Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Total Antioxidant Capacity; A Potential Biomarker for Non-Invasive Sex Prediction in Culture Medium of Preimplantation Human Embryos

Objective The presence of a sex related metabolic difference in glucose utilization and, on the other hand, different developmental kinetic rates in human preimplantation embryos, has been previously observed, hawever, the correlation between these two events is unknown. Oxidative stress (OS) induced by higher glucose consumption appears to be a possible cause for the delayed development rate in female embryos. We examined the correlation between glucose consumption and total antioxidant capacity (TAC) concentration in individual embryo culture media for both male and female embryos. Materials and Methods In this cross-sectional study, we evaluated high quality embryos from 51 patients that underwent intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) and preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) at the Royan Institute between December 2014 and September 2017. The embryos were individually cultured in G-2TMmedium droplets at days 3-5 or 48 hours post PGD. We analysed the spent culture media following embryo transfer for total antioxidant capacity (TAC) and any remaining glucose concentrations through fluorometric measurement by chemiluminecence system which indirectly was used for measurement of glucose consumed by embryos. Results The results showed that female embryos consumed more glucose which was associated with decreased TAC concentration in their culture medium compared to male embryos. The mean of glucose concentration consumed by the female embryos (30.7 ± 4.7 pmol/embryo/hour) was significantly higher than that of the male embryos (25.3 ± 3.3 pmol/embryo/hour) (P<0.001). There were significantly lower levels of TAC in the surrounding culture medium of female embryos (22.60 ± 0.19 nmol/µl) compared with male embryos (24.74 ± 0.27 nmol/µl, P<0.01). Conclusion This finding highlighted the utilization of sex dependent metabolic diversity between preimplantation embryos for non-invasive sex diagnosis and suggests the TAC concentration as a potential noninvasive biomarker for prediction of sex.
Borrelia burgdorferi peptidoglycan is a persistent antigen in patients with Lyme arthritis

Significance Lyme disease, caused by the spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi, is the most common vector-borne disease in North America. If early infection is untreated, it can result in late-stage manifestations, including arthritis. Although antibiotics are generally effective at all stages of the disease, arthritis may persist in some patients for months to several years despite oral and intravenous antibiotic treatment. Excessive, dysregulated host immune responses are thought to play an important role in this outcome, but the underlying mechanisms are not completely understood. This study identifies the B. burgdorferi peptidoglycan, a major component of the cell wall, as an immunogen likely to contribute to inflammation during infection and in cases of postinfectious Lyme arthritis. Lyme disease is a multisystem disorder caused by the spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi. A common late-stage complication of this disease is oligoarticular arthritis, often involving the knee. In ∼10% of cases, arthritis persists after appropriate antibiotic treatment, leading to a proliferative synovitis typical of chronic inflammatory arthritides. Here, we provide evidence that peptidoglycan (PG), a major component of the B. burgdorferi cell envelope, may contribute to the development and persistence of Lyme arthritis (LA). We show that B. burgdorferi has a chemically atypical PG (PGBb) that is not recycled during cell-wall turnover. Instead, this pathogen sheds PGBb fragments into its environment during growth. Patients with LA mount a specific immunoglobulin G response against PGBb, which is significantly higher in the synovial fluid than in the serum of the same patient. We also detect PGBb in 94% of synovial fluid samples (32 of 34) from patients with LA, many of whom had undergone oral and intravenous antibiotic treatment. These same synovial fluid samples contain proinflammatory cytokines, similar to those produced by human peripheral blood mononuclear cells stimulated with PGBb. In addition, systemic administration of PGBb in BALB/c mice elicits acute arthritis. Altogether, our study identifies PGBb as a likely contributor to inflammatory responses in LA. Persistence of this antigen in the joint may contribute to synovitis after antibiotics eradicate the pathogen. Furthermore, our finding that B. burgdorferi sheds immunogenic PGBb fragments during growth suggests a potential role for PGBb in the immunopathogenesis of other Lyme disease manifestations.
Simulations of an inhomogeneous stellar wind interacting with a pulsar wind in a binary system

Binary systems containing a massive star and a non-accreting pulsar present strong interaction between the stellar and the pulsar winds. The properties of this interaction, which largely determine the non-thermal radiation in these systems, strongly depend on the structure of the stellar wind, which can be clumpy or strongly anisotropic, as in Be stars. We study numerically the influence of inhomogeneities in the stellar wind on the structure of the two-wind interaction region. We carried out for the first time axisymmetric, relativistic hydrodynamical simulations, with Lorentz factors of ~6 and accounting for the impact of instabilities, to study the impact in the two-wind interaction structure of an over-dense region of the stellar wind. We also followed the evolution of this over-dense region or clump as it faces the impact of the pulsar wind. For typical system parameters, and adopting a stellar wind inhomogeneity with a density contrast >~10, clumps with radii of a few percent of the binary size can significantly perturb the two-wind interaction region, pushing the two-wind interface to <~40% of the initial distance to the pulsar. After it is shocked, the inhomogeneity quickly expands and is disrupted when it reaches the smallest distance to the pulsar. It eventually fragments, being advected away from the binary system. The whole interaction region is quite unstable, and the shocked pulsar wind can strongly change under small perturbations. We confirm the sensitive nature of the two-wind interaction structure to perturbations, in particular when the stellar wind is inhomogeneous. For realistic over-dense regions of the stellar wind, the interaction region may shrink by a factor of a few, with the shocked flow presenting a complex spatial and temporal pattern. This can lead to strong variations in the non-thermal radiation.
Full Polar Cap Cascade Scenario: Gamma-Ray and X-Ray Luminosities from Spin-powered Pulsars

Canonical polar cap cascade models involve curvature radiation (CR) or inverse Compton scattering (ICS) of the primary particles and synchrotron radiation (SR) of the higher generation pairs. Here we modify such a cascade picture to include the ICS of the higher generation pairs. In such a "full-cascade" scenario, not only the perpendicular portion of the energy of the pairs goes to high-energy radiation via SR, but the parallel portion of the energy of the pairs can also contribute to high-energy emission via ICS with the soft thermal photons from either the full neutron star surface or the hot polar cap. The efficiency of converting particles' kinetic energy to radiation by ICS is very high if the scatterings occur in the "resonant" regime. As a result, almost 100% of the energy input from the pulsar inner accelerators could be converted to high-energy emission. An important output of such a scenario is that the soft tail of the ICS spectrum can naturally result in a nonthermal X-ray component that can contribute to the luminosities observed by ROSAT and ASCA. Here we present an analytic description of such a full polar cap cascade scenario using the recursion relationships between adjacent generations following the approach first proposed by Lu et al., but we develop it to be able to delineate the complex full-cascade process. The acceleration model we adopted is the space-charge-limited flow model proposed by Harding & Muslimov. We present the theoretical predictions of the γ-ray luminosities, the thermal and nonthermal X-ray luminosities for the known spin-powered X-ray pulsars (eight of them are also γ-ray pulsars) and compare them with the observations from CGRO, ROSAT, and ASCA. We estimate the nonthermal X-ray luminosity by including all the possible ICS branches contributing to a certain energy band and estimate both the full surface and hot polar cap thermal X-ray luminosities by adopting a standard neutron star cooling scenario, and by treating self-consistent polar cap heating in the Harding & Muslimov model, respectively. Our results show that the observed different dependences of the high-energy luminosities on the pulsar spin-down luminosities, i.e., Lγ ∝ (Lsd)1/2 and LX ~ 10-3Lsd, are well reproduced. We found that, for normal pulsars, both the hard (ASCA band) and the soft (ROSAT band) X-ray luminosities are dominated by the nonthermal X-rays of ICS origin, although for some pulsars, thermal components due to either neutron star cooling or polar cap heating can have comparable luminosities so that they are detectable. For the millisecond pulsars, our predicted upper limits of the thermal luminosities due to polar cap heating are usually higher than the ICS-origin nonthermal components if there are no strong multipolar magnetic field components near the neutron star surface; thus, the pulsed soft X-rays in the ROSAT band from most of the millisecond pulsars might be of thermal origin.
Hypomorphic Mutations in the BCR Signalosome Lead to Selective Immunoglobulin M Deficiency and Impaired B-cell Homeostasis

B cell activation via the B cell receptor (BCR) signalosome involves participation of signaling molecules such as BTK and BLNK. Genetic defects in these molecules are known to impair B cell differentiation and subsequently lead to agammaglobulinemia. Here we identified novel mutations in BTK and BLNK in two unrelated patients that perturb the intrinsic B-cell receptor signaling pathway and lead to selective IgM deficiency, whereas production of other immunoglobulin isotypes and IgG antibody response remain intact. Currently it is unknown how BCR signaling strength affects mature B cell development in humans. Both patients show reduced levels of BCR signalosome phosphorylation as well as impaired BCR-dependent Ca2+ influx, which was accompanied by a marked decrease in IgD+IgM+CD27+ MZ-like B-cells. We further describe reduced expression of essential B cell differentiation factors such as BAFF-R and T-Bet in the patients' B-cells, which might contribute to the observed deficiency of MZ-like B cells. MZ-like B cells are known to produce natural IgM antibodies that play an essential role in immune homeostasis. By using surface plasmon resonance (SPR) technology and a synthetic blood group A trisaccharide as antigen we were able to show that both patients lack the presence of anti-blood group A IgM considered to be prototypical natural antibodies whereas IgG levels were normal. Antibody binding dynamics and binding affinity of anti-blood group A IgG were comparable between patients and healthy controls. These results indicate that human IgM deficiency can be associated with signaling defects in the BCR signalosome, defective production of natural IgM antibodies in the blood group A/B/0 system and abnormalities in B cell development.
Numerical model of a compressible multi-fluid fluctuating flow

In the present work, we consider the numerical approximations of multi-fluid compressible fluctuating flows. Assuming that the flow is composed by non mixing compressible fluids, we derived a modelization that can be view as an extension of the standard compressible (k, ǫ). This model is fundamentally in non conservation form (the coupling between fluids and turbulence involves non conservative products) and the usual finite volume methods fail. The nonlinear projection scheme is used to preserve, at the discrete level, the main properties of the model. The numerical computations are performed on the Richtmeyer-Meshkov instability to validate the approach and to measure the influence of fluctuations.
Content-Aware Compressive Sensing Recovery Using Laplacian Scale Mixture Priors and Side Information

Nonlocal methods have shown great potential in many image restoration tasks including compressive sensing (CS) reconstruction through use of image self-similarity prior. However, they are still limited in recovering fine-scale details and sharp features, when rich repetitive patterns cannot be guaranteed; moreover the CS measurements are corrupted. In this paper, we propose a novel CS recovery algorithm that combines nonlocal sparsity with local and global prior, which soften and complement the self-similarity assumption for irregular structures. First, a Laplacian scale mixture (LSM) prior is utilized to model dependencies among similar patches. For achieving group sparsity, each singular value of similar packed patches is modeled as a Laplacian distribution with a variable scale parameter. Second, a global prior and a compensation-based sparsity prior of local patch are designed in order to maintain differences between packed patches. The former refers to a prediction which integrates the information at the independent processing stage and is used as side information, while the latter enforces a small (i.e., sparse) prediction error and is also modeled with the LSM model so as to obtain local sparsity. Afterward, we derive an efficient algorithm based on the expectation-maximization (EM) and approximate message passing (AMP) frame for the maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimation of the sparse coefficients. Numerical experiments show that the proposed method outperforms many CS recovery algorithms.
Phytomedicine-Based Potent Antioxidant, Fisetin Protects CNS-Insult LPS-Induced Oxidative Stress-Mediated Neurodegeneration and Memory Impairment

Phytomedicine based natural flavonoids have potent antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and neuroprotective activities against neurodegenerative diseases. The aim of the present study is to investigate the potent neuroprotective and antioxidant potential effects of fisetin (natural flavonoid) against central nervous system (CNS)-insult, lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced reactive oxygen species (ROS), neuroinflammation, neurodegeneration, and synaptic/memory deficits in adult mice. The mice were injected intraperitoneally (i.p.) with LPS (250 μg/kg/day for 1 week) and a fisetin dosage regimen (20 mg/kg/day i.p. for 2 weeks, 1 week pre-treated to LPS and 1 week co-treated with LPS). Behavioral tests, and biochemical and immunofluorescence assays were applied. Our results revealed that fisetin markedly abrogated the LPS-induced elevated ROS/oxidative stress and activated phosphorylated c-JUN N-terminal Kinase (p-JNK) in the adult mouse hippocampus. Fisetin significantly alleviated LPS-induced activated gliosis. Moreover, fisetin treatment inhibited LPS-induced activation of the inflammatory Toll-like Receptors (TLR4)/cluster of differentiation 14 (CD14)/phospho-nuclear factor kappa (NF-κB) signaling and attenuated other inflammatory mediators (tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interleukin-1 β (IL1-β), and cyclooxygenase (COX-2). Furthermore, immunoblotting and immunohistochemical results revealed that fisetin significantly reversed LPS-induced apoptotic neurodegeneration. Fisetin improved the hippocampal-dependent synaptic and memory functions in LPS-treated adult mice. In summary, our results strongly recommend that fisetin, a natural potent antioxidant, and neuroprotective phytomedicine, represents a promising, valuable, and therapeutic candidate for the prevention and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.
Cell‐blocks are suitable material for programmed cell death ligand‐1 immunohistochemistry: Comparison of cell‐blocks and matched surgical resection specimens in lung cancer

Programmed cell death ligand‐1 (PD‐L1) has emerged as a predictive biomarker in lung cancer. PD‐L1 immunohistochemistry (IHC) assay predicts the response to immunotherapy, but cytology specimens are often the only samples available in a considerable proportion of advanced lung cancer patients. We delineate practical feasibility and efficacy of cytology cell‐block (CB) specimens for PD‐L1 expression and concordance between cytology CBs and surgical resection specimens.
Cementless Long Stem Total Hip Replacement for Revision of Failed Hemiarthroplasty

Background: The total hip replacement after failure of hemiarthroplasty (unipolar or bipolar) has been associated with very high rates complications (intra- and postoperative). Patients and Methods: Forty patients 24 males and 16 females with a mean age of 58 years (range: 48-68) had total hip arthroplasty (THA) revision of aseptic loosening of hip hemiarthroplasty. The mean duration of the follow-up was 42 months (range: 30-72), and the cases lost in follow up were excluded from the study. Failure was defined as revision arthroplasty or radiographic evidence of stem loosening, indicated by an Engh fixation score ≤ 10. Vertical femoral migration of >5 mm was defined as subsidence. Harris Hip Score (HHS), and the Merle d'Aubigne (MDA) score (21) were used for patients evaluation. Results: Clinically, the mean preoperative HHS was improved significantly from 41 (24-56) preoperative to 89 (79-96) points at the last follow up. None of our patients had thigh pain postoperatively. Thirty two patients (80%) patients who had isolated groin pain preoperatively experienced no pain postoperatively, and eight patients had partial improvement. The proximal bone remodeling was recorded on serial X-rays at the last visit compared to the first postoperative radiographs and classified as type A, two cases, type b, 22 cases, and type C, 16 cases. Conclusion: The cement less modular distal locking total hip replacement for revision of failed hemiarthroplasty is successful as regard the clinical and radiological results. The surgeon should care of the possibility of intraoperative complications like fractures and perforations.
Influence of Deleterious Rhizobacteria on Leafy Spurge (Euphorbia esula) Roots

Rhizobacteria have been shown to be phytotoxic to leafy spurge in laboratory assays. This field study investigated the influence of two strains of Pseudomonas fluorescens [Trevisan, (Migula)], deleterious rhizobacteria (DRB), on root weight, root bud number, and root carbohydrate content of leafy spurge at three sites located in northeast and north-central South Dakota. Soils were inoculated with 2 g of starch-based granules containing no bacteria or starch granules containing 108colony-forming units (cfu)/g of either bacterial strain LS102 (Montana origin) or LS174 (South Dakota origin). Bacterial strains were detected on root samples from treated areas. Root weight and root carbohydrate content were reduced about 20% compared to roots from control plots.
THE EFFECTS OF PARASITES ON HUMAN BEHAVIOUR: AN EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE

Parasites and predators possess serious threats to humans throughout our evolutionary history. Although the impact of predators in modern world is lower than previously, parasites still influence morbidity and mortality of contemporary humans. From the evolutionary perspective, selective pressures caused by parasites should favour individuals that successfully avoid objects/subjects which transmit parasitic diseases and/or those who are successful in combats with them. There is growing evidence for the existence of evolved anti-parasite behaviours in animals, beginning with invertebrates and ending with primates. Avoidance of infected individuals, grooming and self-medication are most common behavioural strategies that are believed to reduce the transmission of parasites. Here we review recent evidence suggesting that several behavioural and emotional traits in humans evolved as a response to selective pressure caused by parasites. Disgust sensitivity and pathogen threat may be a mechanism that generates both a cross-cultural variation in preferences for certain facial traits, as well as drivers of religious diversity, political stability of countries, parenting cognitive abilities and prevalence of extraversion and openness to new ideas. Finally, we declare areas for a future research based on questions guided by the evolutionary perspective. Key words: evolution, human, parasites, psychology.
EVALUATING THE PSYCHOMETRIC PROPERTIES OF ALLEN AND MEYER'S ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT SCALE: A CROSS CULTURAL APPLICATION AMONG MALAYSIAN ACADEMIC LIBRARIANS

Meyer and Allen hold that organizational commitment is a multidimensional construct comprising three components: affective, continuance and normative. This study focuses on establishing construct validity (convergent and discriminant validity) and internal reliability by applying Allen and Meyer’s organizational commitment scale among Malaysian academic librarians. Altogether 17 items comprising the measures for both affective and continuance commitment were incorporated in the questionnaire. The survey was administered on 222 academic librarians from all the nine university libraries in West Malaysia. Findings were based on the responses from 139 usable questionnaires. The findings revealed the two measures to be distinguishable from one another i.e. the measures exhibited convergent as well as discriminant validity. The findings demonstrate that Allen and Meyer’s Organizational Commitment measures are applicable to librarians in general and to academic librarians specifically.
Cluster observation of plasma flow reversal in the magnetotail during a substorm

Abstract. We investigate in detail a reversal of plasma flow from tailward to earthward detected by Cluster at the downstream distance of ~19 R E in the midnight sector of the magnetotail on 22 August 2001. This flow reversal was accompanied by a sign reversal of the B z component and occurred during the late substorm expansion phase as revealed by simultaneous global view of auroral activity from IMAGE. We examine the associated Hall current system signature, current density, electric field, Lorentz force, and current dissipation/dynamo term, the last two parameters being new features that have not been studied previously for plasma flow reversals. It is found that (1) there was no clear quadrupole Hall current system signature organized by the flow reversal time, (2) the x -component of the Lorentz force did not change sign while the other two did, (3) the timing sequence of flow reversal from the Cluster configuration did not match tailward motion of a single plasma flow source, (4) the electric field was occasionally dawnward, producing a dynamo effect, and (5) the electric field was occasionally larger at the high-latitude plasma sheet than near the neutral sheet. These observations are consistent with the current disruption model for substorms in which these disturbances are due to shifting dominance of multiple current disruption sites and turbulence at the observing location.