Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The stationary bootstrap

Abstract This article introduces a resampling procedure called the stationary bootstrap as a means of calculating standard errors of estimators and constructing confidence regions for parameters based on weakly dependent stationary observations. Previously, a technique based on resampling blocks of consecutive observations was introduced to construct confidence intervals for a parameter of the m-dimensional joint distribution of m consecutive observations, where m is fixed. This procedure has been generalized by constructing a “blocks of blocks” resampling scheme that yields asymptotically valid procedures even for a multivariate parameter of the whole (i.e., infinite-dimensional) joint distribution of the stationary sequence of observations. These methods share the construction of resampling blocks of observations to form a pseudo-time series, so that the statistic of interest may be recalculated based on the resampled data set. But in the context of applying this method to stationary data, it is natural.
A prospective assessment of the medic autologous blood transfusion skills for field transfusion preparation

Data demonstrate the benefit of blood product administration near point‐of‐injury (POI). Fresh whole blood transfusion from a pre‐screened donor provides a source of blood at the POI when resources are constrained. We captured transfusion skills data for medics performing autologous blood transfusion training.
Serum neurofilament light concentrations are associated with cortical thinning in anorexia nervosa

Abstract Background Anorexia nervosa (AN) is characterized by severe emaciation and drastic reductions of brain mass, but the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. The present study investigated the putative association between the serum-based protein markers of brain damage neurofilament light (NF-L), tau protein, and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and cortical thinning in acute AN. Methods Blood samples and magnetic resonance imaging scans were obtained from 52 predominantly adolescent, female patients with AN before and after partial weight restoration (increase in body mass index >14%). The effect of marker levels before weight gain and change in marker levels on cortical thickness (CT) was modeled at each vertex of the cortical surface using linear mixed-effect models. To test whether the observed effects were specific to AN, follow-up analyses exploring a potential general association of marker levels with CT were conducted in a female healthy control (HC) sample (n = 147). Results In AN, higher baseline levels of NF-L, an established marker of axonal damage, were associated with lower CT in several regions, with the most prominent clusters located in bilateral temporal lobes. Tau protein and GFAP were not associated with CT. In HC, no associations between damage marker levels and CT were detected. Conclusions A speculative interpretation would be that cortical thinning in acute AN might be at least partially a result of axonal damage processes. Further studies should thus test the potential of serum NF-L to become a reliable, low-cost and minimally invasive marker of structural brain alterations in AN.
Ab initio molecular dynamics simulations of femtosecond-laser-induced anti-Peierls transition in antimony

Antimony is an interesting elemental crystal because, in its ground state, it is stabilized by a Peierls distortion. Here we perform density-functional-theory molecular dynamics simulations of this intriguing material before and after femtosecond-laser excitation using a simulation box with N = 864 atoms and periodic boundary conditions, where the atoms are treated in the Γ-point approximation and the electrons are integrated over 8 k points. After an appropriate initialization of the atoms in the harmonic approximation we thermalize our system during 20 picoseconds. Then an intense femtosecond-laser excitation is simulated by instantaneously raising the electronic temperature to 8000 Kelvin. Our results show a laser-induced anti-Peierls transition.
Matrix CRLB Scaling Due to Measurements of Uncertain Origin

In many estimation situations, measurements are of uncertain origin. This is best exemplified by the target-tracking situation in which at each scan (of a radar, sonar, or electro-optical sensor), a number of measurements are obtained, and it is not known which, if any, of these is target originated. The source of extraneous measurements can be false alarms-especially in low-SNR situations that force the detector at the end of the signal processing chain to operate with a reduced threshold-or spurious targets. In several earlier papers, the surprising observation was made that the CramA©r-Rao lower bound (CRLB) for the estimation of a fixed parameter vector (e.g., initial position and velocity) that characterizes the target motion, for the special case of multidimensional measurements in the presence of additive white Gaussian noise, is simply a multiple of that for the case with no uncertainty. That is, there is a scalar information-reduction factor; this is particularly useful as it allows comparison in terms of a scalar. In this paper, we explore this result to determine how wide the class of such problems is. It turns out to include many non-Gaussian situations. Simulations corroborate the analysis.
Anti‐inflammatory effects of sodium‐glucose cotransporter‐2 inhibitors in COVID‐19

The ongoing pandemic of COVID‐19 is intrinsically a systemic inflammatory disorder; hence, those patients suffering an underlying chronic inflammatory disease such as diabetes mellitus are at high risk of severe complications. Preventing or suppressing the inflammatory responses are of importance in diabetic patients. Sodium‐glucose cotransporters‐2 inhibitors (SGLT2i) are a newly introduced anti‐diabetic drugs that have hypoglycemic effects through the urinary excretion of glucose. They also have an anti‐inflammatory potential in diabetes patients, in addition to improving glycemic control, and while there is no direct data available in diabetic patients with COVID‐19 disease, there is evidence that suggests that SGLT2i can reduce systemic inflammation and diminish the cytokine storm effect via several cellular mechanisms. In the current review, our aim was to classify and describe the molecular and cellular pathways by which SGLT2i have anti‐inflammatory effects in diabetic patients with COVID‐19 disease.
The dominance–diversity dilemma in animal conservation biology

The alteration of environmental conditions has two major outcomes on the demographics of living organisms: population decline of the common species and extinction of the rarest ones. Halting the decline of abundant species as well as the erosion of biodiversity require solutions that may be mismatched, despite being rooted in similar causes. In this study, we demonstrate how rank abundance distribution (RAD) models are mathematical representations of a dominance-diversity dilemma. Across 4,375 animal communities from a range of taxonomic groups, we found that a reversed RAD model correctly predicts species richness, based solely on the relative dominance of the most abundant species in a community and the total number of individuals. Overall, predictions from this RAD model explained 69% of the variance in species richness, compared to 20% explained by simply regressing species richness on the relative dominance of the most abundant species. Using the reversed RAD model, we illustrate how species richness is co-limited by the total abundance of a community and the relative dominance of the most common species. Our results highlight an intrinsic trade-off between species richness and dominance that is present in the structure of RAD models and real-world animal community data. This dominance-diversity dilemma suggests that withdrawing individuals from abundant populations might contribute to the conservation of species richness. However, we posit that the positive effect of harvesting on biodiversity is often offset by exploitation practices with negative collateral consequences, such as habitat destruction or species bycatches.
Meat or meatless meals at lunch and dinner – exploring the associated factors and transition between meals

Abstract This study aimed to explore the factors associated with the consumption of meat vs. meatless meals and to assess the applicability of a multi-state model to describe transitions between lunch and dinner. Fifteen thousand four hundred and eight main meals (lunch and dinner) from a sample of adults (18–84 years, n = 3852) from the Portuguese Food, Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey (IAN-AF 2015–2016) were categorised as meat, fish, ovolactovegetarian or snack. Adjusted generalised-mixed-effects models were used to explore the associations and a time-homogeneous Markov-multi-state model was applied to study the transitions. Women, older and higher educated individuals presented higher odds of consuming meatless meals and lower hazard of transitioning to meat in the following main meal. Strategies for replacing meat with more sustainable foods should be specific towards different population groups. Studying transitions across main meals, using multi-state models, can support the development of feasible, realistic and group-specific strategies to replace meat and promote dietary variety.
Editorial: Focus issue on biomaterials approaches to the repair and regeneration of cartilage tissue

Traditional joint replacement surgery faces the risk of enormous trauma and secondary revision while using medication to relieve symptoms can cause bone thinning, weight gain and interference with the patient’s pain signalling. Medical research has therefore focused on minimally invasive solutions for implanting tissue-engineered scaffolds to induce cartilage regeneration and repair. In cartilage tissue engineering, there are still technical barriers to seed cells, scaffold construction techniques, mechanical properties, and the regulation of the internal environment on the transplanted material. This issue focuses on the development of cartilage repair, cutting-edge discoveries, manufacturing technologies, and the current technological queries still faced in cartilage regenerative medicine research. The articles in this collection cover the coordination of physical and biochemical signals, genes, and regulations by the extracellular environment.
The Importance of Recent Prevalent Fracture Site for Imminent Risk of Fracture – A Retrospective, Nationwide Cohort Study of Older Swedish Men and Women

There is limited evidence regarding which fracture types carry the highest risk for subsequent fracture. The aim of this study was to investigate how the risk of imminent fracture depends on index fracture site. This nationwide retrospective cohort study utilized national registers in Sweden to determine the risk of fracture according to recent (≤2 years) index fracture site and according to an old (>2 years) prevalent fracture compared with the risk observed in controls without a fracture. All Swedes 50 years or older between 2007 and 2010 were included in the study. Patients with a recent fracture were designated a specific fracture group depending on the type of previous fracture. Recent fractures were classified as major osteoporotic fracture (MOF), including fractured hip, vertebra, proximal humerus, and wrist, or non‐MOF. Patients were followed until December 31, 2017, censored for death and emigration, and the risk of any fracture and hip fracture was assessed. A total of 3,423,320 persons were included in the study, 70,254 with a recent MOF, 75,526 with a recent non‐MOF, 293,051 with an old fracture, and 2,984,489 persons with no previous fracture. The median time of follow‐up for the four groups was 6.1 (interquartile range [IQR] 3.0–8.8), 7.2 (5.6–9.4), 7.1 (5.8–9.2), and 8.1 years (7.4–9.7), respectively. Patients with a recent MOF, recent non‐MOF, and old fracture had a substantially increased risk of any fracture (hazard ratio [HR] adjusted for age and sex 2.11, 95% confidence interval [CI] 2.08–2.14; HR 2.24, 95% CI 2.21–2.27; and HR 1.77, 95% CI 1.76–1.78, respectively) compared with controls. All recent fractures, MOFs, and non‐MOFs, as well as older fractures, increase the risk of subsequent fracture, suggesting that all recent fractures should be included in fracture liaison services and that case‐finding strategies for those with older fractures may be warranted to prevent subsequent fractures. © 2023 The Authors. Journal of Bone and Mineral Research published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR).
A frontoparietal network for volitional control of gaze following

Gaze following is a major element of non‐verbal communication and important for successful social interactions. Human gaze following is a fast and almost reflex‐like behaviour, yet it can be volitionally controlled and suppressed to some extent if inappropriate or unnecessary, given the social context. In order to identify the neural basis of the cognitive control of gaze following, we carried out an event‐related fMRI experiment, in which human subjects' eye movements were tracked while they were exposed to gaze cues in two distinct contexts: A baseline gaze following condition in which subjects were instructed to use gaze cues to shift their attention to a gazed‐at spatial target and a control condition in which the subjects were required to ignore the gaze cue and instead to shift their attention to a distinct spatial target to be selected based on a colour mapping rule, requiring the suppression of gaze following. We could identify a suppression‐related blood‐oxygen‐level‐dependent (BOLD) response in a frontoparietal network comprising dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), the anterior insula, precuneus, and posterior parietal cortex (PPC). These findings suggest that overexcitation of frontoparietal circuits in turn suppressing the gaze following patch might be a potential cause of gaze following deficits in clinical populations.
Numerical study on heavy rigid particle motion in a plane wake flow by spectral element method

Experimental particle dispersion patterns in a plane wake flow at a high Reynolds number have been predicted numerically by discrete vortex method (Phys. Fluids A 1992; 4:2244–2251; Int. J. Multiphase Flow 2000; 26:1583–1607). To address the particle motion at a moderate Reynolds number, spectral element method is employed to provide an instantaneous wake flow field for particle dynamics equations, which are solved to make a detail classification of the patterns in relation to the Stokes and Froude numbers. It is found that particle motion features only depend on the Stokes number at a high Froude number and depend on both numbers at a low Froude number. A ratio of the Stokes number to squared Froude number is introduced and threshold values of this parameter are evaluated that delineate the different regions of particle behavior. The parameter describes approximately the gravitational settling velocity divided by the characteristic velocity of wake flow. In order to present effects of particle density but preserve rigid sphere, hollow sphere particle dynamics in the plane wake flow is investigated. The evolution of hollow particle motion patterns for the increase of equivalent particle density corresponds to that of solid particle motion patterns for the decrease of particle size. Although the thresholds change a little, the parameter can still make a good qualitative classification of particle motion patterns as the inner diameter changes. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Integrin β3 regulates apical dendritic morphology of pyramidal neurons throughout hippocampal CA3

In excitatory hippocampal pyramidal neurons, integrin β3 is critical for synaptic maturation and plasticity in vitro. Itgb3 is a potential autism susceptibility gene that regulates dendritic morphology in the cerebral cortex in a cell‐specific manner. However, it is unknown what role Itgb3 could have in regulating hippocampal pyramidal dendritic morphology in vivo, a key feature that is aberrant in many forms of autism and intellectual disability. We found that Itgb3 mRNA is expressed in the stratum pyramidale of CA3. We examined the apical dendritic morphology of CA3 hippocampal pyramidal neurons in conditional Itgb3 knockouts and controls, utilizing the Thy1‐GFP‐M line. We fully reconstructed the apical dendrite of each neuron and determined each neuron's precise location along the dorsoventral, proximodistal, and radial axes of the stratum pyramidale. We found a very strong effect for Itgb3 expression on CA3 apical dendritic morphology: neurons from conditional Itgb3 knockouts had longer and thinner apical dendrites than controls, particularly in higher branch orders. We also assessed potential relationships between pairs of topographic or morphological variables, finding that most variable pairs were free from any linear relationships to each other. We also found that some neurons from controls, but not conditional Itgb3 knockouts, had a graded pattern of overall diameter along the dorsoventral and proximodistal axes of the stratum pyramidale of CA3. Taken together, Itgb3 is essential for constructing normal dendritic morphology in pyramidal neurons throughout CA3.
HOTAIR knockdown impairs metastasis of cervical cancer cells by down-regulating metastasis-related genes

Abstract This study investigated the role of LncRNA HOTAIR knockdown in the biological impacts on cervical cancer cells. The HOTAIR gene in two human cervical cancer cell lines was silenced with small interfering (si) RNA siHOTAIR. Proliferation, apoptosis, migration and invasion of cells were assessed following the knockdown. The expressions of Notch1, EpCAM, E-cadherin, vimentin and STAT3 were assessed using qRT-PCR and Western blotting analysis. Compared with controls, HOTAIR levels were reduced significantly, the OD values of cells were significantly decreased in proliferation assays, cell apoptosis was significantly increased, cell migration and invasion were significantly reduced after HOTAIR knockdown. Molecular analysis showed that Notch1, EpCAM, vimentin and STAT3 expressions were decreased significantly, while the expression of E-cadherin was significantly increased after HOTAIR knockdown. Rescue experiments further confirmed that Notch1 and STAT3 were involved in siHOTAIR-mediated reduction of migration and invasion of cervical cancer cells. IMPACT STATEMENT What is already known on this subject? Long non-coding RNAs including HOTAIR, is implicated in occurrence and development of cancer and have been explored to develop new therapeutic options for cancer. What do the results of this study add? HOTAIR silencing significantly reduces the viability and migration ability of cells and induces cell apoptosis, adding experimental data supporting the potential use of HOTAIR specific-siRNA as a therapeutic avenue for the cancer. What are the implications of these findings for clinical practice and/or further research? The finding from this study would help develop clinically applicable therapeutic avenues for the cancer and identify new treatment targets in the relevant pathways leading to new drugs or treatments.
Bimekizumab maintenance of response through three years in patients with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis: Results from the BE BRIGHT open-label extension trial.

BACKGROUND Given the chronic nature of psoriasis and the loss of response that can be observed with therapies over time, it is important to understand the long-;term efficacy of new treatments. OBJECTIVE To evaluate maintenance of Week 16 responses with bimekizumab treatment through Year 3, in patients with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. METHODS Data were pooled from bimekizumab-treated patients in the 52-week (BE VIVID) and 56-week (BE READY and BE SURE) phase 3 studies, and their ongoing open-label extension (OLE), BE BRIGHT. Efficacy outcomes are reported through three years of bimekizumab treatment in patients with an efficacy response at Week 16. Missing data were imputed primarily using modified non-responder imputation (mNRI), with non-responder imputation and observed case data also reported. RESULTS A total of 989 patients were randomized to bimekizumab at baseline in BE VIVID, BE READY, and BE SURE. At Week 16, 693 patients achieved ≥90% reduction from baseline in Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI 90), 503 achieved 100% reduction from baseline in PASI (PASI 100), 694 achieved absolute PASI ≤2, and 597 achieved body surface area (BSA) ≤1%, and continued into the OLE. Of these, 93.0% maintained PASI 90, 80.8% maintained PASI 100, 94.0% maintained PASI ≤2, and 90.3% maintained BSA ≤1% responses through to three years of bimekizumab treatment (mNRI). Among Week 16 PASI 90 responders, 96.8% and 72.5% also achieved Investigator's Global Assessment (IGA) 0/1 and PASI 100 at Week 16, respectively, and 92.2% and 73.4% achieved these responses at Year 3 (mNRI). Among Week 16 PASI 100 responders, 76.3% also achieved Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI) 0/1 at Week 16, and DLQI 0/1 response increased with continuous bimekizumab treatment to 89.0% at Year 3 (mNRI). CONCLUSIONS High levels of clinical response were maintained through to three years of bimekizumab treatment in the vast majority of Week 16 responders. Long-term treatment with bimekizumab was efficacious, with important benefits on health-related quality of life (HRQoL), in patients with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis.
Full-field imaging of acoustic motion at nanosecond time and micron length scales

A full-field view laser ultrasonic imaging method has been developed that measures acoustic motion at a surface without scanning. Images are recorded at normal video frame rates by employing dynamic holography using photorefractive interferometric detection. By extending the approach to ultra high frequencies, an acoustic microscope has been developed capable of operation on the nanosecond time and micron length scales. Both acoustic amplitude and phase are recorded allowing full calibration and determination of phases to within a single arbitrary constant. Results are presented of measurements at frequencies at 800-900 MHz illustrating a multitude of normal mode behavior in electrically driven thin film acoustic resonators. Coupled with microwave electrical impedance measurements, this imaging mode provides an exceptionally fast method for evaluation of electric to acoustic coupling and performance of these devices. Images of 256/spl times/240 pixels are recorded at 18 Hz rates synchronized to obtain both in-phase and quadrature detection of the acoustic motion. Simple averaging provides sensitivity to the subnanometer level calibrated over the image using interferometry. Identification of specific acoustic modes and their relationship to electrical impedance characteristics show the advantages and overall high speed of the technique.