Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Single-Dose Pharmacokinetics and Preliminary Safety Assessment with Use of CBD-Rich Hemp Nutraceutical in Healthy Dogs and Cats

Simple Summary The use of cannabidiol (CBD)-rich hemp-based nutraceuticals is increasing in dogs and cats for disorders related to anxiety, seizures, cancer and pain. To date, there is little information related to appropriate dosing or long-term effects on serum chemistry or complete blood counts (CBC), and little data on the pharmacokinetics of single- or long-term dosing in dogs and cats. Single-dose pharmacokinetics and preliminary 12-week serum chemistry and complete blood counts are reported here showing short pharmacokinetic half-lives of cannabidiol in dogs and cats, with cats showing far lower oral absorption kinetics or rapid elimination suggesting dosing may differ between the two species. Fortunately, there were no changes in physical examination and few changes in the CBC and serum chemistry parameters suggesting the relative safety of oral supplementation over 12 weeks. One of the eight cats displayed a persistent rise in the serum alanine amino transferase (ALT) enzyme outside of the reference range and cats commonly displayed excessive licking and head shaking with administration of the oil. Based on these and other recent data, CBD-rich hemp nutraceuticals appear to be safe in healthy adult dogs, while more work in cats is needed to fully understand utility and absorption. Abstract The use of CBD-rich hemp products is becoming popular among pet owners with no long-term safety data related to consumption in adult dogs and cats. The purpose of this study was to determine the single-dose oral pharmacokinetics of CBD, and to provide a preliminary assessment of safety and adverse effects during 12-week administration using a hemp-based product in healthy dogs and cats. Eight of each species were provided a 2 mg/kg total CBD concentration orally twice daily for 12 weeks with screening of single-dose pharmacokinetics in six of each species. Pharmacokinetics revealed a mean maximum concentration (Cmax) of 301 ng/mL and 43 ng/mL, area under the curve (AUC) of 1297 ng-h/mL and 164 ng-h/mL, and time to maximal concentration (Tmax) of 1.4 h and 2 h, for dogs and cats, respectively. Serum chemistry and CBC results showed no clinically significant alterations, however one cat showed a persistent rise in alanine aminotransferase (ALT) above the reference range for the duration of the trial. In healthy dogs and cats, an oral CBD-rich hemp supplement administered every 12 h was not detrimental based on CBC or biochemistry values. Cats do appear to absorb or eliminate CBD differently than dogs, showing lower serum concentrations and adverse effects of excessive licking and head-shaking during oil administration.
Data-Driven Cyber Security in Perspective—Intelligent Traffic Analysis

Social and Internet traffic analysis is fundamental in detecting and defending cyber attacks. Traditional approaches resorting to manually defined rules are gradually replaced by automated approaches empowered by machine learning. This revolution is accelerated by huge datasets which support machine-learning models with outstanding performance. In the context of a data-driven paradigm, this article reviews recent analytic research on cyber traffic over social networks and the Internet by using a set of common concepts of similarity, correlation, and collective indication, and by sharing security goals for classifying network host or applications and users or Tweets. The ability to do so is not determined in isolation, but rather drawn for a wide use of many different network or social flows. Furthermore, the flows exhibit many characteristics, such as fixed sized and multiple messages between source and destination. This article demonstrates a new research methodology of data-driven cyber security (DDCS) and its application in social and Internet traffic analysis. The framework of the DDCS methodology consists of three components, that is, cyber security data processing, cyber security feature engineering, and cyber security modeling. Challenges and future directions in this field are also discussed.
Magnetically Actuated Forward-Looking Interventional Ultrasound Imaging: Feasibility Studies

Objective: Interventional ultrasound imaging is a prerequisite for guiding implants and treatment within the hearts and blood vessels. Due to limitations on the catheter's diameter, interventional ultrasonic transducers have side-looking structures although forward-looking imaging may provide more intuitive and real time guidance in treating diseased sites ahead of catheters. To address the issue, a magnetically actuated forward-looking interventional ultrasound imaging device is implemented for the first time. Methods: A forward-looking catheter containing a 1 mm ring type focused 35 MHz ultrasound transducer and a micro magnet, was fabricated. For imaging, the transducer was placed at the center of four electromagnetic coils positioned on four sides of a squared acrylic housing. By modifying the magnetic field, the catheter tip could be remotely translated for sector scanning. Results: The scanning angle could reach up to 3° in 1 Hz with 15 mT, while wider angles of 5° could be achieved with a higher magnetic field of 25 mT for ex-vivo imaging. The position of the transducer could be detected by monitoring the motion with a CCD camera, mimicking clinical X-ray imaging. In the wire target and tissue mimicking phantom studies, the measured hole size, spatial resolution and distance between wires by the proposed system were comparable with the values from a linear scanner. Multi-frame real time data acquisition was demonstrated via ex-vivo imaging on a pig's coronary artery. Conclusion/Significance: The feasibility of magnetically actuated forward-looking interventional ultrasound imaging was demonstrated. The remote-controlled scanning method may allow to simplify the structures of forward-looking interventional ultrasound imaging catheters.
Effects of a short workplace exercise program on body composition in women: A randomized controlled trial

Abstract Physical inactivity and poor diet cause alterations in body composition, which in turn increases risk factors for cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. Sixty-three women from different work environments were randomly assigned to an intervention (n = 34) or control (n = 29) group. The intervention was a short-term aerobic exercise program (12 weeks) at their workplace. Participants assigned to the control group did not perform any form of physical exercise. Body composition was measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). Diet was assessed using the Mediterranean Diet Quality Questionnaire (KIDMED) and nutrient balance by the Food Frequency Questionnaire. Researchers suggest that a short-term aerobic exercise program produces beneficial effects on body composition.
Reliability and validity of the CSSRD functional assessment survey in rheumatoid arthritis

Objective. To demonstrate the reliability and validity characteristics of a fast, intensively focused functional assessment questionnaire that has been used in rheumatoid arthritis clinical trials by the Cooperative Systematic Studies of Rheumatic Diseases group (CSSRD). Methods. Data from three double-blind, controlled clinical trials by CSSRD were used to examine the properties of the Functional Assessment Survey as a measure of physiologic function. Results. The Functional Assessment Survey has reasonable test-retest reliability and convergent validity with the Steinbrocker et al. functional class. It demonstrated appropriate divergent validity with other clinical measures of response, as well as discriminant validity. Conclusions. The CSSRD Functional Assessment Survey is brief, intensive, and focused. Reliability and validity characteristics have been documented.
Ephrin-B2 inhibits cell proliferation and motility in vitro and predicts longer metastasis-free survival in breast cancer

The tyrosine kinase receptor EphB4 and its ligand ephrin-B2 interact through cell-to-cell contacts. Upon interaction, EphB4 transmits bidirectional signals. A forward signal inside EphB4-expressing cells is believed to suppress tumor growth, while inside the ephrin-expressing cells, an oncogenic reverse signal arises. In breast cancer cells with a high EphB4 receptor expression the forward signal is low, in part due to the low expression of the ligand ephrin-B2. Therefore, we hypothesized that by re-introducing the ligand in EphB4-positive cells, tumor suppression could be induced by the stimulation of the forward signal. This question was addressed in vitro by the stable lentiviral infection of breast cancer cells with either wild-type EFNB2 or with a mutant EFNB2-5F, unable to transmit reverse signaling. Furthermore, we investigated ephrin-B and EphB4 protein expression in 216 paraffin-embedded tumors using immunohistochemistry. The in vitro results indicated that ephrin-B2 expression was associated with a lower cell proliferation, migration and motility compared with the control cells. These effects were more pronounced when the cells lacked the ability to transmit the reverse signal (B2-5F). In clinical material, ephrin-B protein expression was associated with a positive estrogen receptor (ER) status, a low HER-2 expression and was negatively associated with Nottingham histologic grade (NHG) III. Ephrin-B expression indicated a good prognosis, whereas EphB4 expression was associated with a shorter metastasis-free survival in univariate and multivariate analysis. Furthermore, the prognostic value of EFNB2 and EPHB4 was confirmed at the gene expression level in public datasets. Thus, on the whole, the findings of this study suggest that ephrin-B2 expression is associated with less proliferation and lower motility of breast cancer cells and with a longer patient survival in breast cancer.
Effects of Slope Ecological Restoration on Runoff and Its Response to Climate Change

Slope ecological restoration and climate change are important factors affecting the hydrological processes of the Huangshui River Basin in Qinghai province, China. How to quantitatively identify the impact of slope ecological restoration on runoff and whether slope ecological restoration can mitigate the impact of future climate change on runoff are both very important. In this paper, the Huangshui River above the center of Minhe county was taken as the research area, and the Pinus tabulaeformis and shrubs were taken as the main forest land types of slope ecological restoration. First, based on the law of forest land variation, the construction scales of slope ecological restoration in different periods were identified. The influence of slope ecological restoration on runoff was then quantitatively evaluated by using a distributed hydrological model. Second, the future climate scenarios of five general circulation models (GCMs) under three representative concentration pathways (RCPs) (i.e., RCP2.6, RCP4.5, and RCP8.5) from 2021 to 2050 were selected and modified by model integration. Combined with the slope ecological restoration scenarios, the influence of slope ecological restoration on runoff under future climate scenarios was explored. The results showed that the effect of slope ecological restoration was significant. Compared with 1980, the area of slope ecological restoration increased by 24% in 2017. Under the present climate conditions (1960–2017), different periods of slope ecological restoration have an effect on the process of runoff in the wet season (June, July, August, and September) and dry season (January, February, March, and December), which eliminates the maximum, replenishes the minimum, and reduces the variability of runoff processes in the watershed. Under the future climate scenario (2021–50), slope ecological restoration will reduce runoff. On the other hand, climate change will increase runoff, and the combination of the two effects will have a certain offsetting effect. On the whole, comparing the influence of slope ecological restoration on the runoff process with that of climate change in different seasons, due to the main influence of slope ecological restoration, the runoff decreased by about 55% in the temperate season (April, May, October, and November), and increased by about 50% in the dry season or wet season due to the main influence of future climate scenarios.
Association of Sarcopenia with Metabolic Syndrome in Korean Population Using 2009–2010 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

Abstract Background: Some studies have investigated the relationship between sarcopenia and metabolic syndrome, and they have focused mainly on older subjects. Therefore, we assessed the association between sarcopenia and metabolic syndrome in South Korean adults 20 years of age or older using data from the 2009–2010 Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES). Methods: This study involved 12,256 (5350 males and 6906 females) participants from the 2009–2010 KNHANES 20 years of age or older. Appendicular skeletal muscle mass (ASM) was measured by dual X-ray absorptiometry. Sarcopenia index (SI) was calculated as ASM/body mass index and sarcopenia was defined as an SI of <0.789 in males and <0.521 in females. Metabolic syndrome was defined by the presence of at least three of the following abnormalities: abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, high blood glucose level, high triglyceride level, and low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol level. Results: After adjustment for covariates, the association between sarcopenia and metabolic syndrome was significant (odds ratio [OR] 2.06, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.74–2.45). In addition, when stratified by age groups, the significant associations between sarcopenia and metabolic syndrome remained in all age groups (20–39 years: OR 2.13, 95% CI 1.08–4.19; 40–64 years: OR 2.13, 95% CI 1.68–2.71; ≥65 years: OR 1.98, 95% CI 1.54–2.54). Conclusion: The association between sarcopenia and metabolic syndrome was significant in South Korean adults. Moreover, the significant associations were present in every age group evaluated.
Clonal diversity and spatial genetic structure in the long-lived herb, Prairie trillium

Combining population genetic studies with demographic surveys in long-lived clonal herbs can yield insight into the population dynamics of clonal plant populations. In this study, we assayed clonal diversity and spatial genetic structure in a population of a long-lived understory herb, Trillium recurvatum, that has been the focus of a demographic study spanning 26 years at the Meeman Biological Station in Memphis, Tennessee, USA. Using a set of five newly developed simple sequence repeat markers first reported here, we assessed 1) the extent of clonal diversity within the Meeman site, 2) the degree to which genetic diversity varies with stage class (juvenile, non-flowering, and flowering adults) at this site, 3) whether there is spatial genetic structure at the Meeman site, and 4) how measures of genetic diversity and inbreeding at the Meeman site compare to two additional nearby populations. Along with these analyses, we calculated and compared traditional population genetic metrics with information theory-based diversity indices. Although clonal propagation was present, the focal population displayed moderate levels of clonal diversity comprising 81 genets from the 174 individuals sampled. In the focal site, we also found that genetic diversity was highest in the flowering stage class when compared to the non-flowering and juvenile classes. We report that genets exhibited spatial genetic structure in the focal site exhibiting values for the Sp statistic of 0.00199 for linear distance and 0.0271 for log distance. Measures of unbiased gene diversity and the inbreeding coefficient were comparable across the sampled populations. Our results provide complementary genetic data to previous demographic studies in T. recurvatum, and these findings provide data for future studies aimed at integrating the degree of clonality, genetic variation, and population dynamics in this species. Our findings suggest that T. recurvatum at the focal Meeman site displays higher levels of sexual reproduction than were previously suggested, and spatial genetic structure estimates were comparable to other plant species with mixed and outcrossing mating strategies.
Predicting in-vitro Transcription Factor Binding Sites Using DNA Sequence + Shape

Discovery of transcription factor binding sites (TFBSs) is essential for understanding the underlying binding mechanisms and cellular functions. Recently, Convolutional neural network (CNN) has succeeded in predicting TFBSs from the primary DNA sequences. In addition to DNA sequences, several evidences suggest that protein-DNA binding is partly mediated by properties of DNA shape. Although many methods have been proposed to jointly account for DNA sequences and shape properties in predicting TFBSs, they ignore the power of the combination of deep learning and DNA sequence + shape. Therefore we develop a deep-learning-based sequence + shape framework (DLBSS) in this paper, which appropriately integrates DNA sequences and shape properties, to better understand protein-DNA binding preference. This method uses a shared CNN to find their common patterns from DNA sequences and their corresponding shape features, which are then concatenated to compute a predicted value. Using 66 in-vitro datasets derived from universal protein binding microarrays (uPBMs), we show that our proposed method DLBSS significantly improves the performance of predicting TFBSs. In addition, we explain the reason why we should use the shared CNN, and explore the performance of DLBSS when using a deeper CNN, through a series of experiments.
Is It Easy to Synchronize Our Minds When We Are Forced to Cooperate?

There is increasing scientific interest in elucidating the biological mechanisms underlying cooperative behaviors. Humans have developed a high degree of complexity in their cooperativity, which has been defined as hyper-cooperativity. An interesting biological marker to study how two individuals are emotionally linked when they cooperate is their psychophysiological synchronization (the overlapping of signals as indicators of Autonomous Nervous System activation). Hence, the main aim of this study was to explore participants’ psychophysiological synchronization, based on electrocardiograms (ECG) and galvanic skin response (GSR) signals in a sample of strangers who were set up to cooperate (n = 29 pairs of same sex strangers; mean age = 20.52 ± 1.72), compared to participants who were forced to compete (n = 22 pairs of same sex strangers; mean age = 20.45 ± 1.53) in a laboratory setting. Moreover, the roles of the participants’ gender and the outcomes (positive or negative) obtained in the cooperation were examined as potential moderators of this psychophysiological synchronization. Results showed a progressive increase in ECG and GSR signal synchronization in participants who cooperated, reaching the highest levels of synchronization during the recovery period. Moreover, cooperation induced higher GSR synchronization in comparison with competition. Finally, although gender played an important role in the psychophysiological synchronization during cooperation (women presented the highest overlapping of GSR signals), feedback about the participants’ performance was not significantly associated with their psychophysiological synchronization. Therefore, research in this field would help us to understand more about the body’s physiological responses to different types of social interactions, such as cooperation and competition, providing an opportunity to establish interaction strategies that would be physiologically desirable.
Similarities in Metabolic Flexibility and Hunger Hormone Ghrelin Exist between FTO Gene Variants in Response to an Acute Dietary Challenge

The rs9939609 polymorphism of the fat mass and obesity-associated (FTO) gene has been associated with obesity, and studies have also shown that environmental/lifestyle interaction such as dietary intake might mediate this effect. The current study investigates the postprandial hormonal regulators of hunger and indirect markers of substrate utilisation and metabolic flexibility following a dietary challenge to determine if suppression of circulating ghrelin levels and/or reduced metabolic flexibility exist between FTO genotypes. One hundred and forty seven healthy, sedentary males and females (29.0 ± 0.7 yrs; 70.2 ± 1.1 kg; 169.1 ± 0.8 cm; 24.5 ± 0.3 kg/m2) complete a single experimental session. Anthropometric measures, circulating levels of active ghrelin, insulin and glucose, and substrate oxidation via indirect calorimetry, are measured pre-prandial and/or post-prandial. The FTO rs9939609 variant is genotyped using a real-time polymerase chain reaction. Metabolic flexibility (∆RER) is similar between FTO genotypes of the rs9939609 (T > A) polymorphism (p > 0.05). No differences in pre-prandial and/or postprandial substrate oxidation, plasma glucose, serum insulin or ghrelin are observed between genotypes (p > 0.05). These observations are independent of body mass index and gender. Altered postprandial responses in hunger hormones and metabolic flexibility may not be a mechanism by which FTO is associated with higher BMI and obesity in healthy, normal-weighted individuals.
Low Temperature (15 °C) Reduces Bacterial Diversity and Prolongs the Preservation Time of Volvariella volvacea

Straw mushroom (Volvariella volvacea) is the most commonly cultivated edible fungus in the world, but the challenges associated with the preservation have limited its marketability. Microbiology, especially bacteria, play a key role in the deterioration of food, this study aimed to reveal the succession of the bacterial community on the surfaces of V. volvacea fruit bodies under different temperature conditions. We amplified 16S rRNA genes of V4 regions, obtained the bacterial species information by using high-throughput sequencing technology, and analyzed the effects of environmental temperature and preservation time on bacterial communities. The relative abundances of Firmicutes, Bacilli, and Bacillales increased significantly when straw mushrooms began to rot. Furthermore, the relative abundances of Paenibacillus, Lysinibacillus and Solibacillus, which belong to Bacillales, increased with the decay of straw mushroom. The Shannon and Simpson indices of V. volvacea stored at 30 °C were significantly higher than those of V. volvacea stored at 15 °C, which indicates that a high temperature contributes to the improvement in the species diversity. According to the linear discriminant analysis (LDA) effect size (LEfSe) results, the number of biomarkers in the 30 °C group (32, 42.11%) was significantly higher than that in the 15 °C group (17, 22.37%), indicating that a high temperature has a clustering effect on some bacterial communities. A Spearman correlation analysis showed that Pseudomonas, Stenotrophomonas and Solibacillus promoted the decay of straw mushroom. In conclusion, a high temperature increases the bacterial diversity on the straw mushroom surfaces and has a clustering effect on the bacterial communities. The bacterial community consisting of Firmicutes, Bacilli, Bacillales, Paenibacillus, Lysinibacillus, Pseudomonas, Stenotrophomonas and Solibacillus could promote the decay of straw mushroom, so new preservation materials research can focus on inhibiting anaerobic and decay-causing bacteria to prolong preservation time.