Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pegylated magnetic mesoporous silica nanoparticles decorated with AS1411 Aptamer as a targeting delivery system for cytotoxic agents

Abstract Fulfilling the purpose of developing a NP with theragnostic capabilities, the current study describes the synthesis of an aptamer-functionalized PEG-coated SPION/mesoporous silica core-shell nanoparticle for concurrent cancer targeted therapy and magnetic resonance imaging. SPIONs were synthesized according to a thermal decomposition method and served as cores for SPION/mesoporous silica core/shell nanoparticles (MMSNs). Doxorubicin was then successfully loaded in MMSNs which were then coated with di-carboxylic acid functionalized polyethylene glycol (PEG-MMSNs). AS1411 aptamers were at the end covalently attached to NPs (APT-PEG-MMSNs). The mean diameter of synthesized NPs was about 89 nm and doxorubicin encapsulation efficacy was ≈67.47%. Results of MTT based cell cytotoxicity assay demonstrated a significantly higher toxicity profile for APT-PEG-MMSNs against MCF7 cells compared to non-decorated MMSNs, while no significant differences were spotted against NIH-3T3 cells. Meanwhile, formation of protein corona around APT-PEG-MMSNs in biological medium significantly attenuated observed cytotoxicity against MCF7 cell line. Examining NPs uptake by MCF7 cells using confocal laser scanning microscopy also confirmed superiority of APT-PEG-MMSNs over PEG-MMSNs. Finally, APT decorated NPs induced highest signal intensity reduction in T2-weighted images during in vitro MRI assay. In conclusion, developed NPs may serve as promising multifunctional vehicles for simultaneous cancer targeted therapy and MRI imaging. Graphical Abstract
Immobilized Enzymes in Biosensor Applications

Enzyme-based biosensing devices have been extensively developed over the last few decades, and have proven to be innovative techniques in the qualitative and quantitative analysis of a variety of target substrates over a wide range of applications. Distinct advantages that enzyme-based biosensors provide, such as high sensitivity and specificity, portability, cost-effectiveness, and the possibilities for miniaturization and point-of-care diagnostic testing make them more and more attractive for research focused on clinical analysis, food safety control, or disease monitoring purposes. Therefore, this review article investigates the operating principle of enzymatic biosensors utilizing electrochemical, optical, thermistor, and piezoelectric measurement techniques and their applications in the literature, as well as approaches in improving the use of enzymes for biosensors.
Empirical Study and Improvement on Deep Transfer Learning for Human Activity Recognition

Human activity recognition (HAR) based on sensor data is a significant problem in pervasive computing. In recent years, deep learning has become the dominating approach in this field, due to its high accuracy. However, it is difficult to make accurate identification for the activities of one individual using a model trained on data from other users. The decline on the accuracy of recognition restricts activity recognition in practice. At present, there is little research on the transferring of deep learning model in this field. This is the first time as we known, an empirical study was carried out on deep transfer learning between users with unlabeled data of target. We compared several widely-used algorithms and found that Maximum Mean Discrepancy (MMD) method is most suitable for HAR. We studied the distribution of features generated from sensor data. We improved the existing method from the aspect of features distribution with center loss and get better results. The observations and insights in this study have deepened the understanding of transfer learning in the activity recognition field and provided guidance for further research.
Randomized Effectiveness Trial of the New Beginnings Program for Divorced Families with Children and Adolescents

This study presents findings from a randomized effectiveness trial of the New Beginnings Program (NBP), which has demonstrated efficacy in 2 prior randomized efficacy trials. Family courts in 4 counties facilitated recruitment of divorcing and separating parents, and providers in community agencies delivered the program. Participants were 830 parents of children ages 3–18 who were randomized to receive either the 10-session NBP or an active 2-session comparison condition in which parents learned about the same parenting skills but did not complete home practice of these skills. Parents were ethnically diverse (59.4% non-Hispanic White, 31.4% Hispanic, 9.2% other race or ethnicity). Multiple rater assessments of parenting, interparental conflict, and child mental health problems were conducted at pretest, posttest, and 10-month follow-up. The results indicated positive moderated effects of the NBP as compared with the active control condition to strengthen parenting at posttest and to reduce child mental health problems at posttest and 10 months. Many of these moderated effects showed positive benefits for non-Hispanic White families but not for Hispanic families. The findings indicate support for the effectiveness of the NBP when delivered by community-based agencies but also indicate the need for further adaptations to make the program effective for Hispanic parents.
Comparative transcriptome analysis reveals the role of p53 signalling pathway during red‐spotted grouper nervous necrosis virus infection in Lateolabrax japonicus brain cells

Abstract Nervous necrosis virus (NNV) is one of the fish pathogens that have caused mass mortalities of many marine and freshwater fishes in the world. To better comprehend the molecular immune mechanism of sea perch (Lateolabrax japonicus) against NNV infection, the comparative transcriptome analysis of red‐spotted grouper nervous necrosis virus (RGNNV)‐infected or mock‐infected L. japonicus brain (LJB) cells was performed via RNA sequencing technology. Here, 1,969 up‐regulated genes and 9,858 down‐regulated genes, which were widely implicated in immune response pathways, were identified. Furthermore, we confirmed that p53 signalling pathway was repressed at 48 hr post‐RGNNV infection, as indicated by up‐regulation of Mdm2 and down‐regulation of p53 and its downstream target genes, including Bax, Casp8 and CytC. Overexpression of L. japonicus p53 (Ljp53) significantly inhibited RGNNV replication and up‐regulated the expression of apoptosis‐related genes, whereas the down‐regulation caused by pifithrin‐α led to the opposite effect, suggesting Ljp53 might promote cell apoptosis to repress virus replication. Luciferase assay indicated that Ljp53 could enhance the promoter activities of zebrafish interferon (IFN)1, indicating that Ljp53 could exert its anti‐RGNNV activities by enforcing the type I IFN response. This study revealed the potential antiviral role of p53 during NNV infection.
Convergent evolution of the army ant syndrome and congruence in big-data phylogenetics

The evolution of the suite of morphological and behavioral adaptations underlying the ecological success of army ants has been the subject of considerable debate. This “army ant syn-drome” has been argued to have arisen once or multiple times within the ant subfamily Dorylinae. To address this question I generated data from 2,166 loci and a comprehensive taxon sampling for a phylogenetic investigation. Most analyses show strong support for convergent evolution of the army ant syndrome in the Old and New World but certain relationships are sensitive to analytics. I examine the signal present in this data set and find that conflict is diminished when only loci less likely to violate common phylogenetic model assumptions are considered. I also provide a temporal and spatial context for doryline evolution with timecalibrated, biogeographic, and diversification rate shift analyses. This study underscores the need for cautious analysis of phylogenomic data and calls for more efficient algorithms employing better-fitting models of molecular evolution. Significance Recent interpretation of army ant evolution holds that army ant behavior and morphology originated only once within the subfamily Dorylinae. An inspection of phylogenetic signal in a large new data set shows that support for this hypothesis may be driven by bias present in the data. Convergent evolution of the army ant syndrome is consistently supported when sequences violating assumptions of a commonly used model of sequence evolution are excluded from the analysis. This hypothesis also fits with a simple scenario of doryline biogeography. These results highlight the importance of careful evaluation of signal and conflict within phylogenomic data sets, even when taxon sampling is comprehensive.
Can Preoperative Intravenous Corticosteroids Administration Reduce Postoperative Pain Scores Following Spinal Fusion?: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract Objective: This meta-analysis aimed to assess whether preoperative intravenous corticosteroids reduced postoperative pain in patients undergoing spinal fusion surgery. Methods: We systematically searched PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), Web of Science and Google databases, from inception to March 29, 2018. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that compared preoperative intravenous glucocorticoids against a control treatment for the effect on pain following spinal fusion surgery were included. A meta-analysis was performed to generate a pooled risk ratio (RR) and weighted mean difference (WMD) with corresponding 95% confidence interval (CI) for discontinuous outcomes (the occurrence of postoperative nausea and vomiting [PONV] as well as surgical-site infections) and continuous outcomes (visual analog scale [VAS] scores at 12 h, 24 h, 48 h, and 72 h; total morphine consumption and the length of hospital stay), respectively. Results: Ten RCTs that compared intravenous corticosteroids versus placebo were included in our final meta-analysis. Compared with controls, intravenous corticosteroids were associated with a statistically significant reduction in pain VAS scores at 12 h, 24 h, 48 h, and 72 h. Additionally, intravenous corticosteroids decreased total morphine consumption, PONV, and the length of hospital stay. There was no significant difference between intravenous corticosteroids and controls, regarding the occurrence of infection (p > 0.05). Conclusions: In summary, our results indicated that intravenous corticosteroids not only reduce pain but also have anti-emetic effects. More studies should focus on the adverse effects of administering intravenous corticosteroids.
Bayesian multiple logistic regression for case-control GWAS

Genetic variants in genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are tested for disease association mostly using simple regression, one variant at a time. Standard approaches to improve power in detecting disease-associated SNPs use multiple regression with Bayesian variable selection in which a sparsity-enforcing prior on effect sizes is used to avoid overtraining and all effect sizes are integrated out for posterior inference. For binary traits, the logistic model has not yielded clear improvements over the linear model. For multi-SNP analysis, the logistic model required costly and technically challenging MCMC sampling to perform the integration. Here, we introduce the quasi-Laplace approximation to solve the integral and avoid MCMC sampling. We expect the logistic model to perform much better than multiple linear regression except when predicted disease risks are spread closely around 0.5, because only close to its inflection point can the logistic function be well approximated by a linear function. Indeed, in extensive benchmarks with simulated phenotypes and real genotypes, our Bayesian multiple LOgistic REgression method (B-LORE) showed considerable improvements (1) when regressing on many variants in multiple loci at heritabilities ≥ 0.4 and (2) for unbalanced case-control ratios. B-LORE also enables meta-analysis by approximating the likelihood functions of individual studies by multivariate normal distributions, using their means and covariance matrices as summary statistics. Our work should make sparse multiple logistic regression attractive also for other applications with binary target variables. B-LORE is freely available from: https://github.com/soedinglab/b-lore.
Students’ Emotional Experience in Physical Education—A Qualitative Study for New Theoretical Insights

Physical education (PE) can be the starting point for many students to be physically active throughout their lives. Positive emotional experiences in PE are discussed as beneficial for long-term physical activity, however, triggers of students’ emotions are still unclear. The purpose of this study is to explore, from a student’s perspective, emotions and their triggers, which occur in PE classes. N = 12 students (male: six, female: six, ø-age: 15.6 ± 1.2 years) have been interviewed using a focused semi-structured interview to identify their emotions in PE and to explore the situations in which they occurred. An inductive approach with elements of the Grounded Theory Method was implemented to analyze the data. Students reported a wide range of positive and negative emotions. Furthermore, four crucial triggers were identified: (I) Attractiveness of the task, (II) social belonging, (III) competence and (IV) autonomy. Parallels to existing theories, especially the Self-Determination Theory (SDT), will be discussed. These results can be used to improve teachers’ knowledge about students’ emotions in PE in order to build a basis for lifelong physical activity.
Prevention of psychological distress and promotion of resilience amongst unaccompanied refugee minors in resettlement countries

AIM As increasing numbers of unaccompanied refugee minors (URMs) are arriving in Europe, there is a need to investigate which factors promote psychological resilience and improve their mental health. This review aims to identify preventive post settlement influences, including living arrangements, access to mental health services, and effective treatments that may improve mental health outcomes. METHODS A systematic literature review was conducted of published papers in any language for children (<18 years) entering a host country, unaccompanied and seeking asylum. Specific studies were eligible if they examined any treatment or nontreatment influences on mental health or psychological resilience for the URM. Thirteen published quantitative studies were identified. RESULTS URMs in more supportive living arrangements including foster care had lower risk of PTSD and lower depressive symptoms compared with those in semi-independent care arrangements. URMs living in reception settings that restricted freedom had more anxiety symptoms. Regarding help seeking, one study found only 30% of URMs had foster parents or guardians who could detect a mental health need. Two papers found the URMs had low levels of contact with mental health services despite the high prevalence of psychiatric symptoms. URMs were less likely than accompanied children to receive trauma-focused interventions, cognitive therapy, or even practical assistance with basic social needs. With regard to treatment evaluation, only case series were identified. Three studies found cognitive behavioural therapy improved PTSD symptoms and mental health outcomes. A less structured approach (mental health counselling alone) did not improve functional health outcomes. CONCLUSION Higher support living arrangements with low restrictions are associated with lower psychological distress. Most URMs are not receiving psychological interventions, and there is a dearth of studies evaluating treatment effectiveness for this group. There is an urgent need for more research to investigate pathways to mental health services and treatment efficacy in this vulnerable group.
Effect of evidence-based therapy for secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease: Systematic review and meta-analysis

Background The combination pharmacotherapy of antiplatelet agents, lipid-modifiers, ACE inhibitors/ARBs and beta-blockers are recommended by international guidelines. However, data on effectiveness of the evidence-based combination pharmacotherapy (EBCP) is limited. Objectives To determine the effect of EBCP on mortality and Cardiovascular events in patients with Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) or cerebrovascular disease. Methods Publications in EMBASE and Medline up to October 2018 were searched for cohort and case-control studies on EBCP for the secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease. The main outcomes were all-cause mortality and major cardiovascular events. Meta-analyses were performed based on random effects models. Results 21 studies were included. Comparing EBCP to either monotherapy or no therapy, the pooled risk ratios were 0.60 (95% confidence interval 0.55 to 0.66) for all-cause mortality, 0.70 (0.62 to 0.79) for vascular mortality, 0.73 (0.64 to 0.83) for myocardial infarction and 0.79 (0.68 to 0.91) for cerebrovascular events. Optimal EBCP (all 4 classes of drug prescribed) had a risk ratio for all-cause mortality of 0.50 (0.40 to 0.64). This benefit became more dilute as the number of different classes of drug comprising EBCP was decreased—for 3 classes of drug prescribed the risk ratio was 0.58 (0.49 to 0.69) and for 2 classes, the risk ratio was 0.67 (0.60 to 0.76). Conclusions EBCP reduces the risk of all-cause mortality and cardiovascular events in patients with CHD or cerebrovascular disease. The different classes of drugs comprising EBCP work in an additive manner, with optimal EBCP conferring the greatest benefit.
Accurate and Rapid Measurement of Glycated Hemoglobin Using HLC-723 G11 Variant Mode

Background Type II diabetes mellitus causes many complications, and its prevalence continues to increase in Korea. Accurate measurement of glycated Hb (HbA1c) is important because of its usefulness in diagnosis, follow-up, and prediction of prognosis. We tested the analytical performance of the HLC-723 G11 Variant Mode (G11vr; Tosoh Bioscience, Inc., Tokyo, Japan), recently introduced to Korea, in detecting HbA1c. Methods We evaluated precision, linearity, carry-over, and turnaround time. Using 208 samples, including 108 flagged samples, we compared HbA1c concentrations from four analyzers through correlation analysis: G11vr, HLC-723 G8 Variant Mode (G8vr, Tosoh Bioscience), HLC-723 G11 Standard Mode (G11st, Tosoh Bioscience), and HLC-723 G8 Standard Mode (G8st, Tosoh Bioscience). We used HPLC mass spectrometry (MS) and capillary electrophoresis (CE) to confirm the HbA1c concentrations of 15 additional known Hb variant samples. Results Repeatability (% CV) in measuring low- and high-concentration controls was 0.57% and 0.35%, respectively; within-laboratory precision was 0.86% and 0.69%, respectively. In a linearity test, the coefficient of determination was 0.9999 (measurement range: 3.64% to 18.59%) for HbA1c. The correlations between G11vr and other analyzers were weaker for flagged samples than for non-flagged samples. The carry-over effect was less than 0.4%. Turnaround time for a single sample was lower in G11vr (one minute) than in G8vr (1.6 minutes). For 15 samples with Hb variants, G11vr HbA1c results were more similar than those of other analyzers to HPLC-MS and CE results. Conclusions G11vr showed adequate performance and rapid turnaround time in measuring HbA1c.
Circulating levels of prolactin are elevated in patients with rheumatoid arthritis: a meta-analysis

ABSTRACT Background: Prolactin (PRL), an inflammatory hormone with cytokine properties, has long been proposed to play a crucial role in the pathogenesis of autoimmune disorders, including rheumatoid arthritis (RA). However, the circulating levels of PRL in RA were discordant among published studies. Methods: PubMed, Embase, and The Cochrane Library database were systematically searched from inception up to 30 June 2018. The available studies were obtained from the initial search in accordance with the rigorous inclusion and exclusion criteria. Relevant data from the included literatures were extracted. Methodological quality was evaluated in order to refine the final search results. All statistical analyses were conducted using software STATA version 12.0. Results: Of 698 articles were yielded for eligibility, a finally analysis involving 628 RA cases and 430 controls from 14 published studies were included. When compared to healthy controls, there was a significantly higher level of circulating PRL in patients with RA with a pooled SMD of 1.08 (95% CI = 0.41 to 1.74, P< 0.001), particularly in Asians, age ≥50, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) group and subjects with erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) ≥25 mm/h. Conclusions: Our meta-analysis demonstrates a significantly higher level of circulating PRL in RA patients when compared to healthy controls, and it was associated with region, age, measurement type and ESR.
Long non-coding RNA transcriptome of uncharacterized samples can be accurately imputed using protein-coding genes

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) play an important role in gene regulation and are increasingly being recognized as crucial mediators of disease pathogenesis. However, the vast majority of published transcriptome datasets lack high-quality lncRNA profiles compared to protein-coding genes (PCGs). Here we propose a framework to harnesses the correlative expression patterns between lncRNA and PCGs to impute unknown lncRNA profiles. The lncRNA expression imputation (LEXI) framework enables characterization of lncRNA transcriptome of samples lacking any lncRNA data using only their PCG profiles. We compare various machine learning and missing value imputation algorithms to implement LEXI and demonstrate the feasibility of this approach to impute lncRNA transcriptome of normal and cancer tissues. Additionally, we determine the factors that influence imputation accuracy and provide guidelines for implementing this approach.
Diversity and distribution of the bmp gene cluster and its Polybrominated products in the genus Pseudoalteromonas

The production of pentabromopseudilin and related brominated compounds by Pseudoalteromonas spp. has recently been linked to the bmp biosynthetic gene cluster. This study explored the distribution and evolutionary history of this gene cluster in the genus Pseudoalteromonas. A phylogeny of the genus revealed numerous clades that do not contain type strains, suggesting considerable species level diversity has yet to be described. Comparative genomics revealed four distinct versions of the gene cluster distributed among 19 of the 101 Pseudoalteromonas genomes examined. These were largely localized to the least inclusive clades containing the Pseudoalteromonas luteoviolacea and Pseudoalteromonas phenolica type strains and show clear evidence of gene and gene cluster loss in certain lineages. Bmp gene phylogeny is largely congruent with the Pseudoalteromonas species phylogeny, suggesting vertical inheritance within the genus. However, the gene cluster is found in three different genomic environments suggesting either chromosomal rearrangement or multiple acquisition events. Bmp conservation within certain lineages suggests the encoded products are highly relevant to the ecology of these bacteria.