Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sixteen years of social and ecological dynamics reveal challenges and opportunities for adaptive management in sustaining the commons

Significance Coral reefs provide ecosystem goods and services for millions of people, but reef health is declining worldwide and current approaches have failed to prevent losses. Adaptive approaches that reflect local social, economic, and cultural conditions are required. We conducted social and ecological research across 5 time intervals over 16 y to study the key traits of a long-enduring customary adaptive reef management system in Papua New Guinea. Resource users identified high levels of compliance, strong leadership and social cohesion, and participatory decision making among community members as key traits of a rotational fisheries closure system, which increases fish biomass and makes fish less wary (hence more catchable), relative to openly fished areas. Efforts to confront the challenges of environmental change and uncertainty include attempts to adaptively manage social–ecological systems. However, critical questions remain about whether adaptive management can lead to sustainable outcomes for both ecosystems and society. Here, we make a contribution to these efforts by presenting a 16-y analysis of ecological outcomes and perceived livelihood impacts from adaptive coral reef management in Papua New Guinea. The adaptive management system we studied was a customary rotational fisheries closure system (akin to fallow agriculture), which helped to increase the biomass of reef fish and make fish less wary (more catchable) relative to openly fished areas. However, over time the amount of fish in openly fished reefs slowly declined. We found that, overall, resource users tended to have positive perceptions about this system, but there were negative perceptions when fishing was being prohibited. We also highlight some of the key traits of this adaptive management system, including 1) strong social cohesion, whereby leaders played a critical role in knowledge exchange; 2) high levels of compliance, which was facilitated via a “carrot-and-stick” approach that publicly rewarded good behavior and punished deviant behavior; and 3) high levels of participation by community actors.
Lithium vs valproate in the maintenance treatment of bipolar I disorder: A post- hoc analysis of a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial

Objective: Lithium and valproate are commonly used either in monotherapy or in combination with atypical antipsychotics in maintenance treatment of bipolar I disorder; however, their comparative efficacy is not well understood. This study aimed to compare the efficacy of valproate and lithium on mood stability either in monotherapy or in combination with atypical antipsychotics. Methods: We performed a post hoc analysis using data from a 52-week randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, that recruited 159 patients with recently remitted mania during treatment with lithium or valproate and adjunctive atypical antipsychotic therapy. Patients were randomized to discontinue adjunctive atypical antipsychotic at 0, 24 or 52 weeks. Results: No significant differences in efficacy were observed between valproate and lithium (hazard ratio: 0.99; 95% confidence interval: [0.66, 1.48]) in time to any mood event. Valproate with 24 weeks of atypical antipsychotic was significantly superior to valproate monotherapy in preventing any mood relapse (hazard ratio: 0.46; 95% confidence interval: [0.22, 0.97]) while lithium with 24 weeks of atypical antipsychotic was superior to lithium monotherapy in preventing mania (hazard ratio: 0.27; 95% confidence interval: [0.09, 0.85]) but not depression. Conclusion: Overall, this study did not find significant differences in efficacy between the two mood-stabilizing agents when used as monotherapy or in combination with atypical antipsychotics. However, study design and small sample size might have precluded from detecting an effect if true difference in efficacy existed. Further head-to-head investigations with stratified designs are needed to evaluate maintenance therapies.
How tissue fluidity influences brain tumor progression

Significance Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common and aggressive malignant brain tumor in adults, with one of the most dismal prognoses of all cancers. Yet, the reason why GBM grows so fast and aggressively is not understood. Our study provides an intriguingly simple explanation for the infiltrative behavior of GBM by looking at fluidity—a material property that quantifies the viscous behavior of biological tissues measured in vivo by magnetic resonance elastography. We show that fluidity of neurotumors is anomalous in that it decreases as water content increases, enabling GBM to infiltratively finger into normal surrounding brain matter. Fluidity might thus become an important target for cancer research and opens horizons for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Mechanical properties of biological tissues and, above all, their solid or fluid behavior influence the spread of malignant tumors. While it is known that solid tumors tend to have higher mechanical rigidity, allowing them to aggressively invade and spread in solid surrounding healthy tissue, it is unknown how softer tumors can grow within a more rigid environment such as the brain. Here, we use in vivo magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) to elucidate the role of anomalous fluidity for the invasive growth of soft brain tumors, showing that aggressive glioblastomas (GBMs) have higher water content while behaving like solids. Conversely, our data show that benign meningiomas (MENs), which contain less water than brain tissue, are characterized by fluid-like behavior. The fact that the 2 tumor entities do not differ in their soft properties suggests that fluidity plays an important role for a tumor’s aggressiveness and infiltrative potential. Using tissue-mimicking phantoms, we show that the anomalous fluidity of neurotumors physically enables GBMs to penetrate surrounding tissue, a phenomenon similar to Saffman−Taylor viscous-fingering instabilities, which occur at moving interfaces between fluids of different viscosity. Thus, targeting tissue fluidity of malignant tumors might open horizons for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.
Molecular imaging and advanced MRI findings following immunotherapy in patients with brain tumors

ABSTRACT Introduction: Currently, immunotherapy using vaccination strategies or oncolytic virus approaches, cell-based immunotherapy, and the blockade of immune checkpoints are under evaluation in patients with brain cancer. Here we summarize clinically significant imaging findings such as treatment-related changes detected by advanced neuroimaging techniques following the most suitable immunotherapy options currently used in neuro-oncology. We, furthermore, provide an overview of how these advanced imaging techniques may help to overcome shortcomings of standard MRI in the assessment and follow-up of patients with brain cancer. Areas covered: The current literature on neuroimaging for immunotherapy in the field of brain tumors, with a focus on gliomas and brain metastases is summarized. Expert commentary: Data suggest that imaging parameters primarily derived from amino acid PET, diffusion- and perfusion-weighted MRI, or MR spectroscopy are particularly helpful for the evaluation of treatment response and provide valuable information for the differentiation of treatment-induced changes from actual brain tumor progression following various immunotherapy approaches.
The Effect of Antioxidant Supplementation in Patients with Tinnitus and Normal Hearing or Hearing Loss: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo Controlled Trial

Tinnitus is the perception of sound in the absence of any external stimulus. Oxidative stress is possibly involved in its pathogenesis and a variety of antioxidant compounds have been studied as potential treatment approaches. The objective of the present study was to assess the effects of antioxidant supplementation in tinnitus patients. This is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial. Patients (N = 70) were randomly allocated to antioxidant supplementation (N = 35) or to placebo (N = 35) for a total of 3 months. Demographic, anthropometric, clinical, and nutritional data were collected. Serum total antioxidant capacity (TAC), oxidized LDL (oxLDL), and superoxide dismutase (SOD), tinnitus loudness, frequency, and minimum masking level (MML), and scores in Tinnitus Handicap Inventory questionnaire (THI), Tinnitus Functional Index (TFI), and Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) were evaluated at baseline and follow-up. Tinnitus loudness and MML significantly decreased from baseline to post measure (p < 0.001) only in the antioxidant group, the overall change being significantly different between the two groups post-intervention (p < 0.001). THI and VAS decreased only in the antioxidant group. Differences in changes in serum TAC, SOD, and oxLDL post-intervention were insignificant. In conclusion, antioxidant therapy seems to reduce the subjective discomfort and tinnitus intensity in tinnitus patients.
Default mode-visual network hypoconnectivity in an autism subtype with pronounced social visual engagement difficulties

Social visual engagement difficulties are hallmark early signs of autism (ASD) and are easily quantified using eye tracking methods. However, it is unclear how these difficulties are linked to atypical early functional brain organization in ASD. With resting state fMRI data in a large sample of ASD toddlers and other non-ASD comparison groups, we find ASD-related functional hypoconnnectivity between ‘social brain’ circuitry such as the default mode network (DMN) and visual and attention networks. An eye tracking-identified ASD subtype with pronounced early social visual engagement difficulties (GeoPref ASD) is characterized by marked DMN-occipito-temporal cortex (OTC) hypoconnectivity. Increased DMN-OTC hypoconnectivity is also related to increased severity of social-communication difficulties, but only in GeoPref ASD. Early and pronounced social-visual circuit hypoconnectivity is a key underlying neurobiological feature describing GeoPref ASD and may be critical for future social-communicative development and represent new treatment targets for early intervention in these individuals.
Social media-predicted personality traits and values can help match people to their ideal jobs

Significance Employment is thought to be more enjoyable and beneficial to individuals and society when there is alignment between the person and the occupation, but a key question is how to best match people with the right profession. The information that people broadcast online through social media provides insights into who they are, which we show can be used to match people and occupations. Findings have implications for career guidance for new graduates, disengaged employees, career changers, and the unemployed. Work is thought to be more enjoyable and beneficial to individuals and society when there is congruence between one’s personality and one’s occupation. We provide large-scale evidence that occupations have distinctive psychological profiles, which can successfully be predicted from linguistic information unobtrusively collected through social media. Based on 128,279 Twitter users representing 3,513 occupations, we automatically assess user personalities and visually map the personality profiles of different professions. Similar occupations cluster together, pointing to specific sets of jobs that one might be well suited for. Observations that contradict existing classifications may point to emerging occupations relevant to the 21st century workplace. Findings illustrate how social media can be used to match people to their ideal occupation.
Celiac Antigenicity of Ancient Wheat Species

Ancient grains have gained renewed interest in the last few years due to their perceived nutritional benefits. The goal of this study was to examine the presence of celiac epitopes in different ancient grains and determine differences in the gliadin protein profile of such grains. To investigate celiac epitopes, an untargeted mass spectrometric method was used, and the gliadin protein profile was studied using reverse phase-HPLC. Our findings show that celiac epitopes can be detected in wheat-related ancient grains, such as einkorn, emmer, and Kamut, indicating that these ancient grains have the potential to elicit the immune response associated with celiac disease. Additionally, the results showed that the gliadin protein composition is significantly different between ancient grain species, which could result in varying functional properties in end-use applications.
Work in Progress towards Consistency Management for Industrial Model-based Development

Model-based development of complex embedded systems commonly leverages multiple models to describe systems at diﬀerent levels of abstraction and from diﬀerent view-points. Inconsistencies between these models may cause delays or late changes throughout system design, development and maintenance. Therefore, an eﬃcient model-based development practice requires support for managing consistency between diﬀerent models. This is complicated in practice because these models are possibly created in several diﬀerent modelling languages and modelling tools. Furthermore, in order to be suitable for industrial adoption, consistency checking support must ﬁt within current development processes and environments. This extended abstract describes a model-based development scenario from which a need for consistency checking emerges, followed by a discussion of requirements for consistency checking from a development process point of view. We also include a brief summary of early work on a prototype tool addressing these requirements.
Transcriptomic effect marker patterns of genotoxins – a comparative study with literature data

Microarray approaches are frequently used experimental tools which have proven their value for example in the characterization of the molecular mode of action of toxicologically relevant compounds. In a regulatory context, omics techniques are still not routinely used, amongst others due to lacking standardization in experimental setup and data processing, and also due to issues with the definition of adversity. In order to exemplarily determine whether consensus transcript biomarker signatures for a certain toxicological endpoint can be derived from published microarray datasets, we here compared transcriptome data from human HepaRG hepatocarcinoma cells treated with different genotoxins, based on re‐analyzed datasets extracted from the literature. Comparison of the resulting data show that even with similarly‐acting compounds in the same cell line, considerable variation was observed with respect to the numbers and identities of differentially expressed genes. Greater concordance was observed when considering the whole data sets and biological functions associated with the genes affected. The present results highlight difficulties and possibilities in inter‐experiment comparisons of omics data and underpin the need for future efforts towards improved standardization to facilitate the use of omics data in risk assessment. Existing omics datasets may nonetheless prove valuable in establishing biological context information essential for the development of adverse outcome pathways.
A Praziquantel Treatment Study of Immune and Transcriptome Profiles in Schistosoma haematobium-Infected Gabonese Schoolchildren

Abstract Background Although Schistosoma haematobium infection has been reported to be associated with alterations in immune function, in particular immune hyporesponsiveness, there have been only few studies that have used the approach of removing infection by drug treatment to establish this and to understand the underlying molecular mechanisms. Methods Schistosoma haematobium-infected schoolchildren were studied before and after praziquantel treatment and compared with uninfected controls. Cellular responses were characterized by cytokine production and flow cytometry, and in a subset of children RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) transcriptome profiling was performed. Results Removal of S haematobium infection resulted in increased schistosome-specific cytokine responses that were negatively associated with CD4+CD25+FOXP3+ T-cells and accompanied by increased frequency of effector memory T-cells. Innate responses to Toll like receptor (TLR) ligation decreased with treatment and showed positive association with CD4+CD25+FOXP3+ T-cells. At the transcriptome level, schistosome infection was associated with enrichment in cell adhesion, whereas parasite removal was associated with a more quiescent profile. Further analysis indicated that alteration in cellular energy metabolism was associated with S haematobium infection and that the early growth response genes 2 and 3 (EGR 2 and EGR3), transcription factors that negatively regulate T-cell activation, may play a role in adaptive immune hyporesponsiveness. Conclusions Using a longitudinal study design, we found contrasting effects of schistosome infection on innate and adaptive immune responses. Whereas the innate immune system appears more activated, the adaptive immunity is in a hyporesponsive state reflected in alterations in CD4+CD25+FOXP3+ T-cells, cellular metabolism, and transcription factors involved in anergy.
The “5G ESSENCE” Architectural Approach for the Provision of Enhanced 5G Network Facilities

Based upon the progress of the 5G-PPP Phase 1 SESAME project, the actual 5G ESSENCE approach addresses the paradigms of Edge Cloud computing and Small Cell-as-aService (SCaaS) by fueling the drivers and removing the barriers in the Small Cell market, aiming to play a “key role” in the 5G ecosystem. 5G ESSENCE provides a highly flexible and scalable platform, offering several benefits to the market sector. In the present approach, we identify some among the critical challenges that 5G ESSENCE intends to deal with and we propose a more enhanced architectural framework, able to satisfy the respective needs. The technical approach exploits the benefits of the centralisation of Small Cell functions as scale grows through an edge cloud environment based on a two-tier architecture: a first distributed tier for providing low latency services and a second centralised tier for providing high processing power for computing-intensive network applications. This allows decoupling the control and user planes of the Radio Access Network (RAN) and achieving the benefits of Cloud-RAN without the enormous fronthaul latency restrictions. The use of end-to-end network slicing mechanisms will allow sharing the 5G ESSENCE infrastructure among multiple operators/vertical industries and customising its capabilities on a per-tenant basis, creating a neutral host market and reducing operational costs. Keywords—5G; Cloud-enabled Small Cell (CESC); Mobile Edge Computing (MEC); Network Functions Virtualization (NFV); network softwarization; network virtualization; multitenacy; Radio Resource Management (RRM); Small Cell (SC); Virtual Network Function (VNF).
Integrating variability in loudness and duration in a multidimensional model of speech rhythm: Evidence from Indian English and British English

Most research on speech rhythm has focussed on duration. For example, [1] suggested the normalised pairwise variability index for vocalic intervals (nPVI-V) in order to measure the variability of vocalic durations. This paper argues that speech rhythm research should also take into account other correlates of prominence as well as their interaction. The duration-based nPVI, or nPVI-V(dur), is supplemented by an nPVI that measures variability in average loudness, nPVI-V(avgLoud). These two metrics account for variability in duration and loudness, but cannot measure if loudness and duration reinforce each other by varying simultaneously in the same direction. This simultaneous variability is accounted for by the combined nPVIV(dur+avgLoud), which is higher than the average of the other two measures if vocalic intervals that are longer than average are also louder than average. The three metrics are subsequently applied to recordings of a reading task performed by 20 speakers of Indian English (IndE) and 10 speakers of British English (BrE). Results indicate that IndE has less variability in duration and less variability in loudness than BrE. In addition, IndE has less simultaneous variability in duration and loudness than BrE. This indicates that duration and loudness are less often used together as cues to prominence in IndE compared to BrE.
Intonation Patterns of Morelos Nahuatl

There are still relatively few studies on the phonetics and phonology of the indigenous languages of Mexico, and just a minority of them deals with less explored areas like prosody or, specifically, intonation. This study reports a preliminary analysis of Nahuatl intonation, taking into account its phonological characteristics: a) trochaic binary rhythm; b) generation of secondary stress inside rhythmic structures; c) generation of rhythmic groups according to clause structures; d) phonetic syllable lengthening at the end of sentences; e) laryngealization or voicelessness at the end of utterances, and f) vowel lengthening. Data collected by means of different methods, developed in order to obtain authentic and spontaneous utterances, show that different sentence types tend to have specific intonation patterns with many typo-logically common features and some original characteristics.
27_159-166_Abdullahi et al.,_Manuscript for BAJOPAS

The increasing prevalence and distribution of malaria is due to a number of factors, one of which is the emergence and spread of drug resistant parasites. Efforts are now being directed towards the discovery and development of new chemically diverse reports on the phytochemistry and in vitro antiplasmodial properties of aqueous and ethanol stem bark extract of Jatropha curcas. Maceration method of extraction was used. The two extracts were assayed at various concentrations of 10 mg/ml, 5 mg/ml, 2.5 mg/ml and 1.25 mg/ml for antiplasmodial activity against Plasmodium falciparum and were also screened for the presence of phytochemicals following standard procedure. The phytochemicals detected from both extracts were alkaloids, cardiac glycosides, anthranol glycosides, saponins, phytosterols, phenols, flavonoids, protein and amino acids and diterpenes. The result of antiplasmodial activity revealed that both the aqueous and ethanol stem bark extracts of Jatropha curcas malaria parasite. However, the aqueous extract showed statistically (P<0.05) higher activities than the ethanol extract. At extract concentration of 10mg/ml, both the ethanol and aqueous extracts produced the highest parasite clearance rate after 72 hours incubation period, with percentage elimination of 77%. From these observations, Jatropha curcas is likely to contain promising chemical compounds which can be utilized as an effective plant treatment of malaria.