Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Phrenic Nerve Block and Respiratory Effort in Pigs and Critically Ill Patients with Acute Lung Injury

Background: Strong spontaneous inspiratory efforts can be difficult to control and prohibit protective mechanical ventilation. Instead of using deep sedation and neuromuscular blockade, the authors hypothesized that perineural administration of lidocaine around the phrenic nerve would reduce tidal volume (VT) and peak transpulmonary pressure in spontaneously breathing patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome. Methods: An established animal model of acute respiratory distress syndrome with six female pigs was used in a proof-of-concept study. The authors then evaluated this technique in nine mechanically ventilated patients under pressure support exhibiting driving pressure greater than 15 cm H2O or VT greater than 10 ml/kg of predicted body weight. Esophageal and transpulmonary pressures, electrical activity of the diaphragm, and electrical impedance tomography were measured in pigs and patients. Ultrasound imaging and a nerve stimulator were used to identify the phrenic nerve, and perineural lidocaine was administered sequentially around the left and right phrenic nerves. Results: Results are presented as median [interquartile range, 25th to 75th percentiles]. In pigs, VT decreased from 7.4 ml/kg [7.2 to 8.4] to 5.9 ml/kg [5.5 to 6.6] (P < 0.001), as did peak transpulmonary pressure (25.8 cm H2O [20.2 to 27.2] to 17.7 cm H2O [13.8 to 18.8]; P < 0.001) and driving pressure (28.7 cm H2O [20.4 to 30.8] to 19.4 cm H2O [15.2 to 22.9]; P < 0.001). Ventilation in the most dependent part decreased from 29.3% [26.4 to 29.5] to 20.1% [15.3 to 20.8] (P < 0.001). In patients, VT decreased (8.2 ml/ kg [7.9 to 11.1] to 6.0 ml/ kg [5.7 to 6.7]; P < 0.001), as did driving pressure (24.7 cm H2O [20.4 to 34.5] to 18.4 cm H2O [16.8 to 20.7]; P < 0.001). Esophageal pressure, peak transpulmonary pressure, and electrical activity of the diaphragm also decreased. Dependent ventilation only slightly decreased from 11.5% [8.5 to 12.6] to 7.9% [5.3 to 8.6] (P = 0.005). Respiratory rate did not vary. Variables recovered 1 to 12.7 h [6.7 to 13.7] after phrenic nerve block. Conclusions: Phrenic nerve block is feasible, lasts around 12 h, and reduces VT and driving pressure without changing respiratory rate in patients under assisted ventilation. The authors evaluated the effects of phrenic nerve block in a porcine model of acute respiratory distress syndrome and in nine patients with excessive inspiratory effort with acute respiratory distress syndrome on mechanical ventilation evaluating transdiaphragmatic pressures and electrical activity, as well as distribution of ventilation by electrical impedance tomography. In both groups, tidal volume, driving pressure, peak transpulmonary pressure, and electrical activity of the diaphragm decreased significantly with phrenic nerve block, with a slight decrease in dependent ventilation, while the respiratory rate was unchanged. Duration of the block was approximately 12 h.
White-Matter Integrity and Working Memory: Links to Aging and Dopamine-Related Genes

Abstract Working memory, a core function underlying many higher-level cognitive processes, requires cooperation of multiple brain regions. White matter refers to myelinated axons, which are critical to interregional brain communication. Past studies on the association between white-matter integrity and working memory have yielded mixed findings. Using voxelwise tract-based spatial statistics analysis, we investigated this relationship in a sample of 328 healthy adults from 25 to 80 years of age. Given the important role of dopamine (DA) in working-memory functioning and white matter, we also analyzed the effects of dopamine-related genes on them. There were associations between white-matter integrity and working memory in multiple tracts, indicating that working-memory functioning relies on global connections between different brain areas across the adult life span. Moreover, a mediation analysis suggested that white-matter integrity contributes to age-related differences in working memory. Finally, there was an effect of the COMT Val158Met polymorphism on white-matter integrity, such that Val/Val carriers had lower fractional anisotropy values than any Met carriers in the internal capsule, corona radiata, and posterior thalamic radiation. As this polymorphism has been associated with dopaminergic tone in the prefrontal cortex, this result provides evidence for a link between DA neurotransmission and white matter. Together, the results support a link between white-matter integrity and working memory, and provide evidence for its interplay with age- and DA-related genes.
Bio‐Based Solar Energy Harvesting for Onsite Mobile Optical Temperature Sensing in Smart Cities

The Internet of Things (IoT) fosters the development of smart city systems for sustainable living and increases comfort for people. One of the current challenges for sustainable buildings is the optimization of energy management. Temperature monitoring in buildings is of prime importance, as heating account for a great part of the total energy consumption. Here, a solar optical temperature sensor is presented with a thermal sensitivity of up to 1.23% °C−1 based on sustainable aqueous solutions of enhanced green fluorescent protein and C‐phycocyanin from biological feedstocks. These photonic sensors are presented under the configuration of luminescent solar concentrators widely proposed as a solution to integrate energy‐generating devices in buildings, as windows or façades. The developed mobile sensor is inserted in IoT context through the development of a self‐powered system able to measure, record, and send data to a user‐friendly website.
Cell adhesion and twitching motility influence strong biofilm formation in Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Abstract In the present study, biofilm formation was quantified in UTI isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa (n = 22) using the crystal violet assay and was categorized into; strong (n = 16), weak (n = 4), and moderate (n = 2) biofilm producers. Further experiments were done using strong (n = 4) and weak (n = 4) biofilm producers. Biofilm formation was greater in Luria broth followed by natural urine and artificial urine on silicone and silicone-coated latex. Cell adhesion and twitching motility were greater in strong biofilm producers. The presence of thick biofilm with an increased number of dead and total number of cells of strong biofilm producers was observed using CLSM. The concentrations of exopolymeric substances (eDNA, protein, and pel polysaccharide) were high in strong biofilm producers. FEG-SEM visualization of biofilm produced by strong biofilm producers showed more cells encased in thick biofilm matrix than weak ones. Overall results provide evidence for increased cell adhesion and twitching motility in strong biofilm producers.
Safety and immunogenicity of 3 formulations of a Sabin inactivated poliovirus vaccine produced on the PER.C6® cell line: A phase 2, double-blind, randomized, controlled study in infants vaccinated at 6, 10 and 14 weeks of age

ABSTRACT An inactivated poliovirus vaccine candidate using Sabin strains (sIPV) grown on the PER.C6® cell line was assessed in infants after demonstrated immunogenicity and safety in adults. The study recruited 300 infants who were randomized (1:1:1:1) to receive one of 3 dose levels of sIPV or a conventional IPV based on Salk strains (cIPV). Poliovirus-neutralizing antibodies were measured before the first dose and 28 days after the third dose. Reactogenicity was assessed for 7 days and unsolicited adverse events (AEs) for 28 days after each vaccination. Serious AEs (SAEs) were recorded throughout the study. Solicited AEs were mostly mild to moderate. None of the SAEs reported in the study were judged vaccine related, including one fatal SAE due to aspiration of vomitus that occurred 26 days after the third dose of low-dose sIPV. After 3 sIPV vaccinations and across all dose levels, seroconversion (SC) rates were at least 92% against Sabin poliovirus types and at least 80% against Salk types, with a dose-response in neutralizing antibody geometric mean titers (GMTs) observed across the 3 sIPV groups. Compared to cIPV, the 3 sIPV groups displayed similar or higher SC rates and GMTs against the 3 Sabin types but showed a lower response against Salk types 1 and 2; this was most visible for Salk type 1. While the PER.C6® cell line-based sIPV showed an acceptable safety profile and immunogenicity in infants, lower seroprotection against type 1 warrants optimization of dose level and additional clinical evaluation.
Detection of TET2 Mutation in Patients with De Novo Acute Myeloid Leukemia: A Mutation Analysis of 51 Iranian Patients

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a heterogeneous clonal disease that is considered to originate from hematopoietic stem cells, which are characterized by impaired myelopoiesis and blast proliferation. TET oncogene family member 2 (TET2) mutations are frequent in myeloid malignancies and several studies have assessed the clinical importance of TET2 mutations. However, its frequency ratio has not yet been fully clarified. Method: Hence, our study was aimed to analyze TET2mut in patients with de-novo AML and their association with clinical, molecular characteristics and Nucleophosmin 1 (NPM1), Fms-like tyrosine kinase 3 (FLT3), CCAAT Enhancer Binding Protein Alpha (CEBPA) and Wilms’ tumor protein (WT1) gene expression. Fifty-one Iranian patients were screened by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and direct sequencing to evaluate TET2 mutations frequency. Results: Out of all patients, 10 mutations in 8 patients (15.6%) were detected and closely associated with higher age and higher hemoglobin levels (p-value <0.05). Although FLT3, NPM1 and CEBPA gene expression did not show any significant correlation with TET2mut, cytogenetically normal acute myeloid leukemia (CN-AML) patients appear to bear TET2mut more frequently with lower platelet counts. Monocyte-lineages leukemia has seemed to be more linked with TET2mut in these patients. Conclusion: Our study suggests the frequency of TET2mut in our study (15.6%) is in line with previous studies and reveals the critical role of TET2 in myeloid transformation, especially in leukemia with monocytic subtypes.
Acute intermittent hypercapnic‐hypoxia elicits central neural respiratory motor plasticity in humans

Acute intermittent hypoxia (AIH) elicits long‐term facilitation (LTF) of respiration. Although LTF is observed when CO2 is elevated during AIH in awake humans, the influence of CO2 on corticospinal respiratory motor plasticity is unknown. Thus, we tested the hypotheses that acute intermittent hypercapnic‐hypoxia (AIHH): (1) enhances cortico‐phrenic neurotransmission (reflecting volitional respiratory control); and (2) elicits ventilatory LTF (reflecting automatic respiratory control). Eighteen healthy adults completed four study visits. Day 1 consisted of anthropometry and pulmonary function testing. On Days 2, 3 and 4, in a balanced alternating sequence, participants received: AIHH, poikilocapnic AIH, and normocapnic‐normoxia (Sham). Protocols consisted of 15, 60 s exposures with 90 s normoxic intervals. Transcranial (TMS) and cervical (CMS) magnetic stimulation were used to induce diaphragmatic motor‐evoked potentials and compound muscle action potentials, respectively. Respiratory drive was assessed via mouth occlusion pressure (P0.1), and minute ventilation measured at rest. Dependent variables were assessed at baseline and 30–60 min after exposures. Increases in TMS‐evoked diaphragm potential amplitudes were observed following AIHH vs. Sham (+28 ± 41%, P = 0.003), but not after AIH. No changes were observed in CMS‐evoked diaphragm potential amplitudes. Mouth occlusion pressure also increased after AIHH (+21 ± 34%, P = 0.033), but not after AIH. Ventilatory LTF was not observed after any treatment. We demonstrate that AIHH elicits central neural mechanisms of respiratory motor plasticity and increases resting respiratory drive in awake humans. These findings may have important implications for neurorehabilitation after spinal cord injury and other neuromuscular disorders compromising breathing.
Protein design via deep learning

Abstract Proteins with desired functions and properties are important in fields like nanotechnology and biomedicine. De novo protein design enables the production of previously unseen proteins from the ground up and is believed as a key point for handling real social challenges. Recent introduction of deep learning into design methods exhibits a transformative influence and is expected to represent a promising and exciting future direction. In this review, we retrospect the major aspects of current advances in deep-learning-based design procedures and illustrate their novelty in comparison with conventional knowledge-based approaches through noticeable cases. We not only describe deep learning developments in structure-based protein design and direct sequence design, but also highlight recent applications of deep reinforcement learning in protein design. The future perspectives on design goals, challenges and opportunities are also comprehensively discussed.
A Deep Generative–Discriminative Learning for Multimodal Representation in Imaging Genetics

Imaging genetics, one of the foremost emerging topics in the medical imaging field, analyzes the inherent relations between neuroimaging and genetic data. As deep learning has gained widespread acceptance in many applications, pioneering studies employed deep learning frameworks for imaging genetics. However, existing approaches suffer from some limitations. First, they often adopt a simple strategy for joint learning of phenotypic and genotypic features. Second, their findings have not been extended to biomedical applications, e.g., degenerative brain disease diagnosis and cognitive score prediction. Finally, existing studies perform insufficient and inappropriate analyses from the perspective of data science and neuroscience. In this work, we propose a novel deep learning framework to simultaneously tackle the aforementioned issues. Our proposed framework learns to effectively represent the neuroimaging and the genetic data jointly, and achieves state-of-the-art performance when used for Alzheimer’s disease and mild cognitive impairment identification. Furthermore, unlike the existing methods, the framework enables learning the relation between imaging phenotypes and genotypes in a nonlinear way without any prior neuroscientific knowledge. To demonstrate the validity of our proposed framework, we conducted experiments on a publicly available dataset and analyzed the results from diverse perspectives. Based on our experimental results, we believe that the proposed framework has immense potential to provide new insights and perspectives in deep learning-based imaging genetics studies.
Identifying subtle functional change in individuals with mild cognitive impairment: development and validation of the Healthy Brain Ageing – Functional Assessment Questionnaire

ABSTRACT Accumulating research suggests that individuals with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) experience subtle functional changes, but that available functional assessment tools are insensitive to this. To address this gap, we describe the development and validation of the self-report, “Healthy Brain Ageing Functional Assessment Questionnaire” (HBA-FAQ). We examined the factor structure and psychometric properties of the HBA-FAQ in 503 participants with normal cognition, subjective cognitive decline (SCD), MCI or dementia. Our results found the HBA-FAQ to have good reliability, validity and stronger discriminative ability between healthy control participants and those with SCD (0.734, p = .001), MCI (0.666, p = .012) and dementia (0.798, p < .001) compared to a widely-used instrumental activities of daily living screener. In conclusion, the HBA-FAQ is a valid, reliable self-report tool, providing an efficient and sensitive approach to identifying subtle changes in daily functioning in older people at risk of dementia.
Advances in non-hormonal pharmacotherapy for the treatment of male infertility: the role of inositols

ABSTRACT Introduction Several antioxidants are available for the treatment of male infertility. Although the benefit of myo-inositol (MYO) and D-chiro-inositol (DCI) for female infertility is recognized, their role in male infertility is a matter of debate. Areas covered The authors review the impact that treatment with MYO and/or DCI may have on conventional and bio-functional sperm parameters [mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP), sperm chromatin compactness, and sperm DNA fragmentation (SDF)], seminal oxidative stress (OS), and pregnancy, miscarriage, and live birth rates, and the possible mechanisms involved. Furthermore, the authors gather evidence on the effects of MYO and/or DCI on sperm function in vitro. Expert opinion MYO can improve sperm count, motility, capacitation, acrosome reaction, and MMP. No data are currently available on the effects of DCI in vivo. Both MYO and DCI ameliorate sperm motility and MMP in vitro. Therefore, the use of inositols should be preferred in patients with idiopathic asthenozoospermia, especially in case of impaired sperm mitochondrial function. Due to their insulin-sensitizing action, a role for these molecules may be envisaged for the treatment of infertility caused by carbohydrate metabolism derangement.
The Relationship between Positive Memory Phenomenology and Alcohol Use among Trauma-Exposed Individuals

Abstract Background: Evidence links positive memory characteristics and hazardous alcohol use (HAU). Relevant to the current study, evidence also indicates that trauma-exposed individuals, especially those with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, report difficulties retrieving/accessing positive memories and report HAU. Objective: Considering this literature, we uniquely examined if and which positive memory characteristics were associated with HAU, and the potential mediating role of PTSD symptom severity in the examined relations. Methods: A sample of 126 trauma-exposed community participants seeking mental health treatment (Mage=34.97 years) completed measures of HAU (Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test), positive memory characteristics (Memory Experiences Questionnaire–Short Form [MEQ-SF]), and PTSD severity (PTSD Checklist for DSM-5). We conducted 8 hierarchical multiple regressions; Step 1 examined effects of gender and Step 2 added a single MEQ-SF dimension (specificity, valence, emotional intensity, sensory details, vividness, accessibility, coherence, sharing). Results: In Steps 1 (β=.27) and 2 (βs from .27-.28), gender was associated with HAU. In Step 2, positive memory characteristics of specificity (β=.17), sensory details (β=.17), sharing (β=.23), and valence (β=-.19) were associated with greater HAU. PTSD severity mediated relations between sensory details (β=.09, p=.048), emotional intensity (β=.12, p=.011), and sharing (β=.09, p=.036), and the extent of HAU. Conclusions and implications: Results that specificity, greater sharing, more sensory details, and higher negative valence of positive memories were associated with greater HAU offer potential points of intervention.
Pengaruh PAD, DAU, SiLPA, Realisasi Anggaran dan Tanggal Penetapan Perda APBD Terhadap Anggaran Pembangunan Pada Pemerintah Kabupaten/Kota Provinsi Jawa Tengah – D. I. Yogyakarta Periode 2007 – 2010

This research aims to analyze the influence of the realization of the previous budget and the date of Local BUDGETS Assignment to SiLPA, as well as analyzing the influence of PAD, SiLPA and DAU to next year development budget. This research consists of 5 independent variables and 2 dependent variables. The independent variables namely: PAD, DAU, SiLPA, realization of Budget the date of Local BUDGETS Assignment. While the dependent variables are the SiLPA and Quantity of next year development budget. The Data used in this study is secondary data taken from BPS and Internet. This research uses Multiple Regression Analysis, and Excel 2007software was used to do the calculation. Results from the study shows that SiLPA is affected by the realization of the Budget but is not affected by the date of Local BUDGETS Assignment. While the quantity of next year development budget is affected by the PAD, SiLPA and DAU.
A procedure to detect and identify specific chemicals of potential inhalation toxicity concern in aerosols

Abstract Objective Understanding the potential inhalation toxicity of poorly characterized aerosols is challenging both because aerosols may contain numerous chemicals and because it is difficult to predict which chemicals may present significant inhalation toxicity concerns at the observed levels. We have developed a novel systematic procedure to address these challenges through non-targeted chemical analysis by two-dimensional gas chromatography–time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC × GC-TOFMS) and assessment of the results using publicly available toxicity data to prioritize the tentatively identified detected chemicals according to potential inhalation toxicity. Materials and Methods The procedure involves non-targeted chemical analysis of aerosol samples utilizing GC × GC-TOFMS, which is selected because it is an effective technique for detecting chemicals in complex samples and assigning tentative identities according to the mass spectra. For data evaluation, existing toxicity data (e.g. from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency CompTox Chemicals Dashboard) are used to calculate multiple toxicity metrics that can be compared among the tentatively identified chemicals. These metrics include hazard quotient, incremental lifetime cancer risk, and metrics analogous to hazard quotient that we designated as exposure–(toxicology endpoint) ratios. Results and Discussion We demonstrated the utility of our procedure by detecting, identifying, and prioritizing specific chemicals of potential inhalation toxicity concern in the mainstream smoke generated from the machine-smoking of marijuana blunts. Conclusion By designing a systematic approach for detecting and identifying numerous chemicals in complex aerosol samples and prioritizing the chemicals in relation to different inhalation toxicology endpoints, we have developed an effective approach to elucidate the potential inhalation toxicity of aerosols.