syedzayyan/paper_mill_benchmark huggingface dataset:
Association Study between DUF1220 Copy Number and Severity of Social Impairment in Sex-balanced Simplex Cases of Autism.

Introduction copy number variations (cnvs), which are genetic factors responsible for human evolution, have emerged as underlying pathogenic factors for a number of diseases such as autism spectrum disorders (asd).Duf1220 coding sequences have been shown to be positively associated with the severity of symptoms in familial/multiplex cases of autism.However, this association has not been confirmed in simplex autism, and the potential impact of gender/sex has not been studied.Methods using saliva samples taken from iranian children with non-syndromic simplex autism, different ethnicity/race and genetic backgrounds from previous studies, we assessed the association between duf1220 cnvs and autism diagnostic interview-revised (adi-r) domain scores in both males and females.Results in the male and female combined group with autism, in line with previous reports, our findings showed that there were no significant associations between duf1220 cnvs with either total adi-r score, social, communication, or repetitive diagnostic scores in simplex autism cases.Interestingly, however, in sex classified groups, despite the insignificant results, our findings in girls with autism showed a negative trend between duf1220 cnvs and severity of symptoms for the social interaction and communication domains.By contrast, in male children with autism, the results showed a positive trend.Conclusion it seems that association of duf1220 cnv with the severity of symptoms in simplex children with autism may follow a sexually dimorphic pattern that needs to be re-examined in prospective studies.

Journal: Noro psikiyatri arsivi (2023)
Publication types: Journal Article
Pre-Activation of Toll-Like Receptor 2 Enhances CD8+T-Cell Responses and Accelerates Hepatitis B Virus Clearance in the Mouse Models.

Toll-like receptors (tlrs) play a crucial role in activation of innate immunity, which is essential for inducing effective adaptive immune responses.Our previous studies have shown that toll-like receptor 2 (tlr2) is required to induce effective virus-specific t-cell responses against hepatitis b virus (hbv)in vivo.However, the contribution of tlr2 activation to adaptive immunity and hbv clearance remains to be clarified.In this study, we explored the hydrodynamic injection (hi) mouse models for hbv infection and examined how the tlr2 agonist pam3csk (p3c) influences hbv control and modulates hbv-specific t-cell response if appliedin vivo.We found that tlr2 activation by p3c injection leads to the rapid but transient production of serum proinflammatory factors interleukin-6 and tumor necrosis factor-α and activation of cd8+t cellsin vivo.Then, the anti-hbv effect and hbv-specific t-cell immunity were investigated by tlr2 activation in the mouse models for persistent or acute hbv infections using hbv plasmids p aav-hbv1.2 and p sm2, respectively.Both p3c application at early stage and pre-activation promoted hbv clearance, while only tlr2 pre-activation enhanced hbv-specific t-cell response in the liver.In the mouse model for acute hbv infection, p3c application had no significant effect on hbv clearance though p3c significantly enhanced the hbv-specific t-cell response.Collectively, tlr2 pre-activation enhances hbv-specific t-cell responses and accelerates hbv clearance in hi mouse models.Thus, the modulation of host immune status by tlr2 agonists may be explored for immunotherapeutic strategies to control hbv infection.

Journal: Frontiers in immunology (2018)
Publication types: Journal Article
Very low Reynolds number causes a monotonic force enhancement trend for a three-dimensional hovering wing in ground effect.

This research reports the numerical results of the ground effect trend for a three-dimensional flapping insect wing at a very low reynolds number (re = 10).It demonstrates that the ground effect trend at this re has a 'single force regime,' i.e.The forces only enhance as the ground distance decreases.This phenomenon is unlike the widely expected non-monotonic trend publicized in previous studies for higher reynolds numbers, that shows 'three force regimes,' i.e.The forces reduce, recover, and also enhance as the ground distance decreases.The force trend in the ground effect correlates to a similar trend in wing-wake interaction or the downwash strength on the wing's head.At very low re (10), the very large viscosity causes diffused vortices and less advected vortex wake, while at relatively high re, the vortices are easily separated from the wing and then advected downwards.This different development of the vortex wake caused different force trends for the flapping wing in the ground effect.Furthermore, by examining only the first stroke when there is no vortex wake, we found that the 'ramming effect' enhances the forces on the wing.This effect increases the pressure of the lower wing surface due to the squeezed air between the wing and the ground.The 'ramming effect', combined with the reduced downwash (or wing-wake interaction) effect, causes the force enhancement of the wing near the ground's vicinity.It is further comprehended that the trend is dependent on re.As the re is increased, the trend becomes non-monotonic.The effect of varying angles of attack, flapping amplitude and wing planform at very low re does not change this trend.This ground effect might help insects by enhancing their lift while they hover above the surface.This finding might prove beneficial for developing micro air vehicles.

Journal: Bioinspiration & biomimetics (2021)
Publication types: Journal Article;Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on surgical education: A survey and narrative review.

Since the emergence of the covid-19 pandemic, medical education has been a concerning issue, especially in surgical fields.Due to the postponement of many elective surgeries and even alternations in the pattern of emergent surgeries, concerns have been raised about whether residents of surgical disciplines are experienced enough after graduation or not.We aimed to describe the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on surgical residency training in different fields.Materials and methods we conducted a cross-sectional study with a 20-item questionnaire on residents of surgical disciplines from three different educational hospitals of tehran university of medical sciences, iran in 2020.In addition, we reviewed the current literature regarding the impact of covid-19 pandemic on surgical education worldwide.Results our survey, with a response rate of 56.8% demonstrated significant reduction in the time spent in elective surgeries, surgical clinics and even in emergent surgeries for residents.Besides, it has reported that significant time has been spent in covid 19 wards which resulted in decreased satisfaction of educational activities.Conclusions the impacts of covid 19 pandemic on surgical education are significant and inevitable.Thus, we must integrate novel educational methods in surgical curriculum to optimize training and minimize the adverse effects of the pandemic on surgical education.

Journal: Annals of medicine and surgery (2012) (2022)
Publication types: Journal Article;Review
An Improved EfficientNetV2 Model Based on Visual Attention Mechanism: Application to Identification of Cassava Disease.

With the characteristic of high recognition rate and strong network robustness, convolutional neural network has now become the most mainstream method in the field of crop disease recognition.Aiming at the problems with insufficient numbers of labeled samples, complex backgrounds of sample images, and difficult extraction of useful feature information, a novel algorithm is proposed in this study based on attention mechanisms and convolutional neural networks for cassava leaf recognition.Specifically, a combined data augmentation strategy for datasets is used to prevent single distribution of image datasets, and then the pdrnet (plant disease recognition network) combining channel attention mechanism and spatial attention mechanism is proposed.The algorithm is designed as follows.Firstly, an attention module embedded in the network layer is deployed to establish remote dependence on each feature layer, strengthen the key feature information, and suppress the interference feature information, such as background noise.Secondly, a stochastic depth learning strategy is formulated to accelerate the training and inference of the network.And finally, a transfer learning method is adopted to load the pretrained weights into the model proposed in this study, with the recognition accuracy of the model enhanced by means of detailed parameter adjustments and dynamic changes in the learning rate.A large number of comparative experiments demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can deliver a recognition accuracy of 99.56% on the cassava disease image dataset, reaching the state-of-the-art level among cnn-based methods in terms of accuracy.

Journal: Computational intelligence and neuroscience (2022)
Publication types: Journal Article
The Indian Ocean 'garbage patch': Empirical evidence from floating macro-litter.

Marine litter has become a global issue with 'garbage patches' documented in all ocean gyres.The pacific and atlantic garbage patches have been well described, but there are few empirical data for the indian ocean.In the austral summer 2019-2020, we conducted an at-sea survey of macro-litter in the rarely investigated south-west indian ocean.Over 24 days, 1623 man-made items were observed including plastic fragments, packaging and fishing-related items during 216 h of observations covering 5464 km.More than 99% of the litter items were plastics of which almost 60% were white.Floating litter was patchily distributed with only five items (0.2%) recorded south of 40°s (0.1 items·km-2).Half of the items were encountered over a two-day period south-east of madagascar (30°s; 59-67°e; 75.2 items·km-2).Our survey detected an accumulation of litter in the southern indian ocean and demonstrated that this area warrants more research.

Journal: Marine pollution bulletin (2021)
Publication types: Journal Article
A review of smartphone applications designed to improve occupational health, safety, and well-being at workplaces.

As smartphones become more widespread, software applications for occupational health, safety and well-being (ohs&w) at work are increasing.There is sparse knowledge about the available apps and the research evidence of their effects.This study aims to identify available smartphone applications designed to improve ohs&w at workplaces, and examine to what extent the apps are scientifically validated.Methods we searched the danish app store and google play for free ohs&w apps.Apps were included if they targeted ohs&w and were designed for workplace use.After categorizing the apps, we searched bibliographic databases to identify scientific studies on the 'intervention apps'.Results altogether, 57 apps were included in the study; 19 apps were categorized as digital sources of information, 37 apps contained an intervention designed for workplace changes, and one app had too sparse information to be classified.Based on the publicly available information about the 37 intervention apps, only 13 had references to research.The bibliographic database search returned 531 publications, resulting in four relevant studies referring to four apps aimed at ergonomic measures, noise exposure, and well-being, which showed either limited effect or methodological limitations.Conclusion there is no conceptual clarity about what can be categorized as an ohs&w app.Although some of the apps were developed based on scientific research, there is a need to evaluate the apps' effects in promoting ohs&w.The sparse documentation of evidence should be kept in mind when applying apps to improve ohs&w.

Journal: BMC public health (2022)
Publication types: Journal Article;Review;Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Totally extraperitoneal repair for the 'sportsman's groin' via 'the Manchester Groin Repair': a comparison of elite versus amateur athletes.

Surgery has a recognised role in the treatment of 'sportsman's groin'.This study hypothesises that elite athletes have a superior advantage in both pre- and post-op rehabilitation and therefore will present and resume sporting activities quicker.Methods a retrospective analysis on a secure database of athletes presenting with groin pain that underwent surgery for 'inguinal disruption'.All data were explored via appropriate descriptive statistics and comparisons made between elite and amateur athletes.Results all patients were male (n = 144).The median age 33 years (range 14-72).The median return to sporting activity was 4.5 weeks (range 2.0-16.0) with one amateur athlete being unable to return to sporting activity.Using the mean of both sides, a comparison of vas pain scores at pre-operative and 1 month post-operative time points showed a significant reduction (p < 0.001).Comparing 'elite' versus 'amateur' athletes, significant differences were seen in patient age (median 26 vs 40 years; p < 0.001), lead time to clinic presentation (median 62.0 vs 111.5 days; p = 0.004), and time to return to sporting activity (4 vs 5 weeks; p = 0.019).Additional mri findings within the groin girdle were found in 89 patients (66.4%) and 34 patients (23.6%) had an mri finding within the adductor tendon.Conclusion the manchester groin rrepair is an effective surgical management for 'inguinal disruption'.Elite athletes present quicker and return to sport sooner.Given the prevalence of other findings, a multidisciplinary approach to the 'sportsman's groin' is required.

Journal: Surgical endoscopy (2021)
Publication types: Journal Article
Detection of Diabetic Retinopathy using Convolutional Neural Networks for Feature Extraction and Classification (DRFEC).

Diabetic retinopathy (dr) is caused as a result of diabetes mellitus which causes development of various retinal abrasions in the human retina.These lesions cause hindrance in vision and in severe cases, dr can lead to blindness.Dr is observed amongst 80% of patients who have been diagnosed from prolonged diabetes for a period of 10-15 years.The manual process of periodic dr diagnosis and detection for necessary treatment, is time consuming and unreliable due to unavailability of resources and expert opinion.Therefore, computerized diagnostic systems which use deep learning (dl) convolutional neural network (cnn) architectures, are proposed to learn dr patterns from fundus images and identify the severity of the disease.This paper proposes a comprehensive model using 26 state-of-the-art dl networks to assess and evaluate their performance, and which contribute for deep feature extraction and image classification of dr fundus images.In the proposed model, res net50 has shown highest overfitting in comparison to inception v3, which has shown lowest overfitting when trained using the kaggle's eye pacs fundus image dataset.Efficient net b4 is the most optimal, efficient and reliable dl algorithm in detection of dr, followed by inception res net v2, nas net large and dense net169.Efficient net b4 has achieved a training accuracy of 99.37% and the highest validation accuracy of 79.11%.Dense net201 has achieved the highest training accuracy of 99.58% and a validation accuracy of 76.80% which is less than the top-4 best performing models.

Journal: Multimedia tools and applications (2022)
Publication types: Journal Article
Fenton micro-reactor on a bubble: A novel microbubble-triggered simultaneous capture and catalytic oxidation strategy for recalcitrant organic pollutant removal.

A novel catalyst-functionalized microbubble system was developed to trigger both of the fenton reaction and the flotation separation on the gas-liquid interface of bubbles for efficiently removing the recalcitrant organic pollutants from waters.The fe(ii)-functionalized colloidal microbubbles (fcmbs) were featured as large specific surface area, great bubble density and high ·oh activation capacity.Approximately 98.2% and 93.1% of the triphenylmethane and aromatic azo pollutants were removed within 0.5 min, respectively.Particularly, at the lowest fe(ii) dose of 0.2 mmol/l, the fcmb-triggered fenton still achieved 7.4-20.6% higher removal than the traditional fenton method at 0.5 min.In addition to the fenton oxidative degradation mechanism, the fcmbs themselves were able to capture and remove 20.1-36.8% of pollutants from water.Thus, fcmbs served as micro-reactors in terms of: (i) the target molecules and intermediates were adhered and separated by fcmbs; and (ii) the fcmbs enhanced the mass transfer of catalyst and exposed sufficient active sites on the bubble surface for catalytic oxidation reaction.Compared with the traditional fenton, the present method showed the robust tolerance of p h (4.0-9.5) and salinity (up to 40‰) at decreased fe(ii) doses, and the bio-toxicity of intermediates was obviously lower.The fcmb-triggered pollutant capture and catalytic oxidation technology exhibited a great potency in engineering implementation given the flexible bubble construction, the integration and simplification of treatment unit, as well as the decreased chemical doses.

Journal: The Science of the total environment (2022)
Publication types: Journal Article
Implementation of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) Core Sets for Children and Youth with Cerebral Palsy: Global Initiatives Promoting Optimal Functioning.

The international classification of functioning, disability, and health (icf) core sets for children and youth with cerebral palsy (cp) offer service providers and stakeholders a specific framework to explore functioning and disability for assessment, treatment, evaluation, and policy purposes in a global context.objective:describe global initiatives applying the icf core sets for children and youth with cp, with a focus on contributions to clinical practice and challenges in their implementation.methods:this is a descriptive cross-sectional study.Ongoing initiatives applying the icf core sets for cp in russia, poland, malawi, and brazil are included.results:the main contributions of applying the icf core sets for children and youth with cp include: (1) an objective description of abilities and limitations in everyday activities; (2) a consistent identification of facilitators and barriers influencing functioning; (3) a practical communication tool promoting client-centered care and multidisciplinary teamwork; and, (4) a useful guideline for measurement selection.The main challenges of adopting the icf core sets are related to lack of icf knowledge requiring intense training and translating results from standardized measures into the icf qualifiers in a consistent way.conclusions:global initiatives include research and clinical applications at the program, service and system levels.The icf core sets for cp are useful tools to guide service provision and build profiles of functioning and disability.Global interprofessional collaboration, capacity training, and informatics (e-records) will maximize their applications and accelerate adoption.

Journal: International journal of environmental research and public health (2018)
Publication types: Journal Article;Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Key interaction patterns in proteins revealed by cluster expansion of the partition function.

The native conformation of structured proteins is stabilized by a complex network of interactions.We analyzed the elementary patterns that constitute such network and ranked them according to their importance in shaping protein sequence design.To achieve this goal, we employed a cluster expansion of the partition function in the space of sequences and evaluated numerically the statistical importance of each cluster.An important feature of this procedure is that it is applied to a dense finite system.We found that patterns that contribute most to the partition function are cycles with even numbers of nodes, while cliques are typically detrimental.Each cluster also gives a contribute to the sequence entropy, which is a measure of the evolutionary designability of a fold.We compared the entropies associated with different interaction patterns to their abundances in the native structures of real proteins.

Journal: The European physical journal. E, Soft matter (2022)
Publication types: Journal Article
Effective degradation of organophosphate ester flame retardants and plasticizers in coastal sediments under high urban pressure.

Empirical evidence of the effective degradation at environmentally relevant conditions of organophosphate esters (opes) flame retardants and plasticizers in coastal sediments from an impacted area in the nw mediterranean sea is provided.Half-lives varied from 23.3 to 77.0 (abiotic conditions) and from 16.8 to 46.8 days (biotic conditions), depending on the compound, highlighting the relevant role of microbial assemblages enhancing ope degradation.After an immediate significant reduction of the bacterial abundance due to ope addition to the sediment at the very beginning of the experiment, the observed biodegradation was associated to a general stimulation of the growth of the bacterial community during a first period, but without a marked change of the structure of the community.However, ope contamination induced a decrease on the diversity of the bacterial community in the coastal sediment, noticeable after 14 days of incubation.It is likely that on one side the contamination had favoured the growth of some bacterial groups maybe involved in the biodegradation of these compounds but, on the other side, had also impacted some sensitive bacteria.The estimated half-lives fill a data gap concerning ope degradation rates in marine sediments and will be valuable data for the refinement of ope chemical risk assessment in marine environments, particularly on impacted sites.

Journal: Scientific reports (2022)
Publication types: Journal Article;Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't