Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Tumour exosomes display differential mechanical and complement activation properties dependent on malignant state: implications in endothelial leakiness

Background Exosomes have been implicated in tumour progression and metastatic spread. Little is known of the effect of mechanical and innate immune interactions of malignant cell-derived exosomes on endothelial integrity, which may relate to increased extravasation of circulating tumour cells and, therefore, increased metastatic spread. Methods Exosomes isolated from non-malignant immortalized HCV-29 and isogenic malignant non-metastatic T24 and malignant metastatic FL3 bladder cells were characterized by nanoparticle tracking analysis and quantitative nanomechanical mapping atomic force microscopy (QNM AFM) to determine size and nanomechanical properties. Effect of HCV-29, T24 and FL3 exosomes on human umbilical vein endothelial cell (HUVEC) monolayer integrity was determined by transendothelial electrical resistance (TEER) measurements and transport was determined by flow cytometry. Complement activation studies in human serum of malignant and non-malignant cell-derived exosomes were performed. Results FL3, T24 and HCV-29 cells produced exosomes at similar concentration per cell (6.64, 6.61 and 6.46×104 exosomes per cell for FL3, T24 and HCV-29 cells, respectively) and of similar size (120.2 nm for FL3, 127.6 nm for T24 and 117.9 nm for HCV-29, respectively). T24 and FL3 cell-derived exosomes exhibited a markedly reduced stiffness, 95 MPa and 280 MPa, respectively, compared with 1,527 MPa with non-malignant HCV-29 cell-derived exosomes determined by QNM AFM. FL3 and T24 exosomes induced endothelial disruption as measured by a decrease in TEER in HUVEC monolayers, whereas no effect was observed for HCV-29 derived exosomes. FL3 and T24 exosomes traffic more readily (11.6 and 21.4% of applied exosomes, respectively) across HUVEC monolayers than HCV-29 derived exosomes (7.2% of applied exosomes). Malignant cell-derived exosomes activated complement through calcium-sensitive pathways in a concentration-dependent manner. Conclusions Malignant (metastatic and non-metastatic) cell line exosomes display a markedly reduced stiffness and adhesion but an increased complement activation compared to non-malignant cell line exosomes, which may explain the observed increased endothelial monolayer disruption and transendothelial transport of these vesicles.
Imaging and spectroscopy of ultrasteep spectrum radio sources

We present a sample of 40 Ultra Steep Spectrum (USS, � � 1.3, S� / � � ) radio sources selected from the Westerbork in the Southern Hemisphere (WISH) catalog. The USS sources have been imaged in K–band at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) and with the Very Large Telescope at Cerro Paranal. We also present VLT, Keck and Willian Herschel Telescope(WHT) optical spectroscopy of 14 targets selection from 4 different USS samples. For 12 sources, we have been able to determine the redshifts, including 4 new radio galaxies at z > 3. We find that most of our USS sources have predominantly small (<6 ′′ ) radio sizes and faint magnitudes (K �18). The mean K band counterpart magnitude is K=18.6. The expected redshift distribution estimated using the Hubble K z diagram has a mean of zexp�2.13, which is higher than the predicted redshift obtained for the SUMSS–NVSS sample and the expected redshift obtained in the 6C ∗∗ survey. The compact USS sample analyzed here may contain a higher fraction of galaxies which are high redshift and/or are heavily obscured by dust. Using the 74, 352 and 1400MHz flux densities of a sub-sample, we construct a radio colour-colour diagram. We find that all but one of our USS sources have a strong tendency to flatten below 352MHz. We also find that the highest redshift source from this paper (at z=3.84) does not show evidence for spectral flattening down to 151MHz. This suggests that very low frequency selected USS samples will likely be more efficient to find high redshift galaxies.
Parthian ž

Abstract This article argues that the opposition between Old Iranian *č and *ǰ was preserved in Manichaean Parthian not only word-initially, but also in postvocalic position, at least at the time of the introduction of the Manichaean script. The approach is phonological, and attempts to show that Pth. /č/ (< OIr. *č), written and , and Pth. /ž/ (< OIr. *ǰ and *ž), written , are consistently distinguished in the Manichaean script. Pth. /č/ may have developed a postvocalic allophone [ǰ] (not affecting the phonematic opposition), which might have been a motivation for the use of the letter . Transcriptions into Sogdian script and the cantillations suggest a coalescence of the Pth. phonemes, but it is not clear whether this is a later development of the Pth. language itself or a peculiarity of the liturgical pronunciation of Parthian as practised by Manichaeans in Central Asia.1
Accelerated degradation tests: modeling and analysis

High reliability systems generally require individual system components having extremely high reliability over long periods of time. Short product development times require reliability tests to be conducted with severe time constraints. Frequently few or no failures occur during such tests, even with acceleration. Thus, it is difficult to assess reliability with traditional life tests that record only failure times. For some components, degradation measures can be taken over time. A relationship between component failure and amount of degradation makes it possible to use degradation models and data to make inferences and predictions about a failure-time distribution. This article describes degradation reliability models that correspond to physical-failure mechanisms. We explain the connection between degradation reliability models and failure-time reliability models. Acceleration is modeled by having an acceleration model that describes the effect that temperature (or another accelerating variable) has on.
Are ontogenetic shifts in diet linked to shifts in feeding mechanics? Scaling of the feeding apparatus in the banded watersnake Nerodia fasciata

SUMMARY The effects of size on animal behaviour, ecology, and physiology are widespread. Theoretical models have been developed to predict how animal form, function, and performance should change with increasing size. Yet, numerous animals undergo dramatic shifts in ecology (e.g. habitat use, diet) that may directly influence the functioning and presumably the scaling of the musculoskeletal system. For example, previous studies have shown that banded watersnakes (Nerodia fasciata) switch from fish prey as juveniles to frog prey as adults, and that fish and frogs represent functionally distinct prey types to watersnakes. We therefore tested whether this ontogenetic shift in diet was coupled to changes in the scaling patterns of the cranial musculoskeletal system in an ontogenetic size series (70–600 mm snout–vent length) of banded watersnakes. We found that all cranial bones and gape size exhibited significant negative allometry, whereas the muscle physiological cross-sectional area (pCSAs) scaled either isometrically or with positive allometry against snout–vent length. By contrast, we found that gape size, most cranial bones, and muscle pCSAs exhibited highly significant positive allometry against head length. Furthermore, the mechanical advantage of the jaw-closing lever system remained constant over ontogeny. Overall, these cranial allometries should enable watersnakes to meet the functional requirements of switching from fusiform fish to bulky frog prey. However, recent studies have reported highly similar allometries in a wide diversity of vertebrate taxa, suggesting that positive allometry within the cranial musculoskeletal system may actually be a general characteristic of vertebrates.
Content vs. context for sentiment analysis: a comparative analysis over microblogs

Microblog content poses serious challenges to the applicability of traditional sentiment analysis and classification methods, due to its inherent characteristics. To tackle them, we introduce a method that relies on two orthogonal, but complementary sources of evidence: content-based features captured by n-gram graphs and context-based ones captured by polarity ratio. Both are language-neutral and noise-tolerant, guaranteeing high effectiveness and robustness in the settings we are considering. To ensure our approach can be integrated into practical applications with large volumes of data, we also aim at enhancing its time efficiency: we propose alternative sets of features with low extraction cost, explore dimensionality reduction and discretization techniques and experiment with multiple classification algorithms. We then evaluate our methods over a large, real-world data set extracted from Twitter, with the outcomes indicating significant improvements over the traditional techniques.
The Effect of Identity on College Performance for Latinos

Several efforts have been made, over the last decade, to decrease the academic gaps between Latinos and Whites students, but most of the accomplishments in these efforts have come at the K-12 levels. Success at the post-secondary level is still discouraging for Latinos. Unfortunately, few studies have investigated why, despite the increase in college-readiness, Latinos are disproportionally disadvantaged in college attainment. This study outlines some of the educational disparities between Latinos and Whites, the earning discrepancies associated with the educational disparities, and the potential issues related to the lack of academic success for Latinos. Lastly, following support for Okagaki's (2001) Triarchic Model of School Achievement, this study tested whether differences between college students' ethnic and academic identities could be used to explain differences in academic performance. Data from 87 students were used to test two hypotheses. Analyses were completed on participants' demographic data.
Use of a genetic algorithm combined with a local search method for the automatic calibration of conceptual rainfall-runoff models

Abstract Wang (1991) reported that a genetic algorithm (GA), combined with a local search method, is an efficient and robust means for the calibration of conceptual rainfall-runoff models. In this article Wang's genetic algorithm has been slightly modified in order to improve its efficiency. The “optimal parameter set” produced by the GA has then been used as the starting point for a local optimization procedure based on Sequential Quadratic Programming (SQP). The purpose of this paper is to investigate the ability of the resulting algorithm, GA-SQP, to find the optimal parameter values during calibration of a conceptual rainfallrunoff (CRR) model. Two types of analysis were performed. The first refers to a theoretical case free of model and data errors, while the second refers to a real case in which the rainfall and runoff data were affected by evaluation errors. Specifically, in the synthetic data study, where the real set of parameters was known a priori, a 100% success rate was observed, and in all c.
Differential Neighborhood Selection In Memory-Based Group Recommender Systems

As recommender systems have become commonplace to support individual decision making, a need has also been recognized for systems that tailor and provide recommendations to a group of users together rather than individuals alone. Group recommender research to date has focused on evaluating strategies for aggregating profiles of group members to form a consolidated group profile or for aggregating recommendations to individual group members as a consolidated group recommendation list. This paper presents a novel neighborhood selection approach for group recommendation in the context of a neighborhood-based Collaborative Filtering system. We evaluate the performance of this approach with respect to group characteristics such as size and group member similarity. Results show that this approach can result in more accurate predictions for the group, particularly for groups that are more homoge-
Mood measurement with Pick-A-Mood: review of current methods and design of a pictorial self-report scale

This paper introduces Pick-A-Mood, a character-based pictorial scale for reporting and expressing moods. Pick-A-Mood consists of three characters that each express eight mood states, representing four main categories: excited and cheerful (for energised-pleasant), irritated and tense (for energised-unpleasant), relaxed and calm (for calm-pleasant), and bored and sad (for calm-unpleasant). Using Pick-A-Mood requires little effort on the part of respondents, making it suitable for design research applications in which people often have little time or motivation to report their moods. Contrary to what is often assumed, mood and emotion are distinct phenomena with different measurable manifestations. These differences are discussed, and a review of existing methods is provided, indicating to what extent current methods that measure emotion are suitable for measuring mood. The development and validation of Pick-A-Mood is reported, and application examples and research opportunities are discussed.
RR Lyrae variables in the globular cluster M3 (NGC 5272) — I. BVI CCD photometry

AbstractNew BVI CCD photometry is presented for 60 RR Lyrae variables in the globular cluster M3. Light curves have been constructed and ephemerides have been (re)-derived for all of them. Four stars (i.e. V29, V136, V155 and V209), although recognized as variables, had no previous period determinations. Also, the period derived for V129 is significantly different from the one published by Sawyer-Hogg. Light curve parameters, i.e. mean magnitudes, amplitudes and rise times, have been derived.The discussion of these results in the framework of the stellar evolution and pulsation theories will be presented in a forthcoming paper.
Phylotranscriptomics: Saturated Third Codon Positions Radically Influence the Estimation of Trees Based on Next-Gen Data

Recent advancements in molecular sequencing techniques have led to a surge in the number of phylogenetic studies that incorporate large amounts of genetic data. We test the assumption that analyzing large number of genes will lead to improvements in tree resolution and branch support using moths in the superfamily Bombycoidea, a group with some interfamilial relationships that have been difficult to resolve. Specifically, we use a next-gen data set that included 19 taxa and 938 genes (∼1.2M bp) to examine how codon position and saturation might influence resolution and node support among three key families. Maximum likelihood, parsimony, and species tree analysis using gene tree parsimony, on different nucleotide and amino acid data sets, resulted in largely congruent topologies with high bootstrap support compared with prior studies that included fewer loci. However, for a few shallow nodes, nucleotide and amino acid data provided high support for conflicting relationships. The third codon position was saturated and phylogenetic analysis of this position alone supported a completely different, potentially misleading sister group relationship. We used the program RADICAL to assess the number of genes needed to fix some of these difficult nodes. One such node originally needed a total of 850 genes but only required 250 when synonymous signal was removed. Our study shows that, in order to effectively use next-gen data to correctly resolve difficult phylogenetic relationships, it is necessary to assess the effects of synonymous substitutions and third codon positions.
www.druid.dk DRUID Working Paper No. 07-20 Regions Matter: How Regional Characteristics Affect External Knowledge Acquisition and Innovation By

To introduce new products and processes, firms often acquire knowledge from other organizations. Drawing on social capital and transaction cost theory, we argue that not only is the impact of such acquisitions on the successful development of product and product innovations dependent on strategic and economic variables, it may also be contingent on the “knowledge characteristics” of the geographical area in which the firm is located. Combining data on social capital at the level of 21 regions with a large scale data set on innovative activities by a representative sample of 2464 Italian manufacturing firms, we find — after controlling for a large set of firm and regional characteristics — that being located in regions characterized by high levels of social interaction leads to a higher propensity to innovate. In addition, being located in an area characterized by a high degree of social interaction positively moderates the effectiveness of externally acquired R&D on innovation inclination.
Dual Specificity Phosphatase 1 Regulates Human Inducible Nitric Oxide Synthase Expression by p38 MAP Kinase

The role of dual specificity phosphatase 1 (DUSP1) in inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) expression in A549 human pulmonary epithelial cells, J774 mouse macrophages and primary mouse bone marrow-derived macrophages (BMMs) was investigated. iNOS expression was induced by a cytokine mixture (TNF, IFNγ and IL-1β) in A549 cells and by LPS in J774 cells, and it was inhibited by p38 MAPK inhibitors SB202190 and BIRB 796. Stimulation with cytokine mixture or LPS enhanced also DUSP1 expression. Down-regulation of DUSP1 by siRNA increased p38 MAPK phosphorylation and iNOS expression in A549 and J774 cells. In addition, LPS-induced iNOS expression was enhanced in BMMs from DUSP1(−/−) mice as compared to that in BMMs from wild-type mice. The results indicate that DUSP1 suppresses iNOS expression by limiting p38 MAPK activity in human and mouse cells. Compounds that enhance DUSP1 expression or modulate its function may be beneficial in diseases complicated with increased iNOS-mediated NO production.
Effectors of Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Pathway: The Genetic Profiling of KRAS, BRAF, PIK3CA, NRAS Mutations in Colorectal Cancer Characteristics and Personalized Medicine

Mutations in KRAS oncogene are recognized biomarkers that predict lack of response to anti- epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) antibody therapies. However, some patients with KRAS wild-type tumors still do not respond, so other downstream mutations in BRAF, PIK3CA and NRAS should be investigated. Herein we used direct sequencing to analyze mutation status for 676 patients in KRAS (codons 12, 13 and 61), BRAF (exon 11 and exon 15), PIK3CA (exon 9 and exon 20) and NRAS (codons12, 13 and 61). Clinicopathological characteristics associations were analyzed together with overall survival (OS) of metastatic colorectal cancer patients (mCRC). We found 35.9% (242/674) tumors harbored a KRAS mutation, 6.96% (47/675) harbored a BRAF mutation, 9.9% (62/625) harbored a PIK3CA mutation and 4.19% (26/621) harbored a NRAS mutation. KRAS mutation coexisted with BRAF, PIK3CA and NRAS mutation, PIK3CA exon9 mutation appeared more frequently in KRAS mutant tumors (P = 0.027) while NRAS mutation almost existed in KRAS wild-types (P<0.001). Female patients and older group harbored a higher KRAS mutation (P = 0.018 and P = 0.031, respectively); BRAF (V600E) mutation showed a higher frequency in colon cancer and poor differentiation tumors (P = 0.020 and P = 0.030, respectively); proximal tumors appeared a higher PIK3CA mutation (P<0.001) and distant metastatic tumors shared a higher NRAS mutation (P = 0.010). However, in this study no significant result was found between OS and gene mutation in mCRC group. To our knowledge, the first large-scale retrospective study on comprehensive genetic profile which associated with anti-EGFR MoAbs treatment selection in East Asian CRC population, appeared a specific genotype distribution picture, and the results provided a better understanding between clinicopathological characteristics and gene mutations in CRC patients.
Symbolic Meaning Integration in Design and its Influence on Product and Brand Evaluation

Previous research and theorizing in product design and consumer psychology testifies to the importance of congruence among symbolic meanings connoted through elements in visual communications such as advertisements, product appearance, and product packaging. However, understanding of the processes whereby meaning congruence impacts consumer response is limited. In this paper, we propose a framework for understanding congruence effects in design based on recent studies addressing processing fluency. Based on these findings, the authors propose that incongruence thwarts impression formation of product and brand by inducing ambiguity, thereby negatively affecting attitude formation. However, research indicates that congruence effects may vary across consumers. Hence, in the experimental study presented, effects of ‘advertising slogan-product shape’ (in)congruence were studied as a function of consumers’ tolerance for information ambiguity. Results from this study indicate that incongruencies are particularity distressing for consumers with a low tolerance for ambiguity in everyday life. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
THE EFFECTS OF ODA IN INFRASTRUCTURE ON FDI INFLOWS IN PROVINCES OF VIETNAM, 2002-2004

A slide mechanism for a cantilever type screen-printing machine and a driving mechanism for elevating the slide mechanism are provided. The slide mechanism includes an elevating mechanism and a transverse sliding assembly both including members formed from aluminum extrusions and therefore having high rigidity and strength. The transverse sliding assembly is vertically adjustably connected to a guide block through two small slide pairs connected between the transverse sliding assembly and the guide block, and the guide block is in turn connected to two big slides of the elevating mechanism. The driving mechanism includes a gear reduction motor, a driving bar of which is connected to the guide block in order to drive the transverse sliding assembly to stably move up and down along the elevating mechanism at high speed to achieve high precision printing in high efficiency.
Experience Marketing: Concepts, Frameworks and Consumer Insights

Experience is a new and exciting concept marketing academia and practice. This monograph reviews the various meanings of experience as the term is used in philosophy, psychology, and in consumer behavior and marketing. I will discuss the key concepts of experience marketing such as experiential value, different types of experiences, the distinction between ordinary and extraordinary experiences and experience touchpoints. I will also review the empirical findings that provide consumer insights on experiences — such as how experiences are remembered, whether positive and negative experiences can co-exist, how experiential attributes are processed and whether experiences are rational. Practical frameworks for managing and marketing experiences will be discussed. I will conclude with an exploration of how experience marketing can contribute to customer happiness.
Cardiac sarcoidosis: a comprehensive review

Sarcoidosis is a multisystem granulomatous disease of unknown etiology characterized by noncaseating granulomas in involved organs. Organs involved with sarcoidosis include lymph nodes, skin, lung, central nervous system, and eye. Only 40-50% of patients with cardiac sarcoidosis diagnosed at autopsy have the diagnosis made during their lifetime. Cardiac sarcoidosis can manifest itself as complete heart block, ventricular arrhythmias, congestive heart failure, pericardial effusion, pulmonary hypertension, and ventricular aneurysms. Diagnostic tests such as the electrocardiogram, two-dimensional echocardiography, cardiac magnetic resonance imaging, positron emission tomography scan, radionuclide scan, and endomyocardial biopsy can be helpful in the early detection of cardiac sarcoidosis. Considering the increased risk of sudden death, cardiac sarcoidosis is an indication for early treatment with corticosteroids or other immunosuppressive agents. Other treatments include placement of a pacemaker or implantable defibrillator to prevent sudden death. In refractory cases, cardiac transplantation should be considered.