Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Adolescent Changes in Cellular Proliferation in the Dentate Gyrus of Male and Female C57BL/6N Mice Are Resilient to Chronic Oral Corticosterone Treatments

Adolescent development is marked by significant changes in neurobiological structure and function. One such change is the substantial adolescent-related decline in cellular proliferation and neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampal formation. Though the behavioral implications of these developmental shifts in cell proliferation are unclear, these changes might contribute to the altered cognitive and emotional functions associated with puberty and adolescence. The significant decrease in cellular proliferation throughout adolescence might make the hippocampus more vulnerable to perturbations during this developmental stage, particularly to factors known to disrupt neurogenesis, such as chronic exposure to stress-related hormones. To examine this possibility, we first measured cellular proliferation in the dentate gyrus of male and female C57BL/6N mice before and after adolescence and then assessed both cellular proliferation and the number of immature neurons in mice treated with oral corticosterone for 4 weeks during either adolescence or adulthood. We found significant age-related decreases in hippocampal cellular proliferation in both males and females. Though the greatest decrease in proliferation was during adolescence, we also observed that proliferation continued to decline through young adulthood. Despite the significant effect of chronic oral corticosterone on body weight gain in both the adolescent- and adult-treated males and females and the subtle, but significant suppressive effect of corticosterone on the number of immature neurons in the adolescent-treated males, cell proliferation in the hippocampus was unaffected by these treatments. These data show that the substantial adolescent-related change in cellular proliferation in the dentate gyrus is largely unaffected by chronic oral corticosterone exposure in males and females. Thus, despite being vulnerable to the metabolic effects of these chronic corticosterone treatments, these results indicate that the developmental changes in cellular proliferation in the dentate gyrus are relatively resilient to these treatments in mice.
The Hurdle Approach–A Holistic Concept for Controlling Food Safety Risks Associated With Pathogenic Bacterial Contamination of Leafy Green Vegetables. A Review

Consumers appreciate leafy green vegetables such as baby leaves for their convenience and wholesomeness and for adding a variety of tastes and colors to their plate. In Western cuisine, leafy green vegetables are usually eaten fresh and raw, with no step in the long chain from seed to consumption where potentially harmful microorganisms could be completely eliminated, e.g., through heating. A concerning trend in recent years is disease outbreaks caused by various leafy vegetable crops and one of the most important foodborne pathogens in this context is Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC). Other pathogens such as Salmonella, Shigella, Yersinia enterocolitica and Listeria monocytogenes should also be considered in disease risk analysis, as they have been implicated in outbreaks associated with leafy greens. These pathogens may enter the horticultural value network during primary production in field or greenhouse via irrigation, at harvest, during processing and distribution or in the home kitchen/restaurant. The hurdle approach involves combining several mitigating approaches, each of which is insufficient on its own, to control or even eliminate pathogens in food products. Since the food chain system for leafy green vegetables contains no absolute kill step for pathogens, use of hurdles at critical points could enable control of pathogens that pose a human health risk. Hurdles should be combined so as to decrease the risk due to pathogenic microbes and also to improve microbial stability, shelf-life, nutritional properties and sensory quality of leafy vegetables. The hurdle toolbox includes different options, such as physical, physiochemical and microbial hurdles. The goal for leafy green vegetables is multi-target preservation through intelligently applied hurdles. This review describes hurdles that could be used for leafy green vegetables and their biological basis, and identifies prospective hurdles that need attention in future research.
Associative Learning of Stimuli Paired and Unpaired With Reinforcement: Evaluating Evidence From Maggots, Flies, Bees, and Rats

Finding rewards and avoiding punishments are powerful goals of behavior. To maximize reward and minimize punishment, it is beneficial to learn about the stimuli that predict their occurrence, and decades of research have provided insight into the brain processes underlying such associative reinforcement learning. In addition, it is well known in experimental psychology, yet often unacknowledged in neighboring scientific disciplines, that subjects also learn about the stimuli that predict the absence of reinforcement. Here we evaluate evidence for both these learning processes. We focus on two study cases that both provide a baseline level of behavior against which the effects of associative learning can be assessed. Firstly, we report pertinent evidence from Drosophila larvae. A re-analysis of the literature reveals that through paired presentations of an odor A and a sugar reward (A+) the animals learn that the reward can be found where the odor is, and therefore show an above-baseline preference for the odor. In contrast, through unpaired training (A/+) the animals learn that the reward can be found precisely where the odor is not, and accordingly these larvae show a below-baseline preference for it (the same is the case, with inverted signs, for learning through taste punishment). In addition, we present previously unpublished data demonstrating that also during a two-odor, differential conditioning protocol (A+/B) both these learning processes take place in larvae, i.e., learning about both the rewarded stimulus A and the non-rewarded stimulus B (again, this is likewise the case for differential conditioning with taste punishment). Secondly, after briefly discussing published evidence from adult Drosophila, honeybees, and rats, we report an unpublished data set showing that relative to baseline behavior after truly random presentations of a visual stimulus A and punishment, rats exhibit memories of opposite valence upon paired and unpaired training. Collectively, the evidence conforms to classical findings in experimental psychology and suggests that across species animals associatively learn both through paired and through unpaired presentations of stimuli with reinforcement – with opposite valence. While the brain mechanisms of unpaired learning for the most part still need to be uncovered, the immediate implication is that using unpaired procedures as a mnemonically neutral control for associative reinforcement learning may be leading analyses astray.
On a two-truths phenomenon in spectral graph clustering

Significance Spectral graph clustering—clustering the vertices of a graph based on their spectral embedding—is of significant current interest, finding applications throughout the sciences. But as with clustering in general, what a particular methodology identifies as “clusters” is defined (explicitly, or, more often, implicitly) by the clustering algorithm itself. We provide a clear and concise demonstration of a “two-truths” phenomenon for spectral graph clustering in which the first step—spectral embedding—is either Laplacian spectral embedding, wherein one decomposes the normalized Laplacian of the adjacency matrix, or adjacency spectral embedding given by a decomposition of the adjacency matrix itself. The two resulting clustering methods identify fundamentally different (true and meaningful) structure. Clustering is concerned with coherently grouping observations without any explicit concept of true groupings. Spectral graph clustering—clustering the vertices of a graph based on their spectral embedding—is commonly approached via K-means (or, more generally, Gaussian mixture model) clustering composed with either Laplacian spectral embedding (LSE) or adjacency spectral embedding (ASE). Recent theoretical results provide deeper understanding of the problem and solutions and lead us to a “two-truths” LSE vs. ASE spectral graph clustering phenomenon convincingly illustrated here via a diffusion MRI connectome dataset: The different embedding methods yield different clustering results, with LSE capturing left hemisphere/right hemisphere affinity structure and ASE capturing gray matter/white matter core–periphery structure.
A Security Situation Prediction Algorithm Based on HMM in Mobile Network

The increasingly severe network security situation brings unanticipated challenges to mobile networking. Traditional HMM (Hidden Markov Model) based algorithms for predicting the network security are not accurate, and to address this issue, a weighted HMM based algorithm is proposed to predict the security situation of the mobile network. The multiscale entropy is used to address the low speed of data training in mobile network, whereas the parameters of HMM situation transition matrix are also optimized. Moreover, the autocorrelation coefficient can reasonably use the association between the characteristics of the historical data to predict future security situation. Experimental analysis on DARPA2000 shows that the proposed algorithm is highly competitive, with good performance in prediction speed and accuracy when compared to existing design.
Optic Neuritis Possibly Induced by Anti-PD-L1 Antibody Treatment in a Patient with Non-Small Cell Lung Carcinoma

Background: Recent immune therapy with checkpoint inhibitors (CPIs) has demonstrated remarkable antitumor effects on specific tumors, such as malignant lymphoma and non-small cell lung carcinoma. By contrast, CPIs cause an imbalance in the immune system, triggering a wide range of immunological side effects termed immune-related adverse effects (irAEs). Here, we report a rare case of optic neuritis and hypopituitarism during anti-programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) antibody treatment. Case Presentation: A patient with non-small cell lung carcinoma received anti-PD-L1 antibody treatment every 3 weeks; however, the patient started experiencing headaches, general fatigue, anorexia, and diarrhea approximately 1 year after the initiation of the treatment. Moreover, sudden visual loss of the right eye occurred 1 week after the interruption of the anti-PD-L1 antibody treatment. MRI findings showed gadolinium enhancement in the left optic nerve, but no enlargement of the pituitary gland and stalk. Laboratory data showed decreased serum adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), cortisol, and free T4 levels, and a hormone tolerance test indicated hypopituitarism, hypothyroidism, and hypoadrenocorticism. The central scotoma caused by optic neuritis completely disappeared immediately after a course of steroid pulse therapy, and no recurrence occurred up to 2 years after initiation of the steroid pulse therapy while replacement therapy for hypothyroidism and hypoadrenocorticism was continued. Conclusions: The patient presented with optic neuritis and hypopituitarism, possibly due to irAEs of the anti-PD-L1 antibody treatment. Steroid pulse therapy was effective for optic neuritis, suggesting underlying immunological mechanisms. Neurological complications including optic neuritis should be considered when examining patients with cancer undergoing CPI treatment.
Designing the ideal perioperative pain management plan starts with multimodal analgesia

Multimodal analgesia is defined as the use of more than one pharmacological class of analgesic medication targeting different receptors along the pain pathway with the goal of improving analgesia while reducing individual class-related side effects. Evidence today supports the routine use of multimodal analgesia in the perioperative period to eliminate the over-reliance on opioids for pain control and to reduce opioid-related adverse events. A multimodal analgesic protocol should be surgery-specific, functioning more like a checklist than a recipe, with options to tailor to the individual patient. Elements of this protocol may include opioids, non-opioid systemic analgesics like acetaminophen, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, gabapentinoids, ketamine, and local anesthetics administered by infiltration, regional block, or the intravenous route. While implementation of multimodal analgesic protocols perioperatively is recommended as an intervention to decrease the prevalence of long-term opioid use following surgery, the concurrent crisis of drug shortages presents an additional challenge. Anesthesiologists and acute pain medicine specialists will need to advocate locally and nationally to ensure a steady supply of analgesic medications and in-class alternatives for their patients’ perioperative pain management.
StimDust: A 1.7 mm$^3$, implantable wireless precision neural stimulator with ultrasonic power and communication.

Neural stimulation is a powerful technique for modulating physiological functions and for writing information into the nervous system as part of brain-machine interfaces. Current clinically approved neural stimulators require batteries and are many cubic centimeters in size: typically much larger than their intended targets. We present a complete wireless neural stimulation system consisting of a 1.7 mm$^3$ wireless, batteryless, leadless implantable stimulator (the "mote"), an ultrasonic wireless link for power and bi-directional communication, and a hand-held external transceiver. The mote consists of a piezoceramic transducer, an energy storage capacitor, and a stimulator integrated circuit (IC). The IC harvests ultrasonic power with high efficiency, decodes stimulation parameter downlink data, and generates current-controlled stimulation pulses. Stimulation parameters are time-encoded on the fly through the wireless link rather than being programmed and stored on the mote, enabling complex stimulation protocols with high-temporal resolution and closed-loop capability while reducing power consumption and on-chip memory requirements. Uplink data indicates whether the mote is currently stimulating; it is encoded by the mote via backscatter modulation and is demodulated at the external transceiver. We show that the system operates at an acoustic power one fifth the FDA limit for diagnostic ultrasound and is robust to expected real-world acoustic link misalignment. We investigate the performance of the system with motes acutely implanted with a cuff on the sciatic nerve of anesthetized rats and show highly repeatable stimulation across a wide range of physiological responses.
Using More Sophisticated Technology to Teach Mathematics

Over time, the debate about using technology in the classroom has evolved as much as the technology itself. Not only has the role of technology grown and shifted in the classroom, but also the level of technological sophistication has changed the way these tools are used. Employing these tools in the mathematics classroom allows students to no longer take a somewhat passive role, treating technology as either their master or servant. Rather, these tools allow the technology to become the students’ partner or an extension of themselves. In addition, students can now engage in the role of active learners by producing and/or publishing content previously not possible. Even though the TI-83/84 has its place in the mathematics classroom, particularly considering the high-stakes testing relationship, mathematics educators must embrace the ever-growing tools of Web 2.0 to become even more efficient and effective.
Cysteine proteases as digestive enzymes in parasitic helminths

We briefly review cysteine proteases (orthologs of mammalian cathepsins B, L, F, and C) that are expressed in flatworm and nematode parasites. Emphasis is placed on enzyme activities that have been functionally characterized, are associated with the parasite gut, and putatively contribute to degrading host proteins to absorbable nutrients [1–4]. Often, gut proteases are expressed as multigene families, as is the case with Fasciola [5] and Haemonchus [6], presumably expanding the range of substrates that can be degraded, not least during parasite migration through host tissues [5]. The application of the free-living planarian and Caenorhabditis elegans as investigative models for parasite cysteine proteases is discussed. Finally, because of their central nutritive contribution, targeting the component gut proteases with small-molecule chemical inhibitors and understanding their utility as vaccine candidates are active areas of research [7].
Muscle Activity-Driven Green-Oriented Random Number Generation Mechanism to Secure WBSN Wearable Device Communications

Wireless body sensor networks (WBSNs) mostly consist of low-cost sensor nodes and implanted devices which generally have extremely limited capability of computations and energy capabilities. Hence, traditional security protocols and privacy enhancing technologies are not applicable to the WBSNs since their computations and cryptographic primitives are normally exceedingly complicated. Nowadays, mobile wearable and wireless muscle-computer interfaces have been integrated with the WBSN sensors for various applications such as rehabilitation, sports, entertainment, and healthcare. In this paper, we propose MGRNG, a novel muscle activity-driven green-oriented random number generation mechanism which uses the human muscle activity as green energy resource to generate random numbers (RNs). The RNs can be used to enhance the privacy of wearable device communications and secure WBSNs for rehabilitation purposes. The method was tested on 10 healthy subjects as well as 5 amputee subjects with 105 segments of simultaneously recorded surface electromyography signals from their forearm muscles. The proposed MGRNG requires only one second to generate a 128-bit RN, which is much more efficient when compared to the electrocardiography-based RN generation algorithms. Experimental results show that the RNs generated from human muscle activity signals can pass the entropy test and the NIST random test and thus can be used to secure the WBSN nodes.
Strategic Approach to Privacy Calculus of Wearable Device User Regarding Information Disclosure and Continuance Intention

The healthcare and fitness wearable-device market is considered as the driving force of the entire wearable device market. However, there are concerns with respect to information privacy because wearable devices constantly collect sensitive data such as individuals’ health information. Thus, there is a need for a comprehensive understanding from the perspective of information privacy concerns and related behavior. This study investigates factors considered in the privacy calculus of wearable fitness devices, and verifies differences obtained by the privacy calculus process according to the frequency of exercise. The results obtained from a survey of 248 undergraduate students in Korea revealed that service providers should consider users’ interests and exercise characteristics in order to mitigate their privacy concerns and encourage continuous use of wearable devices. This study provides useful insights pertaining to users of wearable fitness devices, and targets researchers and practitioners.
A Review of the Effect of Management Practices on Campylobacter Prevalence in Poultry Farms

Poultry is frequently associated with campylobacteriosis in humans, with Campylobacter jejuni being the most usual Campylobacter associated with disease in humans. Far-reaching research on Campylobacter was undertaken over the past two decades. This has resulted in interventions being put in place on farms and in processing plants. Despite these interventions, coupled with increased media coverage to educate the consumer on Campylobacter prevalence and campylobacteriosis, human health incidents are still high. Recent research is now shifting toward further understanding of the microorganisms to challenge interventions in place and to look at further and more relevant interventions for the reduction in human incidents. Farm practices play a key role in the control of colonization within poultry houses and among flocks. Prevalence at the farm level can be up to 100% and time of colonization may vary widely between flocks. Considerable research has been performed to understand how farm management and animal health practices can affect colonization on farms. This review will focus on farm practices to date as a baseline for future interventions as the microorganism becomes better understood. Further research is required to understand the chicken microbiome and factors influencing vertical transmission. The persistence of Campylobacter in animal and environmental reservoirs within and around farms requires further investigation to tailor farm practices toward preventing such reservoirs. IMPLICATIONS This review gives an overview of farm practices and their effect on Campylobacter prevalence in poultry. Various elements of farm practices have been captured in this review.
Compliance Assessment of Cigarette and Other Tobacco Products Act in Public Places in Delhi Government Hospitals

Objective: Tobacco-free policies in hospital campus reduce exposure to tobacco smoke; change the demeanour of the professionals, patients and people visiting hospitals towards tobacco use. Section-4, 5 and 6 of COTPA (Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act) necessitates the need for implementation of the prohibition on smoking in public places. Against this background, the present work was designed to evaluate the status of compliance Section 4, 5 and 6 of COTPA in Delhi Government hospitals Methods: A cross-sectional observational study was conducted within Government hospitals. Multistage random sampling was used to select 18 hospitals out of 39 hospitals from 5 zones. Standard assessment Proforma developed by John Hopkins School of Public Health for assessing compliance to Tobacco-Free Law was used and modified to address certain aspects of Section-4, 5 and 6 of COTPA. Hospital campuses were assessed by dividing them into zones like hospital buildings, office buildings, public places outside the hospital and residential areas. Result: Signs of active tobacco use observed in 40.6% of hospital buildings, 35.3% in office buildings, and 75.4% in public places outside the buildings. ‘No smoking signage was not as per the COTPA guidelines in 21.4% of the hospitals and 72% were not tobacco free outdoors in these positions. Conclusion: The study highlighted a lower compliance rate than expected which raises questions on law enforcement concerning tobacco. Hence necessary measures have to be used up for sustained awareness campaigns, backed by enforcement drives. Periodic compliance surveys will strengthen the implementation of tobacco free legislation in health care institutions.
Precise Localization of Multiple Noncooperative Objects in a Disordered Cavity by Wave Front Shaping.

Complicated multipath trajectories of waves in disordered cavities cause object localization to be very challenging with traditional ray-tracing approaches. Yet it is known that information about the object position is encoded in the Green's function. After a calibration step, traditional time-reversal approaches retrieve a source's location from a broadband impulse response measurement. Here, we show that a nonemitting object's scattering contribution to a reverberant medium suffices to localize the object. We demonstrate our finding in the microwave domain. Then, we further simplify the scheme by replacing the temporal degrees of freedom (d.o.f.) of the broadband measurement with spatial d.o. f. obtained from wave front shaping. A simple electronically reconfigurable reflectarray inside the cavity dynamically modulates parts of the cavity boundaries, thereby providing spatial d.o. f. The demonstrated ability to localize multiple noncooperative objects with a single-frequency scheme may have important applications for sensors in smart homes.