Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Trimodal Waveguide Demonstration and Its Implementation as a High Order Mode Interferometer for Sensing Application

This work implements and demonstrates an interferometric transducer based on a trimodal optical waveguide concept. The readout signal is generated from the interference between the fundamental and second-order modes propagating on a straight polymer waveguide. Intuitively, the higher the mode order, the larger the fraction of power (evanescent field) propagating outside the waveguide core, hence the higher the sensitivity that can be achieved when interfering against the strongly confined fundamental mode. The device is fabricated using the polymer SU-8 over a SiO2 substrate and shows a free spectral range of 20.2 nm and signal visibility of 5.7 dB, reaching a sensitivity to temperature variations of 0.0586 dB/°C. The results indicate that the proposed interferometer is a promising candidate for highly sensitive, compact and low-cost photonic transducer for implementation in different types of sensing applications, among these, point-of-care.
Targeting mitochondria‐associated membranes as a potential therapy against endothelial injury induced by hypoxia

Mitochondrial dysfunction plays a principal role in hypoxia‐induced endothelial injury, which is involved in hypoxic pulmonary hypertension and ischemic cardiovascular diseases. Recent studies have identified mitochondria‐associated membranes (MAMs) that modulate mitochondrial function under a variety of pathophysiological conditions such as high‐fat diet‐mediated insulin resistance, hypoxia reoxygenation‐induced myocardial death, and hypoxia‐evoked vascular smooth muscle cell proliferation. However, the role of MAMs in hypoxia‐induced endothelial injury remains unclear. To explore this further, human umbilical vein endothelial cells and human pulmonary artery endothelial cells were exposed to hypoxia (1% O2) for 24 hours. An increase in MAM formation was uncovered by immunoblotting and immunofluorescence. Then, we performed small interfering RNA transfection targeted to MAM constitutive proteins and explored the biological effects. Knockdown of MAM constitutive proteins attenuated hypoxia‐induced elevation of mitochondrial Ca2+ and repressed mitochondrial impairment, leading to an increase in mitochondrial membrane potential and ATP production and a decline in reactive oxygen species. Then, we found that MAM disruption mitigated cell apoptosis and promoted cell survival. Next, other protective effects, such as those pertaining to the repression of inflammatory response and the promotion of NO synthesis, were investigated. With the disruption of MAMs under hypoxia, inflammatory molecule expression was repressed, and the eNOS‐NO pathway was enhanced. This study demonstrates that the disruption of MAMs might be of therapeutic value for treating endothelial injury under hypoxia, suggesting a novel strategy for preventing hypoxic pulmonary hypertension and ischemic injuries.
A Proteomic View of Cellular Responses to Anticancer Quinoline-Copper Complexes

Metal-containing drugs have long been used in anticancer therapies. The mechansims of action of platinum-based drugs are now well-understood, which cannot be said of drugs containing other metals, such as gold or copper. To gain further insights into such mechanisms, we used a classical proteomic approach based on two-dimensional elelctrophoresis to investigate the mechanisms of action of a hydroxyquinoline-copper complex, which shows promising anticancer activities, using the leukemic cell line RAW264.7 as the biological target. Pathway analysis of the modulated proteins highlighted changes in the ubiquitin/proteasome pathway, the mitochondrion, the cell adhesion-cytoskeleton pathway, and carbon metabolism or oxido-reduction. In line with these prteomic-derived hypotheses, targeted validation experiments showed that the hydroxyquinoline-copper complex induces a massive reduction in free glutathione and a strong alteration in the actin cytoskeleton, suggesting a multi-target action of the hydroxyquinoline-copper complex on cancer cells.
Fetal and trophoblast PI3K p110α have distinct roles in regulating resource supply to the growing fetus in mice

Studies suggest that placental nutrient supply adapts according to fetal demands. However, signaling events underlying placental adaptations remain unknown. Here we demonstrate that phosphoinositide 3-kinase p110α in the fetus and the trophoblast interplay to regulate placental nutrient supply and fetal growth. Complete loss of fetal p110α caused embryonic death, whilst heterozygous loss resulted in fetal growth restriction and impaired placental formation and nutrient transport. Loss of trophoblast p110α resulted in viable fetuses, abnormal placental development and a failure of the placenta to transport sufficient nutrients to match fetal demands for growth. Using RNA-seq we identified genes downstream of p110α in the trophoblast that are important in adapting placental phenotype. Using CRISPR/Cas9 we showed loss of p110α differentially affects gene expression in trophoblast and embryonic stem cells. Our findings reveal important, but distinct roles for p110α in the different compartments of the conceptus, which control fetal resource acquisition and growth.
Asymmetric Chemoenzymatic Synthesis of (-)-Podophyllotoxin and Related Aryltetralin Lignans.

(-)-Podophyllotoxin is one of the most potent microtubule depolymerizing agents and has served as an important lead compound in antineoplastic drug discovery. Here, we report a short chemoenzymatic total synthesis of (-)-podophyllotoxin and related aryltetralin lignans. Vital to this approach is the use of an enzymatic oxidative C-C coupling reaction to construct the tetracyclic core of the natural product in a diastereoselective fashion. This strategy allows gram scale access to (-)-deoxypodophyllotoxin and is readily adaptable to the preparation of related aryltetralin lignans.
Applying CRFs and SVMs to Textual Entailment Recognition

Textual entailment is knowledge that may prove useful for a variety of applications dealing with inferencing over sentences described in natural language. This paper proposes a combined method to recognize textual entailment. Firstly to calculate the similarity between sentence pair (text T and hypothesis H ) based on the TF-IDF values. Secondly to discard the sentence pairs that have high similarity score and are actually not entailed using additional information like features from words, chunks and predicateargument structures by machine learning methods. In contrast to previous approaches that makes use of all kinds of features. The experimental results show that our method is effective for recognizing textual entailment task. Our experiments also show that the different techniques that we employ perform very differently on some of the subsets of the recognizing textual entailment corpus and as a result, it is useful to use the nature of the dataset as a feature.
Geriatric Syndromes in Older Adults Living with HIV and Cognitive Impairment

Nearly half of the population living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in the United States is now older than 50 years with at least 6% over age 65. Between 35% and 50% live with mild to moderate cognitive impairment. Older persons living with HIV (PLWH) also have a substantial burden of HIV‐associated non‐acquired immunodeficiency syndrome medical conditions and are at risk for frailty, geriatric syndromes, and early mortality compared with HIV‐uninfected peers. We sought to define the magnitude of geriatric conditions and multimorbidity in PLWH older than 60 years who are living with symptomatic cognitive impairment. In a subset of participants, we examined associations between these geriatric conditions.
Cholangiocarcinoma in a Free-Ranging Eurasian Brown Bear (Ursus arctos arctos) from Northern Spain

Abstract: A hepatic cholangiocarcinoma with metastases in the gallbladder, left elbow joint, adrenal glands, and lungs was observed in a female 21-yr-old free-ranging Eurasian brown bear (Ursus arctos arctos) found in the Principality of Asturias (northern Spain). Gross and histopathologic findings are described.
Phenotypic plasticity in the invasive pest Drosophila suzukii: activity rhythms and gene expression in response to temperature

ABSTRACT Phenotypic plasticity may contribute to the invasive success of an alien species in a new environment. A highly plastic species may survive and reproduce in more diverse environments, thereby supporting establishment and colonization. We focused on plasticity in the circadian rhythm of activity, which can favour species coexistence in invasion, for the invasive species Drosophila suzukii, which is expected to be a weaker direct competitor than other Drosophila species of the resident community. We compared the circadian rhythms of the locomotor activity in adults and the expression of clock genes in response to temperature in the invasive D. suzukii and the resident Drosophila melanogaster. We showed that D. suzukii is active in a narrower range of temperatures than D. melanogaster and that the activities of the two species overlap during the day, regardless of the temperature. Both species are diurnal and exhibit rhythmic activity at dawn and dusk, with a much lower activity at dawn for D. suzukii females. Our results show that the timeless and clock genes are good candidates to explain the plastic response that is observed in relation to temperature. Overall, our results suggest that thermal phenotypic plasticity in D. suzukii activity is not sufficient to explain the invasive success of D. suzukii and call for testing other hypotheses, such as the release of competitors and/or predators. Summary: The thermal phenotypic plasticity of Drosophila suzukii in terms of locomotor activity and expression of clock genes is narrower than that of Drosophila melanogaster.
Computer-assisted navigation in orbitofacial surgery

The purpose of this systematic review is to investigate the most common indications, treatment, and outcomes of computer-assisted surgery (CAS) in ophthalmological practice. CAS has evolved over the years from a neurosurgical tool to maxillofacial as well as an instrument to orbitofacial surgeries. A detailed and organized scrutiny in relevant electronic databases, journals, and bibliographies of the cited articles was carried out. Clinical studies with a minimum of two study cases were included. Navigation surgery, posttraumatic orbital reconstruction, computer-assisted orbital surgery, image-guided orbital decompression, and optic canal decompression (OCD) were the areas of interest. The search generated 42 articles describing the use of navigation in facial surgery: 22 on orbital reconstructions, 5 related to lacrimal sac surgery, 4 on orbital decompression, 2 articles each on intraorbital foreign body and intraorbital tumors, 2 on faciomaxillary surgeries, 3 on cranial surgery, and 2 articles on navigation-guided OCD in traumatic optic neuropathy. In general, CAS is reported to be a useful tool for surgical planning, execution, evaluation, and research. The largest numbers of studies and patients were related to trauma. Treatment of complex orbital fractures was greatly improved by the use of CAS compared with empirically treated control groups. CAS seems to add a favourable potential to the surgical armamentarium. Planning details of the surgical approach in a three-dimensional virtual environment and execution with real-time guidance can help in considerable enhancement of precision. Financial investments and steep learning curve are the main hindrances to its popularity.
Effects of Sustained Inflation or Positive Pressure Ventilation on the Release of Adrenomedullin in Preterm Infants with Respiratory Failure at Birth

Abstract Objective Delivery room (DR) management may play an important role in the development and prevention of lung injury. Therefore, in a cohort of low birth weight infants (LBW), we investigated the effects of two different lung recruitment maneuvers, such as positive pressure ventilation (PPV) and sustained inflation (SI) on adrenomedullin (AM), a well-established lung-specific vasoactive agent. Study Design This is a prospective case-control randomized study in 44 LBW infants spontaneously breathing with respiratory failure at birth requiring respiratory support. LBW were randomized to receive PPV (n = 22) or SI (n = 22) support. AM was measured from blood in samples collected at birth from arterial artery (BLT0) and at 1-hour (BLT1) and at 24-hour (BLT2) from peripheral venous site. AM assessment in urine samples was performed at 1-hour (URT1) and at 24-hour (URT2). Results No significant differences in AM (p > 0.05) blood (T0–T2) and urine (T1, T2) levels were observed between groups. Conclusion The present data, showing the absence of any differences in AM blood and urine levels, suggest that PPV and SI are both feasible and equally effective DR maneuvers. The findings open the way to further studies evaluating the effects of PPV and SI on short-/long-term respiratory outcome through biomarkers assessment.
Family with primary periodic paralysis and a mutation in MCM3AP, a gene implicated in mRNA transport

Introduction: Primary periodic paralyses (PPs) are rare genetic neuromuscular disorders commonly caused by mutations in genes related to ion channel function. However, 10%–20% of cases remain as genetically unexplained. Herein we present a family with PP with paralytic episodes generally lasting for 1–7 days at a time, associated with a drop in K+ levels. Methods: Screening for mutations in known disease‐causing genes was negative, hence we performed whole‐exome sequencing of 5 family members. Results: Minichromosome maintenance 3–associated protein (MCM3AP) c.2615G>A (p.C872Y) was found to cosegregate with disease in the family and was not present in control subjects. The mutation is novel, highly conserved across multiple species, and predicted to be damaging. Discussion: MCM3AP encodes germinal center–associated nuclear protein (GANP), a protein involved in the export of certain messenger RNAs from the nucleus to the cytoplasm. Our findings suggest that a novel mutation in MCM3AP is associated with hypokalemic PP. Muscle Nerve, 2019
Association of Systemic Inflammation and Fatigue in Osteoarthritis: 2007−2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

Background/Purpose: Mechanistic insight into osteoarthritis fatigue is needed as clinical management of this condition is nonspecific. Systemic inflammation is associated with fatigue in other chronic diseases. The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between systemic inflammation and fatigue in osteoarthritis, while controlling for covariates. Method: This secondary analysis with a cross-sectional, multiyear retrospective design used data from the 2007−2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Adults with self-reported osteoarthritis who participated in an examination at a mobile center and had no comorbidities associated with fatigue or systemic inflammation were included (n = 296). Complex sample analysis, independent samples t tests, and χ2 tests of independence were used to explore differences between nonfatigued and fatigued adults with osteoarthritis. Adjusted hierarchical logistic regression models were used to calculate odds of fatigue as a function of two systemic inflammatory markers, C-reactive protein (CRP), and white blood cell (WBC) count. Results: Fatigued adults with osteoarthritis had significantly higher CRP levels and WBC counts compared to nonfatigued adults with osteoarthritis. In adjusted logistic regression models, increased CRP was associated with higher odds of fatigue when controlling for age, days affected by pain, depressive symptoms, sleep quantity, and body mass index (Odds ratio [OR] = 3.38, 95% CI [1.18, 9.69]). WBC count was not associated with higher odds of fatigue when controlling for these variables (OR = 1.10, 95% CI [0.92, 1.32]). Conclusion: Systemic inflammation may have a relationship with fatigue in osteoarthritis. Future work is necessary to replicate these findings in more robust studies.
Table Detection from Document Image using Vertical Arrangement of Text Blocks

Table detection is a challenging problem and plays an important role in document layout analysis. In this paper, we propose an effective method to identify the table region from document images. First, the regions of interest (ROIs) are recognized as the table candidates. In each ROI, we locate text components and extract text blocks. After that, we check all text blocks to determine if they are arranged horizontally or vertically and compare the height of each text block with the average height. If the text blocks satisfy a series of rules, the ROI is regarded as a table. Experiments on the ICDAR 2013 dataset show that the results obtained are very encouraging. This proves the effectiveness and superiority of our proposed method.
Incremental Object Matching Approach of Schema-Free Data with Mapreduce

Abstract Object matching is a traditional deduplication approach that is used to identify the duplicates within one or several data sets respectively. However, this task will become difficult in the context of big data. Few publications have mentioned incremental methods to solve this legacy issue in parallel. To address this limitation, we aim to propose an incremental object matching approach (IOMMapReduce) in parallel. We investigate possible solutions to improve current object matching approaches with MapReduce, to make it support incrementality to speed up the deduplication process. Finally, our experimental evaluation on large data sets shows the high effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed approaches.
Health-related quality of life in paediatric patients with Type 1 diabetes mellitus using insulin infusion systems. A systematic review and meta-analysis

Background In 2017, more than 1.1 million children were living with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) globally. The goal in paediatric diabetes therapy is reaching optimal glycaemic control as early as possible in order to avoid complications and early mortality without compromising the quality of life (QoL) of children. Several different insulin regimens are available for T1DM patients to reach this goal. Aims This review set out to analyse whether continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion (CSII) regimens are superior to multiple daily injection (MDI) therapy in T1DM youth regarding QoL. Additionally, it assessed glycaemic control and adverse events as secondary outcomes and discussed potential future public health implications and justifications for using CSII as a first-line therapy in diabetic youth. Methods A systematic review and random effects meta-analysis was performed on studies investigating the association between QoL and diabetes treatment regimen. Differences in adverse event rates between groups were analysed using a Mann-Whitney U test. Lastly, differences in glycaemic control were assessed using a random effects meta-analysis. Results QoL and glycaemic control was significantly better in CSII subjects at baseline and follow-up. No significant differences in adverse events were found between study groups. No significant changes over time could be shown for either QoL or glycaemic control. Conclusion CSII proved to provide similar or slightly better outcomes in all analysed fields. This is consistent with previous research. However, to make credible recommendations, better-designed studies are needed to investigate the impact of CSII in children.
CROSS-LANGUAGE KNOWLEDGE SHARING MODEL BASED ON ONTOLOGIES AND LOGICAL INFERENCE

AbstractVast amounts of new knowledge are created on the Internet in many different languages every day. How to share and search this knowledge across different languages efficiently is a critical problem for information science and knowledge management. Conventional cross-language knowledge sharing models are based on natural language processing (NLP) technologies. However, natural language ambiguity, which is a problem even for single language NLP. is exacerbated when dealing with multiple languages. Semantic web technologies can circumvent the problem of natural language ambiguity by enabling human authors to specify meaning in a computer-interpretable form. In particular, description logics ontologies provide a way for authors to describe specific relationships between conceptual entities in a way that computers can process to infer implied meaning. This paper presents a new cross-language knowledge sharing model, SEMCL, which uses semantic web technologies to provide a potential solution to the problem of ambiguity. We first describe the methods used to support searches at the semantic predicate level in our model. Next, we describe how our model realizes a cross-language approach. We present an implementation of the model for the general engineering domain and give a scenario describing how the model implementation handles semantic cross-language knowledge sharing. We conclude with a discussion of related work.
Ribonuclease 7 Shields the Kidney and Bladder from Invasive Uropathogenic Escherichia coli Infection.

BACKGROUND Evidence suggests that antimicrobial peptides, components of the innate immune response, protect the kidneys and bladder from bacterial challenge. We previously identified ribonuclease 7 (RNase 7) as a human antimicrobial peptide that has bactericidal activity against uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC). Functional studies assessing RNase 7's contributions to urinary tract defense are limited. METHODS To investigate RNase 7's role in preventing urinary tract infection (UTI), we quantified urinary RNase 7 concentrations in 29 girls and adolescents with a UTI history and 29 healthy female human controls. To assess RNase 7's antimicrobial activity in vitro in human urothelial cells, we used siRNA to silence urothelial RNase 7 production and retroviral constructs to stably overexpress RNase 7; we then evaluated UPEC's ability to bind and invade these cells. For RNase 7 in vivo studies, we developed humanized RNase 7 transgenic mice, subjected them to experimental UTI, and enumerated UPEC burden in the urine, bladder, and kidneys. RESULTS Compared with controls, study participants with a UTI history had 1.5-fold lower urinary RNase 7 concentrations. When RNase 7 was silenced in vitro, the percentage of UPEC binding or invading human urothelial cells increased; when cells overexpressed RNase 7, UPEC attachment and invasion decreased. In the transgenic mice, we detected RNase 7 expression in the kidney's intercalated cells and bladder urothelium. RNase 7 humanized mice exhibited marked protection from UPEC. CONCLUSIONS These findings provide evidence that RNase 7 has a role in kidney and bladder host defense against UPEC and establish a foundation for investigating RNase 7 as a UTI prognostic marker or nonantibiotic-based therapy.