Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Association Between Breast Milk Bacterial Communities and Establishment and Development of the Infant Gut Microbiome

Importance Establishment of the infant microbiome has lifelong implications on health and immunity. Gut microbiota of breastfed compared with nonbreastfed individuals differ during infancy as well as into adulthood. Breast milk contains a diverse population of bacteria, but little is known about the vertical transfer of bacteria from mother to infant by breastfeeding. Objective To determine the association between the maternal breast milk and areolar skin and infant gut bacterial communities. Design, Setting, and Participants In a prospective, longitudinal study, bacterial composition was identified with sequencing of the 16S ribosomal RNA gene in breast milk, areolar skin, and infant stool samples of 107 healthy mother-infant pairs. The study was conducted in Los Angeles, California, and St Petersburg, Florida, between January 1, 2010, and February 28, 2015. Exposures Amount and duration of daily breastfeeding and timing of solid food introduction. Main Outcomes and Measures Bacterial composition in maternal breast milk, areolar skin, and infant stool by sequencing of the 16S ribosomal RNA gene. Results In the 107 healthy mother and infant pairs (median age at the time of specimen collection, 40 days; range, 1-331 days), 52 (43.0%) of the infants were male. Bacterial communities were distinct in milk, areolar skin, and stool, differing in both composition and diversity. The infant gut microbial communities were more closely related to an infant’s mother’s milk and skin compared with a random mother (mean difference in Bray-Curtis distances, 0.012 and 0.014, respectively; P < .001 for both). Source tracking analysis was used to estimate the contribution of the breast milk and areolar skin microbiomes to the infant gut microbiome. During the first 30 days of life, infants who breastfed to obtain 75% or more of their daily milk intake received a mean (SD) of 27.7% (15.2%) of the bacteria from breast milk and 10.3% (6.0%) from areolar skin. Bacterial diversity (Faith phylogenetic diversity, P = .003) and composition changes were associated with the proportion of daily breast milk intake in a dose-dependent manner, even after the introduction of solid foods. Conclusions and Relevance The results of this study indicate that bacteria in mother’s breast milk seed the infant gut, underscoring the importance of breastfeeding in the development of the infant gut microbiome.
Clinician-Led, Peer-Led, and Internet-Delivered Dissonance-Based Eating Disorder Prevention Programs: Acute Effectiveness of These Delivery Modalities

Objective: Because independent trials have provided evidence for the efficacy and effectiveness of the dissonance-based Body Project eating disorder prevention program, the present trial tested whether clinicians produce the largest intervention effects, or whether delivery can be task-shifted to less expensive undergraduate peer educators or to Internet delivery without effect size attenuation, focusing on acute effects. Method: In this study, 680 young women (Mage = 22.2 years, SD = 7.1) recruited at colleges in 2 states were randomized to clinician-led Body Project groups, peer-led Body Project groups, the Internet-based eBody Project, or an educational video control condition. Results: Participants in all 3 variants of the Body Project intervention showed significantly greater reductions in eating disorder risk factors and symptoms than did educational video controls. Participants in clinician-led and peer-led Body Project groups showed significantly greater reductions in risk factors than did eBody Project participants, but effects for the 2 types of groups were similar. Eating disorder onset over 7-month follow-up was significantly lower for peer-led Body Project group participants versus eBody Project participants (2.2% vs. 8.4%) but did not differ significantly between other conditions. Conclusions: The evidence that all 3 dissonance-based prevention programs outperformed an educational video condition, that both group-based interventions outperformed the Internet-based intervention in risk factor reductions, and that the peer-led groups showed lower eating disorder onset over follow-up than did the Internet-based intervention is novel. These acute-effects data suggest that both group-based interventions produce superior eating disorder prevention effects than does the Internet-based intervention and that delivery can be task-shifted to peer leaders.
Advanced Assertion-Based Design for Mixed-Signal Verification

Functional and formal verification are important methodologies for complex mixed-signal design validation. However the industry is still verifying such systems by pure simulation. This process lacks on error localization and formal verifications methods. This is the existing verification gap between the analog and digital blocks within a mixed-signal system. Our approach improves the verification process by creating temporal properties named mixed-signal assertions which are described by a combination of digital assertions and analog properties. The proposed method is a new assertion-based verification flow for designing mixed-signal circuits. The effectiveness of the approach is demonstrated on a Σ/Δ-converter.
Assessment of Oxide Descaler Functionality in a Steel Hot Rolling Mill Using Infrared Video Imaging

A series of infrared temperature videos were taken of the upper surface of hot rolled microalloyed steel skelp immediately following laminar cooling. In addition to validation of the skelp temperature and skelp cooling patterns, local temperature minimums were observed in the infrared images. Post processing of these images was undertaken to quantify both the spatial distribution and frequency of these temperature minimums. The measured transverse spacing of the temperature minimums correlates with the roughing mill descaler nozzle spacing. The genesis of the observed temperature minimums and, ultimately, their correlation with descaler functionality, and potential usage as an online descaler assessment tool, is postulated.
The Influence of Connective Tissue Disease in Breast Reconstruction: A National Database Analysis

Background Patients with connective tissue diseases (CTD), or collagen vascular diseases, are at risk of potentially higher morbidity after surgical procedures. We aimed to investigate the complication profile in CTD versus non-CTD patients who underwent breast reconstruction on a national scale. Methods A retrospective analysis of the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project NIS Database between 2010 and 2014 was conducted for patients 18 years or older admitted for immediate autologous or implant breast reconstruction. Connective tissue disease was defined as systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis, systemic sclerosis, scleroderma, Raynaud phenomenon, psoriatic arthritis, or sarcoidosis. Independent t test/Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney was used to compare continuous variables and Pearson &khgr;2/Fischer exact test was used for categorical variables. Outcomes of interest were assessed using multivariable linear regressions for continuous variables and multivariable logistic regressions for categorical variables. Results There were 19,496 immediate autologous breast reconstruction patients, with 357 CTD and 19,139 non-CTD patients (2010–2014). The CTD patients had higher postoperative complication rates for infection (2.8% vs 0.8%, P < 0.001), wound dehiscence (1.4% vs 0.4%, P = 0.019), and bleeding (hemorrhage and hematoma) (6.7% vs 3.5%, P < 0.001). After multivariable analysis, CTD remained an independent risk factor for bleeding (odds ratio [OR], 1.568; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.019–2.412). There were a total of 23,048 immediate implant breast reconstruction patients, with 431 CTD and 22,617 non-CTD patients (2010–2014). The CTD patients had a higher postoperative complication rate for wound dehiscence/complication (2.3% vs 0.6%, P < 0.001). They also experienced a longer length of stay (2.31 days vs 2.07 days, P < 0.001). After multivariable analysis, CTD remained an independent risk factor for wound dehiscence (OR, 4.084; 95% CI, 2.101–7.939) and increased length of stay by 0.050 days (95% CI, −0.081 to 0.181). Conclusions Connective tissue disease patients who underwent autologous breast reconstruction had significantly higher infection, wound dehiscence, and bleeding rates, and those who underwent implant breast reconstruction had significantly higher wound dehiscence rates. Connective tissue diseases appear to be an independent risk factor for bleeding and wound dehiscence in autologous and implant breast reconstruction, respectively. This information may help clinicians be aware of this increased risk when determining patients for reconstruction.
Programmable encryption and key-dependent messages

We present the notion of PROG-KDM security for public-key encryption schemes. This security notion captures both KDM security and revealing of secret keys (key corruptions) in a single definition. This is achieved by requiring the existence of a simulator that can program ciphertexts when a secret key is revealed, i.e., the simulator can delay the decision what plaintext is contained in what ciphertext to the moment where the ciphertext is opened. The definition is formulated in the random oracle model. We show that PROG-KDM security can be achieved by showing that a natural and practical construction in the ideal cipher model is PROG-KDM secure (hybrid encryption using authenticated CBC encryption).
Prognostic impact of copeptin in pulmonary embolism: a multicentre validation study

To externally validate the prognostic impact of copeptin, either alone or integrated in risk stratification models, in pulmonary embolism (PE), we performed a post hoc analysis of 843 normotensive PE patients prospectively included in three European cohorts. Within the first 30 days, 21 patients (2.5%, 95% CI 1.5–3.8) had an adverse outcome and 12 (1.4%, 95% CI 0.7–2.5) died due to PE. Patients with copeptin ≥24 pmol·L−1 had a 6.3-fold increased risk for an adverse outcome (95% CI 2.6–15.5, p<0.001) and a 7.6-fold increased risk for PE-related death (95% CI 2.3–25.6, p=0.001). Risk classification according to the 2014 European Society of Cardiology (ESC) guideline algorithm identified 248 intermediate-high-risk patients (29.4%) with 5.6% (95% CI 3.1–9.3) at risk of adverse outcomes. A stepwise biomarker-based risk assessment strategy (based on high-sensitivity troponin T, N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide and copeptin) identified 123 intermediate-high-risk patients (14.6%) with 8.9% (95% CI 4.5–15.4) at risk of adverse outcomes. The identification of patients at higher risk was even better when copeptin was measured on top of the 2014 ESC algorithm in intermediate-high-risk patients (adverse outcome OR 11.1, 95% CI 4.6–27.1, p<0.001; and PE-related death OR 13.5, 95% CI 4.2–43.6, p<0.001; highest risk group versus all other risk groups). This identified 85 patients (10.1%) with 12.9% (95% CI 6.6–22.0) at risk of adverse outcomes and 8.2% (95% CI 3.4–16.2) at risk of PE-related deaths. Copeptin improves risk stratification of normotensive PE patients, especially when identifying patients with an increased risk of an adverse outcome. Copeptin improves risk stratification of normotensive patients with pulmonary embolism http://ow.ly/8E3P30jtvym
Schistosoma mansoni Sirtuins: Characterization and Potential as Chemotherapeutic Targets

Background The chemotherapy of schistosomiasis currently depends on the use of a single drug, praziquantel. In order to develop novel chemotherapeutic agents we are investigating enzymes involved in the epigenetic modification of chromatin. Sirtuins are NAD+ dependent lysine deacetylases that are involved in a wide variety of cellular processes including histone deacetylation, and have been demonstrated to be therapeutic targets in various pathologies, including cancer. Methodology, Principal Findings In order to determine whether Schistosoma mansoni sirtuins are potential therapeutic targets we first identified and characterized their protein sequences. Five sirtuins (SmSirt) are encoded in the S. mansoni genome and phylogenetic analysis showed that they are orthologues of mammalian Sirt1, Sirt2, Sirt5, Sirt6 and Sirt7. Both SmSirt1 and SmSirt7 have large insertion in the catalytic domain compared to their mammalian orthologues. SmSirt5 is the only mitochondrial sirtuin encoded in the parasite genome (orthologues of Sirt3 and Sirt4 are absent) and transcripts corresponding to at least five splicing isoforms were identified. All five sirtuins are expressed throughout the parasite life-cycle, but with distinct patterns of expression. Sirtuin inhibitors were used to treat both schistosomula and adult worms maintained in culture. Three inhibitors in particular, Sirtinol, Salermide and MS3 induced apoptosis and death of schistosomula, the separation of adult worm pairs, and a reduction in egg laying. Moreover, Salermide treatment led to a marked disruption of the morphology of ovaries and testes. Transcriptional knockdown of SmSirt1 by RNA interference in adult worms led to morphological changes in the ovaries characterized by a marked increase in mature oocytes, reiterating the effects of sirtuin inhibitors and suggesting that SmSirt1 is their principal target. Conclusion, Significance Our data demonstrate the potential of schistosome sirtuins as therapeutic targets and validate screening for selective sirtuin inhibitors as a strategy for developing new drugs against schistosomiasis.
Smart meter privacy via the trapdoor channel

A battery charging policy that provides privacy guarantees for smart meter systems with finite capacity battery is proposed. For this policy an upper bound on the information leakage rate is provided. The upper bound applies for general random processes modelling the energy consumption of the user. It is shown that the average energy consumption of the user determines the information leakage rate to the utility provider. The upper bound is shown to be tight by deriving the probability law of a random process achieving the bound.
LOW LEAKAGE CHARGE RECYCLING TECHNIQUE FOR POWER MINIMIZATION IN CNTFET CIRCUITS

Carbon Nanotube Field Effect Transistor (CNTFET) is one of the most promising candidates in the near future for digital design due to its better electrostatics and higher mobility characteristics. Parameters that determine the CNTFET performance are the number of tubes, pitch, diameter and oxide thickness. In this paper, a power gating design methodology to realise low power CNTFET digital circuits even under device parameter changes is presented. Investigation about the effect of different CNTFET parameters on dynamic and standby power is carried out. Simulation results reveal that the power gated circuits suppress a maximum of about 67% dynamic power and 59% standby power compared to conventional circuits.
Quantitative analysis of glycation and its impact on antigen binding

ABSTRACT Glycation has been observed in antibody therapeutics manufactured by the fed-batch fermentation process. It not only increases the heterogeneity of antibodies, but also potentially affects product safety and efficacy. In this study, non-glycated and glycated fractions enriched from a monoclonal antibody (mAb1) as well as glucose-stressed mAb1 were characterized using a variety of biochemical, biophysical and biological assays to determine the effects of glycation on the structure and function of mAb1. Glycation was detected at multiple lysine residues and reduced the antigen binding activity of mAb1. Heavy chain Lys100, which is located in the complementary-determining region of mAb1, had the highest levels of glycation in both stressed and unstressed samples, and glycation of this residue was likely responsible for the loss of antigen binding based on hydrogen/deuterium exchange mass spectrometry analysis. Peptide mapping and intact liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) can both be used to monitor the glycation levels. Peptide mapping provides site specific glycation results, while intact LC-MS is a quicker and simpler method to quantitate the total glycation levels and is more useful for routine testing. Capillary isoelectric focusing (cIEF) can also be used to monitor glycation because glycation induces an acidic shift in the cIEF profile. As expected, total glycation measured by intact LC-MS correlated very well with the percentage of total acidic peaks or main peak measured by cIEF. In summary, we demonstrated that glycation can affect the function of a representative IgG1 mAb. The analytical characterization, as described here, should be generally applicable for other therapeutic mAbs.
On inferring autonomous system relationships in the Internet

Interdomain routing in the Internet is coordinated by the border gateway protocol (BGP). BGP allows each autonomous system (AS) to choose its own policy in selecting routes and propagating reachability information to others. These routing policies are constrained by the contractual commercial agreements between administrative domains. Such policies imply that connectivity alone can not fully characterize the structural properties of the Internet. We propose an augmented AS graph representation that classifies AS relationships into customer-to-provider, peer-to-peer, and sibling to-sibling relationships. We classify the types of routes that can appear in BGP routing tables based on the relationships between the ASs in the path and present heuristic algorithms that infer AS relationships from BGP routing tables. The algorithms are tested on publicly available BGP routing tables that contains dose to 1 million route entries. The algorithms infer that more than 90.5% of the connected AS pairs have customer-to-provider relationships, less than 1.5% of the connected AS pairs have sibling-to-sibling relationships, and less than 8% of the connected AS pairs have peer-to-peer relationships. We verify our inference results with AT&T internal information on its relationship with neighboring ASs. 99% of our inference results are confirmed by the AT&T internal information. We also verify our inferred sibling-to-sibling relationships with the information acquired from the WHOIS lookup service. More than half of our inferred sibling-to-sibling relationships are confirmed by the WHOIS lookup service. To the best of our knowledge this is the first attempt in understanding and inferring AS relationships in the Internet. We show evidence that some routing table entries stem from unusual AS relationships or router misconfiguration.
Epoxidized natural rubber and hydrotalcite compounds: rheological and thermal characterization

Epoxidized natural rubber (ENR) and synthetic non-modified hydrotalcite (HT) compounds were prepared and evaluated. Natural rubber (NR) was epoxidized with 20.6% of epoxy groups from a chemical modification of the latex. A sulfur-based curing system formulation with accelerators was used. The amounts of HT in the ENR-HT compositions was varied between 0, 2, 3 and 5 phr. All compositions were evaluated as to cure parameters, rheological properties, thermal resistance and crosslink density. The results showed that the mineral filler does not have a significant influence on the cure parameters. Different methods of crosslink density determination were used (swelling at equilibrium and elastic modulus). The results turn out to be equivalent and rise as the amount of filler is increased. The best results were found for the 5 phr hydrotalcite compound (ENR-HT5).
NPTX2 Hypermethylation in Pure Pancreatic Juice Predicts Pancreatic Neoplasms

Abstract:The neuronal pentraxin II (NPTX2) gene is methylated in over 90% primary pancreatic cancer tissues but rarely in normal pancreatic ductal epithelia. Here, the authors investigated the utility of methylated NPTX2 as a diagnostic marker for pancreatic cancer in pure pancreatic juice samples of patients with benign and malignant pancreatic diseases, including pancreatic cancer, intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm or chronic pancreatitis using methylation-specific polymerase chain reaction (MSP) and quantitative MSP. MSP assays revealed that the incidence of aberrant NPTX methylation in pure pancreatic juice samples was 64.5% (20 of 31) in patients with pancreatic cancer, 70.0% (7 of 10) in patients with malignant intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm, 33.3% (2 of 6) in patients with benign intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm and 21.7% (5 of 23) in patients with chronic pancreatitis. NPTX2 hypermethylation in patients with chronic pancreatitis was significantly lower than that of pancreatic cancer (P < 0.01) or patients with intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm (P < 0.05). At a cutoff value of 1.39 for quantitative MSP, the incidence of aberrant NPTX2 methylation was 61.3% (19 of 31) in patients with pancreatic cancer, 50.0% (5 of 10) in patients with malignant intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm, 0% in patients with benign intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm and 8.7% (2 of 23) in patients with chronic pancreatitis. There was a significant difference in NPTX2 methylation between pancreatic cancer and chronic pancreatitis (P < 0.01). Our findings indicate that detection of aberrant methylation of NPTX2 in pure pancreatic juice samples could be useful as a molecular marker to discriminate between patients with malignant and benign disease of the pancreas.
CarbORev‐5901: The First Carborane‐Based Inhibitor of the 5‐Lipoxygenase Pathway

The progression of cancer is accelerated by increased proliferation, angiogenesis, and inflammation. These processes are mediated by leukotrienes. Several cancer cell lines overexpress 5‐lipoxygenase, an enzyme that converts arachidonic acid into leukotrienes. An early inhibitor of the 5‐lipoxygenase pathway is Rev‐5901, which, however, lacks in in vivo efficacy, as it is rapidly metabolized. We investigated the introduction of carboranes as highly hydrophobic and metabolically stable pharmacophores into lipoxygenase inhibitors. Carboranes are icosahedral boron clusters that are remarkably stable and used to increase the metabolic stability of unstable pharmaceutics without changing their biological activity. By introduction of meta‐carborane into Rev‐5901, the first carborane‐based inhibitor of the 5‐lipoxygenase pathway was obtained. We report the synthesis and inhibitory and cytotoxic behavior of these compounds toward several melanoma and colon cancer cell lines and their related anticancer mechanisms.
A System for Generating Cloze Test Items from Russian-Language Text

This paper studies the problem of automated educational test generation. We describe a procedure for generating cloze test items from Russian-language text, which consists of three steps: sentence splitting, sentence filtering, and question generation. The sentence filtering issue is discussed as an application of automatic summarization techniques. We describe a simple experimental system which implements cloze question generation and takes into account grammatical features of the Russian language such as gender and number.