Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Murine Placental‐Fetal Phosphate Dyshomeostasis Caused by an Xpr1 Deficiency Accelerates Placental Calcification and Restricts Fetal Growth in Late Gestation

Phosphorus is a necessary component of all living organisms. This nutrient is mainly transported from the maternal blood to the fetus via the placenta, and insufficient phosphorus availability via the placenta disturbs the normal development of the fetus, especially fetal bone formation in late gestation. Key proteins (phosphate transporters and exporters) that are responsible for the maintenance of placental‐fetal phosphorus homeostasis have been identified. A deficiency in the phosphate transporter Pit2 has been shown to result in placental calcification and the retardation of fetal development in mice. What roles does XPR1 (the only known phosphate exporter) play in maintaining placental‐fetal phosphorus homeostasis? In this study, we found that Xpr1 expression is strong in the murine placenta and increases with age during gestation. We generated a global Xpr1 knockout mouse and found that heterozygous (Xpr1+/−) and homozygous (Xpr1−/−) fetuses have lower inorganic phosphate (Pi) levels in amniotic fluid and serum and a decreased skeletal mineral content. Xpr1‐deficient placentas show abnormal Pi exchange during gestation. Therefore, Xpr1 deficiency in the placenta disrupts placental‐fetal Pi homeostasis. We also discovered that the placentas of the Xpr1+/− and Xpr1−/− embryos are severely calcified. Mendelian inheritance statistics for offspring outcomes indicated that Xpr1‐deficient embryos are significantly reduced in late gestation. In addition, Xpr1−/− mice die perinatally and a small proportion of Xpr1+/− mice die neonatally. RNA sequence (RNA‐Seq) analysis of placental mRNA revealed that many of the transcripts are significantly differentially expressed due to Xpr1 deficiency and are linked to dysfunction of the placenta. This study is the first to reveal that XPR1 plays an important role in maintaining placental‐fetal Pi homeostasis, disruption of which causes severe placental calcification, delays normal placental function, and restricts fetal growth. © 2019 American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.
Biochemical determinants of ObgE‐mediated persistence

Obg is a versatile GTPase that plays a pivotal role in bacterial persistence. We previously showed that the Escherichia coli homolog ObgE exerts this activity through transcriptional activation of a toxin–antitoxin module and subsequent membrane depolarization. Here, we assessed the role of G‐domain functionality in ObgE‐mediated persistence. Through screening of a mutant library, we identified five obgE alleles (with substitutions G166V, D246G, S270I, N283I and I313N) that have lost their persistence function and no longer activate hokB expression. These alleles support viability of a strain otherwise deprived of ObgE, indicating that ObgE’s persistence function can be uncoupled from its essential role. Based on the ObgE crystal structure, we designed two additional mutant proteins (T193A and D286Y), one of which (D286Y) no longer affects persistence. Using isothermal titration calorimetry, stopped‐flow experiments and kinetics, we subsequently assessed nucleotide binding and GTPase activity in all mutants. With the exception of the S270I mutant that is possibly affected in protein–protein interactions, all mutants that have lost their persistence function display severely reduced binding to GDP or the alarmone ppGpp. However, we find no clear relation between persistence and GTP or pppGpp binding nor with GTP hydrolysis. Combined, our results signify an important step toward understanding biochemical determinants underlying persistence.
Distinct intraspecies virulence mechanisms regulated by a conserved transcription factor

Significance Bacterial pathogens emerge by adapting mechanisms of virulence, differentiating them from their nonpathogenic progenitor. Virulence factors are often encoded on accessory genomic elements not part of the core genome and therefore must be integrated into the regulatory architecture of the cell. Here, we show that a highly conserved transcription factor in Escherichia coli has been relieved of a common purpose and adapted to regulate virulence pleiotropically in 2 distinct genetic backgrounds. This leads to enhanced virulence of both intestinal enterohemorrhagic E. coli and extraintestinal uropathogenic E. coli by exclusive mechanisms. These findings challenge the assumption that conserved transcription factors regulate common pathways maintained within a species and suggest that transcriptional repurposing creates new primary roles on an individual basis. Tailoring transcriptional regulation to coordinate the expression of virulence factors in tandem with the core genome is a hallmark of bacterial pathogen evolution. Bacteria encode hundreds of transcription factors forming the base-level control of gene regulation. Moreover, highly homologous regulators are assumed to control conserved genes between members within a species that harbor the same genetic targets. We have explored this concept in 2 Escherichia coli pathotypes that employ distinct virulence mechanisms that facilitate specification of a different niche within the host. Strikingly, we found that the transcription factor YhaJ actively regulated unique gene sets between intestinal enterohemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) and extraintestinal uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC), despite being very highly conserved. In EHEC, YhaJ directly activates expression of type 3 secretion system components and effectors. Alternatively, YhaJ enhances UPEC virulence regulation by binding directly to the phase-variable type 1 fimbria promoter, driving its expression. Additionally, YhaJ was found to override the universal GAD acid tolerance system but exclusively in EHEC, thereby indirectly enhancing type 3 secretion pleiotropically. These results have revealed that within a species, conserved regulators are actively repurposed in a “personalized” manner to benefit particular lifestyles and drive virulence via multiple distinct mechanisms.
Intrathecal IgM production is a strong risk factor for early conversion to multiple sclerosis

Objectives To evaluate intrathecal immunoglobulin M (IgM) production, as compared to previously established risk factors, as risk factor for conversion from clinically isolated syndrome (CIS) to multiple sclerosis (MS) and to explore the association of intrathecal IgM production with onset age and radiologic and CSF findings in CIS/early MS. Methods Comprehensive CSF data, including oligoclonal immunoglobulin G (IgG) bands (OCB) and calculated intrathecal IgM and IgG production, were collected in a prospective study of 150 patients with CIS/early MS with regular clinical and MRI assessments. Results Intrathecal IgM production >0% occurred in 23.2% (33/142) of patients, who were on average 5 years younger at disease onset (p = 0.013) and more frequently had infratentorial lesions (18/32, 56.3%) than patients without intrathecal IgM production (33/104, 31.7%, p = 0.021). In multivariable Cox regression analyses, intrathecal IgM production in patients with a CIS (n = 93, median clinical and MRI follow-up 24 and 21 months) was strongly associated with conversion to MS according to the McDonald 2010 criteria (hazard ratio [95% confidence interval] 3.05 [1.45–6.44], p = 0.003) after adjustment for age (0.96 [0.93–1.00], p = 0.059), OCB (0.92 [0.33–2.61], p = 0.879), intrathecal IgG production (0.98 [0.48–1.99], p = 0.947), and radiologic evidence of dissemination in space (2.63 [1.11–6.22], p = 0.028). Conclusion Intrathecal IgM production is a strong independent risk factor for early conversion to MS and may thus represent a clinically meaningful marker for predicting future disease activity in patients with a CIS.
Impact of nutritional status, muscle mass and oral status on recovery of full oral intake among stroke patients receiving enteral nutrition: A retrospective cohort study.

AIM To clarify the correlation between malnutrition, muscle mass and oral status, and swallowing function recovery in stroke patients receiving enteral nutrition. METHODS Patients with stroke and dysphagia receiving any amount of enteral nutrition in rehabilitation wards from 2012 to 2016 were eligible for inclusion in this retrospective study. On admission, body composition by bioimpedance analysis, malnutrition confirmed by the European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism criteria, oral status, functional independence measure and demographic data were collected. Characteristics were compared between "oral intake alone" and "artificial nutrition" groups based on the discharge status. Kaplan-Meier methods and the Cox proportional hazards model were used to determine explanatory factors for the probability of full oral intake. RESULTS Among 174 patients, 113 were analysed (55 women; median age, 77 years). Overall, 61% and 39% were classified as "oral intake alone" and "artificial nutrition," respectively. Days from onset to admission to rehabilitation wards and motor Functional Independence Measure were higher in the "oral intake alone" group. Kaplan-Meier analysis demonstrated that patients with lower muscle mass exhibited lower probability of full oral intake (P = .009). The Cox proportional hazards model suggested that lower muscle mass (hazard ratio, 0.493; 95% CI, 0.286-0.850) and poor oral hygiene (hazard ratio, 0.573; 95% CI, 0.333-0.987) were independently correlated with "oral intake alone" status. Malnutrition and other oral status are not related to achieving full oral intake. CONCLUSIONS Skeletal muscle mass and oral hygiene are independently correlated with full oral intake among stroke patients receiving enteral nutrition during the rehabilitation phase.
Zwitterionic Modification of Nanomaterials for Improved Diagnosis of Cancer Cells.

Nanomaterials have been ubiquitously employed as platforms to load imaging agents for cancer diagnosis. In general, the majority of nanomaterials are accumulated in the reticuloendothelial system (RES)-associated organs such as liver, spleen and lung after systemic administration. Although the adopted strategy used to modify nanomaterials with polyethylene glycol (PEG) has relieved this problem to some extent, challenges still remains for further clinical applications. Recently, nanomaterials with zwitterionic surface modification have been found to have a better antifouling property than those with PEGylation modification. This review reports the recent progresses in the development of zwitterion-modified nanomaterials for improved cancer cell diagnosis, including zwitterionic modification of hybrid nanoparticles for enhanced fluorescence, computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance (MR), and dual-mode imaging of cancer cells, and the zwitterionic modification of nanofibers for specific isolation capturing of circulating tumor cells with improved capturing purity and efficiency. Challenges and future perspectives in this particular field are also discussed.
Management and Treatment of Varicocele in Children and Adolescents: An Endocrinologic Perspective

Pediatric varicocele has an overall prevalence of 15%, being more frequent as puberty begins. It can damage testicular function, interfering with Sertoli cell proliferation and hormone secretion, testicular growth and spermatogenesis. Proper management has a pivotal role for future fertility preservation. The aim of this review was to discuss the diagnosis, management and treatment of childhood and adolescent varicocele from an endocrinologic perspective, illustrating the current evidence of the European Society of Pediatric Urology (ESPU), the European Association of Urology (EAU), the American Urological Association (AUA) and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) scientific societies. According to the ASRM/ESPU/AUA practice committee, the treatment of adolescent varicocele is indicated in the case of decreased testicular volume or sperm abnormalities, while it is contraindicated in subclinical varicocele. The recent EAS/ESPU meta-analysis reports that moderate evidence exists on the benefits of varicocele treatment in children and adolescents in terms of testicular volume and sperm concentration increase. No specific phenotype in terms of testicular volume cut-off or peak retrograde flow (PRF) is indicated. Based on current evidence, we suggest that conservative management may be suggested in patients with PRF < 30 cm/s, testicular asymmetry < 10% and no evidence of sperm and hormonal abnormalities. In patients with 10–20% testicular volume asymmetry or 30 < PRF ≤ 38 cm/s or sperm abnormalities, careful follow-up may ensue. In the case of absent catch-up growth or sperm recovery, varicocele repair should be suggested. Finally, treatment can be proposed at the initial consultation in painful varicocele, testicular volume asymmetry ≥ 20%, PRF > 38 cm/s, infertility and failure of testicular development.
Diversity, Leadership, and Authenticity in the Undocumented Youth Movement

Abstract The undocumented youth movement is diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, and immigration status. I argue that racial and immigration status diversity has a direct impact on the movement's ability to “expand the scope of conflict,” that is to say recruiting new members, reaching out to elected officials, and establishing representative leadership—elements that are critical to the sustainability and effectiveness of a movement. Findings also indicate that immigration status diversity plays a complex role. The presence of citizen allies brings both risks and benefits to the movement, as they reinforce the electoral connection sought by elected officials while at the same time jeopardizing the authenticity of the movement. Results are based on field research conducted between 2012 and 2015 in NJ and NY, including participant observation in state-level campaigns and interviews with over 130 immigrant youths, allies, and elected officials. This article contributes to the social movement literature by providing empirical evidence of the challenges present within diverse coalitions. It addresses the question of immigration status diversity, an issue that affects the immigration movement but speaks more broadly to the role of allies in social movements.
Efficient implementation of high‐order finite elements for Helmholtz problems

Computational modeling remains key to the acoustic design of various applications, but it is constrained by the cost of solving large Helmholtz problems at high frequencies. This paper presents an efficient implementation of the high‐order finite element method (FEM) for tackling large‐scale engineering problems arising in acoustics. A key feature of the proposed method is the ability to select automatically the order of interpolation in each element so as to obtain a target accuracy while minimizing the cost. This is achieved using a simple local a priori error indicator. For simulations involving several frequencies, the use of hierarchical shape functions leads to an efficient strategy to accelerate the assembly of the finite element model. The intrinsic performance of the high‐order FEM for 3D Helmholtz problem is assessed, and an error indicator is devised to select the polynomial order in each element. A realistic 3D application is presented in detail to demonstrate the reduction in computational costs and the robustness of the a priori error indicator. For this test case, the proposed method accelerates the simulation by an order of magnitude and requires less than a quarter of the memory needed by the standard FEM. © 2016 The Authors. International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
The Literature of Adult Education: A Bibliographic Essay

"The Literature of Adult Education" explores and describes over twelve hundred books in the diverse body of writings on adult education--tracing the development of basic theories and practices, identifying major accomplishments, and documenting the enormous and continuing growth of knowledge in this field. It provides an understanding of the entire field that can help professionals in all areas of adult education recognize a shared identity and find the sources of information and guidance they need to strengthen their own practices.
Managing Big Data Analytics Projects: the Challenges of Realizing Value

Organizations invest significantly in Big Data Analytics (BDA), but only limited knowledge is available on the challenges faced by these organizations when trying to realize value in such projects. Benefits realization management (BRM) offers a perspective and processes for realizing value from information systems (IS) projects. Yet, limited research has investigated how this can be applied to development processes for BDA projects. We report an in-depth case study of a large organization’s BDA development processes and the inherent challenges of realizing value. From our analysis, we found eight necessary activities for realizing value in a BDA process and the challenges pertaining to each activity. These findings extend previous research on value creation in BDA projects with insights from practices in a large organization highly dedicated to exploiting Big Data. The paper discusses these findings as they relate to previous research and concludes with their implications for current BDA projects and future research.
Construction of Polar Codes in Rayleigh Fading Channel

In this letter, we investigate the effective construction method of the polar codes in the Rayleigh fading channel (RFC) based on the Gaussian approximation (GA) algorithm. For the RFC, two algorithms are proposed to find the equivalent binary input AWGN channel (BIAWGNC). The first one transforms the given RFC to an equivalent BIAWGNC with the same average mutual information, and then GA algorithm is performed to construct the polar codes. For the second one, the given RFC is handled as an equivalent BIAWGNC with an analytical expression in terms of the Kullback–Leibler divergence so as to further reduce the complexity of the first algorithm. Finally, the simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed methods.
Application of neural modelling methods in the evaluation of the quality of pork half-carcasses

The paper concerns the implementation of research task no. 4 of the PBS3/B8/26/2015 project, the aim of which was to create models of artificial neural networks determining the meat of pork half-carcasses. As a result, thanks to threedimensional scans of the examined half-carcasses, the characteristic cross-section of half-carcasses was determined and the parameters necessary to determine the meatiness were defined. The neon model realizing this task was RBF 9:9-25- 1:1 network, which for the cross-section of 89 was characterized by test quality 0,9887 and RMSE error 0,1556. The work carried out allowed for the development of an algorithm approved by the European Commission on 11 February 2019 np. 2019/252 and the production of devices ESTIMEAT and MEAT3D
Mobile Application for Recognizing Text in Degraded Document Images Using Optical Character Recognition with Adaptive Document Image Binarization

Books and documents go through degradation overtime and post threats in the readability of the printed text. Degradations like stains can overlap with the text covering it or ink fading can cause the removal of the text altogether. Converting these texts into digital format can help preserve them. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is used to transform them into digital text. And, with the increasing computing capability and digital imaging of today’s smartphones. We can use them as a convenient tool to capture images of these document and do OCR directly. In this paper, we propose a mobile application that can recognize text in degraded document images using Tesseract as the OCR engine with Adaptive Document Image Binarization to improve the performance of the OCR engine in degraded documents images. The experimental results showed an average character accuracy of 93.17% and word accuracy of 85.82% across 8 degraded document images. 
Alterations in the Gut Microbiome at 6 Months of Age in Obese Latino Infants

Abstract Objective: To investigate gut microbial composition in Latino infants in relation to breastfeeding, obesity, and antibiotic exposure. Method: We analyzed the gut microbiome in 6-month-old Latino infants from an ongoing urban mother–child cohort. Alpha and beta diversity were assessed in relation to infants’ early dietary exposure and anthropometrics including obesity. Results: Infants exclusively breastfed at 4 to 6 weeks had lower alpha diversity and less bacterial abundance compared with those who did not. Breastfeeding status at 4 to 6 weeks and 6 months of age accounted for differences in alpha and beta diversity. Infants who were obese at 6 months of age had higher levels of alpha diversity compared with non-obese infants. Conclusions: Early exclusive breastfeeding and obesity impacts microbial diversity by 6 months of age in Latino infants, a group at high risk for future obesity.
Influence of donor type, stem cell source and conditioning on outcomes after haploidentical transplant for lymphoma – a LWP‐EBMT study

Haploidentical stem cell transplantation (haploSCT) is becoming a major transplant modality for lymphoma. To assess the effects of donor characteristics, stem cell source and conditioning on outcomes, we identified 474 adults with Hodgkin (HL; 240), peripheral T‐cell (PTCL; 88), diffuse large B‐cell (77), mantle cell (40) or follicular lymphoma (FL; 29), who received haploSCT with post‐transplant cyclophosphamide. Median follow‐up of alive patients was 32 months. On multivariate analysis, acute graft‐versus‐host disease (GVHD) grade 2–4 was lower with offspring donors or bone marrow cells, whereas extensive chronic GVHD was higher in partial response at haploSCT or when using sisters, haploidentical donors beyond first degree, or female donors in male patients. Progression‐free survival (PFS) was better for FL, HL and PTCL, whereas overall survival (OS) was better for HL and PTCL. Complete remission at haploSCT improved PFS and OS whereas these were negatively affected by cytomegalovirus donor positive/recipient positive status. No other donor characteristics (age, gender, human leucocyte antigen mismatch, ABO incompatibility) affected PFS or OS except use of haploidentical donors beyond first degree, which negatively affected OS. PFS and OS are mostly influenced by disease status and lymphoma subtype, supporting the use of any first degree haploidentical family member as a donor.
Immobilization of Trypsin from Porcine Pancreas onto Chitosan Nonwoven by Covalent Bonding

The present study deals with the potential application of chitosan nonwoven for biomedical textiles based on enzyme immobilization. For this, chitosan nonwoven was first cross-linked with glutaraldehyde to introduce aldehyde groups at optimal conditions. To immobilize the enzyme trypsin onto glutaraldehyde-pre-activated chitosan nonwoven, several parameters such as pH, enzyme concentration, and reaction times were investigated. In addition, the pH, thermal stability, storage stability, and reusability of immobilized trypsin were examined. We found that the optimal immobilization conditions for trypsin were pH 8.5, enzyme concentration of 8% (owf), and treatment time of 30 min. Trypsin was immobilized at 25 °C efficiently. The immobilized trypsin showed lower pH stability and better thermal stability than free trypsin. The immobilized trypsin showed 50% of its initial activity after being used 15 times and 80% of that after 20 days of storage at 4 °C. SEM analysis also confirmed that trypsin was immobilized on chitosan nonwoven.