Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hesperidin Targets Leishmania donovani Sterol C-24 Reductase to Fight against Leishmaniasis

Hesperidin, a naturally occurring flavanoid, is present in citrus family of fruits. It was found effective against an array of pathogens including fungi, bacteria, viruses, and protozoa. Here, we evaluated its antileishmanial activity and possible mechanism of action through different in vitro and in silico experiments. It inhibited the growth and proliferation of the parasites significantly with a IC50 value of 1.019 ± 0.116 mM in vitro. It also reduced the growth of intra-macrophagic amastigotes with a IC50 value of 0.2858 ± 0.01398 mM. It induced the reactive oxygen species (ROS) in parasites in a dose-dependent manner. Through 2,7-dichloro dihydro fluorescein diacetate (H2DCFDA) staining, it was observed that around 96.9% parasites were ROS positive at 2.0 mM concentration of hesperidin. The ROS generated led to the apoptosis of parasites in a dose-dependent manner as observed by annexin/PI staining. Molecular docking with one of the very important and unique drug-targets of Leishmania donovani sterol C-24 reductase resulted in its significant inhibition. Here, we for the first time showed that hesperidin induced the antileishmanial response through the induction of apoptosis and inhibition of sterol C-24 reductase. Our study will be helpful in the development of a cost-effective antileishmanial lead with higher efficacy.
Efficiency of Deoxynivalenol Detoxification by Microencapsulated Sodium Metabisulfite Assessed via an In Vitro Bioassay Based on Intestinal Porcine Epithelial Cells

Deoxynivalenol (DON) contamination occurs in feeds and causes a reduction in growth performance, damage to the intestinal epithelial cells, and increased susceptibility to enteric pathogen challenge. Sodium metabisulfite (SMBS) has shown promise in reducing DON; however, SMBS quickly degrades under aqueous acidic conditions such as the environment within a stomach. Thus, protection of SMBS is required for effective delivery to the small intestine to detoxify DON. This study was to encapsulate SMBS into hydrogenated palm oil-based microparticles for its delivery to the small intestine and to evaluate its efficacy on DON detoxification in simulated intestinal fluids using IPEC-J2 cells in vitro. The diameter of the SMBS containing microparticles was 511 ± 135 μm, and the loading capacity of SMBS in the microparticles was 45.50%; 1.41% of the encapsulated SMBS (ES) was released into the simulated gastric fluid, and 66.39% of ES was progressively released into the simulated intestinal fluid within 4 h at 37 °C. In IPEC-J2 cells, when DON was treated with the simulated gastric fluid containing 0.5% ES for 2 h, then mixed with the simulated intestinal fluid (1:1) and incubated for 2 h, cytotoxicity was not observed. DON treated with 0.5 ES decreased the gene expression of inflammatory cytokines in the cells compared with DON alone and maintained the cell integrity. To conclude, the SMBS containing microparticles were stable in the simulated gastric fluid and allowed a progressive release of SMBS in the simulated intestinal fluid. The released SMBS in the simulated intestinal fluid effectively detoxified DON.
Paederus Dermatitis Outbreak in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: A Case-Control Study

Background Paederus dermatitis is an irritant contact dermatitis caused by crushing insects of the genus Paederus, which releases a vesicant toxin called pederin. On July 28, 2018, the district health office received a report of cases with erythema, itching, and burning after contact with the Paederus insect. In response, we investigated the outbreak intending to describe, confirm, and identify the risk factors associated with the country's first reported outbreak. Methods A community-based unmatched case-control study was conducted from August 10 to 22, 2018. Two hundred twenty-five (75 cases and 150 controls) study participants were involved in the study. Cases were defined as Bole subcity residents who had acute contact dermatitis after contact with the insect, while controls were persons who did not have contact with the insect. Cases were recruited consecutively as they present, whereas controls were selected by the neighborhood sampling method. An interviewer-administered questionnaire was used for the data collection, and multiple logistic regression was applied to determine the independent risk factors. The results were expressed as adjusted odds ratios (AORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Results A total of 122 cases were reported from the three districts of the subcity. The mean age of cases and controls was 23.6 (SD ± 16.4) and 29.4 (SD ± 10.9) years, respectively. Multivariate analysis showed that the presence of outdoor light (AOR = 5.1; 95% CI (2.5, 10.9), presence of rotten leaves (AOR = 6.4; 95% CI (2.9, 15.7)), sleeping on the floor (AOR = 6.1; 95% CI (2.5, 15.7)), wearing protective clothing (AOR = 0.2; 95% CI (0.1, 0.4)), and use of insect repellant (AOR = 0.1; 95% CI (0.0, 0.4)) were significantly associated with Paederus dermatitis outbreak. Conclusion The investigation identified exposure to artificial light and the presence of rotten leaves around the residential area as important factors leading to an increase in the odds of Paederus dermatitis. In contrast, the use of insect repellant and wearing protective clothing were shown to provide protection. The investigation determined that reducing burning outdoor lights, cleaning excess vegetation, avoiding sleeping on the floor, using insect repellants, and wearing protective clothing can reduce the risk of contracting Paederus dermatitis.
Methicillin resistant staphylococci isolated in clinical samples: a 3-year retrospective study analysis

Aim: To determine the prevalence and describe the antimicrobial resistance patterns of circulating methicillin-resistant staphylococci (MRS) isolated from clinical specimens during a 3-year period in Yaoundé, Cameroon. Materials & methods: From January 2017 to December 2019, 1683 clinical samples were plated onto Mannitol salt agar. Bacterial identification was performed followed by antibiotic susceptibility testing. Data were analyzed using R program. Results: Staphylococci were identified in 90 (5.35%) of the 1683 clinical samples. Among these, 83.33% were MRS with 78.67% being methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The prevalence of MRS infection increased significantly with age. Conclusion: The study offers a good baseline for surveillance intervention to contain antimicrobial resistance and highlights the need to strengthen antimicrobial stewardship and infection, prevention and control programs in the country.
Elevated Plasma Soluble Triggering Receptor Expressed on Myeloid Cells-1 Level in Patients with Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS): A Biomarker of Disease Severity and Outcome

Background and Aims Plasma levels of soluble triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells (sTREM-1) reflect innate immune cell activation. We sought to evaluate sTREM-1 levels in patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) and their predictive value for disease severity and outcome. Methods Plasma sTREM-1 levels were prospectively measured by ELISA in 121 consecutive patients with new-onset (≤24 h) chest pain at arrival to the emergency department (ED) and 73 healthy controls. Secondary endpoints were the association of plasma levels of sTREM-1 with day 30 and month 6 major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) defined as death, ACS, stroke, and need for coronary revascularization, as well as with CAD severity. The primary endpoint of the study was the association of plasma sTREM-1 level at the time of admission to the ED with a diagnosis of ACS at day 30. Results Fifty-nine patients (48.7%) were diagnosed with ACS and 62 (51.3%) with nonspecific chest pain (NSCP). Median plasma sTREM-1 level at admission was significantly higher in the ACS group than the NSCP group and the control group (539.4 ± 330.3 pg/ml vs. 432.5 ± 196.4 pg/ml vs. 230.1 ± 85.5 pg/ml, respectively; P < 0.001) and positively correlated with the number of stenosed/occluded coronary arteries on angiography (P < 0.001). On logistic regression analysis, higher sTREM-1 levels predicted definite ACS vs. NSCP determined on day 30 (OR 1.29, 95% CI 1.07-1.54, P = 0.01) as well as with recurrent ACS (P = 0.04) and stroke (P = 0.02) at 6 months. Conclusions Plasma sTREM-1 levels are significantly elevated in patients with ACS and might serve as a biomarker differentiating ACS from NSCP in the ED as well as an inflammatory biomarker for coronary artery disease severity and outcome.
Persian sentiment analysis of an online store independent of pre-processing using convolutional neural network with fastText embeddings

Sentiment analysis plays a key role in companies, especially stores, and increasing the accuracy in determining customers’ opinions about products assists to maintain their competitive conditions. We intend to analyze the users’ opinions on the website of the most immense online store in Iran; Digikala. However, the Persian language is unstructured which makes the pre-processing stage very difficult and it is the main problem of sentiment analysis in Persian. What exacerbates this problem is the lack of available libraries for Persian pre-processing, while most libraries focus on English. To tackle this, approximately 3 million reviews were gathered in Persian from the Digikala website using web-mining techniques, and the fastText method was used to create a word embedding. It was assumed that this would dramatically cut down on the need for text pre-processing through the skip-gram method considering the position of the words in the sentence and the words’ relations to each other. Another word embedding has been created using the TF-IDF in parallel with fastText to compare their performance. In addition, the results of the Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), BiLSTM, Logistic Regression, and Naïve Bayes models have been compared. As a significant result, we obtained 0.996 AUC and 0.956 F-score using fastText and CNN. In this article, not only has it been demonstrated to what extent it is possible to be independent of pre-processing but also the accuracy obtained is better than other researches done in Persian. Avoiding complex text preprocessing is also important for other languages since most text preprocessing algorithms have been developed for English and cannot be used for other languages. The created word embedding due to its high accuracy and independence of pre-processing has other applications in Persian besides sentiment analysis.
A systematic metadata harvesting workflow for analysing scientific networks

One of the disciplines behind the science of science is the study of scientific networks. This work focuses on scientific networks as a social network having different nodes and connections. Nodes can be represented by authors, articles or journals while connections by citation, co-citation or co-authorship. One of the challenges in creating scientific networks is the lack of publicly available comprehensive data set. It limits the variety of analyses on the same set of nodes of different scientific networks. To supplement such analyses we have worked on publicly available citation metadata from Crossref and OpenCitatons. Using this data a workflow is developed to create scientific networks. Analysis of these networks gives insights into academic research and scholarship. Different techniques of social network analysis have been applied in the literature to study these networks. It includes centrality analysis, community detection, and clustering coefficient. We have used metadata of Scientometrics journal, as a case study, to present our workflow. We did a sample run of the proposed workflow to identify prominent authors using centrality analysis. This work is not a bibliometric study of any field rather it presents replicable Python scripts to perform network analysis. With an increase in the popularity of open access and open metadata, we hypothesise that this workflow shall provide an avenue for understanding scientific scholarship in multiple dimensions.
Peak identification of L X-ray spectra of elemental Np and U

The L X-ray photons emitted by transuranic (TRU) elements are expected to be useful for developing nondestructive TRU monitors. Energy spectra of L X-rays emitted by 241Am, 238Pu and 239Pu sources were measured by a transition edge sensor (TES) microcalorimeter, which allowed precise peak identification with high energy resolution. In the measurements using the TES microcalorimeter, the full width at half-maximum energy resolution was 62.6 eV at 17.222 keV for 239Pu source, 62.5 eV at 17.222 keV for 238Pu source and 60.9 eV at 17.751 keV for 241Am source. This study demonstrates the separation of 241Am and plutonium isotopes by L X-ray spectroscopy using a TES microcalorimeter.
Effects of Malt Addition and Fermentation on Sensory Characteristics of Formulated Cereal Based Complementary Food

Sensory evaluation of formulated cereal based complementary food was carried out. Paddy and parboiled rice, soybean and crayfish were obtained from the open market in Jos, Nigeria. The paddy rice malted for 72h and other food stuffs were processed into flours. Parboiled rice and dehulled soybean mix was formulated in a standard ratio 70:30g. A modified standard formulation of parboiled rice, dehulled soybean, malted rice and crayfish in the ratio of 65:25:5:5g was prepared. From the formulation fermentation of different blends at varying periods was carried out for 24, 48, 72, 96 and 120h. The unfermented standard and modified standard (PR:DSB and PR:DSB:MR :CF respectively) blends were the controls. Sensory o 72 o evaluation was carried out on the unfermented and fermented blends by a 10-member untrained but experienced staff. Five texture characteristics were evaluated based on colour, taste, aroma consistency and overall acceptability of the blends. The results showed the two unfermented (PR:DSB and PR:DSB:MR :CF ) o 72 o
Investigation into the protein composition of human tear fluid using centrifugal filters and drop coating deposition Raman spectroscopy

Drop coating deposition Raman spectroscopy (DCDRS) is a simple method of analysing weak protein solutions. This study is another step in evaluating the analysis of tear fluid by DCDRS as a future medical diagnostic technique. The main aims of this study are to determine whether the DCDR spectra from tear samples contain signals from more than one protein (so relative levels can be measured) and, if so, are the proteins homogeneously distributed in the dried ring of the deposited material. Tear samples were collected from four healthy volunteers and pooled prior to analysis. Proteins were separated by mass into three groups using centrifugal filters. These groups contained proteins with (1) masses greater than 100 kDa, (2) masses between 100 and 50 kDa and (3) masses between 50 and 3 kDa. DCDR spectra from each of these protein group solutions displayed significant differences, confirming that the mass separation had been successful. When used as basis vectors for least-squares fitting, these spectra (and that of urea) produced excellent fits to the normal tear spectra. Least-squares fitting of spectra from the same point on a single sample and from several drops of the same sample showed that the tear DCDR spectra were highly reproducible. Raman point mapping of the tear ring showed significant radial ring variation, especially towards the outer edge of the ring. The specific peak changes in the protein signal across the ring suggested that the difference in the outer edge was due to protein desiccation as opposed to inhomogeneous protein deposition. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Nitrate leaching and intensive outdoor pig production

Abstract. The production of pigs in outdoor units is gaining in popularity in the United Kingdom and is often concentrated on free-draining soils over important aquifers. Originally, stocking rates were sufficiently low to ensure the maintenance of a grass crop, but recently they have increased. Pigs are natural ‘rooters’ and wallowers and so cause damage to vegetation and soil structure. With overstocking these natural activities lead to considerable areas of bare, uncropped ground for much of the year. This paper assesses the potential for leaching of nitrate from such land, and makes recommendations for decreasing it.
Visible-light sensitized sol–gel-based lanthanide complexes (Sm, Yb, Nd, Er, Pr, Ho, Tm): microstructure, photoluminescence study, and thermostability

The homogeneously transparent hybrid gels (Ln–N–P-gel, Ln = Sm, Yb, Nd, Er, Pr, Ho, Tm) containing lanthanide complexes (by using dinaphthoylmethane (dnm) as the primary ligand and 1,10-phenanthroline (phen) as the synergic ligand) via the in situ approach have been prepared. The dnm ligand was synthesized and adopted with the aim to sensitize the lanthanide ions with visible light. The properties of Ln–N–P-gels were investigated by Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR), diffuse reflectance (DR), scanning electron micrographs (SEM), fluorescence spectra and thermogravimetric analyses. The results reveal that the lanthanide complexes are successfully in situ synthesized in the corresponding Ln–N–P-gels. Under the excitation of visible-light, the Ln–N–P-gels showed the respective visible (Sm3+) and near-infrared (Sm3+, Yb3+, Nd3+, Er3+, Pr3+, Ho3+, Tm3+) luminescence. The near-infrared (NIR) luminescence of Sm3+, Pr3+, Ho3+, and Tm3+ complexes sensitized by visible-light had been rarely reported previously, which is highly desired for biomedical and photonics applications. Based on the relevant energy levels, a model was proposed to explain the visible-NIR luminescence of the Ln–N–P-gels based on the visible-light excitation.
Pressure derivatives of the elastic moduli of BCC Ti-V-Cr, Nb-Mo and Ta-W alloys

The single-crystal elastic moduli Cij and their pressure derivatives dCij/dP have been measured ultrasonically at 25 degrees C for six Ti-V-Cr, eight Nb-Mo and seven Ta-W solid solutions. The rigid-band model for the alloy electronic structure is known to work fairly well for these BCC metals in predicting the density of states at the Fermi energy and related properties. The results of this study show that changes in the composition dependence of the Cij and dCij/dP appear to be related to specific topological changes in the Fermi surface which occur as the electron population varies in the rigid-band model. The relationship between the bandstructure and the Cij is discussed and a qualitative explanation is given for the correlations between the moduli and the Fermi surface and for some of the differences between the three alloy series.
Interfacial Tension of Alkane + Water Systems†

Interfacial tension was measured for hexane + water, heptane + water, octane + water, nonane + water, decane + water, undecane + water, and dodecane + water, using the emergent drop experimental technique with a numerical method based on a fourth degree spline interpolation of the drop profile. The experimental equipment used to generate the drop consists of a cell with a stainless steel body and two Pyrex windows. The inner cell was previously filled with water. A surgical needle (at the bottom of the cell) was used to introduce the organic phase into the cell (forming the emergent drop). Water was used to keep the temperature constant inside the cell (between 10 °C and 60 °C). The cell was illuminated from the back using a fiber optic lamp and a diffuser. A video camera (with a 60 mm microlens and an extension ring) was located at the front window. The emergent drop image was captured and sent to the video recording system. The cell and the optical components were placed on an optical table with vibrati.
Fermi surface properties and de Haas–van Alphen oscillation in both the normal and superconducting mixed states of URu2Si2

Abstract We have succeeded in growing a high-quality single crystal of URu2Si2 with a residual resistivity ratio of 255 and performed magnetoresistance and de Haas–van Alphen (dHvA) experiments. The dHvA oscillations were observed clearly in both the normal and superconducting mixed states. From the magnetoresistance experiments, it is concluded that URu2Si2 is a compensated metal with equal carrier numbers of electrons and holes. In the dHvA experiments we observed three kinds of Fermi surfaces. We studied precisely the Fermi surface properties in both the normal and mixed states. The dHvA frequency does not change in magnitude between the normal and mixed states, while the cyclotron effective mass is reduced, and the corresponding Dingle temperature or scattering rate of the conduction electron increases in the mixed state.
Development and Validation of a Method for the Determination of Phenylbutazone Drug Residues in Bovine, Equine, and Porcine Muscle Tissues Using HPLC with UV Detection

Abstract A sensitive liquid chromatographic method with UV detection has been developed for the analysis of phenylbutazone (PBZ) drug residues in bovine, equine, and porcine muscle tissues. PBZ is extracted from muscle tissues with ethyl acetate/methanol solution containing DL‐dithiothreitol. The tissue extract is centrifuged, evaporated to minimum volume under nitrogen, and cleaned up on a conditioned Florisil solid phase extraction cartridge. PBZ is eluted with a 1:1 mixture of ether and a solution of methylene chloride:methanol:acetic acid (94:4:2 v/v/v). The eluate is evaporated to dryness with nitrogen, reconstituted in mobile phase, filtered, and analyzed by reversed‐phase liquid chromatography with UV detection at 270 nm. The method, with a detection limit of 3 ppb, was used to monitor the prevalence of PBZ drug residues in equine, porcine, and bovine muscle tissues obtained from animals slaughtered in federally inspected Canadian abattoirs.
Viewers Change Eye-Blink Rate by Predicting Narrative Content

Eye blinks provoke a loss of visual information. However, we are not constantly making conscious decisions about the appropriate moment to blink. The presence or absence of eye blinks also denotes levels of attention. We presented three movies with the exact same narrative but different styles of editing and recorded participants’ eye blinks. We found that moments of increased or decreased eye blinks by viewers coincided with the same content in the different movie styles. The moments of increased eye blinks corresponded to those when the actor leaves the scene and when the movie repeats the same action for a while. The moments of decreased eye blinks corresponded to actions where visual information was crucial to proper understanding of the scene presented. According to these results, viewers’ attention is more related to narrative content than to the style of editing when watching movies.