Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Psychological burden of the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated factors among frontline doctors of Bangladesh: a cross-sectional study.

Background: Frontline doctors are the most vulnerable and high-risk population to get the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection. Hence, we aimed to evaluate the anxiety, depression, sleep disturbance and fear of COVID-19 among frontline doctors of Bangladesh during the pandemic, and the associated factors for these psychological symptoms. Methods: In total, 370 frontline doctors who were involved in the treatment of suspected or confirmed COVID-19 patients during the pandemic took part in an online cross-sectional study. Recruitment was completed using convenience sampling and the data were collected after the start of community transmission of COVID-19 in the country. Anxiety and depression, sleep disturbance, and fear of COVID-19 were assessed by the Patient Health Questionnaire-4, two-item version of the Sleep Condition Indicator, and the Fear of Coronavirus-19 scale, respectively. Socio-demographic information, health service-related information, co-morbidity, and smoking history were collected for evaluating risk factors. The proportion of psychological symptoms were presented using descriptive statistics and the associated factors were identified using multinomial logistic regression analysis. Results: Of the doctors, 36.5% had anxiety, 38.4% had depression, 18.6% had insomnia, and 31.9% had fear of COVID-19. In multinomial logistic regression, inadequate resources in the workplace were found as the single most significant predictor for all psychological outcomes: anxiety and/or depression (severe, OR 3.0, p=0.01; moderate, OR 5.3, p=0.000; mild, OR 2.3, p=0.003), sleep disturbance (moderate, OR 1.9, p=0.02), and fear of COVID-19 (severe, OR 1.9, p=0.03; moderate, OR 1.8, p=0.03). Conclusions: The study demonstrated a high burden of psychological symptoms among frontline doctors of Bangladesh during the COVID-19 pandemic situation. Inadequate resources are contributing to the poor mental health of Bangladeshi doctors. The supply of sufficient resources in workplaces and mental health counseling may help to mitigate the burden of the psychological symptoms identified among the respondents.
Testing and application of ecosystem monitoring parameters

Our research has focused on the design, testing, and application of integrated monitoring programs from a multimedia (air, water, soil, biota) systems approach at several types of study sites. The goals of this paper are: 1) to evaluate selected atmospheric, terrestrial, and aquatic parameters at a high‐elevation site in Wyoming (USA), and 2) to illustrate the use of two of these parameters in the appraisal of aquatic ecosystem health at a biosphere reserve (People's Republic of China) and in the design of a landscape‐scale (over 6500 hectares) study of ecosystem impacts in Pennsylvania (USA). At the Wyoming site, five evaluation criteria were used to assess monitoring parameters: ecosystem conceptual framework, data variability, uncertainty, usability of methods, and cost‐effectiveness. Atmospheric concentrations of nitrates and nitric acid, and stream pH scored lowest overall because of high data variability, high uncertainty, and low cost‐effectiveness. Tropospheric ozone was ranked intermediate on mos.
A systematic review of synthetic tyrosinase inhibitors and their structure-activity relationship

Abstract Tyrosinase is a copper-containing oxidation enzyme, which is responsible for the production of melanin. This enzyme is widely distributed in microorganisms, animals and plants, and plays an essential role in undesirable browning of fruits and vegetables, antibiotic resistance, skin pigment formation, sclerotization of cuticle, neurodegeneration, etc. Hence, it has been recognized as a therapeutic target for the development of antibrowning agents, antibacterial agents, skin-whitening agents, insecticides, and other therapeutic agents. With great potential application in food, agricultural, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries, a large number of synthetic tyrosinase inhibitors have been widely reported in recent years. In this review, we systematically summarized the advances of synthetic tyrosinase inhibitors in the literatures, including their inhibitory activity, cytotoxicity, structure-activity relationship (SAR), inhibition kinetics, and interaction mechanisms with the enzyme. The collected information is expected to provide a rational guidance and effective strategy to develop novel, potent and safe tyrosinase inhibitors for better practical applications in the future.
NCBRPred: predicting nucleic acid binding residues in proteins based on multilabel learning

The interactions between proteins and nucleic acid sequences play many important roles in gene expression and some cellular activities. Accurate prediction of the nucleic acid binding residues in proteins will facilitate the research of the protein functions, gene expression, drug design, etc. In this regard, several computational methods have been proposed to predict the nucleic acid binding residues in proteins. However, these methods cannot satisfactorily measure the global interactions among the residues along protein. Furthermore, these methods are suffering cross-prediction problem, new strategies should be explored to solve this problem. In this study, a new computational method called NCBRPred was proposed to predict the nucleic acid binding residues based on the multilabel sequence labeling model. NCBRPred used the bidirectional Gated Recurrent Units (BiGRUs) to capture the global interactions among the residues, and treats this task as a multilabel learning task. Experimental results on three widely used benchmark datasets and an independent dataset showed that NCBRPred achieved higher predictive results with lower cross-prediction, outperforming 10 existing state-of-the-art predictors. The web-server and a stand-alone package of NCBRPred are freely available at http://bliulab.net/NCBRPred. It is anticipated that NCBRPred will become a very useful tool for identifying nucleic acid binding residues.
Therapies for Genetic Forms of Parkinson’s Disease: Systematic Literature Review

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a disabling neurological condition characterized by the loss of dopaminergic neurons. Currently, the treatment for PD is symptomatic and compensates for the endogenous loss of dopamine production. In cases where the pharmacological therapy is only partly beneficial or results in major wearing-off complications, surgical interventions such as deep brain stimulation may be an alternative treatment. The disease cause often remains unknown, but in some patients, a monogenic cause can be identified. Mutations in at least six genes, LRRK2, SNCA, and VPS35 (dominant forms) or Parkin/PRKN, PINK1, and DJ1/PARK7 (recessive forms) have been unequivocally linked to PD pathogenesis. We here systematically screened 8,576 publications on these monogenic PD forms. We identified 2,226 mutation carriers from 456 papers. Levodopa was the most widely applied treatment; only 34 patients were indicated to be untreated at the time of reporting. Notably, detailed treatment data was rarely mentioned including response quantification (good, moderate, minimal) in 951 and/or dose in 293 patients only. Based on available data, levodopa showed an overall good outcome, especially in LRRK2, VPS35, Parkin, and PINK1 mutation carriers (“good” response in 94.6–100%). Side effects of levodopa therapy were reported in ∼15–40%of levodopa-treated patients across genes with dyskinesias as the most frequent one. Non-levodopa medication was indicated to be administered to <200 patients with mainly good outcome. Only a few reports were available on outcomes of brain surgery. Here, most mutation carriers showed a good response. Importantly, none of the available treatments is harmful to one genetic form but effective in another one. In the light of different medication schemes, the progressive nature of PD, and side effects, an improvement of therapeutic options for PD is warranted including a treatabolome database to guide clinicians in treatment decisions. Further, novel disease-cause-modifying drugs are needed.
Large-scale regulatory and signaling network assembly through linked open data

Abstract Huge efforts are currently underway to address the organization of biological knowledge through linked open databases. These databases can be automatically queried to reconstruct regulatory and signaling networks. However, assembling networks implies manual operations due to source-specific identification of biological entities and relationships, multiple life-science databases with redundant information and the difficulty of recovering logical flows in biological pathways. We propose a framework based on Semantic Web technologies to automate the reconstruction of large-scale regulatory and signaling networks in the context of tumor cells modeling and drug screening. The proposed tool is pyBRAvo (python Biological netwoRk Assembly), and here we have applied it to a dataset of 910 gene expression measurements issued from liver cancer patients. The tool is publicly available at https://github.com/pyBRAvo/pyBRAvo.
Design of Highly Dense Boron Nitride by the Combination of Spray-Pyrolysis of Borazine and Additive-Free Sintering of Derived Ultrafine Powders

Ultrafine boron nitride (B1.0N0.9) powders have been prepared by the spray-pyrolysis of borazine and then used to explore their potentialities to form three-dimensional boron nitride (B1.0N∼1.0) by additive-free conventional sintering. Complete characterization of the B1.0N0. 9 powders by SEM, HRTEM, X-ray diffraction (XRD), infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and Raman demonstrated that samples form elementary blocks containing slightly agglomerated nanocrystalline particles with sizes ranging from 55 to 120 nm. On the basis of the BET specific surface area (SSA; 34.6 ± 0.7 m2 g−1) and the helium density of powders (d = 1.95 ± 0.02 g cm−3), an average particle size (APS) of 89 nm has been calculated. Ultrafine B1.0N0. 9 powders were successfully used to design microstructured disk-shaped boron nitride materials with a very high relative density (96.3%), a homogeneous microstructure, and an average hardness throughout the cross-section of 8 HV (78 MPa) at a temperature (1840 °C) lower than those currently applied.
EIF3B promotes cancer progression in pancreatic cancer

Abstract Background This study aimed to analyze the relative expression of Eukaryotic Translation Initiation Factor 3 Subunit B (EIF3B) in pancreatic cancer and elucidate its contribution to this disease. Methods Relative expression of EIF3B in pancreatic cancer was analyzed by immunohistochemistry. Cell viability was determined by the MTT assay and cell proliferation was measured by direct cell counting. Cell apoptosis was detected by Annexin V staining followed by flow cytometry analysis, and cell cycle was analyzed by PI staining. The differential expression gene analysis was performed by microarray. Tumor progression in response to EIF3B deficiency in vivo was investigated using the xenograft tumor model. Results We found aberrantly high expression of EIF3B in pancreatic cancer, which associated with unfavorable prognosis. Knockdown of EIF3B greatly compromised cell viability and proliferation in both SW1990 and PANC-1 cells. Furthermore, EIF3B deficiency induced cell cycle arrest and spontaneous apoptosis. In vivo tumor progression was significantly suppressed by EIF3B silencing in the xenograft mouse model. Mechanistically, we characterized down-regulation of CDH1 and IRS1 and up-regulation of DDIT3, PTEN and CDKN1B, in response to EIF3B knockdown, which might mediate the oncogenic effect of EIF3B in pancreatic cancer. Conclusions Our data uncovered the oncogenic role of EIF3B in pancreatic cancer.
Acetylcholinesterase inhibitory activity from Amaryllis belladonna growing in Chile: enzymatic and molecular docking studies

Abstract Alkaloid profiles from Amaryllis belladonna plants collected in Chile were examined by GC-MS to assess their inhibitory activity on acetylcholinesterase (AChE) using in vitro and in silico methodologies. The alkaloid extract was roughly separated by column chromatography on silica gel. AChE inhibitory activities from extracts and purified alkaloids were tested by the Ellman method and a molecular docking study was performed to assess the interaction between AChE and purified alkaloids. Sixteen alkaloids were found from hexane and chloroform extracts, and three were isolated and identified as buphanidrine, acetylcaranine and lycorine. Chloroform extract showed the greatest AChE inhibitory activity with IC50 value 8.89 µg/mL, whereas buphanidrine exhibited the highest inhibitory activity, with IC50 value 17.56 µg/mL. Inhibition kinetics showed that buphanidrine acts as a mixed inhibitor and molecular docking supports this inhibition mechanism. Overall, our study supports the potential use of A. belladonna as an alkaloid source with AChE inhibitory activity.
Enhanced Lithium Absorption in Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes by Boron Doping

The lithium absorption energies and electronic structures of the boron-doped single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) were investigated using the first-principles calculations. The lithium absorption energies in the B-doped SWCNTs are large negative values, compared with those in the pure SWCNT, whether Li is absorbed at inner sites or at outer sites of the tube walls. The B doping forms an electron-deficient structure in SWCNT, which can effectively accept the electrons from the absorbed Li and stabilize the Li absorption on the tube wall. The calculation results suggest that enhanced Li absorption capability in the B-doped SWCNT should be expected.
Damage Tolerance and Toughness of Elderly Human Femora

Observations of elastic instability of trabecular bone cores supported the analysis of cortical thickness for predicting bone fragility of the hip in people over 60 years of age. Here, we falsified the hypothesis that elastic instability causes minimal energy fracture by analyzing with a micrometric resolution the deformation and fracture behavior of entire femora. Femur specimens were obtained from elderly women aged between 66 - 80 years. Microstructural images of the proximal femur where obtained under 3 - 5 progressively increased loading steps and after fracture. Bone displacements, strain, load bearing and energy absorption capacity were analyzed. Elastic instability of the cortex appeared at early loading stages in regions of peak compression. No elastic instability of trabecular bone was observed. The subchondral bone displayed local crushing in compression at early loading steps and progressed to 8 - 16% compression before fracture. The energy absorption capacity was proportional to the displacement. Stiffness decreased to near-zero values before fracture. Three-fourth of the fracture energy (10.2 - 20.2 J) was dissipated in the final 25% force increment. Fracture occurred in regions of peak tension and shear, adjacent to the location of peak compression, appearing immediately before fracture. Minimal permanent deformation was visible along the fracture surface. Elastic instability modulates the interaction between cortical and trabecular bone promoting an elastically stable fracture behavior of the femur organ, load bearing capacity, toughness, and damage tolerance. These findings will advance current methods for predicting hip fragility.
Spontaneous coronary artery dissection with cardiogenic shock: How frequent is it? How should we treat it?

Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection (SCAD) may represent 1–2% of all STEMI and 20–25% of STEMI in women <50. Cardiogenic shock is relatively low (2–3%) in the overall SCAD population but may occur in up to 25% of SCAD patients with STEMI. The ideal treatment for a SCAD patient with cardiogenic shock requires thoughtful patient specific‐management decisions in regards to both the choice of revascularization and the choice of mechanical circulatory support. When treated appropriately these patients have excellent long‐term outcome, with mortality lower than STEMI or cardiogenic shock related to atherosclerosis.
Baseline characteristics of a nationwide cohort of pediatric patients with acute leukemias of Down syndrome.

PURPOSE Down syndrome (DS) or trisomy 21, brings together some unique aspects from clinical pediatrics. Among the hematological disorders present in DS, by far the most important is the predisposition for developing acute leukemia. Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) of DS has a preleukemic state with the onset in the neonatal period, rarely symptomatic but with the presence of blasts in peripheral blood smear and apparently a spontaneous remission. The unique tumor profile of DS underlines the importance of chromosome 21 in hematopoiesis and it can help understanding leukemogenesis in general. The purpose of this study was to present the very rare cases with DS and transient leukemia and/or acute leukemia that were found in a nationwide survey of Romania, in three centers of pediatric hematology and oncology. METHODS A nationwide analysis of the very rare cases of transient leukemia of DS are described, involving the three major pediatric hematology centers of Romania: Cluj Napoca, Bucharest and Timisoara. Data analysis was performed using R 3.5. 3. Categorical variables were presented as absolute value (percent). Contingency tables were analyzed using the Fisher test. Normality of the distribution was assessed using the Shapiro test and histogram visualization, but also took into consideration the sample size. Non-normally distributed variables were presented as median (quartile 1, quartile 3). Wilcoxon test was used to determine the differences between two non-normally distributed groups. A p value under 0.05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS It appears that the more aggressive entity at presentation is represented by CD45 positive leukemia, which is the more frequent of the myeloid lineage and has lower counts at diagnosis. CONCLUSION We address this manuscript to pediatricians and neonatologists in order to emphasize the importance of diagnosing hematological disorders in children with DS, especially neonates, even if they are asymptomatic.
In situ vaccination with nanoparticles for cancer immunotherapy: understanding the immunology

Abstract FDA approval of anti-CTLA4 in 2011 for melanoma immunotherapy was paradigm shifting and dramatically accelerated cancer immunotherapy research. The investment and effort have been exceptionally large, with a commensurate impressive pace of discovery. Historical and current research has validated the following key points: tumors are recognized by the immune system; tumors develop an immunosuppressive environment which suppresses the antitumor immune response; successful immunotherapy must overcome that tumor-mediated immunosuppression. While cancer immunotherapy research expanded, a parallel effort developing nanoparticles (NP) for cancer diagnosis and therapy also received major investment and expanded. Initially the two efforts appeared to have minimal synergy. Systemically administered nanoparticles are rapidly ingested by phagocytic leukocytes, and therefore nanotechnologists developed strategies to avoid NP ingestion by leukocytes in order to accomplish nanoparticle accumulation in tumors rather than liver and spleen. Recently, nanotechnology and cancer immunotherapy have increasingly merged since phagocytic leukocytes are the key to reversing the local tumor immunosuppression and the tendency of NP to be phagocytosed can be exploited to manipulate phagocytes for immunotherapy. This review focuses on in situ vaccination (ISV), an immunotherapy approach that can utilize direct injection of immunostimulatory reagents, including NPs, into tumors to disrupt the local immunosuppression, stimulate effective immune response against the treated tumor, and most importantly, generate a systemic antitumor immune response to eliminate metastatic tumors. While there are many specific options for using NP for ISV (reviewed further in this special issue), this review focuses on immunology concepts needed to understand and design successful NP ISV approaches.
An Experimental and Modelling Study of Particulate Formation in Premixed Flames Burning Methane

In this article we present an experimental and modeling study of Organic Carbon (OC) particles, with a typical size range of 1–10 nm, and soot particles, with sizes in the range 10–100 nm, formed in premixed methane flames at atmospheric pressure. An optical diagnostic method based on the interaction of an ultraviolet source, corresponding to the fifth harmonic of a Nd:YAG laser, with combustion-generated aerosols was used in order to measure the concentration profiles of both OC and soot particles with high spatial resolution. The high energy of the selected harmonic induces fluorescence from aromatic chromophoric groups and also allows soot particles to heat up and emit incandescent radiation. Optical measurements data are compared with numerical modeling simulations. The experimental data, in agreement with the model results, show that methane burned in slightly rich conditions forms prevalently organic particulate with mean size lower than 10 nm, while soot formation is observable only in very rich conditions.
Meeting Hydrologic and Water Quality Goals through Targeted Bioretention Design

AbstractBioretention is one of the most commonly used stormwater control measures (SCMs) in North America and Australasia. However, current design is not targeted to regulatory need, often reflecting an outdated understanding of how and why bioretention works. The purpose of this manuscript is to synthesize research to recommend a suite of design standards focused on the purpose of bioretention SCM. Both hydrologic (peak flow mitigation, infiltration, annual hydrology, and stream stability) and water quality [total suspended solids (TSS) and particulates, pathogen-indicator species, metals, hydrocarbons, phosphorus, nitrogen, and temperature] regulatory and stream ecology needs are addressed. Bioretention cells designed to meet a prioritized subset of those measures would be substantially different than cells that are designed for a different subset of needs. Designers have the ability to adjust bowl volume, media composition, media depth, underdrainage configuration, and vegetation type. This study exami.
The Fragility of Temporal Memory in Alzheimer's Disease.

BACKGROUND Although episodic memory impairment is one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease (AD), the relative decline in the components of episodic memory (What, Where, and When) and the effects of cognitive training on each of them are still unknown. OBJECTIVE We aimed to independently assess the impairment in each component of episodic memory in early to moderate AD and address whether it can be enhanced through active, spatiotemporal episodic training. METHODS A non-verbal scene-based episodic memory task was developed to assess the ability to remember What, Where, and When information. Experiment 1 tested whether this task can differentiate AD subjects (N = 16) from healthy controls (N = 16). In Experiment 2, 13 AD subjects underwent 16 training sessions, followed by a re-administration of the scene-based memory task. Experiment 3 tested 42 healthy older adults and 51 younger adults on the same task to investigate the effects of normal aging. RESULTS Of the three components, When memory had the highest predictive power in distinguishing AD from normal aging. Following training of AD subjects, only Where memory improved. Only What memory revealed a significant decline in healthy subjects from 65-85 years of age. CONCLUSION These findings shed new light on the importance of the temporal component of episodic memory as a behavioral marker of AD. The selective improvement of spatial but not temporal memory through training further demonstrates the fragility of temporal memory even in early AD. Neuroscientific research is needed to distinguish whether the Where component was enhanced by improvements in hippocampal spatial representation or by other compensatory mechanisms.