Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The uraemic toxin phenylacetic acid impairs macrophage function.

BACKGROUND Nitric oxide (NO) is known to be an important mediator of macrophage cytotoxicity. NO in macrophages is generated via the inducible nitric oxide synthases (iNOS). Macrophage dysfunction is an important contributory factor for the increased incidence of infections in uraemia. Recently, we identified phenylacetic acid (PAA) as a novel uraemic toxin in patients on regular haemodialysis. PAA inhibits iNOS expression. In the present study, we investigated the impact of PAA on macrophage function. METHODS RAW 264.7 cells were stimulated by LPS/ IFN-gamma in the absence and presence of PAA. iNOS mRNA was determined by real-time PCR, iNOS protein was examined by western blotting and the NO degradation product, nitrite, by Griess assay. Macrophage phagocytosis was assessed by FACS and fluorescence microscopy. Further we quantified the cytotoxicity against intracellular bacteria (Salmonella typhimurium) by a macrophage-killing assay. ELISA and Bioplex protein array system was used for the investigation of iNOS second messenger pathways (NF-kappaB, ERK1/2, JNK and p38MAPK). iNOS mRNA half-lifetime in the presence or absence of PAA was determined by real-time PCR. RESULTS PAA significantly inhibits iNOS mRNA induction in RAW 264.7 cells by LPS/IFN-gamma [6 h: LPS/IFN-gamma-stimulation: 100%; LPS/IFN-gamma-stimulation/PAA (1 mM): 68 +/- 7%] at concentrations comparable to those of patients on chronic haemodialysis. iNOS protein expression and nitrite formation in RAW 264.7 cells were significantly inhibited by PAA. iNOS mRNA half-lifetime was not affected by PAA. The phagocytic activity of RAW 264.7 was not significantly affected by PAA, whereas the cytotoxicity against intracellular bacteria was significantly reduced. Analysis of the iNOS signal transduction pathways provided evidence that activation of the mitogen-activated kinases ERK1/2 and JNK is significantly blocked by PAA, whereas activation of p38MAPK is unaffected. The NF-kappaB pathway was not affected by PAA. CONCLUSIONS The present findings show that the uraemic toxin PAA has inhibitory effects on macrophage-killing function, which are mediated by inhibitory effects on transcriptional iNOS regulation. iNOS inhibition by PAA might affect immunoregulatory processes and could play a role in aggravation of immunodeficiency of patients with end-stage renal disease.
Carbon Source Starvation of a Sulfate-Reducing Bacterium–Elevated MIC Deterioration of Tensile Strength and Strain of X80 Pipeline Steel

It is known that starved sulfate-reducing bacterial biofilms corrode carbon steel more aggressively because they use electrons from elemental iron oxidation as an alternative source of energy. This work used carbon source starvation to vary MIC (microbiologically influenced corrosion) severity for studying subsequent MIC impacts on the degradation of X80 carbon steel mechanical properties. X80 square coupons and dogbone coupons were immersed in ATCC 1249 culture medium (200 ml in 450-ml anaerobic bottles) inoculated with Desulfovibrio vulgaris for 3-day pre-growth and then for an additional 14 days in fresh media with adjusted carbon source levels for starvation testing. After the starvation test, the sessile cell counts (cells/cm2) on the dogbone coupons in the bottles with carbon source levels of 0, 10, 50, and 100% (vs that in the full-strength medium) were 8.1 × 106, 3.2 × 107, 8.3 × 107, and 1.3 × 108, respectively. The pit depths from the X80 dogbone coupons were 1.9 μm (0%), 4.9 μm (10%), 9.1 μm (50%), and 6.4 μm (100%). The corresponding weight losses (mg/cm2) from the square coupons were 1.9 (0%), 3.3 (10%), 4.4 (50%), and 3.7 (100%). The 50% carbon source level had the combination of carbon starvation without suffering too much sessile cell loss. Thus, both its pit depth and weight loss were the highest. The electrochemical tests corroborated the pit depth and weight loss trends. The tensile tests of the dogbone coupons after the starvation incubation indicated that sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) made X80 more brittle and weaker. Compared with the fresh (no-SRB-exposure) X80 dogbone coupon’s ultimate tensile strain of 13.6% and ultimate tensile stress of 860 MPa, the 50% carbon source level led to the lowest ultimate tensile strain of 10.3% (24% loss when compared with the fresh dogbone) and ultimate tensile stress of 672 MPa (22% loss). The 100% carbon source level had a smaller loss in ultimate tensile strain than the 50% carbon source level, followed by 10% and then 0%. Moreover, the 100% carbon source level had a smaller loss in ultimate tensile strength than the 50%, followed by 10% and 0% in a tie. This outcome shows that even in the 17-day short-term test, significant degradation of the mechanical properties occurred and more severe MIC pitting caused more severe degradation.
Sentiment analysis: Arabic sentiment lexicons

Sentiment Analysis is the process of identifying sentiment from text written in a natural language with respect to the entity it is referring to. Sentiment lexicons are used to perform this task. Several lexicons are available to perform this task in English using WordNet. In this paper, we present a new method to create a sentiment lexicon for the Arabic language using semi-supervised learning on the WordNet and matching them with an Arabic database.
Inclusive Intervention to Enhance the Fundamental Movement Skills of Children without Hearing: A Preliminary Study

The purpose of this study was to assess an intervention program on the fundamental movement skill of students with and without hearing impairment, using the Test of Gross Motor Development–2 (TGMD–2) standardized Turkish norm. Preschool children with and without hearing impairment participated in this study. At the beginning of the study, most of the children with hearing impairment demonstrated developmental delay on the Locomotor subscale (6/7), as did about one-third (4/11) of the children without hearing impairment. For the Object control subscale, 4/7 of children with hearing impairment and none without hearing impairment showed developmental delay prior to the intervention program. After the intervention program, 3/7 children with hearing impairment had developmental delay on the Locomotor subscale. On the Object control subscale, 2/7 children with hearing impairment and none without hearing impairment showed developmental delay. The six-week intervention program improved TGMD–2 scores of children with hearing impairment, yet did not yield statistically significant improvement of fundamental movement skills.
A flow cytometry assay simultaneously detects independent apoptotic parameters.

BACKGROUND Apoptosis regulation is of fundamental importance in tissue homeostasis and in the pathogenesis of a variety of diseases. Different cytofluorometric methods are used to investigate apoptotic events. We set up a method to simultaneously evaluate mitochondria depolarization, cell morphology changes, and loss of plasma membrane asymmetry and integrity, thus increasing the information and minimizing errors in the analysis of the apoptotic process. METHODS Jurkat T cells were induced to undergo apoptosis with different agents. They were labeled with (1) the mitochondrion-selective probes tetramethylrhodamine methyl ester (TMRM) or chloromethyl X-rosamine (CMXRos), which do not accumulate in depolarized mitochondria; (2) Annexin V-fluorescein isothyocianate (FITC) to detect phosphatidylserine (PS) exposure on the cell surface; and (3) propidium iodide (PI) to assess loss of plasma membrane integrity. Cell morphology changes were studied following variations in light scatter parameters. RESULTS This is a fast, reliable, and reproducible technique to detect simultaneously independent apoptotic changes by cytofluorometric inspection. TMRM is more effective than CMXRos in responding to variations in the electrochemical gradient of mitochondria. CONCLUSIONS This technique allows us to integrate the analysis and to follow the kinetics of different apoptotic cell changes.
Breathing retraining for African-American adolescents with asthma: a pilot study of a school-based randomized controlled trial

Abstract Objective: Asthma affects approximately seven million children/adolescents in the USA, with African-American children disproportionately affected. Breathing retraining techniques have been shown to improve asthma outcomes in adults, though research in youth is limited. The purpose of this pilot study was to test the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of a school-based randomized controlled trial of breathing retraining for asthma outcomes and anxiety symptoms in a sample of urban, African-American adolescents. Methods: Adolescents were randomized into either the intervention group (20-min breathing retraining plus education) or control group (20-min standard education). Participants completed two study visits, one month apart. Asthma control, asthma quality of life and lung functioning (FEV1 and peak flow) were the primary outcomes, and state anxiety (pre-post the intervention) and trait anxiety (over the one-month period) were the secondary outcomes. Results: Thirty-three African-American adolescents participated in the study, with a 90% retention rate between visit 1 and visit 2. Asthma control and asthma quality of life, significantly improved over time (p ≤ 0.01) with no differences between intervention and control groups. State anxiety significantly decreased (p ≤ 0.01) immediately post intervention at both time points with no differences between groups. There were no significant differences found in lung functioning or trait anxiety over the one-month time period. Conclusions: These preliminary results suggest that breathing retraining is a feasible, acceptable and potentially efficacious intervention (although no significant differences between groups were found) for improving asthma symptoms in urban adolescents with asthma in a school-based setting.
Sphingosine 1-Phosphate-induced Cell Rounding and Neurite Retraction Are Mediated by the G Protein-coupled Receptor H218*

Sphingosine 1-phosphate (SPP) is a lipid second messenger that also acts as a first messenger through the G protein-coupled receptor Edg-1. Here we show that SPP also binds to the related receptors H218 and Edg-3 with high affinity and specificity. SPP and sphinganine 1-phosphate bind to these receptors, whereas neither sphingosylphosphorylcholine nor lysophosphatidic acid compete with SPP for binding to either receptor. Transfection of HEK293 cells with H218 or edg-3, but not edg-1, induces rounded cell morphology in the presence of serum, which contains high levels of SPP. SPP treatment of cells overexpressing H218 cultured in delipidated serum causes cell rounding. A similar but less dramatic effect was observed in cells overexpressing Edg-3 but not with Edg-1. Cell rounding was correlated with apoptotic cell death, probably as a result of loss of attachment. Nerve growth factor-induced neuritogenesis in PC12 cells was inhibited by overexpression of H218 and to a lesser extent Edg-3. SPP treatment rapidly enhanced neurite retraction in PC12 cells overexpressing Edg-1, Edg-3, or H218. Thus, H218, and possibly Edg-3, may be the cell surface receptors responsible for cell rounding and neurite retraction induced by SPP. Moreover, the identification of these two additional SPP receptors indicates that a family of highly specific receptors exists that mediate different responses to SPP.
Wearable photosensor devices based on rGO-coated fabrics

Photosensing of graphene oxide and reduced graphene oxide has been a popular research direction recently. However, there are seldom studies based on fabrics for wearable photosensors. Here we developed a wearable photosensor device based on reduced graphene oxide-coated fabrics with an obvious photosensing performance, which is very potential and practical for the development of smart clothing.
Transcriptional and Functional Profiling of Human Embryonic Stem Cell-Derived Cardiomyocytes

Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) can serve as a potentially limitless source of cells that may enable regeneration of diseased tissue and organs. Here we investigate the use of human embryonic stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hESC-CMs) in promoting recovery from cardiac ischemia reperfusion injury in a mouse model. Using microarrays, we have described the hESC-CM transcriptome within the spectrum of changes that occur between undifferentiated hESCs and fetal heart cells. The hESC-CMs expressed cardiomyocyte genes at levels similar to those found in 20-week fetal heart cells, making this population a good source of potential replacement cells in vivo. Echocardiographic studies showed significant improvement in heart function by 8 weeks after transplantation. Finally, we demonstrate long-term engraftment of hESC-CMs by using molecular imaging to track cellular localization, survival, and proliferation in vivo. Taken together, global gene expression profiling of hESC differentiation enables a systems-based analysis of the biological processes, networks, and genes that drive hESC fate decisions, and studies such as this will serve as the foundation for future clinical applications of stem cell therapies.
Comorbid anxious signs and symptoms in major depression: impact on functional work capacity and comparative treatment outcomes

Psychological distress is a driver both of direct and indirect health care costs. Depression compromises functional well-being, such as work productivity. Comorbid anxious features often complicate the recognition of depression and may herald a poor prognosis. We report the results of a cross-sectional naturalistic study to determine the impact of three interventions (no antidepressant, fluoxetine, or tricyclic antidepressant therapy) on relative risk of work days lost in 454 French outpatients with either major or minor depression. Most depressed patients also manifested anxious features (76% with a Hamilton Rating Scale for Anxiety score ≥ 12). The presence of anxiety was related to the severity of depression, work absenteeism, and current social instability. Depression severity (Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression score ≤ 26, including the contributions of anxious symptoms), psychiatric comorbidity, and psychomotor retardation best predicted continued work absenteeism. Patients with major depression were more likely to receive an antidepressant if they had a past history of depressive episodes and/or previous work disability. Patients with minor depression were less likely to receive drug therapy than patients with major depression, despite their current work disability. Among patients who received fluoxetine or a tricyclic antidepressant for at least 8 weeks, fluoxetine was associated with statistically significantly lower mean anxiety and depression scores and fewer work days missed.
Association Analysis under Population Stratification: A Two-Stage Procedure Utilizing Population- and Family-Based Analyses

Objective: The association analysis based on a population-based case-control study is convenient and powerful, but may be biased under population stratification (PS), namely the study population consists of strata heterogeneous in disease rates and allele frequencies. On the other hand, a family-based (e.g. case-parents) study is robust against the PS bias, but may be less convenient to implement. We propose an association analysis that preserves the full robustness property of the family-based analysis while allowing for borrowing information from a population-based analysis. Methods: A two-stage procedure is proposed. In the first stage, one selects a population-based case-control sample and performs a traditional case-control association analysis. In the second stage, one randomly selects a subset of the first-stage cases and recruits their family controls (e.g. parents), and performs a family-based association analysis. An overall two-stage analysis is then performed to utilize information from the two stages. Results: The proposed two-stage analysis achieves higher power than the second-stage family-based analysis by utilizing information in the first-stage population study, while maintaining the full robustness of the family study and hence is still valid under PS. The proposal can also accommodate parental missingness when the case-parents study is used as the second-stage family study. Conclusion: The two-stage analysis facilitates efficient and robust association analysis under PS. Its computation- and cost-effectiveness render it very promising in genome-wide association studies.
The Memory of St Julien: Configuring Gas Warfare in Mary Riter Hamilton's Battlefield Art

This essay takes the commemorative work of the Canadian painter Mary Riter Hamilton (1867–1954) as a case study to explore representations of what is often remembered as a key moment of Canadian nation-building: the Second Battle of Ypres and the German chlorine gas attack at St Julien. The essay argues that Hamilton treated the subject of St Julien differently from the official Canadian war artists. By adopting a retrospective, immersive and modernist focus and emphasizing poison gas and concrete, weapons, and materials used for the first time in the ‘Great War’, Hamilton presented a dual depiction of the location and the war more generally, drawing attention to the destructive power of modern warfare even as she offered a humanist and nationalist work of remembrance. As scholarly and cultural discourses reconsider the First World War with the inclusion of women's perspectives [e.g., Palmer, K. 2012. Women War Artists. Imperial War Museum: Tate Publishing; Speck, C. 2004. Painting Ghosts: Australian Women Artists in Wartime. Melbourne: Thames and Hudson], Hamilton's work presents a woman's battlefield perspective that was excised by the war art establishment in Canada. Hamilton would eventually create an extraordinary collection of over 300 war paintings, the largest Canadian First World War art collection from a single painter, in spite of extensive official opposition. Ironically, by adopting a hardline position regarding the presence of female painters on the battlefields, officials of the Canadian War Memorials Fund inadvertently enabled an art practice that operated beyond their control, drawing attention to the forgotten stories and perspectives of war.
Magnetic Induction-Based Positioning in Distorted Environments

Ferrous and highly conductive materials distort low-frequency magnetic fields and can significantly increase magnetoinductive positioning errors. In this paper, we use the image theory in order to formulate an analytical channel model for the magnetic field of a quasi-static magnetic dipole positioned above a perfectly conducting half-space. The proposed model can be used to compensate for the distorting effects that metallic reinforcement bars (rebars) within the floor impose on the magnetic field of a magnetoinductive transmitter node in an indoor single-story environment. Good agreement is observed between the analytical solution and numerical solutions obtained from 3-D finite-element simulations. Experimental results indicate that the image theory model shows improvement over the free-space dipole model in estimating positions in the distorted environment, typically reducing positioning errors by 22% in 90% of the cases and 26% in 40% of the cases. No prior information on the geometry of the metallic distorters was available, making this essentially a “blind” technique.
Preparation of seeding type immobilized microorganisms and their degradation characteristics on Di-n-butyl phthalate.

OBJECTIVE To study the preparation of seeding type immobilized microorganisms and their degradation characteristics on di-n-butyl phthalate (DBP). METHODS Diatomite, clinoptilolite, silk zeolite, and coal fly ash were chosen as reserved materials and modified. Their adsorption capacity and intensity in the bacteria were determined and the best carrier was picked out. The seeding type immobilized microorganisms were prepared by the best carrier and then it degraded DBP under different primary concentration, vibration rate, pH, temperature in the presence of metal compounds. RESULTS The adsorption capacity of the modified coal fly ash, silk zeolite, clinoptilolite and zeolite was 44.2%, 71.6%, 84.0%, and 94.4%, respectively, which was 1.66, 1.49, 1.37, and 1.16 times as high as that of their natural state. Their adsorption intensity was 72.1%, 90.5%, 90.1%, and 91.1% in turn. The modified diatomite was selected to prepare the seeding type immobilized microorganisms. When the primary DBP concentration was 100 to 500 mg/L, the DBP-degraded rate of the immobilized microorganisms could be above 80%. The degradation activity of both the dissociative and immobilized microorganisms was higher in vibration than in stillness. When pH was 6.0 to 9.0, the DBP-degraded rate of the immobilized microorganisms was above 82%, which was higher than the dissociative microorganisms. When the temperature was between 20 degrees C and 40 degrees C, the DBP-degraded rate could reach 84.5% in 24 h. The metal compounds could inhibit the degradation activity of both the dissociative and immobilized microorganisms. The degradation process of the immobilized microorganisms could be described by the first-order model. CONCLUSION The adsorption capacity of the diatomite, clinoptilolite, silk zeolite and coal fly ash on DBP-degrading bacteria can be improved obviously after they are modified. The modified diatomite is best in terms of its adsorption capacity and intensity. Its seeding type immobilized microorganisms could degrade DBP effectively and is more adaptable to DBP load, temperature, pH than the dissociative microorganisms. The metal compounds could inhibit the activity of both the immobilized and dissociative microorganisms. The degradation reaction of the immobilized microorganisms on DBP is consistent with the first-order model.
Exact and Approximate Fourier Rebinning Algorithms for the Solution of the Data Truncation Problem in 3-D PET

This paper presents an extended 3D exact rebinning formula in the Fourier space that leads to an iterative reprojection algorithm (iterative FOREPROJ), which enables the estimation of unmeasured oblique projection data on the basis of the whole set of measured data. In first approximation, this analytical formula also leads to an extended Fourier rebinning equation that is the basis for an approximate reprojection algorithm (extended FORE). These algorithms were evaluated on numerically simulated 3D positron emission tomography (PET) data for the solution of the truncation problem, i.e., the estimation of the missing portions in the oblique projection data, before the application of algorithms that require complete projection data such as some rebinning methods (FOREX) or 3D reconstruction algorithms (3DRP or direct Fourier methods). By taking advantage of all the 3D data statistics, the iterative FOREPROJ reprojection provides a reliable alternative to the classical FOREPROJ method, which only exploits the low-statistics nonoblique data. It significantly improves the quality of the external reconstructed slices without loss of spatial resolution. As for the approximate extended FORE algorithm, it clearly exhibits limitations due to axial interpolations, but will require clinical studies with more realistic measured data in order to decide on its pertinence.