Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Trichinella britovi infection in wild boar in Portugal

Trichinella spp. infection occurs when a host ingests muscle tissue containing infective larvae (L1 stage). Wild boar meat and its products represent the second largest source of human trichinellosis worldwide. For this reason, and since that in Portugal wild boar is the most hunted large game specie, the laboratory of Technology, Quality and Food Safety (TQFS) from the University of Trás‐os‐Montes e Alto Douro created a free service to test wild boar meat for Trichinella spp. From December 2015 to February 2020, and 857 samples were analysed. From those, the majority (719/857, 83.9%) were tested after October 2018 when a specific national legislation came into force, demanding that meat from wild boar hunted in a defined risk area should be tested for Trichinella spp. Under TQFS laboratory activity, in January 2020, a positive case was identified, being the first molecular confirmation of Trichinella britovi infection in wild boar in Portugal. Additionally to this activity, in 2019, a questionnaire was submitted to 100 hunters to acquire information about wild boar meat usage and consumption behaviours. From the total respondents, 86% declared they intended to use meat for private consumption. Of those, 93% also stated that have sold part of the meat and/or homemade sausages, the majority (80%) without prior testing for Trichinella spp. , as required by EU Regulation. These results alert the hunters to a risk for human infection, which could be extended to outside the hunter's household. Given the actual epidemiological situation, it should be emphasized that testing for Trichinella spp. in wild boar meat should be maintained and reinforced, particularly in the risk area. The results presented in this report strongly support the importance of specific national legislation to mitigate the risk of trichinellosis due to consumption of non‐tested wild boar meat.
A novel pathogenicity determinant hijacks maize catalase 1 to enhance viral multiplication and infection.

Pathogens have evolved various strategies to overcome host immunity for successful infection. Maize chlorotic mottle virus (MCMV) can cause lethal necrosis in maize (Zea mays) when it coinfects with a virus in the Potyviridae family. However, MCMV pathogenicity determinant remains largely unknown. Here we show that the P31 protein of MCMV is important for viral accumulation and essential for symptom development. Ectopic expression of P31 using foxtail mosaic virus or potato virus X induced necrosis in systemically infected maize or Nicotiana benthamiana leaves. Maize catalases (CATs) were shown to interact with P31 in yeast and in planta. P31 accumulation was elevated through its interaction with ZmCAT1. P31 attenuated the expression of salicylic acid (SA)-responsive pathogenesis-related (PR) genes by inhibiting catalase activity during MCMV infection. In addition, silencing of ZmCATs using a brome mosaic virus-based gene silencing vector facilitated MCMV RNA and coat protein accumulation. This study reveals an important role of MCMV P31 in counteracting host defense and inducing systemic chlorosis and necrosis. Our results have implications for understanding the mechanisms in defense and counter-defense during infection of plants by various pathogens.
Custody and Child Symptomatology in High Conflict Divorce: An Analysis of Latent Profiles.

BACKGROUND There is much controversy about the impact of joint physical custody on child symptomatology in the context of high interparental conflict. In this study we analyzed child symptomatology with person-centered methodology, identifying differential profiles, considering post-divorce custody, parental symptomatology, and coparenting variables. We examined the association between these profiles and child symptomatology, as well as the mediating role of parenting in that association. METHOD The participants were 303 divorced or separated Spanish parents with high interparental conflict. We used the study of latent profiles and the INDIRECT procedure in Mplus. We also controlled for the variables age and number of children, new partners, frequency of the relationship with the ex-partner, time elapsed since the divorce, and gender of the parent. RESULTS From the parents' perspective, the profile characterized by low parental symptomatology and high coparenting, regardless of the type of custody, was related to children exhibiting less somatic, anxious, and depressive symptomatology, and aggressive behavior. The mediating role of parenting was also identified. CONCLUSIONS Parental symptomatology, coparenting, and parenting are essential for understanding post-divorce child symptomatology and the study highlights importance of person-centered multidimensional models.
Monte Carlo study of the operation of GaN planar nanodiodes as sub-THz emitters in resonant circuits

A study of the high-frequency performance of GaN-based asymmetric self-switching diodes (SSDs) designed for a room-temperature sub-THz Gunn emission, and connected to a resonant RLC parallel circuit, is reported. With the aim of facilitating the achievement and control of Gunn oscillations, which can potentially allow the emission of THz radiation by GaN SSDs, a time-domain Monte Carlo (MC) theoretical study is provided. The simulator has been validated by comparison with the I–V curves of similar fabricated structures, including the possibility of heating effects. A V-shaped SSD has been found to be more efficient than the square one in terms of the DC to AC conversion efficiency η. Indeed, according to our MC results, a value of η of at least 0.35% @ 270 GHz can be achieved for the V-shaped SSD at room temperature by using an adequate resonant circuit. This value can be increased up to 0.80%, even when considering the heating effects, with appropriate RLC elements. Furthermore, simulations show that when several diodes are fabricated in parallel in order to enhance the emitted power, there is no synchronization between the oscillations of all the SSDs; however, the phase-shift effects can be solved using a synchronized current injection by the attachment of a resonant circuit.
Multiorgan Crystal Deposition of an Amphoteric Drug in Rats Due to Lysosomal Accumulation and Conversion to a Poorly Soluble Hydrochloride Salt

Abstract Poor solubility of drug candidates mainly affects bioavailability, but poor solubility of drugs and metabolites can also lead to precipitation within tissues, particularly when high doses are tested. RO0728617 is an amphoteric compound bearing basic and acidic moieties that has previously demonstrated good solubility at physiological pH but underwent widespread crystal deposition in multiple tissues in rat toxicity studies. The aim of our investigation was to better characterize these findings and their underlying mechanism(s), and to identify possible screening methods in the drug development process. Main microscopic features observed in rat RO0728617 toxicity studies were extensive infiltrates of crystal-containing macrophages in multiple organs. Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry revealed that these crystals contained the orally administered parent compound, and locality was confirmed to be intracytoplasmic and partly intralysosomal by electron microscopic examination. Crystal formation was explained by lysosomal accumulation of the compound followed by precipitation of the hydrochloride salt under physiological conditions in the lysosomes, which have a lower pH and higher chloride concentration in comparison to the cytosol. This study demonstrates that risk of drug precipitation can be assessed by comparing the estimated lysosomal drug concentration at a given dose with the solubility of the compound at lysosomal conditions.
Properties of Pt Electrodes Investigated by the Electrochemical Quartz Crystal Microbalance

The Electrochemical Quartz Crystal Microbalance (EQCM) was used as the main investigation tool coupled with other conventional electrochemical methods to study the electrocatalytic properties of polycrystalline Pt electrodes, including two separate projects. The rst project studied the early stage of oxide lm formation on the Pt surfaces and the inhibition of the catalytic properties by the oxide lm. The inhibition of the fast electrode reaction of small molecules by the growth of oxide lm allows those molecules to be used as probes for the nature of the oxide lm. The hydrogen oxidation current (j ox) calculated by di¤erencing the cyclic voltammetry currents with and without H2 present showed a characteristic plateau-to-plateau pro le, which implies a transition from the free Pt surface to the Pt surface completely covered by oxide lm. This method allows determination of the onset potential for oxide formation and also the critical potential where a full monolayer of oxide is formed. This method applies to
People with Parkinson’s Disease: What Symptoms Do They Most Want to Improve and How Does This Change with Disease Duration?

Background: Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative condition with a diverse and complex pattern of motor and non-motor symptoms which change over time with disease duration. Objective: The aims of the present study were to discover what symptoms matter most to people with the condition and to examine how these priorities change with disease duration. Methods: A simple free-text online survey (using SmartSurvey) was developed by Parkinson’s UK, which asked participants to identify up to three aspects of the condition they would most like to see improvement in. Results: 790 people participated reporting 2,295 issues related to PD which were grouped into 24 broad symptom domains. Of these, 1,358 (59.1%) were categorised as motor symptoms, 859 (37.4%) as non-motor issues and 78 (3.4%) as medication problems. This study reveals how certain features of PD become more or less important to patients as the condition progresses. Non-motor symptoms were highly cited from the very earliest stages of PD. Problems with walking, balance and falls, speech problems, freezing and dyskinesia become increasingly important as the condition progresses whereas tremor, stiffness and psychological health become decreasingly important as the condition progresses. Conclusions: The data suggest that the priorities of people affected by PD for improving life are personal and change with duration of the condition. These findings have implications for developing person-centred management and care, as well as for directing future research to improve quality of life.
Mirostat: a Neural Text decoding Algorithm that directly controls perplexity

Neural text decoding algorithms strongly inﬂuence the quality of texts generated using language models, but popular algorithms like top-k , top-p (nucleus), and temperature-based sampling may yield texts that have objectionable repetition or incoherence. Although these methods generate high-quality text after ad hoc parameter tuning that depends on the language model and the length of generated text, not much is known about the control they provide over the statistics of the output. This is important, however, since recent reports show that humans prefer when perplexity is neither too much nor too little and since we experimentally show that cross-entropy (log of perplexity) has a near-linear relation with repetition. First we provide a theoretical analysis of perplexity in top-k , top-p , and temperature sampling, under Zipﬁan statistics. Then, we use this analysis to design a feedback-based adaptive top-k text decoding algorithm called mirostat that generates text (of any length) with a predetermined target value of perplexity without any tuning. Experiments show that for low values of k and p , perplexity drops signiﬁcantly with generated text length and leads to excessive repetitions (the boredom trap). Contrarily, for large values of k and p , perplexity increases with generated text length and leads to incoherence (confusion trap). Mirostat avoids both traps. Speciﬁcally, we show that setting target perplexity value beyond a threshold yields negligible sentence-level repetitions. Experiments with human raters for ﬂuency, coherence, and quality further verify our ﬁndings.
Oscillatory thermal–inertial flows in liquid metal rotating convection

Abstract We present the first detailed thermal and velocity field characterization of convection in a rotating cylindrical tank of liquid gallium, which has thermophysical properties similar to those of planetary core fluids. Our laboratory experiments, and a closely associated direct numerical simulation, are all carried out in the regime prior to the onset of steady convective modes. This allows us to study the oscillatory convective modes, sidewall modes and broadband turbulent flow that develop in liquid metals before the advent of steady columnar modes. Our thermo-velocimetric measurements show that strongly inertial, thermal wind flows develop, with velocities reaching those of non-rotating cases. Oscillatory bulk convection and wall modes coexist across a wide range of our experiments, along with strong zonal flows that peak in the Stewartson layer, but that extend deep into the fluid bulk in the higher supercriticality cases. The flows contain significant time-mean helicity that is anti-symmetric across the midplane, demonstrating that oscillatory liquid metal convection contains the kinematic components to sustain system-scale dynamo generation.
General model for N2O and N2 gas emissions from soils due to dentrification

Observations of N gas loss from incubations of intact and disturbed soil cores were used to model N2O and N2 emissions from soil as a result of denitrification. The model assumes that denitrification rates are controlled by the availability in soil of NO3 (e− acceptor), labile C compounds (e− donor), and O2 (competing e− acceptor). Heterotrophic soil respiration is used as a proxy for labile C availability while O2 availability is a function of soil physical properties that influence gas diffusivity, soil WFPS, and O2 demand. The potential for O2 demand, as indicated by respiration rates, to contribute to soil anoxia varies inversely with a soil gas diffusivity coefficient which is regulated by soil porosity and pore size distribution. Model inputs include soil heterotrophic respiration rate, texture, NO3 concentration, and WFPS. The model selects the minimum of the NO3 and CO2 functions to establish a maximum potential denitrification rate for particular levels of e− acceptor and C substrate and accounts for limitation of O2 availability to estimate daily N2+N2O flux rates. The ratio of soil NO3 concentration to CO2 emission was found to reliably (r2=0.5) model the ratio of N2 to N2O gases emitted from the intact cores after accounting for differences in gas diffusivity among the soils. The output of the ratio function is combined with the estimate of total N gas flux rate to infer N2O emission. The model performed well when comparing observed and simulated values of N2O flux rates with the data used for model building (r2=0.50) and when comparing observed and simulated N2O+N2 gas emission rates from irrigated field soils used for model testing (r2=0.47).
Size distribution and chemical composition of marine aerosols: a compilation and review

Some 30 years of physical and chemical marine aerosol data are reviewed to derive global-size distribution parameters and inorganic particle composition on a coarse 15°×15° grid. There are large gaps in geographical and seasonal coverage and chemical and physical aerosol characterisation. About 28% of the grid cells contain physical data while there are compositional data in some 60% of the cells. The size distribution data were parametrized in terms of 2 submicrometer log-normal distributions. The sparseness of the data did not allow zonal differentiation of the distributions. By segregating the chemical data according to the major aerosol sources, sea salt, dimethylsulfide, crustal material, combustion processes and other anthropogenic sources, much information on mass concentrations and contribution of natural and anthropogenic sources to the marine aerosol can be gleaned from the data base. There are significant meridional differences in the contributions of the different sources to the marine aerosol. Very clearly, we see though that the global marine surface atmosphere is polluted by anthropogenic sulfur. Only in the case of sulfur components did the coverage allow the presentation of very coarse seasonal distributions which reflect the spring blooms in the appropriate parts of the oceans. As an example of the potential value in comparing the marine aerosol data base to chemical transport models, global seasonal meridional MSA distributions were compared to modelled MSA distributions. The general good agreement in mass concentrations is encouraging while some latitudinal discrepancies warrant further investigations covering other aerosol components such as black carbon and metals.
Deposition Characteristics of Aerosol Particles in Sequentially Bifurcating Airway Models

Local deposition efficiencies and deposition patterns of aerosol particles were studied experimentally in sequential double bifurcation tube models with two different branching geometries: one with in-plane (model A) and another with 90 out-of-plane bifurcation (model B). The dimensions of the model were similar to those of 3rd-5th generation human bronchial airways. Monodispersed oil particles (2.9-6.7 mu m diameter range) tagged with uranine were generated as test aerosols and were drawn through the model at flow rates in the Reynolds number (Re) of 283-4718. Both symmetric (1:1) and asymmetric (1:2, 1:3, and 1:0) flow patterns were used at the first bifurcation. Results showed that deposition efficiencies (DE) in each bifurcation increased with increasing Stokes number (Stk), ranging from ∼1% at Stk=0.02 to ∼40% at Stk=0.2, and could be fitted well with modified logistic functions. With symmetric flow conditions, DE was some what smaller in the second than the first bifurcation in both models. DE was g.
Synthetic controls with staggered adoption

Staggered adoption of policies by different units at different times creates promising opportunities for observational causal inference. Estimation remains challenging, however, and common regression methods can give misleading results. A promising alternative is the synthetic control method (SCM), which finds a weighted average of control units that closely balances the treated unit’s pre‐treatment outcomes. In this paper, we generalize SCM, originally designed to study a single treated unit, to the staggered adoption setting. We first bound the error for the average effect and show that it depends on both the imbalance for each treated unit separately and the imbalance for the average of the treated units. We then propose ‘partially pooled’ SCM weights to minimize a weighted combination of these measures; approaches that focus only on balancing one of the two components can lead to bias. We extend this approach to incorporate unit‐level intercept shifts and auxiliary covariates. We assess the performance of the proposed method via extensive simulations and apply our results to the question of whether teacher collective bargaining leads to higher school spending, finding minimal impacts. We implement the proposed method in the augsynth R package.
Thyroid Disrupting Effects of Old and New Generation PFAS

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) represent a group of synthetic compounds widely used in industry plants due to their low grade of degradation, surfactant properties, thermic and flame resistance. These characteristics are useful for the industrial production, however they are also potentially dangerous for human health and for the environment. PFAS are persistent pollutants accumulating in waters and soil and recoverable in foods due to their release by food packaging. Humans are daily exposed to PFAS because these compounds are ubiquitous and, when assimilated, they are difficult to be eliminated, persisting for years both in humans and animals. Due to their persistence and potential danger to health, some old generation PFAS have been replaced by newly synthesized PFAS with the aim to use alternative compounds presumably safer for humans and the environment. Yet, the environmental pollution with PFAS remains a matter of concern worldwide and led to large-scale epidemiological studies both on plants’ workers and on exposed people in the general population. In this context, strong concern emerged concerning the potential adverse effects of PFAS on the thyroid gland. Thyroid hormones play a critical role in the regulation of metabolism, and thyroid function is related to cardiovascular disease, fertility, and fetal neurodevelopment. In vitro, ex vivo data, and epidemiological studies suggested that PFASs may disrupt the thyroid hormone system in humans, with possible negative repercussions on the outcome of pregnancy and fetal-child development. However, data on the thyroid disrupting effect of PFAS remain controversial, as well as their impact on human health in different ages of life. Aim of the present paper is to review recent data on the effects of old and new generation PFAS on thyroid homeostasis. To this purpose we collected information from in vitro studies, animal models, and in vivo data on exposed workers, general population, and pregnant women.
Tedizolid, Faropenem, and Moxifloxacin Combination With Potential Activity Against Nonreplicating Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Background: Mycobacterium tuberculosis [Mtb] could be present in different metabolic population in the lung lesions, and nonreplicating persisters [NRP], associated with latent tuberculosis [TB], are the most difficult to kill. Objective: Test the combination of tedizolid, moxifloxacin, and faropenem for activity against NRP using Mtb SS18b in the hollow fiber model [HFS-TB]. Methods: Tedizolid and moxifloxacin were tested as, first, two-drug combination against log-phase growth [LPG] and, second, slowly replicating bacilli [SRB] under acidic condition and with faropenem to create a three-drug combination regimen. Finally, standard regimen [isoniazid-rifampin-pyrazinamide] was used as comparator in the HFS-TB experiment with NRP Mtb. HFS-TB units were sampled for drug-concentration measurement as well as for estimation of bacterial burden using solid agar and mycobacterial growth indicator tube [MGIT] method. Linear regression was used to calculate the kill slopes with each treatment regimen and analysis of variance (ANOVA) to compare the regimen. Results: Tedizolid at standard dose in combination with high-dose moxifloxacin killed 3.05 log10 CFU/ml LPG Mtb and 7.37 log10 CFU/ml SRB in the bactericidal and sterilizing activity HFS-TB experiments, respectively. There was no statistical difference between tedizolid-moxifloxacin-faropenem combination and the standard regimen as both killed 7.35 log10 CFU/ml NRP Mtb in 21 days. There was no emergence of resistance to any of the drugs studied in the three HFS-TB experiments. Conclusion: The experimental regimen of tedizolid, moxifloxacin, and faropenem could effectively kill NRP population of Mtb, and given the efficacy against different metabolic population of Mtb could serve as a pan-TB regimen. Clinical studies are warranted to validate the in vitro findings.