Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Voluntary Chronic Heavy Alcohol Consumption in Male Rhesus Macaques Suppresses Cancellous Bone Formation and Increases Bone Marrow Adiposity.

BACKGROUND Chronic heavy alcohol consumption is an established risk factor for bone fracture but comorbidities associated with alcohol intake may contribute to increased fracture rates in alcohol abusers. To address the specific effects of alcohol on bone, we used a non-human primate model and evaluated voluntary alcohol consumption on (1) global markers of bone turnover in blood and (2) cancellous bone mass, density, microarchitecture, turnover and microdamage in lumbar vertebra. METHODS Following a 4-month induction period, 6-year-old male rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta, n=13) voluntarily self-administered water or ethanol (4% w/v) for 22 h/d, 7 d/wk for a total of 12 months. Control animals (n=9) consumed an isocaloric maltose-dextrin solution. Tetracycline hydrochloride was administered orally 17 and 3 days prior to sacrifice to label mineralizing bone surfaces. Global skeletal response to ethanol was evaluated by measuring plasma osteocalcin and carboxy-terminal collagen crosslinks (CTX). Local response was evaluated in lumbar vertebra using dual energy X-ray absorptiometry, microcomputed tomography, static and dynamic histomorphometry, and histological assessment of microdamage. RESULTS Monkeys in the ethanol group consumed an average of 2.8±0.2 (mean±SE) g/kg/d of ethanol (30±2% of total Calories) resulting in an average blood ethanol concentration of 88.3±8.8 mg/dl 7 hours after the session onset. Plasma CTX and osteocalcin tended to be lower in ethanol-consuming monkeys compared to controls. Significant differences in bone mineral density in lumbar vertebrae 1-4 were not detected with treatment. However, cancellous bone volume fraction (in cores biopsied from the central region of the 3rd vertebral body) was lower in ethanol-consuming monkeys compared to controls. Furthermore, ethanol-consuming monkeys had lower osteoblast perimeter and mineralizing perimeter, no significant difference in osteoclast perimeter, and higher bone marrow adiposity than controls. No significant differences between groups were detected in microcrack density (2nd lumbar vertebra). CONCLUSIONS Voluntary chronic heavy ethanol consumption reduces cancellous bone formation in lumbar vertebra by decreasing osteoblast-lined bone perimeter, a response associated with an increase in bone marrow adiposity.
Management of severe asthma: a European Respiratory Society/American Thoracic Society guideline

This document provides clinical recommendations for the management of severe asthma. Comprehensive evidence syntheses, including meta-analyses, were performed to summarise all available evidence relevant to the European Respiratory Society/American Thoracic Society Task Force's questions. The evidence was appraised using the GRADE (Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation) approach and the results were summarised in evidence profiles. The evidence syntheses were discussed and recommendations formulated by a multidisciplinary Task Force of asthma experts, who made specific recommendations on six specific questions. After considering the balance of desirable and undesirable consequences, quality of evidence, feasibility, and acceptability of various interventions, the Task Force made the following recommendations: 1) suggest using anti-interleukin (IL)-5 and anti-IL-5 receptor α for severe uncontrolled adult eosinophilic asthma phenotypes; 2) suggest using a blood eosinophil cut-point ≥150 μL−1 to guide anti-IL-5 initiation in adult patients with severe asthma; 3) suggest considering specific eosinophil (≥260 μL−1) and exhaled nitric oxide fraction (≥19.5 ppb) cut-offs to identify adolescents or adults with the greatest likelihood of response to anti-IgE therapy; 4) suggest using inhaled tiotropium for adolescents and adults with severe uncontrolled asthma despite Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) step 4–5 or National Asthma Education and Prevention Program (NAEPP) step 5 therapies; 5) suggest a trial of chronic macrolide therapy to reduce asthma exacerbations in persistently symptomatic or uncontrolled patients on GINA step 5 or NAEPP step 5 therapies, irrespective of asthma phenotype; and 6) suggest using anti-IL-4/13 for adult patients with severe eosinophilic asthma and for those with severe corticosteroid-dependent asthma regardless of blood eosinophil levels. These recommendations should be reconsidered as new evidence becomes available. The ERS/ATS Task Force makes recommendations on the use of novel therapies for severe asthma, specifically biologicals for type 2 high asthma, and antimuscarinic agents and macrolides, as well as on biomarkers for predicting treatment response http://bit.ly/2kZLRaD
Convergent evolution of super black plumage near bright color in 15 bird families

ABSTRACT We examined extremely low-reflectance, velvety black plumage patches in 32 bird species from 15 families and five orders and compared them with 22 closely related control species with normal black plumage. We used scanning electron microscopy to investigate microscopic feather anatomy, and applied spectrophotometry and hyperspectral imaging to measure plumage reflectance. Super black plumages are significantly darker and have more broadband low reflectance than normal black plumages, and they have evolved convergently in 15 avian families. Super black feather barbules quantitatively differ in microstructure from normal black feathers. Microstructural variation is significantly correlated with reflectance: tightly packed, strap-shaped barbules have lower reflectance. We assigned these super black feathers to five heuristic classes of microstructure, each of which has evolved multiple times independently. All classes have minimal exposed horizontal surface area and 3D micrometer-scale cavities greater in width and depth than wavelengths of light. In many species, barbule morphology varied between the super black exposed tip of a feather and its (i) concealed base or (ii) iridescently colored spot. We propose that super black plumages reduce reflectance, and flatten reflectance spectra, through multiple light scattering between the vertically oriented surfaces of microscale cavities, contributing to near-complete absorption of light by melanin. All super black plumage patches identified occur adjacent to brilliant colored patches. Super black plumage lacks all white specular reflections (reference points used to calibrate color perception), thus exaggerating the perceived brightness of nearby colors. We hypothesize that this sensory bias is an unavoidable by-product of color correction in variable light environments. Summary: Birds independently evolved super black (broadband, low-reflectance) plumage next to bright colors in 15 different families; this may be a sexually selected optical illusion to make nearby colors appear brighter.
Genotypic Methods for HIV Drug Resistance Monitoring: the Opportunities and Challenges Faced by China.

AIDS is a globalized infectious disease. In 2014, UNAIDS launched a global project of "90-90-90" to end HIV epidemic by 2030. The second and third 90 require 90% of HIV-1 infected individuals receive antiretroviral therapy (ART) and durable virological suppression. However, wide use of ART will greatly increase the emergence and spreading of HIV drug resistance and current HIV drug resistance test (DRT) assays in China is seriously lagging behind, hindering to achieve virological suppression. Therefore, recommending an appropriate HIV DRT method is critical for HIV routine surveillance and prevention in China. In this review, we summarized the current existing HIV drug resistance genotypic testing methods around the world, and discussed the advantages and disadvantages of these methods.
First principle study of temperature dependent magneto resistance and spin filtration effect in WS2 nanoribbon.

An applicable use of density functional theory (DFT) along with non-equilibrium Green's function (NEGF) is done for exploring temperature dependent spin electron transport nature in ferromagnetic Tungsten Disulphide (WS2) nanoribbon. To demonstrate the effect of temperature on spin filtration and spin Seebeck effect, vital parameters like spin polarized current and spin filtration efficiency are evaluated. Spin filtration efficiency of around ~95% is obtained in the high temperature difference range. High temperature 〖(T〗_L) of the left electrode in comparison to high temperature 〖(T〗_R) of the right electrode results in higher and lower spin filtration efficiency in parallel magnetization (PM) and anti-parallel magnetization (APM) respectively. Transmission spectrum plots at equilibrium are also calculated in PM and APM to justify the temperature dependent spin transport behaviour in WS2 nanoribbon. Giant thermal magneto resistance around 1.934 × 103% is achieved. The temperature dependent negative differential resistance behaviour of the current plot has been observed. Huge value of thermal magneto resistance (MR) and excellent spin filtration obtained for WS2 nanoribbon suggests the potential application of this material in spin caloritronic devices.
Multicenter Study of the Accuracy of the BD MAX Multidrug-resistant Tuberculosis Assay for Detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Complex and Mutations Associated With Resistance to Rifampin and Isoniazid

Abstract Background Tuberculosis (TB) control is hindered by absence of rapid tests to identify Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) and detect isoniazid (INH) and rifampin (RIF) resistance. We evaluated the accuracy of the BD MAX multidrug-resistant (MDR)-TB assay (BD MAX) in South Africa, Uganda, India, and Peru. Methods Outpatient adults with signs/symptoms of pulmonary TB were prospectively enrolled. Sputum smear microscopy and BD MAX were performed on a single raw sputum, which was then processed for culture and phenotypic drug susceptibility testing (DST), BD MAX, and Xpert MTB/RIF (Xpert). Results 1053 participants with presumptive TB were enrolled (47% female; 32% with human immunodeficiency virus). In patients with confirmed TB, BD MAX sensitivity was 93% (262/282 [95% CI, 89–95%]); specificity was 97% (593/610 [96–98%]) among participants with negative cultures on raw sputa. BD MAX sensitivity was 100% (175/175 [98–100%]) for smear-positive samples (fluorescence microscopy), and 81% (87/107 [73–88%]) in smear-negative samples. Among participants with both BD MAX and Xpert, sensitivity was 91% (249/274 [87–94%]) for BD MAX and 90% (246/274 [86–93%]) for Xpert on processed sputa. Sensitivity and specificity for RIF resistance compared with phenotypic DST were 90% (9/10 [60–98%]) and 95% (211/222 [91–97%]), respectively. Sensitivity and specificity for detection of INH resistance were 82% (22/27 [63–92%]) and 100% (205/205 [98–100%]), respectively. Conclusions The BD MAX MDR-TB assay had high sensitivity and specificity for detection of MTB and RIF and INH drug resistance and may be an important tool for rapid detection of TB and MDR-TB globally.
Warburg and Krebs and related effects in cancer

Abstract Warburg and coworkers' observation of altered glucose metabolism in tumours has been neglected for several decades, which, in part, was because of an initial misinterpretation of the basis of their finding. Following the realisation that genetic alterations are often linked to metabolism, and that the tumour micro-environment imposes different demands on cancer cells, has led to a reinvestigation of cancer metabolism in recent years. Increasing our understanding of the drivers and consequences of the Warburg effect in cancer and beyond will help to identify new therapeutic strategies as well as to identify new prognostic and therapeutic biomarkers. Here we discuss the initial findings of Warburg and coworkers regarding cancer cell glucose metabolism, how these studies came into focus again in recent years following the discovery of metabolic oncogenes, and the therapeutic potential that lies within targeting the altered metabolic phenotype in cancer. In addition, another essential nutrient in cancer metabolism, glutamine, will be discussed.
Systematic investment in the delivery of guideline-coherent therapy reduces mortality and overall costs in patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarction: Results from the Stent for Life economic model for Romania, Portugal, Basque Country and Kemerovo region

Aims: The Stent for Life initiative aims at the reduction of mortality in patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarction by enhancing timely access to primary percutaneous coronary intervention. To assess the associated health and socioeconomic impact, the Stent for Life economic project was launched and applied to four model regions: Romania, Portugal, the Basque Country in Spain, and the Kemerovo region in the Russian Federation. Methods and results: The Stent for Life economic model is based on a decision tree that incorporates primary percutaneous coronary intervention rates and mortality. Healthcare costs and indirect costs caused by loss of productivity were estimated. A baseline scenario simulating the status quo was compared to the Stent for Life scenario which integrated changes initiated by the Stent for Life programme. In the four model regions, primary percutaneous coronary intervention numbers rose substantially between 29–303%, while ST-elevation myocardial infarction mortality was reduced between 3–10%. Healthcare costs increased by 8% to 70%. Indirect cost savings ranged from 2–7%. Net societal costs were reduced in all model regions by 2–4%. Conclusion: The joint effort of the Stent for Life initiative and their local partners successfully saves lives. Moreover, the increase in healthcare costs was outweighed by indirect cost savings, leading to a net cost reduction in all four model regions. These findings demonstrate that systematic investments to improve the access of ST-elevation myocardial infarction patients to guideline-coherent therapy is beneficial, not only for the individual, but also for the society at large.
MAgPIE 4 – A modular open source framework for modeling global land-systems

Abstract. The open source modeling framework MAgPIE combines economic and biophysical approaches to simulate spatially-explicit global scenarios of landuse within the 21st century and the respective interactions with the environment. Besides various other projects, it was used to simulate marker scenarios of the Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSPs) and contributed substantially to multiple IPCC assessments. However, with growing scope and detail, the non-linear model has become increasingly complex, computational intensive, and intransparent, requiring structured approaches to improve the development and evaluation of the model. Here we provide an overview on version 4 of MAgPIE, and how it addresses these issues of increasing complexity using new technical features: modular structure, flexible detail in process dynamics, flexible spatial resolution, in-code documentation, automatized code-checking, model/output evaluation, and open accessibility. Application examples provide insights into model evaluation and region-specific analysis approaches. While this paper is focused on the general framework as such, the publication is accompanied by a detailed model documentation describing contents and equations, and by model evaluation documents giving insights into model performance for a broad range of variables. With the open source release of the MAgPIE 4 framework we hope to contribute to more transparent, reproducible and collaborative research in the field. Due to its modularity and spatial flexibility it should provide a basis for a broad range of land-related research with economic or biophysical, global or regional focus.
The Effect of the Hot Water Extracts of the Paecilomyces hepiali and Cordyceps militaris Mycelia on the Growth of Gastrointestinal Bacteria

The gastrointestinal health is very important aspect concerning human health. It refers to nutrient and vitamin absorption, food digestion and various infectious diseases. The Paecilomyces hepiali and Cordyceps militaris are highly enriched with cordycepin and ergosterol which are considered as anti bacterial substances. Present study finds out comparative effect of hot water extract of particular fungal material on growth of six species of gastrointestinal bacteria that belong to both aerobic and anaerobic and, consist with harmful and commensal categories. The appropriate concentration level of hot water extract of both strains was identified. The individual specific bacterial growing media were prepared and calculated; amounts of bacteria cultures were inoculated by using micro pipettes. The optical density and number of bacterial colonies were measured after 24 hours. The pure mycelial extract of P. hepiali with 2 × 10-3 g/ml of concentration has significant effect on depleting the growth of E. coli, E. faecalis, S. aureus, L. gasseri and B. ovatus bacteria. B. longum has no significant effect by particular extract. Same type of extract of C. militaris has significantly reduced the growth of every bacteria used in this study. Hot water extract of C. militaris cultivated on soy bean has significant growth retardation toward E. coli, E. faecalis, S. aureus and L. gasseri. It has stimulated the growth of B. ovatus and B. longum which are considered as beneficial bacteria for human gut. This study shows that extracts of both mycelia include antimicrobial substances like cordycepin and ergosterol which can be used as food supplements to enhance human gut health.
Object Localization and Recognition for Mobile Robots with Online Learning based on Mixture of Projected Gaussian

Information Engineering Doctor of Information Engineering Object Localization and Recognition for Mobile Robots with Online Learning based on Mixture of Projected Gaussian by Mauro Antonello One of the primary capabilities required by autonomous robots is recognizing the surrounding environment with high responsiveness, often combined with object recognition and grasping tasks. Moreover robots acting in mutable scenarios are also required to be capable of learning new object models online. Along with peculiar requirements the robotics offers to the object recognition task some unique advantages, such the robot capability to move in the environment. Moreover, usually an autonomous robot can relax the recognition precision obtained at the beginning of its exploration and favour the speed at which this results are obtained. The aim of the work presented in this thesis is to explore a new object recognition method able to exploit this advantages in order to fulfil the features required by autonomous robotics. In order enhance pose estimation the proposed algorithm prioritize the keeping of the geometrical information from the objects shape and texture. Since the object models also need to be as much lightweight as possible this algorithm relies on local 6 DoF features extraction to describe the object appearance without load the final model of unnecessary information. Once the 6 DoF keypoints are obtained, the proposed method makes the use specifically designed probability distribution, namely the the Mixture of Projected Gaussian (MoPG) in order to learn their spatial distribution. A Bag of Words (BoW) technique has been introduced after the feature detection in order make feature descriptors more invariant to small appearance changes, due to light conditions or perspective distortions. The choice of using the MoPG distribution lies in one algebraic property of the Gaussian function, namely its closure over the convolution operator. In this thesis this property is exploited in order to obtain a closed form formula for calculating the cross-correlation of MoPG. The recognition algorithm makes use of the cross-correlation between MoPG in order to both identify and localize objects in the scene. The recognition and localization performances of the proposed technique was validated on two different publicly available datasets, namely the RGB-D Dataset and the BigBIRD Dataset. An analysis of both category and instance recognition results is presented and the emerged advantages or the issues of the proposed technique are discussed. The localization error (cos(∆R) = 2 ◦) and the instance recognition rate (91%) resulted being aligned of the state of art thus justifying a further exploration of the proposed method. The topics presented in this thesis was further explored in some related works. In particular a collaboration with the Intelligent Systems Research Institute (Sungkyunkwan University, Republic of Corea) led an adapted version of the proposed method that has been successfully integrated in an autonomous domestic robot.
Title Symbiont diversity may help coral reefs survive moderate climate change Permalink

Given climate change, thermal stress-related mass coral-bleaching events present one of the greatest anthropogenic threats to coral reefs. While corals and their symbiotic algae may respond to future temperatures through genetic adaptation and shifts in community compositions, the climate may change too rapidly for coral response. To test this potential for response, here we develop a model of coral and symbiont ecological dynamics and symbiont evolutionary dynamics. Model results without variation in symbiont thermal tolerance predict coral reef collapse within decades under multiple future climate scenarios, consistent with previous threshold-based predictions. However, model results with genetic or community-level variation in symbiont thermal tolerance can predict coral reef persistence into the next century, provided low enough greenhouse gas emissions occur. Therefore, the level of greenhouse gas emissions will have a significant effect on the future of coral reefs, and accounting for biodiversity and biological dynamics is vital to estimating the size of this effect.
Community Perceiving Method on Social Network

How to perceivecommunity with the same interests and hobbies on social network is a critical problem for advertisement, promotion and network security. In this paper, we propose a novel method for online communityperceiving, which contains three user-level filtering layers: user profile, user behavior and user relationships.This three-layer filtering mechanism can greatly improve the accuracy and efficiency of onlineperceiving specific community. In order to testify this method, we design a web crawler forfurther determining the identity of specific nodesby breadth-firststrategy.The experiments onTwitter Chinese users demonstrate that the precision of our online community perceiving method can reach up to 89%. Keywordsonline community perceiving; social network; web crawler;filtering mechanism
A REVISED MODEL OF WORK ADJUSTMENT

1. THE RENT-MINIMIZING SPATIAL EQUILIBRIUM MODEL WITH POLLUTION TAXES ON COAL C. W. Yang, Clarion University of Pennsylvania, Clarion, Pennsylvania, USA Tony R. Johns, Clarion University of Pennsylvania, Clarion, Pennsylvania, USA M. J. Hwang, West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia, USA Ken Hung, National Dong Hwa University, Hualien, TAIWAN ABSTRACT Since the sulfur emission tax is a critical environmental issue, the impact of such a tax plays an important role in implementing a socially desirable policy especially in the presence of the North American Free Trade Agreement. A rent-minimization spatial equilibrium model is implemented to the U.S. coal market with an assessed 20% and 50% pollution tax to all the coal-producing regions. It is found that the U.S. coal market would be disintegrated into four independent submarkets. The significant decrease in interregional trade would lead to an increased level of autarky in the U.S. coal market. In addition, it would give rise to the lower efficiency level due to such pollution taxes.