Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparative Effects of Allulose, Fructose, and Glucose on the Small Intestine

Despite numerous studies on the health benefits of the rare sugar allulose, its effects on intestinal mucosal morphology and function are unclear. We therefore first determined its acute effects on the small intestinal transcriptome using DNA microarray analysis following intestinal allulose, fructose and glucose perfusion in rats. Expression levels of about 8-fold more genes were altered by allulose compared to fructose and glucose perfusion, suggesting a much greater impact on the intestinal transcriptome. Subsequent pathway analysis indicated that nutrient transport, metabolism, and digestive system development were markedly upregulated, suggesting allulose may acutely stimulate these functions. We then evaluated whether allulose can restore rat small intestinal structure and function when ingested orally following total parenteral nutrition (TPN). We also monitored allulose effects on blood levels of glucagon-like peptides (GLP) 1 and 2 in TPN rats and normal mice. Expression levels of fatty acid binding and gut barrier proteins were reduced by TPN but rescued by allulose ingestion, and paralleled GLP-2 secretion potentially acting as the mechanism mediating the rescue effect. Thus, allulose can potentially enhance disrupted gut mucosal barriers as it can more extensively modulate the intestinal transcriptome relative to glucose and fructose considered risk factors of metabolic disease.
Correlation of the Isotropic NMR Chemical Shift with Oxygen Coordination Distances in Periodic Solids

In Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, the isotropic chemical shift δiso is a measure of the electron density around the observed nuclide. For characterization of solid materials and compounds, it is desirable to find correlations between δiso and structural parameters such as coordination numbers and distances to neighboring atoms. Correlations of good quality are easier to find when the coordination sphere is formed by only one element, as the electron density is obviously strongly dependent on the atomic number. The current study is therefore restricted to nuclides in pure oxygen coordination. It is shown that the isotropic shift δiso correlates well with the average oxygen distances (as defined by the coordination sphere) for the nuclides 23Na (with spin I=3/2), 27Al (I=5/2), and 43Ca (I=7/2), using literature data for a range of periodic solids. It has been previously suggested for 207Pb (I=1/2) that δiso may alternatively be related to the shortest oxygen distance in the structure, and our study corroborates this also for the nuclides considered here. While the correlation with the minimal distance is not always better, it has the advantage of being uniquely defined. In contrast, the average distance is strongly dependent on the designation of the oxygen coordination sphere, which may be contentious in some crystal structures.
Análise de Políticas Públicas para as Pessoas em Situação de Rua pela Ótica da Gestão Social ## Analysis of Public Policies for Homeless People Through a Social Management Perspective

A população em situação de rua carrega sobre si o peso do preconceito, sendo muitas vezes responsabilizada pela situação de vulnerabilidade em que se encontra. Embora políticas públicas venham sendo desenvolvidas para atender essa população, pode-se questionar se há participação social quando da implementação dessas políticas. Dessa forma, esta pesquisa teve por objetivo analisar se as políticas públicas destinadas a pessoas em situação de rua foram implementadas seguindo de processos decisórios participativos deliberativos. Uma revisão sistemática foi conduzida para selecionar artigos na base Scielo no período de 2014 a 2018. As políticas públicas implementadas foram analisadas a partir dos pressupostos da Gestão Social (TENÓRIO et al., 2008). Os resultados indicam que as políticas públicas direcionadas para pessoas em situação de rua precisam ser implementadas com maior participação da sociedade, organizada ou não, ouvindo aqueles que são os destinatários das ações e que sua participação seja de forma espontânea, observando seus direitos e peculiaridades.AbstractThe homeless population carries the weight of prejudice, often being held responsible for the situation of vulnerability in which they find themselves. Although public policies have been developed to serve this population, one can question whether there is social participation when these policies are implemented. Thus, this research aimed to analyze whether public policies aimed at homeless people were implemented following deliberative participatory decision-making processes. A systematic review was conducted to select articles in the Scielo database from 2014 to 2018. The public policies implemented were analyzed based on the assumptions of Social Management (TENÓRIO et al., 2008). The results indicate that public policies aimed at homeless people need to be implemented with greater participation of society, organized or not, listening to those who are the recipients of the actions, whose participation might be spontaneous, observing the rights and peculiarities of homeless people.
Research progress of flexible wearable stress sensor

Flexible wearable pressure sensors are widely used in health diagnosis, sports monitoring, rehabilitation medicine, entertainment, and other fields due to some factors such as the stretch ability, bendability, light weight, portability, and excellent electrical properties. In recent years, significant progress has been made in flexible pressure sensors, and a variety of flexible pressure sensors that able to measure health status have been applied to the pulse wave, movement, respiration, and electrocardiogram (ECG) detection. However, there are still many problems to be solved in the development of flexible pressure sensors. This article summarizes the development of flexible pressure sensors in recent years, from the working principle to the structural design of the flexible pressure sensors; designs to build a high-performance flexible pressure sensors; discusses the problems existing in current flexible pressure sensors and envisions the development trend of flexible pressure sensors in the future. Flexible pressure sensors with excellent flexibility, good biocompatibility, rapid response, high sensitivity, and multifunctional integration have shown a broad application prospects.
Ontological Securitization of Health in Africa: The HIV/AIDS, Ebola and COVID-19 Pandemics and the Foreign Virus

Africa’s security issues have suffered serious attention deficits. This article analyses why a globally accepted health security norm, such as fighting a communicable disease during a pandemic such as the COVID-19 pandemic, was, in Africa, perceived as a security threat emanating from external—foreign—actors importing a ‘foreign virus’ into Africa. This fear-based perception can be explained by West Africa’s ontological security fears, ultimately based on its colonial past and a relationship of exploitation by the West. While this article analyses the case of COVID-19, it also explains the same process with previous epidemics, such as HIV/AIDS and EDV/Ebola.
Using the Fraction of Missing Information to Identify Auxiliary Variables for Imputation Procedures via Proxy Pattern‐mixture Models

In many surveys, imputation procedures are used to account for non‐response bias induced by either unit non‐response or item non‐response. Such procedures are optimised (in terms of reducing non‐response bias) when the models include covariates that are highly predictive of both response and outcome variables. To achieve this, we propose a method for selecting sets of covariates used in regression imputation models or to determine imputation cells for one or more outcome variables, using the fraction of missing information (FMI) as obtained via a proxy pattern‐mixture (PMM) model as the key metric. In our variable selection approach, we use the PPM model to obtain a maximum likelihood estimate of the FMI for separate sets of candidate imputation models and look for the point at which changes in the FMI level off and further auxiliary variables do not improve the imputation model. We illustrate our proposed approach using empirical data from the Ohio Medicaid Assessment Survey and from the Service Annual Survey.
Factors Associated With Dietary Behaviors Among Malaysian Adults: Application of the Social Cognitive Theory

Background: Dietary behavior applying theory-based approaches is seldom documented in the general adult population. Thus, the objective of this study was to determine the eating behavior of Malaysian adults and the demographic factors that were associated with positive eating habits. Methods: In this cross-sectional survey, the convenience sampling technique was used to sample Malaysian adults aged 18 or older. The questionnaire was based on constructs from Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory (SCT), which has six scales or constructs, including self-efficacy, intentions, situation, social support, behavioral strategies, and outcome expectations and expectancies. All the six constructs demonstrated adequate model fit using confirmatory analysis fit by the developers and good internal reliability using Cronbach’s alpha in this study. The data were descriptively analyzed, and subsequently, logistic regressions were performed, assessing demographic factors associated with healthy eating habits. The variables achieving a P value<0.05 were considered statistically significant. Results: A total of 461 respondents completed the questionnaire. Good social support (83.30%), outcome expectations (90.24%) and expectancies (92.41%), and the situation in relation to healthy eating (88.94%) were frequently observed among the respondents. The sentence has been revised to express the idea more clearly. "However, the observations in these dimensions were not necessarily translated into good self-efficacy (33.41%), intentions (39.91%), and behavioral strategies relating to healthy eating (53.15%). Additionally, demographic variables such as ethnicity, age, and region were significantly associated with the positive attitude observed on the questionnaire constructs. Conclusion: In summary, the findings of the study revealed that many Malaysians have poor self-efficacy, intentions, and behavioral strategies when it came to eating healthy. The demographic factors significantly associated with dietary behaviors should be targeted in future interventional studies and awareness programs.
Patient Family Binding and Authentication Scheme with Privacy Protection for E-Health System

The emergence of the E-health system has brought convenience to many chronically ill patients and elderly people with limited mobility. With the help of the E-health system, patients can upload their physiological data timely and get a diagnosis at home, which is more convenient and efficient as they do not have to line up in hospitals. In order to ensure this convenience while protecting patients’ privacy, many schemes have been proposed which can help patient and medical server authenticate each other. However, considering these patients’ inconvenience, sometimes family members need to participate in the patient’s treatment process. So, the E-health system needs to provide a secure communication platform for the family members. At present, most of the authentication schemes for the E-health system only focus on the secure communication between the patient and the medical server, while ignoring the participation of family members. Moreover, in the E-health system, the permissions of family members and patient should be different, and the medical server needs to distinguish their permissions efficiently. In order to overcome these problems, we propose a patient family binding and authentication privacy protection scheme for the E-health system. In the scheme proposed by us, the medical server can efficiently assign different permissions to the family member and patient. And our scheme can allow patient to authorize their family members freely, and the increase in the number of family members will not impose additional burden on the server. At the same time, the authentication between the family member and the medical server does not require the participation of the patient. In addition, by comparing with other related schemes, we prove that our scheme has suitable efficiency and security performance in the E-health system.
Effect of an electron beam on a dual-frequency capacitive rf plasma: experiment and simulation

One of the crucial challenges facing modern microelectronics is to provide plasma surface treatment at the single atomic level. To minimize defects in the underlying layers, these processes require ions with very low energies—lower than in conventional radio-frequency (rf) plasma and close to the binding energy of atoms. A conventional rf dual-frequency capacitively coupled plasma (df CCP) discharge with additional ionization by an electron beam is considered as a possible solution to this problem. This paper contains a study on the electron beam effect on 81 & 12 MHz plasma parameters such as electron energy probability function, plasma density, electron temperature and ion energy distribution at an rf-biased electrode. The experimental part of the study includes measurements carried out in an asymmetric rf df CCP discharge in Ar at 100 mTorr pressure using a Langmuir probe, a hairpin-probe, and a retarding field energy analyzer. The behavior of plasma parameters is considered in the different types of plasma: electron beam plasma, when no rf power is applied, as well as rf plasma with and without an electron beam. The 1D PIC MCC simulation is used to analyze the effect of an electron beam on the df rf plasma. The obtained results showed that the electron temperature and, accordingly, the energy of ions coming at the electrode surface can be lowered. The use of an electron beam in a df CCP discharge allows to control the plasma density, electron temperature and ion energy spectrum in the low-energy range, which can be of essential interest for atomic layer etching and atomic layer deposition technologies.
Traditional Medicinal Plants as a Source of Inspiration for Osteosarcoma Therapy

Osteosarcoma is one of the most common types of bone cancers among paediatric patients. Despite the advances made in surgery, chemo-, and radiotherapy, the mortality rate of metastatic osteosarcoma remains unchangeably high. The standard drug combination used to treat this bone cancer has remained the same for the last 20 years, and it produces many dangerous side effects. Through history, from ancient to modern times, nature has been a remarkable source of chemical diversity, used to alleviate human disease. The application of modern scientific technology to the study of natural products has identified many specific molecules with anti-cancer properties. This review describes the latest discovered anti-cancer compounds extracted from traditional medicinal plants, with a focus on osteosarcoma research, and on their cellular and molecular mechanisms of action. The presented compounds have proven to kill osteosarcoma cells by interfering with different pathways: apoptosis induction, stimulation of autophagy, generation of reactive oxygen species, etc. This wide variety of cellular targets confer natural products the potential to be used as chemotherapeutic drugs, and also the ability to act as sensitizers in drug combination treatments. The major hindrance for these molecules is low bioavailability. A problem that may be solved by chemical modification or nano-encapsulation.
Doxycycline Attenuates Doxorubicin-Induced Cardiotoxicity by Improving Myocardial Energy Metabolism in Rats

Aim: Evaluate the influence of doxycycline, an anti-inflammatory and matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) inhibitor, on the attenuation of chronic doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity in rats. Methods: We allocated male Wistar rats into four groups: control (C), doxorubicin (D), doxycycline (inhibitor of MMP, IM), and Dox + doxycycline (DIM). Groups IM and DIM received doxycycline (5 mg/kg, IP) once a week for 4 weeks. In addition, 48 h after every doxycycline injection, groups D and DIM received Dox (5 mg/kg, IP). We performed echocardiogram and evaluated TIMP-4 and collagen I protein expression, MMP-2 activity, and oxidative stress and myocardial metabolism. Results: Doxorubicin promotes left atrium (LA) and left ventricle (LV) dilatation and decreases in LV fractional shortening, which was improved by doxycycline. Moreover, doxycycline attenuated the LV cardiomyocyte hypertrophy and collagen type I expression. Doxorubicin increased phosphofructokinase and decreased beta-hydroxyacyl Co-A dehydrogenase, pyruvate dehydrogenase, citrate synthase, and ATP synthase activity, which was partially attenuated by doxycycline. Lastly, doxycycline improved antioxidant enzyme activity in the DIM group. Conclusion: Doxorubicin increases oxidative stress and promotes changes in myocardial energy metabolism, accompanied by structural and functional changes. Doxycycline attenuated the doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity, at least in part, through changes in myocardial energy metabolism.
Genome-Wide Association Analysis Reveals Trait-Linked Markers for Grain Nutrient and Agronomic Traits in Diverse Set of Chickpea Germplasm

Chickpea is an inexpensive source of protein, minerals, and vitamins to the poor people living in arid and semi-arid regions of Southern Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. New chickpea cultivars with enhanced levels of protein, Fe and Zn content are a medium-term strategy for supplying essential nutrients for human health and reducing malnutrition. In the current study, a chickpea reference set of 280 accessions, including landraces, breeding lines, and advanced cultivars, was evaluated for grain protein, Fe, Zn content and agronomic traits over two seasons. Using a mid-density 5k SNP array, 4603 highly informative SNPs distributed across the chickpea genome were used for GWAS analysis. Population structure analysis revealed three subpopulations (K = 3). Linkage disequilibrium (LD) was extensive, and LD decay was relatively low. A total of 20 and 46 marker-trait associations (MTAs) were identified for grain nutrient and agronomic traits, respectively, using FarmCPU and BLINK models. Of which seven SNPs for grain protein, twelve for Fe, and one for Zn content were distributed on chromosomes 1, 4, 6, and 7. The marker S4_4477846 on chr4 was found to be co-associated with grain protein over seasons. The markers S1_11613376 and S1_2772537 co-associated with grain Fe content under NSII and pooled seasons and S7_9379786 marker under NSI and pooled seasons. The markers S4_31996956 co-associated with grain Fe and days to maturity. SNP annotation of associated markers were found to be related to gene functions of metal ion binding, transporters, protein kinases, transcription factors, and many more functions involved in plant metabolism along with Fe and protein homeostasis. The identified significant MTAs has potential use in marker-assisted selection for developing nutrient-rich chickpea cultivars after validation in the breeding populations.
Identifying, developing and grading 'soft skills' in design and technology education: a methodological approach.

Soft skills (Professional skills) complement hard skills to enhance an individual's relationships, job performance and career prospects. Strategically targeting the development of these skills requires the recognition of key qualities, the capacity to discriminate between qualities (Orsmond, Merry, & Reiling, 2000; Sadler, 2009) and a mechanism that will validly and reliability reward acquisition. Educators and learners must take cognisance of the sophisticated relationships between acquiring content knowledge and professional skills through specific ways of working and thinking. This research, which is part of a three year longitudinal project funded by the European Commission, frames the initial challenge of untangling Hard and Soft skills for the purpose of explicit development and assessment. Understanding the nature of evidence that is suggestive of soft skill acquisition is central to this research. Key design considerations are presented in this paper and outline the potential use of information and communications technology (ICT) to enhance teaching, learning and assessment tailored for the recognition of soft skills. The paper proposes an assessment architecture that acknowledges the importance of educator, peer, and self-appraisal when adjudicating on subjective and often personal data. The proposal has the capacity to balance, weight, and triangulate the objective and subjective evidence of soft skill acquisition ensuring the validity and reliability of resultant digital accreditation. The work Dr Niall Seery University of Limerick niall.seery@ul.ie Dr Donal Canty University of Limerick donal.canty@ul.ie Adrian O’Connor University of Limerick adrian.oconnor@ul.ie Jeffrey Buckley University of Limerick jeffrey.buckley@ul.ie Andrew Doyle University of Limerick andrew.doyle@ul.ie
A QbD Approach to Design and to Optimize the Self-Emulsifying Resveratrol–Phospholipid Complex to Enhance Drug Bioavailability through Lymphatic Transport

Highlights The FTIR, DSC, and the XRD characterization confirmed the successful complex formation between resveratrol and phospholipid. The optimal SEDDS formulation exhibited Grade-A self-emulsion properties. Implementation of a QbD approach to select appropriate excipients and their concentrations facilitated lymphatic resveratrol transport, which increased bioavailability 48-fold. The chylomicron flow blocking approach revealed that 91.3% of total systemically available resveratrol was transported through the intestinal lymphatic pathway. Abstract Objectives: Despite having profound therapeutic value, the clinical application of resveratrol is restrained due to its <1% bioavailability, arising from the extensive fast-pass effect along with enterohepatic recirculation. This study aimed to develop a self-emulsifying formulation capable of increasing the bioavailability of resveratrol via lymphatic transport. Methods: The resveratrol–phospholipid complex (RPC) was formed by the solvent evaporation method and characterized by FTIR, DSC, and XRD analyses. The RPC-loaded self-emulsifying drug delivery system (SEDDS) was designed, developed, and optimized using the QbD approach with an emphasis on resveratrol transport through the intestinal lymphatic pathway. The in vivo pharmacokinetic study was investigated in male Wister Albino rats. Results: The FTIR, DSC, and XRD analyses confirmed the RPC formation. The obtained design space provided robustness of prediction within the 95% prediction interval to meet the CQA specifications. An optimal formulation (desirability value of 7.24) provided Grade-A self-emulsion and exhibited a 48-fold bioavailability enhancement compared to the pure resveratrol. The cycloheximide-induced chylomicron flow blocking approach demonstrated that 91.14% of the systemically available resveratrol was transported through the intestinal lymphatic route. Conclusions: This study suggests that an optimal self-emulsifying formulation can significantly increase the bioavailability of resveratrol through lymphatic transport to achieve the desired pharmacological effects.
Electron Temperature and Density Inferred from JET ECE Diagnostics

JET-EFDA, Culham Science Centre, Abingdon, OX14 3DB, UK 1 CCFE, Culham Science Centre, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 3DB, UK 2 Max-Planck-Institut fur Plasmaphysik, Teilinstitut Greifswald, EURATOM-Assoziation, D-17491 Greifswald, Germany 3 Association EURATOM-VR, Fusion Plasma Physics, EES, KTH, SE-10044 Stockholm, Sweden 4 Associacao Euratom/IST, Instituto de Plasmas e Fusao Nuclear, Instituto Superior Tecnico, Universidade de Lisboa, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal 5 Max-Planck-Institut fur Plasmaphysik, Boltzmannstrase 2, D-85748 Garching, Germany