Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Antioxidant profile of whole saliva after scaling and root planing in periodontal disease

Purpose This study compared the total antioxidant status (TAS) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity in the saliva of periodontally compromised patients before and after scaling and root planing (SRP) to assess their diagnostic utility. Methods Severe chronic periodontitis patient (test group) and subjects with no attachment loss, sites showing a 3 mm or more probing depth and a sulcus bleeding index < 10% (control group) were enrolled in this study. Saliva sampling and clinical examination were performed at one week, one month and 3 months after SRP. The TAS and SOD activity in each patient's saliva was measured for the comparative analysis between the groups. Results In the test group, the TAS decreased directly after SRP. With time, it increased slightly and was relatively unchanged compared to the baseline. In the control group, the TAS also decreased immediately after SRP but increased gradually with time until 3 months. The SOD activity in the test and control subjects decreased immediately after SRP until 1 month. At 3 months, the SOD activity had increased. Both groups had a similar profile of SOD activity. However, the SOD activity of the control group was significantly higher than that of the test group at each point in time (P < 0.05). Conclusions There was a significant difference in the total salivary antioxidant level between the periodontitis and healthy or gingivitis (control) group during the experiment period. The total antioxidant level in the saliva was higher in the patients with severe chronic periodontitis than the healthy or gingivitis control before SRP. The SOD activity of the periodontitis patients was lower than the control at each time point. These findings conclusively reveal the possible use of saliva as a diagnostic tool for periodontal health.
Open Access Journal of Sports Medicine Dovepress Role of Nutrition in Performance Enhancement and Postexercise Recovery

A number of factors contribute to success in sport, and diet is a key component. An athlete's dietary requirements depend on several aspects, including the sport, the athlete's goals, the environment, and practical issues. The importance of individualized dietary advice has been increasingly recognized, including day-today dietary advice and specific advice before, during , and after training and/or competition. Athletes use a range of dietary strategies to improve performance, with maximizing glycogen stores a key strategy for many. Carbohydrate intake during exercise maintains high levels of carbohydrate oxidation, prevents hypoglycemia, and has a positive effect on the central nervous system. Recent research has focused on athletes training with low carbohydrate availability to enhance metabolic adaptations, but whether this leads to an improvement in performance is unclear. The benefits of protein intake throughout the day following exercise are now well recognized. Athletes should aim to maintain adequate levels of hydration, and they should minimize fluid losses during exercise to no more than 2% of their body weight. Supplement use is widespread in athletes, with recent interest in the beneficial effects of nitrate, beta-alanine, and vitamin D on performance. However, an unregulated supplement industry and inadvertent contamination of supplements with banned substances increases the risk of a positive doping result. Although the availability of nutrition information for athletes varies, athletes will benefit from the advice of a registered dietician or nutritionist.
Chapter 11 The record of Neoproterozoic glaciation in the Taoudéni Basin, NW Africa

Abstract The Taoudéni Basin covers over 1 000 000 km2 of the West African Craton, bounded by Pan-African orogenic belts. Four supergroups separated by craton-scale unconformities are recognized, with Neoproterozoic glaciogenic deposits occurring at the base of Supergroup 2. The Jbéliat Group occurs along a continuous, 1300-km-long, narrow belt from the Adrar region of Mauritania to the eastern limit of the Hank in Algeria and comprises thin glacial drift capped widely by periglacial polygonal structures, with more complex glacial sequences preserved in palaeo-depressions. A thicker, variously marine and continental glaciogenic succession can be found in southern parts, while fully marine, glacially influenced successions are only known from the extreme SW of the basin. The ‘triad’ sequence of diamictites overlain by barite-bearing ‘cap’ dolostones and then by green shales and/or bedded cherts (silexites) is ubiquitous and has long been used to correlate the Supergroup 1/2 boundary across the basin and into the surrounding orogenic belts. The bedded cherts commonly show a volcanic influence and are cemented by early marine calcite at their base at Adrar, Mauritania. Although fossil-based age constraints are scarce and ambiguous, regional tectonic events indicate that ‘triad’ deposition occurred between the Bassaride (665–655 Ma) and Dahomeyide (610–580 Ma) orogens. Recent U–Pb zircon studies of ignimbrite tuffs provide a minimum age for the glaciation of c. 600 Ma. Correlation of supergroup 2 glacial deposits with the c. 635 Ma end-Cryogenian (‘Marinoan’) glaciation is likely and is supported by limited carbon and strontium isotope data. Barite is commonly found within the cap carbonate and may relate to methane seepage and/or unusual oceanographic conditions after deglaciation. Several studies have attributed sequence complexity within the post-glacial succession to isostatic reequilibration. The Taoudéni Basin represents a rare Neoproterozoic example of terrestrial tillites and associated periglacial facies.
Determination of the in vivo structural DNA loop organization in the genomic region of the rat albumin locus by means of a topological approach

Nuclear DNA of metazoans is organized in supercoiled loops anchored to a proteinaceous substructure known as the nuclear matrix (NM). DNA is anchored to the NM by non-coding sequences known as matrix attachment regions (MARs). There are no consensus sequences for identification of MARs and not all potential MARs are actually bound to the NM constituting loop attachment regions (LARs). Fundamental processes of nuclear physiology occur at macromolecular complexes organized on the NM; thus, the topological organization of DNA loops must be important. Here, we describe a general method for determining the structural DNA loop organization in any large genomic region with a known sequence. The method exploits the topological properties of loop DNA attached to the NM and elementary topological principles such as that points in a deformable string (DNA) can be positionally mapped relative to a position-reference invariant (NM), and from such mapping, the configuration of the string in third dimension can be deduced. Therefore, it is possible to determine the specific DNA loop configuration without previous characterization of the LARs involved. We determined in hepatocytes and B-lymphocytes of the rat the DNA loop organization of a genomic region that contains four members of the albumin gene family.
Adolescent blood pressure, body mass index and skin folds: sorting out the effects of early weight and length gains

Background Although there is longstanding evidence of the short-term beneﬁts of promoting rapid growth for young children in low-income settings, more recent studies suggest that early weight gain can also increase the risk of chronic diseases in adults. This paper attempts to separate the effects of early life weight and length/height gains on blood pressure, body mass index (BMI), sum of skin folds and subscapular/triceps skin fold ratio at 14 e 15 years of age. Methods The sample comprised 833 members of a prospective population-based birth cohort from Brazil. Conditional size (weight or height) analyses were used to express the difference between observed size at a given age and expected size based on a regression, including all previous measures of the same anthropometric index. A positive conditional weight or height indicates growing faster than expected given prior size. Results Conditional weights at all age ranges were positively associated with most outcomes; each z-score of conditional weight at 4 years was associated with an increase of 6.1 mm in the sum of skin folds (95% CI 4.5 to 7.6) in adolescence after adjustment for conditional length/height. Associations of the outcomes with conditional length/height were mostly negative or non-signiﬁcant d each z-score was associated with a reduction of 2.4 mm (95% CI (cid:1) 3.8 to (cid:1) 1.1) in the sum of skin folds after adjustment for conditional weight. No associations were found with the skin fold ratio. Conclusion The promotion of rapid length/height gain without excessive weight gain seems to be beneﬁcial for long-term outcomes, but this requires conﬁrmation from other studies.
Badland dynamics in the Central Pyrenees: temporal and spatial patterns of weathering processes

The genesis and development of badlands is controlled by bedrock lithology, topography and climate. The development of badlands in the Central Spanish Pyrenees is favoured by the presence of marls and a climate with a marked seasonality; the combination of these factors results in active hydrosedimentological processes. The aim of the present work was to study the dynamics of badlands in the Central Pyrenees, with a focus on the temporal and spatial patterns of the dominant weathering processes. The study area was a small mountain catchment, and we focussed on the continuous observation of a number of physical parameters that control regolith development and weathering processes. Samples collected from different depths at sites with different aspects enabled temporal comparisons of the factors involved in the development of surface regolith that can be considered as indicators of the weathering of the marls. These indicators were then related to environmental variables (moisture and temperature). Atterberg limits were established and related to moisture content to explain slope dynamics and related processes. Finally, analyses of carbonate content were performed in the laboratory. The results validate the employed methodology, supporting our description of weathering processes, the established chronological sequence and the relation of these processes to climatic and topographic parameters. The results obtained since January 2004 show that the chosen indicators are sensitive to seasonal dynamics, variations in temperature and water supply, and slope aspect. The development and dynamics of regolith on north‐facing slopes is more active than that on south‐facing slopes. Freeze–thaw is the main weathering process on north‐facing slopes, while south‐facing slopes are dominated by the development of crusts associated with wetting–drying processes. Washing effects and lower temperatures upon north‐facing slopes mean that the dissolution of carbonates is more pronounced in such areas compared with south‐facing slopes, especially within the upper layers of the regolith. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Overland flow in wetlands: vegetation resistance.

Emergent wetland vegetation frequently provides most of the resistance to flow of surface water. Stems are typically spaced many diameters apart. Therefore, fluid friction should be computed from drag on single objects, not channel or packed bed equations. Complication arises from vertical variation of vegetation density and nonoriented spatial variation of soil elevations. Further, flows are often in the transition region between laminar and turbulent; and the Manning equation is therefore not appropriate. A detailed approach requires knowledge of statistical distributions of wetland ground elevation, depth, and velocity. Ground slopes are typically in the range of 0.1–100 cm/km. However, the depth range is small, so the combined effects recorrelate to a simple power law equation for dense emergent vegetation with spatial uniformity on the scale of 10 m. Parameters in the model can be estimated with sufficient accuracy from vegetation and soil surveys, combined with relatively little hydrologic data. Dat.
Cloud growth process appeared in the global scale distribution of the cloud optical and microphysical properties retrieved from the satellite remote sensing

The spatial distributions and temporal variations of the cloud properties, optical thickness (τc) and effective particle radius (re) are important observation targets to understand the role of clouds in the radiation budget estimations, especially in the cloud-aerosol interaction studies, because they will have information of cloud growth at the certain area. Thus, the wide-area and high-temporal observations of the cloud properties are necessary. We used MODIS 5-km sub-sampling radiance subsets (MOD02SSH) for the global scale retrievals of clouds. The MOD02SSH conserves scene texture and has moderately reduced data volume of 1/25 from original size of MODIS scene, so that they will be suitable for the more precise estimations of τc and re over synoptic to global scale. We retrieved τc and re from one-month MOD02SSH over the global region in July 2006 by using a cloud retrieval algorithm of CAPCOM developed by Nakajima and Nakajima (1995) with an extension by Kawamoto et al. (2001). In the obtained τc versus re scatter plots at every 5 x 5 degrees grid boxes, we found typical features of the τc versus re scatter patterns in the middle part of the Pacific and Indian oceans, Eastern Europe and Asia, and the west coast of the North and South America. Such patterns will be explained by the spectral microphysics cloud model developed by Suzuki et al. (2006), as the cloud properties under the pristine, turbid, and mixture aerosol environments. The aerosol transport model SPRINTARS developed by Takemura et al. (2005) simulated that the Eastern Europe and Asia covered by dense aerosols in the period.
Precipitation event distribution in Central Argentina: spatial and temporal patterns

The annual amount of precipitation inputs received by a site during a full year is considered a dominant spatial and temporal control of primary productivity and other related process in arid to subhumid ecosystems. However, to be effectively used by plants, these inputs have to escape runoff, favoured by large and less frequent precipitation events, and evaporation losses, favoured by small and more frequent events. Thus, available water for plant transpiration is not only influenced by the annual sum of precipitation events but also by their frequency‐size distribution. In this paper, we characterize this distribution and its association to total annual precipitation inputs through space (five sites along a tenfold precipitation gradient across 1000 km) and time (1961–2010) in the plains of central Argentina. We decomposed total precipitation into two structural components, which are the frequency and mean size of events, showing that they have similar contributions (log–log slopes ≈ 0·5) explaining precipitation shifts in space. Over time, however, we found a preponderance of mean event size explaining precipitation fluctuations, particularly towards wetter sites (log–log slopes increasing from 0·61 to 0·88). The relative variability of event sizes, independent of their mean size (i.e. inequality), was numerically characterized with Gini coefficients derived from Lorenz curves, which showed highly constant values in space and time. Assuming fixed event‐size thresholds for evaporation and runoff, and ignoring other controls beyond precipitation structure, the proportion of water potentially available for plant transpiration grew with total precipitation, raising from 0·45 to 0·71 from the driest to the wettest sites, but displaying stronger responses to total precipitation in time, particularly in drier sites. No long‐term trends in any of the precipitation structure variables were detected. Response functions of frequency and mean size of events to annual precipitation together with Lorenz curves appeared to be robust descriptors of precipitation regimes that, not requiring any a priori assumptions, are useful to assess how spatial and temporal shifts in total precipitation may concurrently affect its relative availability for plant transpiration. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Clinical and non-clinical determinants of cervical cancer mortality: A retrospective cohort study in Lagos, Nigeria

Introduction Cervical cancer (CCa) is the fourth most frequent and a common cause of cancer mortality in women, the majority of whom live in low- and middle-income countries. Data on CCa mortality and its determinants have been poorly studied in Nigeria, resulting in a paucity of information that can assist patient management and cancer control policy. Aim The purpose of this study was to assess the mortality rate among CCa patients in Nigeria as well as the major factors influencing CCa mortality. Study design Data from the medical records of 343 CCa patients seen at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital and NSIA-LUTH Cancer Center from 2015 to 2021 were used in a retrospective cohort analysis. The hazard ratios (HR) and confidence intervals (CI) associated with the exposure variables and CCa mortality were calculated using Cox proportional hazard regression. Results The CCa mortality rate was 30.5 per 100 women-years after 2.2 years of median follow-up. Clinical factors such as HIV/AIDS (adjusted HR [aHR]: 11.9; 95% CI: 4.6, 30.4), advanced clinical stage (aHR: 2.7; 95% CI: 1.5, 4.7), and anemia at presentation (aHR: 1.8; 95% CI: 1.1, 3.0) were associated with a higher mortality risk, as were non-clinical factors such as age at diagnosis >50 years (aHR: 1.4; 95% CI: 1.0, 1.9) and family history of CCa (aHR: 3.5; 95%CI: 1.1, 11.1) Conclusion CCa has a high mortality rate in Nigeria. Incorporating these clinical and non-clinical factors into CCa management and control policies may improve women’s outcomes.
The nucleoporin ELYS/Mel28 regulates nuclear envelope subdomain formation in HeLa cells

In open mitosis the nuclear envelope (NE) reassembles at the end of each mitosis. This process involves the reformation of the nuclear pore complex (NPC), the inner and outer nuclear membranes, and the nuclear lamina. In human cells cell cycle-dependent NE subdomains exist, characterized as A-type lamin-rich/NPC-free or B-type lamin-rich/NPC-rich, which are initially formed as core or noncore regions on mitotic chromosomes, respectively. Although postmitotic NE formation has been extensively studied, little is known about the coordination of NPC and NE assembly. Here, we report that the nucleoporin ELYS/Mel28, which is crucial for postmitotic NPC formation, is essential for recruiting the lamin B receptor (LBR) to the chromosomal noncore region. Furthermore, ELYS/Mel28 is responsible for focusing of A-type lamin-binding proteins like emerin, Lap2α and the barrier-to-autointegration factor (BAF) at the chromosomal core region. ELYS/Mel28 biochemically interacts with the LBR in a phosphorylation-dependent manner. Recruitment of the LBR depends on the nucleoporin Nup107, which interacts with ELYS/Mel28 but not on nucleoporin Pom121, suggesting that the specific molecular interactions with ELYS/Mel28 are involved in the NE assembly at the noncore region. The depletion of the LBR affected neither the behavior of emerin nor Lap2α indicating that the recruitment of the LBR to mitotic chromosomes is not involved in formation of the core region. The depletion of ELYS/Mel28 also accelerates the entry into cytokinesis after recruitment of emerin to chromosomes. Our data show that ELYS/Mel28 plays a role in NE subdomain formation in late mitosis.
A solar escalator: Observational evidence of the self‐lifting of smoke and aerosols by absorption of solar radiation in the February 2009 Australian Black Saturday plume

[1] We present an analysis of the evolution of the smoke plume caused by the Black Saturday bushfires, which started on 7 February 2009 in the Australian state of Victoria. Within 3 days this smoke plume was located at altitudes between 15 and 20 km thousands of kilometers away from its source region. Standard explanations for high tropospheric and lower stratospheric absorbing aerosols are either volcanic eruptions or pyroconvection. We performed a detailed analysis of various satellite observations, forward trajectory calculations, and meteorological conditions during the fire episode, yet we could not find evidence of either of these standard mechanisms explaining the observed plume evolution. Pyroconvection observed within the initial smoke plumes remained predominantly below 10 km altitude. Furthermore, there are not active volcanoes in the region. We postulate that the subsequent rise beyond approximately 10 km altitude during the first 3 days after the fires started was caused by absorption of short-wave solar radiation in the plume. Observations indicate that the plume was highly absorptive and optically very thick. One-dimensional plume height radiative transfer calculations with realistic assumptions about the optical properties of the smoke show that the plume could rise to 16–18 km after 5 days and up to 20 km after 10 days. The plume rise exhibits a characteristic step-like time evolution that tracks the variation in diurnal insolation and resembles an escalator. We argue that this is the first time that this mechanism, known as “self-lifting,” has been observed on a large scale. The key features of this mechanism and its implications are briefly discussed.
Teaching Effective Literature Use Skills for Research Reports in Geography

The ability to use literature effectively is essential to provide context and interpret results for any research project. Undergraduate students in geographical disciplines are regularly required to produce research reports, yet formal training in effective literature use is minimal. In this study students were taught effective literature use methods in a workshop involving group work and class discussion. Comparison was made between current students’ and previous students’ performance to determine any improvement with the new teaching methods. Results demonstrate that a relatively basic approach of explicitly teaching effective literature use can be effective and improve students’ research report writing skills.
Controls on timing of exhumation and deformation in the northern Peruvian eastern Andean wedge as inferred from low‐temperature thermochronology and balanced cross section

In northern Peru, a 500 km long regional balanced section has been constructed across the eastern Andean wedge, using fieldwork, industrial seismic sections, and wells. The structure is characterized by a thin‐skinned thrust system involving the Eastern Cordillera (EC), the sub‐Andean zone (SAZ), and the Marañón foredeep. In the SAZ and the easternmost foredeep the development of the thrust system has been driven by the combination of two structural events. Permian thrust faults had been reactivated to form a basement duplex underlying the SAZ and the foredeep. At the same time a Triassic‐Jurassic extensional basin has been transported as a crustal ramp anticline on to the duplex roof fault, giving rise to the EC. The impingement of the EC was responsible for the deformation of the SAZ and the propagation of the thrust wedge. The minimum shortening calculated is 142 km, representing a shortening strain of ~ −28%. A sequential restoration calibrated by (U‐Th)/He and Fission Track dating on apatites and vitrinite reflectance values shows that shortening rates vary from 7.1 mm yr−1 between 17 and 8 Ma to 3.6 mm yr−1 between 8 Ma and today and suggests that the thrust wedge commenced propagation between 30 and 24 Ma. When compared with other Andean thrust wedges, we suggest that the timing of the thrust wedge propagation is not a simple function of the distance to the hinge of the Bolivian orocline and the propagation is not controlled by the precipitation regime. We rather suggest that reactivated basement faults favored thrust wedge propagation.