Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Salinity Stress-Mediated Suppression of Expression of Salt Overly Sensitive Signaling Pathway Genes Suggests Negative Regulation by AtbZIP62 Transcription Factor in Arabidopsis thaliana

Salt stress is one of the most serious threats in plants, reducing crop yield and production. The salt overly sensitive (SOS) pathway in plants is a salt-responsive pathway that acts as a janitor of the cell to sweep out Na+ ions. Transcription factors (TFs) are key regulators of expression and/or repression of genes. The basic leucine zipper (bZIP) TF is a large family of TFs regulating various cellular processes in plants. In the current study, we investigated the role of the Arabidopsis thaliana bZIP62 TF in the regulation of SOS signaling pathway by measuring the transcript accumulation of its key genes such as SOS1, 2, and 3, in both wild-type (WT) and atbzip62 knock-out (KO) mutants under salinity stress. We further observed the activation of enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidant systems in the wild-type, atbzip62, atcat2 (lacking catalase activity), and atnced3 (lacking 9-cis-epoxycarotenoid dioxygenase involved in the ABA pathway) KO mutants. Our findings revealed that atbzip62 plants exhibited an enhanced salt-sensitive phenotypic response similar to atnced3 and atcat2 compared to WT, 10 days after 150 mM NaCl treatment. Interestingly, the transcriptional levels of SOS1, SOS2, and SOS3 increased significantly over time in the atbzip62 upon NaCl application, while they were downregulated in the wild type. We also measured chlorophyll a and b, pheophytin a and b, total pheophytin, and total carotenoids. We observed that the atbzip62 exhibited an increase in chlorophyll and total carotenoid contents, as well as proline contents, while it exhibited a non-significant increase in catalase activity. Our results suggest that AtbZIP62 negatively regulates the transcriptional events of SOS pathway genes, AtbZIP18 and AtbZIP69 while modulating the antioxidant response to salt tolerance in Arabidopsis.
Investigation of PLA-PEG-45S5 Bioactive Glass Composite Enhancement on Bioactivity

Bioactivity is an important aspect in biomaterial science ensuring materials used are safe for clinical application. The study describes fabrication of composites containing polylactic acid (PLA) – polyethylene glycol (PEG) with incorporation of sol-gel derived 45S5 bioactive glass (BG). Thermal analysis via Differential Thermal Analysis shows a favorable point over degree of crystallization that influence cells attachment, although non-significant difference in values indicates BG has homogenously dispersed. This correlates to X-ray diffraction analysis where non-significant difference is seen in intensities of the diffraction peaks, which confirms low impact of BG brittleness properties over the fabricated composite. Composites’ pH and degradation study in Simulated Body Fluid shows a steady increment profile over time and lower degradation rate for the composite after incorporation of BG. In vitro cell proliferation study also showed that HDF cells seeded on composite film of P/BG2.5 exhibit highest cell viability with steady increment of proliferation throughout the observation period.
Population fitness has a concave relationship with migration distance in Sanderlings.

In Focus: Reneerkens, J., Versluijs, T. S. L. , Piersma, T. , Alves, J. A. , Boorman, M. , Corse, C. , … Lok, T. (2020). Low fitness at low latitudes: wintering in the tropics increases migratory delays and mortality rates in an Arctic breeding shorebird. Journal of Animal Ecology, 89, 691-703. A central question in migratory ecology has been to understand the fitness consequences of individual variation in migration distance among different species and populations. Reneerkens et al. (2020) investigated the demographic consequences of long-distance migration for Sanderlings Calidris alba, an Arctic-breeding species of sandpiper. Their study population has a remarkable geographic distribution with a breeding range that is concentrated in northeast Greenland and Ellesmere Island, Canada but a nonbreeding range that extends across 85° of latitude from Scotland to Namibia. The authors report on unexpected patterns of latitudinal variation in three demographic parameters: timing of passage on northward migration, probability of juvenile migration and apparent survival of adults. Sanderlings travelling 1,800-2,800 km to settle at north temperate sites during the nonbreeding season had earlier passage dates, and also higher probabilities of migration and apparent survival. In contrast, birds travelling 6,000-7,800 km to equatorial sites experienced later passage dates, delayed maturity and lower apparent survival. However, if Sanderlings migrated even farther and flew over 11,000 km to nonbreeding sites in Namibia, then their performance was restored to early passage dates and higher survival. Movement tracks from birds tagged with geolocators showed that birds wintering in Namibia make nonstop flights of 7,500 km that bypass West Africa during northward migration. Thus, all lines of evidence suggest that Sanderlings face adversity when spending the nonbreeding season at equatorial latitudes. Moreover, the central finding that components of fitness can have nonlinear relationships with migration distance is a novel discovery that leads to many additional questions. The new findings have broader implications for theoretical models of migration, and for understanding how different patterns of movements may arise or be maintained in migratory species.
The Role of Organizational Factors and Human Resources in the Provision of Dental Prosthesis in Primary Dental Care in Brazil

This study aimed to investigate factors associated with dental prosthesis procedures by oral health teams (OHTs) in the Brazilian primary health care in 2013–2014, who participated in the National Program for Improving Access and Quality of Primary Health Care (PMAQ-AB). This is an analytical cross-sectional study using a questionnaire with dichotomous questions applied in 18,114 OHTs. The dependent variable studied was making any type of prosthesis (removable or fixed). Independent variables involved issues related to human resources and health service management. Data were submitted to simple and multiple binary logistic regression with odds ratio calculation, 95% confidence intervals, and p-values. Most OHTs (57%) do not perform any dental prosthesis. The teams that are more likely to perform dental prostheses have human resources-related characteristics, such as professionals admitted through public examinations (OR 1.25, 95% CI 1.14–1.36) and those involved in permanent education (OR 1.13, 95% CI 1.02–1.26). Moreover, OHTs with a more organized work process and that receive more significant support from municipal management are more likely to perform dental prostheses (p < 0.05). The oral health teams which tended to provide the most dental prostheses to benefit patients were; hired as civil servants, had a municipal career plan, involved all members of the oral health team, and trained undergraduate dental students from outreach programs. Better organizational support and improved work incentives may be needed to get the majority of oral health teams to start providing dental prostheses to their patients.
Simulating Sintering Process in SmCo5 Magnets

SmCo5 sintered magnets are produced according the following main processing: milling until single crystal particle size, compaction and sintering. It is necessary high density to maximize remanence, but small grain size to maximize coercivity. A sintering model able to incorporate both, the densification rate and the grain growth rate, is described. This makes easier to find the better sintering conditions for optimization of the magnetic properties (coercivity and remanence). The presented model represents a refinement of previous sintering models, because it takes into account the coupled effects of grain size evolution and shrinkage.
Fingerprint Detection Technique Using SURF, PHOG & PCA Feature Extraction Process

The biometric way of identifying a person are wildly spared around many industries and organizations. The identification techniques followed for the biometric are mostly common in using fingerprint detection for individual identification. Basically password based security systems are cracked through many techniques, which makes many problem to the organization using password for security purpose. The spoof fingerprint way of identifying a person is becoming very famous in providing security to the users. The research work focuses on proposing a novel approach in merging fingerprint features all together in one static software approach. The features identified from the fingerprints are extracted using histogram equations in initial step of fingerprint security system. The Gabor wavelet transformation techniques is one of the images processing technique used for identifying features. The features are maintained carefully with applying dynamic score level integration. The efficiency of proposed work is checked with LivDet 2011 dataset. The rate of classification shows 9.625% and error rate is 2.27%.
Implementing the Goodstein Function in λ-Calculus

In this formalization, we develop an implementation of the Good-stein function G in plain λ -calculus, linked to a concise, self-contained specification. The implementation works on a Church-encoded representation of countable ordinals. The initial conversion to hereditary base 2 is not covered, but the material is sufficient to compute the particular value G (16) , and easily extends to other fixed arguments.
IMPROVED NONLOCAL MEANS BASED ON PRE-CLASSIFICATION AND INVARIANT BLOCK MATCHING

One of the most popular image denoising methods based on self-similarity is called nonlocal means (NLM). Though it can achieve remarkable performance, this method has a few shortcomings, e.g., the computationally expensive calculation of the similarity measure, and the lack of reliable candidates for some non repetitive patches. In this paper, we propose to improve NLM by integrating Gaussian blur, clustering, and row image weighted averaging into the NLM framework. Experimental results show that the proposed technique can perform denoising better than the original NLM both quantitatively and visually, especially when the noise level is high.
FPGA Based FIR Filter Design for Enhancement of ECG Signal by Minimizing Base-line Drift Interference

Baseline noise removal from Electrocardiogram (ECG) signal is a blind source separation problem. Various noises affect the measured ECG signal. Major ECG noises are base-line noise, power-line noise, electrode contact noise, muscle noise. Baseline noise distorts the low frequency segment of ECG signal. The low frequency segment is S-T segment. This segment is very important and has the information related to heart attack. There are various techniques to remove this noise from noisy ECG signal. Efficient removal of baseline noise might give us certain information that are hidden from the doctors until now which may save the life of a person. Baseline drift noise occurs due to respiratory signal and body movements. Respiratory signal wanders between 0.15Hz and 0.5Hz frequencies. One of the most common methods to remove baseline drift interference is high pass filtering. This research work is based on High pass filtering of ECG signal to remove this baseline wander while preserving the low frequency ECG clinical information. The results of different filter design techniques like equiripple, least square and various windowing methods are compared using MATLAB simulation tool and best suited technique is used for further implementation on FPGA platform.
Genotyping of African swine fever virus from a 2009 outbreak in Tanzania

African swine fever is a highly contagious hemorrhagic disease of domestic pigs caused by African swine fever virus (ASFV) belonging to the Asfarviridae family. Twenty two ASFV genotypes (I XXII) have been identified based on partial sequencing of the C-terminus of the major capsid protein p72 encoded by the B646L gene. Previously characterized, Tanzanian ASFV strains belong to genotypes X, XV and XVI. This study aimed at confirming and genotyping ASFV that caused an ASF outbreak in Longido district, Tanzania in the year 2009. Partial ASFV B646L (p72) gene amplification and sequencing was performed on lung, spleen, liver, heart and serum of a single pig that suffered from a hemorrhagic disease during the 2009 outbreak. Phylogenetic analysis of the Tanzanian 2009 ASFV strain grouped the virus within p72 genotype X and was 100% identical to some previously reported Kenyan ASFV strains, indicating cross-boundary distribution of this ASFV strain.
Encoding, Consolidation, and Renormalization in Depression: Synaptic Homeostasis, Plasticity, and Sleep Integrate Rapid Antidepressant Effects

Recent studies have strived to find an association between rapid antidepressant effects and a specific subset of pharmacological targets and molecular pathways. Here, we propose a broader hypothesis of encoding, consolidation, and renormalization in depression (ENCORE-D), which suggests that, fundamentally, rapid and sustained antidepressant effects rely on intrinsic homeostatic mechanisms evoked as a response to the acute pharmacological or physiologic effects triggered by the treatment. We review evidence that supports the notion that various treatments with a rapid onset of action, such as ketamine, electroconvulsive therapy, and sleep deprivation, share the ability to acutely excite cortical networks, which increases synaptic potentiation, alters patterns of functional connectivity, and ameliorates depressive symptoms. We proceed to examine how the initial effects are short-lived and, as such, require both consolidation during wake and maintenance throughout sleep to remain sustained. Here, we incorporate elements from the synaptic homeostasis hypothesis and theorize that the fundamental mechanisms of synaptic plasticity and sleep, particularly the homeostatic emergence of slow-wave electroencephalogram activity and the renormalization of synaptic strength, are at the center of sustained antidepressant effects. We conclude by discussing the various implications of the ENCORE-D hypothesis and offer several considerations for future experimental and clinical research. Significance Statement Proposed molecular perspectives of rapid antidepressant effects fail to appreciate the temporal distribution of the effects of ketamine on cortical excitation and plasticity as well as the prolonged influence on depressive symptoms. The encoding, consolidation, and renormalization in depression hypothesis proposes that the lasting clinical effects can be best explained by adaptive functional and structural alterations in neural circuitries set in motion in response to the acute pharmacological effects of ketamine (i.e., changes evoked during the engagement of receptor targets such as N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors) or other putative rapid-acting antidepressants. The present hypothesis opens a completely new avenue for conceptualizing and targeting brain mechanisms that are important for antidepressant effects wherein sleep and synaptic homeostasis are at the center stage.
Changes in lipid profile of rat plasma after chronic administration of Mallasindura (MSL)-an Ayurvedic metallic preparation

Mallasindura (MSL) which is a classical Ayurvedic preparation of arsenical products was studied to observe its toxicological effects. This Ayurvedic drug is used in the treatment of bronchial asthma. The changes in the lipid profile parameters of rat plasma were examined after chronic administration of this drug. The animal used were albino rats (Rattus novergicus: Sprague-Dawley strains) and the drug was administered per oral route at a dose of 100 mg/kg body weight, once daily, up to 90 days for all the experiments. Forty rats, equally of both sexes, were randomly grouped into four where one male and one female group were used as control and other groups were used as test. In case of male rats, statistically a very highly significant decrease (p=0.001) in the triglyceride content in the plasma was noted. There was also a decrease in the total cholesterol, LDL, HDL and VLDL content (with p values of 0.682, 0.374, 0.796 and 0.328 respectively) of the plasma was observed. None of these values were statistically significant. In case of female rats, a similar declined trend was observed for triglycerides which was statistically very highly significant (p=0.001). And for total cholesterol, LDL, HDL and VLDL content in female rats, there was a similar trend like male rats with p values of (0.701, 0.395, 0.902 and 0.587 respectively) which were not statistically significant.
Modeling of Surface EMG Signals using System Identification Techniques

Electromyogram (EMG) signal generated by the skeletal muscles during contraction or relaxation plays a significant role in many clinical and biomedical applications. The analysis of EMG signals helps to detect the human intention for movement. One of the major applications of EMG signal is in the control of prosthetic devices and exoskeletons. The aim of this study is to develop a mathematical model with surface EMG (sEMG) signals acquired from the biceps and triceps muscle as input and corresponding angular velocity of motion of fore-arm as output. The problem that arises while modeling is that the system model is “black-box” model. For solving this problem system identification techniques are used. A linear parametric model called ARX model and a nonlinear model called Hammerstein model are used for system identification and the performances of these system identification models are compared. The platform used for the development and comparison of models is LabVIEW. Keywords— sEMG; System Identification; ARX model; Hammerstein model.
Early experience using salvage radiotherapy for relapsed/refractory non‐Hodgkin lymphomas after CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy

Radiotherapy is potentially an important salvage strategy post‐chimeric antigen receptor T cell therapy (CART), but limited data exist. We reviewed 14 patients treated with salvage radiation post‐CART progression (SRT). Most received SRT for first post‐CART relapse (71%) to sites previously PET‐avid pre‐CART (79%). Median overall survival (OS) post‐SRT was 10 months. Post‐SRT, six localized relapses achieved 100% response (3 = complete, 3 = partial), with improved freedom from subsequent relapse (P = 0·001) and OS (P = 0·004) compared to advanced stage relapses. Three were bridged to allogeneic transplantation; at analysis, all were alive/NED. SRT has diverse utility and can integrate with novel agents or transplantation to attempt durable remissions.
Cystic Fibrosis-related Liver Disease is Associated With Increased Disease Burden and Endocrine Comorbidities.

BACKGROUND Cystic fibrosis-related liver disease (CFLD) is the leading nonpulmonary cause of mortality in cystic fibrosis (CF). We evaluated and compared the burden of disease and nonrespiratory comorbidities of those with severe CFLD and those without (noCFLD). METHODS A retrospective nationwide (Australia) longitudinal review (from 1998 to 2016) of severe CFLD patients compared with noCFLD controls (matched 1 : 1 for age, genotype, pancreatic insufficiency, and center). RESULTS One hundred sixty-six patients with severe CFLD and 166 with noCFLD were identified. Forced expiratory volume in 1 second percentage of predicted (FEV1%) was significantly lower in CFLD than noCFLD across all ages (estimate [SE] -6.05% [2.12]; P = 0.004). Median (IQR) hospitalizations per patient per year were higher in CFLD than noCFLD for: respiratory indications (0.6 [0.2-1.3] vs 0.4 [0.1-0.9]; P = 0.002); gastrointestinal indications (0.09 [0-0.2] vs 0 [0-0.05]; P < 0.001); and other indications (0.05 [0-0.2] vs 0 [0-0.1]; P = 0.03). In the CFLD cohort, there was increased use of nasogastric (12.6% vs 5.4%; OR 2.51 [95% CI 1.06-6.46]; P = 0.03) and gastrostomy nutritional supplementation (22.9% vs 13.2%; OR 1.93 [95% CI 1.05-3.63]; P = 0.03). Additionally, the CFLD cohort had a higher frequency of bone diseases, osteopenia (26.5% vs 16.8%; OR 1.77 [95%CI 1.01-3.15]; P = 0.04) and osteoporosis (16.2% vs 8.4%; OR 2.1 [95% CI 1.01-4.52]; P = 0.04), as well as CF-related diabetes (38.5% vs 19.2%; OR 2.61 [95% CI 1.55-4.47[; P = 0.001). CONCLUSIONS Patients with severe CFLD have greater disease burden, with higher number of hospitalizations (both respiratory and nonrespiratory indications), nutritional interventions, and are at higher risk of CF-related bone disease and diabetes.
Constructing and evaluating a cortical surface atlas and analyzing cortical sex differences in young Chinese adults

Cortical surface templates are an important standardized coordinate frame for cortical structure and function analysis in magnetic resonance (MR) imaging studies. The widely used adult cortical surface templates (e.g., fsaverage, Conte69, and the HCP‐MMP atlas) are based on the Caucasian population. Neuroanatomical differences related to environmental and genetic factors between Chinese and Caucasian populations make these templates unideal for analysis of the cortex in the Chinese population. We used a multimodal surface matching algorithm in an iterative procedure to create Chinese (sCN200) and Caucasian (sUS200) cortical surface atlases based on 200 demographically matched high‐quality T1‐ and T2‐weighted (T1w and T2w, respectively) MR images from the Chinese Human Connectome Project (CHCP) and the Human Connectome Project (HCP), respectively. Templates for anatomical cortical surfaces (white matter, pial, midthickness) and cortical feature maps of sulcal depth, curvature, thickness, T1w/T2w myelin, and cortical labels were generated. Using independent subsets from the CHCP and the HCP, we quantified the accuracy of cortical registration when using population‐matched and mismatched atlases. The performance of the cortical registration and accuracy of curvature alignment when using population‐matched atlases was significantly improved, thereby demonstrating the importance of using the sCN200 cortical surface atlas for Chinese adult population studies. Finally, we analyzed female and male cortical differences within the Chinese and Caucasian populations. We identified significant between‐sex differences in cortical curvature, sulcal depth, thickness, and T1w/T2w myelin maps in the frontal, temporal, parietal, occipital, and insular lobes as well as the cingulate cortices.
Octopamine mobilizes lipids from honey bee (Apis mellifera) hypopharyngeal glands

ABSTRACT Recent widespread honey bee (Apis mellifera) colony loss is attributed to a variety of stressors, including parasites, pathogens, pesticides and poor nutrition. In principle, we can reduce stress-induced declines in colony health by either removing the stressor or increasing the bees' tolerance to the stressor. This latter option requires a better understanding than we currently have of how honey bees respond to stress. Here, we investigated how octopamine, a stress-induced hormone that mediates invertebrate physiology and behavior, influences the health of young nurse-aged bees. Specifically, we asked whether octopamine induces abdominal lipid and hypopharyngeal gland (HG) degradation, two physiological traits of stressed nurse bees. Nurse-aged workers were treated topically with octopamine and their abdominal lipid content, HG size and HG autophagic gene expression were measured. Hemolymph lipid titer was measured to determine whether tissue degradation was associated with the release of nutrients from these tissues into the hemolymph. The HGs of octopamine-treated bees were smaller than control bees and had higher levels of HG autophagy gene expression. Octopamine-treated bees also had higher levels of hemolymph lipid compared with control bees. Abdominal lipids did not change in response to octopamine. Our findings support the hypothesis that the HGs are a rich source of stored energy that can be mobilized during periods of stress. Summary: Octopamine induces the release of lipids from tissue stores in many insects and can also induce lipid mobilization from honey bee hypopharyngeal glands.