Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Detecting Early-Stage Oral Cancer from Clinically Diagnosed Oral Potentially Malignant Disorders by DNA Methylation Profile

Simple Summary Clinically, early-stage oral cancers are difficult to distinguish from oral potentially malignant disorders (OPMDs) because they show a variety of mucosal pathologies. Therefore, invasive tissue biopsies should be performed to determine the treatment strategy. Previously, we focused on gargle fluid as a noninvasive testing method and reported aberrant methylation in gargle fluid in patients with oral cancer. In this study, we successfully identified aberrantly methylated genes in early-stage oral cancer and reported that a combination of methylation of six genes could distinguish early-stage oral cancer from OPMDs, with high diagnostic performance. In addition, the methylation panel more accurately reflected the presence of early-stage oral cancer than cytology testing. Our results suggest that the methylation panel using gargle fluid has the potential to be used as a noninvasive screening tool to diagnose early-stage cancer. Abstract Clinically, early-stage oral cancers are difficult to distinguish from oral potentially malignant disorders (OPMDs), and invasive tissue biopsy should be performed to determine a treatment strategy. Previously, we focused on gargle fluid as a noninvasive testing method and reported aberrant methylation in gargle fluid in patients with oral cancer. This study aimed to distinguish early-stage oral cancer from clinically diagnosed OPMDs using gargle fluid samples. We collected gargle fluid samples from 40 patients who were clinically diagnosed with OPMDs in the training set; among them, 9 patients were pathologically diagnosed with oral cancer. Methylation levels of 25 tumor suppressor genes were analyzed using the methylation-specific multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification (MS-MLPA) method. We found that a combination of six genes (TP73, CASP8, RARB, KLLN, GSTP1, and CHFR) could distinguish oral cancer from clinically diagnosed OPMDs with high diagnostic performance (area under the curve [AUC], 0.885; sensitivity, 77.8%; and specificity, 87.1%). Additionally, the panel comprised of the six methylated genes was validated in the test set. Furthermore, when compared with cytology testing, the panel could accurately detect oral cancer. The present methylated gene panel may serve as a novel biomarker for oral cancer.
A SSESSING G ENETIC V ARIATION AND S PREAD OF Phalaris minor R ESISTANT TO ACC ASE I NHIBITING H ERBICIDES IN I RAN

- Littleseed canarygrass (Phalaris minor) is the second most serious and problematic grass weed in wheat fields in Iran, and has developed resistance to ACCase inhibiting herbicides. Inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) analysis was used to assess genetic variation between and within ACCase inhibitor-resistant and susceptible P. minor populations in Iran and to determine the origin of resistance and its dispersal. Sixteen P. minor populations from different regions in Iran were analysed using seven primers. Genetic relationships generated using UPGMA analysis indicated the presence of more than one genotype among the herbicide resistant populations. The results indicated that the high genetic similarity and physical proximity among the resistant P. minor populations in the different regions is mainly due to cross pollination, mechanical seed dispersion and local ecological factors. These findings suggested that independent selection as well as movement of resistant seeds had occurred, which could explain the presence and dispersion of ACCase inhibitor-resistance in these populations.
Long-term measurements on a cable-stayed bridge

A long-term ambient vibration survey on the Fred Hartman Bridge in Texas is in progress primarily to monitor stay cable vibration. Part of this project includes efforts to better understand the overall wind performance and the modal characteristics of the structure. A PC-based data acquisition system was installed on the bridge to monitor deck and stay accelerations, wind speeds/directions and meteorological data during the three-year test program. One of the primary tasks in this process was the identification of structural frequencies and mode shapes under a wide range of meteorological and operating environments. The statistical distributions of the modal frequencies of the structure have been obtained from the locations of the peaks of the power spectra. In addition, the frequencies, as well as mode shape estimates, have been compared to a finite element (FE) model of the structure, showing reasonable agreement. This paper will summarize findings from the efforts described above, as well as describing relevant data from stay cable measurements.
Proposing a neural framework for the evolution of elaborate courtship displays

In many vertebrates, courtship occurs through the performance of elaborate behavioral displays that are as spectacular as they are complex. The question of how sexual selection acts upon these animals’ neuromuscular systems to transform a repertoire of pre-existing movements into such remarkable (if not unusual) display routines has received relatively little research attention. This is a surprising gap in knowledge, given that unraveling this extraordinary process is central to understanding the evolution of behavioral diversity and its neural control. In many vertebrates, courtship displays often push the limits of neuromuscular performance, and often in a ritualized manner. These displays can range from songs that require rapid switching between two independently controlled ‘voice boxes’ to precisely choreographed acrobatics. Here, we propose a framework for thinking about how the brain might not only control these displays, but also shape their evolution. Our framework focuses specifically on a major midbrain area, which we view as a likely important node in the orchestration of the complex neural control of behavior used in the courtship process. This area is the periaqueductal grey (PAG), as studies suggest that it is both necessary and sufficient for the production of many instinctive survival behaviors, including courtship vocalizations. Thus, we speculate about why the PAG, as well as its key inputs, might serve as targets of sexual selection for display behavior. In doing so, we attempt to combine core ideas about the neural control of behavior with principles of display evolution. Our intent is to spur research in this area and bring together neurobiologists and behavioral ecologists to more fully understand the role that the brain might play in behavioral innovation and diversification.
Glial cells in the center of future ischemic stroke treatments

Ischemic stroke is the most common of all types of stroke. As the second leading cause of disability and mortality, ischemic stroke is a serious socioeconomic burden worldwide. Although it has been strongly associated with aging, during 2020 COVID-19 emerged as a new risk factor for ischemic stroke in younger patients (Cagnazzo et al., 2021). The only therapy or intervention currently available for humans is early reperfusion after the onset of the first symptoms. However, due to the high risk of brain hemorrhage, these treatments are suitable for only a small percentage of patients. Moreover, reperfusion does not prevent post-injury neurodegeneration, hence the importance of finding new therapeutic alternatives to ameliorate ischemic damage and improve poststroke quality of life.
Effective connectivity inference in the whole-brain network by using rDCM method for investigating the distinction between emotional states in fMRI data

ABSTRACT In recent years, the regression dynamic causal modelling (rDCM) method was introduced as a new version of dynamic causal modelling (DCM) to derive effective connectivity in whole-brain networks for functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. In this research, we used data obtained while applying the stimulation of audio movie comprised different emotional states. We applied this method to two networks consisting of ten auditory and forty-four regions, respectively. This method was used to study effective connections between emotional states and represent the distinction between emotions. Finally, significant effective connections were found in emotional processing and auditory regions, and between visual and memory-related regions. We also observed the distinctive connections between the pair of emotions in both models. The greatest number of significant distinctions in the coupling between regions was represented in happiness-anger and happiness-fear for the whole-brain model and happiness-sadness, sadness-love, and anger-love for the auditory model.
Bottom-Up Approach to the Discovery of Clinically Relevant Biomarker Genes: The Case of Colorectal Cancer

Simple Summary This manuscript describes a novel ‘bottom-up’ approach to the discovery of putative biomarkers of cancer. Unlike traditional ‘omics’ and ‘big data’ research approaches, which gather data rather indiscriminately and at a great cost, our approach relies on the knowledge of cell molecular biology. A very small set of known markers are used to ‘train’ the prediction algorithm, which utilizes accessible and affordable means to analyze and extract relevant information, leading directly to the markers at a fraction of the time and cost of the ‘omics’ research. To illustrate the capabilities of the proposed approach, we applied the method to colorectal cancer, one of the most common and thoroughly studied cancers. Our method yielded an extended and validated set of 138 putative molecular biomarkers. We further tested 42 of these genes and showed that 41 mRNAs are differentially expressed as we predicted. Our method offers a widely applicable strategy for cancer marker discovery. Abstract Traditional approaches to genome-wide marker discovery often follow a common top-down strategy, where a large scale ‘omics’ investigation is followed by the analysis of functional pathways involved, to narrow down the list of identified putative biomarkers, and to deconvolute gene expression networks, or to obtain an insight into genetic alterations observed in cancer. We set out to investigate whether a reverse approach would allow full or partial reconstruction of the transcriptional programs and biological pathways specific to a given cancer and whether the full or substantially expanded list of putative markers could thus be identified by starting with the partial knowledge of a few disease-specific markers. To this end, we used 10 well-documented differentially expressed markers of colorectal cancer (CRC), analyzed their transcription factor networks and biological pathways, and predicted the existence of 193 new putative markers. Incredibly, the use of a validation marker set of 10 other completely different known CRC markers and the same procedure resulted in a very similar set of 143 predicted markers. Of these, 138 were identical to those found using the training set, confirming our main hypothesis that a much-expanded set of disease markers can be predicted by starting with just a small subset of validated markers. Further to this, we validated the expression of 42 out of 138 top-ranked predicted markers experimentally using qPCR in surgically removed CRC tissues. We showed that 41 out of 42 mRNAs tested have significantly altered levels of mRNA expression in surgically excised CRC tissues. Of the markers tested, 36 have been reported to be associated with aspects of CRC in the past, whilst only limited published evidence exists for another three genes (BCL2, PDGFRB and TSC2), and no published evidence directly linking genes to CRC was found for CCNA1, SHC1 and TGFB3. Whilst we used CRC to test and validate our marker discovery strategy, the reported procedures apply more generally to cancer marker discovery.
Preschool Children’s Inhalation Rates Estimated from Accelerometers—A Tool to Estimate Children’s Exposure to Air Pollution

Children are particularly sensitive to air pollution exposure, and their personal exposures may differ significantly from those of adults. One key factor for understanding the personal inhaled dose of air pollutants is the respiratory minute ventilation ( V e ). To estimate the amount of particles circulated through the lungs, 24 h averages of V e are often used. These averages poorly capture variations in V e during the day, and between individuals. We here develop and implement a concept to assess individual V e of children, with minimal impact on their natural activity and movement pattern by using ActiGraph GT3X+ accelerometers. Activity of 136 preschool children in the ages 3 to 5 years was logged using accelerometers while the children attended their preschools during a week. A linear regression equation is developed and used for estimating V e from the accelerometer data retrieved for each individual child. The results show large variations in weekly average V e between individuals, ranging from 0.33 to 0.48 L min –1 kg –1 . Over the days the averages of the individuals’ 1 st and 3 rd quartiles were 0.28 and 0.48 L min –1 kg –1 , respectively. Outdoor activities resulted in a 17% higher V e than indoor activities, which may be important to consider when estimating the inhaled dose of air pollutants since pollution levels and particle toxicities can be different indoors and outdoors. The observations motivate the use of individual values of V e in exposure assessments and suggest that accelerometers are a suitable tool for estimating children’s individual V e in their natural environment. Combined with time resolved local air pollution monitoring, these measurements can provide the basis of a more precise estimate of children’s inhaled dose of air pollutants.
Remaining Hopeful During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Role of NGOs in Filling the Social Support Gap for Vulnerable Children

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a negative effect on children’s mental health worldwide. Existing studies suggest that children with greater levels of hope are more likely to be resilient in the face of disaster. While social support at the family and community level is proposed as an important factor in sustaining and fostering hope, the children of underprivileged households in developing countries tend to lack this support. We investigate whether development projects run by international NGOs are able to fill this gap and help children to remain hopeful during the pandemic. Using original survey data from 834 children in adolescence (aged between 10 and 18) in Kenya and Zambia, we show that children participating in Good Neighbors’ child sponsorship programs and community development projects exhibit higher scores on the Children’s Hope Scale than do non-participating children. These projects appear to foster hope by providing emotional and informational support.
Classification of Underwater Fish Images and Videos via Very Small Convolutional Neural Networks

The automatic classification of fish species appearing in images and videos from underwater cameras is a challenging task, albeit one with a large potential impact in environment conservation, marine fauna health assessment, and fishing policy. Deep neural network models, such as convolutional neural networks, are a popular solution to image recognition problems. However, such models typically require very large datasets to train millions of model parameters. Because underwater fish image and video datasets are scarce, non-uniform, and often extremely unbalanced, deep neural networks may be inadequately trained, and undergo a much larger risk of overfitting. In this paper, we propose small convolutional neural networks as a practical engineering solution that helps tackle fish image classification. The concept of “small” refers to the number of parameters of the resulting models: smaller models are lighter to run on low-power devices, and drain fewer resources per execution. This is especially relevant for fish recognition systems that run unattended on offshore platforms, often on embedded hardware. Here, established deep neural network models would require too many computational resources. We show that even networks with little more than 12,000 parameters provide an acceptable working degree of accuracy in the classification task (almost 42% for six fish species), even when trained on small and unbalanced datasets. If the fish images come from videos, we augment the data via a low-complexity object tracking algorithm, increasing the accuracy to almost 49% for six fish species. We tested the networks with images obtained from the deployments of an experimental system in the Mediterranean sea, showing a good level of accuracy given the low quality of the dataset.
Four LTE low‐band smartphone antennas and their MIMO performance with user's hand presence

Owing to the narrow regions along the four edges of the modern smartphone, especially the two narrow regions along the long (side) edges thereof, it has been a design challenge to embed the internal antennas therein. The design challenge is especially critical for embedding the long‐term evolution (LTE) low‐band antennas with operating frequencies below 1 GHz. In this study, based on the open‐slot antenna structure, the design of four LTE low‐band antennas, respectively, disposed along the four edges of the smartphone are presented. The two antennas along the two short (top and bottom) edges have a low profile of 10 mm and can cover 698–960 MHz. The two antennas along the two long edges have a low profile of 1 mm only and can cover 824–960 MHz. The four antennas can be applied in a 4 × 4 multiple‐input multiple‐output (MIMO) system in the 824–960 MHz band (e.g., the LTE band 5 and 8). Conversely, the two short‐edge antennas can be used for 2 × 2 MIMO in the 698–960 MHz band (e.g., the LTE band 5, 8, 13, and 17). The operating principle and antenna performance of the four antennas are presented. The obtained channel capacities for 4 × 4 MIMO and 2 × 2 MIMO operations are also shown. Effects of the user's hand holding the smartphone with the four antennas therein are also analyzed. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 58:2046–2052, 2016
Importance of invasion mechanisms varies with abiotic context and plant invader growth form

Many invasion hypotheses propose biotic interactions as the main mechanism to explain non‐native species' success. Despite the evidence that the strength of biotic interactions varies with abiotic context, it remains unclear whether the importance of the different mechanisms proposed to explain invasion predictably varies with the abiotic context and whether this variation is consistent across different growth forms. We reviewed studies at a global scale to evaluate whether evapotranspiration, latitude, precipitation and temperature influence the importance of disturbance, enemy release, facilitation, and novel weapons mechanisms to explain non‐native plant invasions. In total, we calculated 171 effect sizes for ~300 non‐native plant species covering a wide range of environmental conditions and growth forms. Environmental context and plant growth form influenced the role played by each invasion mechanism. The importance of disturbance in facilitating invasion exhibited a quadratic relationship with latitude and temperature, and decreased with increasing precipitation. In mixed communities and trees, disturbance was mediated by either evapotranspiration, latitude, precipitation or temperature. Enemy release exhibited a quadratic relationship with evapotranspiration, latitude and precipitation, and it was positively related to temperature. The importance of enemy release was also contingent on growth form and was highly context‐dependent. Enemy release responses for grasses, and trees were modulated by either evapotranspiration, latitude, precipitation or temperature. The importance of facilitation decreased with increasing temperature. In forbs, facilitation decreased with evapotranspiration and temperature. The importance of novel weapons was more strongly confirmed for studies conducted at lower evapotranspiration, precipitation and higher latitudes, and exhibited a quadratic relationship with temperature. Synthesis. Our results show that environmental conditions not only filter non‐native species depending on physiological tolerances but may also influence the importance of invasion mechanisms.
Goering injuries: epidemiological, lesional and therapeutic aspects in the departments of Borgou and Alibori in Benin

Background: Traumatic lesions by goring constitute a particular entity regarding their lesion mechanism and their types which are different from civil traumatology. Objectives of current study was to investigate the epidemiological, lesional and therapeutic aspects of goring injuries in the departments of Borgou and Alibori in Benin.Methods: This was a prospective and descriptive study covering the period of eighteen months (January 2020 to June 2021) taking into account all patients admitted for goring trauma to one of the reference hospitals.Results: A total of 40 cases were identified. The average age of the subjects was 20.1±14.4 years with extremes of 7 and 65 years. The male subject was the most affected (97.5%) with a sex ratio of 39/1. The age group of 10 to 15 years was the most affected with 19 (47.5%) cases. Goering often took place on pasture (45%) or in the field (35%) and oxen were the most involved animal (90%). The victims were often herdsmen or farmers in respectively 50% and 37.5% of the cases. The trauma was most often located in the abdomen (35%). The treatment depended on the lesions. The average hospital stay was 3.9±3 days with extremes of 1 to 16 days. Two patients had died, so a mortality rate of 5%. Conclusions: The prevention of these traumas passes by the schooling of the children.
Hepatitis G virus infection in hemodialysis patients and the effects of interferon treatment.

OBJECTIVE To characterize the nature of hepatitis G virus (HGV) infections in hemodialysis patients and to determine the responsiveness of HGV to antiviral therapy in these patients. METHODS HGV, a recently identified flavivirus, is associated with non-A-E viral hepatitis infections. We studied HGV infections in hepatitis C virus (HCV)-infected hemodialysis patients over a 1-yr period, using two independent PCR assays and nucleic acid sequencing. Thirty-four of 63 study patients were treated with interferon. RESULTS We observed a 27% prevalence (17/63 patients) and a 4% annual incidence of HGV infections in the study population. HGV was not detected in any of the 10 HGV-infected patients immediately after interferon therapy. Although seven of these 10 patients developed HGV relapses, three had long-term responses. The interferon responsiveness of HGV and HCV appeared to be unrelated. In contrast, all seven untreated HGV-infected patients remained viremic. Sequence analyses of the different HGV isolates revealed only very limited genetic variability in the polymerase chain reaction-amplified regions of HGV during 1 yr of observation. CONCLUSIONS Our data suggest that HCV-infected hemodialysis patients are at substantial risk of acquiring HGV infection and that HGV infections are prevalent in this population. In addition, HGV infections become chronic but are responsive to interferon treatment.
Effect of the location of the foot impact point on ball velocity in a soccer penalty kick

The aim of this study was to identify the impact point on the foot that maximizes ball velocity in a soccer instep penalty kick. One male player performed 23 maximum-effort penalty kicks using a wide range of impact points along the length of his foot. The kicks were recorded by a video camera at 100 Hz and a biomechanical analysis was conducted to obtain measures of impact point, ball projection velocity, and kinematics of the kicking leg. We found that ball velocity was insensitive to the location of the impact point (at least for positions between the ankle joint and the base of the toes). This result suggests that players should consider other factors (such as shot accuracy, shot reliability, and foot comfort) when selecting the impact point.