Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Minnelide/Triptolide Impairs Mitochondrial Function by Regulating SIRT3 in P53-Dependent Manner in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Minnelide/Triptolide (TL) has recently emerged as a potent anticancer drug in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). However, the precise mechanism of its action remains ambiguous. In this study, we elucidated the molecular basis for TL-induced cell death in context to p53 status. Cell death was attributed to dysfunction of mitochondrial bioenergetics in p53-deficient cells, which was characterized by decreased mitochondrial respiration, steady-state ATP level and membrane potential, but augmented reactive oxygen species (ROS). Increased ROS production resulted in oxidative stress in TL-treated cells. This was exhibited by elevated nuclear levels of a redox-sensitive transcriptional factor, NF-E2-related factor-2 (NRF2), along with diminished cellular glutathione (GSH) content. We further demonstrated that in the absence of p53, TL blunted the expression of mitochondrial SIRT3 triggering increased acetylation of NDUAF9 and succinate dehydrogenase, components of complexes I and II of the electron transport chain (ETC). TL-mediated hyperacetylation of complexes I and II proteins and these complexes displayed decreased enzymatic activities. We also provide the evidence that P53 regulate steady-state level of SIRT3 through Proteasome-Pathway. Finally, forced overexpression of Sirt3, but not deacetylase-deficient mutant of Sirt3 (H243Y), restored the deleterious effect of TL on p53-deficient cells by rescuing mitochondrial bioenergetics. On contrary, Sirt3 deficiency in the background of wild-type p53 triggered TL-induced mitochondrial impairment that echoed TL effect in p53-deficeint cells. These findings illustrate a novel mechanism by which TL exerts its potent effects on mitochondrial function and ultimately the viability of NSCLC tumor.
Two visual systems in mental imagery

We studied two patients with impaired visual perception and imagery caused by bilateral posterior cerebral lesions. The first had prosopagnosia and achromatopsia, and the imagery disorder involved the description of objects from memory, especially faces and animals, and colors of objects. The second had visual disorientation; the imagery problem involved the description of spatial relations from memory. Impairments of visual imagery, like disorders of visual perception, can be dissociated. Object and color imagery may be dissociated from imagery for spatial relations. A given imagery deficit tends to be associated with the corresponding type of perceptual deficit.
The function of resilin in honeybee wings

ABSTRACT The present work aimed to reveal morphological characteristics of worker honeybee (Apis mellifera) wings and demonstrate the function of resilin on camber changes during flapping flight. Detailed morphological investigation of the wings showed that different surface characteristics appear on the dorsal and ventral side of the honeybee wings and the linking structure connecting the forewing and hindwing plays an indispensable role in honeybee flapping flight. Resilin stripes were found on both the dorsal and ventral side of the wings, and resilin patches mostly existed on the ventral side. On the basis of resilin distribution, five flexion lines and three cambered types around the lines of passive deformation of the coupled-wing profile were obtained, which defined the deformation mechanism of the wing along the chord, i.e. concave, flat plate and convex. From a movie obtained using high-speed photography from three orthogonal views of free flight in honeybees, periodic changes of the coupled-wing profile were acquired and further demonstrated that the deformation mechanism is a fundamental property for variable deformed shapes of the wing profile during flapping flight, and, in particular, the flat wing profile achieves a nice transition between downstrokes and upstrokes. Summary: Morphological characteristics of worker honeybee (Apis mellifera) wings demonstrate the function of resilin on camber changes during flapping flight.
Evaluating and Improving Fault Localization

Most fault localization techniques take as input a faulty program, and produce as output a ranked list of suspicious code locations at which the program may be defective. When researchers propose a new fault localization technique, they typically evaluate it on programs with known faults. The technique is scored based on where in its output list the defective code appears. This enables the comparison of multiple fault localization techniques to determine which one is better. Previous research has evaluated fault localization techniques using artificial faults, generated either by mutation tools or manually. In other words, previous research has determined which fault localization techniques are best at finding artificial faults. However, it is not known which fault localization techniques are best at finding real faults. It is not obvious that the answer is the same, given previous work showing that artificial faults have both similarities to and differences from real faults. We performed a replication study to evaluate 10 claims in the literature that compared fault localization techniques (from the spectrum-based and mutation-based families). We used 2995 artificial faults in 6 real-world programs. Our results support 7 of the previous claims as statistically significant, but only 3 as having non-negligible effect sizes. Then, we evaluated the same 10 claims, using 310 real faults from the 6 programs. Every previous result was refuted or was statistically and practically insignificant. Our experiments show that artificial faults are not useful for predicting which fault localization techniques perform best on real faults. In light of these results, we identified a design space that includes many previously-studied fault localization techniques as well as hundreds of new techniques. We experimentally determined which factors in the design space are most important, using an overall set of 395 real faults. Then, we extended this design space with new techniques. Several of our novel techniques outperform all existing techniques, notably in terms of ranking defective code in the top-5 or top-10 reports.
Cost of allogeneic and autologous blood transfusion in Canada. Canadian Cost of Transfusion Study Group.

OBJECTIVE To determine the cost, from a societal perspective, of blood transfusion in Canada. STUDY DESIGN Cost-structure analysis. SETTING Data were collected from eight hospitals and from six blood centres operated by the Canadian Red Cross Society in four provinces. OUTCOME MEASURES Costs associated with four stages of transfusion-- collection, production, distribution and delivery--in 1933 were assessed. Costs were divided into the following categories; personnel, purchases, external services, overhead, donors' time, patients' time (for autologous transfusion), wastage and infection. RESULTS The mean overall cost of a transfusion performed on an inpatient basis was $210 per unit of red blood cells for an allogeneic transfusion and $338 per unit of blood for an autologous transfusion. The mean cost of an allogeneic transfusion performed on an outpatient basis was $280 per unit of red blood cells. CONCLUSION The costs determined in this study can be used in future studies comparing the cost-effectiveness of allogeneic transfusion with that of alternative methods.
Comparison of Direct Plating and Broth Enrichment Culture for the Detection of Intestinal Colonization by Glycopeptide-Resistant Enterococci among Hospitalized Patients

ABSTRACT The results of prevalence studies on glycopeptide-resistant enterococci (GRE) in the intestine may be influenced by the detection methods applied. In most studies different media, different concentrations of antibiotics, and different methods are used, and these differences result in differences in recovery rates. In this cross-sectional study on the carrier state of GRE among patients at the University Hospital Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium, performed on 21 May 1996, direct plating and broth enrichment were compared by using the same media. Stool samples (n = 213) or rectal swabs (n = 122) were plated directly on Enterococcosel agar (bioMérieux) and after enrichment in Enterococcosel broth. The prevalence of GRE was 12.8%. Direct plating recovered 53.4% of the GRE isolates, and broth enrichment recovered an additional 46.5% of them; in the latter test the isolates were thus present at less than 103 CFU per g of feces. The prevalence of GRE among dialysis patients was higher than among the other patients, but the difference was not significant (P = 0.06), possibly as a result of the small numbers of dialysis patients examined. The GRE species isolated included 19 E. gallinarum (44.2%), 13E. faecium (30.2%), 6 E. faecalis (13.9%), and 5 E. casseliflavus (11.6%) isolates. All E. faecalis and E. faecium strains isolated carried thevanA gene, and E. gallinarum and E. casseliflavus carried the vanC1 and vanC2gene, respectively. The majority of isolates were polyclonal. Our data indicate that the rate of detection of GRE from both stool samples and rectal swabs is significantly increased with enrichment cultures.
Convergent message passing algorithms - a unifying view

Message-passing algorithms have emerged as powerful techniques for approximate inference in graphical models. When these algorithms converge, they can be shown to find local (or sometimes even global) optima of variational formulations to the inference problem. But many of the most popular algorithms are not guaranteed to converge. This has lead to recent interest in convergent message-passing algorithms. In this paper, we present a unified view of convergent message-passing algorithms. We present a simple derivation of an abstract algorithm, tree-consistency bound optimization (TCBO) that is provably convergent in both its sum and max product forms. We then show that many of the existing convergent algorithms are instances of our TCBO algorithm, and obtain novel convergent algorithms "for free" by exchanging maximizations and summations in existing algorithms. In particular, we show that Wainwright's non-convergent sum-product algorithm for tree based variational bounds, is actually convergent with the right update order for the case where trees are monotonic chains.
Weight adaptation and oscillatory correlation for image segmentation

We propose a method for image segmentation based on a neural oscillator network. Unlike previous methods, weight adaptation is adopted during segmentation to remove noise and preserve significant discontinuities in an image. Moreover, a logarithmic grouping rule is proposed to facilitate grouping of oscillators representing pixels with coherent properties. We show that weight adaptation plays the roles of noise removal and feature preservation. In particular, our weight adaptation scheme is insensitive to termination time and the resulting dynamic weights in a wide range of iterations lead to the same segmentation results. A computer algorithm derived from oscillatory dynamics is applied to synthetic and real images and simulation results show that the algorithm yields favorable segmentation results in comparison with other recent algorithms. In addition, the weight adaptation scheme can be directly transformed to a novel feature-preserving smoothing procedure. We also demonstrate that our nonlinear smoothing algorithm achieves good results for various kinds of images.
Multi-Constraint multi-processor Resource Allocation

This work proposes a Multi-Constraint Resource Allocation (MuCoRA) method for applications from multiple domains onto multi-processors. In particular, we address a mapping problem for multiple throughput-constrained streaming applications and multiple latency-constrained feedback control applications onto a multi-processor platform running under a Time-Division Multiple-Access (TDMA) policy. The main objective of the proposed method is to reduce resource usage while meeting constraints from both these two domains (i.e., throughput and latency constraints). We show by experiments that the overall resource usage for this mapping problem can be reduced by distributing the allocated resource (i.e., TDMA slots) to the control applications over the TDMA wheel instead of allocating consecutive slots.
Current-induced magnetization switching using an electrically insulating spin-torque generator

This paper reports the first demonstration of current-induced magnetization switching using an ordinary insulator. Current-induced magnetization switching through spin-orbit torques is the fundamental building block of spin-orbitronics, which promises high-performance, low-power memory and logic devices. The spin-orbit torques generally arise from spin-orbit coupling of heavy metals. However, even in a heterostructure where a metallic magnet is sandwiched by two different insulators, a nonzero spin-orbit torque is expected because of the broken inversion symmetry; an electrical insulator can be a source of the spin-orbit torques. We demonstrate current-induced magnetization switching using an insulator. We show that oxygen incorporation into the most widely used spintronic material, Pt, turns the heavy metal into an electrically insulating generator of the spin-orbit torques, which enables the electrical switching of perpendicular magnetization in a ferrimagnet sandwiched by insulating oxides. We also show that the spin-orbit torques generated from the Pt oxide can be controlled electrically through voltage-driven oxygen migration. These findings open a route toward energy-efficient, voltage-programmable spin-orbit devices based on insulating metal oxides.
Effect of Intra-arterial Antifibrinolytic Agents on Autologous Arterial Emboli in the Cerebral Circulation of Rabbits

We conducted a randomized, blinded controlled trial to test the efficacy of fibrinolytic therapy with tissue plasminogen activator and urokinase in the treatment of acute embolic stroke. Embolic stroke was simulated in rabbits by injecting three 0.5x0.5 mm fragments of autologous arterial thrombus harvested from a traumatized auricular artery. Thirty minutes after embolization the rabbits were blindly treated with tissue plasminogen activator (n=21), urokinase («=20), or 0.9% saline (n=20). At 6 hours the rabbits were sacrificed, and the cerebral vasculature was inspected for the location and number of emboli. The brain was then cut into 0.5-cm-thick coronal sections and stained with triphenyltetrazolium chloride to define areas of infarction. Treatment with either tissue plasminogen activator or urokinase significantly reduced the number of emboli present in the cerebral circulation (p<0.05). The area of ischemic injury was also significantly reduced (/><0.05) by acute fibrinolytic therapy with either tissue plasminogen activator or urokinase. However, only treatment with tissue plasminogen activator significantly reduced (/><0.05) the incidence of infarction. There was no evidence of intracerebral hemorrhage in any rabbit. Early fibrinolytic therapy improved outcome in this model of acute embolic stroke. (Stroke 1990;21:1594-1599)
Hydrodynamical models for the chaotic dripping faucet

We give a hydrodynamical explanation for the chaotic behaviour of a dripping faucet using the results of the stability analysis of a static pendant drop and a proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) of the complete dynamics. We find that the only relevant modes are the two classical normal forms associated with a saddle–node–Andronov bifurcation and a Shilnikov homoclinic bifurcation. This allows us to construct a hierarchy of reduced-order models including maps and ordinary differential equations which are able to qualitatively explain prior experiments and numerical simulations of the governing partial differential equations and provide an explanation for the complexity in dripping. We also provide a new mechanical analogue for the dripping faucet and a simple rationale for the transition from dripping to jetting modes in the flow from a faucet.
Abnormal vascular responses in human chronic cardiac failure are both endothelium dependent and endothelium independent

Objective To study underlying vascular responses in chronic heart failure in patients without ACE inhibitor treatment, and to compare them with age matched controls. Design Forearm blood flow was studied using venous occlusion plethysmography in patients with chronic heart failure (n = 12) and matched controls (n = 13), after infusion of L-NMMA (a nitric oxide synthase inhibitor), glyceryl trinitrate (an endothelium independent vasodilator), and serotonin (an endothelium dependent vasodilator). Results L-NMMA produced significant vasoconstriction in normal subjects (forearm blood flow reduced by 24%), but not in patients (6%; difference between groups p < 0.03). The vasodilator responses to glyceryl trinitrate were impaired in patients (p < 0.02). In normal controls, serotonin produced initial dilatation, followed by vasoconstriction at high doses. In patients, no vasodilator responses were observed, only late vasoconstriction (p < 0.03). Conclusions The vascular responses of patients are confirmed as being abnormal. The lack of response to L-NMMA suggests that nitric oxide does not contribute to basal vascular tone in patients with chronic heart failure. The responses to glyceryl trinitrate and to serotonin suggest that there is both smooth muscle and endothelial dysfunction in patients with chronic heart failure.
Intraoperative transesophageal echocardiography: 5-year prospective review of impact on surgical management.

OBJECTIVE To determine the impact of intraoperative transesophageal echocardiography (IOTEE), an important adjunct in many types of cardiac surgical cases, on the surgical decisions made perioperatively in adult patients undergoing cardiac surgery. PATIENTS AND METHODS All adult patients who had cardiac surgery between 1993 and 1997 and who also had IOTEE were studied. New findings before and after cardiopulmonary bypass and alterations in the planned surgical procedure or management were documented prospectively. RESULTS A total of 3245 patients (60% men, 40% women; aged 18-93 years with a mean +/- SD age of 62 +/- 15 years) were included in the study. The most common operations performed were mitral valve repair (26%) and aortic valve replacement (22%). Over the 5-year period, 41% of patients had IOTEE. New information was found before bypass in 15% of patients, directly affecting surgery in 14% of the patients. The most common new prebypass information found was patent foramen ovale resulting in closure in the majority of patients. New information was found after bypass in 6% of the patients, resulting in a change in surgery or hemodynamic management in 4% of the total. The most common postbypass finding was valvular dysfunction with repeat bypass in most patients for re-repair or replacement. No major complications occurred. CONCLUSION In adult patients undergoing cardiac surgery, IOTEE provides important important information both before and after bypass that affects surgical and hemodynamic management.
Accessing ampli-tonotopic organization of rat auditory cortex by microstimulation of cochlear nucleus

Auditory brainstem implants (ABI) that electrically stimulate the surface of cochlear nucleus have been clinically used for the rehabilitation of deaf patients with bilateral vestibular schwannomas. The change of pitch perception with an active electrode location is not as clear in ABIs as in cochlear implants, a factor which might play a role in poorer speech performance in ABIs. The objective of present work was to develop an animal ABI model that could provide physiological data for future ABI development and optimization. The experimental system included a penetrating microelectrode array for microstimulation of the cochlear nucleus and a surface microelectrode array for mapping evoked potentials over the auditory cortex. We first obtained tone-evoked cortical activation patterns, which represented a place code of the frequency and intensity of test tones, i.e., the ampli-tonotopic organization, and compared the patterns with those evoked by cochlear nuclear microstimulation. Our experimental results demonstrated that microstimulation of both the dorsal and ventral cochlear nucleus (DCN and VCN) could access the cortical ampli-tonotopic organization as acoustic stimuli did. We also found that the cortical dynamic range was wider for the DCN than VCN stimulation and for the low-frequency than for the high-frequency pathway. The present results have great implications for improved ABI performance.
Numerical simulation on behaviour of timber-concrete composite beams in fire

This paper established sequentially coupled thermal-mechanical models of timber--concrete composite (TCC) beams by finite element software ANSYS to investigate the fire resistance of TCC beam. Existing experimental results were used to verify the coupled thermal-mechanical model. The influencing parameters consisted of the width of timber beam, the thickness of the concrete slab and the timber board. Based on the numerical results, the effects of these parameters on fire resistance of TCC beams were investigated in detail. The results showed that modeling results agreed well with test results, and verified the reliability of the finite element model. The width of the timber beam had a significant influence on the fire resistance of TCC beams. The fire resistance of TCC beams would be enhanced by increasing the width of timber beam, the thickness of concrete slab and the timber board.
Weasel: a Machine Learning Based Approach to Entity Linking combining different features

The task of entity linking consists in disambiguating named entities occurring in textual data by linking them to an identifier in a knowledge base that represents the real-world entity they denote. We present Weasel, a novel approach that is based on a combination of different features that is trained using a Support Vector Machine. We compare our approach to state-of-the-art tools such as FOX and DBpedia spotlight, showing that it outperforms both on the AIDA/CoNLL dataset and provides comparable results on the KORE50 dataset.
Autism, language and communication in children with sex chromosome trisomies

Purpose Sex chromosome trisomies (SCTs) are found on amniocentesis in 2.3–3.7 per 1000 same-sex births, yet there is a limited database on which to base a prognosis. Autism has been described in postnatally diagnosed cases of Klinefelter syndrome (XXY karyotype), but the prevalence in non-referred samples, and in other trisomies, is unclear. The authors recruited the largest sample including all three SCTs to be reported to date, including children identified on prenatal screening, to clarify this issue. Design Parents of children with a SCT were recruited either via prenatal screening or via a parental support group, to give a sample of 58 XXX, 19 XXY and 58 XYY cases. Parents were interviewed using the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales and completed questionnaires about the communicative development of children with SCTs and their siblings (42 brothers and 26 sisters). Results Rates of language and communication problems were high in all three trisomies. Diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) were found in 2/19 cases of XXY (11%) and 11/58 XYY (19%). After excluding those with an ASD diagnosis, communicative profiles indicative of mild autistic features were common, although there was wide individual variation. Conclusions Autistic features have not previously been remarked upon in studies of non-referred samples with SCTs, yet the rate is substantially above population levels in this sample, even when attention is restricted to early-identified cases. The authors hypothesise that X-linked and Y-linked neuroligins may play a significant role in the aetiology of communication impairments and ASD.