Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Gait Rather Than Cognition Predicts Decline in Specific Cognitive Domains in Early Parkinson’s Disease

Abstract Background Dementia is significant in Parkinson’s disease (PD) with personal and socioeconomic impact. Early identification of risk is of upmost importance to optimize management. Gait precedes and predicts cognitive decline and dementia in older adults. We aimed to evaluate gait characteristics as predictors of cognitive decline in newly diagnosed PD. Methods One hundred and nineteen participants recruited at diagnosis were assessed at baseline, 18 and 36 months. Baseline gait was characterized by variables that mapped to five domains: pace, rhythm, variability, asymmetry, and postural control. Cognitive assessment included attention, fluctuating attention, executive function, visual memory, and visuospatial function. Mixed-effects models tested independent gait predictors of cognitive decline. Results Gait characteristics of pace, variability, and postural control predicted decline in fluctuating attention and visual memory, whereas baseline neuropsychological assessment performance did not predict decline. Conclusions This provides novel evidence for gait as a clinical biomarker for PD cognitive decline in early disease.
Personalizing Mobile Fitness Apps using Reinforcement Learning

Despite the vast number of mobile fitness applications (apps) and their potential advantages in promoting physical activity, many existing apps lack behavior-change features and are not able to maintain behavior change motivation. This paper describes a novel fitness app called CalFit, which implements important behavior-change features like dynamic goal setting and self-monitoring. CalFit uses a reinforcement learning algorithm to generate personalized daily step goals that are challenging but attainable. We conducted the Mobile Student Activity Reinforcement (mSTAR) study with 13 college students to evaluate the efficacy of the CalFit app. The control group (receiving goals of 10,000 steps/day) had a decrease in daily step count of 1,520 (SD ± 740) between baseline and 10-weeks, compared to an increase of 700 (SD ± 830) in the intervention group (receiving personalized step goals). The difference in daily steps between the two groups was 2,220, with a statistically significant p = 0.039.
Neutrophil-generated HOCl leads to non-specific thiol oxidation in phagocytized bacteria

Phagocytic immune cells kill pathogens in the phagolysosomal compartment with a cocktail of antimicrobial agents. Chief among them are reactive species produced in the so-called oxidative burst. Here, we show that bacteria exposed to a neutrophil-like cell line experience a rapid and massive oxidation of cytosolic thiols. Using roGFP2-based fusion probes, we could show that this massive breakdown of the thiol redox homeostasis was dependent on phagocytosis, presence of NADPH oxidase and ultimately myeloperoxidase. Interestingly, the redox-mediated fluorescence change in bacteria expressing a glutathione-specific Grx1-roGFP2 fusion protein or an unfused roGFP2 showed highly similar reaction kinetics to the ones observed with roGFP2-Orp1, under all conditions tested. We recently observed such an indiscriminate oxidation of roGFP2-based fusion probes by HOCl with fast kinetics in vitro. In line with these observations, abating HOCl production in immune cells with a myeloperoxidase inhibitor significantly attenuated the oxidation of all three probes in bacteria.
Personality and Perpetration

Theory and research suggest that narcissism plays an important role in perpetration of sexual aggression. As narcissism is a multidimensional construct, our objective was to clarify the relation between perpetration and three aspects of narcissism. College men (N = 234) completed the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI), Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) subscale of the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM Disorders–II (SCID-N) Personality Questionnaire, and Hypersensitive Narcissism Scale (HSNS). Perpetrators had higher scores on NPD traits, which were also associated with frequent perpetration. HSNS scores were only associated with perpetration via alcohol and/or drugs. Only the maladaptive facets of NPI narcissism correlated with perpetration. Narcissism seems to have been understudied in nonincarcerated perpetrators.
Cutting Edge: Divergent Requirement of T-Box Transcription Factors in Effector and Memory NK Cells

The T-box transcription factors T-bet and Eomesodermin (Eomes) instruct discrete stages in NK cell development. However, their role in the immune response of mature NK cells against pathogens remains unexplored. We used an inducible deletion system to elucidate the cell-intrinsic role of T-bet and Eomes in mature NK cells during the course of mouse CMV infection. We show both T-bet and Eomes to be necessary for the expansion of virus-specific NK cells, with T-bet upregulation induced by IL-12 signaling and STAT4 binding to a conserved enhancer region upstream of the Tbx21 loci. Interestingly, our data suggest maintenance of virus-specific memory NK cell numbers and phenotype was dependent on T-bet, but not Eomes. These findings uncover a nonredundant and stage-specific influence of T-box transcription factors in the antiviral NK cell response.
Assessing Different Feature Sets' Effects on Land Cover Classification in Complex Surface-Mined Landscapes by ZiYuan-3 Satellite Imagery

Land cover classification (LCC) in complex surface-mined landscapes has become very important for understanding the influence of mining activities on the regional geo-environment. There are three characteristics of complex surface-mined areas limiting LCC: significant three-dimensional terrain, strong temporal-spatial variability of surface cover, and spectral-spatial homogeneity. Thus, determining effective feature sets are very important as input dataset to improve detailed extent of classification schemes and classification accuracy. In this study, data such as various feature sets derived from ZiYuan-3 stereo satellite imagery, a feature subset resulting from a feature selection (FS) procedure, training data polygons, and test sample sets were firstly obtained; then, feature sets’ effects on classification accuracy was assessed based on different feature set combination schemes, a FS procedure, and random forest algorithm. The following conclusions were drawn. (1) The importance of feature set could be divided into three grades: the vegetation index (VI), principal component bands (PCs), mean filters (Mean), standard deviation filters (StDev), texture measures (Textures), and topographic variables (TVs) were important; the Gaussian low-pass filters (GLP) was just positive; and none were useless. The descending order of their importance was TVs, StDev, Textures, Mean, PCs, VI, and GLP. (2) TVs and StDev both significantly outperformed VI, PCs, GLP, and Mean; Mean outperformed GLP; all other pairs of feature sets had no difference. In general, the study assessed different feature sets’ effects on LCC in complex surface-mined landscapes.
Improvement in Limit of Detection of Enzymatic Biogas Sensor Utilizing Chromatography Paper for Breath Analysis

Breath analysis is considered to be an effective method for point-of-care diagnosis due to its noninvasiveness, quickness and simplicity. Gas sensors for breath analysis require detection of low-concentration substances. In this paper, we propose that reduction of the background current improves the limit of detection of enzymatic biogas sensors utilizing chromatography paper. After clarifying the cause of the background current, we reduced the background current by improving the fabrication process of the sensors utilizing paper. Finally, we evaluated the limit of detection of the sensor with the sample vapor of ethanol gas. The experiment showed about a 50% reduction of the limit of detection compared to previously-reported sensor. This result presents the possibility of the sensor being applied in diagnosis, such as for diabetes, by further lowering the limit of detection.
FasParser2: a graphical platform for batch manipulation of tremendous amount of sequence data

Summary FasParser is a graphical platform for manipulating sequences and alignments in a batch mode. It is particularly useful for biologists handling large datasets of sequences, even without an experience in programming. Here, I present an updated version 'FasParser2', featuring numerous improvements with sets of novel functions that can facilitate sequence manipulation. Its main additional features include (i) re-designed graphical interface which greatly improves its capability for batch processing, (ii) a trimming function to strip poorly-aligned regions in multiple sequence alignments, (iii) a series of functions that can identify as well as remove 'bad' sequence (either too short or too divergent sequences), (iv) an Editor tool for viewing and editing of biological sequences and (v) interfaces (with other programs) for detection of positive selection as well as primer design. Availability and implementation The compiled Windows binary is freely available at https://github.com/Sun-Yanbo/FasParser/releases.
Abemaciclib for the treatment of breast cancer

ABSTRACT Introduction: There have been numerous clinical trials of CDK4/6 inhibitors performed on various carcinomas including breast cancer. One such inhibitor tested and which has ongoing clinical trials for breast cancer is abemaciclib. Abemaciclib is a molecular-targeted agent that targets basic cell cycle regulatory mechanisms. Areas covered: This review discusses the available clinical data and ongoing clinical trials of abemaciclib in breast cancer. Expert opinion: Abemaciclib has demonstrated a clear anti-tumour effect and manageable toxicity against HR-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer in many clinical trials and is expected to be an important standard therapy. However, currently, besides oestrogen receptor expression, there is a definite lack of predictive biomarkers for response and/or tolerance to abemaciclib, which is important for patient selection. Another problem is that its contribution to overall survival (OS) has not been shown. And while two large the phase 3 study highlighted the anti-tumour effect of abemaciclib, the OS results are awaited. Furthermore, the effect on brain metastases is expected to be unique to abemaciclib as the response of brain metastasis in HR-positive breast cancer patients has been confirmed in a few cases with case collection still ongoing.
Siamese-GAN: Learning Invariant Representations for Aerial Vehicle Image Categorization

In this paper, we present a new algorithm for cross-domain classification in aerial vehicle images based on generative adversarial networks (GANs). The proposed method, called Siamese-GAN, learns invariant feature representations for both labeled and unlabeled images coming from two different domains. To this end, we train in an adversarial manner a Siamese encoder–decoder architecture coupled with a discriminator network. The encoder–decoder network has the task of matching the distributions of both domains in a shared space regularized by the reconstruction ability, while the discriminator seeks to distinguish between them. After this phase, we feed the resulting encoded labeled and unlabeled features to another network composed of two fully-connected layers for training and classification, respectively. Experiments on several cross-domain datasets composed of extremely high resolution (EHR) images acquired by manned/unmanned aerial vehicles (MAV/UAV) over the cities of Vaihingen, Toronto, Potsdam, and Trento are reported and discussed.
Analysis and implementation of a high‐efficiency zero‐voltage‐zero‐current‐switching DC–DC converter

A high‐efficiency zero‐voltage‐zero‐current‐switching DC–DC converter with ripple‐free input current is presented. In the presented converter, the ripple‐free boost cell provides ripple‐free input current and zero‐voltage switching of power switches. The resonant flyback cell provides zero‐voltage switching of power switches and zero‐current switching of the output diode. Also, it has a simple output stage. The proposed converter achieves high efficiency because of the reduction of the switching losses of the power switches and the output diode. Detailed analysis and design of the proposed converter are carried out. A prototype of the proposed converter is developed and its experimental results are presented for validation. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Temozolomide renders murine cancer cells susceptible to oncolytic adenovirus replication and oncolysis

ABSTRACT The preclinical evaluation of oncolytic adenoviruses (OAds) has been limited to cancer xenograft mouse models because OAds replicate poorly in murine cancer cells. The alkylating agent temozolomide (TMZ) has been shown to enhance oncolytic virotherapy in human cancer cells; therefore, we investigated whether TMZ could increase OAd replication and oncolysis in murine cancer cells. To test our hypothesis, three murine cancer cells were infected with OAd (E1b-deleted) alone or in combination with TMZ. TMZ increased OAd-mediated oncolysis in all three murine cancer cells tested. This increased oncolysis was, at least in part, due to productive virus replication, apoptosis, and autophagy induction. Most importantly, murine lung non-cancerous cells were not affected by OAd+TMZ. Moreover, TMZ increased Ad transduction efficiency. However, TMZ did not increase coxsackievirus and adenovirus receptor; therefore, other mechanism could be implicated on the transduction efficiency. These results showed, for the first time, that TMZ could render murine tumor cells more susceptible to oncolytic virotherapy. The proposed combination of OAds with TMZ presents an attractive approach towards the evaluation of OAd potency and safety in syngeneic mouse models using these murine cancer cell-lines in vivo.
Comparative Sensitivity of Transthoracic and Transesophageal Echocardiography in Diagnosis of Infective Endocarditis Among Veterans With Staphylococcus aureus Bacteremia

Abstract Background. Echocardiography is fundamental for diagnosing infective endocarditis (IE) in patients with Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia (SAB), but whether all such patients require transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) is controversial. Methods. We identified SAB cases between February 2008 and April 2012. We compared sensitivity and specificity of transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) and TEE for evidence of IE, and we determined impacts of IE risk factors and TTE image quality on comparative sensitivities of TTE and TEE and their impact on clinical decision making. Results. Of 215 evaluable SAB cases, 193 (90%) had TTE and 130 (60%) had TEE. In 119 cases with both tests, IE was diagnosed in 29 (24%), for whom endocardial involvement was evident in 25 (86%) by TEE, vs only 6 (21%) by TTE (P < .001). Transesophageal echocardiography was more sensitive than TTE regardless of risk factors. Even among the 66 cases with adequate or better quality TTE images, sensitivity was only 4 of 17 (24%) for TTE, vs 16 of 17 (94%) for TEE (P < .001). Among 130 patients with TEE, the TEE results, alone or with TTE results, influenced treatment duration in 56 (43%) cases and led to valve surgery in at least 4 (6%). It is notable that, despite vigorous efforts to obtain both tests routinely, TEE was not done in 86 cases (40%) for various reasons, including pathophysiological contraindications (14%), patient refusal or other patient-related factors (16%), and provider declination or system issues (10%). Conclusions. Patients with SAB should undergo TEE when possible to detect evidence for IE, especially if the results might affect management.
Geospatial Computer Vision Based on Multi-Modal Data - How Valuable Is Shape Information for the Extraction of Semantic Information?

In this paper, we investigate the value of different modalities and their combination for the analysis of geospatial data of low spatial resolution. For this purpose, we present a framework that allows for the enrichment of geospatial data with additional semantics based on given color information, hyperspectral information, and shape information. While the different types of information are used to define a variety of features, classification based on these features is performed using a random forest classifier. To draw conclusions about the relevance of different modalities and their combination for scene analysis, we present and discuss results which have been achieved with our framework on the MUUFL Gulfport Hyperspectral and LiDAR Airborne Data Set.
Benefits of whole ginger extract in prostate cancer

It is appreciated far and wide that increased and regular consumption of fruits and vegetables is linked with noteworthy anticancer benefits. Extensively consumed as a spice in foods and beverages worldwide, ginger (Zingiber officinale Roscoe) is an excellent source of several bioactive phenolics, including non-volatile pungent compounds such as gingerols, paradols, shogaols and gingerones. Ginger has been known to display anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and antiproliferative activities, indicating its promising role as a chemopreventive agent. Here, we show that whole ginger extract (GE) exerts significant growth-inhibitory and death-inductory effects in a spectrum of prostate cancer cells. Comprehensive studies have confirmed that GE perturbed cell-cycle progression, impaired reproductive capacity, modulated cell-cycle and apoptosis regulatory molecules and induced a caspase-driven, mitochondrially mediated apoptosis in human prostate cancer cells. Remarkably, daily oral feeding of 100 mg/kg body weight of GE inhibited growth and progression of PC-3 xenografts by approximately 56 % in nude mice, as shown by measurements of tumour volume. Tumour tissue from GE-treated mice showed reduced proliferation index and widespread apoptosis compared with controls, as determined by immunoblotting and immunohistochemical methods. Most importantly, GE did not exert any detectable toxicity in normal, rapidly dividing tissues such as gut and bone marrow. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report to demonstrate the in vitro and in vivo anticancer activity of whole GE for the management of prostate cancer.
Probiotics for the Treatment of Infantile Colic: A Systematic Review

Objective: To evaluate whether clinical data support the safety and efficacy of probiotics for the management of infantile colic. Background: Probiotics have been suggested as a potential strategy for infantile colic, and the specific species that have been studied in healthy infants are considered to be safe. Methodology: A systematic review was conducted to identify randomized controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating the use of probiotic supplementation in infants with colic. RCTs with a primary end point assessing crying or fussing time were selected. A meta-analysis comparing “responders” to “nonresponders” in infants receiving probiotic versus control was conducted. The quality of trials selected was assessed. Results: Five RCTs assessing 2 different strains of the probiotic Lactobacillus reuteri in mostly breastfed infants were identified. Analysis of response rates showed that infants receiving probiotics had a 2.3-fold greater chance of having a 50% or greater decrease in crying/fussing time compared to controls (P = .01). Probiotic supplementation was not associated with any adverse events. Conclusion: Supplementation with the probiotic L. reuteri in breastfed infants appears to be safe and effective for the management of infantile colic. Further research is needed to determine the role of probiotics in infants who are formula-fed.
Smart Factory of Industry 4.0: Key Technologies, Application Case, and Challenges

Due to the current structure of digital factory, it is necessary to build the smart factory to upgrade the manufacturing industry. Smart factory adopts the combination of physical technology and cyber technology and deeply integrates previously independent discrete systems making the involved technologies more complex and precise than they are now. In this paper, a hierarchical architecture of the smart factory was proposed first, and then the key technologies were analyzed from the aspects of the physical resource layer, the network layer, and the data application layer. In addition, we discussed the major issues and potential solutions to key emerging technologies, such as Internet of Things (IoT), big data, and cloud computing, which are embedded in the manufacturing process. Finally, a candy packing line was used to verify the key technologies of smart factory, which showed that the overall equipment effectiveness of the equipment is significantly improved.
A Review on Filter Undesired Text from Social Networks

social Network (OSN) is a social networking service which is a platform to build relations among people who share comfort, actions, backgrounds or real-life connections. Hundreds of thousands of people are using these social networking services for personal use, marketing. Entertainment, Business purpose. User security is the main issue in present days from person to person interaction. Message filtering is main task of proposed system. An online social network provides the little support to the user to avoid unwanted messages displayed on their own private space. In this paper, we propose system which gives ability to user to control the unwanted messages posted on their wall. To filter undesired messages propose three tier architecture containing message classifier based on content and using machine learning techniques. User is able to customize the filtering rule as per his/her preferences.i. e grant access to allow user to insert messages on his/her wall.
A flow cytometry‐based method for a high‐throughput analysis of drug‐stabilized topoisomerase II cleavage complexes in human cells

Topoisomerase II (Top2) is an important target for anticancer therapy. A variety of drugs that poison Top2, including several epipodophyllotoxins, anthracyclines, and anthracenediones, are widely used in the clinic for both hematologic and solid tumors. The poisoning of Top2 involves the formation of a reaction intermediate Top2‐DNA, termed Top2 cleavage complex (Top2cc), which is persistent in the presence of the drug and involves a 5′ end of DNA covalently bound to a tyrosine from the enzyme through a phosphodiester group. Drug‐induced Top2cc leads to Top2 linked‐DNA breaks which are the major responsible for their cytotoxicity. While biochemical detection is very laborious, quantification of drug‐induced Top2cc by immunofluorescence‐based microscopy techniques is time consuming and requires extensive image segmentation for the analysis of a small population of cells. Here, we developed a flow cytometry‐based method for the analysis of drug‐induced Top2cc. This method allows a rapid analysis of a high number of cells in their cell cycle phase context. Moreover, it can be applied to almost any human cell type, including clinical samples. The methodology is useful for a high‐throughput analysis of drugs that poison Top2, allowing not just the discrimination of the Top2 isoform that is targeted but also to track its removal. © 2016 International Society for Advancement of Cytometry