Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Isolation, characterization, and properties study of probiotic lactic acid bacteria of selected yoghurt from Bangladesh

Probiotics, as functional food components, are recognized as safe microorganisms of viable single or mixed cultures with claimed health promoting effects on their host by improving the properties of the indigenous intestinal microflora. In the present study, a total of ten probiotic lactic acid bacteria were isolated comprising Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus brevis, Bifidobacterium sp. and Streptococcus thermophilus. According to morphological, physiological, and biochemical assays, all the isolates were gram positive, endospore negative, catalase negative, non-motile, and possessed bile salt hydrolase activity characteristic to probiotic bacteria. Carbohydrate fermentation profiles ensured the presumptive identification. Importantly, the isolates were resistant to artificial gastric juice environment at pH 2.2, and their resistance decreased after 24 h of incubation at 37°C. Moreover, bile salt tolerance was observed not only at 0.05, 0.1, 0.15, and 0.3% artificial bile from 0 to 4 h of incubation at 37°C, but also started multiplication after 16 h. The best phenol tolerance found at 0.1 to 0.2% phenol, very low at 0.3 and 0.4% phenol after 12 and 24 h of incubation, respectively. They also possessed excellent tolerance against 1 to 7% NaCl. Because of being probiotic potentiality, the best isolates can be used for probiotic product development in future. Key words: Probiotics, artificial bile, artificial gastric juice, bile salt hydrolase, carbohydrate fermentation.
Analysis of Post-Sample Collection EDTA Effects on Mean Platelet Volume Values in Relation to Overweight and Obese Patient Status

Background: Mean platelet volume (MPV) may be a useful biomarker for platelet activation in obese patients. However, storage duration and use of anticoagulant K3-ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) may interfere with these measurements. Objectives: The aim of this study was to measure the variability of MPV in obese patients following exposure to EDTA. Method: A total of 160 patients were divided into 3 groups according to body mass index (BMI; normal: <25 kg/m2; overweight: 25–30 kg/m2; obese: >30 kg/m2). Blood was collected in sterile tubes containing K3-EDTA. Blood cell counts were obtained using the CELL-DYN Ruby system immediately and 1, 2, and 3 h after collection. Results: MPV was found to be directly proportional to BMI. With the addition of EDTA, MPV was increased in the first hour after collection; MPV then decreased to levels that were lower than initial baseline measurements. Conclusions: K3-EDTA use alters platelet volume. The time from collection to measurement should be standardized to reduce MPV value variance. MPV should be determined within 1 h of collection to avoid anticoagulant use-related interference.
Effectiveness of antismoking campaigns using health shock appeals among male university students in Western Australia

Background. Smoking causes ischemic heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, and lung cancer killing 15,000 australians every year. despite extensive publicity of the harmful health effects of smoking, one in six australian aged 15 years and over smoked daily representing 2.7 million active smokers. Objectives. The research aimed to comprehend how active university student smokers respond to different appeals employed in public service antismoking campaigns in western australia. Material and methods. The study examined the Quit Victoria 2006–2008 antismoking campaign using qualitative research method involving four in-depth focus group discussions with a total of twenty-four (N = 24) active male university student smokers in Western Australia between the age group of 18 to 24 years. Results. Male university students became active smokers because of the perceived image of ‘coolness,’ ‘macho,’ media influence and experimentation. Impact on sports performances predominantly encouraged respondents in attempting to quit smoking. Sixteen students (67%) felt that graphic warning messages on cigarette packs had no effect on them due to desensitizing effects of repeated messages. Twenty-one participants (87.5%) felt that health shock appeal was ineffective in making them quit. Emotional appeals like humor, fear, and health shock were most persuasive in advertising messages which would assist in smoking cessation. Therefore, antismoking campaigns with shock health appeals were ineffective in helping smokers to abdicate smoking. results suggested employing emotional or combination of rational and emotional appeals in maximizing the effectiveness of antismoking advertisements. Conclusions. The study broadens the scope of devising effective antismoking campaigns and provide insightful implications for public health promoters as well as individualized care providers.
The Use Of 'Emergent Behaviour Systems' To Optimise Road Networks For Pedestrian And Cycling

Traditional traffic control systems tend to use a top down, hierarchical approach that can be effective in controlling motor vehicle traffic, but such approaches can be somewhat deficient when it comes to the management of the comparatively unpredictable behaviour of pedestrians and to a lesser extent, cyclists. The concept of ‘emergent behaviour systems’ (Johnson, 2002) uses the collective intelligence of individual members of a system to provide an overall ‘idealised’ demand management response. Using the City of Adelaide in Australia as a case study, the city centre for a modestly sized metropolis of 1.1 million people, this paper examines what changes to the local road system and local traffic monitoring would be needed to better provide for the needs of pedestrians and cyclists. Ultimately, the application of this new approach could be of substantial value to urban and transport planners in helping car dependent urban areas make the transition towards more environmentally sustainable modes of transport such as walking and cycling.
Evaluation of Cytotoxic Effects of Different Concentrations of Porous Hollow Au Nanoparticles (PHAuNPs) on Cells

Nanoparticles (NPs) have been introduced as a suitable alternative in many in vivo bioapplications. The risks of utilizing nanoparticles continue to be an ongoing research. Furthermore, the various chemicals used in their synthesis influence the cytotoxic effects of nanoparticles. We have investigated the cytotoxicity of Porous Hollow Au Nanoparticles (PHAuNPs) on cancer cell lines PC-3, PC-3ML, and MDA-MB-231 and the normal cell line PNT1A. Cell proliferation for the different cells in the presence of different concentrations of the PHAuNPs was assessed after 24 hours and 72 hours of incubation using MTT assay. The study also included the cytotoxic evaluation of pegylated PHAuNPs. Identical cell seeding densities, particle concentrations, and incubation times were employed for these two types of Au nanoparticles. Our results indicated that (1) impact on cell proliferation was concentration dependent and was different for the different cell types without cellular necrosis and (b) cellular proliferation might be impacted more based on the cell line.
The Role of News Media Use and Demographic Characteristics in the Prediction of Information Overload

Drawing on the information overload theory, this study investigates how news media use relates to the probability of information overload. Our broad goal is to explore how typical media use outside the working environment impacts information overload. Through a large mail survey conducted in northwest Ohio (N = 661), the study combined resident samples and college student samples and examined several variables regarding demographic characteristics, news media use, and information searching efficiency. Multinomial logistic regression was used to analyze the data. Results confirmed that age, gender, income, traditional news media use, and information searching efficiency can partially predict one’s probability of experiencing information overload. Theoretical explanations for these outcomes are presented, and implications for information overload research are discussed.
FE2 Method for Coupled Transient Diffusion Phenomena in Concrete

A coupled finite-element squared (FE²)-framework is formulated and employed for simulation of a transient and coupled moisture-chloride ion diffusion problem in concrete. Simulations are carried out on the macroscale, where the material response is obtained concurrently in the computations by introducing a representative volume element (RVE) in the macroscale quadrature points. The RVE, in turn, contains the mesoscale heterogeneities of concrete in terms of cement paste, aggregates, and interfacial transition zone (ITZ). In this fashion, the RVE comes to serve as a constitutive model for the macroscale. A numerical example is given to show how the transient macroscale diffusion is influenced by the composition of the mesoscale constituents. Parametric studies were carried out with respect to the aggregate content within the RVE, both including and excluding the ITZ, and the coupling parameters of moisture and chloride ions.
Mediating effect of value creation in the relationship between relational capabilities on business performance

This paper aims at investigating empirical study of the effect of relational capabilities (RC) and identifying the effect of value creation (VC) and market knowledge competence (MKC) to business performance on SMEs. This paper tries to develop and solve the problems of research gap on relational capabilities on business performance. Data were collected from 305 exported-furniture SME respondents in Central Java Indonesia. After validating test with the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analysis was used to measure direct and indirect effect to test the hypothesis model. There is a positive insignificant effect between relational capabilities and business performance, and there is a positive significant to value creation.In addition, the effect of the market knowledge competence on business performance and value creation has a positive significant impact. There is a positive impact between value creation on business performance. This paper contributes to solve the debate between relational capabilities on business performance controversy.
Ethnomedicinal Plants Used by Gond Tribe of Bhandara District, Maharashtra in the Treatment of Diarrhoea and Dysentery

This research paper presents the findings of an investigation on traditional remedies of diarrhoea and dysentery among the ethnic group (Gond tribe) in the Bhandara district of Maharashtra state, India. 38 valuable species belonging to 27 families were identified with relevant information and are documented alphabetically in this paper with regard to their botanical name followed by family name, local name, parts used, mode of preparation and medicinal uses.
Ketogenic diet for schizophrenia: clinical implication.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW The aim of this article is to review recent findings on the efficacy of ketogenic diet in preclinical models and in patients with schizophrenia. This review will also highlight emerging evidence for compromised glucose and energy metabolism in schizophrenia, which provides a strong rationale and a potential mechanism of action for ketogenic diet. RECENT FINDINGS Recent transcriptomic, proteomic and metabolomic evidence from postmortem prefrontal cortical samples and in-vivo NMR spectroscopy results support the hypothesis that there is a bioenergetics dysfunction characterized by abnormal glucose handling and mitochondrial dysfunctions resulting in impaired synaptic communication in the brain of people with schizophrenia. Ketogenic diet, which provides alternative fuel to glucose for bioenergetic processes in the brain, normalizes schizophrenia-like behaviours in translationally relevant pharmacological and genetic mouse models. Furthermore, recent case studies demonstrate that ketogenic diet produces improvement in psychiatric symptoms as well as metabolic dysfunctions and body composition in patients with schizophrenia. SUMMARY These results support that ketogenic diet may present a novel therapeutic approach through restoring brain energy metabolism in schizophrenia. Randomized controlled clinical trials are needed to further show the efficacy of ketogenic diet as a co-treatment to manage both clinical symptoms and metabolic abnormalities inherent to the disease and resulted by antipsychotic treatment.
Using pedigree information to study genetic diversity and re-evaluating a selection program in an experimental flock of Afshari sheep

The purpose of this paper was to evaluate the inbreeding consequences of a short-term selection experiment which was initiated in 1998 in an Afshari sheep flock. Moreover, the conducted selection experiment was re-evaluated through assessing change in ranking of the first 10 influential ancestors when their genetic contributions were replaced with their breeding values. A total of 1 714 animals were registered in the herdbook with a founder population comprised of 243 animals. The average coancestry (f ) and inbreeding (F) in the reference population were 2.1 % and 1.2 %, respectively. Estimated value of the effective population size (N e ) was 50. The effective number of founders (f e ) was estimated to be 40 and the effective number of ancestors (f a ) was 34. Estimates of breeding values revealed that owing to phenotypic selection some ancestors with lower breeding values had greater contribution to the reference genome than those with greater breeding values and, for this reason, the population has been deprived from the maximum genetic improvement that could be achieved if selection was based on breeding values. The effective number of founder genomes (f g ) was computed to be 23 and the effective number of non-founder genomes (f ne ) was 55. The index of genetic diversity decreased by almost 2.2 % over the period studied. In general, decrease in genetic variability was low and N e was not very low for a small-closed population under selection, indicating even in populations which undergo selection, besides achieving genetic gain, the rate of inbreeding is controllable if matings carefully planned.
Dioscin Inhibits the Invasion and Migration of Hepatocellular Carcinoma HepG2 Cells by Reversing TGF-β1-Induced Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition

Dioscin is a natural steroidal saponin that can be isolated from Chinese medicine, such as Dioscoreae rhizoma. It has wild range of pharmacological activities such as hepatoprotection, a lipid-lowering effect, and anti-inflammation. Recently, mounting studies reported the anticancer effect of dioscin on a variety of tumor cells. However, the potential effect of dioscin on the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) of HepG2 cells is unclear. In the present study, dioscin was identified to inhibit transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1) and induced invasive and migratory behavior of HepG2 cells. Consistently, the expression of the epithelial marker E-cadherin and gap junction proteins increased following dioscin treatment, while mesenchymal markers decreased, including N-cadherin, Vimentin, Snail, and Slug. Furthermore, we discovered that TGF-β1 induces phosphorylation of JNK, p38, and Erk, whereas the activation of these kinases was reversed by dioscin treatment in a dose-dependent manner. With the addition of Asiatic acid, a p38 activator, the inhibitory effect of dioscin on EMT was reversed. Taken together, these data indicated that dioscin inhibits EMT in HepG2 cells, which is mediated in large part by inhibition of the p38-MAPK signaling.
The Hinrichsen Embryology Collection: Digitization of Historical Histological Human Embryonic Slides and MRI of Whole Fetuses

The number of human embryology collections is very limited worldwide. Some of these comprise the Carnegie Collection, Kyoto Collection, and the Blechschmidt Collection. One further embryonic collection is the Hinrichsen Collection of the Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, which also contains very well-preserved embryos/fetuses, along with approximately 16,000 histological sections. The digitization of this collection is indispensable to enable conservation of the collection for the future and to provide a large group of embryologists, researchers, and physicians access to these histological slides. A small selection of these scans is available at the website of the Digital Embryology Consortium [https://human-embryology.org/wiki/Main_Page].
Faster gait speeds reduce alpha and beta EEG spectral power from human sensorimotor cortex

Objective: Our aim was to determine if walking speed affected human sensorimotor electrocortical dynamics using mobile high-density electroencephalography (EEG). Methods: To overcome limitations associated with motion and muscle artifact contamination in EEG recordings, we compared solutions for artifact removal using novel dual-layer EEG electrodes and alternative signal processing methods. Dual-layer EEG simultaneously recorded human electrocortical signals and isolated motion artifacts using pairs of mechanically coupled and electrically independent electrodes. For electrical muscle activity removal, we incorporated electromyographic (EMG) recordings from the neck into our mobile EEG data processing pipeline. We compared artifact removal methods during treadmill walking at four speeds (0.5, 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 m/s). Results: Left and right sensorimotor alpha and beta spectral power increased in contralateral limb single support and push off, and decreased during contralateral limb swing at each speed. At faster walking speeds, sensorimotor spectral power fluctuations were less pronounced across the gait cycle with reduced alpha and beta power (p < 0.05) compared to slower speeds. Isolated noise recordings and neck EMG spectral power fluctuations matched gait events and showed broadband spectral power increases at faster speeds. Conclusion and significance: Dual-layer EEG enabled us to isolate changes in human sensorimotor electrocortical dynamics across walking speeds. A comparison of signal processing approaches revealed similar intrastride cortical fluctuations when applying common (e.g., artifact subspace reconstruction) and novel artifact rejection methods. Dual-layer EEG, however, allowed us to document and rule out residual artifacts, which exposed sensorimotor spectral power changes across gait speeds.
Replacement of dropouts may bias results: Comment on “The effect of green tea ointment on episiotomy pain and wound healing in primiparous women: A randomized, double‐blind, placebo‐controlled clinical trial”

Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT) are important for making unbiased estimates of treatment effects but need to be performed carefully with proper analysis.While it is common to have subjects dropout of a study, this could lead to bias if they are not accounted for correctly in the statistical analysis (Wood,White, & Thompson, 2004; Juni & Egger, 2005). Bell et al. show how, even if the dropout rates are similar between study arms, the results for treatment effects can be biased, while having unequal dropout rates does not mean that the results will be biased (Bell, Kenward, Fairclough, & Horton, 2013). Therefore, it is necessary to account for the dropouts correctly, which is why Intention to Treat (ITT) analysis is preferred to provide unbiased results (Elobeid et al., 2009; Gupta, 2011; Hollis & Campbell, 1999; Newel, 1992). Shahrahmani et al. conducted an RCT on the effect of green tea ointment on episiotomy pain and wound healing in primiparous women (Shahrahmani et al., 2018), and in doing so, they replaced the dropouts with new participants. This presumably alleviates the problem of losing power, but it does not eliminate the potential bias of missing data from dropouts (Juni, Altman, & Egger, 2001). Moreover, replacing dropouts can introduce new bias. The method of replacement used by Shahrahmani et al. is not clear. Referring to the 10 subjects lost to follow‐up (three from the green tea group, three from the placebo ointment, and four from the group with no ointment), the authors state “subjects were replaced by other eligible women,” where the original number of 33 per group is maintained for analysis. If the next person enrolled was put into the treatment group of the most recent dropout, this is not a random process. If additional subjects are needed, the next participant enrolled should be assigned randomly to one of the three groups with equal probability, in the same manner as the rest of the study participants, thus maintaining the randomization allocation ratio (Shibadas & Vinu, 2018). Compromising the randomization interferes with the validity of causal inferences. Additionally, assigning a new participant to the treatment group of a dropout outside the randomization procedure might mean that the allocation is not concealed if study staff know the dropout's treatment group, which can lead to selection bias (Day & Altman, 2000). It is also puzzling that the researchers replaced the dropouts after they intentionally recruited extra participants to account for 20%
Design and Performance Test of Phase Controlled Dual-frequency Ultrasonic Power

Dual-Frequency (DF) ultrasonic can eliminate the standing wave, and significantly enhance the effect of cavitation compared with single frequency ultrasonic when it is applied to the medium. Frequency and phase difference of DF ultrasonic are the important parameters to influence the effect of cavitation. The synchronous control method of DF signal generator module was studied. The power amplifier and driving circuits were designed and the feedback circuits based on the maximum current searching method was researched. The DF ultrasonic power supply with adjustable frequency and phase difference as well as DF drive at the same time was developed. The output performances of the DF ultrasonic supply were tested. The results show that the output signal waveforms of DF power supply are stable, the output frequencies are accurate, and the errors of phase difference and automatic searching frequency are less than 1% and 0.3% individually.
Technique to reduce the minimum toe clearance of young adults during walking to simulate the risk of tripping of the elderly

The elderly gait encompasses several disorders, including a lower minimum toe clearance (MTC) to the ground, which is a potential cause of tripping and falling while walking. Devices that assist in the MTC could reduce such risks. However, the development of effective assistive methods and their evaluation in the elderly might jeopardize their safety. To address this, young adults could take the place of the elderly. We present Muscle Activity Restriction Taping Technique (MARTT) that was devised to simulate the healthy-elderly gait characteristics in the young adults, particularly the lower MTC, by restricting the activity of lower-limb muscles. Two different restriction approaches, one that restricts muscles at the shank and the other at the shank and thigh, simultaneously, were tested at different walking speeds. Both approaches achieved a reduction in the MTC, regardless of the walking speed. The MTC was reduced to a median value lower than 10.1 mm, which is within the range of the MTC values reported for the elderly. The reduction of the MTC significantly increased toe contact to the ground. With the restriction of the shank muscles, the toe-contact frequency was more than twice as that in normal walking, and with the restriction of both the shank and thigh muscles, more than five times. In addition, MARTT reproduced the lower step length, the lower single support phase, and the joint motion compensation characteristic of the elderly gait, in the youth.