Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparative Chloroplast Genomes of Nicotiana Species (Solanaceae): Insights Into the Genetic Variation, Phylogenetic Relationship, and Polyploid Speciation

Nicotiana L. is a genus rich in polyploidy, which represents an ideal natural system for investigating speciation, biodiversity, and phytogeography. Despite a wealth of phylogenetic work on this genus, a robust evolutionary framework with a dated molecular phylogeny for the genus is still lacking. In this study, the 19 complete chloroplast genomes of Nicotiana species were assembled, and five published chloroplast genomes of Nicotiana were retrieved for comparative analyses. The results showed that the 24 chloroplast genomes of Nicotiana, ranging from 155,327 bp (N. paniculata) to 156,142 bp (N. heterantha) in size, exhibited typical quadripartite structure. The chloroplast genomes were rather conserved in genome structure, GC content, RNA editing sites, and gene content and order. The higher GC content observed in the IR regions could be a result of the presence of abundant rRNA and tRNA genes, which contained a relatively higher GC content. A total of seven hypervariable regions, as new molecular markers for phylogenetic analysis, were uncovered. Based on 78 protein-coding genes, we constructed a well-supported phylogenetic tree, which was largely in agreement with previous studies, except for a slight conflict in several sections. Chloroplast phylogenetic results indicated that the progenitors of diploid N. sylvestris, N. knightiana, and the common ancestor of N. sylvestris and N. glauca might have donated the maternal genomes of allopolyploid N. tabacum, N. rustica, and section Repandae, respectively. Meanwhile, the diploid section Noctiflorae lineages (N. glauca) acted as the most likely maternal progenitor of section Suaveolentes. Molecular dating results show that the polyploid events range considerably in ~0.12 million (section Nicotiana) to ~5.77 million (section Repandae) years ago. The younger polyploids (N. tabacum and N. rustica) were estimated to have arisen ~0.120 and ~0.186 Mya, respectively. The older polyploids (section Repandae and Suaveolentes) were considered to have originated from a single polyploid event at ~5.77 and ~4.49 Mya, respectively. In summary, the comparative analysis of chloroplast genomes of Nicotiana species has not only revealed a series of new insights into the genetic variation and phylogenetic relationships in Nicotiana but also provided rich genetic resources for speciation and biodiversity research in the future.
Understanding Inconsistency - A Contribution to the Field of Non-monotonic Reasoning

Conflicting information in an agent’s knowledge base may lead to a semantical defect, that is, a situation where it is impossible to draw any plausible conclusion. Finding out the reasons for the observed inconsistency and restoring consistency in a certain minimal way are frequently occurring issues in the research area of knowledge representation and reasoning. In a seminal paper Raymond Reiter proves a duality between maximal consistent subsets of a propositional knowledge base and minimal hitting sets of each minimal conflict – the famous hitting set duality. We extend Reiter’s result to arbitrary non-monotonic logics. To this end, we develop a refined notion of inconsistency, called strong inconsistency. We show that minimal strongly inconsistent subsets play a similar role as minimal inconsistent subsets in propositional logic. In particular, the duality between hitting sets of minimal inconsistent subsets and maximal consistent subsets generalizes to arbitrary logics if the stronger notion of inconsistency is used. We cover various notions of repairs and characterize them using analogous hitting set dualities. Our analysis also includes an investigation of structural properties of knowledge bases with respect to our notions. Minimal inconsistent subsets of knowledge bases in monotonic logics play an important role when investigating the reasons for conflicts and trying to handle them, but also for inconsistency measurement. Our notion of strong inconsistency thus allows us to extend existing results to non-monotonic logics. While measuring inconsistency in propositional logic has been investigated for some time now, taking the non-monotony into account poses new challenges. In order to tackle them, we focus on the structure of minimal strongly inconsistent subsets of a knowledge base. We propose measures based on this notion and investigate their behavior in a non-monotonic setting by revisiting existing rationality postulates, and analyzing the compliance of the proposed measures with these postulates. We provide a series of first results in the context of inconsistency in abstract argumentation theory regarding the two most important reasoning modes, namely credulous as well as skeptical acceptance. Our analysis includes the following problems regarding minimal repairs: existence, verification, computation of one and characterization of all solutions. The latter will be tackled with our previously obtained duality results. Finally, we investigate the complexity of various related reasoning problems and compare our results to existing ones for monotonic logics.
RISK FACTORS AND CAUSES OF NEONATAL DEATHS IN NAMIBIA

Objectives Toidentify the common causes and risk factors of neonatal deaths in facilities in five regions in Namibia. Methods This descriptive study was carried out atall health facilities providingmaternity care services in the five regions, A total of 498 neonatal deaths recorded in each of the facilities during the period under study January 1, 2010–June 30, 2012 were reviewed. These deaths were evaluated for age, gestational age, birth weight, risk factors and cause of death. Results About 46.4% of neonates who died had a birth weight less than 1500g and most of them had a gestational age of 26-32 weeks (45.2%). The most common cause of neonatal death was prematurity (n=270 or 54). Respiratory distress syndrome (n=131), birth asphyxia (n=88), sepsis (n=86), and congenital malformations (n=50) were also prevalent causes of neonatal deaths. The third type of delay (delay in receiving care) was perceived to be common (47.8%) for neonatal death cases, reinforcing the fact that two-thirds of neonatal deaths occurred at the hospital where the woman laboured and delivered.The most common reason given for the delay was a lack of facilities (including medications and supplies) to care for premature neonates, lack of trained and available providers. Other causes of the third type of delay noted were delays transferring neonates to higher-level facilities and delays in making the decision to perform a Caesarean section during prolonged labour. Overall, 102 (23.1%) of neonatal deaths for whom maternal HIV status was indicated were born to HIVpositive mothers. Fifty-nine (11.8%) of these mothers were on full HAART during pregnancy; 31 (6.2%) mothers were on ARV prophylaxis and 62 (12.4%) neonates born to HIV-positive women received early ARV prophylaxis. Conclusion The mortality rate was high inlow birth weight neonates. Measures to prevent neonatal mortality must be exercised with emphasis on skilled attendance at birth and appropriate care of low birth weight neonates.
LEADING CAUSES AND POSSIBLE ENVIRONMENTAL CONTRIBUTORS FOR END STAGE RENAL DISEASE IN ALMADINAH REGION IN SAUDI ARABIA

To find-out the leading causes and the possible environmental contributors for End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) in Al-Madinah region, KSA. 156 patients suffering from ESRD and 160 apparently healthy subjects of comparable age and sex were included. None of the participants was occupationally exposed to lead, cadmium and/or mercury. None affection of the control subjects with renal diseases was confirmed. Patients with undefined leading causes for ESRD (44) and an equal number of the control subjects were subjected to determine their blood levels of lead, cadmium and mercury. The study revealed that the main leading causes of ESRD in Al-Madinah region were hypertension, obstructive uropathy and diabetes mellitus. Environmental pollutants of lead (Pb) and cadmium (Cd) contributed to ESRD in Al-Madinah region particularly in urban areas. Mercury (Hg) was not a pollutant in Al-Madinah region. The study recommended early diagnosis and proper control of hypertension, obstructive uropathy and diabetes mellitus. It also recommended regular environmental monitoring for (Pb) and cadmium (Cd) levels and finds the sources of their elevations and efforts should be raised up to eliminate them.
ICTs in Microenterprises : Does it make a difference ? Submission Type : Completed Research Paper

In the United States, there are over 25 million microenterprises, comprising 88% of all businesses. These businesses with five or fewer employees are resource-constrained – with one of the many areas being the lack of technical skills. Their inability to acquire and use these skills causes them to be at a disadvantage to larger corporations. In this study, we show how, using a customizable technology-based assistance approach can facilitate the adoption and use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in micro-enterprises. An action research methodology was used to investigate two microenterprises in Western New York during a five-month timespan. The contribution of this study is in understanding the nature of any impact that may come about in resource-constrained micro-enterprises as a result of ICTs.
Pitfalls in the current published observational literature on the effects of red blood cell storage

P ossible adverse effects related to transfusing “old” red blood cells (RBCs) have been investigated extensively. As the ongoing randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on the effects of RBC storage may still take years to report their results, current RBC storage and transfusion policies will have to be based on the currently available, mostly observational, literature. These observational studies are valuable, as they may rationally direct the formulation of sound hypotheses. However, the results from these observational studies on storage time are conflicting, making it impossible to reach a consensus. This is not solely based on the limitations of the observational design of the studies. On close examination, a large number of the published observational studies have failed to evade pitfalls in performing RBC storage research. Here, several aspects of study design and analyses are discussed that illustrate pitfalls that may result in seriously biased comparisons and unsupported conclusions. Most studies that rise to the level of broad consideration and even discussion by the lay public are those showing strong association between the age of RBCs and a clinical endpoint. Investigations that fail to demonstrate such associations generally have less fanfare associated with them. The pitfalls discussed herein apply both to the former and to the latter, “negative findings,” studies. The most important pitfalls are identified, the introduced bias is shown, and possible ways to reduce bias are discussed. By drawing attention to these pitfalls hopefully future authors may evade them, reviewers and editors may more easily recognize biased comparisons, and physicians and blood bankers may more carefully identify the studies on which to base a sound RBC storage and transfusion policy, reaching an optimal situation on safety and availability of RBC transfusions.
Acute effects of resistance exercise on energy expenditure: revisiting the impact of the training variables

The prevalence of obese and overweight persons is growing, both in Brazil and in other parts of the world. It is, therefore, important to establish strategies that will try to control this. The combination of energy restriction and aerobic exercises has long been recognized as an effective means of controlling body composition; on the other hand, the impact of resistance exercises on weight loss is still questionable. Thus, the purpose of this review was to discuss the effect of resistance exercises on energy expenditure, considering each of its related variables – intensity, duration, number of sets, interval between sets, movement velocity and type of training (circuit or multiple sets). The reviewed studies showed that resistance exercises may induce an acute increase in energy expenditure, through the energy cost of the exercise session itself and through the excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC). It is also recognized that the many variables related to resistance exercises influence the results in different ways. Number of repetitions, load, rest interval between sets and number of sets, when manipulated in order to increase volume or intensity, may significantly increase the energy expenditure of a typical exercise session. In general, considering all the limitations of the reviewed studies, the literature
Evaluation of Microleakage of Self-Adhesive Composite Resin in Pits and Fissures of Extracted Premolar Teeth: An in Vitro Study

Background and objectives: Microleakage at the interface of tooth structure and fissure sealant plays a crucial role in the failure of the treatment. This in vitro study aimed to determine the microleakage of self-adhesive flowable composite resins as pit and fissure sealants. Material and Methods: Sixty healthy extracted premolar teeth were randomly divided into the four groups (n=15), clinpro sealants (control), flowable composite resin with bonding agent (total-etch), flowable composite resin with a self-etch bonding agent, and self-adhesive composite resin. After thermocycling, the specimens were immersed in 2% methylene blue for 48 hours and then sectioned in the buccolingual direction. The microleakage was assessed by dye penetration using a stereomicroscope at 15X magnification. Data analysis was performed using SPSS version 18.0 and Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests. Results: There was a statistically significant difference in microleakage score between the groups (P-value = 0.006). The lowest mean of the microleakage level was observed in the flowable composite group with total-etch bonding (group 2) at 1.26±0.96, followed by the Clinpro sealant group (group 1) at 1.62±1.20, and then the self-adhesive composite group (group 4) 1.85±1.00. Conclusion: Based on the results of this study, the microleakage of self-adhesive composite resin revealed no significant difference with conventional fissure sealant; however, the microleakage of these composite resins was higher than flowable composite resin with a total-etch bonding agent.
Is Discourse Role Important for Emotion Recognition in Conversation?

A conversation is a sequence of utterances, where each utterance plays a specific discourse role while expressing a particular emotion. This paper proposes a novel method to exploit latent discourse role information of an utterance to determine the emotion it conveys in a conversation. Specifically, we use a variant of the Variational-Autoencoder (VAE) to model the context-aware latent discourse roles of each utterance in an unsupervised way. The latent discourse role representation further equips the utterance representation with a salient clue for more accurate emotion recognition. Our experiments show that our proposed method beats the best-reported performances on three public Emotion Recognition in Conversation datasets. This proves that the discourse role information of an utterance plays an important role in the emotion recognition task, which no previous work has studied.
Does It Really Pay-Off? Comparison of Lymphadenectomy versus Observational Approach in Skin Melanoma with Positive Sentinel Node Biopsy: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

The aim of this meta-analysis was to answer the question as to whether performing CLND (complete lymph node dissection) is necessary in every case of the melanoma patient after the positive SNB (sentinel node biopsy). To resolve doubts the authors reanalyzed previous articles and systematized the knowledge about the concerning medical problem. The databases such as PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science were screened to find articles that will be helpful to answer the controversial question if performing lymphadenectomy is crucial. The inclusion criteria consisted of randomized clinical trials, comparison of lymphadenectomy versus observation and positive sentinel node biopsy. After which, seven articles were examined. Authors analyzed parameters such as: recurrence, 3-year survival and 5-year survival. There was no relationship between the performance of CLND and melanoma recurrence (OR 1.04; 95% CI: 0.82–1.31; p = 0.75). However, no CLND group had higher 3-year survival (OR 1.22; 95% CI: 1.03–1.44; p = 0.02) and 5-year survival (OR 1.30; 95% CI: 1.19–1.85; p = 0.008). In conclusion, the observational approach to the melanoma patients with positive sentinel node biopsy is associated with comparable or slightly improved 3- and 5-year survival, then in case of routine lymphadenectomy. Although, in each melanoma patient a decision to perform or withhold lymphadenectomy should always be considered individually. Patients with low perioperative risk could be considered for surgical approach. The study was registered in PROSPERO and was assigned with the unique identifying number “CRD42021241272”.
Peace Negotiations in Civil Conflicts: A New Dataset

This article introduces the Peace Negotiations in Civil Conflicts (PNCC) dataset, which identifies whether a state-party and rival non-state armed group is in the formal negotiation phase of a peace process. The PNCC goes beyond recording instances of peace talks by offering a conceptual framework to identify when a government-rebel group dyad is at risk of formal negotiations. It explicitly considers issues central in event-history modelling, including censoring and the observation period. The PNCC also provides detailed information on negotiations, including the date and location of peace talks, and whether negotiations were bilateral or through mediation. The PNCC is the first source to distinguish mediated and non-mediated civil conflict negotiations under a single framework. Structured over the UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset with global coverage for 1975-2013, the PNCC is integrable to commonly used civil war datasets.
SERENADE: The Study Evaluating Rimonabant Efficacy in Drug-Naive Diabetic Patients

OBJECTIVE—The purpose of this study was to assess the glucose-lowering efficacy and safety of rimonabant monotherapy in drug-naive type 2 diabetic patients. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS—The Study Evaluating Rimonabant Efficacy in Drug-Naive Diabetic Patients (SERENADE) was a 6-month, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of 20 mg/day rimonabant in drug-naive patients with type 2 diabetes (A1C 7–10%). The primary end point was A1C change from baseline; secondary end points included body weight, waist circumference, and lipid profile changes. RESULTS—A total of 281 patients were randomly assigned; 278 were exposed to treatment, and 236 (84.9%) completed the study. Baseline A1C (7.9%) was reduced by −0.8% with rimonabant versus −0.3% with placebo (Δ A1C −0.51%; P = 0.0002), with a larger rimonabant effect in patients with baseline A1C ≥8.5% (Δ A1C −1.25%; P = 0.0009). Weight loss from baseline was −6.7 kg with rimonabant versus −2.8 kg with placebo (Δ weight −3.8 kg; P < 0.0001). Rimonabant induced improvements from baseline in waist circumference (−6 vs. −2 cm; P < 0.0001), fasting plasma glucose (−0.9 vs. −0.1 mmol/l; P = 0.0012), triglycerides (−16.3 vs. +4.4%; P = 0.0031), and HDL cholesterol (+10.1 vs. +3.2%; P < 0.0001). Adverse events of interest that occurred more frequently with rimonabant versus placebo were dizziness (10.9 vs. 2.1%), nausea (8.7 vs. 3.6%), anxiety (5.8 vs. 3.6%), depressed mood (5.8 vs. 0.7%), and paresthesia (2.9 vs. 1.4%). CONCLUSIONS—Rimonabant monotherapy resulted in meaningful improvements in glycemic control, body weight, and lipid profile in drug-naive type 2 diabetic patients. Further ongoing studies will better establish the benefit-to-risk profile of rimonabant and define its place in type 2 diabetes management.
Past and Contemporaneous Otolith Fingerprints Reveal Potential Anthropogenic Interferences and Allows Refinement of the Population Structure of Isopisthus parvipinnis in the South Brazil Bight

Simple Summary Otolith geochemical signatures were important tools used to investigate the population of commercially exploited fish species. Historical and contemporary otolith samples of Isopisthus parvipinnis, Bigtooth corvina, an economically and ecologically important Brazilian fish species, collected in five subareas [São Paulo: North—NSP, Center—CSP and South—SSP; Paraná (PR) and Santa Catarina (SC)] of the shallow waters off the coast of the South Brazil Bight were used in this study. Univariate and multivariate statistical analyses showed spatial differences in otolith chemical composition over the years, suggesting that long-term temporal variability in oceanographic conditions, anthropogenic influence, and climate change on this coastal ecosystem influenced the geochemical signatures. Moreover, these results also confirm that I. parvipinnis is not a single and homogeneous fish stock in this geographic area, supporting the existence of a metapopulation structure scenario and corroborating previous studies that used alternative, complementary phenotypic tags. Abstract In this study, otolith geochemical signatures (Element:Ca ratios) were used to investigate the long-term spatial shifts of the population structure of Isopisthus parvipinnis, Bigtooth corvina, an economically and ecologically important Brazilian fish species. Two-hundred and ninety-seven juvenile individuals from historical (1975) and contemporary (2018/2019) samples were collected in five subareas [São Paulo: North—NSP, Center—CSP and South—SSP; Paraná (PR) and Santa Catarina (SC)] of the shallow waters off the coast of the South Brazil Bight were analyzed. The main informative single elements were Co:Ca, Cu:Ca, Li:Ca, Mg:Ca, Mn:Ca, Ni:Ca, Na:Ca, and Rb:Ca. Multivariate analysis showed spatial differences in otolith chemical composition over the years. Samples from 1975 presented an overall low reclassification rate (58%), suggesting the existence of two population units: (1) SP + PR; and (2) SC. However, samples from 2018/2019 discriminated four distinct population units with a good overall reclassification (80%): (1) NSP; (2) CSP; (3) SSP + PR; and (4) SC. This spatial differentiation on the geochemical signatures probably reflects the effects of long-term temporal variability in oceanographic conditions, anthropogenic influence, and climate change on this coastal ecosystem. The data also corroborate and refines the population structure scenario of I. parvipinnis recently described using complementary phenotypic tags.