Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Alpha-synuclein and tau are abundantly expressed in the ENS of the human appendix and monkey cecum

α-Synuclein (α-syn) proteinopathy in the neurons of the Enteric Nervous System (ENS) is proposed to have a critical role in Parkinson’s disease (PD) onset and progression. Interestingly, the ENS of the human appendix harbors abundant α-syn and appendectomy has been linked to a decreased risk and delayed onset of PD, suggesting that the appendix may influence PD pathology. Common marmosets and rhesus macaques lack a distinct appendix (a narrow closed-end appendage with a distinct change in diameter at the junction with the cecum), yet the cecal microanatomy of these monkeys is similar to the human appendix. Sections of human appendix (n = 3) and ceca from common marmosets (n = 4) and rhesus macaques (n = 3) were evaluated to shed light on the microanatomy and the expression of PD-related proteins. Analysis confirmed that the human appendix and marmoset and rhesus ceca present thick walls comprised of serosa, muscularis externa, submucosa, and mucosa plus abundant lymphoid tissue. Across all three species, the myenteric plexus of the ENS was located within the muscularis externa with nerve fibers innervating all layers of the appendix/ceca. Expression of α-syn and tau in the appendix/cecum was present within myenteric ganglia and along nerve fibers of the muscularis externa and mucosa in all species. In the myenteric ganglia α-syn, p-α-syn, tau and p-tau immunoreactivities (ir) were not significantly different across species. The percent area above threshold of α-syn-ir and tau-ir in the nerve fibers of the muscularis externa and mucosa were greater in the human appendix than in the NHP ceca (α-syn-ir p<0.05; tau-ir p<0.05). Overall, this study provides critical translational evidence that the common marmoset and rhesus macaque ceca are remarkably similar to the human appendix and, thus, that these NHP species are suitable for studying the development of PD linked to α-syn and tau pathological changes in the ENS.
University of Birmingham Hepatotoxicity associated with sulfasalazine in inflammatory arthritis: A case series from a local surveillance of serious adverse events

Background: Spontaneous reporting systems for adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are handicapped by under-reporting and limited detail on individual cases. We report an investigation from a local surveillance for serious adverse drug reactions associated with disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs that was triggered by the occurrence of liver failure in two of our patients. Methods: Serious ADR reports have been solicited from local clinicians by regular postcards over the past seven years. Patients', who had hepatotoxicity on sulfasalazine and met a definition of a serious ADR, were identified. Two clinicians reviewed structured case reports and assessed causality by consensus and by using a causality assessment instrument. The likely frequency of hepatotoxicity with sulfasalazine was estimated by making a series of conservative assumptions. Results: Ten cases were identified: eight occurred during surveillance. Eight patients were hospitalised, two in hepatic failure – one died after a liver transplant. All but one event occurred within 6 weeks of treatment. Seven patients had a skin rash, three eosinophilia and one interstitial nephritis. Five patients were of Black British of African or Caribbean descent. Liver enzymes showed a hepatocellular pattern in four cases and a mixed pattern in six. Drug-related hepatotoxicity was judged probable or highly probable in 8 patients. The likely frequency of serious hepatotoxicity with sulfasalazine was estimated at 0.4% of treated patients. Conclusion: Serious hepatotoxicity associated with sulfasalazine appears to be under-appreciated and intensive monitoring and vigilance in the first 6 weeks of treatment is especially important. Published: 11 April 2008 BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders 2008, 9:48 doi:10.1186/1471-2474-9-48 Received: 5 September 2007 Accepted: 11 April 2008 This article is available from: http://www.biomedcentral. com/1471-2474/9/48 © 2008 Jobanputra et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
GOGCN: Graph Convolutional Network on Gene Ontology for Functional Similarity Analysis of Genes

The measurement of gene functional similarity plays a critical role in numerous biological applications, such as gene clustering, the construction of gene similarity networks. However, most existing approaches still rely heavily on traditional computational strategies, which are not guaranteed to achieve satisfactory performance. In this study, we propose a novel computational approach called GOGCN to measure gene functional similarity by modeling the Gene Ontology (GO) through Graph Convolutional Network (GCN). GOGCN is a graph-based approach that performs sufficient representation learning for terms and relations in the GO graph. First, GOGCN employs the GCN-based knowledge graph embedding (KGE) model to learn vector representations (i.e., embeddings) for all entities (i.e., terms). Second, GOGCN calculates the semantic similarity between two terms based on their corresponding vector representations. Finally, GOGCN estimates gene functional similarity by making use of the pair-wise strategy. During the representation learning period, GOGCN promotes semantic interaction between terms through GCN, thereby capturing the rich structural information of the GO graph. Further experimental results on various datasets suggest that GOGCN is superior to the other state-of-the-art approaches, which shows its reliability and effectiveness.
Ict development and its impact on e-business and hrm strategies in the organizations of Pakistan

The Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) create globalization that affect business environment and revolutionize the structure and performance of the organizations around the globe. Its frequent advancement affects the business strategies and management functions of the human resource within the organizations. Many researchers found that the development of ICT and its impact on effective e-business and human resource management (HRM) strategies need intense focus from the scholars in developing countries including Pakistan. Therefore, this paper aims to provide the literature analysis on the ICT development and its impact on e-business and HRM strategies in the organizations of Pakistan. The findings of the study reveals that the development of ICT in e-business and HRM strategies in Pakistan is still lagging behind as compared to the developed countries of the world.
Complex Regional Pain Syndrome: Practical Diagnostic and Treatment Guidelines, 5th Edition

Abstract There have been some modest recent advancements in the research of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, yet the amount and quality of the work in this complicated multifactorial disease remains low (with some notable exceptions; e.g., the recent work on the dorsal root ganglion stimulation). The semi-systematic (though in some cases narrative) approach to review is necessary so that we might treat our patients while waiting for “better research. ” This semi-systematic review was conducted by experts in the field, (deliberately) some of whom are promising young researchers supplemented by the experience of “elder statesman” researchers, who all mention the system they have used to examine the literature. What we found is generally low- to medium-quality research with small numbers of subjects; however, there are some recent exceptions to this. The primary reason for this paucity of research is the fact that this is a rare disease, and it is very difficult to acquire a sufficient sample size for statistical significance using traditional statistical approaches. Several larger trials have failed, probably due to using the broad general diagnostic criteria (the “Budapest” criteria) in a multifactorial/multi-mechanism disease. Responsive subsets can often be identified in these larger trials, but not sufficient to achieve statistically significant results in the general diagnostic grouping. This being the case the authors have necessarily included data from less compelling protocols, including trials such as case series and even in some instances case reports/empirical information. In the humanitarian spirit of treating our often desperate patients with this rare syndrome, without great evidence, we must take what data we can find (as in this work) and tailor a treatment regime for each patient.
“It’s so Natural It Goes Hand in Hand”: A Qualitative Study of Maternal Perceptions of Cannabis Use during Pregnancy

ABSTRACT As the market continues to embrace marijuana as a holistic product, perceptions about its uses are increasingly contradictory to public health recommendations. The purpose of this research was to qualitatively analyze the perceived risks and benefits of cannabis use during pregnancy via in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted with nine women. This research is intended to inform patient-provider interactions regarding cannabis use in prenatal clinical settings.
Polycystic ovary syndrome and the risk of endometrial, ovarian and breast cancer: An updated meta-analysis

Background and Aims This updated meta-analysis aimed to further quantify the risk of endometrial, ovarian, and breast cancer in patients with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), thus providing updated and more reliable estimates. Methods and Results We identified relevant articles by searching electronic databases of PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and Chinese Biological Medical Literature (CBM) published up to March 20, 2021. The pooled effect estimates and their 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated using the random-effect model or the fixed-effect model. A total of 26 eligible studies were included. We found that PCOS was significantly associated with endometrial cancer (odds ratios [OR]: 3.66, 95%CI: 2.05–6.54, P < 0.001), but not with ovarian or breast cancer (OR: 1.23, 95%CI: 0.99–1.53, P = 0.059; OR: 0.94, 95%CI: 0.78–1.14, P = 0.551, respectively). However, in subgroups of high-quality studies, cohort studies, younger women (54 years or less or premenopausal), and studies with unadjusted body mass index (BMI), PCOS patients had a significantly higher risk of ovarian cancer. Conclusion These results indicated that PCOS is a significant risk factor for endometrial cancer independent of BMI, but not for breast cancer. PCOS may increase the risk of ovarian cancer in younger women.
You Only Train Once: Learning General and Distinctive 3D Local Descriptors

Extracting distinctive, robust, and general 3D local features is essential to downstream tasks such as point cloud registration. However, existing methods either rely on noise-sensitive handcrafted features, or depend on rotation-variant neural architectures. It remains challenging to learn robust and general local feature descriptors for surface matching. In this paper, we propose a new, simple yet effective neural network, termed SpinNet, to extract local surface descriptors which are rotation-invariant whilst sufficiently distinctive and general. A Spatial Point Transformer is first introduced to embed the input local surface into an elaborate cylindrical representation (SO(2) rotation-equivariant), further enabling end-to-end optimization of the entire framework. A Neural Feature Extractor, composed of point-based and 3D cylindrical convolutional layers, is then presented to learn representative and general geometric patterns. An invariant layer is finally used to generate rotation-invariant feature descriptors. Extensive experiments on both indoor and outdoor datasets demonstrate that SpinNet outperforms existing state-of-the-art techniques by a large margin. More critically, it has the best generalization ability across unseen scenarios with different sensor modalities.
Ortner’s syndrome as the first symptom of thoracic aortic aneurysm, with coexisting infrarenal abdominal aortic aneurysm and critical stenosis of the left internal carotid artery

Ortner’s syndrome is a non-specific symptom of thoracic aortic aneurysm, therefore, it constitutes a challenge — both, diagnostic and therapeutical — for contemporary physicians. This paper presents the case of a 70-year-old patient reporting a hoarse voice for several months. Due to the suspicion of neoplastic disease, the diagnostics were deepened and during this diagnostic, an aneurysm of the descending thoracic aorta with the concurrent infrarenal abdominal aortic aneurysm and critical stenosis of the left internal carotid artery was diagnosed. Based on the clinical condition and the imaging examinations, the patient was qualified for endovascular surgical treatment — the implantation of stent grafts into the thoracic aorta and the abdominal aorta, preceded by the endarterectomy of the left internal carotid artery and one of the variants of debranching of the aortic arch.
The Influence of Breastfeeding Promotion Programs on Exclusive Breastfeeding Rates in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background: The benefits of breastfeeding in promoting child survival are well recognized. As one of the nutritional interventions for children, exclusive breastfeeding protects babies from various diseases that contribute to infant morbidity and mortality. However, no systematic review and meta-analysis has examined the influence of breastfeeding promotion programs on exclusive breastfeeding rates in sub-Saharan Africa. Research Aim: We examined the influence of breastfeeding promotion programs on exclusive breastfeeding rates at < 1 month, and at 1–5 months of breastfeeding in sub-Saharan countries including Ghana, Burkina Faso, Uganda, South Africa, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Tanzania, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Methods: A systematic review and meta-analyses study of randomized controlled trials and quasi-experimental studies was conducted by searching in electronic databases and articles’ reference lists. Two investigators independently evaluated and extracted the data. A total of 131 studies were identified using five databases. Of the 10 studies meeting the inclusion criteria for systematic review, seven studies were included in the meta-analysis. We used a random-effects model to pool studies together and performed a subgroup analysis. Results: Breastfeeding promotion programs resulted in significantly higher exclusive breastfeeding rates at < 1 month (OR = 1.60, 95% CI [1.36,1.86]). However, there was no significant effect observed for exclusive breastfeeding at 1–5 months. Combined interventions were more effective in improving exclusive breastfeeding rates than individual counseling or home-based counseling alone. Conclusion: Breastfeeding promotion programs in sub-Saharan Africa are effective in increasing exclusive breastfeeding rates at 6 months after birth.
A CPW fed quad-port MIMO DRA for sub-6 GHz 5G applications

The present work investigates a novel four-port, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), single element dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) for sub-6 GHz band. The DRA is designed and fabricated into a symmetric cross shape and fed using a coplanar waveguide (CPW) feed. A single radiator with four ports is rarely found in the literature. The -10 dB impedance bandwidth covered by the antenna is from 5.52 GHz to 6.2 GHz (11.6%) which covers fifth generation (5G) new radio (NR) bands N47 and wireless local area network (WLAN) IEEE 802.11a band. The isolation between orthogonal ports is about 15 dB while the isolation between opposite ports is 12 dB. The radiation pattern of the proposed antenna is bidirectional due to the absence of a ground plane below the DRA. The orthogonal modes excited in the DRA are TEδ21x and TE2δ1y through the four symmetrical CPW feeds. The simulated and measured results of the proposed design show that MIMO characteristics are achieved by pattern diversity between the ports. Due to the perfect symmetry of the design, the proposed work could be extended to MIMO array applications as well.
Cordyceps mexicana sp. nov., parasitizing Paradirphia sp. moths: A new sister species of the Cordyceps militaris complex, distributed in central Mexican Quercus-Pinus mixed forests

ABSTRACT Cordyceps s.l. is a paraphyletic group of ascomycete fungi that exhibit multifunctional lifestyles, that is, as saprotrophs, endophytes, and pathogens of insects, spiders, fungi, and grasses. The family Cordycipitaceae includes macroscopically similar species that have been erroneously considered to be conspecific with Cordyceps militaris. In this study, we describe a new species within the C. militaris complex that is distributed in the Quercus-Pinus forests of central Mexico on the basis of its morphology, phylogenetic relationships, and life cycle. Phylogenetically, Cordyceps mexicana is a well-supported new sister species of the C. militaris complex. It is distinguished by the morphology of its conidiophore, host association, and geographic distribution. This species parasitizes pupae of Paradirphia sp. (Lepidoptera: Saturniidae: Hemileucinae) and might be macroscopically confused with C. militaris. Its stromata are large, can measure up to 10 cm in length, and the fertile part is always bright yellow. This species develops whitish mycelial cords that emerge from the stromata and grow toward the host. Microscopically, it develops asci with filiform ascospores disarticulating in part-spores. Its life cycle and geographic distribution are also discussed.
Region matters: Mapping the contours of undernourishment among children in Odisha, India

Background Levels of child undernutrition and its correlates exhibit considerable spatial variation at different levels of granularity. In India, such variations and their interrelation have not been studied at the sub-district level primarily due to the non-availability of good quality granular data. Given the sheer regional diversity in India, it is essential to develop a region-specific evidence base at the micro-level. Data and objectives The current study utilised, for the first time, a sub-district level survey data (Concurrent Child Monitoring Survey-II, 2014–15) to investigate the statistically significant clusters and spatial patterns of burden of undernutrition among children. The emergence of distinct patterns at the level of natural geographical regions of the state–coastal, southern and northern regions, lead to a region-specific analysis to measure the impact of various demographic, socio-economic and maternal factors on the prevalence of undernutrition specific to the three regions, using the National Family Health Survey-IV unit-level data. Methods The spatial dependence and clustering of child undernourishment across sub-districts in Odisha were studied using various spatial statistical techniques, including spatial econometric models. Binary logistic regression was applied in the region-specific analysis. Results Findings indicated statistically significant spatial clustering of undernutrition among children in specific geographic pockets with poor sanitation, low institutional and skilled deliveries, poor maternal health reinforcing the need for inter-sectoral coordination. Disparities across the three natural-regions, suggest that the parameters requiring priority for intervention may differ across levels of overall development. Conclusion The spatial clustering of different socio-demographic indicators in specific geographic pockets highlights the differential impact of these determinants on child undernutrition thereby reinforcing a strong need for targeted intervention in these areas. Present analysis and the evidence-based micro-level analysis can be utilised as a model for other Indian states and low-resource countries, making interventions more effective through multiple, synergistic and a multi-sectoral approach.
Why you don't need to use RPD

is the use of RPDas a measure of the goodness of fit. RPD, Ratio of Performance to Deviation, is the ratio of the standard error in prediction to the standard deviation of the samples, which is frequently used in (soil) NIR literature, and now in digital soil mapping for assessing the usefulness or goodness-of-fit of calibration models. It attempts to scale the error in prediction with the standard deviation of the property. If the error in estimation is large compared with the standard deviation, then the model is not performing well. RPD was initially used by Williams (1987) for assessing the goodness of fit for NIR calibration (in agricultural and food products). Batten (1998) wrote “Williams (pers. comm.) suggested that RPD values greater than 3 are useful for screening, values greater than 5 can be used for quality control, and values greater than 8 for any application. ” Then a paper by Chang et al. (2001) used RPD for assessing the ability of NIR spectra to predict soil properties. In that paper the authors made 3 arbitrary categories: Category A: RDP > 2.0, Category B: RDP 1.4–2.0 and Category C: RDP 2; fair models when 1.4 2 becomes the golden standard) with no further questions asked. Veronique Bellon Maurel et al. (2010) questioned the use of RPD and pointed that the normalization in RPD only works assuming normally distributed values. For different soil properties, due to the difference in their statistical distributions, the std. deviation will not have the same interpretation in terms of the range of values. It does not correctly represent the spread of the population. They recommended the use of RPIQ (ratio of performance to interquartile range/ IQ = Q75 - Q25). It is a better index than RPD, based on quartiles, which better represents the spread of the population. Looking again to the definition of RPD, we can see
A disease‐associated missense mutation in CYP4F3 affects the metabolism of leukotriene B4 via disruption of electron transfer

Cytochrome P450 4F3 (CYP4F3) is an ω‐hydroxylase that oxidizes leukotriene B4 (LTB4), prostaglandins, and fatty acid epoxides. LTB4 is synthesized by leukocytes and acts as a chemoattractant for neutrophils, making it an essential component of the innate immune system. Recently, involvement of the LTB4 pathway was reported in various immunological disorders such as asthma, arthritis, and inflammatory bowel disease. We report a 26‐year‐old female with a complex immune phenotype, mainly marked by exhaustion, muscle weakness, and inflammation‐related conditions. The molecular cause is unknown, and symptoms have been aggravating over the years.
Efficient and Fast Generation of Relevant Disease Mouse Models by In Vitro and In Vivo Gene Editing of Zygotes

Knockout mice for human disease-causing genes provide valuable models in which new therapeutic approaches can be tested. Electroporation of genome editing tools into zygotes, in vitro or within oviducts, allows for the generation of targeted mutations in a shorter time. We have generated mouse models deficient in genes involved in metabolic rare diseases (Primary Hyperoxaluria Type 1 Pyruvate Kinase Deficiency) or in a tumor suppressor gene (Rasa1). Pairs of guide RNAs were designed to generate controlled deletions that led to the absence of protein. In vitro or in vivo ribonucleoprotein (RNP) electroporation rendered more than 90% and 30% edited newborn animals, respectively. Mice lines with edited alleles were established and disease hallmarks have been verified in the three models that showed a high consistency of results and validating RNP electroporation into zygotes as an efficient technique for disease modeling without the need to outsource to external facilities.