Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Design, Fabrication, and Characterization of Three Dimensional Complete Scaffolds for Bone Tissue Engineering

Skeletal loss and bone deficiencies are major worldwide problem that is only expected to increase due to increase in aging population. As current standards in treatment autografts and allografts are not without drawbacks, there is a need for alternative bone grafts substitutes. The goal of this project was to utilize electrospinning and heat sintering techniques to create biodegradable full thickness three dimensional biomimetic polymeric scaffolds with macro and nano architecture similar to natural bone for bone tissue
Repetition Suppression and Reactivation in Auditory–Verbal Short-Term Recognition Memory

The neural response to stimulus repetition is not uniform across brain regions, stimulus modalities, or task contexts. For instance, it has been observed in many functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies that sometimes stimulus repetition leads to a relative reduction in neural activity (repetition suppression), whereas in other cases repetition results in a relative increase in activity (repetition enhancement). In the present study, we hypothesized that in the context of a verbal short-term recognition memory task, repetition-related “increases” should be observed in the same posterior temporal regions that have been previously associated with “persistent activity” in working memory rehearsal paradigms. We used fMRI and a continuous recognition memory paradigm with short lags to examine repetition effects in the posterior and anterior regions of the superior temporal cortex. Results showed that, consistent with our hypothesis, the 2 posterior temporal regions consistently associated with working memory maintenance, also show repetition increases during short-term recognition memory. In contrast, a region in the anterior superior temporal lobe showed repetition suppression effects, consistent with previous research work on perceptual adaptation in the auditory–verbal domain. We interpret these results in light of recent theories of the functional specialization along the anterior and posterior axes of the superior temporal lobe.
Improved hot-spot location technique for proteins using a bandpass notch digital filter

An improved technique for the location of hot spots in proteins based on the use of a bandpass notch (BPN) filter is described. The BPN filter is designed by specifying a stability margin and then minimizing the area under the amplitude response so as to achieve maximum selectivity for the chosen stability margin. Preliminary results indicate that the use of a BPN filter leads to improved hot-spot prediction compared to results obtained with classical filters investigated earlier by the authors such as inverse-Chebyshev filters. The results also show that the improved technique yields predictions that are consistent with results based on biological methodologies. In addition, the technique reveals certain new 'potential' hot-spot locations which could be investigated further by the biological community.
Enhanced Effect of Combining Human Cardiac Stem Cells and Bone Marrow Mesenchymal Stem Cells to Reduce Infarct Size and to Restore Cardiac Function After Myocardial Infarction

Background— Because mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) induce proliferation and differentiation of c-kit+ cardiac stem cells (CSCs) in vivo and in vitro, we hypothesized that combining human (h) MSCs with c-kit+ hCSCs produces greater infarct size reduction compared with either cell administered alone after myocardial infarction (MI). Methods and Results— Yorkshire swine underwent balloon occlusion of the left anterior descending coronary artery followed by reperfusion and were immunosuppressed after MI with cyclosporine and methylprednisolone. Intramyocardial combination hCSCs/hMSCs (1 million cells/200 million cells, n=5), hCSCs alone (1 million cells, n=5), hMSCs alone (200 million cells, n=5), or placebo (phosphate-buffered saline; n=5) was injected into the infarct border zones at 14 days after MI. Phenotypic response to cell therapy was assessed by cardiac magnetic resonance imaging and micromanometer conductance catheterization hemodynamics. Although each cell therapy group had reduced MI size relative to placebo (P<0.05), the MI size reduction was 2-fold greater in combination versus either cell therapy alone (P<0.05). Accompanying enhanced MI size reduction were substantial improvement in left ventricular chamber compliance (end-diastolic pressure-volume relationship; P<0.01) and contractility (preload recruitable stroke work and dP/dtmax; P<0.05) in combination-treated swine. Ejection fraction was restored to baseline in cell-treated pigs, whereas placebo pigs had persistently depressed left ventricular function (P<0.05). Immunohistochemistry showed 7-fold enhanced engraftment of stem cells in the combination therapy group versus either cell type alone (P<0.001). Conclusions— Combining hMSCs and hCSCs as a cell therapeutic enhances scar size reduction and restores diastolic and systolic function toward normal after MI. Taken together, these findings illustrate important biological interactions between c-kit+ CSCs and MSCs that enhance cell-based therapeutic responses.
Thioredoxin-family protein EYE2 and Ser/Thr kinase EYE3 play interdependent roles in eyespot assembly

EYE2 is a key protein in connecting the positioning information of the microtubule rootlet cytoskeleton and channelrhodopsin 1 (ChR1) photoreceptor to the formation and positioning of the eyespot pigment granules in the chloroplast of Chlamydomonas. EYE3, a ser/thr kinase of the ABC1 family, is found in pigment granules and is required for their biogenesis.
Comparison of the efficacy, toxicity, and pharmacokinetics of a uracil/tegafur (UFT) plus oral leucovorin (LV) regimen between Japanese and American patients with advanced colorectal cancer: joint United States and Japan study of UFT/LV.

PURPOSE To compare the efficacy, toxicities, and pharmacokinetics of an oral regimen consisting of uracil/tegafur (UFT) and leucovorin (LV) between Japanese patients and patients in the United States with previously untreated metastatic colorectal cancer. PATIENTS AND METHODS Forty-four Japanese patients and 45 patients in the United States were enrolled in concurrent nonrandomized phase II trials. UFT 300 mg/m2/d and leucovorin 75 mg/d were administered orally for 28 days followed by a 7-day rest period. The total daily dose of each drug was divided into three equal doses. Treatment was repeated every 5 weeks until disease progression. Blood samples for the pharmacokinetic study were obtained after the initial dose on day 1 of the first course. RESULTS The response rate for the Japanese patients and the patients in the United States was 36.4% (95% CI, 22.4% to 52.2%) and 34.1% (95% CI, 20.5% to 49.9%), respectively. The only major toxicity was diarrhea, and other toxicities were mild in both populations. The incidence of grade 3 or higher diarrhea in the Japanese and Americans was 9% and 22%, respectively. Although the area under the curve and maximum concentration of fluorouracil were found to be slightly higher in the Japanese patients than the patients in the United States, and area under the curve-adjusted body surface area appeared to be comparable between the two groups. CONCLUSION The efficacy and pharmacokinetic parameters of UFT and LV are comparable in Japanese and American patients; however, a difference in toxicity profile, specifically diarrhea, was noted. This oral regimen of UFT and LV is considered to have similar activity against metastatic colorectal cancer and to have acceptable toxicity in patients in both countries.
Genome-Wide Localization of Protein-DNA Binding and Histone Modification by a Bayesian Change-Point Method with ChIP-seq Data

Next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies have matured considerably since their introduction and a focus has been placed on developing sophisticated analytical tools to deal with the amassing volumes of data. Chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing (ChIP-seq), a major application of NGS, is a widely adopted technique for examining protein-DNA interactions and is commonly used to investigate epigenetic signatures of diffuse histone marks. These datasets have notoriously high variance and subtle levels of enrichment across large expanses, making them exceedingly difficult to define. Windows-based, heuristic models and finite-state hidden Markov models (HMMs) have been used with some success in analyzing ChIP-seq data but with lingering limitations. To improve the ability to detect broad regions of enrichment, we developed a stochastic Bayesian Change-Point (BCP) method, which addresses some of these unresolved issues. BCP makes use of recent advances in infinite-state HMMs by obtaining explicit formulas for posterior means of read densities. These posterior means can be used to categorize the genome into enriched and unenriched segments, as is customarily done, or examined for more detailed relationships since the underlying subpeaks are preserved rather than simplified into a binary classification. BCP performs a near exhaustive search of all possible change points between different posterior means at high-resolution to minimize the subjectivity of window sizes and is computationally efficient, due to a speed-up algorithm and the explicit formulas it employs. In the absence of a well-established “gold standard” for diffuse histone mark enrichment, we corroborated BCP's island detection accuracy and reproducibility using various forms of empirical evidence. We show that BCP is especially suited for analysis of diffuse histone ChIP-seq data but also effective in analyzing punctate transcription factor ChIP datasets, making it widely applicable for numerous experiment types.
Robust stability of quantum systems with a nonlinear coupling operator

This paper considers the problem of robust stability for a class of uncertain quantum systems subject to unknown perturbations in the system coupling operator. A general stability result is given for a class of perturbations to the system coupling operator. Then, the special case of a nominal linear quantum system is considered with non-linear perturbations to the system coupling operator. In this case, a robust stability condition is given in terms of a scaled strict bounded real condition.
An adaptive technique to model virtual machine behavior for scalable cloud monitoring

Supporting the emerging digital society is creating new challenges for cloud computing infrastructures, exacerbating scalability issues regarding the processes of resource monitoring and management in large cloud data centers. Recent research studies show that automatically clustering similar virtual machines running the same software component may improve the scalability of the monitoring process in IaaS cloud systems. However, to avoid misclassifications, the clustering process must take into account long time series (up to weeks) of resource measurements, thus resulting in a mechanism that is slow and not suitable for a cloud computing model where virtual machines may be frequently added or removed in the data center. In this paper, we propose a novel methodology that dynamically adapts the length of the time series necessary to correctly cluster each VM depending on its behavior. This approach supports a clustering process that does not have to wait a long time before making decisions about the VM behavior. The proposed methodology exploits elements of fuzzy logic for the dynamic determination of time series length. To evaluate the viability of our solution, we apply the methodology to a case study considering different algorithms for VMs clustering. Our results confirm that after just 1 day of monitoring we can cluster without misclassifications up to 80% of the VMs, while for the remaining 20% of the VMs longer observations are needed.
Specificity and Stability in Topology of Protein Networks

Molecular networks guide the biochemistry of a living cell on multiple levels: Its metabolic and signaling pathways are shaped by the network of interacting proteins, whose production, in turn, is controlled by the genetic regulatory network. To address topological properties of these two networks, we quantified correlations between connectivities of interacting nodes and compared them to a null model of a network, in which all links were randomly rewired. We found that for both interaction and regulatory networks, links between highly connected proteins are systematically suppressed, whereas those between a highly connected and low-connected pairs of proteins are favored. This effect decreases the likelihood of cross talk between different functional modules of the cell and increases the overall robustness of a network by localizing effects of deleterious perturbations.
Prospective evaluation of glucose metabolism in patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting.

INTRODUCTION Disturbances of glucose metabolism are associated with increased risk of ischaemic heart disease (IHD). It is not uncommon that IHD and its complications precede diagnosis of glucose metabolism disturbances. Since publication of the American Diabetes Association's 2004 Guidelines for the assessment of glucose metabolism, no prospective evaluation of prevalence of carbohydrate metabolism disorders in patients referred for coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) has been performed. AIM Evaluation of prevalence of glucose balance disturbances in consecutive patients with stable IHD who underwent elective CABG procedures. METHODS Prospective analysis of glucose metabolism was carried out on a group of 117 consecutive IHD patients (including 31 women) aged below 80 years, selected for elective CABG surgery. In all patients, history assessment and physical examination as well as basic biochemical studies and resting echocardiography were performed. Additionally, in all individuals without previous diagnosis of diabetes mellitus, oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) was carried out. RESULTS History analysis revealed glucose balance disturbances in 35 (29.9%) patients, including diabetes mellitus in 33 (28.2%) subjects and impaired glucose tolerance in 2 (1.7%) individuals. Based on OGTT results, among the remaining 82 (70.1%) subjects without previously known glucose metabolism disturbances 4 (3.4%) patients had abnormal fasting glycaemia, 32 (27.4%) subjects had impaired glucose tolerance, and diabetes mellitus was diagnosed in 12 (10.3%) individuals. No impaired glucose balance was found in only 34 (29.1%) examined subjects. CONCLUSIONS Over 70% of all patients undergoing elective CABG procedure presented various forms of carbohydrate metabolism disturbances that were not diagnosed previously. Thus, it seems that the assessment of glucose regulation should be mandatory in all patients undergoing elective CABG surgery.
State of the Art of Financial Decision Support Systems based on Problem, Requirement, Component and Evaluation Categories

Financial decision support has become an important information systems research topic and is also of highest interest to practitioners. Two rapidly emerging trends, the increasing amount of available data and the evolution of data mining methods, pose challenges for researchers. Thus, a review of existing research with the goal to guide future research efforts in this domain is timely. To structure our literature review and future research in this area, we propose a framework in the paper that integrates elements of decision support systems, design theory, and information mining. The framework is then applied in the paper. Our analysis reveals that the focus of existing research can be grouped into three major domain categories. More research is needed in two of the categories for which we found only very few IS studies, despite the high relevance of these topics due to increased turbulences in worldwide financial markets. Furthermore, we discuss the opportunities to make stronger use of heterogeneous data and of combined data mining techniques and to build upon the rich set of available evaluation methods.
Lithium visibility in rat brain and muscle in vivo by 7Li NMR imaging.

The apparent concentration of lithium (Li) in vivo was determined for several regions in the brain and muscle of rats by 7Li NMR imaging at 4.7 T with inclusion of an external standard of known concentration and visibility. The average apparent concentrations were 10.1 mM for muscle, and 4.2-5.3 mM for various brain regions under the dosing conditions used. The results were compared to concentrations determined in vitro by high-resolution 7Li NMR spectroscopy of extracts of brain and muscle tissue from the same rats. The comparison provided estimates of the 7Li NMR visibility of the Li cation in each tissue region. Although there was considerable scatter of the calculated visibilities among the five rats studied, the results suggested essentially full visibility (96%) for Li in muscle, and somewhat reduced visibility (74-93%) in the various brain regions.
Laminar microvascular flow, measured by means of laser Doppler flowmetry, during the prodromal stages of black walnut-induced laminitis in horses.

OBJECTIVE To measure changes in laminar microvascular blood flow (LMBF) over time in healthy horses and horses in the prodromal stage of black walnut-induced laminitis and to determine the effects of glyceryl trinitrate application on LMBF in horses with acute laminitis. ANIMALS 10 healthy adult horses. PROCEDURE Laser Doppler flowmetry was used to measure LMBF Baseline measurements were obtained, horses were given deionized water via a nasogastric tube, and measurements were obtained hourly for 12 hours. Twenty-four hours later, baseline measurements were again obtained, and horses were given black walnut extract. Measurements were obtained hourly for 12 hours or until development of Obel grade-3 laminitis. At this time, 5 horses were treated with phenylbutazone, and the other 5 were treated with phenylbutazone and glyceryl trinitrate, and measurements were obtained hourly for an additional 12 hours. RESULTS LMBF was significantly decreased 1 and 2 hours after administration of the black walnut extract but then returned to near-baseline values for the next 6 hours. Eight hours after extract administration, there was a second significant decrease in LMBF that persisted until the end of the study. Glyceryl trinitrate had no effect on LMBF. Clinical signs of laminitis developed 8 to 12 hours after extract administration. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE Results suggest that in horses with black walnut-induced laminitis, there is an early decrease in LMBF followed by reperfusion prior to onset of clinical signs. Treatment with glyceryl trinitrate after development of clinical signs of laminitis did not have a significant effect on LMBF.
Dynamics of HCV RNA levels during acute hepatitis C virus infection

Understanding viral dynamics during acute hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection can provide important insights into immunopathogenesis and guide early treatment. The aim of this study was to investigate the dynamics of HCV RNA and alanine transaminase (ALT) levels during recent HCV infection in the Australian Trial in Acute Hepatitis C (ATAHC). ATAHC was a prospective study of the natural history of recently acquired HCV infection. Longitudinal HCV RNA and ALT levels were compared among individuals with persistent infection and spontaneous clearance. Among those with HCV persistence (n = 104) and HCV clearance (n = 30), median HCV RNA (5.2 vs. 4.1 log IU/ml, respectively) and ALT levels (779 vs. 1,765 IU/L, respectively) were high during month two following infection, and then declined during months three and four in both groups. Among those with HCV persistence, median HCV RNA was 2.9 log IU/ml during months four, increased to 5.5 log IU/ml during month five, and remained subsequently relatively stable. Among those with HCV clearance, median HCV RNA was undetectable by month five. Median HCV RNA levels were comparable between individuals with HCV persistence and HCV clearance during month three following infection (3.2 vs. 3.5 log IU/ml, respectively; P = 0.935), but markedly different during month five (5.5 vs. 1.0 log IU/ml, respectively; P < 0.001). In conclusion, dynamics of HCV RNA levels in those with HCV clearance and HCV persistence diverged between months three and five following infection, with the latter time‐point being potentially useful for commencing early treatment. J. Med. Virol. 86: 1722–1729, 2014. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Massachusetts registered dietitians' knowledge, attitudes, opinions, personal use, and recommendations to clients about herbal supplements.

OBJECTIVE To assess the knowledge, personal use and recommendations of herbal supplements among registered dietitians (RDs) in Massachusetts. DESIGN A descriptive, cross-sectional study conducted by a self-administered survey. SUBJECTS One hundred and fifty-eight RDs from active members of the Massachusetts Dietetic Association (MDA). STATISTICAL ANALYSIS One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), Kruskal-Wallis tests, and multivariate regression identified statistical significance and examined the association between the dietitians' test scores from eight herbal knowledge questions with their personal herbal use and recommendations to clients and their age, education, work experience, and work status. RESULTS We obtained a 53% response rate. The dietitians scored an average of 5.4 of a possible 8 on the herbal knowledge questions. Seventy-three percent (73%) perceived themselves to have little or no knowledge of herbal supplements. Only 37% reported using herbs and 22% recommending herbs to clients in the past year. A significant positive association was observed between herbal supplement knowledge score and frequency of personal use (p = 0.004), and recommendation to clients (p = 0.001). Eighty-nine percent (89%) agreed that herbal supplement education should be incorporated into dietetic curricula. DISCUSSION The majority of the dietitians may lack herbal supplement familiarity. Therefore, these dietitians may be reluctant to personally use or recommend herbs to clients, even though the majority believe herbs can be effective for specific illness and health maintenance. These results may indicate a need to include more extensive education in the dietetic curricula and to continue education regarding herbal supplements in response to the increasing consumer herbal supplement use.
Clinical and molecular characterization of cystinuria in a French cohort: relevance of assessing large‐scale rearrangements and splicing variants

Cystinuria is an autosomal recessive disorder of dibasic amino acid transport in the kidney and the intestine leading to increased urinary cystine excretion and nephrolithiasis. Two genes, SLC3A1 and SLC7A9, coding respectively for rBAT and b0,+AT, account for the genetic basis of cystinuria.