Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A New High Hydrostatic Pressure Process to Assure the Microbial Safety of Human Milk While Preserving the Biological Activity of Its Main Components

Background: The main process used to pasteurize human milk is the low-temperature, long-time Holder method. More recently, the high-temperature, short-time method has been investigated. Both processes lead to the appropriate inactivation of vegetative bacterial forms but are ineffective against bacterial spores. Research Aims/Questions: We aimed to accomplish two main objectives: inactivation of all pathogens, including spores; and preservation of the activity of milk components. Design/Methods: Recently, a novel high-hydrostatic pressure process has been developed by HPBioTECH. Using the same raw human milk samples, we compared the effects of this method with those of the Holder method on vegetative and spore forms of pathogens and on bioactive components (lipase activity, immunoproteins). Results: Two main microbial strains were selected: Staphylococcus aureus (as a reference for vegetative forms) and Bacillus cereus (as a reference for spores). Use of the high-hydrostatic pressure process led to microbial decontamination of 6 log for both S. aureus and B. cereus. Additionally, the bioactivity of the main components of human milk was preserved, with activities of lipase, α-lactalbumin, casein, lysozyme, lactoferrin, and sIgA of ~80, 96–99, 98–100, 95–100, 93–97, and 63–64%, respectively. Conclusions: Use of this novel high-hydrostatic pressure process to generate microbiologically safe human milk may provide important benefits for preterm infants, including improved assimilation of human milk (leading increased weight gain) and improved resistance to infections. Because 10% of all human milk collected is contaminated by B. cereus, use of this method will also prevent waste.
Elderly Assistance Using Wearable Sensors by Detecting Fall and Recognizing Fall Patterns

Falling is a serious threat to the elderly people. One severe fall can cause hazardous problems like bone fracture or may lead to some permanent disability or even death. Thus, it has become the need of the hour to continuously monitor the activities of the elderly people so that in case of fall incident they may get rescued timely. For this purpose, many fall monitoring systems have been proposed for the ubiquitous personal assistance of the elderly people but most of those systems focus on the detection of fall incident only. However, if a fall monitoring system is made capable of recognizing the way in which the fall occurs, it can better assist people in preventing or reducing future falls. Therefore, in this study, we proposed a fall monitoring system that not only detects a fall but also recognizes the pattern of the fall for elderly assistance using supervised machine learning. The proposed system effectively distinguishes between falling and non-falling activities to recognize the fall pattern with a high accuracy.
Feedback reduction system influence on additional gain before feedback and maximum stable gain in open-fitted hearing aids

Abstract Objective: The primary purpose of this study was to update existing data on additional gain before feedback and maximum stable gain in commercially available, open-fit hearing instruments. A secondary purpose was to evaluate ratings of sound quality with feedback reduction systems active. Design: Additional gain before feedback, maximum stable gain and subjective sound quality ratings were obtained for six commercially available hearing instruments utilising modern feedback reduction systems. Study sample: Twenty adults (22–46 years) with normal hearing participated in gain measurement testing. Thirty adults (22–39 years) with normal hearing provided ratings of sound quality. Results: Mean additional gain before feedback for 2000–4000 Hz ranged from 5 to 16 dB across manufacturers. Mean maximum stable gain in the same frequency region ranged from 25 to 35 dB across manufacturers. However, meaningful performance differences between participants within each given manufacturer were also identified. Sound quality ratings were not related to the type of feedback reduction algorithm. Conclusions: AGBF and MSG continue to vary significantly both across manufacturers as well as individual ears within a given manufacturer. User satisfaction and performance with hearing aids might be improved by identifying the feedback reduction system optimal for the individual patient.
‘I Don’t Like Maths, That’s Why I am in Journalism’: Journalism Student Perceptions and Myths about Data Journalism

Journalism programs today face the need to train their students in the latest applications and tools - including data journalism techniques. Despite several classes and programs available in this subject area (Berret & Phillips, 2016), students are not actively enrolling in such classes. Using an epistemological approach and Actor-Network Theory (Latour, 2005), this exploratory study of US journalism students identifies some key perceptions that highlight potential barriers to entry for enrollment in such courses.
Religiousness and lifestyle among Europeans in SHARE

Objectives: Religiousness is associated with longevity and better physical health, which may be due to lifestyle choices. Here we examine associations between religiousness and health, explained by lifestyle. Study design: Longitudinal study Methods: Data came from 23,864 people aged 50+ included in the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) in 2004-05 and followed up during 11 years. Results: Praying and taking part in a religious organization were associated with lower odds of smoking (OR = 0.82, 95% CI: 0.73, 0.92 and 0.61, 95% CI: 0.53, 0.70), alcohol consumption (0.71, 95% CI: 0.64, 0.78 and 0.76, 95% CI: 0.67, 0.85), physical inactivity (0.88, 95% CI: 0.79, 0.98 and 0.54, 95% CI: 0.48, 0.61) and doing no vigorous physical activity (0.92, 95% CI: 0.85, 0.98 and 0.63, 95% CI: 0.58, 0.68). Further, religious organizational involvement lowered odds of sleep problems (0.83, 95% CI: 0.76, 0.91), whereas being religiously educated lowered odds of high body weight (0.87, 95% CI: 0.79, 0.96). The more religious (people who prayed, took part in a religious organization and were religiously educated) had lower odds of smoking, alcohol consumption, physical inactivity and sleep problems than other respondents, and compared with people who only prayed, they had lower odds of smoking, physical inactivity and sleep problems. People who only prayed had lower odds of alcohol consumption but higher odds of sleep problems than the non-religious. Conclusions: This study confirms that the positive relations between religiousness and health to an important degree can be explained by lifestyle. The study conducted with data from Europe, where data on religion-health analyses are sparser 2 , included multiple waves of longitudinal data, is preferable to cross-sectional data, to avoid reverse causation 45 . We used several measures of religiousness including having received a religious education, an exposure that has been relatively unexamined in prior research 2 and used a number of outcomes on lifestyle and weight. The large sample from 10 European countries allowed us to examine associations by religious affiliation and gender and to adjust for major potential confounders. A limitation in SHARE is the relatively low response rate and attrition from the sample over the six waves. Moreover, misclassification is inevitable due to self-reporting, and measures of religiousness from the self-administrated questionnaire had approximately one-third missing values. In contrast, the question ‘‘taken part in a religious organization’’ had only 2% missing values.
The Past, Present, and Future of Virtual and Augmented Reality Research: A Network and Cluster Analysis of the Literature

The recent appearance of low cost virtual reality (VR) technologies – like the Oculus Rift, the HTC Vive and the Sony PlayStation VR – and Mixed Reality Interfaces (MRITF) – like the Hololens – is attracting the attention of users and researchers suggesting it may be the next largest stepping stone in technological innovation. However, the history of VR technology is longer than it may seem: the concept of VR was formulated in the 1960s and the first commercial VR tools appeared in the late 1980s. For this reason, during the last 20 years, 100s of researchers explored the processes, effects, and applications of this technology producing 1000s of scientific papers. What is the outcome of this significant research work? This paper wants to provide an answer to this question by exploring, using advanced scientometric techniques, the existing research corpus in the field. We collected all the existent articles about VR in the Web of Science Core Collection scientific database, and the resultant dataset contained 21,667 records for VR and 9,944 for augmented reality (AR). The bibliographic record contained various fields, such as author, title, abstract, country, and all the references (needed for the citation analysis). The network and cluster analysis of the literature showed a composite panorama characterized by changes and evolutions over the time. Indeed, whether until 5 years ago, the main publication media on VR concerned both conference proceeding and journals, more recently journals constitute the main medium of communication. Similarly, if at first computer science was the leading research field, nowadays clinical areas have increased, as well as the number of countries involved in VR research. The present work discusses the evolution and changes over the time of the use of VR in the main areas of application with an emphasis on the future expected VR’s capacities, increases and challenges. We conclude considering the disruptive contribution that VR/AR/MRITF will be able to get in scientific fields, as well in human communication and interaction, as already happened with the advent of mobile phones by increasing the use and the development of scientific applications (e.g., in clinical areas) and by modifying the social communication and interaction among people.
High-normal thyroid-stimulating hormone in euthyroid subjects is associated with risk of mortality and composite disease endpoint only in women

Introduction The aim of the study was to evaluate whether serum thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) within the normal range in euthyroid subjects (having normal free triiodothyronine (fT3) and thyroxine (fT4)) is related to the risk of overall mortality or a composite endpoint of death and nonfatal events. Material and methods In 614 middle-aged adult hospital screenees, free of uncontrolled diabetes at baseline, the association of sex-specific TSH tertiles with death was prospectively assessed using Cox regression, with the composite endpoint assessed using logistic regression in adjusted analyses, stratified by gender. Results In total, 64 deaths and additional incident nonfatal events in 141 cases were recorded at a mean 7.55 years’ follow-up. Multivariable linear regression revealed TSH to be significantly associated among men with age (p = 0.006), but in women inversely with fT3 and fT4 (p < 0.001, and p = 0.024 respectively). In logistic regression analysis, adjusted for age, fT3, fT4, systolic blood pressure and serum total cholesterol, sex-specific baseline TSH tertiles were associated in men neither with the risk of death nor with composite endpoint. In contrast, in women, the highest compared with the bottom TSH tertile predicted the risk of composite endpoint (relative risk: 2.02, 95% CI: 1.07–3.82) and, much more strongly, the mortality risk, independently of fT4 increments. Conclusions The significant association of higher range of normal serum TSH in euthyroid middle-aged adults with the risk of death and nonfatal adverse outcomes in women alone cannot be accounted for by the action of thyroid hormone and is consistent with involvement of TSH in the pro-inflammatory state.
Preserved Vasoconstriction and Relaxation of Saphenous Vein Grafts Obtained by a No-Touch Technique for Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting.

BACKGROUND To obtain a saphenous vein graft (SVG) for coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), the benefit of using a no-touch (NT) technique in vascular function has not been fully investigated. Methods and Results: The pathological and physiological functions of human SVGs with a NT technique to preserve the perivascular adipose tissue (PVAT) and ones obtained by using a conventional (CON) technique removing PVAT, were examined. Immunohistochemistry of the section of SVGs showed that the phosphorylation of endothelial nitric oxide synthase in the endothelium of the NT group was more responsive to vascular endothelial growth factor. A myograph of SVGs showed greater contraction with phenylephrine in the NT group. However, the strong contraction was eliminated in SVGs taken by electrocautery. In the 10 patients whose SVGs were taken without electrocautery, endothelial-dependent relaxation with bradykinin was apparently increased in the CON group more than in the NT group. Smooth muscle relaxation with nitroprusside was higher in the CON group at the lower concentrations; however, the relaxation became greater in the NT group at the high concentrations. Therefore, the effect of neutralizing PVAT-released factors in the both groups was further examined. After medium of NT and CON were exchanged in half, relaxation of SVGs was immediately restored in the NT group. CONCLUSIONS The results suggest that the NT technique preserves the functions of vasoconstriction and relaxation. Also, the presence of PVAT-released vasoconstrictive factors was suspected.
Bounds on Capacity Region of Optical Intensity Multiple Access Channel

This paper provides new inner and outer bounds on the capacity region of optical intensity multiple access channel (OIMAC) with per-user average or peak power constraint. For the average power constrained OIMAC, our bounds at high power are asymptotically tight, thereby characterizing the asymptotic capacity region. The bounds are extended to K-user OIMAC with average power constraint without loss of asymptotic optimality. For the peak power constrained OIMAC, at high power, we bound the asymptotic capacity region to within 0.09 bits, and determine the asymptotic capacity region in the symmetric case. At moderate power, for both types of constraints, the capacity regions are bounded to within fairly small gaps. Our results are established based on capacity results of single-user channels, including 1) capacity bounds for optical intensity channels and peak power constrained Gaussian channels, and 2) capacity results of two specific additive noise channels where the noises obey certain maxentropic distributions.
Personalized treatment of hepatitis C genotype 1a in Norway and Sweden 2014–2016: a study of treatment outcome in patients with or without resistance-based DAA-therapy

Abstract Objectives: Resistance-associated substitutions (RASs) may impair treatment response to direct-acting antivirals (DAA) in hepatitis C virus (HCV) treatment. We investigated the effects of baseline NS3-RASs (Q80K and R155K) and clinically relevant NS5A-RASs in patients with HCV genotype (GT) 1a infection on treatment outcome, with or without resistance-based DAA-treatment. This multi-center study was carried out between 2014 and 2016. Patients/methods: Treatment in the intervention group (n = 92) was tailored to baseline resistance. Detection of NS3-RAS led to an NS5A-inhibitor-based regimen and detection of NS5A-RAS to a protease-inhibitor regimen. Patients without baseline RAS in the intervention group and all patients in the control group (n = 101) received recommended standard DAA-treatment. Results: The sustained virologic response rates (SVR) in the intervention and control groups were 97.8% (90/92) and 93.1% (94/101), respectively (p = .174). A trend toward higher SVR-rate in cirrhotic patients (p = .058) was noticed in the intervention group compared to the control group with SVR-rates 97.5% (39/40) and 83.3% (35/42), respectively. All patients with baseline NS3 (Q80K/R155K) or NS5A-RASs in the intervention group achieved SVR with personalized resistance-based treatment. In the control group, five patients with Q80K or R155K at baseline were treated with simeprevir + sofosbuvir and treatment failed in two of them. Furthermore, one of three patients who failed ledipasvir + sofosbuvir treatment had NS5A-RASs at baseline. Conclusions: In line with the findings of the OPTIMIST-2 trial for Q80K and the EASL-guidelines 2016 for NS5A-RASs, baseline RASs appeared to have an impact on treatment outcome albeit a statistical significance was not observed in this low-prevalence population.
Electrochemically Reduced Water Delays Mammary Tumors Growth in Mice and Inhibits Breast Cancer Cells Survival In Vitro

Electrochemical reduced water (ERW) has been proposed to have beneficial effects on human health due to its rich content of H2 and the presence of platinum nanoparticles with antioxidant effects. Many studies have demonstrated that ERW scavenging properties are able to reduce the damage caused by oxidative stress in different experimental models. Although few in vivo studies have been reported, it has been demonstrated that ERW may display anticancer effects by induction of tumor cells apoptosis and reduction of both angiogenesis and inflammation. In this study, we show that ERW treatment of MCF-7, MDA-MB-453, and mouse (TUBO) breast cancer cells inhibited cell survival in a time-dependent fashion. ERW decreased ErbB2/neu expression and impaired pERK1/ERK2 and AKT phosphorylation in breast cancer cells. In addition, ERW treatment induced apoptosis of breast cancer cell lines independently of the status of p53 and ER and PR receptors. Our in vivo results showed that ERW treatment of transgenic BALB-neuT mice delayed the development of mammary tumors compared to the control. In addition, ERW induced a significant prolongation of tumor-free survival and a reduction in tumor multiplicity. Overall, these results suggest a potential beneficial role of ERW in inhibiting cancer cells growth.
Learning Two Layer Rectified Neural Networks in Polynomial Time

Consider the following fundamental learning problem: given input examples $x \in \mathbb{R}^d$ and their vector-valued labels, as defined by an underlying generative neural network, recover the weight matrices of this network. We consider two-layer networks, mapping $\mathbb{R}^d$ to $\mathbb{R}^m$, with $k$ non-linear activation units $f(\cdot)$, where $f(x) = \max \{x , 0\}$ is the ReLU. Such a network is specified by two weight matrices, $\mathbf{U}^* \in \mathbb{R}^{m \times k}, \mathbf{V}^* \in \mathbb{R}^{k \times d}$, such that the label of an example $x \in \mathbb{R}^{d}$ is given by $\mathbf{U}^* f(\mathbf{V}^* x)$, where $f(\cdot)$ is applied coordinate-wise. Given $n$ samples as a matrix $\mathbf{X} \in \mathbb{R}^{d \times n}$ and the (possibly noisy) labels $\mathbf{U}^* f(\mathbf{V}^* \mathbf{X}) + \mathbf{E}$ of the network on these samples, where $\mathbf{E}$ is a noise matrix, our goal is to recover the weight matrices $\mathbf{U}^*$ and $\mathbf{V}^*$. In this work, we develop algorithms and hardness results under varying assumptions on the input and noise. Although the problem is NP-hard even for $k=2$, by assuming Gaussian marginals over the input $\mathbf{X}$ we are able to develop polynomial time algorithms for the approximate recovery of $\mathbf{U}^*$ and $\mathbf{V}^*$. Perhaps surprisingly, in the noiseless case our algorithms recover $\mathbf{U}^*,\mathbf{V}^*$ exactly, i.e., with no error. To the best of the our knowledge, this is the first algorithm to accomplish exact recovery. For the noisy case, we give the first polynomial time algorithm that approximately recovers the weights in the presence of mean-zero noise $\mathbf{E}$. Our algorithms generalize to a larger class of rectified activation functions, $f(x) = 0$ when $x\leq 0$, and $f(x) > 0$ otherwise.
The Mechanobiology of the Actin Cytoskeleton in Stem Cells during Differentiation and Interaction with Biomaterials

An understanding of the cytoskeleton's importance in stem cells is essential for their manipulation and further clinical application. The cytoskeleton is crucial in stem cell biology and depends on physical and chemicals signals to define its structure. Additionally, cell culture conditions will be important in the proper maintenance of stemness, lineage commitment, and differentiation. This review focuses on the following areas: the role of the actin cytoskeleton of stem cells during differentiation, the significance of cellular morphology, signaling pathways involved in cytoskeletal rearrangement in stem cells, and the mechanobiology and mechanotransduction processes implicated in the interactions of stem cells with different surfaces of biomaterials, such as nanotopography, which is a physical cue influencing the differentiation of stem cells. Also, cancer stem cells are included since it is necessary to understand the role of their mechanical properties to develop new strategies to treat cancer. In this context, to study the stem cells requires integrated disciplines, including molecular and cellular biology, chemistry, physics, and immunology, as well as mechanobiology. Finally, since one of the purposes of studying stem cells is for their application in regenerative medicine, the deepest understanding is necessary in order to establish safety protocols and effective cell-based therapies.
Reduced Activity of HDAC3 and Increased Acetylation of Histones H3 in Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells of Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis

Aberrant histone acetylation and deacetylation are increasingly thought to play important roles in the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). However, limited data from studies about the activity of histone deacetylases (HDACs) and histone acetyltransferase (HAT) in RA are controversial. Those conflicting results may be caused by sample size, medication, and age- and sex-matched controls. The aim of this study is to investigate the expression and activity of class I HDACs (1–3.8) and their effects on histone acetylation in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from RA patients. The expression of class I HDACs in PBMCs from RA patients was decreased in both mRNA and protein levels in comparison with HCs. The nuclear HAT activities were dramatically increased. Further, we found HDAC3 activity to be the most significantly reduced in overall reduction of HDACs in the RA group. The extent of total histone H3, but not H4, acetylation in PBMCs from RA patients was increased compared to that in healthy controls (HCs) (p < 0.01). In RA PBMCs, the activity and expression of class I HDACs are decreased, which is accompanied with enhanced HAT activity. An altered balance between HDAC and HAT activity was found in RA PBMCs.