Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Racial differences in the limb skeletal muscle transcriptional programs of patients with critical limb ischemia

Critical limb ischemia (CLI) is the most severe manifestation of peripheral artery disease (PAD) and is characterized by high rates of morbidity and mortality. As with most severe cardiovascular disease manifestations, Black individuals disproportionately present with CLI. Accordingly, there remains a clear need to better understand the reasons for this discrepancy and to facilitate personalized therapeutic options specific for this population. Gastrocnemius muscle was obtained from White and Black healthy adult volunteers and patients with CLI for whole transcriptome shotgun sequencing (WTSS) and enrichment analysis was performed to identify alterations in specific Reactome pathways. When compared to their race-matched healthy controls, both White and Black patients with CLI demonstrated similar reductions in nuclear and mitochondrial encoded genes and mitochondrial oxygen consumption across multiple substrates, indicating a common bioenergetic paradigm associated with amputation outcomes regardless of race. Direct comparisons between tissues of White and Black patients with CLI revealed hemostasis, extracellular matrix organization, platelet regulation, and vascular wall interactions to be uniquely altered in limb muscles of Black individuals. Among traditional vascular growth factor signaling targets, WTSS revealed only Tie1 to be significantly altered from White levels in Black limb muscle tissues. Quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction validation of select identified targets verified WTSS directional changes and supports reductions in MMP9 and increases in NUDT4P1 and GRIK2 as unique to limb muscles of Black patients with CLI. This represents a critical first step in better understanding the transcriptional program similarities and differences between Black and White patients in the setting of amputations related to CLI and provides a promising start for therapeutic development in this population.
Vitamin D and white matter hyperintensities: results of the population‐based Heinz Nixdorf Recall Study and 1000BRAINS

Cross‐sectional studies showed an inverse association between serum 25‐hydroxyvitamin D (25OHD) and white matter hyperintensities (WMHs) whereas the few longitudinal studies did not. The association between baseline 25OHD and WMHs at 10‐year follow‐up in the Heinz Nixdorf Recall Study plus 1000BRAINS was investigated.
H2 DAMAGE OF FERROELECTRIC PB(ZR,TI)O3 THIN-FILM CAPACITORS : THE ROLE OF CATALYTIC AND ADSORPTIVE ACTIVITY OF THE TOP ELECTRODE

Large-scale integrated fabrication in a H2 containing atmosphere, for example, during the passivation process, can cause serious damage in metal/Pb(Zr,Ti)O3/metal capacitors (i.e., Pt/PZT/Pt capacitors). To reveal the cause of the H2 damage, we investigated the behavior of hysteresis curves and the leakage current of capacitors with a top electrode of Pt, Pd, Au, or Ag. Capacitors with a top electrode of Au or Ag are more resistant to the H2 annealing damage than those of Pt or Pd. We found that the H2 damage was strongly affected by the catalytic activity and adsorptive properties of the top electrode when exposed to H2.
Thermodynamic and sequential characteristics of phase separation and droplet formation for an intrinsically disordered region/protein ensemble

Liquid–liquid phase separation (LLPS) of some IDPs/IDRs can lead to the formation of the membraneless organelles in vitro and in vivo, which are essential for many biological processes in the cell. Here we select three different IDR segments of chaperon Swc5 and develop a polymeric slab model at the residue-level. By performing the molecular dynamics simulations, LLPS can be observed at low temperatures even without charge interactions and disappear at high temperatures. Both the sequence length and the charge pattern of the Swc5 segments can influence the critical temperature of LLPS. The results suggest that the effects of the electrostatic interactions on the LLPS behaviors can change significantly with the ratios and distributions of the charged residues, especially the sequence charge decoration (SCD) values. In addition, three different forms of swc conformation can be distinguished on the phase diagram, which is different from the conventional behavior of the free IDP/IDR. Both the packed form (the condensed-phase) and the dispersed form (the dilute-phase) of swc chains are found to be coexisted when LLPS occurs. They change to the fully-spread form at high temperatures. These findings will be helpful for the investigation of the IDP/IDR ensemble behaviors as well as the fundamental mechanism of the LLPS process in bio-systems.
Impact of flow pattern, body mass index, and age on intraprocedural fluoroscopic time and radiation dose during sacroiliac joint injections

Purpose Understanding all factors that may impact radiation dose and procedural time is crucial to safe and efficient image-guided interventions, such as fluoroscopically guided sacroiliac (SI) joint injections. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of flow pattern (intra- vs. periarticular), patient age, and body mass index (BMI) on radiation dose and fluoroscopy time. Methods A total of 134 SI joint injections were reviewed. Injectate flow pattern, age, and BMI were analyzed in respect to fluoroscopy time (minutes), radiation dose (kerma area product (KAP); µGy m2), and estimated skin dose (mGy). Results BMI did not affect fluoroscopy time, but increased BMI resulted in significantly higher skin and fluoroscopy doses (p < 0.001). There was no association between fluoroscopy time and flow pattern. Higher skin dose was associated with intraarticular flow (p = 0.0086), and higher KAP was associated with periarticular flow (p = 0.0128). However, the odds ratios were close to 1. There was no significant difference between fluoroscopy time or dose based on patient age. Conclusion Increased BMI had the largest impact on procedural radiation dose and skin dose. Flow pattern also showed a statistically significant association with radiation dose and skin dose, but the clinical difference was small. Proceduralists should be aware that BMI has the greatest impact on fluoroscopy dose and skin dose during SI joint injections compared to other factors.
Combining generative adversarial networks and multi-output CNN for motor imagery classification

Objective. Motor imagery (MI) classification is an important task in the brain–computer interface (BCI) field. MI data exhibit highly dynamic characteristics and are difficult to obtain. Therefore, the performance of the classification model will be challenged. Recently, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have been employed for MI classification and have demonstrated favorable performances. However, the traditional CNN model uses an end-to-end output method, and part of the feature information is discarded during the transmission process. Approach. Herein, we propose a novel algorithm, that is, a combined long short-term memory generative adversarial networks (LGANs) and multi-output convolutional neural network (MoCNN) for MI classification, and an attention network for improving model performance. Specifically, the proposed method comprises three steps. First, MI data are obtained, and preprocessing is performed. Second, additional data are generated for training. Here, a data augmentation method based on a LGAN is designed. Last, the MoCNN is proposed to improve the classification performance. Main results. The BCI competition IV datasets 2a and 2b are employed to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. With multiple evaluation indicators, the proposed generative model can generate more realistic data. The expanded training set improves the performance of the classification model. Significance. The results show that the proposed method improves the classification of MI data, which facilitates motion imagination.
Mental Health of Lesbian, Bisexual, and Other-Identified Parents and Non-Parents from a Population-Based Study

ABSTRACT Studies have compared sexual minority mothers (mostly lesbian) to heterosexual mothers on mental health, but little research has compared sexual minority women with and without children. This was the first study to compare sexual minority women who did or did not have children, using a population-based sample with three age cohorts. Unlike prior convenience studies, this study finds parents more likely to be bisexual, in a relationship with a man, and non-urban. Bisexual parents scored higher than lesbian parents on psychological distress and lower on life satisfaction and happiness; they also reported less connection to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. Among lesbians, the oldest non-parents reported more happiness and less psychological distress than the youngest non-parents. Parents with other identities perceived more social support from friends and reported lower levels of internalized homophobia than bisexual parents. The results will help professionals and policymakers understand how parenthood status affects women across sexual identities.
A comparative study of the effect of the Time for Dementia programme on medical students

Traditional healthcare education typically focuses on short block clinical placements based on acute care, investigations and technical aspects of diagnosis and treatment. It may therefore fail to build the understanding, compassion and person‐centred empathy needed to help those with long‐term conditions, like dementia. Time for Dementia was developed to address this.
Monitoring of Impact of Ferti‐irrigation by Post‐methanated Distillery Effluent on Groundwater Quality

The impact assessment of molasses-based distillery-effluent irrigation on groundwater quality around village Gajraula in the district of Jyotiba Phule Nagar, Uttar Pradesh, India was studied by sampling groundwater on monthly intervals consecutively for summer, winter and monsoon seasons during 2006–2007 and water quality parameters, viz. pH, electrical conductivity (EC), chloride (Cl−), sulphate (SO), nitrate (NO), chemical oxygen demand (COD), total solids (TS), total dissolved solids (TDS), sodium (Na+), potassium (K+), calcium (Ca2+), magnesium (Mg2+), zinc (Zn2+), iron (Fe3+), and total coliforms (TC) were monitored. Results depicted that the values of all parameters decreased with increasing depth of water table. Sulphate, nitrate and potassium contents were maximal in agricultural site during monsoon while EC, Cl−, TS, TDS, Na+, Ca2+, Mg2+, Zn, and Fe were maximal in industrial sites during summer. Groundwater samples of residential site harboured maximum coliforms especially during monsoon, highlighting threat to groundwater. Significant positive correlation matrix between coliforms with nitrate, sulphate and potassium ions explained their survival on these nutrients. To overcome this, important measures emphasizing improvement in effluent treatment technology matching site-specific characteristics are recommended for eco-friendly ferti-irrigation.
7-O-β-D-glucosyl-8-C-β-D-glucosyl-4′-O-methylapigenin. A new flavone from Trema aspera

Tremasperin, a new O-glucoside C-glucoflavone isolated from Trema aspera is a mixture of mono- and di-acetates. The deacetylated material is shown to be 7-O-β-D-glucosyl-8-C-β-D-glucosyl-4′-O-methylapigenin. The structure has been elucidated from chemical and spectroscopic evidence, with emphasis on the contributions of high resolution mass spectrometry and 1H n.m. r. at 100 Mc. /sec.
A REVIEW OF SOLUTE TRANSPORT MODELING IN SOILS AND HYDRODYNAMIC DISPERSIVITY

The knowledge of solute transport process in the porous media has an important role for addressing chemical pollution, loss of nutrients, groundwater contaminating rate and drainage water quality. The aim of this paper was to review the hydrodynamic dispersivity parameter and the models of dispersion - mass and stochastic to evaluate the solute transport process in soils. Solute transport models, convective - dispersive Equation (CDE) and convective lognormal transfer (CLT) are fitted to experimental breakthrough curves (BTCâ€™s) and solute transport parameters are estimated. It should be investigated which of the CDE or CLT model explain the BTCs more reliably. The review indicates that the soil physical properties and experiment conditions can determine the appropriate model that characterizes the BTCs. The travel time distribution and the variance of solute molecule velocities vary with flow rate. Mohammadi and Vanclooster (2012) indicated that the mean solute travel time, I¼t, increases partially with the travel distance and decreases with the flow rate. The review shows that the mean travel time distribution depends on the flow rate. Generally, well - controlled solute transport experiments on soils are essential to the knowledge of the solute transport processes and parameters for different flow rates and soil types.
Dangerous liaisons: an online experiment on the role of scientific experts and politicians in ensuring public support for anti-COVID measures

The effectiveness of public health measures to prevent COVID-19 contagion has required less vulnerable citizens to pay an individual cost in terms of personal liberty infringement to protect more vulnerable groups. However, the close relationship between scientific experts and politicians in providing information on COVID-19 measures makes it difficult to understand which communication source was more effective in increasing pro-social behaviour. Here, we present an online experiment performed in May 2020, during the first wave of the pandemic on 1131 adult residents in Lombardy, Italy, one of the world's hardest hit regions. Results showed that when scientific experts recommended anti-contagion measures, participants were more sensitive to pro-social motivations, unlike whenever these measures were recommended by politicians and scientific experts together. Our findings suggest the importance of trusted sources in public communication during a pandemic.
Rapid behavioural response of urban birds to COVID-19 lockdown

Biodiversity is threatened by the growth of urban areas. However, it is still poorly understood how animals can cope with and adapt to these rapid and dramatic transformations of natural environments. The COVID-19 pandemic provides us with a unique opportunity to unveil the mechanisms involved in this process. Lockdown measures imposed in most countries are causing an unprecedented reduction of human activities, giving us an experimental setting to assess the effects of our lifestyle on biodiversity. We studied the birds' response to the population lockdown by using more than 126 000 bird records collected by a citizen science project in northeastern Spain. We compared the occurrence and detectability of birds during the spring 2020 lockdown with baseline data from previous years in the same urban areas and dates. We found that birds did not increase their probability of occurrence in urban areas during the lockdown, refuting the hypothesis that nature has recovered its space in human-emptied urban areas. However, we found an increase in bird detectability, especially during early morning, suggesting a rapid change in the birds’ daily routines in response to quieter and less crowded cities. Therefore, urban birds show high behavioural plasticity to rapidly adjust to novel environmental conditions, such as those imposed by the COVID-19.
Human biases limit cumulative innovation

Is technological advancement constrained by biases in human cognition? People in all societies build on discoveries inherited from previous generations, leading to cumulative innovation. However, biases in human learning and memory may influence the process of knowledge transmission, potentially limiting this process. Here, we show that cumulative innovation in a continuous optimization problem is systematically constrained by human biases. In a large (n = 1250) behavioural study using a transmission chain design, participants searched for virtual technologies in one of four environments after inheriting a solution from previous generations. Participants converged on worse solutions in environments misaligned with their biases. These results substantiate a mathematical model of cumulative innovation in Bayesian agents, highlighting formal relationships between cultural evolution and distributed stochastic optimization. Our findings provide experimental evidence that human biases can limit the advancement of knowledge in a controlled laboratory setting, reinforcing concerns about bias in creative, scientific and educational contexts.
Risk of mortality in patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern 202012/1: matched cohort study

Abstract Objective To establish whether there is any change in mortality from infection with a new variant of SARS-CoV-2, designated a variant of concern (VOC-202012/1) in December 2020, compared with circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants. Design Matched cohort study. Setting Community based (pillar 2) covid-19 testing centres in the UK using the TaqPath assay (a proxy measure of VOC-202012/1 infection). Participants 54 906 matched pairs of participants who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 in pillar 2 between 1 October 2020 and 29 January 2021, followed-up until 12 February 2021. Participants were matched on age, sex, ethnicity, index of multiple deprivation, lower tier local authority region, and sample date of positive specimens, and differed only by detectability of the spike protein gene using the TaqPath assay. Main outcome measure Death within 28 days of the first positive SARS-CoV-2 test result. Results The mortality hazard ratio associated with infection with VOC-202012/1 compared with infection with previously circulating variants was 1.64 (95% confidence interval 1.32 to 2.04) in patients who tested positive for covid-19 in the community. In this comparatively low risk group, this represents an increase in deaths from 2.5 to 4.1 per 1000 detected cases. Conclusions The probability that the risk of mortality is increased by infection with VOC-202012/01 is high. If this finding is generalisable to other populations, infection with VOC-202012/1 has the potential to cause substantial additional mortality compared with previously circulating variants. Healthcare capacity planning and national and international control policies are all impacted by this finding, with increased mortality lending weight to the argument that further coordinated and stringent measures are justified to reduce deaths from SARS-CoV-2.
Suitability of an organic residual cover on tailings for bioenergy crop production: A preliminary assessment

Hargreaves, J., Lock, A. , Beckett, P., Spiers, G. A. , Tisch, B, Lanteigne, L. , Posadowski, T. and Soenens, M. 2012. Suitability of an organic residual cover on tailings for bioenergy crop production: A preliminary assessment. Can. J. Soil Sci. 92: 203-211. To test the potential for production of bioenergy crops, such as canola and corn, an organic cover was constructed over acid-producing mine tailings containing nickel and copper, belonging to Vale in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. The 1 m deep cover was of organic residuals (biosolids) obtained from a regional paper mill. Corn and canola crops were successfully grown using agricultural techniques. Crop yields from each of 2 yr from the tailings site were greater than those obtained at an agricultural site in the region. Root, shoot and grain analyses indicated low potential for bioaccumulation of potentially hazardous metals from the organic residual cover or the underlying tailings. Over the short term, there was no evidence of metal movement into the biosolids cover or uptake by the crops from the underlying tailing deposits. Importantly, canola seeds and corn kernels, the feedstocks for biodiesel and ethanol biofuels production, did not accumulate environmentally sensitive metals. This preliminary study demonstrates that the placement of an organic residuals cover on mine tailings to support growth of bioenergy crops is a potential novel reclamation strategy for the mining and smelting industry, or for industrial brownfields in general.
Delaying the peak of the COVID-19 epidemic with travel restrictions

Abstract Objectives: Travel restrictions is an often-used tool for governments to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Methods: We here used a simple simulation model to investigate the potential effects of travel restrictions within a country. Results: We found that travel restrictions can delay the peak of the epidemic considerably, but do not affect the spread within the country. We also investigated the effect of implementing travel restrictions early or later in the epidemic, and found that fast implementation is crucial for delaying the epidemic. Conclusions: Fast implementation of travel restrictions is crucial for delaying the peak of a subsequent outbreak of COVID-19 within a country.
Permeability of Amylose Film to Moisture Vapor, Selected Organic Vapors, and the Common Gases.

A mylose, the linear starch fraction, has been reported as a raw material useful for preparation of self-supporting f i l m s (4, 14, 22). Exploitation of such a use is, of course, dependent on the economical production of amylose. Most common starches contain approximately 1/4 amylose and 3/4 amylopectin, the branched fraction (10). In the past few years the breeding of a hybrid corn containing 50 to 80% amylose (5, 13, 23) in the starch has renewed interest in the potentialities of amylose a s a raw material for such industrial u ses a s f i l m s and fibers. A large proportion of al l types of commercially produced f i l m s now are used for packaging, such as wrapping, liners, and bags. The value of amylose f i l m s in such applications is dependent, in part, on their permeability characterist ics, for which data have been obtained in the present studies. The most important permeability factors in packaging foods and drugs are water vapor and gas permeabilities. Successful packaging of any food product must take one or both of these factors into account-for example, respiration of fresh fruits and vegetables necessi ta tes some permeability t o carbon dioxide (15). Food products containing fat , such a s roasted ground coffee and dried whole milk, are susceptible to spoilage by oxygen (19). In some ins t ances another permeability characterist ic assumes importance and must be taken into consideration in packaging foodstuffs. Permeability of f i l m s t o organic vapors falls in this category, Th i s factor is of interest because of i t s relation to possible lo s ses or retention of flavor and odor consti tuents of packaged materials. Studies carried out in work on amylose f i l m s include determinations of water vapor transmission a t various relative humidity gradients; measurements of permeability t o vapors of selected organic acids, alcohols, ketones, aldehydes, and esters ; and determination of permeability to nitrogen, oxygen, air, carbon dioxide, ammonia, and sulfur dioxide.