Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
BRCA1-IRIS Overexpression Promotes Formation of Aggressive Breast Cancers

Introduction Women with HER2+ or triple negative/basal-like (TN/BL) breast cancers succumb to their cancer rapidly due, in part to acquired Herceptin resistance and lack of TN/BL-targeted therapies. BRCA1-IRIS is a recently discovered, 1399 residue, BRCA1 locus alternative product, which while sharing 1365 residues with the full-length product of this tumor suppressor gene, BRCA1/p220, it has oncoprotein-like properties. Here, we examine whether BRCA1-IRIS is a valuable treatment target for HER2+ and/or TN/BL tumors. Methodology/Principal Findings Immunohistochemical staining of large cohort of human breast tumor samples using new monoclonal anti-BRCA1-IRIS antibody, followed by correlation of BRCA1-IRIS expression with that of AKT1, AKT2, p-AKT, survivin and BRCA1/p220, tumor status and age at diagnosis. Generation of subcutaneous tumors in SCID mice using human mammary epithelial (HME) cells overexpressing TERT/LT/BRCA1-IRIS, followed by comparing AKT, survivin, and BRCA1/p220 expression, tumor status and aggressiveness in these tumors to that in tumors developed using TERT/LT/RasV12-overexpressing HME cells. Induction of primary and invasive rat mammary tumors using the carcinogen N-methyl-N-nitrosourea (NMU), followed by analysis of rat BRCA1-IRIS and ERα mRNA levels in these tumors. High BRCA1-IRIS expression was detected in the majority of human breast tumors analyzed, which was positively correlated with that of AKT1-, AKT2-, p-AKT-, survivin, but negatively with BRCA1/p220 expression. BRCA1-IRIS-positivity induced high-grade, early onset and metastatic HER2+ or TN/BL tumors. TERT/LT/BRCA1-IRIS overexpressing HME cells formed invasive subcutaneous tumors that express high AKT1, AKT2, p-AKT and vimentin, but no CK19, p63 or BRCA1/p220. NMU-induced primary and invasive rat breast cancers expressed high levels of rat BRCA1-IRIS mRNA but low levels of rat ERα mRNA. Conclusion/Significance BRCA1-IRIS overexpression triggers aggressive breast tumor formation, especially in patients with HER2+ or TN/BL subtypes. We propose that BRCA1-IRIS inhibition may be pursued as a novel therapeutic option to treat these aggressive breast tumor subtypes.
Flower colour adaptation in a mimetic orchid

Although the tremendous variability in floral colour among angiosperms is often attributed to divergent selection by pollinators, it is usually difficult to preclude the possibility that floral colour shifts were driven by non-pollinator processes. Here, we examine the adaptive significance of flower colour in Disa ferruginea, a non-rewarding orchid that is thought to attract its butterfly pollinator by mimicking the flowers of sympatric nectar-producing species. Disa ferruginea has red flowers in the western part of its range and orange flowers in the eastern part—a colour shift that we hypothesized to be the outcome of selection for resemblance to different local nectar-producing plants. Using reciprocal translocations of red and orange phenotypes as well as arrays of artificial flowers, we found that the butterfly Aeropetes tulbaghia, the only pollinator of the orchid, preferred both the red phenotype and red artificial flowers in the west where its main nectar plant also has red flowers, and both the orange phenotype and orange artificial flowers in the east, where its main nectar plant has orange flowers. This phenotype by environment interaction demonstrates that the flower colour shift in D. ferruginea is adaptive and driven by local colour preference in its pollinator.
Assimilation of Enterprise Systems: The Effect of Institutional Pressures and the Mediating Role of Top Management

We develop and test a theoretical model to investigate the assimilation of enterprise systems in the post-implementation stage within organizations. Specifically, this model explains how top management mediates the impact of external institutional pressures on the degree of usage of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. The hypotheses were tested using survey data from companies that have already implemented ERP systems. Results from partial least squares analyses suggest that mimetic pressures positively affect top management beliefs, which then positively affects top management participation in the ERP assimilation process. In turn, top management participation is confirmed to positively affect the degree of ERP usage. Results also suggest that coercive pressures positively affect top management participation without the mediation of top management beliefs. Surprisingly, we do not find support for our hypothesis that top management participation mediates the effect of normative pressures on ERP usage, but instead we find that normative pressures directly affect ERP usage. Our findings highlight the important role of top management in mediating the effect of institutional pressures on IT assimilation. We confirm that institutional pressures, which are known to be important for IT adoption and implementation, also contribute to post-implementation assimilation when the integration processes are prolonged and outcomes are dynamic and uncertain.
Soluble Epoxide Hydrolase Is a Main Effector of Angiotensin II–Induced Hypertension

The soluble epoxide hydrolase (sEH) metabolizes vasodilatory epoxyeicosatrienoic acids (EETs) to their di-hydroxy derivatives. We hypothesized that the metabolism of EETs by the sEH contributes to angiotensin II–induced hypertension and tested the effects of a water-soluble sEH inhibitor, 12-(3-adamantan-1-yl-ureido) dodecanoic acid (AUDA) on blood pressure. AUDA (130 &mgr;g/mL in drinking water) did not affect blood pressure in normotensive animals but markedly lowered it in mice with angiotensin II–induced hypertension (1 mg/kg per day). The effect of AUDA was accompanied by an increase in urinary salt and water excretion. Intravenous application of AUDA (8 mg/kg) acutely lowered blood pressure and heart rate in animals with angiotensin II–induced hypertension but failed to affect blood pressure in animals with phenylephrine-induced hypertension (29 mg/kg per day). AUDA (0.1 &mgr;mol/L) selectively lowered vascular resistance in an isolated perfused kidney preparation from angiotensin II–pretreated mice but not from control mice. In the perfused hind limb and in isolated carotid arteries from angiotensin II–treated mice, AUDA was without effect. The &ohgr;-hydroxylase inhibitor N-methylsulfonyl-12,12-dibromododec-11-enamide, which attenuates formation of the potent vasoconstrictor 20-hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acid, decreased tone in carotid arteries from angiotensin II–treated but not from control mice. These data demonstrate that the decrease in blood pressure observed after sEH inhibition in angiotensin II–induced hypertension can be attributed to an initial reduction in heart rate followed by pressure diuresis resulting from increased perfusion of the kidney. Direct vasodilatation of resistance arteries in skeletal muscles does not appear to contribute to the antihypertensive effects of sEH inhibition in mice.
Fair and efficient packet scheduling in wormhole networks

Most switch architectures for parallel systems are designed to eliminate only the worst kinds of unfairness such as starvation scenarios in which packets belonging to one traffic flow may not make forward progress for an indefinite period of time. However stricter fairness can lead to a more predictable and better performance, in addition to improving isolation between traffic belonging to different users. This paper presents a new easily implementable scheduling discipline, called Elastic Round Robin (ERR), for the unique requirements of wormhole switching, popular in interconnection networks for parallel systems. Despite the constraints of wormhole switching imposed on the design, our scheduling discipline is at least as efficient as other scheduling disciplines, and more fair than scheduling disciplines of comparable efficiency proposed for any other kind of network, including the Internet. We prove that the work complexity of ERR is O(1) with respect to the number of flows. We analytically prove the fairness properties of ERR, and show that its relative fairness measure has an upper bound of 3 m, where m is the size of the largest packet that actually arrives during an execution of ERR. Finally, we present simulation results comparing the fairness and performance characteristics of ERR with other scheduling disciplines of comparable efficiency.
The Influence of Different Fiber and Starch Types on Nutrient Balance and Energy Metabolism in Growing Pigs

A repeated 4×4 Latin square design was conducted with eight ileal cannulated castrates to examine the effect of source of starch and fiber on nutrient balance and energy metabolism. Pigs were fed on one of the four experimental diets: Control diet (C) mainly based on cooked rice; and diets P, S and W with the inclusion of either raw potato starch, sugar beet pulp or wheat bran supplementation, respectively. With the exception of an increased (p 0.05) in the ratio of metabolizable energy (ME)/digestible energy, the utilization of ME for fat deposition and for protein deposition, energy loss as hydrogen and urinary energy were found between diets. The efficiency of utilization of ME for maintenance was lower (p 0.05) by addition of potato starch. In comparison with diets C and P, a lowered ileal or fecal digestibility of energy with diets S and W was observed (p 0.05). An increased (p<0.05) proportion of NSP excreted in feces was seen by the supplementation of wheat bran. Higher NSP intake caused an increased daily amount of NSP in the ileum, but the ileal NSP proportion as a percentage of NSP intake was unaffected by diets. Feeding potato starch resulted in increased daily amount of starch measured in the ileum and the proportion of ileal starch as a percentage of starch intake, while no significant influence on fecal starch was found. Higher (p<0.05) daily amount of fecal starch and the proportion of fecal starch as a percentage of starch intake were found with fiber sources supplementation compared with diets C and P. By increasing the dietary NSP content the fecal amount of starch increased (p<0.01). (Asian-Aust. J. Anim. Sci. 2004. Vol 17, No. 2 : 263-270)
Algorithms for Satisfiability in Combinational Circuits Based on Backtrack Search and Recursive Learning

Boolean Satisfiability is a ubiquitous modeling tool in Electronic Design Automation (EDA). It finds application in test pattern generation, delay-fault testing, combinational equivalence checking and circuit delay computation, among many other problems. Moreover, Boolean Satisfiability is also in the core of algorithms for solving Binate Covering Problems. This paper starts by describing how Boolean Satisfiability algorithms can take circuit structure into account when solving instances derived from combinational circuits. Afterwards, it shows how recursive learning techniques can be incorporated into Boolean Satisfiability algorithms. The proposed algorithmic framework has several natural applications in EDA. Moreover, potential advantages include smaller run times, the utilization of circuit-specific search pruning techniques, avoiding the overspecification problem that characterizes Boolean Satisfiability testers, and reducing the time for iteratively generating instances of SAT from circuits. The experimental results obtained on a large number of benchmark examples in different problem domains display dramatic reductions in the run times of the algorithms, and provide clear evidence that computed solutions can have significantly less specified variable assignments than those obtained with common SAT algorithms. Algorithms for Satisfiability in Combinational Circuits Based on Backtrack Search and Recursive Learning 1
Pathophysiology of obesity

The rapidly rising prevalence of obesity, worldwide, has prompted re-evaluations of the definitions and diagnostic criteria, and of the extent of the burden it contributes to health care services. Although categorized arbitrarily for epidemiological purposes according to BMI > 25 kg/m2 (‘overweight’) and BMI > 30 kg/m2 (‘obese’), the disease itself (ICD code E.66) is the process of excess fat accumulation. It leads to multiple organ-specific pathological consequences, particularly if there is a tendency to intra-abdominal fat accumulation. The simplest field method to identify obesity and risk of medical problems is the waist circumference, and this method has found a special role in health promotion. Risks begin with waist > 80 cm (women) or > 94 cm (men). As a broad generalization, obesity produces few symptoms below the age of 40 years, but then several symptoms often develop; tiredness, breathlessness, back pain, arthritis, sweatiness, poor sleeping, depression and menstrual disorders all being common. The symptoms are often attributed to diseases in other body systems. Metabolic diseases like diabetes, hyperlipidaemia and, hypertension develop later, but the mean BMI at diagnosis of diabetes is 28 kg/m2. Ultimately, obesity increases the likelihood of myocardial infarction, stroke and several major cancers, but its biggest impact on health, especially in the elderly, is probably the multiplicity of effects on other body systems. The greatest challenge for public health is to develop effective preventive measures, recognizing that BMI > 25 kg/m2 before the age of 20 years is a very strong predictor of obesity and ill health in adulthood.
Root-Specific Reduction of Cytokinin Causes Enhanced Root Growth, Drought Tolerance, and Leaf Mineral Enrichment in Arabidopsis and Tobacco[C][W][OA]

Root-specific expression of a cytokinin-degrading CKX gene induces the formation of a larger root system, whereas growth and development of the shoot remain similar. Transgenic plants exhibiting a larger root system had a higher survival rate after severe drought treatment and an increased leaf element content, suggesting the approach might be useful to optimize crop plants. Optimizing root system architecture can overcome yield limitations in crop plants caused by water or nutrient shortages. Classic breeding approaches are difficult because the trait is governed by many genes and is difficult to score. We generated transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana and tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) plants with enhanced root-specific degradation of the hormone cytokinin, a negative regulator of root growth. These transgenic plants form a larger root system, whereas growth and development of the shoot are similar. Elongation of the primary root, root branching, and root biomass formation were increased by up to 60% in transgenic lines, increasing the root-to-shoot ratio. We thus demonstrated that a single dominant gene could regulate a complex trait, root growth. Moreover, we showed that cytokinin regulates root growth in a largely organ-autonomous fashion that is consistent with its dual role as a hormone with both paracrine and long-distance activities. Transgenic plants had a higher survival rate after severe drought treatment. The accumulation of several elements, including S, P, Mn, Mg, Zn, as well as Cd from a contaminated soil, was significantly increased in shoots. Under conditions of sulfur or magnesium deficiency, leaf chlorophyll content was less affected in transgenic plants, demonstrating the physiological relevance of shoot element accumulation. Our approach might contribute to improve drought tolerance, nutrient efficiency, and nutrient content of crop plants.
Truth vs. Proof in Computational Complexity

Theoretical Computer Science is blessed (or cursed? ) with many open problems. For some of these questions, such as the P vs NP problem, it seems like it could be decades or more before they reach resolution. So, if we have no proof either way, what do we assume about the answer? We could remain agnostic, saying that we simply don’t know, but there can be such a thing as too much skepticism in science. For example, Scott Aaronson once claimed [Aar10] that in other sciences P 6= NP would by now have been declared a law of nature. I tend to agree. After all, we are trying to uncover the truth about the nature of computation and this quest won’t go any faster if we insist on discarding all evidence that is not in the form of mathematical proofs from first principles.
Second-order group consensus in multi-agent systems with time-delays based on second-order neighbours' information

This paper mainly investigates the second-order group consensus for multi-agent systems with or without time-varying delays based on using the second-order neighbours' information. For the case without time-delays, it is shown that the sufficient conditions in form of Kronecker product can be obtained to achieve the given group consensus if the two subnetworks G1, G2 of virtual network G are balanced couple. The error system is adopted to solve the group consensus problems for multi-agent systems with time-varying delays. The ultimate results are worked out by Lyapunov functions. Finally, some illustrate examples are proved to demonstrate the effectiveness of the theoretical findings.
24/7 place recognition by view synthesis

We address the problem of large-scale visual place recognition for situations where the scene undergoes a major change in appearance, for example, due to illumination (day/night), change of seasons, aging, or structural modifications over time such as buildings built or destroyed. Such situations represent a major challenge for current large-scale place recognition methods. This work has the following three principal contributions. First, we demonstrate that matching across large changes in the scene appearance becomes much easier when both the query image and the database image depict the scene from approximately the same viewpoint. Second, based on this observation, we develop a new place recognition approach that combines (i) an efficient synthesis of novel views with (ii) a compact indexable image representation. Third, we introduce a new challenging dataset of 1,125 camera-phone query images of Tokyo that contain major changes in illumination (day, sunset, night) as well as structural changes in the scene. We demonstrate that the proposed approach significantly outperforms other large-scale place recognition techniques on this challenging data.
No evidence for new dopaminergic neurons in the adult mammalian substantia nigra.

A recent report by Zhao et al. [Zhao, M. , Momma, S. , Delfani, K. , Carlen, M. , Cassidy, R. M. , Johansson, C. B. , Brismar, H. , Shupliakov, O. , Frisen, J. & Janson, A. M. (2003) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 100, 7925-7930] suggests that dopaminergic neurons, the cell type lost in Parkinson's disease, are continuously generated in the adult substantia nigra pars compacta. Using similar methodological procedures to label dividing cells, we found no evidence of new dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra, either in normal or 6-hydroxydopamine-lesioned hemi-Parkinsonian rodents, or even after growth factor treatment. Furthermore, we found no evidence of neural stem cells emanating from the cerebroventricular system and migrating to the substantia nigra. We conclude that it is unlikely that dopaminergic neurons are generated in the adult mammalian substantia nigra.
Oscillating between extremes: a framework for mapping differing views on User eXperience

As User eXperience (UX) has grown to be a very popular term widely used by practitioners and academics alike in the field of human-computer interaction (HCI), it has also diverged in definition and purpose. Currently, there are only a few publications that consider UX in the context of product development in larger organizations. This paper illustrates this issue with the help of a literature review and a case study conducted in a multinational ICT company. The purpose of this study was to investigate the understanding of UX across different units within the organization and the different meanings associated with the concept. The case study consisted of interviews across the organization and had a split agenda between finding out the organization of UX work and also the meaning of UX for the employees. Based on the interviews and literature, a framework is presented for organizing UX work in a product development environment. The framework suggests an inter-organizational approach that takes into consideration not only product development as such, but also other functions of the company, including brand strategy.
Response Prediction of RC Beams Externally Bonded with Steel-Reinforced Polymers

This paper deals with an innovative technique for strengthening reinforced concrete (RC) structures using steel-reinforced polymer (SRP) materials. The results of an experimental campaign using RC beams strengthened in flexure with carbon fiber-reinforced polymer or SRP laminates are summarized, and the experimental outcomes are compared to the predictions provided by analytical models and code formulations in terms of flexural strength, curvature of the cross section, deflections, and crack widths. Under ultimate conditions, the ACI 440.2R-02 approach provided conservative flexural strength, and a modified expression for the bond coefficient km was proposed. Under serviceability conditions, good agreement was obtained between experimental results and a theoretical model developed by the writers. Comparisons of code models in terms of both crack width and deflections highlighted the need for a calibration of code formulas to account for effects due to externally bonded reinforcement.
The influence of injection molding parameters on electrical properties of PC/ABS‐MWCNT nanocomposites

The influence of injection molding parameters on electrical properties and morphology of PC/ABS-MWCNT nanocomposites is presented in this article. Investigation is based on the masterbatch of 5.0 wt % carbon nanotubes obtained by melt-mixing. Further processing includes dilution of this nanocomposite to desired concentrations on twin-screw extruder and injection molding or direct dilution of masterbatch in injection molding. Additionally, reprocessing of materials formed by compression and injection molding is presented along with the change in electrical conductivity. Morphology differs strongly between the two processing paths showing change in agglomeration behavior between nanotubes concentrations. Electrical properties show dependence on injection velocity and melt temperature in both applied processing paths. Moreover, electrical conductivity recovery is proved after injection and compression molding. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 130: 2152–2158, 2013
Translocation of NopP by Sinorhizobium fredii USDA257 into Vigna unguiculata Root Nodules

ABSTRACT Sinorhizobium fredii is a nitrogen-fixing legume symbiont that stimulates the formation of root nodules. S. fredii nodulation of roots is influenced by Nop proteins, which are secreted through a type III secretion system (T3SS). We demonstrate that S. fredii injects NopP into Vigna unguiculata nodules in a T3SS-dependent manner.