Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
One-Hour Post-Load Plasma Glucose Levels are Associated with Early Arterial Stiffness in Subjects with Different Glucose Tolerance

Objective The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between one-hour post-load plasma glucose levels and early arterial stiffness in subjects with different glucose tolerance. Methods This case-control study included 57 subjects with normal glucose tolerance, 38 subjects with pre-diabetes, and 30 subjects with type 2 diabetes. All subjects underwent an oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) with 75 g of oral anhydrous glucose at 8:00 AM. The brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (baPWV) was used as a surrogate marker of early arterial stiffness. Results baPWV was significantly higher in the diabetes group than in the normal glucose tolerance group (diabetes group: 1501.8 ± 270.4 cm/s, pre-diabetes group: 1428.6 ± 173.1 cm/s vs normal glucose tolerance group: 1368.0 ± 242.8 cm/s) (p < 0.05). baPWV was positively correlated with age (r = 0.512, p < 0.001), systolic blood pressure (SBP) (r = 0.526, p < 0.001), diastolic blood pressure (DBP) (r = 0.298, p = 0.001), fasting plasma glucose (FPG) (r = 0.213, p = 0.017), 1-h plasma glucose levels from the OGTT (r = 0.407, p < 0.001) and 2-h plasma glucose levels from the OGTT (r = 0.202, p = 0.024). When baPWV was considered as the dependent variable in a multiple regression analysis, the 1-h plasma glucose level from the OGTT maintained an independent association with baPWV (β = 23.129, 95% CI: 8.142–38.115, p = 0.003, R2 = 0.036). Conclusion The present study demonstrated the presence of early arterial stiffness in diabetes. Elevated 1-hour post-load plasma glucose level is closely related to the change of arterial elasticity in diabetes.
Dairy Animal Ownership and Household Milk Production Associated with Better Child and Family Diet in Rural Nepal during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The economic and health crises related to the COVID-19 pandemic raised considerable concern about child and family diet, especially among small-holder farming households in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). In rural Nepal, 309 families (including 368 children aged 6–66 months) were enrolled pre-COVID-19 in a prospective study of a nutrition education intervention and family milk consumption. The intervention could not be implemented due to COVID-19; however, child and family diet was assessed in three household surveys (one before and two during the pandemic). Over time, after adjusting for child and household factors, child and family diet quality declined (reduced diet diversity, consumption of milk and animal-source-foods (ASF)). However, in dairy-animal-owning (vs. non-dairy-animal-owning) households, both children and family were more likely to consume milk (aOR respectively 2.88× (p < 0.05), 5.81× (p < 0.001)). Similarly, in households producing >3.5 L/d milk (vs. ≤3.5 L/d), children and family members were more likely to consume milk (respectively 7.45× and 11.88× (both p < 0.001)). Thus, the overall decline in child and family diet quality, especially related to milk consumption, was buffered independently by household ownership of ≥1 dairy animals (cow or buffalo) and by milk production >3.5 L/day. A better understanding of these protective factors might facilitate the development of interventions to promote resilience in future crises.
MYC Inhibition Halts Metastatic Breast Cancer Progression by Blocking Growth, Invasion, and Seeding

MYC's role in promoting tumorigenesis is beyond doubt, but its function in the metastatic process is still controversial. Omomyc is a MYC dominant negative that has shown potent antitumor activity in multiple cancer cell lines and mouse models, regardless of their tissue of origin or driver mutations, by impacting on several of the hallmarks of cancer. However, its therapeutic efficacy against metastasis has not been elucidated yet. Here we demonstrate for the first time that MYC inhibition by transgenic Omomyc is efficacious against all breast cancer molecular subtypes, including triple-negative breast cancer, where it displays potent antimetastatic properties both in vitro and in vivo. Importantly, pharmacologic treatment with the recombinantly produced Omomyc miniprotein, recently entering a clinical trial in solid tumors, recapitulates several key features of expression of the Omomyc transgene, confirming its clinical applicability to metastatic breast cancer, including advanced triple-negative breast cancer, a disease in urgent need of better therapeutic options. Significance: While MYC role in metastasis has been long controversial, this manuscript demonstrates that MYC inhibition by either transgenic expression or pharmacologic use of the recombinantly produced Omomyc miniprotein exerts antitumor and antimetastatic activity in breast cancer models in vitro and in vivo, suggesting its clinical applicability.
The development of teacher ICT competence and confidence in using Web 2.0 tools in a STEM professional development initiative in Trinidad

Technology use for transforming the teaching-learning environment has been well researched and forms a critical component in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education. Schools and teachers therein need to be well positioned to embrace curricula change and employ Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for teaching and learning. However, as in-service teachers may not have been exposed to STEM education in their teacher preparation programmes, continuous professional development (PD) is the avenue through which change can be effected. This paper describes the gains in competence and confidence of teachers in four selected Web 2.0 tools (Skype videoconferencing tool, emails, blogs, and wikis) while participating in a STEM ICT PD initiative. A phased approach to ICT PD was used in which an online phase bridged two face-to-face workshop series. Participants were 86 teachers from 25 purposefully selected early childhood, primary and secondary schools in Trinidad. A mixed methods approach was used to collect data through the Web 2.0 tools, online questionnaires and a paper ICT self-competency checklist. Analyses revealed all teachers achieved gains in competence in using all four Web 2.0 tools, but to different levels. Gains in confidence were evident from teacher self-reports and their posts that explained their stated levels of confidence as none, low or high. Higher levels of competence arose from working in digitallyrich environments at the PD centre rather than in their schools, which were usually less digitally-rich. Support from facilitators also promoted competence and confidence, especially during the face-to-face component of the PD. There are implications for ICT PD that models a phased approach as it relates to improving STEM education and recommendations are made for school leaders to improve the digital environments of their schools.
What is athlete life management in Singapore’s sporting ecosystem? An interpretative phenomenological analysis of a dual-career assistance program

ABSTRACT This investigation explored practitioners’ experiences of providing Athlete Life Management (ALM) as a career assistance support service for Singaporean athletes. The researchers adopted a relativist ontology and constructionist epistemology to frame the study, and an interpretative phenomenological analysis methodology. The five participants (four female, one male) were from various Singaporean sporting organisations and were employed as ALM practitioners. Following data analysis, we discovered one superordinate theme: sporting ecosystem. Three higher order themes were also identified within the sporting ecosystem: cultural evolution towards a sporting identity, harmonious practitioner engagement, and practising with care and compassion. Collectively, the results emphasised the organic development of ALM, and that this important athlete support service is situated within Singapore’s dynamic sporting ecosystem. The study adds valuable knowledge to the existing literature on athlete career support by highlighting the practitioners’ experiences within a non-traditional discourse.
Marker-Independent Monitoring of in vitro and in vivo Degradation of Supramolecular Polymers Applied in Cardiovascular in situ Tissue Engineering

The equilibrium between scaffold degradation and neotissue formation, is highly essential for in situ tissue engineering. Herein, biodegradable grafts function as temporal roadmap to guide regeneration. The ability to monitor and understand the dynamics of degradation and tissue deposition in in situ cardiovascular graft materials is therefore of great value to accelerate the implementation of safe and sustainable tissue-engineered vascular grafts (TEVGs) as a substitute for conventional prosthetic grafts. In this study, we investigated the potential of Raman microspectroscopy and Raman imaging to monitor degradation kinetics of supramolecular polymers, which are employed as degradable scaffolds in in situ tissue engineering. Raman imaging was applied on in vitro degraded polymers, investigating two different polymer materials, subjected to oxidative and enzymatically-induced degradation. Furthermore, the method was transferred to analyze in vivo degradation of tissue-engineered carotid grafts after 6 and 12 months in a sheep model. Multivariate data analysis allowed to trace degradation and to compare the data from in vitro and in vivo degradation, indicating similar molecular observations in spectral signatures between implants and oxidative in vitro degradation. In vivo degradation appeared to be dominated by oxidative pathways. Furthermore, information on collagen deposition and composition could simultaneously be obtained from the same image scans. Our results demonstrate the sensitivity of Raman microspectroscopy to determine degradation stages and the assigned molecular changes non-destructively, encouraging future exploration of this techniques for time-resolved quality assessment of in situ tissue engineering processes.
Model Assumptions and Data Characteristics: Impacts on Domain Adaptation in Building Segmentation

Studies on domain adaptation (DA) for remote sensing (RS) imagery analysis lack consistency in selection and description of evaluation scenarios. Without properly characterizing datasets, model assumptions, and evaluation scenarios, it is difficult to objectively compare DA methods and reach conclusions about their suitability across different applications. With this motivation, this work seeks to empirically assess to which extent the interaction between data characteristics and model assumptions influences the effectiveness of DA methods. Using the widely explored task of building footprint segmentation as a case study, we perform a large-scale study across over 200 DA scenarios that include variations across view angles, areas observed, and sensors used for data acquisition. Rather than adopting different model architectures or optimization criteria, we contrast the performances of two DA methods based on adversarial learning that differ only in their assumptions about source and target domains. Informed by metadata and data characteristics unveiled using traditional computer vision (CV) techniques as well as pretrained deep models, we provide a detailed meta-analysis of experiments highlighting the importance of accurately considering data assumptions for DA in RS segmentation tasks. As demonstrated by a “cherry-picking” exercise, different claims regarding which model is best could be made by selecting different subsets of evaluation scenarios. While well-calibrated assumptions can be beneficial, mismatching assumptions can lead to negative biases in DA applications. This study intends to motivate the community toward more consistent evaluation protocols while providing recommendations and insights toward creating novel benchmark datasets, documenting data characteristics, application-specific knowledge, and model assumptions.
Communication of Overseas Daughters with Their Parents

Currently, many young people are willing to do anything to continue their studies, including leaving their houses. This study aims to identify the interpersonal communication of daughters with their parents who convey long-distance care because they move to other islands to continue their higher education and minimize conflicts that will occur. This research employed a descriptive qualitative method with an interpersonal communication approach and descriptive analysis as the data analysis. The subjects of this study were four female students from Kalimantan who were studying at the Faculty of Communication and Informatics, Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta. Semi-structured interviews were conducted as a data collection technique. The results of this study indicate (1) communication was done almost every day between daughters and their parents, especially with mothers, (2) there was an exchange of messages that could occur from daughters to parents or vice versa, and (3) the attitude that daughters showed to their parents was always being honest, open, and understanding each other. Hence, habits would be formed and make complete trust from parents to their daughters. Furthermore, (4) daughters continuously attempted to negotiate to perceive problems from two sides without hurting each other's feelings and thoughts. Consequently, communication that was performed every day would lead to supervision from parents by negotiating conflict properly. Over time, it would also increase the level of parental trust to minimize conflicts that will occur in the future.
Fluorinated PEG-PEI Coated Magnetic Nanoparticles for siRNA Delivery and CXCR4 Knockdown

CXC chemokine receptor 4 (CXCR4) is a promising therapeutic target. Previous studies have shown that intracellular delivery of siRNA to knockdown CXCR4 expression in cancer cells is an effective therapeutic strategy. To prepare efficient magnetic nucleic acid carriers, it is now necessary to improve the endocytosis efficiency of PEGylated magnetic nanoparticles. In our work, Heptafluorobutyryl-polyethylene glycol-polyethyleneimine (FPP) was first prepared and then used to coat magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) to obtain magnetic nanocarriers FPP@MNPs. The materials were characterized by 19 F-Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), transmission electron microscope (TEM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), and dynamic light scattering (DLS). The biosecurity of FPP@MNPs was confirmed by cell viability and apoptosis experiments. Cellular uptake of FPP@MNPs and siRNA transfection enhanced by external magnetic fields were detected by fluorescence microscopy, confocal laser microscopy, and flow cytometry. The results show that the cellular uptake efficiency of FPP@MNPs was significantly improved, and transfection efficiency reached more than 90%. The knockdown of CXCR4 on the 4 T1 cell membrane was confirmed by real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and flow cytometry. In conclusion, the fluorinated cationic polymer-coated magnetic nanoparticles FPP@MNPs can be loaded with siRNA to reduce CXCR4 expression as well as be expected to be efficient universal siRNA carriers.
Difference in small mammal assemblages in the diet of the Common Barn-Owl Tyto alba between two landscapes

As an opportunistic predator, the Common Barn-owl (Tyto alba) proved to be an appropriate model organism to survey the composition of small mammal assemblages. This study analysed barn owls’ pellet samples from 14 localities containing 34 animal taxa and 4,088 prey items in two years (2015–2016). Two groups of samples (7–7 localities) were separated based on the dominance of semi-natural habitats and agricultural lands. Rarefaction analysis proved that the species richness and diversity of barn owls’ diet were significantly higher in semi-natural landscapes. The multiple regression analysis between PCA scores showed that in the agrarian landscape the abundance of generalist species was influenced by the proportion of forests, while the value of the trophic level index was determined by the size of arable fields. In the case of semi-natural landscapes, the abundance of the synantrop guild and generalist species, especially S. araneus and A. agrarius, was influenced by the proportion of urban areas, the number of habitats and the size of arable fields. The results of this study suggested that the small mammal consumption of the Common Barn-owl is significantly different in the two landscapes, which reflects the impact of habitat heterogeneity and agricultural activity on prey availability.
Raccoon dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides) phylogeography including the Polish population: local and global aspects

Abstract The raccoon dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides) is a representative of Canidae and is closely related to red fox-like canids, although the species exhibits high distinctiveness in the family. These animals were farmed for fur products, but thousands were intentionally released into the wild in western Russia. This newly established alien species in Europe has spread rapidly into many European countries. The aim of the study was to determine the origin of Polish populations by comparing the mitochondrial molecular marker cytochrome b (cytb) sequences of Polish wild and farm individuals with wild raccoon dogs from the western Russia and Asian specimens whose sequences were obtained from GenBank resources. The results of our phylogenetic analysis support the previous suggestions on the existence of two main clades clearly referring to continental and Island populations. Polish individuals were classified into a highly diverse continental group. The relationships between the haplotypes within the clade together with estimated values of genetic diversity parameters indicate that the Polish raccoon dog populations exhibit high genetic similarity to the Russian population. In combination with the history of introduction of the species to Europe, this suggests the most probable assignment of the Polish populations to the subspecies N. procyonoides ussuriensis. Our results indicate the presence of two Japanese haplotypes within the continental group, which is inconsistent with the assumed scenario of post-glacial expansion of raccoon dogs excluding gene flow between continental and Island populations.
Comparing surface wind stress and sea surface temperature biases over the tropical and subtropical oceans in subsets of CMIP6 models categorized by frozen hydrometeors-radiation interactions

We evaluate the simulations of surface wind stress (TAU) and sea surface temperature (SST) over subtropical and tropical Pacific and Atlantic oceans in subsets of CMIP6 models that are categorized by frozen hydrometeors-radiation interactions. The CMIP6 models are divided into two subsets with combined (SON1) and separated (SON2) radiative properties of cloud ice and falling ice (snow) and compared to the set with cloud ice radiative effects only (NOS). There is evidence that these hydrometeors-radiation interaction treatments induce different atmospheric dynamic responses that influence the surface properties. Excessive westerly TAU and meridional TAU divergence away from convective zones are reduced significantly in SON1 and SON2 relative to NOS against QuikSCAT observations; while the differences between SON2 and SON1 are small. SON2 reduces cold SST biases over north oceans and equatorial zones drastically (1 to 2 K), and warm biases (up to 1 K) off the coasts of America and zonal TAU biases are reduced relative to NOS. Unlike SON2, SON1 improves SSTs mainly over south of Pacific Ocean and limited areas over the tropical belts relative to NOS although TAU is reduced drastically as in SON2, implying that other factors play a role in degrading the SST simulations in SON1 relative to SON2. SON2 outperforms NOS and SON1 in the seasonal cycles of SST mean biases and mean absolute biases averaged over the equatorial area, north ocean, and South Pacific against ERSST observations. Despite the significant improvements in TAU and SST simulations, SON2 models still exhibit non-trivial biases over south and north flanks of equatorial zones. These results suggest that there are direct linkages of TAU with SST changes resulting from the hydrometeors-radiation interactions in SON2, but not in SON1, relative to NOS, implying that a separated treatment of cloud ice and falling ice radiative properties in climate models is preferred.
Marital and Sexual Satisfaction, Depression, Anxiety, and Stress among Wives of Patients with Chronic Illnesses

Objectives: The objectives of the study were to explore the psychological health, as well as the levels of marital and sexual satisfaction, of wives of patients with a chronic illness. Methods: The sample consisted of 34 women, whose husbands were diagnosed and undergoing treatment for a chronic illness (coronary heart disease; diabetes; or cancer). Results: Correlational, comparative, and predictive analyses were conducted on the data. Clinically significant marital and sexual dissatisfactions were found. Wives reported moderate levels of depression and anxiety, but severe levels of stress. Depression and sexual satisfaction were found to be significant predictors of marital satisfaction. Marital dissatisfaction scores were significantly lower for wives who were employed as compared to unemployed wives. Discussion: Wives are impacted by the illness status of their spouse. The additional stress of caregiving, along with societally ascribed roles and responsibilities on women, creates a more difficult, stressful environment, which affects the relationship satisfaction as well as psychological health and well-being.
On the dynamics of vibrational capture of rotation of an unbalanced rotor

Stationary (near stationary) rotation modes of an unbalanced rotor with the oscillation frequency of its axis are considered. From the standpoint of I. I. Blekhman vibrational mechanics, explanations of the mechanism of vibrational capture of the rotation of an unbalanced rotor are given. It is demonstrated that the vibration moment arising as a result of oscillations tends to synchronize vibrational and rotational movements. In addition its effect in the stationary mode becomes unambiguous – either braking or accelerating. It is shown that when a stationary rotation mode is established, large, relatively slow oscillations of rotor’s speed can occur. Theoretical results are confirmed by computer simulation.
The implementation of the SDGs in universities: a systematic review

Abstract Currently, in the field of Sustainable Development (SD), one of the most significant debates is the necessary incorporation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in education and, specifically, in higher education institutions (HEIs). In the process of truly integrating the SDGs in HEIs, it is necessary to know and identify what is already being done and evaluate the efficacy or deficiency with which universities are carrying out studies and actions to integrate the SDGs. This systematic review aims to respond to this claim by analysing the most recent scientific evidence published in the period of 2015-2020 regarding SDGs in the university context at the international level. The results of this study identify: (1) a general approach on the SDGs from a global dimension in the reviewed studies, with SDG 4 (Education) being the most frequently referenced SDG; (2) the university area from which SDGs are addressed is research, followed by education; (3) the most frequent action gathered in the reviewed studies is the integration of the SDGs in the curricular schedule, in the area of education and learning; (4) with respect to the geographic and university context in which the SDGs are developed, the review showed studies in four geographic areas (Asia and the Pacific, America, Africa and Europe), with most studies being published from European and Latin American universities.