Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
EEMIP: Energy-Efficient Communication Using Timing Channels and Prioritization in ZigBee

With the expansion of the Internet-of-Things, energy-efficient communication is becoming vital. The communication among energy-limited devices (e.g., powered by batteries or harvesting the energy from their environment) must be energy-efficient, prolonging their lifetime or increasing data throughput. This article aims at proposing energy-efficient periodic communication for devices over the ZigBee protocol and powered by a battery. We propose using timing channels for different data priorities, thus, more important data are sent more frequently. The priority is also considered in case of congested traffic, where a central device (coordinator) prioritizes more important communication. We have implemented a simulator, which serves for verification of the proposed solution, and conducted experiments comparing the proposed EEMIP method with the standard nonbeacon ZigBee communication. The experimental results show that the proposed method is more energy efficient.
Association between outdoor air pollution and semen quality

Background: Various studies have explored the association between outdoor air pollution and semen quality. However, the results were still controversial. The object of the current meta-analysis is to evaluate the role of outdoor air pollution in semen quality. Methods: Databases including PubMed, Web of Science, and Embase will be searched to identify qualified studies. All qualified cross-sectional studies researching the association between outdoor air pollution and sperm parameters will be included. Relative data in participants under higher exposure and lower exposure to air pollution will be extracted by 2 investigators independently. Only participants under the highest and the lowest exposure will be enrolled if the original study contained more than 2 exposure levels. The semen volume, sperm concentration, progressive motility, total motility, and normal morphology rate will be the primary outcomes of the current study. Pooled estimates with corresponding 95% confidence intervals will be calculated to assess the specific effects of outdoor air pollution in semen quality. Moreover, trial sequential analyses will be performed to obtain a more comprehensive assessment of analyses. Results: A high-quality synthesis of the current evidence for the association between sperm parameters and outdoor air pollution will be provided. Conclusions: This meta-analysis and systematic review will generate evidence for judging whether outdoor air pollution can impair semen quality. PROSPERO registration number: PROSPERO CRD 42019126060
Scrambler therapy for the treatment of diabetic peripheral neuropathy pain

Rationale: Neuropathy secondary to diabetes mellitus often does not respond well to conventional therapy. Scrambler therapy may be an alternative treatment for otherwise intractable neuropathy. Patient concerns: A 45-year-old female complained of bilateral plantar foot pain. She had been treated for diabetes mellitus for 5 years. Oral analgesics did not resolve her pain. Even nerve block therapy did not adequately relieve her pain. Diagnoses: Diabetic peripheral neuropathy. Intervention: Scrambler therapy. Outcome: Pain reduction; the treatment effect was based around the location of the scrambler patch. Lessons: Scrambler therapy is effective for the treatment of diabetic peripheral neuropathy. Moreover, effective pain management can be achieved for patients who complain of general pain of the sole, including the toe, by attaching scrambler patches around the ankle.
Fourier Opacity Optimization for Scalable Exploration

Over the past decades, scientific visualization became a fundamental aspect of modern scientific data analysis. Across all data-intensive research fields, ranging from structural biology to cosmology, data sizes increase rapidly. Dealing with the growing large-scale data is one of the top research challenges of this century. For the visual exploratory data analysis, interactivity, a view-dependent visibility optimization and frame coherence are indispensable. In this work, we extend the recent decoupled opacity optimization framework to enable a navigation without occlusion of important features through large geometric data. By expressing the accumulation of importance and optical depth in Fourier basis, the computation, evaluation and rendering of optimized transparent geometry become not only order-independent, but also operate within a fixed memory bound. We study the quality of our Fourier approximation in terms of accuracy, memory requirements and efficiency for both the opacity computation, as well as the order-independent compositing. We apply the method to different point, line and surface data sets originating from various research fields, including meteorology, health science, astrophysics and organic chemistry.
Transcriptomic Analysis of MAPK Signaling in NSC-34 Motor Neurons Treated with Vitamin E

Vitamin E family is composed of different tocopherols and tocotrienols that are well-known as antioxidants but that exert also non-antioxidant effects. Oxidative stress may be involved in the progression of neurodegenerative disorders including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), characterized by motor neuron death. The aim of the study was the evaluation of the changes induced in the transcriptional profile of NSC-34 motor neurons treated with α-tocopherol. In particular, cells were treated for 24 h with 10 µM α-tocopherol, RNA was extracted and transcriptomic analysis was performed using Next Generation Sequencing. Vitamin E treatment modulated MAPK signaling pathway. The evaluation revealed that 34 and 12 genes, respectively belonging to “Classical MAP kinase pathway” and “JNK and p38 MAP kinase pathway”, were involved. In particular, a downregulation of the genes encoding for p38 (Log2 fold change −0.87 and −0.67) and JNK (Log2 fold change −0.16) was found. On the contrary, the gene encoding for ERK showed a higher expression in cells treated with vitamin E (Log2 fold change 0.30). Since p38 and JNK seem more involved in cell death, while ERK in cell survival, the data suggested that vitamin E treatment may exert a protective role in NSC-34 motor neurons. Moreover, Vitamin E treatment reduced the expression of the genes which encode proteins involved in mitophagy. These results indicate that vitamin E may be an efficacious therapy in preventing motor neuron death, opening new strategies for those diseases that involve motor neurons, including ALS.
Nitric oxide modulates spontaneous swallowing behavior in near-term ovine fetus

El-Haddad, Mostafa A. , Conrad R. Chao, Sheng-Xing Ma, and Michael G. Ross. Nitric oxide modulates spontaneous swallowing behavior in near-term ovine fetus. Am. J. Physiol. 277 (Regulatory Integrative Comp. Physiol. 46): R981–R986, 1999. —Human and ovine fetuses demonstrate an enhanced rate of swallowing, an activity critical for amniotic fluid regulation. Fetal swallowing may be modulated by both systemic and central factors. Nitric oxide (NO) is a central neuromodulator that has been localized to brain regions regulating thirst and swallowing. We sought to determine if NO contributes to the regulation of spontaneous ovine fetal swallowing. Six time-dated pregnant ewes with singleton fetuses (129 6 1 day) were chronically prepared with fetal vascular and lateral ventricle catheters and electrocorticogram (ECoG) and esophageal electromyogram electrodes. After a 2-h control period, fetuses were given lateral ventricle injection of NO synthase inhibitor nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME) and monitored for 2 h. NO precursor L-arginine was then injected into the lateral ventricle, and fetuses were monitored for a final 2 h. All fetuses received an additional control study of fetal swallowing before and after lateral ventricle injection of artificial cerebrospinal fluid (aCSF). Data were analyzed with repeated-measures ANOVA and paired t-test (P , 0.05). Suppression of a central NO with central L-NAME significantly reduced mean (6SE) spontaneous fetal swallowing (1.2 6 0.1–0.6 6 0.1 swallows/min low-voltage ECoG; P , 0.01). Restoration of central NO by L-arginine significantly increased fetal swallowing to pre-LNAME levels (1.2 6 0.1 swallows/min low voltage). There were no changes in fetal swallowing during the control study of aCSF. Fetal ECoG activity and blood pressure did not change during the study or control aCSF injection. We conclude that NO is an important neuromodulator of fetal swallowing activity. Central NO synthase activity may contribute to the heightened level of spontaneous fetal swallowing and thus amniotic fluid regulation.
Urine proteome changes in a TNBS-induced colitis rat model

Urine is an important resource for biomarker research. Without homeostasis, urine accumulates markers of all the changes in the body. Urine proteins reflect not only renal diseases but also changes in other organs in the body. However, urine has rarely been used to reflect inflammatory bowel disease. In the present study, a trinitrobenzene sulfonic acid (TNBS)-induced colitis rat model was used to mimic the human inflammatory bowel disease Crohn’s disease (CD). Urine samples from a control group (n=3), a TNBS 2-day group (n=3) and a TNBS 7-day group (n=3) were analyzed for candidate biomarker discovery by label-free and TMT-labeled proteomic quantitative methods. Seventy-seven urinary proteins were significantly changed in the colitis rats compared with that in the controls. These proteins were further validated by parallel reaction monitoring (PRM) targeted proteomic quantitative methods. Urine samples from the control group (n=8), the TNBS 2-day group (n=11) and the TNBS 7-day group (n=11) were analyzed by PRM. This led to the identification of 9 significantly differential expressed urinary proteins: CAH1, G3P, MMP-8, MANBA, NGAL, RNS1G, SLC31, S6A18, and TMM27. Based on the human protein tissue atlas, CAH1, RNS1G and SLC31 are highly enriched in the gastrointestinal tract. Among the 9 PRM-validated proteins, CAH1, MMP-8 and NGAL were previously reported as IBD-associated proteins (all exhibiting consistent trends with our observation), whereas the others are newly discovered by this study. Our results provide valuable clues for future study of urine biomarker of inflammatory bowel disease and Crohn’s disease.
Ten simple rules for carrying out and writing meta-analyses

In the context of evidence-based medicine, meta-analyses provide novel and useful information [1], as they are at the top of the pyramid of evidence and consolidate previous evidence published in multiple previous reports [2]. Meta-analysis is a powerful tool to cumulate and summarize the knowledge in a research field [3]. Because of the significant increase in the published scientific literature in recent years, there has also been an important growth in the number of meta-analyses for a large number of topics [4]. It has been found that meta-analyses are among the types of publications that usually receive a larger number of citations in the biomedical sciences [5,6]. The methods and standards for carrying out meta-analyses have evolved in recent years [7–9]. Although there are several published articles describing comprehensive guidelines for specific types of meta-analyses, there is still the need for an abridged article with general and updated recommendations for researchers interested in the development of meta-analyses. We present here ten simple rules for carrying out and writing meta-analyses. Rule 1: Specify the topic and type of the meta-analysis Considering that a systematic review [10] is fundamental for a meta-analysis, you can use the Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome (PICO) model to formulate the research question. It is important to verify that there are no published meta-analyses on the specific topic in order to avoid duplication of efforts [11]. In some cases, an updated meta-analysis in a topic is needed if additional data become available. It is possible to carry out meta-analyses for multiple types of studies, such as epidemiological variables for case-control, cohort, and randomized clinical trials. As observational studies have a larger possibility of having several biases, meta-analyses of these types of designs should take that into account. In addition, there is the possibility to carry out meta-analyses for genetic association studies, gene expression studies, genome-wide association studies (GWASs), or data from animal experiments. It is advisable to preregister the systematic review protocols at the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/Prospero) database [12]. Keep in mind that an increasing number of journals require registration prior to publication.
Selected infectious agents and risk of schizophrenia among U.S. military personnel.

OBJECTIVE A number of studies have reported associations between Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) infection and the risk of schizophrenia. Most existing studies have used small populations and postdiagnosis specimens. As part of a larger research program, the authors conducted a hypothesis-generating case control study of T. gondii antibodies among individuals discharged from the U.S. military with a diagnosis of schizophrenia and serum specimens available from both before and after diagnosis. METHOD The patients (N=180) were military members who had been hospitalized and discharged from military service with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Healthy comparison subjects (3:1 matched on several factors) were members of the military who were not discharged. The U.S. military routinely collects and stores serum specimens of military service members. The authors used microplate-enzyme immunoassay to measure immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibody levels to T. gondii, six herpes viruses, and influenza A and B viruses and immunoglobulin M (IgM) antibody levels to T. gondii in pre- and postdiagnosis serum specimens. RESULTS A significant positive association between the T. gondii IgG antibody and schizophrenia was found; the overall hazard ratio was 1.24. The association between IgG and schizophrenia varied by the time between the serum specimen collection and onset of illness. CONCLUSION The authors found significant associations between increased levels of scaled T. gondii IgG antibodies and schizophrenia for antibodies measured both prior to and after diagnosis.
[Effect of electroacupuncture preconditioning with different frequencies on anal pain after milligan-morgan hemorrhoidectomy].

OBJECTIVE To compare the effect of electroacupuncture preconditioning with different frequencies on anal pain after milligan-morgan hemorrhoidectomy. METHODS A total of 120 patients with mixed hemorrhoids were randomly divided into an electroacupuncture group A (dilatational wave, 2 Hz/100 Hz in frequency), an electroacupuncture group B (continuous wave, 2 Hz in frequency) and an electroacupuncture group C (continuous wave, 100 Hz in frequency), 40 cases in each group. Electroacupuncture at Xialiao (BL 34) and Chengshan (BL 57) was applied with tolerant intensity for 30 min before operation in all groups. The number of additional anesthetic drugs in the 3 groups, the visual anal pain score (VAS) and limb activity score at 4, 12, and 24 h after operation, the maximum VAS score within 24 h after surgery and oral dose of aminophenol dihydrocodeine were compared. RESULTS The number of additional anesthetic drugs in the electroacupuncture group A, the electroacupuncture group B and the electroacupuncture group C were 4, 5, 4 respectively, and there was not statistically significant (P>0.05). There was no significant difference in the anal pain VAS score and limb activity score at 4 h after operation among the 3 groups (P>0.05), at the 12 h after operation, the VAS scores and limb activity scores in the electroacupunctures group A and B were lower than those in the electroacupuncture group C (P<0.05), at 24 h after operation, the VAS score and limb activity score in the electroacupuncture group A were lower than those in the electroacupuncture group B and C (P<0.05), the maximum VAS score within 24 h and oral dose of aminophenol dihydrocodeine within 24 h after operation in the electroacupuncture group A were lower than those in the electroacupuncture group B and C (P<0.05). CONCLUSION Different frequency electroacupuncture preconditioning has the effect of alleviating anal pain after milligan-morgan hemorrhoidectomy. The analgesic effect of electroacupuncture with different frequencies is different. The electroacupuncture analgesic effect of 2 Hz /100 Hz dilatational wave is better than 2 Hz and 100 Hz continuous waves.
Hepatitis C virus transmission from an anesthesiologist to a patient.

BACKGROUND An anesthesiologist was diagnosed as having acute hepatitis C 3 days after providing anesthesia during the thoracotomy of a 64-year-old man (patient A). Eight weeks later, patient A was diagnosed as having acute hepatitis C. METHODS We performed tests for antibody to hepatitis C virus (HCV) on serum samples from the thoracotomy surgical team and from surgical patients at the 2 hospitals where the anesthesiologist worked before and after his illness. We determined the genetic relatedness of the HCV isolates by sequencing the quasispecies from hypervariable region 1. RESULTS Of the surgical team members, only the anesthesiologist was positive for antibody to HCV. Of the 348 surgical patients treated by him and tested, 6 were positive for antibody to HCV. Of these 6 patients, isolates from 2 (patients A and B) were the same genotype (1a) as that of the anesthesiologist. The quasispecies sequences of these 3 isolates clustered with nucleotide identity of 97.8% to 100.0%. Patient B was positive for antibody to HCV before her surgery 9 weeks before the anesthesiologist's illness onset. The anesthesiologist did not perform any exposure-prone invasive procedures, and no breaks in technique or incidents were reported. He denied risk factors for HCV. CONCLUSIONS Our investigation suggests that the anesthesiologist acquired HCV infection from patient B and transmitted HCV to patient A. No further transmission was identified. Although we did not establish how transmission occurred in this instance, the one previous report of bloodborne pathogen transmission to patients from an anesthesiologist involved reuse of needles for self-injection.
CD45RB expression defines two interconvertible subsets of human CD4+ T cells with memory function

Reciprocal expression of CD45RA and CD45RO in human CD4+ T cells defines populations understood to be naive cells (CD45RA+CD45RO−) and memory cells (CD45RA−CD45RO+). We investigate two subsets of CD45RA−CD45RO+ CD4+ human T cells which differ by fourfold in their expression of the CD45RB isoform; one is CD45RBbright and the other is CD45RBintermediate. In contrast, CD45RA+ naive cells are all CD45RBbright. Both subsets of CD45RA− cells proliferate in response to recall antigens so we designate them MEM 1 (CD45RO+RBbright) and MEM 2 (CD45RO+RBintermediate). CD45RA and CD45RB expression are regulated independently during in vitro activation of naive cells. When MEM 1 cells are activated they tend to down‐regulate CD45RB expression, whereas activated MEM 2 cells tend to up‐regulate CD45RB expression. Thus, in contrast to the stability of the CD45RA−CD45RO+ phenotype, the MEM 1 and MEM 2 phenotypes are labile and may interconvert. MEM 1 and MEM 2 cells produced comparable amounts of interleukin(IL)−2, IL−4, and IL‐5 though MEM 1 cells produced slightly more interferon(IFN)‐γ (mean 1.7‐fold more). MEM 1 cells consistently proliferated more (mean 2.3‐fold more) than MEM 2 cells early during in vitro activation. Thus, differential expression of CD45RB within CD45RA− cells defines two subsets that have similar properties except for somewhast greater IFN‐γ production and proliferative responses by MEM 1 cells. Variability in CD45RB expression may represent a mechanism for fine‐tuning the responsiveness of memory cells in vivo.
Systematic evasion of the restriction-modification barrier in bacteria

Significance Genetic engineering is a powerful approach for discovering fundamental aspects of bacterial physiology, metabolism, and pathogenesis as well as for harnessing the capabilities of bacteria for human use. However, the full power of genetic engineering can only be applied to a few model organisms. Biological diversity and strain-level variation in restriction-modification systems are critical barriers keeping most bacteria beyond the full potential of genetics. We have designed a systematic approach to effectively evade restriction-modification systems and successfully applied this approach to a clinically relevant USA300 strain of the human pathogen Staphylococcus aureus. Our results demonstrate the simplicity and effectiveness of this stealth-by-engineering approach, which could enable microbial genetic system design not restrained by innate restriction-modification defense mechanisms. Bacteria that are recalcitrant to genetic manipulation using modern in vitro techniques are termed genetically intractable. Genetic intractability is a fundamental barrier to progress that hinders basic, synthetic, and translational microbiology research and development beyond a few model organisms. The most common underlying causes of genetic intractability are restriction-modification (RM) systems, ubiquitous defense mechanisms against xenogeneic DNA that hinder the use of genetic approaches in the vast majority of bacteria and exhibit strain-level variation. Here, we describe a systematic approach to overcome RM systems. Our approach was inspired by a simple hypothesis: if a synthetic piece of DNA lacks the highly specific target recognition motifs for a host’s RM systems, then it is invisible to these systems and will not be degraded during artificial transformation. Accordingly, in this process, we determine the genome and methylome of an individual bacterial strain and use this information to define the bacterium’s RM target motifs. We then synonymously eliminate RM targets from the nucleotide sequence of a genetic tool in silico, synthesize an RM-silent “SyngenicDNA” tool, and propagate the tool as minicircle plasmids, termed SyMPL (SyngenicDNA Minicircle Plasmid) tools, before transformation. In a proof-of-principle of our approach, we demonstrate a profound improvement (five orders of magnitude) in the transformation of a clinically relevant USA300 strain of Staphylococcus aureus. This stealth-by-engineering SyngenicDNA approach is effective, flexible, and we expect in future applications could enable microbial genetics free of the restraints of restriction-modification barriers.