Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Anti-melanogenic activity of ellagitannin casuarictin in B16F10 mouse melanoma cells

Abstract Ellagitannins such as casuarictin (CAS), isolated from clove extracts, have been shown to have superior benefits such as antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity, but there have been no reports on their capacity to inhibit melanogenesis. Inhibition of melanogenesis by novel natural products has gained attention for cosmetic applications such as skin lightening. Here, we report the effects of CAS on melanogenesis in B16F10 mouse melanoma cells. Our results showed that CAS (30 µM) significantly inhibited intracellular melanogenesis while being nontoxic to B16F10 cells or to HaCaT cells at that concentration. CAS (30 μM) also inhibited intracellular tyrosinase activity as well as mushroom tyrosinase activity; possessed robust copper chelating ability comparable to that of 500 µM kojic acid; and downregulated MITF protein levels, all of which contribute to the inhibitory mechanisms underlying its anti-melanogenic activity. In summary, our results demonstrate that CAS might hold promise as a depigmenting agent for hyperpigmentation disorders. Graphical Abstract
Exploring the functional connectome in white matter

A major challenge in neuroscience is understanding how brain function emerges from the connectome. Most current methods have focused on quantifying functional connectomes in gray‐matter (GM) signals obtained from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), while signals from white‐matter (WM) have generally been excluded as noise. In this study, we derived a functional connectome from WM resting‐state blood‐oxygen‐level‐dependent (BOLD)‐fMRI signals from a large cohort (n = 488). The WM functional connectome exhibited weak small‐world topology and nonrandom modularity. We also found a long‐term (i.e., over 10 months) topological reliability, with topological reproducibility within different brain parcellation strategies, spatial distance effect, global and cerebrospinal fluid signals regression or not. Furthermore, the small‐worldness was positively correlated with individuals' intelligence values (r = .17, pcorrected = .0009). The current findings offer initial evidence using WM connectome and present additional measures by which to uncover WM functional information in both healthy individuals and in cases of clinical disease.
Effects of Walking Training with Restricted Blood Flow on HR and HRV Kinetics and HRV Recovery

Abstract The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of walking training with and without blood flow restriction (BFR) on heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV) kinetics and HRV recovery. Twenty-one men (53.5±3.2 years; 82.4±13.5 kg; 168.5±7.2 cm) were randomly assigned to two training groups: walk training group with (BFR-W; n=11) and without (NOR-W; n=10) BFR. Before and after training, all subjects underwent body composition evaluation, incremental test, and one constant load test. Walking training was performed 3 times/week, during 6 weeks. Each session was composed by 5 sets of 3-min walking and 1-min rest between the sets. All parameters of HR on- and off-kinetics and RMSSD15 0 parameter of HRV on-kinetics were improved for BFR-W group after training (p<0.05), with an interaction effect for HR on-kinetics parameters and RMSSD15 0 parameter (p<0.05). Also, parameters of time and frequency domain of HRV recovery were also improved in BFR-W after training (p<0.05), with no interaction effect (p>0.05). Additionally, in BFR-W group, RMSSD60s values were improved in some moments after training (p<0.05). Therefore, this study demonstrates that a 6-week walking training with BFR improved cardiac autonomic responses on the onset and recovery of exercise.
PD-L1 Expression Correlates With Young Age and CD8+ TIL Density in Poorly Differentiated Cervical Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Management options are limited in advanced or recurrent cervical carcinoma. The Food and Drug Administration has recently approved programed cell death-1 (PD-1)/PD-ligand-1 (PD-L1) inhibitors for the treatment of advanced PD-L1 positive cervical cancer. We studied PD-L1 expression in cervical squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC) samples initially on a The tissue microarray and then in full-tissue sections from poorly differentiated (grade 3) cancers. Tissue microarray was composed of 45 grade 3 and 2 (moderately differentiated) tumors. PD-L1 expression was evaluated as categorical data and by obtaining combined positive score of neoplastic and mononuclear inflammatory cells. In tissue microarray samples PD-L1 expression was higher in poorly differentiated cancers compared with grade 2 tumors by immunohistochemistry. Full-tissue sections from grade 3 CSCC (n=22) were stained with PD-L1, CD8, and VEGF antibodies. Poorly differentiated CSCC samples had diffuse (≥50%) and focal/patchy staining patterns. The latter pattern showed localized tumor-stroma interface staining in 5 samples with low combined positive score. Importantly, younger patients (median=36) had tumors with higher expression. PD-L1 expression was associated with larger tumor size and absent lymphovascular invasion. In addition, CD8+ tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte density within the neoplastic tissue matched with PD-L1 levels. The overall survival rates did not correlate with PD-L1 expression. However, in early-stage disease high CD8+ tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte density within the peritumoral stroma was associated with better survival outcomes in multivariate analysis. PD-L1 expression and CD8+ tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte density may be useful to define a subgroup of patients with relatively better prognosis in poorly differentiated CSCC. It is warranted to validate our results in a larger sample size.
The Effect of Levosimendan Versus Milrinone on the Occurrence Rate of Acute Kidney Injury Following Congenital Heart Surgery in Infants: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

OBJECTIVES It has been shown that, in contrast to other inotropic agents, levosimendan improves glomerular filtration rate after adult cardiac surgery. The aim of this study was to investigate the efficacy of levosimendan, compared with milrinone, in preventing acute kidney dysfunction in infants after open-heart surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass. DESIGN Two-center, double-blinded, prospective, randomized clinical trial. SETTING The study was performed in two tertiary pediatric centers, one in Sweden (Gothenburg) and one in Finland (Helsinki). PATIENTS Infants between 1 and 12 months old, diagnosed with Tetralogy of Fallot, complete atrioventricular septal defect or nonrestrictive ventricular septal defect, undergoing total corrective cardiac surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass. INTERVENTIONS Seventy-two infants were randomized to receive a perioperative infusion of levosimendan (0.1 µg/kg/min) or milrinone (0.4 µg/kg/min). The infusion was initiated at the start of cardiopulmonary bypass and continued for 26 hours. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS The primary outcome variable was the absolute value of serum creatinine data on postoperative day 1. Secondary outcomes included the following: 1) acute kidney injury according to the serum creatinine criteria of the Kidney Diseases: Improving Global Outcomes; 2) acute kidney injury with serum creatinine corrected for fluid balance; 3) plasma neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin; 4) cystatin C; 5) urea; 6) lactate; 7) hemodynamic variables; 8) use of diuretics in the PICU; 9) need of dialysis; 10) length of ventilator therapy; and 11) length of PICU stays. There was no significant difference in postoperative serum creatinine between the treatment groups over time (p = 0.65). The occurrence rate of acute kidney injury within 48 hours was 46.9% in the levosimendan group and 39.5% in the milrinone group (p = 0.70). There were no significant differences in other secondary outcome variables between the groups. CONCLUSIONS Levosimendan compared with milrinone did not reduce the occurrence rate of acute kidney injury in infants after total corrective heart surgery for atrioventricular septal defect, ventricular septal defect, or Tetralogy of Fallot.
Deciding whether to consult the GP or an emergency department: A qualitative study of patient reasoning in Switzerland

Abstract Background: Non-urgent care is an important factor responsible for rising healthcare costs and general practitioners (GPs) are known to be more cost-effective than emergency departments (EDs). Objectives: To understand the reasons why patients confronted with a medical problem perceived as urgent choose to consult either a GP or an ED. Methods: We conducted a qualitative study in Switzerland, using data collected between 2014 and 2015 through semi-structured interviews of adults with non-vital medical problems. Half were recruited after an ambulatory consultation in an ED, and half were patients who consulted their GP. The audio-recorded interviews were transcribed, coded, and analysed according to the constant comparative method. Results: The main reason given by patients who consulted their GP first was the quality of the relationship. The more meaningful the relationship, the more likely patients were to seek advice from their GP. One marker of a privileged relationship was GPs supplying their mobile phone number to the patient. The perceived nature of the complaint, for example, symptoms considered as life-threatening or severe pain, together with the expected waiting time in an ED were additional factors influencing the patients’ choice. Conclusion: Our study showed that when patients are confronted with what they perceive as a medical emergency, the quality of the relationship with the GP, in particular the continuity of care provided, seem to be the major reasons why they consult their GP rather than an ED.
High Satellite Repeat Turnover in Great Apes Studied with Short- and Long-Read Technologies

Abstract Satellite repeats are a structural component of centromeres and telomeres, and in some instances, their divergence is known to drive speciation. Due to their highly repetitive nature, satellite sequences have been understudied and underrepresented in genome assemblies. To investigate their turnover in great apes, we studied satellite repeats of unit sizes up to 50 bp in human, chimpanzee, bonobo, gorilla, and Sumatran and Bornean orangutans, using unassembled short and long sequencing reads. The density of satellite repeats, as identified from accurate short reads (Illumina), varied greatly among great ape genomes. These were dominated by a handful of abundant repeated motifs, frequently shared among species, which formed two groups: 1) the (AATGG)n repeat (critical for heat shock response) and its derivatives; and 2) subtelomeric 32-mers involved in telomeric metabolism. Using the densities of abundant repeats, individuals could be classified into species. However, clustering did not reproduce the accepted species phylogeny, suggesting rapid repeat evolution. Several abundant repeats were enriched in males versus females; using Y chromosome assemblies or Fluorescent In Situ Hybridization, we validated their location on the Y. Finally, applying a novel computational tool, we identified many satellite repeats completely embedded within long Oxford Nanopore and Pacific Biosciences reads. Such repeats were up to 59 kb in length and consisted of perfect repeats interspersed with other similar sequences. Our results based on sequencing reads generated with three different technologies provide the first detailed characterization of great ape satellite repeats, and open new avenues for exploring their functions.
Risk Estimates for Diabetes and Hypertension with Different Physical Activity Methods.

PURPOSE To estimate risks of incident Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) and Stage 2 and greater hypertension associated with self-reported and accelerometer-determined moderate-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) separately and adjusted for each other. METHODS The sample included 2,291 black and white men and women, ages 38-50, in the CARDIA (Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults) Fitness Study, conducted during the Year 20 core CARDIA exam. Accelerometer-determined (Actigraph, LLC. model 7164) MVPA (MVPA-Acc), assessed at Year 20, was defined as mins/day of counts >2020/min. Self-reported MVPA (MVPA-SR) was assessed at Year 20 using the CARDIA Physical Activity History. Incident T2D was ascertained at Years 25 and 30 from fasting glucose, 2 hr GTT, HbA1c or diabetes medication; incident hypertension was ascertained at those same times from measured blood pressure or use of antihypertensive medications. Modified Poisson regression models estimated relative risk (RR) of incident (Years 25 and 30) T2D or hypertension, associated with middle and high tertiles of Year 20 MVPA-Acc alone, Year 20 MVPA-SR alone, and both, adjusted for each other, relative to bottom tertile. RESULTS In men, MVPA-Acc, but not MVPA-SR, was associated with a 37-67% decreased risk of incident T2D in a dose response relation that persisted with adjustment for BMI, Similar associations were observed in women, although the risk reduction was similar in the second and third tertiles, relative to the bottom tertile. In both men and women, MVPA-Acc was marginally associated with reduced risk of incident Stage 2 and greater hypertension, but only after adjustment for BMI, while MVPA-SR was not associated in either sex. CONCLUSIONS Accelerometer-determined MVPA may provide more consistent risk estimates for incident diabetes than self-reported MVPA.
Rural Gambian Infants 1 – 3

Background: The WHO recommends exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) for the first 6 mo of life. Objective: The objective of this study was to assess the benefit of EBF to age 6 mo on growth in a large sample of rural Gambian infants at high risk of undernutrition. Methods: Infants with growth monitoring from birth to 2 y of age (n = 756) from the ENID (Early Nutrition and Immune Development) trial were categorized as exclusively breastfed if only breast milk and no other liquids or foods were given. EBF status was entered into confounder-adjusted multilevel models to test associations with growth trajectories by using >11,000 weight-for-age (WAZ), length-for-age (LAZ), and weight-for-length (WLZ) z score observations. Results: Thirty-two percent of infants were exclusively breastfed to age 6 mo. The mean age of discontinuation of EBF was 5.2 mo, and growth faltering started at;3.5 mo of age. Some evidence for a difference in WAZ and WHZ was found between infants who were exclusively breastfed to age 6 mo (EBF-6) and those who were not (nEBF-6), at 6 and 12 mo of age, with EBF-6 children having a higher mean z score. The differences in z scores between the 2 groups were small in magnitude (at 6 mo of age: 0.147 WAZ; 95% CI: 20.001, 0.293 WAZ; 0.189 WHZ; 95% CI: 0.038, 0.341 WHZ). No evidence for a difference between EBF-6 and nEBF-6 infants was observed for LAZ at any time point (6, 12, and 24 mo of age). Furthermore, a higher mean WLZ at 3 mo of age was associated with a subsequent higher mean age at discontinuation of EBF, which implied reverse causality in this setting (coefficient: 0.060; 95% CI: 0.008, 0.120). Conclusion: This study suggests that EBF to age 6 mo has limited benefit to the growth of rural Gambian infants. This trial was registered at http://www.isrctn. com as ISRCTN49285450. J Nutr 2017;147:248–55.
Children as e-designers : how do they understand learning?

This thesis reports an investigation into children's understanding of learning, as they engage with an e-Iearning design challenge. It begins by making a case that children's views of learning are of crucial significance, not only because of their position as pre-eminent learners in families and societies, but also because their learning is at the heart of our culture's aspirations for education. Then, it examines a selection of prior studies of learning in e-design contexts in order to gauge the advantages of seeking the views of children about learning in an e-design context. This consideration revealed the technological and educational potential of e-design, suggesting that such a context would be opportune here. Fortuitously, a large, ARC-funded Linkage Project (GENESIS Generating e-Iearning Systems in Schools) provided just such an e-design context. In this project, researchers were keen to investigate whether the slowness of schools in appropriating e-Iearning might be offset when students have a sustained opportunity to conceive, design and, as far as possible, build an e-Iearning environment in which they and other students could explore questions they were passionately curious about. As a case study within the GENESIS Project, this study followed Papert's (1973) five-step process of educational research. First, a theory of education (a biologically based generative theory) was selected. Next, the ensuing set of conditions for the intellectual growth of children (the e-Iearning design challenge itself) was laid out. These conditions were then implemented within the context of The GENESIS Project: the children were equipped with the opportunity and resources to design an e-Iearning environment to explore a science-and­ technology topic of their choice (How and why do we think? How come we're not born with the knowledge we know now? ). Of the large set of project data, six accounts were selected as representative of the diversity and commonality of children's learning and their understanding of learning in this study. Findings revealed that these children understand learning as generating, testing and thereby modifying ideas, they appreciate that these events are influenced by each leamer's values and they recognise value in undertaking this knowledge gaining activity as part of a learning community. Furthermore, these children explicitly enact opportune learning experiences, particularly technologically, demonstrating their fluency as technological thinkers, capable of having technological ideas about learning.
Lossless Efficient Naive Bayes for Thousands of Classes Submit for Blind Review

Classification with a large set of candidate classes, such as lexical or biomedical taxonomies, is a typical approach to improving the quality in many real-word applications, such as search engines. However, current algorithms are facing the challenging issues both of efficiency and effectiveness due to the large set of classes. To improve the classification efficiency of classifiers, extant classification techniques, such as hierarchical classification or reduction to candidate classes via a fast approximation, all use a hierarchical way to first select a subset of candidate classes and then repeat the selection process within that subset. However, all extant methods are lossy approaches, which means applying the classification algorithm to select candidate classes hierarchically may generate different predictions from that of applying the classification algorithm to all candidates. In addition, most of them rely on taxonomy hierarchy, so that the organization of leaf categories impacts the classification accuracy significantly. We introduce a lossless fast Naive Bayes classifier tailored to real-world applications with large taxonomies. We show empirically that its online classification speed is up to eleven times faster than standard Naive Bayes (computing all class probabilities) on a real-world data set with 7205 classes, and higher speed-up is expected for larger taxonomies. The acceleration is lossless: the output is identical to standard Naive Bayes, in contrast to extant techniques. The proposed classifier is flat, that is, the acceleration does not rely on the taxonomy structure. It can be applied on both hierarchical and flat taxonomies.
Flour fillers with urea-formaldehyde resin in plywood

Various flours were added as fillers for urea-formaldehyde (UF) resin, and effects on the rheological behavior and the curing properties of the resin were evaluated. The plywood properties such as bonding quality, bending strength, modulus of elasticity, and formaldehyde-release were tested. Five types of flours were used, i.e., rye flour, hemp flour, coconut flour, rice flour, and pumpkin flour. The type of flour had a major influence on the properties of resin mixture such as gel time, solid content, and viscosity. The use of rye and pumpkin flour resulted in a longer gelling time, and the adhesive mixture filled with rice flour did not attain the desired viscosity value needed for the production of plywood. The best mechanical properties and bonding quality were achieved by addition of pumpkin flour. However, the bonding quality of plywood glued with an adhesive filled with every other flour retained good values exceeding 1 N/mm2 as required by the standard EN 314-2 (1993). The use of hemp flour as a filler for UF resin led to a substantial decrease of free formaldehyde content.
International Air Transportation Carriers: Evidence from SFA and DEA Technical Efficiency Results (1991-2000)*

In this paper we estimate technical efficiency in International Air Transport, by means of Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) using a panel set of the world's twenty-four (24) largest network airlines, for the period 1991-2000. The results are compared to those from Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), a popular approach for efficiency measurement in the literature. Findings suggest that airlines experience constant returns to scale, while technical efficiency ranges between 51% and 97% approximately. Furthermore, the level of technology experienced a slight increase, while the privatization of few of the airlines in the data set didn’t seem to affect their technical efficiency. Results from SFA and DEA do not vary significantly.
Postoperative evaluation of single-stage surgery for multiligament injured knee dislocation in elderly patients

Aim: Limited researches involving the multi-ligament injured knee dislocation have been reported in elderly patients due to its relatively low incidence rate. The purpose of this study was to present the clinical outcomes after surgery of the multi-ligament injured knee dislocation and to analyze the value of surgical timing and comorbid injury treated by early single-stage surgery in aged patients. Methods: Totally 13 elderly patients with multi-ligament injured knee dislocation were collected in this retrospective study. All patients were treated with single-stage surgery. The preoperative and postoperative knee function was evaluated by the Lysholm score and the International Knee Documentation Committee (IKDC) 2000 Subjective Knee Form. Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) pain score and the satisfaction score were also analyzed for assessing postoperative outcome. Results: Mean Lysholm score, average IKDC score before operation and at the final follow-up were 98.0 ± 2.2 and 89.9 ± 4.1; 95.9 ± 1.5 and 81.8 ± 4.5 respectively. VAS pain score decreased significantly from 4.9 ± 0.6 preoperatively to 0.5 ± 0.9 at the final followup (P < 0.01). According to the grading of Lysholm and IKDC subjective scores, 11 (84.6%) patients were reported as a ‘good’ postoperative knee function, and 12 (92.3%) patients were regarded as a ‘successful’ prognosis. However, patients with comorbid meniscus tear showed a clear trend towards a lower postoperative Lysholm score. Conclusions: Early single-stage surgery for multi-ligament injured knee dislocation is clinically feasible in aged patients. Moreover, a more optimized treatment protocol is necessary to the patients with additional meniscus injury.