Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Lateralized tactile stimulation during NREM sleep globally increases both slow and fast frequency activities

Abstract Slow frequency activity during non‐rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep emerges from synchronized activity of widely distributed thalamo‐cortical and cortico‐cortical networks, reflecting homeostatic and restorative properties of sleep. Slow frequency activity exhibits a reactive nature, and can be increased by acoustic stimulation. Although non‐invasive brain stimulation is a promising technique in basic and clinical sleep research, sensory stimulation studies focusing on modalities other than the acoustic are scarce. We explored here the potential of lateralized vibro‐tactile stimulation (VTS) of the finger to locally modify electroencephalographic activity during nocturnal NREM sleep. Eight seconds‐long sequences of vibro‐tactile pulses were delivered at a rate of 1 Hz either to the left or to the right index finger, in addition to a sham condition, in fourteen healthy participants. VTS markedly increased slow frequency activity that peaked between 1–4 Hz but extended to higher (~13 Hz) frequencies, with fronto‐central dominance. Enhanced slow frequency activity was accompanied by increased (14–22 Hz) fast frequency power peaking over central and posterior locations. VTS increased the amplitude of slow waves, especially during the first 3–4 s of stimulation. Noticeably, we did not observe local‐hemispheric effects, that is, VTS resulted in a global cortical response regardless of stimulation laterality. VTS moderately increased slow and fast frequency activities in resting wakefulness, to a much lower extent compared to NREM sleep. The concomitant increase in slow and fast frequency activities in response to VTS indicates an instant homeostatic response coupled with wake‐like, high‐frequency activity potentially reflecting transient periods of increased environmental processing.
The mass-loss process in dwarf galaxies from 3D hydrodynamical simulations: the role of dark matter and starbursts

Theoretical $\Lambda$CDM cosmological models predict a much larger number of low mass dark matter haloes than has been observed in the Local Group of galaxies. One possible explanation is the increased difficulty of detecting these haloes if most of the visible matter is lost at early evolutionary phases through galactic winds. In this work we study the current models of triggering galactic winds in dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSph) from supernovae, and study, based on 3D hydrodynamic numerical simulations, the correlation of the mass loss rates and important physical parameters as the dark matter halo mass and its radial profile, and the star formation rate. We find that the existence of winds is ubiquitous, independent on the gravitational potential. Our simulations revealed that the Rayleigh-Taylor Instability (RTI) may play a major role on pushing matter out of these systems, even for very massive haloes. The instability is responsible for 5 - 40% of the mass loss during the early evolution of the galaxy, being less relevant at $t > 200$Myrs. There is no significant difference in the mass loss rates obtained for the different dark matter profiles studied (NFW and logarithmic). We have also found a correlation between the mass loss rate and both the halo mass and the rate of supernovae, as already reported in previous works. Besides, the epoch in which most of the baryon galactic matter is removed from the galaxy varies depending on the SN rate and gravitational potential. The later, combined to the importance of the RTI in each model, may change our understanding about the chemical evolution of dwarf galaxies, as well as in the heavy element contamination of the intergalactic medium at high redshifts.
Computed Tomography Intraoperative Navigation in Spinal Surgery: Assessment of Patient Radiation Exposure in Current Practices

Background Patient radiation exposure associated with the use of computed tomography (CT) navigation during spinal surgeries was widely compared with other intraoperative imaging techniques. The aim of this study is to explore the use of navigation with regard to current spinal surgery practices and the technical limitations of such imaging systems. Methods Dosimetric data from 101 patients who underwent intraoperative, CT-navigated spine surgery were retrospectively collected. The study population was divided into 3 groups according to the primary surgical indication. The number of CT image acquisitions per patient, the field length, and the time of exposure per acquisition during a single surgery were compared as well as the radiation dose emitted to patients. Results Dose-length products (DLP) per acquisition were 678.52, 656.8, and 649.36 mGy·cm with no significant difference for spinal deformity (SD), degenerative disease (DD), and vertebral fracture (VF) procedures, respectively. Analyzing the number of CT image acquisitions per patient revealed that repeated intraoperative scans were often performed for patients who were suffering from an SD due to technical limitations of the navigation. As a consequence, the cumulative dose was higher in the SD group (DLP total = 1175 mGy·cm) than in the DD (DLP total = 762.74 mGy·cm) and VF (DLP total = 649.36 mGy·cm) groups. Conclusions CT navigation is an efficient intraoperative imaging technique that reduces the rate of surgical complications, but its technical limitations lead to an increased risk of patient radiation exposure, especially for complex surgeries where multiple scanning acquisitions are needed. Clinical Relevance To avoid patient’s overexposure, spine surgeons should minimize the number of intraoperative acquisitions while considering the complexity of the surgery and the limitations of the guidance system. The use of dual guidance systems has also to be considered according to the benefit-risk balance between patient’s outcomes and radiation dose exposure. Level of Evidence 4.
Designing new drug candidates as inhibitors against wild and mutant type neuraminidases: molecular docking, molecular dynamics and binding free energy calculations

Abstract Influenza virus is the cause of the death of millions of people with about 3–4 pandemics every hundred years in history. It also turns into a seasonal disease, bringing about approximately 5–15% of the population to be infected and 290,000–650,000 people to die every year. These numbers reveal that it is necessary to be on the alert to work towards influenza in order to protect public health. There are FDA-approved antiviral drugs such as oseltamivir and zanamivir recommended by the World Center for Disease Prevention. However, after the recent outbreaks such as bird flu and swine flu, increasing studies have shown that the flu virus has gained resistance to these drugs. So, there is an urgent need to find new drugs effective against this virus. This study aims to investigate new drug candidates targeting neuraminidase (NA) for the treatment of influenza by using computer aided drug design approaches. They involve virtual scanning, de novo design, rational design, docking, MD, MMGB/PBSA. The investigation includes H1N1, H5N1, H2N2 and H3N2 neuraminidase proteins and their mutant variants possessing resistance to FDA-approved drugs. Virtual screening consists of approximately 30 thousand molecules while de novo and rational designs produced over a hundred molecules. These approaches produced three lead molecules with binding energies for both non-mutant (-34.84, −59.99 and −60.66 kcal/mol) and mutant (-40.40, −58.93, −76.19 kcal/mol) H2N2 NA calculated by MM-PBSA compared with those of oseltamivir −25.64 and −18.40 respectively. The results offer new drug candidates against influenza infection. Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma
Natural networks

Scale-free and non-computable characteristics of natural networks are found to result from the least-time dispersal of energy. To consider a network as a thermodynamic system is motivated since ultimately everything that exists can be expressed in terms of energy. According to the variational principle, the network will grow and restructure when flows of energy diminish energy differences between nodes as well as relative to nodes in surrounding systems. The natural process will yield scale-free characteristics because the nodes that contribute to the least-time consumption of free energy preferably attach to each other. Network evolution is a path-dependent and non-deterministic process when there are two or more paths to consume a common source of energy. Although evolutionary courses of these non-Hamiltonian systems cannot be predicted, many mathematical functions, models and measures that characterize networks can be recognized as appropriate approximations of the thermodynamic equation of motion that has been derived from statistical physics of open systems.
The TH01 microsatellite and INS VNTR are strongly associated with type 2 diabetes and fasting insulin secretion

A variable number of tandem repeats (VNTR) located in the insulin gene (INS) control region may be involved in the development of type 2 diabetes (T2D). The TH01 microsatellite is located close to INS and has previously been suggested to be involved its regulation. Therefore, this study investigated whether the TH01 microsatellite and INS VNTR, as assessed via the surrogate marker single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs689, are associated with T2D in the Mexican population. Logistic regression models were used to calculate the risk conferred by TH01 and INS VNTR loci for T2D development. TH01 alleles 6, 8, 9 and 9.3 and allele A of rs689 were independently associated with T2D; differences were found between age at T2D diagnosis and sex. Larger alleles of TH01 ([≥] 8 repeats) conferred an increased risk for T2D in males when compared with smaller alleles ([≤] 7 repeats) (odds ratio, [≥] 1.46; 95% confidence interval, 1.1-1.95). In females, larger alleles conferred a 1.5-fold higher risk for T2D when diagnosed at [≥] 46 years whereas they conferred protection when diagnosed at [≤] 45 years. Both TH01 and SNP rs689 were associated with T2D in the same groups; the association remained significant for both loci in multivariate models. The median fasting plasma insulin concentration was significantly higher in patients with T2D versus controls, and in those diagnosed at [≤] 45 versus [≥] 46 years. TH01 larger alleles or the A allele of rs689 may potentiate insulin synthesis in males, but not females, without T2D, a process that is disabled in those with T2D.
Vortex lattices in three-component Bose-Einstein condensates under rotation: Simulating colorful vortex lattices in a color superconductor

We study vortex lattices in three-component Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) under rotation, where three kinds of fractional vortices winding one of three components are present. Unlike the cases of two-component BECs where the phases of square and triangular lattices are present depending on the intercomponent coupling constant and the rotation speed, we find triangular ordered “colorful” vortex lattices where three kinds of fractional vortices are placed in order without defects, in all parameter regions where the intercomponent coupling g′ is less than the intracomponent coupling g. When g>g′ on the other hand, we find the phase separation: In a region where one component is present, the other two components must vanish, where we find ghost vortices in these two components whose positions are separated. In the boundary g=g′, the accidental U(3) symmetry is present, in which case two vortices in different components are close to each other in some regions.
Exploring Time-aware Multi-patern Group Venue Recommendation in LBSNs

Location-based social networks (LBSNs) have become a popular platform for users to share their activities with friends and families, which provide abundant information for us to study issues of group venue recommendation by utilizing the characteristics of check-in data. Although there are some studies on group recommendation for venues, few studies consider the group’s venue preference in diferent temporal patterns. In this paper, we discover that the group’s activity venue has a temporal efect, that is, the group’s preference for the activity venue is diferent at diferent times. For example, a couple of lovers prefer to travel to tropical regions in winter and relax in bars in the evening. Based on this discovery, we present a Time-aware Multi-pattern (TaMp) topic model to capture the group’s interest in the activity venue in multiple temporal patterns (including the daily pattern, the weekly pattern, the monthly pattern and the quarterly pattern). The TaMp model takes into account the topic, members, temporality and venue information of group activities and the latent relations among them, especially the strong correlation between the activity time and the corresponding activity venue. Then, we propose a group venue recommendation method based on the TaMp model. In addition, an improved grouping algorithm (iGA) in LBSNs is put forward to enhance the rationality of grouping and the accuracy of group venue recommendation. We conduct comprehensive experiments to evaluate the performance of TaMp on two real-world datasets. The results show that our proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art group venue recommendation, and demonstrate the signiicance of temporal efects in explaining group activities.
Surgery Open Science

ﬁ dentthattheypossessedthe 27 skills required for clinical placements (P = .0001)and to workas a junior doctor (P = .01). Thematic qualitative 28 analysis revealed a reliance on third parties for previous surgical experience; this course improved knowledge 29 and skills for future practice. Limitations included session duration and equipment choice. 30 Conclusion: This study demonstrates high demand and student satisfaction from this course, offering a potential 31 framework to improve undergraduate surgical skills teaching. The results presented here have the potential to 32 inform wider curricula development across medical schools in the future. 33 Competencies: Medical k Q3 nowledge; practice-based learning and Improvement.
Modelagem de estimação da volatilidade do retorno das ações brasileiras:os casos da petrobras e vale

10.12957/cadest.2009. 15749 O presente estudo examina o processo de volatilidade do retorno das acoes preferenciais da Petrobras e da Vale, utilizando os modelos heteroscedasticos, no periodo 03 de julho de 2000 a 11 de agosto de 2008. Os resultados empiricos mostraram reacoes de persistencia e assimetria na volatilidade, ou seja, os choques negativos e positivos tem impactos diferenciados sobre a volatilidade dos retornos, o que pode ser comprovado pelos modelos EGARCH(1,1) e TARCH(1,1). Com base no criterio de raiz do erro quadratico medio (REQM),o modelo escolhido para a previsao da volatilidade das acoes da Petrobras e da Vale foi o EGARCH(1,1), verificou-se a presenca da assimetria da volatilidade dos retornos, ou seja, choques de “boas” ou “mas” noticias causam efeitos na volatilidade desses retornos.
POPULATION III STARS AND REMNANTS IN HIGH-REDSHIFT GALAXIES

Recent simulations of Population III star formation have suggested that some fraction form in binary systems, in addition to having a characteristic mass of tens of solar masses. The deaths of metal-free stars result in the initial chemical enrichment of the universe and the production of the first stellar-mass black holes. Here we present a cosmological adaptive mesh refinement simulation of an overdense region that forms a few 109 M☉ dark matter halos and over 13,000 Population III stars by redshift 15. We find that most halos do not form Population III stars until they reach Mvir ∼ 107 M☉ because this biased region is quickly enriched from both Population III and galaxies, which also produce high levels of ultraviolet radiation that suppress H2 formation. Nevertheless, Population III stars continue to form, albeit in more massive halos, at a rate of ∼10−4 M☉ yr−1 Mpc−3 at redshift 15. The most massive starless halo has a mass of 7 × 107 M☉, which could host massive black hole formation through the direct gaseous collapse scenario. We show that the multiplicity of the Population III remnants grows with halo mass above 108 M☉, culminating in 50 remnants located in 109 M☉ halos on average. This has implications that high-mass X-ray binaries and intermediate-mass black holes that originate from metal-free stars may be abundant in high-redshift galaxies.
On the dynamics of agglomerating ensembles of clouds. [in interstellar space

It is shown that for dynamical time scales longer than 10 million years the ensemble of interstellar cold diffuse clouds may be described by equations of mass and momentum conservation where the pressure has the form p/v-squared/ where /v-squared/ is the mass averaged square velocity dispersion. Equilibrium cloud spectra are derived and an equation of state obtained. The equation of state undergoes a phase transition at a critical density close to the local interstellar gas density. At higher densities, more massive clouds are formed and the cloud fluid softens. It is suggested that this mechanism may naturally regulate the interstellar gas density if star formation is very efficient in the cooler high-density systems.
Proton exchange in the nitrate vacuolar transporter AtCLCa is required for growth and nitrogen use efficiency

Nitrate is a major nutrient and osmoticum for plants. To deal with its fluctuating availability in soils, plants store it into vacuoles. AtCLCa, a 2NO3-/1H+ exchanger localized on the vacuole ensures this storage process. It belongs to the CLC family that includes exchangers and channels. A mutation in a glutamate residue conserved across CLC exchangers is likely responsible for the conversion of exchangers to channels. Here, we show that a clca mutant of this residue, E203, behaves as an anion channel in its native membrane. To investigate its physiological importance, we introduced the AtCLCaE203Apoint mutation in a clca KO mutant. We first showed that these AtCLCaE203A mutants display a growth deficit linked to water homeostasis disruption. Additionally, AtCLCaE203Aexpression is not able to complement the clca defect in nitrate accumulation and favors higher N-assimilation at the vegetative stage. Further analyses at post-flowering stages indicated that AtCLCaE203A results in an increase of N uptake allocation to seeds, leading to a higher nitrogen use efficiency compared to wild-type. Altogether, these results point out the critical function of the AtCLCa exchanger on the vacuole for plant metabolism and development.
In situ single-cell analysis of canonical breast cancer biomarkers: phenotypic heterogeneity and implications on response to HER2 targeting agents

Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease. Tumor cells and the surrounding microenvironment form an ecosystem that determine disease progression and response to therapy. To characterize the breast cancer ecosystem and the changes induced by targeted treatment selective pressure, we analyzed 136 HER2-positive tumor samples for the expression of canonical BC tumor diagnostic proteins at a single cell level without disrupting the spatial context. The combined expression of HER2, ER, PR, and Ki67 in more than a million cells was evaluated using a tumor-centric panel combining the four biomarkers in a single tissue section by sequential immunohistochemistry to derive 16 tumor cell phenotypes. Spatial interactions between individual tumor cells and cytotoxic T cells were studied to determine the immune characteristics of the ecosystem and the impact on response to treatment. HER2-positive tumors displayed individuality in tumor cells and immune cells composition, including intrinsic phenotype dominance which only partially overlapped with molecular intrinsic subtyping determined by PAM50 analysis. This single cell analysis of canonical BC biomarkers deepens our understanding of the complex biology of HER2-positive BC and suggests that individual cell-based patient classification may facilitate identification of optimal responders or resistant individual to HER2-targeted therapies.
FDA-approved drug screening identified micafungin as an antiviral agent against bat-borne emerging zoonotic Pteropine orthoreovirus

Bat-borne emerging zoonotic viruses cause major outbreaks, such as the Ebola virus, Nipah virus, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronavirus, and SARS-CoV-2. Pteropine orthoreovirus (PRV), which spillover event occurred from fruit bats to humans, causes respiratory syndrome in humans widely in South East Asia. Repurposing approved drugs against PRV is a critical tool to confront future PRV pandemics. We screened 2,943 compounds in an FDA-approved drug library and identified eight hit compounds that reduce viral cytopathic effects on cultured Vero cells. Real-time quantitative PCR analysis revealed that six of eight hit compounds significantly inhibited PRV replication. Among them, micafungin used clinically as an antifungal drug, displayed a prominent antiviral effect on PRV. Highlights A library of 2,943 FDA-approved drugs was screened to find potential antiviral drugs of Pteropine orthoreovirus. Six hit compounds dramatically inhibited viral replication in vitro. Micafungin possessed antiviral activity to multiple strains of PRV.
Audiovisual cues must be predictable and win-paired to drive risky choice

Risky or maladaptive decision making is thought to be central to the etiology of both drug and gambling addiction. Win-concurrent cues can enhance disadvantageous, risky choice in both rats and humans, yet it is unclear which aspects of the cue-reward contingencies drive this effect. Here, we implemented six variants of the rat Gambling Task (rGT), in which animals can maximise their sugar pellet profits by avoiding options paired with higher per-trial gains but disproportionately longer and more frequent time-out penalties. When audiovisual cues were delivered concurrently with wins, and scaled in salience with reward size, significantly more rats preferred the risky options as compared to the uncued rGT. Similar results were observed when the relationship between reward size and cue complexity was inverted, and when cues were delivered concurrently with all outcomes. Conversely, risky choice did not increase when cues occurred randomly on 50% of trials, and decision making actually improved when cues were coincident with losses alone. As such, cues do not increase risky choice by simply elevating arousal, or amplifying the difference between wins and losses. It is instead important that the cues are reliably associated with wins; presenting the cues on losing outcomes as well as wins does not diminish their ability to drive risky choice. Computational analyses indicate that win-paired cues reduced the impact of losses on decision making. These results may help us understand how sensory stimulation can increase the addictive nature of gambling and gaming products.