Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reptile Host Associations of Ixodes scapularis in Florida and Implications for Borrelia spp. Ecology

Host associations of the tick vector for Lyme Borreliosis, Ixodes scapularis, differ across its geographic range. In Florida, the primary competent mammalian host of Lyme disease is not present but instead has other small mammals and herpetofauna that I. scapularis can utilize. We investigated host–tick association for lizards, the abundance of ticks on lizards and the prevalence of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato (sl). To determine which lizard species I. scapularis associates with, we examined 11 native lizard species from historical herpetological specimens. We found that (294/5828) of the specimens had attached ticks. The most infested species were Plestiodon skinks (241/1228) and Ophisaurus glass lizards (25/572). These species were then targeted at six field sites across Florida and sampled from June to September 2020, using drift fence arrays, cover boards and fishing. We captured 125 lizards and collected 233 immature I. scapularis. DNA was extracted from ticks and lizard tissue samples, followed by PCR testing for Borrelia spp. Of the captured lizards, 69/125 were infested with immature I. scapularis. We did not detect Borrelia spp. from tick or lizard tissue samples. Overall, we found that lizards are commonly infested with I. scapularis. However, we did not detect Borrelia burgdorferi sl. These findings add to a growing body of evidence that lizards are poor reservoir species.
Antioxidative Effects of Carrot-Derived Nanovesicles in Cardiomyoblast and Neuroblastoma Cells

Oxidative stress is implicated in many diseases, including cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases. Because an increased level of oxidative stress causes apoptosis, it is necessary to inhibit cellular responses to oxidative stress. In this study, Carex, a nanovesicle from carrot, was isolated and investigated as a novel biomaterial with antioxidative function in cardiomyoblasts and neuroblastoma cells. A high concentration of nanovesicles was purified from carrots, using size-exclusion chromatography in combination with ultrafiltration. The characterization of Carex demonstrated that it had properties similar to those of extracellular vesicles. Carex showed low cytotoxicity in both H9C2 cardiomyoblasts and SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cells, when a high level of Carex was delivered to the cells. Carex was further investigated for its antioxidative and apoptotic effects, and it significantly inhibited ROS generation and apoptosis in vitro in myocardial infarction and Parkinson’s disease models. Carex inhibited the reduction of antioxidative molecule expression, including Nrf-2, HO-1, and NQO-1, in both models. Considering its antioxidative function and high production yield, Carex is a potential drug candidate for the treatment of myocardial infarction as well as Parkinson’s disease. Thus, the results demonstrated in this study will contribute to an exploration of a novel drug, using nanovesicles from plants, including carrots.
Effect of Bivalent Vaccines against Vibrio anguillarum and Aeromonas salmonicida Subspecie achromogenes on Health and Survival of Turbot

The efficacy of intraperitoneal injection of an oil-based bivalent autogenous vaccine and the commercial vaccine AlphaJect 3000 (Pharmaq AS) to prevent atypical furunculosis and vibriosis in turbot was analyzed. The effect of both vaccines on health parameters and survival of fish after challenge with V. anguillarum and A. salmonicida subsp. achromogenes was tested. The autogenous vaccine conferred high levels of protection and long-lasting immunity against both pathogens with a single dose. However, severe side effects were observed in turbot injected with this autovaccine and minor negative effects with the AlphaJect 3000 vaccine and the adjuvant Montanide or Eolane. All vaccinated fish showed remarkable antibody agglutination titers, higher than those of control fish, which were maintained 160 d after vaccination. In conclusion, the autogenous bivalent vaccine induces long-lasting protection against atypical furunculosis and vibriosis in turbot, after administration of a single dose, at the cost of high side effects in fish. Therefore, the development of new vaccines should focus on autovaccines and the use of liquid paraffin adjuvants that increase protection with reduced or no side effects.
Critical Systematic Review of Zoonoses and Transboundary Animal Diseases’ Prioritization in Africa

Background: Disease prioritization aims to enhance resource use efficiency concerning human and animal health systems’ preparedness and response to the most important problems for the optimization of beneficial outcomes. In sub-Sahara Africa (SSA), several prioritizations of zoonoses and transboundary animal diseases (TADs) have been implemented at different scales to characterize potential disease impacts. Method and principal findings: In this systematic review, we analyze the methodologies used, outcomes, and their relevance by discussing criteria required to align decision-makers’ perceptions of impacts to those of other stakeholders for different prioritization in SSA. In general, the sectorial representativeness of stakeholders for processes implemented with the support of international partners showed slight differences with the absence of local stakeholders. Whatever the tool prioritized, zoonoses were similar in general because of the structured nature of those tools in assessing decision-makers’ preferences through value trade-offs between criteria while ensuring transparency and reproducibility. However, by involving field practitioners and farmers, there were different outcomes with processes concerning only decision makers and experts who were more sensitive to infectious TADs, while the former raised parasitic disease constraints. In this context, multicriteria decision analysis-based zoonoses and TADs prioritizations involving a balanced participation of stakeholders might contribute to bridging these divergences, whatever the scale. Conclusion and significance: Prioritization processes were important steps toward building and harmonizing technical laboratory and surveillance networks to coordinate projects to address priority zoonoses and TADs at the country and/or sub-regional level. Those processes should be enhanced.
Prevalence and clinical outcomes of pleural effusion in COVID‐19 patients: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

Observational studies indicate that pleural effusion has an association with risk and the clinical prognosis of COVID‐19 disease; however, the available literature on this area is inconsistent. The objective of this systematic review and meta‐analysis is to evaluate the correlation between COVID‐19 disease and pleural effusion. A rigorous literature search was conducted using multiple databases. All eligible observational studies were included from around the globe. The pooled prevalence and associated 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated using the random effect model. Mantel–Haenszel odds ratios were produced to report overall effect size using random effect models for severity and mortality outcomes. Funnel plots, Egger regression tests, and Begg–Mazumdar's rank correlation test were used to appraise publication bias. Data from 23 studies including 6234 COVID‐19 patients was obtained. The overall prevalence of pleural effusion in COVID‐19 patients was 9.55% (95% CI, I2 = 92%). Our findings also indicated that the presence of pleural effusions associated with increased risk of severity of disease(OR = 5.08, 95% CI 3.14–8.22, I2 = 77.4%) and mortality due to illness(OR = 4.53, 95% CI 2.16–9.49, I2 = 66%) compared with patients without pleural effusion. Sensitivity analyses illustrated a similar effect size while decreasing the heterogeneity. No significant publication bias was evident in the meta‐analysis. The presence of pleural effusion can assist as a prognostic factor to evaluate the risk of worse outcomes in COVID‐19 patients hence, it is recommended that hospitalized COVID‐19 patients with pleural effusion should be managed on an early basis.
Predicting Impacts of Climate Change on Northward Range Expansion of Invasive Weeds in South Korea

Predicting the distribution of invasive weeds under climate change is important for the early identification of areas that are susceptible to invasion and for the adoption of the best preventive measures. Here, we predicted the habitat suitability of 16 invasive weeds in response to climate change and land cover changes in South Korea using a maximum entropy modeling approach. Based on the predictions of the model, climate change is likely to increase habitat suitability. Currently, the area of moderately suitable and highly suitable habitats is estimated to be 8877.46 km2, and 990.29 km2, respectively, and these areas are expected to increase up to 496.52% by 2050 and 1439.65% by 2070 under the representative concentration pathways 4.5 scenario across the country. Although habitat suitability was estimated to be highest in the southern regions (<36° latitude), the central and northern regions are also predicted to have substantial increases in suitable habitat areas. Our study revealed that climate change would exacerbate the threat of northward weed invasions by shifting the climatic barriers of invasive weeds from the southern region. Thus, it is essential to initiate control and management strategies in the southern region to prevent further invasions into new areas.
Mediating role of career self-efficacy between clinical learning environment and professional identity in nursing students.

AIMS To explore whether the clinical learning environment (CLE) has an indirect effect on professional identity through the mediation of career self-efficacy (CSE) in nursing students. BACKGROUND The shortage of nurses has become a universal problem worldwide. Improving nurses' professional identity is considered an effective way to reduce the turnover rate of nurses. However, little is known about the relationship between the CLE, CSE and professional identity. DESIGN An observational, questionnaire-based, cross-sectional study. METHODS A web-based survey was completed by 212 undergraduate nursing students from June to August 2018. Measures included Chinese translations of the CLE, the Career Self-Efficacy Scale, and the Professional Identity Scale. RESULTS Both the CLE (r = 0.552, p < 0.01) and CSE (r = 0.868, p < 0.01) correlated positively with professional identity. The indirect effect of the CLE on professional identity through CSE was positive (β = 0.342, p < 0.05) and the effect was 77.2%. CONCLUSIONS A better CLE and higher scores in CSE were associated with professional identity in nursing students, and a better CLE had an indirect effect on the professional identity of students through CSE.
A rapid segmentation method of cell boundary for developing embryos using machine learning with a personal computer

Cell segmentation is crucial in the study of morphogenesis in developing embryos, but it had been limited in its accuracy until machine learning methods for image segmentation like U‐Net. However, these methods take too much time. In this study, we provide a rapid method for cell segmentation using machine learning with a personal computer, termed Cell Segmentator using Machine Learning (CSML). CSML took four seconds per image with a personal computer for segmentation on average, much less than time to obtain an image. We observed that F‐value of segmentation by CSML was around 0.97, showing better performance than state‐of‐the‐art methods like RACE and watershed in assessing the segmentation of Xenopus ectodermal cells. CSML also showed slightly better performance and faster than other machine learning‐based methods such as U‐Net. CSML required only one whole embryo image for training a Fully Convolutional Network classifier and only two parameters. To validate its accuracy, we compared CSML to other methods in assessing several indicators of cell shape. We also examined the generality of this approach by measuring its performance of segmentation of independent images. Our data demonstrate the superiority of CSML, and we expect this application to improve efficiency in cell shape studies.
Suitability of NB-IoT for Indoor Industrial Environment: A Survey and Insights

The Internet of Things (IoT) and its applications in industrial settings are set to bring in the fourth industrial revolution. The industrial environment consisting of high profile manufacturing plants and a variety of equipment is inherently characterized by high reflectiveness, causing significant multi-path components that affect the propagation of wireless communications—a challenge among others that needs to be resolved. This paper provides a detailed insight into Narrow-Band IoT (NB-IoT), Industrial IoT (IIoT), and Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) within the context of indoor industrial environments. It presents the applications of NB-IoT for industrial settings, such as the challenges associated with these applications. Furthermore, future research directions were put forth in the areas of NB-IoT network management using self-organizing network (SON) technology, edge computing for scalability enhancement, security in NB-IoT generated data, and proposing a suitable propagation model for reliable wireless communications.
Regional Prevalence of Intermediate Leptospira spp. in Humans: A Meta-Analysis

Leptospirosis is one of the most widespread bacterial diseases caused by pathogenic Leptospira. There are broad clinical manifestations due to varied pathogenicity of Leptospira spp. , which can be classified into three clusters such as pathogenic, intermediate, and saprophytic. Intermediate Leptospira spp. can either be pathogenic or non-pathogenic and they have been reported to cause mild to severe forms of leptospirosis in several studies, contributing to the disease burden. Hence, this study aimed to estimate the global prevalence of intermediate Leptospira spp. in humans using meta-analysis with region-wise stratification. The articles were searched from three databases which include PubMed, Scopus, and ScienceDirect. Seven studies were included consisting of two regions based on United Nations geo-scheme regions, among 469 records identified. Statistical analysis was performed using RevMan software. The overall prevalence estimate of intermediate Leptospira spp. in humans was 86% and the pooled prevalences were 96% and 17% for the American and Asia regions, respectively. The data also revealed that Leptospira wolffii was the most predominantly found compared to the other intermediate species identified from the included studies, which were Leptospira inadai and Leptospira broomii. The estimated prevalence data from this study could be used to develop better control and intervention strategies in combating human leptospirosis.
Using Privacy Respecting Sound Analysis to Improve Bluetooth Based Proximity Detection for COVID-19 Exposure Tracing and Social Distancing

We propose to use ambient sound as a privacy-aware source of information for COVID-19-related social distance monitoring and contact tracing. The aim is to complement currently dominant Bluetooth Low Energy Received Signal Strength Indicator (BLE RSSI) approaches. These often struggle with the complexity of Radio Frequency (RF) signal attenuation, which is strongly influenced by specific surrounding characteristics. This in turn renders the relationship between signal strength and the distance between transmitter and receiver highly non-deterministic. We analyze spatio-temporal variations in what we call “ambient sound fingerprints”. We leverage the fact that ambient sound received by a mobile device is a superposition of sounds from sources at many different locations in the environment. Such a superposition is determined by the relative position of those sources with respect to the receiver. We present a method for using the above general idea to classify proximity between pairs of users based on Kullback–Leibler distance between sound intensity histograms. The method is based on intensity analysis only, and does not require the collection of any privacy sensitive signals. Further, we show how this information can be fused with BLE RSSI features using adaptive weighted voting. We also take into account that sound is not available in all windows. Our approach is evaluated in elaborate experiments in real-world settings. The results show that both Bluetooth and sound can be used to differentiate users within and out of critical distance (1.5 m) with high accuracies of 77% and 80% respectively. Their fusion, however, improves this to 86%, making evident the merit of augmenting BLE RSSI with sound. We conclude by discussing strengths and limitations of our approach and highlighting directions for future work.
An Indole-Based Fluorescent Chemosensor for Detecting Zn2+ in Aqueous Media and Zebrafish

An indole-based fluorescent chemosensor IH-Sal was synthesized to detect Zn2+. IH-Sal displayed a marked fluorescence increment with Zn2+. The detection limit (0.41 μM) of IH-Sal for Zn2+ was greatly below that suggested by the World Health Organization. IH-Sal can quantify Zn2+ in real water samples. More significantly, IH-Sal could determine and depict the presence of Zn2+ in zebrafish. The detecting mechanism of IH-Sal toward Zn2+ was illustrated by fluorescence and UV–visible spectroscopy, DFT calculations, 1H NMR titration and ESI mass.
Enhancing Detection of SSMVEP Induced by Action Observation Stimuli Based on Task-Related Component Analysis

Action observation (AO)-based brain-computer interface (BCI) is an important technology in stroke rehabilitation training. It has the advantage of simultaneously inducing steady-state motion visual evoked potential (SSMVEP) and activating sensorimotor rhythm. Moreover, SSMVEP could be utilized to perform classification. However, SSMVEP is composed of complex modulation frequencies. Traditional canonical correlation analysis (CCA) suffers from poor recognition performance in identifying those modulation frequencies at short stimulus duration. To address this issue, task-related component analysis (TRCA) was utilized to deal with SSMVEP for the first time. An interesting phenomenon was found: different modulated frequencies in SSMVEP distributed in different task-related components. On this basis, a multi-component TRCA method was proposed. All the significant task-related components were utilized to construct multiple spatial filters to enhance the detection of SSMVEP. Further, a combination of TRCA and CCA was proposed to utilize both advantages. Results showed that the accuracies using the proposed methods were significant higher than that using CCA at all window lengths and significantly higher than that using ensemble-TRCA at short window lengths (≤2 s). Therefore, the proposed methods further validate the induced modulation frequencies and will speed up the application of the AO-based BCI in rehabilitation.
Advances in SIV/SHIV Non-Human Primate Models of NeuroAIDS

Non-human primates (NHPs) are the most relevant model of Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and neuroAIDS, being of great importance in explaining the pathogenesis of HIV-induced nervous system damage. Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV)/ Simian-Human Immunodeficiency Virus (SHIV)-infected monkeys have provided evidence of complex interactions between the virus and host that include host immune response, viral genetic diversity, and genetic susceptibility, which may explain virus-associated central nervous system (CNS) pathology and HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND). In this article, we review the recent progress contributions obtained using monkey models of HIV infection of the CNS, neuropathogenesis and SIV encephalitis (SIVE), with an emphasis on pharmacologic therapies and dependable markers that predict development of CNS AIDS.
Double Crystallization and Phase Separation in Polyethylene—Syndiotactic Polypropylene Di-Block Copolymers

Crystallization and phase separation in the melt in semicrystalline block copolymers (BCPs) compete in defining the final solid state structure and morphology. In crystalline–crystalline di-block copolymers the sequence of crystallization of the two blocks plays a definitive role. In this work we show that the use of epitaxial crystallization on selected crystalline substrates allows achieving of a control over the crystallization of the blocks by inducing crystal orientations of the different crystalline phases and a final control over the global morphology. A sample of polyethylene-block-syndiotactic polypropylene (PE-b-sPP) block copolymers has been synthesized with a stereoselective living organometallic catalyst and epitaxially crystallized onto crystals of two different crystalline substrates, p-terphenyl (3Ph) and benzoic acid (BA). The epitaxial crystallization on both substrates produces formation of highly ordered morphologies with crystalline lamellae of sPP and PE highly oriented along one direction. However, the epitaxial crystallization onto 3Ph should generate a single orientation of sPP crystalline lamellae highly aligned along one direction and a double orientation of PE lamellae, whereas BA crystals should induce high orientation of only PE crystalline lamellae. Thanks to the use of the two selective substrates, the final morphology reveals the sequence of crystallization events during cooling from the melt and what is the dominant event that drives the final morphology. The observed single orientation of both crystalline PE and sPP phases on both substrates, indeed, indicates that sPP crystallizes first onto 3Ph defining the overall morphology and PE crystallizes after sPP in the confined interlamellar sPP regions. Instead, PE crystallizes first onto BA defining the overall morphology and sPP crystallizes after PE in the confined interlamellar PE regions. This allows for discriminating between the different crystalline phases and defining the final morphology, which depends on which polymer block crystallizes first on the substrate. This work also shows that the use of epitaxial crystallization and the choice of suitable substrate offer a means to produce oriented nanostructures and morphologies of block copolymers depending on the composition and the substrates.
Techno - economic analysis of fermentation residues management places a question mark against current practices

ABSTRACT Approximately half of the energy produced by biogas combustion engines is in the form of low-grade heat. A plethora of initiatives have been undertaken to utilize this energy source. In commercial terms, only a few technologies have proven to be economically viable in practice. These include: 1) feedstock pre-treatment; 2) drying of agricultural commodities; and 3) low-temperature pyrolysis of the fermentation residues into charcoal or biochar. Whilst low-temperature pyrolysis appears to be the most profitable, current legislation and qualitative standards gives preference to the application of fermentation residues to arable soils. Analyses have shown that if current legislation is not updated, this significant energy source will remain unutilized, which can be interpreted as having a negative impact on the environment.