Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Effects of Aging on the Molecular and Cellular Composition of the Prostate Microenvironment

Background Advancing age is associated with substantial increases in the incidence rates of common diseases affecting the prostate gland including benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) and prostate carcinoma. The prostate is comprised of a functional secretory epithelium, a basal epithelium, and a supporting stroma comprised of structural elements, and a spectrum of cell types that includes smooth muscle cells, fibroblasts, and inflammatory cells. As reciprocal interactions between epithelium and stromal constituents are essential for normal organogenesis and serve to maintain normal functions, discordance within the stroma could permit or promote disease processes. In this study we sought to identify aging-associated alterations in the mouse prostate microenvironment that could influence pathology. Methodology/Principal Findings We quantitated transcript levels in microdissected glandular-adjacent stroma from young (age 4 months) and old (age 20–24 months) C57BL/6 mice, and identified a significant change in the expression of 1259 genes (p<0.05). These included increases in transcripts encoding proteins associated with inflammation (e.g., Ccl8, Ccl12), genotoxic/oxidative stress (e.g., Apod, Serpinb5) and other paracrine-acting effects (e.g., Cyr61). The expression of several collagen genes (e.g., Col1a1 and Col3a1) exhibited age-associated declines. By histology, immunofluorescence, and electron microscopy we determined that the collagen matrix is abundant and disorganized, smooth muscle cell orientation is disordered, and inflammatory infiltrates are significantly increased, and are comprised of macrophages, T cells and, to a lesser extent, B cells. Conclusion/Significance These findings demonstrate that during normal aging the prostate stroma exhibits phenotypic and molecular characteristics plausibly contributing to the striking age associated pathologies affecting the prostate.
The Good, the Bad, and the Unknown: Quality of Clinical Laboratories in Kampala, Uganda

Background Clinical laboratories are crucial in addressing the high rates of communicable and non-communicable diseases seen in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). However, the most basic information, such as the number and quality of clinical laboratories in SSA, is not available. The objective of this study was to create a practical method for obtaining this information in SSA towns and cities using an initial survey in Kampala, Uganda. Methods Kampala city was divided into 5 partially-overlapping regions. Each region was assigned to 2–3 surveyors who identified and surveyed laboratories in their respective regions; in person and on foot. A modified version of the World Health Organization - African Region (WHO/AFRO) Laboratory Strengthening Checklist was used to obtain baseline measures of quality for all clinical laboratories within Kampala city. The surveyors also measured other attributes of each laboratory, such as their affiliation (government, private etc), designation (national hospital, district hospital, standalone etc), staff numbers, and type of staff. Results The survey team identified and surveyed 954 laboratories in Kampala city. 96% of laboratories were private. Only 45 (5%) of the laboratories met or surpassed the lowest quality standards defined by the WHO/AFRO-derived laboratory strengthening tool (1-star). These 45 higher-quality laboratories were, on average, larger and had a higher number of laboratory-specific staff (technologists, phlebotomists etc) than the other 909 laboratories. 688 (72%) of the 954 laboratories were not registered with the Ministry of Health (MoH). Conclusions This comprehensive evaluation of the number, scope, and quality of clinical laboratories in Kampala is the first published survey of its kind in sub-Saharan Africa. The survey findings demonstrated that laboratories in Kampala that had qualified personnel and those that had higher testing volumes, tended to be of higher-quality.
Ku Autoantigen: A Multifunctional DNA-Binding Protein

Ku is a heterodimeric protein composed of ∼70- and ∼80-kDa subunits (Ku70 and Ku80) originally identified as an autoantigen recognized by the sera of patients with autoimmune diseases. Ku has high binding affinity for DNA ends and that is why originally it was known as a DNA end binding protein, but now it is known to also bind the DNA structure at nicks, gaps, hairpins, as well as the ends of telomeres. It has been reported also to bind with sequence specificity to DNA and with weak affinity to RNA. Ku is an abundant nuclear protein and is present in vertebrates, insects, yeast, and worms. Ku contains ssDNA-dependent ATPase and ATP-dependent DNA helicase activities. It is the regulatory subunit of the DNA-dependent protein kinase that phosphorylates many proteins, including SV-40 large T antigen, p53, RNA-polymerase II, RP-A, topoisomerases, hsp90, and many transcription factors such as c-Jun, c-Fos, oct-1, sp-1, c-Myc, TFIID, and many more. It seems to be a multifunctional protein that has been implicated to be involved directly or indirectly in many important cellular metabolic processes such as DNA double-strand break repair, V(D)J recombination of immunoglobulins and T-cell receptor genes, immunoglobulin isotype switching, DNA replication, transcription regulation, regulation of heat shock-induced responses, regulation of the precise structure of telomeric termini, and it also plays a novel role in G2 and M phases of the cell cycle. The mechanism underlying the regulation of all the diverse functions of Ku is still obscure.
Longitudinal Study of Procrastination, Performance, Stress, and Health: The Costs and Benefits of Dawdling

Procrastination is variously described as harmful, innocuous, or even beneficial Two longitudinal studies examined procrastination among students Procrastinators reported lower stress and less illness than nonprocrastinators early in the semester, but they reported higher stress and more illness late in the term, and overall they were sicker Procrastinators also received lower grades on all assignments Procrastination thus appears to be a self-defeating behavior pattern marked by short-term benefits and long-term costs
Identification of Male- and Female-Specific Olfaction Genes in Antennae of the Oriental Fruit Fly (Bactrocera dorsalis)

The oriental fruit fly (Bactrocera dorsalis) is a species of tephritid fruit fly, endemic to Southeast Asia but also introduced to many regions of the US, and it is one of the major pest species with a broad host range of cultivated and wild fruits. Although males of B. dorsalis respond strongly to methyl eugenol and this is used for monitoring and estimating populations, the molecular mechanism of the oriental fruit fly olfaction has not been elucidated yet. Therefore, in this project, using next generation sequencing technologies, we sequenced the transcriptome of the antennae of male and female adults of B. dorsalis. We identified a total of 20 candidate odorant binding proteins (OBPs), 5 candidate chemosensory proteins (CSPs), 35 candidate odorant receptors (ORs), 12 candidate ionotropic receptors (IRs) and 4 candidate sensory neuron membrane proteins (SNMPs). The sex-specific expression of these genes was determined and a subset of 9 OR genes was further characterized by qPCR with male and female antenna, head, thorax, abdomen, leg and wing samples. In the male antennae, 595 genes showed a higher expression, while 128 genes demonstrated a higher expression in the female antennae. Interestingly, 2 ORs (BdorOR13 and BdorOR14) were highly and specifically expressed in the antennae of males, and 4 ORs (BdorOR13, BdorOR16, BdorOR18 and BdorOR35) clustered with DmOR677, suggesting pheromone reception. We believe this study with these antennae-enriched OBPs, CSPs, ORs, IRs and SNMPs can play an important role in the detection of pheromones and general odorants, and so in turn our data improve our current understanding of insect olfaction at the molecular level and provide important information for disrupting the behavior of the oriental fruit fly using chemical communication methods.
Multisensory Integration Shortens Physiological Response Latencies

Individual superior colliculus (SC) neurons integrate information from multiple sensory sources to enhance their physiological response. The response of an SC neuron to a cross-modal stimulus combination can not only exceed the best component unisensory response but can also exceed their arithmetic sum (i.e., superadditivity). The present experiments were designed to investigate the temporal profile of multisensory integration in this model system. We found that cross-modal stimuli frequently shortened physiological response latencies (mean shift, 6.2 ms) and that response enhancement was greatest in the initial phase of the response (the phenomenon of initial response enhancement). The vast majority of the responses studied evidenced superadditive computations, most often at the beginning of the multisensory response.
Body image and weight control among adolescents in Lithuania, Croatia, and the United States in the context of global obesity.

AIM To compare body image and weight control behavior among adolescents in Lithuania, Croatia, and the United States (US), the countries with striking contrasts in the prevalence of overweight among adolescents. METHOD The study was carried out according to the methodology of the Health Behavior in School-aged Children collaborative survey. Nationally-representative samples of students, aged 13 and 15, were surveyed in Lithuania (3778 respondents), Croatia (2946 respondents), and the US (3546 respondents) in the 2001/2002 school year. RESULTS In all three countries, girls perceived themselves as being "too fat" more frequently than boys (37.0% vs 19.7%, P<0.001, z test). The prevalence of this perception increased with age among girls (32.7% vs 41.1%, P<0.001, z test) and decreased among boys (21.4% vs 17.9%, P=0.005, z test). Lithuanian adolescents were least likely to perceive themselves as "too fat;" this perception was significantly more frequent in Croatia and the US (24.2%, 27.5%, and 34.3%, respectively; P<0.001, chi(2) test). With the exception of 15-year-old Lithuanian boys, in all respondents the proportion of adolescents with body mass index (BMI) > or =85th percentile who perceived themselves as "too fat" was significantly higher (up to 3.13 times among 15-year-old US girls) than the proportion of adolescents with BMI < or =15th percentile who perceived themselves as "too thin. " The highest proportion of overweight boys and girls on a diet or doing something else to lose weight was found in the US. Boys in Lithuania were most likely to be satisfied with their weight regardless of their weight status. CONCLUSION Perceived body image and weight control behavior differ among adolescents in Lithuania, Croatia, and the US. Cross-cultural, age, and sex influences moderate body image and weight control behavior in underweight and overweight adolescents.
Toward Sustainable Insights, or Why Polygamy is Bad for You

Have you ever been in a sauna? If yes, according to our recent survey conducted on Amazon Mechanical Turk, people who go to saunas are more likely to know that Mike Stonebraker is not a character in “The Simpsons”. While this result clearly makes no sense, recently proposed tools to automatically suggest visualizations, correlations, or perform visual data exploration, signiﬁcantly increase the chance that a user makes a false discovery like this one. In this paper, we ﬁrst show how current tools mislead users to consider random ﬂuc-tuations as signiﬁcant discoveries. We then describe our vision and early results for QUDE, a new system for automatically controlling the various risk factors during the data exploration process.
Integrating Small RNA Sequencing with QTL Mapping for Identification of miRNAs and Their Target Genes Associated with Heat Tolerance at the Flowering Stage in Rice

Although, microRNAs (miRNAs) have been reported to be associated with heat tolerance at the seedling stage in rice, their involvement in heat tolerance at the flowering stage is still unknown. In this study, small RNA profiling was conducted in a heat-tolerant variety Gan-Xiang-Nuo (GXN) and a heat-sensitive variety Hua-Jing-Xian-74 (HJX), respectively. Totally, 102 miRNAs were differentially expressed (DE) under heat stress. Compared to HJX, GXN had more DE miRNAs and its DE miRNAs changed earlier under heat stress. Plant Ontology (PO) analysis of the target genes revealed that many DE miRNAs were involved in flower development. As a parallel experiment, QTL mapping was also conducted and four QTLs for heat tolerance at the flowering stage were identified using chromosome single-segment substitution lines derived from GXN and HJX. Further, through integrating analysis of DE miRNAs with QTLs, we identified 8 target genes corresponding to 26 miRNAs within the four QTL regions. Some meaningful target genes such as LOC_Os12g42400, SGT1, and pectinesterase were within the QTL regions. The negative correlation between miR169r-5p and its target gene LOC_Os12g42400 was confirmed under heat stress, and overexpression of miR169r-5p enhanced heat tolerance at flowering stage in rice. Our results demonstrate that the integrated analysis of genome-wide miRNA profiling with QTL mapping can facilitate identification of miRNAs and their target genes associated with the target traits and the limited candidates identified in this study offer an important source for further functional analysis and molecular breeding for heat tolerance in rice.
Cricket shot classification using motion vector

Cricket shots cannot be detected yet from single video sample without multiple view camera and other tools like sonar, speedometer. Extracting salient feature and optical flow from videos of cricket shots is still a challenge. In cricket, body parts movement created several different directional optical flows. So we propose motion estimation approach related to classifying the shots using 3D MACH for action recognition. Our methodology defines 8 classes of angle ranges to detect cricket shots. Our method is grounded on Motion vectors that help to measure the angle of any precise cricket shot. An adequate accuracy level for the shots is established for this particular approach.
Type 2 diabetic individuals have impaired leg blood flow responses to exercise: role of endothelium-dependent vasodilation.

OBJECTIVE Diabetic individuals have impaired endothelium-dependent forearm vasodilatory responses to ischemia, acetylcholine, and other endothelium-dependent agonists. The functional significance of impaired endothelium-dependent dilation in diabetic individuals is uncertain but is most likely to be manifest during leg muscle exercise and may have relevance to peripheral vascular disease and leg ischemia, which is prevalent in diabetic individuals. The current study aimed to determine the relationship between leg blood flow (LBF) responses to endothelium-dependent vasodilation and dynamic large muscle exercise. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS LBF responses (thermodilution) to intrafemoral arterial infusions of an endothelium-dependent (acetylcholine) and endothelium-independent (sodium nitroprusside) vasodilator and a standardized 25-min cycling bout at 60% VO(2peak) were compared in nine male type 2 diabetic subjects and nine age-, sex-, VO(2peak)-, and weight-matched control subjects. RESULTS LBF responses to acetylcholine and exercise but not sodium nitroprusside were significantly (P < 0.05) attenuated in patients with diabetes compared with healthy control subjects. The percentage increase in LBF in response to exercise and acetylcholine were significantly correlated (r = 0.54, P = 0.02). Furthermore, resting plasma glucose was significantly related to the LBF response to exercise (r = -0.66, P = 0.003) independently of insulin, HbA(1c), lipids, BMI, and blood pressure. CONCLUSIONS The increase in LBF during exercise is substantially attenuated in type 2 diabetic compared with matched control subjects. Impaired endothelium-dependent vasodilation secondary to elevated plasma glucose may underlie this observation. This mechanism may be of importance in determining the leg ischemic threshold in diabetic individuals with peripheral vascular disease.
Pairwise Relation Classification with Mirror Instances and a Combined Convolutional Neural Network

Relation classification is the task of classifying the semantic relations between entity pairs in text. Observing that existing work has not fully explored using different representations for relation instances, especially in order to better handle the asymmetry of relation types, in this paper, we propose a neural network based method for relation classification that combines the raw sequence and the shortest dependency path representations of relation instances and uses mirror instances to perform pairwise relation classification. We evaluate our proposed models on the SemEval-2010 Task 8 dataset. The empirical results show that with two additional features, our model achieves the state-of-the-art result of F1 score of 85.7.
Convex super-resolution detection of lines in images

In this paper, we present a new convex formulation for the problem of recovering lines in degraded images. Following the recent paradigm of super-resolution, we formulate a dedicated atomic norm penalty and we solve this optimization problem by means of a primal-dual algorithm. This parsimonious model enables the reconstruction of lines from lowpass measurements, even in presence of a large amount of noise or blur. Furthermore, a Prony method performed on rows and columns of the restored image, provides a spectral estimation of the line parameters, with subpixel accuracy.
A computer simulation of the transmission dynamics and the effects of duration of immunity and survival of persistently infected animals on the spread of bovine viral diarrhoea virus in dairy cattle

This paper describes a computer model that mimics the spread of bovine viral diarrhoea virus (BVDV) infection through a closed herd. The model is able to simulate the spread of infection when a persistently infected (PI) animal is introduced into an infection-free herd, and it is used to investigate the role of persistently infected animals, seroconverting animals, loss of PI calves and duration of immunity on the level of infection within the herd. Under typical management conditions one persistently infected animal poses a real threat to a herd, and the prospect of the herd becoming infection free in a 10-year period without intervention is remote. Seroconverting animals are found to be an important source of infection in herds with few immune animals. The increased loss of PI calves is likely to restrict the numbers of PI animals in a herd, and loss of immunity is important since it increases the possibility of a PI calf being born.
International Conference on Information Systems ( ICIS ) 2010 CORPORATE ECOLOGICAL RESPONSIVENESS , ENVIRONMENTAL AMBIDEXTERITY AND IT-ENABLED ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY STRATEGY

An increased focus on creating a sustainable society has thrust environmental sustainability issues to societal and governmental forefront. Organizations can seize this opportunity to use environmental sustainability initiatives to set themselves apart from competitors. Achieving sustainability requires organizations to incorporate sustainability as part of their corporate strategy. A review of extant Information Systems (IS) literature on environmental sustainability revealed that the strategic role of Information Technology (IT) in enabling environmental sustainability strategy is one perspective that has not been explored in depth. Our paper addresses this gap in research. In this research paper, we propose that firms that use IT strategically to enable their environmental sustainability strategies and are able to demonstrate environmental ambidexterity are set to achieve competitive advantage, legitimacy, and reputation from their corporate ecological responsiveness initiatives. We present preliminary results from interviews that were part of our in-depth case study approach.
Dynamic Bayesian ’ s Equity Selling Game During The Initial Public Offering JEL : D 82 , G 24

In this article we examine the relation between the venture capitalists’ equity selling decision and the value of their investees during the IPOs. We show that to avoid the market adverse selling reaction, a high investee’s value venture capitalist continues to hold a significant proportion of its equity stake in his investees comparing with a low investee’s value venture capitalist after the IPO. Our result is consistent with the signalling of insider traders reputation, the lockup argument and with the only separating equilibrium that survives the intuitive criterion. In addition, our finding implies that insiders like venture capitalist cannot behave with self-interest seeking by guile since they are a repeat players in the IPO market. Initial public offering is one of the relevant exit strategies for generating a good market value for insiders like venture capitalists and entrepreneur-founders for their investees. Thus, in their own best interest, insiders may have incentive to work intensively to window-dress their investees and/or to time the issue when the equity market is hot. Investors (henceforth the market), even though relatively uninformed about the venture prospects, are aware of these opportunistic motivations and account for them in the bidding price. Accordingly, when the market observes a signal on the venture value, it carefully interprets it to update its prior beliefs about the firm. This signal, which is the outcome of asymmetrical information between the market and the insiders, is important for the market responding value. The principal objective of this paper is to address the following question: How do insider investors like insiders who perform monitoring and have representations on the boards of directors of their investees determine the proportion of the common stock to put up during the IPO by avoiding the market adverse reaction selling problem? This issue is motivated by the fact that insiders receive private information regarding their investees prospects and they must decide whether or not to initiate an IPO in view of the fact that the bulk of their revenues is assumed to depend on the stock price. To reduce the ignorant market concerns with the asymmetrical information, the insiders send signals The other exit mechanisms are acquisitions, mergers, company buyout and write off.