Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Molecular Mechanisms and Therapeutic Implications of Endothelial Dysfunction in Patients with Heart Failure

Heart failure is a complex medical syndrome that is attributed to a number of risk factors; nevertheless, its clinical presentation is quite similar among the different etiologies. Heart failure displays a rapidly increasing prevalence due to the aging of the population and the success of medical treatment and devices. The pathophysiology of heart failure comprises several mechanisms, such as activation of neurohormonal systems, oxidative stress, dysfunctional calcium handling, impaired energy utilization, mitochondrial dysfunction, and inflammation, which are also implicated in the development of endothelial dysfunction. Heart failure with reduced ejection fraction is usually the result of myocardial loss, which progressively ends in myocardial remodeling. On the other hand, heart failure with preserved ejection fraction is common in patients with comorbidities such as diabetes mellitus, obesity, and hypertension, which trigger the creation of a micro-environment of chronic, ongoing inflammation. Interestingly, endothelial dysfunction of both peripheral vessels and coronary epicardial vessels and microcirculation is a common characteristic of both categories of heart failure and has been associated with worse cardiovascular outcomes. Indeed, exercise training and several heart failure drug categories display favorable effects against endothelial dysfunction apart from their established direct myocardial benefit.
A Fractional-Order Variation With a Novel Norm to Fuse Infrared and Visible Images

Image fusion aims to integrate the significant information from multimodal images to obtain a single image. In this article, a fractional-order variation with convolution norm is proposed for infrared and visible image fusion (IVIF). In our model, a convolution norm ${l}_{\otimes }$ is developed for infrared and visible fidelity terms, which can provide the structural group sparseness, alleviating the residual offset. Moreover, the fractional-order variation is employed instead of total variation (TV), preserving more details and avoiding the staircase effect. Simultaneously, a focused term is utilized to prevent the luminance degradation of the fused result. Finally, extensive experiments are performed on public datasets. The results exhibit that the proposed method achieves better performance in subjective and objective evaluation compared with the excellent methods.
Somatic, Genetic and Epigenetic Changes in Nephrogenic Rests and Their Role in the Transformation to Wilms Tumors, a Systematic Review

Simple Summary We reviewed all studies investigating molecular changes in nephrogenic rests (NR), the presumed precursor lesions of Wilms tumors (WT) being the most frequent malignant childhood renal tumors, between 1990 and 2022. Only 23 studies were found, reporting 119 pairs of NR and corresponding WT, which may allow the detection of early genetic changes that play a role in tumorigenesis. Two genes, WT1 and WTX, and two chromosomal regions, 11p13 where WT1 is located, and 11p15 harboring the IGF-2 gene, were found to be mutated or show loss of imprinting, respectively, in both nephrogenic rests and WT, suggesting that these could be relevant early genetic events. Abstract Objective: To review somatic genetic changes in nephrogenic rests (NR), which are considered to be precursor lesions of Wilms tumors (WT). Methods: This systematic review is written according to the PRISMA statement. PubMed and EMBASE were systematically searched for articles in the English language studying somatic genetic changes in NR between 1990 and 2022. Results: Twenty-three studies were included in this review, describing 221 NR of which 119 were pairs of NR and WT. Single gene studies showed mutations in WT1 and WTX, but not CTNNB1 to occur in both NR and WT. Studies investigating chromosomal changes showed loss of heterozygosity of 11p13 and 11p15 to occur in both NR and WT, but loss of 7p and 16q occurred in WT only. Methylome-based studies found differential methylation patterns between NR, WT, and normal kidney (NK). Conclusions: Over a 30-year time frame, few studies have addressed genetic changes in NR, likely hampered by technical and practical limitations. A limited number of genes and chromosomal regions have been implicated in the early pathogenesis of WT, exemplified by their occurrence in NR, including WT1, WTX, and genes located at 11p15. Further studies of NR and corresponding WT are urgently needed.
Evidence for Optical Flares in Quiescent Soft X-Ray Transients

We present the results of high time resolution optical photometry of five quiescent soft X-ray transients (SXTs): V404 Cyg, A0620-00, J0422+32, GS 2000+25, and Cen X-4. We detect fast optical variations superposed on the secondary star's double-humped ellipsoidal modulation. The variability resembles typical flare activity and has amplitudes ranging from 0.06 to 0.6 mag. Flares occur on timescales of minutes to a few hours, with no dependency on orbital phase, and contribute ~19%-46% to the total veiling observed in the R band. We find that the observed level of flaring activity is veiled by the light of the companion star, and therefore, systems with cool companions (e.g., J0422+32) exhibit stronger variability. After correcting for this dilution, we do not find any correlation between the flaring activity and fundamental system parameters. We find no underlying coherent periods in the data, only quasi-periodic variations ranging between 30 and 90 minutes for the short-period SXTs and longer than 1 hr for V404 Cyg. The power-law index of the power spectra is consistent with what is observed at X-rays wavelengths, i.e., a 1/f distribution, which is compatible with the cellular automaton model. Our observed R'-band luminosities, which are in the range 1031-1033 ergs s-1, are too large to be due to chromospheric activity in the rapidly rotating companions. Since the typical timescale of the flares increases with orbital period, they are most likely produced in the accretion disk. The associated dynamical (Keplerian) timescales suggest that flares are produced at ~0.3Rd-0.7Rd. Possible formation mechanisms are magnetic loop reconnection events in the disk or, less likely, optical reprocessing of X-ray flares. In the former scenario, the maximum duration of the flares suggests that the outer disk is responsible for the flare events and so allows us to constrain the sharing timescale to τ ~ Ω.
Effects of dietary Clostridium butyricum and fructooligosaccharides, alone or in combination, on performance, egg quality, amino acid digestibility, jejunal morphology, immune function, and antioxidant capacity of laying hens

The present study was conducted to evaluate the effects of Clostridium butyricum (CB) and fructooligosaccharide (FOS) singly or combined, on performance, egg quality, amino acid digestibility, jejunal morphology, immune function and antioxidant capacity in peak-phase laying hens. A total of 288 Hy-Line Brown laying hens (30 weeks of age) were randomly assigned to 4 dietary groups that included basal diet, basal diet +0.02% of CB (zlc-17: 1 × 109 CFU/g) (PRO), basal diet +0.6% FOS (PRE), and basal diet +0.02% CB + 0.6% FOS (SYN) for 12 weeks. Each treatment had 6 replicates with 12 birds each. The results demonstrated that probiotics (PRO), prebiotics (PRE) and synbiotics (SYN) (p ≤ 0.05), respectively, exerted a positive effect on the performance and physiological response of the birds. There were significant increases in egg production rate, egg weight, egg mass, daily feed intake and reduced number of damaged eggs. and zero mortality rate due to dietary PRO, PRE and SYN (p ≤ 0.05) respectively. Also, feed conversion was improved by PRO (p ≤ 0.05). In addition, egg quality assessment showed that; eggshell quality was increased by PRO (p ≤ 0.05) and albumen indices (Haugh unit, thick albumen content, and albumen height) were enhanced by PRO, PRE and SYN (p ≤ 0.05). Further analysis showed that PRO, PRE and SYN (p ≤ 0.05), reduced heterophil to lymphocyte ratio, increased antioxidant enzymes and immunoglobulin concentration. Although spleen index was higher for PRO (p ≤ 0.05) group. The significant increase in villi height, villi width, villi height to crypt depth ratio and reduced crypt depth were obvious for PRO, PRE, and SYN (p ≤ 0.05). Furthermore, improved nutrient absorption and retention evidenced by increased digestibility of crude protein and amino acids, were notable for PRO, PRE, and SYN (p ≤ 0.05) group. Collectively, our findings revealed that dietary CB and FOS alone, or combined, enhanced productive performance, egg quality, amino acid digestibility, jejunal morphology, and physiological response in peak-phase laying hens. Our results would provide direction on nutritional strategies for gut enhancers and better physiological response of peak laying hens.
Diet composition and interspecific niche of Taohongling Sika deer (Cervusnipponkopschi) and its sympatric Reeve’s muntjac (Muntiacusreevesi) and Chinese hare (Lepussinensis) in winter (Animalia, Mammalia)

﻿Abstract Species co-existence depends on how organisms utilize their environment and resources. Little is known about the winter diet composition and sympatric co-existence of South China sika deer and its companion species in Taohongling. In this study, high-throughput sequencing and metabarcoding trnL were used to study the diet composition and interspecific relationship including sika deer, Reeve’s muntjac, and Chinese hare. Our results show that 203 genera in 90 families are contained in the diet of sika deer, 203 genera in 95 families for Reeve’s muntjac, and 163 genera in 75 families for Chinese hare. Sika deer fed on Rubuschingii, Loropetalumchinense, and Euryajaponica in winter, accounting for 75.30%; Reeve’s muntjac consumed mainly R.chingii, E.japonica, and Euonymusgrandiflorus, accounting for 68.80%, and Chinese hare mainly fed on R.chingii, Smilaxchina, and Rhuschinensis, accounting for 41.98%. The Shannon index showed no significant difference between groups (p > 0.05). The NMDS analysis found considerable overlap among three species. Sika deer and Reeve’s muntjac consumed similar forage plants but varied greatly in Chinese hare, which occupied the widest choice in winter, resulting in higher diet breadth and increased dietary divergence, thereby reducing competition and facilitating coexistence. The diet niche overlap index among them, as represented by Pianka’s index, ranging from 0.62 between sika deer and Chinese hare to 0.83 between sika deer and Reeve’s muntjac, which indicated a more similar niche and potential competition in closely related species. Our findings provide a new diet perspective of three herbivores, leading to a more comprehensive understanding of resource partitioning and species coexistence.
Element Potential-Based Procedure for Metamodeling of Combustion Products

A procedure for generating metamodels for calculating composition and properties from chemical equilibrium of reacting mixtures is presented. The procedure is novel because, in theory, it allows prediction of equilibrium quantities independently of the fuel and mixture parameters, such as equivalence ratio or fuel-air ratio. The resulting surrogates may find direct use in the analysis of thermodynamic cycles and the computations of flowfields requiring properties of combustion products. The present approach is justified by the formulation of the method of element potentials, a class of methods for the solution of chemical equilibrium problems.
Generalization of the Lichtenbaum–Hartshorne Vanishing Theorem

In this article we shall prove the following result, which is a generalization of the Lichtenbaum–Hartshorne Vanishing Theorem (See [3, Theorem 8.2.1]). Let (R, 𝔪) be a catenary Noetherian local ring, I an ideal of R and M be a nonzero finitely generated R-module of dimension n. Then the following conditions are equivalent: (i) and (ii) there exists a prime ideal 𝔭 in AsshR(M) such that Rad(𝔭 +I) = 𝔪.
Modeling of Multivariate Monotone Disease Processes in the Presence of Misclassification

Motivated by a longitudinal oral health study, the Signal–Tandmobiel® study, we propose a multivariate binary inhomogeneous Markov model in which unobserved correlated response variables are subject to an unconstrained misclassification process and have a monotone behavior. The multivariate baseline distributions and Markov transition matrices of the unobserved processes are defined as a function of covariates through the specification of compatible full conditional distributions. Distinct misclassification models are discussed. In all cases, the possibility that different examiners were involved in the scoring of the responses of a given subject across time is taken into account. A full Bayesian implementation of the model is described and its performance is evaluated using simulated data. We provide theoretical and empirical evidence that the parameters can be estimated without any external information about the misclassification parameters. Finally, the analyses of the motivating study are presented. Appendices 1–7 are available in the online supplementary materials.
Chimeric antigen receptor-T cell therapy-related cardiotoxicity in adults and children cancer patients: A clinical appraisal

Chimeric antigen receptor-T (CAR-T) cells therapies represent an innovative immunological treatment for patients suffering from advanced and refractory onco-hematological malignancies. The infusion of engineered T-cells, exposing chimeric receptors on the cell surface, leads to an immune response against the tumor cells. However, data from clinical trials and observational studies showed the occurrence of a constellation of adverse events related to CAR-T cells infusion, ranging from mild effects to life-threatening organ-specific complications. In particular, CAR-T cell-related cardiovascular toxicities represent an emerging group of adverse events observed in these patients, correlated with increased morbidity and mortality. Mechanisms involved are still under investigation, although the aberrant inflammatory activation observed in cytokine release syndrome (CRS) seems to play a pivotal role. The most frequently reported cardiac events, observed both in adults and in the pediatric population, are represented by hypotension, arrhythmias and left ventricular systolic dysfunction, sometimes associated with overt heart failure. Therefore, there is an increasing need to understand the pathophysiological basis of cardiotoxicity and risk factors related to its development, in order to identify most vulnerable patients requiring a close cardiological monitoring and long-term follow-up. This review aims at highlighting CAR-T cell-related cardiovascular complications and clarifying the pathogenetic mechanisms coming at play. Moreover, we will shed light on surveillance strategies and cardiotoxicity management protocols, as well as on future research perspectives in this expanding field.
LADDER REGENERATIVE EVENTS WITH APPLICATIONS TO DAM MODELS

Abstract : For a stochastic process (X(t); t greater than or equal to 0) with stationary independent increments, we define an event called a ladder event. The event is a regenerative event in the sense of Kingman. Conditions for the event to be standard or stable are given and its local time properties, limiting properties, and sample function behavior are investigated. It is found that there are two classes of processes with stationary independent increments, for one class the event is standard while for the other it is degenerative. Ladder epochs for X(t) are introduced as first passage times. Their behavior is characterized using the ladder events. The connection between ladder epochs and the supremum functional for X(t) is used to obtain limit theorems for the latter for a large class of processes with stationary independent increments. Ladder events, ladder epochs and the supremum functional are further studies for the special process which is representable as the sum of two independent processes, one, a process with stationary independent increments, and the other, a compound Poisson process. The approach here uses a continuous time extension of Feller's combinatorial lemma. Finally, these results are applied to investigate a general dam model. (Author)
A Transformed Lagged Ensemble Forecasting Technique for Increasing Ensemble Size

Abstract An ensemble-based data assimilation approach is used to transform old ensemble forecast perturbations with more recent observations for the purpose of inexpensively increasing ensemble size. The impact of the transformations are propagated forward in time over the ensemble’s forecast period without rerunning any models, and these transformed ensemble forecast perturbations can be combined with the most recent ensemble forecast to sensibly increase forecast ensemble sizes. Because the transform takes place in perturbation space, the transformed perturbations must be centered on the ensemble mean from the most recent forecasts. Thus, the benefit of the approach is in terms of improved ensemble statistics rather than improvements in the mean. Larger ensemble forecasts can be used for numerous purposes, including probabilistic forecasting, targeted observations, and to provide boundary conditions to limited-area models. This transformed lagged ensemble forecasting approach is explored and is shown to.
Analysis of laminated cores through a directly coupled 2-D/1-D electromagnetic field formulation

Summary form only given. One of the most critical aspect in the modelling of laminated cores is the capability to evaluate the influence of the skin effect in the lamination depth on the magnetic flux distribution in the sheet plane. On this subject, the authors have already presented a computational procedure, based on a standard vector potential 2D magnetic field solution, which accounts for the effects of eddy currents flowing along the rolling plane both for unidirectional and for rotational fluxes. The proposed procedure handles the diffusion phenomena in the lamination depth by means of a dynamic magnetic model, consisting of the solution of 1D electromagnetic field problems defined in the sheet thickness. The linkage between the 2D (xy-plane) and 1D (z-axis) electromagnetic problems requires the use of two nested iterative Fixed Point (FP) schemes. Here an alternative approach is proposed, by directly coupling the equations governing the 2D and 1D electromagnetic field problems, to reduce the computational burden of the entire algorithm, without affecting the result accuracy.
GABRG2 Variants Associated with Febrile Seizures

Febrile seizures (FS) are the most common form of epilepsy in children between six months and five years of age. FS is a self-limited type of fever-related seizure. However, complicated prolonged FS can lead to complex partial epilepsy. We found that among the GABAA receptor subunit (GABR) genes, most variants associated with FS are harbored in the γ2 subunit (GABRG2). Here, we characterized the effects of eight variants in the GABAA receptor γ2 subunit on receptor biogenesis and channel function. Two-thirds of the GABRG2 variants followed the expected autosomal dominant inheritance in FS and occurred as missense and nonsense variants. The remaining one-third appeared as de novo in the affected probands and occurred only as missense variants. The loss of GABAA receptor function and dominant negative effect on GABAA receptor biogenesis likely caused the FS phenotype. In general, variants in the GABRG2 result in a broad spectrum of phenotypic severity, ranging from asymptomatic, FS, genetic epilepsy with febrile seizures plus (GEFS+), and Dravet syndrome individuals. The data presented here support the link between FS, epilepsy, and GABRG2 variants, shedding light on the relationship between the variant topological occurrence and disease severity.
Design of a 110-kV 2.0-kA SmartCoil Superconducting Fault Current Limiter

The concept of a SmartCoil fault current limiter consists of a conventional primary winding at room temperature, which induces a current in the secondary superconducting winding. This arrangement allows to retrofit an air-core reactor with secondary, short-circuited high-temperature superconducting tapes. This work investigates the designs of a 110-kV 2.0-kA SmartCoil fault current limiter, which reduces the prospective fault current of 13–4.5 kA. In the design process, the geometric dimensions of the primary winding and the number of the superconducting rings in the secondary coil are varied. Key optimization criteria are to keep the stray reactance between 1% and 5% while the impedance during short-circuit conditions must be in the range between 20% and 40%. An excessive heating of the superconductors must be avoided. Transient simulations are also carried out to verify all the performance requirements are fulfilled. Finally, a design proposal with three limiter modules in series with all parameters, including heat input and cooling, is presented. The design meets all requirements by the distribution system operator.
Experiences of children with learning disabilities living in low-income households during the Covid-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT All children, particularly those with special needs, have been adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. This qualitative study explored the experiences of children with learning disabilities (LD) during the COVID-19 Pandemic. A criterion sample of twenty-three children ages 7 to 10 (M = 8.56, SD = 1.12) from Turkey was interviewed. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the collected data. Three themes were generated: 1) Perceived changes in Children’s Daily Lives, 2) Educational Process, and 3) Support During the Pandemic. Overall, findings from the present study provided insights into children’s experiences with LD during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Surface-enhanced Raman scattering characterization of Ag nanorod arrays fabricated by oblique angle deposition

Silver nanorod arrays with different lengths fabricated by oblique angle deposition at various vapor deposition angles have been studied systematically by surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). The SERS response of those substrates strongly depends on the length of the nanorods and the deposition angle, and the highest SERS enhancement factor can reach close to 109. The reflections of the support substrate where the Ag nanorods are grown directly affect the SERS enhancement. In addition, the SERS response strongly depends on the incident configuration of the excitation beam, such as polarization and incident angle. We also find that the probe molecules on the side surface of nanorods contribute the most to the SERS intensity. This is due to the anisotropic optical properties of nanorods and the thickness of the nanorods. This study demonstrates that the Ag nanorod arrays are highly sensitive, uniform, and stable SERS substrates, and its SERS mechanism depends on the complex nanorod film geometry.