Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Correlations Between Coronary Artery Disease, Coronary Artery Calcium Score, and Lipoprotein(a) Level in Korea

Background: Lipoprotein(a) (Lp(a)) levels are associated with coronary artery disease (CAD) and aortic valve calcification. This study aimed to determine the correlation between Lp(a) levels and coronary artery calcium (CAC) scores in patients who underwent coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA). Methods: This was a single-center observational study. The patients had not been previously diagnosed with CAD and underwent CCTA and Lp(a) measurement in a three-month timeframe. Coronary angiography and further management were performed according to the physician’s decision. Of the 252 patients, 81 and 171 patients underwent coronary revascularization and received medical treatment only, respectively. To examine the relationship between Lp(a) and CAC score and between Lp(a) and CAD, we divided the patients by Lp(a) level (50 mg/dL) and CAC score (400). Results: No relationship was observed between Lp(a) and CAD or other risk factors for CAD. There were no differences in the ratio of patients who underwent coronary revascularization or in the CAC score according to an Lp(a) level of 50 mg/dL. There was no difference in Lp(a) level at a CAC score of 400. The proportion of patients who underwent coronary revascularization was high in the high CAC score group (50.6% vs 23.7%, p = 0.000). No association was observed between Lp(a) level and CAC score in the Spearman correlation (0.000, p < 0.998). Conclusion: Correlations between Lp(a) level and CAC score and between Lp(a) and CAD were not observed in this Korean cohort study. However, a high CAC score was correlated with coronary revascularization. with coronary artery calcification. In a community-based study, sex-specific associations between Lp(a) and coronary artery calcium (CAC) score were supported, and another study reported that Lp(a) was strongly associated with high CAC score in women with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM). Meanwhile, some studies reported negative results. 10,14 The purpose of this study was to determine the correlation between Lp(a) level and CAC score in Korean patients, and to determine the relationship between Lp(a) and CAD.
The relationship of plankton abundance to Physicochemical parameters in a segment of lower IMO river estuary

The relationship of plankton abundance to physico-chemical parameters of Lower Imo River Estuary were studied for a period of 12 months, (January - December, 2021). Physico-chemical parameters and planktons samples were collected in three stations along the course of lower Imo River and were analysed according to standard methods following the procedures outlined by APHA (2012). 7 families and 53 species of phytoplankton were identified while 5 families and 21 species of zooplankton were also recorded. There was an increasing trend in the level of concentrations of physico-chemical parameters but were within the approved limits of standard bodies. Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) was used to establish the relationship of planktons to physico-chemical parameters. Its relationship revealed that the planktons interaction between physico-chemical parameters affect their abundance and also show strong correlation of some physico-chemical parameters, which suggest that these parameters are interconnected and rolled out some common data information on plankton species. Evidence from findings of the present study revealed that the physico-chemical parameters has a crucial role to play in the abundance and subsequent distribution of plankton within water biosystem and as such regular monitoring of aquatic biosystem is highly recommended in order to forestall any changes that may lead to disruption in the system.
Multiple roles for neuroﬁbromin in skeletal development and growth

Neuroﬁbromatosis type 1 (NF1) is a prevalent genetic disorder primarily characterized by the formation of neuroﬁbromas, cafe ´ -au-lait spots and freckling. Skeletal abnormalities such as short stature or bowing/pseu-darthrosis of the tibia are relatively common. To investigate the role of the neuroﬁbromin in skeletal development, we crossed Nf1ﬂox mice with Prx1Cre mice to inactivate Nf1 in undifferentiated mesenchymal cells of the developing limbs. Similar to NF1 affected individuals, Nf1 Prx1 mice show bowing of the tibia and diminished growth. Tibial bowing is caused by decreased stability of the cortical bone due to a high degree of porosity, decreased stiffness and reduction in the mineral content as well as hyperosteoidosis. Accordingly, osteoblasts show an increase in proliferation and a decreased ability to differentiate and mineralize in vitro . The reduction in growth is due to lower proliferation rates and a differentiation defect of chondrocytes. Abnormal vascularization of skeletal tissues is likely to contribute to this pathology as it exerts a negative effect on cortical bone stability. Furthermore, Nf1 has an important role in the development of joints, as shown by fusion of the hip joints and other joint abnormalities, which are not observed in neuroﬁbromatosis type I. Thus, neuroﬁbromin has multiple essential roles in skeletal development and growth. zone. Osteopontin (Opn),
An introduction to some imperfections of CCD sensors

CCD sensors do not deliver a perfect image of the light they receive. Beyond the well known linear image smearing due to diffusion of charges during their drift towards the pixel wells, non-linear effects are at play in these sensors. We now have ample evidence for both a flux-dependent and static image distortions, especially but not only, on deep-depleted CCDs. For large surveys relying on CCD sensors, these effects should now be taken into account when reducing data. We present here a summary of current results on sensor characterization and mitigation methods.
Second language learners’ attitudes towards French varieties: The roles of learning experience and social networks

People often believe that some language varieties are more prestigious than others, which can trigger speech-centered biases and inform social judgments of the speaker. However, it is largely unknown what types of language experience and exposure might mitigate language biases, especially for second language (L2) learners. The goal of this study was to investigate this issue by focusing on L2 French learners’ attitudes toward European and Quebec varieties of French. L2 French learners in Montreal ( N = 106) rated 2 audios recorded by native speakers from France in a listening comprehension task, with 1 of the 2 speakers introduced as a speaker of Quebec French. The learners described their language learning experience, filled out a French social network questionnaire, and completed a French proficiency test. Results revealed some evidence of reverse linguistic stereotyping, with learners preferring to speak like one speaker significantly more than the other, based on the speaker’s assumed identity, not actual speech. Four of the 6 speaker ratings were also associated with participants’ oral proficiency scores, social network density, and positive experiences in Quebec. Findings have implications for the use of speech models in L2 teaching and for the mitigation of language-centered biases in L2 classrooms.
Inflationary magnetogenesis without the strong coupling problem

The simplest gauge invariant models of inflationary magnetogenesis are known to suffer from the problems of either large backreaction or strong coupling, which make it difficult to self-consistently achieve cosmic magnetic fields from inflation with a field strength larger than 10{sup −32}G today on the Mpc scale. Such a strength is insufficient to act as seed for the galactic dynamo effect, which requires a magnetic field larger than 10{sup −20}G. In this paper we analyze simple extensions of the minimal model, which avoid both the strong coupling and back reaction problems, in order to generate sufficiently large magnetic fields on the Mpc scale today. First we study the possibility that the coupling function which breaks the conformal invariance of electromagnetism is non-monotonic with sharp features. Subsequently, we consider the effect of lowering the energy scale of inflation jointly with a scenario of prolonged reheating where the universe is dominated by a stiff fluid for a short period after inflation. In the latter case, a systematic study shows upper bounds for the magnetic field strength today on the Mpc scale of 10{sup −13}G for low scale inflation and 10{sup −25}G for high scale inflation, thus improving on the previous result bymore » 7-19 orders of magnitude. These results are consistent with the strong coupling and backreaction constraints. « less
Use of Transient Transfection for cGMP Manufacturing of eOD-GT8 60mer, a Self-Assembling Nanoparticle Germline-Targeting HIV-1 Vaccine Candidate

We describe the current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) production and subsequent characterization of eOD-GT8 60mer, a glycosylated self-assembling nanoparticle HIV-1 vaccine candidate germline-targeting priming immunogen. Production was carried out by transient expression in the human embryonic kidney 293 (HEK293) cell line followed by a combination of purification techniques. A large scale cGMP (200 L) production run yielded 354 mg of the purified eOD-GT8 60mer drug product material, which was formulated at 1 mg/mL in 10% sucrose in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) at pH 7.2. The clinical trial material was comprehensively characterized for purity, antigenicity, glycan composition, amino acid sequence, aggregation, and by several safety-related tests during cGMP lot release. A comparison of purified products produced at 1 L scale and 200 L cGMP scale demonstrated consistency and robustness of the transient transfection upstream process and the downstream purification strategies. The cGMP clinical trial material is being tested in a phase 1 clinical trial (NCT03547245) and is currently stored at −80°C and on a stability testing program as per regulatory guidelines. The methods described here illustrate the utility of transient transfection for cGMP production of complex products such as glycosylated self-assembling nanoparticles.
Cross-linguistic Influence Online: An Eye-Tracking Study on Pronoun Resolution in Simultaneous Bilingual Turkish-Dutch Children

It is well-known that bilingual children’s morphosyntactic systems can influence each other (Serratrice, 2013). For example, an Italian-English bilingual child may use an overt instead of a null pronoun in Italian under influence of English (e.g., Serratrice, Sorace, & Paoli, 2004). Such cross-linguistic influence has mainly been studied in children’s production and sentence judgements (van Dijk et al., 2021). Few studies have investigated cross-linguistic influence in children’s offline sentence interpretations and, to an even lesser extent during realtime sentence processing (online; cf. Lemmerth & Hopp, 2019; van Dijk, Dijkstra, & Unsworth, accepted). The goal of this study was, therefore, to investigate crosslinguistic influence in Turkish-Dutch children’s online and offline comprehension of Dutch pronouns using an eye-tracking and picture selection task. In non-null subject languages, like Dutch, a pronoun usually refers back to the most accessible referent in the discourse, often the discourse topic (e.g., Ariel, 2014; Cardinaletti & Starke, 1999). The Dutch pronoun zij (“she”) in (1) therefore refers to the local referent Anna (e.g., Roberts, Gullberg, & Indefrey, 2008). Syntactic information can support or override discourse preferences (e.g., Tyler, 1983). For example, in (2) the feminine pronoun zij (‘she’) can only refer to Anna and the masculine pronoun hij (“he”) only to the disjoint referent Thomas.
in A measure of system trust

Objective: To measure public trust in a health information sharing in a broadly-defined health system (system trust), inclusive of healthcare, public health, and research; to identify individual All characteristics that predict system trust; and to consider these findings in the context of national health initiatives (e.g., learning health systems and precision medicine) that will expand the scope of data sharing . Data Sources: Survey data (n=1,011) were collected in February 2014. Study Design: We constructed a composite index of four dimensions of system trust – competency, fidelity, integrity, and trustworthiness. The index was used in linear regression evaluating demographic and psychosocial predictors of system trust. Data Collection: Data was collected by GfK Custom using a nationally representative sample and analyzed in Stata 13.0. Principal Findings: Our findings suggest the public’s trust may not meet the needs of health systems as they enter an era of expanded data sharing. We found that a majority of the U.S. public does not trust the organizations that have health information and share it (i.e., the health system) in one or more dimensions. Together, demographic and psychosocial factors accounted for ~18% of the observed variability in system trust. Future research should consider additional predictors of system trust such as knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs to inform policies and practices for health data sharing. causal relationships.
Neutrinos with Lorentz-violating operators of arbitrary dimension

The behavior of fermions in the presence of Lorentz and CPT violation is studied. Allowing for operators of any mass dimension, we classify all Lorentz-violating terms in the quadratic Lagrange density for free fermions. The result is adapted to obtain the effective hamiltonian describing the propagation and mixing of three flavors of left-handed neutrinos in the presence of Lorentz violation involving operators of arbitrary mass dimension. A characterization of the neutrino coefficients for Lorentz violation is provided via a decomposition using spin-weighted spherical harmonics. The restriction of the general theory to various special cases is discussed, including among others the renormalizable limit, the massless scenario, flavor-blind and oscillation-free models, the diagonalizable case, and several isotropic limits. The formalism is combined with existing data on neutrino oscillations and kinematics to extract a variety of measures of coefficients for Lorentz and CPT violation. For oscillations, we use results from the short-baseline experiments LSND and MiniBooNE to obtain explicit sensitivities to effects from flavor-mixing Lorentz-violating operators up to mass dimension 10, and we present methods to analyze data from long-baseline experiments. For propagation, we use time-of-flight measurements from the supernova SN1987A and from a variety of experiments including MINOS and OPERA to constrain oscillation-free Lorentz-violating operators up to mass dimension 10, and we discuss constraints from threshold effects in meson decays and Cherenkov emission.
Another look at SSIM image quality metric

—We review the design of the SSIM quality metric and offer an alternative model of SSIM computation, utilizing subband decomposition and identical distance measures in each subband. We show that this model performs very close to the original and offers many advantages from a methodological standpoint. It immediately brings several possible explanations of why SSIM is effective. It also suggests a simple strategy for band noise allocation optimizing SSIM scores. This strategy may aid the design of encoders or pre-processing filters for video coding. Finally, this model leads to more straightforward mathematical connections between SSIM, MSE, and SNR metrics, improving previously known results.
Mathematical Literacy Skills of Junior High School Students Through Blended Learning Based on Indonesian Realistic Mathematics Education Approach

This type of research is a descriptive study with a qualitative approach that aims to describe students’ mathematical literacy skills through blended learning based on the Indonesian Realistic Mathematics Education Approach. This research was conducted in SMP Negeri 40 Palembang and the research subjects were 7 graders with a total of 35 students. The implementation procedure in this study consisted of three stages, namely the preparation stage, the implementation stage, and the data analysis stage. Data collection techniques in this study were observation, test, and interviews. Observation is used to know the implementation of learning through blended learning based on Indonesian Realistic Mathematics Education Approach (PMRI), test is used to determine students' mathematical literacy skills, and interviews is used to confirm the results of the tests that students had done. Based on the results of research representative with three student subjects, the component that most often appears is communication and using the language of symbol operations, formal and technical. Communication is seen when students writing statements about information from a problem and when students presenting the results obtained. Using the language of symbol operations, formal and technical, that is when students using formal forms based on mathematical definitions and rules.
Smooth and Stepped Converging Spillway Modeling Using the SPH Method

Three-dimensional (3D) simulations using the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method were performed for smooth and stepped spillways with converging walls, in order to evaluate the influence of the wall deflection and the step macro-roughness on the main non-aerated flow properties. The simulations encompassed a 1V:2H sloping spillway, wall convergence angles of 9.9° and 19.3°, and discharges corresponding to skimming flow regime, in the stepped chute. The overall development of the experimental data on flow depths, velocity profiles, and standing wave widths was generally well predicted by the numerical simulations. However, larger deviations in flow depths and velocities were observed close to the upstream end of the chute and close to the pseudo-bottom of the stepped invert, respectively. The results showed that the height and width of the standing waves were significantly influenced by the wall convergence angle and by the macro-roughness of the invert, increasing with a larger wall deflection, and attenuated on the stepped chute. The numerical velocity and vorticity fields, along with the 3D recirculating vortices on the stepped invert, were in line with recent findings on constant width chutes.
FDG-PET/CT Imaging in Acute and Chronic Kidney Disease

Purpose: We evaluated the possibility of using FDG-­PET/CT imaging of the kidneys for patients with chronic kidney disease. Methods: This was a retrospective study in which FDG-­PET/CT imaging results were reviewed from a cohort of patients with chronic kidney disease and a cohort of patients with acute kidney injury along with matched controls. Results: FDG-­PET/CT can differentiate healthy kidneys from those with end-­stage renal disease but not from those with stage 3b or 4 chronic kidney disease. In patients with acute kidney injury, there was substantial variability in renal cortical FDG signal compared to that of the matched controls. Conclusions: Our results demonstrate that patients with chronic kidney disease maintain renal cortical FDG avidity until the the progression of end-­stage renal disease. Further ongoing study is needed to determine whether distinct causes of AKI may be differentiated through FDG-­PET/CT or other imaging.
THE PHYSICAL CONDITIONS IN STARBURSTS DERIVED FROM BAYESIAN FITTING OF MID-INFRARED SPECTRAL ENERGY DISTRIBUTION MODELS: 30 DORADUS AS A TEMPLATE

To understand and interpret the observed spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of starbursts, theoretical or semi-empirical SED models are necessary. Yet, while they are well founded in theory, independent verification and calibration of these models, including the exploration of possible degeneracies between their parameters, are rarely made. As a consequence, a robust fitting method that leads to unique and reproducible results has been lacking. Here we introduce a novel approach based on Bayesian analysis to fit the Spitzer-Infrared Spectrometer spectra of starbursts using the SED models proposed by Groves et al. We demonstrate its capabilities and verify the agreement between the derived best-fit parameters and actual physical conditions by modeling the nearby, well-studied, giant H ii region 30 Doradus in the LMC. The derived physical parameters, such as cluster mass, cluster age, interstellar medium pressure, and covering fraction of photodissociation regions, are representative of the 30 Doradus region. The inclusion of the emission lines in the modeling is crucial to break degeneracies. We investigate the limitations and uncertainties by modeling subregions, which are dominated by single components, within 30 Doradus. A remarkable result for 30 Doradus in particular is a considerable contribution to its mid-infrared spectrum from hot (≈300 K) dust. The demonstrated success of our approach will allow us to derive the physical conditions in more distant, spatially unresolved starbursts.
The ellipsoidal universe in the Planck satellite era

Recent Planck data confirm that the cosmic microwavebackground displays the quadrupole power suppression together with large scale anomalies. Progressing from previous results, that focused on the quadrupole anomaly, we strengthen the proposal that the slightly anisotropic ellipsoidal universe may account for these anomalies. We solved at large scales the Boltzmann equation for the photon distribution functions by taking into account both the effects of the inflation produced primordial scalar perturbations and the anisotropy of the geometry in the ellipsoidal universe. We showed that the low quadrupole temperature correlations allowed us to fix the eccentricity at decoupling, edec = (0.86 ± 0.14)10 2 , and to constraint the direction of the symmetry axis. We found that the anisotropy of the geometry of the universe contributes only to the large scale temperature anisotropies without affecting the higher multipoles of the angular power spectrum. Moreover, we showed that the ellipsoidal geometry of the universe induces sizable polarization signal at large scales without invoking the reionization scenario. We explicitly evaluated the quadrupole TE and EE correlations. We found
activation in the embryo leads to incomplete closure: a novel mouse model of atrial Septal defect.

Atrial ERK1/2 Septal Abstract Background: MEK1 mutation and activated MAPK signaling has been found in patients with RASopathies and abnormal cardiac development. Previous studies have suggested that regulation of fetal MAPK signaling is essential for normal cardiac development. We investigated the effect of active MEK1 overexpression on fetal atrial septal development. Methods and results: An inducible double transgenic (DTg) mouse model was developed in which cardiac-specific fetal expression of a constitutively active form of human MEK1 (aMEK1) was induced primarily in the atrium via the withdrawal of doxycycline from the drinking water of pregnant mice. Atrial septal defect (ASD) was found in 51% (23/45) of DTg mice. Fifty-two percent (12/23) of ASD mice died before weaning, and surviving ASD mice exhibited hypertrophic hearts with enlarged right atria and decreased fractional shorting (40 ± 2% vs. 48 ± 0%, p < 0. 05). The model mimicked human ASD in several key clinical features: severe ASD was associated with growth impairment; ASD-specific mortality was highest within the early postnatal period; despite an even distribution of ASD among the sexes, early mortality was significantly higher in males. The expression of aMEK1 and increased phosphorylation of ERK1/2 was documented via Western blot in DTg fetal hearts, with the largest increases seen in atrial tissue. In an alternative transgenic aMEK1 model with elevated atrial MKP3 expression and corresponding suppression of increases in ERK1/2 phosphorylation, animals did not develop ASD. Conclusion: This new model of ASD suggests that enhanced atrial MEK1-ERK1/2 signaling during fetal development disrupts normal atrial septation, possibly regulated by the balance of ERK1/2 phosphorylation.