Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of the First Phase of Cardiac Rehabilitation on Quality of Life and Functional Capacity of Patients with Heart Failure

Background and aims: The prevalence of heart failure is increasing. The effects of the second and third phases of cardiac rehabilitation in reducing symptoms and improving quality of life for ambulatory (discharged) heart patients has repeatedly been investigated. However, due to the threats to the survival of heart patients at hospitalization (and the possibility of a sharp decline in functional capacity of patients at this stage), the first phase of cardiac rehabilitation, especially for patients with heart failure, has rarely been studied. Meanwhile, the quality of life is becoming increasingly important in the health care system so that it is belived that the most important goal in interventions is to improve the quality of life, especially in chronic diseases. Thus, the aim of the present study was to evaluate the effect of the first phase of cardiac rehabilitation on the quality of life and functional capacity of patients with heart failure. Methods and Materials: In the present one way blind clinical trial, 34 patients with moderate and severe heart failure (New York Heart Association functional classification basis) with left ventricular ejection fraction lower than 40 percent were included. The patients were randomly divided into two groups. Both groups received routine medical care during hospitalization and respiratory physiotherapy. In addition, patients in the intervention group care had aerobic exercise program using a stationary bicycle. In both groups, in addition to the usual parameters (such as heart rate, blood pressure and respiratory rate), the first and fifth day of hospitalization, quality of life (using the Persian version of the Seattle Angina Questionnaire) and functional capacity (6-minute walk test) were measured. Normality Shapiro-Wilk test was also performed. Then, dependent parameters in the two groups were tracked running multi-factor repeated measures analysis of variance. Results: In the beginning of the study, the two groups were not significantly different in terms of the variables related to disease severity and demographics. Then, functional capacity was increased in both groups from the first day to the fifth day, yet this improvement was not found to be significant. Also, the quality of life improved 53.84 percent in the intervention group and 29.62 percent in the control group, which is statistically significant (p <0.001). Conclusion: Cardiac rehabilitation during the first five days of hospitalization can improve the quality of life (which is considered as a predictor of outcome in heart failure) as well as functional capacity in heart failure patients.
Phenotypic compromise in the face of conflicting ecological demands: an example in red knots Calidris canutus

Phenotypic flexibility is a phenomenon where physiological functions in animals are reversibly adjusted in response to ecological constraints. Research usually focuses on effects of single constraints, but under natural conditions animals face a multitude of restrictions acting simultaneously, and potentially generating conflicting demands on the phenotype. We investigated the conflicting demands of low temperatures and a low quality diet on the phenotype of a shorebird, the red knot Calidris canutus. We tested the effects of switching diet from a high quality trout food to low quality hard-shelled bivalves in captive birds acclimated to temperatures reflecting natural winter conditions. Feeding on bivalves generated a digestive constraint forcing the birds to increase the height and width of their gizzard by 66% and 71%, respectively, over 30 days. The change in gizzard size was associated with an initial 15% loss of body mass and a reduction in size of the pectoral muscles by 11%. Because pectoral muscle size determines summit metabolic rate (Msum, an indicator of cold endurance), measured Msum declined by 9%. Therefore, although the birds were acclimated to cold, gizzard growth led to a loss of cold endurance. We propose that cold-acclimated knots facing a digestive constraint made a phenotypic compromise by giving-up cold hardiness for digestive capacity. Field studies suggest that phenotypic compromises occur in free-living red knots as well and help improve survival.
Long-time evolution of interfacial structure of partial wetting

When a solid plate is withdrawn from a partially wetting liquid, a liquid layer dewets the moving substrate. High-speed imaging reveals alternating thin and thick regions in the entrained layer in the transverse direction at steady state. This paper systematically compares this situation to the reversed process, forced wetting, where a solid entrains an air layer along its surface as it is pushed into a liquid. To quantify the absolute thickness of these steady-state structures precisely, I have developed an optical technique, taking advantage of the angle dependence of interference, combined with a method based on a maximum likelihood estimation. The data show that the thicknesses of both regions of the film scale with the capillary number, Ca. In addition, a new region is observed during onset which differs from the behavior predicted by previous models.
Thrice as easy to catch! Copper and temperature modulate predator-prey interactions in larval dragonflies and anurans

Amphibians are important indicators of environmental health, and their populations are in worldwide decline. The causes of these declines are diverse and not well understood. In some cases multiple stressors and complex causal mechanisms have been identified. Experimental studies have shown that contaminants can cause the failure of Lithobates sylvaticus tadpoles to initiate predator avoidance behaviors, potentially leading to increased tadpole capture and injury. Copper is a contaminant known to negatively affect amphibians and other aquatic organisms at sub-lethal levels. Mining waste, certain pesticides, vehicle exhaust and brake pad dust are sources of copper, which can enter hydrologic systems through runoff. Additionally, temperature is known to influence predator-prey interactions of ectotherms and is predicted to rise in some areas as climate changes. We examined how copper and temperature affected behavior and predation dynamics between an odonate predator (Aeshna sitchensis) and larval L. sylvat.
CCNY Accelerates Cylcin E Expression to Regulate the Proliferation of Laryngeal Carcinoma Cells via MEK/ERK Signaling Pathway

Background Laryngeal carcinoma is a common cancer among head and neck tumors, accounting for 0.5–1% new cancer cases or deaths of all tumors throughout the body. Despite improvements in diagnostic and therapy, the prognosis of laryngeal carcinoma patients still remains poor. Thus, it is very important to identify the biomarkers involved in the molecular pathogenesis of laryngeal carcinoma. Cyclin Y (CCNY) is a conserved cell cycle regulator that acts as a growth factor in many cancers. The clinical significance of CCNY in laryngeal carcinoma remains unknown. The function of CCNY in laryngocarcinoma was studied in this paper. Materials and Methods CCNY knock-out cells were constructed by CRISPR/CAS9 technique. CCNY overexpression cells were also constructed based on CCNY knock-out cells. Cell growth ability was detected by MTS assay, high-content cell analysis, colony formation assays, and anchorage-independent growth assays. The protein levels in laryngocarcinoma cells were determined by Western blot. The role of CCNY in cell cycle progression was evaluated by flow cytometry. Results CCNY knock-out cells and CCNY up-regulation cell models were obtained successfully. Suppression of CCNY expression inhibited Hep2 cell growth. Cell growth was enhanced by the up-regulation of CCNY. The percentage of cells in G1 phase was altered when CCNY expression was down-regulated or up-regulated. The phosphorylation level of MEK and ERK as well as cyclin E protein level was also regulated by the expression level of CCNY. Conclusion In laryngocarcinoma cell line Hep2 cells, cell proliferation was controlled by CCNY. The expression of CCNY was involved in the cell cycle progress of Hep2 cells. It indicated that CCNY could promote cell growth by activating MEK/ERK/cyclin E signaling pathway.
PHAR06) Anti Helicobacter pylori from extracts of ten species of Phyllanthus sp. with special emphasis on chloroform extracts of Phyllanthus pulcher

Introduction Some Phyllanthus species have been traditionally used as remedies for gastric ailments which may be associated with Helicobacter pylori’s infection (Van Holthoon, 1999). However, no scientific observations on the treatment of this infection using Phyllanthus sp. were reported. Today, treatment for various human upper gastrointestinal tract disorders such as chronic gastritis, peptic ulcer and gastric cancer infected by H. pylori are based on seven days triple therapies combining a proton pump inhibitor (PPI) and 2 antimicrobial agents (clarithromycin [C], amoxicillin [A], metronidazole [M]). However, these modern treatments are not 100% efficient (de Corwin, 2004). Now, researches on anti H. pylori substances are looking back to the natural products rather than creating new antibiotics or drugs. In this study, plants from genus Phyllanthus were selected for their anti H. pylori potential agent as an alternative to the current treatments of this bacteria.
Studies on the effect of humidity on the hatchability of hen's eggs I. The determination of optimum humidity for incubation

An attempt to find the effect of humidity on hatchability and at the same time indicate the optimum humidity for incubation was carried out by subjecting eggs in one incubator to various levels of humidity and comparing the results with eggs hatched as a Control in a second incubator of identical design. Hatchability was depressed by excessively high levels of humidity but in general satisfactory hatches can be obtained between 40 and 70% R.H. The pattern of mortality, the incidence of Malposition I but not Malpositions II, III and VI were affected by humidity level. The optimum level found, c. 50% R.H. , was lower than the previously accepted optimum and may be accounted for by a number of factors including egg size.
An enhanced toolkit for the generation of knockout and marker-free fluorescent Plasmodium chabaudi

The rodent parasite Plasmodium chabaudi is an important in vivo model of malaria. The ability to produce chronic infections makes it particularly useful for investigating the development of anti- Plasmodium immunity, as well as features associated with parasite virulence during both the acute and chronic phases of infection. P. chabaudi also undergoes asexual maturation (schizogony) and erythrocyte invasion in culture, so offers an experimentally-amenable in vivo to in vitro model for studying gene function and drug activity during parasite replication. To extend the usefulness of this model, we have further optimised transfection protocols and plasmids for P. chabaudi and generated stable, fluorescent lines that are free from drug-selectable marker genes. These mother-lines show the same infection dynamics as wild-type parasites throughout the lifecycle in mice and mosquitoes; furthermore, their virulence can be increased by serial blood passage and reset by mosquito transmission. We have also adapted the large-insert, linear PlasmoGEM vectors that have revolutionised the scale of experimental genetics in another rodent malaria parasite and used these to generate barcoded P. chabaudi gene-deletion and –tagging vectors for transfection in our fluorescent P. chabaudi mother-lines. This produces a tool-kit of P. chabaudi lines, vectors and transfection approaches that will be of broad utility to the research community.
Dynamics of somatic cell count and intramammary infection in lactating dairy cows

Objective: The influence of intramammary infection (IMI) and types of bacteria was assessed on somatic cell count (SCC) in dairy cows’ milk with respect to breed, age, parity, stage of lactation, milk production, and mammary quarter location. Materials and methods: After recording data in a structured questionnaire, 360 samples of quarter milk were collected. The samples were subjected to SCC and isolation and identification of bacteria. The data were analyzed to find out the significant influence of independent factors on SCC and IMI. Results: The infected quarters had a significantly higher mean SCC (210.52 × 103 cells/ml) compared to uninfected ones (32.72 × 103 cells/ml). The mean SCC was the highest for IMI with Enterobacter spp. (338.00 × 103 cells/ml) followed by Bacillus spp. (319.20 × 103 cells/ml), coagulase-negative Staphylococci (CNS) (268.17 × 103 cells/ml), Staphylococcus aureus (218.31 × 103 cells/ml), and Escherichia coli (200.75 × 103 cells/ml) and the lowest for Pseudomonas aeruginosa (66.33 × 103 cells/ml). Milk of rear quarters had a significantly higher SCC than the front quarters. SCC increased with increasing age, parity, and lactation stage regardless of whether cows are infected or not. The IMI was more prevalent in rear quarters (42.2%) and cows at early (≤7 days) lactation (100.0%). Cows having a parity of ≥5 and crossbred and high yielding (>5 l) cows had also a higher rate of IMI of 38.2%, 36.7%, and 38.2%, respectively. Conclusion: The IMI and type of bacteria were the principal factors for SCC variation. Besides, mammary quarter location, age, and parity should be taken into consideration during the interpretation of SCC.
Multi-Person Pose Regression via Pose Filtering and Scoring

Multi-person pose estimation is one of the mainstream tasks of computer vision. Existing methods include the top-down methods which need additional human detector and the bottom-up methods which need to complete heuristic grouping after predicting all human keypoints. They all need to deal with the grouping and detection of keypoints separately, resulting in low efficiency. In this work, we propose an end-to-end network framework for multi-person pose regression to predict the instance-aware keypoints directly. This framework uses a cascaded manner: the first stage provides basic estimation. Then we propose the OKSFilter which is used to remove low-quality predictions, so that the second stage could focus on better results for further optimization. In addition, in order to quantify the quality of the predicted poses, we also propose the pose scoring module(PSM), so that when using non-maximum suppression(NMS) in the inference, the correct type and high-quality poses are preserved. We have verified on the COCO keypoint benchmark. The experiments show that our multi-person pose regression network is feasible and effective, and the two newly proposed modules are helpful to improve the performance of the model.
Organic eutrophication increases resistance of the pulsating soft coral Xenia umbellata to warming

Recent research indicates that hard corals in a process that is termed phase shift are often replaced by soft corals in reefs. The simultaneous occurrence of local (i.e. organic eutrophication as highly under-investigated parameter) and global (i.e. ocean warming) factors may facilitate these phase shifts as hard corals are negatively affected by both ocean warming and organic eutrophication. Knowledge about soft coral responses to environmental change remains incomplete, although these organisms are becoming important players in reefs. The present study thus investigated the individual and combined effects of organic eutrophication (as glucose addition) and warming on the ecological data of the pulsating soft coral Xenia umbellata. We assessed health status, growth and pulsation rates of soft corals in a 45 day aquarium experiment, with first manipulation of organic eutrophication (no, low, medium and high glucose addition) over 21 days followed by step-wise increases in water temperature from 26 to 32 °C over 24 days. Findings revealed that glucose addition did not affect health status, growth and pulsation rates of the investigated soft corals. Under simulated ocean warming, soft corals that had experienced organic eutrophication before, maintained significantly higher pulsation rates (averaging 22 beats per minute—bpm) and no mortality compared to the controls that showed a decrease of 56% (averaging 15 bpm) in pulsation rates and mortality of 30% at water temperatures of 32 °C compared to 26 °C. This apparently positive effect of organic eutrophication on the ecological data of soft corals under an ocean warming scenario decreased with increasing water temperature. This study thus indicates that (a) organic eutrophication as additional energy source up to a certain threshold may increase the resistance of soft corals to ocean warming and (b) pulsation rates of soft corals may be used as inexpensive, easily detectable, and non-invasive early warning indicator for ocean warming effects on benthic reef communities. When comparing findings of this study for soft corals with previous results for hard corals, it can be assumed that soft corals under the predicted increases of organic eutrophication and warming gain more and more competitive advantages. This may further facilitate phase shifts from hard to soft corals in warming reefs.
Three new Curvularia species from clinical and environmental sources

Abstract Curvularia is a Pleosporalean monophyletic genus with a great diversity of species, including relevant phytopathogenic, animal and human pathogenic fungi. However, their microscopic identification is difficult due to overlapping morphological features amongst species. In recent years, multi-locus sequence analysis using the ITS region of the rDNA and fragments of the genes gapdh and tef1 revealed numerous cryptic species, especially in isolates that commonly produced 3-septate conidia. Therefore, based on sequence analysis of the above-mentioned DNA barcodes recommended for species delineation in Curvularia, we propose three novel species, C. paraverruculosa, C. suttoniae and C. vietnamensis, isolated from soil, human clinical specimens and plant material, respectively, collected in different countries. These new species are morphologically characterised and illustrated in the present study. Curvularia paraverruculosa differs from its counterparts, C. americana and C. verruculosa, mainly by its narrower conidia. Curvularia suttoniae and C. vietnamensis are closely related to C. petersonii, but the former two have larger conidia.
Calculation of Bayes Posterior Probability Distributions for Key Population Parameters

The Bayes posterior probability distribution is a powerful way to represent uncertainty in fisheries stock assessments, and can be calculated for key population and policy parameters of practically any population dynamics model. But the calculation is unwieldy when probabilities are to be assigned to a large grid of parameter combinations. The computational burden can be reduced substantially by analytically integrating over at least two "nuisance parameters" that occur in most assessment models: the observation error variance and the catchability coefficient. This simplification allows the analyst and manager to focus more easily on population parameters (stock size, slope of recruitment curve) that are of direct policy interest.
Subsequent Development of Epithelial Ovarian Cancer After Ovarian Surgery for Benign Ovarian Tumor: A Population-Based Cohort Study

Purpose The goal of the current study is to determine the risk of subsequent development of epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) in women after ovarian surgery for benign ovarian tumors. Patients and Methods We conducted the nationwide population-based historic cohort study using the National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD) of Taiwan. Eleven thousand six hundred twenty women who underwent ovarian surgery for ovarian benign diseases were analyzed. The collected data included age, types of ovarian surgery, medical history by Charlson comorbidity index (CCI), infertility (yes/no), pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) (yes/no), tubal ligation (yes/no), total/subtotal hysterectomy (TH/STH) (yes/no), and endometrioma (yes/no). We used the Kaplan–Meier method and the Log-rank test to evaluate the risk factors. Cox proportional hazard methods were used to evaluate risk factors for the subsequent development of EOC. Multivariate analysis using Cox stepwise forward regression was conducted for the covariate selected in univariate analysis. Hazard ratio (HR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated using the Wald test. Results Subsequent EOC incidence rate (IR, incidence per 10,000 person-years) of women after ovarian surgery for benign ovarian tumors was 2.98. Separating into four groups based on different age, IR of EOC was 1.57 (<30 years), 4.71 (30–39 years), 3.59 (40–49 years) and 0.94 (≥50 years), respectively. Univariate and multivariate analyses identified only high level of CCI (≥2 or more) as an independent risk factor for subsequent development of EOC in women after ovarian surgery for benign ovarian tumors (HR 59.17, 95% CI 7.50–466.80 in women with CCI level of 2 and HR 190.68, 95% CI 24.33–2494.19, in women with CCI level ≥3, respectively). Conclusion Our results, if confirmed, suggest that women with other comorbidities (CCI) should be well informed that they may have a higher risk of subsequent development of EOC when ovarian surgery is planned even though the final pathology showed a benign ovarian tumor.
Physicochemical properties of fruit of 16 saskatoon (Amelanchier alnifolia Nutt.) cultivars

Zatylny, A. M. , Ziehl, W. D. and St-Pierre, R. G. 2005. Physicochemical properties of fruit of 16 saskatoon (Amelanchier alnifolia Nutt.) cultivars. Can J. Plant Sci. 85: 933‐938. Physicochemical properties were assessed for the fruit of 16 saskatoon (Amelanchier alnifolia Nutt.) cultivars harvested in 1998‐2000 from replicated trials at two sites (Saskatoon and Moonlake, SK). The cultivars included Bluff, Buffalo, Elizabeth (at Saskatoon only), Forestburg, Honeywood, JB30, Martin, Nelson, Northline, PAR 90, Parkhill, Pearson II, Pembina, Smoky, Success, and Thiessen. Fruit weight and total solids, soluble solids, pH, titratable acidity, anthocyanin content, and colour characteristics of the fruit juice extracts were measured. Fruit of Martin, Thiessen and PAR 90 had the highest fruit weights (mean = 1.63 g), and Success and Bluff the lowest (mean = 0.79 g). Total and soluble solids contents ranged among cultivars from 19.9% and 14.0 °Brix, respectively, for JB30, to 27.9% and 20.1 °Brix, respectively, for Pembina. Fruit pH ranged from 3.65 for Nelson to 4.18 for Parkhill and Smoky. Fruit of Nelson had a titratable acidity (0.63%) that was approximately twice that of Success, Pearson II, Forestburg, Honeywood, Smoky and Parkhill. The soluble solids to titratable acidity ratio (SS/TA) differed greatly among cultivars ranging from 27 for JB30 to 55 for Parkhill. The colour characteristics of the fruit juice extracts differed among cultivars in chroma and L values, but not in hue angle. Anthocyanin analysis by HPLC identified four peaks: cyanidin-3-galactoside, cyanidin-3- glucoside and two unknowns. Total fruit anthocyanin content ranged from 414 µg g ‐1 for Forestburg to 852 µg g ‐1 for Nelson. Correlations were found between anthocyanin content and fruit pH, titratable acidity, hue angle and L value.