Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Genetic Association with Athlete Status, Physical Performance, and Injury Risk in Soccer

Abstract The aim of this review was to critically appraise the literature concerning the genetic association with athlete status, physical performance, and injury risk in soccer. The objectives were to provide guidance on which genetic markers could potentially be used as part of future practice in soccer and to provide direction for future research in this area. The most compelling evidence identified six genetic polymorphisms to be associated with soccer athlete status ( ACE I/D; ACTN3 rs1815739; AGT rs699; MCT1 rs1049434; NOS3 rs2070744; PPARA rs4253778), six with physical performance ( ACTN3 rs1815739; AMPD1 rs17602729; BDNF rs6265; COL2A1 rs2070739; COL5A1 rs12722; NOS3 rs2070744), and seven with injury risk ( ACTN3 rs1815739; CCL2 rs2857656; COL1A1 rs1800012; COL5A1 rs12722; EMILIN1 rs2289360; IL6 rs1800795; MMP3 rs679620). As well as replication by independent groups, large-scale genome-wide association studies are required to identify new genetic markers. Future research should also investigate the physiological mechanisms associating these polymorphisms with specific phenotypes. Further, researchers should investigate the above associations in female and non-Caucasian soccer players, as almost all published studies have recruited male participants of European ancestry. Only after robust, independently replicated genetic data have been generated, can genetic testing be considered an additional tool to potentially inform future practice in soccer.
Assessing the risk of West Nile Virus seasonal outbreaks and its vector control in an urbanizing bird community: An integrative R0-modelling study in the city of Merida, Mexico

Urbanization is a global trend associated with key socio-economic issues, one of them being to control the transmission of infectious diseases to a urban fraction of the world’s population that shall reach 68% in 2050. While urban growth has been shown to favor mosquito species responsible for the transmission of the West Nile Virus (WNV), a major human arbovirosis, the effects of concomitant changes in the host bird communities remain hard to anticipate albeit essential to quantify disease risk and to plan control initiatives. We developed a R0 modelling of WNV transmission in a urban bird community to assess the risk of outbreak in Merida, one of the cities with the highest growth rate in Mexico. The model was parameterized using ecological and epidemiological data collected over the past 15-years on the local vector, Culex quinquefasciatus, and avian community. We identified a 3-weeks summer period during which the vector population strongly amplifies the WNV enzootic transmission and lead to a significant risk of outbreaks in humans. Extensive sensitivity analyses showed that urbanization induced changes in the bird community could lead to an up-to 6-fold increase in the duration of the risk period, while the daily risk could rise by 40%. Interestingly, the increase in Quiscalus mexicanus abundance had 4–5 times larger impact than any other change in the bird community. In such a context, annihilating the current and future risk of WNV outbreaks in Merida requires reducing the mosquito population by 13% and up to 56%, respectively. This study provides an integrative assessment of the current and future risks of WNV outbreak in the fast urbanizing city of Merida, and points toward the implementation of epidemiological monitoring combined with preemptive measures targeting both C. quinquefasciatus and Q. mexicanus populations, as they are expected to have synergistic effects.
Generalization of Costly Pain-Related Avoidance Based on Real-Life Categorical Knowledge

Avoiding activities posing bodily threat is adaptive. However, spreading of avoidance to safe activities may cause functional disability in people with chronic pain. We investigated whether costly pain-related avoidance would generalize from one activity to another on the basis of real-life categorical knowledge in 40 pain-free people (30 female; mean age = 25 years; university students and public of Maastricht, The Netherlands). In a computer task, participants moved a joystick to complete activities from two categories (gardening and cleaning). During activities from the avoidance category, pain could be avoided at the cost of task efficiency by deviating from a short, pain-associated joystick movement. Activities from the safe category were never painful. Subsequently, we tested generalization of avoidance to novel pain-free activities from both categories. Participants generalized avoidance to novel activities from the avoidance category despite the novel activities not being paired with pain and despite avoidance costs, suggesting that costly (pain-related) avoidance generalizes from one activity to another on the basis of category knowledge and can thus be wide reaching, creating detrimental consequences.
A Cable-Driven Exoskeleton With Personalized Assistance Improves the Gait Metrics of People in Subacute Stroke

Most stroke survivors have mobility deficits and show a pathological gait pattern. Seeking to enhance the gait performance among this population, we have developed a hybrid cable-driven lower limb exoskeleton (called <italic>SEAExo</italic>). This study aimed to determine the effects of <italic>SEAExo</italic> with personalized assistance on immediate changes in gait performance of people after stroke. Gait metrics (i.e., the foot contact angle, knee flexion peak, temporal gait symmetry indices) and muscle activities were the primary outcomes to evaluate the assistive performance. Seven subacute stroke survivors participated and completed the experiment with three comparison sessions, i.e., walking without <italic>SEAExo</italic> (served as baseline) and without/with personalized assistance, at their preferred walking speeds. Compared to the baseline, we observed increases in the foot contact angle and knee flexion peak by 70.1% (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${p} < 0.05$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) and 60.0% (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${p} < 0.05$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) with personalized assistance. Personalized assistance contributed to the improvements in temporal gait symmetry of more impaired participants (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${p} < 0.05$ </tex-math></inline-formula>), and it led to a 22.8% and 51.3% (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${p} < 0.05$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) reduction in the muscle activities of ankle flexor muscles. These results demonstrate that <italic>SEAExo</italic> with personalized assistance has the potential to enhance post-stroke gait rehabilitation in real-world clinical settings.
Differential Development of Dendritic Spines in Striatal Projection Neurons of Direct and Indirect Pathways in the Caudoputamen and Nucleus Accumbens

Abstract Synaptic modification in postnatal development is essential for the maturation of neural networks. Developmental maturation of excitatory synapses occurs at the loci of dendritic spines that are dynamically regulated by growth and pruning. Striatal spiny projection neurons (SPNs) receive excitatory input from the cerebral cortex and thalamus. SPNs of the striatonigral direct pathway (dSPNs) and SPNs of the striatopallidal indirect pathway (iSPNs) have different developmental roots and functions. The spatial and temporal dynamics of dendritic spine maturation of these two types of SPNs remain elusive. Here, we delineate the developmental trajectories of dendritic spines of dSPNs and iSPNs in the caudoputamen and nucleus accumbens (NAc). We labeled dendritic spines of SPNs by microinjecting Cre-dependent AAV-eYFP viruses into newborn Drd1-Cre or Adora2a-Cre mice, and analyzed spinogenesis at three levels, including different SPN cell types, subregions and postnatal times. In the dorsolateral striatum, spine pruning of dSPNs and iSPNs occurred at postnatal day (P)30–P50. In the dorsomedial striatum, the spine density of both dSPNs and iSPNs reached its peak between P30 and P50, and spine pruning occurred after P30 and P50, respectively, for dSPNs and iSPNs. In the NAc shell, spines of dSPNs and iSPNs were pruned after P21–P30, but no significant pruning was observed in iSPNs of lateral NAc shell. In the NAc core, the spine density of dSPNs and iSPNs reached its peak at P21 and P30, respectively, and subsequently declined. Collectively, the developmental maturation of dendritic spines in dSPNs and iSPNs follows distinct spatiotemporal trajectories in the dorsal and ventral striatum.
Antiviral effect of Favipiravir against Chandipura virus in vitro and in vivo

Chandipura virus (CHPV) is an emerging encephalitic virus with outbreak potential in a pediatric population. It causes acute encephalitis, with clinical symptoms leading to death within 48–72 h and an alarmingly high case fatality rate up to 55%–78%. Despite the high mortality rate in children, no vaccines or antivirals are currently available; thus, repurposing licensed drugs seems to be one of the attractive therapeutic approaches. Among the various options available, Favipiravir emerged as a promising candidate, and its unique characteristics and clinical efficacy have garnered significant attention and demonstrated considerable potential in the fight against viral diseases. In the current study, we have evaluated the antiviral effect of Favipiravir against CHPV by Plaque reduction assay and viral growth kinetics assay in Vero cells and in vivo effect of drug treatment against lethal viral challenge was analysed in 10‐day‐old CD1 mice. A dose‐dependent reduction in CHPV plaque size and number was observed in Vero cells treated with Favipiravir, with an EC50 of 92.26 μM. Complete inhibition of CHPV replication was observed at 320 μM drug concentration and 50% cytotoxicity (CC50) at 4774 μM, indicating a high selectivity index 51.24. In vivo, studies in mice showed 100% survival with 300 mg/kg/day of Favipiravir given orally till seventh‐day postinfection. The study provides evidence of the antiviral activity of Favipiravir against CHPV infection, and further clinical evaluation may alleviate the associated mortality.
Preclinical study of a novel ingestible bleeding sensor for upper gastrointestinal bleeding

Background/Aims Upper gastrointestinal bleeding (UGIB) is a life-threatening condition that necessitates early identification and intervention and is associated with substantial morbidity, mortality, and socioeconomic burden. However, several diagnostic challenges remain regarding risk stratification and the optimal timing of endoscopy. The PillSense System is a noninvasive device developed to detect blood in patients with UGIB in real time. This study aimed to assess the safety and performance characteristics of PillSense using a simulated bleeding model. Methods A preclinical study was performed using an in vivo porcine model (14 animals). Fourteen PillSense capsules were endoscopically placed in the stomach and blood was injected into the stomach to simulate bleeding. The safety and sensitivity of blood detection and pill excretion were also investigated. Results All the sensors successfully detected the presence or absence of blood. The minimum threshold was 9% blood concentration, with additional detection of increasing concentrations of up to 22.5% blood. All the sensors passed naturally through the gastrointestinal tract. Conclusions This study demonstrated the ability of the PillSense System sensor to detect UGIB across a wide range of blood concentrations. This ingestible device detects UGIB in real time and has the potential to be an effective tool to supplement the current standard of care. These favorable results will be further investigated in future clinical studies.
When I say… appreciative inquiry

‘This learner is fantastic and is a pleasure to have around. However, he has a problem with discussing sensitive topics with patients about cancer screening. But he has improved over the past year’. These types of statements are commonly encountered throughout the spectrum of medical education. In fact, whether at the individual level or the organisational level, they epitomise the ‘diagnostic approach’ of medical education, where people and systems are seen as collections of problems that need to be fixed with the intent of rectification. Appreciative inquiry (AI) is an alternative to this diagnostic approach. AI is a term that describes a set of models and frameworks that facilitates positive change through the collaborative engagement of stakeholders and leverage of their strengths. AI was originally conceived in 1987 by David Cooperrider and Suresh Srivastava as a management strategy to enhance employee engagement through positive psychology. Over the years, it has been modified and applied to qualitative research, program evaluation, motivational coaching, quality improvement and more. Regardless of these adaptations, AI emphasises that, when an organisation is seen as a living, working organism in need of nurturing, it becomes alive with possibility and positivity. To better understand how AI can be operationalised in the context of this illustrative case, it is important to understand the five underlying principles of AI:
How emotional are words ambiguous on the spaces of valence, origin and activation?

ABSTRACT Not all of the stimuli that we encounter are unequivocal; some of them may be ambiguous. In a series of two experiments, we investigated how people perceive and assess the emotionality of the words ambiguous on three emotional spaces: valence (dimensions of positivity and negativity), origin (automaticity and reflectiveness), and activation (arousal and subjective significance). Using two types of measurement – behavioural and webcam-based eye tracking – we compared words of moderate and high ambiguity on each of those spaces with control (uniequivocal) words. The behavioural measurements indicated that reaction times were significantly longer for the control words than for all the ambiguous words; the emotionality of words of ambiguous valence and origin was rated as significantly lower than the control words and words of ambiguous activation. The eye-tracking measurements indicated that words of ambiguous valence and origin caused significantly more and longer eye fixations than control words and words of ambiguous activation. The results showed the visible distinctiveness of the ambiguous words compared with the control words; they also showed differences between words of various ambiguities, verifying the proposed new model for the emotional ambiguity and presenting the behavioral and eye tracking correlates for each of the three ambiguities.
Simultaneous measurement of electrical and thermal conductivities of suspended monolayer graphene

We measured both in-plane electrical and thermal properties of the same suspended monolayer graphene using a novel T-type sensor method. At room temperature, the values are about 240 000 Ω−1 m−1 and 2100 W m−1 K−1 for the electrical and thermal conductivities, respectively. Based on the Wiedemann-Franz law, the electrons have negligible contribution to the thermal conductivity of graphene, while the in-plane LA and TA modes phonons are the dominant heat carriers. In monolayer graphene, the absence of layer-layer and layer-substrate interactions enhances the contribution of long wave-length phonons to the heat transport and increases the thermal conductivity accordingly. The reported method and experimental data of suspended monolayer graphene are useful for understanding the basic physics and designing the future graphene electronic devices.
3D Domain Adaptive Instance Segmentation via Cyclic Segmentation GANs

3D instance segmentation for unlabeled imaging modalities is a challenging but essential task as collecting expert annotation can be expensive and time-consuming. Existing works segment a new modality by either deploying pre-trained models optimized on diverse training data or sequentially conducting image translation and segmentation with two relatively independent networks. In this work, we propose a novel Cyclic Segmentation Generative Adversarial Network (CySGAN) that conducts image translation and instance segmentation simultaneously using a unified network with weight sharing. Since the image translation layer can be removed at inference time, our proposed model does not introduce additional computational cost upon a standard segmentation model. For optimizing CySGAN, besides the CycleGAN losses for image translation and supervised losses for the annotated source domain, we also utilize self-supervised and segmentation-based adversarial objectives to enhance the model performance by leveraging unlabeled target domain images. We benchmark our approach on the task of 3D neuronal nuclei segmentation with annotated electron microscopy (EM) images and unlabeled expansion microscopy (ExM) data. The proposed CySGAN outperforms pre-trained generalist models, feature-level domain adaptation models, and the baselines that conduct image translation and segmentation sequentially. Our implementation and the newly collected, densely annotated ExM zebrafish brain nuclei dataset, named NucExM, are publicly available at https://connectomics-bazaar.github. io/proj/CySGAN/index.html.
Treating the Side Effects of Exogenous Glucocorticoids; Can We Separate the Good From the Bad?

Abstract It is estimated that 2% to 3% of the population are currently prescribed systemic or topical glucocorticoid treatment. The potent anti-inflammatory action of glucocorticoids to deliver therapeutic benefit is not in doubt. However, the side effects associated with their use, including central weight gain, hypertension, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes (T2D), and osteoporosis, often collectively termed iatrogenic Cushing's syndrome, are associated with a significant health and economic burden. The precise cellular mechanisms underpinning the differential action of glucocorticoids to drive the desirable and undesirable effects are still not completely understood. Faced with the unmet clinical need to limit glucocorticoid-induced adverse effects alongside ensuring the preservation of anti-inflammatory actions, several strategies have been pursued. The coprescription of existing licensed drugs to treat incident adverse effects can be effective, but data examining the prevention of adverse effects are limited. Novel selective glucocorticoid receptor agonists and selective glucocorticoid receptor modulators have been designed that aim to specifically and selectively activate anti-inflammatory responses based upon their interaction with the glucocorticoid receptor. Several of these compounds are currently in clinical trials to evaluate their efficacy. More recently, strategies exploiting tissue-specific glucocorticoid metabolism through the isoforms of 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase has shown early potential, although data from clinical trials are limited. The aim of any treatment is to maximize benefit while minimizing risk, and within this review we define the adverse effect profile associated with glucocorticoid use and evaluate current and developing strategies that aim to limit side effects but preserve desirable therapeutic efficacy.
Reliability estimation for aluminum alloy welded joint with automatic image measurement of surface crack growth

Purpose – As an important connecting component, the reliability of aluminium alloy welded joints influences the whole structural effectiveness and stability of equipment. The purpose of this paper is to propose a novel reliability estimation approach to the welded joints based on time-transformed Wiener process with automatic image measurement of crack growth. The crack length information of the welded joints is incorporated into reliability analysis to reflect the product time-varying characteristics. Design/methodology/approach – The proposed approach is superior to other crack growth estimations in that it innovatively introduce a non-contact and flexible photogrammetry technique.First, on-line crack growth images of aluminium alloy welded joints are acquired by the designed monitor system. Second, crack length is calculated with image measurement, then the crack growth data during the manufacturing process is prepared. Finally, a time-transformed Wiener process is used to modeling the degradation, and.
Characterizing Off-path SmartNIC for Accelerating Distributed Systems

SmartNICs have recently emerged as an appealing device for accelerating distributed systems. However, there has not been a comprehensive characterization of SmartNICs, and existing designs typically only leverage a single communication path for workload offloading. This paper presents the first holistic study of a representative off-path SmartNIC, specifically the Bluefield-2, from a communication-path perspective. Our experimental study systematically explores the key performance characteristics of communication among the client, on-board SoC, and host, and offers insightful findings and advice for designers. Moreover, we propose the concurrent use of multiple communication paths of a SmartNIC and present a pioneering guideline to expose new optimization opportunities for various distributed systems. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach, we conducted case studies on a SmartNIC-based distributed file system (LineFS) and an RDMA-based disaggregated key-value store (DrTM-KV). Our experimental results show improvements of up to 30% and 25% for LineFS and DrTM-KV, respectively.
Generalized weighted surface algebras

The weighted triangulation algebras associated to triangulation quivers and their socle deformations were recently introduced and studied in [15]-[20] and [2]. These algebras, based on surface triangulations and originated from the theory of cluster algebras, were also proved to be (with some minor exceptions) finite-dimensional tame symmetric and periodic algebras of period 4. In this paper, we introduce a new concept of a generalized triangulation quiver, extending the notion of a triangulation quiver. Inparticular, it is also shown that the generalized triangulation quivers can be constructed from triangulations of orientable surfaces with marked self-foldedtriangles. Moreover, motivated by the recent results of [28], we define and investigate so called weighted generalized triangulation algebras associated to generalized triangulation quivers, which naturally arise from mutations of weighted triangulation algebras.
Nerven-Ultraschall bei Canomad

Elf Monate später zeigte der Patient erneut einen geringfügigen Rückfall mit Doppelbilder, welche wenige Tage andauerten und durch eine unbekannte Infektion der oberen Atemwege ausgelöst wurde. Da die Symptome vorübergehend waren, wurden keine weiteren Untersuchungen durchgeführt. Fünf Jahre nach der ersten Aufnahme wurde der Patient erneut wegen subakuter Doppelbilde, einer Gangataxie und Unsicherheit im Gehen hospitalisiert. Dieser Vorfall wurde durch eine COVID-19-Infektion ausgelöst. Die Untersuchung des Liquor cerebrospinalis ergab erneut eine zyto-albuNerven-Ultraschall bei Canomad
Mindfulness and emotion: a five-level analysis

Abstract Based on the five-level model of emotions in the workplace (FLMEW), we present an analysis of emotion and mindfulness at work. The five levels of emotion are: (1) temporal variations in emotion at the within-person level of analysis, which relate to state mindfulness; (2) stable individual differences in experiencing and expressing emotions at the between-persons level, which correspond with trait mindfulness; (3) perceiving and communicating emotions in dyadic relationships at the inter-personal level, reflecting interpersonal mindfulness; (4) emotional processes and leadership at the group level, which are associated with team mindfulness; and (5) and emotional culture and climate at the organizational level, which relate to organizational mindfulness. We provide a definition of mindfulness at each level. We argue that mindfulness tends to be associated with more positive and less negative affective experience at each level. We highlight practical implications and suggest future research at each level.