Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
SYNCRIP, a new player in pri-let-7a processing

microRNAs (miRNAs), a class of small and endogenous molecules that control gene expression, are broadly involved in biological processes. Although a number of cofactors that assist or antagonize let-7 miRNA biogenesis are well-established, more auxiliary factors remain to be investigated. Here, we identified SYNCRIP (Synaptotagmin Binding Cytoplasmic RNA Interacting Protein) as a new player for let-7a miRNA. SYNCRIP interacts with pri-let-7a both in vivo and in vitro. Knockdown of SYNCRIP impairs, while overexpression of SYNCRIP promotes, the expression of let-7a miRNA. A broad miRNA profiling analysis revealed that silencing of SYNCRIP regulates the expression of a set of mature miRNAs positively or negatively. In addition, SYNCRIP is associated with microprocessor complex and promotes the processing of pri-let-7a. Strikingly, the terminal loop of pri-let-7a was shown to be the main contributor for its interaction with SYNCRIP. Functional studies demonstrated that the SYNCRIP RRM2–3 domain can promote the processing of pri-let-7a. Structure-based alignment of RRM2–3 with other RNA binding proteins identified the residues likely to participate in protein–RNA interactions. Taken together, these findings suggest the promising role that SYNCRIP plays in miRNA regulation, thus providing insights into the function of SYNCRIP in eukaryotic development.
Smartphone Location Recognition: A Deep Learning-Based Approach

One of the approaches for indoor positioning using smartphones is pedestrian dead reckoning. There, the user step length is estimated using empirical or biomechanical formulas. Such calculation was shown to be very sensitive to the smartphone location on the user. In addition, knowledge of the smartphone location can also help for direct step-length estimation and heading determination. In a wider point of view, smartphone location recognition is part of human activity recognition employed in many fields and applications, such as health monitoring. In this paper, we propose to use deep learning approaches to classify the smartphone location on the user, while walking, and require robustness in terms of the ability to cope with recordings that differ (in sampling rate, user dynamics, sensor type, and more) from those available in the train dataset. The contributions of the paper are: (1) Definition of the smartphone location recognition framework using accelerometers, gyroscopes, and deep learning; (2) examine the proposed approach on 107 people and 31 h of recorded data obtained from eight different datasets; and (3) enhanced algorithms for using only accelerometers for the classification process. The experimental results show that the smartphone location can be classified with high accuracy using only the smartphone’s accelerometers.
Recent Progress of Miniature MEMS Pressure Sensors

Miniature Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) pressure sensors possess various merits, such as low power consumption, being lightweight, having a small volume, accurate measurement in a space-limited region, low cost, little influence on the objects being detected. Accurate blood pressure has been frequently required for medical diagnosis. Miniature pressure sensors could directly measure the blood pressure and fluctuation in blood vessels with an inner diameter from 200 to 1000 μm. Glaucoma is a group of eye diseases usually resulting from abnormal intraocular pressure. The implantable pressure sensor for real-time inspection would keep the disease from worsening; meanwhile, these small devices could alleviate the discomfort of patients. In addition to medical applications, miniature pressure sensors have also been used in the aerospace, industrial, and consumer electronics fields. To clearly illustrate the “miniature size”, this paper focuses on miniature pressure sensors with an overall size of less than 2 mm × 2 mm or a pressure sensitive diaphragm area of less than 1 mm × 1 mm. In this paper, firstly, the working principles of several types of pressure sensors are briefly introduced. Secondly, the miniaturization with the development of the semiconductor processing technology is discussed. Thirdly, the sizes, performances, manufacturing processes, structures, and materials of small pressure sensors used in the different fields are explained in detail, especially in the medical field. Fourthly, problems encountered in the miniaturization of miniature pressure sensors are analyzed and possible solutions proposed. Finally, the probable development directions of miniature pressure sensors in the future are discussed.
Relationship of Late Lactation Milk Somatic Cell Count and Cathelicidin with Intramammary Infection in Small Ruminants

Late lactation is a critical moment for making mastitis management decisions, but in small ruminants the reliability of diagnostic tests is typically lower at this stage. We evaluated somatic cell counts (SCC) and cathelicidins (CATH) in late lactation sheep and goat milk for their relationship with intramammary infections (IMI), as diagnosed by bacteriological culture (BC). A total of 315 sheep and 223 goat half-udder milk samples collected in the last month of lactation were included in the study. IMI prevalence was 10.79% and 15.25%, respectively, and non-aureus staphylococci were the most common finding. Taking BC as a reference, the diagnostic performance of SCC and CATH was quite different in the two species. In sheep, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis produced a higher area under the curve (AUC) value for CATH than SCC (0.9041 versus 0.8829, respectively). Accordingly, CATH demonstrated a higher specificity than SCC (82.92% versus 73.67%, respectively) at comparable sensitivity (91.18%). Therefore, CATH showed a markedly superior diagnostic performance than SCC in late lactation sheep milk. In goats, AUC was <0.67 for both parameters, and CATH was less specific than SCC (61.90% versus 65.08%) at comparable sensitivity (64.71%). Therefore, both CATH and SCC performed poorly in late lactation goats. In conclusion, sheep can be screened for mastitis at the end of lactation, while goats should preferably be tested at peak lactation. In late lactation sheep, CATH should be preferred over SCC for its higher specificity, but careful cost/benefit evaluations will have to be made.
Proteomic Analyses Reveal New Insights on the Antimicrobial Mechanisms of Chitosan Biopolymers and Their Nanosized Particles against Escherichia coli

The well-known antimicrobial effects of chitosan (CS) polymers make them a promising adjuvant in enhancing antibiotic effectiveness against human pathogens. However, molecular CS antimicrobial mechanisms remain unclear, despite the insights presented in the literature. Thus, the aim of the present study was to depict the molecular effects implicated in the interaction of low or medium molecular mass CS polymers and their nanoparticle-counterparts against Escherichia coli. The differential E. coli proteomes sensitized to either CS polymers or nanoparticles were investigated by nano liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (micro-LC-MS/MS). A total of 127 proteins differentially expressed in CS-sensitized bacteria were predominantly involved in (i) structural functions associated to the stability of outer membrane, (ii) increment of protein biosynthesis due to high abundance of ribosomal proteins and (iii) activation of biosynthesis of amino acid and purine metabolism pathways. Antibacterial activity of CS polymers/nanoparticles seems to be triggered by the outer bacterial membrane disassembly, leading to increased protein biosynthesis by diverting the metabolic flux to amino acid and purine nucleotides supply. Understanding CS-antibacterial molecular effects can be valuable to optimize the use of CS-based nanomaterials in food decontamination, and may represent a breakthrough on CS nanocapsules-drug delivery devices for novel antibiotics, as the chitosan-disassembly of bacteria cell membranes can potentialize antibiotic effects.
Erratum

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GM-Improved Antiaging Effect of Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene in Different Thermal Environments

A stabilizer called 2-tert-butyl-6-(3-tert-butyl-2-hydroxy-5-methylbenzyl)-4-methylphenyl acrylate (GM) was mixed in acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) with the same amount of 9-bis(octadecyloxy)-2,4,8,10-tetraoxa-3,9-diphosphaspiro[5.5]undecane (DSPDP), octadecyl-3-(3,5-di-tert-butyl-4-hydroxyphenyl) propionate (Irganox 1076) and tris(3,5-di-tert-butyl-4-hydroxybenzyl) isocyanurate (Irganox 3114) to investigate the influence of additives on the antiaging effect of ABS in oven aging or repeated extrusion aging. It was found that the ABS doped with the GM stabilizer showed a better yellowing resistance and thermal stability than the ABS doped with other antioxidants. Owing to the fact that the stabilizer can act on the free radicals before it has been peroxidized, it could trap the free radicals as a consequence of directly blocking the oxidation process of the active species, thus solving the problem of oxidative degradation of the materials from the source. This work provides guidance for improving thermal stability of ABS, indicating a promising potential for industrial application.
MRI Based Radiomics Approach With Deep Learning for Prediction of Vessel Invasion in Early-Stage Cervical Cancer

This article aims to build deep learning-based radiomic methods in differentiating vessel invasion from non-vessel invasion in cervical cancer with multi-parametric MRI data. A set of 1,070 dynamic T1 contrast-enhanced (DCE-T1) and 986 T2 weighted imaging (T2WI) MRI images from 167 early-stage cervical cancer patients (January 2014 - August 2018) were used to train and validate deep learning models. Predictive performances were evaluated using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and confusion matrix analysis, with the DCE-T1 showing more discriminative results than T2WI MRI. By adopting an attention ensemble learning strategy that integrates both MRI sequences, the highest average area was obtained under the ROC curve (AUC) of 0.911 (Sensitivity <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$= 0.881$</tex-math><alternatives><mml:math><mml:mrow><mml:mo>=</mml:mo><mml:mn>0</mml:mn><mml:mo>.</mml:mo><mml:mn>881</mml:mn></mml:mrow></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="jiang-ieq1-2963867.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula> and Specificity <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$= 0.752$</tex-math><alternatives><mml:math><mml:mrow><mml:mo>=</mml:mo><mml:mn>0</mml:mn><mml:mo>.</mml:mo><mml:mn>752</mml:mn></mml:mrow></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="jiang-ieq2-2963867.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula>). The superior performances in this article, when compared to existing radiomic methods, indicate that a wealth of deep learning-based radiomics could be developed to aid radiologists in preoperatively predicting vessel invasion in cervical cancer patients.
Quantitative flow ratio-guided surgical intervention in symptomatic myocardial bridging.

BACKGROUND Patients with myocardial bridging (MB) are associated with adverse cardiovascular events, but a decision to perform surgical intervention, especially for patients with systolic intermediate stenosis, is a difficult clinical issue. Fractional flow reserve (FFR) represents a novel method for the functional evaluation of coronary stenosis, but the relationship between FFR and MB remains controversial because of the cyclic dynamic stenosis of MB. Quantitative flow ratio (QFR) is a novel index allowing fast assessment of FFR from a diagnostic coronary angiography. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between QFR and MB patients and to further develop a prediction model of QFR-guided surgical intervention for these patients. METHODS Forty-five symptomatic lone MB patients who had undergone coronary angiography were consecutively enrolled in this study. MB was located in the middle of left anterior descending artery with intermediate stenosis during systole. The patients were retrospectively divided into a medical therapy group or a surgical therapy group. Systolic geometry based QFR (SG-QFR) and diastolic geometry based QFR (DG-QFR) were calculated based on three-dimensional quantitative coronary angiography (QCA) and patient-specific flow velocity. Subsequently, time-averaged QFR (TA-QFR) is defined as the average of SG-QFR and DG-QFR. RESULTS Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis revealed that TA-QFR was found to be the best pre-operative index for surgical intervention to MB, when compared with DG-QFR and SG-QFR. CONCLUSIONS TA-QFR improved the performance of functional evaluation in MB patients with intermediate stenosis during systole and is useful for guiding surgical intervention.
Which Bayley-III cut-off values should be used in different developmental levels?

Background/aim Latest version of Bayley Scales (Bayley-III) and its predecessor (BSID-II) are the most widely used standardized developmental tools in infancy and early childhood. Recent studies showed that Bayley-III scores were higher than BSID-II in 18–24 month-old and mostly premature infants. We aimed to evaluate the generalization of inflated scores of Bayley-III to children aged 6–42 months with different disease groups, and to find out which cut-off points should be used in Bayley-III to detect mild, moderate, and severe developmental delay according to BSID-II standard cut-off points. Materials and methods Two hundred and fifty-five children aged 6–42 months with different diseases and developmental levels were administered both the Bayley-III and BSID-II in the same session between 15 November 2017 and 15 April 2018. Results The mean Bayley-III Cognitive Composite (CC) and Cognitive Language Composite (CLC) scores were respectively 13.1 ± 9.1 and 8.6 ± 8 points higher than BSID-II Mental Development Index (MDI) scores (P < 0.001). The mean Bayley-III Motor Composite (MC) scores were 14.4 ± 10.5 points higher than BSID-II Psychomotor Developmental Index (PDI) scores (P < 0.001). Cognitive delay was found in 126 (49.4%) and 59 (23.1%) children according to BSID-II MDI and Bayley-III CC scores, respectively. Motor delay was found in 174 (69.3%) and 86 (34.3%) children according to the BSID-II PDI and Bayley-III MC scores, respectively. Children had less cognitive (48.6%) and motor delay (54.5%) according to Bayley-III scores. Bayley-III scores were significantly higher than BSID-II scores for all ages (P < 0.001). According to ROC analysis the cut-off scores for mild, moderate, and severe delay were 92.5, 83.2, and 71.2 for Bayley-III CLC; and 98.5, 86.5, and 74.5 for Bayley-III MC, respectively. Conclusion Bayley-III scores should be interpreted carefully for all age ranges and different diagnosis. The risk for underestimation of developmental delays by Bayley-III should be kept in mind. Different Bayley-III cut-off scores should be used to define developmental delay levels.
Iron and Sphingolipids as Common Players of (Mal)Adaptation to Hypoxia in Pulmonary Diseases

Hypoxia, or lack of oxygen, can occur in both physiological (high altitude) and pathological conditions (respiratory diseases). In this narrative review, we introduce high altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE), acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), and Cystic Fibrosis (CF) as examples of maladaptation to hypoxia, and highlight some of the potential mechanisms influencing the prognosis of the affected patients. Among the specific pathways modulated in response to hypoxia, iron metabolism has been widely explored in recent years. Recent evidence emphasizes hepcidin as highly involved in the compensatory response to hypoxia in healthy subjects. A less investigated field in the adaptation to hypoxia is the sphingolipid (SPL) metabolism, especially through Ceramide and sphingosine 1 phosphate. Both individually and in concert, iron and SPL are active players of the (mal)adaptation to physiological hypoxia, which can result in the pathological HAPE. Our aim is to identify some pathways and/or markers involved in the physiological adaptation to low atmospheric pressures (high altitudes) that could be involved in pathological adaptation to hypoxia as it occurs in pulmonary inflammatory diseases. Hepcidin, Cer, S1P, and their interplay in hypoxia are raising growing interest both as prognostic factors and therapeutical targets.
Recent Advances on the Anti-Inflammatory and Antioxidant Properties of Red Grape Polyphenols: In Vitro and In Vivo Studies

In this review, special emphasis will be placed on red grape polyphenols for their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities. Therefore, their capacity to inhibit major pathways responsible for activation of oxidative systems and expression and release of proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines will be discussed. Furthermore, regulation of immune cells by polyphenols will be illustrated with special reference to the activation of T regulatory cells which support a tolerogenic pathway at intestinal level. Additionally, the effects of red grape polyphenols will be analyzed in obesity, as a low-grade systemic inflammation. Also, possible modifications of inflammatory bowel disease biomarkers and clinical course have been studied upon polyphenol administration, either in animal models or in clinical trials. Moreover, the ability of polyphenols to cross the blood–brain barrier has been exploited to investigate their neuroprotective properties. In cancer, polyphenols seem to exert several beneficial effects, even if conflicting data are reported about their influence on T regulatory cells. Finally, the effects of polyphenols have been evaluated in experimental models of allergy and autoimmune diseases. Conclusively, red grape polyphenols are endowed with a great antioxidant and anti-inflammatory potential but some issues, such as polyphenol bioavailability, activity of metabolites, and interaction with microbiota, deserve deeper studies.
Comparative Evaluation of Essential Oils from Medicinal-Aromatic Plants of Greece: Chemical Composition, Antioxidant Capacity and Antimicrobial Activity against Bacterial Fish Pathogens

The administration of antibiotics in aquaculture has raised concern about the impact of their overuse in marine ecosystems, seafood safety and consumers’ health. This “green consumerism” has forced researchers to find new alternatives against fish pathogens. The present study focused on 12 Mediterranean medicinal-aromatic plants as potential antimicrobials and antioxidant agents that could be used in fish aquaculture. In vitro assays showed that the essential oils (EOs) from all studied plants had anti-bacterial and antioxidant properties, with their efficacy being dependent on their chemical composition. More specifically, EOs rich in carvacrol, p-cymene and γ-terpinene exhibited not only the strongest inhibitory activity against the growth of bacterial pathogens (inhibitory concentration: 26–88 μg mL−1), but also the greatest total antioxidant capacity (ABTS: 2591–5879 μmole mL−1; CUPRAC: 931–2733 μmole mL−1). These compounds were mainly found in the EOs from Greek oregano (Origanum vulgare subsp. hirtum), Spanish oregano (Thymbra capitata) and savoury (Satureja thymbra) collected from cultivations in Greece. The specific EOs stand out as promising candidates for the treatment of bacterial diseases and oxidative stress in farmed fish. Further in vivo experiments are needed to fully understand the effects of EO dietary supplementation on fish farming processes.
Carbonic Anhydrase IX—Mouse versus Human

In contrast to human carbonic anhydrase IX (hCA IX) that has been extensively studied with respect to its molecular and functional properties as well as regulation and expression, the mouse ortholog has been investigated primarily in relation to tissue distribution and characterization of CA IX-deficient mice. Thus, no data describing transcriptional regulation and functional properties of the mouse CA IX (mCA IX) have been published so far, despite its evident potential as a biomarker/target in pre-clinical animal models of tumor hypoxia. Here, we investigated for the first time, the transcriptional regulation of the Car9 gene with a detailed description of its promoter. Moreover, we performed a functional analysis of the mCA IX protein focused on pH regulation, cell–cell adhesion, and migration. Finally, we revealed an absence of a soluble extracellular form of mCA IX and provided the first experimental evidence of mCA IX presence in exosomes. In conclusion, though the protein characteristics of hCA IX and mCA IX are highly similar, and the transcription of both genes is predominantly governed by hypoxia, some attributes of transcriptional regulation are specific for either human or mouse and as such, could result in different tissue expression and data interpretation.
Low Back Pain as a Risk Factor for Recurrent Falls in People With Knee Osteoarthritis

Knee osteoarthritis (OA) has been suggested to increase the risk of falls. Low back pain (LBP) is a potential risk factor for falls in people with knee OA, but this issue has not been addressed adequately in previous studies. The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between LBP and falls in people with knee OA in a 12‐month period.