Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A variety of environmentally persistent chemicals, including some phthalate plasticizers, are weakly estrogenic.

Sewage, a complex mixture of organic and inorganic chemicals, is considered to be a major source of environmental pollution. A random screen of 20 organic man-made chemicals present in liquid effluents revealed that half appeared able to interact with the estradiol receptor. This was demonstrated by their ability to inhibit binding of 17 beta-estradiol to the fish estrogen receptor. Further studies, using mammalian estrogen screens in vitro, revealed that the two phthalate esters butylbenzyl phthalate (BBP) and di-n-butylphthalate (DBP) and a food antioxidant, butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) were estrogenic; however, they were all less estrogenic than the environmental estrogen octylphenol. Phthalate esters, used in the production of various plastics (including PVC), are among the most common industrial chemicals. Their ubiquity in the environment and tendency to bioconcentrate in animal fat are well known. Neither BBP nor DBP were able to act as antagonists, indicating that, in the presence of endogenous estrogens, their overall effect would be cumulative. Recently, it has been suggested that environmental estrogens may be etiological agents in several human diseases, including disorders of the male reproductive tract and breast and testicular cancers. The current finding that some phthalate compounds and some food additives are weakly estrogenic in vitro, needs to be supported by further studies on their effects in vivo before any conclusions can be made regarding their possible role in the development of these conditions. ImagesFigure 1.Figure 2.Figure 3.Figure 4.
Dupilumab for treatment of atopic dermatitis

ABSTRACT Introduction: Dupilumab is a new treatment option for patients with moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis. It blocks IL-4/IL13-signaling and thereby inhibits receptor signaling downstream the JAK-STAT-pathway. Three of the main disease mechanisms of atopic dermatitis are affected by blocking this pathway; the decrease of skin barrier function, the class switch to IgE and the TH2-differentiation. Areas Covered: Dupilumab showed promising results in clinical trials of phase I-III. Clinical outcome parameters such as SCORAD, EASI, IGA and BSA improved with dupilumab. A positive effect on patient-reported outcomes like DLQI or pruritus-rating-scales was also demonstrated. The safety profile of dupilumab is superior to conventional immunosuppressive drugs, such as cyclosporine or methotrexate. Injection-site reactions and conjunctivitis were the most relevant side-effects. Skin infections were less frequently observed compared to placebo. Data on the use of dupilumab during pregnancy or in children are not published to date. Expert Commentary: Dupilumab was approved by the FDA in April 2017 for the treatment of adult patients with moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis whose disease is not adequately controlled with topical prescription therapies or when those therapies are not advisable.
Mining Genes Involved in Insecticide Resistance of Liposcelis bostrychophila Badonnel by Transcriptome and Expression Profile Analysis

Background Recent studies indicate that infestations of psocids pose a new risk for global food security. Among the psocids species, Liposcelis bostrychophila Badonnel has gained recognition in importance because of its parthenogenic reproduction, rapid adaptation, and increased worldwide distribution. To date, the molecular data available for L. bostrychophila is largely limited to genes identified through homology. Also, no transcriptome data relevant to psocids infection is available. Methodology and Principal Findings In this study, we generated de novo assembly of L. bostrychophila transcriptome performed through the short read sequencing technology (Illumina). In a single run, we obtained more than 51 million sequencing reads that were assembled into 60,012 unigenes (mean size = 711 bp) by Trinity. The transcriptome sequences from different developmental stages of L. bostrychophila including egg, nymph and adult were annotated with non-redundant (Nr) protein database, gene ontology (GO), cluster of orthologous groups of proteins (COG), and KEGG orthology (KO). The analysis revealed three major enzyme families involved in insecticide metabolism as differentially expressed in the L. bostrychophila transcriptome. A total of 49 P450-, 31 GST- and 21 CES-specific genes representing the three enzyme families were identified. Besides, 16 transcripts were identified to contain target site sequences of resistance genes. Furthermore, we profiled gene expression patterns upon insecticide (malathion and deltamethrin) exposure using the tag-based digital gene expression (DGE) method. Conclusion The L. bostrychophila transcriptome and DGE data provide gene expression data that would further our understanding of molecular mechanisms in psocids. In particular, the findings of this investigation will facilitate identification of genes involved in insecticide resistance and designing of new compounds for control of psocids.
Exploring the origins of asthma: Lessons from twin studies

This thesis explores the contribution of twin studies, particularly those studies originating from the Danish Twin Registry, to the understanding of the aetiology of asthma. First, it is explored how twin studies have established the contribution of genetic and environmental factors to the variation in the susceptibility to asthma, and to the variation in several aspects of the clinical expression of the disease such as its age at onset, its symptomatology, its intermediate phenotypes, and its relationship with other atopic diseases. Next, it is explored how twin studies have corroborated theories explaining asthma's recent increase in prevalence, and last, how these fit with the explanations of the epidemiological trends in other common chronic diseases of modernity.
New soliton and periodic solutions for the fifth-order forms of the Lax and Sawada–Kotera equations

We use the modified sine–cosine method and the modified sinh–cosh method to solve the fifth–order nonlinear forms of the Lax equation and the Sawada–Kotera (SK) equation. New soliton and perio-dic solutions are formally derived. The change in the parameters which drastically alters the characteristics of the equation is examined. The generalized Lax and SK equations are investigated to formally derive general solutions that are applicable to all non-zero real parameters.
The Role of Demand Response as an Alternative Transmission Expansion Solution in a Capacity Market

Demand response cannot only be used as a power supply resource to produce a negawatt in high power prices or when the reliability of the grid is threatened, but can also be applied to resolve a transmission expansion planning problem instead of implementing a costly and complex transmission upgrade solution. Essentially, the demand response resources (DRRs) can relieve the capacity requirement for a load area, and thereby relieve the import transmission requirement. This paper explores the role of DRRs as an alternative solution to the required transmission upgrades in the context of a proposed capacity market modeled based on Pennsylvania–New Jersey–Maryland (PJM) capacity market model. Numerical results show that the DRRs can indeed replace the needed transmission upgrades.
Acceptability of the use of cellular telephone and computer pictures/video for "pill counts" in buprenorphine maintenance treatment.

OBJECTIVE As part of a comprehensive plan to attempt to minimize the diversion of prescribed controlled substances, many professional organization and licensing boards are recommending the use of "pill counts. " This study sought to evaluate acceptability of the use of cellular phone and computer pictures/video for "pill counts" by patients in buprenorphine maintenance treatment. SETTING AND INTERVENTION Patients prescribed buprenorphine/naloxone were asked a series of questions related to the type(s) of electronic communication to which they had access as well as their willingness to use these for the purpose of performing a "pill/film count. " RESULTS Of the 80 patients, 4 (5 percent) did not have a phone at all. Only 28 (35 percent) had a "smart phone" with some sort of data plan and Internet access. Forty (50 percent) of the patients had a phone with no camera and 10 (12.5 percent) had a phone with a camera but no video capability. All patients said that they would be willing to periodically use the video or camera on their phone or computer to have buprenorphine/naloxone pills or film counted as long as the communication was protected from electronic tampering. CONCLUSIONS With the advent of applications for smart phones that allow for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996-compliant picture/video communication, a number of things can now be done that can enhance patient care as well as reduce the chances of misuse/diversion of prescribed medications. This could be used in settings where a larger proportion of controlled substances are prescribed including medication assisted therapy for opioid use disorders and pain management programs.
An ontological model for representing computational lexicons a componential based approach

In the last decades the computational linguistics community has developed important and widely used lexical resources. Although they are very popular among the Natural Language Processing (NLP) community, they do not address two important characteristics of language. The first is that the meaning of a word in a language is a collective effort defined by the people who use the language. The second is that language is a dynamic entity (some words change their meaning, others become obsolete, new words are born). A computational model which aims to represent this real world entity should be structured in a way that allows for expansion, facilitates collaboration, and provides transparent meaning representation. This paper addresses these two issues and provides a solution based on Semantic Web technologies. The solution is based on an ontological model for representing computational lexicons using the field theory of semantics and componential analysis. The model has been implemented on the “Time” semantic field vocabulary of the Arabic language and the results of a preliminary evaluation are presented.
Protective effect of Pu-erh tea extracts against ethanol-induced gastric mucosal damage in rats

Pu-erh tea has become a focus of research due to its reported biological activities, including anti-oxidation, anti-inflammation and anti-immunosenescence. The present study was performed to evaluate the potential gastroprotective function of Pu-erh tea extracts against ethanol-induced gastric mucosal damage in rats. Sprague Dawley rats were randomly divided into seven groups: A normal control, a model control, a cimetidine (0.08 g/kg) group, three Pu-erh tea extracts groups (low, moderate and high-dose; 0.50, 1.00 and 1.50 g/kg, respectively, and a green tea powder (1.00 g/kg) group. The normal and model groups were pre-treated with distilled water while the other groups were respectively administered cimetidine, Pu-erh tea extracts and green tea powder for 14 days. Then, absolute ethanol was orally administered to the rats of all groups excluding the normal controls. The effects of the pretreatments on gastric mucosal injury were evaluated by gross assessment of gastric lesions, examination of histopathology and determination of myeloperoxidase (MPO) activity and asymmetric arginine (ADMA) concentration in gastric mucosal homogenate. Pre-treatment with cimetidine or Pu-erh tea extracts markedly suppressed the formation of ethanol-induced gastric lesions. Furthermore, clear decreases in MPO activity and ADMA concentration in the gastric mucosal homogenate were observed following pretreatment with cimetidine or Pu-erh tea extracts. The anti-gastric ulcer activity of green tea was less than that of Pu-erh tea. Overall, these effects of Pu-erh tea extracts may be due to potential functions in protecting the gastric mucus layer and suppressing inflammation.
Sensorless Resonance Tracking of Resonant Electromagnetic Actuator through Back-EMF Estimation for Mobile Devices

Resonant electromagnetic actuators have been broadly used as vibration motors for mobile devices given their ability of generating relatively fast, strong, and controllable vibration force at a given resonant frequency. Mechanism of the actuators that is based on mechanical resonance, however, limits their use to a situation where their resonant frequencies are known and unshifted. In reality, there are many factors that alter the resonant frequency: for example, manufacturing tolerances, worn mechanical components such as a spring, nonlinearity in association with different input voltage levels. Here, we describe a sensorless resonance tracking method that actuates the motor and automatically detects its unknown damped natural frequency through the estimation of back electromotive force (EMF) and inner mass movements. We demonstrate the tracking performance of the proposed method through a series of experiments. This approach has the potential to control residual vibrations and then improve vibrotactile feedback, which can potentially be used for human-computer interaction, cognitive and affective neuroscience research.
Characterizing Cognitive Deficits and Dementia in an Aging Urban Population in India

Rapid rise in the population of older adults in India will lead to the need for increased health care services related to diagnosis, management, and long-term care for those with dementia and cognitive impairment. A direct approach for service provision through memory clinics can be an effective, successful, and sustaining means of delivering specialized health care services. We have established a memory clinic in Mumbai, India by employing the diverse clinical skills available in Indian academic institutions, diagnostic and research expertise of clinicians and psychologists, and the support of the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Our project involved recruitment of patients, clinical and neuropsychological assessment, and standardized diagnostic procedures, demonstrating the feasibility of using research methods to develop a memory clinic. In this paper, we describe the development of a community-based memory clinic in urban India, including linguistic and cultural factors and present detailed results, including diagnostic characterization, on 194 subjects with various stages of cognitive deficits. Our findings support the feasibility of developing a memory clinic in a public hospital and successful use of research diagnostic criteria to categorize cognitive deficits observed in this population, which may be used to inform the development of other such clinics.
The Detection of Nitrite Content in Bacon based on Hyperspectral Technique

As a common food additive, nitrite has been widely used in meet products such as bacon. However, when the content of nitrite in food is overproof, consumer's health will be seriously endangered. To solve this problem, this paper takes bacon as the sample to research the feasibility of hyperspectral technique in nitrite fast detecting. The partial least- squares (PLS) is utilized to associate the nitrite content data obtained via hyperspectral technique with the data obtained via GB method, and then the nitrite content calculating model is built. After comparing several models that adopt different spectrum pre-processing methods, the research team find that the first-order derivative plus vector normalization model is the best, whose RMSECV is 0.251 and r2 is 0.972. The result proves that hyperspectral can be effectively used in nitrite content prediction.
Aspergillus fumigatus Afssn3-Afssn8 Pair Reverse Regulates Azole Resistance by Conferring Extracellular Polysaccharide, Sphingolipid Pathway Intermediates, and Efflux Pumps to Biofilm

ABSTRACT Antifungal treatment is often ineffectual, partly because of biofilm formation. In this study, by using a combined forward and reverse genetic strategy, we identified that nucleus-localized AfSsn3 and its partner AfSsn8, which constitute a Cdk8-cyclin pair, are required for azole resistance in Aspergillus fumigatus. Deletion of Afssn3 led to increased absorption and utilization of glucose and amino acids. Interestingly, absorption and utilization of glucose accelerated the extracellular polysaccharide formation, while utilization of the amino acids serine, threonine, and glycine increased sphingolipid pathway intermediate accumulation. In addition, the absence of Afssn3 induced the activity of the efflux pump proteins. These factors indicate the mature biofilm is responsible for the major mechanisms of A. fumigatus resistance to azoles in the ΔAfssn3 mutant. Collectively, the loss of Afssn3 led to two “barrier” layers between the intracellular and extracellular spaces, which consequently decreased drug penetration into the cell.
Low expression of miR-409-3p is a prognostic marker for breast cancer.

OBJECTIVE The present study aimed to clarify the expression pattern and prognostic role of miR-409-3p in breast cancer patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS miR-409-3p levels in breast cancer tissues were tested by qRT-PCR. The chi-square test and Fishers exact tests were used to examine the associations between miR-409-3p expression and the clinicopathological characters. Overall survival (OS) was estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method. The univariable and the multivariable Cox regression analyses were used to evaluate independent prognostic factors. RESULTS miR-409-3p expression in breast cancer specimens was observed to be decreased compared with matched normal breast tissues (p < 0.01). Additionally, low miR-409-3p expression in breast cancer tissues was significantly associated with the advanced TNM stage (p = 0.004), lymph node metastasis (p = 0.001), and poorer pathological differentiation (p = 0.026). The patients in the low miR-409-3p group had a shorter overall survival than those in the high miR-409-3p group (p < 0.001). Furthermore, the univariate and the multivariate analyses showed that miR-409-3p expression was an independent predictor of overall survival (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS Our results revealed that miR-409-3p was related to the prognosis of patients with breast cancer and might be a promising predictor of miR-409-3p recurrence.
American Philosophy: the Early Schools

THIS rather bulky volume is the first of a series intended to give an historical summary of the progress of philosophical thought in America, The European reader must have an unusually determined interest in the history of speculation if, from the purely philosophical point of view, he is willing to follow Prof. Riley in his studies of minor thinkers, whose names, except in a few cases, will probably be entirely unknown to him. Regarded from a wider point of view as a study of the earlier development of the “soul of a people” that has come to fill so important a place in the modern world, the book will be found both valuable and interesting.American Philosophy: the Early Schools.By Prof. I. W. Riley. Pp. x + 595. (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1907.)
Rising CO2 Interacts with Growth Light and Growth Rate to Alter Photosystem II Photoinactivation of the Coastal Diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana

We studied the interactive effects of pCO2 and growth light on the coastal marine diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana CCMP 1335 growing under ambient and expected end-of-the-century pCO2 (750 ppmv), and a range of growth light from 30 to 380 µmol photons·m−2·s−1. Elevated pCO2 significantly stimulated the growth of T. pseudonana under sub-saturating growth light, but not under saturating to super-saturating growth light. Under ambient pCO2 susceptibility to photoinactivation of photosystem II (σi) increased with increasing growth rate, but cells growing under elevated pCO2 showed no dependence between growth rate and σi, so under high growth light cells under elevated pCO2 were less susceptible to photoinactivation of photosystem II, and thus incurred a lower running cost to maintain photosystem II function. Growth light altered the contents of RbcL (RUBISCO) and PsaC (PSI) protein subunits, and the ratios among the subunits, but there were only limited effects on these and other protein pools between cells grown under ambient and elevated pCO2.
Genistein-induced apoptosis is mediated by endoplasmic reticulum stress in cervical cancer cells.

OBJECTIVE Genistein, a major isoflavone found in soybeans, exhibits anti-cancer activity. Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress is known to be implicated in apoptosis induced by anti-cancer drugs. This study aimed to characterize the role of ER stress in genistein-induced apoptosis in cervical cancer. MATERIALS AND METHODS HeLa cells were treated with genistein or/and 4-phenylbutyric acid. Cell viability and apoptosis were evaluated by MTT assay and flow cytometry. Protein levels were detected by Western blot analysis. RESULTS Genistein suppressed the viability of HeLa cells in a dose dependent manner. In addition, genistein caused apoptosis in HeLa cells in a dose dependent manner. Genistein triggered ER stress in HeLa cells, as indicated by the upregulation of glucose-regulated protein 78 (GRP78) and CHOP expression. Furthermore, ER stress inhibitor 4-phenylbutyric acid alleviated genistein-induced apoptosis and ER stress in HeLa cells. CONCLUSIONS Our results suggest that ER stress contributes to genistein-induced apoptosis in cervical cancer cells, and genistein is a promising agent for cervical cancer therapy.
Four Common Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Polymorphisms (−2578C>A, −460C>T, +936C>T, and +405G>C) in Susceptibility to Lung Cancer: A Meta-Analysis

Background and Objective Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is one of the key initiators and regulators of angiogenesis and it plays a vital role in the onset and development of malignancy. The association between VEGF gene polymorphisms and lung cancer risk has been extensively studied in recent years, but currently available results remain controversial or ambiguous. The aim of this meta-analysis is to investigate the associations between four common VEGF polymorphisms (i.e., −2578C>A, −460C>T, +936C>T and +405C>G) and lung cancer risk. Methods A comprehensive search was conducted to identify all eligible studies to estimate the association between VEGF polymorphisms and lung cancer risk. Crude odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were used to evaluate the strength of this association. Results A total of 14 published case-control studies with 4,664 cases and 4,571 control subjects were identified. Our meta-analysis provides strong evidence that VEGF −2578C>A polymorphism is capable of increasing lung cancer susceptibility, especially among smokers and lung squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) patients. Additionally, for +936C>T polymorphism, increased lung cancer susceptibility was only observed among lung adenocarcinoma patients. In contrast, VEGF −460C>T polymorphism may be a protective factor among nonsmokers and SCC patients. Nevertheless, we did not find any association between +405C>G polymorphism and lung cancer risk, even when the groups were stratified by ethnicity, smoking status or histological type. Conclusion This meta-analysis recommends more investigations into the relationship between −2578C>A and −460C>T lung cancer risks. More detailed and well-designed studies should be conducted to identify the causal variants and the underlying mechanisms of the possible associations.