Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Study of Several Alginate-Based Hydrogels for In Vitro 3D Cell Cultures

Hydrogel, a special system of polymer solutions, can be obtained through the physical/chemical/enzymic crosslinking of polymer chains in a water-based dispersion medium. Different compositions and crosslinking methods endow hydrogel with diverse physicochemical properties. Those hydrogels with suitable physicochemical properties hold manifold functions in biomedical fields, such as cell transplantation, tissue engineering, organ manufacturing, drug releasing and pathological model analysis. In this study, several alginate-based composite hydrogels, including gelatin/alginate (G-A), gelatin/alginate/agarose (G-A-A), fibrinogen/alginate (F-A), fibrinogen/alginate/agarose (F-A-A) and control alginate (A) and alginate/agarose (A-A), were constructed. We researched the advantages and disadvantages of these hydrogels in terms of their microscopic structure (cell living space), water holding capacity, swelling rate, swelling–erosion ratio, mechanical properties and biocompatibility. Briefly, alginate-based hydrogels can be used for three-dimensional (3D) cell culture alone. However, when mixed with other natural polymers in different proportions, a relatively stable network with a good cytocompatibility, mechanical strength and water holding capacity can be formed. The physical and chemical properties of the hydrogels can be adjusted by changing the composition, proportion and cross-linking methods of the polymers. Conclusively, the G-A-A and F-A-A hydrogels are the best hydrogels for the in vitro 3D cell cultures and pathological model construction.
Carbapenems consumption and Klebsiella resistance in intensive care units in Egypt: A study to evaluate the effect of an antimicrobial stewardship program

Background The high prevalence of carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella imposes optimizing antibiotic consumption. We aimed to evaluate the impact of antibiotic stewardship program on carbapenem consumption and the Klebsiella resistance. Method We retrospectively evaluated critically ill patients with isolated Klebsiella species from Elaraby hospital, Egypt during the period from April 2017 to January 2019. We collected data related to carbapenems consumption and Klebsiella clinical isolates with their antimicrobial susceptibility. Based on susceptibility, Klebsiella isolates were classified into sensitive, extended spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL) producer, and carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella (CRK), respectively. Our primary outcome was the change in carbapenems consumption after implementing the program, while the secondary outcomes were the changes in the incidence of CRK. Results The study included 205 patients with isolated Klebsiella species during the study period. The antibiotic stewardship program started in March 2018. Out of the 205 patients, 61 patients (29.8%) represented the pre-intervention sample, and 144 patients (70.2%) represented the post-intervention sample. Applying the antibiotic stewardship program was associated with a significant decrease in the carbapenems consumption from 38.9 to 26.6 defined daily dose/1000 patient-days (p = 0.02). The incidence of CRK was decreased from 85.25% of total Klebsiella isolates to 48.6% (p < 0.001). Klebsiella species were more likely to be in a lower category of resistance after applying the program with an odds ratio of 6.3 (2.88–13.73) using ordinal logistic regression. Conclusion Applying the antibiotic stewardship program could reduce the unnecessary carbapenems use in the ICU with a subsequent decrease in the emergence of the Klebsiella-resistant strains.
Inflection-Point Nutrition Support Determined by Oral Mucosal Apoptosis Rate Is a Novel Assessment Strategy for Personalized Nutrition: A Prospective Cohort Study

Background: Energy intake and nutritional status influences a patient’s recovery from major abdominal surgery. The aim of this study is to explore and validate the clinical feasibility of an inflection-point nutrition strategy for personalized nutrition in gastric cancer patients after surgery. Methods: We conducted a prospective cohort study from a single tertiary referral hospital. Patients diagnosed with gastric cancer who met the inclusion criteria were included in this study. We collected the demographic and clinic pathological characteristics of included patients. Patients were divided into a formular nutrition (FN) and inflection-point nutrition (IPN) group. We monitored the perioperative dynamics of the oral mucosal epithelia cell apoptosis rate. Predictive factors for inflection phenomenon were investigated in univariate and multivariate analysis. Results: A total of 53 gastric cancer patients were included. A total of 30 (56.6%) patients showed the inflection phenomenon, with 9 (34.6%) patients in the FN group and 21 (77.8%) patients in the IPN group, respectively. We found that patients with the inflection phenomenon had a shorter duration of hospital stay compared to patients without the inflection phenomenon (p = 0.04). In multivariate analysis, independent predictive factors for inflection phenomenon were age (p = 0.015), operation time ≤ 300 min (p = 0.012), and average energy intake ≥ 25 Kcal/kg/day (p = 0.038). Conclusions: Our findings for the first time revealed that the oral epithelial cell apoptosis rate can promptly reflect the patients’ perioperative nutrition needs. Meanwhile, we developing a novel and feasible nutrition therapy guided by the oral epithelial cell apoptosis rate is novel in gastric cancer patients that have undergone laparoscopic gastrectomy.
Relationship between Vitamin C Deficiency and Cognitive Impairment in Older Hospitalised Patients: A Cross-Sectional Study

Vitamin C is a powerful antioxidant and facilitates neurotransmission. This study explored association between vitamin C deficiency and cognitive impairment in older hospitalised patients. This prospective study recruited 160 patients ≥ 75 years admitted under a Geriatric Unit in Australia. Cognitive assessment was performed by use of the Mini-Mental-State-Examination (MMSE) and patients with MMSE scores <24 were classified as cognitively-impaired. Fasting plasma vitamin C levels were determined using high-performance-liquid-chromatography. Patients were classified as vitamin C deficient if their levels were below 11 micromol/L. Logistic regression analysis was used to determine whether vitamin C deficiency was associated with cognitive impairment after adjustment for various covariates. The mean (SD) age was 84.4 (6.4) years and 60% were females. A total of 91 (56.9%) were found to have cognitive impairment, while 42 (26.3%) were found to be vitamin C deficient. The mean (SD) MMSE scores were significantly lower among patients who were vitamin C deficient (24.9 (3.3) vs. 23.6 (3.4), p-value = 0.03). Logistic regression analysis suggested that vitamin C deficiency was 2.9-fold more likely to be associated with cognitive impairment after adjustment for covariates (aOR 2.93, 95% CI 1.05–8.19, p-value = 0.031). Vitamin C deficiency is common and is associated with cognitive impairment in older hospitalised patients.
Antibodies against Anthrax Toxins: A Long Way from Benchlab to the Bedside

Anthrax is an acute disease caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis, and is a potential biowarfare/bioterrorist agent. Its pulmonary form, caused by inhalation of the spores, is highly lethal and is mainly related to injury caused by the toxins secretion. Antibodies neutralizing the toxins of B. anthracis are regarded as promising therapeutic drugs, and two are already approved by the Federal Drug Administration. We developed a recombinant human-like humanized antibody, 35PA83 6.20, that binds the protective antigen and that neutralized anthrax toxins in-vivo in White New Zealand rabbits infected with the lethal 9602 strain by intranasal route. Considering these promising results, the preclinical and clinical phase one development was funded and a program was started. Unfortunately, after 5 years, the preclinical development was cancelled due to industrial and scientific issues. This shutdown underlined the difficulty particularly, but not only, for an academic laboratory to proceed to clinical development, despite the drug candidate being promising. Here, we review our strategy and some preliminary results, and we discuss the issues that led to the no-go decision of the pre-clinical development of 35PA83 6.20 mAb. Our review provides general information to the laboratories planning a (pre-)clinical development.
The data-driven model of technology-based new ventures growth

This study proposes and tests a novel data-driven approach for describing technology-based new ventures' (TBNVs) growth trajectory. Due to its conceptual character with very limited empirical evidence, the organizational life cycle (OLC) theory cannot serve as an accurate instrument for operationally identifying TBNVs evolution phases and transition points. However, that is a remarkably important task, directly influencing the process of new venture development. For instance, one of the common mistakes is to manage a TBNV as a regular mature company during the early stage of its development, i.e., to employ bureaucratic procedures, blur resources to unnecessary operations, or hire high-cost top management. The opposite is also true: to sustain the growth, developed organizations should not, for instance, have an uncertain hierarchy or unclear responsibilities. As a result, this discrepancy often leads to bankruptcy and the close of a venture despite the promising of the initial idea.
Optimal Data Placement for Stripe Merging in Locally Repairable Codes

Erasure coding is a storage-efficient redundancy scheme for modern clustered storage systems by storing stripes of data and parity blocks across the nodes of multiple clusters; in particular, locally repairable codes (LRC) continue to be one popular family of practical erasure codes that achieve high repair efficiency. To efficiently adapt to the dynamic requirements of access efficiency and reliability, storage systems often perform redundancy transitioning by tuning erasure coding parameters. In this paper, we apply a stripe merging approach for redundancy transitioning of LRC in clustered storage systems, by merging multiple LRC stripes to form a large LRC stripe with low storage redundancy. We show that the random placement of multiple LRC stripes that are being merged can lead to high cross-cluster transitioning bandwidth. To this end, we design an optimal data placement scheme that provably minimizes the cross-cluster traffic for stripe merging, by judiciously placing the blocks to be merged in the same cluster while maintaining the repair efficiency of LRC. We prototype and implement our optimal data placement scheme on a local cluster. Our evaluation shows that it significantly reduces the transitioning time by up to 43.2% compared to the baseline.
The spinal cord contains positionally distinct astrocyte subtypes whose identities are specified by a homeodomain transcriptional code

Astrocytes constitute the most abundant cell type in the CNS, and play diverse functional roles, but the ontogenetic origins of this phenotypic diversity are poorly understood. We have investigated whether positional identity, a fundamental organizing principle governing the generation of neuronal subtype diversity, is also relevant to astrocyte diversification. We identified three positionally distinct subtypes of white matter astrocytes in the spinal cord, which can be distinguished by the combinatorial expression of Reelin and Slit1. These astrocyte subtypes derive from progenitor domains expressing the homeodomain transcription factors Pax6 and Nkx6.1, respectively. Lossand gain-of-function experiments indicate that the positional identity of these astrocyte subtypes is controlled by Pax6 and Nkx6.1, in a combinatorial manner. Thus, positional identity is an organizing principle underlying astrocyte, as well as neuronal, subtype diversification, and is controlled by a homeodomain transcriptional code whose elements are re-utilized following the specification of neuronal identity earlier in development.
Modelling the WEF Nexus to support Sustainable Development: An African Case

In today’s world, rising populations and growing economies have led to an ever-increasing demand for water; for domestic, industrial and agricultural purposes. This water stress is more acutely felt in the global south which is experiencing a much more rapid rate of development than the rest of the world. Africa in particular, is the fastest growing region of the globe as it undergoes a population explosion and an economic boom. In addition, the region is also one of the most vulnerable in terms of adverse impacts of climate change; sea-level rise, flooding, and drought. This perfect storm of water-related challenges is exacerbated by poor management, placing the continent in dire need of new and efficient approaches towards managing its resource. This chapter examines the WEF-Nexus from an African perspective, presenting the WEF-Nexus approach as a key driver for Sustainable Development in the region. Drawing from research carried out as part of the EU Horizon 2020-funded DAFNE project, the chapter goes on to describe a model for Economic Developments for the WEF Nexus at river basin scale and its incorporation into a Decision Analytic Framework that integrates environmental, socio-cultural, legal and policy dimensions of the WEF-Nexus.
Cardiomyocytic FoxP3 is involved in Parkin-mediated mitophagy during cardiac remodeling and the regulatory role of triptolide

Rationale: Forkhead/winged helix transcriptional factor P3 (FoxP3) is a well-studied transcription factor that maintains the activity of T cells, but whether cardiomyocytic FoxP3 participates in cardiac remodeling (CR) remains unclear. The present study was to investigate the role of cardiomyocytic FoxP3 in CR from the perspective of mitophagy. Methods: CR was induced by angiotensin II (AngII) in vitro, or by isoproterenol (Iso) in vivo using male C57 mice or FoxP3DTR mice. Histological changes were observed by hematoxylin-eosin and Masson staining. Molecular changes were detected by immunohistochemistry, immunofluorescence, immunoblotting, and real-time PCR. Mitophagy was shaped by transmission electron microscopy and co-localization. The mRNA expression was operated by siRNA or adeno associated virus (AAV). Molecular interactions were detected by co-localization, immunoprecipitation (IP), and chromatin IP. Results: The expression and nuclear translocation of cardiomyocytic FoxP3 were downregulated in CR, while they were upregulated after triptolide (TP) treatment. In left ventricle (LV) remodeling in mice, autophagy was activated continuously in the myocardium, and TP significantly attenuated it. AngII induced massive mitophagy characterized by the activation of autophagy regulatory protein 5 (Atg5)-dependent autophagic flux. Critically, Parkin was identified as the main adaptor mediated myocardial mitophagy and was responsible for the effect of TP. Moreover, FoxP3 was responsible for the downregulation of Parkin and inhibited AngII-induced cardiac mitophagy. We found that mitophagy increased significantly and the inhibition of TP treatment reversed completely in FoxP3-deficient LVs. Mechanistically, FoxP3 interacted with a motif located downstream of the activating transcription 4 (ATF4)-binding motif involved in the promoter of Parkin and hijacked free nuclear ATF4 to decrease Parkin mRNA expression in CR. Conclusion: Cardiomyocytic FoxP3 could negatively regulate Parkin-mediated mitophagy in CR, and restoring cardiomyocytic FoxP3 activity provided a cardioprotective strategy by inhibiting excessive cardiac mitophagy.
Application of Energy Monitoring Module for Evaluation of Transferred Energy into SPT Sampler

Uncertainty of the transferred energy into the standard penetration test (SPT) sampler leads to erroneous SPT results. In this study, an energy monitoring module is used for the evaluation of the transferred energy into the SPT sampler. The energy monitoring module is connected at the head of the SPT sampler. Inside of the energy monitoring module, a uniaxial accelerometer and four strain gauges are installed to measure the dynamic responses, which can be used for the calculation of the transferred energy via Force-Velocity integration method. For the application of the energy monitoring module, an experimental study is carried out. The experimental result shows that the transferred energy into the SPT sampler is smaller than the transferred energy measured at the head of the driving rod. Therefore, this study demonstrates that the evaluation of the transferred energy into the SPT sampler may be used for the correction of the SPT N-values to obtain a reasonable SPT result.
UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MARA NANOSTRUCTURED TITANIUM DIOXIDE THIN FILM FOR DYE-SENSITIZED SOLAR CELL APPLICATIONS

Nanostructured Titanium Dioxide (TiC^) thin film for Dye-Sensitized Solid State Solar Cell (DSSSC) application has been synthesized using sol-gel method and deposited onto silicon and glass substrates using spin coating technique. The optimized annealing temperature and sol-gel concentration were obtained a| 500°C and 0.2M, respectively. Basically, there were four properties studied; surface morphology, structural, electrical and optical properties. Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FE-SEM) / Scanning Electron microscopy (SEM) were carried out to observe the changes in surface morphology whenever there are changes on the parameters. X-Ray Diffractions (XRD) characterization of the samples was taken to examine the TiC>2 crystalline phases and the intensity of nanocrystalline particles in the thin film. I-V measurement using two-point probe equipment was used to observe the electrical properties which include the measuring of the sheet resistance, the resistivity and the conductivity of the TiC>2 thin film. The optical properties were observed using UV-Vis-NIR spectrophotometer. The thin film transmittance and the band gap energy were also observed using this spectrophotometer. At the end of this research, uniform and homogeneous TiC>2 thin film has successfully prepared. By controlling the sol-gel concentration, a transparent TiC>2 thin film has been developed which has high transmittance property of above 80%. The TiC>2 thin films which were annealed at a temperature of 500°C and prepared at 0.2M of sol-gel precursor concentration gave the optimum results. By adding TiC>2 nanopowder, the surface area and porosity of TiC>2 thin film is improved, thus good candidate to use in DSSSC application.
Formulation and Nutritional Evaluation of Instant Diet for Children Fortified with Inshore Lizardfish (Synodus foetens)

The limited resources and inappropriate knowledge on effective utilization of available resources like fisheries in Eritrea have been resulting in severe malnutrition, especially among children. Dura Milk Kebkebe (DMK) -a traditional weaning food -is one of the improved weaning foods used as a food supplement for infants and children in addition to breastfeeding. A highly nutritive instant diet with maize and carrot fortified with fish powder from inshore Lizardfish has been prepared to aim to ensure the availability of low-cost weaning food in Eritrea. The nutritional composition of developed food contained proteins 19.50±1.58g, carbohydrates 52.50±3.15g, fats 6.03±2.19g, fiber 4.84±1.15g, and ash 3.26±0.98 per 100g of dry weight. The fatty acid profile of the developed weaning food has shown 1.71±1.11g of polyunsaturated fatty acids, 2.26±0.05g of monounsaturated fatty acids 2.06±1.51of saturated fatty acids per 100g of sample with a potential nutritional value which was found better than DMK. The microbiological analysis of the weaning food has also shown within the recommended level of ISO food standards. Finally, it is learned that the developed weaning food was nutritious, microbiologically safe, and has gained acceptance from the consumers at organoleptic attributes. Due to the paucity of appropriate weaning food in developing countries like Eritrea, this product can be a good alternative to minimize malnutrition.
insider trading and informed trading Patterns

This paper aims to examine how corporate insider trading influences trading patterns of foreign and institutional investors especially in firms with high discretionary accruals and low book-to-market ratios as proxies for information uncertainty. This study uses methods such as trading patterns of informed traders who are considered to gather more precise information before and after insider trading and tests how insider trading affects informed traders. The results of this study provide evidence that insider trading is likely to influence informed traders’ trading patterns. After controlling for firm-specific factors, this study finds that the event and the amount of insider trading affect significantly foreign and institutional trading patterns. Furthermore, the relation between informed trading and insider trading is more enhanced when firms have a high level of discretionary accruals and a low book-to-market ratio. Prior studies have focused on the association between abnormal returns of insider trading and types of insider information disseminated, while informed trading patterns and insider trading with information uncertainty have not been specifically considered. This study enables practitioners to interpret corporate insider trading with information uncertainty on informed trading patterns.
Combination forecasting method for development cost of aircraft

To address the problems of scarce sample data,complex influence factors and low forecasting quality of a single prediction method in predicting the aircraft development costs,a combination forecasting method is adopted.Based on the sample data,the radial basis function(RBF)artificial neural network,GramSchmidt regression and partial least squares regression(PLSR)are combined to construct the combination forecasting model,which is also compared with the single prediction method.The results show that the combination forecasting method has satisfactory and stable prediction accuracy,and it can reduce the quality risk of the single prediction method,so it is a reliable and effective method for aircraft development costs prediction.
On deployment of Eclipse Kuksa as a framework for an intelligent moving test platform for research of autonomous vehicles

—After an era of huge propagation within the field of mobile communications, digitalization has been spreading during the latest years at an accelerating speed to automotive technology and business. Following the developments experienced earlier in the mobile communications branch, open solutions and platforms are emerging in the automotive industries, challenging the traditional proprietary systems. Like in mobile communications, open platforms enable development of a wide variety of novel applications and systems that speed up the digitalization of the automotive and traffic ecosystems and offer the developers new attractive business opportunities. One of such open approaches is the Eclipse Kuksa framework developed in a consortium of European research institutions and automotive industries. In this study, we explored how the Kuksa framework could be used as a technology basis for an automotive data system combining in-vehicle functionality to cloud-based services. The study was carried out as a part of the SMAD research project of the University of Oulu aiming at an intelligent moving test platform for research of autonomous vehicles built on top of a Toyota Rav4 hybrid car. Our study covered subsystems of the Kuksa framework, the in-vehicle subsystem, cloud subsystems and the data communications between them. Our results indicate that the Kuksa framework is a feasible basis for the development of open, intelligent automotive data systems, though with a considerable learning needs. The results and experiences of our study provide besides additional knowledge for our continuing research on automotive software, also new, valuable contribution to the Eclipse Kuksa community and the practitioners planning to deploy open approaches in their automotive software development.