Background Clear cell sarcomas (CCSs) are translocated aggressive malignancies, most commonly affecting young adults with a high incidence of metastases and a poor prognosis. Research into the disease is more feasible when adequate models are available. By establishing CCS cell lines from a primary and metastatic lesion and isolating healthy fibroblasts from the same patient, the in vivo process is accurately reflected and aspects of clinical multistep carcinogenesis recapitulated. Methods Isolated tumor cells and normal healthy skin fibroblasts from the same patient were compared in terms of growth behavior and morphological characteristics using light and electron microscopy. Tumorigenicity potential was determined by soft agar colony formation assay and in vivo xenograft applications. While genetic differences between the two lineages were examined by copy number alternation profiles, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy determined arginine methylation as epigenetic features. Potential anti-tumor effects of a protein arginine n -methyltransferase type I (PRMT1) inhibitor were elicited in 2D and 3D cell culture experiments using cell viability and apoptosis assays. Statistical significance was calculated by one-way ANOVA and unpaired t-test. Results The two established CCS cell lines named MUG Lucifer prim and MUG Lucifer met showed differences in morphology, genetic and epigenetic data, reflecting the respective original tissue. The detailed cell line characterization especially in regards to the epigenetic domain allows investigation of new innovative therapies. Based on the epigenetic data, a PRMT1 inhibitor was used to demonstrate the targeted antitumor effect; normal tissue cells isolated and immortalized from the same patient were not affected with the IC_50 used. Conclusions MUG Lucifer prim, MUG Lucifer met and isolated and immortalized fibroblasts from the same patient represent an ideal in vitro model to explore the biology of CCS. Based on this cell culture model, novel therapies could be tested in the form of PRMT1 inhibitors, which drive tumor cells into apoptosis, but show no effect on fibroblasts, further supporting their potential as promising treatment options in the combat against CCS. The data substantiate the importance of tailored therapies in the advanced metastatic stage of CCS.
The content of bioactive compounds in four brown and one red algae from the Adriatic Sea (Dictyota dichotoma, Gongolaria barbata, Ericaria amentacea, Sargassum hornschuchii and Ellisolandia elongata) is explored. The efficiency of two different extraction methods viz. ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAE) and matrix solid-phase dispersion (MSPD) to obtain the extracts rich in phenolic compounds was compared. The effect of the extraction solvent to modulate the phenolic profile was assessed. In general, the mixture ethanol/water in an isovolumetric proportion showed the best results. The total phenolic content (TPC) and antioxidant activity (AA), as well as the individual polyphenolic profile, were evaluated for five target algae. TPC values ranged between 0.2 mg GAE/g (for E. elongata) and 38 mg GAE/g (for S. hornschuchii). Regarding the quantification of individual polyphenols by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) analysis, the presence of a high number of hydroxybenzoic acid derivatives (mainly of 3- and 4-hydroxybenzoic acids) in all species was noted. In G. barbata their concentrations reached up to 500 mg/kg. IC50 values (ABTS assay) ranged between 44 mg/L (for S. hornschuchii) and 11,040 mg/L (for E. elongata). This work contributes to the in-depth characterization of these little-explored algae, showing their potential as a natural source of phenolic compounds.
OBJECTIVE Despite an increased interest in research of theory of mind (ToM) in recent years - both related to psychopathology (depression and anxiety spectrum disorders) and within the typical adults, the existing literature is scarce and presents some conflicting results. Present study aimed to explore sex differences in ToM, alongside its associations with current anxiety and depression symptoms, in a large sample of typical adults collected online. METHOD Participants completed the 15-minutes survey obtaining socio-demographic data, current self-reported depression and anxiety symptom severity, and ToM ability (the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task). The sample comprised 605 participants -mostly younger adults, women, and high school graduate/student population. RESULTS The majority of participants reported minimal/mild depressive and anxiety symptoms that were significantly more severe in women. Women also displayed significantly better overall ToM ability than men. Significant negative correlation between the severity of current depressive and anxiety symptoms and ToM ability was also observed, but only in individuals expressing the symptoms requiring clinical attention (such association was absent in those exhibiting minimal/mild symptoms). CONCLUSIONS Present research adds to the existing knowledge on the association between ToM ability, anxiety, and depressive symptoms in typical adults as well as on the sex-differences in this important social cognitive domain. Exploring the factors representing indicators of vulnerability for depression-anxiety spectrum disorders is important for their timely detection and treatment.
Detecting new and enlarged lesions in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients is needed to determine their disease activity. LeMan‐PV is a software embedded in the scanner reconstruction system of one vendor, which automatically assesses new and enlarged white matter lesions (NELs) in the follow‐up of MS patients; however, multicenter validation studies are lacking.
The selection and prioritization of suitable strategies to address the challenges to the successful operation and implementation of the bus rapid transit (BRT) system is a common problem faced by practitioners and decision-makers. Recent research has widely discussed the issue, but such assessments have remained limited in the city of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania context, where there are mobility difficulties. The present study addresses this research gap and identifies the most critical challenges to BRT implementation and operation, and recommends the most appropriate strategy for overcoming them. Seven strategies are defined. To prioritize these strategies, five criteria are determined. An integrated multi-criteria decision-making model is introduced. Improved Fuzzy Step-Wise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis based on the Bonferroni operator was used to determine the importance of the criteria. Measurement of alternatives and ranking according to compromise solution was applied to assess and rank the strategies. The results indicate that “frequent flooding at the Jangwani bridge bus terminal” and “long waiting time at bus stops” are the most critical challenges while the fourth alternative “strengthening the operation and management” is the appropriate strategy to be implemented for successful operation and implementation of the BRT system. After that, a five-phase sensitivity analysis is performed to observe the robustness of the proposed approach. The results indicate the flexibility and applicability of the proposed approach can address real-life problems. The proposed methodology in this work can be instrumental in assisting mass transit operators with the successful implementation and operation of the BRT system.
Background: In vivo diffuse reflectance spectroscopy provides additional contrast in discriminating nerves embedded in adipose tissue during surgery. However, large datasets are required to achieve clinically acceptable classification levels. This study assesses the spectral similarity between ex vivo porcine and in vivo human spectral data of nerve and adipose tissue, as porcine tissue could contribute to generate large datasets. Methods: Porcine diffuse reflectance spectra were measured at 124 nerve and 151 adipose locations. A previously recorded dataset of 32 in vivo human nerve and 23 adipose tissue locations was used for comparison. In total, 36 features were extracted from the raw porcine to generate binary logistic regression models for all combinations of two, three, four and five features. Feature selection was performed by assessing similar means between normalized features of nerve and of adipose tissue (Kruskal–Wallis test, p < 0.05) and for models performing best on the porcine cross validation set. The human test set was used to assess classification performance. Results: The binary logistic regression models with selected features showed an accuracy of 60% on the test set. Conclusions: Spectral similarity between ex vivo porcine and in vivo human adipose and nerve tissue was present, but further research is required.
A search for flavor-changing neutral-current couplings between a top quark, an up or charm quark and a $Z$ boson is presented, using proton-proton collision data at $\sqrt{s} = 13$ TeV collected by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The analyzed dataset corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb$^{-1}$. The search targets both single-top-quark events produced as $gq\rightarrow tZ$ (with $q = u, c$) and top-quark-pair events, with one top quark decaying through the $t \rightarrow Zq$ channel. The analysis considers events with three leptons (electrons or muons), a $b$-tagged jet, possible additional jets, and missing transverse momentum. The data are found to be consistent with the background-only hypothesis and 95% confidence-level limits on the $t \rightarrow Zq$ branching ratios are set, assuming only tensor operators of the Standard Model effective field theory framework contribute to the $tZq$ vertices. These are $6.2 \times 10^{-5}$ ($13\times 10^{-5}$) for $t\rightarrow Zu$ ($t\rightarrow Zc$) for a left-handed $tZq$ coupling, and $6.6 \times 10^{-5}$ ($12\times 10^{-5}$) in the case of a right-handed coupling. These results are interpreted as 95% CL upper limits on the strength of corresponding couplings, yielding limits for $|C_{uW}^{(13)*}|$ and $|C_{uB}^{(13)*}|$ ($|C_{uW}^{(31)}|$ and $|C_{uB}^{(31)}|$) of 0.15 (0.16), and limits for $|C_{uW}^{(23)*}|$ and $|C_{uB}^{(23)*}|$ ($|C_{uW}^{(32)}|$ and $|C_{uB}^{(32)}|$) of 0.22 (0.21), assuming a new-physics energy scale $\Lambda_\text{NP}$ of 1 TeV.
Modern video streaming services require quality assurance of the presented audiovisual material. Quality assurance mechanisms allow streaming platforms to provide quality levels that are considered sufficient to yield user satisfaction, with the least possible amount of data transferred. A variety of measures and approaches have been developed to control video quality, e.g., by adapting it to network conditions. These include objective matrices of the quality and thresholds identified by means of subjective perceptual judgments. The former group of matrices has recently gained the attention of (multi)media researchers. They call this area of study ``Quality of Experience'' (QoE). In this paper, we present a review of QoE's theoretical models together with a discussion of their properties and implications for the field. We argue that most of them represent the bottom-up approach to modeling. Such models focus on describing as many variables as possible, but with a limited ability to investigate the causal relationship between them; therefore, the applicability of the findings in practice is limited. To advance the field, we therefore propose a structural, top-down model of video QoE that describes causal relationships among variables. We hope that our framework will facilitate designing comparable experiments in the domain.
The aim of this research was to examine characteristics and predictors of auto stimulatory behavior in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), as well as to determine the presence of auto stimulatory behavior exhibited by children with ASD. The sample included 43 participants diagnosed with ASD. The instrument used was Behavior Problems Inventory (BPI-01, Rojahn et al., 2002), subscale for stereotyped behavior. Our results show that children with ASD from our sample have lower rates of auto stimulatory behavior, with the most common ones being repetitive body movements, arm shaking, bouncing around, running and pacing. The school type has not proven to be a predictor of auto stimulatory behaviors. However, male participants and those with low functioning ASD exhibit more auto stimulatory behaviors than females and those with high functioning ASD. The presence of auto stimulatory behaviors persists through age. Auto-stimulatory behaviors exhibited by children with ASD can be reduced or eliminated, however it is important to use evidence-based interventions with proven benefits for the child. Since stereotypy is usually automatically maintained and therefore is one of the behaviors that is often difficult to reduce, it is recommended that parents are taught on how to implement interventions in their home environment.
Ćupter is Herzegovinian candy made of must and flour/semolina. Much research about the incorporation of brewers’ spent grains into the human diet has been published. The purpose of this study was to partially replace semolina (Samples 1 and 2) and flour (Samples 3 and 4) with brewers’ spent grains originating from industrial (Samples 1 and 4) and craft breweries (Samples 2 and 3) and study nutritive, chemical, and preference properties of the product. In this research, the authors aimed to find application of this already proven functional ingredient in ćupter production. Values for pH were higher for all samples compared to the traditional recipe. Samples produced with flour had higher values of water activity (0.86 ± 0.01) and moisture (41.82 ± 1.68 and 41.11 ± 1.41). Ash content increased with BSG addition, but between samples, there were no significant differences. Collected data showed significant differences in fat levels. Higher protein content was measured for Samples 4 (6.60 ± 0.17) and 1 (6.13 ± 0.07). The highest total sugar content was measured for Sample 1. The general appearance for all samples was “moderately like”. Nutritive value was improved with the addition of BSG, but recipes and drying should be modified to improve consumer acceptance.
Background Hospitals are institutions whose primary task is to treat patients. Family-centered care, which considers loved ones as equal partners in patient care, has been gaining recognition in the adult care setting. Our aim was to record experiences of and opinions on communication between hospital-based healthcare providers and patients' loved ones, related but not limited to the rigorous mitigation measures implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods The Twitter profile @HospitalsTalkTo and hashtag #HospitalsTalkToLovedOnes were created to interact with the Twitter public between 7 June 2021 and 7 February 2022. Conversations surrounding #HospitalsTalkToLovedOnes were extracted and subjected to natural language processing analysis using term frequency and Markov chain analysis. Qualitative thematic analysis was performed on the 10% most interacted tweets and of tweets mentioning “COVID” from a personal experience-based subset. Results We collected 4412 unique tweets made or interacted by 7040 Twitter users from 142 different countries. The most frequent words were patient, hospital, care, family, loved and communication. Thematic analysis revealed the importance of communication between patients, patients' loved ones and hospitals; showed that patients and their loved ones need support during a patient's hospital journey; and that pediatric care should be the gold standard for adult care. Visitation restrictions due to COVID-19 are just one barrier to communication, others are a lack of phone signal, no space or time for asking questions, and a complex medical system. We formulate 3 recommendations to improve the inclusion of loved ones into the patient's hospital stay. Conclusions “Loved ones are not ‘visitors' in a patient's life”. Irrespective of COVID-19, patient's loved ones need to be included during the patient's hospital journey. Transparent communication and patient empowerment increase patient safety and improve the hospital experience for both the patients and their loved ones. Our findings underline the need for the concept of family-centered care to finally be implemented in adult nursing clinical practice.
ABSTRACT This study is the first to examine recent migration from Bosnia and Herzegovina to China in the 21st century. It gives an overview of new Chinese geopolitical and economic circumstances, a historical analysis of migration flows between China and the rest of the world from the 19th to the 21st century, and a survey of recent emigration flows from Bosnia and Herzegovina. The second part presents the results of an empirical study of labour migration from Bosnia and Herzegovina to China and the experiences of 25 migrants, which was conducted using structured interviews The research results show that most in the group plan to stay in China permanently. Some would like to move to North America or Australia. It is characteristic that there are no gender gaps in terms of qualifications or career ambitions. The measures to combat COVID-19 implemented by the Chinese government affected the respondents in different ways.
Background Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain parasite infection in parental species and their hybrids. Hybrid heterosis is generally applied to explain the advantage for F1 generations of hybrids exhibiting a lower level of parasite infection when compared to parental species. Post-F1 generations often suffer from genetic incompatibilities potentially reflected in the higher level of parasite infection when compared to parental species. However, the presence of specific parasites in an associated host is also limited by close coevolutionary genetic host-parasite associations. This study focused on monogenean parasites closely associated with two leuciscid fish species—common bream and roach—with the aim of comparing the level of monogenean infection between parental species and hybrids representing two F1 generations with different mtDNA and two backcross generations with different cyto-nuclear compositions. Results Monogenean infection in F1 generations of hybrids was lower when compared to parental species, in line with the hybrid heterosis hypothesis. Monogenean infection in backcross generations exhibited similarities with the parental species whose genes contributed more to the backcross genotype. The distribution of monogeneans associated with one or the other parental species showed the same asymmetry with a higher proportion of roach-associated monogeneans in both F1 generations and backcross generation with roach in the paternal position. A higher proportion of common bream-associated monogeneans was found in backcross generation with common bream in the paternal position. Conclusions Our study indicated that cyto-nuclear incompatibilities in hybrids do not induce higher monogenean infection in backcross generations when compared to parental species. However, as backcross hybrids with a higher proportion of the genes of one parental taxon also exhibited high level of this parental taxon-associated parasites, host-parasite coevolutionary interactions seem to play an obvious role in determining the level of infection of host-specific monogeneans in hybrids.
Quantum cryptography can provide a very high level of data security. However, a big challenge of this technique is errors in quantum channels. Therefore, error correction methods must be applied in real implementations. An example is error correction based on artificial neural networks. This paper considers the practical aspects of this recently proposed method and analyzes elements which influence security and efficiency. The synchronization process based on mutual learning processes is analyzed in detail. The results allowed us to determine the impact of various parameters. Additionally, the paper describes the recommended number of iterations for different structures of artificial neural networks and various error rates. All this aims to support users in choosing a suitable configuration of neural networks used to correct errors in a secure and efficient way.
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