Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A comparative study of different amniotic membrane orientations during extraocular muscle surgery in rabbits

ABSTRACT Purpose: To histopathologically compare the effect of different orientations of cryopreserved human amniotic membrane (AM) transplant during extraocular muscle surgery in rabbits. Methods: Fifty-two albino rabbit eyes underwent 4-mm resection of the superior rectus. Eyes were randomly divided into four groups. In Group C (Control group, 16 eyes) the muscle was not wrapped with amniotic membrane. In the three AM groups, cryopreserved AM was wrapped around the muscle, oriented with either its stroma (Group S, 15 eyes) or epithelium (Group E, nine eyes) towards the muscle, or folded on itself with the epithelium externally (Group F, 12 eyes). The rabbits were sacrificed and the eyes were enucleated 6 weeks after surgery. Histopathological examination was conducted for periamniotic, foreign body, scleral, and conjunctival inflammation, conjunctival vascularity, adhesions and muscle fibrosis. Results: In all AM eyes, the AM was surrounded by periamniotic inflammation, with no adhesions detected between the muscle and surrounding tissues in the segment where the AM was present, but detected elsewhere. Adhesions were detected in all group C eyes. Foreign body inflammation was significantly less in Group C than in each of the AM groups (p < .05), but was insignificantly different among the three AM groups (p > .05). Scleral inflammation was absent in all specimens. No significant differences were noted among all groups in terms of conjunctival vascularity, conjunctival inflammation, or muscle fibrosis (p > .05). Conclusions: All AM orientations were equally effective in preventing the development of postoperative adhesions between the extraocular muscle and surrounding tissues.
Diurnal Cycling Transcription Factors of Pineapple Revealed by Genome-Wide Annotation and Global Transcriptomic Analysis

Abstract Circadian clock provides fitness advantage by coordinating internal metabolic and physiological processes to external cyclic environments. Core clock components exhibit daily rhythmic changes in gene expression, and the majority of them are transcription factors (TFs) and transcription coregulators (TCs). We annotated 1,398 TFs from 67 TF families and 80 TCs from 20 TC families in pineapple, and analyzed their tissue-specific and diurnal expression patterns. Approximately 42% of TFs and 45% of TCs displayed diel rhythmic expression, including 177 TF/TCs cycling only in the nonphotosynthetic leaf tissue, 247 cycling only in the photosynthetic leaf tissue, and 201 cycling in both. We identified 68 TF/TCs whose cycling expression was tightly coupled between the photosynthetic and nonphotosynthetic leaf tissues. These TF/TCs likely coordinate key biological processes in pineapple as we demonstrated that this group is enriched in homologous genes that form the core circadian clock in Arabidopsis and includes a STOP1 homolog. Two lines of evidence support the important role of the STOP1 homolog in regulating CAM photosynthesis in pineapple. First, STOP1 responds to acidic pH and regulates a malate channel in multiple plant species. Second, the cycling expression pattern of the pineapple STOP1 and the diurnal pattern of malate accumulation in pineapple leaf are correlated. We further examined duplicate-gene retention and loss in major known circadian genes and refined their evolutionary relationships between pineapple and other plants. Significant variations in duplicate-gene retention and loss were observed for most clock genes in both monocots and dicots.
Outcomes of intra‐detrusor injections of botulinum toxin in patients with spina bifida: A systematic review

Bladder management in spina bifida patients relies on clean intermittent catheterization and oral antimuscarinics with a significant failure rate. The efficacy of intradetrusor injections of botulinum toxin has been confirmed in patients with spinal cord injury or multiple sclerosis but not in patients with myelomeningocele.
CAN WE DISCERN THE EFFECT OF GLOBALIZATION ON INCOME DISTRIBUTION

The effects of globalization on income di stribution within rich and poor countries are a matter of controversy. While international trade theory in its most abstract formulation implies that increased trad e and foreign investment should make income distribution more equal in poor c ountries and less equal in rich countries, finding these effects has proved elusive. The paper presents another attempt to discern the effects of globalization by us ing the new data derived directly from household surveys. The paper looks at the impact of openness (trade/GDP ratio) and direct foreign investment on relative income shares across the entire income distribution. In contrast to what one w ould expect from theory, we find strong evidence that at low average income level, it is the rich who benefit from openness. As income level rises, that is around the income level of $5-7,000 per capita at international prices, the situation changes and it is the relative income of the poor and the middle class that rises compared to the rich. It seems that openness makes income distribution worse before making it better—or differently that the effect of openness on income di stribution depends on country’s average income level.
Improving the Diversity of Faculty in Electrical and Computer Engineering (iREDEFINE ECE)

As women faculty in electrical and computer engineering (ECE), we have been involved in several efforts targeted at increasing the participation of women in ECE departments. For example, at Rutgers University, we have organized presentations and workshops for first year students that highlighted the societal aspects of ECE, such as bioelectrical engineering applications. Such focus did bear fruit; between 2010 and 2016, the sophomore female enrollment in ECE at Rutgers rose from 11% to 19%. At the University of San Diego, we have conducted research on the demographics and outcomes of undergraduate students in ECE, facilitated workshops to help faculty teach in more inclusive ways, and are currently working on a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded effort to revolutionize engineering education [1] . Also, as chairs, we have been considering ways to diversify our faculty carefully considering the overall hiring process including innovative approaches such as cluster hires [2] , paying close attention to the language used when advertising faculty positions, the discussions during the review of the candidates, the candidate selection criteria, and the interview process [3] . However, the number of diverse graduate students is small to begin with, and in an era in which companies have realized the value of diversity, academia has to compete with companies such as Google and Microsoft for the best Ph.D. graduates. Without a diverse faculty, we cannot sustain a diverse student body.
Régionalisation en analyse du cycle de vie : Analyse conséquentielle des filières alternatives pour le transport en france

Make a decision in a sustainable development perspective requires to assess its economic, social and environmental benefits, and thus its sustainability. The environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) is one of the tools to assess sustainability as it aims to estimate the potential environmental impacts of goods, services, and decisions. Its main strengths are: (i) to quantify environmental impacts all along the value chain (life cycle perspective: from extraction of raw materials, their transformation, use and end of life), and (ii) to convert the emissions and withdrawals from the environment (inventory) into impacts on climate change, human health and ecosystem quality thanks to characterization factors (CFs). LCA makes it possible to identify avenues for the reduction of environmental impacts with a systemic perspective. Complementary to the attributional approach traditionally used in LCA, consequential LCA allows quantifying the environmental consequences of a decision, like the implementation of a public policy or the development of new technologies. Its use could be very relevant to enhance impact assessments performed before implementing a public policy. However, as with every assessment tool, one of the main limitations of LCA is the uncertainty of its results which may be high and is still too rarely assessed. As a tool for decision-making support, special attention should be paid to uncertainty reduction in LCA, in order to reduce the overall uncertainty in decision-making. Regionalization is one way to reduce uncertainty due to spatial variability in LCA. It refers to the enhancement of the geographical representativeness of LCA results. It can be integrated into LCA using many approaches at the different stages of LCA, especially thanks to inventory regionalization or inventory spatialization for LCA practitioners. However, existing approaches are now misidentified, and their relevant use conditions should be clarified. In addition, integrating regionalization may induce additional workload for the LCA practitioner, especially for data collection and modeling. Therefore, a methodology to prioritize data collection efforts for regionalization in LCA should be proposed to reduce the spatial uncertainty of the LCA results. This prioritization should aim to optimize the practitioner’s efforts by focusing on data that mostly contributes to uncertainty, i.e. the most sensitive, thus that has the highest potential for uncertainty reduction. The few existing methodologies to prioritize data collection efforts in LCA are illadapted to the LCA structure and the validity of their prioritization may be challenged. Besides, no methodology to prioritize regionalization efforts in LCA exists.
Circuits Regulating Pleasure and Happiness in Bipolar Disorder

According to our model, the motivation for appetitive-searching vs. distress-avoiding behaviors is regulated by two parallel cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical (CSTC) re-entry circuits that include the core and the shell parts of the nucleus accumbens, respectively. An entire series of basal ganglia, running from the caudate nucleus on one side to the centromedial amygdala on the other side, control the intensity of these reward-seeking and misery-fleeing behaviors by stimulating the activity of the (pre)frontal and limbic cortices. Hyperactive motivation to display behavior that potentially results in reward induces feelings of hankering (relief leads to pleasure); while, hyperactive motivation to exhibit behavior related to avoidance of aversive states results in dysphoria (relief leads to happiness). These two systems collaborate in a reciprocal fashion. We hypothesized that the mechanism inducing the switch from bipolar depression to mania is the most essential characteristic of bipolar disorder. This switch is attributed to a dysfunction of the lateral habenula, which regulates the activity of midbrain centers, including the dopaminergic ventral tegmental area (VTA). From an evolutionary perspective, the activity of the lateral habenula should be regulated by the human homolog of the habenula-projecting globus pallidus, which in turn might be directed by the amygdaloid complex and the phylogenetically old part of the limbic cortex. In bipolar disorder, it is possible that the system regulating the activity of this reward-driven behavior is damaged or the interaction between the medial and lateral habenula may be dysfunctional. This may lead to an adverse coupling between the activities of the misery-fleeing and reward-seeking circuits, which results in independently varying activities.
Relationship Between Reactive Strength Index Variants in Rugby League Players.

Two reactive strength index (RSI) variants exist, the RSI and RSI modified (RSImod) which are typically calculated during the drop jump (DJ) and countermovement jump (CMJ), respectively. Both RSI variants have been used to monitor athletes' ability to complete stretch-shortening cycle actions quickly, but they have never been compared. The purpose of this study was to determine if they yield relatable information about reactive strength characteristics. Male professional rugby league players (n = 21, age = 20.8±2.3 years, height = 1.82±0.06 m and body mass = 94.3±8.4 kg) performed three DJs (30 cm) and CMJs on a force plate. RSI and RSImod were subsequently calculated by dividing jump height by ground contact time (GCT) and time to take-off (TTT), respectively. All variables were highly reliable (intraclass correlation coefficient ≥0.78) with acceptable levels of variability (coefficient of variation ≤8.2%), albeit larger variability was noted for DJ variables. Moreover, there was a large relationship between RSI and RSImod (r=0.524, P=0.007), whereas very large relationships were noted between jump heights (r=0.762, P<0.001) and between GCT and TTT (ρ=0.705, P<0.001). Additionally, RSI (0.90±0.22) was largely and significantly (d=2.57, P<0.001) greater than RSImod (0.47±0.08). The DJ-derived RSI yields much larger values than the CMJ-derived RSImod and although a large relationship was noted between them, it equated to just 22% shared variance. These results suggest that the two RSI variants do not explain each other well, indicating that they do not assess entirely the same reactive strength qualities and should not be used interchangeably.
Institutional antecedents of the corporate social responsibility narrative in the developing world context: implications for sustainable development

Efforts to understand the background to perceptions and manifestation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the developing world need to focus on establishing their link with the challenges of socio-economic governance and societal expectations and cultural traditions. This signifies a departure from a western centric understanding of CSR but also an over-focus on CSR as philanthropy. This study considers the Malawian tourism industry and finds that its colonial legacy, post-colonialism development thinking and the national education system explain the prevalence of a ‘CSR as philanthropy’ agenda. When these factors interact with challenges of socio-economic governance and societal expectations, however, the universality thesis that has often been associated with the theory and implementation CSR can be challenged. These findings therefore suggest a shift from the western centric CSR thinking to a CSR perspective that is strongly grounded in local values and norms and which meets the expectations of the global society. This indicates a way forward if CSR is to be adequately institutionalized in the developing world.
Identifying Cross-Country Key Drivers of Social Entrepreneurial Activity

ABSTRACT This study investigated the correlates of broad and narrow social entrepreneurship activity and 83 socio economic indicators among a sample of countries for which sufficient data exists. The study identified that broad and narrow social entrepreneurial activities are predicted through different drivers. Broad social entrepreneurial activity is driven by labor force with tertiary education, growth of carbon dioxide emissions, long-term unemployment, and percentage of stock of immigrants in a country. The narrowly defined social entrepreneurial activity is driven by taxes on income, profit and capital gains, growth of carbon dioxide emissions, and perception of standard of living in a country.
Essential Role for Neutrophil Recruitment to the Liver in Concanavalin A-Induced Hepatitis 1

Leukocyte infiltration into the liver is paramount to the development of liver injury in hepatitis. Hepatitis occurring after the administration of Con A in mice is felt to be a T lymphocyte-mediated disease. In this study, we report that neutrophils are the key initiators of lymphocyte recruitment and liver injury caused by Con A. The objectives of this study were to investigate the involvement of neutrophils in Con A-induced hepatitis in vivo via intravital microscopy. After Con A administration, we observed a significant increase in leukocyte rolling flux, a decrease in rolling velocity, and an increase in leukocyte adhesion to the hepatic microvasculature. Fluorescence microscopy identified that within 4 h of Con A administration only a minority of the recruited leukocytes were T lymphocytes. Furthermore, immunohistochemistry showed a significant increase in neutrophils recruited to the liver post-Con A treatment in association with liver cell damage, as reflected by elevated serum alanine aminotransferase levels. Using flow cytometry, we observed that Con A could bind directly to neutrophils, which resulted in a shedding of L-selectin, an increase in β2-integrin expression, and the production of reactive oxidants. Following neutrophil depletion, a significant inhibition of Con A-induced CD4+ T lymphocyte recruitment to the liver resulted and complete reduction in hepatic injury, as assessed by serum alanine aminotransferase levels. In summary, the present data support the concept that neutrophils play an important and previously unrecognized role in governing Con A-induced CD4+ T cell recruitment to the liver and the subsequent development of hepatitis.
Electronic and Structural Properties of Oxygen-Doped BN Nanotubes

The structural and electronic properties of oxygen substitutional doping in a (10,0) BN nanotube were obtained using ab initio calculation based on the density functional theory. For the oxygen replacing a boron atom in the tube (OB), the structure is locally deformed. In the case of nitrogen substitution (ON), however, the tube structure remains practically the same with negligible deformation observed around the oxygen atom. The electronic band structure for OB nanotubes is modified by the appearance of three strongly localized states, two of then as gap states. In the case of ON nanotubes the Fermi level is shifted into the conduction band inducing a metallic character to the doped tube. The analysis of the formation energies shows that the ON substitution is more favorable, particularly in the case of a boron-rich environment
Immunolocalization of Le(y) oligosaccharide in endometrium during menstrual cycle and effect of early luteal phase mifepristone administration on its expression in implantation stage endometrium of the rhesus monkey.

Changes in carbohydrate expression on endometrial and blastocyst cell surfaces may play a critical role in the process of implantation. Le(y) is an oligosaccharide antigen which has been shown to be involved in blastocyst attachment in the mouse. In the present study, immunohistochemical distribution of Le(y) in endometrium during proliferative and secretory phases of normal menstrual cycles in the rhesus monkey was examined. Endometrial samples were collected on cycle days 7 (n=4), 13 (n= 4), 16 (n=4), 20 (n=4) and 25 (n=3). There was a gradual increase of Le(y) in luminal surface from proliferative to periovulatory (P < 0.001), and from periovulatory to postovulatory (P < 0.05), phases. Le(y) then remained constant in the midsecretory phase and decreased (P < 0.01) during the premenstrual phase. Le(y) score in glands did not change between the phases, except in midsecretory phase when it was higher than that in other phases (P < 0.05). The stromal compartment showed no statistically significant changes. The profiles of endometrial Le(y) on day 6 after ovulation in mated fecund cycles with or without early luteal phase mifepristone treatment were also examined. Females were allowed to cohabit with males during days 8-16 of their ovulatory cycles and were injected s.c. with vehicle (n=7) only, or with a single dose of mifepristone (2 mg/kg body weight; n=8) on day 2 after ovulation. Significant decreases in the area and optical absorption of immunoprecipitate were observed in the epithelial compartment (P < 0.01) following mifepristone treatment. There was no change in the stromal compartment either in area or in optical absorption of immunoprecipitate for Le(y) with or without mifepristone treatment. The expression of Le(y) in the endometrial epithelial compartment appears to be influenced by progesterone and may be associated with endometrial receptivity prior to implantation in the rhesus monkey.
Lactic Acid Bacterium and Yeast Microbiotas of 19 Sourdoughs Used for Traditional/Typical Italian Breads: Interactions between Ingredients and Microbial Species Diversity

ABSTRACT The study of the microbiotas of 19 Italian sourdoughs used for the manufacture of traditional/typical breads allowed the identification, through a culture-dependent approach, of 20 and 4 species of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and yeasts, respectively. Numerically, the most frequent LAB isolates were Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis (ca. 28% of the total LAB isolates), Lactobacillus plantarum (ca. 16%), and Lactobacillus paralimentarius (ca. 14%). Saccharomyces cerevisiae was identified in 16 sourdoughs. Candida humilis, Kazachstania barnettii, and Kazachstania exigua were also identified. As shown by principal component analysis (PCA), a correlation was found between the ingredients, especially the type of flour, the microbial community, and the biochemical features of sourdoughs. Triticum durum flours were characterized by the high level of maltose, glucose, fructose, and free amino acids (FAA) correlated with the sole or main presence of obligately heterofermentative LAB, the lowest number of facultatively heterofermentative strains, and the low cell density of yeasts in the mature sourdoughs. This study highlighted, through a comprehensive and comparative approach, the dominant microbiotas of 19 Italian sourdoughs, which determined some of the peculiarities of the resulting traditional/typical Italian breads.
Exploring the role of white matter connectivity in cortex maturation

The maturation of the cortical gray matter (GM) and white matter (WM) are described as sequential processes following multiple, but distinct rules. However, neither the mechanisms driving brain maturation processes, nor the relationship between GM and WM maturation are well understood. Here we use connectomics and two MRI measures reflecting maturation related changes in cerebral microstructure, namely the Apparent Diffusion Coefficient (ADC) and the T1 relaxation time (T1), to study brain development. We report that the advancement of GM and WM maturation are inter-related and depend on the underlying brain connectivity architecture. Particularly, GM regions and their incident WM connections show corresponding maturation levels, which is also observed for GM regions connected through a WM tract. Based on these observations, we propose a simple computational model supporting a key role for the connectome in propagating maturation signals sequentially from external stimuli, through primary sensory structures to higher order functional cortices.