Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Spatio‐temporal co‐occurrence of Anastrepha species in papaya orchards in the state of Espírito Santo, Brazil

The variation in co‐occurrence between pests may influence spatio‐temporal persistence strategies of species, with implications for pest management. The co‐occurrence of Anastrepha species (Diptera: Tephritidae) in papaya orchards was investigated in areas at different distances from a native forest reserve in Espírito Santo, Brazil, to investigate positive, negative, or random interactions, understood as potential coexistence, interspecific competition, or neutral interactions, respectively. Data were obtained from a papaya‐growing area divided into three sub‐areas – a buffer zone bordering the forest, neighbourhood 1, and neighbourhood 2 – and the co‐occurrence results were compared with the entire area. The buffer zone along the protected native Atlantic Forest (semideciduous seasonal forest vegetation) was created to filter negative environmental impacts. Neighbourhood 1 was closer to the forest than neighbourhood 2. Based on a long‐term dataset from 1998 to 2010, co‐occurrence of fruit flies was investigated by comparing two periods: from 1998 to 2003, when a special pest management system was implemented, termed the systems approach, and from 2004 to 2010, showing the impact of this system on fruit fly diversity. The strength of interaction between species was also evaluated for significant co‐occurrences. The patterns of co‐occurrence and interaction of Anastrepha species were influenced by area and time. In all scenarios, only positive and random associations were observed, with Anastrepha fraterculus (Wiedemann) and Anastrepha obliqua (Macquart) showing the most positive associations. Co‐occurrence was greater in areas farther from the reserve. However, the strength of the interaction between the areas showed little variation. We concluded that the distance from the reserve and the pest management (systems approach) influenced co‐occurrence, as species co‐occurred much more frequently when collected far from the native forest. The impact during the period of the systems approach (1998–2003) provided fewer positive associations, but with stronger interactions over time. These results confirm that identifying pest co‐occurrence distribution patterns in crops and the respective neighbourhoods can be helpful in improving strategies for pest management associated with a systems approach.
Human Milk Oligosaccharides and Lactose Differentially Affect Infant Gut Microbiota and Intestinal Barrier In Vitro

Background: The infant gut microbiota establishes during a critical window of opportunity when metabolic and immune functions are highly susceptible to environmental changes, such as diet. Human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) for instance are suggested to be beneficial for infant health and gut microbiota. Infant formulas supplemented with the HMOs 2′-fucosyllactose (2′-FL) and lacto-N-neotetraose (LNnT) reduce infant morbidity and medication use and promote beneficial bacteria in the infant gut ecosystem. To further improve infant formula and achieve closer proximity to human milk composition, more complex HMO mixtures could be added. However, we currently lack knowledge about their effects on infants’ gut ecosystems. Method: We assessed the effect of lactose, 2′-FL, 2′-FL + LNnT, and a mixture of six HMOs (HMO6: consisting of 2′-FL, LNnT, difucosyllactose, lacto-N-tetraose, 3′- and 6′-sialyllactose) on infant gut microbiota and intestinal barrier integrity using a combination of in vitro models to mimic the microbial ecosystem (baby M-SHIME®) and the intestinal epithelium (Caco-2/HT29-MTX co-culture). Results: All the tested products had bifidogenic potential and increased SCFA levels; however, only the HMOs’ fermented media protected against inflammatory intestinal barrier disruption. 2′-FL/LNnT and HMO6 promoted the highest diversification of OTUs within the Bifidobactericeae family, whereas beneficial butyrate-producers were specifically enriched by HMO6. Conclusion: These results suggest that increased complexity in HMO mixture composition may benefit the infant gut ecosystem, promoting different bifidobacterial communities and protecting the gut barrier against pro-inflammatory imbalances.
Copa+: Analysis and Improvement of the Delay-based Congestion Control Algorithm Copa

Copa is a delay-based congestion control algorithm proposed in NSDI recently. It can achieve consistent high performance under various network environments and has already been deployed in Facebook. In this paper, we theoretically analyze Copa and reveal its large queuing delay and poor fairness issue under certain conditions. The root cause is that Copa fails to clear the bottleneck buffer occupancy periodically as expected. Accordingly, Copa may get a wrong base RTT estimation and enter its competitive mode by mistake, leading to large delay and unfairness. To address these issues, we propose Copa+, which enhances Copa with a parameter adaptation mechanism and an optimized competitive mode entrance criterion. Designed based on our theoretical analysis, Copa+ can adaptively clear the bottleneck buffer occupancy for correct estimation of base RTT. Consequently, Copa+ inherits the advantages of Copa but achieves lower queuing delay and better fairness under different environments, as confirmed by the real-world experiments and simulations. Specifically, Copa+ has the highest throughput similar to Copa but 11.9% lower queuing delay over different Internet links among different cloud nodes, and achieves 39.4% lower queuing delay and 8.9% higher throughput compared to Sprout over emulated cellular links.
Contemporary challenges in German schools – The potential of the implementation of inclusive pedagogical approaches

Although large-scale studies like PISA (OECD, 2019) and PIRLS (Hußmann et al., 2017) proved already in the beginning of the 2000s that students with a disadvantaged socio-economic background suffer from educational inequality in Germany, this situation has not changed significantly over the years: As it is evidenced by empirical educational research, those students still run a high risk to suffer from educational inequality compared to their fellow students without a disadvantaged socio-economic background (Pfeifer, 2017). But there is also a risk to experience educational inequality for students with immigrant/refugee background, as those two aspects are highly correlated, which is a challenge for schools in view of the refugees that came from 2015 on to Germany (Bogotch, Faubert, Pfeifer, Wieckert, Kervin, Pappas, 2020; Pfeifer, 2014). This contribution will provide a data-based insight into this development in Germany. Moreover, based on the example of the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia an overview will be given of the structure of the German school system, which is characterized by external streaming. Finally, it will be discussed if the implementation of inclusive pedagogical approaches in schools can contribute to reduce educational inequality in German schools (Radhoff Wieckert, 2017; Wieckert, 2013) by summarizing findings of the review of research as well as findings from a qualitative study.
Advances in the Study of circRNAs in Hematological Malignancies

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are non–protein-coding RNAs that have a circular structure and do not possess a 5` cap or 3` poly-A tail. Their structure is more stable than that of linear RNAs, and they are difficult to deform via hydrolysis. Advancements in measurement technology such as RNA sequencing have enabled the detection of circRNAs in various eukaryotes in both in vitro and in vivo studies. The main function of circRNAs involves sponging of microRNAs (MiRNAs) and interaction with proteins associated with physiological and pathological processes, while some circRNAs are involved in translation. circRNAs act as tumor suppressors or oncogenes during the development of many tumors and are emerging as new diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers. They also affect resistance to certain chemotherapy drugs such as imatinib. The objective of this review is to investigate the expression and clinical significance of circRNAs in hematological malignancies. We will also explore the effect of circRNAs on proliferation and apoptosis in hematological malignancy cells and their possible use as biomarkers or targets to determine prognoses. The current literature indicates that circRNAs may provide new therapeutic strategies for patients with hematologic malignancies.
Effects of 4 Weeks of Beta-Alanine Intake on Inflammatory Cytokines after 10 km Long Distance Running Exercise

PURPOSE: This study aimed to examine the immunological effects of β-alanine intake for 4 weeks on immune function changes after long-distance exercise and the possibility of β-alanine intake as an effective exercise supplement to improve exercise performance and maintain immune function.METHODS: Eighteen male college students were randomly assigned to two groups, one with two capsules of 250 mg β-alanine and the other with placebo without a nutritional effect. The participants took one capsule each in the morning and evening after the meals. This study was conducted in a double-blinded manner. To analyze the inflammatory cytokines expressed during exercise, a 10 km long-running exercise was performed, and blood was collected from the forearm vein a total of 4 times (at rest, immediately after exercise, 30 minutes, and 60 minutes in recovery). RESULTS: As a result of analyzing the level of inflammatory cytokine IL-6, compared to the placebo group, the β-alanine intake group decreased significantly to 60 minutes after recovery from long-distance aerobic exercise, and both groups showed a significant difference between both periods (p<.001). However, there was no significant difference between the groups based on the measurement period before and after intake. As a result of analyzing the level of TNF-α, the expression of TNF-α in the placebo group was significantly decreased from immediately after long-distance aerobic exercise to 60 minutes after recovery, but in the β-alanine group, TNF-β expression did not occur immediately after exercise, and there was no significant difference until the recovery period; thus, there was no statistically significant difference between the two periods. In addition, there was no significant difference between the groups in terms of the measurement period before and after intake.CONCLUSIONS: Based on the above results, β-alanine intake for 4 weeks is thought to be effective in maintaining temporarily reduced immune function after long-distance exercise by reducing the level of inflammatory cytokines in the study participants.
Comprehensive Plasma N-Glycoproteome Profiling Based on EThcD-sceHCD-MS/MS

Glycoproteins are involved in a variety of biological processes. More than one-third of the plasma protein biomarkers of tumors approved by the FDA are glycoproteins, and could improve the diagnostic specificity and/or sensitivity. Therefore, it is of great significance to perform the systematic characterization of plasma N-glycoproteome. In previous studies, we developed an integrated method based on the combinatorial peptide ligand library (CPLL) and stepped collision energy/higher energy collisional dissociation (sceHCD) for comprehensive plasma N-glycoproteome profiling. Recently, we presented a new fragmentation method, EThcD-sceHCD, which outperformed sceHCD in the accuracy of identification. Herein, we integrated the combinatorial peptide ligand library (CPLL) into EThcD-sceHCD and compared the performance of different mass spectrometry dissociation methods (EThcD-sceHCD, EThcD, and sceHCD) in the intact N-glycopeptide analysis of prostate cancer plasma. The results illustrated that EThcD-sceHCD was better than EThcD and sceHCD in the number of identified intact N-glycopeptides (two-folds). A combination of sceHCD and EThcD-sceHCD methods can cover almost all glycoproteins (96.4%) and intact N-glycopeptides (93.6%), indicating good complementarity between the two. Our study has great potential for medium- and low-abundance plasma glycoprotein biomarker discovery.
A NEW BOUND ON THE ABSORPTION COEFFICIENT OF A TWO-PHASE MEDIUM

The Doi bound on the effective absorption coefficient of a random two-phase medium is revisited in this brief note. Defects are created in one of the constituents, being absorbed by the other one, which thus act as a perfect sink. Use is made of a variational principle due to Rubinstein and Torquato. The trial fields generalize the ones, originally proposed by Doi, and hence the new bound is more restrictive than the original Doi’s one for an arbitrary medium. In the particular case of an array of nonoverlapping array of spherical sinks, the new bound however coincides with Doi’s and with the one, derived by Talbot and Willis. In passing, besides the known “particle-particle” bound, a curious new “surface-surface” bound is extracted. Though a bit weaker than the Doi’s, this bound relies only upon the two-point “surface” statistics. In the dilute case it reproduces the classical Smoluchowski result.
Determination of Gender from Sternal Measurements Using Computed Tomography Imaging in a Sample of Sohag Governorate Population.

Personal identification of unknown human remains is one of the most important roles in any forensic investigation. Sex identification can be determined either from their anthropometry or Objectives: The present work was performed to investigate the probability of determination of sex from various sternal measurements through Multidetector Computed Tomography imaging. Methodology: The present work included 100 adult participants attended Sohag University Hospitals during the period from January 2020 to December 2020, 50 were males, and 50 were females who performed chest Computed Tomography (C.T. ). Results: A significant statistical increase in the mean values of all sternal measurements in males as compared to females except sternal index. The correct percentage of sex prediction was 88% in males and 92% in females and 90% of overall sex percent. For each measurement, determination of the cut-off value between sensitivity and specificity showed that sternal body length and combined length were the most specific and sensitive with accuracy 100% to discriminate between both genders. Conclusion: Multidetector Computed Tomography imaging revealed that the sternal body length and combined length were the best discriminate variables between genders with overall accuracy of 100% both females and males.
Smooth Muscle Cell—Macrophage Interactions Leading to Foam Cell Formation in Atherosclerosis: Location, Location, Location

Cholesterol-overloaded cells or “foam cells” in the artery wall are the biochemical hallmark of atherosclerosis, and are responsible for much of the growth, inflammation and susceptibility to rupture of atherosclerotic lesions. While it has previously been thought that macrophages are the main contributor to the foam cell population, recent evidence indicates arterial smooth muscle cells (SMCs) are the source of the majority of foam cells in both human and murine atherosclerosis. This review outlines the timeline, site of appearance and proximity of SMCs and macrophages with lipids in human and mouse atherosclerosis, and likely interactions between SMCs and macrophages that promote foam cell formation and removal by both cell types. An understanding of these SMC-macrophage interactions in foam cell formation and regression is expected to provide new therapeutic targets to reduce the burden of atherosclerosis for the prevention of coronary heart disease, stroke and peripheral vascular disease.
Sound of Motion: Real-time Wrist Tracking with A Smart Watch-Phone Pair

Proliferation of smart environments entails the need for real-time and ubiquitous human-machine interactions through, mostly likely, hand/arm motions. Though a few recent efforts attempt to track hand/arm motions in real-time with COTS devices, they either obtain a rather low accuracy or have to rely on a carefully designed infrastructure and some heavy signal processing. To this end, we propose SoM (Sound of Motion) as a lightweight system for wrist tracking. Requiring only a smart watch-phone pair, SoM entails very light computations that can operate in resource constrained smartwatches. SoM uses embedded IMU sensors to perform basic motion tracking in the smartwatch, and it depends on the fixed smartphone to act as an "acoustic anchor": regular beacons sent by the phone are received in an irregular manner due to the watch motion, and such variances provide useful hints to adjust the drifting of IMU tracking. Using extensive experiments on our SoM prototype, we demonstrate that the delicately engineered system achieves a satisfactory wrist tracking accuracy and strikes a good balance between complexity and performance.
Ferroptosis-Associated Molecular Features to Aid Patient Clinical Prognosis and Therapy Across Human Cancers

Ferroptosis is a new non-apoptotic form that regulates cell death and is mainly dependent on iron-mediated oxidative damage and subsequent cell membrane damage. Ferroptosis may be a potential therapeutic strategy for immunotherapy, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy in human cancers. Numerous studies have analyzed ferroptosis-correlated signatures or genes, but a systematic landscape of associations among tumor ferroptosis, clinical outcomes, tumor microenvironment, and therapies in human cancers is lacking. Here, we developed a relative ferroptosis level (RFL) combined with drive/suppress regulators and validated it in the Gene Expression Omnibus datasets of ferroptotic drug treatment. Based on this effective evaluation method, we classified about 7,000 tumor samples into high and low RFL groups in each cancer type and observed that high RFL cases demonstrate favorable survival outcomes in nine cancer types from The Cancer Genome Atlas. Then, several RFL-correlated candidate genes that have not been reported to be ferroptosis-related were selected and experimentally validated in five cancer cell lines using Erastin treatment. We further showed that both immunostimulatory and immunosuppressive phenotypes were observed in high RFL tumors, suggesting that the consideration of ferroptosis could be a potential strategy in cancer immunotherapy. Moreover, we found that high RFL cases/cells showed responder or sensitivity to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Our study provides a comprehensive molecular-level understanding of ferroptosis and may have practical implications for clinical cancer therapies, including immunotherapy, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy.
The Potential Anti-ulcerogenic Effects of Baicalein and/or Empagliflozin in Induced Gastric Ulcer in Rats: Modulating HO-1/SIRT1 / HMGB1 signaling Pathway

Background: Gastric ulcer is one of the most ubiquitous gastrointestinal tract disorders, causing high morbidity. The goal of this study was to explore at the mechanistic effects of Baicalein (BA) and/or Empagliflozin (EMP) treatment on gastric ulcer caused by indomethacin and prednisolone, with an emphasis on the role of the HO-1/SIRT1 / HMGB1 signaling pathway.Material and methods: Fifty adult albino rats were allocated into 5 equal groups: control, ulcer (Prednisolone 10mg/kg for 6 days followed by indomethacin as single oral dose 30 mg/kg), BA (30 mg/kg), EMP (10 mg/kg), and BA + EMP groups. The volume of gastric juice, pH, free and total acidity was estimated. The gene expression of HO-1 and SIRT1 in gastric tissues was assessed by qRT PCR. Biochemical analysis of gastric tissues homogenates including HMGB-1, PGE2 & nitrites levels was performed. Assay of inflammatory markers and redox status were detected. Additionally, histological, scanning electron microscopic and immunohistochemical analyses were determined.Results: After 4 weeks of treatment, there was remarkable improvement of the histological architecture of rat gastric tissues. Upregulation of HO-1 and SIRT1 gene expression, as well as a decrease in HMGB1 level, resulted in improved inflammatory and oxidative stress biomarkers. Furthermore, immunohistochemical analysis revealed increase in Bcl-2 expression and decreased expression of Bax in the treated groups. Conclusion: Concurrent usage of BA & EMP against gastric ulcer in rats could be related to the interaction of their anti-oxidant, antiinflammatory, and anti-apoptotic activities via modulation of HO-1/SIRT1 / HMGB1 signaling pathway. Keywords
“Should I Straighten My Hair?”: Narratives of Black College Women with Natural Hair

The purpose of this qualitative meta-narrative was to explore the experiences of Black college women with natural hair on a predominantly white (PWI) college campus using intersectionality theory. Six self-identified Black college women with natural hair participated in this study. Three major findings emerged from this study: (a) interpersonal dualism: participants’ ability to make their own choices and control their own destiny despite white supremacist expectations of compliance; (b) negotiating external expectations: participants’ management of natural hair stereotypes and (mis)perceptions by and from others; and, (c) sense of community: participants’ community and kinship with other Black natural haired women. We offer implications for research and practice.
Bioluminescence Sensing in 3D Spherical Microtissues for Multiple Bioactivity Analysis of Environmental Samples

The development of predictive in vitro sensing tools able to provide rapid information on the different bioactivities of a sample is of pivotal importance, not only to monitor environmental toxicants, but also to understand their mechanisms of action on diverse molecular pathways. This mechanistic understanding is highly important for the characterization of toxicological hazards, and for the risk assessment of chemicals and environmental samples such as surface waters and effluents. Prompted by this need, we developed and optimized a straightforward bioluminescent multiplexed assay which enables the measurement of four bioactivities, selected for their relevance from a toxicological perspective, in bioluminescent microtissues. The assay was developed to monitor inflammatory, antioxidant, and toxic activity, and the presence of heavy metals, and was successfully applied to the analysis of river water samples, showing potential applicability for environmental analyses. The assay, which does not require advanced equipment, can be easily implemented in general laboratories equipped with basic cell culture facilities and a luminometer.