Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Community dynamics and co-occurrence relationships of pelagic ciliates and their potential prey at a coastal and an offshore station in the ultra-oligotrophic Eastern Mediterranean Sea

Ciliates have been recognized as one of the major components of the microbial food web, especially in ultra-oligotrophic waters, such as the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, where nutrients are scarce and the microbial community is dominated by pico- and nano-sized organisms. For this reason, ciliates play an important role in these ecosystems since they are the main planktonic grazers. Regardless the importance of these organisms, little is known about the community structure of heterotrophic and mixotrophic ciliates and how they are associated to their potential prey. In this study, we used 18S V4 rRNA gene metabarcoding to analyze ciliate community dynamics and how the relationship with potential prey changes according to different seasons and depths. Samples were collected seasonally at two stations of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea (HCB: coastal, M3A: offshore) from the surface and deep chlorophyll maximum (DCM) layers. The ciliate community structure varied across depths in HCB and across seasons in M3A, and the network analysis showed that in both stations, mixotrophic oligotrichs were positively associated with diatoms and showed few negative associations with ASVs annotated as marine Stramenopiles (MAST). On the other hand, heterotrophic tintinnids showed negative relationships in both HCB and M3A stations, mostly with Ochrophyta and Chlorophyta. These results showed, in first place that, although the two stations are close to each other, the ciliate dynamics differed between them. Moreover, mixotrophic and heterotrophic ciliates may have different ecological niches since mixotrophic ciliates may be more selective compared to heterotrophic species regarding their prey. These findings are the first glimpse into an understanding of the dynamics between heterotrophic and mixotrophic ciliates and their role in microbial assemblages and dynamics of ultra-oligotrophic environments.
Temporal, spatial and spectroscopic study of plasma emission on Cu target in bipolar HiPIMS

Bipolar high power impulse magnetron sputtering introduces new possibilities to affect positive ions created during the negative discharge pulse in order to tailor thin films with specific parameters. This paper studies plasma emission in different experimental conditions during different phases of the positive pulse with spectral, spatial and temporal resolution. It is found that predominantly the working gas gives rise to plasma emission during the positive pulse. The plasma emission is observed only in regions of low magnetic confinement, forming a ‘mushroom-like’ shape in the middle of the target or a ‘dome-like’ shape on the outer parts of the target. An explanation of the discharge kinetics is proposed based on the acquired data.
Effects of RIPC on the Metabolomical Profile during Lower Limb Digital Subtraction Angiography: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Remote ischemic preconditioning (RIPC) has demonstrated protective effects in patients with lower extremity arterial disease (LEAD) undergoing digital subtraction angiography (DSA) and/or percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA). This study aimed to investigate the impact of RIPC on the metabolomical profile of LEAD patients undergoing these procedures and to elucidate its potential underlying mechanisms. A total of 100 LEAD patients were enrolled and randomly assigned to either the RIPC group (n = 46) or the sham group (n = 54). Blood samples were drawn before and 24 h after intervention. Targeted metabolomics analysis was performed using the AbsoluteIDQ p180 Kit, and changes in metabolite concentrations were compared between the groups. The RIPC group demonstrated significantly different dynamics in nine metabolites compared to the sham group, which generally showed a decrease in metabolite concentrations. The impacted metabolites included glutamate, taurine, the arginine-dimethyl-amide-to-arginine ratio, lysoPC a C24:0, lysoPC a C28:0, lysoPC a C26:1, PC aa C38:1, PC ae C30:2, and PC ae C44:3. RIPC exhibited a ‘stabilization’ effect, maintaining metabolite levels amidst ischemia-reperfusion injuries, suggesting its role in enhancing metabolic control. This may improve outcomes for LEAD patients. However, additional studies are needed to definitively establish causal relationships among these metabolic changes.
The Roles of Exosomes in Ovarian Cancer Chemo-resistance

As common gynecological oncology, ovarian cancer has a high fatality rate and poor overall survival, mainly because of nonspecific symptoms in the early stages and chemotherapy resistance. Exosomes, nano-sized vesicles secreted by almost all types of cells, carry valuable commodities such as proteins, lipids, enzymes, mRNAs, and miRNAs between cells. They take part in remodeling the tumor microenvironment, promoting tumor angiogenesis and metastasis, and regulating immune metastasis and chemotherapy resistance in ovarian cancer. Previous studies have reported that exosomes could transfer chemotherapy resistance from drug-resistant tumor cells to sensitive ones by delivering proteins and miRNAs. Also, exosomes are involved in chemotherapy resistance by transferring multidrug-resistance-related transporters, decreasing apoptosis, promoting epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, and changing signal transduction pathways. Furthermore, they play a significant role in early detection, chemotherapy efficacy evaluation, and treatment of ovarian cancer. Exosomes are applied as chemotherapeutic delivery vehicles and therapeutic targets to inhibit anti-tumor immune responses. In addition, exosomes can be developed for cancer immunotherapy because of their immunomodulatory potential. Therefore, the article reviews the latest research progress of exosomes in ovarian cancer to elaborate on the mechanisms of exosome-mediated chemotherapy resistance in ovarian cancer patients and provide a forecast on their clinical therapeutic potential in improving chemotherapy sensitivity.
Investigation of the Impact of the Addition of Probiotic Mixtures AQUA CLEAR-S® as Food Supplement on Hematology Parameters and Intestinal Histology of Red Tilapia (Oreochromis sp.)

Background: The use of antibiotics in fish feed have been globally restricted due to having its huge negative consequences, dietary prebiotics, probiotics, symbiotics, phytobiotics and other functional dietary supplements are thought to be alternative substitutes. The goal of the study was to determine the effects of adding probiotic mixtures AQUA CLEAR-S® as a feed additive on red tilapia (Oreochromis sp.) intestinal histology and hematology parameters. Methods: The fish were given either the basic experimental nutrition (the control group) or one of three experimental diets that included the basic diet supplemented with 1, 2, or 3 g of AQUA CLEAR-S® for T1, T2 and, T3, respectively. The four experimental treatments were done in three replicates each. Twelve (50 × 40 × 60 cm) aquariums, each with ten fish (avg. wt. 6.00 g±0.17), were used. The studied parameters were basic hematological and immunological blood parameters, antioxidant activities and gut cytology. Result: Probiotic supplementation significantly improved the hematology parameters in red tilapia fingerlings after probiotic treatments. This trend was continued in the gut architecture. As a result, Oreochromis sp. had enhanced health when probiotics were incorporated into their diet. AQUA CLEAR-S®-treated fish also showed a noticeable change in their fish’s intestinal histology. The results of the study showed that consuming probiotics increased hematology parameters indicators and gut cytology of red tilapia.
Generalized hybrid methods for modeling complex electromagnetic structures

The analysis of electromagnetic structures entails the numerical solution of Maxwell’s equations for the radiation, radar scattering or transmission of electromagnetic waves. By and large, the finite element and moment method approaches have been the preferred numerical approaches for solving Maxwell’s equations. Among them, the finite element method is a partial differential equation-based method necessitating use of mesh truncation operators for solving open domain problems. One truncation technique is to hybridize the finite element method with a boundary integral equation leading to the, so-called, finite element-boundary integral method. Although this method is quite efficient and can be easily generalized to model arbitrary inhomogeneous objects, it encompasses the inherent drawback that the entire computational domain must be discretized even for large regions of homogeneous material. The latter can be attentively modeled more efficiently via other methods, including surface integral equation techniques incorporating an appropriate Green’s function. It is therefore of interest to combine finite element and integral equation methods to permit a more efficient implementation of hybrid frequency domain methodologies. With this goal in mind, we propose a hybrid volume-surface integral equation formulation. The advantage of the volume integral equation within this general approach is the ease and robustness of implementing high contrast inhomogeneous dielectrics in the presence of surface boundary conditions, such as PEC, PMC, impedance, sheet, etc. ii Essential, to our formulation is a novel material factorization technique that causes the volume integral equation to contribute as a perturbation so that objects consisting of high contrast inhomogeneous materials can be efficiently modeled. Thus, volume discretizations only need to be considered in regions where material properties vary smoothly or where material anisotropies exist. Both, 2D and 3D numerical implementations are considered that incorporate high order hierarchical functions. A key feature of the implementation is a unique testing for the volume integral equation solution which ensures its accuracy over curved geometries. This formulation is also extended to infinite periodic structures for modeling frequency selective devices. A p-refinement strategy is implemented to exploit the hierarchical nature of the proposed basis functions and to achieve additional efficiencies when performing electromagnetic simulations of periodic structures.
Toward urban traffic scenarios and more: a spatio-temporal analysis empowered low-rank tensor completion method for data imputation

Abstract Existing traffic monitoring approaches cannot completely cover all road segments in real-time, leading to massive amounts of missing traffic data, which limits the implementation of intelligent transportation systems. Most existing methods lack deep mining of the unique spatiotemporal characteristics of traffic flows, resulting in difficulty in application to urban traffic with complex topologies and variable states. In this paper, we propose a novel Spatio-Temporal constrained Low-Rank Tensor Completion (ST-LRTC) method, which adopts a manifold embedding approach to depict the local geometric structure of spatiotemporal domains. Specifically, under the low-rank assumption, the method introduces temporal constraints based on the continuity and periodicity of traffic flow and a spatial constraint matrix reflecting the traffic flow transmission mechanism. We embed low-dimensional spatiotemporal constraint matrices into the low-rank tensor completion solving process to fully utilize the global features and local spatiotemporal characteristics of the traffic tensor. Experiments were performed using traffic data from Xi’an, China, and the results indicated that ST-LRTC outperformed state-of-the-art methods under various missing rates and patterns. Thorough experiments have demonstrated that the incorporation of spatiotemporal analysis can enhance the adaptability of the tensor completion model to complex urban scenarios, which guarantees better monitoring, diagnosis, and optimization of urban traffic states.
Deep Learning-Based Spatiotemporal Fusion of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle and Satellite Reflectance Images for Crop Monitoring

Spatiotemporal fusion (STF) techniques play important roles in Earth observation analysis as they enable the generation of images with high spatial and temporal resolution. However, existing STF models often fuse images from various satellites, not satisfying the demand for precise crop monitoring. In contrast, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) images can deliver detailed data, and deep learning (DL)-based STF models have the potential to automatically extract abstract features. To this end, this study proposed a novel end-to-end DL-based STF model named UAV-Net, which can produce centimeter-scale UAV images. UAV-Net has an encoder-decoder architecture with Modified ResNet (MResNet), Feature Pyramid Network (FPN), and decoder modules. The encoder uses MResNet modules to extract input features, while the FPN module performs a multiscale fusion of these features before reconstructing UAV images using transposed convolution in the decoder module. Through comparative and ablation experiments, this study evaluated the efficacies of MResNet modules with 18, 34, and 50 layers, along with the FPN module of UAV-Net. The experimental results on real-world datasets demonstrated that UAV-Net adequately produces UAV images both visually and quantitatively. Furthermore, a comparison with state-of-the-art STF models highlights the innovation and effectiveness of UAV-Net in producing centimeter-scale images. The predicted centimeter-scale images using UAV-Net have great potential for various environmental monitoring applications.
Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Gastrointestinal Tract: Current Role, Recent Advancements and Future Prospectives

This review focuses on the role of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in the evaluation of the gastrointestinal tract (GI MRI), analyzing the major technical advances achieved in this field, such as diffusion-weighted imaging, molecular imaging, motility studies, and artificial intelligence. Today, MRI performed with the more advanced imaging techniques allows accurate assessment of many bowel diseases, particularly inflammatory bowel disease and rectal cancer; in most of these diseases, MRI is invaluable for diagnosis, staging, and disease monitoring under treatment. Several MRI parameters are currently considered activity biomarkers for inflammation and neoplastic disease. Furthermore, in younger patients with acute or chronic GI disease, MRI can be safely used for short-term follow-up studies in many critical clinical situations because it is radiation-free. MRI assessment of functional gastro-esophageal and small bowel disorders is still in its infancy but very promising, while it is well established and widely used for dynamic assessment of anorectal and pelvic floor dysfunction; MRI motility biomarkers have also been described. There are still some limitations to GI MRI related to high cost and limited accessibility. However, technical advances are expected, such as faster sequences, more specific intestinal contrast agents, AI analysis of MRI data, and possibly increased accessibility to GI MRI studies. Clinical interest in the evaluation of bowel disease using MRI is already very high, but is expected to increase significantly in the coming years.
The potential feasibility of mangrove crab (Scylla serrata) silvofishery aquaculture

Abstract. Rinaldy H, Iskandar J, Cahyandito MF, Sunardi. 2023. The potential feasibility of mangrove crab (Scylla serrata) silvofishery aquaculture. Biodiversitas 24: 3344-3354. The degradation of mangrove forests in Indonesia has reached more than 50%, and increases continuously. Sei Beduk is one of the Sub-districts in Batam City, Indonesia, that has mangrove forest damage where the density of trees per hectare is below the normal value of <1,000 trees per hectare. One approach that can be applied to overcome forest degradation is fisheries management with an ecosystem approach. This study aims to determine the suitable location for cultivating mangrove crab (Scylla serrata Forskål, 1775) and analyze the potential feasibility of S. serrata silvofishery cultivation using a quantitative approach with the Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries Management (EAFM) method. According to Slovin's calculations, a minimum of 100 people samples were obtained, and 147 samples were obtained at the time of data collection. The results showed that the location of the Perahu was highly potential for silvofishery S. serrata cultivation. The overall potential feasibility of silvofishery S. serrata cultivation in Sei Beduk, Batam was 53.10% or moderate/relatively good. The potential feasibility of S. serrata cultivation management planning is sufficient to support the sustainability of mangrove forests and allow it to be implemented. The feasible plan for managing S. serrata cultivation is to preserve ecology while improving and considering aquaculture policies and regulations. The relatively appropriate mangrove silvofishery cultivation in Sei Beduk, Batam, can provide community solutions to carry out silvofishery cultivation as a measure to overcome the problem of mangrove forest degradation, particularly in Sei Beduk, Batam.
Homoarginine Associates with Carotid Intima-Media Thickness and Atrial Fibrillation and Predicts Adverse Events after Stroke

Homoarginine is associated with cardio- and cerebrovascular morbidity and mortality. However, the underlying pathomechanisms remain elusive. Here, we evaluated the association of homoarginine with adverse events (i.e., death, stroke, and myocardial infarction) and carotid intima-media thickness (cIMT) in stroke patients. In the prospective bioMARKers in STROKE (MARK-STROKE) cohort, patients with acute ischemic stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA) were enrolled. Plasma homoarginine concentrations were analyzed and associated with clinical phenotypes in cross-sectional (374 patients) and prospective (273 patients) analyses. Adjustments for possible confounders were evaluated. A two-fold increase in homoarginine was inversely associated with the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) score at admission, cIMT, and prevalent atrial fibrillation (mean factor −0.68 [95% confidence interval (CI): −1.30, −0.07], −0.14 [95% CI: −0.22, −0.05]; and odds ratio 0.57 [95% CI: 0.33, 0.96], respectively). During the follow-up (median 284 [25th, 75th percentile: 198, 431] days), individuals with homoarginine levels in the highest tertile had fewer incident events compared with patients in the lowest homoarginine tertile independent of traditional risk factors (hazard ratio 0.22 [95% CI: 0.08, 0.63]). A lower prevalence of atrial fibrillation and a reduced cIMT pinpointed potential underlying pathomechanisms.
SCREENING OF RICE LINES OF DIVERSE ORIGIN RESISTANT TO BACTERIAL LEAF BLIGHT UNDER LOCAL CONDITIONS

Current study comprised of 20 donor parent lines and four indica elite strains resistant against bacterial leaf blight having diversity in origin viz. Bangladesh, Philippine, Indonesia, Senegal and India. The lines were tested to check resistance against Bacterial Leaf Blight (BLB), having BLB resistance genes Xa-4, xa-5, Xa-7 and xa-13. The experiment was conducted at Agronomic Research Station, Farooqabad, Sheikhupura. Artificial inoculation was done to study disease reaction. DNA marker analysis was also conducted to study the gene status of these lines. Results indicated that seven donor lines were completely resistant to Bacterial Leaf Blight whereas twelve lines exhibited moderate resistance. Among rest of the five susceptible genotypes, three were showing comparatively low susceptibility whereas two completely susceptible to BLB. Most of the lines with three or four gene combinations showing resistant behavior against BLB except AUS-298 that showed moderately susceptible behavior. Combination of genes for Bacterial Leaf Blight resistance can be explored further in targeted research program for disease resistance.
The Novel Variant NP_00454563.2 (p.Glu259Glyfs*77) in Gene PKP2 Associated with Arrhythmogenic Cardiomyopathy in 8 Families from Malaga, Spain

Introduction and objectives: Arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy (ACM) is a hereditary heart disease defined by the progressive replacement of the ventricular myocardium with fibroadipose tissue, which can act as a substrate for arrhythmias, sudden death, or even give rise to heart failure (HF). Sudden death is frequently the first manifestation of the disease, particularly among young patients. The aim of this study is to describe a new pathogenic variant in the PKP2 gene. Methods: A descriptive observational study that included eight initially non-interrelated families with a diagnosis of ACM undergoing follow-up at our HF and Familial Cardiomyopathies Unit, who were carriers of the NM_004572. 3:c. 775_776insG; p.(Glu259Glyfs*77) variant in the PKP2 gene. The genetic testing employed next-generation sequencing for the index cases and the Sanger method for the targeted study with family members. We compiled personal and family histories, demographic and clinical characteristics, data from the additional tests at the time of diagnosis, and arrhythmic events at diagnosis and during follow-up. Results: We included 47 subjects, of whom 8 were index cases (17%). Among the evaluated family members, 16 (34%) were carriers of the genetic variant, 3 of whom also had a diagnosis of ACM. The majority were women (26 patients; 55.3%), with a mean age on diagnosis of 48.9 ± 18.6 years and a median follow-up of 39 [24–59] months. Worthy of note are the high incidences of arrhythmic events as the form of presentation and in follow-up (21.5% and 20.9%, respectively), and the onset of HF in 25% of the sample. The most frequent ventricular involvements were right (four patients, 16.7%) and biventricular (four patients, 16.7%); we found no statistical differences in any of the variables analysed. Conclusions: This variant is a pathogenic variant of gene PKP2 that has not previously been described and is not present in the control groups associated with ACM. It has incomplete penetrance, a highly variable phenotypic expressivity, and was identified in eight families of our geographical area in Malaga (Andalusia, Spain), suggesting a founder effect in this area and describe the clinical and risk characteristics.
Psychosocial Barriers to Adult Learning and the Role of Prior Learning Experiences: A Comparison Based on Educational Level

Low-educated adults participate less in adult education than higher-educated adults. In this study, we analyze psychosocial barriers to learning while acknowledging that barriers for low-educated adults may be different from those of medium- and high-educated adults. An extended version of the Theory of Planned Behavior is used to study training intention. We add prior Learning Experiences as predictor to the model. A total of 563 adults filled in the questionnaire. Higher-educated adults show more Perceived Behavioral Control, Perceived Social Norms, and more positive Attitudes towards lifelong learning. Logistic regression demonstrated that Perceived Behavioral Control, Perceived Social Norms and Attitudes are related to training intention, but prior Learning Experiences are not. Mediation analyses showed that the relationship between Perceived Behavioral Control and Intention is mediated through Learning Experiences. The findings suggest that psychosocial barriers need to be taken into account when considering how to reach non-participating adults.