Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of Physical Activity and Nutrition Education on Body Mass Index, Blood Pressure and Biochemical Variables in Overweight and Obese Adolescents

Background: The majority of obese children lives in developing countries. The ten-fold increase in obesity during the last four decades necessitates the implementation of interventions to mitigate the longterm effect of obesity into adulthood. The study aimed to determine the impact of physical activity and nutrition intervention on the body mass index (BMI), blood pressure and selected biochemical factors of overweight and obese children aged 13.0 to 16.1 years from eThekweni, South Africa. Methods: Participants (N = 41) with a BMI >85th percentile were included in the 10-week controlled trial of physical activity and nutrition education intervention. Baseline and end measurements included BMI, blood pressure, and fasting biochemical variables (glucose, cholesterol, insulin resistance and alanine aminotransferase). BMI was classified according to the WHO BMI z-scores. The 10-week intervention entailed combined aerobic and resistance exercises supervised twice a week together with a once a week nutrition intervention. Participants performed additional unsupervised aerobic exercises three times a week. Findings: Elevated systolic blood pressure (52%), low-density lipoprotein levels (29%), insulin (17%) and insulin resistance values (15%) were identified. The 10-week intervention programme significantly decreased BMI (30.8 ± 5.4 kg/m2 to 29.8 ± 5.7 kg/m2; p < 0.01), systolic blood pressure (125.9 ± 15.7 mmHg to 115.2 ± 12.4 mmHg; p < 0.05), and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (2.63 mmol/L to 2.37 mmol/L; p < 0.05). Controlling for pre-testing variables as covariates, additional ANCOVA analysis highlighted significantly lower BMI (M = 28.33, F = 7.88, p < 0.05) and BMI z-scores (M = 2.08, F = 4.99, p < 0.05) in the intervention group post-testing. Conclusion: A 10-week physical activity and nutrition education intervention in overweight and obese adolescents significantly reduced BMI and showed trends of a decrease in blood pressure and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol.
Chiral N-PhosphonylImine Chemistry: Asymmetric Addition of Ketone-DerivedEnolates for the Synthesis of β-Amino Ketones

New chiral N-phosphonyl imines have been synthesized in good yields under convenient reaction conditions. These chiral N-phosphonyl imines can serve as efficient electrophiles for asymmetric addition reactions with lithium ketone enolates. Good chemical yields and excellent diastereoselectivities were obtained for twelve examples. The N-1-naphthyl group of the chiral auxiliary was found to be superior to its benzyl counterpart in controlling the diastereoselectivity for this reaction. The chiral auxiliary can be readily removed by treatment with aqueous HBr in methanol at room temperature to give free p-amino ketones in high yields.
Identification and Analysis of Three Hub Prognostic Genes Related to Osteosarcoma Metastasis

Osteosarcoma (OS) often occurs in children and often undergoes metastasis, resulting in lower survival rates. Information on the complexity and pathogenic mechanism of OS is limited, and thus, the development of treatments involving alternative molecular and genetic targets is hampered. We categorized transcriptome data into metastasis and nonmetastasis groups, and 400 differential RNAs (230 messenger RNAs (mRNAs) and 170 long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs)) were obtained by the edgeR package. Prognostic genes were identified by performing univariate Cox regression analysis and the Kaplan–Meier (KM) survival analysis. We then examined the correlation between the expression level of prognostic lncRNAs and mRNAs. Furthermore, microRNAs (miRNAs) corresponding to the coexpression of lncRNA-mRNA was predicted, which was used to construct a competitive endogenous RNA (ceRNA) regulatory network. Finally, multivariate Cox proportional risk regression analysis was used to identify hub prognostic genes. Three hub prognostic genes (ABCG8, LOXL4, and PDE1B) were identified as potential prognostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets for OS. Furthermore, transcriptions factors (TFs) (DBP, ESX1, FOS, FOXI1, MEF2C, NFE2, and OTX2) and lncRNAs (RP11-357H14.16, RP11-284N8.3, and RP11-629G13.1) that were able to affect the expression levels of genes before and after transcription were found to regulate the prognostic hub genes. In addition, we identified drugs related to the prognostic hub genes, which may have potential clinical applications. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) and quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) confirmed that the expression levels of ABCG8, LOXL4, and PDE1B coincided with the results of bioinformatics analysis. Moreover, the relationship between the hub prognostic gene expression and patient prognosis was also validated. Our study elucidated the roles of three novel prognostic biomarkers in the pathogenesis of OS as well as presenting a potential clinical treatment for OS.
Exploring Rapid Photocatalytic Degradation of Organic Pollutants with Porous CuO Nanosheets: Synthesis, Dye Removal, and Kinetic Studies at Room Temperature

In this work, we report the facile, environmentally friendly, room-temperature (RT) synthesis of porous CuO nanosheets and their application as a photocatalyst to degrade an organic pollutant/food dye using NaBH4 as the reducing agent in an aqueous medium. Ultrahigh-resolution field effect scanning electron microscopy images of CuO displayed a broken nanosheet-like (a length of ∼160 nm, a width of ∼65 nm) morphology, and the lattice strain was estimated to be ∼1.24 × 10–3 using the Williamson–Hall analysis of X-ray diffraction plots. Owing to the strong quantum size confinement effect, CuO nanosheets resulted in an optical energy band gap of ∼1.92 eV, measured using Tauc plots of the ultraviolet–visible (UV–vis) spectrum, resulting in excellent photocatalytic efficiency. The RT synthesized CuO catalyst showed a high Brunauer–Emmet–Teller surface area of 30.88 ± 0.2313 m2/g (a correlation coefficient of 0.99972) with an average Barrett–Joyner–Halenda pore size of ∼20.385 nm. The obtained porous CuO nanosheets exhibited a high crystallinity of 73.5% with a crystallite size of ∼12 nm and was applied as an efficient photocatalyst for degradation of the organic pollutant/food dye, Allura Red AC (AR) dye, as monitored by UV–vis spectrophotometric analysis and evidenced by a color change from red to colorless. From UV–vis spectra, CuO nanosheets exhibited an efficient and ultrafast photocatalytic degradation efficiency of ∼96.99% for the AR dye in an aqueous medium within 6 min at RT. According to the Langmuir–Hinshelwood model, photodegradation reaction kinetics followed a pseudo-first-order reaction with a rate constant of k = 0.524 min–1 and a half-life (t1/2) of 2.5 min for AR dye degradation in the aqueous medium. The CuO nanosheets showed an outstanding recycling ability for AR degradation and would be highly favorable and an efficient catalyst due to the synergistic effect of high adsorption capability and photodegradation of the food dye.
Karakterisasi Enzim Selulase Pmp 0126y Dari Limbah Pengolahan Agar

Hasil penapisan bakteri penghasil enzim selulase terdahulu mendapatkan isolat PMP 0126 sebagai isolat yang berpotensi yang diisolasi dari limbah pengolahan agar skala UKM di Pamengpeuk, Garut. Isolat tersebut ternyata belum merupakan koloni tunggal, terdiri dari 2 isolat bakteri yaitu PMP 0126Y dan PMP 0126W. Isolat PMP 0126Y memiliki kemampuan mendegradasi selulosa yang lebih besar dibanding PMP 0126W. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk memproduksi dan mengkarakterisasi enzim selulase dari isolat PMP 0126Y, serta mengidentifikasi isolat tersebut. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa enzim selulase diproduksi optimum pada hari ke-3 kultivasi menggunakan medium cair berisi CMC 1%. Enzim kasar yang diperoleh dapat bekerja optimal pada suhu 30 °C dan pH 5, dapat ditingkatkan aktivitasnya dengan ion logam dalam bentuk garam CaCl2 dan ZnCl2 5 mM. Pemurnian dengan sistem penukar anion dapat meningkatkan aktivitas enzim 15x dengan perolehan 20%. Dari hasil SDS-PAGE terlihat bahwa ada 3 selulase dengan perkiraan berat molekul 39, 30, dan 14 kDa. Enzim kasar ini memiliki kemampuan menghidrolisis limbah pengolahan agar sebaik ketika memecah substrat CMC, yang mengindikasikan bahwa enzim dari isolat ini berpotensi sebagai kandidat agen sakarifikasi pada produksi bioetanol. Identifikasi bakteri dengan 16S-rDNA menunjukkan bahwa isolat ini memiliki kemiripan 96% dengan bakteri Chryseobacterium indologenes McR-1.
Sorption Behaviour of Lead(II) Ions from Aqueous Solution onto Haro River Sand

The sorption of lead(II) ions onto Haro river sand has been studied using voltammetric methods as well as the effect of different acid concentrations on the sorption process. The maximum sorption of Pb(II) ions onto the adsorbent surface was achieved from de-ionized water. It was found that the sorption data could be fitted by the Freundlich and Dubinin–Radushkevich (D–R) isotherms. Values of 1/n = 0.71 ± 0.003 and of A = 15.4 ± 6.86 mmol/g were estimated from the Freundlich isotherm while the D–R isotherm gave β = −0.00478 ± 0.00022 mol2/kJ2, Xm = 23.26 ± 0.10 × 05−2 mmol/g and E = 10.23 ± 0.23 kJ/mol. The influence of temperature on the sorption process over the temperature range 283–323 K under optimized conditions yielded ΔH0 = 24.87 ± 0.44 kJ/mol, ΔS0 = 95.8 ± 1.5 J/(mol K) and ΔG0 = −3.6 ± 0.02 kJ/mol at 298 K. These values demonstrate the endothermic and spontaneous nature of the sorption process. The addition of chloride, calcium or zinc ions to the system enhanced the sorption of Pb(II) ions whereas the corresponding addition of sulphate, cadmium, copper(II) or chromium(III) ions tended to reduce the extent of sorption.
Rapid and Green Fabrication of Carbon Dots for Cellular Imaging and Anti-Counterfeiting Applications

Carbon dots (CDs) with plenty of favorable properties have been extensively investigated in diverse areas including bioimaging, biomedicine, sensor, energy storage, anti-counterfeiting, photocatalysis, and optoelectronic devices. Herein, a simple, rapid, and green sonochemical-assisted method for fabricating nitrogen-doped CDs has been developed. In this approach, the nitrogen-doped CDs can be obtained through irradiation by intensive ultrasonic waves from ultrasonic probes in 30 min. The achieved CDs exhibit excellent water dispersibility, which can be ascribed to their high functionalization. Importantly, the CDs also demonstrate remarkable fluorescent properties, high photostability, and low cytotoxicity, which can be utilized for multicolor cellular imaging and anti-counterfeiting applications. As far as we know, the sonochemical-assisted method for rapidly synthesizing nitrogen-doped CDs from gelatin has never been reported before. Significantly, the sonochemical-assisted approach to rapidly fabricate CDs is versatile for the facile construction of fluorescent CDs, and the obtained CDs can be potentially used in various areas including bioimaging and anti-counterfeiting.
Benchmarking Quantitative Performance in Label-Free Proteomics

Previous benchmarking studies have demonstrated the importance of instrument acquisition methodology and statistical analysis on quantitative performance in label-free proteomics. However, the effects of these parameters in combination with replicate number and false discovery rate (FDR) corrections are not known. Using a benchmarking standard, we systematically evaluated the combined impact of acquisition methodology, replicate number, statistical approach, and FDR corrections. These analyses reveal a complex interaction between these parameters that greatly impacts the quantitative fidelity of protein- and peptide-level quantification. At a high replicate number (n = 8), both data-dependent acquisition (DDA) and data-independent acquisition (DIA) methodologies yield accurate protein quantification across statistical approaches. However, at a low replicate number (n = 4), only DIA in combination with linear models for microarrays (LIMMA) and reproducibility-optimized test statistic (ROTS) produced a high level of quantitative fidelity. Quantitative accuracy at low replicates is also greatly impacted by FDR corrections, with Benjamini–Hochberg and Storey corrections yielding variable true positive rates for DDA workflows. For peptide quantification, replicate number and acquisition methodology are even more critical. A higher number of replicates in combination with DIA and LIMMA produce high quantitative fidelity, while DDA performs poorly regardless of replicate number or statistical approach. These results underscore the importance of pairing instrument acquisition methodology with the appropriate replicate number and statistical approach for optimal quantification performance.
A New Procedure to Assess When Estimates from the Cumulative Link Model Can Be Interpreted as Differences for Ordinal Scales in Quality of Life Studies

Purpose Assessing the clinical importance of an exposure effect on a quality of life (QoL) score often requires quantifying the effect in terms of a difference in scores. Using the linear regression model (LRM) for this purpose assumes the ordinal score is a proxy for an underlying continuous variable, but the analysis offers no assessment for the validity of the assumption. We propose an approach that assesses the proxy assumption and estimates the exposure effect by using the cumulative link model (CLM). Patients and methods CLM is a well-established regression model that assumes an ordinal score is an ordered category generated from applying thresholds to a latent continuous variable. Our approach assesses the proxy assumption by testing whether these thresholds are equidistant. We compared the performance of CLM and LRM using simulated ordinal data and illustrated their application to the effect of time since diagnosis on five subscales of fatigue among breast cancer survivors measured using the Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory. Results CLM had good performance in estimating the difference in means with simulated ordinal data satisfying the proxy assumption, even when the outcome had only a few categories. When the proxy assumption was inadequate, both the CLM and LRM had biased estimates with poor coverage. The proxy assumption was appropriate for four of the five subscales in our real data application to fatigue scores, which highlighted the importance of assessing the proxy assumption to avoid reporting invalid estimates in terms of the difference in scores. Conclusion The proxy assumption is critical to the interpretation of the exposure effect on the difference in mean QoL scores. CLM offers a valid test for the presence of an association, a method for assessing the proxy assumption, and when the assumption is adequate, an assessment for clinical significance using the difference in means.
Variants in Circadian Rhythm Gene Cry1 Interacts with Healthy Dietary Pattern for Serum Leptin Levels: a Cross-sectional Study

Circadian disruption causes obesity and other metabolic disorders. There is no research considering the role of Cryptochromes (Cry) 1 body clock gene and major dietary patterns on serum leptin level and obesity. We aimed to investigate the interaction between Cry1 circadian gene polymorphisms and major dietary patterns on leptin and obesity related measurements. This study was performed on 377 overweight and obese women. Mean age and body mass index (BMI) of study subjects were 36.64 ± 9.02 years and 30.81 ± 3.8 kg/m2, respectively. Dietary assessment was done using a validated 147-item food frequency questionnaire. Cry1 rs2287161 were genotyped using polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism. Generalized linear models were used for interaction analysis. Healthy and unhealthy dietary pattern (HDP and UDP, respectively) were extracted using factor analysis (principal component analysis). Our study revealed a significant higher weight (p = 0.003) and BMI (p = 0.042) in women carrying CC homozygote compared with G allele carriers. Moreover, our findings showed a significant gene-diet interaction between HDP and Cry1 rs2287161 on BMI (p = 0.034) and serum leptin level (p = 0.056) in which, BMI and serum leptin level were lower in subjects with CC genotype than in those with GG genotype while following HDP. This study suggests a significant interaction between Cry1 rs2287161 polymorphisms and HDP on BMI and serum leptin and the lowering effects were apparent among C allele carriers compared to G allele ones. This data highlights the role of dietary pattern in relation of gene and obesity.
Tumor recurrence in parasagittal and falcine atypical meningiomas invading the superior sagittal sinus

Objective: Parasagittal and falcine meningiomas are still a challenge in terms of surgical resection. Although maximal safe resection is the main therapeutic approach, numerous postoperative complications can still occur depending on the locations of these tumors. Moreover, previous studies have reported that parasagittal meningiomas have a higher recurrence rate than meningiomas with other locations. Patients, Materials and Methods: We retrospectively reviewed 21 patients with parasagittal and falcine atypical meningiomas [World Health Organization (WHO) grade II], nine of whom had their superior sagittal sinus (SSS) invaded by the tumor. We reviewed the demographic information, operative notes, pathological reports, and clinical and imagistic follow-up reports of each patient over a 5-year time span. Results: All the patients were surgically treated, and the tumor removal was grade II according to Simpson’s grading system in 47.6% and grade III in 19% of the cases. The SSS was invaded in 42.9% of the patients. No immediate mortality or morbidity was revealed by our study. Tumor recurrence/progression documented on postoperative imaging amounted to 14.3% and 19%, 12 and 24 months after surgery, respectively. Furthermore, 36, 48 and 60 months after the surgery, the recurrence rate remained the same, namely in 9.5% of the cases. The recurrence was higher in patients with SSS invasion than in patients with no SSS invasion. The tumor recurrence was slightly more predominant in women, i.e., 6% higher than in the male group. Conclusions: In our group of patients with parasagittal and falcine meningiomas, we report a 47.6% Simpson II resection rate and 19% Simpson III resection rate associated with a very low complication rate and no immediately postoperative morbidity and mortality, compared to more aggressive techniques. The recurrence of parasagittal meningiomas predominated after grade III and IV Simpson resection and dural sinus invasion was a negative predictive factor for recurrence. Therefore, the surgery of parasagittal and falcine meningiomas is beneficial, both for tumor control, but also for improving neurological outcome. Aggressive meningioma resection should be balanced with the increased neurosurgical risk.
ASA Physical Status Classification Improves Predictive Ability of a Validated Trauma Risk Score

Introduction: The Score for Trauma Triage in the Geriatric and Middle-Aged (STTGMA) is a validated mortality risk score that evaluates 4 major physiologic criteria: age, comorbidities, vital signs, and anatomic injuries. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the addition of ASA physical status classification system to the STTGMA tool would improve risk stratification of a middle-aged and elderly trauma population. Methods: A total of 1332 patients aged 55 years and older who sustained a hip fracture through a low-energy mechanism between October 2014 and February 2020 were included. The STTGMA and STTGMAASA mortality risk scores were calculated. The ability of the models to predict inpatient mortality was compared using area under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUROCs) by DeLong’s test. Patients were stratified into minimal, low, moderate, and high risk cohorts based on their risk scores. Comparative analyses between risk score stratification distribution of mortality, complications, length of stay, ICU admission, and readmission were performed using Fisher’s exact test. Total cost of admission was fitted by univariate linear regression with STTGMA and STTGMAASA. Results: There were 27 inpatient mortalities (2.0%). When STTGMA was used, the AUROC was 0.742. When STTGMAASA was used, the AUROC was 0.823. DeLong’s test resulted in significant difference in predictive capacity for inpatient mortality between STTGMA and STTGMAASA (p = 0.04). Risk score stratification yielded significantly different distribution of all outcomes between risk cohorts (p < 0.01). STTGMAASA stratification produced a larger percentage of all negative outcomes with increasing risk cohort. Total hospital cost was statistically correlated with both STTGMAASA (p < 0.01) and STTGMA (p = 0.02). Conclusion: Including ASA physical status as a variable in STTGMA improves the model’s ability to predict inpatient mortality and risk stratify middle-aged and geriatric hip fracture patients.
Deep Learning-Based Acute Ischemic Stroke Lesion Segmentation Method on Multimodal MR Images Using a Few Fully Labeled Subjects

Acute ischemic stroke (AIS) has been a common threat to human health and may lead to severe outcomes without proper and prompt treatment. To precisely diagnose AIS, it is of paramount importance to quantitatively evaluate the AIS lesions. By adopting a convolutional neural network (CNN), many automatic methods for ischemic stroke lesion segmentation on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have been proposed. However, most CNN-based methods should be trained on a large amount of fully labeled subjects, and the label annotation is a labor-intensive and time-consuming task. Therefore, in this paper, we propose to use a mixture of many weakly labeled and a few fully labeled subjects to relieve the thirst of fully labeled subjects. In particular, a multifeature map fusion network (MFMF-Network) with two branches is proposed, where hundreds of weakly labeled subjects are used to train the classification branch, and several fully labeled subjects are adopted to tune the segmentation branch. By training on 398 weakly labeled and 5 fully labeled subjects, the proposed method is able to achieve a mean dice coefficient of 0.699 ± 0.128 on a test set with 179 subjects. The lesion-wise and subject-wise metrics are also evaluated, where a lesion-wise F1 score of 0.886 and a subject-wise detection rate of 1 are achieved.