Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Modified BG prasad socio-economic classification, update – 2021

One of the most key determinant of a person’s nutritional condition, health, illness, and death is their socioeconomic level. When conducting community-based studies, it is vital to determine the socio-economic level of the study participants, as this determines the incidence and prevalence of numerous health disorders. Modified BG Prasad socioeconomic classification is most widely used scale to determine the socioeconomic status of study subjects in health studies in India. This scale is based on the per capita income of an individual and has to be constantly updated by taking into account the inflation and depreciation of rupee, because the rupee’s value will depreciate owing to inflation, and economic variables will lose their significance. It is calculated by using the consumer price index (CPI) for industrial workers (IW). The monthly updated values of Consumer Price Index are available at the Labour Bureau of India website on the last day of every month.
Evidence of Abnormally Low Lymphocyte-To-Monocyte Ratio In COVID-19-Induced Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome

It is known that lung injury due to COVID-19 responsible for the respiratory distress would mainly depend on host inflammatory response, depending on the excessive production of inflammatory cytokines, such as IL-6, and TNF-alpha, rather than direct virus-induced tissue damage, as well as for other forms of respiratory distress. Moreover, it is known that the inflammatory cytokines may induce profound changes in the behavior of the hematic cells, namely neutrophils, monocytes, and lymphocytes, with a following enhanced tissue infiltration by their inflammatory cells. According to the data available up to now, IL-6 and TNF-alpha would be the main cytokines involved in determining COVID-19-induced lung injury, as well as in other coronavirus infections, and most in general in all conditions of respiratory distress. Since it is known that the functionlessness of the whole immune system is namely depending on the interactions between lymphocyte and macrophage system, a preliminary study was planned to analyze the lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio (LMR) in COVID-19 infective disease. The study included 17 consecutive patients, who underwent ventilator therapy for COVID-19-induced respiratory distress, and 100 healthy subjects, as a control group. Lymphocytopenia and monocytosis occurred in 14/17 (82%) and in 8/17(47%), respectively. Then, abnormally low values of LMR was found in 12/17 (71%) patients, and LMR men values observed in patients were significantly lower than in control (P<0.001). Therefore, by reflecting the interactions between lymphocyte and monocyte-macrophage systems, LMR could constitute a simple and less expensive biomarker to monitor the clinical evolution of COVID-19 infection.
Impact of Time, Oxygen and Different Anthocyanin to Tannin Ratios on the Precipitate and Extract Composition Using Liquid Chromatography-High Resolution Mass Spectrometry

Wine colour and phenolic stability over time are influenced by the amount and nature of phenolics in young wines. The ratio between different phenolic compounds can also be determinant in the colour and phenolic development of red wines. Three different anthocyanin to tannin ratios extracted in a wine-like system were saturated with oxygen several times during sample storage. A LC-HRMS method was used to evaluate the impact of a forced oxidation and of the different extracts on the wine-like composition and on the precipitate formed over time. The extract composition was found to be the most determinant factor for the precipitate formed. Time was also found to be a relevant factor according to the precipitate composition.
Human pathogen co-occurrence in Ixodes ricinus ticks: effects of landscape topography, 1 climatic factors and microbiota interactions 2

15 The factors shaping microbial communities within organisms are still poorly understood. Besides 16 ecological factors and host characteristics, direct interactions among microbes may shape the 17 occurrence of microbes and the structure of communities. In the past it has been difficult to 18 disentangle if patterns of microbial co-occurrence are due to facilitation or competition effects, or 19 shaped by shared ecological preferences (i.e., environmental filtering). Here we use a joint species 20 distribution model to characterize the bacterial microbiota composition of an important human 21 disease vector, the sheep tick Ixodes ricinus, along ecological gradients in the Swiss Alps, and to 22 test for facilitation or competition effects among human pathogens and tick endosymbionts. We 23 identify a number of ecological variables that significantly predicted the diversity of tick microbial 24 community and the occurrence of specific tick endosymbionts and human pathogens. However, 25 ecological associations were generally microbe-specific rather than universal. We also found 26 evidence for significant microbe interactions, in particular widespread facilitation among pathogens, 27 which promotes pathogen co-infection within ticks, as well as competition between the tick 28 endosymbiont Spiroplasma and a number of human pathogens. These findings highlight that direct 29 interactions among microbes can affect the vector competence of ticks and thereby tick-borne 30 disease dynamics. 31 large among-tick variation in microbiota composition, we found significant associations between specific environmental variables and OTUs. Particularly pronounced was the association
Redesign of Development Board for Engineering Education

With the rapid developments in technology, devices used in engineering applications are being renewed continuously. But sometimes this renewing process costs higher prices. For this reason there could be some delays at this point and this may cause a decrease in the quality of education. In this study, it is tried to find a solution to the problem of outdated devices used in electronics engineering education. A multi-layered and complex FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) development board has been transformed into a more simple and updateable form which is consisting of two layers. By this way, the development card can be easily adapted to the different projects needed in electronic engineering education.
Hemoglobin SC Disease: Phenotypic Variability and Therapeutic Options

Mutation in the Beta Globin Gene (HBB) leads to the formation of Hemoglobin S (HbS) and Hemoglobin C (HbC). Co-inheritance of HbS and HbC causes hemoglobin SC disease, a form of hemolytic anemia with a myriad of clinical manifestations. Valine replaces glutamic acid in the 6th position (Glu 6Val) to form HbS and Lysine replaces glutamic acid (Glu6Lys) in HbC. The interaction of HbC with HbS increases the propensity of red blood cells to sickle leading to microvascular occlusion and down-stream end organ complications. Both HbS and HbC are present in approximately equal levels in HbSC red blood cells. It is interesting to note that Sickle cell trait and Hemoglobin C trait do not produce severe disease. However, the combination of HbS and HbC can produce a moderately severe disease than the sum of the effects of HbS and HbC disease. This is because the presence of HbC enhances the cellular dehydration of the red blood cell resulting in a more profound phenotype than their respective traits. Most of the evidence-based guidelines in Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) come from the Cooperative Study of Sickle Cell Disease (CSSD), which was undertaken more than 30 years ago, and there is paucity of data to this date regarding optimal management of hemoglobin SC disease [1,2].
Preserving Porphyra umbilicalis and Saccharina latissima as Silages for Ruminant Feeding

Simple Summary Seaweeds are underutilized resources worldwide that could be used in both the food and the feed markets. However, seaweeds decompose quickly mainly due to their high water content and therefore cost and energy effective preservation methods must be explored. Silage is a low-energy input method to preserve forage crops widely used worldwide, but the ensilability of seaweeds has been little investigated. In this study, we assessed different procedures to ensile Porphyra umbilicalis and Saccharina latissima, including the washing and pre-wilting of the seaweeds before ensiling and the addition of formic acid. The chemical composition and in vitro ruminal fermentation of the obtained silages were determined to investigate their potential use as ruminant feed. Seaweeds did not undergo the typical silage fermentation, characterized by high production of lactic acid, as usually observed for terrestrial crops, and silage characteristics were variable depending on the seaweed species. All silages with formic acid as silage additive had pH values below the recommended value of 4.0, whereas those without formic acid had pH values greater than 4.50. The addition of formic acid also increased the ruminal degradability of the silages. More studies are needed to identify optimal ensiling conditions for seaweeds. Abstract The study analyzed the characteristics, chemical composition, and in vitro gas production kinetics of Porphyra umbilicalis and Saccharina latissima silages. Each seaweed was ensiled in vacuum bags (three bags/silage) following a 2 × 3 factorial design, with two pre-treatments (unwilted or pre-wilted) and three silage types: unwashed seaweed ensiled without additive; seaweed washed and ensiled without additive; and seaweed washed and ensiled with 4 g of formic acid (FAC) per kg seaweed. Silages were kept for 3 months in darkness at 20 °C. Pre-wilting prevented (p < 0.001) effluent formation and reduced (p ≤ 0.038) the production of NH3-N and volatile fatty acids for both seaweeds. Both pre-wilting and washing increased (p < 0.05) the ruminal degradability of P. umbilicalis silages but not of S. latissima silages. The pH of the FAC-treated silages was below 4.0, but ranged from 4.54 to 6.23 in non FAC-treated silages. DL-lactate concentrations were low (≤23.0 g/kg dry matter) and acetate was the predominant fermentation product, indicating a non-lactic fermentation. The estimated ruminal degradability of the P. umbilicalis and S. latissima silages was as average, 59.9 and 86.1% of that for high-quality rye-grass silages, respectively, indicating a medium-low nutritional value of these seaweed silages for ruminants.
Alternative Hosts of Banana Aphid Pentalonia nigronervosa Coq. (Hemiptera: Aphididae), the Vector Transmitting Banana Bunchy Top Virus

Banana Bunchy Top Virus cause very destructive disease on banana. The virus is transmitted by Pentalonia nigronervosa in circulative manner. Plants infected show progressive dwarfing, upright crowded leaves and produce no fruit. Surveys conducted in 2016 in South Sumatra, Indonesia, showed that the disease distribution was affected by human activities and the vector, but the vector was scarcely found in the field, suggested that there must be alternative hosts for the vector. There was a report that the aphid can live on members of zingiberaceous and araceous plants. In this research, 11 zingiberaceous and araceous plants frequently found in banana planting areas were tested for their suitability as alternative host of P. nigronerosa. The infestation of 4 wingless adults of P. nigronervosa on the plants showed that the aphid could live on Alpinia galanga, Kamferia galangal, Curcuma domestica, Colocasia esculenta, Xanthosoma sagittifolium, Caladium bicolor and Typhonium flagelliform with different levels of growth rate.
Natural Antimicrobial Agents as an Alternative to Chemical Antimicrobials in the Safety and Preservation of Food Products

Microbiological quality of food is of utmost importance in the food industry, so the use of food additives is essential to reduce microbial loads, which may result in food spoilage and poisoning.This study aimed to test the antimicrobial activity of three natural compounds – chitosan, ethanolic extract of propolis, and nisin – against 15 Gram-positive bacteria, 15 Gram-negative bacteria and two fungi and, also, to compare it with the antimicrobial activity of the chemical compound sodium nitrite, alone and in combination with sodium chloride.Antimicrobial activity was tested at different pH values and temperatures of incubation to simulate the presence of the pathogens in different food products and different storage conditions, as well as to determine their influence on the inhibition of microorganisms.Most of the Gram-positive bacteria were inhibited at 25 µg/mL of nisin. Concentrations of 10 mg/mL of ethanolic extract of propolis inhibited fungi, most of the Gram-positive and some Gramnegative bacteria, and with concentrations of 0.65% (w/v) of chitosan, it was possible to inhibit most of the tested microorganisms. All the natural compounds tested had greater inhibitory effect against the various microorganisms compared with sodium nitrite alone and in combination with sodium chloride, in the different conditions of pH and temperature.This suggests that natural compounds could be good candidates for use as an alternative to chemical antimicrobials in food safety and preservation.
Assessment of the Relationship between Clinical Variants of Psoriasis and Killer Immunoglobulin-like Receptor (KIR) Genes: A Systematic Review with Meta-analysis

ABSTRACT Background Psoriasis (Ps) is an autoimmune dermatosis. Previous studies have shown an association between KIR genes and susceptibility to some clinical variants of Ps. Therefore, we conducted an exhaustive systematic review with meta-analysis to evaluate the relationship between KIR genes and susceptibility to clinical variants of Ps in the overall population and according to ethnicity. Methods According to PRISMA guidelines, we performed a systematic review through PubMed and Web of Science to identify relevant available scientific publications about KIR genes and Ps. The quality of the studies was evaluated using the Newcastle–Ottawa scale. Odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95%CI) were estimated using random and fixed effect models for the analyzed genes. Heterogeneity was tested using Cochran’s Q-Statistic and I2, and the risk of bias was tested using the Begg test and Egger linear regression. Results A total of 10 case-control studies were included, comprising a variable number of KIR typified genes and psoriasis vulgaris (PsV) as the main clinical variant studied. In the total pooled results, the KIR2DS1 gene (OR = 1.518, p = .010, 95%CI: 1.105 to 2.086) was related to higher susceptibility to PsV, while the KIR2DS4 (OR = 0.563, p = .005, 95%CI: 0.376 to 0.842) and KIR3DL1 (OR = 0.602, p = .040, 95%CI: 0.370 to 0.977) genes were related to protection against PsV. Conclusion This meta-analysis demonstrates that subjects that carry the KIR2DS1 gene could have a potential risk factor for the development of PsV. Conversely, KIR2DS4 and 3DL1 genes appear to confer protection against PsV.
Using Performance Variation for Instrumentation Placement in Distributed Systems

Distributed systems are now ubiquitous in the infrastructures underpinning our everyday lives, yet diagnosing performance problems in these systems remains extremely challenging. The current state of the art for problem diagnosis in these systems relies on data from instrumentation in the system, but the placement of this instrumentation is an unsolved challenge in systems research and in production environments. This work presents an implementation and evaluation of a performance variation-based tool that helps developers understand where instrumentation should be placed in a distributed system to better diagnose current and future performance problems. This tool identifies under-instrumented regions in these systems by localizing performance variation seen in system requests. Contributions of this work include the tool itself; implementations of several methods for localizing performance variation, including a method that prioritizes performance variation deeper in request call graphs; a conversion module that can also function as a stand-alone toolkit to allow the performance variation-based tool to be used across a variety of systems, including those instrumented using the Open Tracing model as well as those using a more general directed acyclic graph (DAG) models; and several experiments evaluating the tool and these methods on an open source distributed application. They key insight informing this work is that similar workflows in the same system should perform similarly. Building on existing workflow-centric tracing tools to profile system behavior, the tools and methods presented have the potential to significantly cut down on time spent diagnosing performance problems in distributed systems. The experiments evaluate their utility both for understanding where to place additional instrumentation for current problems in these systems as they arise, and for guiding informative placement of default system instrumentation to better handle future problems. Potentially, the tools and methods could also be adapted for use in a broader framework that seeks to dynamically tune instrumentation in running systems to the current system state.
A retrospective survey of Chlamydia pneumoniae infection rates in paediatric patients from a single centre in Wuxi, China

Objective To provide some epidemiological data on Chlamydia pneumoniae infection rates in paediatric patients at a single centre in Wuxi, China. Methods This was a retrospective analysis of serum samples from paediatric patients (<12 years) with a respiratory tract infection (RTI) and who had been admitted to the Department of Paediatrics, Wuxi No.2 People’s Hospital, China, from 01 January 2015 to 31 December 2016. C. pneumoniae IgM antibodies had been analysed using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Results Of the 3866 children (2073 boys, 1793 girls) with a RTI that provided serum samples, 19% were positive for C. pneumoniae IgM antibodies. Among these children, 56% were positive for other infections. Conclusions Children over 6 years of age with a RTI had a higher C.pneumoniae infection rate than younger children and the infection rate was more common in winter months compared with other times of the year.
Targeting P53 as a Future Strategy to Overcome Gemcitabine Resistance in Biliary Tract Cancers

Gemcitabine-based chemotherapy is the current standard treatment for biliary tract cancers (BTCs) and resistance to gemcitabine remains the clinical challenge. TP53 mutation has been shown to be associated with poor clinicopathologic characteristics and survival in patients with BTCs, indicating that p53 plays an important role in the treatment of these cancers. Herein, we comprehensively reviewed previous BTC preclinical research and early clinical trials in terms of p53, as well as novel p53-targeted treatment, alone or in combination with either chemotherapy or other targeted therapies in BTCs. Preclinical studies have demonstrated that p53 mutations in BTCs are associated with enhanced gemcitabine resistance, therefore targeting p53 may be a novel therapeutic strategy for treatment of BTCs. Directly targeting mutant p53 by p53 activators, or indirectly by targeting cell cycle checkpoint proteins (Chk1, ataxia telangiectasia related (ATR), and Wee1) leading to synthetic lethality, may be potential future strategies for gemcitabine-resistant p53 mutated BTCs. In contrast, for wild-type p53 BTCs, activation of p53 by inhibition of its negative regulators (MDM2 and wild-type p53-induced phosphatase 1 (WIP1)) may be alternative options. Combination therapies consisting of standard cytotoxic drugs and novel small molecules targeting p53 and related signaling pathways may be the future key standard approach to beat cancer.
Studies on Occurrence of Trichinellosis in Pigs and Its Molecular Characterization Using Multiplex PCR in Maharashtra, India

Trichinellosis, one of the most important food-borne parasitic zoonoses worldwide, is caused by the consumption of raw or undercooked meat from a wide variety of wild and domestic mammals (DupouyCamet, 2000). Pork is consumed across the various pockets of India and it is most important source of infection to humans for Trichinellosis. The occurrence of Trichinella in domestic animal populations is particularly due to poor management practices which allow pigs to consume food contaminated with Trichinella infected meat is the main cause of trichinellosis in pigs (Campbell, 1988). Pigs can only become infected with Trichinella by ingesting raw or undercooked meat containing infective larvae. Thus pig is the major source of Trichinellosis in humans.
Different capsid-binding patterns of the β-herpesvirus-specific tegument protein pp150 (pM32/pUL32) in murine and human cytomegaloviruses

The phosphoprotein pp150 is a structurally, immunogenically, and regulatorily important capsid-associated tegument protein abundant in β-herpesviruses including cytomegaloviruses (CMV), but absent in α-herpesviruses and Γ-herpesviruses. In human CMV (HCMV), bridging across each triplex and three adjacent major capsid proteins (MCPs) is a group of three pp150 subunits in a “△”-shaped fortifying configuration, 320 of which encase and stabilize the genome-containing capsid. Because murine CMV (MCMV) has been used as a model for HCMV pathogenesis and therapeutic studies, one might expect that pp150 and the capsid in MCMV and HCMV have similar structures. Here, by cryoEM and sub-particle reconstructions, we have obtained structures of MCMV capsid and pp150 at near atomic resolutions and built their atomic models. Surprisingly, the capsid-binding patterns of pp150 differ between HCMV and MCMV despite their highly similar capsid structures. In MCMV, pp150 is absent on triplex Tc and exists as a “Λ”-shaped dimer on other triplexes, leading to only 260 groups of two pp150 subunits per capsid in contrast to 320 groups of three pp150 subunits encasing each HCMV capsid. Many more amino acids contribute to pp150-pp150 interactions in MCMV than in HCMV, making MCMV pp150 dimer inflexible thus incompatible to instigate triplex Tc-binding as observed in HCMV. While pp150 is essential in HCMV, pp150-deleted MCMV mutants remained viable though with attenuated infectivity and exhibiting defects in retaining viral genome. These results support targeting capsid proteins, but invalidate targeting pp150, when using MCMV as a model for HCMV pathogenesis and therapeutic studies. Importance CMV infection is a leading viral cause of congenital birth defects and often responsible for life-threating complications in immunocompromised individuals like AIDS and post-organ transplantation patients. Absence of effective vaccines and potent drugs against CMV infections has motivated animal-based studies, mostly based on the mouse model with MCMV, both for understanding pathogenesis of CMV infections and for developing therapeutic strategies. Here, we present the first atomic structures of MCMV and show that the organization patterns of capsid-associated tegument protein pp150 between human and mouse CMV are different despite their highly similar capsid structures. Our functional studies demonstrate that deleting pp150 does not eliminate MCMV infection in contrast to pp150’s essential role in HCMV infections. These results thus establish the validity to target capsid proteins, but raise concerns to target pp150, when using MCMV as HCMV model for pathogenesis and therapeutic studies.