Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Caution Regarding the Difference Between Flower-Like Lymphocytes and Flower-Like Plasma Cells

We attentively read the paper by Sall et al. [1] recently published in Turkish Journal of Hematology. These authors reported a case of multiple myeloma showing abnormal plasma cells with flower-shaped nuclear features. These cells with flower-shaped nuclei have also been reported in cases of plasma cell leukemia in previous studies [2,3,4,5]. The authors described the morphological features of flower-like cells in order to help pathologists identify them for diagnostic purposes. However, the flower-like plasma cells with condensed chromatin presented in Figure 1B of the original study [1] look like flower-like lymphocytes. Furthermore, these cells had not been confirmed by immunocytochemical staining. CD20 or CD138 immunocytochemistry could have been used to confirm whether these cells were flower-like plasma cells or flower-like lymphocytes, as previously reported [6]. Therefore, the differential diagnosis between flower-like lymphocytes and flower-like plasma cells should be approached with caution.
The Deep Vascular Plexus Density Is Closely Related to Myopic Severity

Objectives: The aim of the study was to investigate the relationship between myopic severity and the retinal microvasculature based on quantitative variables using optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) and to identify OCTA indicators of microvascular network loss in myopia. Methods: This cross-sectional study included 123 eyes of 123 myopic subjects. The included eyes were divided into three groups according to the spherical equivalent (SE) and axial length (AL): low myopia (LM) (−3.00 D ≤ SE ≤ −0.50 D), moderate myopia (MM) (−6.00 D ≤ SE < −3.00 D), and high myopia (HM) (−9.00 D ≤ SE < −6.00 D or AL >26 mm). All the eyes underwent OCTA scans. The densities and thicknesses of the macular and peripapillary zones, including the foveal avascular zone (FAZ) area, superficial vascular plexus (SVP) density, deep vascular plexus (DVP) density, ganglion cell complex (GCC) thickness, full retinal thickness, radial peripapillary capillary plexus (RPCP) density, and retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thickness, were automatically exported. Results: Compared to the LM or MM group, the HM group had a significantly reduced FAZ area (p < 0.05). In most sectors of the parafoveal and perifoveal areas, the HM group had significantly lower DVP density and higher retinal thickness than the LM and MM groups (all p < 0.05). However, significant differences among the three groups in only one or several sectors were observed with regard to SVP density, GCC thickness, and RNFL thickness, and no significant differences among the three groups in any sector were noticed in RPCP density. Perifoveal DVP density and perifoveal full retinal thickness were positively associated with SE and negatively associated with AL in stepwise multiple linear regression analyses adjusted for sex and age. Conclusion: DVP density was closely related to myopic severity. Reduced perifoveal DVP density may serve as an indicator of microvascular network loss in myopia. OCTA may provide useful and crucial information for monitoring the progression of myopia.
Uncovering cryptic diversity does not end: a new species of leaf-eared mouse, genus Phyllotis (Rodentia, Cricetidae), from Central Sierras of Argentina

Abstract Based on previously published molecular (mitochondrial) and herein provided morphological (qualitative and quantitative data) evidence, we describe a new species of leaf-eared mouse of the genus Phyllotis. The new species is morphometrically distinct when compared with other phylogenetically or geographically close species of Phyllotis, showing several quantitative differences in their external and craniodental characters (e.g., proportionally broader nasals and interorbital region, and proportionally smaller tympanic bullae). The new species is endemic to central Argentina, occurring on rocky grasslands at elevations of 650–2,800 m a.s. l. This is the only species of Phyllotis inhabiting the Central Sierras, a mountain system of medium elevation, isolated from the Andes by low elevation arid and semiarid environments.
Intrinsic and apparent slip at gas-enriched liquid–liquid interfaces: a molecular dynamics study

Abstract In this paper, slip at liquid–liquid interfaces is studied focusing on the ubiquitous case in which a third species (e.g. a gas) is present. Non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations demonstrate that the contaminant species accumulate at the liquid–liquid interface, enriching it and affecting momentum transfer in a non-trivial fashion. The Navier boundary condition is seen to apply at this interface, accounting for slip between the liquids. Opposite trends are observed for soluble and poorly soluble species, with the slip length decreasing with concentration in the first case and significantly increasing in the latter. Two regimes are found, one in which the liquid–liquid interface is altered by the third species but changes in slip length remain limited to molecular sizes (intrinsic slip). In the second regime, further accumulation of non-soluble gas at the interface gives rise to a gaseous layer replacing the liquid–liquid interface; in this case, the apparent slip lengths are one order of magnitude larger and grow linearly with the layer width as captured quantitatively by a simple three-fluids model. Overall, results show that the presence of a third species considerably enriches the slip phenomenology both calling for new experiments and opening the door to novel strategies to control liquid–liquid slip, e.g. in liquid infused surfaces.
An Argument for Phonological Stress in French: the syntagm over contrast

Abstract It is standardly assumed that French does not have word-stress, rather it has phrase-level prominence. I will advance a number of arguments, many of which have appeared already in the literature, that cumulatively suggest that French roots are characterized by phonological prominence, even if this is non-contrastive. By prominence, I mean a syntagmatically distributed strength that has all the phonological characteristics of stress in other Romance languages. I will remain agnostic about the nature of that stress, eschewing the lively debate about whether French has feet, and if so what type, and at what level. The structure of the argument is as follows. French demonstrably has phonological word-final strength but one wonders what the source of this strength is. Positionally, the initial position is strong and, independently of cases where it is reinforced by other factors, the final position is weak. I will argue, based on parallels with other Romance languages, that French word-final strength derives from root-final phonological stress. The broader significance of this conclusion is that syntagmatic properties are enough to motivate underlying forms, even in the absence of paradigmatic contrasts (minimal pairs).
France’s performance vis-a-vis the 12 OECD Principles on Water Governance

ABSTRACT This paper shows that the evolution of French water governance since the 1960s is globally consistent with the OECD Principles on Water Governance. It covers simultaneously what concerns resources, services and eventually policies that bridge both types, per groups of governance principles. The paper illustrates that, beyond this overall positive assessment, a lot of shortcomings and weaknesses and therefore of potential improvements can be identified. It proposes a preliminary reflection about the impact of governance changes and about indicators needed to measure these impacts.
Socially Enhanced Situation Awareness from Microblogs Using Artificial Intelligence: A Survey

The rise of social media platforms provides an unbounded, infinitely rich source of aggregate knowledge of the world around us, both historic and real-time, from a human perspective. The greatest challenge we face is how to process and understand this raw and unstructured data, go beyond individual observations and see the “big picture”—the domain of Situation Awareness. We provide an extensive survey of Artificial Intelligence research, focusing on microblog social media data with applications to Situation Awareness, that gives the seminal work and state-of-the-art approaches across six thematic areas: Crime, Disasters, Finance, Physical Environment, Politics, and Health and Population. We provide a novel, unified methodological perspective, identify key results and challenges, and present ongoing research directions.
Underwater Acoustic Adaptive Modulation with Reinforcement Learning and Channel Prediction

We present our ongoing work on reinforcement learning based adaptive modulation for underwater acoustic (UWA) communication. As the long propagation delay, the feedback channel state information (CSI) will be outdated for UWA adaptive modulation. Reinforcement learning can learn the optimal transmission mode even with the outdated CSI. Furthermore, this paper employs long short-term memory neural network to predict CSI for updating learning table, and then selects modulation mode by ϵ– greedy algorithm. The simulation results revealed that the network throughput of proposed method is improved under error bit rate constraint, which is compared to Q-learning with state transition probability predicted CSI and direct feedback CSI in time varying UWA channel.
Multiple Criterion and Multiple Stimulus Signal Detection Theory Analysis of Corneal Painful and Cool Pneumatic Stimuli

Purpose: To evaluate the detectability of pneumatic corneal stimuli and response bias using multi-stimuli multi-criterion signal detection theory (MSDT). Methods: Thirty-six participants were recruited using convenience sampling. A Waterloo Belmonte esthesiometer was used to deliver cold, mechanical, and chemical stimuli to the center of the cornea at three separate study visits. The stimulus type was assigned randomly to each visit at the start of the study. The threshold (baseline for detection theory experiment) for the assigned stimulus type was obtained using the ascending method of limits. In the cold and mechanical MSDT experiments, 100 trials (80 signal (20 each for 4 intensities) and 20 catch trials) were presented in randomized order, and participants responded with a 5-point confidence rating to each trial. In the chemical MSDT experiments, 50 trials (20 signal trials each for two intensities and 10 catch trials) were presented, and responses were provided using 4-point confidence ratings. Detection theory indices were calculated individually and as groups, which were then analyzed using mixed models and paired t-tests. Results: Detectability (da) and the area under the curve (Az) were significantly different between stimulus intensities within each stimulus type (all p < 0.001) but were not different between the stimulus types. Receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curves were separable between the scaled intensities for all stimulus types, and no overlaps were observed in the z-ROC space. The log-likelihood ratio (lnβ) depended on stimulus intensity and psychophysical criterion for all stimulus types. Conclusion: It is feasible to use MSDT for analyzing ocular surface sensory processing and the theory provides insight into the possible bias associated with the use of pneumatic stimuli. With noxious and non-noxious pneumatic stimulation, detectability and criteria vary systematically with stimulus intensity, a result that cannot be derived using classical psychophysics and this highlights the importance of signal detection theory and its approaches in studying ocular surface pain and thermal processing.
Potential Role of Ginger (Zingiber officinale Roscoe) in the Prevention of Neurodegenerative Diseases

Ginger is composed of multiple bioactive compounds, including 6-gingerol, 6-shogaol, 10-gingerol, gingerdiones, gingerdiols, paradols, 6-dehydrogingerols, 5-acetoxy-6-gingerol, 3,5-diacetoxy-6-gingerdiol, and 12-gingerol, that contribute to its recognized biological activities. Among them, the major active compounds are 6-shogaol and 6-gingerol. Scientific evidence supports the beneficial properties of ginger, including antioxidant and anti-inflammatory capacities and in contrast, a specific and less studied bioactivity is the possible neuroprotective effect. The increase in life expectancy has raised the incidence of neurodegenerative diseases (NDs), which present common neuropathological features as increased oxidative stress, neuroinflammation and protein misfolding. The structure-activity relationships of ginger phytochemicals show that ginger can be a candidate to treat NDs by targeting different ligand sites. Its bioactive compounds may improve neurological symptoms and pathological conditions by modulating cell death or cell survival signaling molecules. The cognitive enhancing effects of ginger might be partly explained via alteration of both the monoamine and the cholinergic systems in various brain areas. Moreover, ginger decreases the production of inflammatory related factors. The aim of the present review is to summarize the effects of ginger in the prevention of major neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and multiple sclerosis.
Evolution of Molecular Targeted Cancer Therapy: Mechanisms of Drug Resistance and Novel Opportunities Identified by CRISPR-Cas9 Screening

Molecular targeted therapy has revolutionized the landscape of cancer treatment due to better therapeutic responses and less systemic toxicity. However, therapeutic resistance is a major challenge in clinical settings that hinders continuous clinical benefits for cancer patients. In this regard, unraveling the mechanisms of drug resistance may identify new druggable genetic alterations for molecularly targeted therapies, thus contributing to improved therapeutic efficacies. The recent rapid development of novel methodologies including CRISPR-Cas9 screening technology and patient-derived models provides powerful tools to dissect the underlying mechanisms of resistance to targeted cancer therapies. In this review, we updated therapeutic targets undergoing preclinical and clinical evaluation for various cancer types. More importantly, we provided comprehensive elaboration of high throughput CRISPR-Cas9 screening in deciphering potential mechanisms of unresponsiveness to molecularly targeted therapies, which will shed light on the discovery of novel opportunities for designing next-generation anti-cancer drugs.
Carbapenemase-Producing Extraintestinal Pathogenic Escherichia coli From Argentina: Clonal Diversity and Predominance of Hyperepidemic Clones CC10 and CC131

Extraintestinal pathogenic Escherichia coli (ExPEC) causes infections outside the intestine. Particular ExPEC clones, such as clonal complex (CC)/sequence type (ST)131, have been known to sequentially accumulate antimicrobial resistance that starts with chromosomal mutations against fluoroquinolones, followed with the acquisition of blaCTX–M–15 and, more recently, carbapenemases. Here we aimed to investigate the distribution of global epidemic clones of carbapenemase-producing ExPEC from Argentina in representative clinical isolates recovered between July 2008 and March 2017. Carbapenemase-producing ExPEC (n = 160) were referred to the Argentinean reference laboratory. Of these, 71 were selected for genome sequencing. Phenotypic and microbiological studies confirmed the presence of carbapenemases confirmed as KPC-2 (n = 52), NDM-1 (n = 16), IMP-8 (n = 2), and VIM-1 (n = 1) producers. The isolates had been recovered mainly from urine, blood, and abdominal fluids among others, and some were from screening samples. After analyzing the virulence gene content, 76% of the isolates were considered ExPEC, although non-ExPEC isolates were also obtained from extraintestinal sites. Pan-genome phylogeny and clonal analysis showed great clonal diversity, although the first phylogroup in abundance was phylogroup A, harboring CC10 isolates, followed by phylogroup B2 with CC/ST131, mostly H30Rx, the subclone co-producing CTX-M-15. Phylogroups D, B1, C, F, and E were also detected with fewer strains. CC10 and CC/ST131 were found throughout the country. In addition, CC10 nucleated most metalloenzymes, such as NDM-1. Other relevant international clones were identified, such as CC/ST38, CC155, CC14/ST1193, and CC23. Two isolates co-produced KPC-2 and OXA-163 or OXA-439, a point mutation variant of OXA-163, and three isolates co-produced MCR-1 among other resistance genes. To conclude, in this work, we described the molecular epidemiology of carbapenemase-producing ExPEC in Argentina. Further studies are necessary to determine the plasmid families disseminating carbapenemases in ExPEC in this region.
Spanish Healthcare Sector Management in the COVID-19 Crisis Under the Perspective of Austrian Economics and New-Institutional Economics

This is a study of Political Economy, Law & Economics, and Public Choice, applied to COVID-19 crisis management, and how the Spanish healthcare sector has operated under stressful conditions. Market and state failures are evaluated and some improvements are offered, according to the theories of Austrian Economics and New-Institutional Economics. At the macro level, the premise is the decentralization of the Spanish healthcare system a long time ago, to provide a better service to citizens, according to the idiosyncrasies of the Autonomous Communities (similar to federal states). The crisis has evidenced the failures of the Spanish system and its semi-federal model, without coordination to manage the trouble. Also, the General Government's recentralization attempt has failed too, proving Mises's theorem on the impossibility of economic calculation in intervened and coactive systems, with problems of shortages, lack of coordination, etc.; Buchanan-Tullock's theorem on the unfinished agenda of state interventionist and it suppression of private sector was also proven. At the micro level, health institutions (hospitals and health centers) have fallen into the paradox of media overexposure and the fake-news risk, because the more information they have tried to transmit, the more confusion they have caused, reducing the value of the supposed transparency and accountability, in addition to decreasing citizen wellbeing, giving way to a higher level of dissatisfaction and more risk of a syndemic. To perform the analysis of accountability and wellbeing perceived, this paper has used quantitative contrast techniques on secondary sources, such as the surveys of Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (part of the Public Sector) or Merco rankings (independent institution).
Transporter-Driven Engineering of a Genetic Biosensor for the Detection and Production of Short-Branched Chain Fatty Acids in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Biosensors can be used for real-time monitoring of metabolites and high-throughput screening of producer strains. Use of biosensors has facilitated strain engineering to efficiently produce value-added compounds. Following our recent work on the production of short branched-chain fatty acids (SBCFAs) in engineered Saccharomyces cerevisiae, here we harnessed a weak organic acid transporter Pdr12p, engineered a whole-cell biosensor to detect exogenous and intracellular SBCFAs and optimized the biosensor’s performance by varying PDR12 expression. We firstly constructed the biosensor and evaluated its response to a range of short-chain carboxylic acids. Next, we optimized its sensitivity and operational range by deletion and overexpression of PDR12. We found that the biosensor responded to exogenous SBCFAs including isovaleric acid, isobutyric acid and 2-methylbutanoic acid. PDR12 deletion enhanced the biosensor’s sensitivity to isovaleric acid at a low concentration and PDR12 overexpression shifted the operational range towards a higher concentration. Lastly, the deletion of PDR12 improved the biosensor’s sensitivity to the SBCFAs produced in our previously engineered SBCFA-overproducing strain. To our knowledge, our work represents the first study on employing an ATP-binding-cassette transporter to engineer a transcription-factor-based genetic biosensor for sensing SBCFAs in S. cerevisiae. Our findings provide useful insights into SBCFA detection by a genetic biosensor that will facilitate the screening of SBCFA-overproducing strains.
N6-Methyladenosine-Related Gene Signature Associated With Monocyte Infiltration Is Clinically Significant in Gestational Diabetes Mellitus

Objective The objective of this study was to reveal the potential crosstalk between immune infiltration and N6- methyladenosine (m6A) modification in the placentas of patients with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), and to construct a model for the diagnosis of GDM. Methods We analyzed imbalanced immune infiltration and differentially expressed m6A-related genes (DMRGs) in the placentas of patients with GDM, based on the GSE70493 dataset. An immune-related DMRG signature, with significant classifying power and diagnostic value, was identified using a least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression. Based on the selected DMRGs, we developed and validated a nomogram model using GSE70493 and GSE92772 as the training and validation sets, respectively. Results Infiltration of monocytes was higher in GDM placentas than in control samples, while the infiltration of macrophages (M1 and M2) in GDM placentas was lower than in controls. A total of 14 DMRGs were strongly associated with monocyte infiltration, seven of which were significant in distinguishing patients with GDM from normal controls. These genes were CD81, CFH, FABP5, GBP1, GNG11, IL1RL1, and SLAMF6. The calibration curve, decision curve, clinical impact curve, and receiver operating characteristic curve showed that the nomogram recognized GDM with high accuracy in both the training and validation sets. Conclusions Our results provide clues that crosstalk between m6A modification and immune infiltration may have implications in terms of novel biomarkers and therapeutic targets for GDM.
Polarimetric Imaging Through Scattering Media: A Review

Imaging in scattering media has been a challenging and important subject in optical science. In scattering media, the image quality is often severely degraded by the scattering and absorption effects owing to the small particles and the resulting nonuniform distribution of the intensity or polarization properties. This study reviews the recent development in polarimetric imaging techniques that address these challenges. Specifically, based on the polarization properties of the backscattering light, polarimetric methods can estimate the intensity level of the backscattering and the transmittance of the media. They can also separate the target signal from the undesired ones to achieve high-quality imaging. In addition, the different designs of the polarimetric imaging systems offer additional metrics, for example, the degree/angle of polarization, to recover images with high fidelity. We first introduce the physical degradation models in scattering media. Secondly, we apply the models in different polarimetric imaging systems, such as polarization difference, Stokes vector, Mueller matrix, and deep learning-based systems. Lastly, we provide a model selection guideline and future research directions in polarimetric imaging.
Lifestyle Modifications for Migraine Management

Migraine is a disabling disease that inflicts a heavy burden on individuals who suffer from it. Significant advances are being made in understanding the pathophysiology and treatment of the disease. The role of lifestyle modifications has become increasingly predominant. We reviewed the current and available data on the role of a healthy lifestyle in the management of migraine. Physical activity, management of obesity, a healthy diet, and a better lifestyle, such as adequate sleep and avoidance of drug abuse, significantly contribute to reducing the frequency and severity of attacks. It is important to consider these factors in the overall management strategies for migraine sufferers.