Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fault-Tolerant Network-On-Chip Router Architecture Design for Heterogeneous Computing Systems in the Context of Internet of Things

Network-on-chip (NoC) architectures have become a popular communication platform for heterogeneous computing systems owing to their scalability and high performance. Aggressive technology scaling makes these architectures prone to both permanent and transient faults. This study focuses on the tolerance of a NoC router to permanent faults. A permanent fault in a NoC router severely impacts the performance of the entire network. Thus, it is necessary to incorporate component-level protection techniques in a router. In the proposed scheme, the input port utilizes a bypass path, virtual channel (VC) queuing, and VC closing strategies. Moreover, the routing computation stage utilizes spatial redundancy and double routing strategies, and the VC allocation stage utilizes spatial redundancy. The switch allocation stage utilizes run-time arbiter selection. The crossbar stage utilizes a triple bypass bus. The proposed router is highly fault-tolerant compared with the existing state-of-the-art fault-tolerant routers. The reliability of the proposed router is 7.98 times higher than that of the unprotected baseline router in terms of the mean-time-to-failure metric. The silicon protection factor metric is used to calculate the protection ability of the proposed router. Consequently, it is confirmed that the proposed router has a greater protection ability than the conventional fault-tolerant routers.
Mycosynthesis of ZnO Nanoparticles Using Trichoderma spp. Isolated from Rhizosphere Soils and Its Synergistic Antibacterial Effect against Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae

The Plant Growth Promoting Fungi (PGPF) is used as a source of biofertilizers due to their production of secondary metabolites and beneficial effects on plants. The present work is focused on the co-cultivation of Trichoderma spp. (T. harzianum (PGT4), T. reesei (PGT5) and T. reesei (PGT13)) and the production of secondary metabolites from mono and co-culture and mycosynthesis of zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs), which were characterized by a UV visible spectrophotometer, Powder X-ray Diffraction (PXRD), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) with Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDAX) and Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) and Selected Area (Electron) Diffraction (SAED) patterns. The fungal secondary metabolite crude was extracted from the mono and co-culture of Trichoderma spp. And were analyzed by GC-MS, which was further subjected for antibacterial activity against Xanthomonas oryzae pv. Oryzae, the causative organism for Bacterial Leaf Blight (BLB) in rice. Our results showed that the maximum zone of inhibition was recorded from the co-culture of Trichoderma spp. rather than mono cultures, which indicates that co-cultivation of beneficial fungi can stimulate the synthesis of novel secondary metabolites better than in monocultures. ZnO NPs were synthesized from fungal secondary metabolites of mono cultures of Trichoderma harzianum (PGT4), Trichoderma reesei (PGT5), Trichoderma reesei (PGT13) and co-culture (PGT4 + PGT5 + PGT13). These ZnO NPs were checked for antibacterial activity against Xoo, which was found to be of a dose-dependent manner. In summary, the biosynthesized ZnO NPs and secondary metabolites from co-culture of Trichoderma spp. are ecofriendly and can be used as an alternative for chemical fertilizers in agriculture.
Anti-bacterial Effects of MnO2 on the Enrichment of Manganese-oxidizing Bacteria in Downflow Hanging Sponge Reactors

We focused on the use of abiotic MnO2 to develop reactors for enriching manganese-oxidizing bacteria (MnOB), which may then be used to treat harmful heavy metal-containing wastewater and in the recovery of useful minor metals. Downflow hanging sponge (DHS) reactors were used under aerobic and open conditions to investigate the potential for MnOB enrichment. The results of an experiment that required a continuous supply of organic feed solution containing Mn(II) demonstrated that MnOB enrichment and Mn(II) removal were unsuccessful in the DHS reactor when plain sponge cubes were used. However, MnOB enrichment was successful within a very short operational period when sponge cubes initially containing abiotic MnO2 were installed. The results of a microbial community analysis and MnOB isolation revealed that MnOB belonging to Comamonadaceae or Pseudomonas played a major role in Mn(II) oxidation. Successful MnOB enrichment was attributed to several unidentified species of Chitinophagaceae and Gemmataceae, which were estimated to be intolerant of MnO2, being unable to grow on sponge cubes containing MnO2. The present results show that MnO2 exerted anti-bacterial effects and inhibited the growth of certain non-MnOB groups that were intolerant of MnO2, thereby enabling enriched MnOB to competitively consume more substrate than MnO2-intolerant bacteria.
Gone with the wind: short- and long-term responses of leaf-cutting ants to the negative effect of wind on their foraging activity

The fitness and survival of organisms ultimately depend on their feeding. Therefore, foraging behaviors should be selected to maximize cost-benefit ratio. Wind may restrict and modify animal movements increasing the cost of foraging, especially when the animal carries resources that intercept wind. We quantified the effect of wind on the foraging of leaf-cutting ants and evaluated whether this effect varies with 1) leaf fragment traits, such as area, mass, and shape, and 2) the characteristics of the foraging trail system. We also tested whether these ants show a short-term response to wind by selecting loads with characteristics that reduce wind interception, and a long-term response, by arranging the spatial design of the trail system in a way that reduces that effect. We found that in windy conditions, the speed of loaded ants was reduced by 55%, and ants were blown off the trail 28 times more than in windless conditions. However, wind only affected ants walking along trails that were perpendicular to wind direction or parallel upwind. Wind effect increased with area, mass, and shape of loads. At the short term, ants reduced the negative effect of wind by selecting smaller, lighter, or more elongated loads. However, trails showed no particular spatial distribution in relation to wind direction. This is the first study that quantifies the negative consequences of wind on leaf-cutting ants’ foraging and reports behaviors that can reduce this effect. Our work illustrates how short-term behavioral responses can mitigate the negative effect of an understudied environmental factor on ant foraging.
Changes in Ankle Range of Motion, Gait Function and Standing Balance in Children with Bilateral Spastic Cerebral Palsy after Ankle Mobilization by Manual Therapy

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of ankle joint mobilization in children with cerebral palsy (CP) to ankle range of motion (ROM), gait, and standing balance. We recruited 32 children (spastic diplegia) diagnosed with CP and categorized them in two groups: the ankle joint mobilization (n = 16) group and sham joint mobilization (n = 16) group. Thus, following a six-week ankle joint mobilization, we examined measures such as passive ROM in ankle dorsiflexion in the sitting and supine position, center of pressure (COP) displacements (sway length, area) with eyes open (EO) and closed (EC), and a gait function test (timed up and go test (TUG) and 10-m walk test). The dorsiflexion ROM, TUG, and 10-m walk test significantly increased in the mobilization group compared to the control group. Ankle joint mobilization can be regarded as a promising method to increase dorsiflexion and improve gait in CP-suffering children.
Freeze-Drying of Platelet-Rich Plasma: The Quest for Standardization

The complex biology of platelets and their involvement in tissue repair and inflammation have inspired the development of platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapies for a broad array of medical needs. However, clinical advances are hampered by the fact that PRP products, doses and treatment protocols are far from being standardized. Freeze-drying PRP (FD-PRP) preserves platelet function, cytokine concentration and functionality, and has been proposed as a consistent method for product standardization and fabrication of an off-the-shelf product with improved stability and readiness for future uses. Here, we present the current state of experimental and clinical FD-PRP research in the different medical areas in which PRP has potential to meet prevailing medical needs. A systematic search, according to PRISMA (Preferred Reported Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines, showed that research is mostly focused on wound healing, i.e., developing combination products for ulcer management. Injectable hydrogels are investigated for lumbar fusion and knee conditions. In dentistry, combination products permit slow kinetics of growth factor release and functionalized membranes for guided bone regeneration.
Frailty: A key concept to improve older person care.

Frailty is associated with increased hospitalization, hospital length of stay, intensive care unit admission, ED re-presentations, discharge to long-term care, mortality, and healthcare costs The CFS demonstrated higher sensitivity for predicting mortality and, when used in combination with systemic inflammatory response criteria and the Quick Sequential Organ Failure Assessment, improved prognostication than any individual score alone Fernando SM, Guo KH, Lukasik M, Frailty and associated prognosis among older emergency department patients with suspected infection: a prospective, observational cohort study
“Es que tú eres una changa”: stigma experiences among Latina women living with endometriosis

Abstract Introduction Endometriosis is a chronic inflammatory gynecologic disease affecting 5–10% of women of reproductive age of all ethnicities. Symptoms of this painful condition impact the physical, mental health, and quality of life of patients. Stigma is a social determinant of health documented to negatively impact people living with chronic conditions and have been associated with social exclusion, high levels of stress, and interference with medical care. The purpose of this study was to document stigma experiences among Latina women living with endometriosis. Methods A qualitative design using focus groups was implemented. Thematic analysis was conducted for data interpretation. A total of 50 women participated in five focus groups. Results The main theme “changuería” emerged as a label applied across multiple contexts and interactions in the lives of participants, suggesting that stigmatization is an ever-present barrier among women living with endometriosis. Participants reported that relatives, partners and health professionals perceive pain during menstruation as something women should be able to manage, producing a sense of inability to disclose the extent of suffering. Conclusion These results highlight the importance of addressing stigma as a way to foster healthcare seeking and minimize its impact on physical, mental health, and wellbeing.
Further delineation of HIDEA syndrome

Recently, the genetic cause of HIDEA syndrome (hypotonia, hypoventilation, intellectual disability, dysautonomia, epilepsy, and eye abnormalities) was identified as biallelic pathogenic variants in P4HTM, which encodes an atypical member of the prolyl 4‐hydroxylases (P4Hs) family of enzymes. We report seven patients from four new families in whom HIDEA was only diagnosed after whole‐exome sequencing (WES) revealed novel disease‐causing variants in P4HTM. We note the variable phenotypic expressivity of the syndrome except for cognitive impairment/developmental delay, and hypotonia, which seem to be consistent findings. One patient only presented with hypotonia, developmental delay, and abnormal eye movements, which highlights the challenge in diagnosing milder cases with this new syndrome. Other notable features include mild facial dysmorphism, obesity, and brain dysmyelination and atrophy. We conclude that HIDEA is a highly variable syndrome and suspect that a large fraction of patients will be diagnosed via reverse phenotyping after recessive P4HTM variants are identified by agnostic genomic sequencing assays.
Generation of chimeric mice with spermatozoa fully derived from embryonic stem cells using a triple-target CRISPR method for Nanos3†

Abstract Conditional knockout (cKO) mice have contributed greatly to understanding the tissue- or stage-specific functions of genes in vivo. However, the current cKO method requires considerable time and effort because of the need to generate two gene-modified mouse strains (Cre transgenic and loxP knockin) for crossing. Here, we examined whether we could analyze the germ cell-related functions of embryonic lethal genes in F0 chimeric mice by restricting the origin of germ cells to mutant embryonic stem cells (ESCs). We confirmed that the full ESC origin of spermatozoa in fertile chimeric mice was achieved by the CRISPR/Cas9 system using three guide RNAs targeting Nanos3, which induced germ cell depletion in the host blastocyst-derived tissues. Among these fertile chimeric mice, those from male ESCs with a Dnmt3b mutation, which normally causes embryo death, also produced F1 mice derived exclusively from the mutant ESCs. Thus, our new chimeric strategy readily revealed that Dnmt3b is dispensable for male germ cell development, in agreement with a previous cKO study. Our new approach enables us to analyze the germ cell functions of embryonic lethal genes in the F0 generation without using the current cKO method.
Effects of Kifunensine on Production and N-Glycosylation Modification of Butyrylcholinesterase in a Transgenic Rice Cell Culture Bioreactor

The production and N-glycosylation of recombinant human butyrylcholinesterase (BChE), a model highly glycosylated therapeutic protein, in a transgenic rice cell suspension culture treated with kifunensine, a strong α-mannosidase I inhibitor, was studied in a 5 L bioreactor. A media exchange was performed at day 7 of cultivation by removing spent sugar-rich medium (NB+S) and adding fresh sugar-free (NB-S) medium to induce the rice α-amylase 3D (RAmy3D) promoter to produce rice recombinant human BChE (rrBChE). Using a 1.25X-concentrated sugar-free medium together with an 80% reduced working volume during the media exchange led to a total active rrBChE production level of 79 ± 2 µg (g FW)−1 or 7.5 ± 0.4 mg L−1 in the presence of kifunensine, which was 1.5-times higher than our previous bioreactor runs using normal sugar-free (NB-S) media with no kifunensine treatment. Importantly, the amount of secreted active rrBChE in culture medium was enhanced in the presence of kifunensine, comprising 44% of the total active rrBChE at day 5 following induction. Coomassie-stained SDS-PAGE gel and Western blot analyses revealed different electrophoretic migration of purified rrBChE bands with and without kifunensine treatment, which was attributed to different N-glycoforms. N-Glycosylation analysis showed substantially increased oligomannose glycans (Man5/6/7/8) in rrBChE treated with kifunensine compared to controls. However, the mass-transfer limitation of kifunensine was likely the major reason for incomplete inhibition of α-mannosidase I in this bioreactor study.
Long‐term outcomes of transobturator midurethral slings: A critical evaluation of a real‐world population

The American Urological Association/Society of Urodynamics, Female Pelvic Medicine and Urogenital Reconstruction stress urinary incontinence (SUI) guidelines strongly recommend the midurethral sling (MUS) for the index female patient with SUI. While numerous studies report long‐term outcomes and complications for the retropubic MUS, these are largely absent for the transobturator MUS and are assessed in this study.
Fine‐mapping and QTL tissue‐sharing information improves the reliability of causal gene identification

The integration of transcriptomic studies and genome‐wide association studies (GWAS) via imputed expression has seen extensive application in recent years, enabling the functional characterization and causal gene prioritization of GWAS loci. However, the techniques for imputing transcriptomic traits from DNA variation remain underdeveloped. Furthermore, associations found when linking eQTL studies to complex traits through methods like PrediXcan can lead to false positives due to linkage disequilibrium between distinct causal variants. Therefore, the best prediction performance models may not necessarily lead to more reliable causal gene discovery. With the goal of improving discoveries without increasing false positives, we develop and compare multiple transcriptomic imputation approaches using the most recent GTEx release of expression and splicing data on 17,382 RNA‐sequencing samples from 948 post‐mortem donors in 54 tissues. We find that informing prediction models with posterior causal probability from fine‐mapping (dap‐g) and borrowing information across tissues (mashr) can lead to better performance in terms of number and proportion of significant associations that are colocalized and the proportion of silver standard genes identified as indicated by precision‐recall and receiver operating characteristic curves. All prediction models are made publicly available at predictdb.org.
Nutritional Status Is Associated with Function, Physical Performance and Falls in Older Adults Admitted to Geriatric Rehabilitation: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Nutritional status is relevant to functional recovery in patients after an acute process requiring rehabilitation. Nevertheless, little is known about the impact of malnutrition on geriatric rehabilitation. This study aimed to determine the association between nutritional status at admission and the evolution of functional and physical outcomes, as well as the capability of nutritional status to identify fallers among patients admitted to geriatric rehabilitation for different reasons. This was a retrospective cohort study of 375 patients. Data collected included age, gender, diagnosis at admission, comorbidities, cognitive and nutritional status, functional and physical measurements, length of stay, mortality and falls. Orthogeriatric patients with worse nutritional status according to the Mini Nutritional Assessment-Short Form (MNA-SF) had a significantly lower Barthel Index at admission and discharge with worse functional gain and poorer outcomes in the Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB). However, in hospital-deconditioned patients, the MNA-SF score was not significantly associated with functional and physical recovery. Poor nutritional status at admission increased the risk of experiencing at least one fall during rehabilitation in orthogeriatric patients. However, hospital-deconditioned patients who fell had better SPPB scores than those who did not fall. Our results demonstrate the importance of nutritional status in the clinical evolution of orthogeriatric patients throughout the rehabilitation process.
A Wound Treatment Strategy for “Super Long-Term Difficult-to-Heal Wounds”: A Single-Center Retrospective Study

Chronic wounds are a challenge for clinicians. Treating chronic wounds in elderly patients is difficult due to comorbidities and poor immunity, tissue renewal, and regeneration. This study shared the therapeutic experiences of 40 patients with super long-term difficult-to-heal wounds and to describe the effects of negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT)-assisted debridement and autologous scalp grafting. Elderly patients with chronic wounds for more than 60 years who underwent NPWT-assisted debridement and autologous scalp grafting between 2015 and 2017 were retrospectively analyzed. Forty patients were identified and analyzed. Among all patients, the average wound area was 56 (interquartile range 30-90) cm2. The wound infection rate was 82.1%, and that before the first autologous scalp grafting was 51.3%. The average total number of surgeries was 3, and the number of times the NPWT device was replaced was once. A total of 97.4% of patients had one autologous scalp grafting performed. The transplanted scalp survived completely in 97.4% of patients. One hundred percent of patients had no postoperative complications and healed. The average wound healing time was 34.5 ± 10.1 days. This study showed that NPWT-assisted debridement and autologous scalp grafting have the advantages of high survival rate of the skin and decreased wound recurrence and may be a suitable treatment for super long-term difficult-to-heal wounds in elderly patients.
Poor Sleep Quality Decreases Concurrent Training Benefits in Markers of Metabolic Syndrome and Quality of Life of Morbidly Obese Patients

Background: Sleep quality (SQ) plays a role in multiple activities of daily living, but little is known about its role in concurrent training [CT, high-intensity interval (HIIT) plus resistance training (RT)] adaptations for metabolic syndrome (MetS) and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) markers. The aim of the present study was to determine the effects of a 20-week CT programme on MetS and HRQoL markers according to the SQ of morbidly obese patients. Methods: Twenty-nine morbidly obese patients were allocated to one of two groups: good sleep quality (GSQ, n = 15, 38.07 ± 12.26 years) and poor sleep quality (PSQ, n = 14, 40.79 ± 11.62 years). HRQoL, body mass index, waist circumference (WC), systolic and diastolic blood pressure (SBP and DBP, respectively), and plasma outcomes were measured. Results: The GSQ group reported significant changes (pre- vs. post-intervention) in WC (114.0 ± 3.1 vs. 110.4 ± 3.4 cm, p = 0.012), SBP (137.0 ± 4.3 vs. 125.6 ± 1.8 mmHg, p = 0.006), and HRQoL general health (51.33 ± 21.08 vs. 64.33 ± 16.24, p = 0.020). By contrast, the PSQ group showed significant changes only in SQ (9.00 ± 2.42 vs. 5.36 ± 2.84, p = 0.004). Conclusions: Morbidly obese PSQ patients showed a lower response for improving MetS and HRQoL markers after a 20-week CT programme than GSQ peers. However, there was a greater effect size for decreasing WC and SBP in favour of the GSQ compared with the PSQ group, suggesting that there are limitations to CT benefits on these outcomes in the PSQ group. These results call for more complex future studies.