Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Data from the US and UK cystic fibrosis registries support disease modification by CFTR modulation with ivacaftor

Background Ivacaftor is the first cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) modulator demonstrating clinical benefit in patients with cystic fibrosis (CF). As ivacaftor is intended for chronic, lifelong use, understanding long-term effects is important for patients and healthcare providers. Objective This ongoing, observational, postapproval safety study evaluates clinical outcomes and disease progression in ivacaftor-treated patients using data from the US and the UK CF registries following commercial availability. Methods Annual analyses compare ivacaftor-treated and untreated matched comparator patients for: risks of death, transplantation, hospitalisation, pulmonary exacerbation; prevalence of CF-related complications and microorganisms and lung function changes in a subset of patients who initiated ivacaftor in the first year of commercial availability. Results from the 2014 analyses (2 and 3 years following commercial availability in the UK and USA, respectively) are presented here. Results Analyses included 1256 ivacaftor-treated and 6200 comparator patients from the USA and 411 ivacaftor-treated and 2069 comparator patients from the UK. No new safety concerns were identified based on the evaluation of clinical outcomes included in the analyses. As part of safety evaluations, ivacaftor-treated US patients were observed to have significantly lower risks of death (0.6% vs 1.6%, p=0.0110), transplantation (0.2% vs 1.1%, p=0.0017), hospitalisation (27.5% vs 43.1%, p<0.0001) and pulmonary exacerbation (27.8% vs 43.3%, p<0.0001) relative to comparators; trends were similar in the UK. In both registries, ivacaftor-treated patients had a lower prevalence of CF-related complications and select microorganisms and had better preserved lung function. Conclusions While general limitations of observational research apply, analyses revealed favourable results for clinically important outcomes among ivacaftor-treated patients, adding to the growing body of literature supporting disease modification by CFTR modulation with ivacaftor. EU PAS registration number EUPAS4270
Omega-3 (ω-3) and social skills interventions for reactive aggression and childhood externalizing behavior problems: a randomized, stratified, double-blind, placebo-controlled, factorial trial

Abstract Background While studies suggest that nutritional supplementation may reduce aggressive behavior in children, few have examined their effects on specific forms of aggression. This study tests the primary hypothesis that omega-3 (ω-3), both alone and in conjunction with social skills training, will have particular post-treatment efficacy for reducing childhood reactive aggression relative to baseline. Methods In this randomized, double-blind, stratified, placebo-controlled, factorial trial, a clinical sample of 282 children with externalizing behavior aged 7–16 years was randomized into ω-3 only, social skills only, ω-3 + social skills, and placebo control groups. Treatment duration was 6 months. The primary outcome measure was reactive aggression collected at 0, 3, 6, 9, and 12 months, with antisocial behavior as a secondary outcome. Results Children in the ω-3-only group showed a short-term reduction (at 3 and 6 months) in self-report reactive aggression, and also a short-term reduction in overall antisocial behavior. Sensitivity analyses and a robustness check replicated significant interaction effects. Effect sizes (d) were small, ranging from 0.17 to 0.31. Conclusions Findings provide some initial support for the efficacy of ω-3 in reducing reactive aggression over and above standard care (medication and parent training), but yield only preliminary and limited support for the efficacy of ω-3 in reducing overall externalizing behavior in children. Future studies could test further whether ω-3 shows promise in reducing more reactive, impulsive forms of aggression.
Primary Production in Grasslands and Coniferous Forests with Climate Change: An Overview.

In energy terms primary production is the driving step of the global carbon cycle. To predict the interaction of ecosystems with the "greenhoude" effect, it is necessary to understand how primary production, consumption, and decomposition will respond to climate change. Most estimates of primary production have been made by extrapolation from measured standing crops. For grasslands we show this approach to be seriously in error. Even where detailed studies of turnover and belowground production have been undertaken, errors are invariably high, severely limiting the value of models based on correlation of climate with measured production. Detailed information is available on the responses of individual plant processes to individual climatic variables at the leaf, plant, and stand level, giving potential for a more mechanistic approach in modelling. This approach is limited by lack of information on multivariate interactions and on some key physiological processes, and by uncertainties in scaling up to populations and communities. Despite this, some important insights to possible community responses, particularly those of C3 and C4 types, may be gained from knowledge of responses at the plant level and below. This review outlines the expected character of climate change in grasslands and coniferous forests. Knowledge of the responses of different physiological processes underlying production to individual aspects of climate change is considered, and its implications for higher levels of organization are discussed. Although feasible, mechanistic models of production compound the errors associated with individual process responses with uncertainties surrounding interaction and scaling up, and result in very large errors in any prediction of response to climate change. We conclude that there is insufficient information to predict accurately the response of primary production to climate change. The key processes for which information is inadequate and the parameters that have meaning at different scales need to be identified. Of particular promise is the approach of predicting production from light interception and conversion efficiency.
Automatic Academic Paper Rating Based on Modularized Hierarchical Convolutional Neural Network

As more and more academic papers are being submitted to conferences and journals, evaluating all these papers by professionals is time-consuming and can cause inequality due to the personal factors of the reviewers. In this paper, in order to assist professionals in evaluating academic papers, we propose a novel task: automatic academic paper rating (AAPR), which automatically determine whether to accept academic papers. We build a new dataset for this task and propose a novel modularized hierarchical convolutional neural network to achieve automatic academic paper rating. Evaluation results show that the proposed model outperforms the baselines by a large margin. The dataset and code are available at https://github.com/lancopku/AAPR
Trabectedin modulates the senescence-associated secretory phenotype and promotes cell death in senescent tumor cells by targeting NF-κB

Therapy-induced senescence is a major cellular response to chemotherapy in solid tumors. Senescent tumor cells acquire a secretory phenotype, or SASP, and produce pro-inflammatory factors, whose expression is largely under NF-κB transcriptional control. Secreted factors play a positive role in driving antitumor immunity, but also exert negative influences on the microenvironment, and promote tumor growth and metastasis. Moreover, subsets of cancer cells can escape the senescence arrest, driving tumor recurrence after treatments. Hence, removal the senescent tumor cells, or reprogramming of the senescent secretome, have become attractive therapeutic options. The marine drug trabectedin was shown to inhibit the production of pro-inflammatory mediators by tumor-infiltrating immune cells and by myxoid liposarcoma cells. Here, we demonstrate that trabectedin inhibits the SASP, thus limiting the pro-tumoral activities of senescent tumor cells in vitro. We show that trabectedin modulates NF-κB transcriptional activity in senescent tumor cells. This results in disruption of the balance between antiapoptotic and proapoptotic signals, and sensitization of cells to Fas-mediated apoptosis. Further, we found that trabectedin inhibits escape from therapy-induced senescence, at concentrations that do not affect the viability of bulk tumor population. Overall, our data demonstrate that trabectedin has the potential to inhibit multiple detrimental effects of therapy-induced senescence.
Electric field-navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation for chronic tinnitus: a randomized, placebo-controlled study

Abstract Objective: Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) may alleviate tinnitus. We evaluated effects of electric field (E-field) navigated rTMS targeted according to tinnitus pitch. No controlled studies have investigated anatomically accurate E-field-rTMS for tinnitus. Design: Effects of E-field-rTMS were evaluated in a prospective randomised placebo-controlled 6-month follow-up study on parallel groups. Patients received 10 sessions of 1 Hz rTMS or placebo targeted to the left auditory cortex corresponding to tonotopic representation of tinnitus pitch. Effects were evaluated immediately after treatment and at 1, 3 and 6 months. Primary outcome measures were visual analogue scores (VAS 0–100) for tinnitus intensity, annoyance and distress, and the Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI). Study sample: Thirty-nine patients (mean age 50.3 years). Results: The mean tinnitus intensity (F3 = 15.7, p < 0.0001), annoyance (F3 = 8.8, p = 0.0002), distress (F3 = 9.1, p = 0.0002) and THI scores (F4 = 13.8, p < 0.0001) decreased in both groups over time with non-significant differences between the groups. After active rTMS, 42% and 37% of the patients showed excellent response at 1 and 3 months against 15% and 10% in the placebo group (p = 0.082 and p = 0.065). Conclusions: Despite the significant effects of rTMS on tinnitus, differences between active and placebo groups remained non-significant, due to large placebo-effect and wide inter-individual variation.
Scaffolds for tendon and ligament repair: review of the efficacy of commercial products

Driven by market demand, many biological and synthetic scaffolds have been developed during the last 15 years. Both positive and negative results have been reported in clinical applications for tendon and ligament repair. To obtain data for this review, multiple electronic databases were used (e.g., Pubmed and ScienceDirect), as well as the US FDA website and the reference lists from clinical trials, review articles and company reports, in order to identify studies relating to the use of these commercial scaffolds for tendon and ligament repair. The commercial names of each scaffold and the keywords ‘tendon’ and ‘ligament’ were used as the search terms. Initially, 378 articles were identified. Of these, 47 were clinical studies and the others were reviews, editorials, commentaries, animal studies or related to applications other than tendons and ligaments. The outcomes were reviewed in 47 reports (six on Restore™, eight on Graftjacket®, four on Zimmer®, one on TissueMend®, five on Gore-Tex®, six on Lars®, 18 on Leeds–Keio® and one study used both Restore and Graftjacket). The advantages, disadvantages and future perspectives regarding the use of commercial scaffolds for tendon and ligament treatment are discussed. Both biological and synthetic scaffolds can cause adverse events such as noninfectious effusion and synovitis, which result in the failure of surgery. Future improvements should focus on both mechanical properties and biocompatibility. Nanoscaffold manufactured using electrospinning technology may provide great improvement in future practice.
The influence of culture on cosmetics consumer behavior

Culture is a pervasive influence which underlies all facets of social behavior and interaction. It is embodied in the objects used in everyday life and in modes of communication in society. Cosmetics are ubiquitous elements of women‟s consumer culture one of the imperatives of contemporary life, and represent one of the most important ways women present and transform their public persona. In today‟s society, beauty and physical attractiveness are constantly emphasized as desirable and admirable characteristics. This research focuses on the influence of culture on consumers‟ cosmetics buying decision making process.
Improving the Quality of Primary Care by Optimizing Implementation Research Reporting

The potential of implementation research in understanding strategies for changing practice is undermined by poor reporting, leaving readers unable to replicate such strategies and unclear whether they apply in the context of their practice. These challenges are particularly pertinent in the complex, diverse world of primary care. The recently published Standards for Reporting Implementation Studies (StaRI) provides a framework for comprehensive reporting of implementation research. A key concept is the consideration and reporting in “dual strands”: on the one hand, the implementation strategy and on the other, the evidence-based intervention. Other requirements are full descriptions of context, strategies and interventions (and how the strategies were adopted or adapted), and evaluation methods, which will require flexible interpretation of journal limit constraints or innovative approaches to supplementary information. The choice is between accepting the unsatisfactory status quo or adopting strategies to improve reporting with a view to optimizing the potential of implementation research to advance primary care.
Deep Learning Methods to Process fMRI Data and Their Application in the Diagnosis of Cognitive Impairment: A Brief Overview and Our Opinion

Citation: Wen D, Wei Z, Zhou Y, Li G, Zhang X and Han W (2018) Deep Learning Methods to Process fMRI Data and Their Application in the Diagnosis of Cognitive Impairment: A Brief Overview and Our Opinion. Front. Neuroinform. 12:23. doi: 10.3389/fninf.2018. 00023 Deep Learning Methods to Process fMRI Data and Their Application in the Diagnosis of Cognitive Impairment: A Brief Overview and Our Opinion
Novel AMH and AMHR2 Mutations in Two Egyptian Families with Persistent Müllerian Duct Syndrome

Anti-müllerian hormone (AMH) is produced by Sertoli cells and signals through 2 transmembrane receptors (AMHR), specific types I and II, leading to regression of müllerian ducts during fetal male sex differentiation. Mutations in AMH and AMHR2 lead to the persistence of müllerian ducts in males which is transmitted in a recessive pattern. Here, we report 2 Egyptian DSD (disorder of sex development) patients reared as males who presented with bilateral cryptorchidism and otherwise normal male external genitalia and who both had a 46,XY karyotype. The first patient presented at the age of 2 years. Laparoscopic surgery revealed a uterus and fallopian tubes with the presence of 2 gonads, and biopsy and pathology revealed prepubertal testicular tissue showing small-sized tubules with mostly Sertoli cells and very few spermatogonia, edematous stroma, and no detectable ovarian tissue. The second patient presented at the age of 3 years. Laparoscopic surgery revealed a uterus and fallopian tubes, and serum AMH was very low (0.1 ng/mL). Molecular studies revealed a novel missense mutation in the AMHR2 gene in the first patient (c.767A>C; p.H256P) and a novel frameshift mutation in the AMH gene in the second patient (c.203delC; p.L70Cfs*7). We conclude that persistent müllerian ducts should be included in the differential diagnosis of cryptorchidism.
Object-Based Attention on Social Units: Visual Selection of Hands Performing a Social Interaction

Traditionally, objects of attention are characterized either as full-fledged entities or either as elements grouped by Gestalt principles. Because humans appear to use social groups as units to explain social activities, we proposed that a socially defined group, according to social interaction information, would also be a possible object of attentional selection. This hypothesis was examined using displays with and without handshaking interactions. Results demonstrated that object-based attention, which was measured by an object-specific attentional advantage (i.e., shorter response times to targets on a single object), was extended to two hands performing a handshake but not to hands that did not perform meaningful social interactions, even when they did perform handshake-like actions. This finding cannot be attributed to the familiarity of the frequent co-occurrence of two handshaking hands. Hence, object-based attention can select a grouped object whose parts are connected within a meaningful social interaction. This finding implies that object-based attention is constrained by top-down information.
Hemagglutinin of Influenza A Virus Antagonizes Type I Interferon (IFN) Responses by Inducing Degradation of Type I IFN Receptor 1

ABSTRACT Influenza A virus (IAV) employs diverse strategies to circumvent type I interferon (IFN) responses, particularly by inhibiting the synthesis of type I IFNs. However, it is poorly understood if and how IAV regulates the type I IFN receptor (IFNAR)-mediated signaling mode. In this study, we demonstrate that IAV induces the degradation of IFNAR subunit 1 (IFNAR1) to attenuate the type I IFN-induced antiviral signaling pathway. Following infection, the level of IFNAR1 protein, but not mRNA, decreased. Indeed, IFNAR1 was phosphorylated and ubiquitinated by IAV infection, which resulted in IFNAR1 elimination. The transiently overexpressed IFNAR1 displayed antiviral activity by inhibiting virus replication. Importantly, the hemagglutinin (HA) protein of IAV was proved to trigger the ubiquitination of IFNAR1, diminishing the levels of IFNAR1. Further, influenza A viral HA1 subunit, but not HA2 subunit, downregulated IFNAR1. However, viral HA-mediated degradation of IFNAR1 was not caused by the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress response. IAV HA robustly reduced cellular sensitivity to type I IFNs, suppressing the activation of STAT1/STAT2 and induction of IFN-stimulated antiviral proteins. Taken together, our findings suggest that IAV HA causes IFNAR1 degradation, which in turn helps the virus escape the powerful innate immune system. Thus, the research elucidated an influenza viral mechanism for eluding the IFNAR signaling pathway, which could provide new insights into the interplay between influenza virus and host innate immunity. IMPORTANCE Influenza A virus (IAV) infection causes significant morbidity and mortality worldwide and remains a major health concern. When triggered by influenza viral infection, host cells produce type I interferon (IFN) to block viral replication. Although IAV was shown to have diverse strategies to evade this powerful, IFN-mediated antiviral response, it is not well-defined if IAV manipulates the IFN receptor-mediated signaling pathway. Here, we uncovered that influenza viral hemagglutinin (HA) protein causes the degradation of type I IFN receptor subunit 1 (IFNAR1). HA promoted phosphorylation and polyubiquitination of IFNAR1, which facilitated the degradation of this receptor. The HA-mediated elimination of IFNAR1 notably decreased the cells' sensitivities to type I IFNs, as demonstrated by the diminished expression of IFN-induced antiviral genes. This discovery could help us understand how IAV regulates the host innate immune response to create an environment optimized for viral survival in host cells.
Inkjet-Printed Fluidic Paper Devices for Chemical and Biological Analytics Using Surface Enhanced Raman spectroscopy

The fabrication of substrates for surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) by printing plasmonic structures on paper has emerged as a potential low-cost replacement for conventional nanofabricated SERS devices. Not only are the paper devices low in cost to produce, the inherent flexibility and fluidic transport capabilities of paper provide advantages in sample collection and processing, as well as analyte concentration. In this study, we review the recent progress in paper or membrane SERS devices fabricated through inkjet printing and other deposition methods. We then report a new potential diagnostics application for paper SERS devices that leverages the fluidic transport and chromatographic capabilities of paper to enable SERS-based detection following PCR. The use of paper SERS creates the potential for a simple yet densely multiplexed PCR assay that is not possible with conventional fluorescence-based transduction.
Conditioned odor aversion induces social anxiety towards females in wild‐type and TrpC2 knockout male mice

Female‐emitted pheromonal inputs possess an intrinsic rewarding value for conspecific males, promoting approach and investigation of the potential mating partner. In mice these inputs are detected mainly by the vomeronasal organ (VNO) and the main olfactory epithelium (MOE). We investigated the role of VNO‐mediated inputs in experience‐dependent plasticity of reproductive responses. We applied a sex‐specific conditioned odor aversion (COA) paradigm on adult, wild‐type (WT) male mice and on male mice impaired in VNO‐mediated signal transduction (TrpC2−/−). We found that WT males, which underwent COA to female‐soiled bedding, lost their innate preference to female odors and presented lower motivation to approach a sexually receptive female. COA also abolished the testosterone surge normally seen following exposure to female odors. Moreover, the conditioned males displayed impairments in copulatory behaviors, which lasted for several weeks. Surprisingly, these males also exhibited phobic behaviors towards receptive females, including freezing and fleeing responses. In contrast, WT males which underwent COA specifically to male pheromones showed no change in olfactory preference and only a marginally significant elevation in intermale aggression. Finally, we show that TrpC2−/− males were able to acquire aversion to female‐soiled bedding and presented similar behavioral alterations following COA in their responses to female cues. Our results demonstrate that the intrinsic rewarding value of female pheromones can be overridden through associative olfactory learning, which occurs independently of VNO inputs, probably through MOE signaling.
Strians of Agrobacterium affecting gene transformation through embryogenic cell suspension of hybrid tenera oil palm.

Embryogenic cell suspension was inoculated with 25 ml of Agrobacterium suspension strain EHA101 containing pIG121Hm plasmid in darkness at 28 o C for 6 hours. The cells were washed by liquid MS medium containing 200 mg/l cefotaxim and cultured in darkness at the above conditions for 3 days. After that, embryogenic cells were transferred to fresh medium of the same component supplemented with 20 mg/l hygromycin under light condition for 1 month. The result showed that proliferation rate of the cells in suspension was nearly 3 folds at 6 ml PCV after subculture for 4 times. Gus expressions of embryogenic cell suspension as analyze by GUS histochemical assay were 65.71%. Viability of the embryo, embryogenic cells suspensions was recorded to be 100 %. Assessment of transient expression of gus and hptII gene by PCR technique from 15 samples of transformed tissues showed positive bands of the both gus gene and hptII gene while control samples did not show these profiles of DNA.