Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Comparative Study of Drop Sizing Equipment for Agricultural Fan-Spray Atomizers

In an attempt to standardize the classification of agricultural fan-spray atomizers by spray quality, the British Crop Protection Council formulated a standard test procedure for 110° fan-spray atomizers to be carried out by as many different drop-size analyzers as possible. The methods used ranged from in-flight laser and optical imaging systems to analysis of spray samples on collecting surfaces. Almost all systems showed a consistent increase in Dv.0. 5 with increasing atomizer size for a given pressure and all showed a decrease in the percentage volume of spray below 100 μm. Although there were some variations between results given by analyzers of the same type but different models or operating systems, in general, the variability of results for specific machine types was not significant. However, except for the results from the Malvern equipment analyzed using two different programmes, the results from the other analyzers showed no consistent agreement. By aggregating data from similar equipment, a di.
Assessment of Food By-Products’ Potential for Simultaneous Binding of Aflatoxin B1 and Zearalenone

In this study, eight food by-products were investigated as biosorbent approaches in removing mycotoxin load towards potential dietary inclusion in animal feed. Among these food-derived by-products, grape seed (GSM) and seabuckthorn (SBM) meals showed the most promising binding capacity for Aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) and Zearalenone (ZEA), measured as percent of adsorbed mycotoxin. Furthermore, we explored the mycotoxin sequestering potential by screening the effect of time, concentration, temperature and pH. Comparative binding efficacy was addressed by carrying out adsorption experiments in vitro. The highest mycotoxin adsorption was attained using 30 mg of by-product for both GSM (85.9% AFB1 and 83.7% ZEA) and SBM (68% AFB1 and 84.5% ZEA). Optimal settings for the experimental factors were predicted employing the response surface design. GSM was estimated to adsorb AFB1 optimally at a concentration of 29 mg/mL, pH 5.95 and 33.6 °C, and ZEA using 28 mg/mL at pH 5.76 and 31.7 °C. Favorable adsorption of AFB1 was estimated at 37.5 mg of SBM (pH 8.1; 35.6 °C), and of ZEA at 30.2 mg of SBM (pH 5.6; 29.3 °C). Overall, GSM revealed a higher binding capacity compared with SBM. In addition, the two by-products showed different specificity for the binary–mycotoxin system, with SBM having higher affinity towards ZEA than AFB1 (Kf = 0.418 and 1/n = 0.213 vs. Kf = 0.217 and 1/n = 0.341) and GSM for AFB1 in comparison with ZEA (Kf = 0.367 and 1/n = 0.248 vs. Kf = 0.343 and 1/n = 0.264). In conclusion, this study suggests that GSM and SBM represent viable alternatives to commercial biosorbent products.
DNA damage induces Yap5-dependent transcription of ECO1/CTF7 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Yeast Eco1 (ESCO2 in humans) acetyltransferase converts chromatin-bound cohesins to a DNA tethering state, thereby establishing sister chromatid cohesion. Eco1 establishes cohesion during DNA replication, after which Eco1 is targeted for degradation by SCF E3 ubiquitin ligase. SCF E3 ligase, and sequential phosphorylations that promote Eco1 ubiquitination and degradation, remain active throughout the M phase. In this way, Eco1 protein levels are high during S phase, but remain low throughout the remaining cell cycle. In response to DNA damage during M phase, however, Eco1 activity increases—providing for a new wave of cohesion establishment (termed Damage-Induced Cohesion, or DIC) which is critical for efficient DNA repair. To date, little evidence exists as to the mechanism through which Eco1 activity increases during M phase in response to DNA damage. Possibilities include that either the kinases or E3 ligase, that target Eco1 for degradation, are inhibited in response to DNA damage. Our results reveal instead that the degradation machinery remains fully active during M phase, despite the presence of DNA damage. In testing alternate models through which Eco1 activity increases in response to DNA damage, the results reveal that DNA damage induces new transcription of ECO1 and at a rate that exceeds the rate of Eco1 turnover, providing for rapid accumulation of Eco1 protein. We further show that DNA damage induction of ECO1 transcription is in part regulated by Yap5—a stress-induced transcription factor. Given the role for mutated ESCO2 (homolog of ECO1) in human birth defects, this study highlights the complex nature through which mutation of ESCO2, and defects in ESCO2 regulation, may promote developmental abnormalities and contribute to various diseases including cancer.
Novel Drug Delivery Systems Fighting Glaucoma: Formulation Obstacles and Solutions

Glaucoma is considered to be one of the biggest health problems in the world. It is the main cause of preventable blindness due to its asymptomatic nature in the early stages on the one hand and patients’ non-adherence on the other. There are several approaches in glaucoma treatment, whereby this has to be individually designed for each patient. The first-line treatment is medication therapy. However, taking into account numerous disadvantages of conventional ophthalmic dosage forms, intensive work has been carried out on the development of novel drug delivery systems for glaucoma. This review aims to provide an overview of formulation solutions and strategies in the development of in situ gel systems, nanosystems, ocular inserts, contact lenses, collagen corneal shields, ocular implants, microneedles, and iontophoretic devices. The results of studies confirming the effectiveness of the aforementioned drug delivery systems were also briefly presented.
Loneliness, Malnutrition and Change in Subjective Age among Older Adults during COVID-19 Pandemic

Objectives: We examined the effect of loneliness and the role of two mediating factors, depressive symptoms and malnutrition on subjective age among older adults during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, and explored how the pandemic is affecting subjective age. Design: A convenience sample of 201 older adults aged 65 and over was interviewed. Using bootstrapping, we tested the strength and significance of the indirect effect of depressive symptoms and malnutrition (mediators) on the relationship between feelings of loneliness and subjective age. Results: The relationship between feelings of loneliness and subjective age during the COVID-19 pandemic was mediated by malnutrition, but not by depressive symptoms. In addition, the participants felt older during the COVID-19 pandemic compared with the preceding period. Conclusions: An association was found among feelings of loneliness, malnutrition, and subjective age. To overcome these feelings in times of crisis like the pandemic, it is essential to develop new communication methods (technologies for managing and addressing the needs of the older population; technologies to encourage social engagement, and technologies for managing and providing remote medical services) for and with older adults that are effective in reducing loneliness, and to promote good nutrition. Possible practical solutions include new social network technologies for reducing loneliness combined with continued reliance on phone communication as an intervention of psychological support to promote a healthy lifestyle and prevent malnutrition.
Exosomes as Drug Delivery Systems: Endogenous Nanovehicles for Treatment of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Exosomes, nanometer-sized lipid-bilayer-enclosed extracellular vesicles (EVs), have attracted increasing attention due to their inherent ability to shuttle proteins, lipids and genes between cells and their natural affinity to target cells. Their intrinsic features such as stability, biocompatibility, low immunogenicity and ability to overcome biological barriers, have prompted interest in using exosomes as drug delivery vehicles, especially for gene therapy. Evidence indicates that exosomes play roles in both immune stimulation and tolerance, regulating immune signaling and inflammation. To date, exosome-based nanocarriers delivering small molecule drugs have been developed to treat many prevalent autoimmune diseases. This review highlights the key features of exosomes as drug delivery vehicles, such as therapeutic cargo, use of targeting peptide, loading method and administration route with a broad focus. In addition, we outline the current state of evidence in the field of exosome-based drug delivery systems in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), evaluating exosomes derived from various cell types and engineered exosomes.
Designing an IT Ecosystem for Pregnancy Care Management Based on Pervasive Technologies

Pregnancy care is a topic of interest for both academia and practitioners. Novel pervasive technologies and applications, such as mobile technologies, wearables and IoT, open a wide corpus of possibilities for fostering pregnancy care management, and reducing risks and problems, improving communication among stakeholders and society development. This article introduces a model of a pregnancy care IT ecosystem based on the integration of various services in a semantically enriched e-health ecosystem. As proof of concept, both the web and mobile applications that aim to help pregnant women and gynaecologists were designed and employed in a real environment. An evaluation of the developed ecosystem was performed on a sample of 500 pregnant women and 100 doctors. After pilot usage, a survey was used to collect the data from participants, and assess the acceptance of the developed system. Results show that quality, usability and usefulness are on a high level, and that both pregnant women and doctors are ready for more extensive use of the system. In addition, research findings imply that employing pervasive technologies could bring significant benefits to all the parties in pregnancy care systems.
Impact of Maternal Obesity on the Metabolism and Bioavailability of Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids during Pregnancy and Breastfeeding

Prenatal and postnatal development are closely related to healthy maternal conditions that allow for the provision of all nutritional requirements to the offspring. In this regard, an appropriate supply of fatty acids (FA), mainly n-3 and n-6 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LCPUFA), is crucial to ensure a normal development, because they are an integral part of cell membranes and participate in the synthesis of bioactive molecules that regulate multiple signaling pathways. On the other hand, maternal obesity and excessive gestational weight gain affect FA supply to the fetus and neonate, altering placental nutrient transfer, as well as the production and composition of breast milk during lactation. In this regard, maternal obesity modifies FA profile, resulting in low n-3 and elevated n-6 PUFA levels in maternal and fetal circulation during pregnancy, as well as in breast milk during lactation. These modifications are associated with a pro-inflammatory state and oxidative stress with short and long-term consequences in different organs of the fetus and neonate, including in the liver, brain, skeletal muscle, and adipose tissue. Altogether, these changes confer to the offspring a higher risk of developing obesity and its complications, as well as neuropsychiatric disorders, asthma, and cancer. Considering the consequences of an abnormal FA supply to offspring induced by maternal obesity, we aimed to review the effects of obesity on the metabolism and bioavailability of FA during pregnancy and breastfeeding, with an emphasis on LCPUFA homeostasis.
Sanctions for Intimate Partner Sexual Violence: Is the Law on the Books the Law in Action?

Intimate partner sexual violence (IPSV) is common, yet in many jurisdictions the law still does not adequately recognize it. In those jurisdictions that have formally criminalized IPSV, little is known about the extent to which IPSV-related law on the books is implemented in practice. Especially scarce is systematic quantitative evidence on the processing of IPSV cases by the justice system. We investigate unique case-level court data on the processing and sanctioning of violent sex crime cases in Belgium, a jurisdiction where the law adequately criminalizes IPSV, but where criminal judges are afforded broad sentencing discretion. Our data allow us to observe both the conviction and the sentencing decision. Consequently, we are able to address the endogenous sample selection concerns that arise in the assessment of IPSV-related sentencing disparities by estimating a full-fledged sample selection model. Upon inclusion of a broad range of defendant, victim, and other case controls, we show that defendants who are the victims’ spouses or partners receive statistically significantly shorter prison sentences than defendants who are unrelated to the victims, in the sense that they are neither the victims’ current or former spouses nor family. The documented extralegal disparity is quantitatively noteworthy and survives a series of robustness checks as well as alternative model specifications. Our analysis thus lends empirical credibility to the perspective that while national legislatures have often been slow to address IPSV, the justice systems may be even slower at internalizing the corresponding law. Our evidence-based insight into de facto legal responses to IPSV is of direct relevance to many jurisdictions globally.
Tracing the Invasion and Expansion Characteristics of the Flatid Planthopper, Metcalfa pruinosa (Hemiptera: Flatidae), in Korea Using Mitochondrial DNA Sequences

Simple Summary After the invasion of Korea in 2005, the first lines of studies on Metcalfa pruinosa inferred the origin of the species using a fragment of mitochondrial COI sequences. However, the low variability of the sequences limited further scrutinized inference on the invasion dynamics. In this study, we sequenced a fragment of the COI gene from 536 individuals of the species and combined the sequence data with the available GenBank data, totaling 830 individuals. These data indicated that the North-West region is a point of entry in addition to the South-East region, the presumed sole point of entry to Korea. Furthermore, it suggested that North-West entry involves the M. pruinosa originating from the USA. In an effort to find further variable regions in the mitochondrial genome, one region provided substantially increased variability compared to the fragment of the COI. The concatenated sequences of COI and the newly obtained variable region, which were used to infer the expansion pattern in Korea, indicated that the main highway, running obliquely between the North-West and South-East regions, appears to be responsible for the current population genetic structure of M. pruinosa in Korea, facilitating gene flow through this highway traffic. Abstract The flatid planthopper, Metcalfa pruinosa (Hemiptera: Flatidae), which is an invasive species, is widespread in Korea. We sequenced a fragment of the COI from 536 individuals collected mainly in Korea and the European countries and combined these sequence data with the public data, totaling 830 individuals worldwide. The identification of one shared haplotype only between Korea and the USA, the presence of this haplotype only in the North-West region of Korea, and the highest haplotype diversity in this region suggested that the North-West region is another point of entry in addition to the South-East region, which is the presumed sole point of entry to Korea. Furthermore, it suggested that North-West entry involves the M. pruinosa originating from the USA. In an effort to find further variable regions in the mitochondrial genome, one region provided substantially increased variability compared to that of the fragment of COI. FST estimation, PCoA, and BAPS analysis, using the concatenated sequences of COI and the newly detected variable region to infer the expansion pattern in Korea, indicates that the main highway, running obliquely between the North-West and South-East regions, appears to be responsible for the current population genetic structure of M. pruinosa in Korea, facilitating gene flow through this highway traffic.
UV-Accelerated Photocatalytic Degradation of Pesticide over Magnetite and Cobalt Ferrite Decorated Graphene Oxide Composite

Pesticides are one of the main organic pollutants as they are highly toxic and extensively used worldwide. The reclamation of wastewater containing pesticides is of utmost importance. For this purpose, GO-doped metal ferrites (GO-Fe3O4 and GO-CoFe2O4) were prepared and characterized using scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopic techniques. Photocatalytic potentials of catalysts were investigated against acetamiprid’s degradation. A detailed review of the parametric study revealed that efficiency of overall Fenton’s process relies on the combined effects of contributing factors, i.e., pH, initial oxidant concentration, catalyst dose, contact time, and acetamiprid load. ~97 and ~90% degradation of the acetamiprid was achieved by GO-CoFe2O4 and GO-Fe3O4, respectively during the first hour under UV radiations at optimized reaction conditions. At optimized conditions (i.e., pH:3, [H2O2]: 14.5 mM (for Fe3O4, GO-Fe3O4, and GO-CoFe2O4) and 21.75 mM (for CoFe2O4), catalysts: 100 mgL−1, time: 60min) the catalysts exhibited excellent performance, with high degradation rate, magnetic power, easy recovery at the end, and efficient reusability (up to 5 cycles without any considerable loss in catalytic activity). A high magnetic character offers its easy separation from aqueous systems using an external magnet. Moreover, the combined effects of experimental variables were assessed simultaneously and justified using response surface methodology (RSM).
Fast File Transfers from IoT Devices by Using Multiple Interfaces

The Internet-of-Things (IoT) is a modern technological revolution that enables communication amongst a plethora of different devices. To date, about 30 billion devices have been connected to the internet and more than 75 billion devices are probably to be connected worldwide by 2025. These can range from small sensors and actuators to larger devices such as smartphones, drones or even buildings and interconnected cars. Devices are often mobile and battery powered thus their communication requires fast and energy efficient solutions. To this end, this paper studies the use of multi-interface communication for fast and energy efficient communication. In particular, we consider the basic operation of data transfer between smartphones in the form of files. This task can be performed for backup purposes, and hence it represents a useful and frequent operation that users perform. Our aim is to provide a new and easy means that optimises file transfers with respect to time and energy consumption. In particular, as smartphones are endowed with various connecting interfaces like Bluetooth, WiFi and 4G, we conduct experimental studies by varying different parameters in order to understand the best setting, including which interface is more appropriate to accomplish file transfer. To this respect, we also implemented an innovative and light app that allows the use of two or more interfaces concurrently. The experimental results show how the coupling of some interfaces might be effective in terms of time, while consuming a negligible amount of energy. Actually, such results become more and more interesting as the size of the file to be transferred grows. The best combination experienced is by making use of WiFi at 5 GHz concurrently with 4G, whereas WiFi at 2.4 GHz caused interference complications.
Lactobacillus iners and gasseri, Prevotella bivia and HPV Belong to the Microbiological Signature Negatively Affecting Human Reproduction

Infertile couples undergoing the use of assisted reproductive technology are a good study model to evaluate the microbiological signatures affecting reproductive health. We tested vaginal lavages, follicular fluids, embryo culture mediums, and seminal fluids from 47 couples for their microbiome composition and HPV infection. Twenty-five infertile couples were diagnosed with unexplained infertility, whereas 22 were diagnosed with explained infertility. Lactobacilli were dominant in the vaginal lavages of both patient groups, and the most abundant species was L. iners (CST III), which is linked to a decreased fertility rate. Besides this, L. gasseri—which is known to be associated with oocyte DNA fragmentation and decreased sperm mobility—was identified in the seminal fluids, follicular fluids, and embryo culture media of the unexplained infertility group. Prevotella was increased in the seminal fluids of the explained infertility group, along with HPV-positive seminal fluids: an infection commonly associated with infertility, especially male infertility. Prevotella has been described to negatively affect sperm motility. Taken together, these results suggest that the profiling of the reproductive tract microbiome can add new perspectives to human reproduction.
Novel RB1 and MET Gene Mutations in a Case with Bilateral Retinoblastoma Followed by Multiple Metastatic Osteosarcoma

Retinoblastoma (Rb) is a malignant tumor of the developing retina that affects children before the age of five years in association with inherited or early germline mutations of the RB1 gene. The genetic predisposition is also a driver for other primary malignancies, which have become the leading cause of death in retinoblastoma survivors. Other malignancies can occur as a consequence of radiotherapy. We describe a patient with retinoblastoma in which we detected a novel RB1 c.2548C > T, p.(Gln850Ter) and a synchronous MET c.3029C > T, p.(Thr1010Ile) mutation as well. After presenting with bilateral retinoblastoma, the patient developed at least four different manifestations of two independent osteosarcomas. Our goal was to identify all germline and somatic genetic alterations in available tissue samples from different time periods and to reconstruct their clonal relations using next generation sequencing (NGS). We also used structural and functional prediction of the mutant RB and MET proteins to find interactions between the defected proteins with potential causative role in the development of this unique form of retinoblastoma. Both histopathology and NGS findings supported the independent nature of a chondroblastic osteosarcoma of the irradiated facial bone followed by an osteoblastic sarcoma of the leg (tibia).
The Role of Gold Nanorods in the Response of Prostate Cancer and Normal Prostate Cells to Ionizing Radiation—In Vitro Model

To increase the efficiency of therapy via enhancing its selectivity, the usage of gold nanorods (GNR) as a factor sensitizing cancer cells to radiation was proposed. Due to gold nanoparticles’ characteristics, the smaller doses of radiation would be sufficient in the treatment, protecting the healthy tissue around the tumor. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of gold nanorods on cancer and normal prostate cells and the role of nanorods in the cell response to ionizing radiation. The effect was evaluated by measuring the toxicity, cell cycle, cell granularity, reactive oxygen species (ROS) level, and survival fractions. Nanorods showed a strong toxicity dependent on the concentration and incubation time toward all used cell lines. A slight effect of nanorods on the cycle distribution was observed. The results demonstrated that the administration of nanorods at higher concentrations resulted in an increased level of generated radicals. The results of cellular proliferation after irradiation are ambiguous; however, there are noticeable differences after the application of nanorods before irradiation. The obtained results lead to the conclusion that nanorods affect the physiology of both normal and cancer cells. Nanorods might become a potential tool used to increase the effectiveness of radiation treatment