Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bilateral carotid webs

Carotid web is thought to be a focal intimal variant of fibromuscular dysplasia, which comprises a high risk of stroke because of blood stasis and subsequent coagulative reactions that occur distal to the web. These lesions generally involve the posterolateral wall of the carotid and their developmental pathogenesis is controversial. This case report describes a 51-year-old woman who presented to the hospital with sudden onset aphasia, right hemi-sensory loss, and right visual field cut. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain demonstrated a left middle cerebral artery (MCA) distribution embolic ischemic infarct with shelf-like linear filling defects in the carotid bulb bilaterally on a computed tomography angiography (CTA) of the head and neck consistent with bilateral carotid webs that were confirmed by catheter angiography. The carotid webs were projecting on the left posteriorly and on the right anteriorly into the inferior aspects of the bilateral proximal internal carotid arteries. The patient was started on clopidogrel and a high-intensity statin and remained on Plavix monotherapy for a 10-month follow up without a recurrent ischemic event.
New insight in cereal starch degradation: identification and structural characterization of four α-amylases in bread wheat

Abstract Grain α-amylase presents an apparent paradox for the wheat community. Despite the necessity of α-amylase for the seed germination process, high levels of amylase activity in the grain are considered detrimental for grain quality. Wheat α-amylases (EC 3.2.1.1) are endohydrolases belonging to the GH13_6 subfamily, one of the most studied subclasses of glycoside hydrolase (GH) family GH13. However, no comprehensive study had been done so far to describe and catalogue all the wheat α-amylase isoforms, despite compelling information on the involvement of two α-amylases on economically important issues for the international cereal community, namely pre-harvest sprouting and late maturity α-amylase. This study describes for the first time the genomic localization, nucleotide and amino acid sequences, phylogeny and expression profile of all known α-amylases in wheat, including a hitherto unknown fourth isoform here designated as TaAMY4. Isoform profiling strongly suggested α-amylases to be working in partnership to achieve complete degradation of a starch granule, whereas expression profiling revealed a potential involvement of TaAMY4 in the late maturity α-amylase problem.
HDAC1 SUMOylation promotes Argonaute-directed transcriptional silencing in C. elegans

Eukaryotic cells use guided search to coordinately control dispersed genetic elements. Argonaute proteins and their small RNA cofactors engage nascent RNAs and chromatin-associated proteins to direct transcriptional silencing. The small ubiquitin-like modifier (SUMO) has been shown to promote the formation and maintenance of silent chromatin (called heterochromatin) in yeast, plants, and animals. Here, we show that Argonaute-directed transcriptional silencing in Caenorhabditis elegans requires SUMOylation of the type 1 histone deacetylase HDA-1. Our findings suggest how SUMOylation promotes the association of HDAC1 with chromatin remodeling factors and with a nuclear Argonaute to initiate de novo heterochromatin silencing.
Testing P-Technique Factor Analysis With Non-Normal Time Series

Abstract There is an increasing need to analyze multivariate time series data due to the rapid development of data collection tools such as smartphone APPs, wearable sensors, and brain imaging techniques. P-technique factor analysis allows researchers to establish a measurement model for these time series. Analyzing such data is challenging because they are often non-normal (e.g., steps, heart rate, sleep, mood, and brain signals) and correlated at nearby time points. We propose using a bootstrap procedure to accommodate both the non-normality and the dependency of nearby time points. We explore the statistical properties with simulated data and illustrate the test with two empirical data sets. The results of the simulation study include (1) the bootstrap procedure performed better than an existing analytic procedure for time series data with excessive kurtosis (2) an existing analytic procedure performed better than the bootstrap procedure for normal time series and skewed time series.
Post-translational flavinylation is associated with diverse extracytosolic redox functionalities throughout bacterial life

Disparate redox activities that take place beyond the bounds of the prokaryotic cell cytosol must connect to membrane or cytosolic electron pools. Proteins post-translationally flavinylated by the enzyme ApbE mediate electron transfer in several characterized extracytosolic redox systems but the breadth of functions of this modification remains unknown. Here we present a comprehensive bioinformatic analysis of 31,910 prokaryotic genomes that provides evidence of extracytosolic ApbEs within ~50% of bacteria and the involvement of flavinylation in numerous uncharacterized biochemical processes. By mining flavinylation-associated gene clusters, we identify five protein classes responsible for transmembrane electron transfer and two domains of unknown function (DUF2271 and DUF3570) that are flavinylated by ApbE. We observe flavinylation/iron transporter gene colocalization patterns that implicate functions in iron reduction and assimilation. We find associations with characterized and uncharacterized respiratory oxidoreductases that highlight roles of flavinylation in respiratory electron transport chains. Finally, we identify interspecies gene cluster variability consistent with flavinylation/cytochrome functional redundancies and discover a class of “multi-flavinylated proteins'' that may resemble multiheme cytochromes in facilitating longer distance electron transfer. These findings provide key mechanistic insight into an important facet of bacterial physiology and establish flavinylation as a functionally diverse mediator of extracytosolic electron transfer. Impact Statement Bioinformatic and biochemical studies find that covalently bound flavins are common and participate in wide-ranging extracytosolic redox activities throughout bacterial life.
scRNA-seq analysis of colon and esophageal tumors uncovers abundant microbial reads in myeloid cells undergoing proinflammatory transcriptional alterations

The study of the tumor microbiome has been garnering increased attention. We developed a computational pipeline (CSI-Microbes) for identifying microbial reads from single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) data. Using a series of controlled experiments and analyses, we performed the first systematic evaluation of the efficacy of recovering microbial UMIs by multiple scRNA-seq technologies, which identified the newer 10x chemistries (3’ v3 and 5’) as the best suited approach. Based on these findings, we analyzed patient esophageal and colorectal carcinomas and found that reads from distinct genera tend to co-occur in the same host cells, testifying to possible intracellular polymicrobial interactions. Microbial reads are disproportionately abundant within myeloid cells that upregulate proinflammatory cytokines like IL1Β and CXCL8 and downregulate antigen processing and presentation (APP) pathways. The latter, however, are markedly upregulated in infected tumor cells. These results testify that intracellular bacteria predominately reside within co-opted myeloid cells, which inflame the tumor microenvironment and may influence immunotherapy response.
Comparative Study of Bioactive Components and Quality from Juices of Different Mandarins: Discriminant Multivariate Analysis of Their Primary and Secondary Metabolites

A comparative study of the primary and secondary metabolites of the juice of several mandarin cultivars with different pollination, seed production and parthenocarpic abilities was carried out, and the antioxidant capacity of the hydrophilic fraction was measured. Correlation by a Principal Component Analysis and a Cluster Analysis was used. By a multivariate analysis, the 15 citrus cultivars were clustered into four groups consistently with citrus types. The presented data are an important factor for choosing varieties with high potential as a nutraceutical source. These aspects are necessary as consumers demand prevention of health problems through nutrition and certain fruit quality traits, including fruit size, internal quality, good rind color and easy peeling.
Using ATP tests for assessment of hygiene risks

Abstract Adenosine-5’-triphosphate (ATP) is a high-energy molecule playing a role of universal energy carrier used in cell metabolism. Since ATP is present in both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, this coenzyme can be used to determine a hygiene state. During last decade there has been a significant growth of practical applications of ATP measurements. ATP tests are commonly used for an assessment of hygienic conditions in food industry, residential buildings and hotels. In comparison with traditional and time-consuming laborious microbial analysis the measurement of ATP provides a quick indicative on-site data, characterizing microbial and organic contamination to support decision-making with regards to adequate corrective and preventive actions. This paper demonstrates applications of ATP in practice and, particularly, in water treatment technology and wastewater processing. The review highlights opportunities for using the test for the optimization of water treatment facilities and pipe networks functioning in order to assess wastewater toxicity and wastewater treatment process efficiency. Other areas of application are also addressed. The review of literature indicates that ATP used in different areas of industry can be considered as a diagnostic method - complement the classical methods - useful for identification of hygiene risks as well as a tool for a real-time management of health and environmental risks.
"How over is it?" Understanding the Incel Community on YouTube

YouTube is by far the largest host of user-generated video content worldwide. Alas, the platform has also come under fire for hosting inappropriate, toxic, and hateful content. One community that has often been linked to sharing and publishing hateful and misogynistic content are the Involuntary Celibates (Incels), a loosely defined movement ostensibly focusing on men's issues. In this paper, we set out to analyze the Incel community on YouTube by focusing on this community's evolution over the last decade and understanding whether YouTube's recommendation algorithm steers users towards Incel-related videos. We collect videos shared on Incel communities within Reddit and perform a data-driven characterization of the content posted on YouTube. Among other things, we find that the Incel community on YouTube is getting traction and that, during the last decade, the number of Incel-related videos and comments rose substantially. We also find that users have a 6.3% chance of being suggested an Incel-related video by YouTube's recommendation algorithm within five hops when starting from a non Incel-related video. Overall, our findings paint an alarming picture of online radicalization: not only Incel activity is increasing over time, but platforms may also play an active role in steering users towards such extreme content.
Development of a dissolved carbon dioxide sensor with a HPTS-incorporated polymer membrane

In this study a dissolved carbon dioxide sensor is made by using the fluorescent dye, HPTS incorporated into a polymer matrix, polyHEMA-co-EGDA. The HPTS-incorporated polymer membrane soaking in sodium bicarbonate buffer solution is put into a well in a 24-well microtiter plate, and silicone is smeared above the polymer membrane. This dissolved carbon dioxide sensor is characterized. It has no cross-sensitivity to sodium ion in the range of 20-200 mM and to pH in the range of 3-10. It has also a long lifetime over 10 days. The sensor has been applied to monitor the concentrations of dissolved carbon dioxide in fermentation processes for Escherichia coli and Bacilluscsubtilis.
Formal and informal sources of sexual information predict women’s sexual self-schema

Abstract:Sexual self-schema (SSS) reflect an individual’s cognitive representations of oneself as a sexual person, and predict critical sexual health and wellbeing outcomes in women. Like other cognitive structures, SSS are thought to form through exposure to different kinds of information. The current exploratory study investigated associations between young women’s experiences with different sources of sexual information and their SSS valence and complexity. Respondents (n = 401) completed a validated SSS measure and ranked their perceived importance of different sources of sexual information as they were growing up. We found that the more important women perceived their friends as sources of sexual information, the more consistently their SSS was negative or aschematic (i.e., neither positive nor negative). In contrast, the more important they ranked partners, the more their SSS was positive or coschematic (i.e., both positive and negative). Finally, the more important women ranked religion, the more their SSS was consistently negative. Overall, preliminary associations suggest that friends, partners, and religion influence young women’s SSS valence and complexity. Further research may examine directionality and mechanistic causality of these associations, as well as how multiple varied sources of information interact to produce diverse SSS configurations.
Ein neues Messverfahren für aromatische Amine in Giessereien beim Einsatz des Cold-Box-Verfahrens

In the so-called cold-box-method" in foundries cores containing polyurethane as a bonding agent are used. From this isocyanates and aromatic amines may be released under the thermal conditions during liquid metal casting.The 4,4'-methylene-diphenyl-diisocyanate (MDI) based resins usually used may lead to the formation of e. g. aniline, toluidines and 4,4'-diaminodiphenylmethane. The methods for measurement of aromatic amines described up to now are not very suitable for exposure measurements at the respective workplaces due to their cross-sensitivity against isocyanates or due to the very complex composition of pouring fumes. Therefore a new validated measurement method was developed and tested under practical conditions in an aluminium foundry.
μBrain: An Event-Driven and Fully Synthesizable Architecture for Spiking Neural Networks

The development of brain-inspired neuromorphic computing architectures as a paradigm for Artificial Intelligence (AI) at the edge is a candidate solution that can meet strict energy and cost reduction constraints in the Internet of Things (IoT) application areas. Toward this goal, we present μBrain: the first digital yet fully event-driven without clock architecture, with co-located memory and processing capability that exploits event-based processing to reduce an always-on system's overall energy consumption (μW dynamic operation). The chip area in a 40 nm Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) digital technology is 2.82 mm2 including pads (without pads 1.42 mm2). This small area footprint enables μBrain integration in re-trainable sensor ICs to perform various signal processing tasks, such as data preprocessing, dimensionality reduction, feature selection, and application-specific inference. We present an instantiation of the μBrain architecture in a 40 nm CMOS digital chip and demonstrate its efficiency in a radar-based gesture classification with a power consumption of 70 μW and energy consumption of 340 nJ per classification. As a digital architecture, μBrain is fully synthesizable and lends to a fast development-to-deployment cycle in Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC). To the best of our knowledge, μBrain is the first tiny-scale digital, spike-based, fully parallel, non-Von-Neumann architecture (without schedules, clocks, nor state machines). For these reasons, μBrain is ultra-low-power and offers software-to-hardware fidelity. μBrain enables always-on neuromorphic computing in IoT sensor nodes that require running on battery power for years.
Multi-Environment Quantitative Trait Loci Mapping for Grain Iron and Zinc Content Using Bi-parental Recombinant Inbred Line Mapping Population in Pearl Millet

Pearl millet is a climate-resilient, nutritious crop with low input requirements that could provide economic returns in marginal agro-ecologies. In this study, we report quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for iron (Fe) and zinc (Zn) content from three distinct production environments. We generated a genetic linkage map using 210 F6 recombinant inbred line (RIL) population derived from the (PPMI 683 × PPMI 627) cross using genome-wide simple sequence repeats (SSRs). The molecular linkage map (seven linkage groups) of 151 loci was 3,273.1 cM length (Kosambi). The content of grain Fe in the RIL population ranged between 36 and 114 mg/Kg, and that of Zn from 20 to 106 mg/Kg across the 3 years (2014–2016) at over the three locations (Delhi, Dharwad, and Jodhpur). QTL analysis revealed a total of 22 QTLs for grain Fe and Zn, of which 14 were for Fe and eight were for Zn on three consecutive years at all locations. The observed phenotypic variance (R2) explained by different QTLs for grain Fe and Zn content ranged from 2.85 (QGFe.E3.2014–2016_Q3) to 19.66% (QGFe.E1.2014–2016_Q3) and from 2.93 (QGZn.E3.2014–2016_Q3) to 25. 95% (QGZn.E1.2014–2016_Q1), respectively. Two constitutive expressing QTLs for both Fe and Zn co-mapped in this population, one on LG 2 and second one on LG 3. Inside the QTLs candidate genes such as Ferritin gene, Al3+ Transporter, K+ Transporters, Zn2+ transporters and Mg2+ transporters were identified using bioinformatics approaches. The identified QTLs and candidate genes could be useful in pearl millet population improvement programs, seed, restorer parents, and marker-assisted selection programs.
Mapping the Presence of Anxiety Symptoms in Adults With Major Depressive Disorder

Background: Patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) often present with co-occurring anxiety symptoms. The network method provides a novel view on understanding the co-occurrence of depressive and anxiety symptoms. Thus, the purpose of our study was to explore it by applying network analysis methods. Methods: We used electronic medical records from West China Hospital in China. In total, 3,424 patients who met the criteria for MDD were included. R-studio 3.6 was used to estimate the network structure. First, we estimated the network structure of depression and anxiety symptoms using the graphic LASSO algorithm. Then, we estimated the centrality indices of nodes to determine which symptoms are more central in the network. We then estimated the bridge centrality indices using the bridge function via the R package networktools. Results: Some strong connections were found like “easy to wake up,” “wake up early,” and “difficulty falling asleep,” “suicidal thoughts,” and “hopelessness. ” “Depressed mood,” “somatic anxiety,” “hopelessness,” “anxiety mood,” and “tension” have the higher centrality indices. Results revealed eight bridge symptoms (e.g., concentration/memory difficulty, gastrointestinal symptoms) in the co-occurrence network structure. Conclusions: This research suggests that the described approach in mapping the presence of anxiety symptoms in individuals with major depression might potentially increase diagnostic precision and help choose more targeted interventions and potentially reduce the occurrence of treatment resistance.
EndMT Regulation by Small RNAs in Diabetes-Associated Fibrotic Conditions: Potential Link With Oxidative Stress

Diabetes-associated complications, such as retinopathy, nephropathy, cardiomyopathy, and atherosclerosis, the main consequences of long-term hyperglycemia, often lead to organ dysfunction, disability, and increased mortality. A common denominator of these complications is the myofibroblast-driven excessive deposition of extracellular matrix proteins. Although fibroblast appears to be the primary source of myofibroblasts, other cells, including endothelial cells, can generate myofibroblasts through a process known as endothelial to mesenchymal transition (EndMT). During EndMT, endothelial cells lose their typical phenotype to acquire mesenchymal features, characterized by the development of invasive and migratory abilities as well as the expression of typical mesenchymal products such as α-smooth muscle actin and type I collagen. EndMT is involved in many chronic and fibrotic diseases and appears to be regulated by complex molecular mechanisms and different signaling pathways. Recent evidence suggests that small RNAs, in particular microRNAs (miRNAs) and long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), are crucial mediators of EndMT. Furthermore, EndMT and miRNAs are both affected by oxidative stress, another key player in the pathophysiology of diabetic fibrotic complications. In this review, we provide an overview of the primary redox signals underpinning the diabetic-associated fibrotic process. Then, we discuss the current knowledge on the role of small RNAs in the regulation of EndMT in diabetic retinopathy, nephropathy, cardiomyopathy, and atherosclerosis and highlight potential links between oxidative stress and the dyad small RNAs-EndMT in driving these pathological states.
Food Insecurity: A Constant Factor in the Lives of Low-Income Families in Scotland and England

During the school summer holidays, pressures on the already tight budgets of low-income families are compounded, particularly when the safety net of free school meals is removed. The main aim of the current study was to investigate how low-income parents and carers feed their families during term time when children receive free school meals and if, and how, strategies differ during the school summer holidays. A secondary aim was to investigate the role of holiday activity and food programmes in supporting parents and carers to feed their children during the school summer holidays. We used purposive sampling to recruit a total of 21 parents (N = 20 Female, N = 1 Male) whose children attended free summer holiday clubs in Scotland and England during summer 2017. Participants were asked about their food and shopping habits during the school term and if, and how they differed during the school summer holidays when free school meals were not available. The findings suggest that food insecurity is a constant factor in the lives of low-income parents in England and Scotland, and that the stages of food insecurity and the strategies employed to mitigate its effects appear to be cyclical, aligning with the Food and Agriculture Organisation's (FAO) food insecurity continuum and the school academic year. During term time, parents and carers worried about food, suggesting they were experiencing mild food insecurity, despite their children being in receipt of free school meals. As the school holidays approached, moderate food insecurity was experienced as parents reported that they began “provisioning,” storing food and reducing household expenditure. During the summer holidays, food did not last, and parental food acquisition habits became more intense. Parents downgraded food brands and bought reduced price items of food. Ultimately, parents self-sacrificed their own nutritional intake by only buying food their children would eat and parents often skipped meals or only ate their children's leftovers. However, children's attendance at holiday club helped make the food at home last longer and once school resumed, parents returned to their less intense, but constantly coping approach to food shopping. The findings of this study suggest that food insecurity is a constant factor in the lives of low-income families who simply do not have enough household income to prevent them from experiencing food insecurity, even when initiatives such as free school meals and access to holiday club provision with food and activities are in place.