Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Role of Kupffer cells in tolerance induction after liver transplantation

Currently, liver transplantation has reached a level of maturity where it is considered an effective treatment for end-stage liver disease and can significantly prolong the survival time of patients. However, acute and chronic rejection remain major obstacles to its efficacy. Although long-term use of immunosuppressants can prevent rejection, it is associated with serious side effects and significant economic burden for patients. Therefore, the investigation of induced immune tolerance holds crucial theoretical significance and socio-economic value. In fact, the establishment of immune tolerance in liver transplantation is intricately linked to the unique innate immune system of the liver. Kupffer cells, as a crucial component of this system, play a pivotal role in maintaining the delicate balance between inflammatory response and immune tolerance following liver transplantation. The important roles of different functions of Kupffer cells, such as phagocytosis, cell polarization, antigen presentation and cell membrane proteins, in the establishment of immune tolerance after transplantation is comprehensively summarized in this paper. Providing theoretical basis for further study and clinical application of Kupffer cells in liver transplantation.
The link between European warm-temperature extremes and atmospheric persistence

Abstract. We investigate the link between warm-temperature extremes in Europe and the persistence of large-scale atmospheric-circulation patterns for both winter and summer, along with some possible physical mechanisms connecting the two. We assess atmospheric persistence, leveraging concepts from dynamical systems theory, and reconcile this approach with the more conventional meteorological views of persistence. We find that wintertime warm spells are partly associated with persistent zonal advection at the surface level but display no statistically significant persistence anomaly in the mid-troposphere. For summertime heatwaves, we find a weak yet significant link to anomalously persistent circulation patterns in the mid-troposphere, while there are few significant persistence anomalies of the surface circulation pattern. We further find no evidence of a strong warm-temperature advection signal. This suggests that other radiative and dynamical processes, for example sensible heating and adiabatic warming, as well as local effects, could play a more important role than large-scale warm-temperature advection for these events. We thus argue that persistent atmospheric configurations are not a necessary requirement for warm-temperature extremes and that the results depend to a considerable extent on region and tropospheric level.
The growing needs of genetic counselling—Feasibility in utilization of tele-genetic counselling in Asia and Hong Kong

The need for the expansion of genomic services has been at a record time high in the past decade. As technological advancement continues to strengthen the entire genetic and genomic pipeline and clinical operational workflow, the major challenge remains to be the speed of workforce development to meet service growth. In particular, the international expansion of genetic counselling (GC) services has been a topic of interest for the past few years. GC is an emerging profession in most of Asia, and in many countries the profession of GC often refers to physicians or front-line health workers with expertise in genetics to provide GC services rather than being a specific independent profession. As genetic and genomic services, especially pre-test and post-test GC, expand globally, the need to tackle the longstanding obstacles of GC personnel shortage and funding issues must not be overlooked. There is an urgent need internationally, and especially in Asia, where GC profession is comparatively less well-established, to seek alternative approaches to meet service demand. The present review examines the global development and feasibility of tele-genetics and tele-genetic counselling (TGC), and serves as the foundation to explore a possible roadmap in Hong Kong via the Hong Kong Genome Project.
Role of Macrophage Migration Inhibitory Factor in Hepatitis B Virus-Specific Cytotoxic-T-Lymphocyte-Induced Liver Injury

ABSTRACT Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) plays a pivotal role in the development of various inflammatory diseases. Here, we found that anti-mouse MIF antibody treatment reduced liver injury and inflammatory cell infiltration into the liver after injection of antigen-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes into hepatitis B virus transgenic mice.
Loss of ERβ in Aging LXRαβ Knockout Mice Leads to Colitis

Liver X receptors (LXRα and LXRβ) are oxysterol-activated nuclear receptors that play key roles in cholesterol homeostasis, the central nervous system, and the immune system. We have previously reported that LXRαβ-deficient mice are more susceptible to dextran sodium sulfate (DSS)-induced colitis than their WT littermates, and that an LXR agonist protects against colitis in mice mainly via the regulation of the immune system in the gut. We now report that both LXRα and LXRβ are expressed in the colonic epithelium and that in aging LXRαβ−/− mice there is a reduction in the intensity of goblet cells, mucin (MUC2), TFF3, and estrogen receptor β (ERβ) levels. The cytoplasmic compartment of the surface epithelial cells was markedly reduced and there was a massive invasion of macrophages in the lamina propria. The expression and localization of β-catenin, α-catenin, and E-cadherin were not changed, but the shrinkage of the cytoplasm led to an appearance of an increase in staining. In the colonic epithelium there was a reduction in the expression of plectin, a hemidesmosome protein whose loss in mice leads to spontaneous colitis, ELOVL1, a fatty acid elongase protein coding gene whose overexpression is found in colorectal cancer, and non-neuronal choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) involved in the regulation of epithelial cell adhesion. We conclude that in aging LXRαβ−/− mice, the phenotype in the colon is due to loss of ERβ expression.
OUT to IN: a body-oriented intervention program to promote preschoolers’ self-regulation and relationship skills in the outdoors

Introduction Time for movement and outdoor experiences has decreased in children’s daily lives. Nevertheless, a growing body of research has shown that body-oriented interventions and outdoor time benefit preschoolers’ social–emotional development, a foundation for mental health. OUT to IN is a body-oriented intervention program implemented outdoors, designed to promote preschoolers’ social–emotional competence. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of OUT to IN on preschoolers’ self-regulation and relationship skills. Methods A cluster randomized trial with multi-method and multi-informant assessment was implemented including 233 children between 3 and 6 years (122 boys, Mage = 5.07 years), from 4 preschools (8 groups with OUT to IN intervention, 4 groups without intervention – control group). The 153 children allocated to the OUT to IN group participated in biweekly sessions for 10 weeks. OUT to IN sessions followed a body-oriented approach comprising exercise play, relaxation, and symbolization activities, implemented outdoors by a psychomotor therapist and the preschool teacher. Sessions enabled children to feel, observe and control their bodily states and understand the relationship between their bodies and emotions. Teachers participated in a brief course and on 20 biweekly relaxation sessions. Children’s self-regulation was measured through specific tasks and a parent questionnaire. Relationship skills (i.e., empathy, communication, cooperation and sociability) were measured through parents’ and preschool teachers’ questionnaires. Mann–Whitney test was used to study differences at baseline between the OUT to IN group and the control group, and to study differences in the 10-week changes between both groups. Wilcoxon Test was used for intragroup comparisons. Results After the 10-week intervention period, children who participated in OUT to IN showed significant improvements on self-regulation and relationship skills (empathy, cooperation and sociability), in comparison to the control group who did not show any significant improvements. Large size effects (η2 > 0.14) were found for most of the variables related to self-regulation and small (η2 > 0.01), medium (η2 > 0.06) and large size effects (η2 > 0.14) were found for the variables related to relationship skills. Conclusion OUT to IN showed to be an effective body-oriented intervention program in improving children’s self-regulation and relationship skills, which are recognized foundations for mental health and well-being.
Caractérisation des zones et périodes à risque de la fièvre de la vallée du Rift au Sénégal par télédétection et modélisation éco-épidémiologique

La Fievre de la Vallee du Rift (FVR) est une zoonose observee pour la premiere fois au Kenya en 1930 qui s'est peu a peu propagee a la plupart des pays d'Afrique. La FVR est une maladie a transmission vectorielle dont le virus appartient au genre Phlebovirus de la famille des Bunyaviridae. En Afrique de l'Est, l'emergence de foyers est predite par des modeles statistiques, ce qui n'est pas le cas en Afrique de l'Ouest ou les facteurs et les mecanismes en jeu sont encore mal definis. L'objectif de cette these est d'identifier les facteurs et les processus epidemiologiques expliquant l'emergence de foyers de FVR au Senegal, en mettant en œuvre une approche eco-epidemiologique centree sur les principaux moustiques vecteurs du virus. Par l'etude de variables environnementales et climatiques et par leur exploitation dans des modeles mathematiques, nous avons tente de repondre a deux questions epidemiologiques majeures : (1) quelles sont les zones potentiellement a risque, et (2) quelles sont les periodes favorables a l'apparition de foyers. L'etude a ete menee a l'echelle locale, dans une zone d'environ 10 km2 autour du village de Barkedji situe dans la region sylvo-pastorale du Ferlo.Pour localiser les zones a risque de transmission du virus, nous utilisons la teledetection et l'analyse paysagere afin de caracteriser l'environnement favorable aux deux principaux candidats vecteurs du virus, Aedes vexans et Culex poicilipes. Pour identifier les periodes a risque, nous avons developpe un modele d'abondance de populations de moustique des deux especes vectrices prenant en compte la dynamique des gites larvaires (les mares), et dont les simulations ont ete validees avec des donnees de terrain de capture de moustiques. Pour se faire, nous avons du prealablement developpe un modele dynamique de hauteur d'eau des mares temporaires, modele calibre et valide a partir de donnees de terrain et de donnees d'observation de la Terre.Les resultats de l'analyse paysagere ont confirme que les milieux favorables aux vecteurs de la maladie pouvaient etre caracterises par teledetection. Ils ont aussi mis en evidence l'importance des mares et de la densite de vegetation environnante, et ont abouti a une cartographie de l'heterogeneite spatiale du risque de circulation de la FVR. Les resultats de l'analyse temporelle ont montre que les annees de circulation active du virus coincidaient avec les annees pour lesquelles les deux especes de moustiques etaient presentes en forte quantite. On observe ainsi deux annees a tres forte densite des deux moustiques vecteurs, en 1987 et en 2003, correspondant aux annees d'epidemie/epizootie les plus importantes dans la region.
E-Health Technologies in Attainment of the Millennium Development Goals for Africa Healthcare System

The challenge of quality and equitable health services provisioning in Africa is daunting. Advances in e-health technologies hold great potential to revolutionalize health systems in Africa. This paper examines the African health systems challenges and the potential in e-health technologies in enabling the attainment of the African health Millennium Development Goals. An e-health research, innovation and partnership strategy is proposed towards this end. Some implications are posited and conclusion drawn.
Epidemiological characteristics of common respiratory infectious diseases in children before and during the COVID-19 epidemic

Background Since the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), public's awareness of infection prevention and control has increased overall, and various prevention and control measures have been adopted. These measures may also have a certain impact on the occurrence of other infectious diseases. Therefore, we collected information on children with several respiratory infectious diseases in Jinan Children's Hospital in China from 2016 to 2022 and analyzed their changes. Method We collected data on age, sex and number of cases of pertussis, measles, scarlet fever, pulmonary tuberculosis, mumps and influenza, which were diagnosed by clinical and laboratory criteria, from 1 January 2016 to 31 December 2022 in Jinan Children's Hospital in Jinan, Shandong Province, China. Data on the number of people affected by these diseases in China from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention were compared. Then, we processed the data by using WPS Excel 2019 and SPSS. Results A total of 12,225 cases were included in this study in Jinan Children's Hospital, which consisted of 3,688 cases of pertussis (2,200 cases before COVID-19 and 1,488 during COVID-19), 680 cases of measles (650 cases before COVID-19 and 30 during COVID-19), 4,688 cases of scarlet fever (4,001 cases before COVID-19 and 687 during COVID-19), 114 cases of tuberculosis (86 cases before COVID-19 and 28 during COVID-19), 449 cases of mumps (340 cases before COVID-19 and 109 during COVID-19) and 2,606 cases of influenza (1,051 cases before COVID-19 and 1,555 during COVID-19). The numbers of children in the hospital with pertussis, measles, scarlet fever, mumps and influenza decreased substantially during COVID-19 in 2020–2022 compared with numbers in 2016–2019, while numbers of patients in China with all six respiratory infectious diseases, including pulmonary tuberculosis, declined during the pandemic. A rebound of pertussis, scarlet fever and influenza was observed in 2021 and 2022. Conclusions The study found that viral pathogens such as those causing measles, mumps and influenza all decreased during the pandemic, after which influenza rebounded. Infection diseases caused by bacteria such as scarlet fever and pertussis also decreased during COVID-19, and then a rebound occurred. However, tuberculosis stayed relatively constant.
Psychometric validation of concerning behavior scale in Iranian children and young people with autism spectrum disorder

Introduction Assessment of Concerning Behavior (ACB) was introduced by Tarver et al. (2021) to evaluate mental health and problematic/risky behaviors in children and young people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Methods This study examined the psychometric validation of the Assessment of Concerning Behavior (ACB) in an Iranian sample of parents of children and young people with ASD. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to examine the structure of ACB in a sample of 303 parents. Results The data supported the two factor structure, all factor loadings were significant and scale structure was confirmed similar to the original scale. The results supported the two-factor structure for ACB that included internalizing and externalizing problems scales. The two factors of ACB are positively correlated with Aberrant Behavior Checklist scores which showed that the validity of two factors is satisfactory. The reliability of the two subscales was reasonable as well. Conclusion: The study suggests that the ACB could be an operational tool to assess the mental health and problematic/risky behaviors in Iranian children and young people with ASD.
Properties of small meteoroids studied by meteor video observations

Aims. The complex study of millimetre-sized meteoroids can reveal more about the structure and origin of population of these meteoroids. Methods. Double-station video observations, paired with spectroscopic video observations, were used to study small meteoroids. In total 152 sporadic and shower meteors of maximum brightness between magnitude −5 and +3 were analysed. Spectral classification was based on time-integrated intensities of lines of Na, Mg, and Fe. Meteor light curves and deceleration were fitted by the grain erosion model. Heliocentric orbits of all meteors were computed. Monochromatic light curves were constructed in order to study differential ablation. The length of meteor wakes was evaluated as well. Results. The variety of properties among millimetre-sized meteoroids proved different sources and histories of this material. Meteoroids that contain small grains tend to release their sodium early. For given grain sizes, the sodium in Na-poor meteoroids is released earlier than in meteors without sodium depletion. Overall, meteoroids with sodium depletion are revealed to have different structures: they have stronger material without very small grains and they do not show very bright wakes. Two iron meteoroids on Halley-type orbits were observed, thereby supporting the idea of large-scale mixing of material in the early solar system. The distribution of grain sizes of Jupiter-family members was in good agreement with results from the COSIMA instrument on the ROSETTA probe.
Enhancing Arabic Sentiment Analysis Through a Hybrid Deep Learning Approach

: Sentiment analysis is a key procedure in many natural language processing systems that extract emotions from textual input. In recent years, Arabic sentiment analysis has become a significant study area. With the growth of social media platforms and data flow, especially in Arabic, substantial difficulties have emerged that call for new strategies to address problems, such as the Arabic language's complicated development and the complexity of the multiple, binary
New solutions to the 2D adaptive visual servoing problem with relaxed excitation requirements

In this paper, we present three new globally convergent vision‐based position controllers for a planar manipulator in a fixed‐camera configuration, where the camera orientation and scale factor are considered unknown. This is a basic adaptive visual servoing problem whose solution was hampered by the nonlinear dependence of the system dynamics on the unknown parameters. Proposing a suitable reparameterization of the systems mathematical model, and exploiting some structural properties of it, we propose three different solutions to the problem. The first one is the certainty equivalent version of the known parameter controller and requires some excitation conditions to ensure global asymptotic convergence. A second version of the controller, which is now slightly more complicated and, possibly, needs to inject some high gain but requires significantly weaker excitation conditions, is given. Finally, we propose a slight modification to the second scheme to achieve the trajectory tracking in finite time. The efficacy of the three adaptive controllers is shown through realistic simulations.
Correlation of Bony Invasion With Nodal Metastasis, Pattern of Invasion and Survival in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma: A Retrospective Analysis of 122 Primary Cases From Oral Cancer Centre of South India

Background Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is considered to be the most common epithelial malignant neoplasm of the oral cavity. Despite advancements in diagnosis and therapeutics the clinical outcome of the disease has not improved much which may be attributed to tumor biology and heterogeneity. Bone invasion by cancer cells is currently staged as a moderately advanced disease. However, many low-grade carcinomas such as verrucous carcinoma and carcinoma cuniculatum show body invasion but less nodal metastases and better overall survival. The present study was orchestrated to analyze if bone invasion in OSCC has any impact on regional nodal metastases and survival. Materials and methods A total of 122 cases of OSCC who underwent excision and neck dissection were retrieved and included. These cases were then divided into two study groups. Group I comprised 56 OSCC cases with bone involvement and 66 cases with no bony involvement. The bone invasion was correlated with nodal metastases, survival and pattern of invasion. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS software (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA). Results There was no statistically significant correlation between bone invasion with either nodal metastases or pattern of invasion, however, the worst pattern of invasion (WPOI)-4,5 showed a statistically higher incidence of nodal involvement in OSCC. No statistical difference was noted in overall survival between the two groups. Conclusion The worst pattern of invasion and not bone involvement, depicts nodal metastases in OSCC and thus, deserves consideration while staging and treatment planning.
Where experts and amateurs meet: the ideological hobby of medical volunteering on Wikipedia

The following paper advances our understanding of online volunteering in the medical context, through the study of Wikipedia volunteers who edit medical topics. It employs the Volunteer Functions Inventory (VFI) model to study volunteers' motivations through a survey carried out in 2021 (N=74). It highlights the importance of the non-traditional VFI dimensions of "fun" and "ideology" which have not been adequately discussed in the context of medical volunteering. The findings also show that Wikipedia volunteers who edit medical topics are older, more gender-balanced, and better educated than typical Wikipedia volunteers from a decade ago. Many are medical professionals, and their significant involvement helps to explain the above-average quality of Wikipedia medical topics. Conversely, the study reveals the need for more experts to engage with Wikipedia. Lack of volunteers, in particular, experts, and inadequate support from professional institutions, are identified as main reasons for problems in Wikipedia's quality.
Comparative assessment of edaphic features and phytodiversity in lower Dachigam National Park, Kashmir Himalaya, India

The present study was conducted to investigate the comparative assessment of edaphic factors and phytodiversity of herbaceous vegetation on seasonal basis spring (March to May), summer (June to August), autumn (September to November) and winter (December to February), at two different ecosystems in lower Dachigam National Park, Kashmir Himalaya. Phytosociological attributes of plant species were studied by randomly laying 25 quadrats of 1×1 m 2 size at both sites. The vegetation data recorded was quantitatively analysed for density, frequency and abundance. Plant diversity was evaluated using different diversity indices. The abundance to frequency ratio (A/F) for different species was determined by eliciting the distribution pattern (regular <0.025, random 0.025-0.05 and contagious >0.05). The results indicated edaphic factors highest at site II (MC, 35.55%), (OC, 4.73%) and (TN, 0.36%). pH showed acidic to nearly alkaline kind of nature at both sites with site I at higher side (5.95 to 7.52). Phytodiversity revealed site II comparatively higher in Shannon diversity and species richness during summer season (3.66, 7.92). However, evenness index showed similar trend with equal value at both sites (0.94). Dominance showed an inverse relationship to diversity (H′). Species at both sites were contagiously distributed followed by random one whereas regular distribution was almost negligible. The study concluded that seasons have great influence on edaphic factors and species diversity. An increase in species diversity was observed during spring and summer season which declined thereafter as autumn and winter approached resulted in decrease in diversity due to multitude of factors.