Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Harnessing Energy of a Treadmill for Push-Off Assistance During Walking: In-Silico Feasibility Study

Regaining efficient push-off is a crucial step in restitution of walking ability in impaired individuals. Inspired by the elastic nature of ankle plantarflexor muscle-tendon complex, we propose a novel rehabilitation device: Ankle Exoskeleton using Treadmill Actuation for Push-off assistance (AN-EXTRA-Push). Using a brake and an elastic tendon, it harnesses energy of a moving treadmill during stance phase, then releases it during push-off to aid with plantarflexion torque generation. We studied the feasibility of such a device and explored some key design and control parameters. A parameter sweep of three key parameters (brake engagement timing, brake disengagement timing and elastic tendon stiffness) was conducted in-silico. Results suggest that such a device is feasible and might inherently possess some features that simplify its control. Brake engagement timing and elastic tendon stiffness values determine the level of exoskeleton assistance. Our study affirms that timing of assistive torque is crucial, especially the timing of assistance termination which is determined by brake disengagement timing. Insights acquired by this study should serve as a basis for designing an experimental device and conducting studies on effects of AN-EXTRA-Push in humans.
A sensitivity analysis of a gonorrhoea dynamics and control model

We formulate and analyse a robust mathematical model of the dynamics of gonorrhoea incorporating passive immunity and control. Our results show that the disease-free and endemic equilibria of the model are both locally and globally asymptotically stable. A sensitivity analysis of the model shows that the dynamics of the model is variable and dependent on waning rate, control parameters and interaction of the latent and infected classes. In particular, the lower the waning rate, the more the exponential decrease in the passive immunity but the susceptible population increases to the equilibrium and wanes asymptotically due to the presence of the control parameters and restricted interaction of the latent and infected classes.
Oral Pain in Elderly Tunisian Patients: A Cross-Sectional Study

Through this study we aim firstly, to understand the correlation between pain, intensity of pain and different clinical Data. Secondly, to highlight the accurate etiological diagnosis and be able to take the adequate decison for pain managment. This study was carried out on 200 edentulous patients who came to the departement of complete denture of dental clinic at Monastir Tunisia from february to june2019.All the patients were examined and assessed by one prosthodontist under the supervision of a professor. A questionnaire was used to record information wich was taken directly from the patient when they attend the dental clinic. The patient consent were taken verbally. The questionnaire included 19 questions divided in 3 heading: Medical history, exploration of pain and its intensity and Management strategies. The statiscal analysis were done with an SPSS's logiciel version 22.0. The results are presented in form of tables and graphics. Moreover, in this study the most common chief complaint was pain 63% of the sample. This result corroborate with other studies in litterature. Besides, a statistically significant relationship was observed between pain and patient’s satisfaction with their prosthesis (P=0.044<0,05). However, no significant difference was found between pain and other differents clinical Data (age, gender, general condition ….) (P>0.05). Neither between intensity of pain and different clinical data (P<0.05). This result came in argument with results of other worldwide researches. Finally, we came to the conclusion that management strategy of pain must follow a comprehensive, multidisciplinary and systemic approach.
Association of Maternal Serum Uric Acid and Cystatin C Levels in Late Pregnancy with Adverse Birth Outcomes: An Observational Cohort Study in China

Objective To investigate the associations between serum uric acid (UA) and cystatin C (CysC) levels in late pregnancy with major unfavorable birth outcomes. Methods We retrospectively analyzed the maternal UA and CysC levels during late pregnancy and their relationship with unfavorable birth outcomes in a Chinese population (n = 11,580). Results Women with the highest quartile of UA had higher risks of low birth weight (LBW) and small for gestational age (SGA) babies and a lower risk of preterm birth (PTB) compared to women with the lowest quartile [for LBW, adjusted-odds ratio (OR) = 2.63, 95% CI: 1.76, 3.95; for SGA, adjusted-OR = 2.11, 95% CI: 1.73, 2.57; for PTB, adjusted-OR = 0.55, 95% CI: 0.45, 0.69; all P for trend <0.001]. Compared to women in the lowest quartile of CysC, higher risks of macrosomia and large for gestational age (LGA) and lower risks of PTB and SGA were observed for those in the highest quartile (for macrosomia, adjusted-OR = 2.01, 95% CI: 1.60, 2.51; for LGA, adjusted-OR = 1.97, 95% CI: 1.67, 2.32; for PTB, adjusted-OR = 0.32, 95% CI: 0.26, 0.41; all P for trend <0.001; for SGA, adjusted-OR = 0.78, 95% CI: 0.64, 0.96; P for trend <0.05). Conclusion This study reports the associations of maternal UA and CysC with adverse birth outcomes, and suggests that routine determination of maternal UA and CysC in late pregnancy is beneficial for assessing the risks of these outcomes.
Nutritional interrelationship of cobalt and selenium in lambs and weanling rats

The purpose of this thesis is to determine if dietary and metabolic relationships exist between cobalt and selenium. Two groups of lambs were compared. The dams of one group of lambs received an alfalfa hay adequate in selenium and the dams of the other group received an alfalfa hay deficient in selenium. At six weeks of age the lambs were sacrificed and examined for lesions of white muscle disease. The heart, liver, kidney, and skeletal muscle were analyzed for cobalt and selenium. The lambs in the low selenium group had a much lower concentration of this element in these tissues and organs than lambs fed the normal selenium hay. There was no difference in selenium concentration of tissues and organs between low selenium lambs with lesions of white muscle disease and healthy low selenium lambs. The cobalt concentration
Computational Insights into Mg2+ Dehydration in the Presence of Carbonate

The kinetics and thermodynamics of water exchange around solvated ions in solution play a fundamental role in understanding their reactivity in the aqueous phase. Unlike other divalent cations, water exchange around magnesium is very slow (~ms). The kinetic constraints resulting from these strong hydration effects are often cited as the reason why magnesite (MgCO 3 ) and dolomite (CaMg(CO 3 ) 2 ) cannot be synthesized abiotically from solution at low temperatures (T<60C) [1]. In the case of dolomite, the paradoxical lack of modern dolomites despite the mineral’s major occurrence in past sedimentary rocks even gave rise to the so-called dolomite problem that geochemists have been trying to resolve for years [2]. Therefore, gaining a detailed description of magnesium dehydration mechanisms is an essential step toward a better understanding of the nucleation and growth of magnesium-bearing carbonate minerals. While the timescale of water exchange around Mg 2+ is inaccessible to unbiased ab initio molecular dynamics and classical simulations, enhanced sampling methods, such as metadynamics, can reliably describe and overcome the barrier height for water exchange. In this contribution, we investigate the dehydration of free Mg 2+ in solution and that of Mg 2+ paired with carbonate, using classical molecular dynamics and free energy methods [3]. Two force fields, either based on a rigid-ion or on a polarizable model, and fitted to reproduce the hydration structures of magnesium and carbonate, are examined. Both models are found to give a good agreement with the experimental pairing free energy of magnesium carbonate. We show that the formation of a magnesium carbonate contact ion pair significantly decreases the barrier height for water exchange around magnesium relative to the free ion in solution.
The semi-annual oscillation (SAO) in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS)

Abstract. Both the scientific and operational communities are increasingly interested in subseasonal to seasonal variations of weather and climate. The Semi-Annual Oscillation (SAO) has been studied extensively at the surface as well as in the middle atmosphere (upper stratosphere and the lower mesosphere). However, the SAO in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS) has been less discussed. Here we find evident SAO of temperature in the UTLS (250–175 hPa) from the subtropics to mid-latitudes (22.5–42.5º) using high-quality satellite measurements, reanalysis data, and model simulations. We show the mechanism of its formation by an energy budget analysis. The temperature in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) UTLS shows the first peak in February according to the dynamical heating and shows the second peak in July due to the dynamical heating and moist processes. Similar to the NH, the winter time maximum of temperature in the SH is related to dynamical heating and the summer time maximum is related to both moist and dynamical heating in the UTLS. Model simulations indicate that the SAO in the UTLS is partly modified by the SAO of sea surface temperatures (SSTs).
Genetic Characterization by SSR Markers of a Comprehensive Wine Grape Collection Conserved at Rancho de la Merced (Andalusia, Spain)

The IFAPA research center “Rancho de la Merced” (Jerez, Spain) hosts one of the oldest and most diverse grapevine germplasm repositories in Europe, and is aimed at providing feasible solutions to deal with any agronomic trait by exploring its genetic variability and by means of association and Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) editing studies. In this work, we focused on a wine and dual-use grapevine subcollection that consists of 930 accessions. Genetic analysis allowed to identify 521 unique genotypes. After comparing them with several databases, matches were found for 476 genetic profiles while the remaining 45 have not been previously described. Combination with clustering analysis suggested a total pool of 481 Vitis vinifera accessions that included some table cultivars. Several synonymies, homonymies and mislabeling have also been detected. Structure analysis allowed identifying six clusters according to eco-geographic cultivation areas and one additional group including non-vinifera accessions. Diversity analysis pointed out that Spanish Mediterranean varieties are genetically closer to oriental genotypes than to European varieties typical of oceanic and continental climates. The origin of Spanish varieties is discussed in depth considering our data and previous studies. Analysis of molecular variance partition confirmed a well-structured germplasm, although differentiation among groups had a much lower effect on genetic variability than differences within groups, which are strongly related to a very high heterozygosity. A core collection that covers all allele richness is proposed. It is constituted of about 13% of total accessions, and each cluster inferred by structure analysis is represented.
Fear of Missing Out (FOMO): The Effects of the Need to Belong, Perceived Centrality, and Fear of Social Exclusion

“Fear of Missing Out” (FOMO) is an all-consuming feeling that is associated with mental and emotional stress. Such strains are caused by a compulsive concern that one is missing an opportunity for a socially rewarding experience often spotted on social media networks. While several personality and psychological factors have been empirically validated as correlated with FOMO, so far, little research has examined the effects of perceived group centrality (i.e., the extent to which group members feel included in the group) and fear of social exclusion on FOMO. Therefore, this study is aimed at examining the mechanism that links these socially driven factors and the need to belong with social media use and, consequently, FOMO, using structural equation modeling. A total of 490 college students ( mean age = 20.56 , SD = 1.44 ) completed a self-reported questionnaire that included measures of FOMO, the need to belong, social media use, perceived centrality, and fear of social exclusion. The need to belong emerged as the best predictor of FOMO, increasing it both directly and indirectly through the significant mediation of social media use. Females reported a greater need to belong and consequently more FOMO. Females also reported greater use of social media and greater perceived group centrality. Perceived centrality increased FOMO through social media use, but this indirect effect was not significant.
A Class-Incremental Learning Method Based on Preserving the Learned Feature Space for EEG-Based Emotion Recognition

Deep learning-based models have shown to be one of the main active research topics in emotion recognition systems from Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals. However, a significant challenge is to effectively recognize new emotions that are incorporated sequentially, as current models must perform retraining from scratch. In this paper, we propose a Class-Incremental Learning (CIL) method, named Incremental Learning preserving the Learned Feature Space (IL2FS), in order to enable deep learning models to incorporate new emotions (classes) into the already known. IL2FS performs a weight aligning to correct the bias on new classes, while it incorporates margin ranking loss and triplet loss to preserve the inter-class separation and feature space alignment on known classes. We evaluated IL2FS over two public datasets (DREAMER and DEAP) for emotion recognition and compared it with other recent and popular CIL methods reported in computer vision. Experimental results show that IL2FS outperforms other CIL methods by obtaining an average accuracy of 59.08 ± 08.26% and 79.36 ± 04.68% on DREAMER and DEAP, recognizing data from new emotions that are incorporated sequentially.
Geochemical Modelling of Inorganic Nutrients Leaching from an Agricultural Soil Amended with Olive-Mill Waste Biochar

This work examines in silico the dominant geochemical processes that control inorganic nutrients (Ca, Mg, Na, K) availability in irrigated agricultural soil amended with potassium-enriched biochar (from olive mill wastes) at mass doses of 0.5%, 1%, 2% and 10%. The geochemical modelling step was supported by analytical measurements regarding the physicochemical characteristics of the irrigation water, the agricultural soil and the biochar. Two geochemical approaches, namely equilibrium exchange (E.E.) and kinetic exchange (K.E.) models were applied and compared to assess nutrient release with an emphasis on potassium availability. Equilibrium exchange perspective assumed that nutrient release is controlled by ion-exchange reactions onto the biochar surface, whilst kinetic exchange perspective assumed the contribution of both ion-exchange and dissolution of salts. Results indicated that for the E.E. model, the soluble amount of potassium is readily available for transport within the pores of the porous media, and therefore is leached from the column within only 10 days. For the K.E. model that assumes a kinetically controlled release of potassium due to interactions occurring at the solid-solution interface, the assessed retention times were more realistic and significantly higher (up to 100 days). Concerning the applied doses of biochar, for a 2% biochar fraction mixed with soil, for example, the available K for plants doubled compared with the available K in the soil without biochar. In any case, the use of numerical modeling was proven helpful for a quick assessment of biochar performance in soil, by avoiding time-consuming and laborious experimental set-ups. Validation of the models by experimental data will further establish the proposed mechanisms.
Metabolomic Analysis Reveals the Mechanisms of Hepatotoxicity Induced by Aflatoxin M1 and Ochratoxin A

Aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) is the only toxin with the maximum residue limit in milk, and ochratoxin A (OTA) represents a common toxin in cereals foods. It is common to find the co-occurrence of these two toxins in the environment. However, the interactive effect of these toxins on hepatoxicity and underlying mechanisms is still unclear. The liver and serum metabolomics in mice exposed to individual AFM1 at 3.5 mg/kg b.w. , OTA at 3.5 mg/kg b.w. , and their combination for 35 days were conducted based on the UPLC-MS method in the present study. Subsequent metabolome on human hepatocellular liver carcinoma (Hep G2) cells was conducted to narrow down the key metabolites. The phenotypic results on liver weight and serum indicators, such as total bilirubin and glutamyltransferase, showed that the combined toxins had more serious adverse effects than an individual one, indicating that the combined AFM1 and OTA displayed synergistic effects on liver damage. Through the metabolic analysis in liver and serum, we found that (i) a synergistic effect was exerted in the combined toxins, because the number of differentially expressed metabolites on combination treatment was higher than the individual toxins, (ii) OTA played a dominant role in the hepatoxicity induced by the combination of AFM1, and OTA and (iii) lysophosphatidylcholines (LysoPCs), more especially, LysoPC (16:1), were identified as the metabolites most affected by AFM1 and OTA. These findings provided a new insight for identifying the potential biomarkers for the hepatoxicity of AFM1 and OTA.
Effects of Electronic Devices on Vision in Students Age Group 18-25

Purpose: To increase understanding about the damaging effects of light rays on eyesight. To investigate frequency of people affected from light rays electronic devices. Study design: Cross sectional study. Place and Duration of Study: Riphah International University Lahore and duration of study was six months from June 2020 to December 2020. Materials & Methods: A six months cross sectional study with convenient sampling method was conducted at Riphah international university Lahore from June 2020 to December 2020. The age of the individuals was between 18 years–25 years. Individuals who fulfill the inclusion criteria were chosen from University. A proforma was filled regarding detailed history of use of electronic devices other visual problems associated with it. Results: In present study 200 students were participated who has been using electronic devices. In this 100 students were male and 100 were females. 60% were emmetropic, 27.5% were myopic, 5.5% were hyperopia and 7.0% were astigmatic. 40% individuals were using smartphones from 11 years-13 years, 20.5% using from 8 years-11 years and 25% using from 4 years-7 years. The purpose of using these electronic devices in 96 individuals was using smartphone only for social networking. Most of them (130) participants were using smartphone and laptops. Usage of these electronic devices for more than 4 hours–6 hours was observed in 60 members. Among these individuals most of them were using these electronic devices by lying on the bed and some were also using in cervical flexion position. Conclusion: The over all research identified the smartphone/any electronic devices used so longer had bad effect on vision most particularly myopia occurred. This research suggests that constant and extreme utilization of smartphone and other electronic devices should be avoided.
The Role of SMAD4 Inactivation in Epithelial–Mesenchymal Plasticity of Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma: The Missing Link?

Simple Summary Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is currently one of the deadliest cancers. Despite the progress that has been made in the research of patient care and the understanding of pancreatic cancer, the survival rate remains mediocre. SMAD4, a tumor-suppressor gene, is specifically inactivated in 50–55% of pancreatic cancers. The role of SMAD4 protein loss in PDAC remains controversial, but seems to be associated with worse overall survival and metastasis. Here, we review the function of SMAD4 inactivation in the context of a specific biological process called epithelial–mesenchymal transition, as it has been increasingly associated with tumor formation, metastasis and resistance to therapy. By improving our understanding of these molecular mechanisms, we hope to find new targets for therapy and improve the care of patients with PDAC. Abstract Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) presents a five-year survival rate of 10% and its incidence increases over the years. It is, therefore, essential to improve our understanding of the molecular mechanisms that promote metastasis and chemoresistance in PDAC, which are the main causes of death in these patients. SMAD4 is inactivated in 50% of PDACs and its loss has been associated with worse overall survival and metastasis, although some controversy still exists. SMAD4 is the central signal transducer of the transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta) pathway, which is notably known to play a role in epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT). EMT is a biological process where epithelial cells lose their characteristics to acquire a spindle-cell phenotype and increased motility. EMT has been increasingly studied due to its potential implication in metastasis and therapy resistance. Recently, it has been suggested that cells undergo EMT transition through intermediary states, which is referred to as epithelial–mesenchymal plasticity (EMP). The intermediary states are characterized by enhanced aggressiveness and more efficient metastasis. Therefore, this review aims to summarize and analyze the current knowledge on SMAD4 loss in patients with PDAC and to investigate its potential role in EMP in order to better understand its function in PDAC carcinogenesis.
Embedding online activities during lecture time: Roll call or enhancement of student participation?

Student attendance has long polarized the higher education sector with reports of no to little effect on student success to positive relationships between attendance frequency at face to face and synchronous online lectures and better student engagement and achievement. This study investigates the impact of embedded online activities during lecture time on student learning by utilizing students’ portable devices to divert undesirable study behaviors such as gaming and social media activity during class. The aim of the learning intervention is to improve attendance at undergraduate engineering lectures as well as providing better connection to the subject content. Study participants were third year Bachelor of Engineering students enrolled in a mandatory “Digital System Design” course as part of their degree at a major research university in New Zealand. To explore the student experience of embedded active learning tasks on engagement and academic achievement, both qualitative and quantitative data were collected from N = 75 students over a three-year period when the course underwent a re-design utilizing a participatory action research approach. Student focus group discussions and learning analytics data revealed that the completion of online activities during lectures can lead to cognitive overload negatively affecting engagement. However, real-time feedback on learning via synchronization of learning tasks with the lecture content improved student–student and student–teacher connections and thereby contributed to a more positive overall learning experience. The role of stimulating learner motivation and attendance is discussed against Keller’s ARCS model and recommendations for teaching practice are given.