Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Telomere Length among Chinese Aged 75+ Years

Introduction: Telomere length (TL) is generally regarded as a biomarker of aging. TL, which is influenced by sociodemographic factors, has been shown to be inversely associated with morbidity. However, most studies examined the youngest, and whether the findings can be extended to older individuals is less clear. Further, few studies have examined these questions in Chinese older adults. This cross-sectional study examined TL and its associated factors in Chinese aged 75+ years in Hong Kong. Methods: Participants were from the Mr. and Ms. Osteoporosis cohort. A structured interview on sociodemographic factors and physical measurement was conducted. Frailty and sarcopenia status were respectively determined by Fried’s criteria and the Asian Working Group for Sarcopenia definition. TL was measured by a molecular inversion probe-quantitative PCR assay and expressed as a novel telomere/a single copy reference gene (T/S) ratio. Adjusted binary logistic regressions were used to examine the associations between TL and the presence of multimorbidity, age-related diseases, frailty, and sarcopenia. Results: Among 555 participants (mean age 83.6 ± 3.8 years, 41.3% females), the mean T/S ratio was 1.01 ± 0.20. Males had a lower T/S ratio (0.97 ± 0.20) compared with females (1.07 ± 0.18) (p < 0.001). A lower education level was related to a longer TL (p = 0.016). Being a current smoker was related to a shorter TL (p = 0.007). TL was not significantly different across categories of age, subjective socioeconomic status, drinking status, physical activity level, and body mass index (p > 0.05). There were no associations between TL and the presence of multimorbidity, diabetes, stroke, cardiovascular diseases, cognitive impairment, frailty, and sarcopenia. Conclusion: Among Chinese aged 75+ years, males had shorter TL compared with females. TL was not associated with age-related diseases, frailty, and sarcopenia in this age group. TL may not be a biological marker of aging among older individuals.
Older Adults’ Trust and Distrust in COVID-19 Public Health Information: Qualitative Critical Incident Study

Background The COVID-19 infodemic has imposed a disproportionate burden on older adults who face increased challenges in accessing and assessing public health information, but little is known about factors influencing older adults’ trust in public health information during COVID-19. Objective This study aims to identify sources that older adults turn to for trusted COVID-19 public health information and factors that influence their trust. In addition, we explore the relationship between public health information sources and trust factors. Methods Adults aged 65 years or older (N=30; mean age 71.6, SD 5.57; range 65-84 years) were recruited using Prime Panels. Semistructured phone interviews, guided by critical incident technique, were conducted in October and November 2020. Participants were asked about their sources of COVID-19 public health information, the trustworthiness of that information, and factors influencing their trust. Interview data were examined with thematic analysis. Results Mass media, known individuals, and the internet were the older adults’ main sources for COVID-19 public health information. Although they used social media for entertainment and personal communication, the older adults actively avoided accessing or sharing COVID-19 information on social media. Factors influencing their trust in COVID-19 public health information included confirmation bias, personal research, resigned acceptance, and personal relevance. Conclusions These findings shed light on older adults’ use of information sources and their criteria for evaluating the trustworthiness of public health information during a pandemic. They have implications for the future development of effective public health communication, policies, and interventions for older adults during health crises.
Comparison of track and direct observation estimations for assessing abundance of the Eurasian otter, Lutra lutra

Abstract. The population density of the Eurasian otter, as in many other carnivores, is difficult to estimate in the wild. Spraint (otter scat) counts are usually used as an indirect indicator of abundance but its reliability is poorly known. In this work two methods of estimation (direct observations, DO, and track sampling, MNT) are compared in Central Spain. A new approach is applied to correct inherent biases to track sampling. Furthermore, the influence of sample size on MNT estimations was tested. The results indicate a highly significant relationship between the estimations of abundance derived from DO and MNT methods, although MNT could underestimate the density of otters when it is under 0.01 otters/km. The application of the new track sampling method could result in a successful reduction or removal of the biases. On the basis of current knowledge, it is argued that both MNT and DO could provide a realistic picture of the otter populations and facilitate their estimation and monitoring with sufficient reliability.
ATG and ESCRT control multiple modes of microautophagy

The discovery of microautophagy, the direct engulfment of cytoplasmic material by the lysosome, dates back to 1966 in a morphological study of mammalian cells by Christian de Duve. Since then, studies on microautophagy have shifted toward the elucidation of the physiological significance of the process. However, in contrast to macroautophagy, studies on the molecular mechanisms of microautophagy have been limited. Only recent studies revealed that ATG proteins involved in macroautophagy are also operative in several types of microautophagy and that ESCRT proteins, responsible for the multivesicular body pathway, play a central role in most microautophagy processes. In this review, we summarize our current knowledge on the function of ATG and ESCRT proteins in microautophagy.
Water movement regularities of seasonal freezing-thawing soil

Water movement regularities of seasonal freezing-thawing soil in shallow groundwater were analyzed by both quality and quantity approaches.The results show that: 1) in freezing period,soil water moved upwards,groundwater also supplied to soil water;in thawing period,soil water moved two sides from depth of 20-40 cm,and supplied to groundwater downwards,the whole process led the depth of groundwater down and up,but some lost in groundwater evaporation.2) In every period,soil water above and below 20-40 cm showed different regularities,and water exchange between them was little.3) Amplitude of soil water decreased when depth increased,while deeper layers had larger water flux.4) Too deep of groundwater during freezing process would make supply from groundwater decrease significantly,which would led to decreasing of water storage in freezing layers;but there was no such regularity in thawing process.
HNetGO: protein function prediction via heterogeneous network transformer

Abstract Protein function annotation is one of the most important research topics for revealing the essence of life at molecular level in the post-genome era. Current research shows that integrating multisource data can effectively improve the performance of protein function prediction models. However, the heavy reliance on complex feature engineering and model integration methods limits the development of existing methods. Besides, models based on deep learning only use labeled data in a certain dataset to extract sequence features, thus ignoring a large amount of existing unlabeled sequence data. Here, we propose an end-to-end protein function annotation model named HNetGO, which innovatively uses heterogeneous network to integrate protein sequence similarity and protein–protein interaction network information and combines the pretraining model to extract the semantic features of the protein sequence. In addition, we design an attention-based graph neural network model, which can effectively extract node-level features from heterogeneous networks and predict protein function by measuring the similarity between protein nodes and gene ontology term nodes. Comparative experiments on the human dataset show that HNetGO achieves state-of-the-art performance on cellular component and molecular function branches.
Regime shifts in the surface-level average air flow over the Gulf of Finland during 1981-2010

Abrupt changes in large-scale wind patterns are often masked by local features and are not visible in classical properties of surface-level winds. We explore the potential of the average air flow to reveal such changes from wind data, recorded in the region of the Gulf of Finland during 1981-2010. The monthly average air flow speed is very small in April and does not exceed 2.8 m/s during the rest of the year. The monthly mean wind directional persistency factor has a similar annual course. The direction of the average air flow does not always coincide with the direction of the most frequent winds. In summer, autumn, and winter the air flow direction is relatively stable from SW or WSW to NE or ENE over the whole gulf whereas in spring the direction varies at different measurement sites. Time series analysis by means of the Rodionov regime shift detection technique reveals that changes in the wind speed are mainly caused by changes in the measurement conditions, first of all relocation of the measurement site. Significant shifts in the air flow speed are not related to the changes in the wind speed. The changes are concentrated in the windy months. A significant increase in the air flow speed occurred in January 1988 and a comparable decrease in January 1994-1996 at all measurement sites except for Kotka. In October an abrupt decrease occurred in 1988-1989 at all stations except for Hanko. The identified shifts may be associated with a major change in the geostrophic air flow over the southern Baltic Sea in 1988 and a relaxation of the system back to the pre-1980s situation after a few years. These events do not become evident in the average wind speed.
Simultaneous mountain building in the Taiwan orogenic belt

The obliquity of the arc-continent collision in Taiwan is thought to have produced a southward-propagating orogenic system starting as early as 8 Ma. We combine 62 new zircon fission-track ages with timing of rapid subsidence in the foreland basin to identify the timing of the onset of exhumation and orogenesis. The oldest completely reset zircon fission-track ages and the onset of rapid tectonic subsidence in both the northern and southern parts of the foreland basin are ca. 5–6 Ma. We propose that north-south rifting in the South China Sea created a north-trending continental margin before the collision rather than the commonly assumed northeast-trending margin. Consequently, both this north-trending continental margin and the Luzon arc of the Philippine Sea plate were subparallel, resulting in an initial collision that was simultaneous along strike.
Results of 50 Years of Climate Reanalysis in the French Pyrenees (1958-2008) Using the Safran and Crocus Models

Due to the lack of a sufficient amount of directly observed long-term snow data, the SAFRAN-CROCUS model chain, usually applied to operational avalanche forecasting, has been used for retrospective snow and weather climate analyses in the French Alps from 1958 to 2002. Now the same study is ongoing for the Pyrenees for the 1958-2008 period, of which the French part and Andorra will be discussed in this article. The used method merges all the available observed information with guess field values issued from the reanalysed atmospheric data (ERA-40) of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts and since 2002 from the ARPEGE atmospheric data (a French meteorological model). In terms of climatology, the mean annual precipitation in the western foothills of the Pyrenees, with more than 2000 mm, is more than twice that in the eastern foothills. Annual mean air temperature is lower in the west (just above 5°C) than in the east (nearly 6°C). As an overall trend the annual mean air temperature rose about 1°C. However, variations are large for different altitudes and regions. A common feature for all regions is a rupture around 1981. Before 1980 the temperature decreases and afterwards it increases. Precipitation trends are rather diverse, making it hard to detect clear tendencies, the year-to-year variability is large. Snow height in the Pyrenees is characterised by a declining gradient from the western foothills to the eastern regions. At mid-latitudes, trends in snow height evolution are mainly negative, while at other altitudes they are mostly positive.
Gelatin scaffold ameliorates proliferation & stem cell differentiation into the hepatic like cell and support liver regeneration in partial-hepatectomized mice model

Stem cell-based tissue engineering is an emerging tool for developing functional tissues of choice. To understand pluripotency and hepatic differentiation of mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs) on a three-dimensional (3D) scaffold, we established an efficient approach for generating hepatocyte-like cells (HLCs) from hepatoblast cells. We developed porous and biodegradable scaffold, which was stimulated with exogenous growth factors and investigated stemness and differentiation capacity of mESCs into HLCs on the scaffold in-vitro. In animal studies, we had cultured mESCs-derived hepatoblast-like cells on the scaffold and then, transplanted them into the partially hepatectomized C57BL/6 male mice model to evaluate the effect of gelatin scaffold on hepatic regeneration. The 3D culture system allowed maintenance of stemness properties in mESCs. The step-wise induction of mESCs with differentiation factors leads to the formation of HLCs and expressed liver-specific genes, including albumin, hepatocyte nucleic factor 4 alpha, and cytokeratin 18. In addition, cells also expressed Ki67, indicating cells are proliferating. The secretome showed expression of albumin, urea, creatinine, alanine transaminase, and aspartate aminotransferase. However, the volume of the excised liver which aids regeneration has not been studied. Our results indicate that hepatoblast cells on the scaffold implanted in PH mouse indicates that these cells efficiently differentiate into HLCs and cholangiocytes, forming hepatic lobules with central and portal veins, and bile duct-like structures with neovascularization. The gelatin scaffold provides an efficient microenvironment for liver differentiation and regeneration both in-vitro and in-vivo. These hepatoblasts cells would be a valuable source for 3D liver tissue engineering/transplantation in liver diseases.
Tectonic Control of High-Frequency Holocene Delta Switching and Fluvial Migration in Lingayen Gulf Bayhead, Northwestern Philippines

Abstract Remotely sensed images, maps, charts, and historical accounts document the evolution of the Lingayen Gulf bayhead plain in the northwestern Philippines. Beach ridges and relict channel patterns record delta progradation and switching that, together with meander belt migration, constructed the bayhead plain. The latest delta switching occurred after 1935, when the downstream portion of the Agno River, the largest river discharging into the bayhead, was artificially diverted to a more direct route. The shoreline retreated in the abandoned delta; in contrast, paired sets of beach ridges that diverge toward the new river mouth formed a cuspate delta. In the more landward portions of the coastal plain, similar but older pairs of wedge-shaped beach ridge sets occur between more continuous to parallel sets that also truncate their apical ends. The pair of wedge-shaped sets was used to map paleodelta lobes; the continuous-parallel sets record transgressive events. Within 7 kilometers of the bayhead plain, at least 15 paleodelta lobes were alternately, successively, or simultaneously built by three river systems. These paleodeltas formed during the sea level fall from 2.4 ka to the present. Before this, westward tilting because of movements along the two faults that bound the alluvial plain and switching of the main distributary channel of the Agno alluvial fan caused the lower Agno River to migrate episodically to the southwest. Continued channel avulsions in the alluvial fan changed the sediment loads of the multiple river pathways created by meander belt migration, leading to delta switching downstream. Contemporaneous 220-year recurrences of delta switching and high-magnitude Philippine Fault earthquakes indicate tectonic control of the bayhead plain evolution.
Eccentric Contraction Enhances Healing of the Bone-Tendon Interface After Rotator Cuff Repair in Mice

Background: Various muscle contraction modalities have differing effects on the musculoskeletal system. To understand the magnitude of these effects, the authors investigated the effects of eccentric and concentric contractions on the bone-tendon interface after rotator cuff repair in mice. Hypothesis: Eccentric contraction promotes healing of the bone-tendon interface after rotator cuff repair in mice better than other muscle contraction patterns. Study Design: Controlled laboratory study. Methods: The authors performed acute supraspinatus tendon repair of the right shoulder in 104 C57BL/6 mice. Animals were randomized into 4 groups postoperatively: control group (Con group), horizontal running group (Horz group), +15° uphill running group (Up group), and −15° downhill running group (Down group), with 26 animals in each group. At 4 and 8 weeks postoperatively, the authors removed the eyeball, collected blood samples, and extracted the supraspinatus tendon–humerus complex for histological, immunological, bone morphological, and biomechanical tests. Results: At 4 and 8 weeks postoperatively, the Down group exhibited a better collagen cell arrangement and fibrocartilage layer than the other 3 groups. At 4 weeks postoperatively, anti-inflammatory macrophages (M2 macrophages) were observed at the repair site in all groups except for the Con group. At 8 weeks postoperatively, M2 macrophages were withdrawn from the tendon site in all groups. The transforming growth factor β1 concentration in the Down group was greater than that in the other 3 groups at 4 weeks postoperatively, and it was higher than that in the Con group at 8 weeks postoperatively. The bone volume fraction, number of trabeculae, and thickness of trabeculae at the repair site in the Down group, as well as the ultimate strength and failure load in the biomechanical tests, were greater than those in the other 3 groups at 8 weeks postoperatively. Conclusion: Eccentric contraction promotes healing of the bone-tendon interface after rotator cuff repair in mice better than other muscle contraction patterns. Clinical Relevance: After clinical rotator cuff repair, patients can be rehabilitated by eccentric training to speed up the functional recovery of the shoulder joint.
A derived weedy rice × ancestral cultivar cross identifies evolutionarily relevant weediness QTLs

Weedy rice (Oryza spp.) is a weedy relative of the cultivated rice that competes with the crop and causes significant production loss. The BHA (blackhull awned) US weedy rice group has evolved from aus cultivated rice and differs from its ancestors in several important weediness traits, including flowering time, plant height and seed shattering. Prior attempts to determine the genetic basis of weediness traits in plants using linkage mapping approaches have not often considered weed origins. However, the timing of divergence between crossed parents can affect the detection of quantitative trait loci (QTL) relevant to the evolution of weediness. Here, we used a QTL‐seq approach that combines bulked segregant analysis and high‐throughput whole genome resequencing to map the three important weediness traits in an F2 population derived from a cross between BHA weedy rice with an ancestral aus cultivar. We compared these QTLs with those previously detected in a cross of BHA with a more distantly related crop, indica. We identified multiple QTLs that overlapped with regions under selection during the evolution of weedy BHA rice and some candidate genes possibly underlying the evolution weediness traits in BHA. We showed that QTLs detected with ancestor–descendant crosses are more likely to be involved in the evolution of weediness traits than those detected from crosses of more diverged taxa.
Point-of-care, goal-directed management of bleeding in trauma patients

Purpose of review The purpose of this review is to consider the clinical value of point-of-care (POC) testing in coagulopathic trauma patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and trauma-induced coagulopathy (TIC). Recent findings Patients suffering from severe TBI or TIC are at risk of developing pronounced haemostatic disorders. Standard coagulation tests (SCTs) are insufficient to reflect the complexity of these coagulopathies. Recent evidence has shown that viscoelastic tests (VETs) identify haemostatic disorders more rapidly and in more detail than SCTs. Moreover, VET results can guide coagulation therapy, allowing individualised treatment, which decreases transfusion requirements. However, the impact of VET on mortality remains uncertain. In contrast to VETs, the clinical impact of POC platelet function testing is still unproven. Summary POC SCTs are not able to characterise the complexity of trauma-associated coagulopathy. VETs provide a rapid estimation of underlying haemostatic disorders, thereby providing guidance for haemostatic therapy, which impacts allogenic blood transfusion requirements. The value of POC platelet function testing to identify platelet dysfunction and guide platelet transfusion is still uncertain.
Neural effects of TMS trains on the human prefrontal cortex

How does a train of TMS pulses modify neural activity in humans? Despite adoption of repetitive TMS (rTMS) for the treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders, we still do not understand how rTMS changes the human brain. This limited understanding stems in part from a lack of methods for noninvasively measuring the neural effects of a single TMS train—a fundamental building block of treatment—as well as the cumulative effects of consecutive TMS trains. Gaining this understanding would provide foundational knowledge to guide the next generation of treatments. Here, to overcome this limitation, we developed methods to noninvasively measure causal and acute changes in cortical excitability and evaluated this neural response to single and sequential TMS trains. In 16 healthy adults, standard 10 Hz trains were applied to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in a randomized, sham-controlled, event-related design and changes were assessed based on the TMS-evoked potential (TEP), a measure of cortical excitability. We hypothesized that single TMS trains would induce changes in the local TEP amplitude and that those changes would accumulate across sequential trains, but primary analyses did not indicate evidence in support of either of these hypotheses. Exploratory analyses demonstrated non-local neural changes in sensor and source space and local neural changes in phase and source space. Together these results suggest that single and sequential TMS trains may not be sufficient to modulate local cortical excitability indexed by typical TEP amplitude metrics but may cause neural changes that can be detected outside the stimulation area or using phase or source space metrics. This work should be contextualized as methods development for the monitoring of transient noninvasive neural changes during rTMS and contributes to a growing understanding of the neural effects of rTMS.