Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Transcriptional Profiling and Deriving a Seven-Gene Signature That Discriminates Active and Latent Tuberculosis: An Integrative Bioinformatics Approach

Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tb.). Our integrative analysis aims to identify the transcriptional profiling and gene expression signature that distinguish individuals with active TB (ATB) disease, and those with latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI). In the present study, we reanalyzed a microarray dataset (GSE37250) from GEO database and explored the data for differential gene expression analysis between those with ATB and LTBI derived from Malawi and South African cohorts. We used BRB array tool to distinguish DEGs (differentially expressed genes) between ATB and LTBI. Pathway enrichment analysis of DEGs was performed using DAVID bioinformatics tool. The protein–protein interaction (PPI) network of most upregulated genes was constructed using STRING analysis. We have identified 375 upregulated genes and 152 downregulated genes differentially expressed between ATB and LTBI samples commonly shared among Malawi and South African cohorts. The constructed PPI network was significantly enriched with 76 nodes connected to 151 edges. The enriched GO term/pathways were mainly related to expression of IFN stimulated genes, interleukin-1 production, and NOD-like receptor signaling pathway. Downregulated genes were significantly enriched in the Wnt signaling, B cell development, and B cell receptor signaling pathways. The short-listed DEGs were validated in a microarray data from an independent cohort (GSE19491). ROC curve analysis was done to assess the diagnostic accuracy of the gene signature in discrimination of active and latent tuberculosis. Thus, we have derived a seven-gene signature, which included five upregulated genes FCGR1B, ANKRD22, CARD17, IFITM3, TNFAIP6 and two downregulated genes FCGBP and KLF12, as a biomarker for discrimination of active and latent tuberculosis. The identified genes have a sensitivity of 80–100% and specificity of 80–95%. Area under the curve (AUC) value of the genes ranged from 0.84 to 1. This seven-gene signature has a high diagnostic accuracy in discrimination of active and latent tuberculosis.
Designer Functional Nanomedicine for Myocardial Repair by Regulating the Inflammatory Microenvironment

Acute myocardial infarction is a major global health problem, and the repair of damaged myocardium is still a major challenge. Myocardial injury triggers an inflammatory response: immune cells infiltrate into the myocardium while activating myofibroblasts and vascular endothelial cells, promoting tissue repair and scar formation. Fragments released by cardiomyocytes become endogenous “danger signals”, which are recognized by cardiac pattern recognition receptors, activate resident cardiac immune cells, release thrombin factors and inflammatory mediators, and trigger severe inflammatory responses. Inflammatory signaling plays an important role in the dilation and fibrosis remodeling of the infarcted heart, and is a key event driving the pathogenesis of post-infarct heart failure. At present, there is no effective way to reverse the inflammatory microenvironment in injured myocardium, so it is urgent to find new therapeutic and diagnostic strategies. Nanomedicine, the application of nanoparticles for the prevention, treatment, and imaging of disease, has produced a number of promising applications. This review discusses the treatment and challenges of myocardial injury and describes the advantages of functional nanoparticles in regulating the myocardial inflammatory microenvironment and overcoming side effects. In addition, the role of inflammatory signals in regulating the repair and remodeling of infarcted hearts is discussed, and specific therapeutic targets are identified to provide new therapeutic ideas for the treatment of myocardial injury.
Anchor Forces on Coir-Based Artificial Seagrass Mats: Dependence on Wave Dynamics and Their Potential Use in Seagrass Restoration

Seagrasses represent an essential part of the coastal environment and are hence the target of many coastal restoration projects. Artificial seagrass (ASG) mats may facilitate seagrass growth, making them a captivating option for restoration projects. However, little is known about the forces occurring on mats deployed in marine environments and especially on how these forces are transmitted to the anchoring points. Here, we present a study of prototype biodegradable coconut-mesh mats as base layer for ASG meadows and investigate the forces that occur at the anchors. We test the performance of three mesh types under wave forcing using two different anchor configurations without ASG and subsequently test ASG mats of one mesh type under wave forcing and a 4-anchor configuration to assess the effect of the ASG on anchor loading as a function of incident orbital velocities. We found that the mat composition plays a more important role than the number of anchors in anchor load reduction. The anchor forces were 2–4 times higher at front anchors compared to rear anchors, relative to wave propagation direction, and were also considerably higher in that direction compared to the opposite direction. With ASG, the forces increased compared to the highest measured forces without ASG. The forces on the anchors were almost fully dominated by the drag on the ASG based on material properties, ASG reconfiguration and flow conditions. We derive a relation between horizontal orbital velocities and expected forcing on the anchor based on ASG properties and the corresponding area of each anchor and discuss relevant criteria for the design of ASG mats. This should help to assess the loading on anchors deployed for restoration under specific site conditions and chosen materials.
The STEM Project Team as a Student-Developed Learning Environment: The Urgent Need for Teamwork Capability in the 21st Century Economy

Global competitiveness based on technological innovation has led to an increasing emphasis in education systems at all levels of the STEM fields – learning the content and methods of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The assumption seems to be that competitive advantage in business and industry is based on employee mastery of STEM knowledge for innovation. However, educators seem to be missing the importance of the immediate work team environment as the context of innovative thinking and of the competencies making that possible through learning, collaboration, communication, and creativity. This chapter builds a case for educators to deliberately work at developing those competencies at the team level throughout all levels of the education system. Teamwork leverages the knowledge and skill of team members for innovating to solve complex problems. The STEM Project Team as a Student-Developed Learning Environment: The Urgent Need for Teamwork Capability in the 21st Century Economy
Predicting the Impact of High-Speed Rail on Population Change in Local Cities by using a Naive Bayesian Classification-based Artificial Intelligence Model

Korea is dealing with a population disparity between the capital areas of Seoul and the population of local cities. As a result, the Korean governments established and implemented regional balancing policies such as relocating public institutions to local cities and building high-speed railways. In this regard, we proposed and empirically evaluated a Naive Bayesian Classification-based artificial intelligence model whether the launch of the high-speed railway increased or decreased the population of local cities. The spatial range of the learning data is all the districts except for Jeju island in Korea, accounting for 227 districts, and the temporal range of it is from 2014 to 2019, 3 years before and after the SRT(Super Rapid Train) construction. The research results are as follows. First, the average accuracy of the proposed research model was 0.64, and the average precision of it reached 0.67. Second, the districts with SRT stations showed a prediction of population growth, and the districts that have both KTX and SRT stations showed higher prediction value on the population growth. This study is valuable as an early-stage study that proposed analyzing various data affecting population growth by applying the Naive Bayesian classification technique known as a fast and accurate methodology to predict the
Investigating the role of motivation on performance in relation to teaching management system

Nowadays, the importance of motivation in encouraging teaching system become an important factor to facilitate knowledge and skills of academic to learners and increase the level of performance of teaching providers. The present paper is a study intended investigate the role of motivation in enhancing performance of teaching management system in Kurdistan region. A descriptive survey design was adapted to get information through structured questionnaires were a total sample of (136) respondents including Higher education and facilitators, teachers, and employees. The statistical tools used in the analysis and processing of the data were SPSS Statistics for Windows and Microsoft Office 2010. However, the research findings revealed that the performance of teaching management system at the (professional and service) level and motivation are significantly correlated. In addition, it was also found out that poor working condition and low salary level are the tow variables that mediates the relation between teaching management system and the performance of the system.
Sustainable, therefore reputable: linking sustainability, reputation, and consumer behaviour

PurposeThis paper aims to test the effect of sustainability-driven reputation on purchase intention and willingness to pay a price premium along with the mediating roles of consumer trust and perceived risk.Design/methodology/approachA structural equation model was used on survey data collected from 660 participants to test the model and corresponding hypotheses.FindingsThe results show that sustainability has a positive effect on reputation, which in turn, while enhancing trust, decreases consumers' perceived risk. Further, trust is positively related to purchase intention and price premium, while perceived risk is negatively related to them. Finally, mediation analyses show the mediating roles of both trust and perceived risk between sustainability reputation and consumer behaviour.Originality/valueThis paper makes three major contributions: First, it takes all three dimensions of sustainability into account simultaneously in an empirical study in contrast with the disposition in the academic literature to address each dimension separately. Second, it explores the impact of reputation obtained primarily through sustainability on consumer behaviour. Third, it sheds light on the inner mechanism of the relational outcomes by testing the mediating effect of trust and perceived risk.
Extranodal Marginal Zone Lymphoma: Pathogenesis, Diagnosis and Treatment

Simple Summary Extranodal marginal zone lymphoma (EMZL) is an indolent lymphoproliferative disease morphologically composed of small heterogeneous B lymphocytes. It generally occurs with a localized stage and can arise in various organs, the most frequent being the stomach, lung, and ocular adnexa. Depending on the presentation and the possible association with infectious agents, different therapeutic approaches are to be undertaken. The purpose of this review is to describe the biology underlying this pathology, the diagnostic, and therapeutic approach. Abstract Extranodal Marginal Zone Lymphoma (EMZL lymphoma) is an indolent B-cell lymphoma with a median age at diagnosis of about 60 years. It accounts for 7–8% of all B-cell lymphomas. It can occur in various extranodal sites, including stomach, lung, ocular adnexa, and skin; furthermore, the disseminated disease can be found in 25–50% of cases. Several infectious agents, such as Helicobacter pylori (H. Pylori) in the case of gastric Mucosa Associated Lymphoid Tissue (MALT) Lymphoma, can drive the pathogenesis of this cancer, through the autoantigenic stimulation of T cells, but there may also be other factors participating such autoimmune diseases. Initial staging should include total body computed tomography, bone marrow aspirate, and endoscopic investigation if indicated. Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), should be performed to detect the presence of specific chromosomal translocations involving the MALT1 and BCL10 genes, which leads to the activation of the NF-κB signaling pathway. Depending on the location and dissemination of the disease, different therapeutic choices may include targeted therapy against the etiopathogenetic agent, radiotherapy, immunochemotherapy, and biological drugs. The purpose of this review is to illustrate the complex biology and the diagnosis of this disease and to better define new treatment strategies.
Decreased Irradiance and Nutrient Enrichment Mitigate the Negative Effect of Ocean Warming on Growth and Biochemical Compositions of a Canopy-Forming Marine Macroalga

Heatwaves under global warming have negative impacts on ecosystem primary producers. This warming effect may be synergized or antagonized by local environments such as light and nutrient availability. However, little is known about the interactive effects of warming, irradiance, and nutrients on physiology of marine macroalgae, which are dominant in coastal ecosystems. The present study examined the combined effects of warming (23 and 26 °C), irradiance (30 and 150 µmol photon m−2 s−1), and nutrients (enriched and non-enriched) on specific growth rate (SGR) and biochemical compositions of the canopy-forming marine macroalga Sargassum fusiforme. The negative effect of warming on SGR and ratio of chlorophyll (Chl) c to Chl a was antagonized by decreased irradiance. Moreover, the negative effect of temperature elevation on carbon content was antagonized by nutrient enrichment. These results suggest that the effect of warming on the growth and carbon accumulation of this species can be mitigated by decreased irradiance and nutrient enrichment.
Hipertensión pulmonar en Latinoamérica: iniciativa de convergencia para las bases de datos RELAHP II y HAPred.co

Pulmonary Hypertension (PH) is a particular hemodynamic disorder associated to several diseases. The registries or data-bases are able to identify epidemiological profiles, improve diagnoses, recognize better therapies and outcomes. Greater diversities of human populations, physical environments and unequal health resources access turn this task into a challenge in Latin America. The authors analyze the RELAHPII and the registry of HAPred.co in order to observe suitable features for a joint data-base. This tool could be amplified with other countries in the region.
“How can you put a price on the environment?” Farmer perspectives on stewardship and payment for ecosystem services

As agricultural conservation priorities evolve to address new complex social-ecological problems and emerging social priorities, new conservation incentive program participation and success can be enhanced by incorporating local stakeholder preferences into program design. Our research explores how farmers incorporate ecosystem services into management decisions, their willingness to participate in payment for ecosystem services programs, and factors beyond compensation level that would influence participation. We conducted three focus groups with 24 participants between January of 2019 and May of 2019 in Vermont. Our study revealed that a strong, intrinsic stewardship ethic motivates farmers to enhance ecosystem service provisioning from their farms, though financial pressures often limit decision-making. These results suggest that programs with sufficient levels of payment may attract participation, at least among some types of farmers, to enhance ecosystem services from farms in Vermont. However, farmers may be deterred from participating by perceived unfairness and distrust of the government based on previous experiences with regulations and conservation incentive structures. Farmers also expressed distrust of information about ecosystem services supply that conflicts with their perceptions of agroecosystem functioning, unless delivered by trusted individuals from the extension system. The delivery of context-specific information on how management changes impact ecosystem service performance from trusted sources could enhance farmers’ decisions, and would aptly complement payments. Additionally, farmers expressed a desire to see a program that both achieves additionality and rewards farms who have been stewards, goals that are potentially at odds. Our findings offer important insights for policy makers and program administrators who need to understand factors that will influence farmers’ willingness to participate in payment for ecosystem service programs and other conservation practice adoption initiatives, in Vermont and elsewhere.
What Use Patterns Were Observed for PEV Drivers at Publicly Accessible AC Level 2 EVSE Sites

The EV Project deployed over 4,000 ACL2 EVSE for drivers to charge their plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) when away-from-home. The vast majority of these EVSE stations were installed to be available to all PEV drivers at publicly accessible locations. Some were also deployed for use at workplaces and fleets. This paper examines only the use patterns of PEV drivers using the EVSE intended to be publicly accessible.
Establish Crowdsourcing as an Organisational Business Process: A Design Science Approach

Crowdsourcing can be an efficient organisational strategy to harness innovation and agility by distributing work to Internet users. As crowdsourcing is different from other business strategies, organisations are often unsure about how to structure crowdsourcing as a business process. We identify two challenges: first, crowdsourcing has been perceived as a one-off endeavour and a comprehensive repeatable crowdsourcing process has not been defined yet. Second, while organisations need a solid knowledge base in order to integrate crowdsourcing with their business processes, the domain knowledge remains unstructured, scattered, and sometimes conflicting. Together, these challenges indicate that crowdsourcing needs to evolve from an immature form towards a more repeatable business process. The research adopts the design science paradigm and follows four research stages. We first synthesise existing knowledge in the domain, which identifies twelve repeatable building blocks of crowdsourcing processes. Second, we define a model of business process crowdsourcing (BPC). The model has seven processes organised in three stages: decision to crowdsource, process design, and technical configuration. The model was empirically evaluated using two existing crowdsourcing projects. The results suggest the usefulness of the model for structuring crowdsourcing processes. Third, we turn the BPC model into a heavyweight ontology that consolidates the domain knowledge. The ontology captures the following domain concepts: business processes, activities, data entities, data attributes, and their hierarchical relationships. It also captures decision-making relationships. We evaluated the ontology by triangulation. The findings are that the ontology provides a high coverage and clarity of the domain. Finally, based on the ontology, a decision tool is developed. The tool provides advice to make informed decisions about BPC establishment. Using experiments and focus groups to evaluate the tool, the quantitative and qualitative results confirm its utility and show that the tool improves decision-making performance. The dissertation contributes to the body of knowledge in several ways. It promotes and conceptualises crowdsourcing as an organisational business process. It offers a process model, ontology, and decision tool for BPC. It also provides empirical results about the use of the decision tool. By doing so, we hope that the dissertation will motivate organisations to further assimilate crowdsourcing.
The 100 Top-Cited Articles Published in Emergency Medicine Journals: A Bibliometric Analysis

Background The number of citations that an article has received can reflect its importance in a specialty. The purpose of this study was to analyse the characteristics of top-cited articles published in 24 emergency medicine (EM) journals in the Thomson Reuters Web of Science (WoS). Method WoS were used to identify the 100 top-cited articles published in EM journals. Basic information, including title, authors, country of origin (based on the first author), institution, publication year, journal name, language, document type, citation times and impact factor, was collected and analysed. Results The 100 top-cited articles in EM journals, cited from 175 to 530 times, were published between 1979 and 2010, with most articles published between 2001 and 2005. All articles were written in English, and the United States contributed the most. The articles were distributed in seven different EM journals, led by Annals of Emergency Medicine with 45 articles. Resuscitation medicine was the most discussed topic. Conclusion The bibliometric analysis on the 100 top-cited articles in EM journals from WoS demonstrates some significant points, which can have important implications for researchers in evaluating and orienting their research.
Improved fertility following a gonadotropin-releasing hormone treatment on day 2 of an estradiol and progesterone-based timed-artificial insemination protocol in lactating dairy cows

Graphical Abstract Summary: This study evaluated 3 strategies to initiate an estradiol/progesterone-based timed-artificial insemination protocol: (1) estradiol benzoate (EB) only on d 0, (2) EB plus GnRH on d 0, and (3) EB on d 0 and GnRH on d 2. Compared with the negative control group (EB only on d 0), adding GnRH on d 2 increased overall fertility, and particularly benefited the following groups of cows: multiparous cows, cows with higher milk production, and cows receiving the first postpartum service.
In vitro biocompatibility evaluation of a heat‐resistant 3D printing material for use in customized cell culture devices

Additive manufacturing (3D printing) enables the fabrication of highly customized and complex devices and is therefore increasingly used in the field of life sciences and biotechnology. However, the application of 3D‐printed parts in these fields requires not only their biocompatibility but also their sterility. The most common method for sterilizing 3D‐printed parts is heat steam sterilization—but most commercially available 3D printing materials cannot withstand high temperatures. In this study, a novel heat‐resistant polyacrylate material for high‐resolution 3D Multijet printing was evaluated for the first time for its resistance to heat steam sterilization and in vitro biocompatibility with mouse fibroblasts (L929), human embryonic kidney cells (HEK 293E), and yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae (S. cerevisiae)). Analysis of the growth and viability of L929 cells and the growth of S. cerevisiae confirmed that the extraction media obtained from 3D‐printed parts had no negative effect on the aforementioned cell types, while, in contrast, viability and growth of HEK 293E cells were affected. No different effects of the material on the cells were found when comparing heat steam sterilization and disinfection with ethanol (70%, v/v). In principle, the investigated material shows great potential for high‐resolution 3D printing of novel cell culture systems that are highly complex in design, customized and easily sterilizable—however, the biocompatibility of the material for other cell types needs to be re‐evaluated.