Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
High Rates of Birth Defects in Fallujah, Iraq: Radiological and Chemical Pollution of the Affected Children and their Parents

Background: Lack of birth registers hindered knowledge of the frequency of birth defects (BD) in Fallujah, Iraq and comparison of changes in prevalence in time. One study found correlation between BD presentation and teratogenic metal load [1]. Methods: We obtained reproductive history, kin health, environmental exposure and historical residence of families. Hair was sampled from the nape of the neck from families and analyzed by ICP/MS for metal content. Findings: BD in newborn in 2010 were about 14.7% [2]. Data of reproductive history from 56 couples with child, overcoming the lack of previous data, shows pattern of increase in BD presentation since 1991. Information on parent's immediate kin in more than 1000 people, supports that BD are sporadic events. High residential stability of families allows to rule out local clusters for BD. Focus on load for ten teratogenic and carcinogenic metals (V, Cr, Co, As, Mo, Cd, W, U, Hg, Original Research Article Alaani et al.; AJI, 3(1): 1-10, 2020; Article no.AJI. 53605 2 Pb) in hair of 43 BD children and 103 their parents, and of 11 healthy newborns and 16 their parents, compared with that of 10 children and 8 adults controls outside the war area, shows that metal contamination is diffuse in the whole Fallujah population and is present already in newborn children hair. Absolute levels of major teratogenic and carcinogenic contaminants (V, Co, Mo, U and Pb) were significantly higher in Fallujah people than in controls from other areas, with Pb levels in BD children higher than other newborns in Fallujah. Interpretation: Unusual high prevalence progressive in time and increased load of teratogenic metals even in new born hair are reported in Fallujah population. The extensive metal contamination persistent in people's hair in post-war environment and the composite metal load might be a major factor in the increase in time of stochastic events that lead to BD presentation.
La rebelión social como imaginación sociológica colectiva

Este articulo, escrito al calor de las movilizaciones iniciadas el 18 de octubre, afirma que las mismas pueden ser interpretadas como un ejercicio de “imaginacion sociologica colectiva”, esto es: como una forma de articulacion entre las biografias personales de los manifestantes y apoyadores, la historia reciente del pais y la imputacion de los padecimientos y abusos a la estructura social. El estallido habria estimulado diferentes procesos: un empoderamiento de los ciudadanos movilizados, una politizacion acelerada de la sociedad y la desnaturalizacion del orden social. Finalmente, se propone una reflexion sobre el papel de la sociologia ante este escenario.
Étude de l'impact des microARNs sur la carcinogenèse des cancers colorectaux instables sur les séquences répétées microsatellites du génome

La progression tumorale MSI (Microsatellite Instable) est un processus multi-etapes resultant de mutations generees par un processus d'instabilite genetique qui affecte en majorite les motifs repetes en tandem de l'ADN (microsatellites). Ces mutations contribuent a l'oncogenese lorsqu'elles perturbent la fonction d'oncogenes ou de genes suppresseurs de tumeurs. Le trait phenotypique MSI est consecutif a l'inactivation du systeme de reparation des mesappariements de l'ADN (systeme MMR). Dans ce travail, je me suis interesse au role des microARNs dans l'oncogenese MSI. Les microARNs regulent l'expression de nombreux genes pouvant avoir un role cle dans le cancer. J'ai donc fait l'hypothese d'un role de ces microARNs lors des differentes etapes du processus tumorigenique MSI. Tout d'abord nous avons mis en evidence une surexpression du miR-155 (ciblant les principales proteines MMR) au niveau de la muqueuse colique non transformee des malades atteints d'une Maladie Inflammatoire Chronique Intestinale, qui pourrait constituer un evenement pre-tumoral favorisant l'emergence de clones MMR-deficients (notion d'effet de champs). Dans une deuxieme partie, nous avons pu identifier la premiere mutation somatique touchant un microARN. Il s'agit du miR-3613 dont la repetition microsatellite est entierement localisee dans le miR mature. L'instabilite au niveau de ce miR conduit a des changements de sequence a l'extremite 3' du miR (notion d'IsomiRs). Les isomiRs produits ont un repertoire de cibles qui pour certaines sont communes a la forme sauvage et pour d'autres specifiques a chacun des variants.
Audit Firm Attributes and Financial Reporting Quality of Quoted Manufacturing Firms in Nigeria

- The need to ensure accurate and reliable financial reports has been a topical issue due to the continuous corporate scandals witnessed in developed and developing countries. Despite regulators' and stakeholders' concernsabout ensuring financial reporting quality, corporate financial scandals are still on the rise in Nigeria and other countries of the world. This study examined the impact of audit firm attributes on the financial reporting quality of quoted manufacturing firms in Nigeria from 2011 to 2015. The ex-post facto research design was adopted in the study. Data were obtained from the published annual reports and accounts, notes to the financial statements of the sixteen firms that represent the sample of the study. Multiple regression analysis was employed in analyzing the data and testing the stated hypotheses. The findings showed that auditor fees havea significant influence on the financial reporting quality of quoted manufacturing firms in Nigeria. However, it was discovered that audit firm size and audit delayhavean insignificant impact on the financial reporting quality of manufacturing firms in Nigeria. Therefore, it was recommended that the manufacturing firms create an enabling environment that will ensure the conduct of proper audits by the auditors and for a timely release of their reports to users, thus promoting quality decision making.
Provitamin a biofortification in maize through genetic engineering and marker-assisted selection

Maize is an important cereal in the global economy, which feeds one-third of the world’s population and is the third largest food crop after wheat and rice. Nutritional quality of most maize varieties is very low due to the lack of lysine and tryptophan and extremely low provitamin A carotenoids including α-carotene, β-carotene, and β-cryptoxanthin. Therefore, one of the solutions to improve nutritional value in maize is to improve provitamin A carotenoids contents. Many eﬀorts have been made to produce maize plants with enhanced provitamin A carotenoids, especially, β -carotene. This article aims to review the research towards provitamin A biofortification through genetic engineering and marker-assisted selection. The published results and our recent achievements open the window for the improvement of provitamin A carotenoids in maize as well as the issues that need the further investigation.
Back-Splicing Transcript Isoforms (Circular RNAs) Affect Biologically Relevant Pathways and Offer an Additional Layer of Information to Stratify NMIBC Patients

Circularized transcript isoforms due to back-splicing are increasingly being reported in different tissues types and pathological states including cancer. Since these circular RNAs (circRNAs) are more stable than linear messenger RNA their identification and profiling in tumor tissue could aid in stratifying patients and may serve as biomarkers. In this study, we have investigated the relationship between circRNA expression and tumor grade in a cohort of 58, mostly non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer patients. From 4571 circRNAs detected, we identified 157 that were significantly differentially expressed between tumor grades relative to the linear transcript. We demonstrated that such grade-related differences can be identified in an independent cohort, and that a large fraction of circRNAs can be, in principle, detected in urine. The differentially expressed circRNAs cluster into subgroups according to their co-expression, subgroups which are enriched for DNA repair, cell cycle and intracellular signaling genes. Since one proposed function of circRNAs is to interfere with gene-regulation by acting as microRNA “sponges,” candidates which were differentially expressed between tumor grades were investigated for potential miRNA target sites. By investigating the circRNAs from bladder cancer related pathways we demonstrated that the expression of these pathways, the circRNAs, and their parental genes are often decoupled and do not correlate, yet that some circRNAs do not follow this tendency. The present study provides the next step for the comprehensive evaluation of this novel class of RNAs in the context of non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer. Intriguingly, despite their possible function as microRNA sponges, they potentially affect host mRNA levels at the transcriptional stage, as compared to post-transcriptional control by miRNAs. Our analysis indicates differences of their activity between bladder cancer tumor stages, and their relative expression levels may provide an additional layer of information for patient stratification.
Turkish version of International Hip Outcome Tool (IHOT12T): validity and reliability study

Amac: Bu calismanin amaci kalca patolojili hastalarda Uluslararasi Kalca Sonuc Araci Anketi’nin Turkce gecerlik ve guvenirligini degerlendirmekti. Yontem: Uluslararasi Kalca Sonuc Araci Anketi’nin Ingilizce’den Turkce’ye cevirisi ve kulturel adaptasyonu yapildi. Kulturler arasi adaptasyon, ceviri, geri ceviri, uzman gorusu ve on test olmak uzere birkac adimda gerceklestirildi. Anketin son hali gecerlik ve guvenirlik calismasi icin kalca eklemi patolojisi olan 120 hastaya uygulandi. Hastalar sosyodemografik soru formu, Uluslararasi Kalca Sonuc Araci ve Kisa Form 36'yi tamamladi. Guvenirligi belirlemek icin test-tekrar test ve ic tutarlilik analizleri kullanildi. Test-tekrar test guvenirligini belirlemek icin, 60 hastaya Uluslararasi Kalca Sonuc Araci bir hafta icinde ikinci kez uygulanarak guvenirlik hesaplandi. Gecerligi belirlemek icin yapi ve olcut gecerligi analizleri, sinif ici korelasyon katsayisi ve Cronbach alfa belirlendi. Bulgular: Test-tekrar test korelasyon katsayisi 0.89 (p<0.05) ve ic tutarlilik analizi icin Cronbach alfa degeri 0.901 idi. Faktor analizi, Uluslararasi Kalca Sonuc Araci anketinin Turkce versiyonunun 3 bilesene sahip oldugunu ortaya koydu. Sinif ici korelasyon katsayisi degeri 0.91 olup test-tekrar test guvenirligi iyiydi. Bu sonuclarla Uluslararasi Kalca Sonuc Araci ile Kisa Form-36 alt gruplari arasinda iyi duzeyde bir korelasyon oldugu goruldu. Sonuc: Uluslararasi Kalca Sonuc Araci kalca eklemi patolojisi olan genc ve aktif bireylerin saglikla iliskili yasam kalitesinin ve fiziksel fonksiyonun degerlendirilmesinde gecerli ve guvenilir bir olcum aracidir.
Keturių mikromicetų rūšių patogeniškumas pietiniam Ugniukui, Plodia interpunctella (Lepidoptera, Pyralidae)

The effect of four fungal species (Beauveria bassiana (B. b.), Lecanicillium (Verticillium) lecanii (L. l.), Metarhizium anisopliae var anisopliae (M. a.) and Paecilomycers farinosus (P. f.)) isolates from forest soil in Lithuania was tested on adults and one species tested on mature larvae of Indian meal moth, Plodia interpunctella Hübner (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae). Under laboratory conditions, the insects were sprayed with conidial suspension (concentration 2.6 × 106 ml–1 conidia/ ml). All the fungal isolates tested were pathogenic, however, with a different dynamics of their effect. During the first-three-day period after spraying, the highest mortality (35–40% versus control) caused by P. f. and M. a. , and there was no significant difference in the survival as compared to control when B. b. and L. l. were sprayed. The median lethal time period when mortality reached 50% (LT50) or 100% (LT100) varied depending on fungus species from 1 to 5 days and from 9 to 12.3 days, respectively. P. f. , was effective to P. interpunctella adults, but not to larvae of the species, as during 14 days of testing no 50% of mortality was reached.
Examining the Psychometric Properties of the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire and Individual Work Performance Questionnaire in Indian Banking Sector

This study investigated the psychometric properties of the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire and Individual work performance questionnaire by testing the goodness of both scale within India through confirmatory factor analysis & reliability from Indian bank employee perspectives. A total of 422 respondents of two independent samples in public and private bank, completed the questionnaire. MLQ based on nine models and IWPQ based on three models signifying varied factor formation, which are compared to identify the good- fit for both models i.e., Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire and Individual work performance questionnaire in India. Result of factor analysis quantified that all factors construct of both examinations remained perfect and signified by higher-level factors among public & private bank employees in India. The finding from both scales, give robust proof for the soundness and consistency of individual scale which is expanding scope for further academics at a high level of assurance in scale implication. Result also exhibits from the mean rank, most dominating style is transformational style followed by transactional and then laissez-faire style in public bank and private bank in India as per subordinate’s perception. It recommends that respective leadership and performance scale can be beneficial in other sectors also and must be explored ahead in other industry of the India.
Age- and Cause-Specific Components of Recent Life Expectancy Improvements in Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia

All ex-Yugoslav countries experienced improvements in life expectancy during the last few decades. This study describes and compares recent life expectancy trends in Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia. What age groups and what causes of death account for the largest mortality declines? Have the three countries joined the cardiovascular revolution? Do patterns differ between countries? And, is there room for further improvements? We use life tables and decomposition methods to address these questions. Our key findings are: 1) lower mortality from circulatory diseases at older ages contributed most to life expectancy growth 2001– 2017 for both sexes in all three countries; 2) despite this common pattern, life expectancy in Slovenia grew fastest and the gap between countries increased; 3) under the Slovenian age- -specific cardiovascular mortality schedule, Croatia added 1.79 years to both female and male life expectancies, while Serbia added 3.97 and 3.26 to female and male life expectancies.
Simulação Multiagente para Controle de Poluição na Água

Um dos recursos naturais mais importantes para um ecossistema é a água. Entretanto, esse recurso vem sofrendo com o impacto da poluição. Para contornar esse problema, alternativas como os Sistemas Multiagente (SMA) podem ser utilizadas. A partir dessa técnica, é possível desenvolver sistemas virtuais semelhantes a realidade, onde a ação dos agentes e suas consequências no ambiente podem ser analisadas, e os resultados de cenários futuros podem ser utilizados para prevenir possíveis problemas dentro do sistema. Neste artigo, um SMA, chamado Poluição X Drone, é apresentado em detalhes. Nesse modelo, é possível analisar o impacto da poluição no ambiente, e como tecnologias, tal como drones, podem auxiliar na diminuição e controle de poluição.
Rolle der NOD-Rezeptoren für die intrazelluläre Immunerkennung von Chlamydophila pneumoniae und Charakterisierung der chlamydialen NOD-Liganden

mDAP meso-Diaminopimelinsäure DEPC Diethylpyrocarbonat DNA Desoxyribonukleinsäure DNase Desoxyribonuklease dNTP Desoxyribonukleosidtriphosphat DTT 1,4-Dithiothreitol EB engl. Elementary Body
Gene Regulatory Networks in Neural Crest Development and Evolution

The neural crest is a multipotent migratory embryonic cell population that is present in all vertebrates, but missing from basal chordates. In this chapter, we discuss recent work in amphioxus, ascidians, lamprey, and gnathostomes that reflects the current state of knowledge of the evolutionary origin of this fascinating cell population. We summarize recent evidence for the ongoing diversification of the neural crest in several vertebrate species, with particular reference to studies in nontraditional vertebrate model organisms.
Evaluation Of Heart Rate Variability Indices During Postural Changes

Hear rate variability (HRV) is an interesting and noninvasive way to identify autonomic nervous system (ANS) imbalances as well as to assess the effects of stress on the body in various environments. At present, there is no accepted standard for ANS activity measurements when one’s posture changes from a sitting to a standing position. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effects of postural changes on ANS activity by evaluating HRV indices. HRV indices in the time and frequency domains derived from fast Fourier transform (FFT) analysis and a nonlinear analysis were investigated. We evaluated the ANS activity before and after postural changes throughout the entire measurement session. A total of 271 HRV segments were analyzed by shifting the 1-minute data window forward by 2 s for the entire 10-minute HRV dataset. The HRV indices that were affected most by postural changes were SDNN, TINN, CVAA%, SD2, ApEn, and Ln LF. Among the indices, the nonlinear parameters such as CVAA%, SD2, TINN, and ApEn reflected ANS activity better than frequency parameters did. The results demonstrate that a simple change in posture such as moving from sitting to standing increases sympathetic activity and fluctuations in Ln LF magnitude and that the parasympathetic activity recovers one minute after standing up. Therefore, postural changes may be an effective approach for investigating parasympathetic activity through evaluations of nonlinear HRV parameters.
PCR-RFLP analysis of DNA for the differentiation of fish species in seafood samples.

Polymerase chain reaction - restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) analysis was used to identify fish species and to perform their authentication in commercial seafood products. Universal primers were used for PCR amplification of 464-bp long fragments of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene. The PCR products were digested with restriction enzymes AluI, HinfI, HaeIII, DdeI, NlaIII, HincII, and MboII. Sixty fish samples were obtained from the local markets in the Czech Republic. In 47 samples (78.3%), the results were in agreement with declarations of the producers and 10 samples (16.7%) contained other fish species. There were not great differences between fresh fillets (chilled, frozen etc.) and heat-processed foodstuffs (tinned, smoked, etc.). The correct designation was in 72.3% and 81.6% of samples, respectively. Even if in three cases the analysis was unsuccessful the method is useful for the control of the adulteration of food with fish tissue content and in this way it contributes to better consumer awareness.
Prediction of Hospital Admissions from Air Pollutant Data

Diversos trabalho na literatura indicam que poluentes atmosféricos são nocivos à saúde. Sendo assim, neste trabalho buscou-se verificar a possibilidade de prever, a partir de dados de concentração de poluentes atmosféricos e com 24 h de antecedência, o número de internações hospitalares associadas a doenças respiratórias. Para isso, foram utilizados Extreme Learning Machines (ELMs) como preditores e experimentos foram realizados com dados referentes à cidade de Campinas (SP). Os resultados mostraram que, apesar do uso de dados de alguns poluentes específicos levarem a menores erros de previsão, os melhores resultados ainda foram obtidos utilizando-se apenas a série histórica de internações hospitalares como entrada para as ELMs.
Decision-theoretic foundations for statistical causality

Abstract We develop a mathematical and interpretative foundation for the enterprise of decision-theoretic (DT) statistical causality, which is a straightforward way of representing and addressing causal questions. DT reframes causal inference as “assisted decision-making” and aims to understand when, and how, I can make use of external data, typically observational, to help me solve a decision problem by taking advantage of assumed relationships between the data and my problem. The relationships embodied in any representation of a causal problem require deeper justification, which is necessarily context-dependent. Here we clarify the considerations needed to support applications of the DT methodology. Exchangeability considerations are used to structure the required relationships, and a distinction drawn between intention to treat and intervention to treat forms the basis for the enabling condition of “ignorability. ” We also show how the DT perspective unifies and sheds light on other popular formalisations of statistical causality, including potential responses and directed acyclic graphs.
Methods for Computing Legal Document Similarity: A Comparative Study

Computing similarity between two legal documents is an important and challenging task in the domain of Legal Information Retrieval. Finding similar legal documents has many applications in downstream tasks, including prior-case retrieval, recommendation of legal articles, and so on. Prior works have proposed two broad ways of measuring similarity between legal documents - analyzing the precedent citation network, and measuring similarity based on textual content similarity measures. But there has not been a comprehensive comparison of these existing methods on a common platform. In this paper, we perform the first systematic analysis of the existing methods. In addition, we explore two promising new similarity computation methods - one text-based and the other based on network embeddings, which have not been considered till now.
GraftNet: An Engineering Implementation of CNN for Fine-grained Multi-label Task

Multi-label networks with branches are proved to perform well in both accuracy and speed, but lacks flexibility in providing dynamic extension onto new labels due to the low efficiency of re-work on annotating and training. For multi-label classification task, to cover new labels we need to annotate not only newly collected images, but also the previous whole dataset to check presence of these new labels. Also training on whole re-annotated dataset costs much time. In order to recognize new labels more effectively and accurately, we propose GraftNet, which is a customizable tree-like network with its trunk pretrained with a dynamic graph for generic feature extraction, and branches separately trained on sub-datasets with single label to improve accuracy. GraftNet could reduce cost, increase flexibility, and incrementally handle new labels. Experimental results show that it has good performance on our human attributes recognition task, which is fine-grained multi-label classification.