Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Maternal smoking and low family income during pregnancy as predictors of the relationship between depression and adiposity in young adults

Abstract There is an increasing incidence of overweight/obesity and mental health disorders in young adults and the two conditions often coexist. We aimed to investigate the influence of antenatal and postnatal factors that may underlie this association with a focus on maternal prenatal smoking, socio-economic status and gender. Data from the Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) Study (women enrolled 1989–1991) including 1056 offspring aged 20 years (cohort recalled 2010–2012) were analyzed (2015–2016) using multivariable models for associations between offspring depression scores (DASS-21 Depression-scale) and body mass index (BMI), adjusting for pregnancy and early life factors and offspring behaviours. There was a significant positive relationship between offspring depression-score and BMI independent of gender and other psychosocial covariates. There was a significant interaction between maternal prenatal smoking and depression-score (interaction coefficient=0.096; 95% CI: 0.006, 0.19, P=0.037), indicating the relationship between depression-score and BMI differed according to maternal prenatal smoking status. In offspring of maternal prenatal smokers, a positive association between BMI and depression-score (coefficient=0.133; 95% CI: 0.05, 0.21, P=0.001) equated to 1.1 kg/m2 increase in BMI for every 1standard deviation (8 units) increase in depression-score. Substituting low family income during pregnancy for maternal prenatal smoking in the interaction (interaction coefficient=0.091; 95% CI: 0.01, 0.17, P=0.027) showed a positive association between BMI and depression score only among offspring of mothers with a low family income during pregnancy (coefficient=0.118; 95% CI: 0.06, 0.18, P<0.001). There were no significant effects of gender on these associations. Whilst further studies are needed to determine whether these associations are supported in other populations, they suggest potentially important maternal behavioural and socio-economic factors that identify individuals vulnerable to the coexistence of obesity and depression in early adulthood.
Tramadol-induced hepato- and nephrotoxicity in rats: Role of Curcumin and Gallic acid as antioxidants

Tramadol is an analgesic used to treat moderate to severe pain caused by cancer, osteoarthritis, and other musculoskeletal diseases. Cytochrome P450 system metabolizes tramadol and induces oxidative stress in different organs. Therefore, the present study aims at investigating the changes in the activities and the protein expressions of CYPs isozymes (2E1, 3A4, 2B1/2), antioxidants status, free radicals levels after pretreatment of rats with Curcumin and/or Gallic as single- and/or repeated-doses before administration of tramadol. In repeated-dose treatments of rats with tramadol, the activities of cytochrome P450, cytochrome b5, and NADPH-cytochrome-c-reductase, and the antioxidant enzymes including glutathione reductase, glutathione peroxidase, glutathione S-transferase, catalase, superoxide dismutase, and levels of glutathione were inhibited in the liver and the kidney of rats. Interestingly, such changes caused by tramadol restored to their normal levels after pretreatment of rats with either Curcumin and/or Gallic acid. On the other hand, repeated-dose treatment of rats with tramadol increased the activities of both dimethylnitrosamine N-demethylase I (DMN-dI), and aryl hydrocarbon hydroxylase (AHH) compared to the control group. However, pretreatment of rats with Curcumin and/or Gallic acid prior to administration of tramadol restored the inhibited DMN-dI activity and its protein expression (CYP 2E1) to their normal levels. On the other hand, tramadol inhibited the activity of ethoxycoumarin O-deethylase (ECOD) and suppressed its protein marker expression (CYP2B1/2), whereas Curcumin, Gallic acid and/or their mixture restored such changes to their normal levels. In conclusion, Curcumin and/or Gallic acid alleviated the adverse effects caused by tramadol. In addition, patients should be advice to take Curcumin and/or Gallic acid prior to tramadol treatment to alleviate the hepatic and renal toxicities caused by tramadol.
Derivation of Mean Value Coordinates Using Interior Distance and Their Application on Mesh Deformation

The deformation methods based on cage controls became a subject of considerable interest due its simplicity and intuitive results. In this technique, the model is enclosed within a simpler mesh (the cage) and its points are expressed as function of the cage elements. Then, by manipulating the cage, the respective deformation is obtained on the model in its interior.In this direction, in the last years, extensions of barycentric coordinates, such as Mean Value coordinates, Positive Mean Value Coordinates, Harmonic coordinates and Green's coordinates, have been proposed to write the points of the model as a function of the cage elements.The Mean Value coordinates, proposed by Floater in two dimensions and extended later to three dimensions by Ju et al. and also by Floater, stands out from the other coordinates because of their simple derivation. However the existence of negative coordinates in regions bounded by non-convex cage control results in a unexpected behavior of the deformation in some regions of the model.In this work, we propose a modification in the derivation of Mean Value Coordinates proposed by Floater. Our derivation maintains the simplicity of the construction of the coordinates and eliminates the undesired behavior in the deformation by diminishing the negative influence of a control vertex on regions ofthe model not related to it. We also compare the deformation generated with our coordinates and the deformations obtained with the original Mean Value coordinates and Harmonic coordinates.
Adaptive Weighting for Neural Machine Translation

In the popular sequence to sequence (seq2seq) neural machine translation (NMT), there exist many weighted sum models (WSMs), each of which takes a set of input and generates one output. However, the weights in a WSM are independent of each other and fixed for all inputs, suggesting that by ignoring different needs of inputs, the WSM lacks effective control on the influence of each input. In this paper, we propose adaptive weighting for WSMs to control the contribution of each input. Specifically, we apply adaptive weighting for both GRU and the output state in NMT. Experimentation on Chinese-to-English translation and English-to-German translation demonstrates that the proposed adaptive weighting is able to much improve translation accuracy by achieving significant improvement of 1.49 and 0.92 BLEU points for the two translation tasks. Moreover, we discuss in-depth on what type of information is encoded in the encoder and how information influences the generation of target words in the decoder.
Noninvasive Monitoring of Liver Disease Regression after Hepatitis C Eradication Using Gadoxetic Acid-Enhanced MRI

We evaluated changes in relative liver enhancement (RLE) obtained by gadoxetic acid-enhanced MRI (GA-MRI) in the hepatobiliary phase and changes in splenic volume (SV) after hepatitis C virus (HCV) eradication as well as their predictive value for the development of (further) hepatic decompensation during follow-up. This retrospective study comprised 31 consecutive patients with HCV-induced advanced chronic liver disease who underwent GA-MRI before and after successful interferon-free treatment, as well as a cohort of 14 untreated chronic HCV-patients with paired GA-MRI. RLE increased by 66% (20%–94%; P < 0.001) from pre- to posttreatment, while SV decreased by −16% (−28% to −8%; P < 0.001). However, SV increased in 16% (5/31) of patients, the identical subjects who showed a decrease in RLE (GA-MRI-nonresponse). We observed an inverse correlation between the changes in RLE and SV (ρ=−0.608; P < 0.001). In the untreated patients, there was a decrease in RLE by −11% (−25% to −3%; P=0.019) and an increase in SV by 23% (7%–43%; P=0.004) (both P < 0.001 versus treated patients). Interestingly, GA-MRI-nonresponse was associated with a substantially increased risk of (further) hepatic decompensation 2 years after the end of treatment: 80% versus 8%; P < 0.001. GA-MRI might distinguish between individuals at low and high risk of (further) hepatic decompensation (GA-MRI-nonresponse) after HCV eradication. This could allow for individualized surveillance strategies.
Sources of health financing and health outcomes: A panel data analysis

We study the differential impacts of public and private sources of health spending on health outcomes using a triple difference approach. We find that private health spending has on average a higher health-promoting effect than public health spending. This result is robust with respect to the choice of outcome measure and covariates in the regression and driven primarily by the countries with ineffective governments. Once we restrict our sample to countries with effective governments, private health spending is found to be no better than public health spending in improving the health outcome.
The Nrf2-Antioxidant Response Element Signaling Pathway Controls Fibrosis and Autoimmunity in Scleroderma

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is an autoimmune disease with fibrosis of the skin and internal organs and vascular alterations. Dysregulations in the oxidant/antioxidant balance are known to be a major factor in the pathogenesis of the disease. Indeed, reactive oxygen species (ROS) trigger neoepitopes leading to a breach of immune tolerance and autoimmune responses, activate fibroblasts to proliferate and to produce excess of type I collagen. ROS also alter endothelial cells leading to vascular dysfunction. Glutathione (GSH) is the most potent antioxidant system in eukaryotic cells. Numerous studies have reported a defect in GSH in SSc animal models and humans, but the origin of this defect remains unknown. The transcription factor NRF2 is a key player in the antioxidant defense, as it can induce the transcription of antioxidant and cytoprotective genes, including GSH, through its interaction with the antioxidant response elements. In this work, we investigated whether NRF2 could be implicated in the pathogenesis of SSc, and if this pathway could represent a new therapeutic target in this orphan disease with no curative medicine. Skin biopsies from 11 patients and 10 controls were harvested, and skin fibroblasts were extracted. Experimental SSc was induced both in BALB/c and in nrf2−/− mice by daily intradermal injections of hypochloric acid. In addition, diseased BALB/c mice were treated with an nrf2 agonist, dimethyl fumarate, or placebo. A drop in nrf2 and target genes mRNA levels was observed in skin fibroblasts of SSc patients compared to controls. Moreover, the nrf2 pathway is also downregulated in skins and lungs of SSc mice. In addition, we observed that nrf2−/− mice have a more severe form of SSc with increased fibrosis and inflammation compared to wild-type SSc mice. Diseased mice treated with the nrf2 agonist dimethyl fumarate (DMF) exhibited reduced fibrosis and immune activation compared to untreated mice. The ex vivo treatment of skin fibroblasts from SSc mice with DMF restores GSH intracellular content, decreases ROS production and cell proliferation. These results suggest that the nrf2 pathway is highly dysregulated in human and SSc mice with deleterious consequences on fibrosis and inflammation and that Nrf2 modulation represents a therapeutic target in SSc.
How pattern formation in ring networks of excitatory and inhibitory spiking neurons depends on the input current regime

Pattern formation, i.e., the generation of an inhomogeneous spatial activity distribution in a dynamical system with translation invariant structure, is a well-studied phenomenon in neuronal network dynamics, specifically in neural field models. These are population models to describe the spatio-temporal dynamics of large groups of neurons in terms of macroscopic variables such as population firing rates. Though neural field models are often deduced from and equipped with biophysically meaningful properties, a direct mapping to simulations of individual spiking neuron populations is rarely considered. Neurons have a distinct identity defined by their action on their postsynaptic targets. In its simplest form they act either excitatorily or inhibitorily. When the distribution of neuron identities is assumed to be periodic, pattern formation can be observed, given the coupling strength is supracritical, i.e., larger than a critical weight. We find that this critical weight is strongly dependent on the characteristics of the neuronal input, i.e., depends on whether neurons are mean- or fluctuation driven, and different limits in linearizing the full non-linear system apply in order to assess stability. In particular, if neurons are mean-driven, the linearization has a very simple form and becomes independent of both the fixed point firing rate and the variance of the input current, while in the very strongly fluctuation-driven regime the fixed point rate, as well as the input mean and variance are important parameters in the determination of the critical weight. We demonstrate that interestingly even in “intermediate” regimes, when the system is technically fluctuation-driven, the simple linearization neglecting the variance of the input can yield the better prediction of the critical coupling strength. We moreover analyze the effects of structural randomness by rewiring individual synapses or redistributing weights, as well as coarse-graining on the formation of inhomogeneous activity patterns.
Structural Dynamics of the PET-Degrading Cutinase-like Enzyme from Saccharomonospora viridis AHK190 in Substrate-Bound States Elucidates the Ca2+-Driven Catalytic Cycle.

A cutinase-type polyesterase from Saccharomonospora viridis AHK190 (Cut190) has been shown to degrade the inner block of polyethylene terephthalate. A unique feature of Cut190 is that its function and stability are regulated by Ca2+ binding. Our previous crystal structure analysis of Cut190S226P showed that one Ca2+ binds to the enzyme, which induces large conformational changes in several loop regions to stabilize an open conformation [Miyakawa, T. , et al. (2015) Appl. Microbiol. Biotechnol. 99, 4297]. In this study, to analyze the substrate recognition mechanism of Cut190, we determined the crystal structure of the inactive form of a Cut190 mutant, Cut190*S176A, in complex with calcium ions and/or substrates. We found that three calcium ions bind to Cut190*S176A, which is supported by analysis using native mass spectrometry experiments and 3D Reference Interaction Site Model calculations. The complex structures with the two substrates, monoethyl succinate and monoethyl adipate (engaged and open forms), presumably correspond to the pre- and post-reaction states, as the ester bond is close to the active site and pointing outward from the active site, respectively, for the two complexes. Ca2+ binding induces the pocket to open, enabling the substrate to access the pocket more easily. Molecular dynamics simulations suggest that a post-reaction state in the engaged form presumably exists between the experimentally observed forms, indicating that the substrate would be cleaved in the engaged form and then requires the enzyme to change to the open form to release the product, a process that Ca2+ can greatly accelerate.
The Characterization of Arabidopsis mterf6 Mutants Reveals a New Role for mTERF6 in Tolerance to Abiotic Stress

Exposure of plants to abiotic stresses, such as salinity, cold, heat, or drought, affects their growth and development, and can significantly reduce their productivity. Plants have developed adaptive strategies to deal with situations of abiotic stresses with guarantees of success, which have favoured the expansion and functional diversification of different gene families. The family of mitochondrial transcription termination factors (mTERFs), first identified in animals and more recently in plants, is likely a good example of this. In plants, mTERFs are located in chloroplasts and/or mitochondria, participate in the control of organellar gene expression (OGE), and, compared with animals, the mTERF family is expanded. Furthermore, the mutations in some of the hitherto characterised plant mTERFs result in altered responses to salt, high light, heat, or osmotic stress, which suggests a role for these genes in plant adaptation and tolerance to adverse environmental conditions. In this work, we investigated the effect of impaired mTERF6 function on the tolerance of Arabidopsis to salt, osmotic and moderate heat stresses, and on the response to the abscisic acid (ABA) hormone, required for plants to adapt to abiotic stresses. We found that the strong loss-of-function mterf6-2 and mterf6-5 mutants, mainly the former, were hypersensitive to NaCl, mannitol, and ABA during germination and seedling establishment. Additionally, mterf6-5 exhibited a higher sensitivity to moderate heat stress and a lower response to NaCl and ABA later in development. Our computational analysis revealed considerable changes in the mTERF6 transcript levels in plants exposed to different abiotic stresses. Together, our results pinpoint a function for Arabidopsis mTERF6 in the tolerance to adverse environmental conditions, and highlight the importance of plant mTERFs, and hence of OGE homeostasis, for proper acclimation to abiotic stress.
Recognizing Humour using Word Associations and Humour Anchor Extraction

This paper attempts to marry the interpretability of statistical machine learning approaches with the more robust models of joke structure and joke semantics capable of being learned by neural models. Specifically, we explore the use of semantic relatedness features based on word associations, rather than the more common Word2Vec similarity, on a binary humour identification task and identify several factors that make word associations a better fit for humour. We also explore the effects of using joke structure, in the form of humour anchors (Yang et al., 2015), for improving the performance of semantic features and show that, while an intriguing idea, humour anchors contain several pitfalls that can hurt performance.
If you’ve seen some, you’ve seen them all: Identifying variants of multiword expressions

Multiword expressions, especially verbal ones (VMWEs), show idiosyncratic variability, which is challenging for NLP applications, hence the need for VMWE identification. We focus on the task of variant identification, i.e. identifying variants of previously seen VMWEs, whatever their surface form. We model the problem as a classification task. Syntactic subtrees with previously seen combinations of lemmas are first extracted, and then classified on the basis of features relevant to morpho-syntactic variation of VMWEs. Feature values are both absolute, i.e. hold for a particular VMWE candidate, and relative, i.e. based on comparing a candidate with previously seen VMWEs. This approach outperforms a baseline by 4 percent points of F-measure on a French corpus.
Mycobacteriophage Lysis Enzymes: Targeting the Mycobacterial Cell Envelope

Mycobacteriophages are viruses that specifically infect mycobacteria, which ultimately culminate in host cell death. Dedicated enzymes targeting the complex mycobacterial cell envelope arrangement have been identified in mycobacteriophage genomes, thus being potential candidates as antibacterial agents. These comprise lipolytic enzymes that target the mycolic acid-containing outer membrane and peptidoglycan hydrolases responsive to the atypical mycobacterial peptidoglycan layer. In the recent years, a remarkable progress has been made, particularly on the comprehension of the mechanisms of bacteriophage lysis proteins activity and regulation. Notwithstanding, information about mycobacteriophages lysis strategies is limited and is mainly represented by the studies performed with mycobacteriophage Ms6. Since mycobacteriophages target a specific group of bacteria, which include Mycobacterium tuberculosis responsible for one of the leading causes of death worldwide, exploitation of the use of these lytic enzymes demands a special attention, as they may be an alternative to tackle multidrug resistant tuberculosis. This review focuses on the current knowledge of the function of lysis proteins encoded by mycobacteriophages and their potential applications, which may contribute to increasing the effectiveness of antimycobacterial therapy.
Coupling of apical-basal polarity and planar cell polarity to interpret the Wnt signaling gradient in feather development

ABSTRACT Sensing a global directional cue to orient cell growth is crucial in tissue morphogenesis. An anterior-posterior gradient of Wnt signaling controls the helical growth of feather branches (barbs), and thus the formation of bilateral feathers. However, it remains unclear how the keratinocytes sense this gradient and orient barb growth. Here, we show that in chicken, owing to feather branching, the global Wnt gradient is subdivided into periodic barbs. Within each barb, the anterior barbule plate cells tilt before the posterior cells. The core planar cell polarity gene Prickle1 is involved, as knockdown of its expression resulted in no cell shape change and no barb tilting. Furthermore, perturbation of the Wnt gradient leads to diffusive Prickle1 expression and loss of barb orientation. Finally, the asymmetric distribution of Wnt6/Fzd10 is coordinated by the apical-basal polarity of the barbule plate keratinocytes, which is in turn regulated by the Par3/aPKC machinery. Our data elucidate a new mechanism through which the global Wnt signaling gradient is interpreted locally to construct complex spatial forms. Summary: In chicken, feather keratinocytes interpret the global Wnt signaling gradient through coupling with the local apical-basal polarity cue and change their shape accordingly.
Exercise Training Induced Cardioprotection with Moderate Hyperglycemia versus Sedentary Intensive Glycemic Control in Type 1 Diabetic Rats

Intensive insulin therapy (IIT; 4–7 mmol/L) is the preferred treatment for type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) patients to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). However, this treatment strategy has been questioned as it is accompanied with a sedentary lifestyle leading to weight gain and insulin resistance. T1DM patients who partake in high-intensity aerobic training (AThigh) to reduce CVD often utilize conventional insulin therapy (CIT; 9–15 mmol/L) to offset the risk of hypoglycemia. Moreover, exercise modalities incorporating resistance training (RT) have been shown to further reduce this risk. The purpose of this investigation was twofold: (1) to determine if CIT paired with AThigh results in larger cardioprotection from an ischemia-reperfusion (I-R) injury than IIT and (2) to establish if the integration of RT with AThigh (ART) results in similar cardioprotection as AThigh. Diabetic (D) male Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into D-IIT (n = 12), D-CIT (n = 12), D-AThigh (n = 8), D-RT (n = 8), and D-ART (n = 8). T1DM was induced with streptozotocin, and blood glucose was adjusted with insulin. D-AThigh occurred on a treadmill (27 m/min; 1 hr), D-RT performed weighted ladder climbs, and D-ART alternated daily between AThigh and RT. Exercise occurred 5 days/wk for 12 wks. This investigation demonstrates that cardioprotection following an I-R injury was similar between D-AThigh and D-IIT. This cardioprotection is not exercise-specific, and each provides unique advantages. D-AThigh leads to improved glycemia while insulin sensitivity was enhanced following resistance exercises. Thus, exercise is an effective means to elicit cardioprotection in T1DM. However, in addition to glycemia, other factors should be considered when tailoring an exercise program for T1DM patients.