Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Irisin and inflammatory cytokines in elite male rowers: adaptation to volume-extended training period.

AIM This study examined the effect of 6-month volume-extended training period on irisin and inflammatory cytokine concentrations in elite male rowers. METHODS Nine elite male rowers (25.3±6.5 yrs; 190.6±5.1 cm; 93.4±7.5 kg; 14.6±2.6% body fat; maximal oxygen consumption [VO2max]: 64.0±3.5 ml.min.-1kg-1) participated in this study. Body composition, VO2max and blood biochemical markers were assessed before and after training period. Venous blood samples were analyzed for irisin, interleukin (IL)-2, IL-4, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, vascular endothelial growth factor, interferon-γ, tumor necrosis factor-α, IL-1α, IL-1β, monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 and epidermal growth factor (EGF). RESULTS Average weekly training volume was significantly higher (P<0.05) during the 6 months of heavy training compared to relative rest (11.6±1.4 h.week-1 vs 18.4±1.0 h.week-1), while training intensity remained the same. At the end of training period, body fat% was significantly decreased, and fat free mass and maximal aerobic power significantly increased. Irisin was not changed (P>0.05) as the result of 6-month heavy training period, while training induced significant (P<0.05) increases and decreases in IL-10 and EGF values, respectively. CONCLUSIONS Serum irisin concentration was not sensitive to a significant increase in weekly training volume during the volume-extended training period in elite male rowers. An increase in training stress was accompanied by the increase in IL-10 and a decrease in EGF levels, and these inflammatory cytokines could be regarded as markers of heavy training stress during the typical preparatory period in elite male rowers.
Short-Term Effects of Early Menopause on Adiposity, Fatty Acids Profile and Insulin Sensitivity of a Swine Model of Female Obesity

Menopause strongly increases incidence and consequences of obesity and non-communicable diseases in women, with recent research suggesting a very early onset of changes in lipid accumulation, dyslipidemia, and insulin resistance. However, there is a lack of adequate preclinical models for its study. The present trial evaluated the usefulness of an alternative method to surgical ovariectomy, the administration of two doses of a GnRH analogue-protein conjugate (Vacsincel®), for inducing ovarian inactivity in sows used as preclinical models of obesity and menopause. All the sows treated with the compound developed ovarian stoppage after the second dose and, when exposed to obesogenic diets during the following three months, showed changes in the patterns of fat deposition, in the fatty acids profiles at the different tissues and in the plasma concentrations of fructosamine, urea, β-hydroxibutirate, and haptoglobin when compared to obese fed with the same diet but maintaining ovarian activity. Altogether, these results indicate that menopause early augments the deleterious effects induced by overfeeding and obesity on metabolic traits, paving the way for future research on physiopathology of these conditions and possible therapeutic targets using the swine model.
The association between loneliness and medication use in older adults.

BACKGROUND Loneliness is common in older adults, and it is associated with unhealthy behaviours, including substance use. We evaluated the association between loneliness and self-reported use of opioids and benzodiazepines in older adults. METHODS We used data from the Canadian Community Health Survey's 'Healthy Aging' sub-survey and included adults 65 years or older who administered their own medications. We classified individuals as lonely if they scored 6 or more on the three -item University of California, Los Angeles's Loneliness Scale. We used multinomial logistic regression models, adjusting for demographics and self-reported comorbidities, to describe the association between loneliness and daily or occasional use of opioids, benzodiazepines and non-opioid analgesics. We also explored the association between loneliness and polypharmacy. RESULTS Our cohort included 15,302 older adults, of whom 2,096 (13.7%) were classified as lonely. Daily use of opioids (4.1%) and benzodiazepines (1.7%) were less common than daily use of non-opioid analgesics (33.9%). Lonely older adults had higher daily use of opioids (odds ratio [OR] 1.61, 1.31-1.98) and benzodiazepines (OR 1.66, 1.21-2.28), but not non-opioid analgesics (OR 1.05, 0.92-1.19). Loneliness was not associated with occasional use of opioids, benzodiazepines or non-opioid analgesics in older adults, but was associated with polypharmacy (OR 1.27, 1.06-1.52). CONCLUSIONS Loneliness in older adults is associated with increased daily use of opioids and benzodiazepines. Further research should evaluate patient- and physician-level factors that mediate this association, and develop strategies to mitigate loneliness and its attendant adverse outcomes.
Assessment of Placebo Response in Objective and Subjective Outcome Measures in Rheumatoid Arthritis Clinical Trials

Key Points Question Are subjective patient-reported outcomes vs objective biomarkers associated with higher placebo responses in clinical trials? Findings In this cross-sectional study examining the placebo arms of 5 randomized clinical trials of rheumatoid arthritis including 788 patients, objective markers of inflammation and subjective pain ratings improved in a comparable clinically meaningful magnitude. Baseline values were associated with placebo response, suggesting that regression to the mean might dominate response to randomized placebo treatment. Meaning The findings of this study suggest that investigators may need to improve their understanding of natural history and baseline levels of outcomes because these factors can be important contributors to the response in placebo arms.
Graphene Oxide Membrane Immobilized Aptamer as a Highly Selective Hormone Removal

Three-dimensional (3D) reduced graphene oxide (rGO) modified by polyethyleneimine (PEI) was prepared and functionalized by fluorophore-labeled dexamethasone-aptamer (Flu-DEX-apt) via π–π stacking interaction. The rGO/PEI/Flu-DEX-apt was used as a selective membrane for dexamethasone hormone removal from water. The prepared rGO/PEI/Flu-DEX-apt membranes were stable, insoluble, and easily removable from liquid media. The membrane was characterized by Raman spectroscopy, scanning electron spectroscopy, and FTIR spectroscopy. The rGO/PEI/Flu-DEX-apt membrane showed high sensitivity and specificity toward the dexamethasone hormone in the presence of other steroid hormone analogs, such as progesterone, estrone, estradiol, and 19-norethindrone. The fluorescence and UV–visible spectroscopy were used to confirm the membranes performance and the quantification of hormones removal. The resulting data clearly show that the graphene oxide concentration influence the aptamers and analytes interaction (π–π stacking interaction). It was found that by varying the graphene oxide concentration yields to different porosities of rGO/PEI/Flu-DEX-apt membranes affects the adsorption recovery rate, as well as the specificity and selectivity toward the dexamethasone hormone.
Causes and consequences of natal dispersal in the marsh tit, Parus palustris

Dispersal distance, measured as the number of territories between place of birth and place of first breeding, was analysed within and between sexes in juvenile marsh tits in relation to factors potentially caiusing variation in dispersal pattern. Dispersal distance of males was positively influenced by both population density and hatching date. In females, dispersal distance were positively related to population density, number of siblings and wing length. Early-hatched females dispersed further than those hatched in the middle of the season. Dispersal distance in females was positively related to the number of recruits among their offspring. Females surviving for more >1 breeding season had dispersed further as juveniles than females breeding only once. In males, dispersal distance did not affect survival or breeding success. Males are severely affected by the density of already established individuals, and have no time to choose flock ranges according to quality. Thus, males try to become established as soon as possible after independence. Late-hatched males disperse further and are less successful at establishing themselves than early-hatched males. Females, especially those hatched early, more easily become established and can afford to monitor several flock ranges and to be selective in their choice of flock range. This selectivity results in long dispersal distances for early-hatched females and a high lifetime reproductive success for long dispersers. -Author (Less)
Crohn's pericarditis identified with point‐of‐care ultrasonography: A case report

We report the case of a 71‐year‐old male with Crohn's disease, shortness of breath, and chest pain that highlights cardiac involvement in inflammatory bowel disease and the role of point‐of‐care ultrasonography using an alternate cardiac ultrasound window in making the diagnosis of Crohn's pericarditis. The role of ultrasonography in diagnosis and management of inflammatory bowel disease focuses primarily on intestinal pathology. Cardiac involvement is a rare but clinically impactful extraintestinal manifestation, the diagnosis of which benefits from ultrasonography if the clinician performing and interpreting the exam is aware of the possibility and understands the potential value of whole‐body ultrasonography as part of a physical exam.
Engineered biomimetic nanoparticle for dual targeting of the cancer stem-like cell population in sonic hedgehog medulloblastoma

Significance This study shows that an engineered biomimetic nanoparticle decorated with a targeting ligand and loaded with a sonic hedgehog inhibitor maintains its stability in the circulation, crosses the blood–brain barrier (BBB), and delivers drug molecules to the cancer stem-like cell population in sonic hedgehog subtype of medulloblastoma. Leveraging the natural capabilities of high-density lipoprotein, our nanoparticle enables the facilitated and targeted cellular uptake of drugs and receptor-mediated intracellular cholesterol depletion in medulloblastoma cells. Our successful in vivo validation of the nanocarrier performance suggests a new viable strategy by which to deliver other drugs that are reportedly unable to cross the BBB, have low bioavailability, and/or off-target effects for the treatment of brain tumors, including medulloblastoma. The sonic hedgehog subtype of medulloblastoma (SHH MB) is associated with treatment failure and poor outcome. Current strategies utilizing whole brain radiation therapy result in deleterious off-target effects on the normal developing childhood brain. Most conventional chemotherapies remain limited by ineffective blood–brain barrier (BBB) penetrance. These challenges signify an unmet need for drug carriers that can cross the BBB and deliver drugs to targeted sites with high drug-loading efficiency and long-term stability. We herein leverage the enhanced stability and targeting ability of engineered high-density lipoprotein-mimetic nanoparticles (eHNPs) to cross the BBB and deliver a SHH inhibitor effectively to the cancer stem-like cell population in SHH MB. Our microfluidic technology enabled highly reproducible production of multicomponent eHNPs incorporated with apolipoprotein A1, anti-CD15, and a SHH inhibitor (LDE225). We demonstrate the dual-targeted delivery and enhanced therapeutic effect of eHNP-A1-CD15-LDE225 via scavenger receptor class B type 1 (SR-B1) and CD15 on brain SHH MB cells in vitro, ex vivo, and in vivo. Moreover, we show that eHNP-A1 not only serves as a stable drug carrier, but also has a therapeutic effect itself through SR-B1-mediated intracellular cholesterol depletion in SHH MB cells. Through the facilitated and targeted cellular uptake of drugs and direct therapeutic role of this engineered biomimetic nanocarrier in SHH MB, our multifunctional nanoparticle provides intriguing therapeutic promise as an effective and potent nanomedicine for the treatment of SHH MB.
Preparation of chitosan with high blood clotting activity and its hemostatic potential assessment

high blood clotting activity. Chitosan specimens were powdered to the particle size less than 0.25 mm and characterized by in vitro tests including determination of coagulation time of heparinized blood, bulk density of material, swelling of particles in water and Tris-buffered saline, as well as in vivo tests based on estimation of efficacy in controlling hemorrhage from wounds in mice and rats. Using of the developed tests it was revealed that available chitosan specimens (reagent grade, dietary supplements, samples prepared in laboratory) are hemostatically inactive as compared with Celox preparation. We developed a method of activation of above mentioned chitosan specimens to active hemostatic preparations. Some characteristics of chitosan that are significant for blood clotting activity are described. It was demonstrated that high molecular weight chitosan specimens are more effective as hemostatic agents comparing with low molecular weight chitosan specimens.
Classical double copy of nonsingular black holes

We apply the classical double copy procedure to a class of regular, non-singular black hole solutions. We give several examples, paying particular attention to a string-theory-corrected black hole solution emerging from T-duality. Non-perturbative stringy corrections introduce an ultraviolet (UV) zero-point length cutoff which results in non-singular black hole spacetimes. Apart from the UV regulator, the solution is equivalent to the Bardeen black hole spacetime. We extend this solution to include an asymptotic de Sitter background. All Yang-Mills field theory quantities associated with the double copy are well-behaved and finite for all values of parameters. We present a thorough analysis of the black hole horizon structure, additionally uncovering a simple yet new connection between horizons on the gravity side and electric fields on the gauge theory side of the double copy.
Robust Cross-View Gait Recognition with Evidence: A Discriminant Gait GAN (DiGGAN) Approach

Gait as a biometric trait has attracted much attention in many security and privacy applications such as identity recognition and authentication, during the last few decades. Because of its nature as a long-distance biometric trait, gait can be easily collected and used to identify individuals non-intrusively through CCTV cameras. However, it is very difficult to develop robust automated gait recognition systems, since gait may be affected by many covariate factors such as clothing, walking speed, camera view angle etc. Out of them, large view angle changes has been deemed as the most challenging factor as it can alter the overall gait appearance substantially. Existing works on gait recognition are far from enough to provide satisfying performances because of such view changes. Furthermore, very few works have considered evidences -- the demonstrable information revealing the reliabilities of decisions, which are regarded as important demands in machine learning-based recognition/authentication applications. To address these issues, in this paper we propose a Discriminant Gait Generative Adversarial Network, namely DiGGAN, which can effectively extract view-invariant features for cross-view gait recognition; and more importantly, to transfer gait images to different views -- serving as evidences and showing how the decisions have been made. Quantitative experiments have been conducted on the two most popular cross-view gait datasets, the OU-MVLP and CASIA-B, where the proposed DiGGAN has outperformed state-of-the-art methods. Qualitative analysis has also been provided and demonstrates the proposed DiGGAN's capability in providing evidences.
The World Is Not Binary: Learning to Rank with Grayscale Data for Dialogue Response Selection

Response selection plays a vital role in building retrieval-based conversation systems. Despite that response selection is naturally a learning-to-rank problem, most prior works take a point-wise view and train binary classifiers for this task: each response candidate is labeled either relevant (one) or irrelevant (zero). On the one hand, this formalization can be sub-optimal due to its ignorance of the diversity of response quality. On the other hand, annotating grayscale data for learning-to-rank can be prohibitively expensive and challenging. In this work, we show that grayscale data can be automatically constructed without human effort. Our method employs off-the-shelf response retrieval models and response generation models as automatic grayscale data generators. With the constructed grayscale data, we propose multi-level ranking objectives for training, which can (1) teach a matching model to capture more fine-grained context-response relevance difference and (2) reduce the train-test discrepancy in terms of distractor strength. Our method is simple, effective, and universal. Experiments on three benchmark datasets and four state-of-the-art matching models show that the proposed approach brings significant and consistent performance improvements.
A Vote of Competence: How a Similar Upbringing to Political Candidates Influences Voting Choice

A common strategy employed by political leaders to win elections is to establish similarity with their constituents. This article extends previous research on this approach in several ways. First, the authors test and confirm the commonly used, but underresearched, political marketing tactic of highlighting similarity with constituents through upbringing characteristics. Second, given the debate about why the similarity-voting effect occurs, the authors aimed to establish causality of the effect. They found that perceived competence and liking both mediate this relationship in the context of similar upbringing. Finally, the positive effect of similar upbringing only holds for those with average and above-average self-perceptions of political skills, meaning that this approach would not be effective for some inexpert voting populations. By understanding the mechanism behind the similarity-voting effect in the context of similar upbringing, in addition to its important caveat, political marketers can approach campaigns in a more informed manner.
An integrated ISM-MICMAC approach for modelling and analysing dependencies among engineering parameters in the early design phase

Several studies have proposed methods for modelling and examining the outcomes of engineering change propagation. However, for reasons of practicality, designers need to be supported by simple tools which enable them to model and analyse dependencies among engineering parameters (EPs) in the early design phase. Utilising data gleaned from a prior completed project, this paper proposes a two-stage structural approach to achieve this objective. In the initial stage, interpretive structural modelling (ISM) is utilised to arrange EPs into a simple hierarchical form. In the following stage, cross-impact matrix multiplication (MICMAC) analysis is implemented to classify EPs in terms of their criticality. The results from modelling and analysis show that the proposed approach could be useful to designers opting to use engineering change propagation methods as well as to those who rely only on their experience and knowledge to assess the consequences of changes.
C OMPARISON OF S PATIOTEMPORAL N ETWORKS FOR L EARNING V IDEO R ELATED T ASKS

Many methods for learning from video sequences involve temporally processing 2D CNN features from the individual frames or directly utilizing 3D convolutions within high-performing 2D CNN architectures. The focus typically remains on how to incorporate the temporal processing within an already stable spatial architecture. This work constructs an MNIST-based video dataset with parameters controlling relevant facets of common video-related tasks: classiﬁcation, ordering
Political Ideology in Consumer Resistance: Analyzing Far-Right Opposition to Multicultural Marketing

Political ideologies of the far-right are gaining ground in world politics and culture, not least by way of market forces. It has therefore become urgent to understand how these ideologies manifest themselves in the fields of marketing and consumption at a sociocultural level. The authors explore the discursive efforts in far-right consumer resistance to advance a political agenda through protests directed at brands’ multicultural advertising and analyze how these consumers conceptualize their adversaries in the marketplace. In contrast to previous framings of adversaries identified in consumer research, where resistance is typically anticapitalist and directed toward firms’ unethical conduct or the exploitation by the global market economy per se, the authors find that the following discursive themes stand out in the far-right consumer resistance: the emphasis on the state as main antagonist, the indifference to capitalism as a potential adversary, and overt contestation of liberal ethics. The article concludes with a discussion of research contributions as well as the public policy and marketing implications in light of a growing far-right consumer culture.
Permissible angles for coincidence‐site‐lattice rotations

In addition to symmetry rotations (Σ = 1), lattices may admit coincidence-site-lattice (c.s.l.) rotations of various degrees of coincidence, Σ. The conditions for the occurrence of c.s. l, rotations are formulated in general terms by introducing the metric matrix of a lattice. When all lattices are considered, it is found that there are 4Σ possible values for the angle of rotation which give rise to a degree of coincidence Σ. These angles have cosines which are integral multiples of 1/2Σ. A particular lattice admits only some of these c.s. l, rotations. Cubic lattices are discussed in detail and it is shown that the number of permissible rotation angles for each odd value of Σ is approximately 3.414 × √Σ. Conversely, a particular rotation angle originates a c.s. l, of degree of coincidence Σ in those lattices which satisfy particular metric conditions. Finally, the effect of a uniform strain due to temperature or pressure changes is analysed, and it is shown that while symmetry rotations are invariant to this form of strain, only very few c.s. l, rotations are unaffected.
Politics at the Mall: The Moral Foundations of Boycotts

This article examines the motivations of liberals and conservatives to boycott and buycott. Nine studies demonstrate that although both liberals and conservatives engage in consumer political actions, they do so for different reasons influenced by their unique moral concerns: Liberals engage in boycotts and buycotts that are associated with the protection of harm and fairness moral values (individualizing moral values), whereas conservatives engage in boycotts and buycotts that are associated with the protection of authority, loyalty, and purity moral values (binding moral values). In addition, the individualizing moral values lead to a generally more positive attitude toward boycotts, which explains why liberals are more likely to boycott and buycott. Liberals’ greater concern for the suffering of others and unfair treatment makes them more likely to engage in consumer political actions. Conservatives, in turn, engage in consumer political actions in relatively rarer cases in which their binding moral values are affected by corporate activity.