Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The biomarkers of key miRNAs and target genes associated with acute myocardial infarction

Background Acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is considered one of the most prominent causes of death from cardiovascular disease worldwide. Knowledge of the molecular mechanisms underlying AMI remains limited. Accurate biomarkers are needed to predict the risk of AMI and would be beneficial for managing the incidence rate. The gold standard for the diagnosis of AMI, the cardiac troponin T (cTnT) assay, requires serial testing, and the timing of measurement with respect to symptoms affects the results. As attractive candidate diagnostic biomarkers in AMI, circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) are easily detectable, generally stable and tissue specific. Methods The Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database was used to compare miRNA expression between AMI and control samples, and the interactions between miRNAs and mRNAs were analysed for expression and function. Furthermore, a protein-protein interaction (PPI) network was constructed. The miRNAs identified in the bioinformatic analysis were verified by RT-qPCR in an H9C2 cell line. The miRNAs in plasma samples from patients with AMI (n = 11) and healthy controls (n = 11) were used to construct receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves to evaluate the clinical prognostic value of the identified miRNAs. Results We identified eight novel miRNAs as potential candidate diagnostic biomarkers for patients with AMI. In addition, the predicted target genes provide insight into the molecular mechanisms underlying AMI.
Rapid Detection of IgM Antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 Virus via Colloidal Gold Nanoparticle-Based Lateral-Flow Assay

Last year, the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) emerged in Wuhan, and it has rapidly spread to many other countries and regions. COVID-19 exhibits a strong human-to-human transmission infectivity and could cause acute respiratory diseases. Asymptomatic carriers are able to infect other healthy persons, and this poses a challenge for public health; the World Health Organization (WHO) has already announced COVID-19 as a global pandemic. Nucleic acid testing, considered as the current primary method for diagnosing COVID-19, might lead to false negatives and is difficult to be applied for every suspected patient because of the existence of asymptomatic carriers. Meanwhile, detecting specific antibodies in blood, such as the IgM antibody, against the SARS-CoV-2 virus is another choice for COVID-19 diagnosis, as it is widely accepted that IgM is an important indicator in the acute infection period. In this study, a colloidal gold nanoparticle-based lateral-flow (AuNP-LF) assay was developed to achieve rapid diagnosis and on-site detection of the IgM antibody against the SARS-CoV-2 virus through the indirect immunochromatography method. For preparing AuNP-LF strips, the SARS-CoV-2 nucleoprotein (SARS-CoV-2 NP) was coated on an analytical membrane for sample capture, and antihuman IgM was conjugated with AuNPs to form the detecting reporter. Optimization of AuNP-LF assay was carried out by altering the pH value and the amount of antihuman IgM. The performance of AuNP-LF assay was evaluated by testing serum samples of COVID-19 patients and normal humans. The results were compared with the real-time polymerase chain reaction. The sensitivity and specificity of AuNP-LF assay were determined to be 100 and 93.3%, respectively, and an almost perfect agreement was exhibited by Kappa statistics (κ coefficient = 0.872). AuNP-LF assay showed outstanding selectivity in the detection of IgM against the SARS-CoV-2 virus with no interference from other viruses such as severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus (SFTSV) and dengue virus (DFV). AuNP-LF assay was able to achieve results within 15 min and needed only 10–20 μL serum for each test. As a whole, in the light of its advantages such as excellent specificity and stability, easy operation, low cost, and being less time-consuming, AuNP-LF assay is a feasible method for the diagnosis of COVID-19 in primary hospitals and laboratories, especially in emergency situations in which numerous samples need to be tested on time.
Self‐Assembly Anisotropic Magnetic Nanowire Films Induced by External Magnetic Field

Abstract Self‐assembly generated materials induced by an external magnetic field have attracted considerable interest following the development of nanodevices. However, the fabrication of macroscopic and anisotropic magnetic films at the nanoscale remains a challenge. Here, anisotropic magnetic films are successfully prepared using a solution‐based nanowire assembly strategy under a magnetic field. The assembly process is manipulated by changing the thickness of silica shell coated on the surface of magnetic nanowires. The anisotropic magnetic films show highly anisotropic magnetization under different angles of magnetic field and better magnetization properties than that of disordered magnetic films. The well‐defined nanowire arrays enable magnetization anisotropic property which may be useful in the magnetic energy conversion technologies and biomedical sciences which lie far beyond those achievable with traditional magnetic materials.
Insurance Status and Biological and Psychosocial Determinants of Cardiometabolic Risk Among Mexican-Origin U.S. Hispanic/Latino Adults with Type 2 Diabetes

Purpose: Hispanics/Latinos in the United States bear higher burden of type 2 diabetes (T2D) and associated complications compared with the general population. Health insurance coverage is also lower in this population. We examined the association of health insurance with biological and psychosocial determinants of cardiometabolic risk among U.S. Mexican-origin Hispanic/Latino adults with T2D. Methods: Participants were self-reported Hispanic/Latino adults with T2D diagnosis. Trained bilingual community health workers collected cross-sectional information on biological and psychosocial factors using clinical examinations, laboratory tests, validated questionnaires, and wearable activity monitors. Results: One hundred and seven Hispanic/Latino adults (54±12 years, 65% female, 36% prescribed insulin, 60% uninsured) with T2D were enrolled. While 93% had low language-based acculturation, 88% had high health literacy in Spanish. Forty percent were food insecure and 47% expressed at least one social need. Overall, 35% had an HbA1c <7.0% (indicating good control) and 31% had an HbA1c >9.0%. Sixty-three percent had blood pressure within target (<130/80 mmHg), and overall participants were moderately physically active. However, 53% were obese (body mass index ≥30 kg/m2) and 76% had a waist measurement defined as high risk (>88 cm for women and >102 cm for men). Participants without health insurance were younger (51.9±10.4 vs. 58.8±10.5 years mean±standard deviation, p=0.0008) but had higher HbA1c (8.4±2.2% vs. 7.6±1.6, p=0.031) and fasting glucose (184.9±86.5 vs. 148.6±61.2 mg/dl, p=0.008) levels. Conclusions: Health insurance status appears to influence achieved glycemic control for U.S. Hispanic/Latino adults with T2D. However, various psychosocial factors potentially influencing cardiometabolic risk independently of health insurance status may also be implicated in the inequitable burden of T2D. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03736486.
Organization and interactions of cell envelope proteins of the extreme thermoacidophile Sulfolobus acidocaldarius

To address basic questions concerning proteins of the Sulfolobus acidocaldarius cell envelope, cell ghosts (empty cells consisting of cytoplasmic membrane complexed with the glycoprotein S-layer) were isolated and analyzed by standard biochemical methods. The constituent proteins included the two dissimilar subunits also found in the baglike structures (sacculi) of S-layer (purified from whole cells by detergent extraction), plus approximately 30 additional protein species. When S-layer-dissociating conditions were applied to intact cell ghosts, the large sacculus subunit was released, whereas the small subunit remained bound to the cytoplasmic membrane. These results provided evidence that the small subunit may anchor the S-layer to the S. acidocaldarius cell membrane. The S. acidocaldarius S-layer was highly resistant to proteolysis in its native state but not when dissociated into subunits. Virtually all other membrane-associated proteins were readily digested by pronase treatment of cell ghosts. Prona.
Practical context of enzymatic treatment for wound healing: A secreted protease approach (Review)

Skin wounds have been extensively studied as their healing represents a critical step towards achieving homeostasis following a traumatic event. Dependent on the severity of the damage, wounds are categorized as either acute or chronic. To date, chronic wounds have the highest economic impact as long term increases wound care costs. Chronic wounds affect 6.5 million patients in the United States with an annual estimated expense of $25 billion for the health care system. Among wound treatment categories, active wound care represents the fastest-growing category due to its specific actions and lower costs. Within this category, proteases from various sources have been used as successful agents in debridement wound care. The wound healing process is predominantly mediated by matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) that, when dysregulated, result in defective wound healing. Therapeutic activity has been described for animal secretions including fish epithelial mucus, maggot secretory products and snake venom, which contain secreted proteases (SPs). No further alternatives for use, sources or types of proteases used for wound healing have been found in the literature to date. Through the present review, the context of enzymatic wound care alternatives will be discussed. In addition, substrate homology of SPs and human MMPs will be compared and contrasted. The purpose of these discussions is to identify and propose the stages of wound healing in which SPs may be used as therapeutic agents to improve the wound healing process.
Climate-driven aerobic habitat loss in the California Current System

Aerobic habitat mediates species responses to historical and future climate change in the California Current System. Climate warming is expected to intensify hypoxia in the California Current System (CCS), threatening its diverse and productive marine ecosystem. We analyzed past regional variability and future changes in the Metabolic Index (Φ), a species-specific measure of the environment’s capacity to meet temperature-dependent organismal oxygen demand. Across the traits of diverse animals, Φ exhibits strong seasonal to interdecadal variations throughout the CCS, implying that resident species already experience large fluctuations in available aerobic habitat. For a key CCS species, northern anchovy, the long-term biogeographic distribution and decadal fluctuations in abundance are both highly coherent with aerobic habitat volume. Ocean warming and oxygen loss by 2100 are projected to decrease Φ below critical levels in 30 to 50% of anchovies’ present range, including complete loss of aerobic habitat—and thus likely extirpation—from the southern CCS. Aerobic habitat loss will vary widely across the traits of CCS taxa, disrupting ecological interactions throughout the region.
Feeding behaviour in ruminants: a consequence of interactions between a reward system and the regulation of metabolic homeostasis

Feeding behaviour, through both diet selection and food intake, is the predominant way that an animal attempts to fulfil its metabolic requirements and achieve homeostasis. In domestic herbivores across the wide range of production practices, voluntary feed intake is arguably the most important factor in animal production, and a better understanding of systems involved in intake regulation can have important practical implications in terms of performance, health and welfare. In this review, we provide a conceptual framework that highlights the critical involvement and interconnections of two major regulatory systems of feeding behaviour: the reward and the homeostatic systems. A review of the literature on ruminants and rodents provides evidence that feeding behaviour is not only shaped by homeostatic needs but also by hedonic and motivational incentives associated with foods through experiences and expectations of rewards. The different brain structures and neuronal/hormonal pathways involved in these two regulatory systems is evidence of their different influences on feeding behaviours that help explain deviation from behaviour based solely on satisfying nutritional needs, and offers opportunities to influence feeding motivation to meet applied goals in livestock production. This review further highlights the key contribution of experience in the short (behavioural learning) and long term (metabolic learning), including the critical role of fetal environment in shaping feeding behaviour both directly by food cue–consequence pairings and indirectly via modifications of metabolic functioning, with cascading effects on energy balance and body reserves and, consequently, on feeding motivation.
The role of blunt egg pole characteristics for recognition of eggs in the song thrush (Turdus philomelos)

Summary Colour and speckling of avian eggshells play important roles in egg recognition behaviour. However, only a few studies have paid attention to whether specific parts of eggs may be more important than others in rejection decisions by hosts. We hypothesised that the blunt pole in song thrush (Turdus philomelos) eggs possesses important cues for recognition of own eggs because this is the most visible part of the egg in the nest. We examined host response towards conspecific eggs painted blue either at the blunt or sharp poles, and used unpainted conspecific eggs as a control. We found, as predicted, that the experimental eggs painted blue at the blunt poles were rejected significantly more often than the experimental eggs unpainted at this pole. Rejection rates of experimental eggs were higher with increasing differences in number of spots between the two poles of own eggs. Our results confirmed that the essential cues used for egg discrimination in song thrushes are found at the blunt egg pole.
Species‐specific attraction of migratory banded kokopu juveniles to adult pheromones

Juvenile migratory Galaxias fasciatus juveniles or whitebait were attracted to odours produced by adults. The attraction was dependent on concentration with an upstream movement and attraction to the odour chamber at intermediate level concentrations. At a high concentration the migratory response of whitebait was retarded with the majority of fish not moving upstream but remaining in the lower section of the apparatus. There was no response to odours from adults of other galaxiid species, the inanga G. maculatus or koaro G. brevipinnis at any concentration. These results demonstrate G. fasciatus whitebait have the ability to discriminate species-specific pheromones during their migratory phase, providing evidence of a pheromonal attraction in migratory amphidromous fish which could possibly provide a basis for effective habitat selection.
The Impact of Gamification on Learning Outcomes of Computer Science Majors

Gamification is the use of game elements in domains other than games. Gamification use is often suggested for difficult activities because it enhances users’ engagement and motivation level. Due to such benefits, the use of gamification is also proposed in education environments to improve students’ performance, engagement, and satisfaction. Computer science in higher education is a tough area of study and thus needs to utilize various already explored benefits of gamification. This research develops an empirical study to evaluate the effectiveness of gamification in teaching computer science in higher education. Along with the learning outcomes, the effect of group size on students’ satisfaction level is also measured. Furthermore, the impact of gamification over time is analyzed throughout a semester to observe its effectiveness as a long-term learning technique. The analysis, covering both learning outcome and students’ satisfaction, suggests that gamification is an effective tool to teach tough courses at higher education level; however, group size should be taken into account for optimal classroom size and better learning experience.
Comparative Efficacy and Safety of Pharmacological Managements for Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients: Protocol for Systematic Review and Trade-Off Network Meta-Analysis.

Coronavirus-Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is the clinical disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the infectious agent causing the ongoing pandemic that has impacted the lives of hundreds of millions of people in almost every nation worldwide. It is a potentially fatal disease to many vulnerable patients including the elderly and those with chronic illnesses; but because this virus is a novel one, there are no firmly established treatment protocols. Many treatment methods are being investigated worldwide, and scientific conclusions drawn from these endeavors are crucial for healthcare professionals in combating this disease. In this network meta-analysis, we focus specifically on the pharmacologic agents that have been investigated for the treatment of COVID-19 and aim to produce a comprehensive picture of the evidence from current data in order to produce relevant insights on the comparative efficacy and safety profiles of various pharmacologic agents against COVID-19.
Purinergic Signaling During Hyperglycemia in Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells

The activation of purinergic receptors by nucleotides and/or nucleosides plays an important role in the control of vascular function, including modulation of vascular smooth muscle excitability, and vascular reactivity. Accordingly, purinergic receptor actions, acting as either ion channels (P2X) or G protein-coupled receptors (GCPRs) (P1, P2Y), target diverse downstream effectors, and substrates to regulate vascular smooth muscle function and vascular reactivity. Both vasorelaxant and vasoconstrictive effects have been shown to be mediated by different purinergic receptors in a vascular bed- and species-specific manner. Purinergic signaling has been shown to play a key role in altering vascular smooth muscle excitability and vascular reactivity following acute and short-term elevations in extracellular glucose (e.g., hyperglycemia). Moreover, there is evidence that vascular smooth muscle excitability and vascular reactivity is severely impaired during diabetes and that this is mediated, at least in part, by activation of purinergic receptors. Thus, purinergic receptors present themselves as important candidates mediating vascular reactivity in hyperglycemia, with potentially important clinical and therapeutic potential. In this review, we provide a narrative summarizing our current understanding of the expression, function, and signaling of purinergic receptors specifically in vascular smooth muscle cells and discuss their role in vascular complications following hyperglycemia and diabetes.
Exploring Factors Affecting User's Cybersecurity Behaviour by Using Mobile Augmented Reality App (CybAR)

In the field of cybersecurity, human behaviour is considered as the weakest link. Augmented Reality (AR) is one of top technologies that enhances users' experience by overlaying computational information into their reality. In spite of wide range of AR applications in different fields, there exists no AR application that helps to educate users and raise their awareness in cybersecurity aspects. In this paper, authors explore and apply gamification techniques to educate the users with the aim of raising overall cybersecurity awareness by developing a game based on AR techniques as an Android app called named CybAR. This work contributes in identification of the key elements that must be addressed in the AR game for helping the users to prevent cybersecurity attacks using Technology Threat Avoidance Theory (TTAT). TTAT enables the explanation of the engagement of individual users in threat avoidance behaviours and provides a framework at the user level. The paper also highlights the individual' differences that affect cybersecurity avoidance motivation and avoidance behaviour.
Dispersal and predation of diaspores of Coula edulis Baill. in an evergreen forest of Gabon

The African walnut (Coula edulis) is a tree species of African evergreen forests, the seeds of which are collected and traded by African people. Many animal species consume African walnut diaspores; however, their roles as dispersers or predators have yet to be clarified. In this study, we present observations conducted in two different habitats of a Gabonese region over a 3-year period. The originality of this research resides in the combination of three complementary approaches: (i) the use of camera-traps (ii) the exploration of land rodent burrows and (iii) the examination of elephant dung. In total, 408 camera-trap photographs have shown seven animal species involved in the dispersal/predation of C. edulis. Among these seven frugivorous species, the bush pig was found to be the main consumer and predator of seeds. Land rodents (Muridae) are potential predators, as they damaged the seeds and buried them deep in the soil. They may also play a role in the regeneration process as a result of the loss of seeds during transportation. Finally, no seeds appeared to emerge intact from elephant faeces. These results indicate that the natural regeneration rate of this tree species is low, unless other complex mechanisms are involved. Resume Le noisetier d'Afrique Coula edulis est un arbre des forets sempervirentes d'Afrique dont les fruits sont recoltes et commercialises par les populations africaines. De nombreuses especes animales en consomment les diaspores mais leur role dans la dispersion ou la predation de ces graines reste encore a clarifier. Dans cette etude, nous presentons les observations faites dans deux habitats differents d'une region du Gabon, sur une duree de trois ans. L'originalite de cette recherche reside dans la combinaison de trois approches complementaires : (i) l'utilisation de pieges photographiques (ii) l'exploration de terriers de rongeurs terrestres et (iii) l'examen de crottes d'elephants. Au total, 408 photos prises par les pieges ont montre que sept especes animales etaient impliquees dans la dispersion/predation de C. edulis. Parmi ces sept especes frugivores, le potamochere s'est avere etre le principal consommateur et predateur des fruits. Les rongeurs terrestres (Muridae) sont des predateurs potentiels dans la mesure ou ils endommagent les graines et les enfoncent profondement dans le sol. Ils pourraient aussi jouer un role dans le processus de regeneration etant donne qu'ils perdent des graines au cours du transport. Enfin, aucune graine ne semble ressortir intacte dans les crottes d'elephant. Ces resultats indiquent que le taux de regeneration naturelle de cette espece d'arbre est faible, a moins que d'autres mecanismes complexes ne soient impliques.
PEG-Supported Synthesis of Cyclic Oligodeoxyribonucleotides

Abstract Cyclic oligodeoxyribonucleotides have been synthesized in satisfactory yields by an easy procedure using polyethylene glycol (PEG) as soluble supporting polymer. The present method is particularly suitable for a medium to large scale synthesis. Early studies involving biological properties of synthetic1 and natural2 cyclic oligonucleotides stimulated a great deal of interest in such kind of molecules. The recent findings3 that circular single-stranded oligodeoxyribonucleotides having two runs of pyrimidines can bind tightly and sequence selectively to single-stranded polypurine DNA and RNA by forming triple helical complexes open up new perspectives to the design of more efficient DNA-and RNA-binding molecules. Our attention is being focused on the synthesis of medium-sized rings, since none of the synthetic procedures described so far proved to be really suitable for the preparation of such molecules on a relatively large scale. Following „classical“ solution methods, which in principle should e.