Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Total Glucosides of Peony Protect Cardiomyocytes against Oxidative Stress and Inflammation by Reversing Mitochondrial Dynamics and Bioenergetics

Total glucosides of peony (TGP) are used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus. We explored the protective effects of TGP on cardiomyocyte oxidative stress and inflammation in the presence of hydrogen peroxide by focusing on mitochondrial dynamics and bioenergetics. Our study demonstrated that hydrogen peroxide significantly repressed cardiomyocyte viability and promoted cell apoptosis through induction of the mitochondrial death pathway. TGP treatment sustained cardiomyocyte viability, reduced cardiomyocyte apoptosis, and decreased inflammation and oxidative stress. Molecular investigation indicated that hydrogen peroxide caused mitochondrial dynamics disruption and bioenergetics reduction in cardiomyocytes, but this alteration could be normalized by TGP. We found that disruption of mitochondrial dynamics abolished the regulatory effects of TGP on mitochondrial bioenergetics; TGP modulated mitochondrial dynamics through the AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) pathway; and inhibition of AMPK alleviated the protective effects of TGP on mitochondria. Our results showed that TGP treatment reduces cardiomyocyte oxidative stress and inflammation in the presence of hydrogen peroxide by correcting mitochondrial dynamics and enhancing mitochondrial bioenergetics. Additionally, the regulatory effects of TGP on mitochondrial function seem to be mediated through the AMPK pathway. These findings are promising for myocardial injury in patients with rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus.
Unearthing development opportunities within the cereal category.

market aisle and you’ll see that it’s one of the largest categories in the store. In fact, annual retail consumption in food, drug, and mass merchandisers alone (excluding Walmart), currently exceeds $6 billion in the United States, according to Information Resources, Inc. (IRI) (1). This massive consumption makes the cold cereal category the third largest category in dry grocery, behind only carbonated beverages and salty snacks, followed by bottled water, soup, crackers, cookies, bottled juices, coffee, and total chocolate candy. That’s the good news. The challenge, however, is that consumption growth has tended to stabilize. With roots dating back more than a century, one could argue that the cereal category has reached full penetration and is now at a mature stage of its product life cycle. Pound consumption growth has actually declined an average of 1.1% in each of the past four years (Figure 1) (6). However, because dollar growth is yielding a 1.2% compound annual growth P. Molina Kerry Ingredients & Flavours, Americas Region Beloit, WI, U.S.A.
Exploring Cortical Thickness Alteration in Parkinson Disease Patients with Freezing of Gaits

Background: Freezing of gait (FoG) is a disabling gait disorder that commonly occurs in advanced stages of Parkinson's disease (PD). The neuroanatomical mechanisms underlying FoG in PD are still unclear. The present study aims to explore alterations of structural gray matter (GM) in PD patients with FoG. Method: Twenty-four PD patients with FoG (FoG+), 37 PD patients without FoG (FoG-) and 24 healthy controls (HC) were included. All subjects underwent a standardized MRI protocol. The cortical thickness (CTh), segmentation volume without ventricles (BrainSegVolNotVent) and estimated total intracranial volume (eTIV) were analysed using the FreeSurfer pipeline. Results: CTh differences were found in the right middle temporal gyrus (rMTG) generally. Compared to that in HCs, the CTh of the rMTG in both the FoG+ and FoG- groups was smaller, while no significant difference between the FoG+ and FoG- groups. Correlation analyses demonstrated a negative correlation between the CTh of the rMTG and the UPDRS part II score in PD subjects, and a borderline significant correlation between the score of Freezing of Gait Questionnaire (FoGQ) and rMTG CTh. Additionally, receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analysis revealed a cut-off point of CTh =3.08 mm in the rMTG that could be used to differentiate PD patients and HCs (AUC =0.79, P <0.01). There were no differences in the BrainSegVolNotVent or eTIV among the 3 groups. Conclusions: Our findings currently suggest no significant difference between FoG+ and FoG- patients in terms of structural gray matter changes. However, decreased CTh in the rMTG related to semantic control may be used as a biomarker to differentiate PD patients and HCs.
lncRNAs Are Involved in Sevoflurane Anesthesia-Related Brain Function Modulation through Affecting Mitochondrial Function and Aging Process

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) play important roles in brain function modulation and neurodegenerative diseases. However, whether lncRNA regulations are involved in the mechanisms of perioperative neurocognitive disorders, especially in anesthesia-related brain dysfunction, remain unknown. Therefore, we explored the expression and regulation pattern profiles of lncRNAs in the hippocampus of aged rats after sevoflurane anesthesia. Three lncRNAs and 772 protein-coding genes were identified by microarray analysis and evidenced by in vitro and in vivo experiments as differentially expressed. Functional annotation and differentially expressed- (DE-) lncRNA-mRNA coexpression networks reveal that DE-lncRNAs are associated with mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative stress, aging-related metabolism alterations, DNA damage, and apoptosis, as well as neurodegenerative features during sevoflurane anesthesia. These results suggest that lncRNAs play roles in general anesthesia-related brain function modulation during the perioperative context and provide insights into the lncRNA-related modulation mechanisms and targets.
Reactions during Electrochemically Induced Nucleation of Mullite from a MgO/Al2O3/TiO2/SiO2/B2O3/CaO Melt

Glasses with the composition 52.6 SiO 2 ·18.7 Al 2 O 3 ·14.3 MgO·7.7 TiO 2 ·4.7 B 2 O 3 ·2.0 CaO were crystallized using electrochemically induced nucleation at temperatures from 1200 to 1400 °C. The crystals grew with their fastest growing axis pointing away from the surface of the electrode. At the cathode, Ti 4+ is reduced to Ti 3+ , which was proved by EPR and UV—vis—NIR spectroscopy. The silicate network is also reduced to elemental silicon to a small extent and forms an alloy with the platinum cathode. The higher coordination number of Ti 3+ should lead to a drop in viscosity due to its role as a glass modifier and, hence, fully explains the nucleation. The orientations of three neighboring crystals were analyzed by electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD).
Preparation, characterization, and boron adsorption behavior of gluconate‐intercalated hydrotalcite

Gluconate‐intercalated hydrotalcites were prepared from precursor by ion‐exchange method. The products were characterized by X‐ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) studies. This kind of new adsorbent was applied to adsorb boron in the refined brine, and the conditions influencing its adsorption amount were investigated. The experimental results showed that the adsorbent synthesized in this article had higher adsorption amount of boron than the precursor without gluconate intercalation, and the adsorption amount increased with increasing the contact time, boron concentration, and the pH whereas decreased with increasing chloride concentration and temperature. The adsorbent can be well regenerated by calcination and reintercalation of the gluconate into the calcinated product. Furthermore, the kinetic studies were also investigated. The pseudo‐first‐order, pseudo‐second‐order, and intraparticle diffusion models were used to fit the experimental data, and the results showed that the pseudo‐first‐order model best described the boron adsorption process. © 2010 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 2010
Dissolution of Silver Nanoparticles in Glass through an Intense dc Electric Field

Glasses containing metal nanoparticles are very promising materials for photonics applications due to their unique linear and nonlinear optical properties. In this letter, it is shown that silver nanoparticles within a glass matrix can be destroyed and dissolved in the glass in the form of silver ions by applying a combination of an intense direct current (dc) electric field and moderately elevated temperature. The nanoscopic processes leading to this unexpected effect are discussed, and it is demonstrated that this technique allows us to produce optical structures down to the submicron scale, making it suitable for the design of various optical and optoelectronic elements.
Health Differences Among People With Varying Profiles of Awareness of Positive and Negative Age-Related Changes

Abstract Higher awareness of negative age-related changes (AARC-losses) is related to poorer mental and physical health whereas higher awareness of positive age-related changes (AARC-gains) is related to better mental health. Associations of health with AARC-gains and losses have been explored separately, but often people experience gains and losses concurrently. Using latent profile analysis, we identified at the cross-sectional level patterns of AARC-gains and losses and explored whether groups with distinct profiles of AARC-gains and losses differed in physical, mental, and cognitive health, and demographic characteristics. Analyses were based on the large-scale PROTECT study conducted in the UK (N= 6,192; mean age= 66.10(SD= 7.04); 76% women). A four-group solution revealed the best model fit (Akaike’s information criterion= 156,061.93; Bayesian information criterion= 156,418.67); 45% of participants perceived many AARC-gains and few losses (Group 1); 24% of participants perceived moderate AARC-gains and few losses (Group 2); 24% of participants perceived many AARC-gains and moderate losses (Group 3); and 7% of participants perceived many AARC-gains and many losses (Group 4). The four groups differed meaningfully in health; Group 1 was the most healthy, followed by Groups 2, 3 and 4. Participants in Group 1 were most likely to perceive their health as excellent, reported the lowest levels of depression and anxiety, and showed the best cognitive performance. On average participants in Group 1 were younger, and more likely to be female, employed, and married, compared to other groups. Considering the co-existence of gains and losses is important when relating awareness of age-related changes to health.
Environmental factors between normal and superagers in an Argentine cohort

ABSTRACT. Normal aging usually brings age-related cognitive decline. However, there is a group of aged individuals who have exceptional memory performance: the superagers. Objective: Our aim was to identify the environmental factors that could influence exceptional memory performance in a cohort of Argentine individuals. Methods: Forty healthy volunteers >80 years of age were classified into two groups, superagers (SA, n=20) and normal agers (NA, n=20), according to the Northwestern SuperAging Program criteria. Participants were neuropsychologically tested and evaluated on environmental aspects: working status, education, bilingualism, cognitive reserve, physical activity, social networking, clinical comorbidities, and longevity of parents and siblings. Results: Both groups were highly educated (NA=16.3±3 years; SA 15.85±2.6; p=0.6), 11.8% of the sample was still working without differences between groups. There were no differences in cognitive reserve inventory (p=0.7), physical activity engagement (p=0.423), or social network index (p=0.73). As for longevity, 44% of the siblings lived longer than 80 years of age (p=0.432) and maternal longevity was linked to SA (NA=46.7%; SA=80%; p=0.045). Conclusions: This study is a pilot approximation to the superaging population in Argentina. Our results suggest that environmental factors related to successful aging do not differentiate superaging. SA may depend on variables yet to be identified, probably of a genetic/metabolic order.
TBHQ-Overview of Multiple Mechanisms against Oxidative Stress for Attenuating Methamphetamine-Induced Neurotoxicity

Methamphetamine is a derivative of amphetamines, a highly addictive central stimulant with multiple systemic toxicity including the brain, heart, liver, lung, and spleen. It has adverse effects such as apoptosis and breakdown of the blood-brain barrier. Methamphetamine is a fatal and toxic chemical substance, and its lethal mechanism has been widely studied in recent years. The possible mechanism is that methamphetamine can cause cardiotoxicity and neurotoxicity mainly by inducing oxidative stress so as to generate heat, eliminate people's hunger and thirst, and maintain a state of excitement so that people can continue to exercise. According to many research, there is no doubt that methamphetamine triggers neurotoxicity by inducing reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and redox imbalance. This review summarized the mechanisms of methamphetamine-induced neurotoxicity including apoptosis and blood-brain barrier breakdown through oxidative stress and analyzed several possible antioxidative mechanisms of tert-butylhydroquinone (TBHQ) which is a kind of food additive with antioxidative effects. As a nuclear factor E2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) agonist, TBHQ may inhibit neurotoxicity caused by oxidative stress through the following three mechanisms: the nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) oxidase system, the astrocytes activation, and the glutathione pathway. The mechanism about methamphetamine's toxic effects and its antioxidative therapeutic drugs would become a research hotspot in this field and has very important research significance.
Morphology of PbI2 Crystals Grown by Gel Method

The single crystals of lead iodide have been grown by gel method. X-ray diffraction studies on these crystals shows that the lattice parameters of grown crystals are almost matching with reported values. The results of detailed studies made on the microstructures of lead iodide crystals, have been described. The observations of the faces of these crystals revealed that they have grown by layer as well as spiral mechanisms. The probable role of these parameters is explained along with the surface microstructures on these various shaped crystals.
Review on Learning and Extracting Graph Features for Link Prediction

Link prediction in complex networks has attracted considerable attention from interdisciplinary research communities, due to its ubiquitous applications in biological networks, social networks, transportation networks, telecommunication networks, and, recently, knowledge graphs. Numerous studies utilized link prediction approaches in order sto find missing links or predict the likelihood of future links as well as employed for reconstruction networks, recommender systems, privacy control, etc. This work presents an extensive review of state-of-art methods and algorithms proposed on this subject and categorizes them into four main categories: similarity-based methods, probabilistic methods, relational models, and learning-based methods. Additionally, a collection of network data sets has been presented in this paper, which can be used in order to study link prediction. We conclude this study with a discussion of recent developments and future research directions.
Data Security for Machine Learning: Data Poisoning, Backdoor Attacks, and Defenses

As machine learning systems consume more and more data, practitioners are increasingly forced to automate and outsource the curation of training data in order to meet their data demands. This absence of human supervision over the data collection process exposes organizations to security vulnerabilities: malicious agents can insert poisoned examples into the training set to exploit the machine learning systems that are trained on it. Motivated by the emergence of this paradigm, there has been a surge in work on data poisoning including a variety of threat models as well as attack and defense methods. The goal of this work is to systematically categorize and discuss a wide range of data poisoning and backdoor attacks, approaches to defending against these threats, and an array of open problems in this space. In addition to describing these methods and the relationships among them in detail, we develop their uniﬁed taxonomy.
Universal Policies for Software-Defined MDPs

We introduce a new programming paradigm called oracle-guided decision programming in which a program specifies a Markov Decision Process (MDP) and the language provides a universal policy. We prototype a new programming language, Dodona, that manifests this paradigm using a primitive 'choose' representing nondeterministic choice. The Dodona interpreter returns either a value or a choicepoint that includes a lossless encoding of all information necessary in principle to make an optimal decision. Meta-interpreters query Dodona's (neural) oracle on these choicepoints to get policy and value estimates, which they can use to perform heuristic search on the underlying MDP. We demonstrate Dodona's potential for zero-shot heuristic guidance by meta-learning over hundreds of synthetic tasks that simulate basic operations over lists, trees, Church datastructures, polynomials, first-order terms and higher-order terms.
A Strengthening on Odd Cycles in Graphs of Given Chromatic Number

Resolving a conjecture of Bollob\'{a}s and Erd\H{o}s, Gy\'{a}rf\'{a}s proved that every graph $G$ of chromatic number $k+1\geq 3$ contains cycles of $\lfloor\frac{k}{2}\rfloor$ distinct odd lengths. We strengthen this prominent result by showing that such $G$ contains cycles of $\lfloor\frac{k}{2}\rfloor$ consecutive odd lengths. Along the way, combining extremal and structural tools, we prove a stronger statement that every graph of chromatic number $k+1\geq 7$ contains $k$ cycles of consecutive lengths, except that some block is $K_{k+1}$. As corollaries, this confirms a conjecture of Verstra\"ete and answers a question of Moore and West.
SU(2)R
 and its axion in cosmology: A common origin for inflation, cold sterile neutrinos, and baryogenesis

We introduce an axion-inflation model embedded in the Left-Right symmetric extension of the SM in which WR is coupled to the axion. This model merges three milestones of modern cosmology, i.e., inflation, cold dark matter, and baryon asymmetry. Thus, it can naturally explain the observed coincidences among cosmological parameters, i.e., ηB ≈ Pζ and ΩDM ' 5 ΩB. The source of asymmetry is spontaneous CP violation in the physics of inflation, and the lightest right-handed neutrino is the cold dark matter candidate with mass mN1 ∼ 1 GeV . The introduced mechanism does not rely on the largeness of the unconstrained CP-violating phases in the neutrino sector nor fine-tuned masses for the heaviest right-handed neutrinos. It has two unknown fundamental scales, i.e. scale of inflation Λinf = √ HMPl and left-right symmetry breaking ΛF . Sufficient matter asymmetry demands Λinf ≈ ΛF . The baryon asymmetry and dark matter today are remnants of a pure quantum effect (chiral anomaly) in inflation, which, thanks to flavor effects, are memorized by cosmic evolution.
AGN Jets and a Fanciful Trio of Black Holes in the Abell 85 Brightest Cluster Galaxy

A new radio map of the Abell 85 Brightest Cluster Galaxy (BCG) was obtained with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array. With a resolution of 0. ″02, this radio image shows two kiloparsec-scale bipolar active galactic nucleus jets emanating from the active galactic nucleus of the A85 BCG. The galaxy core appears as a single entity on the new radio map. It has been assumed that the A85 BCG contained a binary black hole in its core. However, Chandra X-ray data and the new high-resolution radio map show no evidence that the A85 BCG harbors a binary black hole. The assumption that this galaxy contains a binary black hole was based on the analysis of its optical surface brightness profile obtained under poor seeing conditions. We demonstrate how the well-known blurring effects of atmospheric seeing can mimic the effects of a binary supermassive black hole (SMBH). Likewise, SDSS J004150.75–091824.3 was postulated to be “a third” SMBH associated with the BCG. In the optical and X-rays, SDSS J004150.75–091824.3 is a point-like source located ∼14″ away from the nucleus of the A85 BCG. A new spectrum of SDSS J004150.75–091824.3, obtained with the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias, reveals that this source is a background quasar at a redshift of z = 1.5603 ± 0.003 and not associated in any way with the A85 cluster.
The importance of silhouette optimization in 3D shape reconstruction system from multiple object scenes

This paper presents a multi stage 3D shape reconstruction system of multiple object scenes by considering the silhouette inconsistencies in shape-from silhouette SFS method. These inconsistencies are common in multiple view images due to object occlusions in different views, segmentation and shadows or reflection due to objects or light directions. These factors raise huge challenges when attempting to construct the 3D shape by using existing approaches which reconstruct only that part of the volume which projects consistently in all the silhouettes, leaving the rest unreconstructed. As a result, final shape are not robust due to multi view objects occlusion and shadows. In this regard, we consider the primary factors affecting reconstruction by analyzing the multiple images and perform pre-processing steps to optimize the silhouettes. Finally, the 3D shape is reconstructed by using the volumetric approach SFS. Theory and experimental results show that, the performance of the modified algorithm was efficiently improved, which can improve the accuracy of the reconstructed shape and being robust to errors in the silhouettes, volume and computational inexpensive.
Visuo-Locomotive Complexity as a Component of Parametric Systems for Architecture Design

A people-centred approach for designing large-scale built-up spaces necessitates systematic anticipation of user’s embodied visuo-locomotive experience from the viewpoint of human-environment interaction factors pertaining to aspects such as navigation, wayfinding, usability. In this context, we develop a behaviour-based visuo-locomotive complexity model that functions as a key correlate of cognitive performance vis-a-vis internal navigation in built-up spaces. We also demonstrate the model’s implementation and application as a parametric tool for the identification and manipulation of the architectural morphology along a navigation path as per the parameters of the proposed visuospatial complexity model. We present examples based on an empirical study in two healthcare buildings, and showcase the manner in which a dynamic and interactive parametric (complexity) model can promote behaviour-based decision making throughout the design process to maintain desired levels of visuospatial complexity as part of a navigation or wayfinding experience.