Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Brief research report pesticide occupational exposure leads to significant inflammatory changes in normal mammary breast tissue

Studies have documented the high occurrence of several tumors, including female breast cancer, in populations occupationally exposed to pesticides worldwide. It is believed that in addition to direct DNA damage, other molecular alterations that indicate genomic instability are associated, such as epigenetic modifications and the production of inflammation mediators. The present study characterized the profile of inflammatory changes in the breast tissue of women without cancer occupationally exposed to pesticides. In samples of normal breast tissue collected during biopsy and evaluated as negative for cancer by a pathologist, oxidative stress levels were assessed as inflammatory markers through measurements of lipoperoxides and total antioxidant capacity of the sample (TRAP) by high-sensitivity chemiluminescence, as well as levels of nitric oxide (NOx) metabolites. The levels of inflammation-modulating transcription factors PPAR-γ (peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma) and NF-κB (nuclear factor kappa B) were also quantified, in addition to the pro-inflammatory cytokines tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) and interleukin 12 (IL-12). The levels of lipoperoxides, TRAP, and NOx were significantly lower in the exposed group. On the other hand, PPAR-γ levels were increased in the breast tissue of exposed women, with no variation in NF-κB. There was also a rise of TNF-α in exposed women samples without significant variations in IL-12 levels. These findings suggest an inflammatory signature of the breast tissue associated with pesticide exposure, which may trigger mechanisms related to mutations and breast carcinogenesis.
Protein and Cholesterol Levels of Duck Eggs after the Addition of Nanochitosan as a Feed Additive

Nanochitosan is a polysaccharide that can be used as a feed additive to improve the chemical quality of eggs. Protein and cholesterol levels are indicators of the chemical quality of eggs that affect egg weight. This study aims to analyze the effect of nanochitosan as a feed additive on improving the chemical quality of eggs in terms of protein content, cholesterol content, egg white weight, egg yolk weight, and duck egg weight. This study was designed in a completely randomized design (CRD) consisting of 5 treatments (0; 2.5; 5; 7.5; 10 g nanochitosan/kg feed) with 5 replications. Treatment of feed was given for 8 weeks. Variables measured included protein content, cholesterol level, egg white weight, egg yolk weight, and duck egg weight. Data was analyzed using ANOVA at 5% significance. The results showed that nanochitosan as a feed additive had a significant effect on increasing protein content, egg white weight, egg yolk weight, egg weight and cholesterol reduction. The conclusion of this study is that nanochitosan can be used as a feed additive that has potential to improve the chemical quality of duck eggs. The novelty of this research is the use of nanochitosan as a feed additive to improve the performance of livestock in increasing protein levels and reducing cholesterol levels in pengging duck eggs. The results of this study are expected to open up opportunities regarding the use of nanochitosan as a feed additive in various other local ducks in Indonesia.
Privacy Preserving User Energy Consumption Profiling: From Theory to Application

The smart grid benefits and suffers from smart meter data. Proper use of massive data can improve energy services but may raise privacy concerns. For example, user energy consumption profiling, a classic method, can identify energy consumption patterns based on the collected load profiles from users. Thus, the privacy of these individual load profiles needs to be protected. However, most of the existing works focus on data transmission and calculation privacy, and often require additional computation, communication, or platform construction costs. In contrast, noise-injection-based data source privacy-protecting works can avoid such additional costs and provide theoretical differential privacy (DP) guarantee. This paper theoretically analyzes noise-injection-based user profiling mechanisms in terms of both privacy protection and accuracy. Specifically, we establish the privacy-accuracy trade-off. We then propose an optimal user energy consumption pattern estimation method for heterogeneous noise-injection-based data. Finally, we design a valid information ratio-based pricing scheme for noisy data that is independent of downstream tasks and easy to implement. Numerical studies based on field data confirm the effectiveness of our theoretical results.
A comparative study of cultured and field plants provides evidence for the shy male hypothesis in tropical genotypes of Bryum argenteum Hedw.

ABSTRACT Introduction The female-biased sex ratio is recurrently observed in bryophyte populations, although the sex ratio of spores is usually balanced. The results of several studies have suggested explanations for this observation, one of which is the shy male hypothesis. The shy male hypothesis predicts that the sex ratio of populations is balanced in the field, but due to a low or lack of sex expression of male plants, the populations present a female bias when the sex ratio is based on observations of sex-expressing plants. Methods We tested the shy male hypothesis using samples of the moss Bryum argenteum collected from Brazilian seasonally dry tropical forests and the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. Field sex ratios were determined by classifying shoots as male, female, or non–sex-expressing. Non–sex-expressing shoots were further analysed for sex expression after culture regeneration. Results and discussion Our results showed that populations of Bryum argenteum in the field had a low rate of sex expression, and that most of the shoots expressed were female. However, when shoots without sex expression were cultured, a greater number of male shoots were observed compared with in the field plants. Because more males appeared in the shoots cultured from non–sex-expressing field plants, our data for tropical B. argenteum tend to support the shy male hypothesis. Some genotypes from the wet forest were synoicous (i.e. had male and female gametangia in the same gametoecia), suggesting polyploidy.
Effects of nonlocal correlation functionals on electron-phonon interactions in NbC

The first-principles approach is applied to study the electronic, vibrational, and superconducting properties of B1-NbC. We used a variety of density functional theory methods that involve local density approximation (PW), generalized gradient approximation; PBE, PBEsol, and GGA functionals corrected with nonlocal correlation functionals (rVV10, vdW-DF2, vdW-DF3). Although the electronic band structures from different methods show an overwhelming agreement, the phonon dispersion curves display significant differences at certain points. The optical phonons make an appreciable part of the electron-phonon coupling constant, λ (up to 23%). This contribution is found to be the largest for PW and the smallest for PBE whereas the nonlocal functionals give intermediate values. This behavior is in perfect analogy with the interaction energies for the three types of methods. The nonlocal functionals, rVV10 and vdW-DF3, fine tuned λ to obtain a value in close agreement with a recently reported experimental value of λ = 0.848 Yan et al. Despite the fact that variations in λ due to nonlocal functionals are not very large, the effects on the superconducting transition temperatures are significant. In addition, the Coulomb screening potential, μ * = 0.1525 gives superconducting transition temperature in the best agreement with the experiment.
Research Progress of Natural Products and Their Derivatives in Marine Antifouling

With the increasing awareness of environmental protection, it is necessary to develop natural product extracts as antifouling (AF) agents for alternatives to toxic biocides or metal-based AF paints to control biofouling. This paper briefly summarizes the latest developments in the natural product extracts and their derivatives or analogues from marine microorganisms to terrestrial plants as AF agents in the last five years. Moreover, this paper discusses the structures–activity relationship of these AF compounds and expands their AF mechanisms. Inspired by the molecular structure of natural products, some derivatives or analogues of natural product extracts and some novel strategies for improving the AF activity of protective coatings have been proposed as guidance for the development of a new generation of environmentally friendly AF agents.
Feature Map Activation Analysis for Object Key-Point Detection

Determining object location information in an image can enable more accurate CNN classification. Several extended CNN models have been developed to include both object location and classification into a unified model, at a cost of increasing compute complexity, increasing the number of parameters, and typically having a lower number of classification categories. We show that key-points within classifiable objects can be identified in early layer feature maps of a simple CNN without dependence on deeper layer processing or classification predictions. A statistical analysis of early feature maps is used to create a method for identifying and locating key-points that, with high probability, correspond to object locations in the image. This method uses only the forward pass of the simple CNN and requires no additional training. The method is tested on an image data set with known ground truth object locations as a function of the number of key points for four related selection methods. Results for object locations derived from key-points compare favorably to results obtained from R-CNN and are consistent over a range of key point set sizes.
Low Ozone Concentrations Over Macquarie Island During 1997 Part II: Satellite Ozone Analysis

The year 1997 was notable for the record low ozone column densities observed throughout the southern hemisphere mid-latitude region (Cordero and Grainger (2002), this issue, herein denoted as CG2002). While variability in the large-scale circulation is at least partially responsible for inter-annual anomalies (Connor et al. 1999), variations on the time-scale of a week are also of interest, since ozone affects the amount of UV radiation received at the Earth’s surface (WMO 1999). Macquarie Island (55°S, 159°E) is in a latitude band where the atmosphere is highly variable, especially in the troposphere (Hurrell et al. 1998). In addition, there may be passages of low ozone air from the polar vortex or Antarctic ozone hole in the spring and early summer (Atkinson 1997). This makes it an ideal location for studies of short-term ozone changes. In the companion paper CG2002, the origins of air parcels from three low ozone events at Macquarie Island were investigated using trajectory methods. In this paper, the large-scale ozone distribution is studied using the analysis of satellite ozone data. The Ozone Analysis System (OASYS) interpolates satellite ozone data onto a three-dimensional grid to obtain the global ozone mixing ratio distribution every six hours. OASYS consists of an analysis step and a forecast step, which are described further in the next section. Next a brief description of the satellite data used is given; OASYS is then validated using
Tropical Cyclone Modelling with TELEMAC-2D

Model testing has shown that the use of schematic wind models can reproduce well the observed rotating wind field in a tropical cyclone. Imposing the wind field and air pressure field in TELEMAC-2D has been found to give good results in comparison with observed storm surge levels at tide gauges during a cyclone.
Interfacing Synchronous Machine Model Including Stator Transients With Network for Stability Studies

A detailed multi-time scale model of synchronous machines (SM) with stator transients is necessary to capture the complex interactions in inverter-integrated power systems. The conventional detailed SM model, including stator transients, is incompatible with that of the step-up transformer in the dq domain as both are modeled as current sources in series. This letter proposes an efficient approach for interfacing the detailed SM model with the transformer by reformulating the SM model as a voltage source without accuracy loss. MATLAB/Simulink numerical simulations using New England 39-bus test system validate the computational efficiency of the proposed approach.
Rapid Formation and Hybrid Treatment of a Large Superior Mesenteric Artery Aneurysm

Patient: Male, 41-year-old Final Diagnosis: Superior mesenteric artery aneurysm • visceral aneurysm Symptoms: No symptoms • asymptomatic Clinical Procedure: — Specialty: Surgery Objective: Unusual clinical course Background: Superior mesenteric artery (SMA) aneurysms account for about 5.5% of all visceral aneurysms, and are most commonly secondary to infectious causes or dissection. They tend to expand and rupture. Here, we present our successful diagnosis and treatment of a 41-year-old man with asymptomatic coeliac trunk stenosis, in whom the large aneurysm of the branch of the SMA developed in a very short time after conservative treatment of plastron appendicitis. Case Report: A 41-year-old man was diagnosed with plastron appendicitis during abdomen ultrasound (US) examination. Following 2 weeks of conservative treatment with intravenous antibiotic therapy, complete resolution of symptoms was obtained and confirmed in the computed tomography (CT) scan, and no other pathologies were diagnosed. Three weeks later, during the US examination, a 33-mm aneurysm of the branch of the SMA was diagnosed. The patient was admitted to the Vascular Surgery Department, where a critical stenosis of the coeliac trunk secondary to the compression by median arcuate ligament and a 33-mm true visceral aneurysm of one of the branches of the SMA were diagnosed. Successful treatment of the aneurysm was performed. Surgical decompression of the coeliac trunk and subsequent elective endovascular embolization of the SMA aneurysm with angioplasty of the coeliac trunk were performed. The postoperative period was uneventful and the patient was released from the hospital and remains asymptomatic. Conclusions: Visceral artery aneurysm can form very quickly. In some of the aneurysms, a combination of open surgical and endovascular methods should be performed.
Don’t pay attention to what you see! Negative commands and attention bias

The paper presents research into the effects of the use of negations in directives (orders, suggestions, requests). Three experiments are described that tested the effects of instructions formulated in various ways: direct (pay attention to) and negated (don’t pay attention to) commands to focus the attention. Indicators of attention focusing that were used include: the correctness of answers to questions about a selection of comic book pages (Experiment 1); the time needed to name the colours of stimulus words and the level of recall of these words after completion of the colour naming task (Experiment 2 and 3). The results showed that a direct command infl uenced all indicators of attention focusing. However, a negated command increased the level of recall of details about the comic book pages, as well as the level of key word recall. Both the automatic process that generates the paradoxical effects of negated commands, as well as the controlled process of reasoning, may be responsible for the results of the memory task.
MAE-Based Self-Supervised Pretraining Algorithm for Heart Rate Estimation of Radar Signals

Noncontact heart rate monitoring techniques based on millimeter-wave radar have advantages in unique medical scenarios. However, the accuracy of the existing noncontact heart rate estimation methods is still limited by interference, such as DC offsets, respiratory harmonics, and environmental noise. Additionally, these methods still require longer observation times. Most deep learning methods related to heart rate estimation still need to collect more heart rate marker data for training. To address the above problems, this paper introduces a radar signal-based heart rate estimation network named the “masked phase autoencoders with a vision transformer network” (MVN). This network is grounded on masked autoencoders (MAEs) for self-supervised pretraining and a vision transformer (ViT) for transfer learning. During the phase preprocessing stage, phase differencing and interpolation smoothing are performed on the input phase signal. In the self-supervised pretraining step, masked self-supervised training is performed on the phase signal using the MAE network. In the transfer learning stage, the encoder segment of the MAE network is integrated with the ViT network to enable transfer learning using labeled heart rate data. The innovative MVN offers a dual advantage—it not only reduces the cost associated with heart rate data acquisition but also adeptly addresses the issue of respiratory harmonic interference, which is an improvement over conventional signal processing methods. The experimental results show that the process in this paper improves the accuracy of heart rate estimation while reducing the requisite observation time.
Effect of acupuncture on BDNF signaling pathways in several nervous system diseases

In recent years, the understanding of the mechanisms of acupuncture in the treatment of neurological disorders has deepened, and considerable progress has been made in basic and clinical research on acupuncture, but the relationship between acupuncture treatment mechanisms and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) has not yet been elucidated. A wealth of evidence has shown that acupuncture exhibits a dual regulatory function of activating or inhibiting different BDNF pathways. This review focuses on recent research advances on the effect of acupuncture on BDNF and downstream signaling pathways in several neurological disorders. Firstly, the signaling pathways of BDNF and its function in regulating plasticity are outlined. Furthermore, this review discusses explicitly the regulation of BDNF by acupuncture in several nervous system diseases, including neuropathic pain, Parkinson’s disease, cerebral ischemia, depression, spinal cord injury, and other diseases. The underlying mechanisms of BDNF regulation by acupuncture are also discussed. This review aims to improve the theoretical system of the mechanism of acupuncture action through further elucidation of the mechanism of acupuncture modulation of BDNF in the treatment of neurological diseases and to provide evidence to support the wide application of acupuncture in clinical practice.
Minimum United States Medical Licensing Examination and Comprehensive Osteopathic Medical Licensing Examination Scores Often Do Not Align

Background Many residency programs do not accept the Comprehensive Osteopathic Medical Licensing Examination (COMLEX-USA) alone for osteopathic applicants. Furthermore, among those programs that do accept the COMLEX-USA, it is unknown how programs scale their minimum COMLEX-USA scores compared to their minimum United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) scores. Objective Our objective was to examine the variation of relative within-program differences between minimum USMLE Step and COMLEX-USA Level scores required for consideration by United States residency programs. Methods We performed a cross-sectional analysis of the Fellowship and Residency Electronic Interactive Database Access (FREIDA) database from April 2023, including the 10 specialties with the most training spots in 2022. These specialties were internal medicine, family medicine, pediatrics, emergency medicine, psychiatry, surgery, anesthesiology, obstetrics-gynecology, orthopedic surgery, and neurology. Within-program differences were calculated by subtracting the minimum USMLE Step 1 and 2 scores from the converted minimum USMLE Step 1 and 2 scores calculated from the minimum COMLEX-USA Level 1 and 2 scores using two conversion tools. We present differences as medians with interquartile ranges (IQR). Additionally, we report the proportion of programs with greater than 10-point differences for each step (1 and 2). Results Of the 3,364 accredited programs from the examined specialties, we included 1,477 in the Step 1 analysis and 1,227 in the Step 2 analysis with complete data. The median within-program difference between the minimum Step 1 score and the predicted Step 1 score was 12.0 (IQR 2.0, 17.0) using the Barnum and colleagues’ conversion tool and -1.7 (IQR -6.2, 6.3) using the Smith and colleagues’ tool. The median differences for Step 2 were 2.0 (IQR -8.0, 12.0) and -6.5 (IQR -13.9, -1.5) for each tool, respectively. Using the Barnum and Smith conversion tools, 937 (63%) and 435 (29%) programs had a greater than 10-point Step 1 score difference, respectively. Similarly, for Step 2, 564 (46%) and 515 (42%) programs had a greater than 10-point difference with each conversion tool. Conclusion There is wide variation in the within-program differences between minimum USMLE and predicted minimum USMLE (from COMLEX-USA) scores. Many programs have greater than 10-point differences, which may be a source of bias in osteopathic applicant selection.
Enhancing S2E to Analyze Multi-Thread Programs

— Code analysis for defect detection is very important in the modern world, especially in the case of complex multi-thread applications. An example of a tool, suitable for software of high complexity, is the famous S2E, which allows for full-system emulation with symbolic execution. This paper presents several major enhancements for S2E, including: firstly, support for multiple virtual cores, allowing to have parallel speed-up; secondly, on this basis, a race checker plugin to detect defects of this sort in multi-thread programs. This development has concerned such interesting points of research as scheduling in multi-core emulation and race detection with symbolic execution.
A Laboratory Medicine Perspective on the Investigation of Phaeochromocytoma and Paraganglioma

Phaeochromocytomas (PC) and sympathetic paragangliomas (PGL) are potentially malignant tumours arising from the adrenal medulla (PC) or elsewhere in the sympathetic nervous system (PGL). These tumours usually secrete catecholamines and are associated with significant morbidity and mortality, so accurate and timely diagnosis is essential. The initial diagnosis of phaeochromocytoma/paraganglioma (PPGL) is often dependent on biochemical testing. There is a range of pre-analytical, analytical and post-analytical factors influencing the analytical and diagnostic performance of biochemical tests for PPGL. Pre-analytical factors include patient preparation, sample handling and choice of test. Analytical factors include choice of methodology and the potential for analytical interference from medications and other compounds. Important factors in the post-analytical phase include provision of appropriate reference ranges, an understanding of the potential effects of various medications on metanephrine concentrations in urine and plasma and a consideration of PPGL prevalence in the patient population being tested. This article reviews these pre-analytical, analytical and post-analytical factors that must be understood in order to provide effective laboratory services for biochemical testing in the diagnosis of PPGL.