Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Physiological Roles of Mast Cells: Collegium Internationale Allergologicum Update 2019

Mast cells are immune cells which have a widespread distribution in nearly all tissues. These cells and their mediators are canonically viewed as primary effector cells in allergic disorders. However, in the last years, mast cells have gained recognition for their involvement in several physiological and pathological conditions. They are highly heterogeneous immune cells displaying a constellation of surface receptors and producing a wide spectrum of inflammatory and immunomodulatory mediators. These features enable the cells to act as sentinels in harmful situations as well as respond to metabolic and immune changes in their microenvironment. Moreover, they communicate with many immune and nonimmune cells implicated in several immunological responses. Although mast cells contribute to host responses in experimental infections, there is no satisfactory model to study how they contribute to infection outcome in humans. Mast cells modulate physiological and pathological angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis, but their role in tumor initiation and development is still controversial. Cardiac mast cells store and release several mediators that can exert multiple effects in the homeostatic control of different cardiometabolic functions. Although mast cells and their mediators have been simplistically associated with detrimental roles in allergic disorders, there is increasing evidence that they can also have homeostatic or protective roles in several pathophysiological processes. These findings may reflect the functional heterogeneity of different subsets of mast cells.
Non‐Mendelian Single‐Nucleotide Polymorphism Inheritance and Atypical Meiotic Configurations are Prevalent in Hop

GBS pseudo‐testcross data from F1 families reveal extensive segregation distortion. Cytogenetic analyses reveal atypical, nondisomic, meiotic configurations. Genetic loci associated with sex determination are mapped to LG 4. Hot spots exhibiting unusual Fst variance provide clues about signatures of selection in hops. Combined analyses implicate meiotic chromosome behavior in segregation distortion.
Environmental Silica Dust Exposure and Pulmonary Tuberculosis in Johannesburg, South Africa

Background: Occupational crystalline silica dust exposure is associated with an elevated risk of pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB). However, there is less evidence for an association with environmental silica dust exposure. Methods: A cross-sectional study of 310 participants was conducted in an exposed community living within 2 km of gold mine tailings and an unexposed population residing more than 10 km from the nearest gold mine tailing. Chest radiographs (n = 178) were read for PTB, past or current, by three readers. Results: Past or current PTB was radiologically identified in 14.4% (95%CI 9.2–21.8) in the exposed and 7.5% (95%CI 2.8–18.7) in the unexposed groups. Multivariate logistic regression models suggested that PTB prevalence was independently associated with exposure to second-hand smoke (OR = 8.13, 95%CI 1.16–57.22), a lower body mass index (OR = 0.88, 95%CI 0.80–0.98), previous diagnosis and treatment of PTB (OR = 8.98, 95%CI 1.98–40.34), and exposure to dust in the workplace from sand, construction, and/or mining industries (OR = 10.2, 95%CI 2.10–50.11). Conclusion: We found no association between PTB and environmental exposure to gold mine tailing dust. However, workplace silica dust exposure is a significant risk factor for PTB in South Africa, and PTB patients of working age should be screened for silica exposure.
Comparison of Gel Larval Diet with Traditional Lucerne Chaff and Carrot Solid Diets for Rearing of Queensland Fruit Fly (Diptera: Tephritidae)

Abstract Sterile insect technique (SIT) for Queensland fruit fly, Bactrocera tryoni Froggatt, Australia's most economically damaging fruit fly species, is currently undergoing a major renewal and expansion. SIT relies on efficient and economical mass-rearing procedures that produce high-quality flies. Two solid larval diets, carrot and lucerne chaff, have traditionally been used to rear Queensland fruit fly. Recently, a gel larval diet has been developed to eliminate biological bulking agents from the mass-rearing process, but to date, there has been no direct comparison of gel larval diet with traditional solid diets. In the present study, the performance of flies reared on gel larval diet was compared with the performance of flies reared on carrot and lucerne chaff diets. In addition, to investigate whether the performance of reared flies depends on ancestral diet as well as tested diet, we sourced eggs from a colony maintained on carrot diet and from a colony maintained on a lucerne chaff diet. Overall, the gel diet was as good or better than the solid diets in all quality control parameters, including, egg–larval duration, pupal number, pupal recovery, adult emergence, percentage of fliers, and rate of fliers. Of note, larvae developed faster and pupated more synchronously on the gel diet than on either of the solid diets. At the loading densities used, gel and carrot diets produced less waste than lucerne chaff diet. Gel diets offer a rearing solution for Queensland fruit fly that eliminates biological bulking agents and yields faster and more synchronous larval development without compromising productivity or quality.
Characterization of a Class of Soft Bending Arms

Bending permits soft arms to access a workspace that is not colinear with the initial arm axis; the size and shape of this space depends on the characteristics of the soft arm. Soft bending actuators and arms have developed for specific applications, but not characterized for the general relationship between design variables and performance. This paper defines a class of soft bending arms based on its design, considering the arm as a system constructed from many contracting actuators organized into segments. A modular segment design is presented, and seven variants of this design were constructed and tested for bend radius, bend direction, lateral stiffness and contraction. The variants isolate system parameters, in this case, arm radius and number of actuators within a given segment, to quantify how these parameters affect performance. A trade-off was found between lateral stiffness and bend radius, which can be controlled by altering the arm radius or the number of actuators. Bend direction was found to be coupled to both bend radius and arm load. Finally, a three-segment arm following a bio-inspired design is presented to demonstrate how the experimental results apply to soft robot system design.
Chicken eggs as a surveillance tool for malaria and leishmaniasis vector presence.

INTRODUCTION Malaria and leishmaniases are transmitted by vectors during blood-feeding. Vector-infected animals develop antibodies against the vector's saliva. This study evaluated IgY antibody detection in the chicken eggs exposed to bites from Migonemyia migonei, Lutzomyia longipalpis and Anopheles aquasalis. METHODS We used ELISA to quantify the antibody levels in the sera and exposed chicken eggs. RESULTS High IgY levels were observed following immunization; furthermore, higher reactivity was observed in the eggs and species-specific immune response was observed post final immunization. CONCLUSIONS Chicken eggs can be used as sentinels to surveil vector saliva antibodies.
Online Resource Allocation with Matching Constraints

Matching markets with historical data are abundant in many applications, e.g., matching candidates to jobs in hiring, workers to tasks in crowdsourcing markets, and jobs to servers in cloud services. In all these applications, a match consumes one or more shared and limited resources and the goal is to best utilize these to maximize a global objective. Additionally, one often has historical data and hence some statistics (usually first-order moments) of the arriving agents (\emphe.g., candidates, workers, and jobs) can be learnt. To model these scenarios, we propose a unifying framework, called Multi-Budgeted Online Assignment with Known Adversarial Distributions. In this model, we have a set of offline servers with different deadlines and a set of online job types. At each time, a job of type j arrives. Assigning this job to a server i yields a profit $w_i, j $ while consuming $\mathbfa _e \in [0, 1]^K$ quantities of distinct resources. The goal is to design an (online) assignment policy that maximizes the total expected profit without violating the (hard) budget constraint. We propose and theoretically analyze two linear programming (LP) based algorithms which are almost optimal among all LP-based approaches. We also propose several heuristics adapted from our algorithms and compare them to other LP-agnostic algorithms using both synthetic as well as real-time cloud scheduling and public safety datasets. Experimental results show that our proposed algorithms are effective and significantly out-perform the baselines. Moreover, we show empirically the trade-off between fairness and efficiency of our algorithms which does well even on fairness metrics without explicitly optimizing for it.
Calibration of Granier-Type (TDP) Sap Flow Probes by a High Precision Electronic Potometer

Thermal dissipation probe (TDP) method (Granier, 1985) is widely used to estimate tree transpiration (i.e., the water evaporated from the leaves) because it is simple to build, easy to install, and relatively inexpensive. However, the universality of the original calibration has been questioned and, in many cases, proved to be inaccurate. Thus, when the TDP is used in a new species, specific tests should be carried out. Our aim was to propose a new method for improving the accuracy of TDP on trees in the field. Small hazelnut trees (diameter at breast height 5 cm) were used for the experiment. The response of TDP sensors was compared with a reference water uptake measured with an electronic potometer system provided with a high precision liquid flow meter. We equipped three stems where we measured the sap flow density, the sapwood area (by using fuchsine), the total tree water uptake (reference), and the main meteorological parameters during summer 2018. Results confirmed that the original Granier’s calibration underestimated the effective tree transpiration (relative error about −60%). We proposed a new equation for improving the measurement accuracy within an error of about 4%. The system proposed appeared an easier solution compared to potted trees and particularly suitable for orchards, thus contributing to improve the irrigation management worldwide.
Release and migration of cyclic polyester oligomers from bisphenol A non-intent polyester–phenol-coatings into food simulants and infant food – a comprehensive study

ABSTRACT Coatings for cans or closures are essential to protect the metal from corrosion and the food from migration of hazardous metal ions. Since coatings are no inert materials, they can release substances of potential health concern into food. In the present study, a comprehensive analysis is presented for a complex two-layered polyester–phenol-coating commercially used for metal closures of complementary infant food in sterilised glass jars. Focussed on the identity and migration of cyclic polyester oligomers as a kind of predictable non-intentionally added substances, polyester resin raw materials (n = 3) as well as individual coating layers (n = 3) were characterised by several analytical strategies (size exclusion chromatography, high-performance liquid chromatography mass spectrometry, diode array detection, charged aerosol detection, monomer determination after alkaline hydrolysis, overall migrate). The main polyester monomers were terephthalic acid, isophthalic acid, trimellitic acid, ethylene glycol, diethylene glycol, neopentylglycol, 2-methyl-1,3-propanediol, 1,4-butanediol and tricyclodecanedimethanol. The coatings were extracted with solvents acetonitrile and ethanol (24 h, 60°C), food simulants 50% ethanol, 20% ethanol and water (1 h, 121°C) as well as homemade and commercial baby food (1 h, 121°C). The released total polyester content determined by alkaline hydrolysis ranged from 288 µg/dm2 (water, 1 h, 121°C) to 6154 µg/dm2 (acetonitrile, 24 h, 60°C). However, individual cyclic oligomers, mainly dimers, were released from the coating to up to about 140 µg/dm2. Migration into infant food was best represented by the food simulants water (up to 1% fat) and 20% ethanol (up to 5% fat). Cyclic polyester oligomers are classified as Cramer III substances by the threshold of toxicological concern concept associated to an exposure threshold of 1.5 µg/kg body weight per day. Exposure to cyclic polyester oligomers might be a potential concern for highly exposed infants. Graphical Abstract
From Matching with Diversity Constraints to Matching with Regional Quotas

In the past few years, several new matching models have been proposed and studied that take into account complex distributional constraints. Relevant lines of work include (1) school choice with diversity constraints where students have (possibly overlapping) types and (2) hospital-doctor matching where various regional quotas are imposed. In this paper, we present a polynomial-time reduction to transform an instance of (1) to an instance of (2) and we show how the feasibility and stability of corresponding matchings are preserved under the reduction. Our reduction provides a formal connection between two important strands of work on matching with distributional constraints. We then apply the reduction in two ways. Firstly, we show that it is NP-complete to check whether a feasible and stable outcome for (1) exists. Due to our reduction, these NP-completeness results carry over to setting (2). In view of this, we help unify some of the results that have been presented in the literature. Secondly, if we have positive results for (2), then we have corresponding results for (1). One key conclusion of our results is that further developments on axiomatic and algorithmic aspects of hospital-doctor matching with regional quotas will result in corresponding results for school choice with diversity constraints.
Back to the Salt Mines: Genome and Transcriptome Comparisons of the Halophilic Fungus Aspergillus salisburgensis and Its Halotolerant Relative Aspergillus sclerotialis

Salt mines are among the most extreme environments as they combine darkness, low nutrient availability, and hypersaline conditions. Based on comparative genomics and transcriptomics, we describe in this work the adaptive strategies of the true halophilic fungus Aspergillus salisburgensis, found in a salt mine in Austria, and compare this strain to the ex-type halotolerant fungal strain Aspergillus sclerotialis. On a genomic level, A. salisburgensis exhibits a reduced genome size compared to A. sclerotialis, as well as a contraction of genes involved in transport processes. The proteome of A. sclerotialis exhibits an increased proportion of alanine, glycine, and proline compared to the proteome of non-halophilic species. Transcriptome analyses of both strains growing at 5% and 20% NaCl show that A. salisburgensis regulates three-times fewer genes than A. sclerotialis in order to adapt to the higher salt concentration. In A. sclerotialis, the increased osmotic stress impacted processes related to translation, transcription, transport, and energy. In contrast, membrane-related and lignolytic proteins were significantly affected in A. salisburgensis.
Truthful Mechanisms for Location Games of Dual-Role Facilities

This paper is devoted to the facility location games with payments, where every agent plays a dual role of facility and customer. In this game, each selfish agent is located on a publicly known location in a metric space, and can allow a facility to be opened at his place. But the opening cost is his private information and he may strategically report this opening cost. Besides, each agent also bears a service cost equal to the distance to his nearest open facility. We are concerned with designing truthful mechanisms for the game, which, given agents' reports, output a set of agents whose facilities could be opened, and a payment to each of these agents who opens a facility. The objective is to minimize (exactly or approximately) the social cost (the total opening and service costs) or the maximum agent cost of the outcome. We characterize the normalized truthful mechanisms for this game. Concerning the minimum social-cost objective, we give an optimal truthful mechanism without regard to time complexity, and show a small gap between the best known approximation ratio of polynomial-time truthful mechanisms for the game and that of polynomial-time approximation algorithms for the counterpart of pure optimization. For the minimum maximum-cost objective, we provide an optimal truthful mechanism which runs in polynomial time. We also investigate mechanism design for the game under a budget on the total payment.
Chemokine CXCL13 as a New Systemic Biomarker for B-Cell Involvement in Acute T Cell-Mediated Kidney Allograft Rejection

The presence of B-cell clusters in allogenic T cell-mediated rejection (TCMR) of kidney allografts is linked to more severe disease entities. In this study we characterized B-cell infiltrates in patients with TCMR and examined the role of serum CXCL-13 in these patients and experimentally. CXCL-13 serum levels were analyzed in 73 kidney allograft recipients at the time of allograft biopsy. In addition, four patients were evaluated for CXCL13 levels during the first week after transplantation. ELISA was done to measure CXCL-13 serum levels. For further mechanistic understanding, a translational allogenic kidney transplant (ktx) mouse model for TCMR was studied in BalbC recipients of fully mismatched transplants with C57BL/6 donor kidneys. CXCL-13 serum levels were measured longitudinally, CD20 and CD3 composition and CXCL13 mRNA in tissue were examined by flow cytometry and kidneys were examined by histology and immunohistochemistry. We found significantly higher serum levels of the B-cell chemoattractant CXCL13 in patients with TCMR compared to controls and patients with borderline TCMR. Moreover, in patients with acute rejection within the first week after ktx, a >5-fold CXCL13 increase was measured and correlated with B-cell infiltrates in the biopsies. In line with the clinical findings, TCMR in mice correlated with increased systemic serum-CXCL13 levels. Moreover, renal allografts had significantly higher CXCL13 mRNA expression than isogenic controls and showed interstitial CD20+ B-cell clusters and CD3+ cell infiltrates accumulating in the vicinity of renal vessels. CXCL13 blood levels correlate with B-cell involvement in TCMR and might help to identify patients at risk of a more severe clinical course of rejection.
Effect of Organic Inputs and Solarization for the Suppression of Rhizoctonia solani in Woody Ornamental Plant Production

Soilborne diseases are the most economically significant problem faced by Southern region nursery producers. The goal of this research was to improve Rhizoctonia root rot disease management through the use of soil solarization alone and in combination with biofumigant cover crops—arugula ‘Astro’ (Eruca vesicaria ssp. sativa), mustard green ‘Amara’ (Brassica carinata), and turnip ‘Purple top forage’ (B. rapa); good quality compost and mustard meal amendment. The experiments were established as on-farm trials in 2016 and 2017 with prevalent Rhizoctonia solani population in propagation beds. All three biofumigant cover crops, arugula ‘Astro’, mustard green ‘Amara’, and turnip ‘Purple top forage’ in combination with solarization were able to reduce the Rhizoctonia root rot in flowering cherry ‘Kwanzan’ plants in nursery propagation beds. Compost amendment increased the flowering cherry rooted cuttings growth (plant weight, root weight, and plant height) compared to other treatments. Soil solarization in combination with cover crops and organic inputs could be used as part of an integrated approach to manage Rhizoctonia root rot in nursery crop propagation beds.
Silver/silver chloride (Ag/AgCl) nanoparticles synthesized from Azadirachta indica lalex and its antibiofilm activity against fluconazole resistant Candida tropicalis

Abstract In this study, latex of Azadirachta indica was used for the synthesis of silver nanoparticles (AgNP). UV-visible spectroscopy revealed the formation of AgNPs and the absorption band optimized at 442 nm. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy shows different functional groups (carboxyl, amine and hydroxyl) of biomolecule which are responsible for reduction and capping process. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis confirms the nanoparticles are crystalline silver and cubic (AgCl) with face-centered cubic (Ag) types. Electron microscopics (SEM and TEM) were used to characterize the shape and size of the nanoparticles. The anticandidal and antibiofilm activity of AgNPs was using Fluconazole resistant clinical isolate of Candida tropicalis. The new approach of plant-mediated AgNPs synthesis appears to be cost-effective, eco-friendly and easy methods. The synthesized AgNPs considered as a novel and alternative agent to prevent C. tropicalis biofilms.
Normally-OFF Two-Dimensional Hole Gas Diamond MOSFETs Through Nitrogen-Ion Implantation

Diamond is a promising material for power applications owing to its excellent physical properties. Two-dimensional hole gas (2DHG) diamond metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) with hydrogen-terminated (C-H) channel have high current densities and high breakdown fields but often show normally- ON operation. From the viewpoint of safety, normally- OFF operation is required for power applications. In this letter, we used ion implantation to form a shallow and thin nitrogen-doped layer below the C-H channel region, which realized normally- OFF operation. Nitrogen-ion implanted length is fixed at 5 or 10 $\mu \text{m}$ . Nitrogen is a deep donor (1.7 eV) and the nitrogen-doped layer prevents hole accumulation near the surface. The threshold voltage was as high as −2.5 V and no obvious dependence on the threshold voltage of nitrogen-ion implanted length is observed. The breakdown field was 2.7 MV/cm at room temperature. Of 64 devices with a common gate length, 75% showed normally- OFF operation. We confirmed the threshold voltage shift by a thin and shallow nitrogen-doped layer formed by ion implantation.
Mean Corpuscular Volume Predicts In-Stent Restenosis Risk for Stable Coronary Artery Disease Patients Receiving Elective Percutaneous Coronary Intervention

Background The purpose of this study was to analyze predictive performance of MCV in midterm ischemic events among SCAD patients undergoing elective PCI. Material/Methods We retrospectively included 226 consecutive patients with SCAD who received elective PCI. The patients were grouped based on MCV quartile values. The prognostic significance of MCV was assessed using univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazard regression analyses. Results According to MCV quartile points (87.5 fL, 89.7 fL, and 92.4 fL, respectively), the included patients were divided into 4 groups, with an average follow-up of 34.2 months. There were 28 (48.3%) patients with stent thrombosis in the 1st quartile, 24 (29.1%) in the 2nd quartile, 18 (31.6%) in the 3rd quartile, and 15 (27.8%) in the 4th quartile (log-rank test, P=0.027). Multivariate analysis confirmed that MCV 1st quartile (HRadj=2.047, 95% CI 1.041–4.026; P=0.038), ALT (HRadj=1.013, 95% CI 1.004–1.023; P=0.004) and number of PCI vessels (HRadj=1.198 95% CI 1.013–1.415; P=0.034) were risk factors for ischemic events. The restenosis rate in patients belonging to the MCV 1st quartile was 2 times higher than that in MCV 2nd, 3rd, and 4th quartile groups (P=0.007). Conclusions MCV value may be independently correlated with restenosis in SCAD patients undergoing PCI. Low MCV predicts high risk of in-stent restenosis.