Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Distribution of Mycoplasma agassizii in a Gopher Tortoise Population in South Florida

Abstract Gopherus polyphemus (Gopher Tortoise) is a threatened species in Florida and is heralded as a keystone species throughout its range in the southeastern United States. However, this species has faced drastic population declines due mainly to habitat loss, and now disease is threatening the species. Upper respiratory tract disease (URTD) is a highly contagious disease first observed in Gopher Tortoise populations in Florida as early as 1989. URTD may be caused by multiple pathogens, such as Mycoplasma agassizii, which has been documented in Gopher Tortoise populations (Berish et al 2000). The long-term effects of URTD are unknown, as are the effects of the disease on the demographics of the species. In this study, 40 plasma samples were collected from a Gopher Tortoise population to determine the exposure of Mycoplasma agassizii among different age classes and genders. There was not a significant difference in number infected when comparing adult males and adult females. The results suggest adults are exposed to the pathogen at a greater rate than subadults, and exposure may be dependent on age. All subadults tested in this population tested seronegative, indicating they had no previous exposure to Mycoplasma agassizii. Knowledge of the effects of this pathogen is necessary for wildlife management agencies to assess the options available for managing Gopher Tortoise populations. The results of this study suggest a zero known mortality rate due to the pathogen over a 4-year period; however, additional pathological research is required to determine if Mycoplasma agassizii is causing URTD in this population. These results may have implications for the “take” policy in Florida: if Mycoplasma agassizii is not causing URTD in this population, and if the pathogen is not leading to a high mortality rate, then “take” permits based solely on seropositive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) results may not be justified.
A phosphoinositide 5-phosphatase from Solanum tuberosum is activated by PAMP-treatment and may antagonize phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate at Phytophthora infestans infection sites.

Potato (Solanum tuberosum) plants susceptible to late blight disease caused by the oomycete Phytophthora infestans display enhanced resistance upon infiltration with the pathogen-associated molecular pattern (PAMP), Pep-13. Here, we characterize a potato gene similar to Arabidopsis 5-phosphatases which was identified in transcript arrays performed to identify Pep-13 regulated genes, and termed StIPP. Recombinant StIPP protein specifically dephosphorylated the D5-position of phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate (PtdIns(4,5)P2 ) in vitro. Other phosphoinositides or soluble inositolpolyphosphates were not converted. When transiently expressed in tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) pollen tubes, a StIPP-YFP fusion localized to the subapical plasma membrane and antagonized PtdIns(4,5)P2 -dependent effects on cell morphology, indicating in vivo functionality. P. infestans -infection of N. benthamiana leaf epidermis cells resulted in relocalization of StIPP-GFP from the plasma membrane to the extra-haustorial membrane. Colocalizion with the effector protein RFP-AvrBlb2 at infection sites is consistent with a role of StIPP in the plant-oomycete interaction. Correlation analysis of fluorescence distributions of StIPP-GFP and biosensors for PtdIns(4,5)P2 or phosphatidylinositol 4-phosphate (PtdIns4P) indicate StIPP activity predominantly at the extrahaustorial membrane. In Arabidopsis protoplasts, expression of StIPP resulted in the stabilization of the PAMP receptor, FLAGELLIN-SENSITIVE 2, indicating that StIPP may act as a PAMP-induced and localized antagonist of PtdIns(4,5)P2 -dependent processes during plant immunity.
Effect of condensed tannins upon body growth, wool growth and rumen metabolism in sheep grazing sulla (Hedysarum coronarium) and perennial pasture

SUMMARY Areas of sulla (Hedysarum coronarium) and pasture (Lolium perenne/Trifolium repens/Holcus lanatus) were grazed by young sheep (29·5–34·8 kg initial liveweight) in four experiments, and effects upon body growth, wool growth and rumen metabolism were measured. Sulla contained 40–50 g condensed tannins (CT)/kg DM, whilst the pasture contained small amounts of CT (2–6 g/kg DM). After chewing during eating, a lower proportion of total CT was readily extractable and greater proportions were protein-bound and fibre-bound. Nutritional effects attributable to CT were assessed by oral administration of polyethylene glycol (PEG), which binds and inactivates CT, to half the animals grazing each forage. Rates of body growth were consistently higher for lambs grazing sulla than those grazing pasture, with the CT concentration in sulla being neither stimulatory or inhibitory to body growth or voluntary feed intake (VFI). The action of CT reduced carcass fatness in sheep fed both diets, in the one experiment where this was measured. CT present in both sulla and pasture decreased rumen ammonia concentration and decreased molar proportions of iso-butyrate and iso and n-valerate. During spring and early summer, when wool growth rates were highest, CT present in both pasture and sulla increased wool growth rate; when wool growth rates were low during winter, CT had no effect upon the wool growth of sheep grazing either forage. Numbers of protozoa and molar proportions of n-butyrate in rumen fluid were increased by CT in sheep grazing sulla but not pasture. It was concluded that the higher rates of body growth and VFI in lambs grazing sulla was most likely to be due to its very high ratio of readily fermentable: structural carbohydrate.
Cellulose Nanocrystals/Graphene Hybrids—A Promising New Class of Materials for Advanced Applications

With the growth of global fossil-based resource consumption and the environmental concern, there is an urgent need to develop sustainable and environmentally friendly materials, which exhibit promising properties and could maintain an acceptable level of performance to substitute the petroleum-based ones. As elite nanomaterials, cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) derived from natural renewable resources, exhibit excellent physicochemical properties, biodegradability and biocompatibility and have attracted tremendous interest nowadays. Their combination with other nanomaterials such as graphene-based materials (GNM) has been revealed to be useful and generated new hybrid materials with fascinating physicochemical characteristics and performances. In this context, the review presented herein describes the quickly growing field of a new emerging generation of CNC/GNM hybrids, with a focus on strategies for their preparation and most relevant achievements. These hybrids showed great promise in a wide range of applications such as separation, energy storage, electronic, optic, biomedical, catalysis and food packaging. Some basic concepts and general background on the preparation of CNC and GNM as well as their key features are provided ahead.
Human parechovirus are emerging pathogens with broad spectrum of clinical syndromes in adults

Parechoviruses are emerging pathogens of humans often affecting the pediatric age group, with a growing line of evidence implicating them as agents of a broad spectrum of clinical syndromes in adults. However, because many clinicians are not familiar with the manifestation of the infections, they are not included in the list of diagnostic pathogens. Furthermore, due to the indistinguishable feature of the infection compared with other common pathogens, a large number of cases are likely to go unchecked. Some may develop asymptomatic infection and recover without overt clinical disease. In this manuscript, we reviewed available literature on parechovirus infection in adult and summarized information relating to epidemiology, clinical manifestation, laboratory diagnosis, and therapeutics. The information provided should help in early case detection and support an evidence‐based clinical decision.
Effect of Flavonoid Supplementation on Alveolar Bone Healing—A Randomized Pilot Trial

We investigated the effects of two common dietary supplements on bone healing in dental extraction sockets in humans. In this randomized pilot trial, male subjects took Grape Seed Extract [GSE] or Grapefruit Extract [GFE] starting two weeks prior to dental extraction and maintained this regimen for sixty days after surgery. Extraction sockets were filled with a collagen plug. After 24 h, a socket sample was collected and processed for quantitative real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) and an 84-gene wound healing assay. Sixty days after tooth extraction, a core of newly formed bone was obtained prior to dental implant placement and processed for histology. qRT-PCR revealed that GFE led to a significant decrease in platelet-derived growth factor and interleukin (IL)1-β compared to GSE, and a significant decrease in IL-6 and CXCL2 compared to control. GSE led to a significant increase in coagulation factor Von Willebrand and inflammatory marker IL1-β compared to GFE. WISP1 and CXCL5 were upregulated in both groups. Overall, GFE showed a downregulation of inflammation and GSE led to a decrease in collagen density and increased osteoclasts. This pilot trial highlights the need for further investigation on the mechanism of action of such supplements on bone healing and oral health.
Spatiotemporal Task Scheduling for Heterogeneous Delay-Tolerant Applications in Distributed Green Data Centers

A growing number of organizations deploy multiple heterogeneous applications in infrastructures of distributed green data centers (DGDCs) to flexibly provide services to users around the world in a low-cost and high-quality way. The skyrocketing growth in types and number of heterogeneous applications dramatically increases the amount of energy consumed by DGDCs. The spatial and temporal variations in prices of power grid and availability of renewable energy make it highly challenging to minimize the energy cost of DGDC providers by intelligently scheduling arriving tasks of heterogeneous applications among GDCs while meeting their expected delay bound constraints. Unlike existing studies, this paper proposes a spatiotemporal task scheduling (STTS) algorithm to minimize energy cost by cost-effectively scheduling all arriving tasks to meet their delay bound constraints. STTS well investigates spatial and temporal variations in DGDCs. In each time slot, the energy cost minimization problem is formulated as a nonlinear constrained optimization one and addressed with the proposed genetic simulated-annealing-based particle swarm optimization. Trace-driven experiments show that STTS achieves larger throughput and lower energy cost than several typical task scheduling approaches while strictly meeting all tasks’ delay bound constraints. Note to Practitioners—This paper investigates the energy cost minimization problem for a DGDC provider while meeting delay bound constraints for all arriving tasks. Previous scheduling methods do not jointly consider spatial and temporal variations in prices of power grid and availability of renewable energy in DGDCs. Therefore, they fail to adopt such variations to minimize the energy cost of a DGDC provider. In this paper, a new method that avoids disadvantages of previous methods is proposed. It is realized by adopting a hybrid metaheuristic algorithm named GSP to solve a nonlinear constrained optimization problem. Experimental results demonstrate that compared with several typical methods, it reduces energy cost and increases throughput. It can be readily integrated into realistic industrial DGDCs. The future work requires engineers to consider the effect of indeterminacy and uncertainty of green energy on scheduling methods.
Maternal diets matter for children's dietary quality: Seasonal dietary diversity and animal‐source foods consumption in rural Timor‐Leste

Abstract Improving the dietary quality of women and children is essential to reduce all forms of malnutrition. In this study, we assessed seasonal child and maternal dietary diversity and consumption of animal‐source foods (ASF), using 1,236 observations from combined data collected among 167 mother–child dyads in rural Timor‐Leste. We used generalized linear and logistic mixed‐effects models to examine the dietary differentials of mothers and children in two agricultural livelihood zones and across the seasons, as well as to identify household and agroecological characteristics associated with children's dietary quality in relation to their mothers'. We found dietary quality to be marginally better in coastal than in mid‐altitude zones. However, women's diets were strikingly poor, and their intake of ASF was lower than among children. Mothers exhibited preferential allocation patterns of specific ASF, dairy products and eggs, to children. The intake of ASF was predicted by seasonality. Flesh foods and red meat were much more likely to be consumed during the dry season, when cultural ceremonies are often performed. We found a positive and strongly significant association between children's dietary indicators—dietary diversity score, minimum dietary diversity and ASF consumption, and those of their mothers'. Maternal dietary quality and educational attainment, more so than agroecological characteristics, were explanatory factors of children's diet. Our study highlights that addressing the dietary quality of children in Timor‐Leste would benefit from improving women's diets through better access to nutritious foods and to secondary education.
Molecular Markers Guiding Thyroid Cancer Management

The incidence of thyroid cancer is rapidly increasing, mostly due to the overdiagnosis and overtreatment of differentiated thyroid cancer (TC). The increasing use of potent preclinical models, high throughput molecular technologies, and gene expression microarrays have provided a deeper understanding of molecular characteristics in cancer. Hence, molecular markers have become a potent tool also in TC management to distinguish benign from malignant lesions, predict aggressive biology, prognosis, recurrence, as well as for identification of novel therapeutic targets. In differentiated TC, molecular markers are mainly used as an adjunct to guide management of indeterminate nodules on fine needle aspiration biopsies. In contrast, in advanced thyroid cancer, molecular markers enable targeted treatments of affected signalling pathways. Identification of the driver mutation of targetable kinases in advanced TC can select treatment with mutation targeted tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI) to slow growth and reverse adverse effects of the mutations, when traditional treatments fail. This review will outline the molecular landscape and discuss the impact of molecular markers on diagnosis, surveillance and treatment of differentiated, poorly differentiated and anaplastic follicular TC.
Combined Emphysema and Interstitial Lung Disease as a Rare Presentation of Pulmonary Involvement in a Patient with Chronic Visceral Acid Sphingomyelinase Deficiency (Niemann-Pick Disease Type B)

Patient: Male, 45-year-old Final Diagnosis: Niemann-Pick disease type B Symptoms: Hepatosplenomegaly • lung fibrosis Medication: — Clinical Procedure: — Specialty: Pulmonology Objective: Rare disease Background: Niemann-Pick disease is a rare genetic disorder caused by mutations in sphingomyelin phosphodiesterase 1 gene. It results in acid sphingomyelinase deficiency (ASMD) and sphingomyelin intracellular accumulation. Lung disease is diagnosed mostly in chronic visceral ASMD. Ground-glass opacities and smooth interlobular septal thickening are described most frequently. They are localized predominantly in the lower parts of both lungs. Case Report: The authors describe a rare type of lung involvement, composed of emphysema and interstitial lung disease (ILD), in a nonsmoking adult male with chronic visceral ASMD. Areas of ground-glass opacities and lung fibrosis presenting as reticulation and bronchiectasis have been described in high-resolution computed tomography of the lungs. The radiological findings were localized predominantly in the middle and lower parts of both lungs. Large air spaces of marginal emphysema, localized in the upper lobes, were also demonstrated. Foamy macrophages, staining blue with May-Grünwald-Giemsa, were found in bronchoalveolar lavage, confirming lung involvement in the course of ASMD. The course of disease was stable, with no hypoxemia at rest. Nevertheless, because of markedly decreased lung transfer for carbon monoxide and significant desaturation on exertion, further controls have been planned, with qualification for long-term oxygen therapy in case of deterioration. Conclusions: We present a unique type of lung involvement, combined emphysema and ILD, in a nonsmoking adult patient with chronic visceral ASMD. On such occasion chronic obstructive pulmonary disease coexisting with ILD as well as chronic pulmonary fibrosis and emphysema syndrome should be excluded.
Efficient generation of bone morphogenetic protein 15-edited Yorkshire pigs using CRISPR/Cas9†

Abstract Bone morphogenetic protein 15 (BMP15), a member of the transforming growth factor beta superfamily, plays an essential role in ovarian follicular development in mono-ovulatory mammalian species. Studies using a biallelic knockout mouse model revealed that BMP15 potentially has just a minimal impact on female fertility and ovarian follicular development in polyovulatory species. In contrast, our previous study demonstrated that in vivo knockdown of BMP15 significantly affected porcine female fertility, as evidenced by the dysplastic ovaries containing significantly decreased numbers of follicles and an increased number of abnormal follicles. This finding implied that BMP15 plays an important role in the regulation of female fertility and ovarian follicular development in polyovulatory species. To further investigate the regulatory role of BMP15 in porcine ovarian and follicular development, here, we describe the efficient generation of BMP15edited Yorkshire pigs using CRISPR/Cas9. Using artificial insemination experiments, we found that the biallelically edited gilts were all infertile, regardless of different genotypes. One monoallelically edited gilt #4 (Δ66 bp/WT) was fertile and could deliver offspring with a litter size comparable to that of wild-type gilts. Further analysis established that the infertility of biallelically edited gilts was caused by the arrest of follicular development at preantral stages, with formation of numerous structurally abnormal follicles, resulting in streaky ovaries and the absence of obvious estrous cycles. Our results strongly suggest that the role of BMP15 in nonrodent polyovulatory species may be as important as that in mono-ovulatory species. Summary sentence Examination of BMP15-edited cloned pigs indicated that loss of function of BMP15 severely affects porcine female fertility, mainly because of the inhibition of follicular development into the antral stage.
High-Roughage System for Raising Calves Based on the Early Development of Rumen Function. XI. Performance of Calves Fed Alfalfa, Beet Pulp, or Soybran Flakes as the Roughage in Complete Pelleted Rations

Abstract The performance of calves up to six months of age fed three complete, high-roughage (67%) pelleted rations to 16 wk of age was compared. In these pelleted rations either alfalfa (OA), beet pulp (OB), or soybran flakes (OS) were used as the basic roughage. After 16 wk to 26 wk the ration consisted of six parts loose alfalfa hay and one part grain mix. Growth, feed consumption, digestibility, and efficiency of feed utilization were used as criteria in measuring calf performance. Body weight at 16 and 26 wk and body weight gain from 8 to 16 wk and at 16 and 26 wk in the OS pellet group were significantly greater than the OA pellet group. These differences in body weight were not reflected as significant differences in withers height. None of the differences in pellet consumption were statistically significant. Digestibility of dry matter, cellulose, crude fiber, calcium, phosphorus, and TDN were all significantly greater in the OB and OS pellet groups compared to the OA pellet group. No significant differences were observed in the efficiency of feed utilization among the three pellet groups as measured by TDN intake/pound of grain.
A conceptual model of alcohol use and adherence to antiretroviral therapy: systematic review and theoretical implications for mechanisms of action

ABSTRACT Alcohol consumption is one of the most prevalent correlates of antiretroviral therapy (ART) adherence, yet causal processes underlying this association remain largely unexplored. The goal of this systematic review was to develop a conceptual model that describes the causal effect of alcohol consumption on ART nonadherence. We reviewed 230 studies that examined the association between alcohol consumption and ART adherence with three primary aims: (1) to replicate and extend previous reviews of the literature, (2) to summarize and critique study designs capable of answering questions about temporal overlap and (3) to summarize potential mechanisms of action. A model of alcohol-associated ART nonadherence was proposed to guide future work, integrating general theories of ART adherence and theory on the psychological and behavioral effects of alcohol intoxication. The conceptual model describes two mechanistic processes—prospective memory impairment and interactive toxicity beliefs/avoidance behaviors—involved in alcohol-associated intentional and unintentional nonadherence, respectively. This model can be used to guide future research on the causal processes involved in the frequently observed correlation between alcohol consumption and adherence.
Strategies to reduce the risk of platinum containing antineoplastic drug-induced ototoxicity

ABSTRACT Introduction Cisplatin is a highly effective chemotherapeutic agent against a variety of solid tumors in adults and in children. Unfortunately, a large percentage of patients suffer permanent sensorineural hearing loss. Up to 60% of children and at least 50% of adults suffer this complication that seriously compromises their quality of life. Hearing loss is due to damage to the sensory cells in the inner ear. The mechanisms of cochlear damage are still being investigated. However, it appears that inner ear damage is triggered by reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation and inflammation 34. Areas covered We discuss a number of potential therapeutic targets that can be addressed to provide hearing protection. These strategies include enhancing the endogenous antioxidant pathways, heat shock proteins, G protein coupled receptors and counteracting ROS and reactive nitrogen species, and blocking pathways that produce inflammation, including TRPV1 and STAT1 36. Expert opinion Numerous potential protective agents show promise in animal models by systemic or local administration. However, clinical trials have not shown much efficacy to date with the exception of sodium thiosulfate. There is an urgent need to discover safe and effective protective agents that do not interfere with the efficacy of cisplatin against tumors yet preserve hearing 151.