Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Geographical and Biological Origin of the Influenza Pandemic of 1918

During a possibly unique sequence of events in early 1918, an initially mild influenza virus became stranded within a human population composed of healthy young adults, virtually all whose members had wellfunctioning immune systems. Instead of dying out, the virus adapted to this hostile environment. Available information suggests that the influenza virus of 1918 originated in the U.S. military training center at Camp Funston, Kansas, was then taken to a sparsely populated civilian area in Haskell County, Kansas, 500 km away, and was returned to Camp Funston before spreading abroad.
Die Verwandtschaft der europäischen Strauchweiden

Die Beziehungen der europäischen Strauchweiden (Gattung Salix, Untergattungen Chamaetia und Vetrix) waren bislang völlig unklar. Im Gegensatzu zu bisherigen molekularen Methoden, die zu wenig Informationen lieferten, konnten mithilfe des modernen DNA‐Sequenzierverfahrens, dem Restriction site Associated DNA sequencing (RAD sequencing), tausende informative Positionen des Genoms detektiert werden.
Prevalence and Pattern of Sleep Disturbances among Mood Disorder Inpatients

Sleep disorders are highly prevalent in psychiatric illnesses such as major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder. Early identification of sleep disturbances in these disorders would help us prevent the worsening of the illness further. We conducted a study regarding the sleep disturbances among patients admitted with a diagnosis of mood disorder using a questionnaire –Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. The details of the patients were collected by means of a semi structured proforma. We analysed the results statistically using SPSS software version 19.The results revealed an equivocal distribution of sleep disturbances in mood disorder. Sleep disturbances prevail in spite of being on medications. Thus our study results emphasize that equally poor sleep quality exists among all mood disorder inpatients irrespective of their diagnostic status. Hence treating the sleep disturbances in these patients will enhance their quality of life.
New simple trichal cyanobacterial taxa isolated from radioactive thermal springs

There are several places in the world where the level of natural radiation is unusually high, such as some regions of Ramsar and Abegarm-e-Mahallat in Iran. Such places are still insufficiently explored in terms of their biodiversity. In this study, strains isolated from six geothermal springs with elevated natural radiation were investigated. The highest concentration of 226Ra were 13,000 Bq.kg-1 in the soil and 130 Bq.l-1 in water respectively. The morphological and molecular analyses revealed, that the strains are not classifiable to any existing taxon. Therefore, they are described as new taxa for science. Based on results of our study, two earlier described species are transferred into newly established genus.
The complete chloroplast genome of the invasive fern Lygodium microphyllum (Cav.) R. Br.

Abstract The Old World climbing fern, Lygodium microphyllum, is a rapidly spreading environmental weed in Florida, United States. We reconstructed the complete chloroplast genome of L. microphyllum from Illumina whole-genome shotgun sequencing, and investigate the phylogenetic placement of this species within the Leptosporangiate ferns. The chloroplast genome is 158,891 bp and contains 87 protein-coding genes, four rRNA genes, and 27 tRNA genes. Thirty-three genes contained internal stop codons, a common feature in Leptosporangiate fern genomes. The L. microphyllum genome has been deposited in GenBank under accession number MG761729.
Building gene regulatory networks from scATAC-seq and scRNA-seq using Linked Self-Organizing Maps

Rapid advances in single-cell assays have outpaced methods for analysis of those data types. Different single-cell assays show extensive variation in sensitivity and signal to noise levels. In particular, scATAC-seq generates extremely sparse and noisy datasets. Existing methods developed to analyze this data require cells amenable to pseudo-time analysis or require datasets with drastically different cell-types. We describe a novel approach using self-organizing maps (SOM) to link scATAC-seq and scRNA-seq data that overcomes these challenges and can generate draft regulatory networks. Our SOMatic package generates chromatin and gene expression SOMs separately and combines them using a linking function. We applied SOMatic on a mouse pre-B cell differentiation time-course using controlled Ikaros over-expression to recover gene ontology enrichments, identify motifs in genomic regions showing similar single-cell profiles, and generate a gene regulatory network that both recovers known interactions and predicts new Ikaros targets during the differentiation process. The ability of linked SOMs to detect emergent properties from multiple types of highly-dimensional genomic data with very different signal properties opens new avenues for integrative analysis of single-cells.
Optical pumping in Silicon thin films

Silicon is a potentially promising material for spintronics due to its long spin relaxation time. At the same time, classical approaches to the study of the conduction electrons' polarization, such as luminescence, are ineffective for Silicon due to the weak spin-orbit interaction and indirect-bandgap structure. In the present work, the polarization of the conduction electrons is studied by means of spin-resolved low-energy electron photoemission spectroscopy. The Silicon surface is activated to negative electron affinity by Cesium and Oxygen adsorption so that electron emission can be achieved with photon excitation very close to the band gap (1.12eV at 300K). We use a tunable laser which allows a systematic measurement of the polarization spectra from the absorption onset up to energies above the Gamma2- band. We measured spin polarization spectra on Silicon-on-insulator films of different thicknesses. Based on the obtained data, band structure parameters such as direct band gap and the spin-orbit splitting are evaluated. However, contrary to expectations, when diminishing the Silicon film thickness, even below the value of the spin diffusion length, the electron polarization remains close to zero (-0.4%), much lower than the theoretically predicted values of the initial polarization (-20%), thus bringing into question their straightforward interpretation. A theoretical investigation was performed on the basis of an ab initio band structure model in order to calculate the full spin polarization spectra. These calculations are still on-going but predictions for strained Silicon confirm that this material should be an interesting candidate for further spin polarization studies.
Evolution of gene regulatory networks by means of selection and random genetic drift

The evolution of a population by means of genetic drift and natural selection operating on a gene regulatory network (GRN) of an individual has not been scrutinized in depth. Thus, the relative importance of various evolutionary forces and processes on shaping genetic variability in GRNs is understudied. Furthermore, it is not known if existing tools that identify recent and strong positive selection from genomic sequences, in simple models of evolution, can detect recent positive selection when it operates on GRNs. Here, we propose a simulation framework, called EvoNET, that simulates forward-in-time the evolution of GRNs in a population. Since the population size is finite, random genetic drift is explicitly modeled. The fitness of a mutation is not constant, but we evaluate the fitness of each individual by measuring its genetic distance from an optimal genotype. Mutations and recombination may take place from generation to generation, modifying the genotypic composition of the population. Each individual goes through a maturation period, where its GRN reaches equilibrium. At the next step, individuals compete to produce the next generation. As time progresses, the beneficial genotypes push the population higher in the fitness landscape. We examine properties of the GRN evolution such as robustness against the deleterious effect of mutations and the role of genetic drift. We confirm classical results from Andreas Wagner’s work that GRNs show robustness against mutations and we provide new results regarding the interplay between random genetic drift and natural selection.
Proceedings of the Positive Gaming: Workshop on Gamification and Games for Wellbeing - Preface

Gamification[5]and games have been used and studied in a variety of applications related to health and wellbeing [6,7,13]. Nevertheless, their application in the domains of wellbeing and flourishing[8,14](the pursuit of a happy and meaningful life rather than the simple in existence of illness) remain considerably less studied than other more common application areas, such as physical health or fitness. Therefore, this Workshop[15] aimed to provoke research and discussion by bringing together a community of interested researchers to discuss theoretical and practical considerations and promote the development of research projects focused on “Positive Gaming”as a technique for realizing the Positive Computing[2] objective of using technology to foster flourishing. A total of eight papers were accepted and presented at the Workshop. They addressed a rich variety of topics covering various areas of positive gaming including methods to understand users and design gameful applications for wellbeing. Examples application areas include motivating engagement in wellness activities, kindness interventions, nutritional interventions, and emotion regulation training; considerations for using technology to boost employee wellbeing; and opportunities for exploring game audio as a facilitator of wellbeing.
Production of bioactive compound(s) with the marine fungus Calcarisporium sp.

Increasingly, unique bioactive compounds are being obtained from fungi isolated from marine environments. A Calcarisporium sp. (KF525) isolated from the German Wadden Sea has recently been described as producing interesting cyclic and linear polyesters (calcarides) with antibacterial activity (Silber et al. 2013a) and unrelated, unique calcaripeptides (Silber et al. 2013b). Calcarisporium sp. KF525 is a slow-growing fungus (μmax ~ 0.06 h‒1) and the calcarides are produced during the later stages of growth (or during stationary phase). Large amounts may accumulate in cultures allowed to stand for months, but this is not practical as a sustainable production method. Therefore, production of calcaride A was assessed in flask and bioreactor cultures (Fig. 1). These studies provide a basis for developing an improved production process, which could provide sufficient material for further bioactivity testing.
Sustainable procurement and corporate sustainability performance: the moderating role of organisation age

The chemical manufacturing industry is one of the main contributors to the Malaysian economy and has been reported to have sustainability issues which may affect the sustainability of the nation if proper green practices have not been taken by the industry. This paper aims to study the effects of sustainable procurement on corporate sustainability performance with the moderating role of organisation age. Drawing data from 130 Malaysian chemical manufacturing organisations, the model studies the moderating role of organisation age on sustainable procurement and the corporate sustainability performance of the organisations. Partial least square (PLS) analysis is used in this study in order to analyse the data and the multistage sampling technique has also been used in this study. The results show that there is a positive relationship between sustainable procurement and corporate sustainability performance and organisation age does not moderate the effect of sustainable procurement on corporate sustainability performance.
MONITORING THE RESISTANCE PROFILE OF Staphylococcus sp. AND mecA GENE DETECTION OF Staphylococcus aureus FROM LACTATING COWS IN A DAIRY FARMING PROPERTY

The main mastitis causing agent is the Staphylococcus, and among them, the most pathogenic species is the Staphylococcus aureus. The present paper aims to verify the frequency of mastistis causing Staphylococcus aureus, trace the susceptibility profile from these to antibiotics and detect the mecA gene in Staphylococcus aureus from a dairy property in Umuarama-PR. Isolated samples used were taken from lactating cows in a seven months period. After the samples were isolated in blood agar and respectively identified, these were kept at -20 oC to further analysis (antibiograms, polymerase chain reaction to detect the mecA gene, beta-lactam detection and minimum inhibitory concentration detection). 189 samples were collected, and, from these, 30,68% showed no growth, 39,15% were negative coagulase Staphylococcus, 5,29% Staphylococcus aureus, 7,40% Streptococcus and 17,46% other micro-organisms (BGP, BGN, Corynebacterium and yeast). The antibiotics that showed higher resistance levels were sulfonamide, penicillin, ampicilin and tetracycline, meanwhile, the ones that showed higher sensibility levels were sulpha+trimethopim, gentamicin, ceftiofure and enrofloxacin. In the samples, 86,41% of the Staphylococcus sp. and 60% of the Staphylococcus aureus were multiresistant. All of the S. aureus samples were negative to the mecA gene and positive to the beta-lactam test.
SVXplorer: Identification of structural variants through overlap of discordant clusters

Motivation The identification of structural variants using short-read data remains challenging. Most approaches ignore signatures of complex variants such as those generated by trans-posable elements. This can result in lower precision and sensitivity in identification of the more common structural variants such as deletions and duplications. Results We present SVXplorer, which uses a streamlined sequential approach to integrate discordant paired-end alignments with split-reads and read depth information. We show that it outperforms several existing approaches in both reproducibility and accuracy on real and simulated datasets. Availability SVXplorer is available at https://github.com/kunalkathuria/SVXplorer.
Dexmedetomidine-induced cardioprotection in a mouse model of lung ischemia-reperfusion: the relationship with endoplasmic reticulum stress

Objective To evaluate dexmedetomidine-induced cardioprotection in a mouse model of lung ischemia-reperfusion(I/R)and the relationship with endoplasmic reticulum stress. Methods Forty healthy SPF male C57BL/6J mice, weighing 20-24 g, aged 8-10 weeks, were divided into 4 groups(n=10 each)using a random number table: sham operation group(Sham group), lung I/R group(I/R group), dexmedetomidine group(Dex group)and dexmedetomidine plus atipamezole(specific α2-adrenergic receptor antagonist)group(DA group). The model of lung I/R injury was established by clamping the left hilum of lung for 30 min followed by 180 min of reperfusion.In group Sham, only sternotomy was performed, the hilum of lung was not clamped, and the mice were mechanically ventilated for 210 min.In Dex and DA groups, dexmedetomidine 20 μg/kg and dexmedetomidine 20 μg/kg plus atipamezole 250 μg/kg were injected intraperitoneally, respectively, at 30 min before establishment of the model.At 180 min of reperfusion, blood samples were collected from the orbit for determination of creatine kinase-MB(CK-MB)and lactic dehydrogenase(LDH)activities in serum.The animals were then sacrificed, and hearts were removed for determination of apoptosis in cardiomyocytes(by TUNEL)and expression of phosphorylated c-Jun N-terminal kinase(p-JNK), caspase-12, CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein homologous protein(CHOP)and glucose-regulated protein 78(GRP78)in myocardial tissues(by Western blot), and expression of JNK, caspase-12, CHOP, GRP78 mRNA in myocardial tissues(by real-time polymerase chain reaction). Apoptosis index was calculated. Results Compared with Sham group, the serum CK-MB and LDH activities and apoptosis index were significantly increased, the expression of p-JNK, JNK mRNA, and caspase-12, CHOP and GRP78 protein and mRNA was up-regulated in I/R, Dex and DA groups(P 0.05). Compared with DEX group, the serum CK-MB and LDH activities and apoptosis index were significantly increased, the expression of p-JNK, JNK mRNA, and caspase-12 and CHOP protein and mRNA was up-regulated(P 0.05). Conclusion Dexmedetomidine can reduce myocardial injury induced by lung I/R, and the mechanism may be related to activation of α2-adrenergic receptors and inhibition of endoplasmic reticulum stress in myocardial cells of mice. Key words: Dexmedetomidine; Lung; Reperfusion injury; Myocardium; Endoplasmic reticulum; Stress
DREAMS: Cross-Domain Mixed-Criticality Patterns

The transition from conventional federated archi-tectures to integrated architectures enables the integration of functionalities with different criticality (such as safety, security and real-time) on a single embedded computing platform. Many embedded mixed-criticality systems require distributed subsystems with networks to satisfy computational resource demands and installation requirements and ensure fault-tolerance. The broad trend of the integration of functionalities with different crit-icality on a multi-core embedded computing platform increases the complexity and challenges to certification, which is supported by the fact that today's safety-related standards are mostly focused on single-core devices and not on multi-core devices where resources are shared between more than one component. This paper analyses the commonly occurring problems in today's mixed-criticality systems and presents reusable generic solutions to tackle them, including solutions for hypervisors, commercial-off-the-self multi-core devices and mixed-criticality networks.
Endovascular treatment of subclavian artery stenosis

The most common localizations for upper extremity atherosclerosis are the subclavian artery and the brachiocephalic trunk. Significant stenosis of the subclavian artery occurs in 2% of the population and in 7-11% of patients with manifest cardiovascular disease. Revascularization is indicated in symptomatic or asymptomatic patients with coronary disease with planned surgical revascularization. In addition to atherosclerosis, other causes of the appearance of subclavian artery stenosis include dissection, radiation-induced inflammation of the fibromusculature, and various vasculities, especially Takayasu arteritis. The left subclavian artery is about four times more commonly affected than the right. It usually occurs over the age of 50 years and in 1.5-2 times more common in men than in women. Disease of the subclavian artery is usually focal and the lesion is predominantly in the first 2 cm proximal to the origin of the aorta. Between 2016-2021 in the clinic of cardiology and angiology we treated endovascularly 81 patients (41 men and 40 females, median age 64 ± 11) with either intraluminal balloon dilatation and/or primary stent implantation followed by balloon post dilatation. We achieved a high technical success rate (93.8%) and immediate clinical success, with only a few minor complications.
Effects of self-efficacy for appropriate medication use on behavioral stage of medication compliance in patients with coronary heart disease

Objective To explore the status of self-efficacy for appropriate medication use and medication compliance, and analyze the effects of the self-efficacy for appropriate medication use on behavioral stage of medication compliance in patients with coronary heart disease (CHD). Methods From November 2015 to January 2016, totals of 151 patients with CHD treated in a Dalian tertiary hospital were investigated. The self-efficacy for appropriate medication use and behavioral stage of medication compliance were collected and the correlation between them were analyzed. Results There existed the phenomenon of stage distribution in patients with CHD, and patients in the preparation stage were the most, which accounted for 27.8%; in the medication compliance behaviors, the level of self-efficacy for appropriate medication use of patients that in action and maintenance stage was significantly higher than that of patients in intention and preparation stage (P<0.05). Conclusions The level of self-efficacy for appropriate medication use may influence the behavioral stage of patients with CHD. A new approach to improve the medication compliance can be achieved by improving the change of level of self-efficacy in patients with CHD. Key words: Medication adherence; Coronary heart disease (CHD); Behavioral stage; Self efficacy for appropriate medication use
Identification and validation of reference genes for real-time qPCR normalization during Al-induced programmed cell death in peanut

The reverse transcription quantitative real-time PCR (RT-qPCR) is becoming increasingly important for gene expression studies. However, the accuracy and reliability of RT-qPCR depend on normalizing expression to reference genes. In this study, ten candidate reference genes, including cyclophilin (CYP), elongation factor 1b (EF1b), α-tubulin (TUA5), β-tubulin (TUB4), ubiquitin10R (UBQ10R), 60S ribosomal RNA (60S), alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH3), metalloprotease (MTP), glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH), and actin (ACT2) were evaluated for the stability of expression in three tissues of two peanut cultivars [Zhonghua 2(ZH2) and 99-1507] under Al stress by four statistical algorithms (geNorm, NormFinder, BestKeeper, and RefFinder). The results suggested that the top-ranked reference genes under Al-induced programmed cell death (PCD) in peanut were UBQ10R, EF1b and CYP, with the most suitable combination of reference genes being [UBQ10R+ACT2]. The UBQ10R exhibited the most stable expression in all samples, while TUB4 was the least stable gene. The relative expression of AhMC1 (the caspase-like protease family gene, which played a significant role in Al-induced PCD) showed that there was no significant difference with the best reference gene and the best gene combination in RT-qPCR normalization, but there was significant difference with the least stable gene TUB4 as reference gene. This is the first study to evaluate the stability of reference genes in peanut under Al-induced PCD, and the results will provide guidance to identify appropriate reference genes for further RT-qPCR analyses under Al stress in peanut.
Which is efficient in improving postural control among the novice runners? Isolated ankle strengthening or functional balance training programme: A randomized controlled trial

Background: Functional balance is the integration of static and dynamic balance training to maintain or improve activities of daily living and quality of life. But, there is a lack of study examining effects of functional balance training programme (FTP) on novice runners. Objective: To compare the effects of isolated ankle strengthening exercise (IASE) and FTP in improving postural control among the novice runners. Materials and methods: A total of 30 novice runners were recruited by the simple random sampling (random number generator) to participate in this two group pretest-posttest, single blinded randomized controlled study. Recruited subjects were randomly divided into two groups, group A and group B. The novice runners in group A received, IASE. While in group B, the runners received FTP. Both the group performed the prescribed exercised for 4 weeks (5 days/week, a total of 20 sessions). Baseline and post exercise changes after 4 weeks were documented by star excursion balance test (SEBT) and foot and ankle ability measure (FAAM) and analyzed. Results: Group B demonstrated significance difference (p<0.05) in SEBT and FAAM when compared to group A. Conclusion: FTP is more beneficial in improving postural control and thereby could have the potential to reduce risk of injury when compared to IASE among the novice runners.