Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Immune Landscape in Tumor Microenvironment: Implications for Biomarker Development and Immunotherapy

Integration of the tumor microenvironment as a fundamental part of the tumorigenic process has undoubtedly revolutionized our understanding of cancer biology. Increasing evidence indicates that neoplastic cells establish a dependency relationship with normal resident cells in the affected tissue and, furthermore, develop the ability to recruit new accessory cells that aid tumor development. In addition to normal stromal and tumor cells, this tumor ecosystem includes an infiltrated immune component that establishes complex interactions that have a critical effect during the natural history of the tumor. The process by which immune cells modulate tumor progression is known as immunoediting, a dynamic process that creates a selective pressure that finally leads to the generation of immune-resistant cells and the inability of the immune system to eradicate the tumor. In this context, the cellular and functional characterization of the immune compartment within the tumor microenvironment will help to understand tumor progression and, ultimately, will serve to create novel prognostic tools and improve patient stratification for cancer treatment. Here we review the impact of the immune system on tumor development, focusing particularly on its clinical implications and the current technologies used to analyze immune cell diversity within the tumor.
Prohibitin 2 is Involved in Parkin-Mediated Mitophagy in Urothelial Cells of Cattle Infected with Bovine Papillomavirus

Prohibitin 2 (PHB2), an inner mitochondrial membrane (IMM) protein, has recently been identified as a novel receptor involved in parkin-mediated mitophagy. In the field of veterinary medicine, the role of PHB2 in parkin-mediated mitophagy was described, for the first time, in urothelial cells of cattle, naturally infected with bovine papillomavirus (BPV). The BPV2 and BPV13 E5 oncoprotein, responsible for abortive infections in urothelial cells, was detected by RT-PCR. Severe ultrastructural abnormalities of the inner mitochondrial membrane were detected using transmission electron microscopy. PHB2 formed a functional complex with PHB1. PHB2 was significantly overexpressed in mitochondrial fractions from urothelial mucosa samples taken from cattle harbouring BPV infection. PHB2 overexpression could be attributed to mitochondrial dysfunction, as its expression levels in the cytosolic, microsomal, and nuclear fractions were seen to be unmodified. Immunoprecipitation studies revealed the interaction between PHB2 and phosphorylated forms of both PINK1 and parkin. Furthermore, PHB2 interacted with LC3-II, a marker of autophagosomal membranes and autophagy receptors, such as p62 and optineurin. PHB2 was shown to interact with transcription factor EB (TFEB), which is activated following parkin-mediated mitophagy, and embryonic stem cell-expressed Ras (ERAS), a constitutive protein coded by ERas. Western blot analysis revealed a significant overexpression of unphosphorylated TFEB in mitochondrial and nuclear fractions from urothelial mucosa samples from cattle suffering from BPV infection. Finally, PHB2 interacted with ERAS, believed to be involved in mitophagosome maturation. Taken together, the molecular and ultrastructural findings of this study suggested that BPV infection is responsible for parkin-dependent mitophagy, in the pathway of which PHB2 plays a crucial role.
Natural Born Killers: NK Cells in Cancer Therapy

Cellular therapy has emerged as an attractive option for the treatment of cancer, and adoptive transfer of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) expressing T cells has gained FDA approval in hematologic malignancy. However, limited efficacy was observed using CAR-T therapy in solid tumors. Natural killer (NK) cells are crucial for tumor surveillance and exhibit potent killing capacity of aberrant cells in an antigen-independent manner. Adoptive transfer of unmodified allogeneic or autologous NK cells has shown limited clinical benefit due to factors including low cell number, low cytotoxicity and failure to migrate to tumor sites. To address these problems, immortalized and autologous NK cells have been genetically engineered to express high affinity receptors (CD16), CARs directed against surface proteins (PD-L1, CD19, Her2, etc.) and endogenous cytokines (IL-2 and IL-15) that are crucial for NK cell survival and cytotoxicity, with positive outcomes reported by several groups both preclinically and clinically. With a multitude of NK cell-based therapies currently in clinic trials, it is likely they will play a crucial role in next-generation cell therapy-based treatment. In this review, we will highlight the recent advances and limitations of allogeneic, autologous and genetically enhanced NK cells used in adoptive cell therapy.
Deep Learning Sensor Fusion for Autonomous Vehicle Perception and Localization: A Review

Autonomous vehicles (AV) are expected to improve, reshape, and revolutionize the future of ground transportation. It is anticipated that ordinary vehicles will one day be replaced with smart vehicles that are able to make decisions and perform driving tasks on their own. In order to achieve this objective, self-driving vehicles are equipped with sensors that are used to sense and perceive both their surroundings and the faraway environment, using further advances in communication technologies, such as 5G. In the meantime, local perception, as with human beings, will continue to be an effective means for controlling the vehicle at short range. In the other hand, extended perception allows for anticipation of distant events and produces smarter behavior to guide the vehicle to its destination while respecting a set of criteria (safety, energy management, traffic optimization, comfort). In spite of the remarkable advancements of sensor technologies in terms of their effectiveness and applicability for AV systems in recent years, sensors can still fail because of noise, ambient conditions, or manufacturing defects, among other factors; hence, it is not advisable to rely on a single sensor for any of the autonomous driving tasks. The practical solution is to incorporate multiple competitive and complementary sensors that work synergistically to overcome their individual shortcomings. This article provides a comprehensive review of the state-of-the-art methods utilized to improve the performance of AV systems in short-range or local vehicle environments. Specifically, it focuses on recent studies that use deep learning sensor fusion algorithms for perception, localization, and mapping. The article concludes by highlighting some of the current trends and possible future research directions.
Association between Attitude and Empathy with the Quality of Human-Livestock Interactions

Simple Summary The attitudes and empathy of handlers influence human–animal interaction, thereby affecting their behavior toward animals. In this study, we evaluated the association between the attitude and empathy of livestock handlers towards the animals with the quality of human-livestock interactions. A structured survey instrument was used to assess managers’ attitudes and empathy towards livestock. The quality of handling was assessed by recording the individual behavior of each handler during commercial handling procedures; furthermore, it was ascertained whether the quality of handling was affected throughout the workday. Associations were found between the quality of the interactions used by the handlers towards the animals and the positive or negative attitude and empathy scores. It has been concluded that there is an association between handlers’ attitudes and empathy towards animals and the quality of human-animal interaction pre-slaughter. Abstract The human-animal interactions are a key component of human and animal welfare. The quality of this interaction can therefore be assessed by measuring the reaction response of the animals to the handler’s behavior. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between attitude and empathy towards the animals with the quality of human-livestock interactions. Additionally, we aimed to investigate whether the quality of cattle handling deteriorates as the working day progresses. A total of 18 livestock handlers and 1514 Colombian commercial Zebu steers were evaluated. A questionnaire pack consisting of 50 questions regarding demographic information, attitude and empathy characteristics was applied, using a structured interview. Each handlers’ responses to positive and negative attitude and empathy questions were calculated to produce a composite score. Observations of human-animal interactions were made at three times during the day (5:00, 7:00 and 9:00), each observation lasting 30 min. The handlers had an average age of 39.4 ± 3.4 y (range = 18–66 y), with little schooling but a lot of experience in the trade (17.13 ± 14.21 y). During handling, hitting, prodding and hand raising predominated over other actions (p < 0.05), and in response, the cattle behaved by freezing and running. Significant differences were found in the interactions used by handlers depending on the time of day (p < 0.05). The empathy total score ranged from 20 to 100, and the attitude total score between 24 and 120. The average attitude and empathy scores for handlers were 85.05 ± 6.92 (mean ±SD; range, 73–97) and 74.61 ± 4.72 (mean ±SD; range, 65–83), respectively. It has been concluded that there is an association between handlers’ attitudes and empathy towards animals and the quality of human-animal interaction during pre-slaughter.
Managing mother’s own milk for very preterm infants in neonatal units in 11 European countries

Feeding with human milk has been recognised as an essential component of newborn care and is especially important for infants born very preterm (VPT, below 32 weeks of gestation) who face higher risks of adverse outcomes. WHO recommends that infants who cannot be fed mother's own milk (MOM) should receive donor human milk. Direct feeding at the breast takes time to establish after VPT birth and procedures are required for expressing, collecting, storing and administering breast milk that respect microbiological safety rules and ensure nutritional and immunological quality. However, as recommendations are scarce, these procedures appear to be dependent on organizational structures and policies of the units (1-3).
IntuitivePlan inverse planning performance evaluation for Gamma Knife radiosurgery of AVMs

Abstract Purpose To compare planning indices achieved using manual and inverse planning approaches for Gamma Knife radiosurgery of arterio‐venous malformations (AVMs). Methods and materials For a series of consecutive AVM patients, treatment plans were manually created by expert planners using Leksell GammaPlan (LGP). Patients were re‐planned using a new commercially released inverse planning system, IntuitivePlan. Plan quality metrics were calculated for both groups of plans and compared. Results Overall, IntuitivePlan created treatment plans of similar quality to expert planners. For some plan quality metrics statistically significant higher scores were achieved for the inversely generated plans (Coverage 96.8% vs 96.3%, P = 0.027; PCI 0.855 vs 0.824, P = 0.042), but others did not show statistically significant differences (Selectivity 0.884 vs 0.856, P = 0.071; GI 2.85 vs 2.76, P = 0.096; Efficiency Index 47.0% vs 48.1%, P = 0.242; Normal Brain V12(cc) 5.81 vs 5.79, P = 0.497). Automatic inverse planning demonstrated significantly shorter planning times over manual planning (3.79 vs 11.58 min, P < 10−6) and greater numbers of isocentres (40.4 vs 10.8, P < 10−6), with an associated cost of longer treatment times (57.97 vs 49.52 min, P = 0.009). When planning and treatment time were combined, there was no significant difference in the overall time between the two methods (61.76 vs 61.10, P = 0.433). Conclusions IntuitivePlan can offer savings on the labor of treatment planning. In many cases, it achieves higher quality indices than those achieved by an “expert planner”.
Marked Increase in Incident Gynecomastia: A 20-year National Registry Study 1998-2017.

CONTEXT Gynecomastia, the proliferation of mammary glandular tissue in the male, is a frequent but little studied condition. Available prevalence data are based on selected patient populations or autopsy cases with their inherent bias. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the age-related incidence and secular trends in gynecomastia in the general population. DESIGN Observational, 20-year national registry study. SETTING Population-based study using nationwide registry data. PARTICIPANTS All Danish males (0-80 years) with a first-time diagnosis of gynecomastia. INTERVENTION( s): NA. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES All Danish males (0-80 years) were followed-up for incident diagnosis of gynecomastia in the Danish National Patient Registry from 1998-2017 using International Codes of Diseases, ICD-10 and the Danish Health Care Classification System. Age specific incidence rates were estimated. The hypothesis tested in this study was formulated prior to data collection. RESULTS Overall a total 17,601 males (0-80 years) were registered with an incident diagnosis of gynecomastia within the 20-year study period, corresponding to 880 new cases per year and an average 20-year incidence of 3.4 per 10,000 men (0-80 years). The average annual incidence was 6.5/10,000 in post-pubertal males age 16-20 years and 4.6/10,000 in males age 61-80 years, with a respective 5 and 11-fold overall increase in these two age-groups over the 20-year period. CONCLUSIONS The incidence of gynecomastia has dramatically increased over the last 20 years implying that the endogenous or exogenous sex steroid environment has changed, which is associated with other adverse health consequences in men such as an increased risk of prostate cancer, metabolic syndrome, diabetes type 2 or cardiovascular disorders.
The Prevalence of Chlamydia trachomatis and Three Other Non-Viral Sexually Transmitted Infections among Pregnant Women in Pemba Island Tanzania

Efforts to map the burden of infections globally have shown a high prevalence of genital infections, including Chlamydia trachomatis, in sub-Saharan Africa. This retrospective study aimed to investigate the prevalence of selected non-viral genital infections among pregnant women in Pemba Island, Tanzania. Vaginal swabs were collected during pregnancy and stored in eNAT buffer. Detection of C. trachomatis, Neisseria gonorrheae, Trichomonas vaginalis, and Mycoplasma genitalium pathogens was performed by PCR using validated detection kits. Vaginal samples of 439 pregnant women between 16 and 48 years were tested. In fifty-five (12.5%) of them, at least one genital pathogen was detected. The most prevalent pathogen was T. vaginalis (7.1%), followed by C. trachomatis (4.6%) and M. genitalium (2.1%). None of the vaginal samples tested positive for N. gonorrheae. Consequently, among positive samples, 7.3% were for C. trachomatis and at least one other genital pathogen. This study provides insights on the burden of the four studied genital infections, and on the coinfections among pregnant women in Pemba Island, Tanzania. These results offer a starting point that can be useful to design further research in the field of maternal and child health in Pemba Island.
Potentially Inappropriate Drug Prescribing in French Nursing Home Residents: An Observational Study

Purpose: To identify the prevalence of potentially inappropriate drug prescription in a sample of nursing home residents in France, combining explicit criteria and implicit approach and to involve pharmacists in the multi-professional process of therapeutic optimization. Methods: A cross-sectional, observational, multicenter study was conducted during a five-month period in a sample of French nursing homes. Information on drug prescription, diseases, and socio-demographic characteristics of nursing home residents was collected. For each prescription, identification of potentially inappropriate drug prescription was done, based on explicit and implicit criteria. Results: Nursing home residents were administered an average of 8.1 (SD 3.2, range 0–20) drugs per day. Nearly 87% (n = 237) of the residents had polypharmacy with five or more drugs prescribed per day. Among the 274 nursing home residents recruited from five nursing homes, 212 (77.4%) had at least one potentially inappropriate drug prescription. According to the Laroche list, 84 residents (30.7%) had at least one drug with an unfavorable benefit–harm balance. An overdosing was found for 20.1% (n = 55) of the residents. Nearly 30% (n = 82) of the residents had a drug prescribed without valid medical indication. Conclusions: This study shows that potentially inappropriate drug prescriptions are highly prevalent among nursing home residents, nevertheless pharmacists can take part in drug utilization review in collaboration with the nursing home staff.
Randomness in appendage coordination facilitates strenuous ground self-righting

Randomness is common in biological and artificial systems, resulting either from stochasticity of the environment or noise in organisms or devices themselves. In locomotor control, randomness is typically considered a nuisance. For example, during dynamic walking, randomness in stochastic terrain leads to metastable dynamics, which must be mitigated to stabilize the system around limit cycles. Here, we studied whether randomness in motion is beneficial for strenuous locomotor tasks. Our study used robotic simulation modeling of strenuous, leg-assisted, winged ground self-righting observed in cockroaches, in which unusually large randomness in wing and leg motions is present. We developed a simplified simulation robot capable of generating similar self-righting behavior and varied the randomness level in wing–leg coordination. During each wing opening attempt, the more randomness added to the time delay between wing opening and leg swinging, the more likely it was for the naive robot (which did not know what coordination is best) to self-right within a finite time. Wing–leg coordination, measured by the phase between wing and leg oscillations, had a crucial impact on self-righting outcome. Without randomness, periodic wing and leg oscillations often limited the system to visit a few bad phases, leading to failure to escape from the metastable state. With randomness, the system explored phases thoroughly and had a better chance of encountering good phases to self-right. Our study complements previous work by demonstrating that randomness helps destabilize locomotor systems from being trapped in undesired metastable states, a situation common in strenuous locomotion.
Assessment of efficacy of Articaine and Lignocaine in patients undergoing dental extraction a comparative study

Introduction: The most commonly used local anesthetic agent for dental extraction is lignocaine. Articaine has been used as an alternative local anesthetic in dentistry for more than 20 years. The present study was undertaken to compare anesthetic efficacy of 4% Articaine hydrochloride versus 2% Lignocaine hydrochloride during extraction of mandibular molar. Materials and Method: The present study was conducted in the Department of Dentistry, Karwar Institute of Medical Sciences, Karwar. In this study 50 patients were enrolled and were divided into Group A(lignociane)and Group B(Articaine) of 25 each. Patients included aged between 20-50 years. Extraction of teeth was done and time of onset of anesthesia, duration of anesthesia and pain were recorded. Data was analysed by SPSS software. Results: In this study a total of 50 subjects undergoing extraction of mandibular molars were enrolled. There were 27 males and 23 females in this study. The mean age of males was 32.15 +/1.45 years and females were 30.42+/-2.37 years. The mean onset time and standard deviation of anesthesia for Group A was 2.5+/-0.41 minutes and 1.8+/0.42 minutes for Group B which showed a non significant difference with p-value of greater than 0.05. The mean and standard deviation of duration of anesthesia for Group A and Group B were 3.1+/0.3 hours and 4.5+/0.2 hours respectively Conclusion: The duration of anesthesia is longer with Articaine as compared to Lignocaine but there is no difference in the level of pain and time of onset of anesthesia.
STAPHYLOCOCCUS AUREUS: PATHOGENICITY, ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANCE AND CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS

Objective: To conduct a reflection about the pathogenicity, antimicrobial resistance, and clinical implications of the infections caused by Staphylococcus aureus . Method: Reflexive analysis, supported by theoretical references about the pathogenicity, antimicrobial resistance, and clinical implications of the staphylococcal infections. Results: The pathogenesis of S. aureus infections is complex and depends on the host characteristics, expression of virulence factors and ability to develop resistance to antimicrobials. Methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) is related to an advancement of healthcare- and community-acquired infections, being vancomycin the primary therapeutic option. Infections caused by S. aureus with reduced vancomycin susceptibility (hVISA/VISA) have been associated with treatment failures and increased mortality. Conclusion: With the evolution of S. aureus to MRSA, hVISA and VISA, the treatment of staphylococcal infections has become a major challenge for the medical clinic, and an adequate and early antibiotic therapy is essential for decreasing morbidity and mortality rates related to this microorganism.
A Mobility-Assisted Localization Algorithm for Three-Dimensional Large-Scale UWSNs

As one of the important facilities for marine exploration, as well as environment monitoring, access control, and security, underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs) are widely used in related military and civil fields, since the sensor node localization is the basis of UWSNs’ application in various related fields. Therefore, the research of localization algorithms based on UWSNs has gradually become one of the research hotspots today. However, unlike terrestrial wireless sensor networks (WSNs), many terrestrial monitoring and localization technologies cannot be directly applied to the underwater environment. Moreover, due to the complexity and particularity of the underwater environment, the localization of underwater sensor nodes still faces challenges, such as the localization ratio of sensor nodes, time synchronization, localization accuracy, and the mobility of nodes. In this paper, we propose a mobility-assisted localization scheme with time synchronization-free feature (MALS-TSF) for three-dimensional (3D) large-scale UWSNs. In addition, the underwater drift of the sensor node is considered in this scheme. The localization scheme can be divided into two phases. In Phase I, anchor nodes are distributed in the monitoring area, reducing the monitoring cost. Then, we address a time-synchronization-free localization scheme, to obtain the coordinates of the unknown sensor nodes. In Phase II, we use the method of two-way TOA to locate the remaining ordinary sensor nodes. The simulation results show that MALS-TSF can achieve a relatively high localization ratio without time synchronization.