Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Elicitation of Novel Trichogenic-Lipid Nanoemulsion Signaling Resistance Against Pearl Millet Downy Mildew Disease

Nanoemulsion was formulated from membrane lipids of Trichoderma spp. with the non-ionic surfactant Tween 80 by the ultrasonic emulsification method. Nanoemulsion with a droplet diameter of 5 to 51 nm was obtained. The possible effects of membrane lipid nanoemulsion on pearl millet (PM) seed growth parameters and elicitation of downy mildew (DM) disease resistance in PM was analyzed to develop an eco-friendly disease management strategy. Seed priming with nanoemulsion illustrates significant protection and elevated levels of early defense gene expression. Lipid profiling of Trichoderma spp. reveals the presence of oleic acid as a major fatty acid molecule. The prominent molecule in the purified lipid fraction of T. brevicompactum (UP-91) responsible for the elicitation of induction of systemic resistance in PM host against DM pathogen was predicted as (E)-N-(1, 3-dihydroxyoctadec-4-en-2yl) acetamide. The results suggest that protection offered by the novel nanoemulsion formulation is systemic in nature and durable and offers a newer sustainable approach to manage biotrophic oomycetous pathogen.
Shared neural recruitment across working memory and motor control tasks as a function of task difficulty and age

ABSTRACT Past research suggests that working memory (WM) and motor control may engage similar cognitive and neural mechanisms in older adults, particularly when task difficulty increases. However, much of this evidence arises from comparisons across behavioral and imaging studies that test only one of the foregoing functional domains. The current study used fMRI within the same group of older adults to investigate whether WM and motor control recruit common mechanisms, and whether recruitment increased with task demand and age. A conjunction analysis across WM and motor tasks revealed engagement of several frontoparietal regions as a function of increasing task demand. A separate conjunction analysis which included age as a predictor showed comparable regions exhibit increased recruitment with both increasing task demand and age. Results suggest that the recruitment of common frontoparietal regions across WM and motor tasks in response to task difficulty is maintained across the older adult lifespan.
Characteristics of Highly Sensitive Hydrogen Sensor Based on Pt-WO3/Si Microring Resonator

Hydrogen gas has attracted attention as a new energy carrier, and simple but highly sensitive hydrogen sensors are required. We fabricated an optical hydrogen sensor based on a silicon microring resonator (MRR) with tungsten oxide (WO3) using a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible process for the MRR and a sol-gel method for the WO3 layer and investigated its sensing characteristics at device temperatures of 5, 20, and 30 °C. At each temperature, a hydrogen concentration of as low as 0.1 vol% was successfully detected. The gas sensitivity increased with decreasing temperature. The dependence of the sensitivity on the device temperature can be attributed to the thickness of tungsten bronze (HxWO3) formed by WO3 during exposure to hydrogen gas. In addition, a hydrogen gas sensor based on a silicon-MRR-enhanced Mach–Zehnder interferometer (MRR-MZI) is proposed and its significantly high sensing ability using improved changes in the transmittance of light is theoretically discussed.
Endoscopic minimally invasive cholecystolithotomy in a patient with duplicate gallbladder: a case report

Gallstone disease is common in China and is generally treated with laparoscopic cholecystectomy. For some patients with normal contraction function and a small number of stones, endoscopic minimally invasive cholecystolithotomy is an additional possible treatment method that avoids complications related to laparoscopic cholecystectomy. Here, we describe a 45-year-old woman who underwent endoscopic minimally invasive cholecystolithotomy and was found to have duplicate gallbladder, which was not diagnosed preoperatively. We discuss the usefulness of the endoscopic minimally invasive cholecystolithotomy procedure and the management of duplicate gallbladder in patients undergoing endoscopic minimally invasive cholecystolithotomy.
Circulating Complement C3-Alpha Chain Levels Predict Survival of Septic Shock Patients.

BACKGROUND Circulating complement C3 fragments released during septic shock might contribute to the development of complications such as profound hypotension and disseminated intravascular coagulation. The role of C3 in the course of septic shock varies in the literature, possibly because circulating C3 exists in different forms indistinguishable via traditional ELISA-based methods. We sought to test the relationship between C3 forms, measured by Western blotting with its associated protein size differentiation feature, and clinical outcomes. METHODS Secondary analysis of two prospective cohorts of patients with septic shock: a discovery cohort of 24 patents and a validation cohort of 181 patients. C3 levels were measured by Western blotting in both cohorts using blood obtained at enrollment. Differences between survivors and non-survivors were compared, and the independent prognostic value of C3 forms were assessed. RESULTS In both cohorts there were significantly lower levels of the C3-alpha chain in non-survivors than in survivors, and persisted after controlling for SOFA score. AUROC to predict survival was 0.65 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.56-0.75). At a best cutoff value (Youden) of 970.6 μg/ml, the test demonstrated a sensitivity of 68.5% and specificity of 61.5%. At this cutoff point, Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed that patients with lower levels of C3-alpha chain had significantly lower survival than those with higher levels (p < 0.001). CONCLUSION Circulating C3-alpha chain levels is a significant independent predictor of survival in septic shock patients.
Peptidomic Analysis of Urine from Youths with Early Type 1 Diabetes Reveals Novel Bioactivity of Uromodulin Peptides In Vitro*

Dysregulated proteolysis is linked to early compensatory and maladaptive changes in the diabetic kidney. To elucidate the early kidney response to chronic hyperglycemia, we identified a urinary signature of uromodulin peptides associated with early type 1 diabetes before clinical manifestations of kidney disease and demonstrated novel bioactivity of two peptides in vitro using NFκB luciferase activity and neutrophil chemotaxis assays. These findings lay the groundwork for future validation studies. Graphical Abstract Highlights Urinary peptide profiling of youths with type 1 diabetes before clinical injury. Internal validation of uromodulin peptides by parallel reaction monitoring. Discovery of novel bioactivity of uromodulin peptides in vitro. In silico prediction of proteases involved in uromodulin processing. Chronic hyperglycemia is known to disrupt the proteolytic milieu, initiating compensatory and maladaptive pathways in the diabetic kidney. Such changes in intrarenal proteolysis are captured by the urinary peptidome. To elucidate the early kidney response to chronic hyperglycemia, we conducted a peptidomic investigation into urines from otherwise healthy youths with type 1 diabetes and their non-diabetic peers using unbiased and targeted mass spectrometry-based techniques. This cross-sectional study included two separate cohorts for the discovery (n = 30) and internal validation (n = 30) of differential peptide excretion. Peptide bioactivity was predicted using PeptideRanker and subsequently verified in vitro. Proteasix and the Nephroseq database were used to identify putative proteases responsible for peptide generation and examine their expression in diabetic nephropathy. A total of 6550 urinary peptides were identified in the discovery analysis. We further examined the subset of 162 peptides, which were quantified across all thirty samples. Of the 15 differentially excreted peptides (p < 0.05), seven derived from a C-terminal region (589SGSVIDQSRVLNLGPITRK607) of uromodulin, a kidney-specific protein. Increased excretion of five uromodulin peptides was replicated in the validation cohort using parallel reaction monitoring (p < 0.05). One of the validated peptides (SGSVIDQSRVLNLGPI) activated NFκB and AP-1 signaling, stimulated cytokine release, and enhanced neutrophil migration in vitro. In silico analyses highlighted several potential proteases such as hepsin, meprin A, and cathepsin B to be responsible for generating these peptides. In summary, we identified a urinary signature of uromodulin peptides associated with early type 1 diabetes before clinical manifestations of kidney disease and discovered novel bioactivity of uromodulin peptides in vitro. Our present findings lay the groundwork for future studies to validate peptide excretion in larger and broader populations, to investigate the role of bioactive uromodulin peptides in high glucose conditions, and to examine proteases that cleave uromodulin.
An Adaptive Deep Belief Network With Sparse Restricted Boltzmann Machines

Deep belief network (DBN) is an efficient learning model for unknown data representation, especially nonlinear systems. However, it is extremely hard to design a satisfactory DBN with a robust structure because of traditional dense representation. In addition, backpropagation algorithm-based fine-tuning tends to yield poor performance since its ease of being trapped into local optima. In this article, we propose a novel DBN model based on adaptive sparse restricted Boltzmann machines (AS-RBM) and partial least square (PLS) regression fine-tuning, abbreviated as ARP-DBN, to obtain a more robust and accurate model than the existing ones. First, the adaptive learning step size is designed to accelerate an RBM training process, and two regularization terms are introduced into such a process to realize sparse representation. Second, initial weight derived from AS-RBM is further optimized via layer-by-layer PLS modeling starting from the output layer to input one. Third, we present the convergence and stability analysis of the proposed method. Finally, our approach is tested on Mackey–Glass time-series prediction, 2-D function approximation, and unknown system identification. Simulation results demonstrate that it has higher learning accuracy and faster learning speed. It can be used to build a more robust model than the existing ones.
Upregulation of CD73 Confers Acquired Radioresistance and is Required for Maintaining Irradiation-selected Pancreatic Cancer Cells in a Mesenchymal State*

A LC-MS/MS-based quantitative proteomic analysis reveals that expression alterations in the irradiation-selected pancreatic cancer cells result in hyperactivation of the growth factor/cytokine signaling that promotes epithelial-mesenchymal plasticity and enhancement of DNA repair. Functional analysis on one of the most upregulated proteins, CD73, demonstrates that elevated CD73 confers acquired radioresistance by inactivating proapoptotic protein BAD via phosphorylation of BAD at Ser-136 and by maintaining the radioresistant pancreatic cancer cells in a mesenchymal state. Graphical Abstract Highlights CD73 is one of the most upregulated proteins in the radioresistant cells. CD73 upregulation confers radioresistance and irradiation-induced apoptosis. CD73 confers radioresistance potentially through inactivating protein BAD. Elevated CD73 is required for maintaining the resistant cells in a mesenchymal state. The molecular mechanisms underlying exceptional radioresistance in pancreatic cancer remain elusive. In the present study, we established a stable radioresistant pancreatic cancer cell line MIA PaCa-2-R by exposing the parental MIA PaCa-2 cells to fractionated ionizing radiation (IR). Systematic proteomics and bioinformatics analysis of protein expression in MIA PaCa-2 and MIA PaCa-2-R cells revealed that several growth factor-/cytokine-mediated pathways, including the OSM/STAT3, PI3K/AKT, and MAPK/ERK pathways, were activated in the radioresistant cells, leading to inhibition of apoptosis and increased epithelial-mesenchymal plasticity. In addition, the radioresistant cells exhibited enhanced capabilities of DNA repair and antioxidant defense compared with the parental cells. We focused functional analysis on one of the most up-regulated proteins in the radioresistant cells, ecto-5′-nucleotidase (CD73), which is a cell surface protein that is overexpressed in different types of cancer. Ectopic overexpression of CD73 in the parental cells resulted in radioresistance and conferred resistance to IR-induced apoptosis. Knockdown of CD73 re-sensitized the radioresistant cells to IR and IR-induced apoptosis. The effect of CD73 on radioresistance and apoptosis is independent of the enzymatic activity of CD73. Further studies demonstrate that CD73 up-regulation promotes Ser-136 phosphorylation of the proapoptotic protein BAD and is required for maintaining the radioresistant cells in a mesenchymal state. Our findings suggest that expression alterations in the IR-selected pancreatic cancer cells result in hyperactivation of the growth factor/cytokine signaling that promotes epithelial-mesenchymal plasticity and enhancement of DNA repair. Our results also suggest that CD73, potentially a novel downstream factor of the enhanced growth factor/cytokine signaling, confers acquired radioresistance by inactivating proapoptotic protein BAD via phosphorylation of BAD at Ser-136 and by maintaining the radioresistant pancreatic cancer cells in a mesenchymal state.
Subjective Evaluation of the Spectral Temporal SIMilarity (ST-SIM) Measure for Vibrotactile Quality Assessment

Recent standardization efforts for Tactile Internet (TI) and haptic codecs have paved the route for delivering tactile experiences in synchrony with audio and visual interaction components. Since humans are the ultimate consumers of tactile interactions, it is utmost important to develop objective quality assessment measures that are in close agreements with human perception. In this article, we present the results of a large-scale subjective study of a recently proposed objective quality assessment approach for vibrotactile signals called ST-SIM (Spectral Temporal SIMilarity). ST-SIM encompasses two components: perceptual spectral and temporal similarity measures. Two subjective experiments were conducted to validate ST-SIM, and elicited subjective ratings are used to create a VibroTactile Quality Assessment (VTQA) database. The VTQA database together with ST-SIM provide viable means to the development of vibrotactile compression and transmission applications. Our experimental results show that the ST-SIM highly correlates with human opinions in both experiments and significantly outperforms commonly used measures. The VTQA database is made publicly available at https://www.raniahassen. com/RESEARCH/.
Toxicity and Antitumor Activity of a Thiophene–Acridine Hybrid

The antitumor effects of thiophene and acridine compounds have been described; however, the clinical usefulness of these compounds is limited due to the risk of high toxicity and drug resistance. The strategy of molecular hybridization presents the opportunity to develop new drugs which may display better target affinity and less serious side effects. Herein, 2-((6-Chloro-2-methoxy-acridin-9-yl)amino)-5,6,7,8-tetrahydro-4H-cyclohepta[b]-thiophene-3-carbonitrile (ACS03), a hybrid thiophene–acridine compound with antileishmanial activity, was tested for toxicity and antitumor activity. The toxicity was evaluated in vitro (on HaCat and peripheral blood mononuclear cells) and in vivo (zebrafish embryos and acute toxicity in mice). Antitumor activity was also assessed in vitro in HCT-116 (human colon carcinoma cell line), K562 (chronic myeloid leukemic cell line), HL-60 (human promyelocytic leukemia cell line), HeLa (human cervical cancer cell line), and MCF-7 (breast cancer cell line) and in vivo (Ehrlich ascites carcinoma model). ACS03 exhibited selectivity toward HCT-116 cells (Half maximal inhibitory concentration, IC50 = 23.11 ± 1.03 µM). In zebrafish embryos, ACS03 induced an increase in lactate dehydrogenase, glutathione S-transferase, and acetylcholinesterase activities. The LD50 (lethal dose 50%) value in mice was estimated to be higher than 5000 mg/kg (intraperitoneally). In vivo, ACS03 (12.5 mg/kg) induced a significant reduction in tumor volume and cell viability. In vivo antitumor activity was associated with the nitric oxide cytotoxic effect. In conclusion, significant antitumor activity and weak toxicity were recorded for this hybrid compound, characterizing it as a potential anticancer compound.
Associating lncRNAs with small molecules via bilevel optimization reveals cancer-related lncRNAs

Long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) transcripts have emerging impacts in cancer studies, which suggests their potential as novel therapeutic agents. However, the molecular mechanism behind their treatment effects is still unclear. Here, we designed a computational model to Associate LncRNAs with Anti-Cancer Drugs (ALACD) based on a bilevel optimization model, which optimized the gene signature overlap in the upper level and imputed the missing lncRNA-gene association in the lower level. ALACD predicts genes coexpressed with lncRNAs mean while matching drug’s gene signatures. This model allows us to borrow the target gene information of small molecules to understand the mechanisms of action of lncRNAs and their roles in cancer. The ALACD model was systematically applied to the 10 cancer types in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) that had matched lncRNA and mRNA expression data. Cancer type-specific lncRNAs and associated drugs were identified. These lncRNAs show significantly different expression levels in cancer patients. Follow-up functional and molecular pathway analysis suggest the gene signatures bridging drugs and lncRNAs are closely related to cancer development. Importantly, patient survival information and evidence from the literature suggest that the lncRNAs and drug-lncRNA associations identified by the ALACD model can provide an alternative choice for cancer targeting treatment and potential cancer pognostic biomarkers. The ALACD model is freely available at https://github.com/wangyc82/ALACD-v1.
The Prevalence of Depression Associated with the Infection Status and Sexual Behaviors among Men Who Have Sex with Men in Shenzhen, China: A Cross-Sectional Study

Objective: To study the prevalence of depression and related factors among men who have sex with men (MSM) in Shenzhen China. Methods: Using a cross-sectional design, convenient sampling was applied to recruit participants at the AIDS(Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome)voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) clinic and gay clubs in 2015, thereby collecting data on sociodemographics, serological information, sexual behaviotablers, and depression. Descriptive analyses were conducted to determine the distribution of the measured variables. A chi-square test was applied to test the association between different levels of factors and depression status, alongside a binary logistic regression for multivariate analysis of depression. Results: A total of 334 MSM completed the survey. Their mean age was 29.88 ± 7.56, and 35.6% had at least college education; 44.9% considered themselves to be homosexual, and 43.4% considered themselves bisexual. The median score of depression was 12, with 116 people (34.7%) depressed. A total of 267 took the serological test. Of these 267, 60 (22.5%) were reported HIV(Human Immunodeficiency Virus) positive, 33 (12.4%) were syphilis positive, and none were hepatitis C positive. The multiple logistic regression analysis showed that a lack of awareness of AIDS knowledge (OR(Odds Ratio): 2.636, 95% CI(confidence interval): 1.384–5.020), peer education (OR: 1.752, 95% CI: 1.055–2.190), and lack of heterosexuality (OR: 1.805, 95% CI: 1.080–3.018) increased the odds of depression. Conclusion: Raising awareness of AIDS and strengthening peer education can improve depression among men who have sex with men.
Strategies for the prevention of catheter-related bladder discomfort

Background: The ideal measures to prevent postoperative catheter-related bladder discomfort (CRBD) remain unestablished. We conducted the systematic review and meta-analysis to clarify the significance of potential interventions. Methods: We followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic review and Meta-Analysis statement guidelines, and searched databases from MEDLINE, EMBASE, and referred Cochrane Library for randomized clinical trials (RCTs) published before December 2014. Reference lists from reviews or related articles were screened and checked for the related RCTs. Data extraction was performed carefully by 2 authors, respectively, and methodological quality was assessed by scoring system. Meta-analysis was applied for studies using the similar strategies or same reagents on the similar participants focused on CRBD. The primary outcome measure was the incidence of postoperative CRBD. Results: We identified 8 RCTs with interventions ranging from perioperative managements to pharmacological or multicomponent interventions. Meta-analysis showed ketamine was associated with less incidence of CRBD compared with placebo (pool risk ratio [RR] = −0.75, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.17–3.44, P < 0.01) at 0 hour, 1 hour (RR = −0.26, 95%CI = −0.38 to −0.13, P < 0.01), and 2 hours (RR = 0.31, 95%CI = 0.17–0.55, P < 0.01) and 6 hours (RR = 0.23, 95% CI = 0.11–0.49, P < 0.01) after operation. Oxybutynin did not affect the incidence of CRBD (RR = 0.46, 95%CI = 0.20–1.03, P = 0.06). Anticholinergic drugs also lower the incidence of CRBD at 0 hour (RR = 0.52, 95% CI = 0.38–0.71, P < 0.01), 1 hour (RR = 0.66, 95% CI = 0.51–0.86, P < 0.01), 2 hours (RR = 0.62, 95% CI = 0.46–0.84, P < 0.01), and 6 hours (RR = 0.56, 95%CI = 0.38–0.81, P < 0.01) postoperatively. Tramadol and gabapentin were also useful in lower the incidence and severity of CRBD in a RCT with 50 patients. Conclusion: The included studies showed great effectiveness in incidence of postoperative CRBD. Meta-analysis supported that ketamine, oxybutynin, and anticholinergic reagents interventions were useful in preventing postoperative catheter-related bladder discomfort.