Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Doppler Ultrasonographic Evaluation of Lower Limbs Deep-Vein Thrombosis in a Teaching Hospital, Northwestern Nigeria

Background: Deep-venous thrombosis (DVT) of lower limbs is one of the most common causes of death caused by pulmonary embolism. Many medical and surgical disorders are complicated by DVT. B-mode and color Doppler imaging are needed for the early diagnosis of DVT to prevent complications and sequalae of DVT. Objectives: The objectives of this study are to evaluate the role of Doppler ultrasound in diagnosing DVT of lower limbs and to study the spectrum of findings in patients with DVT in Zaria. Methodology: A retrospective study was carried out on patients who had Venous Doppler Scan in the Department of Radiology ABUTH, Zaria, Nigeria, for suspected DVT over a period of 4 years from February 2014 to January 2018. Scans were done using DC-3 and DC-6 Mindray Ultrasound machines (2009 and 2013 Models, respectively, Shantou, China) coupled with high-frequency (7.5–12 MHz) linear and low-frequency curvilinear (2–5 MHz) transducers. Analysis of cases of DVT was performed in terms of age, sex, clinical features, predisposing conditions, anatomic distribution, stage, and pattern of thrombus involvement in the veins. Data were analyzed using the SPSS version 20.0 and value of P < 0.005 was considered as statistically significant. Results: A total of 252 patients' results were reviewed which consisted of 122 males (48.4%) and 130 females (51.6%). The patients' ages ranged from 11 to 80 years, averaging 45.5 ± 9.56 years. The most common indication for Doppler request was leg swellings. The most common risk factor for DVT was malignancy (36%), cardiac disorders (18%), and traumas (14%). Sixty-six (61%) cases showed left-sided and 26 (24%) right-sided, whereas 16 (15%) cases showed bilateral lower limb involvement. Predominant thrombus was above-knee region with 54% in the superficial femoral vein. Chronic stage was seen in 46 (42%) cases, subacute in 44 (41%) cases, and acute in 18 (17%) cases. Conclusion: Middle–aged females, left-sided leg, and above-knee segment were predominantly affected with DVT; hence, this buttresses the need for Doppler ultrasound in the diagnosis of DVT in all patients.
Function of PIN1 in Cancer Development and Its Inhibitors as Cancer Therapeutics

Peptidyl-prolyl isomerase (PIN1) specifically binds and isomerizes the phosphorylated serine/threonine–proline (pSer/Thr–Pro) motif, which results in the alteration of protein structure, function, and stability. The altered structure and function of these phosphorylated proteins regulated by PIN1 are closely related to cancer development. PIN1 is highly expressed in human cancers and promotes cancer as well as cancer stem cells by breaking the balance of oncogenes and tumor suppressors. In this review, we discuss the roles of PIN1 in cancer and PIN1-targeted small-molecule compounds.
Vaccine Safety: Myths and Misinformation

The World Health Organization has named vaccine hesitancy as one of the top ten threats to global health in 2019. The reasons why people choose not to vaccinate are complex, but lack of confidence in vaccine safety, driven by concerns about adverse events, has been identified as one of the key factors. Healthcare workers, especially those in primary care, remain key influencers on vaccine decisions. It is important, therefore, that they be supported by having easy access to trusted, evidence-based information on vaccines. Although parents and patients have a number of concerns about vaccine safety, among the most common are fears that adjuvants like aluminum, preservatives like mercury, inactivating agents like formaldehyde, manufacturing residuals like human or animal DNA fragments, and simply the sheer number of vaccines might be overwhelming, weakening or perturbing the immune system. As a consequence, some fear that vaccines are causing autism, diabetes, developmental delays, hyperactivity, and attention-deficit disorders, amongst others. In this review we will address several of these topics and highlight the robust body of scientific evidence that refutes common concerns about vaccine safety.
Comparing a Potential External Immune Defense Trait to Internal Immunity in Females of Wild Bumblebees

External immune defense, such as antimicrobial secretions, is not generally viewed as part of the immune system. Nevertheless, it constitutes a first barrier to pathogens and manipulates microbial environments. Hygienic measures ranging from the protection of oneself or conspecifics, the nesting site, to stored food may be more efficient with secreted antimicrobials. However, the relationship between external immune defense and internal immunity, including potential life-history trade-offs, is not well-understood. As hymenopteran venom often contains antimicrobial peptides it could serve as an external immune defense. Assuming that antimicrobial venom is costly its production might be traded-off against the internal immune defense. Here we compared the antimicrobial activity of venom and hemolymph in fourteen different bumblebee species according to their life-history strategies and characteristics, i.e., overwintered queens, workers and young queens and cuckoo queens. We found no direct relation between antimicrobial activity of hemolymph and venom. Across all species, hemolymph mainly showed lysozyme-like activity (LLA) whereas venom mainly showed antimicrobial peptide (AMP) activity. While LLA activity in the hemolymph was similar among species and life-history strategies and characteristics, both factors significantly differed in venom AMP activity. Independent of body size or fat body content, young queens showed the highest venom AMP activity, followed by workers, overwintered queens, and cuckoo queens. Venom as a potential external immune trait seems not directly linked to internal immunity in bumblebees. However, the investment in external defense depends on the species and the life-history strategies and characteristics of an individual, such as social status or condition.
Differential Effects of Interruptions and Distractions on Working Memory Processes in an ERP Study

Interruptions (interfering stimuli to respond to) and distractions (interfering stimuli to be ignored) have been shown to negatively impact performance, particularly in tasks requiring working memory (WM). This study investigated how these two types of external interference affect task performance and attentional and WM processes as indexed by specific event-related potentials (ERPs) of the EEG. A Continuous Number Task (CNT) was applied, in which participants had to either decide whether the current number (condition without WM load) or the sum of the current and the preceding number (condition with WM load) was odd or even while responding to interlaced single letters (interruptions) or ignoring them (distractions). Contrary to previous research, we did not find external interference to affect performance under WM load. Unexpectedly, our results rather show that performance was significantly improved in trials after distractions compared to before. This effect was reflected particularly in a significantly increased P3 mean amplitude indicating enhanced attentional reallocation to task-relevant stimuli. Interestingly, this P3 effect appeared independent of WM load and also following interruptions. This underpins the account of P3 amplitudes being modulated by the interval between two task-relevant stimuli rather than by overall task-difficulty. Moreover, a pronounced fronto-central and posterior slow wave following interference suggest more control resources to maintain task-relevant stimuli in WM independent of the preceding interfering stimulus. Our results thus suggest that the type and foreknowledge of external interference may modulate the amount of interference and may also facilitate resource preparation under WM load.
Flow descriptors of human mobility networks

Mobile phone data has enabled the timely and fine-grained study human mobility. Call Detail Records, generated at call events, allow building descriptions of mobility at different resolutions and with different spatial, temporal and social granularity. Individual trajectories are the basis for long-term observation of mobility patterns and identify factors of human dynamics. Here we propose a systematic analysis to characterize mobility network flows and topology and assess their impact into individual traces. Discrete flow-based descriptors are used to classify and understand human mobility patterns at multiple scales. This framework is suitable to assess urban planning, optimize transportation, measure the impact of external events and conditions, monitor internal dynamics and profile users according to their movement patterns.
New algorithms and goodness-of-fit diagnostics from remarkable properties of ranking models

The forward order assumption postulates that the ranking process of the items is carried out by sequentially assigning the positions from the top (most-liked) to the bottom (least-liked) alternative. This assumption has been recently relaxed with the Extended Plackett-Luce model (EPL) through the introduction of the discrete reference order parameter, describing the rank attribution path. By starting from two formal properties of the EPL, the former related to the inverse ordering of the item probabilities at the first and last stage of the ranking process and the latter well-known as independence of irrelevant alternatives (or Luce's choice axiom), we derive novel diagnostic tools for testing the appropriateness of the EPL assumption as the actual sampling distribution of the observed rankings. Besides contributing to fill the gap of goodness-of-fit methods for the family of multistage models, we also show how one of the two statistics can be conveniently exploited to construct a heuristic method, that surrogates the maximum likelihood approach for inferring the underlying reference order parameter. The relative performance of the proposals compared with more conventional approaches is illustrated by means of extensive simulation studies.
Conceptual Metaphors for Designing Smart Environments: Device, Robot, and Friend

A metaphor is a design tool that can support designers in forming and exploring new design concepts during the process of designing. Digital technologies embedded in built environments provide an opportunity for environments to be more intelligent and interactive. However, most architectural concepts associated with smart environments such as smart homes and intelligent buildings tend to focus on how advances in technology can improve the quality of the residential environment using automation and not on how people interact with the environment. We posit that conceptual metaphors of device, robot, and friend can open up new design spaces for the interaction design of smart environments. We present three metaphorical concepts that can frame new ways of designing a smart environment that focuses on interaction rather than building automation, each of which have distinct HCI techniques.
The nonlinear integro-differential Ito dynamical equation via three modified mathematical methods and its analytical solutions

Abstract In this work, we construct traveling wave solutions of (1+1) - dimensional Ito integro-differential equation via three analytical modified mathematical methods. We have also compared our achieved results with other different articles. Portrayed of some 2D and 3D figures via Mathematica software demonstrates to understand the physical phenomena of the nonlinear wave model. These methods are powerful mathematical tools for obtaining exact solutions of nonlinear evolution equations and can be also applied to non-integrable equations as well as integrable ones. Hence worked-out results ascertained suggested that employed techniques best to deal NLEEs.
Evaluating Cardiac Reactions of Monarch Butterflies to Human Handling across Three Life Stages

ABSTRACT. Humans have an especially close connection with the monarch butterfly, Danaus plexippus, and this connection often involves direct handling of larvae, pupae or adults. Monarchs are frequently handled in citizen science programs, education and outreach activities, classroom demonstrations, and when rearing larvae in captivity. A pertinent question is whether monarchs perceive this human handling in the same way as being attacked by a predator, i.e. does it trigger a physiological fight-or-flight reaction? Here, I investigated if brief periods of handling monarch larvae, pupae, or adults elevates their heart rate (a central component of the insect fight-or-flight response), using non-destructive methods: either microscopy or an electronic heart monitor designed for invertebrates. Results are presented from separate investigations on each life stage. Three minutes of gentle handling caused a significant elevation (20%) in heart rates of 30 fifth-instar larvae. Mild physical disturbance for 20 seconds to a collection of 57 pupae elicited brief bursts of heart contractions (∼88 beats/min), a rate which is three times higher than typical contraction periods at this stage. Adult monarchs captured during fall migration (n=72) showed minor heart rate elevations (6%) after 3 minutes of gentle handling for tagging purposes. The differences in reactions across life stages found here is helpful for elucidating the relative sensitivity of each stage to handling. More importantly, these results elucidate the unseen physiological impact of direct human contact on developing monarchs (larvae and pupae); elevation in heart rate is an integral part of the fight-or-flight reaction in animals and a universal sign that an animal perceives an imminent threat. In this sense then, developing monarchs appear to perceive human handling as a threat, which may alter our (human) perception of this practice.
Integrated Transcriptome Analyses and Experimental Verifications of Mesenchymal-Associated TNFRSF1A as a Diagnostic and Prognostic Biomarker in Gliomas

Gliomas are the most prevalent malignant primary brain tumors with poor outcome, and four different molecular subtypes (Mesenchymal, Proneural, Neural, and Classical) are popularly applied in scientific researches and clinics of gliomas. Public databases contain an abundant genome-wide resource to explore the potential biomarker and molecular mechanisms using the informatics analysis. The aim of this study was to discover the potential biomarker and investigate its effect in gliomas. Weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) was used to construct the co-expression modules and explore the biomarker among the dataset CGGA mRNAseq_693 carrying 693 glioma samples. Functional annotations, ROC, correlation, survival, univariate, and multivariate Cox regression analyses were implemented to investigate the functional effect in gliomas, and molecular experiments in vitro were performed to study the biological effect on glioma pathogenesis. The brown module was found to be strongly related to WHO grade of gliomas, and KEGG pathway analysis demonstrated that TNFRSF1A was enriched in MAPK signaling pathway and TNF signaling pathway. Overexpressed TNFRSF1A was strongly related to clinical features such as WHO grade, and functioned as an independent poor prognostic predictor of glioma patients. Notably, TNFRSF1A was preferentially upregulated in the Mesenchymal subtype gliomas (Mesenchymal-associated). Knockdown of TNFRSF1A inhibited proliferation and migration of glioma cell lines in vitro. Our findings provide a further understanding of the progression of gliomas, and Mesenchymal-associated TNFRSF1A might be a promising target of diagnosis, therapy, and prognosis of gliomas.
Speech Features and Electroencephalogram Parameters in 4- to 11-Year-Old Children

The goal of the study is to investigate a correlation between different levels of speech organization, indicating the physiological processes of maturation of the vocal tract structures and brain regions associated with speech and language, and basic electroencephalogram (EEG) rhythms, reflecting the age-related dynamics of maturation of brain structures in children aged 4–11 years. The complex method of analysis, including EEG registration, clinical and spectral analysis of EEG; dichotic listening, identifying the profile of functional lateral asymmetry (PFLA), and phonemic hearing of the child; recording, linguistic, and acoustic analysis of child speech; and identification of speech characteristics reflecting the formation of its different levels, was used. Two complementary experimental series were conducted: the correlation between EEG parameters, speech features, dichotic listening, the PFLA, and phonemic hearing of the child in the age dynamics of 4–11 years (first); the specificity of EEG patterns in children at different stages of reading skills formation (second). The result of this study showed the correlation between acoustic and linguistic features of child speech and brain activity. The analysis of EEG and acoustic features of child speech revealed the correlation between pitch and pitch range values in spontaneous speech and theta-rhythm intensity in EEG. High values of pitch and its variation in younger children (4–6 years) are related to the intensity of theta rhythm in the EEG pattern, as this rhythm is most expressed in younger children. It was revealed that the alpha rhythm is asymmetrically localized in children with clear pronunciation of words (which determines the intelligibility of their speech) that is typical for 6.5- to 11-year-old children. The formation of reading skills in a child is associated with a change in the characteristics of the alpha rhythm—from irregular, unstable, low frequency, and low amplitude in children at the beginning of reading skills mastering to medium and low amplitude, regular, asymmetrically localized in children reading words and phrases. The specifics of the relation between brain activity and different levels of speech formation at different child’s age periods are discussed.
Intrinsic Color Indices of Early-type Dwarf Stars

Early-type stars are short lived and scarce in comparison with other types. Based on the recently released catalogs of early-type stars from the largest Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope spectroscopic survey, the intrinsic colors of the stars with effective temperature up to 32,000 K are determined for the bands from ultraviolet to infrared using the blue-edge method. Analytic relations are derived for the intrinsic color index with the effective temperature for the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, Two Micron All Sky Survey, Gaia, AAVSO Photometric All-Sky Survey, Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System 1, and Galaxy Evolution Explorer bands. The results are generally consistent with previous works. In addition, the intrinsic colors of O-type dwarfs and OB supergiants are roughly estimated.
Solving Portfolio Optimization Problems Using MOEA/D and Levy Flight

Portfolio optimization is a financial task which requires the allocation of capital on a set of financial assets to achieve a better trade-off between return and risk. To solve this problem, recent studies applied multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs) for its natural bi-objective structure. This paper presents a method injecting a distribution-based mutation method named Lévy Flight into a decomposition based MOEA named MOEA/D. The proposed algorithm is compared with three MOEA/D-like algorithms, NSGA-II, and other distribution-based mutation methods on five portfolio optimization benchmarks sized from 31 to 225 in OR library without constraints, assessing with six metrics. Numerical results and statistical test indicate that this method can outperform comparison methods in most cases. We analyze how Lévy Flight contributes to this improvement by promoting global search early in the optimization. We explain this improvement by considering the interaction between mutation method and the property of the problem. We additionally show that our method perform well with a round-lot constraint on Nikkei.
Technical Aspects and Errors of Triggering and Synchronization in Gated Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography Myocardial Perfusion Imaging

Gated imaging, as a technically demanding procedure, requires special attention and effort to fulfill the technical adequacy and accuracy of the study, based on the available standard guidelines. One of the essential requirements to be met by both technologists and physicians, in nuclear cardiology, is triggering and synchronization as a fundamental subject of gating. There are many sources of gating errors that produce imaging artifacts and, in some occasions, render the images uninterpretable or the quantitative analyses less accurate. Sufficient knowledge of recognition of these artifacts and understanding of their related mechanisms (from physical and technical perspectives) enable the technologists and physicians to promote their performance in daily practice. In this article, intended as a readily practical technical review for nuclear medicine practitioners, it is aimed to present the technical and computer aspects of triggering and synchronization as well as the related errors during imaging.
Lymphoma Involving the Heart: A Case Report

Background: We describe a rare case of cardiac malignancy that counts for <1% of the primary cardiac tumors with a poor prognosis. Case summary: It's a rare case of a primary cardiac lymphoma in a 59-year-old patient who presented for recurrent pleuropericarditis with low-grade fever and night sweats. Investigations revealed an infiltrating mass in the right atrioventricular groove involving the right atrium and the right ventricular free wall. Pathology confirmed the diagnosis of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Chemotherapy with R-CHOP regimen was a success, but the patient suffered from recurrence with a complete remission after a second chemotherapy cycle. He was a candidate for bone marrow transplant to reduce other possible relapses. Discussion: Early diagnosis is better for long-term prognosis and improves quality of life.
The Response of the Gut Microbiota to Dietary Changes in the First Two Years of Life

The infant gut microbiota undergoes significant changes in the first two years of life in response to changes in the diet. The discontinuation of the milk-based diet of the first year and the introduction of solid foods in the second year of life results in a decline in bifidobacterium, a shift from infant strains of bifidobacterium to adult strains which preferentially metabolize oligosaccharides derived from plants rather than from milk, a surge in short chain fatty acids such as acetic, propionic and butyric acid from newly acquired commensal clostridium, and the transformation of primary bile acids into secondary bile acids by a limited number of newly acquired and highly specialized Clostridium spp. By 3 years of age, diet and gut microbiota closely resemble those of adults. Gut bacteria required for the production of SCFAs and secondary BAs are potential targets for the intervention of microbiome-related diseases.
Carbon nanomaterials enhanced cement-based composites: advances and challenges

Abstract Carbon nanomaterials, predominantly carbon nanofibers, carbon nanotubes, graphene, graphene nanoplates, graphene oxide and reduced graphene oxide, possess superior chemical, physical and mechanical properties. They have been successfully introduced into ordinary Portland cement to give enhancements in terms of mechanical properties, durability and electrical/thermal conductivity, and to modify the functional properties, converting conventional cement-based materials into stronger, smarter and more durable composites. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the properties of carbon nanomaterials, current developments and novel techniques in carbon nanomaterials enhanced cement-based composites (CN-CBCs). Further study of the applications of CN-CBCs at industrial scale is also discussed.