could be concluded that the protocols synchronized the estrus, leading the concentration of the parturitions in the period of low milk production. Deslorelin was more efficient than buserelin due the higher percentage of DF ovulation and higher pregnancy rates.
Phenotypic Variation in a Four-Generation Family with Aniridia Carrying a Novel PAX6 Mutation

Aniridia is a congenital disease that affects almost all eye structures and is primarily caused by loss-of-function mutations in the PAX6 gene. The degree of vision loss in aniridia varies and is dependent on the extent of foveal, iris, and optic nerve hypoplasia and the presence of glaucoma, cataracts, and corneal opacification. Here, we describe a 4-generation family in which 7 individuals across 2 generations carry a novel disease-causing frameshift mutation (NM_000280.4(PAX6):c.565TC>T) in PAX6. This mutation results in an early stop codon in exon 8, which is predicted to cause nonsense-mediated decay of the truncated mRNA and a functionally null PAX6 allele. Family members with aniridia showed differences in multiple eye phenotypes including iris and optic nerve hypoplasia, congenital and acquired corneal opacification, glaucoma, and strabismus. Visual acuity ranged from 20/100 to less than 20/800. Patients who required surgical intervention for glaucoma or corneal opacification had worse visual outcomes. Our results show that family members carrying a novel PAX6 frameshift mutation have variable expressivity, leading to different ocular comorbidities and visual outcomes.