Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Overexpression of microRNA-95-3p suppresses brain metastasis of lung adenocarcinoma through downregulation of cyclin D1

Despite great efforts to improve survival rates, the prognosis of lung cancer patients is still very poor, mainly due to high invasiveness. We developed brain metastatic PC14PE6/LvBr4 cells through intracardiac injection of lung adenocarcinoma PC14PE6 cells. Western blot and RT-qPCR analyses revealed that PC14PE6/LvBr4 cells had mesenchymal characteristics and higher invasiveness than PC14PE6 cells. We found that cyclin D1 was upregulated, miR-95-3p was inversely downregulated, and pri-miR-95 and its host gene, ABLIM2, were consistently decreased in PC14PE6/LvBr4 cells. MiR-95-3p suppressed cyclin D1 expression through direct binding to the 3′ UTR of cyclin D1 mRNA and suppressed invasiveness, proliferation, and clonogenicity of PC14PE6/LvBr4 cells. Ectopic cyclin D1 reversed miR-95-3p-mediated inhibition of invasiveness and clonogenicity, demonstrating cyclin D1 downregulation is involved in function of miR-95-3p. Using bioluminescence imaging, we found that miR-95-3p suppressed orthotopic tumorigenicity and brain metastasis in vivo and increased overall survival and brain metastasis-free survival. Consistent with in vitro metastatic cells, the levels of miR-95-3p, pri-miR-95, and ABLIM2 mRNA were decreased in brain metastatic tissues compared with lung cancer tissues and higher cyclin D1 expression was involved in poor prognosis. Taken together, our results demonstrate that miR-95- 3p is a potential therapeutic target for brain metastasis of lung adenocarcinoma cells.
Regional growth and spatial spillovers: Evidence from an SpVAR for the Spanish regions

This paper provides a spatial vector autoregressive (SpVAR) analysis of growth spillovers for the Spanish regions over the period 1965–2003. First, a spatial Granger causality analysis is performed that indicates the relevant impact of spatial spillover effects across regions in Spain. Second, the empirical research offers a contribution in the context of the SpVAR modelling estimating the push-in (from the neighbours to the region) and push-out (from the region to its neighbours) effects of growth spillovers within a regional economic system. Finally, the proposed methodology reveals empirical evidence about both the short-run and long-term regional growth adjustment processes in space and time. The results for the Spanish regional panel data suggest the existence of strong spatiotemporal regional spillovers of growth output. This has important implications for the choice of regional policy goals and regional policy instruments.
Inhibition of Class I Histone Deacetylases Unveils a Mitochondrial Signature and Enhances Oxidative Metabolism in Skeletal Muscle and Adipose Tissue

Chromatin modifications are sensitive to environmental and nutritional stimuli. Abnormalities in epigenetic regulation are associated with metabolic disorders such as obesity and diabetes that are often linked with defects in oxidative metabolism. Here, we evaluated the potential of class-specific synthetic inhibitors of histone deacetylases (HDACs), central chromatin-remodeling enzymes, to ameliorate metabolic dysfunction. Cultured myotubes and primary brown adipocytes treated with a class I–specific HDAC inhibitor showed higher expression of Pgc-1α, increased mitochondrial biogenesis, and augmented oxygen consumption. Treatment of obese diabetic mice with a class I– but not a class II–selective HDAC inhibitor enhanced oxidative metabolism in skeletal muscle and adipose tissue and promoted energy expenditure, thus reducing body weight and glucose and insulin levels. These effects can be ascribed to increased Pgc-1α action in skeletal muscle and enhanced PPARγ/PGC-1α signaling in adipose tissue. In vivo ChIP experiments indicated that inhibition of HDAC3 may account for the beneficial effect of the class I–selective HDAC inhibitor. These results suggest that class I HDAC inhibitors may provide a pharmacologic approach to treating type 2 diabetes.
A frequent pattern mining algorithm for feature extraction of customer reviews

Online shoppers often have different idea about the same product. They look for the product features that are consistent with their goal. Sometimes a feature might be interesting for one, while it does not make that impression for someone else. Unfortunately, identifying the target product with particular features is a tough task which is not achievable with existing functionality provided by common websites. In this paper, we present a frequent pattern mining algorithm to mine a bunch of reviews and extract product features. Our experimental results indicate that the algorithm outperforms the old pattern mining techniques used by previous researchers.
Recurrent Functional-Link-Based Fuzzy Neural Network Controller With Improved Particle Swarm Optimization for a Linear Synchronous Motor Drive

A recurrent functional link (FL)-based fuzzy neural network (FNN) controller is proposed in this study to control the mover of a permanent-magnet linear synchronous motor (PMLSM) servo drive to track periodic reference trajectories. First, the dynamic model of the PMLSM drive system is derived. Next, a recurrent FL-based FNN controller is proposed in this study to control the PMLSM. Moreover, the online learning algorithms of the connective weights, means, and standard deviations of the recurrent FL-based FNN are derived using the back-propagation (BP) method. However, divergence or degenerated responses will result from the inappropriate selection of large or small learning rates. Therefore, an improved particle swarm optimization (IPSO) is adopted to adapt the learning rates of the recurrent FL-based FNN online. Finally, the control performance of the proposed recurrent FL-based FNN controller with IPSO is verified by some simulated and experimental results.
Tau-Neutrino Spectra Formation in Supernovae

The μand τ -neutrinos emitted from a proto-neutron star are produced by nucleonic bremsstrahlung NN → NNνν̄ and pair annihilation ee → νν̄, reactions which freeze out at the “energy sphere. ” Before escaping from there to infinity the neutrinos diffuse through the “scattering atmosphere,” a layer where their main interaction is elastic scattering on nucleons νN → Nν. If these collisions are taken to be iso-energetic as in all numerical supernova simulations, the neutrino flux spectrum escaping to infinity depends only on the medium temperature TES and the thermally averaged optical depth τ̄ES at the energy sphere. For τ̄ES = 10–50 one finds for the spectral flux temperature of the escaping neutrinos Tflux = 0.5–0.6 TES. Including energy exchange (nucleon recoil) in νN → Nν can shift Tflux both up or down. ∆Tflux depends on τ̄ES, on the scattering atmosphere’s temperature profile, and on TES. Based on a numerical study we find that for typical conditions ∆Tflux/Tflux is between −10% and −20%, and even for extreme parameter choices does not exceed −30%. The exact value of ∆Tflux/Tflux is surprisingly insensitive to the assumed value of the nucleon mass, i.e. the exact efficiency of energy transfer between neutrinos and nucleons is not important as long as it can occur at all. Therefore, calculating the νμ and ντ spectra does not seem to require a precise knowledge of the nuclear medium’s dynamical structure functions.
Mini-Symposium on Presence Speculations on the Value of Telepresence

Synthetic environments (SE) feature computer-mediated interaction with an environment physically separate from the user. An SE allows human perceptual, cognitive, and psychomotor capabilities to be projected into distant, dangerous, or simulated environments. This paper examines some aspects of application of immersive/telepresence interfaces and discusses how the new technology fits into a user-centered design approach to teleoperators and virtual environments. The central theme of an immersive/telepresence design approach is that the world may be displayed to a user as if that person was physically present in a computer-mediated world. However, the ability of SE’s to re-create a computer-mediated world by using immersive displays does not annul the responsibility of designers to tailor interfaces to meet the task-dependant needs of users. Whether functioning in reality or a virtual reality, interfaces must satisfy user information requirements to optimize performance. It does not necessarily follow that the combination of immersive interfaces, strict reproduction of the remote world, and telepresence gives users the most efficient human-machine interface. Other aspects of human behavior, such as concentration and attentional resource allocation or situation awareness, which are not necessarily encompassed by the concept of telepresence, need to be considered in the interface design. 1 Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 2 Mississippi State University, Starkville, Mississipp
Exposure to West Nile Virus Increases Bacterial Diversity and Immune Gene Expression in Culex pipiens

Complex interactions between microbial residents of mosquitoes and arboviruses are likely to influence many aspects of vectorial capacity and could potentially have profound effects on patterns of arbovirus transmission. Such interactions have not been well studied for West Nile virus (WNV; Flaviviridae, Flavivirus) and Culex spp. mosquitoes. We utilized next-generation sequencing of 16S ribosomal RNA bacterial genes derived from Culex pipiens Linnaeus following WNV exposure and/or infection and compared bacterial populations and broad immune responses to unexposed mosquitoes. Our results demonstrate that WNV infection increases the diversity of bacterial populations and is associated with up-regulation of classical invertebrate immune pathways including RNA interference (RNAi), Toll, and Jak-STAT (Janus kinase-Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription). In addition, WNV exposure alone, without the establishment of infection, results in similar alterations to microbial and immune signatures, although to a lesser extent. Multiple bacterial genera were found in greater abundance in WNV-exposed and/or infected mosquitoes, yet the most consistent and notable was the genus Serratia.
Managing and Enforcing Compliance with EU law: The Perspective of the EU Commission

Studies on EU policy-making generally disregard the key role played by the Commission as an enforcement agent responsible for the instigation and continuation of infringement cases. Furthermore, the Commission employs both amicable (‘management’) and coercive means (‘enforcement’) to induce compliance by member states, which are reflected in the different stages of the infringement proceeding. In contrast to current research, this study incorporates the perspective of the Commission on non-compliance. Based on assumptions about the relation between the Commission and member states, it is assumed that different mechanisms drive the instigation of infringement proceedings and their escalation to later stages. Thus, it is predicted that conflict in the Council and member state low level of acceptance for EU policies increase the probability of instigating infringement cases. However, the same factors are expected to make escalations of infringements to ECJ referrals less likely, because the Commission dependence on the cooperation of member states. The hypotheses are tested using a dataset on the policy preferences of the Commission and 15 member states with regards to 18 EU directives. On the basis of multinomial logit and ordered logit regression analyses, I find evidence that there are differences between the effects on the instigation and the escalation of infringement cases.
High Performance Molecular Dynamics Simulations with FPGA Coprocessors ∗ †

FPGA-based acceleration of molecular dynamics simulations (MD) has been the subject of several recent studies. Here we report on an implementation that we believe to be the first to combine a high-level of FPGA-specific design, systematically determined precision, hardware support for complex force models, and support for simulations of over 250K particles. The target system consists of a standard PC with a 2004-era COTS FPGA board. There are several innovations: new microarchitectures for several major components, including the cell list processor and the off-chip memory controller; a novel arithmetic mode; and restructurings of algorithms, e.g., multigrid, to map efficiently to FPGA resources. Extensive experimentation was required to optimize precision, interpolation order, interpolation mode, table sizes, and simulation quality. We obtain a substantial speed-up over a highly tuned production MD code.
Straight to Shapes: Real-Time Detection of Encoded Shapes

Current object detection approaches predict bounding boxes that provide little instance-specific information beyond location, scale and aspect ratio. In this work, we propose to regress directly to objects shapes in addition to their bounding boxes and categories. It is crucial to find an appropriate shape representation that is compact and decodable, and in which objects can be compared for higher-order concepts such as view similarity, pose variation and occlusion. To achieve this, we use a denoising convolutional auto-encoder to learn a low-dimensional shape embedding space. We place the decoder network after a fast end-to-end deep convolutional network that is trained to regress directly to the shape vectors provided by the auto-encoder. This yields what to the best of our knowledge is the first real-time shape prediction network, running at ~35 FPS on a high-end desktop. With higher-order shape reasoning well-integrated into the network pipeline, the network shows the useful practical quality of generalising to unseen categories that are similar to the ones in the training set, something that most existing approaches fail to handle.
Force Sensor Integrated Surgical Forceps for Minimally Invasive Robotic Surgery

This paper presents a novel surgical instrument integrated with a four-degree-of-freedom (DOF) force sensor. By adopting the capacitive transduction principle, the sensor enables the direct sensing of normal and shear forces at surgical instrument tips. Thus, three-DOF pulling forces and a single-DOF grasping force can be measured for haptic feedback control of robotic minimally invasive surgery systems. The sensor consists of four capacitive transducers, and all the transducers including analog signal processing units are embedded in small surgical instrument tips. The four-DOF force sensing is enabled thanks to the four capacitive transducers by using the force transformation method. In this study, the instrument is designed and manufactured to be adaptable to the open-source surgical robot platform, called Raven-II. In addition, the sensing system is experimentally validated through its application to the Raven-II by using a reference force sensor.
The Relationship of Financial Resources with Academic Achievement in Georgia Public Schools

THE RELATIONSHIP OF FINANCIAL RESOURCES WITH ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN GEORGIA PUBLIC SCHOOLS DECEMBER 2001 CHARLES RICHARD WEBB B.S. GEORGIA SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY M.R. A. GEORGIA SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY ED.S. GEORGIA SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY GRADUATE UNITED STATES ARMY WAR COLLEGE Directed by: Professor Tak C. Chan This study was intended to determine if certain financial resources were related to academic achievement in Georgia public schools. Four predictor variables representing different financial resources were compared with a criterion variable representing academic achievement, while three control variables representing student population differences were statistically held constant to reduce their possible effects. The four financial variables were Per-Pupil Expenditure, Average Teacher Salary, Per-Pupil Local Revenue, and Per-Pupil District Wealth, all measured by dollar amounts. The criterion variable was the Georgia High School Graduation Test Pass Rate, measured by percent for each school district. The three covariates were socioeconomic status, race, and special education enrollment, all measured by a percent for each school district.
Patent Misuse Through the Capture of Industry Standards

The existence of a patent on a particular technology conveys the statutory right to exclude, but in no way guarantees economic power in the marketplace. When a patented technology is adopted as an industry standard, however, that equation can change radically. Because of competitive necessity to practice the patented standard, particularly in industries characterized by network effects, the power potentially conveyed by the patent is greatly amplified. Industry standards are subject to "capture" when firms that participate in formulating a standard have also obtained (or are seeking) patent or other proprietary rights in some aspect of the technical subject matter of the standard, without disclosing the existence of those rights to the standard-setting organization. Conflicts arise when a license under these patents is essential to practicing a standard and the patent owner refuses to license certain competitors, or grants licenses only at terms perceived by users as commercially unreasonable. Absent a mechanism to compel licensing, a hold-up problem ensues. This Article contends that patents are not fundamentally incompatible with industry standards, but that the existence of patents on standards must be transparent and the licensing of such patents subject to appropriate controls so as to ensure widespread industry access. In order-to make fully informed choices about technology under consideration for adoption as an industry standard, standards-setting organizations must be made aware of any relevant patent rights or pending patent applications owned by standards-setting participants. In cases of "abusive" standards capture, defined as the intentional or willful nondisclosure of patent rights by a standards setting participant who thereafter refuses to license all users at reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms, courts should refuse to enforce such patents altogether under a theory of patent misuse.
Role of Gluconic Acid Production in the Regulation of Biocontrol Traits of Pseudomonas fluorescens CHA0

ABSTRACT The rhizobacterium Pseudomonas fluorescens CHA0 promotes the growth of various crop plants and protects them against root diseases caused by pathogenic fungi. The main mechanism of disease suppression by this strain is the production of the antifungal compounds 2,4-diacetylphloroglucinol (DAPG) and pyoluteorin (PLT). Direct plant growth promotion can be achieved through solubilization of inorganic phosphates by the production of organic acids, mainly gluconic acid, which is one of the principal acids produced by Pseudomonas spp. The aim of this study was to elucidate the role of gluconic acid production in CHA0. Therefore, mutants were created with deletions in the genes encoding glucose dehydrogenase (gcd) and gluconate dehydrogenase (gad), required for the conversion of glucose to gluconic acid and gluconic acid to 2-ketogluconate, respectively. These enzymes should be of predominant importance for rhizosphere-colonizing biocontrol bacteria, as major carbon sources provided by plant root exudates are made up of glucose. Our results show that the ability of strain CHA0 to acidify its environment and to solubilize mineral phosphate is strongly dependent on its ability to produce gluconic acid. Moreover, we provide evidence that the formation of gluconic acid by CHA0 completely inhibits the production of PLT and partially inhibits that of DAPG. In the Δgcd mutant, which does not produce gluconic acid, the enhanced production of antifungal compounds was associated with improved biocontrol activity against take-all disease of wheat, caused by Gaeumannomyces graminis var. tritici. This study provides new evidence for a close association of gluconic acid metabolism with antifungal compound production and biocontrol activity in P. fluorescens CHA0.
Financial Contracting When Rivals May Turn Nasty

This paper develops a principal--agent model of financial contractingin which optimal contracts resemble a combination of debt and equity. When defaulting on debt, the firm is punished by disruption of external funding. Such contracts however, invite rivals to compete more aggressively to increase the likelihood of default. The firm will respond to the threat of predation, by choosing a less leveraged capital structure, even though this will aggravate incentive problems. In contrast to the literature on debt as a device of strategic commitment, this result supports the common presumption that equity can enhance the firm's competitiveness in the product market.
Stock Returns, Governments and Market Foresight in France, 1871-2008

This paper analyzes the historical relationship between the political coloration of the government and stock market performance in France between 1871 and 2008. The Left-wing/Right-wing dichotomy, which is ubiquitous in French political discourse, is utilized in order to build a comparative analytical framework. During the 150 months characterized by the appointment of a new government regardless the coloration, we find that the monthly stock return is, on average, three times higher than for other months. The market appreciates in value with all new governments. However, in the long run, the real return of French stocks averages 4.40% per year under Left-wing versus 0.11% under Right-wing governments. This difference, although statistically robust, is not the result of added compensation for higher risk investments, nor is it driven by short special periods. The existence of a more favorable macroeconomic context during the rule of Left-wing governments only explains one third of this difference. A large part of the difference is concentrated during the three months prior to a coloration change. Assuming that the market anticipates coloration changes three months in advance, we move the boundaries: the difference in stock returns becomes insignificant.
How Important is Financial Risk?

We explore the determinants of equity price risk for a large sample of non-financial corporations. By estimating both cross-sectional and time-series models, we show that operating and asset characteristics are by far the most important determinants of equity price risk. In contrast, for the average (median) firm, financial risk accounts for less than a third (15%) of observed stock price volatility. This explains why financial distress (as opposed to economic distress) was surprisingly uncommon in the nonfinancial sector during the recent crisis even as measures of equity volatility reached unprecedented highs.
Advances in diagnosis and treatment of metastatic cervical cancer

Cervical cancer is one of the most common cancers in women worldwide. The outcome of patients with metastatic cervical cancer is poor. We reviewed the relevant literature concerning the treatment and diagnosis of metastatic cervical cancer. There are two types of metastasis related to different treatments and survival rates: hematogenous metastasis and lymphatic metastasis. Patients with hematogenous metastasis have a higher risk of death than those with lymphatic metastasis. In terms of diagnosis, fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) and PET-computed tomography are effective tools for the evaluation of distant metastasis. Concurrent chemoradiotherapy and subsequent chemotherapy are well-tolerated and efficient for lymphatic metastasis. As for lung metastasis, chemotherapy and/or surgery are valuable treatments for resistant, recurrent metastatic cervical cancer and chemoradiotherapy may be the optimal choice for stage IVB cervical cancer. Chemotherapy and bone irradiation are promising for bone metastasis. A better survival is achieved with multimodal therapy. Craniotomy or stereotactic radiosurgery is an optimal choice combined with radiotherapy for solitary brain metastases. Chemotherapy and palliative brain radiation may be considered for multiple brain metastases and other organ metastases.