Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Thermo-Responsive Films Based Upon Diels-Alder Chemistry and Block Copolymer Phase Separation

Abstract : The surface properties of poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) films have been modified using gold particles functionalized with block copolymer-based ligands of poly(styrene) (PS) and PEG. The ligands were synthesized using Diels-Alder chemistry to join the PS and PEG blocks into linear diblock copolymers, which were attached to gold particles with a thiol terminal functionality on the PS block. The block copolymer ligands compatibilized the Au particles by creating a PEG shell around the Au and PS core. The Diels-Alder linkage, however, is temperature sensitive, and by annealing the films at 90 C, the PEG blocks of the ligand were separated from the PS-functionalized Au core. The Au particles were thus rendered immiscible in the PEG matrices and migrated to the film surfaces.
Regulatory T Cell Therapy Following Liver Transplantation

Liver transplantation (LT) is considered the gold standard of curative treatment for patients with end‐stage liver disease or nonresectable hepatic malignant tumors. Rejection after LT is the main nontechnical factor affecting the prognosis of recipients. Medical and surgical advances, combined with improved immunosuppression with drugs such as calcineurin inhibitors (CNIs), have contributed to an increase in 1‐year graft survival to around 80%. However, medium‐ and long‐term improvements in LT outcomes have lagged behind. Importantly, CNIs and other classical immunosuppressive drugs are associated with significant adverse effects, including malignancies, cardiovascular disease, and severe renal dysfunction. Immunomodulation using regulatory T cells (Tregs) is emerging as a promising alternative to classical immunosuppression. Since their discovery, the immunomodulatory effects of Tregs have been demonstrated in a range of diseases. This has rejuvenated the interest in using Tregs as a therapeutic strategy to induce immune tolerance after LT. In this review, we first summarize the discovery and development of Tregs. We then review the preclinical data supporting their production, mechanism of action, and therapeutic efficacy followed by a summary of relevant clinical trials. Finally, we discuss the outstanding challenges of Treg therapy and its future prospects for routine use in LT.
An iterative approach to detect pleiotropy and perform Mendelian Randomization analysis using GWAS summary statistics

MOTIVATION The overall association evidence of a genetic variant with multiple traits can be evaluated by cross phenotype association analysis using summary statistics from genome wide association studies (GWAS). Further dissecting the association pathways from a variant to multiple traits is important to understand the biological causal relationships among complex traits. RESULTS Here we introduce a flexible and computationally efficient Iterative Mendelian Randomization and Pleiotropy (IMRP) approach to simultaneously search for horizontal pleiotropic variants and estimate causal effect. Extensive simulations and real data applications suggest that IMRP has similar or better performance than existing Mendelian Randomization methods for both causal effect estimation and pleiotropic variant detection. The developed pleiotropy test is further extended to detect colocalization for multiple variants at a locus. IMRP will greatly facilitate our understanding of causal relationships underlying complex traits, in particular, when a large number of genetic instrumental variables are used for evaluating multiple traits. AVAILABILITY The software IMRP is available at https://github.com/XiaofengZhuCase/IMRP. The simulation codes can be downloaded at http://hal.case. edu/~xxz10/zhu-web/ under the link: MR Simulations software. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Psychological management of mental health concerns related to COVID-19: A review of guidelines and recommendations

Many publications have delineated strategies for mental health care to respond to psychological concerns and ramifications related to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The current review aims to encapsulate existing guidelines and recommendations of psychological management for mental health care for the general population, health-care professionals, children, and elderly populations, applied to a pandemic in particular reference to COVID-19. The literature on psychological care of such repercussions of COVID-19 was retrieved via a search in PubMed and Google database. Of 91 retrieved initial articles, only 18 were selected for final analysis, which was divided into two categories: (a) guidelines by government/public health bodies (n = 11) and (b) publications in peer-reviewed journals (n = 7). The recommendations can be summed but not limited to psychoeducation from a reliable source, normalization of stress, behavioral activation, scheduling of activities with a bespoke blending of recreational and daily chores, supportive care, staying digitally connected, relaxation techniques, ensuring rest, rotating shifts and short breaks during working hours, curtailing media consumption, fostering community resilience, seeking and sharing support from colleagues/supervisors, avoidance of abusing psychoactive substances, online consultation of mental health professionals on need, and participatory communication in a developmentally appropriate way with children. In the absence of observational and controlled studies on psychological management during pandemic times, we recommend such research soon.
Effect of Family and Patient Centered Empowerment Program on Depression, Anxiety and Stress in Patients with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Their Caregivers' Burden

Background: Considering the importance of family participation in patients' treatment and the positive effects of simultaneous patient and family education, this study was conducted to determine the effect of a family and patient-oriented empowerment program on depression, anxiety, and stress in patients with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and their caregivers' burden. Materials and Methods: This quasi-experimental study was conducted on 50 OCD patients along with their primary caregivers. The intervention group participated in eight sessions of training, each lasting from 60 to 90 min (twice a week), and the control group received the usual treatment. The Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale, Maudsley's Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory, Goldberg's General Health Questionnaire, and Zarit's Burden Inventory were used to collect the data before, immediately after and 1 month after the intervention, and then the gathered data were analyzed with t-test and analysis of variance using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences software, version 21. Results: The changes in the mean scores of depression (F2,48= 21.02, p < 0.001), anxiety (F2,48= 29.72, p < 0.001), and stress (F2,48= 16.52, p < 0.001) of the patients in the intervention group showed significant decrease over time; however, in the control group, there was no significant decrease in the mean scores of depression (F2,48= 1.69, p = 0.19), anxiety (F2,48= 0.47, p = 0.62), and stress (F2,48= 1.09, p = 0.34) over time. The changes in the caregiver's burden score in both groups indicated a significant decrease over time in the intervention group (F2,48= 24.70, p < 0.001) and the control group (F2,48= 33. 30, p < 0.001). Conclusions: The findings of this study revealed that concurrently training the patients and caregivers could reduce the negative emotions of the patients and their caregivers' burden.
Clinical and Severity Profile of Acute Pancreatitis in a Hospital for Low Socioeconomic Strata

Introduction: There is an upsurge in the incidence of acute pancreatitis over the last few decades; although the case fatality rate has remained unchanged. This may either be due to increased incidence of gallstone disease or improvement in diagnostic modalities. It is a potentially life threatening disease with varying severity of presentation. Methods: This observational analytical study was conducted in the Department of General Surgery in our hospital for a period of one year. All patients of acute pancreatitis were included in the study as per inclusion & exclusion criteria. Observations and Results: Total 62 Patients were included in the study. Gall stones disease is the most common cause of acute pancreatitis. The mean age of the patients in the study was 39 years. 28 females and 34 male patients were present. 22 patients of the patients had severe disease as per Atlanta classification. Four out of these 22 severe pancreatitis patients expired. All patients in the severe pancreatitis group had mild to life threatening complications and pleural effusion was the most common followed by necrosis. There was notable difference in terms of hospital stay between mild group and severe group of AP. Conclusion: The clinician should be aware that acute pancreatitis can occur in any age group and gender due to different etiology. The severity of AP does not depend on etiology, age or gender and it is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. SAP can be diagnosed on clinicoradiological basis and appropriate management can be done in those patients.
Enhancing Obstructive Apnea Disease Detection Using Dual-Tree Complex Wavelet Transform-Based Features and the Hybrid “K-Means, Recursive Least-Squares” Learning for the Radial Basis Function Network

Background: The obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) detection has become a hot research topic because of the high risk of this disease. In this paper, we tested some powerful and low computational signal processing techniques for this task and compared their results with the recent achievements in OSA detection. Methods: The Dual-tree complex wavelet transform (DT-CWT) is used in this paper to extract feature coefficients. From these coefficients, eight non-linear features are extracted and then reduced by the Multi-cluster feature selection (MCFS) algorithm. The remaining features are applied to the hybrid “K-means, RLS” RBF network which is a low computational rival for the Support vector machine (SVM) networks family. Results and Conclusion: The results showed suitable OSA detection percentage near 96% with a reduced complexity of nearly one third of the previously presented SVM based methods.
Factors predicting the presence of depression in obstructive sleep apnea

Background: Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a sleep-related breathing disorder and is associated with a myriad of neurocognitive dysfunctions and cardiac and metabolic diseases. Several studies have shown the relation of depressive symptom in patients with OSA. Keeping this in view, we planned to study various factors predicting the presence of depression in OSA. Aim: The aim of the study was to study various factors predicting the presence of depression in OSA. Methods: We performed polysomnography (PSG) studies on patients that were referred from various subspecialty clinics from July 2011 to August 2013. Psychiatric diagnosis was done using the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (plus) scale. This was followed by the application of the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale. Standard methods of statistical analysis were used for data analysis. All statistical analyses were performed using SPSS software version 11.0 (SPSS, Chicago, Illinois, USA) and tests of statistical significance were two-sided and differences were taken as significant when P-value was less than 0.05. Results: Of 182 patients who underwent PSG, 47 were suffering from depression with a mean age of 58.60 years. Age, gender, snoring, body mass index, hypertension, witnessed apnea, nocturia, disturbed sleep, and daytime sleepiness were significantly correlated with depression. Diabetes and cardiovascular disease were also significantly correlated, but the correlation was statistically significant at the 0.05 level. Conclusion: This study demonstrates a significant overlap between sleep apnea and depression. Health specialists need more information about screening for patients with OSA to ensure proper diagnosis and treatment of those with the condition.
Top‐down controls on nutrient cycling and population dynamics in a model estuarine photoautotroph–heterotroph co‐culture system

Viral lysis and protistan grazing are thought to be the major processes leading to microbial mortality in aquatic environments and thus regulate community diversity and biogeochemical cycling characteristics. Here, we studied nutrient cycling and bacterial responses to cyanophage‐mediated photoautotroph lysis and ciliate predation in a model Synechococcus–heterotroph co‐culture system. Both viral lysis and Euplotes grazing facilitated the transformation of organic carbon from biomass to dissolved organic matter with convention efficiencies of 20%–26%. The accumulation of ammonium after the addition of phages and ciliates suggested the importance of recycled NH4+ occurred in the interactions between Synechococcus growth and heterotrophic bacterial metabolism of photosynthate. The slower efficiency of P mineralization compared to N (primarily ammonium) indicated that P‐containing organic matter was primarily integrated into bacterial biomass rather than being remineralized into inorganic phosphate under C‐rich conditions. In the cyanophage addition treatment, both Fluviicola and Alteromonas exhibited rapid positive responses to Synechococcus lysing, while Marivita exhibited an apparent negative response. Further, the addition of Euplotes altered the incubation system from a Synechococcus‐driven phycosphere to a ciliate‐remodelled zoosphere that primarily constituted grazing‐resistant bacteria and Euplotes symbionts. Top‐down controls increased co‐culture system diversity and resulted in a preference for free‐living lifestyles of dominant populations, which was accompanied by the transfer of matter and energy. Our results indicate top‐down control was particularly important for organic matter redistribution and inorganic nutrient regeneration between photoautotrophs and heterotrophs, and altered bacterial lifestyles. This study consequently sheds light on marine biogeochemical cycling and the interaction networks within these dynamic ecosystems.
Risk Perception of Health Professionals in Intrapartum Care Decisions: Protocol for a Mixed Methods Study

Background Risk perception plays an important role in decision-making processes. Differences in obstetric intervention rates suggest that, in addition to medical indications, the risk perception of obstetric health professionals might have a major influence on their decision-making process during childbirth. Although studies have investigated whether risk perception affects the role of midwifery or influences decision making during childbirth, little is known about what obstetric health professionals actually perceive as risk or risky situations and whether different risk perceptions lead to more interventions during intrapartum care. Objective The objective of this study is to understand the association of risk perception and the decision-making processes of obstetric health professionals (midwives and obstetricians) in Germany during intrapartum care. The study has 3 specific aims: (1) gain insight into what obstetric health professionals perceive as risk in the German clinical setting, (2) assess the extent to which personal and systemic factors have an impact on obstetric health professionals’ risk perception, and (3) investigate whether different perceptions of risk are associated with different decisions being made by obstetric health professionals. Methods This is an exploratory sequential mixed methods study with 2 phases, a qualitative followed by a quantitative phase. In the first phase, qualitative data are collected and analyzed by conducting focus group discussions and applying qualitative content analysis to address aim 1. In the second phase, for aims 2 and 3 and to help explain the qualitative results, quantitative data are collected and analyzed by conducting an observational study using case vignettes within a survey constructed on the basis of the qualitative results. Results Enrollment in the first (qualitative) phase began in July 2019, and data collection and analysis have been completed. The second (quantitative) phase is currently planned, and data collection is expected to start in December 2020. First results of the qualitative phase are expected to be submitted for publication in 2020, with completion of the second phase scheduled for 2021. Conclusions This mixed methods study will examine the perception of risk and its association with the decision-making processes of obstetric health professionals during their care of women in childbirth. The rationale for this approach is that the qualitative data and their analysis explore participants' views in more depth, while the quantitative data will help to provide and explore a general understanding of the research problem. The results are expected to be relevant to health care professionals, policymakers, and educational institutions in order to minimize underuse, overuse, and misuse of interventions during intrapartum care. Trial Registration German Clinical Trials Register DRKS00017172; https://tinyurl.com/y2zoowkx International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID) DERR1-10.2196/21443
Hypoxia induces pulmonary artery smooth muscle dysfunction through mitochondrial fragmentation-mediated endoplasmic reticulum stress

Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is characterized by pulmonary artery smooth muscle cell (PASMC) dysfunction. However, the underlying mechanisms of PASMC dysfunction remain largely unknown. Here, we show that mitochondrial fragmentation contributes to PASMC dysfunction through enhancement of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress. PASMC dysfunction accompanied by mitochondrial fragmentation and ER stress was observed in the pulmonary arteries of hypoxia-induced rats with PAH, as well as isolated PASMCs under hypoxia. Treatment with Mdivi-1 inhibited mitochondrial fragmentation and ER stress and improved PASMC function in isolated PASMCs under hypoxia, while Drp1 overexpression increased mitochondrial fragmentation and ER stress, impairing PASMC function in isolated PASMCs under normoxia. However, inhibition of ER stress using ER stress inhibitors showed a negligible effect on mitochondrial morphology but improved PASMC function during hypoxia. Additionally, we found that mitochondrial fragmentation-promoted ER stress was dependent on mitochondrial reactive oxygen species. Furthermore, inhibition of mitochondrial fragmentation using Mdivi-1 attenuated mitochondrial fragmentation and ER stress in hypoxic PASMCs and improved the pulmonary artery smooth muscle function in hypoxic rats. These results suggest that hypoxia induces pulmonary artery smooth muscle dysfunction through mitochondrial fragmentation-mediated ER stress and that mitochondrial morphology is a potential target for treatment of hypoxia-induced pulmonary artery smooth muscle dysfunction.
Echocardiographic Evaluation of Right Ventricular Function and its Role in the Prognosis of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is associated with structural and mechanical changes in the pulmonary vascular bed that increase right ventricular (RV) afterload and subsequently right heart failure. Objectives: The aim of the study was to elucidate RV dysfunction at rest by echocardiography in a cohort of COPD patients and to study its impact on prognosis. Methods: 84 patients of COPD and 40 matching healthy controls were evaluated at baseline. Evaluation included clinical examination, pulmonary function tests; 6 minutes walk test and echocardiography. Patient with COPD were again evaluated after 6 months. Results: All echocardiographic parameters of RV function were significantly impaired in COPD patients as compared to controls. Clinical deterioration in COPD group was much more in patients with baseline abnormal RV function (89%) and patients with RV systolic pressure ≥35 mmHg (P = 0.018). All the six patients who died had three or more abnormal RV systolic function parameters. Conclusions: RV myocardial performance index and basal strain showed largest difference between controls and COPD cases. Clinical deterioration was more common in patients with abnormal RV function parameters and pulmonary hypertension.
Astro Cultivators: Autonomous Growth System for Space Farming based on Machine Vision and Multi-Sensor Fusion

The autonomous space farming system could be used to grow self-pollinating crops in space exploration missions that require no human intervention. Our goal is to utilize hyper spectral imaging and traditional imaging to allow for machine learning models to be used and retrained for not only our crops, but others as well. Temperature, humidity, and pressure sensors coupled with a robotic arm will care and tend to the crops at every stage of development. This system can decrease crew members’ input needed to operate the plant growth systems in deep space by providing autonomous monitoring, real-time data reporting, ambient environment management, automatic harvesting, and cleaning. Crops with high nutrient content, high acceptability ratings, dwarf growth habits, and short harvest cycles (Sugar Ann Snap Peas and Red Robin Tomato) will initially be grown in this modular system which has the potential to be scale up or down, depending on the mission. A variety of “pick and eat” crops can be grown to provide palatable, safe, nutritious foods that are familiar foods for crews to consume. To reduce resupply from Earth, the seeds from these crops have the potential to be saved and used to grow continuous generations of crops.
Compassionate Mind Training: An 8-week group for the general public.

OBJECTIVES There is an increasing interest in how compassion training, and in particular, the cultivation of self-compassion may be an important component in the reduction of distress and promotion of well-being. Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) has shown promising results in this area, with positive outcome studies in a wide range of mental health problems. However, following the successful development of short mindfulness-based programmes (e.g., Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction and Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy) and compassion/self-compassion programmes (e.g., Mindful Self-Compassion) that can be accessed by the general public, we were keen to develop and research an 8-week Compassionate Mind Training (CMT) course, based on the CFT model. DESIGN Within-subjects pre-to-post-group comparison. METHODS Following an 8-week CMT groups, participants in the general population (n = 55) completed pre- and post-measures (with 22 of these also providing 3-month follow-up data) on self-compassion, compassion for others, compassion from others, attachment, self-criticism, positive emotion, well-being, and distress. RESULTS Significant increases in compassion, self-reassurance, social rank, positive emotions, and well-being were found, alongside reductions in self-criticism, attachment anxiety, and distress. Changes were maintained at 3-month follow-up. Change scores indicated the importance of increases in self-compassion and reductions in self-criticism in overall improvements in well-being and psychological distress. CONCLUSIONS Findings offer preliminary support for the usefulness of group CMT in community samples. PRACTITIONER POINTS Compassionate Mind Training (CMT) groups appear to be applicable and beneficial in community samples. CMT psychoeducation and practices appear to bring positive changes to a variety of psychological processes, including attachment, self-criticism, self-compassion, well-being, and distress. Further studies are required to investigate whether the mechanisms through which CMT is beneficial.