Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Livestock and Animal Research

Objective: This study was aimed to characterize three different cattle breeds based on the morphometrics. Methods: Five (5) morphometrics which include body length (BL), chest girth (CG), withers height (WH), rump length (RL) and chest depth (CD) were measured in each animal. A total of 119 cows belonging to White Fulani (40 heads), Muturu (40 heads) and Pasundan (39 heads) were used in this study. The age of animal study was 20.93±1.62 months (White Fulani), 21.63±1.75 months (Muturu) and 20.46±2.99 months (Pasundan). Hence, two statistical methods of canonical Ahmed et al. (2021) Livest. Anim. Res. 19(3): 319-325 320 | https://jurnal.uns. ac.id/lar/index discriminant analysis (CDA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) methods were computed in this study to characterize of animals based on their morphometrics using SPSS 16.0 package. Results: Mostly the morphometrics of White Fulani and Pasundan cows are similar while those of Muturu are significantly lower than the two other breeds. Four morphometric measurements of CG, RL, BL and WH were identified as a discriminator variables in animal study based on the CDA method. The CDA of morphometrics able to classify 85% (White Fulani), 100% (Muturu) and 74.4% (Pasundan) of the animal into their original breed group. Conclusions: The closeness between observations from White Fulani and Pasundan might be due to them being both Zebu (Bos indicus) unlike the Muturu with a type breed of Bos bracycheros.
Study of the role of microRNAs 16 and 135a in patients with lifelong premature ejaculation receiving fluoxetine daily for 3 months: A prospective case control study

We aimed to determine the level of miRNAs 16 and 135a in lifelong premature ejaculation (LPE) patients versus controls. Moreover, we evaluated the potential interplay between the studied miRNAs and fluoxetine in these patients after utilizing fluoxetine daily for 3 months. The study involved 60 consecutive LPE patients and 20 healthy age matched individuals as controls. The median miRNA16 was significantly higher in the controls (1.02) compared to the patients (0.31) (p < 0.001). Moreover, the median miRNA‐135a was significantly higher in the controls compared to the patients 1.02 and 0.35, p < 0.001, respectively. In addition, the median pre‐treatment miRNA16 in the responders was 0.29 that significantly increased to 0.66 (p < 0.001). The median pre‐treatment miRNA‐135a in the responders was 0.27 that significantly increased to 0.65 (p < 0.001). Furthermore, considering EXP(β) for the odds ratio evaluation, with a 95% degree of confidence, a 1 fold increase in pre‐treatment miRNA 135a fold change decreases the odds for being responsive to SSRI by 0.028. Meanwhile, there was non‐significant association between fluoxetine responsiveness and age, pre‐treatment miRNA 16, pre‐treatment PEDT and pre‐treatment IELT. The current study had shown that a lower pre‐treatment miRNA 135a was significantly associated with response to fluoxetine.
Time-of-Day Variation in SARS-CoV-2 RNA Levels during the Second Wave of COVID-19

Circadian rhythms influence and coordinate an organism’s response to its environment and to invading pathogens. We studied the diurnal variation in severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) RNA in nasal/throat swabs collected in late 2020 to spring 2021 in a population immunologically naïve to SARS-CoV-2 and prior to widespread vaccination. SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic PCR data from 1698 participants showed a significantly higher viral load in samples obtained in the afternoon, in males, and in hospitalised patients when linear mixed modelling was applied. This study illustrates the importance of recording sample collection times when measuring viral replication parameters in clinical and research studies.
Gender Salience and Recategorization of New Directors: The Role of Political Ideology

Pressure from stakeholders has resulted in increased board gender diversity. Such diversity, however, goes against the well-accepted concept of demographic homophily. In addition, other studies find that increased board gender diversity may not unequivocally lead to better firm decisions, which does not sit well with the assumption that demographic minorities bring diverse information/ideas to the board. This study advances an explanation for these inconsistencies in the literature by integrating symbolic management and recategorization theories to assert that boards outwardly conform to greater gender diversity, whilst choosing to reinforce value homophily by recategorizing female new directors based on shared political ideology. We test our hypotheses on a sample of 13,483 new director appointments in 2,473 US firms using fractional regression analysis. The findings show that the appointment of a new female director strengthens the association between the board's and the new director's political ideology. In addition, this relationship is strengthened when there is a female CEO, or when the new female director has a less similar demographic background. Moreover, supplemental analysis considering ethnic minority new director appointments shows similar results. The study makes important contributions toward the literatures on female new director selection, recategorization and political ideology. We shed light on why research is ambivalent regarding the benefits of gender diversity since findings show that boards compensate for gender diversity by becoming more homogeneous on political ideology, a value dimension that influences board decisions.
Chronic scrotal heat stress causes testicular interstitial inflammation and fibrosis: An experimental study in mice

Abstract Background Chronic heat stress is a risk factor that adversely affects the reproduction system. Inflammation and fibrosis are 2 important response processes to damaged tissues. Objective This study investigates the association of chronic scrotal heat stress with testicular interstitial inflammation and fibrosis in mice. Materials and Methods For all experiments, 8-10 wk old male Swiss mice (Mus musculus) (20-23 gr) were divided into 3 groups (n = 10/each). The heat-stress groups were submerged in a water bath at 37 C and 40 C, while the control group was treated at 25 C. The testicular tissues underwent hematoxylin and eosin staining, picro sirius red staining, and immunohistochemistry for intercellular adhesion molecule-1, fibroblast-specific protein 1, F4/80, collagen I, and Ki-67 staining to determine the testicular interstitial inflammation and fibrosis. Results Chronic scrotal heat stress impairs spermatogenesis and reverses testicular histological structure. In this study, heat stress significantly induced increased interstitial cell proliferation and upregulation of intercellular adhesion molecule-1 expression in the interstitial testicular tissue. In the interstitial testicular tissue, the number of F4/80-positive macrophages and the number of fibroblast-specific protein 1-positive fibroblasts were significantly increased in the heat-exposed groups compared to those in the control group. The heat exposed groups had substantially increased extracellular matrix collagen accumulation in their testicular interstitial tissues. Conclusion Heat stress adversely affects the testicular structure and spermatogenesis, causes inflammation, and leads to testicular interstitial fibrosis.
Tenofovir-Diphosphate in Dried Blood Spots vs Tenofovir in Urine/Plasma for Oral Preexposure Prophylaxis Adherence Monitoring

Abstract Background Tenofovir-diphosphate (TFV-DP) measured in dried blood spots (DBS) and tenofovir (TFV) measured in urine/plasma have been used to measure TFV-based oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) adherence. However, there are limited data comparing these 3 metrics and their appropriate use for PrEP adherence monitoring. Methods We collected DBS, urine, and plasma samples from HIV-negative adults randomized to a low (2 doses/week), moderate (4 doses/week), or perfect (7 doses/week) adherence group (via directly observed therapy) of tenofovir disoproxil fumarate/emtricitabine (TDF/FTC) for 6 weeks, followed by a 4-week washout phase. Drug concentrations were measured using liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. Linear mixed-effects modeling was used to examine associations between drug concentrations and dosing time. Results Among 28 participants, the median age was 33 years, and 12 (43%) were female. At steady state, 25th percentile TFV-DP concentrations were 466, 779, and 1375 fmol/3 mm punch in the low, moderate, and perfect adherence group, respectively. Correlation was stronger between quantifiable TFV-DP and plasma TFV (r = 0.65; P < .01) than between TFV-DP and urine TFV (r = 0.50; P < .01). Among all participants, each additional week of cumulative dosing on average led to a mean increase of 158 fmol/3 mm punch (P < .001) in TFV-DP during the dosing phase. Each additional day after the last dose was associated with 43 fmol/3 mm punch lower TFV-DP (P = .07). Conclusions TFV-DP levels in DBS provide valuable insight into both dosing recency and cumulative doses from variable adherence patterns. Our observed benchmark TFV-DP concentrations were slightly higher than prior predicted estimates based on convenience samples.
Antioxidant Effect of Coenzyme Q10 in the Prevention of Oxidative Stress in Arsenic-Treated CHO-K1 Cells and Possible Participation of Zinc as a Pro-Oxidant Agent

Oxidative stress is an imbalance between levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and antioxidant enzymes. Compounds with antioxidant properties, such as coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), can reduce cellular imbalance caused by an increase in ROS. CoQ10 participates in modulating redox homeostasis due to its antioxidant activity and its preserving mitochondrial functions. Thus, the present study demonstrated the protective effects of CoQ10 against oxidative stress and cytotoxicity induced by arsenic (As). Antioxidant capacity, formation of hydroperoxides, generation of ROS, and the effect on cellular viability of CoQ10, were investigated to determine the protective effect of CoQ10 against As and pro-oxidant compounds, such as zinc. Cell viability assays showed that CoQ10 is cytoprotective under cellular stress conditions, with potent antioxidant activity, regardless of the concentration tested. Zn, when used at higher concentrations, can increase ROS and show a pro-oxidant effect causing cell damage. The cytotoxic effect observed for As, Zn, or the combination of both could be prevented by CoQ10, without any decrease in its activity at cellular levels when combined with Zn.
FI-WSOD: Foreground Information Guided Weakly Supervised Object Detection

Existing solutions for weakly supervised object detection (WSOD) generally follow the multiple instance learning (MIL) paradigm to formulate WSOD as a multi-class classification problem over a set of region proposals. However, without the supervision signal of ground-truth boxes, the training objective of multi-class classification makes the detectors devote main efforts to finding the most common pattern of each class, as the common pattern is always the most discriminative evidence for classification. In addition, although learning from distinguishing multiple foreground classes, the detectors can still ignore to differentiate foreground regions from the background ones, which causes false alarm in prediction. These two points account for the limited localization capability of MIL-based WSOD methods. To this end, we propose foreground information guided WSOD (FI-WSOD), a novel framework that introduces an extra foreground-background binary classification (F-BBC) sub-task to the original MIL-based WSOD paradigm. At the training stage, the involvement of F-BBC task not only improves the feature representation of the network, but also provides extra information from the foreground-background perspective. By leveraging the learnt foreground information, a Foreground Guided Self-Training (FGST) module is further proposed to filter out noisy samples, and to mine representative seeds from the remaining proposals. Moreover, a Multi-Seed Training strategy is performed to reduce the impact of noisy labels when training the self-training networks in FGST. We have conducted extensive experiments on the prevalent Pascal VOC 2007, Pascal VOC 2012 and MSCOCO datasets, and report a series of state-of-the-art records achieved by our proposed framework.
Six Sigma learning evaluation model using Bloom’s Taxonomy

Purpose This paper aims to propose a learning evaluation model for Green Belts and Black Belts at the training level. A question bank has been developed on the basis of Bloom’s learning classification and applied to a group of employees who were being trained in Six Sigma (SS). Their results were then used to decide on the students’ approval and to guide the instructor’s plan of teaching for the next classes. Design/methodology/approach An action research has been conducted to develop a question bank of 310 questions based on the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy, to implement the evaluation model, and to apply it during the SS training. Findings The evaluation model has been designed so that the students do not proceed unless they have acquired the conceptual knowledge at each step of the DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) roadmap. At the end of the evaluation process, the students’ results have been analyzed. The number of mistakes in all stages of DMAIC was equal, implying that the training was uniform the entire roadmap. However, the opposite happened in each of the Bloom’s Taxonomy levels, showing that some skills need to be better stimulated by the instructor than others. Research limitations/implications The learning evaluation model proposed in this paper has been applied to a group of 70 employees who were being trained in SS at a Brazilian aircraft manufacturer. The data have been analyzed using Microsoft Excel® and Minitab® 17 Statistical Software. Originality/value Despite the abundance of courses offering the SS Green Belt and Black Belt certifications, there is no standard evaluation to ensure the training quality. Thus, this paper proposes an innovative learning evaluation model.
Utility and its Measurement

SUMMARY The different methods which have been suggested for measuring unidimensional and multidimensional utility functions in business and related fields are described and discussed. The factors which should influence the measurement method chosen in a given decision-making situation are explicitly considered. The concept of group utility and the procedures which exist for formulating a coherent risk policy for a whole organization are described. Several practical applications of utility theory are given and conclusions reached as to those areas where further research is needed.
Correlations among nutrient contents in soil, leaf, and fruit tissues and yield of Olea europaea L. cv. Arbequina in the South of Brazil

The objective of the work was to relate the nutritional status of olive orchards from the central region of the Rio Grande do Sul with fruit yield and identify unadjusted points in the fertilization recommendation system to be improved. Soil, leaf, and fruit samples were taken from eight orchards, between 2018 and 2020, and were evaluated for the contents of N, P, K, B, pH, TOC, Al+3, and soil texture. The 20-40 cm layer in soil showed acidity and Al+3 content at potentially restrictive levels. The available P and B contents in soil were considered low. In leaf tissue, K and N presented high contents. The correlations revealed that fruit yield was limited by high N contents on leaves, especially in winter. B content in fruits diminished in higher soil pH, suggesting that the B threshold value in soil for olives in the south of Brazil should be pH-dependent.
IL-6 and Leptin Are Potential Biomarkers for Osteoporotic Fracture Risk Assessment and Prediction of Postmenopausal Women with Low Bone Mass: A Follow-Up Study Using a Regional Sample Cohort

Osteoporotic fracture, a major complication which is known as the outcome postmenopausal osteoporosis, seriously threatens the health of postmenopausal women. At present, the traditional osteoporotic fracture prediction methods are characterized by inconvenient application and time-consuming statistical results, while predictive serum biomarkers can make up for this shortcoming. Accurate and advanced risk prediction of osteoporotic fracture is meaningful to early prevention and intervention, effectively avoiding the risk of this disease and the secondary fracture in the surgical treatment. In this study, based on the BEYOND cohort, a 2-year follow-up study was conducted after subjects participated to survey if OF occurred. Independent sample t-test and Mann–Whitney U-test were used to analyze the differences of bone metabolism biomarkers between the OF and non-OF group. Cox proportional hazard model was used to screen the potential biomarkers might be used to predict OF risk. ROC curves and AUCs were used to analyze the predictive accuracy, and the Delong's test was used to compare the differences between the AUCs. 15 postmenopausal women with low bone mass and OF were found, and other 60 subjects without OF were matched with 1 : 4, age, and BMI classification as control group. The serum IL-6 (OR = 1.139, 95%CI = 1.058 − 1.226) and leptin (OR = 0.921, 95%CI = 0.848 − 1.000) were found as OF risk predictive biomarkers for postmenopausal women with low bone mass with high accuracy (IL − 6 = 0.871) (leptin = 0.813) and accuracy enhanced when they were combined (AUC = 0.898). The results of Delong's test showed that the difference of AUC between leptin and IL-6&Leptin was meaningful (P = 0.024) but meaningless between IL-6 and leptin (P = 0.436), IL-6 and IL-6&Leptin (P = 0.606). To sum up, IL-6 and leptin are the predictive biomarkers of OF for postmenopausal women with low bone mass. The IL-6 can improve the prediction accuracy of leptin (P = 0.024), but not vice versa (P = 0.606). Trial Information. Registered on the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry already. (Registration Number: ChiCTR-SOC-17013090).
Impact of Valence States on Superconductivity of Oxygen Incorporated Iron Telluride and Iron Selenide Films

We report on the local electronic structure of oxygen incorporated FeTe and FeSe films and how this relates to superconductivity observed in these films. In the case of FeTe, intially grown films are measured to be non-superconducting, but become superconducting following oxygen incorporation. In FeSe the opposite happens, initially grown films are measured to be superconducting, but experience a quenching of superconductivity following oxygen incorporation. Total Fluorescence Yield (TFY) X-ray absorption experiments show that oxygen incorporation changes the initial Fe valence state in both the initially grown FeTe and FeSe films to mainly Fe3+ in the oxygen incorporated films. In contrast we observe that while Te moves to a mixed Te0/Te4+ valence state, the Se always remains Se0. This work highlights how different responses of the electronic structure by the respective chalcogenides to oxidation could be related to the mechanisms which are inducing superconductivity in FeTe and quenching superconductivity in FeSe.
Identification and Validation of CDKN1A and HDAC1 as Senescence-Related Hub Genes in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Purpose Cellular senescence participates in the occurrence and development of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). This study aimed to identify senescence-related hub genes and explore effective diagnostic markers and therapeutic targets for COPD. Methods The microarray data from the GSE38974 dataset was downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. The overlapping genes between genes from the GSE38974 dataset and CellAge database were considered differentially expressed senescence-related genes (DESRGs). Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analyses were performed using R software. Protein-protein interaction (PPI), miRNA-mRNA network, and competitive endogenous RNA (ceRNA) network were constructed and visualized by Cytoscape software. GSE100281 and GSE103174 datasets were employed to validate the expression and diagnostic value of hub genes. Reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) was used to measure the mRNA levels of hub genes in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from COPD and control samples. Results A total of 23 DESRGs were identified between COPD samples and healthy controls. Enrichment analysis revealed that DESRGs were mainly related to apoptosis and senescence. Moreover, four hub genes and two key clusters were acquired by Cytohubba and MCODE plugin, respectively. CDKN1A and HDAC1 were verified as final hub genes based on GSE100281 and GSE103174 datasets validation. The mRNA expression level of CDKN1A was negatively related to forced expiratory volume in 1 second/forced vital capacity (FEV1/FVC), and HDAC1 expression had the opposite correlation. Finally, an HDAC1-based ceRNA network, including 6 miRNAs and 11 lncRNAs, was constructed. Conclusion We identified two senescence-related hub genes, CDKN1A and HDAC1, which may be effective biomarkers for COPD diagnosis and treatment. An HDAC1-related ceRNA network was constructed to clarify the role of senescence in COPD pathogenesis.
Standing Genetic Diversity and Transmission Bottleneck Size Drive Adaptation in Bacteriophage Qβ

A critical issue to understanding how populations adapt to new selective pressures is the relative contribution of the initial standing genetic diversity versus that generated de novo. RNA viruses are an excellent model to study this question, as they form highly heterogeneous populations whose genetic diversity can be modulated by factors such as the number of generations, the size of population bottlenecks, or exposure to new environment conditions. In this work, we propagated at nonoptimal temperature (43 °C) two bacteriophage Qβ populations differing in their degree of heterogeneity. Deep sequencing analysis showed that, prior to the temperature change, the most heterogeneous population contained some low-frequency mutations that had previously been detected in the consensus sequences of other Qβ populations adapted to 43 °C. Evolved populations with origin in this ancestor reached similar growth rates, but the adaptive pathways depended on the frequency of these standing mutations and the transmission bottleneck size. In contrast, the growth rate achieved by populations with origin in the less heterogeneous ancestor did depend on the transmission bottleneck size. The conclusion is that viral diversification in a particular environment may lead to the emergence of mutants capable of accelerating adaptation when the environment changes.
Investigation of Aggregation Behavior and Molecular Weight Changes of Asphaltene Model Compound

We investigate the aggregation of Violanthrone-78 (VO-78), a model asphaltene compound, in mixtures of toluene and n-heptane (heptol) using spectroscopic and dynamic and static light scattering techniques. The light scattering experiments were conducted using pure toluene and n-heptane, as well as 25/75, 50/50, and 75/25 heptol solvents. Furthermore, the concentration of VO-78 varied from 10-8 M to 10-3 M in these suspensions. The dynamic light scattering experiments were used to study the aggregate sizes from the intensity autocorrelation function at different n-heptane volume fractions. The results show the onset of aggregation of about 50 % n-heptane volume fractions. The aggregate sizes in toluene, within the range of concentrations examined, were below the instrument's detection limit (< 5 nm) but increased with increasing dosages of n-heptane. On the other hand, the aggregate size in pure heptane was observed to be greater than the maximum limit of the instrument (> 10 μm). Furthermore, the static light scattering experiments provided an anomalous behavior. Increasing concentrations of VO-78 in the solvent resulted in lowering the parameter Kc/Rq, where c is the molar concentration.