Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
FcγR-TLR Cross-Talk Enhances TNF Production by Human Monocyte-Derived DCs via IRF5-Dependent Gene Transcription and Glycolytic Reprogramming

Antigen-presenting cells (APCs) such as dendritic cells (DCs) are crucial for initiation of adequate inflammatory responses, which critically depends on the cooperated engagement of different receptors. In addition to pattern recognition receptors (PRRs), Fc gamma receptors (FcγRs) have recently been identified to be important in induction of inflammation by DCs. FcγRs that recognize IgG immune complexes, which are formed upon opsonization of pathogens, induce pro-inflammatory cytokine production through cross-talk with PRRs such as Toll-like receptors (TLRs). While the physiological function of FcγR-TLR cross-talk is to provide protective immunity against invading pathogens, undesired activation of FcγR-TLR cross-talk, e.g., by autoantibodies, also plays a major role in the development of chronic inflammatory disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Yet, the molecular mechanisms of FcγR-TLR cross-talk are still largely unknown. Here, we identified that FcγR-TLR cross-talk-induced cytokine production critically depends on activation of the transcription factor interferon regulatory factor 5 (IRF5), which results from induction of two different pathways that converge on IRF5 activation. First, TLR stimulation induced phosphorylation of TBK1/IKKε, which is required for IRF5 phosphorylation and subsequent activation. Second, FcγR stimulation induced nuclear translocation of IRF5, which is essential for gene transcription by IRF5. We identified that IRF5 activation by FcγR-TLR cross-talk amplifies pro-inflammatory cytokine production by increasing cytokine gene transcription, but also by synergistically inducing glycolytic reprogramming, which is another essential process for induction of inflammatory responses by DCs. Combined, here we identified IRF5 as a pivotal component of FcγR-TLR cross-talk in human APCs. These data may provide new potential targets to suppress chronic inflammation in autoantibody-associated diseases that are characterized by undesired or excessive FcγR-TLR cross-talk, such as RA, systemic sclerosis, and systemic lupus erythematous.
Deep eutectic solvents comprising active pharmaceutical ingredients in the development of drug delivery systems

ABSTRACT Introduction: Deep eutectic solvents comprising or acting as solvents of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API-DES) emerged as promising alternatives to improve therapeutic efficiency, with the additional possibility to integrate them in (bio)polymer-based systems to enhance their delivery. Areas covered: A critical review of the API-DES field evolution is herein presented, namely on the capacity of DES to integrate APIs in their composition and on the use of DES as solvents for APIs. These strategies avoid a current major concern related to drugs and APIs, i.e. polymorphism, and increase the solubility and bioavailability of the target API which leads to increased bioavailability. Owing to their composition versatility, polymerizable API-DES can also be prepared. Finally, the incorporation of API-DES in (bio)polymer-based systems to improve drug delivery is presented and discussed. Expert opinion: The relatively easy preparation of API-DES and their capacity to tune the API’s release profile when incorporated in (bio)polymer-based systems represent an effective alternative to improve the APIs therapeutic action and to develop controlled drug delivery systems. Given the potential and progress demonstrated so far, the authors foresee further research on novel API-DES and on their delivery routes, envisaging the development of alternative therapies and final approval as therapeutics.
Differences in Cataract Surgery Rates Based on Dementia Status.

BACKGROUND Cataract surgery substantially improves patient quality of life. Despite the rising prevalence of dementia in the US, little is known about use of cataract surgery among this group. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the relationship between dementia status and cataract surgery. METHODS Using administrative insurance claims for a representative sample of 1,125,387 US Medicare beneficiaries who received eye care between 2006 and 2015, we compared cataract surgery rates between patients with and without dementia via multivariable regression models to adjust for patient characteristics. Main outcome measures were annual rates of cataract surgery and hazard ratio and 95% confidence interval (CI) for receiving cataract surgery. RESULTS Cataract surgery was performed in 457,128 patients, 23,331 with a prior diagnosis of dementia. 16.7% of dementia patients underwent cataract surgery, compared to 43.8% of patients without dementia. 59 cataract surgeries were performed per 1000 dementia patients annually, versus 105 surgeries per 1000 nondementia patients. After adjusting for patient characteristics, dementia patients were approximately half as likely to receive cataract surgery compared to nondementia patients (adjusted HR = 0.53, 95% CI 0.53-0.54). Among the subset of patients who received a first cataract surgery, those with dementia were also less likely to receive second-eye cataract surgery (adjusted HR = 0.87, 95% CI 0.86-0.88). CONCLUSION US Medicare patients with dementia are less likely to undergo cataract surgery than those without dementia. This finding has implications for quality of care and dementia progression. More information is necessary to understand why rates of cataract surgery are lower for these patients, and to identify conditions where benefits of surgery may outweigh risks.
Compassion Satisfaction, Burnout, and Secondary Traumatic Stress Among Critical Care Nurses in Iran

Introduction: This study investigated the relationship between compassion fatigue and compassion satisfaction among Iranian nurses working in critical care units. Method: A cross-sectional, descriptive survey using the Professional Quality of Life instrument was administered to 400 nurses working in the intensive care units of Iranian hospitals. Results: High risk levels of burnout and secondary traumatic stress existed among 42% and 96% of participants, respectively. Significant positive relationships were detected between burnout and secondary traumatic stress. An inverse relationship was detected between measures of compassion fatigue and compassion satisfaction. Discussion: To ensure culturally congruent care, it is important to evaluate professional quality of life within the context of specific cultures and societies. Iranian critical care nurses are at risk for burnout and secondary traumatic stress. Personal self-care and organizational wellness approaches that consider cultural norms should be designed to boost compassion satisfaction and reduce negative effects of stressful work environments.
CD3, CD4, CD8, CD19 and CD16/CD56 positive cells in tuberculosis infection and disease: Peculiar features in children

Pathogenesis of mycobacterial infection has been extensively studied determining the fundamental role of host immunocompetence in disease progression. Cellular adaptive immunity, in particular CD4+ cells, has shown to be crucial in the host defence. A role of cytotoxic lymphocytes and humoral immunity has also been established. However, few studies have been performed in low endemic countries on immunological correlates of tuberculosis in paediatric patients. The present study aims to fill this gap analysing the distribution and the absolute values of the main lymphocyte subpopulations (CD3+, CD4+, CD8+, CD19+ and CD16+/CD56+) in the different stages of tubercular infection in human immunodeficiency virus–negative children living in low tubercular endemic countries. Results obtained in children with latent tuberculosis, active tuberculosis and healthy controls were compared. Moreover, quantitative analysis of interferon-γ levels of mitogen-induced response was carried out within the different study groups. The aim of this analysis was to enforce the comprehension of immune modifications subsequent to Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection. The major finding of our study was CD3+ and CD4+ absolute and percentage depletion in children with active tuberculosis versus healthy controls. Moreover, severe forms of active tuberculosis showed a marked reduction in the CD4+ percentage in the context of a systemic impairment which affects globally the absolute count of all peripheral lymphocyte subsets tested. A relative increase of natural killer cells was proved in infected patients, whereas no differences in B cells among the study groups were detected. Mitogen-induced interferon-γ levels were significantly higher in children with latent tuberculosis when compared to active tuberculosis and healthy controls, demonstrating effective immune activation in those patients able to control the infection.
Treatment-resistant atopic dermatitis: challenges and solutions

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a common, chronic, relapsing–remitting inflammatory disease that can be challenging to treat. Patients with mild disease are usually managed well with good skin care practices including moisturization and appropriate bathing along with intermittent use of topical therapies such as topical corticosteroids and/or topical calcineurin inhibitors during flares. Patients with frequent flares may benefit from proactive application of topical therapies twice a week to the most troublesome areas. Patients with severe disease often present significant treatment challenges. Systemic therapies are usually required for severe AD but have varying degrees of success and can be associated with side-effect profiles that require counseling and close monitoring. Phototherapy has been shown to have success in treating moderate-to-severe AD, but several factors can limit its utility and efficacy including cost and access. New therapies are in development targeting specific pathways relevant for AD. Dupilumab was the first biologic treatment approved in North America, Europe, and Japan for adults with moderate-to-severe AD. Although this treatment can lead to rapid improvement in the majority of patients, there are inadequate responders. In this review, we discuss the clinical challenges and treatment options for moderate-to-severe refractory AD.
Anchor Graph Hashing with Feature Learning

Hash learning methods is a hot topic in the field of image retrieval. Since hash learning methods translate the original datasets into binary codes, they can greatly improve the efficiency of image retrieval. However, the traditional methods cannot well control the information loss. They are not optimal solutions because they learn binary codes in two steps, including low-dimensional feature learning and rotation, so that information loss is not minimal. To address this problem, we integrate dimensionality reduction of datasets and rotation operation into a unified framework. Experimental results prove the promising performance of our method. In experiment section, we select two large-scale datasets and compare with six hash learning methods, the results show our propose method outperforms the other methods.
Tracking from One Side - Multi-Person Passive Tracking with WiFi Magnitude Measurements

In this paper, we are interested in passively tracking multiple people walking in an area, using only the magnitude of WiFi signals from one WiFi transmitter and a small number of receivers (configured as an array) located on one side of the area. Past works on RF-based tracking either track only a single moving person, use a large number of transceivers surrounding the area to track multiple people, or use additional resources like ultra-wideband signals. Furthermore, magnitude-based tracking provides an attractive feature that additional receiver antennas can easily be added to the antenna array as needed, without the need for phase synchronization, since the magnitude can be measured independently on the different antennas. In this paper, we then propose a new framework that uses only the magnitude of WiFi signals and expresses it in terms of the angles of arrival of signal paths at the receivers as well as the motion parameters of the virtual arrays emulated by the moving people. We then use a two-dimensional MUltiple SIgnal Classification (MUSIC) algorithm to estimate the aforementioned parameters, and further utilize a Particle Filter with a Joint Probabilistic Data Association Filter to track multiple people walking in the area. We extensively validate our proposed framework in both indoor and outdoor areas, through 40 experiments of tracking 1 to 3 people, using only one transmit antenna and three laptops as receivers (a total of four off-the-shelf Intel 5300 WiFi Network Interface Cards (NICs)). Our results show highly accurate tracking (mean error of 38 cm in outdoor areas/closed parking lots, and 55 cm in indoor areas) using minimal WiFi resources on only one side of the area.
Experimental Evaluation of Scenario Aware Synchronous Data Flow based Power Management

In all modern computer systems power consumption and thermal management is a major concern to control battery life and ageing to guarantee system availability. In such systems, a power manager changes the hardware component parameters at runtime to control the power consumption. E.g. it may temporarily switch off unused hardware components. To enable this switching together with arbitrary software applications, a feasible approach is to divide the application behaviour into different scenarios that represent different operation and power modes. In this paper, we extend an approach for translating Simulink models into a Synchronous Dataflow (SDF) representation that allow a seamless mapping to a shared memory MPSoC architecture. This paper focuses on an extension for modelling a power manager by using the Finite State Machine (FSM)-Scenario Aware Dataflow (SADF) extension of SDF. To demonstrate our approach, a Simulink traffic sign recognition model is translated into an SDF and FSM-SADF representation, where the latter one is used to express two different scenarios for employing power management. The feasibility of our approach is validated through an implementation on a Xilinx ZC702 board.
A Quality Attribute-based Evaluation of Time-series Databases for Edge-centric Architectures

Edge computing is unlocking the potential of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) to deliver business value and impact. Reliable data processing and guarantee of services within the IIoT sphere mandates the use of local storage within the device. The choice of database is also crucial for the performance of applications deployed on this resource-constrained hardware. Yet, there has not been any defined quality-attribute based approach for selecting databases for edge deployments. Much of the work done in the past focus on evaluating databases for applications deployed on high computing servers and cloud-first architectures. In this study, we address this gap by identifying software quality attributes for evaluating time-series databases for edge-centric deployments. We then conduct detailed experiments on four databases -- InfluxDB, MariaDB, Redis and TimescaleDB using these defined attributes. The paper concludes by highlighting how the evaluation methodology has aided in the selection of databases for use-cases from two different domains decentralized traffic management and condition monitoring of distributed transformers.
Features Of Liability For Violation Of The Rules Of Trade And Services In The Legislation Of Some Foreign Countries

This article examines the general characteristics of criminal liability in the legislation of foreign countries for violation of the rules of trade and services. The article analyzes the definition of offenses and criminal liability for violation of the rules of trade and services in the legislation of some foreign countries, administrative and criminal components, aggravating circumstances of violation of the rules
The therapeutic challenge of late antibody‐mediated kidney allograft rejection

Late antibody‐mediated rejection (ABMR) is a cardinal cause of kidney allograft failure, manifesting as a continuous and, in contrast with early rejection, often clinically silent alloimmune process. While significant progress has been made towards an improved understanding of its molecular mechanisms and the definition of diagnostic criteria, there is still no approved effective treatment. In recent small randomized controlled trials, therapeutic strategies with promising results in observational studies, such as proteasome inhibitor bortezomib, anti‐C5 antibody eculizumab, or high dose intravenous immunoglobulin plus rituximab, had no significant impact in late and/or chronic ABMR. Such disappointing results reinforce a need of new innovative treatment strategies. Potential candidates may be the interference with interleukin‐6 to modulate B cell alloimmunity, or innovative compounds that specifically target antibody‐producing plasma cells, such as antibodies against CD38. Given the phenotypic heterogeneity of ABMR, the design of adequate systematic trials to assess the safety and efficiency of such therapies, however, is challenging. Several trials are currently being conducted, and new developments will hopefully provide us with effective ways to counteract the deleterious impact of antibody‐mediated graft injury. Meanwhile, the weight of evidence would suggest that, when approaching using existing treatments for established antibody‐mediated rejection, “less may be more”.
Deflated Restarting of Exponential Integrator Method with an Implicit Regularization for Efficient Transient Circuit Simulation

Exponential integrator (EI) method based on Krylov subspace approximation is a promising method for large-scale transient circuit simulation. However, it suffers from the singularity problem and consumes large subspace dimensions for stiff circuits when using the ordinary Krylov subspace. Restarting schemes are commonly applied to reduce the subspace dimension, but they also slow down the convergence and degrade the overall computational efficiency. In this paper, we first devise an implicit and sparsity-preserving regularization technique to tackle the singularity problem facing EI in the ordinary Krylov subspace framework. Next, we analyze the root cause of the slow convergence of the ordinary Krylov subspace methods when applied to stiff circuits. Based on the analysis, we propose a deflated restarting scheme, compatible with the above regularization technique, to accelerate the convergence of restarted Krylov subspace approximation for EI methods. Numerical experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed regularization technique, and up to 50% convergence improvements for Krylov subspace approximation compared to the non-deflated version.
Environmental Health Sciences in a Translational Research Framework: More than Benches and Bedsides

Background: Environmental health scientists may find it challenging to fit the structure of the questions addressed in their discipline into the prevailing paradigm for translational research. Objective: We aim to frame the translational science paradigm to address the stages of scientific discovery, knowledge acquisition, policy development, and evaluation in a manner relevant to the environmental health sciences. Our intention is to characterize differences between environmental health sciences and clinical medicine, and to orient this effort towards public health goals. Discussion: Translational research is usually understood to have evolved from the bench-to-bedside framework by which basic science transitions to clinical treatment. Although many health-related fields have incorporated the terminology and context of translational science, environmental health research has not always found a clear fit into this paradigm. We describe a translational research framework applicable to environmental health sciences that retains the basic structure that underlies the original bench-to-bedside paradigm. We propose that scientific discovery (T1) in environmental health research frequently occurs through epidemiological or clinical observations. This discovery often involves understanding the potential for human health effects of exposure to a given environmental chemical or chemicals. The practical applications of this discovery evolve through an understanding of exposure–response relationships (T2) and identification of potential interventions to reduce exposure and improve health (T3). These stages of translation require an interdisciplinary partnership between exposure sciences, exposure biology, toxicology, epidemiology, biostatistics, risk assessment, and clinical sciences. Implementation science then plays a crucial role in the development of environmental and public health practice and policy interventions (T4). Outcome evaluation (T5) often takes the form of accountability research, as environmental health scientists work to quantify the costs and benefits of these interventions. Conclusion: We propose an easily visualized framework for translation of environmental health science knowledge–from discovery to public health practice–that reflects the crucial interactions between multiple disciplines in our field. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP4067
School Leadership Effectiveness and Students’ Academic Achievement in Secondary Schools of Guraghe Zone SNNPR

Purpose: The main purpose of this study was to assess the school leadership effectiveness and students’ academic achievement in government secondary schools’ of Guraghe Zone, SNNPR, Ethiopia. Methodology/Approach/Design: Co-relational research design and a quantitative research method were employed. The sample size included 225 secondary school teachers, principals, head departments and 2298 students’ grade ten national examination results from 10 public secondary schools. Both primary and secondary data were used for this study. Results: The results showed that there is a positive and significant relationship between Leadership effectiveness and students’ academic achievement (r=.653*, p<.0.041). The participants indicated that setting a clear school vision, promoting professional practice, developing a mechanism for teachers to share their experience impact students’ academic achievement. Moreover, the results showed that the principal’s effectiveness involves the teaching staff and enhances student achievement. Furthermore, the study indicated that there were positive and significant relationships (r=.653*, p<.0.041) in the mean academic achievement among the sampled secondary school and the two years CGPA of 2009-2010E.C. `Q Practical Implications: The findings might have practical implications for concerned authorities. Schools and teachers should apply the recommendations of the study to bring improvement in students’ achievement. Originality/Value: There was an association with a significant relationship that existed between school leadership effectiveness and students’ academic achievement. Moreover, the focus should be on the development of qualified and experienced teachers with strong school leadership effectiveness abilities to improve learning and students’ achievement.