Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Defective platelet function in Niemann‐Pick disease type C1

Niemann‐Pick disease type C (NPC) is a neurodegenerative lysosomal storage disorder caused by mutations in either NPC1 (95% of cases) or NPC2. Reduced late endosome/lysosome calcium (Ca2+) levels and the accumulation of unesterified cholesterol and sphingolipids within the late endocytic system characterize this disease. We previously reported impaired lysosome‐related organelle (LRO) function in Npc1−/− Natural Killer cells; however, the potential contribution of impaired acid compartment Ca2+ flux and LRO function in other cell types has not been determined. Here, we investigated LRO function in NPC1 disease platelets. We found elevated numbers of circulating platelets, impaired platelet aggregation and prolonged bleeding times in a murine model of NPC1 disease. Electron microscopy revealed abnormal ultrastructure in murine platelets, consistent with that seen in a U18666A (pharmacological inhibitor of NPC1) treated megakaryocyte cell line (MEG‐01) exhibiting lipid storage and acidic compartment Ca2+ flux defects. Furthermore, platelets from NPC1 patients across different ages were found to cluster at the lower end of the normal range when platelet numbers were measured and had platelet volumes that were clustered at the top of the normal range. Taken together, these findings highlight the role of acid compartment Ca2+ flux in the function of platelet LROs.
Recent invasion of P transposable element into Drosophila yakuba

Transposable elements (TEs) are self-replicating genetic units that are common across prokaryotes and eukaryotes. They have been implicated in the origin of new molecular functions and in some cases, new phenotypes. Yet, the processes that lead to their evolution and how they enter the genome of their hosts remain largely underexplored. The P-element is one of the most well-known TEs in Eukaryotes, due to its rapid expansion in Drosophila melanogaster in the 1960s and its faster invasion of D. simulans, despite its fitness consequences in both species. Here, we describe a recent invasion of P-elements into Drosophila yakuba. Overall, PEs were found in D. yakuba with no PEs detected across its sister species, D. teissieri and D. santomea. These findings are surprising due the lack of a genetic bridge between D. yakuba and other Drosophila that harbor PEs, implicating a horizontal gene transfer mechanism similar to the one that gave rise to the invasion of PEs in D. melanogaster and D. simulans. We also report that the presence of these PEs causes a mild hybrid dysgenesis phenomenon; namely they cause a reduction in female reproductive potential (lower number of ovaries and ovarioles), but only at 29°C and not at 23°C. Given the ability of PEs to cross species boundaries and the fact that both D. santomea and D. teissieri have the ability to produce fertile progeny with D. yakuba, the yakuba species complex provides an opportunity to study PE spread through vertical transmission. ARTICLE SUMMARY P-elements (PEs) are transposons found in Neotropical Drosophila species. PEs have previously invaded two African Drosophila species where they rapidly increased in population frequency and fixed. We found that PEs invaded the genome of D. yakuba, an African species. In just 8 years, the frequency of the PEs increased from 0% to 18% but then decreased to 2%. This turnover shows that PE invasions can be transient. We found no evidence of full PEs in D. yakuba’ sister species, D. santomea and D. teissieri. PEs in this species complex can reveal the interplay between transposable elements and hybridization in nature.
Physical and Numerical Experiments to Investigate the Influence of Dead-Water Zones on the Dispersive Mass Transport in Rivers

The dispersive mass transport in rivers has been investigated to improve the predictability of transport scenarios in case of accidental pollutant spills. In particular, the influence of dead-water zones, as they are given by groin fields, on the transport characteristics in the main stream has been analyzed. A literature review of detailed map material from the rivers Rhine, Waal and Elbe has been performed, in order to plan representative laboratory experiments. Typical aspect ratios of the groin fields as well as typical inclination angles have been summarized. Based on these results, experiments have been performed in a laboratory flume equipped with schematized groins. Within theses experiments the aspect ratio, the inclination angles as well as the groin field volume has been varied. Due to the fact that the flow is very shallow and, therefore, quasi two-dimensional, the flow velocities have been determined at the water surface, using a Surface Particle-Image-Velocimetry-System that has been developed for that purpose. Additional measurements, using a two-dimensional Laser-Doppler-Velocimeter, have been performed for resolving the velocity distribution over the water depth. With the help of these measurements it was possible to determine the typical recirculating flows in the groin fields as well as the coherent, horizontal eddies in the mixing layer between dead-water zone and main stream, that are governing the mass exchange. The high spatial and temporal resolution of the surface PIV measurements made it possible to estimate also the mass exchange between groin field and main stream. With the help of Planar-Concentration-Analysis, which is a method for determining depth-averaged planar concentration fields, it could be shown that the mass exchange between groin field and main stream increases with increasing length of the groin field. For these measurements a tracer injection device has been developed, that consists of a movable multi-port injection-box and vacuum-pressure-unit, which is able to produce instantaneously, homogeneous and reproducible concentration fields. Finally a Lagrangian-Particle-Tracking-Method was developed to transfer the results, obtained locally at single groin fields, into the overall transport characteristics in the far-field of pollutant spill scenario for a river system consisting of a series of groin fields. Through the implementation of a transient-adhesion-boundary, it was possible to parameterize the influence of groin fields on the longitudinal dispersion, the transport velocity and the skewness of the concentration distribution in the case of a pollutant spill.
Seismic Lines in Treed Boreal Peatlands as Analogs for Wildfire Fuel Modification Treatments

Across the Boreal, there is an expansive wildland–society interface (WSI), where communities, infrastructure, and industry border natural ecosystems, exposing them to the impacts of natural disturbances, such as wildfire. Treed peatlands have previously received little attention with regard to wildfire management; however, their role in fire spread, and the contribution of peat smouldering to dangerous air pollution, have recently been highlighted. To help develop effective wildfire management techniques in treed peatlands, we use seismic line disturbance as an analog for peatland fuel modification treatments. To delineate below-ground hydrocarbon resources using seismic waves, seismic lines are created by removing above-ground (canopy) fuels using heavy machinery, forming linear disturbances through some treed peatlands. We found significant differences in moisture content and peat bulk density with depth between seismic line and undisturbed plots, where smouldering combustion potential was lower in seismic lines. Sphagnum mosses dominated seismic lines and canopy fuel load was reduced for up to 55 years compared to undisturbed peatlands. Sphagnum mosses had significantly lower smouldering potential than feather mosses (that dominate mature, undisturbed peatlands) in a laboratory drying experiment, suggesting that fuel modification treatments following a strategy based on seismic line analogs would be effective at reducing smouldering potential at the WSI, especially under increasing fire weather.
The Role of Social Media in Entrepreneurial Development: The Nigerian Perspective

The study examined the role of social media in entrepreneurial development in Nigeria, specifically, how the use of social media enhances customer retention, brand awareness and customer loyalty. Based on the criteria set out to select these entrepreneurs in Lagos state, the study adopted a stratified and convenience sampling technique to select one hundred and fifty-three entrepreneurs, and the analysis was carried out using linear regression. The result revealed that social media has a significant positive relationship with customer retention, brand awareness, and customer loyalty, and findings revealed that social media has proven to be an essential tool to engage customers and create brand awareness which eventually leads to customer retention and loyalty for an organization. Hence, the study recommended that entrepreneurs need to invest heavily on information and communication technology to boost operational efficiency, improve quality of product and services interface with customers, and create room to consistently solve customer problems swiftly.
Towards a Better Understanding of Transfer Learning for Medical Imaging: A Case Study

One of the main challenges of employing deep learning models in the field of medicine is a lack of training data due to difficulty in collecting and labeling data, which needs to be performed by experts. To overcome this drawback, transfer learning (TL) has been utilized to solve several medical imaging tasks using pre-trained state-of-the-art models from the ImageNet dataset. However, there are primary divergences in data features, sizes, and task characteristics between the natural image classification and the targeted medical imaging tasks. Therefore, TL can slightly improve performance if the source domain is completely different from the target domain. In this paper, we explore the benefit of TL from the same and different domains of the target tasks. To do so, we designed a deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) model that integrates three ideas including traditional and parallel convolutional layers and residual connections along with global average pooling. We trained the proposed model against several scenarios. We utilized the same and different domain TL with the diabetic foot ulcer (DFU) classification task and with the animal classification task. We have empirically shown that the source of TL from the same domain can significantly improve the performance considering a reduced number of images in the same domain of the target dataset. The proposed model with the DFU dataset achieved F1-score value of 86.6% when trained from scratch, 89.4% with TL from a different domain of the targeted dataset, and 97.6% with TL from the same domain of the targeted dataset.
Molecular analysis of buckwheat using gene specific markers

Buckwheat ( Fagopyrium esculentum ) is a pseudo-cereal which has spread troughout the world and nowadays it represents cultural, economic and nutritionally important pseudocereal . It´s enviromentally friendly, characterized by high fiber, routine, protein and B vitamins, and is general-purpose. The goal of the present study was to analyze 17 genotypes of buckwheat by using 7 SCoT markers. In total, 52 fragments were detected, of which 38 were polymorphic. The average number of polymorphic fragments was 5.43. The most polymorphic fragments were detected in SCoT 26 and SCoT 29 markers, and the average percentage of polymorphism was 73.36 %. SCoT 29 reached the highest percentage of polymorphism (87.5 %) and SCoT 36 was lowest (60 %). The DI values ​​ranged from 0.625 (SCoT 36) to 0.887 (SCoT 26) and the average DI value was 0.749. The average PIC value was 0.729 with PIC values ranging from 0.386 (SCoT 36) to 0.831 (SCoT 26). To determine the genetic diversity of 17 genotypes of the buckwheat, a dendrogram was created using the hierarchical cluster analysis. The genotypes were divided into two major clusters (I and II). Cluster I was divided into three other subgroups. Sixteen genotypes were included in cluster I and the genotype of Madawaska (USA) was genetically the farthest in cluster II. Genetically the closest were the varieties of Ballada (Russia) and Bamby (Austria). Used SCoT markers were sufficiently polymorphic, were able identify and differentiate chosen set of buckwheat genotypes.
Cultural differences in the response conduct to personality inventories

Response styles in psychological assessment and research have been identified as an important threat to the validity of the research and to the level of confidence that a research may have. This can represent a problem namely in an intercultural research, due to the fact that individuals from different cultures may use different response scales in different ways. A sample of 90 participants, 45 Romanian and 45 Korean, aged between 28 and 55 years of age, have been assessed with The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) and with California Personality Inventory (CPI). The main objective was to identify significant cultural differences regarding the response conduits of the participants. Based on this objective we emitted the following hypotheses: (1) we presume there are significant differences in social desirability regarding self-control between Romanian and Korean subjects; (2) we presume there are significant differences in the Lie Scale regarding responsibility and the level of study of the participants; (3) we presume there are significant differences between self-image management between Romanian and Korean subjects; (4) we presume there are significant differences between social conformism between Romanian and Korean subjects. All hypotheses were confirmed. Results are discussed based on the importance of the cultural factor in human behaviour.
The Impact of Technology Factors Beyond School on Eighth-Grade Math Achievement

This study examined the relationship between technology factors students use beyond school and their standardized math assessment scores. Student frequency of seeking math help online, playing digital games involving math, and programming computers outside of school were studied. An analysis of data taken from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) dataset was done to compare student responses from survey data to mathematics achievement scores of 8th-grade students. This secondary data analysis was completed using multiple t-tests to compare means and determine significance. Results found in this study showed that beyond school, frequent use (daily or almost) of websites for math homework help, playing digital games involving, and programming computers had negative effects on scores. Once/twice a year or month scored better than never for website use and digital games, while never programming scored higher than all other frequencies. Students may benefit from instructional guidance as to which websites are most beneficial for homework help with math. An effort to help students recognize math use in digital games may increase their awareness and intentional use outside of school. Early classroom instruction on computer programming may help provide a better understanding of its relationship with mathematics.
Fowl Adenoviruses Type 8b Isolated from Chickens with Inclusion Body Hepatitis in Japan

SUMMARY. Fowl adenovirus (FAdV) type 8b isolated from chickens with inclusion body hepatitis (IBH) in Japan from 2018 to 2019 were characterized serologically and genetically. Serologically, all isolates were well neutralized by antisera against the FAdV-8b strain, but they were not neutralized by antisera against the FAdV-8a strain. Phylogenetic analysis of the part of the hexon protein gene that includes the L1 region revealed that these isolates were all identical. They were also identical to foreign strains such as the SD1356 strain isolated in China and belonged to FAdV-8b. Furthermore, the 2018–19 Japanese IBH 8b isolates were genetically identical to the SD1356 strain by phylogenetic analysis of fiber genes, but they were different from previous Japanese 8b strains. These findings suggest that the 2018–19 Japanese IBH isolates might have been introduced from other countries.
Effects of Kombucha Tea on Side Effects of High Cholesterol Diet in Rabbits

Background: This research aimed to assess the effect of kombucha tea on reducing cholesterol (HCH) uptake and ameliorating biochemical and physiological side effects of high cholesterol diets. Objectives: The aim of this research was evaluate the effectiveness of Kombucha tea in reducing cholesterol uptake as well as pathological and immunological side effects from high cholesterol diets in Rabbit. Methods: A total of 32 rabbits were assigned into four groups: 1. Control, fed with standard pellets; 2. HCh+St, fed with high cholesterol diet; 3. HCh+Kom, fed with high cholesterol diet and orally received kombucha beverage; and 4. Kom+St, orally received kombucha beverage along with standard diet. Then, the blood Cholesterol (CHO), Triglycerides (TG), Low-density Lipoprotein (LDL), Malondialdehyde (MDA), ferritin, Creatine Phosphokinase (CPK), Interleukin-1 (IL-1), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and liver enzymes (alanine transaminase [ALT], and aspartate transaminase [ AST]), as well as liver histopathological features, were evaluated in all groups. Results: CHO and TG showed the highest level in the blood of the HCh+St group, whereas those gavaged with HCh+Kom displayed no change in TG and LDL. Conversely, the HCh+Kom group showed a significant increase in HDL when compared with HCh+St and Kom+St groups. MDA ferritin and CPK in the Kom+St group was significantly higher than the other groups, followed by HCh+Kom. No significant difference was observed in the values of IL-1 and IL-6 as well as ALT and AST between the experimental groups and the control group. Histopathological observations of the liver tissues revealed foam cells with an acidophilic appearance in the HCh+St group and hyperemia in the sinusoid of HCh+Kom and Kom+St groups. Degradation in pancreatic acini was observed in the HCh+St rabbits. Conclusion: The data suggest that kombucha consumption is effective in preventing problems caused by high cholesterol diets.
Gastrointestinal Helminths of Rattus steini (Rodentia: Muridae) from Papua New Guinea

Abstract Helminth specimens representing 3 cestode species, an acanthocephalan, and 15 nematode species were collected from the digestive tracts of 30 individuals of Rattus steini (Muridae) from Papua New Guinea. Of the nematode morphotypes, 7 could be identified to species level and there was insufficient material to fully identify the remainder. All were new host records. A bootstrap estimator of species richness indicated that 83.6% of the expected species in the gastrointestinal helminth community of R. steini were recovered. A comparison of the gastrointestinal communities of Rattus leucopus, Rattus giluwensis, Rattus novaeguineae, and Rattus niobe with R. steini found that the dominant elements in each case were heterakids, oxyurids, and spirurids, with heligmonellids at low prevalences and intensities.
Offline Pricing and Demand Learning with Censored Data

We study a single product pricing problem with demand censoring in an offline data-driven setting. In this problem, a retailer has a finite amount of inventory and faces a random demand that is price sensitive in a linear fashion with unknown price sensitivity and base demand distribution. Any unsatisfied demand that exceeds the inventory level is lost and unobservable. We assume that the retailer has access to an offline data set consisting of triples of historical price, inventory level, and potentially censored sales quantity. The retailer’s objective is to use the offline data set to find an optimal price, maximizing his or her expected revenue with finite inventories. Because of demand censoring in the offline data, we show that the existence of near-optimal algorithms in a data-driven problem—which we call problem identifiability—is not always guaranteed. We develop a necessary and sufficient condition for problem identifiability by comparing the solutions to two distributionally robust optimization problems. We propose a novel data-driven algorithm that hedges against the distributional uncertainty arising from censored data, with provable finite-sample performance guarantees regardless of problem identifiability and offline data quality. Specifically, we prove that, for identifiable problems, the proposed algorithm is near-optimal and, for unidentifiable problems, its worst-case revenue loss approaches the best-achievable minimax revenue loss that any data-driven algorithm must incur. Numerical experiments demonstrate that our proposed algorithm is highly effective and significantly improves both the expected and worst-case revenues compared with three regression-based algorithms. This paper was accepted by J. George Shanthikumar, big data analytics.
Mesenchymal Stem Cells: A Potential Promise in Treating Atherosclerosis?

Atherosclerosis is a chronic inflammatory disease which results in thickening of the vessel wall and narrowing of the lumen. It is a leading cause of death worldwide. Preventive treatment is taken into prioritized consideration since currently no effective approaches to cure atherosclerosis are available. These treatments mainly focus on lowering blood cholesterol levels, especially LDL-C, by statins. Even so, lowering lipid levels is not sufficient to reduce the risk of cardiovascular events in all patients. Recently, atherosclerosis has increasingly been recognized as a chronic inflammatory disease involving the immune system, initiating new therapeutic approaches which could alleviate or prevent atherosclerosis by modulating inflammation. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have emerged as a promising option to relieve inflammation and balance immune responses in inflammatory diseases. Several studies including our group also reported that MSCs may be a new therapeutic option for atherosclerosis. This review summarizes the updated state of our knowledge in the administration of MSCs to alleviate atherosclerosis and discusses some of the key unresolved challenges that need to be solved in future studies.
Colletotrichum species associated with anthracnose of Pyrus spp. in China

Colletotrichum species are plant pathogens, saprobes, and endophytes on a range of economically important hosts. However, the species occurring on pear remain largely unresolved. To determine the morphology, phylogeny and biology of Colletotrichum species associated with Pyrus plants, a total of 295 samples were collected from cultivated pear species (including P. pyrifolia, P. bretschneideri, and P. communis) from seven major pear-cultivation provinces in China. The pear leaves and fruits affected by anthracnose were sampled and subjected to fungus isolation, resulting in a total of 488 Colletotrichum isolates. Phylogenetic analyses based on six loci (ACT, TUB2, CAL, CHS-1, GAPDH, and ITS) coupled with morphology of 90 representative isolates revealed that they belong to 10 known Colletotrichum species, including C. aenigma, C. citricola, C. conoides, C. fioriniae, C. fructicola, C. gloeosporioides, C. karstii, C. plurivorum, C. siamense, C. wuxiense, and two novel species, described here as C. jinshuiense and C. pyrifoliae. Of these, C. fructicola was the most dominant, occurring on P. pyrifolia and P. bretschneideri in all surveyed provinces except in Shandong, where C. siamense was dominant. In contrast, only C. siamense and C. fioriniae were isolated from P. communis, with the former being dominant. In order to prove Koch’s postulates, pathogenicity tests on pear leaves and fruits revealed a broad diversity in pathogenicity and aggressiveness among the species and isolates, of which C. citricola, C. jinshuiense, C. pyrifoliae, and C. conoides appeared to be organ-specific on either leaves or fruits. This study also represents the first reports of C. citricola, C. conoides, C. karstii, C. plurivorum, C. siamense, and C. wuxiense causing anthracnose on pear.