Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Young [α/Fe]-enhanced stars discovered by CoRoT and APOGEE: What is their origin?

We report the discovery of a group of apparently young CoRoT red-giant stars exhibiting enhanced [α/Fe] abundance ratios (as determined from APOGEE spectra) with respect to solar values. Their existence is not explained bystandard chemical evolution models of the Milky Way, and shows that the chemical-enrichment history of the Galactic disc is more complex. We find similar stars in previously published samples for which isochrone-ages could be reliably obtained, although in smaller relative numbers. This might explain why these stars have not previously received attention. The young [α/Fe]-rich stars are much more numerous in the CoRoT-APOGEE (CoRoGEE) inner-field sample than in any other high-resolution sample available at present because only CoRoGEE can explore the inner-disc regions and provide ages for its field stars. The kinematic properties of the young [α/Fe]-rich stars are not clearly thick-disc like, despite their rather large distances from the Galactic mid-plane. Our tentative interpretation of these and previous intriguing observations in the Milky Way is that these stars were formed close to the end of the Galactic bar, near corotation – a region where gas can be kept inert for longer times than in other regions that are more frequently shocked by the passage of spiral arms. Moreover, this is where the mass return from older inner-disc stellar generations is expected to be highest (according to an inside-out disc-formation scenario), which additionally dilutes the in-situ gas. Other possibilities to explain these observations (e.g., a recent gas-accretion event) are also discussed.
Don’t Leave Anyone Behind: Achieving Team Performance Through Diversity

In education, student teams are composed aiming at completing academic tasks and co-learning. Key factors influencing team performance are individual competencies, personality and gender. In this paper, we present a computational model to compose proficient and congenial teams based on students’ personalities, gender, and competencies to perform tasks of different nature. Our model, called synergistic team composition, extends Wilde’s post-Jungian method, which solely employs individuals’ personalities and gender. In addition to formally present the synergistic team composition problem, we develop an approximate algorithm to solve it. That is, an algorithm that partitions student groups into teams that are diverse in competencies, personality and gender. Finally, we discuss our positive empirical results on student performance.
Risk Factors for Overweight and Obesity among Children Ages 0 to 3.5 Living in the Miramichi Public Health Region of New-Brunswick, Canada

Obesity, a major risk factor in numerous pathologies, poses a public health problem. The objective of this study was to assess the prevalence of the risk of overweight, overweight and obesity, as well as to identify and analyze the risk factors for weight gain among children in Miramichi in New Brunswick’s Horizon Health Network (HHN). This descriptive cross-sectional study was done between 2009 and 2014. The study population was composed of 335 children (185 boys and 150 girls) ages 0 to 42 months and their parents. Overweight and obesity were determined according to World Health Organisation (WHO) criteria adapted for Canada. A logistic regression analysis was performed to determine the risk factors associated with overweight and obesity. The prevalence of risk for overweight is 21% at birth as opposed to 55% at 42 months (both sexes together), and the prevalence of risk for overweight including obesity affects 11.8% of children, that is, 12.7% of boys as opposed to 10.94% of girls (p < 0.0001). The prevalence among boys is 1.2 times that among girls. This study also reveals that at 42 months, the average prevalence of obesity is 6.5% (8% for boys and 5% for girls). The mothers of overweight children have a higher post-pregnancy BMI (32.78 ± 4.16 kg/m2) than do the mothers of children who are a healthy weight (26.17 ± 7.90 kg/m2) (p < 0.0001). Moreover, 29.7% of children are overweight when both parents are overweight compared to 14.97% when both parents are a healthy weight (p < 0.05). This means that children are twice as likely to be overweight when both parents are overweight compared to children whose parents are a healthy weight. Otherwise, only 17% of the 335 children assessed in this study were breastfed and started on solid foods in accordance with the WHO recommendations. This study clearly shows that overweight is associated with sex, birth weight, parental obesity, maternal breastfeeding and the age of introduction of solid foods. The prevalence and identification of risk factors for overweight and infant obesity used to screen at-risk children will have the advantage of allowing adapted prevention strategies to be established.
A hybrid image-based modelling algorithm

This paper explores the practical aspects associated with visual-geometric reconstruction of a complex 3D scene from a sequence of unconstrained and uncalibrated 2D images. These image sequences can be acquired by a video camera or a handheld digital camera without the need for camera calibration. Once supplied with the input images, our system automatically processes and produces a 3D model. We propose a novel approach, which integrates uncalibrated Structure from Motion (SfM), shape-from-silhouette and shape-from-correspondence, to create a quasi-dense scene geometry of the observed scene. In the second stage, surface and texture are applied onto the generated scene geometry to produce the final 3D model. The advantage of combining silhouette-based and correspondence-based reconstruction approaches is that the new hybrid system is able to deal with both featureless objects and objects with concaved regions. These classes of objects usually pose great difficulty for shape-from-correspondence and shape-from-silhouette approach. As the result, our approach is capable of producing satisfactory results for a large class of objects. Our approach does not require any a priori information about camera and image acquisition parameters. We tested our algorithm using a variety of datasets of objects with different scales, textures and shapes acquired under different lighting conditions. The results indicate that our algorithm is stable and enables inexperienced users to easily create complex 3D content using a standard consumer level camera.
The Effect of Social Networking Sites to the Lifestyles of Teachers and Students in Higher Educational Institutions

With the creation of Social Networking Sites, colleges and universities across the globe have been playing catch-up with students. This new technology carries much weight as a new medium for students to build social connections and grow as members of their institutions [1]. With the aim of exploring the effect of social networking sites to the lifestyles of teachers and students in higher educational institutions, this research was conducted at four private universities in Bangladesh and one university in Uganda. A sample of one hundred teachers and one hundred students was respectively selected from four private universities in Bangladesh and one university in Uganda. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were applied during data analysis. The results indicated that social networking sites had several impacts on the lifestyle of students and teachers with the positive effects outweighing the negative effects. The findings confirmed that students can formulate group discussions so as to exchange their ideas, communicate to their teachers and appeal to their friends about assignments. Teachers share course related materials with their students, enables research work, creates student groups to collaborate on projects and communicate with their fellow teachers from other universities. So the principal conclusion was that the use of social networking sites should be incorporated into teachers’ and students’ lifestyles as its beneficial nature takes over its adverse side.
Axillary conservation in women with 1–2 sentinel node‐positive breast cancer: Further research is needed

The practice of completion axillary dissection after a positive sentinel node biopsy in women with early breast cancer has been declining. The morbidity associated with axillary dissection can be disabling and impair quality of life. Axillary conservation spares patients the common complications of lymphoedema, pain, neuropathy, and restricted shoulder movement. This change in practice followed the publication of the American College of Surgeons Oncology Group (ACOSOG) Z-11 randomised trial. In this study, 891 patients with 1–2 positive sentinel lymph nodes (SLNs) who underwent breast-conserving surgery for a primary tumour ≤5 cm and were clinically node-negative at diagnosis were randomised to axillary dissection or not. Adjuvant whole breast irradiation was mandatory but information on radiation doses and treatment volumes was not available. The majority of patients received adjuvant systemic therapy. In the axillary dissection group, 27% of patients had additional involved lymph nodes. At a median follow-up of nine years, there was no difference in axillary recurrence rates (≤1.1%) between the two groups. No difference in local recurrence rates, disease free survival (DFS) or overall survival was observed. Two other recent studies indicated that axillary dissection did not improve outcomes. The International Breast Cancer Study Group 23-01 trial of 934 patients investigated the role of axillary dissection or not in patients with a primary tumour ≤5 cm who had axillary micrometastases in 1-2 SLNs. In the axillary dissection group 13% had additional involved lymph nodes but there was no difference in local recurrence (2%), regional recurrence (≤1%), disease free survival or overall survival at a median follow-up of five years. In the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) AMAROS trial, 1425 patients with positive SLNs were randomised to axillary dissection or axillary irradiation. In the axillary dissection group, 33% had additional involved lymph nodes. With a median follow-up of five years, there was no difference in axillary recurrence rates (≤1%), DFS or overall survival between the two groups. The 5-year rate of lymphoedema was 11% in the axillary radiation arm compared to 23% in the axillary dissection arm.
The Good, The Bad & The Ugly Features: A Meta-analysis on User Review About Food Journaling Apps

Users review about an app is a crucial component for open mobile application market, such as the AppStore and the Google play. Analyzing these reviews can reveal user's sentiment towards a feature in the app. There exist several analytical tools to summarize user reviews and extract meaningful sense out of them. However, these tools are still limited in terms of expressiveness and accurately classifying the reviews into more than a positive and a negative review. There is a need to get more insights from user app reviews and direct it to future app development. In this paper, we present our result of analyzing user reviews of 20 food journaling and health tracking apps. We gathered and analyzed reviews per app and classified them into three distinct categories using the sentiment treebank with recursive neural tensor network. We then analyzed the vocabulary frequency per category using the Gensim implementation of Word2Vec model. The analysis result clustered the reviews into good, bad and ugly feature reviews. Different usage patterns were detected from users review. We identified major reasons why users express a certain sentiment towards an app and learned how users' satisfaction or complaints was related to a specific feature. This research could be a guideline for app developers to follow when developing an app to refrain from adopting techniques that might demotivate (hinder) the application use or adopt those perceived positively by the users.
A Survey of Anomaly Detection for Connected Vehicle Cybersecurity and Safety

Anomaly detection techniques have been applied to the challenging problem of ensuring both cybersecurity and safety of connected vehicles. We propose a taxonomy of prior research in this domain. Our proposed taxonomy has 3 overarching dimensions subsuming 9 categories and 38 subcategories. Key observations emerging from the survey are: Real-world datasets are seldom used, but instead, most results are derived from simulations; V2V/V2I communications and in vehicle communication are not considered together; proposed techniques are seldom evaluated against a baseline; safety of the vehicles does not attract as much attention as cybersecurity.
Natural Killer Cell-Based Cancer Immunotherapy: A Review on 10 Years Completed Clinical Trials

Abstract NK cell cancer immunotherapy is an emerging anti-tumour therapeutic strategy that explores NK cell stimulation. In this review, we address strategies developed to circumvent limitations to clinical application of NK cell-based therapies, and comprehensively review the design and results of clinical trials conducted in the past 10 years (2008–2018) to test their therapeutic potential. NK cell-based immunotherapy of solid cancers remains controversial, but merit further detailed investigation.
Minute Virus of Canines NP1 Protein Interacts with the Cellular Factor CPSF6 To Regulate Viral Alternative RNA Processing

The Parvovirinae are small nonenveloped icosahedral viruses that are important pathogens in many animal species, including humans. Unlike other parvoviruses, the bocavirus genus controls expression of its capsid proteins via alternative RNA processing, by both suppressing polyadenylation at an internal site, termed the proximal polyadenylation (pA)p site, and by facilitating splicing of an upstream adjacent intron. This regulation is mediated by a small genus-specific protein, NP1. Understanding the cis-acting targets of NP1, as well as the cellular factors with which it interacts, is necessary to more clearly understand this unique mode of parvovirus gene expression. ABSTRACT The NP1 protein of minute virus of canines (MVC) governs production of the viral capsid proteins via its role in pre-mRNA processing. NP1 suppresses polyadenylation and cleavage at its internal site, termed the proximal polyadenylation (pA)p site, to allow accumulation of RNAs that extend into the capsid gene, and it enhances splicing of the upstream adjacent third intron, which is necessary to properly enter the capsid protein open reading frame. We find the (pA)p region to be complex. It contains redundant classical cis-acting signals necessary for the cleavage and polyadenylation reaction and splicing of the adjacent upstream third intron, as well as regions outside the classical motifs that are necessary for responding to NP1. NP1, but not processing mutants of NP1, bound to MVC RNA directly. The cellular RNA processing factor CPSF6 interacted with NP1 in transfected cells and participated with NP1 to modulate its effects. These experiments further characterize the role of NP1 in parvovirus gene expression. IMPORTANCE The Parvovirinae are small nonenveloped icosahedral viruses that are important pathogens in many animal species, including humans. Unlike other parvoviruses, the bocavirus genus controls expression of its capsid proteins via alternative RNA processing, by both suppressing polyadenylation at an internal site, termed the proximal polyadenylation (pA)p site, and by facilitating splicing of an upstream adjacent intron. This regulation is mediated by a small genus-specific protein, NP1. Understanding the cis-acting targets of NP1, as well as the cellular factors with which it interacts, is necessary to more clearly understand this unique mode of parvovirus gene expression.
Long term explant culture for harvesting homogeneous population of human dental pulp stem cells

Dental pulp stem cells have emerged as a preferred source of mesenchymal stem cells, because of its easy availability and high stem cell content. Dental pulp is a specific fibrous tissue that contains heterogeneous populations of odontoblasts, fibroblasts, pericytes, progenitors, stem cells, leukocytes and neuronal cells. In this study, we propose sustained explant culture as a simple, economical and efficient process to isolate dental pulp stem cells from human Dental pulp Tissue. Historically explant cultures were used to get fibroblast cells from embryonic chick heart using plasma clot cultures. The subculture was performed by lifting mother explant (original explant) and grafting it in a new plasma clot. We modified this age old technique to suit the modern times. Here we demonstrate for the first time that the mother explant (E0) of human dental pulp tissue could be sub‐cultured consecutively seven times (E7) without displacement. This technique is highly reproducible and permits growth and proliferation of dental pulp stem cells yielding an enriched homogeneous mesenchymal stem cells population in the first passage itself as revealed by surface marker expression. These dental pulp stem cells exhibit differentiation into adipogenic, chondrogenic and osteogenic lineage revealing their mesenchymal stem cell nature. We propose that dental pulp stem cells isolated by sustained explant culture are phenotypically and functionally comparable to those obtained by enzymatic method. It is a simple, inexpensive and gentle method, which may be preferred over the conventional techniques for obtaining stem cells from other tissue sources as well especially in cases of limited starting material.
Extracellular Matrix Influencing HGF/c-MET Signaling Pathway: Impact on Cancer Progression

The extracellular matrix (ECM) is a crucial component of the tumor microenvironment involved in numerous cellular processes that contribute to cancer progression. It is acknowledged that tumor–stromal cell communication is driven by a complex and dynamic network of cytokines, growth factors and proteases. Thus, the ECM works as a reservoir for bioactive molecules that modulate tumor cell behavior. The hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) produced by tumor and stromal cells acts as a multifunctional cytokine and activates the c-MET receptor, which is expressed in different tumor cell types. The HGF/c-MET signaling pathway is associated with several cellular processes, such as proliferation, survival, motility, angiogenesis, invasion and metastasis. Moreover, c-MET activation can be promoted by several ECM components, including proteoglycans and glycoproteins that act as bridging molecules and/or signal co-receptors. In contrast, c-MET activation can be inhibited by proteoglycans, matricellular proteins and/or proteases that bind and sequester HGF away from the cell surface. Therefore, understanding the effects of ECM components on HGF and c-MET may provide opportunities for novel therapeutic strategies. Here, we give a short overview of how certain ECM components regulate the distribution and activation of HGF and c-MET.
PI3K: A master regulator of brain metastasis‐promoting macrophages/microglia

Mutations and activation of the PI3K signaling pathway in breast cancer cells have been linked to brain metastases. However, here we describe that in some breast cancer brain metastases samples the protein expression of PI3K signaling components is restricted to the metastatic microenvironment. In contrast to the therapeutic effects of PI3K inhibition on the breast cancer cells, the reaction of the brain microenvironment is less understood. Therefore we aimed to quantify the PI3K pathway activity in breast cancer brain metastasis and investigate the effects of PI3K inhibition on the central nervous system (CNS) microenvironment. First, to systematically quantify the PI3K pathway activity in breast cancer brain metastases, we performed a prospective biomarker study using a reverse phase protein array (RPPA). The majority, namely 30 out of 48 (62.5%) brain metastatic tissues examined, revealed high PI3K signaling activity that was associated with a median overall survival (OS) of 9.41 months, while that of patients, whose brain metastases showed only moderate or low PI3K activity, amounted to only 1.93 and 6.71 months, respectively. Second, we identified PI3K as a master regulator of metastasis‐promoting macrophages/microglia during CNS colonization; and treatment with buparlisib (BKM120), a pan‐PI3K Class I inhibitor with a good blood‐brain‐barrier penetrance, reduced their metastasis‐promoting features. In conclusion, PI3K signaling is active in the majority of breast cancer brain metastases. Since PI3K inhibition does not only affect the metastatic cells but also re‐educates the metastasis‐promoting macrophages/microglia, PI3K inhibition may hold considerable promise in the treatment of brain metastasis and the respective microenvironment.
Influence of phytogenics on recovery of the barrier function of intestinal porcine epithelial cells after a calcium switch

Abstract Background The gut barrier is essential for animal health as it prevents the passage of potentially harmful foreign substances. The epithelial tight junctions support the intestinal barrier and can be disrupted by stress caused, for example, by pathogens or dietary or environmental factors, predisposing the host to disease. In animal husbandry, phytogenics (plant‐derived feed additives) are used to support and maintain growth, feed efficiency and health. Therefore, several phytogenics were tested in vitro for their influence on the barrier function recovery of intestinal porcine epithelial cells (IPEC‐J2) after disruption, particularly on the abundance of tight junction proteins. Results IPEC‐J2 treated with 1,000 µg/ml liquorice root extract, 80 µg/ml plant powder mix, or 80 µg/ml angelica root powder showed significantly higher trans‐epithelial electric resistance (TEER) 24 hr after tight junction disruption via a calcium switch assay than the control. In contrast, cells treated with 1,000 µg/ml oak bark extract showed a significantly lower TEER after 6 hr but not at later time points. The increased TEER caused by the liquorice root extract correlated with an increase in the abundance of the tight junction protein claudin‐4. Conclusions This study suggests potential beneficial effects of liquorice and angelica root extracts on the gut barrier function when used as feed additives for livestock. Further studies, especially in vivo, are necessary to confirm these findings.