Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pycnogenol Protects against Pentylenetetrazole-Induced Oxidative Stress and Seizures in Mice.

BACKGROUND Epilepsy is one of the most common and severe brain disorders in the world, characterized by recurrent spontaneous seizures due to an imbalance between cerebral excitability and inhibition. Oxidative stress is a biochemical state in which reactive oxygen species are generated and associated with various diseases including epilepsy. Pycnogenol, a polyphenol obtained from the pine tree and has antioxidant & anti-inflammatory activity. So, the aim of the study was to evaluate the effect of Pycnogenol on pentylenetetrazole (PTZ)-induced seizures in mice. METHODS The mice of swiss strain each weighing 18-30g were used. Pycnogenol (50&100mg/kg) was suspended in carboxymethyl cellulose in saline and administered orally. Diazepam (1mg/kg, i.p) was used as a standard drug. The anticonvulsant effects of the drugs were measured using PTZ and cognitive behaviour was also assessed. The biochemical estimation was done by measuring Thiobarbituric acid, Superoxide dismutase, Catalase, and reduced glutathione followed by the histopathological study. RESULT Pycnogenol 50 & 100mg/kg showed a significant increase in latency to PTZ-induced seizures, decrease in duration and frequency of convulsions compared to control animals; however, the effects were dose-dependent and were more significant at a higher dose. No impairment in cognitive functions like memory and muscle relaxant was observed following pycnogenol 50 & 100 mg/kg. The effect of Pycnogenol on biochemical parameter was found to be significant. It significantly (p<0.01) decreases the level of TBARS and increases the levels of SOD, catalase, and GSH in the brain tissue. The histopathological evaluation showed less neuronal degeneration in the brain due to PTZ-induced seizures in comparison to control group. CONCLUSION Thus pycnogenol has a protective approach towards convulsion and can be included as an adjuvant therapy with antiepileptic drugs.
Toxicity of overexpressed MeCP2 is independent of HDAC3 activity

In this study, Koerner et al. investigated the molecular basis of a severe neurological syndrome caused by duplication of the X-linked MECP2 gene. To determine the contribution of known functional domains to overexpression toxicity, they generated a mouse model that expresses wild-type or mutated MeCP2 from the Mapt (Tau) locus in addition to the endogenous protein. Their findings delineate the molecular mechanisms underlying MECP2 duplication syndrome and suggest a re-examination of the biological role played by corepressor recruitment.
A Sufficient Condition for Convergences of Adam and RMSProp

Adam and RMSProp are two of the most influential adaptive stochastic algorithms for training deep neural networks, which have been pointed out to be divergent even in the convex setting via a few simple counterexamples. Many attempts, such as decreasing an adaptive learning rate, adopting a big batch size, incorporating a temporal decorrelation technique, seeking an analogous surrogate, etc., have been tried to promote Adam/RMSProp-type algorithms to converge. In contrast with existing approaches, we introduce an alternative easy-to-check sufficient condition, which merely depends on the parameters of the base learning rate and combinations of historical second-order moments, to guarantee the global convergence of generic Adam/RMSProp for solving large-scale non-convex stochastic optimization. Moreover, we show that the convergences of several variants of Adam, such as AdamNC, AdaEMA, etc., can be directly implied via the proposed sufficient condition in the non-convex setting. In addition, we illustrate that Adam is essentially a specifically weighted AdaGrad with exponential moving average momentum, which provides a novel perspective for understanding Adam and RMSProp. This observation coupled with this sufficient condition gives much deeper interpretations on their divergences. At last, we validate the sufficient condition by applying Adam and RMSProp to tackle a certain counterexample and train deep neural networks. Numerical results are exactly in accord with our theoretical analysis.
GLStyleNet: Higher Quality Style Transfer Combining Global and Local Pyramid Features

Recent studies using deep neural networks have shown remarkable success in style transfer especially for artistic and photo-realistic images. However, the approaches using global feature correlations fail to capture small, intricate textures and maintain correct texture scales of the artworks, and the approaches based on local patches are defective on global effect. In this paper, we present a novel feature pyramid fusion neural network, dubbed GLStyleNet, which sufficiently takes into consideration multi-scale and multi-level pyramid features by best aggregating layers across a VGG network, and performs style transfer hierarchically with multiple losses of different scales. Our proposed method retains high-frequency pixel information and low frequency construct information of images from two aspects: loss function constraint and feature fusion. Our approach is not only flexible to adjust the trade-off between content and style, but also controllable between global and local. Compared to state-of-the-art methods, our method can transfer not just large-scale, obvious style cues but also subtle, exquisite ones, and dramatically improves the quality of style transfer. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach on portrait style transfer, artistic style transfer, photo-realistic style transfer and Chinese ancient painting style transfer tasks. Experimental results indicate that our unified approach improves image style transfer quality over previous state-of-the-art methods, while also accelerating the whole process in a certain extent. Our code is available at this https URL.
Do Personality Characteristics Constitute the Profile of Burnout-Prone Correctional Officers?

AIM: This study examined the relationship between personality characteristics and burnout syndrome among Bulgarian correctional officers. METHODS: The cross-sectional study took place through individual, voluntary and anonymous interviewing of 307 employees from three district prisons. Maslach burnout inventory, Eysenck personality questionnaire and demographic characteristics were administered. RESULTS: The personality predictors of emotional exhaustion were low emotional stability and low level of dimension extraversion. The predictors of depersonalization were high levels of neuroticism and psychoticism and low level of extraversion. CONCLUSION: This research helps to identify employees who are at risk for developing burnout as a result of their personalities. In Bulgaria, there is still no official information about studies in this area.
The Full Spectrum of Deep Net Hessians At Scale: Dynamics with Sample Size

Previous works observed the spectrum of the Hessian of the training loss of deep neural networks. However, the networks considered were of minuscule size. We apply state-of-the-art tools in modern high-dimensional numerical linear algebra to approximate the spectrum of the Hessian of deep nets with tens of millions of parameters. Our results corroborate previous findings, based on small-scale networks, that the Hessian exhibits 'spiked' behavior, with several outliers isolated from a continuous bulk. However we find that the bulk does not follow a simple Marchenko-Pastur distribution, as previously suggested, but rather a heavier-tailed distribution. Finally, we document the dynamics of the outliers and the bulk with varying sample size.
Intra-breath measures of respiratory mechanics in healthy African infants detect risk of respiratory illness in early life

Lower respiratory tract illness (LRTI) is a leading cause of mortality and morbidity in children. Sensitive and noninvasive infant lung function techniques are needed to measure risk for and impact of LRTI on lung health. The objective of this study was to investigate whether lung function derived from the intra-breath forced oscillation technique (FOT) was able to identify healthy infants at risk of LRTI in the first year of life. Lung function was measured with the novel intra-breath FOT, in 6-week-old infants in a South African birth cohort (Drakenstein Child Health Study). LRTI during the first year was confirmed by study staff. The association between baseline lung function and LRTI was assessed with logistic regression and odds ratios determined using optimal cut-off values. Of the 627 healthy infants with successful lung function testing, 161 (24%) had 238 LRTI episodes subsequently during the first year. Volume dependence of respiratory resistance (ΔR) and reactance (ΔX) was associated with LRTI. The predictive value was stronger if LRTI was recurrent (n=50 (31%): OR 2.5, ΔX), required hospitalisation (n=38 (16%): OR 5.4, ΔR) or was associated with wheeze (n=87 (37%): OR 3.9, ΔX). Intra-breath FOT can identify healthy infants at risk of developing LRTI, wheezing or severe illness in the first year of life. Novel measurements of respiratory mechanics are feasible in infants in a community setting and able to detect changes in lung function in healthy infants associated with increased risk of subsequent LRTI in infancy http://ow.ly/IUKk30mCfi3
Transformation-induced stress at telomeres is counteracted through changes in the telomeric proteome including SAMHD1

The authors apply telomeric chromatin analysis to identify factors that accumulate at telomeres during cellular transformation, promoting telomere replication and repair and counteracting oncogene-borne telomere replication stress. Telomeres play crucial roles during tumorigenesis, inducing cellular senescence upon telomere shortening and extensive chromosome instability during telomere crisis. However, it has not been investigated if and how cellular transformation and oncogenic stress alter telomeric chromatin composition and function. Here, we transform human fibroblasts by consecutive transduction with vectors expressing hTERT, the SV40 early region, and activated H-RasV12. Pairwise comparisons of the telomeric proteome during different stages of transformation reveal up-regulation of proteins involved in chromatin remodeling, DNA repair, and replication at chromosome ends. Depletion of several of these proteins induces telomere fragility, indicating their roles in replication of telomeric DNA. Depletion of SAMHD1, which has reported roles in DNA resection and homology-directed repair, leads to telomere breakage events in cells deprived of the shelterin component TRF1. Thus, our analysis identifies factors, which accumulate at telomeres during cellular transformation to promote telomere replication and repair, resisting oncogene-borne telomere replication stress.
The small-molecule compound AC-73 targeting CD147 inhibits leukemic cell proliferation, induces autophagy and increases the chemotherapeutic sensitivity of acute myeloid leukemia cells

CD147 is a transmembrane glycoprotein with multiple functions in human healthy tissues and diseases, in particular in cancer. Overexpression of CD147 correlates with biological functions that promote tumor progression and confers resistance to chemotherapeutic drugs. In contrast to solid tumors, the role of CD147 has not been extensively studied in leukemia. Understanding whether CD147 represents a new hematologic target and whether its inhibitor AC-73 may be used in leukemia therapy may reveal an alternative treatment strategy in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML). We analyzed CD147 expression and function in hematopoietic progenitor cells from normal cord blood, in several leukemic cell lines and in primary leukemic blasts obtained from patients with AML. We investigated the effects of AC-73, used alone or in combination with arabinosylcytosine (Ara-C) and arsenic trioxide (ATO), on leukemic cell proliferation. We demonstrated that CD147 overexpression promotes leukemic cell proliferation. We showed that AC-73 exhibits a potent growth inhibitory activity in leukemic cells, by inhibiting the ERK/STAT3 activation pathway and activating autophagy. We demonstrated that AC-73 exerts an anti-proliferative effect additive to chemotherapy by enhancing leukemic cell sensitivity to Ara-C-induced cytotoxicity or to ATO-induced autophagy. We also reported CD147 expression in the fraction of leukemic blasts expressing CD371, a marker of leukemic stem cells. Altogether, our study indicates CD147 as a novel potential target in the treatment of AML and AC-73 as an anti-proliferative drug and an inducer of autophagy in leukemic cells to use in combination with chemotherapeutic agents.
Computed tomography imaging of acute gastrointestinal graft-versus-host disease after haematopoietic stem cell transplantation in children

Aim of the study To evaluate computed tomography (CT) findings of gastrointestinal graft-versus-host disease (GI-GVHD) occurring in children after haematopoietic stem-cell transplantation (HSCT). Material and methods From February 2013 to May 2018, 225 paediatric patients underwent HSCT. Sixty-eight patients (30%) presented with clinical diagnosis of acute GI-GVHD in the first 100 days after HSCT. Thirty-five (18 girls, 17 boys; age range, 2–18 years; mean age, 10.3 years) of 68 patients had abdominopelvic CT and included in study. Results Intestinal CT abnormalities were present in 33 (94%) and extra-intestinal CT findings were in 30 (86%) patients. Thickening of the bowel wall was the most common finding (31 patients, 89%), which involved the small bowel in 29 patients (83%), colon in 16 patients (46%), and both in 15 patients (43%). Oesophageal wall thickening was present in three patients (9%), and gastric wall thickening was in eight patients (23%). Bowel dilatation was detected in 13 patients (37%). Mucosal enhancement of the bowel wall was observed in 28 patients (80%). The prevalence of the extra-intestinal CT findings were: periportal oedema in nine (26%), ascites in 15 (43%), wall thickening and enhancement of gall bladder in 13 (37%), pericholecystic fluid in six (17%), hepatomegaly in 13 (37%), and splenomegaly in nine (26%) patients. One patient (3%) demonstrated free intraperitoneal air due to intestinal perforation. Conclusions CT is useful to support the clinical diagnosis of acute GVHD in children with GI symptoms after HSCT. Radiological evaluation is important because early diagnosis and treatment affect the prognosis of GI-GVHD.
Family caregivers’ involvement in decision-making processes regarding admission of persons with dementia to nursing homes

The current Western health policy of ageing in place relies on a triad collaboration among patients, healthcare service providers and family caregivers. Such collaborations presuppose involvement in a vague juridical landscape. This article explores family caregivers’ experiences with involvement in and influence on nursing home decision-making processes for persons with dementia. The data consist of 12 in-depth interviews with family caregivers. Using positioning theory, we demonstrate how family caregivers strive to balance their assumed duty to care for the person with their needs to care for themselves. Their involvement (or non-involvement) in the complex decision-making process is demonstrated through the following seven positions: (1) self-condemning determiner, (2) dominant, (3) proponent, (4) saluting, (5) pending, (6) prisoner, and (7) stooge. Furthermore, we discuss why expedient positions are more available for some individuals and the consequences of family caregivers’ various positions on the healthcare policy aims of collaboration and equal healthcare services.
Cold Plasma as an Innovative Construction Method of Voltammetric Biosensor Based on Laccase

Development of new, faster methods of biosensor construction is a huge challenge for current science and industry. In this work, biosensor construction was carried out using a new soft plasma polymerization (SPP) method in which a bio-recognition layer of laccase enzyme was polymerized and bonded to a glassy carbon electrode (GCE) substrate under atmospheric pressure with a corona discharge jet. Laccase belongs to the oxidoreductase enzyme group with four copper atoms in its active center. Application of the corona SPP plasma method allows reduction of the time needed for biosensor construction from several hours to minutes. The presented work includes optimization of the laccase bio-recognition layer deposition time, structural studies of the deposited laccase layer, as well as study of the fabricated biosensor applicability for the determination of Rutin in real pharmaceutical samples. This method produces a biosensor with two linear ranges from 0.3 μmol/dm3 to 0.5 μmol/dm3 and from 0.8 μmol/dm3 to 16 μmol/dm3 of Rutin concentration. Results shown in this work indicate that application of the one-step, corona SPP method enables biosensor construction with comparable analytical parameters to biosensors fabricated by conventional, multi-step, wet methods.
Construction of optimal locally recoverable codes and connection with hypergraph

Recently, it was discovered by several authors that a $q$-ary optimal locally recoverable code, i.e., a locally recoverable code archiving the Singleton-type bound, can have length much bigger than $q+1$. This is quite different from the classical $q$-ary MDS codes where it is conjectured that the code length is upper bounded by $q+1$ (or $q+2$ for some special case). This discovery inspired some recent studies on length of an optimal locally recoverable code. It was shown in \cite{LXY} that a $q$-ary optimal locally recoverable code is unbounded for $d=3,4$. Soon after, it was proved that a $q$-ary optimal locally recoverable code with distance $d$ and locality $r$ can have length $\Omega_{d,r}(q^{1 + 1/\lfloor(d-3)/2\rfloor})$. Recently, an explicit construction of $q$-ary optimal locally recoverable codes for distance $d=5,6$ was given in \cite{J18} and \cite{BCGLP}. In this paper, we further investigate construction optimal locally recoverable codes along the line of using parity-check matrices. Inspired by classical Reed-Solomon codes and \cite{J18}, we equip parity-check matrices with the Vandermond structure. It is turns out that a parity-check matrix with the Vandermond structure produces an optimal locally recoverable code must obey certain disjoint property for subsets of $\mathbb{F}_q$. To our surprise, this disjoint condition is equivalent to a well-studied problem in extremal graph theory. With the help of extremal graph theory, we succeed to improve all of the best known results in \cite{GXY} for $d\geq 7$. In addition, for $d=6$, we are able to remove the constraint required in \cite{J18} that $q$ is even.
Pegaspargase, gemcitabine, dexamethasone, and cisplatin (P-GDP) combined chemotherapy is effective for newly diagnosed extranodal NK/T-cell lymphoma: a retrospective study

Purpose l-asparaginase or pegaspargase-based chemotherapies have shown promising results in the treatment of extranodal NK/T-cell lymphoma. A retrospective study was conducted to determine the efficacy and safety of pegaspargase, gemcitabine, dexamethasone, and cisplatin (P-GDP) combined chemotherapy in patients with newly diagnosed extranodal NK/T-cell lymphoma. Patients and methods From September 2013 to November 2016, 57 patients with newly diagnosed, stages I to IV, extranodal NK/T-cell lymphoma received P-GDP chemotherapy. Clinical data from these patients were collected and analyzed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of P-GDP. Results All patients were subjected to 1–6 cycles of P-GDP chemotherapy, and the median number of cycles of P-GDP regimen administered was 3. The overall response rate was 89.5% (51/57), including a complete response rate of 70.2% (40/59) and a partial response rate of 19.3% (11/57). The median follow-up time was 28 months (range 2–54 months). The 2-year overall survival and progression-free survival (PFS) rates were 82.9% and 75.9%, respectively. For stage I/II patients and stage III/IV patients, 2-year PFS were 80.8% and 66.7%, respectively. The most common grade 3/4 adverse events were neutropenia (42.1%), thrombocytopenia (38.6%), and hypofibrinogenemia (26.3%). No treatment-related deaths were observed. Conclusion P-GDP combination chemotherapy is highly effective and safe for newly diagnosed patients with extranodal NK/T-cell lymphoma, nasal type. Additional large sample prospective trials are required to confirm these results.
Developing 21st century student research skills through assessment matrix and edmodo in biology project

This reasearch aimed to develop 21st century student research skill by using assessment matrix and guidance through edmodo. An assessment matrix based on a research skill development framework modified by Venning & Buisman-Pijlmann. The study was using mixed method which combine qualitative and quantitative data. Design of the study was embedded experimental. Research subject used 2 class XI in senior high school that consist of RSD1 and RSD2. Instruments that used were assessment matrix and research skill test. The results showed that the students research skill by using assessment matrix were increased with recurring guidance in edmodo application. There was significant difference of research skill scores between class RSD1 and RSD2. The average student score in RSD1 class was higher than average score in RSD2 class. Our finding may aid in reforming 21st century student research skill, particularly in project learning by using assessment matrix and edmodo.
Extramedullary acute myeloid leukemia presenting in young adults demonstrates sensitivity to high-dose anthracycline: a subset analysis from ECOG-ACRIN 1900

Extramedullary (EM) disease is an unusual manifestation of de novo acute myeloid leukemia (AML) occurring in less than 10% of patients at diagnosis. EM AML may manifest as cellular infiltrates of soft tissues (myeloid sarcomas), lymph nodes, skin (leukemia cutis) and leptomeninges, and is generally
Accelerating multi-modal image registration using a supervoxel-based variational framework

For the successful completion of medical interventional procedures, several concepts, such as daily positioning compensation, dose accumulation or delineation propagation, rely on establishing a spatial coherence between planning images and images acquired at different time instants over the course of the therapy. To meet this need, image-based motion estimation and compensation relies on fast, automatic, accurate and precise registration algorithms. However, image registration quickly becomes a challenging and computationally intensive task, especially when multiple imaging modalities are involved. In the current study, a novel framework is introduced to reduce the computational overhead of variational registration methods. The proposed framework selects representative voxels of the registration process, based on a supervoxel algorithm. Costly calculations are hereby restrained to a subset of voxels, leading to a less expensive spatial regularized interpolation process. The novel framework is tested in conjunction with the recently proposed EVolution multi-modal registration method. This results in an algorithm requiring a low number of input parameters, is easily parallelizable and provides an elastic voxel-wise deformation with a subvoxel accuracy. The performance of the proposed accelerated registration method is evaluated on cross-contrast abdominal T1/T2 MR-scans undergoing a known deformation and annotated CT-images of the lung. We also analyze the ability of the method to capture slow physiological drifts during MR-guided high intensity focused ultrasound therapies and to perform multi-modal CT/MR registration in the abdomen. Results have shown that computation time can be reduced by 75% on the same hardware with no negative impact on the accuracy.