Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Adaptor protein APPL1 links neuronal activity to chromatin remodeling in cultured hippocampal neurons

Abstract Local signaling events at synapses or axon terminals are communicated to the nucleus to elicit transcriptional responses, and thereby translate information about the external environment into internal neuronal representations. This retrograde signaling is critical to dendritic growth, synapse development, and neuronal plasticity. Here, we demonstrate that neuronal activity induces retrograde translocation and nuclear accumulation of endosomal adaptor APPL1. Disrupting the interaction of APPL1 with Importin α1 abolishes nuclear accumulation of APPL1, which in turn decreases the levels of histone acetylation. We further demonstrate that retrograde translocation of APPL1 is required for the regulation of gene transcription and then maintenance of hippocampal late-phase long-term potentiation. Thus, these results illustrate an APPL1-mediated pathway that contributes to the modulation of synaptic plasticity via coupling neuronal activity with chromatin remodeling.
Effectiveness of brief schema group therapy for borderline personality disorder symptoms: a randomized pilot study

Abstract Background and objectives Schema group therapy is a potentially cost-effective treatment for borderline personality disorder (BPD). We piloted the feasibility and effectiveness of a 20-session schema group therapy without individual therapy among psychiatric BPD outpatients in a randomized pilot study registered as a clinical trial (ISRCTN76381242). Methods Altogether 42 psychiatric outpatients diagnosed with BPD were randomized 2:1 to a 20-session weekly schema group therapy plus treatment as usual (TAU) (n = 28) vs. a control group with TAU alone (n = 14). The primary outcome was decline of BPD symptoms in the short Borderline Symptom List (BSL-23) score. Secondary outcomes were decline in symptoms of anxiety, depression, alcohol use, and improvement in functioning and schema modes. Two external experts evaluated validity of the intervention based on videotaped sessions. Results Overall, 23 schema group therapy patients (82%) and 12 controls (86%) completed their treatment. Treatment validity good or very good. However, no significant differences emerged in the primary outcome mean BSL-23 decline (6.95 [SE 5.91] in group schema therapy vs. 12.55 [4.85] in TAU) or in any of the secondary outcome measures. Limitations Despite randomization, the TAU subgroup had non-significantly higher baseline scores in most measures. Small sample size predisposing to type II errors; reliance on self-reported outcomes. Conclusions Schema group therapy was feasible for psychiatric outpatients with BPD. However, in this small pilot study we did not find it more effective than TAU. Effectiveness of this short intervention remains open.
BIT.UA at BioASQ 8: Lightweight Neural Document Ranking with Zero-shot Snippet Retrieval

This paper presents the participation of the University of Aveiro Biomedical Informatics and Techologies (BIT) group in the eighth edition of the BioASQ challenge for the document and snippet retrieval tasks. Our system follows a two-stage retrieval pipeline, where a group of candidate documents is retrieved based on BM25 and reranked by a lightweight interaction-based model that uses the context of exact matches to reﬁne the ranking. Additionally, we also show a zero-shot setup for snippet retrieval based on the architecture of our interaction based model. Our system achieved competitive results scoring at the top or close to the top for all the batches, with MAP values ranging from 33.98% to 48.42% in the document retrieval task, although being less eﬀective on snippet retrieval.
SentArg: A Hybrid Doc2Vec/DPH Model with Sentiment Analysis Refinement

In this work we explore the yet untested inclusion of sentiment analysis in the argument ranking process. By utilizing a word embedding model we create document embeddings for all queries and arguments. These are compared with each other to calculate top-N argument context scores for each query. We also calculate top-N DPH scores with the Terrier Framework. This way, each query receives two lists of top-N arguments. Afterwards we form an intersection of both argument lists and sort the result by the DPH scores. To further increase the ranking quality, we sort the final arguments of each query by sentiment values. Our findings ultimately imply that rewarding neutral sentiments can decrease the quality of the retrieval outcome.
Population history of the Sardinian people inferred from whole-genome sequencing

The population of the Mediterranean island of Sardinia has made important contributions to genome-wide association studies of traits and diseases. The history of the Sardinian population has also been the focus of much research, and in recent ancient DNA (aDNA) studies, Sardinia has provided unique insight into the peopling of Europe and the spread of agriculture. In this study, we analyze whole-genome sequences of 3,514 Sardinians to address hypotheses regarding the founding of Sardinia and its relation to the peopling of Europe, including examining fine-scale substructure, population size history, and signals of admixture. We find the population of the mountainous Gennargentu region shows elevated genetic isolation with higher levels of ancestry associated with mainland Neolithic farmers and depleted ancestry associated with more recent Bronze Age Steppe migrations on the mainland. Notably, the Gennargentu region also has elevated levels of pre-Neolithic hunter-gatherer ancestry and increased affinity to Basque populations. Further, allele sharing with pre-Neolithic and Neolithic mainland populations is larger on the X chromosome compared to the autosome, providing evidence for a sex-biased demographic history in Sardinia. These results give new insight to the demography of ancestral Sardinians and help further the understanding of sharing of disease risk alleles between Sardinia and mainland populations.
ECHOCARDIOGRAPHIC EVALUATION OF THE RIGHT HEART IN THE PULMONARY HYPERTENSION.

OBJECTIVE Introduction: A comprehensive assessment of right ventricular size and function, as well as evaluation of pulmonary artery pressures is an integral part of every echocardiographic examination. It is important to know the relevant guidelines but also the pitfalls of echocardiography. The aim: To determine the significance of echocardiography in the diagnostic process, prognosis and evaluation of treatment effectiveness in pulmonary hypertension. PATIENTS AND METHODS Review and Discussion: The gold standard for evaluation of size, ejection fraction, and stroke volume of the right ventricle is cardiac magnetic resonance. Whereas, the gold standard for the assessments of pulmonary artery pressures is right heart catheterization. However, echocardiography is the first diagnostic modality in the assessment of size and function of the right heart. CONCLUSION Conclusions: Echocardiographic evaluation of the right heart plays a fundamental role in the diagnostic process of pulmonary hypertension. Echocardiography is essential to predict the course of the disease and assess the treatment efficiency.
Large-Scale Phylogenetic Analysis of Trypanosomatid Adenylate Cyclases Reveals Associations with Extracellular Lifestyle and Host–Pathogen Interplay

Abstract Receptor adenylate cyclases (RACs) on the surface of trypanosomatids are important players in the host–parasite interface. They detect still unidentified environmental signals that affect the parasites’ responses to host immune challenge, coordination of social motility, and regulation of cell division. A lesser known class of oxygen-sensing adenylate cyclases (OACs) related to RACs has been lost in trypanosomes and expanded mostly in Leishmania species and related insect-dwelling trypanosomatids. In this work, we have undertaken a large-scale phylogenetic analysis of both classes of adenylate cyclases (ACs) in trypanosomatids and the free-living Bodo saltans. We observe that the expanded RAC repertoire in trypanosomatids with a two-host life cycle is not only associated with an extracellular lifestyle within the vertebrate host, but also with a complex path through the insect vector involving several life cycle stages. In Trypanosoma brucei, RACs are split into two major clades, which significantly differ in their expression profiles in the mammalian host and the insect vector. RACs of the closely related Trypanosoma congolense are intermingled within these two clades, supporting early RAC diversification. Subspecies of T. brucei that have lost the capacity to infect insects exhibit high numbers of pseudogenized RACs, suggesting many of these proteins have become redundant upon the acquisition of a single-host life cycle. OACs appear to be an innovation occurring after the expansion of RACs in trypanosomatids. Endosymbiont-harboring trypanosomatids exhibit a diversification of OACs, whereas these proteins are pseudogenized in Leishmania subgenus Viannia. This analysis sheds light on how ACs have evolved to allow diverse trypanosomatids to occupy multifarious niches and assume various lifestyles.
The relationship between psychological resilience, burnout, stress, and sociodemographic factors with depression in nurses and midwives during the COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-sectional study in Turkey.

PURPOSE This study aims to determine the relationship between psychological resilience, burnout, stress, and sociodemographic factors with depression in nurses and midwives during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. DESIGN AND METHOD This cross-sectional study included 377 midwives and nurses. RESULTS The prevalence of depression in midwives and nurses in our sample was 31.8%. In the logistic regression analysis, the risk of depression in midwives was 1.92 times higher than that of nurses. A high perceived stress score increased the risk of depression by 1.16 times, and a high emotional exhaustion score increased the risk of depression by 1.11 times. A high psychological resilience score was found to be protective against depression (<0.001). PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS The results showed that one-third of midwives and nurses had symptoms of depression.
A European Observational Study to Evaluate the Safety and the Effectiveness of Safinamide in Routine Clinical Practice: The SYNAPSES Trial

Background: Safinamide modulates both dopaminergic and glutamatergic systems with positive effects on motor and non-motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease (PD). The drug utilization study SYNAPSES was designed to investigate the use of safinamide in routine clinical practice, as recommended by the European Medicines Agency. Objective: To describe the occurrence of adverse events in PD patients treated with safinamide in real-life conditions. Methods: The SYNAPSES trial is an observational, European, multicenter, retrospective-prospective cohort study. Patients were followed up to 12 months with analyses performed in the overall population and in patients aged >75 years, with relevant comorbidities and with psychiatric conditions. Results: Of the 1610 patients included, 82.4% were evaluable after 12 months with 25.1% of patients >75 years, 70.8% with relevant comorbidities and 42.4% with psychiatric conditions. During observation 45.8% patients experienced adverse events, 27.7% patients had adverse drug reactions and 9.2% patients had serious adverse events. The adverse events were those already described in the patients’ information leaflet. The majority were mild or moderate and completely resolved and no differences were detected between the subgroup of patients. Clinically significant improvements were seen in the UPDRS motor score and in the UPDRS total score in ≥40% of patients, according to the criteria developed by Shulman et al. Conclusion: The SYNAPSES study confirms the good safety profile of safinamide even in special groups of patients. Motor complications and motor scores improved with clinically significant results in the UPDRS scale maintained in the long-term.
Detection of Early Sign of Self-harm on Reddit using Multi-level Machine

This paper describes the participation of the EFE research team in task1 of CLEF eRisk 2020 competitions. This challenge basically focuses on the early detection of symptoms of self-harm from users’ posts on social media. Identifying mental illnesses especially in the early stages can help people and avoid risky behaviors. Personal notes on social media are often indicative of one’s psychological state, therefore using natural language processing techniques on users’ posts one can develop an early risk detection system. The proposed method is basically consisting of Word2Vec representation, an ensemble of SVM and deep neural network and also attention layers. The obtained results are very competitive and show the strength of the system provided in the early diagnosis of self-harm.
The adenoviral protein E4orf4: a probing tool to decipher mechanical stress-induced nuclear envelope remodeling in tumor cells

ABSTRACT The human adenovirus (Ad) type 2/5 early region 4 (E4) ORF4 protein (E4orf4) exerts a remarkable tumor cell-selective killing activity in mammalian cells. This indicates that E4orf4 can target tumor cell-defining features and is a unique tool to probe cancer cell vulnerabilities. Recently, we found that E4orf4, through an interaction with the polarity protein PAR3, subverts nuclear envelope (NE) remodeling processes in a tumor cell-selective manner. In this Perspective, we outline mechanical signals that modify nuclear dynamics and tumor cell behavior to highlight potential mechanisms for E4orf4’s tumoricidal activity. Through an analysis of E4orf4’s cellular targets, we define a protein subnetwork that comprises phosphatase systems interconnected to polarity protein hubs, which could contribute to enhanced NE plasticity. We infer that elucidating E4orf4’s protein network at a functional level could uncover key mechanisms of NE remodeling that define the tumor cell phenotype.
Severity‐Dependent Effects of Parkinson's Disease on Perception of Visual and Vestibular Heading

Parkinson's disease (PD) commonly affects visuospatial navigation causing postural instability and falls. Our overarching aim was to examine the visual and vestibular systems governing visuospatial navigation in PD. We hypothesize that PD affects vestibular and visual motion perception but to a different extent. The effects of PD on motion perception are dependent on the severity of the disease.
Mitigating the Challenges and Capitalizing on Opportunities: A Qualitative Investigation of the Public Library’s Response to an Aging Population

ABSTRACT Public libraries are community hubs that can both create opportunities and address challenges often associated with later life and population aging. Using a thematic analysis of 18 in-depth interviews with public librarians, this study investigates common practices and challenges experienced while developing programs for older adults. This analysis is augmented by an environmental scan of older-adult programming offered in member libraries of the Canadian Urban Library Council (CULC). Results indicate that public librarians leverage community partnerships and staff training to develop programs that foster digital, financial, language, and health literacy and create opportunities for both intergenerational and peer social connection. At the same time, they face challenges related to limited space, budgets, and staff capacity, difficulty meeting the extensive and often conflicting interests of various groups within the library, and marketing programming to older adults. Findings indicate that public libraries may be key players in mitigating challenges often associated with having an aging population, and indeed highlight the many benefits of valuing and providing services to this population.
Semantic assessment of smart healthcare ontology

PurposeHealth-care ontologies and their terminologies play a vital role in knowledge representation and data integration for health information. In health-care systems, Internet of Technology (IoT) technologies provide data exchange among various entities and ontologies offer a formal description to present the knowledge of health-care domains. These ontologies are advised to assure the quality of their adoption and applicability in the real world.Design/methodology/approachOntology assessment is an integral part of ontology construction and maintenance. It is always performed to identify inconsistencies and modeling errors by the experts during the ontology development. A smart health-care ontology (SHCO) has been designed to deal with health-care information and IoT devices. In this paper, an integrated approach has been proposed to assess the SHCO on different assessment tools such as Themis, Test-Driven Development (TDD)onto, Protégé and OOPs! Several test cases are framed to assess the ontology on these tools, in this research, Themis and TDDonto tools provide the verification for the test cases while Protégé and OOPs! provides validation of modeled knowledge in the ontology.FindingsAs of the best knowledge, no other study has been presented earlier to conduct the integrated assessment on different tools. All test cases are successfully analyzed on these tools and results are drawn and compared with other ontologies.Originality/valueThe developed ontology is analyzed on different verification and validation tools to assure the quality of ontologies.
Production system, Phenotypic and Molecular Characterization of Sudanese Camels (Camelus dromedarius)

Data on phenotypic measurements and descriptions were obtained on 274 camels (different ecotypes). The purpose of this study was to characterize and re-grade some of Sudanese camel breeds according to their morphological traits. The results of this study showed that average barrel girth, heart girth, height at shoulders and body weight were 2.45 ± 0.02 m; 2.02 ± 0.01 m; 1.90 ± 0.01 m and 463.25 ± 4.90 kg respectively. The results also revealed that phenotypic measurements were significantly influenced by type of camel and age group. The Shanbali camel recorded the highest values of barrel girth, heart girth and body weight, followed by those of the Kenani camel. Rashaidi, Anafi and Bishari camel breeds recorded the lowest values. Regarding to the age groups the camels in the second group 7 to 9 years had significantly the highest values of phenotypic measurements, followed by those of the third group 10 to 12 years, while the animals in the first group 4 to 6 years recorded the lowest values. Moreover, the results showed that the sex of camel significantly affected the heart girth, height at shoulders and body weight; and the males had significantly higher (P < 0.5) values than those of females. The study concluded that the Shanbali and Kenani camel breeds are the largest Sudanese camel breed followed by Maalia and Maganeen camels.
Chromatographic and spectroscopic determination of solvent-extracted Lantana camara leaf oil

Objective This study aimed to determine the chemical profile of Lantana camara leaf oil. Methods The essential oil was extracted from dried leaf samples using the Soxhlet extraction method. The oil was separated from the solvent and the bioactive compounds were identified using gas chromatography–mass spectroscopy (GC-MS) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The identified peaks in the mass spectrum were matched with the database of the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) library. Results The FT-IR results indicated the presence of alcohols, carboxylic acids, phenols, alkanes, ketones, and primary amine compounds. GC-MS identified 43 compounds representing 95% of the total leaf essential oil components. Some of the major isolated compounds included a pyrrolizine; 1-dodecanol; 1,2-nonadecanediol; phytol; 1,3-dioxolane; 4-undecene, 9-methyl, (Z)-; 1-eicosanol; and imidazole. Conclusions The identified constituents of the extracted oil have established pharmacologic and insecticidal activities, and these compounds are also used in the drink, food, and cosmetic industries. This extract is highly valuable for the medical treatment of various ailments.
Sadness and Fear: Classification of Fake NewsSpreaders Content on Twitter

The vast amount of accurate and inaccurate information circulating on the internet requires computational methodologies to detect low-quality content. This kind of content often constitutes fake news , as in the PAN @ CLEF 2020 competition Proﬁling Fake News Spreaders on Twitter . This competition asks for systems that identify possible fake news spreaders on social media as a ﬁrst step to prevent fake news from being propagated among online users. In this paper, the methodology used for this classiﬁcation task is reported. Pre-processing of the data and the features extracted to classify fake news spreaders is explained. A regression-as-classiﬁcation approach that enables the representation of being a fake news spreader as a gradable one is proposed. The performance (accuracy) on the training and the test set with the different sets of features is reported.
Dexmedetomidine and levobupivacaine co-loaded, transcriptional transactivator peptide modified nanostructured lipid carriers or lipid–polymer hybrid nanoparticles, which performed better for local anesthetic therapy?

Abstract Local anesthetics (LAs) have been widely applied in clinic for regional anesthesia, postoperative analgesia, and management of acute and chronic pain. Nanostructured lipid carriers (NLCs) and lipid–polymer hybrid nanoparticles (LPNs) are reported as good choices for LA therapy. Transactivated transcriptional activator (TAT) was reported as a modifier for the topical delivery of drugs. In the present study, TAT modified, levobupivacaine (LEV) and dexmedetomidine (DEX) co-delivered NLCs (TAT-LEV&DEX-NLCs, T-L&D-N) and LPNs (TAT-LEV&DEX-LPNs, T-L&D-L) were designed and compared for the LA therapy. T-L&D-L exhibited better efficiency in improving the skin permeation, analgesic time, and pain control intensity than T-L&D-N both in vitro and in vivo. On the other side, T-L&D-N also improved the therapeutic effect of drugs to a large extent. These two systems both exhibited superiority in some respects. TAT modified LPNs are more promising platform for the long-term local anesthesia.
3D Bioprinting of Lignocellulosic Biomaterials

The interest in bioprinting of sustainable biomaterials is rapidly growing, and lignocellulosic biomaterials have a unique role in this development. Lignocellulosic materials are biocompatible and possess tunable mechanical properties, and therefore promising for use in the field of 3D‐printed biomaterials. This review aims to spotlight the recent progress on the application of different lignocellulosic materials (cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin) from various sources (wood, bacteria, and fungi) in different forms (including nanocrystals and nanofibers in 3D bioprinting). Their crystallinity, leading to water insolubility and the presence of suspended nanostructures, makes these polymers stand out among hydrogel‐forming biomaterials. These unique structures give rise to favorable properties such as high ink viscosity and strength and toughness of the final hydrogel, even when used at low concentrations. In this review, the application of lignocellulosic polymers with other components in inks is reported for 3D bioprinting and identified supercritical CO2 as a potential sterilization method for 3D‐printed cellulosic materials. This review also focuses on the areas of potential development by highlighting the opportunities and unmet challenges such as the need for standardization of the production, biocompatibility, and biodegradability of the cellulosic materials that underscore the direction of future research into the 3D biofabrication of cellulose‐based biomaterials.