Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multi-walled carbon nanotubes trigger lysosome-dependent cell death (pyroptosis) in macrophages but not in neutrophils

Abstract Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been extensively investigated, and several studies have shown that multi-walled CNTs can trigger inflammation and fibrosis in animal models. However, while neutrophils are involved in inflammation, most in vitro studies have addressed macrophages. Here we explored the impact of three MWCNTs with varying morphology (i.e. long and rigid versus short and/or tangled) on primary human macrophages and macrophage-differentiated THP-1 cells versus primary human neutrophils and neutrophil-differentiated HL-60 cells. We found that long and rigid MWCNTs triggered caspase-dependent cell death in macrophages, accompanied by NLRP3 inflammasome activation and gasdermin D (GSDMD)-mediated release of pro-inflammatory IL-1β. The release of IL-1β was suppressed by disulfiram, an FDA-approved drug known to act as an inhibitor of membrane pore formation by GSDMD. Evidence of autophagic cell death was noted in macrophages exposed to higher concentrations of the long and rigid MWCNTs. Furthermore, lysosomal damage with cytosolic release of cathepsin B was observed in macrophages exposed to the latter MWCNTs. On the other hand, there was little evidence of uptake of MWCNTs in neutrophils and the cells failed to undergo MWCNT-triggered cell death. Our studies have demonstrated that long and rigid MWCNTs trigger pyroptosis in human macrophages.
Isolation of ocotillol/ocotillone from Fouquieria splendens (Ocote) using a batch reactor

Abstract Exploitation of the "ocotillo" tree (Fouquieria splendens Engelm) to produce ocotillol/ocotillone (o/o) in Northern Mexico hasn’t been explored to this date. In the present work, isolation of ocotillol/ocotillone was performed through a batch reactor, which allowed the elimination of alcohol and phenols present in the ocote plant, yielding only resins and waxes from the ocote trunks. The ocotillol/ocotillone was extracted from the remaining resin on the ocote logs by solvent extraction in a batch reactor, to be crystallized after its extraction using a rotary evaporator. FTIR, and NMR analysis exhibited the characteristic ginsenoside bands, while the UV-vis spectrum of ocotillol/ocotillone depicted an absorption band belonging to the O–H bonds, indicating that the group is anchored to the ginsenoside structure and not due to a water signal. Lastly, the thermogravimetric analysis described a common behavior among other ginsenosides. Production of ocotillo/ocotillone has an energy consumption of 3624 kWh/gr. With a cost of $0.478 USD in laboratory equipment, which translates as a plausible sustainable production of ocotillol/ocotillone
Npas4 regulates medium spiny neuron physiology and gates cocaine‐induced hyperlocomotion

We show here that the transcription factor Npas4 is an important regulator of medium spiny neuron spine density and electrophysiological parameters and that it determines the magnitude of cocaine‐induced hyperlocomotion in mice. Npas4 is induced by synaptic stimuli that cause calcium influx, but not dopaminergic or PKA‐stimulating input, in mouse medium spiny neurons and human iPSC‐derived forebrain organoids. This induction is independent of ubiquitous kinase pathways such as PKA and MAPK cascades, and instead depends on calcineurin and nuclear calcium signalling. Npas4 controls a large regulon containing transcripts for synaptic molecules, such as NMDA receptors and VDCC subunits, and determines in vivo MSN spine density, firing rate, I/O gain function and paired‐pulse facilitation. These functions at the molecular and cellular levels control the locomotor response to drugs of abuse, as Npas4 knockdown in the nucleus accumbens decreases hyperlocomotion in response to cocaine in male mice while leaving basal locomotor behaviour unchanged.
The prognostic value of TCF1+CD8+T in primary small cell carcinoma of the esophagus

TCF1+CD8+T cells are reported to exhibit stem‐like properties with the ability to self‐renew and differentiate into terminal effector T cells (TCF1‐CD8+T cells) to enhance antitumor response. Previous studies indicated that TCF1+CD8+ tumor‐infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) are related to response to immunotherapy. However, their role in predicting prognosis for patients with primary small cell carcinoma of the esophagus (PSCCE) remains unclear. In this study, the expression of TCF1+CD8+T was analyzed by multiplex fluorescence immunohistochemistry in tumor tissues of 79 patients with PSCCE. High infiltration of TCF1+CD8+T cells had longer overall survival (OS) than low infiltration (P = .009, hazard ratio [HR] = 0.506). High TCF1+CD8/CD8 ratio (>21%) showed superior OS compared with low ratio (≤21%) (P < .001, HR = 0.394). In the validation set (n = 20), the prognostic value of TCF1+CD8+T cells on OS was also verified. TCF1+CD8+T cells are strong prognostic predictors.
Perceptions of Teamwork in Schools of Nursing

Background: Characteristics of high-performing teams include shared purpose, clear vision, strong leadership, and the ability to use conflict management when needed. While many individuals who teach in schools of nursing come from the clinical setting where teamwork is normative, that same expectation of teamwork may not be present for the faculty as a whole. Purpose: This study assessed perceptions of teamwork among faculty members in schools of nursing in 4 states in the Midwestern region of the United States. Methods: Perception of teamwork, related to communication, leadership, team structure, situation monitoring, and mutual support, was examined using a modified TeamSTEPPS Teamwork Perceptions Questionnaire. Results: Perceptions of teamwork were highest for team structure and leadership, whereas communication, situation monitoring, and mutual support were lower. In addition, teamwork dimension scores were higher for those who previously participated in teamwork training. Conclusions: There are opportunities to improve teamwork in all domains. Teamwork skills are transferrable to different roles and across various situations; therefore once learned and fostered, these can impact the individual as well as improve the organizational climate.
Acoustofluidic Droplet Sorter Based on Single Phase Focused Transducers.

Droplet microfluidics has revolutionized the biomedical and drug development fields by allowing for independent microenvironments to conduct drug screening at the single cell level. However, current microfluidic sorting devices suffer from drawbacks such as high voltage requirements (e.g., >200 Vpp), low biocompatibility, and/or low throughput. In this article, a single-phase focused transducer (SPFT)-based acoustofluidic chip is introduced, which outperforms many microfluidic droplet sorting devices through high energy transmission efficiency, high accuracy, and high biocompatibility. The SPFT-based sorter can be driven with an input power lower than 20 Vpp and maintain a postsorting cell viability of 93.5%. The SPFT sorter can achieve a throughput over 1000 events per second and a sorting purity up to 99.2%. The SPFT sorter is utilized here for the screening of doxorubicin cytotoxicity on cancer and noncancer cells, proving its drug screening capability. Overall, the SPFT droplet sorting device shows great potential for fast, precise, and biocompatible drug screening.
A systematic, concept‐based method of developing the exposure measure for drug safety and effectiveness studies

In drug safety and effectiveness studies based on secondary data, the choice of an appropriate exposure measure for a given outcome can be challenging. Different measures of exposure can yield different estimates of treatment effect and safety. There is a knowledge gap with respect to developing and refining measures of drug exposure, to ensure that the exposure measure addresses the study question and is suitable for statistical analysis.
The Role of a Bone SPECT/CT Scan in the Follow-up of a Solitary Bone Lesion in a Patient with Langerhans’ Cell Histiocytosis

Langerhans’ cell histiocytosis (LCH) is a rare disease observed in childhood characterized by the proliferation of Langerhans’ cells resulting in focal or systemic manifestations (including the bones). Here, we present a pediatric case with a localized biopsy-proven LCH, who underwent progression from solitary to multifocal form detected on bone scintigraphy and single photon emission computerized tomography/computed tomography (SPECT/CT) performed within four months. Emphasizing on localized bone pain (predictive of osseous LCH) and local tenderness and swelling usually guides the nuclear physician to perform additional SPECT/CT with presumably an improvement of the diagnostic accuracy as demonstrated in our case.
Investigation of the anti-inflammatory effects of stigmasterol in mice: insight into its mechanism of action

Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text. Stigmasterol is a phytosterol that presents pharmacologic properties. However, its anti-inflammatory mechanism and antinociceptive effect are not yet elucidated. Thus, the present study aimed to investigate the anti-inflammatory and antinociceptive activities of stigmasterol and its mechanism of action in mice. The antinociceptive activity was assessed by the acetic acid-induced writhing test, formalin test, and hot plate test. The anti-inflammatory activity was investigated by carrageenan-induced peritonitis and paw edema induced by arachidonic acid. The involvement of glucocorticoid receptors in the mechanism of stigmasterol anti-inflammatory action was investigated by molecular docking, also by pretreating mice with RU-486 (glucocorticoid receptor antagonist) in the acetic acid-induced writhing test. Mice motor coordination was evaluated by the rota-rod test and the locomotor activity by the open field test. The lowest effective dose of stigmasterol was standardized at 10 mg/kg (p.o.). It prevented abdominal writhes and paw licking, but it did not increase the latency time in the hot plate test, suggesting that stigmasterol does not show an antinociceptive effect in response to a thermal stimulus. Stigmasterol decreased leukocyte infiltration in peritonitis assay and reduced paw edema elicited by arachidonic acid. Molecular docking suggested that stigmasterol interacts with the glucocorticoid receptor. Also, RU-486 prevented the effect of stigmasterol in the acetic-acid abdominal writhing test, which might indicate the contribution of glucocorticoid receptors in the mechanism of stigmasterol action. Stigmasterol reduced the number of crossings but did not impair mice’s motor coordination. Our results show that stigmasterol presents anti-inflammatory effects probably mediated by glucocorticoid receptors.
Genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism array and whole-genome sequencing reveal the inbreeding progression of Banna minipig inbred line.

Inbred pigs are promising animal models for biomedical research and xenotransplantation. Established in 1980, the Banna minipig inbred (BMI) line originated from a sow and its own male offspring. It was selected from a small backcountry minority Lahu village, where records show that no other pig breed has ever been introduced. During the inbreeding process, we perfomed extreme inbreeding over 23 consecutive generations using full-sibling or parent-offspring mating. In order to investigate the inbreeding effects in BMI pigs across generations over the past 40 years, in this study we conducted a genome-wide SNP genotyping of the last 10 generations, representing generations 14-23. In total, we genotyped 57,746 SNPs, corresponding to an average decrease in heterozygosity rate of 0.0078 per generation. Furthermore, we were only able to identify 18,216 polymorphic loci with a MAF larger than 0.05, which is substantially lower than the values in previous reports on other pig breeds. In addition, we sequenced the genome of the first pig in the twenty-third generation (inbreeding coefficient 99.28%) to an average coverage of 12.4× to evaluate at the genome level the impact of advanced inbreeding. ROH analysis indicates that BMI pigs have longer ROHs than Wuzhishan and Duroc pigs. Those long ROH regions in BMI pigs are enriched for distinct functions compared with the highly polymorphic regions. Our study reveals a genome-wide allele diversity loss during the progress of inbreeding in BMI pigs and characterizes ROH and polymorphic regions as a result of inbreeding. Overall, our results indicate the successful establishment of the BMI line, which paves the way for further in-depth studies.
[Predicting postoperative recurrence of stage Ⅰ-Ⅲ renal clear cell carcinoma based on preoperative CT radiomics feature nomogram].

OBJECTIVE To explore the preoperative radiomics features (RFs) and construct a nomogram for predicting postoperative recurrence of stage Ⅰ-Ⅲ clear cell renal carcinoma (ccRCC). METHODS The clinicopathological data and preoperative enhanced CT images collected from 256 patients with ccRCC were used as the training dataset (175 patients) and test dataset (81 patients). The enhanced CT images of the tumor were segmented using ITK-SNAP software, and the RFs were extracted using the PyRadiomics computing platform. In the training dataset, the RFs were screened based on Lasso-CV algorithm, and the Rad_score was calculated. The Clinic factors were screened by univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis of the clinical and pathological factors and CT characteristics. The Rad_score, Clinic、Rad_score + Clinic nomograms were constructed and verified using the test dataset. The performance, discrimination power and calibration of the nomograms were compared, and their clinical value was evaluated using decision curve analysis. RESULTS Six RFs were retained to calculate the Rad_score. The Clinic factors included Rad_score, KPS score, platelet, calcification and TNM clinical stage. In terms of discrimination, the Rad_score + Clinic nomogram showed better performance (AUC=0.84 for training set; AUC=0.85 for test set) than the Rad_score nomogram (AUC=0.78 for training set, P=0.029; AUC=0.77 for Test set, P=0.025) and Clinic nomogram (AUC=0.77 for training set, P=0.014; AUC=0.77 for test set, P=0.011). In terms of calibration, the P value for goodness of fit test of the Rad_score+Clinic nomogram was 0.065 for the training set and 0.628 for the test set. Decision curve analysis showed a greater clinical value of the Rad_score+Clinic nomogram with Rad_score than the Clinic nomogram without Rad_score. CONCLUSION The nomogram based on preoperative CT RFs has a high value for predicting postoperative recurrence of stage Ⅰ-Ⅲ ccRCC to facilitate individualized treatment of RCC.
Improving Neural Machine Translation on resource-limited pairs using auxiliary data of a third language

In the recent years interest in Deep Neural Networks (DNN) has grown in the field of Natural Language Processing, as new training methods have been proposed. The usage of DNN has achieved state-of-the-art performance in various areas. Neural Machine Translation (NMT) described by Bahdanau et al. (2014) and its successive variations have shown promising results. DNN, however, tend to over-fit on small data-sets, which makes this method impracticable for resource-limited language pairs. This article combines three different ideas (splitting words into smaller units, using an extra dataset of a related language pair and using monolingual data) for improving the performance of NMT models on language pairs with limited data. Our experiments show that, in some cases, our proposed approach to subword-units performs better than BPE (Byte pair encoding) and that auxiliary language-pairs and monolingual data can help improve the performance of languages with limited resources.
Atheists versus Theists: Religious Polarisation in Arab Online Communities

In this study, we investigate the extent of polarisation among theist versus atheist groups on Arab Twitter and their networks. We find four main self-identified groups of Arab users that can be distinguished by different attitudes to religion. In addition to Atheists and Theists, there are Rationalists, who promote rational thinking regardless of religious affiliation, and Tanweeri, who promote religious reforms. Through a keyword search of Twitter account handles and biographies, we identified 2,673 active, public Twitter accounts that clearly state whether they are Atheists, Theists, Tanweeri or Rationalists and analysed the interactions among themselves and the accounts that are followed, retweeted, or mentioned the most in their networks. Depending on the network analysed, we found between four and seven sub-communities that highlight the rich socio-cultural context in which discussions of religion, non-religion, and religious reform unfold. While there was clear online polarisation between atheists and theists, Rationalist and Tanweeri accounts are spread among the two polarised sides, acting as natural bridges. We also found a clear separation between Arab atheists who engage with Arab accounts promoting atheism and those who primarily engage with Western accounts promoting atheism. We discuss implications for the study of religious debate and religious polarisation on social media.
Guilty Artificial Minds: Folk Attributions of Mens Rea and Culpability to Artificially Intelligent Agents

While philosophers hold that it is patently absurd to blame robots or hold them morally responsible [1], a series of recent empirical studies suggest that people do ascribe blame to AI systems and robots in certain contexts [2]. This is disconcerting: Blame might be shifted from the owners, users or designers of AI systems to the systems themselves, leading to the diminished accountability of the responsible human agents [3]. In this paper, we explore one of the potential underlying reasons for robot blame, namely the folk's willingness to ascribe inculpating mental states or "mens rea" to robots. In a vignette-based experiment (N=513), we presented participants with a situation in which an agent knowingly runs the risk of bringing about substantial harm. We manipulated agent type (human v. group agent v. AI-driven robot) and outcome (neutral v. bad), and measured both moral judgment (wrongness of the action and blameworthiness of the agent) and mental states attributed to the agent (recklessness and the desire to inflict harm). We found that (i) judgments of wrongness and blame were relatively similar across agent types, possibly because (ii) attributions of mental states were, as suspected, similar across agent types. This raised the question - also explored in the experiment - whether people attribute knowledge and desire to robots in a merely metaphorical way (e.g., the robot "knew" rather than really knew). However, (iii), according to our data people were unwilling to downgrade to mens rea in a merely metaphorical sense when given the chance. Finally, (iv), we report a surprising and novel finding, which we call the inverse outcome effect on robot blame: People were less willing to blame artificial agents for bad outcomes than for neutral outcomes. This suggests that they are implicitly aware of the dangers of overattributing blame to robots when harm comes to pass, such as inappropriately letting the responsible human agent off the moral hook.
Won't You Think of Others?: Interdependent Privacy in Smartphone App Permissions

The ever increasing amount of data on smartphones often contains private information of others that people interact with via the device. As a result, one user's decisions regarding app permissions can expose the information of other parties. However, research typically focuses on consequences of privacy-related decisions only for the user who makes the decisions. Work on the impact of these decisions on the privacy of others is still relatively scant. We fill this gap with an online study that extends prior work on interdependent privacy in social networking sites to the context of smartphone permissions. Our findings indicate that people typically give less consideration to the implications of their actions for the privacy of others compared to the impact on themselves. However, we found that priming people with information that features others can help reduce this discrepancy. We apply this insight to offer suggestions for enhancing permission-specification interfaces and system architectures to accommodate interdependent privacy.
Task Assignment Strategies for Crowd Worker Ability Improvement

Workers are the most important resource in crowdsourcing. However, only investing in worker-centric needs, such as skill improvement, often conflicts with short-term platform-centric needs, such as task throughput. This paper studies learning strategies in task assignment in crowdsourcing and their impact on platform-centric needs. We formalize learning potential of individual tasks and collaborative tasks, and devise an iterative task assignment and completion approach that implements strategies grounded in learning theories. We conduct experiments to compare several learning strategies in terms of skill improvement, and in terms of task throughput and contribution quality. We discuss how our findings open new research directions in learning and collaboration.
Multinationalism and the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Framework for Analysis

Abstract The introduction to the special issue offers a six-points framework for analyzing both the impact of the pandemic on nationalism and the broader multinational state as well as the significance of multinationalism for the response to the pandemic. These points correspond to the following questions: (1) How has multinationalism (as a sociological fact and/or a political culture that has conditioned governance practices and institutional frameworks) shaped the response to the crisis? (2) How has the crisis affected the self-determination objectives and strategies of the nationalist movement? (3) Have national divides (as observed, for example, in public opinion and in statements from politicians) become more or less salient during, and as a result of, the crisis? (4) What issues have produced tensions between national communities, or between minority nations and the state? (5) What governments, parties, or individual politicians have most gained or lost from the crisis in terms of putting forward or managing self-determination claims? (6) What could be the impact of the crisis on the nationalist movement and on the multinational state as a whole?
Synthesis, Characterization, and Biological Study of 3‐Trifluoromethylpyrazole Tethered Chalcone‐Pyrrole and Pyrazoline‐Pyrrole Derivatives

The present study illustrates the design and synthesis of new series of 3‐trifluoromethylpyrazole tethered chalcone‐pyrrole and pyrazoline‐pyrrole derivatives. All compounds were further screened for in vitro cytostatic activities on full NCI 60 cancer cell lines at National Cancer Institute, USA. Compounds (2E)‐3‐(1H‐pyrrol‐2‐yl)‐1‐{4‐[3‐(trifluoromethyl)‐1H‐pyrazol‐1‐yl]phenyl}prop‐2‐en‐1‐one (5a) and (2E)‐1‐{3‐methyl‐4‐[3‐(trifluoromethyl)‐1H‐pyrazol‐1‐yl]phenyl}‐3‐(1H‐pyrrol‐2‐yl)prop‐2‐en‐1‐one (5c) displayed significant antiproliferative activity (Growth Percentage: −77.10 and −92.13, respectively at 10 μM concentration) against the UO‐31 cell lines from renal cancer and were further selected for assay at 10‐fold dilutions of five different concentrations (10−4 to 10−8 M). Both compounds 5a and 5c exhibited promising antiproliferative activity (GI50: 1.36 to 0.27 μM) against leukemia cancer cell lines HL‐60 and RPMI‐8226, colon cancer cell lines KM‐12; breast cancer cell lines BT‐549. Moreover, both compounds 5a and 5c were found to be non‐cytotoxic (LC50>100) against HL‐60, RPMI‐8226, and KM‐12 cell lines. Remarkably, GI50 values of compounds 5a and 5c were identified as more promising than sunitinib against most cancer cell lines. In silico study of compounds 5a and 5c exemplified the desired ADME properties for drug‐likeness as well as tighter interactions with VEGFR‐2. Hence, compounds 5a and 5c would be good cytotoxic agents after further clinical study.