Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Characterization and comparison of the bacterial microbiota in different gastrointestinal tract compartments of Mongolian horses

The intestinal microbiota plays an important role in the health and metabolism of the host. Next‐generation sequencing technology has enabled the characterization of the gut microbiota of several animal species. We analyzed the intestinal microbiota in six different parts of the gastrointestinal tracts (GITs) of five Mongolian horses by sequencing the 16S rRNA gene V3‐V4 hypervariable region. All horses were kept in the natural habitat of the Inner Mongolia grassland. Significant differences were observed among the microbiota compositions of the distinct GIT regions. In addition, while the microbial community structures of the small and large intestine were significantly different, those of the cecum and colon were similar. In the foregut, Firmicutes (65%) and Proteobacteria (23%) were the most abundant, while Firmicutes (45%) and Bacteroidetes (42%) were the most common in the hindgut. At the level of family, Ruminococcaceae (p = .203), Lachnospiraceae (p = .157), Rikenellaceae (p = .122), and Prevotellaceae (p = .068) were predominant in the hindgut, while the relative abundance of the Akkermansia genus (5.7%, p = .039) was higher in the ventral colon. In terms of the putative functions, the ratio of microbial abundance in the different parts of the GIT was similar, the result can help characterize the gut microbial structure of different animals.
Sub-regional anterior cingulate cortex functional connectivity revealed default network subsystem dysfunction in patients with major depressive disorder

Abstract Background Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a prevalent mental disorder characterized by impairments in affect, behaviour and cognition. Previous studies have indicated that the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) may play an essential role in the pathophysiology of depression. In this study, we systematically identified changes in functional connectivity (FC) for ACC subdivisions that manifest in MDD and further investigated the relationship between these changes and the clinical symptoms of depression. Methods Sub-regional ACC FC was estimated in 41 first-episode medication-naïve MDD patients compared to 43 healthy controls. The relationships between depressive symptom severity and aberrant FC of ACC subdivisions were investigated. In addition, we conducted a meta-analysis to generate the distributions of MDD-related abnormal regions from previously reported results and compared them to FC deficits revealed in this study. Results In MDD patients, the subgenual and perigenual ACC demonstrated decreased FC with the posterior regions of the default network (DN), including the posterior inferior parietal lobule and posterior cingulate cortex. FC of these regions was negatively associated with the Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire scores and largely overlapped with previously reported abnormal regions. In addition, reduced FC between the caudal ACC and precuneus was negatively correlated with the Hamilton Anxiety Scale scores. We also found increased FC between the rostral ACC and dorsal medial prefrontal cortex. Conclusions Our findings confirmed that functional interaction changes in different ACC sub-regions are specific and associated with distinct symptoms of depression. Our findings provide new insights into the role of ACC sub-regions and DN in the pathophysiology of MDD.
Challenges for accessing and maintaining good quality of HIV care among men who have sex with men living with HIV in China: a qualitative study with key stakeholders

ABSTRACT HIV care in China is shifting toward a community-based model involving a wide range of stakeholders. We aimed to understand key stakeholders’ perceived challenges of providing high-quality care for men who have sex with men (MSM) living with HIV. In-depth interviews were conducted with a diverse sample of stakeholders (N = 17) in two Chinese cities, including providers, policymakers, and community workers. Interviews focused on stakeholders’ challenges in HIV-related work and perceived barriers for MSM in accessing and maintaining HIV care. Thematic analysis strategies were used. Three cross-cutting themes related to accessibility and quality of care (QoC) emerged. First, MSM- and HIV-related stigma were perceived to increase the risk of MSM dropping out of care. While acknowledging stigma, some providers also expressed discriminatory views such as stereotypes of the MSM community. Second, stakeholders expressed concerns about QoC including healthcare workforce shortages, limited training opportunities, and high work stress while facing increasingly unmet needs from clients. Third, stakeholders shared challenges in mobilizing community resources to expand HIV care including unclear division of responsibility and strict auditing. Supportive policies and resources may be needed to bolster China’s primary care workforce and MSM-competent care and, more broadly, high QoC for sexual and gender minority patients.
Retrospective analysis of high-dose chemotherapy followed by autologous stem cell transplantation for high-risk pediatric osteosarcoma

Abstract The outcomes of osteosarcoma with poor prognostic factors, such as poor responders, metastatic disease at diagnosis, and relapsed or refractory disease, are poor. We reviewed the clinical records of the patients diagnosed with osteosarcoma at our institute between 2004 and 2018 who received high-dose chemotherapy followed by autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) in our institute. Ten patients of osteosarcoma with poor responder, refractory status, and metastatic disease at diagnosis received high-dose chemotherapy followed by ASCT. Four patients underwent high-dose chemotherapy followed by ASCT with the conditioning regimen consisted of thiotepa and melphalan (MEL). Five patients underwent high-dose chemotherapy followed by ASCT with the conditioning regimen consisted of intravenous busulfan (BU) and MEL. One patient underwent tandem high-dose chemotherapy followed by ASCT with BU and MEL followed by carboplatin and etoposide. None of the ten patients died of regimen related toxicities. None of the five patients with poor responders who underwent high-dose chemotherapy followed by ASCT as part of consolidation therapy died of disease after ASCT. High-dose chemotherapy followed by ASCT might be effective for poor responders in osteosarcoma.
Differentiating through the Fréchet Mean

Recent advances in deep representation learning on Riemannian manifolds extend classical deep learning operations to better capture the geometry of the manifold. One possible extension is the Frechet mean, the generalization of the Euclidean mean; however, it has been difficult to apply because it lacks a closed form with an easily computable derivative. In this paper, we show how to differentiate through the Frechet mean for arbitrary Riemannian manifolds. Then, focusing on hyperbolic space, we derive explicit gradient expressions and a fast, accurate, and hyperparameter-free Frechet mean solver. This fully integrates the Frechet mean into the hyperbolic neural network pipeline. To demonstrate this integration, we present two case studies. First, we apply our Frechet mean to the existing Hyperbolic Graph Convolutional Network, replacing its projected aggregation to obtain state-of-the-art results on datasets with high hyperbolicity. Second, to demonstrate the Frechet mean's capacity to generalize Euclidean neural network operations, we develop a hyperbolic batch normalization method that gives an improvement parallel to the one observed in the Euclidean setting.
Commercially available jeffamine additives for p–i–n perovskite solar cells

Commercially available Jeffamines (polyetheramine) with average molecular weights of 2000 and 3000 g mol−1; one (M2005), two (D2000), and three (T3000) primary amino groups end-capping on the polyether backbone; and propylene oxide (PO) and ethylene oxide (EO) functionality were explored as additives for application in MAPbI3 perovskite solar cells (PSCs). The results indicated that the embedding of Jeffamine additives effectively passivates the defects in the grain boundaries of perovskite through the coordination bonding between the nitrogen atom and the uncoordinated lead ion of perovskite. We fabricated p–i–n PSC devices with the structure of glass/indium tin oxide (ITO)/NiOx/CH3NH3PbI3 (with and without Jeffamine)/PC61BM/BCP/Ag. We observed the interaction between the Jeffamine and perovskites. This interaction led to increased lifetimes of the carriers of perovskite, which enabled the construction of high-performance p–i–n PSCs. For the Jeffamine-D2000-derived device, we observed an increase in the power conversion efficiency from 14.5% to 16.8% relative to the control device. Furthermore, the mechanical properties of the perovskite films were studied. The interaction between the additive and perovskite reinforced the flexibility of the thin film, which may pave the way for stretchable optoelectronics.
A Mixture of Exogenous Emulsifiers Increased the Acceptance of Broilers to Low Energy Diets: Growth Performance, Blood Chemistry, and Fatty Acids Traits

Simple Summary Since fat energy is cheaper than carbohydrate energy, it is profitable to increase fat content in broiler diets. One of the factors that limits using high levels of fat in broiler diets is the indigestion of fat, because bile secretion in broilers is not efficient in the first days of age. In this sense, using exogenous emulsifiers in the high-fat diet enhanced fat utilization and digestive metabolism. In the current study, birds fed the basal diet and another two low-energy diets (−50 kcal/kg than control) with or without emulsifiers (500 g/ton). The obtained results revealed that the emulsifier’s supplementation to low-energy diets enhanced fat utilization and resulted in positive effects on growth performance, nutrients utilization, lipid peroxidation, and modified plasma lipid profiles in broilers. Abstract To investigate the influence of emulsifiers on broilers fed low-energy diets, the birds were distributed into three sets—the control was fed the basal diet, the second group was fed diets 50 kcal/kg less than control, and the third group was fed diets 50 kcal/kg less than control and supplemented with 500 g/ton of emulsifiers. The used mixture of exogenous emulsifiers contains phosphatidyl choline, lysophosphatidyl choline, and polyethylene glycol ricinoleate. Although the feed intake was not meaningfully affected by dietary low-energy level with emulsifier inclusion (P = 0.42), the weight gain and FCR were clearly enhanced (P = 0.005 and P = 0.044, respectively). Protein and lipids utilization were decreased by reducing energy level, but they were increased by emulsifier supplementation (P = 0.022 and P = 0.011, respectively). Liver thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances (TBARs) and muscle palmitic acid concentrations were decreased by reducing the energy level and emulsifier’s supplementation (P = 0.014 and P = 0.042, respectively). However, muscle total lipids and α-tocopherol, oleic acid, linoleic acid, and α-linolenic acid were not affected by dietary treatments (P > 0.05). Interestingly, the plasma total cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol, total protein, and globulin were decreased in the low-energy group without emulsifier but they were increased by emulsifier supplementation (P = 0.008, P = 0.005, P = 0.037, and P = 0.005, respectively). It could be concluded that the mixture of emulsifier supplementation to low-energy diets enhanced fat utilization and resulted in positive effects on the growth performance, nutrient utilization, lipid peroxidation, and modified plasma lipid profiles in broilers. Getting such benefits in broilers is a necessity to reduce the feed cost and consequently the price of the product, which will lead to improved welfare of mankind.
Influence of Polymer Concentration and Nozzle Material on Centrifugal Fiber Spinning

Centrifugal fiber spinning has recently emerged as a highly promising alternative technique for the production of nonwoven, ultrafine fiber mats. Due to its high production rate, it could provide a more technologically relevant fiber spinning technique than electrospinning. In this contribution, we examine the influence of polymer concentration and nozzle material on the centrifugal spinning process and the fiber morphology. We find that increasing the polymer concentration transforms the process from a beaded-fiber regime to a continuous-fiber regime. Furthermore, we find that not only fiber diameter is strongly concentration-dependent, but also the nozzle material plays a significant role, especially in the continuous-fiber regime. This was evaluated by the use of a polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and an aluminum nozzle. We discuss the influence of polymer concentration on fiber morphology and show that the choice of nozzle material has a significant influence on the fiber diameter.
Dendritic Cells in Anticancer Vaccination: Rationale for Ex Vivo Loading or In Vivo Targeting

Dendritic cells (DCs) have shown great potential as a component or target in the landscape of cancer immunotherapy. Different in vivo and ex vivo strategies of DC vaccine generation with different outcomes have been proposed. Numerous clinical trials have demonstrated their efficacy and safety in cancer patients. However, there is no consensus regarding which DC-based vaccine generation method is preferable. A problem of result comparison between trials in which different DC-loading or -targeting approaches have been applied remains. The employment of different DC generation and maturation methods, antigens and administration routes from trial to trial also limits the objective comparison of DC vaccines. In the present review, we discuss different methods of DC vaccine generation. We conclude that standardized trial designs, treatment settings and outcome assessment criteria will help to determine which DC vaccine generation approach should be applied in certain cancer cases. This will result in a reduction in alternatives in the selection of preferable DC-based vaccine tactics in patient. Moreover, it has become clear that the application of a DC vaccine alone is not sufficient and combination immunotherapy with recent advances, such as immune checkpoint inhibitors, should be employed to achieve a better clinical response and outcome.
Can we really teach cognitive behavioral therapy with a massive open online course?

Abstract A better training in psychotherapy is needed for psychiatry trainees. Online Cognitive Behavioural Therapies (CBT) could be a good solution. Free and wide audience course like Massive Open Online course (MOOCs) increase dissemination and accessibility of the training. However, the engagement needs to be improved. A hybrid approach seems relevant with the MOOC as an incentive. Beyond the promotion of the topic, a MOOC can be a promotion tool for the provider. The economic model of the MOOC needed to be taken into account to allow sustainability. To explore these elements, we take into account a survey taken during the 1st European Psychiatric Association MOOC about CBT.
Surface Treatment of Acetabular Cups with a Direct Deposition of a Composite Nanostructured Layer Using a High Electrostatic Field

A composite nanofibrous layer containing collagen and hydroxyapatite was deposited on selected surface areas of titanium acetabular cups. The layer was deposited on the irregular surface of these 3D objects using a specially developed electrospinning system designed to ensure the stability of the spinning process and to produce a layer approximately 100 micrometers thick with an adequate thickness uniformity. It was verified that the layer had the intended nanostructured morphology throughout its entire thickness and that the prepared layer sufficiently adhered to the smooth surface of the model titanium implants even after all the post-deposition sterilization and stabilization treatments were performed. The resulting layers had an average thickness of (110 ± 30) micrometers and an average fiber diameter of (170 ± 49) nanometers. They were produced using a relatively simple and cost-effective technology and yet they were verifiably biocompatible and structurally stable. Collagen- and hydroxyapatite-based composite nanostructured surface modifications represent promising surface treatment options for metal implants.
Discrete Hf18 metal-oxo cluster as a heterogeneous  nanozyme for site-specific proteolysis.

Effective heterogeneous catalysts for the controlled transformation of large and complex biomolecules are rare and challenging to develop. In particular, selective hydrolysis of proteins by non-enzymatic catalysis is difficult to achieve, yet it is crucial for many modern applications in biotechnology and proteomics. Herein we report that discrete hafnium metal-oxo cluster (Hf 18 O 10 (OH) 26 (SO 4 ) 13 (H 2 O) 33 ) ( Hf 18 ), which is centred by the same hexamer motif found in many MOFs, acts as a heterogeneous catalyst for the efficient hydrolysis of horse heart myoglobin (HHM) protein in low buffer concentrations. Remarkably, among 154 amino acids present in the sequence of HHM, strictly selective cleavage at only 6 solvent accessible aspartate residues, Asp5, Asp21, Asp45, Asp110, Asp123 and Asp142 was observed. Mechanistic experiments suggest that the hydrolytic activity is likely derived from the synergistic actuation of Hf 4+ Lewis acidic sites and the Brønsted acidic surface of Hf 18 . A combination of X-ray scattering and ESI-MS revealed that Hf 18 is completely insoluble in these conditions, confirming the HHM hydrolysis is caused by a heterogeneous reaction of solid Hf 18 cluster, and not from smaller, soluble Hf species that could leach in solution. This study highlights the great potential of discrete metal-oxo cluster materials as inorganic proteases.
Searching for Solvents with an Increased Carbon Dioxide Solubility Using Multivariate Statistics

Ionic liquids (ILs) are used in various fields of chemistry. One of them is CO2 capture, a process that is quite well described. The solubility of CO2 in ILs can be used as a model to investigate gas absorption processes. The aim is to find the relationships between the solubility of CO2 and other variables—physicochemical properties and parameters related to greenness. In this study, 12 variables are used to describe a dataset consisting of 26 ILs and 16 molecular solvents. We used a cluster analysis, a principal component analysis, and a K-means hierarchical clustering to find the patterns in the dataset and the discriminators between the clusters of compounds. The results showed that ILs and molecular solvents form two well-separated groups, and the variables were well separated into greenness-related and physicochemical properties. Such patterns suggest that the modeling of greenness properties and of the solubility of CO2 on physicochemical properties can be difficult.
Optimizing Streaming Parallelism on Heterogeneous Many-Core Architectures

As many-core accelerators keep integrating more processing units, it becomes increasingly more difficult for a parallel application to make effective use of all available resources. An effective way of improving hardware utilization is to exploit spatial and temporal sharing of the heterogeneous processing units by multiplexing computation and communication tasks – a strategy known as heterogeneous streaming. Achieving effective heterogeneous streaming requires carefully partitioning hardware among tasks, and matching the granularity of task parallelism to the resource partition. However, finding the right resource partitioning and task granularity is extremely challenging, because there is a large number of possible solutions and the optimal solution varies across programs and datasets. This article presents an automatic approach to quickly derive a good solution for hardware resource partition and task granularity for task-based parallel applications on heterogeneous many-core architectures. Our approach employs a performance model to estimate the resulting performance of the target application under a given resource partition and task granularity configuration. The model is used as a utility to quickly search for a good configuration at runtime. Instead of hand-crafting an analytical model that requires expert insights into low-level hardware details, we employ machine learning techniques to automatically learn it. We achieve this by first learning a predictive model offline using training programs. The learned model can then be used to predict the performance of any unseen program at runtime. We apply our approach to 39 representative parallel applications and evaluate it on two representative heterogeneous many-core platforms: a CPU-XeonPhi platform and a CPU-GPU platform. Compared to the single-stream version, our approach achieves, on average, a 1.6x and 1.1x speedup on the XeonPhi and the GPU platform, respectively. These results translate to over 93 percent of the performance delivered by a theoretically perfect predictor.
Noncoding Microdeletion in Mouse Hgf Disrupts Neural Crest Migration into the Stria Vascularis, Reduces the Endocochlear Potential, and Suggests the Neuropathology for Human Nonsyndromic Deafness DFNB39

Hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) is a multifunctional protein that signals through the MET receptor. HGF stimulates cell proliferation, cell dispersion, neuronal survival, and wound healing. In the inner ear, levels of HGF must be fine-tuned for normal hearing. In mice, a deficiency of HGF expression limited to the auditory system, or an overexpression of HGF, causes neurosensory deafness. In humans, noncoding variants in HGF are associated with nonsyndromic deafness DFNB39. However, the mechanism by which these noncoding variants causes deafness was unknown. Here, we reveal the cause of this deafness using a mouse model engineered with a noncoding intronic 10 bp deletion (del10) in Hgf. Male and female mice homozygous for del10 exhibit moderate-to-profound hearing loss at 4 weeks of age as measured by tone burst auditory brainstem responses. The wild type (WT) 80 mV endocochlear potential was significantly reduced in homozygous del10 mice compared with WT littermates. In normal cochlea, endocochlear potentials are dependent on ion homeostasis mediated by the stria vascularis (SV). Previous studies showed that developmental incorporation of neural crest cells into the SV depends on signaling from HGF/MET. We show by immunohistochemistry that, in del10 homozygotes, neural crest cells fail to infiltrate the developing SV intermediate layer. Phenotyping and RNAseq analyses reveal no other significant abnormalities in other tissues. We conclude that, in the inner ear, the noncoding del10 mutation in Hgf leads to developmental defects of the SV and consequently dysfunctional ion homeostasis and a reduction in the EP, recapitulating human DFNB39 nonsyndromic deafness. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Hereditary deafness is a common, clinically and genetically heterogeneous neurosensory disorder. Previously, we reported that human deafness DFNB39 is associated with noncoding variants in the 3′UTR of a short isoform of HGF encoding hepatocyte growth factor. For normal hearing, HGF levels must be fine-tuned as an excess or deficiency of HGF cause deafness in mouse. Using a Hgf mutant mouse with a small 10 bp deletion recapitulating a human DFNB39 noncoding variant, we demonstrate that neural crest cells fail to migrate into the stria vascularis intermediate layer, resulting in a significantly reduced endocochlear potential, the driving force for sound transduction by inner ear hair cells. HGF-associated deafness is a neurocristopathy but, unlike many other neurocristopathies, it is not syndromic.