Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Elevated Serum Levels of Interleukin-15 in Pemphigus Vulgaris Patients: a Potential Therapeutic Target

Introduction Pemphigus vulgaris (PV) is a rare autoimmune disease that causes painful blistering. Interleukin-15 (IL-15) as a member of the immunoregulatory cytokines family is associated with the development of the chronic inflammatory or autoimmune disease. There is not much information available in the literature on the exact role IL-15 plays in PV. Objectives The goal of this study was to evaluate the serum levels of IL-15 in patients with PV and assess the association of IL-15 with anti-desmoglein antibodies and the severity of the disease. Methods Fifty-three individuals affected with active PV and 38 age- and gender-matched healthy controls were participated in this study. Disease severity was assessed using Autoimmune Bullous Skin Disorder Intensity Score (ABSIS). Serum levels of IL-15 (pg/mL) and anti-desmoglein antibodies (Dsg1, 3) were determined. Results In the patient group, IL-15 serum levels were statistically higher than those in the control group (3.71 ± 1.5 vs. 0.79 ± 1.03, P < 0.001). A positive correlation was found between serum levels of IL-15 and ABSIS (r = 0.5, P = 0.04). We found no significant correlation between serum concentrations of IL-15 and antidesmoglein antibodies (Dsg1 or Dsg3). Conclusions An increase in serum level of IL-15 in patients with PV and its relationship with disease severity suggest that this cytokine possibly contributes to the pathogenesis of the disease and targeting IL-15 will likely provide a new insight into the treatment of this disease.
Exploring the role of antimicrobials in the selective growth of purple phototrophic bacteria through genome mining and agar spot assays

Purple non‐sulphur bacteria (PNSB) are an emerging group of microbes attractive for applied microbiology applications such as wastewater treatment, plant biostimulants, microbial protein, polyhydroxyalkanoates and H2 production. These photoorganoheterotrophic microbes have the unique ability to grow selectively on organic carbon in anaerobic photobioreactors. This so‐called selectivity implies that the microbial community will have a low diversity and a high abundance of a particular PNSB species. Recently, it has been shown that certain PNSB strains can produce antimicrobials, yet it remains unclear whether these contribute to competitive inhibition. This research aimed to understand which type of antimicrobial PNSB produce and identify whether these compounds contribute to their selective growth. Mining 166 publicly‐available PNSB genomes using the computational tool BAGEL showed that 59% contained antimicrobial encoding regions, more specifically biosynthetic clusters of bacteriocins and non‐ribosomal peptide synthetases. Inter‐ and intra‐species inhibition was observed in agar spot assays for Rhodobacter blasticus EBR2 and Rhodopseudomonas palustris EBE1 with inhibition zones of, respectively, 5.1 and 1.5–5.7 mm. Peptidomic analysis detected a peptide fragment in the supernatant (SVLQLLR) that had a 100% percentage identity match with a known non‐ribosomal peptide synthetase with antimicrobial activity.
Psychiatric and Psychosocial Characteristics of a Cohort of Spanish Individuals Attending Genetic Counseling Due to Risk for Genetically Conditioned Dementia

Background: Predictive genetic tests are presently effective over several medical conditions, increasing the demand among patients and healthy individuals. Considering the psychological burden suspected familial dementia may carry on individuals, assessing personality, coping strategies, and mental health could aid clinicians in findings the appropriate time for delivering genetic test results and predict compliance regarding genetic counseling and expectations towards the genetic condition depending on the outcome. Objective: To describe the psychiatric, psychological, and coping characteristics of a sample of Spanish individuals at risk of familial dementia before genetic test results were given. Methods: We included 54 first degree relatives of patients diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, lobar frontotemporal degeneration, or prion diseases. The NEO-FFI-R, COPE, and HADS tests evaluated personality, coping strategies, and psychological distress, respectively. Results: Anxiety and depression were below the cut-off point for mild severity. Conscientiousness and Agreeableness were the most preponderant personality factors, while Neuroticism was the least. Positive reinterpretation and Acceptance were the most frequent coping strategies, and Denial and Alcohol and drug use were the least used. Ongoing medical pathologies increased depression, while psychiatric disorders worsened psychological distress. Conclusion: Contrary to our expectations, PICOGEN candidates showed psychological distress and personality traits within normative ranges, and the use of problem-focused coping strategies prevailed over avoidance coping strategies. Nevertheless, clinicians should pay particular attention to individuals attending genetic counseling who are women, aged, and present an ongoing psychiatric disorder and psychiatric history at inclusion to ensure their mental health and adherence throughout the process.
Matter waves in the Talbot-Lau interferometry

Paths of particles, emitted from distributed sources and passing out through slits of two gratings, $G_{0}$ and $G_{1}$, up to detectors, have been computed in details by the path integral method. The slits are represented by Gaussian functions that simulate fuzzy edges of the slits. Waves of matter be computed by this method show perfect interference patterns both between the gratings and behind the second grating. Coherent and noncoherent the distributed particle sources reproducing the interference patterns are discussed in details. Paraxial approximation stems from the wave function when removing the distributed sources onto infinity. The more hard-edged slits of the grating $G_{1}$ are examined by simulating those slits by a superposition of more hard the Gaussian functions. As for the particles here we consider fullerene molecules. De Broglie wavelength of the molecules is adopted equal to 5 pm.
Cutting Temperatures and Metal-Cutting Phenomena

This paper considers some important findings which resulted from an investigation on the mechanism of heat generation during metal-cutting operations. It has been found that many changes during the cutting of metals are due to the change in tool-chip interface temperature through its influence on tool-chip friction. The paper is divided into two parts, the first of which pertains to the cutting forces and cutting temperatures observed during conventional turning and orthogonal cutting under otherwise identical conditions. The higher heat-dissipating capacity of the tool in orthogonal cutting operations was found to be fundamentally responsible for the observed differences. In the second part of the paper, the role of tool-chip contact area on interface temperatures is further investigated. This study has been of value in the interpretation of tool-chip interface temperature data and other phenomena heretofore inexplicable.
Magnetic field measurements of ϵ Eridani from Zeeman broadening

We present new magnetic field measurements of the K2 main-sequence star ϵ Eri based on principal components analysis (PCA) line-profile reconstructions. The aim of this paper is to quantify the surface-averaged magnetic field and search for possible variations. A total of 338 optical echelle spectra from our robotic telescope facility STELLA with a spectral resolution of 55 000 were available for analysis. This time-series was used to search for the small line-profile variations due to a surface magnetic field with the help of a PCA. Evidence for a spatial and temporal inhomogeneous magnetic field distribution is presented. The mean, surface averaged, magnetic field strength was found tobe 〈B〉 = 186 ± 47 G in good agreement with previous Zeeman-broadening measurements. Clear short-term variations of the surface averaged magnetic field of up to few tens Gauss were detected together with evidence for a three-year cycle in the surface-averaged magnetic field of ϵ Eri. (© 2015 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)
Correlations of Fundamental Social Motives with Personality Measures and Life History Variables

Background: In response to the replication crisis in the field of psychology, the authors conduct a replication of the Neel et al. (2016) (1) study examining individual differences in fundamental social motives. Methods: Using the Fundamental Social Motives Inventory, we explore the relationships of the fundamental social motives to other individual differences and personality measures and the extent to which life history variables (e.g., age, sex, childhood environment) predict individual differences in the fundamental social motives. In addition to the replication study, the authors also incorporate the Behavioral Inhibition/Activation Scale (BIS/BAS) as a new variable to determine this measure of personality’s correlation with all seven fundamental social motives of Self-Protection, Disease Avoidance, Affiliation, Status, Mate Seeking, Mate Retention, and Kin Care. A total of 34 participants are recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk to complete the measures of personality under question. The replication criteria are set at ±0.15 r/β-units from the original study results and effect sizes greater than or equal to r/β=0.5 have to demonstrate statistical significance at the p<0.05 level.Results: Results demonstrate that between a third and a half of all effect sizes replicate Neel et al.’s (1) findings.Limitations: These results should be considered carefully with respect to the low sample size of our study.Conclusion: The BIS/BAS variable proves to be most informative, indicating that the seven motives cluster under either the BIS or BAS factors with medium to large strengths of correlation. These findings contribute to discussions on considering the most accurate measures of social motivation and the implications of individual differences in psychology’s understanding of such motivational systems.
Examining Volunteer Management Needs and Preferred Professional Development Delivery Methods Among Extension Educators

The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate Penn State Extension educators’ volunteer management needs and desirable professional development delivery methods. The participants were 92 Extension educators who participated in the online survey. The response rate was 47.4%. We found that the top five most preferable volunteer management content area needs among educators were volunteer communication, motivation, training, risk management, and coaching. The most desirable delivery methods of volunteer management content were webinars, one-time in-service training, factsheets, and series of workshops. The point-biserial correlation coefficient was used to show the correlation between specific volunteer management content area and professional development delivery method. Face-to-face training was preferred for topics such as needs assessments, utilization, teaching ethics and ethical decision making, motivation, coaching, risk management, and communication. Published content was the most preferred delivery method for topics such as writing position descriptions, selection, teaching ethics and ethical decision making, and risk management. Online education was a preferred delivery method for most topics, with the exception of marketing skills and utilization. Staff development personnel should consider these preferred delivery methods when designing training programs for Extension educators. Such consideration will enhance training effectiveness and learning.
Insurance Cyclicality

This paper investigates how households smooth consumption against idiosyncratic wage shocks in recessions and expansions. Labour market uncertainty amplifies during recessions, captured through the cross-sectional dispersion of wages. I focus on the relative contribution of two insurance mechanisms to wage changes, namely, adjustments in labour supply and assets, during periods of high and low uncertainty. I exploit variation in expenditure, hours worked and wages over the business cycle to wage shocks, and apply it to US household panel data. I document a new empirical fact – the contribution of labour supply to consumption smoothing increases during labour market downturns. Households with low liquid wealth show the strongest asymmetric labour supply response between recessions and expansions. To jointly explain these empirical facts, I develop an incomplete market life-cycle model with multiple asset-types (liquid and illiquid) and an aggregate state that affects wage dispersion. The model shows that the key mechanism is the shift in portfolio composition towards liquid assets during high uncertainty periods. *I would like to thank Michael Devereux, Giovanni Gallipoli, and Viktoria Hnatkovska for their invaluable guidance. I am grateful to Kartik Athreya for his very insightful discussion of the paper. I thank the seminar participants at Ashoka University, Bank of Canada, CEA, CIREQ Ph.D. Students’ Symposium, European Economic Association, EWM of Econometric Society, Federal Reserve Board, RES Conference, SEHO 2022, SNU Macro Workshop, and VSE brown-bags for their feedback. I thank Aruni Mitra for sharing their data cleaning code. Any errors and shortcomings are mine. †Department of Economic Sciences, IIT Kanpur. Email address: anandchopra@iitk.ac. in
HIV-Induced Hyperactivity of Striatal Neurons Is Associated with Dysfunction of Voltage-Gated Calcium and Potassium Channels at Middle Age

Despite combination antiretroviral therapy, HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND) occur in ~50% of people living with HIV (PLWH), which are associated with dysfunction of the corticostriatal pathway. The mechanism by which HIV alters the neuronal activity in the striatum is unknown. The goal of this study is to reveal the dysfunction of striatal neurons in the context of neuroHIV during aging. Using patch-clamping electrophysiology, we evaluated the functional activity of medium spiny neurons (MSNs), including firing, Ca2+ spikes mediated by voltage-gated Ca2+ channels (VGCCs), and K+ channel-mediated membrane excitability, in brain slices containing the dorsal striatum (a.k.a. the caudate-putamen) from 12-month-old (12mo) HIV-1 transgenic (HIV-1 Tg) rats. We also assessed the protein expression of voltage-gated Cav1.2/Cav1.3 L-type Ca2+ channels (L-channels), NMDA receptors (NMDAR, NR2B subunit), and GABAA receptors (GABAARs, β2,3 subunit) in the striatum. We found that MSNs had significantly increased firing in 12mo HIV-1 Tg rats compared to age-matched non-Tg control rats. Unexpectedly, Ca2+ spikes were significantly reduced, while Kv channel activity was increased, in MSNs of HIV-1 Tg rats compared to non-Tg ones. The reduced Ca2+ spikes were associated with an abnormally increased expression of a shorter, less functional Cav1.2 L-channel form, while there was no significant change in the expression of NR2Bs or GABAARs. Collectively, the present study initially reveals neuroHIV-induced dysfunction of striatal MSNs in 12mo-old (middle) rats, which is uncoupled from VGCC upregulation and reduced Kv activity (that we previously identified in younger HIV-1 Tg rats). Notably, such striatal dysfunction is also associated with HIV-induced hyperactivity/neurotoxicity of glutamatergic pyramidal neurons in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) that send excitatory input to the striatum (demonstrated in our previous studies). Whether such MSN dysfunction is mediated by alterations in the functional activity instead of the expression of NR2b/GABAAR (or other subtypes) requires further investigation.
Boron Compounds Exhibit Protective Effects against Aluminum-Induced Neurotoxicity and Genotoxicity: In Vitro and In Vivo Study

Genetic, neuropathological and biochemical investigations have revealed meaningful relationships between aluminum (Al) exposure and neurotoxic and hematotoxic damage. Hence, intensive efforts are being made to minimize the harmful effects of Al. Moreover, boron compounds are used in a broad mix of industries, from cosmetics and pharmaceuticals to agriculture. They affect critical biological functions in cellular events and enzymatic reactions, as well as endocrinal and mineral metabolisms. There are limited dose-related data about boric acid (BA) and other boron compounds, including colemanite (Col), ulexite (UX) and borax (BX), which have commercial prominence. In this study, we evaluate boron compounds’ genetic, cytological, biochemical and pathological effects against aluminum chloride (AlCl3)-induced hematotoxicity and neurotoxicity on different cell and animal model systems. First, we perform genotoxicity studies on in vivo rat bone marrow cells and peripheric human blood cultures. To analyze DNA and chromosome damage, we use single cell gel electrophoresis (SCGE or comet assay) and micronucleus (MN) and chromosome aberration (CA) assays. The nuclear division index (NDI) is used to monitor cytostasis. Second, we examine the biochemical parameters (superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px), malondialdehyde (MDA), total antioxidant capacity (TAC) and total oxidative status (TOS)) to determine oxidative changes in blood and brain. Next, we assess the histopathological alterations by using light and electron microscopes. Our results show that Al increases oxidative stress and genetic damage in blood and brain in vivo and in vitro studies. Al also led to severe histopathological and ultrastructural alterations in the brain. However, the boron compounds alone did not cause adverse changes based on the above-studied parameters. Moreover, these compounds exhibit different levels of beneficial effects by removing the harmful impact of Al. The antioxidant, antigenotoxic and cytoprotective effects of boron compounds against Al-induced damage indicate that boron may have a high potential for use in medical purposes in humans. In conclusion, our analysis suggests that boron compounds (especially BA, BX and UX) can be administered to subjects to prevent neurodegenerative and hematological disorders at determined doses.
Conjugacy and subgroups of word-hyperbolic groups

This thesis describes a number of algorithms and properties relating to Gromov’s word-hyperbolic groups. A fuller outline of the thesis is given, and a number of basic concepts relating to metric spaces, hyperbolicity and automaticity are first briefly detailed in Chapter 1. Chapter 2 then details a solution to the conjugacy problem for lists of elements in a word-hyperbolic group which can be run in linear time; this is an improvement on a quadratic time algorithm for lists which contain an infinite order element. Chapter 3 provides a number of further results and algorithms which build upon this result to efficiently solve problems relating to quasiconvex subgroups of word-hyperbolic groups – specifically, the problem of testing if an element conjugates into a quasiconvex subgroup, and testing equality of double cosets. In Chapter 4, a number of properties of certain coset Cayley graphs are studied, in particular showing that graph morphisms which preserve edge labels and directions and map a quasiconvex subset to a single point also preserve a variety of other properties, for instance hyperbolicity. Finally, Chapter 5 gives a proof that all word-hyperbolic groups are 14-hyperbolic with respect to some generating set.
Directed Motion at the Syntax-Semantics Interface

Monografie je přispěvkem ke studiu vztahů mezi rovinou semantickou a syntaktickou. Analyzuje anglicka slovesa vyjadřujici pohyb zejmena ve vztahu k jeho orientovanosti (prostorove zaměřenosti). Postuluje orientovaný pohyb jako samostatnou kategorii a ukazuje, jakou roli hraje orientovanost pohybu v rovině semanticke a syntakticke. Doklada, že orientovanost pohybu nema status aditivni, což se projevuje i na urovni kauzativni strukturace udalosti.
Assessment of knee and ankle proprioception during the third trimester of pregnancy and postpartum period among primiparous women: An observational longitudinal study

BACKGROUND: Pregnant women experience falls, particularly in the third trimester. In this population, physiological changes, as well as ligament laxity, might influence joint proprioception and do not return to normal during the postpartum period. The prevalence of falls during pregnancy and postpartum periods imposes a need to study proprioception in pregnant women and the postpartum period. MATERIALS AND METHOD: An observational longitudinal study was conducted in June 2018 in outpatient clinic Chinchwad Pune. A total of 36 primiparous women were included in the study by using purposive sampling. The mean and standard deviation of the age was 25.92 (2.59). Proprioception was assessed for the knee joint and the ankle joint during the third trimester of pregnancy and 6th and 12th week postpartum. Outcomes included were the Joint Reposition Test for both knee and ankle joints using UTHSCSA Image Tool Software 3.0. Repeated-measure ANOVA was performed for the normally distributed data, and nonparametric test Friedman's test was performed for data that were not distributed normally. The data was statistically analyzed using the SPSS software version 26. The level of significance was set at 0.05, confidence intervals of 95% were used. RESULT: The result revealed significant (P < 0.05) improvement in both knee and ankle proprioception during the third trimester of pregnancy and postpartum period 6th and 12th week. CONCLUSION: Knee proprioception and ankle proprioception were found to improve significantly during the postpartum period 6th and 12th weeks compared to the third trimester of pregnancy but do not return to the prepregnancy state.
Swift J0525.6+2416 and IGR J04571+4527: two new hard X-ray selected magnetic cataclysmic variables identified with XMM-Newton

IGR J04571+4527 and Swift J0525.6+2416 are two hard X-ray sources detected in the Swift/BAT and INTEGRAL/IBIS surveys. They were proposed to be magnetic cataclysmic variables of the Intermediate Polar (IP) type, based on opti cal spectroscopy. IGR J04571+4527 also showed a 1218 s optical periodicity, suggestive of the rotational period of a white dwarf, further pointing towards an IP classification. We here prese nt detailed X-ray (0.3‐10 keV) timing and spectral analysis performed with XMM-Newton, complemented with hard X-ray coverage (15‐70 keV) from Swift/BAT. These are the first high S/N observations in the soft X-ray domain for both sources, allowing us to identify the white dwarf X-ray spin period of Swift J0525.6+2416 (226.28 s), and IGR J04571+4527 (1222.6 s). A model consisting of multi-temperature optically thin emission with complex absorption adequately fits the broadband spectrum of both sources. We estimate a white dwarf mass of about 1.1 and 1.0 M⊙ for IGR J04571+4527 and Swift J0525.6+2416, respectively. The above characteristics allow us to unambiguously classify both sources as IPs, confirming th e high incidence of this subclass among hard X-ray emitting Cataclysmic Variables.