Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mechanosensitivity of Human Oligodendrocytes

Oligodendrocytes produce and repair myelin, which is critical for the integrity and function of the central nervous system (CNS). Oligodendrocyte and oligodendrocyte progenitor cell (OPC) biology is modulated in vitro by mechanical cues within the magnitudes observed in vivo. In some cases, these cues are sufficient to accelerate or inhibit terminal differentiation of murine oligodendrocyte progenitors. However, our understanding of oligodendrocyte lineage mechanobiology has been restricted primarily to animal models to date, due to the inaccessibility and challenges of human oligodendrocyte cell culture. Here, we probe the mechanosensitivity of human oligodendrocyte lineage cells derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells. We target phenotypically distinct stages of the human oligodendrocyte lineage and quantify the effect of substratum stiffness on cell migration and differentiation, within the range documented in vivo. We find that human oligodendrocyte lineage cells exhibit mechanosensitive migration and differentiation. Further, we identify two patterns of human donor line-dependent mechanosensitive differentiation. Our findings illustrate the variation among human oligodendrocyte responses, otherwise not captured by animal models, that are important for translational research. Moreover, these findings highlight the importance of studying glia under conditions that better approximate in vivo mechanical cues. Despite significant progress in human oligodendrocyte derivation methodology, the extended duration, low yield, and low selectivity of human-induced pluripotent stem cell-derived oligodendrocyte protocols significantly limit the scale-up and implementation of these cells and protocols for in vivo and in vitro applications. We propose that mechanical modulation, in combination with traditional soluble and insoluble factors, provides a key avenue to address these challenges in cell production and in vitro analysis.
Genome Editing of eIF4E1 in Tomato Confers Resistance to Pepper Mottle Virus

Many of the recessive virus-resistance genes in plants encode eukaryotic translation initiation factors (eIFs), including eIF4E, eIF4G, and related proteins. Notably, eIF4E and its isoform eIF(iso)4E are pivotal for viral infection and act as recessive resistance genes against various potyviruses in a wide range of plants. In this study, we used Clustered Regularly Interspaced Palindromic Repeats/CRISPR-associated protein 9 (CRISPR/Cas9)-mediated targeted mutagenesis to test whether novel sequence-specific mutations at eIF4E1 in Solanum lycopersicum (tomato) cv. Micro-Tom could confer enhanced resistance to potyviruses. This approach produced heritable homozygous mutations in the transgene-free E1 generation. Sequence analysis of eIF4E1 from E0 transgenic plants expressing Cas9 and eIF4E-sgRNA transcripts identified chimeric deletions ranging from 11 to 43 bp. Genotype analysis of the eIF4E1-edited lines in E0, E1, and E2 transgenic tomato plants showed that the mutations were transmitted to subsequent generations. When homozygous mutant lines were tested for resistance to potyviruses, they exhibited no resistance to tobacco etch virus (TEV). Notably, however, several mutant lines showed no accumulation of viral particles upon infection with pepper mottle virus (PepMoV). These results indicate that site-specific mutation of tomato eIF4E1 successfully conferred enhanced resistance to PepMoV. Thus, this study demonstrates the feasibility of the use of CRISPR/Cas9 approach to accelerate breeding for trait improvement in tomato plants.
Biannual reproductive cycles in the Japanese giant flying squirrel (Petaurista leucogenys)

Abstract Direct observation of mating behavior in the Japanese giant flying squirrel (Petaurista leucogenys) in a temperate mixed forest, central Japan, was carried out for 976 nights over an 8-year period (1983–1991). A total of 153 mating dates was observed involving 35 different adult females. Two mating seasons were apparent, 1 in early summer from mid-May to mid-June (range 36 days) followed by 1 in winter from mid-November to late January (74 days). Each female came into estrus twice a year and mated on 1 night in each mating season. Mothers with nursing young came into estrus relatively later within a mating season. No difference was observed in the proportion of mothers mating in each season, and the mild winter conditions enabled reproductive investment by females during winter. Each reproductive bout (from conception to weaning) required 4–6 months, and mature females were engaged in reproduction all year. The biannual reproductive strategy is thought to be compensated for by a small litter (1 or 2 young). The initiation of feeding by the recently weaned offspring coincided with the months of highest food availability in spring and autumn.
Radial Gradients in Wood Specific Gravity, Water and Gas Content in Trees of a Mexican Tropical Rain Forest

Cell walls, water, and gas that have mechanical and physiological functions in wood, and wood specific gravity (WSG) is related to demographic traits. To understand variation in wood structure and function, we analyzed radial changes in WSG, in the gas and the water fractions from trees growing in four different habitats in a southern Mexican rain forest. Mean WSG was 0.55 ± 0.16, slightly lower than reported for other tropical forests. In 27 species, WSG decreased and in two species, it increased from pith to bark with a strong (r2 = 0.65) negative correlation between WSG in the center of the tree and the radial WSG gradient. Habitat had some effect on mean WSG and trees growing on karst had significantly higher WSG than the same species growing on alluvial soil. The cell wall, water, and gas fractions accounted for 35 percent (range: 16–50), 42 percent (28–65), and 23 percent (2–56), respectively, of wood volume, with a negative correlation between the gas and the cell wall and between the gas and the water fractions, but not between the cell wall and water fractions. Radially increasing WSG is advantageous for pioneer trees with fast initial growth. We found that the water displacement method may result in biased WSG estimates. To increase the accuracy of WSG data, we suggest to measure sample volume geometrically using a constant diameter (that of the borer tip), to include radial variation in WSG, and to consider for possible site effects on species‐specific WSG.
Co-Creating Learning Designs in Professional Teacher Education: Knowledge Appropriation in the Teacher's Innovation Laboratory

Adoption of technologies in secondary schools is still behind expectations. Investments are often made without a clear educational objective and teachers are not sufficiently involved in the process of creating new teaching and learning methods that would utilize this technology. We contribute to the emerging perspective of learning design by proposing a co-creation-based teacher development program that should lead to more effective pedagogical methods for technology-enhanced learning (TEL) and their adoption in the classroom. Using the Knowledge Appropriation Model, we first analyze social practices of how teachers and university researchers co-create materials and lesson plans for technology-enhanced math lessons in two cases involving N=42 teachers. Building on these results, we propose a professional teacher development program to institutionalize these practices and validate it in another group of N=21 teachers. Our results show that the program enhances knowledge creation, scaffolding and appropriation, and leads to higher expected adoption when meaningful learning designs for TEL are created in equal collaboration of experts from different disciplines. We discuss the necessity to perceive the technology as just one of the components of a fully developed pedagogical-didactical framework.
University Students as Co-creators in Designing Gamification Teaching Activities using Emergent Technologies in Swedish K-12 Education

This paper reports on a study exploring the use of university students as co-creators when designing activities for an emergent teaching practice such as gamification, using emergent technologies in a Swedish K-12 education context. More specifically, the aim was to empirically explore and develop knowledge about the process ofdesigning for gamification teaching in K-12 education, to develop gamification teaching design principles and, in addition, to study how emergent technologies could be used in this context. Four sub-studies were conducted between 2014 and 2018 which included four groups of university students as co-creators in the teaching designs. The empirical material is based on observations from the field test in which school students tested university student designs. Post interviews were conducted with participating school teachers and university students. In addition, university student written reports were included. Findings illustrate four themes; 1) The design process of the gamification teaching activities, 2)Thegamification teaching design principles developed, 3) The school students’ experiences of the gamification designs and4) Designing gamification teaching activities – a complex process. Findings show that designing for gamification teaching designs using emergent technologies is quite a complex process.This complexity concerns, among other things, the puzzle of combining the different knowledge domainsinto the TPACK Model (i.e. technological knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, content knowledge) in an emergent teaching practice (gamification) with the use of emergent technologies. The co-creation process and the move between these knowledge domain areas could maximize the effect of achieving a pedagogical balance concerning what school students perceive as funwithout sacrificing focus on their knowledge acquisition and learning processes.
Otitis media susceptibility and shifts in the head and neck microbiome due to SPINK5 variants

Background Otitis media (OM) susceptibility has significant heritability; however, the role of rare variants in OM is mostly unknown. Our goal is to identify novel rare variants that confer OM susceptibility. Methods We performed exome and Sanger sequencing of >1000 DNA samples from 551 multiethnic families with OM and unrelated individuals, RNA-sequencing and microbiome sequencing and analyses of swabs from the outer ear, middle ear, nasopharynx and oral cavity. We also examined protein localisation and gene expression in infected and healthy middle ear tissues. Results A large, intermarried pedigree that includes 81 OM-affected and 53 unaffected individuals cosegregates two known rare A2ML1 variants, a common FUT2 variant and a rare, novel pathogenic variant c.1682A>G (p.Glu561Gly) within SPINK5 (LOD=4.09). Carriage of the SPINK5 missense variant resulted in increased relative abundance of Microbacteriaceae in the middle ear, along with occurrence of Microbacteriaceae in the outer ear and oral cavity but not the nasopharynx. Eight additional novel SPINK5 variants were identified in 12 families and individuals with OM. A role for SPINK5 in OM susceptibility is further supported by lower RNA counts in variant carriers, strong SPINK5 localisation in outer ear skin, faint localisation to middle ear mucosa and eardrum and increased SPINK5 expression in human cholesteatoma. Conclusion SPINK5 variants confer susceptibility to non-syndromic OM. These variants potentially contribute to middle ear pathology through breakdown of mucosal and epithelial barriers, immunodeficiency such as poor vaccination response, alteration of head and neck microbiota and facilitation of entry of opportunistic pathogens into the middle ear.
MarkedBERT: Integrating Traditional IR Cues in Pre-trained Language Models for Passage Retrieval

The Information Retrieval (IR) community has witnessed a flourishing development of deep neural networks, however, only a few managed to beat strong baselines. Among them, models like DRMM and DUET were able to achieve better results thanks to the proper handling of exact match signals. Nowadays, the application of pre-trained language models to IR tasks has achieved impressive results exceeding all previous work. In this paper, we assume that established IR cues like exact term-matching, proven to be valuable for deep neural models, can be used to augment the direct supervision from labeled data for training these pre-trained models. To study the effectiveness of this assumption, we propose MarkedBERT a modified version of one of the most popular pre-trained models via language modeling tasks, BERT. MarkedBERT integrates exact match signals using a marking technique that locates and highlights Exact Matched query-document terms using marker tokens. Experiments on MS MARCO Passage Ranking task show that our rather simple approach is actually effective. We find that augmenting the input with marker tokens allows the model to focus on valuable text sequences for IR.
Isolation of Bacterial Pathogens Causing Urinary Tract Infections and Their Antimicrobial Susceptibility Pattern Among Patients at Misurata Teaching Hospitals, Libya

Introduction: Urinary tract infection (UTI) is one of the most common bacterial infections encountered by clinician. Therefore, accurate identification of bacterial isolates and their antibiotic susceptibility is essential. Objective: To isolate the etiological bacterial pathogens causing UTI and to determine their antibiotic sensitivity in patients attending the Emergency and Al-shifa Maternity Hospitals in Misurata City-Libya. Patients and Methods: 250 urine specimens were collected from patients during the period from January, 1st to February, 15th 2016. The specimens were cultivated and identified according standard methods. Results: Only 25.2% of specimens showed a significant growth whereas 74.8% of specimens were either no growth or insignificant. The sum of isolated gram negative bacilli was 66.66%, while other bacteria represented (33.33%). Escherichia coli (E. Coli) was the most gram negative bacilli isolated (50%), and prevalence of gram negative bacilli was the highest among females 78.57%. Most of the pathogens were sensitive to Aminoglycosides: Amikacin and Gentamicin, but with lower sensitivity to Cephalosporins and high resistance to Ampicillin and to lesser degree toward other antibiotics. Conclusion: Enterobacteriacea was the main cause of urinary tract infections, which recall intensification of education and cultivation programs, general & personal hygiene procedures. As drug resistance among microorganisms pathogens is an evolving process, routine surveillance to provide physicians knowledge on the updated and most effective treatment of UTIs. Research Article Citation: Fatahalla Ali Salim, Suzan Kamal Murad, Aisha Mohamed Elbareg. Isolation of Bacterial Pathogens Causing Urinary Tract Infections and Their Antimicrobial Susceptibility Pattern Among Patients at Misurata Teaching Hospitals, Libya. Microbiol Infect Dis. 2017; 1(2): 1-5.
ANTIBIOTIC PROPERTIES OF ETHANOL EXTRACT OF CHROMOLAENA ODORATA (ASTERIACEAE)

Ethanol extract of Chromolaena odorata was assayed for in vitro antibiotic activity using agar diffusion and plate dilution methods. The extract produced measurable zones of inhibition (6.5–16 mm) against reference microbial strains and hospital isolates including Bacillus thuringiensis (var israeli), Bacillus stearothermophilus (NCTC 10339), Staphylococcus aureus (NCTC 6571), Escherichia coli (NCTC 11699), Pseudomonas sp. , Streptococcus faecalis and Klebsiella sp. Ampicillin, gentamycin and tetracycline, which were used as antibiotic controls gave inhibition zones measuring between 3.0 and 24 mm while the zones obtained in assays with phenol measured 0.5–1.0 mm. The minimum inhibitory concentration of the extract was 0.13–8.0 mg/ml. The antibiotic activity was lost or significantly reduced with increasing pH in the alkaline spectrum. Zones of inhibition were also diminished by heating the extract (40–80°C) although its antimicrobial activity was not totally lost when heated to 120°C. The antibiotic subst.
Filtered Quadrics for High‐Speed Geometry Smoothing and Clustering

Modern 3D capture pipelines produce dense surface meshes at high speed, which challenge geometric operators to process such massive data on‐the‐fly. In particular, aiming at instantaneous feature‐preserving smoothing and clustering disqualifies global variational optimizers and one usually relies on high‐performance parallel kernels based on simple measures performed on the positions and normal vectors associated with the surface vertices. Although these operators are effective on small supports, they fail at properly capturing larger scale surface structures. To cope with this problem, we propose to enrich the surface representation with filtered quadrics, a compact and discriminating range space to guide processing. Compared to normal‐based approaches, this additional vertex attribute significantly improves feature preservation for fast bilateral filtering and mode‐seeking clustering, while exhibiting a linear memory cost in the number of vertices and retaining the simplicity of convolutional filters. In particular, the overall performance of our approach stems from its natural compatibility with modern fine‐grained parallel computing architectures such as graphics processor units (GPU). As a result, filtered quadrics offer a superior ability to handle a broad spectrum of frequencies and preserve large salient structures, delivering meshes on‐the‐fly for interactive and streaming applications, as well as quickly processing large data collections, instrumental in learning‐based geometry analysis.
COVID-19 and Living space challenge. Well-being and Public Health recommendations for a healthy, safe, and sustainable housing

Background and aim of the work: The ongoing pandemic of COVID-19 is a strong reminder that the lockdown period has changed the way that people and communities live, work, and interact, and it’s necessary to make resilient the built environment, both outdoor and mainly the indoor spaces: housing, workplaces, public buildings, and entertainment facilities. How can we re-design the concept of Well-being and Public Health in relation to the living places of the future? Methods: According to the previous statements and scenario, this paper aims to integrate the building hygiene and well-being, focusing the possible responses, both existing and for the new buildings, taking home a strong message from this “period” of physical distancing. Results: The Well-being and Public Health recommendations for a healthy, safe, and sustainable housing are framed into the following key points: 1. Visible and accessible green elements and spaces; 2. Flexibility, adaptability, sharing, and crowding of living spaces, and compliant functions located into the buildings; 3. Re-appropriation of the basic principles and archetypes of sustainable architecture, thermal comfort and Indoor Air Quality (IAQ); 4. Water consumption and Wastewater Management; 5. Urban Solid Waste Management; 6. Housing automation and electromagnetic fields; 7. Indoor building and finishing materials. Conclusions: The Well-being and Public Health recommendations for a healthy, safe and sustainable housing may provide a useful basis for Designers, Policy Makers (fostering tax incentives for building renewal), Public Health experts and Local Health Agencies, in promoting actions and policies aimed to transform living places in healthier and Salutogenic spaces. (www.actabiomedica.it)
Endotracheal Administered Epinephrine Is Effective in Return of Spontaneous Circulation Within a Pediatric Swine Hypovolemic Cardiac Arrest Model

Objective Early administration of epinephrine increases the incidence of return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) and improves outcomes among pediatric cardiac arrest victims. Rapid endotracheal (ET) intubation can facilitate early administration of epinephrine to pediatric victims. To date, no studies have evaluated the use of ET epinephrine in a pediatric hypovolemic cardiac arrest model to determine the incidence of ROSC. Methods This prospective, experimental study evaluated the pharmacokinetics and/or incidence of ROSC following ET administered epinephrine and compared it to these experimental groups: intravenous (IV) administered epinephrine, cardiopulmonary resuscitation only (CPR), and CPR + defibrillation (CPR + Defib). Results Endotracheal administered epinephrine, at the Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) recommended dose, was not significantly different than IV administered epinephrine in maximum plasma concentrations, time to maximum plasma concentration, area under the curve, or ROSC, or mean plasma concentrations at various time points (P > 0.05). The odds of ROSC in the ET group were 2.4 times greater than the IV group. The onset to ROSC in the ET group was significantly shorter than the IV group (P < 0.0001). Conclusions These data support that ET epinephrine administration remains an alternative to IV administered epinephrine and faster at restoring ROSC among pediatric hypovolemic cardiac arrest victims in the acute setting when an endotracheal tube is present. Although further research is required to determine long-term outcomes of high-dose ET epinephrine administration, these data reinforce the therapeutic potential of ET administration of epinephrine to restore ROSC before IV access.
Impact of Long-term, High-fat, and High-cholesterol Diet on Murine Vertebrae Bones

Abstract As the percentage of overweight individuals in the population rises, diseases associated with excess weight resulting from poor nutrition are becoming more and more widespread. So far, the influence of weight or nutrition on bone health has shown conflicting results. In the literature, the existing studies disagree about the effect of diet on bones. Therefore, this study investigated the impact of a long-term, high-fat, and high-cholesterol diet on the spine in a mouse model. Wild-type mice were randomly separated into two groups; one group received a high-fat and high-cholesterol diet, and a control group was fed with a regular diet since birth for a duration of 8 months. The first to fifth thoracic vertebrae were extracted and investigated using histology and micro-CT. Samples were analyzed regarding different parameters: percentage of bone structure compared to the whole vertebra and the amount and thickness of the trabeculae. Both methods of the analysis showed similar results. Diet did not have a significant impact on the bone density of the vertebrae. The micro-CT examination showed that the average bone percentage of the examined vertebra was 6% (p = 0.2330) higher in the control group compared to the diet group. The same tendency was demonstrated in histology even though with a smaller difference of only 5%. The results of both methods were comparable and showed trends for the influence of different diets but not significant impacts. In summary, this study showed that a high-fat and high-cholesterol diet has a slightly negative impact on bone density. In order to further analyze the effects of different diets on bone composition, structure, and density, additional long-term studies should be carried out, and more parameters such as movement and genetic factors should be analyzed. Furthermore, other parameters such as exercise and genetic factors that could have a secondary influence on obesity should be investigated.