Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fenugreek seed affects intestinal microbiota and immunological variables in piglets after weaning

Fenugreek seed has been shown to affect the intestinal microbiota and immunological responses in animals. A feeding trial with male castrated piglets was performed over 28 d without or with the addition of 1·5 g fenugreek seeds/kg complete diet in ten and eleven piglets, weaned at 21 d. In the intestinal tract, pH, lactate and SCFA were measured as major bacterial metabolites. Immune cell phenotypes, phagocytic activity and lymphocyte proliferation after stimulation with pokeweed mitogen, concanavalin A and phytohaemagglutinin M were measured by flow cytometry. Health status and performance of the piglets were not affected by fenugreek. The pH in the caecum and colon were reduced compared with the control (P< 0·05). Higher concentrations of l-lactic acid were recorded in the small-intestinal digesta (average concentrations from the duodenum, jejunum and ileum; P< 0·05), while the concentrations of SCFA remained unchanged except an increase in n-butyric acid in colon contents (P< 0·05). The piglets fed the fenugreek diet had higher Lactobacillus and clostridium cluster I concentrations and lower Escherichia, Hafnia and Shigella concentrations in the small intestine. The addition of fenugreek increased the relative concentration of the γδ T-cell population (TCR1+CD8α−) in the blood with a simultaneous reduction of antigen-presenting cells (MHCII+CD5−) (P< 0·05). Proliferation rate and phagocytosis activity of monocytes were not affected by the additive. In conclusion, fenugreek seeds might be interesting as a feed ingredient for young piglets due to their effects on the intestinal microbiota and immunological variables. The impact on performance and animal health has to be further evaluated.
How do we actually put smarter snacks in schools? NOURISH (Nutrition Opportunities to Understand Reforms Involving Student Health) conversations with food-service directors

Abstract Objective In autumn 2012, Massachusetts schools implemented comprehensive competitive food and beverage standards similar to the US Department of Agriculture’s Smart Snacks in School standards. We explored major themes raised by food-service directors (FSD) regarding their school-district-wide implementation of the standards. Design For this qualitative study, part of a larger mixed-methods study, compliance was measured via direct observation of foods and beverages during school site visits in spring 2013 and 2014, calculated to ascertain the percentage of compliant products available to students. Semi-structured interviews with school FSD conducted in each year were analysed for major implementation themes; those raised by more than two-thirds of participating school districts were explored in relationship to compliance. Setting Massachusetts school districts (2013: n 26; 2014: n 21). Subjects Data collected from FSD. Results Seven major themes were raised by more than two-thirds of participating school districts (range 69–100 %): taking measures for successful transition; communicating with vendors/manufacturers; using tools to identify compliant foods and beverages; receiving support from leadership; grappling with issues not covered by the law; anticipating changes in sales of competitive foods and beverages; and anticipating changes in sales of school meals. Each theme was mentioned by the majority of more-compliant school districts (65–81 %), with themes being raised more frequently after the second year of implementation (range increase 4–14 %). Conclusions FSD in more-compliant districts were more likely to talk about themes than those in less-compliant districts. Identified themes suggest best-practice recommendations likely useful for school districts implementing the final Smart Snacks in School standards, effective July 2016.
Solar activity and its evolution across the corona: recent advances

Solar magnetism is responsible for the several active phenomena that occur in the solar atmosphere. The consequences of these phenomena on the solar-terrestrial environment and on Space Weather are nowadays clearly recognized, even if not yet fully understood. In order to shed light on the mechanisms that are at the basis of the Space Weather, it is necessary to investigate the sequence of phenomena starting in the solar atmosphere and developing across the outer layers of the Sun and along the path from the Sun to the Earth. This goal can be reached by a combined multidisciplinary , multi-instrument, multi-wavelength study of these phenomena , starting with the very first manifestation of solar active region formation and evolution, followed by explosive phenomena (i.e., flares, erupting prominences, coronal mass ejections), and ending with the interaction of plasma magnetized clouds expelled from the Sun with the interplanetary magnetic field and medium. This wide field of research constitutes one of the main aims of COST Action ES0803: Developing Space Weather products and services in Europe. In particular, one of the tasks of this COST Action was to investigate the Progress in Scientific Understanding of Space Weather. In this paper we review the state of the art of our comprehension of some phenomena that, in the scenario outlined above, might have a role on Space Weather, focusing on the researches, thematic reviews, and main results obtained during the COST Action ES0803.
Estimation of collision risk for improving driver's safety

This paper introduces a method for analyzing the critical situation based on collision risk probability. Pedestrians in the scene are captured from a monocular camera mounted on the vehicle. Position information of object is extracted by projecting the centroid of bounding box to the ground plane. Five elements of collision criteria are used for our risk analysis. Pedestrian walking direction, its velocity and how aware pedestrian to the traffic are obtained from the pedestrian side. Car speed and relative distance of pedestrian from the car are extracted from car side. Then, with certain values of collision criteria, those elements are constructed. The critical situation is defined as joint probability of elements. Pedestrian are localized according to the critical situation as green for secure label, yellow for carefully and red for high priority to be alerted. A quantitative analysis is performed by measuring effectiveness of this approach. A real-world measurement and human perception survey are performed for evaluation. The performance evaluation shows our proposed method achieved average accuracy 87.5% and it significantly outperforms human perception survey with more than 30% improvement.
Exploring excitations and vibrations in semiconductor nanocrystals through fluorescence and Raman spectroscopy

Semiconductor nanocrystals, also known as quantum dots (QDs) have been used in solid state light emission applications ranging from fluorescent downconverters to LEDs and lasers, as well as energy generation devices such as solar photovoltaics and thermoelectrics. In order to realize these myriad applications, the fundamental physics of both electronic and vibrational energy transfer must be understood to engineer better device performance. This thesis begins with a general introduction to the physics and chemistry of QDs as well as an introduction to lattice vibrations, including a proposed model for understanding thermal conductivity in solid state QD-based devices. It continues with a discussion of the methods used to understand the photoluminescence and vibrational characteristics of QDs, including spectrallyresolved time-correlated single photon counting measurements to understand QD photoluminescence lifetime as a function of emission wavelength, and low-frequency Raman spectroscopy to measure acoustic phonons in nanocrystal solids. These two chapters serve as an introduction to the ideas and methods used throughout the thesis. In Chapter 3, Förster theory is used in conduction with spectrallyand temporallyresolved photoluminescence spectroscopy to understand the rates of excitonic energy transfer in CdSe/CdZnS core/shell QDs through a calculation of the effective dipoledipole coupling distance known as the Förster radius. This work demonstrated energy transfer rates between donor and acceptor QDs between 10-100 times faster than the predictions based on standard applications of Förster theory, corresponding to an effective Förster radius of 8-9 nm in close packed QD films. Several possible effects, including an enhanced absorption cross section, ordered dipole orientations, or dipolemultipole coupling, can explain the observed difference between our measurements and the Förster theory predictions, demonstrating that several standard assumptions commonly used for calculating QD resonant energy transfer rates must be carefully considered when the QDs are in a thin-film geometry. Chapters 4-5 involve the use of low-frequency Raman spectroscopy to probe acoustic phonons in QDs. These low-frequency acoustic vibrations affect the
SufiSent - Universal Sentence Representations Using Suffix Encodings

Computing universal distributed representations of sentences is a fundamental task in natural language processing. We propose a method to learn such representations by encoding the suffixes of word sequences in a sentence and training on the Stanford Natural Language Inference (SNLI) dataset. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach by evaluating it on the SentEval benchmark, improving on existing approaches on several transfer tasks.
Understanding safety and production risks in rail engineering planning and protection

Much of the published human factors work on risk is to do with safety and within this is concerned with prediction and analysis of human error and with human reliability assessment. Less has been published on human factors contributions to understanding and managing project, business, engineering and other forms of risk and still less jointly assessing risk to do with broad issues of ‘safety’ and broad issues of ‘production’ or ‘performance’. This paper contains a general commentary on human factors and assessment of risk of various kinds, in the context of the aims of ergonomics and concerns about being too risk averse. The paper then describes a specific project, in rail engineering, where the notion of a human factors case has been employed to analyse engineering functions and related human factors issues. A human factors issues register for potential system disturbances has been developed, prior to a human factors risk assessment, which jointly covers safety and production (engineering delivery) concerns. The paper concludes with a commentary on the potential relevance of a resilience engineering perspective to understanding rail engineering systems risk. Design, planning and management of complex systems will increasingly have to address the issue of making trade-offs between safety and production, and ergonomics should be central to this. The paper addresses the relevant issues and does so in an under-published domain – rail systems engineering work.
Control-Data Separation Architecture for Cellular Radio Access Networks: A Survey and Outlook

Conventional cellular systems are designed to ensure ubiquitous coverage with an always present wireless channel irrespective of the spatial and temporal demand of service. This approach raises several problems due to the tight coupling between network and data access points, as well as the paradigm shift towards data-oriented services, heterogeneous deployments and network densification. A logical separation between control and data planes is seen as a promising solution that could overcome these issues, by providing data services under the umbrella of a coverage layer. This article presents a holistic survey of existing literature on the control-data separation architecture (CDSA) for cellular radio access networks. As a starting point, we discuss the fundamentals, concepts, and general structure of the CDSA. Then, we point out limitations of the conventional architecture in futuristic deployment scenarios. In addition, we present and critically discuss the work that has been done to investigate potential benefits of the CDSA, as well as its technical challenges and enabling technologies. Finally, an overview of standardisation proposals related to this research vision is provided.
Sentiment analysis of German social media data for natural disasters

Analysis of social media and traditional media provides significant information to first responders in times of natural disasters. Sentiment analysis, particularly of social media originating from the affected population, forms an integral part of multifaceted media analysis. The current paper extends an existing methodology to the domain of natural disasters, broadens the support of multiple languages and introduces a new manner of classification. The performance of the approach is evaluated on a recently collected dataset manually annotated by three human annotators as a reference. The experiments show a high agreement rate between the approach taken and the annotators. Furthermore, the paper presents the initial application of the resulting technology and models to sentiment analysis of social media data in German, covering data collected during the Central European floods of 2013.
Evidence for Therapeutic Patient Education Interventions to Promote Cardiovascular Patient Self-Management: A Scientific Statement for Healthcare Professionals From the American Heart Association

Background— The burden of cardiovascular disease as a chronic illness increasingly requires patients to assume more responsibility for their self-management. Patient education is believed to be an essential component of cardiovascular care; however, there is limited evidence about specific therapeutic patient education approaches used and the impact on patient self-management outcomes. Methods and Results— An integrative review of the literature was conducted to critically analyze published research studies of therapeutic patient education for self-management in selected cardiovascular conditions. There was variability in methodological approaches across settings and disease conditions. The most effective interventions were tailored to individual patient needs, used multiple components to improve self-management outcomes, and often used multidisciplinary approaches. Conclusions— This synthesis of evidence expands the base of knowledge related to the development of patient self-management skills and provides direction for more rigorous research. Recommendations are provided to guide the implementation of therapeutic patient education in clinical practice and the design of comprehensive self-management interventions to improve outcomes for cardiovascular patients.
Folic‐Acid‐Mediated Functionalized Gold Nanocages for Targeted Delivery of Anti‐miR‐181b in Combination of Gene Therapy and Photothermal Therapy against Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Therapeutic strategies based on modulation of microRNAs (miRNAs) activity hold much promise for cancer therapy, but for clinical applications, the efficient delivery of miRNAs to tumor cells or tumor tissues remains a great challenge. In this work, microRNA‐181b inhibitor (anti‐miR‐181b) is successfully condensed into polyethyleneimine (PEI)‐modified and folate receptor (FR)‐targeted PEGylated gold nanocages (AuNCs). This delivery system is designated as anti‐miR‐181b/PTPAuNCs nanocomplexes (PTPAuNC‐NPs), which begin with chemical modification of AuNCs with SH‐PEG5000‐folic acid (SH‐PEG5000‐FA) and SH‐PEG5000 through a gold–sulfur bond, followed by conjugating PEI using lipoic acid as a linker. Finally anti‐miR‐181b is condensed via electrostatic interactions. In vitro and in vivo experiments show that PTPAuNC‐NPs can efficiently deliver anti‐miR‐181b into target sites to suppress tumor growth, and considerably decrease tumor volumes in SMMC‐7721 tumor‐bearing nude mice under near‐infrared radiation. All these results suggest that PTPAuNC‐NP gene delivery system with combination of gene therapy and photothermal therapy will be of great potential use in future cancer therapy.
PTEN-Regulated AID Transcription in Germinal Center B Cells Is Essential for the Class-Switch Recombination and IgG Antibody Responses

Class-switch recombination (CSR) and somatic hypermutation (SHM) occur during the differentiation of germinal center B cells (GCBs). Activation-induced cytidine deaminase (AID) is responsible for both CSR and SHM in GCBs. Here, we show that ablation of PTEN through the Cγ1-Cre mediated recombination significantly influences the CSR and SHM responses. The GCs fail to produce the IgG1 B cells, the high affinity antibodies and nearly lost the dark zone (DZ) in Ptenfl/flCγ1Cre/+ mice after immunization, suggesting the impaired GC structure. Further mechanistic investigations show that LPS- and interleukin-4 stimulation induced the transcription of Cγ1 in IgM-BCR expressing B cells, which efficiently disrupts PTEN transcription, results in the hyperphosphorylated AKT and FoxO1 and in turn the suppression of AID transcription. Additionally, the reduced transcription of PTEN and AID is also validated by investigating the IgM-BCR expressing GCBs from Ptenfl/flCγ1Cre/+ mice upon immunization. In conclusion, PTEN regulated AID transcription in GCBs is essential for the CSR and IgG antibody responses.
Semi-Supervised Learning Enabled by Multiscale Deep Neural Network Inversion

Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) provide state-of-the-art solutions in several difficult machine perceptual tasks. However, their performance relies on the availability of a large set of labeled training data, which limits the breadth of their applicability. Hence, there is a need for new {\em semi-supervised learning} methods for DNNs that can leverage both (a small amount of) labeled and unlabeled training data. In this paper, we develop a general loss function enabling DNNs of any topology to be trained in a semi-supervised manner without extra hyper-parameters. As opposed to current semi-supervised techniques based on topology-specific or unstable approaches, ours is both robust and general. We demonstrate that our approach reaches state-of-the-art performance on the SVHN ($9.82\%$ test error, with $500$ labels and wide Resnet) and CIFAR10 (16.38% test error, with 8000 labels and sigmoid convolutional neural network) data sets.
EGFR inhibition by (-)-epigallocatechin-3-gallate and IIF treatments reduces breast cancer cell invasion

Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) expression is an important marker in breast carcinoma pathology and is considered a pivotal molecule for cancer cell proliferation, invasion and metastasis. We investigated the effects of epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), the most active green tea catechin, in combination with 6-OH-11-O-hydroxyphenanthrene (IIF), a synthetic retinoid X receptor-γ (RXRγ) agonist, on three breast carcinoma cell lines: MCF-7, MCF-7TAM and MDA-MB-231. EGFR and AKT activation and molecular markers of cell motility and migration (CD44, extracellular matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) inducer (EMMPRIN), MMP-2, MMP-9 and tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases (TIMPs)) were studied after EGCG and IIF treatments. The EGCG + IIF treatment was the most active in down-regulating EGFR phosphorylation at Tyr1068 in all the investigated cell lines; p473AKT was also down-regulated in MCF-TAM cells. EGCG + IIF was also the most active treatment in reducing the expression of markers of invasion and migration in all the three cell lines: CD44, EMMPRIN, MMP-2 and -9 expression decreased, whereas TIMPs were up-regulated. Zymography and scratch assay also confirmed the reduced invasion tendency. We considered that EGCG and IIF treatments could alter the molecular network based on EGFR, CD44 and EMMPRIN expression interdependence and reduced the migration tendency in MCF-7, MCF-7TAM and MDA-MB-231 cells. These events only occurred in association with AKT inactivation in MCF-7TAM cells. In conclusion, the combination of EGCG and IIF significantly attenuated the invasive behaviour of breast carcinoma cells.
The use of sentinel node biopsy to upstage the clinically N0 neck in head and neck cancer.

OBJECTIVE To investigate the possible role of sentinel node biopsy (SNB) alone to upstage the clinically N0 neck in patients with oral and oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma. DESIGN Prospective clinical study. SETTING Head and neck referral center. PATIENTS Patients with primary untreated oral and/or oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma accessible to injection and with clinically N0 necks were enrolled in the study. INTERVENTION An SNB was performed after radiocolloid and blue dye injection. Preoperative lymphoscintigraphy and the perioperative use of a gamma probe identified radioactive sentinel nodes and visualization of blue-stained lymphatics identified blue sentinel nodes. If the sentinel node was found negative, there was no further treatment to the neck. If the sentinel node tested positive, a therapeutic neck dissection was performed. All patients underwent regular follow-up at the outpatient clinic to identify possible recurrence. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Upstaging of the clinically N0 neck by SNB and development of subsequent disease in SNB-negative necks. RESULTS An SNB was performed on 57 clinically N0 necks in 48 patients. Sentinel nodes were harvested in 43 (90%) of 48 patients. Fifteen (35%) of 43 patients were upstaged by SNB and 28 (65%) of 43 were staged SNB negative. There was a mean follow-up of 18 months. One patient developed subsequent disease after having been staged negative with SNB. The overall sensitivity of the procedure using the full pathologic protocol was 94% (15/16). CONCLUSIONS Sentinel node biopsy can be used to upstage the N0 neck in patients with early subclinical nodal disease. However, before it becomes the standard of care in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, longer follow-up observational trials are needed.
Major increase in human monkeypox incidence 30 years after smallpox vaccination campaigns cease in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Studies on the burden of human monkeypox in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) were last conducted from 1981 to 1986. Since then, the population that is immunologically naïve to orthopoxviruses has increased significantly due to cessation of mass smallpox vaccination campaigns. To assess the current risk of infection, we analyzed human monkeypox incidence trends in a monkeypox-enzootic region. Active, population-based surveillance was conducted in nine health zones in central DRC. Epidemiologic data and biological samples were obtained from suspected cases. Cumulative incidence (per 10,000 population) and major determinants of infection were compared with data from active surveillance in similar regions from 1981 to 1986. Between November 2005 and November 2007, 760 laboratory-confirmed human monkeypox cases were identified in participating health zones. The average annual cumulative incidence across zones was 5.53 per 10,000 (2.18–14.42). Factors associated with increased risk of infection included: living in forested areas, male gender, age < 15, and no prior smallpox vaccination. Vaccinated persons had a 5.2-fold lower risk of monkeypox than unvaccinated persons (0.78 vs. 4.05 per 10,000). Comparison of active surveillance data in the same health zone from the 1980s (0.72 per 10,000) and 2006–07 (14.42 per 10,000) suggests a 20-fold increase in human monkeypox incidence. Thirty years after mass smallpox vaccination campaigns ceased, human monkeypox incidence has dramatically increased in rural DRC. Improved surveillance and epidemiological analysis is needed to better assess the public health burden and develop strategies for reducing the risk of wider spread of infection.