Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Zygote Diameter and Total Cytoplasmic Volume as Useful Predictive Tools of Blastocyst Quality

Abstract Introduction According to the Embryo Protection Act, the selection of embryos with the greatest potential for successful implantation in Germany must be performed in the pronucleus stage. The main aim of this study was to identify morphokinetic parameters that could serve as noninvasive biomarkers of blastocyst quality in countries with restrictive reproductive medicine laws. Materials and Methods The sample comprised 191 embryos from 40 patients undergoing antagonist cycles for intracytoplasmic sperm injection. Blastocysts were cultured in an EmbryoScope chamber and video records were validated to determine the post-injection timing of various developmental stages, cleavage stages, and blastocyst formation. The Gardner and Schoolcraft scoring system was used to characterize blastocyst quality. Results Morphokinetic data showed that the zygote diameter and total cytoplasmic volume were significantly different between good and poor blastocysts quality groups, where zygotes, which formed better blastocyst quality, had smaller diameter and smaller total cytoplasmic volume. Zygotes with more rapid pronuclear disappearance developed in better-quality blastocysts. Differences between good- and poor-quality blastocysts were also observed for late-stage parameters and for the spatial arrangement of blastomere where tetrahedral embryos more frequently forming good-quality blastocyst compare to the non-tetrahedral. Conclusions The study findings could be used to enhance embryo selection, especially in countries with strict Embryo Law Regulations. Further studies, including those in which the implantation potential and pregnancy rate are considered, are warranted to confirm these preliminary results.
Reducing the Kidney Uptake of High Contrast CXCR4 PET Imaging Agents via Linker Modifications

Purpose: The C-X-C chemokine receptor 4 (CXCR4) is highly expressed in many subtypes of cancers, notably in several kidney-based malignancies. We synthesized, labeled, and assessed a series of radiotracers based on a previous high contrast PET imaging radiopharmaceutical [68Ga]Ga-BL02, with modifications to its linker and metal chelator, in order to improve its tumor-to-kidney contrast ratio. Methods: Based on the design of BL02, a piperidine-based cationic linker (BL06) and several anionic linkers (tri-Aad (BL17); tri-D-Glu (BL20); tri-Asp (BL25); and tri-cysteic acid (BL31)) were substituted for the triglutamate linker. Additionally, the DOTA chelator was swapped for a DOTAGA chelator (BL30). Each radiotracer was labeled with 68Ga and evaluated in CXCR4-expressing Daudi xenograft mice with biodistribution and/or PET imaging studies. Results: Of all the evaluated radiotracers, [68Ga]Ga-BL31 showed the most promising biodistribution profile, with a lower kidney uptake compared to [68Ga]Ga-BL02, while retaining the high imaging contrast capabilities of [68Ga]Ga-BL02. [68Ga]Ga-BL31 also compared favorably to [68Ga]Ga-Pentixafor, with superior imaging contrast in all non-target organs. The other anionic linker-based radiotracers showed either equivocal or worse contrast ratios compared to [68Ga]Ga-BL02; however, [68Ga]Ga-BL25 also showed lower kidney uptake, as compared to that of [68Ga]Ga-BL02. Meanwhile, [68Ga]Ga-BL06 had high non-target organ uptake and relatively lower tumor uptake, while [68Ga]Ga-BL30 showed significantly increased kidney uptake and similar tumor uptake values. Conclusions: [68Ga]Ga-BL31 is an optimized CXCR4-targeting radiopharmaceutical with lower kidney retention that has clinical potential for PET imaging and radioligand therapy.
Hoxa5 Inhibits the Proliferation and Induces Adipogenic Differentiation of Subcutaneous Preadipocytes in Goats

Simple Summary The homeobox a5 (Hoxa5) is not only a critical developmental transcription factor, but also plays an important role in the regulation of adipocyte differentiation and lipid metabolism. In our study, we found that Hoxa5 promotes goat subcutaneous preadipocyte adipogenic and inhibits its proliferation. This provides a theoretical basis for the regulation of goat subcutaneous preadipocyte differentiation and proliferation. Abstract The homeobox a5 (Hoxa5) plays considerable roles in the differentiation and lipid metabolism of adipocytes. However, the current knowledge about the mechanistic roles and functions of Hoxa5 in goat subcutaneous preadipocyte remains unclear. Therefore, Hoxa5 loss-of-function and gain-of-function was performed to reveal its functions in adipogenesis. For differentiation, overexpression of Hoxa5 notably increased the expression of adipogenic genes (PPARγ, CEBP/α, CEBP/β, AP2, and SREBP1), as well as promoted goat subcutaneous preadipocyte lipid accumulation. Knockdown of Hoxa5 mediated by siRNA technique significantly inhibited its differentiation and suppressed the accumulation of lipid droplets. Regarding proliferation, overexpression of Hoxa5 reduced the number of cells stained with crystal violet, and inhibited mRNA expression of the marker genes including CCNE1, PCNA, CCND1, and CDK2, and also significantly reduced EdU-positive rates. Consistently, knockdown of Hoxa5 demonstrated the opposite tendency. In conclusion, these data demonstrated that Hoxa5 promotes adipogenic differentiation of goat subcutaneous preadipocyte and inhibits its proliferation in vitro.
Disparities in Comprehension of the Obstetric Consent According to Language Preference Among Hispanic/Latinx Pregnant Patients

Background: We assessed understanding of the obstetric consent form between patients with English and Spanish language preference. Methods: This observational study included pregnant patients who identified as Hispanic/Latinx with English or Spanish language preference (defined as what language the patient prefers to receive healthcare information) and prenatal care providers at a large academic medical center from 2018 to 2021. Patient demographics, language preference, literacy, numeracy, acculturation, comprehension of the obstetric consent, and provider explanations were collected. Results: We report descriptive statistics and thematic analysis with an inductive approach from 30 patients with English preference, 10 with Spanish preference, and 23 providers. The English group demonstrated 72% median correct responses about the consent form; the Spanish group demonstrated 61% median correct responses. Regardless of language, the participants demonstrated limited understanding of certain topics, such as risks of cesarean birth. Discussion: Overall comprehension of key information in an obstetric consent form was low, with differences in language groups, which highlights opportunities for improvements in communication across language barriers. Innovations in the communication of critical pregnancy information for patients with limited English proficiency need to be developed and tested.
The Two Sides of Cognitive Masking: A Three-Level Bayesian Meta-Analysis on Twice-Exceptionality

We compared the Wechsler scores of individuals with twice-exceptionality (2e) and giftedness using a three-level Bayesian meta-analysis. Ninety-five effect sizes were calculated from 15 studies (n = 2,106). Results show that individuals with 2e who have learning disabilities perform lower than individuals with giftedness in Full-Scale Intelligence Quotient (FSIQ; g = −0.62), working memory (g = −0.79), and processing speed (g = −0.75). Individuals with 2e who have attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder have a distinct profile in which only processing speed differs from individuals with giftedness (g = −0.55). Results suggest that using a single Intelligence Quotient (IQ) score in the identification process will be misleading. Moreover, IQ may mask the strengths or weaknesses of individuals with 2e.
Analysis of Binding Determinants for Different Classes of Competitive and Noncompetitive Inhibitors of Glycine Transporters

Glycine transporters are interesting therapeutic targets as they play significant roles in glycinergic and glutamatergic systems. The search for new selective inhibitors of particular types of glycine transporters (GlyT-1 and GlyT-2) with beneficial kinetics is hampered by limited knowledge about the spatial structure of these proteins. In this study, a pool of homology models of GlyT-1 and GlyT-2 in different conformational states was constructed using the crystal structures of related transporters from the SLC6 family and the recently revealed structure of GlyT-1 in the inward-open state, in order to investigate their binding sites. The binding mode of the known GlyT-1 and GlyT-2 inhibitors was determined using molecular docking studies, molecular dynamics simulations, and MM-GBSA free energy calculations. The results of this study indicate that two amino acids, Gly373 and Leu476 in GlyT-1 and the corresponding Ser479 and Thr582 in GlyT-2, are mainly responsible for the selective binding of ligands within the S1 site. Apart from these, one pocket of the S2 site, which lies between TM3 and TM10, may also be important. Moreover, selective binding of noncompetitive GlyT-1 inhibitors in the intracellular release pathway is affected by hydrophobic interactions with Ile399, Met382, and Leu158. These results can be useful in the rational design of new glycine transporter inhibitors with desired selectivity and properties in the future.
Massive MIMO antenna system for 5G base stations with directive ports and switched beamsteering capabilities

A 72-port (288 antennas) triangular-shaped massive multiple-input-multiple-output (mMIMO) antenna system is presented for fifth generation (5G) base stations. Each side of the antenna system consists of three layers with a total size of 44.4 × 29.6 × 0.1524 cm 3 , and contains 24 ports. Each port (subarray) consists of 2 × 2 patches on the top layer, their feeding network with pre-calculated phases is on the bottom layer and the ground plane is in the middle one. Each port is fed in a way to tilt its beam direction with respect to others to achieve uncorrelated individual patterns. The antenna system is the first to support two operating modes: simultaneous individual port operation (i.e. 72-port MIMO) and mMIMO array operation (i.e. with beam switching). The measured bandwidth is 100 MHz that covers the band from 3.45 to 3.55 GHz. The measured gain of a single port equals to 9.41 dBi. The envelop correlation coefficient does not exceed 0.1198. A beamsteering method to steer the beam of each 24-port side to different locations in the space is presented and applied based on the non-uniform port patterns (unlike most conventional methods). Thirteen switched beams are obtained with centre angle coverage up to 34° in elevation with maximum gain of 19.5 dBi.
The impact of business model workforce configurations on value creation and value appropriation in the Australian aged care sector

This article examines the influence of business model workforce configurations on value creation and capture in a skills-based service setting, extending previous research on business model performance. We investigate workforce configurations (higher versus lower stability and skills) and value creation and appropriation in aged care organisations. More skilled and stable workforces are associated with greater value creation but not appropriation, while less skilled and less stable workforces are associated with lower value creation and higher appropriation. This informs a substantive challenge in delivering value creation while ensuring financially viable business models in a sector with significant consequences for quality failure. JEL Classification: J24 - Human Capital • Skills • Occupational Choice • Labor Productivity; L2 - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior; M12 - Personnel Management; I11 - Analysis of Health Care Markets
Investigating the Effectiveness of Clustering for Story Point Estimation

Automated techniques to estimate Story Points (SP) for user stories in agile software development came to the fore a decade ago. Yet, the state-of-the-art estimation techniques' accuracy has room for improvement. In this paper, we present a new approach for SP estimation, based on analysing textual features of software issues by employing latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) and clustering. We first use LDA to represent issue reports in a new space of generated topics. We then use hierarchical clustering to agglomerate issues into clusters based on their topic similarities. Next, we build estimation models using the issues in each cluster. Then, we find the closest cluster to the new coming issue and use the model from that cluster to estimate the SP. Our approach is evaluated on a dataset of 26 open source projects with a total of 31,960 issues and compared against both baselines and state-of-the-art SP estimation techniques. The results show that the estimation performance of our proposed approach is as good as the state-of-the-art. However, none of these approaches is statistically significantly better than more naive estimators in all cases, which does not justify their additional complexity. We therefore encourage future work to develop alternative strategies for story points estimation. The experimental data and scripts we used in this work are publicly available to allow for replication and extension.
Entrepreneurship Behavior of Indigenous Fish Farmers in Eastern Chitwan, Nepal

Aquaculture has great potential in the Terai region of Nepal due to the suitability of pond resources and government attempts to improve the fisheries sector. The majority of fish farmers in Chitwan belong to indigenous nationalities. Entrepreneurship skills help in uplifting local rural communities but due to the lack of attractiveness and economic production of fish in Chitwan, there is a higher chance of fish enterprise failure. Hence, an immediate need of assessing entrepreneurial behavior was felt and the study was carried out among indigenous fish farmers of Eastern Chitwan. For data collection, a questionnaire survey was conducted among eighty random respondents and a key informant interview was performed with expert farmers and fish scientists using the convergent parallel mixed method. Collected data were analyzed using SPSS version 22 and MS Excel. The entrepreneurial behavioral index (EBI) was calculated for each respondent, and it was assessed with various sociological and production factors. Average EBI was found among respondents. Most of the surveyed entrepreneurs have a low level of innovativeness, farming knowledge, and leadership while a medium level of motivation and decision-making ability. From the t-test, it was found that factors like AKC (Agriculture Knowledge Centre) visit, farming type, and organizational membership are significant but farmers’ gender, extension consultation, training, information source, education, and experience are nonsignificant with respondents’ entrepreneurship. Farmers who do commercial farming, visit AKC, and are members of social organizations have relatively more entrepreneurial behavioral indexes than other farmers. For the improvement of fish enterprises in the study area, training related to fisheries innovativeness, fish farming knowledge, and leadership is recommended through the collaboration of AKC and social organizations.
Parametric Assessment of Soil Nailing on the Stability of Slopes Using Numerical Approach

This study focuses on the stability analysis of slopes reinforced by soil nailing. The effects of slope geometry and nail parameters on slope stability are investigated using PLAXIS 2D. Four different slope angles and three different backslope angles are considered for assessing the effect of slope geometry on the stability of a nailed slope. The factor of safety (FS) was found to decrease with the increasing values of the slope angle as well as the backslope angle. The influence of different nail parameters (nail inclination, nail length, and nail spacing) was also investigated. With the increase in nail inclination, FS was found to increase initially and thereafter, reaching a peak value followed by a drop in FS. The optimum nail inclination was found between 0 and 25° at a horizontal angle, depending on the different slope geometries, which is evident from observation of the slip surface as well. With the increase of nail length, FS increases; however, the increase was small after L/H (length of nail/height of slope) reached a value of 0.9. Moreover, increasing the length of the nail was found to be effective in reducing the lateral movement of the slope. The maximum nail forces are observed in the bottom-most row of nails and increase with the depth. The inclusion of soil nailing with optimum nail parameters can increase FS by 29–75% depending on the slope geometry, signifying the effectiveness of nailing.
Cardiac morphology changes in horses as a response to various types of sports

ABSTRACT Cardiovascular problems can cause poor performance and sudden cardiac death during high-intensity competitions in athletics both humans and horses. A cardiac examination is one of the most important parameters used to define cardiac performance and cardiovascular diseases in sports horses. Some studies look at the cardiac morphology of horses from racing, eventing, endurance, and dressage. However, there is no information directly comparing these sports on the cardiac response. The objective was to evaluate the cardiac response of horses to various types of sports. Forty-eight horses were enrolled in this study and divided into 4 groups according to the type of sport: 12 control nonathlete horses, 12 show-jumping horses, 12 dressage horses, and 12 endurance horses. Electrocardiography with modified precordial leads was used to obtain electrophysiological heart function, and transthoracic echocardiography was evaluated. There were no significant differences among the groups concerning mean age and body weight. The electrocardiography and echocardiography results suggested that left ventricular internal diameter was highly associated with long-duration high-intensity exercise, such as endurance sports, and left ventricular wall thickness was significantly associated with short-duration high-intensity sports, such as show jumping. This study demonstrated exercise-induced cardiac morphology changes in each type of sports training.
Design and implementation of optimal controller for DFIG-WT using autonomous groups particle swarm optimization

There are many types of generators used within wind energy such as doubly fed induction generator (DFIG). Particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is simple, robust and easy to implement. In addition to the privilege of PSO, autonomous groups particle swarm optimization (AGPSO) has the advantages of using diverse autonomous groups which result in more randomized and directed search. Applying AGPSO to tune PI controller to control DFIG is proposed in this paper. An implemented laboratory prototype consists of brushless DC motor (BLDC) for simulating the various wind speeds. Wound rotor induction machine, working as DFIG. This system is a stand-alone system. System identification strategy was introduced in this work. In this study, AGPSO is suggested for tuning the PI controller. Different case studies are performed, such as step changes in both speed and electrical load for showing the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. For comparison PSO is used to tune the PI controller. Results from experiments clarify the feasibility of the proposed methodology. It is approved that AGPSO achieves the prevalent control execution (quicker transient response and more modest steady state error (ess)) contrasted with the PSO in tuning PI controller when applied to be used with off-grid systems.
The incidence and treatment of symptomatic acromioclavicular joint osteoarthritis following total shoulder arthroplasty

Background Acromioclavicular joint (ACJ) Osteoarthritis (OA) is very common in the general population. Despite this, there is little mention of concomitant glenohumeral and ACJ arthropathy in the literature, and no documented incidence of symptomatic ACJ OA post total shoulder arthroplasty (TSA). We present the incidence and timescale of the problem, and the response to treatments. Methods Patients who had developed ACJ-related symptoms following a TSA were retrieved from a prospectively collected database. It was determined that these symptoms were not related to the prosthesis or other non-ACJ pathology. Results There were 230 primary anatomic total shoulder replacements carried out over a 9-year period, with 219 with adequate follow-up for analysis. Thirty-five (16%) developed a symptomatic ACJ. The majority developed symptoms within the first two years however there was one patient who developed symptoms eight years later. Twenty six percent of patients responded to a period of rest. Seventy one percent had a cortisone injection in the ACJ and in 44% of patients this was effective. Twelve (34%) patients had an arthroscopic excision of distal clavicle with good resolution of the symptoms. Discussion ACJ symptoms following a total shoulder replacement appears more common than thought and can be treated successfully.
Biochemical Properties of Atranorin-Induced Behavioral and Systematic Changes of Laboratory Rats

Atranorin (ATR) is a secondary metabolite of lichens. While previous studies investigated the effects of this substance predominantly in an in vitro environment, in our study we investigated the basic physicochemical properties, the binding affinity to human serum albumin (HSA), basic pharmacokinetics, and, mainly, on the systematic effects of ATR in vivo. Sporadic studies describe its effects during, predominantly, cancer. This project is original in terms of testing the efficacy of ATR on a healthy organism, where we can possibly attribute negative effects directly to ATR and not to the disease. For the experiment, 24 Sprague Dawley rats (Velaz, Únetice, Czech Republic) were used. The animals were divided into four groups. The first group (n = 6) included healthy males as control intact rats (♂INT) and the second group (n = 6) included healthy females as control intact rats (♀INT). Groups three and four (♂ATR/n = 6 and ♀ATR/n = 6) consisted of animals with daily administered ATR (10mg/kg body weight) in an ethanol–water solution per os for a one-month period. Our results demonstrate that ATR binds to HSA near the binding site TRP214 and acts on a systemic level. ATR caused mild anemia during the treatment. However, based on the levels of hepatic enzymes in the blood (ALT, ALP, or bilirubin levels), thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), or liver histology, no impact on liver was recorded. Significantly increased creatinine and lactate dehydrogenase levels together with increased defecation activity during behavioral testing may indicate the anabolic effect of ATR in skeletal muscles. Interestingly, ATR changed some forms of behavior. ATR at a dose of 10 mg/kg body weight is non-toxic and, therefore, could be used in further research.