Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mechanisms of Non-Vesicular Exchange of Lipids at Membrane Contact Sites: Of Shuttles, Tunnels and, Funnels

Eukaryotic cells are characterized by their exquisite compartmentalization resulting from a cornucopia of membrane-bound organelles. Each of these compartments hosts a flurry of biochemical reactions and supports biological functions such as genome storage, membrane protein and lipid biosynthesis/degradation and ATP synthesis, all essential to cellular life. Acting as hubs for the transfer of matter and signals between organelles and throughout the cell, membrane contacts sites (MCSs), sites of close apposition between membranes from different organelles, are essential to cellular homeostasis. One of the now well-acknowledged function of MCSs involves the non-vesicular trafficking of lipids; its characterization answered one long-standing question of eukaryotic cell biology revealing how some organelles receive and distribute their membrane lipids in absence of vesicular trafficking. The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) in synergy with the mitochondria, stands as the nexus for the biosynthesis and distribution of phospholipids (PLs) throughout the cell by contacting nearly all other organelle types. MCSs create and maintain lipid fluxes and gradients essential to the functional asymmetry and polarity of biological membranes throughout the cell. Membrane apposition is mediated by proteinaceous tethers some of which function as lipid transfer proteins (LTPs). We summarize here the current state of mechanistic knowledge of some of the major classes of LTPs and tethers based on the available atomic to near-atomic resolution structures of several “model” MCSs from yeast but also in Metazoans; we describe different models of lipid transfer at MCSs and analyze the determinants of their specificity and directionality. Each of these systems illustrate fundamental principles and mechanisms for the non-vesicular exchange of lipids between eukaryotic membrane-bound organelles essential to a wide range of cellular processes such as at PL biosynthesis and distribution, lipid storage, autophagy and organelle biogenesis.
High performance direct coupled bandpass filters on coplanar waveguide

This paper describes the design and performance of shunt inductively coupled bandpass filters implemented on an open coplanar waveguide. This new structure exhibits low radiation loss due to the removal of the capacitively coupled gaps encountered in end or edge coupled filters. Unloaded Qs greater than 540 have been achieved in unshielded single section resonators at 4 GHz on very thin substrates. These high Qs enable the design of filters with low insertion loss and good stopband rejection. Applications include low insertion loss, high and printed filters where no screening is required, low noise oscillators and superconducting filters. >
An Overview of Systematic Reviews of Chinese Herbal Medicine for Alzheimer’s Disease

Background: Multiple systematic reviews (SRs) have been conducted to evaluate the efficacy and safety of Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) in patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Here, we aim to perform an overview to assess the methodological quality and quality of evidence of the SRs to provide convincing data on the treatment of AD with CHM. Method: Six electronic databases including Chinese and English were searched, until April 31, 2021. Two researchers independently screen documents and extract data according to the predesigned rules. A Measure Tool to Assessment System Reviews 2 (AMSTAR-2) was used to investigate the methodological quality, and the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) was used to determine the quality of evidence for outcomes. Results: Twelve qualified SRs including 163 randomized controlled trials were reviewed. The methodological quality of the included SRs was considered extremely low assessed through AMSTAR-2. Compared with western medicines (WM) alone, CHM as an adjuvant treatment has shown significant effects in improving Mini-mental State Examination, Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive, and Clinical Dementia Rating scores. The same is true for CHM alone. Regarding the effect on Activities Daily Living, neither the single CHM nor the combination with WM has an obvious effect. For the total effective rate, both single CHM and the combination with WM shown significant effects. Nine SRs suggested that CHM as adjuvant therapy or single-use had fewer adverse events than WM. Additionally, the quality of evidence for the main outcome was reviewed as low or extremely low according to GRADE profiler data. Conclusion: Current evidence suggests that CHM may be beneficial in improving the cognitive function of AD patients. However, we should be cautious about the evidence due to methodological flaws and low quality. High-quality RCTs are further needed to confirm the efficacy and safety of CHM for AD.
Social Adaptation in Context: The Differential Role of Religiosity and Self-Esteem in Vulnerable vs. Non-vulnerable Populations – A Registered Report Study

There is evidence that religiosity and self-esteem are positively related, while self-esteem and religiosity in turn predict successful social adaptation. Moreover, self-esteem has been shown to be directly related to social adaptation in vulnerable contexts. In this registered report study, we tested the hypothesis that religiosity has a positive influence on social adaptation for people living in vulnerable contexts and that self-esteem is a mediator of this relationship. Evidence from this study indicates that neither there is any effect of religiosity on social adaptation nor on self-esteem, independent of whether people live in vulnerable contexts or not.
Cohort Profile: The Socioeconomic Consequences in Adult Life After Childhood Cancer in Scandinavia (SALiCCS) Research Programme

Introduction The growing number of survivors of childhood cancer, with many years of life ahead, demonstrates the increasing clinical and public health relevance of investigating the risks of social and socioeconomic impairment after a childhood cancer diagnosis and the life-saving treatment. To enrich understanding of the mental, social and socioeconomic difficulties that childhood cancer survivors may face during their life-course, identify particularly vulnerable survivors and overcome the limitations of previous research, we initiated the Socioeconomic Consequences in Adult Life after Childhood Cancer in Scandinavia (SALiCCS) research programme. Methods This Nordic cross-border research programme is a collaboration between the Danish Cancer Society, the Finnish Cancer Registry and Karolinska Institutet to investigate a broad range of mental, social and socioeconomic conditions in long-term childhood cancer survivors in Denmark, Finland and Sweden. SALiCCS is based on a registry-based matched cohort design, comprising five-year survivors of cancer diagnosed at ages 0–19 years (1971–2008 in Denmark, 1971–2009 in Finland, 1971–2011 in Sweden), age-, sex- and country-matched population comparisons and sibling comparisons who were followed over time. Outcomes of interest included mental disorders, educational achievements, employment and profession, family life and the need of social security benefits. Individual-level data linkage among various national registries provided the data for the research programme. Results The SALiCCS core population comprises 21,292 five-year survivors, 103,303 population comparisons and 29,644 siblings as a second comparison group. The most common diagnoses in survivors were central nervous system tumours, leukaemias and lymphomas. Discussion SALiCCS is the largest, most comprehensive population-based research initiative in this field, based on high-quality registry data with minimal risk of bias. The findings will be informative for evidence-based survivorship care targeting not only somatic late effects but also psychosocial impairments.
Values Evolution in Transitional China: An Institutional Perspective

The values are greatly affected by the social and economic environment of a country. Thus, social transformation can lead to the values evolution. China has been experiencing a huge social, political, and economic transition in the past four decades. The previous studies that explore the value changes in China mainly compare the values across the regions or generation cohorts. This research investigates the issue from an institutional perspective. Specifically, we propose that the diversification of ownership types—the essence of the economic and institutional reform since 1978 may result in value change. By surveying 327 participants from the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and 220 respondents from the privately owned enterprises (POEs), the comparisons between SOEs and POEs on four value dimensions—individualism, power distance, risk aversion, and money orientation—were performed. The results basically support cross-vergence theory in the values evolution. The implications and limitations are presented as well.
Spatial and Annual Variation in Microbial Abundance, Community Composition, and Diversity Associated With Alpine Surface Snow

Understanding microbial community dynamics in the alpine cryosphere is an important step toward assessing climate change impacts on these fragile ecosystems and meltwater-fed environments downstream. In this study, we analyzed microbial community composition, variation in community alpha and beta diversity, and the number of prokaryotic cells and virus-like particles (VLP) in seasonal snowpack from two consecutive years at three high altitude mountain summits along a longitudinal transect across the European Alps. Numbers of prokaryotic cells and VLP both ranged around 104 and 105 per mL of snow meltwater on average, with variation generally within one order of magnitude between sites and years. VLP-to-prokaryotic cell ratios spanned two orders of magnitude, with median values close to 1, and little variation between sites and years in the majority of cases. Estimates of microbial community alpha diversity inferred from Hill numbers revealed low contributions of common and abundant microbial taxa to the total taxon richness, and thus low community evenness. Similar to prokaryotic cell and VLP numbers, differences in alpha diversity between years and sites were generally relatively modest. In contrast, community composition displayed strong variation between sites and especially between years. Analyses of taxonomic and phylogenetic community composition showed that differences between sites within years were mainly characterized by changes in abundances of microbial taxa from similar phylogenetic clades, whereas shifts between years were due to significant phylogenetic turnover. Our findings on the spatiotemporal dynamics and magnitude of variation of microbial abundances, community diversity, and composition in surface snow may help define baseline levels to assess future impacts of climate change on the alpine cryosphere.
Preliminary Pharmacogenomic-Based Predictive Models of Tamoxifen Response in Hormone-dependent Chilean Breast Cancer Patients

Tamoxifen (TAM), a selective oestrogen receptor modulator, is one of the most used treatments in oestrogen receptor-positive (ER+) early and metastatic breast cancer (BC) patients. The response to TAM has a high degree of inter-individual variability. This is mainly due to genetic variants in CYP2D6 gene, as well as other genes encoding proteins involved in the TAM pharmacokinetic and/or pharmacodynamic. Therefore, prediction of the TAM response using these genetic factors together with other non-genetic variables may be relevant to improve breast cancer treatment. Thus, in this work, we used genetic polymorphisms and clinical variables for TAM response modelling. One hundred sixty-two ER + BC patients with 2 years of TAM treatment were retrospectively recruited, and the genetic polymorphisms CYP2D6*4, CYP3A4*1B (CYP3A4*1.001), CYP3A5*3, UGT2B7*2, UGT2B15*2, SULT1A1*2, and ESRA V364E were analyzed by PCR-RFLP. Concomitantly, the therapeutic response was obtained from clinical records for association with genotypes using univariate and multivariate biostatistical models. Our results show that UGT2B15*1/*2 genotype protects against relapse (OR = 0.09; p = 0.02), CYP3A5*3/*3 genotype avoids endometrial hyperplasia (OR = 0.07; p = 0.01), SULT1A1*1/*2 genotype avoids vaginal bleeding (OR = 0.09; p = 0.03) and ESRA 364E/364E genotype increases the probability of vaginal bleeding (OR = 5.68; p = 0.02). Logistic regression models, including genomic and non-genomic variables, allowed us to obtain preliminary predictive models to explain relapse (p = 0.010), endometrial hyperplasia (p = 0.002) and vaginal bleeding (p = 0.014). Our results suggest that the response to TAM treatment in ER + BC patients might be associated with the presence of the studied genetic variants in UGT2B15, CYP3A5, SULT1A1 and ESRA genes. After clinical validation protocols, these models might be used to help to predict a percentage of BC relapse and adverse reactions, improving the individual response to TAM-based treatment.
Genome-wide Association Study for Carcass Primal Cut Yields Using Single-step Bayesian Approach in Hanwoo Cattle

The importance of meat and carcass quality is growing in beef cattle production to meet both producer and consumer demands. Primal cut yields, which reflect the body compositions of carcass, could determine the carcass grade and, consequently, command premium prices. Despite its importance, there have been few genome-wide association studies on these traits. This study aimed to identify genomic regions and putative candidate genes related to 10 primal cut traits, including tenderloin, sirloin, striploin, chuck, brisket, top round, bottom round, shank, flank, and rib in Hanwoo cattle using a single-step Bayesian regression (ssBR) approach. After genomic data quality control, 43,987 SNPs from 3,745 genotyped animals were available, of which 3,467 had phenotypic records for the analyzed traits. A total of 16 significant genomic regions (1-Mb window) were identified, of which five large-effect quantitative trait loci (QTLs) located on chromosomes 6 at 38–39 Mb, 11 at 21–22 Mb, 14 at 6–7 Mb and 26–27 Mb, and 19 at 26–27 Mb were associated with more than one trait, while the remaining 11 QTLs were trait-specific. These significant regions were harbored by 154 genes, among which TOX, FAM184B, SPP1, IBSP, PKD2, SDCBP, PIGY, LCORL, NCAPG, and ABCG2 were noteworthy. Enrichment analysis revealed biological processes and functional terms involved in growth and lipid metabolism, such as growth (GO:0040007), muscle structure development (GO:0061061), skeletal system development (GO:0001501), animal organ development (GO:0048513), lipid metabolic process (GO:0006629), response to lipid (GO:0033993), metabolic pathways (bta01100), focal adhesion (bta04510), ECM–receptor interaction (bta04512), fat digestion and absorption (bta04975), and Rap1 signaling pathway (bta04015) being the most significant for the carcass primal cut traits. Thus, identification of quantitative trait loci regions and plausible candidate genes will aid in a better understanding of the genetic and biological mechanisms regulating carcass primal cut yields.
Spectral Unmixing based on Joint Sparsity and Total Variation using Remote Sensing Data

Hyper-spectral imaging is part of a process known as spectral imaging. The aim of hyperspectral imaging is to find the spectrum in the image of a scene for each pixel. Hyperspectral unmixing in hyperspectric image analysis is emerging as a subject in which the materials contained in an image and therefore the share of each material found in an image can be separated. The different materials are referred to as end members and proportion values as maps of abundance. Hyperspectral unmixing is an important method for estimating fractions of different types of terrestrial coverage from remote sensor images. It calculates the fractional abundance of the components present in every pixel of hyperspectral images. Multiple noise types also influence a hyper-spectrum image in a general situation where mixed noise is present, joint sparsity and total variance (JSTV) deals with hyperspectral unmixation. The common sparsity was developed to take advantage of the abundance maps. In order to model abundance maps, a total variation based regulatory structure was also used. The SplitBregman technique was used for the solution of an optimization problem using an algorithm. The results show that the proposed joint sparsity and complete methods of variations are able to unmix real hyperspectral and synthetic data, while retaining spatial endpoints with smooth maps.
A 3-parameter critical power model

The critical power test is a well-established procedure that provides estimates of two important parameters characterizing work performance; anaerobic work capacity (AWC) and critical power (CP). The concept proscribes a hyperbolic relationship between power output (P) and time to exhaustion (t), given by (P - CP)t = AWC. Since evidence now exists that the procedure overestimates CP and underestimates AWC, this study was undertaken to investigate the effect of relaxing the requirement that the time asymptote necessarily be at zero. Using data from a previous study, it is shown that in so doing, (1) a time asymptote significantly less than zero is obtained, (2) significantly smaller estimates of CP and larger estimates of AWC are obtained, (3) a third parameter is introduced that theoretically represents maximal instantaneous power, (4) it implies that the maximal power that could be developed at any instant is proportional to the amount of AWC remaining at that instant, which in turn implies that (5) at exhaustion not necessary all of AWC is consumed.
Dietary assessment of schoolchildren: is food record a valid method?

Objective: To verify the relative validity of 24-hour Dietary Recall (R24h) as an assessment tool of schoolchildren´s food intake. Methods: A cross-sectional study of 41 students of a big Brazilian urban center, with a mean age of 0.25–8.35 years and 22% had excess weight. The R24h was applied a day after direct observation of intake (reference method). Weight and height were measured and the participants were categorized according to nutritional status (excess weight or not). The median energy, macronutrients (carbohydrate, protein and lipid) and micronutrients intake (iron, calcium and vitamin A) was compared. The Mann-Whitney test was conducted. Also, Spearman and kappa correlation coefficients were calculated. Results: Median energy and nutrient intake irrespective of nutritional status was similar according to the test and reference methods. Higher correlations were found for protein (r= 0.87) and iron (r = 0.71) but the values were more accentuated among students with excess weight. Kappa coefficient was low for vitamin A, moderate for carbohydrate and lipid, good for iron and protein, and very good for energy. Conclusions: R24h is a valid method for the assessment of food intake among schoolchildren. It is a potential practical and economical food assessment method, which can find application in epidemiological studies focused on food intake in early life.
Managerial Complexity in Project-Based Operations: A Grounded Model and Its Implications for Practice

This article reports an investigation into project managers’ perceptions of managerial complexity. Based on a multistage empirical study, elements of “what makes a project complex to manage” were identified and classified under the dimensions of mission, organization, delivery, stakeholder, or team—the MODeST model. Further, the data showed that these elements had both structural and dynamic qualities and that the elements are interdependent. Project managers are shown to be embedded in this complexity. The practical implications of the research include the ability to describe managerial complexity in a manner consistent with the actuality of the lived project environment. This provides a framework for the description of the level of managerial challenge or difficulty, which will allow the assessment of individual and organizational responses to it in the future. Further, the opportunity exists for active management of complexity.
The ANXA2/S100A10 Complex—Regulation of the Oncogenic Plasminogen Receptor

The generation of the serine protease plasmin is initiated by the binding of its zymogenic precursor, plasminogen, to cell surface receptors. The proteolytic activity of plasmin, generated at the cell surface, plays a crucial role in several physiological processes, including fibrinolysis, angiogenesis, wound healing, and the invasion of cells through both the basement membrane and extracellular matrix. The seminal observation by Albert Fischer that cancer cells, but not normal cells in culture, produce large amounts of plasmin formed the basis of current-day observations that plasmin generation can be hijacked by cancer cells to allow tumor development, progression, and metastasis. Thus, the cell surface plasminogen-binding receptor proteins are critical to generating plasmin proteolytic activity at the cell surface. This review focuses on one of the twelve well-described plasminogen receptors, S100A10, which, when in complex with its regulatory partner, annexin A2 (ANXA2), forms the ANXA2/S100A10 heterotetrameric complex referred to as AIIt. We present the theme that AIIt is the quintessential cellular plasminogen receptor since it regulates the formation and the destruction of plasmin. We also introduce the term oncogenic plasminogen receptor to define those plasminogen receptors directly activated during cancer progression. We then discuss the research establishing AIIt as an oncogenic plasminogen receptor-regulated during EMT and activated by oncogenes such as SRC, RAS, HIF1α, and PML-RAR and epigenetically by DNA methylation. We further discuss the evidence derived from animal models supporting the role of S100A10 in tumor progression and oncogenesis. Lastly, we describe the potential of S100A10 as a biomarker for cancer diagnosis and prognosis.
Electrocardiographic abnormalities and psychotropic polypharmacy in schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorders

Background: Sudden cardiac death (SCD) is a significant cause for increased mortality in people with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorders. Cardiac arrhythmia is one cause of SCD. Electrocardiographic (ECG) abnormalities predictive of arrhythmias are associated with antipsychotic drug use. Method: This chart audit examined the types and frequency of ECG abnormalities (ECG-Abs) in 169 patients with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder in a long-stay inpatient unit. We examined the association of ECG-Abs with demographic details and psychotropic drug prescription using chi-square test, Fisher’s Exact test, independent two-sample t-test, Pearson’s correlation, and one-way ANOVA. Results: Eighty-eight patients (52.1%) recorded at least one ECG-Ab, and 20.7% had two or more ECG-Abs. The use of multiple antipsychotics, with or without other psychotropic drugs, did not associate significantly with the presence or number of ECG-Abs. Conclusion: A significant proportion of patients with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder have ECG-Abs other than prolonged QTc interval, which can predispose them to cardiac arrhythmias. The abnormalities were not limited to patients on psychotropic polypharmacy. ECG evaluation is indicated for all patients and should consider various electrical abnormalities to identify arrhythmia risk.