Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A new smartphone application for integrated transmural care of atrial fibrillation, AF-EduApp: Usability and validation study

Introduction Digital technology creates the opportunity to develop and evaluate new tools, such as smartphone applications, to support integrated atrial fibrillation management. This study aimed to develop, evaluate, and validate a new, integrated care application (AF-EduApp) mainly focusing on targeted atrial fibrillation education to improve patient self-care capabilities and therapy adherence. Methods The newly developed AF-EduApp, available for Android and iOS, consists of six different modules. The prototype was validated and optimized for its usability and functionality at Jessa Hospital Hasselt and Antwerp University Hospital in two phases: (1) validity evaluation with interviews of an expert panel with 15 healthcare professionals and 10 atrial fibrillation patients, and (2) a pilot study of 1 month with 20 atrial fibrillation patients. Results Both experts and patients found that the application aids atrial fibrillation management. Based on the input of patients and experts, the main optimizations concerned the medication module (patient choice on setting reminder; interactivity of reminders with a “taken” or “snooze” function) and development of a clinical dashboard for the caregivers allowing telemonitoring of measurements and feedback to the patients. After the pilot study (n = 20), 16 patients indicated they wanted to use the app for a longer period. The measurement (27%) and education (17%) modules were the two most used modules with a significant improvement in knowledge (71.9% to 87.5%; P = 0.013). Discussion The AF-EduApp received a positive evaluation from health professionals and atrial fibrillation patients. Further development should be focused on the medication module and improvement of the clinical dashboard.
The Relative Importance of Usability and Functionality Factors for E‐Health Web Sites

With the growing usage of the Internet, the demand for online health care information and advice as well as the number of health‐related Web sites are increasing. In case of online health information and advice, the user interface replaces face‐to‐face communication. To ensure that the users' needs are met, it is critical to balance functionality and usability in the design of the Web site. The present study seeks to identify the complex interrelationships among the various factors of usability and functionality concerning e‐health Web sites. Two Turkish e‐health Web sites were assessed for evaluation in this study. The findings show that the users of the health information Web sites give a higher priority to functionality and its factors, whereby the highest relative importance is on “services/facilities” and “personalization/categorization of information. ” The most important usability factors related to the e‐health Web sites are “memorability” and “interaction. ” © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Suicidal chemotaxis in bacteria

Bacteria respond to nutrients and other compounds via chemotaxis, but little is known of their responses to antibiotics. By tracking cells in antibiotic gradients, the authors show that surface-attached Pseudomonas aeruginosa move towards antibiotics in what appears to be a suicidal attack strategy. Bacteria commonly live in surface-associated communities where steep gradients of antibiotics and other chemical compounds can occur. While many bacterial species move on surfaces, we know surprisingly little about how such antibiotic gradients affect cell motility. Here, we study the behaviour of the opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa in stable spatial gradients of several antibiotics by tracking thousands of cells in microfluidic devices as they form biofilms. Unexpectedly, these experiments reveal that bacteria use pili-based (‘twitching’) motility to navigate towards antibiotics. Our analyses suggest that this behaviour is driven by a general response to the effects of antibiotics on cells. Migrating bacteria reach antibiotic concentrations hundreds of times higher than their minimum inhibitory concentration within hours and remain highly motile. However, isolating cells - using fluid-walled microfluidic devices - reveals that these bacteria are terminal and unable to reproduce. Despite moving towards their death, migrating cells are capable of entering a suicidal program to release bacteriocins that kill other bacteria. This behaviour suggests that the cells are responding to antibiotics as if they come from a competing colony growing nearby, inducing them to invade and attack. As a result, clinical antibiotics have the potential to lure bacteria to their death.
Testing for implicit emotion regulation in childhood

Although implicit emotion regulation is thought to be critical for psychosocial development and mental wellbeing, few studies have investigated the neural underpinnings of this form of emotion regulation in children. We used a modified emotional Go/NoGo block design fMRI task to explore the neural correlates of implicit emotion regulation and individual differences in a sample of 40 children (50% female, mean age = 8.65 ± 0.77). Conditions included happy, sad, neutral, and scrambled faces as implicit distractors within the actual Go/NoGo targets. We used a relatively standard preprocessing pipeline via fMRIprep, with T-contrasts for response inhibition and emotional effects, and a nonparametric multiple comparisons procedure, with SnPM, for our group-level analysis. There were multiple significant response inhibition effects, including larger NoGo vs Go activation in the IFG, insula, and MCC/ACC. Valence effects showed significantly greater right putamen activity for the Sad NoGo vs Go contrast and greater bilateral putamen and right pallidum activity for the Happy Go vs Sad Go contrast. These results provide preliminary findings of neural substrates, particularly the putamen, that may be associated with implicit emotion regulation in children.
DNA replication dynamics during erythrocytic schizogony in the malaria parasites Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium knowlesi

Malaria parasites are unusual, early-diverging protozoans with non-canonical cell cycles. They do not undergo binary fission, but divide primarily by schizogony. This is a syncytial mode of replication involving asynchronous production of multiple nuclei within the same cytoplasm, culminating in a single mass cytokinesis event. The rate and efficiency of parasite replication is fundamentally important to malarial disease, which tends to be severe in hosts with high parasite loads. Here, we have studied for the first time the dynamics of schizogony in two human malaria parasite species, Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium knowlesi. These differ in their cell-cycle length, the number of progeny produced and the genome composition, among other factors. Comparing them could therefore yield new information about the parameters and limitations of schizogony. We report that the dynamics of schizogony differ significantly between these two species, most strikingly in the gap phases between successive nuclear replications, which are longer in P. falciparum and shorter, but more heterogenous, in P. knowlesi. In both species, gaps become longer as schizogony progresses, whereas each period of active replication grows shorter. In both species there is also extreme variability between individual cells, with some schizonts producing many more nuclei than others, and some individual nuclei arresting their replication for many hours while adjacent nuclei continue to replicate. The efficiency of schizogony is probably influenced by a complex set of factors in both the parasite and its host cell.
Revisiting the number of self-incompatibility alleles in finite populations: from old models to new results

Under gametophytic self-incompatibility (GSI), plants are heterozygous at the self-incompatibility locus (S-locus) and can only be fertilized by pollen with a different allele at that locus. The last century has seen a heated debate about the correct way of modeling the allele diversity in a GSI population that was never formally resolved. Starting from an individual-based model, we derive the deterministic dynamics as proposed by Fisher (1958), and compute the stationary S-allele frequency distribution. We find that the stationary distribution proposed by Wright (1964) is close to our theoretical prediction, in line with earlier numerical confirmation. Additionally, we approximate the invasion probability of a new S-allele, which scales inversely with the number of resident S-alleles. Lastly, we use the stationary allele frequency distribution to estimate the population size of a plant population from an empirically obtained allele frequency spectrum, which complements the existing estimator of the number of S-alleles. Our expression of the stationary distribution resolves the long-standing debate about the correct approximation of the number of S-alleles and paves the way to new statistical developments for the estimation of the plant population size based on S-allele frequencies.
Structural and biophysical characterization of HNF-1A as a tool to study MODY3 diabetes variants

Hepatocyte nuclear factor 1A (HNF-1A) is a transcription factor expressed in several embryonic and adult tissues, modulating expression of numerous target genes. Pathogenic variants in the HNF1A gene cause maturity-onset diabetes of the young 3 (MODY3 or HNF1A MODY), characterized by dominant inheritance, age of onset before 25-35 years of age, and pancreatic β-cell dysfunction. A precise diagnosis alters management as insulin can be exchanged with sulfonylurea tablets and genetic counselling differs from polygenic forms of diabetes. More knowledge on mechanisms of HNF-1A function and the level of pathogenicity of the numerous HNF1A variants identified by exome sequencing is required for precise diagnostics. Here, we have structurally and biophysically characterized an HNF-1A protein containing both the DNA binding domain and the dimerization domain. We also present a novel approach to characterize HNF-1A variants. The folding and DNA binding capacity of two established MODY3 HNF-1A variant proteins (P112L, R263C) and one variant of unknown significance (N266S) were determined. All three variants showed reduced functionality compared to the wild-type protein. While the R263C and N266S variants displayed reduced binding to an HNF-1A target promoter, the P112L variant was unstable in vitro and in cells. Our results support and mechanistically explain disease causality for all investigated variants and allow for the dissection of structurally unstable and DNA binding defective variants. This points towards structural and biochemical investigation of HNF-1A being a valuable aid in reliable variant classification needed for precision diagnostics and management.
Optimum GMTI Processing for Space-based SAR/GMTI Systems - Theoretical Derivation

This paper derives two processing methods for optimum SAR/GMTI (Ground Moving Target Indication). The first method, EDPCA (Extended Displaced Phase Center Antenna) extends the well-known DPCA (Displaced Phase Center Antenna) and ATI (Along-Track Interferometry) processing to three or more receive channels. The second method, ISTAP (Imaging Space Time Adaptive Processing), is based on coherent integration of the Post-Doppler STAP (Space Time Adaptive Processing) outputs to increase the target SNR (Signal-to-Noise Ratio).
Higher-Order Graph Models: From Theoretical Foundations to Machine Learning (Dagstuhl Seminar 21352)

Graph and network models are essential for data science applications in computer science, social sciences, and life sciences. They help to detect patterns in data on dyadic relations between pairs of genes, humans, or documents, and have improved our understanding of complex networks across disciplines. While the advantages of graph models of relational data are undisputed, we often have access to data with multiple types of higher-order relations not captured by simple graphs. Such data arise in social systems with non-dyadic or group-based interactions, multi-modal transportation networks with multiple connection types, or time series containing specific sequences of nodes traversed on paths. The complex relational structure of such data questions the validity of graph-based data mining and modelling, and jeopardises interdisciplinary applications of network analysis and machine learning. To address this challenge, researchers in topological data analysis, network science, machine learning, and physics recently started to generalise network analysis to higher-order graph models that capture more than dyadic relations. These higher-order models differ from standard network analysis in assumptions, applications, and mathematical formalisms. As a result, the emerging field lacks a shared terminology, common challenges, benchmark data and metrics to facilitate fair comparisons. By bringing together researchers from different disciplines, Dagstuhl Seminar 21352 “Higher-Order Graph Models: From Theoretical Foundations to Machine Learning” aimed at the development of a common language and a shared understanding of key challenges in the field that foster progress in data analytics and machine learning for data with complex relational structure. This report documents the program and the outcomes of this seminar.
Propagação vegetativa de Aloysia triphylla (L'Hér.) Britton em função da concentração de AIB e do comprimento das estacas

Aloysia triphylla (L'Her.) Britton is a medicinal plant shrub with aromatic leaves, which have essential oil rich in citral. The increasing demand of the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries for the A. triphyllaessential oil provided a greater interest in the cultivation of this species. Cutting is one of the main methods of propagation, due to the difficulty in obtaining seeds and also for the benefit of descendants being equal to the parent plant. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of different concentrations of IBA and length of cuttings in the rooting of A. triphylla. The experiment was carried out in a protected environment in the period from November 2010 to January 2011. The experimental design was completely randomized using the factorial design where the factors were five concentrations of indole butyric acid (IBA) (mg L-1): 0, 250, 500, 1000 and 1500, and four lengthsforthe cuttings: 4, 6, 8 and 10 cm. The cutting base was immersed in a solution of IBA and placed into the rooting Mecplant ® commercial substrate. The variables analyzed were: root length, percentage of rooted cuttings (%), number of shoots, fresh and dry weight of the shoots, and dry weight of the roots. Under the conditions in which the study was conducted, the results showed that the length of the cuttings and IBA concentration affect the development of the cuttings, with linear and quadratic adjustment for the variables analyzed. The seedlings of cuttings with 10cm and the concentration of 1500 mg L-1 IBA showed the highest percentage of rooting and the highest averages for length of the root system, number of shoots, fresh and dry weight of the shoots.
Anti-Corrosion Mechanism of Parsley Extract and Synergistic Iodide as Novel Corrosion Inhibitors for Carbon Steel-Q235 in Acidic Medium by Electrochemical, XPS and DFT Methods

The parsley extract (PLE) was prepared using absolute ethyl alcohol. The PLE and synergistic iodide were firstly utilized as efficacious corrosion inhibitors to slow down the corrosion rate of carbon steel-Q235 in 0.5 mol/L H2SO4 solution. The anti-corrosion performance was researched by weight loss method, electrochemical tests, surface analysis and quantum chemistry calculation. Results of electrochemical and weight loss tests show that the synergetic PLE and I− exhibit the optimal corrosion inhibition efficiency 99%. The combined inhibitor displays the favorable long-term corrosion inhibition effect, and the inhibition efficiency can maintain more than 90% after 144 h immersion. The introduction of I− makes carbon steel surface with higher negative charge amount, which could be beneficial to the interaction between corrosion inhibitor and Fe atoms. The adsorption behavior obeys the Langmuir isotherm adsorption, and involves chemical and physical adsorption. On the basis of electrochemical consequences and theoretical calculation, the adsorption process and anti-corrosion mechanisms are further explored.
CircPIK3C2A Facilitates the Progression of Glioblastoma via Targeting miR-877-5p/FOXM1 Axis

Glioblastoma is a rare yet lethal type of tumor that poses a crucible for the medical profession, owing to its rapid proliferation and invasion resulting in poor prognosis. Circular RNAs (circRNAs), a subclass of regulatory RNAs, are implicated in the regulation of cancerous progression. This study aims to investigate the roles and underlying mechanism of circPIK3C2A in regulating proliferation and invasion of glioblastoma. qRT-PCR assays showed that the expression level of circPIK3C2A was aberrantly higher in glioblastoma cell lines, in comparison with that in normal glia cells. The ectopic expression of circPIK3C2A promoted the proliferation, invasion and clonal formation of glioblastoma cells, while circPIK3C2A loss-of-function exerted exactly the opposite biological effects on the cells. The construction of subcutaneous xenograft tumor model in nude mice indicated that circPIK3C2A loss-of-function effectively diminished tumor load in vivo and prolonged the survival time of tumor-bearing animals. Luciferase reporter assay confirmed the interaction among circPIK3C2A/miR-877-5p and FOXM1. CircPIK3C2A function as competitive endogenous RNA via sponging miR-877-5p through certain binding sites, thereby modulating the expression of FOXM1. Our results collectively indicate that circPIK3C2A functions as ceRNA by mediating miR-877-5p/FOXM1 axis, providing a novel perspective of applying CircPIK3C2A in the clinical intervention of glioblastoma in the future.
New Potential of Roxatidine Acetate Hydrochloride on Atopic Dermatitis Mouse Model, Human Keratinocytes, and Human Skin Equivalent Model

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a complex inflammatory skin disorder, characterized by a complicated pathophysiology and a wide range of clinical phenotypes. Roxatidine acetate chloride (RXA) is a precursor of Roxatidine and a histamine H2 receptor antagonist, used for the treatment of gastric ulcers. In this study, we aimed to examine whether RXA had anti-AD effects and determine the underlying molecular mechanism of RXA. The anti-AD effects were examined in Dermatophagoides farinae body (Dfb)-induced AD mouse model, tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α/interferon (IFN)-γ-stimulated HaCaT keratinocytes, and human skin equivalent model using ELISA, histological analysis, immunohistochemistry, Western blot, and immunofluorescence. Results showed that RXA treatment significantly alleviated Dfb-induced AD skin symptoms and clinical severity in mice by decreasing the levels of immunoglobulin E, histamine, and inflammatory cytokines. RXA effectively inhibited the expression of adhesive molecules and recovered the filaggrin expression in Dfb-induced AD skin lesions and TNF-α/IFN-γ-stimulated HaCaT keratinocytes. Additionally, RXA significantly upregulated the expression of aryl hydrocarbon receptor and sirtuin1. The anti-AD effects of RXA were associated with suppressed nuclear factor kappa cascade. Overall, our results suggest that RXA may be a potential anti-AD candidate owing to its inhibitory effect against skin inflammation and protection of the skin barrier function in AD.
Social Psychological Predictors of Belief in Fake News in the Run-Up to the 2019 Hungarian Elections: The Importance of Conspiracy Mentality Supports the Notion of Ideological Symmetry in Fake News Belief

Accessing information online is now easier than ever. However, also false information is circulated in increasing quantities. We sought to identify social psychological factors that could explain why some people are more susceptible to false information. Specifically, we investigated whether psychological predispositions (social dominance orientation, right-wing authoritarianism, system justification beliefs (SJB), openness, need for closure, conspiracy mentality), competencies (scientific and political knowledge, interest in politics) or motivated reasoning based on social identity (political orientation) could help explain who believes fake news. Hungarian participants (N = 295) judged political (anti- and pro-government) and non-political news. The Hungarian context—characterized by low trust in media, populist communication by the government and increasing polarization—should be fertile ground for the proliferation of fake news. The context in making this case particularly interesting is that the major political fault line in Hungary runs between pro- and anti-government supporter groups and not, for instance, between conservative and liberal ideology or partisanship. We found clear support for the motivational reasoning explanation as political orientation consistently predicted belief in both fake and real political news when their contents aligned with one’s political identity. The belief in pro-government news was also associated with higher SJB among pro-government supporters. Those interested in politics showed better capacity to distinguish real political news from the fake ones. Most importantly, the only psychological predisposition that consistently explained belief in all types of fake news was a conspiracy mentality. This supports the notion of ideological symmetry in fake news belief—where a conspiracy mentality can be found across the political spectrum, and it can make people susceptible to disinformation regardless of group-memberships and other individual differences.
Association of Negative Symptoms of Schizophrenia Assessed by the BNSS and SNS Scales With Neuropsychological Performance: A Gender Effect

Objective: The relationship between negative symptoms and neurocognitive performance in schizophrenia is well documented, but the mechanism of these connections remains unclear. The study aims to measure the relationship between the results on the new scales for the assessment of negative symptoms such as Brief Negative Symptom Scale (BNSS) and Self-evaluation of Negative Symptoms (SNS), and the results of some neurocognition tests. The second aim is to assess a possible gender effect on these associations. Methods: The study included 80 patients (40 men, 40 women) with schizophrenia, aged 19–63 (mean 38 years), during the improvement period (total PANSS score <80, unchanged pharmacological treatment in the last 3 weeks). They were assessed using the BNSS, SNS, Personal and Social Performance (PSP) scales, and the tests for neuropsychological performance such as the Trail Making Test (TMT-A, TMT-B), Stroop Color-Word Interference Test, Verbal fluency tests (VFT), Category fluency test (CFT), and Digit Symbol Substitution Test (DSST). Results: Male patients obtained higher scores than females on some PANSS and BNSS items. No gender differences were observed for the SNS scale. Female patients scored better in the PSP and CFT. In male patients, a significant positive correlation between the intensity of negative symptoms measured by the BNSS and the results of PSP with the Trail Making Test was observed. In female patients, we found a positive correlation between the results of BNSS and PSP with the Stroop Color-Word Interference Test. Conclusion: The obtained results confirm the relationship between negative symptoms and neurocognition in schizophrenia patients. However, in male and female patients such association was observed for different cognitive domains. Further research is needed to explain the nature of these differences.